The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue (30 page)

At, first Ralf wasn’t sure who’d spoken. Gadd glared wildly around. Ralf thought he looked mad enough to kill someone.

‘I said that’s enough,’ said Gordon Kemp in a low calm voice. ‘You’ve had your say, Muntons, and finished your ale. Now it’s time to go.’

Gadd blustered. ‘You can’t make me do anything, Kemp! That armband don’t mean anythin’ to me, see?’ He stepped forward, brandishing a fist in Kemp’s direction.

Ralf saw immediately what a mistake this was. Kemp, tin hat still under his arm, towered over the smaller man and enclosed Gadd’s fist in one of his own. His huge hand, hardened from years of kneading dough and toughened by the heat from his ovens, covered Gadd’s entirely. Kemp’s jaw twitched slightly as he tightened his grip.

‘It isn’t my armband you should be worried about, Gadd,’ he said softly.

Gadd made a small sound in the back of his throat and his knees started to give. His brother leapt up and down like a cornered weasel, squeaking helplessly. Kemp was crushing Gadd’s fingers. He could have pulped the whole hand in a second if he’d wanted to. When Gadd was almost bent double, the baker leaned forward and spoke to him. What he said, no one heard, but it was enough to get Gadd nodding frantically.

‘Come on,’ Kemp said. ‘I’ll see you haul anchor before I go on duty.’

The crowd watched in stunned silence as the baker escorted the now meek Munton brothers towards their mooring. Ralf’s stomach unclenched fractionally but his neck prickled in anticipation.  He understood why when, after a second of silence there came a deep, rattling laugh. Urk Fitch loomed from the shadows.

‘Look at you all, drinking and talking when you should be in fear of your lives!’ Urk cackled.

‘Now, now, Urk,’ said Frank Duke. ‘Don’t excite yourself!’

Urk appeared not to have heard him. He edged towards Old Bill, reaching out a hand as if he might pat him on the arm. He held back at the last second but spoke with what seemed like genuine sympathy.

‘Praying isn’t the answer, Bill,’ he said softly. He looked around at the gathered fishermen and all calm disappeared. ‘Prayers’ll do you no good ag’inst what’s coming! The ship was just th
e start of it. The Devil’s on his way!’ Urk cried madly.

‘I don’t have time for your nonsense today, Fitch,’ Old Bill countered. ‘That old religion of yours went out with the Dark Ages. It was a ghost ship I saw. The Devil’s got nowt to do with it.’

The listeners chuckled but Urk’s face darkened.

‘You’re in grave danger, Bill Arbuckle!’ he growled. ‘All of you are!’ Urk was swinging his arms wildly, his beer sloshing in all directions. ‘And there’s nothing between you and your doom but those children!’

Ralf was startled to see Fitch pointing a shaking finger at him.

‘Calm yourself, Urk,’ said Frank. He shot Ralf and his friends a reassuring smile. ‘We’ll look after the kids. You’se got my word on it. And my word is good in King’s Hadow.’

‘Harken to me! You must!’ Urk cried, his eyes jumping over each of the Turnarounders. ‘The Fear is rising. You can feel it, can’t you? The Black Door is opening and Shadow King’ll come after! From the woods he’ll come. Fire, destroying everything in his path. The Shadows will come with him and there’ll be nowhere to hide!’

The adults were watching in disgust and Ralf wished that one of them would do something to calm the old man down. At the same time, he tried to fight down his own fear.

‘But the Shadow King is dead, isn’t he Mr Fitch?’ he ventured, quietly. ‘He was buried hundreds of years ago. He’s dead. He has to be.’

Urk Fitch’s maniacal laughter reverberated through the air. Just as suddenly he was still and gave a slow nod as if satisfied someone was finally listening to him. ‘Dead,’ he said with certainty, black eyes glinting. ‘But not gone!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Grianstad

Urk’s words chilled all
the Turnarounders but neither his dire warning nor the discovery of their new skill would play on their minds for long. Each of them had other, more pressing, matters to deal with as day rolled in to exhausting day and December lumbered along.

Leo was spending more time with Old Bill since the incident with the galleon. The spectral encounter had shaken the man more than he liked to admit and he went out fishing with his boys less often than he used. Instead, he busied himself mending nets and pottering around the cottage telling Leo old sea stories whilst keeping a watchful eye on the barometer by the front door.

Valen was now spending more and more time behind the counter in the shop. She didn’t mind the hard work but it was getting very difficult to get out during her free times. The Hatchers seemed to want her kept under constant supervision or ‘too busy to get in to any mischief’ and every trip out was preceded by twenty questions about whom she’d be with and how long she’d be gone.

Alfie, on the other hand, was in and around the village more often than before. He seemed happy but incredibly busy, surrounded by small groups of silent chums. He would nod or wave to the others from a distance or stop occasionally to mutter such cryptic
phrases as: ‘Got ya back, Jack!’ or ‘Posse’s moving out. Back in twenty,’ and Ralf could never catch him on his own long enough to find out what he was doing.

Seth’s activities were also something of a mystery. He was busy every night after school now and seemed particularly preoccupied with the OTC. Ralf tried to talk to him about it a couple of times on the train but Seth mumbled something about having to ‘man up’ and then changed the subject. Had his own situation been easier, Ralf might have wondered more about Seth’s attitude but he was so busy he didn’t have time to think about it.

Money, or the lack of it, had become a pressing problem in the Osborne household and life had transformed into a seemingly endless circle of school, work, school, work and then work again.

It continued to be far too cold for cockles (the beach was
still a single, gigantic drift of snow) and Ralf had been unable to lay lobster pots because of treacherous ice bound seas. His only hope of a catch now would be to set creels in deeper water but Hilda was against it.

‘There’ll be plenty of time for lobster in the spring,’ she said, when he mentioned it.

Instead, he caught eels off the harbour wall and sat huddled in
The Sara Luz
’s coracle in all weathers fishing for crabs and sea trout near the rocks off Scarth Point. He asked about the village for odd jobs, hunted for scrap metal and scoured snowdrifts at the edges of Chax Forest for firewood to sell but soon even this became almost impossible as work piled up at school.

‘We’ll manage,’ said Hilda as Ralf struggled with the enormous number of things he now had to do. As well as the nagging worry of Gloria’s ‘Elk Cub Rat Rah’ message, he had French verbs to learn, Latin declensions to memorise, Algebra prep, a History test to cram for and a long essay on Shakespeare. The strange phrase kept popping in to his head at odd moments w
hen he was trying to study and masters would surprise him with questions as he pondered it, catching him blank faced and struggling to answer. Ralf’s private worries meant little to the masters. All of them were planning on tests before Christmas and all were determined it seemed, that the boys should be too exhausted to enjoy the holiday.

Ralf had expected things to ease up in the last week of term but in 1939 there were no DVDs to watch in class. Instead there was a carol concert, lots of church going and a great many exams. The Crispin’s boys were spared the traditional production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ because it was felt that, bearing in mind recent events, a play depicting the appearance of a number of ghosts would be in poor taste. Instead, they sat through a night of ‘skits’ and songs from boarders and staff. All of which were cringingly embarrassing and ought, Ralf thought, to have been advertised as ‘St. Crispin’s Definitely Does Not Have Talent’.

Finally, though, it was the last day of school and the classroom clock read a quarter to four. Winters looked up from his crossword.

‘Time to finish boys!’ he called. 

The day was officially at an end and it was time for Winters to perform his last duty of the term. He drew a battered cornet from his desk, huffed into it a few of times and then played ‘The Last Post’ out of the classroom window.

The boys in the room looked out at their fellows who, mid cloister, sports field or playground had stopped in their tracks and waited for Winters to finish. As the final note faded, some of them whooped, some clapped and a couple threw their caps in the air.

‘Merry Christmas, all,’ said Winters.

An hour later, the Turnarounders were in Dark Ferry along with, it seemed, anyone in the vicinity who had Christmas shopping to do. The market town was bustling with people, hurrying to the drapers or milliners, butchers or bakers to make their purchases or crowding the bandstand where the local church choir were singing carols. There was a vendor on the corner selling hot chestnuts and a smoky-sweetness tanged air that was, Ralf noticed, a good three or four degrees warmer than in King’s Hadow.

The snow was not as deep here. Pavements had been cleared and most people weren’t even wearing gumboots, which had been a necessity in the village for several weeks. Everything was
ordinary. It was normal and nice and the faces around them bore no trace of the tension and fear that plagued the inhabitants of King’s Hadow. It was like stepping into a different world.

Not really sure of where they were going, the five wandered past the Ritz Cinema, where a long queue had formed for the evening showing of Charles Hart’s ‘Henry V’. The film was on as a tribute to the missing star and they paused for a moment, caught up in the atmosphere.

‘Do you think they’re any closer to finding him?’ Leo asked.

The others shrugged. The actor’s disappearance had become a kind of pet project with Leo and he had a hundred different theories as to what had happened to the man. ‘It’s not right. You’d think they’d have found something.’

Suddenly the warning siren went off and Ralf looked up in surprise.

‘Air raids aren’t due to start for months yet!’ he said to the others, quietly.

All around them, people abandoned their business and hurried to the nearest shelters, apart from one solitary figure on the opposite side of the road. Hettie Timmins had just emerged from the Dark Ferry Secretarial College when the siren sounded. She took one desperate, horrified look at the sky then froze like a rabbit in headlights.

‘Good deed for the day,’ said Ralf. The others followed as he ran over to her.

‘Hullo, Hettie,’ he said cheerily, taking her by the arm. ‘Keep us company in the shelter will you?’

Hettie gave a slow blink and a nervous shake of the head. Ralf tried to guide her towards the cinema shelter, but her feet seemed cemented to the pavement.

‘Learning to type, are you?’ Valen asked, tugging Hettie’s other arm to no avail.

‘I –’ Hettie’s eyes slid to the brass nameplate next to the door and then jumped guiltily back to Valen’s.

‘How interesting!’ Valen exclaimed, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. ‘You can tell me all about it in the shelter.’

Hettie gave a tentative smile and allowed them to lead her away as the siren wailed on.

‘Nice one, Val,’ Leo murmured, as they ducked inside.

They huddled on wooden chairs in one corner of the dimly lit shelter. For the first few minutes, Hettie trembled and looked fearfully at the sandbagged walls as if she expected them to explode in on her at any moment.

A woman had made tea and Valen took two and handed a cup to Hettie. ‘So, how long have you been learning, Hettie?’

‘Nearly six weeks now. I’m getting faster at the typing but the shorthand’s proper hard. I read up at the café sometimes. You won’t tell her? Miss Brindle, I mean,’ Hettie pleaded. ‘She’d kill me.’

‘But Hettie, you can take a typing course if you want to!’ cried Valen indignantly. ‘What’s it got to do with Brindle?’

‘She said she won’t never let me leave, but I got to get out! So I’m doin’ this. Secret like. I do this, get my certificate then I can start working in one o’ the offices here or even Hastings. I got to get away from King’s Hadow. I can’t work there no more!’

Only too aware of Hettie’s reputation for melodrama, Valen tried to avoid tears by changing the subject.

‘So, are you going to the party later, Hettie?’ she asked cheerfully. Hettie looked up, nervously. ‘Well, I did want to go,’ she whispered. ‘But is it safe?’

‘Safe?’ Valen frowned. ‘It’s just some food and dancing in the Village Hall. What could happen?’

‘But with it being Grianstad, an’
all?’ the waitress asked.

‘Winter Solstice?’ asked Leo. ‘Why would that make it dangerous?’

‘Because it’s nearly time!’ Her face was ghostly in the dim yellow light. ‘The Veil is thin tonight,’ Hettie whispered. ‘Bad things are coming!’  Ralf noticed how drawn and dark she looked around the eyes. He shot Leo a quick look mouthing the word ‘Veil!’

‘But if I don’t go, I’ll be alone!’ Tears sprang in Hettie’s eyes as she spoke. ‘I can’t bear to be alone! If only I could get away!’

‘Oh, Hettie, don’t cry!’ said Valen, gently. ‘We’ll all be there.’

Hettie looked calmer for a second and wiped her eyes on her handkerchief. An awful thought obviously struck her then because her hands started to tremble again. ‘But so might she!’

‘Brindle?’

‘She’s doing it!’ Hettie gasped. ‘All the things that have been happening! She’s an evil woman. She’s – she’s a witch!’ The girl was shaking so much she spilled her tea and had to dab at her skirt with her already damp handkerchief.

‘Come now, Hettie. Don’t you think...’ The others glowered Seth into silence and Hettie went on:

‘No! I seen her. My room faces her cottage. She slips out at night and goes off in them woods. There are bad things in there. Dark things. Sh
e’s making all them ghosts come. I know it. You see if she’s not!’

‘She’s just walking the dogs,’ said Seth.

‘She don’t take them some nights. She – she's calling the Shadow King!’

Hettie must have taken Ralf’s frown for disbelief because she was suddenly nodding emphatically. Now she was talking she seemed to want to tell everything. ‘It’s all in her book.’

‘Her book?’

‘She’m have a secret book she don’t want no one to see. I – looked in it one time. There’s spells in there! All squiggles and marks,’ said Hettie. ‘The devil’s signs!’

The all clear sounded then and Hettie scuttled out of the shelter, the Turnarounders hung back, stunned by the timid girl’s revelations, not knowing quite what to do with themselves. Certainly, the idea of wandering around the shops had now lost its appeal.

‘It’s all pointing to Brindle isn’t it?’ Valen asked.

‘I thought Brindle was a witch before Hettie told us all that stuff about spells,’ said Ralf. ‘Remember what the Sedleys said about her animals?’

‘But Brindle doesn’t seem the type to believe in
the Shadow King legend,’ said Seth.

‘Well Hettie certainly does,’ said Valen. ‘I don’t think she can take much more.’

‘And to think, I was actually starting to feel quite positive about things,’ said Leo. ‘We’ve discovered our abilities and we’re ready to use them, just like the message told us to. We’re narrowing down the list of Echoes...’

‘But we haven’t actually achieved anything!’ Valen retorted. She slumped back down on to one of the bunks and glared at the others. ‘What must have happened to create that latest Fall? A Fall big enough to let a dirty great galleon through!’

‘And there are more ghosts appearing all the time!’ Alfie agreed.

‘There have been others?’ asked Ralf, shocked. He hadn’t heard anything.

‘Rosie Kemp spotted a hanged man on Sunday, Ben Cheeseman nearly ran over a Cavalier on his milk round and little Mary Tomkins swears she saw a ghost horse on the Green yesterday.’

Seth immediately started marking down these new sightings on
the map.

Ralf let out a long breath. ‘That’s a lot of ghosts and a lot of new Falls.’

‘One’s building on the other,’ said Valen. ‘The greater the Fear the more Falls open and the more Falls open the greater the Fear!’

Leo nodded. ‘If many more ghosts come through we’re going to have a panic on our hands.’

‘They’re saying that all the nasty things that are happening, the dolls, the fish in Sparra’s Pond and the dead animals, are supernatural too,’ said Valen,

‘And there’s been
shed loads more, innit,’ Alfie informed them. ‘A whole flock of Jem Curtis’ sheep goin’ missing and then turning up on the marshes, gravestones cracking and falling over…There’s somethin’ new each day. They think that the village has a poltergeist.’ Alfie hissed the word, making it sound more ominous in the half dark of the shelter.

Val nodded. ‘They’re calling it the King’s Hadow Spirit.’