Floods 8 (2 page)

The air inside the attic was very, very old. It smelled as if it had been breathed over and over again until all the goodness had been used up. No human could have survived there, but witches and wizards are not human and can breathe anything, even oxtail soup. It was cold air and even damper than the air outside. It dribbled down the rust-streaked walls and clung to everyone's ankles as they climbed down the stairs into the darkness.

‘Wow, this is great,' said Morbid. ‘It's like being inside a nightmare.'

‘Is there a light switch anywhere?' said Betty.

‘I doubt it, little sister,' said Winchflat. ‘If there had ever been any power up here the atmosphere would have rusted the cables away years ago.'

He reached into his pocket and took out a small round sphere, which he tossed into the air. It began to spin and as it did so, little sparks appeared. As the sphere spun faster, the sparks grew brighter and more frequent until the ball hovered in the air at head height, sending bright light out in all directions.

‘There you are,' said Winchflat. ‘A portable sun.'

The sun revealed a place of total desolation. From the foot of the stairs a long corridor led off as far as the light could reach. Every square inch of the floor was covered in bones, some as small as a mouse's little toe, some as large as a cat's head. There were thousands of them and some of them looked fresh.

‘Cool,' said Satanella.

‘I can sense life,' said the Queen, ‘though that is probably stretching the meaning of the word.'

‘Yes, there is a reading on my scanner,' said Winchflat.

‘How many are there?' said Betty.

‘Just one,' said Winchflat. ‘And it's down there at the end of the corridor.'

Normally in this sort of situation people would then decide to run in the opposite direction, but the Floods are not people. They are witches and wizards. They have magic, plus a child and a dog who both enjoy biting ankles.

‘Can your scanner tell us if it's dangerous?' said Mordonna.

‘No, it's not,' Winchflat said. ‘The machine indicates that the life form is very miserable, lonely and defenceless.'

‘Maybe it really is my Auntie Mould,' said the Queen. ‘I remember when I was a little girl, she disappeared in mysterious circumstances.'

‘Mysterious circumstances, Granny?' said Betty.

‘Yes, Mysterious Circumstances is a small village on the far side of Lake Tarnish,' the Queen
explained. ‘In those days the lake was not as deadly as it is now. In fact, the skin-stripping abilities of its waters were seen as a benefit. As you swam around it ate away all your wrinkly dead skin so that when you came out, you looked ten years younger. Mysterious Circumstances was the most exclusive and expensive of all the lakeside resort villages, until that fateful weekend when Auntie Mould went for a swim and was never seen again. After that no one dared go in the water any more. Rumours sprang up of a huge underwater monster. Not your regular underwater monsters that nibbled your toenails – everyone knew about those – but a new super-monster that tended to eat your toenails without separating them from the rest of you first.'

‘Did anyone ever see it?'

‘No, but after that, Lake Tarnish became more and more toxic until today it can turn not just your toenails but all of you into slime in about seventeen seconds.'

They walked down the corridor towards the place where Winchflat's scanner indicated there
was life. As they approached it, they began to hear a gentle wailing.

‘Auntie Mould?' called the Queen.

The wailing stopped.

‘Is that you, Auntie?' said the Queen.

‘Umm, possibly,' said a voice from a dark corner under the roof.

‘It's me, Auntie, your niece.'

‘Trevor?'

‘No, that's your nephew.'

‘It's been a long time,' said Auntie Mould. ‘You forget things at my age.'

‘What are you doing up here?' the Queen began.

‘Eating my breakfast.'

‘What's to eat up here?' said Betty.

‘Scabs,' said Auntie Mould.

‘Yuk,' said Betty.

‘Cool,' said Morbid.

‘Yeah,' said Merlinmary. ‘Can we have some?'

‘There's only enough for me,' said Auntie Mould.

‘Why don't you come out and see us?' asked the Queen.

‘Just a minute. I've got to mop up the blood.'

‘What blood?' said Mordonna.

‘From picking my scabs,' said Auntie Mould.

‘Oh yuk,' said Betty. ‘She's eating her own scabs.'

‘Well, there's no one else's to eat up here. Would you rather eat cockroaches?' said the old lady.

‘Difficult choice,' said Merlinmary.

‘What about all the bones everywhere?' said Mordonna.

‘Nothing to do with me,' said Auntie Mould. ‘They just appear every night.'

‘You mean there's something else living up here?'

‘Not that I know of.'

Eventually a shrunken little figure emerged from the shadows. She was wearing a very old, very baggy swimming costume covered in blood stains and all over her wrinkly skin there were little bits
of faded wallpaper that the old lady had stuck on herself to stop the bleeding.

‘You've changed, niece,' she said, staring at Betty.

‘That's because she's not your niece,' said the Queen. ‘I am.'

‘Don't be silly,' said Auntie Mould. ‘My niece is a little girl. You're an old lady.'

‘The last time I saw you, I was a little girl. I was nine and you were swimming in Lake Tarnish,' said the Queen. ‘Remember?'

‘Remember? Remember what?'

‘Anything.'

She didn't, so Winchflat nipped back up to the van and got an aerosol of his special Memory-Freshener.

‘Ah, now, yes … umm,' said Auntie Mould. ‘My most recent memory is eating breakfast.'

‘No, go further back,' said the Queen.

‘Oh yes, I can remember eating dinner last night.'

‘No, no, much further back.'

‘What … lunch?'

‘No, no, a long, long way back,' said the Queen.

‘It doesn't really make any difference, dear,' said Auntie Mould. ‘I've eaten nothing but my own scabs for years except one year when a millipede fell down between the slates. I had that for Christmas dinner.'

‘Ah, so you can remember Christmas Day then?'

‘Yes dear, it was this morning, just after Easter.'

‘You don't have a stronger spray, do you?' the Queen asked Winchflat.

‘No. I suspect she's been got at,' he said. ‘I think something's wiped out her brain.'

They sat Auntie Mould on an old box and Winchflat wired her up to one of his machines. It hummed and whirred, hummed some more and then caught fire.

‘Yes, as I thought, someone has been at her memories,' said Winchflat after he'd put the flames out.

‘Can you get them back?' said Mordonna.

‘Well, backup disks weren't invented when Auntie Mould was young, but I'll see what I can do.'

He threaded a thick needle with electric wire, poked it in Auntie Mould's left ear and wiggled it about until it came out of her right ear.

‘Oww, oww, oww, get out,' Auntie Mould cried, but it wasn't because of the wires. It was all the memories coming back.

And everything came back: the submarine and the two divers who had dragged Auntie Mould beneath the waters of Lake Tarnish, wiped her memory and locked her away in Castle's Twilight's attic.

‘But who … why?' said the Queen.

• The gold was not real gold, but fool's gold.
  ⁷
  
• The deadly acid ate it all away as the King tried to scoop up the mud.
  
• After his first dive, the King was too scared to get in the submarine again and he didn't trust anyone else enough to tell them about the gold.
  

‘Well dear,' said Auntie Mould, ‘if I remember correctly, which of course I don't … What was the question again?'

‘Never mind,' said Mordonna. ‘Before we do anything else, let's give you some proper food. I'm sure that'll help your brain work better.'

Unlike the picky vulture, after so long eating
nothing but her own scabs Auntie Mould didn't care about too much salt and ate thirteen thick bacon sandwiches with extra sauce and dripping, scooping up the fat that dripped down her face and arms with amazing enthusiasm.

‘Oh my goodness,' she said as she collapsed against the wall with a big grin on her face. ‘I had
forgotten just how wonderful bacon is. When we get out of here I will go and personally thank every pig I can find and then eat them.'

Five more rashers of bacon, fourteen cups of super-strength double espresso coffee and a deep-fried Mars Bar later, Auntie Mould was ready for anything.

‘Especially teaching the King a lesson,' she said to the Queen.

‘Excellent,' said the Queen. ‘Though of course the King who imprisoned you was my father and the one we are going to punish is my husband and he's even worse than Daddy was.'

‘Whatever,' said Auntie Mould. ‘Let's crush the King's crown, and I don't mean the thing he wears on his head.'

‘First of all,' said Mordonna, ‘we must find a way down from here into the castle.'

‘Well, I've been up here for years and years and I've never found a way out,' said Auntie Mould.

‘Excuse me,' said Betty. ‘If there wasn't a way out, we wouldn't have got in.'

‘Yes,' said Auntie Mould, ‘but is a way out the same as a way in?'

‘Well, Auntie…' the Queen began.

‘Though of course we could always go to the way in and walk out backwards so we look like we are coming in, so the Door Fairies don't realise,' Auntie Mould continued.