Floods 6 (11 page)

‘Have you ever done anything like that before?' said Mordonna. ‘It sounds terribly complicated.'

‘I've done it with an omelette, but not with a human being,' said Winchflat. ‘I've always wanted to try it, though.'

‘It sounds like it could take a very long time,' said Valla.

‘Yes. I'll have to work it out,' said Winchflat. ‘A human body has about thirty-five trillion cells. So first of all I would photocopy one cell and then photocopy that one and the original together so we got two, and then copy those so we got four and so on. It could take a while. The omelette took seven months and … well, there were a few problems.'

‘Problems?'

‘Yes, it turned out with five legs and ran away,' said Winchflat. ‘I never saw it again, though I heard a rumour it was living in the Amazon rainforest with a raggle-taggle group of other egg-based beings calling themselves the Omelette Liberation Front.'

‘Er, let's forget the cloning plan,' said Valla.

‘So it's down to zombification or simply bringing her back to life then,' said Betty.

‘Looks like it,' said Winchflat, who didn't really fancy either option because they were things his mother would do and not him, and it meant he wouldn't have an excuse to invent yet another brilliant machine. ‘Unless we used my Massive-Electric-Shock-Dead-Person-iReviver,
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though I've only ever used that on bodies that have just died, not on two-hundred-year-old corpses with bits missing.'

They couldn't decide between living or zombie, and when Valla tossed a coin it didn't help
either because the window was open and the coin flew out into the street and fell down a drain.
⁴⁹

‘When you go to meet your beloved tonight, darling, I will come with you,' said Mordonna. ‘We will let her decide.'

As soon as Valla pushed the stone slab aside and Mordonna saw Mildred Flambard, she knew that the girl was the perfect match for her son. Her pale grey skin and sunken eyes were a lovely contrast to his pale grey skin and sunken eyes. The two of them were so alike that they could have been brother and sister, except Mildred Flambard said she had not had a brother and Valla looked nothing like any of his siblings.

‘You look so beautiful together,' said Mordonna with a tear in her eye. ‘So now, Mildred, you must
decide: living or zombie? I can do either.'

‘If I am not mistaken, Mother,' said Valla, blushing, ‘zombies cannot have babies, can they?'

‘You're absolutely right,' said Mordonna. ‘Then I shall bring Mildred back to the land of the living.'

‘And I shall live and breathe again as I did before I caught the plague and the pox and TB and Curse of the Newt?' said Mildred.

‘Yes, my dear,' said Mordonna. ‘You will be perfect, as is my firstborn, your husband-to-be, my gorgeous Valla.'

‘But my sweetheart won't be all glowing and rosy-cheeked and horribly fit and healthy-looking, will she?' said Valla. ‘She will still be the same staggeringly beautiful, ghostly living corpse, won't she?'

‘Well, or course, my darling,' said Mordonna. ‘I will perform a cocktail of spells. The first will turn her into a zombie. Then I will do the De-Zombify spell and finally I will do the Collect-Up-All-The-Bits-That-Have-Fallen-Off spell so your bride-to-be has all her bits and pieces in proper working order.'

‘I'll still be able to howl at the moon, won't I?'
said Mildred. ‘I used to love howling before I died.'

‘You used to howl at the moon when you were alive?' said Mordonna, suddenly sounding very, very excited.

‘Yes,' said Mildred. ‘Does that matter?'

‘Matter? Oh my goodness no,' said Mordonna, ‘quite the opposite. How did you say you died?'

‘Umm, I, er, umm, the plague, umm, runaway horse…' Mildred began.

‘But that's not true, is it?'

‘No,' said Mildred. ‘I was burnt at the stake as a witch.'

‘Did they do all the medieval witch tests on you while you kept denying it?' said Mordonna.

Mildred Flambard nodded and hung her head.

‘But they were right, weren't they? You are a witch, aren't you?' said Mordonna.

Mildred Flambard nodded again. ‘Does this mean you will not restore me to life?' she asked.

‘Oh no, my dear,' said Mordonna. ‘It means
you are even more perfect than we thought you were. Come here and give your mother-in-law-to-be a hug, then we will begin.'

The new moon was only three days old, but it was simply a matter of a quick spell to turn it into a full moon, which is the best sort of moon under which to perform spells to bring people back to life. The whole world and everything in it was bathed in an eerie blue light.

Mildred Flambard lay stretched out on the moss-covered slab of the grave that had been her home and prison for the last two hundred and five years, as Mordonna began to chant in a deep prehistoric moan that sent shivers down the spines of all those who heard it.
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‘Keep your voice down, Mother,' Valla hissed. ‘We're in a graveyard and there's no knowing who or what is in some of these tombs. You could wake up a whole army of horrors that might invade the town.'

‘Well, that would make it a lot more lively, wouldn't it, darling,' Mordonna laughed. ‘But you don't need to worry. These spells are tailored to work only on your beloved and no one else. Her DNA will act like a PIN so no one else can use the magic.'

Thirteen owls and seventy-seven bats gathered in the trees around the graveyard as Mordonna's chanting reached its highest pitch.

There was a flash of light, a cloud of white smoke and Mildred Flambard sat bolt upright, as alive as she had been the day she died. Or rather, as alive as she had been the day
before
she had died. At the exact same moment, the thirteen owls turned into bats. The seventy-seven bats turned into owls and, five streets away, a car turned into a side street. Also, though no one saw it or even knew, every single corpse and skeleton in the other ninety-three graves sighed and turned over.

‘All we have to do now,' said Mordonna as they walked back to the hotel, ‘is get you two married.'

‘And maybe Winchflat could give you a two-
hundred-year service – changing all your blood, oiling your bones and cleaning out your ears with a toothbrush dipped in bleach,'
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said Valla as he opened the door to the hotel suite.

‘I'd be delighted to, and I think I speak for all of us when I say welcome to our family,' said Winchflat.

Getting married for wizards is entirely different than it is for humans, especially when one of the wizards has been dead for as long as Mildred Flambard. For a start, it is extremely dangerous to kiss someone who has been dead that long because their lips could well end up stuck to yours, not in a romantic
love story Their-Lips-Locked sort of way, but in a Stuck-On-Your-Face-After-They-Have-Left-The-Room sort of way. Also because of the huge amounts of static electricity and nuclear fission that can be generated when wizards fall in love, it is essential for the bride to wear a dress made of lead. Being so long near-dead, Mildred was not strong enough to carry the weight of a lead dress, so to be on the safe side, Valla went into one room, Mildred into another and they were married by email.
⁵²

Although they all went to the beach pretty well every day, Mordonna and Nerlin preferred it at night. At two in the morning it was always deserted, the only sound the gentle splashing of the waves collapsing on the beach. If they went out and there was a wild wind blowing, making the sea noisy and throwing sand into your face, it was only a matter of a couple of quick spells for the wind to creep away and grow lazy again. If there were clouds across the sky, another spell sent them off to Belgium.

There was something about the cold blue moon shining on the night-time sea that made them feel very relaxed and romantic. The children
were back in the hotel. The Hulberts were tucked up in their beds and Queen Scratchrot was quietly disintegrating in her backpack in Winchflat's wardrobe. It was a peaceful time, when the world was nearly asleep.

On the last night of their holiday, as they were moon-bathing on the beach, the ground wobbled beneath them.

‘What was that?' said Mordonna.

‘Sorry,' said Nerlin. ‘Must have been something I ate.'

‘No, not that,' said Mordonna. ‘That wobble. It wasn't here. It was miles away. It felt like the world had hiccups.'

‘If you asked me to guess,' said Nerlin, ‘I would say that a new volcano has just erupted at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. But then it could just be my imagination.'

‘OH MY GOD, THE MARIANA TRENCH!' cried Mordonna, sitting bolt upright and staring out to sea.

‘Yes, that's the place,' said Nerlin.

‘Oh no,' said Mordonna.

‘What's the matter?' said Nerlin.

‘That's where the Hearse Whisperer is,' said Mordonna. ‘Don't you remember? The children and I lured her into a magic bottle, sealed it shut and buried it at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. We thought it would be most secure place on earth.'
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‘Well, if it's a magic bottle,' said Nerlin, ‘I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. All the hot lava has probably sucked it right into the core of the planet where nothing could survive.'

‘The Hearse Whisperer is fireproof,' said Mordonna. ‘Even her underwear can withstand the strongest furnace. Her knickers are made of the same stuff they stick on the outside of the space shuttle, only without any holes or torn bits.'

‘But surely no living creature could survive boiling lava?' said Nerlin.

‘I suppose not,' said Mordonna, though she still looked doubtful.

Something dark staggered out of the water, a huge, menacing silhouette against the moonlit ocean.

The two wizards sat immobile.

Was this the end?

After all their hiding, had the Hearse Whisperer finally found them?

‘Hello, Mum,' it said. ‘Thanks for that.'

It was Winchflat. The earthquake had shaken him free from the sand.

‘Winchflat, what are you doing going back in the sea when you got stuck the first time?' said Mordonna.

‘Er, umm, nothing, Mum,' said Winchflat, blushing inside his diving helmet.

He had gone back because, like his mother, he couldn't believe one of his inventions hadn't worked properly. Failure was NOT his middle name and he was determined to have another go at this swimming thing.

‘Anyway, that wobble wasn't me, darling,' said Mordonna. ‘It was an earthquake.'

‘Uh oh,' said Winchflat. ‘Bet it was in the Mariana Trench. You know, I thought this might happen, but I didn't say anything. I mean, the odds against it were twenty-three billion and fifty-seven to one against it happening, so it didn't seem very likely, except that twenty-three billion and fifty-seven is the mysterious da Vinci number that has
been linked to a whole series of weird, unexplained events over the past four hundred and fifty years.'

‘Come on, stop worrying, said Nerlin. ‘Say the very worst happens and the Hearse Whisperer does escape – she still doesn't know where we live.'

‘That's true, but she's going to be in a really bad mood,' said Mordonna. ‘I don't mean the really bad mood that she's in all the time. I mean the incredibly, unbelievably, horribly bad mood that would make her melt babies and tie angelfish in knots before deep-frying them for lunch.'

‘Yes, yes, but she still doesn't know how to find us,' said Nerlin. ‘I mean, she couldn't find us before, so what makes you think she can now?'

‘I suppose so, but I still have this terrible uneasy feeling,' she said as they walked back to the hotel for a cup of cocoa.

‘You are such a worrier, Mum,' said Betty at breakfast the next morning. ‘A bit of an earth tremor and you think the worst.'

 

… And a massive earthquake occurred last night deep in the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench, measuring seventeen point two on the Richter Scale,
said a voice on the hotel dining room radio,
leading to the creation of a completely new island that is now towering over the other fourteen islands in the Marianas…

 

‘See, I told you,' said Mordonna.

‘Tears before bedtime,' said the Queen from her backpack under the table. ‘I can sense it. Have I ever told you that I have an unerring ability to sense impending doom?'

‘Yes, all the time,' chorused everyone, including the waiter.

Mordonna said she thought they should leave as soon as possible, but the others suggested that there wasn't much point because if the Hearse Whisperer was going to find them, she had as
much or as little chance of doing so in Port Folio as anywhere else.

‘So seeing as how everywhere is as safe as everywhere else, we might as well stay here,' said Winchflat.

‘Did you bring your Hearse-Whisperer-Early-Warning-Device?' said Betty when they had all gone back upstairs.

‘No, I'm afraid I left it in Acacia Avenue,' said Winchflat. ‘I'll just have to rely on the detector hairs in my nose. They don't have the range of my machine, but it's better than nothing.'

‘Couldn't you send a signal to Igorina and get her to use the device?'

‘Well, I can send her a signal, no problem,' said Winchflat. ‘But I have a hard enough time trying to get her to use the toilet, never mind a complicated piece of equipment. Still, I suppose it's worth a try.'

He switched on his communicator and hunched over the tiny screen, fiddling with the controls.

‘That's strange,' he said. ‘I don't seem to be able to make contact.'

Instead of showing the padded cell at 13 Acacia Avenue that Igorina called home,
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the screen was just a dark swirling mass, like a thunderstorm without the storm or the thunder.

‘That looks like the weather outside,' said Betty.

Outside the hotel windows, the sky had become as black as night, even though it was only ten o'clock in the morning.

‘This is not good,' said Mordonna.

The uneasy feeling she had when the deep sea volcano had erupted now advanced past uneasy and on to really scary and needing a cup of very strong tea.

‘You're absolutely right,' said Queen Scratchrot. ‘The impending doom hairs on the back of my neck are wriggling like crazy. I would say that it's all systems go on impending doom.'

‘It's just a storm,' said Nerlin. ‘You women are such worriers.'

‘Those are the exact words that the theatre manager in Silly said to me the night my beloved died,' said the Queen. ‘And look how that ended.'

A great wind began to blow and behind the hills at the back of Port Folio, far away in the distance in the exact direction of the town where Acacia Avenue was, ferocious flashes of lightning lit up the sky with no gaps between them.

‘This is very not good,' said Mordonna. ‘This will end in tears long, long before bedtime.'

‘See,' said the Queen, ‘told you so.'

‘The screen on my Keep-An-Eye-On-Things-At-Home-Scanner has gone dead,' said Winchflat. ‘And my Keep-An-Eye-On-My-Keep-An-Eye-On-Things-At-Home-Scanner-Scanner is dead too.'

As the whole family waited and worried on the top floor of the Hotel Splendide, Winchflat tapped the screens on his receivers and they all showed the same thing.

Nothing.

‘What about your Keep-An-Eye-On-Your-Keep-An-Eye-On-Your-Keep-An-Eye-On-Things-At-Home-Scanner-Scanner-Scanner?' said Betty, who knew just how well prepared her brother always was.

‘Dead too,' said Winchflat, facing the terrible prospect of another invention failure, ‘and so is the backup and the backup-backup.'

Of course, what Winchflat didn't realise was that all his machines were working perfectly. The ‘nothing' they could see was not nothing. It was thick black smoke that looked exactly like nothing.

‘I don't want to alarm anyone, but I can smell smoke,' said Satanella, who, being a dog, had a sense of smell a hundred times more sensitive than human noses and thirty-seven times better than a wizard.

Ruby and Rosie weren't worried. They were Jack Russells, and Jack Russells don't believe in worrying. Ruby and Rosie were running around the hotel biting holes in all the pairs
of shoes people had left outside their doors for polishing.

Twelve floors meant eighty-seven pairs of shoes, all demanding to be chewed, run around with, tossed down the stairs and muddled up.

When Mordonna had rescued the two little dogs from the pound and brought them back to the hotel, she had given them the power of speech on the strict condition that they were never to use it when there were any humans around – except in extreme emergencies.

‘You know what?' said Ruby as she tore the heel off a really, really expensive Manolo Blahnik shoe.

‘What?' said Rosie as she bit a row of holes in a pair of handmade waterproof boots.

‘Life doesn't get any better than this!'

‘Right on, sister,' said Rosie. ‘Let's go down to the laundry and eat some undies.'

The wind lifted half the sand off the beach and threw it at Belgium. Only Betty and Ffiona's castle remained untouched, though the trained hermit
crabs inside all ran and hid under the miniature beds.

‘It's the Hearse Whisperer,' said Mordonna. ‘I know it is. She's escaped from the magic bottle and is taking it out on the whole world.'

‘Don't worry, said Nerlin. ‘There's no way she can find us. We just have to sit tight and wait until she calms down again.'

‘The Hearse Whisperer is never calm,' said Mordonna. ‘If she has to kill everyone in the whole country to find us, she'll do it.'

‘Relax, Mother,' said Valla. ‘She doesn't even know which country we are in.'

Winchflat went very white, which was actually an improvement on his normal grey-with-green-and-maroon-streaks colour.

‘What is it?' said Mordonna.

‘She can find us,' he said. ‘We left her a clue.'

‘What?' said Mordonna. ‘How…? Why…? I mean, you're always so careful.'

‘Well, we didn't think she'd ever, ever be able to escape,' said Winchflat. ‘After we had trapped
her in the bottle on that little island in Tristan da Cunha, I put the bottle in a padded envelope to stop it getting broken while we sent it down to the bottom of the sea.'

‘And you left the padded envelope down there, didn't you?' said Morbid.

‘Yes,' said Winchflat. ‘And because it was an enchanted bottle, it wouldn't have got broken anyway so we didn't even need the envelope.'

‘Hang on a minute,' said Valla. ‘Was it the envelope I got the free blood samples sent from Paraguay in?'

‘Yes.'

‘Which had our address on it?'

‘Yes,' said Winchflat, sounding miserable.

Everyone cursed at once with every single swear word they had ever heard.

‘It'll be all right,' said Betty. ‘There's nine of us and only one of her, and we trapped her once, we can do it again.'

‘And we're not at home,' said Nerlin cheerfully. ‘So that's all right.'

Before Mordonna could say anything, something came flying in through the window. The window was shut at the time, so the something flew into the window, smashed the glass with an almighty crash, and then came flying through it. It landed in a heap on the floor.