As the horses continued to plod up the slope, a rabbit suddenly bolted from a burrow and ran across their path. Instantly, the hairs on the back of Harriet’s neck stood up, her pulse quickened, her mouth and nose distorted, stretching briefly out into a muzzle and her hands on the reins momentarily morphed into paws before she gained control. She squeezed her eyes shut, bit down on her lip and forced her breathing to slow. Look what happens when you relax, she rebuked herself. It’s all very well being angry at Reginald, Edgar, the Professor and Swizelsticks when they make mistakes, but you very nearly just spoiled everything yourself by not concentrating on the job! It was lucky, Harriet realised, that her horse was in the lead, and so the guests had not witnessed her partial transformation. She had to be more careful.
They had reached the summit of the hill now, and Harriet stopped her horse. Rachel and Phil caught her up and also turned their horses to face back the way they had come. Then Rachel gasped. “Oh, Phil! It’s breathtaking!”
Harriet had to admit that she was right. The view from the summit was spectacular. Thanks to some serious scrubbing and whitewashing by the three ghostly sisters, the stones of the castle gleamed and the sea beyond it twinkled in the sunlight.
Suddenly from behind them there came a loud snort. Startled, Harriet’s horse reared up, front hooves paddling in the air. One hoof struck the flank of Rachel’s horse, which whinnied and took off back down the hill at a full gallop, its rider crying out in alarm. At once Harriet’s canine reflexes responded. She spurred her horse on, charging down the hill in pursuit of Rachel’s. Phil watched, his jaw slack, as the older woman expertly manoeuvred her horse past his wife’s, causing it to slow and stop safely. Although they were a long distance away he could see that Harriet was now checking that Rachel was okay. Phil figured that he should join them. He made a clicking sound with his tongue, and dug his heels into the sides of the horse trying to get it to move, but there was a crunch, and something felt wrong, very wrong. Bending down, Phil lifted the blanket, saw the problem, and promptly felt like vomiting. The entire right side of the horse had caved in where he had prodded it with his heel, exposing some of the animal’s rotting internal organs. But that couldn’t be right, he told himself. This horse didn’t flinch when I nudged it. It doesn’t seem to be in any pain. He steeled himself to take a second look, but before he could do so, the loud snort sounded again. He swivelled around in the saddle, and found himself staring into the eyes of an enormous black charger. It thumped the ground twice, snorted once more and then rushed at Phil. Phil clamped his knees tightly onto the saddle, ducked his head low and flung his arms around his face, preparing for the bone-crushing impact of the gigantic horse. Instead, he felt a blast of icy wind hit him, move through him and vanish into nothing. I must be going crazy, Phil decided. He whimpered, swayed back and forth and then fainted, his limp body slipping out of the saddle and falling to the ground.
Harriet, meanwhile was apologising to Rachel, and Rachel was assuring her that everything was fine. “Horses spook sometimes,” she was saying. “I was a little frightened, but you handled the situation beautifully. You are an excellent horsewoman!” Harriet graciously acknowledged the compliment. “This is such a lovely place,” Rachel went on. “A great range of activities – and the food is splendid! If the rest of our stay is as good, you can expect an excellent report in our Eastern European guidebook.” Harriet smiled, and allowed a tiny ray of hope to blossom in her mind. “Now,” said Rachel. “Where’s that husband of mine?” They both looked up the hill to see Phil’s horse meandering down the path, the body of its rider dragging behind, one leg in the stirrup, head bouncing in the dirt.
“Phil!” Rachel cried out.
“Oh dear,” Harriet murmured, the ray of hope extinguishing like the flame of a snuffed candle.
#
Sergio lowered his binoculars, letting them hang from a strap around his neck. He wasn’t worried about being seen using them – it was well know that Ken Trepid was an avid bird watcher, forever spotting spoonbills, finding finches or tracking toucans. He scratched his head briefly – the wig was itchy – then retrieved his notebook, flipping it open to record his observations. Sergio preferred to use a palmtop computer, of course, but Ken Trepid was well known as a pen and paper man. In the blank box next to the words “Harriet Fullmoon, Werewolf,” he put a big check mark. That piece of information was certainly confirmed – he’d seen her partial transformation with his own eyes. Now only a few blank boxes remained to be ticked off – the gorgon, the witch and the professor. It wouldn’t take long to assess the risk they posed, and then he’d be able to make his move. Under the existing list he also added a new entry, and checked it off: Ghost horse. Violetta hadn’t told him about the existence of the spectral animal, so it was a good thing he was verifying the situation for himself. It wasn’t worth rushing into his plan, especially considering the amount of danger involved – and, he reminded himself, putting away the notebook and rubbing his hands together – all the lovely money that was at stake.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Castle Romanoff was constructed for Prince Vladimir Romanoff, youngest son of the Mortavian king, Dimitri Romanoff the second,” Viktor began. “The young prince was uninterested in his father’s political world, and sought a quiet life in a secluded area, selecting this island as his home. Construction began in 1342 and was completed in 1351. Stone was quarried on the mainland and brought over by ship, a labour-intensive process…” Lisa stole a fleeting look at the rest of the audience. She had invited Christopher Fisher to attend but he had rudely laughed in her face, so it was just Craig, Hayden and Peaches sitting with her in the library, listening to the Count. Glancing at the teenage girl now, Lisa was astonished. Peaches, who only this morning had professed her profound dislike for: a) lectures, b) history, and c) the castle, was now staring at Viktor in wrapt attention, her eyes riveted on him, lipstick-smeared mouth stretched into a wide smile.
Lisa sat through the lecture only half-listening. Ordinarily she would have loved this sort of thing, but now her mind was occupied with present day occurrences at the castle, not historical happenings. She thought over the morning’s events. Norm and Blake had both been revealed as something strange and freakish – they could be crossed off the list. How many other staff members at the resort were also disguising themselves, she wondered. And what was in the kitchen? Craig suddenly nudged her and nodded towards Peaches. Lisa stole a quick look at the girl and saw that she was still sitting on the edge of her seat, gazing intently at the Count, hanging on every word. Her eyes were slightly unfocussed, a look that reminded Lisa of something. She thought hard, and finally it came to her. It was the same look she had seen in that guy Dan’s eyes after Violetta had convinced him the eyeball in his drink had been an onion. Interesting.
Suddenly, Lisa became aware of the Count looking at her, so she sat up straighter and focussed on what he was saying now. It seemed the historical progression had reached the 1600s. Viktor was now talking about twin brothers who lived in the castle with their father and their female cousin. Lisa abruptly realised that the tone of Viktor’s tale had changed. Whereas before he had been reeling off a list of facts – names and dates – now he was painting a picture of daily life at the castle. He spoke about the work of the servants, the hobbies of their masters, the food they ate, the music they listened to, and the dances and parties they held. Viktor’s telling made it come alive – the smells, the sights and the sounds.
“Afternoon tea was an important tradition,” he was saying. “Each day, the family would gather in the parlour on the second floor of the castle, and the brothers would take turns to sing folk songs, accompanied on the harpsichord by their cousin. The tea samovar, along with plates of pastries and cakes would then be delivered directly from the kitchen to the parlour by means of a dumbwaiter. The tea service itself consisted of…”
Lisa nearly rocketed out of her seat. She had to dig her fingernails into her leg to keep
from yelping. Craig, sitting next to his sister and feeling her body suddenly tense, looked at her in alarm. Lisa smiled to reassure him, then settled back down to wait out the end of the lecture, while formulating her plan.
#
“A dumbwaiter!” Lisa declared triumphantly.
“What, Edgar?” Craig asked her. “I don’t get it.”
“Not a dumb waiter,” Lisa explained patiently. “A dumbwaiter. And besides, Edgar’s not dumb. He’s just not very educated.”
After the conclusion of the lecture the trio had raced back to their room, leaving Peaches still asking questions of the Count. Lisa and Hayden were both sitting cross-legged atop their beds while Craig paced. “Explain,” he urged his sister.
“A dumbwaiter is like a little elevator for food. Old-fashioned mansions and castles used them to connect dining rooms and parlours to…”
“Kitchens!” said Hayden.
“Ta-dah!” Craig sang, launching himself onto his bed. “Lisa, that’s brill!”
“Well,” said Lisa. “Maybe. But Viktor only said the dumbwaiter was in the parlour in the 1600s. That doesn’t mean it’s still there now.”
“And we don’t know where the parlour is,” Hayden said dejectedly. “The castle is huge – it could be anywhere.”
Lisa and Craig both stared at him in disbelief, then looked at each other. “Uh, not really. I mean, it’s an elevator. If it exists, it has to be directly above the kitchen. Which means somewhere near the doctor’s office, I reckon.”
Hayden flushed bright red. “Oh,” he said, feeling stupid.
Craig changed the subject to distract him. “Wasn’t it weird how the Count suddenly got interesting when he started talking about the 1600s?”
“Hmm,” Lisa agreed. “I thought that was very odd too. And then the stuff that followed was quite vague – as if he was making it up. I wonder if that means anything. Oh – and weirder still – what about Peaches?”
“Yeah!” Craig agreed. “She smiled at me during lunch! And she was wearing those crazy headphones the Professor rigged up for her ipod. She told me the sound quality was amazing.”
“She told me that using a key to wind up the ipod was better than plugging it in to charge the battery,” Hayden added.
“She has a strange, vacant look on her face,” Lisa said, thoughtfully. “I wonder if Violetta’s put some sort of a spell on her, you know, like Dan and Mike? Maybe Violetta’s a hypnotist?”
“Or a witch,” Craig suggested. “It’s an improvement, anyway,” he concluded and the others had to agree.
“So, when are we going to look for this dumbwaiter?” Hayden asked, after a moment.
Lisa looked at her watch. It was four o’clock. They would be expected for dinner at seven, and then after dinner, she figured there would be little to see in the kitchen until the next morning. “How about now?” she said.
#
The castle was shaped like a capital T, with the reception area, grand entranceway and great hall – now the combination ballroom and dining room – all located in the square base of the T, and all with high ceilings extending two storeys, giving them a sense of grandeur and space.
The cross piece of the T consisted of two levels. On the ground floor the kitchen was situated on one side, and the library on the other, plus other rooms that Lisa had yet to identify. The second level of the castle was divided into two wings, split in the centre by the grand staircase. In the east wing were the guest bedrooms and the west wing contained vacant guest rooms along one side and opposite them were the public rooms – the doctor’s office, the beauty salon and the day-care playroom.
Of course there was also the basement – the site of the dungeon-gymnasium and the swimming pool, plus there were six cylindrical towers extending to three levels high, and located at all the corners of the T. In the guest wing, these towers formed two round rooms at the edge of the passageway. One of them was a chapel with floor to ceiling stained glass windows and an altar, the other was a guest sitting room with comfy chairs and a selection of magazines. Lisa wondered about the other tower rooms. There were sixteen of them, by her reckoning – six on the ground floor, four more on the first floor and six atop the towers. Of course the trio had tried to investigate, sneaking around the previous evening, but had been thwarted by locked doors and “staff-only” signs.
It was a “staff-only” sign they were facing now. It was tacked to the first door along the western corridor – the one next to the beauty salon. It was hard to tell exactly which of the rooms along this side might contain the dumbwaiter, as they all sat atop the kitchen, but they couldn’t very well search the doctor’s office, salon or playroom in front of their occupants, so this room would do for a start. Craig and Hayden were keeping watch and hopefully masking Lisa with their bodies. Please don’t be locked, Lisa thought as she reached out a hand and turned the knob. The door opened easily and Lisa ducked her head inside. Her breath caught when she spotted an antique harpsichord in one corner. Better yet, there was no one else in the room. “Come on!” she whispered to the other two.
This room looked to be a staffroom. It hadn’t been tidied yet, and the remains of staff lunches were strewn about. There was a china cup containing a few scrapings of honey with a golden spoon protruding, a plate with a smear of crusted egg yolk, and an ashtray with a briar pipe. Chairs and tables were strewn about, the harpsichord took up one corner, and one wall was dominated by a massive fireplace. The only other feature of the room was a set of carved doors recessed into the wall opposite the fireplace. Opening the doors, Lisa found an alcove containing a brass winding handle and a small door set into the stone, and behind this door was an empty shaft of bricks with a cable stretching taut from up above to down below. Holding her breath, Lisa began to wind the handle, winching the cable and raising the dumbwaiter box from the floor below. Thankfully there was no giveaway squeaking noise – the mechanism was obviously in use and well oiled.
“Who’s going in?” Craig whispered.
Hayden shook his head. “Not me.”
Lisa frowned. “It was my idea, I’m going. Besides, I’m responsible for you two.” Scarcely believing what she was doing, she started to climb into the box. It was a tight squeeze. Her knees were tucked up to her chest and her neck bent at an awkward angle. “Pull me up in ten minutes, okay? And don’t forget to keep watch.” Craig saluted her, and Hayden nodded, closing the inner door and plunging Lisa into darkness. There was a slight jerk, and then she felt herself being lowered. The elevator bumped to a halt at the ground level, and Lisa reached out a hand tentatively. She could feel a wooden door, a bit like the one on the floor above. She was about to give it a little push when she heard voices on the other side, and froze.
“No, no, no! I said julienned!”
“I am!”
“No, no, no, you’re dicing them. You’re making little cubes. I want the carrots long and thin, like matchsticks, got it?”
“Alright boss, keep your hat on.”
There was some clattering and banging, and then someone began to sing. The sound of a pair of knives hitting a chopping board picked up the beat. Lisa bit her lip and pushed the door, hoping it wouldn’t spring open to reveal her presence. It didn’t. Through the crack, Lisa could see a sink-bench topped by a stack of dishes. A splashboard of stainless steel was affixed to the wall above the sink, and formed a rudimentary mirror, reflecting the rest of the kitchen back to her. At first she was disappointed. There appeared to be three men in the kitchen… no, four… and they were cooking. Nothing unusual about that. However, as her eyes adapted to the increased light she was able to resolve more detail. There was something strange about the men. Their skin was the wrong colour, and it looked gloopy – almost like it was made of rubber. Was this just due to imperfections in the stainless steel distorting the reflection? But, no – one of the men – the one cutting up carrots – seemed to have four arms!
“Alright fellas,” said a very skinny man in a chef�
�s hat. He was standing on the other side of the kitchen by a large wood-burning range. “That’s good enough, I can take it from here. Go get some rest before your gig.”
“Thanks, cat,” said one of the men.
“You’re alright, Skully dude,” said another, slapping the very skinny man on the shoulder.
Skully! thought Lisa. This must be who Edgar was talking about – Thkully. And the other guys – they must be in the band. She watched as each of the men covered himself in coats, hats and scarves taken from a rack on one wall, and then left the kitchen.
The skinny man began to sing again – reggae instead of jazz now – and walked over towards the sink-bench. As he came closer, Lisa was able to resolve more detail. He was incredibly thin, she thought, unbelievably so, and his skin was very pale, white actually. Only, it wasn’t skin, was it? It was bone. And the man wasn’t a man. As she realised what she was seeing, Lisa was unable to suppress a gasp. The man was a… skeleton!
Skully froze, listening, then turned slowly towards the dumbwaiter. He pulled open the door and peered into the gloom within. To his surprise, there was an attractive woman squashed into the dumbwaiter, awkwardly filling up the whole of the interior. Skully’s glass-eyes locked with the woman’s momentarily before he remembered what he was supposed to do, and crashed to the ground forming just an innocent pile of bones, topped by a chef’s hat.
Lisa was startled, but mildly bemused to find that she was not shocked by the sight of a living skeleton. It somehow wasn’t as horrific as finding her husband in bed with her supervisor. And she’d survived that. After a moment she climbed clumsily from the dumbwaiter and stood in the kitchen, looking down at the collapsed skeleton. It didn’t appear threatening in any way. In fact, before it crumpled, it had seemed scared of her. Suddenly, she heard a squeak. The dumbwaiter began to rise. Well, Craig and Hayden would be surprised to find it empty, but Lisa wasn’t worried about that right now. After a moment she sat down on the floor by the bones and said, “It’s alright you know. I saw you, and I know you’re a living skeleton, but I don’t mind. I bet your name’s Skully. I heard Edgar mention you. My name’s Lisa.” Lisa thought she saw the glass eyeballs in the skull roll towards her, but the rest of the skeleton stayed put. “I know about all the secrets,” she went on. “You know, the zombies, and the half-fish man, and the wizard… and the witch?” she guessed, not sure what Violetta was. “But I promise I won’t tell anyone. I think it’s neat.” Still nothing. Lisa decided to change tack. “So, I guess you’re making dinner, huh? It smells wonderful. Last night’s meal was the best I’ve ever eaten. Boy I’d like to shake your hand!” She paused for a moment, trying to detect movement from the pile of bones.
The Last Resort Page 18
