Isle of Winds (The Changeling Series Book 1) (10 page)

Chapter Twelve –
A Most Unwelcome Caller

Life at Erlking soon settled into a natural rhythm. Robin continued his casting lessons in the atrium and his largely disastrous combat training on the grassy knoll. His spare time was spent either in the library or his bedroom poring over books. Only Henry managed to keep him sane playing top-trumps and devising ever more outlandish plans to sneak into the Netherworlde. Time passed without Robin really noticing, and slowly Erlking became his home, his school and his sanctuary from the nebulous forces beyond its boundaries.

Robin’s lessons on Fridays with Phorbas on focussing and controlling his mana were met with dubious results. They took place in the aptly-named blue parlour, a small snug room filled with overstuffed furniture, all upholstered in blue. Thick blue curtains, blue patterned wallpaper and blue carpet underfoot. Even the candles on the tables burned with blue flames. Phorbas talked him through the arts of meditation and channelling during these lessons, explaining how learning to control his mana would improve his casting in practical and combat situations. But the cosy, dimly-lit room was so snug that most Fridays were spent drowsing when he should have been contemplating his navel. He didn’t think Phorbas seemed to mind too much. His tutor merely smoked his pipe in peace while Robin snored his way to a higher plane of consciousness.

Weeks passed, and the weather turned steadily colder. Days full of rain and wind arrived, rattling the windows in their old frames and whistling down the chimneys.

Over time, Robin progressed with Featherbreath so that he could float the paper with ease. He could just about levitate the golden coin, though it made him feel like he was going to burst a vein in his head every time he did it. The heavy glass paperweight, on the other hand, had become his nemesis. It stubbornly refused to budge, no matter how hard he tried. It merely sat on the table, unmoved by his efforts.

Combat training continued twice weekly in the grounds until the constant rain churned the grass into slippery mud. They abandoned outside in favour of the large, empty ballroom. Its vast polished floor was scattered with mats and many large cushions for when Robin was inevitably sent flying through the air. Henry often joined them there when his own schoolwork permitted, sitting on the sidelines and acting as cheerleader and critic alike. Robin still couldn’t knock Phorbas off his hooves, he did manage once to part the satyr’s beard neatly in two, which had Henry in fits of laughter.

Between lessons, the two boys were often to be found up in the tower. Henry had brought his Nintendo DS round once but it stopped working as soon as he passed through the gargoyled gates. They played cards or a game Henry called ‘clackers’. It was a lot like draughts, only much noisier and Robin secretly suspected Henry may have invented it, as the rules changed every time they played, especially whenever Henry was losing.

Though Robin kept a daily eye out for Woad, the blue faun didn’t reappear. Things seemed to have quietened down. This bored Henry deeply, and he resumed with gusto his plan to steal the key to the Netherworlde from Hestia’s keeping. While the older boy elaborated on his cunning and complicated stratagems, Robin focussed on floating his socks across the room to the laundry basket with Featherbreath instead.

They were often confined to the house due to the poor weather. Robin took the opportunity to explore the great hall with its endless rooms. Aunt Irene, unexpectedly, positively encouraged him to do so.

He discovered the odd staircase in the kitchen, which Henry had mentioned once. It led up two flights and brought you out into the dark and dusty wine cellar, and when you retraced your steps, you ended up inexplicably in the large airy attic. It made him feel quite dizzy. He ran up and down them for some time, until Hestia eventually chased him out of the kitchen.

Robin avoided Hestia’s domain after that.

One unusually sunny Sunday some time later, when the rains had finally stopped, he and Henry found a wrought iron spiral staircase that led up to a small observatory. There was a large brass telescope, taller than either of the boys, through which Henry was able to show Robin his house down in the village. Robin felt a pang of longing to go and explore the small collection of houses. The tiny cottage looked snug and inviting, with ivy climbing its sides and grey smoke curling out of the chimney. At times like this, he envied Henry his freedom to come and go, which the older boy seemed, quite naturally, to take for granted.

Robin began to spend a lot of his free time alone in the observatory, watching the village through the telescope, or picking out sheep on distant hills as the great shadows of autumn clouds rolled across the grass below.

* * *

A few days later, answering a knock at the front door, Robin had something of a shock. He was confronted with the spectacle of Henry dressed in black pyjamas, upon which had been painted the bones of a skeleton in green paint. His dark hair was sticking up wildly, and his face painted to resemble a skull, with sunken black eyes and hollowed cheeks. He grinned at Robin’s wide-eyed stare.

“Trick or treat?” he said merrily.

“Eh?” Robin replied, utterly confused. Henry looked Robin up and down, disappointed to see the blonde boy wearing jeans and a very unremarkable grey hoodie. “Don’t you know what day it is?” Henry said. “Don’t tell me you’ve had your head stuck in your books so much you don’t know! It’s Halloween!”

“It is?” Robin asked. He’d had no idea whatsoever.

“Yes, I’m trick or treating. Good laugh I thought. Also thought I might make a bit of cash.”

“It’s ten o’ clock in the morning,” Robin said dubiously, glancing at his watch. “Aren’t ghosts and goblins supposed to come out after dark?”

“Yeah, well … just getting a head start on all those kids from the village, aren’t I?”

He looked past Robin into Erlking’s hallway, disappointed. “Aren’t you doing Halloween here, then?” he said, “Dad’s covered our cottage in fake cobwebs, paper skeletons and everything. We’ve got a massive pumpkin in the window. Looks good, wish you could … come and see.” He looked at Robin a little awkwardly as his brain seemed to catch up with his mouth.

“Yeah, me too,” Robin replied, shrugging and thrusting his hands into his pockets. “I don’t think Aunt Irene’s the sort to go for Halloween though.”

“Shame really, spooky old house on a hill and all,” Henry said. “It’s classic Halloween gold!” He shook his head sadly. “You’ll get some kids coming up here later, guaranteed. They come up every year, trick or treating, you know. They dare each other to. Everyone reckons it’s haunted anyway.”

Robin grinned. “Maybe we should have Phorbas answer the door if they do. But Aunt Irene isn’t going to do anything, I don’t think. She’s pretty busy.”

“Is that so?” said a cool voice behind them. Irene has just emerged from a side room, her arms today filled with odd hourglasses of dark green glass. “Too busy to indulge my young ward on this night?”

She glanced at Henry appraisingly. “Your father is not feeding you enough, young Henry.” Her blue eyes flicked to Robin. “We have never celebrated this holiday you call Halloween before. It is a mortal thing … But this is your house now. I shall speak to Phorbas and see if we cannot arrange something.” She glanced back at Henry. “Run along, Robin has a mana management lesson to attend to right now and your clumsy bones are cluttering up my hallway. Come back tonight, let us say … after the moon is up and darkness falls?” She arched an eyebrow. “And bring your father.”

* * *

That evening, Erlking Hall seemed to undergo a strange kind of transformation. Up in his room, Robin found a pile of clothing folded on his bed, and a note atop in Irene’s handwriting.

My dear nephew,

I have done some research into the mortal traditions of this night you call Halloween, and as both your tutor and I feel you have been putting every effort into your studies with little reward, I see no reason why this night should not be one of festivity. I have of course had limited time to prepare, but I hope you will find this costume agreeable.

Irene

Robin unfolded the clothing with raised eyebrows and a lopsided grin. It looked like an extremely ornate and gothic tuxedo, exactly his size. There was a black cape attached, with a deep red velvet lining and a blood red gem in the clasp.

Robin changed out of his clothes and put the suit on, feeling a strange sensation as he fastened the collar, a small ripple of goose bumps flowing down his body. Frowning he looked down at his hands. Beyond the frayed cuffs of the outfit, they were suddenly longer and white, and the nails very sharp.

Surprised, he passed to the wardrobe and opened the door, the inside of which was covered with a full-length mirror. His face was deathly white. His blonde hair had slicked itself back and somehow he seemed to have acquired a widow’s peak. Grinning with delight, he saw his whiter than white teeth, his long fangs.

“Brilliant!” he said, and spent a few minutes making faces at himself. When he eventually went down to the house proper, he found it lit with an eerie green glow. Cobwebs and dust, which had certainly not been there fifteen minutes earlier, covered everything. The curtains at each window floated in an unseen breeze. There were carved pumpkins dotted everywhere, each filled with a guttering green flame. How there had been time to decorate the hallways like this Robin had no idea, but they looked impressive.

Aunt Irene, Phorbas and Hestia were all waiting for him in the entrance hallway. It was newly gloom-shrouded, cobwebbed and spooky-looking. The chandelier swayed tinklingly of its own accord, and from deep in the house, mournful wailing could be heard.

Irene smiled briefly up at him as he descended vampirically from the upper landing.

“This meets with your approval?” she inquired, gesturing at the haunted entrance hallway.

“It’s fantastic! How did you…”

“The Hall? Just a few rather advanced glamours, they will not last the night,” she glanced around. “Fairly effective though, if I do say so myself.”

Hestia was staring around at the dusty cobwebbed hallway with tight-lipped, mute horror. Her fingers twitched involuntarily, searching unconsciously for a duster.

“But this costume?” Robin said. “I’m a vampire!”

Phorbas smiled, looking rather alarming in the sickly green light. “Ah yes. That would be my doing,” he said. “And, to clarify, you only appear to be a vampire, Master Robin. The stone clasp around your neck has been treated with a paste made from Mobotom mushrooms and Glam-glam jam, a very powerful illusion-maker indeed. The stone itself once belonged to a vampire. Its old mana-stone actually. Luckily we had it here. While you wear it, you take on something of its old appearance. A crude glamour, but effective nonetheless.”

“Again, it will not last,” Irene said, smiling. “But long enough for you to enjoy yourself a little.”

Before Robin could comment or question on what he considered to be the rather large bombshell of vampires being ‘real’, the doorbell rang and Phorbas crossed to answer it, his goatish shadow leaping like a demon on the haunted walls. It was Henry and Mr Drover, who made their way inside, Henry still dressed as a skeleton. Mr Drover chuckled to himself appreciatively as he looked around the crypt-like room.

“Do you have any idea how spooky this place looks coming up the hill?” Henry said breathlessly. “All the green windows and pumpkins? And there’s fog rolling over the grass everywhere outside? It’s brilliant! It … Bloody Nora, Robin!” he exclaimed, catching sight of the short blonde vampire in the foyer.

Mr Drover laughed heartily. “I understand there is to be a feast?” he said to the room in general, patting his stomach happily as mournful wails and distant wicked laughter echoed through from the inner reaches of the house.

* * *

There was indeed a feast to be had. The dining room, like the rest of Erlking, had been transformed into a haunted castle. Robin saw bats flitting around the rafters, ghostly green fire crackling in the hearth, and the many portraits which normally lined the walls of the room had been replaced with cobwebby images of shadowy creatures and ghostly shapes, some of which scuttled around in their frames or made threatening faces at the diners. One painting was dripping blood in long gloopy lines out of its frame down the walls to pool on the floor. Hestia kept staring at it, her lips tight.

There was enough food to feed fifty people. Some of it was quite normal, like sausage rolls and jacket potatoes. But there were also plates of twitching pastries shaped to look like severed hands, a large spiderweb trifle complete with struggling raisin flies, a platter of wriggling green spaghetti, the sight of which made Henry heave, and an enormous bowl containing numerous eyeballs. Robin steered clear of these, unsure of quite how seriously Aunt Irene had researched Halloween, although throughout the meal Phorbas took great delight in crunching them down like gobstoppers. Hestia, who seemed unused to sitting for a grand dinner, kept trying to get up and serve everyone and had to be almost physically restrained. Robin and the satyr floated the plates to each other in a suitably spooky way, and Mr Drover entertained them all as they ate by telling several hokey ghost stories.

Some of the village’s braver children did indeed come trick or treating as the night drew on. Phorbas, munching on a mouthful of eyeballs as he answered the door, scared most of them away, screaming before they could claim their treats.