by Robin Jarvis
Evelyn had told him to be careful not to miss the final turning. It was in a country lane, hemmed in by thick woods and easy to overlook. The beams of the car’s headlights swept over crowded tree trunks, causing black shadows to dart and fly between them. Martin passed the turning three times and wasted almost an hour trying to find it.
Before he began the journey up the long drive to the Fellows’ house, he switched off the lights. The car crawled and bumped along the pitted track. It ran for almost half a mile. The trees that lined the drive bent inwards overhead, forming a tangled tunnel. It was so dark and the surface so full of potholes that Martin began to wonder if this was the right way after all. Then the trees began to thin. He saw the night sky once more and up ahead, stark and solid against it, the ominous shape of the ugliest building he had ever seen.
Suddenly a dark figure reared up in front of the windscreen. Martin braked and let out a cry of surprise. Then he leaned upon the steering wheel and laughed at himself. It was only a tree: the drive was so neglected that it was growing right up through the middle of it.
Taking a torch from the glove compartment and slipping it into the pocket of his jacket, Martin got out of the car. He had intended to leave the vehicle a little distance from the house anyway. He didn’t want the noise of its approach to alert whoever might be waiting inside that place. “Or whatever,” he couldn’t resist adding.
Stepping stealthily through the weeds, he drew closer to the house. It seemed to swell in size before him. Martin hadn’t realised just how frightened he would be. He wished he was a million miles away from this awful place. He could feel the fear clenching itself around him. His heart was punching against his chest and cold sweat was trickling down his neck.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid…” he murmured under his breath.
Staring up at those blank, boarded windows, he felt the terror manifest in his stomach and was almost sick with it. The bravest thing he ever did was to continue.
Martin lowered his eyes and looked at the front door; it was half open. Was he expected?
He tried to think of the most inspiring adventure movies he had ever seen. The ones whose heroes would have cracked a bullwhip and gone charging into such a place with a wisecracking one-liner ready on their lips. But he didn’t have a whip and he couldn’t think of anything remotely pithy to say. He was just a geeky maths teacher, not Indiana Jones.
“Phasers on stun, Baxter,” he told himself instead. “Hell! Who are you kidding… Exterminate – exterminate!”
In the end, it was the thought of Carol, suffering without Paul, that propelled him on. He pushed the front door fully open and stepped inside.
It was pitch-dark, but he waited many minutes before reaching for the torch. The house was filled with silence and the awful stink of damp: the same smell of dripping decay that had flowed from the monitor of Paul’s PC. It was so quiet. Martin could only hear the thump of the blood in his ears.
He took out the torch and prayed that nothing horrific was going to be revealed when he switched it on. In fact, nothing at all would be great too. Gripping the cold metal cylinder in his hand, it reminded him of a lightsaber pommel. That thought brought him a crumb of comfort. He assumed the correct Jedi stance, said “Zummmmm!” and clicked it on.
An instant later its circle of light was sweeping over a staircase. Humming the sound effects, Martin waved the beam around the large hall. What a place, what a sinister, unwelcoming nightmare of a place.
Taking small, wary steps, he moved further inside. The loose parquet floor rattled and clacked as he trod on it.
“Paul?” he hissed. “Are you in here, Paul?”
The lack of any reply was actually a relief. Martin peered into the first of the reception rooms. The empty armchair and card table were still there. They gave him the horrible feeling that someone was used to sitting there. He withdrew smartly and closed the door behind him. The torchlight fell across the open doorway beneath the stairs. He dared to look down into the darkness that led to the cellar and hoped he wouldn’t have to venture down there tonight. How much worse could this expedition become? This was beyond the most nerve-shredding scene in any movie: the suspense of the unknown – the terrors hidden in the darkness…
“I’ve seen far too many films,” he berated himself.
The next door revealed a long room lined with empty shelves. Apparently this had once been the library. He wondered where the books had gone and what kind of diabolical works had someone like Austerly Fellows read anyway. The torch revealed another door at the far end of the room. Martin approached it cautiously. The torchlight wobbled over the peeling varnish because he couldn’t stop his hand trembling. It kindled a dull gleam in the brass knob. He twisted it and shone the light inside.
The reek of cold, rotting decay was suddenly overpowering. It fell on him like a wall. Martin covered his mouth and nose and blinked in surprise and revulsion. Then he stared before him, incredulous and amazed.
Along the entire length of the house at the rear was a grand Victorian conservatory. It was like a slice of the Crystal Palace. Wrought-iron girders towered upwards, curling under, beneath the arched ceiling, like gigantic fern fronds. The white paint was flaking off them, but they remained an impressive spectacle. Martin couldn’t begin to count how many panes of glass it took to fill the gaps between. Some of them were smashed and the rest were caked in the grime of many decades, but the lower portion of the structure had been boarded over, preventing too much vandalism. When new, it must have been like a diamond cathedral.
Martin’s eyes wandered off the overblown ironwork, and he looked at the workbenches that ran along both sides of the conservatory. He brought the torch beam down to bear on them. Deep trays and troughs crowded the surfaces. He went over for a closer inspection. They were filled with black earth, or was it mould? Whatever it was, this was where the atrocious smell originated. It was like a dank and fetid grave. Martin grimaced. Then he realised that there was something else in those planters. Black stems poked from that reeking soil. Something had been growing there and had very recently been harvested. He checked further along the bench. Yes, every tray contained some form of weird stalk. From a huge pot that dominated one corner, a straggling black vine had been carefully trailed through the ironwork, along the full length of the conservatory. Whatever fruit it had borne had also been removed; only a few unhealthy-looking leaves remained. Martin couldn’t imagine anything wholesome could grow in such disgusting soil.
Swinging the light from side to side, he walked down the central aisle. Towards the end he halted and swore. The torch had flashed over a heap of small glass jars. The same type of jars that had contained the minchet he had confiscated from his pupils. Next to them was a large plastic bowl, smeared and greasy inside.
“You should have seen this place yesterday,” a voice said abruptly.
The maths teacher spun round. Standing at the door of the library was the man he had seen at the boot fair last Sunday – the one Shiela Doyle had called the Ismus.
Dressed from head to toe in sable velvet, the ferrety-looking man stepped into the centre of the conservatory and three burly bodyguards with blackened faces followed him.
“It was such an incredible sight,” he continued. “Everything was ripe and luscious – positively fecund. What a bumper harvest we had, what an abundance of flying ointment the Queen of Hearts made.”
Martin gripped the torch more tightly and breathed hard. But, to his surprise, he realised he was no longer frightened. If the worst he had to face in here were four blokes then he had been fretting needlessly. It was the unknown that scared him. In fact, he felt good and angry – and ready.
“What’s in that junk?” he demanded.
The Ismus chuckled. “Not what you thought was in it,” he replied. “Just old-fashioned unnatural ingredients. A liberal dollop of harmless grease, mixed with the juice of some fruits grown here, that’s all. What a fool you made of yourself, Mr Teacher. There’s no
thing from my garden that can be analysed by your science and there’s certainly nothing habit-forming in it. Only the sacred text is addictive, you silly man. The minchet fruit merely opens the way and keeps the link connected. You would find it most agreeable. But there’s no, how would you say… nutritional value in its pulpy flesh. Not for humans anyway. No – it is to nourish those things which are yet to come through.”
“Things? What things?”
“They’re all in my book,” the Ismus said with a cold smile. “In one form or other. Soon they’ll be walking amongst us and people will be glad. Their presence here will reinforce their belief that the world of Mooncaster really exists and make this place far less… humdrum.”
“Look,” Martin interrupted, “ I don’t pretend to understand what the hell is going on with you and the rest of this…”
“Why should it matter if you do? You’re of no importance, Mr Baxter.”
“I just want to find Paul.”
“Paul?”
“You know who I’m talking about – Paul Thornbury. He’s only a child.”
“A child?” the Ismus scoffed. “There are no children in this world any more. You dress and treat them as mini-adults. You let little girls play with dolls that look like Berlin prostitutes. The morality and hypocrisy I used to find so stomach-turning no longer exist. You foist on to your young people role models whose brains are never as active as their underwear, and whose talents or achievements extend only as far as the bedroom door and the ability to blurt every detail of what happens behind it. You give your precious offspring access to a lightning-fast network of corruption and danger. You immerse them in computer games far more violent than the most savage and dirty war, and target prepubescents with inappropriate music and imagery – giving them a vocabulary that would have revolted sailors back in my day. There are no stigmas, no taboos, no boundaries, no respect and certainly no innocence left. To be pregnant at thirteen is no longer an everlasting shame, merely a career choice.
“If ever there was a need for Dancing Jacks and my rule of law, it is now. This chaotic degradation is on its knees and crying out for order. It was right to delay publication of the sacred text. The world was not ready in 1936. Back then people still knew who they were. They had their own identities and were proud of them. No one likes anything about themselves now: the way they look, their jobs, where they live. They need to be told what to wear, what to eat, how to decorate their homes, then they painstakingly trace their ancestors in the hope the joys or struggles of the past will give their own defunct lives purpose and meaning… such a conglomeration of moribund, unhappy failures.”
“Just tell me!” Martin yelled fiercely. “Paul Thornbury – have you got him?”
The man’s crooked smile never wavered. “There is no such person, Mr Baxter,” he said. “That boy you knew ceased to be when he assumed the prime role of the Jack of Diamonds. What a resourceful lad he was though. You and his mother should be proud of what he managed to accomplish. He gave me a very royal runaround, resisted the pull of the sacred text and even burned one of them – most impressive for a small lad like him and all on his own too. Shame on you for not listening when he needed your guidance and protection most of all. What a lot of suffering you could have saved yourselves. If you’d paid attention and put two and two together, you might even have escaped the inevitable… for a little while at least. Such a pity you didn’t add everything up until it was too late, Mr Teacher.”
He held out his hand and one of the bodyguards passed him three objects. Martin recognised them immediately: his phaser, sonic screwdriver and teleport bracelet.
“Magpie Jack brought me your ‘jools’,” the Ismus said, regarding the items from the inner sanctum with derision. “What a sad case you are, Mr Baxter. How could you set any value on this piffling dross? Infantile rubbish all of it. You really have wasted your life, haven’t you?”
Martin ignored the insults. “Where is he?” he demanded. “What have you done with him?”
“Done with him?” The Ismus laughed. “Why, nothing at all. The Jack of Diamonds is where he belongs, with the Court. And I gave him a fresh copy of the book as a reward for his diligence. At this moment he’s happier than he ever was before. You should be glad for him. He is now one of my four original Knaves. He will be famous. Children all over the world will look up to him. Boys whose personalities are similar will view him with envy. He is their paragon, the ideal they must emulate. He doesn’t need you any longer. He doesn’t want to see you ever again. You’re nothing to him, just someone in the grey dream away from his real life at Mooncaster.”
“You can’t do this, you can’t take kids away from their families!”
“He came full willing. Besides, you’re not his father, Mr Baxter, merely his mother’s latest, now what is the current term…? Ah, yes, merely her latest ‘squeeze’.”
Martin could feel his face burning with rage. “His mother wants him home!” he shouted. “If you don’t take me to him right now, I’ll go to the police and I don’t mean the ones in Felixstowe. Your sacred bloody text won’t have spread as far as Ipswich yet.”
The Ismus tutted and placed the three objects on the workbench.
“I think not,” he said. “You see, you won’t be leaving this place without sampling some of the Queen of Hearts’ hard work. She’s been so industrious – I insist you try some.”
“Stick it!” Martin told him.
“You aberrants really are monotonously irritating,” the Ismus said, slipping a hand into the pocket of his tailed jacket and holding up a full jar. “Still, a small dab of this and you’ll be one of us. I wonder what role you’re best suited to in the Dawn Prince’s Kingdom? I do hope it’s Dung-Breathed Billy – the Midden-Man. He was cursed by the witch to receive fifty kicks a day, every day, from the villagers. You’ll suit those bruises, Mr Baxter.”
He unscrewed the lid of the jar and took a step closer.
Martin tensed. He wondered how long he would last in the imminent fight. Not long against the four of them, but he would do as much damage to that Ismus lunatic as possible before those black-faced minders dragged him off.
The Ismus read his intention and laughed scornfully. “Have you learned nothing yet?” he asked. “Aren’t you the one who teaches by repetition? You drill and drill the same things into those poor young heads every week and yet you refuse to be taught in the same way. So pig-headed. After everything you’ve heard. You’re a very stupid creature to even dare think of raising a hand against me. I am the Holy Enchanter of Mooncaster, the Ismus, the owner of this house, the author of Dancing Jacks – I am Austerly Fellows!”
“You’re insane!” Martin snapped back. “You’re not him!”
The Ismus’s grin became wider. “Oh, but I am!” he said. “I am!”
He threw his arms wide and Martin stared in horror as dark spots of mould blotched across the pale skin of the man’s face and hands. Thick streams of spores shot out from his sleeves, striking the boarded-up windows on his left and the bricks of the house on his right. Foaming waves of mould gushed upwards, racing high until they streaked across the pitched ceiling and met in the centre where they blossomed into a festering, clotted cloud that throbbed and pulsed above their heads.
The torch fell from Martin’s hand. The lingering vestiges of doubt were finally banished from his mind. The three bodyguards cast their eyes downward and bowed, calling out praise to the Holy Enchanter.
“I have been so very patient,” the Ismus said, but the voice was not human and seemed to emanate from the heart of that grotesque, swelling growth above.
“Waiting so long for the right time and the right person,” it continued. “But my Prince was right to make me wait. There was never a better moment than now. Your world is empty and starving, little man. Dancing Jacks will fill it – all of it. There will be no other Word but mine.”
Martin was too horror-stricken to move or say anything. The black mould spread across the
windows and clustered over the cast iron, furring the girders, and fine, hair-like filaments formed branching webs across the gaps.
The Ismus turned his mould-bloomed face to Martin and held out the jar of minchet.
“Take it,” the cloud commanded. “Lick it.”
Martin was too terrified to refuse. His spirit was completely quashed. He could not fight this. Nothing in the world could. He reached out a tremulous hand and took the jar.
The mould frothed and bulged overhead and violent ripples surged over the encrusted wall and windows.
“Do it,” the voice instructed.
Martin scooped a large glob on his trembling fingers and lifted them to his mouth.
The cloud quivered and spores rained down. A curtain of mould stretched to each of the Ismus’s shoulders, forming huge, bat-like wings. “Join us,” the gurgling voice of Austerly Fellows cried.
Martin closed his eyes and took a last breath. He thought of Carol and wished he had been able to save her and Paul. He put the sickly grey-green ointment to his lips.
Then there was a smashing of glass and a roar of heat and flame. The bodyguards cried out and leaped back. Something had been hurled through one of the windows. The Ismus spun round. A pool of liquid fire was spreading over the floor. Another pane exploded inward and a second fiery missile crashed against the wall.
Martin thrust his hand under his armpit and wiped the disgusting minchet from his fingers. Someone was outside. Someone was saving him!
The Ismus yelled. Flames were crackling all about him. The bloated cloud above gave a fearsome rumble, then came streaking down, pouring on to the Holy Enchanter’s back. It flowed up over the velvet collar of his jacket and retreated down into his neck.
Outside the conservatory a loud voice let loose a mocking laugh. “Haw haw haw!” it sang into the night.
