in a little blue bottle labelled Evening in Paris. This will protect him from the odour of the sleep gases left by the bad board-comber. Tying this around his nose he then enters the Garden of Eternal Rest and grips the boy by the heels. He does not like doing it, but knows the children will remain here always if he doesn’t do something about it. He then drags the boy out in the open, away from the sleep gases exuded by the board-comber.
This board-comber is like all collectors in the attic: it gathers its treasures in one place. This one collects souls. It is one of those creatures like Katerfelto, which has appeared all by itself. It has the shape and form of a human, but the heart and mind of a spider. It waits for the tug on its web and then descends from the rafters to wrap its victims in shrouds. It hangs its souls collection in a secret place, nailing them to rafters where they flap in the four draughts from the four corners of the attic.
Once the boy is out in the open, the good board-comber goes in and drags out the girl. He then wipes his hands on his coat, as if the children had left a sticky substance on them. Somewhere above, the vile collector of souls is watching, grinding his teeth.
Chloe woke to a feeling of intense coldness.
There was a dirty sheet over the lower half of her body and she kicked it off in disgust. She looked round to see a long streak in the dust where she had been dragged while slumbering. In panic she looked around quickly for Alex. He was lying not far away, still asleep. Then she sat up and noticed an oil painting, half-finished, lying face up in the dust. Reaching out to touch it she found the paint was still not quite dry.
She recognised herself as the subject of the portrait.
‘Oh, what is that?’ she murmured, shuddering. It was a ghastly painting. Her features were pale and lifeless, her eyes were closed, her lips were a translucent blue. Her head was resting on a pillow of pure-white lilies. There was a very faint but frozen smile on her face.
It was the portrait of a dead girl.
‘How horrible!’
She tore her eyes away from her own terrible image and saw that her brother remained asleep.
‘Alex, wake up,’ she called.
‘Whaa—’ Alex rolled over and opened his eyes. ‘What’s this thing wrapped round me?’
‘I don’t know. I had one too.’
‘It stinks,’ he said, kicking it off.
Alex stood up and stretched.
‘My head aches. I think there’s gas about. Can you smell gas?’
‘I don’t know. I think we ought to get away from here. This is an evil place.’
They gathered up their packs and as they did so Chloe noticed footprints in the dust. Yes, someone had definitely dragged them out from under that low roof. Jordy? Surely not, or he would have stayed. Perhaps it had been one of the Atticans? The soles of the shoes the person had been wearing were very large though: bigger than an Attican would wear. She sighed. It was just another mystery attached to this weird world of boards and rafters. Whoever was their saviour obviously did not want to be known. An anonymous person: a guardian angel of some kind.
As Chloe caught up with her brother, she saw something which made her pause and think. It was a ball of string, lying on its own, gathering the dust of ages. Picking it up, she had a wonderful idea. It was a scary idea, but it seemed it might be the answer to a very big question.
‘Alex,’ she said, reaching him, ‘I’m going down that trapdoor.’
Alex’s expression became serious.
‘You can’t, Clo. You don’t know what’s down there.’
She showed him the ball of string.
‘I’m going to tie the end around my waist and you can reel me down into the house below. That’ll keep physical contact between the two of us. If anything goes wrong I’ll just come up and join you again. As long as we both hold on to the string we can’t be parted. This way I can sort of get our bearings in the real world. Find out where we are.’
‘I don’t like it, Clo.’
‘Well, I don’t like it either, but it’s got to be done,’ she said firmly. ‘That woman didn’t look like a monster. Maybe she’ll help us? We can only ask. Look, I’ll tie the string to my