Petronella & the Trogot (3 page)

Petronella had a strange feeling something was not quite right behind her. She swung round quickly only to see that the tall black tree had disappeared.

 

 

After his supper, Maalox sneaked out again. Night was beginning to fall. While Maalox was away, Petronella was too afraid to sleep, or to go out snail hunting. She didn't want to meet the creepy black-hooded horseman again. Neither did she want to go and see if the tree had come back.

So she bolted her doors and all the windows. Except for the window in the spare room. No way was she going in there. She lit a candle and took a book from a pile in the corner. She glanced around her to make sure nobody was lurking in the shadows or behind her furniture. She had two mismatched and worn armchairs, a large pine chest, a crooked carved oak cabinet, given to her by her grandmother, Giacinta, and a sturdy marble-topped table with three chairs.

Petronella carefully placed the candle on the wide ledge of the bay window. She pulled an armchair close to it, sat down and pressed her head against the glass. All was quiet outside. The candle flickered in front of her. She could only feel safe if she kept watch. The book lay flat open on her lap but she watched the flickering of the candle rather than reading. White squiggles appeared out of the darkness behind the candle. Shapes that looked like TCO.
‘
No, it must be my mind playing tricks again,' thought Petronella. Soon after she began reading the badly-lit pages, she felt drowsy. She yawned, she nodded and closed her eyes. The letters kept swimming around in her head.

The sudden sound of a screeching owl startled her. It was a chilly night; she could burn a few logs. But her firewood was stacked up outside against the wall of her cottage. Too afraid to go out in her garden, she decided to start a fire by lighting some sticks and then burning the smaller pieces of coal she had in the scuttle. The flames burned brightly, making that cosy crackling sound and throwing off sparks. Reaching into the coal scuttle, she pulled out the three smallest pieces of coal and put them on the burning wood. Maybe that would be enough, she just needed to get rid of that nip in the air. She shivered. It could have been the howling wind outside that made her tremble or it could be that she was afraid. There in the darkness on her own.

Settling down in her armchair again, she sat and watched the branches of the trees swaying around in the moonlight making black and white dancing shadows in her living-room as well as scratching her window panes. A branch kept beating on the glass. Placing her hands on the arm rests, she pushed herself out of the armchair then went towards the window to close the heavy curtains and shut the eerie night out.

She noticed the branches were now still, the moonlight stopped shining and pitch black came down over Charis Cottage. The window panes were blackened out. The only light was the feeble flame of the melting candle dripping onto the ledge. She couldn't quite work it out, but she thought she saw a shape in the form of a hooded cloak. But black on black makes it difficult to distinguish. Quickly, in one swoop, she drew the curtains. Her heart was pounding fast as somebody began knocking on her window: “Pe...tro...ne...lla,” she imagined a faint voice calling her. “Pe...tro...ne...lla,” there it was again. She froze where she stood - there, just in front of the window. Then she heard the sash window creep up: “Pe...tro...ne...lla,” for the third time and louder. The gusty wind swelled the curtain into her face, then it flew upwards above her head. A hooded figure stood there. She moved back. The cloak and hood stepped through the window straight into her living-room. That's all there was: a hood and cloak - no legs, no head - yet, it moved.

Petronella didn't know she could be so brave. She found it within herself to speak: “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“Pe...tro...ne...lla, I be the soul of The Hooded Horseman. Ye hath myn head and torso in thy cottage. The rest of me be in the village. In a field there, together with the bodies and souls of the folk who liveth with me in myn time. Pe...tro...ne...lla, I know ye hath a beautiful soul. I be sure ye shall helpeth me in the difficult task that lies before me.”

“What do the letters TCO stand for?” Petronella said, “and what am I supposed to help you with?
”
 

“I cannat tell ye now,” he said. “But, please, Pe...tro...ne...lla, I beggeth of ye giveth me permission to cometh back and speaketh to ye tomorrow night. Giveth me the chance to telleth ye exactly what ye can doth to helpeth the civilisation of The Strincas.
I hath to goeth now, Pe...tro...ne...lla. I must needs flee. All shall be revealed to ye tomorrow night when I shall cometh back.”
 

“Very well. You can come back and talk to me tomorrow evening when dusk falls,” the kind Petronella said.

A strong gale stirred up making the curtains swell up again and blow right up to the ceiling. And, as they moved back down again, it was as if they pushed The Hooded Horseman out of the window and into the thick blackness.

Silence fell over the room. Nothing moved in the quiet night. Petronella kept staring at the space where the black-hooded knight had been as she heard a horse gallop away outside. The candle on the window ledge had gone out. The only light shining was that of the moonbeams through her window.

“Nothing could be scarier than this. Not even the tree,” she said to herself. Still trembling she went upstairs towards the small spare bedroom to make sure the tree had gone for good. But when she looked out into the blackness, she could just about make out the outline of the tree. Only now it was nearer to her cottage.

 

 

The next morning, Petronella pulled on her everyday army camouflage boots and marched to Farmer Giles's field. She wanted to know what he had meant by the black tree gobbling her up. But to her surprise the field was full of camera tripods from different TV channels. They had been positioned in three spots all pointing to the field and the bones. It looked like all the people of Fort Willow were there. The cats were there, too, on the edge of the excavations. Maalox sat apart and kept careful watch.

A journalist from a 24-hour-a-day news channel was going around the on-lookers asking what they thought. They nearly all agreed that the bodies must belong to that weird Phillips family who suddenly disappeared from the village. The journalist reported this back to the TV studio while the news channel showed pictures of the family. The journalist, one Judy Junkins, kept talking and talking:

“Here in Fort Willow experts have started digging to unearth bodies, just a few metres from where I'm standing.” She looked as if she'd been up all night waiting for the excavators to turn up. “The villagers agree that the bodies may be those of a family who lived here and mysteriously disappeared. A certain Phillips family. Police have launched a major investigation into their whereabouts. It is known that the parents together with their teenage children were not happy here. They lived in a modest house just round the back of where I'm standing. I have the new owner of that house right here. Hello there! Did you know that the Phillips family had lived in your house before you?”

“Yeah, I bought the house from them, didn't I? They looked alright to me when I saw 'em. Thought they was going away or something.”

“Thank you for the interview. I'm just going to speak to another resident,” Judy Junkins told viewers at home, looking straight into the camera. “Hi there, did you know the family personally?

“It's not like I had much to do with 'em, but I used to see the father going for walks over these fields. They had this dog. And...”

“Just a moment,” interrupted the journalist, “I have some breaking news. At least four bodies have been found, yes, at least four. And also the remains of a cat and a dog! I'm just walking over to interview the chief excavator. Hello, excuse me. Could you confirm that you've found the bodies of a family and their pets?”

“Well, we've found remains but I cannot say who they belong to at this time.”

Petronella steered her way through the crowd towards the journalist. “Hello, hello!” Petronella shouted from a distance. The journalist didn't hear her. Petronella finally reached Judy Junkins and tapped her on the shoulder. “What's that ugly thing on the screen?” a newscaster said to the other in the studio. “Oh, my God! How did she get to be there?” When Judy Junkins turned around she got the fright of her life. Then, coming to her senses, she said: “Get out of here, we're on air!”

“Miss, miss, The Hooded Horseman said that the...”

“Get out of the way, I tell you.” Waving to the cameraman, she shouted: “Turn that thing off, do you hear?”

The camera was shut down and the screens went blank at home. As Petronella was led away by two heavies, she was shouting: “Stop them digging! Stop them digging!”

 

 

Meanwhile on a remote Scottish island somewhere in the North Sea, Phillip Phillips kept calling his mum. She couldn't hear him because she was in the kitchen and the extractor fan was on. “Mum, mum,” he shouted over and over, “mum come here quick, look they're talking about US on the telly.”

“For God's sake, can you stop shouting from one room to another, get your feet off that coffee table, NOW, and give that TV a break,” Mrs Phillips said in one breath after rushing into the living-room.

“Mum, we're on the box, really, honest to God. Look!” Phillip insisted.

“Well, for all the tea in China, that's a picture of us alright. Oh, my God!” said Mrs Phillips.

Having heard all the noise, Alice, Phillip's sister, rushed into the room leaping down the stairs two-by-two. “Mum, that was us!” she yelled, having seen it all on her own TV in her bedroom.

“Quiet, quiet, can't hear a thing!” said their mother.

They sat there agog, listening to Judy Junkins going on about how their family may have just been dug up, and their remains (and that of their cat and dog) were on their way to the morgue for tests. In the background, Petronella could be seen being taken away shouting something about a hooded horseman.

“Wow, look, it's that yuk of a hag, we used to make fun of.”

All three of them laughed.

“Never thought we'd see her again, did we?” said Alice. “Ugly witch.”

“So, if it's not us, mum, must be someone else,” Phillip said.

“You're so clever! Course it's other people if it's not us, you dumbo,” Alice answered.

“Mum, let's phone them. Tell them that we're alive and kicking.”

Well the truth was that there were a lot more than four skeletons. There were just so many! Who did all these bones belong to? Well, not to the Phillips family, that's for sure.

 

 

Mrs Bellamy was busy hoovering her floral carpets. As soon as she'd finished, she'd make herself a nice cup of tea and was going to settle down and watch a bit of daytime TV. How wonderful, she'd have plenty of time to herself now that Constable Bellamy was busy trying to sort out the skeletons. In fact, Constable Bellamy had become quite a celebrity in Fort Willow. Everyone wanted to get the latest news from him about the bones. Mrs Bellamy was proud of her husband, especially now that he was the centre of attention.

She took her mug and biscuits into the living-room and went over to the coffee table. When lo and behold she thought she spied someone out of the corner of her left eye. As both her eyeballs went round to the left, a figure came into full view. Yes, no doubt about it, SOMEONE WAS SITTING ON HER SOFA! Mrs Bellamy took a step back, tripped over her magazine rack and landed on her backside. The tea spilled onto her carpet and the biscuit whizzed out of the open window and hit Mrs Pontague in between the eyes as she was passing on her way to Mr Pomshort's butcher's shop for a nice piece of sirloin.

When Mrs Bellamy came to her senses, she couldn't believe her eyes. For there on HER sofa sat a strange looking man with a two-headed axe in his hand. “Please, please, don't hurt me,” she begged him.

“Why should I hurteth ye? Ye be nat a criminal, Mrs Bellamy,” he said.

“No, no, of course I'm not a criminal, my husband's the local police constable, if you please,” she answered.

“I knoweth all that, Mrs Bellamy, one of the reasons why I cameth to thy here house. It's because like thy husband, I representeth the law,” he said.

“YOU, represent the law! What, with that axe in your hand?!”

“Yes, I killeth them myn master telleth me to killeth. I be one of myn Lord's soldiers,” he said.

“You what?”

“Yes, I giveth out justice with myn axe, I axeth murderers', or such-like folks', heads off.”

So there he sat in his long black killer robe, with red bell sleeves and hood, looking as if he'd chop the head off anyone who came near him. Though she was not the brightest of women, it began to dawn on Mrs Bellamy that this man was not of our time. That language for one thing. Could he have somehow come back on Earth from the past? No, that would be stupid, things like that didn't happen. Least of all in Fort Willow. But, there he was as real as anything, sitting on her sofa holding his black axe at an angle in his right hand.

“Now, Mr Axeman, can I get you a cup of tea before you set off?” asked Mrs Bellamy.

“Goeth where?” asked The Axeman.

“Well, go back to wherever you came from,” she said.

“Where I cameth from? Can't goeth back there. No, this be the spot I used to liveth on and this be where I be staying.”

“Where have you come from, then?”

“I were buried in that there field in the centre of the village. Me thinketh it belongeth to Farmer Giles now, The Mayor of Fort Willow. Used to belongeth to our feudal Lord, so it did, in myn day. Lord Fortesque as his name be. I believeth they must needs be relations. I knoweth Farmer Giles liveth in the Manor House, Lord Fortesque's summer house.”