“Disgusting,” muttered Sophie, edging out of the room. Ralf leaned back in his chair and burped.
“Sleep well, Mother?” said Gail sweetly.
“My mattress is lumpy, as you well know,” she said, casting him a stormy look. “I haven’t slept well in years.”
“The princess and the pea,” said Ralf, and smirked. “I wouldn’t complain about it. Bad things happen to those who complain.”
The Battleship picked a fish bone from her teeth and closed her eyes.
“It’s like there’s a ghost watching me every step of the way,” she said. “I try to crush it under my weight each night, but it doesn’t work. And I dream that if I pry it open and look it in the eye, everything will be blown apart, and this terrible place will be smashed into the sea.”
As she finished speaking she opened one eye and stared directly at Sophie. Sophie froze, halfway out the door. She was sure that the Battleship was trying to tell her something. The Battleship, irritated by her slowness, picked up her fork and slowly bent it in half, grinding her teeth like she was trying to work something out.
“Oh, do shut up, Mother,” said Ralf.
* * *
The monsters were in for a treat today. Sophie took the pot to the oyster beach, spilling the remains of the gray gunk over her foot as she went. She set the pot sailing into the sea, but before it had traveled three feet it was pulled under, and a dull ringing noise came from under the waves as it was crushed.
“You like it?” she said to her unlistening audience. “Well, we’re running out of bones, so this is what you’re getting from now on. Slops. You’ll be more thankful than them anyway.”
Now that the pot was gone, tentacles rose from the water and began waving at her, accompanied by a long, angry trumpeting.
“There’s nothing left,” she shouted through the din. “Maybe some bones deeper in the catacombs, but I can’t do everything at once, and you’ve got to be patient.”
One by one the creatures withdrew their tentacles, except for the scaly demikraken, which was slithering toward her. She stepped back too late, and it reached out with its barbed claws.
“Don’t you dare!” she spluttered. As she tried scrambling away she willed the creature to recognize her, but it seemed to have no idea who she was—as though she hadn’t fed the monsters three times a day and played games with them.
“It’s me!” she shouted, but her voice was lost in the seething water.
Its teeth were wide and shining, and it kept getting closer. Sophie swept her arms over the stones and grasped the handle of the crushed stockpot, which was as flat as a tennis racket. Without thinking, she twisted her body to avoid its grasp and smacked it over the head.
Its eyes wobbled. She heaved the stockpot over her shoulder, prepared to fight it off, ready for truly earth-shattering rage, but nothing happened. The monster folded up with a whine and withdrew into the sea.
The rest of the creatures slinked back and collected in the shallows again. Sophie quickly got up and backed away from the water. They all stayed there and watched her, almost like they were waiting for her to do something. Like they were nervous.
She knew she should be annoyed with them. But with the purple tentacle marks that still blazed across her back, the welts on her arm, and her weird hair and extra toes, she thought she was a bit of a monster herself.
“Don’t try to eat me again,” Sophie said. She took a deep breath and tried to make her voice stronger. “If you do, I’ll knock your teeth out. Do you understand?”
There was a small commotion in the middle of the crowd, and one of the creatures brought her a dented tin of oysters with the label sucked off. It spat it out at her feet. She picked it up and held it uselessly as creature-slobber dripped down her arm. She got the weird feeling that they were waiting for her approval.
“Thank you,” she said. She put the tin in her pocket. “It’s . . . great.”
There was a joyful hooting sound, and with a great roar one of the creatures flung something at her. Sophie picked it up, her stomach plummeting. It was Scree’s fishing contraption, splintered and covered in tooth marks. Dread washed over her.
They waited for her to do something else, but she turned her head so they couldn’t see her expression, which she could no longer control. She slowly crunched back to the catacombs, the fishing contraption clutched in her shaking hand. At the entrance of the cave she looked back but the creatures had gone.
Everything looked flat and calm, like she had just woken from a dream. Her heart gripped against itself in a way that made her feel weirdly sick.
The monsters had eaten Scree. It felt like the world was falling away from her, and tears pushed against her eyelids again, so heavy that she had to hold them in with her fingers. It was even worse knowing that the monsters likely didn’t know what they had done.
There was nothing she could do to help him. Finally, for the first time since she had arrived on the island, she sat down and sobbed.
Chapter 23
Dead Girls Mess Up the Carpet
The evening descended quickly, gobbling up the sun long before dinner. Sophie didn’t really notice. She’d spent the day raking the catacombs for Mister Scree, feverishly hoping that she had been wrong and he was alive. It wasn’t until the moon was fully visible that she found his room in the tunnels.
It was tucked around bends and corners, half camouflaged behind an old net, lit by a natural chimney that twisted up and into the garden. A grandfather clock with a mechanical bird inside trilled as she entered, the bird swiveling as though to watch her. Scree had very little else: just a neatly made camp bed and, on a small table, a cold mug of tea and a half-eaten bowl of porridge.
Seeing a grubby piece of paper on the table, she picked it up and held it to the light. It was some sort of diary.
09/18: Creatures ate my gloves and spat out a load of gobbins. Shouted at them but got a stone lobbed at me.
09/19: Calm sea today. Looks like the demikraken has toothache. Ralf pretended to be Laurel, scared me from my old bones.
09/20: Monsters tried dragging me under again. Found a demikraken tooth. Boot stolen by flatfish.
09/21: Choppy waters. Losing favor with them. V. tired.
09/22: Fought with the giant squid. Nearly had my teeth. Twins tried to push me into the water. Creatures chomping their jaws at me.
09/23: Girl turning up today. Neptune help us.
He’d written in it every day without fail. She flipped the paper over and read his increasing fights with the sea creatures until the end, where it cut off two days before now.
“They ate him,” she whispered, feeling hollow. “They ate Mister Scree.”
* * *
That evening they held a funeral for him, just her and Cartwright standing on the beach with a sputtering lantern. She didn’t ask him to come, but he turned up anyway, like he knew what had happened. Maybe he’d been watching from his window. The creatures had taken a huge chunk of rock from the outside wall of the catacombs and flung it across the stones, so Sophie and Cartwright stood on it with Scree’s chewed-up fishing pole as Sophie tried to say a few words.
“Well,” she said, voice wobbling a little, “our good friend Mister Scree’s gone. He’ll be missed terribly.” She stopped. It sounded too stiff. If Scree were there he’d snort and tell her to get on with it, and anyway, it was weird to be talking about him in the third person. “Look,” she said, raising her voice. She waved the fishing contraption. “Scree, I don’t know if you had any friends or family outside of the island—I guess they’d all be dead by now anyway—but I’m sure you were thought very highly of.”
“You made interesting food,” said Cartwright solemnly. “And you were always on time.”
“Right. And you were very good at fishing and polishing your stones. I’ll try and keep them sharp, but I can’t make a
ny promises. And I’m still sorry about the bell. I suppose I’m trying to say–”
“Bon voyage, Mister Scree,” said Cartwright. Sophie threw the fishing contraption into the water, where it was snapped up by the jaws of a large fish.
For the rest of that evening Cartwright helped Sophie dredge up bones from the deeper parts of the catacombs, and she showed him the glowfish scales plastered on the walls. They hid the bones in sacks out of sight of the beach, as she suspected the creatures would snatch them otherwise. When they dumped the last sack on the floor, hands red and blistered, there was an uncomfortable silence. Cartwright looked at her like he was waiting for her to say something. She stared at him awkwardly, trying to work out what he wanted, until it felt like she was drowning.
“I’m sorry I stabbed you with a pair of scissors,” she exploded.
“What?” he said.
“And I’m sorry I stole your horse and lost your sword. And took your tickets. And broke into your room. Lots of things, really.”
“Oh.” He looked surprised, then quickly wiped it away. “It’s what makes you so delightful,” he said graciously.
“I mean it. I’m trying to be a Good Person.”
“That was a very convoluted way of saying you’re glad you met me.”
“Will you let go of your ego for one second?”
A groan echoed toward them as though a large faucet had been turned on. They stared into the mouths of the tunnels, and just as it seemed that they imagined it the noise happened again. It sounded like someone was dragging things around.
“Is someone down there?” Cartwright called, drawing his sword.
“Scree said there were sometimes squid in the pipes. Or maybe it’s his ghost.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he said, but he sounded rattled. “The twins?”
“They’ve never been down that far. There’s nothing but glowfish. What about the Battleship?”
“She never leaves the main house. She’d only come down here if Ralf and Gail made her.”
There was a pause as they listened, but the tunnels were silent again.
“What do you mean?” she said finally.
“She’s scared of them. She’ll do whatever they say. You know, I actually feel sorry for her.” He squinted at her through the gloom. Sophie was shaken by the feeling that the answer was very close, the location of the Monster Box just out of her reach. If only she could think. “What’s wrong?” Cartwright asked.
“I need to work something out.”
“You’re as pale as an eggfish.”
“I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get up early, to feed the monsters and make breakfast and . . .” She backed away. Her head was crowded with thoughts, and she had to make sense of them before they slipped away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“What have I done now?”
“It’s nothing!” she yelled. “Nothing at all!”
She ran back to her room, trying to untangle the puzzle before all the pieces flew away.
* * *
That night Sophie dreamed of storms and shipwrecks, monsters and men, and the dark, turbulent breathing of the catacombs in the howling wind. The Battleship’s doughy white face kept rearing up in front of her, those raisin-black eyes squinting into her own and her small, red mouth opening in a howl of frustration. And then it sank, again and again, into the dark ocean of Sophie’s dream.
In the early hours of the morning the wailing sea creatures woke her, and when her eyelids opened at last, she knew the answer was on the tip of her tongue.
She stared into the shapeless gloom. A thought was clamoring to get out, but she struggled to collect it until an imaginary phantom seized her by the collar.
“I sleep on fear every night,” the Battleship said, holding her aloft. “My mattress is lumpy. I haven’t slept well in years. It’s like there’s a ghost watching me every step of the way, and I try to crush it under my peculiar weight at night, but it doesn’t work.”
The phantom disappeared. The wailing had stopped, and Sophie was flat on her back on the bed of rock, sickly light filtering in from the house upstairs.
“It’s under her bed,” she said. She heard herself and sat upright so fast the room began to turn. “She’s sleeping on it!”
She fell off the bed and shot straight toward her shoes, an unfamiliar grin spreading across her face. It was so obvious. If you had something really precious, where did you put it? Under the bed, with your favorite toy that you were too old for. The twins, no matter how clever they were, were still children with childish ideas. And the Battleship, scared of her sons and of Cartwright finding the box, let them keep it there. No wonder she was so angry when Sophie went in her room.
If she wasn’t so happy she’d kick herself for being so slow. The Battleship had been trying to tell her. She wanted Sophie and Cartwright to find the box. If Sophie found and stole the Monster Box, it wasn’t the Battleship’s fault. She wouldn’t have to look after it anymore.
Sophie struggled into her clothes and rushed, boots unlaced, to Cartwright’s room. Fleets of tiny ghost-fish skidded from under her feet, dodging between the suits of armor, as she splashed across the hallway. She half expected the twins to step out and grab her, but it was too early for them to be awake and she was, at least for now, safe. She raised her fist to hammer on Cartwright’s door, but it swung open at the first touch.
Cautiously, she poked her head into the room and saw Cartwright sprawled facedown across the bed, arms hanging off the side and fingers touching the floor. His skin was white and he wasn’t moving. Stifling a scream, Sophie went to the bed and tried to see if he was breathing, but he was still as a corpse and she thought there was a bluish tinge to his fingers. Had he been poisoned? Stabbed? Were the twins waiting behind the door for her now, holding darts in their fingers?
Then Cartwright, still pale as whitewash, emitted a huge snore and rolled over. Sophie swiped a glass of water from his bedside table and emptied it over his head.
“Back away!” he screamed, in one swift movement both sitting bolt upright and drawing his sword. “I’m armed!”
“It’s me, you idiot,” she snapped, and he dropped it.
“What is it with you creeping around my room when I’m asleep?”
“You need to get up,” she said. “Grab anything you need and get ready to leave. I’m getting the Monster Box for you.”
“You’re—what?”
“No time to explain,” she said. “Get Manic and wait by the entrance.”
“Where is it? Let me get it!”
“You’re like a bull in a china shop,” she said as Cartwright fumbled for his octopus key and dropped it. “I need to sneak in and out of a room. Trust me, you won’t get anywhere near it.”
It looked like Cartwright was about to argue with her, but he knew she was going to win. Sophie touched the ticket to the New Continent that she kept in her inside pocket, next to Scree’s pocket watch. She was so close. Once the box was found, she’d be able to start living a real life on the New Continent. The Sea Fever would be cured. And they’d both be free of this terrible place forever.
“Give me ten minutes,” she said. “And for Neptune’s sake, put some clothes on!”
* * *
Leaving Cartwright riffling through his drawers, Sophie slipped back into the hallway and started the ascent to the Battleship’s room. She’d been in the house long enough to know her way, and she made sure to avoid the twins’ rooms and any creaking floorboards that might wake them. The Battleship only left her room at very specific points in the day: thrice for meals, and very early in the morning, long before breakfast, to stand at the front of the house and regard the sea with her tiny, staring eyes.
On the top floor of the house a new gray morning was filtering through the broken ceiling. Just as Sophie neared the room the Battles
hip’s door creaked open. Sophie wrenched open a large wardrobe that smelled of mothballs and shut herself inside, breath caught in her throat. Through the crack in the doors she watched as the Battleship emerged, silent as a ghost ship, her tiny slippered feet making the faintest marks in the carpet. The woman came toward her, paused outside her hiding place, and sniffed the air. Then she carried on, only the faint groaning of the stairs marking her passage.
Sophie closed her eyes and forced herself to count to ten. When she could breathe normally again she slipped from the wardrobe and into the Battleship’s room, closing the door behind her.
She’d imagined that it would be easy to find something as dramatically named as the Monster Box, but there were so many drapes and scarves and furs, so many stuffed animals, jewels, candles, stacks of paper, mirrors, clothes, shoes, and dead flowers that she had to look hard for the bed, the outline of which was blurred by the piles of rugs on top of it. Sophie picked her way over the crowded floor and kneeled down. She could hear something scuffling around under there, and when she tentatively lifted the edge of the duvet a mouse shot out and disappeared into a mound of junk.
It was hard to see anything. Sophie lowered her head, choking a bit on the dust, then crawled entirely beneath the bed. The hard wooden floor scraped her knees. She came up against a pile of shredded bedding, presumably left there by the rodent, and a dozen or so damp books that served to prop the bed up—but there was no box, nothing even vaguely box shaped.
She knew she must have missed something. She tried to loosen some of the floorboards, but they’d clearly been nailed down for years. She raised one by a few inches but it snapped back with a noise like a gunshot. She clapped a hand over the vibrating board, going cold at the thought of the twins hearing.
But nobody came. She felt stupid about her idea. Who actually hid things under the bed, anyway?
“Is there a magpie in my room?” the Battleship boomed from the hallway, barely five feet away. “Is there a little birdie flapping around the windowpanes?”
The Bone Snatcher Page 16
