The Ghastly Exchange – Episode 9
Above the roiling storm clouds, tumultuous winds tossed the bed about like a dandelion seed in a tempest. Grimmon and I clung on as the four-poster heaved and shook, its wooden frame creaking and groaning in protest. The soaking wet bedclothes slapped liked wildly flapping wings against its sides and the canopy billowed like a ship’s sail.
As the bed pitched and rolled, I caught a glimpse every now and again of the seething black cloud-tops below us, their mounds and curves burnished by the silvery light of the moon.
“It’s even worse up here! This is all your fault!” shouted Grimmon.
Technically, he was right. I was responsible for where we were. But I wasn’t about to tell him that when I’d hugged the bedpost and said “fly like a bird”, I’d thought I’d been encouraging the bed to fly across the river, not to take off into the heavens.
“Stop fretting!” I gave him a manly clap on the shoulder. “It was a brilliant idea of mine to take us above the storm, safe and out of harm’s way. Down there it’s all raging floods and chaos.”
Despite my quaking innards, I put as much bravado into my voice as I could muster..
The wind chose that moment to spin us around. I slid across the bedcovers, my arms windmilling.
My eyes bulged as I tipped over the edge. Icy fingers snaked up my spine. In a fraction of a second I would fall, plunge through the clouds and smash into the ground far below.
Grunting with effort, Grimmon grabbed the hem of my jacket and hauled me back onto the mattress.
For once, I was grateful for the mind swap. Igor was shorter and his build lighter than mine. I’m not sure the goblin would have had the strength to do what he had if I’d been in my own body.
Grimmon glared at me. “That settles it. Tell the spell to take us back down right now!”
Pretending I hadn’t heard him, I said, “I think we should go below the clouds so we can see where we are.”
“That’s what I just–”
He broke off as we lurched in a violent gust. A pillow whirled away, dropping into the murk. Another gust sent the bed bucking like a wild bull. With the cracking of splintering wood, the canopy tore loose and sailed into the distance.
“Down!” I shrieked at the bed. “Go back down!”
With one of the bedposts at the front wobbling in an alarming manner, the front of the four-poster dipped and we careened downwards.
The moment we entered the clouds, the moonlight vanished. Grimmon, and what was left of the bed, were grey shadows against an inky backdrop.
My heart in my mouth, I held onto the headboard with a vicelike grip.
Plummeting with all the elegance of a cast-iron drain cover, accompanied by the groaning of tortured wood, and an awful noise like the wailing of a demented banshee, we burst through the base of the clouds.
Huge raindrops smashed into my face and hands, sinking into my already sodden clothes. I blinked to clear my eyes and ducked just in time to avoid being brained by the loose bedpost which had worked free and shot towards me. It crashed into the headboard, which cracked from top to bottom in a spray of wood chips.
The awful wailing cut off as I gulped a great chestful of damp air. It hadn’t been a banshee after all, but me yowling in terror.
The bed’s dive became shallower, turning to a swoop as we began to level off. The black shapes of treetops flashed past an arm’s length underneath us as we hurtled on.
“Look!” cried Grimmon, pointing in the direction we were heading. “Lights!”
Ahead, the dim glow of lighted windows and street lamps of a town had come into view through the misty, rain-drenched air.
My hair flew about my face, and the two halves of the broken headboard rattled and banged in the slipstream as we dropped lower.
The bed jolted and a shower of leaves erupted behind us as its legs ploughed furrows through the treetops. With a loud bang, the pieces of headboard broke free and vanished, torn away by the vibrations shaking the bed-frame.
Another bedpost tore loose, somersaulting away like a circus acrobat.
The shaking became less violent as we left the trees behind and swept like a rickety comet over the rooftops at the edge of the town.
With an ungraceful roll, we swerved around a steeple and dropped further. I glanced to the side. Our heads were level with the upper storey windows of a row of houses lining a street.
The yellow light streaming from the windows and street-lamps banished the darkness, allowing us to see the bed more clearly.
My heart skipped a beat.
Not much of it remained
Our poor mount had been reduced to a soggy aerial mass of flapping bedclothes and a mattress, to which Grimmon I clung like shipwrecked sailors on a raft as we sank lower.
I looked ahead and my blood froze.
We were heading hell for leather towards a junction. On the opposite side of which we were faced by the forbidding wall of a rather large warehouse.
“Slow down!” I screamed at the bed.
Perhaps the spell didn’t hear me. Or perhaps it was dissolving away, diminishing little by little with each lost fragment of the bed until barely any of it was left.
With a dull thud like a belly-flopping whale, the remnants of the bed hit the cobbles of the street.
Shrieking in unison, Grimmon and I struggled to stay on the mattress as it bounced and skidded in a cloud of feathers down the street, across the junction…
And slammed into the wall.
The impact catapulted me into the air. I didn’t have time to scream before I smacked against the side of the warehouse and dropped to the unforgiving pavement.
How long I lay there – winded, sore, and dazed – I do not know.
I may have been concussed, for the next thing I remember was an odd conversation.
“‘Ello, ‘ello. What ‘ave we got ‘ere?” said a voice.
“Looks like a burglary wot went wrong, sarge,” said another. “There’s the culprit snoozing on the pavement.”
“You think ‘e stole that bed? It don’t look in good enough shape to warrant bein’ thieved.”
“People will steal anything these days, sarge.”
This was followed by the sound of the sergeant sucking his teeth.
“Well, constable… ‘spose we’d better nick ‘im then.”
This was followed by grunting and heaving and the world swaying as somebody – the constable, presumably – picked me up. His shoulder pressed into my stomach as he threw me over his shoulder.
It was too much to take in my weakened state and I slipped into unconsciousness.
When I came to, every inch of my body ached. I was lying on my side on a hard floor.
I pried my eyelids open, my head thumping.
When the world stopped spinning, my eyes swam into focus.
A few paces away from where I lay was a barred door.
I groaned and pushed myself into a sitting position.
Around me were bare stone walls. In one was a tiny barred window.
My heart sank. I was in a cell.
“Release me at once!” My voice was croaky and hoarse. “I have to get to my castle before it’s too late!”
*** Continued in episode 10 ***
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