by Laura Powell
Pattern, busy rubbing linseed oil into a chair leg, heard all this through the open window overlooking the terrace. She thought of what the Silver Service had uncovered about the Reverend stealing from his own charity, and had to bite down on her lip. Miss Jenks, at least, had not defrauded poor widows and orphans.
‘Alas,’ the Reverend continued, ‘I fear the country as a whole is entering a steep decline. I see evidence of this all the time as I go about my work in the parish. Unwed mothers, feckless fathers, shirkers and layabouts! The trouble is that these people – the most vicious and unprincipled of the lower classes – do not wish to be saved. On the contrary: they revel in their depravity.’ He took a hearty slurp of wine. ‘But we can take comfort, as always, from the words of the Lord. For, as the Good Book says, “Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.”’
‘Quite so,’ said Lady Hawk. Her preoccupied mood had lifted; her voice had new energy. ‘Dear Reverend, you are very kind to take such a keen interest in my servant troubles. I do hope you will accept Mr Grey’s invitation to go on a boat excursion this afternoon. It is quite the best way to see our seabirds to their full advantage. The Cull cormorant is a treat not to be missed.’
So Reverend Blunt was next in line for punishment! And Mr Grey was somehow involved. Pattern reminded herself that even if the steward obeyed his lady’s commands out of fear, he still remained loyal to her bidding. As she moved from oiling wood to polishing brass, she had to suppress a sigh at the thought of going into battle on Reverend Blunt’s behalf. Not only was he a thief and a hypocrite, but, for such a young man, he really was excessively pompous . . .
Shortly after her mama’s remark about the Cull cormorant, Miss Hawk announced that she was suffering from a headache, and would therefore retire to her room for the afternoon. Satisfied that his rival could make no gains in his absence, the Reverend was only too pleased to agree to Lady Hawk’s plan for a bird-watching boat trip. Meanwhile, Mr Ladlaw offered to entertain the party by reading from his novel. Even the servants were invited to listen.
Pattern was relieved Mr Ladlaw was safe, at least for the moment. Sulky looks and bad romantic verse were hardly the same kind of wickedness as the Reverend’s thievery, Lord Charnly’s violence or the hearts broken by Captain Vyne. Indeed, she was starting to wonder if the gentlemen’s time on the island was actually a process of elimination, a bizarre kind of contest with Miss Hawk as the prize. Did Lady Hawk mean to give the poet Miss Hawk’s hand in marriage as the reward for being the least unpleasant gentleman in the party? Not that Miss Hawk was any great trophy, of course. A wind-up doll rather than a flesh-and-blood woman, and a malfunctioning doll at that . . .
Pattern’s final task in the drawing room was to wash down the paintwork. Moving from the skirting board, she paid particular attention to the windows and frames. This provided her with a good view of Miss Smith. While Cassandra Hawk’s damage was mechanical, Miss Smith gave all the signs of someone who was suffering from an injury to the soul. She had become even more careless with her dress and hair, and her shadowed eyes and wan complexion suggested sleepless nights and anxious days. Pattern, returning to her theory that Miss Smith and Mr Ladlaw had once enjoyed a romantic understanding, felt another spike of bitterness towards Lady Hawk. It was all the more cruel to make a young man fall in love with an automaton when there was a real young lady to whom he had already promised his affections.
How much she had to discuss with Nate! While Pattern had been at the housework, he had promised to try to slip a snowdrop into the gentlemen’s coat pockets as a precaution, since it was clear that both Mr Ladlaw and Reverend Blunt were in very great danger. However limited the flowers’ protection against Dark Arts, it was a great deal better than having none at all.
Pattern felt the urgency of Reverend Blunt’s situation. Her first objective must be to sink the row boat and thus postpone, if not prevent, the bird-watching expedition. But this would only delay his inevitable punishment. If she and Nate could discover the nature and source of Lady Hawk’s power, then perhaps they could find some way of disabling it for good . . .
Pattern was anxious to hear Nate’s ideas, particularly once he had learned of her encounter with Mr Grey and the book of ancient myths. Alas, it was not to be. Pattern had no sooner gone to collect Nate from below stairs than Mr Perks appeared.
‘Ah, Penny, very good. Milady’s pug has made a puddle in the drawing room, so I need you to fetch the ammonia and lye. Quick as you can, now!’
Behind Mr Perks’s back, Nate gave an apologetic grimace, but there was nothing he could do. Pattern Pendragon – dragon slayer, secret agent and aristocrat – must put her battle with supernatural villainy to one side, and go and mop up dog piddle.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The unhappy object himself . . . is left to pine and sink in misery and contempt.
S. & S. Adams, The Complete Servant
Clearing up after the pug cost Pattern precious time. She did not even have the chance to look for Nate again, for she heard Alfred calling out to William that he had been sent to find Reverend Blunt a sun hat. The clergyman must be preparing to leave for his excursion – Pattern could not delay her sabotage of the boat a moment longer.
The weather was turning hotter by the day, and as she made her way to the cove she saw how parched the landscape had become, showing none of the fresh greenness evident on their arrival. The fierce blue of the sky and the glare of the sun made her eyes ache. Yet the scene at the beach looked innocent enough. The row boat bobbed gently up and down at the end of the pier, the sand glittered silver-white, and the sea was calm. Although there was no mist this afternoon, there was no hint of the mainland to be seen either. Pattern had the unsettling notion that England itself had been spirited away, and that all on Cull were castaways, with nothing else in the world but boundless sea.
Pattern had intended to sink the boat with rocks, or else bash in its planks with a hammer she had taken from the stable yard. However, when she reached the vessel, she was dismayed to find that it was much larger and sturdier than she had remembered. What’s more, she could already hear the Reverend Blunt’s voice being carried towards her on the breeze. He and Mr Grey might arrive at any moment. And so Pattern was forced to make an impulsive, and possibly foolish, decision. Gritting her teeth, she clambered into the boat and made herself a hiding place under the fishing nets and canvas sacking.
Her refuge was smelly and stiflingly hot, but at least she did not have to wait long for Mr Grey and the Reverend, for they were only ten minutes behind her. Peeping out from the folds of canvas, she saw that Mr Grey was swathed in his customary black cloak, apparently immune to the heat. The Reverend, by contrast, was pink-faced and sweating copiously. He had left his coat behind, so even if Nate had managed to smuggle a snowdrop into its pockets, it would be of no use to him now. Pattern’s own posy was of little comfort – it was highly unlikely the flowers would save her from drowning if she fell overboard.
It did not take the gentlemen long to settle into the boat and push off from the pier. The steward, despite his advanced age, pulled the oars with smoothness and strength. The boat headed a little way out to sea, then began to round the northern promontory of the cove, heading to the neighbouring inlet.
Mr Blunt was peering through his binoculars at the seabirds. They seemed to be ordinary gulls to Pattern, but then she had no idea what the so-called Cull cormorant was supposed to look like.
From her hiding place under the canvas, Pattern managed to peep over the rim of the boat. The dark mass she had seen in the water previously was here again, about half a mile from the boat, though it was moving closer. A slight breeze had got up, carrying with it a faint but fishy smell. As she watched, the darkness began to froth up with dirty bubbles. Something was sticking out of the water – a branch of driftwood? Wreckage from a boat?
The branch was curved, and flexing like a muscle. It was oily green.
A shi
ning grey-green coil.
A tentacle.
Pattern screwed up her eyes, feeling dizzy and sick. And when she looked again she felt that she was perhaps suffering from heatstroke, because there was no tentacle, but a woman’s head, breaking the surface of the waves.
It was the head of a very beautiful woman. Golden haired, golden skinned, gleaming eyed. It was not Miss Hawk. All the same, Pattern had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling indeed.
For the moment, the Reverend Blunt was oblivious. He was hunched over his seat, scribbling ornithological notes in his book. Mr Grey sat impassively, oars idle in his hands.
Meanwhile, the woman’s head went under the water. When it re-emerged a second or two later, it was much closer to the boat. The breeze increased gustily, stirring the previously calm sea into choppy waves, and carrying with it the stench of seaweed and marshes. More bubbles frothed and foamed. Another three tentacles curled lazily upwards. The woman looked directly at Pattern and smiled. Her beautiful red lips opened to reveal two rows of greenish black-dripping fangs.
Pattern stifled a scream.
At the same moment, the Reverend Blunt looked out to sea – just as the woman closed her fanged mouth and the tentacles withdrew. All he saw was a golden head rising from the waves . . . Waves that were increasing in strength around the swimmer. She raised a hand and waved it in agitation.
‘Good Lord! Look there – a young woman has got into difficulties in the water! Quick, man,’ he told Mr Grey. ‘We must row to the rescue. What an adventure, eh?’ He rubbed his hands. ‘Wait until Miss Hawk hears about this!’
It was clear he was already looking forward to regaling her with tales of his heroism. Pattern felt in the grip of a nightmare: a nightmare that had been lurking in the water this whole time. Something that had been circling the island ever since they’d got here. Something huge and dark, stinking of dead fish, with tentacles and fangs . . .
Mr Grey made a big display of attempting to row the boat closer to the woman, but his former ease with the oars seemed to have deserted him, and they were making little progress, to the Reverend Blunt’s evident frustration. A cloud had come out of nowhere, covering the sun. With it, a chilly wind began to blow, and the waves became more vigorous.
Cursing the old man’s incompetence, the Reverend Blunt began taking off his boots.
Pattern realized he was going to attempt to rescue the woman himself. At once, she threw off the nets and canvas and revealed herself.
‘Please, sir,’ she said to the astonished clergyman, ‘you must stay out of the water at all costs. Please –’ she turned to Mr Grey – ‘return us to the safety of the shore. I beg you, for pity’s sake!’
‘Idiot child,’ the old man growled. ‘Do you really think your meddling is going to be of any use?’
‘So we have a stowaway!’ exclaimed the Reverend, distracted. ‘Really, the servants in this household are an utter disgrace. Insolence and insubordination at every turn!’
He prepared to lower himself into the water. Pattern attempted to drag him back, but he shook her off with disgust so that she sprawled backwards among the nets.
Both sea and sky were much darker now. Pattern could only watch helplessly from the bows as the clergyman began to swim towards the drowning damsel. Deaf to her pleas, Mr Grey was already rowing back to land.
The woman’s head kept disappearing under the water and then bobbing up again in different places. Pattern was suddenly gripped by the idea that there were actually several different heads, attached to several different necks, belonging to whatever horror swam below. Like a thunderclap, an image came to her in black and red: the image of a monster she had once seen on a vase, back in the villa. Six heads, twelve tentacles! The waves were growing more tempestuous. The smell of fish slime and mud rot was even stronger . . .
Then suddenly, out of the broiling, swirling bubbles, Pattern cried out as a huge dark wave surged up as if from nowhere, and crashed over the clergyman’s head.
A second wave roared towards their boat, sending it racing with unnatural speed towards the shore.
If Mr Grey had not seized her by the arm, Pattern would have fallen overboard as their vessel was tossed this way and that. Salt spray scoured her face; wind howled in her ears. It was several long moments before she was able to look back to see what had become of the unfortunate clergyman.
He was in the grip of three fleshy green tentacles. They were wrapped around his body, holding him aloft. His screams could barely be heard over the roar of the water, and the next instant he was plunged back down again into the sea’s murky depths.
Meanwhile, the row boat had been spat on to the inlet’s stony shore. Mr Grey nimbly disembarked and shook himself off. Pattern, her legs weak with terror, scrambled out after him. He helped her up on to the rocks, only letting go of her hand once they were some way up the cliff face.
‘Do something!’ Pattern implored him, as soon as she was able to speak. ‘Stop this! He’ll drown; he’ll die; the monster—’
In answer, the old man merely shook his head and pointed to the water below.
The sea within the inlet had begun to froth and bubble and hiss. In a matter of moments, whirling and gurgling, the waves had churned themselves into a foamy circle, forming a whirlpool where none had been before.
A head suddenly appeared within it: not the woman’s, but the Reverend’s. He was spluttering and coughing, but very much alive. Rather than being sucked down into the centre to drown, he was carried around the edge of the whirlpool, as if on a watery treadmill. There was, however, no way of bringing him to shore. What made his plight all the more pitiful was the branch of scrub on an overhanging rock that was tantalizingly just out of reach. If he could only grab hold of it, he might have been able to haul himself out of the water. Yet it was an inch too far away. Round and round the water spun, and the Reverend spun with it.
It took all of Pattern’s courage to look back out to sea. The water was growing calmer; the cloud was drifting away. The naked torso of a woman – three times as large as life, but as perfectly formed as one of the statues of goddesses back in the villa – rose from the waves. She had two graceful arms and wore a glittering ruby ring on her left hand. Six long necks sprouted from her shoulders; necks that were all muscle, sinuous as snakes, and crowned with six beautiful golden heads.
The six curved red lips opened in six hideous smiles, revealing twelve rows of rotting fangs.
Below her waist, where her legs should have been, the smooth pale flesh turned to green slime. She had the lower body of a giant octopus. Twelve tentacles coiled upwards from the water, twisting and waving in what Pattern felt was a mocking salute. The creature raised the hand with the ring on it to her central head, and blew a kiss, before sinking back below the waves.
Of all the strange things she had ever witnessed, Pattern thought the sight of Mr Grey returning that blown kiss was perhaps the most shocking of all.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Think of what you have to do – of what must be done, and do it – even before it is wanted.
S. & S. Adams, The Complete Servant
‘How could you?’ Pattern demanded of Mr Grey. She was so angry she could scarcely get the words out. ‘That poor man! Something must be done! He cannot be left there!’
But she got no answer. With a look of distaste, the old man removed a strand of seaweed from his shoulder. Then he turned on his heel and began to pick his way along the path, back in the direction of the villa. Pattern hurried after him, still brimming over with protests.
Finally, at the edge of the wood overlooking the beach, he stopped and faced her. ‘Why do you give a fig for Reverend Blunt? I am sure the priest would not lift a finger to save the likes of you – for you know his opinions on the lower classes.’ He gave a snort. ‘Yes, I may be old, but my eyes are sharp. I spied you peeping from the window while the gentry were at their luncheon.’
Anger made her reckless, but there was little p
oint in keeping up the pretence that she was as noodle-brained as the rest of the party. ‘The Reverend may be an unpleasant man, but nothing justifies such cruelty! I would say the same of Lady Hawk’s other unfortunate gentlemen friends – Captain Vyne and Lord Charnly. So tell me: what was that . . . that creature?’
‘She is Scylla. Show some respect!’ He seemed genuinely offended.
That gave her pause. ‘The same Scylla who appears in the book of Greek myths that Lady Hawk threw in the fire? The book with your name in it?’
He pursed his lips but did not answer.
Pattern brushed out her salt-stained, fish-stinking skirts, and tried to compose herself. She needed to keep her mind clear. ‘It is curious: milady does not seem to like gentlemen very much. Yet she puts such trust in you.’
‘That is because my lady knows I will never abandon her. She has made sure of that.’ Mr Grey glanced out to sea where the dark shadow of Scylla was just discernible.
‘Does Scylla attack whoever tries to leave the island?’
‘Why would anyone want to leave? Isn’t this place a paradise?’ Mr Grey’s tone had a bitter edge. ‘Besides, Scylla would never hurt me. Even when she sleeps, in the hour before dawn, her dreams of me are kindly ones.’
Pattern did not understand it, yet, but intriguing associations were beginning to form in her mind. She, too, looked out from the cliffs. The abandoned row boat had somehow made its way from the inlet, borne by the newly formed whirlpool, and was washed up on the beach below. Both its oars rested inside – Scylla clearly had tidy habits.
‘I would never have thought something so monstrous could be so beautiful.’
He looked at her in surprise. ‘You think her beautiful? Scylla?’
‘I think,’ Pattern said slowly, ‘that she is like this island. Strange, corrupted and filled with loveliness as well as danger.’
