“No way.” Edwin shook his head. “I am not putting these in your mouth.”
The old lady’s slurring took on an assertive tone.
“All right.” Edwin sighed, realising he had little choice in the matter. “Here goes.”
The old lady leaned closer. Edwin pulled the false teeth from the box and thrust them towards her gaping mouth. Then he closed his eyes, unwilling to witness the revolting spectacle before him. There was a squelching noise, and then a click. Edwin felt something warm and moist close around his fingers.
“Thank you,” said the old lady. Her voice wasn’t so slurred now, but still didn’t sound quite right. “My name is Val.”
“My name is Edwin,” said Edwin, his eyes still closed.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Val.
A few seconds passed before she spoke again.
“You can take your fingers out of my mouth now.”
Chapter 10- Tea and Rock Cakes
“You were shut in that cupboard for three whole weeks?” Edwin couldn’t believe it. “That must have been terrible.”
“I’ve had worse experiences.” Val presented Edwin with a cup of steaming tea. “And with all this bad weather it’s not like I missed much gardening time.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.” Edwin smiled appreciatively as Val placed the cup and saucer on the kitchen table. “You couldn’t go to the loo or anything.”
“I have a very good bladder for my age,” said Val, pouring a cup for herself.
“I bet,” spluttered Edwin, after taking a sip of tea. “You could treat fences with this stuff.”
“Besides, it’s all about will power. Will power and belief.” Val nodded at Edwin. “If you believe enough, anything is possible.”
Edwin took another sip, and tried believing Val’s tea didn’t taste like wood preservative.
It didn’t work, and he grimaced as he swallowed.
“I’d offer you some sugar.” Val had obviously noted Edwin’s pained expression. “But I can’t find any spoons. I had a set of six, but they’ve been disappearing one by one for years now. Odd that.”
“It’s OK.” Edwin smiled at Val as she sat down at the table. “The main thing is that you’re all right.”
At first Edwin had been worried for Val, being locked up in a cupboard would have been stressful for anyone, let alone a frail old lady. But Val seemed to be recovering quite well. After hurriedly introducing himself, Edwin had offered to make her a cup of tea to help calm her down, but Val had insisted on making it herself. It was the least she could do, she said, to thank him for rescuing her.
“Perfect!” Val gasped after taking a slurp of tea. “Would you care for a rock cake? I baked them three weeks ago, but they’ve been sealed in a tin so won’t have gone off.”
“Thanks.” Edwin was feeling a little peckish, and helped himself to a cake from a plate in the middle of the table. “So tell me. How did you end up in the cupboard?”
“Let me think.” Val tapped her walking stick on the floor. “Ah yes. It was three weeks ago when a chap turned up to read my gas meter. I thought that was odd, seeing as I don’t have a gas supply. But he was quite insistent, and told me the meter was in the cupboard under the stairs. Well, I showed him the cupboard to prove I wasn’t losing my marbles. I turned my back on him, and then I must have blacked out because all I remember next is waking up in the dark, bound and gagged like you found me. Minus my best false teeth, to boot.”
“Someone pinched your false teeth?” Edwin didn’t think that likely.
“They’re a good pair,” insisted Val. “Would fetch a lot on the second hand market.”
Edwin doubted if there was much of a market for used false teeth, so guessed there was more to this incident than petty denture theft.
“What did this chap look like?” Edwin bit into his rock cake. It lived up to its name, and he was lucky not to break a tooth. “Ow!”
“Don’t be such a wimp.” Val gave Edwin a disappointed look before biting into a rock cake herself. She winced and held her jaw, then lowered the cake from her mouth. “Perhaps they’re a little on the firm side. I could manage it with my best teeth, but these ones aren’t quite up to it. Still, while there’s a will there’s a way.”
Val pulled her false teeth from her mouth, then clamped her gums around the rock cake.
Edwin watched in horrified fascination as Val sucked noisily.
The sucking went on for several minutes, until the rock cake was soggy enough for Val to swallow. When she had finished, she popped her teeth back into her mouth, licked her lips and smiled at Edwin. “You were saying?”
“Er...” It took a second or two for Edwin to remember what he’d been talking about. “The man who called at your door. What did he look like? Was there anything distinctive about him? Like his eyes?”
“Oh yes.” Val nodded. “He had eyes. Two of them. And a nose.”
Edwin sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy.
And yet he had to find out more, because he suspected there was some connection to Bill’s disappearance. And if he found Bill it would surely lead him to Mum.
“Although his nose couldn’t have been working very well,” continued Val. “He was wearing the most revolting aftershave. Reminded me of rotten fish.”
“That’s them!” Edwin thumped his fist on the table, rattling the crockery. “The fish monsters! Now I wonder why they wanted to read your gas meter?”
“They hadn’t come to read her gas meter.” A shrill voice sounded from Edwin’s jacket pocket. “That was obviously a ruse to gain entry into the cottage.”
Val frowned at Edwin. “Who said that?”
“I did.” Stubby emerged from Edwin’s top pocket. “Forgive my interruption, but I could listen to this bungled interview no longer. My name is Stubby. I would hand you my calling card, but unfortunately I got a little peckish this morning and chewed it up.”
Edwin hadn’t introduced Stubby to Val, thinking it might be too much for an already distressed old lady. But Val took the appearance of the talking mouse in her stride.
“Would you like a rock cake too?” She offered the plate to Stubby.
“They’re too big for him,” said Edwin.
“You could break a bit off,” suggested Val.
“Not without a pneumatic drill.” Edwin pushed the plate away. “Anyway, we need to focus. Finding out who locked you in the cupboard might help lead us to Bill.”
“Bill?” Val looked expectantly at Edwin. “Is there someone else in your pocket?”
“He’s not in my pocket,” said Edwin. “He’s my stepdad, and he’s gone missing. He works for Gutterly Great Gutters and Drainpipes. We found his car parked outside, so he must have been here yesterday.”
Stubby nodded. “Hence it stands to reason that whoever locked Val in the cupboard had a hand in Bill’s disappearance.”
Edwin pursed his lips thoughtfully. “But I wonder what this has to do with the Thunderstone?”
“Thunderstone?” There was another rattle of china as Val almost dropped her cup and saucer.
“Yeah.” Edwin wondered why Val had reacted so dramatically. “The Weather Vane told us it had been stolen.”
“Stolen!” Val rose shakily to her feet, her knuckles whitening as she gripped her walking stick. “So that’s what they came for.”
“What?” Edwin stood up too. “What did they come for?”
“The Thunderstone, of course.” Val pointed her walking stick at the window ledge.
Edwin could see a potted plant, and a china jug with a cow painted on it, but nothing that looked like it might be a Thunderstone.
“I don’t see a Thunderstone,” he told Val.
“Of course you don’t,” growled Val. “Because it’s been stolen.”
“You’ll have to forgive the boy,” said Stubby. “He’s slower than a snail wearing snowshoes.”
“I kept the Thunderstone here.” Val jabbed her stick at an empty space on
the window ledge. “Between my petunia and my novelty milk jug.”
“But what is the Thunderstone?” said Edwin. “And why would anyone want to steal it?”
Val lowered her walking stick, and her lips tightened as she turned to face Edwin.
“The Thunderstone is an ancient relic.” Suddenly she didn’t sound like a little old lady anymore. “To the High Priests of Asgard it was known as Thor’s Hammer, and they used it to restore harmony in the event of elemental imbalance.”
Edwin glanced out of the window. It was still raining, perhaps harder than ever, and the sky was almost as dark as night. “I wouldn’t call that harmony.”
“It could also be used to cause catastrophic storms,” said Val. “Floods, tornados, tidal waves. If it fell into the wrong hands, it could be a lethal weapon. That is why the Priests of Asgard appointed special people to guard it. And that’s what I am. A Shield Maiden of Asgard.”
“You?” Edwin looked Val up and down. “But you’re just an old lady.”
“There’s no ‘just’ about being old,” sneered Val. “Or a lady, for that matter. It’s not how young you are, it’s about what’s in here.” She pressed her right hand to her chest.
“Sure.” Edwin hadn’t meant to upset Val, and quickly changed the subject. “But what’s Asgard?”
“Asgard was an ancient kingdom to the North.” Through her thick glasses, Val’s eyes appeared to mist up. “A magical realm the like of which mortals could only dream. But it’s gone now, destroyed many centuries ago during a devastating war.”
“A magical realm?” Edwin frowned. “Was it anything to do with the Wise Ones?”
“What do you know of the Wise Ones?” Val’s eyes narrowed as she regarded Edwin. Then she smiled, and clunked her walking stick on the kitchen floor. “Of course. You are a Guardian of Wychetts.”
“That’s right.” Edwin nodded energetically.
“Then all is not lost.” Val’s smile broadened into a grin. “With Inglenook’s help we should be able to trace the Thunderstone in no time at all.”
“Er…” Edwin’s smile fell. “Inglenook isn’t here.”
Val’s grin vanished as she looked Edwin up and down. “You don’t have the Wychetts Key?”
“No.” Not for the first time that day, Edwin felt a bit of a let down. “My stepsister Bryony has it. She’s a Guardian too.” His gaze lowered to the tiled kitchen floor. “A better one than me, apparently.”
“And where is the girl?” queried Val.
“Gone to look for her dad.” Edwin kept his face angled to the floor. “They were supposed to join up with us, but they won’t know we’re here.”
Val snorted irritably. “So the Keeper of the Ancient Wisdom sends his junior to help me. Me, a Shield Maiden of Asgard. The Keeper of the Thunderstone itself.”
Edwin looked up to fix Val with a challenging stare. “You didn’t keep it very well.”
“What do you mean?” Val scowled. “The Thunderstone has been under my family’s guardianship for nearly two thousand years.”
“On your windowsill?” Edwin shook his head with disbelief. “Between a petunia and a novelty milk jug?”
Val coughed awkwardly. “Bought it on a trip to Devon. Used to moo when you picked it up, but it stopped doing that after I dropped it in nineteen eighty six.”
“That’s got nothing to do with it,” snapped Edwin. “If you’re a Keeper of the Thunderstone, you should have locked it away somewhere safe, not leave it on display like an ornament.”
“It wasn’t an ornament,” said Val. “I used it as a paperweight.”
“I don’t believe this,” groaned Edwin.
Val sighed, then smiled again. “I’m sorry, lad. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. You’re right. I haven’t been a very good Keeper of the Thunderstone. I wasn’t even supposed to be a Shield Maiden in the first place. My elder sister Barbara should have been Keeper by rights, but she passed away many years ago without an heir, so I was next in line. She would have made a better Keeper than me, I’m sure.”
“It’s OK.” Edwin smiled back. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“But I should have realised.” Val tapped her walking stick on the floor again. “The signs were there.”
Edwin frowned. “What signs?”
“The Thunderstone has remained inactive for hundreds of years,” explained Val. “Ever since the Fall of Asgard. Then, about three weeks ago, it started buzzing and giving off heat. Around the time the storms began.”
Edwin nodded. “So it started working all by itself?”
Val shook her silver head. “A special ritual needs to be performed to invoke the Thunderstone’s power. Something else caused those first storms.”
“I know what that might have been.” Edwin explained hurriedly about the Tome Terriblis, and how its powers had caused a dangerous elemental imbalance.
“I see.” Val stroked her wrinkled chin. “Then the Thunderstone was reacting to the unnatural forces of the Tome.”
“And that must have been the signal,” said Stubby. “When it reacted to the storms, the Thunderstone revealed its location to those who wanted to steal it.”
“Like a blip on a radar.” Edwin puffed his cheeks. “But if the Nyx stole the Thunderstone, why did they also kidnap my mum and stepdad?”
“The Nyx?” Val’s already wrinkly face became even more wrinkled. “You think the Nyx are responsible?”
Edwin told Val what had happened at Wychetts the night before. The old lady listened carefully, but didn’t seem convinced.
“That would be most unlike the Nyx. They are usually shy and secretive. I can’t believe they’d…”
“Shh!” Stubby raised a little paw. “Do you hear that noise?”
Edwin listened, and heard a soft gurgling from somewhere.
He looked enquiringly at Val. “Is that your plumbing?”
“Of course not.” Val looked offended. “I told you, I have a very good bladder for my age.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.” Edwin got up from his chair, cocking his head to listen. “It’s coming from the hall.”
Curiosity aroused, Edwin left the kitchen and walked into the hallway. Each step he took was accompanied by a squelching noise. Puzzled, he looked down and saw the flowery carpet had gone soggy.
Edwin advanced down the hall, following the gurgling sound until he reached the front door, where he saw water trickling through the letter flap.
“That stream must have burst its banks.” Stubby peered out from Edwin’s top pocket. “We’d better get the old lady out before the house is flooded.”
“Let’s not forget the Weather Vane.” Edwin turned to the foot of the stairs, but the umbrella stand was empty. “Hey, where did he…”
There was a shriek from the kitchen.
“Val!” Edwin ran back down the hallway. The rising water was splashing round his ankles by the time he reached the kitchen. The back door was open, and there was no sign of Val.
“Val, are you there?” Edwin thrust his head out of the back door. The rain and wind lashed his face as he peered into the gloom. The stormy sky was darker than ever, and he struggled to see in the deepening murk.
A stuttering flash of lightning lit up the garden, and Edwin spotted something lying in the trampled flowerbed. It was a leather briefcase, just like the one Bill used for work. Edwin walked up to examine the briefcase, but his attention was drawn to a circular opening in the ground close by.
“That’s a sewer hole,” advised Stubby. “I’d keep away if I were you.”
Ignoring Stubby’s warning, Edwin stood over the sewer opening and peered inside. He thought he saw movement in the darkness, before another burst of lightning revealed a glimpse of something silvery…
“Val, is that you?” Edwin leaned further over the opening. “Bill, are you down there?”
“Get back,” said Stubby. “You’re standing too close.”
Edwin stepped away from the hole, but not
before a webbed hand reached up from the sewer to seize his left ankle.
The hand pulled him down, and Edwin screamed as he plummeted through the hole into the blackness below…
Chapter 11- A Twang of Toad Vomit
Coughing and spluttering, Edwin was pulled from the rancid water.
He could see nothing but darkness, and his nostrils burned with an intense fishy stench.
Wychetts and the Thunderstone Page 7
