The Great Hall

Dark Diary

13th April

Today I moved into the Tower, where at last I should be able to get some writing done without interruption. Unfortunately the removal man refused to drive his van right up to the door. He kept babbling about 'bad luck' and told me that there had been sightings of 'things of shadow' flowing from the upper window. I told him not to be silly, of course, but he explained that he never worked after sundown, and he was coming down with a chill, and besides he had to leave right then for his guineapig's funeral. And then he tossed out all my furniture and left me standing by the roadside in the rain. What a curious fellow.

It took hours for me to drag all my possessions to the Tower. Fortunately when I got there I found a nice little note from the last resident, with instructions on how to open the portcullis, where to find the keys to the cellars, and so forth. The letter ended rather oddly, with the words "but most important of all, look out for the." If I did not know better I would say that the very end of the letter had been chewed off by tiny teeth.

It was only when I had started a roaring fire in the Great Hall and was boiling a kettle for cocoa that I noticed that my scribbled notes for my next book were missing. I suppose I must have dropped it somewhere whilst I was carrying all those boxes up the spiral staircases.

15th April

It seems that I am not alone in this Tower after all. However, my new companion is very small and unlikely to interrupt my writing much. Today when I was in the library dusting the suits of armour I noticed something that looked a little like a leather sandwich dangling from a curtain rail. When I stood on a chair to have a closer look it unfolded itself, and a large-eared, mouse-like head peeped out at me.

The poor little bat must have been alarmed by seeing something hundreds of times its size waving a feather duster at it, for it spread its wings and flitted away across the room. At one point it swooped sharply and I was afraid that it would crash into the table, but instead it hooked its tiny claws around the corner of a piece of paper lying there, and flitted out through the window with it before I could react.

Only afterwards did I realise that the paper in question had been a picture of Saracen the goose that I had been drawing. It is a shame to lose it, but I cannot blame the poor little bat – perhaps it was hungry and saw the trembling paper as a particularly large moth. Maybe I shall put out some food for it at some point.

18th April

Perhaps living alone in this Tower is not such a wonderful idea. I think I am starting to imagine things – the rustle of wings outside every window, and even conversations in tiny, squeaky voices on the edge of my hearing. In particular I seem to hear these sounds every time I draw near to the door of the belfry – but if I chance to let my footsteps sound, I hear a flurry of motion and then silence. I have not yet mustered the courage to enter the belfry.

It also seems that I am growing more absent-minded. So far I have mislaid three pairs of shoes, my kitchen scissors, a sugar bowl, one top hat and a chandelier. And now for the life of me I cannot work out where I put that poster for the 'Grey Mastiff' from Fly by Night. I could have sworn that I left it on a sidetable in the Gallery. Come to think of it, I was pretty sure that I closed the windows in the Gallery as well. I am starting to fear that there is a thief at loose in the Tower.

20th April

Last night I could not sleep for imagining heavily armed robbers roaming the Tower. A little after two o'clock I thought I heard a faint whisper of movement pass my door swiftly, so I leapt out of bed, donned my fluffy hedgehog slippers, took down a battleaxe and Morningstar from the wall, and went to investigate.

I kicked open the door to the Great Hall, slightly hurting my foot, and was just in time to see a convoy of four bats leaving the hall through the opposite window. Between them they were carrying away a leatherbound book, each supporting a different corner. Naturally I dropped my weapons and sprinted to the window, grabbing at the book and trying to tug it out of their tiny, taloned grasp. However, the bats tugged back, and I had to let go or be dragged out of the window. Who would think that creatures small enough to fit in a teacup would be so strong?

Afterwards I deduced that the missing book must have been my cuttings book, containing news articles reporting the aftermath of Verdigris Deep.

Tomorrow I shall visit town and buy a butterfly net.

22nd April

The bats are stealing everything. They're organised, and there's hundreds of them. There must be.

This morning I finished a short story set in the world of Fly by Night, and left it on my writing desk in my study. An hour later the story was gone. So was the desk. Evidently it took the bats some time to work out how to get the desk out through the window, since some miniscule claw had scratched diagrams into the floorboards showing the desk, the window, and lots of mathematical formula.

I've put nets over the windows, which slowed them down for a bit until they stole the kitchen scissors.

I have tried everything to stop them stealing my food, including locking it away in a heavy wooden chest. Last night, however, I was woken by a loud smash, and when I peered through the window I could see the wreckage of the chest in the courtyard below. The bats must have lost their temper with the lock and thrown the chest off the battlements – there were dozens of them fluttering over the debris, and carrying off strawberries and pizza slices.

The only way I can move around the castle fast enough to chase the bats is by wearing roller blades. Unfortunately these make climbing the spiral staircase rather difficult. Nonetheless, I nearly caught three of the bats in my butterfly net this morning, and they were forced to drop the tea tray they were stealing. Unfortunately whilst I was distracted a couple of others crept in behind me and seized a set of horoscopes read by Donna Leas in Verdigris Deep and a coded message from the Locksmiths.

There's a hubbub coming from the belfry. I can hear the clink of stolen wineglasses and the sounds of squeaky singing, and I think they may be having a party in there. Enough is enough. Armed with a halberd, I mean to invade the belfry.

Later that day:

Whatever happens, however many things the bats steal, I am never, never returning to the belfry. I have locked myself into my bedroom, and piled my few remaining books against the window to block it. I would go to bed, but the bats have stolen it, leaving only a few white feathers from the pillow stuffing. They have also taken my bookshelf, my cocoa mug, my fluffy hedgehog slippers and a pair of sonnets by the Duke Vocado which I was foolish enough to leave by my bedside.

My table lamp is missing, and I am writing this by the light of my one remaining candle. Unfortunately, the bats have stolen all my pens and nearly all my ink, forcing me to write this using a quill and the dregs of ink at the bottom of my inkwell. There is not muc nk left and my etters are get ing fainte wil robabl un out be or very lon