The Mystery of the Marsh Malaise: Wonky Inn Book 5 Read online

  The back door rattled, and we all jumped. Finbarr and Silvan entered—they’d been out, patrolling the boundary of Speckled Wood.

  “Evening all.” Finbarr’s sing-song Irish accent interrupted our sudden silence. He glanced at each of us in turn. “Not a grand one by the look of it.”

  Silvan reached for a glass on the draining board and ran the water from the tap. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve been set up by The Mori,” I answered quickly, watching him as he took a drink. “They’ve poisoned the water around the village.”

  He spat the water into the sink. “All of the water?”

  “Not the stuff in the taps apparently.” I stood and took his glass from him, holding it to the light. Nothing to see. I handed the glass back to him and he poured it away. “They’re claiming that the contamination started here at Whittle Inn and ran downstream, infiltrating the other water sources.”

  “Is that likely?” Silvan asked.

  I shrugged, no expert on water after all. “We’re slightly higher up than the rest of the village here, so if the contamination originated here, it’s feasible the run off would have affected lower lying areas I suppose.”

  “But to get from Speckled Wood to Whittle Folly?” Gwyn shook her head. She wasn’t buying it.

  “That’s a good couple of miles, that, isn’t it, now?” Finbarr said. He and I had walked the route together several times.

  “And in any case not all of the water they’re talking about is fed from the springs on this land. There’s a lot of standing water that just gathers when it rains. Plenty of marshland in the woods,” Millicent chipped in.

  I folded my arms and leaned back against the worktop. “I think you’re right. There can’t surely be one single source for this contamination.” I looked around at my friends. “You remember when I was abducted that last night at the Fayre? I came across some large plastic sacks in the outbuilding I was held in.” Millicent, Gwyn and Charity obviously remembered the occasion well and Finbarr had heard me talk about it, but Silvan never had. He looked shocked as I continued. “I can’t know for sure where it was, but George followed up on the assumption it was Piddlecombe Farm. He found the empty bags I’d seen—and in the daylight was able to say they had contained chemicals. Similar chemicals to those we found in Derek Pearce’s shed. That was the last thing George was able to tell me before he had to hang up.”

  I breathed hard, feeling the weight of the grief permanently lodged in my heart. The others stared back at me with sympathy, their faces grave, reflecting my own feelings of anguish. “I’m willing to bet good money that those chemicals were used to contaminate the water. Do any of you think that’s too far-fetched?”

  Finbarr nodded his head slowly. “That’s a good theory, like. But Alf, we’ve had Speckled Wood under protection this whole time, have we not? The Mori shouldn’t have been able to access it and contaminate the water here.”

  He was right. I hadn’t thought of that. I slumped. Maybe my theory was wrong then.

  “You’re missing a couple of fairly obvious red flags here,” Silvan said, his eyes shadowed. “If Kerslake is involved, that means we don’t have any independent proof that all of the water is contaminated. Not here on the estate or in fact anywhere else in Whittlecombe with the exception of Whittle Folly.”

  I nodded. “And?”

  “If, as Kerslake told you, the water in the grounds and the woods around the inn has been contaminated, and you are assuming someone interfered with it purposely, then someone you trust will have been to blame. That’s if all the work that Finbarr and your friends have done really does ensure the grounds of the inn cannot be breached.” He nodded at Finbarr. “No offence, mate.”

  “None taken.” Finbarr dipped his head at me. “Silvan makes a good point there, Alf.”

  I met Silvan’s eyes. Bless his dark heart. Presumably it helped understand the deviousness in others if you were a scoundrel yourself.

  “I can’t believe one of us would have done that,” Charity said in shock, and I had to agree with her. Silvan had me reconsidering everything I knew about my friends, and about everyone who had ever walked through the door of the inn.

  Another traitor? Another betrayal?

  Jed all over again.

  The thought made my head ache.

  Abruptly I swung away from them all and let myself out of the back door.

  “Alf—” Millicent called after me, but I closed the door forcefully, shutting them out of my life for a while.

  I wanted to be alone.

  With June just a few days away, there was plenty of warmth in the air, and still some light in the sky. The weather had been balmy after a wet spring, and so it seemed to me as I made my way up the back gardens of my wonky inn, heading as always for Speckled Wood, that the green of the grass and the hedges, and the canopy above the trees, was deeper and more magickal than ever. The raised flower beds that Ned and Zephaniah had planted out here looked spectacular in the glow of the setting sun, and the lazy buzzing of plump bumble bees—a sound of summer that brought me joy—was music to my ears.

  But once I’d entered the dappled shade of the woods, I sensed a change. There was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Not a sense of menace particularly, more an absence of light. It became so noticeable, that a few hundred yards into the wood I paused and engaged my senses properly.

  I closed my eyes, standing straight and imagined my own feet rooting in the soil. I held my hands up in front of me, slightly out to the side, feeling them growing out through my spine, like a sunflower as it worships the sun. Straight away I scented a tang in the air, something vaguely metallic and out of place in this most natural of cathedrals. The more I became mindful of it the more noticeable it was. I could almost taste the unpleasantness on my tongue.

  The second thing was a stillness that should not have been so apparent. Normally I could walk alone in Speckled Wood and without even consciously acknowledging the sound, I would hear small animals, insects and birds going about their business. That should have been especially so at this time of day, but although I strained to listen, the sounds of contented animals foraging, playing or settling down for the evening were absent.

  Something was badly amiss.

  Opening my eyes, I took a few tentative steps to a tree on my right. A Silver Birch. I lay my hand flat against its surface where the bark was peeling, feeling its coarseness under the palm of my hand, and I listened to the sound of life within. The heartbeat of the forest. It seemed strong enough. I thought...

  So why was I worried?

  I glanced around, my eye falling on a massive oak tree close by covered in moss. I repeated the process I’d gone through with the Silver Birch, laying my hand flat, softly against the spongey moss, conscious of the delicate life below. This tree was ancient, with a girth of over twelve feet. I could hear it soaking up water from the ground, lapping like a thirsty dog.

  Again, something didn’t feel quite right.

  My heart beat harder in my chest.

  I turned to the north, knowing that night would soon be falling. Nonetheless I was a woman with a mission. A witch with a bad feeling. I followed the wider paths through the wood as quickly as I could, breaking into a jog from time to time. To my left I passed the large pool of water where I’d walked with Wizard Shadowmender and first felt the little bolt of electricity. Beyond that, there was more marshland between the trees. Some of those were areas with little more than dank puddles of rainwater, while others contained deep pools of water, the algae floating on the top, the water otherwise clear.

  I bypassed them all, growing breathless as I raced for my destination, intent on arriving before dark, racing up the inclines. All the work I’d undertaken with Silvan meant I was fitter than I’d ever been, and that pleased me, but I recognised I had some way to go to be the wily wiry witch he desired me to be.

  And finally I found what I was looking for. On the top of a fair-sized hill, a spring rose out
of a mound in the ground, a large mossy hillock, surrounded by gnarled oaks and ash trees, and a smattering of pines, holly twisting on the trunks hereabouts.

  I knelt alongside it on the soft ground, water bubbling and gurgling from a hole in the rocks. Tentatively I reached out and touched the water, part of me perhaps expecting my fingers to be burned in some sort of acid attack. The water was icy cold, but it was still just plain old H20, devoid of fluoride or other additives, and my skin didn’t react to it in any way.

  I rocked back on my heels, peering about me. The light was failing now, the shadows growing longer. I observed the water as it trickled away, running over rocks and pebbles, merrily making its way south, heading for the marshes, disappearing from my sight as it bubbled over a mound of rocks where the ground fell away more steeply.

  I cautiously clambered down the hill to the next levelling. Something caught my eye immediately. Plastic bags had been stuffed among the undergrowth close to where the water tumbled off another ledge and pooled below. From the pool, the water spilled out, branching out in rivulets heading towards the marshland. I reached into the prickly branches and pulled out not one, but two large cream coloured heavy duty plastic sacks. Risking being scratched to death I poked around some more and found another couple.

  I placed them on the ground and smoothed one of them out so that I could read the wording printed on the bag.

  Halite.

  High quality granular marine salt

  25kg

  Salt? 25kg seemed to be a lot of salt.

  I opened one of the bags, and instantly reeled away from the acidic smell. Whatever had been in these bags it had not been common and garden rock salt.

  I flipped the bag over to read the small lettering on the back.

  Fast acting rock salt.

  Conforms to BS 3247 1991

  Easily spreadable

  Perfect for car parks, drives and footpaths.

  So absolutely no need for it in the woods. I wouldn’t have used it here, even at the height of snowmageddon five months earlier.

  Repeat use as necessary

  Astutus Holdings

  Whittlecombe, Devon

  Astutus!

  Proof if any were needed that The Mori were behind this. It made perfect sense to me that an organisation intent on destruction of the environment wouldn’t blink at leaving their plastic rubbish behind, stuffed in the undergrowth. But this was clumsy. Stupid even.

  They had to know it would be found. That I would find it. Or were they so arrogant that they didn’t care at all?

  I bundled the bags together, then carefully climbed down to the pool below. The water was murky, churned up, overflowing from the pool and rushing headlong into the woods below me, feeding the rest of the trees and all life that existed beyond this point.

  I headed for home, this time more slowly, walking into the marshes. I could hear the buzz and hum of insects, the chirrup of crickets, and the croaking of frogs and toads – but much less than I might have expected. Every one of my senses was strung out, trying to process the overload of sensory information my witchy mind was receiving.

  My heart was in my mouth. I knew that whatever had been in these bags had not been salt, and I understood that the water had been poisoned on purpose. Unless I did something quickly, Speckled Wood would succumb to the toxicity of whatever poison had been added to the water, along with every living creature—animal, insect and plant—for miles around.

  By the time I returned to the inn, the kitchen was empty. I could hear chatter from the bar area and assumed that Charity was attending to our guests in there. Wanting to avoid everyone for now, I slipped up the backstairs without making my presence known and entered my rooms.

  I kept my orb, wrapped in a velvet cloth for safekeeping, in a box tucked away in my wardrobe. I extracted it, and carried the box to my window seat, perching there while I gently unwrapped the orb to set it on a cushion next to me. It caught the light from the rising moon, unleashing several bubbles, which sparkled and popped before the orb became still and waited.

  I waved my right hand over the top. Clouds erupted from the base, billowing white and then dissipating like smoke that has been wafted gently aside.

  Wizard Shadowmender’s face appeared before me. He blinked at me and smiled, but I could see an underlying seriousness in his face.

  “You have news, Alf?”

  How much did he know? “I do.”

  “Millicent has been in touch this evening to discuss what happened at the meeting in Whittlecombe.”

  “It’s The Mori.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  I held up one of the plastic bags I’d brought home from the woods, so that he could see it. “I’ve been out in Speckled Wood this evening and I’ve found five of these empty plastic bags. Each of them holds 25kg of rock salt, but judging by the smell, whatever was in these bags was not salt. It can’t have been.”

  Wizard Shadowmender scratched his beard, frowning in concentration. “This gets worse and worse.”

  “Someone has poisoned the spring that rises here in Speckled Wood. It’s just one of several sources of water for my land. I’m willing to bet that each of them has received the same treatment.” I exhaled, anxiety gnawing at my insides. “I checked at the source and the water that is flowing up to the ground seems pure. It’s been contaminated at the point it exits the earth.” I set the plastic bag down carefully. “The thing is, even if all the springs on my land have been polluted, it seems unlikely to me that my water will flow from the Whittle Estate and pollute Whittle Folly. It must have come from the forest beyond.”

  Wizard Shadowmender stared through the glass, his lips pinched grimly together.

  “That means we have a wide-scale problem,” I continued.

  “We need to clean it up.”

  “We do. And quickly.” I hesitated to tell him the worst of it. “I walked through Speckled Wood this evening and I took in the marshland. I’m fairly certain everything has been contaminated. I’ll go back out at first light and look again. But I’m no ecologist, Wizard Shadowmender. And I’m no arboriculturalist, horticulturalist or biologist either. I need specialists here.”

  “I hear you, Alf,” the elderly wizard nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, but everyone I can think of is elsewhere at the moment, tied up with several other crises. I think for starters, you should make use of the people around you.” I guessed he meant Millicent and Finbarr, but Millicent was a potionist and Finbarr a specialist in magickal defence. I couldn’t see how much use either of them would be for me.

  “Then there’s the small matter that everyone in the village is going to hate me.”

  “Only if they believe the lies that are spread about you, and certainly not everyone will.”

  That was easy for Shadowmender to say, he hadn’t been at the meeting. For now, I didn’t want to contradict him, so I nodded.

  “Get some sleep, Alf. Perhaps things won’t look so bleak in the morning.”

  I forced a smile and waved my fingers as the clouds rolled across the orb.

  I had a feeling that for once Wizard Shadowmender was wrong. Things would be worse in the morning.

  I tossed and turned all night, occasionally falling deeply asleep only to be catapulted from the land of nod by horrific dreams of mutant insects and dying trees. It seemed my subconscious was anticipating an apocalyptic end for the dozy village of Whittlecombe. I fell deeply asleep forty minutes before the alarm went off at six, and when it did so, I was jarred awake, my brain befuddled and confused, blinking in the bright light of the day as the sun streamed through my open window.

  Someone sneezed.

  “Gesundheit,” I said, closing my eyes and snuggling back under my duvet. Just five more minutes. I’d take a shorter shower and still be able to help Charity and Florence with breakfast for our guests.

  Another sneeze.

  I opened one eye and stared down the length of my quilt to where Mr Hoo had perched on
the bedstead.

  “Was that you?” I asked. He blinked at me. “Do owls even sneeze?”

  As if in answer he sneezed again. A cute little headshake as he closed his eyes.

  I opened my other eye and sat up in alarm. “Are you sick?”

  He sneezed again and I looked at my open window, and Speckled Wood beyond. Mr Hoo liked to spend a good portion of the night hunting in the wood. He’d have been out there, among all that toxicity, hunting down and feeding off small rodents, that in turn ate the insects and the fruit and berries spawned by the trees and bushes in the wood, each of which was fed by the water from the springs. We’re all part of a food chain after all.

  I clamped my hand to my mouth to stifle my cry of anguish.

  If Mr Hoo was sick, I needed help fast.

  Millicent responded to my early morning phone call as I knew she would. Already up with Jasper and Sunny, she arrived at the inn before seven and ran straight up to my room to take a look at Mr Hoo.

  “I’m no vet,” she said as she gently handled him. “But he does seem a little lacklustre and yes, that sneeze is a worry.”

  “Can you create something that will help him? A tincture?”

  Millicent gently patted my arm. “You know I’ll do my best. It would help if I had some clue as to what I’m dealing with. Is it owl flu? Or is it some sort of poisoning?”

  I clasped my head with both hands. “My money is on the latter.” I filled her in on what I’d found out in the woods the previous evening. “I’m going back out there as soon as breakfast service is over. I’m going to have a poke around in the daylight.”

  “Let me come with you,” Millicent said but I shook my head. “I’d like you to take care of Mr Hoo. Please? He’s my main priority right now.”

  Millicent nodded. “Well alright, but remember he’s just one animal out of many. I can’t create enough potion for every animal in the wood.”