Blackbriar

by William Sleator

  Danny did not answer. Just above their heads the footsteps began again, rapidly, as though someone were pacing the floor. He tore his eyes away from the painting and hurried out into the dark second-floor hall.

  This was a long, narrow corridor with doors on either side. Through an open one he could see only the vague shape of a large sagging bed with a canopy. Lark emerged from the candlelit room as Danny stood, debating whether to try all the doors or to head for the next floor, and the footsteps.

  “What are you going to do now?” Lark whispered.

  “I don’t know. We’ve got to hurry.” He turned his head quickly from side to side. “I guess we should try these doors.”

  He started down the corridor, peering through the open doors, carefully trying the closed ones. After he had tried two or three, Lark began too, on the other side of the hall. None of them were locked, and there seemed to be no one in any of the rooms. Are we wasting time? Danny worried. He knew he was putting off the moment when they would have to confront whatever was making the footsteps. And maybe Philippa wasn’t even here, but somewhere else, in danger. And at any moment, Lord Harleigh might return.

  Just as he had decided that it was useless to keep trying these empty rooms, he pulled open a door at the end of the hall, to find a steep, narrow stairway. Slowly, his eyes followed it up into complete darkness. He craned his neck forward and listened. Yes, the footsteps were definitely coming from somewhere at the top of the stairs.

  Lark was standing just behind him. “All right,” he whispered, “we’ve got to do this. Here we go.”

  He turned on his flashlight and started up the stairs. One step at a time, very, very slowly. He had learned that the only way to do something like this was simply not to think, not to try to imagine what was about to happen, but just keep moving. Like not looking down when you’re climbing a tree, he thought. He reached a small landing, the stairs turned, and he saw that they ended at a closed door. Light was coming through the cracks around it; behind the door the footsteps were continous now, and very close. He still could not tell if they were the sounds of one person or two.

  He turned off his light and started very quietly toward the door. Even more slowly, letting his foot come gently to rest on each stair before putting his weight on it. Behind him, Lark was moving so carefully that he hardly knew she was there.

  And then there was a splintering sound and a heavy thud and a loud gasp of pain. He spun around. “What—?”

  Lark was sprawled across three or four steps. She looked up at him, her hair in her eyes. Slowly she struggled to her feet. Danny listened. The pacing behind the door had stopped.

  “That’s super,” he whispered angrily. “You’ve given us right away.”

  “Oh, shut up! I couldn’t help it. The step broke.” She sighed. “And my foot hurts.”

  “Well . . .” Danny turned back. He had reached the door. There was a key in the lock. The silence behind the door was ominous, worse than the footsteps had been. But there was only one thing to do. Without knowing why, he pulled the doll out of his pocket and held it in front of him. Then he took a deep breath, turned the key, and pushed open the door.

  It was an attic room with steeply slanting walls. And just across from him, alone, Philippa was cringing as if to ward off a blow. Danny stepped inside, the fear on Philippa’s face dissolved into relief, and she lunged toward them with open arms. “Oh, you darling, darling children!” she cried, and threw her arms around them both.

  21

  In a moment Philippa backed away and began to babble. “They took Islington. He fought and fought but they took him away and left me here. You darling things, how did you find me? I don’t know what they’re going to do with him, the poor little thing. He hated them so! But I don’t understand any of this. What are they trying to do? Why did they take me here? Poor Islington! What are they doing with him?”

  Lark and Danny watched her silently as she stumbled about the room. Her hair was tangled, her cheek bruised, and there was a long gash running up the side of her skirt. The only furniture in the room was a chair, and a table with a lighted candle. There were several small dormer windows in steeply pitched alcoves, and a profusion of boxes and trunks along the walls.

  Gradually Philippa calmed down and finally sank into the chair. “Yes,” she said slowly, “how did you know I was here?”

  “Well,” said Danny, “you weren’t at home and the car was there, and there were certainly signs that the tunnel had been used—”

  “Yes!” she interrupted. Suddenly her voice was bitter. “The tunnel. And just how long have you known about that tunnel, you clever boy? And why didn’t you tell me about the tunnel, you little bastard!”

  “Please,” Danny said, “don’t get upset now. I just thought it was best. I thought you’d want to leave if I told you about it. I was only trying to protect—”

  “Protect me? You call this protecting me?” She grabbed her bloody cheek and shook the skin at him. “It’s protecting me to let me stay in a house that’s wide open to a pack of brutal, sadistic, animal-torturing monsters?”

  “Oh, God,” Danny sighed. “Do we have to go through all this? Why can’t we just calmly—”

  “Danny,” Lark interrupted from one of the windows, “look over there.”

  In the moonlight, the tumuli seemed very close. The fires on the three mounds and around the pole were brilliant against the dark sky. Undulating silhouettes moved wildly around them, and they could clearly hear the violent rhythm of the drums.

  “Oh. I almost forgot,” Danny said. He turned to Philippa. “I’m sure that’s where Islington is. It must be some kind of witch festival, and I suppose they’re using him in it.”

  “Do you think they might . . . sacrifice him?” Philippa whispered hoarsely.

  “I don’t know. I can’t imagine what they want him for. But that’s why they brought you here, you know, so that you wouldn’t be in the way. And they probably do all these secret things that they don’t want anyone to see. I wonder why they didn’t wait to take me too?”

  “They were going to,” Philippa said. “I told them you had gone back to London.”

  “You did? You told them that? It’s a good thing.” He paused. “But what happened to you? Tell us exactly what happened.”

  Philippa sighed. “I had just finished peeling the potatoes. Poor Islington was pacing around. Then I heard this tremendous crash in the cellar, I couldn’t imagine what it was, but before I had time to think they were racing up the stairs and into the living room—”

  “Was the cellar door locked?”

  “No, I’d gone down a while before to get some coal and I must have left it open. They raced into the room—”

  “Who were they?”

  “Well, there was a dwarf, and a tall fellow with dark hair, and this awful muscular woman who was about six feet tall. It was just the three of them, but they were all strong. The dwarf grabbed Islington and the woman held me down while the young man ran about looking for you. I kept saying you had gone back to London and in the end they believed me. Then they simply dragged me down the steps and into that tunnel, until I insisted on walking, and even then they never let go of my arms. They were terribly rough, and that woman stank horribly. Well, then we got to this house, and they immediately carted me up here, but the dwarf kept Islington. I kept yelling from the stairs, while they were hauling me up, for them to give him back to me, but of course they didn’t. That little cat can really fight, though. The dwarf will never forget it; he’ll bear those scratches to his grave. There was a lot of bustle in the house while they were taking me up, all sorts of bizarre characters running about. But after I’d been up here for a while it began to quiet down. I just stayed here, pacing the floor, and then I noticed the fires.”

  They could hear shouting from the tumuli. “I’m sorry,” Danny said. “This is my fault. But I just wanted so much to find out what was really going on.”

  “Well, you should be
bloody well satisfied now. By some miracle I’m not seriously injured, though, providing we can get out of here. But I suppose Islington’s a lost cause.”

  “Not necessarily.” Danny turned quickly to Lark. “Do you still want to go up there? How’s your foot?”

  “I forgot about it.” She tested it on the floor. “It hurts a little, but I think it’s all right. Of course I want to go up there. We’ve got to.”

  They stumbled together down the shadowy stairs, Philippa protesting weakly the whole time. “You can’t go up there,” she kept saying, “I won’t allow it.” They reached the hall and left the house by the front door. Briefly, they stood together on the doorstep.

  “But what about Philippa?” Danny said. “She can’t come with us.”

  “My house is right over there.” Lark pointed across the road to a light in a small cluster of trees. “My father must be home, he’ll take care of you. I better not go with you, though, he’d never let me go up to the tumuli tonight.”

  “But I won’t let you, either,” Philippa said.

  “We’ve got to,” said Danny. “We’ve gone this far, we can’t stop now. And we might be able to save Islington. Go on, now, you need a nice hot bath.”

  Finally, Philippa stumbled off toward the light. They stared after her for a moment, then turned to each other. Danny took a deep breath. “Let’s go,” he said, and they started up the hill.

  22

  The drumbeats seemed to pull them almost effortlessly up the steep slope, and as they neared the top the babble began to separate into distinct, hysterical voices. A strange, primitive melody rose and fell in counter-rhythm to the drums and stamping feet, and occasionally a single voice would rise above it all in a wordless cry. The three fires appeared first over the crest of the hill. A gaunt figure moved against the flames on the central mound.

  They stopped. In the firelight they could clearly see the leering painted features on his oversized mask. The mask had horns.

  Carefully Lark and Danny began to climb again. The tumuli rose to meet them, and the pole, with its own fire burning around it. And now, as they crouched at the edge of the plateau, thirty feet from the first mound, they could see the others. Perhaps forty people, both men and women, danced around the flames. The light flickered and splashed across the absorbed, upturned faces, the twisting bodies, the flashing hands. Some were old, with gray hair streaming out behind them. Some were beating on drums strung around their necks. Some, the young ones, threw themselves violently through the air in great, awkward leaps.

  The dark plateau, the distant hills, the swollen moon hanging just above the horizon diminished the small bright circle, and seemed to watch it with boredom, as though they had seen the same thing many times before.

  “What’s that in his hands?” Lark whispered. “It moves!”

  “Islington.” Danny crawled forward, straining to see. He felt a familiar pang as he watched the cat writhe and twist in the masked figure’s grasp. The man was trying to hold the cat above his head, as if to show it every detail of the activity below, but Islington seemed to hate the touch of his hands, and struggled painfully to get away.

  “I’ve always hated Islington,” Danny said.

  “Hated him? But why?”

  “I’ve always hated him, and I know just what it’s like to try to hold him. But now, I can’t bear to see him treated that way. It makes me so angry!”

  “Shhhh! They’ll hear us!” Lark crawled up next to Danny. “But what’s he doing with him?”

  “I don’t know. I wish we could see better.” Danny moved forward again. He felt protected by the darkness, and by the absorption of the dancing people. They appeared to be oblivious to everything but their own bodies, and the music, and the fires moving to the same rhythm. He moved up another few feet.

  Lark followed him. “Don’t get too close,” she said. “We’re close enough now.”

  But a strange recklessness moved inside him. “They’ll never see us, they’re not paying any attention to anything,” he said sharply, and moved even closer to the first mound. His whole body seemed to be pulsing with the drumbeats; the bright violent movements flashed through his head.

  Lark crawled up to him again, then looked back. She could just barely see the edge of the plateau behind them. They had come more than halfway across the open space between the hillside and the fires.

  Suddenly there was a small dark shape in front of Danny, with two bright eyes. Something warm and soft pressed against his face.

  “Islington!” He sat up. The cat burrowed into his stomach, crying and rubbing against him. Danny picked him up. “Islington, how did you—when did you get away?”

  “Danny!” Lark screamed. “Look out!”

  He glanced up. Everything was different. The people weren’t dancing. They were running. They were running straight at him. And the masked figure was gone.

  Lark was standing up, pulling at his arm. “Run, Danny!” she screamed.

  He struggled to his feet. The people were all getting bigger and bigger, their faces growing clearer, the fires moving behind them. He held Islington tightly. He and Lark turned to run.

  The figure sprang up from nowhere, his arms stretched out against the sky, his hideous face grinning and flickering. They ran right into him. His hands clamped against their necks.

  “Aha!” lisped the voice from the mask. “Two children. They have been watching us.” He spun them roughly around to face the excited crowd clustered about them. “And how did you like what you saw, my two young spies?” All the eyes were on them, and the people were talking and whispering to each other. The dwarf was there, hopping about, and the tall, wiry young man who had built the fire at Blackbriar, but now his gaze was icy and calm. And was that the librarian, crouching and jiggling somewhere behind?

  Danny struggled, but the grip tightened painfully on his neck. “I need your help!” the voice barked, and a hundred hands seemed to be holding him. He clung to Islington with all his strength; the mask swung before him now, and the powerful hands reached out for the cat.

  “No!” Danny shouted. “You can’t have him, you can’t!” But the two hands were like iron, and they twisted and pried at the cat, and other hands pulled at Danny’s arms, and he was powerless. Islington snarled and scratched out, but the man held him in one hand, high above his head.

  “He belongs with us!” he cried. “He is one of us! It is he who led us to you. Let the festivities continue!” He marched back toward the fires, ahead of the crowd. Lark and Danny continued to struggle, but there were too many people all around them, and their efforts were useless. The leader turned as he reached the central mound. “The children,” he said, “will come up here with me. You others can let them go. They know they will be caught if they try to run. And I don’t think they want to leave their precious cat.” Grandly, he climbed the mound.

  The hands dropped away and the crowd quickly dispersed, as though they had already forgotten about Lark and Danny. The moment she was free Lark turned and ran, blindly. She was caught at once, kicking and twisting. “Unwise, my dear little girl,” came the voice, “unwise. But now you know how futile any attempts at escape will be. Bring her to me.”

  Lark was hysterical. She tossed her head about and struggled uselessly. Danny was free now, and he hurried to her side, pushing his way through the three women who held her. He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Please,” he said, “it’s all right. We’ll be better off if we do what he says.” She stared at him blankly for a moment, then her face weakened, tears poured down her cheeks, and she leaned forward in heavy, painful sobs. It was Danny who led her up the mound.

  Two small, mad eyes glared at them through the holes in the mask. “Do you know who this is?” The voice sounded hollow from behind the motionless mouth. He held the cat in front of him, not noticing Islington’s busy claws and the blood dripping from his hands. “Do you know who this is? It is Belial, come to join us in our festivities.”

  �
��He’s Islington,” Danny said. “I recognize him. He knows me. He belongs to us.”

  “Perhaps he was Islington, once.” The voice was shaking with excitement; firelight flickered in his eyes. “Perhaps. But now he is Belial, one of the most powerful fiends of Hell. We drew him here, from the other world, we drew him into the body of this cat.”

  “So you did have him that day we couldn’t find him.”

  “And now he no longer belongs to any human being.”

  Below them the people had begun to dance once more. The music was inside Danny again, and he could hardly keep from moving in time. It filled his mind so that he couldn’t think, any more than he could control his words.

  “You must be crazy!” he shouted above the music. “You must be crazy to torture a poor cat and then think a devil is inside him!”

  “Be careful, young man, be careful. You do not know to whom you speak.”

  “Of course I do. You’re Lord Harleigh, anybody could recognize your voice, that silly mask doesn’t disguise you one bit.” Lark had stopped crying and was looking at Danny with surprise.

  “Be quiet, you young fool! Tonight I am not any man. Tonight—I am the Evil One himself!’’ His voice rose triumphantly.

  Danny snorted. Lark grabbed his jacket in an attempt to keep him quiet. The pocket had been torn in the struggle, and when she jerked the jacket something fell from the pocket to the ground at Danny’s feet.

  Lord Harleigh stepped back in amazement—and then moved quickly. But as his bloody hand touched the doll, Islington squirmed out of his grasp. He pounced at the cat, catching him just in time by the tail, and swung him into the air. “Got you!” he cried.

  But Danny had the bloodstained doll.

  “Where did you get that?” Lord Harleigh shrieked. “How did you find it? I thought it was gone forever. Give it to me!” He held Islington by his tail, and the cat wailed and twisted about. “Why did you bring it here? It’s not yours. You have no right to it!”