by Chris Ward
‘Take a look, kids,’ Barnacle said as they reached the car park. He turned away from the guesthouse and gestured out to sea.
A series of ‘wows’ and gasps greeted the view. Benjamin wandered to the edge of the car park, where the hill sloped away to a beach. Far below spread out a U-shaped bay enclosed on either side by thickly vegetated headlands that circled around to almost touch each other. A sand bar made a natural gate against the sea, and the bay was a larger version of the breeding pond, its dark green water punctuated by rock stacks sticking out like blunt pencil heads.
And there, in the water, were the dragons.
‘They’re huge!’ Miranda gasped.
Several gaudily coloured paper dragons the length of a school swimming pool circled in the water, occasionally bobbing up or diving below the surface. Several more lay curled around the rock stacks like rainbow-coloured streamers.
‘Why are they so big?’ Miranda asked, turning to Barnacle. ‘The ones in that pond were tiny.’
‘Big ones,’ he said. ‘Males.’ His fat face widened into a grin that pushed barnacles up to nearly cover his eyes. ‘You’ll be going on a tour tomorrow. My assistant is an expert on them.’ Miranda opened her mouth to ask another question, but Barnacle clapped his hands together and turned away. ‘Now, everyone, let’s eat!’
The second-years rushed up the path to the guesthouse doors. Having been around long enough to see plenty of bizarre animals, they weren’t as interested as the first-years. As the rest of the first-years—Benjamin, Snout, and Miranda among them—stared at the elegant creatures drifting through the water, Ms. Ito stuck out a hand to turn them away.
‘Come on, hurry up,’ she barked. ‘Not got all day.’
‘Give them a minute,’ a familiar voice said, and Benjamin turned to see Edgar striding up the path. The old wizard wore a jovial smile that made Ms. Ito scowl like an angry vulture.
‘I’ll look after them,’ he said.
‘Food’s gone, you starve,’ Ms. Ito spat, then she turned and stumped toward the guesthouse.
Edgar just shrugged. ‘Quite a view, isn’t it?’ He glanced at Barnacle, who examined the backs of his hands as if he had never seen them before. ‘Oh, hello, Alan. Been a long time. How’s business?’
Barnacle looked up. ‘Oh, great. Don’t get as many travelers as we used to, but not bad. You are?’
Edgar frowned. ‘Don’t you remember me? Professor Caspian. I brought you here on a school trip thirty-odd years ago. You never wanted to leave, and I see you didn’t.’
‘Oh, right.’ Barnacle tapped the side of his head. ‘Brain’s not what it was.’ He flashed Edgar a wide grin. ‘Must be the humidity. Right, lunch. Don’t let it get cold; there’s nothing else until dinner.’
Cuttlefur, Miranda, and Snout also started toward the entrance, but Benjamin hung back with Edgar, feeling for the first time like he was close to a friend, despite Edgar being as old as his grandfather.
‘He’s a little strange,’ Benjamin said.
‘Huh. You don’t know the half of it. He lives off the algae growing in the water that stops the dragons from disintegrating. It’s got a high natural fat content that coats the dragons’ skin. But you don’t want to eat too much of it, or you’ll swell up like a balloon. Always did like his seafood, that boy.’ He grinned. ‘Was always first in line for a second portion. Strange how he didn’t recognise me, though.’
‘You used to teach him?’
‘Alan Barnes—now, affectionately, Barnacle—was the biggest swot I ever had,’ Edgar said. ‘Couldn’t keep his hand down in class. So keen I wanted to send him to the Locker Rooms just so other pupils could have a chance to answer questions. Hmm. Strange that he doesn’t remember me….’
‘We’d better hurry up and get to lunch,’ Benjamin said. ‘Just in case he’s still got the same appetite.’
On the guesthouse’s bottom floor, a series of trestle tables filled a gloomy cafeteria, and Benjamin sighed as he sat down, hearing Snout trying to discuss the spiral design on his fork’s handle with anyone who had no choice but to listen. When he looked down at his plate, though, his eyes lit up.
Amidst a circle of the same kind of vegetables as Endinfinium High’s lay a neat triangle of pink meat.
‘Is it really salmon?’ he said, looking up, finding no one but Snout to talk to.
Snout shrugged. ‘Looks like it. Tastes … more or less like it.’
‘Endinfinium salmon,’ proclaimed a voice from so close behind Benjamin, he almost fell off of his chair. He looked around to see a smiling, middle-aged man wearing a chef’s hat that flopped over one side of his face, which was thin, the hair around his ears grey, but when he smiled, his dark blue eyes sparkled as if a current of electricity ran through his visage. He held up a wooden bowl and a ladle. ‘Sauce? Of course you do.’
Benjamin leaned sideways to avoid getting burned as a boiling cascade of green slime with the consistency of custard splashed all over his plate. As he looked up in despair, the chef stepped back with an extravagant bow.
‘Chef Jim Green at your service,’ he said. ‘That’s “green,” like my cooking. Eat up, now.’ And he was gone, weaving around the tables to ladle out scoops of slime into bowls, whether it was asked for or not.
‘Tastes better than it looks,’ said Adam, sitting a few seats down on the other side. He had found time to change out of his wet school uniform, now wearing brown overalls that, by their size, had been loaned from Barnacle. He grimaced. ‘At least, warmed up, it does.’
Benjamin glanced at the teachers’ table where Ms. Ito and Professor Eaves held an animated conversation while pointedly ignoring Edgar. Barnacle circulated among the tables, huge hands on his hips, lines of sweat dripping down his brow. Despite the big grin he had given them upon arrival, he now looked distinctly unsettled by their presence. Benjamin hadn’t realised he was staring, until Barnacle abruptly turned in his direction, and their eyes locked. A shiver of unease tickled down Benjamin’s back as the rotund innkeeper’s eyes held his own gaze for far too long to be casual, and Benjamin felt a hint of something that scared him just a little.
Recognition.
22
Absence
The boys’ rooms and girls’ rooms were separate, with the places in each three-person room decided by drawing lots. While Benjamin was relieved to have avoided rooming with Snout, he instead found himself sharing a three-bed room with Fat Adam and Cuttlefur. Adam’s mouth was as big as his stomach, and Cuttlefur sat politely while Adam flapped a paper leaflet like a fly swatter, prattling on about how close he had felt to death when Ms. Ito pushed him into the breeding pond.
‘Surely there’s a rule about that sort of thing,’ he said. ‘I mean, if there were courts or police, I could call them and have her arrested, couldn’t I?’
‘Not really possible, is it?’ Benjamin said.
‘I’m saying, but if it was. I mean, she tried to murder me.’
‘I think she was teaching you a lesson.’
Cuttlefur laughed. ‘I don’t think she cared one way or another. That’s why she’s so scary.’
‘But you stood up to her! I mean—wow! You took on Ms. Ito!’
‘I didn’t take her on. I just told her the truth.’
‘I bet she hates you now.’
‘I think she’s more likely to respect me.’
As he listened to the exchange, Benjamin slowly warmed to Cuttlefur. The boy was easy to like, despite Wilhelm’s protests, and no wonder Miranda and he had become practically inseparable.
Did Cuttlefur really have a way to leave? Perhaps he also knew about Source Mountain and had planned to take her there.
Might be easier if they tried to escape together.
Benjamin hadn’t had much time to figure out how he would actually get to Source Mountain and what he would do once he got there. He hoped Jeremiah Flowers had left behind some sign he could follow, but if not, there was always his magic.
He hadn’t used
it in weeks. Part of him was afraid it would begin to tear apart his body like it had done before, when he drew the power from himself rather than from the earth like Grand Lord Bastien had taught him. At the same time, though, he felt like he was saving it for one huge blast, something that would either help him or destroy him. Could he blast his way through the culvert to the world on the other side, or didn’t it work like that?
Today was Tuesday, and they wouldn’t be returning home until Friday morning. Until that time, he was prepared to sit and wait for his chance.
In time, it would come. He just had to be patient.
‘Toilet,’ he muttered, getting up and going out, leaving Adam to bend Cuttlefur’s ear with his plans for Ms. Ito’s eventual demise.
Despite its colourful exterior, the guesthouse’s rooms and corridors were gloomy, narrow, and poorly lit. Wanting to be alone, Benjamin took the first unlit corridor he came to and wandered through dreary corridors of closed doors with dusty handles, past prints on the faded, water-damaged walls. At one point, he ended up in a dusty ballroom with tables and stacked chairs covered by dirty sheets. Unlike the school, none of it seemed to be reanimated, as if things here were truly dead. He put his hands on a wooden doorframe, feeling for the familiar warmth, though he only sensed the slightest residue heat, nothing more. When he leaned close and smelled the wood, he thought he understood why: a faint smell of ancient chamomile lingered, as though the walls had once been painted with the stuff and had been dormant ever since.
At the end of another corridor, Benjamin stopped at the bottom of a metal fire escape, and in the light of a skylight far above, he saw a single set of footprints in the dust.
They were petite, like those of a girl’s.
Quietly, wincing at each creak of the steps beneath his feet, Benjamin climbed up to the roof.
At the top, the door was slightly ajar and led onto a bare veranda. It faced away from the bay, back to the hills. The yellow sun had already begun to set, leaving the veranda in shadow.
Even in the gloom, Benjamin recognised Miranda’s bright red hair. She was facing away, back toward the hills that rose above them and blocked their view of inland. Her hands were spread, fingers wide, and she pushed them forward and back as if trying to bounce an invisible basketball.
He closed his eyes, feeling for her magic. Edgar had taught them that Summoners like himself, Channelers like Miranda, and Weavers like Wilhelm could sense each other if they understood how the sensation felt.
It was a kind of tingly warmth, like when you warmed your hands at a crackling fire, though you didn’t feel it with your skin, you felt it from the inside out, as if the magic were a magnifying glass focused on your own heart. Subtle and as difficult to miss as a simple temperature change, but with practice, you were able to spot it. After Grand Lord Bastien had explained the feeling to Benjamin, he had gone with Miranda and Wilhelm to an unused classroom, where they had sat in a circle and practiced guessing whether or not one of them was pulling on their magic. It had proved quite an experience, until Captain Roche had caught them at it and sent them all to the Locker Rooms for a thousand cleans for going into an off-limits room without permission.
When Benjamin opened his eyes, Miranda was still standing with her back to him, shaking her hands out, becoming increasingly agitated. She was a Channeler, able to draw on the reanimation magic at will, using it to reanimate and deanimate at her choosing. But as Benjamin felt for it, he shook his head. There was nothing.
‘Miranda.’
He stepped out onto the roof. She spun round, and her hands came up, ready to unleash her power on what she thought was an enemy, though with none of the warmth that should have come with it.
‘Benjamin … what are you doing here? Did you follow me?’
‘No. I was just exploring. I saw your footprints.’
‘What do you want?’
The unfamiliarity in her voice was heartbreaking. Until Cuttlefur had shown up, they had been best friends, nearly inseparable.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. I’m just—’
‘I can’t feel your magic. Perhaps you should speak to Edgar?’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe you’re tired or something?’
Miranda’s eyes widened, her lips curled back, and Benjamin started. The Miranda he knew was fiery, but the look on her face was devilish, almost evil.
‘It’s not gone!’ she shouted, throwing her hands up as though to shove him back against the wall. Nothing happened.
Benjamin shook his head. ‘Just calm down. I’m sure it’ll be back in a bit. Try not to panic.’
‘Shut up!’
She marched toward him. When he didn’t move aside quickly enough, she shoulder-barged him out of the way, then broke into a run to the door. He watched her, heart thundering.
‘Miranda, please! Come back!’
‘You’re not my friend! You’re on his side!’
Benjamin could only assume she meant Wilhelm, but before he could ask, she was gone through the doors and down the steps.
As the sound of her footsteps died away, he forced himself not to give in to the despair building up inside him.
The source of the Great Junk River was so close, he could almost reach out and touch it, and though he had no intention of giving up on his escape attempt, he had hoped to leave on good terms with his friends.
Miranda, though, was hurting. And he didn’t know what he could do to help.
23
Hopeless
Miranda stomped back through the corridors to her room with a thundercloud over her head. Her magic had gone, and her friends didn’t care, so no, everything would not be okay. She had lost the only thing that made her feel safe, and without it, she felt helpless. What was Benjamin talking about? Edgar couldn’t help her. The old wizard could tell her how to use it, but he couldn’t bring it back once it was gone.
When she reached a quiet corridor far enough away from Benjamin, Miranda stopped, cupped her face, and cried until her eyes hurt and her stomach knotted. Then, she wiped her eyes and spent a couple of minutes calming herself. It did no good to cry about it, but she did feel a lot better. Her magic was gone, but what did it matter? She and Cuttlefur would be gone soon, too, and back in England, with a real family. She wouldn’t need her magic anymore.
She undid a top button on her shirt and put a hand inside, searching for the necklace Cuttlefur had given her, and when her fingers closed over the red stone, an overwhelming sense of relief washed over her as if he was protecting her, even when he wasn’t there. The stone, too, felt warm, as though it had sensed her distress and was trying to bring her comfort.
It didn’t matter that her magic had vanished when she had such a wonderful gift. Cuttlefur was just too kind, not like Benjamin and Wilhelm. She couldn’t believe she had considered them friends. All this time … and it had taken Cuttlefur to show her the truth.
They weren’t her friends, weren’t on her side at all. Cuttlefur was the only one who could protect her, and she needed to find him now. He was rooming with Benjamin, but if she hurried, she could get to their room before Benjamin found his way back and created an awkward scene.
When she got there, though, neither Cuttlefur nor Benjamin were there. Only Snout, sitting on the bed farthest from the only window, flicking through a picture book of old cars.
‘Cuttlefur went off somewhere,’ Snout said. ‘Not sure where. Benjamin went to the toilet about half an hour ago, too. Didn’t come back. I hope he’s not sick.’
‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ she said, trying to be civil to the dimwit. She secretly wished Benjamin was sick enough to be glued to the toilet. It would serve him right. ‘Which way did Cuttlefur go?’
‘Don’t know.’
She resisted the urge to berate him and went out. The corridor led away left and right, so she chose left, back to the entrance. Cuttlefur was more likely to have gone outside than into the dark, unused corridors at the back of the guesthouse.
&
nbsp; On the way, she had to go past her own room near the end of the corridor. She was sharing with Amy and Cherise, two second-year girls who wanted little to do with her, both because she was a lowly first-year and because she was friends with Cuttlefur. By default, she had been given the dirtiest, springiest bed, and Amy and Cherise had then paired up for girly chats on Cherise’s bed, with two snotty glares when Miranda asked a simple question about lunch, which was enough to tell her she wasn’t welcome.
Neither were in the room now, though, so she went inside and stood nervously in the centre. Had they gone off somewhere with Cuttlefur, perhaps? Or had she missed something on the scheduled itinerary that the teachers would now be spitting fire about? Above Cherise’s bed, a window overlooked the car park below, so Miranda climbed across the bed to look, letting the dusty sole of her shoe brush Cherise’s pillow on the way.
The window also overlooked the bay. The red sun was now hidden behind the twin headlands that almost turned the bay into a lake, while the yellow sun hung just above, stretching long shadows from the trees across the car park to the doors of the guesthouse.
Miranda shivered. For a moment they felt like the Dark Man’s claws, reaching out for her. Then something behind her fluttered.
She turned. The box she had slid beneath her bed shifted. Rick, Wilhelm’s pet Scatlock, was inside.
Anger surged. Wilhelm called himself her friend, yet he had spied on her. And she had told him she would keep Rick until he proved himself her friend again. But that would never happen.
She ran over to her bed, pulled out the box, and carried it over to the window. When she ripped it open, Rick fluttered his wings as if in greeting, but all Miranda saw was the camera still tied around his neck, the one that had started all the trouble. Maybe that was why Cuttlefur wasn’t in his room. He was avoiding her, afraid of the camera she had brought.
