The Ogre of Oglefort

CHAPTER 26 Return of The Ghosts

The ghosts were back in their train, going around and around in an everlasting circle. They had been promised that if they frightened the ogre to death, their train would be rerouted: they would go on branch lines, through junctions, into different tunnels — but they had failed and now they were doomed once again to travel on the same wearying line.

The Ghost with the Umbrella had lost a leg. Ghosts don’t feel pain, but it was inconvenient and he had to use his umbrella as a crutch. The Honker’s seat was empty, and the dark place where the Inspector used to hover was gone.

Their failure weighed heavily upon the remaining ghosts. They were doomed to go around and around forever. There was nothing to be done.

But in their cave, the Norns now woke.

They didn’t wake very much; they were too far gone, but they woke as much as they could, and gradually they remembered what had happened.

They had sent the ghosts to frighten the ogre to death.

“Screen!” screeched the First Norn.

And, “Screen! Screen!” croaked the Second and Third Norns.

So the magic screen was brought and the Norns peered into it. They were so exhausted they could only just make out the pictures.

First the castle… then the castle courtyard and a strange sort of carriage waiting to cross the drawbridge. The carriage was closed and painted black with a white skull on the side, and the words: HERE LIES DENNIS OF OGLEFORT. REST IN PEACE.

“A hearse!” cried the First Norn.

“A funeral hearse,” said the Second Norn.

“Going to the graveyard,” said the Third.

They blinked excitedly at each other.

“Ogre dead!” said the First Norn.

“Ogre finished,” said the Second Norn.

“Being buried,” said the Third Norn.

They went on peering at the screen as the hearse lumbered away across the drawbridge, carrying the remains of the wicked monster to his grave.

“Princess free?” wondered the First Norn.

“Saved?” said the Second Norn.

“Back home?” wondered the Third.

They peered at the screen again and the picture changed… flickered… and then stopped in a walled garden with beautiful flowers and grass. The Princess Mirella was bending very carefully over a deep red rose, smelling the blossom just as a princess should. Her hair was combed and she looked very happy.

The Norns smiled. They didn’t often smile, and the effort cracked the sides of their mouths but it didn’t matter. The princess was safe, all was well, and they could sleep — not just for weeks or for months, but for years and years and years.

Their eyes were closing when they remembered the ghosts. They had not given them their reward for killing the ogre. With a great effort they got back on their knees and waved their withered arms.

And in the train, the specters sat up and gasped with amazement. The train had reached one of their usual stations on the dreary circle line, but it did not go on to the next station, and the next, around and around and around.

No, it took off on a completely different route. It went whizzing off on a branch line that they had never seen, and then a junction, before it changed direction once again. New stations, new junctions, new tunnels — even a viaduct — unfolded before the specters’ amazed eyes, as they were rewarded for something they had definitely not done.

“Perhaps we should become better ghosts?” suggested the Man with the Umbrella. “Less beastly and so on.”

But no one thought this was a good idea.

“We’re used to being horrible and vile,” said the Aunt Pusher. “Anything else would unsettle us.” And they went on staring at this new world that had unfolded before their evil eyes.

But the Norns by now were fast asleep, and as they slept the floor of the cave sank slowly down and down, ever deeper into the Underworld, and the nurses and the harpies sank down with them, because their work was done — and in Aldington Crescent underground station, all was silence and all was peace.