Tales From The Wyrd Museum 3: The Fatal Strand Page 23

  With the stag's thunderous shrieks and the unrelenting, jarring riot knifing into her mind, Edie felt Gogus' wooden claws grip her hands and she was dragged towards the forest.

  'Go!' Urdr demanded.

  Snatching one brief glance behind her, Edie's last sight of that hallowed place was filled with the image of the stag as it reared and bucked.

  'Veronica!' the child bawled in confusion. 'Come with me!' But the scene was torn from her eyes as the wooden imp spurred her on into the waiting trees.

  'Gogus...!' it jabbered at her. 'Go... Gogus... Save... Stop!'

  Through the forest fringe the carving hastily pulled and propelled her, until the wall of mist reared before them. With a final anxious yelp, Gogus pushed Edie into the fog. Stumbling forward, unable to stop herself, the girl was engulfed by the cold, cloying vapour, and the stag's horrific bellowing was stifled from her ears. Yet even in the supernatural mist, that stridulant noise of striking metal could still be heard, echoing through the midnight woodland.

  'Urdr!' Edie called in vain. 'Urdr!'

  But there was nothing. Alone in the dense blindness, Edie Dorkins tore between the trees as fast as her young legs could carry her. Back to her own time and The Wyrd Museum she raced, and every lurching step brought that clanging menace ever closer.

  Chapter 18 - Desecration

  Neil Chapman was awakened by the cold, and by the unhappy moans of his younger brother who shivered at his side. Clambering from the bed, the boy swiftly slipped into his clothes, dragging on as many layers as possible before venturing into the living room.

  'What's happened to the heating?' he asked.

  Sitting on the sofa, with stubble bristling and darkening his face, Neil's father was staring out of the window. He made no answer.

  Sighing, the boy made his way to the kitchen and picked up the kettle. However, when he turned on the tap, no water gushed out.

  'Dad?' he called. 'I think the pipes are frozen.'

  Slotting a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, he waited for an answer.

  'Did you hear me?' he called again. 'I said there's no water. Have you packed all Josh's clean clothes? He'll need some today.'

  Brian stirred lethargically. 'It's freezing out there,' he muttered.

  'It's freezing in here!' Neil said, returning to the living room with his breakfast.

  'Look at the icicles,' his father told him. 'They're hanging over the window like bars. There must be nearly two centimetres of ice covering the glass.'

  Neil looked at his father instead. 'Are you all right?' he asked in concern.

  'I'm cold, son.'

  Crunching his toast, the boy eyed him crossly. 'Well, if we're going to drive up to Scotland today you'd best get changed. Did you sleep in those clothes? Dad—you're starting to smell.'

  His father cleared his throat and ran his gaze over the cardboard boxes which crowded the settee. 'Josh's things are in one of these,' he said abstractedly. 'I'll get him dressed and we can start loading the van.'

  Finishing his gobbled breakfast, Neil moved to the door. 'I'm just going to check on Quoth,' he began. 'He is coming with us, isn't he?'

  A vacant expression had established itself on Brian's face. 'Quoth?' he asked.

  'The raven.'

  'I don't know what your auntie will say.'

  'I'm not leaving without him,' Neil stated firmly.

  The caretaker ran his fingers through his unkempt, greasy hair. 'All right, all right,' he relented. 'The mangy bird can come too, but if we catch anything off it...'

  'If you don't have a wash soon, it'll be Quoth who'll have to worry.'

  Disturbed by his father's appearance, but leaving him to attend to Josh, Neil hurried out of the apartment. His father had always looked rather like a startled scarecrow, but over the past few days he had become extremely seedy. Perhaps the stress and the pressure of The Wyrd Museum had been too much for him, thought Neil, but one thing was certain—Brian Chapman was not himself.

  In The Fossil Room, Quoth was still roosting in the suitcase when the boy entered. 'Morning,' Neil greeted him.

  Not raising his head, the raven cawed miserably.

  'How was it out here?' Neil asked. 'You didn't see anything else, did you? I didn't, and no more creepy messages, thank God.'

  Another faint, dejected croak came from the bird's beak and Neil stroked him affectionately. 'Hey,' he muttered, 'you're not sulking because you couldn't stay with me again last night, are you? Don't worry, we're leaving here this morning. You're coming to Auntie Marion's with us.'

  With his finger under the bird's beak, Neil gently tilted Quoth's head until he could see the one beadlike eye.

  'Quoth?' he began. 'What's the matter? I thought you wanted to get out of here. Have you changed your mind?'

  The raven shook his head.

  'Then what is it?'

  Quoth sniffed, then rose from the sock nest upon wobbling legs. Taking a hesitant breath, he stared up at his master and let loose a dissonant, clacking squawk.

  Neil drew away in surprise. 'What's happened?' he cried. 'Why don't you say something?'

  Giving one last, inconsolable croak, the raven threw himself down and buried his face in his wings, weeping loudly.

  'Hush,' Neil told him. He slid his fingers underneath the bird's sobbing body to lift him from the suitcase and hold him to his chest. 'You., you can't talk, can you?' he guessed.

  Pressed into the warm wool of the boy's jumper, Quoth shuddered and Neil cuddled him all the more.

  'But how?' Neil asked. 'Are you ill? Is there anything I can do?'

  The raven could only weep in reply and his wings dangled limply from his shoulders.

  Neil didn't know what to say or how to comfort him. 'There now,' he uttered, feeling completely inadequate. 'It doesn't matter. I'll help you—you know I will.'

  A loud tapping suddenly came echoing through the galleries and Neil looked up quickly.

  'Jack Timms!' he whispered.

  In his arms Quoth cocked his head, then shook it vehemently. The noise was different from the deliberate taunting of Tick-Tock's Tormentor. This was an intense and hurried hammering, and Neil felt the tension that had cramped his insides relax.

  'It's not him,' he sighed gratefully. 'But what is it?'

  Still cradling Quoth in his arms, the boy wandered through the collections and the fierce hammering gradually grew louder.

  It was only when they came to the main entrance hall that they discovered the answer. There, with the large oaken door swung wide, was Austen Pickering. He was kneeling before the steps outside, a hammer and chisel in his gloved hands.

  The base of the tiled steps was already shattered and the old man was so absorbed in hacking away at the stone beneath that he wasn't aware of the boy's presence for several minutes.

  'What are you doing?' Neil eventually shouted above the racket.

  Giving the chisel one more whack, the ghost hunter glanced up and waved the hammer at him.

  'Ah!' he cried. 'Hope I didn't disturb you? It is rather early, I know, but I simply had to put this theory to the test. I found your father's tool bag and didn't think he'd mind me having a lend.'

  'What theory?' Neil asked, placing Quoth upon the ledge of the ticket window.

  Austen Pickering lumbered to his feet, flexing first his legs and then his back. 'Never known it so cold,' he declared. 'Dropped to minus seven inside the museum, you know. Makes for difficult work, holding a metal chisel. Tried it without my gloves at first and nearly lost the top layer of skin.'

  Breathing hard, he leaned against the bronze statue at the side of the entrance, which had grown a beard of ice overnight, and wearily wiped his face.

  'You've made a right mess there,' Neil remarked, looking at the steps. 'They're wrecked. The Websters'll do their nut.'

  'I don't see why,' the old man replied defensively. 'The cantankerous biddy said I could more or less do what I wanted.'

  'She didn't mean this, though.
'

  Mr Pickering looked appealingly at Quoth. 'Haven't you got anything pithy to add?' he asked.

  The raven gave a mournful cheep. 'He can't talk,' Neil explained sadly. ‘I don't know how or why—he just can't.'

  'Then the cat did get his tongue,' the ghost hunter lamented. 'What a tragedy; perhaps it'll mend.'

  Quoth made a peculiar mewing sound and Neil hurriedly changed the subject. 'So why are you smashing the steps up?'

  Austen Pickering polished his spectacles. 'Ever seen a horseshoe nailed above a door?' he began.

  'For luck, isn't it?'

  'Not exactly. A horseshoe is made of iron and that keeps the witches and other sundry evils at bay. You'll often find them over doorways, in remote country areas where old superstitions still linger.'

  'But there aren't any horseshoes here,' Neil countered, 'and the only witches are inside.'

  The old man held up a silencing hand. 'But it wasn't always horseshoes,' he continued. 'And it wasn't always over the door where the talisman or charm was kept. In many cases, some unfortunate animal, most commonly a cat, was buried alive under the threshold, or stuffed up the chimney so that its spirit would keep the night-roaming demons away'

  'You think there's a dead Tiddles under there?' Neil asked.

  Clearing the chipped rubble from the fissure he had already made around the steps, Austen Pickering began to hack away at them once more. 'It would make sense for there to be something,' he shouted above the din. 'This is a very old building and it might solve all our problems in one go.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'Well,' the old man said. 'What if there were the remains of some poor creature under here, and what if, just like everything else in this cockeyed place, they're not doing what they should be? What if, instead of stopping things coming in, they're preventing things from escaping? A sort of psychic turnstile. No wonder this building's jammed full to the rafters—the souls of the poor departed can't get out.'

  Neil and Quoth watched him for a while longer, until the cement which held the steps in place was completely chiselled away, and Mr Pickering clapped his gloves together in satisfaction.

  'Will you give me a hand here, lad?' he asked. 'If we could just shift this block out of the way I'll be that much closer.'

  Jumping out of the museum to help him, Neil knelt on the freezing pavement of the alleyway and, fluttering from the ticket counter, Quoth alighted upon the topmost step.

  'When I count to three,' the ghost hunter said, 'you put your shoulder against that bit there and shove, whilst I heave and pull at this end. Now—one, two, three?

  There was a grinding of stone as the steps grated over the ground. Quoth hopped up and down them, cawing his encouragement to both his master and

  Austen Pickering. It was arduous work, but at last the three-tiered block was shifted and a blank rectangle of sandstone was revealed in the space where the steps had been.

  'More chiselling,' Mr Pickering declared.

  'I'll have a go if you like,' Neil offered. 'But I can't be long—Dad'll be wondering where I am.'

  The old man handed him the tools. 'Of course,' he said. 'You're off today, and who can blame you? Still, if this works I might be going sooner than I thought myself.'

  Wrapping his hands in the sleeves of his jumper to protect his fingers from the intense cold of the chisel, Neil started striking the stone. The early morning rang to his incessant blows.

  Upon the steps, Quoth turned his gaze from his young master and looked up at the grim fortress of The Wyrd Museum. A sparse scattering of snow drifted from the cold sky and, against the bright, speckled heavens, the jagged outline of that ancient building was stark and bleak. Locked within a wintry grasp, the museum was trimmed with huge icicles that stabbed from the gutters like crystal stalactites, spiking from every ledge and sill. Hoary frost peppered and painted the bricks, whilst thick barriers of ice obscured the windows. Above the entrance, the gilded, scrolling sign was encrusted with a serrated, glacial shell.

  Scratching his beak against the wall, Quoth fancied that the entrance to the museum resembled a huge, screaming mouth, with the sign a white and drooping moustache above it.

  'Done!' Neil said abruptly and the raven regarded him with pride. The sandstone had been fairly easy to splinter and, clearing the chunks away, the boy and Mr Pickering uncovered the black earth beneath.

  'Got to be down there,' the ghost hunter breathed. 'I know it.' He foraged inside the tool bag and brought out a builder's trowel—the most suitable implement he could find—then sliced at the soil with its triangular blade.

  'Frozen solid,' he grumbled. 'No matter, I'll manage.'

  Grunting at the effort, he chopped and clawed but, after five minutes' back-aching toil, had only created a shallow scrape in the ground.

  'Is there another one of those?' Neil wondered, rummaging in the bag. 'I'll give you a hand.'

  Making do with a paint scraper, the boy drove it into the soil and the work progressed. 'What are you going to do with the cat's bones if you find any?' Neil asked.

  'Disturbing them will be enough,' Mr Pickering replied confidently. 'All we have to do is move them and their power over this place is extinguished forever. I'll be able to do my work without hindrance and the poor wretches trapped in this museum might stand a chance of peace at long last.'

  Listening to their words, Quoth clicked his beak thoughtfully as a growing sense of unease arose within him. His master and the old man had succeeded in turning the scrape into a trench, and the more the raven considered their actions, the more uncertain he became. A forbidding doubt had surfaced in his mind and, shaking his wings, he gave a warning croak.

  Neither Neil nor the ghost hunter heard, so Quoth cawed a little louder.

  'You hungry?' Neil asked, turning his head to the squawking bird, 'Won't be much longer, I promise.'

  Quoth stamped his scaly feet, maddened at the frustration of not being able to make himself understood.

  'Wait!' Mr Pickering cried excitedly. 'I think... yes! I've found something.'

  Tearing the trowel through the soil, there came a hollow knock where the blade struck against bone, and Quoth took to the air to fly about their heads.

  'What's got into you?' Neil cried.

  The raven landed on his shoulder and stared anxiously down the hole, into which Mr Pickering's hands were already reaching.

  'It's a skull!' the old man announced. 'Far too big for a cat—or a dog either, for that matter... Horse or a cow, maybe? If I can just prise it out...'

  Within The Wyrd Museum, her gaunt face a picture of anger and fear, Miss Ursula Webster came hastening down the stairs.

  'Stop that!' she called, plunging towards the hall. 'How dare you! You have no conception of the damage you're causing!'

  Immediately, Neil jumped to his feet. 'Mr Pickering!' he said urgently. 'Wait a minute!'

  But the ghost hunter was far too engrossed in fishing his discovery from the hole to pay any attention.

  ''Please!'' the boy insisted.

  'Leave it alone!' Miss Ursula screamed, fleeing the stairs and running towards the entrance. 'You will bring ruin on us all—you stupid, stupid man!'

  Dashing to the doorway, she stood upon the threshold and glared down, but it was too late.

  From the trench, Austen Pickering lifted his newfound treasure. Shaking in her distress, the old woman clutched the sculpted bronze figure at her side.

  'Simple-minded fool!' she raged in a broken voice. 'What have you done to us all?'

  Behind her, the hidden mechanism which opened the way to the subterranean chambers whirred and clicked. Up from die depths and out of the past, Edie Dorkins came racing.

  'Ursula!' the girl called feverishly. 'That clangin'—did you hear it? Poor Durath, he was hurtin' real bad ...!'

  The eldest of the Fates revolved slowly to look at her and, with a shake of her head, moved aside. Shocked at the sight that met her eyes, Edie covered her mouth with her hands and
gasped. For there, looking up at them in consternation, and bewildered at their reaction, was Austen Pickering. In his hands he held the skull of a large and mighty stag.

  'Durath!' Edie choked, her voice smothered by her fingers. ‘I weren't fast enough.'

  Turning a face of stone upon the ghost hunter, Miss Ursula glowered at him in contempt and took the skull from his grasp. Her lips pressed white, she placed a trembling hand upon the splintered bones where, in ages past, she had stroked a warm, velvet muzzle. Her eyes glistened wetly.

  'You have desecrated the grave of the museum's greatest protector!' she told Mr Pickering with terrible solemnity. 'You have violated his memory and rendered his power useless. Never can he return now to defend us. If you had set out with our destruction in mind, you could not have afflicted us with a more grievous injury. What madness is in you?'

  Abashed by her words, Austen Pickering swallowed and stammered an apology. 'I... I thought I was... I had a theory, you see.'

  'Mountebank!' Miss Ursula stormed. 'Thanks to you we are left without our principal guardian. Do you comprehend what that means? The forces awakening in this place are growing beyond my control—and now there is nothing we can do to halt them.'

  'You mean Jack Timms?' Neil ventured.

  ‘I mean everything!' the old woman snapped. 'We are all at risk—each one. Any aspect of the museum may be turned against us without fear of challenge.'

  Returning to the hallway, Miss Ursula caressed the skull in her hands and glanced fearfully around her. 'My plans are now awry,' she muttered to Edie. 'What hope can there be? Woden has wormed His way in, and through His agent He will do all He can to destroy us. The game has turned more deadly than I anticipated. Against Durath none could stand, but we are without his protection now.'

  Her young face scrunched with sorrow, the girl stared into the soil-filled holes of Durath's eye sockets as Miss Ursula set the skull upon the table.

  'We must prepare ourselves,' the old woman said sternly. 'Before night falls we must be ready'

  Pointing a damning finger at the ghost hunter, she summoned him and Neil Chapman back indoors. 'There is much to be done!' she commanded. 'Because of your incompetent, bungling interference you have made this place perilous to all. I say to you now, abandon your amateurish investigations and concentrate your efforts in The Separate Collection.'