The Vulture of Sommerset

by Stephen M. Giles

  ‘Now then,’ said Aunt Rosemary, ‘when are we to depart?’

  ‘Today,’ said Adele. ‘Whitlam is just working out the details.’

  ‘Today?’ snorted Isabella. ‘Surely you should rest for a few days before –’

  ‘There isn’t time,’ said Milo firmly. ‘Dr Mangrove has a full day on us already. If we are to have any chance of catching up with him we must leave now.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Aunt Rosemary. ‘There is so much to do before we go. We have to pack and let everybody know where we are going – and what about plane tickets and departure times?’

  ‘No need to worry about that,’ said Whitlam, hanging up the telephone. ‘I have just arranged a pilot for the Winterbottom jet.’

  Isabella’s eyes lit up like two sparklers. ‘We have a jet?’

  ‘You do,’ said the lawyer, ‘and a helicopter. At least you did until two days ago when it vanished from the hangar. We have Dr Mangrove to thank for that.’ Whitlam pulled the spectacles from his nose. ‘I cannot pretend that I approve of what you are doing. It is dangerous in the extreme. Foolish even. But Adele has left me in no doubt that you are determined to do this, and so do it you must. But as your lawyer it is my duty to inform your guardians of this trip. Don’t worry, I will leave out the gory details. We’ll just say you are doing some sightseeing in a remote part of Budatta.’ The lawyer looked curiously at Isabella. ‘What should I tell your father, Isabella? Will you be joining your cousins?’

  ‘Me? Naturally I would love to go after Dr Fathead, but . . . how could I leave Thorn? He is still so unwell. And Mrs Hammer needs somebody to look after her – the poor dear was hit on the head so hard she doesn’t know what day it is. I’m afraid I shall have to stay here at Sommerset . . . though my heart will be in the jungles of Budatta with my cousins.’

  ‘When will the Winterbottom jet be on the runway?’ said Levi, itching to go.

  ‘Two hours,’ said the lawyer. ‘Can you be ready in time?’

  Adele did not hesitate. ‘We’ll be ready.’

  ‘It’s not that I’m afraid,’ said Isabella as they stepped into the elevator and began to rise above the entrance hall. She laughed softly. ‘Of course I’m not afraid. Jungles are wonderful places . . . but Thorn needs me. You understand, don’t you?’

  She looked hopefully at Adele and Milo as the cage stopped on the second floor and the doors parted. ‘Isabella, it’s okay,’ said Milo, ‘really it is.’

  Adele was holding the map, folding and unfolding it. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ she said suddenly. ‘How a little piece of paper can have so much power. Dr Mangrove would have killed a hundred men to get his hands on the map.’

  ‘Cousin,’ said Isabella, ‘it is not the map that has the power, it is the Panacea. If the world knew that such a plant really existed there would be thousands of lunatics willing to spill blood just to get a taste of it.’

  ‘Which is why they never will,’ said Adele as they walked across the landing towards their bedchambers. ‘When I finished copying the map from the Lazarus Rock I wiped it clean. There are now two copies in existence, and once this is over and we have defeated Dr Mangrove both must be destroyed. No-one can know about the Valley of Brume or the Panacea. Captain Bloom should never have smuggled the plant out in the first place. Every horrible thing that has happened to us since we first got to Sommerset can be traced back to that one foolish mistake.’

  ‘But surely the plant itself is not to blame,’ said Milo passionately. ‘In the right hands it could be a wonderful thing, a miraculous thing . . . don’t you think?’

  ‘The Panacea has more power than any one person can bear,’ said Adele. ‘Even good intentions fall prey to it.’

  ‘Not if you are careful,’ said Milo, his eyes wide and pleading. ‘Not if you only use it to ease suffering and help those who really need it. Then it can do no harm, surely?’

  ‘Milo, Captain Bloom wanted to rid the world of pain and suffering and look at the results – murder, destruction, men so greedy for life that they lose all sense of goodness.’

  They were walking briskly down the long hallway when Milo stopped suddenly. He stood beneath a crystal chandelier, the long corridor spilling out behind him.

  ‘What is it, Milo?’ said Adele. ‘Did you forget something?’

  ‘I’m going to steal it,’ he said softly, looking anywhere but at Adele.

  ‘Steal . . . what?’

  ‘The Panacea.’ Milo met her eyes. ‘I’m going to steal the Panacea.’

  Adele could not fathom what her cousin had said. Steal the Panacea? ‘Milo, what . . . what are you talking about?’

  ‘The boy is delirious,’ said Isabella, crossing her arms. ‘Utterly delirious.’

  Then Milo remembered the promise he had made to himself. No more secrets. He pulled a long rusty key from his pocket. ‘There’s something you should see,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

  LOST AND FOUND

  The walk through the woods was largely silent. Milo led and his cousins followed. The boy ignored every one of Isabella’s questions, keeping his eyes forward and his mouth shut. When they got to the western corner of the forest Milo ducked down and passed through a narrow break in a high hedged wall which ran from the old woods to the gate house. From there they entered a dense woodland, the ground beneath them littered with acorns.

  ‘Cousin, where exactly are you taking us?’ asked Isabella. She had already asked that question several dozen times but never seemed to tire of it – despite the fact that Milo never once offered an answer.

  The children were in a corner of the island that rarely received visitors. Even Sommerset’s keenest walker (Aunt Rosemary) had only ever ventured there once. The forest wasn’t especially pretty and nothing lay beyond its border apart from the alligator-infested swamp which surrounded the island. Many years ago there had been a gamekeeper’s cottage nearby but it had fallen into ruin and nobody had darkened its door in decades.

  Milo led his cousins through a maze of trees until finally they came upon a small grove. It was covered in wild grass and sunflowers and in the middle sat a pretty white cottage with a red sloping roof, a green front door and a stone chimney breathing cloud puffs into the air.

  ‘Was this where the gamekeeper’s cottage used to be?’ said Adele.

  ‘This is the gamekeeper’s cottage,’ said Milo, walking briskly towards the little house. ‘It’s just had a lick of paint, that’s all.’

  A small path lined with purple tulips and lavender led to the front door. Milo produced the long rusty key and unlocked it, ushering his cousins inside. Adele and Isabella exchanged a curious glance as they stepped across the threshold and into the cottage. The boy led them into a bright little sitting room with lace curtains and comfy chairs. The room also contained a brutish-looking man with a flat nose and ears that resembled a head of cauliflower. He jumped up the moment he saw Isabella and Adele.

  ‘Thought you didn’t want no visitors!’ he snapped at Milo.

  ‘Relax, Crabb,’ said Milo, ‘these are my cousins.’ He looked around. ‘Is the nurse upstairs?’

  ‘Gone into town to get supplies.’ He stared at the boy’s face, reading him like a book. ‘Don’t worry, Winterbottom, she can be trusted. The amount you’re paying buys a lot of silence.’

  ‘How is . . . everything?’ said Milo quietly.

  For once the sneer seemed to drop from Crabb’s face. ‘No change.’

  ‘Cousin, who is this unpleasant-looking man?’ Isabella demanded to know. ‘And what is he doing living in this cottage?’

  ‘I’m here at the boy’s invitation,’ spat Crabb, slumping down in his chair. ‘If you don’t like it, speak to him.’

  Milo ignored the outburst and turned to his cousins. ‘Follow me,’ he said, leading a very nervous pair of girls towards a narrow staircase just off the kitchen.

  ‘Remember the rules,’ Crabb called after them.

  ‘The rules?’ said Adele.

&
nbsp; Milo stopped halfway up the stairs and turned back to look at his cousins. ‘Stay behind the white line, speak softly and make no sudden movements.’ He paused then added, ‘I need your word, both of you, that what you see here will stay between us.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Adele.

  As for Isabella, right at that moment she would have pledged her kidney if it meant finding out what was at the top of those stairs. ‘Yes, yes,’ she snapped, ‘our lips are sealed. Now, let’s get on!’

  They marched quickly up the remaining stairs and came to a small pine door off the landing. Milo unlocked it, entering the room ahead of his cousins. With fluttering bellies the girls followed him, and what they found inside was a simple room with a sloping wall on one side, two small windows overlooking the grove and a white line running across the floor, dividing the room in half. There was also a woman. She stood with her back against the far wall, her face dimmed by the soft shadows falling from the windowsill, a mass of curly blonde hair spilling around her shoulders. Adele thought the woman looked like an angel – a wild sort of angel – standing barefoot, so tall and serene in a flowing yellow dress.

  Keen to get a better look at the strange blonde lady Isabella took a few steps forward, and as she did the floorboards creaked loudly beneath her shoes.

  ‘Grrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!’ A wall of sound and fury exploded from the woman in yellow, her hands scratching at the air.

  ‘Isabella, get back!’ shouted Milo.

  When Isabella screamed it only served to fuel the woman’s anger. She ran towards the girl, her face twisted, teeth bared. It was then that Adele saw the chains binding her wrists. Milo reached out and yanked Isabella back just as the chains pulled taut and the madwoman came to an abrupt stop a few centimetres from Isabella’s face. The terrified girl looked down and saw the tips of her shoes resting just behind the white line.

  ‘Grrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!’ The woman growled and screamed, her arms splayed like an frog’s. The two chains tethered to the back wall looked like talons coming out of her wrists. That she was out of her mind was very clear, but it was her green eyes which truly betrayed her madness. They were two rabid orbs rarely moving in the same direction, shifting from hunter to hunted in the blink of an eye. She yelled and snarled and snapped at the children until finally she was exhausted, her head sinking to one side, deep guttural breaths pushing from her twisted mouth.

  The bedroom fell quiet once more.

  ‘Milo, who is she?’ said Adele, unable to tear her eyes away from the wild creature.

  ‘Her name is Helena Winterbottom,’ the boy said warmly. ‘She is my mother.’

  THE ROAD AHEAD

  The Winterbottoms had just emerged from the old woods when Adele finally said it. ‘Milo, I thought your mother was dead.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Milo nodding his head. ‘You see, when the volcano erupted and my parents were thrown into the sea everyone assumed they must have drowned or were taken by sharks. But that wasn’t true. Somehow my mother managed to survive despite her injuries. She must have been carried out on a strong current because her body was found miles from the coast by a cargo ship bound for Italy. By the time they pulled her on board she was delirious and suffering from hypothermia. They couldn’t get a sensible word out of her. When they checked on her the next morning she had slipped into a coma, and when she came out of it a few days later she was . . . well, she was just as she is today. When the ship docked she was taken to a hospital for the insane in Naples and that is where she has been for the last four years. The authorities didn’t know what else to do with her.’

  ‘How did they discover her real identity?’ said Isabella, plucking a peach from an overhanging tree and biting into it.

  ‘The press,’ answered Milo simply. ‘I don’t need to tell either of you how they have been ever since we inherited Uncle Silas’s fortune; always printing stories about us, putting our pictures in the newspaper.’

  ‘They are ghastly,’ said Isabella, her face clouding with memories of her father’s painful visit. ‘Utter vultures!’

  ‘I don’t like the press any more than you do,’ said Adele. ‘But when three children inherit a fortune as large as Uncle Silas’s you cannot blame them for being interested. They are only doing their job.’

  ‘And for once I am grateful,’ said Milo with a smile. ‘One of the newspapers in Naples ran a story about me. You know, the usual – Poor Orphan Strikes it Rich. They included a picture of me with my parents taken just a few weeks before the volcano erupted. One of the doctors at the hospital saw the photograph and recognised my mother.’

  ‘Milo,’ said Adele carefully, ‘are you totally sure that she is your mother? The woman in the cottage looks so different from the photos I have seen of Aunt Helena.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Milo. ‘Crabb was the one who insisted on a DNA test. I gave him the sample he needed before he left for Naples. It was a match.’ He stopped, reaching down and picking up a strand of wild grass. ‘Sometimes when she is quiet and calm, she will look at me and for a second, just a moment, I see her and I think she sees me, too. Then it passes and the madness returns.’

  Suddenly Milo’s strange behaviour over the last months made sense to Adele – the sneaking around, the sudden disappearances, the dark moods, running through the old woods and refusing to say why he was there. All the fragments of the puzzle fell into place, including the most recent (and shocking).

  ‘You want to steal it for your mother, don’t you?’ said Adele as they passed the summerhouse. ‘The Panacea, I mean. You want . . . you want to cure her.’

  The boy nodded. ‘The doctors say there is no hope, that her madness is irreversible, but the Panacea is capable of curing any sickness.’ He looked at Adele, his eyes full of grim determination. ‘You fear what the Panacea does to the people who use it, but I fear what will become of my mother if she does not. I lost her four years ago and now I have found her . . . but in many ways she is still lost. I am not asking for your help, Adele, I just want you to understand why I have to do this.’

  Adele closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, then slowly released it. ‘That’s the problem,’ she said softly. ‘I do understand. If my father was gravely ill and I had a chance to restore him then I would grab it and not let go.’ As Adele spoke she was trying very hard not to think about the fact that apart from chasing a madman through the wild jungles of Budatta they were now adding plant smuggling to their list of impossible tasks. ‘If the Panacea is Aunt Helena’s only chance to get well, then that is what we must get for her.’

  Milo was shaking his head. ‘In Budatta the punishment for smuggling is death by guillotine. I cannot let you help me.’

  ‘You don’t have a choice,’ said Adele firmly. ‘We are in this thing together, Milo, all of us. That is what families are for.’

  ‘They are?’ said Isabella, nearly choking on a mouthful of peach. ‘Cousin, I want to help Aunt Helena as much as you do; the poor dear is nutty as a fruitcake. But surely some consideration must be given to your head? Remember, once it is cut off it cannot be reattached!’

  ‘If we are smart and careful we will not get caught,’ said Adele, determined to stay positive despite the prospect of decapitation. ‘If Captain Bloom managed to smuggle the Panacea out of Budatta, then so can we.’

  ‘It will be dangerous,’ admitted Milo.

  ‘Not to mention risky and impossible,’ added Isabella helpfully. She turned to Milo. ‘Cousin, how can you be so sure that the Panacea will help Aunt Helena?’

  The boy’s eyes lifted to the dark tower which still loomed over Sommerset like an albatross. ‘Uncle Silas told me.’

  ‘Well, of course he did!’ Isabella threw up her arms in exasperation. ‘So you are going to risk your neck on the advice of a ghost?’

  ‘I don’t have a choice, Isabella,’ said the boy. He was shaking his head, trying desperately to find the right words to explain the fire burning in his chest. In the end, he found only four. �
��She is my mother.’

  Isabella looked down at her cousin, his pale face so fierce and determined. He was such a strange little thing and yet . . . there was nothing strange about what he was trying to do. Aunt Helena was frightfully bonkers and her hair was a disaster – but she was his mother and he would walk to the ends of the world (or the heart of a jungle) to cure her. His love, Isabella realised, was that fierce.

  ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘if you are determined to do this then you will certainly need help. My help.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Adele, grabbing Isabella’s arm excitedly, ‘you’re coming with us?’

  ‘Well, of course I am,’ snapped Isabella.

  ‘But I thought you said –’

  ‘Cousin, you pay far too much attention to what people say! How could I let you go without me? Smuggling stolen property is awfully difficult – it takes the courage of a lion and the cunning of a fox.’ She shrugged. ‘Luckily I have both.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Adele as the clouds parted and the sun fell upon her freckled grin, ‘I believe you do.’

  Even Milo managed a crooked smile. ‘Thank you, Isabella.’

  ‘You are welcome.’ She pulled the bright red ribbon from her ponytail and let the dark tresses tumble down. ‘Thorn will be broken-hearted, of course, but I shall leave Florence with detailed instructions for his care. He has not eaten a crumb since the operation and I am beside myself with worry. The vet says it is because of the anaesthetic but I think Dr Mangrove’s nasty old hand has upset his delicate stomach. Do you remember last year at the Sommerset Charity Picnic when Thorn accidentally swallowed that silly woman’s poodle?’ She sighed dramatically. ‘The poor dear was off his food for days.’

  As they walked on a welcome silence nestled around the cousins, each of them lost to thoughts of the road ahead. They had a plane to catch and a valley to find and a villain to stop. Fear was the faint murmur of a passing breeze, whispering of murder and madness and a ghost who would not rest. The children quickened their steps, hurrying past the greenhouse and across the velvet lawn towards Sommerset House. They raced between beds of blossoming roses and were climbing the steps to the terrace when Aunt Rosemary emerged from the front door, pointing at her watch and urging them to hurry along.