Never trust entirely to your own fortitude.
S. & S. Adams, The Complete Servant
They made their preparations back at the house. A drowsy calm hung in the air, and when Nate went to check on the staff quarters, he found the rest of the menservants deep in an enchanted sleep. The building had always seemed like a Mediterranean villa masquerading as an English country house, but now the last of its disguise was gone. The only remainder of its former incarnation was the grandfather clock in the hall, where the miniature figures of Miss Jenks and Mr Stokes continued to mark the hour.
Pattern began by visiting the gallery. The ‘Home, Sweet Home’ tapestry had vanished, but all the antiquities were still in place. She was chiefly interested in the red-and-black vase that had caught her eye on their first morning on the island. There was Scylla, all heads and tentacles on the front panel. But by turning the vase around, Pattern saw more of the story. Another panel showed a man embracing a young woman, while another lady looked on, a scowl upon her face. The next scene depicted a bird with lightning in its beak, and a towering wave that came between the lovers.
Pattern felt better for seeing this, the illustrations seeming to support some of her more colourful theories. Afterwards, she met Mr Ladlaw and Nate for a council of war in the kitchen. Most of its domestic trappings had been stripped away, and even a cook of Mrs Palfrey’s talents would have struggled to concoct as much as a salmagundi salad in such a barren place.
At Nate’s request, Mr Grey had produced a map of the island. Together, he and Pattern pored over the various coves and inlets, before deciding that the beach with the stone pier was best suited for their purposes. Meanwhile, Mr Ladlaw sat and bit his nails. Mr Grey observed the scene from a haughty distance.
‘We will need a large net too,’ Nate said to the steward. ‘D’you think you can find us one?’
‘Scylla is not a sardine,’ Mr Grey scoffed. ‘I do not know whether to marvel at your optimism or pity your foolishness.’
‘I have faced threats as powerful as your Lady and her creature before,’ said Pattern quietly.
‘A peevish housekeeper? A gouty steward? A butler who helped himself too freely to his master’s wine?’
‘A dragon.’
Mr Grey gave a bark of laughter. ‘You, a dragon killer? I begin to see why my lady thinks you so amusing.’
Pattern squared her shoulders. ‘Well, the dragon did not find me a joke, I can tell you. Moreover, I was placed in this household by an organization – a secret organization – that deals with such monsters on a very regular basis. My colleagues have battled witches before, as well as ghosts and ghouls and all manner of demons. So, dragon slaying aside, I have been thoroughly prepared for this kind of emergency. That is why I have in my possession a chemical solution that can paralyse any creature for fifteen minutes at a stretch. We have only to lure Scylla within striking distance, contain her with the nets, paralyse her with the solution and recover the ring. Since the chemicals’ effects are strictly temporary, Circe will get to keep both her monster, unharmed, and her love-token.’
Mr Grey looked entirely sceptical.
Mr Ladlaw, however, was very much cheered. ‘But this is excellent news! Why ever didn’t you say so before? You can use the rest of your potion on the witch, and then I can have a shot at her with the pistol.’
‘For shame, sir,’ the steward growled. ‘My lady said she could see you as a raven; I myself think you would be far better suited to a weasel or a rat. Don’t imagine you can hope to cheat and get away with it.’
‘Mr Ladlaw will have every opportunity to redeem himself,’ said Pattern. ‘After all, he will be playing an active role in our defeat of Scylla.’
‘Yes indeed. I will be quite happy to carry any equipment and provide moral support.’
‘We also need bait.’
‘Bait?’
‘Something to lure Scylla into our trap. She has no fondness for Circe’s gentlemen guests, after all.’
‘That’s right,’ said Nate with relish. ‘Once she spies you out on the rocks, all trussed up like a Sunday joint, our octopus friend won’t be able to resist swimming up to take a sniff of you.’
Mr Ladlaw began to protest very noisily indeed. He rose to his feet, and looked at the door. But Mr Grey put a heavy hand on his shoulder.
‘My lady’s eyes are everywhere. There is nowhere for you to flee.’ His scowl turned on Pattern and Nate. ‘That goes for you too. I said to the little maid I did not wish the island to take more prisoners. But it seems to me you have brought all your present difficulties on yourselves. I told you to keep out of my lady’s way. I told you she could not be defied. Yet you have paid me not a blind bit of attention! Indeed, for all your plots and potions, I think you had best get used to the idea of enjoying a very long stay on Cull.’
Finally, they were ready to go. Mr Grey provided them with a padlock and chain, as well as a bundle of fishermen’s nets, and Pattern produced a flask of the solution that she said would render Scylla immobile.
‘We only need to get her entangled in the netting,’ she said, with as much confidence as she could muster, ‘so I can aim a squirt in her eye. Any eye will do, so at least there are plenty to choose from.’
Mr Grey made another scoffing sound.
They tied Mr Ladlaw’s hands behind his back for the look of the thing, and also to prevent him from making a sudden bolt for it. As an additional deterrent, Nate wore the pistol tucked into his belt. There was one bullet left, he said, menacingly, and he wasn’t afraid to use it.
When they left the villa, the dawn mists had cleared, and it was as if Cull was a woman who had aged forty years overnight. The island now bore the scars of a long drought. All its last traces of greenness and freshness had gone, burned away by the sun’s relentless glare. The earth was sandy-dry, and the grass brittle. For the first time, the sky was overcast, leaden with clouds. The whisper and rasp of small insects was joined by a distant rumble of thunder.
By the time they reached the beach, storm clouds were gathering. Up close, the pier looked alarmingly high and narrow, and its end seemed much further from the shore than Pattern remembered. Mr Ladlaw had to be prodded along as if he were a pirate captive being forced to walk the plank. Waves rushed against the structure with a hiss and spit.
Pattern set about padlocking Mr Ladlaw’s chains to a rusty ring used for mooring boats. She was not ignorant of the irony of the situation – in her last escapade, it had been her friend the Grand Duchess Eleri who was tied up as bait for a monstrous creature and, though she disliked Mr Ladlaw very much, she also pitied him.
‘Be of good cheer,’ she told him, as he slumped to his knees and stared out to sea in a despairing fashion. ‘You only have to play along with our plan for a little while. As long as you trust me, and follow my lead, I give you my word all will be well.’
‘You are a housemaid. You are a child. What do you know of anything?’ Mr Ladlaw screwed up his face. ‘I should never have listened to your fantasies. We are all of us doomed.’
His words hit home. Pattern could not entirely shake off the feeling that she was an imposter; when so much of her plan relied on speculation, so little was sure. Nate looked over from where he was holding the nets beside Mr Grey, and gave her a salute. She returned it as cheerfully as she could, all the while gripped by the notion that his faith in her was entirely misplaced.
Perhaps Mr Ladlaw was right, and she had deluded herself. Perhaps she was leading all of them to their doom. Either way, there was nothing she could do about it now.
She stepped in front of Mr Ladlaw so that she was at the very edge of the pier. The wind whipped her hair, and salt stung her dry lips. Clouds were amassing overhead, swollen and dark as a bruise, and the sea was growing rougher by the moment.
‘Scylla!’ she cried out. ‘Scylla! Lady Circe has a gift for you! Another treacherous male deserves your punishment!’
The wait felt as if it stretched on for hours, but in fact it was only a matter of minutes before a dark shape rushed through the water, churning the cove into a cauldron of bubbling waves. As thunder growled, and the sky pulsed with blue light, one of the waves twisted and turned in on itself, rising up until it was a high foamy column. The column plunged downwards, crashing back into the depths, and out of the spray of dirty foam a writhing knot of green tentacles appeared.
The tentacles twisted and coiled. Waves swelled and frothed. And then suddenly the upper body of a giant woman was surging towards the pier. Her skin was pale and glistening. Six long sinuous necks, as graceful as they were horrible, ended in six beautiful golden heads, each bearing a smile of rotting savagery. On the hand of her outstretched left arm, a ruby ring flashed.
Mr Ladlaw let out a shriek of terror. Nate went deathly pale. Even Pattern, who had faced this horror before, felt as if her legs were about to buckle.
‘There,’ said Mr Grey with satisfaction. ‘How can your puny nets hope to contain such an almighty force? Scylla will never submit to such indignities. She is invincible! None of your tricks are of any use against her.’
‘I know,’ said Pattern, and gave the signal.
Nate flung a net over Mr Grey and then barrelled into his waist, tumbling him to the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ the old man raged, struggling violently against the net. ‘Get this off me! Impudent young lout—’
‘You are right to think we cannot hope to disarm Scylla,’ said Pattern as calmly as she was able. ‘And so we have a different kind of bait in mind.’
Together, she and Nate unchained Mr Ladlaw and – with some difficulty – secured Mr Grey instead. Then Pattern pressed the pistol into Mr Ladlaw’s trembling hands. ‘Keep the pistol aimed at the old man’s head.’
‘Wh-wh-wh—?’
‘Don’t shoot, whatever happens,’ she said into his ear. ‘But you must act as if you mean to. Scylla has to believe we mean business – and she knows that you, at least, have nothing to lose.’
Then she strode to the edge of the pier again. ‘Scylla! We have Glaucus as our prisoner. Give us your ring. Your ring, for his life.’
The six monstrous mouths let out six wailing screams. The stench of rotten fish and weed was overpowering. The octopus woman was nearly upon them now, and her tentacles could have reached up and coiled round each of them in an instant, dashing them to their deaths on the rocks, or plunging them into the sea. But Mr Ladlaw held the pistol to Glaucus Grey’s head, and Scylla hung back, lashing the waves with her tentacles and gnashing her fangs in fury.
Glaucus and Scylla had existed in the ancient stories of Ovid, stories Miss Smith had described as ‘tales of betrayed love and transformation’. But what if these tales were no fiction?
‘Here is what I think,’ Pattern told Mr Grey. ‘I think you and Circe were once in love, and she gave you a ring as a sign of her devotion. But then you fell for the charms of a girl named Scylla.’ She was remembering the painted vase, one side of which showed two lovers embracing, while a frowning woman looked on. Then came the lightning strike, and the terror with tentacles. ‘In the madness of your passion, you gave her the ring that Circe had given you. But Circe discovered your betrayal. As punishment, she turned your lover into a hideous monster, and made you her aged slave. Is this the truth?’
‘Near enough,’ said Mr Grey, and his voice trembled. ‘It is certainly true that I did the first wrong. The tragedy is that we have both been punished for it.’
Pattern nodded. It was indeed a tale of torment, just like the stories Miss Smith had told her about.
‘Then tell Scylla to give me the ring.’
‘You won’t hurt her? Your chemicals . . .’
‘My flask of potion is useless. It is merely window-cleaning fluid. See?’ And Pattern turned it upside down, emptying the soapy slops on the floor.
Glaucus Grey raised his head. He wore a rueful smile. ‘Scylla,’ he said. ‘My love. My darling dear. Forgive me, I beg. But please do give them the ring.’
Rolling purple-black clouds rushed over the sky with unnatural speed and strength. Lightning, jagged and blue, lit up the scene. A bird, storm-tossed, darted in and out of the roiling darkness. And Scylla howled and thrashed and lashed the waves as she tore at the ring on her hand and hurled it through the air.
The ring landed in a puddle by Pattern’s feet. It was not made for human hands, but when she picked it up it shrank to an ordinary size.
Hot tears rained from Scylla’s six pairs of eyes and joined the salt spray misting the air.
Glaucus Grey put his head in his hands.
A hawk swooped into the air around them.
‘Very clever,’ it said. ‘Very clever, little Penelope. So you do know something of love, after all.’