by James Nicol
Arianwyn looked at Salle. The girl’s hand covered her mouth, her eyes huge and wet once more. ‘Grandmother tried every spell she knew, but nothing worked.’
They looked at each other for a few moments. Arianwyn thought of telling Salle that just before this had happened she had seen the unknown glyph for the first time.
It had formed on the pages of a book of glyphs for young witches, emerging amongst the cardinal glyphs, dark and brooding, a twisting strange shape that didn’t belong. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Terrified, she had thrown the book across the room and run screaming to her mother.
‘Whatever is it, darling?’ her mother had asked, placing a soothing hand on to Arianwyn’s forehead and staring deep into her eyes. To calm her she had suggested a visit to the bakery and Arianwyn had always thought the accident was her fault. But she had never told anyone any of this. And of course the strange glyph had appeared every now and again ever since that day, forming in the mist on a window or a mirror, or amongst shadows – and afterwards, every time, something bad had happened.
‘I’m so sorry,Arianwyn,’ Salle said, offering a fresh handkerchief from her pocket and pulling Arianwyn out of her reverie.
The bus continued to bounce along, Mr Thorn whistling a little tune quietly to himself. Mr Grimms slept on.
Outside,Arianwyn could see a line of trees in the distance. They must be on the road to Lull at long last, she thought. ‘Is that the Great Wood?’ she asked, pointing to the trees.
Salle laughed lightly. ‘Heavens, no. That’s only Clover Hollow. The Great Wood technically doesn’t begin until after Lull. We dip down into the valley and in the daylight you can see the Great Wood really well from up here, but it’s too dark now. We’re nearly home, though, can’t wait for you to meet Aunt Grace and Uncle Mathieu – you’ll love them, I just know it.’ Salle beamed.
There was a sudden screeching of the brakes and Salle and Arianwyn both fell forwards in their seats. Beryl juddered to a halt.
‘Good grief, what a day.’ Mr Thorn sighed. ‘The road’s flooded, we’ll never get through this way. We’ll have to go on the old track. Sorry, ladies, it’s a bit of a bumpy ride!’
‘Not that you can tell the difference,’ Salle whispered.
Mr Thorn turned the bus off the main road and on to a dirt track, but it was decidedly more dirt than track and only just wider than Beryl. The trees of Clover Hollow grew right up to the very edge of the track here, their branches, bare and bone white, reached out towards the bus, and dark brooding pines kept the fading light at bay.
‘I hope we make it back before curfew,’ Salle said.
‘Curfew?’ Arianwyn asked. The mayor hadn’t mentioned anything about a curfew in his letter.
‘Oh, didn’t you know? We’ve had a spate of dark spirit sightings this winter, nobody knows why, though. So the town council set a curfew and issued us all with these.’ She held aloft her bag; a small charm dangled from it.
Arianwyn didn’t have the heart to inform Salle that it was a charm for fishermen.
Mr Thorn called over his shoulder, ‘And I got a nasty infestation of grindlesmudgers. Can’t go in our spare room now it’s so dark, even with two lamps! My wife’s been nagging me about it for weeks.’
‘I promise I’ll come a visit you as soon as I can, Mr Thorn, and sort out your grindlesmudgers.’ Arianwyn beamed.
‘Look out!’ Salle shouted. She pointed at the windscreen of the bus. A large tree blocked the track.
‘Well that’s a devil,’ Mr Thorn sighed. ‘How’ll we get round that?’
Chapter 6
THE DEMON OF CLOVER HOLLOW
amp air surged around Arianwyn as she climbed down from the bus. Above her, the sky was scudded with storm clouds and the first sprinkling of stars could be seen in between them, against the velvety blue. The only sound was the empty whisper of the wind through the bare branches and the crunch of stones beneath her boots.
‘I think I can move it,’Arianwyn said confidently. There was a rich seam of magic, strong and urgent, in the ground beneath her feet and in the air around her. She stood at its centre. In the dying light she could just detect its faint shimmer, invisible to Salle and Mr Thorn.
Crouching down, she began to sketch the glyph she required into the dirt of the track.
Erṯe, the glyph of earth. It was a rich dark green colour which flashed as she made the last curl of its shape.
The magic energy began to flow towards her and the glyph;Arianwyn drew on it, focusing on the tree ahead of her on the track. Her hands tingled. The spell was ready. She raised her right hand, flexing her fingers slowly, and the huge trunk quivered for a second and then lay still.
She could feel Salle and Mr Thorn watching her from the bus. Slowly she repeated the gesture and this time the trunk turned slowly in place. Branches crunched and cracked against the stones on the rough road. She felt her grip on the trunk strengthen and slowly used the spell to drag it to one side, off the track and into the tangle of trees by the roadside.
That was when she noticed the base of the trunk. It was neither a clean cut, nor a torn or jagged piece of wood you might expect to see from a tree that had fallen of its own accord. It was as though huge claws had ripped through the wood, shearing it in two.
This was a bad sign. A very bad sign indeed.
Mr Thorn and Salle were moving some of the smaller branches and as Salle moved to the edge of the track she let out a little gasp of fear.
‘What’s the matter?’ Mr Thorn called.
Arianwyn looked over at once and followed the direction of Salle’s outstretched arm, pointing into the darkness of the wood. ‘There’s something there.’
‘Can’t see nothing,’ Mr Thorn replied and carried on moving the branches, but Salle stayed rooted to the spot, gazing into the never-ending trees.
Then something moved. A huge black shadow that set the trees swaying.
‘I told you!’ Salle’s voice came out in a nervous whisper; she took a few hurried steps backwards.
As the earth spell faded, Arianwyn’s senses picked up another pull of magic. There was something in the wood. A very large, very dangerous something.
She was just about to suggest they move back to the bus when the inky black of Clover Hollow spat forth a huge dark beast.
It was, unmistakably, a crawler.
No, no, no! Arianwyn thought to herself. This can’t be happening, not today! I haven’t even arrived in town yet! Instinctively, she put herself between the crawler and Salle and Mr Thorn.
The crawler paused by the side of the track, sniffing the air, then emitted a gurgling roar that ripped through the trees.
‘What is it?’ Salle whimpered. ‘What do we do?’
‘Keep still,’ Arianwyn whispered as quietly as she could. ‘It’s just a crawler . . . a low-level dark spirit creature. They have very poor eyesight, but excellent hearing and sense of smell.’
But it could still kill them without breaking a sweat, she thought, nervously.
The crawler’s face was scrunched up, shrunken inwards, as though it was collapsing in on itself. It stood as high as the bus, its skin grey and leathery. It lifted its head, large ears twitching in the cool air.
‘Back. To. The. Bus.’ Arianwyn whispered. ‘On my signal. Ready?’
Salle and Mr Thorne nodded.
‘Run!’ she hissed.
As Salle and Mr Thorn rushed towards the bus, the crawler swivelled in their direction, growling. Arianwyn raised her arm. ‘Årdra!’ she called, breathing the fire glyph into the air.
A shivering crackling ball of red-hot flame formed just above her hand. She hurled it at the crawler.
It hit the creature full in the face, blinding and confusing it. Salle and Mr Thorne made it to the bus, Arianwyn close on their heels.
Mr Thorn started the engine, but with the track still strewn with large branches, they were trapped in the hollow. Arianwyn racked her brain trying to think of what she could
do. What were the main points in dealing with a crawler?
She suddenly remembered the handbook, rifled through her bag and pulled it free, her hands shaking as she flipped quickly through its pages.
Crawlers are easily distracted and will follow whatever moves the quickest or makes the most noise. The best defence is distraction.
‘Pass me my broom!’ Arianwyn said urgently to Salle, ‘I’ll draw it off while you clear the last few branches, OK?’
Salle passed the broom reluctantly, her face pale and frightened. ‘It’ll be all right,’ Arianwyn said, though she wasn’t at all sure it would be.
A moment later Arianwyn tucked the broom beneath herself and kicked off from the steps of the bus. She zipped skywards. She wobbled more than she would have liked, but this wasn’t a time for fancy flying, which was just as well as she had always been rather bad on her broom. She skimmed past the crawler’s head and reached into the pocket of her coat, pulling free her standard-issue brass whistle on a long chain. She clamped it between her teeth and blew hard. The piercing scream of the whistle did the trick. The crawler wasted no time in swinging one of its long sinewy arms at her, its clawed, twisted hand swiping the air inches from her face.
Arianwyn willed the broom faster and she shot off, the icy air whipping past her. She swooped to the right and circled high, out of the creature’s reach. She blew hard on the whistle again, circling down. The trick worked; the crawler was soon following, away from the bus, slashing and screeching wildly.
A long claw sliced past the side of her face, too close for comfort. Arianwyn banked to the left sharply and for a moment feared she might slip off, but the broom responded and she flew forwards, the crawler close behind. One quick glance and she was relieved to see the road cleared and Mr Thorn and Salle heading back to Beryl as fast as their legs would carry them.
But then Arianwyn’s blood turned to ice as Salle stumbled and fell on the track, crying out as she fell with a squelch into a muddy puddle. The crawler turned in a split second, bored of Arianwyn and headed straight for Salle. It roared with triumph as it dragged itself towards the bus.
Arianwyn wrapped her arms around the broom handle as she spun round. Icy tears blurred her vision as she now chased the crawler. The ground rushed beneath her and she overtook the demon just as it was reaching out its claw-like hands towards Salle.
In desperation Arianwyn jumped off the broom, landing on the ground between Salle and the crawler. She stumbled, falling to her knees. The broom clattered beside her. The crawler’s hot, rank breath blasted in her face.
Her fingertips pressed into the cold wet earth of the woodland track as she started to trace the banishing glyph, L’ier.
But the other glyph – the dark glyph – flashed before her eyes, the jumbled, tangled shape of her nightmares. She froze. Her mind went blank.
Totally blank.
She scrubbed out the marks and tried again. The crawler stretched one of its long sinewy arms towards Salle, snorting with anticipation.
Arianwyn stilled her thoughts as she had been trained to do, feeling for the flow of magic. But it was difficult to feel anything except the overpowering presence of the crawler.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and started to trace the glyph again, the damp earth slick beneath her fingers, she needed to open a rift to banish the creature back to the void.
‘Arianwyn!’ Salle’s cry jolted her back to her senses.
Her eyes flew open just in time to see the demon’s massive arm swing down towards her. It batted her to one side and she flew through the air, landing in a knot of branches and brambles at the edge of the hollow. Stunned and breathless, she couldn’t move. She watched as the demon crouched low over Salle, its claws glinting like knives as it reached for her.
Arianwyn tried to cry out but she had no breath, her lungs empty and raw.
And then a flash of silver and green whizzed past. Beryl was hurtling at top speed along the track, headed straight for the demon.
She heard the horn sing out through the wood, followed by the sickening crunch of bones and metal. The crawler was flying through the air now, smashing through the trees of Clover Hollow. The bus screeched to a halt just metres from Arianwyn.
Arianwyn snatched her broom up from the ground as the bus doors opened and Mr Thorn helped Salle and Arianwyn inside.
‘Quick! Before it comes round!’ Arianwyn said urgently.
Mr Thorn slammed his foot against the accelerator and Beryl shot forwards. ‘But we killed it, didn’t we?’ Salle asked.
‘I think we probably just knocked it out, and annoyed it!’Arianwyn sighed as she slumped back on to the floor of the bus, Mr Thorn and Salle staring at her in disbelief.
That had not gone according to plan.
Chapter 7
WELCOME TO LULL
alle gave a whoop of excitement and relieved delight as the bus hurtled along the track once more. Arianwyn watched, alert, as the beams of brilliant light from the headlamps revealed portions of tree trunks and the bright eyes of animals and other creatures hiding in the dark. Drops of heavy rain splashed against the windows.
‘Did the spell work? Did the rift open?’Arianwyn asked.
‘I didn’t see anything,’ Salle said.
Had the rift opened? Had her spell worked? She thought she had seen a flash just before the bus hit the crawler but she couldn’t be sure. If she had left a rift spell open in the wood, anything could get through from the void. Rule number one: never leave a banishing spell half-formed or unattended.
She slumped in her seat. How more useless can I get? Arianwyn wondered wearily.
As the bus emerged from the confinement of the trees, Arianwyn felt relief wash over her. She could see the bright lights of Lull clustered in a shallow valley below them. The town sat cosily behind a high wall, towers and roofs standing proud. Thin curls of smoke wafted up into the purple night sky. In the distance, cresting the top of low hills, was the dark shape that must be the Great Wood.
The bus slowed and they bumped over an ancient bridge and through a large gateway. The walls were strung with a collection of archaic-looking charms, and Arianwyn felt the faint energy of the old spells. She hoped they were strong enough to keep the crawler at bay.
The streets were narrow, houses and shops clustered against the twisting roads and lanes. Here and there a lit window or welcoming lamp by a front door were the only indications that the town was inhabited. The streets seemed to be deserted. They were late for curfew.
Arianwyn glanced over at Mr Grimms. He slept on, appearing not to have moved or even been aware that the bus had been under attack and they had all been in mortal peril. Arianwyn was amazed: surely nobody could have slept through all of that? Just then, as the bus hit a particularly large pothole, he jumped awake, eyes bleary and confused as he took in his surroundings. ‘Aren’t we back yet?’ he moaned and then promptly fell back to sleep.
Mr Thorn executed an elegant loop with Beryl into what Arianwyn thought must be the town square. The windscreen wipers cut back and forth through the driving rain as the cobbles of the square shone in the bright glow of Beryl’s headlamps. All the buildings around the edge of the square were shuttered and in darkness, locking out the night and anyone daft enough to be out in it, Arianwyn thought.
Bunting, which would have been bright and cheery in daylight, hung around the square, slapping damply in the wind and rain. A large sign strung across the front of the town hall had sagged and torn. Arianwyn could just make out ‘Welcome to Lull . . .’, but then a sudden gust sent it swinging and flapping free from its ties before it wrapped itself wetly around one of the stone columns that guarded the town hall.
‘So much for a warm welcome,’ Salle sighed, peering out through the dark, rain-streaked windows.
Pulling her coat tightly around her, Arianwyn climbed out into the stormy night.
The only sign of life came from far across the town from a tall, grand building with soaring colu
mns and long elegant windows, some of which were bright with warm light. The flag of Hylund snapped and twisted at the end of a long flagpole that protruded from a high balcony.
‘It wasn’t really supposed to be like this,’ Salle said, following her. ‘There was supposed to be more of a welcome than this.’ She gestured to the wet, empty square.
‘Oh, it doesn’t really matter—’ Arianwyn began, but a movement in the shadows made her stop dead. In the darkness behind the tall marble colonnade something was watching, something was waiting.
Instinctively, Arianwyn pulled Salle backwards, her fingers twitching in the cold night air as a ball of fire formed easily in her hand. Was it the crawler? Had it followed them and somehow got into town?
‘I was beginning to think you were not going to arrive at all.’ A deep voice boomed from the shadows. Arianwyn shifted and saw a large, round man come forwards out of the gloom. He was dressed for the night in a dark rain mac, and his round face, which Arianwyn thought should have been jolly, looked pinched and tired.
‘Mayor Belcher?’ she asked, quickly extinguishing the spell with a flick of her hand. It shimmered briefly and drifted away in the rain.
The man nodded.
Chapter 8
MAYOR BELCHER
iss Gribble, I was growing very anxious. We had expected you much earlier than this. I was worried we might have to assemble a search party, and after curfew!’ Something in his voice made Arianwyn think he was more concerned about arranging the search than the fact that Arianwyn and three townspeople might be in danger.
