Tales From The Wyrd Museum 3: The Fatal Strand

by Robin Jarvis

  Scrabbling under the final obstacle, Ned suddenly heard a violent tearing as the silk was ripped from the warp above. Before he could hare away, Obediah's brawny arms flashed inside and a huge hand gripped one of the boy's spindly legs.

  'Got you!' the man spat, hauling the lad up through the shredded fabric in one ferocious movement. 'You'll be sorry you went a-thievin' today—but not for long.'

  Hanging upside down in the braggart's iron grasp, Ned kicked out with his free leg and swung his fists, but the evil man only let out a coarse, braying laugh at his puny struggles.

  'A catcher of vermin,' he guffawed. 'That's what I am! One more rat a-goin' to get its brains bashed in.'

  Hoisting him high in the air he shook the boy and Ned squealed as the dim world wheeled around him. The other workers were too terrified of Obediah to interfere, but, from the corner of the room, Mrs Billet rushed, her watery eyes filled with dread and horror.

  'No!' she wailed. 'My son!'

  With one callous, sweeping blow, Obediah knocked her to the ground where she sprawled, weeping grievously and gasping for breath.

  'Devil take you, Snorter!' screeched Ned. 'To the blazes with you!'

  The taskmaster whirled him around his head like a sack of onions and then, with a relishing sneer twisting his face, raised his stick and took a practising swipe at the boy's bony back.

  In the furthest corner, Edie Dorkins had watched everything in grim and ghastly silence. Her heightened sense told her that here was the moment the room had been waiting for. Inside the Well Lane Workhouse, in this very chamber, young Ned Billet had been flogged to death by his overseer and she felt the ether tingle with apprehension as that gruesome instant drew near.

  Shrinking against the wall at her side, Joshua Chapman hid his face from the terrible sight, his cries swamped by the uproarious shouts of Obediah Hankinson as he flexed his bloated muscles.

  Then the rod went whistling through the crackling air.

  'NO!' Edie screamed.

  Her eyes blazing and an angry heat burning in her face, the girl flung herself forward. She leaped over Mrs Billet's foundered body and sprang up, wrapping herself about the overseer's trunk-like arm.

  Snarling, the odious man staggered under the impetus of Edie's attack, but he recovered immediately and shook her off as he would a tick. Yet Edie launched herself at him again, this time clutching hold of his clammy hand, and sank her teeth deep into the flesh.

  Swearing, the overseer threw Ned aside and rounded his slaughterous attention upon Edie Dorkins. Grabbing the collar of her coat, he snatched her up. Leaving her stockinged legs squirming and dangling, he laughed in her face.

  'Scarper!' she shrieked to Ned at the top of her voice. 'This potbelly can't hurt me!'

  A sly, almost triumphant gleam shone in the man's ratty eyes.

  'Yes I can,' he gargled. 'That's what old Tick-Tock was sent here for.'

  Such was the compelling certainly in the man's malevolent voice that Edie stopped her struggles and looked into his leering face.

  'There's a clever one,' he hissed, the scabby corners of his mouth pulling wide. 'He said as how the hags' daughter'd know. She can feel it right enough—don't you, Duchess?'

  A sharp prickling needled into Edie's scalp and a cold fear washed over her. This was wrong; that foul man did not belong here in this time and she was filled with doubt.

  'Who are you?' she cried. 'You don't fit in this place—not now.''

  Jack Timms sniggered. 'Well I'm here, ain't I?' he mocked her. 'But only brief. Just enough time to do what I was sent for. Got the power to pop back and forward whenever he likes, 'as Jack now, an' more besides. Like the music hall, this is. Tick-Tock's only play-actin' in old clothes an' havin' his fun.'

  'Obediah!' Ned Billet hollered. 'You drop her.' Rising unsteadily from the floor, the skinny boy ran at Tick-Tock Jack, but the repugnant man struck him across the head, sending him flying.

  'If he don't stay down,' he cackled heartlessly, 'he'll wind up dead after all.'

  Edie's hands flashed out and four deep scratches bled across Tick-Tock's burgeoning nose. Wrathfully, he swung the girl in a sickening, yawing jostle, and Edie dangled as though she were a rag doll in his great hands.

  'Let's get this done, shall we?' he snapped. 'This stinkin' room's waiting for a nipper to croak and you've gone and took that lad's place!'

  Roaring, he hurtled towards the wall and drove Edie's small form against it with all his colossal might. There was an eruption of blackened plaster and the wall shuddered under the impact but, to Tick-Tock Jack's irritation, the girl in his hands simply threw back her head and giggled.

  'Told you you couldn't 'urt me!' she taunted.

  ‘I ain't finished!' he promised. 'The guv'nor an' me, we got a surprise waitin'. Real special it is, but you won't like it, oh no!'

  The girl kicked out at him, but it was Jack's turn to laugh now.

  'Never earned so easy a crust,' he snickered. 'First you, then the two old crones. Doddle work this is.'

  From some remote place deep in the workhouse there suddenly came an echoing bellow and the warder flinched uncertainly. 'What were that?' he asked.

  Edie's eyes sparkled and she grinned joyously.

  Then the rumour of galloping hooves vibrated through the building and Jack Timms turned his sweat-glistening face to shout at the shadowy corners of the workroom. 'What's out there?' he cried. ‘I don't like it. He never said nothin' about this!'

  Stricken with fright at this unknown terror, the weavers rose from their looms and crowded into the dark corner, holding on to the skeletal young girls who bleated in misery.

  The frightful trumpeting was closer now; down the hallways some immense beast was charging and the agent of Woden wavered in doubt.

  Edie Dorkins hooted to see him so confounded. 'It's the stag!' she sang. 'He's come to get you!'

  'Call it off!' Jack Timms demanded, shaking the girl by her coat.

  Edie waggled her head from side to side. 'You should see its 'orns!' she teased. 'Pop your great guts in a jiffy, they will.'

  The crashing of hooves was almost outside the workroom now and the air trembled as the bass, blaring roars became an agony to hear.

  'I'll do for you first!' Tick-Tock vowed, wrenching her from the wall. 'There's a new Tormentor for Jack to use on your kind.'

  But as he carried the girl across the room, the warder's giant knuckles brushed against the wool of Edie's pixie hood. At once the silver tinsel woven into the knitting flared with glittering sparks and Jack Timms let out a screech of pain as the fires of Fate scorched his skin. Yowling, he flung the child from him.

  'Little witch!' he yelled, clutching his smoking hand. 'Cost you dear, that will!'

  Suddenly, the door buckled as terrifying blows rained down upon it. Tick-Tock backed away fearfully.

  His lip bleeding, Ned Billet ran over to Edie and helped her up. 'Get out!' he shouted. 'Get gone, quick!'

  Not waiting to argue, Edie pushed past him and dashed to Josh, who still had his face buried in his hands. Yanking him by the arm, she dragged the boy across the room and headed for the splintering door.

  One of the panels was already breached and a silver, hammering hoof could be glimpsed through the shattered wood. Wrath-filled, amber eyes burned in the darkness beyond and, standing as close to that quivering, convulsing barrier as she dared, Edie reached for the handle.

  'Don't let it in!' Jack Timms shrieked.

  The girl turned a merciless grin upon the frightened man, then beckoned urgently to Ned. 'Come with us!' she ordered.

  Ned Billet shook his head and threw himself at his mother's side.

  A grey shadow flitted over them and Edie wrested her eyes away. Then, even as the door snapped in two and the clamour of the stag thundered all around, she tore at the handle and flung it wide.

  Hauling Josh after her, Edie Dorkins pelted forward, into the very heart of that primeval anger and, like a squall-crowned god of the wild, t
he beast pranced and reared above them.

  In a moment the tumult faded and the children found themselves standing in the dim gloom of The Egyptian Suite once again.

  'Dad! Dad!' Josh squealed, bolting from Edie's side to tear into The Separate Collection.

  Edie Dorkins remained where she was. Glancing back, she knew that the broken doorway had long since gone, even before she saw The Dissolution Gallery beyond, with its tapestries and abbey gold.

  Narrowing her almond eyes, the girl expelled a regretful sigh. 'Ned did die in there,' she whispered. 'They all did, in the end.'

  Jamming her hands into her pockets, she left The Egyptian Suite.

  In The Separate Collection, Josh discovered his father kneeling on the floor, trembling with shock. His neck was scratched and a dark bruise had already appeared upon his face. When Josh approached, the man seemed to stare right through him.

  'Where's Gogus?' Edie asked.

  The caretaker winced and shook his head. 'That... whatever it was, ran off when you went in there. Blood and sand! What sort of nightmare was it, for God's sake?'

  Lumbering to his feet, he stared about the room, as though expecting that growling voice to come racing from the shadows.

  'That settles it,' he muttered. 'We're packing up and getting out of here as soon as possible.'

  Chapter 13 - The Horse's Bransle

  In the late afternoon, Neil returned to The Wyrd Museum, heaving his full weight against the Victorian entrance to push it open. It had been a terrible day. His troubled mind was full of the previous night's horror and his nerves were jangled and worn.

  Yet, away from the museum's labyrinthine galleries and passageways, the boy felt an unaccountable sense of guilt. Perhaps it was the thought of not knowing what might be happening to Josh and Quoth, but there was also a vague sense that he was deserting a battlefield. Now he was almost glad to be back inside its enclosing walls, and hurried through the echoing hallway to check on his family.

  The Fossil Room was deserted when he reached it and, although a hundred awful possibilities flashed into his brain, he hoped that Austen Pickering and Quoth were merely conducting investigations elsewhere in the building.

  Running the remaining distance to the caretaker's apartment, Neil found it strewn with clothes and belongings whilst his father stuffed as much as he could into their suitcases and a large tea-chest.

  'What's going on?' the boy demanded.

  'We're moving out of here tomorrow, first thing,' Brian Chapman answered resolutely. 'I've rang your Auntie Marion and we can stay with her for a few weeks.'

  'But she lives in Scotland!' Neil objected.

  'That's why we're not starting till the morning.'

  'What's the big rush all of a sudden?'

  His father waved a quaking hand at him and turned his head to reveal the scratches. 'You haven't seen what I have!' he shouted. ‘I always thought this place was crazy, but... I don't even have a word for what it really is! I wish we didn't even have to spend another night in here. If it wasn't so cold I'd kip in the van. God knows what this has done to Josh; he hasn't stopped crying all day'

  Neil started to protest, but his father would not listen. 'There'll be no arguments!' he declared. 'We're leaving—and that's final.'

  Flinging his schoolbag into the room, the boy turned on his heel and ran back down the passageway.

  'Neil!' the caretaker's voice yelled. 'Get back here and put your stuff away.'

  Through the museum Neil hurried, flushed and furious that the decision to leave was out of his control. He knew that if he remained in the apartment, a terrible row like the one which had raged after his mother had walked out on them would ensue.

  Pounding up the stairs, Neil's overflowing resentment turned towards Sheila Chapman. Neil had never blamed his mother for abandoning Josh and himself, but he did now. ‘I won't go!' he told himself. 'He can't force me. I've had enough of his stupid moods—he's useless! I hate him!'

  A loud cawing broke into his rage and Neil lifted his face to look up the stairwell. From the third floor landing, Quoth flew down, rejoicing to see his master again.

  'Squire Neil!' the raven hailed him. "Tis a merrie meeting! Thine company doth shame the vaults of kings.' Alighting upon his usual place, Quoth nibbled the boy's ear lobe.

  'You've perked up since this morning,' Neil commented. 'It's me who's in a stinking temper now.'

  The raven rested his head against him. 'He is a fool who is not melancholy once a day.'

  'Maybe,' Neil griped, 'but Dad's set on going away tomorrow morning. I'm sick of him.'

  A hopeful glint kindled in the raven's eye. 'Thou and I are to depart this grooly abode?' he chirruped.

  Neil was positive there was no way his father would let Quoth come with them, but he said nothing and let the raven chatter happily.

  From the landing above, the pink, craggy face of Austen Pickering appeared over the banister.

  'There you are, lad!' he called. 'Thought it was about time you got back. Your raven's been pining for you all day. Come up here—I have news!'

  Neil ran up the remaining stairs but, even before he reached the third floor, the ghost hunter began. 'Listen to this,' he rattled. ‘I came across it at lunch time and almost choked on my digestive!'

  Mr Pickering was sitting upon a folding camp stool, wearing his mackintosh to keep out the chill. Several ledgers and inventories were arranged in a neat, organised pile beside him and he flicked through one of them to where a strip of notepaper marked a certain page.

  'Did you find out about Jack Timms?' the boy asked.

  The old man chuckled. 'Did I?' he exclaimed with relish. 'You would not believe what I have discovered about that man. To call him a villain would be an insult to criminals everywhere. He worked at the asylum for nigh on four years, instilling fear into everyone. He taunted the patients, hounding many of them to suicide, and intimidated the other staff. He should have been behind bars himself. Shortly after he started work here there was, by no coincidence, a spate of violent cases which naturally needed a firm hand to quell them. At least five patients died as a direct result of his beatings, but a great many more perished in dubious circumstances. He was a drunken killer, no doubt about that.'

  Quoth croaked softly. 'The aled man who doth murder shalt be hanged when sober.'

  'Ah, but I don't know what happened to him,' Mr Pickering added. 'At least, I haven't discovered that yet. Jack Timms abruptly disappears from the records. He went out one night, to get a skinful no doubt, and never returned. No one knew what became of him.'

  'I hope he got what he deserved,' Neil muttered.

  The ghost hunter shrugged. 'Probably died in a pub brawl,' he said dismissively. 'What I wanted to read you is this.'

  He slid a forefinger down a long list of entries, written in a scratchy, copperplate script.

  ''Seventh of June, nineteen hundred and five,'' Mr Pickering began. 'In the admission's column for that day: one Henry Mattock of Hatton Garden...'

  'What is that book?' Neil interrupted.

  'Register of The Wyrd Infirmary,' Mr Pickering explained hastily without taking his eyes from the page. 'Quite the home from home for the stark, staring mad middle class of the day it seems. None of your lowly dock workers or market porters allowed in here when they went off their rockers.'

  Tapping his finger on the paper he resumed his reading. 'Henry Mattock of Hatton Garden: condition—general paralysis of the insane.'

  'Who's he then?' the boy asked.

  The old man held up a silencing hand. 'And on the same day,' he continued, 'there's this entry. Mary-Anne Brindle of Stoke Newington: condition—unwedded with child?

  'She can't have been put away just for that,' Neil muttered.

  Looking up from the register, Mr Pickering tutted at him. 'She could, and she was,' he said. 'Only the very poor and the very rich got away with that sort of thing in those days. For those sandwiched in between, the shame and disgrace was unimaginable. Th
e usual practice, if the baby was to be kept, would be for the girl to go on a long visit somewhere. But if there were no relations who lived at a sufficient distance, an infirmary did just as well. Can you imagine having a kiddy in a lunatic asylum?'

  Leaning upon the banister, Neil recalled the face of the terrified woman he had seen in the corridor.

  'She was mad though,' he told the ghost hunter.

  'Ah well,' the old man began, clearing his throat as he laid the register aside to take up a smaller volume, 'the person you saw was Mary-Anne, but a projection of how she appeared three years later in nineteen hundred and eight.'

  'Hang on, why was she still here after all that time?'

  'Oh, she was institutionalised by then. Her four-month incarceration waiting for the child was enough to do that. Don't forget that Jack Timms would have made her existence unbearable. No, she was driven right over the edge by his bullying torture.'

  'So what happened to the baby?'

  Mr Pickering browsed through the second book. 'Stillborn,' he said simply. 'Now, this is a journal of Samuel Lawrence, a surgeon who ought to have been locked up with the inmates, whom he treated no better than laboratory animals. Queasy reading, this. It's an account in his own words.'

  In a low voice, the ghost hunter began to read aloud.

  October twenty-second, nineteen hundred and eight.

  ... the wretched creature was strapped on to the table, but the laudanum had little effect on her and I forbade the use of chloral, so she squealed like a scalded cat throughout.

  To the assembled gathering I had explained my intention. The experiment would prove my theory that the liver could be removed then replaced without deleterious injury to the subject. They were all most curious to witness this ambitious procedure, in particular Lord Darnling of the Surgical College in whom I set great store for advancement. I had conducted similar operations upon dogs, but the anaesthetic had killed each one.

  Perhaps it was the esteem in which I held my audience that caused my hand to tremble. My nerves were in such an agitated state that the first incision was no better than that which a novice butcher might make. Notes of disapproval were whispered and, on hearing them, my mouth grew salty dry.