The Baron knew that the Lady couldn’t be alive – but just to make sure, he sent all his soldiers to search the lands. They found nothing, of course – they even went to the very same lake where the Baron had killed her, but her body was safely hidden beneath the water.
‘Mmph – how strange,’ said the Baron. ‘It must have been my imagination.’
But the Baron was wrong. It wasn’t his imagination.
You see, when the Lady died she let out a scream filled with so much anger and sadness that it spread through the lake like a bloodstain. It entered the fish that swam in the water, and the plants that grew at the bottom, and the beetles that scuttled through the mud. It had stayed frozen in the lake all winter – but now the ice was melting. The scream was coming out.
Now, whenever a tadpole grew in the water and became a frog, it would emerge not with a croak, but a scream. Whenever a lily pad grew from the bottom of the lake and opened up its flower, it opened with a scream. Soon, the scream seeped into the forest soil around the lake. Trees for miles around drank up all the misery and rage of the dying Lady and grew strong with hate. When the spring buds opened, they opened with a scream on their branches, and every autumn leaf fell screaming.
The scream spread across the land like a plague, clawing its way towards the castle. The once-fertile fields became barren; crops failed and fruit withered on the tree. People began to mutter that things had started to turn bad the day that the Baron had taken over – there were even rumours that he was going mad. Why else would he send out soldiers to search for his dead wife?
But the Baron didn’t notice what anyone was saying. He was too busy listening to the scream that seemed to be drawing closer to the castle with every passing day.
‘Can’t you hear that?’ he asked his servants. ‘That sound in the air?’
The servants stared at him with confusion. ‘All we hear is birdsong, Your Grace.’
It was true. No one else could hear the scream except the Baron – and soon it was all he could hear. It was like an army approaching the castle on every side, growing louder and louder. The Baron stopped going outside – he even started to pad the cracks in his bedroom door with blankets to stop the scream from getting inside. But whenever the wind blew hardest, the Baron could swear he’d still hear the faintest trickle of a scream leak through the edge of the windowpanes.
Finally, after months of torture, the Baron couldn’t take it any longer. He called all his advisors to his bedroom and made an announcement.
‘I’m moving away from this horrible place! I’m going to live in my new castle at the other end of the country – and I’m never coming back!’
His advisors shared a worried glance. The Baron’s behaviour had been increasingly strange for months, and was only getting stranger.
‘Well … it is almost Christmas,’ they muttered to each other. ‘It’ll be the first anniversary of his wife’s death soon. Oh, poor Baron – how he must have loved her!’
The very next day, the Baron packed up his belongings and left for his new castle. As his carriage moved further and further away from the mountain ring, he realised that the scream was getting quieter. He sighed with relief.
‘Thank goodness! There’s no way that the scream can follow me – my new castle is hundreds of miles away!’
The Baron arrived at the castle on Christmas Eve and had his first peaceful sleep in months, snuggled under his new bear-fur blankets. He woke on Christmas morning in high spirits and came to the breakfast table. A delicious Christmas meal was spread out before him, and pride of place in the middle of the table was the Baron’s favourite meal: a whole roasted fish, smothered in herbs and butter. The Baron smacked his lips, sank a knife into the soft white flesh—
And leapt back in terror. The fish on his plate was screaming. The sound filled the room like a tide of blood, pounding against the walls and ringing in his ears. It was as if the dead Lady herself was there, screaming into the Baron’s face, closer than she had ever been before.
‘Wh–where did this fish come from?’ the Baron cried.
The servants were bewildered – after all, they could hear nothing.
‘From your own lands, sir. There were no more fish in the rivers after the harvest turned bad – your hunters had to trek for seven days and seven nights before they found a lake that still had fish in it. It was beautiful! Miles away from anyone, surrounded by a ring of mountains …’
The Baron threw his plate across the room.
‘No! I don’t want it! Burn it! Bury it! From now on, I’ll cook my own meals!’
He fled the room and locked himself in the tallest tower. The servants were perplexed at the Baron’s bizarre behaviour.
‘He’s really lost it this time,’ they muttered. ‘Whoever heard of burying a fish?’
The Baron didn’t sleep a wink that night – instead, he stayed up until dawn and hatched a new plan. In the morning he called every one of his servants and counsellors together again.
‘I can’t stay here any longer,’ he explained, his hands shaking and his face as pale as death. ‘The scream will always find me! There’s only one thing I can do – leave the country and travel overseas! There’s no way that the infernal scream can catch up with me that way! Pack your things – we’re taking the next boat to Australia!’
His advisors and servants stared at each other in shock. They turned to face the Baron – and screamed.
The Baron scrambled out of his chair.
‘NO! NO, IT CAN’T BE!’
It was. His servants hadn’t brought one fish with them – they’d brought dozens. After all, it was the Baron’s favourite meal. And since the Baron didn’t want them any more, the household had spent all Christmas Day feasting on them. Baked fish, boiled fish, dried fish, fried fish … Every one of them had filled their bellies with the scream, and now it coursed through their blood like oxygen.
The Baron ran from the room in terror. Each and every person he passed turned to him and let out the final bloodcurdling screams of his murdered wife. There was no escaping it; it had spread everywhere. The Baron flew to the stables and jumped on his finest horse, galloping away as fast as he could.
‘I don’t want her land any more! I’ll live the rest of my life as a pauper! I’ll do anything, anything to escape that horrible scream—’
The Baron never finished his sentence. He was so blinded by panic that he failed to notice the hole in the ground ahead, and his horse stumbled. The Baron flew off its back, struck his head against a rock and died instantly.
His servants found his body and carried it back to the castle. They lay him on a table and covered him in flowers. In death, the Baron finally looked peaceful.
‘What a tragic end!’ sighed one of his advisors. ‘Driven mad by grief for his lost Lady love!’
‘At least now they’re together again,’ said another. ‘Such a pity that they never found her body – I’m sure the Baron would love to be buried alongside her!’
A third advisor was suddenly struck by a charming thought.
‘Well, let’s do the next best thing – we’ll find the most beautiful spot on the Lady’s estate and bury him there. That way the Baron will be surrounded by her spirit – for all eternity!’
Everyone agreed this was just what the Baron would have wanted.
So it was that the Baron’s body was carried back to the old castle, placed on a sleigh, and driven through the Lady’s lands. The burial train travelled for seven straight days and seven straight nights, until they found the perfect spot for the Baron’s final resting place: a frozen lake, surrounded by a ring of mountains, miles away from anyone.
‘Just what the Baron would have wanted!’ said his advisors. ‘And look, even the animals have even turned out to pay their last respects!’
It was true – standing beside the lake were hundreds and hundreds of animals. They stood perfectly still, watching in silence as the Baron’s coffin arrived. It was almost as if they had b
een waiting for him.
‘It’s the Lady’s spirit, welcoming back her beloved Baron!’ said an advisor. ‘How romantic!’
They dug the grave and lowered the coffin inside. The animals watched closely, their ears pricked. They were listening to the sound that none of the mourners could hear: the scream that came from the mouth of the grave as it swallowed up the coffin and sealed it in darkness forever.
The mourners left without looking back. They didn’t see the trees behind them bend and strain in the wind as their branches clawed towards the Baron’s grave. They didn’t see the roots beneath the ground push through the soil and wrap round his coffin like a strangled grip. They didn’t see the worms and maggots chew through the wood in their thousands, pouring inside the coffin to feast on the Baron and flood his open mouth. No one saw the land take its revenge for the murdered Lady.
So it is with cruel and unjust deaths. The Lady’s spirit had lived on until the Baron had paid for his crimes; now he was dead, she could finally be at peace.
But there was no peace for the Baron. There was another type of eternity for him now.
Deep beneath the earth … the Baron opened his eyes. He was trapped inside a pitch-black coffin, crushed beneath a ton of black soil. His body was writhing with maggots; he was part of the land he’d always wanted. There was no escape for him now: nothing but pain and darkness, forever and ever and ever.
The Baron opened his mouth, and screamed.
The guests cheered and clapped as Lady Arabella Dogspit finished her story. They had stripped the fish to bone with their bare hands, and were covered from head to toe in slimy scales. Lewis was horrified – he had never heard such an awful story.
‘A marvellous start, Lady Arabella!’ cried the Dean. ‘It will take something special to beat that – but the night is still young! Boy, bring us the next course!’
Lewis didn’t waste any more time – he grabbed the empty fish tray before anyone could take a swipe at him and ran to the kitchen.
You have to find the Cook, thought Lewis, his mind racing. He’s the only one who can help you get out of this horrible place, before it’s too late!
He pushed open the kitchen door and nearly fell back. The kitchen was filled with burning gas hobs and roasting fires, and the air inside was as hot as a furnace. The Cook was hunched over a metal workstation, putting the final touches to his next dish. Lewis ran up to him.
‘Please, Cook – you have to help! Those evil people are going to kill me – we have to stop them!’
But the Cook simply thrust the next course into Lewis’s hands: another silver tray, covered with a metal domed lid.
‘Quick, boy,’ he said. ‘They don’t like to be kept waiting.’
‘But—’
The Cook shoved Lewis back through the doors, hard, just as the clock struck one. The Dean smashed a second bauble and held up the name inside.
‘Our next storyteller is Retch Wallmanner – Head Lecturer in the Satanic Arts!’
A guest leapt to his feet at the end of the table. It was the short bald man Lewis had seen flying out of the chimney earlier. He was like a firework trapped in a man’s body, with eyes wild and wired as burst plugs.
‘Thank you, Dean!’ He shot Lady Arabella Dogspit a pointed look. ‘My story is no fairy tale – it is a personal one, taken from my own family history!’
Lady Arabella Dogspit glared at him. Wallmanner gave her a smirk before turning on Lewis.
‘Well, boy? Serve up!’
Lewis placed the tray on the table and whisked off the cloche. The lid was filled with steam – for a moment, Lewis thought that he was looking at a roast turkey. But as the steam cleared, he could see that it was no turkey: it was an enormous roasted bat, covered in scorched and smoking fur. Its blackened fangs were stretched wide open to reveal a writhing feast of spiders and fish eggs and scorpions inside, bubbling in its blood.
‘My goodness – a Beelzebat!’ said the Dean. ‘I thought they were endangered?’
‘Not any more,’ said Wallmanner. ‘Now they’re extinct!’
He whipped a knife from his pocket and plunged it deep into the bat’s skull.
‘The Beelzebat is found only in the darkest rainforests of Southern America: locals always considered it the incarnation of the Devil himself. It is the perfect accompaniment for my tale – about a relative of mine who made a deal with the wrong man. His story, and his terrible fate, has been passed down through my family for generations …’
Bad Uncle Mortimer
Mortimer was a clever young man – the apple of his parents’ eyes. But when he was sent to attend university in the city, he began to sour like a bad fruit. He fell in with a rough crowd and stopped going to classes. Soon he was spending his days at the dog track, gambling away his parents’ money. When that was gone, he started borrowing from the local gangsters – in fact, he borrowed so much that soon he was heavily in debt.
Mortimer was too proud to beg his parents for more help – so instead, one fateful Christmas Eve, he borrowed money from every gangster in town and bet it all on one greyhound. The dog got scurvy halfway through the race and died. Mortimer was done for. Soon every hoodlum in the city was going to be knocking at his door, demanding money he didn’t have.
So he did the only sensible thing a man in his position could do: he locked himself inside his library, sank into an armchair with a shotgun, and put his head in his hands.
‘I’m doomed!’ Mortimer cried. ‘Oh, what I wouldn’t give for another chance.’
‘Perhaps I can be of help,’ said a voice.
Mortimer leapt to his feet. He thought he was alone, but there was a man sitting in an armchair behind him. Mortimer was confused – he didn’t even own another chair. And yet there was the man, sitting in the shadows and helping himself to Mortimer’s whisky like the two of them had been friends for years.
‘Who are you? How did you get in here?’
The man laughed. ‘That’s no way to talk to a guest on Christmas Eve, Mortimer!’
Mortimer blinked. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘Everyone knows you, Mortimer!’ said the man cheerily. ‘Come, have a drink with me.’
Mortimer sat down, baffled. He had no idea how this man had managed to get inside his house – all the doors were locked. Mortimer couldn’t even see what the man looked like – but he was filled with a terrible sense of dread in his presence. It crept up his legs like he’d stepped on a nest of spiders.
‘Poor old Mortimer,’ said the man. ‘You’re in a fine old mess, aren’t you? Up to your eyeballs in debt, without a penny left to pay those gangsters!’
Mortimer had forgotten about his problems for a moment, but now they came flooding back. ‘What can I do? Those gangsters will send my body to my mother in pieces!’
‘What a Christmas present that would be!’ sighed the man, shaking his head. ‘You’re lucky I came when I did. As it so happens, I’m in the business of helping those in need.’
The man leaned out of the shadows to refill his glass. Mortimer could see him now, clear as day. He wore an elegant suit, with a silk tie and a pair of polished brogues – but the man had no head. Instead, where the collar ended, there was nothing but a pillar of white smoke pouring out of his shirt like a chimney. The man took a sip of whisky and placed the glass beside him. A mouthful of smoke was left floating on the surface like a cloud.
‘Are you … the Devil?’ Mortimer asked, terrified.
The Devil laughed. ‘They were right about you, Mortimer – you’re a smart lad! And a smart lad like you deserves some help when he’s down on his luck.’
He held out his hands. They were as wide and as white as polished plates, piled high with gold coins. Mortimer’s eyes sparkled just looking at them. There was more money than he needed – much more. Enough to pay off all his debts and live like a king afterwards.
‘All you have to do is ask,’ said the Devil.
Mortimer glanced up. ‘What’s the
catch?’
The Devil leaned back. ‘There is no catch. I’ll give you all the money you need, and I ask for nothing in return.’
‘Don’t you want my soul?’ said Mortimer. ‘You are the Devil, aren’t you?’
The Devil gave him a look that suggested he was raising his eyebrows behind the white smoke.
‘Mortimer – why would I expect an intelligent man like you to exchange his immortal soul for a handful of gold?’
Mortimer took a good, long look at the Devil. The Prince of Darkness wasn’t anything like he’d expected. He’d always been told the Devil was a monster – but instead, he was friendly, well dressed and polite. Perhaps, thought Mortimer, I’ve been wrong about the Devil all along.
‘You really want nothing in return?’ he asked.
The Devil nodded, wafting the smoke into billowing waves.
‘Fine,’ said Mortimer. ‘I’ll take your offer. Leave me all the money I need and go.’
The Devil smiled. ‘Your choice, Mortimer.’
And just like that, Mortimer woke up. He had fallen asleep in his armchair; the bottle of whisky was empty beside him. He gazed around the library, and let out a nervous laugh.
‘It … it was all a dream! Of course – how could I be so stupid? Everyone knows there’s no such thing as the D—’
Mortimer trailed off. The library was filled from floor to ceiling with money – piles and piles of it. All of his furniture had been replaced by sacks of gold; all his books had been replaced by shelves of banknotes.
The armchair where the Devil had been sitting was still there. Tattooed into the fabric was the scorched outline of a man, sizzling in the darkness.
Someone hammered at the door.
‘Mortimer – open up! We know you’re in there! We just want to have a quiet, reasonable chat with you.’
Mortimer recognised the voice at once – it was Face-Smasher O’Sullivan, the most violent gangster in the city. Mortimer opened the door, and sure enough a patient queue of hoodlums was waiting outside with clubs and chains and bricks. Before any of them could strike the first blow, Mortimer handed each of them a bag of gold.
Christmas Dinner of Souls Page 3
