A Christmas Revelation Page 9

  Oldham stood staring after her. “Fool!” he muttered. “Must be drunk!” He looked at Eloise. “What are you staring at, then?”

  She affected not to hear him and followed after the woman, as if neither of the two men on the pavement were there at all.

  Worm watched her, and as she came past him, grasped for her hand. “You all right?” he whispered.

  “He’s as mad as a wet hen,” she said hurriedly. “We’d better not get caught. We got to make sure he goes up the hill and past the other folks, so he doesn’t know what to believe. We’ve only just begun. We’ve all the way to the warehouse yet, and it won’t work if we don’t get them there.”

  “We’ll do it,” Worm said, as if he were certain. He wanted to be.

  They hurried up the street. It was a very slight incline, and Eloise kept hold of Worm’s hand. It was not dark enough yet for them to lose each other, but it was nice to feel someone so close to you. There was no time to see if the men were following.

  “Do you know where you are?” Worm asked as they came to a junction, and without hesitation she turned left again. They waited a few minutes, quite still and silent, until they saw the two men pass and go the other way, beginning to climb a little as the incline increased.

  “Come on,” Eloise said suddenly. “We’ve got to follow them, just in case they don’t go where I think they’re going.”

  Worm went obediently.

  “Yes. I used to live here when I was a child,” she explained, slowing down a bit. “Are they still ahead of us?”

  He ran up the hill a few yards in the mist. He did not want to, but he made sure Oldham and Younger were there, closer than Worm would really have liked. He could not see anyone else. He dropped back to walk with Eloise and gripped her hand a little more tightly.

  Suddenly a donkey came out of a hidden entrance, a cart just behind it, piled high with all kinds of things. It was impossible to make out what they were in the misty dusk. An old man walked beside the animal, and they stopped on the footpath in front of the two men.

  Eloise and Worm went into the arch of a doorway. The old man with the donkey had a coat that came all the way to the ground, not that that was far. He was very short, and he wore an immensely high top hat. “Don’t shout!” he said to no one in particular. He looked toward Oldham. “Mr. Tucker, is that you?”

  “No, it isn’t!” Oldham snapped. “And get that bleeding thing out o’ the way!”

  “It’s Christmas,” the old man said, as if that were a reasonable explanation for him standing in the middle of the path with a donkey. But he led it a little farther out, so now it was blocking half the road, as well as the footpath.

  “Get out of the way!” Oldham shouted at him.

  “It’s a long time till morning,” the old man said pleasantly. “You’ve got no hurry.” He patted the donkey in a companionable fashion. “Christmas’ll come wherever you are, Mr. Tucker, don’t fret.”

  “I’m not Tucker!” Oldham shouted even more loudly. He raised his hand, as if to strike the donkey.

  The old man shot out his arm. “You’d hit a donkey? On Christmas Eve? That’s a terrible thing to do, Mr. Tucker. It’ll bring you bad luck for the rest of your life, I shouldn’t wonder.” He turned to the donkey. “Come along, Moke, this is a bad place. Bad things are going to happen here. I can feel it. The dead are coming back to collect what’s theirs.” Suddenly the donkey seemed willing to move, quite quickly. It put its weight against the load in the cart and went forward at a brisk pace.

  But the two men were not comforted in the least. In fact, they looked as if they had seen a vengeful ghost. They started forward, then stopped again. Worm and Eloise behind them were obliged to stop also, or risk being close enough to be noticed.

  Worm watched uncertainly, not at all sure what was going to happen next, or if their plan would work out after all. The two men were rattled, but what good was that going to do if they did not go on to the warehouse?

  Then Oldham gasped and suddenly went rigid. Worm looked where he was staring. It was darker now, and the mist was rising, thicker in patches, a bit here, a bit there. It was horribly cold. An old man had come out of the one of the side alleys and was walking ahead of them. He had an odd gait, turning his left foot in, but not his right one. He was tall and thin, with straggly white hair and no hat, but he wore a thick scarf. He seemed to walk with a purpose, as if he were going somewhere in particular, and in a hurry. Once, very quickly, he glanced behind him and seemed to increase his pace. It was Squeaky, wasn’t it?

  Oldham stood on the pavement stock-still, as if momentarily paralyzed.

  Worm put his hand in Eloise’s and felt her grip him hard. She looked as if she could hardly believe her eyes, too.

  The man ahead of them moved swiftly, for all his twisted left foot.

  Suddenly, Oldham came to life and lurched forward, gathering speed as if he would catch up with the old man. He called out something unintelligible, but the man seemed to take no notice. There was a wraith of mist ahead of him and he walked into it as if he could see perfectly clearly. Younger followed them.

  Worm and Eloise went forward, close behind the two men now. Worm had to run a couple of steps to keep up.

  “Come on!” Eloise said urgently to Worm, half pulling him along. The mist closed round them like a damp, clinging blanket. It prickled like needles of ice. Then suddenly they were through it and the night was clear again. Oldham was standing on the pavement, staring around himself. The other man, Younger, was disappearing ahead. The old man had completely vanished. There were no alleys off to the side, no deep doorways, and certainly none open. He had simply gone.

  Worm and Eloise were too close. He could not help seeing them.

  Oldham took a step toward them, then realized they were a woman and a child. In the bad light of the waning day, the mist and the distortion of the streetlights reflecting on the wet pavement, throwing more reflections than shadows, he was uncertain and beginning to be frightened. He did not recognize them. His mind was focused on the specter ahead of him, and some horror of the past.

  Eloise kept walking, now pulling Worm along with her, pretending they knew where they were going. They passed by Oldham as if they did not see him. Worm could feel the strength of Eloise’s hand as she gripped him, and he could not have let go even if he had wanted to. And he didn’t!

  Where was Squeaky? Still somewhere ahead of them?

  They did not even turn to see if Oldham was right behind them, though that was difficult to resist.

  “Don’t worry,” Eloise whispered. “I know it’s Squeaky. At least I think I do. But he looks exactly like my dad.” Her voice was thick with emotion for a moment.

  “Did your dad keep you safe?” Worm asked. Then he wished he hadn’t. What if the answer was a bad one? What if he hadn’t looked after her? People didn’t always. Even dads. He had never had one, but he imagined. He could remember his mother a bit, but she kept changing the way she looked, as if she’d actually been several different people. But she talked a lot. Somehow, whenever he felt comfortable, there was always a voice at the back of his mind singing something. Often it didn’t make sense, but it was a nice sound.

  Eloise had not answered. Perhaps the answer was not a good one.

  “Where’d he go?” Worm said instead. He meant Squeaky.

  They walked up the street a little more. They had let Oldham pass them again in the poor light. He was ahead of them, and moving as if he knew exactly where he was going. He had not even looked at them. He turned a corner, went a hundred yards farther, and turned again the other way. Eloise followed without hesitation. It was now completely dark, except for the streetlamps, some of which were broken. Worm looked, but he could not see the old man ahead of them. It was Squeaky, wasn’t it?

  “Are we lost?” he asked Eloise finally.

>   “No,” she answered with certainty. “Oldham knows where he’s going.”

  “Where?”

  “To the old warehouse on the river, where it happened.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just…know…This is what we planned.”

  “Is the other man going to be there?”

  “I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. Oldham will do.”

  “Do for what?” He wasn’t certain what she meant, but he had an awful idea. It wasn’t all to do with the gold. There was something that mattered more than that, at least to Eloise, if not to Oldham.

  Then it happened again. Oldham reached a fork in the road and seemed to be uncertain. Worm and Eloise were only a stone’s throw behind him. The mist was thicker on the way to the left. He turned a little toward the right.

  Eloise gasped. It must have been loud enough for him to hear, because he turned and stared straight toward them.

  Eloise was looking down the street to the left, as if she had not even seen Oldham.

  Worm looked the same way and saw the old man with the flowing white hair again. He was staring back at them! Was it really Squeaky? It didn’t look like him! Not really.

  Worm froze. A cold wind blew off the street, damp and with salt in its breath. They were getting closer to the river. From way to the south came the haunting sound of the foghorn, inhuman yet soaked through with a terrible loneliness.

  The man with the limp put his hand up in the air. Was it a salute or a threat? Then he laughed and turned on his heel. He walked into a circle of lamplight, and then out of it and into the mist. It was Squeaky. Worm recognized the laugh. He was visible for another instant, and then he vanished again.

  Oldham, closer to them, let out a roar of rage that was swallowed in a racking cough, and then a sob.

  “Papa!” Eloise called out and started forward, still clutching Worm by the hand. He had no choice but to go with her. Oldham overtook them in five strides. He was stronger, faster, and not encumbered by skirts and a child dragging behind. He barely noticed them. They could have been any homeless woman with her child. He raced down the footpath as if at last he knew the place he was going. He was not following a real man or a ghost; he was going somewhere very familiar, that carried a horror, but also a prize that drove out everything from his mind.

  Eloise was slowing up, and eventually she stopped, out of breath.

  “It’s only Squeaky,” Worm said to her, holding her hand now more than she was holding his.

  “I know…” she said quietly. “Of course I do.”

  “You said your dad was dead,” Worm reminded her, still holding on to her hand. Perhaps it was a cruel thing to say, but this was no time for pretending. Something in her frightened him. She was staring straight ahead of her, along the street where Oldham had run after the figure that had to be Squeaky.

  “You did,” Worm insisted. “You know Squeaky dressed up as your dad to scare Oldham. Why is he so scared of him, anyway?”

  “Because Oldham killed him!” She forced the words out between her teeth, but with terrible satisfaction. “He thinks it’s Dad’s ghost, come back to kill him for what he did!” Her face looked different in the light from the nearest streetlamp. There were tiny droplets of mist in her hair. “He killed him,” she said slowly and very clearly. “They chased him along the wharf and he fell into the river, and it closed over him…dark, and filthy, and ice cold—like a grave itself. Only you go into it still alive…and you know you’ll never come out! It fills your eyes, and your ears, and your mouth…”

  “Stop it!” Worm tried to shout, but the words came out half strangled.

  She said nothing. He looked at her face and saw the misery in it, and the hatred. Oldham had done that to her father, and to her it was as if it had been yesterday. Worm tried to think how he would feel, and he couldn’t. It was too big, too terrible. All he could do was hold on to her hand, although he thought she couldn’t even feel it.

  “Come on,” she said and started pulling him along again. “We’ve got to keep up.”

  “Why?” He pulled against her. “You know Squeaky doesn’t know where the gold is.”

  “The gold?” She almost sounded as if she did not know what he meant.

  “You want to get the gold back?” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he knew that was not what she really wanted. She wanted revenge. She was only using the gold, and hoping that Oldham would think Squeaky was the ghost of the man he had killed. Or perhaps the real man? Still alive somehow, escaped from the mud of the river by falling on a ledge, as she had told him. And he would know where the gold was hidden.

  Worm pulled his hand away from hers. “That’s what you wanted Squeaky for. What happens if they kill him, too?”

  “They won’t! Worm! They won’t!” She stopped. She was facing him now. “They made that mistake the first time. They killed my father before knowing what he did with it! They won’t kill him this time, until they know where the gold is.”

  “Squeaky don’t know where it is! How can he tell them anything?”

  “He can’t,” she said.

  “Then what’s he for?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he had a possible idea. “You’re not going to let them hurt him, are you?”

  “No, of course I’m not!” But she did not look at him.

  What was he going to do? He and Squeaky had come to rescue her! To stop Oldham and the younger man from keeping her prisoner. But she didn’t know where the gold was any more than they did. She was deliberately making them think that Squeaky was the ghost of her father—or maybe really her father, still alive and come back from wherever he had been to collect the gold. He was probably the only one who knew where it was, had always been, because he was with them when they took it. He was one of the thieves, in spite of the fact that she had said he wasn’t.

  If he were alive, though, and had been going to give it back, he would have done that by now. He’d had a whole two years! Oldham would know that. It didn’t make sense.

  They were passing underneath a lamppost, and the yellow light, mist-swirled, gave them an eerie glow, making the shadows blacker. Her face was pinched, as if there was something inside her that filled her with pain. Seeing it, Worm was filled with it, too, and it frightened him. It changed her in a way he did not like.

  “Come on,” she said. “Or we’ll lose them. I can look after myself.”

  That felt like a dismissal, and yet she held on to his hand just as tightly, and they hurried after both men. Squeaky was somewhere ahead of them—Oldham, too—and perhaps the younger man as well.

  They were close to the river now. The air was full of the smell of tidal water, mud flats, and salt. The mist was blowing across them much more often. Sometimes it was completely clear, at others there were heavy bands, like giant discarded shawls, floating across the street, obscuring cobbles and the roadway, wrapping the streetlamps until they were almost hidden. Then, in a breath of wind, they were just white shades pulling to bits in the distance. There were several people visible now and then, including Oldham’s angry figure. All were black, and then ahead of them Squeaky, white hair flying, arms and legs at angles, limping on his left foot.

  Worm knew where they were going.

  The buildings around them were huge now, with wide doorways a horse and cart could pass through. And they towered upward three or four stories, some of them more, with no windows. These were warehouses, for storing things that came and went in the big ships in the docks and the ones waiting in the Pool of London. Were they empty? Or full of things from foreign places?

  Nobody lived around here. There were no colorful lights or busy people preparing for Christmas tomorrow, no carol singers, and it was far too early for the church bells.

  Worm hurried along with Eloise. She was not just following Oldham; she
knew where she was going, too.

  The mournful boom of a foghorn sounded again. The fog must be worse on the water. They were very close to it now, and Worm could feel the icy tingle of droplets on his face.

  Squeaky had disappeared somewhere ahead. The only person Worm could see in front was Oldham.

  “Come on,” Eloise said again urgently. “We’re nearly there!”

  “Where?” he asked. But he had a horrible feeling that he already knew. “This is where your dad died, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” was all she said.

  Worm could feel through the grip of her hand that her arm was rigid now. Her whole body probably was.

  The warehouse they were nearing towered over them in the gloom. Even looking upward, Worm could not see the top of it against the darkness of the sky. It was as if they were shut inside a box already, and the lid was on.

  Eloise pulled him in through the side entrance, and immediately he felt the difference. There was no more wind or tiny little pinpoints of ice. The air was perfectly still, but it smelled strange, stale, as if it had been breathed in and out by somebody else before, someone very tired and dirty all through.

  “Where are we going?” Worm whispered.

  “After them,” Eloise answered. “Come on.” She took his hand again, probably so he didn’t get lost and make her come back and look for him. Or more likely, so that they didn’t find him and use him against her. Would she stop from hurting them, if they had Worm? He didn’t want to ask that, because he honestly wasn’t sure that she would. She hated them more than she liked Worm, that was for certain.

  He kept up with her, even though she was going somewhere he didn’t really want to.

  She stopped suddenly. They could hear men’s voices ahead. It was Oldham and Younger. Younger must have been waiting here already. Worm could not see them, but he could hear them quite clearly.