The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2)

by James Fahy

Robin thanked Calypso several hundred times, and while the nymph went off to find Aunt Irene, Robin ran off in search of Karya and Woad.

  At dinner that evening, Aunt Irene looked Robin levelly in the eyes over a bowl of carrot and cream soup.

  “It has been brought to my attention, Robin, by both Mr Drover and your tutor, that there appears to be a strange noise in the house.”

  Robin looked up. Across the table, Woad paused with a soup spoon halfway to his mouth, and Mr Drover glanced at them all darkly. By the sideboard, there was a rattle of cutlery from Hestia as she laid out the main course.

  “A … noise?” Robin asked

  “Yes,” she replied dryly. “A constant drone one might say. It appears that the only way to remedy this, and to bring some level of peace back to Erlking, is to remove, for a very brief span of time, the source.”

  Robin and Karya exchanged confused glances. Woad started folding his napkin into various rude origami shapes and blinked at them both.

  “I have some errands tomorrow,” Irene continued. “Parcels which need dropping at the Post Office down in the village.” She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “Mr Drover, unfortunately, is needed here. The snapping foxgloves in the eastern gardens are encroaching rather dangerously on the henhouses, and need to be cut back, so I wondered if perhaps you…” She glanced at Woad also. “The two of you, would run down for me?”

  Robin grinned. Woad’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.

  Irene did not appear to notice any of this. “You may, of course, have a short look around while you are in the village, perhaps you could pick out something nice for young Henry’s birthday, but, and I want this understood most plainly…” She paused. “I want you both back in the house within the hour. Or there shall be … words.”

  Woad gave Robin a look which suggested that ‘words’ was secret old lady code for being chased with a poker, but Robin was too happy to care.

  “I would insist, of course…” Irene said. “ … That you indulge an old lady and wear that charming horseshoe chain I bestowed upon you. Think of it as a good luck charm.”

  Robin promised he would, and thanked his aunt profusely. He didn’t need telling not to talk to strangers.

  That evening, they all lounged around Robin’s room. Their main topic of conversation was how on earth to get Woad down to the village without people staring. Bright blue skin stood out a little.

  “Leave that to me,” Karya said. “I’m not coming with you, as frankly I couldn’t be less interested in the village, and I’ve been chatting to that odd stag-headed suit of armour at the library. He seems to know a lot about the old days at Erlking, so I’m going to head down to the library again for another talk, see what I can find out. But I know a thing or two about glamours. I’m sure we can mute Woad’s natural faun-ness for a few hours at least.”

  By 4pm the following day, lessons over and chores done, Woad, Karya and Robin were assembled in the hall. Karya, who was being mysterious and secretive as was her wont, held something in her hands roughly the size of an egg and wrapped in a white handkerchief. She had instructed Woad to ‘dress human’, and the faun looked very odd and rather uncomfortable in a borrowed pair of Robin’s shorts and a t-shirt that was altogether too big for him. He kept plucking at it unhappily. He was already displeased that Karya had made it quite clear that, as far as she was aware, almost no humans have tails and it must be kept out of sight. Woad had tucked and curled his tail away under his human clothes as best he could, but it was clear from his fidgeting that this was most irregular for decent faun behaviour.

  Robin was more concerned by the fact that the faun was still rather strikingly and alarmingly blue. He had considered if it might have been easier to go to the village on his own but he wanted Woad with him. And it would hardly have been fair not to let him tag along, given that it was largely due to his relentless persistence that Robin was being trusted to leave the grounds at all. Karya, as it turned out, had thought of everything.

  “Glamours,” she said simply, allowing herself a rather satisfied smile. “I was reading up on them last night, and after talking with your aunt, I learned all about what happened here last Halloween.” She carefully unwrapped the handkerchief, taking pains not to touch the contents, which both boys saw was an ornate ruby brooch.

  “That’s the vampire’s brooch,” Robin exclaimed.

  Karya nodded. “Your aunt told me how, last year, she altered your appearance using some rather advanced, albeit very temporary, glamours. With the help of Mr Moros of course who, as we all now know, was incredibly talented in that area.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Robin muttered.

  “Indeed,” said Karya. “But regardless of his motives, the glamours he created were excellent. This one…” She waggled the brooch at them. “ … is still intact.”

  Woad baulked. “You want to make me look like a vampire?”

  “Technically, we want to make you look less like a faun,” she replied, shrugging. “If you don’t want to be a vampire, fair enough. You can always ask the Scion here if he will lend you his mana stone and we can cast the glamours with that instead.”

  Woad actually spluttered. “I’m not touching Pinky’s mana stone!” he cried. “Are you mad? That’s … that’s just … not acceptable!”

  Robin, who wasn’t entirely sure what the big deal was, looked at Karya with raised eyebrows. Woad was standing defiantly with his arms folded, looking like an angry, scandalised Peter Pan.

  “I didn’t think so,” Karya said. She looked from the faun to Robin. “It wasn’t all guff and nonsense, what Moros told you about never touching his knife. Yes, granted, he didn’t want you to break the glamour, but mana stones really are incredibly personal things. One never really touches another’s, ever.”

  Woad’s face was indignant. “Never ever,” he said firmly. “It would be like reading someone’s diary. If the diary was written inside their heart and you had to climb inside and get your elbows all gooey making room to read.”

  Robin still didn’t quite follow, but he nodded. “So, better a dead vampire’s stone than a friend's then, yeah? Less … intrusive?” He shrugged. “I wore it myself last year for the Halloween party. It was no big deal.”

  The faun and Karya both peered at Robin as though he was insane. “No big deal…” Woad muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “Only you would think something like that, Pinky.”

  Karya sighed. “Cultural differences, that’s all. Robin wasn’t raised in the Netherworlde, Woad. He was human for most of his life, remember. Now. Are you going to let me pin this on you or not?”

  Woad was clearly visibly torn between Netherworlde sensibilities and an urgent desire to go to the village and see the human world up close.

  “Robin has worn it,” Karya said, encouragingly, holding out the brooch. “And he didn’t mind.”

  “Yeah, but Pinky’s weird like that,” Woad mumbled to himself, but he reached out and took the mana stone brooch all the same. “The things I do for you people,” he grumbled.

  Karya cast what Robin assumed to be a glamour. This was light magic, something about which he knew nearly nothing and he still had no real idea how they worked.

  He watched therefore, with fascination, as before their eyes, Woad shimmered as though he was being beamed up. The blue faded from his skin, his hair darkened to a sandy brown, and his eyes paled from yellow to a much more human hazel. In seconds, he stood before them as a human boy. Albeit an incredibly white-skinned, slightly vampiric one.

  “Not much we can do about the skin tone,” Karya said, appraising the newly ‘human’ Woad thoughtfully. “That’s vampires for you. They’re always pasty, so we’ll just have to say he doesn’t get out much.” She pointed Woad toward a large mirror at the foot of the stairs. “How do you feel, Woad?”

  The faun, looking very surreal as a flesh-coloured human boy, stared at himself in the mirror, his face contorted in a mixture of horror
and fascination.

  “Absolutely naked,” he sulked. “Humans are not nearly as blue as they could be. I’ve got no Woadness left.”

  Robin grinned, patting the disguised faun encouragingly on the shoulder. “You are an insane lump of solid Woadness, my friend,” he assured the smaller boy. “And no amount of magical Photoshop is ever going to change that. Genius idea this, Karya, well done.”

  The girl folded her arms, looking pleased with herself. “Well,” she shrugged. “I’m not entirely without imagination.” Under her breath she added, “Just keep him on a tight leash down there, Scion. You know how excited he gets.”

  Robin nodded gravely.

  Aunt Irene appeared in the hallway when the two boys were ready to go and gave Robin a tall stack of parcels, wrapped in brown paper and covered rather haphazardly with stamps. She made Robin show her the silver horseshoe on its chain which he wore around his neck beside his mana stone.

  “Never take that off outside of Erlking, my child,” she cautioned. “Silver keeps the darkness at bay, and the horseshoe adds a kick to the ward.” Thus forewarned, Robin and human-faced Woad set off in high spirits down the hill, under the long winding avenue of trees lining the driveway up to the house. It seemed to Robin eons ago that he had first driven up here in Mr Drover’s car. It was last year, he realised. And though he had travelled great distances in the Netherworlde, technically, here in the human world, he hadn’t passed down this path, out of the grounds and to the world beyond Erlking since last September, almost a full year ago.

  It was a fine afternoon. The trees of the hillside avenue were thick with green leaves. The branches overhead laced together so tightly it was almost like walking through a tunnel and the light itself had a golden-green tinge as it fell in dappled pools around them.

  They finally reached the gates at the edge of Erlking’s property line, with its wrought iron and odd totems.

  “Looks like it’s just us two then, Woad,” Robin said as they passed through the gates and made their way down the lane. He was feeling oddly nervous about re-entering the human world, but he hadn’t been out of the grounds in so long and nothing was going to stop him today.

  Woad gave him a look of brave determination, his face looking very odd in its current pale and human state.

  “Fear not, Pinky,” he said. “I’ve been to many villages in the Netherworlde! I’m an expert on them!” He held up the stack of Irene’s parcels. “I will be able to help you find the Post Officer. I imagine he will have a badge of authority.”

  * * *

  As it happened, even without local boy Henry as guide, they still had a good time. Barrowood was a tiny, old-fashioned village, with winding cobbled streets and several homely pubs. It was good to have a change of scenery. They had no trouble finding the Post Office nestled between a greengrocers and a butchers because there was only one main street. Woad drew some odd looks from a few of the villagers, pale as he was. Robin guessed they must assume he was an albino. His skin was so pale he almost shone in the summer sun. During their exploration they found an ancient second-hand bookshop where, unlike at Erlking, the covers did not move, a few cafés and a quaint old tea shop, its windows hung with lacy half-net curtains, a florist and a toy shop. Quite a few of the cottages and tiny terrace houses they passed seemed to have small, rather sweet knitted hearts affixed to their door knockers, or tied around lampposts. Robin, overcome with curiosity, had stopped and asked a lady in the street about these, and the woman, laden with shopping bags and rolling her eyes, had explained that Barrowood had a phantom knitter. Yarn-bombing, they called it, she explained. Secret knitted goods left all over in the dead of night for no apparent reason other than the sheer heck of it. Everyone in the village was used to it by now, she told them with a shrug. Whoever was doing it was rather thoughtful though. If there was news of a newborn baby in a house, there would be a knitted stork tied to the door-knocker next morning. Or if someone got married, they found a double-heart, knitted together and left carefully on their doorstep. Robin thought this was very odd, but he had little experience of life in an English village. Perhaps such pastimes were more common than he realised. He thanked the lady and moved along, dragging Woad behind him as the faun had begun to sniff with interest at the lady’s shopping bags.

  Robin had been given a rather generous allowance by Aunt Irene, who had no real concept of how human money worked, and so he dragged Woad into every shop he could find, looking for surprise presents for everyone.

  In a cluttered old hardware-store, they bought a smart set of gardening tools for Mr Drover. In a gift shop owned by a tiny grey-haired old lady (who eyed them like a suspicious hawk as they browsed) they bought a large green glass paperweight for Aunt Irene.

  They discovered a chemist tucked down a side street, where Robin, against Woad’s arguments, insisted on buying even Hestia a present.

  “She’s always complaining about working her hands to the bone,” Robin reasoned, as the bored-looking cashier, a teenage girl reading a battered paperback book at the counter, bagged up some girly-smelling hand lotion. Woad predicted wickedly it would probably bring the housekeeper out in a rash and give her something new to complain about.

  They wandered past the village school. It was closed for the summer holidays, but Robin eyed the building with interest, wandering vaguely if he would ever receive a ‘normal’ education again. He was vaguely concerned that at the rate things were going, he might reach adulthood without knowing enough about the convection cycle, or how to calculate the diameter of a circle, or the order of the last fifty kings and queens of England. All important information which adults relied on every day of their lives.

  After nearly an hour’s exploring, in a cluttered toy shop, amidst a flurry of computer games and sports goods, Robin found himself utterly at a loss for something to get Henry. Woad’s present had been easy. He had picked out a pair of thick woolly socks for the faun (black with penguins on them) while Woad had been distracted by an old spinning top which he found hilarious and fascinating. He knew Woad wouldn’t actually wear them, they were just for his collection. But try as they might, it seemed there was nothing suitable for Henry.

  Next door to the toy shop, on the end of the little street, there was a strange, higgledy-piggledy shop with crystals, incense and odd little statues in the window. The hanging sign read ‘Morgana’s Sundries’.

  It looked like some kind of new-age shop, the kind that sold CDs of soothing pan pipe music, wind chimes and little porcelain fairies covered in glitter.

  Woad shrugged, a vague gesture in his unfamiliar clothing. “Well, we can take a look, I suppose,” he said dubiously.

  “Oh, you absolutely should,” came a voice behind them. Both boys whirled, to see a teenage girl standing beside them in the street, hands clasped behind her back as she leaned over them to peer in the window. “Morgana’s is an absolute treasure trove. It’s just peachy.”

  The girl was older than Robin. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. She was dressed all in black, her t-shirt screaming the name of a band he had never heard of. She was remarkably pale, almost as white as Woad in his vampire-glamour, and her hair was a shocking shade of bright purple, falling over one eye in a silky wave. Robin stared, unable to think of anything to say. She was extremely pretty, in a gothic-pixie kind of way.

  “Tourists?” she asked, smirking a little at the two speechless boys. “I’m not from around here either. There’s not much to do in a backwater like Barrowood, but Morgana’s is full of all kinds of neat junk.” She wobbled her head a little. “Well, you know, crappy stuff, but neat crappy, not crappy-crappy.” She blinked dark, heavily made up eyes at them. Robin thought she looked a little like a panda. His tongue was apparently dead in his mouth, paralysed by the typical eloquence of most thirteen-year-old boys faced with girls.

  She stared at them a few seconds longer. “O … kay then,” she drawled. “I’m Penny. You guys look kind of, outsiderish?”

  “Robin,” Robin
spluttered, managing to make himself speak again. “Um, I’m Robin and, well, this is, my friend.”

  Woad frowned at the girl with open distrust, his brows beetled. “I am W—”

  “Wesley!” Robin interjected hastily. “My friend Wesley. So…” He rubbed the back of his neck. He had zero experience talking to girls. Karya didn’t count. She was part and parcel of the strangeness of Erlking, but this girl was different. He thought she was wearing a lot of makeup for the middle of a sunny day. Her ear was pierced in several place too. “Um … neat junk, eh?”

  “Neato-potato,” Penny said encouragingly. “Whatcha looking for?” She pointed to Woad. “Lemme guess. Wes here wants an Enya CD and some sandalwood incense, right?” She smirked, wrinkling her nose.

  “We are on an important mission to find a gift for the Henryboy,” Woad announced with great gravity. Robin cringed inwardly.

  “Sorry,” he said to her by way of explanation. “He’s … an … exchange student.”

  “Oh … okay.” She eyed Woad suspiciously.

  “We’re actually looking for a present for my friend,” Robin said. “It’s his birthday, but I haven’t a clue so far.”

  “Oh, well then.” Penny clapped her hands happily. She was wearing fingerless black lace gloves. “Awesome-sauce! Let’s go in. Morgana will have something, I just know it.”

  Without waiting for a response, she pushed past them to the door and disappeared inside. Robin, a little startled, felt it would be awfully rude not to follow her, and so he dragged Woad in beside him.

  Inside, the shop was a dark and dusty jumble of junk and antiques, piled haphazardly in the gloom. There were no other customers. It was deserted apart from a woman who appeared to be asleep behind the till at the back of the room.

  Penny led Robin and Woad down the aisles of bric-a-brac, flicking through old action figurines and stacks of yellowing comics. “They have some good vinyl in here sometimes,” she murmured, browsing. “Depends.”