Back in the cell, Su Lu emerges from the cupboard, her enthusiasm undiminished. ‘Where is my darling Bruce? He must have taken my advice; it must be hell for him being apart from me, the poor dear. I hope that nice cat has got a wedding suit for my Bruce. Now where is this dress? I can’t find it anywhere,’ she says, looking once again into the cupboard. She pokes her head out of the cell and shouts, ‘Yoo hoo, excuse me but I can’t find my dress.’
The noise wakes Horace up. ‘What’s happened, where are the prisoners?’ he asks, muddled and confused from his sleep and the rum. ‘They have gone to get ready for the wedding,’ Su Lu tells him. ‘Wedding? What wedding?’ he asks now even more confused. Suddenly the seriousness of the situation hits him. ‘Oh no, the prisoners have escaped, Seamus will kill me. I must find them.’ With that, he rushes into the tunnel, closely followed by Su Lu. ‘Yes, we must find them, I don’t want to be late for my own wedding’ says Su Lu, giggling like the lovesick girl she is.
CHAPTER 32
Edward hears the faint footsteps of Horace and Su Lu coming from the tunnel behind him. As the others disappear along the tunnel, Edward screeches to a halt as he notices a sign on a door he is passing. It reads “Horace and Su Lu’s room” in bold letters. Edward quickly enters the room; he crinkles up his nose as a horrible smell hits him. It is coming from the bath which is still full of Su Lu’s foul-smelling bath water. Spying some bars of soap on the shelf over the basin, he has an idea. He places the soap bars on the floor of their bedroom. Returning outside, he places his handkerchief on the floor just outside the open door. He walks back into the room, carefully avoiding the soap on the floor and inspects his handiwork. ‘With a bit of luck that should delay them a while.’ He sniggers and starts towards the door, but something catches his attention. He notices the painting of the vase of yellow flowers hanging on the wall. Edward quickly takes the picture down and with it tucked under his arm heads off along the tunnel after the others.
Horace and Su Lu come panting up the tunnel, suddenly stopping when they see the handkerchief on the floor outside their bedroom. Horace points, ‘Look, they must be in there.’ Horace rushes into the bedroom, followed by Su Lu. Su Lu steps on one of the soap bars and skids across the floor, crashing into Horace. They both plunge into the filthy bath water. Horace comes up, spitting out water and screaming for help and shouting that he is drowning. Su Lu emerges next to him. ‘Yuk!’ she says, ‘now I’ve had two baths in one year.’
CHAPTER 33
Finally, Edward, Lucy, Bruce and Sam burst into Edward’s bedroom. While the others talk excitedly about the escape and laugh about Horace and Su Lu, Edward discreetly places the painting under his bed.
The conversation calms down when Edward reminds them about the imminent danger the Island Queen is in. They start to discuss how they can stop the gang carrying out their evil plan. ‘What I don’t understand is how they knew about the ship and the stone in the first place,’ Bruce asks. ‘Aunt Agatha mentioned it the night I arrived,’ says Edward, ‘she said something about when the Island Queen would be arriving and that the stone my parents were bringing with them was unique and priceless.’ ‘Perhaps Seamus or one of his spies overheard her.’ ‘Scarface,’ say Lucy and Sam together, ‘that must have been why he has been sneaking around the house lately.’ ‘Of course,’ says Edward. ‘But how can we stop them?’ ‘All we can do is get down to the harbour and try to warn the ship like we did before, flash a light and ring the church bell,’ answers Lucy. ‘But won’t they be expecting you to do that?’ asks Edward. ‘Maybe, but what else can we do? There is no time to come up with another plan. Perhaps they will think we are too scared and will do nothing like the last time they were here a hundred years ago.’ Edward says, ‘Right, we must get going, the Island Queen may be heading onto the sands even as we talk… Aunt Agatha!’ shouts Edward, suddenly jumping up, ‘I must let her know that I am safe and tell her about the gang’s plans. She can call the police.’ With that, he rushes out of the bedroom to find his aunt. ‘And I have not had my dinner,’ says Bruce as he quickly follows Edward.
Edward finds his aunt and Annie and hurriedly tells them about the secret tunnels and about the gang and their plans to wreck the Island Queen. As they listen, Agatha and Annie’s eyes get wider and wider with surprise. His aunt has lots of questions about how he found the secret tunnels and how he discovered the gang’s sinister plans. Edward knows it would be too complicated and take too long to tell her the whole story and about his ghostly friends upstairs. It would only result in his aunt asking even more questions. Edward tells his aunt that he will explain everything later but now they must act quickly to stop the gang. Agatha says she must ring the police immediately and picks up the phone, but as she listens to the receiver a worried look appears on her face. ‘The phone is dead – it must be something to do with this horrid storm.’ ‘Where is Harry?’ Edward asks. ‘He is out looking for you and Bruce.’Aunt Agatha replies. ‘Auntie, get Harry to try to contact the police as soon as he returns.’ ‘What are you going to do?’ asks Agatha. ‘I am going down to the beach to see if there is anything I can do to stop these evil men.’ ‘Oh Edward!’ cries Agatha, ‘please take care.’ ‘Don’t worry Auntie I will.’ And with that, he heads towards the stairs. ‘Where are you going?’ asks Agatha, ‘I thought you said you were going to the beach?’ Edward thinks quickly, he can’t tell his aunt that he is going to meet a couple of ghosts in his room. ‘Errr… I had better get my coat, the weather outside is atrocious. Come on Bruce, there’s no time to lose.’ Bruce looks up from his bowl, ‘But I haven’t finished my dinner.’ Edward notices that his aunt still shows no sign that she can hear Bruce speaking. ‘Come on Bruce, leave that.’ Edward runs up the stairs with Bruce soon following, moaning to himself, ‘How’s a chap supposed to tackle a dangerous gang of thugs on an empty stomach.’
When he gets to the bedroom, there is no one there. ‘Look!’ says Bruce, pointing at the mirror, ‘they have left us a message.’ The mirror was misted up and there was a message written on it. ‘How weird,’ says Edward examining the mist on the mirror. ‘Never mind about that,’ says Bruce impatiently, ‘what does it say?’ ‘It says HAVE GONE TO THE HARBOUR FOLLOW ASAP.’ ‘Quick then laddie, get your skates on, we’d better get going.’ Edward and Bruce start towards the cupboard in the corner. Suddenly Edward stops. ‘We can’t go this way – we don’t know the tunnels well enough to find our way to the beach, we would just get lost.’ ‘What shall we do then?’ asks Bruce. ‘We will have to go above ground,’ says Edward, ‘down the lanes to the cove, quick let’s go,’ he says, grabbing his coat and disappearing out of the bedroom door.
CHAPTER 34
‘Have you any experience with boats?’ asks a worried-looking Bruce, as he watches Edward untie the dinghy. ‘Well no,’ admits Edward, ‘but I have watched Harry do it and it doesn’t look that difficult, anyway we have no choice.’ With that, Edward steps into the boat. ‘Come on Bruce, get in, this is not the time to worry about my boating skills.’ ‘Well if now is not the right time then when is the right time, may I ask?’ ‘If you are scared, you had better stay here with the ladies,’ says Edward. Bruce, stung by this, says, ‘Of course I’m not scared, I was just worried about your safety.’ Bruce jumps into the boat just as Edward pushes it away from the house steps. Edward places the oars into the rings and starts to row away from the house. Bruce, his paws tightly gripping the sides of the boat, shouts directions to Edward. ‘If you rowed in a straight line instead of zig-zagging all over the place we would get there quicker.’ ‘I’m doing my best,’ shouts Edward over the howl of the winds.
They eventually reach dry land, leave the boat and continue on foot, Edward running and Bruce following closely behind him.
About this time, Lucy and Sam have reached the beach. ‘Look,’ shouts Lucy, pointing. Through the eerie mist they see Pea Haven, but there is not a light on in the village; it is in total darkness.
They run straight to the chur
ch and cautiously push open the large oak door and enter. ‘I don’t think there is anyone here,’ whispers Lucy in relief. Inside it is very dark. ‘We need a lamp to warn the ship,’ Lucy says, looking around the gloomy church. ‘There’s one,’ she shouts, pointing at a lamp on the windowsill. She runs to it and to her relief there is a box of matches next to the lamp. She strikes a match and lights the lamp. Immediately the flame casts dancing shadows about them. ‘Quickly, we must go to the top of the tower.’ Lucy says as she runs through the door leading to the tower and hurries up the steps. She pulls herself up through the hatch at the top of the tower, followed closely by Sam. She looks out to sea, straining her eyes in the darkness and rain. Suddenly she sees the lights of a ship rounding the headland. ‘Look, it must be the Island Queen and she’s heading straight for the sandbanks.’ She looks back along the coast and sees the lights the Wreckers have put out on the clifftops, cleverly positioned to trick the ship’s helmsman into turning from the safe channel and onto the shallow banks.
‘No time to lose,’ she says, then tells Sam to start tugging on the bell rope while she waves the lamp about. Sam pulls hard on the bell rope but as he puts his full weight on it the rope suddenly snaps. Sam teeters on the edge of the opening, trying to regain his balance. He loses the battle and plunges down the rope hole. Lucy moves like lightning and makes a grab at Sam, just catching hold of his paw and pulls him up. She examines the end of the rope. ‘It has been cut’ she says.
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Suddenly, there is an evil laugh behind her and she spins around. To her horror, the menacing figure of Seamus is standing there. ‘I knew you would come here and try to meddle into my business! Did you think I was going to let you spoil my plans again, you little fool? This time you will pay for your interfering.’ With that, Sam charges at Seamus but this time the gang leader is ready; he strikes the cat a stunning blow with the back of his hand, sending the cat into a motionless heap on the tower floor. Lucy screams and runs to her pet’s side. ‘Now you will pay for interfering into my business. I told you I would be back for my revenge.’ He advances menacingly towards Lucy and Sam, his cutlass raised above his head.
Lucy shouts at him, ‘You cannot kill us, we are already dead.’ Seamus laughs and pulls out a small leather-bound book from inside his tunic, ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,’ he says with a cruel grin, ‘but I am afraid you have not got that quite right. If you cast your mind back 300 years, I swore at my death during that horrid storm that I would be revenged and in the book of common curses, a copy of which I just happen to have here,’ he continues, waving the book under Lucy’s nose, ‘on page 436, subsection 4 clause (a) it quite clearly states and I quote, “until the curse is fulfilled and honour has been satisfied, pain or death (or both) can still be inflicted on the cursed,” that’s you,’ says Seamus pointing at Lucy with a sinister laugh. Seamus continues reading from the ancient book, ‘“Even on the dead,” i.e. ghosts. “The curse will continue for all eternity unless the cursor”, that’s me,’ he tells Lucy, pointing at himself, ‘“is run through with his own blade”.’ ‘What does that mean?’ asks Lucy, playing for time. ‘It means, you silly girl, that the only way the curse can be lifted is for me to somehow get skewered with my own blade and that seems a bit unlikely, doesn’t it?’ Seamus sniggers. ‘Now enough of the legal mumbo jumbo,’ he says, thrusting the book back into his tunic. ‘It’s time to turn you and that vicious little animal of yours into mincemeat.’
Laughing manically, he raises his cutlass for the final blow. At that moment, Bruce comes through the trap door like a bullet and throws himself at Seamus. Unfortunately, Bruce had forgotten that Seamus is a ghost and the brave little dog hurtles right through the gang leader’s body and hits the tower parapet with a thud and slides stunned to the floor next to Sam.
Seamus picks up the stunned animal and lifts him above his head, ready to dash him down onto the rocks below. Suddenly there is a pink blur heading towards Seamus – it’s Su Lu coming to the defence of her beloved Bruce. Su Lu attaches herself to Seamus’ nose with her teeth. Seamus screams and drops Bruce and his sword to the floor. He grabs hold of Su Lu in a desperate attempt to free his nose from the pig’s teeth.
At this moment, Edward’s head appears through the trap door, Lucy shouts to him, ‘Quickly, wave the lamp, you must warn the ship, she is heading towards the sands.’ Edward, trying to ignore the wild struggle going on between Su Lu and Seamus, picks up the lamp and starts to frantically wave it in the direction of the ship.
Seamus has at last removed the snarling pig from his nose and is holding her safely at arm’s length. Just at that moment, Sam, now partly recovered, grabs Seamus’ leg in his jaws. Seamus, thrown off balance by this new attack, stumbles backwards. He kicks free of Sam but in the process trips over Lucy’s leg and stumbles towards the door to the stairs. Suddenly, as if by magic, a sword slowly appears through his middle.
Everyone on the tower is frozen in shock as they stare at the sword that now protrudes from Seamus’ stomach. The gang leader looks down at the blade in disbelief. He drops Su Lu, then staggers as if drunk around the top of the tower. Finally he teeters on the edge of the battlements before disappearing over the edge and into the blackness with a terrible scream.
Standing in the stairwell doorway is Old Jack. ‘Did he say something about falling on his own blade? He should have realised how dangerous it can be when you start playing with curses,’ says Jack, staring at the spot where Seamus had disappeared. ‘Quick, keep waving that light,’ shouts Lucy to Edward, ‘we must save the ship,’ Edward frantically starts signalling to the ship with the torch again.
Su Lu rushes to Bruce’s side and tells him, ‘My hero, you were so brave, you crazy handsome fool, I am yours forever.’ Then she plants a huge slobbery kiss onto the recovering dog.
Bruce wrestles himself free from Su Lu’s clutches and leaps onto the short length of rope still attached to the bell in a desperate attempt to escape the love-crazy pig. Su Lu jumps after him and catches hold of his legs. As he tries to shake off Su Lu, the bell begins to ring faster and faster, louder and louder. Edward, waving the lamp, looks at the ship approaching the dangerous sandbank. Just then she starts to alter course away from the hazard. ‘She’s turning,’ he shouts, ‘she’s turning.’ Bruce loses his grip on the rope and he and Su Lu disappear through the rope hole beneath.
Edward watches as the ship steers clear of the danger and out into deeper water. He turns to Lucy, ‘We’ve done it, we’ve…’ he stops in mid-sentence, and stares at Lucy. ‘What’s happening to you? I can hardly see you, you’re fading away.’ Lucy looks down at herself and then at Sam. ‘The curse is broken; we are no longer trapped here,’ she says. Edward looks quickly at Jack, who is also beginning to disappear. Lucy continues, ‘Now that Seamus has gone, the curse is broken, we can move on; at last we can be reunited with our families and friends.’
Suddenly there is a huge crash and they all turn to see part of the cliff face slide down into the sea. ‘Quickly! You must escape, the village is returning again to its resting place at the bottom of the sea,’ shouts Lucy. ‘Quickly, down the stairs.’ With one final look at his ghostly friends, Edward rushes down the steps. As he gets to the bottom of the first set of steps, he scoops up Bruce who is lying dazed on the floor. He quickly descends the remaining steps and rushes out of the church. He stops in shock; there is chaos all around him. Everything seems to be shaking – the buildings, even the ground below him. ‘Goodbye Edward, and thanks,’ he hears Lucy’s voice very faint above the howling wind.
‘Quickly, into the boat,’ a voice says next to him. It’s Old Jack, his image now very faint, and he is pointing to a large rowing boat tied up in the harbour. ‘It’s your only chance.’ Edward, still carrying Bruce, rushes down the harbour steps and jumps into the boat. Magically, the rope that is holding the boat to the harbour wall unties itself, though in reality Jack, who is now totally invisible, has untied it, and just in time.
As soon as the boat is loose, an enormous surge of water, pushed along by the huge landslide that is now in full motion, catches the boat. Edward and Bruce are thrown to the boards on the bottom of the boat. Edward looks on in disbelief as one of the oars rises rapidly from the bottom of the boat and is thrust into the churning seas behind the boat. ‘It’s Old Jack, he is steering us,’ Edward shouts to Bruce. ‘Hold on,’ Jack shouts, ‘we are in for a bumpy ride.’ Edward and Bruce grip onto the boat. They peer forward as the boat speeds ahead of the giant wave like a surfboard and out of the harbour. They skim past the headland, the boat skilfully being steered by the invisible Jack, and then they turn sharply towards the beach in the next cove. The boat is carried at breathtaking speed on the surge of water until it hits the beach with a crash, catapulting Edward and Bruce out of the boat. The last Edward remembers is spinning through the air and then blackness.
CHAPTER 36
Edward awakes in the front room of his aunt’s house; he is lying on the settee. Around him are his Aunt Agatha, Annie, Harry, Bruce and his parents. He tries to raise himself up but is gently restrained by his mother.
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