Tales From The Wyrd Museum 3: The Fatal Strand Read online

  In the corner, where his suitcases and equipment were now assembled, Austen Pickering glanced at his watch and made a note of the time.

  'What do you think will happen tonight?' Neil asked him.

  The old man shrugged. 'How can I know the answer to that?' he replied. 'But one thing's for certain, that Webster woman is terrified.'

  'If she's afraid,' Neil murmured. ‘I dread to think...'

  'Quite. I reckon she's expecting all hell to break loose—literally'

  Looking back into the room, Neil suddenly noticed Edie's disappearance and he cursed angrily. 'The little nuisance! Why doesn't she ever listen?'

  With the raven flying after him, he ran out of The Separate Collection, but the girl had given them the slip.

  'Idiot,' the boy fumed. Quoth waggled his beak in accord.

  Behind them, Austen Pickering stared out of the windows and whispered nervously to himself, 'Four hours till dark.'

  Through The Tiring Salon Edie Dorkins dashed, her pockets jingling with the extra, trifling treasures she had acquired during her weapons-gathering. Straight to the door that led to the Websters' quarters she raced and flung herself through it.

  'Ursula!' she exclaimed.

  Standing upon the narrow stairway, her gaze fixed intently upon the great oil painting which hung there, her delicate fingers stroking the canvas, the eldest of the Fates stirred as though emerging from a heavy slumber.

  'Edith,' she uttered huskily.

  'What you doin?' the girl demanded.

  'I... I was about to fetch Celandine.'

  'You been ages.'

  Miss Ursula moved away from the painting, and the countenance she turned to Edie was pale and drawn.

  'Have I?' she breathed. ‘I had not realised. What was it Baudelaire said? "I felt the wing of imbecility brush against me." I too know what it is to feel the poisonous draught of approaching madness. My own personal doom is stalking me, Edith. I cannot elude it very much longer. I am at the brink and my mind is collapsing into the abyss. There is little time left to me—the sure ground of reason is already crumbling.'

  'You don't know that!'

  'Indeed I do. I have seen it.'

  'Where?' the girl cried. 'Where have you seen it?'

  But Miss Ursula ignored her and strode up the steps.

  'Celandine!' she called. 'You must accompany us to The Separate Collection.'

  Pouting peevishly, Edie Dorkins watched her push through the damask curtain that hung over the entrance to the cramped attic room and the girl kicked the green stair carpet in annoyance.

  Then, a half smile crinkling her young face, Edie looked up as a wild thought dawned upon her and she studied the great oil painting with renewed interest.

  ***

  When four o'clock came, they were all gathered in The Separate Collection. A small fire was burning on the flagstones, and a stack of chair legs, splintered tables, yellowing newspapers and broken cabinets was heaped nearby in readiness for the night. Crackling and spluttering in the flames, the varnish which coated the shattered furniture gave off a black, acrid smoke that set the eyes watering, but it was an inconvenience none of them minded. To have heat was all that mattered.

  With Quoth perched upon his knee, Neil Chapman sat before the fire, staring at the faces of those around him. His father and brother were huddled close by. Josh was wearing an air-raid warden's tin hat and his hands toyed with a small scabbard. But he was restive and wanted to go running about the room, griping when Brian forbade him.

  On Neil's other side, Austen Pickering watched the creeping light fail outside the windows and he readied himself for the approaching night. Opposite, beyond the flames, Miss Celandine and Miss Ursula Webster sat, with Edie squeezed between them.

  Twisting her plaited hair in her fingers, Miss Celandine hummed snatches of tunes to herself, but an extreme tiredness made her over-ripe face haggard and her eyelids drooped as she yielded to the profound fatigue that ached in her old bones.

  With a long dagger glinting in her hands, Edie Dorkins chewed the inside of her cheek and glared back at the boy who was peering through the flames at her. Averting his eyes to the stiff form of Miss Ursula, Neil tried to guess what she was thinking. But that face was flinty and impassive, betraying none of the turmoil which steamed within her as she counted out the remaining minutes.

  Throughout the afternoon, the temperature had fallen steadily and the drifting snow specks had become a monotonous movement of white flecks behind the frozen windows. Now, even in the fireglow, they were all shivering in spite of the many warm garments they wore.

  A lethal clutter of weapons leaned against the woodpile within easy reach, but Neil and Edie had collected far more swords, maces, shields and knives than they could possibly use and Miss Ursula had enigmatically insisted that the surplus be left by the entrance of The Egyptian Suite.

  Dotted about the counters, Mr Pickering had lit his remaining candles and every oil lamp he could find. Although the electric lights were switched on, he did not trust them, and at his side he kept his torch and Bible.

  'Where's Veronica?' Miss Celandine's weary voice abruptly cut through the pressing silence. 'She should be here. Shall I fetch her Ursula—shall I?'

  Her sister placed a hand upon her arm. 'No, dear,' she said firmly. 'We will join Veronica later.'

  Miss Celandine hung her head and muttered into her lap. 'She'd better not start the dancing without me.'

  Nestling between them, Edie swivelled around on her bottom and peered up at the old woman dressed in the high-collared, black taffeta gown. 'Why ain't Gogus 'ere?' she asked. 'Won't we need him?'

  'I take heart from his absence,' Miss Ursula informed her. 'The Paedagogus appears only at the most perilous of times. When he is here, then we shall know how deadly our plight has become. The wood urchin will only show himself when the threat reaches its pinnacle.'

  'Where is he then?' the girl demanded.

  Miss Ursula gave a leaden smile. 'You know the answer to that already, Edith,' she answered evasively.

  Turning from Edie, the eldest of the Fates glanced at the blank grey squares of the windows, then focused her attention on the entrance to The Egyptian Suite. In that enclosed room the shadows were black and obliterating. Then, sensing the brooding, resentful atmosphere mount within the other rooms of the museum, she knew that it was time.

  'Mr Pickering,' her clipped voice began. 'We durst not wait any longer. The instant is upon us.'

  Arrested by her penetrating gaze, the ghost hunter found himself nodding dumbly, then he coughed and closed his eyes.

  'This is crazy,' Brian Chapman murmured.

  An expectant quiet followed, broken only by the crackling flames and Mr Pickering's deep breaths as he attuned himself to the indolent forces contained inside that room.

  Then, very softly, he began to speak.

  'In the name of the Almighty,' the old man whispered. 'I ask you to hear me. I am a friend. Listen to my words. There are those of us here who need your help and assistance. The time of your sleeping is over; come now to us—please.'

  Crouched into his wings, Quoth roved his eye about the assembled circle. With the exception of Miss Celandine and Josh, they were all looking at the ghost hunter—their faces blank and expectant.

  'Come to us!' Mr Pickering repeated, raising his voice to a resonating demand that awakened echoes from every corner of The Separate Collection. 'Give us your protection this night. There are those whose intent is to harm us. We commend our safety to your care. Keep the evils at bay, I beg you.'

  Sucking the air between his teeth, his eyes still firmly closed, the old man lifted his face to the ceiling and became as still as stone. A quiet, more intense and onerous than before, penetrated the room. Even Josh ceased his fidgeting and shifted uncomfortably, sensing the overwhelming tension which prickled and tingled about him.

  In the centre of the nervous group, the sizzling flames sputtered and dwindled inside the charred framework
of the fire. Brian Chapman reached for a sword with which to stoke the embers.

  Shaking her head, Miss Ursula stopped him. 'Not yet,' she hissed. 'You might douse the fire completely and it will never be relit.'

  Neil's palms were sweating with anxiety and, wiping them on his coat, he glanced fearfully at the windows where a funereal dark now pressed against the icy panes.

  Then, overhead, the electric lights started to flicker. One by one, the bulbs shrank into shadow. Swiftly, darkness flooded into The Separate Collection. From The Egyptian Suite it gushed, sluicing in around the boundering walls like a torrent of Stygian waters, dammed only by the oil lamps and candles, beyond whose tapering flames the room became a cavern of night.

  'It begins,' Miss Ursula breathed.

  With a sharp gasp, Austen Pickering shuddered and looked feverishly about him.

  ‘I did what I could,' he muttered quickly. 'But all the while I sensed a resistance. It was another force—outside this room—fighting and contesting against what I was trying to do.'

  'It is the rest of the museum,' Miss Ursula told him. 'It is waking and aware of what we do. The mind that controls it this night wishes only our destruction. This room has become an island and we are besieged by death.'

  'But has it worked?' Neil asked Mr Pickering. 'Are we safe?'

  The ghost hunter dabbed his handkerchief over his high forehead. 'I'm not sure,' he answered feebly. ‘I can only prod and jab with my humble gift. I don't know if the powers in here will respond.'

  'If they do not,' Miss Ursula announced in a melancholic whisper, 'then the strands of all our lives will be cut.'

  An unhappy croak issued from Quoth's beak and he waddled backwards to press against Neil's coat.

  'Quiet,' Edie snapped, leaping to her feet. 'Can't you hear?'

  From some remote region, deep within the museum, there came the distant sound of a rhythmic knocking. From the ground floor it vibrated dully through the building, beating like the pulse of some forbidding timepiece. Upon the walls of the caretaker's living quarters the ominous tap-tap-tap originated—the place where the warders of the Wyrd Infirmary had once made their common room.

  'It's him!' Neil murmured, the hair on his neck rising. 'It's Jack Timms!'

  'The agent of Woden,' Miss Ursula commented. 'It is through him the Gallows God assails us.'

  Edie Dorkins gripped the hilt of her dagger and glared at the entrance to The Egyptian Suite, where the shadows swirled with a substance all their own, and bared her teeth in a feral growl. Straining to hear that dismal, taunting noise, they fell into a breathless silence, until Quoth ruffled his feathers and cawed wretchedly.

  ‘I know,' Neil said, understanding what the raven was trying to tell him. 'The sound's moving—Tick-Tock's making his way through the galleries.'

  'Of course he is,' Austen Pickering declared. 'He's headed for the hallway and the stairs. He'll be coming up here.'

  'Dad!' Josh began to wail. 'I doesn't like it—I scared.'

  Brian Chapman gathered his youngest son into his overcoat but the four-year-old would not be comforted.

  'It's cold!' he whined. 'You're cold.'

  'Quiet, Josh,' his father told him. 'Keep still.'

  Gradually, other noises were given voice in the corridors and chambers of The Wyrd Museum as, under Jack Timms' dominating influence, the building lapsed back into its former incarnations and history. Through the passages and halls the evil man prowled, his Tormentor rapping out his measured progress. In his wake the binding years were shed and, a chaotic jumble of identities scrambled over the creaking walls.

  The shrieks of the madhouse mingled with the drone of plainsong until the blast of an air-raid siren abruptly drowned all competition. No, not all; even above that blaring klaxon the thumping report of Tick-Tock Jack could still be heard.

  'He's on the stairs,' Neil said.

  Up to the first floor landing the staccato beat reverberated and still the museum imploded into its past. Floating through the ether, a babble of young voices suddenly entered The Separate Collection, and the company sitting round the smouldering fire turned their heads in consternation.

  ‘Who saw him die?

  I, said the Fly,

  With my little eye,

  I saw him die.’

  'What's that?' Brian Chapman cried. 'Who is it?' It was Miss Celandine who answered him. Swaying to the music and meter of the old rhyme, she grinned her goofy smile and twittered dreamily.

  'The children, Ursula,' she sighed. 'All the sweet little darlings. Do you remember—do you? They used to recite their lessons and chant the words so prettily—they did, they did.'

  Miss Ursula clenched her sister's large hand as the haunting voices continued.

  'Who caught his blood?

  I, said the Fish,

  In my little dish,

  I caught his blood.'

  'The infants of the Well Lane Orphanage,' she explained to the others. 'It is the morning instruction we are hearing.'

  'It's horrible,' Neil whispered.

  'Who'll make the shroud?

  I, said the Beetle,

  With my thread and needle,

  I’ll make the shroud.'

  Echoing through the room, the unnerving singing flowed and, like a diabolic metronome, the Tormentor of Jack Timms tapped incessantly to the old nursery tune.

  'Those children...' Mr Pickering began in an uncertain murmur. 'Are they in the museum now? With that vile killer?'

  The expression upon Miss Ursula's face was answer enough.

  'My God!' he spluttered.

  Confused and nonplussed by what was happening around him, Brian Chapman's fingers pressed the bridge of his nose and he spoke in an agitated fluster.

  'Wait, wait!' he stammered. 'I don't understand. All right, so this place is stuffed with spooks and stuff. But are you trying to say that one ghost can hurt another? It doesn't make sense—I just don't—'

  'Dad!' Neil said impatiently. 'It's never been about ghosts. It's the past itself that comes back. Those kids are in this place, now, and they're as real and alive as you and me.'

  'Who'll dig his grave?

  I, said the—’

  Suddenly, the rhyme came to a brusque end and the orphans' voices faded upon the chill air.

  Without the infants' chanting, the building was horribly hushed. Only the enduring throb of Jack Timms' cane continued to drum out the dragging seconds.

  'What happened?' Edie demanded. 'Why'd they stop?'

  'There is no cause for concern,' Miss Ursula assured her. 'The children have returned to their correct place in the museum's history. It is weaving in and out of the years; no harm came to them.'

  At Edie's side, Miss Celandine twirled a forefinger through her hair and, in a sing-song voice, completed the morbid rhyme: 'All the birds of the air, Fell a-sighing and a-sobbing, When they heard the bell toll...'

  The old woman's words were unexpectedly swamped by a squawking cry from Quoth who, flying to Neil's shoulder, honked for quiet then cupped a wing to the side of his head.

  Inside The Separate Collection a new sound had begun. Very faint and barely audible at first, it tinkled beneath the tap-tap-tap that hammered from the landing. Presently, it grew in strength until they could all hear a delicate jingling of tiny bells.

  'The frog skeletons!' Miss Celandine cooed delightedly.

  'My congratulations, Mr Pickering,' Miss Ursula complimented him, allowing herself a slight chuckle. 'Your gifts are not so humble as you pretend. They are indeed rare and efficacious.'

  'What does it mean?' Neil asked.

  In the sombre darkness beyond the lamps and candles, indistinct shapes and shadows were moving, and Edie's eyes glittered as a broad grin lit her face.

  'The Separate Collection,' the girl whispered joyously. 'It's comin' to life.'

  Chapter 20 - The First Wave

  'Now you may stoke the embers, Mr Chapman,' Miss Ursula commanded. 'And feed the flames well.' But the careta
ker barely heard her for he, like the others, was staring into that murky realm outside the influence of the candles.

  Dark masses which, only moments ago, had been rigid and immovable, were now shifting furtively through the gloom. Stiff and awkward at first, tall shapes stretched awake and left their bases in jerking, jolting motions until the shadows were alive and creeping with hidden activity. Ponderous weights strode inexpertly across the floor and the boards groaned and juddered beneath them.

  'I don't believe it,' Neil's father uttered in a choked voice. 'Not possible.' At the man's side, his son was just as stupefied and Quoth chirruped in amazement.

  Around the cleared space, the silent figures moved between the crowded cabinets. Although the imposing outlines kept clear of the lamp and candle glow, the group caught glimpses of powerful, stone-coloured limbs as the granite-clad torsos wove through the enshrouding shade.

  'The statues,' Neil marvelled. 'They're all moving!'

  Every sculpture that had graced The Separate Collection was infused with supernatural life. Even those fragmented remnants of forgotten figures had returned to their original, complete condition, and their crunching steps strode about the darkened room as each hewn form headed for the entrance to The Egyptian Suite.

  There the concealed troop congregated. Effigies of kings, satyrs, warriors and forgotten gods gathered close about the heap of weapons Miss Ursula had instructed Neil and Edie to deposit by the doorway.

  'What are they doing?' Brian asked in a wavering voice, when the night started to chime and scrape with ringing metal.

  Rising to her feet, Miss Ursula Webster walked to the edge of the circle and selected a heavy broadsword from the array which leaned against the woodpile.

  'They are arming themselves,' she said, choosing a round, bronze shield to accompany the sword.