‘He wants this little thing.’ Stella put a hand to her chest, where Mr Filbert’s package was hidden.
‘What thing? What is it?’ asked Gert.
‘I don’t know,’ said Stella. She pulled out the pocket and unwrapped the little silver bottle. ‘Look.’
Gert took it gingerly. She turned it over in her hands and it gleamed in the darkness. Out of the corner of her eye, Stella had a glimpse of something silvery flickering. She turned quickly, but saw nothing but shadows.
‘There’s something inside,’ Gert said, peering into the bottle. ‘I saw it move.’ She shuddered. ‘That’s right creepy. What’s in there?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Stella again. ‘Ben was telling me, but he didn’t finish the story. It was about a sorcerer from the olden days. The Grimpen Sorcerer. I think the bottle belonged to him.’
‘Is Ben that boy the Professor’s got?’ asked Gert. Without waiting for an answer, she went on, ‘When there’s a big storm, my granny says the Grimpen Serpent’s swimming again. But that’s just an old saying.’
‘Ben said the Grimpen Sorcerer could change into a serpent,’ said Stella, remembering.
Gert shrugged. ‘Sounds like a fairy story to me.’ She handed the bottle back to Stella. ‘Well, it gives me the frights,’ she said.
‘I wish I knew what to do with it.’ Stella wrapped it up and tucked it away.
‘It’s something bad, isn’t it? We can’t let the Professor get it. He’s up to no good, he is. Perhaps you should chuck it in the sea,’ suggested Gert, eyeing the window. ‘Get rid of it.’
‘No, I promised to keep it safe,’ said Stella. ‘I promised Mr Filbert, and he’s dead now. The Professor stabbed him.’
‘Dead!’ gasped Gert. ‘Cripes.’ She thought for a second. ‘Well, then sniggle it away somewhere and come back for it later.’
Stella shook her head. ‘No. The best chance would be to run, if we can. I can’t hide it. Ben can see things that have happened. The Professor makes him look into a pool of ink, and he sees things there. If I hid it somewhere, Ben would see, and he’ll tell the Professor.’
‘I thought that boy was like that,’ said Gert. ‘You know. Uncanny.’
‘Fey?’ asked Stella.
‘Some people say that. Off with the fairies. We had a girl dancing in the Fairy Bells once. Tottie. She was like that. She was always listening to something nobody else could hear. She said it was the fairies singing. But Mrs Mac wouldn’t have it. She locked Tottie in the cupboard until she stopped talking about it.’
‘But why?’
‘Well, it ain’t respectable, is it? Mrs Mac’s right proper. Elbows off the flippin’ table, girls. Don’t chew with your gobs open,’ Gert said in a prim voice, and giggled. ‘Respectable people don’t talk about that havey-cavey stuff. And if they’ve got something like that in their family, they keep it quiet. They don’t want people to know their great-great-grandpa was part mermaid or sorcerer or fairy or something. Or turned into a dirty big pumpkin at midnight, like in the old stories. Or used to lurk about under bridges and then jump out and eat people.’ She snorted with laughter.
Stella remembered Aunt Temperance saying, We never speak of such things. Never. There was nobody more respectable than the Aunts. No wonder they would not answer her questions.
After a moment, she said, ‘Ben thought I might be fey. But I can’t do anything like that. I can’t see things that have happened, like Ben, and I can’t hear fairies singing.’
Gert shrugged. ‘Perhaps it’s something else with you.’
Stella felt the back of her neck prickle. Ben had said exactly the same thing. She imagined something hiding inside her chest. Something dark and secret. Like the thing that lurked inside Mr Filbert’s bottle. She swallowed. ‘But I’m not like that,’ she said. ‘I can’t do anything like that at all. I’m just ordinary.’
Gert shrugged again and pulled the tapestry more tightly around their shoulders. ‘It runs in families, that kind of thing,’ she said. ‘Anyone in your family a bit peculiar?’
‘I live with my Aunts. They’re peculiar, but they’re not like that. They’re very respectable. My parents died when I was little. I don’t know anything about them.’
‘My mam’s dead too, and my dad’s gone,’ said Gert. ‘I’ve got five little brothers. Little monkeys, the lot of ’em. They live with our granny. You got brothers or sisters?’
‘No, there’s only me,’ said Stella. But she remembered the photograph she had found in Aunt Temperance’s album. ‘At least, I think there’s only me,’ she said.
‘Don’t you know?’
Stella explained about the photograph. ‘In the picture, there was a lady and two babies. It said P, S and L on the back. My mother was called Patience, so perhaps it’s a picture of her. P for Patience and S for Stella. I don’t know about L. Maybe I had a sister, do you think? But now I’ve lost the photograph. It was in my Atlas and I dropped it at the theatre. It’s gone. And my Aunts never answer my questions. I want to try to find out. But don’t know how.’
‘Don’t say I’ll try, girl. Say I will,’ said Gert firmly. ‘That’s what Mrs Mac says. It’s like when I was little, and she was learning me handsprings. If you think you can’t do it, you hesitate, and you land smack on your face. You have to say to yourself, I can do this, and believe it.’
Gert seemed very sure of herself. Stella wished she could feel so confident. ‘I will find out,’ she said, as definitely as she could manage.
‘Mind you, it takes practice to do a handspring,’ said Gert. ‘You land smack on your face anyway, a whole lot of times.’
‘I’ll find out somehow,’ said Stella.
‘Family’s important,’ said Gert. ‘You got to know who you are.’
Later, Stella dreamed of dark water rising. Rippling, as if something were swimming just below the surface. Rising higher and higher. Swirling around her legs, pulling her off balance. Lapping at her chest, rising higher, over her head. She couldn’t breathe. Her mouth was full of water. There was no air. Something was howling.
She woke suddenly, gasping for breath. She stared into darkness. The wind sounded like voices crying.
Without thinking, she groped for the Atlas. But then she remembered it was lost. A sob caught in her throat. It had been trampled underfoot at the theatre and swept up with the rubbish. It was too dark to read, but she could have held it, and stroked its cover, and thought of comforting pictures from inside. Fighting her rising panic, she tried to remember something encouraging from it. She knew it by heart.
But it was difficult to remember properly. She was too frightened. She remembered only a jumble of things.
A picture of a tall ship caught in sea ice, torn apart and drifting.
Another picture of a dark, stormy sea, crashing waves and jagged lightning; a high, whirling waterspout threatening a small fishing boat.
A picture of a terrified horse, eyes rolling, splashing and struggling knee-deep in a river, attacked by an enormous, snake-like fish. The Gymnotus, or Electric Eel, can kill the largest animal, when in full galvanic vigour.
She shuddered, curled up tightly beside Gert, pulled the tapestry over her head, stuffed her fingers in her ears and shut her eyes.
The wind wailed. Every creak in the tower made her stiffen in fright. She thought of her bedroom at the hotel, familiar and safe, with the Aunts snoring in the next room. She wished she were back home.
She cried until she was exhausted and, at last, fell asleep.
A loud bang woke her and she sat up, heart thumping. She strained her ears, but could hear nothing but the wind and the sea.
She felt for Gert and shook her shoulder. ‘Wake up,’ she whispered.
‘What?’ mumbled Gert, sitting up.
Stella clutched her arm. ‘I heard something.’
A moment passed, and then they heard voices, another bang and footsteps coming up the stairs. Stella held her breath. She could feel Gert trembling.
> A light flickered under the door, a key rattled in the lock and the door opened. The lantern light was dazzling.
A figure stood in the doorway, gaunt and dark, his tall hat and long coat streaming with water.
It was the Professor.
The Professor took two strides into the room. Light reflected on the lenses of his spectacles. Stella swallowed. She tried to say something, but only managed to make a croaking noise. The Professor reached down and took hold of her arm and dragged her to her feet. Stella tried to pull away, but she was stiff with cold and shaking, and his grip was too strong. He reached down again and seized Gert. She twisted in his grasp, clawing at his gloved hand with her fingernails.
‘Let go,’ she gasped.
The Professor ignored their struggles, dragged them to the door and pushed them ahead of him down the steep, winding stairs. Stella stumbled and nearly fell.
At the bottom of the stairs was a wide hallway. Flurries of cold rain blew in through an archway from the darkness outside. The Professor pulled them along the hallway, towards a small door. It stood ajar, and a dim light shone from the room beyond.
Gert twisted around suddenly and shoved the Professor off balance. He dropped the lantern. It shattered on the stone floor.
In the darkness, Stella yelled, ‘Gert, run!’ She grabbed the Professor’s arm and clung on. His coat was slippery and wet. ‘Run!’ she shouted again.
Gert hesitated for a second and then turned and darted away through the archway and out into the storm. The Professor cursed. He shoved Stella to the floor, spun on his heel and followed Gert, his long coat flapping behind him. Stella got to her feet and dashed after them.
Outside, icy rain pelted down. Foam glimmered on the crashing waves below. Stone steps led down towards the causeway.
She started to climb down. The steps were uneven and slippery. She could only go slowly, one step at a time. Not far below, she heard sounds of a struggle. The Professor cursed. Gert cried out in pain. Stella hesitated, straining her eyes to see ahead.
The Professor suddenly loomed up out of the darkness, dragging Gert behind him.
‘Flipping skitching scumbucket. Let go of me,’ gasped Gert, struggling.
Stella turned to run but before she could move, the Professor grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her with a painful jerk. She almost fell, but he wrenched her to her feet and pushed her and Gert back up the stairs and into the tower. He dragged them along the hallway and through the small doorway into a candlelit room. He shut the door and turned the key in the lock.
The room was quiet. The thick stone walls muffled the sounds of the storm. The Professor’s breath was coming in angry hisses through his clenched teeth. He removed his hat and his wet coat and hung them up beside the door. Gert’s nose was bleeding and she held her arm awkwardly across her body, as if she had hurt her shoulder.
‘Are you all right?’ whispered Stella.
Gert nodded. ‘I’m prime,’ she said, but she was very pale and looked shaken.
The room was lined with shelves of books, boxes and bundles of paper. The Professor strode across to a workbench. There, a book lay open, closely written in a spidery hand in sepia ink. Woodworking tools hung in neat rows, beside string and glue and jars of nails and pieces of wood. Tiny models of theatre stages contained miniature wax figures performing magic tricks.
Mirrors everywhere reflected the flickering candlelight, but the high, curved ceiling was lost in darkness. A wavering face appeared out of the shadows. Stella caught her breath, but then saw it was her own reflection, so distorted and twisted by the curved surface of a mirror she could barely recognise herself.
A pale snake was coiled in a jar of dark liquid. A strange little doll leered from a high shelf, beside a skull and a collection of blackened bones. A spindly insect was twisted and frozen inside a piece of amber.
A movement caught Stella’s eye. Ben was crouched by the fireplace, laying a fire.
The Professor took off his gloves. On his pale hand, the ring with the dark stone glimmered in the candlelight. He turned it on his finger and said, ‘Hurry, boy. Did you see to the horse?’
Ben looked up nervously, his eyes on the Professor’s ring. He had a dark bruise on his cheek. He ducked his head and muttered, ‘Yes, sir,’ and turned back to the fire. He did not meet Stella’s gaze.
‘My workshop,’ said the Professor with a flourish of his fingers. ‘This island is sufficiently secluded for my purposes. We magicians must guard our professional secrets. And I have many secrets. Some you have already encountered. Fortunately, you did not damage them beyond repair.’ He gestured to the workbench, and Stella saw the hand of glory, looking somewhat squashed. Beside it lay the little beetle with its legs in the air and its clockwork insides in a saucer.
‘You have caused me much inconvenience.’ The Professor’s voice was sharp. ‘You will regret your decision to concern yourself with my affairs. Both of you.’ He strode across the room. ‘It ends now. Give it to me.’
‘I don’t have it,’ Stella said.
‘You do.’
Desperately, she backed away. Gert took a step towards him, but he pushed her aside easily and she collapsed against the wall with a moan of pain. He grasped Stella by the shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled together and she was dizzy and close to tears.
He turned the ring on his finger. The dark stone glittered red in the candlelight. ‘Boy,’ he said without taking his eyes from Stella. ‘Where is it?’
‘No, Ben!’ gasped Stella. ‘Don’t tell him.’
Ben’s face was in shadow. In a low, miserable voice, as if the words were being pulled from his throat against his will, he said, ‘Around her neck.’
‘No!’
The Professor grasped her neck. Stella struggled, but he snaked his fingers under her shirt, found the ribbon and pulled out Mr Filbert’s package. He snapped the ribbon with a sharp jerk and pushed her away. She stumbled backwards and fell to her knees.
He closed his fingers over the little package and gave a hissing sigh through his teeth. ‘At last,’ he murmured. ‘At last.’ He turned away from her and strode to his workbench. He took the package from the linen pocket and carefully unfolded the oilcloth and the paper.
‘Consider yourselves fortunate,’ he said. ‘All of you. For what you are about to witness will be beyond anything you could imagine.’
Stella swallowed and stammered, ‘D-don’t.’ She pulled herself to her feet and took a shuddering breath. ‘Don’t open it.’
The Professor smiled. ‘You know nothing of this. In our modern age we have only distant echoes of the old powers. Diluted whispers that have passed down through the years, becoming weaker and weaker. Faint traces, in these pieces of gimcrack I have collected, and this boy and his feeble visions. Worthless tricks with mirrors and goldfish to impress an ignorant crowd. Memories of the marvels that once were.’ He turned the gleaming silver bottle in his long, pale fingers. There was a slithering noise. Shadows flickered across the walls. ‘But here, in this bottle, here is power. Sealed and hidden, untainted by the years that have passed.’
Stella glanced at Ben. He was sitting hunched beside the fire, his ink-stained hands covering his face. Shadow, the kitten, was on his shoulder, watching the Professor, her fur spiky and her eyes huge and dark.
The Professor said, ‘Those that hid this thought it would be forgotten. That the hazel tree would keep it concealed forever. Fools try to hide what they cannot understand, what they fear. But I studied the books and untangled the mysteries and found where it had been buried. And then I overcame that pathetic, ancient dryad.’ He picked up a silver knife and began to cut the seal. ‘At last I have it in my possession. And I will set him free.’
Stella felt sick. There was a cold lump in her throat.
‘The Grimpen Sorcerer,’ said the Professor reverently. ‘The greatest of his age. He was tricked and trapped here. But I will set him free. And he will reward me.’
Hi
s face was radiant.
He drew the cork from the bottle.
For a moment, nothing happened. In the quiet, Stella could hear the wind howling around the tower.
The Professor held the bottle in both hands. It glowed in the candlelight, making flickering silver reflections on the lenses of his spectacles.
Something dark moved, just out of sight. Stella darted a look behind, but saw nothing but wavering shadows.
With a sigh, like a wave breaking over a pebbly beach, a faint wisp of smoke emerged from the bottle, curled into the air and disappeared.
Stella felt the back of her neck prickling.
Another wisp of smoke snaked from the bottle. It seemed to feel its way into the air, coiling and twisting like a serpent. The bottle glowed more brightly, with an intense silver light.
The Professor drew in a breath between his teeth. His hands were shaking and his knuckles were white. More smoke began to emerge from the bottle, curling up into the air, thickening and swirling, forming vague shapes of faces and creatures and twisting figures.
Gert whispered, ‘Flipping heck.’
Shadow hissed. The kitten gripped onto Ben’s shoulder, her ears flat against her head and her tail as spiky as a bottle brush.
There came another sigh, like a gust of wind. Stella felt the air move. The pages of the book on the workbench fluttered. Smoke poured from the bottle and twisted up into the air. It was difficult to believe so much smoke could come from such a tiny bottle. It formed a thickening column in the air above their heads. Faces formed and opened their mouths wide. Fish swam through tendrils of weed. Strange creatures flickered and writhed and disappeared.
Stella’s hair blew across her face. She pushed it back. A hunched figure was forming in the smoke. It twisted its head from side to side. The sighing grew louder and became a roar, like that of crashing waves.
The Professor cried out and dropped the bottle onto the workbench. His fingers were white and blistered. The bottle was covered with ice crystals.
Cold wind whipped around the room. Papers flew up into the air. The candles sputtered and the fire flared wildly.
Withering-by-Sea Page 12
