The Beast of Seabourne

by Rhys A. Jones

Oz sighed. “Okay, okay. Soph will sublimsert you tonight. Why don’t you go and play some Death Planet Hub with S and S? I’m sure they’ll be over the moon to see you back.”

  “Result,” Ruff said, and disappeared down the turnpike stairs to Oz’s bedroom.

  “How come he always gets away with it?” Ellie asked. Oz noticed that there were pink spots on both of her cheeks.

  “Charmed life, that one,” Oz said, but he was smiling as he said it.

  They tested each other and played several rounds of snap until they each got full marks on the quiz sheets. Finally, Oz packed the cards away while Ellie watched him, a pensive, preoccupied look on her face.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said eventually. “There’s nothing stopping us doing a treasure hunt with Soph every now and again, is there?”

  “Don’t see why not,” Oz said. “I mean it’s not like we’re stealing, is it? That money’s been well and truly lost.”

  “And even if we took it to a police station, they’d never find who it belonged to, would they?”

  “Exactly,” Oz agreed.

  Ellie’s pained expression persisted despite Oz’s enthusiasm. “Still feels sort of wrong somehow, though,” she said.

  Oz nodded. He’d been amazed at how easy it was to pick up that much money with such little effort, but he knew just what Ellie meant. It didn’t seem quite right somehow.

  Suddenly, Ellie sat up, her eyes alight. “I know. We can give some of it to charity. Say a half?”

  “I’d say a quarter,” Oz said with a shrug.

  “We can rotate the charities we support, too. That way, I can actually tell my mum that we’re collecting for charity on weekends. That’ll get her off my back.”

  “Is she hassling you, then?”

  “Yeah. You know, chores and stuff. Especially lately.”

  “Money’s such a pain, isn’t it,” Oz said, with feeling. It was more a statement than a question. It had almost caused a permanent rift between him and Ruff and was a constant cause of headaches for his mum, who spent a lot of time trying to save as much of it as she could, only to have her efforts thwarted more often than not. Their “invisible roofers” were a case in point. She’d scoured the classified ads and the web, only to eventually find them through a posted-up advert in Mr Virdi’s greengrocery on Tricolour Street. The builders had sized up the job cheerfully and offered a very cheap quote, which had delighted Mrs Chambers, but two months later, there was no sign of them turning up. Meanwhile, the chimney was still leaking. “And I suppose Macy having a job doesn’t exactly help, does it?” He’d meant it as just a statement of fact, a vague attempt of support for Ellie. After all, she’d said as much herself. So, when he saw Ellie’s head shoot up and her eyes start brimming over, Oz felt the blood drain from his face.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it Macy? Is she all right?”

  “How would I know?” Ellie said tremulously. “She’s still away on her course, isn’t she?”

  “Is she?”

  “Yes.” she spat out the word and it was like a missile hitting a dam wall. To Oz’s utter amazement, all the words in Ellie’s head began pouring out in a single stream. “And I’ve had the bedroom all to myself for over a week and when I wake up in the morning Macy isn’t there fussing with her hair and asking me if she looks good in this or that and I’ve been looking forward to it because in a year or two that’s how it’s going to be and it isn’t anything like I thought it would be.” Ellie sniffed and fumbled for a handkerchief while Oz looked on in dumb horror. “Oh it’s great having all that room, and I can spread all my stuff out on her bed but I didn’t know that she read to Rhiannon every night or that she helped do her hair,” Ellie paused to look up, realisation making her slow down to a canter, “And of course Rhiannon didn’t want me, oh no, she wanted Macy and”—she sniffed again— “how was I supposed to know that I’d actually miss her?”

  Ellie buried her head in her hands and sniffed miserably. There were five kids in the Messenger family; Tristan was nineteen and away at university, then came Macy, then Ellie, then Leon, and little Rhiannon, who was just nine.

  “Is that what’s been the matter?” Oz said after a while. “With you, I mean.”

  Ellie nodded. When she looked up, her face was streaked with tears. “I don’t understand it. Tristan’s been away at Uni for almost two years, and I hardly miss him at all. And Macy’s a total pain, always borrowing my stuff and never putting anything back, and her half of the room’s a total sty. And look at me.” She shook her head. “I’m the blue belt in taekwondo. I’m the one that’s good at football and athletics. I’m the one that picks up the laundry from our bedroom floor. Why would Macy going away do this to me?”

  “Just happens,” said a voice from the stairwell. Oz looked up to see Ruff standing there looking very sheepish. “Came up to get your new password,” he said, eyebrows raised apologetically. He turned to Ellie. “When Gazzer went away to Uni, I kept waiting to hear him start playing Slipknot chords on the guitar or see him sprawled all over the settee with the remote doing a flick-through of fifty channels and never stopping on one for more than five seconds. Hated him doing both those things, but still missed them when he wasn’t there.”

  “So, you’ve been feeling like this for the last week?” Oz asked.

  Ellie nodded slowly.

  “You could have told us,” Ruff said.

  Ellie sent Ruff a scalding glance. “Really?With you playing the misunderstood teenager to the max?”

  Ruff flinched. “Better ring for an ambulance, Oz. I think Ellie just chopped my legs from under me.”

  Despite herself, a twitch of a smile wavered at the corners of her mouth.

  “So, okay, I am a buzzard gonk. I admit it,” Ruff said.

  “A total buzzard gonk,” Ellie said. She twisted the corner of her handkerchief into a unicorn’s horn for a few seconds before looking up at Ruff again. “Is that true? What you just said about Gazzer?”

  “Yeah. Still can’t believe I miss the git.”

  Ellie nodded. “Stupid, isn’t it? But it sort of makes me feel a bit better.”

  Ruff looked at Oz and made a sort of jerking movement with his head. Smiling, Oz got up and went over to Ellie.

  “You too,” he said to Ruff. “She doesn’t bite.”

  Ruff walked over to join them, and the boys sat either side of Ellie holding out a hand each for her to take.

  “Thanks for listening,” Ellie said.

  They sat in the sort of comfortable silence only really good friends ever experience, when all that needs to be said has been said and quiet is all that’s called for.

  After about half a minute, Ruff whispered, “So what is your new password?”

  Ellie let go of his hand and hit him in the chest, but it was just a playful thump.

  “You’re hopeless,” she said, but she was laughing quietly as she spoke.

  “Totally,” Oz agreed, grinning.

  Ten minutes later, Ruff was online with S and S, destroying whole worlds with gusto. Oz glanced out of the window and saw his mother’s car had returned while they’d been in the library.

  “Fancy meeting Rowena Hilditch?” Oz asked Ellie.

  “Uh, no, thanks,” Ellie said.

  “Oh, come on. Come down to the kitchen with me. I could do with some juice.”

  “Get some for me, would you?” Ruff said without looking up from the game.

  “Please, Ellie. If you’re with me, it’ll give me an excuse to get away,” Oz persisted.

  Ellie made eyes to the ceiling but followed Oz as he made for the stairs and almost collided with him as he turned back to speak to Ruff. “And when I come back, I’ve got something to show the both of you, so you’d better finish that level and tell S and S you’ll be signing off.”

  “Anything exciting?” Ruff asked, his eyes never leaving the screen.

  “Wait and see,” Oz said.

  In the kitchen, Mrs Chambers was spooning i
nstant coffee into two mugs, while Rowena Hilditch, in a balloon-sleeved shirt with pearl buttons on the sleeves and front, sat at the table scribbling on a pad and talking. “We’d keep it very informal, no more than twenty, perhaps thirty maximum.”

  “Twenty or thirty what?” Oz asked as he and Ellie breezed in.

  Mrs Chambers spun around, and for one split second, Oz thought he saw a kind of terrified relief flood her face at seeing him.

  “Didn’t know you were back,” she said.

  “Finished what we had to do in town and came back early. Ruff’s upstairs on the Xbox dreaming about your chicken and broccoli dijonnaise.”

  Mrs Chambers smiled indulgently.

  “Ozzie,” drawled Rowena Hilditch before her gaze raked Ellie, “how nice to see you, and is this young lady your very pretty girlfriend?”

  Ellie’s eyes flashed dangerously, but Oz saw her force a smile.

  “This is Ellie,” Mrs Chambers said. “She and Oz have known each other since they were babies.”

  Ellie stepped forward and held out her hand. “Hi,” she said.

  Rowena Hilditch shook it and kept her unblinking gaze on Ellie’s face. Oz remembered that gaze from the first time he’d met the woman, and again found himself wondering if it was some sort of challenge to see who would drop their eyes first. One thing Oz knew for certain: it wouldn’t be Ellie. There was a moment’s awkward silence until Mrs Chambers took a step forward and grabbed Ellie in a hug.

  “Ellie’s my surrogate daughter.” She smiled and kissed Ellie lightly on her hair.

  Oz went to the fridge and rummaged for the juice cartons.

  “Settled on the colours for the bedrooms, then, Mum?” he asked absently as he poured three glasses.

  “Ummm,” Mrs Chambers said uncertainly.

  “I think that a return to earth colours would be best,” Rowena cut in. “There’s a great need for emotional balance when we sleep. It’s an essential time for re-energising our life forces. We’ve decided that, when I move in, I’ll decorate my own rooms. Add a personal touch.”

  Ellie looked quizzically from Oz to Mrs Chambers.

  “Oh, uh, Rowena is a…therapist,” Oz explained. “Knows loads about rainbow healing and stuff like that.”

  “I’m helping Gwen deal with the negative issues in her life,” Rowena said. “And we’re making huge strides, aren’t we, Gwen?”

  Mrs Chambers nodded, but Oz couldn’t help notice that she turned back to making the coffee with a lot more enthusiasm than was really necessary.

  “In fact, so impressed is your mother with the results,” Rowena Hilditch purred, “that she’s agreed to kindly let me host a holistic healing soiree here at Penwurt in a few days’ time. Isn’t that fantastic?”

  “So, that’s what the twenty or thirty was about, was it?” Oz asked.

  “Exactly.A few interested potential patients and one or two of the more enlightened members of the press. I will give a talk and it goes without saying that my books will be available for purchase. I generally find I’m inundated with requests once people hear me speak.”

  “Where are you going to hold it?” Ellie asked. “The library?”

  Rowena Hilditch’s eyes widened dramatically. “Oh, no. Ozzie’s been showing me around, and there’s a much more atmospheric place than the stuffy old library. No, the dorm in the old orphanage is simply dripping with psychic energy.”

  “Is that what you are, then?” Ellie said. “A psychic?”

  Before she could answer, they all heard a loud cough, and everyone looked up to see Ruff in the doorway, beaming at them. It was all Oz could do to stop the laughter from bursting out of him, because inside that cough, he had distinctly heard the word “psychiatric.”

  “And this,” Mrs Chambers said, grabbing Ruff in a hug that was a tad firmer than usual, which suggested she’d heard Ruff’s scantily disguised cough too, “is Rufus Adams. The last of the three musketeers.”

  “All right?” Ruff said amiably.

  “Hello, Rufus,” Rowena said. “As I was saying, you are all welcome to come to my soiree. I like to educate young people on the importance of considering the world beyond science and our humdrum existence. Gwen has kindly agreed to provide refreshments.”

  “I’m definitely coming, then,” Ruff said. “Will there be Ouija boards and floating tables and stuff?”

  Rowena let out a high-pitched laugh meant to sound as if Ruff’s suggestion was hilarious, but the way her eyes narrowed menacingly gave the lie to that assumption.

  “Unfortunately not.I don’t believe in tricks or illusions. I take my work very seriously, Rufus.”

  “Right,” Ruff said, and then saw the juice cartons, and his concentration, precarious at the best of times, shifted focus in an instant. “Is that orange and cranberry I see? I lurve that stuff.”

  “What is she like?” Ellie said five minutes later, as they sat in the library with their juice. “She dresses like a steampunk tween, and ‘Ozzie’? What’s that all about?”

  “I did warn you,” Oz said.

  “Why’s your mum hanging around with her, anyway?” Ruff asked pointedly.

  Oz shrugged. “She’s writing a book. Knows loads about the Beast of Seabourne and stuff like that. She’s been doing research here on the Bunthorpe encounter. And what’s worse,” he added gloomily, “is that there’s a chance she may be renting some rooms.”

  “She’s writing a book about the Beast of Seabourne?” Ellie said, intrigued.

  “Yeah. It’s full of stuff about gypsy curses and full moons and guano like that.”

  “Wicked,” Ruff said.

  “It’s got dates and everything. Hang on, I’ve seen a draft copy somewhere. She’s asked Mum to read through it.” Oz pushed himself out of the armchair he’d sunk into and ran down to the drawing room. He retrieved a battered manuscript and threw it at Ruff as soon as he was back in the library.

  “Is your mum really doing rainbow healing?” Ellie said, with a frown.

  “Supposed to be. But I found the coloured tube thingies in a box under her dressing table the other day.” He cocked his head. “Funny, it’s like Rowena’s got her talons into Mum. We both know she’s barking, but she doesn’t seem to want to shake free.”

  “Says here,” Ruff said, peering at Supernatural Seabourne, “that the Beast killed ten people.”

  “Yeah, well you can divide that by three at least,” Oz said.

  “But it did actually kill someone, then?” Ellie said.

  “Yeah, and nasty stuff too, according to this,” Ruff muttered as he scanned the pages.

  Ellie had gone quiet, and her face took on a troubled look.

  “What’s up with you?” Oz said.

  “Well, it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? I mean Rowena Hilditch is here in Penwurt writing a book about the Beast of Seabourne, and you’re being accused of actually being it. I mean…”

  “You mean what?” Ruff asked, looking up from the manuscript.

  “That Rowena’s got something to do with the attacks?” Oz said, trying but not succeeding in keeping the derision out of his voice.

  “Well, yes,” Ellie said. “What if she’s like a double-bluff weirdo? I mean, she is a weirdo, obviously, but what if that’s just her cover? What if she really works for Gerber?”

  “I told you, Soph couldn’t find any connection between her and Gerber.” Oz said, frowning.

  “Maybe not, but…” Ellie hesitated, but seeing the other two glaring at her, finally blurted, “Well, we’ve underestimated Gerber before, haven’t we? I mean, look at the lab coats.”

  “So, you think Rowena Hilditch, under Gerber’s instructions, has brought the Beast back to life to frame Oz?” Ruff said. He was frowning, and Oz guessed he was struggling to follow the logic of Ellie’s suggestion.

  “I don’t know what I think. It’s just so…convenient somehow, that’s all,” Ellie said, sounding suddenly flustered.

  Oz sat back, desperately trying to get
his head around this new twist. Rowena Hilditch in cahoots with Gerber? It seemed completely mad, and yet… A new thought blossomed in his head. A memory of a JG Industries van, a woman, and a boy on a lead, trying to sniff him out.

  “What if it’s an auramal?” Oz blurted.

  “Come again?’ Ruff said.

  “What if what’s attacked Kieron and Pheeps is an auramal and someone is controlling it?”

  “You mean Rowena Hilditch?”

  Oz nodded. “I saw the bear auramal being controlled up at Sussex Street.”

  “But why attack Skinner and Pheeps?”

  “That’s the bit I can’t work out yet,” Oz said, his enthusiasm for his theory deflating rapidly as he ran out of answers.

  “Maybe she’s a cuckoo,” Ruff said.

  Ellie and Oz stared at him.

  “Rowena Hilditch, I mean. Cuckoos are brood parasites. Lay their eggs in other birds’ nests so their young get food and stuff for free. There’s this alien shape-shifter cuckoo in Caverns of Omega, and this alien gets to live with this family…” He saw their expressions. “Okay, but it would be a great name for her, though, wouldn’t it?”

  Oz frowned and then nodded. “Well, she is a parasite, all right…”

  “Cuckoo it is, then.” Ellie nodded.

  Ruff shut the pages of Supernatural Seabourne, obviously bored with it. “Right, what was it you were going to show us? I gave up on Level 7 of DPH because you promised me a surprise.”

  “Almost forgot.” Oz got up and grabbed some torches before going to the eastern wall of the library and pressing the alchemical symbols for essence, alum, soap, and tin. The wall clicked open, and Oz took them straight up to the room of reflection.

  “I came up here the other day. To get away from Rowena Hilditch, in fact,” he said. “And while I was here, I found this.”

  He showed them the iron firedog.

  “Lovely,” Ellie said with mock delight.

  “Looks like a constipated iron lion,” Ruff commented.

  Oz grinned. “Only kidding. What I wanted to show you was this.”

  He shone his torch onto the small crack in the wall panel and, using the tweezers he’d remembered to bring this time, eased out the letter. Oz waited while Ellie and Ruff read it, Ruff peering over Ellie’s shoulder in the confined space.