The Blue Seal of Trinity Cove (2 page)

Right then a blood curdling scream could be heard emanating from the village below the professor's house. They all stared at each other for a split second before springing to their feet and bounding down the hill. Bobby was deeply disturbed when she noticed all of the natives running towards the Crone's hut. By the time they got there, there was already a large throng of people standing outside her hut asking if she was okay. But the natives closest to the door took a step back once they had looked inside her hut, with a look of terror on their faces. The professor quickly made his way through the crowd.

“What is it?” he asked. But the natives, looking terror-stricken and pale, only shook their heads as if they had lost the power of speech.

The professor turned to Bobby and in a very serious voice said, “I suspect the Workhouse Oracle senses that the crystal ball is here on the island and will do whatever it takes to get it. Whatever happens you are to stay out here.
Do you hear me, Bobby?
Do not
enter under
any c
ircumstances.” They locked eyes. Bobby was shocked to hear the professor talk to her in this manner. She had never heard him speak this way before. In fact she had never been spoken to in that way by anyone. And in that split second she also wondered if the professor knew her well enough to know that she wasn't one to back down from a challenge – nothing really frightened her – and that she certainly wouldn't go promising anything as stupid as that, but she stole her gaze away from his and nodded her head anyway. As the professor opened the door a sharp-edged, robotic-looking disc came whirling out of the hut, narrowly missing the top of the professor's head. It whirled all about, slicing the high ponytail off one of the natives before finally embedding itself into a tree. It beeped and hissed very loudly as if it was trying to communicate something. Many lights flashed on the surface of its dome and then it shut down completely. All of the people looked from one to another in dismay.

“Are you sure you want to go in there, Professor?” Bobby asked; even she was not so sure now.

“The Crone is in there. I have to see if she's okay,” he answered solemnly. As soon as he opened the door another five or six discs came whirling out. This time everyone ducked down to avoid them. The discs hovered, one on top of the other, as if communicating with one another and then flew into different directions so that now each of the trees in the space outside the Crone's hut had a disc embedded into it.

The professor opened the door gingerly. He looked at Bobby and Sebastian with resignation, entered the hut and closed the door behind him. A few moments later they heard the sound of the Crone's voice. She was talking and then screaming as if something was hurting her intensely.

“You don't understand,” she said, “aaarrgghhh,” she screamed. “It's got me, don't you see? I can't get away … aaarrgghhh. It's got me aaarrgghhh, it's got me … aaarrgghhh; it's got me and I can't break free.” Bobby's curiosity got the better of her at that moment. Whatever it was that was going on in there was partly her own fault. If it wasn't for her coming to the island in the first place, none of this would be happening. The natives begged her to stay outside the hut but she broke free and, before she knew it, she was standing beside the professor.

“I told you not to come in,” he hissed. But she gave him her most defiant look, which said ‘I don't take orders,' and walked over to where the Oracle was lying on her bed. Nothing could have prepared Bobby for what she was about to see. She automatically covered her mouth and nose with her hand as she felt sure she was about to vomit. The stench was what she noticed first. It was the stench of rot and decay that reminded her of when she had found a dead rabbit in the forest when she was a little girl. She'd read about this smell in plenty of books too; it was a one of a kind smell that meant only one thing – death. Death hung in every corner of the hut and even where there was light shining through a window, the odour of death rose up to meet it as if extinguishing the life and the goodness from it, the verdict already reached. There was life here but it clung precariously, struggling with the stranglehold that the evil had over it. Bobby couldn't help but stare, with wide eyes, at the form before her. Tears sprang to her eyes. To see the Crone in such a state was more than she could bear; she almost ran from the hut never to return but then remembered that she must endure whatever she had to, in order to save her island paradise.

T
he Crone writhed around in agony, the delirium causing her to toss and turn on her bed. She was barely recognisable as the lovely old Crone who had welcomed Bobby and David at the beginning of last summer. In fact, Bobby thought, she looked like someone who had been possessed by an evil spirit. Once Bobby had seen a film that had a character that looked just like this and at the time she had written it off as ridiculous. She thought it a thing of fiction, not something that could actually happen. Her opinion of that would be forever changed now. The Crone's lovely long hair hung limp and wet against her scalp. Her skin was white and her eyes red and sunken into her skull. She wore a grimace of excruciating pain around her mouth and she was covered in some vile, dried-up substance which looked and smelled like a mixture of blood, vomit and drool. She was a tiny skeleton, with thin flesh wrapped around her bones, and certainly looked as if she had not eaten in quite some time. Bobby choked back a sob that was rising up and threatening to overwhelm her. But there was no time for any sentiment because right at that moment the figure before her changed or morphed – as David would say, having an extensive knowledge of all things fantasy and science fiction related – into a completely different creature.

This creature though was fat and healthy-looking and wore a look of utter triumph on her big, round face. She wore a dress that was so tight it looked as though she had only just squeezed into and … was that what Bobby thought it was or was her imagination playing tricks on her – there were tentacles where legs should be. She was eating a giant slab of cake, or rather jamming it into her mouth, smearing the chocolate icing all over her face without any hint of embarrassment and then licking her own fingers, rather loudly and rudely. And then she belched; it was the most enormous belch Bobby had ever heard. Bobby found her to be quite revolting and almost retched at the sight of her, but could not bring herself to avert her eyes.

“Well, it's about time, young girl,” she addressed Bobby, her voice thundering out menacingly. “I was getting quite tired of tormenting that stupid old Crone and not getting any answers. Now I'm sure you'll tell me exactly what I want to know, won't you dear? There's a good girl.”

Bobby didn't like being told what to do, at all ever, but being told by someone who, as fate would have it, she had already previously decided she loathed – due to the current events on her island paradise – she felt as if she might lose her temper at any moment now.

“I very much doubt it,” she found herself shouting at the creature. “I find you grotesque and the sooner we're rid of you the better; that's what I'm here for, if you really want to know.” She noticed out of the corner of her eye that the professor was looking quite anxious and was shaking his head at her and mouthing that she should be quiet. But it was too late; the Workhouse Oracle whipped out an extremely long tentacle which until now had been coiled up at the end of the bed. In an instant it wrapped itself around Bobby's throat and pulled her roughly, so that she was only inches away from the Oracle's face.

“I don't think you fully understand who you're dealing with, you silly young thing,” it roared with such a force that Bobby could feel the skin of her face and her hair being blown backwards. The happy and victorious look on the Oracle had disappeared to be replaced with a look so dark and menacing that it sent shivers up Bobby's spine.

“Oh, I think I do actually,” Bobby declared, standing her ground. The tentacle around Bobby's neck tightened, squeezing the air from her throat. The professor sprang forward to try and detach it from her, but with no luck.

“Come, come, silly red-haired girl,” said the Workhouse Oracle. “You're going to have the life squeezed out of you before things even get started. Now where would the fun be in that? Come along now and just tell me what I want to know and then we can all get on with our miserable little lives.” The tentacle around Bobby's neck squeezed even harder so that she felt that every last bit of oxygen was being taken from her; she couldn't answer even if she wanted to. Feeling as though her face was about to burst, all she could do was make spluttering sounds.

The tentacle loosened its grip for a second so that she could spurt out a reply to the Oracle: “Even though I can't imagine what it is you want from me, I stick by what I said before. You can kill me if you want to but you won't achieve anything that way, will you?” Bobby could only speak in a rasping voice. The Oracle looked as though she would explode with rage. Out from under her skirt, where her tentacles were kept coiled up, came one of the sharp orb-like objects that they had seen before. It whizzed all around the hut and then stopped right in front of Bobby's face. It span about very fast and Bobby could see that it had a very sharp edge, as sharp as a razor. The tentacle held her in place and the orb touched her skin under her right eye. Had it been left to go ahead and wound her, she would have received a cut reaching from her eye all the way down to her mouth. However, it only nicked her skin so that a tiny trickle of blood ran down to her chin.

“We'll tell you anything you want to know, please,” begged the professor. “Just tell me what you want to know and we'll give you the answer but please, I implore you, take that thing away from her face now and release her. It's not her that you want but me.”

“Ah yes, I thought you'd start to see things my way. Good, very good,” hissed the Oracle, sounding very pleased with herself. “It's quite simple really. You tell me where you keep the ball and I'll let her go, and also stop tormenting this old Crone.” She waved a hand over her massive stomach as if indicating that the island Crone had indeed been a tasty treat. Bobby found this so revolting that she flailed her arms about in an attempt to hit the Oracle on the face, her fury getting the better of her, but of course there was no chance of making contact.

“Don't tell her anything, Professor. Don't give her what she wants. She means to ruin us all somehow … argghh.” The tentacle tightened even more until Bobby's face went crimson red and her eyes bulged until they looked as though they would pop right out of their sockets.

“I don't need you; you stupid fool of a girl. It would give me great pleasure to kill you right here.” Then Bobby's face went a shade of blue and she felt as though she would pass out. She was still being held up; her arms dangled at her sides, lifelessly. The professor had been standing by helplessly but now launched an attack on the tentacle. He used his fingers to try and pry it loose but the more he jabbed at it the tighter it became. The tentacle was too strong even for him.

“What do you want? I'll give you the crystal ball. You can have it,” the professor pleaded with the Oracle. By now Bobby had fainted. The tentacle uncoiled her and carelessly threw Bobby to the other side of the hut so that she lay like a limp rag doll on the floor. The professor ran to her and turned her over to take her pulse, afraid that she had perished.

“Get me my ball,” screamed the Oracle, “Get me my ball. Do as I say or you shall both meet with the same destiny.” And with that the Oracle uncoiled two of her tentacles, which floated threateningly toward the professor.

At that moment Ranku and Tinka and their father, who was the island's chief, burst into the hut. The children had spears, which they at once held to the throat of the Workhouse Oracle. The chief wielded a long machete-looking weapon through the air, slicing through the two tentacles in an instant at the point closest to the body so that they fell, motionless to the floor.

The Workhouse Oracle let out a scream that threatened to pierce the eardrums of everyone within and without the hut. They all clapped their hands to their ears to block the reverberating scream.

“My legs, my legs,” she said over and over again, “my beautiful legs. You're all going to pay for this.” Ranku and Tinka savagely pressed their spears to her throat in the warrior fashion in which they had been trained, lest she imagined she could wreak more havoc on their friends. But as the blood poured from her open wounds creating river systems in the sandy floor, she seemed gradually to grow very weak and then she faded away altogether and the children, the professor and the chief were stunned to find that the island Crone was suddenly lying in front of them on the bed. She sat up on the bed and looked around seeming more lucid than anyone had seen her for a long time. Ranku and Tinka withdrew their spears and took a step backwards, each as stunned as the other to see their beloved Crone before them.