Please, I said. Let s not complicate this more than we have to. Instead let s talk about who could be responsible for all this. Our enemy. It isn t the Immortals here; I was there when we wiped them out. The Spawn of Frankenstein occupy their castle now, and the few survivors are on the run, keeping their heads well down and hoping not to be noticed. No way any of them could be responsible for… this. But who is powerful enough to seize control of Alpha Red Alpha from a distance and use it against us? And strong enough that once it started happening, my family couldn t wrestle control away from him and stop it from happening?
I have another question, said Molly, determined to be difficult, as always. Once your family realised what had happened, that they d been rotated out of our world and dumped somewhere else, why didn t the Armourer just fire up Alpha Red Alpha again and bring everyone home?
I ve been wondering that, I said.
It could be that controlling the machine from a distance was enough to damage it. Or at the very least, scramble its coordinates. The Armourer would have more sense than to just activate the machine at random, over and over again, hoping to get home. Remember the alien Earth the first experimenters ended up in? Uncle Jack was very open about the fact that he had only limited control over Alpha Red Alpha in the first place. And on top of that, who knows what kind of Earth they were rotated into? Could be somewhere even worse than a jungle full of nasty killer plants. My family could be fighting for their lives right now, right here, somewhere else even as we speak.
Easy, Eddie, Molly said immediately. Take it easy. We can t worry about every possibility. It s just as likely they arrived in some paradise world and they aren t in any hurry to come home. For all we know, they could all be sprawling on a nice beach somewhere, working on their tans and sipping cold drinks. We can t know anything for sure, so let s concentrate on what we can do. We are your family s only hope, Eddie. We owe it to them to think it through and not just rush into things.
The wild witch of the woods, her own bad self, Molly Metcalf, preaching patience and self-restraint, I said, smiling. Maybe I am in some other world, after all. You re right, as always. I m not going to give up hope, not after just getting it back again. They re out there somewhere and I will find them and bring them home. But we have to start with: Who could have done this to them?
Run through the usual unusual suspects, said Molly. Have there been attacks on the Hall before? And, no, I don t mean the bloody Chinese nuke back in the sixties that your family won t stop talking about, which leads me to suspect they got a damned sight closer than your family is willing to admit.
Breathe, Molly. Breathe. There were a whole series of attacks on the Hall just before I met you. This awful cancer creature broke into the Sanctity and attacked the Heart. Killed several Droods before we drove it off. We never did find out who sent it, or why; or who was behind the other, earlier attacks. I d pretty much decided it was down to the traitor in the family, the original traitor who brought in the Loathly Ones, back in World War II. And who s been working against us in secret ever since.
If there is a traitor inside the Hall, he probably disappeared along with everyone else, said Molly. So I doubt this is down to him.
There is something else, I said slowly. When I was in the Winter Hall, when I thought I was dead I asked Walker, If this is a place of the dead, why haven t I seen my parents? And Walker said to me, Whatever makes you think they re dead?
I know, said Molly. I remember. But one thing at a time, Eddie. Yes?
It s just If my parents could be alive, so could yours.
Yes, Eddie. I know. And we will talk about this later. But first things have to come first. So what do you want to do first?
I looked out over the wide-open grounds of Drood Hall, the green grassy lawns and the lake and the hedge Maze in the distance. It was all so quiet, so peaceful. It didn t seem possible there could have been so much death and suffering so close at hand in such a peaceful setting.
The Drood grounds contain a marvellous selection of wildlife, I said. Natural and supernatural, the living and the dead, and lots and lots of really wild things. Why don t we go and ask them what they saw?
CHAPTER TWO
You don t realise how much you miss a thing until it s gone. The grounds were almost unnaturally quiet as Molly and I strode across the wide-reaching lawns. Where were the peacocks that always strutted so grandly and noisily in front of the Hall? Where were the gryphons, who should have been the first to sound the alarm because they were psychic and could see a short distance into the Future? (Given how ugly the things were, and how much they loved to roll in dead things and then come up to you and rub affectionately against your new suit, I d be hard- pressed to name any other good reason to keep them around.) (All right, I like them, but it s already been established that I m weird.) If the peacocks and gryphons had all been killed during the attack, where were their bodies?
Why were there no winged unicorns anywhere? I hadn t got around to checking out the stables at the rear, but I couldn t see them just flying off. Where were any of the dozen or so magical creatures that had taken up residence in and around the Hall for as long as I could remember? You were never short of choice for an unusual pet, when I was a kid, though you had to be very careful about which ones you could turn your back on safely. I d never known the grounds to be this still, this silent and I didn t care for it one bit.
I led the way down to the great ornamental lake, a wide expanse of cool blue waters spread out before us like a modest inland sea. Long and wide enough that you had to pack a picnic lunch if you felt like taking a walk round it, and deep enough that the family once lost a small submarine in it. It was all very peaceful down beside the lake, as though nothing at all had happened. Though there was something wrong with the view. It took me a moment to realise that there weren t any swans sailing majestically back and forth on the calm blue surface, and there were always swans on our lake. I stood at the water s edge with Molly beside me, looking out across the calm blue-green surface at the cool dark copse of beech trees on the other side. Nothing moved anywhere. It was all very still, not even a breath of a breeze.
Like a ghost town at midnight. Like a museum after closing time. Like what the whole world will be like after Humanity has finally left and closed the door behind them.
It is beautiful, said Molly, after a while.
Everything a lake should be.
Thank you, I said. It s artificial, of course.
Molly looked at me. What?
Oh, the whole thing was designed and created by a head gardener to the family, Capability Charlotte. This was back during Victorian times, when you were nobody if your country manor house didn t have its very own artificial lake. So we had one put in. Complete with its own waterfall feature at the far end, and a small family of selkies specially imported from the Orkney Isles to live in the lake and keep it clean and tidy. It does look good, doesn t it?
What was here before? said Molly. What did you get rid of to make the lake? How many perfectly good trees did you cut down, how much natural vegetation did you dispose of, how much wildlife did you kill just so you could have a lake exactly where you wanted it?
I don t know, I said. I wasn t here then. I m sensing disapproval from you, Molly. This isn t the wild woods; it s a garden. We re always changing things in the grounds, because you can get bored of anything if you have to look at it long enough. Wouldn t surprise me if all this was gone some years or decades or centuries from now, replaced with something completely different. Maybe an equatorial rain forest
I am changing the subject now, said Molly.
Before hitting happens. I remember there being swans on this lake. Or did someone get bored with them, too?
No, I said. Whatever happened to the swans, it wasn t us. Come on. Let s go take a look at the waterfall.
