The Deptford Mice 3: The Final Reckoning (11 page)

Audrey gasped and the rest of the mice sensed the urgency and fear in the squirrel’s voice. Slowly they began to believe her and they murmured to each other in worried whispers.

‘What are we to do?’ wailed Biddy Cockle hysterically.

‘I do not know,’ the Starwife replied shaking her head. ‘Without my Starglass I cannot see how we may rid the world of this black fiend. How does one destroy that which has already been destroyed? Jupiter is dead, yet still he torments us. That is the problem. We cannot kill what is no longer alive.’

‘But then we are lost,’ stammered Master Oldnose, ‘it is hopeless.’

The Starwife raised her stick to quell the rising panic. ‘Perhaps not,’ she said. ‘My powers are gone, yet I am not the only one so gifted – others have the ability to see into the future and know the secrets it jealously guards.’

‘You mean the bats?’ asked Arthur suddenly.

‘I do indeed,’ she announced. ‘I have come from Greenwich to have an audience with the bats who live in the attic here. They will be able to tell me all I need to know and together we may come up with a solution.’ She paused. Everyone was groaning with despair. The Starwife pounded her stick impatiently, ‘What is wrong?’ she demanded.

‘The bats have gone,’ Gwen replied. ‘They abandoned us two nights ago! I do not think there is a single one left in Deptford.’

The Starwife stared at her as though she were mad, ‘Then we
are
lost,’ she murmured, ‘without their aid all shall perish.’ Her last hope was crushed and she bowed her head in defeat.

The Raddle sisters began to weep and several others joined them. Audrey wondered what would happen. Jupiter would surely seek her out and get his revenge. To her astonishment she did not feel afraid and she found herself scowling rather than crying. It was a strange mood which she did not understand. She felt that her fate was bound up with that of Jupiter and curiously enough with that of the Starwife also. She looked at the squirrel seated before her and felt very sorry for her. Whatever hatred she once had for the creature was swept away by a need to ease her cares.

Audrey knelt down and took hold of the Starwife’s paws. ‘Don’t
worry,’ she said, ‘something will happen. Trust in the Green Mouse – that’s what my father always used to say.’

The Starwife looked at her with those milky eyes and stroked her hair. ‘Child,’ she said, ‘it is winter and the Green Mouse sleeps. Only when spring comes will he awake,’ she shook her head sorrowfully, ‘and I do not think spring will ever come again.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Audrey insisted, ‘only the bats know now what will happen. If only we could get a message to them, I’m sure they’d help.’

At her words the squirrel’s ears quivered and she sat bolt upright on the stool. ‘Of course,’ she cried clapping her paws together excitedly, ‘you excellent child. Where were my wits? I am too old for this, my time is truly over if I cannot remember squirrel history. Triton, help me to my feet at once. There is little time.’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Audrey.

‘I shall summon the bats,’ declared the Starwife exultantly. ‘I am forgetting much. A beacon fire was used to call them very long ago when our colony at Greenwich was in its direst need. The bats came then – let us pray it works a second time.’ She glared round at all the confused mice and barked out her orders. ‘You over there, stop standing like a dummy and fetch some wood – you, go find some rope – you, just get out of my sight I don’t like your face.’

The rest of the morning was spent constructing the beacon fire. This was not as easy as it sounded because the Starwife ordered that it should be built on the roof. Arthur and Thomas Triton climbed up inside the wall cavity and hopped along the rafters to where Arthur had once spoken with Orfeo and Eldritch – the place seemed empty without them. The two mice clambered up the fallen beams and crawled out of the hole in the roof. It was terribly cold and windy up there but somehow they managed to build a small platform out of broken slates and blocks of wood.

They lowered a rope down the wall cavity to where Algy Coltfoot was waiting with bundles of collected twigs. He tied them to the end and gave it two sharp tugs, the rope and the twigs jerked upwards and disappeared into the darkness. When several of these bundles had been hauled up, Thomas and Arthur sat with their backs against the chimneys puffing and rubbing their chaffed paws.

From out of the cavity hole the face of Master Oldnose appeared. He cleared his throat and told them that the Starwife was getting impatient in the Hall and wanted to come up. Thomas was amused. There was no way the old squirrel could climb up to the attic and he thought Master Oldnose was pulling his leg until a faint voice called his name from below.

At the bottom of the long drop to the Skirtings the Starwife shouted crossly up at the midshipmouse and told him to make a cradle at the end of the rope. Then she sent several mice up to help him. Algy, Mr Cockle and Reggie and Bart from the Landings scrambled up as fast as they could.

After a while a strange triangle descended from above. The end of the rope had been tied to a piece of wood just big enough to sit on and then knotted a little way above that to form a kind of swing. It was lowered gently to the ground where the Starwife struggled into it. Sitting on the wooden seat and still clutching her stick she grasped the rope with her paws and called to be pulled up.

In the attic the mice took the strain and heaved on the rope. Slowly the Starwife was raised, ascending through the wall space, using her stick to stop herself bumping into the bricks. She seemed to be quite enjoying herself and hummed an ancient squirrel tune in the dark. Eventually she reached the attic and was helped out onto the roof.

The afternoon came and wore on and the leaden sky began to turn black. Not content with waiting below, all the other mice wanted to know what was happening so the remaining husbands climbed up and their wives took turns in the Starwife’s cradle. In the end everyone was up in the attic or standing precariously on the roof where the Starwife began to tie the twigs into a pyramid shape.

When the framework had been made the squirrel searched in the velvet bag she had brought from Greenwich. ‘Good,’ she muttered, ‘I have all I need.’ Clutching the bag close to her the Starwife raised her head and told everyone, ‘We shall not light the beacon till night falls; it will not be long.’

Audrey was sitting next to her mother. She closed her eyes against the blustering wind and huddled closer to Gwen. Oswald was nearby and Mrs Chitter was fussing with his scarf, ‘Don’t you get a chill like that last one,’ she clucked.

Arthur gazed at the world in astonishment. When he had been in Fennywolde he had climbed the corn stalks and enjoyed the feeling of being high above the ground but that was nothing compared to this. He did not feel the cold as he was too absorbed in the panoramic views. In the distance he could see the vague blur of the city and not too far away the tower of St Nicholas’s church rose between the buildings. Beyond that . . . Arthur put a paw over his eyes, the tall chimney of Deptford Power Station loomed out of a strange white mist. He frowned, scratched his head and shivered, but not because of the weather; there was something uncanny about that place. Arthur fancied that he was being watched – he did not like it and tried to look away, but the power station fascinated him. It seemed to have a presence – he could almost hear it breathing and waiting. Arthur shivered a second time.

The short winter day was drawing to a close, deep shadows gathered under the surrounding houses and street lamps clicked and buzzed as they blinked on. The dusk fell and the mice on the roof had to strain their eyes to see each other.

‘It is time,’ said the dim shape of the Starwife.

For an instant Thomas’s face was illuminated as he struck a light from his tinder box. He passed it to the squirrel and she bent over the beacon and waited patiently for it to catch.

The twigs kindled and a warm yellow glow lit the circle of mice who drew instinctively closer to the welcome flames.

The Starwife pulled from her bag a glass phial containing a dark red syrup, the juice of special berries. She sprinkled it over the fire and at once it spat and sparks flew out. The mice gasped and fell back in alarm. The flames then turned a rich, deep purple and tapered high over the roof tops.

‘Now, we wait,’ said the Starwife, crouching down.

The beacon blazed furiously, yet the flames did not seem to be burning the wood. They remained in its fierce heart untouched by the heat. It was the tallest fire the mice had ever seen, a slender, violet beam reaching up into the heavens.

The beacon was seen by many; far away, resting for the night beneath a hedge, the Starwife’s subjects looked up and wondered, pigeons ruffled in their roosts, a fox slinking up to a dustbin paused and raised his brows. From Deptford Power Station there came a deep rumbling purr.

On the roof everyone waited anxiously. All eyes were trained on the sky, searching for the flutter of bat wings. The Starwife did not move. Her paws rested on her knees and before the flames her silvery fur shone like a brilliant amethyst. She stared silently into the fire.

The hours dragged slowly by. The mice rubbed their sore eyes and warmed their paws. The slates of the roof were cold and terribly uncomfortable. Some mice gave up looking for the bats and mumbled in disappointment.

Audrey lay on her back gazing upwards. She could see only the black sky with the livid finger of flame stretching above her.

Arthur had stopped looking for the bats long ago and now concentrated his attention on the mist around the power station. Now and then he thought he saw a faint blue glow flicker in there perhaps it was his imagination but he continued to watch the distant building suspiciously.

Thomas Triton thought of the rum he had left unfinished in his quarters. He stroked his whiskers slowly and his mind wandered down the sea lanes of his youth – he coughed and hid his face quickly.

The beacon spluttered and the tall fire shrank and grew yellow. The flames crackled and consumed the twigs greedily. The Starwife sighed and a tear fell from her eyes, ‘They do not come,’ she whispered hoarsely, ‘we are alone and must die.’ The mice got to their feet and began to file along to the hole in the roof.

Oswald was the only one still watching the blank, dark sky. His mittened paws swept over his cold, pink nose. ‘If only the bats had come,’ he sighed longingly.

‘Oswald, Oswald,’ called his mother, ‘the show’s over now dear, come inside at once.’

Reluctantly the albino had to look away from the sky as he cautiously got to his feet and followed his mother. Then just as he lowered himself down into the attic he lifted his face one last time and held his breath incredulously. There, in the faint distance were two dark shapes flying towards the house.

‘Look, look!’ yelled Oswald jumping up and down, ‘The bats are coming, the bats are coming.’

The few mice who were left outside peered into the sky and gradually, their eyes being less sensitive than Oswald’s, they discerned the flitting shapes high in the air.

‘He’s right,’ shouted Audrey joyously, ‘they really are coming.’

A chorus of approval broke out spontaneously as the mice cheered the bats and applauded the cleverness of the Starwife. The old squirrel merely nodded and lightly touched her silver amulet in gratitude.

Those who had disappeared into the attic now popped their heads out and hoisted themselves onto the roof once more.

‘Triton,’ chirped the Starwife, ‘help me to my feet, I think my bones have set. I cannot greet our cousins in such a manner. That’s better, aahh.’ Her back creaked as she stood with the midshipmouse’s help.

By now the bats were well in view, the orange light of the street lamps lit them from beneath and it was Arthur who recognized them. ‘It’s Orfeo and Eldritch,’ he piped up as he waved to the newcomers.

‘Welcome you voyagers of the twilight,’ called the Starwife solemnly.

The two creatures alighted daintily on the tiles and wrapped their leathery wings about themselves as though they were cloaks. Orfeo raised his foxy face and looked down his long nose at the Starwife, ‘By what right does the Handmaiden of Orion summon us?’ he demanded haughtily. ‘Was the debt our ancestors once owed to her forebears not paid long ago?’ He waited for an answer.

The Starwife shook her stick at him bad-temperedly. ‘Don’t you start any of that malarkey with me young lad, this has nothing to do with what happened then and well you know it. I asked you here because of Jupiter.’

Orfeo snorted and spread his wings. ‘Beware the ear that whispers, did we not tell the fat one?’ he pointed accusingly at Arthur and allowed his brother to continue.

Eldritch moved his noble head and shifted his position. ‘Old dame of the night,’ he said to the Starwife, ‘you did not “ask” us here, you sought to summon and by an old trick of one of your venerable predecessors. She was wilier than you and her power greater – for do I not see the truth here? You have lost your trinket, that secret you kept hidden under oak has been stolen.’

‘Hah,’ scoffed Orfeo joining in, ‘what a merry jest this is, the queenly one bereft of her magic devices – what misfortune!’ And he laughed out loud. ‘No more tricks from her, no longer does she sit enthroned, her realm is ended.’

The Starwife endured their jibes and hateful comments without saying anything, but Audrey could not. This was the first time she had heard the bats speak and she found them just as intolerably rude as she had once found the Starwife.

She pushed forward and interrupted their mocking voices. ‘Oh very funny,’ she said, ‘just stop it, it isn’t fair to pick on her – why are you so cruel? She hasn’t done anything to you.’

The bats glared at the mouse who had dared to speak up. Orfeo hid his mouth behind his wings and murmured, ‘She has a champion.’

‘Enough,’ said the Starwife at last. ‘You have had your fun. By all means laugh at me – I am nothing, just an old squirrel who grew too proud and thought she was invincible. I am still paying for my mistakes, do not make any of your own to regret.’

The bats calmed down and became serious. ‘Did you think we were ignorant of the Unbeest?’ asked Eldritch. ‘We knew He had returned in spectral form, that is why all our brethren are gathered together at this very moment in the greatest council ever held in our long history.’

‘The road is dark, Starwife,’ warned Orfeo sombrely. ‘There are paths we cannot see; the future is closed to us also, yet a solution must be found. The fiend must be dispatched and soon.’

The Starwife listened to them and a determined expression crept over her wrinkled face. ‘Very well,’ she said when they had finished. ‘I had hoped you could advise me but it would seem you are as powerless as I.’ She could not resist letting slip a quick, smug smile. ‘It would seem we must join forces properly.’