The Pinhoe Egg

by Diana Wynne Jones

  She said it with such venom that a desperate, terrified shiver ran round all the half-seen and invisible beings in the yard. Cat and Marianne found themselves clutched by unseen, shaking hands. One half-seen person climbed into Marianne’s lap. A hard head with whiskers—or possibly antennae—butted pleadingly at Cat’s face and, he was fairly sure, another person ran up him and sat on his head for safety. He looked at Chrestomanci for help.

  Chrestomanci, however, looked at Dorothea and then, sternly, at Harry Pinhoe. “I regret to have to tell you,” he said, “that Gaffer Pinhoe was quite right and the rest of you are quite, quite wrong.”

  Dad jerked backward on his bench. There was an outcry of shocked denial from Pinhoes and Farleighs alike. Dad’s face turned red. “How come?” he said.

  Millie glanced at Chrestomanci and took over. “We’ve been finding out all about you,” she said. “We’ve traced Pinhoes, Farleighs, and Cleeves right back almost to the dawn of history now.”

  There was another shocked muttering at this, as everyone realized at last that their secrecy was truly at an end. But they all listened attentively as Millie went on.

  “You’ve always lived here,” she said. “You must be some of the oldest witch families we know about. We found you first almost like clans, most of you living in tiny houses round the chief’s great hall, and the rest of you living in the hall as followers of the chief. Woods House is certainly built on the exact spot where the Pinhoe hall was—and that was built a surprisingly long time ago too. Before the church, in fact. The Farleigh hall seems to have been destroyed in the trouble that came, but the Cleeves still have theirs, although it’s the Cleeve Arms now, over in Crowhelm.”

  This caused some interest. Pinhoes and Farleighs turned to one another and murmured, “I never knew that. Cleeve Arms is old, though.”

  Heads turned back to Millie as she continued. “Now there are at least three important things you should know about those early days. The first is that your chief, who was known as Gaffer from quite early on, was chosen from among the old chief’s family, and he was always chosen for having the most dwimmer. And he wasn’t just chief, he was a prophet and a foreteller too. Your Old Gaffer was behaving just as he should, in fact. He was the one who chose the Gammer—and she wasn’t always his wife, either. She was the woman with the most dwimmer. And the pair of them not only governed the rest, they worked in partnership with the hidden folks. These folks were cherished and loved and guarded. You shared magics with them, and they repaid you with healings and—”

  This was too much for everyone. Millie was drowned out with cries of “That can’t be!” and “I never heard such twaddle!”

  Millie smiled slightly, and her voice suddenly came out over and above the objections, clear as a bell and, seemingly, not very loud. But everyone heard when she said, “Then comes the awful gap, with all sorts of horror in it.” Everyone hushed to hear what this horror was.

  “A new religion came to this country,” Millie said, “full of zeal and righteousness—the kind of religion where, if other people didn’t believe in it, the righteous ones killed and tortured them until they did. This religion hated witches and hated the hidden folk even more. They saw all witches and invisible folks as demons, monsters, and devils, and their priests devised ways of killing them and destroying their magic that really worked.

  “All three Gaffers at this time prophesied, as far as we can tell, and all of you, Pinhoes, Farleighs, and Cleeves, at once made sure that no one knew you were witches. What craft you used, you used in utmost secrecy, and because the hidden folk were even more at risk than you were, you all combined to keep them safe by locking them away behind the back of the distance. It was only intended to be a temporary measure. The Gaffers were all quite clear that the bloodthirsty righteous ones would go away in time. And so they did. But before they did, their priests became even more skillful and learned to conceal their plans even from the Gaffers. Even so, the Gaffer Farleigh of the time started to prophesy disaster. But that was the night the bloodthirsty ones attacked.

  “They came with fire and swords and powerful magics, and they killed everyone they could.” Millie looked round the yard and at the people clustering at the gate. “When they had finished,” she said, “the only people left were children, all of them younger than any of the children here. We think the bloodthirsty ones took all the children they could catch and educated them in their own religious ways, and some children escaped to the woods. The gap lasts about fifteen years, so those children had time to grow up. Then, thank goodness, the bloodthirsty ones were conquered themselves, probably by the Romans, and you all came together again, those from the woods and those who had been captured, and started to rebuild your lives.”

  Chrestomanci took a deep breath as Millie finished and steadied himself on the arms of his chair. He was looking awfully ill, Cat thought anxiously. “But you see what that means,” Chrestomanci said. “These children had been too young to understand properly. They only knew what their anxious parents had impressed on them before the slaughter. They thought they had to keep their craft secret. They believed it was their duty to keep the hidden folks confined—and they had a vague notion that danger would come if they didn’t. And they all knew that if a Gaffer prophesied, horrible things would happen—so they chose Gaffers that were good at giving orders, rather than those with dwimmer or the gift of foresight. And,” Chrestomanci said ruefully, “I am afraid to say that the bloodthirsty doctrines of the religious ones had rubbed off on quite a lot of them, and they saw it as their religious duty to do things this way.”

  A long, thoughtful silence followed this. While it lasted, Cat watched a spidery hand, a new one that was a silvery white color, reach from behind Chrestomanci’s chair to pass Chrestomanci a small glass of greenish liquid. Chrestomanci took it, looking rather startled. Cat watched him sniff it, hold it up to the light, and then cautiously dip a finger into it. His finger came out sparking green and gold like a firework. Chrestomanci examined it for a moment. Then he murmured, “Thank you very much,” and drank the glassful off. He made the most dreadful face and clapped his hand to his stomach for a moment. But after that he looked a good deal better.

  Everyone stirred then, except for Gammer Norah and Dorothea, who seemed to be asleep. Dad looked up and said, “Well, it makes a good story.”

  “It’s more than a story,” Chrestomanci said. He turned to a piece of the air beside him and asked, “Have you got a record of all this, Tom?”

  Chrestomanci’s secretary, Tom, was unexpectedly standing there, holding a notepad. Beside him stood old Miss Rosalie, the Castle librarian. She had her glasses down her nose and her nose almost inside the large blue folder she held, which she seemed to be reading avidly.

  Tom said, “Every word, sir, right from the start.”

  Miss Rosalie looked up from the folder and, in her usual tactless, downright way, declared, “I’ve never met such flagrant misuse of magic, not ever. Not to speak of conspiracy to misuse. You can prosecute the lot of them.”

  Chrestomanci and Millie looked as if they had rather Miss Rosalie had kept her mouth shut. There was an outcry of anger and dismay from all round the yard. The Pinhoe uncles stood up threateningly and so did most of the Farleigh cousins. Gammer Norah woke up with a jump, glaring.

  Unfortunately, that was the moment when Klartch woke up too, and staggered inquiringly out across the cobbles.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cat was sure that either Chrestomanci or Millie—or possibly both of them—had caused Klartch to wake up. It was otherwise hard to understand how Klartch slipped so easily between Cat’s clutching fingers, or how Marianne missed her grab for his tail.

  Dad said, “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s what came out of the egg,” Uncle Charles told him. “Didn’t I mention it to you? I know I told Arthur.”

  Their voices were almost drowned in Dorothea’s screams. “It’s an abomination! Kill it, Mother! Oh, the folks
are loose! We’re all dead meat! Kill it!”

  Gammer Norah sprang to her feet and pointed at Klartch, who turned his head toward her inquiringly. “Death,” Gammer Norah intoned. “Die, you misbegotten creature of night.”

  To Marianne’s embarrassment and Cat’s heartfelt relief, nothing happened. Klartch just blinked and looked wondering. Dorothea pointed a finger at him and shrieked, “Melt! Die! Begone!” Klartch stared at her, while a crowd of hard-to-see beings rushed to him and hovered round him protectively. Quite a number of people could see these. Everyone began shouting, “The folks are loose! The folks are loose!” Some of those gathered by the gate screamed as loudly as Dorothea.

  Rather shakily, Chrestomanci stood up. “Do be quiet, all of you,” he said wearily. “It’s only a baby griffin.”

  The noise died down, except for Gammer Norah, who said angrily, “Why didn’t I kill it? Why is it not dead?”

  “Because, Mrs. Furlong,” Chrestomanci said, “while we were talking, my colleague Jason Yeldham here has been busy removing your magic.”

  Gammer Norah gaped at him. “What?”

  Dad said, “That has to be nonsense. Magic’s an inborn part of you. And, Marianne, you had no business at all giving that blasted boy that egg. You’ve betrayed our sacred trust and I’m very angry with you.”

  Chrestomanci sighed. “You didn’t listen to a word we said, did you, Mr. Pinhoe? There is no sacred trust and the hidden folks were only confined as a temporary measure for their own safety. And magic may be inborn, but so are your appendix and your tonsils. They can be removed too. Better show them, Jason.”

  Jason nodded and made a gentle pushing motion. A huge ball, made up of half-transparent green-blue strands, all wound up like a vast ball of knitting wool, rolled away from beside Jason’s knees. In a light, drifting way it rolled to the middle of the yard and came to a stop there. “There,” Jason said. “That’s all the Farleigh magic. Every bit of it.”

  Gammer Norah, Dorothea, and the Farleigh cousins stared at it. One cousin said, “You’d no right to do that to us.”

  “I not only have the right,” Chrestomanci said, “but as a government employee it’s my duty to do this. People who use their magic to give a whole village a dangerous disease like smallpox are not to be trusted with it.”

  “That was just Marianne telling stories,” said Dad.

  Chrestomanci nodded at Tom, who flipped back pages in his notebook and read out, “‘We sent you whooping cough, we sent you smallpox, and you still didn’t stop!’ Those are Mrs. Farleigh’s exact words, Mr. Pinhoe.”

  Dad said nothing. He picked up his saw again and bent it about, meaningly.

  Irene nudged Jason and whispered to him. Jason grinned and said, “Yes!” He turned to Chrestomanci. “Irene thinks the wood folks ought to have this magic as compensation for wrongful imprisonment.”

  “A very good idea,” Chrestomanci said.

  Irene stood up to make happy beckoning movements to the walls, forgetting that Nutcase was asleep on her knee. Nutcase thumped to the ground, looked irritably around, and saw all the half-seen creatures leaving Klartch in order to dive delightedly upon the ball of magic. He was off like a black streak. He got to the ball of magic first and plunged into it, straight through and out the other side. Trailing long strings of blue-green, with a crowd of angry beings after him, he raced up across Dorothea, up the pile of barrels behind her, and from there to the top of the wall.

  There will be no holding Nutcase now, Marianne thought, watching Nutcase jump off the wall into the alley and Dorothea resentfully licking scratches on her arm. She was depressed and worried. Dad was never going to understand and never going to forgive her. And Gaffer had still not turned up. On top of that, school started on Monday week. Though look on the bright side, she thought. It’ll keep me away from my family, during the daytime at least.

  Meanwhile, the hard-to-see people were helping themselves enthusiastically to the rest of the ball of magic. The ball shrank, and tattered, and seemed to dissolve away like smoke in a wind. There were a lot more of the folks than Cat or Marianne had realized. Some of them must have been completely invisible.

  Cat conjured a sausage roll from somewhere inside the Pinhoe Arms and set out to coax Klartch away from the middle of the yard. He did not like the way Gammer Norah and some of the Pinhoes were looking at Klartch. He found himself, with the sausage roll held out in front of Klartch’s beak, backing away past a row of Marianne’s aunts.

  “Strange-looking creature, isn’t he?” said one.

  “You can see it’s a baby from the fluff. Rather sweet in a yicky way,” said a second.

  The third one said, “What are you doing with one of my sausage rolls, boy?”

  And the one who Cat was sure was Marianne’s mother said, thinking about it, “You know, it’s going to look just like Charles’s painting on the inn sign when it’s grown. And it’s going to be vast. Look at the size of the feet on it.”

  Before Cat could think of anything to say in reply, the Farleighs were leaving, trudging sullenly out of the yard, muttering murderously about having to walk home now they had no magic.

  “It isn’t exactly like tonsils,” Chrestomanci remarked as they tramped past him. “It can grow back in time if you’re careful.” He was standing with Tom on one side of him and Miss Rosalie on the other, and it is doubtful if any of the Farleighs heard him, because Miss Rosalie was saying brightly at the same time, “I make that forty-two charges of misuse of magic, sir, in Ulverscote alone. Shall I read them out?”

  “No need,” Chrestomanci said. “Yet.” He said to all the Pinhoes, “You all understand, do you, that I can take your magic too, or have nearly all of you arrested? Instead of doing that, I am going to ask for your cooperation. You have a whole new set of magics here, and one of my duties is to study unknown magic. I would particularly like to know more about the kind you call dwimmer.” His eyes flicked to Cat for a moment. “I think I need to know more of dwimmer as soon as possible. We would like as many of you as feel able to visit the Castle and explain your working methods to us.”

  He got eight outraged glowers from Marianne’s uncles and great-uncles for this. Dad twanged his saw disgustedly. Millie bustled happily up to the aunts, who all turned their backs on her, except for Marianne’s mother, who folded her arms and stared, rather in Aunt Joy’s manner.

  “You’re the famous herb mistress, aren’t you, Mrs. Pinhoe?” Millie said. “I really would be grateful if you’d come and give me a lesson or so—”

  “What, give away all my secrets?” Mum said. “You’ve got a hope.”

  “But, my dear, why ever do you need to keep things secret?” Millie asked. “Suppose you’d been killed in the fight just now.”

  “I’ve tried to bring Marianne up to know herbs,” Mum said. She gave Marianne an irritated look. “Not that it seems to have taken very well.”

  “Well, of course it wouldn’t,” Millie said, smiling at Marianne. “Your daughter’s an enchantress, not a witch. She’ll have quite a different way of doing things.”

  While Mum was staring at Marianne as if Marianne had suddenly grown antlers and a trunk, Millie sighed and whirled away to Chrestomanci, saying, “Get in the car, love. You look wiped.”

  “I need to have a word with Gammer Pinhoe first,” Chrestomanci said.

  “I’ll drive you down to the Dell, then,” Millie said.

  This caused Cat to have to tempt Klartch all the way back across the yard to the car. They went rather slowly because both Cat and Klartch were constantly turning to watch strings of blue-green magic fluttering along the walls, or being dragged into barrels, or flying in tatters from chimneys, as the half-seen folk carried it away. Millie waited for them, and Jason held the rear door open and helped Cat heave Klartch in beside Irene. Klartch instantly ramped upright to look out of the window. There were loud popping sounds as his talons went into the expensive leather upholstery.

  By that time, the Pinhoes had
gathered that Chrestomanci was going down to the Dell. They were not going to let him loose on Gammer on her own. Cat found himself between Marianne and Miss Rosalie, inside a crowd of Pinhoes, all of them trotting, jogging, and crunching broken glass behind the car as it glided down the hill.

  “Gaffer must be somewhere,” Marianne said miserably as they passed Great-Uncle Lester’s ruined car.

  Dad answered her by giving vent to his feelings. “Look what you brought us to, Marianne! This is all your fault for thinking you know better than the rest of us. The good old ways are not good enough for you. No. You had to get us noticed by the Castle. And see where we are now, at the mercy of these jumped-up, jazzy know-it-alls in good suits, who’ll have us arrested if we don’t do—”

  He was interrupted for a second here by Nicola’s mother, swooping uphill past them on her broomstick. “I can’t wait, Lester!” she called out. “I’ll miss visiting hours.”

  As Great-Uncle Lester gave her a dismal wave, Dad took up his diatribe again. “Them and their threats! How can they say we’ve misused magic and then want to know what it is we do? It makes no sense. But they think they have the right to give us a going-over with their newfangled stuck-up ways and their stupid stories about slaughter in history and children misunderstanding—I don’t believe a word of it. We’re just ordinary folk, doing what we’ve always done, and they come along—”

  Miss Rosalie, who had been looking increasingly annoyed, snapped, “Oh, shut up, man! Of course you can go back to your good old ways. We want to study them.”

  This simply set Dad off again. “Poking and prying. Going on about craft things nobody should talk about. Letting out the hidden folk. That’s just what I’m complaining about, woman! What are we, a flaming fish tank?”

  “I refuse to argue with you!” Miss Rosalie panted haughtily.

  “Good!” said Dad, and went on with his diatribe in an increasingly breathless mutter as the car gathered speed down the hill. He did not stop, even when the car was turning the corner at the bottom of the hill, where they encountered Aunt Joy standing on her half-built wall.