Storm Child (16 page)

‘Well, that’s a rum do and no
mistake,’ Isaac said, scratching his head as he craned in to take a closer
look. ‘You’d think it would be a bit cleaner in there, cleanliness
bein
’ next to Godliness an’ that.’

‘Where is everyone?’ Charlotte
whispered, almost to herself rather than her companions. 

‘Good question,’ Polly replied.
‘That room ought to be full of urchins being worked into their graves…’

‘So where are they?’ Isaac
finished for her.

‘Let’s check that other door.’ Polly
squeezed through the gap between Isaac and Charlotte, still gazing at the
silent room, and marched to the other end of the outhouse.

‘I’m not so sure I want to,’
Charlotte said with a shiver as she turned to face her.

‘Ready?’ Polly asked as she fiddled
with the hairpin in the second lock.

‘No,’ Isaac said. ‘But get the
infernal thing open. I’m sick of being scared half to death all the time. If
someone’s
waitin
’ to get me on the other side of that
door I’d rather just know about it now.’

Without another word, Polly
worked the hairpin until the lock clicked in the same way that the first had
done and she inched it open, putting her eye to the gap.

‘It’s too dark,’ she whispered.

Isaac glanced at Charlotte.
‘You’ll have to open it more,’ he whispered back uncertainly.

Polly hesitated, and then did
just that.  But the tension in her shoulders relaxed and she pulled the
door out wide to show the others that the room beyond was nothing more than a
tiny cloakroom.  

‘Well, that weren’t quite as
terrifying as I was hoping for,’ Isaac said with a slight grin.

‘It don’t make any sense,’ Polly
replied.

‘What don’t?’

‘This…’ she waved her hand at the
space. ‘This is just a cupboard and I don’t see any other doors. So where did
everyone go?’

‘They could have been taken away
somewhere else. They might not be here,’ Charlotte said.

Polly turned to her with folded
arms. ‘Where would they take hundreds of urchins?  It
ain’t
even Sunday so there’s no church. There
ain’t
nowhere
else.’

‘Clearly, they’re not here, are
they?’ Charlotte returned coldly. ‘So they must be somewhere else.’

‘Right, Miss Clever-Bloomers,’
Polly hissed, ‘where?’

‘How should I know?’

‘You seem to know
everythin
’ else.’

‘I do believe the honour of that
conceit is yours.’

‘And what, exactly, is that
supposed to mean?’

‘Would you like me to explain all
the words to you one by one?’

Polly flushed, her eyes narrowed
as she readied herself to launch into a fiery tirade. Isaac raised a hand
between them.

‘Ladies! We
ain’t
got time for this.’

Charlotte’s head went down. Polly
folded her arms tighter across her chest, her face thunderous. But her mouth
stayed firmly shut.

‘What we need to be
thinkin
’ about now,’ Isaac continued, ‘is what we do next.’
Leaning against the doorframe of the cloakroom, he reached for a hook and
tugged on it, swinging his weight around and staring thoughtfully ahead. And
then there was a grinding sound.

Isaac leapt back from the
doorway, his mouth round in a comical look of shock.  All three watched,
wide-eyed as the back wall of the cloakroom slid open to reveal a gaping
darkness beyond, the first few steps of a staircase just visible in the gloom.

‘I wonder if we have our answer,’
Charlotte whispered.

Polly rolled her eyes. ‘There’s
always a
bloomin
’ secret room,
ain’t
there?’  

Isaac grinned. ‘What do we do? Do
we go down there?’  

‘I don’t see what else we can
do.’ Polly glanced towards the outside door. Annie waited outside for them, in
her weakened state probably struggling to control her canine charges now. 
‘And if we’re going, we’d better go
quick
.’

Isaac gave a tight-lipped nod.
Throughout the day, he had looked strong, determined, but for the first time he
paled, his courage appearing to fail him as he regarded the dark stairway with
an expression of the deepest misgiving.

‘You can stay up top, if you
want,’ Polly said. ‘Wait here and stand guard.’ He turned to her. Where he
might have expected to see her usual scorn and mocking, he saw only softness.
She laid a hand on his arm. ‘You’ve been through enough for one day and no one
would blame you. I mean, you was practically dead a few hours ago.’

He forced a smile. ‘Let you go
down alone and have all the fun? Not ruddy likely.’ He turned to Charlotte.
‘Poll’s right about one thing, though. It’s a good idea to have someone keep
guard up here. Can we count on you to lookout?’

Charlotte looked from one to the
other, to the dark, foreboding hole now waiting to swallow them, and then back
at Isaac. It looked as though her courage had finally waned too.  She
nodded uncertainly.

‘What do you want me to do if
anyone comes?’

‘We’ve no idea how far down this
is.’ Isaac looked at Polly. ‘How do we know whether we’d hear Charlotte call a
warning if she had to?’

‘We don’t,’ Polly replied grimly.
‘The best Charlotte can do is leg it.’

‘And leave you two?’ Charlotte
squeaked.

Polly glanced at Isaac, who
nodded his agreement. ‘I get it. Charlotte takes Annie and gets her away.’ He
laid his hands on Charlotte’s shoulders and smiled encouragingly down at
her.  ‘
Me
and Poll have escaped worse scrapes
than this. We’d find our way back out somehow, but Annie needs someone to take
care of her.’

Charlotte stared back at
him.  She clasped her arm in a shaking hand and nodded. ‘It somehow didn’t
feel real until now, our quest. It was dangerous, and it was terrifying, but it
was like a game. Now that I see that stairway winding down into the darkness,
it’s like looking at the gates of Hell. I don’t know why I think so, but
something tells me we’re not all going to come out of this alive. And it
frightens me more than anything we’ve faced today, even the wolves.’

‘You don’t want to be
talkin
’ like that,’ Isaac said gently.  ‘Come tomorrow
morning we’ll all be
eatin
’ your mamma’s lovely
breakfast, Georgie safe with us, laughing at how scared we all were over
nothing, you’ll see.’

‘Isaac…’ Polly nodded a head at
the secret entrance. ‘If we stand here
chopsin
’ any
longer we might as well just
shout
down and announce
we’re coming.’

‘Righto, Poll. Let’s go.’ At the
first step he turned to Charlotte and smiled. ‘You remember what I said. If you
see someone coming you get Annie and you run, as fast as you can, and you don’t
come back, not for nothing. Got that?’

Before Charlotte had time to
mount the feeblest argument, Isaac and Polly had begun their descent and were
swallowed by the dark.

Chapter
Twenty-two

They dared not speak as they inched their way as silently
and carefully as they could down the steps. But even the lightest tread echoed
around them as if to betray their presence, the clammy walls beneath their
hands exaggerating a chill that they both already felt in their hearts. 
There was no light, and it seemed as if Charlotte’s fears might be proved
right, that they might just be walking down into the depths of Hell itself as
they followed the steps, further and further, the end forever out of sight.

But, after a few silent minutes,
the dark seemed just the tiniest bit less dark, and the faint echoes of voices
reached their ears. Isaac stopped dead, Polly slamming into him and almost
sending them both toppling down the remaining steps.

‘
Clotpole
,’
she hissed. ‘What are you
doin
’?’

‘It sounds like singing,’ Isaac
breathed back.

‘That means you got to go an’
trip me up?’

‘Why would there be singing?’

Polly was quiet for a moment,
straining hard to hear clearly what he was hearing. ‘It
ain’t
gonna
win any favour with the vicar, that’s for sure.
I heard better singing from the dogs in the marketplace on a Friday night.’

‘I know,’ Isaac agreed. ‘It
sounds more like…’

‘Like chanting,’ Polly finished
for him.

‘Like spell casting.’

‘What do you know about spell
casting?’

‘Only what gossip I heard on the
streets. But folks tell me it sounds like a lot o’ droning on.’

‘Annie don’t sound like that. She
sounds beautiful.’

‘Annie’s magic must be
different.’

‘Maybe,’ Polly whispered
thoughtfully. ‘What do you think it means?’

‘Well, for a start it means
there’s someone down here. And I think it means we should probably stay low.’

‘I weren’t going to pop up an’
sing
All Things Bright and Beautiful
, was I?’

‘Just saying.’

‘Come on…’ Polly moved in front
and began to make her way to the source of the dim light. Isaac grabbed her arm
and hauled her back.  ‘What now?’ she breathed.

‘You’re just going to march in
there? We
ain’t
got a plan and we don’t know what
we’re walking into.’

‘No, we
ain’t
,
but I don’t see any other way of finding out. You were the one who wanted to
come down; you were the one who said we had to face danger if we was going to
save Georgina.’

‘I know that. But now I’m not so
sure this is the best way of
doin
’ it.’

‘The longer we stand here
procrastinating the worse things are going to be.’

‘We
ain’t
procrast
…
procranitating
…
whatever that is you just said –’

‘Procrastinating. It means messing
about trying to decide what to do.’

‘Well we
ain’t
.
We’re just being careful.’

‘We
ain’t
got time to be careful!’

‘But Poll –’

Isaac’s argument was cut short by
the sound of footsteps coming from the light. He cocked his head for a moment,
listening. The footsteps were coming towards them. And there sounded like a lot
of them.  He grabbed Polly’s arm and yanked her back towards the stairs.
 She allowed him to lead without protest, apparently understanding his
fears and his intentions of escape.

But then a deep voice halted them
both in their tracks.

‘You realise that we cannot let
you leave this place now?’

‘RUN!’ Isaac shouted, shoving
Polly up the stairs and turning to face the darkness, all stealth now
pointless. ‘I’ll hold
em
’ off!’

‘Not ruddy likely!’ Polly yelled
back. ‘You fight, I fight!’

‘Poll, this
ain’t
the time to be stubborn!’

No sooner had Isaac spoken than
cloaked figures emerged, now visible in the
half light
like terrifying visions of the Grim Reaper himself.  Isaac felt a hand
grab his leg, halting his escape. Almost immediately he was surrounded, cursing
as he lashed out. Although he landed a few hits, he was quickly overpowered and
in a matter of moments he was held fast. 

‘Get out, Poll!’ he roared before
rough cloth was stuffed into his mouth, making him choke and his eyes
water. 

It was near impossible to tell
what was going on, but as he was dragged towards the source of the glow and the
incessant drone of the chanting he could just make out another scuffle. Polly
let out a scream, loud and piercing enough to chill the hardest of hearts, but
then all became still.  Isaac was dragged away, into a large, stone-walled
antechamber, desperately craning behind to see what had become of Polly. She
had been caught, of that there was no doubt,
he
just
hoped that she hadn’t been harmed in the process.  As he was half-carried,
half-dragged, struggling against his captors, along a torch-lined tunnel
towards a daunting set of wooden doors, his thoughts turned to Charlotte and
Annie, still waiting for them above ground. He could only hope that his and
Polly’s shouts had alerted them both early enough to make an escape.  It
seemed likely that he and Polly would die down here. Perhaps Georgina would die
too. But it would all be in vain if not one of them managed to escape the
slaughter.

Charlotte paced the room.  Polly and Isaac had not been
gone for all that long, but it was far too long for her liking.  None of them
had known what they were heading into, but they had gone regardless, and now
Charlotte was angry with herself that she had let them. She should have offered
a stronger argument to go with them, she should have stopped them from going at
all, she should have led them back to Annie and… she didn’t know what she
should have done, and although every decision felt wrong, none felt as wrong as
the one she had eventually made. She felt helpless, wretched, tortured by
uncertainty and fear.  Part of her wanted to run to them, follow wherever
they had gone so at least they would be together. But perhaps that was more to
make herself feel better than for their sake; she was hardly equipped to save
them from any danger that might lurk there. And there was Annie too. Charlotte
wasn’t sure how long they had been parted, and she wasn’t even sure if Annie
was in any state to know herself, preoccupied as she must be with keeping the
dangerous pack they had been foolish enough to bring with them under control,
but she was sure that Annie must be struggling now. The icy fist of fear
tightened around Charlotte’s heart. What made them think they were strong
enough to contain such a force of nature, to use it and bend it to their will?
They were children, struggling in the face of insurmountable odds. Perhaps they
had been lucky so far. Surely that luck must run out soon?

Charlotte crept to the top of the
stairway.  She cocked her head, listening to the darkness.  She could
hear something, a faint hum. What was that? Straining harder, her breath held,
she listened again.  It sounded like the drone of bees, in and out of the
hive the vicar kept in a shaded corner of the churchyard. For the briefest
moment Charlotte was transported, back to lazy summer days lying against a
mossy gravestone, happy in her own company and daydreaming as she gazed at the
clouds scudding across a perfect azure sky.  Charlotte lost herself in the
memory.

Then came the scream from down
below, and without another thought, she ran.

All around him were cages. And from every cage terrified
faces peered back at him.  Isaac was held fast as Polly appeared, dragged
as unceremoniously as he had been, through the wooden doors and into the room.
 She stared at him, a silent, pleading question in her eyes, her mouth now
stuffed with a piece of cloth, as his was.  He couldn’t look at her; it
was too painful to see the proud girl he knew reduced to this. And he felt
responsible for her fate. He should have been smarter, faster, better equipped
to protect her.  But he had failed her, he had failed them all. His sad
gaze turned to the children in the cages lining three walls of the room. How
many were there? A hundred, maybe more, it was hard to tell and his brain
refused to process the information.  At the centre of the room was a stone
table, strange symbols carved along the sides.  There was a deep pattern
etched into the top surface, a sort of tree design, angular branches joining in
the middle to create a wide, straight trunk. Isaac looked closer. It formed a
channel, to allow something to run from the table and collect in what looked
like a gold chalice placed beneath it.  A cold shudder suddenly stole his
breath as he realised the truth – this was a sacrificial altar. He dared not
dwell on what was to be collected in the chalice for fear it would stop his
heart there and then. As his gaze returned to the children trapped and awaiting
their fate, something else occurred to him. He couldn’t say why the fact had
suddenly leapt into his consciousness, but it did. Every child had black hair.
So did the infant witch the Brethren had been searching for. There had to be a
connection.  What was it? Were they sacrificing all these children because
they were black haired? But most of the children held here weren’t babies.
Perhaps this was part of the ritual; perhaps they simply wanted to be certain.
All this took seconds to process, and another realisation quickly followed. He
had black hair too. So did Polly. Whatever was about to happen here, Isaac was
sure it wasn’t good.  He and Polly had unwittingly stumbled into this
abominable situation, unfortunate victims of their genes and circumstances and
bad timing, and it looked as though they had made themselves part of the ritual
too.  As quickly as Isaac had worked this out, he wondered if Polly
had.  His heart sank even further.  He had almost convinced himself
that he could somehow talk them out of this, but now he realised that there was
no hope at all.

‘I’ve never had two such willing
victims before,’ a voice boomed from the entrance to the room.  A new
figure appeared before them, somehow larger, more malevolent. Even with his
face obscured by a hood, even without noticing the way every occupant of the
room seemed to shrink a little in his presence – even the other hooded figures
– there was no mistaking that this was the man in charge.  ‘It must be a
sign, Brethren.  It is a portent that our endeavours are sure to succeed.’

Isaac glanced at Polly.  He
chewed desperately at the cloth in his mouth, trying to get purchase so he could
somehow spit it out and speak. But it was stuck fast and struggling with it
only made him choke as it worked into his throat.  He coughed and
spluttered, catching Polly roll her eyes as she always did when she thought he
was being an idiot.  Despite the terror, it was a look he knew well and if
he had been able to, he would have smiled at it.  The Polly he knew, the
girl with the courage of a general and more spirit than the army he commanded
had not quite given up yet. And while she had hope, he could do too.

The man spoke again. ‘Put them in
the cages with the others. And then fetch me the One. We have delayed too long
and now all the signs point to success, we must delay no longer. The Queen is
dead, her empire vulnerable, and with the help of the Dark Lord we will rise to
power. This day, this great sacrifice here, is only the beginning.’

Isaac’s mind raced as he tried
desperately to come up with some sort of escape plan. Somewhere, obscured by
more pressing thoughts was a recognition – the voice of the man who had ordered
their destruction sounded familiar. But he couldn’t place it and he didn’t have
the time to worry about it now.  Pulling against his captors, he wrenched
and twisted, trying to break free. Once he even managed to yank a hand out, but
it was immediately caught up again in an iron grip. In a matter of thirty
seconds or less, he was thrown into an open cage, glaring at the men who had
deposited him so roughly as he picked himself up from the floor, and then at
the other children who had stood and watched, wide-eyed with fear as the cage
door opened, instead of rushing their captors when they had the opportunity.
However brief or foolish a plan it was, Isaac would have done and he knew Polly
would have done too. They wanted to get out, didn’t they? They were going to
die anyway so they might as well go fighting.  With a swift movement, he
snatched the cloth from his mouth and tore towards the door but too late – the
lock turned and the key was whipped out of sight.  He looked across the
room to see Polly shoved into a cage on the far side. She looked dazed, as if
someone had slapped her in all the commotion.  She simply stood and stared
at him, cloth still in her mouth.

‘POLL!’ Isaac yelled.

‘Silence!’ One of the hooded
figures hissed.

‘Silence
yerself
!’
Isaac shouted back, slamming the bars of his cage with the flat of his hand.
‘You just wait until you open this! I’ll give you silence!’ His gaze went back
to the opposite cage. ‘Polly! If they’ve hurt you, by God I’ll…’

‘ENOUGH!’ the main hooded figure
roared. ‘God will not help you now. Only the Dark Lord himself has power in
this domain.’

Isaac turned to him. ‘What are
you
blabbin
’ on about? The Dark Lord…’

‘Satan. A power your feeble brain
cannot begin to comprehend. Pray to your God, but he won’t save you now.’

‘I don’t know how to pray,’ Isaac
said, spitting on the ground in front of him and sneering at the shadowy
figure. ‘I
ain’t
been to church since I were
orphaned. And I don’t much care for the way him upstairs looks after me
anyways. But I don’t much care for the downstairs fella either. The only things
I trust in this world are my wits and my fists. And if you let me out of here
you’ll get a taste of the fists alright.’