Robin Jarvis-Jax 01 Dancing Jax (30 page)

All around her the women were cooing and giggling with the marvellous sensation of being carried aloft. Dancing slippers dropped from waggling feet and bare legs dangled in the empty air. What a delight, what a beauteous feeling – with the Ismus waiting at the end. Perfect, absolutely perfect.

And then they realised something was wrong. They were not headed towards the central tower at all. They were drifting away from it.

“What is happening?” the Queen of Hearts shrieked in confusion. “Not this way, go back – go back!”

The floating women thrashed their arms like clumsy birds and kicked their legs like frogs, but nothing would alter their course. They flew high above the castle lawns, high over the curtain wall where a group of Punchinello Guards stared up at them and hooted at the sights they glimpsed soaring over their heads.

“I don’t understand!” the Queen of Hearts was howling as she flailed her flabby arms.

“You stupid woman!” her friend, the Queen of Spades, scolded as she went sailing by. “You brewed it wrong this time.”

“I didn’t, I swear. I followed the recipe to the letter, same as I always do.”

They were almost over the outer wall. Beyond the moat lay the sleepy village of Mooncot.

“The peasants will look up my petticoats!” the Queen of Diamonds wept dismally. “Oh, the everlasting shame!”

The Jill of Spades was just as helpless as the rest of them. What was she to do now?

“We might never stop!” one noblewoman cried. “We could fly on and on – over the woods – over the hills! What will become of us?”

“Now I remember!” the Queen of Hearts yelled. “It was him! He came by. He visited me this afternoon after I had brewed it. He must have meddled with it as it was cooling.”

“Him?” the Queen of Spades shouted back. “Who him?”

“The Jockey!” her friend answered with a fretful, warbling groan.

As if in answer, they all heard a hearty laugh from below. Staring down, they saw a man in a caramel-coloured suit performing a gloating jig.

“I tricked you, I trumped you!” he sang out. “I rode you, I rid you! The Ismus won’t be bestowing his favour upon any of you this night, dear ladies. Haw haw haw!”

“How dare you!” the Queen of Diamonds shrieked, gathering her petticoats closely about her. “Bring us down at once – you tampering trickster!”

The man laughed even louder. “But of course!” he called up. “This is the end of thy journey, my Lady. This is as far as the enchantment takes you.”

The women did not have time to think. They each felt the power of the minchet failing. Then they realised where they were and they screamed and shrieked all the more. Too late. One by one they dropped like stones from the sky. Down and down. The castle walls rushed past and then the night was filled with splashes as every single one of them plunged into the moat.

The Jill of Spades came up gasping for air, covered in duckweed and choking with the murky water. Around her the other women were doing the same and yowling wretchedly. They floundered and bobbed and paddled for the water’s edge. Jill reached the bank first and realised with a sickening shock that the bottle of poison was gone from inside her sleeve. She had lost it in the moat. What would she say to Haxxentrot? And she hadn’t even thought how she might steal Malinda’s wand. What terrible retribution would the witch visit upon her?

As the women heaved themselves on to dry land, dripping with mud, sobbing and shivering, the girl glared up at the Jockey. She could not see his face, but she could make out his cap, leaning through the crenellations. He was waving his hands and dancing around, revelling in his latest mischief.

“You have made an enemy of me this night,” she whispered. “Watch your back from now on, Jockey. The Jill of Spades has a score to settle with you.”

A shrill scream caused her to look around. The others were now standing upon the grass, but staring at their hands and scratching at their necks and shoulders.

“I said the enchantment took you this far!” the Jockey’s voice shouted down to them. “I did not say it had ended. Haw haw haw – I tricked you, I trumped you. I rode you, I rid you. I dropped you, I drowned you. I groomed you, I teased you!”

The Jill of Spades was confused. Then she too realised. Where she had rubbed the minchet on to her body, her skin was burning. It was a hot, prickling pain, and then, to her dismay, she saw bristles sprouting everywhere.

“I’m covered in hair!” she cried. “I’ve got hair on my hands, on my arms and shoulders!”

The rest of the women were screaming along with her. Every one of them was now covered in coarse, dog-like hair – everywhere the sabotaged flying ointment had touched their skin.

Above them the Jockey’s braying laughter was even louder than their panicked screeches. Then the lightning ripped through the heavens, the thunder clashed directly overhead and the rain began to pour from the sky. The women shrieked all the more.

Emma Taylor clutched at her throat and rubbed her hands anxiously. She fell back against the sandhill and tore at her shoulders. Then she opened her eyes. Her palms were smooth. Her neck was not thick with hair. She grunted with relief.

The woman who had been Queenie knelt beside her.

“Daughter,” she said gently. “Welcome back.”

The girl grinned at her. “Hello, Mumsy,” she said, raising one eyebrow archly. “I am the Jill of Spades.”

“The Ismus will be well pleased you have joined us at last.” Emma held out her hand and Conor Westlake helped her to her feet.

A man’s concerned voice was calling her name in the distance, down by the fort.

“That will be Mr Taylor,” Emma said. “He is looking for the girl. I will go to him. I will play-act and dissemble.”

“It’s what you do best, my child,” the Queen of Spades said proudly.

With a last, sly look at everyone gathered there, Emma hurried away towards the Landguard.

“And now the Court is complete,” Conor declared happily.

The woman tapped her fan on his shoulder. “Not yet, Jack,” she said. “There is still one who has not been found. The Jockey is not here amongst us.”

“I can wait a goodly while till that happens!”

“As can we all. But who knows, maybe he is already out there, simply biding his time till he stands forward? That would be so like him.”

The boy shuddered. “I fear the Jockey,” he muttered.

“So do the rest of us in Mooncaster,” she told him. “Yea, even perhaps our Lord Ismus himself.”

Chapter 27

Martin Baxter waited almost two hours for Carol to return. He had done his best to clear the wreckage in what remained of his sanctum, but in the end the blue gloss paint defeated him. He was too tired to cope with that tonight. He did discover, however, that certain pieces of his collection were missing. Paul had taken some of his most valuable items: an original sonic screwdriver, the screen-used phaser from the Next Generation’s first season and the Blake’s Seven teleport bracelet. The boy really had taken the ‘jools’ of his collection.

There was still no word about Paul. They rang round everyone they could think of in the vain hope that the boy would have gone there and Carol tried his mobile again, but it was still switched off. She called her mother and spent half an hour trying to explain what had happened. At five to midnight they rang the police again, but they had no news.

“He’s only eleven years old!” Carol snapped at them. “Anything could be happening to him. Why aren’t you doing more?”

“I assure you, Mrs Thornbury, we’re doing all we can to find your son,” the sergeant told her.

“Well, obviously that’s not enough, is it?” she retorted. “You haven’t found him yet!”

“Would you like an officer to come over and be with you there?”

“What? No, I wouldn’t! If you’ve got people to spare, they should be out looking for my son!”

“We’re doing our best, Mrs Thornbury.”

“I’m sure you are,” she said sarcastically. Carol ended the call and bit her lips in frustration.

“What if they can’t find him?” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do. You hear about these things – kids disappearing. How many do they find safe and well? Not many. We’ll have to do one of those press conferences and appeal for help. The families on those always look shifty and guilty…”

“Carol,” Martin told her, “stop it. You’re torturing yourself. Paul hasn’t been abducted. He ran away. Whatever’s the matter with him, he isn’t stupid. He’s a bright kid. He won’t do anything silly.”

The woman pointed upstairs. “What he did to your collection was sensible then, was it?” she asked.

“No, but he was rational enough to write that message on the wall. Whatever he’s on will wear off eventually. He’ll come back then.”

“You still think it was that stuff in those jars!” she cried. “It was the book, Martin.”

“Rubbish!”

“I’m not going to argue with you. I should be out there looking for him.”

“Where? Where do you think you can look that the police haven’t?”

“I can’t just sit here waiting.” Carol grabbed the car keys again and headed for the door. “I have to feel as though I’m doing something.”

“So you’re just going to drive round Felixstowe all night long, is that it?”

“It has to be better than doing nothing.”

“I’ll come with you!”

“No, one of us has to stay – in case he comes back.”

“Why does that have to be me?”

“Because I’m his mother!” she shouted.

The phone rang and Carol ran to it. “Paul?” she cried desperately. “Oh… no. Hello, Gerald. No – no word. Yes, we’re still waiting. Look, I can’t talk, I was just on my way out – here’s Martin.”

She pushed the phone across. Martin scowled at her, but she was out of the house before he could do anything.

“Hello?” Gerald’s voice sounded from the phone. “Hello?”

Martin heard the car leave the driveway and he reluctantly lifted the phone to his ear. “Hi,” he said wearily. “Sorry about that. She’s in a state – as you can imagine.”

They had already spoken to Gerald Benning earlier, but he hadn’t seen anything of the boy.

“Poor Carol,” the old man said. “It’s a nightmare.”

“Yes, yes, it is.”

“I never thought Paul would do something like this.”

“No, me neither.”

“What was that you were saying yesterday about a book?”

Martin wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. Gerald was a lovely, sweet old guy, but the maths teacher just wanted to be left alone right now.

“Oh, just a book that’s become part of this craze at school,” he said. “Listen, I really have to…”

“I still can’t understand how you think it’s to blame for this.”

“I don’t, not any more…”

“And it was written by who?”

“Doesn’t matter… Austen someone. No, Austerly someone. Like I said, it doesn’t matter. I really have to get going…”

There was a long pause and Martin thought Gerald had quietly put the receiver down. Then the old man said, “Austerly Fellows?”

“Yes, that’s the one. I’ll call you in the morning, Gerald.”

“Martin!” the old man’s voice was suddenly forceful and urgent. “Martin! Don’t hang up!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, my dear Lord. Martin – I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”

“Gerald?”

“I should have listened to you. You were right the other day. You say that book was written by Austerly Fellows?”

“Yes, why?”

“You don’t know who he is? What he was?”

Martin held the phone away from his face. What was Gerald gabbling about?

“I do know, Martin!” the old man declared. “I know. And Paul is in far greater danger than you can ever imagine.”

“Thanks, Gerald, that’s just what I needed to hear.”

“Come round. Come round here – you have to be told, you have to know.”

“Eh?”

“Martin, I’m serious. Come round right now.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Carol’s just gone out and someone has to stay here, just in case.”

“Tomorrow then!”

“That depends what happens tonight.”

“I’m begging you!”

“OK,” Martin promised, taken aback by the intensity of the old man’s plea. “What’s the big deal? Why can’t you just tell me now?”

There was another pause. “Because there’s something I have to show you,” he replied.

“What sort of something?”

“I can’t explain over the phone, but I’ll tell you this much… the police won’t be any use to you – not in this.”

Martin frowned. It wasn’t like Gerald to be so cryptic and he sounded genuinely afraid. Then he remembered one of the last things Paul had said to him in the playground yesterday morning – when he was still normal. He had told him to Google Austerly Fellows.

“Gerald,” he said suddenly. “I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Before the old man could answer, Martin put the phone down and ran upstairs. His own computer was splashed with blue paint so he sat down in front of Paul’s.

The PC blinked on. Martin hesitated. What was he doing? Was he admitting there might be some supernatural explanation for these events?

“Ridiculous,” he said aloud. “I’m just checking, that’s all.”

The Google search showed its results. Martin clicked on the Wikipedia article. The page appeared and Martin found himself staring at the black and white photograph of an unpleasant-looking man in monk’s robes. He began to read.

Austerly Fellows
(1879–1936) The self-styled ‘Abbot of the Angles’ and ‘Grand Duke of the Inner Circle’…

Martin stopped. There was a spot of grime on the screen. He scratched at it, but it was beneath the glass. Then he noticed another – and another. As he stared at them, they increased in size and more began to bloom across the monitor. It was like mould, ugly black mould. Within moments, it had spread over the whole screen, totally obliterating the Wikipedia page. Martin grabbed the mouse and dragged it round and punched at the keyboard, but the screen remained dark. Then he smelled a horrible reek of damp and decay. It was coming from inside the monitor. A thread of smoke rose from the back, followed by a snap and a spit of sparks. Martin jumped out of the chair and pulled the plugs from the wall.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed as crumbs of black fungus dripped from the monitor on to the desk. The man hurriedly left the room and slammed the door behind him.

“OK,” he said. “Now I’m ready to believe!”

Carol drove aimlessly around the town. She had seen nothing for hours. Felixstowe was eerily silent. As she trawled through those empty streets, she became increasingly uneasy. The fear for her missing son was paramount in her mind, but gradually another thought nudged its way forward through that pain.

All of the houses she passed were dark, with drawn curtains, but many times, in the rear-view mirror, she thought she caught a movement in those dead windows. A curtain corner lifted or a blind swayed back into place. At first she told herself it was her imagination and then, when it happened more and more, she reasoned it was only natural for people to wonder who was driving by so slowly at such a late hour. But there was a furtiveness about it that wasn’t normal. She never saw any faces. No lights were switched on. It was sly and stealthy, marking her progress through the town.

At half past two, when Carol was certain she had been observed from every house in one street, she stopped the car, slammed the heel of her hand on the horn for a full minute, then got out.

“I’m looking for my son!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Have you seen him? Do you know where he is? Can anyone help me?”

The houses remained dark. No lights snapped on. No one appeared at the windows to see what the commotion was – and that, in itself, was sinister and threatening. Carol suddenly felt alone and afraid. She hurriedly jumped back into the driving seat, revved the engine and headed home.

Martin was dozing on the settee when she returned. The woman covered him with a coat and slid into the armchair opposite. How could she sleep, knowing Paul was out there somewhere? Only then did she realise that in all the time she had been out, she hadn’t seen a single police car.

The hours before dawn crept slowly by.

At six o’clock sharp, she called the station. There was still no news. The policeman on the duty desk assured her that officers had been out searching for her son. Carol didn’t believe a word of it and her responses were so angry they woke Martin in the next room.

Scratching his stubble, he came into the hall to find her staring at the phone – a look of disbelief and shock on her face.

“What’s happened?” he asked, fearing the worst.

Carol turned to him slowly. “Nothing,” she uttered. “Still no word, but…”

“But what?”

“The policeman just then… when he said goodbye, just before he rang off… he said, ‘Blessed be’.”

“My God,” Martin murmured.

“I’m so scared,” she said. “What’s happening? I got spooked driving out there last night. I’m not paranoid. This thing, this madness, is getting bigger and bigger.”

“Dancing Jacks,” the man muttered. “Paul was right, you were right.”

“What can we do?”

“Come and see Gerald with me. He’s got something he wants to show us.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, but he was very insistent.”

“I don’t like the thought of no one being here in case Paul comes back,” Carol said. “Look, I want to go and see my mother, make sure she’s OK. Wait till I get home before going to Gerald’s, OK?”

Martin agreed. After a shower and breakfast, he spent the rest of the morning clearing his inner sanctum. The debris filled seven bin bags. There was nothing worth keeping. Once he looked into Paul’s bedroom. It smelled of damp in there and there was a patch of mould on his desk where the monitor had leaked. The man pulled the door shut and shivered.

Carol didn’t return from her mother’s until late in the afternoon. On the way she had stopped off at the police station in the vain hope of finding someone who wasn’t under the influence of that book, but she couldn’t get past the officer on the desk. He had stared at her with large, dark eyes and assured her everything would be fine.

Her own eyes were sunken with grief and tiredness. In spite of her protests, Martin put her to bed. She would be no use to anyone if she didn’t get some rest.

A little while later the maths teacher got in the car and drove through the town. For a Saturday afternoon, Felixstowe was very quiet. Martin only saw a handful of people going in and out of the shops and there was hardly any traffic on the roads. He reached Duntinkling, the guesthouse of Gerald Benning, in next to no time.

The muted sounds of the old man’s piano greeted him as he stepped from the car. It was something tuneful by Ivor Novello. Martin recognised it from the movie Gosford Park. It was the only way he ever knew music, through soundtracks. He was a total ignoramus otherwise. He waited for the song to end, then pressed the bell.

Presently there came the sound of clipped footsteps ringing along the hallway and the front door opened.

Martin was halfway through saying hello when the word froze on his tongue. The person who had answered was not Gerald Benning. It was an elderly-looking woman with austerely coiffed steel-grey hair and horn-rimmed spectacles attached to a fine chain that looped around her neck. She wore an old-fashioned but smart black evening dress and a double string of pearls with matching earrings. She looked at Martin with impatient curiosity.

The man blinked at her. He had seen her many times in his life, on the television and once in the theatre – Professor Evelyn Hole.

Martin’s thoughts stumbled clumsily. Here was one half of Hole and Corner, the once famous double act. Gerald Benning and his late partner, Peter Drummond, had created two of the most endearing and fondly remembered characters in British entertainment. Hole and Corner were two genteel but vivacious spinsters. The act was simple and brilliant. They were supposed to be part of a musical quintet. The stage would be set with all five instruments, but the other three musicians never, ever turned up. There was always a different and hilarious reason for this and Hole and Corner would have to amuse the audience as they waited in vain for the others to arrive. They did this by relating funny anecdotes about their errant colleagues and performing songs in their absence, eventually playing each of the forsaken instruments themselves.