by James Erith
‘Clever of you to know all that,’ Old Man Wood said, encouragingly. ‘Then, perhaps it’s time for another one—’
‘If we don’t fail,’ Archie added.
‘Yes. Something like that,’ Old Man Wood said. He stood up and piled the plates together, the candlelight accentuating the grim reality and faces of the siblings. Then he opened the door to the range cooker where the embers sat like small duvets of ash over glowing bodies and added a couple of logs. The children’s eyes followed him as he went about his business as though he were a kind of pet alien; freaky, yet all theirs.
‘Well now,’ the old man said as he sat down again and looked up at the kitchen clock. ‘Best get off to bed. There’s a busy day ahead finding these tablets and it’s already near enough eleven.’
‘Shouldn’t we be searching for them right now? Archie said. ‘If it’s so important, we don’t have a moment to lose. Daisy, you thought there were seven days in which to do this ... I think I can remember the poem:
‘You have but seven days and seven nights
‘As Earth moves in its cycle
‘From first lightning strike and thunderclap
‘A world awaits your arrival.
‘How long is it since that first lightning bolt?’ He rubbed his strange hair in recollection of the event which birthed his spikes. ‘Three days ... four?’
Daisy screwed up her face as she attempted to recall the days and nights, counting them off on her fingers. ‘After tonight, I reckon there are three days left.’
‘Over half way already,’ Archie said, flatly. ‘And, so far, all we’ve managed to do is pretty much destroy the house, get on the “international missing persons” list, start a Biblical storm, lose three of the animals and set off a global plague—’
‘And we only have one tablet.’
‘Yes. Is that good, or bad?’
‘Shocking,’ Daisy said. ‘And we don’t even know what the other riddles mean.’
Old Man Wood pointed towards Isabella whose forehead lay neatly perched on the table, her hair folding down in front. ‘You won’t be getting much joy from clever-clogs over there.’
As he said it, Isabella stirred, yawned and moved her head so that it lay on her forearm. ‘I’m still awake,’ she murmured, ‘listening to your incredibly interesting conversation.’ She yawned. ‘And by the way, if there are any tablets that need finding up by the ruin, count me out. I would rather the world slips to a miserable end than scout around up there again.’
‘Thanks for your huge support, as always, Bells,’ Daisy said, yawning. ‘I’m going to bed. Coming?’
The other two stood up.
Daisy hugged Old Man Wood. ‘Are you going to bed too?’
‘No, my dear littluns.’ he said, ‘there are a few things I still need to find out.’
‘Like what?’ Archie said.
‘Like what the poems on the rugs are all about. Since I have no idea what Blabisterberry Jelly means, or where we’ll find it, I guess I’m going to have to do some rooting around.’ He smiled broadly. ‘Before you head upstairs, does anyone know what happened to those poems Archie wrote down?’
Archie sighed. ‘They’re somewhere next door, probably ripped to bits when we found the tablet. I’ll go and find them.’
Daisy laughed, thinking what a terrible state the room was in. ‘Wait for me, Arch,’ she said. ‘I’ll lend you a hand, they could be anywhere.’
NINETY-THREE
MEMORIES RETURN
Isabella reluctantly stood up and, with leaden feet, followed Archie, Daisy and Old Man Wood into the dark living room where the embers of the fire glowed like dulled molten gold. After watching them poke and prod at the debris in the candlelight, turning over bits of paper here, shuffling others there, Isabella’s impatience got the better of her. ‘Oh, come on! You’re all being completely hopeless,’ she roared.
‘Stand back, please, and leave it to the pro.’
They backed away and in a matter of moments Isabella’s body flashed from one side to the other, up and down the room, her hands shooting here and there collecting up sheets of paper, her feet moving like a blur, her fingers shuffling through the slips of torn paper. When she slowed, she held a large, stacked pile of paper with, at the very top, the sections that made up the strange poems.
‘How-the-hell-did-you-do-that?!’ Archie said, wide-eyed in shock.
‘Easy,’ she replied.
Daisy shook her head. ‘You know, Isabella, you’re really taking organisation to a scary level.’
Isabella cuffed her on the arm. ‘On the day of the storm,’ she began, ‘when I woke up, my feet and hands ached for hours.’ She held them up. ‘I know I can heal and protect with my hands, like I did with Old Man Wood, but sometimes my feet move as if they’re jet-propelled, I’ve been zooming about – when I ran back from the ruin I wasn’t even out of breath.’
‘We noticed,’ Archie said drolly. ‘Daisy has always been faster than you.’
‘Well, not anymore!’ Isabella said, her eyes twinkling. ‘And the rest you know about.’ She drew in a large, satisfied breath. ‘It does seem to work better when I concentrate—’
‘Same with mine,’ Daisy said. ‘Though my things are not only seeing kind of weird stuff but hearing it too. You won’t believe the odd sounds I hear.’
She caught Archie’s eye. ‘For example, there’s some kind of watercourse underneath the house. I bet you didn’t know there’s a noise dripping away, did you? And mice all over the place nattering away all the time. They are sooo dull—’
Isabella, Archie and Old Man Wood looked at Daisy with increased fascination.
Archie looked her hard in the eye. ‘You mentioned it at the ruin. Read the poem, Bells!’ he demanded. ‘It’s the third one, I think.’
Isabella obliged.
‘The third you search is underneath your nose.
‘It’s clear, pure and cold.
‘In order to draw it out
‘You need to send a rose.’
‘I thought it was: clear, pure and warm, like snot,’ Archie said. ‘Clear, pure and cold has to be water.’
‘It’s coming from under the house,’ Daisy said. ‘Drip, drip, dripping-away.’
Old Man Wood suddenly became agitated. ‘By all the apples!’ he said springing out of his chair.
DOFF!
Old Man Wood’s bald head walloped a low beam and the noise echoed around the room.
‘OW!’ Old Man Wood howled. ‘OW, damnable beams!’ he rubbed his bald, moon-scaped pate. ‘Always thought I’d built the bleedin’ house too low!’
He sank down cautiously into the armchair, blinking and screwing up his face and rubbing his head like mad.
‘I hope it won’t muddle him up again,’ Isabella whispered to Archie.
‘Hmmm,’ Old Man Wood eventually muttered and the children collectively breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I’m sure there was once a well in the middle of the house, and if I’m not mistaken there was also, secretly, a tunnel connecting the ruin to this house, which many, many moons ago was a popular inn. You wouldn’t believe how different it was...’
‘Do you have architectural plans tucked away in your cellar?’ Archie asked. ‘I mean, you said you’d rebuilt it about thirty times. You must know the layouts like the back of your hand.’
Old Man Wood thought for a while. ‘I can’t remember ... oooh ... no. It’s been so long, you can’t conceive how long, that I’ve been waiting for all this to happen. So even though I now remember where I come from, which, I suppose, is soldered into my brain, there’s an awful lot in-between which is a blur.’
He noted their disappointed faces.
‘There was a time, several hundred years ago, when I thought it was time to return to the Garden, but it was a false alarm – even the Universe gets it wrong from time to time,’ he smiled at the thought. ‘Thinking that my reason for being had passed, memories started to ebb away, like the tide, I suppose. There’s a massiv
e amount that I don’t think I’ll ever get back, but the tide is rushing in again, faster than a galloping horse.’
Old Man Wood smiled kindly. ‘We’re just going to have to work it out together. If it’s any help, I’m sure there was a network of cellar rooms underneath the ruin – like a labyrinth, I suppose. I got lost there for a couple of weeks once upon a time. Most unpleasant it was too, so I haven’t been there much recently.’
‘When was that?’ Archie asked.
‘Oooh now. Let me think. Probably a few centuries ago. Back in the ...’ He counted several hundred on his hand. ‘About the mid seventeen-hundreds.’
The children looked at each other, dumbfounded, trying to get their heads around this vast stretch of time. A couple of days with Auntie Spoon felt like a few hundred years, so goodness knows how it must feel to be so old.
‘Before Australia was discovered?’ Isabella pressed.
‘Hmmm, well, yes I suppose it is rather a long time for you little things to contemplate. Now, you must have heard about them Aboriginal peoples. Most interesting bunch and they’ve been there a long time—’
‘I know we need to find the well and the tablets and all that stuff,’ Daisy interrupted, ‘but is the Q’ash Warshbit a real thing, did it actually exist?’ she asked. ‘Were those stories about Iso that you told us in front of the fire, actually true?’
‘Oh yes! Most definitely, all those stories really happened. One day you might actually meet Iso – she’s out there somewhere, I’m sure of it. You never know—’
‘Please!’ Isabella roared, giving Daisy a hard stare. ‘Would you two be quiet for a moment! How are we going to find the dripping water?’
Old Man Wood paced around the room for a few minutes, alternatively rubbing his chin and his head, and humming to himself. Finally he sat down in his armchair and sighed.
‘I think, my little ones, we may have to go up to the ruin and find those old cellars.’
Isabella groaned. ‘But what about the “thing” we heard at the ruin?’
‘Well, you and your MAGIC powers should be able to sort it out,’ Archie said, sarcastically. He appeared disappointed that he seemed to have missed out on the wider, perhaps cooler, distribution of gifts.
The girls looked away, embarrassed.
Old Man Wood leaned in, his brow deeply ridged. ‘What kind of thing are you talking about?’ he asked.
Daisy started to recall how they had heard a strange cough and an evil bark and how, just as the bell had rung, Archie had idiotically jumped out and found nothing there. ‘And on the way back we bumped into Mrs. Pye.’
‘Are you quite sure the noise wasn’t Mrs. Pye?’ Isabella said.
Archie burst out laughing. ‘Mrs. Pye it definitely wasn’t. She’s more like a strange looking angel than a monster – isn’t that right, Old Man Wood?’
Old Man Wood looked shaken, his face pale and withdrawn. He waved a hand in the air.
Isabella rolled her eyes. ‘You know perfectly well that monsters don’t exist here in Yorkshire.’
‘Are you absolutely sure about that, sis?’ Archie said. ‘Coz the panels on the bed didn’t really exist, did they?’
Daisy caught his eye. ‘Nor the exploding toadstools,’ Daisy added, ‘and the tablet coming out of the fire was pretty imaginary.’
Archie clapped her on the back. ‘Come on Bells! Anything is possible. Don’t you understand; our dreams – these strange events – are leading us to this Garden of Eden place. We’re inexplicably linked to it, and nothing can stop it.’
Isabella looked crestfallen. ‘Look, I know, alright. But if we have to find one of the tablets at the ruin, I’m not going.’
Old Man Wood noticed her anxiety and draped an arm around her shoulders. ‘Bells, together we’ll be fine, I’m reckoning. Nothing like a good night’s sleep to stamp out your worries.’
‘Are you sure we shouldn’t start right away?’ Archie said, persisting.
‘No. We have to find Blabisterberry Jelly next,’ Old Man Wood began. ‘My friends, the willows, may just have the information we need. I’ll head down there shortly. Tomorrow will be quite a day so I suggest you grab every moment of sleep you can.’
Archie nodded. ‘So that’s it then,’ he said firmly. ‘Tomorrow, at dawn, we find Blabisterberry Jelly,’ he said, looking at the poem as though it would be dead easy. ‘Let’s meet at six for breakfast.’
NINETY-FOUR
THE TRUTH OF KEMP’S MOTHER
‘As I said,’ Cain began, ‘I am simply telling you the truth. That woman is your mother.’
‘Then take me to her,’ Kemp demanded, ‘this minute. We’ll settle it once and for all.’
Cain was beginning to regret ever having mentioned the boy’s mother. The ghost hovered away and let the overcoat slip to the floor. A body of dust puffed up and the specks played briefly in the light as tiny particles of glitter.
‘What benefit will it be for anyone?’ Cain said. ‘The woman will not see you as her son as much as you do not wish to take her as your mother. Why complicate? Why muddy the waters? What can you possibly gain?’
‘If you’re saying Mrs. Pye’s my mother, fine, let’s go and ask her. If she denies it then I know you’ve been lying,’ Kemp said. ‘If she says that she is, then so be it. But if you’re telling me lies, I will never go with you again.’
‘You are not listening,’ Cain responded, angrily. ‘Of course she will deny it. She will deny ever knowing you because she doesn’t know you exist, boy. Then what? Would you like me to present a fake, to make you feel better? So you can live out your fantasy of having a mother?’
Kemp didn’t have an answer, but something troubled him. ‘Why won’t she remember me?’ he said, staring at the floor.
‘When your father died,’ Cain said, as a brilliant idea popped into his mind, ‘your mother escaped the accident, but not without terrible injuries. Because of them, she has no recollection of anything before that time. What I am about to tell you may be hard to stomach.’
‘Go on,’ Kemp said.
‘You might think this is not possible, but it is,’ Cain began earnestly, ‘the old de Lowe helper—’
‘Old Man Wood?’
Invisible to the boy, Cain beamed. ‘Yes, I believe that is what they call him. He found her and seeing her broken took her back to the de Lowe cottage to care for her. But as he attempted to heal her, that old man did a terrible thing. I’m afraid, boy, that what you’re about to hear won’t be easy to digest.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Your father’s ghost told me this, so it must be true.’ Cain grinned and thumped the air.
Kemp prickled. ‘What did my father tell you?’ he said, quietly.
‘That Old Man Wood, for reasons I expect of pure bloodiness, cut into her head with a large, sharp knife and removed a section of her brain, a piece of her memory.’
Kemp’s eyes bulged. Then a shadow of doubt passed over his face. ‘I never thought the old man was the blood-thirsty type,’ he said. ‘Always seemed as soft as putty to me.’
Cain responded swiftly. ‘One of the biggest lessons I can give you is that there’s always, always, more to people than meets the eye. Take me, for example. At first you found me reprehensible and vile, didn’t you? And with good reason.’
Kemp nodded, slowly.
‘And now we’re quite the best of friends, aren’t we? You’re learning fast, boy. I’ve heard stories about that old man from various ghostly friends of mine and I’m told that he harbours a terrible past—’
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely! Of bloodletting and gore. Unmentionable cruelty. There’s little doubt that the old man thinks nothing of cold-blooded murder.’
‘Old man whatshisface? Are you sure?’
‘When I heard he was in charge of the Heirs of Eden, I wondered for the safety of those poor de Lowe children.’ Cain wondered if he’d gone too far.
‘Have no fear though, boy. You are with m
e now, and safe enough. I will take you to your mother. But do not say later that you did not heed my warnings.’
Kemp sat deep in thought, twisting a knife around his fingers. ‘I think I need to get it over with,’ he said at length. ‘I need to know, one way or another.’
‘Very well,’ Cain said. ‘In the morning, at first light on Earth, I will summon Asgard. He must sacrifice two of his dreamspinners for us to travel there and back. They will need forewarning.’
Cain called into the air, ‘Dreamspinner, dreamspinner, dreamspinner.’
Seconds later a tiny flash was followed by an opaque, white, almost arachnid creature, with blue electric pulses flashing in a hole in its abdomen, standing in mid air.
‘Asgard, tomorrow at first light I must honour my promise to the boy. We go to find his mother at Eden Cottage. Can you give us transport within your brethren?’
Asgard tapped the air beneath him. ‘There are many who are old and would rather die than see the demise of the dreamspinners. They are yours, for now. But be warned, Cain. Genesis, our mother, has returned from her self-imposed exile. She draws many dreamspinners to her. Even those who are old.’
Cain smiled. ‘But as we know, Asgard, there are but three days left to open the Garden of Eden. The Heirs have but one tablet. The task is beyond them and all the while the Earth cries out of its own accord.’
Asgard stared at Cain, the dreamspinner’s three black eyes boring into the ghost. ‘I will be here just before dawn for your trip to Earth.’ And in the next moment, he had vanished.
Cain turned to Kemp, who was cramming a chocolate-coated strawberry tartlet into his mouth. ‘Now, rest, boy. Tomorrow you will discover the truth and it may not taste quite as sweet.’
NINETY-FIVE
GUS ESCAPES