Live and Let Drood

disappeared along with everyone else,” said Molly. “So I doubt this is down to him.”
    “There is something else,” I said slowly. “When I was in the Winter Hall, when I thought I was dead…I asked Walker, If this is a place of the dead, why haven’t I seen my parents? And Walker said to me, Whatever makes you think they’re dead?”
    “I know,” said Molly. “I remember. But one thing at a time, Eddie. Yes?”
    “It’s just…If my parents could be alive, so could yours.”
    “Yes, Eddie. I know. And we will talk about this later. But first things have to come first. So what do you want to do first?”
    I looked out over the wide-open grounds of Drood Hall, the green grassy lawns and the lake and the hedge Maze in the distance. It was all so quiet, so peaceful. It didn’t seem possible there could have been so much death and suffering so close at hand in such a peaceful setting.
    “The Drood grounds contain a marvellous selection of wildlife,” I said. “Natural and supernatural, the living and the dead, and lots and lots of really wild things. Why don’t we go and ask them what they saw?”

CHAPTER TWO

    When the Droods Are Away
    Y ou don’t realise how much you miss a thing until it’s gone. The grounds were almost unnaturally quiet as Molly and I strode across the wide-reaching lawns. Where were the peacocks that always strutted so grandly and noisily in front of the Hall? Where were the gryphons, who should have been the first to sound the alarm because they were psychic and could see a short distance into the Future? (Given how ugly the things were, and how much they loved to roll in dead things and then come up to you and rub affectionately against your new suit, I’d be hard-pressed to name any other good reason to keep them around.) (All right, I like them, but it’s already been established that I’m weird.) If the peacocks and gryphons had all been killed during the attack, where were their bodies?
    Why were there no winged unicorns anywhere? I hadn’t got around to checking out the stables at the rear, but I couldn’t see them just flying off.…Where were any of the dozen or so magical creatures that had taken up residence in and around the Hall for as long as I could remember? You were never short of choice for an unusual pet, when I was a kid, though you had to be very careful about which ones you could turn your back on safely. I’d never known the grounds to be this still, this silent…and I didn’t care for it one bit.
    I led the way down to the great ornamental lake, a wide expanse of cool blue waters spread out before us like a modest inland sea. Long and wide enough that you had to pack a picnic lunch if you felt like taking a walk round it, and deep enough that the family once lost a small submarine in it. It was all very peaceful down beside the lake, as though nothing at all had happened. Though there was something…wrong with the view. It took me a moment to realise that there weren’t any swans sailing majestically back and forth on the calm blue surface, and there were always swans on our lake. I stood at the water’s edge with Molly beside me, looking out across the calm blue-green surface at the cool dark copse of beech trees on the other side. Nothing moved anywhere. It was all very still, not even a breath of a breeze.…
    Like a ghost town at midnight. Like a museum after closing time. Like…what the whole world will be like after Humanity has finally left and closed the door behind them.
    “It is beautiful,” said Molly, after a while. “Everything a lake should be.”
    “Thank you,” I said. “It’s artificial, of course.”
    Molly looked at me. “What?”
    “Oh, the whole thing was designed and created by a head gardener to the family, Capability Charlotte. This was back during Victorian times, when you were nobody if your country manor house didn’t have its very own artificial lake. So we had one put in. Complete with its own waterfall feature at the far end, and a small family of selkies specially imported from the Orkney Isles to live in the lake and keep it clean and tidy. It does look good, doesn’t it?”
    “What was here before?” said Molly. “What did you get rid of to make the lake? How many perfectly good trees did you cut down, how much natural vegetation did you dispose of, how much wildlife did you kill…just so you could have a lake exactly where you wanted it?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t here