by D. A. Nelson
“Take us to Oban, and don’t spare the horses!” said Bertie.
The conductor saluted, pressed some buttons and with a few puffs, the train began to chug forward.
“Wait for us!” Shona shouted as she and Aldiss tried to clamber on board.
As the locomotive rolled forward, Shona grabbed Aldiss by the tail and tossed him on board. Squealing, the rat sailed through the air and landed with a bump. Shona swung herself on board just as the train plowed into the tunnel.
“Whooo-hooo, this is fun!” squeaked Aldiss as he poked his head over the side, his ears streaming behind him.
“Fun, he says,” spat Henry. “I’m glad someone’s enjoying themselves. I wonder if Montgomery is having fun wherever he is. I very much doubt it.”
Morag said nothing, but her stomach churned as she thought of what might have happened to him. She could only hope that now that they were moving they still had time to save him.
8
On and on the train sped, flying down the long dark tunnels of Marnoch Mor’s Secret Underground. Hours passed and soon the friends grew bored. It would not have been so bad had the steam engine been pulling a comfortable carriage. Without one they had to ride in the engine room. It was cold, it was chokingly dirty and it was uncomfortable. Most of all, it seemed as if their journey would never end.
Sick of the smell of coal-smoke, Morag sat sullenly on the cold metal floor, thinking of Montgomery. She was wrapped against the chill in her red duffle coat and had tucked a blanket—courtesy of Bertie’s bag—tightly around her legs. Aldiss, always hungry, had ordered a plate of cheese and grapes from the satchel and sat munching them nearby. He offered to share, but Morag waved him away, explaining that she was too worried to eat anything. The dodo, fascinated by the train, stood at the Instant Driver’s side marveling at everything he did.
Up on the bunker, out of view and stretched over a knobbly pile of coal, Shona tried to plan what they would do when they arrived at Oban. They would have to find Kyle the Fisherman again. He was the only friendly human able to take them to Murst. Her stomach lurched when she thought of her homeland. She was the last dragon to be hatched and raised on the DarkIsle and she loved it still, but could not bear thinking of it under the control of the evil forces of Murst Castle. There was another problem: how to get onto the island without being seen. The DarkIsle rose out of the sea on a bed of perilous cliffs, with only one safe bay for boats to dock—and that was overlooked by Murst Castle. The only other way onto the island was to climb the rock face on the western side, something the dragon was not keen on trying.
“That’s a bridge we’ll have to cross when we get to it,” she said to herself as she shifted to get comfortable.
“Did you say something, lizard?” a little tinny voice asked. It was Henry. He was snuggled up against the cold inside Morag’s coat.
“Nothing that would interest you,” Shona replied sniffily.
“You said it,” the medallion retorted.
The dragon was about to say something back, when she was distracted by the train slowing down. It climbed up and out of the tunnel into the fresh open air and slowed to a halt at a familiar station. Morag scrambled to her feet as the arches of McCaig’s Tower, a folly on a hill in Oban, came into view. Unaccustomed to the daylight after hours in the dark, she scrunched up her eyes to see the little building before them. The station sat in the middle of the folly and looked just as it had when she had first seen it less than three months before: a small, redbrick building with decorative wooden struts and a cheerfully smoking chimney pot. It was like seeing an old friend again.
“Time to get off,” she called to the others as the Flying Horse came to a hissing stop at the platform. As she leapt from the train, a large European Eagle Owl in a dark blue stationmaster’s uniform hurried over, blowing a silver whistle. On his lapel was a name badge that said Mr. Mozart. He peered at the girl with his huge orange eyes before launching into a torrent of angry words.
“You can’t leave that train here,” the owl shrieked. “I’m expecting the three-fifteen at any moment and your vehicle is taking up valuable track space. Move it along now. Shoooo!”
“But we’ve only just arrived,” protested Morag, taken aback by the owl’s bad manners.
“We didn’t mean to take up your space,” said Bertie. “We’ll move our train right now.”
“See that you dooooo,” snapped the owl before turning round and marching back to his office.
“Well,” said Shona, “he needs to learn some manners. Don’t worry, Morag, I’ll get the driver to move the Horse right now.”
But Morag wasn’t listening. A crumpled piece of paper lying on the grass nearby had caught her eye. She knew what it was even before she scooped it up and unfolded it. Staring back was an old picture of her in her school uniform above the words:
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?
Still missing: Morag MacTavish
Much-loved foster daughter of
Moira and Jermy Stoker.
Substantial reward offered for any
information leading to her return.
Moira and Jermy were supposed to be Morag’s guardians but they had made her cook and clean and shop and wait on them from morning until night every day. If she hadn’t come across Bertie and Aldiss, who had taken a wrong turn and ended up in their basement, she would still be trapped with them. She had thought they were gone from her life forever, but now she knew they were still looking for her. That was not good. She felt sick.
“The Instant Driver is backing the train out now,” said Shona. “So there shouldn’t be any more problems.… Morag? Are you all right?”
“It’s them,” she said, pointing to the poster. “Moira and Jermy. They’re still after me. Oh, Shona, what if they’re here, watching me right now?”
“Oh, they’ll never find you,” the dragon said. “How could they? They don’t even know you’re here.”
But Morag was not so sure. “Why are they still looking for me?” she said. “They didn’t have a kind word for me when I lived with them and now they’re offering a reward!” She knew they hadn’t cared for her, so why were they making such an effort to find her?
Bertie, who had noticed Shona and Morag looking at the poster, tapped Morag on the shoulder and said: “Rest assured, Morag, we rescued you from them before and we’re not about to let them steal you back. Now let’s be off down to the harbor. We have to find Kyle.”
The climb down from McCaig’s Tower wasn’t as treacherous as it had been the last time they were here. Then they had been forced to negotiate the steep path in the dark, but now, in the wintery light of late afternoon, it didn’t take them long to stumble down the hillside.
Thinking there might be prying eyes around, Morag ran ahead and kept a lookout for other humans. Aldiss, however, with his nose twitching in the cold winter air, sought a different foe. He sniffed and snorted for the telltale stench of Klapp demons: the ugly, hairy, stinking spies of Mephista. With their long arms and legs and strong fingers and toes, Klapp demons got about by clinging to the undersides of cars and other vehicles. They were the something you saw out of the corner of your eye, or the horrible smell that came from nowhere.
“Do you think Kyle will be here?” Morag asked Shona as they reached the bottom of the hill.
“I hope so,” sighed the dragon. “There’s no way to reach Murst without him.”
When they reached the road, Morag told Shona and Bertie that they had to part, at least for a short time. “A dragon and a dodo can’t walk around a human town,” she explained. “There’d be uproar, and we can’t risk you being captured. Aldiss and I will go and find Kyle. You two hide.”
Bertie and Shona agreed to stay in the woods nearby until Morag returned. A couple of months earlier, they were welcomed not far away at Eleanor’s Excellent Eatery, where anyone from Marnoch Mor could go without drawing attention to themselves. But Eleanor had sold Morag to slave traders from Murst and tried to kill
Shona, Bertie and Aldiss with a potion. The plan had backfired when Shona swatted the potion away with a tray and it bounced back to the witch and killed her instead. There was no way they could return there, so they were forced to hide in the woods.
As Shona hunkered down into a patch of cold ferns with Bertie beside her, Morag scooped Aldiss up, placing him on her shoulder, and waved to her friends. “We’ll be back as soon as we can,” she called.
The walk down to the harbor took less than half an hour. It was beginning to get dark, the sky turning gray and menacing, with a dampness in the air that warned of a storm. The streets were deserted as Morag walked toward the sea; only an elderly couple and their little dog braved the cold afternoon for a jaunt down the high street. They seemed not to notice Morag and the rat on her shoulder. Not that Morag minded; she was relieved no one had stopped her or asked her what they were doing there. The Missing Person poster had jangled her nerves, and she was terrified she would be recognized and returned to the Stokers’ dingy guesthouse on Irvine Beach.
At the harbor wall, Morag and Aldiss stopped and scanned along the line of fishing boats bobbing gently in the water.
“I can’t see Kyle,” Morag said. “And his boat’s not here either. The Sea Kelpie’s not here.”
“Let’s split up and search for him. With your eyes and my nose we’re bound to find him,” Aldiss suggested. Morag nodded. The rat scuttled off in one direction while Morag went in the other.
It only took minutes to confirm that the boat was definitely not there.
“What are we going to do now?” Morag cried. “If Kyle’s gone there’s no way to Murst. And if there’s no way to Murst, there’s no way to rescue Montgomery.”
Aldiss sat down on the freezing cold flagstones and shook his whiskers. He too was feeling dejected. Neither of them—nor even Henry, who was still tucked inside Morag’s coat—noticed a tall, dark man approach.
“And what are you two doing here?” said the gruff voice.
“What’s it to you?” Aldiss answered rudely.
Morag looked up as the stranger began to laugh. “Kyle!” she cried. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. We thought you weren’t here.”
“Well,” said the fisherman, scratching his head, “if I’m not here, I must be a ghost.” He patted himself as if checking to make sure he was real. “Nope, I’m definitely here.”
Morag ran to hug him.
“Hoi!” called a tinny voice from inside her duffle coat. “Watch it! You’re squashing me.”
“Is that Henry I hear?” asked the fisherman with a grin.
Morag nodded and pulled the medallion out. Henry’s gold face was furrowed into a scowl as he looked at his friends laughing. “I’m almost pure gold, you know,” he snapped, “which means I’m easily bent out of shape.”
“I’m sorry, Henry,” said Morag softly. “I’m just so pleased to see Kyle again.”
“So,” said Kyle, “what brings you back to Oban?”
As Morag and Aldiss told him the terrible things that had happened in Marnoch Mor and how they suspected Montgomery was being held on Murst, he stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“The Kelpie is moored in a cove a few miles north,” he told them. “It won’t take long to get up there in a taxi.”
“There’s only one problem,” said Morag. “How are we going to get Shona and Bertie there without anyone seeing them?”
“It won’t be too long before the light starts to fade,” Kyle said. “In which case I think I might just have a plan.”
Shona and Bertie were hiding behind a large hedge when the others found them. The dragon was shivering and the dodo’s feathers were puffed up against the bitter winter cold.
The fisherman’s plan was simple: he would walk on ahead and if he saw anyone coming he would wave his scarf to alert them. Morag was to walk with Shona, Bertie and Aldiss and keep an eye out for any cars or individuals approaching from behind. It was getting dark now, Kyle said, so it would be easier to get them to the boat unnoticed.
“It’s also starting to rain,” the cold dragon chittered. “Can’t we get going now? I’m freezing.”
The journey to the outskirts of town should have taken no more than ten minutes, but because Shona and Bertie had to dive into the undergrowth every time someone passed, it took over half an hour. They broke into a run when they reached a road without bushes or trees that turned out of town and headed north.
Night closed in around them. As the streetlamps blinked on, eerie shadows were sent across the pavement. People turned on their house lights and drew their curtains, making Morag wish she were back home in Marnoch Mor. She pulled up her hood as the rain began to lash down.
“How much farther?” Bertie complained. His claws were aching and he was tired of flapping into ditches or behind damp patches of ferns.
“I’m n-not sure,” Morag stuttered. “Kyle said the Kelpie was nearby.”
“Yes, but what’s Kyle’s definition of ‘nearby’?” Henry asked from under her coat.
“In no time we’ll be safe and dry on the Sea Kelpie and on our way to Montgomery,” she told them.
Just then she heard Aldiss squeaking in fright. Morag looked up to see Kyle running back toward them. He looked panicked. Realizing something had gone wrong, Morag acted fast.
“Hide! Quickly!” she instructed her friends.
Shona and Bertie dove into a small copse of trees just as the headlights of a large white van came into view.
“It’s the police …,” Kyle panted.
The van drew up beside them. A policeman slid out and put on his hat. He strode purposefully toward them. “It’s a bit of a nasty night to be out with a young child, don’t you think?” he asked Kyle.
“Yes, Officer,” the fisherman replied. “That’s why me and my … er … daughter here are heading back to the boat. Don’t want to keep her out too long in this. She’ll catch a cold.”
The policeman stared intently at Morag. She looked away, afraid to catch his eye. What if he recognized her and forced her to go back to Jermy and Moira’s?
“So where are you headed?” the policeman asked. “I can’t see any boat.” He searched the dark horizon of the sea as if expecting to see the Kelpie bobbing up and down there.
“It’s moored a little way up the road,” Kyle answered, pointing in the direction the policeman had come.
The policeman nodded. “Can I offer you a lift?” he asked. “I wouldn’t want your daughter here to get any wetter.”
“No!” said Morag too quickly. Kyle threw her a warning glance. The speed of her answer had been suspicious.
“What she means,” he said with a smile, “is ‘no thank you.’ We’d rather walk. We’ve … er … got this bet on, you see, that she’ll get there before me. It’s a game we play.”
The policeman eyed them both warily. “All right,” he said, “but mind and go straight home. There’s supposed to be a storm tonight.”
“Thank you, Officer, we will,” Kyle replied. “Come on, Morag, let’s get you home.”
The policeman flinched when he heard Morag’s name, but said nothing as they headed up the road in the direction of the cove where the Sea Kelpie was moored. Morag turned round a few times to see if he was still watching them. Eventually, she saw him head back to his van. “Good, he’s going,” she said to Kyle, who also turned to look.
“No, he’s not,” the fisherman said.
“What?”
The policeman was standing at the door of his vehicle talking into his radio. His eyes never left them.
“Kyle,” Morag said, stomach knotting with fear, “I think he knows who I am.”
“Don’t be silly,” he replied. “How could he know that?”
“Because Jermy and Moira are still looking for me,” she began. “For some reason, they want me back, and I don’t think they’ll stop till they find me. If they’ve told the police I’m missing or that I’ve been kidnapped, we could both be in a lot of trou
ble.”
Kyle knew by her worried expression that she was telling the truth.
“Keep walking,” he said, “we might just get away with it.”
“What about Shona and Bertie?” a muffled voice sounded from beneath Morag’s coat. The girl unbuttoned her duffle coat and pulled Henry out. “We can’t leave them in the undergrowth,” the medallion continued.
“They’ll have to hide until the policeman leaves,” said Kyle. “We’ll come back for them later. Right now, we have to get Morag out of here. Come on, run!”
Without looking back, the pair broke into a run, but just as they were about to turn the first corner they heard a shout behind them.
“Hoi! You two! Come back here, I want a word with you!” the policeman bellowed.
“Keep going. Pretend you don’t hear him,” Kyle whispered to the terrified girl.
“Hoi!” the policeman called again.
They heard the engine start, the gears squeal and the van roar toward them. It stopped with a screech about a meter in front of them. The policeman jumped out, angry now. “Did you two not hear me?” he demanded.
“Sorry, Officer, is something wrong?” Kyle asked innocently. “We were in too much of a hurry to get home.”
As the rain continued to pour, the policeman glared at Kyle.
“I can see why you were in a hurry,” he said. He pulled a crumpled paper out of a pocket and looked at it. Then he stared at Morag.
“Aren’t you Morag MacTavish? Missing from Stoker’s Bed and Breakfast, Irvine Beach, North Ayrshire?”
9
Morag didn’t know what to say.
“I … eh …,” she stuttered.
“No, she’s not,” replied Kyle sharply. “I told you before: she’s my daughter and we need to get home.”
“You won’t be going anywhere, I’m afraid, sir. I’d like you both to come back to the station with me,” the policeman said firmly. “Then we’ll find out exactly who she is. Come on, in the van with both of you.”