NEIL
The shock of the noise drove me sideways, sliding along the table and tumbling to the floor. I hunched up, bracing myself, as wind rushed in through the windows. Doors blew open and slammed against walls. Things were falling and breaking all around me. The table tilted over onto its side. Ed Wharton tugged and pulled at it until it was facing the wind, and we hid behind it while crockery and cutlery and pots and pans and the blender and the tea towels and the potted plants flew around the room.
Roaring and whistling through every gap and over every surface, the wind, like a riot of invisible serpents, flattened and squeezed and smashed everything it met. Ed and I leaned our weights on the legs of the table, trying to keep it into the wind. It kept trying to tip over and fly away and take us with it.
At least the pain in my ears had gone. I couldn’t have stood much more of that.
The fridge was blown across the floor, rocking along until it reached the limit of its electric cable. It was right in front of our table when it began to lean forward, hanging over us, until the weight of it dragged the plug from the wall. We went scrambling away across the floor just as the great ton of metal came crashing down on the table, crushing it to splinters. We went tumbling through the doorway and down the corridor, batted and bashed by flying things that had once been ordinary everyday household objects but were now lethal speeding chunks of pain.
We were on our backs, the force of the wind sucking us toward the living room. The whirlwind filled it. We grabbed hold of the frame of the doorway, our legs stretching as we were pulled toward the center of the thing. I saw the television fly past, the coffee table, Mum’s favorite china figurines in jigsaw pieces.
“I can’t hold on!” I yelled.
“Me neither!” cried Ed.
Then the cat came in through the broken window, flowing like oily orange smoke, claws unsheathed, teeth bared, bigger than I’d ever seen him. Bigger than any living cat, bigger than a car, big as some mythical prehistoric cat that used to hunt dinosaurs as though they were mice. He pounced at the whirlwind. Flying furniture bounced off him unnoticed. The whirlwind tried to run away.
The wind stopped, and we fell in a heap. The whirlwind bent away from the cat, hurling itself back across the room and against the far wall. The cat crouched, lashed it with its paw, hissed and leaped right into the roaring heart of the thing. Crashing and wailing and yowling, the fighting mass of wind and cat tore around the living room, reducing the already battered furniture to splinters, ripping the carpet from the floor and the paper from the wall. Ed and I scooted back from the doorway, hands held before our faces, as a seething wall of glass and wood and metal scoured through the air in front of us.
I saw the door into the front hall open a crack and a small, frightened face peek through.
“Owen!” I screamed, waving frantically. “Go back! Go back upstairs! Go!”
Owen was pulled away, and Dad’s face appeared. Then he jerked back and the door shut once more.
The whirlwind stopped whirling. Two bodies flew in opposite directions, hit opposite walls, and fell to the floor. The cat wailed, bleeding from a hundred cuts. The boy screeched with fear and outrage, jumped to his feet, slipped on the wreckage, but, instead of falling, floated, turning in midair, his face a mask of rage and pain. Hugh Fitzgerald, flying in a limping sort of a way, floated out the window. Neetch, having shrunk back to normal cat size, made one last heroic leap and landed on the small of Hugh’s back, and they both disappeared out into the dawn, wailing and screaming like a pair of hell’s own choirboys.
CHAPTER 10
LIZ
Mrs. Fitzgerald’s smile grew wider, her grip tightened, and she began to turn away from the house, bringing me with her. Out through the living room window came Hugh, screeching and struggling with Neetch, who had dug his claws into Hugh’s back. Hugh turned as he flew, went low, and scraped across the lawn, knocking Neetch off. Then Hugh hit the ground and rolled head over heels to a groaning stop at his mother’s feet.
She looked at me, her smile gone, then down at Hugh.
Neetch stalked across the grass, growing, blocking out the house, dwarfing us, mouth wide, teeth like sharp white fence posts, tongue red as blood. Mrs. Fitzgerald let go of my wrist and with both hands drew in the air a strange design that burned with green flame and fell like a net over Neetch’s face and head. The cat howled and shrank, and suddenly the air was full of the smell of burned fur and skin. I jumped over Hugh’s prone body and gathered Neetch up in my hands. He was no bigger than a kitten, mewling pitifully, fur smoking.
I backed away from her, and she watched me go, saying nothing. She stooped and helped Hugh upright. Over at the gate, John-Joe stood with his feet spread and his shotgun ready.
“Is he OK? Is he OK? Is he OK?” Owen cried as he ran up, reaching for Neetch, and I gave him over as gently as I could, then pushed them behind me and kept backing toward the house. Mum, Dad, and Neil rushed out and stopped beside me. Mum put her hand on my shoulder, and Dad stepped toward Mrs. Fitzgerald and Hugh. His face was flushed and red and his teeth were bared and he was breathing in through his mouth and I could see his chest rise and fall. I had never seen Dad so angry.
“You have committed more crimes today than I can count. You have broken rules and violated agreements laid down so long ago there was barely language to express them. You will pay us back for everything your son has damaged or destroyed and if I see him near my children or near my house ever again as long as he lives, I will make sure he regrets it. You will answer for your grotesque and insane interference with the weather and the Seasons and with me! Now, get out of here, get off my lawn and off my road and do not come back.”
Mrs. Fitzgerald looked at Dad as if she’d never seen him before, as if she were noticing him for the first time. She tilted her head slightly to one side. I thought I could see tiny lights flickering in the backs of her shadowy eyes, way, way down, like bombs going off in a faraway place.
Neil ran across the lawn toward the gate. Hugh made to block him, but his mother touched his arm and he stopped with a groan of pain. Good, I thought. Fitzy shook his shotgun, but didn’t point it, and Neil jumped over the wall and stood beside the phone box and looked back.
“Dad!” he said. “Come on!”
The sun was coming up. The sun was coming up way over in the east, down at the end of the road, bright and rosy. Dew had fallen and everything was wet and shining. My feet were bare and numb, and I shivered with the cold and with the knowing. The light reached the Weatherbox. We held our breaths, and waited. The phone did not ring.
“DAD!” yelled Neil.
“Is something wrong?” said Mrs. Fitzgerald. Dad glared.
“Get away from here, I said!” Dad was yelling now. “Go on!”
“Or what? What could you do to me? Where are your vassals and retainers, oh King of the Four Quarters? Where are your wise men of power and your warriors bold? Hollow King of an Empty Quarter, I name you. I scorned worse than you from the pillows of my crib, and that was long, long ago, when there was real power in the world.”
Ed Wharton loomed up beside me, like a friendly rolling boulder. The sun was halfway clear of the horizon now. Neil was staring down the road at it, his hand held before his face to shield his eyes.
“I think you’d better leave,” Ed rumbled. “You’re not welcome here. You’ve done enough damage.”
“But I haven’t finished,” she said. “I have come here to issue a challenge to the Weatherman. I challenge you, Weatherman. I say you are unfit for your task. I say you have failed in your duties as your father failed before you. I challenge you, Weatherman. I say you are incompetent and careless and irresponsible, as your father was before you. I say the Seasons are not safe in your hands. I say it is time you were deposed and another put in your place. Someone fit for the task. I challenge you, Weatherman. I have said it three times. You will be cast off, and I will take your place.”
Dad stared, still breath
ing hard. Ed Wharton was holding him back; otherwise I think he might have run at her.
“You can’t challenge me. You can’t cast me off. You can’t take my place. It can’t be done.”
“Can’t it? The Weatherman has been cast off and replaced before.”
“Once,” Dad said. “But that was—”
“Listen,” she said, tilting her head to one side. “The morning sun has grown full and bright. Where is the bell? Why does nothing ring? Where is the Autumn, Weatherman? Look to your task. You are failing.”
Ed Wharton’s eyes grew wide, and his hands dropped from Dad’s arm.
“You, you can’t,” Dad stammered. “Nobody could…” Dad took a step toward her, his hand in a fist. “What have you done? Dear God, what the hell have you done?”
“What have you done, Weatherman? Why does the Summer linger? If the Weatherman does not know, then who does? Who does the Weatherman answer to? How long do you think it will take before they grow tired of your failure? A day? Two? They will grow restless and angry, Weatherman, and then they will come, and you will answer for yourself. They will find you wanting, and I will be there to take your place.”
And then Dad grew, and changed, and for a moment he wasn’t Dad but something huge and green and earthy and alive. Mrs. Fitzgerald’s face was eager.
“That’s it, Weatherman. Unleash your power. Set the seal on your failure. Only a coward and a weakling would stand before a mortal enemy who would take from him everything he possessed, strip him to the bone of all he loved and leave that enemy alive and whole to do their worst when he has the means to scour her from the earth.”
Dad was doing that one thing a Weatherman is utterly forbidden from doing. He was becoming Summer right before our very eyes. I could feel the heat radiating off him. He was going to roast her to a crisp and scatter her ashes with a south wind and when he was done the Seasons would come and throw him off the planet.
“That’s enough.”
Mum suddenly stood between Dad and Mrs. Fitzgerald, and the heat faded and Dad was Dad again, small and human and struggling for control.
“I know you,” Mum said. She was a head shorter than either Dad or Mrs. Fitzgerald and wearing a worn dressing gown and fluffy slippers, but her voice was level and cool.
“I know your sort and I know your make and I know your mark. By the cow in the barn and the goat in the pen and the oak in the grove, I say you, be away before the sun rises no more than the length of my fingernail or the black waters can have you and the rushes fill your hair.”
Without another word, Mrs. Fitzgerald swept away to the gate, dragging Hugh with her, and she and her husband and her son crossed the road and vanished into the trees. We rushed to the phone box. Neil was still staring at the sun. Dad had both hands in his hair. Owen cradled Neetch. Mum looked like thunder, and Ed Wharton just looked sad and bewildered and scared.
I put my head back and screamed my rage at the sky.
A phone rang, but it was the phone in the house. No one moved to go in and answer it. It stopped, and then started ringing again.
The Weatherbox was silent.
PART 2
The Maloneys and the Hags of the Black Pool
CHAPTER 11
NEIL
It was an hour later and Liz was still making a flipping eejit out of herself.
“Twiggy man, bring the cold. Twiggy man, bring the cold.”
“God, Liz, shut UP!”
She ignored me and kept dancing and chanting.
“Twiggy man, bring the cold! Twiggy man, bring the cold!”
At least she wasn’t screaming at the sky anymore.
Mum and Dad were sitting side by side on the wall, heads close together, talking in low voices. Now that Mum had Dad calmed down a bit, I could barely hear what they were saying, even though I was sitting beside Dad. Ed sat beside Mum. Owen had taken poor hurt Neetch inside to put cream on his sore bits. And Liz kept embarrassing us all with her stupid antics. On today of all days—the most horrible day ever.
Can you imagine? Can you understand how huge this was? It was as if the world had stopped turning. If you stop a car suddenly and you’re not wearing your seat belt you get thrown through the windshield. I looked up and wondered if we were all going to get thrown through the sky and off the planet. People, animals, trees, cities, mountains, seas, all pitched into space because Mrs. Fitzgerald had put her foot on the brake.
And yet nothing happened. Nothing changed. Today was the same as yesterday. Of course it was. Yesterday was Summer, and so was today. But that was the problem. Things can’t stay the same in this world. Things change or things die. Things come to an end.
Mum was disagreeing with Dad about something. Dad was shaking his head and saying he had no choice. His hair was a mess and his eyes moved around like they were trying to see everything at once, or avoid seeing it. He looked wild.
“I have to stay,” he said, getting loud again. “I have to stay here. It’s stupid, but there’s nothing else I can do. If I leave, it’s … dereliction. I would be deserting my post. If I do that, I won’t deserve to be Weatherman.”
I thought of derelict houses with crumbling walls and broken windows all covered in ivy, and I thought of the Weatherbox with all its glass shattered and the wood rotten and eaten and the phone pulled off and the door hanging open. I filled up with panic and fear and a kind of hurt that made me want to scream out how horrible and unfair this was.
“Then I’ll go,” Mum said. “I’ll do it.”
“I wish you could. But if it can’t be me, then it has to be Neil in my place, speaking with my voice.”
“What?” I said. “Me? What?”
“Then I’ll take him!” Mum said, louder. “I’ll go with him!”
“No! I’m sorry, but just look at what’s happened! The danger is here! Mrs. Fitzgerald is incredibly dangerous. I can’t even conceive of how she managed to stop the Seasons. And she tried to take Liz! Hugh has completely wrecked the house—it’s a miracle nobody was hurt. No. Owen and Liz need us both, here, protecting them. Besides, Neil won’t be going alone.”
“Going where?” I asked.
Dad looked at Mum, and then looked at me.
“You’re going to find the Shieldsmen,” he said.
“I am?”
“You are.”
“He is?” Liz said. At last she stopped chanting and dancing. Her face was pale. “No,” she said. “Not that. That’s mine. I’m the Shieldsman. He’s the Weatherman. He can’t have both!”
“Liz,” Dad said. “Listen—”
“That’s not right! That’s not fair! I’ll go! I’ll find them! I’ll bring them back! I will!”
“No, Liz, you can’t,” Dad said. “They answer only to the Weatherman. Or his heir.”
“Him, you mean,” she said, pointing at me. “Him. Not me.”
“Liz—” I began.
“Shut up,” she said, jumped the wall, and ran back to the house.
“Well,” Mum said, “that’s done it.”
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked. “What did I do?”
“You were born first,” Mum said. “You were born a boy. And the chain of succession for the Weathermen was established by a bunch of Stone Age men.”
I swallowed and nodded. Today was a day for ruining things. Today was a day for everything to be spoiled and wrecked and made horrible.
“Now, your Dad and I are asking Mr. Wharton to drive you to Dublin, instead of your Dad. That’s a big responsibility, so he might say no. If he says yes, then you will go to the Weathermen’s Club—we have a key if there’s no one there to let you in. Look around and see if you can find a clue or a way to contact the Shieldsmen.”
“There’s not much chance,” Dad said. “There’s probably nothing there, so you need only be away for a few hours. If you find anything, call me. If it looks like there’s a real chance of finding them, then I’ll go to them and bring them back myself.”
“Is
that OK with you, Mr. Wharton?” Mum asked.
Mr. Wharton shifted, rocking slightly from side to side on the wall.
“Sure. It’ll be fun.”
“But Dad,” I said, “what are you going to do about the Autumn? What are you going to do about her?”
Dad winced.
“I don’t know, Neil. I’ll sit here and wait for the phone to ring—nobody else can answer it. I need to find out why it’s not ringing. My God! How do you block a Season? You don’t! I need to work out what she’s done. And then, to take action, I’ll need reinforcements. I’ll need the club and I’ll need the Shieldsmen and I don’t think we have much time.”
“Right,” Mum said. “You’d better get going then. The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back. Oh God, is that the house phone again?”
We went inside, stepping carefully around broken glass and crockery. The phone had stopped ringing again by the time we got there. Mum stood in the living room, surveyed the damage, and lit a cigarette. Dad touched her elbow, then stole her cigarette and took a quick puff. Liz glared at everybody and kicked something broken across the floor, breaking it some more.
I went upstairs and got dressed, and then they all walked us down to the old barn where Ed had parked his truck and waved us off without much ceremony. Mum gave me a squeeze, Dad clapped me on the shoulder, Liz gave me a long hard stare, and Owen was too preoccupied with Neetch to do anything other than give me a wide-eyed look from between a pair of twitching, furry, triangular cat ears.
Mum turned to Ed. “You keep him safe and sound, you understand? Back by dinner. No sightseeing. No trouble.”
Dad shook Ed’s hand.
“What she said,” he said.
Ed grinned. “All aboard!” he yelled, and climbed nimbly up through the door.
The cab of Ed’s truck was clean and tidy and smelled of air freshener and leather furniture polish. There was no rubbish or dust on the dashboard, no tacky souvenirs or rude pictures or stickers with hilarious jokes. It was spotless.
Ed put both hands on the wheel and looked at the road with wistful eyes.
The Maloneys' Magical Weatherbox Page 6
