by Robin Jarvis
The oaken door closed behind him.
Mr Pickering frowned and shook his head. 'Can't,' he declined. 'I'm not ready for that room yet. Besides, it would spoil my schedule. I've mapped out a careful timetable of...'
'Your schedule!' Miss Ursula retaliated. 'Can it be you still do not understand? By this profane act, you have granted the very worst elements of my museum a liberty which places us all in jeopardy. There is no governing them now. The only arsenal we possess, with which we may hope to defend ourselves, lies within The Separate Collection.'
'But my work!' the old man spluttered.
'Your work be hanged!' she retorted, her eyes shining in her temper. 'It is irrelevant. Would you tinker and toy with the dead whilst the living are slaughtered?'
'Don't exaggerate. So far—'
Snatching up a gauntlet from the broken armour which littered the floor, Miss Ursula cast it across the room where it hit the panelling with a tremendous crash.
'Are you being deliberately obtuse?' she shrieked. 'How can I make it any plainer? This evening, when darkness falls, this building will become a battlefield—a treacherous, evil place. No one must walk alone in its galleries and corridors. Whatever you have experienced thus far will be as nothing to the horrors which we will undoubtedly be compelled to face.'
Austen Pickering fumbled with his fingers. 'Very well,' he said. 'I'll do what I can.'
'Miss Webster!' Neil interrupted. 'We won't be staying. Dad, Josh, Quoth and me—we're leaving today.'
The old woman turned on him. 'Then you had best depart at once,' she snorted, the suggestion of a smile lifting the corners of her mouth. 'Go now, whilst you are able, whilst the museum still permits it.'
'You don't mind?'
'Go, stay—it matters not,' she replied archly. 'Your petty family is unimportant. What care I if you remain or run?'
Stung by her harsh words the boy spun around and, with the raven cawing faintly in his ear, made his way back to the caretaker's apartment.
'You're a cruel old woman,' Austen Pickering berated her.
Miss Ursula crossed back to the stairs. ‘I am what my fortune made me,' she answered gravely. ‘I have no time for delicacies of feeling and the etiquette of the outside world. There is too much at stake here to indulge in such ephemeral refinement—far too much.'
And, sweeping her gown behind her, she ascended the stairs, with Edie and the ghost hunter following in her wake.
'Right,' said Brian Chapman when his son returned. 'Josh is all wrapped up and ready to go. Take some of these things and we'll start loading the van.'
From the stack of boxes and bin liners piled about the living room, Brian passed the smallest carrier to Josh whilst Neil grabbed a large cardboard crate.
'Won't be happy till we're on the motorway and this Godawful hole is way behind us,' their father ranted. 'I'll open the back door and we can nip through the yard.'
Stomping into the kitchen, the gawky man twisted the handle, but the door wouldn't open.
'It's not locked,' he mumbled in puzzlement, giving it another tug. 'What's the matter with it?'
Scowling and pinching the bridge of his nose, Brian Chapman gripped the handle fiercely and heaved with all his strength. But it was as if the door had been nailed into the frame. Though it juddered and rattled when he kicked and beat his fists against it, the barrier would not budge.
'What's wrong?' Neil asked.
'Can't move the ruddy thing,' his father replied in disbelief. 'Like it's glued in or something.'
Putting the box down, Neil ran to help him, but their exertions were in vain.
'Don't understand it,' Brian murmured. 'Think it's iced up?'
'I'm not sure,' Neil answered and a horrible dread clutched at his stomach. 'Let's go through the front way. That door's all right.'
Through the collections they went, with Quoth flying after them, until they reached the deserted hallway. Brian Chapman pulled impatiently at the oaken entrance.
'It won't shift either,' he cried. 'What's going on here?'
Nothing they could do would open the door even a chink and, watching them wrestle, Quoth let out an unhappy, rattling moan. But his master was not defeated yet.
'The windows!' Neil yelled, running into The Roman Gallery. 'They're big enough to climb through!'
Frantically, he tested the latches on each of the square Georgian windows, but they too were frozen to the frame. 'They're jammed shut!' the boy exclaimed, a note of desperation creeping into his voice.
Brian and Neil tried every casement without success, then they hurried to The Neolithic Collection next door and tried there.
'We can't get out,' Neil breathed in a horrified whisper, the truth of their predicament sinking in. 'We're trapped in here. The museum won't let us go.'
'Rubbish!' his father declared, rejecting the alarming notion. 'Well, there's only one course left to us now'
'What?'
'I'm going to smash the glass,' Brian announced. Removing one of his shoes, the caretaker tapped the heel against the nearest pane.
'You'll have to do it harder than that,' Neil told him.
Brian cast him a harassed glance then swung his arm back and brought the shoe crashing into the window. There was a shattering of impacted glass, but no glittering shards fell to the floor. Only a fractured white star radiated out over the window. Brian darted forward, incredulous.
Gingerly, he ran his fingers over the cracked square, but every piece of ruptured glass was held firmly in place by the thick ice which smothered the outside. Incensed and afraid, the man pounded and smote the window, but no amount of hammering could break through.
'It's sealed us in,' Neil murmured again, shuffling backwards. 'Dad, we can't get out.'
With a thud, the shoe fell from his father's hand and Brian Chapman staggered from the window, his bristled face ashen and scared. ‘I won't believe it,' he warbled. ‘I can't.'
'The sooner you do, the better it will be for us all,' a terse voice broke in. 'You are needed elsewhere. There is no time for this.'
Standing in the entrance to The Roman Gallery, Miss Ursula Webster watched them, her features set and severe.
'You knew this would happen!' Neil accused her. 'Haven't we done enough for you already? When are you going to leave us alone?'
‘I suspected this might occur,' she conceded, 'but it is not of my ordering. The museum can be a jealous and covetous creature. Yet I do wish you would make up your mind, Maggot. One moment you cannot bear the prospect of returning to your former, monotonous existence, then, as soon as the first flags of danger unfurl, you protest.'
Entering the room's unforgiving wintry light, Miss Ursula considered them with glittering eyes. When she resumed speaking, her voice was darker and threatening.
‘I warned you, this has become a dangerous place. It has been reigned and shackled for millennia, and the hazards can only increase now that it is unfettered and the sentinel is no longer capable of patrolling the corridors. That is why tonight we must all assemble in The Separate Collection.'
Brian waved his arms emphatically. 'Not a chance!' he exploded. 'We're going to get out of here.'
'The enemy of my sisters and I is the guiding will behind this rebellion,' Miss Ursula declaimed, 'and through his agent the museum is being controlled. Once this building has set its mind upon what it wants, there are few powers in this world capable of denying it. Certainly nothing you possess. Though you try all day—you will not be able to escape and only then, when the dark descends, shall you realise how foolish you have been. The time you ought to have spent preparing and arming yourself, you will have squandered.'
'You don't frighten me!' the caretaker warned her.
'Then you are more ignorant and idiotic than I ever envisaged,' she replied. 'Listen to your son, Mr Chapman; he will tell you. There is no secure haven down here. Only in The Separate Collection with us will you be safe, and even that is not guaranteed. Should you retreat into your apartment,
you will discover to your cost that it is no refuge. The untame, ravaging hosts will come and seek you out and in the morning—you will all be dead.'
‘I think we should do what she says,' Neil advised his father in a faltering voice. Standing upon the sill, staring at the impenetrable ice which coated the glass, Quoth nodded his bald head, croaking in ready agreement.
'How long for?' Brian muttered. 'How long are we to be prisoners in here?'
Miss Ursula showed her discoloured teeth in a grim smile. 'One night only,' she answered. 'This shall be the final contest between the Spinners of the Wood and the Gallows God. If we can survive tonight, and the dangers Woden hurls against us, I am certain that, come tomorrow, we shall all be free.'
Brian Chapman squeezed his eyes shut and surrendered to her. 'Nothing else we can do, is there?' he said in resentful resignation.
'Not if you wish to live. This is your only chance. For good or ill we are trapped here together and the darkest hours shall be the testing time for each of us.'
And, with those fateful words hanging in the air, she swished from The Neolithic Collection.
'Blood and sand...' the caretaker said feebly. 'I'll... I'll go get Josh.' Slipping his shoe back on, the man shambled off to the apartment and Neil turned a worried face to Quoth.
'We should have left last night,' he murmured and the raven cawed in desolation.
'Make haste,' Miss Ursula's voice called from The Roman Gallery. 'There is much to make ready before the comforting day is stolen from us.'
Quoth stepped on to Neil's proffered wrist and the boy moved away from the windows.
Through the ground floor they trailed, their hearts not daring to speculate what new terrors the night would bring. 'Do you think Mr Pickering knew what was under those steps?' Neil asked the raven. 'He was so determined to dig up that skull he wouldn't listen to anyone. But what could be his reason for doing it?'
Quoth could only lift his wings in reply.
'Maybe the museum itself made him,' the boy continued. 'Possessed him so that it could get rid of the stag. Oh, I don't know what I'm say—'
They had reached the entrance hall once more and Neil stumbled to a standstill.
'No!' he cried. 'Make it stop!'
Miss Ursula Webster was ascending to the first floor landing when she heard the boy's frightened outburst and the raucous shrieks of the raven that ensued. Her eyebrows raised in questioning surprise, she turned and retraced her steps until the hall was in view below her.
The caretaker's son had pressed himself against the wall. Distraught and shivering, his eyes were fixed upon the firmly closed entrance. At his shoulder, Quoth too was ogling into the gloom and, intrigued, Miss Ursula descended.
Crossing the parquet floor, she strode to the door. Then the look of fear which flashed across her face at what she saw there was instantly replaced by a desperate and censorious frown.
'More vandalism!' she remonstrated. 'This I will not tolerate. When you first arrived, did I not say how much I loathed schoolboy pranks?'
'It wasn't me and you know it,' Neil replied hotly.
'Who else?' she demanded, wringing her hands. ‘I will know the truth, Maggot!'
'What about your precious museum?'
'That cannot be,' she said quickly.
‘I don't see why not. It's capable of everything else.'
The old woman pressed her clasped hands to her breast. 'No,' she uttered, 'the museum would use weapons far worse than words, believe me.'
'Well, what about your sister? She's barmy enough—for all I know it might even have been you!'
Unexpectedly, the old woman winced at the suggestion that it could have been herself and she whirled away to conceal the doubt that crept across her face. ‘I am not so unhinged as to go scribbling upon the walls and doors,' she snarled, although the possibility alarmed and frightened her. 'Remember to whom you speak, child!'
And with a rustle of her gown, Miss Ursula Webster hastened away up the staircase.
Neil glanced at the oaken door one last time and gooseflesh rumpled his skin when he read the three terrifying words which had been freshly scrawled there.
The writing was no longer wavering and uncertain. Now the crayoned letters were firm and effected with a determined, resolute hand, which in itself was sinister and more menacing than before. Yet this time the message was no desperate plea, and the malice behind it was staggering.
Chapter 19 - Besieged by Death
Austen Pickering stared up at the brass plaque which gleamed above the doorway of The Separate Collection and steadied his nerves with a nip of brandy from his hip flask.
'Don't let it get the better of you, Austen old lad,' he buoyed his sagging spirits. 'Think of the article you'll get out of it. You could fill a book with this lot.'
Standing in the heavy shadows of The Egyptian Suite, he clicked his fingers to set his thoughts in order, then closed his eyes and stepped cautiously forward. A violent shudder rifled down his body.
'Like walking into a minefield!' the ghost hunter hissed through clenched and grinding teeth.
His face flushed with the strain, he tentatively made his way between the cabinets and broken statuary, hands outstretched to grope the empty air.
'I don't know where to begin,' he uttered breathlessly. 'So many powers, so many different forces, but all dormant—all waiting.'
'They are waiting for you, Mr Pickering,' Miss Ursula told him, following the old man from The Egyptian Suite. 'The artefacts assembled here are the cream of my collections. One of the principal reasons the museum was founded was that it should be a repository of those items too dangerous to be kept in the world outside. Here you will find objects and devices best unnamed and forgotten. To this place the torments of myth and ancient memory were brought, and safely have my sisters and I harboured them down the endless years.'
Lightly brushing the glass cases with her fingertips, the old woman inhaled the aged must which saturated the oppressive atmosphere, and her eyes gleamed with a gentle pride.
'In our custody they have remained these many centuries, Mr Pickering, and mankind has been unburdened with the knowledge of their existence. Yet now we must call them into our service. They must be roused and compelled to defend us. This, then, shall be your task. Before evening falls, use what gifts are yours and awaken the exhibits. They are our only chance in the trial that awaits.'
Opening his eyes, the ghost hunter straightened his back and considered her through the thick lenses of his spectacles.
'You never had the slightest intention of letting me conduct my proper work, did you?' he asked indignantly. 'This is the real reason you called me in. I've been playing your game right along, just so I could be here now to do exactly what you wanted.'
Miss Ursula turned away. 'I have granted you insights to more than you ever dreamed was possible,' she answered dryly. 'It is too late and rather ungracious to play the curmudgeon now. However, since our association commenced, events have taken a more drastic turning than I anticipated. If you fail this day, then we shall all join the ranks of those wretched phantoms you were so anxious to save.'
Haughtily lifting her sharp nose, she headed back to the doorway. ‘I must bring Celandine and instruct the others in what they must do,' she declared abruptly. 'Familiarise yourself with the exhibits, Mr Pickering. It is going to be one of the longest days of your life.'
Watching her depart, the old man shifted his glance to the surrounding room and cleared his throat.
'Right then,' he told himself. 'Come on, Austen old lad. Take no notice of that spiteful cat and just do your best. Rise to the challenge, that's the thing to do—it's all you can do.'
Whilst the ghost hunter examined the bizarre artefacts stored in The Separate Collection, Miss Ursula Webster appointed tasks to the others. Neil and Edie were ordered to fetch as many weapons from the other galleries as they could.
'Swords and shields may be as vital in this contest as any of the less tangi
ble defences,' she told them. 'But do not stray too far from one another. I do not feel there is much to fear before nightfall, although the museum may trick you with its old deceits and lead you through the maze of its being. Keep your wits sharp and your minds upon your duties. If you are not returned within two hours, I shall come searching.'
Grudging the company of Neil and Quoth, Edie Dorkins set off at a run and the boy hurried after.
Directing her gaze at Brian Chapman, the old woman charged him with the gathering of wood to build a fire in The Separate Collection.
'This unnatural cold will only become more intense,' she predicted. 'Bring anything that will burn—tables, chairs—anything!'
'And what'll you be doing?' the caretaker demanded.
'Seeking for ways to ensure we outlive the night,' she replied.
Throughout the morning the preparations were made. Neil and Edie ransacked the other galleries, taking swords and knives, removing helmets from suits of armour, and returned to The Separate Collection, dragging heavy shields behind them.
Having cleared the cabinets and cases from the centre of the room, Brian Chapman surveyed the space he had made. From the kitchen of the caretaker's apartment he had lifted the flagstones and dragged them all the way up here to form a resistant base for the fire.
'Just hope the boards underneath don't catch,' he murmured dubiously.
At his side, Josh was peering into the case which contained a row of dangling, shrunken heads and pulled a succession of mimicking faces, until his father called him away to assist in the hunt for wood.
'You come and help your dad,' he said. 'No, put that knife down. God's sake, Josh, will you stop messing around!'
'Don't shout,' Neil told their father. 'You'll scare him.'
Brian snorted. 'I wish that's all he had to be frightened of,' he said, leading his youngest son from the room.
By the time Edie and Neil had lugged in their third haul and dumped it by the doorway, the girl was already weary of her foraging partner and when he went to speak with the ghost hunter, she seized her opportunity and scampered off alone.
