Griffin of Darkwood

by Becky Citra

  “I keep telling you not to tip back like that. Chairs are meant to stay on all four feet,” said John. “We call Emma our jumping bean. Now, to get back to our story. Morgan Moonstone’s tapestries are extremely valuable and today they’re in museums all over the world. Like the ones in your postcards.”

  “Sparrowhawk is famous for its weaving,” said Thom.

  “You wait, any day now the first tour buses will arrive full of people looking for tapestries,” said John. “Most of our best weavers are Moonstones, but even though their tapestries are splendid, they’re not magic.”

  “You’re a great weaver, too, Dad,” said Thom, “and you’re a Fairweather.”

  “And that’s enough chatter for me or I’ll never finish this tapestry.” John wheeled his chair back to his loom.

  “When are we going to look for the secret passageway?” asked Emma.

  “What?” said Will. He was still thinking about magic tapestries.

  “The secret passageway. Remember?”

  “Right. I think I found the dungeon. I bought a torch so we can explore.”

  “Maybe we should clean up the kitchen first,” said Thom quickly.

  “I’ll look after that,” called out John.

  “Chicken,” taunted Emma.

  Thom flushed. “I am not!”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” said Emma.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Dungeon

  Thom and Emma waited beside the suit of armour while Will took Aunt Mauve’s packages to the Red Chamber. His aunt wasn’t there, so he left them on the bed. He took the red candles to his tower.

  He led Thom and Emma along the shadowy corridor to the heavy studded dungeon door. He tugged it open and flicked on the torch. He was the first down the steep dark steps, picking his way in the beam of light. The air smelled dank. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness. When they got to the bottom, Will waved the torch in a wide circle. They were in a large room with stained brick walls. A piercing squeal and the rustle of scurrying feet made everybody jump. “RUFF!” barked Peaches.

  “A rat!” screeched Emma.

  “It won’t hurt you,” said Thom. “It was more scared to see us. I’m sensing fear.” He shuddered. "This place is mega-creepy. This is a bad idea. Let’s get out of here!"

  “How should we start?” asked Emma, ignoring Thom.

  “Loose bricks,” suggested Will. “Or maybe places where the bricks are a different colour.”

  He shone the light slowly across each wall. Iron rings were embedded in the old bricks. Pieces of chain lay scattered about on the uneven rocky floor. Rusty spikes stuck out of the back of an old wooden chair.

  “Ohmigod!” said Emma. “This was a torture chamber!”

  Thom moaned. Will swept the light into a corner. A sledge hammer and a metal rod lay on the floor. Someone had smashed the wall and pried out some of the bricks. Another wall of bricks lay behind. “Mr. Cherry’s been in here!” he said. “I saw him sneaking that sledge hammer and that rod thing into an old shed behind the castle.”

  A low growl rumbled from Peaches’ throat and the hair bristled on his back. They swung around. A lantern blazed at the top of the stairs but it was impossible in the glare to see who was holding it.

  A voice sneered, “Oh, my. What do we have here?”

  Mr. Cherry! He swung the lantern to the side, revealing his sallow face and long nose. He descended the stairs and waved his arm into the darkness.

  “Having a look around, are you? The cells are over there. I suppose you’ve guessed what this room was used for? Torture! Sometimes I think I can hear the prisoners screaming.”

  Peaches barked. Mr. Cherry spat, “I warned you to keep that dog away from me!”

  Emma slipped her hand under Peaches’ collar.

  “I was just making my rounds,” said Mr. Cherry. “I said to myself, now who would have left that door open? Good thing I didn’t lock it. You’ve heard that the castle is cursed? Just think of it. Three kiddies locked up in a dungeon forever. How tragic.”

  “Let’s go,” said Will in a loud voice.

  “So soon?” said Mr. Cherry. “I haven’t shown you the Duke’s Tomb."

  He swung the lantern over a hole in the floor. “There’s a cell down there. They lowered the duke in with a rope. He didn’t obey the king’s orders.”

  Mr. Cherry licked his lips. “For twenty years, the duke was caged in there like an animal. His only entertainment was the screams of the tortured prisoners above him. They say he scratched a mark for every day on the wall. With his fingernails.”

  Peaches erupted in a frenzy of barking.

  “Get out!” snarled Mr. Cherry. “Don’t you dare come down here again! You or that scruffy dog!”

  He turned to Will. “Brats who don’t listen have a tendency to disappear forever.”

  Will forced himself not to run as he led the others up the stone stairs. Mr. Cherry breathed heavily behind them. He locked the studded door with a large key, attached to a brass ring and disappeared around a corner. No one spoke until they were safely in the tower.

  “Whoa,” said Emma. “He is one scary servant!”

  “And now he’s locked the dungeon door," said Will. “That messes everything up.”

  “Who cares?” said Thom. “Are you crazy? You couldn’t pay me to go back down there. Hey! Look at that!” He pointed to the blue pencil box on the little round table. A faint golden light shone out from under the lid. “What is it?”

  “A pencil box,” said Will. “It does that sometimes. It was my mother’s. She kept her writing pencils in it.” For some reason, it had been easy to tell Favian about his mother, but now the words stuck in his throat.

  “Can I open it?” said Thom.

  Will nodded. Thom opened the box, and the light faded away. “There’s nothing in it except this,” he said, picking up the piece of rolled-up cloth and the photograph of Will’s grandparents. He turned the box upside down. “I don’t get how it works. Is it some kind of magic?”

  “It just does it,” repeated Will.

  Thom unrolled the cloth. He read out loud the words woven in delicate gold thread. “The Griffin of Darkwood. What’s this?”

  “Just something someone gave me,” said Will.

  “Let me see,” said Emma. She studied it with interest. “Not a new tapestry. An old one.”

  Will had never thought that it might be from a tapestry. How had a piece of tapestry ended up with a photograph of his grandparents?

  Emma picked up the photograph. “Who’s this?”

  “My mother and my grandparents,” said Will.

  “You look a little bit like your grandfather."

  “His name was Sterling,” said Will. “He was a writer. And my grandmother was a dancer. Her name was Carmelita.”

  “I wish the box would make that light again,” said Thom. He put the strip of cloth and the photograph back inside and closed the lid.

  “We need to look for the secret passage when Mr. Cherry’s not here,” said Emma. She flipped onto her hands and walked in a circle.

  “He goes out sometimes,” said Will, “but I never know when he’s coming back.”

  “Let’s just forget it,” said Thom. “We could go back to my house and look up recipes or something.”

  “I’ll come later,” said Will. First he wanted to go back to Lantern Lane to have another look at the cat, Macavity.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tea Leaves

  Will heard a clinking, clanking sound as he walked along Lantern Lane. He spun around. The Muses were following him.

  “It’s no use!” he shouted. “You might as well leave me alone. You won't inspire me any more. I’m never writing again!”

  He started to run and was gasping for breath by the time he got to Vespera Moonstone’s house. Vespera, wearing a blue batik skirt and several long ropes of wooden beads, answered his knock. Her deep brown eyes were welcoming.

  “Will Poppy! I’ve
heard about you from Favian. You must come in.”

  Vespera’s house was untidy. Papers, books, pens and empty teacups were strewn across every surface in the front room. Macavity was stretched out on a rug in front of a gas fireplace. To Will’s disappointment, his eyes were shut. Several cardboard boxes in the middle of the floor overflowed with copies of slim purple books with the title A Mystical Muse on the cover. Vespera had been in the middle of unpacking. “This is my newest book. I ordered more copies from my publisher. I never know how many will sell when I do a reading.”

  “I came here this morning,” said Will. “And…um…your cat. I’m pretty sure I saw his eyes change colour.”

  “They have a tendency to do that,” said Vespera.

  “That’s amazing!”

  Vespera looked closely at Will. “Do you believe in magic?”

  “Yeah, I do!”

  “Good. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll find all kinds of magic in Sparrowhawk. This is an ancient village. Now I’m going to make some tea and we’ll have a proper visit.”

  Vespera Moonstone disappeared. Will knelt down beside Macavity, but the cat was still fast asleep. In a few minutes, Vespera returned with a tray of cups and saucers, a little pot of honey and a teapot. She poured the tea, which she declared was from China. “None of the cheap Indian teas for me. Too many bits of twigs for properly reading tea leaves.”

  While Will stirred a spoonful of honey into his tea, Vespera said, “Favian Longstaff told me the story of your mother and Mr. Barnaby. He said that you’re a writer too.”

  “I was,” Will corrected her. “I don’t write any more.”

  “Oh, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a writer,” said Vespera. “Once I didn’t write a single word for five whole years.”

  “Why didn’t you write? Did your Muse desert you?”

  “So you know about Muses, do you?”

  “My Muse won’t leave me alone. And my mum’s Muse is bugging me too. They want me to write. But I won't."

  “Really? Well, I think maybe I was afraid to write. And then one night I woke up at two o’clock with a poem in my head that was begging to get out.”

  Vespera peered into Will’s cup. “Save a little of your tea and I’ll read your tea leaves. But first, tell me what kinds of things you like to write about.”

  In between sips of tea, Will told Vespera about his latest novel with the Knights of Valour and the Knights of Death. “The problem is, I never finish anything. I get partway through, and then I get another idea and I want to work on that instead. And now –” His voice broke off. He didn’t know if he wanted to keep talking about it.

  “Well, I think the Knights of Death and Valour sound intriguing,” said Vespera. “It might be the novel you’re meant to write. I think you should bring it back to life.”

  “I’m not planning to,” said Will. “I hate the thought of writing now.”

  When he had a drop of tea left in the bottom of his cup, he gave it to Vespera who swirled the cup around and around three times. Carefully, she tipped it over the saucer. She waited a minute and then turned the cup right side up. Will peered at the wet tea leaves spattered inside the cup. “It doesn’t look like anything.”

  “It’s like seeing pictures in clouds. You can’t rush it. We’ll wait until they tell us your story.”

  Macavity got up from his spot in front of the fire and walked over to Will and bumped against his leg. Will reached down and stroked him. The cat’s eyes remained a steady pale green. Vespera sat very still, staring into the tea cup, and Will wondered if she had gone into some kind of trance.

  Finally, Vespera looked up. “I see a violin. You feel lonely sometimes.”

  “Yeah. I really miss my mum.”

  “Of course you do. Ah…several more pictures are becoming clear. I see some bumblebees, which means that you have been meeting new friends.”

  “Thom and Emma. I just met them yesterday, but it’s kind of weird. It feels like I’ve known them forever.”

  “The best kind.”

  “What else do you see?”

  “A boat. Someone important is coming to visit you soon. This person has been away but hasn’t forgotten you.”

  “Mr. Barnaby! He’s the man who’s supposed to publish my mother’s book.”

  Vespera passed her hand over the teacup. “You have very busy tea leaves.” A sudden frown crossed her face.

  “What is it?”

  “I could be mistaken…yes, I’m sure I am…I think we’d better stop.”

  “You can’t stop now! That’s not fair!”

  Chapter Fouteen

  The Griffin’s Curse

  “There are two images here that are disturbing,” said Vespera. “Two lizards. That almost always means hidden enemies and treachery.”

  “That’s gotta be the Cherrys!" said Will.

  “I wish I could say they were something else,” sighed Vespera, “but there is no doubt in my mind that I’m seeing lizards…well, now this is interesting.”

  “What?”

  “A hammer. Very rare. I believe it’s telling us that you will triumph over adversity.’

  “Adversity. I’m not sure what that means exactly.”

  “Great misfortune. Your life is not easy. But you will triumph, Will. That should give you hope.”

  Vespera and Macavity came outside with Will to the courtyard to say good-bye. Macavity rolled on his back on the brightly coloured tiles. Will frowned. “It’s weird, but when I came here before I’m sure the tiles made a rainbow. Now they look like stars. Do you think that was magic?”

  “Without a doubt,” said Vespera. “A rainbow indeed. Have you been up to mischief, Macavity?”

  Macavity contemplated his mistress with his slanted green eyes. They slowly turned a soft violet.

  “There!” said Will. “See?”

  “He’s showing off,” said Vespera. “Now you come back, William Poppy. You don’t mind if I call you William, do you? It’s a rare treat to find someone to talk to about writing. And try not to worry about your tea leaves.”

  < • >

  When Will got back to the castle, he went to the kitchen and asked Mrs. Cherry for a bucket of water and a rag. He tried to scrub the words GO AWAY off the front door, but it was no use. The letters blurred together but stubbornly refused to disappear. You could still tell what they said. How could anyone hate them that much? It didn’t make any sense.

  That night, he found some matches in the dining room and four saucers for candlesticks. He melted a blob of wax on each saucer, and stuck candles in all four and set them on the ledges in the tower wall. The lit candles cast long flickering shadows on the stone birds. He thought about the word adversity. He opened his trunk and took out his thesaurus and looked it up.

  “Difficulty, ordeal, hard times, ill wind, evil day, curse,” he read out loud.

  Curse! What if Vespera had made a mistake? What if he wasn’t going to triumph? He stored the word adversity in his brain where he kept interesting words and then lay on his back on the bed and stared at the sparrowhawks. Who had carved them? He read for a while and then glanced at the candles. They burned brightly and looked just as tall as when he first lit them. Were they magic candles?

  He thought about the weaver Morgan Moonstone, the tiles that changed from a rainbow to stars, Macavity’s amazing eyes, Mr. Tumnus in the bookstore and the strange light that glowed in the pencil box. And now the candles. There was magic all around him. He put the thesaurus back in his trunk and picked up the writing book with the emerald cover, feeling an ache deep inside. Then he put the book back too.

  Favian had said, “Once a writer, always a writer.” He was wrong. Will knew he would never write again.

  < • >

  In the morning, he went straight to Thom’s flat. He knocked on the door and Thom opened it, holding a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich. John Fairweather was busy at his loom. “Hello, Will. Are you hungry? Thom has told me about Mrs.
Cherry’s cooking.”

  “Starving,” said Will.

  “Come on in the kitchen and I’ll make you a pb and j sandwich,” offered Thom.

  While they were eating, John wheeled into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “I need to find out more about the griffin’s curse,” said Will. “Was there really a griffin?”

  John sighed. “I suppose Thom and Emma told you about the girl who died in the castle.”

  Will nodded.

  “Well, I hope they didn’t alarm you. It happened years and years ago.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Hannah Linley. Hundreds of years ago the king gave the Linleys the castle as a reward for good service. Over the years there have been a great many Lord Linleys.”

  “Hannah’s grave is in the Linley graveyard,” said Thom.

  “Hannah was my dad’s cousin,” said John, “but I never knew her. She died before I was born. I’ve been told she was like Thom. She felt the suffering of animals. Her mother was a Fairweather who worked as a maid in the castle. Her father was Lord Linley. It must have caused quite a scandal. Hannah was brought up in the castle.”

  John took a sip of coffee. “Hannah inherited her gift with animals from the Fairweathers. When you read the dates on her gravestone, you realize she was no older than you when she died.”

  “Favian told me he had a friend called Hannah,” said Will, “but he never told me she died. What happened to her?”

  “She was very ill. I don’t know anything else. It was forty years ago. Lord and Lady Linley left after she died and the castle was closed. Some people in the village believe that Hannah died because a griffin cursed the castle hundreds of years ago.”

  Thom said softly, “The mine, Dad. People blame the griffin’s curse for the mine too.”

  “Yes, they do.” John’s eyes took on a distant look. “Ten years ago, the village got permission from the Linleys to open the castle and have a magic festival. They thought it would bring in tourists. The same night, the mine collapsed. People said it was because we opened up the castle and made the griffin angry.”