Tales From The Wyrd Museum 2: The Raven's Knot (26 page)

Down in the kitchen, all of Quoth's ragged feathers stood on end and the raven pulled a pained, horrified expression.

“Tis here,’ he choked, urgently tugging on the collar of Neil's shirt to get his attention. ‘The stink of death which this sicklet didst fear in the hovel. That dread is on me once more! Those terrors I didst sense amidst the straw, one of their number hath been here, verily-’tis here now!’

Neil and the tramp stared at him then looked sharply up the stairs.

‘Wait, girlie!’ Tommy hissed. ‘Come you back down!’

But it was too late, Lauren had already entered the bedroom.

*

Lying on top of the covers and still fully dressed, the girl's stepmother stirred feebly when Lauren approached.

Going to the cash-and-carry had been too much for the woman. On her return she had almost collapsed in the kitchen and had only managed to struggle upstairs by a supreme effort of her failing will. She felt as though her life was ebbing away, seeping from her limbs to leave only a barren, vacant void to be influenced and controlled.

Even with the warm pink glow of the lamp falling upon her features, Sheila's skin appeared ashen and clammy, but her eyelids fluttered and her dilated pupils slid across to gaze up at the anxious girl.

‘L... Lorrie...’ she whimpered. ‘I... I... feel

Lauren lay a hand upon the woman's sweat-streaming forehead. It was hot and fevered.

‘You'll be all right, Sheila,’ she said, trying to sound calm. ‘Everything'll be fine—just concentrate on getting well.’

Her stepmother's eyes rolled upwards, leaving a hideous sliver of white showing and the girl looked away to glare at the object which she knew she had to destroy.

Hanging from the bedpost above Sheila's head, the effigy of the crow woman appeared just as she had last seen it—a rudimentary cloth doll with beads for eyes and twigs for feet and fingers.

Dangling there, inert and dormant, it seemed ridiculous to believe it wielded power over her stepmother, but after talking to Miss Pettigrew in the craft shop, Lauren knew that her instinctive dislike of the sinister image was justified.

Warily, the girl glanced at the ailing figure upon the bed. Sheila had fallen back into a swoon and was rambling incoherently in a hoarse whisper. So, taking this chance and curbing her natural revulsion, Lauren reached out to steal the vile thing.

As soon as her fingers closed about the fabric of the small checked dress, Sheila's eyes snapped open.

‘Stop!’ she yelled in a high-pitched, frantic shriek. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I'm taking the doll away,’ came the swift reply. ‘Can't you see? That's what's making you ill!’

Sheila's large, dark eyes stared at her in horror. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Lorrie—don't! You mustn't! Give it back—give it to me!’

Lauren shook her head and edged towards the door as the woman let out a piteous, mewling cry.

‘I have to have it!’ she wailed. ‘I will have it!’

Without warning, Sheila flung herself from the bed and lunged at her stepdaughter, knocking her off balance.

Lashing out with more strength than the girl could have imagined possible, she snatched the crow doll from her grasp and leapt back across the room to dive under the bed, where she gripped the effigy fiercely and glared about her like a wild, cornered animal.

‘Sheila!’ Lauren gasped in dismay. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Get out!’ sobbed the woman's voice from beneath the bed. ‘Leave me—leave us.’

‘I can't.’

Sheila's laboured, fitful breathing was her only answer and so, not knowing what else to do, Lauren opened the door.

‘I'll be back in a moment with help,’ she said.

‘Hlökk...’ came a despairing hiss, ‘the crimson weft must be woven.’

Hearing those words, Lauren hurried out on to the landing, closed the door after her and ran down the stairs to where Tommy and Neil were waiting.

‘It's no use!’ she told them. ‘I tried to take it but she went mad and snatched it back.’

‘She'm still your stepmother then?’ the tramp ventured.

Lauren nodded vigorously, ‘Yes, but I don't know for how much longer. You have to help me take the doll from her before it's too late.’

‘Halt, I say unto thee!’ Quoth cried abruptly.

The girl looked around, the raven was no longer standing upon Neil's shoulder for the boy had put him down on the table at his own request and had been nosing about in the shopping bags.

‘Get that filthy thing off there!’ she demanded.

Neil ignored her. ‘What is it?’ he asked the straggly bird.

Quoth paced forward to the table's edge, his beak covered in the tell-tale crumbs of the loaf he had been nibbling, but his face was grave and, when he had finished chewing, he looked long and hard at the girl.

‘Pray tell,’ he began solemnly, ‘didst the dame have aught to say?’

Lauren frowned at the creature in disbelief. ‘It's really talking!’ she exclaimed. ‘Not like a parrot at all—how on earth..?’

‘Well, answer him then,’ Neil told her.

‘There was something,’ the girl, murmured. ‘When I left her she was babbling, but not making any sort of sense. Something about a crimson weave.’

Quoth swallowed fearfully and his wedged tail drooped as his beak opened to emit a forlorn whine.

‘A crimson weft,’ he corrected with dread.

‘How did you know that?’

Leaning upon the table, Neil peered at the raven quizzically.

‘You're remembering something, aren't you?’ he marvelled. ‘Tell us, please.’

Quoth turned to him, his one eye nearly bulging from his head.

‘Go not up yonder deadly stair,’ he muttered, mortified. ‘She who waits above is beyond all help and hope. The chambers of this wretch's mind are locked no longer and canst recall the nature of the evil that wakes in this land—alas for Quoth, would that he could not!’

‘You know what these bird women are?’ Tommy asked.

The raven hung his head as he sorted through the disordered jumble of released memories now crowding his thoughts.

‘In the distant days when this hapless booby didst serve another,’ he began softly, ‘after the Ash had fallen and the ogres of frost were abashed and didst retreat away, Quoth's Lord had dominion over all things. Yet over destiny His power was as naught, for the three sisters hadst yoked that burden unto themselves and so His resenting festered and He became wrath with them.’

‘Look,’ Lauren butted in, ‘we have to get that doll away from my stepmother!’

Tommy put his hand upon her shoulder as she moved towards the stairs. ‘No, girlie,’ he said gently, ‘hear the little fella out.’

‘A god He was,’ Quoth continued darkly, ‘yet subject to the Spinners in the Wood, same as any base beast or lowly worm. Thus, in his envy and rage, He misused His wisdom to perform a heinous deed and so didst sink into madness and folly.

‘From the dread night, the first master of Quoth did invoke spirits of death and despair and unto them He sacrificed maidens, in which they made their earthly abodes.’

‘Oh, my God,’ Lauren murmured.

‘Twelve such terrors there were, fiends of savagery and carnage, and into them He poured His might and strength. To mock the Fates they didst choose those who went to die in battle and all feared and reviled their hated name.’

Quoth paused and looked at each of the three people in turn.

‘Valkyrie,’ he cawed hollowly.

Tommy fidgeted with the buckles of his satchel and glanced nervously at the windows, where the darkness seemed to press and push against the glass.

‘And these things are here now?’ Neil muttered.

The raven bowed, ‘To overthrow the Nornir they were created long ages since. A loom of their own devising didst they fashion in their vileness. Spears were its frame and entrails of the slaughtered did form the warp—weighted below by hacked, hewed heads. An arrow was the shuttle, carrying a weft of crimson and from this devilish web a river of gore didst flow.

‘Against the circling mists they rampaged, yet the enchantment of the Fates could not be breached and the host of Woden wast scattered or slain. Now ‘twouldst seem the Twelve are rising once more. He hath summoned them a second time. The ending battle draweth near, Master Neil.’

Lauren pulled away from the tramp's restraining hand. ‘I've got to stop it!’ she cried. ‘I can't let that thing take her over again.’

‘Too late!’ Quoth rapped sharply. ‘Thy mother hath already been claimed by a fell spirit. When the Twelve unite there canst be no road back.’

‘But the last doll was only sold today!’ the girl insisted. ‘There's still a chance.’

Suddenly, from her parents’ bedroom, there came a horrific, terrified scream and Lauren bolted to the steps in despair.

‘It's got her!’ she yelled. ‘We've got to save her!’

Upon the table Quoth shook his wings in fright and leapt up and down, squawking, ‘Hold hard! ‘Tis too late—stop the dumpy one!’

Both Neil and Tommy charged after the girl to drag her back whilst, from the first floor, Sheila's blood-curdling howls were joined by frenzied bangs and crashes as the furniture was hurled aside.

‘Let me go!’ Lauren bawled, battling to tear herself free. ‘It's attacking her!’

‘Bain't nowt we can do,’ Tommy warbled, cowed by the awful shrieks and clatterings above.

Scampering from one side of the table to the other Quoth squealed in fear, but his bleating voice was drowned by the woman's resounding screams.

‘The midnight spirit possesseth her,’ he jabbered. ‘Thou art the only human maid here now and on the morrow she wilt be enslaved for years unending, with no respite. When the Twelve art together the charm is complete.’

‘NO!’ Lauren wept, her flailing arms sagging as she ceased her struggles and sank to her knees.

‘The Valkyrie draweth its violent breath only to slay and berserk,’ the bird added. ‘If it doth not fly from here, it shall scent us out and hunt our blood.’

Everyone turned their faces to the stairway, Sheila's voice was changing. The agonised howls were now raucous screeches—grating, gutteral and totally unhuman.

‘That's it!’ the old man whispered in recognition. ‘That's the racket Tommy heard last night. That's what was in his barn. Oh, Lord, send us angels—save us!’

Neil shivered and his skin crawled. The creature's voice was hideous and he slowly backed away from the stairs, cursing himself for ever yearning to be involved with the Websters’ business again.

At that moment there came the noise of splintering glass, followed by a deranged, riotous battering which vibrated and hammered throughout the entire house.

‘What's it doing?’ Neil muttered. ‘Why doesn't it just fly out the window?’

Still kneeling upon the floor, Lauren gasped in alarm. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, rising shakily and gripping Tommy's sleeve. ‘The shutters, I nailed them closed. That monster's trapped up there!’

‘No, it ain't,’ the tramp amended, his voice trembling. ‘There be another way out.’

Neil stared up at the bedroom door. ‘Lock it!’ he cried.

‘There's no key!’ Lauren answered. ‘Wait, listen. The noise, it's stopping.’

Upstairs the insane, pounding clamour ceased, but the tense silence which followed was almost worse.

‘What's happening?’ Neil murmured, turning to look for Quoth.

‘Death approacheth,’ the raven cawed.

Behind the bedroom door, a muffled scrabbling began and the people in the kitchen looked at one another in dismay as they realised the creature was clawing at the handle.

‘Fie!’ Quoth barked. ‘Flee! Retreat! Escape! The Valkyrie is upon us!’

At once the clumsy, raking noises came to an end, then everyone heard the ominous squeak of hinges as the door slowly opened.

Tommy stumbled backwards, blundering into the dresser whilst Lauren held her breath and waited—too afraid to move. By the table, Neil glanced around for something to use as a weapon and, chittering like a captured rabbit, the raven scurried inside the shopping bags to hide himself amongst the bread and biscuits.

Upon the landing an immense, dark shape appeared.

Throwing back its ghastly head, a high, prolonged, piercing screech blasted from the nightmare's gullet.

Downstairs, everyone clapped their hands to their ears as the horrendously shrill note ripped through their nerves. Then, with a tremendous, shattering roar, the windows split and cracked. Glasses shattered upon the shelves, bottles smashed, jam-jars fractured and, up in their sockets, the lightbulbs exploded.

Darkness engulfed the Bed and Breakfast. Neil heard Tommy sobbing wretchedly and Lauren cried out, whilst in the plastic carriers Quoth was quailing.

And the Valkyrie descended.

Down the stairs it came—an apparition of feather, claw and beak.

Paralysed with fear, the three figures swamped in the gloom could only gape at the evil spectacle—hearing its great barbed quills scrape against the walls, biting through the patterned paper and scratching into the plaster beneath.

Large and cruel were the hooked talons which stole down the creaking steps, snagging and ripping rents in the carpet. From powerful, splayed toes covered in scaled, leathery skin they stabbed—great curved blades capable of tearing metal and crunching through bone.