IT WAS OFFICIAL – MOLLY COULD NOT impersonate an owl.
She’d assumed it would be easy. But after standing by the lamppost outside the orphanage for five minutes experimenting with different noises, she was growing frustrated.
She tried again. No use – she sounded like a dove being flushed down the toilet.
Tried again. No, that sounded like a steam train.
Tried again. No. That was a Wookiee trapped in a car boot.
“Stop giving me that I-could-do-a-better-owl-impersonation-and-I’m-a-cat look, Gabriel,” she hissed.
There was only one solution: just shout Twit-twoo.
“Twit twoooo!”
From behind a nearby tree came a giggle.
“Carl!” Molly whispered. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Seems like for ever,” said Carl Grobman in his oversized parka, grinning as he headed towards her. “I was already outside.”
“Doing what?”
“Walking. Thinking. Trying to stay awake.” He lowered his fur-lined hood and blew his scruffy fringe from his eyes. “Why are you here? You look upset.”
“I need to know whether you’ve dreamt about her too.”
Carl blanched. His dark eyes twitched. “You mean the lady with the moths.”
“Her name is Lady Orgella. The Mistress of Ghouls. She’s a demon. Furlock put her mark on your arm.”
Carl looked appalled.
“Follow me,” said Molly. “Let me show you something.”
“Where are we going? And why is that cat following us?”
“The museum,” said Molly. “And he’s protecting us.”
“You have a cat protector?”
“He’s my oldest friend, I’ll have you know,” said Molly. “And he’s a tough cookie.”
Howlfair Museum was a great three-horned silhouette. The trio of turrets grasped clawlike towards the dark sky. Flags flapped in the escalating wind storm; Molly shone her torch towards the biggest of them.
“The mark on your arm – it’s on the flag. Bottom right corner. You can check it out tomorrow when it’s light. Sit down – I’ll show you.”
They sat on a bench below a yew tree and Molly withdrew the vellum print of the flag from her satchel, along with her notepads.
“It’s hard to see without a magnifying glass,” Molly said, directing her torch beam at the print of the flag, “but you can just about make out the shape.” The vellum’s edges flapped in the wind. “It’s the mark of Lady Orgella. She gives people the power to control ghouls. She told me in a dream. Tonight.”
“She told you?”
“Yeah,” said Molly. “She said that Benton Furlock is going to help her to bring back the Dark Days – the days when there were monsters in our town. And when the Ethelhael Valley’s dark enough for her, she’s going to come up from Hell herself, and set up a new kingdom, with Howlfair as its capital.”
“Flipping heck,” said Carl miserably. “Since I got branded I’ve seen her every time I sleep, in my dreams – but we never chat about her plans to take over the world.”
“So what happens? In your dreams?”
“She always starts out as a really nice teacher – I’m at school and everyone in the class is my friend. But then the lady changes, and the kids in the class change. Into monsters. Ghouls. They have blue left eyes. The lady’s just like the one in the painting I saw in the crypt underneath Loonchance Manor. She’s got grey hair and a blue eyepatch, and she opens her mouth and breathes in and I get dragged towards her…”
“That happened to me, too!”
“So you know what happens next…”
Molly looked at him. “Um, do your parents … come and save you?”
Carl frowned, confused. “Nobody comes to save me. The lady’s mouth gapes really wide as she breathes me in… I go into the darkness and I go into Hell and I scream until I wake up.”
“Flipping Nora,” said Molly. She felt a wave of desperate pity for Carl Grobman, and put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, then settled. “This happens every night?” she asked.
“Not every night – only if I sleep,” Carl said. “I try not to sleep if I can help it.” He rubbed his eyes. “So … in your dream, did someone save you? Was it your dad?”
“Yeah. He already knew who Lady Orgella was. He…”
“What’s he like?” Carl blurted. “I mean, what was your dad like when he was alive? He must’ve really cared about you if he turned up in your dream.”
Molly rolled up the map. “He was lovely. And very silly. But in a good way. And friendly – he liked to make friends with people that everyone else avoided. He was always laughing and smiling.” She put the map back in her satchel. “I wanted to be like him.”
“Maybe if you ever smiled, you would be.”
“What? I smile! I smile all the time! Look.”
She attempted a smile.
“That’s not a smile,” said Carl. “That’s just showing me your teeth.”
“Listen, Carl, I’m going to find a way to get this demon out of your life. That’s a promise. And whatever evil mischief Benton Furlock has in store for this town, we’re going to stop him from becoming mayor, and we’re going to get him to spill all of his secrets.”
“How?”
“You’re going to find a way into Loonchance Manor and I’m going to photograph everything down there, and we’re going to give the evidence to someone who can help us reverse whatever black magic it is that Furlock’s doing.”
“But who can help us?”
“Mr Wetherill.”
Carl spluttered. “Mr Wetherill? What are you talking about?”
“Trust me – he knows how to help. But he won’t help us unless we can get evidence. Now look at this.”
She took out Wetherill’s almanac and a notepad. “The blue eye patch,” she said. “The blue ring around Lady Orgella’s emblem on the flag. The blue left eyes of the ghouls you see in your dreams. Blue circles, blue circles. What does the blue circle mean?”
“Um…”
“The blue moon!”
“Ah.”
“She’s also known as the Lady of the Double Mirror. I think that’s another reference to the blue moon – in old magic spell books you often find the full moon described as a mirror, and a double mirror would be two full moons in a month.” Carl was looking confused. “You do know that a blue moon is the second of two full moons in the same month?”
“Um, no.”
“Well, you do now,” said Molly. “In the dream, Lady Orgella told me that I was going to summon her on the blue moon, and then I’d get some ghoul companions.”
“You? Summon her?”
“She was bluffing. I’m hardly going to summon a demon, am I? And I told her that I wouldn’t like any ghoul friends, thanks.”
“I would,” Carl muttered. “Imagine having ghouls who did whatever you told them to! I could get my own back on a few people at school…”
“Not funny, Carl.” Molly flapped through the pages of the almanac, cross-referencing with her own notes. “Now look at this. Every single recorded ghoul outbreak in Howlfair has taken place after a blue moon. If Lady Orgella is the demon who gives you control over ghouls, and you summon her on a blue moon, then Furlock must’ve summoned her at least three years ago, because that’s when the last blue moon was. But I think he summoned her way earlier than that.”
“Why?”
Molly turned the pages of Wetherill’s almanac. “Every ghoul outbreak in Howlfair is linked to a person who’s just experienced a tragedy – like when Daphne Loonchance’s fiancé and best friend died. Or when Furlock’s business partner died.”
“Business partner?”
“There used to be a property surveying company called Furlock and Halfstar – I read about it in an old copy of the Ethelhael Panopticon. Preston Halfstar got ill and died eleven years ago – just two months before a blue moon. It was a big tragedy in Furlock’s life. And if Furlock summoned Lady Orgella right after that tragedy, then he’s been controlling ghouls for…”
“Eleven years.”
“Exactly. He probably keeps them locked up in those secret crypts under Loonchance Manor. If we can just find a way into the crypts, we can take photos of his dodgy operations.”
Carl suddenly looked shamefaced. “Molly, I’m not sure I could face going into those crypts again.”
Molly said, “I’ll be with you.”
Carl smiled weakly.
He took some deep breaths.
“OK, I’ll try to find us a way in,” he said at last. “I’ll see if I can pick the lock of the secret door.”
“How come you know how to pick locks?”
Gabriel was weaving around the legs of the bench, and Carl reached down to stroke his head. “Remember I told you about a friend from school who laughed at the memories I thought were of my parents?”
“’Course.”
“She’s the daughter of a locksmith, and she taught me some basic skills.”
“Wait – you were friends with Felicity Quick?”
“Not for long,” he said, looking at Gabriel, who was now leaning against Molly’s leg. “By the way, what was Lowry talking about yesterday? You were arguing about werewolves…”
Molly sighed. “She thinks a werewolf curse runs in her family, and she’s going to inherit it from her grandmother.”
“And you think she’s making it all up?”
“I think it’s all in her imagination,” said Molly. “Werewolfism isn’t a magical curse that runs in families and skips generations – it’s more like a virus.”
Carl mulled this over. “Maybe you don’t want to take Lowry seriously because everything else in your life is so strange. Maybe you want one thing in your life that’s normal.”
Molly scoffed. “What, you think I should seriously consider the possibility that Lowry Evans might be plagued with a curse that isn’t mentioned in any book ever written about werewolves?”
“Maybe there’s a book on werewolves that hasn’t been written yet,” he reasoned. “Are you going to tell her about your dream?”
“I don’t think so,” said Molly, remembering how she and Lowry had argued about the tangletree spores. “She’d probably just say I must have eaten too much cheese for dinner. Which happens to be true, but that’s not why I dreamt of Lady Orgella.”
Carl nodded. He looked at the moon. “I need to get back to the orphanage,” he said. “As soon as I’ve had a look at the lock on the door to Loonchance Manor and found out how to break in, I’ll get in touch with you.” He stood up. “You’re the nicest friend I’ve ever had,” he stammered, blushing profoundly after the words were out, and then he hoisted up his hood and headed into the night.