Then, as if a dam had burst, she screamed. It was a noise full of desperate terror, which pierced the dusty air and sent the colossal crane fly that Soph was projecting into a frenzy of flight. It zoomed towards the pale grey window and then back into the dark depths of the room above the cowering woman. However, in the moment of its exposure, what was revealed was enough to terrify even the most committed of entomologists.
Two huge compound eyes glinted with an iridescent sheen; long antennae twitched with insectoid life. An elongated rostrum ended in sharp mouthparts, which clicked and snapped together like the jaws of a trap. Rowena Hilditch, too scared to take her eyes from it, staggered backwards against the wall and edged along it, her hand grasping for the door handle, whimpering and bleating like a wounded animal. The magnified crane fly hologram swooped and dived, soaring randomly around the room, getting closer to and then farther away from the woman in a spooky danse macabre. The Cuckoo clung to the wall, eyes darting, looking for the door but not finding it anywhere.
Oz’s question, when it came, sounded nothing like his own voice. Transmuted through Soph and transmitted from the shifting spectre, it emerged as a cracked and sibilant beyond-the-grave utterance, which caused the already-horrified Cuckoo to moan in dismay.
“Are you working for Gerber?”
The Cuckoo wailed.
“Answer me! Are you working for Gerber?”
“I don’t… Garbo? Who is Garbo? I don’t know any Garbo. Please,” she whimpered. “Please let me go.”
In Oz’s head, he heard Soph’s calm voice. “Pupils have remained dilated and blink rate has not changed. Likelihood of lying less than 0.5 per cent.”
In the shadows, Oz nodded. They’d all misread the signs. They’d suspected the Cuckoo and missed Skelton altogether and almost…almost paid the ultimate price. Penwurt did attract strangeness like a magnet, yet Rowena, AKA Karena, Hilditch could not have turned up out of pure coincidence.
“Who sent you to us?” asked the spectre.
“No one, I swear…”
“Who?” roared the voice.
“Lorenzo. Lorenzo put me onto you,” she quavered. “He said there was a haunted house and rooms to rent. He said there were rich pickings.”
Heeps.
Realization washed over Oz in a cold wave. He should have known nothing happened by chance when it came to the Puffers and Penwurt. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with sending a possible tenant who was researching a book on legends to a haunted house. No one would question that. But Heeps would have known what he was doing. He would have known that Rowena Hilditch was a fraud and a gold-digging, blackmailing monster. He would also have furnished her with all the intimate details it was impossible for a stranger to know unless she was…“psychic.”
Heeps would deny it when questioned, of course. Oz could visualize the horrified apologies delivered in that oh, so plausible, git-smarmy, crow-headed way of his. What better way to distract and preoccupy Oz than to make him fret about his mother? Blindside him, so as to let Niko do his beastly thing.
Nice try, but no cigar. Not this time.
The truth, unpalatable and despicable, was laid out before him. His mother had been duped, and so had he. Almost fatally.
But it ended here.
He let that thought be known to Soph.
Finally, with agonising slowness borne out of her desperation not to let the giant daddy longlegs out of her sight, the Cuckoo’s fingers closed around the doorknob. She twisted it, yanked the door open, and threw herself through. The noise of her footsteps clattering down the orphanage stairs was accompanied by a plaintive keening as she fled.
It was the sound of the front door slamming that brought Mrs Chambers into the hall. She hurried to the door and stood there with Oz, glimpsing the back of the red-haired woman as she ran headlong along Magnus Street.
“What did you do?” Mrs Chambers asked, more in wonder than accusation.
“Rowena doesn’t like daddy longlegs,” Oz said. “Me and Soph just reminded her of that fact.”
“Think she’ll be back?” Mrs Chambers asked, a little trill of hope in her voice.
“I doubt it,” Oz said. “Let’s pack up everything of hers and get it couriered back to wherever she’s from. Oh, and I’ve thought of a way to sort out the chimney. We haven’t actually paid anyone anything yet, have we?”
“No. Why? You and Soph fancy having a go?” Mrs Chambers smiled, and it lit up her face.
“No, but I know a man who does.”
Chapter 25
The Medals
Half an hour later, Oz, fed and by now very tired, lay on his bed, contemplating a snooze. He was exhausted after the previous night’s trials, but sleep wouldn’t come, because the video playing in his mind’s eye was a version of what might have happened if Soph hadn’t been with them and stopped Skelton from… Oz shivered. He had no doubts at all Skelton would have carried out his threat and killed Ellie and Ruff. He turned over on his bed and opened his eyes to try and banish the images. His gaze fell on the old fire-blackened box of medals his mother had given him.
Desperate for something to distract his imagination, he sat up in bed, reached for the box, and opened the lid. The three medals sat pinned neatly on their blue silk cushion. He remembered the Cuckoo’s dismissal of them and frowned. His mother had said his dad had wanted him to have them when he was old enough to appreciate them. Maybe now was as good a time as any.
Oz picked up the bronze cross. It reminded him a bit of the badge that the St John’s ambulance people wore on Sunday mornings at football matches. What were these all for, he wondered? Without any prompting, Soph appeared at his side.
“So these belonged to my great-great-uncle. Can you tell me a bit about him, Soph?”
“Evan Evans was a corporal in the South Wales Borderers during the First World War. What you are holding is the Victoria Cross.”
Oz looked up as a vague memory stirred. “I thought that they were only given to people who did really brave stuff.”
“Corporal Evans was very brave. The other two decorations are the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Médaille militaire, which is a French decoration, for attacking a machine gun post single-handedly.”
Oz looked at the medals with a renewed awe. “Did many people win this Victoria Cross, then?”
“It was awarded only six hundred twenty-eight times during the Great War, which lasted four years.”
“How old was he?”
“Evan Evans was twenty at the time of the battle.”
Oz looked up at Soph’s calm face. “Wow. I suppose the easy thing to do would have been not to attack that machine gun post and for him to have kept his head down, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, Oz,” Soph said.
“But he chose not to do that.”
“Evan Evans was one of the most highly decorated soldiers of the war. He was severely injured two months later and discharged with honour.”
“My great-great-uncle,” muttered Oz, and for some unfathomable reason felt moisture prickle his eyes. He wiped it away with his index finger and took a deep breath. It helped. “Looks like doing things the hard way runs in our family, doesn’t it?” he murmured. Soph didn’t answer.
He was still examining the cross when he got a text from Ruff. Oz pushed himself off the bed, went to his laptop, and waited for Ruff to Skype.
“First of all,” Ruff said from the screen, “Dad says he’ll be round to look at the chimney tomorrow. And he says thanks…a lot.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank the leaking chimney. Mum is kicking herself for not thinking of him in the first place.”
“Yeah, well, lots of people still think of Dad as the maintenance man from Brocket’s. He’s had to start from scratch in the building trade. But he’s good at it. I know he is.”
“Was that all you called us about?” Ellie said, appearing online and sounding a bit annoyed. “I was about to eat a sausage casserole—”
“Th
e Bane thingy,” Ruff said, interrupting her. “I know what it is.”
“Really?” Ellie’s eyes lit up.
“Yeah, I was playing Return to Death Planet Hub online with S and S—”
“Thought they were skiing.” Ellie said.
“Ever heard of the Internet?” Ruff said, shaking his head as if Ellie had just asked whether fish could dig tunnels. “Anyway, I happened to mention it and…” He let his sentence dangle for effect.
“Spit it out, will you,” Ellie snapped.
“Guess what the RPG JG Industries are launching with the SPEXIT is called?”
“RPG?” Ellie asked.
Oz giggled. If Ruff rolled his eyes any further, they’d be looking at the back of his skull. “Role-playing game.”
“Flopsy and Mopsy Go Walkies?” Ellie offered, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
“Damnosa Hereditas,” Ruff announced, ignoring her sarcasm.
No one spoke for ten seconds.
“In case your Latin’s a bit rusty,” Ruff went on, “damnosa hereditas means ‘the accursed inheritance’ or—”
“It’s bane, isn’t it?” Ellie cut across him.
“Yeah,” Ruff said. “And every kid in the country will have one. If what Skelton said is true…”
He didn’t have to say any more. They all knew what the implications were. They’d seen at firsthand what Gerber’s neuro-programming had done to Niko.
“What can we do?” Ellie said.
Oz hadn’t said a word since Ruff announced his discovery, but his brain had been buzzing. He was remembering something Caleb had said to him about how different things might have been without the artefacts. Oz knew he could do nothing about what had already happened, but he could do something about what was to come.
“We could get rid of them,” Oz said thickly. “If we threw the artefacts into the sea, we could be sure Gerber couldn’t get them. Maybe it’s the safest way.”
“You can’t be serious…” Ellie began, but her words faltered when she saw the look on Oz’s face.
“You mean, actually get rid of Soph?” Ruff blurted. “But what would be the point? Gerber wouldn’t know. He’d still be after her.”
“We could video it. Post it online.” Oz glanced around at the avatar. She was standing just behind him, as implacable and patient as ever. An iron band tightened around his heart. She was his link to everything to do with the artefacts. The key to finding out what had happened to Morsman and Worthy and, most importantly of all, to his dad. Was he really suggesting they lose her and never learn why his father had died?
He turned back to look at his friends’ faces on the screen. He knew that they, like he, were unable to forget Skelton on that mountainside. They, like he, could still hear him gloat, could still see the disdain in his eyes. But Oz could not forget the desperation he’d seen in his friends’ faces, too. The horror that came with knowing they were going to die and could do nothing about it. Oz couldn’t stand the thought of ever seeing that look again.
“But throwing Soph into the sea is like…like giving up. It’s like sitting back and watching Gerber and doing nothing,” Ruff protested. “And if we do nothing, then…”
Ellie was glaring at Oz so fiercely that, even though it was only on a computer screen, he had to look away. “He’s only suggesting that to protect us, aren’t you?” she said eventually, her lips as thin as thin ever could be.
“It’s not you Gerber wants,” Oz said, anger making his voice crack. “It’s me! It’s always just me. It has nothing to do with you.”
“That may be true. But that doesn’t give you the right to decide if we want to help you or not. That’s our choice.” There was ice-cold anger in Ellie’s every syllable.
Into Oz’s head flashed an image—a dark, blasted landscape, pierced by the staccato cracks of a machine gun spewing out death. Below, a trench full of terrified soldiers prayed for deliverance from a living hell. But on one blurred face he saw anger and the need for action bubbling up through the fear. For a moment, he wondered if Soph had anything to do with what he was seeing, but an instant later, the image disappeared like so much morning mist and he was looking back at Ellie and Ruff on the screen and shaking his head in despair. They’d been threatened by mad collectors and almost killed by Gerber’s agents, and still they wanted to be a part of all this.
“You can’t throw Soph into the sea, mate,” Ruff pleaded. “I mean, she’s brilliant, she’s smart, and…she’ll drown.”
They all knew she wouldn’t drown. That she couldn’t drown because she was just a machine, yet the plaintive note in Ruff’s voice told Oz that, of course, she was not just a machine. Not to any of them. Not anymore. The other two were looking at Soph behind him, but Oz daren’t turn around to look at her. He was scared he might simply implode.
“Okay,” Oz said, his voice thick with some emotion for which he had no name. “Then the only way to stop Gerber is to find the pendant and fight back. Maybe if I—”
“I?” Ellie seethed. “Soph, before we chuck you into the Atlantic, can you X-ray his head to see if there’s anything at all useful inside there amongst the straw and cotton wool?”
Oz tried again. “It’s just too dangerous for—”
“You? Yeah, you’re dead right,” Ruff cut across him. “And you know why? Because you wouldn’t last two minutes without us.”
“Who is going to watch your back when Skinner comes back to school?” Ellie demanded.
“He knows it wasn’t me—”
“And who is going to come up with the next big idea, like talking to Eldred?” Ruff said with a full-on glare.
“Excuse me?” Ellie said, bristling. “That was my idea.”
“All right, all right, Clever Clogs,” Ruff said. “You get my point.”
They glared at Oz from the screen, and all he could do was exhale loudly. It was no good. He shook his head again and tried to swallow, but his mouth was water-biscuit dry. Even if he could find the words to argue, he could certainly not deliver them. Despite the Cuckoo and Skelton and all the dreadful things that had happened, Ellie and Ruff weren’t going to be put off.
Finally, he gave in to it. Unable to help himself, he broke into a rueful, grateful grin. There was no point fighting them or the glowing rush of gratitude that seemed to be spreading through him from a point just behind his sternum. Much as he hated to admit it, with Soph and Ellie and Ruff on his side, Gerber had better watch out. If Evan Evans could ambush a machine gun nest alone, what could the four of them do together? Oz’s grin transformed into a full-blown steely smile.
“You’re both as bonkers as Bendle, you know that?” he said.
And in an almost perfect imitation of the weird harmony thing S and S did so irritatingly often, Ellie and Ruff suddenly looked from Oz to Soph and said together, “Totally!”
The End
Acknowledgements
Writing is a marathon, not a sprint. With The Beast of Seabourne, we’re just past the four-mile marker in the race to the end of the artefact quintet. I am indebted to the many people who have helped me prepare and who provide sustenance and cheers when I am flagging. There are many, but I will mention a few.
Lisa Amowitz for her cover design (again), Mel Bartleby and Danielle Rock, my supportive and enthusiastic beta readers and big picture ‘gaff’ spotters, Owen Dean, Sunder Addams and the two Richards (Storrs and Shealy) for polishing off the rough edges. Everyone at SHP for keeping the faith and for Vikki Ciaffone for allowing it all to happen.
Many writers have helped. All have been read and gone through the mincer that is my brain to imbue me with admiration and enthusiasm. In particular, Alan Garner, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury and JK Rowling were great inspirations as I toiled.
About the Author
Rhys A Jones was born in 1955 and grew up in a mining village in South Wales with his nose in a book and his head in the clouds. He managed to subdue his imagination long enough to carve out a career in medicine, writing when
ever the chance arose.
In 1994, writing as Dylan Jones, he published his first thriller for adults, Thicker Than Water, which was subsequently made into a film by the BBC.
A growing desire to move away from adult thrillers and write for children is what currently preoccupies him.
The Obsidian Pebble is the first book featuring Oscar Chambers and the ‘haunted house’ he and his mother have inherited. Rhys A Jones has three grown up children and lives in darkest West Wales with his (very) understanding wife.
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