“Hold on, Mrs. Hedley,” said the officer. “It sounds like this lad knows something.”
She let go of him.
Graves was still talking. “Scared the bejeezus out of me. I’m tellin’ you, boy, the sooner I get out of this job, the better. The Duggan boy—he’s my ticket out of Clarkdale. His old man works for Redwar Industries, you know. Head of security, he is. He’s going to get me a nice little cushy job at the gatehouse . . .”
Graves, obviously still in shock, rambled on, but Joe had seen enough. The groundskeeper wasn’t seriously hurt, but . . .
“What’s your name, son?” said the officer.
“Joe . . . Joe Copper.”
“So it sounds like you’re another eyewitness to this creature. Are you prepared to make a statement?”
Joe looked at the officer and thought about his promise to Mrs. Merrynether. Her future depended on his next words, but so did the safety of the village. Joe took a deep breath before deciding on his answer.
EIGHTEEN
Each tick of the clock accused Joe of betrayal.
Tic. Nine hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-eight seconds since he’d told a police officer that Merrynether Mansion might be where the Beast of Upton Puddle came from.
Toc. Nine hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-nine seconds since he’d felt the sickening weight of treachery line his stomach like a bag of heavy stones.
Tic. Ten hours since that same police officer smirked at Joe’s confession.
But it didn’t matter to Joe that nobody, not even his mum, believed him. He had still broken his promise.
The night closed in on Joe as he stared at the expensive new clock his mum had bought to cheer him up. She knew exactly how much it hurt Joe to be kept away from the new world he’d discovered, and she’d left it on his bed, wrapped and with a bow and card ready for his return from school. The clock face glowed in the dark, illuminated by a million pixels to show off a digital picture of something mystical or mythological. Normally Joe would have been thrilled by it. He had a bizarre fascination with clocks, but this one only reminded him of what he’d lost.
Each hour the picture changed into something new and spectacular. At one in the morning, the bright green hands moved across the figure of a stomping cyclops. Joe stared at it. It reminded him of something. Something he’d been dreaming about earlier in the night, perhaps?
Joe switched his lamp on. Rubbing his eyes, he fought to remember images from the sleep he’d been woken from a few minutes ago. Was it sand? A beach maybe? Yes, a beach. The same beach he’d dreamed about a few weeks ago in the forest. And that colossal tree-shaped tower with all the eyes attached to its branches. That’s why the Cyclops reminded him of his dreams. But what did it mean? Was it a real place? A few months ago the idea that such a place existed would have been ridiculous, but since then he’d seen things that defied explanation. And he’d been told he had a destiny.
A sudden chill of excitement flushed his tiredness away as he thought about it all. How could he get back to sleep now? But what woke him in the first place? He listened for a moment but only heard the usual night noises.
Tic. Six hours, twenty-seven minutes, and forty-one seconds until he’d have to get up.
Toc. Six hours, twenty-seven minutes, and forty seconds of lying there thinking.
Tic. Plink! At the window.
Toc. Creak. Something pressing at the windowpanes.
Holding his breath, Joe crept to the window, gathered his courage, then pushed the curtains aside. Blue-white light flooded the room, and Joe stepped back in shock.
Danariel hovered outside.
Next to her, with quaking knees, Lilly teetered on the window ledge with his upper body concealed by a huge red brick. A muffled, panting voice ranted, just audible through the glass. “Sor help me, boy. If ya hadn’t com to da winda dis toime, I would’ve put dis bloddy ting roit troo it!”
Joe opened the window, careful not to knock the cluricaun down. “What are you doing here?” he whispered. “People will see you.”
Lilly dropped the brick, and it thumped in the grass below. The cluricaun’s angry face shone a curious purple in Danariel’s light as the tiny man began one of his outbursts. “Oooh, noice to see ya, Lilly. And it’s a pleasure ta see you too, Danariel. What brings you to my humble dwelling? . . . Let os in, ya pickle-brained pillock!”
“Get inside.” Joe grinned. “But be quiet. My mum might hear.”
“Bloddy mammie’s boy,” Lilly muttered as he tumbled inside.
Danariel followed him gracefully. “Sorry to intrude, Joe, but we had to see you. We need your help.”
Joe closed the window and sat on the end of his bed. He was about to speak when a shaft of light broke in through the gaps in his door and his mother’s voice came from the landing.
“Joe? Are you all right? I thought I heard something.”
“Fine, Mum. I just had a weird dream.”
“You sure you’re okay?” The shadows of her feet were visible at the bottom of his door. “Want me to get you a hot water bottle or mug of warm milk?”
Lilly pointed at Joe, hissing desperate laughter through clenched teeth as though he were being strangled. “Mammie’s boy,” he choked.
“Lilly!” Danariel spoke as quietly as she could.
“Honestly, it’s fine, Mum. I just want to get back to sleep.”
“Well, okay, then. As long as you’re all right.”
“Fine, Mum. Good night.”
Joe puffed out a deep breath as his mum walked away.
“I’m very sorry, Joe,” said Danariel.
“It’s all right, but what are you doing here in the middle of the night? How am I supposed to help?”
“We don’t know what else to do. It’s Veronica.”
“Mrs. Merrynether? What’s wrong with her?”
“That’s just it. We don’t know. She’s vanished.”
“Vanished?”
“Yes. She hasn’t been around for three days. The first day we thought she may have been taking a longer time in the garden.” Danariel shot an accusing look at Lilly. “She’s had a lot of tidying to do in the last week after what happened with Cornelius.”
“Nuts to you, fairy face,” snapped Lilly. “Da stupid orld bint has probably jost wandered off somewhere widout her glasses.”
“Lilly is feeling guilty, Joe. He thinks it’s his antics that have driven her away.”
Lilly pretended to be interested in one of Joe’s socks on the bedroom floor.
“That’s why he’s here. It’s why we’re both here. I don’t think Veronica has run away. She would never do that. I think something has happened to her.”
“But I don’t understand. What am I supposed to do? How would I know where she is?”
Danariel hovered down to Joe’s knee. “We need you to go to the police. If she’s reported as a missing person, they will try to find her.”
“There’s no point. They won’t believe me.”
“Why not?”
Joe looked sheepish. “I’ve already spoken to the police.”
Lilly pulled Joe’s sock off his own head. “Ya sporken to dem already? Watcha been op to? If it was about me, I—”
“No, it wasn’t about you. There was an attack at the school by the Beast, and I . . . thought . . .”
“You think the Beast is from Merrynether Mansion?” asked Danariel.
Joe hesitated. “Yes.”
“That creature has nothing to do with us,” Danariel said.
“How do you know for sure? You’ve only been there a few weeks. And you have to admit it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“Look,” said Lilly. “Are ya goin’ ta help os or not?”
“Of course I will, but the point is that the police laughed at me when I told them I thought the Beast came from the mansion. Do you think they’ll believe me if I tell them Mrs. Merrynether’s gone missing?”
“They would have to take your report se
riously,” said Danariel.
“Yes, I suppose it won’t hurt to try, but what about Heinrich? Can’t he do it? It would be more convincing coming from him.”
“Have ya got any booze in here, boy?” Lilly had pulled a drawer out of one of Joe’s dressers and was tossing the contents behind him.
“Lilly, he’s a boy! Of course he doesn’t have any drink.”
“Not even a toiny drop o’ sherry? Maybe a tipple of—”
“Lilly!”
“Vodka?”
“No!”
Lilly continued his search all the same.
Joe did his best to ignore the cluricaun for the moment. “Like I said, shouldn’t Heinrich do something?”
“Heinrich refuses to get involved with the authorities. He’s worried that the police will have to search the mansion. But he also hates to be seen by anyone because of the terrible burn marks on his face. He fears that he would have to meet the police face-to-face if he calls them.”
“What? Isn’t Mrs. Merrynether’s safety a bit more important than that?”
“I think you underestimate exactly how strongly Heinrich feels about it. Apart from Veronica, you are the only person who’s seen him for years.”
“But she could be in danger!”
“I know, and it’s driven Heinrich almost to the point of breakdown. He hasn’t eaten, and he isn’t even taking care of any of the animals. Kiyoshi, the new creature, isn’t helping matters either. Heinrich can’t cope with anything at all. He’s a wreck.”
“What are you going to do?”
Danariel looked up at Joe. “That’s the other reason we came to you.”
“Me? But I . . . You want me to—? No.”
“We need you to talk to him. Bring him to his senses.”
“But how would I know what to say to him?”
“I don’t know, but you have to help us. You’re the only other human we can trust . . . and you have a destiny, remember?”
Joe stared into space, shell shocked.
“We need you,” Danariel insisted.
“Yes,” added Lilly, standing by Joe’s feet and staring up at him with a face as serious as a lit match in a firework factory. “Oi needs ya.”
Joe looked at the cluricaun, doubly shocked.
“Oi needs ya ta find me some bloddy beverages. Are ya sure ya don’t have a drop hidden somewhere?”
Joe shook his head dismissively. “There’s really no one else?”
“No one,” said Danariel. “Will you help?”
Joe sighed. “All right, but if I do help, you have to do something for me too.”
Danariel’s light flickered slightly as if she knew what Joe was about to ask. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want to know everything. I want to know why I have a destiny. I want to know where all these animals come from, and I want to know what it’s all about. If I’m part of something big, I want to know what it is.”
The smile on Danariel’s face fell into a contemplative, almost fearful, look. She nodded.
“Okay,” said Joe. “I’ll be there first thing tomorrow. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best.”
“Good,” said Danariel. “Let’s go, Lilly. Joe needs to sleep. He’ll have a lot to think about tomorrow.”
“Right ye are,” said the tiny man, dragging a bulging sock to the window.
“Hey!” said Joe. “What are you doing with my sock?”
“Just a few tings oi moight be needin’. Dat’s all.”
“But—” Joe decided it would be futile to try to stop him. Instead, he walked to the window and opened it.
Danariel fluttered into the night, and Lilly struggled over the ledge after her.
The next morning was a bright start to what promised to be an eventful Saturday. Joe thrust some sandwiches, chocolate bars, and drink cartons into a carrier bag and, after saying a quick good-bye to his bewildered mother, hurried out of the house promising to be back in time for tea.
Joe ran through the forest, feeling the mixture of nervous excitement and trepidation building with every step. He wondered what sort of condition the vault would be in when he arrived. As the mansion came into view, something new caught his attention, something sprouting from the ground several yards away from the entrance gate.
Joe stopped. A large mound of dirt was heaped beside a gaping hole in the earth. It looked just like the one at the edge of the school grounds where Mr. Graves was attacked. At once Joe crouched and looked frantically for any sign of the Beast, but after a minute of careful observation, the sound of normal birdsong told Joe that the creature was long gone.
With cautious steps, Joe made his way to the hole and peered into the stinking darkness. Something enormous had burrowed deep, but there was no sign of a struggle or blood. Nevertheless, Joe had to suppress images of the great shaggy creature dragging the unconscious body of Mrs. Merrynether into its lair. Shuddering, Joe realized that they may well have to mount some sort of rescue party and venture underground to find her.
He looked up at Merrynether Mansion and wondered if it was safe to take Cornelius with him. Surely the Beast would be no match for a manticore. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out the answer. It wasn’t certain that the Beast had taken Mrs. Merrynether anyway. Joe took one last look into the hole before hurrying off to the mansion.
NINETEEN
Heinrich looked most unwell when he answered the door. Although he was still a towering figure, he seemed to be stooping more than usual. His grey hair was a mess, and even the bags under his eyes had bags. The tiniest smile flickered across his lips when he saw Joe, but it was obvious Heinrich’s mind was in a very distant place.
“Come in, Joe. I don’t know why you chose to come back, but I am very glad you did.” Heinrich retreated into the hallway, almost tripping over Archy the pig on his way.
Joe followed and shut the door. “How are you?”
The old man turned around and looked at Joe with wrinkled eyelids, as if he’d forgotten something. “Good. Yes. Good.”
“I . . . um . . . heard that Mrs. Merrynether has gone missing.”
“Missing. Yes.” His confusion seemed to be mounting, and he stared at the ceiling. “Would you like a brew of tea?”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Happened?”
“Yes, to Mrs. Merrynether.”
Archy ran around Heinrich’s feet, snorting.
Heinrich made a halfhearted attempt to kick him out of the way. “Stop it, Archy. Ronnie will be . . . She will feed you when she gets . . .” He raised a hand to his head and tapped gently. “Not here. Ronnie’s gone.” He looked at Joe, suddenly alarmed. “Ronnie is gone, Joe. We . . . You must find her.”
“Please just tell me what happened.”
Heinrich nodded and bit his lip. It appeared he had momentarily regained his senses and was fighting hard to keep hold of them. “Come down to the vault, and I will explain there. Archy needs feeding.”
When they opened the door to the vault, Joe was not surprised to see the place in a mess. A powerful stench of animal droppings from the enclosures assaulted him, and a variety of dirty rags, bags, and overturned bowls were scattered on the floor in the semidarkness. Somewhere near the back, Joe heard a rhythmic thud against the wall and caught a glimpse of something green. Could that be Flarp?
“I apologize for the mess,” said Heinrich. “I have not been myself these last few days.” He poured some crunchy objects into one of the dirty bowls and slid it under Archy’s snout.
The pig received it with great enthusiasm.
At the sound of Heinrich’s deep tones, a soft blue glow shifted inside the lightbulb at the center of the vault. Joe was pleased to see Danariel squeeze out from inside it and glide down toward them.
Heinrich pulled up his chair and dragged a stool near Joe, gesturing for him to sit, which he did.
“Hello, Joe,” said Danariel.
Joe nodded his own greeting and then saw
Cornelius approaching from the gloom.
Unchained and with calm magnificence, the manticore strolled toward them and settled beside Heinrich’s stool, crossing its paws and holding Joe with his intense gaze.
Absently, the old man scratched Cornelius behind the ear.
Joe stood and edged away, touching his shoulder, remembering the wound.
“Cornelius is very sorry for what happened,” said Danariel. “It was an accident.”
The manticore purred in agreement and blinked slowly at Joe. Joe smiled and tentatively reached out to stroke his mane. The creature nuzzled against his hand.
“Danariel told me this morning that you will help us,” Heinrich said.
“Yes,” she added. “We must try to find Veronica.”
Joe’s stomach knotted as he thought of the tunnel outside the mansion, and he slumped back onto his stool. “I think I know where she is.”
“You do?” said Heinrich, leaning forward.
“I think she’s been snatched by the Beast.”
“The Beast of Upton Puddle?”
“Yes. Haven’t you seen the tunnel it’s dug just outside the gates? I think she’s underground.”
“No, no,” said Heinrich. “That creature has never harmed anyone. It has damaged property and stolen food, but it has never harmed a human.”
“It attacked Mr. Graves.”
“Are you sure?”
“It drew blood on his arm, yes.”
Heinrich looked thoughtful for a second. “Self-defense perhaps.”
“But—”
“Even if it has started to attack humans, why Ronnie? She has the skill of empathy with animals. No, I believe this is the work of Argoyle Redwar.”
“I agree with Heinrich,” said Danariel. “Argoyle Redwar has been harassing Veronica for quite some time. I think he’s getting desperate now and has resorted to kidnapping.”
“But Joe does have a point,” said Heinrich, reconsidering. “The Beast has actually attacked someone, and there is a tunnel outside . . . That would explain the smell.”
“Smell?” said Joe.
“Yes, a few days ago, we kept noticing a peculiar smell outside. At first we thought something was wrong with the drains, but she did say she was going to investigate. Perhaps she did encounter the Beast.”
The Beasts of Upton Puddle Page 15
