Spellbound

by Anna Dale

  Athene didn’t respond. Avoiding his gaze, she picked up a dish, sank down on to the nearest mat and spooned the cold gruel into her mouth. She was not in a talkative mood. After several hours of being able to mull things over in her head, she had a feeling that she knew exactly what the others were going to say and she wanted, more than anything, to close her ears to it.

  ‘It seems to me that our little friend isn’t down here at all,’ said Humdudgeon, letting the rolled-up blankets and his toolkit drop to the floor.

  ‘I’m rather afraid it looks that way,’ Huffkin said resignedly. ‘I vote we concentrate all our efforts into looking for that Gloam who you tried to rescue, Humdudgeon. She’s the only one who can tell us how to get out of here.’

  ‘I’d better start a calendar,’ Humdudgeon said solemnly, scratching a short mark on the wall with a chisel. ‘It wouldn’t do to lose count of the nights. We may be here for quite some time.’

  Athene laid her head on her pillow and decided to pretend to be asleep. She closed her eyes and, to her dismay, hot tears began to course down her cheeks. It was all too horrid for words. Ever since she had made up her mind to come after her brother she had thought of nothing but finding him. She had worried that the darkness might have frightened him, that he hadn’t been given enough to eat or that the Low Gloam had mistreated him, but it had never occurred to her that she might be looking for him in the wrong place.

  The facts were too substantial to ignore. Shoveller the badger had not come into contact with Zach or heard that he had appeared underground; no Low Gloam had found Zach and brought him to see Tippitilda so that she could record his arrival; and during the whole time that they had been underground they had not heard a whisper that a Glare had been captured, and surely given the scandalous nature of the news, it would have travelled like wildfire. There could be only one explanation. On that dark, stormy night in the lane, with the rain falling in torrents and only the occasional streak of lightning to help her to see, Athene must have made a dreadful mistake.

  ‘He probably went around the trunk rather than inside it,’ Athene heard Humdudgeon whisper as he unrolled their blankets. ‘That boy’s still above ground somewhere, you mark my words.’

  ‘Poor little mite,’ said Huffkin softly. ‘No one will be looking for him. Pucklepod and the rest think he’s down here with us and his parents have had all their memories of him magicked away.’

  Athene stiffened as a blanket was thrown over her. ‘It’s a right to-do,’ she heard Huffkin murmur. Then both Gloam let out an exclamation, startled by a loud honking noise which sounded like a car horn being squeezed. A few minutes later, the same harsh sound resonated again.

  ‘The Curfew’s begun,’ Humdudgeon muttered. ‘They’ve got a nerve, these Low Gloam, haven’t they? How dare they keep us penned up in this louse-ridden tunnel while they swan around scot-free!’

  Athene felt absolutely wretched. To have brought the two Gloam below ground to endure a life of servitude from which they may never escape was bad enough, but if it turned out that their sacrifice had all been for nothing, she thought that she would never forgive herself.

  The Gloam’s mutterings continued for a while until the sounds of gentle snores reached Athene’s ears. She wished that she could nod off too, but with their plight and Zach’s uncertain fate weighing on her mind, she doubted very much that she’d ever get to sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  All Work and No Play

  Although she had been sure that she would not get a wink of sleep, Athene must have dropped off at some point, because she was in the middle of a dream when a thudding noise awoke her. Everything looked black when she opened her eyes, but after Athene had groped around for the bottle which Huffkin had put in her rucksack and shaken two Goggle Drops into her eyes, the maker of the sound was revealed to her. He was an earnest-looking rabbit and he was standing in the entrance of the hole, drumming on the floor with his long hind foot.

  He was not the rabbit that had brought them to their quarters some hours before. This rabbit had much darker fur and a leaner build.

  ‘Up you get!’ he said, his nose twitching impatiently. ‘The name’s Coney. Rise and shine, sleepyheads! Time’s a-wasting.’ His ears made erratic swivelling movements as a loud honking noise cut through the air with the blaring quality of an alarm clock.

  The noise seemed to jolt them into action. Realising that the Curfew had ended, Athene, Huffkin and Humdudgeon threw off their blankets, doused their faces in cold water from the bucket and ran their fingers through their hair. As they moved around their hole they grumbled about feeling stiff and sore. The floor had been a most uncomfortable surface to sleep on.

  Coney seemed eager to be off. When they were ready, he dashed away at speed and they had to race down the tunnel to catch up with him. Training their eyes on the white underside of his tail which bobbed into view with every hop, they left the Squattings behind and started up one of the tunnels that led to the shaft. Here, Athene lagged behind. Although it seemed unlikely that Zach was underground, she still clung to the hope that she might glimpse his face amongst those of the Gloam. However, the rabbit was not prepared to wait for stragglers.

  ‘Buck up at the back there!’ he called, sitting upright on his haunches and seeking out Athene with a beady black eye.

  Passing under the shaft was an unsettling experience. They saw the roots of the hollow tree hanging down like jungle vines and smelt a faint, delicious odour in the air. None of them could resist straining their necks in the hope that they might be able to glimpse a tiny patch of sky. To be so close to the upper world without any way of reaching it made them all feel horribly homesick.

  ‘It’s best not to linger,’ said the rabbit. ‘Just the scent of the place can make you break down and weep. A lot of folk won’t even pass this way – even though it’s the most direct route. It wrenches their hearts, poor devils.’

  They left the shaft behind and continued along another of the central tunnels until they came to a T-junction and a fingerpost which pointed left to the Digs and right to the Snuggeries. The tunnel that they had arrived in was completely different to all the others that they had passed through and made them forget about their moment of misery when they had walked underneath the shaft.

  ‘We’re entering the Low Gloam sector,’ Coney informed them. ‘You’ll find it’s a bit more upmarket.’

  ‘The floor is tiled!’ exclaimed Huffkin, prancing on it excitedly.

  ‘Never mind the floor – just look at the walls!’ Athene said, her mouth hanging open in awe.

  Gone were the bland expanses of earth and in their place were a number of intricate mosaics made from pebbles and scraps of broken pottery and glass. The mosaics covered both walls and, viewed from a few paces away, they were clearly a sequence of pictures, which seemed to represent a story. Examined up close, however, they looked like tens of thousands of little fragments all of which had been positioned with preciseness on the wall. Busily tending to one mosaic of a moonlit scene in an orchard with several Gloam collecting fruit in baskets was a small team of workers, consisting of two squirrels and a Gloam. They seemed to be removing every single piece of the mosaic and examining it. If the piece was cracked or chipped, they delved into a sack and replaced it with a fresh one, but if it seemed undamaged it was polished on a sleeve, or in the squirrels’ case, their tails, and carefully put back in place.

  ‘You will work here,’ said the rabbit, bounding over to Huffkin and pressing a paw against her leg. ‘As for you other two, your help is sought elsewhere.’

  ‘I’ll try to discover as much as I can about the Gloam that escaped,’ promised Huffkin in a low voice. ‘You’ll do the same, won’t you, Athene?’

  ‘Of course,’ Athene said, her face growing hot. Showing great self-restraint and good manners, neither of her friends had accused her of bringing them to the realm of the Low Gloam on a wild goose chase. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement that they should all abandon thei
r search for Zach and concentrate on finding the runaway Gloam girl, who had made it above ground for a few brief hours before being recaptured and taken below again.

  ‘You’ll keep a lookout for her, won’t you?’ Huffkin whispered to Humdudgeon.

  ‘Naturally, my dear,’ he muttered, sounding mildly annoyed.

  Bidding Huffkin farewell, Athene and Humdudgeon set off again, following Coney who was lolloping along at a slightly less energetic pace. Athene tried to study each mosaic as she passed it. One was of a building with a pitched roof, a huge door and no windows and another seemed to be depicting a battle of some sort. They filed past a number of Low Gloam who glided snootily by, casting disapproving looks at them, and a Gloam man from the Pernickety tribe who was slopping water over the tile floor with a mop. Athene and Humdudgeon stole a brief peek at the Digs, which were down a tunnel to their left. They saw a spotless floor with checked tiles, glowing stones arranged in patterns on the walls and lots of round, wooden doors with bell pulls and doorknobs. It seemed a grand sort of place to live compared with the Squattings.

  Eventually, the tiled floor and the decorative walls came to an end and they turned down a path which sloped steeply downwards and was signposted ‘To the Water Hole’. Athene noticed that the ground was scored with lines as if someone had been journeying back and forth on a bicycle. After a minute or two of walking downhill, the passage that they had been following opened into a low-ceilinged chamber with a floor of solid rock. In the chamber was a wooden cart similar to the handcarts that they had seen before, but with shafts jutting from it. Standing near to the cart were a gentle-faced vixen and a Scottish terrier with dark, shaggy fur, who looked extremely woebegone. Both were wearing harnesses. From the way that he jumped when Coney started to speak, it was plain that the terrier could not see well at all.

  ‘The fox is Rusty and the dog’s MacTavish,’ said the rabbit to Athene and Humdudgeon. ‘They’re part of the team who deliver water to every home Below. A Horny-handed Gloam called Hobble used to help them but it’s hard graft and he’s getting too old for it.’ The rabbit paused to nudge Humdudgeon with his nose. ‘Humdudgeon, you will take Hobble’s role. It will be your job to guide the cart and operate the brake, and you’ll do all the heavy work too.’

  ‘He means you’re in charge of lifting and pouring,’ said the vixen, running forward and wagging her long bushy tail. ‘I’m so pleased to see you, Humdudgeon,’ she said. ‘It’s been a struggle lately what with Hobble’s bad back – and MacTavish here has been going through a rough patch. He gets awfully homesick, poor thing.’

  Coney hopped up to the Scottish terrier and gave him a playful cuff with his paw. ‘Cheer up, young fellow,’ he said. ‘It won’t do any good moping. How about showing Humdudgeon what to do?’

  ‘Why me?’ said MacTavish, hanging his head dolefully.

  ‘Go on, there’s a dear,’ said Rusty gently, giving his ear a tender lick.

  Dragging his paws, the Scottish terrier padded over to the furthest wall of the chamber where, with the help of his nose, he found four wooden buckets and a coil of rope. ‘You tie that on to the handle and drop it down the hole,’ muttered MacTavish tonelessly.

  ‘Ah, the Water Hole!’ Humdudgeon said. He glanced around. ‘Where is it exactly?’

  They might have fallen down it if they hadn’t been told where it was. The hole was just a little bigger than a manhole cover and when Athene and Humdudgeon peered into it, they saw the gleam of water and heard the rushing sound of a fast-flowing river, at least five metres below.

  ‘I wonder if that’s the river Axe,’ Athene said. ‘When my mum and dad and I went to see the caves at Wookey Hole, our guide told us that it ran for miles underground, fed by all the rainwater falling into chasms and things up on the Mendip Hills.’

  ‘I know those hills!’ said MacTavish, bounding forward. ‘My owners, the Winstanleys, used to take me there at weekends. The smells and the sticks and the springy turf! We had such happy times … the like of which I’ll never know again.’ He lowered his head so that his nose brushed the ground and his tail drooped like a broken branch. Then he began to whimper. It was a pitiful, heart-rending sound that brought tears to Athene’s eyes.

  ‘I think you’d better go,’ said Rusty gravely.

  ‘Yes,’ Coney said, butting Athene with his head and hopping towards the entrance. ‘Come along, miss. That’s enough chatter. We need to make tracks.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Athene, patting the terrier carefully before she left the chamber. ‘I shouldn’t have talked about You Know Where. I didn’t mean to make you sad.’

  Leaving Humdudgeon, Rusty and MacTavish behind, Athene followed the rabbit back up the tunnel. On the way, Coney paused to wash behind his ears and they had to stop again and press themselves against the tunnel walls when the cart and its load rumbled past them up the steep slope, pulled by Rusty and MacTavish. Humdudgeon pushed the cart from behind, steadying the buckets every now and then and applying the brake when necessary. He was concentrating hard on his new duty, but raised his eyes to meet Athene’s and smiled at her as he went past.

  Having watched and waited while the rabbit found employment for her two Gloam friends, Athene was eager to discover what job Tippitilda had lined up for her and she hurried after Coney who had picked up speed again.

  The rabbit led her along several tunnels and Athene followed, not realising quite where she was until they arrived at the shaft again. They did not try to get a tantalising glimpse of the upper world this time, but carried on through the dingy tunnels until they eventually rejoined the tiled passage with its glittering walls of mosaics. Instead of continuing along it, they halted in front of an archway which had ‘The Sanctum’ written in glowing stones above it. Athene was astounded when Coney hopped through the archway. She could not think why the rabbit would need to take her to the dwelling place of the Chief of the Low Gloam.

  Ducking her head, Athene passed under the archway too. Then she trod in a cautious manner down a tunnel with a tessellated floor. On the walls either side of her were small, square mosaics of various Low Gloam, each of whom looked pompous, strait-laced and stern. Athene was instantly reminded of a set of equally alarming portraits which lined a corridor at her school, leading to her Headteacher’s office.

  ‘You’re looking at all the Low Gloam chiefs through the ages,’ said Coney, who was lolloping along at her heels.

  Athene nodded. She had guessed as much.

  At the very end of the passageway was a stout wooden door, studded with nails and flanked by two fearsome Low Gloam guards, both of whom were wielding sticks.

  ‘What business do you have with our chief?’ said the nearest guard.

  Coney crouched in front of the guard and flattened his ears as if he were afraid of him.

  ‘I was told to bring this newcomer to see her,’ he said.

  ‘There’s a good bunny. Now scat,’ said the guard, giving the rabbit a prod with his stick.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ said Coney to Athene, as she knelt down to check that he wasn’t hurt. ‘Just knock on the door. You’re expected.’ He gave her fingers an apologetic nibble, turned tail and raced off down the passageway.

  Athene was sad to see him go. Annoyed with the guard for treating Coney so disrespectfully, she scowled and told him what a great big bully she thought he was.

  The guard was astonished to be scolded by Athene, but instead of being angered by what she had said, he seemed to find it funny.

  ‘You’re a bolshie little madam, aren’t you?’ he said, when he had finished sniggering. ‘I shan’t give you a beating this time, seeing as you’re new, but you’d better watch your Ps and Qs with Lodestar. If you displease her, she’ll throw you in the Coop.’

  ‘What exactly is the Coop?’ Athene asked. The only kind of coop she had heard of was a wire mesh run where chickens were kept.

  ‘The Coop is a jail where we lock up all the wrongdoers and mischief-makers and lazy good-for
-nothings,’ said the guard with a sickening grin.

  ‘And is it where you put all the people who have tried to run away?’ Athene said, thinking that she could have just discovered where Humdudgeon’s girl might be.

  ‘No one’s ever been that stupid,’ said the guard. ‘It would be madness to try and escape, but you’re right – if anyone did, they’d be slung in the Coop for the rest of their life, that’s if the Chief was feeling merciful.’

  Athene swallowed audibly. ‘What’s it like in the Coop?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve heard of the lap of luxury?’ said the other guard, smirking at the look of fear on Athene’s face. ‘Well, the Coop is about as far away from that as you can get. Imagine somewhere horrible and dank and foul where bugs crawl all over you while you sleep …’

  Athene shuddered. ‘I don’t want to be put there,’ she said.

  ‘Well, you’d best be as good as gold, then, hadn’t you?’ said the first guard in an oily voice. Then he rapped with his stick on the door.

  It was opened by a gaunt young woman who was dressed rather drably in a grey smock and clogs. She had thin, wispy hair that fell past her shoulders and the pale, clear skin of a Low Gloam. Her hooded eyes looked weary, but she was not too tired to grip Athene’s hand and give it a hearty shake.

  ‘Are you the scribe?’ the woman asked.

  Athene was stumped. She had not got a clue what kind of work she’d been selected for. Should she nod or shake her head? – and if she did neither, would the Chief be furious and issue some awful punishment? Not that this frail young woman looked as if she would be capable of doing such a thing. From what the guards had told Athene, their chief was a formidable tyrant, but this mild-mannered, friendly Gloam did not appear to fit the bill.

  ‘You are Athene, aren’t you?’ said the woman anxiously.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Athene said. ‘Pleased to meet you, Lodestar, ma’am,’ she said and dropped a curtsey.