Blackfoot

by W. R. Gingell

  “…perfectly safe…my own–” said the tickerbox, and abruptly stopped. When it started up again, it was to say with terrifying calmness: “…they’re in my room…Ann, run…Mum…not going without her…Mum–” Then it gave vent to a long, protracted beep, and exploded.

  Annabel shrieked and ducked her head into her arms, but something flew past her cheek so hotly and sharply that she didn’t realise it had cut her until she felt the blood running down her cheek.

  He’s coming, said Blackfoot, and bit Annabel’s leg. Nan, he’s coming. You can’t do anything for Peter. I’m sorry.

  Annabel wiped her cheek with her shoulder and scrambled away down the path that led to the ruins. She couldn’t sense the magic that Blackfoot obviously could, but she could hear something now: the sound of steady, deliberate footsteps further down the lane. Whatever Mordion had done, it had made him feel confident enough not to chase her right away– or very urgently. That idea frightened Annabel enough to make her break into a painful, floppy trot, and then into an outright run.

  She was groaning for breath when she reached the first, outer ring of the ruins, and there she stopped, despite Blackfoot’s urging. Annabel didn’t know exactly why she’d stopped until it occurred to her that she wasn’t just listening for those horribly steady footsteps from the lane: she was listening for Peter’s careless passage through the woods on the hill.

  Blackfoot, with very little patience left in his voice, said: Nan, get into the castle now!

  “Why?” she panted, her eyes caught by a dark, frantic movement at the top of the hill just below the shadow that was Peter’s house. “What’s so important about getting to the ruins? If he’s got more magic now, he’ll catch me wherever I go.”

  He can’t catch you if you go into the castle, said Blackfoot. He was back to pacing furiously at her feet, his tail lashing. Once you’re in, it’ll seal itself up and won’t open again until quite a lot of predetermined factors are met.

  “That’s Peter,” said Annabel, wrapping her quivering arms around her quivering middle and pointing with her chin at the tiny movement on the hill. “I can see him running down the hill toward the woods. If it’s going to seal up, I can’t go in yet.”

  There was a muddle of hastily suppressed bad words at the back of Annabel’s mind where Blackfoot’s voice always popped up. Nan–

  “I’m not going until he gets here,” Annabel said, settling into an immovable, quivering blob on one of the fallen wall stones. “I can’t even see Mordion. Maybe– maybe he doesn’t know which way we went.”

  He knows, said Blackfoot, as the rapidly-growing form of Peter disappeared into the woods. He’s not in any hurry. He thinks he has the upper hand.

  Sure enough, Annabel heard the measured tread of Mordion’s footsteps again just a few minutes later. She stood, one foot on the broken wall of the ruins and the other digging into the grass with white toes. Above the hedge, she could just see the top of Mordion’s head as it drew closer: in a minute or two he would be able to see them.

  She looked around wildly at the hill again. “Where’s Peter? He should be here by now.”

  Don’t know, said Blackfoot tersely. Get into the castle.

  “You said it’ll seal up,” said Annabel, hovering with one foot on the outer wall stones and the other on grass.

  It will seal up, said Blackfoot, his tail lashing. That’s the idea. I can’t protect you in this form.

  “Yes, but who’ll protect Peter?”

  I’m sorry.

  “Mordion will kill him!”

  I’m sorry, Nan.

  Annabel, her voice quivering with fear, said again: “I’m not going until Peter’s here.”

  Her eyes scanned the bottom line of trees for a sight of Peter, while her neck prickled to the deliberate sound of Mordion’s footsteps up the lane. Annabel’s foot wriggled a little further onto the stone, her weight shifting just slightly, and Blackfoot’s voice said: There! At the tree-line!

  Annabel caught a breath. It was Peter, tearing along the lower slope of the hill toward the ruins as if death itself pursued him– and maybe it did, thought Annabel, gazing open-mouthed in dismay at the vast, rolling cloud of something that sped in his wake. He was throwing handfuls of something else over his shoulder as he ran, and with each handful the cloud gained ground until at last he was bolting in earnest toward Annabel and Blackfoot, his eyes wide and fixed, his mouth open to gasp for each breath.

  “Run, Peter!” shrieked Annabel. Her weight was all on the foot that rested on the stone, her other foot raised on tiptoe in preparation.

  He’s not going to make it, Nan, said Blackfoot, leaping to the rock beside her foot as if to urge her on. You need to get in there now!

  “You don’t know Peter,” said Annabel, her fingernails digging into her palms. “He raced the fastest boy in the village just to prove he could beat him. He doesn’t even care about running, but he makes sure that he’s the best at everything and he’s not going to die!”

  Peter stumbled at the meeting of the hill with the flat grassland of the ruins, and Annabel watched with her heart in her throat, hearing in her heartbeat Mordion’s footsteps as they rounded the last bend of the lane. Then Peter was there, his eyes as wide as Annabel’s and his feet flying. Annabel didn’t know whether she grabbed Peter or whether Peter grabbed her. Certainly someone grabbed the other one, and there was an impact that sent them both flying for a terrifying moment that stretched out until it was both longer and shorter than was possible, then they hit the mossy flagstones of the castle courtyard.

  3

  Someone was wheezing. That someone was likely to be herself, Annabel knew, because she could also hear Peter groaning and Blackfoot simultaneously hissing aloud and swearing inside her head.

  “You can’t say that!” she said, when she could speak again.

  There was utter silence before Blackfoot’s voice said: Oh, could you hear that?

  “Peter could probably hear it,” Annabel said crankily. She still hadn’t quite got her breath back and everything felt as though it had been shaken loose inside.

  “Ow!” said Peter, just as irritably. “Ann, you’re on my leg! Stop talking to your cat and move!”

  “Well, you’re on my hand!”

  “Why didn’t you just get out of the way!”

  “Couldn’t,” said Annabel, her face growing hot and tight.

  Peter, sitting up with another groan, caught sight of her face and winced. “Don’t start crying, Ann.”

  “I’m not crying.”

  Nan, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?

  “Are, too,” muttered Peter, looking away. “Oh, for pity’s sake, Ann, I just asked why you didn’t get out of the way!”

  “Couldn’t,” sobbed Annabel. “Blackfoot said the ruins would seal up as soon as I went in and I couldn’t–”

  “All right, all right, all right,” said Peter, sitting down beside her again. He was rather paler than he had been. “I’m sorry, Ann.”

  Nan, are you hurt?

  Annabel, hopelessly lost in her sobs, choked out: “I’m not hurt. Peter is…just…a pig.”

  “All right, I’m a pig,” agreed Peter, putting his arm around her. “I’m sorry, Ann.”

  “I know!” Annabel wailed. “But I can’t s– stop now!”

  “Shut up, then,” he said. “We’ll talk later. Right now I want to know who put all that around the ruins, anyway.”

  It was quite some time later that Annabel stopped crying. It was always the same way when she began to cry: it took a lot to get her to the point of actually crying, but once she’d begun, she couldn’t stop until she wasn’t able to cry any more. When at last Annabel was hiccoughing at uneven intervals instead of bawling continually, Blackfoot began to stir in her lap, butting his head against her chin. When she no longer responded to his mental questions he had slithered into her lap, and now he said: Nan, can you hear me?

  “Of course I can hear you,” said Annabel. “When haven’
t I?”

  Then stop ignoring me. We haven’t got time to sit and cry.

  “What do you mean?” Annabel said, with a sharp stab of fear.

  At the same time, Peter asked curiously: “Where’d the magic storm go, anyway? Did the barrier around the ruins stop it, or is it still there?”

  Dissipated, said Blackfoot shortly. It was Grenna’s: there wasn’t much of it and it’s used up now. It’ll take Mordion a little while to find another source.

  “That was Grenna’s magic?” said Annabel, wiping her grubby cheeks with the backs of her hands.

  “Thought it was familiar,” Peter said, in satisfaction. “It was just that the spell was put together differently. It was savage, Ann. Grenna did that?”

  “That’s what Blackfoot said. Peter, is your mother all right?”

  “She’s fine,” he said, the satisfaction vanishing from his face. “It only wanted me, so I ran and took it away from the house. Brannen will protect Mum. Actually, if it comes to that, he’s pretty good at keeping her safe: it’s about the only thing I like about him.”

  “Good,” said Annabel, feeling a twist in her stomach straighten out. “Blackfoot, what do you mean, used up? Grenna’s magic is used up?”

  She’s used up, too, Blackfoot said quietly.

  “She’s dead?”

  Yes.

  Peter dusted himself off impatiently. “Stop talking to the cat and talk to me! What do you mean, Grenna’s dead?”

  “That grey cat, the Mordion one,” Annabel said. “Grenna made a spell for him to use me and Blackfoot but I got Blackfoot out, so Mordion took Grenna’s magic instead.”

  “Phew!” Peter whistled. “No wonder the spell was so different. Where’s this Mordion got to, then?”

  That’s what I’m trying to tell you, said Blackfoot impatiently. We need to move further in, Nan. It won’t be long before he works out what has happened, and I can’t guarantee that the sealing will stay where it is for more than a day or two if he gains access to more magic. Further in is safer.

  “Blackfoot says we should move further in,” Annabel reported, climbing awkwardly to her feet. She still felt as though everything inside her wobbly, soft body had been shaken with great force.

  “Further in, where?” said Peter. “It’s not like there’s much of the ruins left, is it? We can go further into the centre, but what good will that do?”

  “Don’t know,” Annabel said. She pointed toward the centre of the ruins. “But that spire wasn’t there yesterday, was it?”

  “What–? That– that’s impossible. That wasn’t there yesterday.”

  Annabel gazed up at the spire. “That’s what I just said.”

  It wasn’t exactly a spire: it was the outer edge of a tower, tall and precarious and out of place, and it certainly hadn’t been that tall or that new-looking yesterday, either.

  The castle, said Blackfoot, his tail lashing, is–

  Peter yelped, and Annabel found herself being dragged sideways until they were behind one of the outcroppings. “Ow! What–?” she began, but Peter clapped his hand over her mouth.

  “Shhh!” he hissed. “There’s a man over there!”

  Annabel looked up with a leadening of dread. Sure enough, it was Mordion, standing on a piece of rubble just outside the ruins, his head turning carefully this way and that as his narrowed gaze passed over the crumbled masonry.

  It’s all right, said Blackfoot. He can’t see us. Not yet.

  “Blackfoot says he can’t see us,” said Annabel. She still felt uncomfortably exposed crawling back out from behind the bricked outcrop, and Peter must have felt the same way, because it took even longer for him to join Annabel and Blackfoot in the open courtyard.

  “Is that–”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Looking for us, I think,” said Annabel. She felt like shivering again. “Blackfoot, why is he still looking for us?”

  Because he still needs you.

  “He needs me? Why? I thought it was you he needed.”

  We should go further in first, said Blackfoot. His tail was lashing again– in a combination of impatience and anxiety, Annabel rather thought.

  “Blackfoot still wants to go further in,” she told Peter.

  “Oh, well, if the cat wants to go further in!”

  Annabel rolled her eyes at him. “You can’t ask me what the ca– what Blackfoot is saying all the time and then go back to not believing he talks!”

  “I can do whatever I want,” Peter said. “You’re the one who talks to yourself. You can’t turn up your nose at me.”

  “Fine,” said Annabel, following Blackfoot, who had padded away as soon as they began to argue. “You stand here and watch Mordion. I’m going to go further in with Blackfoot.”

  Peter hurried after her. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to come!”

  They left the outer wall and Mordion behind, following Blackfoot further into the untidy ruins. Annabel, who was still sniffling occasionally, wiped her nose on the front of her flannels and came to the gloomy realisation that her flannel nightgown was now her single piece of clothing. She looked enviously at Peter, who must have been dressed when her message came through the tickerbox. Not only was he was fully clothed, but shod, his hands comfortably in his pockets.

  “Are we stuck in here now?” she asked Blackfoot.

  “Probably,” said Peter, scuffing his shoes along the flagstones.

  For now, said Blackfoot. But if things go right, if I’m right–

  “If you’re right about what?” demanded Annabel. “Where are we going to sleep?” And then, appalled: “What are we going to eat?”

  Peter gave a rude crack of laughter. “It never fails!”

  If I’m right, said Blackfoot, something should start to happen. I don’t know exactly what, but I think the castle will come back.

  “Blackfoot thinks the castle will start to come back,” Annabel said to Peter, more because she thought it might annoy him than because she thought he’d believe her.

  “Rubbish!” said Peter. “What utter rot! How can it come back? Come back from where, exactly? It’d have to come back from the past, if it was coming back from anywhere, and time travel is impossible!”

  Not impossible, said Blackfoot, his voice more particularly caustic than usual. Just very, very difficult.

  “Don’t tell me,” Peter said, shoving his hands even further into his pockets and curling his lip. “The cat has just said it’s not impossible.”

  “Yes.”

  “I told you not to tell me,” complained Peter. “I don’t want to hear it. It is impossible, and nothing your imaginary voice tells you is going to make any difference.”

  He’s quite an irritating little thing, isn’t he?

  “Well, yes, but Grenna said it’s impossible, too,” Annabel said, grudgingly fair to Peter.

  Grenna isn’t the repository of all magical knowledge, Blackfoot said, just as Peter said: “That’s no proof, Ann: what Grenna didn’t know about magic could fill a whole bookcase of books.”

  “Shut up, both of you,” grumbled Annabel. “I don’t know why you can’t get along: you both say the same thing most of the time.”

  Don’t compare me with that cocksure young dribble, protested Blackfoot.

  Peter said: “Thanks a lot, Ann! I’ll have you know that my intelligence–”

  “Oh, shut up,” Annabel said to Peter. To Blackfoot, she said: “You were probably just like him when you were a kitten.” She left both Blackfoot and Peter spluttering their outrage behind her, and stomped further into the ruins.

  Blackfoot soon took the lead again, with the rather snide question of: Do you know where you’re going, Nan? No? I didn’t think so. This way. Annabel didn’t really mind. She was still feeling shaken and not quite sure of anything, and it was comforting to follow the familiarity of Blackfoot’s lead. Peter continued to grumble as he trailed behind them, but he didn’t try to do anything more than
follow Blackfoot either. Annabel wondered if he was as frightened as she was, and came to the surprising conclusion that yes, he probably was.

  By late morning, they had found their way into the old throne room. Annabel and Peter had found it once before, but it was so deep in a vicious snarl of blackberries and raspberries that they hadn’t tried to visit it again: Annabel, because it took far too much effort and sweat, and Peter, because he cared more about his tickerboxes anyway, and the light wasn’t as good in the throne room.

  Annabel, sweaty, scratched, and tired of pushing through brambles, sank down on the dais and wished it wasn’t so stuffy in the throne room. It was the only place in the ruins where you couldn’t see the sky, and she resented not being able to see it.

  Peter looked around critically. “Is this where we’re staying, then? Good. There are some things I want to know about.”

  I wondered how long it would take, said Blackfoot, his voice somewhere between resigned and amused. Nan, why do you always wait for Peter to ask the questions? Have you spent so long pretending to be stupid that you actually believe it now?

  “Because I can’t think of any to ask,” Annabel groaned, flopping on her back to feel the coolness of the marble slabs beneath her. “I told you. I’m not the clever one: Peter is.”

  “Shut up for a bit, Ann,” Peter said impatiently. “I want to know how the cat knew the ruins were going to seal up. I also want to know why that Mordion came after me, and what on earth he wants with you.”

  Annabel sat up again, crossing her legs, then leant her elbows on her legs and her chin on her fists. From there it was easy to give Peter her best stupid, expressionless look.

  “What now?” demanded Peter in annoyance.

  “I thought you wanted me to shut up. And I also thought you were back to thinking Blackfoot can’t talk.”

  Peter scowled. “I don’t know. But I know you wouldn’t know about the ruins sealing, so something’s up.”

  It was more of a guess than anything, said Blackfoot, licking a paw.

  “What if you’d guessed wrong?” Annabel demanded.