Midnight Train

by Angie Sage

  Slowly and silently they retreated before the oncoming Jackal, which took up all the space on the narrow stairs. For each step the creature took—sniffing as it went, clearly scenting them—Alex and Benn took a step back until they found themselves on the previous landing. Benn mimed a punch at the Jackal and looked inquiringly at Alex. She nodded.

  The Jackal stopped on the landing and sniffed rapidly, like a hound locating its quarry. Suddenly, Benn leaped forward with a short and powerful punch to the Jackal’s stomach. The Jackal reeled backward and crumpled to the floor, gasping for breath.

  Alex went racing back up the stairs, instinctively heading for home. Benn—who was now visible—sprinted after her. The Jackal caught its breath and let out a howl of fury. Then it staggered to its feet and set off after Benn.

  At the top landing, Alex saw a strip of light beneath the achingly familiar door. “Help!” Alex yelled out, battering the door with her fists. “Help, help! Let us in. Let us in!”

  The door opened.

  It was Poppa.

  Of course it was.

  Chapter 14

  Home

  HAGOS SAW ONLY A WILD-LOOKING boy hurling himself through the door—but he was sure the voice he had heard was his daughter’s. Puzzled, he peered out, only to see coming around the twist of the stairs the white, pointed snout of a Jackal. Hagos slammed the door fast and threw both bolts across it. Leaning back against the door, he surveyed the boy—who looked familiar—and before him emerged the fuzzy outline of . . . “Boo-boo!” he yelled, sweeping Alex up into a hug.

  “Poppa, I’m Alex,” she protested happily, half smothered in his old red cloak—which smelled just like it always used to.

  “Alex,” Hagos said, setting her back on her feet and laughing. “Alex. But how did you get here? I can’t believe it. Oh, this is wonderful . . . wonderful.”

  Alex could not stop smiling either. “Oh, Poppa, I was so afraid you were . . .”

  “Dead?” supplied Hagos.

  Alex nodded, tears pricking her eyelids.

  “Not yet, Boo-boo. Alex. Not yet.”

  “Did the king let you go, Poppa? Are you friends again?”

  Before Hagos could answer, a scratching at the door brought a dose of reality. “No, I’m still a prisoner. That’s my guard outside. You’re not safe here, sweetheart. And neither is . . .” Hagos looked at Benn, wondering if he ought to know his name.

  “This is Benn,” Alex told him.

  “Hello, Benn. Well, neither is Benn, I’m afraid. Deela . . .” Hagos wheeled around, and to their surprise Alex and Benn saw Deela Ming wearing a long silk cloak embroidered with crescent moons. She was smiling at them broadly.

  “Deela!” said Alex.

  “Shh!” said Hagos and Deela as an insistent scratching came from the other side of the bolted door.

  “I’m going to have to open the door,” Hagos said anxiously. “It’s part of the deal I made to stay out of the dungeons. Jackal must have access at all times. Deela, take Alex and Benn into my room, will you?”

  From behind the heavy curtain that divided Hagos’s small sleeping area from the rest of the room, Alex, Benn and Deela watched Hagos hurriedly searching through his desk drawers. As he triumphantly pulled out a small metal tube with a screw top, an impatient yipping started up from the landing. They watched Hagos open the door a few inches, his foot stopping it from going any wider. They saw the Jackal’s pointy, white nose push through the gap and heard the rapid sniff-sniff-sniff of it picking up a scent. They saw its upper limb, sleeved in red, push through the gap between the door and its frame. Its odd humanlike hand was covered in short white hairs, and the stubby, curled fingers ended in sharp, polished black talons that reached down to claw at Hagos’s face. He ducked away and quickly emptied the sparkling contents of the metal tube into his open right hand, which he offered up to the Jackal’s questing, sniffing snout. The Jackal drew in a deep, luxuriant breath, and a waft of sparkling dust rose up from Hagos’s palm. The Jackal looked at Hagos with a doggy expression of gratitude in its eyes, and then flicked out its long, black tongue and proceeded to lick every speck of powder off Hagos’s hand. Hagos stood still as stone, allowing the tongue to curl between his fingers, and even when the Jackal leaned forward and delicately sucked the very last grain of powder from the tops of his nails, Hagos did not flinch.

  “Yuck,” Benn whispered.

  “Eurgh,” Alex agreed.

  “Shhhh . . . ,” hissed Deela.

  With the last speck of powder gone, the Jackal seemed dazed. It gazed up at Hagos, as if begging for more, but he placed his hand upon its nose and gave the creature a firm shove. Unresisting, it fell back, and Hagos slammed the door. Then he rapidly threw the bolts across and ran to a small sink in the corner of the room, where he vigorously scrubbed his hand clean of Jackal drool.

  Alex, Benn and Deela emerged from behind the curtain. “You had us all on edge back there,” Deela told him. “Whatever was that stuff?”

  Hagos turned around with a smile. “Fizz. I knew I had some left. I made it years ago, just before Boo-boo—I mean Alex—was born, when Belamus was still my good friend and I was still his trusted Enchanter. I was frightened for the baby. There were stories of Jackal taking newborns in the night and parents being unable to fight them off. So I concocted something they would find even more irresistible than a baby; a bit like catnip for cats. It worked far better than I hoped.” Hagos chuckled. “That Jackal will now be sprawled on the landing, dreaming crazy things and foaming at the mouth.”

  “Wow,” said Benn. “That’s such cool Beguiler stuff.”

  Hagos gave Benn a frosty look. “It is Enchantment, an ancient and honorable art. Which I practice.”

  Benn looked mortified. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Hagos said soothingly. “‘Beguiler’ is used here in Rekadom to belittle us, to make our art sound underhand. Which it is not.”

  The fact that her father had used his art to create so many monsters that had brought misery and death to countless innocent people did not seem entirely honorable to Alex, but she said nothing. Hagos, however, was enjoying his new audience. “The Jackal outside is now in no fit state to tell anyone that we have guests here. Indeed, if it meets a fellow Jackal while it is still foaming at the mouth, it won’t last long. They turn on their own when they see weakness, you see. That’s why there are only five of them left now. When I first came to Rekadom as a boy, Belamus’s predecessor had thirty-two Jackal. Total nightmare.”

  “How many were there to begin with?” Benn wanted to know.

  “One hundred and sixty-nine. An Enchanted number.”

  “Thirteen times thirteen,” Alex said.

  Hagos beamed at her. “Spot on, Boo-boo. Alex. The Jackal were Engendered about a hundred years ago for a queen. Her Enchanter took some newborn jackal pups and did a very nasty Enchantment on them.” Hagos chuckled. “At least the king won’t be getting any more of those abominations. The first thing I did when I became Enchanter here was to feed the Incantation to a Jackal. I hid it in a sausage. They can’t resist sausages. Ha ha. But enough of Jackal. Deela and I were about to have supper. I imagine you both wouldn’t say no to joining us?”

  “No, we wouldn’t,” Benn said, his stomach already rumbling. “I mean, we most certainly wouldn’t say no. Not at all.”

  “I suspected as much,” Hagos said.

  Hagos and Deela busied themselves in the tiny kitchen area in an alcove on the far side of the room and Benn threw himself down onto the big cushion in front of the fire with a sigh of contentment and gazed up at the ceiling, which was covered with silvery symbols of Enchantment. Alex drew up a small footstool and warmed herself by the fire. As she stared into the flickering flames, she noticed a strange feeling creeping through her. At first she thought it was relief at being safe—for a while, at least—and then she thought it was the soft warmth of the fire. But as she breathed in the
familiar smells of dusty old rugs, ancient Enchantments and a supper of fragrant rice, she realized it was something much deeper.

  It was the feeling of coming home.

  Chapter 15

  Homesick

  LATER THAT NIGHT, ALEX WAS back in her old bedroom. She just about fitted into her little bed—which she remembered as being vast—and she lay contentedly gazing up at the ceiling, with its painted silver stars on deep blue. The blue paint was dusty and peeling and the shine of the stars was dulled now, but they still gave her the same feeling of happiness.

  The room was not large. The tiny window was covered by a long, faded red curtain embroidered with swirls that looked like prancing dragons. There was a little chest of drawers and a bedside cupboard painted in symbols of Enchantment, and an ancient, speckled looking glass that hung over the mantelpiece above a small, deep-set fire. Hagos had lit the fire to keep away the chill, which seeped in at night from the thick walls of the Silver Tower and lay heavy on the floor—where Benn was to sleep.

  Benn lay there now, on a pile of cushions, covered with an old feather quilt and a starry blanket. He too was looking up at the silver stars and faded blue paint, but he wasn’t feeling quite as at home as Alex was. “Alex,” he murmured. “Are you awake?”

  “Mmm,” Alex murmured in return. “I can’t sleep. It’s all so strange. Being home again.”

  Home. Benn wished he were home so much he couldn’t think of anything else. “I guess you must have felt like this when you came to my house,” he said. “I didn’t think about it until now. But it’s weird being in someone else’s home, isn’t it?”

  “But it’s not the first time. We were in the cottage on Oracle Rock. In Deela’s home.”

  “Yeah. I guess. And that wasn’t weird. Well, it was. But not like this.”

  “I think,” Alex said after a while, “that’s because on Oracle Rock we were both not in our homes.”

  “Yeah. And here only one of us is. And this time it’s me.”

  “But I miss your home too,” Alex said. “I miss Nella and Louie and just the nice feeling of being there.” She sat up, drawing her blanket around her; the chill in the walls was already seeping into the room. “Hey, Benn, shall we see what’s happening there? At your place? See what Nella is doing? And Jay maybe? And Louie?”

  Benn rolled over onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “You mean with your cards?”

  “Yes. With the cards.”

  Benn’s eyes shone. “I’d love to.”

  From her bedside cupboard, which was lined in red felt, Alex took the codex. Then she joined Benn on the rug in front of the fire, and in the flickering firelight she opened the little blue book and drew out her cards.

  “I love how they fit in there so well,” Benn said. “It’s so strange that Gramma had that book just waiting for your cards.”

  “So much is strange right now,” Alex said, “that that feels kind of normal.” She took the seven mother-of-pearl hexagonal cards—whisper-thin and feather-light—from their blue wallet and placed six of them in a circle on the rug.

  With a feeling of butterflies in his stomach, Benn watched intently as Alex carefully placed the seventh card into the hexagonal hole in the center. At once the cards seemed to merge into one and a deep shimmer, shifting and swirling like oil on water, spread across them. In movements that Benn remembered so well from the time—not so very long ago—when he had first met Alex in the marketplace of the hilltop town of Luma, he watched Alex’s fingers fluttering over the cards, coaxing them into life. The oily sheen began to swirl beneath the movements of her hands; colors appeared and began whirling into a vortex, in the middle of which Benn saw a dark spot begin to grow. He watched Alex leaning forward, staring intently into the darkness, her hands braced against the floor as if stopping herself from falling.

  “What can you see?” he whispered.

  Alex could see a luminous picture beginning to form. “Nella. In the kitchen,” she whispered.

  “Is she okay? I wish I could see her,” Benn said.

  Alex knew that Benn could not see the things in the cards that she could. She also knew how much he would love to be able to. “Put your hand over mine,” she said. “Then maybe you can see too.”

  Benn placed his hand over Alex’s and looked into the picture. “There’s Gramma!” he gasped. “In the kitchen. And Louie. Look, he’s sitting on Gramma’s lap. And there’s Jay too.”

  With equal wistfulness, Alex and Benn stared intently at the scene.

  “They seem so sad,” Benn said. “Even Jay.” He looked up at Alex. “It’s us making them sad, isn’t it? We’ve disappeared and they don’t know where.”

  Intently they watched the people they loved gathered together in the cozy kitchen, a candle burning on the table. They watched Benn’s grandmother take a handkerchief from her pocket and wipe her eyes, they saw Louie’s serious little face, and when Louie rubbed his eyes too, Alex’s concentration faltered and the image evaporated like mist from the top of a lake.

  “It was awful seeing them so sad,” Benn said.

  Alex nodded. “Louie looked so lonely,” she murmured.

  “No sign of your foster mother,” Benn said. “You’d think she’d be there looking after Louie.”

  “Oh, Mirram,” Alex said dismissively. “She’s always getting people to watch Louie.” And then she hurriedly added, “But I don’t mean Nella is just any person. Nella will be much nicer to Louie than Mirram.”

  “No sign of the Flyer either,” Benn said.

  “Or my other stupid foster sister,” Alex added as she neatly collected up the cards. “Not that I want to see either of them anyway.”

  Benn did not reply. An awful thought had occurred to him. “Gramma thinks I’ve drowned, doesn’t she?”

  Alex slipped the cards back into their place in the codex and closed the cover. “I suppose she might think that,” she said carefully.

  “She does think it. I saw it in her eyes,” Benn said. He took a deep breath. “I have to go home. For Gramma.”

  Alex was not surprised. “I know. But how will you get there?”

  “In Merry.”

  “But how will you get back to Merry?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. You remember when the Jackal were taking us up those steps inside the cliff?”

  Alex grimaced. How could she forget?

  “There was a fork in the steps about halfway up, and I saw another flight branching off. I am sure they are the ones that go up to Oracle Halt.”

  “Oracle Halt?” asked Alex.

  “The old railway station on the cliff top. It was the last stop before Rekadom. Gramma told me there were steps down from there through the cliff to the beach below.”

  “But you’ve got to get out of Rekadom first,” Alex said. “And the gate guards saw you.”

  Benn was not worried. “They won’t remember me, I’m just an ordinary kid. And I won’t be ringing the Beguiler Bell, will I?”

  Alex thought wistfully how nice it would be to be “just an ordinary kid.” She put the codex back into the cupboard and closed the door with a quiet click. How easy it would be, she thought, if she could shut away all the Enchantment in her life in a cupboard and forget about it. But she couldn’t. It was part of who she was. She knew that now.

  “G’night, Alex,” Benn said.

  “G’night, Benn,” said Alex. Silence fell in the little bedroom.

  In the big room next door, all was quiet too. Deela and Hagos were sitting contentedly by the fire. Deela was unraveling an old green scarf of Hagos’s so that she could knit it into something. She thought she might move on from octopuses to squid. Hagos was doing nothing much. He was gazing into the fire, allowing just the smallest flicker of something he identified as happiness to creep into his heart. Here he was, after all his long years in the wilderness, reconciled with his good friend Deela, and luxuriating in the knowledge—which he could hardly believe—that his little Boo-boo
was back home, sleeping safely in her room.

  Life, thought Hagos, was good.

  Chapter 16

  Home Truths

  THE NEXT MORNING ALEX WOKE up in her bedroom for the first time in ten years. In the little bed she lay very still under the frayed pink velvet cover with appliquéd rabbits and gazed around the strange—and yet oh so familiar—room. Drowsily, she tried to find the elusive word to describe the mysterious feeling that surrounded her like a warm summer’s day. Slowly, it came to her: belonging. Here it was at long last: a calm, solid baseline for everything. Alex knew that whatever she felt in the future—however scared, unhappy or even just plain bored—there would always be this feeling underpinning everything. She had found her family. She understood where she came from. She belonged. Everything else was extra.

  Alex left Benn sleeping and ventured out into the main room. Deela was sitting by the fire knitting something green and Hagos was hunched over the desk beneath the triangular window that looked out over the other two towers. He turned around to Alex and smiled. “Good morning, Boo-boo. I’m just checking the Hawke egg. Would you like to see?” Hagos showed Alex an open box, revealing a nest of six golden boxes of decreasing sizes, like the bottom halves of a Russian doll with the tops removed. In the tiniest, seventh box in the middle, a little brown-and-white egg lay on a bed of soft, blue velvet.

  “The egg will hatch here in the smallest box. When the fledgling grows out of that, we’ll put it in the next bigger box, and then the next. After seven boxes it will be fully Enchanted, and then it will go back to the mews, and Ratchet—he’s the chief falconer—will look after it.”

  “And then the king won’t need you anymore, Poppa,” Alex said anxiously.

  Hagos nodded. “This is true. But I have a plan. There is something I made for your momma, something that I knew I could get smuggled to her in the dungeons—a little handkerchief with an Enchanted knot. All she had to do was to unknot it and it would take her to wherever she wanted to go.”