by E. G. Foley
But unfortunately, they were too late.
Awful sounds echoed out of the chamber at the bottom of the mine. Bloodcurdling screams, ferocious snarls.
And a low, sinister laugh that grew and grew, until it reverberated throughout the hollow stone chamber.
“FREE! Free at last! Feed, my children, and I shall do the same.”
With that, a mysterious black vapor that seemed no more than a puff of smoke floated up from the skeleton’s ring and headed for the hole the men had blasted in the wall. It whooshed out of the chamber into the mining tunnel beyond, then headed for the world above.
The hated world of light, and happy living things.
CHAPTER ONE
Welcome to Wales
Two Days Later
It is a well-known fact that too many hours of travel can make a person silly. Especially if he is twelve and confined in a vehicle with three of his closest friends, one dog, and of course, his pet Gryphon.
Thus, it was not surprising that after the past couple of days—including five carriage changes, a long steam-train ride chugging over the border from England into Wales, and their present slow, plodding slog, rumbling along in the coach sent from Jake’s Welsh estate in the mountains of Snowdonia to collect them—the passengers were very silly indeed.
Boisterous laughter and the clamor of four young friends in a state of merriment came from inside the heavy coach winding its way up a hill through the forest.
When the coach abruptly stopped, however, so did all the noise.
“Hoy! Shush, you lot!” ordered Jake, the twelve-year-old in question. “Why are we stopping?”
“Are we there?” a piping voice exclaimed.
“Dunno! Let’s see.”
Four young faces, still shining with humor, promptly peered through the windows of the sturdy coach to find it had just emerged from the jewel-toned autumn woods.
Now they were surrounded by broad open fields, beyond which lay breathtaking valleys and misty mountain vistas. But when the high-spirited travelers saw what had halted their progress up the road, their eager smiles faded.
“Well, that’s grim,” declared Archie, Jake’s cousin, the boy genius, age eleven.
The two girls, Dani and Isabelle, exchanged a startled glance. Then they, too, stared at the ominous scene ahead.
A long, elaborate funeral procession was crossing the road in front of them, making its way toward the nearby cemetery that covered the bleak brow of a windy hill.
Hundreds of people dressed in black marched slowly on foot all around the coal-black hearse, a solemn, stately carriage drawn by four black horses with ebony plumes on their heads.
Under the cloudy October sky, the slow-moving funeral procession inched by in morbid quiet. Professional hired keeners followed the coffins, moaning and wailing in sorrow. Some slowly beat funeral drums.
Unsmiling men in top hats walked by with clusters of crying women, their faces hidden by long black veils. In this sea of midnight, only the priest had some white on, his long cassock flapping in the breeze like a shroud.
“Gracious, I wonder what’s happened,” murmured Isabelle, Archie’s sister. She was the eldest, at fourteen.
“Derek will find out.” Jake nodded through the window at their escort on this journey, Guardian Derek Stone.
Even now, the big, dark-haired warrior rode his powerful black horse ahead, reining in at the edge of the funeral parade. He dismounted and took off his hat in a show of respect for the dead.
Meanwhile, Miss Helena, their half-French governess, looked on from her perch up on the driver’s seat of the carriage, where she had fled when the children had grown sillier than she could stand.
To be sure, the grim sight before them quickly put a damper on their fun, especially when still more hearses came into view as the procession moved along.
“Sweet Bacon!” Archie murmured. “One, two, three—four coffins! What the deuce do you suppose happened here?”
“I hope there isn’t a fever in the town.” Dani O’Dell hugged her little brown Norwich terrier a bit closer. Teddy went everywhere with her, even on holiday.
As for his own pet, Jake quickly turned to his Gryphon. The lion-sized beast was lying peaceably on his belly in the center of the carriage between the children’s seats, his scarlet wings folded against his sides.
“Stay down, Red.” Jake threw his discarded greatcoat over the Gryphon’s feathered head, hiding at least part of his large, unusual pet from the hundreds of people streaming past. “Sorry, boy,” he added when a low, indignant “caw” came from underneath his coat. “You know we can’t let you be seen.”
With Red safely hidden, Jake rose from his seat and opened the door, leaning out with one foot braced on the metal carriage step. The brisk wind riffled through his dark blond forelock as he scanned their surroundings.
Hmm. On the hill opposite the cemetery stood a decidedly spooky-looking, old institution building. With its redbrick towers, it was designed to look like a castle, but to him, it looked more like a jail. Or maybe a madhouse. A wrought-iron fence wrapped around the property, with tall gates closed across the entrance to the long drive that led up to the place. Then Jake spotted the sign planted outside the gates: The Harris Mine School.
Well, that explained the presence of the few dozen children he now noticed milling around up by the building. The students must have been at recess, but most had stopped playing and stood motionless, watching the funeral procession in silence.
It was odd to see so many kids in one place and yet hear so little noise, he mused. Then a robed figure caught his eye, walking back and forth along the school’s porch—a teacher or headmaster in long black robes and a tasseled cap. He seemed to be in charge.
But when the teacher suddenly dissolved into thin air, Jake’s eyebrows shot up. Oh, a ghost.
Right. First one he’d seen today. He had had his abilities for six months now; seeing spirits rarely startled him anymore. Still, he couldn’t help but smile wryly to himself. Those kids must love going to a haunted school, he thought. But although the headmaster ghost was his first apparition of the day, it wouldn’t be his last.
Across the way, scores of them were floating around the cemetery—transparent, bluish versions of who they had been in life. It was a busy day up there, all right.
At least a dozen spirits wandered among the headstones. Some sat idly on their gravestones, chatting as they leaned against Celtic crosses or sculpted stone angels while they watched the living crowd into the cemetery to bury the new arrivals.
It wasn’t as though they had much else to do.
For a moment, Jake watched a couple of child ghosts chasing each other in circles around one of the fancy white marble mausoleums where the richer folk were laid to rest.
As he scanned the row of miniature mansions for the dead, he barely noticed the little gargoyle statue peering down from atop the roof of one, watching the proceedings with a sinister grin.
Or maybe he had just imagined it, because when he looked again, it was gone.
Jake frowned, ducked his head back into the carriage, and sat down in his seat again.
Archie was right. This was an altogether grim way to start a holiday.
They had been so jolly a moment ago, but now a vague, creepy feeling had silenced all four. Of course, the grand funeral was a tad depressing, but it was more than that.
Something just felt…off.
An ominous undercurrent of something very wrong in this place.
He conceded, however, that it could be just his own private dread of their upcoming tour of the goldmine that he (a former pickpocket, of all people!) had inherited from his parents.
He looked askance at Isabelle.
Unusual talents ran in their family, and if the eerie atmosphere around here—the presence of evil he felt—was real, then surely his cousin the empath would sense it, too.
Instead, her delicate face betrayed the fact that all the sadness at the funer
al was starting to affect her sensitive soul like a contagion. Her porcelain-doll complexion looked even paler than usual; her golden curls drooped with sorrow that did not quite belong to her.
Jake realized she was picking up on the grief of all those hundreds of mourners. We need to get her out of here, he thought, but the road ahead was still clogged.
He gave her a light, fond kick from across the carriage to distract her. “Hey! Come back to us, Izzy. They’re them, you’re you. Now block out their emotions like Aunt Ramona taught you.”
“Easy for you to say,” she mumbled.
Dani put her arm around the older girl’s shoulders and Archie, sitting beside Jake, pulled faces at his sister until she finally smiled.
When the whole funeral procession had finally crowded into the cemetery for the burial and the road was clear once more, Derek swung back up onto his horse and trotted over, coming alongside the carriage.
“Everyone ready to move on?” he rumbled, skimming the four of them with his usual protective glance.
“More than ready. What happened?” Jake asked, while Archie helpfully pulled the coat off the Gryphon’s head. Red snuffled and shook himself, happy to be rid of it.
“Some sort of accident at the Harris Coalmine,” the fierce-eyed warrior said.
Isabelle flinched at this news and turned her morose stare out the window.
Archie shook his head sagely. “Dangerous business, mining. Explosive gases, cave-ins, collapses. Long hours, fires, floods in the tunnels. Dangerous machines. Fantastic machines, of course,” he added with a grin, “but dangerous.”
“Did you say Harris?” Jake asked, trying not to ponder the list of underground dangers Archie had just rattled off, for they only intensified the, er, slight phobia he already had about descending into the mine. “That’s the same name as that school over there. Which is haunted, by the way.”
Derek glanced in the direction Jake had nodded and saw the sign by the wrought-iron fence. “Must be a Company school, for the miners’ children.”
“How much farther, Derek?” Dani asked wistfully, petting Teddy on her lap. The little brown terrier wagged his tail as if he, too, couldn’t wait to get out of the coach.
Derek squinted toward the road. He alone of their party had been to Plas-y-Fforest before, the Everton family’s Welsh cottage, having come here on holiday long ago with Jake’s father when the two were only boys themselves.
“No more than twenty minutes, I should think. Good thing, too.” He glanced at the sun to judge the hour. “We don’t want to be late for our tour. The dwarves are a prompt people. They’ll be offended if we’re late. Best get moving.”
So, they did, and as usual, Derek was right.
Only another two more miles up and down the winding country road, the coachman turned in at a narrow dirt driveway that disappeared up into the woods. Beside the drive entrance sat a quaint, old, mossy sign that read: Plas-y-Fforest.
Which, in Welsh, meant Mansion in the Forest—so Jake had been told.
Up the long, bumpy drive the horses climbed, passing through a deep, mysterious pine wood that Jake was sure was full of magic. He could feel it in the air and could almost swear he saw some tiny people in the trees. Not fairies—about that size, but no wings or sparkly trails, and clad in bits of leather and colorful autumn leaves.
He pointed them out, but the others didn’t look fast enough to see.
The tiny people followed, spying on them and running atop the branches to keep up with the carriage.
Hmm! I wonder what they are, Jake thought, but they couldn’t be anything dangerous. His ancestors had protected all three thousand acres of their land here centuries ago with countless magical spells.
Plas-y-Fforest was a very special place in Everton family history, which was why they had come. As the long-lost heir of the Griffon earldom and the family fortune, Jake still had much to learn about his heritage.
At last, near the top of the mountain, they reached a clearing where his ancestors’ rambling old holiday cottage came into sight.
As the carriage rolled to a halt in front of it, the children stared in delight. The sun had come back out; the sky was blue again; the earlier gloom and the sinister feeling up by the cemetery were forgotten.
For there in the sunny clearing before them, hidden among the woods, sat a large medieval cottage right out of a storybook—a wonderful old hodgepodge of gray stone sections, haphazardly joined, and seemingly held together by nothing but the climbing roses and dark green ivy that grew up its sides.
It had banks of narrow mullioned windows, some with colored glass, and a funny little arched doorway at the entrance. A dozen chimneypots poked up from the steep slate roof; gables peered out in all directions like watchful eyes.
Jake loved the place on sight. Despite having “Mansion” in its name, Plas-y-Fforest was not at all grand and imposing, like Everton House in London, but cozy and quirky, and full of nooks and crannies that the children suddenly couldn’t wait to explore.
They burst out of the coach, freed at last from the stifling confinement of their journey. Teddy dove out, barking, and started running around in circles.
Red leaped out of the carriage and soared skyward to stretch his wings with a few minutes of much-needed flying.
Perhaps the Welsh-born beast also wanted a moment alone to reacquaint himself with his homeland.
Meanwhile, Derek dismounted from his horse and went to hand Miss Helena down from the driver’s box.
At that moment, the cottage door banged open and out rushed a little human whirlwind.
Well, maybe not human, exactly, Jake thought.
“Welcome, oh, welcome, lords and ladies! Guardian Stone, so good to see you again! Welcome, children, oh, do please, all of you, come in, come in! Snowdrop Fingle at your service!”
Snowdrop Fingle was no taller than the children and bore a strong resemblance, Jake thought, to a cheery little hedgehog, with shiny dark eyes, slight sideburns, and pointy ears sticking out from beneath her white house cap.
She wore an apron over her plain cotton work dress; the dress hung to her ankles, revealing her odd bare feet.
The feet seemed just a bit too large for such a diminutive woman: strong, callused feet with slight fuzz growing on them.
Dani elbowed Jake. “Quit staring,” she whispered.
Derek did the introductions. “Children, Mr. and Mrs. Fingle have been the faithful caretaker couple here at Plas-y-Fforest for many years.”
The coachman tipped his hat as he jumped down from the carriage and started getting their luggage.
“And if I may say so,” Derek added, “your family is very lucky to have them, Jake. One house brownie can do the work of twenty servants, but you’re blessed with two.”
“Oh, Guardian Stone, such flattery!” The small, hairy she-brownie tittered nervously as she stood by, waiting to hold the door for everyone.
Jake was astonished. House brownies?
He had thought the Welsh driver was merely a short man rather in need of a shave. It was only when Mr. Fingle’s top hat slipped that his pointy ears popped out from beneath the brim.
“Well, dash my wig,” said Jake, but the Fingles were just as mystified by him.
“Sweet bees’ wings,” Snowdrop fairly whispered, “is this the young master who was missing all those years? Oh, but it must be! He looks just like his father.”
“Doesn’t he, though?” Derek agreed with a smile.
Jake swelled with pride, though he felt a bit self-conscious. She took a step toward him. “Welcome to your little Welsh cottage in the woods, Lord Griffon. My Nimbus and I, we do our best to keep it perfect for you at all times. If there’s anything you want changed now that you’re the new owner, you have only to let us know. The same goes for all your guests. House brownies live to make their masters comfortable.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Fingle, you’re very kind,” Jake answered.
“Welcome to you all,” she added,
beaming at the others. But when Red landed in their midst, the little house brownie gasped.
“Crafanc!” Snowdrop cried.
“Huh?” Jake said.
She forgot all about the rest of them and went running to throw her arms around the Gryphon’s neck. “Oh, my most noble Lord Crafanc! How marvelous to see you again after all this time!”
Red hugged her back with his front lion-paw.
Apparently, they were already well acquainted, but Jake was puzzled. “Why’d you call him that?”
Snowdrop released the Gryphon and wiped away a tear of joy. “Because it is his name, of course, my lord! Crafanc-y-Gwrool.”
“Really?” Jake exclaimed, astonished. “I always just called him Red. Or Big Red.”
“Well, he does seem to like that, too,” Snowdrop admitted. “But his real name, his old name, his Welsh name, his royal name, is Crafanc-y-Gwrool. Claw the Courageous,” she translated in a reverent tone.
“Claw the Courageous?” Jake echoed, impressed, as were they all. “Well, that certainly suits you, boy.”
The Gryphon snuffled through his sharp golden beak as though making light of his own magnificence, then fluffed out the scarlet feathers of his mane in kingly fashion and prowled off to the cottage.
He pushed the front door open with his beak and went strolling in like he owned the place—and for all Jake knew, maybe he did. The Evertons would still be peasant farmers if it weren’t for the gratitude of a gryphon long ago.
“Is anyone hungry?” Snowdrop asked brightly. “How about some nice warm bannock cakes with honey?”
That got them moving.
Inside, the pokey old house had low, plaster ceilings crisscrossed with dark, heavy, wooden beams in the old medieval style. Underfoot, the ancient flagstone floors were uneven, tilting this way and that, and the sconces on the walls were for ordinary candles; Plas-y-Fforest had never been updated with gaslamps and probably never would.
While Mr. Nimbus Fingle carried in their traveling trunks far faster than would have been humanly possible, Snowdrop showed them around the cottage. She pointed the way to the bedchambers upstairs, where the children chose their rooms for the trip.