Shadow

by David L Dawson

  “What are you going to do?”

  Emily wiped at her eyes. “I’m not going to do anything. If they want to sell my house from under me they can do it themselves. I love that house. I grew up there.”

  Inevitably Emily began crying once again, but this time Cressida couldn’t bring herself to think any mean thoughts. She realized that Emily wasn’t her mortal enemy any more at that point. She was a fellow human being going through an emotional crisis of her own and Cressida figured could be there for her, sort of like an honorary sister.

  “You can stay with us for as long as you like,” Cressida offered.

  “How can you afford to look after me?” Emily wailed. “There are school fees and clothing and food and I want to become an Elf surgeon! Studying that at university won’t come cheap.”

  Cressida sat on the edge of the bath and said, “How do you think we could afford this three story house on the edge of such a famous forest? We’re rich. Dad makes a fortune from his archaeology digs and all the books he writes afterwards. Do you remember that film a few years back, about that archaeologist who finds the lost city of Cardiff? He wrote that. Well, he co-wrote it, but he got a share of the profits.”

  “Really?” said Emily. “I liked that film.”

  “We can afford you and you are staying with us and that’s the end of it,” said Cressida. “So stop your crying and come down for dinner.”

  “Thanks,” mumbled Emily. “You know, though, this doesn’t mean I suddenly like you or anything.”

  “Of course not,” said Cressida. “I hate your guts.”

  “Me too,” said Emily.

  And before she knew what she was doing she was hugging her; hugging her mortal enemy. Yet she didn’t mind, not one bit.

  Chapter 18 – Topsy Turvy

  The night was chilly, almost a prelude to the sub-zero lows of mid-winter. The inhabitants of the Widdershins house were all fast asleep, dreaming of Ancient Elvish characters and what happened next on Enchanter Close and of a husband being trapped inside a deep tomb, unable to escape being buried alive. Nightmares and fanciful dreams were the order of the day. Up on the sky platform Miss Weber, Seth and the Drake triplets slept soundly, if a little uncomfortably. The Drake triplets often shared their dreams, and this night they found themselves flying through the skies, rushing to the rescue of Miss Weber as she gripped helplessly to the precipice of a cliff. Seth didn’t dream. Miss Weber dreamed of dancing chocolate bars.

  The one person in the immediate area not sleeping was Abercrombie Hayden. He was waiting for the right time to unleash his spell, the one that would bring him Cressida and the book. It would be a difficult spell, one that he had never performed before, but he knew he could do it. He had prepared his mind.

  “One hour to go,” he murmured.

  Inside the house Cressida rolled over in her sleep, touching the Book of Fire, which was still in the bed with her. It woke her instantly, and she sighed with annoyance. She had been having a dream that Mr. Sandstorm, the teacher with the dashing smile, had been teaching her ancient Elvish instead of Emily. All he did was compliment her on how wonderful she was and smile and twinkle his eyes at her. It had been the most wonderful dream she’d ever had.

  “Then you had to go and spoil it all,” she accused the book.

  She pushed the book away from her and attempted to go back to sleep again. After half an hour she gave up and turned her bedside lamp on. She picked up the Book of Fire and opened it to the final page, which Emily had informed her contained the protection spell and how to reverse it. She looked at it carefully, surprised; she actually recognized a few of the characters now. There was the character for magic; that one meant either force or power, she wasn’t sure which, and that one read summon. All the rest, however, seemed nothing but gibberish to her, and there were an awful lot of characters on that final page. This could, literally, take me weeks, she thought. Was I really stupid enough to think I could learn all I needed to in just a few days?

  “You do realize that your lamp shines right onto my head?” Corona/Joe said, poking his head up from the side of her bed. Cressida had forgotten that Joe was in a sleeping bag on the floor.

  “The book woke me up,” Cressida explained. “Sorry.”

  Corona was angry, but it soon diminished. During her sleep she had been able to interact with Joe’s dream, and had watched him as he had dinner with his dead parents. She could have sworn he knew she was there, like a voyeur, but he never did anything. Corona thought Joe secretly liked this new dream world he was trapped in.

  Corona/Joe got out of the sleeping bag and crawled onto the bed. The irie felt quite cozy, remembering that her own childhood had been nothing like this.

  Emily’s face appeared from the other side of the bed, scaring the wits out of the two of them. Her eyes were half closed, her hair was stuck up all over the place and her mouth was quirked grumpily.

  “What are you doing in here?” Cressida demanded.

  “Trying, and failing, to get some sleep,” Emily answered.

  “I meant…”

  “I heard a water pipe creaking all the time in my room and I thought I might as well camp with you, to give you added protection should the Shadow Assemblage decide to invade the house,” Emily explained. “Your floor is really hard.”

  “This is very awkward, Emily,” said Cressida. “You should really go back to your room. I’m sure you can protect me just as well from there.”

  Emily ignored her, instead standing up and sitting on the bed as well. Cressida felt like she was hosting a slumber party. All she needed now was for Miss Weber, Seth and the Drake triplets to drop on by with their Government issue sleeping bags so they could all talk about boys and…Well, just boys really.

  “How about we have a look at that protection spell seen as we’re all awake?” Emily suggested. “I see you already have the book open on that page.”

  “I recognize only a few characters and that’s about it,” said Cressida. “I think we have a long way to go just yet.”

  Emily gave a long hard look at the spell and shuddered. “It’s probably the longest spell in the book. This could take a while.”

  “Obviously it wasn’t meant to be removed but if it came to it whoever made the spell wanted to make it as difficult as possible,” groaned Cressida. The spell would literally take her ten minutes to read. “Why don’t you take a flick through the rest of the book? We only got about halfway yesterday.”

  “There’d be no point in it,” said Emily. “It’s probably just one evil spell after another and I for one would like to sleep without nightmares tonight.”

  “Me too,” agreed Corona/Joe.

  “Fine,” said Cressida, closing the book, thinking it was a good idea too. “Now can we all try and get some sleep? I don’t want to get detention for being late for class tomorrow.”

  “I am a very strict teacher,” said Emily, grinning.

  All three of them made themselves as comfortable as they could and tried to go back to sleep. It was hard. Corona didn’t really fancy invading Joe’s dream world again, but when she went to sleep she couldn’t help but be sucked into it. Emily was happy. She quite enjoyed being a teacher, and so managed to drift off in a state of pure contentment. Cressida was so anxious about learning ancient Elvish as quickly as possible that all she saw when she closed her eyes were the characters she longed to learn flicking back and forth.

  Emily was happy. She quite enjoyed being a teacher, and so managed to drift off in a state of pure contentment.

  A rattling sound woke Emily up exactly two minutes later. Cressida wondered whether the pipes in her room had decided to play music like the ones in Emily’s former room. One more distraction heaped upon the many she already had was quite plenty and Cressida had had enough. She wanted to sleep!

  “I’m going to try one of the spare bedrooms,” Cressida declared as the clanking and grinding continued. “Is anyone coming with me?”

  Emily yawned and
said, “This house is louder than a construction site.”

  Cressida pulled the Book of Fire close to her chest and climbed out of bed, narrowly missing stepping on Joe, who was trying to disentangle himself from his sleeping bag. The rumbling was now getting higher and higher and Cressida noticed, with some growing realization, that the furniture in her room was shaking too. A framed photo of her and Joe at Mighty Troll Warrior Con slipped off the wall and broke.

  “This is an earthquake!” Emily screeched, climbing out of bed and rushing for the door. As she was about to open it part of the lintel broke away, crushing the frame and putting force on the top of the door. When Emily tried to open the door it wouldn’t budge.

  Plaster from the ceiling showered her head as Cressida flung the book back on her bed and made to join Emily. She gripped the door handle and pulled and pulled but the collapsing lintel had locked them in. She turned to Emily and Joe as the room continued to vibrate like it was built next to a railway.

  “Hide under the bed until the quake is over!” said Cressida.

  “What if the ceiling collapses?” Emily cried.

  “Just get under the bed!” Cressida ordered. She had never been involved in an earthquake before and she was absolutely terrified. The very ground under her feet was literally trying to dislodge her and it felt unnatural.

  The three of them crawled under the bed as the rumbling went on, unabated. Cressida clutched Joe and Emily’s hands, praying to the Goddess to make it stop and let them all be safe. Why is there an earthquake now? She asked Rafreya. There hasn’t been an earthquake in these parts for fifty years!

  She screamed as the window broke. A large piece of glass toppled onto the floor and smashed. Her lampshade, the one her father had brought back from a market in Turkestan, fell onto her bed, light fitting and part of the ceiling coming with it like the trail of a comet. They could hear the yells and shouts of everyone else in the house; her mother shouting for her; Martin howling louder than she’d ever heard, and Grandpa Bram hammering loudly on their door. It was like a surreal nightmare.

  Then it was over. The dust began to settle. The pounding on the door continued and, with an almighty kick that belied his age, Bram brought the door down. He rushed in, Ginger and Martin following close behind, surveying the damage. All Ginger could see was the broken window and the bits of ceiling on the bed and she thought the worst; was Cressida dead? Was she badly hurt? Where is she?

  “Cressida?” Ginger called.

  A hand waved at her from under the bed, and Cressida, Joe and Emily climbed out, each of their heads feeling like they’d been punched. Ginger pulled Cressida into a hug, crying. Bram hugged his grandson. Emily, feeling left out, gave the wolf a stroke and was rewarded with a few caressing licks to her face.

  “Was that an earthquake?” Cressida asked, once the hugging was over.

  Ginger looked at Bram. “I think so. Thank the Goddess it was only a mild one.”

  Cressida laughed, incredulous. “You call that a mild one? My own ceiling nearly crushed me!”

  She looked at her bed, filthy with dust and plaster and shards of glass from the window and the broken light bulb. The Book of Fire was just a corner peeking out from this mess. What if the ceiling had fallen down? She’d be just a squashed lump of flesh by now.

  “Am I ever going to get any sleep tonight?” she moaned.

  In answer to that rhetorical question the house dipped to the left, throwing them all off their feet onto the floor. Cressida’s head connected with the wall and she felt dizzy for a few seconds before managing to stand upright again. It was as if she was on a boat and a sudden wave had caused the deck to tip on its side. She wasn’t on a boat, though. She was in her home, with a bump on her head.

  “What was that?” Emily croaked. She was standing at a slight thirty-degree angle, as were the others. Cressida heard something creaking and saw that her wardrobe was ever so slowly sliding across the floor, as were the things on her vanity table, almost as if they were being drawn to something like a magnet.

  “The house is lopsided,” said Bram, leaning against the wall to keep him upright.

  “The earthquake must have dislodged a huge sector of land,” said Emily. “If we’re not careful the whole house might slide off into a crevice or something!”

  Chapter 19 – Naughty Cat

  “How can the house fall into a crevice?” Cressida asked. “I’ve never heard of it happening before!”

  “I have,” cried Emily hysterically. “Probably.”

  “I don’t want to take any chances,” said Ginger. “We evacuate the house now!”

  In a panic Cressida pulled the Book of Fire from under the tiny heap of rubble on the bed and followed the others out of the room. Now she was standing she could tell she was walking down a very slight slope, and it seriously unnerved her. This was her home and they were abandoning it!

  They made it to the stairs when Emily cried out, “Where’s Snaps?”

  “What’s a Snaps?” asked Grandpa Bram.

  They stopped. No one had any idea where Emily’s obese ginger cat was, and at that moment no one actually cared. Getting out of the house was their sole priority. Cressida, however, could see the distress on Emily’s face. Her parents had abandoned her, and her tutor was dead. This cat was all she had left.

  “When I went to bed he was curled under the kitchen table,” said Cressida. “We should look under there first.”

  “Come on then!” cried Emily.

  They ran downstairs to the ground floor, quickly. Cressida and Emily dove for the kitchen while the others headed for the front door. It was while Cressida and her ex-nemesis were passing the couch in the living room that the house shifted again. For the second time that night she was thrown off her feet. When she managed to stand again, clutching the book protectively, it was to find that the house had righted itself; it was no longer standing at an angle.

  “How is this possible?” Cressida wondered.

  “I can feel magic,” said Emily. “It’s all over the place.”

  Cressida could too, and was ashamed at herself for not noticing it earlier. I’ve never been able to feel magic being used before, she thought. I just assumed this feeling I had was fright! So what’s causing this, then?

  The two of them entered the kitchen, cooing the cat’s name. Crockery still rattled after the quake. Pans hanging from hooks on the wall still swung slowly like pendulums. Emily peered under the table and cried out.

  “She’s not there,” said Emily. “Where can she have gone?”

  “Don’t panic,” said Cressida. “She has to be in the house somewhere. A cat would never be able to get around all the spells around the house.”

  “We have to find her!”

  Cressida was about to reply when she heard a sad meowing. It appeared to be coming from somewhere above her. She looked around and saw, with some amusement, that the cat had somehow gotten itself onto a shelf that almost touched the ceiling. It was where her mother kept all her cookery books. The poor thing was meowing and meowing and its whiskers were quivering in terror.

  “How did you get up there?” Emily demanded. “You come down this instant!”

  The cat answered with a loud hiss that said, “If you think I’m moving from this spot then you’ve got another thing coming.”

  “I’m sorry I shouted at you my darling,” said Emily. “Do you forgive me? Do you forgive me for shouting?”

  The cat still looked annoyed.

  That was when they heard Ginger yell. A panicked Cressida ignored Emily and her stupid cat and made for the front door. Had her mother fallen into a crack made by the earthquake?

  Ginger, Joe and Bram were standing on the doorstep, looking out. She couldn’t see what had shocked them so, only a faint mist that appeared to be twining around their bodies. There was no one else there. Yet a nagging feeling told Cressida that something was wrong and that they were all still in terrible danger.

  “Emily and I can feel mag
ic,” said Cressida, walking up behind them. “I think the Shadow Assemblage caused the earthquake.”

  “Look outside, Cressida,” said her mother, slowly.

  She did. What she saw was so impossible that at first she didn’t register what was wrong. It took her a second or two to fully realize what dire predicament they were really in; her house was in the clouds. An enchanter had wrenched her house from its foundations and lifted it up into the sky.

  Chapter 20 – Silver vs. Spider: Round 2

  Abe held the spell in place, pushing it to the back of his mind so he could concentrate on the next stage of his plan. The augmenting crystals were helping to keep such an intricate spell active but his mind needed to be focused as well. If he was distracted then there was the probability the spell would fail and the house would plummet to the ground and kill everyone in it, the girl included. He didn’t want to kill so many people, even though the Book of Fire would survive such a drop. Even the death of Cressida on my conscience might be too much to bear, he thought.

  Water and sewage were leaking from the house, coming from severed pipes up in the clouds. They rained down on him but he ignored it, even though some of the liquid had a stench he would never forget. He hadn’t meant to raise the house so high. It was partially hidden from him now it was puncturing the clouds. He decided he had to bring it down a bit. He needed to be able to see what he was doing so he could pluck Cressida and the book out. So he abandoned the next spell, instead concentrating on lowering the house to within a few feet off the ground.

  A bolt of fire exploded on the ground in front of him, showering him with dirt. Miss Weber’s fist connected with his face and he screamed. He faced her with confusion. He had left a sleeping spell on the sky platform as it lay parked on the ground while they were inside doing whatever it was they were doing all day. She should be fast asleep, dreaming of spy things, not assaulting him with her fist!

  “Bring the house down!” she commanded. “Bring it down now!”