by Robin Jarvis
'Drop that, you savage little 'eathen!' he growled, seizing the girl by the wrist and shaking her brutally until the blade clattered from her fingers. Then, with a disdainful grunt, Jack Timms hurled her aside, and Edie went flying into one of the three trolleys that bore primitive surgical instruments.
'Timms!' a stern, highly-strung voice cried. 'What is the meaning of this? How did those urchins get in here?'
Tick-Tock assumed a guileless expression which looked ridiculous upon that iniquitous sinner's face. 'Don't rightly know, Sir,' he gargled piously. 'I'll get Mr Naggers to chuck 'em out straight'way, Sir.'
'Do so!' the stranger's voice commanded.
At once, a lean, weasel-featured man with a long nose let go of Miss Celandine and grabbed Neil by the collar. Hoisted from the sawdust where he had fallen, the boy spluttered, licking the lip that had split where Tick-Tock had struck him.
Dazed, Neil shook his head and gazed fearfully about the auditorium as Harry Naggers marched over to Edie, pulling both their madly-kicking figures from the room.
Jack Timms threw the children a filthy, gloating glance. 'Put 'em next door, 'Any,' he cackled to his confederate. 'I'll see to 'em meself, after.'
'As you say, Mr Timms,' the warder's whining voice replied.
With a wicked grin splitting his pitted face, Tick-Tock returned to the evil business at hand.
By the long table, a pallid, nervous-looking young man, wearing a leather apron, tersely barked an instruction and impatiently waved to the warders to bring Miss Celandine over. 'Be certain you restrain her correctly,' he ordered. ‘I don't want any accidents.'
'Don't you worry none, Sir,' Jack Timms' oily black voice promised. 'She won't be able to wiggle so much as a little toe when I've done.'
The jittery young surgeon turned to the distinguished group assembled on the benches, raising his voice above Miss Celandine's cries as the warders lugged her on to the table and set to with the buckles.
'My Lord Darnling,' he called, smiling ingratiatingly. 'I am honoured that you could accept my invitation at such short notice.'
An aristocratic-looking man, wearing a neatly pointed grey beard and full evening dress, tapped his pocket watch irritably. 'This procedure going to take long, Lawrence?' he asked with consummate arrogance. 'There are two hansoms waiting outside to take us back into town for the opera. Not expecting any more interruptions, I trust?'
'No, of course not,' the zealous doctor answered. 'I can commence immediately.'
Seated beside the bearded man, a plump woman, wearing a preposterously wide hat trimmed with black ostrich feathers, waved a perfumed handkerchief under her upturned nose and playfully wagged a lace-gloved hand at the surgeon.
'Who is your patient?' she inquired, peering over his shoulder through her opera glasses. 'One of your mental deficients?'
'Indeed, Lady Darnling,' he replied respectfully, 'But a murderess—one Mary-Anne Brindle. She killed a warder several nights ago. She is of no consequence—a hanging case, merely.'
Towed harshly to the anteroom with the dentist's chair, Neil cried out in horror as he heard those doom-laden words. 'No!' he yelled. 'You've got the wrong person. It's not her—can't you see that?'
'Pipe down!' Harry Naggers threatened.
But Neil was not intimidated. 'That isn't Mary-Anne Brindle!' he shouted. 'You're the mad one— you don't know what you're doing! Listen to me!'
Bundled roughly into the dim, windowless room, Neil caught a momentary glimpse of a large tray upon one of the other trolleys, and an abhorrent dread constricted his throat.
'They can't hurt her!' Edie boasted, shrieking so that Miss Celandine could hear. 'Don't worry, you'll be all right! They can't touch yer!'
Heedless of Mr Nagger's bruising grasp, Neil turned a drained face upon the girl and, when he spoke, his voice was tight and faltering.
'D...Didn't you see it?' he stammered.
Touched with his terror, Edie's eyes widened and her blood streamed cold in her veins. 'What?' she uttered.
'On that tray,' the boy replied, 'with the knives and saws. It was there—I saw it!'
Instinctively, Edie knew what Neil had seen and she shook her head in fierce defiance, lashing out at the man who held her with renewed vigour and desperation.
'Celandine!' she screeched. 'Celandine!'
But she could not escape from Harry Naggers' cruel arrest, and the girl screamed as she clawed and bit him.
'Edith!' the old woman's voice came squealing. 'I'm frightened. Where's Ursula and Veronica? Help me! Save me!'
'Gogus!' Edie cried at the surrounding walls. 'Where are you? Gogus—we need you. Celandine needs you!'
In the operating theatre, Doctor Samuel Lawrence blithely took the Spear of Longinus from the tray in his trembling hands and, at that same moment, Quoth's dying screech resounded throughout the building.
***
With the oil lamp lighting her way, Miss Ursula Webster hastened through the strangling gloom of the corridor, calling out her sister's name. Behind her, the raven's death call was suddenly silenced and she whirled around, terrorised and mortally afraid.
'No,' she breathed desolately. 'Too late—too late!'
A barbed pain ripped into her stomach and she fell to her knees. 'Celandine!' she shrieked. 'No! Celandine!'
A revolting guffaw boomed out through the passageway as Jack Timms rejoiced in his jamboree, and Miss Ursula buried her face in her hands.
Deep below the foundations of The Wyrd Museum, the withered vastness of Nirinel quaked and shivered and, from its arching magnitude, a cascade of blackened, stinking bark rained down into the chamber.
Outside, in the frozen night, the Victorian entrance to the museum shuddered within the thick layer of ice which sealed it. Upon its plinth, the bronze figure by the door quivered and shook as, over its graceful form, an ugly, jagged crack ruptured and split.
With a splintering crash the sculpture exploded.
Miss Celandine Webster, she who as Skuld had woven the tapestry of so many destinies, was dead.
Chapter 22 - The Journey to the Stair
Edie Dorkins' horrified screams cut through the gaslit gloom and the present surged in around her once more. With a final pop, the gas lamps slipped back to their own time and the dentist's chair dissolved into the dim dust. Filling the antechamber, three Egyptian sarcophagi congealed into solid existence. Then Harry Naggers' pinching grip disintegrated from her arms, and both she and Neil were free.
Storming from that cramped room, Edie fled into The Separate Collection, but Neil wavered before following. 'Quoth?' he called, certain that he had heard the raven's echoing cries. 'Where are you? Quoth?'
In the adjoining room, the caretaker stood as still as the broken statues down on the ground floor.
'Celandine!' Edie wept, sweeping the hair from her eyes as she searched. 'Celandine!' It was then that she turned to Brian and the grey-faced, stricken man managed the slightest of nods.
'She... she just turned up,' he mumbled faintly. 'Out of thin air. No, stay where you are—I don't think you should...'
Beyond the large screening case which contained the Eye of Balor, Edie Dorkins' shrinking gaze saw Miss Celandine Webster lying upon a long glass counter, with her arms hanging over the sides. The wrinkled, ruddy face that had lived with such sprightly animation was now forever stilled. She was wearing her favourite velvet gown once more, but now the colour was stained more intensely ruby than it had been for many years.
With faltering steps, Edie approached, then took the gnarled brown spade of the old woman's hand and kissed it, resting her cheek in its already cold palm. Tears drove clean tracks through the grime of her young, devastated face.
'In God's name, what happened?' Brian gasped. 'Where's Neil? Is he...'
Emerging from the shadows of The Egyptian Suite, his eldest son assuaged the caretaker's fears. 'I'm okay, Dad,' he said bleakly. Joining him, Neil wiped his eyes. He could see the velvet-robed figure lying upon
the counter and he sorrowfully hung his head.
'There was nothing we could do,' he breathed. 'He had it all worked out. She didn't stand a chance.'
A grotesque silence descended, in which the caretaker and his sons watched Edie stroke Miss Celandine's face and arrange her plaited hair about her shoulders. 'There,' she murmured softly in her ear. 'You'll be with Veronica now, 'aving jam an' pancakes, and you can dance as much as you want.'
Walking up behind her, Neil gently touched the girl's arm. 'Come over to the fire,' he said. 'Till the others get back.'
Edie shook her head obstinately. 'No,' she refused. ‘I can't leave Celandine on her own.'
A purposeful tread chimed upon the floorboards behind them and Miss Ursula strode in from The Egyptian Suite, her eyes glinting and her thin lips pressed bloodlessly tight.
Miss Ursula Webster was now the last surviving member of the three ancient Fates, and Neil hardly dared look at her for fear of what he might see in that gaunt, finely-boned face. Yet the monumental grief he had expected was not there. A dispassionate and rigid composure controlled the old woman's bearing, and her expression was as hard and opaquely unfathomable as the jet beads which adorned her evening dress.
Stepping aside to make way for her, Neil could not understand how she was able to maintain that outward aloof detachment, and the absurd thought struck him that perhaps she did not yet realise Celandine was dead.
But no, as she advanced, there could be no doubt. Behind that impassive facade, Miss Ursula's eyes were as windows to a torment that she could not begin to mask or deny.
'So,' she said in a level, mastered monotone, 'she is departed. I knew it would be so—I felt it. Our old foe has claimed another of the Royal House. A second defenceless victim has fallen in this madness.'
Running her fingers through her dirty blonde hair, Edie sniffed and said miserably, 'If I'd still've had me hood on I could've stopped 'em. Why didn't I take it with me?'
'Apportion no blame to yourself, Edith,' Miss Ursula consoled her. 'From the moment she stepped outside this room, Celandine was doomed. Have no doubt on that.'
'What... what should we do now?' Brian Chapman asked uncertainly.
The old woman's head reared and she pierced him with her spiking glance. 'Do you really desire me to answer that?' she demanded. 'Or would you rather have me respond to the true meaning so clumsily veiled behind your stumbling words. What you wish to learn is whether it is over and are you safe? Is that not correct?'
The caretaker fidgeted uncomfortably. 'Partly, I suppose,' he confessed. 'Are we?'
Casting about The Separate Collection, Miss Ursula waited before giving her reply. The impenetrable ice which obliterated the exterior of the windows was now forming on the inside of the glass, and long icicles were already tapering down from the sills. Around the perimeter of the room, upon the surfaces of those cabinets which stood furthest from the fire, stellular frost was sparkling, and a ghostly whiteness covered the panelled walls.
'No, Mr Chapman,' she eventually said. 'We are not safe—none of us. Do you not understand? By murdering my sister in here, albeit in the past, the agent of Woden has claimed this room as his own. There is also a new consideration which we must not forget.'
'What's that?'
It was Neil who answered. 'Jack Timms has the spear, Dad,' he said flatly.
'With that accursed blade he is able to cut through all our defences,' Miss Ursula admitted. 'He will not rest until he has slain us all, in especial Edith and myself.'
'But how did he get his scummy paws on it?' Edie demanded. 'It were in 'ere with us.'
Miss Ursula raised her eyebrows. 'How indeed?' she echoed. 'Did Mr Pickering not have it in his keeping?'
'Why isn't he back yet?' Neil murmured uneasily. 'Him and Quoth should have turned up by now. You don't think something's happened to them as well, do you?'
'Who can say?' Miss Ursula replied.
From the corridor outside, they suddenly heard the ghost hunter's anxious voice calling and Neil hurried to the doorway. In the absolute blackness beyond, Austen Pickering cried out in relief.
'Thank the Almighty!' he shouted. ‘I thought I was permanently lost in this blind warren. I didn't have a clue where I was, the passage seemed to go on for miles and I couldn't get my dratted lighter to work.'
Out of the shadows, Woden's prosaic disguise came ambling, a delighted but weary look established upon his face.
‘I couldn't find her,' he puffed, resting his hand on the boy's shoulder. 'And after I lost the other one, I never heard or saw a soul. Did you and the girl fare any better?'
Neil stared at him for a moment, fumbling for the right words, then drew him inside The Separate Collection.
'Miss Celandine's dead,' he told him squarely. 'Jack Timms got her. He made her take the place of Mary-Anne Brindle on the operating table and... well, you know how she died.'
An utterly convincing, mortified horror flashed across the ghost hunter's face as he lumbered into the room and surveyed the wretched scene.
‘I never really thought it would go this far,' he muttered. 'Even tonight I didn't believe... I'm so very sorry.'
Miss Ursula waved his condolences aside. 'My sister was killed by the spear that was in your charge, Mr Pickering,' she said archly. 'Would you inform me as to how the agent of Woden came by it?'
'The spear?' Mr Pickering blustered with accomplished surprise. 'But I left it by the fire, with the other exhibits!'
'Then our enemy's power is greater than my vanity believed,' Miss Ursula said. 'This room is no longer secure. We must abandon it immediately, before we are attacked again.'
'Where is there to go?' Brian Chapman asked. 'You told us nowhere in the building was safe and that this was our only hope.'
'So it was,' she answered severely, 'and see where that groundless hope has led us. My immortal sister is dead, cut open and butchered! Within this museum there can be no haven now—through his agent, Woden governs it completely'
'But we can't get outside,' Neil interrupted.
'Did I say that is where we are going?' Miss Ursula snapped. 'Did I?'
'Then where?'
'To the one place where no one, save the Spinners of the Wood and Edith, our adopted daughter, has ever set foot.'
Leaving Miss Celandine's side, Edie Dorkins traipsed to the fireside and retrieved her pixie hood. Pulling it down over her head, the girl glowered around at the confused faces of the others and, with a haughty declaration announced, 'We're goin' deep under the ground.'
'Are there cellars?' Brian asked. 'How will they be any safer than in here?'
Miss Ursula ignored him and clapped her hands urgently. 'We must go at once,' she commanded. 'Before Jack Timms returns. Hurry, let us depart, whilst we are still able.'
'But isn't it still dangerous in that corridor?' the caretaker demanded.
'It is just as deadly in here,' she informed him. 'Maybe more so, now that the room has tasted blood. At the very least we shall not be waiting for Woden's creature when he returns to murder us.'
'Stop a minute!' Neil objected. 'What about Quoth? He isn't back yet. You didn't hear him did you, Mr Pickering?'
The old man blinked mildly behind the thick lenses of his spectacles and, opening the same hands that had wrung the life from the faithful raven, lied, 'No—like I said, I heard nothing and no one.'
Neil frowned, his disquiet rising.
‘I sent Quoth to fetch you,' he told Miss Ursula,
'and haven't seen him since. I'm not going anywhere without him.'
The old woman regarded him strangely. ‘I heard your raven calling when I was out in the passageway,' she said. 'But there is no time for you to linger here. If he is still alive there is a chance we shall encounter him on our journey.'
'That's not good enough!' the boy protested. 'I'm not moving!'
'Mr Chapman!' Miss Ursula ordered. 'Make that maggot obey you. We must all leave at once! Those who remain will die!'
&n
bsp; Brian turned to his son. 'You heard that!' he said. 'No more nonsense.'
Holding on to their father's sleeve, Josh reached out to his older brother and implored, 'Please Neil, come with us.'
The boy closed his eyes in resignation. 'All right,' he whispered, despising himself.
Casting his gaze upon the gathered artefacts, Austen Pickering asked, 'What should we bring with us?'
'There is nothing here to counter and withstand the power of the spear,' Miss Ursula answered. 'Choose a sword if it will make you feel easier, but do it swiftly, we must be gone. Edith—lead the way!'
Remembering how useless the dagger had been against Jack Timms, Edie would not take another weapon. 'What about Celandine?' the girl cried. 'We can't leave her 'ere.'
Miss Ursula clasped her fingers about the golden locket she still wore and said, 'We must look to the living, Edith. When this night is done and the evil spent, then we may surrender to our bereavement and bewail her death. If I were to yield to it now, and reap in full the harvest of my grief, then I should not be capable of moving from this place and the Spear of Longinus would find me swiftly.'
Edie pouted unhappily, but she knew that Miss Ursula was right.
'Hurry!' the old woman told everyone. 'We must dare the perils which await outside if we are to gain the stairway. To the entrance hall we must flee, at all costs!'
With Edie first through the door, Miss Ursula ushered the others into the passage but, before joining them, looked one last time upon the body of her dead sister.
'Goodbye, Celandine,' her brittle voice called faintly. 'Forgive me, our merry little Skuld. This is the only way.'
With that, she strode from the room, and The Separate Collection, with its most recent and grisly acquisition, was left behind.
Down the dark corridor the group hastened, the beam of the ghost hunter's torch illuminating the narrow way. Keeping close to one another, they hurried along, two abreast, with Edie at the forefront.
Apprehensive and aching with concern for Quoth, Neil kept his eyes fixed firmly upon that bright, bobbing circle in front, searching and scanning the mouldering debris that littered the route in case a ragged black feather was caught in the glare. At each new turn he expected them to come across the raven's injured body. Perhaps Quoth had flown headlong into a wall and was lying sprawled and stunned somewhere.
