Tales From The Wyrd Museum 2: The Raven's Knot (9 page)

‘Oh, Ursula!’ Miss Celandine grumbled at her side as she flapped her hands within the long sleeves of Patrick's overcoat. ‘Why do Veronica and I always end up with the horrible clothes? Look at Edith, that charming dress is far too big for her but those pretty necklaces are so darling!’

Aidan's sparkling eyes roved from sister to sister. Miss Veronica was wearing Luke's denim shirt and patterned waistcoat but in her gnarled hands she still carried the walking cane.

She did not return his interested glance. Instead she looked about them, the high-pencilled eyebrows which always made her appear startled, trembling as somewhere deep down she thought she recognised the pleasing contours of this buttery land.

Sitting alongside her, retaining her green pixie-hood but swamped by Dot's orange kaftan, Edie Dorkins chuckled at the sight of Aidan's awestruck face. Then twisted around in the voluminous garment—delighting in everything she saw.

‘You, you are most welcome here,’ Aidan stuttered, returning his gaze to Miss Ursula. ‘This is the highest possible honour—I cannot...’

‘Enough!’ the old woman said tersely. 'It is gratifying that you know who we are. Yes, there is much of Askar in you.’

‘How... how could I not recognise you?’ he gasped. ‘All my life I've waited...’

Miss Ursula waved him into silence.

‘Listen closely to me, Aidan,’ she rapped sternly. ‘There is a task I wish you to perform.’

‘Name it.’

‘First, you must come to the museum without delay. There you will learn all you shall need to know concerning the high office which dire necessity compels me to command you to undertake.’

‘I... I will leave at once.’

‘You had better. Now we must be gone and return your friend's companions to him, before he catches any more flies in his gawking mouth.’

Hearing this, Miss Celandine began to protest,

‘Oh, but we've only just arrived!’ she mewled.

Her sister ignored her. ‘When you are ready, Veronica,’ she said.

But the old woman wearing Luke's clothes was too wrapped in her reverie to hear her and Miss Ursula had to prod her to bring her out of it.

‘Remember, Aidan,’ Miss Ursula said as the cane was raised once more, ‘do not delay for anything. You must come to us at once... at once.’

Then, as suddenly as they arrived, with her instructions still hanging in the ether, the Websters and Edie disappeared, but not before Miss Celandine had spied the wine and taken a great, gurgling gulp.

Aidan looked up from his reverential bow. The four apparitions were nowhere to be seen, their unlikely figures replaced by those of his friends, but on the still evening air a distant child's voice called out, ‘I liked your music, Mister!’

‘What happened to my wine?’ Patrick asked, peering into the empty mug, not able to recall finishing it off.

‘Owen!’ Rhonda laughed. ‘What's the matter? You look as if you've seen a ghost. Aidan, why have you stopped playing? That was lovely.’

Aidan stared at her, then gave Owen a reassuring yet desperate look.

‘I've got to go,’ he announced with tremendous urgency. ‘There's something I have to... attend to.’

‘Aidan?’ Luke protested. ‘But you can't go yet, Rhon's going to make one of her famous stews.’

Owen grabbed his friend's arm. ‘Let him go,’ he said in a quavering voice. ‘Believe me, he's got more important things to do.’

***

In the Webster's apartments, Edie pulled back the curtain and was mildly shocked to find that, in the East End of London, it was still raining.

‘I liked that,’ she told Miss Ursula.

The old woman rose from the chair and smoothed out the creases in her evening gown.

‘As soon as Aidan arrives tonight,’ she instructed, ‘you are to go with him, do you understand Edith?’

‘I wish we could flit about like that every day,’ Miss Celandine lamented, wrapping her crimson velvet about her as she twirled in a circle. ‘It's so jolly being other people.’

Hunched in the armchair, Miss Veronica stroked the stem of her cane. ‘I knew that land,’ she muttered under her breath, frowning slightly. ‘I was there, long, long ago, before the mists took me.’

Nobody heard her, for Miss Ursula was explaining to Edie what she must do.

‘If you do not succeed in bringing the device here to me,’ she warned, ‘then we shall fail.’

‘Will the enemy kill the big root?’ Edie breathed.

Miss Ursula shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied with a cold ring in her voice. ‘The one whom the raven serves would never dare to injure the last remaining root of Yggdrasill. He does not wish for the ogres of the deep cold to reclaim the world any more than we. No, Edith, it is
us
he is bent upon destroying. He will never rest until our dominion over the destiny of mankind is ended.’

Edie grimaced. ‘He sounds real ‘orrible,’ she said.

Miss Ursula held out her hand for the child to take. ‘Come,’ she insisted, heading for the curtained doorway, ‘let us descend to the Chamber of Nirinel and there I shall tell you all you must know.’

‘URSULA!’

Everyone jerked their heads around to see Miss Veronica struggling from the chair to unbend her buckled back and raise her shrivelled arm to point the cane at her sister in grievous accusation.

Edie stared at the painted face and was stunned to behold the bitter acrimony that contorted her white, wizened features.

With a little yelp, Miss Celandine hid behind a cushion. She had not seen her sister so upset and furious since the beginning of their confinement and the spectacle dismayed her greatly.

Pressing her lips together and drawing herself up to her full, imperious height, Miss Ursula looked quizzically at Miss Veronica.

‘There's no need to shout,’ she said archly. ‘I can hear you well enough.’

Miss Veronica's half blind eyes grew large and staring, whilst her anger boiled within her ancient breast and her bright mouth twisted into a condemning snarl as, at long last, the confusion which had clouded her mind for so long, cleared.

‘I remember now!’ she stormed. ‘It was your fault Ursula—yours alone! Who was it told my Captain how to attain Godhead? Who else but the one who had listened to the voice in the leaves! You were always jealous of what we had together—that I knew. But I never suspected the depths to which you would stoop to steal him from me.’

‘Veronica!’ Miss Ursula commanded but her sister would not be silenced.

‘Your words!’ she snapped. ‘It was your words which pinned him to the tree as surely as the nails that were driven through his flesh. Nine nights he hung there, nine terrible nights in which I sought for him and nearly perished in the wild. Yet all the time you knew where he was and still you refused to tell. Oh yes, I found him in the end, but too late. When the sun dawned upon that tenth day he was no longer mortal!

‘You denied me all that I ever wanted. Beyond the reach of my heart you set him. You are a vile, despicable creature, Ursula—I loathe you! With every breath I curse your base, spiteful soul!’

Aghast at the ferocity of Miss Veronica's hostile attack, Edie looked up at Miss Ursula. It was plain that the old woman was horribly shaken and distressed.

Reaching out her pale hands in supplication, only to have them resentfully struck away with the end of the cane, Miss Ursula struggled to make herself heard.

‘You are wrong, Veronica!’ she cried. ‘It was the only way—he was the only one suitable. Do you honestly believe it was my decision? You forget the dire peril our people were facing, his valour bought our escape.’

‘Escape?’ Miss Veronica raged, striking the armchair so fiercely with the stick that a cloud of dust exploded into the musty air. ‘Better to have met death than go running to this wretched gaol where we've rotted ever since!’

Her sister recoiled as though another, more powerful blow from the cane had smote her and, staggering to the doorway, she hurriedly drew her hands across her eyes.

‘Come, Edith,’ she said huskily. ‘There is much you must learn.’

Glancing back at Miss Veronica who was still quaking with fury, the girl followed but the old woman hesitated before leading her from the apartment.

‘All that I have done,’ she declared, turning to face Miss Veronica, ‘was for the greater good. Vilify me if you will, but I know that my path was the only possible way.’

Miss Veronica shifted around so that she might not have to look at her any longer.

Glancing briefly at Miss Celandine who was still cowering behind a cushion, Miss Ursula departed and Edie trailed after.

‘Go,’ Miss Veronica breathed, leaning heavily upon the cane as she listened to their footsteps descend the staircase, ‘nothing you do can prevent it, Ursula. Bring the magical device to this accursed, benighted place—it won't avail you. The Captain was always tenacious. You, Celandine and I, we shan't escape him. Even now the servants he created to depose us may be racketing across the sky. This time the Gallows God will be victorious.’

Neil Chapman strolled home from his first day at his new school, hands in pockets, tie askew with his bag slung over one shoulder. At his side, Paul Roberts, the boy he had sat next to at assembly, enthused about his obsession, science fiction, and Neil listened politely.

‘Course, some people think they've only been visiting this planet for the past thirty years or so, but I reckon they've been here for ages. Take that bloke this morning.’

‘Who?’

‘The trendy vicar!’

‘You don't think he's an alien, do you?’

‘Don't be soft! Mind you, the way he was prancin’ about you'd think he'd come from another planet.’

Neil sighed sadly, ‘I felt sorry for him.’

‘Gormless Galloway's got a real ready recruit in you then hasn't he?’ he scoffed. ‘Wise up, Chapman, there's no such thing as an Almighty anything and that Jesus twaddle is the biggest rip-off going. Don't tell me you really believe in that drivel?’

The boys ceased walking, for they had come to the cheerless block of flats where Paul lived and Neil could see in the near distance the spires of The Wyrd Museum spiking up into the darkening horizon.

Half closing his eyes, Neil remembered that same view as he had seen it fifty years ago during the war and, with a shiver, he recalled the trumpeting voice of Belial blaring in pursuit.

‘I don't know what I believe any more,’ he finally muttered. ‘I never used to think anything of that kind of stuff, but now I dunno. I mean, you can't believe in one thing and not in the other can you? There are all sorts of forces at work in this world, Paul, and I know for certain that the devil exists—or one of them at least. I've seen it rampage down this very street.’

Paul goggled at him, then honked with laughter. ‘You're a scream, Chapman!’ he guffawed. ‘I love it! Hey, I gotta go. See you tomorrow, okay?’

‘Sure,’ Neil nodded as the boy headed towards the flats. ‘I certainly won't be going anywhere, not any more. My bit's done now and I'm stuck here for good. The adventure's well and truly over.’

Kicking an empty can along the street, he pressed on down a narrow cobbled way that ran between a series of derelict warehouses and an empty industrial estate. When he entered the cramped lane that led to the museum, he gazed up at the blank Victorian terrace which led up to its rearing bulk and stared at their dark, almost menacing facades.

Some of the houses were undoubtedly empty and their windows and doors were covered in boards. But others were still inhabited and he wondered who would want to live in such a desolate spot, with only a high blank wall on the opposite side of the road to stare at and the peculiar Wyrd Museum at the far end.

Squinting at the grim dwellings, Neil imagined their owners might be strange goblin creatures, who shunned the light, only creeping out in the darkness to dance around the museum and, with high squeaking voices, praise the three sisters who resided there.

‘Four now—there's Edie, too,’ he corrected himself, raising his eyes to study the magnificently bizarre building ahead.

With the failing light behind it, the squat shape of the museum seemed even more like a gigantic, crouching animal than ever before and although he disliked the Websters, Neil found he was actually glad that his father had come to work there.

‘Not pretty, is it?’ said a voice unexpectedly.

Neil started and looked around. Hidden by the blanketing shadows which converged at the junction of the terrace and Well Lane, lurked the dim figure of a man and although he could not see him properly, Neil could tell that he was staring straight at him.

'Funny old pile, isn't it?’ the stranger said, stepping from the gloom and the first glimpse Neil saw of him was of two blank, leaden discs as the evening sky reflected off a pair of spectacles.

The boy instinctively shrank away when the man approached.

He was an old, grizzle-haired character with a craggy, lined face who wore a cream coloured mackintosh. He looked like any other pensioner on his way to the social club, but there was something about this one that Neil thought he recognised.

‘Surprised to see anyone hereabouts,’ the man said, turning on an ingratiating grin. ‘Funny, quiet district this. Not surprising really with that monster sat there, like a slumbering dragon.’