The Beasts of Clawstone Castle

‘We have to go to Blackscar. We have to see what’s happened.’ It was no good trying to get him to see sense; no good telling him that the animals that Hal had seen could have been any load of cattle going to any slaughterhouse in the country. He was like a zombie. ‘We have to go,’ he kept repeating. ‘We have to.’

‘How?’ said Madlyn angrily. ‘How do you think you can get to this Blackscar place. It’s over a hundred miles away, over the border.’

‘We can drive,’ said Rollo.

‘Oh we can, can we? And who’s going to drive us ?’

‘I can drive,’ said Ned unexpectedly. ‘My uncle lets me drive his estate car in the park.’

Madlyn glared at him. Ned was usually on her side; she had learned to rely on him.

‘Oh yes? And you’ve got a licence, I suppose, at your age.’

Ned shrugged. ‘I didn’t say I had a licence. I said I could drive.’

‘And get arrested as soon as the first police car sees us. You’re mad.’

Rollo turned to Mr Smith.

‘You can drive,’ he said. ‘You must be able to. You were a taxi driver.’

‘I may have been a taxi driver once, but I’m a skeleton now,’ said Mr Smith.

‘But you could, if you had to, couldn’t you?’ Rollo went on.

The skeleton sighed, ‘You’ve no idea how much ectoplasmic force it takes to move things when you’ve passed on,’ he said. ‘Look at Brenda – she always has to rest after she’s strangled someone. It isn’t as though we’re poltergeists.’

‘No indeed, we are definitely not poltergeists,’ agreed Ranulf, sounding quite shocked. ‘Poltergeists are just vulgar bundles of force.’

‘And nasty bundles at that,’ said Brenda. ‘Bang, crash, thump! No skill. No care for other people.’

‘Well, then it’ll have to be Ned,’ said Rollo.

‘No!’ said Madlyn. ‘I won’t have Ned sent to prison or wherever they send children to. If I have to choose between being driven by a skeleton or an eleven-year-old boy, I’d rather it was a skeleton. But anyway, we haven’t got anything to drive in so there’s no point in arguing. Uncle George has taken his Bentley.’

‘There’s my uncle’s estate,’ said Ned. ‘He hasn’t used it since he came out of hospital. It’s old but it goes.’

In the end the skeleton and the boy took turns to drive the ancient, rattling car up to the Scottish border, towards the flat, low-lying eastern shore. Ned had filled the tank from the petrol pump in the farmyard and when Madlyn saw that she couldn’t stop them going, she knew she had to come too – and she packed a hamper of food and some warm clothes and their toothbrushes. If Rollo was killed by a cattle rustler at least he’d die with clean teeth.

They had waited till it was dark. Mr Smith wore his overcoat with the hood up and no one stopped him, but it was a nightmare journey. He’d been the safest of drivers when he was alive, but now his finger bones slipped on the steering wheel and his single eye gave him distorted vision. Nor was it any better when Ned drove: his legs were really too short to reach the pedals, and his gear changes made Mr Smith wince.

In the back, the ghosts sent out waves of ectoplasmic force to help but it wasn’t easy. Ranulf’s rat was gagging badly: rodents are good on ships but motor transport doesn’t agree with them. And being in a car always reminded Brenda of the drive to church for her wedding and made her weepy.

But somehow they did it. The journey, which should have taken two hours, took nearly four, but well before dawn they saw the outlines of the Lammermuir hills to the west. Their headlights caught fields of sheep, copses, an occasional farmhouse, but it was a bleak and empty landscape that they were coming to.

Then, still before sunrise, they reached the sea and saw before them a low dark shape in the water.

They had arrived.

The tide was high. They could hear the water lapping on the rocks. It would be several hours before they could hope to get across to the island. What they needed now was somewhere to sleep.

‘I’ve never seen such a lonely place,’ said Madlyn. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone living here at all.’

There was no sign of a village or even a farmhouse – but standing quite by itself on a spit of land was a church.

It was a very small church, and very simple, but solid and well built to withstand the winds from the sea. It was too dark to make out more than the outline: the squat tower, the arched windows. Surrounding it was a small graveyard. The building looked almost like the turf from which it sprang.

The children walked slowly up to the big wooden door.

‘It’ll be locked,’ said Ned. ‘They always are these days.

’ But it was not locked. The door drew back, creaking, and they were in the dim interior. A few brass plates reflected what little light there was, but the inside of the church was as simple as the outside. There was a row of pews with flat cushions; the windows were filled with plain glass.

‘Could we sleep here?’ wondered Madlyn. ‘Or would it be disrespectful to God?’

‘People have always sheltered in churches,’ said Ned. ‘It’s called seeking sanctuary.’

‘Yes, I know, people... but ghosts?’