Pip and the Twilight Seekers (4 page)

Edgar didn’t like the new house. He didn’t like his room, nor did he like his bed. He had terrible dreams and he wanted to return to the old place.

“It’s the rotten soldier’s fault,” insisted Edgar.

“Poor old Mister Soldier,” said Mrs. McCreedy. “You can’t blame him. He’s just an old wounded hero, sent here to make you feel welcome in your new home.”

“He’s evil,” said Edgar, and he threw the figure across the room and watched him land in a folded heap in the corner.

“I’m sure it’s quite normal,” explained Ely McCreedy to his wife. “Edgar has had an ordeal. Moving home can be quite distressing for children. After all, he is in hiding. Who knows what such a thing does to a child?”

When Edgar went to bed that night it was not until the early hours that he finally felt the weight of his eyes reduce him to sleep. But he tossed and turned again and his dreams were filled with nightmare creatures and sinister voices.

He rose from his bed, his eyes opened wide, but all the while he stayed asleep. Pushing back the warmth of his bedclothes he slid into the shoes that were tucked under the frame. And then he walked across the room and picked up the figure of the old wooden soldier, holding it tightly in his hand.

Then, without any hesitation, he walked up the step into the parlor and unlatched the front door. His movements went unheard by his parents and he stepped out into the night. He was now under the glowing torchlight that was fixed to the wall of the house.

He marched purposefully across the street and through the stone archway that led to the footbridge.

In a short while he had walked a good way across the hollow and now he headed, unheedingly, into the woods. As he did so Captain Dooley’s eyes shone brightly, glowing like little white moons in the snowy crisp darkness of the hollow, as if to affirm his satisfaction. If that little wooden face of his could have smiled, it would have done so.

“Well, well, well. A little boy lost,” came a voice that seemed to appear from nowhere.

A tall figure loomed over Edgar McCreedy. He had strange white hair, one dark eye, one milky gray eye, and two sets of long arms, but the boy seemed not in the least alarmed. Not even the sight of the wolf that walked alongside him was enough to perturb him.

“You let me take care of your little wooden soldier, my boy, and come along with me,” said the man. “Mister Roach will look after you for sure.”

Edgar handed the figure of Captain Dooley to Roach without so much as a shrug of his shoulders and then he took his hand, and off they walked, into the thick of the Spindlewood Forest.

It was oh, so cold, but the captain had a feeling he had not had in a long while, almost as if he was returning home. The fresh cool air, the smell of Spindlewood, and the drowsy, dreamy feel of the forest. He opened his eyes to the trees. Endless pillars of frosted white bark that reached out forever, winding and twisting a snakelike walk into a black wilderness. “There’s no place like home,” whispered the captain quietly to himself, for h knew he should only speak when spoken to.

Toad had done it again. He’d lain there in the dark telling his sinister tales of the hollow into the early morning and then suddenly he was asleep and snoring, leaving Pip and Frankie half frightened out of their wits.

“How does he do that?” said Frankie. “You know, falling asleep like that. Instantly, without any warning!”

Pip chuckled to himself. Good old Toad. Seemingly nothing bothered him. But Pip did not have quite the same way of dealing with things. His mind turned with the events of the hollow and his troubled past chased on after him through the dark hours.

He was eager to change the subject.

“What is it like,” he began, “to be part of a family? You know, brothers and sisters and parents?”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” Frankie said. “I miss them terribly, the young ones especially. I miss all their little ways. How they laugh and sing and make fun and how they’re always jolly.”

“And what of your parents?”

“I miss them too. My mother’s arms around me and my father’s smile. They are good people, Pip. They just want to live in peace. They do no harm.”

“You’ll find them again one day,” promised Pip. “I know you will.” And he felt that he could somehow sense her pain. They lay in silence in their beds, pulling their sheets around themselves to fend off the cold.

Pip’s mind wandered as he lay alone in the darkness. Why was he without sisters and brothers? Who were his parents? Perhaps he was part of some wrongdoing in the past and had blanked out the details, something that meant he was not allowed the kind of life he would have loved. He had that feeling again—the one that felt there was a part of him missing. As if a piece of him had been removed and it had left a hole right there in his side. He tossed and turned in his bed and nursed the pain until sleep crept upon him and carried him through the twilight.

The forest was still. Cold and crisp and calm. But as Roach returned with young McCreedy, noises spilled among the trees. Howls and barks and strange hoots that only the forest folk could understand. They escalated in a whirling cacophony of sound, louder and louder. Things gathered and drew close, inspecting at a distance, watching in wonder and wild excitement.

Wood witches came near, too near, cackling and cawing with their crows and wolves at their sides.

The boy remained trancelike as they poked and pawed him and inspected him closely.

“A child,” came an excited voice. It was followed with gasps and oohs and aahs.

“Urghhh!” said Stixx. “Ugly little fella, in’t he?” “Yeah, pig ugly,” said Pugg, her nose wrinkling up in disgust, as her eyes narrowed to an enquiring squint.

And then they saw that Roach carried the old soldier in his hand and the excitement turned to pandemonium. They began to tug at his arms and legs until they almost broke his little wooden limbs. Roach lost his temper and pushed them all away. His wolf companion growled at the onlookers, forcing them backward into submission.

A crow landed on a nearby branch ahead of her master, who followed on quickly.

“Esther,” said Hogwick. “Where is he?” “He’s here.”

And then, predictably, the wheels were rolling through the snow-blessed grounds of the forest. The shape of the black pumpkin appeared ominously through the trees and Jarvis was back with his carriage mended and his horse in fine fettle.

“Well, how interesting,” said Jarvis, announcing himself. “A little party and I’m not invited. What have we here, Mister Roach?”

“Well, in these hands I have the McCreedy boy,” said Roach, pulling the child into view with his two left arms. “And in these hands I have our friend Captain Dooley.” He grinned with the wooden doll held preciously on display.

It was the first time Jarvis had seen children since the others had escaped him. He stared in disbelief, unable to comprehend how Roach had managed to capture one before he had. He was mesmerized by its ugliness. The little round face, the snubby little nose. The sheer smallness of it. Chalky white skin, that had not been blessed with sunlight. They really were dreadful creatures.

Jarvis was not the only one inspecting Edgar closely. Faces leered down at him. Long snouts and dribbling mouths seemed to draw closer and closer. By now he was coming to his senses, wondering where he was and what strange company he was keeping.

“An impressive catch indeed,” said Jarvis, whose insane jealousy was immediately overridden by his joy that Captain Dooley had been discovered. It was so long since he’d worn the expression that the smile he made almost cracked his face in half.

“Who are you, boy?” he sneered.

“Edgar,” he said in a mumbled daze. “Edgar McCreedy.”

“Oh really,” he said, staring harder. “Huh … I must look harder in future, eh,” he mumbled to himself.

“Take him to the undergate,” said Hogwick, and a procession of four- and two-legged things marched Edgar away.

Jarvis took hold of the wooden soldier. It was their first meeting. Jarvis found it hard to believe that this loose-limbed scrap of wood and rusting joints, with his pointy little nose and round rolling eyes, could help him. “We shall see,” he whispered to himself, and he tucked him into his belt so that the captain’s head and arms hung over the leather and across the buckle. He climbed back onto his carriage and left.

Captain Dooley’s way of speaking was more than strange.

There was to be no hesitation on Jarvis’s part. Everyone knew where his first suspicions lay. Excitement thumped in his heart as he popped the old wooden soldier on the mantelpiece. He had prepared himself for the moment by making himself a drink and lighting the fire, almost as if he was about to enjoy a favorite book or sit down to a hearty meal. Esther sat on the top of the wingbacked chair with her feet clamped into the dirty fabric. She could see that her position was about to be made redundant. With Captain Dooley’s knowledge of where all the children were, it seemed she would be without use, but knowing she could do nothing, she hung around until she was forced to do otherwise.

Now there are some things that don’t seem right no matter how you look at them. You can see the proof right there in front of you. But somehow, it is not enough. And that was exactly how it felt to watch and listen to Captain Dooley speaking. He would drop his square little box of a lower jaw like it was spring-loaded and the words would come tumbling out in the meanest, croakiest, most pathetic little voice you’ve ever heard.