The Deptford Mice 2: The Crystal Prison Read online

  Table of Contents

  THE MICE

  THE FENNYWOLDERS

  The Dark Portal

  Smoke Over Deptford

  1. The Summons

  2. Starwife

  3. The Bargain

  4. A Draught of Sunlight

  5. A Meeting at Midnight

  6. Fennywolde

  7. Hall of Corn

  8. The Voice

  9. Mould to Mould

  10. Midsummer’s Eve

  11. Magic and Murder

  12. Hunters in the Night

  13. A Witch and a Fool

  14. The Sacrifice

  Summer’s End

  Read an extract of The Final Reckoning

  THE DEPTFORD MICE

  THE CRYSTAL PRISON

  ROBIN JARVIS

  Acorn Independent Press

  Also by the Author

  Dancing Jax

  Dancing Jax 2: Freax and Rejex

  The Thorn Ogres of Hagwood

  THE DEPTFORD MICE

  The Crystal Prison

  The Final Reckoning

  THE DEPTFORD MOUSELETS

  Fleabee’s Fortune

  Whortle’s Hope

  THE DEPTFORD HISTORIES

  The Alchymist’s Cat

  The Oaken Throne

  Thomas

  TALES FROM THE WYRD MUSEUM

  The Woven Path

  The Raven’s Path

  The Fatal Strand

  THE WHITBY WITCHES

  The Whitby Witches

  A Warlock in Whitby

  The Whitby Child

  Visit the author’s website:

  www.robinjarvis.com

  Acorn Independent Press Ltd

  125 Clock House Road

  Beckenham

  Kent

  BR3 4JY

  First Published in Great Britain in 1989 by Macdonald & Company (Publishers) Ltd

  This edition published in Great Britain in 2012 by Acorn Independent Press Ltd

  The Author hereby asserts his moral rights to be identified as the Author of the Work.

  Copyright © Robin Jarvis 1989

  ISBN: 978-1-908318-77-0

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent, this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.robinjarvis.com

  www.acornindependentpress.com

  Robin Jarvis writes: ‘Whenever I am asked where I get my ideas for books and characters, I always wish I could come up with some weird and wonderful answer: “I dream them,” for example, or, “I get inspired whenever there’s a full moon.” But, unfortunately, neither of these is true. Like many writers, I sometimes base my characters on real people (or parts of real people) and sometimes they are the complete product of my imagination. But they generally all start as a sketch or drawing and then take shape as a character is developed around them.

  ‘I started making sketches of mice because they were the smallest things I could think of to draw. When I sent them to a publisher, I was asked if there was a story to go with the drawings. At the same time there wasn’t, but I sat down and thought of a project visually and drew a story board as though I were making a film. I had envisaged it as a picture book, but it became a 70,000 word manuscript, and the basis for The Dark Portal.

  ‘My editor thought this manuscript would make a trilogy because it was so long. So I went away and cut it, and then came up with new ideas for books two and three of The Deptford Mice Trilogy – The Crystal Prison and The Final Reckoning. And I’ve been writing ever since.

  ‘I can’t think of a better way to earn a living!’

  For the rest of my family, who now live

  without the light of my father

  THE MICE

  AUDREY BROWN

  Tends to dream. She likes to look her best and wears lace and ribbons. Audrey cannot hold her tongue in an argument, and often says more than she should.

  ARTHUR BROWN

  Fat and jolly, Arthur likes a scrap but always comes off worse.

  GWEN BROWN

  Gentle wife of Albert and caring mother of Arthur and Audrey. Her love of her family binds it together and keeps it strong.

  ARABEL CHITTER

  Silly old gossip who gets on the nerves of everyone in the Skirtings.

  OSWALD CHITTER

  Arabel’s son is an albino runt. Oswald is very weak and is not allowed to join in some of the rougher games.

  PICCADILLY

  A cheeky young mouse from the city, Piccadilly has no parents and is very independent.

  MADAME AKKIKUYU

  A black rat from Morocco. She used to tell fortunes until her mind was broken in the chamber of Jupiter.

  KEMPE

  A travelling trader mouse – he journeys far and wide selling his goods and singing lewd songs.

  THE STAR WIFE

  A venerable old squirrel who lives under the Greenwich Observatory. Her motives are good but her methods are cruel.

  THE FENNYWOLDERS

  WILLIAM SCUTTLE OR ‘TWIT’

  A simple fieldmouse who has been visiting his mother’s kin. Twit is a cheerful fieldmouse who looks on the bright side.

  ELIJAH AND GLADWIN SCUTTLE

  Twit’s parents, Gladwin is Mrs Chitter’s sister but ran away from Deptford when she was young after she found Elijah injured in the garden.

  ISAAC NETTLE

  A staunch Green Mouser. He is a bitter, grim figure but many of the fieldmice listen to his ravings.

  JENKIN NETTLE

  A jolly mouse who suffers at the paws of his father.

  ALISON SLEDGE

  A country beauty who flirts with all the boys. She is vain and loves to preen herself.

  YOUNG WHORTLE, SAMUEL GORSE, TODKIN, HODGE AND FIGGY BOTTOM

  Five young friends who delight in climbing the corn stems and seeking adventure.

  MAHOOT

  A wicked barn owl who loves mouse for supper.

  MR WOODRUFFE

  A very sensible mouse who has been elected to the honourable position of the King of the Field.

  NICODEMUS

  Mysterious spirit in the mouse mythology. He is the essence of all growing things whose power is greatest in the summer.

  The Dark Portal

  The Crystal Prison is the second book in the story of the Deptford Mice, which began with The Dark Portal. In Book One, Audrey and Arthur Brown, two innocent town mice, are drawn into the sewers beneath the streets of Deptford in search of Audrey’s mousebrass – a magical charm given to her by the Green Mouse, the mystical spirit of Spring. Deep within the underground tunnels, the two mice discover the nightmare realm of Jupiter, the unseen but terrifying lord of the rats.

  Audrey and Arthur are helped by a number of characters: Oswald, a sickly albino mouse often mistaken for a rat; Twit, Oswald’s cousin and a simple country mouse; Piccadilly, a cheeky young mouse from the city; and Madame Akkikuyu, a black rat who ekes out a living peddling potions and telling phoney fortunes.

  The Deptford Mice discover that Jupiter is concocting a terrible plan – to release the Black Death upon London once again. However, with the help of the Green Mouse, the mice confound Jupiter’s plot and lure him out of his lair. To their horror, they discover that Jupiter is not a rat at all, but a monstrous cat, grown bloated and evil by years of
hatred in the sewers.

  Audrey throws her mousebrass into Jupiter’s face; it explodes and sends the giant cat tumbling into the deep sewer water. As he struggles to save himself, the souls of his many victims rise out of the waves and drag him down to a watery death.

  Smoke Over Deptford

  It was a hot day in Deptford. A terrible stench hung over the housing estates, and increased as the sun rose higher in the sky. It was strongest on a building site near the river. There the air was thick and poisonous. The builders themselves choked and covered their faces with their handkerchiefs.

  At the edge of the site, next to the river wall was an untidy pile of yellowing newspapers. They lay in a mouldering heap amongst the loose bricks and spreading nettles. It was here that the stink began.

  One of the builders came trudging up, his worn, tough boots waded through the weeds and paused at the newspaper mound. A scuffed toe tentatively nudged some of them aside and a dark cloud of angry, buzzing flies flew out. Revealed beneath the papers was the rotting body of an horrific giant cat.

  Jupiter was dead. The evil lord of the rats had met his end weeks before in the deep, dark sewer water. His immense body had sunk to the muddy bottom, where underwater currents pulled and swayed his corpse this way and that. Slowly he rolled out of the altar chamber and through a submerged archway.

  Into the tunnels he had drifted, turning over and over in the water. One minute his grisly unseeing eyes would be staring at the arched ceiling above and the next glaring down into the cold dark depths. As he rolled over in this way his great jaws lolled open lending him the illusion of life. Like a snarling demon he turned. But he was dead. For some days Jupiter bobbed up and down in the sewer passages until stronger forces gripped him and suddenly, with a rush of water he was flushed out into the River Thames. The gulls and other birds left him well alone, and for a while all fish abandoned that stretch of the river.

  One night nature took a hand in ridding the river of the dreadful carcass. A terrible storm blew up: the wind and the rain lashed down from the sky, and the river became swollen and crashed against its walls with shuddering violence.

  On one such surging wave was the corpse of Jupiter, carried along until with a thundering smash the wave smote the wall and the cat’s body was hurled over on to the building site.

  The builder who had found him hurried away quickly, but soon returned dragging behind him a great shovel caked in cement. With a grunt he lifted the sagging corpse into the air. Jupiter’s massive claws dangled limply over the sides of the shovel and what was left of his striped ginger fur blazed ruddily in the sunlight.

  Surrounded by the thick buzzing cloud the builder stepped carefully over to the site bonfire and tossed Jupiter into its heart.

  The flames licked over the cat greedily. For a while the fire glowed purple and then with one final splutter there was nothing left of the once mighty lord of the sewers.

  Only a thick dark smoke which had risen from the flames remained, and this stayed hanging stubbornly in the air over Deptford for two days until a summer breeze blew it away on the third morning.

  1. The Summons

  Oswald was ill. As soon as the white mouse had returned from the sewers he had felt unwell. When the small group of mice who had confronted the terrifying Jupiter had emerged from the Grille and climbed the cellar steps, Oswald’s legs had given way and sturdy Thomas Triton had carried him the rest of the way. Although the albino coughed and spluttered no-one realised how serious his condition would become.

  For weeks he had stayed in bed. At first the mice thought he had merely caught a cold, and his mother Mrs Chitter had fussed and scolded him over it. But the cold did not improve and his lungs had become inflamed so that when he coughed the pain made him cry. Steadily he grew weaker. Mrs Chitter tended to him day and night, and made herself ill in the process, until she too became a poor reflection of what she had once been.

  Oswald’s father, Jacob Chitter, had moved his favourite chair into his son’s room next to his bed. He held his son’s paw throughout, shaking his head sadly. Oswald was slipping away; bit by painful bit the white mouse became more frail. Then one day Mrs Chitter could take no more. As she was carrying away the soup that Oswald had been unable to swallow the bowl fell from her paws and she fell heavily to the floor – soup and tears everywhere.

  From then on Gwen Brown took charge of Oswald and his mother whilst Twit the fieldmouse looked after his uncle, Mr Chitter.

  All was silent in the Skirtings. The empty old house was filled with quiet prayers for the Chitter family. All the mice helped as much as they could: those on the Landings forgot their snobbery and offered food and blankets. Gwen Brown’s own children Arthur and Audrey collected all the donations and messages of goodwill and it was the job of a grey mouse from the city called Piccadilly to keep everyone informed of Oswald’s condition.

  All the mice owed a great deal to this small group of friends. It was they who had finally rid them of the menace of Jupiter, and all their lives were now easier. No more did they have to dread the cellar and the strange Grille which was the entrance to the dark sinister rat world. All the cruel rats had been killed or scattered and a mouse could sleep soundly at night, fearing no sudden attacks or raids. Only the older mice still looked at the cellar doubtfully and would not pass beyond its great door.

  So, when they had been told of Jupiter’s fall – and when they finally believed it – there was tremendous excitement and they had cheered the brave deeds of these mice. But now the youngest of the heroes was dying.

  Piccadilly swept the hair out of his eyes and got out of bed. The sunlight shone on the city mouse and warmed him all over but he hardly noticed it. For the moment, he was sharing a room with Arthur, and Audrey was sleeping in her mother’s bed, as Gwen was at the Chitters’ all the time now.

  ‘Arthur,’ Piccadilly whispered to the snoring bundle, ‘wake up.’ He shook his friend gently.

  The plump mouse on the bed blinked and drew his paw over his eyes. ‘How is he?’ he asked directly.

  Piccadilly shook his head. ‘I’ve just got up – how was he last night when you left him?’

  ‘Bad!’ Arthur swung himself off the bed and stood in the sunlight as was his custom. He stared at the clear blue sky outside. ‘Mother doesn’t think it will be long now,’ he sighed and looked across to Piccadilly. ‘Will you stay here, afterwards?’

  The grey mouse sniffed a little. ‘No, I’ve made up my mind to stay just until . . .’ he coughed, ‘then I’m off – back to the city.’

  ‘We’ll miss you, you know,’ said Arthur. ‘I won’t know what to do around here when you’ve gone. I think Twit’s decided to leave as well . . . afterwards.’ Arthur turned back to examine the summer sky and then remarked casually. ‘I think Audrey will miss you most though.’

  Piccadilly looked up curiously. ‘She’s never said anything.’

  ‘Well you know what she’s like: too stubborn to say anything! I know my sister, and believe you me, she likes you a lot.’

  ‘Well, I wish she’d tell me.’

  ‘Oh I think she will when it suits her.’ Arthur stretched himself and rubbed his ears. ‘He doesn’t even take the milk any more you know. Mother can’t get him to drink it and if he does, it won’t stay down. Maybe he would be better off . . .’ his voice trailed away miserably.

  ‘I’m dreading it,’ murmured Piccadilly. ‘These past few days he’s sunk lower an’ lower – I don’t know what keeps him going.’

  Arthur touched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go and find out.’

  Audrey was already up and waiting for them. She had not bothered to tie the ribbon in her hair as she usually did and it hung in soft chestnut waves behind her ears.

  Outside the Chitters’ door they stopped, and Arthur glanced nervously at the others before knocking. They waited anxiously as shuffling steps approached on the other side of the curtain.

  The curtain was drawn aside, and the small features
of Twit greeted them solemnly. He looked back into the room, nodded, then stepped out and let the curtain fall back behind him.

  ‘He’s still with us,’ he whispered. ‘’Twere touch ‘n’ go for a while last night: thought we’d lost ’im twice.’ The fieldmouse bit his lip. ‘Your mum’s all in; she’s ’ad a tirin’ time of it. What with ’im and Mrs Chitter, she’s fit to drop.’

  ‘I’ll tell her to lie down for a bit,’ nodded Arthur. And I’ll take over,’ added Audrey. ‘You look like you could do with a rest as well Twit.’

  ‘Well, Mr Chitter, he just sits an’ mopes, his wife an’ son bein’ so bad. l can’t do anything with ’im.’ Twit wiped his brimming eyes. ‘Heck we tried me an’ your mum, but all three of ’em are slidin’ downhill fast. I really think this be the last day no, I knows it. None of ’em’ll see the sunset.’ Big tears ran down the fieldmouse’s little face. He was exhausted and felt that all his efforts had been a waste of time – this branch of his family was about to wither and die.