The Lunatic's Curse Read online

‘There are stranger things in the world than a monster in a lake,’ said Hildred. ‘That Chapelizod fellow sounds evil. Walter told me all about him. He was wicked. It’s a blessing that he’s gone. Now that you are assisting Dr Velhildegildus I’m sure things will be back to normal soon.’

  ‘That’s our plan,’ said Rex carefully. ‘Is that why you came? To help run the asylum?’

  ‘Yes. In fact this is my first proper job.’

  ‘What did you do before?’

  Hildred looked a little awkward. ‘Don’t make fun,’ she said, ‘but I used to be with a travelling show. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Rudy Idolice and his Peregrinating Panopticon?’

  ‘I have,’ said Rex, but he didn’t say that what he’d heard was that the show was going steadily downhill and did not enjoy half the reputation it used to. ‘What was your act?’

  ‘I was a contortionist!’ In an instant Hildred had twisted herself into such a knot of limbs, accompanied by ominous cracking sounds, that Rex feared for her health. But quick as a flash she was back to normal. Well, nearly normal. Her left shoulder was still dislocated and it took a second or two for her to snap it back into place. Rex didn’t quite know how to react and he just stood staring dumbfounded while Hildred looked a little uncomfortable.

  ‘One of the reasons I left,’ she said quietly, ‘was I didn’t want to be looked at any more.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Rex, and he averted his eyes to the ceiling.

  Together they ascended the stairs from the kitchen to the main entrance hall. Taking up a position with the front doors behind him, Rex had a proper look around. The hall was large and airy but plainly decorated. The walls were half panelled in dark wood, above which they were painted white. There were some pictures hanging from the picture rail and a floral tapestry. On his right was the wide-arched hallway that led into the east wing where Dr Velhildegildus had his own rooms and his study. Directly opposite, the main staircase rose diagonally against the back wall leading up to the first floor. ‘There are lots of rooms up there,’ said Hildred. ‘That’s where Walter and Mrs Runcible and Gerulphus sleep.’

  ‘And what’s through there?’ asked Rex, pointing at two hallways side by side in the far left corner.

  ‘One leads down to the underground cells,’ said Hildred matter-of-factly.

  ‘Cells? Sounds like a prison,’ joked Rex, but Hildred didn’t answer.

  ‘And the other leads up to our rooms,’ she finished. She turned to give him a smile. ‘Come on.’

  ‘I heard there was a ghost roaming around in the catacombs under the asylum,’ he said.

  ‘It’s true there is an underground maze, but I haven’t found it. And I certainly haven’t seen any ghosts.’

  Rex followed Hildred along the narrow corridor, at the end of which was a rickety set of wooden stairs. They climbed three flights before reaching a small square landing with two doors. ‘You’re in here,’ said Hildred, ‘and I’m just opposite.’

  Rex looked to where she was pointing and saw into her small room. She had stuck newspaper cuttings and leaflets to the wall, about the Panopticon in its heyday, and on the table beside her bed was a small framed silhouette – of her parents, he presumed. He entered his own room. It was painfully bare by comparison. He had a bed, a chair, a table and a trunk for his clothes. The walls were grey, unpainted, and the plaster was crumbling in places.

  ‘I did my best,’ said Hildred apologetically, ‘but . . . ’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Rex, and laid his bag on the bed and sat down heavily.

  Hildred hesitated. ‘You don’t look very happy. Are you all right?’

  Rex looked into her eyes and before he knew what he was doing, he blurted out, ‘My father . . . he died just recently.’

  Hildred nodded. ‘How utterly dreadful for you.’ Rex realized that these were the kindest words he had heard in many days. A mist came up over his eyes and his nose began to sting. Hildred patted his shoulder and then, rather strangely he thought, settled cross-legged on the floor looking up at him. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

  Rex couldn’t believe that he was so quick to pour out his troubles, but it was the first time since his father had died that someone seemed to be genuinely listening. Now that he had started he wasn’t sure that he would be able to stop.

  ‘He was here, in this asylum, but he wasn’t mad. I’m sure my stepmother had something to do with it. Father was fine before he met her and then suddenly he went completely crazy. She drove him mad. He attacked me and . . . and . . . well, it was just terrible. I try to forget it. Look, I have a scar.’ He held out his arm and Hildred examined the raised red mark carefully.

  ‘Your poor father,’ she said gently. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He escaped from the asylum and came back one night to the house. He was trying to tell me something but he was ill and couldn’t say much. He left me some clues, but they don’t make any sense. I want to find out what really happened and I think the answer is here in the asylum.’

  ‘Is that the real reason you are here?’ asked Hildred intuitively. She saw Rex’s hesitation. ‘You mustn’t worry,’ she said. ‘I can keep a secret. Tell me the clues. I’m quite good at this sort of thing – perhaps I can help.’

  Rex sighed. What harm would it do? So he told her about the book and seeing Mr Sarpalius, about Acantha and about Andrew Faye . . . almost everything, in a muddled jumble of words. And the whole time Hildred listened intently without speaking a word.

  ‘So, you see, Father told me to come here,’ he finished, ‘but I didn’t know how to get here without Acantha knowing. And then Tibor asked for my help.’ Should he tell her about the Perambulating Submersible? He decided not just yet. He didn’t like the deceit but he had given his word. ‘Luck I suppose.’

  ‘Or Fate?’ said Hildred thoughtfully.

  ‘I don’t know if I believe in Fate,’ said Rex with a bitter laugh. ‘She hasn’t been kind to me.’

  Hildred got to her feet. ‘Being sad won’t bring your father back. You need to clear his name. It’s just a puzzle. When we have all the pieces the picture will become clear.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Rex doubtfully. With a deep sigh he stood up and began to unpack his bag. It didn’t take long – a few spare clothes, another pair of boots and at the bottom the book he had taken from the library. When he pulled the brazen egg from his pocket Hildred pounced on it immediately.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Just something I made with my father.’

  Hildred examined it carefully. It was smooth all over, even at the joins. Rex set it down on the table and pushed a button at the top and she watched in delight as four legs unfolded from out of the sides. It rose up and began to move slowly across the surface with regular clicking noises. It looked like some sort of fat-bodied insect.

  ‘Oh, it’s delightful,’ she said, and placed her fingertips gently on the table as it made its mechanical progress towards her. ‘It’s so delicate you can hardly feel it moving. How does it work?’

  Rex smiled, enjoying the satisfaction of seeing something that had started out as a jumble of discrete pieces of metal and screws being brought to life as a whole. ‘Magnets mainly,’ he said, ‘and a few other things. I made lots of models like these, but this is my favourite.’ he said. ‘Acantha smashed the rest of them.’

  Then from somewhere deep in the heart of the building a bell jangled. ‘What’s that for?’ asked Rex. Hildred, engrossed as she was in the mechanism, didn’t seem to hear. Rex touched her on the back and she jumped.

  ‘What’s the bell for?’

  She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, it’s Dr Velhildegildus. I completely forgot! I’m to take him his supper.’ She hurried to the stairs. ‘I’ll come back later, and we’ll make a proper plan. I love mysteries.’

  ‘But you won’t say anything to him about this, will you?’ said Rex anxiously. ‘The egg, I mean. I have little else left to remind me of my father. Dr Velhildegildu
s seems kind enough but for all I know—’

  Hildred shook her head. ‘We all have our secrets,’ she said simply, and then she was gone.

  Rex lay down on the bed and looked up at the dusty cobwebbed ceiling. This was certainly a far cry from his father’s house on the shores of the lake. And Acantha. He’d looked it up once, her name. It meant ‘thorny spine’.

  ‘How true,’ he murmured. He was tired now. He felt as if he had been on a long journey. And Mrs Runcible’s soup was weighing him down. He picked up the brazen egg and smiled. It was only one small thing but it meant so much.

  Yes, he thought. We all have our secrets.

  But what was Hildred’s?

  29

  Ghost?

  Rex woke suddenly from a deep sleep. He sat up and his breath clouded on the cold air – which was strange: usually there would be a fire in the grate. He pulled his blanket around him and wrinkled his nose at the smell. He ran his hand over it, and it was rough to the touch. And then he remembered: he wasn’t in Opum Oppidulum any more, and he wasn’t in his own bedroom.

  Neither was he alone.

  In his sleep-befuddled state he called out ‘Father?’ before realizing that it couldn’t possibly be him. But there was definitely a figure in the doorway and now it was moving towards him.

  ‘It’s me,’ whispered the figure.

  ‘Hildred!’ He recognized her voice but also that swaying gait. He leaned over and fumbled to light his candle. ‘What time is it?’ he asked, holding up the light to see her shining eyes.

  ‘Oh, around midnight. I told you I’d come back.’

  Midnight? How long does it take to give someone supper, he wondered.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what you told me,’ said Hildred. ‘We should try to find your father’s cell. He might have left something there for you. I can take you there if you like.’

  ‘Now?’

  Hildred was already at the door. Rex pulled on his boots and went after her. As he descended the stairs behind her he caught the faintest whiff of something, like ashes from a fire.

  If Rex had thought the asylum gloomy by day, he decided that by night it was positively creepy. He kept close to Hildred. She seemed unworried by the darkness and the eerie creaks and groans of the building.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ he hissed, pulling Hildred’s sleeve.

  ‘What?’ Hildred held her lantern up high so she could see Rex’s worried face.

  ‘That moaning.’

  ‘It might be the ghost,’ she said, and then laughed. ‘It’s probably the wind. This building is very old. If you put your hand on the walls sometimes you can feel it move.’

  Rex flattened his palm against the wall but he felt nothing. ‘How well do you know this place?’ he asked.

  ‘Hardly at all,’ replied Hildred. ‘I’ve had a look around and it’s easy to see that Chapelizod lived very well in the east wing. The patients were not so lucky. Now come on.’

  Rex followed Hildred down to the entrance hall and then took a sharp right under the arch into the second corridor until they came to a flight of steep descending steps.

  ‘My father said that his room was upstairs,’ said Rex. ‘I used to watch the light at night.’

  Hildred shook her head. ‘Most of the rooms are empty up there. Perhaps you saw Mrs Runcible’s light.’

  ‘But what about the lunatics?’ asked Rex.

  Hildred hesitated for a moment. ‘Rex, the patients were all kept underground.’

  She started down the steps and Rex followed somewhat reluctantly. Already he could smell dampness in the air, and something else: an increasingly foul odour. Down they went and down, deeper and deeper, and the atmosphere thickened with every step and the smell was almost unbearable. Rex was more and more unnerved.

  ‘Surely this can’t be right,’ he said half to himself and half out loud as he reached the bottom and looked around in dismay. This was no longer part of the building. It was as if they were in the heart of the rocky island itself. The smell was terrible and the air was choking. Hildred was further on, struggling with a door that was hanging off its hinges. ‘Damaged in the breakout,’ she explained, finally dragging it open.

  Rex helped to prop it up against the wall and they went through into a low-roofed rocky tunnel. And in their lanterns’ light the full horror of the place was revealed.

  ‘Oh my,’ breathed Rex. His words echoed off the craggy walls. He felt sick to his stomach. How could his father have survived down here? How could anyone survive down here?

  All along the tunnel there were cells on either side. The iron-barred doors were wide open and Rex looked inside the forbidding subterranean chambers. Each was tiny, almost too small for a man to stand up in, and the uneven floors were wet and water puddled in the dips. The walls were running and long streaks of green slime clung to the surface. Bold and curious rats stared up at him, their little eyes shining in the darkness, seemingly unafraid.

  No wonder the lunatics had jumped to their deaths in the lake. Its freezing embrace would have been more comfort than this.

  ‘Chapelizod kept everyone down here,’ said Hildred, watching him intently. ‘Walter Freakley told me.’

  Rex took a deep breath. ‘Are you telling me that my father was kept in one of these?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Hildred, and then she saw the look on his face. ‘Oh, Rex, I’m sorry. How thoughtless of me. I should have warned you.’

  Rex swallowed hard. He felt as if he was choking. ‘How do I know which cell was my father’s?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Hildred. ‘Was he alone?

  ‘He had a friend, a fellow called Hooper,’ said Rex hoarsely. He was finding it hard to speak.

  ‘Then let us look for a cell with two beds.’

  ‘Beds!’ he snorted. ‘You mean two piles of straw.’

  So they looked into each cell, Rex feeling increasingly nauseous, but most had two flattened piles of straw rather than one. Rex was unwilling to enter the cells – it was just too horrible.

  But why did Father say he was upstairs? he asked himself. He was trying to protect me, he realized, and his heart burned. All that time he had wasted, trusting Stradigund to help, just waiting, and meanwhile his father had been kept down here, like some sort of animal. He would never forgive himself for his inaction. And if he ever found Chapelizod he would not be held responsible for what he might do to him. He felt as if his heart had broken up inside his chest.

  ‘There’s nothing,’ concluded Hildred, having scattered straw and examined the corners in every cell. ‘Some poor soul was marking off the days in here but it’s impossible to tell who. We’ll have to look elsewhere.’

  Rex had reached the end of the tunnel and was met by a wall of rock. There was a door to his right – solid wood, not barred like the others – but it was closed, and when he tried the ring-handle he found it was locked.

  ‘Strange,’ he murmured. ‘It looks as if this door has been rehung. ’ There was grease on his fingers. He felt in his pocket for his picklock but realized he had left it in his room. Hildred came up behind him.

  Suddenly he started and Hildred saw. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Can’t you hear it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Voices. I think I can hear voices.’ Rex cocked his head and listened intently.

  Hildred placed her head against the wall and flattened her hands on the slime-covered, dripping rock.

  ‘You’re right. There is something,’ she said. ‘I can feel it.’

  Both listened closely and from the other side of the wall came the unmistakable sound of moaning and wailing. They looked at each other quickly.

  ‘It’s the ghost,’ said Rex. ‘We must get out of here!’ Without another word the pair turned and ran.

  30

  Down to Work

  Over breakfast the next morning Hildred and Rex exchanged glances, both recalling, with mixed emotions, the events of the previous night: their midn
ight foray into the depths of the asylum, the tunnel of cells and of course the wretched groaning.

  Breakfast was substantial: porridge (burnt), toasted bread (burnt) and butter (slightly off), an egg (very hard-boiled) and tea (stewed). Rex tucked in ravenously regardless and said not a word until he had finished. As he drained his mug Mrs Runcible called over from the stove, ‘Don’t drink your leaves! I want to read them!’

  After breakfast Mrs Runcible took Hildred away, under instructions from Dr Velhildegildus, to continue the clear-up the breakout had necessitated.

  So, thought Rex, Dr Velhildegildus is at least making it look as if he might reopen the asylum.

  With Hildred otherwise occupied, Rex decided to make a start on the list for the Perambulating Submersible. The thought excited him – he was as keen as Dr Velhildegildus to get to work – and it took his mind off the disturbing revelations of the previous night. So he returned to his room and settled on the floor to pore over his copy of the plan.

  The list of materials and equipment was extensive, but the beauty of the design, as he had explained to Dr Velhildegildus, was that nothing was too complicated. Cost didn’t seem to be an issue – Tibor had waved his hand in the air dismissively when Rex brought it up – but it did make him wonder just how much a person earned from being the superintendent of an asylum. After a couple of hours he added the final item, a drum of lubricant, preferably whale oil, and looked it over with great satisfaction and a degree of anticipation. It comprised, among other things: levers, springs, clamps and nut-spinners; headbolts, deadbolts, mauls and mallets; cogs, leather, grommets and filters; buckles, rods, toggles and tappetshims; jacks, switches, tacks and tin strips; kerosene, tallow and whale oil.

  Droprock Island wasn’t quite as pleasant a place to live as Opum Oppidulum, but it had one major advantage: no Acantha. Freed from her pernicious influence, Rex felt more positive than he had for a long time. To have the opportunity to make the Perambulating Submersible, and perhaps even to pilot it, was like a dream come true. But Rex still didn’t like to think how Tibor had acquired the plan; he suspected by foul means rather than fair.