Griffin of Darkwood (5 page)

Come to a Reading

at Ex Libris

Renowned poet Vespera Moonstone

will read her poems

7:00 p.m. May 9

“Is she, like, a real poet?’ he asked. “Has her stuff been published?”

“Absolutely.”

“Is everyone invited?”

“Of course,” said Favian.

“Even me?”

Favian looked at him quizzically. “Why not?”

“People haven’t been exactly friendly.” Will told Favian about the words GO AWAY sprayed on the door.

Favian frowned. “Unacceptable. But never mind.” He wrote
Everyone Welcome
on the bottom of the poster. “That means you too.”

Then he led the way to the front of the shop. He settled down to read at the rolltop desk, while Will drifted up and down the aisles, choosing books. He had accumulated a fair-sized pile when the bell over the front door jingled.

“I’ve come for my book,” said a familiar high-pitched voice.

Mr. Cherry! What would he want in a fantasy bookstore? Will watched him from
behind a tower of books.

Favian pulled down the lid of the rolltop desk, and loose papers and pens and paper clips showered everywhere. “Not here,” he said cheerfully. “I know I ordered it. Now where the dickens did I put it?”

He rummaged through stacks of books on the floor, while Mr. Cherry scowled and tapped his foot. Then Favian turned to a wobbly wall of books and beamed. “Aha!” he shouted.

He grabbed a book from near the top, and the wall tipped and tilted and crashed to the floor. A fat six-hundred-page volume called
An Encyclopedia of Little People
landed on Mr. Cherry’s foot, and Mr. Cherry exploded with a very nasty word.

“Here it is.” Favian held up a book with a picture of a castle on the shiny cover.
“Medieval Castle Construction and Design.
I think you’ll find it –”

“It’s not for me, it’s for my nephew,” growled Mr. Cherry. He grabbed the book, threw some bills on the desk and left the shop, banging the door behind him.

A dog barked furiously, and Mr. Cherry cursed again. A girl’s voice shouted, “No, Peaches! Down boy! DOWN!”

Chapter Eight

New Friends

Will dropped his books
on the desk. He and Favian dashed outside. A brown-and-white dog with floppy ears hung on to Mr. Cherry’s pant leg.

“Get this beast off me!” he roared.

The dog growled and gripped harder. Mr. Cherry swung his castle book wildly in the air.

“Let go, Peaches!” a girl shouted. She was tall and slim with long fly-away brown hair. She grabbed the dog’s collar and dragged him away.

Mr. Cherry’s face was purple. “That dog’s a menace! A monster! I’ll shoot him next time I see him!”

He stormed off across the square.

“Peaches tries to bite that man every time he sees him,” said the girl. “I can’t stop him.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Favian. “I want to bite him too! Emma, this is Will Poppy.”

“Will Poppy! Everyone’s talking about you,” said Emma. “Do you think I could see inside the castle?”

“I guess so," said Will. He wasn’t sure he was ready to make friends with anyone yet. He wanted to check things out in the village a bit longer.

“When?” demanded Emma.

Will sighed.
Persistent
would be a good word to describe her. “Let me get my books and we can go now.”

They said good-bye to Favian and started the climb up Black Penny Road. “Are you going to read all those books?” asked Emma.

“Of course. I love reading.”

“I don’t. I’m glad you’ve come. It’s been deader than ever around here. Most of the kids are away for the spring holidays. You’ve heard of Barnum and Bailey, right?”

“What?”

“Barnum and Bailey.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Never heard of it? Everyone’s heard of Barnum and Bailey.”

“Not me.”

Emma stopped walking and stared at Will.

“Well, what is it?” said Will.

“It a circus. It’s famous. They have shows all over the world! I’m going to be an acrobat in a circus when I’m older.” She did a slick cartwheel on the cobblestones to demonstrate.

“The circus is my
passion
,” she said. “Everyone should have a passion. What’s yours?’

“Um ...” Before, Will would have said writing. That was how he thought of his life; Before and After. He shrugged.

“When I finally get out of Sparrowhawk, I’ll be going to New York,” said Emma.

“Let me guess,” said Will. “Circus school.”

A horn blared behind them. It was Mr. Cherry in the pink van. The road was so narrow that they had to press up against a building to let him pass. He glared at Peaches through the window and shook his fist. Peaches barked until the van disappeared around a corner.

“How old are you?” asked Emma.

“Twelve.”

“School year?”

“Seven.”

“Good! Same as me. Do people call you Willy?”

“Will,” said Will firmly. He wanted to direct the attention away from him. “Why is your dog called Peaches?”

“He used to be called Jack. And then he stole ten peaches and ate every one!”

“Ten?”
said Will.

“He grabbed them off the table when no one was looking. He had a stomach ache all night and moaned and groaned and now he won’t touch a peach. He shakes when he sees one.”

“Hey, Emma!” called a voice above them. Will looked up. A boy with a round face leaned out of a window above the street. “Come on up!”

“Just for a minute,” said Emma. “We’re going to the castle!” She opened a green door under a carved archway. Inside was a steep staircase. “This is my friend Thom Fairweather’s place. Peaches, you can wait here.”

Thom greeted them at the top of the stairs. He had a thatch of thick brown hair that stuck out in all directions as if it had been cut by six different barbers at the same time. There was a dusting of white on his nose and a blob of chocolate on his eyebrow.

“This is Will,” said Emma. “He’s in year seven like us and he’s going to be living here.”

“Hi,” said Thom. “You better be quiet because Dad’s asleep.”

The flat was small and filled with a delicious baking smell. In one corner sprawled a huge jade tree in a ceramic pot; in the other corner was a large wooden loom strung with brightly coloured threads.

“I’ll come to the castle too,” said Thom. “I’m just putting the icing on my cake. Can you wait for me? I can’t hurry this stage.”

“I’m his official taster,” said Emma as they followed Thom into the kitchen.

The kitchen counter was covered with egg shells, a bag of sugar tipped over, butter, baking chocolate, spoons dripping batter, mixing bowls and a whisk. A wobbly chocolate cake, two layers high, sat on a platter.

“Thom’s learning to be a French chef,” said Emma. “That’s his passion. He’s using his mother’s old cookbook. It’s called
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
, and it’s by a famous person named Julia Child. Thom’s going to be famous too.” Emma turned to Thom. “Hey! Maybe you can come to New York too. Work at the Ritz or someplace.”

Thom turned on an electric mixer. “I’m making meringue,” he shouted over the roar. He lifted dollops of drippy white goo from his bowl with a spoon. “Do these look like stiff peaks to you?”

Emma seemed doubtful. She studied the huge cookbook lying open to a page smattered with chocolate. “Did you remember that the eggs had to be room temperature?”

There was a short silence.

“It also says to use –”

“I think they’re stiff enough,” said Thom tersely. “I’m supposed to dribble boiling syrup in this, but I don’t have any. So this will have to do.” He spread the runny meringue over the cake, which Will thought had sunk at least two inches in the last minute. Then he cut them each a slice.

He looked at Emma anxiously. “Well?”

“Delicious!” declared Emma, her mouth full of cake.

“It’s called a French word.” Thom spelled it out.
“Le Glorieux.
That’s gotta mean a glorious cake.”

It is a glorious cake,
thought Will.
Sticky, sweet, gooey in the middle and very chocolatey.
“Scrumptious,” he told Thom.

“I’ll clean this up later,” said Thom, looking pleased. “I just want to give Dad a piece. Then we can go to the castle.”

“Thom’s mum died when he was a baby and his dad can’t walk and is in a wheelchair and he sleeps a lot because of headaches,” Emma explained when Thom had gone.

Will thought about the long flight of stairs. “What does he do when he wants to go out?”

“Someone has to carry him down the stairs. Mum says he should move somewhere else, but he’s lived here all his life.”

“Come on,” said Thom, who was back. “Let’s go.”

Peaches was lying on his tummy on the tile floor at the bottom of the stairs. He thumped his tail when he saw Thom, but he didn’t get up. Thom stroked the dog’s head. “What happened to Peaches? He’s so upset.”

“He ran into that horrible man from the castle,” said Emma. “Peaches bit him on the leg, and Mr. Cherry tried to hit him with a book. Peaches despises him.”

“Poor old buddy,” said Thom.

“When Thom’s near an animal, he feels the animal’s emotions,” said Emma. “It’s like a special power. It’s because he’s a Fairweather. It runs in his family.”

“It doesn’t happen to all Fairweathers,” said Thom. “It doesn’t happen to Dad.”

“That must be very cool,” said Will.

“Not always,” said Thom. “When I volunteered at the animal shelter, I took on the feelings of all the sad dogs. I nearly passed out. It was more than I could stand. I had to leave.”

Thom ruffled Peaches’ ears and the dog sat up. “He’s okay now,” said Thom.

With Peaches at their heels, they climbed up Black Penny Road.

“So,” said Emma, “do you think you’re going to like living in a castle? Has anyone told you about the curse yet?”

“What curse?” asked Will. It was hard to keep up with Emma.

“A lot of old people say that a griffin put a curse on the castle,” Thom explained.
“Hundreds of years ago.”

“A griffin!” gasped Will. He thought of the words on his scrap of cloth.
The Griffin of Darkwood.

“Bad things have happened in this village,” said Emma. “A girl died. My grandmother, Granny Storm, even knew her.”

“She was related to my dad,” said Thom. “She was his dad’s cousin, I think.”

Will felt cold. “The girl. Did she die in the round tower?”

Thom and Emma stared at him. “I don’t know,” said Emma. “Why?”

“That’s where I’m sleeping. And I had this awful dream. Someone kept saying ‘The child is very ill.’ I saw blood, too and I heard someone say ‘Traitor!’ Favian Longstaff had a friend called Hannah Linley who slept in the tower forty years ago. But he didn’t say anything about her dying.”

“There was a murder too,” said Thom. “That’s what all the old people say. No one knows who. It happened hundreds of years ago.”

“And the castle’s haunted,” said Will. “I’ve already seen a ghost called Cookie, and I heard a boy crying!”

“Haunted!” said Thom. “Oh, man!”

They rounded the bend in the road and the ancient castle loomed before them. They stood still and stared at it.

“It was boarded up until two weeks ago,” said Emma. “That’s when those creepy servants came.”

Ke-ke-ke-ke.
They looked up at two birds circling the tower. “Sparrowhawks,” said Thom.

“I thought so,” said Will. “They were there last night.”

Flap, flap, flap, glide.
One of the sparrowhawks swooped
down into the long grass and came back up with a limp body hanging in its mouth.

“It’s caught a starling.” Thom sounded shaky. “I know it’s nature, but I never like to see it.” He sighed. “Sometimes it’s depressing being me.”

“Let’s go inside!” Emma burst out. “I want to see the tower first.”

Chapter Nine

Exploring the Castle

Will led the way into the castle.

“I really hate that thing,” said Thom, gazing uneasily at the stone creature hovering above them. “What’s it supposed to be, anyway?”

“I don’t really know,” said Will. “It gives me the creeps.”

Emma and Thom were shocked at the words GO AWAY sprayed on the door.

“People hate us, and I don't get why,” said Will.

“My granny says –” began Emma, and then she clamped her mouth shut.

“What?’ demanded Will.

“Nothing.”

They climbed up the steep spiral stairs to the tower and Will put his books on the round table.