Spellfall (3 page)

~~*~~

To Merlin’s relief, they returned home the slow way, the van rattling along muddy lanes that soon deteriorated into woodland tracks as they took a detour to avoid the Thrallstone. Every pothole jolted Merlin out of his seat, almost making him glad of his empty stomach. By the time they reached the Lodge, he felt as if he’d been trampled by a herd of wild unicorns. But he kept his mouth shut because, no matter how many bruises he ended up with, it was better than being transported by a spell.

As soon as they pulled up, his father called Claudia-the-Fish. The two Casters who liked to call themselves Spellmages then disappeared into the cellar with the girl’s spider. Merlin sighed. He had no idea what they did down there, but whenever Claudia went down they were gone for hours. It looked as if he’d have to get his own lunch again.

He crept past the shed where his father’s goshawk lived and made himself a large pile of marmalade sandwiches which he took into his room. Shivering, he pulled on an extra jumper. Then he crossed his fingers and turned on his computer.

The Lodge was a terrible place to live. Five miles from civilization, it had no TV, no telephone, and no heating except smoky open fires when someone bothered to light them. Water had to be drawn from an ancient well in the overgrown garden. There was a cesspit, which ponged in hot weather and was probably the reason none of the spellclave ever did much gardening. Electricity came from a generator in the cellar, its output strictly controlled by Hawk. Sometimes there was power for Merlin’s computer, more often not. If he did something that annoyed his father the power could be off for days and he’d be reduced to reading his computer magazines by candlelight.

Today, though, there was a comforting whirr and coloured light from the monitor flickered across the tightly shuttered windows, old dark furniture and bare floorboards. Merlin’s eye fell on the stack of glossy magazines on his bed and for the first time that day he grinned. On top of the magazines was a new game. Eagerly, he ripped off the wrapping and loaded it up. None of the monsters were half as terrifying as his father in a bad mood but it was so long since he’d had anything new to play he forgot the time and was soon lost on a quest in which he was the hero, strong and brave...

A chill draught across the back of his neck snatched him back to reality. Quickly, he grabbed the computer mouse and exited.

Hawk stood in the doorway, scowling at the screen. Merlin made the computer beep a few times, hoping it might make his father go away. Apart from Claudia, who used to be some kind of scientist before his father found her and brought her to the Lodge, all the spellclave were wary of his computer – technology was supposed to interfere with Spellmage powers. Merlin didn’t care. What he really wanted was to get on the Internet and the faster it drained his power, the better, because then his father would have no excuse to hurt Redeye.

The silence was getting to him. He made the computer beep again and the hawk-headed stick rested on his shoulder. A gentle threat.

“Stop that.”

Merlin gripped the mouse harder and swallowed.

“New game?” His father’s question was deceptively mild.

“Er... yes.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“I don’t know.”

A chuckle. “Do you and Claudia really think I don’t know what goes on behind my back in my own spellclave?”

“No! I mean, yes, she... I mean...” Merlin swallowed again. The last thing he wanted was to get Claudia into trouble and lose his supply of magazines and games. None of the others would dare defy Hawk so openly.

“You don’t know what you mean, do you? Stop trembling, boy! I’m not angry with you.”

“You’re not?” Merlin waited for the stick to leave his shoulder but it stroked his ear, making him cringe.

“You did quite well today.”

Praise? Merlin tensed. His father wouldn’t come in here just for that. Something more was coming.

“Now we’ve got her familiar, we’ll soon have the girl. I’ve sent Claudia to watch her house. The little madam should be more cooperative now, but we’ll get her here one way or the other. When she arrives I want you to talk to her, find out how much she knows. Show her Redeye.”

“You’ll let me have Redeye back?”

It was as if the sun had risen in his room. Merlin twisted in his chair and searched his father’s face. But there was no kindness there. The yellow eyes regarded him in amusement as their owner caressed the head of his beloved stick.

“If you get results, I might let you visit him in the cellar.”

Merlin’s heart sank again. The cellar. Dark, airless, where no one could hear you scream... “I’ll do my best,” he whispered.

Hawk smiled. “Of course you will, because you know what’ll happen to Redeye if you don’t. Now then, why don’t you tell me what went wrong in the supermarket? That spellflash must have been visible from the other side of Earthaven! No point worrying about getting it back now, a dead spell’s no use to anyone.” His boots echoed on the bare boards as he began to pace the room.

“
Earthaven Spellmages bring dead spells back to life
,” Merlin mouthed but didn’t quite have the guts to say it aloud. Every time his father passed behind his chair, the back of his neck prickled.

“Well? I’m waiting. What’s your excuse this time?”

“I— er—” He considered lying then changed his mind. Raising his chin slightly, he said, “I used it to transport her spider out of her pocket.”

Hawk stopped pacing and laughed out loud. “Don’t be silly! You couldn’t transport a flea if it hopped half the distance itself! If you’re going to lie to me, at least make it halfway believable. You need two spells to transport – one at each end. I must have told you that a thousand times.”

Merlin bit his lip. “I kept the old one, the one you told me to recycle,” he admitted. “It wasn’t quite dead, and I… ah… thought it might be useful.” In truth, he’d forgotten the spell, he’d been so anxious to get the girl’s familiar. But his father didn’t need to know that. “I didn’t have time to think,” he rushed on. “So I dunno how it happened. But you’re always telling me to stop analysing magic and just
do
it, so maybe that’s why it worked?”

Silence behind. He twisted in his chair and saw Hawk frowning, stroking his stick. “This changes things,” his father said slowly. “So she cast it herself, did she? Was she trying to get rid of you? I wouldn’t blame her but I thought she didn’t know who we were. If she suspects the truth about her mother’s death it could make things complicated. Tell me exactly what happened. Did she know what she was doing?”

So the girl had lost her mother too? Merlin thrust away the memories of his own mother’s death and thought of the surge of power he’d felt when he’d touched the spell. It
must
have been the power of a casting. “I cast it,” he said, less sure now.

Hawk’s lips pressed tight. “I thought I told you not to lie to me. You can’t even cast illusions, let alone transport.”

“Then maybe it was both of us? Like we combined our power, or something?”

For a second, doubt flickered in the yellow eyes. Then his father laughed again. “You’re such an idiot! Only a Spell Lord can transfer power like that, and that’s one thing you’ll never be, my boy! Neither will that girl, not with a spider for a familiar. Even in Earthaven, becoming a Spell Lord is a lifetime’s work. Out here, it’s an honour achieved only by those of us willing to risk all.” He chuckled nastily. “When my spellclave’s complete, maybe I’ll show you what a power transference
really
feels like.”

Merlin shuddered.

“For now, though,” Hawk went on, no longer laughing, “I don’t like being lied to. You never learn, do you?”

The door slammed. After a moment, Merlin’s computer turned itself off with a sigh like a dying animal and shadows rushed at him from the cobwebby corners of the room. He clenched his fists, part in frustration, part in fear.

“I wasn’t lying,” he whispered to the dark screen. “I did cast that spell. I
did.
”

*

At that very moment, the spell in question was spread on Natalie’s bed in the Marlins’ warm, energy-efficient house back in Millennium Green. Natalie had taken off her glasses to see if the colours would come back. Jo, who had perfectly good eyesight, was turning her head from side to side and squinting.

“It’s no good, I can’t see it,” her friend said finally, flicking an unruly chestnut fringe from her eyes. “Looks like a dirty old crisp packet to me.”

Because of the weather, they were confined to Natalie’s bedroom, which was small for two people, especially when one of those people was Jo. As the tallest, strongest girl in their school, Jo was always picked first for all the sports teams. She could have had any friend she liked. But when the school bully Gaz (whose real name was Gerald, only no one dared call him that) had snatched Natalie’s glasses off her nose and run around the playground waving them in the air, Jo had knocked him out cold, brought the glasses back to Natalie and linked arms with her. No one tormented Natalie after that. Even Tim went quiet when Jo was around.

Natalie picked at a loose thread in her skirt. She wished she hadn’t told her friend about the old man now. People thought she was weird enough, keeping a spider as a pet. They didn’t know she only kept Itsy because her dad forbade animals in the house. If Jo abandoned her, she’d have no one.

Rain lashed the window so hard, it sounded as if someone were throwing buckets of water against the glass. She scowled at the wrapper. Why on earth had she picked it up in the first place? It had brought nothing but trouble. Suddenly angry, she crumpled the thing into a ball and threw it at the wall.

Jo grinned and rolled on to her stomach, kicking her bare feet in the air. “You’re having me on, Nat, aren’t you? That’s the best yet. Witches in Millennium Green!” She giggled.

Natalie blew on her fingers, which had gone unaccountably numb. “I know what I saw. And it looked different earlier. Had a sort of a hologram thing on it.” She scowled at the wrapper, which had fallen under her homework desk. “Oh, forget it! I expect it was just some Hallowe’en prank.”

“Bit early,” Jo pointed out, still giggling. “Hallowe’en isn’t till next weekend. Bet you anything it’ll still be raining, though! I hate this weather. I’m so bored I could climb the walls. C’mon Nat, where’s that new CD of yours?”

Natalie hardly heard the music. Her gaze kept straying to the crumpled wrapper. She still half expected it to start glowing as it had in the supermarket but it remained stubbornly dull.

“I lost Itsy,” she said in the pause after the first song had finished.

“Itsy?” Jo frowned. “You mean your little spider?”

Natalie nodded. “He must’ve escaped when the firework went off.”

“Oh Nat, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you say so before?” Jo’s arms went around her. The magazine she’d been reading slipped to the floor.

Natalie shrugged her off, embarrassed. “It’s no big deal. It was only a spider and at least he didn’t get stamped on this time. I can easily get another one.”

“If I lost Bilbo, I’d kill myself.”

“No you wouldn’t. Anyway, spiders don’t matter as much as dogs.”

“Yes they do! Itsy was a pet and pets are important no matter how small they are.”

“I lost my mother when I was three,” Natalie said through gritted teeth. “I’m not about to start crying over a stupid spider, am I?”

Her gaze strayed to her parents’ wedding photograph, which lived in pride of place on her bedside table. Her mother held her father’s arm, dark glasses staring sightlessly at the camera. Dad looked young and proud in a smart grey suit. No beard in those days. At her mother’s feet a large white mongrel sat patiently staring out of the picture with eyes of liquid amber. Eyes that saw the world for his mistress, except on that terrible morning when she had fallen in the river and drowned. She knew Dad blamed the dog. That was why he wouldn’t let her have a proper pet but it seemed so unfair. Despite what she’d said to Jo, her eyes filled. She snatched off her glasses and angrily dashed the tears away.

Jo regarded her steadily for a moment, then opened the window and stuck her head out. “Hey, do you think it’s stopping?” she said brightly. “We could cycle down to the supermarket and see if your new bin’s still there. Find out what’s really in it.”

Rain gusted in, soaking Natalie’s desk and fluttering the pages of her school books. Glad of the distraction, she jumped off the bed and shut the window. “It’s not stopping, silly, it’s getting worse! Anyway, Julie would never let me out in this, not after me getting so wet this morning.”

“All right,” Jo said. “Then why don’t we go down there when it’s dark? If that old man really is a witch or a wizard or whatever, he’s more likely to come out at night. You can easily climb out your window on to the shed roof and slide down the drainpipe.”

“Don’t be stupid, Jo.”

“Tomorrow morning then. Six o’clock sharp. With any luck, the rain will have stopped by then. I’ll meet you on the corner and I’ll bring my skates. I want to show you a new trick I taught Bilbo. I know! I’ll bring my sister’s skates too. She never uses them and her feet are about the same size as yours. The car park will be deserted at that hour, lots of space. It’ll be fun.” Bored, Jo was dangerous.

“You know I can’t skate,” Natalie said in alarm.

“Time you learned, then. Don’t worry, it’s easy. You’ll love it.”

“Why can’t we just walk?”

Jo frowned. “What’s up? You scared, or something? That’s not like you.”

Not of the skating
, Natalie wanted to say. But it was too complicated to explain. She wasn’t even sure she knew herself.

“Nobody gets up at that time on a Sunday,” she mumbled instead.

Wrong thing to say. Jo’s eyes lit up with that gleam she knew all too well. “That’s why we’re going so early, silly! So there won’t be anyone around to see us when we climb into your bin.” She swung her jacket over one shoulder, giving Natalie a sly look from under her fringe. “You will come, won’t you? I’ll let you hold Bilbo’s lead.”

Jo knew very well Natalie would never miss a chance to walk a dog, not even a fat soppy one like the Carter family’s Labrador. But Natalie supposed the supermarket car park was tame compared to Unicorn Wood where, last summer, they had lost Bilbo down a badger hole and had to get Mr Carter up there with a spade to dig him out.