Chapter 31
Back to the Tower
Talking to Brother Westerman is the last thing on earth Olivia wants to do. But thinking about all the bad things that have been happening, all the death and destruction throughout the city, she steels herself to the task. If there is even the slightest chance to stop the Trixies she has to at least try. Olivia closes her eyes and can see the two creatures in her room, trying to kill her. She can see Rum-Tum lying broken and bloody on the concrete below her window.
She will do anything to payback the things that hurt her cat. If that means facing the old priest again, so be it.
Mum and Dad are going to let her stay home, after the shock of the intruder in her room last night. Olivia convinces them she’s missed enough schoolwork already while she was in hospital and should go. That should have been enough to rouse their suspicions but it doesn’t, and they even drop her at school early when she asks.
Part of Brother Westerman’s routine is a morning visit to the cemetery. Olivia thinks it’s more to harass students trying to take the shortcut through the hole in the fence there than any other reason.
She sees him pulling weeds from around a tall grey head-stone in the newer section of the graveyard. These headstones have been there less than fifty years. There are only three vacant plots left in the cemetery. Two are reserved for the old teacher-Brothers spending their last years in a nursing home, and one is for Brother Westerman.
Olivia reads the name on the headstone.
PRIOR BENFIELD GREYSON
1862 – 1865
SERVANT OF ST.GILES
It’s the old prior, Yip mentioned this morning.
Brother Westerman glances up and his face darkens. “What are you doing in here?” he demands. “This area is out of bounds.”
“I need to speak to you Brother Westerman,” Olivia says as politely as she can manage.
“Can’t a man tend graves without being bothered?” His voice lowers.
When she doesn’t scurry away like a frightened mouse, he levers himself up, his joints creaking loudly. He towers above her, dark and full of menace.
“We keep doing this,” Olivia snaps up at him. “And it’s getting almost as old as you.”
“Horrid girl!”
“Look.” Olivia softens her tone a little. “I don’t have time for this. How do you stop a Trixie?”
Brother Westerman’s eyes widen in surprise. He glances around nervously and leans forward to look suspiciously into her eyes.
“Trixies have been causing all the trouble over the last few nights,” she says. As intense as his gaze is, she doesn’t flinch away. She has seen scarier things than him.
“Ridiculous,” he snaps. “Trixies are just pests. They’re not dangerous.”
“Yip says this one is a teenager and it’s gotten stronger and meaner. And it has over twenty younger Trixies working with it”
Brother Westerman grabs Olivia by the arm and drags her toward the main building. Despite her protests, he keeps pulling her forward muttering, “Ridiculous,” and “no, it can’t be,” as he strides on.
For an old man, he has a mightily strong grip and Olivia can’t pull her arm loose. Several boys stand and stare as they pass but no one get in the way.
Thanks for all your help, Olivia thinks as they gawp at her. There’s not one teacher about as they cross the grounds and enter the rear door of the school.
Brother Westerman bustles her into the West Tower stairwell and harries her up the spiralling steps. She limps along as fast as she can but he has to tug her along to keep up.
He is remarkably spry for a ninety-two-year-old. Olivia is puffing at the exertion of the climb but he isn’t even breathing hard.
They are heading back to Brother Westerman’s lair.