“Now David,” said Mr. Wedding, “I suggest we fetch Luke.”
“No,” said David. “I’m not going to and you can’t make me.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Mr. Chew said nastily.
“No you don’t!” Astrid said. She had an unlit cigarette in her mouth and she glared at Mr. Chew across it. “You try it, mate! David, have you got a match? I’ve lost mine again.”
“No,” said David. “Find your own. You’ve not looked.” Astrid bent and sorted fruitlessly through her bag. Panic began to rise in David as he realized just what a danger to Luke that unlit cigarette was. He looked in a hunted way from the pity beaming in the faces of the two Frys, to Mr. Chew’s beady stare, and on to Mr. Wedding. The raven was looking at him in an interested manner, but Mr. Wedding was watching Astrid.
“Would you like to go and find some matches?” Mr. Wedding said to her politely.
“No, it’s all right,” said Astrid. “You don’t get rid of me like that. David’s got some matches. I won’t tell, David.”
“Uncle Bernard will smell it if you smoke in here,” David said desperately.
“Who cares about that old so-and-so?” said Astrid. “Come on, David. I’m dying for a fag.”
“Smoking,” said David, “is very bad for you.”
“I know,” said Astrid. “I know. David, I heard your matches rattle just now. Hand them over.”
“Doctors have proved it’s bad for you,” David said, wishing she would take a hint.
“David,” said Astrid, “just throw me those matches of yours and I’ll throw them straight back. Promise.”
There seemed no help for it. David did not dare protest any more in case the others realized why he did not want to strike a match. Perhaps it would do no harm if Astrid struck it for herself. Reluctantly he took out the box. Most reluctantly he tossed it over. “Here. Catch.”
Mr. Wedding caught it, smiling. “Allow me,” he said. Courteously he opened the box, took out a match and struck it.
“Thanks,” said Astrid.
The next second, Luke was standing in the window looking alarmed and uncertain.
“Run, Luke!” shouted David. “Quick! It wasn’t me!”
Luke turned to bolt without a word. Mr. Chew dashed across the room to stop him, but before he got near the window Luke was dragged back through it, struggling between the lady chauffeur and another lady who looked rather like her.
“Bring him here,” said Mr. Wedding. Politely he passed David his matches back. “Thank you, David.” David hardly had the heart to take them. Luke’s face was so white you could see every freckle singly. David had a feeling his own face was rather pale too. He kept thinking of those snakes.
“Oh, David, I’m sorry!” said Astrid. “And here I was trying to help you.”
David did not really attend to her. He was trying to follow Luke, who was being dragged farther away across the room, and Mr. Chew and the Frys were milling about in front of him, making it difficult. Astrid, puffing on her disastrous cigarette, followed David, still apologizing and asking him what was going to happen to Luke. David wished he knew. There seemed to be a great many more people round Luke now and they were all very angry.
“Tell us what you did with it,” said Mr. Chew.
“He’s bound to start lying,” said Mrs. Fry. “Make him tell the truth for once in his life.”
“The truth, Luke,” said Mr. Fry.
“I didn’t do it,” said Luke. “It wasn’t me.”
“You always say that,” said Mrs. Fry.
Most of the other people were shouting accusations at Luke at the same time. David did not notice much about them except that they were tall and angry and that one man had only one ear. Nor did he notice particularly where they were, though he had a feeling that they were no longer in Uncle Bernard’s dining room but somewhere high up and out of doors. The chief thing he noticed was how small and frightened Luke’s harassed figure looked among them. Never had David felt for anyone more. It was just like himself among his own relations.
The similarity struck Astrid too. “He looks just like you when we all go on at you,” she said. “It’s making me feel awful!”
In fact, it was more official than a mere family row. The tall people, angry though they were, were standing in a ring to which David was sure there was some kind of order. Luke, in the middle and firmly held by the two ladies, was more like the prisoner at the bar than anything else. David was sure of it when a girl with red hair like Luke’s came from what seemed to be the lower end of the circle, looking rather frightened, as if she was breaking the rules, and tapped Luke on the arm with an encouraging smile. Luke smiled back, in spite of his unhappiness, and David almost envied him.
“That will do,” said Mr. Wedding. The girl, looking even more frightened, went back to her place and left Luke on his own again. Mr. Wedding stood at the head of the circle with the Frys and Mr. Chew. He was taller even than the Frys, and darker, and more complicated, and David could see he had more powers, in a more mysterious way, than anyone else there. “Luke,” he said, and Luke looked up at him hopelessly, “I want a confession from you.”
“I didn’t take any revenge,” said Luke. “I swear it.”
“Be careful what you swear to then,” said Mr. Wedding. “If you didn’t hide it, why could a mere child set you free? Answer me, and tell me where it is.”
“I can’t,” said Luke. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, put him back in prison!” said Mrs. Fry, and the rest of the circle took her up. “Shut him up again. Make sure he suffers.”
Mr. Wedding waited until they had stopped. Then he said, in a sad, grim way, like a judge pronouncing the sentence: “You’ve brought us down to your own level, Luke, by doing this, and because of that, unless you can put it right, you’ll have to go down to a deeper prison and a worse punishment than before.”
This was too much for Luke. “Oh, please not prison again!” he said. “If you don’t care how horrible it was, don’t you think at least I’ve been there long enough to pay for any crime?”
“Not for what you did,” said Mrs. Fry.
“But it was a mistake, an accident!” Luke said frantically. “I meant it as a joke—I didn’t think for a moment it would kill him.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Fry. “A very fine joke, to put the blame on someone else.”
“I know. That was part of it,” said Luke. “I wanted to do something impossible and make it no one’s fault. But I did take the blame. I did give myself up and go to prison. What more do you want?”
“Either give back what you took or go to prison again,” said Mr. Wedding. “And you can stop denying you did it too.”
Luke opened his mouth as if he wanted to deny it, but he seemed to realize no one would believe him if he did. He looked desperately round the circle, though whether he was looking for someone who sympathized or a chance of escaping, David could not tell. He did not find either.
David was so sorry for him that he shoved his way into the middle of the circle. “Look here,” he said. “Luke told me he didn’t do anything and I know he meant it.”
There was a great silence, and everyone looked at David. Most of them were haughty and indignant. Luke gave him a harassed smile. Mr. Wedding also smiled, a curious secret smile, but not, it seemed, because he was glad to see David.
“I see I should not have let you keep those shells and stones,” he said. “Take my advice and go away. Don’t you realize by now that Luke has no conscience and has simply charmed you?”
“I haven’t!” Luke said indignantly.
David knew that this was simply Mr. Wedding not playing fair again and, though he suspected there was some trick behind it, he did not let it bother him. “That’s got nothing to do with it,” he told Mr. Wedding. “If you want the truth, Luke told me he did do something. But it wasn’t a revenge. It was for someone who’s dead now and he can’t prove it.”
“How very convenient!” s
aid Mrs. Fry, who seemed to have her knife into Luke properly, in much the same way Mrs. Thirsk had for David.
“But it’s true,” said Luke. “Someone came to me in prison and asked for a way to hide something so that it might never be found, and I told them. But they didn’t say what they were hiding. It was a good thousand years ago, maybe more.”
There was some murmuring at this, and the man with the ginger-gold hair said: “Yes, that fits. That could be it.” David was a little surprised to see him, because he had not noticed he was there before.
“My dear Luke,” said Mr. Fry, “don’t try to pretend you didn’t know what you were hiding. You took such good care none of us should ask you about it.”
“That was part of the charm,” said Luke. “None of you could ask me in prison, and I couldn’t tell you a thing until someone else told you first. I didn’t want you finding it. Besides,” he added, quite in his usual manner, “I’d got sick of you all coming and asking me things. You never left me alone.”
“Then who was it asked you to hide it?” demanded Mr. Chew.
“It’ll never be found if I tell you that,” said Luke. “That’s part of the charm too.”
“It would be!” said Mrs. Fry. “Liar!”
“Now, now,” said the ginger-haired man. “That gets us nowhere.” He turned to Mr. Wedding. “I’m the chief sufferer after all. If I vouch for him, can Luke go free and try to undo the charm?”
Mr. Wedding smiled at him and then looked at Luke in a way David thought was rather regretful. “I notice he hasn’t offered to undo it,” he said.
“Can you undo it?” Mr. Chew asked Luke bluntly.
“No,” said Luke wretchedly.
There was another great silence. The ginger-haired man looked nearly as dejected as Luke. Then Mr. Wedding sighed and signaled to the two ladies to take Luke away. David had a feeling that Mr. Wedding wanted to send Luke to prison about as little as Luke wanted to go.
“Can’t anyone undo this charm?” David said.
“I doubt it,” Luke said sadly over his shoulder as the ladies moved off with him. “Only someone who doesn’t know what he’s looking for.”
“Then that’s simple,” said David. “I can find it for you.”
The ladies stopped and looked inquiringly at Mr. Wedding. Mr. Wedding did nothing but stroke the raven on his shoulder and look grave. The ladies looked at one another and evidently wondered whether to drag Luke away or not.
“You’d never find it, David,” Luke said. “I’d better come clean before you make any promises. I bargained to have it made as difficult as possible, you see, because I thought it might be a chance to be let out of prison, if I was the only one who could find it. But that all came to nothing, and anyway I guessed what it was yesterday, so I can’t find it now. No one looking for it was to name any names and the thing itself was a secret. And I was to hide it somewhere where there was no time and not to know where that was. So you see?”
David did see, and he was daunted.
Mr. Wedding stirred. “The truth at last,” he said. “Have you told him all the conditions?”
“Yes,” said Luke. “Truly.”
“Then,” said Mr. Wedding, with just a trace of triumph in his manner, “what do you say, David, to another bargain on the lines of our first one? You find what was hidden before midnight on Sunday—you can have any help you need—and Luke goes free and unharmed until then and forever after if you find it. What do you say?”
David hesitated. He had a feeling Mr. Wedding had tried to lead up to this bargain all through, which meant there must be a catch in it. Probably it was simply impossible. But Luke was looking at him with such radiant eagerness that David had not the heart to refuse.
“Why give him such a short time?” asked the ginger-haired man, while David hesitated. “As this seems to be our one chance of finding the thing, and as so much of our powers are bound up in it, couldn’t you give him a month?”
Mr. Wedding, with his eye on Luke’s expectant face, shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “You can have until Sunday, Luke. My arrangements are made. David, I think if you haven’t found it by then, you never will do. Do you agree to the bargain?”
Luke was looking so wretchedly nervous by then that David said: “All right. I’ll try and find it.”
All the people in the circle shouted, and nearly all of them, even Mr. Chew, advanced on David to thank him. But Mr. Wedding took hold of David’s shoulder and steered him very firmly away downhill toward the French window. Luke, drooping and white, came along with them beside Astrid.
“You’ll have to forgive a trick or so,” Mr. Wedding said as they went. “I think this is a better bargain than the last, David. Keep those shells and stones in your pocket, by the way. They come from a place of power. You’ll find they can take you back there, if you need to go, and anyone else you choose with you. And I’ll do all I can for you. I want Luke free too.” David looked up at him uncertainly and saw Mr. Wedding was quite in earnest.
12
THE SISTERS
Aunt Dot and Cousin Ronald had gone out, which David thought was a stroke of good fortune. Luke seemed utterly exhausted and not in a fit state to meet anyone. Astrid told David to get out deck chairs for them while she wrung some lemonade and biscuits out of Mrs. Thirsk. The three of them sat on the lawn, which was shining and wet in the sun. A rainbow was arched across the remaining clouds, staining a distant clump of trees.
Astrid astonished David by not demanding any explanation. All she said was: “It’s too bad of them to expect a kid like you to find you don’t know what in two days and a half!” David thought that put his impossible bargain in a nutshell. “If it wasn’t for Luke,” said Astrid, “I’d have stopped you offering. The worst of it is, I think I know what you’re looking—”
Luke raised his white face. “Well, don’t tell him,” he said. “Please.”
“Not I,” said Astrid. “I shall keep biting my tongue. But when I think—”
“Talk about something else,” said Luke. “You’re going to let it out. I can see it coming.”
Astrid laughed. “How well you know me, Luke!” She changed the subject and began to talk about the lump of meat on the drive yesterday. Luke, after a wary look at her, slumped down in his deck chair again and seemed to David to be recovering. He felt nearly as jaded as Luke himself. He could not even think where to start looking, and he was supposed to have found it by Sunday night. “And the way those birds were dragging it about!” said Astrid.
David could not help thinking she could have chosen a more tactful subject. He was pulling himself together to explain that he had had to feed the mutton to the ravens, when something black beat the air beside his ear and he felt a sudden weight on his shoulder. Very startled, he ducked away sideways. The raven, perhaps to keep its balance, or maybe as an affectionate gesture, seized David’s ear in its beak. It pinched nearly as hard as Cousin Ronald.
“What do you want?” David said, half laughing and half annoyed.
The raven let go of his ear in order to speak. “Have you any more meat?” it said.
David was struck by a sudden splendid idea. “Quick!” he said excitedly. “Has either of you anything it can eat?”
They looked a little stunned. Then Astrid picked up her handbag. “Yes. Wait a minute.” She scrabbled through the seventy useless objects, and the seventy-first was a packet of cheese-biscuits. David tore it open and fed the biscuits one by one into the raven’s ready beak.
“There,” he said at last. “That’s all. Now can you do me a favor?”
The bird was leaning out from David’s shoulder in order to see his face. “Of course,” it said and, no doubt as a gesture of gratitude, tried to take David’s nose in its beak.
David clapped his hand over his nose in the nick of time. “Well, you said to ask you if I needed to know anything,” he said, “and I do need to. Where do I start looking for this thing Luke hid?”
“Oh,�
�� said the bird. “That’s a difficult one.” Gravely it stepped from David’s shoulder on to the back of his deck chair in order to think about it. “If I were you,” it said finally, “I should ask the three Knowing Ones under the tree.”
“How do I find them?” said David.
The raven thought again, making nibbling noises with its beak and raking at its sheeny head with its gray claws. “I can’t explain,” it said at last. David’s heart sank. “The only thing I can think of,” said the raven, “is for you to follow me and I’ll lead you to it. Do you want to go now?”
“Yes please!” said David, and jumped up so quickly that he nearly knocked the raven off the chair. “Can we follow you in the car?”
“If you want to,” said the raven, shaking its disordered tail feathers.
“Come on then!” David said excitedly to Luke and Astrid.
They got up, but slowly. “What has it told you?” said Luke.
“What on earth did it say?” said Astrid.
David was exasperated to find that neither of them could understand the raven. “Oh, it—get in the car and follow it and I’ll tell you as we go,” he said.
They hurried to the garage. Astrid’s car keys were the seventy-fourth thing in her bag. It came on to drizzle again while she was searching for them, but the raven obligingly waited on the garage roof until they were ready. Once the Mini was in the road, it flew steadily ahead toward the center of Ashbury.
“Don’t lose sight of it,” said Astrid. “I can’t watch it and drive too. Where are we going?”
“To find the three Knowing Ones under the tree,” said David. “That’s what it said.”
“Of course!” said Luke. “I should have thought of that. But they won’t tell you if they can help it. I wish I could come with you.”
“A fine time to say you can’t come!” said Astrid, going so fast round a corner that David and Luke were thrown against the windows. “Sorry. David, can’t you make that bird understand that I have to slow down for corners?” The raven was keeping up its steady pace, flapping along the center of the street, obviously quite unaware that cars could not do the same.
Eight Days of Luke Page 11
