The Treasure Keepers Page 5

  And so he waited.

  When the light was low, he felt it start all over again. The aching limbs that he thought couldn’t take any more were shocked into contortions that made him wince and whine. And as he felt himself become the wolf once more, the pain left him and his cry turned into a howl. He felt, for that moment, immensely strong again.

  He prowled with his head down, scanning the moor, then leaping onto the parapet and padding his way through the dark.

  Into the mines he went, deeper and deeper, searching for the scent of life.

  Eventually, the smell of humans poured into his nostrils. He followed the trail, deeper and deeper, until at last he picked up the faint CHINK … CHINK … CHINK of hammers and chisels against stone and the lure of voices: three deep and dangerous voices.

  He stared through the black ahead to the small flickers of candlelight in the distance. Now he could see them: Beale, Nook, and Grimble, about to meet their end.

  “We have to work out what to do with those kids,” said Nook as he worked away on the gold.

  “Don’t panic, Mister Nook,” said Beale. “You worry too much. When we’ve established that the seam of gold runs right through these tunnels, the whole place will be up in smoke. While we sit out in the ship drinking to our good fortune, this island’s problems will be lost in the crumbling dust.”

  Just then, Grimble noticed something from the corner of his eye: a movement in the dark. He looked across. One demonic yellow eye stared at him.

  “Something’s there,” he cried. “Look. In the dark, up ahead.”

  But they didn’t need to look too hard. The wolf walked into the light, circling them. Beale and Nook were frozen, but Grimble’s fever had been growing worse and he dropped to his knees. He didn’t know what was happening to him, but a ripping pain shot through his body like a surge of hot metal through his skin.

  He began to cry out. His limbs lengthened. His back curved outwards, cracking as it went, echoing through the tunnels. A wave of strength washed over him, and in his fully formed wolf shape he felt revitalized.

  Beale and Nook watched in terror as the two wolves circled each other then pounced, locking heads like battling stags. They tore greedily at each other, baring white fangs that pierced like needles. Blood began to spill, dropping into the seawater that had begun to run around their feet.

  Rocks and stones rumbled and fell as the hulking shapes hurled each other from wall to wall. Cracks rippled through the narrow gaps and dust clouded up into the air.

  It seemed to go on for hours: tearing and clawing and heaving, gasping and snorting.

  In a last attempt to win the battle, the pair of them exploded into furious rage.

  Steam billowed from their nostrils as they plowed into each other mercilessly. Finally, with blood and saliva trailing from their mouths, they both dropped dead into the water that had collected around them.

  As their lives expired, the last spark of their souls left their bodies like dancing firelights and rattled through the tunnels, burning themselves out.

  The Rock was at last free from the curse of the werewolf … and old MacDowell was relieved of his troubles forever.

  The Darkling children were explaining what they had seen to Stanley and Daisy.

  “We’d better get down there and at least find out what’s been happening,” insisted Daisy.

  MacDowell had been missing from his room for almost twenty-four hours now, and they needed some answers.

  It was a sunny afternoon. The Secret-Keepers Alliance marched across the village to the Darkling place. Within five minutes, all of them were puffing and blowing, heaving up the heavy flagstone that gave access to the tunnels.

  Annabelle handed out the candle-ends they had “borrowed” from Victor at the candle shop. Daisy held out a flame and delivered a spark of life to each one.

  They nodded to each other and down they went: Stanley first, then Annabelle, and Daisy lowered the little ones into Stanley’s arms before following.

  Through the darkened depths they trod, taking the short walk to where the mill house stood above them.

  “Oh my goodness!” cried Annabelle.

  Daisy joined in. “I don’t believe it,” she squealed, her hands up to her mouth.

  “I knew it,” said Stanley.

  For now the mines were empty of buccaneers, but the hole they had made was huge, a vast cavern revealing more and more seams of shining gold.

  “This place will collapse if they do much more,” said Stanley. “We’re going to have to let everyone know and get them away from here.”

  Berkeley and Olive had spotted the bodies of the wolves, locked together in a final clinch of death.

  Between them they worked out what must have happened. “Poor old Mac,” said Daisy. “I know he caused us problems, but you wouldn’t wish that on anyone, would you?”

  “There’s less meat to buy now, Stanley,” said Berkeley.

  “I guess you’re right,” sighed Stanley. “I guess you’re right.” He got down on his knees and pulled the bodies into what looked like a more comfortable pose.

  “What now?” he added, standing up.

  “We need a milk and cookies assembly,” insisted Daisy. “Good home baking will settle our minds before we tell the Rock what has been happening.”

  She was right: even the Darkling children were getting to like cookies. Who wouldn’t love Mrs. Carelli’s baking?

  They gathered at dusk in Stanley’s room, seated neatly in their usual circle. They always sat in the same places: Stanley under the window, with Daisy to his left by the door and Annabelle opposite him, then Olive and Berkeley on his right.

  “Good. Shall we begin?” asked Daisy.

  There was obviously something Annabelle needed to say. She had avoided broaching the subject, but things had grown desperate.

  “Would you like to begin, Annie?” said Stanley.

  “Yes, please!” Annabelle answered nervously. “There’s something I need to let you know.”

  “Do go on,” begged Daisy. “That’s why we’re here.”

  “Well … you might laugh!” she said with a straight face.

  This was enough to set Berkeley off, and this in turn sent Olive into a fit of belly giggles.

  “We won’t laugh,” said Stanley, glaring at the young ones. “We promise.”

  “It’s the pike,” Annabelle began. “The one in the glass case in the hallway.”

  Everyone was silent. Stanley stared at the young ones, expecting more giggles, but no, they were deadly serious.

  “He spoke to me. He said that Stanley had taken to not listening to his advice any more and that he very much wanted to pass him some information. It’s stupid, I know. I wasn’t sure if I’d only imagined it. But it’s happened again since.”

  “He spoke to us too,” said Berkeley and Olive at the same time. They looked at each other and then back at everybody else. “We thought we were dreaming.”

  “Don’t worry, Annie,” said Stanley. “I know for sure that the pike on the wall speaks. I have taken advice from him in the past. The last time I spoke with him, I was growing tired of his riddles. One thing is for sure: if he is desperate to tell us something, we must listen.”

  “To the pike, everybody!” said Daisy. As they got to their feet, Berkeley sent the milk jug flying.

  “BERKELEY!”

  “Ahh, the famous five,” grinned the pike, as the children gathered around the glass case in the gloominess of the hallway. They stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak. He took his time before he began, clearing his throat. “Ahem …”

  “Get on with it,” said Stanley. “He does like the sound of his own voice, you know,” he said, turning to the others.

  They giggled nervously.

  “First,” said the pike, “I would like Stanley to assure me of something. Tell me that you still have the map that brought you to the smugglers’ mine, my dear boy.”

  “Of course,” laughed
Stanley. “It’s one of my most important possessions. It lies in the silver casket in my room, behind the false panel. Everything is in place, just as it should be! Why do you ask?”

  “Let me explain,” the pike continued, clearing his throat again. “In the past, Stanley, I have let you work out the answers for yourself. But now the risk is much greater and time is of the essence.

  “Take yourselves out onto the moor and build a small fire. Put the ancient map in the middle and make sure it burns well. It must burn right through the night. Don’t worry about losing it: the map has no real purpose anymore, except for that which I am about to explain. In the morning, gather the ashes from the fire while they are still hot. Each of you take a small amount, and scatter them across the moor above the mines.”

  “And then what?” asked Annabelle and Daisy at the same time.

  “Sometimes, my dears, the only thing you can do is sit and wait. You will have played your part, and that is enough. Just make sure you stay out of the way!”

  And that was all he would say. The children waited, just to be sure.

  “What’s your name?” asked Berkeley.

  But the pike was already asleep, dreaming of a warm swim with the sunlight piercing the water.

  Berkeley tapped on the glass, leaving greasy finger marks.

  “Come on,” said Stanley. “We may as well get started.” He ran to his room and uncovered the secret panel that held the shining silver casket, took it out from its home, and dusted it down.

  By now the night was black, and as far as the Rock was concerned, werewolf status was on high alert. The Alliance would have to be extra careful to avoid the lookouts, especially since they were building a fire.

  A small procession of silky black silhouettes filed its way out onto the moor through the back garden of Candlestick Hall. Each member of the Alliance carried a small supply of wooden planks and sticks gathered from outside the house. When they decided they’d reached the right spot, they grouped together in the darkness.

  And then, over the black plain of the rolling hills, a small orangey-yellow spark of life appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. It grew larger and larger until soon it was a burning ball of fire with orange cinders crackling from its belly and spiraling upwards into the air.

  Stanley rolled the ragged pieces of the map around a dried-up old twig and inserted it carefully into the center, like he’d seen Mrs. Carelli do with the poker.

  He held it there and watched the age-old map disintegrate into nothing, shriveling into black, wispy embers that floated above him. Somehow what he was doing didn’t feel right, but he believed in the pike, who’d never let him down or told him an untruth.

  The children stayed awhile and fed the fire’s hungry red mouth until its center roared a fierce white hot, so fierce that by morning it would still be scorching to the touch.

  And then the final act would be carried out under the sunlight of the following day.

  As morning arrived, Daisy looked out from her room in the lighthouse. She could see Stanley’s shape at his window. And then she looked across the moor and spotted a fine trail of smoke from the last living moments of the fire.

  They would have to get there promptly: if someone else came across it they might stamp it out and scatter the ashes into the grass. Daisy realized that those embers were more valuable now than the map had ever been.

  The Alliance had arranged an early meeting, and they were all there promptly—apart from Olive, who’d left the house without her doll and had to come back on her own.

  “I must have it,” she’d wailed.

  “The plan won’t work if she isn’t there. She’s part of the Alliance!” insisted Stanley. And soon she was back, headless doll clutched tightly.

  A pile of gray ash lay at their feet. Berkeley took a stick and opened it up. Stanley took the stick gently from Berkeley and separated the ashes to cool them. A gentle breeze blew across the moor.

  Within a few minutes they were each able to take a handful of the gray dust.

  “It doesn’t look like it would make any difference to anything,” said Annabelle, staring into her hands.

  “We must trust the pike,” said Stanley. He sent everyone to different parts of the moor, and each in turn spread out their own share.

  Stanley knew that Olive and Berkeley would expect something to come about immediately. They’d pester him until he told them what was going to happen, and so far he didn’t have a clue. So he announced that he was going back to bed for an hour and that they should meet up in the afternoon. (Perhaps by then something might have taken place.)

  This seemed like the perfect idea until he was back indoors and Mrs. Carelli stood waiting, wanting to know who was lighting fires on the moor, what the children were doing out there at the crack of dawn, and where on earth old MacDowell was, he’d been missing for days.

  “Erm …” began Stanley.

  “Erm indeed,” she started, then hurled punishing words and sentences at him until his head ached and he was tempted to slip out through the back door.

  “No you don’t,” she called out. “You can clean this hearth out and fetch in some fresh logs, seeing as you’re in the mood for fires.” She lunged the dustpan and brush into his arms and left the room.

  Victor peered over his glasses at Stanley. “Looks like you’re in trouble again,” he chortled.

  When his chores were complete and he’d eaten, Stanley was ready for the Darklings again. Actually, he wasn’t. But he was eager to see if he could find out what was happening.

  He sneaked a chat with the pike before he left.

  “Ahh, Stanley, friend of the Rock. You do a good job when you set your mind to it. Well done. But steer clear of the mines!”

  Stanley was pleased with himself: he appreciated a compliment from someone as cynical as the pike.

  But it wasn’t enough to make him leave well alone; he had to know what was happening.

  “Stanley would not be Stanley if he wasn’t in the thick of the action,” mumbled the pike.

  When Stanley opened the front door of the Hall, Daisy and the Darklings were right outside.

  “There’s a lot of noise down in the mines, Stanley,” said Annabelle. “We could hear it from the basement. But it’s not digging, it’s something different. Movements of some kind!”

  “Why were you in the basement? You haven’t been—”

  He was cut short by Annabelle. “Stanley, calm down, we haven’t done a thing.”

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s take a look. Where are your mother and father?”

  “We told them to take a walk across the moor. We watched them walk through the village and talk to people. Everyone thinks Father is our uncle, because he looks so different.”

  “Perfect,” said Daisy. “Let’s go.”

  “But the pike warned us to stay away,” said Berkeley, tugging on Stanley’s shirt.

  “I just want to take a look,” said Stanley. “That’s all.”

  But just taking a look turned into something else, something that changed everything forever.

  The flagstone-lifting task wasn’t getting any easier. If anything, it seemed heavier now. Down they went, down the cold, black pathway into the unknown. The tide was out, and for now they were safe from danger. Or, at least, the kind of danger that high tide brought to the tunnels.

  But other problems soon surfaced. They couldn’t hear the traders, there was no hammering of chisels … but there was something else. Trails of wire adorned the walls and floors.

  Stanley inspected them closely.

  “Oh no. Fuse wire!” he gasped, a lump forming in his throat.

  “What’s ‘fyooose wayer’?” asked Berkeley.

  Stanley was distracted and didn’t answer. He followed the course of the wire through the tunnel, the others behind him.

  The wire ended at a box. Explosives. Daisy held up her candle and shone a faint light down the tunnel.

  More wire, more boxes.

>   “Stop, don’t panic,” said Stanley, panicking!

  “We need to put out these candles,” Daisy urged. “If we let a spark touch that wire, we’ll all go up in flames and the Rock will follow on behind us.”

  “But we can’t see without the candles,” Stanley objected.

  “Put them out,” said Annabelle. “We can see in the dark. Hold on to one of us.” For the moment there was no sign of Beale and Nook, but something was stirring in the darkness. If only they could see more clearly, thought Stanley. Somehow the mines themselves seemed to be alive, shifting and whispering!

  They were coming to a cavern. Candles were glued to the walls, glowing softly.

  Only then did the full horror of what was about to happen unveil itself to them.

  “Look,” said Stanley. “The walls really are moving.”

  And the Alliance stared wide-eyed as they saw what was happening.

  The magic had begun to work. The ashes of the map had seeped into the earth, and the very Rock had started to come to life.

  Nearby, a skeletal pirate hand twitched until the movement rippled along the length of its stone-encrusted arms and legs.

  Life began to pour into every bit of the twisting mines and would not stop until every ancient limb of each long-dead pirate was awake.

  Just ahead, a fully formed skeletal buccaneer dropped from the curved ceiling and landed on his feet. Then another, and another, and another.

  It was only now that Stanley understood the pike’s instructions to stay well away. But perhaps it was a little late!

  Bones clicked and drummed in time with each other. A sea of grinning faces looked back at the children, shields and swords raised. The ancient pirates were joined in their purpose to protect the Rock, and all they could see were intruders.