Tales From The Wyrd Museum 1: The Woven Path (19 page)

A narrow flight of steps lay beyond covered by a plush green carpet and spanning the entire length of the wall above was a huge oil painting of a mythological landscape executed in the Pre-Raphaelite style.

Mounting the stairs, the boy paused to look at the great canvas. The scene was the edge of a forest—a titanic ash tree dominated the middle of the picture and at the base of the trunk, positioned around a pool of blue water, were the slender figures of three beautiful nymphs arrayed in flowing robes of white, red and black.

Each exquisite, willowy woman was holding something in her pale, elegant hands and Neil held the torch very close until he could see what these objects were.

The crimson-clad figure, whose hair shone in the sunlight like a river of molten gold, was depicted performing a graceful dance and she bore aloft a silver spindle, wrapped around with many different-coloured threads.

Next to her, and reaching for one of the threads with her right hand, was the white-robed maiden, who carried a measuring rod in her other hand. The beauty of this woodland goddess caused Neil to catch his breath—her coal-black hair streamed behind her in long, raven tresses and her face was lit by a heavenly radiance that emanated from within.

Turning from her, Neil brought his scrutiny to bear on the third and final female.

Standing a little apart from the others, there was something sinister about this black-gowned woman. Standing beside a large wooden loom and lost in the tree's shadow, a veil obscured her face, and in her grasp she clutched a pair of shears which she brandished menacingly. Unlike the rest of the picture, where spring and summer flowers mingled idyllically in the warm sunshine, the ground about this cowled figure's feet was stony and barren and the only plants that grew there were monstrous toadstools and rank, strangling weeds.

Neil shuddered and searched for the painting's title, which he found written in gilt letters along the bottom of the frame.

The Nornir Those Three of Mortal Destiny

Then he saw, to the left of the painting, a much smaller frame hanging on the wall which contained a yellowing fragment of parchment that had evidently been torn from an old manuscript. Frowning, the boy tried to decipher the faded writing.

Neil looked up from the parchment and stared uneasily back at the three figures depicted in the painting. Then, leaving the canvas behind, he ascended to the top of the narrow stair, where a thick damask curtain hung from a brass pole. Cautiously, he tugged it aside and stepped through an open archway.

Neil had found it at last, the musty room he entered contained no covered display cases, only the same shabby furniture that could be found in any old house.

Three well-padded, but worn, leather armchairs took up much of the space and were arranged round a circular table upon which was an ornate candelabra obscured by dribbles of wax. Directly over this, hanging from the ceiling, was a grimy chandelier and, smothering the faded wallpaper, together with shelves of black-bound books, were watercolours and arrangements of elaborate fans.

The only window was a small square of diamond, lead-latticed panes and towering before it was a tall, naked hatstand. Every available surface was cluttered with a thousand tiny knick-knacks and trinkets, but over all this—armchairs, table and everything—was a thick layer of dust.

Ancient, frayed cobwebs hung in tattered wisps from the cut glass of the chandelier and fine, gossamer threads stirred gently as Neil's breathing disturbed the long-stale air.

The Webster sisters can't have lived in just this one room,’ he declared, looking for another entrance but unable to find one. ‘Is this it, then? Is this where they grew up and spent their youth—in one dingy little shoebox?’

Just behind the door, a drab watercolour hung on the wall and the boy contemplated it with interest.

The pale, washed-out sketch was of a grand manor house, set within its own well-tended grounds, and it was only after he had been staring at it for some minutes that he recognised the shape of the building. Only three pinnacles soared from the roof of this more dignified version and the entrance was a simple arched door—but there was no doubt about it, here was a much younger incarnation of the Wyrd Museum.

‘What happened to the gardens?’ he mused to himself. ‘Maybe the family had to sell them off—perhaps one of the Websters’ ancestors went broke or lost the fortune by gambling.’

Stealing over to the bookshelves, he dragged his finger through the choking dust and speculated where the three sisters could be in this time. ‘No one's been here for years,’ he mumbled. ‘Perhaps they left the city and evacuated to the country to escape the bombs.’

Then, one of the book titles caught his eye and Neil dragged the volume from its niche.

‘That's impossible,’ Neil uttered in a small voice, ‘it can't be the same woman, it must mean her grandmother.’

Sliding the inventory back to its place, he removed its neighbour and put his hand to his forehead as he read this next inscription.

Breathlessly, Neil studied the next book.

As Neil started to return the volume to the shelf, a piece of card fluttered from its pages and landed on the floor. Retrieving it, he saw that it was a yellowing invitation and the overly elaborate, scrolling letters had been printed in silver ink.

In thoughtful silence, Neil slid the card back into the accounts book. But before he could examine anything else the shelf had to offer, his attention was arrested by an oval painting above the fireplace, positioned between two vases of peacock feathers. With a sense of foreboding, he crossed to the hearth and slowly raised the torch.

‘No!’ he spluttered. ‘No!’

The painting was a portrait of three women and Neil knew them instantly.

Smiling out of the oils were the Webster sisters, but to the boy's amazement and consternation, they were exactly the same as when he had last seen them.

Standing directly behind the others, stiff in her black taffeta and looking with disdain at the unknown artist, Miss Ursula was gaunt and austere. Her sister Veronica, ridiculous with her dyed hair, smeared lipstick and flour-covered complexion, sat below her and at her side, with her goofy teeth hiding her bottom lip, was Miss Celandine.

No bloom of youth touched them—it was a portrait of three elderly, haggard women, and each looked identical to how they had appeared to Neil, fifty years later.

‘It can't be them!’ he cried. They'd only be about thirty in this time, and the picture must have been painted ages ago. Family likeness, that's all it is—they'll be the aunts of the ones I knew.’

Yet in his heart he knew it really was a painting of the Websters he had met and he recoiled from it as though it had burned him.

‘What's going on?’ he asked wretchedly. ‘I don't understand—they never grew any older. Who are they? What are they?’

Staggering from the unsettling room, he stood at the top of the narrow staircase and shouted, dejectedly, for his brother.

‘Josh!’ he bawled. ‘Josh, I'm sorry. I can't find the answer! I tried, but I just can't!’

Outside the building, engulfed in the shadows that filled the cramped, concrete yard, a small figure heard the boy's anguished cries and glanced impishly up at the dark windows.

A fey smile curved over Edie Dorkins’ face as the muffled shouts faded into silence and she scampered swiftly over to the drinking fountain where she pressed the lever and gargled in the glittering water that poured from the nozzle.

As the sacred liquid tingled through her, she wiped her mouth and listened for any more voices, then very faintly, began to hum to herself.

Peter Stokes licked the neatly trimmed hairs of his moustache and placed the mug on the shelf.

‘I better get off and see what's doin’,’ he told Joe Harmon, ‘make sure everything's nice and dark out there, though I don't think Jerry’ll bother tonight.’

His fellow air-raid warden looked up from the copy of the
Magnet
that Neil had left behind and sucked the air through his teeth uncertainly.

Joe Harmon was a thin, wiry man with a grim, florid face but his dour expression could alter in a twinkling into one of jovial benignity.

‘Do not place any of your bets on this,’ he cautioned, ‘We have been making many raids on Germany in the recent days—I fear the Nazis will be wanting to avenge them.’

‘You could be right,’ Peter granted, ‘I’ll just have to be doubly vigilant. Let's see, it's a quarter to ten, I'll do my rounds and see you back here in an hour or two.’

‘If only Fat Arnold were still with us,’ Joe said sadly. ‘I do not like having to do his shift as well as my own, already it has made me miss Gert and Daisy on the wireless—a most funny pair of English ladies.’

Peter wrapped his scarf about him and pulled on his tin hat. ‘I always prefer
Bandwagon’
he said. That Arthur Askey's even been known to put a smile on my mother's face and if that's not proof that miracles do ‘appen, I don't know what is.’

Mr Harmon looked at him for a moment then, in his gentle accent, said, ‘It is good to see you like this, my friend. There was a time, not far ago, when I worried for you.’

Peter coughed uncomfortably. 'Takes a while, doesn't it?’ he answered: ‘But life goes on, as my Jean kept telling me. Some days I even forget he's gone, you know, and I find myself thinkin’ I must tell Billy this or that, then I remember that he ain't here no more. ‘Orrible, empty feelin’, that is. Won't ever get over that.’

‘We are nothing without our children,’ Joe commented. ‘Many, I fear, will know that feeling by the time this war is over—and some more than most. Ah, still—you are most lucky yet to have your daughter.’

Peter nodded then sloughed off the solemn mood by saying, ‘I ‘eard your Mickey gave the coppers a hard time this mornin’.’

Mr Harmon threw his hands in the air. ‘All day long I have heard nothing but murder from that boy, what monster have I raised? His talk makes his mother faint, twice already this day he has done this to her. When he goes to war he will, I think, be changed. I pray that is all that befalls him.’

‘Him and Neil make a funny pair.’

‘You are fond already of that mystery boy,’ Joe observed. ‘If you keep lucky, then maybe he never remember where he live.’

Peter smiled but made no answer. ‘Time I was off,’ he said, ‘see you later.’

Joe Harmon waved to him as he left the wardens’ post, then picked up the
Magnet
once more and continued reading.

Walking through the empty streets, Peter Stokes’ thoughts were preoccupied by visions of William, his son. He was always a high-spirited boy and inherited his pig-headedness from his grandmother. When Billy enlisted, Peter's chest had swelled with pride, glad that his son was willing to march off and fight for his king and country. It never entered his head he might never come back—not once. Tragedies like that happened to other families, not his.

Angrily, the warden shook himself— he had been through all these recriminations so many times—he knew he had to get on with life and make the best of it, that's what Billy would have wanted.

Trudging through the puddles, Peter fastened the top button of his coat and buried his face in the scarf—it was getting chilly again.

In the darkness, for a brief second, the woollen scarf appeared to glint and shimmer with a greenish hue shot through with strands of silver, then the illusion vanished and it was dark blue once more.

‘Summat nasty about tonight,’ Peter grumbled, ambling past the edge of the large bomb site. There's summat foul in the air, I don't like it.’

Glancing suspiciously around the dark, murky street, the warden grunted, it wasn't like him to be so edgy. ‘It's that Joe Harmon mentioning Billy that's done it,’ he told himself. ‘I think I might pop back home for a bit and have another cuppa, my skin's creeping like it's full of ants.’

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Peter Stokes turned in the direction of Barker's Row, then stopped dead in his tracks.

‘What the ...’

Unable to believe his eyes, the warden blinked and stared out into the bomb site again.

Towards the middle of the bleak wasteland, behind the ruined walls and heaps of rubble, a terrace of three shattered houses reared into the damp night and Peter mumbled under his breath in bewilderment.

“Ell's bells!’

In spite of the fact that it was gutted, derelict and roofless and deprived of heat and water, one of the buildings had suddenly burst into light. From every broken window and every splintered door, dazzling shafts of radiance blazed into the night, their intense beams piercing and mocking the blackout, spiking the darkness in all directions with brilliant, blinding blades.

‘What the bleedin’ ‘ell's going on over there?’ Peter rumbled, hastening into the unearthly landscape. ‘What sort of stupid nutter's doing that?’

Quickly, the warden ran towards the shameless beacon, shouting the entire time for the idiots responsible to douse the dangerous glare.

‘You want to tell Jerry exactly where you are?’ he bellowed. ‘Put that bloody light out! I'm warning you!’

But the building continued to gush forth with rays so fierce and bright that they hurt his eyes to look on.

‘Never seen the like!’ Peter snarled. The rain must've shorted an exposed fuse somewhere. If this is that Dorkins girl, I'll have her this time, even if she tries to bite me whole hand off.’

Into the glare he ran, his stretching shadow flitting further back as he drew ever closer to those blazing windows.

Tearing through the harsh brightness that shone starkly over the rough terrain at the rear of the empty house, the warden dashed for the back door and threw himself inside.

The demolished kitchen was unbearable, the light bulb that dangled from the warped ceiling was like a tiny sun and a crackling buzz chimed within the filament as it scorched and flared a thousand times brighter than it was made to.

Peter could hardly open his eyes as he fumbled his way towards the switch, squinting and shielding them with his hands as every surface reflected the unnatural brightness full in his face.

Eventually, he found it and flicked it up. But the garish light refused to be extinguished and steadfastly continued to burn.

“What on earth... ?’ the warden gabbled, lumbering from the intense kitchen and out into the equally dazzling hallway.

Not able to see where he was going, a broken bannister rod smacked him in the face, cutting and gouging his cheek until a trickle of blood gleamed on the broken skin like a luminous string of rubies.

Groping his hands over the walls, Peter found the hall switch and angrily snapped it off, but still the bulbs blistered and seared.

'This ain't right,’ he muttered, ‘not right at all—plum weird.’

Opening the parlour door, he looked quickly round the garish room, with its collapsed roof timbers still thrust into the floor, but there was no one there.

‘Edie's got to be in here someplace,’ he told himself, ‘I'd stake my bacon ration on it.’

Screwing up his face, he looked upstairs to the landing and sucked his teeth as he considered what to do.

‘I’ll bet that little devil's up there,’ he decided, ‘havin’ a right good laugh at my expense. Well, them steps better hold out ‘cos she ain't makin’ a ruddy fool out of me no more.’

Tentatively, he tested the bottom stair—it seemed strong enough, and so Peter Stokes began to climb.

Suddenly, the kitchen was plunged into darkness, but now he was almost halfway and could not see. Behind him, as he neared the top, the hall light snapped out and the whole of the downstairs was lost in deep shadow.

Peter stared down into the well of blackness where the stairs descended and a wry grin broke on to his face.

‘She's gettin’ a bit smart, ain't she—fiddlin’ with the ‘lectrics? You'd best be careful, lass,’ he called out, ‘else you might fry yourself

Looking along the landing, he tried to guess which of the two rooms she was holed up in.

‘Ain't no floor in the end one,’ he reminded himself, ‘now then, Miss, I've got you.’

Warily pressing the weight of his foot on the landing, expertly listening to the boards squeak and complain, the warden approached the nearest bedroom.

Before he reached it, the naked bulb that hung over the stairwell began to flicker and, just as his hand reached for the doorknob, it went out.

An absolute darkness crashed in round Peter Stokes, broken only by the slice of light shining from under the bedroom door.

Hesitating before he pushed it open, the warden's skin tingled and a ridiculous fear of the blackness that swamped him flared in his mind. He had never experienced such a complete darkness. Even in the worst blackout the night did not possess such a deep and sombre solidness.

It was as though the dark had taken a form and substance all its own, to become a tangible, suffocating enemy, an adversary in which every terror was made manifest and every nightmare a hideous reality.

To his distress, it seemed that the pitch gloom was actually growing darker. The malevolent night crept through the hallway below, flowing up the stairs to come pouring towards him. A vile, fetid reek was borne on the advancing, blind blackness—a stench of open graves and rotting corpse flesh—and at once, Peter was overwhelmed by unreasoning fear.

Kicking the bedroom door open, he leaped inside, then sent it slamming into the frame behind him—propping himself against it to try and keep the darkness out.

As beads of sweat pricked over his forehead, the warden squinted round the bedroom. Except for himself, the only illuminated place in the derelict house was totally empty.

For a puzzled instant the warden stared round at the four bright walls, then swallowed nervously; whoever was trying to unsettle him was making an excellent job of it.

Wildly, he wondered if he could crawl out of the shattered window and drop down to the ground below, just to get out of this uncanny building that lured its victims with light and crept after them with unfathomable dark.

‘Easy now,’ he panted, trying to stop the panic, ‘don't be hasty, don't be hasty, you'll only go an’ break your neck. What's to be scared of? Yer an air-raid warden, you ain't supposed to be ‘fraid of the dark. You came here to put the perishin’ lights out, don't go all to jelly when they do.’

Then he heard it, a faint noise in the hallway below, a furtive, shambling tread creeping towards the stairs.

'There is someone else in the house!’ he cried and the relief at the plainly human sound banished the fears that had threatened to unman him.

But the smile soon melted from his face, there was something horrible and repellent about the purposeful stealth of those dragging footsteps.

‘Hope that's Joe come to see what the lights were about,’ he murmured hopefully. ‘Oi, Joe, that you?’

He received no answer but the footsteps continued to climb the stairs and Peter's mind flew to Doris Meacham—perhaps her murderer was with him now, steadily mounting the steps in complete blackness, hungry for another victim.

‘Right,’ Peter growled, looking around for something to serve as a weapon and picking up the leg of a broken chair, ‘You come in here, chummy, you won't find me so easy to butcher.’

By now the footsteps had reached the landing where they turned and began lumbering towards the brilliantly-lit room.

Peter moved away from the entrance and lifted the chair leg over his head, tensing himself for the door to fly open and the assailant to come charging in.

‘First I'll knock whatever knife you've got out of your hand,’ Mr Stokes assured himself, ‘then I'll whack you out cold.’

Above him, the buzzing light bulb abruptly dimmed and the shock of that instilled more terror into Peter than any murderer ever could.

‘Don't you go out!’ he prayed. ‘Don't leave me in the dark.’

The footsteps were right outside the bedroom now and, whilst the light continued to wane, Peter took deep breaths as he prepared for the brutal attack.

Nothing happened. Not a sound filtered through the door and the perspiration turned cold on the warden's brow as he waited for the onslaught to begin.

After several minutes, with only the high buzzing of the failing light bulb to be heard, Peter's arms began to ache and he cried, “What are you waiting for? Come in, why don't you?’

A faint noise like a strangled sigh groaned behind the doorway and Peter chewed his lower lip.

‘What was that?’ he called. ‘If you've got something to say, you'd best do it in here.’

‘Dad?’ came a fevered voice. ‘Dad, is that you?’

Peter Stokes lowered the chair leg and the pit of his stomach tightened into a painful knot. ‘Who... who's that?’ he stammered.

‘Dad, it's me, let me in.’