If I wanted to visit the village, I needed to go now, before the lunchtime service began here at the inn.
Time to skedaddle.
My first stop was Whittle Stores where Rhona was behind the counter, looking cheerier than she had been in days.
I greeted her with a hug. “How’s Stan?”
Her face flooded with relief. “He’s so much better, Alf. He’s been struggling to keep anything down, not even liquids, but they set him up on a drip and rehydrated him, and now after a few days of that he’s started accepting food. His colour is better. He’s definitely turned a corner.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.” I pondered briefly on whether it was possible to flush the forest around Whittlecombe out. Maybe a rain storm. Could we put Speckled Wood on a drip?
“Do you know, I’ve never mentioned this before, Alf, but when the Fayre was on across the road, I went to see this fortune teller. I can’t remember what her name was—”
Fabulous Fenella. I grimaced inwardly.
“…But she foretold that Stan would end up in hospital. She even told me to keep him away from the water. I should have listened to her.”
Yes, I wish you had listened to me, I thought. But even I hadn’t put two and two together. Who would have imagined that what had happened to Stan would be just the start of this catastrophic chain of events? Without him going into the water how would we have been alerted to what was happening?
“How could you have possibly known what she meant?” I soothed her. “And let’s not forget, Stan was trying to save the little boy. If it hadn’t been Stan who fell ill after going into the water at Whittle Folly, it would have been someone else. Maybe a whole host of kids.”
“Well that’s true. We have to be grateful for small mercies, and it looks like he’s out of the woods.” Rhona changed the subject. “So how are you doing, Alf?”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“Any word on George’s whereabouts?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. But we’re remaining hopeful.”
“Some local bobbies were down from Exeter asking questions the other day.”
“At least they’re still taking his disappearance seriously,” I said. They hadn’t sought me out though.
I collected together a few bits and bobs to take round to Millicent—two packets of biscuits and a pint of milk. A couple of women entered the shop, took a surreptitious glance at me and sniffed in disapproval.
“And what about the villagers?” Rhona asked loudly as she ran through the items. “Are they being a little kinder to you?”
I shot a look at the other two customers. They seemed suddenly fascinated by the boxed cereals. “About the supposed source of the poisonous water being in Speckled Wood, you mean?” I glowered at the window, watching one or two people walking by, averting their eyes as they spotted me inside. That had been the story of the past week, people grumbling whenever I was in their vicinity, or glaring at me. Fortunately nobody had been physically aggressive, just passively hostile.
“It’s complete batpoop, but I’ll live with it.” I sighed. My twelve months at Whittle Inn had seen my reputation plummet to new depths and soar to great heights. It was a rollercoaster for sure.
“You’re a stronger woman than I am, Alf.”
I doubted that. Here she was keeping body and soul together and still running her business while her husband lay in intensive care. “Give my love to Stan, Rhona,” I smiled and left, holding my head up.
Mr Hoo blinked at me sleepily from the nest of cushions Millicent had created in her living room. I stroked his feathery head and his little sticky-up ears. “Hello, my darling friend,” I said. “How are you?”
“I fancy he’s a little better, but I still can’t entice him to eat anything,” Millicent said from behind me.
“I just spoke to Rhona in the shop,” I said, without turning around. “She says Stan is improving. He’s started to tolerate fluids. He’s been on a drip to rehydrate him.”
Millicent came to stand next to me. “I’ve never tried a drip on an owl, I have to be honest.”
I put my arm around her shoulders and squeezed her. She looked as weary as I felt. “I know you’re doing your best,” I said. “I wasn’t criticising.”
“I hate that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of animals in the woods that I can’t help.”
I nodded solemnly. Jasper whimpered. I reached out to him and he ambled forwards to stick his head between my knees.
“I’ve been giving all my animals bottled water. Mary Brigstone’s dog got sick after walking in the woods.”
“They should close off access,” I exclaimed in horror. “Nobody should be exercising their animals anywhere near standing water. Surely the Water Board have told them that?”
“Well have you not noticed?” Millicent asked in surprise. “When was the last time you saw a member of the Water Board in Whittlecombe?”
I stared at Millicent in shock. She was right. The tanks of water were being replenished on a daily basis, but other than that, I hadn’t seen the familiar livery of the water company’s vans for several days. Perhaps not since the village meeting.
They had sown the seeds of doubt and despair, vilified the name of Whittle Inn, and then done a runner.
“By all that’s sacred,” I growled. “How dare they? They dug an enormous hole in my beer cellar and they haven’t filled it in yet!”
“I have made you a potion, mein Honigbär.”
Frau Krause peered up at me from below her grey fringe, her piercing blue eyes glinting in the soft evening light. We were wrapping up dinner service and I had started clearing her plates away.
“That’s kind of you,” I smiled, eyeing the tiny vial of green coloured sludge she was holding out in my direction.
“Die schlafhilfe.” She tucked her hands against her cheek and mimed falling asleep.
“A sleeping potion?” I suppose I did look tired. I intended to get to bed sharpish this evening.
Frau Krause nodded enthusiastically. “I like to use the leaves and barks and sap of trees that sleep in the winter. They know how to take a nap.” She laughed merrily and I took the potion from her. Frau Krause was a regular guest at Whittle Inn and enjoyed spending a great deal of her free time in the forest surrounding us.
“You didn’t use the water from the forest did you?” I had of course warned her about the situation with the poison in the water sources.
“Just a little.”
I held the small test-tube shaped bottle up to the window and looked at it. Frau Krause obviously didn’t believe in filtering to make her potions clear. You could definitely make out some sediment. I shuddered inwardly.
“Don’t be concerned,” Frau Krause said, reaching out to pat the hand that held the potion. “I made this one at home in Deutschland. It is not from here. It is good stuff. It helps you sleep. I use it all the time.” She cackled loudly, ensuring everyone in the vicinity looked around at us, then excused herself, heading upstairs to her room. No doubt she’d be back out in the woods within the hour.
I slipped the vial into my pocket and resumed clearing her table, lost in thought about Frau Krause’s potion abilities, until I heard a commotion originating from the kitchen. I recognised Monsieur Emietter’s voice from the loud French curses and heard the sound of pots and pans flying and crashing around.
Several of the guests, who were still seated at tables and finishing their meals, tittered.
I put on my best reassuring smile and headed for the frosted glass door that separated the bar and the back passage to the kitchen. As I reached it half a dozen of Finbarr’s pixies streamed past me clutching chunks of cake and chicken legs. Obviously they’d decided—in Finbarr’s absence—that they were hungry and had robbed the kitchen.
Unfortunately, Charity picked that moment to walk out from behind the bar with a tray full of drinks, including several glasses of red wine. One of the pixies collided with Charity’s knees, and jolted her b
ackwards, the tray of drinks collapsed into her chest.
“What the—?” she screeched. “You little—! I’m going to—"
I rapidly uttered a muting spell to drown out a train of expletives. I watched the pixies disappear out of the front door then turned to help Charity clear up.
“Look at the state of me!” Red wine had soaked through her white shirt.
I dabbed at her with some paper towels. My attempts to clean up were ineffective of course. “You need to get that straight in the wash.”
Charity groaned. “What a nuisance. I only put a load in a few hours ago.”
We tried to conserve energy and water where possible at Whittle Inn, and Charity was especially energy-conscious, particularly now the water was severely rationed. “That’s always the way.” I laughed.
“Do you have anything you want to throw in? Kill two birds with one stone?”
I thought of the robes I’d been wearing while visiting Piddlecombe Farm the night before, walking through the mud of the farmyard, the cow pats, and then exploring that stinking house. They certainly needed a wash. “As it happens, I do,” I replied. “Leave your shirt in the machine and I’ll throw my bits in later.”
Charity disappeared to get changed and I finished clearing up after the dinner service with the help of Florence. I then spent some time appeasing Monsieur Emietter, although given Gwyn’s absence I had no translator so he couldn’t understand what I was attempting to say. It took me a while to calm him down and restore order to the kitchen. Finally, I was able to clump up the back stairs to my suite of rooms and pop my head into the office.
Penelope Quigwell had some staying power, I’ll give her that. She was wrapped in conversation with someone on the phone. Ross looked up briefly, caught my eye and waved. I’d never seen him looking happier.
Rather than interrupt, I grabbed George’s phone from where it had been sitting charging all day and beat a hasty retreat to my bedroom. The clothes I’d peeled off before hitting the sack this morning, lay in a crumpled pile at the foot of my bed. I switched George’s phone on, to make sure it had charged, and set it down beside me on the bed while it binged and chimed as messages and emails flooded through, one after another.
They seemed to go on for the longest time.
I picked up the phone and flicked past the home screen. It hadn’t been password protected. That surprised me. George was a copper after all.
I noted lots of work emails and messages from concerned colleagues. It would be good to return George to the people who loved him, I thought with a twang.
I wondered whether he had any photos of me stored on his phone, or of us together, and so I flipped through the photo album while the rest of the messages continued to come in.
What I saw there gave me pause.
My heart sank.
George with another woman. Looking cosy.
The photos had been taken at—or around—the time of the Fayre. He had the fake tattoos and the shaved head. The pair of them were cheek to cheek in a few of the shots—big broad smiles. She was kissing his cheek in another, her arm clamped firmly around his neck.
I stared at the photos until my vision blurred. It could be entirely innocent, I told myself. So why did I feel so hurt?
I threw the phone on the bed, my stomach a hard rock of despair, staring into space for what seemed an eon until it beeped again, releasing me from the paralysis of my mood of despondency.
“I do not have time for this,” I hissed fiercely. “One thing at a time.”
I gathered myself together, ignoring the phone, and finally I remembered the laundry.
I considered calling Florence to take the clothes back down to the utility area next to the kitchen for me so that I could just hit the sack, but that did seem the height of indolence given that I’d told Charity I would do the washing. Besides Florence was still tidying up after our guests.
I picked up my pile of clothes and carried them back downstairs, tossing everything piece by piece into the machine. I paused when I reached my robes, fishing the sleeves out the right way, and patting down the pockets. I could feel something in one of them.
I rummaged around and located the small square jewellery box I’d extracted from the woman’s jacket found hanging over the chair in the room in the cellar. I’d forgotten all about it.
I flipped the lid to expose the contents, expecting a bracelet or a chunky ring, and did a double take.
A prism-shaped jewel nestled inside. Gloriously red, like a London bus or a post box, but shining brighter than the moon on a clear night. I fumbled with it, my fingers suddenly feeling incredibly fat and clumsy, and lifted it out of the box. It couldn’t have been more than an inch-and-a-half tall, and less than half that wide, and yet the light it threw out filled the utility room with a rich, warm glow. I held it up to the light, staring into the centre of it. Was it my imagination or could I see tiny gold sparkles at the core?
“What are you?” I asked in wonder. “And why were you left behind at that farm house?” I twisted it this way and that, examining it from different angles. “I suppose you could be something innocuous like a ruby or maybe a semi-precious stone,” I said. In itself it didn’t appear to be dangerous. It could just be a coincidence that it was in a jacket, in a house known to have been occupied by The Mori.
“I ought to show you to somebody,” I told it, and then yawned. “But maybe I’ll do that in the morning.”
Frau Krause’s potion did the trick, and I slept like a baby, although I probably wouldn’t have required much rocking in any case if the truth be known. My mother had always said that an hour before midnight was worth two after, and so when I awoke at sometime before three, I already felt deeply rested.
I lay blinking in the darkness, wondering what had woken me and whether I’d be able to drift back to sleep. I turned on my side with the intention of doing just that and let my eyes flicker shut once more.
But something wasn’t right.
I couldn’t tell what. I lay there, pretending to sleep, but eventually, my sense of unease won. I pushed myself into a sitting position, wishing Mr Hoo was here, and reached out with my senses.
Whittle Inn was quiet, apart from the sounds I might have expected – hushed creaks and groans as the old building cooled overnight. If I paid attention I could hear the snores of sleeping guests. From downstairs at the rear of the inn came the gentle roar of the boiler, topping its own hot water up, ready for all the guests who would require baths and showers in the morning.
My window was open, but I could neither hear nor sense the movement of small nocturnal animals or birds. There was neither the ribbing of a toad nor the chirruping of a grasshopper. And not a breath of wind.
The world was holding its breath.
I didn’t like it.
I untangled myself from my bedclothes and grabbed a scrunchie from my bedside table, tying my hair back. Then I reached for my wand.
I padded to the open window and peered out into the darkness. At first glance everything seemed normal. Nothing to see. But as my eyes adjusted to the different light level out there, I spotted movement in a distant hedge. A red glow.
Further away, Speckled Wood was covered by a glowing green aura. The Circle of Querkus were on guard there, and by the looks of it they were alarmed.
“Gwyn,” I called into the darkness, as quietly and urgently as I could. Despite her many faults, and her haughty stand-offishness on occasions, I understood instinctively that I could rely on my great grandmother in a crisis. I knew she would be alerted by my tone. She appeared next to me almost instantly. I pointed with my wand out of the window in the direction of the red globe. She saw it, not much more than a pinprick of light. She understood immediately.
“Rouse everyone,” I told her, my voice low. “Tell them to gather in the bar. Move swiftly and quietly.”
She nodded and vanished, and I heard a creak from the floorboards somewhere above me. Gwyn had elected to wake Silvan first.
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The chances were that Penelope Quigwell and her wizards were still awake and working. On bare feet I padded softly to my door and pulled it gently open, inch by inch. With the coast clear I crept onto the landing and turned for my office door. I hadn’t made it halfway when I heard a buzz.
I swung about while simultaneously dropping to a crouch, sending out a vicious ball of fire in the direction of the sound. My aim was true. A red orb exploded, scattering baking hot fragments along the corridor.
“Silvan!” I screeched. The game was up, no need for stealth anymore. Footsteps thundered along the landing above rapidly followed by another explosion. The door next to me opened, and something shot a hot ray of burning energy above my head. I heard Penelope shriek and stumble backwards. Silvan crashed down the stairs to the side of me, rolling into a crouch, his wand poised and pointing at the space behind me. I turned my head as he took aim, and another red orb smashed to the floor.
“Penelope? Are you alright?” I called.
“Absolutely fine,” she returned, sounding remarkably like her usual cool and poised self.
I crawled towards the door until I could peer in. Ross—like all the ghosts—had disappeared leaving just Penelope and her two technology wizards alone. I figured neither of them had seen much in the way of combat, and I couldn’t be sure about Penelope either. “We need to get down to the bar area and group together,” I told her.
“We’re right behind you,” she said.
I heard other doors opening on the floor above me. That would be the guests coming out of their rooms. I cast a quick glance at Silvan. “Charity,” I said with a grimace. The inn was currently half-full and comprised witches, ghosts, and several sages. For the most part they could take care of themselves, perhaps even help us out if the need arose, but Charity, despite what Gwyn and Millicent said, was virtually powerless.
“Don’t worry,” Silvan said. “Gwyn and Florence are going to escort her down here.”
The Mystery of the Marsh Malaise: Wonky Inn Book 5 Page 15
