Soul Stealer Read online

  “I have been considering the situation,” he announced. “Let us talk.”

  Stopping for Pip in her room, they went downstairs and out through the kitchen. As they passed her, Mrs. Ledger said pleasantly, “Hello, Sebastian!”

  “Good evening, Mrs. Ledger,” he answered. “I hope you are well.”

  “I’m in fine spirits, thank you,” she replied, smiling.

  Going by the open kitchen window, Pip and Tim overheard their mother say to their father, “That Sebastian is such a polite boy. You’d hardly think he was a modern lad at all!” Pip and Tim grinned at each other and kept on walking.

  Dusk was falling as they made their way over the fields towards the river, following a path Mr. Ledger had mown across the meadow. Once they reached the stand of willows that leaned out over the water, they turned and made their way along the bank in the direction of the copse of trees known since Sebastian’s father’s day as the Garden of Eden. Rafts of dead leaves and twigs flowed by on the current. The water was black and running fast. Tim tried to see if there were any trout in the places where the river ran over a stony bed, but his eyes were unable to penetrate the surface in the failing light.

  On reaching the edge of the trees, Sebastian led the way into the cover and headed for the clearing in the middle of the copse. The beds of alchemical herbs which Pip had tidied only weeks before were now overgrown, many of the plants gone to seed or dying off. Those which were perennials were heavy with fruit or overripe berries and looked drab. In the center of the clearing stood a new oak bench which Mrs. Ledger had had placed there. She had come to love the little stand of trees, often going there on summer weekend afternoons to read or just sit with Mr. Ledger, a tray of tortilla crisps and a bottle of chilled wine or a jug of iced margarita, Mrs. Ledger’s favorite summer drink, between them. Several times she had said to Pip or Tim how peaceful the clearing was, how the rest of the world hardly seemed to exist when she was there with a good book.

  “It’s really quite a magical place,” she remarked more than once.

  Her children always smiled indulgently but said nothing.

  For a few minutes, Sebastian walked around the clearing, breaking off seed-heads or dead leaves and placing them in a small leather pouch hanging from his belt. When he was done, he pointed to the bench and said, “Let us be seated.”

  Across the river, a cock pheasant started to chirp loudly in the long grass, another taking up the call over towards the quarry. The grating sound set Pip’s nerves on edge. Overhead, small birds flitted silently between the boughs as they made for their night roosts. A small breeze riffled through the branches, the leaves whispering.

  “So?” Tim asked at length, breaking their silence. “What’s going down, Sebastian? What’s Yoland’s game?”

  Sebastian paused for a moment and then answered, “Whatever it is, be certain it is not a game. He shares not Malodor’s aim of creating a homunculus, for he has not the skill. He may be seeking to perfect the making of au-rum potabile, but I do not believe this to be the case. He has no immediate need of it, for he is aging so slowly. He may, however, be concentrating on the transmutation of base metals into gold. Yet again, I think not.”

  “Has that ever been achieved?” Pip inquired with more than a hint of skepticism.

  Sebastian smiled faintly and admitted, “There were many charlatans in my father’s time who claimed success in order to gain favor with powerful men, but I saw no genuine proof. Yet,” he went on, “it is possible, for science has achieved this aim in the present day. One element may indeed be transformed into another under the right conditions, with great heat and pressure. My father deduced the theory, yet the necessary conditions were unattainable in his lifetime. Today, they are.”

  “Yes,” Tim agreed, “but not in a glass test tube in a school laboratory.”

  “Indeed not,” Sebastian concurred. “Yet it still stands that, with the appropriate equipment, Yoland could attempt it.”

  “Yeah, right!” Tim exclaimed. “The appropriate equipment! A scientific research institution the size of a large town, a workforce of thousands, a budget of billions. Not exactly the tools available to a chemistry teacher following the National Curriculum. Besides,” he went on, “what’s the point? If you’re a government, or the Bank of England or something, it might be worth your while, but as an individual, you can’t do much with pure gold.”

  Sebastian looked puzzled. “I do not understand,” he said. “Gold is most valuable.”

  “Time for lesson number thirty-two in twenty-first-century studies,” Tim announced. “In your day, if you wanted to buy bread you took a bronze coin along to the baker and he gave you a loaf,” he went on.

  “Several loaves,” Sebastian cut in pedantically, “and the coin was silver.”

  “Whatever,” Tim said, searching for another example. “All right, how much would your father have paid for a good horse?”

  “I know not,” Sebastian replied.

  “OK,” said Tim, “but how did he pay for it?”

  “In gold coins, usually nobles, or maybe in ounces of gold,” Sebastian declared. “It was the way.”

  “Exactly,” said Tim. “Today, it’s different. Sure, if you want to buy something you could still use a coin.” He took a pound coin out of his pocket, spun it in midair, caught it and put it back in his pocket. “It looks like gold, but it’s not a gold coin at all. And it’s not worth that much either. Enough for a bag of fries if you’re lucky. What we can’t do is go to a bank and withdraw or deposit gold. Walk up to the counter and try to pay in a gold and, bingo! The alarms go off, the bars go down, the doors lock and you’ll be surrounded by the Old Bill in seconds.”

  “Old Bill who?” Sebastian asked.

  “It’s a nickname for the police,” Pip explained.

  “My point is,” Tim said, “even if Yoland had the means, making gold would be a waste of time as he couldn’t spend it or convert it into cash without raising suspicion. You can’t sell gold unless it’s already been made into something, like jewelry, and you can’t buy gold, jewelry apart, unless you’re a licensed gold dealer. All our money these days is really virtual money. He’d do better magically counterfeiting credit cards or debit cards.”

  “Debit cards?” Sebastian echoed.

  Tim took his wallet out of his hip pocket and slid his Switch card free of the leather. “This,” he held it out to Sebastian, “is a computer-coded slip of plastic which, when run through a card reader in a shop, can debit money from my savings account in the bank on the spot. I buy something but no actual money changes hands.”

  Sebastian took the card, turning it over and closely scrutinizing it.

  “This is indeed a fascinating concept,” he declared.

  From the far end of the Garden of Eden came the soft hoot of a tawny owl. Sebastian looked up, searching the trees to locate the bird.

  “Is the owl…?” Pip began.

  “There is no cause for alarm,” Sebastian quickly reassured her. “We are secure here. The owl is but an owl.”

  The bird took to the wing, flying slowly through the trees towards them. It settled on a bough of a sycamore, sending a small shower of helicopter-winged seeds pirouetting to the ground.

  “I believe,” Sebastian said finally, “you are correct, Tim. He is not trying to transmute metals for he has not the ability. Once, he tried to gain my father’s assistance in this but my father, realizing Yoland was dishonorable, refused to assist him, and his efforts came to nothing.”

  “So Yoland, like Malodor, was your father’s enemy,” Pip said.

  “Yoland,” Sebastian replied softly, “was one of those who betrayed my father. He was one of those,” he went on, “who put firebrands to my father’s pyre.”

  Tim put a consoling hand on Sebastian’s shoulder.

  The owl took to the wing once more, flying across the river and off into the gathering night. Pip watched its ungainly flight until it disappeared in the dusk.

&
nbsp; “Night falls and we must return,” Sebastian declared. “It is in the hours of darkness that evil thrives.”

  They stood up and began the walk across the field towards the house. Far off, a small flock of two dozen sheep clustered together under a spreading oak. They belonged to Geoff, a local farmer to whom Mr. Ledger gave the grazing rights. In what little daylight was left, they looked like clumps of dense mist hugging the ground. As the three of them drew near, a few of the animals rose to their feet, their rear quarters rising clumsily before their front. Tim, who was carrying his halogen flashlight, shone it on the sheep’s faces. As the beam caught their eyes they reflected a brilliant silver.

  “Look!” he joked. “They’ve got their headlights on.”

  The first period of the following morning’s timetable was biology. The teacher, a young woman called Miss Bates, was clearly passionate about her subject and eager to enthuse her pupils.

  “Biology,” she announced, “is the study of life, of living organisms smaller than a pinhead or bigger than an elephant.” To illustrate her point, she had set up a row of microscopes and specimens down one side of her laboratory. One by one the class took turns to study them. Pip was entranced by some minuscule creatures cavorting in half a centimeter of water in a flat Petri dish. According to a label next to them, they were Daphnia pulex, the common water flea. When Tim asked if they bit like dog or cat fleas, Miss Bates smiled and assured him that they did not. The next specimen was a prepared glass slide containing a butterfly’s wing, the scales iridescent under the light shining upon it. Next to that was a cross-section of a plant stem showing the various vessels carrying sap.

  As everyone made their way around this display, Tim happened to catch sight of Scrotton. He was not following everyone else but keeping close to the teacher, asking her specific questions about the specimens. She, Tim noticed, answered them but it was obvious she was annoyed by Scrotton and, eventually, she asked him to return to his seat. He obeyed but Tim saw him scowl behind her back.

  When the tour of specimens was over, Miss Bates ordered each pupil to return to one of them and draw what they saw on the first page of their biology notebooks. Tim chose a cow’s tooth that had been vertically sawn in half, showing the root, nerve canal and layers of enamel and dentin. Pip decided to attempt a water flea, accepted it was too great a task and concentrated instead on the butterfly wing, drawing as accurately as she could the veins and feathering on the edge.

  Towards the end of the lesson, Pip happened to pause and sit upright to ease her muscles. Sitting on a stool at a laboratory bench, bending forward to concentrate on the microscope and her drawing, had made her back ache. As she stretched her shoulders, she happened to look up at the rows of preserved specimens on shelves at the side of the room. In one large sealed jar, a dissected frog was spread-eagled against a sheet of Perspex, held in place by threads at the ends of its limbs. Its intestines had been removed to show its blood system, the veins and arteries stained different colors. From each organ stretched a thin white cord terminating in a plastic label identifying it.

  “A chamber of horrors,” Tim remarked quietly. “Biology might be the study of life but apart from that potted cactus,” he glanced in the direction of the laboratory window, “those water fleas, Miss Bates and us, everything else in here’s met a grisly end.”

  Yet, no sooner had he spoken than Pip flinched.

  “What’s up, sis?” Tim inquired.

  Nodding in the direction of the specimen display shelf, she muttered, “That frog…”

  “What about it, sis?”

  “It’s…” Pip began.

  “It’s what?”

  “… alive.”

  “That’s crazy!” Tim retorted. “A zombie frog.”

  Pip was certain the frog was returning to life. Its heart was feebly pulsing, its limbs, pinioned to the transparent sheet, were flexing as if the creature was struggling to break free. Its head moved from side to side.

  “It is!” Pip rejoined sharply.

  “No way!” Tim replied, staring up at the specimen jar. “That one’s definitely hopped its last hop. You’ll be telling me next one of the pickled eyes winked at you.”

  “Look at it!” Pip insisted.

  To humor his sister, Tim did so. The frog, the flesh of which was blanched by years of immersion in formaldehyde preserving liquid, was irremovably transfixed to the Perspex.

  “There!” Pip muttered urgently. She was sure the frog’s hind leg jerked, kicking out at one of the label cords. “See it?”

  “No,” Tim answered. “Not a flicker. I tell you, sis, it’s croaked its last croak.”

  What neither of them noticed was Scrotton watching them from behind an exercise book, grinning.

  That evening, as Pip sat on her bed watching television, the panel in the wall opened and Sebastian stepped into the room.

  “You could learn to knock, too,” she commented caustically.

  “Please accept my apology,” Sebastian answered. “It is not my intention to catch you unawares. It is that I am not accustomed to finding the house occupied, even after the several months of your living here. For many years, the house has been unoccupied over long periods, and I have grown used to being the only resident.” He sat on Pip’s dressing-table stool, facing her.

  “What about the old man who lived here? Your so-called uncle?”

  “He was not here for long,” Sebastian replied evasively.

  “After your father’s death,” Pip continued, “why didn’t his enemies take over the house? They must have wanted it.”

  “Indeed, they did,” Sebastian agreed, “yet they dared not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they were afraid,” Sebastian answered bluntly.

  “Afraid of what?” Pip came back.

  “Afraid of me,” Sebastian said.

  Pip stared at him.

  “Of you?”

  “Of what I can do,” Sebastian answered.

  Tim, hearing them speaking, came in from his room, dumping himself down on the end of Pip’s bed.

  “Anyone invited to this party?” He grinned at Pip and winked. “Or am I the spare sandwich at the picnic?”

  Pip gave her brother a look she hoped might silence him for the rest of the evening. Or longer. For his part, Tim mimed zipping his mouth shut.

  “I have,” Sebastian stated, “today given much thought to Yoland.”

  “So what do you reckon he’s up to?” Tim asked.

  “That I cannot surmise,” Sebastian admitted, “and in order to discover more, I feel I need to enter your school, to observe him for myself.”

  “Neat!” Tim exclaimed, remembering his walk during the summer with Sebastian on a lead, disguised as a brown-and-white Jack Russell terrier. “What will you go as? You can’t go in as a JRT. Not into classrooms, anyway.”

  “He could go in as a pet mouse,” Pip suggested. “There’s a girl in my gym group who has a pet rat she keeps in her pocket. It lives in a box in her locker during PE.”

  “How about a cat?” Tim suggested. “I’ve seen one wandering about.”

  “I need wider access than is afforded to an animal,” Sebastian said, “for I cannot see Yoland permitting such a creature in his laboratory. Besides, I need more than to observe him in passing. I must study him, get close to him. To this end,” he declared, “I need to join your class.”

  Tim and Pip exchanged a glance.

  “That’s not going to be easy,” Pip declared. “You can’t just walk into the school. You’re going to have to get registered, be entered on the database.”

  “That’s not all,” Tim said. “You’re going to have to have a uniform. And you don’t just need to look like us. You’ll need to be like us. We’ll have to make you into a modern kid.”

  Sebastian looked somewhat hurt and rejoined, “I do not see that I am dissimilar to you.”

  Tim laughed. “You must be joking!”

  “I jest not!” Sebastian ex
claimed.

  “I jest not!” Tim repeated and he looked at Pip. “We’ve got a serious makeover to do here and it’s going to take a lot more than a school jacket and a pair of sneakers.”

  Sebastian looked himself up and down and replied, somewhat ironically, “I do not see that modern boys have three arms or five legs. Since I was born, I do not see that human anatomy has changed very much.”

  “No,” Tim agreed, “it hasn’t, but just about everything else has.”

  “Very well,” said Sebastian, standing stiffly in the middle of the room as if waiting for a tailor to fit him with a suit, “teach me to be modern.”

  Pip and Tim ran their eyes over Sebastian. “Well,” Pip said eventually, switching off her television, “let’s get on with it.”

  “For a start,” Tim began, “you’ve got to chill out.”

  “Chill out?” Sebastian looked somewhat puzzled.

  “Be relaxed,” Tim explained. “Let it all hang out.”

  “Let what hang out?” Sebastian asked. “Hang out of what?”

  “It’s an expression,” Pip said.

  “Don’t be so uptight all the time,” Tim went on. “Life’s less formal now. For example, language isn’t so exact. Don’t say ‘Good morning,’ say ‘Morning’ or ‘How’re you doing?’ or just ‘Hi.’ Don’t say ‘I do not like that,’ say ‘That’s uncool.’ If you like something, say ‘That’s really cool.’ “

  “A state of low temperature seems to have become a superlative,” Sebastian remarked sardonically.

  For half an hour, Pip and Tim attempted to tutor Sebastian in modern slang. For his part, Sebastian found it difficult to understand why a “mare” meant awful, while a “piece of cake” meant easy. He could not see the connection between, as he put it, the female of a horse or a pastry and a state of unattractiveness or ease of function. Nor could he comprehend why a simple meal of bread and sausage should be called a “hot dog.” “Knackered” he did grasp, for there had been knackers in the fifteenth century, but how the noun for a horse slaughterer had come to mean the verb “to be tired” was a linguistic leap he could not rationalize. As for what a “blockbuster” was, Sebastian was totally lost.