Jasper Fforde: The Song of the Quarkbeast

‘Fifteen seconds gone,’ I said, staring at my watch.

‘I can feel something odd,’ said Perkins, who was standing to one side, doing little except directing the ambient crackle more efficiently into Mawgon and Price, in the same way as a guttering directs rain into a storm drain.

‘Me too,’ said Full Price, eyes fixed intently on the wellhead and his index fingers beginning to vibrate with the effort. ‘Look at that.’

I looked down the well. Before, only the top course of bricks had closed over to prevent us getting in, but now other bricks were starting to pop out from the well sides all the way down. The well was starting to constrict.

‘We need Tiger out,’ I said to Lady Mawgon, who was still feeling about above her head, eyes closed as she searched the muddy bottom of the well.

‘Nearly,’ she muttered.

‘Twenty-five seconds.’

‘What’s going on?’ came Tiger’s voice over the toddler’s shoe.

‘You’ll be out soon, Tiger, I promise.’

The bricks were starting to move inwards with increasing speed, and brick dust, soil and earwigs were tumbling down the well. Full Price was sweating with the effort and shaking badly.

‘ I . . . can’t . . . hold . . . it! ’ he managed to mutter between clenched teeth.

‘The walls,’ came Tiger’s tremulous voice, ‘they’re moving in!’

‘Lady Mawgon,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘It’s only a ring. We can leave it be.’

‘Almost there,’ she said, feeling around with her gloved hand in increased desperation.

‘Thirty seconds,’ I said as I stared at my watch. ‘That’s it. Abort.’

She continued, undeterred.

‘Mawgon!’ yelled Full Price, who was now shaking so hard his index fingers were a blur. ‘Get the lad out NOW!’

But Mawgon was unmoved by our entreaties. She was so intent on finding her quarry that nothing mattered – least of all a foundling being crushed to death by an ancient spell sixty feet below ground. The well had shrunk to half its size by now, and Full Price was crying out in pain as he tried to keep the spell at bay. Perkins was shaking with the effort, too, and Lady Mawgon was still wildly looking around with Tiger’s arm below when several things happened at once. Lady Mawgon cried out, Perkins fell over and the well shut with a teeth-jarring thump that we felt through the ground. I looked at my watch. Price had kept it open exactly forty-three seconds. Of Tiger there was no sign; the well was now a solid plug of brick, and down below, somewhere, Tiger was part of it.

There was silence. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Full Price and Perkins were both on their hands and knees in the dirt coughing after their exertions, but Lady Mawgon was just standing there, her gloved hand half open as if clasped around something. She might have found something, but it didn’t matter. The price had been too great.

I felt my head grow hot as anger welled up inside me. I might have boiled over then as I have a terrible temper once riled, but a small voice brought me back from the edge.

‘Hey, Jenny,’ went the voice from the toddler’s shoe, ‘I can see Zambini Towers from here.’

It was Tiger’s voice. I frowned, and then looked up. High above us was a small figure no bigger than a dot free-falling back towards earth. Lady Mawgon had brought Tiger out of the closing well so rapidly that we hadn’t seen him pass, and he had carried on and up, and was now on his way back down. I looked across at Lady Mawgon, who winked at me, and opened her gloved hand wide. She swiftly moved a hayrick twenty feet to the right, where Tiger landed with a thump a few seconds later, and at the same time she caught a muddy object in her gloved hand, which she then passed to me.

‘There,’ she said with a triumphant grin, ‘Mawgon delivers.’

‘That was fun in a panicky, exciting, soil-your-underwear kind of way,’ said Tiger as he walked up to us covered in a mixture of mud and straw. ‘I didn’t , in case you’re interested,’ he added. ‘The smell is the mud from the bottom of the well.’

Full Price was the first to voice what we all felt.

‘Cutting it a bit fine, Daphne?’

‘I knew precisely how long he had,’ she said. ‘Master Prawns was never in danger.’

‘I don’t agree,’ I replied, pointing to where a lock of Tiger’s hair had been caught in the bricks as they closed upon him as he shot out. ‘I’ll ask you not to place the staff in danger, Lady Mawgon.’

She stared at me and took a step closer.

‘You admonish me?’ she said slowly and with great deliberation. ‘You, who are not worthy to even carry my bag? We’ll see where the land lies when the Great Zambini returns, my girl. Prawns was in slight jeopardy, yes, but as an employee of Kazam he must assume the risks as well as the advantages.’

‘And what would those advantages be?’ asked Tiger, who clearly thought he could be impertinent, given his recent close shave. ‘I’d be very interested in knowing.’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she replied. ‘Working with the greatest practitioners of the Mystical Arts currently on the earth.’

‘ Aside from that,’ replied Tiger, as that was something we could all agree upon.

‘What else does there need to be? Clean my glove before you return it to me. I just earned the company five thousand moolah. You should all be mind-numbingly grateful.’

‘Why would anyone leave such a spell to keep a ring hidden?’ asked Perkins, artfully moving the conversation to where it should be going.

There was silence, as no one had any good answer. I looked at the small mud-covered terracotta pot Lady Mawgon had handed me. It was about the size of a pear and was nothing remarkable – the sort of thing you might use to hold mixed spice. I put my finger in the neck and felt around in the muddy gloop until I felt something and pulled out the gold ring, still shiny and perfect after thirty years down the well. It was a large ring, for a large finger, but was otherwise unremarkable. No inscription or anything, just a simple band of gold. Full Price put his hand near it then hurriedly withdrew it.

‘It’s suffused with negative wizidrical energy – a jumble of hateful, hurtful emotions. It remembers violence and betrayal. It’s cursed.’

‘That would explain all those creepy feelings,’ said Perkins with a grimace.

Everyone took a cautious step back. Curses were the viruses of the magical world – mischievous strands of negative emotional energy wrapped up in nastiness and waiting to jump out and ensnare the unwary. They’d attach themselves to anything and anybody and were the devil’s own job to remove. It was Lady Mawgon who broke the uneasy silence.

‘What are we worrying about?’ she said. ‘Five thousand moolah is five thousand moolah. Besides, it’s none of our business, and what’s new about a curse? The country is littered with redundant strands of curse-spells left over from past suffering.’

This was all too true. The sometimes violent history of the Ununited Kingdoms had seeded the ground with spells cast when something terrible had happened. They had an inordinately long life and could be reanimated by something as simple as digging the garden. One moment you’re planting the spuds and thinking of dinner and the next you’re taking cover from a shower of pitchforks.

‘The public can take their chances like the rest of us,’ added Lady Mawgon. ‘Are you suggesting that all we’ve been through this morning should be ignored in case we inadvertently pass on the possibility of a curse?’

‘Odd as it may seem,’ said Tiger, feeling where the hair was missing from the top of his head, ‘I am in agreement with Lady Mawgon on that count.’