Margaret Mahy - The Riddle of the Frozen Phantom

The strange blue glow was slowly eating into the shadows around him. It seemed to be coming from him, seeping out of the folds and wrinkles of his clothes. And suddenly the Captain knew exactly where he was. He had been lying on his very own bunk, in his very own cabin, on his very own ship – the gallant Riddle .

His fingers, muffled in three pairs of fine woollen gloves, crept across the fur collar of his great jacket. Horrakapotchkin! His ears had disappeared. But then he realised he was wearing his balaclava and two knitted hats, and that his ears were tucked quite safely beneath them. He fingered the high collar of his natural wool jersey and below that his shirt, the top of his long johns and then not just one but three layers of underwear. He was searching for his whalebone good-luck charm – a charm he had carved and polished himself during his very first Antarctic winter night, back before he rose to the rank of captain. He had shared many adventures with that charm and believed it had carried him safely through many dangers.

“Where’s my pendant?” he asked aloud. The sound of his own echoing voice frightened him. “Hang on! You’re going too fast!” he told himself in a stern whisper. “Begin again! Now, I’m the captain. Right! I’m in my cabin. Right! There’s my captain’s desk! What’s that lumpy thing sitting on it? Oh, it must be the ship’s logbook. But what’s happened to it? Oh, I see! It’s covered with ice. And it’s very thick ice. I must have been asleep for ages.” He puzzled for a moment, then shrugged and went on. “Never mind! What really matters is that my memory is rushing back safe and sound from wherever it has been.”

But this was where the Captain’s memory stopped rushing back. He found he had absolutely no idea of where in the Antarctic The Riddle might happen to be. “Look around!” he told himself sternly. “Work it out!” So he peered this way and that into the gloom, noticing there was ice underfoot and ice overhead, and at last he stood up and made for the cabin door which he tried to open. The blueish light moved with him.

But the door was iced shut. Why, he could not even turn the door handle! The Captain pushed hard. Nothing moved. He put his shoulder to the door and tried to jolt it open with good old-fashioned sailor-power.

Almost at once, he found himself standing on the other side of the door, looking back at it in surprise. Had it opened? No! Somehow, he seemed to have gone straight through it, ice and all. Odd! Very odd! He thumped it experimentally Bang ! It seemed quite solid. He thumped harder and this time his hand sank deep into the ice and wood. The Captain pulled his hand free and frowned down at his faintly glowing, gloved fingers.

He shrugged. “Perhaps all doors are like that,” he murmured (though deep down he knew they weren’t). “I might have forgotten,” (though deep down he knew he hadn’t). “I’ve been fast asleep, and now it’s taking me a minute or two to remember the way things ought to be.”

Ahead he saw faint, blueish light coming down the companionway. Where were his officers? Where was his crew? Above all, where was his old friend, the First Mate, Escher Black? There wasn’t even the smallest cabin boy in sight. “All hands aft!” he shouted, just in case, but no one joined in with a cheery. “Aye aye, Sir!” He tried again. “Escher! Escher Black! Heave to, Escher!”

Silence!

“I’ve lost my pendant and I’ve lost my memory. I’ve lost my ship’s crew and I’ve lost my best friend,” he said to himself, climbing the companionway. “Something terrible must have happened for Escher Black would never desert me. But I mustn’t waste time worrying. I must remember! Now! Why does The Riddle look so strange? I do know ships don’t usually look like this. It really is a riddle.”

For the ship seemed hung about with frozen sails and veils of ice. Ice curved all the way around The Riddle . Ice arched over it, masts and all. I’m in a cave, thought the Captain (looking high, looking low as he worked things out). So he was.

The cave was dim, but not quite dark. Light, rather like the light that was still seeping out of the Captain himself, was finding its way through cracks and twisting shafts in the white, glittering roof. It was beautiful but very puzzling.

A slanting bridge, swollen with ice, connected the icy ship to the frozen land. That must be the gangplank, thought the Captain. I’ll just slither down it, walk off a little way and look back at The Riddle . If I put a bit of distance between me and the ship – if I look back at it – I might get some clues.

But he couldn’t walk down that gangplank. It wasn’t just the iciness of it. He couldn’t so much as set foot on it. Whenever he tried, the air seemed to thicken and freeze in front of him. Try as he might, he could not take a single step away from The Riddle .

Suddenly, the Captain understood! He wasn’t an ordinary captain any more. He was a ghost captain… a phantom… a spook! He wasn’t living on The Riddle (wherever it might happen to be), he was haunting it. He must be dead.

Just for a moment the Captain was terrified.

“Help!” he cried aloud. His ghost voice sprang away from him like a salt sea breeze. It swirled around the cave then shot off towards the bright, outside world. “Help! Help! Help!” the Captain cried three times. “Help! Help! Help!” went the echoes, on and on, up into the overhead tunnels through which the light was seeping into the cave, and out into the unknown space beyond.

The captain heard his own echoes fly outwards and upwards, but there was no reply. He was all alone, haunting a lost ship, in an unknown cave, somewhere in a desert of ice. He would have wept with despair if he hadn’t been the ghost of a particularly brave man.

What he did not know was that his three cries for help were already flying at great speed through the outside world, every one of them determined to find the right listener.

“Help!” went the Captain’s first call.

If an ordinary person had shouted. “Help!” the cry would have dissolved into the Antarctic air. But the Captain had called out in a ghost voice. His first cry flew like a stormy petrel across the islands and salt seas of the great Southern Ocean. It flew above schools of whales and crossed the secret airy routes of the wandering albatross until it came to New Zealand, a country made up of islands, jam-packed with possible listeners.

Most ears are closed to a ghost cry. All the same, some ghost cries can be very persistent. This one searched for a special ear – an ear that would welcome it and invite it in, and at last it found one. It curled its way through the caves and tunnels of this ear, and into the sleeper’s dreams.

“Help!” The explorer Corona Wottley sat up in bed, running her long fingers through her carroty curls as she did so.

“That’s funny!” she cried aloud. “That’s very strange. Was that someone calling for help?” Her head was swimming with visions of ice and snow. “Albino penguins!” she exclaimed. “It’s ages since I wondered about that colony of albino penguins. There were lots of stories about it, but no one has ever found out if it really exists. And what about the lost ship… what was it called? Yes! The Riddle! I haven’t thought about The Riddle for years either. Why not? Bonniface Sapwood may have given up searching for it, the great big wimp, but that doesn’t mean everyone else has to give up. If I set out now – immediately, if not sooner – and if I am strong and brave and determined, I might be the explorer who finds The Riddle . And I could look for the albino penguins at the same time. Suppose I found The Riddle and the white penguins too. That would show Bonniface Sapwood he isn’t the only Antarctic explorer in the world.”