by Paul Magrs
‘He didn’t stand a chance, with a wound like that,’ I tell Robert.
‘I’ll never forgive Effie,’ he says.
Meanwhile Panda has slunk back into the shadows and I can hear him sniffing miserably.
‘Look!’ Robert sobs.
It seems that Gila was telling the truth when he said that the souls of the lizard people left their bodies quite promptly. From his dark, huddled up body there comes this amazing luminosity which, for a few moments, dazzles us all. When we can look at him again, we can see the lizard boy suspended before us. He’s transparent and glittering, his body covered in jewel-like scales. He flicks his forked tongue at us briefly in farewell and grins to show us that he’s not unhappy; he doesn’t regret this at all. And then he starts climbing up through the dusky air of the attic towards the smashed skylight.
‘Gila!’ Robert shouts.
‘He isn’t coming back, Robert,’ I tell him gently.
Then it all goes quiet for a bit. We stand looking at each other across the lizard boy’s mortal remains.
‘P-perhaps we’re best off up here in the attic tonight,’ Penny says. Her face is streaked with dusty tears. She’s struggling to get her words out. ‘Maybe Effie’s right and you won’t be found up here, Brenda…’
‘I’m not staying up here,’ I tell her. ‘I’m ready for a bloody good fight. This has gone too far.’
Penny starts crying in earnest. ‘But… I don’t want to lose anyone else.’
‘You won’t do,’ says Robert, taking hold of her and rubbing her arms.
‘How can you be so calm? Gila is… he’s dead!’
We are interrupted by some heavy thumping noises. When we look Panda is dragging that mannequin across the attic floor towards the hatchway. He’s having a hard job of it, but he’s determined. ‘If this lady could smash the skylight, then she can surely break through the hatchway…’ He points out reasonably, as he pauses to catch his breath. I can see he’s fixed his sights on something practical, so he won’t have to think about his part in the killing of poor Gila.
‘Brilliant idea, Panda,’ says Robert, hurrying to help him drag the dummy over the boards. He, too, is glad to have something to distract him from thoughts of his boyfriend. ‘Come on, Brenda and Penny! If you really want to get out of here, this has got to be the best way!’
§
Downstairs there is a banquet going on. All the guests are congregating in the dining hall, and all are set to celebrate the passing of the summer months. Autumn is upon us, and soon it will be Christmas again. Though, of course, it is Christmas every day here. Muzak is cranked out of all the speakers in every corridor and carols are resounding through our heads as we creep about, trying not to be noticed.
‘I hated leaving Gila’s body up there,’ says Robert.
‘Needs must,’ Penny tells him. ‘We can fetch him at a later date. We couldn’t have carried him today…’
‘I realise that,’ he snaps. ‘Oh, Penny, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be getting angry at you. It’s just that…’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘You can’t be in your right mind, after all of this.’
We are pausing at the end of a corridor with orange fitted carpets and purple walls. It can’t have been redecorated since 1973. But the décor isn’t our concern, as Panda and I peer around the corner to see if the area by the lifts is occupied.
The way is clear.
‘Pleeeeease let us get out of here without any more incidents,’ Penny says, as we dash to the lifts. We have to wait for a few moments for one to come up.
‘It’s just after eleven,’ says Robert, glancing at his watch.
‘I know,’ I say, tightly. ‘I’ve only got an hour left, according to some.’
‘But there’s no sign of the Brontes yet,’ says Panda hopefully.
‘Maybe they’ve forgotten all about it?’ Penny adds.
The lift comes and we ride down in it together. Four storeys down the grandest hotel in town. Now we have to move through the busy ground floor and try to slip out unobserved.
The doors swish open and we brace ourselves. Downstairs it’s heaving with pensioners in their finery, moving between buffet and bar and the main ballroom. It’s just a short hop to the main doors, though. We can be out of here pretty soon.
Except…
When I look at the tall front windows and the revolving glass doors of the Christmas Hotel, I see that it’s gone dark outside. The inky blue darkness makes it easier to see the things that are massing out there. They are like an icy miasma that has come down from the skies. A cloud of evanescent beings has lined up outside the Christmas Hotel, and now the hotel guests are starting to notice them. Cries of ‘Poltergeists!’ and ‘Spirits!’ start to ring out above the Christmas tunes.
My friends and I are frozen in horrified fascination, outside the lift, holding onto each other. The crowd is milling so thickly that there’s no way through. And besides, the front entrance doesn’t look like such an easy escape right now.
‘They’re here!’ I gasp, as I realise exactly what that thick mist advancing upon the hotel entrance really is. ‘H-he’s done it! Gila’s actually done it! He’s roused the spirits on the roof to invade the hotel…!’
There are screams from pensioners and elves as the revolving doors start to spin of their own accord. They gather pace and soon are spinning impossibly fast. As everyone draws back, there are ghostly forms emerging from the open door as it flickers by. We can see the dead returning to the Christmas Hotel. They come as one, all trapped inside their collective mist.
‘Mermaids, Brenda!’ Panda calls out. But I can already see them. They come gnashing their fierce teeth, swooping out of the air to scare those still-living in the hotel foyer. Their silvery tails swish and flick as they swim through the gaudy air, high above our heads. Also I can see the human ghosts, doggy-paddling furiously to keep up. Here’s that old lady with her hostess trolley, still pushing it carefully through the ether, and looking ever so pleased to be back inside the hotel once more.
‘Gila!’ Robert cries out. I turn to where he’s pointing and, sure enough, I see a very familiar face peep out of the curdling fog. He waves briefly before vanishing.
‘He’s done it!’ I whoop. ‘He’s brought them all inside again. He’s going to set them upon Mrs Claus!’
‘I think you could be right,’ says Panda. He has popped himself back into my bag for safety and peers up at the picture rails and cornices, where the ghosts are undulating through cobwebs and tinsel, sniffing out their quarry.
While the others attempt to run away from this weird incursion, my friends and I do the very opposite. We follow the cloud of ghostly, shifting forms as it probes from room to room. It knows what it’s doing, for here we all are in the grandest part of the dining hall. Here is the tall dais where Mrs Claus likes to sit, all togged up in her finest rags, snaffling up her steak and kidney pudding. And wondering why everyone in the place is getting out of their chairs and fleeing in a tremendous panic.
‘What’s going on?’ she barks at her nearest elves. But they are at a loss, as is Effie, who sits by her side, looking rather worried.
Mrs Claus is in a bright orange sheath dress, covered in sequins. With a little green cap set jauntily on her head she looks like a giant satsuma this evening. A rather angry giant satsuma. ‘How dare you,’ she seethes, through a mouthful of suet pudding and kidney. ‘How dare you all get up and leave before I have given you permission. Come back! Come back at once!’
But for once her festive guests don’t listen to a word she says. They have all seen the ghostly invasion force that is spreading into the dining room, and none of them want to stick around to discover what it wants.
Effie is on her feet. She too has seen the ghostly forms of the mermaids and pensioners intent on vengeance. And she has seen us, her friends, whom she thoug
ht safely under lock and key, dashing into the room after them. Suddenly Effie can sense that standing beside her grotesque, villainous mother isn’t the best place to be. She picks up her Parisian handbag and starts to run for it.
‘Effie!’ shrieks Mrs Claus. ‘Where are you going? You’re not going to abandon me as well, are you?’
Effie is torn. She stands staring at her mother, but she’s backing away. She wants to rejoin her friends. But her mother needs her. She can see that now.
‘Get away, Effie!’ I shout. ‘Seriously, step away from Mrs Claus! Otherwise they’ll get you, as well…!’
‘Who?’ says Mrs Claus sneeringly. ‘Who is going to get me?’
It is at this very moment that she looks up, ahead, and sees the vicious mermaid teeth and talons before her. They are no less deadly for being dead and eaten, she suddenly realizes. She also sees the familiar faces of those she has poisoned or ordered bumped off during her long career. And she even recognizes the face of Gila, as he orders his new colleagues to: ‘Seize her! Take hold of her! Bring her with you. And I’ll show you all the way to that other place. The world of the Erl King…! Come on! Take her! Seize her! Bring her now..!’
Then, Mrs Claus is obscured completely in the mass of whirring, semi-translucent forms. The last thing we know of her is a high, wailing scream and the sight of her chunky legs being hoisted up from her motorized scooter. Up, up, up she goes, with the ghosts snickering around her.
Then they all turn as one, and hurtle towards the widest, tallest window in the dining room. It’s the one that looks over the clifftop, across the harbour, to the abbey on the headland. The glass smashes as the ghosts fly through, dragging the all-too solid form of Mrs Claus with them. She’s still screaming as the glass shards cascade onto the pavement outside.
Then, in an instant, she is gone.
There is quiet for a second.
‘What time is it?’ I ask Robert.
‘It’s just about twenty past eleven,’ he says.
‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’ screeches Effie.
I turn to my oldest friend in Whitby. ‘I’m afraid she’s gone for good, Effie. I know she was your long-lost mother and all, but this was long overdue. No more will Mrs Claus rule the roost at the Christmas Hotel.’
Effie staggers towards me, her face twisted in grief. For a second I think that she’s about to take a swing at me with her fist. But she doesn’t, she merely stands there limply. ‘What have you done?’ She says it again, in a quieter voice.
Beside me I can feel Robert trembling with fury. He’s about to tell her that she herself killed his boyfriend. And not only did she remove him from the picture, she made it possible for Gila to exorcize this hotel of its resident ghosts and the evil Mrs Claus. So in a way, she only has herself to blame.
Effie looks up and thrusts out her arm, like a woman possessed. Her eyes are gleaming and she’s pointing straight out of the smashed window. At first my heart jumps, thinking those ghosts are coming back to claim the lot of us… but then I see that Effie is pointing at the ruins of the Abbey. They are silhouetted against the darkening sky. They are ablaze with flames.
‘The ceremony is begun, Brenda,’ Effie says in a toneless voice which I find more unnerving that her usual screeching. ‘And now you must keep your appointment with the Bronte sisters.’
§
Bugger that.
At one time, I suppose I would have faced up to my fears and my duties and I would have headed straight up to the Abbey. I would have gone there voluntarily to confound destiny and to save my own life.
Tonight, however, I’m too tired. I have been through far too much today and last night and the day before. I’m not going anywhere, thank you very much, and certainly not to do battle with those three bloodthirsty siblings.
‘But you must face them, Brenda!’ calls Effie, who’s gone off her chump again. ‘So it is written in the Books of Mayhem…!’
‘Bugger the Books of Mayhem!’ I shout back at the silly old cow.
I stomp through the foyer of the Christmas Hotel, aware of the eyes of the still-scared guests peeping at me from behind the furniture. There are confused elves about, at a complete loss without Mrs Claus to tell them what to do. Mrs Claus is gone! Gone for good! We should be celebrating a job well done. Not wondering what to do about the Bronte sisters.
Robert and Penny are hurrying to keep up with me as I step outside. There’s a chill breeze coming from the sea and a horrible feeling in the air. One left, I expect, by the apparitions that stole Angela Claus away. Or the feeling could be a horrible foreshadowing of what else the night might bring.
Whitby is changing tonight. Its dreadful old queen has been deposed. And I really hope that its champion – if I may make so bold as to describe myself thus – wont be following her away from this world of ours.
‘Brenda..!’ calls Penny. ‘Where are you going?’
I step into the road. I could do without all their questions now. ‘I’m going home. I’ve decided I’ve had quite enough for one day.’
Then Robert is shouting at me as well. ‘Brenda, LOOK OUT!’
I whirl round and realise that he’s shouting because I’m about to be run over.
There’s a silver limousine tearing round the corner at top speed and I am right in its path.
‘BRENDA!’ howls Effie.
Then all I hear are two or three terrible thumps as the vehicle runs into me and I – like the great galumphing fool I am – bounce. I am flung into the air and hit the windscreen and roof several times.
I really have had enough of being knocked unconscious recently, I think, as I’m lying in the roadside on the west cliff with everything going whirly and dark. I’m fading away, and I can hear footsteps dashing towards me. Car doors slamming. This will be my friends, hurrying to help me, I think, as consciousness starts to fade.
Er, no, actually. It’s the Chauffear in his pristine uniform coming to see what he has hit. It’s me! Hello! Effie told me all about what you do. And who’s this with you? Your passengers, are they? Oh yes. Of course. It’s Charlotte, Emily and Anne. You’ve driven them all the way from Haworth to be here tonight. Right now. How lovely.
And then I don’t know anything more until midnight.
§
All the blood has rushed to my head. It’s a very peculiar sensation, and one that I’m not terribly used to. Being a woman of my proportions I’m not given to spending much time upside down. But that’s what I am now, and I realise it as soon as I wake up, which is good news because it means I haven’t gone completely doo-lally.
I’m trapped inside of some kind of framework. It is metallic and jingling, like an old fashioned bedstead standing on one end… or like an egg-slicer. And I am secured by chains inside of it, as I say, upside down.
So this is it, Brenda. This is what it all comes down to.
I can’t even tell myself, ‘This is where you meet your maker’ – because I already have. Twice. And Herr Doktor Frankenstein was, forgive me, a twat.
You can’t blame me for the coarsening of my language. I’m starting to get a little bit worried here. I’ve just noticed the guttering under my head, and the large vat below that. I guess this really means they’re going through with it. They’re going to cut my throat.
Now I can see them – the Bronte sisters. They are weaving ethereal circles around this sacrificial altar. They dance and twist and shimmy through the midnight air. Torches are burning and their smoky light can still be seen as the sisters dance past me. They are ecstatic. They have won. They have what they want, now. This is the ultimate fruition of their plans.
Right now I don’t feel particularly pleased that my sacrifice will result in the curing of all vampires. I’ve known some lovely vampires in my time, as it happens.
Ooh…! This rush of the blood to my head… and the weird stress of the mom
ent… I do believe it has restored my memory. All two hundred years of it… it’s all present at last, at the same time.
I can see my whole, remarkable life spread out like a marvelous tapestry, a bit frayed and stained here and there – but nevertheless a saga to be savoured!
The Brontes are singing now, some unearthly claptrap. They have been joined by other ghosts. Great – Effie’s aunties have floated up from the harbour and come to prance around the Abbey once more. They’ve all come to give me a good send off. That dreadful Aunt Maude – monstrous in her nakedness – looks cockahoop at the impending slaughter.
There’s my handbag, just a couple of feet away on the grass. If I could reach it… if I could maybe free one tethered hand… I could find a nail-file maybe, or something else that might help me free myself. As I watch the bag opens and out crawls Panda. He looks terrified and apologetic. He shrugs at me. There’s nothing he can do.
The singing is rising in pitch and tempo. They’re getting themselves all worked up.
There are others here, watching from the sidelines. Their faces dance in firelit shadow, but even upside down I can see who they are. Faces I recognize from my past. Going right back. Friends and deadly enemies. Karla Sorenson. Hans Macabre. Lisa Turmoil. The cultists of Haworth, including old Jack and his terrier. Professor Quandry, Mrs Mapp, Rupert Von Thal. I swear I catch a glimpse of Monsieurs Ananas and Banane. Is that the Erl King himself? I can’t be sure. A curious mixture of faces, benign and grotesque. They have come to see me at the last. All are sitting forward eagerly as midnight approaches.
For a minute or two I hold out some hope that my friends might save me. Surely we’ve been in worse situations before? But then I see them. Penny and Robert. Tied up and sitting in the front row. Right next to some kind of troll-like being who is beating away on a huge drum.
Effie stands alone at the far edge of the enchanted circle. She hugs herself and looks gaunt. She will be blaming herself for all of this. Next to her stands the revolting Mr Danby, beside himself with glee. He’s carrying the special suitcase that he carries his old mother about in. His mother – the ancient Abbess – is standing several yards away, presiding over the spinning vortex of the Bitch’s Maw.
