Pure Dead Trouble Read online

  Flora smiles at that and rubs her fists in her eyes. “Don't be silly, Amelia. Someone has to go and someone has to remain. You have to wait here and pull me back when it's time.”

  She is almost invisible in the darkness, just a shadow amongst the gathering mass of blackness.

  “NO!” Strega-Nonna howled, her voice echoing back at her.

  “No…no…no…” She stumbles over a buried root and falls, tumbling over and over…

  … and crashes to a halt, banging her head against something surprisingly cold and smooth. The inside of the lid of the freezer. In Strega-Nonna's mind she can still hear Flora, laughing now, calling over her shoulder as she disappears into the dark forest.

  “Och, you always were a stubborn wee baggage. Now, if you've finally stopped having hysterics, perhaps you might be good enough to hold this for me?”

  In the darkness of the freezer, Strega-Nonna doesn't need eyes to see the thread she now clutches between her fingers. In the silence, there is the faintest smell of lavender, and from that she draws what comfort she can.

  Damp clung to Mrs. McLachlan, her small pajama-clad body quivering with the effort.

  “Not go,” she said, patting her beloved nanny's face and placing a hot little hand over Mrs. McLachlan's mouth. “Not say ba-bye.”

  “How about cheerio?” Mrs. McLachlan kissed Damp's palm and tucked the bedcovers around the child once more.

  “Not cheer-oh. Damp too sad to cheer-oh.”

  Mrs. McLachlan bit her lip. This was even harder than she'd imagined. Not to put too fine a point on it, this was one of the worst moments of her life.

  “Damp coming too,” the little girl decided, struggling to sit up in bed. “Take Damp with you,” then, remembering the miraculous powers of the magic word, she added, “please.”

  “My wee darling …” Mrs. McLachlan's voice wobbled. “Please don't do this. I must go. I don't want to, but I must. And you must stay here and be a good girl for Mummy and Daddy and look after your big brother and sister and the new baby. …”

  “Not want new baby,” Damp muttered, adding somewhat surreally, “scratchy cardigans.”

  A tiny smile crept across Mrs. McLachlan's mouth, a smile that was promptly eclipsed by Damp's next utterance.

  “Hubble bubble?”

  “Yes, pet. Hubble bubble it is. Nanny has to go sort out the hubble bubble.”

  Damp looked up, her eyes wide and solemn. The child and the woman sat for a moment in silence, their gaze held steady on each other in wordless communion. Damp's eyes filled with tears, but still she didn't say a word, not even when the tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks into her pillow. Mrs. McLachlan stood up at last, unable to bear any more. Bending down to kiss the little girl's forehead, she almost expected to find two small arms flung around her neck in an attempt to cling fast, to delay the moment of parting. No arms came, and she straightened up, smoothed the covers over the still child, and turned to go.

  “Night-night, my dear wee love,” she whispered. “Sweet dreams.” She had reached the nursery door when she heard a tiny whisper.

  “Ba-bye,” and then the sound of a child crying softly, without any hope of comfort.

  In Deep

  arantella's daughters dangled beneath the seats of the rowboat, instinctively avoiding the wet stuff currently falling out of the sky. Only twenty-four hours old, the spiderlings hadn't grasped basic concepts like “rain” or “seagulls” or even “loch.” However, they all agreed that they'd really learned everything there was to know about love. They'd watched Ffup and the Sleeper's practical demonstration, then spent the next day attempting to learn by imitation. In little study groups of five spiderlings at a time, they proposed marriage to each other, accepted gracefully, waved their legs in what they assumed was an appropriate fashion, and then practiced mouth-to-mouth contact, as shown by Ffup and her Sleeper.

  By the time they heard the thunderous approach of footsteps running down the jetty, there were only seven spiderlings left. Seven rather bloated spiderlings who gazed around in some confusion, wondering where they'd gone so disastrously wrong. Belching forlornly, they huddled underneath the wooden seat, wincing as two human legs thudded into the boat in front of them. The boat pitched violently, then settled into a regular rocking movement accompanied by the splash of oars meeting water. The familiar sound of waves lapping the jetty faded away, and now all the spiderlings could hear was loud breathing and the rhythmic creak of oars in oarlocks as the boat pulled away from the shore.

  Isagoth trained his binoculars on the silhouette of StregaSchloss rising out of the mist-wrapped meadow. Lights shone into the darkness, giving the house the appearance of an ocean liner far out at sea. The demon waited, willing the family to turn out the lights and go to bed, thus giving him the opportunity to patrol the house until he found a weak link in its magical armor.

  Isagoth had been astonished to find any protection in place. The first time he came to StregaSchloss, he'd strolled straight in through the front door and overwhelmed the servant without breaking a sweat. This time, he'd been rebuffed with such force, he'd been convinced he was having a heart attack.

  Isagoth didn't like that feeling at all. He didn't like the hammering in his chest, or the cold sweat that followed, and he most definitely didn't care for the unaccustomed feeling of being out of control. These are mortals I'm dealing with, he reminded himself, tracking a patch of shadow outside the kitchen door. Mere mortals, suitable for hunting, but ultimately disposable, doomed…He hurled the binoculars into the darkness and launched into pursuit. The moving shadow had broken cover and was running flat out across the meadow toward the loch. Fear must have given it wings, because Isagoth simply couldn't keep up. Years of driving a desk in Hades had taken their toll on the demon's physique—to say nothing of the cigar habit that was currently clogging his lungs with black tar. Moments later he was forced to a halt, wheezing pathetically as he tried to drag a mixture of oxygen and gnats into his worthless lungs.

  Ahead of him, the figure sprinted along the jetty, bent to untie the mooring rope, and leapt into a rowboat. With a feeling of deep unease, Isagoth realized that this was no nighttime fishing expedition. Hardly able to breathe, he forced himself to run, despite the gasps of protest coming from his chest. Brambles clawed at his face, his ankle twisted as his foot plunged into a rabbit hole, and his lungs labored like two clots of wet sponge. He stumbled across the pebbled foreshore and stopped to see what manner of creature waited out there in the water.

  In the middle of the loch, his quarry had shipped the oars and was watching him through the rain. Even in such poor visibility, Isagoth could see what it held in its hand. He stepped into the shallows, shivering as the cold water flooded his shoes.

  “A bit chilly, isn't it?” the figure observed, the pitch of its voice marking it out as female. “But never mind, you won't be feeling the cold for too much longer…,” she continued, watching with little evidence of fear as he waded toward her.

  “I'm sure you thought this was a freshwater loch, didn't you, dear?” she murmured. “But it's not. It's a sea-loch, full of salty sea water…. ”

  Salt? In the water? Isagoth trod water, craning his neck to look back longingly at the shore.

  “Your kind aren't too keen on salt, are you?” she said calmly, turning the Chronostone over and over in her hands, and adding, “So why not just go home, hmmm? Save yourself the bother…. ”

  Little wavelets slapped at the demon's face, but on he swam, stroke by stroke, measuring the distance between him and his goal.

  “Don't be ridiculousss,” he hissed. “D'you really think a puny bit of salt's going to make the slightest difference? Is that the best you can do?” His words turned to choking sounds as his face disappeared beneath a wave. When he emerged again, much closer now, his mood had turned ugly. Vomiting up a mouthful of loch water, he continued, his words freighted with menace.

  “Just give…me…the stone,” he wheezed. “You know
I'm not going to stop now. Save yourself, mortal. Give… me… what's mine. …” He swam closer, his eyes locked on hers as he drew near to the boat.

  Mrs. McLachlan waited, forcing herself to be still until the demon's hand clasped itself around an oarlock, and then she stood up, towering above him.

  “You poor lost soul,” she whispered, then, steeling herself, she seized Isagoth's hand and threw herself into the loch.

  The little boat pitched wildly, thumps and scraping sounds vibrating through its keel and causing Tarantella's daughters to moan in terror. Gouts of sulfurous gases bubbled to the surface of the dark water, and had the spiderlings been brave enough to look, they might have seen the woman and the demon still struggling several meters below.

  When all was quiet and still once more, the seven spiders crept out from their hiding place and looked around. Their wooden world floated in an aching vastness of sky and water, water in which objects bobbed to the surface and knocked against the boat's sides. One by one, the spiderlings watched them come. A clear glass marble, then a drowned salamander, and finally a small bedraggled paintbrush; but even these were soon swept away on the incoming tide.

  Latch Alone

  atch stood in his small attic bathroom, drawing an old-fashioned razor across his throat in careful sweeps, revealing his skin beneath a layer of shaving cream. Splashing water over his face, he looked up at the steamed-up mirror over the sink and his breath caught in his throat. She'd kept her promise, then. One word written in steam:

  Throughout the ghastly time that followed, Latch moved through StregaSchloss like an immensely helpful ghost. Dealing with hysterical dragons, distraught employers, and devastated children, he soothed, calmed, and passed the Kleenex with masterly self-control. When the police launch towed Titus's rowboat back to shore, it had been Latch who waited on the jetty, his face half hidden under a moth-eaten black umbrella. He stood in the rain and watched the boat being loaded onto the trailer that would take it to Glasgow for forensic examination, remaining silent when he saw seven tarantulas scuttle for shelter as the trailer began its slow journey across the pebbly foreshore.

  When the untended roses in Baci's garden blossomed, bloomed, and fell, it was Latch who picked a small bunch of blood-red buds and placed them in a vase on the kitchen table. As summer slowly turned to autumn, Latch chopped kindling, picked fruit for jam, and kept his own counsel. By her own request, Pandora's birthday came and went, unmarked by chocolate meringue cake or candles, and no one had the heart to insist that it be otherwise. When a significant layer of dust had gathered on top of Pandora's unopened birthday presents, Latch tactfully removed them to the seldom-used map room and left them to wait for some happier time.

  The Strega-Borgias stayed indoors, ignoring the seductive charms of the sunlit world beyond their windows, preferring to surround themselves with the kindness of shadows and the unchanging permanence of their home. Thoughts of Mrs. McLachlan occupied their every waking moment, but her name wasn't spoken out loud. Her bedroom remained as it was the night she'd disappeared, its closed door a mute reminder of all they had lost. The nanny's sensible shoes still stood in a row in front of her wardrobe, and her handbag sat untouched on a chair beside her bed. Sometimes the sound of muffled crying could be heard coming from behind the closed door, but when Pandora emerged from the nanny's room, no one said a word.

  The trees turned golden and the evenings began to grow cold. Waking shivering in bed one night, Latch found his pillow damp with what he initially assumed were his own tears. He sat up in bed and reached for the little lamp on his bedside table, knowing from experience that all hope of sleep had gone. Blinking in the light, he turned to flip his pillow over, dry side up, and his eyes widened. Beside where he had slept unknowing, some unseen hand had placed a strand of seaweed. A long strand, almost the length of his arm, carefully arranged in the shape of a heart. When he reached out blindly to touch it, to reassure himself that it was real, hardly able to see it through his tears, he found that it was still wet.

  The Witnesses for Hope

  an?” “Go away, Titus.” Titus slumped outside Mrs. McLachlan's bedroom door. This was going to be even harder than he'd thought. He turned the handle and gently pushed the door open.

  At first he couldn't even see her in the gloom. Someone had closed Mrs. McLachlan's curtains and the room was full of shadows. Then he heard a gasp and saw a movement over on the bed.

  “Oh Pan…,” he breathed, his words clotted with pity.

  Pandora didn't reply. She pulled the covers over her head and burrowed deeper into the fading scent of lavender. Titus forced himself across the floor to her side, where he stood feeling utterly hopeless, uncertain how to proceed.

  “Pan? There's something you need to see,” he began, reaching out a hand to touch his sister's quivering shoulders. His hand paused in midair and hovered inches above her; then, overcome with embarrassment, he knelt down beside the bed and tugged gently at the covers.

  “Go away.”

  “No, I won't go away, Pandora.” He tugged harder, pulling the covers off a face almost unrecognizable in its grief. Pandora flinched, curling into an even tighter ball, her swollen eyes squeezed shut in denial. Titus tried not to look as he continued to unwrap his sister.

  “Pandora …listen. I know you feel awful, we both do. Just because I'm not crying my eyes out doesn't mean I don't care. I do care. I miss her too, you know.”

  Renewed hiccupy sobs came from beneath the covers but Titus pressed on, willing his voice not to wobble and blinking his eyes against the tears he knew weren't far away. “Everybody misses her. Especially poor Damp. Think about her…. She's only little, she can hardly even speak…or understand. How d'you think she feels?” Swallowing with difficulty, Titus continued, “Anyway, I need you to come and see what I've found. It's… important. I don't know if I'm imagining it or not…. Oh, for God's sake, Pandora, would you listen to me? Stop shutting me out. You haven't said a word to me since… since …” Violently pushing himself upright, Titus lunged across the bedroom and dragged the curtains open.

  “THERE!” he yelled. “Happy? Now we can both see ourselves. Pathetic, aren't we? I can almost hear her saying, ‘Now, dears, that's quite enough of that. Blow your noses, wash your faces, and we'll go and have a nice cup…a nice cup…' ”

  Pandora blinked at the daylight flooding in through the open curtains. Titus glared at her, his face wet and furious, making no effort to conceal the tears rolling down his cheeks. She half fell out of bed, dragging the covers behind her like a discarded cocoon, limping over to where Titus stood haloed in sunlight. Knowing that if she hesitated for one moment, she'd lose not only Mrs. McLachlan but Titus as well, she fell forward, hoping he'd not turn away. She hadn't realized how tall he'd grown until she felt his chin pressed hard against the top of her head. And Titus, in turn, held his small sister tight, his arms around her shoulders, his awkward hands patting, patting, and patting her back.

  “Tell me this isn't just a cunning plan to force me into opening my birthday presents?”

  Titus sighed. Pandora was standing at the desk in the map room, regarding the dusty pile of unopened gifts as if one of them might contain an unexploded bomb.

  “Leave them for now,” Titus said, grabbing Pandora's arm and turning her to face the fireplace. “Look. The map. Tell me I'm imagining things…. ”

  Obediently, Pandora looked up at the hand-drawn map in its gilt frame. This map in particular was immensely valuable—partly because of its age but also because of the exquisite nature of its draftsmanship. It had been drawn by a long-dead ancestor whose obsession with accuracy had driven him to build a hot-air balloon to assist in his surveys of Lochnagargoyle and its surrounding lands. In a time long before airplanes and satellites, the hot-air balloon was the closest man could get to achieving the aerial view necessary for accurate mapping. It was the viewpoint of gods and angels, soaring high above ancient Caledonian forests and looking down at the turning earth belo
w, allowing an almost sacred glimpse of mountain peaks and shining lochs that must have so impressed the balloonist that he then dedicated the rest of his life to producing the most beautiful map in the world.

  Time had not faded the map's colors; in the darkness of the map room built below StregaSchloss's central courtyard, natural daylight never shone. Hanging over the empty fireplace, this map was one of many such charts lining the walls, but it alone gave an accurate representation of the way the land lay hundreds of years ago. Pandora's breath misted the glass of the frame, and she reached up to wipe it clean.

  “WHAT?” she squeaked, recoiling in alarm and peering at her hand.

  “I can't tell you how glad I am you said that,” Titus muttered. “When I felt it, I thought for a minute I was going mad, but if you felt it too …” He trailed off, turned around, and grabbed a magnifying glass off the desk, passing it to Pandora without saying anything more.

  “It was…burning hot,” Pandora moaned. “My fingers are on fire. What's going on?”

  “I wish I knew,” Titus whispered, watching as his sister held the magnifying glass to the map and peered within.

  Moments passed in silence as Titus waited for Pandora to work it out.

  “Hang on… where is this?” Pandora drew back and tried to get her bearings. “There's StregaSchloss, and then the meadow… and the loch …but since when has there ever been an island out in the Kyle?”

  Titus nodded. She'd reacted exactly like he had. He was about to tell her to keep going, to look more closely, but she was already there, her eyes widening at the discovery he knew she'd made.

  “Titus?” She spun round, her face awash with tears, her mouth barely able to frame the next words. “You saw it too? The little campfire and the—”