The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School

by Kim Newman

  Amy pinched a cloak fold. It was unpleasantly oily between her prickling thumb and forefinger. She dropped it quickly. The cape was up to its old tricks.

  ‘You know what this is,’ she said. ‘Yet you let Larry – not a well girl, which is my fool fault as much as your beast of a brother’s – wear it as a skirt, knowing what it would do to her? That she couldn’t just take it off?’

  ‘Why couldn’t she?’ responded Miss Kratides. ‘You did. Even after you understood the benefits. That’s when you first impressed me, Amy. When I knew what you could be.’

  ‘You were in the Villa DeVille?’

  Miss Kratides admitted it. ‘I wasn’t even hiding particularly well. You weren’t looking for a small person.’

  ‘Did you cuff Knowles to Dyall?’

  ‘There was a good reason for that. If Knowles hadn’t had a dose of Dyall you’d never have found out Harper’s secret.’

  ‘I doubt Knowles is grateful.’

  ‘Are you sure? She’s a new Miss Memory. Dyall has siphoned pandemonium from her mind. Her Talent is unbound. She’s come out of this stronger and better. Most of you have. Including you.’

  ‘Most,’ said Frecks sternly. ‘Not all.’

  ‘What’s the point of an exam everybody passes?’ said Miss Kratides.

  ‘You’ve never passed an exam in your life,’ said Wax.

  ‘Not so,’ his sister responded. ‘I’ve never passed an exam as a girl. I was never set one worth the bother. In my life – that’s different. You said it – Dr Swan won’t throw me off a cliff. That’s a test I’ve passed.’

  Amy still thought of the house in Piccadilly.

  ‘When we were all gone you picked up Count DeVille’s cloak,’ Amy said.

  Miss Kratides’ half-smile was knowing.

  ‘Is that what the thing is?’ said Frecks. ‘Ugh and faugh!’

  ‘Funny story,’ said Miss Kratides, ‘Mitéra met the Count’s wives. Yes, wives plural. Fancy! Mitéra called them Flopsy, Mopsy and Coffintail. You see why stalwart Englishmen wanted to hoist the goaty old bat on bits of wood.’

  ‘Why didn’t you use the cape yourself?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Not my size,’ said Miss Kratides. ‘I was careful not to get bitten. I picked it up with coal tongs and wrapped it in yards of brown paper.’

  ‘What were you doing in the Great Game?’

  ‘Cheering silently from the sidelines and hoping – in vain, thank you very much – your year would do better than mine. I was tempted to tattle on H’umble H’Alf and let you string him up by his braces from the Statue of Eros, but that’d have invalidated the Finish. Old Girls can’t take active part in play. Helen Lawless had already stretched that rule. If I’d taken a hand, we’d be in for something worse than the Disagreement of Eyas and Annwn.’

  ‘You were in lessons when we were in the Conservatory,’ said Little. ‘I took you for a girl. I said it was funny Miss Gossage never asked you questions. Speke said I was seeing a ghost. But I wasn’t.’

  Speke shrugged. Her hands spread their fingers in a matching gesture.

  ‘Well noticed,’ said Miss Kratides. ‘Gold Star for attentiveness in class. Black Stains for the rest, for being utterly blind. I was with the Remove for weeks. I stood quietly at the back and took notes. Dr Swan had me shadow Miss Gossage for a term. She wanted me to get the measure of each of you. You go a long way standing quietly at the back and taking notes. Headmistress and I devised a programme to bring out the best – or the useful worst – in all of you. We used a principle you are familiar with. Not School Rules, but the Code of Break.’

  ‘No snitching or sneaking?’ said Frecks.

  ‘Share tuck if there’s tuck to be shared,’ put in Little.

  ‘No, but that’s a kind thought. You are a kind girl.’

  Little beamed at the approval. Amy wasn’t sure Miss Kratides thought kindness a virtue.

  ‘Does anyone remember Mrs McMichaels?’ asked the teacher.

  Mrs McMike was before Little’s time and Speke – then a First – wouldn’t have had her Advanced Maths lessons. But Amy, Frecks and Paquignet remembered the Test to Destruction. It was all over the school. After the poor woman was packed off to Craiglockhart for her nerves, Crowninshield II strutted the halls like the victor of Towton. She bragged she would collect mortar boards the way Geronimo collected scalps. She only shut up about her mean-spirited victory when Lamarcroft took her out for a cross-country run. Lungs brought Crowninshield II back with a squashed nose, supposedly sustained by smacking into a face-high tree branch.

  ‘“If a teacher can be broken, she should be”,’ said Miss Kratides. ‘It’s the duty of the girls to give her the Treatment.’ She broke off and hummed for a few seconds. ‘Any beak who can’t take it should pick another profession. Best weed out the oversensitive early on. Else time and effort is wasted. A teacher who can take it learns to give it back. Her steel is the stronger for being forged in fire. Yes, it’s harsh… but no one ever says school shouldn’t be.’

  ‘But that rule’s for teachers,’ said Speke. ‘Not girls.’

  ‘Oh, it’s for girls, Harriet,’ said Miss Kratides. ‘It’s for everyone. If a girl can be broken, she should be. Consider my example…’

  ‘Yes, do,’ put in Wax. ‘She first tried her theory out on dolls. Bet you can guess how that went.’

  Wax indicated Larry slumped over her desk.

  ‘I didn’t invent the Broken Doll,’ said Miss Kratides. ‘Knowles told you the history. We all have to dance with the Doll at least once in our lives.’

  ‘Does this poor girl look like she’s dancing?’ said Wax, prodding Larry’s back.

  At his touch, Laurence screeched, sat up, and flung her arms out. Wax was knocked over and Little caught him. He was embarrassed to be rescued by such an unlikely paladin. She was aghast to land a boy in her lap. She’d probably caught germs.

  Amy was more worried about Larry. Evidently, she could be broken – too easily.

  The screech continued, issuing from the mask’s unmoving lips.

  Blood pooled around the runners of Larry’s desk. Her cloak-swaddled lower half contorted like a rabbit being digested in a python’s coils.

  The mask – whether made or found or grown remained a mystery – came loose. She shook free of it. Her wig fell off, to reveal an uneven self-administered bob. Her drawn, white face was streaked with tears. She was no longer staring, but imploring. She looked like an eight-year-old in pain. Her screech dwindled to a whimper.

  The cloak-skirt twisted around her like tight leggings.

  ‘You’d better get that off her,’ said the teacher.

  The girls – and Wax – hesitated.

  That Larry was in this state was Miss Kratides’ fault. It was the class’s duty to get the girl out of it. Amy saw the reasoning. Teacher sets the prep. Girls solve the problems.

  ‘Come on, Remove,’ said Miss Kratides. ‘Gumption is now required. What was it your old teacher prescribed? Boldness!’

  Wax eased away from Little but was unsure about taking hold of Laurence again. If Amy hadn’t forgiven him, what could he expect from the creature who’d suffered most from his play-acting?

  ‘Someone else best do this,’ he said. ‘Seraph…?’

  Frecks knew her lot was to give succour.

  She enfolded Larry in a hug and cooed, ‘Stay still and be brave, young Larry. I fear this will sting a bit.’

  ‘My legs have needles and pins,’ said Laurence.

  Amy wasn’t surprised. She remembered.

  She tried to get a mentacle grip on Count DeVille’s cloak. Speke’s hands, acting in concert, crept up and nipped the hem. The cloak shrugged them off.

  ‘Oh,’ said Speke as her hands flew apart. ‘Ah,’ she said, as they righted themselves in the air.

  The finger-oars worked. The hand-crabs stayed aloft. The originals bested the duplicates. A smile spread across Speke’s face. Many Applications came to mind. The hands zoomed like fighter planes,
circling Larry and Frecks.

  ‘Pickled conkers,’ gasped Frecks.

  Everyone was amazed, but the miracle had no obvious immediate Application.

  Laurence’s face was deathly. The cape wouldn’t leave an ounce of blood in her. Amy suspected she had often imagined herself dying in Frecks’ arms. When everyone got over being distracted by flying hands and paid attention again, Larry fluttered her eyelashes and dribbled daintily. Without benefit of soap and Stanislavski, she made a meal of the last act of Camille.

  ‘Grab-hands didn’t work,’ said Miss Kratides. ‘So, next approach. Think, girls, think!’

  ‘It’s her own fault,’ said Little. ‘She shouldn’t have haunted Harry and me. She’s no better than Nobbs and that lot. She deserves it.’

  The First had a stern, unforgiving streak. Amy was the same at her age. A well-intentioned prig. She should have told Mother to stick with Uncle Cedric of the toy soldiers. He was nicest of the uncles. Instead, she’d harped on about how babyish he was. The worst thing an eleven-year-old could say of anyone. After three weeks, the poor man packed up his cuirassiers and retreated.

  ‘Maybe Laurence does deserve it,’ said Miss Kratides, ‘but do you want the cloak well-fed? Stronger? More cunning? Treating the register as a menu, selecting its next supper? It’s not a dishcloth, it’s a menace.’

  ‘Larry doesn’t deserve it,’ said Amy. ‘This isn’t her fault.’

  ‘Could have fooled I,’ said Little.

  ‘You mean it’s your fault?’ said Speke, stare approaching voodooness.

  ‘Don’t be obtuse,’ said Frecks. ‘And don’t fret on whose fault it is.’

  With great effort, Larry raised her hands. Violet threads glistened as she prised her pocket open.

  ‘Let me go into the Purple,’ she said. ‘No pins and needles there.’

  ‘No anything there,’ said Amy.

  The sun was above the horizon. Beyond the portholes, the long shadow of the ship-shape weathervane lay on the sea. Dawnlight didn’t spill into the sea-view room. Windward Cottage faced sunset, not sunrise.

  ‘Amy, Alf, what’s the problem?’ asked the teacher.

  Amy and Wax eyed each other.

  ‘We have no problem,’ said Wax. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry and we’ve agreed to put it behind us.’

  That was news to Amy.

  ‘Not that problem,’ said Miss Kratides, impatient but amused. ‘The immediate problem.’

  Amy looked at Larry.

  ‘Count DeVille’s cloak,’ she admitted.

  ‘And what does that have to do with the price of tea? Come on, numbskulls. Knowles or Naisbitt would see it at once!’

  ‘They’re not here,’ said Amy.

  ‘So do your own prep for a change. You can’t always crib.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Fair comes once a year… Widdecombe or Scarborough or the village fete. What do you do for the other fifty weeks?’

  Amy considered the pernicious black bundle around Larry’s legs. The thin cape had ambitions to be a plump shroud.

  ‘That’s not just a swishy way of keeping the fog out while strolling back from the opera,’ she said. ‘It’s a cursed thing. The Count was an evil man. Everything he owned is – was – is tainted by him. He’s in the cloth, the way Speke is in her hands.’

  ‘I say, I’ve just tumbled,’ said Frecks. ‘Count DeVille. Not of town in French, but the Devil in any lingo.’

  ‘Devil en Français is Diable,’ said Speke, top in French in the Second year.

  ‘It could also be Count de Villainous,’ said Little.

  ‘Or D’Evil,’ said Speke. ‘Or de Vile!’

  ‘Bloody silly handle,’ said Frecks. ‘Dead giveaway. He might as well call himself Mr I-Am-Going-To-Kill-You or Baron Drink-Your-Daughter’s-Blood! And handed out cards with his evil plan written in big print. No wonder he got found out. He should have written his real name written backwards. That’d be clever.’

  Larry suffered less nobly now. She scratched herself as if her camellias were infested with nits. Frecks hugged her shoulders.

  ‘You’re haring off up a garden path,’ said Miss Kratides. ‘Remember the important thing Amy said. This is a cursed thing. What’s the cure for that?’

  Amy saw it. Yes, Miss Memory or Light Fingers would have got it yonks ago.

  ‘A blessed thing!’ she said.

  One of Speke’s hands leaned back on its stump and waved all its fingers at Frecks’ sagging blazer pocket.

  ‘Clouds part,’ said Frecks. ‘My silver knitting!’

  She pulled out her enchanted coif. The links glinted under the electric light.

  The item was dipped in purity by the Lady in the Lake. She probably bathed in holy water and powdered her cheeks with crumbled Catholic wafers. They were all Romans in Olden Days. Her light trumped the Count’s dark any day of the week and twice on this particular Tuesday.

  Amy had an idea the cloak knew its number was up. It writhed, winding tighter around Larry’s legs.

  Frecks dropped the coif…

  Larry’s pocket opened a rip, and a diamond-nailed twice-life-size purple hand reached out to grab the silver… The charm tore through the apparition’s fingers, turning it to a puff of violet smoke… and fell on to Larry’s black-covered lap.

  Salt on a slug. Pepper on a tail.

  Frecks picked up the coif and slipped it over Larry’s head like a big sock. She got it the wrong way first. With her face covered in crinkly mail, Larry was a well-polished Egyptian mummy. Frecks adjusted the shining hood and settled it properly to frame Larry’s face. She fondly pinched the girl’s nose. Larry responded with a brave, weak smile.

  ‘There, you’re protected by the Lady,’ said Frecks.

  They all stood away from Larry and waited long moments.

  Amy had a second of worry. What if the Lady of the Lake judged Larry harshly?

  Frecks said that if a truly evil person wore the coif, her head would catch light.

  Larry shivered a little. She’d lost her china hands and her bloodless fingers fiddled with the tiny bone buttons of her doll dress. The links shimmered and spat out sparks like Knowles’ pentacle thingumabob. In the wire-wool wimple, Larry looked like Joan of Arc.

  ‘It’s angry,’ she said. ‘And upset.’

  The cloak unwrapped with a wet, slick sound and reared up, collar flaring. Panicky bat squeaks vibrated Amy’s antennae. The cape took off with a flap, spreading more like a manta ray than a big bat. Speke’s hands harried the cloak like Pendragon Squadron on a Zeppelin hunt, driving it up to the ceiling.

  Amy propelled herself off the floor and got her hands on the cursed thing.

  The material was cold and slimy, ghastly to the touch.

  The cloak remembered the taste of her – and wanted her back!

  She flew at a window, mentacles outthrust like a big fist, bursting the glass. Making herself skinny by tucking in her elbows, she let the cape enfold her as she pushed through the punched-out porthole. She was protected from protruding shards, but glass daggers raked its black hide. Soaring over the cliff edge, she rolled over to prevent the cloak from getting its hooks in her and headed out to sea. Her lungs filled with fresh early-morning air. The cape caught the wind like a sail and was ripped loose. She held its trailing edge with mentacles and grabbed its collar points with her fists. She lay back and let herself fall, stretching the cloak above her like a parachute. She saw sun through the smoking scarlet lining.

  Blessed light of day scourged the cursed thing. A loathsome smell – worse than London fog and Drearcliff liver – stung her nose. Amy halted her plunge so close to the grey waves she could feel spray on her back. Above her, the cloak flapped into a hundred burning leaves. For an instant, a fire-and-ash ghost held the shape of a man. The wind tore it apart. Amy executed a swift aerial backstroke to avoid an expanding cloud of particulate matter. She held her breath until she could be sure she wouldn’t inhale specks of DeVille dust.


  Red powder sprinkled the waves. Crimson froth smashed on the shingles.

  Exhilarated, she looped the loop. The manoeuvre had eluded her until now. The Sausage would have been proud. She inhaled healthy, salt-sea air and felt sun on her face. A small metal object was grasped in her paw. It didn’t burn or bite.

  Her return to the classroom was more dignified than her exit. She fixed her course by the weathervane and dived slowly at the smashed window. She slipped through feet first.

  ‘That will not come out of my salary,’ Miss Kratides was saying.

  Amy alighted with a ballerina flourish. Paquignet and Wax applauded.

  Frecks and Speke’s hands were wrapping Larry’s legs with strips of Speke’s towel. Speke stood by with her arms folded. Larry was lucky she’d worn the long old doll’s dress under the cloak-skirt. It was shredded below the belt where the silk lining had scraped like sandpaper. Better a dress in tatters than skinned shins. Larry still had the coif on. It would help her heal.

  ‘Is the bad bat gone?’ Little asked.

  Amy opened her fist and showed them the blackened wolf’s head clasp.

  She flipped it like a coin. Miss Kratides caught it.

  ‘Might make a nice souvenir,’ she said, polishing it on her blouse.

  ‘Might pay for the window,’ said Amy. ‘That’s old gold.’

  ‘Cursed gold,’ said the teacher.

  ‘Purified by sunlight?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Larry was a poor patient but enjoyed the attention. She winced archly as her wounds – bad rashes rather than death bites – were tended. She should watch the habit of milking a situation for sympathy. The Lady of the Lake could still scorch her ears.