THE TIMBREL TEAROOMS, FAMILY-RUN SINCE 1788, were famed not so much for their tea as for their tea leaves, which were excellent for fortune-telling. Colourful Victorian adverts hung framed on the walls:
Generations of soothsayers had met with clients in the little lamp-lit booths that filled the five floors, to share a pot of Timbrel Tea and then read the leaves at the bottom of the cup. Some teas were good for predicting romance or happy turns of fortune; some could help foresee trouble. Others – stronger teas for stronger stomachs – opened the gateways to darker knowledge. The place was no longer licensed for fortune-telling, though Molly had heard rumours that after midnight, the current owners (spectrally pale siblings with a habit of suddenly appearing at your table) would secretly admit local seers and their customers. Molly had not managed to verify or disprove these rumours.
It was in a booth on the otherwise empty top floor that Molly, Lowry and Carl sat this afternoon as the sun struggled to filter through the ghostly window drapes.
Carl unfastened his satchel and withdrew his tatty sketchpad. He opened it. It was full of doodles – comic-book art and different styles of handwriting, including what looked like forged signatures. He found a particular page and pushed the book towards Molly and Lowry.
“I’ll start at the beginning,” he said. “Our dorm prefect at the orphanage caught me drawing demons one night after lights out. I can draw in the dark – it’s one of my skills. Anyway, my book got confiscated and I was sent to Mr Furlock. I was petrified. But he didn’t shout at me. He didn’t even seem angry. He returned my book and told me that I had to work for him.”
The present Mr Timbrel appeared suddenly at the table with cakes, scones and tea. The children jumped. Mr Timbrel gave Molly an odd look (he and his sister always gave Molly odd looks), set the tray down and migrated away.
Lowry snatched the biggest scone.
“What did he want you to do?” Molly asked.
“He didn’t say. But he said he’d pay me. So when he told me to meet him at Loonchance Manor at midnight, I said OK.”
“Are you deranged?” said Lowry through a mouthful of scone. “You went to Loonchance Manor to meet a man who looks like he ties damsels to railway lines?”
Molly had taken out her own notepad and pen. “What’s Loonchance Manor like inside?”
“It’s really creepy at night,” said Carl. “We got in through a secret back door behind a black rosebush. I got tangled on the thorns. Then we went down this spiral staircase to the crypts underneath the house.”
Lowry sprayed scone crumbs. “You went with him into the crypts? Carl, you are an absolute…”
“Lowry, shush,” said Molly. “Carl, what happened next?”
Carl slurped his tea shakily. Although he should have been hotter than a baked potato in his parka, he was turning paler and paler as he recalled that night. “We went through the crypts. I don’t think they were the same crypts that the Ghoul Tour visits. There weren’t any signs or displays or waxwork figures. But I could hear sounds.”
“What like?”
“Cogs moving. Liquid bubbling. I got the sense that Mr Furlock was running some kind of secret operation down there. He was dragging me by the arm and we went down some dark corridors. Then he opened a door and there was a round room with a fire in it – but the fire’s flames were blue, and the room was cold… And there was a picture on the wall of a weird, horrible woman. Horrible but kind of beautiful. And … and…”
Carl scrunched his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead, as though the memory was giving him a migraine.
“What happened, Carl?” Molly whispered, her pen poised.
Carl put a hand to his arm. “Suddenly Mr Furlock dragged me to the fireplace and took something from the freezing cold fire. It looked like one of those old-fashioned pens – the ones made of feathers.”
“A quill?” Molly looked up from her notepad.
“Yeah, one of those. A quill. But it was made of metal, and really long, and the pointy end was glowing blue. He held it near my arm and it was icy cold but it burnt through my jumper. Then he sort of drew a picture in the air with it, and I felt this crazy coldness go right under my skin.”
“Couldn’t you run away?” asked Lowry.
“He was holding me by the other arm.”
“What next?” asked Molly, doodling a picture of Furlock clutching Carl and brandishing the frozen quill.
“Then he dragged me back up the stairs. I was screaming all the way. But by the time we got back to the lobby, my arm was OK.”
Molly stopped doodling. “What do you mean, OK?”
“Obviously my jumper was ruined, but there was no mark on my arm. No pain, no coldness. Nothing. Then Mr Furlock told me that I was one of his workers now, and that it was a great honour and I should be proud of myself. He said that I should report to him by the tree behind Loonchance Manor whenever he summoned me. I asked him how he’d summon me, but he just told me to leave. Then, a couple of days later, the mark appeared again. Next my arm started to go icy cold and I realized: the symbol on my skin is how Mr Furlock summons me. I went to Loonchance Manor and Mr Furlock was there, by the tree near the rosebush, and he gave me a job to do. I’ve been working for him ever since. I get the feeling that my arm’s going to start going cold again soon…”
“What kind of jobs does he make you do?” Molly asked.
“Always the same thing. I deliver letters.”
“To who?”
Carl looked distressed. “That’s the thing. I delivered three letters to a man named Gerald Keepmoat. Then he fell off a ladder and now he’s in a coma. I delivered about ten letters to Mrs Fullsway – and she died. I delivered five letters to Stan Cromble—”
“And he had a deep-fat fryer accident,” said Lowry. “Coincidence?”
“Doubt it,” said Molly. “Flipping Nora, Carl – you never delivered letters to my dad, did you? David Thompson?”
“No!”
“Has Furlock ever mentioned him?”
“Never.”
“And have you ever opened one of the letters?”
“I can’t,” said Carl. “They’ve got those old-fashioned wax seals on the back.”
“And you say Furlock has others working for him? Other kids from the orphanage?”
“He said I was one of his workers, but I don’t know if the others deliver letters.”
“But there could be more people getting these letters? More people in danger?”
“Maybe! I don’t know! I’ve told you everything I know now.” He ran his hands through his oily mop. “I swear, Molly, you’re like a bloodhound.”
Molly glared thoughtfully at the ceiling and tapped her teeth with her pen. “We’re going to have to find a way into the crypts underneath Loonchance Manor. We’ll take pictures of whatever it is that Furlock’s doing down there – get some hard evidence that Furlock’s up to something evil. Carl, d’you think we could sneak onto the Ghoul Tour and then slink off and find Furlock’s secret crypts?”
“Too risky. The tour guides would catch us.” He rubbed his eyes and checked his watch. “I need to go now. What are you doing on Tuesday?”
On the back of Mrs de Ville’s street map was a list of other tasks planned for the summer. Molly checked it. “At midday until four I’m helping to clean Howlfair Museum with Doris de Ville’s crew.”
“I’ll meet you afterwards. I’ll try to think of the best way into Loonchance Manor. But don’t breathe a word of any of this to anyone until I see you. Promise?”
Molly promised.
As the children left the tearooms, Lowry leading the way, Carl slipped Molly a crumpled note. Molly opened her mouth to say something, but Carl silenced her with a glare. The note was for her alone. He pulled up his fur-lined hood and headed back to the orphanage.
“I’m not sure I trust him,” said Lowry when Molly caught up with her, having pocketed the note. “There’s something dodgy about his story.”
“Dodgy?”
“I can’t put my finger on it. Let’s just … be careful. That’s all I’m saying.” She stopped and checked her watch and then handed her carrier bag to Molly. “I’ve got to go. But listen, I wanted to make you a deal.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I promise I’ll be more open-minded about your ghoul visit if you’ll just look at my research into the Kroglin–Evans werewolf connection. I’ve been thinking that maybe my gran is a new kind of werewolf, one that hasn’t been studied yet.”
Molly looked into the bag. It contained Mr Wetherill’s almanac and one of Lowry’s scrapbooks full of pictures and notes. She was tempted to roll her eyes, but she thought about how Felicity Quick had called her nasty, and she stopped herself. “Deal,” she said, and held out her hand.
Lowry shook it, then tightened her grip. “Promise you’ll read it? Before the blue moon? Just in case there’s a chance that the blue moon will make me change into a slavering hairy beast of doom?”
Molly thought that she had more important things to attend to before the blue moon, such as saving Howlfair from a man who could summon ghouls. But her friend looked so hopeful that she felt compelled to agree. Also, she was afraid that Lowry would crush her fingers if she said no.
“Promise,” Molly said.
On the way home, she stopped in the doorway of Ablemarch’s Department Store for Children and unfolded Carl’s note. Here’s what he’d written:
Molly frowned. Why would she need to go to the orphanage alone? Without, say, Lowry?
Maybe Carl didn’t trust Lowry any more than Lowry trusted Carl.
She stuffed the note back into her pocket and headed to Howlfair Infirmary to visit Gran. She had an important question about cats to ask her.