Search for the Sunlight
Chapter 52

Sherlock took the initiative and scrambled up the thick ivy like a cat burglar towards the opening in the rock face. The others followed close behind.

Inside, the tunnel was as black as soot and the smell of something rotting made it difficult for them to breath. To compound matters, there was the very real threat that another consignment of the green goo might flush through the opening at any moment and dispatch them all to a slimy death on the ground below. But with nowhere else to go, the travellers edged their way forwards until eventually, the narrow tunnel opened up into a wide dimly lit chamber. Basil suggested they put their glasses on, in order for them to see more clearly. Ahead, a steep staircase led to a sturdy, well-weathered, greying and ancient oak door. Sherlock counted the steps. There were thirty nine in all and each one had been as skilfully carved from the rock and carefully polished as the other. In his opinion, it was a work of near perfection.

The chamber itself was eerily lit by thirteen flaming torches, each held in the grip of a shining steel gauntlet and fixed to the wall, through the wrist, by a single hexagonal bolt.

From the high ceiling, crystal studded stalactites hung like diamond chandeliers and sparkled in the flickering light.

A thin film of green slime settled in pools on the rough hewn stone floor, reflecting ever changing, shimmering patterns onto the flame lit walls as the Treewood’s foot steps disturbed the viscous surface of the sticky liquid puddles.

One by one they ascended the stairs that lead to the old oak door.

Herbert was first to arrive. On his approach, he took the big rusty, iron handle in both hands, and turned it in an anticlockwise direction. The lock appeared to be well greased and, as the latch tripped, a loud resounding clunk reverberated around the empty stone chamber, but nothing happened. The door was locked.

Herbert gasped. He released his grip on the handle and sat down trembling on the top step. His nerves had got the better of him.

Recognising the young Hawthorn’s despair, the Constable laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Don’t fret, lad,” he whispered, “I’ll take over from here.”

When it came to breaking and entering, there was nobody better qualified for the job than Sherlock. With the scrutiny of a fictional celebrity forensic expert, he examined the door for a means of entry. On first inspection it appeared impossible, but when he looked through the keyhole, by good fortune, the key was still in the lock on the other side of the door. Thinking quickly he turned to face Harry who, as a means of dealing with the stress of the moment, had retreated into his fantasy film world of the great Marlon Bramble and without revealing so much as a hint of his intentions, he yanked a thin, stiff twig from the back of the young Hawthorn’s leg. “Ouch!” Harry squealed, as the sharp pain of the extraction brought him swiftly back into the real world.

Next, the Constable took the map from inside Herbert’s lapsack, unfolded it carefully and slipped it under the bottom of the door. Then, with the aid of the twig, which he had forcibly removed from Harry’s leg, he tweaked the lock until the key fell through into the adjacent room. It hit the floor with a metallic rattle and bounced several times, before settling on top of the map. Now, all that remained was to slide both map and key out from beneath the door and they were as good as in…

The door swung open and four pairs of shade covered eyes peered into the dazzling room beyond.

Set into the wall opposite where they stood, a large panoramic window looked out over a fog bound valley. The room itself was painted brilliant white - so white that it appeared almost blue - and the smooth, highly polished travertine floor was of a quality seldom seen.

In the centre of the floor, framed within a jet black granite circle, a four pointed star had been inlaid. Shaded in the most vibrant antique gold, yellow ochre, cobalt blue and green jade, the contrasting colours created a striking three dimensional effect.

At each tip of the star, a stylish and beautifully hand crafted ebony chair was positioned. The cushions were upholstered in the most exquisite deep aubergine velvet and where the material met the woodwork, it was edged with the finest pure gold braid. The colour combination complimented the smooth black frame perfectly.

Basil was curious. On the back of each of the chairs a decorative, hand written label had been tied and when he dared to step inside for a closer look, he could hardly believe his eyes. The labels were marked with their names…

“Quickly! come and see,” he beckoned to the others. “Someone is expecting us!”

At Basil’s request, Sherlock marched boldly into the room and began to read the tags.

“Ah, just as I thought,” he mused, adopting his, matter-of-fact wood police detective voice, the way he always did when a situation turned mysterious.

“I, ’ave good reason to believe, that the snails ’ave beaten us to it and informed the wicked ones of our imminent arrival,” he said.

Now, Harry could easily be accused of being a bit of a dreamer, but he was no fool.

Like Sherlock, he had grown up with a naturally inquisitive mind and in his opinion the officer had overlooked a small, but significant detail in his early observations.

He peered out over the top of his glasses and mimicking Sherlock’s ‘alo, alo, alo’ wood police detective voice, replied: “I’m sorry to inform you, your officership, but I, ’ave spotted an error in your deductions.”

The Constable was speechless. He wasn’t accustomed to being challenged on his normally flawless detective work, and not least by a young whippersnapper of a Hawthorn.

“And eh, what error might that be m’ lad?” he enquired, looking down at Harry from under the brim of his helmet. There was a short pause. “At no time, did we inform the snails of our names,” Harry replied.

Silence descended on the party as they watched and waited for Sherlock’s response.

Harry was right. They hadn’t told the snails their names!

For the first time in living memory, the Constable’s impeccable judgement had been called into question. How did the witches know their names and why had they each been allocated a chair in the white room?

There was only one way to replace out. Basil looked at the officer, shrugged his shoulders and throwing caution to the wind, they both stepped forwards and sat down in their designated places.

Afraid for their safety, Harry and Herbert stood huddled together in the doorway.

Fearing that dark magic and trickery of the nastiest kind might be unleashed upon them at any moment, they were each trying harder than the other not to be next to enter the room. As they waited in trepidation for the outcome of Basil and Sherlock’s foolhardy actions, to their astonishment, nothing happened. Sherlock even found himself feeling so relaxed that he commented on how comfortable his chair was.

Deciding that perhaps they were being a little overcautious, the brothers crossed the threshold into the room and sat down. That was the trigger.

A flash of bright light, followed by a plume of glittering yellow smoke, filled the room and with a series of crisp metallic clicks, four shiny steel restraining straps locked into position around the Treewoods’ waists. They were well and truly trapped!

From the midst of the smoke two hideous crones appeared. Their unrivalled ugliness was such that for a moment the captives had to turn away in horror.

The fatter, of the two wretches was carrying an extremely smelly grey cat under her arm, the foul stench of which was so pungent, that at first Herbert thought it was a skunk until he heard it meow. The thinner, more warty of the pair, followed along behind, staggering under the weight of a large multicoloured carpet bag.

Emblazoned with a variety of beautifully embroidered zodiacal signs and mystical runes, the bag contained an assortment of glass jars, delicate wood and metal boxes, a state of the art folding broomstick - with a telescopic handle - and an enormous, shiny red wok, which she removed from the bag and, placed on the floor by her feet.

“Welcome to Slate Hill, you miserable Treewoods!” the fat one hollered.

“I’m Petronella Orvak and this is my accomplice, Endor Brek. Together, we are known as the Witches of Slate Hill and our job is trouble!” HA HA HA HA HA!

She began to cackle so loud that the big metal wok vibrated and rattled like a snare drum on the smooth travertine floor.

“Afternoon, ladies,” Harry replied nervously. He was trying his best to lighten up what had already become a very tricky situation. But his good manners failed to impress.

“Silence, you little runt, or I’ll turn you into a Puddock,” the fat one roared. She began to cackle again and this time her smelly breath wafted directly into Harry’s face, making him cough violently and causing his shades to steam up.

He had no clue as to the nature of a Puddock, but whatever it was, he had no desire to become one. In view of the circumstances, he thought it best not to enquire in the likely event that the aforementioned and probably irreversible transformation would take place at the witches’ behest. The very notion, that such a spell could be cast at will, was incentive enough for him to remain silent.

The cat meowed loudly. It was selfishly seeking attention, like cats do.

“Forgive me,” said Petronella, her hard attitude momentarily softening, as she bent down and picked the mangy creature up from the floor. “This is Smelly Brian. He’s my familiar,” she said, introducing the rancid creature. “He’s over a hundred years old you know and he doesn’t look a day over forty.” She paused and looked fondly into the cat’s bloodshot eyes.

“Isn’t he adorable?” she whined, adopting a voice typical to that of all specialist cat and small, over-bred, bug eyed, dog lovers whilst at the same time rubbing her warty nose up and down on the back of the poor creature’s head.

Harry wasn’t convinced. Adorable he certainly was not and on first impressions, the filthy, flea-bitten creature looked all of its age and more! But, still conscious of the threat that he could be turned into a puddock at the mere flash of a wand, he stuck firmly to his resolution and remained silent.

The cat was delighted with the introduction he’d received from his mistress, and purring loudly he revealed that not only was it his personal hygiene that was in question, but the foul smell that emanated from his mouth was equally appalling. In short, his breath smelled like a jar of rotting anchovies!

“We’ve been expecting you,” Petronella announced, stroking the rancid mog in the most irritating manner, rubbing his fur up the wrong way, causing it to rasp like the bristles on an industrial scrubbing brush.

“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Haven’t we Brian?” She said, ignoring her accomplice and gazing passionately into her smelly familiar’s eyes again. “Incidentally, did you like the beautiful handwritten name tags that I attached to your chairs?” she added.

It was her desire, that at least one of the Treewoods might recognise her from a past life, when she had worked briefly as a third rate children’s entertainer, whose job it was to sing badly out of tune and create scale models of famous icons such as The HMS Bark Royal, The Golden Grape Bridge, The Mallard, various Isambark Kingdom Prunel architectural structures and last but not least, a Gingham covered bed settee for a dolls house - all created by her own fair hand - using toilet roll centres, plastic squeezy bottles, old nylon tights and unwanted wire coat hangers. But poor Petronella. Her fifteen minutes of fame passed unnoticed, for no one recognised her, and at this moment, no one cared.

“We haven’t had visitors in these parts for years,” she said, “but now that you lot are here, we are going to have the time of our lives! Aren’t we dear?” She said, addressing the cat and cackling, this time, like an agitated magpie.

The cat purred loudly in support of his mistress and in the process, relaxed a little more than he had otherwise intended. As a result, an effluvium far nastier than his breath fizzed forth from the opposite end of his body, adding further contamination to what little fresh air remained in the white room.

In a bid to stifle the smell, Harry pulled his neckerchief up over his nose.

“I feel sick!” he groaned.

“SICK?” Petronella replied. “If it’s SICK you want, then I’ll give you SICK alright!”

and without the slightest consideration for Smelly Brian’s wellbeing, she threw him to the ground. The poor creature meowed in pain as his old bones hit the hard stone surface, but the witch simply ignored her insensitive actions and pointed her long crooked finger towards the inlaid circle and the four pointed star in the middle of the floor.

With her free hand, she took a pinch of glitter dust from a small translucent bag in her pocket and threw it in the air. As the silver dust fell sparkling to the ground, she began to chant a spell…

“The drizzling rain makes my hair go frizzy,

But what will make these Treewoods dizzy?”

There was a short pause while the captives waited anxiously for the answer to her evil riddle…

“I Will!” she eventually hollered, cackling louder than before, and, with a powerful jolt, the circle and the four pointed star began to spin.

At first it turned slowly, but the quicker the witch rotated her finger the faster the circle spun, until eventually, it was revolving so fast that the hostages appeared as nothing more than a blur in the centre of the room.

In view of Sherlock’s tall stature the centrifugal force and the accompanying blood rush to his head, was far greater than that of the others. As a result he passed out almost immediately. The circle continued to accelerate faster and faster, until, unable to control their muscle power anymore, the Treewood’s mouths hung open like a dead fish and their eyes bulged from their sockets.

Eventually, when all four had turned as green as the slime that ran from the pored from the pipe outside, Petronella commanded the circle to stop.

“Feel sick now, do we?” she hollered. “Well, that was just for starters my Treewood friends!”

As the circle ground to a halt, Basil lifted his head and opened his eyes. Everything around him was a blur and although they were motionless now, it felt like the room was still spinning.

“What is it you want with us?” he pleaded groggily.

“What is it we want?” Petronella replied calmly. “First, we want to be entertained, then, more importantly, we want to scupper your quest to replace the sunlight!”

She began to laugh again, this time exposing a mouthful of rotting teeth, the sight of which, further compounded Basil’s already nauseous state.

“I expect you’re wondering how we know about your plan?” Petronella continued, “Well we have been monitoring you closely on our long range, water-crystal futuresphere and I can tell you now that your pathetic mission is doomed to fail.

“You see we don’t like the sun and if we don’t like the sun, then you don’t replace the sun. It’s as simple as that!” she snapped. “In fact, you can forget the sunlight all together, because if we get our way - and make no mistake, we will - then you lot will remain here, in the bowels of Slate Hill, entombed in solid blocks of glass until the end of time. You will never see the light of day again!” Ha ha ha ha!!

Drunk with power, the warty crones cackled and roared, and the more they laughed the more their evil filled the room.

Endor, who until now had been keeping a low profile, stepped forwards and reached into the carpet bag that lay at her feet. Raking through the contents, she produced a small glass vial containing a quantity of fine platinum dust. She removed the rubber bung then, standing on tip-toe, pirouetted like a ballerina, scattering the contents of the vial into the air as she turned. In the brightly lit room, the glittering dust shimmered and sparkled like a trillion stars as the tiny particles floated to the ground and when the dust had finally settled, a light vibrating sensation appeared beneath the Treewoods’ feet.

Basil took his eyes off the magic for a moment and looked down to see what was happening. To his surprise, the inlaid circle with the four pointed star was rising up from a concealed recess in the floor.

As it slowly rose, the sound of stone grinding on stone made the room rattle and shake, until, on the witch’s command, with a heavy CLUNK, the altar, for that’s what it was, came to a juddering halt. Were the witches about to sacrifice them all on the cold marble slab and throw their bark, flesh and bones to the giant snails that lived at the bottom of Slate Hill? Basil wondered.

Endor reached for the wok. Her face turned from pale green, to a deep purple colour as she struggled and strained to lift the heavy utensil up onto the top of the granite altar. She took a moment, to catch her breath, then returning to the carpet bag, she produced a beautifully hand-crafted wood and silver casket from inside. She placed the casket on the stone surface beside the wok, undid the retaining clasps and opened the lid to reveal a variety of small glass vials inside.

To the untrained eye, the little bottles appeared to contain no more than a selection of mucky-looking powders, small white pills and a sickly blue jelly-like substance. But to the sorceresses, the contents were far more than that.

Locked within each seemingly innocent vial was a fearful quantity of super concentrated badness - evil and mayhem of the nastiest kind - and when mixed together in selected proportions, depending on the desired spell, the most disturbing magic would occur.

Petronella chose eleven of the small glass bottles and lined them up in a row. Then, like an outofcontrol robotic zombie person, she threw her head back and began to chant in tongues unfamiliar to any of her four captives.

As her body writhed and twisted violently, Endor, her devoted accomplice, poured measured quantities from each of the chosen vials into the wok. Their sorcery had begun in earnest…

“Eye of Newt and powdered snail,

Will surely make these mortals wail.

Dead dog’s liver, hoof of ass,

Entomb all four in blocks of glass!”

Endor recited her verse and almost immediately, the mixture in the wok came alive.

Like water poured on boiling oil, the potion began to bubble and spit.

A dense purple haze rose from the surface of the sickly liquid and soon the room was filled with a smell of burning sulphur and phosphorous so pungent, that even Smelly Brian’s offensive odour appeared tame.

In the choking air, Petronella reached for her broomstick and thrust the handle into the boiling mixture. It was her turn now…

“Magic broom stick, to whom I talk,

Stir the contents of this wok.

Stir them slowly, stir them well,

So we can cast our evil spell.”

“Her poetry’s a travesty” Sherlock muttered, shaking his head in the knowledge that whilst studying Treewood literature and creative writing at The Wood Police Institute Of Further Education ( WIFE ) he had thrown far more acclaimed renditions in the bin, considering them all unworthy of publication. But, in spite of the poor quality of the witch’s verse, the broomstick obeyed her command and began to stir the bubbling mixture unassisted.

By all accounts, Harry should have been more terrified than he was. But he loved magic. “One day, when I’ve got a bit more time, I’m going to learn to do stuff like that,” he told himself.

The mumbo-jumbo intensified. The she devil’s talismanic wailing became a verbal battle, and as each of the ugly wretches tried to shout louder than the other, their wrinkled faces contorted and changed colour like a threatened cuttlefish. First they turned from green to amber, then red and finally to the palest china white. Their eyes revolved like spirals and their heads shook so violently that Herbert was sure they would detach from their bodies at any minute, and smash to smithereens on the hard travertine floor.

By now, Basil had fully recovered from his dizzying experience in the spinning circle and as he watched the satanic ritual from behind the tinted lenses of his glasses, his eyes became fixed on Endor’s face. Almost immediately, he could read her twisted mind…

Len’s gift, the glasses of truth, had revealed her innermost secrets and now he knew exactly what she was about to do. With the enchantresses fully engrossed in their darkest endeavours, he turned discreetly to his friends and in a voice just loud enough for them to hear, he issued the following instructions.

“In a moment, Endor will begin her final act of magic,” he whispered. “When her chanting stops, that’s our cue. Stare directly at her face and don’t allow yourselves to be distracted, not even for a millisecond, or we’re finished, ok? Just concentrate solely on her face and your glasses will do the rest!”