The Rookery Boxset

by B G Denvil

  Her mother’s watery gunge was not loved by many but most simply enjoyed meeting and chatting over the long dining table.

  Rosie was deeply sorry she could never again privately meet and chat with Whistle.

  Three

  Peg lived in one of the attics, not that she climbed all those stairs. She used the window. Having a rather poor memory, sometimes she forgot to open the window first, but this usually made little difference, apart from a collection of multi-coloured bruises over her forehead.

  She did, however, open the door when someone knocked. “Ah, dear little Rosie Scaramouch. What a surprise.” And then closed the door in Rosie’s face.

  “I haven’t come in yet,” Rosie called through the keyhole. Then, since Peg already knew who she was, Rosie walked through the closed door and smiled. “I just wanted to discuss something,” she said, sitting on the unmade bed. “I have a proposition.”

  “My husband propositioned me once,” Peg remembered, with a faraway smile. “But that was a very long time ago. He went off to discover the New World ninety-eight years gone, he hasn’t come back yet.”

  “My proposition is a little different,” Rosie admitted. “Did you know that Whistle Hobb was murdered last night? I want you to help me find out who did it. No one else seems much interested, but anyone powerful enough to smash the head of a ninety, is a very dangerous person.”

  “A ninety? Yes, A ninety-two, if he told me the truth. But, my dear, I am only an eighty-five.”

  “I’m a fifty, like my mother,” Rosie mumbled with a faint blush. “But together we’d make a hundred and thirty-five. Now that’s a reasonable power-house, don’t you agree? Poor Whistle. I think we should.”

  With a brief fiddle of her fingers, having momentarily forgotten the right order, Peg made the bed and changed her clothes. “Ping Pong, now we’ll be gone,” she said loudly, flicking fingers on both hands, and immediately they both appeared in the kitchen.

  Alice looked up and jerked awake. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she objected. “It’s most disconcerting. Besides, you usually use the window.”

  Peg shook her head. “It’s raining.”

  “Bother.” Alice closed her eyes again.

  “Which means,” Rosie interrupted her, “we can’t bury poor Whistle in the back yard yet. Can’t light a fire, the ground will be as sloshy as your pottage.”

  Her mother became steel-eyed and opened her mouth to shout, but this time Peg interrupted. “Thing is, my dear,” she said, discovering another stool under the table and sitting down with a bump, “our dear Whistle was a mixed bunch of daffodils. A little know-it-all, which annoyed some. But that was just because he really did know-it-all. He was a ninety-two. Now who, magical or human, is clever enough to kill a ninety-two? So,” and her smile grew as she clasped her thin fingered hands in her emerald velvet lap, “I suggest, my dear Alice, it is you who should clean up, since you are our much appreciated hostess, and do sort poor Whistle’s funeral too. In the meantime, with a little help from our friends, Rosie and I will solve this mystery.”

  Alice kept glaring, though saying nothing which might come back against her in the future. Peg, after all, was probably now the strongest witch in the entire house, and it would be most unwise to antagonise her. Although she had a poor memory and was known as completely scatty, Peg was a proven wonder house of oddities. So Alice stood, the glare fixed, and walked to the door. Here, she rang the large brass bell hanging high at the door jamb, and waited for some of her more helpful inmates to come rushing to see what she wanted.

  The Rookery was an old cottage, thatched in large parts, tin roofed in patches, and covered by slate on the rest. Although from the outside the cottage appeared to contain perhaps thirty small rooms or less, in fact, there were forty very large rooms tucked inside. There was a kitchen naturally, a spacious meeting hall with a huge inglenook large enough for Cinderella, and the garden outside which was huge and ran almost the length of Kettle Lane. The house itself was called The Rookery, but the actual rookery surrounded the house. There were nests for a hundred crows or more. Most of the time there were indeed a hundred crows or more. Though some of them kept to themselves and minded their own business, there were one or two who expected to have regular conversations with the witches. And besides, their own business often coincided.

  Amongst the rooms within The Rookery, lived a large community of aged witches and wizards, all of whom had far more need to be looked after than any wish to do it for themselves. Yes, you could summon up a reasonable dinner with a click of experienced fingers, but that didn't mean to say it always turned out in a good state. The roast lamb could be burnt. The pork chops could be underdone. And worst of all, the rainbow trout, instead of being stuffed with sage and onion could suddenly arrive stuffed with hollyhocks and rhubarb.

  Not that Alice’s cooking was trouble free, frequently it was either entirely lacking in taste, or tasted of toe nail clippings and sardine scales, but at least all the inhabitants could then blame Alice and not themselves.

  The wiccan inmates were all content to live in one or two rooms each, and be thoroughly looked after. Most were graded a little above sixty, since this was considered the average in magical power. But some, like Peg, were a good deal stronger, even if they were forgetful and apt to say their spells muddled.

  As a few of the more obediently helpful inmates came running or appearing to see what Alice wanted, both Peg and Rosie left the kitchen and went quickly into the communal salon. A huge room with a huge Inglenook fireplace large enough for Cinderella, it was more spacious and comfortable than the others. But it was distinctly chilly and the fireplace was empty even of a few hot sooty ashes. It was officially spring, and once spring had sprung, whatever the weather actually decided to do with itself, no fire was lit and the common salon remained hot or cold depending on the sun, or lack of it, through the windows. There were chairs and rugs and even a mottled mirror on one wall, but this did not mean the room was cosy. Indeed, it was distinctly chilly.

  "Now," Peg said, clapping her wizened hands, "if we're going to do this, let's get started. Are we looking for a human or a wizard?"

  “Everyone. Everything,” Rosie answered, rubbing her hands together. She had often attempted magical self-warming over the years, but so far had never succeeded. Now the rain was hurtling against the windows, and Rosie stared out with irritation. "I suppose we will just have to talk indoors," she said. "I doubt you have the power to stop the rain?"

  Peg shook her matted white topknot. "No, dear. I don't think even Whistle Hob could do that. But I could fly us into the village so quickly that we wouldn't get wet."

  Looking from her ice-tipped fingers to the dark hanging shadows, Rosie nodded with delight. "Brilliant idea”.

  Not so large but a good deal warmer, the Juggler and Goat was Little Piddleton’s one and only tavern, and with a whoosh unseen by the locals since everyone was indoors avoiding the rain, Peg and Rosie arrived at the front door and hurried inside. Sitting at a vacant table amongst the other vacant tables, they felt safe from eavesdroppers. Then, over large pewter tankers of strong ale, Rosie and Peg settled to discuss their plans.

  “Well,” Peg announced, “The future begins now, my dear,” and she buried her nose in her cup.

  "Humph,” said Rosie. "This may mean just a bit of plain investigation with a bit of magic mixed in. I like the sound of that. But where do we start?"

  Peg was snuffling into her ale. "Trouble is," she said with a sniff, "I do tend to get my magic back to front these days. You just have to put up with some spells going topsy-turvy. Upside down. Under the eiderdown. And don't forget, my dear, I am quite an old lady now. Yesterday I celebrated, rather privately, my two hundredth and one years. So not too much exercise please."

  "Not even a quick whizz around on the broomstick at night?" Rosie asked.

  "Oh, goodness gracious me," scoffed Peg. "I'm not interested in anything that old-fashioned. If I wish to exercise, rar
e as that is, I shall ride one of the bats. I'm very friendly with most of the bats, you know. After all, I live in the attic, and they live in the beams or the broken chimney. So we know each other quite well."

  "I can't imagine the bats are going to help us very much in this sort of situation," Rosie said. "What can such a little furry thing do? I don't think even the crows will be able to help. Besides the crows are nesting and tending their eggs. April is baby time. Perhaps the bats are having their babies now too."

  Sniffing down her nose, which was long with just a tiny twist on the end, was an easy expression for Peg. “Stuff and beetle-brained hog’s tails,” she said. “Now, let’s get to work. Actually, we have three possible categories of criminal to investigate. There’s the wizard – be he necromancer, small-time magician, or powerful sorcerer. There’s also the human species. Not usually very interesting, but they can do a lot of damage when they try. And not to be forgotten – are the ghosts.”

  “Oh bother,” Rosie sighed. “I had forgotten them.”

  “I think I shall change to wine,” Peg smiled, which puzzled Rosie since this had nothing to do with what they had been talking about.

  “Wine for what?”

  “For me to drink, silly.” Peg tapped her fingers on the table top, and immediately the landlord appeared, looking somewhat startled.

  “Did you call, mistress?” he asked, voice flustered. “Not quite sure how I got here. I were just doing the washing up.”

  “We need two nice big cups of best Burgundy,” Peg grinned. “And no doubt when you get back to your bucket, you’ll discover all the cups and platters clean as a duckling feather.” She looked up at Rosie across the tiny wooden table and its beer stains and ale puddles. “A little lubrication, my dear, is the trick that makes all magic work better. Now – what were we saying?”

  “Ghosts,” Rosie reminded her once the landlord had gone. “Now I have to admit, I’ve never seen one. Are you sure we have to consider them?”

  “One day maybe I will introduce you to some of mine,” Peg told her. “A couple are quite sweet, but there’s one that can be rather brackish. In the meantime, we should compare notes. Any wizards you don’t trust? Although this was a brutal crime, a witch might be just as capable.”

  The tavern was small and dark, but since it was raining, the barman had lit a couple of candles to make it all seem more welcoming. The rain seeped under the door and was creating an elongated stream, urged on by the draught. The main room wasn’t full, but Little Piddleton was a small village, and on a rainy day few people felt the need to rush outside, even those from The Rookery. A few sat with their noses in their cups. Since Rosie and Peg sat in one of the darker corners, they could not be overheard, but several of the men peeped over their tankards to see the rare arrival of females, one old, wizened, liver-spotted, small and quite ravishingly unattractive. The other female, however, was young and extremely pretty. Girl and Granny, the men assumed, as Rosie sipped her wine, and Peg quickly drained her cup.

  As Peg waved imperiously for a refill, Rosie said, “That’s actually quite easy. Starting with the wizards – first, there’s my father. Dearest Daddy. He’s only a twenty, he’s awfully sweet, but he likes sitting out with the crows, or if it’s raining, he sits in the chicken shed. He can manage a few things, but not much. As a twenty, he can hardly do up his doublet.”

  “Not on my list, then.”

  “Number two, little Boris Barnacle. He’s a bit of a tadpole, and has some bodily strength but not much else. He’s a twenty-four. He likes pretending he could be a wrestler when they get invented.”

  Peg drained her cup a second time. The barman was watching now so she didn’t have to wave. Recognising a good customer with a usefully eager appetite for booze, he came over at once with the jug.

  “Number three, Toby Tuckleberry, is a sixty, and number four, Mandrake Karp, is a seventy-one. Toby’s nice but Mandrake is an arrogant pig. Whereas my number five, Montague – well,” she lowered her voice, “I admit I rather like him. And he’s a seventy-eight.”

  Now Peg was draining another cupful. “Tell me about old Emmeline Brimstone. I can’t stand the woman. She’s capable of murderous coshing, I’d wager. She definitely tried to kill me off once. Poison. Probably jealous. Not that I ever talk to her.”

  Just a little confused once again, Rosie said, “But I like her. She conjured up chocolate smarties for me, and since chocolate hasn’t been discovered yet, I was quite impressed.”

  “Woman’s never given me anything except once she left a melting mess of dark brown poisonous stuff on my pillow, which even my magic couldn’t clean up and I had to use a real cloth to clean it. Took ages, and smelled disgusting.”

  “I think,” Rosie was cautious, “that might have been a gift of chocolate.”

  “Enough.” Peg slurped her last dregs of wine, held up one hand and stood abruptly with a slight quiver of one knee. “Poison doesn’t count as a gift.”

  With a hurried slurp of her own remaining cup of wine, Rosie looked up. “Where are you going?”

  “This is getting us nowhere. We need to watch and wait. In the meantime, it’s stopped raining so we ought to be getting home.”

  “How do you know it’s stopped raining?” enquired Rosie, staring at the encroaching river beneath the closed door.

  “Oh, dear, don’t be silly,” Peg croaked, wrapped her scarf around her neck a little too tightly. “Kindly remember I’m an eighty-five. Indeed, I’m probably an eighty-six by now.”

  There seemed little point in arguing, so Rosie slapped down the required coins on the table, nodded to the barman, and followed Peg outside. She had been correct, of course, the rain had stopped. It was chilly for a spring evening, but well wrapped, both women trotted out and headed for the village outskirts and the fork in the road which led to Kettle Lane.

  Peg was in the middle of talking when she disappeared. “Oh dear, dear, dear,” she was saying, “the wind is growing str–” and with a shudder, she was gone.

  Staring in agitation, Rosie stood and called. She began to wonder what had happened and made a mental list as she always did. “One, she could have been swept off her feet by the wind. Two, she could have decided to fly herself home and forgot to take me with her. Three, she could have been abducted by wicked magicians, such as the one who killed Whistle. Four, the crows? No, surely not the crows. I would have noticed.”

  Amidst the bluster and howl of the gale, Peg abruptly reappeared. She was obviously disconcerted and apologised as she grabbed her scarf and her cloak collar, pulled her hat over her ears and held onto the feather, while wiping her nose on the back of her other hand.

  “What happened?”

  “Dear, oh dear,” Peg sniffed. “That was a mess. The wind, you know. Most uncomfortable. So I decided no one was about to see us, and I’d fly us both home.”

  “So what happened?”

  “My fingers got mixed up,” Peg confessed. “A touch of arthritis, you see. I ended up in Mongolia. The Gobi Desert. I don’t recommend it, dear. Not a nice place at all at this time in history. Strange animals and things with lumps on their backs, and people playing with eagles. Most unpleasant. And deserts are supposed to be hot, you know. At least, that’s what I read in Ye Olde Lonely Planet. But the Gobi was freezing. Haunted too.”

  “I thought you liked ghosts?”

  “Only when they speak English and don’t stare from the shadows.”

  Trudging the last few steps home, neither spoke. Nor did either attempt to fly back home. One mistake was enough. Clutching cloaks and hats, they stumbled over wet cobbles and finally arrived within sight of the old cottage, and were met, as usual, by the chattering and squawking of the crows. Some were comparing eggs and squabbling over who had the prettiest.

  But then Peg turned to ask Rosie whether she wished to walk in the front door, or fly straight up to Peg’s bedchamber window, when the next inconvenient loss became obvious.

  For now, it was Rosie wh
o had disappeared.

  Four

  Scrabbling with fingers and thumbs, Peg sailed through the kitchen window of The Rookery and stared belligerently at Alice. “Quick, quick,” she demanded. “What’s the spell for getting someone back without knowing where they are? I’ve forgotten.”

  “I have no idea. You’re supposed to be the eighty-five.” Alice tried to look haughty. Then she got the point. “Where’s my Rosie?”

  “Disappeared,” said Peg, both thumbs in a tangle.

  Alice rushed immediately to the kitchen bell and rang it over so many times she gave herself a headache. “My little girl,” she shrieked. “Come find my Rosie.”

  Jumbling and flapping, the entire Rookery flew, ran, slid the balustrade, jumped and generally pushed downstairs, cloaks tangled together and everyone shouting at the same time.

  “Our little Rosie?” yelled Harry Flash. “Who took her?”

  Emmeline appeared through the window. “My favourite little fifty,” she wailed. “How did she disappear?”

  “And where did she go?” Marmaduke demanded.

  Peg, despite the humped shoulders and crooked back, hopped onto the kitchen table and gazed down at the entire collection of The Rookery inhabitants. “You lot just listen to me,” she waved a carving knife discovered on the table. “She may not have the strongest magic amongst us, but she’s the nicest. So get moving. We need to find her now.”

  “You lost her?” Marmaduke frowned.

  “Just be careful,” Peg glared. “I’m stronger than you, twiddle-top. Rosie was with me when she just upped and blinked out.” She refrained from admitting her own brief visit to the Gobi Desert. “And we have a murderer in our midst. We need to find Rosie and double quick, before she’s the second sacrifice.”