The Various

by Steve Augarde

  ‘I reckon Snerk was right,’ came the voice of Grissel. ‘She’s long gone.’

  ‘No!’ snapped Scurl. ‘She’m still yurr. I knows it. And when I finds her—’ there was a horrible guttural sound, as of a throat being slit.

  But then came a long silence. This was even harder for Midge to bear than the rummaging and blundering about that had preceded it. Now she could hear nothing.

  After a while, Scurl said, more calmly, ‘Ah, p’raps thee’m right, Grissel. Maybe she’ve gone arter all.’ The hunters moved out into the corridor, and Scurl shouted, ‘Snerk! Come on out o’ it. Reckon she’ve gone, like ’ee said. We’ll jump out o’ here, and take a looksee round the byres.’

  Snerk’s footsteps came padding along the corridor. The three of them seemed to be by the open window once more. ‘Out you go then, Grissel,’ said Scurl, loudly. ‘And we’ll follow ’ee. ’Tis quicker’n climbing back down that gurt old ladder.’

  Midge could hear scuffling, and then a quick flap of wings. One of them, at least, appeared to have jumped out of the window. Then more scuffling, Scurl’s voice shouting, ‘We’m right behind ’ee, Grissel!’ and a faint muffled reply. Then silence.

  It was a very amateur piece, and Midge wasn’t fooled for a second. Scurl, at least, was still up here – and maybe the other one, Snerk, as well.

  So it was to be a waiting game. It gave her time to think, if nothing else. Why were they here? What did they want? She’d taken nothing from the forest, apart from the curious bowl – which she still hadn’t looked at properly – and which was a gift from Henty. Could that be what they were after? Why?

  The minutes ticked by, and the silence grew. Maybe they had gone, after all. Or maybe, worse, they were up to something else – like setting the place on fire. They could be. What would she do then?

  She risked a quick look, raising her head very gently, and peering over the top of the wardrobe. There was nobody in the room, and she ducked down again. Then the tiniest of sounds caught her ear. A brief pfft. It came from the bathroom, and she recognized it as being an aerosol – a can of deodorant or something – accidentally touched. They were up at the bathroom end, so the route to the top of the stairs was clear. If she went now, before they moved, she may have a chance of getting out. But clambering down from the wardrobe would make too much noise, and would take too much time. Could she jump? Could she jump down onto the bed – and then run? Do it. Don’t think about it, just do it.

  She sat up and swung her legs over the front of the wardrobe – the old piece of furniture creaking horribly – lifted herself up onto the lip of the frame, and launched herself into space, realizing even as she did so that she had made a terrible mistake. The sound from the bathroom had only meant that one of the hunters was there for sure. The other might be anywhere. She bounced off the bed, stumbled, righted herself, and dashed out of the room. Swinging round the door frame, she catapulted herself along the corridor – reaching the top of the stairs just as Snerk appeared from the little room at the far end of the landing. An arrow clattered off the banister post as she leaped down the stairs, two at a time, squealing now in terror. The arrow must have been fired by Scurl, because Snerk was still struggling with his bow, unable to shoot over the top of the banister, and so trying to aim between the rails instead. Down she went, as another arrow hit the plastered wall of the stairwell with a sharp crack, like a cap pistol going off. A bit of plaster grit stung her eyelid, as she jumped the last three steps and flung herself at the front door. She yanked the thing open – wrenching her shoulder muscles, and feeling instant pain. Then more pain – something tearing the hair from her scalp – as she turned to heave the door closed behind her. A glimpse she caught, in that fraction of a second, of Scurl, mid-flight as he jumped from the landing with painted wings outstretched – bow and arrow in his grasp. He reminded Midge of a cupid, a terrible, evil kind of cupid.

  Down the front path she fled, aware, suddenly, of a dreadful howling sound coming from the direction of the cider barn – the same screeching siren wail that had given her nightmares ever since she’d first heard it. Tojo.

  She ran towards the awful noise – and could never later explain why she had done so. The flustered rattle of the cat flap sounded somewhere behind her – she knew that Scurl and Snerk were in close pursuit of her – and all instinct should have told her to run away from further danger, rather than towards it; yet towards the sound of Tojo she ran. Something may have told her that the great tom cat might act as a deterrent, or at least a distraction, to her pursuers, but it was certainly not a conscious piece of reasoning. It was simply what she did.

  Flying down the length of the yard, feeling as though her heart would burst, she was enveloped in the jagged screeching sounds which grew louder as she came hurtling towards the barn doors, but which then ceased, abruptly, cut to strangulated silence the instant her reaching fingers made contact with the peeling wood. It was as if, in touching the door, she had pressed a switch.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  WHATEVER LAY AT the end of the line for George, he was in no hurry to discover. Certainly he had no wish to meet Scurl. Like Midge he decided to play for time – but unlike her, he had no idea of what he would try to do, no plan, beyond waiting for some opportunity to arise. Halfway down the rope ladder, he bumped his nose on one of the wooden rungs, and as the tears sprang to his eyes his fear began to turn to anger. Who did these little mutants think they were, pushing him around? The idea of pretending that he couldn’t see very well occurred to him – it might serve to slow up progress until he came up with a better plan. He deliberately missed his footing, and clung to the swinging ladder.

  ‘Goo on!’ shouted Benzo, from above.

  ‘Sorry,’ said George, as he reached the ground. ‘It’s my glasses.’ He pointed to his watery eyes, and peered dimly about him. ‘I’m almost blind, without my glasses.’ His voice was still shaky, and whatever it was that he was saying sounded guileless, at least, to his captors.

  Flitch and Dregg looked at him, and Flitch said, ‘Ah. Comprend. He be like a mole, Benzo. Casn’t see too good.’

  Benzo only grunted, and then swooped down from the platform. ‘We’d best get ’un to the dwelling – see what Scurl wants to do with ’un.’ Benzo looked about him, uncertain, getting his bearing, and George immediately led off through the copse – hands slightly outstretched, as though he were guarding against collisions.

  ‘Here!’ Benzo skipped in front of him, drawing back his bow. ‘Where be off to, do ’ee reckon?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said George, coming to a halt. ‘I though you wanted to go to the house – where Scurl is. This is the quickest way – down through the copse.’

  ‘Zo it may be,’ said Benzo (it wasn’t), ‘but you just bide, and not move till we tell ’ee to move. Now then, Flitch, I shall lead on, then our friend here, then you and Dregg keep to hindermost. And you,’ he said to George, ‘better step careful, ’less ’ee want wood where wood never grew.’

  ‘OK,’ said George. ‘It’s straight down there, through the trees.’ He hadn’t misled them entirely – part of the house could be glimpsed beyond the edge of the copse – but it would have been quicker to go back across the lawn. Benzo now led the way, turning round frequently, and George followed, hands spread out slightly, apparently protecting himself from danger.

  The dense copse grew parallel to the lane that led up to the house, and there was an overgrown stile, a little further on, that opened on to the lane. George wondered if he could simply make a break for it. He bumped into a sapling, accidentally on purpose, and Dregg snickered in a dim-witted sort of way. Benzo glanced round, but said nothing.

  The stile was coming up on the left, not really visible through the trees and undergrowth, but there nevertheless. If he got away, and made it over the stile, what then? Run down the lane? Then at last a plan, of sorts, came to him. The mudslide. He bumped into another tree, and pretended to hurt his head. Dregg thought this hilarious, an
d it bought another few seconds.

  They’d already passed the mudslide – a sloping channel, originally a badger run, that ran from the bank of the copse down into the lane. It was simply a narrow gap in the hedge, but George had opened it out a bit, and used to slither down it on a plastic fertilizer bag – till his dad had put a stop to his fun. ‘Messy and dangerous,’ he’d said. ‘Well up to your usual standard. Really, George, I wonder if you’ve the brains you were born with sometimes. What would you do if there was a car coming?’

  ‘Hear it,’ George had replied, not unreasonably, he felt. But anyway, that was the end of the mudslide game.

  They had drawn almost level with the stile, and it was now or never. Pointing to the right, George suddenly yelled, ‘Look out!’ and immediately broke away to the left, ducking and weaving through the saplings, going like a rabbit. He was over the stile and pelting down the lane before the hunters had recovered from their surprise. Twenty yards along the lane, he scrabbled up the bank, where the mudslide was, and was creeping back into the copse by the time the furious hunters were peering over the stile. Benzo jumped down into the lane and looked from left to right. There was no sign of George. On the other side of the lane was another stile, leading into an open field. Benzo ran across, beckoning to the others. The boy must have gone that way.

  They stood in the field and gazed at the empty grassland. ‘Hang it!’ shouted Benzo. ‘We’ve lost ’un! Us’ll be baked in charcoal for this, if’n Scurl learns of it.’

  ‘We’d best not show our faces till we’ve found ’un again,’ said Flitch.

  Benzo looked back at the copse on the other side of the road. ‘We’ll get back up into they trees,’ he muttered. ‘ ’Twill keep us out o’ Scurl’s way – and give us a chance to look out for that young snip.’

  They returned to the copse once more and climbed the cedar tree. It afforded a good view of much of the settlement, and Benzo felt confident that they had not seen the last of Master Mole – nor he of them.

  ‘ ’Ee weren’t zuch a mole as we did reckon,’ said Dregg, slowly. ‘More like a eel.’ Benzo gave him a kick.

  Freedom is a wonderful thing – if only you know what to do with it. Having escaped Benzo and Co., George’s initial elation soon evaporated, and he felt at a bit of a loss as to where he could safely go. They had been taking him to the house, on Scurl’s orders apparently, so going there was out. They would almost certainly return to the copse any minute, so staying put was out, too. He decided to make his way round to the back of the stables and hide there, among the thistles, until he could think of some better course of action.

  The untended shrub borders of the rear lawn gave ample cover for his purpose, and he crept through the laurels and rhododendrons, keeping as low as possible – a necessary precaution as it turned out, for another archer suddenly floated down from an upstairs window at the rear of the farmhouse, shouted something up, and then scurried off round the corner. Some other strange thing he thought he saw – a green shadow, that disappeared among the laurels – it may have been another archer, or it may just have been a moving beam of sunlight through a passing cloud. He pressed on, regardless, and reached the rear corner of the cider house without having been seen, as far as he could tell.

  As George picked his way through the junk behind the cider house, he heard a brief scream – distant it seemed, too tiny to be human, like the noise a baby rabbit might make when being attacked by a stoat. He paused for a few seconds to listen, but heard no more and kept going. He had problems enough of his own.

  There was a gap between the cider barn and the end of the stable block – a gap that was visible from the entire length of the yard. He listened again, but still heard nothing. The yard seemed quiet. He braced himself for the dash across the open gap. One, two, three: he was away, and was spurred on, suddenly, by a terrible noise – an awful wailing sound – as though some creature from hell was at his heels. He vaulted the rickety fence that continued the line of the field beyond the end of the stables, ran between the lagoon and the rear wall of the block, and crouched, panting with fear, very close to the spot where he and Midge had found the hand. The dreadful sound continued, and George realized what it was: Tojo. It seemed to be coming from the cider barn. On and on it went, yowling and screeching – then there were shouts and yells, running feet, confusion. Then silence. It all just stopped. What was happening? He thought of Midge. She was out there, somewhere, amongst all that mayhem. And he was skulking here. It was no good, he would have to go and see if she was OK . . .

  ‘Ah, there ’ee be. Lost thee glaaarsses again? They do get about, don’t ’em?’

  George jumped, and backed away from the wall in alarm. They sat on the ridge of the stable roof like three wise monkeys, Benzo, Snerk, and Dregg, the sun shining on their painted wings and grinning faces, their nasty little arrows pointing at him – relaxed now, able to pick him off at will, had they so desired. No, it hadn’t taken them very long to find him again.

  George continued to back away, stumbling across the firm edge of the lagoon without thinking, keeping an eye all the time on those sharp little arrows.

  ‘Thass far enough!’ shouted Benzo, warningly. ‘You bide there, now.’ He slithered down the slope of the roof tiles and remained perched just above the guttering. The other two followed suit.

  George moved sideways a little, shuffling round the outer crust of the lagoon until the entire span of it lay between him and the stables. He had no plan. There was no plan – but there was such a thing as luck, such a thing as being in the right place at the right time. He backed away a little further.

  Benzo stood up, balancing on the loose tiles. George moved back another foot, stepping off the outer crust of the lagoon, and onto normal pasture – though the line where one began and the other ended was not obvious. Flitch drew back his bow, but Benzo shook his head.

  ‘No harm to ’un,’ he muttered. ‘Scurl’s orders. Wait till he runs – then we s’ll know which way to jump.’ Benzo glanced down at the strange expanse of bare earth, interspersed with just a few clumps of grass. Fair going, by the look of it. The snip would be easy enough to catch.

  George took another step backwards, and looked over his shoulder, tensing – as if deciding to make a break straight over to the far side of the field. He turned, and seemed to commit himself.

  ‘Come on,’ hissed Benzo, and launched himself from the guttering.

  He landed just beyond the centre of the lagoon, and may well have escaped trouble – had not Flitch and Dregg landed right beside him. The thin sundried crust gave way beneath their combined weight, and they fell against one another, staggering and floundering, knee-deep – and then chest-deep – in ancient slurry. A pleasant sound their beleaguered screams were, to George’s unsympathetic ears – the more so when it became apparent that the trio were unlikely to sink much further. Their wings, it seemed, would probably save them from disappearing entirely. He wouldn’t have wanted to witness their deaths, but, for the moment, he was happy enough to witness their discomfort.

  He put his fingers in his mouth and gave a loud whistle. Phoebe might enjoy this, he thought.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  THE GREAT FELIX had been calm for a while, half dozing in the welcome rays of early sunshine that splashed through the partly open doorway of the cider barn, but now he began to grow restless. Tojo was hungry, and tired of waiting.

  Henty could see that Pank’s description of the beast had not been an exaggeration. She watched, quaking with fright, as the immense animal paced up and down the beam of light that fell along the floor of the cider house. Tiny specks of golden dust glinted in the sunbeams, surrounding the felix and making it look as though slow-burning sparks were drifting from its shock-haired pelt. Wisps of vapour rose from the threshold, where the warm sunlight fell on ground still damp with morning dew, and as Tojo walked it seemed as though the very earth burned beneath his feet. As a child looking down from a sea wall is drawn to the wa
ves, so Henty felt the terrible pull of Tojo’s magnetic power. Could such a creature really exist?

  She dragged her attention away, and looked once more around the confines of her high prison. There was a door – but she had silently examined this earlier, and there was no release for her there. She knew nothing of the mechanisms the Gorji employed, but she did know that she could never open this thing unaided. Worse was the fact that there was a small gap beneath the door – a broken corner – but it was just too small even for her slight frame to squeeze through. The outside world was tantalizingly close, but unreachable.

  One or two dusty bottles and a big stone jar stood in one corner of the loft, and there was a large wooden rake, odd bits of rot-metal – but nothing that would aid either her defence or escape. She was alone – none knew that she had come here – and now she was but a few steps away from the terrible thing that had murdered her kinsman. She lowered her chin on her tiny fists once more, and continued to watch the beast below as it paced the golden shaft of light, occasionally leaving the barn for a few moments and then re-entering, waiting – like her – and waiting . . .

  The grey rat that dropped lightly onto her motionless back from the high wooden cross-beam was no less horrified at the event than she. It scurried away with a squeak of alarm. Henty jumped up and screamed – backing away along the edge of the platform as she watched the horrible creature desperately wriggle beneath the corner of the door, its long pink tail whipping in the dust. The felix lifted its head.

  Tojo moved out of the sun and into the shadow, the better to see, and the Tinkler maid looked down. Down she looked, at last, into the volcano, the fires that would swallow her up, the amber eyes of Tojo. It had happened – as she knew it must. Folly upon folly she had committed, foolishness upon foolishness. She had walked into the lands of the Gorji – what greater folly could there be? – and now she would never walk back. As if to confirm this, her legs ceased to function and her heart stopped beating. She stood, immobile, as Tojo began to wind the siren of her doom.