Ghosts on Board (6 page)

All the way along the path Victor skulks at the back, muttering. I can only assume that he's trying to make the meteorite work and even though I'm fairly sure he can't, I'm worried that because we're on a haunted island, and because he's really a ghost, something might have changed. He's obviously interested in Jacob's power. He hasn't actually seen Eric's or my powers, and I can't help feeling that he wants Jacob for himself, that he's only come along to keep Jacob within his grasp  … 

That he might, at any minute, get rid of the rest of us.

How did Grandma know that Victor was a ghost? It bothers me. Just like she said that thing about them being unpredictable. It's all making me feel sick.

I'm feeling, maybe, 3 per cent good about this. I know I've got Eric but he's not really using his mind. It's like having half an Eric – the legs, arms and hair half but not the brain half.

At the front of the group Flora Rose squeals.

‘What's the matter?' Eric asks her.

‘It's Vile Lucy. She's prodding me with a bodkin. STOP IT!' Flora Rose bellows. ‘Oh, can't we go back now?'

‘Who
is
Vile Lucy?' asks Eric, but Flora Rose doesn't answer and Tilly marches ahead so we all have to follow her into the grey fog.

‘I don't like this,' says Eric beside me. ‘We shouldn't be here.'

‘Well, if you hadn't been taken in by him in the first place we wouldn't be,' I say. ‘And now – we've got Tilly involved. She's my sister – but if
you
want to go back  … '

Eric shakes his head. ‘I'm sorry. I know you don't want to be here either, but I wouldn't abandon anyone. That would be dreadful.'

We press ahead, long flappy things brushing against our faces in the gloom, other things crunching under our feet and all the time the terrible moaning and groaning ringing around our heads. I'm trying to think warm, comforting thoughts – pies and cakes and sweets and crazy golf and smiling holidaymakers, but it's really hard and the terrible moaning just makes it worse.

‘What is that?' says Jacob, pointing at a large, leafless tree. Its branches look more like fingers than wood. It's sticking out of a grey porridgy swamp, but it appears to be flexing gently as if it was alive.

‘Nice tree,' says Tilly, her voice laden with sarcasm.

‘Interesting,' says Eric. ‘I've never seen a tree of the genus
Handus
looking so big and healthy.'

The tree seems to move to face us. It might be a trick of the light, but there isn't any light so I'm inclined to think it's the tree itself. I lift my hand and form a ring between my finger and thumb, making an O around the tree itself. From this distance I could shrink it into something quite tiny and harmless.

Click
, I say in my head.

But nothing happens. I look down at my palm – no tiny
Handus
tree appears and the one in the porridge swamp looks just as big and just as scary as it did.

‘It takes people,' says Flora Rose, panting heavily in my ear. ‘And ghosts. Actually, it's got Vile Lucy, right now.' The tree squeezes its branches together and Flora Rose gasps. ‘That was nasty. Although, perhaps losing Lucy's a good thing. Last year, it took Flat George. He wasn't terribly bright but even so, it seemed a bit harsh. It's a horrible place.'

Jacob picks up a broken tree branch, leans forward over the swamp and offers it to the tree. The tree grabs it immediately, pulverising it and dropping it into the pit at its feet. ‘Woah!' says Jacob, leaping back from the side.

‘OK, I'll avoid the tree,' says Tilly, looking at it with respect. ‘This way, I think,' she says, stomping off down another dark path.

‘Tilly!' I shout. ‘Tilly, can't we go home?' But she ignores me.

I watch the tree crushing a twig and try once again to shrink it, but it doesn't work.

I'm staring at my empty palm when Victor brushes past – he's bent over and definitely transparent. He appears to be floating over the path, he isn't making footprints and there's something in his see-through pocket. Almost certainly Jacob's meteorite, although it might not matter at all because, so far as I can see, our powers don't work here. This is fine in terms of Victor, but not at all good when it comes to being stuck on an island with a load of haunted things.

Tilly bumps to a halt outside a broken, blackened tower.

‘Ah,' says Victor sadly. ‘The bell tower. Once so fine, and now so  … '

‘Rubbish?' asks Tilly. ‘Is that the word you were looking for? Can we go inside? It looks extra specially spooky.'

‘Really?' says Eric. ‘Can't we just pretend we've been in? It doesn't look safe.'

Jacob pulls something out of his bag and a powerful beam of light plays over the charred bricks of the tower. ‘Wow!' he says. ‘Awesome. My Dreamcaster torch is the brightest thing on the island – it's virtually the sun.'

‘Extraordinary,' says Eric. ‘To be so burned and yet still be standing.'

‘It was Oswald that did it,' says Victor, his voice dismal.

‘No it wasn't,' says Flora Rose. ‘It was Billy that got caught in the fire.'

‘Whatever,' says Tilly. ‘How d'you get inside?'

‘Well, you'll have to put the arm back on that statue to open the door,' says Flora Rose. She points at a sad black marble figure, swathed in more black marble drapery. One arm points up at the sky. The other lies on the ground. Like many things on the island, it's vaguely disconcerting.

‘How do you know? I thought you couldn't touch things,' I say.

‘How do we know it's not a ghostly trap?' asks Jacob.

‘Mr Chenkov, the Russian ghost, could do it for a while, until he blew away on the wind,' says Flora Rose. ‘But if you don't want to find out, I don't care. Ugh! Spiders. I hate spiders. You could probably burn your way through the door,' she says to Jacob.

‘How come there aren't any other ghosts here?' asks Tilly, picking up the arm and locking it into place.

‘There are,' says Flora Rose. ‘In fact right now, little Larry, the hurricane boy, is standing next to you looking at your feet.'

Tilly side steps and we all stare at her cherry pink trainers. ‘Did he come to a horrible end?' she asks.

‘Very nasty,' says Flora Rose. ‘You don't want to know. You'll need to push the door to make it open.'

Tilly puts one finger against the door, gives it a shove and it swings open, revealing absolute darkness. It's so black inside it feels as if the blackness is leaking out to where we're standing.

‘Do you really want to go in there?' sniffs Eric.

‘Ladies first,' says Jacob, shining the Dreamcaster into the void. It lights up a rickety wooden bridge, stretching over a pond.

‘No, thanks,' says Tilly.

‘I'll just go back to the jetty – wait for you there,' says Victor.

‘Oh, no you don't!' Tilly grabs Victor's elbow. It stretches but then he comes to rest next to her. ‘You're coming in with us.'

‘Really?' says Victor, weakly.

‘The water's called the Lilac Lake,' says Flora Rose. ‘And on the other side is an island with a rose bush. The rose always blooms but the flowers are dark purple. There's a legend that the flowers bring eternal happiness. They're rather pretty actually.'

We cluster around the doorway, peering into the gloom.

‘Who's going to pick me a rose then?' asks Tilly.

‘I don't fancy it,' says Jacob.

‘Count me out,' says Victor. ‘I'll wait here. Tell you what – shall I look after your bags?'

‘No thanks,' says Tilly. ‘I don't trust you. Tom, pick me a rose. Go to the island and come back with a rose – a good one, not a mangy, I've-finished-flowering sort of a one. I'd like some eternal happiness please.'

‘What? Why should I?' I say. ‘If you want a rose you can go and pick it yourself.'

‘If you don't pick one for me, I'll tell Mum AND Grandma that you were unkind.'

If I could see Tilly's face right now, I know she'd be running a mix of smug face and stuck-out lower lip.

‘I'm here, Tilly, to protect you and get you out of trouble,' I say. ‘I am not your servant.'

‘Exactly,' she replies. ‘So if you don't cross the bridge, I will, and then I'll be in trouble hanging on a broken bridge over the twin-tailed waggle fish or the man-eating piranhas, and you'll have to save me and there'll be two of us in trouble.' I can hear the smug smile in Tilly's voice. ‘If you go on your own then I'm here to shout and scream and encourage you back. Or ring for an ambulance.'

I'm trying to see the world the way Tilly sees it, with her at the centre and me hanging on to some distant whim of hers, when Jacob leaps onto the first plank of the bridge. ‘If you won't go, I will,' he says, striding onto the boards.

For a moment it looks as if the bridge will hold his weight, but as he takes his third stride, it lets out a yell, the plank snaps and drops him into the dark water below.

‘Oh dear,' says Flora Rose. ‘That is unfortunate.'

‘AAAAAAArrghghghghgh!' screams Jacob, from the darkness. Splashes accompany his shouts and the angry shouts of the bridge, before coming to a gurgling halt.

A purple beam of light cuts through the water, drifting slowly down and down.

‘He was still holding his torch,' says Flora Rose sadly.

Something ripples the beam and I'm sure I see a stream of bubbles rise from beneath the surface.

‘Billy!' shouts Flora Rose. ‘Wait!'

And another ripple shakes the weakening torch beam.

‘Oh Lor, she's dived in to save him,' says Victor. ‘How horribly heroic.'

We stare into the cavern, waiting for anyone or anything to resurface. It's like staring into the heart of a gigantic blackcurrant jelly baby. One that swallows things.

‘Tom, save him. Save him, now,' instructs Tilly, sounding anxious.

‘Can he swim?' asks Eric eventually.

‘I think so,' I reply, searching my bag for anything that might help. ‘Perhaps he's caught on something.' My hands close around a length of elderly rope that was being chucked out by Field Craft. It's rough and not terribly strong but it might help. I knot one end and throw it into the Lilac Lake. It falls in the light from the torch beam and slowly sinks below the surface.

‘Do you think he's already dead?' asks Tilly. ‘Will he come back as a ghost?'

We stare at the surface. In my head, I start to count.

One
 … 

Two
 … 

Three
 … 

Four
 … 

How long can someone hold their breath?

Seven
 … 

Eight
 … 

Jacob's top half shoots out of the water. ‘Help!' he shouts, thrashing at the water. ‘Snot Face, Model Village – get me out of here!'

‘Grab the rope,' I shout. ‘Right next to you.'

Spluttering, he grasps at the rope and Eric and I try to pull him out, but it snaps almost immediately, sending him back below.

‘Tom, DO SOMETHING!' yells Tilly.

I'm standing there, staring, trying to work out how I can possibly rescue someone twice my size who seems to be drowning in a haunted jelly baby, when Jacob bobs back up, supported by two human shapes apparently made of purple gloop.

‘You idiots!' he shouts. ‘Grab some ivy or something! Shrink something, drown something! Do something! HELP ME!'

Briefly I wonder if Jacob would help any of us in the same situation, before running back out of the door and combing the ground outside the bell tower for anything useful. It's dark out here and my torch beam is feeble compared to Jacob's, and there doesn't appear to be anything much to help, and it's downright scary.

‘Whhhhhhoooooooooooooo.' The distant trees let out a particularly mournful wail.

Something rustles in the undergrowth and I race back inside clutching a short stick and a couple of feeble lengths of ivy, which were the only remotely useful things I spotted. Back in the bell tower, Eric's hanging on to a rotting stump and leaning out over the water with a branch.

His branch is at least an arm too short. ‘What are those things on either side of you, Jacob?' he says, stretching his hand another millimetre.

‘Poor, pathetic Billy and Flora Rose,' says Victor, strolling out from the gloom. ‘You can see them because of the water – it's thick and coats everything.' He turns away into the shadows and I quite clearly see a spark, the kind that comes from stone on stone. He's striking the meteorite against the walls of the tower. He's not even bothering to conceal it any more and I imagine he's trying to switch it on. I only hope I'm right about the powers not working here.

‘Useless!' yells Jacob at Eric just before he sinks back under the lilac water, Flora Rose and Billy sinking with him. Although they're almost visible, Jacob is more than heavy and they're less than solid.

‘They can't hold him up,' says Eric as we watch Jacob go under the water again.

‘But we can't let him drown,' I say. ‘We must be able to do something.'

‘Why won't you work, you stupid thing?' says Victor, behind me.

We turn to look at him.

He looks up at us, caught in the beam of my torch, not unlike a fox in the headlights. ‘The stick rope thingy.' He stumbles over the words. ‘I was just shouting at the sticks  … ' He looks around as if noticing Jacob for the first time. ‘Oh, dear, they'll never be able to hang on to him. He's so  …  large.' With an exaggerated gesture he throws himself down on the ground and crawls over the remainder of the bridge. I notice that he's not really touching the bridge, and that his grey hand now appears to be lilac – as if I'm not looking at Victor at all, but straight through to the lake.

‘Hold my legs someone!' he shouts and we run to grab his ankles, Tilly too, although I don't think she's actually touching him. ‘Just a little more!' shouts Victor, his hands almost closing over Jacob's before Jacob slips through his fingers and bobs back under the water.

‘Oh dear – what a tragedy,' says Victor, immediately turning back towards the shore, not even stopping to watch and see if Jacob reappears for a second attempt.

‘We're going to have to get that hand-tree thing,' I say to Eric.

‘Really?' he says.

‘Really,' I reply.

And we race out through the door, down the dark and crunchy path to the hand tree.

‘Don't leave me here alone with a bunch of ghosts!' yells Tilly, charging along the path behind us.

We stop by the swamp. The tree turns a little to face us.

‘It's completely horrible,' I say. ‘How on earth can we get it out? Without being crushed to death?'

‘As I remember, the genus
Handus
can be charmed by riddles,' says Eric. ‘And jokes of course.'

‘Riddles? But it hasn't even got ears!'

‘Jokes and riddles? I know lots of jokes,' says Tilly. ‘Doctor, doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains  … '

To my surprise the tree seems to relax.

‘Doctor doctor, I feel like a pack of cards.'

Tilly starts again. ‘One night, a butcher, a baker, and a milkman enter a haunted house. Four men come out. Who is the fourth?' And the tree faces her, concentrating intently, watching her. It seems not to notice us tiptoeing across the edge of the swamp until we have our arms linked around the trunk.

‘How about a limerick?
There was a boy called Tom, who ran away from a bomb. He went to a pub to get some grub  … 
'

‘One, two, three – lift!' I hiss, and Eric and I pull, ignoring the awful squelching sound around our feet. The roots, although wide, aren't particularly long, and after three goes we actually get it out of the ground.

‘Quick, we'd better run back,' says Eric, and between the three of us we try to pull it along the path. The arms are still flailing but so long as Tilly tells it riddles, it seems less aggressive, if a tree can seem less aggressive.

‘I'm here, I'm here!' shouts a voice from the mist.

‘Victor?' asks Eric.

‘Yes, yes, can't let the poor mite drown. Hand tree eh? Very resourceful – let me help.'

Between the four of us we get back to the shore of the lake, just in time to see Jacob's limp hand sink below the surface.

‘Now!'

We shove the tree out over the water, and without Tilly's riddles, it twists around searching for something to grab. Finding Jacob, it plucks him from the water, drags him towards the shore accompanied by his two strange jelly-ghost floats and holds him high in the air.

‘Bravo!' says Eric.

‘Result,' coughs Jacob, throwing up a week's worth of sweets.

‘How very  …  necessary,' says Victor.