To mark the fiftieth chapter (and because I’m taking a break from this in December to make way for a seasonal story), I’m going to be adding art to some of the previous Warbeck instalments. I’ll start by restoring some of the pictures from my first attempt at writing it, back in January 2020.

*

Rube’s clothes were damp from spending all night in a pile of moss, but she was feeling a lot better since she’d eaten breakfast.  It wasn’t until Lor had mentioned it that she’d remembered that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime, back at the Tavins’ place.  There had been a bush, covered in clusters of bluish-purple berries that had tasted a little like aniseed.  Rube had had time to wonder if the fruit that grew here would be safe for people from her world to eat, but it hadn’t stopped her from doing it.

There seemed to be a long series of staircases and slopes, taking them downwards through treacherous slippery stuff.  Charlie flew a little way ahead of the group, listing slightly to the right (probably because of that ragged bit on his wing, Rube thought).  “Like I said, a long way through the green…”

“Oh!”  Rosemary popped up- actually rose a foot in the air to meet Charlie.  “Might it be quicker if Rube or Lor carries you?”

Charlie hovered in the air, moving up and down apparently by instinct.  “I guess that would make sense…”

Rube felt Lor nudge her in the side.  She whispered, “I was going to suggest that, but I didn’t want Annie jumping down my throat again.”

Rube nodded.  It was hard to think of a way they could have suggested it that the insects wouldn’t have found patronising.

“Rube can do it,” insisted Annie, giving Lor a sideways glance.  Lor shrugged.  As throat-jumping went, that had been fairly minor.  Rube held out a hand, and Charlie landed on it… followed by Graham, who looked up at her as if daring her to question his being there.

Rube cupped her left hand under her right one for extra support, and they went on.

They seemed to be done with the steps for now.  Next up was a thin, grassy tunnel that was almost narrow enough to force Rube and Lor to walk sideways.  As it was, stiff strands of grass brushed against Rube’s arms and shoulders, scratching against any pieces of bare skin they found.  They were the kind of scratches that didn’t hurt, exactly, but that you knew would itch and ache like mad as they healed. 

Rube raised her hands up so that Charlie and Graham could hear her better.  “How long had Kai been in the terrarium?” she whispered.

Charlie turned round to face her, tottering carefully as he went.  “It’s not always easy to measure time,” he told her, “We think about fourteen years, give or take.”

“And the rest of you?”

“Varies,” said Graham, abruptly. 

The tunnel went on for another fifty yards or so, and with every step, Rube debated with herself about whether or not to ask him to elaborate.  Just after they came out the other end, though, Charlie spoke up instead.  “Vincent’s been here the longest.  After him, it’s…”

“What was that?” asked Charlie, his antennae twitching.

Rube stopped and listened.  She heard rustling grass, and the sound of Rosemary and Siobhan (the other bee) flying ahead, but nothing that hadn’t been there before.  Maybe Graham had just wanted to end the conversation.

She hadn’t noticed until now that some of the others had got ahead of them.  Rosemary had, anyway, and Annie was rapidly barrelling towards her so that she could tell her what she thought of her.  “Think you always need to be out in front, don’t you?”

Rosemary put her hands (second set of legs) on her hips.  “I was scouting ahead!  Someone needs to!”

“Scouting ahead.  Right,”

“Come on, Annie…” said Nadia, wearily floating towards them.

“Can’t stand the thought of somebody else getting to see it before you, can you?”

“Annie.”  Nadia floated so that she was half an inch above her.  “Don’t be like that.  She isn’t flying ahead at you.”

Rube felt a tickle on her hand.  Charlie was turning to face her again.  “After Vincent, it’s Rosemary and Nadia.  I don’t know which one of them came here first.”

Graham’s antennae went up again… and this time, Rube knew what he’d heard.

It was faint, but there was a tapping sound somewhere behind them, echoing through the tunnel.  Distant, but getting closer.  It sounded like footsteps coming down one of those stone staircases.

She looked up, and saw that Lor had heard it, too.  She’d frozen in place, her eyes wide and staring.

“Dol and Bo?” asked Rube.

Graham nodded.

“How long do we have until they reach us?” asked Lor.

Graham raised an antenna.  “Two minutes.  If that.”

“Right.”  Lor raised her hands to her face, took a deep breath, and looked up.  “Where can we hide?”

(To be continued)

It wasn’t the first time that Joe Warbeck had found himself locked up for speaking his mind, but it was the first time it had panicked him this much.  He’d try to take a breath, try to assess the situation and work out whether there was anything he could use to his advantage, but he just couldn’t.  Whenever he tried to think, it all came back to what he’d seen in the shop upstairs, and what lengths Colwyn would go to in order to hide it.  He could do it.  If a man had enough money, he could have someone like Joe wiped from the face of the earth.  Completely disappeared.  And then he’d never find out what had happened to his girls.

Joe screamed and rattled the bars, threw the plates and cups they’d given him across the cell, tore the blankets and pillows down the middle.  Sanest possible reaction to being in a place like this.  Make as much noise as you could, until they silenced you forever.

It wasn’t until a few hours in that he even registered that there were other cells near his, and when he did, he didn’t much care.  So people were banging on the walls?  So there were voices in the distance that whined at him to keep that racket down?  Why should he care?  Being a good neighbour wasn’t his first priority right now.  Staying alive and seeing his girls again, that was all he could think about.

Eventually, his voice gave out, and he fell to his knees, forehead against the bars, staring into the dark corridor outside.  It hurt just to draw in a breath.  It hurt just to exist.  This must have been their plan all along- let him tire himself out, then come back and put the boot in.

Something white bounced against the wall.  It landed an inch or two in front of the bars.

For a long time, Joe just stared at it.  A screwed-up piece of paper?  Maybe they’d given up on whining and banging around, and decided to throw projectiles at him instead.  If this was the best they could do, he’d be laughing.

There was a muffled noise to his right.  A voice from a throat that sounded even more raw than his was.  “Read it.”

Joe looked at the paper again.  He stretched his fingers through the bars, and pushed it close enough to pick up.  It was screwed-up, alright, but not so badly that he couldn’t read it.  And as he did, his lips slowly twisted into a smile.

(To be continued)

Bo and Dol hadn’t gone straight back to the house.  There was a little bolthole, an out-of-the-way place just past the Opal Hill borders, where they could spend the night and consider their options without having to worry about the Fineries and their lot knocking on the door.  After that, they approached the house slowly, round the back way, careful not to alert the attention of anyone who might be watching.

If Pin or Eg had been with them, they’d have been spluttering with outrage and demanding immediate action because didn’t Dol and Bo realise there was an intruder in the house?!  Dol and Bo did realise.  But they also realised that they’d be in a better position to confront the intruders if they weren’t arrested before they got anywhere near them.

There was a little path through the mountains, made originally by natural erosion, but widened and maintained by the Iridescence family for the last twenty years.  One end was hidden by the trees and foothills around it, nearly impossible to find unless you knew where to look.  Follow it to the other end, and you reached a gate at the back of the Iridescence house, which Bo unlocked and held open for Dol.  Home at last.

They passed a number of servants on their way through the back garden, but none of them asked where they’d been or where the others were.  None of them made any comments at all.  They knew better than that.

Once in the house, they went to the secret door and confirmed their suspicions.  “Unlocked,” announced Dol, “They must have had it off the hook the minute we turned our backs.”  She took the key (still in the lock, thank goodness), and locked it again.  “Put the bookcase up against it, just to be sure,” she told Bo, “That way we can check the rest of the house without worrying about losing track of them.”

“Why would they be anywhere else in the house?”

“Well, they probably won’t.  But better safe than sorry.”

Bo nodded, and moved the bookcase.  And so began a half-hearted search of the main house- the main downstairs room, the solar upstairs, the bathrooms and the servants’ quarters.  No sign of Colwyn’s nieces.  No sign of anything out of the ordinary.  After about an hour, they agreed to stop.  Whatever they needed to find, it was beyond the secret door.

Before they moved the bookcase and opened it, though, they made an extra stop at one of the sheds in the back garden.  There was a metal container full of chemicals, and a tube.  Pest spray, it said on the front. 

“We’ll check the attic first,” said Dol, “But I suspect they’ve gone to the terrarium.”

“I hope not,” said Bo, “It would be a shame to lose it when we’ve had it so long.”

Dol laughed.  “If that’s the worst thing that happens to us today, consider yourself lucky.”  She opened the door, and she and Bo stepped into the corridor behind the walls.

(To be continued)

Jeanette picked up the receiver, then turned back to Colwyn.  “What do I tell her?”

“Whatever seems right to you,” he replied, “You don’t have to hide anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“So she knows about the paths?”  As soon as Jeanette said it, she realised it was a stupid question.  Mum had grown up at Dovecote Gardens- she couldn’t have missed it all those years.  Probably the only reason Jeanette and her sisters hadn’t known about it before that was that they’d never spent any time around here.

“She does, yes.  Although a lot’s changed since she lived here.”

Jeanette went back to the phone.  It was one of those irritating ones with the round dial that gave you repetitive strain disorder after about three numbers and meant that you were never sure whether you’d made a mistake or not.  But Jeanette got in all eleven numbers, listened to it ring, and hoped for the best.

It wasn’t until she heard her mother’s voice that Jeanette realised how worried she’d been that she wouldn’t.  That Dad would have visited her first, and caused even more damage.  “Hello?”

“Hi, Mum, it’s Jeanette.”  She probably sounded much too cheerful for the serious turn this phone call was about to take, but she couldn’t help it.  She was relieved.

“Jeanette!  How are you, darling?”

“Fine.  We’re all fine.”  Here came the tricky part.  “But, listen, there’s been a lot of stuff…  Well.  Dad came by.”

You could hear the joy drain out of Mum’s voice.  “Oh my God…”

“We weren’t in,” said Jeanette, waving a hand as if she thought Mum would somehow see it through the phone, “Neither was Colwyn.  We’re fine.”

“But he got into the house?”

“For a while, but then he got onto the paths.  And he’s been arrested.”

“Arrested?”

“In Underwood Hills.  Do you know that one?  It’s…”

“Up in the mountains, yes.”  Not the description Jeanette would have used, but never mind.  “Did he hurt anyone?”

“No, it sounds like he just threw a tantrum in a newsagent’s.”  She thought for a moment, then added, “He did get into a fight nearer to the house, though, but the other guy’s ok.  He kind of deserved it, to be honest…”

“Oh God.”  Mum sounded as if she was going back and processing the news a second time, just to wring out all the misery.  “He’s been calling me day and night, but I didn’t think he’d come up and bother you.”

“Well, he’s not bothering us now.  We’ve got to go and see if we can bail him out or something.”  Come to think of it, Jeanette didn’t actually know what the Underwood Hills people were expecting her to do when she got there.  Hopefully they weren’t going to ask her to pay for the damage.

“Don’t do anything until I get there,” said Mum.

“But I said I would,” said Jeanette, and her voice sounded whiny even to her.  She’d been looking forward to that!  “Come on, I can’t make them wait five weeks.”

“You won’t.  You’ll be waiting three or four hours.”  There was a jangle of keys.  “I’m coming up now.”

Jeanette just stood there, blinking stupidly.  “What?”

“I’m not letting you and Colwyn deal with him on your own.  I’ll be there by this afternoon.  Don’t do anything til then.”

“Don’t you have work?” asked Jeanette, but she knew the answer to that before she’d even finished speaking.  They let you have days off for an emergency, even if “my ex-husband has been imprisoned by dragons” probably wasn’t the kind of emergency they expected.

Anyway, Mum didn’t even bother to answer that.  “Jeanette, put me back on to Colwyn.  We need to work some things out.”

“OK…  See you this afternoon, I guess.”  Jeanette turned back to Colwyn, and handed him the receiver.  He looked worried, as well he might be.  Mum was not going to be happy when she got here and saw Rube was missing.

(To be continued)