With a nervous whinny, the horses were reined to a standstill, the carriage lurching to a halt some twenty feet from the grave. Monty glanced up in surprise.
“Are we here?”
Hidden beneath the folds of her black shawl, Penny clasped the jet-black stone tight. She slowly nodded her head, trying not to betray the fear running through her veins.
From his vantage point, Gold lifted his gaze from the viewfinder, carefully checking that everyone was in position before he turned the handle to roll the film for the final time. The bark of his voice cut through the mist, a single word that sent a shiver of electricity through everyone who heard it.
“Action!”
Pushing past Penelope, Monty reached for the door with a sigh.
“Once more unto the breach,” he muttered, “and then we can get out of this blasted place at last.”
Monty flung open the door and, as the mists swirled around him, he climbed down from the carriage, snatching the whip from the hand of the driver as he went. Raising his arm, he gave it an experimental snap and, in reply, the horses shied skittishly away. A devilish grin spread across Monty’s features. He may as well send the old villain off in style. Stepping forward, he surveyed the huddled band of mourners now gathered around the open grave.
The coffin was being lowered into the pit, the bearers’ hands braced against the straps as it slowly disappeared from sight. Ignoring this and all conventions of common decency, Monty didn’t break his stride, swishing the riding crop in front of him as he stepped through the swirling mist.
“Get back to work,” he snarled, “else I’ll take my whip to the rest of you. That copper won’t mine itself!”
The sullen faces of the extras turned towards him, a glowering hatred hidden behind every pair of eyes. They remembered all too well Lord Eversholt’s cruelty, forgetting for this moment that it was Monty standing there in his stead. As the rain fell like tears across the graveyard, Monty raised his arm with a growl, the whip flashing back, ready to strike.
This was Penelope’s cue. Leaning forward, she reached for the carriage door, but then fell back in her seat as a sudden dizziness stole over her again. Her mind reeled, gripped by panic as this strange sensation seized her. Through fluttering lids, she saw the carriage fill with shadows, the ghostly figure of Amelia Eversholt looming before her in the gloom.
Soft curls of hair framed her deathly pale features, the girl wearing the same grey gown as when Penny had first glimpsed her in the shadows of Eversholt Manor, somehow more real now than ever before. With a spectral hand, Amelia reached out towards Penelope, her ashen fingers stealing towards the jet-black stone.
“Thank you,” she breathed as she lifted it from Penny’s grasp. “It’s time for you to sleep now.”
Penelope tried to speak, but no words came; her limbs seemed heavy and lifeless as she sat there in a daze. Powerless, she watched as Amelia turned to step down from the carriage; the ghostly figure taking her place at last. As the mists swirled around her, Amelia walked towards the open grave, gliding past Monty as if he wasn’t even there.
“I have returned,” she said, as the figures huddled around the grave watched her through fearful eyes. “You have all suffered at my father’s hands, but now it is time to put right the wrong that was done.” In her right hand she held up the obsidian stone, the jewel shimmering with an unearthly light. Amelia’s eyes glittered darkly and, when she spoke again, her words came out in a hiss. “Let us take our revenge at last.”
With a sweeping gesture, Amelia cast the stone into the open grave.
For a second there was silence, the only sound that could be heard the distant whirr of the Véritéscope. Then a pale hand thrust its way free from the grave and James’s ghostly features rose to greet them, the boy shaking the earth from his shoulders as he climbed out of the open pit.
“It can’t be,” Monty cried in mock-surprise, little realising that it wasn’t Penelope who had summoned this counterfeit ghost. “You’re dead, I tell you, dead! I heard your neck break when I pushed you down the pit.”
James’s gaze burned with an unearthly light as, clutching the stone, he moved towards Monty with a relentless tread. Letting out a low whimper, Monty scrambled backwards, trying to reach the sanctuary of the carriage, his long frock coat trailing in the mud.
From his vantage point on the chapel steps, Gold still turned the winding handle, his eye fixed to the camera’s viewfinder. The noise of the Véritéscope seemed to be growing louder with every passing second; wisps of what looked like smoke were seeping from the corners of its casing. The camera’s whirr was turning into a whine – a strange humming sound that filled the air as it reshaped reality around them.
From the graveside, the huddling mourners had fallen into step behind James – an avenging Pied Piper at the head of his horde. All around him, the faces of men, women and children alike shone with the same hatred; the strange power of the Véritéscope twisting their minds to unleash their true desires at last. Long memories of brutish lifetimes spent toiling down the copper mines, slaving to fill Lord Eversholt’s pockets, came back to them. Now was their chance for revenge.
Still frozen in her seat, Penny watched as Monty tried to scramble up the steps of the carriage. It was as though she was looking at him through the wrong end of a telescope, the world outside slowly shrinking from view as shadows filled her mind. Just before arms reached up to drag him back, Monty caught a glimpse of her face framed in the window. In confusion, he glanced back at Amelia’s ghostly grey silhouette.
“Wait!” he cried out. “Who are you?”
Hoisting his struggling body between them, the muddied tails of his frock coat twisting in the wind, the four coffin-bearers turned with a lumbering gait to follow James, the pale figure of the boy already picking his path back to the grave he had risen from. As the rain flattened her raven curls, Amelia turned to watch this macabre procession, a malevolent grin splitting her shadowy features.
“Unhand me!” Monty cried with real fear in his voice. “Let me go!”
The ragged crowd swarmed around him, hauling Monty towards the beckoning grave. Struggling wildly, his eyes darted across their faces, searching for the one person who could save him. As his spread-eagled form was hoisted over the empty pit, Monty let out a loud wail of terror.
“Penelope!”
Trapped inside her own mind, Penelope could only watch helplessly as the horrors of the tale came to life; the lines of the script leading inexorably towards the grisly end Gold had penned. She had to stop this somehow. Struggling to shake the strange lethargy that still clung to her limbs, Penny tried to stand; swaying for a moment on the carriage’s step before falling in a swoon. As Monty’s despairing cries rent the air, Penelope lay there slumped in the mud, her waxen features wreathed in shadows.
The villagers were crowded round the empty grave, Amelia’s spectral form standing at its head. Still struggling, Monty was pitched forward into the pit, the rain-sodden earth breaking his fall. He scrambled to his feet. Glancing around him, Monty’s eyes widened with fear as, in the darkness of the grave, he caught a glimpse of another shadowy form. Reaching up, he tried to pull himself free, his hands scrabbling against the side of the hole, but the ground just crumbled beneath his fingers.
“Help me!” he cried, his mud-smeared face staring up in despair.
A hideous whine filled the air as Amelia reached down to pick up a handful of earth, the dirt falling from her shadowy fingers as she scattered it into the grave with a sigh.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Following her lead, James and the others cast their own handfuls into the pit, the earth showering down on Monty as he cried out in anguish.
“Please, I beg of you – no!”
Then from the track came the clatter of horses’ hooves. As she lay in the shadow of the carriage, Penny saw a cart lurch to a halt at the roadside. Perched next to the driver, she caught a glimpse of her guardian, Mr Wigram, st
aring over his spectacles in surprise at the scene that greeted them.
Penny tried to lift her hand, but then stared in horror at her translucent fingers, the sky almost visible through her skin. “Help me,” she breathed, the whisper of her words lost on the wind.
From the back of the cart, Alfie swung himself to the ground. Scrambling through the thickening mist, he followed the sound of Monty’s voice, the fear he could hear driving him forward. Behind him, a second man had sprung down from the cart. Rain misted his spectacles and Jacques Le Prince peered through them with a look of consternation. As Alfie plunged into the throng of mourners, trying to battle his way to the graveside, Jacques darted in the opposite direction, heading for the steps of the chapel where Edward Gold stood.
Gold was already starting to rise from behind the film camera as the Frenchman bounded up the stone steps, seizing hold of the filmmaker by his collar. At this affront, Gold’s features convulsed with rage, regarding Jacques Le Prince with a murderous glare.
“You’re too late!” he hissed, his hands reaching for the younger man’s throat. “Look, Amelia walks amongst the living once more!”
In the shadow of the chapel, the two men fought, their tussling figures shrouded by swirling mists and the smoke now billowing from the Véritéscope. All the while, the cold eye of the camera stayed fixed on Amelia; the shadows that clung to her slowly melting away as each fresh handful of earth filled the grave.
“Alfie, thank God!”
Down on his knees, Alfie leaned over the edge of the grave, reaching with an outstretched hand towards Monty’s cowering form and the ghost of Lord Eversholt looming behind him in the darkness. Fresh soil rained down, momentarily blinding Alfie as, from across the moor, the sound of an anguished cry rang out.
In an instant, the incessant whine that had filled the air fell silent. Brushing the dirt from his eyes, Alfie looked up to see Amelia’s wraithlike figure melting into mist, her mouth opened wide in a silent scream. As she faded into oblivion, the boy by her side slowly shook his head as if waking from a dream. James’s make-up was beginning to run, the drizzling rain revealing the face of the actor beneath as the villagers looked on in confusion. The ghosts were gone and bewilderment filled every gaze, replacing the unearthly light that had been shining there only seconds before. As the earth fell from their fingers, dropping harmlessly by the graveside, Alfie reached down to haul Monty from the pit.
The actor’s mud-splattered face stared up at him through a veil of tears.
“I thought I was going to die!” he wailed.
Crawling free from the edge of the grave, Monty collapsed on the ground in a blubbering heap. Alfie bent over him, fear still pumping through his veins.
“Where’s Penelope?”
Lifting his head, Monty waved his arm in the direction of the road.
“The carriage,” he groaned.
As Alfie turned to look back, he heard the roar of an engine firing into life and then saw a motor car rolling down the track. He caught a glimpse of Edward Gold behind the wheel, the filmmaker throwing the car round the bend as it accelerated out of sight. Left behind in the shadow of the carriage, he saw Penelope lying on the ground, her features cast in a ghostly pallor.
Alfie set off at a run, pushing his way through the throng to Penelope’s side. Wigram was already kneeling beside her, the elderly lawyer letting out a deep sigh of relief as she finally opened her eyes. Penny pulled herself into a sitting position, colour slowly returning to her cheeks as she looked up into Alfie and Wigram’s worried faces. Around them the mist was starting to clear, sunlight breaking through a crack in the clouds and warming her skin.
“Are you all right?”Alfie asked.
Penny nodded.
“I think so,” she replied, glancing down at her hands as if to reassure herself they were still there. “What are you doing here? Where’s Gold?”
“He’s gone,” Alfie said, gesturing towards the road. “There’s no way we can catch him in that motor car he was driving. He’ll be halfway back to Exeter before we even reach the station.”
Wigram frowned.
“And where exactly is Monsieur Le Prince?” he asked. “Has he at least managed to recover his invention?”
Rising to his feet, Alfie craned his neck in search of the Frenchman. On the steps of the chapel, a single figure was slowly getting to his feet. Beneath his spectacles, a bloodied cut stained Jacques’s cheek, but of the Véritéscope there was no sign; only ragged tendrils of mist were left lurking where the camera had once stood.
XXIV
Penelope stared at the stack of galley proofs spilling out from her in-tray, the pages of the September edition of the magazine spreading across her desk. She picked up the cover proof from the top of the pile, the paper crisp beneath her fingers. Below the banner of The Penny Dreadful, Edmund Sullivan’s striking illustration showed a mist-shrouded forest alive with eyes. The artist’s intricate inking captured the malevolent gazes of the inhuman creatures who stalked the tweed-suited professor wandering into their midst. At the bottom of the page the cover line declared:
Featuring the final spine-tingling instalment of
“A GREEN DREAM OF DEATH”
by Montgomery Flinch
Penny let out a sigh. She only wished that the filming of The Daughter of Darkness out on the wild Devon moors had come to such a neat conclusion. But last month’s strange events had left too many loose ends.
As the mists cleared, they had discovered that Gold had taken the Véritéscope and the film reels containing The Daughter of Darkness too, slinging these into the back of his motor car as he fled the scene. With the assistance of Jacques Le Prince, Penny had tried to hunt the filmmaker down, returning to London to scour the fairgrounds and Flicker Alley for any sign of the rogue. But the offices of the Alchemical Moving Picture Company had lain empty, a new nameplate already fixed above the door. Edward Gold was nowhere to be found.
His invention lost again, Jacques had returned to his lodgings a broken man. And as the demands of The Penny Dreadful clamoured for her attention, Penelope had tried to cast the troubling events from her mind, burying herself in the final pages of Montgomery Flinch’s latest tale. Monty himself had spent most of his time recuperating in the bar of his gentlemen’s club, trying to drown the memories of his premature burial in the bottom of a glass. All his engagements as Montgomery Flinch had been cancelled – his state of mind too fragile to risk a public appearance. The newspapers had already started sniffing round for the reason why, and, as Penny placed The Penny Dreadful’s cover back on top of the pile, she could only hope that he would soon make a full recovery.
She pressed her hand to her temple as a woozy sensation crept over her. Penny stared down at the desk, the grain of the wood drifting randomly in front of her eyes. Since returning from Stoke Eversholt, these episodes still plagued her; a peculiar light-headedness lingering for moments before it passed.
“You seem troubled, Penelope,” her guardian said, looking up from his ledger of accounts and fixing her with a solicitous stare. “I do hope that you haven’t found a mistake in the proofs. The final galleys have already gone to the printers, and the September edition of The Penny Dreadful will be rolling from the presses as we speak.”
Penny shook her head, the dizziness already starting to fade.
“The latest edition is a triumph,” she replied. “Thanks to the sterling efforts that you and Alfie made to ensure that it came out on time.” She rubbed her tired eyes, the dark circles beneath a testament to the late nights she had spent scribbling furiously to meet her own deadline, then glanced across at Alfie, whose gaze was still glued to the proofs as he read the last sentence of A Green Dream of Death. Finishing the story, he pushed the page away with a shudder.
“This is your scariest tale yet,” he declared, turning towards Penny with a dumbfounded grin. “I didn’t think Professor Archibald was going to get out of there alive. When those creatures started to climb down fr
om the trees…” His voice trailed away with a shiver.
Penny blushed at this praise, but watching her, Wigram’s gaze was still filled with concern.
“Why don’t you take the afternoon off, Penelope?” he suggested. “With the magazine at the printer’s there are no pressing matters here that require your attention. You and Alfie could visit a museum or take the summer air at Hyde Park perhaps.”
At this suggestion of a half-day holiday, Alfie’s eyes lit up with delight.
“A capital idea!” he cried, springing to his feet. “What do you say, Penny? We could take a boat out on the Serpentine.”
With a weary hand, Penny brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. She had too much to do. The next issue of The Penny Dreadful was still to be planned. There were advertisements to place, authors and illustrators to commission, but at the back of her mind she could still feel a lingering faintness.
“Perhaps an afternoon in the park would be a good idea,” she replied as she rose unsteadily from her chair. “A chance to clear my mind before I start plotting Montgomery Flinch’s next adventure.”
Alfie grinned in reply. He followed close behind as Penelope picked up her parasol and headed for the door. Placing her hand on its handle, she turned back towards her guardian.
“We will be back before tea.”
Then a frenzied rapping sounded on the other side of the door, making Penny jump.
“Who on earth?”
Turning the handle, she opened the door to be greeted by the sight of Jacques Le Prince. Behind his spectacles, the Frenchman wore a wild-eyed expression. Without a word of greeting he stepped forward into the office, thrusting a tattered handbill into Penelope’s hand.
“We must stop him before it is too late!”
Penny looked down at the flyer in her hand.
Shadows of the Silver Screen Page 14
