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

  The water, once you were used to it, did not seem so cold, but it reacted with my skin, fizzing slightly and giving me goose pimples. I dipped the hand not carrying the stones into the water, held it there for a moment and then lifted it out examining my skin, pale in the moonlight, for signs of a reaction.

  Nothing. Not even a blush of colour.

  “What now?” I called back to Gwyn.

  She hovered at the water’s edge, watching my progress. “Step into the circle of the moon, Alfhild,” she called, and I frowned. What could she mean?

  But as the water settled I saw exactly what she meant. The reflection of the moon, sparkled on the surface of the water. It took the form of a large white saucer, glowing supernaturally about ten feet or so in front of me. I took another few faltering steps and the water came up to my chin. It was time to sink or swim.

  And so I swam. A kind of clumsy one-armed doggy paddle. Unimaginable things, probably pond weed, grabbed at my legs, but I clenched my teeth and continued. I could imagine Gwyn snorting with merriment from her vantage point, but it wasn’t easy to make headway with the heavy stones in my right hand. I tried to make as little splash as possible to avoid the water rippling too much. As soon as I created waves, the reflection of the moon disappeared.

  Finally I made it to where I imagined the centre of the moon would be, and I gently trod water, trying hard not to displace too much water or cause too many ripples. Eventually the water stilled around me and I could edge incrementally sideways.

  “That’s it!” Gwyn called.

  “Alright,” I said. I had to be crazy. What was this batty old ghost getting me into?

  “Remember! One deep breath and dive down to the bottom. Leave the stones there. Then come straight back to the surface.”

  “Okay!” I repeated. What did she think I was going to do? Dive down and stay there? Take tea with Nautilus? Hire a submarine? Of course I was coming straight up again.

  I took a deep breath and lifted my knees to my chest, sinking a few feet and then twisting around in the water so I could dive to the bottom. Scarily, in the pitch black, the bottom seemed a long way away. Finally my free hand touched the bottom, finding silt, and something harder, curved, like tree roots. Hoping I hadn’t strayed too far from the centre of the pool, I fumbled with the stones, and placed them in among the roots, then I kicked off from the bottom and headed for the surface.

  Going up seemed harder than coming down. I struck hard for the surface as things made a grab for me. The sensation of old sheets entangling themselves around my limbs caused me a moment of panic. I’d been underwater for far longer than I’d anticipated, and I flashbacked to the memory of my dunking in Whittlecombe’s village pond, and all the terror I’d experienced at the time.

  Lungs burning, I kicked harder, hands stretched out, reaching for the moon. At least this time I didn’t have anything weighing me down. With a supreme effort I broke through the skin of the water, inhaling air in a loud gulp.

  Gasping, I turned about in the water, flailing in the circle of the moon’s reflection, wondering what would happen next. I could hear Gwyn incanting some ritual as I swam towards her but couldn’t make out the words until I approached the edge. Here I could stand again. I trudged through the silt and whatever else made up the floor of the pool, plucking long lengths of slimy pond weed off my body in disgust.

  “We ask that you accept our offerings and rise to hear our plea. In the name of Nerthus, and The Nix, of Belisama and Nymue, I call you from the depths of your slumber. I ask that you grant us an audience. I beg you to hear me, Vance, Keeper of the Marsh, as you heard me once before.” Gwyn held her hands out to the reflection of the moon in the pool, the ripples I’d created disturbing the surface.

  Nothing happened.

  As gently as I could—in order not to disturb the water anymore I tried to climb onto the bank.

  “Be still, Alfhild,” Gwyn scolded, and I sighed dramatically. Whomever ‘Vance’ was, he clearly wasn’t listening, or he wasn’t taking the bait.

  She pulled at the air, an almost comical action you might have seen in a silent movie back in her day, as though luring something out of the water. I watched her for a moment, glanced back over my shoulder… to see nothing at all… and instead concentrated on climbing out of the water.

  The sides of the pool were slippery, so I grabbed onto a jagged rock and tried to haul myself up, but the water seemed to have a tight grip and held me back. For one second I had the crazy thought that something wanted to yank me back into the water.

  When that pull became even more imperative, I realised I couldn’t ignore that notion. I was being dragged backwards. Clinging to the rock to steady myself, I turned sideways in alarm, just as something erupted from the centre of the pool with an almighty splash. A wall of water ricocheted over me, knocking me backwards off my feet, where I collided slightly painfully with the rock.

  With some difficulty I regained my balance and faced a being unlike any I’d ever seen before.

  Imagine an oak tree, submerged beneath the surface of the water for a hundred or two hundred years, and yet oddly still living. This one was devoid of leaves, but its branches—gaily hung with pond weed instead of foliage—twisted high into the sky above my head. Water cascaded down on me as it shook its branches, and I sheltered my head and stared open mouthed as this… creature… turned to face myself and Gwyn.

  “Good evening to you, dear Vance.” My grandmama addressed the entity before us with familiarity and affection.

  The bark of the tree split apart, and a pair of sickly yellow eyes squinted at us, blinking rapidly as though in need of spectacles. From deep within the trunk of the tree came a rumble that turned to a gurgle. The tree belched and spewed forth a torrent of foul water.

  “Ewww!” I screeched and scooted backwards in the water. The sudden activity gave me the strength I needed, and I scrambled up the rocks like a squirrel up a tree.

  “Oh I do beg your pardon,” said the tree, in a thickly sonorous voice. “I’m not feeling too well. Better out than in, I suppose.” He squinted our way again. “Is that you, Alfhild?”

  “Yes,” I answered, surprised that he knew my name.

  “It is,” said Gwyn at the same time and I realised he’d been referring to her. The other Alfhild. “It’s been a long time, old friend.”

  “It has.” The tree shifted in the water, sending a tsunami over the edge of the pond. I gaped at this incredible being. I had never seen anything remotely like him, although I’d heard about Ents of course. I think I’d just always assumed they were mythical creatures that certain witches worked with and the rest of us didn’t. “You look different somehow,” he told my great grandmother.

  Gwyn floated alongside me. “I passed, Vance. This is my spirit form.”

  “Indeed? And you so young? Congratulations!” This news seemed oddly pleasing to the ancient creature in front of me. “May your new guise be long and blessed.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.” Gwyn smiled happily and indicated me. “This is the new owner of Whittle Inn. My great granddaughter, also called Alfhild, although she seems to prefer Alf, for some reason.”

  The tree chortled, the sound reverberating into the woods around us. “Young people today, eh?”

  “Alfhild, this is Vance. He is the old man of the marsh. He’s lived in this forest for hundreds and hundreds of years. He was sown from an acorn scattered by The Great Devon Oak, north of here, the largest oak tree that ever grew in the region.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Vance.” I debated informing him that I’d never spoken to a tree before but decided that made me sound too much like an amateur. Instead, shivering in the cool breeze, I turned to Gwyn and whispered, “What does the old man of the marsh do?”

  “He’s a custodian of the wood, specifically the water-filled areas. The springs, the ponds, the creeks, the river nearby.”

  “I see.” I nodded at Vance respectfully, wondering what Gwyn was planning, while s
imultaneously hoping he could help us.

  Vance coughed. Liquid gurgling in his throat, his trunk squeezing in and out. It looked painful. “It’s been a few years since you called on me, Alfhild. What brings you here this time?”

  “You’re sick,” Gwyn said, her voice matter-of-fact. “All of the water ways around these parts are sick. Alf here has been investigating and she thinks there has been a deliberate act of poisoning. We need your help.”

  I took a seat on the rocks, wrapping my arms around my chest for both warmth and decency’s sake, while dabbling my feet in the water, staring up at Vance. He regarded me with hooded yellow eyes. “Can you help us?” I asked. “Is that possible? If we can’t figure out a way to clean the water, the whole of Speckled Wood and everything that lives in it will die.”

  “And it’s not just Speckled Wood,” Gwyn added. “The problem caused by the quality of the water extends down the valley, at least as far as Whittle Folly and probably beyond.”

  The branches above Vance’s head drooped. “I knew there’d been an issue, but I wasn’t aware how desperate it had become.” He dropped his voice and leaned closer to us, his branches rustling above my head. “There were people here, a week or so ago. I lose track of time.”

  “Who were they? Did you see them?” I scowled into the woods, angry once again that our magickal perimeter appeared to have failed. How could that be?

  “The same as before. The red ones.”

  The Mori.

  “You saw them before?” I asked. “During the battle?”

  “I did. And Erik spoke to me about them. Said I should be watchful.” My father had known about Vance then. I wondered how many amazing beings lived in the woods that I had no knowledge of. I recalled how Gwyn had chided me when I’d considered cutting back the number of ghosts that lived in the inn. She’d informed me, in no uncertain terms, that I had responsibilities and that I was wrong to think of the inn and the grounds as ‘mine’.

  Now I was beginning to get a clearer understanding of what she meant.

  My wonky inn was at the heart of something amazing and magickal. All the more reason to protect it.

  “I haven’t seen Erik since then, but I’ve been feeling properly grim recently so I’ve kept to the deep water as far as possible.”

  “That’s not going to help you this time, Vance,” Gwyn said. “We need a way to clean the water.”

  “Is there anything we can add to the chemicals to neutralise them?” I pondered aloud, but Vance pulled himself upright in indignation.

  “You can’t add anything else to the water! What has been added needs to be taken away. That’s the only possible course of action.”

  Beside me, Gwyn smirked and held her hands out to appease the tree. “Forgive her. She’s young. They believe that their modern science is the answer to everything.”

  “Most of the time it just makes things worse.” Vance frowned, then engaged in another coughing fit, just to drive the point home.

  I surrendered. “Okay, no more chemicals. So what then?”

  Vance jiggled his branches, almost merrily. “Why magick of course, young lady. Magick!”

  What else? I grimaced, hoping they weren’t intending to rely solely on me to perform this magick.

  As usual, Gwyn was ahead of my thinking. “Remember what we spoke about earlier, Alfhild.”

  “I’m not the only witch in the vicinity, Grandmama,” I repeated dutifully.

  “Far from it,” trumpeted Vance. “This will be like the old days.”

  Gwyn nodded in satisfaction. “We’ll have our own coven.”

  “We’ll need it,” Vance boomed.

  The night was turning much cooler. I could see my breath as I exhaled, little clouds of steam dissipating like an early morning mist. Quivering in the chill, my skin erupting in goosepimples, I extracted my feet from the water and stood on the bank. Now we had come to the crux of the matter. “Tell me what I need to do.”

  I listened as Vance outlined what he needed, and my heart sank.

  He had a complicated list, not much more than a riddle, and it was going to take a lot of thought on my part.

  “I’ll return as soon as I can,” I promised Vance and he nodded, the branches above us sashaying noisily. I watched as he lifted them straight up to the sky. They whipped through the air, and ferociously twisted about themselves, like a corkscrew. Then without further ado he sank like a stone into the depths of the murky water. In seconds, every trace of him had vanished. I watched as violent waves diminished, eventually becoming gentle ripples, until the surface had settled, and the huge circle of the moon took the old tree’s place.

  “Come,” said Gwyn behind me. “You should get some rest.”

  “I want to check on Mr Hoo,” I said, the remembrance of his illness causing me a stab of anxiety.

  I reached from my robes and pulled them on.

  “Remind me again. Why did I have to do this naked?” I asked Gwyn as she floated down the path ahead of me.

  “I thought it would be fun,” she called back, and apparated away, leaving me alone in the darkness with my mouth open.

  I hung over the window sill, breathing the summer air and listening to Zephaniah mowing the lawn somewhere out of my sight. I recalled fondly the previous summer when the ghosts had played endless games of cricket and croquet while I tried to get the inn ship-shape and ready to open. Back then, Erik had been a fixture, but now my father was nowhere to be seen. Presumably the Circle of Querkus were busy, fighting The Mori, one battle at a time.

  I couldn’t decide what to do with myself and my stomach churned with the paralysis of indecision. There were so many things for me to think about, so many different strands to my life, it was hard to know where to turn to next or whom to call on. I had to create some priorities. But what? And how? Every time I half-decided on a course of action, I was reminded of the importance of something else. Round and around in circles went my thoughts, and my brain ached.

  I returned to my desk and shifted a leaning pile of papers, from where they balanced precariously next to my printer, to the floor. Then I pulled a blank sheet of paper from the printer’s drawer and placed it in front of me, staring at it vacantly and waiting for it to speak to me.

  Needless to say, it didn’t.

  I grabbed a pen and drew a circle. Water, I wrote.

  In another circle I wrote down George’s name.

  The Mori went into a third circle, and finally Astutus into a fourth.

  I linked Astutus to The Mori, and then George and the water to The Mori too.

  All roads lead to Rome, so they say.

  Rummaging in a drawer of the desk I found a neon orange highlighter. The water issue had to be the priority, but I couldn’t afford to take my eye off the ball with the others.

  Particularly George. He could be languishing somewhere, hurt, or worse. If he was being held he would be waiting for me—or his colleagues—or somebody… anybody to come to his rescue. The other issues were a distraction, but if I didn’t do as Vance had requested the previous evening, I ran the risk of allowing Speckled Wood to die. That could not be allowed to happen.

  From George’s circle I drew a line and wrote down Silvan’s name. I had to continue to keep up my lessons with him. I had to become more powerful, whatever it took to achieve that. It occurred to me that it might be worth taking Silvan with me to Piddlecombe Farm. Perhaps he would have the wherewithal to uncover any traces of dark magick that must have been left there by The Mori. Maybe he could help me discover something new.

  I wrote down ‘visit Piddlecombe with S’ and highlighted that.

  From the water circle I drew another couple of branches, and scored Vance’s name, Erik’s name and the word ‘security’. I needed to increase the magickal security barrier around Speckled Wood and the inn. That could be a job delegated to Finbarr. I’d already seen him this morning and knew he’d be out and about this afternoon. Perhaps Mr Kephisto could help him. I added the elderly
local wizard’s name with a question mark next to it. I could get in touch with him.

  I continued to jot down names and ideas, until eventually I stared in frustration at the one circle that had no plan of action against it.

  Astutus.

  Astutus was nothing but a digital signature on Penelope Quigwell’s computers. She had a team of tech wizards working on the problem, but no useful trace had been found and nothing to lead them back to The Mori.

  Except I’d ascertained there was some link between Lyle Cavendish, the landlord of The Hay Loft, and Astutus. And Astutus had made at least one payment to Derek Pearce, my old tenant whom I’d found dead in Primrose Cottage in October the previous year.

  I’d bet any money there would be evidence of Astutus on Lyle’s computer. You can delete files, but wasn’t it the case that you can’t remove every trace? An expert could crack any hard drive and find the evidence I needed.

  Getting my hands on the hard drive would not be easy. Who could I find, who would be canny enough, to go in and steal Lyle’s computer? I’d been barred from The Hay Loft for months, so I couldn’t get anywhere near the place unless I went incognito, but let’s face it, my previous attempt at undercover work, when I’d been Fabulous Fenella had not been a huge success.

  In fact, I’d been pretty rubbish at it.

  Florence interrupted me by walking through the open door, her feather duster hovering in the air in front of her, then swishing about as she came near my desk, intent on cleaning me into extinction, no doubt.

  “Florence,” I growled a warning her way and she smiled merrily at me.

  “Morning, Miss Alf. Another beautiful day at Whittle Inn,” she sang. “Don’t mind me, I’m just going to dust your rooms.”

  I groaned. “That’s the problem, Florence. I do mind. I’m trying to concentrate here.” I indicated the paper in front of me.