‘Oh,’ murmured Aunt Alys, and everybody winced.
‘That was stupid of me,’ Aunt Franny said. ‘I only meant we have the very best. Alys, I am certain they will bring your boy home.’
‘What about that boy we rescued?’ I remembered suddenly, turning to Aunts Maya and Lisbeth. ‘Alejandro? Is he still on your ship? He was from the Dagger and Serpent Pirate Ship, so he might know something about the pirates? Like where they hide or something?’
But both captains shook their heads. ‘He’s vanished,’ Aunt Lisbeth said. ‘We were bringing him here to meet Alys. She wanted to thank him for sending her the telegram to warn her.’
‘Turned out to be a useless warning, didn’t it?’ Aunt Nancy put in. We ignored her.
‘But now we can’t find him anywhere,’ Aunt Lisbeth finished.
‘Joined up with the pirates again, no doubt,’ Aunt Nancy said darkly. ‘Probably part of the plot all along.’
The aunts began to quarrel and my cousins and I looked at each other without speaking. Taylor slipped into the room, having finished dealing with her horse, and perched on the back of a couch.
If Prince William was really a handful, I thought, maybe the pirates would get tired of him? Or maybe he could be enough of a handful to escape himself?
‘Is the prince big for his age?’ I asked. ‘Or small?’
The aunts stopped arguing and turned to me.
‘Bronte,’ Aunt Maya said gently. ‘When Alys told us all that pirates planned to capture Prince William, we knew they’d be looking for him on land. We decided the best hiding place would be at sea.’
‘We had him on our Cruise Ship,’ Aunt Lisbeth said, ‘until the pirates attacked. Alys collected him and placed him in a safe house in Hertfordshire until this morning.’
Now Taylor spoke up. ‘You already know how big he is, Bronte,’ she said. ‘It’s Billy. The pirates have gone and taken Billy.’
I felt as if somebody had thrown a basketball, very hard, at my stomach. Billy! Taken by pirates!
I honestly don’t know what happened for the rest of the afternoon. I think the aunts talked in circles, and somebody made sandwiches and cups of strong tea. But all I could think of was Billy. His tidy hair and starched collars. His friendly smile and patient billiard lessons. The way he threw himself on his head when he tried to somersault.
Word arrived that the authorities wanted Aunt Alys to come to town to talk with them. More constables would be sent over to accompany her. Aunts Maya and Lisbeth offered to go along, but the other aunts stayed behind.
It was lucky they did, because when the clock began to strike nine o’clock, Aunt Emma said, ‘So late! We must get these children to bed!’—and suddenly I remembered the instructions.
I was supposed to give Aunt Franny her gift at 9 pm on the night I arrived. I tore to the front door where my suitcase was still standing, threw it open, got the gift, and skidded back to Aunt Franny.
‘I know this is not a good time,’ I said. ‘But the instructions …’
Aunt Franny squeezed my shoulder. ‘I know.’ She opened the gift. It was a packet of dried mushrooms.
‘Oh!’ said Aunt Franny. ‘Now, I wonder why dried mushrooms … well, I’m glad you gave it to me, Bronte. My sisters brought along their gifts so we could share stories. Will you run and put these in the kitchen with the other gifts?’
The kitchen seemed a strange place for gifts, but there they were, little boxes and jars, lined up on the counter. Not so strange, I decided. Mostly my parents’ gifts seemed to be food. Maybe they were only meant as a contribution to a feast?
When I got back to the living room, Aunt Sue and Aunt Nancy had organised blankets and cushions for the children. My boy cousins, girl cousins, and Taylor were already under their covers, and Aunt Emma was handing around glasses of milk. Nobody was saying much. Even little Benjamin had curled himself up and was sucking his thumb.
I returned to the foyer to fetch my suitcase so I could change into pyjamas.
The front door was ajar.
There were hushed voices, just outside in the darkness. I could hear Aunt Alys crying, and Aunt Franny was saying, ‘Tell me. Just tell me what they said.’
The others must have come back from town, and Franny had gone outside to meet them. I crouched so they wouldn’t catch sight of my shadow.
Aunt Maya’s voice spoke up. ‘Gustav and The Scorpion tracked down the pirates,’ she said, sounding hoarse. ‘But they didn’t have Billy any more.’
‘He’s escaped!’ Aunt Franny cried.
‘No. They’d handed him over to the Whispering King.’
I heard a quick intake of breath from Franny. It was loud enough to cover my own.
‘But why?’
‘The Whispering King had commissioned the pirates to kidnap Billy,’ Aunt Lisbeth put in.
‘They do work together often,’ Aunt Franny told the others grimly. ‘Whisperers pay the pirates in diamonds. They use the postal chute for their transactions. The authorities are always trying to put a stop to it.’
‘Well, it seems nobody can get into the Whispering Kingdom to rescue him.’ Aunt Maya said. ‘Not without a Whisperer to open the Whispering Gates.’
‘Of course,’ Aunt Franny murmured. ‘But why would the Whispering King want William?’
There was a moment of quiet. The only sound was Aunt Alys, still weeping.
‘The Whispering King gave the pirates a message,’ Aunt Maya said eventually, her voice seeming to drag itself through mud. ‘To pass on to the authorities. Remove the Majestic Spellbinding, or Billy will be killed at dawn.’
Aunt Franny’s voice became urgent and angry. ‘Well, then, they have to do it! They have to remove the Spellbinding! Deal with the consequences afterwards! Have they started? Have they got in the Spellbinders to take it down?’
Again, a silence. Then Aunt Lisbeth’s voice: ‘The authorities refuse. They’ve already convened an urgent meeting of the K&E Alliance and voted against it. Too dangerous, they say. They’ve sent a message back to the Whispering King saying they will have negotiators there by noon tomorrow, and are willing to give generous gifts in exchange for the release of the prince. But removal of the Spellbinding is out of the question.’
‘Alys,’ Aunt Franny said quickly. ‘It will be all right. The King won’t hurt Billy. He’s bluffing. Alys, it’s okay. It’s all talk. He’ll need Billy alive for his negotiations. I swear to you, Alys, it’s going to be all right.’
But Alys’s crying had turned into one long, violent moan, and it built and built, louder and harsher, as the other aunts tried to calm her. It was terrible to hear.
The other children were sleeping, but I was wide awake.
I heard the sounds of the aunts talking in the kitchen until late, telling each other over and over that the King would never kill Billy, and then doors closing around the house as they went to bed themselves.
I pushed away the scratchy blanket and sat up.
The King was an evil Dark Mage. He would kill Billy at dawn.
There was no question. I had to rescue Billy at once.
Only, there were two problems: the Whispering Gates and the Whispering King.
Well, I was half-Whisperer. I could get through the Whispering Gates!
Of course, I hadn’t even been able to make an old woman give me a sweet, so I was not at all sure I could get through the Gates.
I would just have to Whisper more loudly.
As for the Whispering King, it would take Carabella-the-Great to Spellbind him, and she had already said she was too weak to work. Besides, she was not arriving until morning. By then, Billy would be dead.
But I was a Spellbinder. My toenails had turned blue. I would bind the King myself. True, Aunt Carrie had told me I was too young to Spellbind, and I had no training, and—
I blinked. I did have some training. I’d been to the Spellbinding Conference. I had the folder of potions! ‘A potion to bind the Whispering King,’ I remembered
, speaking aloud, ‘by Carabella-the-Great.’
Some ingredients were missing, I recalled, because of water damage. Aunt Carrie had told me her tears had made ink run—that must be the water damage. But surely I could figure it out? I was good at puzzles.
I crept across the room, stepping over sleeping, snuffling cousins, until I found my suitcase.
Enough moonlight fell through the window for me to flip through the folder until I found the potion.
Oh, I thought when I found it.
I’d forgotten just how bad it was:
Impossible.
Ridiculous.
Still, Billy needed me. I found a pencil in my suitcase, and used a blank sheet at the back of the folder to write out the ingredients.
Then I stared at these.
And stared.
I kept on staring.
I slammed my hand against the window. Thwap.
Imogen murmured in her sleep. Nicholas coughed.
There was quiet again.
This was not fair. I had taken a long and difficult journey, frightened the whole time about breaking the Faery cross-stitch. I’d given Aunt Franny the final gift. Now I should be able to celebrate!
Instead, I was sitting in the moonlight with an impossible puzzle, and Billy was going to die.
Tears slid down my cheeks.
It was all my parents’ fault. They had made Aunt Franny have a party and that’s why Billy had been travelling here. My parents were crazy! Sending me off with silly little gifts—honey and cinnamon, lavender and mushrooms! As if they wanted us to bake some awful cake! Well, the honey and cinnamon might be delicious, of course, but—
Honey and cinnamon.
I looked back at the list of ingredients.
I picked up the pencil, and filled in the first two words, speaking them aloud.
I looked at the next word. My heart began to hammer. I filled it in very slowly:
It was the gifts! My parents’ gifts! Now I was scribbling, breathless.
I was laughing, crying and saying the words aloud at the same time (but trying to do this quietly).
I reached the final ingredient.
My laughter fell away. I’d run out of gifts.
I counted on my fingers. I whispered names of aunts. But dried mushrooms was the final gift!
I pulled on my hair, furious, reached out to thwap the window again, and then I smiled.
‘No gift for Aunt Isabelle,’ I said aloud. ‘She got the cloudberry tea.’
Cloudberry tea, I wrote. It fit perfectly.
I mixed up the Spellbinding potion in Aunt Franny’s kitchen, borrowing from the aunts’ gifts.
Nutmeg was in the pantry, and cloudberry tea, the other missing gift, was in a canister on the countertop, (so Aunt Franny must like it, too).
I tipped the potion into a jar, screwed on the lid, and put it in my coat pocket. I left a note.
But how to slip out of Aunt Franny’s house with constables guarding the front door?
Easy. I slipped out the back door.
I remembered my way to Nina Bay Square and found a coach driver with hairy knuckles and an ink tattoo on his neck. I offered him twenty silver pieces to take me as close to the Whispering Kingdom as he could.
‘Never tell my Aunt Isabelle I did this, will you?’ I said, and he replied that he could only make that promise for another ten silver.
I laughed, but I think he was quite serious.
Now I was standing outside the Whispering Kingdom.
Spangled frost on leaves. Moonlight on waves. Black road curving between forest and sea.
And at least fifty signs. These were nailed to posts and strung in the trees and they all said something like this:
Or:
One sign was scribbled:
Hmm.
I didn’t think Whisperers did eat people’s brains. And fifteen silver pieces was a lot for a picture postcard.
I stared at the Spellbinding. It was perfectly transparent and you could only see it when it caught the light. A strange thing, it was like a hazy curtain with a tightly-woven diamond pattern. To my right, it disappeared into the forest, strung over trees like ice; to my left, it curved around the coastline, shimmering in the moonlight. Above, it extended up and over, as far as I could see.
A red mailbox stood by the side of the road, seemingly jammed right through the Spellbinding. That must be the postal chute.
Well, I thought with a deep breath, I’d better go in and rescue Billy.
My eyes landed on yet another sign:
‘Oh, nonsense,’ I said, and walked through.
It felt damp, like walking through soap bubbles.
The road carried on between forest and sea, curved once, and crashed into an iron gate.
The first of the Whispering Gates.
I am half-Whisperer, I told myself. I will Whisper this gate open.
‘Open,’ I whispered.
Nothing happened.
I shout-whispered. ‘Open! Open!’
Again, nothing.
I pressed an ear against the bars, hoping to hear some kind of Whisper, but jumped back from the ice-cold.
I rattled it. The padlock jangled. I shoved at it with both hands. Next, I hefted up the padlock, its cold weight in my palm, and let it fall again. It clanged. I scrambled up the gate, trying to climb it, and slid back down.
Maybe I could go around the gate? The Impenetrable Forest might be famous for being impenetrable, but maybe people just fell for the name?
I pushed into the trees and was instantly flung back. I tried this again. And again.
No, it was more than just a name.
Now I was panting quite hard, each puff a burst of mist in the cold air.
I made myself slow down. Whisper. You must Whisper. I narrowed my eyes at the padlock. I locked all my ferocity into my stare. Open, I whispered, deep in my mind.
‘Bronte!’ said a voice. ‘It is you!’
I looked sideways and there was Alejandro, the boy with no shoes, climbing the rocks from the sea, and wringing out the water from his hair.
‘The pirates of the Dagger and Serpent have escaped,’ Alejandro told me.
‘I know.’
‘They have taken the Prince William.’
‘I know.’
‘They have given him to the Whispering King.’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘Bronte,’ Alejandro said, wringing out his shirt now. ‘You know everything.’
‘Not how to open this gate,’ I said. ‘I’m going to go and rescue him.’
‘This is also my plan,’ Alejandro nodded. ‘He is the boy who rescued me from the turtle hole—along with you and the girl, Taylor. He is the nephew of Maya and Lisbeth, who took me aboard. To rescue him is the least that I can do.’
‘I heard you disappeared,’ I told him.
‘Yes, I slipped away to the public houses favoured by pirates. I disguised myself and joined their conversations.’
‘Dangerous!’ I told him. ‘They could have captured you again!’
He frowned. ‘Did you not hear me say that I disguised myself? This means that I looked different than usual.’
‘I know what disguised means,’ I said.
He shivered violently. I took off my scarf and wrapped it around his neck.
‘I asked the pirates what they knew of the Whispering Gates,’ he said, nodding his thanks for the scarf. ‘I told them they knew nothing, which is the best way to get someone to tell you what they know.’ His teeth still chattered.
‘I can’t think why you went into the ocean on such a cold night,’ I scolded.
‘They told me that there are hidden keys for each of the Whispering Gates,’ said Alejandro. ‘The first is in the ocean—’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That’s why.’
‘The second in the sky, the third on the earth.’
‘Hm,’ I said.
‘Hm,’ he said, ‘is correct. Their information is useless. I have been diving
in those wild waves some time, and found no key.’
I peered out at the black water. It was rippled with moonlight, patterned with crashing white waves.
‘I could try,’ I said doubtfully.
But the ocean is vast and a key is small. We needed a team of swimmers. Swimmers who could see in the night ocean. We needed fish, really, but I could not speak Fish.
If only there were fish who could speak—
‘Alejandro!’ I said. ‘Help me find a stick!’
‘What sort of stick?’ he asked. I was pleased he was not the kind of boy who demands explanations.
‘I need two,’ I told him, scanning the forest and road. ‘Any kind, I think.’
We found sticks quickly and I clambered down the rocks towards the water, dragging them with me.
Alejandro stood on the road and watched. ‘The water is very deep there,’ he called.
‘Over-my-head deep?’
‘Yes.’
I would have to sit on a rock. I took off my shoes and dangled my feet in the water. Trembling from cold, I raised the sticks above my head and held them there, closing my eyes tightly, trying to remember the pattern.
Thwack.
I hit the sticks together. The moment that I did, it came back to me.
Thwack-thwack-thwack
Thwack … thwack … thwack
Thwack.
I stopped.
The water sighed and rippled around me.
I tried again.
A distant splash, and I turned quickly. But it was nothing.
Again.
Over and over, I beat the sticks together. I looked up at Alejandro. He was watching me calmly, his chin buried in my scarf.
I began to see that this was useless. Nina Bay was too far away. They’d never hear.
The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone Page 26
