faltered and he stared about him – bewildered and dismayed.
‘No,’ he protested. ‘You don’t understand. All I’m trying to do... it’s the beauty of God’s love... please. I just wanted to show how wonderful it makes me feel... can’t you see that? Listen to me. Children, listen.’
But it was no use. The respect he had commanded only a few minutes ago when he appealed to their bloodthirsty natures was gone. There was no way he could reclaim it and, to his horror, he saw that the teachers too were sniggering behind their hands. Staring at them, with the children’s derisive laughter trumpeting in his ears, the colour rose in his face as a bitter coldness gripped the pit of his stomach and he realised the full extent of his humiliation.
Just as the audience had begun to harken to his words and think about what he was trying to communicate to them, he had thrown it all away by his own misjudgement. How could he have been so blind not to consider the preposterous exhibition he was going to make of himself?
His hopes and spirits crushed, the Reverend Galloway walked over to the tape recorder and turned it off. Then, retrieving his cassock, he left the theatre with the laughter still resounding in his ears and branded upon his heart.
‘All right, all right,’ Mrs Stride called. ‘That’s enough, the fun’s over – we’ll have The Lord’s Prayer.’
Still tittering, the children bowed their heads and began to chant. ‘Our Father...’ Murmuring along with them, Neil wondered if the world outside The Wyrd Museum had always been this strange and he just hadn’t noticed before, whilst at his side the bespectacled boy uttered, ‘Dear Alien, up in your spaceship...’
So Neil’s first day at his new school commenced. But when the assembly was over and he trailed off to his first lesson, he found himself longing once more for the excitement of The Wyrd Museum. Already he missed the dark, shadowy corners of its lonely galleries and the display cabinets with their unusual exhibits. Yet as he sat at his desk, the time when the Webster sisters would need his help again was already drawing near.
Ever since her outburst in the Chamber of Nirinel, Miss Veronica had been sullen and silent. Now, sitting in a worn leather armchair, with her cane resting upon her lap, she stared vacantly at the small square window, watching the rain streak down the diamond latticed panes.
Over her white powdered face the faint drizzling shadows fell, but whether she was aware of the soft, rippling light or was lost in a corner of her jumbled mind it was impossible to determine.
A plate of her favourite delicacy, jam and pancakes, lay untouched upon the table at her side and this fact alone worried her sister.
Miss Celandine Webster had tried everything she could think of to coax and cajole Miss Veronica out of her tedious sulk, but the wizened woman in the armchair was oblivious to all her urging.
‘You’re no fun today, Veronica,’ whined Celandine. ‘It’s not fair – it isn’t!’
‘Let her be, Celandine,’ a curt, impatient voice interrupted. ‘If Veronica wishes to be childish do not spoil it for her.’
Miss Celandine turned her nut-brown face to the fireplace where Miss Ursula, resplendent in a black beaded evening gown, stood cold and detached.
‘But it isn’t like her, Ursula!’ she protested. ‘Veronica never mopes, not ever’
‘Then she’s obviously making up for lost time,’ came the cold reply. ‘Leave her alone.’
The Websters’ quarters were a poky little apartment situated at the top of The Wyrd Museum. Cluttered with bric-a-brac collected over the endless years, it was almost a monument to the building’s history.
Images of the place in various stages of its enduring existence covered the shabby wallpaper; from a small stone shrine to a twelfth century manor house. A later watercolour showed the building to be a graceful Queen Anne residence surrounded by well-tended gardens. But the final portrait of the ever expanding abode of the three Fates was a faded, sepia photograph of the stark and severe looking Well Lane Workhouse and this grim print brought the record to a bleak and melancholy close.
Unaffected by the tense, oppressive atmosphere, Edie Dorkins paid little attention to the Websters’ squabbles. She was too busy examining the dust-covered ornaments and fingering the collection of delicate, antique fans to care what the others were doing. For her the place was a treasury of enchantment. She felt so blissfully at ease and welcome that sometimes the rapturous sense of belonging swelled so greatly inside her that she wanted to run outside and hug every corner of the ugly building.
Lifting her gaze to the mantelpiece, Edie looked only briefly at the oval Victorian painting of the three sisters, before staring with fascination at the vases which stood upon either side. Never had she seen anything like the peacock feathers which those vessels contained and she quickly pulled a chair over to the fireplace to scramble up and snatch a handful.
‘Lor’!’ she exclaimed, shaking off the dust and holding the plumes up to the dim light. ‘They’re lovely. Can I keep ’em?’
‘They are yours already, Edith, dear,’ Miss Ursula replied. ‘Everything here is yours, you know that.’
Edie chuckled and gloated over the shimmering blues and greens, like a miser with his gold.
‘I never seen a bird with fevvers like this,’ she muttered. ‘Much nicer’n that big black ’un last night.’
Miss Ursula smiled indulgently. ‘I really must get that fool of a caretaker to board up the broken windows,’ she said. ‘I cannot have the museum overrun with pigeons.’
‘Weren’t no pigeon!’ Edie cried. ‘Were the biggest crow I ever saw. Bold he were too, chased me clean through the rooms downstairs and tried to bite he did.’
Hoisting the hem of her skirt, she pulled and twisted her hole-riddled stockings to show the others the raven’s clawmarks.
‘Make a real good scab that will,’ she grinned. ‘I was gonna get me own back but the mean old bird took off before I could catch him.’
Miss Ursula’s long face had become stern and her elegant eyebrows twitched with irritation.
‘A large crow,’ she repeated in a wavering voice. ‘Are you certain you are not mistaken, Edith?’
The girl fished in the pocket of her coat, pulled out the talon that the creature had left behind and flourished it proudly.
‘There!’ she declared. ‘That don’t come from no mangy pigeon – see!’
Miss Ursula stepped forward, the taffeta of her dress rustling like dry grass as she moved, and took the severed claw between her fingers.
‘No...’ she whispered uneasily.
Gingerly holding the raven’s claw as if it were the deadly sting of some venomous insect, Miss Ursula’s expression changed from disbelief to horror and dismay.
In silence, Miss Celandine padded up beside her and she too appeared frightened as she sucked the air through her prominent teeth and bit her bottom lip.
Edie glanced from one to the other, their unspoken fear alarming her.
‘Did I do wrong?’ she asked. ‘You won’t send me back will you? I doesn’t want to go back to then – even with its pretty bombs. I don’t know what the bird was.’
For a whole minute no one answered her, Miss Ursula’s face had grown even more pale than usual and Miss Celandine seemed to be on the verge of panic. Then a sorrowful, whimpering voice said, ‘I know.’
Edie and the others turned sharply. There, still seated in the armchair but now with her head turned to face them, Miss Veronica was peering at the thing in her sister’s hand and a thoughtful scowl creased her powdered face.
‘A