Fleeced (19 page)

“Cursed them?” Aries stared, barely aware that the cage had reached the ceiling. “How?”

“Remember
Glauce
?” said Medea mischievously.

Aries thought back to the beautiful young woman for whom Jason had left Medea. According to gossip in the Underworld, Medea had pretended to give her blessing to their marriage and had made Glauce's wedding dress. Woven from swans' down it was the most beautiful thing the new bride had ever seen, at least until she tried it on, whereupon it burst into flames, engulfing her in an inferno.

“Then the rumours were true?” gasped Aries. “You killed her?”

Medea nodded brightly. “I suppose you could call her my inspiration! She was my first attempt. But it worked, didn't it? Your fleece, my magic, what a perfect combination! After that it was easy. Julius Caesar, the great Roman emperor, wanted a fancy purple cloak to wear to the Senate. So not the colour for hiding stab marks and bloodstains.” The sorceress laughed thinly. “Cleopatra was next. She loved the softness of my linen kaftan. And so did the asp that killed her in it! Must have, because they found it hours later, still curled up in the folds of
her dress. Then there was Boudicca, William the Conqueror, Sir Walter Raleigh, Marie Antoinette!”

Aries reeled back against the bars of the cage as Medea went on, adding name after name, appalled at what she was saying. His fleece had been responsible for every one of these deaths? His mind whirled, filled with a blizzard of confusion and horror. Medea, meanwhile, was clearly warming to her subject.

“American presidents, film stars, highwaymen and pirates, I've dressed them all, though to tell you the truth, men in uniform were always my favourite! Like Captain Edward Smith!” She fluttered her hands together, remembering. “What a devil he was for gold brocade! Still, at least he looked his best on his trip to the bottom of the sea after
Titanic
hit the iceberg.”

Aries stared at her, trying to take in the dreadful things she was saying.

“They all died because my fleece was sewn into their clothes?”

“Doomed from the glorious moment they put them on!” trilled Medea, clasping her hands together. “Ooh! Nearly forgot to tell you the best bit! That dress Rose said you found in the museum? The one that was so snuggly-wuggly you fell asleep on it?”

“Anne Boleyn's?” said Aries, dimly aware that
the cage was now moving sideways, sliding along beneath the ceiling, to line up over the tank.

Medea threw back her head and laughed. “Remember the line of golden stitches around the neckline?”

“My fleece?” Aries voice was little more than a whisper.

Medea smiled triumphantly. “That's why you were so drawn to it.”

There was a thick popping sound and Aries looked down, suddenly remembering the slurping green goo roiling beneath his cage. He glanced over at Fred, who bounced up and down on the spot, chuckling and turned the winch handle again. The cage juddered and jerked downwards.

“All dead.” Aries shook his head sadly. “And the last tuft?”

“Hazel Praline,” said Medea, examining her glossy red nails. “I'll be sewing it into the dress she wears to this afternoon's premiere.”

Aries hadn't the faintest idea who Hazel Praline was, but he was sure that she was in terrible danger.

And all because of his fleece.

The thought made him feel dreadfully sick. And he might well have thrown up, there and then, had he not been distracted at that moment by the first
slimy green tendrils wobbling through the floor bars of the cage and slithering towards his hooves.

“And to think I was resigned to the end of my curses,” she sighed. “But you came back, Aries, and thanks to you, I'll soon have the gold of the gods to inject into every sheep I own!” She paused, her eyes widening in delight as the slime turned his golden-brown hooves to the colour of mouldy seaweed. “Imagine all those Golden Fleeces!”

Except Aries was no longer listening.

He was too busy looking down, thinking about teeth, thousands of them, needle-sharp and nibbling away from inside the cold slop that was now rising up his hocks. He closed his eyes to shut out the acid brightness of the room and knew that this was the end: this was the place that his blinding obsession and stupidity had led him, to this one terrible moment.

“Well,” said Medea brightly. “Much as I hate leaving a party that's in full swing, I have to go. Can't be late for Hazel!”

Forcing open his eyes Aries met the sorceress's
amused gaze. “Wait!”

“What for?” she said impatiently. “The traditional last request?”

There was a muffled thud as the cage settled onto the floor of the tank. Now the deadly bacteria frothed up quickly, enveloping his belly and closing over his back like a sodden blanket.

“You've won,” said Aries, blinking back the tears that threatened to roll down his muzzle. He took a deep breath just as a particularly vile-looking bubble burst, squelching clammy green slop into his face. “You'll soon have all the gold you need for your wickedness. Please just let Alex and Rose go home.”

Medea tilted her head. For a moment she seemed to consider his request and he felt his heart lift. Then her face grew as hard as marble again.

“Actually,” she said lightly, “I'll never let either of them go!” And so saying, she walked out of the room with Fred.

The doors
swooshed
shut behind them and for a moment Aries heard the click of Medea's shoes and rumble of Fred's coarse laughter fade away down the corridor. Then the gruesome sucking noise of the mixture took over, filling his ears with the revolting slurp, burp and dribble of his own unhappy fate.

XXIV

G
REEN FOR
G
OO

Hazel Praline, being a total star, didn’t just stay in a room at The Glorchester Hotel, she and her crew occupied its entire Moonlight Penthouse. This suite of rooms was laid out over the whole top floor of the hotel and included several bedrooms with
four-poster
beds, a spa with a bubbling hot tub, a kitchen stocked with cookies and jellybeans and a private cinema with just a handful of squashy velvet seats.

Not that Rose was in the mood to appreciate such luxury. Not with her mind squawking like an overcrowded aviary, the shrills of one side fighting with the shrieks of the other about what might have happened to Alex and Aries.

“You’re going to be fabulous,” said Medea, smiling into Rose’s worried face. She linked arms with Rose as Hazel Praline’s PA, a flustered young woman with a glossy chestnut bob, gabbling into a silver mobile phone, led them down the penthouse’s hallway.

Around them, Rose was aware of Hazel’s entourage, who’d stopped chatting amongst the potted ferns and jewel-coloured velvet chairs to watch them pass. She supposed they made a striking
pair, she and Medea in their matching black trouser suits and stripy T-shirts, more like a couple of carefree sisters visiting a famous friend than a fashion designer and her new assistant.
Or
, squeaked the clear-thinking part of her brain,
an ancient sorceress and her utterly confused apprentice.

Snapping her phone shut, Hazel’s PA showed them into the penthouse’s main living area. This room was the size of a tennis court and dominated by a floor-to-ceiling window that stretched the whole length of the far side of the room. London’s skyline twinkled in the morning light beyond the glass and from where she stood Rose could make out the London Eye, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, standing mistily in the early morning light behind the blue-black Thames.

Around her, yellow satin sofas and curly legged tables stood on soft sapphire blue carpet. Oil paintings in gold frames hung on the walls. Pots of pink roses and lilies stood on almost every surface, their spicy scent filling the air, each bunch displaying cards with messages from fans.

“If you’d like to make yourselves at home,” said
the PA, plumping up one of several gold cushions on the nearest sofa, “I’ll let Miss Praline know you’re here. She’s rehearsing in the cinema room.”

Rose watched as the PA walked towards the pair of tall cream-coloured doors at the far end of the room. A snatch of music wafted out as she opened them and Rose recognised the song as one of Hazel’s, with a second identical voice singing along on top. Despite her bubbling anxiety, Rose’s heart flipped like a pancake.

“Gorgeous place, isn’t it?” said Medea, dropping her sewing satchel on the floor to walk over to a giant aquarium in the corner where glittery silver dollar fish flashed through the water.

Rose gazed around her. Soothed by the luxury and reassured by the normality of the familiar London she could see through the window, the bewitched side of her mind began reassuring her more confidently, its voice like a tendril choking her worries.

Things would be all right, it said. She should simply enjoy the morning. After all, wasn’t it already beyond her wildest dreams? Or would she rather be sifting through trays of rhino beetle with her mother? She’d find Alex and Aries again, it promised, and they’d be absolutely fine. After all, if the sorceress were with her now, what could she possibly be doing to them?
29

“Miss Praline will see you now,” said the PA, dragging Rose from her thoughts. “I’ve some calls to make, so if you need me, I’ll be down the hall in the office.”

Medea smiled and waited for the PA to leave.

“This is it then!” she said, looking into Rose’s eyes. She tucked a lock of Rose’s hair gently behind her ear. “Just think what we’ll achieve together.”

Feeling brighter, Rose picked up the sewing satchel as Medea tapped on the cinema room door.

“Come in!” called a warm Texan voice.

Hearing Hazel’s famous drawl coming from the other side of the door, Rose’s legs felt wobbly as she followed Medea in.

Hazel Praline,
the
Hazel Praline, stood smiling, dressed in a pink towelling robe, her long blonde hair piled in glossy curls on top of her head. Her movie
Rodeo Love
played on the screen behind her but as Medea and Rose entered she snapped a button on the remote control, freezing a picture – of herself in rhinestone cowboy chaps riding a white horse – on the wall.

“Haze,” said Medea. “This is Rose
Pottersby-Weir
, my new assistant – and a huge fan of yours.”

“How flatterin’!” said Hazel. Pressing more buttons on the control she brought up the overhead
lights and picked her way over the empty jellybean boxes scattered in the gap between the seats where she’d been dancing to hug Rose warmly. “’S good to meet ya!”

Rose beamed, hardly able to believe her eyes.

Hazel was just as spectacular in real life as she was in her Saturday morning television series. She seemed to glow with health, her skin golden, her eyes bright, her teeth a perfect white.

“It’s amazing to meet you,” said Rose honestly.

Hazel smiled whilst Medea examined the beautiful pink dress hanging on a silver clothes rail, wheeled against the wall. She lifted its skirt into the air and released it so that layer upon layer of chiffon floated down, each seeming to hang in the air for a moment like pink mist. Under the overhead lights, the crystals sewn onto its top layer sparkled like raindrops.

“Did you ev’ see anythin’ so beautiful?” said Hazel.

“It’s incredible,” agreed Rose breathlessly.

And it was.

Believe me, the way it drifted was more like a wisp of cloud, tinged to a Turkish delight pink by a glorious sunset, than anything as commonplace as a dress.

Medea slipped off her jacket before gently draping the dress over her arm, letting its skirts pool gauzily around her legs.

“Give me about ten minutes to set up,” she said. “Then we can make the final alterations.”

“Sure thing,” said Hazel. She turned to Rose, smiling. “Y’ever had a Texan hot chocolate?”

Rose shook her head.

“Then come with me!” said Hazel.

Hardly able to believe that she was actually here, Rose followed Hazel out into the penthouse’s kitchen. Bright and airy, it was twice the size of her mother’s kitchen at home and gleamed with
marble-topped
counters and shiny gadgets.

“Secret’s in the cream,” said Hazel, opening the giant fridge and taking out a bar of chocolate, some milk and a small china pot of double cream. “It’s from my uncle’s ranch! Never tour without takin’ some with me.” She set everything down on the island unit. “You find a bowl to mix it with the milk and I’ll grate the chocolate.”

Temporarily distracted from her worries, Rose began stirring the milk into the cream, delighted to be here, to be wearing fabulous clothes, making hot chocolate with a pop star and having fun instead of grubbing around some dusty archive with her mother.

“’S nice to have some company my own age,” said Hazel, tapping the grater. Curls of chocolate fell onto the plate below.

Rose smiled, thinking exactly the same thing. “I suppose it must be hard, travelling so much of the time?”

“It is,” said Hazel. “I mean, it’s excitin’, an’ I know I’m lucky. But when we’re tourin’, Daddy’s so busy fixin’ ev’thin’ we hardly see each other. And even though there’s loadsa people around, it can be real lonely sometimes.”

Rose sighed. “I know what you mean.”

“You do?”

Whilst Hazel heated up the milk, cream and chocolate on the huge stove, Rose warmed two red china mugs and told the star about her father’s disastrous expedition and how her mother had buried herself in work at one big museum after another ever since he’d disappeared. It was funny, Rose thought, the problems they shared, even though their lives couldn’t be more different.

Suddenly the girls heard a rapid frothing noise.

“The milk!” they shouted together.

Hazel grabbed the pan from the stove and poured the steaming chocolate into the waiting mugs before flipping the lid off the cream and adding another
hefty dollop to each.

“And finally!” she smiled, plucking a silver shaker off the counter to sprinkle multicoloured sugar crystals over the top.

Rose beamed. She’d never seen hot chocolate so huge and sparkly and crazy-looking. She lifted her mug and took a sip. Or so delicious.

“Like it?” said Hazel, setting hers down and noticing a blob of sugar-speckled cream on the tip of her neat nose. She looked at it cross-eyed. “Like my new image?”

The two girls giggled together.

Hearing Medea calling her, Hazel rolled her eyes and swiped the cream from her nose. “Duty calls!”

Together they walked back into the living room. Medea stepped aside for Hazel to slip into the cinema room and looked at Rose.

“I don’t want to be disturbed by anyone whilst I’m doing this,” she said. “So, please stay out here and take any messages. Okay?”

Rose looked up from spooning the cream from her hot chocolate and nodded happily. Above her the chandeliers scattered rainbow light and she sat down on a squashy sofa thinking, as Medea closed the door behind her, that she might just love this job.

Could this really be her life from now on?
Working with Medea in a totally amazing job?
And
learning magic. A magic that would transform her own life in just the same way? A magic that might help her find her father? A fresh surge of optimism electrified her from her toes to the top of her head.

Which was when she noticed something white and gleaming on the floor. Long and polished, it wasn’t until she’d picked it up from the carpet that she noticed the eyehole at the end and realised it was a needle. It felt warm, like porcelain, and looked ancient. For a moment she wondered what to do. She turned it over in her fingers. Clearly, it must have fallen from Medea’s bag when she dropped it onto the floor. She bit her lip. The needle looked special and she could imagine Medea’s frustration at not finding it, caught mid-adjustment, as Hazel stood for her alterations, the dress pinned, whilst the sorceress cast hopelessly about for the missing needle. Standing up, she looked at the closed door. Medea had said she hadn’t wanted any disturbances. But surely that didn’t include her. Not when she had something that was probably really important to her. After all, she reminded herself, she was Medea’s assistant.

Making her decision, she strode briskly over to the cinema room door and walked in.

And froze.

Hazel wasn’t standing for her alterations. She wasn’t standing at all. She was floating, actually floating, as though invisibly suspended in mid-air, a metre above the floor. Rose felt a small squeal die on her lips as she watched the young singer, just hanging there, her arms outstretched, the gorgeous pink dress rippling around her body. For a moment, Rose thought she looked like an angel. Or at least she would have, if she didn’t have her head thrown backwards, and her eyes staring glassily at the ceiling.

Beneath her, Medea squatted menacingly on the floor, muttering in hisses, her back hunched and uneven between her knees, her right arm little more than a blur as she sewed furiously around the hem of the dress, stitching in something that glittered like gold in the light beam from the projector.

Stepping silently backwards out of the room, Rose’s attention was caught by a flicker on the screen behind Hazel. A film was playing but it wasn’t Hazel’s. It was a clip of what appeared to be a funeral procession. Two black horses, with pink plumes in the crown pieces of their bridles, filled the screen, drawing a glass hearse behind them. A hearse that carried a small pink coffin.

Horrified, Rose crashed back against the door. Startled, Medea spun round as quick as a spider, and
stared at her.

“Rose,” she soothed, her voice perfectly calm. “I asked you to wait outside.”

Suddenly a burst of music exploded from the speakers and when Rose looked up, the movie was playing again whilst Hazel herself was standing on the floor, smiling at her.

She held out the skirt of her dress out and twirled like a model. “What d’you think, Rose?”

Rose stared, feeling as though her insides had turned to ice and that if she moved she might crack and fall into pieces. Her feet wanted to turn and run, sprint out of the living room, down the hallway and never come near this place again. Her fingers trembled against the door frame as Hazel waited for her answer.

Meanwhile, down in the horribly white room, Aries’ horns and ears had vanished beneath the sludge, leaving only his upturned face exposed and bobbing like a chunk of white bread in a bowl of revolting green soup.

“Goodbye cruel gods!” he muttered flatly.

Being an ancient Greek it was traditional to depart in a classical fashion, which meant a flowery death speech. Not having had time to compose one
of his own, Aries tried to remember
Hector
’s speech at the battle of Troy. Just before Achilles stabbed him with his spear.