Back To The Divide

(The Divide #2)
SUMMARY:
After his adventures in The Divide, Felix lives quietly at home with his parents. But Snakeweed, the arch villain, is still at large. Having failed to sell bad magic to the real world, he wants to go back home. All he needs to get there is the spell hidden in Felix's notebook. So Snakeweed pays a visit to Felix--and freezes his parents with a horrible curse that begins to spread like a magical disease. Soon the curse is affecting everything--and the earth itself may be in danger. Felix must return to The Divide to find the counter-charm that can cure his parents...and save the world!

Back to the Divide (The Divide #2)

Elizabeth Kay

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

***

In the event of my death, please read,

***

Last year, that would have meant within the next -few months. I used to have a heart condition, butt now I'm completely better. I was cured by a spell in another world -- an amazing place with no Science butt lots of magic! The trouble is, when I came home, a couple of very nasty creatures -from that World got into this one, and they could be seriously bad news. These creatures an unscrupulous japegrin called Snakeweed and his horrible sinistrom, Architrex. - are here, somewhere,

This in-formation is to help anyone who may have to deal with them, if, for whatever reason, I'm not around anymore. This may mean seeking help -from the other world,

Getting there

This is -far -from easy. In -fact, it may be impossible without the Spell that I was given and somehow lost -from my notebook on the way back home....

Snakeweed's World is in another dimension, beyond a magical crossing place called a Divide. I got there by accident via the Continental Divide in Costa Rica, but it might be possible to cross from a Similar place, providing the geography is the Same, Once you've -found a Divide, or watershed (a mountainous ridge dividing two river systems), you'll need to position your body, equally distributed across the line of separation, for the duration of a heartbeat.

THE WORLD ACROSS THE DIVIDE Who to trust:

[Image:
TANGLE-PERSON (
Elvex tanglus
).]

DESCRIPTION

An elf. Blond hair -- usually tangled, as if they've had the Worst hair day ever. Slant green eyes, pointy ears green clothes.

behavior.

Tangle-folk are herbalists, and their magic is all to do with healing Spells and potions.

LOOK FOR

Betony, the best -friend I ever made. Also Ramson, Tansy, and Agrimony, They live in tree houses in Geddon.

[Image:
BRAZZLE (
Aquila leonis
).]

DESCRIPTION

A griffin. Its front half is like an eagle and it has *feathery ears like an owl. Its back half is like a lion and it's the size of a grizzly bear.

BEHAVIOR

Brazzles are very clever and live for a long time. The males guard hoards of gold and are mathematicians. The females are historians.

LOOK FOR

Ironclaw-very useful! He worked out the spell that sent me home. Ironclaw can usually be found with his best friend, Granitelegs, near his dirt-board on the peak of Tromm Fell. Thornbeak, his mate, works far from Tromm Fell in the library in Andria.

[Image:
BRITTLEHORN (
Equus cornis
).]

DESCRIPTION

A unicorn. It has a silvery-white coat, blue eyes, and a twisted horn in the center of its forehead the color of old ivory.

BEHAVIOR

Brittlehorns are wise and generally peace-loving creatures that like meditating, butt they can be very vague. They live in herds in a valley near Tromm Fell.

LOOK FOR

Milklegs, their aging seer. Last I knew, the brittlehorns were mourning the deaths of Snowdrift and Chalky, the brittlehorns who were mourning the death of Snowdrift and Chalky, the brittlehorns who were murdered by Architrex, Snakeweed's Sinistrom.

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Who NOT to trust:

[Image:
JAPEGRIN (
Elvex irritans
).]

DESCRIPTION

A pixie. Curly red hair, pointy ears, and green squinty eyes. Clashing purple clothes.

BEHAVIOR

Japegrins can use simple magic, and they like practical jokes. They can be extremely nasty and dominate all around them, though not all of them are bad.

LOOK OUT FOR

Snakeweed. Enough Said.

WARNING! EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!

There are a number of unpleasant creatures to avoid, collectively known as shadow-beasts. These include worrits and vampreys, but the scariest of all are sinistroms.

[Image:
SINISTROM (
Hyaenodonyx sorcerys
).]

DESCRIPTION

A shape-changing shadow-beast, stored as a speck of energy inside a pebble. Most of the time it looks like a huge and particularly ferocious hyena.

It stinks - a cross between rotten eggs, unwashed armpits, and decaying toadstools. It can disguise itself as a lickit, but the smell tends to hang around a bit. The lickit, Elvex cuisinus, is an elvish being that always dresses in white and specializes in delicious magical cooking.

BEHAVIOR

Anybody can summon a sinistrom by robbing its pebble, and once it has taken shape it has to obey you. A sinistrom is returned to its pebble the same way. Once it has taken shape, it can be killed just like anything else, but its body completely disappears at the moment of death. The best way to insure a sinistrom is immobilized is to dunk its pebble in fertle-juice. This reduces sinistrom and pebble to dark, sticky molasses and, as far as I know, the sinistrom inside can no longer escape,

LOOK OUT FOR

Architrex. He's on the loose.

***

Felix

8

9

***

1

***

"I'll be perfectly all right," said Felix, trying to keep his temper. "A week of horseback riding isn't going to kill me."

His mother looked upset.

"Wrong phrase," said Felix. "Sorry."

"We mustn't wrap him up in cotton wool anymore," said his father. "It's not as if he can't ride. I've never known anyone to learn so fast."

Felix smiled to himself. His lessons at the local stables had been more of a refresher course -- he'd learned to ride the previous summer, and his teacher had been a unicorn in a back-to-front world where mythical beasts were real and
he
had been the legend.

"It's just habit," said Felix's mother. "Thirteen years of watching and waiting for him to ... to ... you know. And then a complete cure and a real future. I still can't believe it."

"Even after last week's checkup? They said he was one of

10

the healthiest kids they'd ever seen. Come on, the boy needs something exciting to do during his summer vacation."

A ring at the doorbell interrupted the conversation, and Felix's mother went to answer it. "She'll come around," said his father. "She was all right about the rock climbing, wasn't she?"

"In the end," said Felix. "But
I'm fourteen.
She still treats me as though I were six."

Felix heard the front door close and people talking in the hall. He listened harder, although he could only make out the occasional word. There was something horribly familiar about the voices. The living room door opened, and Felix felt as though someone had kicked him in the stomach.

"Hello, Felix," said Snakeweed.

"Archie and I were just passing by, you know, and we thought we'd drop in and touch base."

Felix couldn't think of a single thing to say. Snakeweed wasn't human, although he looked it; he was a japegrin, and he had caused a lot of misery in his own world before he'd tricked his way into this one. He had a hat pulled down over his head to hide his pixie ears, but his eyes were still green and squinty and twinkling with malice. The white-suited figure beside him in the Panama hat had to be Architrex, the sinistrom who had killed two of Felix's friends.

[Image: Snakeweed.]

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Sinistroms were shadow-beasts, and they had two alternative forms. The one Architrex had assumed at the moment was his two-legged lickit form. In his other guise he would be a devil-hyena.

Felix's mother was looking slightly bewildered. "They say they met you last summer. But last summer we were in Costa Rica...." She glanced at her husband.

Felix's father suddenly looked very interested indeed. "Well, this is a pleasant surprise," he said, extending his hand. "How do you do?"

Snakeweed gave him a funny look. "How do I do what?"

Felix's father went into his talking-to-foreigners mode. "When last summer did you meet my son, exactly?" he asked, speaking very slowly and clearly.

"Augustus," said Snakeweed.

"August? But ... that's when Felix disappeared."

This was getting difficult. Felix managed to say, "What do you want?" although it was an effort.

"Your notebook," said Snakeweed.

"It won't do you any good," snapped Felix. "The spell to cross the Divide was wiped out when I came back."

"Really? Well, why don't you let me have a squint at it and see if I can make the writing reappear?"

Felix's mother was looking even more confused. "What are you talking about?"

"I think you'd better go," said Felix to Snakeweed.

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"Not until I get what I want."

"Who
are
these people, Felix?" asked Felix's father.

"They're no friends of mine," said Felix.

"Then I think you'd better do what my son says, don't you?" said Felix's father. "Let me show you the door."

"Seen it," said Snakeweed. "Didn't like the color much."

"Phone the police, David," said Felix's mother.

Architrex stepped quickly over to the phone and ripped the jack from its socket.

David Sanders seemed to grow in stature. "I should warn you that I'm a black belt in karate," he said, feeling in his pocket for his cell phone.

"Karate? Well,
bake me a brazzle,
I thought we were in Wimbledon," said Snakeweed, waving his hand in a figure-eight flourish. Then he muttered something under his breath, and Felix saw an expression of alarm cross his father's face as he tried to step forward. It was as though his feet had suddenly become stuck in invisible mud. The color drained from his face, leaving it white -- not just pale but as white as snow. He was now frozen to the spot. Then his hair turned white, and his clothes, and his shoes. He didn't seem to be breathing.

"What have you done to him?" shouted Felix, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

"Turned him to stone," said Snakeweed proudly. "Though actually, it looks more like marble with those little gray blotches and veins. Now then, how about that notebook? Or

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shall I create a matching pair?" He glanced at Felix's mother, who was already standing as still as stone, her eyes white-rimmed with shock.

Felix gritted his teeth. "You'll turn him back again, if I give the notebook to you?"

"Of course."

"It's in the summerhouse."

"Lead on, Macduff," said Snakeweed cheerfully.

"It's
lay
on, Macduff," said Felix shortly, opening the French windows and stepping out onto the patio. He could see that the human expressions Snakeweed had picked up were going to irritate him to no end.

"You, too, Mrs. Sanders," said Snakeweed. "Don't want you blowing the thistle and raising the alarm, do we?" He took her arm, and although she flinched she did as she was told -- but she looked more like she was sleepwalking than anything else.

Felix's house was a big detached one -- and the garden was huge. The fence at the end backed on to a railway cutting, so it wasn't overlooked. There were a lot of fruit trees, some of which trailed their branches right down to the ground like crinoline skirts.

"It'll be all right," said Felix desperately as he walked along beside his mother. "Look, I didn't lose my memory last summer. I crossed over into another world, and my illness was cured by magic. I knew that if I said that, everyone would think I was crazy. But now you've seen a real spell

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being cast yourself, and you
have
to believe me. And there
are
countercharms. Dad will be OK, honestly."

"It's a joke, isn't it?" said Felix's mother, her voice unnaturally shrill. "He's an illusionist. I don't think it's very funny, though."

"I'm a businessman," said Snakeweed indignantly. "I came over here to set up a potions business, but the paperwork was impossible. So I've decided to go back home. And your son has the magic ingredient."

"I
told you,"
said Felix. "The spell's not there anymore."

"We'll see. That's the summerhouse, is it?"

Felix opened the door. It was his own private place, where he kept his most precious possessions. His mineral collection and his chemistry set lived here -- and so did anything connected with the previous summer, such as sketches of griffins and textbooks on mythology. Snakeweed grabbed the first notebook he saw. This was a field guide Felix had been compiling about the otherworld creatures.

" 'Sinistrom,'" Snakeweed read out loud. "
'Hyaenodonyx sorcerys. A
shape-changing shadow-beast' ... Blah, blah, blah -- can't read the writing." He turned the page. '"Worrit.
Canis hystericus.'
You've given them all Latin names. Pretentious,
toil"

"That's the wrong book," replied Felix, taking the right one down from a shelf in the corner. Snakeweed snatched it from him and flicked through it. Page after page was blank,