Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing Read online

  Benjamin Blank stood in his bedroom studying the little green-faced figure at the top of his stairs. It stared back at him, tapping its foot impatiently.

  “Are you a gremlin?” Ben asked.

  “No.”

  “A goblin?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a big frog?”

  “Of course I’m not a big frog!”

  Ben ran a hand through his messy hair and scratched his head. “Well, what are you then?”

  Paradise Little drew herself up to her full unimpressive height and pointed at the pointy black hat on her head. “I’m obviously a witch.”

  “Oh,” said Ben. He crinkled his nose. “Not exactly original, is it?”

  “Well, I’m very sorry,” replied Paradise. “I didn’t realise we were being marked on creativity.” She looked Ben up and down. “Anyway, what are you supposed to be?”

  Before Ben could answer there was a commotion from the spiral staircase that led up from the room below. A brightly coloured head popped up through the hatch in the floor. Two large antennae flopped and flailed around madly on top of the head, like a couple of overweight worms having a fight.

  Wesley Chant, former trainee wizard, climbed the last few steps. He only just managed to squeeze a pair of colourfully patterned wings through the hatch. “Ta-daa!” he said, when he finally finished clambering into the room.

  Ben and Paradise both took a step back so they could take in the full majesty of Wesley’s costume. He was wearing what looked to be a dark-blue body stocking that covered him from neck to toe. On his head was a red and yellow knitted bobble-hat with the jiggly antennae fastened to the top.

  But it was the wings that really drew the eye. They were each over a metre wide, shaped like giant number 3s and sewn on to the back of the body stocking just below the shoulders. The detailed patterns on the wings perfectly matched each other, and Ben reckoned Wesley must have been secretly working on the costume for weeks. There was just one question.

  “What is it?” Ben asked.

  Wesley looked down at himself. “It’s a butterfly.”

  “A butterfly?”

  Wesley nodded. Quite proudly, Ben thought.

  “Let me get this straight. It’s the Feast of Scarrabus, the darkest night of the whole year, when children all over the kingdom dress up as the most horrifying creatures their imaginations can conjure up,” Ben said. “And you’ve come … as a butterfly.”

  Wesley blushed. “You don’t have to dress up as something scary.”

  “Of course you do!” said Ben.

  “Yeah,” agreed Paradise. “It’s pretty much the entire point.”

  “OK, yes, well, that may be. But … butterflies are scary. Imagine one kept doing this!” Wesley yelped, lunging at Paradise and waving his hands in her face. “Imagine that! Just doing this over and over again! Then what would you do? Hmm?”

  “Kill it with a shoe,” said Paradise flatly.

  Wesley stopped lunging. His wings drooped. “Bit harsh.”

  Paradise turned back to Ben. “So what are you then?”

  “All you’ve done is paint your face white,” said Wes.

  “I’m not finished,” Ben said. “Turn round.”

  Wesley’s wing slapped Paradise on the back of the head as they turned.

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry!”

  There was a soft rustling from behind them. It was followed a moment later by a CRASH as Ben fell over while pulling on a pair of trousers. He sprang back to his feet, fastened the trousers then snapped the hood of a cloak up over his head.

  “Ready!”

  Paradise and Wesley turned back to see Ben lurking in the shadows in the corner of his room. His white-painted face was barely visible beneath the black hood of a long robe.

  Jutting out of the front of the cloak were two spindly tree branches. In the gloom they looked like long, insect-like arms.

  “Well, I’m none the wiser,” Paradise confessed.

  Wesley’s wings twitched with excitement. “Wait, I know this,” he said. “It’s the Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing. Brilliant!”

  “What’s a Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing when it’s at home?” Paradise asked.

  With some difficulty, Ben knelt down and reached under his bed.

  He pulled out a heavy hardback book and held it up for the others to see.

  Paradise rolled her eyes. “Here we go again,” she muttered.

  “I found it in here,” Ben said, flipping through the pages of Who’s Who, What’s What and Why They Do Such Horrible Things to One Another.

  Wesley had given him the book soon after they’d first met. It was written by legendary monster-hunter Lunt Bingwood, who had mysteriously vanished shortly after he’d completed it. The book contained details of pretty much every monster and weird creature that had ever existed, along with helpful diagrams of the best places to kick them should the need ever arise.

  Ben had had the book for just over six months and had read it from cover to cover more than a dozen times. He’d spent days combing through all the entries trying to find the perfect costume for the Feast of Scarrabus.

  When he’d read about the Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing he’d felt a flutter of excitement in his chest and knew he’d found the perfect outfit.

  “Here it is,” Ben announced.

  He pointed to a creepy black-and-white drawing on one of the book’s yellowing pages. The picture showed a tall, skinny creature with a round face and large bulging eyes. It wore a robe almost exactly like Ben’s, but instead of tree branches it had six spider-like legs creeping out from within the cloak’s dark folds.

  “The Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing,” said Ben, his voice a low whisper. “Even Lunt Bingwood never saw one of these. According to legend it’s the servant of Lord Scarrabus.”

  “I thought everyone knew this story,” said Wesley. “When children don’t respect the traditions of the Feast of Scarrabus, the Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing snatches them away.”

  Paradise raised an eyebrow. “You mean like the tradition of dressing as something scary?”

  Wesley glanced down at his butterfly costume. His face turned almost as white as Ben’s. “I’m sure it wouldn’t come for a silly thing like that. Would it?”

  “Of course not, moths-for-brains,” Paradise said. “The whole thing’s a legend. It’s just an excuse for people to get free sweets. There’s no such thing as a Moon-Faced Whatchama-call-it.”

  From downstairs there came a series of soft chimes. Ben closed the book and slipped it back beneath his bed.

  “Nine o’clock,” he said, standing up and straightening his stick-arms. “You two ready?”

  Paradise adjusted her pointy hat. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Taking a steadying breath, Wesley smoothed down the wrinkles of his butterfly bodysuit. “Right then,” he said, his voice coming out as a croaky whisper. “Let the Feast of Scarrabus begin.”

  The Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing, the witch and the bobble-hatted butterfly stepped out on to the darkened main street of the village of Lump. None of the lamps had been lit and it was only thanks to the faint moonlight that the children were able to see anything at all.

  “Everyone got their bags?” Paradise asked.

  Ben and Wesley held up two bulging cloth sacks and gave them a shake. “Got them.”

  They strolled towards the closest house. Shapes moved somewhere along the street – other children out for Scarrabus’s feast, no doubt.

  “I’ve worked out the best route so we can get this done quickly,” Paradise said. “The sooner we can get finished, the sooner we can all go home.”

  “Why the rush?” asked Ben, swinging his bag back and forth as he walked. “This is the first interest
ing thing to happen around here in months. The Feast of Scarrabus is supposed to be fun.”

  Wesley whimpered. “Fun?” he said. “Trudging around in the dark, surrounded by monsters?”

  “Kids dressed as monsters,” Ben pointed out.

  “It’s the same thing!” Wesley yelped. “I mean, no, obviously it isn’t the same thing,” he admitted. “But it’s still pretty scary.”

  They reached the first house. It was one of the new wooden huts that had been built after the neighbouring village of Loosh had been destroyed. Loosh was supposed to have been rebuilt months ago, but a mysterious fire had burned every one of the houses to the ground before they could be finished, destroying the village for the second time that year. Not wanting to chance things a third time, the Mayor of Loosh had decided they should all just stay in Lump permanently.

  Above the door of the house was a carved wooden fish. At least, it was supposed to be a fish, but the person who had carved it had either never seen a fish in their life, or had never had a go at carving before. Either way, it looked like a sort of melted slug with a very surprised expression on its face.

  The hut was the home of pirate-turned-fishmonger Captain Swordbeard. From past experience, Paradise knew the captain had a fondness for kipper-flavoured fudge. She rummaged in her sack and pulled out a small parcel wrapped several times in thick brown paper. Despite the layers of wrapping, the whiff of sugary smoked fish was unmistakeable.

  “I’m glad to get rid of this one,” she said, dropping the package on the doorstep. She wiped her hands on her tatty black dress and all three children quickly backed away. Paradise began to march towards another house. “This way; keep up. You wouldn’t want the ghoul-faced thingummy to come and get you.”

  She jabbed Wesley in the ribs. He let out a high-pitched squeak of fright. “It’s got me, it’s got me!”

  Paradise and Ben both burst into fits of laughter.

  “D-don’t do that!” Wes yelped. “I almost soiled my body stocking.”

  Paradise slung her bag over her shoulder and hurried on ahead. “Come on, this is getting us nowhere,” she said. “Last one to give out their sweets is a Gruzzleslug’s mum.”

  It took them almost forty minutes to stop by every house in the village. They left their little gifts of chocolate, fudge and other tasty stuff on every doorstep they stopped at. Some of the homes had already been visited by other children, and those steps were spilling over with stacks of sweet-smelling parcels.

  Ben’s stomach rumbled as he balanced his last bundle of goodies on top of a teetering pile of packages.

  The aroma of toffee apples and home baking made his mouth water.

  “We could probably take one or two,” he said. “Nobody would notice.”

  “Are you mad?” Wesley spluttered. “And risk angering Lord Scarrabus?”

  “Grow up, Wesley,” said Paradise, rolling her eyes. “There is no Lord Scarrabus. If there was, why has nobody ever seen him?”

  “Because we leave the sweets,” Wesley said. His antennae bobbed about frantically on top of his head. “We leave the sweets and keep him at bay. That’s the rule. Start messing with that and who knows what might happen?”

  Paradise stooped and lifted a small paper bag from the pile. She fished inside it and pulled out a brightly coloured bonbon.

  “Are you seriously telling me you believe all this stuff?” she asked. “You honestly think that some all-powerful evil warlord is held at bay by children leaving chocolate on doorsteps?”

  “Yes! Why else would the tradition have started in the first place?”

  “Well, let’s see,” said Paradise. “Maybe because adults wanted a load of free sweets?”

  “Ha!” laughed Wesley. “That’s… That’s…” He considered it for a second. “That does make a lot of sense, actually.”

  Ben eyed up the pile of packets. “So in other words, we should probably just help ourselves?”

  Paradise shrugged. “Yeah, why not?” she said, tossing the bonbon towards her open mouth.

  “N-no!” yelped Wesley. There was a brief flash and the sweet froze just millimetres from Paradise’s lips. It hung there, floating in the air, quietly minding its own business.

  All three children stared in silence at the sweet for what felt like a very long time. Ben eventually glanced sideways at Wes. “Did you do that?” he asked.

  Wesley held up his hands and studied them front and back. He was technically a wizard, but every spell he’d ever attempted had either failed to work or gone spectacularly wrong. In the end he had been kicked out of wizard school after tests revealed he had less magical ability than the average door knob.

  He hadn’t been trying to do a spell, but he had nevertheless felt … something.

  When Paradise had tossed the bonbon towards her mouth he’d felt a tingle of energy tickle along his fingertips. It was like nothing Wesley had ever felt before, and – like wasps, sharp corners and certain colours of paint – it worried him.

  Wes looked at the sweet. It was still hanging there like a tiny moon, defying the laws of gravity and common sense. Whatever the tests had found, Wesley reckoned there were very few door knobs that could have done something like that.

  His jaw flapped open and closed. “I, uh … I just d-don’t think we should eat them,” he stammered. “Just in case the legend is true. We wouldn’t want to come face to face with Lord Scarrabus, would we?”

  Slowly, his hand trembling, he reached out and took hold of the bonbon. It vibrated briefly between his fingers, then seemed to relax. He placed it back in the bag, took the bag from Paradise then set it down on the step.

  Wesley smoothed down his bodysuit and smiled shakily. “Right, that’s enough excitement for me. I think I’ll call it a night. See you both tomorrow.”

  “You OK?” Ben asked.

  “Cock-a-doodle-dandy!” Wesley said, forcing a smile. He winced. “Sorry, bit of a strange thing to say. Don’t know where that came from. Um … bye.”

  He about-turned and took a few uncertain steps along the almost perfectly dark street.

  “Wrong way,” said Paradise, who had a special ability that let her find anything she decided to look for. Not that she needed magical powers to know where Wesley’s house was.

  Wesley turned sharply left. Paradise shook her head. “Still the wrong way,” she said. “Would you like me to walk you—”

  “Yes, please!”

  Paradise smiled and turned to Ben. She punched him playfully on the arm. “See you later, moon-thing.”

  “See you, tiny witch,” Ben said. He gave Wes a wave, then watched them walk away until they’d disappeared into the darkness.

  Ben waited until they were gone, then looked down at the three bags of sweets they had left on the doorstep. Wesley’s words rang in his ears: We wouldn’t want to come face to face with Lord Scarrabus, would we?

  “Actually,” Ben whispered, “who says I wouldn’t?”

  And with that, he set to work.

  Ben stood in his bedroom looking at a large lump of rock. His uncle Tavish has moved it out of the basement and into Ben’s room when Ben was out, to allow Tavish to fix up the basement wall.

  Embedded in the rock was a sword. Only the handle and a few centimetres of blade stuck out from the stone. On the handle was a detailed carving of a terrifying-looking creature. Ben had searched every page of Lunt Bingwood’s Who’s Who, What’s What and Why They Do Such Horrible Things to One Another to try to find out what the creature was, but there was no reference to it anywhere in the book.

  Beside the stone was a long wooden box. It was closed, but Ben knew that inside it was the magic metal gauntlet that had saved his life several times in the past. Both the gauntlet and the sword in the stone had been found in the wreckage of a wagon ten years ago. Ben had been found in the same wreckage as a baby and Tavish had taken him in, raising him like he was his own son.

  Those two objects were the most important things in Ben’s world. They wer
e his only link to his past, and to the mystery of what had happened to his parents. As soon as Ben had first found out about the sword and the gauntlet, he knew he would guard them with his life.

  It had been six months since he had last tried to pull the sword free, right before he and his friends had faced Dadsbutt the swivel-eyed ogre. Since then, life had been largely uneventful in Lump, and Ben hadn’t thought about trying the sword again.

  Until now.

  Ben removed his cloak, used it to wipe off his face paint then hung it over the end of his bed. The cloth sack he’d used to carry his delivery of sweets was slung over his shoulder. With the robe on, the bag had been completely hidden, so no one could see the sack was fuller now than when he’d left the house.

  Pushing the heavy bag under his bed, Ben turned to the sword and reached for the handle. As it always did, a faint buzz of power trembled up his arm the moment his fingers made contact with the sword’s hilt.

  “This is my sword,” he whispered. “This is my sword, and I am ready.”

  He pulled, then gasped. For the first time ever he felt movement, and for a glorious moment he thought the sword was finally going to pull free. Instead, the blade burrowed deeper into the stone, all the way up to the handle.

  Confused, Ben pulled harder, but the sword remained fixed firmly in place. No matter how much he tugged, the blade wouldn’t slide back out.

  Ben’s shoulders sagged. “Fine. See if I care,” he whispered. He gave the boulder a kick, which he realised immediately was a bad idea. He jammed his hand in his mouth and hopped around the room for a few moments, trying not to yelp in pain.

  Then, with a quick stop at the bathroom, Ben got into his two-sizes-too-big nightshirt, slid under his rough woollen blankets and lay on his back staring up at the thatched roof above his bed.

  He thought about the sword. Why had it buried itself deeper into the rock? It had never done anything like that before.

  He thought about the bag of treats stuffed under his bed but quickly began to feel guilty, so switched his attention to something else.