The Haunting of Hiram

by Eva Ibbotson

  Flossie had done one of her best tricks. What’s more, she’d given Uncle Louse the help he needed. He’d missed once, but he wasn’t going to miss again. Carefully he took aim … opened his mouth … charged.

  It was the end of Ratty. He made a noise like a hundred pigs in a slaughterhouse and dropped on his hands and knees. ‘I’m done for, I’m bit, I’ve got rabies,’ he babbled. ‘I’m frothing, I’m finished!’ And he crawled along the aisle, barking like a dog.

  ‘I’ll say you’re finished,’ said Adolfa. She leapt over him, seized his gun and whacked him hard on the side of the head.

  ‘I’m bit; I’m bit in the throat!’ screamed Ratty – and Adolfa bopped him once more and straightened herself ready to finish off Alex and Helen.

  Only where were they?

  ‘They’ve gone that way! They’ve gone past you

  –they’re out into the street,’ yelled the children gleefully.

  ‘No, they haven’t!’ shouted one truly horrible little boy (whom the others thumped afterwards in the car park). ‘They’ve gone back where they came from!’

  Adolfa looked down the aisle and saw a last glimmer of white as Helen vanished under the stage. That they should double back into the mine was the last thing she’d expected. If they managed to get through into the castle, everything was lost.

  With a whoop of rage she rushed down towards the screen – and the ghosts of Carra followed.

  In the mine, Adolfa went berserk. Realizing that the creatures that were chasing her were not part of the film, but proper ghosts, unhinged her completely. As she ran she shrieked, and as she shrieked she fired her pistol.

  The first three shots ricocheted harmlessly off the walls of the tunnel, but the third whizzed past Helen’s shoulder.

  ‘Down, Helen – she’s really mad now.’

  Alex kicked over the lamp and they ducked behind one of the trolleys.

  ‘I see you, I see you,’ screamed Adolfa, weaving about in the dark.

  ‘We’re here!’ shouted Alex, bobbing up briefly – and Adolfa fired two more shots in his direction – and missed.

  That was five bullets she’d used. Only one more.

  But Adolfa was coming to her senses. She was moving closer, peering, holding her fire.

  ‘Eeeek!’ The last bullet went hopelessly wide as Adolfa stepped on something unspeakable – something white and dismembered and loathsome which scuttled away like a spider.

  And Alex leapt to his feet and ran.

  ‘No, Alex. No!’ Helen’s desperate shout came too late. Barring the entrance to the castle tunnel stood a huge hulk of a man who reached out a gorilla arm for Alex.

  ‘Kill him, kill him!’ screamed Adolfa, searching about for Helen. ‘Take no notice of the disgusting spooks.’

  But Alex had wriggled free … he was running back across the central chamber towards the collapsed mine shaft and the bottomless pool.

  And Oscar followed!

  Near the edge of the water Alex pressed himself against the wall and Oscar, who’d rushed past him, turned with his back to the pool – and gasped!

  A warrior stood before him, armed to the teeth. A fine-honed axe gleamed in one hand, a sword with a jewelled hilt in the other and his face and beard shone with a spectral light.

  ‘Your time has come, cur!’ pronounced Krok Fullbelly. ‘No man harms the Laird of Carra and lives.’

  ‘You … can’t hurt me … you’re just a sp… spook,’ gabbled Oscar. But he took a step backwards, for the apparition was truly dreadful.

  ‘Make your peace with your gods, hog,’ said the Viking, raising his axe.

  ‘No, no… go away… you’re not real.’ But Oscar had fallen on his knees and was gibbering with fear.

  Krok kicked him contemptuously. ‘Rise, worm, and die like a man.’

  Oscar scrambled to his feet and took another step backwards.

  ‘Die!’ thundered Krok and brought down his axe.

  Oscar stepped back again.

  ‘Die!’ repeated the Viking and swept his sword through Oscar’s neck.

  The Hulk stepped back once more. Only this time there was no ground beneath his feet. His arms went out, his legs flew upwards – and vanished. There was an unearthly scream… and a long time afterwards, a splash.

  The bottomless pool had claimed Oscar. The Hulk was gone.

  But there was no time to rejoice. ‘Hurry, oh hurry,’ begged Alex. ‘That awful woman has found Helen, I’m sure.’

  Alex was right. Adolfa was bending over Helen and as the ghosts surged forwards she greeted them with a mad torrent of words.

  ‘Stand still, you horrible spooks and creepy crawlies! That’s what the world has come to… vegetarian scum… pacifist pigs… disgusting dogs fouling the pavements! That’s the filth that CREEP is fighting. One step closer and the knife goes through her heart.’

  ‘Stop!’ Alex commanded his ghosts. ‘We can’t take any chances with Helen.’

  ‘Anarchist filth! Unclean monsters – get out, get away! The girl is mine! If you take one step closer I’ll stick her like a pig, I’ll hook her, I’ll flay her, I’ll boil her,’ shrieked Adolfa and moved the knife against Helen’s ribs.

  Helen lay quite still with her eyes closed. It was Alex who cried out.

  ‘I’m going to kill her,’ gloated Adolfa. ‘You’ve spoilt everything, so I’m going to kill her very slowly in front of you and you can’t stop me because you’re contaminated spooks, you’re worse than university professors, you’re yucky filth, you’re—’

  Then something quite extraordinary happened. Adolfa turned her head to one side, staring at a ledge in the rock. Her mouth fell open and her lower jaw hung there, stuck. The knife clattered from her hand and her arm became entirely rigid. Her neck would not turn nor her back bend. She could neither move nor speak.

  At first no one could understand what had happened. Then they saw a glow as blue and bright as sapphires – and in the middle of it, the Hand with his fingers in the STOP position.

  The sound of gunfire had woken the Hand from his faint and being stepped on by the vile Adolfa had shocked him into action. Now, in this hour of need, his wish had been granted. He had become a Hand of Glory – and Adolfa Batters, the great-great granddaughter of Erik Erikson, was locked and turned to stone.

  Alex bent down to help Helen to her feet. The kidnap was over.

  Twenty-Two

  Adolfa had to be carried out of the mine: she was as stiff as a board and her eyes were fixed like a zombie’s. On the other hand, Ratty had to be shoved into the van by two detectives and a dog handler, and all the way to the police station he writhed and foamed at the mouth and said he had rabies. As for Oscar’s body, it still lay at the bottom of the mine shaft. Getting him out of the pool was a job for later.

  Now Helen and Alex sat in the banqueting hall of the castle, surrounded by newspaper men with notebooks and recorders and cameras. Mr Hopgood sat close to Helen, holding her hand. It seemed as though he couldn’t believe that the danger was past, but though he looked grey and ill, Helen was bright-eyed and alert and wouldn’t let anyone make a fuss. ‘I’m perfectly all right now,’ she said. ‘It’s all over and, no, I’m not going to bed.’

  ‘Could you just tell us again how you outwitted the crooks single-handed?’ said one of the reporters to Alex, and the others thronged round him, eager for his reply.

  ‘No,’ said Alex. ‘I could not.’

  The reporters looked up from their notebooks, surprised.

  ‘I couldn’t because I didn’t.’ He looked at Helen who smiled and gave a little nod. ‘I could never have got away on my own and nor could Helen.’ He got to his feet and walked over to the platform where the band had played. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Alex, ‘meet the people who did rescue us! Meet the Ghosts of Carra and their friend, the Severed Hand.’

  And as the ghosts appeared, and the Hand tiptoed shyly out from behind a screen, pandemonium broke loose!

  It was an hour b
efore the newsmen could be cleared out, and when they left it was to splash stories of the rescue throughout America and the world.

  But at last the children and Mr Hopgood were alone with the ghosts.

  ‘You do realize, Daddy,’ said Helen, ‘that from now on Carra has to be their home. For ever and ever. And honestly,’ she went on, scratching Cyril’s ear, ‘I don’t know how you could think I’d be frightened of them.’

  Mr Hopgood nodded. He’d at last learnt the truth about his daughter: that she was a brave and healthy girl. But it wasn’t just Helen that Mr Hopgood had learnt about in the last dreadful hours, it was himself. What sort of life was it, being a millionaire? No sort of life at all. His stomach was full of acid, he never had a decent night’s sleep and his daughter was in danger from every vile sort of crook.

  ‘I’ve decided to sell up,’ said Mr Hopgood. ‘I’m going to keep enough money for us to live on comfortably and the rest I’m going to give away.

  And I wondered,’ he said to Alex, ‘whether Helen and I – and the ghosts, of course – might spend part of each year with you on that island of yours

  –Sethsay. I thought I’d give Carra to the people of Granite Falls and just keep a small apartment in one of the towers for us to use in the winter.’

  There was no need to ask Helen and Alex what they thought of this plan. Helen threw her arms round her father and hugged him, and Alex said he couldn’t think of anything nicer if he tried for a hundred years.

  As for the ghosts, they were quite beside themselves with joy and when the Hand asked if he could come too and write a book, there was nothing left to wish for.

  But happiness is a funny thing. Often when you feel on top of the world something quite unexpected comes and topples you.

  The hall of the castle became extremely cold. Then a black cloud rolled past the windows. Next came the sound of horses’ hooves in the air above them. A very large horse, it seemed to be … Cyril whined and tried to crawl under Alex’s chair and everyone looked up at the sky.

  An enormous beast – an eight-legged stallion as black as night – had come to rest outside the window. And on the back of the horse was the fattest, largest woman they had ever seen. Her swelling bosom was covered by a steel breastplate, she wore a helmet over her thick, golden pigtails, her thighs, in their leather breeches, spread to cover the saddle. No wonder she rode an eight-legged horse; a four-legged one would have collapsed under her.

  The armoured lady now heaved herself off the horse, thrust her spear through the window, sending shattered glass in all directions, and waddled into the room. Taking no notice of anyone else, she stopped in front of Krok and poked him in the stomach.

  ‘Kommet nu ut Valhalla. Forrt!’ she said in a voice as deep as a prize fighter’s.

  The Viking’s hand flew to his mouth. He alone knew who she was, or why she had come.

  The woman was a Valkyrie, one of the warrior maidens who serve the great Viking god, Odin. And she had come to tell Krok that because he had killed Oscar the Hulk, he was free of his curse and could come up to Valhalla and live with the heroes.

  ‘Smorgasbord! Schweinkoteletten! Bier!’ the Valkyrie went on, licking her lips.

  Krok turned round to explain. ‘She says I must come quickly, Odin is waiting. There’s to be hog meat … and feasting … and merriment all day long.’

  ‘Oh, Krok!’ Alex tried desperately to be pleased, but he simply couldn’t manage it. ‘Just when we’re all together again! But of course it’s marvellous for you.’

  ‘Aye.’ Uncle Louse nodded, but he had to turn his chair away. He and Krok had haunted together for three hundred years and he’d have given even his new-found teeth to have kept the Viking by his side.

  Krok turned back to the Valkyrie. ‘Actually,’ he said, speaking carefully because it was a struggle to remember the Viking words, ‘I have sort of got used to being here on earth – and to being under a curse.’

  The Valkyrie stamped her foot and the walls of the banqueting hall trembled. How dared he talk like that? To go to Valhalla was the greatest honour that ever befell a warrior. Not only did Viking heroes spend all day feasting, but they each had a Valkyrie to look after them and she was the one that was going to look after him. ‘I shall pour your wine and cut up your hog chops and clean the wax out of your ears,’ she said, jabbing him with her spear. ‘And I have ninety-nine sisters. So no more talking. Come!’

  ‘I shall have to go,’ said Krok. ‘I expect I’m going to be very happy … later on, when I’ve got used to it.’ His voice broke, but he managed to pull himself together. ‘Of course, some people might say that eating all that pork would give you indigestion, and I’ve heard there’s nothing worse for ears than poking about inside them ….’

  But the Valkyrie now looked as though she might turn nasty, so they all lined up to say goodbye. It was a miserable business. Even Helen, who’d only just met the Viking, found it painful and Alex felt as though he was losing a father all over again.

  Krok had left saying goodbye to Miss Spinks to the last, but when he moved forward to shake hands with her there was only a damp and mist-filled space.

  It was the last straw for the poor Viking. Here he was, going off for ever with a hippopotamus-sized woman who stuck spears into him, and Miss Spinks, whom he’d thought of as his special friend, couldn’t even be bothered to see him off. As he climbed on to the horse behind the Valkyrie, wondering if her huge behind would push him off the end, Krok Fullbelly felt as hurt and bitter as he’d ever felt in his life.

  What had happened to Miss Spinks was this.

  When she saw the Valkyrie, the unfortunate governess was quite overcome by jealousy and grief. The warrior lady seemed to have everything that she herself did not have and the thought of life without Krok Fullbelly was more than she could bear.

  So she decided to drown herself thoroughly, this time for good. And the best place for this, she thought, was the pool at the bottom of the mine shaft, which was dark and deep and bottomless, and would put her out of her misery for ever. And while Krok galloped off towards Valhalla, Miss Spinks glided through the mine until she came to the ruined shaft and the edge of the pool.

  For a moment, she stood looking down at the water. She had drowned herself a thousand times, but this was different – this was for ever. Then she gathered up her skirts and leapt!

  As soon as she hit the surface, Miss Spinks felt a deep sense of disappointment. She had thought that the pool would be bottomless and sinister and chill, but her feet hit some sticky mud quite quickly. To drown herself properly, Miss Spinks would have had to stand on her head, and her grief for Krok made her too tired.

  She paddled about for a while, thinking sad thoughts. How would she discipline Flossie without the Viking? Who would keep Cyril in order? I will do my duty, of course, thought Miss Spinks miserably, but memories of the Viking kept returning: the way the woodlice clustered in his beard, the way his full belly quivered so manfully beneath his shirt….

  She was still thinking these unhappy thoughts when her webbed foot came against something. Something that felt slimy… and sort of floating… and quite definitely nasty. Telling herself to be brave, she groped in the water to see what it could be.

  Miss Spinks gave a squeak and withdrew her hand. It could not have been – but it was – a leg. A human leg! A second leg, also slimy and nasty and almost trouserless, seemed to be beside the first. And a waterlogged and most unpleasant voice said: ‘Glug!’

  It was Oscar the Hulk. He was not dead.

  And if he was not dead, then Krok had not killed him. And if Krok had not killed him, he was still under his curse and had no right to be in Valhalla.

  Joy exploded inside Miss Spinks like a firecracker.

  ‘Stop glugging,’ she said to Oscar. ‘I’ll see to you later.’

  She swooped up the mineshaft like a rocket, roared past the roof of the cinema and rose up, up into the sky.

  A governess with webbed feet couldn�
�t have hoped to catch up with an eight-legged horse. But you can’t weigh as much as a small hippopotamus and not need a lot of food, and the Valkyrie had dismounted and was having her elevenses: a pig’s trotter which she had taken from her saddlebag and was crunching up noisily between her teeth.

  A cry of ‘Stop! Stop!’ in the distance made Krok turn with a sudden hope, and presently Miss Spinks came panting up to them. ‘A mistake… has been made,’ she gasped – and explained.

  The Valkyrie’s cheeks puffed out with rage. She snorted. She spat out a mouthful of gristle – but she did not argue for she knew perfectly well that a mistake had been made. It was she herself who had made it. When you have ninety-nine sisters all pushing and shoving and grabbing at the heroes, the thought of a hero all for yourself is very tempting. Looking out of Valhalla, the Valkyrie had seen Krok push Oscar into the pool and waited no longer before she rushed off to tell Odin that another warrior was on his way.

  ‘Pshaw!’ she said furiously. ‘Verflucht! Yok!’

  Then she jabbed Krok for the last time in the stomach, spat once more, and rode away, cursing as she went.

  Krok and Miss Spinks were left alone.

  ‘Lettice?’ said the Viking, and wondered why he had ever thought it was a silly name. It was a nice name – and anyway, what was wrong with salad? ‘Lettice!’ he said once more.

  Then he moved forward and took the dripping spectre in his arms.

  Twenty-Three

  Lady Trottle was preparing for an evening in front of her television set. She had had a lot of trouble lately. Sir Ian had told her that they could no longer go on living at Dunloon, it was too expensive, and this, of course, was dreadfully sad.

  But the programme she was going to watch had been advertised as the most exciting ever to be televised and she was looking forward to it very much. She had put on her dressing gown and opened a box of chocolates with squashy middles and told everyone that she was not to be disturbed.

  Lady Trottle, though, was not alone. Sitting on the sofa behind her, were the Green Lady, the Red Lady and Headless Hal. They were the sort of ghosts who really don’t know what to do with themselves and they had taken to watching everything, however stupid, on the box.