“A face!” Miss Lindquist gasped. “I am seeing a face at the window, being pale and white and so terribly sad. It is being a young man’s face, a boy’s. So terribly, terribly sad.”
She dropped to her seat. I scurried around the table to fan her with my napkin.
Dash it all, I had neglected to warn Miss Lindquist about Drownded Ned and the Peckish Dead.
Laird Baird stalked across to the window. He declared there was no one there and drew the curtains together with a decisive swish.
Did I detect a tremor in his voice? Surely he had been in the area long enough to have heard the legend.
When Drownded Ned is sighted, the Peckish Dead are sure to follow...
His Lordship tugged the bell pull. Almost instantly, Berryman appeared. Whispered words buzzed between them. The butler nodded and clicked his heels together. He went around the room, drawing curtains and closing shutters.
A quietly insistent rain was hissing against the window panes. Thunder rolled in the distance. My blood ran cold. I did not want to face the Peckish Dead again.
Laird Baird opened a glass-fronted cabinet and armed himself with a hefty blunderbuss. Berryman returned with oil lanterns, just as a flash of lightning froze us all in momentary brightness and the electricity went out.
“Good man,” said Laird Baird, priming his weapon.
“Be excusing me,” said Miss Lindquist, “But I thought you are saying there is being no one out there.”
“That’s right,” Laird Baird continued his preparations. “No one is out there, my dear, but not nothing - if you take my meaning.”
Confusion clouded Connie’s countenance. I stood at her side and held her hand. Her fingers squeezed mine and I squeezed hers back.
While we still had fingers to squeeze.
“What is it?” Miss Lindquist began to panic. “What is it being?”
“It is being, Miss Lindquist,” Laird Baird brandished his blunderbuss at the curtains, “Nothing more than a bit of a local nuisance. Nothing to worry your pretty head about.”
The squeeze I gave Miss Lindquist’s hand indicated His Lordship’s words were not entirely true.
“Every once in a while, they crop up,” Laird Baird continued, “Although they seem to be cropping up with increased frequency these days. As I say, nothing to worry about. I find a quick blast scares them off. Also, I pepper my shot with salt - if that’s the right phrase. They don’t seem to like salt for some reason.”
“Who?” Miss Lindquist stamped her foot. “Who, be damning it, who?”
Laird Baird flattened his back against the wall between windows, gun at the ready.
“That wraith you saw is a kind of forerunner, a harbinger, if you will. Harmless enough. But when he comes, others follow.”
Miss Lindquist struggled to make sense of it all. “Other what? What is following this hamburger?”
Laird Baird laughed. “Hamburger! Very good, what! For they would make mincemeat of us all, given the chance. Which I am not going to give them, of course.”
A thud against the window shut him up. Even from across the room, I could see his weapon wobble. Miss Lindquist gasped and clung to my arm.
The second thud came from the next window, and the third from the third. They were moving around the exterior, those horrible, frightful children. Laird Baird trained his gun barrel on each window in turn.
And then silence.
We waited with bated breath.
“They are gone,” Laird Baird decreed, shouldering his firearm. Miss Lindquist looked to me; I shook my veiled head. I knew the Peckish Dead would never leave without claiming some morsel of human flesh.
A shiver ran through me - at the thought of those cannibalistic cadavers and also from a sensation of cold. And wet.
Water was pooling at our feet, streaming from the fireplace, pouring down the chimney, dousing the flames and filling the room with smoke. I tugged Miss Lindquist away as filthy, bandaged stumps of fingers appeared around the fireplace rim. She screamed.
A foot bound in rags dropped to the sodden ashes.
“They are coming down the chimney,” Miss Lindquist cried. Laird Baird swung around, levelling his gun. I pulled Miss Lindquist down to the soggy carpet as the old fool pulled his trigger. The gun jammed. Laird Baird cursed and tried again. A second failure. He jiggled the firing mechanism. The gun went off, blasting a corner off the dining table. Meanwhile, the Peckish Dead crawled from the chimney, spider-like in their progress. They stood up straight, bones popping, teeth clicking and their blank, boiled fish eyes staring.
Miss Lindquist shielded herself behind me. Laird Baird struggled with his gun, attempting to reload and fumbling everything.
They were of different heights, this quartet of once-boys. The ragged remnants of their clothes, fashioned in another era, were blackened and waterlogged. I remembered how they had all drowned, their desperate attempts to survive, to stave off starvation, ending in failure and this unnatural lust for blood. The tallest I took to be Rab, his blue lips curled in a snarl. The shortest must have been Wee Wullie; his hollow cheeks in shadow beneath the sharp edges of his cheekbones. This made the two middle-sized ones Stewie and the other one whose name eludes me - although which might be which I could not guess. It was not an occasion for formal introductions, you understand. An air of sorrow permeated from these unholy urchins and also a kind of feral alertness and animal hunger. Rab’s features flickered, assessing the situation with a snarl, which twitched into a malevolent grin as he realised his prey had shut itself in. His tongue, an engorged black slug, moved across his upper lip.
Miss Lindquist pressed her face against my shoulder. Frankly, I would not have cast her in the role of feeble female - and I’d be right. Her show of fear was all a ploy, a distraction. Her free hand coiled around, concealed behind my back. She snatched the salt cellar from the table and shook it at those dreadful apparitions.
The dead boys flinched, trying to dodge the specks. Then, as one, they stood straight and dusted their shoulders with their ruined hands. With evil enjoyment, they brushed off this - well - assault.
They took a step toward us; we backed away. They took a second step and so did we. They soon had us backed into a corner. Laird Baird squawked and hurled his useless weapon at them. It glanced off Rab’s shoulder - the boy didn’t seem to notice. The Peckish Dead continued to bear down on us, taking their time and clicking their teeth.
The smallest made a sudden lunge for His Lordship. Laird Baird screamed as the jaws closed around his little finger.
Omnomnomnomnom! came from Wee Wullie as the old man tried desperately to shake him off.
The door crashed open and in burst the butler - and also the cook and the gamekeeper. They shook sacks of salt over the undead ragamuffins, who recoiled with eldritch screeches. The unholy urchins backed away to the fireplace where they disappeared up the chimney, one by one, like messages being sucked up vacuum tubes.
Rab was the last to go. He gave us all a baleful stare and with one last angry shriek, shot up the chimney and out into the rain.
Berryman attended to His Lordship’s injury.
“We must count ourselves lucky,” opined Sally Forth, “To survive an attack of those wee bastards with only the loss of one tip.”
“Oh?” I said without thinking, “I thought they had just got his finger.”
All heads turned and I realised my error. Laird Baird blustered and steamed like a kettle.
“Annie Lindquist, my arse!” he boiled over in fury. “That’s that pervert, Hector Mortlake!”
Dash it all. The jig was up.
Chapter Fourteen
At least with the cat out of the bag and running amok among the pigeons, I was free to speak for myself. Not that Laird Baird was listening. He exploded in a tirade of abuse and inv
ective, which I took on the chin.
“Coming into a gentleman’s house as a transvestite!” he retched. “What perversion you had in mind for the sequel, I cannot begin to imagine!”
“Now, now, Your Lordship,” Miss Lindquist proffered a shot of whisky. “Mr Mortlake is having nothing in his mind.”
“Thanks for that,” I muttered.
“I am meaning nothing of that sort. He is here to be finding your grandson and my father.”
Laird Baird blinked. “My grandson is your father?”
“No, no; they are being two separate individuals but they have suffered the same fate. Together we can be working out something. Surely, the important thing right now is being the getting of our loved ones back.”
Laird Baird harrumphed. He tossed a whisky shot to the back of his throat and coughed.
“Well, my lord?” I extended a hand. He scowled at it.
“Put some decent clothes on first,” he snapped. He stormed from the room. Miss Lindquist smirked.
“I am thinking he is being so mad because he fancied you a little bit.”
“What? Don’t be ridic - Well, I suppose I do make quite an impression - only, please, Miss Lindquist, before anything else takes place, kindly help me out of this blasted corset.”
***
We reconvened in the extensive library. Berryman had loaned me his spare livery; Laird Baird eyed me with slightly diluted disdain, no doubt believing I was attired more in keeping with my station.
“So many books!” Miss Lindquist marvelled, somewhat redundantly.
“Only a few will be of use to us.” Laird Baird shuffled between the stacks. He retrieved a couple of volumes I recognised from mine and Cuthbert’s research, and a few more I did not.
“Be pardoning me for asking,” said Miss Lindquist as we followed the old man to a desk, “But why are you having so many books that are being about the very thing in which we are being interested?”
Laird Baird frowned while he distilled a question from her utterance.
“Yes, I suppose it is something of an arcane subject,” he conceded. “It has been my life’s study.” I swear the old man’s eyes began to water. “Ever since - ever since...” He choked on his words and flushed with embarrassment when he caught my eye.
“There was a time,” he composed himself, “When I was a young chap, much younger than you are now, and I too felt the pangs of love.”
Miss Lindquist and I exchanged glances. Laird Baird caught our looks.
“You might be wondering what that has to do with anything but I believe it may help with our calculations.”
“Go on,” said Miss Lindquist. She pulled out a chair. I remained standing; a decision I was soon to regret, for the old fellow didn’t half bang on a bit.
***
Merridew
When I was what the native speakers around these parts would call a ‘wee boy’, I attended the little school down in the village. The establishment was an indulgence of my father’s, a kind of patronising, philanthropic gesture. In reality I believe he was trying to ensure that the next generation of tenants in the crofts on his land were at least halfway literate. I was sent there, I suspect, to see if my father’s money was being well spent, and it was my sorry lot in life to endure complementary tuition every evening at the feet of my governess, the formidable Miss Trout.
All that is background to the crux of my tale. One afternoon - I must have been seven or eight years old at the time, if you can imagine such a thing - I was late home from school. There was no particular reason for it; I was merely dawdling along. Lollygagging, you might say. Footling about. Idling away the time. I was reluctant to get to Miss Trout’s lessons, which seemed to consist of knocking the local accent out of me. I was beaten as soundly as a rug, infested as I was with the vowel sounds and cadences of my classmates.
But never mind any of that.
There I was, as I say, ambling through the valley, absently admiring nature’s beauty in small details: the hairs on a thistle, the splash of heather across the grass - when my eye fell upon a circle in the sward. The grass was of a darker colour describing the circumference and the blades seemed to be growing in a different direction to the rest. I knew what it was at once.
A fairy ring!
The schoolmistress, Miss Gander, had warned us of these things, declaring them to be as deadly as a body of water that has a kelpie in it.
Naturally, as a seven-year-old boy, I was thrilled to bits to find such a phenomenon but the teacher’s words echoed in my mind. I must not set foot in it or dire consequences would befall me and it would be my own stupid fault.
In the interests of science, namely to see what would happen, I scoured around for a pebble to toss into the centre of the ring. I was not a bad shot and quite the champion hopscotch player in the school’s tiny yard.
Nothing happened.
My little stone just sat where it landed, exactly as one would expect.
After five minutes of watching, I gave up and turned my back, resuming my homeward course. I had not gone more than a dozen steps when I was struck on the back of the head by a stone - my stone! I wheeled around but could see no assailant. The circle in the grass lay empty.
A chill ran through me and I was covered in goose pimples from the crown to the toe, as though I had very recently been plucked. An icy breeze curled around my bare knees, tugging at the kilt I was obliged to wear. On that breeze, or in it, for aught I could tell, came girlish laughter. I spun around again.
“Who’s there?” I stammered, my throat suddenly dry.
The breeze stopped. I stood stock still, too terrified to move or to run away.
“Show yourself!” I commanded, doing my best to sound as fearsome as Miss Trout.
The breeze whooshed around me; I tried to swat it away like a swarm of midges. The air shimmered. A twisting column filled the fairy ring and a figure appeared - the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.
My height she was, but her slender, elongated limbs made her seem taller. Her hair was green as luscious grass and bedecked with garlands of daisies. Her skin was pale. Opalescent, you might say, and her eyes were large, like perfect emeralds. Her garments seemed to be fashioned from mist sewn together with cobwebs and studded with dewdrops.
This beautiful creature giggled and my head swam and my heart swam and my entire being was giddy with bliss.
If you have ever been in love, you will have some slight inkling of what I experienced. I was a seven-year-old boy - what did I know of falling in love? Now, at ten times that age, I am not sure I know any more on that subject than I did then.
But I knew, deep in the core of my soul, I loved her and I always would.
“I am called Merridew,” she said without speaking. “What be you?”
“I’m Jonathan,” I somehow managed to get out - or perhaps she plucked it from my head like one of her daisies from a meadow.
“Shall we play?” she smiled and all my insides melted like butter yielding to a heated knife.
We chased around the valley and rolled down the slopes. We paddled in the burbling brook and hopped from stone to stone. We blew dandelion clocks and made wishes - until a cold thought struck me: I must have been gone for hours. Miss Trout would have reported my absence. Father would be both worried and furious. He would have men out searching for me, beating the bushes as though I were a recalcitrant grouse.
“I have to go,” I announced, and we were both flooded with sorrow. “But I’ll come again tomorrow.”
“Aye,” said Merridew sadly. “If tomorrow comes. You must tell no one about me, or you will see me no more for as long as you live.”
She stepped into the fairy ring and vanished. I thought I caught a glimpse of gossamer wings at her shoulder blades but too soon the vision was g
one, evaporated and lost, like the sudden awakening from a delicious dream.
I ran home at full pelt, as though that would diminish the punishment I had coming. Miss Trout was waiting for me on the front steps. How hideous she was in comparison with my new friend - my new love!
“You are just in time,” she declared. She marched off to the classroom. Puzzled, I checked the hall clock. I was only ten minutes behind my usual homecoming. How odd!
Needless to say, I took in nothing of Miss Trout’s lessons that evening. I have some vague memory of her rapping my knuckles with a ruler for something or other. Nor did I get any sleep that night as I relived the afternoon I had spent with Merridew and I anticipated, with unbearable eagerness, seeing her again the following day.
How the time dragged! And how I longed to tell someone - anyone! - about my fairy friend. But she had told me not to and so I did not.
Well, not directly, anyway.
The last hour of the school day was given over to drawing. Miss Gander doled out coloured chalks for our slates and we were instructed to depict our favourite flowers. Which seven-year-old boy does not have a favourite flower? All of them, I imagine.
I lost myself in that hour, the chalks skidding and smudging across the slate until its entire surface was covered. Miss Gander, touring the room to inspect our efforts, took up my slate and frowned.
“Jonathan Baird, what is this?”
It was my turn to frown. “Do ye no like it, Miss Gander?” How Miss Trout would thrash me for that!
“It’s - it’s - beautiful!” the teacher gasped. “But it’s no exactly what I asked ye to do.”
She showed me my own drawing.
The face of Merridew smiled at me from the slate.
“It’s just lovely. And the detail! And technique - how did ye-”
But Miss Gander’s questions were drowned out by a chant that arose from the other bairns.
“Bairdie’s got a girlfriend! Bairdie’s got a girlfriend!” they repeated, to my vexation, embarrassment and mounting fury. I snatched back the slate and, with tears springing from my eyes, erased the picture with my sleeve.
Beware The Peckish Dead! Page 12