The Lost Heir (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 1) (26 page)

“No! He looked like you did at Newgate when you were enchanted.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Folding his arms across his chest, Derek nodded after a moment. “Very well then. Empty your pockets. Leave the candy on the table. You’re not having it. You’ll spend the rest of the day in your room thinking about all this.”

“You’re going to lock me up?” Jake exclaimed.

Derek looked at him serenely. “You brought this on yourself.”

“Fine!” Confinement of any kind went against his free-roaming nature, but he supposed it could’ve been worse. Grumping under his breath, he did as he was told, depositing his candy on the table.

Derek nodded toward the door. “Straight up to your room. No tricks. Go.”

Jake cast a scowling glance over his shoulder at him, but was prepared to be compliant. Then he slouched out into the foyer and saw Dani cowering slightly on the stairs.

He gave her a dirty look. “Traitor,” he muttered.

She rose and took a solemn step toward him. “I’m sorry, Jake, but it was for your own good. I told you we shouldn’t have gone. You should’ve listened to me.”

“You should’ve listened to me,” he mimicked her. “You tattletale! Baby! I’m sick of you following me everywhere! Why don’t you go home and leave me alone for once? Just go away!”

Dani gasped as if someone had slapped her. Then she burst into tears and bolted up the stairs.

Unfortunately for Jake, Derek had heard every word.

“THAT DOES IT!” The Guardian came stomping toward him. “How dare you talk to her like that! Lash out at someone smaller and weaker than you? Badly done, Jacob! Dani O’Dell has risked her life for you—” Derek was so angry he was sputtering. “Forget going to your room! You’re not getting off that easily. Come on! You’re coming with me.”

When Derek reached for his shoulder to steer him toward some new punishment, Jake raised his arm to flick away the warrior’s hand.

“Don’t touch me, I can walk myself!” he started to mutter, but to Jake’s horrified surprise, his telekinesis went off accidentally with his gesture.

A nearby oil-lamp flew off the table, hurling toward Derek’s head. Jake’s eyes widened. Derek caught the lamp in midair. Then he turned at him in shock. “You think you can take me on, you thankless brat?”

“It was an accident!” Jake cried, paling. “I didn’t mean to do it—I swear!”

Derek scowled at him, but must have seen the dread on Jake’s face and believed him. He set the lamp down, but the warrior was clearly not amused. “You obviously need more training in how to control yourself. But don’t worry. The punishment I’ve got in store for you should be just the thing to help you with that.” Grasping him by the scruff of the neck, Derek headed him down the main hallway of the first floor. “Walk.”

“Ow! Where are we going?” Jake struggled like a fish on a line, but Derek was relentless, marching him out the back door to the vegetable garden. “You’re worse than Constable Flanagan!”

“Say whatever you want. You can’t hurt my feelings. Of course, I suppose you prefer to pick on little girls.”

“Why am I the only one in trouble? We all went!” Jake protested as Derek escorted him down the center path of the kitchen garden in this undignified fashion.

“Because you are the ringleader.”

“I didn’t force anyone to follow me! Dani wanted to go to the candy shop as much as I did!”

“Here’s your candy shop, Jakey, old boy.” Derek stopped before a giant pile of stinky, rotting compost.

“What?”

The mound loomed taller than Jake, steaming in the sun. Flies buzzed around it. The smell was horrible, rather like manure.

“
Disgusting!
What is that?” Grimacing, Jake tried to bury his nose in his sleeve.

“This, my lord,” Derek said sarcastically, “is your punishment.”

Jake gagged.

Derek picked up a pitchfork and thrust the wooden handle into Jake’s hands. “You will spend the rest of the day at a task affectionately known as ‘turning the compost heap.’ Move this pile from here to there.” Derek pointed. “One pitchfork at a time to let it air out.”

Still holding his nose, Jake looked at him in disbelief. “You must be joking.”

“Not at all,” he drawled. “It was good enough for me when I disobeyed my father as a lad. The task should give you plenty of time to think about your attitude.”

“I am not doing this.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m an EARL.”

“You’re a stubborn little mule, and you brought this on yourself, lashing out at Dani like that. Badly done, Jacob. Very badly done, indeed.”

He shook his head, confused. “You’re more upset about what I said to Dani than us going to the village.”

“Aye,” Derek said.

Jake blinked. “Why?” he demanded.

“Think about that while you work, and when you figure it out, come and tell me. Now get going. And don’t come back until the task is done and you’re ready to apologize.”

Derek pivoted and marched back to the house, leaving him alone. Jake stared after him in bewildered resentment.

When the door banged shut, Jake let out a loud huff, the pitchfork dangling from his hands. He turned back to face the compost heap and gave it another gagging grimace. “Disgusting!”

It’s not fair!
But after another moment’s sulk, he thrust the pitchfork into the pile. A city boy didn’t know the first thing about country labors, but he was not about to let Derek think he couldn’t do it.
Fine
, he thought with a cocky shrug.
What do I care? I’ll show him.

But I am still not apologizing.
He never said he was perfect and if they didn’t like it, they could all go hang.

For the life of him, he could not figure how
he
had ended up as the villain, when he was the one who had been attacked by a homicidal blacksmith! He snorted and stabbed the compost heap with the pitchfork, venting his frustrations.

The hideous mound wasn’t going to move itself and the movement was too complex to accomplish by using his powers. His only choice was to muscle through it, stench and all.

Muttering words like “stupid” and “ridiculous,” he picked up another pitchfork full of the smelly rot and, scowling, carried it over to the other pile.

Earl or not, it was going to be a very long, unpleasant afternoon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Oboedire Spell

Dani was still crying into her pillow when Isabelle came to check on her.

With a tender smile, the older girl went into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Oh, Dani, Jake really hurt your feelings, didn’t he?”

“He hates me now,” she said with a teary sniffle. “I didn’t mean for Derek to yell at him.”

“You did the right thing.”

“For all the good it did me!”

Isabelle was silent for a moment, watching her. “You’re scared about going back to London, aren’t you?”

Dani lifted her head and glanced at her in surprise.

The older girl waited patiently for her to speak.

“Sometimes I think Teddy is the only one who cares about me,” she finally admitted in a choked whisper. “I know I only bother Jake. But I don’t have anyone else. Not really. Not since Ma died.”

Isabelle’s sky-blue eyes filled with tears. She pulled Dani into a hug like a caring big sister, then kissed her on the head. “Come along, on your feet now. I know something that will cheer you up.”

When Isabelle released her, Dani quickly dried her eyes. Isabelle went to the door of Dani’s chamber, beckoning to her. “Follow me. Best to leave Teddy here.”

“Where are we going?”

“Out into the woods.”

“Whatever for?” she asked curiously.

Isabelle gave her a mysterious smile. “It’s a secret.”

Curiosity overcame her sorrow. Dani climbed off the bed and followed Isabelle out of her chamber. They went down the upstairs hallway, then Isabelle glided down the stairs ahead of her.

They slipped out a side door into the sunshine; Dani had a bit of a headache from crying, and her eyes burned.

“This way.” Isabelle hurried through the formal gardens. “You have to promise that you’ll never tell anyone what you are about to see. Secrecy is of the utmost importance, Daniela. If the wrong people found out about them, lives could be at stake. I am their Keeper, after all. It’s my job to take care of them.”

“Take care of who? I promise!” she hastily added, crossing her heart with a wide-eyed nod.

“You’ll see.” Isabelle hurried on.

In the distance, toward the back of the house, the girls spotted Jake laboring over the compost heap. They exchanged a look, then hurried on through a row of trees at the far end of the formal gardens.

Isabelle led her through a meadow, over an old fallen log, and finally into the woods, tall and dark, shady-green with whispering wind. “Come on.” Isabelle pushed aside a soft-needled yew-tree bough, revealing a deer path. “This way. Our family’s property spans several thousand acres, but they shouldn’t be far off at this time of day.”

“‘They’ who?” Dani pleaded, unable to take the suspense. “Who are we going to see?”

Isabelle giggled. “Patience.”

Dani cast about for any small clue. “Does Archie know them?”

“Yes, but they don’t like boys very much. They don’t trust them and sometimes—” Isabelle shook her head with a sigh. “Who can blame them?”

“Who? Please? Oh, I’m going to pop if you don’t tell me!” Dani begged her.

“Shh! Listen. They’re coming…”

The girls held perfectly still.

“I don’t hear anything,” Dani whispered.

“Exactly.” Isabelle scanned the woods. “When they arrive, all the other animals must be still and pay their respects, especially to Belarex.”

“Belarex,” Dani echoed in a whisper. “Why?”

“He’s their king.”

“An animal king?”

“The king of
all
the animals,” Isabelle whispered.

“Not a lion!” Dani asked, gripping her friend’s arm in alarm.

“Goodness, no. Don’t worry. You and I have nothing to fear from them.”

Dani believed her, but stayed close to Isabelle just to be sure. Heart pounding, she glanced all around at the forest, trying to search past the leafy shadows.

The woods had gone so still!

No birds called; no frogs croaked; no squirrels chattered. A reverent hush had fallen over all the forest.

Then Isabelle smiled jubilantly. “Here they come!”

Dani held her breath. The ground began to pound with the drumming of hoofs.

Meanwhile, Jake was still venting his frustrations on the compost heap. He stabbed the pitchfork into the great pile of slops and kitchen garbage for the hundredth time, his arms and shoulders burning from his toil. How his carefree rookery friends would’ve howled with hilarity to see him like this.

He tried not to think about it. Bloody insulting!

He was never going to get this horrid smell out of his nose. Offended and rather nauseous, he carried the next scoop of compost over to the second, smaller pile, turning it over as he dropped it.

Again and again, he repeated the motion interminably, until blisters started forming on his hands.

Taking a pause in his foul, sweaty work, Jake brushed the perspiration off his brow with a pass of his forearm.

Then suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he noticed the figure of a man in a long coat and black hat standing on the other side of the nearby stream.

Watching him.

Jake squinted.
No. It can’t be. He wouldn’t dare come this close with Derek here…

Uncle Waldrick?

The man lifted some sort of small glass vial in his hand, mumbled a few words Jake could not make out from this distance, then drank from the little glass, as though he had just made a fancy dinner toast in Jake’s honor.

What the deuce?
He stared uneasily at the man.
This is not good
. Derek had gone down to Gryphondale.
Better go tell Aunt Ramona.

But as he backed away, a strange feeling began tingling in his veins.

His arms and legs suddenly started feeling heavy. A pleasant fog began to cloud his mind.

Uh-oh.

He tried to shake it off, but the sluggish feeling rapidly grew stronger.
If I turn into a frog, I’m going to scream.
He felt so glazed and drowsy all of a sudden that he couldn’t even hold the pitchfork up. He dropped it and just stood there, staring into space.

Wake up, man! Shake it off!
You know what this is! It’s bad magic!
he yelled at himself in his mind, to no avail. An unnatural sluggishness was taking over.

Then he was startled when he heard a voice inside his head.
‘Come, Jacob,’
it ordered, deep in the recesses of his mind.
‘Join me.’

Slowly, he turned to face the distant, dark figure.

‘Cross the river. Quickly. Come.’

The dim protest of his usually strong will was fading with each heartbeat. He was glazing over, surrendering to the authority of that unknown command…

‘Use your seashell to keep the water nymphs at bay. Cross the river to me. Hurry. Before the old witch comes.’