Ghosts on Board

by Fleur Hitchcock

  ‘Do you think he’s already dead?’ asks Tilly. ‘Will he come back as a ghost?’

  We stare at the surface. In my head, I start to count.

  One …

  Two …

  Three …

  Four …

  How long can someone hold their breath?

  Seven …

  Eight …

  Jacob’s top half shoots out of the water. ‘Help!’ he shouts, thrashing at the water. ‘Snot Face, Model Village – get me out of here!’

  ‘Grab the rope,’ I shout. ‘Right next to you.’

  Spluttering, he grasps at the rope and Eric and I try to pull him out, but it snaps almost immediately, sending him back below.

  ‘Tom, DO SOMETHING!’ yells Tilly.

  I’m standing there, staring, trying to work out how I can possibly rescue someone twice my size who seems to be drowning in a haunted jelly baby, when Jacob bobs back up, supported by two human shapes apparently made of purple gloop.

  ‘You idiots!’ he shouts. ‘Grab some ivy or something! Shrink something, drown something! Do something! HELP ME!’

  Briefly I wonder if Jacob would help any of us in the same situation, before running back out of the door and combing the ground outside the bell tower for anything useful. It’s dark out here and my torch beam is feeble compared to Jacob’s, and there doesn’t appear to be anything much to help, and it’s downright scary.

  ‘Whhhhhhoooooooooooooo.’ The distant trees let out a particularly mournful wail.

  Something rustles in the undergrowth and I race back inside clutching a short stick and a couple of feeble lengths of ivy, which were the only remotely useful things I spotted. Back in the bell tower, Eric’s hanging on to a rotting stump and leaning out over the water with a branch.

  His branch is at least an arm too short. ‘What are those things on either side of you, Jacob?’ he says, stretching his hand another millimetre.

  ‘Poor, pathetic Billy and Flora Rose,’ says Victor, strolling out from the gloom. ‘You can see them because of the water – it’s thick and coats everything.’ He turns away into the shadows and I quite clearly see a spark, the kind that comes from stone on stone. He’s striking the meteorite against the walls of the tower. He’s not even bothering to conceal it any more and I imagine he’s trying to switch it on. I only hope I’m right about the powers not working here.

  ‘Useless!’ yells Jacob at Eric just before he sinks back under the lilac water, Flora Rose and Billy sinking with him. Although they’re almost visible, Jacob is more than heavy and they’re less than solid.

  ‘They can’t hold him up,’ says Eric as we watch Jacob go under the water again.

  ‘But we can’t let him drown,’ I say. ‘We must be able to do something.’

  ‘Why won’t you work, you stupid thing?’ says Victor, behind me.

  We turn to look at him.

  He looks up at us, caught in the beam of my torch, not unlike a fox in the headlights. ‘The stick rope thingy.’ He stumbles over the words. ‘I was just shouting at the sticks … ’ He looks around as if noticing Jacob for the first time. ‘Oh, dear, they’ll never be able to hang on to him. He’s so … large.’ With an exaggerated gesture he throws himself down on the ground and crawls over the remainder of the bridge. I notice that he’s not really touching the bridge, and that his grey hand now appears to be lilac – as if I’m not looking at Victor at all, but straight through to the lake.

  ‘Hold my legs someone!’ he shouts and we run to grab his ankles, Tilly too, although I don’t think she’s actually touching him. ‘Just a little more!’ shouts Victor, his hands almost closing over Jacob’s before Jacob slips through his fingers and bobs back under the water.

  ‘Oh dear – what a tragedy,’ says Victor, immediately turning back towards the shore, not even stopping to watch and see if Jacob reappears for a second attempt.

  ‘We’re going to have to get that hand-tree thing,’ I say to Eric.

  ‘Really?’ he says.

  ‘Really,’ I reply.

  And we race out through the door, down the dark and crunchy path to the hand tree.

  ‘Don’t leave me here alone with a bunch of ghosts!’ yells Tilly, charging along the path behind us.

  We stop by the swamp. The tree turns a little to face us.

  ‘It’s completely horrible,’ I say. ‘How on earth can we get it out? Without being crushed to death?’

  ‘As I remember, the genus Handus can be charmed by riddles,’ says Eric. ‘And jokes of course.’

  ‘Riddles? But it hasn’t even got ears!’

  ‘Jokes and riddles? I know lots of jokes,’ says Tilly. ‘Doctor, doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains … ’

  To my surprise the tree seems to relax.

  ‘Doctor doctor, I feel like a pack of cards.’

  Tilly starts again. ‘One night, a butcher, a baker, and a milkman enter a haunted house. Four men come out. Who is the fourth?’ And the tree faces her, concentrating intently, watching her. It seems not to notice us tiptoeing across the edge of the swamp until we have our arms linked around the trunk.

  ‘How about a limerick? There was a boy called Tom, who ran away from a bomb. He went to a pub to get some grub … ’

  ‘One, two, three – lift!’ I hiss, and Eric and I pull, ignoring the awful squelching sound around our feet. The roots, although wide, aren’t particularly long, and after three goes we actually get it out of the ground.

  ‘Quick, we’d better run back,’ says Eric, and between the three of us we try to pull it along the path. The arms are still flailing but so long as Tilly tells it riddles, it seems less aggressive, if a tree can seem less aggressive.

  ‘I’m here, I’m here!’ shouts a voice from the mist.

  ‘Victor?’ asks Eric.

  ‘Yes, yes, can’t let the poor mite drown. Hand tree eh? Very resourceful – let me help.’

  Between the four of us we get back to the shore of the lake, just in time to see Jacob’s limp hand sink below the surface.

  ‘Now!’

  We shove the tree out over the water, and without Tilly’s riddles, it twists around searching for something to grab. Finding Jacob, it plucks him from the water, drags him towards the shore accompanied by his two strange jelly-ghost floats and holds him high in the air.

  ‘Bravo!’ says Eric.

  ‘Result,’ coughs Jacob, throwing up a week’s worth of sweets.

  ‘How very … necessary,’ says Victor.

  Chapter 15

  The tree really likes Jacob. It won’t let him go even with Tilly standing there telling it riddles and laughing at her own jokes.

  ‘Help! Help!’ Jacob shouts, caught struggling in the branches like a huge purple beetle in a spider’s web.

  I’m so out of breath I can only stand and stare and gulp air.

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ says Tilly. She pokes the tree in the joints between the branches and the trunk. ‘Let go of him,’ she orders in her best dog-trainer voice.

  The tree squeaks, releases Jacob and rolls its branches over the trunk protectively, as if Tilly had actually tickled it in its armpits.

  The moment it does, we rush out of the bell tower, abandoning the flailing tree on the side of the Lilac Lake.

  I glance back at the writhing branches dripping purple liquid onto the floor, and shudder. I almost feel sorry for it – and then I remember Vile Lucy and catch up with the others.

  ‘So how are we going to get home?’ I ask as we stumble back in the half-light towards the broken harbour. ‘The boat’s not due back for hours. I mean, Tilly, you dragged us here – you must have had a plan.’

  We stop in the graveyard next to the harbour.

  Tilly flicks her hair over her shoulder. ‘Plan? I thought you had a plan, Tom. You were here to look after me. I assumed you’d thought about it.’

  I decide not to answer her. Beside her are what must be Flora Rose and Billy. They’re almost visible as a result of the lila
c goo. Billy’s quite little, wearing a cap, a waistcoat and long shorts like a Victorian chimney boy. I can’t really see his features, but Flora Rose is clearer – she’s bent over, studying the shiny buckles on Tilly’s handbag. I imagine she’s looking at herself, and I can see that she isn’t all that old, maybe 12 or 162 if I add in the extra 150 years. They’re like a pair of black-and-white photos tinted purple, and a touch see-through.

  Weird, and a little sad.

  ‘Maybe there’s an airship or something here,’ says Tilly. ‘Didn’t the Victorians have airships? Tom, you could talk a lot and fill it with hot air.’ She smiles sweetly and drains my water bottle.

  ‘My dear child, there are NO airships here,’ says Victor, sighing and standing close to Jacob who is removing large clods of purple jelly from his clothing.

  ‘This stuff is really sticky,’ says Jacob.

  ‘Come to the sea, dear boy. Let’s see if we can wash it off,’ says Victor.

  I watch them go, wondering if I need to follow. But they can’t get off the island – no one can unless we build a boat or wait for the Trusty Mermaid – so I let Victor take Jacob out of sight. After all, there’s only so much of Jacob that anyone can stand.

  ‘Let’s face it. We’re going to have to build a raft,’ says Eric.

  ‘How?’ asks Tilly. ‘Don’t you need tree trunks and rope and things?’

  I pull open the graveyard-shed door, which comes away in my hand. There’s a heap of rotting rubbish on one side, a sled, a couple of rusty buckets, a rotting boat and an axe. I pick up the axe and to my surprise the handle feels quite solid.

  Underneath that I find a saw. Blunt, but still a saw.

  ‘Right, if we’re going to build a raft, we need loads of wood.’

  ‘The Fearful Forest?’ says Eric. ‘It is trees after all.’

  I stand on the edge of the graveyard looking towards the sea. There’s more light out there. The centre of the island looks completely black, not at all inviting. That forest is at least ten minutes’ walk into the gloom.

  ‘That forest’ll have to go,’ I say in a voice that sounds an awful lot more confident than I feel. ‘As you say, they’re only trees.’ I swing the axe over my shoulder. ‘Anyone coming with me? Anyone going to help?’

  ‘I’m staying here,’ says Tilly, pulling two soggy Woodland Friends from her bag and arranging them on a gravestone. ‘Call me when you’ve finished.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ says Eric, picking up the saw. ‘Jacob?’ he calls towards the harbour.

  ‘Leave him, I say – he’s covered in purple stuff.’

  ‘Flora Rose?’ I ask. Two purple blobs emerge from the shadows at the far side of the graveyard. ‘Can you guide us to the Fearful Forest?’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ says Flora Rose, sighing. ‘You might want to stuff your ears with something – it gets louder the closer you get. I’ll just go and tell the other two what we’re doing.’

  ‘Shall we sing to keep off the creeps?’ says Eric, picking up bundles of black moss from the ground and handing me half. I try to turn it into earplugs but it crumbles and falls out, leaving me with gritty ears. Eric marches into the darkness and launches into the Field Craft Troop anthem, ‘We Are Hardly Scared of Anything’.

  ‘We are hardly scared of anything,

  We can barely fear the raven’s wing,

  But bold be our stride with our cut staff at our side … ’

  Our walking slows a touch as unseen things grab at our arms, but I keep pressing forward and we plunge into verse two.

  ‘We are hardly scared of anything … ’

  ‘What an awful song,’ says Flora Rose, appearing at my elbow. ‘I think we should go back to the harbour – have you ever heard of the SS Devlin?’

  ‘Jacob’s dad’s boat? Why?’

  ‘I think they’ve called Jacob’s father on the mobile communication machine. He’s coming to get them. Him and Victor.’

  ‘Do you mean – not us? Not the rest of us?’

  Both Flora Rose and Billy nod their heads vigorously.

  ‘I’m struggling to understand this,’ says Eric.

  I’m about to ask her how she knows when Tilly screams behind us. ‘But you can’t do that – you can’t just abandon us!’

  I turn to listen, staring with horror at Eric’s shocked face staring back at me.

  ‘You beast, Jacob Devlin! I’ll get you for that! I’ll never forget – Tilly Perks never forgets!’

  There’s the distant sound of a motorboat.

  ‘YOU RAT! YOU COMPLETE SEWER RAT! How could you do THIS to ME!’ Tilly’s voice slides from angry to tears.

  ‘Oh dear,’ says Flora Rose. ‘I think we may be slightly too late.’

  Chapter 16

  ‘They’ve gone!’ shouts Tilly, crashing back along the track, ignoring the ghastly sound of screaming trees as my axe bites into the first trunk. ‘Jacob’s left us here! It’s outrageous!’

  ‘So is this Victor’s work?’ asks Eric, pulling on a branch which springs back, thwacking him in the face. ‘Ow!’ he protests and rubs his nose.

  The purple figure that must be Billy scrapes a YES on a nearby rock.

  ‘I knew it,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ says Tilly.

  ‘That Victor was trouble. I could see it from the moment we found him.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you tell me?’ says Tilly, flaring her nostrils and doing a passable impression of a hayfevered horse before stopping to wipe something from her shoe.

  I ignore her.

  ‘Well, I’m cross,’ says Eric. ‘Really, quite cross.’ He shakes his head and his curls flop over his face. ‘I feel let down. Yes, that’s it. Betrayed.’ He holds his finger up, making a point. ‘Betrayed by both of them. Victor said he could help – and we’ve just rescued Jacob.’ He kicks the ground. ‘Actually, I feel foolish. Taken in. An absolute mug.’

  Flora Rose sighs. ‘Victor isn’t terribly nice, actually.’ She smiles, and the lilac water over her face smiles too. ‘In fact, he’s pretty beastly.’ She wanders over to a pool of black, brackish water and gazes at her purple reflection.

  ‘So when you say that – do you mean that we should be worrying about what happens to Jacob?’ I ask.

  ‘Well … ’ She swishes her ghostly skirt back and forth, and pulls an angry face at her reflection. ‘He’s clever, he’s selfish, and he’s greedy. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘What’s he greedy for?’ I ask, managing to slice through the first tree trunk after hitting it about a billion times.

  ‘POWER,’ Billy scratches in the sand at our feet.

  ‘Power?’ I say, watching a white balloon-shaped thing rise from the timber and float into the sky.

  ‘That’s one of the spirits,’ says Flora Rose. ‘You’ve actually managed to release one – brilliant. Anyway … ’ She tears herself away from the pool. ‘I think he wants your powers. I know it sounds silly but it’s so that he can take over the world. He loves what Jacob can do with the sparks.’

  ‘Take over the world?’ says Tilly, panting to a halt next to Flora Rose. ‘Who wants to take over the world?’

  ‘Victor,’ says Eric, wrinkling his face in pain. ‘Oh dear. We had better do something. We can’t just leave Jacob with a power-hungry ghoul. We are supposed to be his friends.’

  He doesn’t look convinced.

  ‘Well, you’d better hurry up then, Tom,’ says Tilly, sitting down on the felled tree trunk. ‘And if I was you I’d catch him and stick him right back in that purple swamp.’

  ‘He did leave us here,’ I say.

  ‘We don’t need to rush,’ says Eric.

  ‘No,’ I say, starting on the next tree trunk. My axe bounces off the wood leaving it untouched. ‘But at this rate it could be days before we manage to build a raft. Look at how long it’s taking me.’

  Tilly and Eric pitch in, and between us we fell four screaming trees and free four screaming spirits. The whole thing makes me shudder, but once w
e have the four trunks, they are just like four normal tree trunks. We roll them down to the shore, where it’s light.

  ‘We’re going to have to get a move on,’ I say. ‘They’ll be back at home by now, and who knows what Victor can get Jacob to do for him? He stole Jacob’s meteorite by the way.’

  ‘Mine and Jacob’s if you don’t mind. But our powers only work in Bywater-by-Sea,’ says Eric, as if it’s only just occurred to him. ‘You can’t really do anything special outside the village. That’s why we can’t use them here. And you have to find a meteorite just after it’s fallen to get any power in the first place. I mean, it’s all very well, but anything Victor thinks he can do, he can only do in the village. And he can’t actually do anything anyway, because he hasn’t caught a meteorite.’

  I close my eyes, trying to make sense of what Eric just said.

  ‘Really?’ says Flora Rose, trying and failing to stop one of the trunks rolling away.

  ‘He’s right about the meteorites,’ I say, lugging the trunk back up the slope. ‘But, Eric, the castle dust is different. It can make strange things happen. I know it’s firmly locked up, but sooner or later he’s going to work out how to get into that cell, and then what’s going to happen?’

  ‘Is that what made him human?’ asks Flora Rose.

  ‘Yes, almost certainly,’ says Eric. ‘And it must have washed off when we all got tipped in the sea. It doesn’t work outside Bywater-by-Sea either. But inside the village it can cause huge disruption.’

  ‘But don’t forget,’ I say, ‘Victor is a ghost – we have no idea what the dust would do for him. It might work outside the village. It could work anywhere in the world. He might actually be able to do extraordinary things.’

  ‘Do you think he’d actually harm Jacob?’ Eric asks Flora Rose.

  A purple Y appears on a blank stone at my feet. Followed by an E and S.

  Flora Rose shrugs. ‘I think Billy’s right. Victor’s capable of anything.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Let’s get this thing finished at full speed – we HAVE to rescue Jacob, whether or not he deserves it. And we have to stop Victor.’