Contents of article "’Beyond the Hedge’ - Chapter 10 Part 1"
’Beyond the Hedge’
The Harpie sprang from her miserable bed in the sinkhole on the Island of Long Forgotten Dreams, screeching and shrieking with unconfined joy. The anklet was on its way home. She could feel its unleashed power.
Maligna howled and bayed like a wolf. She danced like a dervish and jigged like a jester.
She taunted the guards above. “Hello, my lovelies! Why don’t you join me? I’m having an impromptu party but you’ll have to supply the liquor. The wine cellars in this dungeon leave much to be desired and I’m fresh out of party frocks. I’ll have to wear this old rag again.” She stood with her arms crossed defiantly over the wasted frame of her chest. “No takers, eh? Don’t you know it’s churlish to refuse a lady’s invitation?”
Gone was the docile, listless creature who would lie with her face turned to the wall for days on end, barely showing signs of life.
Harpies are capable of slowing their breathing and heart-rate right down so that, to the inexperienced eye, they display all the outer signs of death. A mirror placed in front of Maligna’s mouth during one of those prolonged periods of inactivity might well have suggested she’d expired, but harpies don’t make a habit of dying; immortality is more their style.
In an instant they can switch from a passive state to one of frenzied, skull-crushing mania without resorting to sorcery or magic. It’s wise to keep your distance from a harpie and to avert your gaze from those soulless black eyes which are capable of inducing a form of mental paralysis that turns its victims into brainless zombies.
Maligna’s jailers believed she’d finally slipped over the cliff of reason into a chasm of madness. They tried to keep their spirits up with silly jokes at her expense which they swapped in whispers.
The Harpie’s mood changed abruptly and she slumped on her pallet, crying hot tears of angry relief. Years of wretched, pent-up emotion poured out in a torrent of unstoppable grief. “Come home soon, precious anklet.” She cradled her gaunt head in bone-white arms, tugging at her lank hair with sinuous fingers while she fretfully rocked back and forth. “We’ll show them, dear one.”
Maligna repeated these five words until she finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Ralph called to his wife as he picked up the car-keys from the tallboy next to the grandfather clock. There was no response and he shouted again. “That’s me off then.”
Tina was upstairs rummaging about in the spare bedroom cupboard where she kept her posh frocks. They were due to attend a function and she wanted to air the dress she had in mind. She lifted the gown from the rail and hung it on the outside of the walnut wardrobe that dominated the room.
Trixie, the Hendersons’ brindle boxer, was snuffling around by the open cupboard door when her hackles rose and she started to growl. Tina was surprised and placed her hand on the dog’s shoulders to reassure her.
The dog sank to the floor snarling through bared teeth and Tina steeled herself to take a closer look. She crouched down and parted the clothes hanging on the rail. The cupboard was in deep shadow and there was no overhead light but she could make out a mouse-like shape in the corner right at the back.
“What a fuss about nothing. You’re a grown dog; don’t tell me you’re scared of a teeny wee rodent.”
Ralph was watching the scene unfold from the bedroom doorway. The boxer had put as much space between herself and the cupboard as she could without actually deserting Tina. She was uttering dark-side-of-the-dog noises that gave Ralph the creeps. “Trixie’s in a bit of a state, isn’t she? What’s up with her?”
“It’s only a mouse, but she’s carrying on as if Old Nick himself is in that cupboard.”
Their exchange was cut short when the phone rang, startling them both. Tina rushed down the stairs to answer it, leaving Ralph alone with the jibbering heap that was the family dog.
Trixie was going nowhere in a hurry and nothing would induce her to approach that cupboard again.
Ralph’s eyes took a moment or two to adjust to the gloom. In the farthest corner sat a small bundle of fur with its back to the door. The creature reacted to his voice and he was treated to the full impact of its oversized mouth crammed with unnervingly sharp teeth. These were matched by clusters of long, curved claws on its spindly feet. Ralph staggered back from the cupboard but had the presence of mind to lock the beast inside.
He could hear his wife coming up the stairs. “I’m off to see Jessie about next week’s fund-raiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind.” Then, almost as an after-thought. “Did you find Trixie’s mouse?” Tina didn’t wait for an answer, she was already running late.
Ralph’s mind was racing. Thoughts tumbled over each other anxious to claim his attention. How was it possible that a scrabling could be here in Irvine? The situation in Crawdonia must have deteriorated drastically.
Donning the leather gloves he kept in his overcoat pocket, he crept towards the cupboard and slowly turned the key in the lock. The door creaked open on its ageing hinges and Ralph knelt down, hoping to grab the scrabling should it decide to make a run for it. What he was going to do with the creature then was anyone’s guess.
In all his years in the Merchant Navy, even on the dangerous North Atlantic Convoys during the Second World War, he had always known what to do in any given situation, but this time it was different. A being from another dimension was something he’d never had to deal with before, particularly one with such a nasty disposition.
He was dismayed to discover the original scrabling was no longer alone. He could hear a sound like the high-pitched screech of a owl. Ralph felt for the right-hand drawer of the dressing table, never taking his eyes off the the creatures. He fished out a small torch and shone the beam into the corner. Two pairs of yellow eyes glared at him and the screeching intensified. He kept his nerve and flashed the torch round, moving the dresses aside until he was sure he’d checked every inch of the cupboard. There wasn’t even a mousehole to be seen. The light from the torch revealed a further pair of eyes. He banged the door shut and, having locked it, shoved the key in the inside pocket of his jacket. His fingers brushed against the magic cowrie shell.
Tina had taken Sandy’s unscheduled trip to Sylvania remarkably well but were she to discover the nasty little critters in the cupboard she might not be quite so rational or understanding.
It was time to contact Sammy and bring Sandy and Jamie home, with or without Leo. There was also the pressing matter of sending those scrablings packing.
Everyone, with the exception of Wainscot, was at the back of the howdah and those who had arms to wave did so. Sandy and Pogo held a gesticulating Lorimer aloft while the pixie blew heavy-hearted kisses to her husband with her free hand.
Peg Leg was flying along behind Kismet, emitting the stark, eerie cries gulls specialise in; the ones that conjure up images of drowned sailors and ships lost at sea. To those of a melancholy disposition they epitomise the sadness and cruelty at the heart of the world. The irony is that seagulls are just saying “hi”, “bye” or “get off, I saw that fish first”, unless they happen to be cut from the same cloth as our one-legged friend who is set apart from his peers by supreme intelligence and his ability to speak the language of humans.
The sun reflected off Lorimer’s goggles and glittered on the rows of blue and white sequins which made up the Scottish flag on his lavish bathing costume. He’s very patriotic, which is not something lobsters tend to concern themselves with on an average day in the Firth of Clyde. They’re too busy swimming with or, as often as not, against the ever-shifting currents without the BBC Shipping Forecast to help them on their way.
Alfie remained where he was long after the Royal Steed and his precious cargo had disappeared into the wood. He experienced a wave of abject loneliness which brought a lump to his throat. The elf gave himself a thoroughly good talking-to and headed for the stable to saddle the pony.
Pigsblanket shoved his few belongings into his coat pockets. Apart from his concertina and an old diary, he had little more than he stood up in. He scanned the tiny cabin, trying to avoid eye contact with the parrot who was watching him reproachfully from a makeshift perch beside his hammock. Technically the bird belonged to the Skipper who believed her to be dead.
The cabin boy had managed to revive the bird after Grimshaw, in an alcohol-fuelled rage, attempted to throttle her. The reason: she wouldn’t talk, virtually unheard of for a bird in this saga.
The buccaneer had purloined the parrot during a raid and revelled in her badinage and clever retorts but, after a few days in the company of Grimshaw, the bird was traumatised to the point where she’d stopped talking altogether.
Pigsblanket gave her refuge, safe in the knowledge that the Skipper never visited the crew’s quarters, not even his cabin which was slap bang next to Grimshaw’s own. That apart, a mute parrot was unlikely to draw attention to herself.
The cabin boy often went hungry but he always made sure he squirrelled something away for the bird. Trencher Halibut baked bread twice a week and the boy would slip into the galley and collect any spilt grains or seeds. No one noticed when a few fusty grapes or a rotten apple disappeared and he always shared what he had with her. Late at night, when all was quiet on the brigantine, Pigsblanket would open the small porthole so the parrot could take some aerial exercise without being detected.
The boy and the bird had grown close. He wanted to go it alone and not draw attention to himself. She sensed the turmoil he was experiencing but couldn’t bear the prospect of life without him. The parrot determined that, whatever he decided, she would be leaving ‘The Cheeky Monkey’ with him. She needn’t have worried. Pigsblanket was unable to contemplate life without her either.
“Come on then, Conchita.” He opened his jacket and pointed at the capacious inside pocket. The parrot flew towards him and tucked herself safely out of sight. “Make yourself as small as you can, I don’t want anyone wondering why I’ve suddenly filled out a bit.”
The cabin boy had one last look round the miserable space where he’d been so unhappy. “If I have anything to do with it, Chita, we’ll never have to spend another night in this hole.”
Pigsblanket jumped out of the boat into the shallow water by the crab-catcher’s skiff and made fast the rope on a nearby bollard. He placed a folded piece of paper, addressed to Jedediah Malahyde, by one of the oars where the First Mate couldn’t fail to see it.
The boy had purposely arrived early to give himself time to make good his escape. He hated leaving Gilbert and Leo behind but what else could he do?
He set off along the docks with his hat pulled down over his eyes and a moth-eaten apology for a scarf covering his mouth. The weather was closing in again and the wind had strengthened. He pushed his way through groups of overexcited, chattering folk, keeping an arm protectively round Conchita, and climbed the worn stone steps that lead up from the docks onto the High Road.
The cabin boy had never been close to the palace before and saw how difficult it would be to breach its security systems. The massive watergates protecting the promontory from the might of the sea were shut fast and the formidable locks and bolts were firmly in place on the Great Daria Gate which separates the royal complex from the rest of Corvine.
His attention was caught by a distinctive shape out beyond the harbour mouth. Pigsblanket raised an ancient but serviceable telescope to his eye and a smile of recognition touched his bruised lips. It seemed he wasn’t the only one leaving ‘The Cheeky Monkey’.
A purple dragon, with a package strapped to his right foreleg, flew against the prevailing wind high above the jagged rocks of Fractal Reef. Cahoots steadied his wings and banked in a north westerly direction, his heart thumping with excitement at the prospect of being reunited with his mother.
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