Redwar’s angry but wheezing retort sounded from the grounds outside. “Two weeks, Merrynether . . . Two weeks!”
After a long sigh of relief, she replied, “Obnoxious oaf.”
“That was Argoyle Redwar? The man who owns that massive factory behind Ringwood Forest?”
“Quite so, Joseph, but please don’t concern yourself with that unfortunate conversation. It was most unprofessional of him to approach me like that.”
Joe was about to ask what it was all about anyway when Mrs. Merrynether’s expression suddenly sharpened. She glanced about and waved a fist. “And you’re not helping matters either, Lilly. Making Mr. Redwar angry will only make things worse.”
“Ah, stoff ’im. If ’e comes back again, oi’l climb up ’is trouser leg and boite ’is—”
“So, Joseph,” Mrs. Merrynether said, “this is your second week in my service. I’m very pleased to see that you’ve returned. Are you ready for the next list?”
Joe measured her expression. Either she had an expert poker face or she suspected nothing about the events of last Sunday. Whichever, he decided it would seem suspicious if he didn’t at least ask about Redwar’s antagonist.
“Mrs. Merrynether, who’s Lilly?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, dear, I was so hoping to avoid this . . . See what you’ve done, Lilly?” She stabbed a finger toward Joe while addressing the ceiling. “One more word out of place, and I’ll set Archy on you.”
The cluricaun remained silent.
With a satisfied shrug, Mrs. Merrynether returned her attention to Joe. A curious twinkle flashed in her eyes. Her look stretched into a gaze and then to a penetrating stare. And all the while, as Joe’s vision tunneled on Mrs. Merrynether’s face, the strange sense of premonition he experienced when he first met her returned with all the mystique of a long lost destiny tapping at the edge of his soul.
“Tell me, Joseph, do you think you are special?”
The question jolted him but not enough to dampen the atmosphere.
“Isn’t everyone special?”
“Ah, yes. But there’s special and there’s . . . special. Do you think you’re special?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, to be special you have to think you’re special. Some people will say that you’re arrogant if you dare to think of yourself that way, but did you know, Joseph, that to be special is a choice? That’s all it is.”
Joe smiled.
“I’m perfectly serious. Do you know what an epiphany is?”
Joe shook his head.
The old woman gently placed her hands upon his shoulders. Her voice lowered almost to a whisper. “Then I’ll tell you. There comes a time in a person’s life when that choice to be special hits them square between the eyes. It’s a wonderful moment but a terrible moment too. Most people look away and go back to their boring lives, frightened of what might happen, but some people . . . some people seize that moment and see life for what it really is. That’s an epiphany, Joseph.”
She paused, squeezing his shoulders a little tighter. “You’re a little younger than most, but I have a feeling about you, and I’m giving you the chance to seize the moment right now. How do you feel about that?”
Joe was breathless and more than a little taken aback. He had no idea what she was talking about, but with such an overwhelming sense of fate and curiosity tugging at his innards, Joe knew there was only one choice to be made. “You mean right now, as in . . . right now?”
“Most certainly. I think you can be trusted, and I know Lilly likes you.”
“Do not!”
Joe ignored the voice. “Here?”
“Not quite. As a matter of fact, it’s through a door in my cellar. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then follow me.”
And with that, Mrs. Merrynether took one of Joe’s hands and led him out of the room.
Instinctively, Joe knew exactly where they were heading.
FOUR
Fragrances, whether foul or fair, often have the effect of bringing past events to the forefront of one’s thoughts with startling clarity. That was exactly the experience Joe had when he stepped back into Mrs. Merrynether’s cellar. Anxiety and wonder wrestled within him as he breathed the same peculiar odors that greeted him the first time he set foot there.
Mrs. Merrynether muttered curses over a set of rusty keys as she hunched before the ominous red door. Joe glanced around, reacquainting himself with the cellar, and his gaze settled on the wooden cage at the center of the room. It was empty. He knew it would be, but the clear evidence that he’d aided the escape of a mad Irish midget knotted his stomach. A fresh impulse to come clean about his part in the affair ballooned within him but was quickly deflated by an exclamation from the old woman.
“Ah! Here we are. Key nine—always forget.”
She inserted the key, turned it, and opened the door. A set of stone steps, at least forty of them, beckoned them farther underground and Mrs. Merrynether led the way in silence to another red door. With her fingers on the handle, she paused and looked at Joe over the top of her spectacles.
“Your epiphany awaits. Are you ready?”
“I—”
“Too bad if you aren’t. It’s coming anyway.” And without delay, she pushed the door open to reveal not a cupboard or a storeroom but a huge vault, much larger than the cellar they had just left. Merrynether walked in, stepped to one side, and watched Joe with obvious anticipation.
Joe edged inside, slightly stooping, mouth agape and eyes wide as though he had stepped onto holy ground.
Stone walls, almost hidden by a vast array of shoddy crates, tall cages, and a host of old unfamiliar machinery, stretched out far ahead of him. At regular intervals along the vault, dusty shafts of sunlight filtered through latticed hatchways in the high ceiling, providing just enough illumination for a number of large pens. Joe caught teasing glimpses of shuffling shadows within most of them, but the enclosure closest to him was what really captured his attention.
It was the size of a small garden. Turf, grass, wildflowers, and ornamental rocks decorated it, and there was even a quaint water feature trickling a gentle melody at the back. It was exactly the sort of sculptured display Joe had seen at a zoo he’d visited recently with his school. The animal on display in Merrynether’s vault, however, was a completely different matter.
At first Joe thought he was looking at a tiger or a lion leaning against a pile of hot water bottles, fast asleep. But that, Joe realized, was his mind’s instant attempt to make sense of what he was looking at; this beast was nothing like either of those animals. Sure, it had a silky coat and, yes, a large head with a shaggy mane, but most tigers have golden fur with black stripes. This beast’s coat was dark red, mottled with black rings of various sizes, and glistened with a curious waxy sheen. But most of all, tigers are not usually known to have a set of enormous crimson-feathered wings.
A surge of excitement, starting from his toes and ending as a buzzing sensation tickling his scalp, caused Joe to suck in a long faltering breath. Discovering a cluricaun the previous week was astonishing enough, but somehow that tiny man with his thick Irish accent and human characteristics still seemed like something that could be explained away—like someone you’d see in the Guinness World Records or maybe at a carnival. But this? Whatever Joe was staring at now had trespassed well over the line separating fantasy from reality.
As if sensing Joe’s awe, the creature lifted its head from its grassy pillow and looked directly at him. Joe’s first impression was of a cat waking lazily from a long sleep to make a halfhearted attempt at detecting what sort of noise had woken it. But Joe’s breath halted in his lungs when he saw its features. The face, sharing the deep red tone of its fur, had undeniable human qualities. Nose, lips, ears, even the structure of its cheekbones and chin—all looked human. Even the eyes, though distinctly yellow with slitted catlike pupils, had a human quality about them—a hin
t of intelligence not normally seen in the expression of animals. The teeth, on the other hand, were not so human in form. The creature yawned, unhinging a set of interlocking fangs that looked like they could rip through a car and then chomp on it as if it were a Gummy Bear. For several seconds, the creature proudly displayed the depths of its cavernous throat. A curious melodic sound gargled outward, as if it had swallowed a drowning opera singer. After a lick of its lips with a black, forked tongue, it snapped its mouth shut and stared nonchalantly at Joe.
“He’s a little worse than yesterday,” said Mrs. Merrynether. “By this time, he’s usually pacing around his pen expecting his supper.”
“Oh,” was all Joe could manage.
“Yes, in fact he hardly ate a thing yesterday. If I can’t diagnose his problem soon, I have grave concerns about my ability to treat him at all.”
The creature flopped its head down, releasing a deep sigh.
Mrs. Merrynether walked to the wall next to the pen and pulled on a length of rope. A metallic rumbling sounded from nearby, and through a hatch in the roof, several lumps of raw meat came tumbling out.
“Cornelius?” called Mrs. Merrynether. “Din-dins.”
The beast didn’t even lift its head. Instead it swooshed its long tail through the air as if annoyed by the disturbance and thwacked it down to the ground, sending up a spray of earth. Joe took a step back when he saw why the tail had made such a hard thump in the turf. Rather than a fur tip, the tail ended with a brown, pinecone-shaped growth, barbed with hundreds of long white needles.
“Mrs. Merrynether,” said Joe, finally finding his voice. “What is that?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said with a sly smile. “This species is known as Antathalicus respudicus Nimbrosii—better known to the world of mythology as . . . a manticore.”
“Manticore,” whispered Joe, not taking his eyes from the wonder before him.
The beast unfolded a wing and scratched its rump.
“Is it—?”
“Dangerous? Oh, goodness me, it’s positively lethal. How do you think this happened?”
Still unable to tear his gaze from the creature, Joe was vaguely aware of Mrs. Merrynether lifting her bandaged arm. He took a step back from the enclosure and could feel the old woman’s stare tunneling into the side of his head, scrutinizing him.
An unexpected euphoria flooded through Joe like ice water.
“How are you feeling?” the old woman said.
Joe’s attempt at an answer erupted in the form of a delirious chuckle.
“Well, good. I’m pleased to see you aren’t disappointed. I reacted much the same way when I saw my first . . . beastie.”
Joe finally turned his attention away from the manticore. “You mean there are more of these?”
“Well, I certainly hope so. I wouldn’t want Cornelius to be nursed back to health to spend the rest of his life in solitude.”
“But didn’t you say it was dangerous? How are you supposed to help something like that? It’s got claws bigger than a bear’s. How come it didn’t kill you?”
Mrs. Merrynether walked to the enclosure. Her good arm reached through the bars. Looking away from the creature to stare confidently at Joe, she patted, stroked, and scratched the beast’s side.
The singing noise gargled from somewhere inside the manticore as it unfurled a wing to expose more of its underside and receive Mrs. Merrynether’s affection.
“Ah, well, that’s the question, isn’t it, Joseph? Do you remember why you came to me in the first place?”
“I found an injured badger.”
“Yes, but what convinced you I could help?”
“I found your name mentioned in Mr. Wheeler’s veterinary directory.”
“Go on.” She turned back to the manticore.
“Something about the Merrynether Technique.”
“Exactly,” she said, selecting a large chunk of meat from the grass and waving it near the beast’s jaws. “And I suppose a curious boy like you wants to know exactly what that is, don’t you? Care to have a guess?”
Joe thought for a moment as he watched the creature lift its head and test the meat with its leathery tongue. It raised its huge paw and, with a tenderness that surprised Joe, gently pushed Mrs. Merrynether’s arm aside. The beast and its keeper stared at each other through the bars. The look in the animal’s eyes was more than an instinctual plea for help, and Mrs. Merrynether’s expression revealed something deeper than sympathy. There was a profound understanding between them.
“Are you . . . Can you read its thoughts?”
“No.” She seemed distant, distracted. “But you’re very close. You might call it a heightened gift of empathy. I have a finely tuned instinct when it comes to diagnosing illnesses. Sometimes, on a good day like today . . . I can feel what they feel.”
Joe stayed silent, watching the strange connection between woman and beast.
“Cornelius is dying.” She sighed, withdrawing from the enclosure. “He has a powerful poison in his bloodstream that seems to be increasing in volume every day, and I have no idea where it’s coming from.”
“Perhaps it’s the food?”
“No. That was our first thought, but his diet has been thoroughly tested. It isn’t that.”
“I wish I could help.”
Mrs. Merrynether smiled ruefully. “Cornelius may be beyond our help.” She lifted her chin, forcing a wider smile. “But next week I have a very special guest coming, and I will most certainly need your help then.”
Joe opened his mouth to ask the first of a long list of questions, but he was distracted by a tall, stooping shadow emerging from the far end of the vault. It spoke with a slight German accent as it strolled toward them. “This is the fourth time in a week, Ronnie. We will have to find a new place for the wine, or we will have none left by . . . Oh, I am so sorry, I did not realize you had company.”
Joe gawped at the man who appeared from the shadows. At least seven feet high and burly enough to bulge through his long, black overcoat, he dwarfed Mrs. Merrynether like a vulture looming over a shrew. In one hand he held a bucket filled with scraps of meat, and in the other was a large wooden chair carved into the form of interlocking swans.
Immediately after the man made eye contact with Joe, his pockmarked face twisted into an expression of alarm, as if he had just remembered something terrible. The bucket crashed to the floor, spilling its morbid contents onto the concrete, and the man shrank away, fumbling for the hood at the back of his coat. It took several painstaking seconds for him to cover his aged features but not before Joe saw why he tried to hide them. One side of the man’s face looked raw and scarred, horribly disfigured by what must have been a fire.
“Oh, Heinrich, forgive me, I should have warned you. This is Joseph Copper—the boy I told you about?”
Heinrich had stepped back into the shadows, one hand desperately holding the hood across his face, the other hand still clutching the chair. “Joseph Copper?”
“Yes. Or you can call me Joe.” Joe edged forward. “It’s all right . . . I saw you. And I don’t mind. Honestly.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Do you mind me asking what happened?” Joe cursed his curiosity for the hundredth time. That was not the wisest thing to ask under the circumstances.
“It was a very long time ago . . . I—”
“He was trapped in a . . . in a forest fire,” Mrs. Merrynether blurted.
“A forest fire? Was it Ringwood Forest?”
“No.” Mrs. Merrynether turned quickly to the cowering man, who tentatively lowered his hood while staring apprehensively at Joe. “What was it you were saying, Heinrich? The wine? We’re running out?”
“Yes. It must be Lilly again.”
“Lilly?” asked Joe. “The person who was shouting at Redwar earlier?”
“Yes, that’s him,” said Mrs. Merrynether. “He escaped about a week ago, and he’s been causing havoc every day since then. Stealing
wine, teasing Cornelius, shouting at night—”
“Making chairs,” Heinrich interrupted.
“Making chairs?” Mrs. Merrynether balked.
“Yes.” The huge German lifted the chair for her to see. “Making chairs.”
She squinted at it. “Goodness me! Where did that come from?”
“I think it’s been made from one of the old wine racks.”
“That little . . . Heinrich, are you quite sure you locked his cage door? It wouldn’t be the first—”
“I swear it wasn’t me! He must have picked the lock.”
“And how did he do that, hmm?”
“Perhaps he made himself a key?” Joe offered, feeling the sickly guilt stir little circles in his gut.
Mrs. Merrynether released a deep sigh and turned back to the manticore. “Well, however it happened, it’s history now. What matters is Cornelius. Unless I find an antidote to the toxin in his blood, I don’t believe he’ll last another week.”
“I cannot believe it.” Heinrich shook his head. “He is so young.” He set the chair in front of the enclosure.
“How old is he?” Joe asked.
“Sixteen in human years; eight in manticore years,” Mrs. Merrynether answered, sitting in the chair.
“How do you know?”
“Several ways. Manticores grow a second set of teeth in their fifth year; plus there are subtle changes to their markings. And I’m also told that you can tell their exact age by their tails.”
“Their tails?”
“Yes. See the tip of his tail there?” She pointed. “Manticores are ferocious carnivores, and they shoot those quills at their prey to capture them. And, much like domestic cats, they’re obsessed by routine, so they feed according to a precise schedule. One kill every three months as soon as they’re able, which is not long after they’re born.”
“I get it. So you can tell how old they are by counting how many quills they have.”
“Exactly, yes, but it’s an arduous task. There are so many.”
“Can you get Cornelius to show me his tail?”
The Beasts of Upton Puddle Page 4
