The Midnight Gate (6 page)

Mr. Watson stopped and cocked his head slightly sideways, listening. There was no sound but the distant cry of a lonely seabird and the faint rustle of wind.

“So it is,” he said, surprised. “How odd.”

He listened for another moment, then glanced at his watch and clicked his tongue.

“We should be halfway back by now,” he snapped. “Your parents will be beside themselves if we're late!”

Belladonna could see his regret as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

“Sorry, Johnson. Ah … let's be having you. Come on.”

He herded them ahead of him across the chapter house, through the low archway, and out into the main part of the abbey grounds. Once they were outside, they could hear the shouts of the other kids looking for them, as well as the chiming of a distant church bell and the sputtering cough of the idling bus.

“Found them!” he shouted. “Everyone onto the bus!”

The trip back seemed shorter than the one in the morning, though it was nearly dark by the time the bus pulled up outside school. Belladonna was lost in thought, her forehead against the misty window and her mind racing. The last Paladin! And the last Spellbinder! They had names! And something was happening. Or was going to happen. For all that she'd longed to return to her normal life while she was in the Land of the Dead, she now longed for something new. Something important. Something where more was expected of her than just turning her homework in on time. Perhaps that was what she wanted, after all, not an escape from ordinariness but a way to be more alive. Even if it meant spending a lot more time with the Dead.

“Johnson!”

She jumped to life and sat up, startled, her head leaving a circular mark in the steam on the window where she'd been leaning. The bus was empty.

“We're here! Come on, off you go.”

She scrambled out of her seat and headed toward the front of the bus, where Mr. Watson was waiting.

“Didn't you have a bag?” he asked, rolling his eyes and looking at his watch.

Yes
. She turned back and retrieved the battered pink backpack, then scurried past him and out onto the pavement. The shrill February wind whipped around her face and froze her fingers almost as soon as she stepped out. Most of the other kids had gone, whisked home by waiting parents in family cars. Steve was still there, of course, huddled near the tree on the opposite side of the road with his friends. These days he always seemed to wait until the last possible moment to go home.

Belladonna smiled at him as he glanced toward her, but he pretended he hadn't noticed and returned to his conversation.

Boys!
thought Belladonna cheerfully as she turned up the road and headed toward Lychgate Lane and home.

 

5

Care

“HOW WAS THE
monastery?” asked her father as soon as she was out of her wet things, into warm clothes, and huddled by the fire, waiting for the feeling to return to her nose and fingers.

“Cold,” said Belladonna.

“I'll bet it was. Did you see any ghosts?”

She shrugged. “A couple of monks.”

He nodded and returned to watching the television. Belladonna stared at the fire, wondering why she hadn't told him about Edmund de Braes. It wasn't as if he didn't know about the Spellbinder stuff, after all.

“Actually…” she began.

“Dinner's ready!” said her mother cheerfully, sticking her head through the wall from the kitchen.

Belladonna scrambled to her feet and hurried in. She was starving and almost wishing she'd eaten the awful brie and almond sandwiches.

“Nothing fancy,” said her mother as Belladonna pulled her chair up to the table. “Just a little vat of beef bourguignon to warm you up from the inside out.”

Mrs. Johnson was working her way through all the great cookbooks of the world in alphabetical order. She said it gave her something to do and that being dead could get a little dreary if you didn't keep yourself occupied. She had always been a good cook, but now every evening was a gastronomic adventure. Belladonna loved almost everything (except liver and tripe and the seedy parts of tomatoes) but couldn't help longing for some good old fish and chips once in a while.

Still, this beef thingy showed every sign of being a keeper. It sat dark and gloopy in her plate, slightly red and soaking into the potatoes, and the smell was fantastic. She picked up her knife and fork and dived in. Yes, this one was definitely a winner—the chunks of beef positively melted in her mouth, and the carrots, mushrooms, and onions melded with the garlic to create something sweet, sharp, and fragrant all at the same time.

Mrs. Johnson smiled as she watched her daughter eat. Belladonna grinned back.

“This is amazing!” she said, wiping a trickle of glutinous ooze from the corner of her mouth.

“Even the carrots?” asked her mother.

Belladonna nodded enthusiastically and continued wolfing down what was, basically, a stew, but so much better than any stew she'd ever had before. She had almost finished before she noticed that her father was being unusually quiet.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Something happened today, didn't it? What were you going to tell me?”

“Nothing,” said Belladonna.

She had intended to tell him, but right now she just wanted to hold on to this—to dinner in the kitchen and everything normal and comfortable. She suddenly felt as though she were in a fairground on the roller coaster, and the car was just about to reach the top of the first climb. For some reason she knew that it was all about to start again and that the moment she actually began to talk about it, everything would rush out of control. And even though she was excited and eager to find out about Edmund de Braes's parchment, right now, here, in the warm kitchen with her parents on a cold, windy evening, she wanted nothing more than a little bit of quiet and to pretend that they were just an ordinary family sitting together and having dinner.

Her father nodded and was about to say something else when her mother shut him up with a stern stare.

“Would you like some more?”

“Yes, please.”

Belladonna had seconds, then thirds, and then a piece of apple tart with ice cream. Through it all, her father smiled and made casual conversation, but she could tell that he was worried and was just waiting. Finally, as she finished the last bit of ice cream, he smiled, glanced at his wife for the almost imperceptible “go ahead” nod, and turned to Belladonna.

“Who did you see at the monastery? It wasn't just the ghosts of monks, was it?”

“No. Wait … how do you know?”

“You're our daughter, Belladonna,” said her mother softly. “We always know when something is bothering you.”

Belladonna looked from one to the other, not sure if she should say anything. After all, it wasn't as if their response to the black feather had been even remotely helpful.

“We've been talking,” said her mother suddenly, “your father and I. And … well, there's no denying that you are the Spellbinder … and there really isn't any point in trying to protect you from all that.”

“All what?” asked Belladonna.

“The things that you need to know. Deirdre always says that knowledge is power.…”

“I think she picked that up at one of those business seminars she's always going to,” said Mr. Johnson, grinning.

“That doesn't mean that it isn't right.”

“Sorry.”

“Anyway, it's all too dangerous for you to take on alone. You need help and advice and—”

“And it's pretty foolish of us to pretend that things like that feather are just from crows or ravens or whatever,” interrupted her father. “That's not what you need now, is it?”

Belladonna shook her head slowly.

“It's all very dangerous, and ignoring it isn't going to make it less so. Did you throw the feather away?”

“No. I was going to but…”

“That's alright. Why don't you fetch it here.”

Belladonna smiled and went into the sitting room to get her backpack. She retrieved the feather, but as she stood up, she thought she saw a movement. Was it in the garden? Or was it the road? It was hard to see outside, the thin winter daylight had all but faded and the bright lights of the sitting room made it almost impossible to make anything out.

There was a car near the gate. That's probably all it was, thought Belladonna. But she drew the curtains anyway and made her way back to the kitchen.

“Yes,” said her father, taking the feather and turning it over, “it's a pretty good size, isn't it?”

“Too big for a crow,” said her mother.

“Or a raven, really.”

“Steve and I were thinking that maybe … well, do you think it could be a Kere?”

“I've no idea,” said her father. “I've never seen one. We were … indisposed, if you recall, when…”

“They're these women, well, not women, obviously, but they look like them. They have pale skin and their hair is dark blue and they have wings … huge black wings. The one at the House of Mists said that the Keres were bringers of Death and that no one commanded them except the Empress of the Dark Spaces. Then today,” said Belladonna, rushing forward with her story, suddenly eager that they should know everything, “today, when we were at the monastery, we met Edmund de Braes.”

Her parents both looked blank.

“He said he was the last Paladin.”

Mr. and Mrs. Johnson glanced at each other, clearly worried. Belladonna smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring I'm-not-bothered-by-this-at-all way and told them all about the last Paladin and how he said he'd been waiting for over six hundred years and how, now that she and Steve had come to the monastery and he had given them the parchment, his job was over.

“And where is the parchment?” asked her father.

“Steve has it.”

“So you don't know what it's for?”

“No.” Belladonna shook her head. “Edmund said we had to find something and then hide it again. He called it the Instrument of Life. Do you think it could be some kind of a map?”

Her parents glanced at her and then at each other. Mrs. Johnson seemed to blink back tears, then suddenly left the table and began sweeping dishes into the dishwasher with irritable waves of her elegant hands.

“This is too ridiculous!” she said finally, wafting the pans into the sink with a clang. “She's twelve, for heaven's sake! How can she be the Spellbinder? What can she possibly do? It's too dangerous! You have to talk to her.”

“To me?” said Belladonna, suddenly confused.

“No,” said her mother, turning to her father, desperation in her eyes, “to HER. You have to go to the House of Ashes. You have to explain.…”

“I'm not sure I can,” said her father quietly. “I don't think we're allowed to.”

“Who?” asked Belladonna. “Who is ‘her'? And what's the House of Ashes?”

The question brought a sudden halt to what was shaping up to be a full-blown argument between her parents, and Belladonna's mind raced. Who could they mean? Mrs. Jay? She had certainly seemed to know all about the Land of the Dead, the Nomials, and the Empress of the Dark Spaces when she'd called them into her office last October. But if they meant Mrs. Jay, then why wouldn't they be allowed to talk to her?

“Tell her,” said Mrs. Johnson, an unfamiliar tone of stern command in her voice.

Mr. Johnson nodded and turned to Belladonna, but before he could speak, there was a sharp rap on the front door, followed by an extended ring of the doorbell.

They fell silent for a moment and just stared at each other.

“Who could that be?” muttered her father. “What time is it?”

“It's probably just your mother,” snapped Mrs. Johnson, “forgotten her key again. Go and let her in, Belladonna.”

Belladonna nodded and left the kitchen. Once she was in the hall, she could see the tops of two heads through the stained-glass fanlight on the door. It couldn't be her grandmother. She'd never bring someone else and, anyway, she wasn't tall enough to be seen in the fanlight.

She ran back as quietly as she could.

“It's not Grandma,” she whispered. “It's two people. Two tall people.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth before there was another sharp rap on the door.

“You'd better see what they want. It's probably just salespeople.”

Belladonna nodded at her father, who tried to smile encouragingly, but the anxious look on her mother's face told her that she needed to be very careful. She wasn't supposed to be living here. So far as anyone else was concerned, Belladonna lived with her grandmother on Yarrow Street. This house was supposed to be empty.

She walked slowly to the door, then glanced back. Her parents were huddled in the kitchen doorway watching. She reached up and opened the door about four inches. The first face she saw was that of a woman, tall and slightly overweight, wearing a gray skirt and a brown anorak.

“Are you Belladonna Johnson?” asked the woman.

“Yes,” said Belladonna suspiciously.

“Can we come in?”

“No,” said Belladonna, a knot developing in the pit of her stomach. “I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“Quite right,” said the woman, rummaging in her bag and producing a small identification card. “Here you go.”

Belladonna looked at the card. It had a photograph of the woman that looked like it had been taken quite a few years before, along with her name, Donna Lazenby. But that wasn't what made Belladonna's blood run cold.

It was the words written in bold black print at the top of the card: C
HILD
P
ROTECTION
S
ERVICES
.

“We've had a report that you're living here alone,” said the woman, smiling.

“I'm not,” said Belladonna. “I live with my grandmother.”