shrivelled face. Miss Celandine was still yowling, but she had buried her head into her spade-like hands and so the shrillness was muffled and less unbearable than before.
At her side, Miss Ursula’s countenance was fixed and immovable as any stone. Upon Miss Veronica’s breast, Edie had placed the old woman’s cane, and at her side was the plastic bag containing the rusted spearhead.
‘It is well that you brought it here,’ Miss Ursula observed, her flinty aspect vanishing when she saw the gouts of blood which smeared the vicious-looking weapon.
Visibly wincing, she cleared her throat. ‘In all creation there are few artefacts which can do us injury. This, the Roman blade which pierced the side of He who perished upon the Cross, is one of the most lethal. I ought to have accepted it within the confines of the museum long ago, when first it was offered unto my keeping. Veronica is the price I have paid for that folly and most bitterly do I accept it now.’
Clasping her hands in front of her, Miss Ursula bowed her head and the jet beads which hung in loops about her ears gave an agitated rattle.
‘We gonna bury ’er?’ Edie asked. ‘I’m good at digging ’oles.’
Miss Ursula straightened. ‘No need,’ she said. ‘Celandine and I shall take her down to the cavern. In the Chamber of Nirinel, beneath the surviving root of Yggdrasill, Veronica will sit out the remaining span of the world. That hallowed place shall be her tomb and no corruption will touch her. Now come.’
Striding to a section of panelled wall, the woman held up her hand and gave the wood three sharp raps.
With a clicking whir, the wall shuddered and slid aside, revealing a low stone archway and a steep, winding staircase beyond.
‘Edith, dear,’ Miss Ursula began, ‘take up Veronica’s cane and the oil lamp if you will, and bring the spearhead also.’
Inhaling great, gulping breaths, Edie hurried to obey. The stale air which flooded out of the darkness into the hallway was perfumed with a hauntingly sweet decay. Holding the lamp in one hand and the ivory-handled cane under her arm, she took up the bag which contained the hideous weapon and carried it warily. When she accidently touched the metal, the power within it prickled and hurt her, even through the polythene.
‘Celandine,’ Miss Ursula said tersely. ‘You must aid me in this.’
The woman in the grubby nightgown peeped out at her elder sister through a chink between her fingers. Then she blew her nose upon its large collar and shuffled reluctantly closer to the stretcher.
‘I want to be nearest her pretty little head,’ Miss Celandine muttered. ‘I shan’t be able to talk to her if you make me carry the feet.’
Miss Ursula indulged her. ‘Very well,’ she sighed. ‘Grip the handles soundly, I don’t want you to let go.’
‘Oh Ursula!’ her sister objected. ‘I wouldn’t – you know that, you do, you do!’
She pulled a face as if she were about to cry once more, but Ursula was already lifting and so Miss Celandine quickly forgot the offending remark and assisted her in hoisting their dead sister off the ground.
‘Why, the dear darling’s no weight at all!’ she exclaimed.
‘Come,’ Miss Ursula said. ‘We must bear her down the great stair.’
With Edie Dorkins treading solemnly at their heels, the despondent trio were quickly swallowed by the intense and stagnant dark as they began their descent, deep beneath the museum’s foundations.
Down into the severe blackness which filled the underground stairway and mocked the pitiful flame of the oil lamp, they slowly made their way. The plummeting path was perilous and progress was painfully slow. Inch by inch they bore Veronica’s body, avoiding the slippery patches where dripping water and the tread of countless ages had worn the steps treacherously smooth. Beneath lengths of mouldering pipework they ducked, until Edie suddenly called out and pressed her ear to the crumbling stone wall.
‘There’s summink behind it!’ she cried. ‘Listen – it’s gettin’ closer.’
Miss Ursula tilted her head to one side and tutted with irritation. ‘Remember what I told you, Edith dear,’ she began, ‘how near this secret stair brushes against the advances of Mankind? A meagre few inches beyond this very wall runs one of their subterranean railways. Brace yourselves, both of you – the engine approaches.’
All three could now hear the faint roaring noise which vibrated through the shaft, causing a tremor to ripple through the steps beneath their feet. Swiftly the sound soared, mounting to a trumpeting clamour that blared up the stairway. Edie fell back from the wall, expecting it to explode at any moment before the unstoppable force of the train which was surely about to cannon its way through.
The steps were shuddering violently now and the body of Miss Veronica swayed unsteadily upon the stretcher as her sisters endeavoured to remain standing. The din was deafening, a screaming rumble which reverberated through Edie’s chest, and she opened her mouth to yell amidst this clangorous thunder.
Then it was over. Beyond the narrow barrier of stone, the Underground train had passed and all that remained was a juddering echo, which flew up the spiralling stairs and vanished in the winding gloom above.
Catching her breath, Edie lifted the oil lamp to peer around her. The surrounding masonry was crazed and fractured and, from the still quivering cracks, fine rivers of dust were pouring.
‘One day our sanctuary shall be unearthed and all our secrets laid bare – but not yet,’ Miss Ursula assured her. ‘Come, Celandine, there is still some distance to travel before we can lay our sister to rest.’
In the wake of the train’s tumult, the ensuing silence was horribly oppressive. It made the pool of darkness, which constantly receded before them, seem resentful and full of invisible, unfriendly eyes.
The overwhelming hush made Edie uneasy; she did not like silence. She had only recently been plucked from the time of the Blitz, with its constant din of exploding bombs and the crackle of the anti-aircraft guns. Not since the time when she had been imprisoned under the ruins of her home, with the bodies of her mortal family around her, had she known such deathly quiet. She started to make small noises to fend off this unwelcome absence of sound.
At first she hummed tunelessly then, true to her feral nature, she tried a gentle, droning growl. After a short while, Edie was amused to find that her echoes sounded as though some little animal really was in there with them. Once she was almost certain that a snuffling bark had not stemmed from her at all, and she flourished the lamp behind her to check that nothing was hiding in the shadows. But before she could prove her suspicions, the descent was over. The staircase came to an abrupt halt and the space opened up around them, changing the nature of the echoes completely.
‘Edith,’ Miss Ursula instructed, ‘you must proceed in front and light the way. Nirinel is at hand.’
Through a network of caverns the girl led the Websters, until at last they came to a large metal gateway which swung open before them.
Immediately, the golden radiance of many flaming torches flared up to greet their straining sight. Edie ran forward to gaze up at the magnificent spectacle of the last surviving root of the World Tree – astounded afresh by its titanic majesty.
Up into the lofty, vaulted shadows the massive shape stretched, where no leaping lights could reach. The child’s eyes traced an imagined arch down to where the momentous root plunged back into the flame glow and thrust through the chamber’s far wall. It was a monumental vision of permanence, the oldest of all living things, the most wondrous of secrets hidden in the forgotten deeps of the earth – Nirinel.
From history’s cradle the Webster sisters had tended it, guarding their sacred charge against the relentless corruption of the marching years. It was only fitting that Miss Veronica would remain beneath its enchanted bulk for the rest of eternity.
‘Careful,’ Miss Ursula scolded