MOLLY LIKED TO READ AS SHE WALKED. She always kept a slim book in her back pocket or satchel. Tonight she walked with her copy of The Castle of Otranto so close to her face that twice she blundered into hedgerows. By the time she’d reached Merrygoe Road, in the tangle of steep narrow streets at the back of the swimming baths, it was getting hard to see the words. The sun, an orange egg yolk in a white of fluffy clouds, was sliding towards the bowl of the neighbouring valley, throwing a heavy shadow over Howlfair.
Dusk always came unnaturally early in the Ethelhael Valley. It was as though the sky over Howlfair became too weak to hold the light. Stars would begin to pinprick the firmament well before nightfall, and an impatient moon would force the setting sun to share the sky.
An old family friend, Mr Cromble, called a greeting to Molly as he walked home. She waved back and headed up Empty Nest Lane, a hilly, deserted-looking road over which hung a stale, secretive hush. The houses were unlit. At the road’s end, set in overgrown, untended gardens, was one of the oddest buildings in town: Howlfair Orphanage.
There was nothing unusual about the building’s shape; the orphanage was a large, simple, flat-fronted white house with a black slate roof. No – the odd thing about Howlfair Orphanage was that it had no windows. Instead, windows had been painted on. Within their phony frames were painted various scenes of happy orphans in bygone attire playing in cosy firelit rooms. But the paint had run and faded, and the children’s features were misshapen. The eyes had lost their definition and resembled empty hollows. The hands dangled. The mouths gaped, so that the painted-on orphans looked like screaming phantoms.
Molly felt a sharp pang of pity for Carl Grobman, stuck in this horrible place, waiting for the arrival of someone who terrified him.
Molly wedged Otranto into her back pocket and scurried across the tangled front garden to the nearest oak tree. She crouched behind the trunk and waited.
Dusk thickened around her. Dark clouds clotted overhead. Bats squeaked and dashed among the tree tops. And at 7.28 p.m., Molly spotted a tall, grimly thin man making his way up the road with a dog.
The man wore a long grey overcoat with silver buttons. His grey-brown hound, hefty and wolflike, padded at the end of a long, thick chain attached to its collar. The man’s left hand was tucked inside his coat. His silver hair was a wavy moat guarding a diamond-shaped bald patch. The twin horns of his heavy-hanging moustache were instantly recognizable. He was Benton Furlock, the man who wanted to be Mayor of Howlfair.
“No way,” Molly muttered.
Arriving at the front door of Howlfair Orphanage, Furlock slid a link of the dog’s chain over a spike near the porch, and let himself into the building. Inside, he shouted something in a bullying tone, and then the front door swung shut behind him.
Mission complete, thought Molly. Time to get out of here.
Cautiously, hoping not to be seen by the dog, she broke cover. Creeping at a crouch through the riotous grass, she moved across the lawn towards the garden’s fenceless perimeter.
She was halfway across the front garden when she heard growling. Then a chain unfurling. And a deep thunderclap woof from the creature outside the orphanage.
Molly looked over her shoulder. “OK, I’m going!” she whispered. “Let’s just pretend I was never here…”
The unfurling chain clanked as its links locked, and now the dog was straining to get free, whining with frustration, pulling against the metal stake.
Molly’s spooked feet filled with frightened energy and she began to run. Behind her were loud barks. Molly prayed that Furlock would not emerge through the front door, roused by the canine commotion, and spot her.
Stars clamoured to watch her tumble down the steep road, her arms windmilling as she struggled not to fall headlong. She spotted an alley on the other side of the road and veered towards it. The moon was a yellow toenail clipping overhead. As she reached the mouth of the alley, she turned and saw that the dog had uprooted the metal stake and got free, and was chasing her, dragging its chain.
“Flipping Nora!”
Molly ran full pelt.
The long shadow-soaked alley climbed steadily upwards, its shady summit obscured by dustbins. It was punctuated with high wooden gates leading to back gardens; Molly bashed them as she ran, hoping that one was open. She crashed into the dustbins and rebounded off the alley walls like a pinball. She could hear her own ragged breathing and the dog barking and the chain scraping as the beast gained ground.
It wasn’t until she neared the top of the twilit alley that Molly realized she was heading towards a dead end. It was like the bell-tower fiasco all over again.
If she reached the wall ahead of her, there was a chance she could scale it and then leap into the tree that stood on the other side. But the dog, panting behind her, would have run her down long before then.
With a grunt she shoved an empty metal dustbin over and rolled it towards the dog as it drew near. Barmy with bloodlust, the dog tried to scramble over the dustbin but rolled backwards, sliding off the bin’s cylindrical body, paws paddling. It came to its senses and decided to go around the bin instead. Meanwhile Molly had grabbed one of the two dustbins at the alley’s end. She ripped the lid off, spun the bin upside down and clambered on top of it so she could scale the wall ahead, her chest burning with fear and strain.
Her foot twisted. She fell sideways with a cry, crunching into the side wall, her right arm going numb. She sobbed, cursing her clumsiness as she fell sprawling to the ground. Now the ripe-smelling dog was descending on her. The moon was a frown above her, and a scream, stuck in her throat, was strangling her. She grabbed the metal dustbin lid by the handle and swung it hard into the dog’s snout. Her trapped scream came out as a small warlike roar. The dog snapped its huge jaws around the rim of the lid and pulled it from Molly’s grasp. Now, without hope, she heard a screeching meow and looked up—
There was a cat standing on top of the garden gate to her left, hissing and threatening, its fur standing vertical, giving it an electrified look.
“Gabriel!”
The dog’s huge head swung round, and in a single muscular motion the creature leapt up at the gate, its front paws hammering into the wood, nails digging in. Gabriel was dislodged; he slipped from the top of the gate, towards the dog’s teeth. Vertical, clinging to the gate by his claws, the cat kicked furiously with his back legs in an attempt to scramble to safety, but the gate was juddering violently as the dog pounded at it, and Gabriel stood no chance.
Meanwhile Molly was straining to hold the bin aloft.
She brought the bin down over the dog’s head, encasing the creature in metal, just before Gabriel fell. The cat landed on the upturned base and leapt down into the alley. With a great groan, Molly toppled the bin sideways. The dog’s hind quarters, protruding, thrashed fearsomely. Molly gave the dustbin a kick and watched it roll down the alley, Gabriel skittering out of the way, and it was then that Molly noticed a silhouette at the alley’s mouth.
Benton Furlock!
He halted – and then he began to lope up the alley towards Molly with alarming speed.
Molly upended the remaining dustbin, shoved it against the wall and climbed onto it. Gabriel mounted the wall fluidly and meowed encouragement from the top while she hoisted herself up, managing to fling a leg over the wall. She looked over her shoulder and saw Furlock running silently up the alley, his white face shining, left hand still tucked into his flowing coat. Molly flopped into the scratchy embrace of the blue-barked tangletree on the other side of the wall. She fell through the spiky branches, spores filling her nostrils and making her sneeze, and as she slithered to the ground she heard the wolfish dog’s growls.
It had got free. Within seconds it had reached the head of the alley and vaulted onto the upturned dustbin. Molly saw its head and paws as it sought to surmount the wall.
She glared left and right.
Where on earth am I?
Thimble Street.
Faces in windows, people were wondering what the hullabaloo was about. They saw the twig-riddled girl and drew their curtains.
Then Molly saw that a light was on in the old chapel halfway down the road. The little wooden door was open. The exterior was covered with posters promoting Mayor de Ville.
As the dog cleared the wall and fought its way down the tree, Molly grabbed Gabriel and ran for both their lives.