Soul Stealer Read online

  The last period of the day involved returning to the chemistry laboratory to be dismissed by Mr. Yoland, who stood by the door as they filed out.

  Walking past the teacher, Pip momentarily felt the strangest sensation. Although he was standing at least two meters from her with his arms folded across his chest, looking down the corridor at the other departing pupils, she somehow felt he was reaching out towards her. It was, she thought, as if she was going through a sort of magnetic field which was attracting every cell in her body, tingling every muscle and tugging at every nerve. A meter behind Mr. Yoland stood Scrotton, ostensibly rummaging in a grubby sports bag yet watching her intently at the same time.

  “Well, kids, how’s your day been?” asked Mr. Ledger as they got into his car.

  “It’s a huge school,” Tim said. “Lots of equipment and stuff. Not like the junior school at all.”

  “No,” said Mr. Ledger. “This is the real thing. Secondary education. Learning in the raw! No more playing in the sandpit, sitting on the story mat, cuddling Georgie the gerbil and eating the play dough.”

  “Do you have any idea at all what we actually did in junior school, Dad?” Pip inquired.

  For a moment, Mr. Ledger took his eyes off the road ahead and grinned broadly at them over the back of the driver’s seat.

  “Not a clue,” he said and he winked.

  Immediately after tea, Pip and Tim went up to their rooms, arranged their school books on their bedroom shelves and changed out of their uniforms. Pip then sat on her bed and, with Tim at her side, leaned towards the wall, giving a few tentative taps on the wooden paneling. For a moment, there was silence before she and Tim could just discern the distant sound of Sebastian coming up through the wall, rising along the secret passage from his place under the ground.

  Over the weeks, since their battle with de Loudéac, they had seen little of Sebastian. A few times, they had caught sight of him in the distance, down by the river, usually in the evening, a solitary figure slowly walking along the bank deep in thought, his hands thrust behind his back. Twice, he had turned away from the river and come up to the house, but he had not stayed long and had said very little. When Pip asked him what he was thinking about, he was reticent and remarked only that, despite their vanquishing of de Loudéac, he still felt ill at ease and the aqua soporiferum, the potion that induced sleep, would not yet let him fall into a deep slumber. This, he continued, was a sign that something remained amiss, although he could not identify it. When Tim had asked if he was worried that Malodor might return, he had evaded the question and simply said there remained much evil abroad in the world.

  Sebastian soon materialized in Pip’s bedroom, climbing out from behind the panel in the wall and closing it behind him.

  “Has your day been a good day?” he inquired, sitting cross-legged on the floor before Pip and Tim. “How is your new school?”

  “Big,” Tim replied. “It must have at least a thousand pupils and over fifty teachers.”

  “We’ve got the head of chemistry as our homeroom teacher,” Pip added.

  “Strange guy,” Tim went on. “He’s got the hearing of a bat. I hummed something and he picked it up at five meters. Bit strict, but then we’re in his laboratory for a homeroom, so I suppose he has to be.”

  “There’s more to him than that,” Pip went on. “He’s creepy. When he looks at you, you get the feeling he’s sort of studying you.”

  “Really,” Sebastian replied thoughtfully, adding, “describe him to me.”

  Tim conjured up a mental picture of the teacher. “He’s tall,” he began, “thin, long bony fingers. Brown hair going gray. Weird haircut. Bald on top. Sticks out at the sides. A bit like Krusty the Clown’s, only not green.”

  Sebastian looked nonplussed. “Never mind,” Pip said, “you won’t have heard of Krusty.”

  “Quite a pointed nose,” Tim continued.

  “With hairs sprouting from the nostrils,” Pip cut in. “Earholes are pretty hairy, too.”

  “Of what age would you consider him?” Sebastian asked.

  “Mid-fifties,” Tim guessed, continuing, “pale skin, large ears.”

  “And his eyes?” Sebastian inquired.

  An involuntary shudder ran down Pip’s back. Something told her this interrogation was taking a nasty turn.

  “Dark,” she reported. “Sort of deep. The light from the window reflected in them,” she paused, “as if there was a flame burning way down inside him, in the middle of his head. And,” she went on, “he uses a strong aftershave.”

  “Of herbs and citrus fruit?” Sebastian asked.

  Another ripple of fear ran down Pip’s spine.

  “Yes,” she nodded and said, “thyme and lemons.”

  “It was not as you suppose a balm for shaving,” Sebastian continued. “It was the scent of a pomander.”

  “A what?” Tim replied.

  “In my father’s time,” Sebastian explained, “it was believed that noxious odors caused disease and, if one could counteract them with a pleasant smell, the risk of infection was much reduced. Thus people carried lemons and such fruit with them, often pierced with cloves, to produce a strong and beneficial scent. Of course, only the wealthy were able to do this, for such fruit were both rare and costly.”

  “Sort of like aromatherapy,” Pip remarked. “Did it work?”

  “No,” Sebastian said bluntly, “it did not. One cannot control sickness merely with vapors.”

  “At the end of the day,” Pip went on, “as we were dismissed, I had the strangest feeling. Going past him, I had the impression he was sort of magnetizing me. He wasn’t looking at me and he wasn’t close, and yet…”

  “And the pendant?” Sebastian inquired.

  “I couldn’t look at it much without drawing attention to it,” Pip admitted, “but, during registration, it vibrated.”

  A realization began to dawn on Tim.

  “Are you saying,” he asked Sebastian, “that our homeroom teacher…?”

  “Finally,” Sebastian continued, ignoring him, “in your class, is there a boy of diminutive stature who seems quite objectionable?”

  It was Tim’s turn to nod.

  “And his name, dare I hazard,” Sebastian added, “is Guy Scratton.”

  “Scrotton,” Tim corrected him. “Guy Scrotton.”

  “Time changes words,” Sebastian replied, adding pensively, “and I would wager the master’s name is Yoland.”

  “Yes,” Tim confirmed in a voice little louder than a trembling whisper.

  “You mean you know them?” Pip asked incredulously, a feeling of intense dread welling up through her entire body as if she were being filled with liquid fear.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Sebastian answered. “Let us say I was once acquainted with them, many years ago.”

  “Hang on!” Tim exclaimed. “Are you telling us Scrotton and Yoland’re like you, six hundred and something years old?”

  “And they can hibernate like you?” Pip asked.

  “No,” replied Sebastian. “They are both ignorant of aqua soporiferum which permits me, as you put it, to hibernate. Only I possess that knowledge, handed down to me by my father. Yet do you recall,” he went on, “the threefold aims of alchemy, of which I have informed you?”

  “Make a homunculus, turn common metals into gold, and achieve immortality,” Tim said.

  “The latter,” Sebastian added, “was to be done by the discovery of the elixir vitae, or elixir of life, otherwise known as aurum potabile, or liquid gold. Yoland has clearly obtained an elixir, but it seems not to be the actual potion, for he continues to age, if slowly.”

  “And Scrotton also has a sip of this brew off and on?” Tim surmised.

  “Indeed, no,” Sebastian retorted. “Scrotton has no need of the elixir. He simply does not die.”

  “Like yeah!” Tim retorted. “That’s impossible. Everything living dies at some time.”

  “On the contrary,” Sebastian said. “Scrott
on has already died, long ago, and is now — how can I put it…”

  “Resurrected?” Pip suggested incredulously.

  “Not exactly,” Sebastian replied. “More preserved.”

  “Preserved!” Pip exclaimed.

  “You mean like a pickled onion?” Tim went on. He looked at Pip. “Might account for the whiff.”

  “Do you know of embalming?” Sebastian then asked.

  “The ancient Egyptians did it to their dead pharaohs,” Tim replied. “I saw it on the History Channel.”

  “The reason for that,” Sebastian explained, “was so that they could be reborn again in human form in the afterlife.”

  “So Scrotton’s a reborn ancient Egyptian!” Pip blurted out.

  “The curse of the pharaohs in the flesh?” Tim added, raising his hands, gnarling his fingers into crooked hooks and flailing his arms. “The mummy returns!”

  “No,” Sebastian said, “the knowledge of embalming was brought to these shores by Phoenician sailors well before the time of Our Lord Jesus. Ancient Britons learnt of it from them. Scrotton, I am certain, has never left these shores.”

  “So how old is he?” Tim asked.

  “I would think,” Sebastian answered, “he is probably the better part of 6,000 years old by now”

  Pip and Tim fell silent.

  “I just can’t get my head around this,” Tim said at length.

  “Are you telling us,” Pip rejoined, “that we’ve got a 6,000-year-old ancient British boy in our class?”

  “Maybe his father worked as a brickie when they built Stonehenge,” Tim ventured glibly.

  “I know not what you mean by brickie,” Sebastian replied, “but, yes, it is not inconceivable he was present at the construction of that megalithic monument.”

  “Might be an idea, sis,” Tim suggested pensively, “to copy off him in history tests.”

  “It may well be,” Sebastian agreed, “for Scrotton is not as stupid as he may seem. He is, after all, a familiar.”

  “A familiar what?” Tim replied.

  Sebastian smiled a little indulgently. “I use the word as a noun, not as an adjective. A familiar is a companion, sometimes to an alchemist, sometimes to anyone who is involved in the magic arts.”

  “You mean like witches always had black cats or toads or something?” Tim suggested.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Sebastian agreed, “although talk of such things is more folklore than fact. A true familiar was more like a personal servant,” he went on, “who catered to his master’s or mistress’s needs and assisted them in their work. In time, the most experienced familiars became almost as learned as those for whom they worked, for they picked up experience and knowledge along the way.”

  It was then that Pip and Tim remembered the words of the boy standing next to them by the lockers: he sucks up to teachers. This remark suddenly took on a whole new meaning — Scrotton might be Yoland’s familiar. Pip, for what she thought must have been the first time in her life, felt for her brother’s hand on the duvet and held it tightly.

  “So,” she asked quaveringly, not wanting to hear the answer, “who — or what — is Yoland?”

  “You will recall,” Sebastian commenced, “my speaking to you of my father who was alchemist to the court of King Henry the Fifth. When the King died, you remember how there was a power struggle to gain control and how Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, claimed the regency of the infant King Henry the Sixth?”

  Pip and Tim nodded.

  “When Gloucester’s plan to be regent was thwarted,” Sebastian went on, “and his brother, the Duke of Bedford, was appointed regent, Gloucester set about seeking to gain power by all means. He became Protector and Defender of the Kingdom and Church and was ennobled as the Earl of Pembroke. Deeply embroiled in political activities, he needed to be able to assess what his opponents were planning. To achieve this, he needed assistance and turned to Yoland, taking him into his employ. They had first met when Yoland was a student of theology at Balliol College, in the University of Oxford.”

  “So Yoland was employed by Gloucester as an alchemist like your father?” Pip suggested.

  “Yes!” Tim exclaimed, a sequence of events rapidly unfolding in his mind. “If he could find the way to turn iron into gold, Gloucester could have become immensely rich and raised an army and then…”

  Sebastian held up his hand. “A fair hypothesis,” he said, “but incorrect, for Yoland was not an experienced alchemist. The transmutation of metals or the fashioning of a homunculus was quite beyond his abilities. Although he possessed some alchemical knowledge from his studies, he was more of a mage, what one might call today a magician.”

  “A magician?” queried Tim. “You mean he pulled rabbits out of hats and eggs out of your ears?”

  “No,” said Sebastian with a hint of impatience at Tim’s frivolity. “He was a mage, a wise man, someone who accumulated knowledge. What you describe were the actions of court entertainers and jesters.”

  “What sort of knowledge?” Pip asked.

  Sebastian thought for a minute. “Yoland was fascinated by alchemy, as were many educated men at that time, but his real interest lay in…” He paused and looked out of the window towards the river, “… understanding the baser instincts of men. I suppose you might call him a kind of an…” Sebastian paused again, “… evil psychiatrist, a man who seeks to…”

  “… get inside other people’s heads?” Tim suggested.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Sebastian responded. “His aim was to comprehend people’s motivation by searching their souls. If he could understand their desires, he could manipulate their souls. In effect, steal them.”

  “Steal them…?” Pip said.

  “Not steal in the sense one might a coin or valuable object,” Sebastian explained. “More to gain control over. One only has to know some of the thoughts harbored in another’s soul to discover that person’s innermost secrets and enter their very being. And the deeper one may go, the greater the control.”

  “What you really mean,” Tim said, “is that once Yoland got inside the head of one of Gloucester’s enemies, he could tell what it was he was after so Gloucester could give it to him and sort of buy him.”

  “Indeed!” Sebastian exclaimed. “And this is exactly what happened. Yet all did not go well for Gloucester. In time, he gained many enemies and his wife was imprisoned in Leeds Castle in the county of Kent, accused of sorcery. Some of his followers whom he bought, as you put it, Tim, were accused of conspiring to kill the King and put their master on the throne in his stead. Gloucester’s son, Arthur, was among them.”

  “And after the plot was uncovered,” said Pip, “all his men were executed, I suppose.”

  “No,” Sebastian replied, “the King pardoned them. His Majesty, you see, knew of Yoland and his powers. He believed Gloucester’s men and son had been bewitched.”

  “What happened to Gloucester?” Pip asked.

  “He died in 1447,” Sebastian replied. “Some believed, poisoned by followers of the Earl of Suffolk, one of his enemies. Others declared he died of palsy. Yet I heard talk and believe that Yoland killed him so that no one might discover his part in the planned overthrow of the King.”

  “How did Yoland kill him?” Tim inquired.

  Sebastian answered, “To the best of my knowledge, by giving him a honey and saffron quiche containing henbane.”

  “Quite a thought,” Tim mused. “Our homeroom teacher is a murderer, a mind-bender and a traitor. They don’t come worse that that! Except,” he added, “maybe the Duke of Gloucester.”

  “Do not judge Gloucester too harshly,” Sebastian responded. “He was known by many as the Good Duke Humfrey. He was a widely read and a very educated man and a great collector of books which he gave to the University of Oxford, where they remain to this day in a grand building called Duke Humfrey’s Library.”

  “So you can go there and borrow them?” Tim asked in amazement.

  Sebastian s
miled. “They are not lent, being most rare, but you may enter the library and see them.”

  “Cool!” Tim exclaimed.

  “Let me get this right,” Pip said. “Yoland is able to look into people’s minds, see what they are thinking and then corrupt them.”

  “Yes,” Sebastian agreed bluntly.

  “So Yoland can read minds!” Tim exclaimed. “And now he’s our homeroom teacher. Cosmic!” he added ironically. “No more lame sorry-my-homework’s-late-the-cat-threw-up-on-it excuses. Tell him a lie and he’ll see through it. But he doesn’t sound that dangerous to me. It’s not as if he can turn us into newts or snails, or make another homunculus, and I see no reason why he might want to get inside our heads. We’re school kids. Hardly worth bribing.”

  Pip listened quietly to her brother and then said, “I’m not so sure.” She looked at Sebastian. “What about his magnetizing me?”

  “He was reaching out to you,” Sebastian declared, “searching for you, to see how easily he might gain access to your mind.”

  Pip shivered at the thought and whispered, “Why me? What’s in my mind that he can want? A knowledge of the best shampoo for split ends? Where to get film-star gossip on the Internet?”

  “That remains to be seen,” Sebastian answered, which did nothing to ease Pip’s anguish.

  At that moment, Mrs. Ledger called up the stairs, announcing supper.

  “I shall depart,” Sebastian declared, “to consider this turn of events. We shall meet again later this evening.”

  He opened the panel in the wall, slipping through as it closed behind him. They could hear him descending the passageway in the wall. He made less noise than a mouse in the woodwork.

  “I presume you have no homework?” asked their mother as they sat down to supper.

  “Not yet,” said Tim. “We’ve not really begun any classes.”

  “It will come,” their father predicted solemnly. “You can count on that. You’ll soon forget how to operate a television remote.”

  After supper, Sebastian reappeared in Tim’s bedroom as he sat at his computer, playing a rally driving game. For some minutes, he watched over Tim’s shoulder as he swung a bright silver virtual Toyota Land Cruiser over a tortuous succession of sand dunes on the Paris—Dakar Rally. It was not until Tim reached the next checkpoint that Sebastian spoke.