The Amber Pendant

by Imogen White

  Verrulf’s pendant hummed black then red. Hers shone in one piercing golden light – it wanted her back and she knew what she had to do. “Rui, if I share the blood do you think I can wear both pendants…and live?” she panted.

  “No! What if it doesn’t work? You’ll end up like Funnel.”

  “I’m gonna find out.” She dived forward.

  “Nooooo. Kill them!” Verrulf boomed to the Creeplings. “Rrrip them aparrrt. NOW!” Verrulf lunged forward to take the pendants for himself.

  “Oh no ya don’t.” She glared at him. Adrenaline and uncontrollable rage surged through her. “These are my friends and I’ll protect them with my life.” She pulled both pendants away from Funnel’s grey fingers in a plume of ash.

  “Rose, NO!” Rui shrieked.

  A force like hot iron shot up through her body. She gripped both pendants in her hand.

  The Creeplings squirmed around with double-jointed movements, fearing to come any closer.

  Now what? She panicked. A distant memory of that first evening in the library flashed into her mind – as though her pendant guided her. Hold the pendants back to back, with yours on top. Quickly she placed them one on top of the other, hers facing upwards. A tunnel of blinding light exploded from them. It worked.

  Enna grinned. “You underestimated us humans…again, Verrulf.”

  Verrulf halted, and shielded his face from the new light.

  SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

  Squealing, the Creeplings bent away.

  Rose felt impossibly strong. She drew a deep breath and turned.

  “You hearrrd me. EAT THEM!” Verrulf roared, his eyes like furnaces. Screeching, Bahula belted up the nearest iron stack. He swung down above Rose and offered her the real Amber Cup. Without a second thought, she grabbed it.

  Everything paused.

  She and the cup locked together – outside of time, as one. A surge of energy coursed through her veins.

  The cup lit up in a golden, throbbing light that matched the pendants. Rose gulped. Her whole body shone. The light was like an aura around her, sparkling and fizzing. She drew a deep breath, feeling the power travelling through her arms and right into her middle. She bonded as one with the cup’s power: pure and invincible.

  “She doesn’t know what to do. She is just a child, a girrrl. Finish herrr. NOW…” Verrulf ordered, but his words were starting to sound drawn out…slow…distant.

  The Creeplings screeched, still surging towards them, their robes thrashing about against the spindly bodies within. Rui spun in a circle, gripping Bahula in his arms. He shouted something to Rose, but she couldn’t hear him. His words seemed to drag and she couldn’t understand them. The Creeplings, too, moved in slow motion.

  “Believe in yourself, Rose!” she heard Enna scream.

  Rose gulped. She had everything; both pendants and the cup. What do I need to do?

  Thoughts crashed through Rose’s mind – her mother being left to rot as a baby in the workhouse; her true identity had been stolen from her, stolen from both of them… But the workhouse hadn’t ruined her. No – Rose clenched her teeth – it made me stronger. Maybe she’d never known her mother’s love, but somehow it beat through her still – a part of her.

  “What is it you want, Rose? It’s up to you now. You alone command the cup.” She heard Miss Templeforth’s voice inside her mind.

  She took one last look at the cup and, clasping both the pendants in her hand, she stood tall.

  “Get back where you come from you bunch of…COLLYWOBBLERS!” she screamed.

  A crushing force surrounded her, whipping her up into the central point of a cyclone. The whole world broke apart in a tornado of black particles that writhed around her. Tortured moans raged in her ears. Black matter surged and tunnelled into the cup. She struggled to hold it steady.

  RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

  The roar engulfed her senses and the cup shook. Verrulf’s huge face – blackened in his shadow form – twisted in front of her.

  “I’m stronger than you,” she shouted at him, as if it was just the two of them there, and everything and everyone else had washed away. “Stronger, coz I ain’t all swallowed up with hate. I’m free. I’ve got love in my bones. Human love. And I…pity you.” Tears streamed down her face.

  Verrulf’s mouth was open, eyes bulging. “This isn’t overrr – I’ll find anotherrr way. The spell opened otherrr gateways. I will find them and DESTRRROY you, Rrrose Muddle. RRRrraaaaaggghhhhh!” Verrulf yelled as the cup swallowed him down, antlers and all.

  Black matter charged in after him, like thousands of wasps returning to their nest. Rose gripped the cup tightly, as if nothing else mattered. And both pendants glowed. “And shut this bleedin’ gateway FOR EVER!” She shouted with all her heart.

  The blackness at once turned into luminous white. The whole world broke into snowy particles, thrashing about, with her at the centre.

  A beautiful woman emerged and swam towards her amid the current of white, her long sinuous hair swirling about her. Rose could barely believe her eyes. Mr Gupta’s wife! Rose recognized her from the newspaper clipping – the memory of how she’d perished in the train fire all those years ago.

  A translucent image of Mr Gupta formed. He smiled at Rose, resting his hands together as if in prayer.

  “Mr Gupta!” Rose reached out to him, but he fell backwards into the woman’s open arms, smiling. They spun together, her long hair twisting around his body. He ascended upwards in a spinning embrace, disappearing into the eddying white mists. Rose understood in her heart that Mr Gupta had been freed from the necromancy spell, and was being taken somewhere good.

  Am I dead? Rose wondered, staring into the shifting white particles. The cup in her hand let forth a blinding light.

  Then stillness.

  The dragging sound of the waves on the shingle returned with the howling wind.

  It all faded and she passed into it.

  Rose opened her eyes to find herself in a green room packed with rows of beds. The smell of carbolic soap snaked up her nostrils. “I’m back in the workhouse!” she panicked, sitting sharply up. “Where am I? Ouch.” She gripped the thick bandage wrapped around her forehead.

  Her mind fired into action. The pier, the cup, the brotherhood, the Creeplings. VERRULF. She tapped her throat, found her pendant hanging there and breathed a sigh of relief. “Rui! Enna…BAHULA!” she wailed. Her mind swam; she couldn’t think clearly. Her head pounded beneath the bandage, as if it might explode.

  “Ah, you’re finally awake! You have concussion, young lady.” A podgy face loomed over her. “You are in the Brighton Royal Infirmary. I am Matron Wrigglesbottom.” She spoke loudly and slowly, as if Rose was hard of hearing. “Now, it’s the three R’s for you. Rest, rest and more rest.” The matron plumped up the pillows behind Rose’s head and forced her back into them.

  “There were shadowy things, from another world. An evil monster with antlers who wanted everyone dead, and—” Rose grabbed her pendant again. It pumped once in her hand to reassure her. But where was Verrulf’s pendant? I had them both – she panicked, her heart racing.

  “Enough of that nonsense, Miss Muddle, you are perfectly safe. It sounds rather as though the laudanum I administered has been giving you hallucinations.” She tutted. “Shadowy things – antlers, whatever next!”

  “But it’s true…” Ain’t it? She doubted herself for a moment. “I…we… W-where are my friends?” Rose stammered. “What happened? Is everyone safe? Are they…alive?” Rose tried to get up, but Matron gripped her shoulders.

  “You will be going nowhere until I say so, Miss Muddle. But I can reassure you there’s been quite a menagerie of visitors for you and they all seemed very much alive. The pushy little fellow in particular, claiming to be the nephew of the Maharajah of Jaipur! What front!”

  Rose grinned.

  “Then the infamous Gypsy Lee and the town’s most respected lawyer, Mr Bartholomew-Smyth. And one of them eve
n brought along a monkey! What company you keep!”

  “Yes – that’s them!” She sighed with relief. “Where’s Enna Lee, Rui and the monkey? I need to see them all – NOW!”

  “I sent them away. You’ve not been fit to receive visitors. Besides, the boy and his monkey have already returned to India.”

  “W-what!” Rose’s heart plunged. “No! You gotta be wrong.”

  “Hush now.” Matron lifted Rose’s wrist, and consulted the fob watch hanging from her breast pocket. “He said his boat was departing yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? How long have I been here?”

  “You have remained in a deep sleep for two days.”

  “Two days!” Rose’s eyes brimmed with tears. Rui!

  “Your pulse is high, Miss Muddle, and…”

  Rose tuned out Matron’s voice, and was lost inside her own thoughts for a while.

  After everything that’s happened he’s…gone and left me. ‘You come from nothing and you are nothing, Rose Muddle.’ Miss Gritt’s wicked words crept into her mind. But I wasn’t a nothing was I? My ma and me, we was Templeforths all along. Things should have been better for her…for us. And what now? Rose knew Enna Lee would see her right, she’d promised she would. But without Rui…how can anything ever be right again?

  “Can I go now?” Rose murmured, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “No, you must recuperate, Miss Muddle, which will take time. But I do have a letter for you, from Mr Bartholomew-Smyth, which he insisted you must read. It is on your bedside table next to the bell.” Matron tucked in Rose’s bed sheets so tightly they felt like constraints. “You may read it when you feel well enough. And not a moment before!” Turning, she waddled off, drawing the blue curtain around on the rail behind her. “I will check on you again shortly.” Her footsteps faded away.

  Rose rolled over and cried into her pillows.

  Between sobs, she remembered the journey that had brought her to this point. Her excitement at leaving the workhouse to become a maid; meeting Miss Templeforth and learning about the pendant and then Rui arriving with Mr Gupta and Bahula. What a terrifying adventure they’d been on together. And yet somehow she’d overcome Verrulf and his Creeplings. Despite all this, she sat there feeling empty, alone and bewildered. Without Rui, none of it’s worth a fig. She clutched her pendant, hoping to draw some comfort from it. It pulsed twice in her hand.

  From the corner of her eye, Rose spotted the envelope. The letter Matron said was delivered from some lawyer?

  Picking it up, she stroked the wax seal on the back. She opened it with little interest. The letter inside read:

  Dear Miss R Muddle,

  I write in haste, to inform you that the entirety of the Templeforth Estate, to include thirteen Sackville Road and all the contents therein, have been bequeathed to you. In addition, the princely sum of £100,000 sterling is awaiting your signature. The trustee to this arrangement is Miss Enna Lee of no fixed abode, Hove.

  The official papers to finalize the transfer have been drawn up at my office, 34 Ship Street, Brighton. Please attend at your very soonest convenience.

  With every sincerity,

  G Bartholomew-Smyth

  Mr Bartholomew-Smyth, Wills and Probate, 34 Ship Street, Brighton Town

  Rose gasped. The letter dropped from her hands onto the bed sheets. Her eyes brimming with tears. Happiness, confusion, and about a thousand other emotions all welled up at the same time.

  “I don’t believe it,” she sniffed, clutching her pendant. “I’m rich! Thank you, Miss T.”

  Why with that amount of money I can buy anything I want. Rui won’t believe this when I— The emptiness returned. But he’s not here, is he… Without him what’s the point in having anything? she sobbed quietly to herself. What if that’s it, and I never get to see him again? Tears streamed down her face. I never got to say goodbye, or tell him how much I’ll…miss him.

  A trolley rattled to a stop the other side of her curtain.

  “Cocoa, Miss?” someone asked. “And some biscuits?”

  “Nah, thanks,” Rose managed, wiping her nose on the bed sheets.

  “How about an adventure?”

  The blue hospital curtain around Rose’s bed lifted at the bottom, and Bahula’s tiny, grinning face peered up at Rose.

  “Bahula!” she whispered. He bounded onto her lap.

  The curtain whipped aside, and Rui slipped in, wearing a tan caretaker’s overcoat that reached his ankles.

  “I am the master of disguise!”

  “Rui,” Rose managed, wiping away her tears. “They told me you’d gone back to India, and—”

  “Ah, that, yes. The matron wouldn’t let you have any visitors, so I told her I’d be leaving for India in order that I could sneak back undetected.”

  “I-I thought you’d gone without saying goodbye, and—”

  “Never, Rose!” He sat beside her and took her hands in his. “Tremendous companions are not that easy to come by. Once you find one, you are advised to keep hold of them for as long as you can. My uncle the Maharajah has asked if you are in the market for a job in the palace as my companion, back in India of course.”

  “Oh, Rui!” She held him at arm’s length. “Yes, yes I am.” Rose felt like she might burst with happiness as she pulled him close and held him as tightly as she could.

  She clutched her pendant and remembered with a jolt that Funnel’s was now missing. “The other pendant’s gone, Rui. What happened to it? I was wearing both of them…”

  Rui suddenly stood up and stuck his head through the curtains to check no one was coming, then he turned back to her.

  “Well, at the end – and may I say, you were terrific by the way – there was an explosion of some kind. Probably caused by the force of Verrulf’s world being sucked back into the cup. Debris lay everywhere. It was hard to see and by the time it cleared and I got to you, you were gripping hold of the cup – which had split in two, but you wore only one pendant. The other had disappeared somewhere amid the confusion.”

  “So it’s gone!” Rose sat forward.

  “Yes. Vanished. Enna’s been searching for it. I am not sure whether she has had any luck. You can ask her when you see her. Now, how’s your head?” he asked, inspecting her bandages.

  “Better!” she lied. It still hurt quite a bit.

  “Good. Because I need to get you to Enna.” He drew the trolley inside. “With the other pendant still at large, Enna is worried for your safety. If you feel well enough, we should leave.”

  “How are we going to get past Matron?” Rose whispered though she couldn’t hide her excitement. Swinging her legs around, she jumped down from the high bed, momentarily forgetting her sore, bandaged head. “Ouch!”

  “I have a plan – of course.” Rui tapped his nose with a finger, ignoring her pain.

  Rui and Bahula began unloading the cups and saucers from the bottom of the trolley, and spread them across the middle of her bed.

  Rose kept a lookout. She spotted Matron beside the bed at the end, flicking a giant needle, and grimaced.

  Rui swept the bed sheets over the heaped crockery and admired the crude Rose-shaped bundle left beneath. Satisfied, he dusted his hands together.

  “Your carriage awaits, Ma’am!” He pointed to the cleared under-shelf of the trolley. Rose crawled in, giggling, carrying her bundle of clothes, Bahula and the letter. Rui draped a cloth over the top, concealing them inside. Then he flung back the curtain and set off, the trolley wheels spinning erratically on the parquet floor beneath. “Tally-ho!” she heard him murmur.

  Together, they rattled out of the hospital ward to freedom.

  Rose looked at the letter clutched in her hand – she hadn’t even told Rui about it yet. I’ve just inherited the whole of the Templeforth Estate! She shook her head in disbelief. But what am I going to do with ALL that money and that big old house? she thought, gripping onto the shelf for dear life, as Rui took a sharp corner.

  In truth, with ever
ything that had happened at thirteen Sackville Road, it was the last place she wanted to live. Besides, I’ll have no need of it when I’m in India. She grinned. India! Her mind filled at once with bright colours, sunshine, exotic-smelling spices and scented smoke. Oh, and monkeys – the more monkeys the better! she thought, cuddling Bahula even closer.

  I’m so bloomin’ lucky. Her thoughts switched to the workhouse and all the girls she’d left behind. It don’t seem right that I should have so much when they’ve got nothing at all. Being filthy rich suddenly felt like a big responsibility. She knew it was a life-changing amount of money. Enough to make big changes…but what changes?

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Rose gripped her pendant, hoping it might help her. Deep in thought, the possibilities played out.

  And then it came to her. Her pendant flashed and her grey eyes shone. A broad smile spread out, as the most excellent idea took shape.

  MAYOR FOUND DEAD BENEATH WEST PIER

  Mayor Cuthbert Stitchworthy was discovered dead beneath the footings of the West Pier in the early hours of November 1st.

  Emerging reports suggest that an influential group of local men had stolen Hove’s Amber Cup from the Museum in Brighton Town, and that Indian curator, Arki Ramesh Gupta, from the Jaipur Museum, had been murdered during his heroic attempts to stop them.

  His Majesty King Edward has posthumously granted Mr Gupta the Order of Merit, the highest honour to be bestowed on any citizen of the commonwealth. Awarded, he said, for his outstanding bravery and in recognition of his services to archaeology.

  The cup is now safely back in possession of the museum and is to be mended and and placed on display amid tighter security. The reinstated curator, Mr Thomas, made this statement: “This Bronze Age Cup crafted from amber and discovered beneath the giant burial mound once standing in the centre of Hove is a symbol of our ancestral heritage, and is now back in the museum where it belongs. It is the property of the People of Brighton and Hove.”