by Chris Mould
Simple.
Well, simple except for one thing. To make your way across a moor at dusk would be a pleasant walk in many parts of the world. But here, of course, such a task involved a certain risk, a risk not yet taken seriously by Grimble and his friends.
A pair of yellowy eyes peered down from above. They were just awakening. Edmund Darkling had made his nightly transformation. He had shed his malnourished human form and become the four-legged menace that kept Crampton Rock in a state of high alert.
The creature lurked among the tall grass that blew in waves around the hills. Grimble began to walk, shakily, across the moor. He was being watched.
From the harbor, a horn blew, and one of the lookouts shouted to Nook and Beale. It was past the hour of dusk, and they must get indoors.
The wolf chose its moment, leaping at its victim with bared teeth. Grimble’s arms and legs flew out. He screamed and the wolf howled in response, jaws open, teeth bared. Biting and tussling prevailed, and blood began to flow.
But right then, Beale’s shotgun blasted, drowning out every other possible noise. He had missed, but the beast was startled and darted off into the blackness, leaving a sore and wounded Grimble. A trail of spilled blood petered out into the dark.
The three colleagues made haste back to their ship. Grimble did not yet have the energy to tell his friends of the treasure that waited in the mines. He tried but, through his exhaustion, the words just wouldn’t come. And they had already planned to set sail the next day.
Next morning, the Darkling children joined Stanley and Daisy at the Hall. They were discussing the previous day, and of course sniffing around. Mrs. Carelli was baking at the same time.
Berkeley and Olive were keen to tell her of the plans they had to cure MacDowell. They were going to feed him to Steadman limb by limb. She liked that idea!
Stanley and Daisy were locked in deep conversation at the kitchen table, whispering furiously about what to do next, and how to do it.
Annabelle ambled down the kitchen corridor, taking in the paintings and looking at the strange objects. She felt at home.
“A fine collection, wouldn’t you agree, Annabelle? There’s so much more to it than first meets the eye,” came a voice.
She looked over her shoulder. There was no one there. She looked all around, up and down. She was alone, and frightened.
“Forgive me, young Darkling, I do not wish to startle you, merely to make you aware of my presence. Your assistance is needed.”
The voice seemed to come from behind her, but when she turned to look there was just an old glass case with a stuffed pike inside it. She looked again. Its eye had shifted. She was sure of it.
“That’s right,” the voice carried on, and by now she was sure it came from the crusty old fish. “You take a good look. I’m not as young and handsome as I used to be, but there’s no need to look so appalled.”
“I’m … sorry,” gasped Annabelle.
“Now listen here, young lady. The lad has neglected to seek my advice. I think perhaps I upset him, and now he punishes me by turning a blind eye. I fear he is about to celebrate a victory that hasn’t yet been won.”
“What?” said Annabelle.
“Oh, not you as well,” the pike moaned. “The word is PARDON!”
“I’m sorry … pardon,” Annabelle said … but that was the end of it. She tried and tried but he would say no more.
Annabelle stayed quiet for the rest of the day. Perhaps she had dreamed it. Maybe she was going mad. Or could it be that she really had heard the pike?
Stranger things have happened upon this island, she thought to herself, but she kept the secret of the watery speaker to herself.
Meanwhile, the clipper ship had readied its sails and was about to lift anchor. MacDowell watched from a peephole in his barred-up windows. He’d seen the sails open up like white clouds against the blue of a perfect late afternoon.
“No,” he winced, staring with his one eye through the gap. “Don’t go!”
Grimble sat up in his bed. He was feeling slightly better: though he felt as if he had a fever coming on, he was at least able to talk.
He struggled to the door. “The ship’s moving. Why are we moving?”
“Mister Grimble, what are you doing out of your bed?” asked Mr. Nook.
“Just drop that anchor, will yer. We’re not goin’ anywhere just yet. Come inside.”
They sat down at the table, and he began to tell his tale. “Are yer trying to tell me I was attacked by a wolf?” he asked.
“We don’t know what it was. It was dark. Too dark to see at all, really.”
“I don’t believe in werewolves and fanciful tales of things in the night. But whatever that crazed animal was, it took a right chunk out o’ me, I can tell yer,” moaned Grimble. “It was probably that big black dog that belongs to those kids in the village.”
His eyes were yellowing, and his skin looked pasty. “Those caves have given me a fever,” he insisted. “But I’ll be up and around and ready for the dig in no time.” And he told them of the shining golden prize in the mines.
“It looks like we’re staying, then,” said Beale.
“Aye, aye, captain,” said Nook. “Time to put phase two of our plan into action.”
It was Daisy who heard it first, from her uncle at the lighthouse. The traders were buying an old property on the island. Their application to become residents had been accepted by the local committee. What with their good links in the trading world and their history of trading with the Rock in the past, they would be a credit to the island.
“What?” said Stanley at the top of his voice. “Does the Mayoress have any idea what they’re really here for? They’re about to blow this place to smithereens.”
“Well, of course she doesn’t,” said Daisy. “And how on earth do we tell her? We already know we can’t let the information out, not to anyone.”
“Yes, Daisy, you’re right. Despite people’s best intentions, we all know what happens to secrets!” Stanley agreed.
“What happens to secrets, Stanley?” asked Berkeley, who sat listening.
“Secrets, Berkeley, are what grown-ups pass on to one another, one person at a time,” Stanley said. “And that just isn’t good enough. Our secret has to remain a secret. It must never go outside the circle.”
“All right,” said Berkeley.
But it left them without a single cause for public opposition to the idea of Beale, Nook, and Grimble taking up an old mill house that had stood empty for some time.
“Don’t worry,” said Stanley, addressing his troops. “We’ll dig deep and find a way.”
“What’s happening?” MacDowell begged Stanley through his keyhole. He was desperate to know, but he had questions he daren’t ask. Why was the ship still here? What had happened to Grimble? Had he made it home again?
MacDowell was going stir-crazy in his wolf pen. And with all this time on his hands, he was beginning to plot his escape.
It seemed as if no time at all had passed before the traders were a part of the village community. The old mill house sat crookedly among the rest of the buildings in the village. It was across the cobbled street and farther down than the old Darkling place, just a short step from Victor’s candle shop.
The children watched helplessly as they saw the traders bring boxes of belongings into the old house. Boxes that they knew contained, among other things, explosives. Something told them that their plan had not gone as perfectly as they had wished. And why were there three of them again? What had brought Mr. Grimble back? He seemed less than capable, as if he was ill, but he insisted on joining in.
“Take a rest,” his colleagues told him. “You’re sweating like mad.”
His skin had yellowed, and his eyes had sunk back into his skull, leaving dark shadows around the sockets.
At the end of a long day, the children hung around outside the house and listened curiously. Berkeley was all ears. In fact, so were all the Darkling children.
They could hear more than the average person, for sure. “Heightened senses,” Mrs. Carelli called it. And she was right.
Chink … chink … chink.
“Come on, Stanley, surely you can hear it,” laughed Berkeley.
“No, I can’t,” Stanley said, pressing his ear against the wall. “Not at all. But I’d like to know what it is. Is he kidding me?” he asked Annabelle.
“No,” she insisted. “I can hear it from here.”
“So can I,” said Olive.
“All right,’ Stanley said. “Then I think they’re digging.”
“We need to stop them,” urged Daisy. “They’ll bring the whole place crumbling down if they continue.”
Olive began to cry.
“No, it’s all right, Olive. Not now, it won’t happen immediately. But eventually that’s what will happen, unless we stop it!”
When they’d calmed Olive down, they decided to head into the Darkling basement. It was growing late, and the water was already rising, but it was important to find out what they could. Stanley suggested that the younger ones should go into the house, but they objected so much that it was easier to let them follow. Off they went in descending size order, with the little ones in tow and the headless doll trailing behind.
Soon they were in the depths of the mines, and now the noise was loud and clear.
CHINK … CHINK … CHINK.
The Alliance drew closer, holding their candles out in front and looking expectantly into the dark. The way ahead had changed, been made wider. It sounded as if bodies were milling around in the distance.
“Oh my goodness!” said Daisy, in a voice that could not help itself from raising its volume.
“What is it?” the others asked. They followed Daisy’s wide-eyed stare upwards and saw that a huge hole had been dug from the mill house directly into the mines. They could see right up into the main room of the house, where the floor had been simply ripped open by the digging. It was wide and gaping and blatant, like a huge cavernous mouth, waiting to swallow up every bit of twinkling gold.
Before they had realized it, footsteps were coming up behind them. They froze in panic, staring at one another.
It was too late to do anything at all.
“Stop right there,” came a voice. The children turned around and before them stood Mr. Nook. “Listen up, lads, we got visitors,” he cried out. The workers stopped and came to join him.
“Well, well, well … it’s those nosy little kids from the ‘arbour,” said Beale. “Came in through the basement, did you? Well listen here, from now on you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
He pointed toward them with his gun, and moved forward. “I got a tasty little silver bullet in here with that wolf’s name on it, but if yer’d rather it came whistlin’ your way, it’s fine by me.”
The children backed into a huddle, stumbling over the rocks and holding on to each other.
Just then something could be heard coming of the tunnels: a thundering thump of feet, then a massive roar.
The fearsome shape of the wolf emerged and stopped right in front of the children, standing between them and the gun. Beale’s hands began to shake. He lifted the shotgun, but his aim was all over the place. The sight shook and wouldn’t point where he wanted it to.
His fingers trembled on the trigger.
“No, not Father,” screamed Olive.
BANG. More by luck than judgment the bullet hit square-on as the lupine form of Mr. Darkling leaped instinctively at the gun.
A single shot. The noise echoed so loud through the tunnels the whole place shook, and rock came racing down around them. Clouds of dust billowed into the air.
When the haze cleared, the form of Edmund Darkling stood right there: one shot with a silver bullet had shaken off the were wolf curse. For a brief moment that felt like forever, they were motionless in surprise. Mr. Darkling looked around him, dazed, but he knew that he must come to his senses, and quickly.
“Come, children. Away from here,” he urged. He pushed and tugged them unceremoniously through a small gap in the rock, leaving the shocked traders. They had shown themselves to be the worst of pirates.
Soon they were out on the moor, and the children hugged Mr. Darkling and cried. They had missed him so much: it was months now since they had held him tight and said good-bye to him in his lonely cell.
They stared at him through the growing darkness. He was so different—cleaner and younger-looking, fresher somehow. A terrible scar was planted in the middle of his forehead. “But Father, Mother will never believe it is you,” said Annabelle.
“Then I will need your help in convincing her,” he smiled.
“Let’s get you home, Father,” suggested Berkeley.
“Yes,” said Mr. Darkling. “I am looking forward to seeing your mother.”
Mac was rubbing his hands. As far as he was concerned, his plan was perfect. In next to no time he would be exchanging handshakes and a large purse of money with the traders. Not only had he found a way to escape, but through the peephole in his barred window he had seen the following:
First, the ship was still in the harbor, and that meant the miners had struck gold.
Second, he had spotted all three of them, which put his mind at rest. He now knew for sure that Grimble had made it through the mines and back across the moor.
Now to the escape plan.
Well, to be honest, you couldn’t really call it that. It was more of an act of desperation brought on by the fear of losing out completely on his money. He had ripped away the doorframe around the lock. He’d also taken half the wall with it, but ah, well. What did he care? Once he had his money he’d be disappearing quickly.
The next part required rather more effort and concentration.
He waited until he thought the house would be empty so that he could sneak out, then slid across the polished floors, snakelike, and ready to roll sideways into an empty room should the need arise. His long nose sniffed the air for human life. (The werewolf curse has its advantages!)
There was nobody around.
The back door through the kitchen would be best, then over the moor to escape into the village and back around, down to the harbor.
So far all was going well.
Until now.
The kitchen door was locked, which he’d expected, but when he climbed out through the kitchen window, he realized that Victor was happily tilling the soil in the garden.
“Ahh, crabsticks,” said Mac to himself. “I’ll ‘ave to go out through the front.”
But as he trod back down the corridor, Mrs. Carelli was just appearing through the front door, arms loaded. He hid himself inside the coat rack. She waddled past him with bags of this and that … and she’d left the key in the door.
He slunk along the corridor.
A pair of eyes caught him out. He was almost there, but he’d been spotted.
“That wily old wolf,” came a voice whispering quietly to itself. “He’s better off out than in. Good luck to him.” It was the pike.
The key turned, and MacDowell was out, skipping down to the harbor feeling full of himself.
It took him the rest of the morning to find out what had happened to his business colleagues. The ship was empty when he finally managed to get himself out there, and then it took him another half an hour to get back. By the time he’d caught up on the fast-moving events on Crampton Rock and knocked on the door of the old mill house, it was early afternoon.
Back at the Hall, Victor was about to change MacDowell’s water bowl. Mrs. Carelli couldn’t stand going up there any more; she’d had enough. She wanted to be rid of him. And whether she liked it or not, she already was.
Victor inspected the damage. The door and the wall next to it were completely destroyed. The room smelled of animal, the whole place was filthy, and it was also empty.
“Violet, come quickly!” shouted Victor. “MacDowell is out of his room. He’s in the house!”
But by now Mac was
locked in a serious argument with his trader friends.
“You brought us here under false pretenses,” said Beale. “All you did was put our lives at risk. Even now, Mister Grimble lies in ‘is bed with a fever. You promised us much, MacDowell, and you have delivered nothin’.”
“Yer know what, I don’t believe yer for a minute. You’ve found that gold. I know yer have. If Grimble made his way through those mines, he saw it with his own eyes. You’re hidin’ him from me because he can’t lie to my face, I know it. I wants me money.”
“Mister Nook, would you remove this man please?” asked Beale.
“What are yer doin’ movin’ to the Rock, if there ain’t nothin’ ‘ere?” yelled Mac, who was now struggling with Mr. Nook. He dug his feet into the floor and held on to the doorframe. Nook had to peel his fingers away before he slammed the door shut. MacDowell landed on his back in the street. His shouting had already caused a stir of onlookers. He got up and screamed through the lock. “I’ll make yer regret this, yer bunch o’ bodgin’ buccaneers!” With nothing left to say, he escaped over the moor to calm his nerves.
The old mill house was a stone’s throw from the Darkling home, and the children watched through the tattered lace curtains as the argument took place. Annabelle took the lead, and they headed off to find Stanley and Daisy and pass on the news.
As the daylight faded, thoughts of the werewolf curse played on MacDowell’s mind. Soon he would be feeling the twinges and aches that came with the onset of dusk, and his body was wearing badly. Every day he grew more exhausted, but every night the fever of the wolf was more intense.
He couldn’t take it much longer. If he wasn’t going to get his money, there was something he must do to take his revenge.
When the sun had slipped behind the hills, he sniffed out a trail that had been left by Mr. Darkling. It took him right to the very spot where his four-legged friend had emerged from the mines: a dangerous series of ledges that stuck out from the rocks on the far northwest corner of the island. Only an animal such as a wolf could take that leap.
