by Angie Sage
Over the top of their mugs, Benn and Alex exchanged glances. They’d forgotten about the spider.
Outside the cavern, dawn crept slowly up the valley. In the scattered cottages along the river, home to shepherds, rush cutters and gatherers of marsh berries, early risers peered out their windows, wondering if it was another misty morning. All river dwellers loved the mist. It was a time of quiet softness, like the first snowfall, a lull before the day began. But today when they pulled back the curtains in each cottage there was a gasp of shock, for today the low mist hanging over the water was a deep, sooty black shot through with eerie flashes of blue and yellow light.
Farther up the river in the roundhouse, Nella Lau was moving quietly around the kitchen, waking up the stove with a few small logs and setting the kettle to boil. Usually Nella enjoyed the early morning stillness; it was precious time to herself before she went upstairs to wake Benn and get the day started. But today her sad thoughts, and a thick silence that seemed to have quieted even the birds, oppressed her. The abduction of little Louie and poor Francina had shown Nella how powerless she truly was. It had made real the evil that still lay in Rekadom, something that in her daily life she managed to forget.
But what really worried her that morning was Benn. Ever since he had met Alex—of whom Nella was very fond—Nella had watched Benn grow from being her little grandson who liked nothing more than to help out on the farm to a young man who had his own life now, and—more worryingly—his own plans. Benn was caught up in a whole new world, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Sighing, Nella opened the shutters on the small kitchen window above the sink. It was still dark. Puzzled, she checked the clock, which showed seven thirty. A flicker of worry ran through her—the sun should be up by now. And the birds should be singing. What was going on? Quietly, Nella climbed the stairs up to her room, where she opened the shutters very slowly, suddenly afraid of what lay outside.
She gasped. The roundhouse was an island in a sea of mist. Mist from the river was not unusual; it lay low in the mornings, especially this time of year, and Nella loved it—but not when it was sooty black and riven with weird flashes of light. Nella peered down at the slightly undulating and, in places, patchy, flatness. It was, she reckoned, about two feet deep and as dark as a moonless night. Was there a fire somewhere? Nella wondered. Or was it a Wraith? What would it do if you opened the door—would it come in? Would it choke you? Nella took a wrench from the toolbox she kept under her bed and then she crept quietly upstairs, past Benn’s room, where Jay was sleeping. A ladder was set neatly against the wall and Nella pulled it out and set it so that it led up to a small sealed trapdoor. Nella climbed the ladder, undid the large bolts holding the trapdoor closed, pulled away the rubber seal around the door and pushed it open. The attic was quiet and dim, but enough daylight came up from the hatch for Nella to see where she was going. She swung herself up from the ladder and made her way across to a tiny window. She unscrewed its heavy shutter and looked out. Nella gasped. A vast lake of mist, a mixture of blues, blacks and grays, covered the land. The orange and lemon groves rose out of it and in the distance she saw the old railway bridge rising serenely over the blanket of darkness. Beyond the bridge Nella was relieved to see the glimmering of the ocean as it stretched out to join the pale morning sky. She thought of Benn, Alex and Danny in the cavern and wished they were here with her.
Nella decided to keep watch. She went downstairs, filled a basket with a thermos of tea and some lemon cookies, took a blanket and cushions from her room and climbed back up to the attic. Jay was a late riser and Nella was not about to wake him. Who knew, maybe it had come in with the tide and would flow out again? But as Nella settled down in front of the tiny roof light to watch over the strange blanket of shadowy mist with its eerie flashing lights, she somehow doubted it.
Alex and Benn walked into a fug of steam and noise. In the middle of it stood the monumental shape of the locomotive, with steam hissing from its funnel on top of the boiler and from various joints and tubes around the wheels. An orange glow lit up the driver’s cab and Alex knew that what she had seen in her cards the first time she had met Benn had now truly come to be. And that amazingly, she was part of it.
Danny set them to work. They helped push the tender—full of coal and astoundingly heavy—along the rails so it met up with the back of the engine. They helped lift the coupling mechanism and jam it into place so that the tender was attached.
“Now we get the pressure up,” Danny said. “Which means getting much more coal into that fire, and fast.”
Alex and Benn took a shovel each and set to work. The heat from the fire was scorching, but they kept on shoveling in the coal, while Danny pushed it forward with the fire rake so there was always more space. Before long both Alex and Benn were drenched in sweat, covered in sticky coal dust and consumed by a raging thirst. But caught up in the drama of building up steam, in making a creature come alive, they continued shoveling until Danny at last yelled, “Stop!”
Alex and Benn threw down their shovels and wiped their brows in unison like old hands at the job. Beneath their feet they felt the thrum of energy running through the metal. They were ready to go.
In the roundhouse attic, Nella put down her lemon tea and peered intently out of the little window. Emerging from the top of the hills were what appeared to be wisps of white smoke. She shaded her eyes against the brightness of the sky and stared. It wasn’t her imagination, there was definitely smoke. Nella wondered if someone was signaling for help? And then she remembered something Jay had once said. That the cavern where the Puffer was hidden had a vent that emerged high in the Border Hills. And that she would know when the engine was ready to go because she’d see the steam coming out of the hilltops. Is that steam? Nella wondered. And then she wondered: Is that Benn’s plan?
The Puffer was buzzing with pent-up energy.
“We’re gonna have to be quick,” Danny told Alex and Benn. “Pull the doors open and then we just go for it. We’re bigger and nastier than any spider. Okay?”
“Yep,” said Alex.
“Okay,” said Benn.
“Okay!” Danny yelled above a sudden hiss of steam. “Let’s go!”
Alex and Benn ran to the doors. “One, two, three, pull!” they shouted, and each wrenched their door open. Thanks to Danny’s greasing of the runners during the night, the doors ran back so fast that the speed sent both Alex and Benn sprawling to the ground. They picked themselves up and glanced nervously outside and saw a mass of gray threads looped across the tunnel. They raced back along the side of the engine, past the great drive wheel, and leaped up into the safety of the driver’s cab.
“Hey, spider!” Danny yelled. “We’re coming through!”
With a piercing whistle, the locomotive lurched forward. They all felt the pent-up power of the huge machine as Danny eased it slowly along the track and into the tunnel, where they hit the giant web. The Puffer crept steadily forward, its heat sending the strands of steel-strong silk fizzing away into blackened shreds and filling their nostrils with the acrid smell of scorching. And then suddenly, with a great billow of steam, they were out into daylight.
“Sheesh, look at that mist!” Benn yelled above the noise of the Puffer.
Danny took no notice. “Coal!” he yelled at Benn. “More coal!”
While Benn swung around to get the coal, Alex stared down at the strange, undulating darkness that hugged the ground like a quilt. She watched its shifting swirls and saw the needle-sharp flashes of light within, like tiny electric storms. She shivered. It felt just like the stuff inside the Iron Tower. And there was that spider too, just like in the Iron Tower. A niggle of worry began to gnaw at Alex—she had closed the door to the Tower, hadn’t she?
Alex’s thoughts were interrupted by Benn’s anxious tones. “Hey, Danny, slow down!” he was yelling. “You can’t see the track! Suppose it’s broken? Or there’s a rock on it? Slow down!”
Danny looked
annoyed. “What are you talking about?” he said.
“That dark mist, what do you think?” Benn yelled.
“What dark mist?” Danny shouted.
Now Alex knew for sure—this was an Enchantment. And where else could it be from but the Iron Tower? “It’s okay, Danny!” she called over. “Ignore him!” She turned to Benn. “It’s an Enchantment. A massive Wraith or something. Danny can’t see it because he’s Dark to Enchantment.”
“But he saw the spider,” Benn objected.
“Because the spider is real. Like a Skorpas. Or the Hawke. It’s just much bigger, that’s all.”
“So Danny can still see the track?”
“Yep,” said Alex.
An expression of relief crossed Benn’s face.
“Coal!” yelled Danny. And Benn happily threw in another shovel of coal.
Some minutes later they rounded the last outcrop of rock before the bridge and Alex saw the spider scuttling away through the dark swirls, like any house spider that has been swept out of a comfortable corner with a broom. She watched it go with a feeling of despair. What have I done? she thought. I’ve let loose the very worst Enchantments that scared even Poppa—and now they’re everywhere. This is a thousand times worse than Poppa’s Hauntings. Her hand strayed to the Tau sitting snug in the secret pocket of her sash and she felt the warmth and reassurance of it as her fingers found its smooth surface. Alex felt a little better—she, Poppa and the Tau could fix this too. She grabbed the shovel from Benn and scooped up more coal—the sooner she could get to Rekadom, the better.
With a deep, resonant chuffa-chuff . . . chuffa-chuff . . . chuffa-chuff . . . the Puffer moved along the broad track beside the river. Danny leaned out to watch its huge drive wheel slowly turning as the Puffer crept powerfully forward. “We’re rolling!” he yelled, exhilarated. “Coal!”
Alex readily threw in another shovel of coal into the red-hot hole of fire and then leaned out of the cab. The undulating sea of blackness spread out before them like a carpet, and in the distance she could see a huge spider striding away, along the riverbank. Alex shook her head—it was so unreal it felt like a dream. No, a nightmare, she thought.
They were now heading up the gentle rise of the embankment, which rose clear of the Wraith mist and led to the bridge over the river.
“Coal! Coal!” Danny yelled.
Benn threw two more shovels in as the gradient increased and the Puffer chuffed its way up the track. Alex watched a cloud of sparks fly out from the firebox and arc into the Wraith mist below.
“Coal!” yelled Danny as they approached the bridge.
Benn threw in another shovel of coal and then, to take his mind off his fear of the bridge cracking under the weight of the locomotive and sending them all tumbling into the river, he looked out up the river. Dark above the Wraith mist, he too saw the spider stalking along the riverbank. And, as they reached the top of the bridge, in the distance on the familiar bend in the river, Benn saw the roundhouse rearing up above the dark lake in which it sat. And it seemed to him that was the very place the spider was heading.
Nella did not see the spider. She had eyes for only one thing—the magnificent sight of the locomotive rising out of the blackness, like a whale breaching the ocean. She watched it moving up the incline to the old railway bridge, steam pouring from its funnel—and then it was on the bridge. Nella held her breath as oh so slowly the massive machine crept across the worryingly delicate metal latticework of the bridge, its solid dark shape clear against the pale sky, brilliant orange sparks arcing down toward the blackness below. Nella could hardly bear to watch, but watch she did from between her fingers, hands clamped to her face.
When it reached the halfway point across the bridge, Nella heard the haunting sound of the train’s whistle traveling across the silence of the strangest morning she had ever known. It brought memories rushing back that Nella had pushed to the dusty corners of her mind—happy times spent traveling to Rekadom, summer trips to Netters Cove to stay with her best friend, who had married a fisherman, and taking the morning train to Luma to go to the cafe at the station and meet up with friends. Nella felt shocked at the realization of how, over the last ten years of King Belamus’s wicked Hauntings, she had become so solitary.
But even so, Nella found she was smiling. She was sure the whistle had been Benn saying hello. Pushing away her next thought—that he was really saying goodbye—Nella wiped the mistiness from her eyes and watched with relief as the engine safely reached the far side of the bridge and set off down the long sweep of the curved embankment, its plume of steam trailing behind it as it rode above the misty darkness that covered the reed beds. She watched until she could see it no more, then she closed the shutter and went downstairs to the kitchen.
There she found Jay making tea and breakfast pancakes. Nella took a deep breath. “Jay,” she said. “I have something to tell you.”
Two minutes later, Jay was furiously pacing the kitchen floor.
“Don’t swear please, Jay,” Nella was saying.
“I’ll swear if I want to, Gramma. My sneaky little brother has stolen my train and I have every right to pigging swear as much as I pigging want to.” He threw himself down at the table and put his head in his hands.
Nella put her arms around Jay’s shaking shoulders. “Don’t cry, Jay dear. Benn will bring your train back. I know he will.”
“I’m not crying,” came Jay’s muffled voice.
“No, dear. Of course not. I’ll fix us a nice cup of lemon tea, shall I?”
Jay did not answer.
Quietly, Nella moved around the kitchen, tending to the tea. Deciding to sneak a peek outside and see what was happening to the mist, she opened a shutter a few inches. She screamed and slammed it shut. And then she sat down and began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Jay asked, sulkily.
“Oh, nothing. Just a giant spider in the courtyard.”
Jay strode to the window. He pulled open the shutters and slammed them fast. “Sheesh,” he said. “I don’t see why you’re laughing, Gramma. I really don’t.”
“Oh, Jay,” Nella said. “I’m thinking how I used to worry about Sol’s little pet spider all those years ago. And now there’s a giant one outside and, well, it really doesn’t seem to matter all that much. How times have changed.”
Chapter 37
Coal!
“COAL!” DANNY SHOUTED OVER THE rhythmic rattle of the wheels upon the track. “Coal!”
Benn and Alex were hot and aching from the constant shoveling of the coal—and increasingly annoyed with Danny’s peremptory demands for it.
“He might at least say ‘please,’” Benn grumbled to Alex as he heaved another shovel into the searingly hot fire.
“Huh,” said Alex. “Why does it eat so much coal anyway?”
“Coal!” yelled Danny.
Benn threw down the shovel. “Do it yourself,” he told Danny. “I need some water.” He grabbed the flask and tipped it up, the water running down his sooty chin, leaving a clean trail behind it. Alex picked up the shovel and threw another load in. She didn’t care how hard they were going to have to work—all she wanted to do was to get to Rekadom.
The Wraith mist was thinner now, and as the Puffer chugged slowly along, both Benn and Alex could see the rails of the track ahead, glinting in the sunlight. Alex was surprised how shiny they looked; Jay had done a good job, she thought. She looked over to the left and could see the tops of the salt oak woods, and ahead she saw the gradual rise of the Thirteen Titans, undulating like a huge green ocean with the dirty slick of Wraith mist lapping up against them. The track now swept into a wide bend, taking them around a rocky outcrop, and as they rounded the escarpment Danny yelled out, “Rocks! Rocks on the line!”
There was a shrieking of brakes, and with Danny frantically pulling levers, the Puffer slowly ground to a halt just in time. “Sheesh,” he said, wiping his brow. “I nearly locked the brakes. Gotta be more careful next time.”
They jumped down from the cab and surveyed the landslide. It wasn’t big but, as Danny said, it wasn’t small either. They set to work, shifting the rocks and shoveling the loose, gritty soil. It was very slow going, particularly as Alex and Benn found themselves doing most of the work while Danny fretted about steam pressures and escape valves and kept disappearing into the cab “just to check.”
It was late in the afternoon, and Ratchet was checking on his horse. The path down to Netters Cove was too steep for horses, so a stable was kept at the old Netters Halt for horse-riding visitors. But as the breathless Ratchet reached the top of the cliff path, he saw that the stable door was smashed and hung open, swinging on its hinges. Muttering a series of rude words under his breath, Ratchet warily approached the stable and peered in. There, on the floor, lay a wad of horsehair and a long streak of blood. Ratchet shuddered to think what creature could have done such a thing. Feeling very spooked, he trod quietly away, noticing now how the ground around the stable was gouged out in deep scuff marks. The horse had clearly put up a good fight.
Ratchet stepped up onto the old railway platform. Shielding his eyes against the sun, he scanned the vista for clues as to what might have happened, but the desert gave nothing away. Ratchet saw no more than a dull brown sweep of gritty scrubland and the towers of Rekadom in the far distance, the low sun glinting off their gold tips. To his right were the rolling hills that led up to the Titans, and it occurred to Ratchet these could hide all manner of horse-devouring creatures. He was about to beat a retreat when he thought he saw a thin white pillar of smoke moving toward him from behind the nearest hill. Suddenly, Ratchet was back to being a teenager once more, waiting with his friends for the Big Puffer to take him to Rekadom for a night out in the Glittering Star Bar. He sighed. How things had changed since that terrible Oracle prediction ten years ago. Suddenly a piercing whistle broke into his thoughts, and from behind the hill came an apparition.
