The Beasts of Clawstone Castle

It was a sad time everywhere. Cousin Howard went back to his library to see if he could find out something about the Hoggart – but, to tell the truth, he found researching Hoggarts a lot less interesting than helping to set up Open Days. Madlyn went down to Ned’s bungalow and played computer games and tried to cheer up Ned’s uncle, who had come out of hospital and blamed himself for not having noticed that there was something wrong with the cattle.

‘I can’t think why I didn’t see it,’ he said. ‘They seemed just fine to me.’

The village too was quiet – a listless, sad quietness. And in the park the uncropped grass grew long, and longer; the roses in the hedges smelled of disinfectant; and it rained and rained and rained.

When the cattle had been gone for more than a week, Ranulf called the children up to the nursery.

‘It’s Sunita. She thinks there is something we should do,’ said Ranulf. ‘Go on, Sunita, you tell them.’

Sunita had been looking out of the window at the empty park. Now she turned and, though she spoke gently as she always did, they could see that what she was saying mattered to her very much.

‘I think we should go and say goodbye to the cattle. I think we need to go and see the place where they are buried and wish their spirits a safe journey.’

‘Pray over them, you mean?’ asked Madlyn. ‘Like a funeral service?’

‘Well, yes … but not only like that.’ She hesitated. ‘In India cows are sacred because they provide milk and give their hides. But they’re sacred too because ...’ She looked down, suddenly embarrassed. ‘Because they carry the souls of the dead to heaven. They’re sort of connected with heaven. In the old days people’s bodies were sometimes taken for burial on the back of a bull or a cow to help them on their journey. I can’t put it into words, but they’re … special. And I don’t think they should just be buried and forgotten without a ceremony.’

‘A sort of leave-taking,’ said Ned.

‘Yes. And I think we wouldn’t feel so wretched ourselves if this were done. Saying goodbye is important.’ She paused and looked at the children. ‘What do you think?’

Rollo was the first to speak. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said firmly. ‘We were silly not to do it before. We must go as soon as we can.’

Lord Trembellow had made no secret of the fact that the cattle were buried in his gravel pit: he was proud of helping the vets get rid of the infected beasts. But the pit was fifteen kilometres away, on the other side of the hill to Trembellow Towers.

‘It’s too far to walk there and back,’ said Ned. ‘But there’s a bus one way at least. If the ghosts don’t mind being invisible there shouldn’t be any trouble.’

They decided to go on their own without saying anything to the grown-ups, and their chance came two days later when the Percivals were asked out to dinner with the Lord Lieutenant of the county, who lived in a mansion which was an hour’s drive away from Clawstone. Both George and Emily hated going out to dinner, which meant changing out of their usual clothes and eating things which disagreed with them and staying up late.

But they went, and as soon as Uncle George’s Bentley was out of sight, the children and the ghosts hurried down to the bus stop by the church.

The sun had gone down by the time they reached the road leading to pit Number Five. There were traffic cones in rows across the path, and a notice saying ‘Out of Bounds’ and another one saying ‘No Admittance’.

When they got to the entrance to the pit itself, they found it roped off. The windows of the workmen’s hut were boarded up. The hillside with its gashes looked threatening and sinister; flood water from the recent rains had collected into large puddles; old tin cans floated on the oil-stained water.

Rollo shivered and Madlyn looked at him anxiously. Had it been a mistake to come?

Certainly it made everything seem worse, seeing where those warm-blooded, lovely creatures had ended up.

The ghosts had glided on ahead. Sunita was looking very purposeful as she searched for the burial site. The Feet followed her, keeping close to her heels.

The rough track, with its churned mud and heavy wheel marks, veered round to the left and led into a wider piece of waste ground.

‘There,’ said Ranulf. ‘That will be where they’re buried.’

They had come to a large patch of flat ground, covered with recently turned-over earth. Diggers and crushers stood nearby, like great dinosaurs.

Sunita nodded. ‘Yes. This must be the place.’

She began to move backwards and forwards over the burial site. Her arms were stretched out, her head was bent intently over the earth.

‘It’s strange,’ she said after a few moments, ‘I can’t seem to—’

She broke off suddenly and clutched Brenda. The children drew closer to each other; the other ghosts took a step backwards.

‘Oh heavens, what is it?’ said Madlyn.

The pit had suddenly filled with the most appalling sounds … sounds like none they had heard before: horrible, troubling, somehow not decent.