The Dead World of Lanthorne Ghules

by Gerald Killingworth

  Edwin refused to look impressed. For one thing, it wasn’t Trunke’s own money, and for another, he was wearing Edwin’s watch.

  “He’s a good man, my Trunke is. That’s why he’s my favourite grandchild. He’s not exactly cheerful, but who is these days? What possessed you to run away from him? And fancy stealing his hansomme, when he was taking such good care of you.”

  “Fancy eating people!” Edwin raised his voice at her. “He drives customers to that place for their Special Menu.”

  “Yes, I’ve told him it isn’t nice,” said Nanna Bowle, as if they were talking about Trunke biting his nails. “He doesn’t partake himself. At least, not for years. Old habits die hard. I’m sure you find that in your world too. I’ve never tasted the Special Menu myself, and how many people can claim that?”

  “I don’t know what stories Swarme told you about me,” Trunke interrupted, “but you were fools to listen to him. Look where it landed you! You could be home now, if you’d trusted me. As it is, I only arrived this afternoon.”

  “Now then, Trunkie, let’s not dwell on past things,” his grandmother told him. “They’ve been silly and ungrateful, because they’re only young. I’m sure you’ve done things you’re sorry for.”

  “And I’m sure I haven’t,” he said. “I’ll get my own hansomme from Necra’s tomorrow and then take them back to Landarn. I’m handing them over to Jugge as soon as I get there. The hansomme I hired will have to stay here until I can make arrangements. They’ve caused difficulties for everyone.”

  “I said now then, Trunke. If we’re just going to get cross, we should go to bed and sleep it off. We’ll keep the arrangements until tomorrow. Although… I’ve got some lovely treats for Nollig Day. What about a titbit or two before you go to bed, Lanthorne?”

  Lanthorne looked eagerly at Edwin. He was very tempted.

  “Don’t mind me,” said Edwin.

  “We’ll go into the kitchen,” Nanna Bowle told Lanthorne, “and Trunke can put down something for you to sleep on.”

  “I’m not their servant,” Trunke said roughly.

  “No, dear, but for the moment you’re mine. Now be a good man and you shall have some Nollig treats too.”

  “Mandoline’s sleeping next to me,” Edwin announced. He went into the kitchen to fetch her, while Trunke collected their bedding. It consisted of a number of large, flat cushions and a pile of blankets, which he simply tossed onto the floor. He was about to douse the fire with a jug of water when Edwin stopped him.

  “Nanna Bowle insisted my sister has to be kept warm all night, so we need the fire,” he said.

  Trunke grunted. He was obviously still keen to pour the water on the fire, but he wasn’t prepared to disobey his grandmother. “I’m blowing out two of those candles, anyway,” he said. “They’re making my eyes sore.”

  “Thank you for coming after us,” Edwin said. “What Swarme told us was very believable.”

  “And what I told you wasn’t?”

  Edwin had no answer to that, so he set about constructing beds for himself and Lanthorne. When Trunke left to enjoy the Nollig treats in the kitchen, Edwin put his sister on the floor next to him and said a very quiet, “Good night. Sleep tight.” He would have kissed her if he thought he could get away with it.

  Sometime later, Edwin heard Lanthorne slip into the second makeshift bed.

  “Was the food good?” he asked.

  “Delicious. We had…”

  “No need to tell me.” He didn’t want a good night’s sleep ruined.

  Edwin slept so soundly that Lanthorne had to wake him the next morning. Mandoline’s basket had already been whisked away, which annoyed him. He should be the one making decisions about where she went, not them. She would have been reassured, and friendlier, if he had been the one chatting to her when she woke up, and they had to go and spoil it by taking over. He dressed quickly and made his way to the kitchen. Lanthorne had already breakfasted but he kept Edwin company at the table.

  Nanna Bowle said, “We’ve all eaten our fill. So has your sister. She seems to like it here.”

  Edwin made a non-committal noise. He was given a cup of the tea that was now three days old, a wizened apple and a piece of bread spread with butter that had an aftertaste.

  “You won’t like the jam, Edwin,” Lanthorne warned him. He accepted the advice.

  “Trunke’s outside, having a word with his animal,” Nanna Bowle told them. “He doesn’t like the way it answers back. Now, I need to tidy up in here and you boys need to put your beds away. You don’t mind if I keep Mandoline with me so I’ve got someone to talk to, do you?”

  Edwin did mind, but he was gracious. He made a point of saying a few silly things to his sister—so that she remembered he was the most important person in her life at the moment, not a grey old lady—and then he accompanied Lanthorne back to the main room.

  “Did you have a nice chat with Trunke over breakfast?” Edwin asked as he folded up his blankets.

  “Trunke doesn’t chat. He only shouts and threatens. He says he’s going to do things to Swarme when he meets him again.”

  “I’ll help him, in that case.”

  “Help Swarme?”

  Edwin laughed. “No, help Trunke.”

  “Edwin, he’s my brother.”

  “And he thought what Limbe was going to do to me was funny!”

  They piled their bedding in a corner. Someone had added a couple of miserable pieces of wood to the fire while Edwin was asleep, and it was just about alive. Edwin looked around him.

  “I know Nanna Bowle’s doing her best,” he said, “but I don’t want to spend Christmas here.”

  “I wish you could spend Nollig with my family, Edwin. We’d have so much fun together.”

  “I can’t do that. My parents need to have Mandoline and me home for Christmas. We’ll eat a turkey straight out of the oven, not one we cooked in September.”

  Lanthorne chuckled. “You Shiners and your unripe food.”

  “Yes, we’re a strange lot,” said Edwin. “We scrape mould off our food. You spoon it on like chutney.”

  “I really have enjoyed meeting you, Edwin. I’ll never have a better friend. I know we’re going to be in touch always.” He was clearly waiting for Edwin to say the same sort of thing back, and his face fell when Edwin remained silent. Edwin was afraid that if he said something like, “Yes, let’s meet up again,” no matter how insincere it was, the doors might be listening and spitefully decide to make it happen.

  “I’ve got a Nollig present for you,” he said instead.

  The disappointment which had threatened to make Lanthorne’s face even greyer disappeared at once.

  “A Nollig present! Where did you get it?”

  “It isn’t an it. I’ve actually got two. I’ve had them with me all the time, but I’ve only just realized I was meant to give them to you. One you’ll like and the other you might not.”

  Edwin took his coat from the back of the chair, it was slightly drier now, and put a hand in each pocket. At first he couldn’t feel anything. He pushed his hands into the pockets again. He couldn’t believe they were both empty. Surely Trunke hadn’t sneaked into the room during the night, gone through his pockets, found the penknife and lighter and stolen them? Edwin wanted to run straight into the kitchen and denounce Trunke to his doting grandmother. His fingers stabbed down into the pockets several more times.

  “What’s the matter, Edwin?”

  “It’s all right. For a moment I thought I’d lost them, but my coat was so wet the bottoms of the pockets had stuck together and buried them.”

  He took out the penknife and lighter.

  “These are your Nollig presents. Happy Christmas and Nollig, Lanthorne. I wish I could wrap them in Father Christmas paper and put them in a stocking, but I don’t expect you go in for that. A penknife’s always useful, and this,” he ignited the lighter and made Lanthorne jump backwards, “well, you’ve seen it before. You never know, there may come a
time when you need to set fire to something—the whole of Morting, for example.”

  “They must have cost your family so much money, Edwin,” said Lanthorne, as if a lump of precious metal had been placed in his hand.

  “They’re just ordinary things that I want you to have. It’s only friendship that makes them valuable.”

  “I’ll try really hard to find something to set fire to,” Lanthorne promised. “You’ll be proud of me.” He was still looking in awe at his two Nollig presents when Trunke banged into the room.

  “Nanna wants you in the kitchen,” Trunke said. “It’s time to discuss things.”

  Lanthorne suddenly jerked his head up, as if there were something of interest directly behind Trunke. Trunke wasn’t distracted and he didn’t turn round. He watched Lanthorne slide Edwin’s gifts into the pockets of his shorts, storing the information for later.

  Here we go again, Edwin thought. It was into the kitchen, out of the kitchen, into the main room, out of the main room. Why couldn’t he and Mandoline just leave, without having to hold a conference on it? He put on his anorak, hoping it was a powerful enough hint that they shouldn’t waste any time before setting off.

  Nanna Bowle was sitting at the kitchen table with Mandoline, awake and interested, in her basket beside her.

  “All the best decisions are made sitting around a table,” said Nanna Bowle. “Take your seats, please.”

  Edwin and Lanthorne sat next to each other on one side of the table, facing Trunke. Edwin couldn’t understand why Nanna Bowle was acting as if there was something to discuss. All that had to happen was for Trunke to retrieve his hansomme, tell Auntie Necra and Swarme where to get off, assuming they were still alive, and then they would head for Landarn and Jugge as fast as the nagge could be made to go. With no overnight stop at the inne serving Special Menu.

  Edwin looked out of the window. Snow was still falling, drifts of grey covering everything in sight. Nothing sparkled. It turned the whole world into some region of hell where the fires have temporarily gone out.

  Trunke twisted round in his seat and followed Edwin’s gaze out of the window.

  “We’ll never get a hansomme through this snow,” he said. “Mine or the hired one. So don’t get your hopes up about leaving any time soon.” He seemed to enjoy giving this disheartening news.

  “But you said…” Edwin cried out.

  “I never said we’d leave in weather like this. The snow will soon be up to the nagge’s belly, and I promise you she’s really nasty when she’s uncomfortable. No, it’s here we’ll stay till the sun comes out. Could be ages.”

  You love rubbing it in, Edwin thought. He hated Trunke more than ever. “If we set off straight away, couldn’t we beat the snow?”

  “No,” replied Trunke and Nanna Bowle in unison.

  “What about finding a door in Morting? That would mean there’d be no need to travel at all.” The panic in his voice was so pronounced it even communicated itself to Mandoline, who started to grizzle.

  “I’ve never heard of anyone opening a door in Morting,” said Nanna Bowle, “and I’ve lived here all my life. I’m going to finish my days here as well, so Lanthorne’s Auntie Necra and her ‘Old Timers’ can put that in their toilette room and roll in it. Pardon my language.”

  Lanthorne sniggered, but stopped immediately when Edwin shot him a look.

  “Couldn’t I at least go round your house opening every door until I find one that lets us through? It worked when I did it in Jugge’s house.”

  “You’re welcome to try that, dear, but I don’t expect it will do a bit of good,” replied Nanna Bowle. “Morting’s just not that sort of place. It’ll be nice to have a house full of people for Nollig. I haven’t had that for years. I don’t know where I’ll find enough unripe food this late, though.”

  Nollig. Christmas. Edwin had lost track of how near to the 25th of December they were. If neither he nor Mandoline were at home on Christmas Day, his parents would have the worst time imaginable, staring at two piles of presents and thinking about their son and daughter who had disappeared.

  There was a sound outside.

  “There he is again,” said Nanna Bowle. She got up and went over to the window.

  “He and she,” said Lanthorne. “It’s both. It likes us to remember.”

  “They look very cold. Shall I let them in?”

  “Yes please,” said Lanthorne. “It’s my snarghe, Edwin. It’s followed us here.”

  That meant something had happened over at Auntie Necra’s house. Possibly the snarghe had eaten everyone. Edwin wasn’t too bothered if that was the case.

  Nanna Bowle opened the back door and the snarghe rushed in. At the same time, something else rushed out. There was a streak of green. A long streak of green.

  “There goes the jiggle,” said Nanna Bowle. “We won’t see him for the rest of the day. Not with a snarghe in the house.”

  Edwin could have done without the arrival of the snarghe and it bouncing around at his feet. It was an unwanted interruption when they needed to concentrate on finding him and Mandoline a door. Against his better judgement, he patted the nearest head. The second head shot him a hurt look so he had to pat that too.

  “Perhaps they’re hungry,” he said.

  The snarghe showed how much it agreed with this suggestion by putting out both tongues and swinging them backwards and forwards.

  “I expect I can find it a stalk or two in the bucket,” said Nanna Bowle. “They live on vegetables, you know, so, unless you’ve got a wooden nose, we’ll need to go next door.”

  “A wooden nose?”

  “Vegetables give them terrible wind. It’s why they don’t make very good pets.”

  These people ate food so ripe, the stink practically rendered you unconscious. If they found a snarghe smelly, Edwin was afraid Mandoline was in danger of being suffocated by one. He quickly gathered up her basket and returned to the fireside in the main room.

  A tiny thought was beginning to grow in his mind, and he wondered whether everyone else would laugh at him and think him off his head if he suggested it. They sat in the main room for a while, with their idle chat turning more and more to how they liked to spend Nollig. Even Trunke became a little sentimental. Edwin couldn’t let their talk of returning home end just yet.

  “Don’t laugh when I say this,” he began nervously. “When I wrote my first letter to Lanthorne, it was because I’d found a strange newspaper in an old house. It wasn’t like one of our newspapers. I mean, the advertisements were really peculiar, magicky.”

  “I was feeling a bit lonely, so I put an advertisement for a pen-friend in The Incredible Times,” said Lanthorne. “I never dreamt it would get through to Edwin’s world.”

  “That’s a newspaper for weirdos,” said Trunke. “You should stay well clear of it.”

  Edwin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Trunke’s own activities fitted every definition of weird you could possibly come up with!

  “Isn’t there a magic spell you can use to make a door?” Edwin asked.

  The other three looked at him in horror.

  “It’s very rude indeed to say things like that,” said Nanna Bowle stiffly. “I was just beginning to think you were a nice boy, despite your stealing Trunke’s hansomme. I hope you’re not accusing anyone here of casting spells.”

  Edwin couldn’t understand their reaction.

  “I’m going to check on the snarghe,” said Nanna Bowle. “I may have to leave the kitchen door open for a bit.”

  “Now look what you’ve done,” said Trunke, once his grandmother had left the room.

  “What exactly have I done?”

  “You suggested she might know spells,” Lanthorne said. “That was ever so impolite, Edwin. We don’t do spells nowadays. If we talk about them at school…”

  “I know. Your teacher hits you with a stick. I can’t understand it!”

  “People want to be modern.”

  “This world doesn’t
make sense! Nothing’s worse than eating rotten dead bodies.”

  They sat in silence for a while, then Edwin got up and ran round the entire house, opening every door he could find, including the cupboards and the door of the toilette room.

  He didn’t dare go into the kitchen, where Nanna Bowle had shut herself. Nothing happened when he opened the doors except that dust flew out of the cupboards, and in Nanna Bowle’s bedroom he caught sight of a gigantic pair of knickers draped over the end of the bed. This was the second time he’d run all over a stranger’s house, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  When he re-entered the main room, he gave the door a terrific slam behind him. The noise had the inevitable effect on Mandoline.

  “It didn’t work,” he said when he sat down.

  “I hope Nanna Bowle isn’t going to ask us to leave,” said Lanthorne. “We’ve nowhere to go.”

  “I’ll go and talk to her,” said Trunke. “She might need some persuading not to throw you out.”

  A whole hour later, Trunke and Nanna Bowle reappeared with very serious expressions on their faces. Edwin feared the worst. Perhaps he would need to take back the lighter from Lanthorne and threaten to set fire to Nanna Bowle’s furniture if she showed him and Lanthorne the door. He imagined she might take pity on Mandoline.

  “I’m willing to give it a try,” said Nanna Bowle. “I should warn you, I’m more than a bit rusty.”

  Lanthorne’s eyes were wide with shock. “A spell…” He gulped.

  “It seems to be the only way. I’ve had a little practice on the snarghe. Not to find it a door, of course, but to see if I could still call up the power. I don’t expect the creature will ever forgive me.”

  Tears filled Lanthorne’s eyes. “Did you hurt it badly?” he asked very softly.

  “No dear, though some spells have been known to make animals fall to pieces. This time the snarghe only rose up into the air and began to spin round so fast you wouldn’t believe it.”