Carry On (29 page)

Ebb feeds some branches into the stove and pokes at the fire. “Well, Happy Christmas yourself,” she says. “You caught me just in time. Going home tomorrow.”

“To see your family?” I ask.

Ebb's from East London. She nods.

“Do you need someone to watch over the goats?”

“Nah, I'll let them wander the grounds. What about you? Off to Agatha's?”

“No,” I say. “I thought I'd stay here. My last year and all, trying to soak up as much Watford as I can.”

“You can always come back, Simon—I did. You want some coffee? 'Fraid all I've got out here is coffee. No, wait, I've got some Rich Tea biscuits. Let's eat 'em before they go soft.”

I turn over a bucket and sit close to the fire. Ebb fusses at the cupboards she's nailed to the back of the barn. She's got shelves hanging there, too, crammed with dusty ceramic animals.

When I was a second year, I gave Ebb a little breakable goat for Christmas; I'd found it over the summer at a car boot sale. She fussed over it so much that I brought her bric-a-brac every Christmas for a few years. Goats and sheep and donkeys.

I'm feeling shamefully empty-handed when Ebb hands me a chipped mug of coffee and a stack of biscuits.

“I'm not sure what I'd do around here,” I say. “I don't think Watford needs two goatherds.” One of the smaller goats has wandered over and is nuzzling at my knee. I hold out a biscuit in my palm, and it takes it.

Ebb smiles and settles into her easy chair. “We'd find something for you. It's not like there was an opening when Mistress Pitch brought me on.”

“Baz's mum,” I say, scratching the goat's ears. Getting Ebb to talk about all this might be easier than I thought.

“The same,” she says. “Now,
there
was a powerful magician.”

“Did you know her well?”

Ebb takes a bite of biscuit. “Well, she taught Magic Words when I was in school,” she says, puffing crumbs out onto her dirty scarf. “And she was the headmistress. So I guess I knew her that way. We certainly didn't move in the same circles, you understand—but after my brother Nicky passed, my family didn't move in any circles at all.”

Ebb's brother died when she was in school. She talks about him a lot, even though it gets her all worked up and morose every time. This is one reason Penny never took to Ebb.
“She's so melancholy. Even the goats seem bummed out.”

The goats seem fine to me. A few are poking around Ebb's chair, and the little beggar has settled down at my feet.

“I was afraid to leave Watford,” Ebb goes on, “and Mistress Pitch told me I didn't have to. Looking back, she was probably worried I'd get up to my own brand of trouble. I always had more power than sense. I was a powder keg—Nicky and I both were. Mistress Pitch did a service to magic when she took me in and told me not to worry about what was next. Power doesn't have to be a burden, she said. If it's too heavy 'round your neck, keep it somewhere else. In a drawer. Under your bed.
‘Let it go, Ebeneza,'
she said.
‘You were born with it, but it doesn't have to be your destiny.'
Which is never what my da told me … I wonder if Mistress Pitch would have been so forgiving if I was one of her own.”

I'm giggling and trying not to spit out wet biscuit.

“What?” she says. “This is supposed to be an inspirational story.”

“Your name is Ebeneza?”

“It's a perfectly good name! Very traditional.” She laughs, too, and shoves an entire biscuit into her mouth, washing it down with coffee.

“She sounds good,” I say. “Baz's mum.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, she was fierce as a lion. And darker than most people were comfortable with—all the Pitches are—and she fought the reforms with her own teeth and nails. But she loved Watford. She loved magic.”

“Ebb … how
did
your brother die?” I've never asked her that before. I've never wanted to upset Ebb any more than she already was.

She immediately shifts forward in her chair and looks away from me. “Well, that's not something we talk about. I'm not to talk about him at all—they buried his name when we couldn't bury his body, even struck him from the Book—but he was my twin brother. Doesn't feel right to pretend he never was.”

“I didn't know he was your twin.”

“Yeah. Partner in crime.”

“You must miss him.”

“I
do
miss him.” She sniffs. “I haven't talked to him since the day he crossed over—no matter what people say.”

“Of course not,” I say. “He's dead.”

“I
know
what they say.”

“Honestly, Ebb. I've never heard anyone talk about your brother but you.”

She stares at me for a second, her back stiff; then she seems to remember herself and turns to the fire, slouching again. “Sorry, Simon. I just … I think people thought I was going to go with him. That I wouldn't be able to live without him. Nicky wanted me to go.”

“He wanted you to kill yourself, too?”

“He wanted me to go with him to…” She looks around, anxiously, and her voice drops to a whisper. “To the vampires. Nicky said he'd be waiting for me—that he'd always be waiting for me.”

The biscuit I'm holding snaps. “To the vampires?”

“Does no one really talk about him? About me?”

“No, Ebb.”
To the vampires?
Ebb's brother went
to the vampires
?

She looks lost. “They never mention him, even after all he done … I guess that's what happens when they strike you from the Book. I was there for it. Mistress Pitch let me keep the words.”

She holds up her staff—and even though it's just Ebb, I'm spooked enough that I startle. The goat resting at my feet jumps and scutters away. Ebb doesn't notice. She's as melancholy as I've ever seen her. There are tears running in clean streaks down her filthy cheeks.

She waves the staff over the fire, and the words spill out into the flames, but don't burn:

Nicodemus Petty.

I'm so shocked, I almost reach out and grab them. Nicodemus! Nicodemus who went to the vampires!

“Nicky,” Ebb whispers. “The only magician ever to
choose
death with the vampires.” She wipes her eyes with her sleeve. “Sorry, Simon. I shouldn't speak of him—but I can't help but
think
of him this time of year. The holidays. Out there on his own.”

“He's still
alive
?”

That was the wrong question, or maybe I'm being too intense: Ebb wipes away a new fall of tears.

“He's still out there,” she says. “I think I'd know if he were gone. I could always feel it, before, when he was in trouble.”

“Where is he?” I ask. I feel like I must sound too urgent, too desperate to know.

Ebb turns back to the fire. “I told you, I haven't talked to him since the day he left. I swear it.”

“I believe you,” I say. “I'm so sorry. You must … You must miss him.”

“Like I'd miss my own heart,” Ebb says. She nudges her staff into the fire and takes back each letter one by one.

“Was he with them?” I ask. “The vampires who killed Baz's mum?”

Ebb's chin jerks up. “No,” she says defensively. “I asked Mistress Mary myself—before she passed. She swore to me that Nicky wasn't there that day. He'd never do such a thing. Nicky didn't want to kill people. He just wanted to live forever.”

“Were you here?” I ask. “When it happened?”

Her face falls further than I thought possible. “I was out with the goats. I couldn't help her.”

“What happened to the nursery?” I push, worried that in a minute Ebb'll be crying too much to answer any more questions. “Where did it go?”

“It hid itself away,” she says, sniffing hard. “It was warded to protect the children, and it failed. So the wards hid it. Pulled it into the walls and the floor. I found it in the basement once. Then in the heart of the Weeping Tower. And then it was gone.”

I should probably ask Ebb more questions. Penny wouldn't stop now. Baz would have his wand out, demanding to know
everything
.

But instead I just sit with Ebb and stare into the fire. Sometimes I see her wipe her eyes with the end of her scarf. Like she's wiping dirt back onto her face.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I didn't mean to bring up so many painful subjects. There's so much about Watford I don't know.…”

“What do any of us know about Watford?” Ebb sighs. “Even the Wood nymphs can't remember a time before the White Chapel.”

“I'm sorry,” I say.

Ebb leans towards me and lays her arm around my shoulders. She does that sometimes. When I was a kid, I loved it. I'd sit extra close to her, so that I'd be easier to reach.

“Pish,” she says. “You didn't bring it up. It's always on my mind. In a way, it's good to talk about it. To get some of it out of my heart, even for a minute.”

I stand, and she follows me to the door, then pats me heartily on the back. “Happy Christmas, Simon,” she says, giving her cheeks another wipe. “If you get lonely,” she says, “you can call me. Send up a flare, yeah? I'll feel it.”

Saw me in half, Ebb must be as powerful as the Mage—
send up a flare?

“I'll be fine,” I say. “Thanks, Ebb. Happy Christmas.”

She opens the door for me, and I try not to seem like I'm in a hurry to say good-bye—but as soon as she closes it, I start running towards my house. I clomp snow all the way up to our turret—then dig out the cash I keep at the bottom of my wardrobe. It isn't much, but it'll get me to Hampshire, I think.

I try to hitch to the train station, but no one picks me up. It's fine. I keep running. I get to the station and buy my ticket and a sandwich.

I'm on a train, an hour away from Watford and an hour from Winchester, when I realize that I probably could have just borrowed a phone from somebody and called.

 

53

BAZ

I like to practise violin in the library. My brothers and sisters aren't allowed in here yet, and there's a wall of lead-paned windows that look out on the gardens.

I like to practise violin, full stop. I'm good at it. And it distracts all the parts of my brain that just get in my way. I can think more cleanly when I'm playing.

My grandfather played, too. He could cast spells with his bow.

I forgot my violin here when I left for school—I wasn't in my right mind—and I'm a bit stiff now from the lack of practice. I'm working on a Kishi Bashi song that my stepmother, Daphne, calls “needlessly morose.”

“Basilton …
Mr. Pitch.
”

I let the instrument drop from my chin and turn. Vera is standing at the door. “I'm sorry to interrupt. But your friend is here to see you.”

“I'm not expecting anyone.”

“It's a friend from school,” she says. “He's wearing your uniform.”

I set the violin down and straighten my shirt.

I guess it could be Niall. He comes over sometimes. Though usually he'd text first … Not usually—always. And he wouldn't be in uniform. Nobody would; we're on break.

I pick up the pace, practically trotting through the parlour and dining room, wand in hand. Daphne's at the table with her laptop. She looks up curiously. I slow down.

When I get to the foyer, Simon Snow is standing there like a lost dog.

Or an amnesia victim.

He's wearing his Watford coat and heavy leather boots, and he's covered in snow and muck. Vera must have told him to stay on the rug, because he's standing right in the middle of it.

His hair is a mess, and his face is flushed, and he looks like he might go off right there, without any provocation.

I stop at the arched entrance to the foyer, tuck my wand in my sleeve, and slip my hands into my pockets. “Snow.”

He jerks his head up.
“Baz.”

“I'm trying to imagine what you're doing at my door.… Did you roll down a very steep hill and land here?”

“
Baz
…,” he says again. And I wait for him to get it out. “You're—you're wearing jeans.”

I tilt my head. “I am. And you're wearing half the countryside.”

“I had to walk from the road.”

“Did you?”

“The taxi driver was afraid to come down your drive. He thinks your house is haunted.”

“It is.”

He swallows. Snow has the longest neck and the showiest swallow I've ever seen. His chin juts out and his Adam's apple catches—it's a whole scene.

“Well,” I say, pointedly lifting my eyebrows. “It was good of you to stop by—”

Snow lets out a stymied growl and steps forward, off the rug, then steps back. “I came to talk to you.”

I nod. “All right.”

“It's…”

“All right,” I say again, this time cutting him some slack. I don't actually want him to get so frustrated that he leaves. (I never want Snow to leave.) “But you can't come in the house like that. How did you even
get
like that?”

“I told you. I walked from the main road.”

“You could have cast a spell to stay clean.”

He frowns at me. Snow never casts spells on himself—or anyone else—if he can help it. I slip my wand out my cuff and point it at him. He flinches but doesn't tell me to stop. I
“Clean as a whistle!”
his boots
.
The mud whirls off, and I open the front door, sweeping the mess outside with my wand.

When I close the door, Snow is taking off his sodden coat. He's wearing his school trousers and red jumper, and his legs and hair are still wet. I lift my wand again. “I'm fine,” he says, stopping me.