Floods 7 (7 page)

‘My beloved,' cried Queen Scratchrot, her eyes overflowing with tears of joy. ‘Is that really you?'

Vessel, the Queen's true love, was still trapped inside the enchanted birdcage in the body of a crow, and as one crow pretty much looks like another crow, even to another crow, Queen Scratchrot could only hope that the scruffy black bird looking up at her was indeed her beloved Vessel and not some devious fake planted there by the Hearse Whisperer.

‘Yes, my beloved, it is I, your true love and faithful servant,' said Vessel, who then spoilt the
romance of the moment by adding, ‘Who's a pretty boy then?'

‘Snip-Snip think you truly gorgeous hunk,' said Parsnip, who appreciated Vessel's fine coal-black plumage as only another crow could. ‘Snip-Snip say you cool dude number one pretty boy.'

‘Can you return my true love to his old self?' the Queen asked Mordonna.

‘Yes and no,' said Mordonna. ‘First we must free him from the enchanted birdcage and to do that we must immerse it in the Terrible Pool of Vestor. Only that can dissolve the cage and set him free, and then I can return him to his previous form.'

‘And talking of magic,' said Barry Trubshaw, ‘what about your promise? When do I get to be tall, dark and handsome and all the other cool stuff?'

‘I will make you tall,' said Mordonna. ‘Stand up.'

Barry Trubshaw stood up and hit his head again.

‘I will make you dark and handsome,' said Mordonna.

Barry Trubshaw looked in the mirror and fell in love with himself.

‘The charisma bit isn't so easy,' said Mordonna. ‘I mean, you are still called Barry and no one called Barry can ever be cool. It's one of the basic laws of the universe.'

‘No, no,' said Barry Trubshaw, ‘I'm not Barry. I am Sanguine, the Cool One.'

‘You are still Barry, though,' said Mordonna, ‘no matter what you call yourself.'

‘Couldn't you change my name?' said Barry.

‘Oh yes, we could give you a new name,' said Mordonna. ‘Here's one. It's dynamic, mysterious and a little exciting. You are now called Argon.'

‘I like it,' said Barry, now totally unable to take his eyes off his reflection in the mirror.

‘Well, actually, you are called Argon Barry, which is not cool, but I'll tell you what I can do,' Mordonna added. ‘I'll give you a “du”. You can be Argon duBarry.'

‘Oh yeah baby, that is really cool,' he said. ‘Good morning, I am Argon duBarry.'

‘Aren't you just,' said Betty.

‘No, no, listen. This is even better,' said Barry.
‘
Bonjour, je suis
Argon duBarry.'

‘The trouble is,' Mordonna continued, ‘that, inside, you are still Barry Trubshaw. You are called Argon, but you will never truly
be
Argon. Still, don't worry about it. Compared to the weirdos you've collected here, even being plain Barry you're cooler than they are. It's all relative.'

‘So have I got this charisma thing now?' said Barry Trubshaw.

‘Compared to your followers you are super-sophisticated,' said Mordonna.

‘Far out,' said Argon duBarry, not realising that his name now made him sound like a third-rate hairdresser.

‘Far out indeed,' said Mordonna.

As the Floods packed up to leave, Argon duBarry Trubshaw Sanguine Cool One summoned his followers to the Stamping Ground.

‘We will gather in half an hour,' he said from the darkness of his yurt.

‘But it doesn't get dark for three hours, oh great master,' said Nameless.

‘I know,' said Argon duBarry Trubshaw Sanguine Cool One. ‘The time has come for me to expose myself to you all.'

Some of the younger Namelesses giggled.

‘So much for love and peace and all that Karma stuff,' said Mordonna as they drove off back down the track away from Nowhere. ‘Time we went somewhere.'

The Hearse Whisperer was still waiting. She had sent seventeen rats, four mice and a shrew down the magic time gate to Belgium, where 35 per cent of them were now leading new and exciting lives while 65 per cent were being scraped off tram wheels.

Not long now
, she thought, looking down into the volcano.
I'd better start preparing my surprise welcome
.

And then it began to snow.

‘Where are we going?' said Betty when they left the track from Nowhere and got back on the road.

‘Well, obviously we have to go to the Terrible Pool of Vestor,' said the Queen. ‘To remove the enchantment from my beloved Vessel.'

‘F@@#XXX!!!!£,' swore Vessel, followed by, ‘GR!!***&8¢¢KK*! Mackerel, Mackerel, Mackerel F$$**!! Organiser!!!'

‘That's enough of that,' said Mordonna. ‘There are children present.'

‘It was them I learnt the words from,' said Vessel.

‘It's all right, Mum,' said Betty. ‘They aren't real swear words. I just made them up.'

‘Well, actually, F@@#XXX!!!!£
is
a real swear word,' said Nerlin.

‘Oh, cool, Dad,' said Betty. ‘What does it mean?'

‘You tell her and you're dead,' said Mordonna quick as a flash.

‘OK, OK, we all know lots of rude words,' snapped the Queen, ‘but are we going to the Terrible Pool of Vestor or not?'

‘Of course we are, Mother,' said Mordonna.

‘Where is it?' asked Nerlin, who was doing the driving and had spotted a particularly interesting tree with four sheep standing underneath it. ‘Left, right, straight ahead, where?'

‘Ah, well now, that's a question,' said Mordonna.

It was indeed a question, and it was a question that none of them knew the answer to.

‘Another question we need to answer,' Mordonna continued, ‘is how long do you think
we've got before the Hearse Whisperer realises we are not going to Tristan da Cunha?'

‘About a week at most, I reckon,' said Winchflat. ‘She is still there and I have made it snow really hard so she can't fly around to see if we're coming. So that'll give us a bit more time.'

‘You are such a clever boy,' said Mordonna and Nerlin at the same time.

‘Nah, nah, nah,' said Merlinmary. ‘You are such a clever boy. Can't get a girlfriend, though, can you?'

‘Merlinmary!' snapped Mordonna. ‘You apologise this instant or I'll stick jump leads in your ears.'

‘Sorry,' said Merlinmary.

‘That's all right, fusewire face,' said Winchflat.

The twins giggled and prodded each other. Obviously everyone had been stuck together in the cramped van for too long and needed more space.

‘Hey,' said Nerlin, ‘we're supposed to be hippies, remember? That means we have to, like,
totally chill, man. Whatever that means.'

‘Right, everyone, calm down,' said Mordonna. ‘The obvious thing to do is look on Google Earth. Just type in the Terrible Pool of Vestor and we'll go there.'

Winchflat hunched over his laptop, tapping away and muttering to himself.

‘Mmmm …'

‘What?'

‘Mmmm, yes, well, mmmmm.'

‘What?'

‘There appear to be six of them,' said Winchflat.

‘
Six
Terrible Pools of Vestor?' said Mordonna. ‘Are you sure your computer's working OK?'

‘Yes.'

While this had been going on, Nerlin had been driving the van across the featureless moors, which were called ‘moors' because there seemed to be more and more of them and ‘featureless' due to the lack of features. Their overall colour was grey and their underall colour was grey too, mixed with grey.

This was a landscape for depression. If you were happy when you went there you would become depressed very quickly. This was a landscape where you expected to turn a corner and see a bleak grey house with a single weak light at one window. The house would be far back from the road, silhouetted against the evening sky. It would have one twisted tree and a big black dog whose only pleasure in life was howling with a sad, empty, eerie howl that curdled milk. It would be the sort of house where you would never know how many rooms there were or how many people lived there. Some of the people would be chained to the walls and live on water that dripped from the ceiling and slimy lizardy things.

‘Oh, look,' said Betty, as they turned a corner, ‘up that long winding track, silhouetted against the evening sky, a bleak grey house with a single weak light at one window.'

‘How beautiful,' said Mordonna. ‘Maybe they could put us up for the night.'

‘Look at the really interesting tree,' said Nerlin.

‘And listen to that wonderful dog singing so beautifully,' said Satanella. ‘I bet he's really handsome with a voice like that.'

‘I, er…' Mildred Flambard-Flood began.

‘What's the matter, my dear?' said Mordonna. ‘Surely you're not scared of such a beautiful place?'

‘I am,' said Mildred. ‘For I have been here before.'

‘Are you sure?' said Valla.

‘Oh yes,' said Mildred. ‘Even though it was over two hundred years ago, I would not forget the place I died. Nor would I forget the mournful howl of Brastof, my faithful hound, chained to the wall
of the darkest dungeon where I spent my last days alive.'

‘Are you saying that howling dog is the actual dog you left behind over two hundred years ago?' said Mordonna.

‘Indeed,' said Mildred, ‘and that place is Forsaken Hall, the home of the Knights Intolerant, whose sole aim in life was to destroy every wizard and every witch on the face of this earth.'

‘I've heard of them,' said Queen Scratchrot. ‘My grandfather used to talk about them when I was a child. He said they are the very reason Transylvania Waters exists. The wizards of old were hunted almost to extinction and the few remaining families fled into the darkest valleys of Eastern Europe to seek sanctuary and those valleys became Transylvania Waters. I always thought he made it all up to scare us into not being naughty.'

‘Oh no,' said Mildred. ‘They are real. I bear the marks to prove it.'

‘But surely they would have died out long ago, wouldn't they?' said Betty.

‘I'd have thought so,' said Mordonna. ‘Otherwise we would have heard of them.'

‘And what about the dog?' said Valla. ‘If someone wasn't feeding it, wouldn't it have died a long time ago too?'

‘Unless it's a ghost,' said Morbid. ‘I mean, there's not many dogs live for over two hundred years.'

‘Wow,' said Satanella, ‘a ghost dog. How cool. I wonder if it's got a ghost rubber ball we can play with.'

As they drove up the track towards the house, the cold evening air got even colder. The puddles by the road that had been filled with water were now filled with ice and every blade of grass was frozen stiff with frost. Even with the campervan's heater on full, the cold reached into everyone's skin and made them shiver. Seven black crows flew out of the black clouds, circled the van and flew off blackly towards the house, where they vanished into the black shadows. And all the time mournful howling filled the air.

‘I don't like this,' Mordonna. ‘I think we should go back.'

‘OK,' said Nerlin and stopped.

The track was very narrow and it took lots of backwards and forwards to turn it round.

‘No, darling,' said Mordonna. ‘You were supposed to say that it will be all right and reassure us all.'

‘Except I think you're right,' said Nerlin. ‘I don't like it either.'

‘But we are the Floods – we don't run from anything,' said Mordonna.

‘Except your father,' said Queen Scratchrot.

‘Except my father,' Mordonna agreed.

‘And the Hearse Whisperer,' Nerlin added.

‘Yes, and the Hearse Whisperer.'

‘And very big spiders,' said Betty.

‘We don't run from very big spiders,' said Merlinmary.

‘I do.'

‘I don't,' said Merlinmary. ‘I eat them.'

‘All right, all right. We are the Floods and
we do not run away from many things and one of the things we never run away from are bleak grey houses with a single weak light at one window that are a long way from the road, silhouetted against the evening sky with one twisted tree and a big howling dog. We never run away from them.'

‘Couldn't we make an exception this time?' said Nerlin.

‘No,' said Mordonna. ‘Turn around. We are going on.'

‘Umm, can I just say something?' said Winchflat.

‘Later, dear,' said Mordonna. ‘Come on, husband, turn around. Not you, you idiot, the van.'

‘But …' Nerlin began.

‘But …' Winchflat began.

Mordonna clicked her fingers and the van lifted seven centimetres up off the track, its wheels still spinning. Then it turned one hundred and eighty degrees and dropped back onto the ground.

‘We are going on,' said Mordonna.

Forsaken Hall was surrounded by a grey stone wall that had once been two metres tall and topped with steel spikes. Now the spikes had rusted away in the dampness of the mist that endlessly swirled around the place. It was this mist that meant most travellers along the main road never saw the house. It was not on any maps and this was not the sort of place passing drivers would say, ‘Oh, look, a track. I wonder what's up there?' This bleak location was exactly why the Knights Intolerant had built their house there.

The wall had fallen down in places. The two huge gates had fallen over too, and it was only the single light in the window, a light that had gone out as soon as the Floods had begun to drive up the track, that indicated there might be someone living there. The windows were curtained in thousands of cobwebs.

They climbed out of the van and walked to the front door. It was open a few centimetres, though more cobwebs told them it had been that way for a long time.

‘Hello?' Mordonna called.

Nothing.

‘Hello?' she called louder.

Footsteps and muttering echoed inside the hall and the door slowly began to open.