Goodly and Grave in a Case of Bad Magic

by Justine Windsor

  Lucy moved her head again, so that she could see what was happening up on the stage. The demon was still standing there, arms raised, hands apart. But where was Valentina? It took a few seconds for Lucy to realize that Valentina was sprawled across the stage. She was out cold, like everyone else.

  The demon began to speak, its voice now so loud and booming that Lucy wanted to cover her ears, but she didn’t dare move. The words it spoke were in a language Lucy didn’t understand, but it sounded ancient and menacing. When the demon had finished speaking, the ballroom suddenly became completely silent. The skeins of lightning no longer crackled or buzzed. Instead, they began whipping back the way they had come, as though hundreds of electrified fishing lines were being reeled in, forming a tight ball that floated between the demon’s hands. As the last of the lightning retreated into the fiery orb, the demon spoke again in its strange language. Valentina stirred and sat up.

  “Is it done?” she asked.

  “It is. The magical powers of everyone in this room are inside this ball.”

  Lucy stifled a gasp. Did this mean she was no longer magical? Her heart fluttered in panic. The thought of losing the powers she had only just discovered was hard to bear.

  “May I ask what you plan to do next?” the demon continued. It was throwing the lightning ball in the air and catching it, over and over again.

  “I’m going to call up all my magicians. All the orphans from Hard Times Hall. We’re going to take everyone’s houses, their money, their servants. Anyone magical in their households, I want you to strip them of their powers too.”

  “Only if I feel like it!”

  Valentina glared at the demon. “Can you stop playing the fool with that ball? Be careful with it! Remember, I’m your summoner. You do what I say.”

  “The magical law is clear, I agree,” the demon said in a menacing voice. “I obey the magician who summoned me.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But you’re not a magician. Not any longer.” The demon was still throwing the fiery ball and catching it. Each time, the ball became smaller and more compact.

  “What do you mean?”

  The demon smiled toothily. “You told me to take everyone’s magic. That’s what I did. All the magical powers of everyone in this house are now in my possession.”

  “But I didn’t mean you should take mine too!” Valentina shrieked

  The demon tutted reprovingly. “A talented young magician like you. You should know the importance of being precise in your commands. And I don’t take kindly to being shouted at. Now, I’m getting rather weary of all this. I think I may depart.”

  The demon threw the ball of lightning, which by now had shrunk to the size of a walnut, into the air one last time. As the ball came whizzing back down, the demon opened its mouth hideously wide and swallowed the fiery nugget of magic in one sizzling gulp.

  Valentina cowered away from the demon in terror. Lucy shuddered with fear. The demon had just consumed the magic of every single person in Grave Hall. What was it capable of now?

  At first, nothing much happened. But then the demon began to change. First it became blurred as though it was standing behind a pane of particularly dirty glass, then it began to swirl into a greenish-grey mist. Was it dying?

  After a few more moments, the demon had entirely dissolved. The mist that it had become began to eddy round the room. It gathered more and more speed, bouncing off the ceiling and walls, then whirled towards one of the long windows behind the stage. It smashed through the glass and vanished into the night.

  Valentina was standing still, staring at the broken window. Lucy remained lying on the floor, trying to decide whether to sit up or not. Valentina might not be able to use magic to harm anyone now, but according to what the demon had said, Lucy didn’t have her powers any more either. Valentina was older and stronger than Lucy, and had the advantage when it came to an actual physical fight between the two of them.

  The sound of footsteps broke the silence of the ballroom. A woman ran through the doors, which had been forced open by the lightning. She stopped, transfixed by horror at the devastating scene around her. Lucy recognised her at once – she was the woman who’d helped when she and Violet had been attacked, and had given Lucy a lift home in her pony and trap. For a few seconds, Lucy hesitated. She didn’t know anything about this woman apart from the fact that she used to work at Grave Hall. Could she be trusted? Going with her instincts, Lucy sat up and called the woman’s name. “Brenda!”

  “Lucy! Stay there, chicken!” Brenda swiftly picked her way through the maze of unconscious magicians and over to Lucy. “What’s happened here? Are they all dead?”

  “No. Just unconscious I think,” Lucy said, hoping she was right. “But they’ve all lost their magic. There was a demon. It took their powers!”

  “Oh my goodness, this is very, very bad.” Brenda began helping Lucy up. As she did so, she noticed the manacles. “But what … what’s this? Who put these on you?”

  “She did. She called the demon up too!” Lucy said, pointing at Valentina, who was still standing on the stage, pale with shock.

  “Come here, girl!” Brenda ordered. Her words snapped Valentina into action. She jumped off the stage and began to stumble towards the door, clumsily weaving her way round the bodies on the ground. Brenda flung her arm back, there was a flash of light and the next second, Valentina was struggling against the silvery net that now enclosed her.

  Brenda put her hands on her hips and smiled in grim satisfaction. “Netting is my special skill. Never lost a single strawberry to the birds when I was gardener here.”

  Lucy watched Valentina thrash about under the net. “Are you sure she can’t escape?”

  Brenda shook her head. “Not even if she got her magical powers back. That net is immensely strong, fireproof and completely resistant to magic. It’s taken me my whole life to perfect the design.”

  But Brenda’s satisfaction was soon replaced by consternation when the demon, still in its grey misty form, whipped past the outside of the ballroom’s broken window. Grave Hall shuddered, battered by a ferocious gust of wind. The chandeliers rocked and some of the candles burning in them guttered out. Even Valentina cried out in fear.

  “That’s the demon?” Brenda said. “This is not good at all. The girl’s summoned a tempestarii. A storm demon.”

  “You’ve seen one before?” Lucy asked.

  “Not in the flesh, so to speak. But my mother was a gardener, and her mother before her, and so on. I read about tempestarii in an old book of my grandmother’s. They can whip up terrible weather. They’re destructive enough just using their own powers. But if this one’s absorbed the magic of everyone in this room, there’s no telling what it might be able to do!”

  “Can you stop it?”

  Brenda shook her head. “I’m not magical enough for that.”

  “But you still have your magic! That means you resisted the demon’s powers, didn’t you? That must mean you’re more powerful than it is!”

  “I wish that was true. But you see I wasn’t inside Grave Hall. I’d decided to come and see Mrs Crawley. Being here the other day made me realise how much I missed her. I was on my way up the drive when the whole place lit up like a Christmas tree, then went dark. It was obvious something very wrong was going on. I waited a few moments to see if anything else happened and then I ran to the kitchen. Mrs Crawley was passed out like the rest of them.”

  “Oh no,” Lucy said in despair. She’d hoped that perhaps Mrs Crawley would have escaped the demon’s spell.

  “We need to get these manacles off you.” Brenda went over to Valentina. “Get the key out, and I’ll lift the net up so you can give it to me. Don’t try any tricks, girl.”

  Valentina folded her arms mutinously, but the stern expression on Brenda’s face soon resulted in her fumbling the key from her boot.

  “It won’t be any good fetching Grave, he’s under the influence of a sleeping potion,” Valentina said
as she handed the key over.

  “He was just pretending to be sleeping!” Lucy retorted as Brenda unlocked the handcuffs. She rubbed at her stiff, store wrists and glared at Valentina. If only the demon hadn’t stolen her magic! She’d give anything to fling a few red-hot attack sparks Valentina’s way. Her fingers grew warm at the very thought of it.

  “Oh, chicken,” Brenda whispered.

  Lucy looked down at her hand. Clustered at the end of her fingertips were a few attack sparks. Perplexed, she looked at Brenda. “But the demon stole everyone’s magic?”

  Brenda stared at her for a moment. “The manacles! Your magic was trapped inside you while you were wearing them. They stopped your magic leaving you when the demon cast its own.”

  “Of course!” Lucy shouted joyfully. Brenda was right. She could feel her magic coursing through her veins. “Now I can shortcut to where Lord Grave is and bring him back!”

  “No one can shortcut to my lair unless they’re part of our gang, basic protection,” Valentina said sulkily, plucking at a strand of the net enclosing her.

  “Doesn’t matter. I can shortcut to Grave Village and then use that chalk to open the door.”

  “Won’t work for anyone that’s not—”

  “Part of your gang? Well then, I’ll take you with me! Or you can shortcut us yourself!”

  “I think you’re missing something a tiny bit important, Goodly. I don’t have any magic, thanks to that demon! We’re all finished!” Valentina yelled.

  Grave Hall shuddered as another blast of wind hit. Hail began to rattle down. It blew in through the open window, clattering on to the stone flagged floor.

  “We’re going to have to stop the demon ourselves,” Brenda said. “My magic isn’t strong enough. But you, Lucy … Lord Grave wouldn’t have made you a MAAM member if you weren’t something special.”

  “I can’t fight a demon all on my own!” Lucy said. “Valentina’s right, this is the end for all of us!”

  Brenda took Lucy’s hand in hers as more hail bounced through the window. “Courage, Lucy. I know you can do it. I’ll help you all I can.”

  “Ouch,” Lucy said, as Brenda’s fingers touched a patch of skin the iron manacles had rubbed raw.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, chicken.”

  Lucy stared down at her sore wrists, her mind suddenly whirring. “Brenda. Valentina put those manacles on me because the iron blocked my magic. Could we manacle the demon somehow? Block its powers and the magic it swallowed?”

  “That’d be impossible. It’s not even in a solid form at the moment. How could we manacle mist?”

  Lucy thought harder.

  “I’m getting claustrophobic under this stupid net! Take it off me!” Valentina shouted.

  Lucy gasped. “I think I’ve got an idea!” she said to Brenda. “Come with me!”

  There was a terrible tearing sound as the demon’s storm ripped the roof of the ballroom clean off. Rain and hail began to pelt down on to the motionless bodies of the magicians sprawled out on the floor.

  “You’d better not be leaving me here on my own!” Valentina yelled. Lucy and Brenda ignored her as they ran for the door. Out in the hallway, there was a young boy lying at the entrance to the ballroom.

  “What is that he’s holding?” Brenda asked.

  “It’s a mask,” Lucy said, quickly bending down next to the boy. He had a replica of Vonk’s face clutched in his hand. He must have torn it off just before he collapsed. “Valentina and her gang have been using them to impersonate people.”

  “I see. Or well, I don’t, but you can explain it to me later,” Brenda said. “Look, there’s a lantern over there. That might come in useful.”

  Brenda was right about the lantern. Outside, all the lights that had decorated the Hall earlier that evening had been destroyed by the demon and the grounds were now in pitch darkness. The lantern, which was really more for decoration, didn’t give much illumination, but it was better than nothing.

  “We have to get to the stables!” Lucy yelled above the roar of the wind, which was becoming so intense she could feel it vibrating though her.

  “Right,” said Brenda. “Let’s go!”

  They started to battle against the might of the gale. They staggered along past the wildlife park, where the animals were roaring and squawking and trumpeting in fear at the wildness of the weather, as if they knew it had an unnatural cause. Although Lucy’s heart ached to hear them in such terrible distress and she longed to be able to comfort them. The fact that they were all awake, alive and unaffected by the demon’s spell, gave her hope that at least one part of her plan might work.

  When Lucy and Brenda finally reached the stables, there was one piece of luck waiting for them. The grooms, who had probably sneaked off to enjoy a few beers down at The Grave’s End, had left a couple of lanterns burning. These were swaying from the beams of the stable, but thankfully hadn’t gone out.

  The sound of frightened horses, stamping and snorting in distress at the storm, filled the stable. Lucy and Brenda dodged their way past flailing hooves to find what they were looking for – the two horses that pulled Lady Sibyl’s carriage across the skies. Like the other animals, they were wide-eyed and agitated.

  “I thought you said they had wings?” Brenda said.

  Lucy’s heart jolted. Brenda was right. The horses were indeed wingless. “Our plan’s not going to work without flying horses!”

  “Come on, Lucy. Calm yourself. Perhaps they’re the wrong horses.”

  “No. They’re the right ones.” Lucy clutched her forehead in despair. This was terrible! But then she took a deep breath. She’d been in seemingly hopeless situations before and found a way out. The Jerome Wormwood case for example … Jerome Wormwood. Of course! She remembered how he’d used a special brush to transform Lady Sibyl’s horses from ordinary-looking animals into winged steeds. “Brenda! There should be a brush somewhere. A little round silver brush! Oh, I hope their groom hasn’t taken it with him!”

  “What about that?” Brenda said, pointing to a leather bag hanging from a hook on the wall of the stable. Lucy grabbed it and rummaged through it. She pulled out a few apples and a currycomb, and then spotted the brush she was looking for, nestled at the bottom.

  Lucy took the brush and began to gently run it along the side of one of the horses. The brush glowed as she worked. Sparks danced along the horse’s skin and its wings began to unfold.

  “How beautiful,” Brenda said softly.

  “I know.” Lucy carried on brushing until the horse’s wings were fully unfurled. Then she moved on to its mane and tail, grooming them until they were fluffy and whisper-light.

  Lucy repeated the process with the other horse. As she worked, she found that the grooming had a soothing effect on the two animals. They became calmer and steadier, even though the storm raged on outside.

  “I think we’re ready,” Lucy said when both the horses were fully transformed. Her voice was slightly unsteady.

  “Right you are,” Brenda said in an impressively matter-of-fact manner. “Time to chase a demon, chicken!”

  Because the flying horses looked so ethereal and their wings so delicate, Lucy was worried that they might not be able to stay aloft in the powerful storm the demon had raised. But the horses were more resilient than they appeared. Although the gales buffeted them up and down, they were strong enough to keep flying.

  Lucy and Brenda had also been lucky and had found some wet-weather gear in the stable, including hooded cloaks made out of a rubbery material that reminded Lucy uncomfortably of Valentina’s masks.

  When they’d flown high enough, the two of them reined in the horses. An enormous bolt of lightning lit up the sky and for a few seconds the grey mass that was the demon could be seen whirling around the spire of St Isan’s, the church in Grave Village.

  “We need to head for the church,” Lucy yelled to Brenda, pointing at the spire. Lucy’s horse neighed and galloped off immediately, as did Brenda’s.


  Neither of them had been expecting this. Brenda screamed and grabbed at her horse’s mane. Lucy herself began to topple sideways and for a dizzying, terrifying moment thought she was about to fall to her death. She squeezed her legs tightly into her horse’s sides and managed to right herself.

  “They must understand what we say!” bellowed Brenda as the horses charged onwards. Lucy would have found this hard to believe if it hadn’t been for her recent experience with the window-cleaning giraffe.

  As they reached the church spire, the grey mist started to change. It formed into the shape of a face, with flickering lightning for eyes and mouth.

  “Lucy Goodly!” the face boomed.

  Lucy and Brenda both told their horses to stop at once. Neither of them wanted to get any closer to the demon. Its mouth was so huge it could have swallowed the horses and riders in one easy gulp.

  Although Lucy’s horse was steadfastly hovering in the air, Lucy could feel it trembling. She patted its neck, to soothe her own terror as much as the horse’s.

  “Yes, that’s me!” Lucy shouted, wondering how the demon knew her name.

  “Why have you followed me?”

  “I-I wanted to talk to you.”

  The demon heaved a sigh, sending a squall of wind rushing towards the high street of Grave Village. There was a loud creak, followed by an even louder crash as a tree was uprooted and fell over, blocking the road. “What is it?”

  Lucy turned her face away from the demon. “I can’t talk to you like this,” she said, trying to play for time. “You’re too scary.”

  The demon laughed. “I am rather impressive, I know. But I understand. I can take any form you like, Lucy Goodly.”

  “How do you know my name?” Lucy shouted, her face still turned away from the demon.

  “I took all the magic and knowledge from those puny magicians. Everything they know, I know. Anyway, let’s get this over with so I can continue with my wanton destruction.”

  “Will you take a form that won’t scare me first, then? Can I choose?”