The Mask of Destiny

by Richard Newsome

  ‘Parlour games?’ Ruby said. ‘Who plays parlour games anymore?’

  The doors to the room suddenly opened. In the entrance was a tiny woman, wrapped in a shawl so tight it gave the appearance of being the only thing holding her bones together. Her skin was the colour of a used teabag and sat so tight on her frame it looked like she would split open in a high wind. On either side of her stood two of the palest children Gerald had ever seen.

  ‘Uh, hello?’ Gerald said.

  The woman fixed him with a rifle stare.

  ‘You are Gerald?’ she said. It was more accusation than question.

  ‘Uh, yes,’ Gerald said.

  The woman prodded the pale boy between the shoulder blades, pushing him into the room. ‘This one is Wendell.’ She repeated the shove on the girl. ‘This one is Caroline.’

  The pair stood knock-kneed on the rug.

  Octavia glared at Wendell. ‘What are you doing here?’ Then, in an appalled tone, ‘You’re not friends with the princess, are you?’

  Gerald latched his hand onto Ruby’s arm, holding her back. ‘Easy tiger,’ he said.

  ‘We live next door,’ the boy said in a barely audible peep. ‘Our parents are at the party downstairs.’

  Octavia crossed her arms and ran an appraising eye over the newcomers. ‘And what did you come dressed as? A glass of water and a wisp of smoke?’

  The pair stared saucer-eyed at Octavia, not sure what to say.

  ‘Never mind her,’ Gerald said, rescuing them. ‘She has a condition.’

  ‘What sort of condition?’ Caroline asked, making sure to keep well clear of Octavia as Gerald ushered them towards the buffet.

  ‘She gets cranky is she hasn’t feasted on human blood,’ Ruby said.

  The doors shut with a solid thud. The woman made her way to an armchair and settled herself.

  ‘You will play snakes and ladders now,’ she said. She extended a bony finger in the direction of the games table.

  Octavia screwed up her nose. ‘I hardly think people of our age are going to play snakes and—’

  ‘NOW!’

  The noise that erupted from the woman’s throat rattled the windows.

  Gerald led a slow march towards the table. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to the woman. ‘Who are you?’

  The woman pulled a packet of cigarettes from a beaded case. She pushed a cigarette into the end of a black holder, which she then clamped between her teeth. She lit the end, snapping the lighter shut with a practised flick of her wrist. The cigarette tip glowed and crackled as the woman drew in a seemingly endless breath. Finally, she expelled two jets of smoke from her nostrils.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Octavia coughed.

  The look on the woman’s face clearly showed that she did not. She ashed the cigarette into a bowl of peanuts on a side table.

  ‘Your task is to play games,’ the woman rasped. ‘Shut up and do it.’

  The seven of them pulled up chairs around a card table. Gerald was taking the lid from an ancient box of snakes and ladders when the woman spoke again. ‘I’m a cousin of your father’s,’ she said to Gerald. ‘A distant cousin. I abhor parties.

  ‘What’s wrong with parties?’ Ruby said.

  The woman picked a speck from the tip of her tongue and regarded it with interest. ‘They are a pointless exercise,’ she said. ‘Nothing of use can be learned at parties. All that chattering and all those lies. People like you should be seeking life’s truths, not wrapping themselves in pretence and falsehoods.’

  Gerald raised an eyebrow. This woman was related to him? ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Clea,’ the woman said. ‘Don’t use it unless there’s an emergency.’

  She stubbed out the cigarette and fitted another into the holder. Clearing her throat with a moist hack, she lit up again.

  ‘What’s the matter with you pair?’ she said to Octavia and Zebedee, who couldn’t take their eyes off her. ‘Not having fun yet?’

  The next two hours dragged by in a smoke haze of brain-deflating boredom. Wendell and Caroline barely spoke, apart from occasional whispers between them-selves; though, they did brighten when Clea ordered everyone to play anagrams.

  ‘Here’s a good one,’ Caroline said. ‘Semolina is an anagram for is no meal.’

  Wendell was the only one who laughed.

  Octavia was staring at Ruby with snake eyes. ‘The magazines say you two are in love. So, has there been any kissy kissy?’

  Zebedee started making smooching noises on the back of his hand. Octavia cackled with delight.

  Gerald looked at Ruby, expecting her to erupt. To his surprise, she sat with a serene smile on her face.

  ‘I don’t read those sorts of magazines,’ she said. ‘Gerald and I are just good friends. Aren’t we, Gerald?’ She placed her hand on the back of Gerald’s and squeezed.

  ‘Uh, that’s right,’ Gerald said. ‘You can’t believe what you read in those things.’

  Ruby dropped Gerald’s hand and latched onto Octavia’s. ‘They tell the most wicked lies,’ she said, fixing Octavia with an intense stare. ‘It’s sickening. I mean, you don’t believe that story about us planning to kill Mason Green if he walked free from court, do you?’

  ‘Er,’ Octavia said, looking nervously at Ruby’s hand as it tightened on her own.

  ‘I didn’t read anything like—’ Gerald began, but stopped when Ruby switched her glare to him. Then he realised. It was a wind-up. ‘Uh, that’s right,’ Gerald said, trying not to smile. ‘It was a big conspiracy. I’d already hired a hit man from Bulgaria to do the job. Big money. Very hush hush. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

  Octavia looked first at Gerald, then at Ruby. ‘You two are nuts,’ she said, snatching her hand back.

  From her smoke-cloaked chair, Clea hacked, ‘Play!’

  Zebedee stared at the card in his hand, a look of total confusion on his face. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘What are you supposed to do?’

  Octavia clicked her tongue and took the card from her brother. ‘It’s anagrams. You rearrange the letters in this word to come up with the answer to the clue. Even you can do that.’

  Ruby piped up. ‘Sure, it’s very straightforward. For example, the anagram for Octavia Archer is I’ve a crater face.’

  Sam snorted, stifling a giggle.

  Octavia thought for a second. ‘No it isn’t,’ she said. ‘There’s no f in my name.’

  ‘Really?’ Ruby said. ‘When Gerald saw you earlier I’m sure he said: there’s f in Octavia.’

  Gerald’s chair bounced across the rug as he hauled Ruby by the arm over to the far side of the room. Octavia was on her feet, fists pounding the tabletop, screaming abuse at them. Her face was purple. Clea, for her part, sat back in the armchair with a look of quiet satisfaction on her face. She turned a page in her book and blew a smoke ring into the air.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Gerald hissed at Ruby, trying to ignore the screeches coming from Octavia.

  Ruby had a glint of mischief in her eye. ‘Serves her right for calling me a princess,’ she said.

  Gerald looked back at his fuming cousin. Sam was doing his best to settle her.

  ‘Look, I’m not enjoying this any more than you,’ Gerald said to Ruby. ‘But I can’t see any way out. Clea’s not going to let—’

  A soft ding cut him off. They both looked at the wood-panelled wall by the sideboard. There was a small red light next to a discreet silver button set into the mahogany. Gerald gave Ruby a quizzical look. He stretched out a finger and pressed the button. A section of the panelling about waist high slid up to reveal a cosy space behind.

  ‘A dumb waiter!’ Ruby said.

  Gerald peered into the darkened box about a metre cubed. ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘It’s like an elevator, to bring food up from the kitchen.’ Ruby reached inside and took out a folded piece of card that had been propped on the floor.

  There’s proper food in the kitchen, she read. ‘Mrs Rutherford h
as come to our rescue.’

  Gerald looked back to the card table. Octavia had her back to them, in a deep sulk. Zebedee had made a hat from the game box, and Wendell and Caroline soldiered on with the anagrams.

  ‘Oh, that’s an easy one,’ Wendell said. ‘Astronomer is a moon starer.’

  Clea remained in her chair with her head in her book and smoking like a blocked chimney.

  Gerald caught Sam’s eye and beckoned him over. He slipped across unobserved.

  ‘Want to get some real food?’ Gerald said to him.

  Sam beamed. ‘Mrs Rutherford food?’

  Gerald slid backside first into the dumb waiter, tucking his knees under his chin. Ruby and Sam squeezed in after him. Gerald took an elbow to the eye and a head to the ribs in the crush. ‘Push a button, will you?’ he said. ‘Any button.’

  Ruby was closest to the front and she pressed at the keypad. The door slid back into place, casting them into darkness. The tiny elevator moved down with a lurch.

  ‘We should have done this hours ago.’ Sam’s voice came out of the tangle of limbs. ‘I wonder what’s to eat?’

  The dumb waiter came to a halt. Nothing happened.

  ‘Now what?’ Gerald said.

  Ruby pushed another button. The door slid up, and they stared out at a riot in progress.

  ‘I don’t think this is the kitchen,’ Ruby said.

  The dumb waiter had stopped in the ballroom.

  Gerald had always considered adults incapable of enjoying themselves. Always griping about unmade beds and the washing up. They seemed programmed for misery. Which was why it was taking him so long to process the scene before him.

  The ballroom was going off.

  It was fancy-dress madness. There were streamers and lights of every colour and hue. A band played in the corner, the brass section struggling to make itself heard above the roar of the well-fuelled crowd. There was braying and screaming, shouts and hilarity. Clea would not approve.

  There were pirates dancing with harem girls; an astronaut was jiving on a table with a nun; a bishop was screaming ‘Louie Louie’ into the microphone on the bandstand. Gangsters, vampires, a bandage-wrapped mummy, kings and queens—all prancing and prowling in a melee of colour and sound.

  And in the middle of it all stood a stout penguin, a glass of champagne in one wing and the other whooping tight circles above her head. The man dressed as a French cavalry officer by her side was dancing as close as he could, the golden braid on his jacket catching the light from the giant mirror ball suspended from the ceiling.

  ‘Is that Inspector Parrott over there?’ Ruby asked as she climbed out of the dumb waiter onto the ballroom floor. Gerald and Sam followed.

  ‘What? In the zombie get up?’ Sam said.

  ‘And I think that’s Constable Lethbridge.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The giant pigeon.’

  Gerald shook his head. ‘Mum invited him as a thanks for all that guard duty, but I didn’t think he’d show up. At least not dressed as a pigeon.’

  Then Sam and Ruby screamed—a high-pitched stereo shriek that pierced Gerald’s brain. A large man in a kilt, his face painted a vibrant blue and his red beard flared out like he’d been electrocuted, had leapt in front of them, his features contorted in rage. ‘Death to all Sassenachs!’

  It took a few seconds for the ringing in Gerald’s ears to fade.

  ‘Professor McElderry,’ he said to the blue-faced highlander. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’

  The professor gave Gerald a wink and raised a full glass. ‘Never miss a good knees-up,’ he said. ‘You never know when it might be your last. Still,’ he took a long draught, ‘wish they’d told me it was fancy dress.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sam, ‘didn’t you know?’

  McElderry blinked at Sam, as if he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. ‘Have I ever mentioned that you might well be the stupidest boy in the world?’

  Gerald smiled. ‘Well, it looks like you’re having fun,’ he shouted to McElderry above the booming racket of the ballroom. ‘Who’s that dressed as a bishop and singing with the band?’

  The professor glanced over his shoulder. On the other side of the room, a tall man dressed in white robes with a golden mitre askew on his head was belting out the chorus to ‘River Deep, Mountain High’.

  ‘That is the bishop,’ McElderry said. ‘He really didn’t know it was fancy dress. Not a bad voice. All those years in the choir, I expect. Look, I’m glad I caught up with you. I’ve had a call from my friend at the Vatican library in Rome—you remember him.’

  Gerald nodded. The professor’s friend had made the connection between Gerald’s family seal and an ancient Roman emperor.

  ‘He’s been doing some more reading into your very interesting family, Gerald,’ the professor said. An explosion sounded over McElderry’s right shoulder. Gerald caught sight of a penguin lopping off the top of a champagne bottle with a French cavalry sword.

  Gerald let out a long breath. ‘It gets more interesting, does it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Professor McElderry said. ‘And on both sides as well. Did you know that your mother’s ancestors believed the family would one day produce someone special?’

  ‘Special?’

  ‘Yep. The progeny. Can you believe—’

  The professor’s words were drowned out by a shriek of ‘Gerald!’ A pink-faced penguin was advancing on them.

  ‘Gotta go, professor! But let’s talk later, okay?’ Gerald said.

  Gerald rolled back into the dumb waiter. Sam and Ruby followed him. Sam fumbled with the button panel.

  The professor reached into a pocket and said, ‘I’ve got something for—’ but the door slid shut, cutting him off. The dumb waiter moved down, and the blare of the party faded behind them.

  ‘Your mum seems to be having a good time,’ Ruby said to Gerald.

  ‘Yeah. She specialises in that.’

  ‘I didn’t see your dad,’ Sam said. ‘What’s he dressed as?’

  Gerald stared at the wall. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You can’t remember?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Gerald said. ‘I can not remember.’

  The door slid open and the three of them tumbled out of the dumb waiter onto the kitchen floor.

  Mrs Rutherford looked up from the table. ‘You took your time,’ she said. ‘I’ve been battling to keep Mr Fry away from this lot.’ She whipped a tea towel off a platter of steaming sausage rolls, pies and pasties.

  ‘Go on,’ she said to Sam. ‘Don’t hold back. There’s no bad manners in a working kitchen.’

  Sam didn’t hesitate. He snatched up a sausage roll and bit into the pastry, sending a shower of flakes down the front of his shirt.

  ‘Mmmph,’ he mumbled. ‘Del-ish-us.’

  Mrs Rutherford piled a small basket with a selection of pastries and handed it to Ruby.

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘A little picnic for you. Fancy thinking people would want to eat parsley and sheep’s bits.’

  Gerald thanked Mrs Rutherford and tried not to laugh at the sight of Mr Fry laying a clean white handkerchief across his lap before nibbling on a piecrust.

  ‘Come on,’ Gerald said to Sam and Ruby, ‘let’s take this back to my room.’

  The lift stopped on the fourth floor and they were halfway up the hallway towards Gerald’s bedroom when they saw her. The woman was dressed in a black cat suit, complete with triangular ears on her head and a mask covering her eyes. She was at the end of the corridor, one slender leg out the window and about to step onto the neighbour’s roof.

  Gerald couldn’t understand it. What was a party guest doing climbing out a window?

  But then his eyes caught a flash of red in the woman’s hand. A corner of leather poked from her clenched fist. The jewellery roll from his bedroom. The ruby!

  ‘What are you doing?’ It was all Gerald could think to say.

  The woman glanced down at the leather pouch in her hand and shoved it inside
a pocket.

  ‘I thought you might be otherwise detained, Gerald,’ she said, in rounded tones. ‘This changes things a tad.’

  Gerald baulked. How did she know his name? And what did she mean ‘otherwise detained’? Then he saw a glint of silver in her hand. Something shiny. Something sharp.

  Without warning, the woman flung out her fist. In the blur of movement, Gerald sensed something coming at him, fast. He dived to the wall, crunching hard into the flocked velvet wallpaper. A dart shot past his ear, missing him by millimetres. Gerald slid to the floor and took a second to recover from the impact. ‘She’s got the ruby,’ he called out.

  Sam lunged for the woman, but she was already out the window. Gerald joined Sam at the sill and caught a glimpse of the woman, slinking around a chimney pot and away into the night.

  ‘She moves like a cat, too,’ Sam said.

  Gerald rubbed his shoulder where it had hit the wall. ‘She must have come in with the other guests,’ he said.

  Ruby’s voice came from back in the hallway. ‘You two need to see this.’ She was standing by a potted palm tree. As they watched, the deep green of the trunk turned a mottled grey, then it sagged to the floor. Ruby pointed to its base, out of which stuck a silver fountain pen.

  ‘Somehow, I don’t think that was dipped in ink,’ she said.

  Sam went to pluck out the pen but his sister pulled his hand away. ‘Wasn’t Inspector Parrott downstairs? I think we need to get him. Now.’

  Gerald stared at the tree—it looked like it had been gassed. ‘Wait on,’ he said. ‘I want to check something.’ He raced down the hall to his bedroom and came out a second later, carrying his beaten backpack.

  ‘The drawing of the castle is still here,’ he said. ‘The ruby is the only thing missing.’

  ‘How would anyone know you had it?’ Ruby said.

  ‘Beats me. But she somehow knew where to look. Let’s go get the inspector.’

  Gerald jabbed at the lift button, glared at the still-closed doors, then made for the stairs. They rounded the landing to the third floor, and were about to launch down the final dozen stairs to the second floor when Gerald skidded to a stop. Sam and Ruby piled into the back of him.