This story is inspired by the 'true' story of the drummer boy who still haunts the Edinburgh catacombs after being set into the dark over a century ago...
The Drummer Boy
November 1651
The rain lashed down on the hoods and shoulders of the mounted party, water sinking through to their skin, chilling them to the bone. Their horses were whickering beneath them, shaking their huge, sodden heads, attempting to turn, to go back. The night was drawing closer. And the storm was only getting worse.
"Father!" called out Aedan Fowl, squinting through the whip of the wind. "We must go back! The way shall only become more treacherous the longer we linger here!"
Lord Aedar glared back at his son. Water was dripping from his leather hood and his hands were red against his reins.
"No!" he bellowed, dark beard spraying water. "The men are still searching! We shall not return without her!"
Aedan scowled.
"I-if w-we d-don't go back s-soon," said a faint voice from below him. "T-the path sh-shall b-be o-overflowing. We'll l-lose h-horses t-to the m-mud."
Aedan glanced down. His footman was shivering violently beneath his woollen cloak, his butterscotch hair plastered flat to his scalp.
"I know that," spat Aedan. "Everyone knows it but if father is determined..."
"T-terra's his f-favourite?"
"My mother's favourite, so accordingly his." Aedan sneered. "It is a blasted dog, for Heaven's sake!Dogs get lost! If it hasn't the intelligence to work its way back out of a hole then it deserves to stay in one."
"M-might h-have more b-brains that us t-to s-seek sh-shelter."
Aedan's frown deepened. "Brandon, you look frozen."
Brandon smiled up through chattering teeth. "W-well observed o-oh sm-smart one."
The Lordling swivelled in his saddle to reach his pack at the back, quickly undoing the buckles and pulling out a spare cloak.
"Here."
He dropped the coat down. Brandon pulled it quickly around his shoulders, yanking up the hood.
"About b-bloody t-time."
"Well if you do insist on coming out in substandard hosiery…"
Brandon shouldered him on the leg and Aedan stifled a grin. Then one of his father's feudal Lords turned around to glare at them and they were back to being Lord and master again. For a moment.
"What is that anyway?" asked Aedan, unable to see where the other men were shouting, their movements obscured by rain and trees. "A cave?"
"Underground g-graveyard," answered Brandon, pulling his cloak close. "Where yer'll g-go one day."
"The crypt? I didn't know it was all the way out here."
"Well ya d-don't want yer bodies st-stinking up around the house d'ya?"
It was Aedan's turn to issue a kick and Brandon's turn to smirk.
"For shame!" roared the lower Lord from earlier, turning to bellow at Aedan. "You have already embarrassed your father once today by your complete lack of success in the hunt! Do not continue to sink his pride lower by making a fool of yourself with the servants!"
Aedan flushed deeply as most of the party swivelled to stare at him. Heat spread to his face and shoulders, branding him. He lowered his head.
"Aedan?" murmured Brandon from the corner of his mouth, the two syllables laden with concern.
There was a stiff pause and then–
"Be silent," snapped the Fowl heir. "You are a servant, do you hear? How dare you attempt to speak to me as if we were equals?"
"She won't come, my Lord," said another footman, barely holding back a shudder as he spoke to the mounted Lord Aedar.
"She is a dog!" roared Aedar, gripping the reins of his unsettled destrier. "Why are men not down there to fetch her out?"
"I-it is dangerous, m'Lord. The men don't want to follow because–"
"Want? Want?"
"Of course, m'Lord. I shall tell them."
The footman turned away, screaming at the group of sodden, wan-faced peasants, their boots already half sunk into the mud around the crypt entrance.
Aedan kicked his horse and trotted forwards. Brandon followed. Wearily.
"We need one volunteer," said the dark-haired heir sharply to his father. "Sending a whole party down there would be of no use, they could end up in a bottle neck." Aedan nodded at the sodden labourers. "And these men are too cold and clumsy. You need someone stronger, more sure-footed."
Brandon closed his eyes.
"My man would do perfectly."
Lord Aedar looked down at the gangly Brandon who immediately stood bone-straight, his eyes grey opening.
"Send him down with one of the hunting drums," continued Aedan. "That way we can track his progress from above ground."
Lord Aedar nodded. "Floren! Your drum!"
Brandon's fists tightened. Aedan swung off his horse in one smooth motion, gripping Brandon's elbow and dragging him forward.
"You are to go down and fetch the dog," he told him, loudly, imperatively, splashing his way through the mud. "Just go slowly and keep one hand on the wall–"
"Wi' a drum in one hand?"
Aedan yanked him around. "Do not speak to me like that."
Brandon's nose twitched with dislike. "If I go in there I won't be coming out."
"What–?"
"It's haunted, Aedan."
"Do not address me so. And what is this peasant, superstitious nonsense?"
"I swear t' yeh. You send me in there and I won't be coming out."
The two teenagers glared at one another. Aedan felt the hard gaze of his father burning into the back of his head. A horse snorted, the wind slapped at his cloak. Brandon's chest heaved and Aedan frowned.
There was a loud thump beneath them.
"Here."
Aedan accepted the cased bodhrán and pushed it into his friend's hands.
"Please," he hissed lowly, tilting his head so his mouth would be hidden from his father and his men.
Brandon stared at him a moment more before his gaze dropped.
"Alright…" he replied stiffly, almost sadly, "m'Lord."
Aedan watched him turn away and felt a wrench in his stomach. He knew something had broken between them. But that was only proper. He would be a Lord one day, responsible for lands, property and over seven hundred servants, labourers, peasants and soldiers. Would he be able to be friends with Brandon then? Sneak up with him into the barn loft in the dead of night, never sleep but laugh until they cried? Slip him apples, bread, share castle gossip, scoff together at all the pomp, the ridiculousness of it all? No. He wouldn't.
And Brandon didn't even look back as he descended into the dark.
Doom. Doom.
The drum beat. Aedan hefted himself back into the saddle of his mare and sat at his father's side.
Doom. Doom.
The wind was picking up, spitting rain in Aedan's face like an insult.
Doom. Doom.
"No-one knows how deep the graves go," said his father, pointing a few foot soldiers off in the direction of the beats. "They are said to reach down to the very bowels of hell itself."
Doom. Doom.
"He'll find her, my Lord. She can't have gone that far," replied Aedan.
Doom. Doom.
The drums continued for the longest time. Aedan's seat became numb, his fingers frozen around the wet leather of his reins. Then, finally, the beats faded into the distance.
"Where the devil is he?" snapped Lord Aedar.
Silence.
Aedan's heart pounded in his head.
Silence.
It already knew where the devil Brandon was.
Silence.
November 1845
"And then what?" whispered the little girl.
Her big brother grimaced; his face eerie, almost demonic in the reflecting lick of the firelight.
"Not another drumbeat was heard," he whispered. "The soldiers came back, reporting that the drumbeats had ceased, suddenly, about a mile from the crypt entry. Aedan pleaded with his father to send down another man to find his lost friend but Lord Aedar refused. Then the storm grew so terrible that the whole party had to return to the house."
Margaret shifted in the armchair, pulling her long night dress over her feet. "And then what?"
"Aedan spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in his bed, his nightmares full of cadavers and drummers until at first light he stole a horse from the stables and rode into the forest, shouting and screaming for Brandon. When he reached the crypt he descended into the dark, crying and calling all the while... but Brandon was never to be found…"
The little girl's eyes were wide and bright. She shrunk a little in her seat, her gaze fixed to her brother's sallow face. He leant in closer.
"Brandon's mother was informed soon after of her son's disappearance and she flew immediately into a wild, grief-stricken rage. She knew, of course, that her son would not have gone into the crypts of his own volition, and she knew that it must have been Aedan who would have forced him into it. She stormed up to the castle, past the guards and directly into the banqueting hall. Then, before the whole assembly, she cursed Lord Aedar and his family–"
"Our family?"
"Yes, our family, vowing that we would feel the same pain she had at the loss of her beloved son. That she would take our children one day until her vengeance was complete. Lord Aedar had her immediately arrested and sentenced to death–"
"To death?"
"By burning, as by cursing our family she had revealed herself to be truly a witch."
"But that's ridiculous!"
"I know that, Maggie, and so did Aedan, who then begged his father to spare the woman; he knew that she had Brandon's seven brothers and sisters to care for, and that without her they would never survive the winter."
The eight year old's eyes creased. "But that's awful."
"It's Fowl," laughed Henley. "And so the woman burnt anyway, cursing our line with every one of her last, smoke-choked breaths… Now, to bed."
Maggie gave a derisive snort, her expression almost comically adult. "And how do you expect me to sleep after hearing such a tale as that one?"
"Fitfully." Henley reached down and plucked her out of the chair. "Come, or Sister Caitlin shall flay me alive."
And so Margaret was soon tucked into her manor bed.
"Henley...?" she asked dozily.
"A-hmm?"
"What… what was the curse?"
"Well," he said, sitting on the very edge of her blankets. "Brandon's mother demanded a Fowl child to be taken for every child that she had lost."
"But… I'm a Fowl child."
"No, you're lovely."
She punched at him weakly.
"You know," – she yawned widely – "what I am talking about…"
He smirked, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb.
"Yes. But lucky for you, you have an elder brother, so if Brandon's ghost should come for any one of us then I should be the one to be taken."
"But why?"
"Because I am generous, and would happily sacrifice myself for your cause."
He kissed her swiftly on the forehead and turned down her lamp. It didn't take her long to fall asleep. After all, she was a Fowl. And Fowls never took such childish nonsense seriously.
Henley retired to his own room, his eyes drawn to the claw-like ash branches clattering against his window as he undid the buttons of his waistcoat. He undressed absently before pulling on the nightshirt the valet had left out to warm before the fire. He washed his face in the basin and looked briefly into the looking-glass set above it. He stroked at his chin. A few, dark bristles were starting to sprout there. But he was sixteen now, and that was to be expected. Soon he would be as hairy as his father, with side whiskers the size of shoe brushes. He smirked at that.
And it was just he had pulled back his blankets, bent low over the lamp to blow it out, when he heard the first of the drums.
November 1967
"And so Henley became the sixth Fowl to be taken," said Vesta Fowl, matter-of-factly. "Some servants told stories about seeing him being led away by the ghostly light of the previous victim, Noakley Fowl, dead some… eighty years or something, but it was dismissed as nonsense at the time."
The teenager raised an eyebrow, "But you believe it?"
"But of course!" She laughed, pulling playfully at the lapels of his blazer. "I love the idea of our ancestors being stolen away by some vengeful drummer boy. It's so… gothic…"
"But aren't you afraid that you shall be stolen?"
"Why?" she snapped, her expression suddenly guarded, bitter. "I'm a girl remember? And Brandon's ghost has only ever claimed boys."
"You said he claims first-borns. And you are the first first-born girl in your family for… six generations? So if taken, you would become the penultimate sacrifice."
"Well remembered, Jacques. How very boring of you…"
She smiled and glanced at his lips. She was already pressed back against the bookcase, his chest inches from hers. He smiled and closed the gap.
"Vesta! Jacques!"
The sixteen-year-old banged her head back against the wood.
"Artemis!" she snapped, half pushing the Frenchman away. "What are you doing here?"
The four-year-old scowled.
"Father says you're to dress for dinner. He expects us all downstairs in twenty minutes."
Vesta rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
"I've already told him I'm not coming."
"Well, I'm telling you!" cried the little Artemis. "You never come down anymore! Why don'tyou want to be with us?"
"Because this family is insane," said Vesta flatly, her hands on her hip, "and vindictive. And I do not wish to spend another evening pretending that I give a… a flying toss about any of that Fowl crap they keep feeding us. It's wrong. And I'm not doing it anymore. Come on, Jacques…"
She reached out for her boyfriend's hand just as the four-year-old's eyes narrowed.
And twenty minutes later, Adolphus Fowl was screaming at his first-born as his second-born rocked in the room next door, his hands clutched over his head. There was a banging noise, a door slammed, a cry.
"You dare to speak to me so?"
"Get off!"
Artemis watched as his sister was dragged by the arm past his bedroom doorway and thrown into an empty room, full of dusty cabinets and forgotten family portraits.
"You shall stay in here," breathed Adolphus, his chest heaving, "until you have come to your senses. You are shaming this family!"
"I am shaming us?" screeched Vesta, her dark, cropped hair slipping from her headband. "I'm not the one telling all of our acquaintance that I'm a slut."
Slap.
There was a terrible silence.
"You shall obey me," repeated Adolphus. "Or you shall live to regret it."
And he locked her in.
Twenty minutes Artemis waited, staring, almost entranced at his sister's door, before scampering to his feet. It didn't take him long to steal the master keys, and when he pulled back the door Vesta was still lying where Adolphus had thrown her, her long, pale legs, stuck out at odd angles.
"Vesta," whispered Artemis. "Vesta, are you awake?"
She didn't answer and the little boy crept closer.
"Vesta–"
"I've got to leave, Timmy."
Her voice was soft, hoarse.
"No," cried Artemis. "You can't! You can't leave–"
His sister sat upright and pulled a hand over his mouth.
"Hush. Hush, now."
He stilled in the cradle of her arms.
"It'll be alright. The house will be a lot… calmer without me."
Artemis's eyes filled with tears.
"But where will you go?"
"With Jacques. His family have property in Vienna and… and I could do with practicing my German."
She held his tiny face in her hands as he started to cry.
"You'll be alright, Timmy. You can visit me when you're older."
"F-Father w-wouldn't–"
"Ignore Father. One day you'll be the man of this house and he'll just be a wrinkled old fart bag, ranting and losing control of his bowel movements in a chair in the corner."
Artemis grimaced. And then his sister's smile faltered. Her hands had frozen against his cheeks.
"Vesta…?"
She didn't respond.
Doom.
"Vesta."
"Do you hear that?" she whispered, her eyes focusing sharply back to his.
Artemis shook his head. "I don't hear anything–"
Doom. Doom.
She stood up, almost as if she had been yanked. She stared towards the empty doorway.
"So it's true…" she murmured.
The little boy stood too, wiping his face on his sleeve. His sister started to walk towards the hall.
"No," he hissed, pulling on her skirt. "Vesta, you can't go! You can't!"
But she ignored him. It was as if he wasn't even there anymore. She walked forward as if stepping on air; she was drifting, ghosting… She held out her hand.
"Vesta!"
She looked back at her brother once, her eyes bright and somehow distant.
"I'm sorry, Timmy, but… but I must. You must let me go."
She took the hand of the light before her.
November 2008
"Are you warm enough?"
"Yes."
Artemis Senior frowned and scrutinized his eldest son, his sharp, youthful face lit by the glow of his laptop. The teenager was sunk down on a nest of blankets, a woollen hat pulled down tight over his hair and a pair of fingerless gloves yanked over his hands. Artemis Senior was sat opposite him, his own palms cupped around a thermos flask.
"Though I would be warmer still," continued the teenager, not bothering to cease his typing, "if we were to give up on this farce altogether and return to the upper levels."
The Fowl dungeons had not been used in over a generation and were cramped and damp and packed with insect corpses. Butler had had to smash the wooden panels nailed over their entrance with a sledgehammer to uncover the steps and the dark hallways beneath. They had descended with a torch, Artemis grumbling and hugging his computer to his stomach, feeling his skin prickle with every drop in temperature. His father had brought down the blankets and chairs (with a considerable amount of Butler-aid) and picked them out a cell with the least amount of filth. He had settled in a post in the corner, his son settling opposite him, being careful not to bang his hatted head against a rusted, steel pike protruding from the stone work above him. He'd then had Butler secure the iron-belted door with over twenty metres of steel chain and stand guard outside.
"No," said Artemis Senior levelly.
His son looked up. "You could keep me imprisoned and the phantoms out just as easily in a room with proper floors and a clean air-flow."
"Not in one to which you do not already know the exit codes. At least here, you are rendered physically powerless."
Artemis closed the lid of his laptop.
"Why are we doing this?" he asked in a hushed whisper. "You cannot honestly believe…? I know my Aunt's disappearance was traumatic for you but… but she was not taken by a ghost, Father. You cannot… truly believe that. There were other factors. You yourself said she had wanted to run away. Her diaries revealed that she suspected she was pregnant. She would have been avoiding a scandal… using the… the drummer boy only as a cover story. It was a cruel trick but…"
The teenager lapsed into silence. His father was so still the only way you could tell he was alive was by the thin clouds of breath still misting about his mouth.
"One day…" said Artemis Senior, after a long, quiet moment. "One day, God willing, you shall have a child of your own, Artemis. And from that day forward you shall endeavour to protect that child with everything you have on Earth. And when those levels of protection become odd or absurd to other people you shall not give a damn because your fear will be real, and their safety shall be paramount to all else."
Artemis opened his mouth.
"Just humour me," said his father sharply. "It is one night. Come the morning you may go back upstairs… and you may laugh at my foolishness for as long as you wish."
The sixteen-year-old frowned and pulled his blankets closer to him… and then he heard it.
Doom.
His gaze shot up to meet his father's.
"What was that?"
Artemis Senior raised his head.
"What was what?"
Doom.
"There's…. I heard a drum."
Doom. Doom.
"Yes, that is a drum," snapped Artemis, his face suddenly flushing, "as you must know it is! Is this all a joke, father? Are you playing some form of prank on me?"
Artemis Senior rose from his seat.
"Butler!" He yelled through the door. "It has started! I do not know what shall happen now but you must stand strong!"
The teenager's laptop fell to the floor with a crunch of plastic and microchips as the sixteen-year-old got to his feet.
"What's going on?" he demanded, the pike scraping against the side of his jacket. "Why am I...? Why…?"
"Artemis, sit down," ordered his father. "You are not going anywhere."
But the teenager's eyes had suddenly become glassy, unfocused.
"I…" He exhaled slowly. "I..." He looked at his father. "I must go."
Heat rushed Artemis Senior's veins. The boy took a step towards the door but his father pushed him quickly back.
A light flickered in the corner of the room.
"No," whispered Artemis Senior, and then stronger, "no!"
But his son's gaze was already turning. He stretched out a pale, pianist's hand to the light, just as she once had… and his father wrenched it down.
"Mister Fowl," called Butler from outside. "What's happening in there? Are you both alright?"
Artemis Junior stared at his father.
"You must let me go," he said softly.
"I must do nothing of the sort."
"You… you must."
Artemis Senior squared his jaw. He pressed his hands against his son, pressing at his jacket, his chest, pushing him against the wall of the cell.
"No," he said firmly, settling his grip, feeling the pike graze against his leg,"we are staying right here. You and I shall fight this. I will not let it happen again."
There was a bang from outside and the clanking of chains.
"Please," gasped Artemis, his breath restricted due to his father's hands. "I am meant to go."
"No," insisted Artemis Senior. "I shall not lose you too!"
"What's going on?" demanded Butler's muffled voice through the wood. "Mister Fowl, answer me!"
Then Artemis raised his hands and prised his father's fingers apart as easily as if they belonged to an infant. Artemis Senior's eyes widened. It was happening just as it had forty years ago, all over again.
Artemis's voice was calm, clear. "I must go."
Butler shouldered his way through the door. After kicking aside the laptop and chain links he registered the sight of his charge's slack expression, the hands of Artemis's Senior bunched at his coat front.
"Close the door!" bellowed the Fowl Patriarch.
The bodyguard ignored him.
"I want to go, Butler," said Artemis. "Please, you must let me go."
"What's going on?"
"You mustn't listen to him," insisted Artemis Senior. "He is not himself!"
"Then just who the Hell is he meant to be?" demanded Butler.
Then the teenager shot forwards.
"Artemis," gasped Butler, as his charge's fingers tightened around his biceps, his pale face appearing inches from his own.
"Let me go," whispered the boy.
But Butler had lost his principal twice already and whatever the hell was going on here, he wasn't about to allow a hat trick. He squared his jaw and gripped Artemis's skinny arms back.
"Not on your nelly."
Then the boy's face twisted and he wrenched backwards. Butler came with him.
Artemis Senior scrambled aside as the pair hurtled back into the cell. There was a terrific crash and a cloud of dust exploded across the room. The Fowl Patriarch coughed, screamed–
"Artemis!"
The dust cleared. The teenager had his back to the wall, his eyes wide and his face white. His bodyguard had shifted his hands at the last minute so they had collided with the wall either side of Artemis's head.
"I… I must go…" whispered the boy.
Butler's face was grim. "No…way," he panted.
Then a single droplet of blood trailed down from the corner of Artemis's mouth.
The bodyguard's heart stuttered.
"Artemis!"
His charge's gaze began to wander strangely and more blood blossomed between his lips.
Butler gripped his shoulders. "Artemis, what's–? What–?"
Then he looked down and saw the boy's shaking, scarlet hands.
"The pike," groaned Artemis Senior from the floor. "He's backed into the pike!"
"No," whispered Butler.
The teenager's eyes rolled up into his head and he pitched forwards. Butler caught him in his arms.
"Artemis," he snapped, his heart beating a mile a minute. "Artemis, stay with me."
Artemis Senior was rocking with his head in his hands. "He's gone, he's gone!"
"Get yourself together!" roared Butler. "I need something to staunch the bleeding! Now!"
Artemis Senior raised his head and stared at a point just over Butler's shoulder. A strange light was growing in the corner of the room. The bodyguard looked down at the boy in his arms. The teenager seemed almost mesmerised.
"Let me go," he whispered.
"No. No, Artemis, it's not happening."
"You must."
"No, I really mustn't."
"I am the last."
"I don't care."
Doom. Doom.
"Vesta..."
"No. No! Artemis!"
And as the light slowly faded in the corner of his eye, Butler lost his charge for the third and final time.
Always wanted to write a straight-up ghost story! And I've never killed Artemis before... A night for firsts!
What did you guys think? :)
(P.S. Didn't get half as many reviews for chapter 12 than the rest of my chapters - was it just not liked? :/ Please drop me a review to tell me what you thought of it. I was experimenting with my writing in that chapter and I would like to know more of what people thought...)