The Robe of Skulls (2 page)

“Hi, kiddo!” the bat had said. “Come here often?”

“Much
too
often,” Gracie said with feeling.

The bat flew swiftly around the cellar and settled on the handle of a broken spade. “Seems OK to me,” he said cheerfully.

“It’s all right for you,” Gracie said. “
You
can see in the dark. I can’t. And I’m sure the spiders are sniggering at me.”

“That’s really something.” The bat sounded impressed. “Never heard them myself. Always thought they had a sense-of-humor bypass. What are you doing down here, anyway?”

“My stepdad doesn’t like me laughing,” Gracie explained. “Or smiling. I made water soup for supper, and I was trying to be cheerful about it, and he got horribly angry and threw me and the soup down here together.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said the bat, “but would the main ingredient of water soup be water?”

Gracie nodded. “I do use hot water
and
cold water. It doesn’t make much difference in the taste, though.”

There was a moment’s silence. Gracie wondered if the bat had flittered away, but then he said, “Are you hungry, kiddo?”

Gracie was so hungry she didn’t know what to say. She’d been hungry for days and weeks and months and years. In fact, she couldn’t remember a single moment in the whole of her life when she hadn’t been hungry. She said, “Yes.”

“Thought so. I’ll see what I can do. Won’t be same-day delivery, mind you.”

“
Any
day delivery would be just wonderful,” Gracie said.

“Check. Be seeing you soon, then.
Ciao!
” There was the faintest sound, and the bat was gone.

Gracie pulled at her pigtails thoughtfully. How could a very small bat deliver anything that would go even the smallest way to making her feel as if she’d eaten?

“Oi! Kiddo!” The bat was outside the grating. “If an alternative position were offered, would you be up for it?”

“What?” Gracie stared into the darkness.

“Something different. Change of employment. New line. Different boss.”

Gracie was about to say that she wasn’t employed by anyone, but then a whole new thought clanged into her head. The bat was right. She did have a boss. Mange might be her stepfather, but he was all “step” and no “father.” All he ever did was order her around. And Foyce . . . Gracie bit her lip. Her stepsister, Foyce, was as mean as both of Cinderella’s sisters rolled into one, but she wasn’t ugly. She was dazzlingly beautiful, with a heart as hard as a frying pan.

“I’d certainly be interested,” she told the bat. “In fact, very interested.”

“Great. No prob there, then. See ya, kiddo!” And this time the bat was really gone.

Gracie strained her ears to see if she could hear him, but the silence was overwhelming. She sat down on a heap of kindling to wait for Mange to remember her and let her out. As she waited, she thought about the bat and wondered what he had in mind.

Gracie was still wondering as she stirred her soup the following day. There hadn’t been any sign of the bat, and she was beginning to believe she’d imagined the whole thing. After all, how likely was it that a talking bat would come flitting into Mange Undershaft’s cellar? Any bat that was intelligent enough to talk would surely keep clear. Everything else did. Even second-class zombies never knocked on the door to offer badly made packages of hauntings and screechings. Word had gotten around, and Mange’s door was the most unknocked-on in Fracture. All the same, Gracie had packed her few belongings into an old shawl and hidden them under the sink. Just in case.

“Pssssst! Kiddo!”

Gracie jumped.

The bat was hovering outside the open back door. In one claw it was holding a small cloth bag. “Here!” he said. “Dump this in your soup! And get your gear ready. We’ve got liftoff tonight!”

Gracie took the little bag with trembling fingers. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you
very
much!”

“Just remember — don’t crack a smile,” the bat instructed. “I can’t get you out of the cellar. Keep frowning!
Ciao!
” And it vanished.

As Gracie untied the little bag, a strange smell began to fill the room. It was the smell of a rich meaty stew . . . previously quite unknown in that cold bare kitchen. Gracie tipped the gray powder into the boiling water. At once the smell grew ten times stronger, and the water bubbled and thickened. As she went on stirring, the soup turned a glorious deep brown, and chunks of beef and onions and mushrooms and buttery potatoes filled the saucepan to the very top.

“Wow!” Gracie breathed softly. “Wow! Thank you, bat!”

Crash!

The door slammed shut as Mange arrived in a rush, his thin bony nose twitching. “Food!” he growled. “And about time, too! Dish it out, dung beetle!”

Gracie began to ladle the stew into three bowls, but Mange snatched the spoon from her hand.

“And what have
you
done to deserve a supper?” He picked up the third bowl and dropped it on the stone floor.

As it smashed into a thousand pieces, Foyce followed her father into the kitchen. She paused in the doorway and sniffed the air. “Is that
food
?” she asked, and as always, Gracie found herself wondering how such a clear silvery voice could sound so evil. “And where
exactly
did the little slug find food like this?”

Gracie didn’t answer, and neither did Mange. He was far too busy slurping stew into his mouth. Foyce came closer to the saucepan and pinched Gracie’s arm. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me where it came from, or I’ll tell Pa to put you in the cellar till your bones rot.”

Gracie was saved from answering by Mange leaping up to refill his bowl. “Start eating, princess,” he spluttered through a mouthful. “You can pinch her afterward. It’s good stuff!”

Foyce let Gracie go but gave her a calculating stare as she sat down across from her father. “She’s been up to something, Pa,” she said. “Look at her sneaky face! And if you ask me, it’s magic, and if she’s gotten hold of any magic, she should hand it over to
us
!”

“Umph,” said Mange. “More stew!” And he filled his bowl for the third time.

“See?” Foyce told him. “That pan’s filling up as soon as you empty it. It’s like I told you. She’s found some magic. Put her in the cellar, Pa.”

“Got to eat first,” Mange said without moving.

“Then I’ll do it,” Foyce said. “Something’s odd around here. I know it is!” And she began to get up from the table.

Gracie backed away, her heart pounding. Should she make a dash for it now? Should she run out of the door and hope the bat would find her? She knew she didn’t have much chance of getting away. Foyce had long legs and could run like the wind.

Gracie decided to try to distract her stepsister instead.
“Please!”
she begged in her whiniest voice. “Please, dear Foyce —
please
let me have some stew! Just a very little bit —
please
!” Gracie’s begging was genuine. Her stomach was tying itself in knots, and the smell of the stew was driving her mad with hunger.

“Not likely, slug.” Foyce gave a triumphant glare and began to eat. She had hardly finished her second mouthful when Mange slumped onto the table, snoring loudly.

“Pa?” Foyce shook his arm. “
Pa!
Wake up!”

Mange didn’t move.

Foyce tried to leap to her feet but couldn’t. She felt heavy . . . very heavy indeed . . . and she rubbed her eyes furiously to stop them from closing. “You little toad!” she screeched at Gracie. “You’ve poisoned us! Just you wait until I catch you. . . . I’ll make your life so miserable you’ll wish you were —” Her head flopped, and she began to snore almost as loudly as her father.

Gracie looked wistfully at the magic stew. She was
so
hungry, but she certainly didn’t want to risk falling into an enchanted sleep and waking up beside a vengeful Foyce. Or Mange. She moved across to the back door and opened it to see if the fresh evening air would blow away the mouthwatering aroma of meat and onions . . . and the bat flipped in with a cheery “Hi, babe! Enjoy your dinner?”

Gracie shook her head. “I haven’t eaten any yet. Won’t it make me go to sleep?”

“You?” The bat’s eyes widened as he settled on the back of a chair. “Never! Didn’t you read the label?”

“Erm . . . no. Sorry.” Gracie fished in the trash for the twist of cloth and peered at it. Something was written in the most minute handwriting, and she had to screw up her eyes to read it.

“WOW,” Gracie said, and hurried to the stove. “That’s so clever!” She seized a spoon and looked at the bat. “Would you like some?”

“Nah. Thanks all the same.” The bat shifted uneasily. “Never been too certain of the state of the old heart. Dodgy deals are my business, see.”

Gracie dug a spoon into the saucepan and began to eat hungrily. “What kind of deals?” she asked.

The bat shook his head. “You don’t want to know. Nothing evil, mind you. I don’t do evil. Just dodgy. Now, get that inside you, and we’ll be off.”

“That was totally delicious!” Gracie said as she polished off her last spoonful of stew. Tidy to the last, she put the spoon and saucepan in the sink before pulling out the bundle she’d hidden underneath. “I’m ready now. Where are we going?”

The bat glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting to be overheard. “The Ancient Crones,” he whispered.

“Wow!” Gracie said, and shivered. “I thought they were supposed to be scary. . . .”

“They are,” said the bat. “Now, let’s go!” He flittered out the back door and Gracie hurried after him.

Foyce heaved her head off the table. “Shneaky little rat shrunning away, eh?” she said thickly. “Well, well, well. We’ll shee about that!” And she pulled her warm fur-lined cloak from the hook on the door and staggered after Gracie.

Lady Lamorna looked at her map and frowned. “The Kingdom of Gorebreath. The Kingdom of Dreghorn. The Kingdom of Cockenzie Rood. The Kingdom of Wadingburn. The Kingdom of Niven’s Knowe. Is that five, Gubble? Or six?”

Gubble, who hadn’t been listening, nodded hard. “Six, Your Evilness. Unless it be five, that is. It’ll be five unless it be six.”

Lady Lamorna threw her inkpot at his head. “Fool! Pay attention! Now, if there are five kingdoms, there will, I hope, be five princes. Or princesses. All of them doted on by their fond and loving mamas and papas . . . 
yeuch.
Now, Gubble, my plan is to infiltrate the palaces and, quite unsuspected by the royal parents, place an amphibian enchantment on each merry little heir to the throne. I will then send a letter”— Lady Lamorna waved a piece of paper scrawled over and over with her jagged handwriting —“a letter, which I have already composed, offering my services as an enchantress of the
very
highest order. In return for
large
sums of money, to be paid only in solid gold pieces, I will restore their beloved offspring to their original state. Of course, they will then be so very,
very
grateful that I will be rewarded again, even more handsomely, thus providing more than adequate sums to pay for my beautiful dress. Is that not a truly amazing and extraordinary scheme, Gubble?”