Storm Child (15 page)

‘It’s not that…’ Charlotte
sighed. ‘Come along then. One way or another, our fate is about to be decided.’

Isaac led and the others followed
as they made their way as inconspicuously as they could to the back of the
house. Things were complicated enough without them being seen skulking around
in a very suspicious fashion when there was a murdered man lying inside.
Doubtless, any judge would take very little persuading to convict a bunch of
worthless street children of the crime and have them deported or, worse still,
hanged.

Outside the door, they could hear
the restless patter of claws on stone and the heavy panting of creatures
desperate for freedom.  Isaac turned to Annie.

‘You know what to do.  We’ll
wait outside so we don’t distract you or them. When you think they’re under,
call me and I’ll unlock the cage.’

Annie nodded uncertainly, her
breath coming in short, sharp bursts. Isaac put a hand on her shoulder and
smiled tightly. ‘Don’t you worry,
Annie.
We all got
faith in you.’

Polly, Charlotte and Isaac waited
nervously as Annie slipped inside.  They could hear her begin her
enchanting song – high, lilting notes that soared on the air. Each one felt
themselves grow light as it affected them too, right at the edges of their
minds.  It seemed to last for hours, though it could have only been a few
moments, and then all was still. When Annie didn’t emerge straight away, Isaac
exchanged a worried glance with the others.

‘Do you think she’s done it?’ he
whispered.  

Polly shrugged silently.
Charlotte opened her mouth to reply when Annie’s face appeared at the door. She
looked grey-skinned and exhausted.

‘I think they’re under.’ She
paused. ‘They’re quiet, at least,’ she added.

Isaac nodded sombrely and held up
Georgina’s blanket for her. ‘You ought to show this, as it’s you that has ‘
em
enchanted. I’ll unlock the cage and come in with you,
but I’ll stay near the door in case I spook ‘
em
.’

Without another word, Annie took
the blanket, her expression one of fear mixed with grim determination. Isaac
followed, his face just as serious but with the boldness of someone who was
beginning to find danger just another everyday event.

When they entered, the wolves
were all sat back on their haunches, staring at them.  Isaac counted six,
all varying shades of brown to black.  He moved slowly towards the cage
door and inserted the key in the lock. The clang and scrape of metal on metal
made him wince, and he glanced up to see if it had snapped them from Annie’s
spell, but the wolves remained motionless and silent.  He didn’t like
letting Annie go in alone with the blanket, but he didn’t see any other way. He
clenched his jaw, fists balled as he watched her approach the biggest one.

‘Grant me this favour,’ she said quietly
as she held the blanket to the creature’s black nose, ‘and once the task is
done your will is your own again. I need you to follow this scent.’  The
wolf whimpered slightly.

‘That should do it,’ Isaac
whispered. ‘We’d best be on the road.’

Annie turned to him. ‘We take
them all,’ she said firmly. Isaac’s jaw dropped as he stared at her.

‘What?’

‘We take them all,’ she repeated.
‘Don’t you see, they can be our army as well as our guides?’

Isaac rubbed a hand across his
chin as he looked over at the pack thoughtfully. ‘It’s risky,’ he said
doubtfully. ‘You got to keep them all under control the whole time. You look
tired now and we
ain’t
even begun yet.’

‘Don’t worry about me. All I care
about is getting Georgina back.’

Isaac let out a long breath.
‘Alright,’ he said finally. ‘I can’t say I like it but we’ll do it.’

Annie nodded and turned back to
the cage. She went to each wolf in turn and waved the blanket under their
noses, giving the same instructions.  Then she turned to Isaac again.
‘Open the main door.’

Isaac sprinted out into the
daylight. ‘Stand clear you two,’ he called to Polly and Charlotte.  The
girls leapt back out of the way as Isaac shoved the heavy iron door to widen
the entrance. ‘Right, Annie!’

The wolves poured from the building,
noses to the air and the ground, Annie in their wake. Within seconds, they had
picked up a scent and their pace quickened as they headed through the main
gates of the house.  Annie ran after them.

‘Come on!’ Isaac shouted to the
others as he followed.

Charlotte and Polly gave
chase. 

The wolves were fast but they
stopped frequently to sniff around, as if they had lost the scent or it had
grown fainter. But it was only ever for moments, and then they were off again.
It became a good thing; if they had been running at full speed the humans would
never have been able to keep up with them. As it was, they followed, panting
and winded, but at least able to keep pace.

The trail led them away from the
house and towards the
Uxmouth
road.  But just as
the party began to fear that they would have to run the pack right through the
town, the trail veered off towards the outskirts.  The pace seemed to
quicken too, so that there was now a good twenty or so feet between the pack
and the pursuing humans. If anyone had witnessed the strange chase, they might
have been forgiven for thinking they’d gone mad.

‘I think they’re really onto
something now,’ Isaac called breathlessly behind him as he headed up the group.
The girls struggled to keep up – not only because their strides were shorter
than his, but because their heavy skirts weighed them down and got in the
way.  Polly was about ready to rip her underskirts away in a rage when a
large, grey building loomed ahead on the horizon. She skidded to a halt and
stared up at it.  Annie and Charlotte stopped too. Charlotte looked at her
with a silent question, one that Annie answered for her.

‘The orphanage….’

Seeming to sense that the girl
who held their minds had become distracted, the wolves ground to a halt
too.  Isaac walked back to the others, fighting for breath as the pack
waited patiently, staring at them.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘They’re taking us to the
orphanage,’ Annie said quietly.

Isaac raised his eyebrows
slightly as he stood with his hands on his hips, wiping sweat from his eyes,
but didn’t seem unduly surprised. ‘That makes a lot of sense to me if it is
where we’re going.’

‘It don’t to me,’ Polly cut in.
‘If the Brethren are here, in the orphanage, why did they let Annie and
Georgina go to Ernesto in the first place?’

Isaac smiled slightly at Annie.
‘I suppose you must have done a first rate job of hiding yours and Georgie’s
magic while you were in there, eh?’

‘And then Ernesto must have seen
Georgina do something that made him suspicious? So he was straight on to the
Brethren to sell her back to them.’ Polly whistled. ‘They must have been
annoyed to find out that they had her all the time and now Ern wanted money
from them to get her back.’

‘Annoyed enough to kill him,’
Charlotte said with an involuntary shudder.

‘Yep,’ Polly replied, ‘I’d say
that’s rather annoyed.’

‘Why didn’t they just kill us as
soon as we arrived?’ Annie asked.

‘You sound like you want to die,’
Isaac half laughed.

‘No, but why not? Georgina’s got
black hair and they wouldn’t have thought twice about getting’ rid of me an’
all.’

He shrugged.  ‘Perhaps the
Brethren
ain’t
there all the time. Perhaps they just
missed little Georgie amongst all the other kids,
bein
’
so small an’ all. And I suppose, even though folks don’t give two jots about
street urchins, they may have been afraid that some do-gooder would start
asking questions if all those that went in there started disappearing
willy
nilly
. Whatever the reason,
just be thankful they did.’

‘I had no idea our enemies were
right there amongst us,’ Annie said in a small voice as she stared that the
forbidding square of dark stone on the horizon.

Isaac clapped her on the back.
‘Just goes to show how smart you are that you managed to stay hidden. Think of
it that way and you’re bound to feel better.’ Polly shot him a withering glance
and he shrugged. ‘I’m just trying to make her feel braver.’

‘Well, it
ain’t
workin
’ so keep it to yourself.’

There was a whine from the wolf
pack. Annie shook herself. ‘We don’t know that the orphanage is where they’re
taking us for sure, but they are getting restless and I don’t know how much
longer I can hold this spell.’

‘You look dead on your feet,’
Charlotte said.  What she didn’t say was how worried she was about the
prospect of Annie losing control of the wolves through sheer exhaustion. In
fact, it was what they were all secretly thinking.  Perhaps they would be
quick enough to make a run for it if the worst happened, but anyone unprepared
for a wolf attack in the vicinity might not be so lucky. It was a terrible
burden to dwell on.

‘Come on,’ Isaac said. ‘We’ve
come this far; we might as well keep going now.’

Annie started to walk in the
direction of the pack and almost immediately, the wolves began to track
again. 

They made steadier progress in
the direction of the orphanage this time, the wolves moving more slowly, much
to the relief of the children, so that they could follow at a jog.  It was
soon clear that as much as the group hoped their destination would be a
different one, the one they had dreaded was exactly where they were they were
being led to.

Twenty-one:

The wolves stopped, almost as one, and sniffed the air. The
largest headed the pack. He turned to Annie and let out a whine.

‘This is it,’ Annie said in a low
voice.

They stood side by side at the
gates and looked up at the imposing building.  Considering that there
ought to have been the chatter of hundreds of children inside, it was eerily
silent. They would have believed it deserted had the wolves not led them there.

‘What do we do now?’ Charlotte
asked.

The wolves turned, eerily in
concert again, and looked at them, as if asking the same question. 

Isaac shot an anxious glance at
Annie. ‘How are you feeling? You think you can hold onto this enchantment
longer?’

She nodded. ‘Don’t worry about
me. We need to worry about Georgina.’

‘Righto. But we can’t do anything
about Georgie if we’ve been eaten. So I’m asking you if you think you can hold
on. Because it was your idea to use the wolves as our army.’

‘We might not need them yet,’
Polly cut in. Maybe there’s somewhere Annie can send them to pen them up until
we do.’

‘Maybe we can send them into the
orphanage, scatter everyone out of the way so we can go in and search for
Georgie,’ Isaac offered.

Polly turned to him with a frown.
‘Do you really think they’ll have her in plain sight, soup-for-brains?’

Isaac grinned. ‘That’s the Poll I
know. I’ve been waiting for an insult all afternoon. So what’s your idea?’

‘One of us sneaks in, pretends to
be an orphan and takes a look around.’

‘And then what?’ Isaac folded his
arms.

‘Then they come to get the
others.’

Isaac shook his head. ‘It would take
too long. Annie can’t control the wolves for that long.’ He glanced across at
Annie, who looked paler than ever.

‘I told you,’ Annie said, ‘I can
do what needs to be done. I just want my sister back.’

‘And we’ll get her back.’
Charlotte laid a gentle hand on Annie’s arm. ‘We just need to work out the best
and safest way.’  She looked at Isaac and Polly. ‘I could go in.’

Polly looked her up and down and
sniffed. ‘You?’

‘Why not?’ Charlotte asked
haughtily.

‘You don’t exactly look like an
orphan, do you?’

‘Who else do you suggest?’
Charlotte shot back. ‘Annie must be with the wolves and Isaac needs to protect
Annie whilst she’s so distracted.’

‘What about me?’ Polly asked.

‘You need to survive for Isaac,’
Charlotte said in a low voice.

Polly stared at her, momentarily
lost for a reply. ‘You’ll never get away with it,’ she said finally. ‘Whatever
you say, you don’t look like an orphan.’

Charlotte plunged her hands into
her hair and roughed it up. Then she dropped to the ground and smeared a
handful of soil across her face. Lastly, she grasped her skirt and tugged at
it. There was the sound of ripping fabric and a huge tear appeared. Annie
gasped as Isaac and Polly simply stared at her.

‘There,’ Charlotte said. ‘How do
I look now?’

‘Ridiculous,’ Polly answered
carelessly. ‘Like a posh girl trying to be common.’

‘Posh girls can fall on hard
times too,’ Charlotte replied, equally as carelessly. When nobody argued, she
spoke again. ‘So, I go in. That’s settled.’ She began to make her way through
the gates and up the gravelled path.

‘What are we supposed to do in
the meantime?’ Isaac called after her.

Charlotte looked back. ‘Wait for
me and stay out of sight until I come back.’

‘How long will that be? And where
do we wait?’

Charlotte glanced around uncertainly. 
The landscape was barren heath – not an easy place to stay out of sight.

‘Hang on a tick, sweets,’ Polly
said. ‘Let me scout around first.’

Hitching up her skirts, she set
off at a jog around the boundary wall.  The others watched her run along
it and then disappear behind the building.  The wolves, in the meantime,
lay down and waited silently for their next command.

Polly reappeared a few minutes
later. ‘There’s a back door and what looks like a cellar door but they’re
locked. There are also outbuildings…’ she lowered her voice. ‘They look like
they’re for punishment. I can’t say there’s much
goin
’
on, though.’

‘It is strange,’ agreed Isaac.
‘There should be all kinds of
comin’s
and
goin’s
.’

‘It
ain’t
strange,’ Annie said in a flat voice. ‘The children are too afraid to make a
fuss and noise.’  

‘So…’ Isaac said, unable to
respond to Annie’s statement. For his part he’d escaped the misery of the
orphanage, but he wasn’t sure that living on the streets and begging for scraps
had been any better. But at least, he mused, he had had the freedom to come and
go and the ability to stay out of harm’s way if he wanted to, even if he did
often have to spend winter’s nights pressed against the wall of the tavern just
to keep himself from freezing to death. ‘There
ain’t
no way in or out that’s stealthy, like,’ he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully
as he gazed at the building. ‘Right now, the best we got is Charlotte
goin
’ in as an orphan.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t say I’m fond
o’ that plan.’

‘We’ll have to decide
quick
,’ Polly said, glancing at Annie. She lowered her
voice. ‘I don’t think she’s
goin
’ to last much longer
before she collapses.’ She shot another critical glance at Charlotte. ‘And I
still say they won’t be fooled by a girl who looks so well fed for a second.’

‘You’re saying I’m fat?’
Charlotte squeaked.

‘No, it’s just that you look like
you’ve had a few roast dinners. It’ll never work.’

Charlotte folded her arms and
glared at Polly. ‘What do you suggest then, clever clogs?’

‘We sneak in. Through the back
way. We take one o’ the wolves with us and we sniff Georgie out.’

‘How are you going to control a
wolf without Annie?’ Charlotte reminded her.

‘The enchantment will hold,’ Annie
said firmly. ‘Even if the animal is a few feet away from me I can make it
hold.’

‘We can’t get in the back way –
it’s locked,’ Isaac reminded her.

Polly turned to him, hands on her
hips, and rolled her eyes. ‘What kind o’ street urchin are you? You must have
picked a lock or two in your time?’

Isaac grinned. ‘I might have. But
that one looks tighter than the rickety
ol
’ lock on
the pantry door of
The Hare and Hounds
.’

Polly reached over to Charlotte
and yanked at one of her hairpins.

‘Ow!’ Charlotte snarled. ‘What
are you doing?’

‘Keep your voice down, idiot. I’m
not wearing hairpins, in case you hadn’t noticed, neither is Annie. Isaac ought
to be – he’s such a big girl – but he
ain’t
either.
An’ I need a hairpin to pick at that lock.’ Polly waved the pin at Charlotte
before she twirled towards the building and strode off. ‘So it will have to be
one of yours, won’t it?’ she called behind her.

Charlotte watched her go and
fired a dark look at Isaac. ‘Is she always this vexing?’ she muttered.

Isaac grinned. ‘That’s why I like
her so.’  He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at the
foreboding grey wall of the building. ‘I still say it’s unnatural quiet in
there.’

‘You’re right,’ Charlotte agreed,
following the line of his gaze. ‘You’d think there would be some disturbance,
but it’s silent as the grave.’ She shivered slightly. ‘Do you think we ought to
take a peek inside?’

‘
Ain’t
that what Poll’s trying to do?’

‘I mean through the window now.
So we have at least some knowledge of what we’re walking into.’

‘Might be less scary if you
don’t,’ Isaac said with a small smile. ‘It’s easier to run away if you see the
jaws of the lion first. And we
ain’t
running, not now
we’ve come this far.’

‘No, we’re not,’ Annie said
grimly. Isaac and Charlotte spun around to look at her. She’d been so quiet,
concentrating on her
task, that
they had almost
forgotten she was there.

‘We’ll get Georgie out; you’ll
see,’ Isaac said with a great deal more conviction than he felt.

‘I’ll die before I leave her
here,’ Annie said.

Isaac glanced across at Charlotte
before turning his gaze back to Annie. ‘There
ain’t
no need for any of that nonsense if we do this right.’

Almost as quickly as she had
gone, Polly was racing back towards them with a huge grin.  Isaac raised his
eyebrows.

‘You never popped that lock
already?’

‘Course I did!’ she chirruped.
‘What do you take me for?’

‘Let’s go then,’ Isaac hissed. He
looked at Annie. ‘You stay here with the wolves until we send for you.’

Annie nodded shortly.

At the back of the building,
Isaac nudged in front of Polly to push open the door. It let out a sickening
squeal as the rusty hinges protested to the movement and Isaac shot an alarmed
look behind him at the others. Polly rolled her eyes.

They stopped to listen for any signs
that the occupants of the orphanage had been alerted to the security breach,
but when everything seemed to remain silent, Isaac pushed cautiously
again.  This time the door ground open to let them in.

They found themselves in a small
back room, like an outhouse. Along the walls were pegs hung with an assortment
of cleaning equipment – feather dusters, brooms and mops – wooden buckets lined
up in the space beneath, empty apart from heavy-bristled scrubbing brushes that
sat in each one. There were two doors – one at the far side, almost hidden from
sight, and one right in front of them. Isaac pressed his ear to the nearest one
after they agreed in hushed tones that this seemed most likely to be connected
to the main building.

‘Sounds like the grave in there,’
he whispered. ‘I don’t like this one bit.’

‘You
ain’t
supposed to like it,’ Polly whispered back. ‘You’re supposed to work out if
it’s safe to go in.’

‘I can’t tell, though, can I, if
I can’t hear what’s going on.’

‘It doesn’t seem right that a place
this big will be this silent,’ Charlotte agreed. ‘There ought to be hundreds of
children in there and there ought to be a lot of noise, no matter how strict
the wardens are, even if that’s just noise from their labours.’

‘You’re going to have to go in,’
Polly said, prodding Isaac in the back.

‘Oi!’ he hissed. ‘Enough o’ that
prodding. Why don’t
you
go in if you’re so keen?’

‘One of us has to. And I thought
you were the man around here.’

‘Oh…
now
I’m a man when it
suits you,’ Isaac said. He couldn’t help a small grin, though. ‘I’ll hold you
to that later.’

‘You
ain’t
that man yet,’ Polly snapped back. ‘First you got to prove it.’

Isaac turned the handle and
pressed his weight against the door, but it stayed firm.

‘Locked,’ he grimaced. He glanced
towards the other door. ‘Let’s try that one.’

They raced over and he repeated
the exercise but that door was stuck firm too.

‘We got to unpick one of them,’
Polly said. ‘Choose which one.’

‘Why do I choose?’ Isaac asked.

‘Let’s unpick the first one,’
Charlotte cut in with an impatient sigh. ‘I’m beginning to think the place is
empty and we’re wasting time here if it is.’

‘Why would it be empty?’ Polly
said with a frown. ‘It should be full of orphans.’

‘I daren’t imagine,’ Charlotte
replied darkly. ‘But you seem to know what these people are capable of so you
should be able to answer that question better than anyone.’

‘What are you
tryin
’
to say?’ Polly asked, standing at her full height now, her nostrils flaring.
‘You was the one who read the documents. You saw the plans for the ritual.’

‘I didn’t see it all!’ Charlotte
fired back.

‘Calm down, Poll,’ Isaac cut in.
‘Charlotte don’t mean
anythin
’ by it. And this
quarrelling
ain’t
getting us anywhere. Don’t forget
Annie is still waiting for us out there with all
them
wolves. We’d best just get this door open and
see what’s what… Get ready to run if I signal.’

The two girls nodded in unison.

‘Poll, pass us that hairpin.’

Polly nudged him out of the way.
‘I’ll do this, I’m better than you. And I
might as well open the door.
So
you
get ready to run if I signal.’

Isaac grinned. ‘Right you are my
little firecracker.’

Polly stuck her tongue out at
him, which only made his grin spread wider.  Then she proceeded to rattle
the hairpin in the lock, twisting and turning it this way and that, trying to
spring the mechanism. Charlotte watched on, obvious awe in her expression,
whilst Isaac bounced on the balls of his feet with impatience, hands clenched
into fists at his side. After a few tense moments, there was a faint click and
the lock sprang open. She glanced at Isaac for a moment, her earlier bravado
replaced by a look of misgiving. 

‘What are you
waitin
’
for?’ he asked.

She took a deep breath and slowly
nudged the door open, allowing the tiniest crack to put her eye up to. 
After a tense moment, she turned back to the others.

‘Not a soul to be seen.’

Isaac frowned.

‘Look for yourself,’ Polly said,
making the gap wider. Isaac and Charlotte crowded in and peered through into a
vast, silent room, lined with long rough tables. High windows slanted tepid
daylight in to reveal panelled walls thick with years of dust and grease and a
floor smeared with more of the same, wisps of old straw strewn across in a poor
attempt to conceal the filth.