Robin Jarvis - The Fatal Strand

‘I’ll learn you!’ the spite-charged voice snapped. ‘Pin her still, lads!’

Deafening screams tore the gloom and, as savage, battering thuds shook the walls, vile jeers galed from the darkness.

Neil clapped his hands over his ears, but the brutality jolted through his bones and nothing could shield him from the woman’s howls.

‘Stop it!’ he yelled. ‘Leave her alone!’

And then, it was over.

The evil din ended. The final, piercing notes of Mary-Anne’s suffering lingered briefly upon the ether, until they were quenched by an ominous silence more horrible than anything he had yet experienced.

A nauseated burning bubbled in Neil’s stomach and he felt the bile rise to the back of his throat. At that moment, a deep shadow was cast over the alcove when a figure stepped in front of the gaslight. Neil scrambled to his bruised knees, cradling his head in his arms.

‘Get off!’ he cried. ‘Don’t you touch me!’

Looming over the huddled boy, the black shape reached towards him.

‘What’s this, then?’ a gruff voice demanded.

Hearing those words, Neil jerked his head back and blurted out a great, glad cry. Standing over him, with the flame of his cigarette lighter bowing in the draught which coursed through the passageway, was Austen Pickering.

‘What happened, lad?’ the ghost hunter cried, seeing the fear graven in the boy’s face. ‘Are you all right? Did you fall and hurt yourself in the dark?’

‘Mary-Anne!’ Neil shouted, staggering to his feet and lunging from the alcove. ‘How is she? Where are the others?’

Stumbling up the corridor he whisked around but could see nothing in the darkness that had returned. Snatching the lighter from the old man’s hand, he hastened forward, then halted and came running back.

‘Others?’ Mr Pickering repeated. ‘Who do you mean – who’s this Mary-Anne?’

Neil rushed to the wall opposite his hiding place and held the wavering flame above his head whilst he ran his fingers over the worm-ridden wooden panels. But the gas lamp was not there and all he found was a tarnished brass fixing that had not been used for many years.

‘It was here,’ he murmured faintly. ‘She was here – Mary-Anne Brindle.’

An envious smile formed on the old man’s face. ‘You’ve seen something, haven’t you?’ he marvelled. ‘What was it? Tell me everything – I have to know each detail.’

The boy stared at him blankly. ‘But you must have heard them!’ he exclaimed. ‘They were just here, they chased her down …’

His protestations trailed into silence and he took a nervous, sampling breath. ‘That disinfectant smell,’ he muttered. ‘It’s gone as well.’

‘An olfactory emanation!’ Mr Pickering declared. ‘Of all the luck!’

Neil scowled at him. ‘It was nothing to be jealous of, I promise you.’

‘Even better!’ the ghost hunter exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. ‘Let’s get back to The Fossil Room – I want to record this.’

Neil drew a hand over his face. ‘But it was real,’ he whispered.

‘I’m not suggesting you imagined it.’

‘No. I mean they weren’t ghosts – they were actually here. And back there, in the Neo—’

The boy’s insides lurched as he suddenly remembered and went charging back to the Neolithic room.

‘QUOTH!’ he yelled.

Bursting in, he swung around and slapped his hand across the light switches. The sudden flaring of the electric bulbs was blinding and the boy screwed up his face as he rampaged inside, jumping over the table he had crashed into in the dark.

‘Quoth!’ he called again. ‘Where are you?’

Neil threw himself upon his hands and knees and scuttled through the room, searching under the cabinets until he heard a frail, bleating cry.

‘Fie, Sir!’ the familiar tones trilled in a delirious, hiccoughing prattle. ‘Ne’er hath this riddled bucket met with such a boggling – a tree-nesting milche cow! What prodigious eggs thou must be blessed with.’

The raven lay at the foot of the tallest display case, blearily gazing up at the ceiling. His bald head was lolling to one side, his legs split beneath him, one wing raised in the air and the other twitching erratically.

‘Alas, this goodly knight cannot sup with thee. A feast of running cheese and malmsey awaits him. Good Sir Geoffrey, see to mine steed, the rose-cheeked damsel beckons.’

Neil hurried to his side and gave a worried glance at the large crack in the glass where the bird had struck the case. ‘Quoth …’ he ventured.

The raven wagged his head as though he was drunk and Neil touched him gingerly.

‘M’Lady!’ Quoth objected. ‘’Tis most unseemly amid the crocks and dishpots!’

‘Is the poor thing injured?’ Austen Pickering spoke up as he joined them.

‘I don’t think anything’s broken,’ Neil answered. ‘He’s got a huge bump on his head, but – he doesn’t seem to know me.’

Lifting the raven’s limp body off the ground, the boy held him in his arms and the bird’s one eye rolled in its socket.

‘Does look a bit dazed,’ the ghost hunter observed.

Neil bit his lip nervously. ‘Will it be permanent do you think?’

‘Dunno, lad. I’m no vet and I’ve never kept so much as a budgie before. Hang on, this might do the trick.’

From his pocket, the old man pulled the small bottle of smelling salts and wafted the pungent vapour under the raven’s beak.

The result was swift and startling. Quoth bolted upright, spluttering and squawking. ‘Pickled toad stink and squeezings of sourmost mordant fish!’ he gasped. Blowing down his bill to dispel the noxious fumes, he stared accusingly about him until he caught sight of Neil’s face and his belligerent expression transformed to one of joy.

‘Master Neil! There is a remedy for all hurts, save death, and its name is thine.’

The boy laughed. ‘You’re back to normal,’ he said.

Quoth nuzzled against him, then tugged his head aside to glare and squint down at the floor.

‘The imp!’ he cawed, remembering the fiend that had attacked them. ‘Hath it fled hence? Didst thou despatch it?’

‘What’s he talking about?’ Mr Pickering asked. ‘He’s still rambling.’

Neil turned to him. ‘No,’ he replied gravely. ‘When the candles went out, something came after us in here. I don’t know what it was, but it was definitely no ghost. Couldn’t you hear us?’

‘I thought you’d tripped, that’s all,’ the old man answered. ‘I know I did when I came to find you.’

‘So you didn’t see anything either?’

‘Not a thing. Was it some kind of animal?’

Before Neil could reply, Quoth uttered a mortified croak and they lowered their eyes to where the raven pointed with his beak. Lifting one foot in the air, the bird flexed his talons and a splintered shaving of wood dropped on to Neil’s outstretched hand.

‘Behold!’ Quoth announced in a quavering voice. ‘’Tis a token gouged of the demon’s brow.’

Mr Pickering eyed him doubtfully. ‘What’s he saying?’

Neil stared at the evidence upon his palm. ‘No animal was in here tonight,’ he said, hardly believing his own words. ‘Whatever it was that attacked us wasn’t flesh and blood.’

A little while later they were sitting in The Fossil Room, discussing all that had happened from the moment the candle flames were extinguished. Not content with recording Neil’s experience on tape, Austen Pickering also took pages of notes, then went back to the scene of the visitation to see if any clues had been left behind in his scatterings of flour.

‘What a pity,’ he sighed on his return. ‘The marks were too confused to tell me anything. The only clear tracks I could find were a neat little set of raven footprints.’