by Robin Jarvis
A heavy silence descended.
No one dared to make a sound. They were all waiting for the noise they knew must come.
Tap-tap-tap.
It was almost a relief to hear that dreaded drumming and Neil let out a huffing breath. 'The children,' he began. 'None of them...?'
Miss Ursula returned to the case which housed the shrunken head and the little face whispered to her once more.
'No,' she told them. 'The statues were stilled in time and the infants faded with the schoolroom.'
Through the ground floor they could hear Jack Timms striking out the seconds as he swaggered back towards the hallway. Then a grievous, discordant crash ricocheted through the building, followed by another and another.
'What's he doing down there?' Mr Pickering asked.
'Sounds like he's smashing the place up,' Neil muttered.
The line of Miss Ursula's jaw tightened. She did not need the shrunken head to tell her what was taking place in The Roman Gallery. Moistening her lips, the old woman said, 'The statues are being destroyed.'
'Then we've got nothing,' Brian Chapman blurted. 'There's no hope for us!'
Now freed from the helmet and perched once more on Neil's wrist, Quoth cawed in misery and they all stared across to where the black mouth of The Egyptian Suite gaped high and wide. A mocking laugh soared up the stairwell and, leaving The Roman Gallery and the entrance hall behind, Jack Timms ascended.
'Tick-Tock!' his snickering voice taunted. 'Can you hear it up there? I'm countin' out the time what's left to you. Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock. There's a deal of learnin' to be done up there in that poxy hole where you're skulkin'. Just as them statters were goin' to learn them littl'uns down there—would've made a pretty mess, that.'
Swilling the spit around his mouth, the repugnant man cackled with infernal glee. 'Shouldn't ought to have stopped it back then, you shouldn't,' he resumed. 'It's the worse for you now, it is. You can't escape from old Tick-Tock, oh no. He's wantin' his jamboree, an' he'll have a real grand one tonight, with no nasty deer to put a spoil on his jolly. Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock.'
Higher the awful man climbed, and all the while his cane rapped out his menacing journey. The horror of his metered approach had cast a hopeless paralysis over the group gathered in The Separate Collection, but when the Tormentor began pounding the first floor landing, Quoth roused everyone with a bleating alarm.
Immediately the others stirred and looked to Miss Ursula. 'What can we do?' Neil cried. 'He'll be here any minute.'
Striding between the cabinets, the old woman turned a troubled face upon them. 'This moment has come earlier than I anticipated,' she confessed. 'The first wave of our defences has proven worthless. Therefore, we must rely on the second.'
'And what's that?' Mr Pickering asked.
Miss Ursula spread her arms wide and gestured towards the surrounding displays. 'We must take what exhibits we can from their cases and keep them with us about the fire. From that point on, no one must rise or leave the group. We must enmesh ourselves within as powerful a boundary as can be forged.'
Neil frowned. 'That's madness,' the boy snorted. 'It's not going to keep him out. There must be something more we can do.'
'No, child!' she uttered gravely. 'Nothing.'
Whisking around to face Austen Pickering, Miss Ursula said. 'The Spear of Longinus—I know it is in your keeping. Bring it here.'
The endless beat of Jack Timms' cane had now entered The Dissolution Gallery and she clapped her hands urgently. To the displays they hastened and, where the cabinets were locked, they smashed the glass to break inside.
'Take all you can carry!' Miss Ursula told them. 'There is so little time!'
From their cases the exhibits were torn: small, sealed boxes inscribed with runic symbols, iron bottles, a fetish stuck with countless nails, mirrors of black glass. There were forbidden books, tall jars in which pale serpents entwined, demon masks, dice carved from animal bone, volumes of alchemical lore—even the shrunken heads were tugged from their hanger in the frantic scramble.
Driven by panic, everyone threw themselves into the ferrying of artefacts to the fireside. So absorbed were they all that none of them noticed Miss Celandine twirl stealthily out of the candle glow, humming faintly to herself.
Lifting the lid of the case that housed the large, golden locket, Miss Ursula allowed herself a moment's pause as she considered the import of what she was about to do. Then her meditation faltered and she saw that Edie was staring into the cabinet where the Eye of Balor resided.
'No, Edith,' she directed. 'Do not think to shatter that glass.'
'Why not?' the girl cried. 'We could open the eye and make it look right at Tick-Tock Jack. That'd get 'im—sort 'im good an' proper, that would. Lemme do it!'
Slipping the golden chain over her head so that the heavy locket, glittering brightly against the deep black of her gown, dragged against her neck, Miss Ursula hurried to the child's side.
'It will not avail us!' she insisted. 'Do you not think I have considered it? The eyelid's flesh has dried to an adamantine rigidity and the special salve which makes it supple has been lost for centuries. No other power in this world can raise that petrified skin now. It is useless to us.'
Guiding her back towards the fire, Miss Ursula laid her hand upon the girl's head and in a solemn whisper told her, 'If all else fails, there is only one other hope left. You must be ready to sacrifice the gift of the Fates.'
'My pixie hood?' Edie murmured.
'Yes, dear. Within its stitches the forces of Destiny are woven, and if it looks as though the agent of Woden might prove victorious, we must unpick the threads and cast them in a protective circle about us.'
'Would we be safe then?'
'Should that final barricade yield to the will of the Gallows God,' Miss Ursula said in a hoarse whisper, 'then our lives are truly doomed. If he has grown that strong, perhaps we do not deserve to survive.'
Edie removed the woollen hat from her head and set it down amongst the exhibits which had been wrenched from the cabinets. Lit lurid by the flames, Austen Pickering's grizzle-haired figure stood trembling in their jumbled midst—the rusted spear in one hand and his
Bible clutched tightly in the other. Winding their way back to the littered space, the others returned with the last hoard of plunder they could manage. The cluttered disarray they had already gathered constituted only a third of the pieces which made up The Separate Collection, but it was now too late to retrieve any more.
Tap-tap-tap.
The fatal knocking had finally reached The Egyptian Suite and a scoffing snicker sounded within that prodigious dark. At once Quoth sent up an earnest squawking and flapped his wings hysterically.
'Quiet!' Neil hissed, hurrying back between the empty displays. But the raven would not stop and, though the boy covered Quoth's black beak with his hand, still the bird protested.
From the night-filled entrance, Jack Timms' gruff and loathsome voice called out to them. 'Time's done now,' he proclaimed.
In that shadow-cloaked room, the pulse of the Tormentor was suddenly stilled.
'You gonna be good and peaceable?' the warder chuckled hideously. 'Come take your learnin' like sweet little lambs? Or are you gonna make Jack work up his sweat?'
With one hand clasped about the golden locket, Miss Ursula raised her outraged voice in answer. 'How dare you plague and harry us!' she cried. 'Begone, you base-born creature, before she who cuts the strands of life severs your revolting thread.'
The man cackled in reply. 'You don't have no sway over Tick-Tock!' he grunted. 'Got just as much right to be 'ere as you. Many's the life he's cut short in these walls, so don't think you're nowt special.'
'Prince of fools!' she railed back. 'What injury do you think you or your despotic master can inflict upon the Spinners of the Wood! His Valkyries were consumed by righteous flame and in our keeping we hold the spear he would use against us. Your paltry threats are empty and vaunting. Return to the deat
h that should have been yours in the filth-strewn gutters of the past.'
A gust of fetid air blasted through the doorway and the candle flames shivered and died before it. Only the oil lamps remained burning in The Separate Collection and, upon Neil's shoulder, Quoth continued to croak and cry.
'You don't see, does you?' Jack Timms spat. 'All them high and mighty words—when you've already lost.'
Neil glanced at Miss Ursula. 'What does he mean?' he breathed.
Suddenly, from the Egyptian gloom, a large, white boulder came hurtling. For an instant its irregular round form spun in the shadows before crashing into the ground, bouncing violently against a cabinet which toppled on its side under the force of the impact.
'He's lobbin' stones at us!' Edie exclaimed.
Snapping on the ghost hunter's torch, Neil flashed the beam through the murk and its circle of brilliant light blazed upon the heavy missile that was now rocking on the ground. In the shining torchlight they saw the splintered ivory of a carved skull. The harsh radiance glared in the empty eye sockets, and gleamed across the now broken and shattered jaw.
'The lovely lady,' Edie murmured sadly.
A disgusting snigger issued from the entrance. 'Looks a lot better now, she do,' the warder drawled. 'Pity I had to hack off one of them pretty arms as well, but there's no stoppin' Jack at times when he's havin' his fun.'
'The Loom Maidens have other forces at their command,' Miss Ursula said coldly.
'Have they now?' die insidious voice hissed with a disdaining archness. 'It's a cryin' shame that you'll not get to use 'em. A real weepin' c'lamity.'
Horrendous gurgling laughter exploded in The Egyptian Suite, a chilling barrage of monstrous mirth that unexpectedly diminished as the man swaggered back into The Dissolution Gallery.
'Where's he goin'?' Edie spouted.
'I do not know,' Miss Ursula replied, the puzzlement revealed on her face. 'Why did he not enter?'
'Perhaps he can't,' Mr Pickering suggested. 'Maybe he could sense the accumulated powers stashed in here.'
'No,' the old woman said sharply. 'There is some other devilment he means to do.'
Switching the torch off, Neil winced and swore when Quoth nipped him hard on the ear to finally get the boy's full attention. 'What was that for?' Neil demanded. 'What is it?'
Fluttering from his perch, the raven flew once around the group before alighting upon one of the counters, where he hopped up and down and screeched, shaking his feathers.
Staring at him in irritation, Miss Ursula suddenly glanced about her and a strangled breath choked in her throat.
'Where is she?' the old woman cried. 'Where is Celandine?'
Only then did the others realise that Miss Celandine Webster was no longer amongst them, and their hearts quailed.
***
Whilst the others were so busily engaged in raiding the collection, Miss Celandine wandered bemused through the room, playfully waving her fingers over the candles and giggling at the shapes the shadows made on the ceiling.
Absently meandering away from her sister and Edith, who were both so serious and cross with her the whole time, her crabbed lips mouthed the words to a half-remembered tune.
Miss Celandine adored the romance of candlelight, but the darkness was even more enticing. There she could be young again, and simper at the compliments her imagined suitors paid her. What a delicious evening it was; she barely noticed the supreme cold, and the carriage of her thoughts was already travelling a different road. She had quite forgotten about the orphans and was engrossed in practising her curtsies when a low, lilting refrain reached her ears.
Consumed with violent curiosity, she tossed her plaits behind her bare shoulders and rested her prominent teeth upon her lower lip as she listened intently to that tantalising melody.
The rapturous music was drifting from behind the closed door which led out into the passage. Tripping lightly around the displays like a scurrying mouse, Miss Celandine capered forward. A warm and sumptuous light was shining under the door, broken by many shadows as a crowd of people seemed to pass by on the other side.
The delightful music was clearer now. Somewhere a quintet was playing and, mingled with that blissful harmony, came the buzz of merry voices.
'Is it a party?' she breathed deliriously. 'How precious—it is, it is.'
With a wave of sudden remembrance, a childish guilt washed over her as she shot a cautious glance at Miss Ursula and the others.
'They'd be so angry,' Miss Celandine debated with herself. 'But they're so busy they shan't even notice. Oh, but what if they did! Ursula would be so cruel and mean.'
As she stood there, dithering about whether to slip from the room, a shadow darker than the rest blocked the light that poured beneath the door. Gazing down, the muddled old woman saw a piece of card being slid under the crack. Vastly intrigued, she stooped to claim it and gasped with pleasure.
The card she held in her large, leathery hands was an invitation, printed with shining, silver ink and she gazed at it in enchanted wonderment.
Miss Celandine Webster
cordially invites you to
a celebration banquet
to be held in honour of our noble Lord Nelson's
victory over the French
WYRD PLACE
Well Lane
There will be dancing
A pitiful whimper escaped her lips as she lovingly traced the elaborate, flowing letters. 'My party,' she lamented, her nutty face falling as she recalled only too clearly the uproar that had ensued when her sister had discovered her fanciful intent all those years ago.
'The darling party Ursula wouldn't permit me to have,' she murmured, crumpling the card in her hands and crushing it to her bosom. 'When she burned all my pretty dresses to punish me.'
Behind the door the jaunty tune continued and Miss Celandine's agonised vacillating was over. 'It's happening at last,' she marvelled. 'That's my lovely party out there. It's really happening and they're waiting for me—they are, they are!'
Without another thought for her sister or anyone else, Miss Celandine grasped the door knob and slipped silently out into the corridor—oblivious of the terror which awaited.
Chapter 21 - Mortal Dreads
'Celandine!' Miss Ursula called in anguish. 'This is no time for your games—Celandine!'
Using the torch once more, Neil swept the beam around the room, but they could not see her anywhere. Searching under the empty cases, Edie Dorkins scrabbled over the ground on her knees, but Miss Celandine could not be found.
'Where can she have gone?' Mr Pickering asked. 'Why didn't she stay in here?'
Glaring at Quoth, Miss Ursula slapped her hand upon the counter where he stood and the bird jumped in alarm. 'Tell me!' she snapped. 'What did you see? Where did my sister go? What has befallen her?'
The raven cawed dejectedly.
'He can't speak!' Neil defended him. 'Quoth, did you see Miss Celandine leave?'
The raven waggled his bald head energetically and flew to the passage door.
'Celandine!' Edie shrieked. 'Come back—Celandine!' Reaching it first, the girl yanked it open, but the winding corridor outside had plunged back into the darkness and there was no sign of the missing woman.
'Where is she?' Edie cried, stepping out into that tunnel of engulfing night, the dagger still clenched in her hand. Swiftly, Miss Ursula came after her and held an oil lamp high over their heads to push back the pressing shadows.
The stretch of corridor was deserted in both directions. Only the crumbled remains of the taxidermied menagerie littered the ravaged route, before the path turned the obscuring corners.
'Celandine!' Miss Ursula shouted.
Abruptly, the torch beam shone into the narrow passage, flaring in the scattering of fractured glass as Neil and the others joined them.
'Which way did she go?' Brian Chapman asked, remaining with Josh in the doorway of The Separate Collection.
‘I do not know,' Miss Ursu
la answered aghast. 'She could be anywhere within the museum by now.'
'No!' Edie sobbed. 'We got to find her! Bring her back!'
'Yes,' Miss Ursula agreed. 'Before it is too late. We must search for her.'
'But Tick-Tock's out there,' Neil whispered.
'She knows that, lad,' Mr Pickering assured him. 'She knows.'
'Edith,' Miss Ursula said quickly, 'you come with me—we shall seek for her this way.'
But the girl shook her head stubbornly: 'I wanna go down here.' Before Neil could stop her, Edie wrenched the torch from his fingers and pelted into the dark.
'Edith!' Miss Ursula cried. 'You must not go alone!' But the girl had already rounded the corner and the old woman turned anxiously to Neil. 'Run after her,' she pleaded. 'I beg you.'
Barely realising what he was doing, Neil found himself running down the passage and, crowing behind him, flew Quoth.
'That's a brave boy you have there,' Austen Pickering told the caretaker. 'I'll try and keep up with him.'
'No,' Miss Ursula commanded decisively. 'Come with me, if you will. Celandine must be found and the more who search the better. Mr Chapman, stay in The Separate Collection with your young son, and call if Edith and the boy return.'
In a moment, she and the ghost hunter had hurried off in the opposite direction from Neil and Edie. Closing the door behind them, Brian Chapman drew Josh back to the fireside.
'I want Neil!' the toddler wept. 'Dad—I'm scared and the cold hurts.'
The caretaker pushed another piece of wood into the flames and sat beside his son, his eyes staring spellbound at the bright, leaping colours. 'It can only get colder,' he whispered softly.
With the torchlight bouncing feverishly before her like an insane will-o-the-wisp, Edie Dorkins hared down the corridor, calling for Miss Celandine. Over fragments of disintegrated spider monkey and crippled hyena the wildly waving white glare leapt, glittering in the staring, lifeless eyes. The girl's shoes crunched through the stuffed carcasses and fractured glass splintered under her stamping heels.
Behind, she could hear Quoth gaining as the raven rushed through the mouldy air, squawking loudly, and she was forced to a staggering halt when he beat his feathers against her face.