‘Good luck,’ said Almanac as Hackett got to his feet and stomped off up the stairs, waving at his sister to follow.
‘He is a good climber, you know,’ said Elsie, hesitating.
‘Still, you’d better get after him. He’s going to need your help when he falls.’
Almanac watched her go with an amused smile. It vanished when they were out of sight.
‘If Hackett breaks a leg, I’ll feel terrible,’ he said.
‘It won’t be your fault if he does,’ Etta told him.
‘Maybe.’ He took a deep breath to shore up his resolve and kept his thumbs firmly tucked into his fists. ‘But we’ll need both of them to break the spell.’
‘Cranberries,’ said Etta in such a way as to encourage him to keep talking. If he had a plan, she wanted to know about it.
‘I want us to discuss what we ought to do,’ he said, ‘but the thing is … how can we do that while the spell is listening? Won’t that mean it knows what we’re planning?’
All eyes turned to Doctor Mithily, who supplied an answer of sorts.
‘I studied at the University of Truth, not Wonders, so my knowledge of magic was entirely theoretical, until I came here, but it is said by some scholars that magic takes a measure of the mind of its maker. In other words, spells have all the wit of the sorcerer who cast them, but only as applied to the specific circumstances for which they were created. Thus, a spell intended to keep a spring bountiful will find many inventive ways to draw water, but can’t, for instance, stop someone from maliciously poisoning it, say, or diverting the flow elsewhere. The spell we are faced with is the same. It can stop us talking about itself to Almanac, and it can interfere with the clues left by Veronica and Isaac by hiding them, but it can’t actually damage anything within the house or grounds and it doesn’t care what we talk about amongst ourselves. The rules that govern it are very precise.’
‘Okay,’ said Etta, trying to find a way to convey this answer to Almanac without triggering the spell. ‘It’s like when your ma, I mean the mistress of the orphanage goes out and tells your, uh, friend Josh to stop you from eating the freshly baked scones, but she didn’t tell Josh to stop you from eating the leftover apple pie. You can eat the pie and not get into trouble and all Josh can do is yell at you...at least until the mistress gets home,’ she added, speaking more or less from personal experience.
Almanac nodded, absorbing this. He’d never eaten a scone or apple pie in his life, and neither had Josh. ‘That’s a bit weird, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Doctor Mithily. ‘This spell is both smart and stupid at the same time. As I explained earlier, it will try to stop us from telling the truth to new arrivals, but it won’t do anything about what else we can say to them, or amongst ourselves.’
‘Cranberries,’ said Etta simply, deciding not to attempt a translation of that communication. ‘So what are we going to do about the spell?’
‘Almanac needs to return to the cellar,’ said Ugo.
‘Yes,’ said Doctor Mithily. ‘The spell is there, I am sure of it. All he has to do is read it, and it will be broken.’
‘I think I need to go back to the cellar,’ Almanac said, unable to hear what had been said within the wall-spaces of the manor. ‘The hard part will be getting past the spell’s defences. Any suggestions?’
The ghosts put their heads together while Etta passed their thoughts to Almanac, often translated into scenarios that would be wildly improbable for any household in Holsworthing or any orphan, but the messages got through nonetheless. They knew each other well enough now to understand one another. Some of the older tenants even came out of the shadows to relate past escapes. Some were unlikely, featuring pole vaults or catapults. One involved the painstaking manufacture of a hot air balloon that ended up impaled on the gate’s sharp spikes, deflating with a loud raspberry while the pilot dropped out of the basket outside the grounds, bottom and dignity both badly bruised, only to be taken again by the spell … and made into a ghost.
Gradually, the plan took shape. It would involve everyone, including the twins.
‘If we do this,’ said Almanac, ‘we have to be committed.’
There was some grumbling amongst the ghosts. ‘We don’t know that it’ll work, even with all of us,’ said Madame Iris.
‘But we do not know that it will not work,’ said Ugo. ‘Everything will change. That is the only certain thing.’
Etta chuckled.
‘What do you find funny about this situation, dear?’ asked Lady Simone.
‘Oh, nothing, really. I just remembered something. My sixth sister Dismay, who Ma calls May, once asked me to dye her hair with henna to make it red. Halfway through, I got bored and started adding everything I could find to the dye mix. It began to foam, which wasn’t a good sign, but I couldn’t stop. Once the goop was on her hair, I was committed. I just had to finish the job to see what happened when she washed it out.’
‘And what did happen?’ asked Olive.
‘Her hair turned green and two days later it all fell out.’
‘I can hear what you’re saying, Etta,’ said Almanac. ‘Do you mean we shouldn’t do this?’
‘Oh, no,’ Etta said. ‘The look on May’s face was hilarious. I’ve never regretted it.’
‘So you think we should?’
‘Of course! Assuming you can convince the twins.’
The sound of the front door slamming distracted them all. Almanac looked up as two sets of footsteps crossed the ground floor and rapidly descended the stairs.
Hackett looked about as angry as he had been when he left that morning, only now he was covered in dirt and scratches and Elsie had a swollen, red eye socket that was going to be black by morning.
‘Have you been fighting?’ Almanac asked, leaping up to take a closer look at her injury.
‘Not with each other!’ Hackett exclaimed. ‘But the wall … You were right. It won’t let us over, no matter what we do!’
Almanac resisted the urge to say I told you so. Instead, he went to the meat locker to see if there was any steak to put on Elsie’s eye.
‘I’m not as good a climber as Hackett,’ she told Almanac, ‘but I couldn’t believe it was that hard. It looked so easy! The spell made it so I couldn’t tell up from down. I thought I was jumping over, but really I was just falling off.’
‘I’m glad you aren’t seriously hurt,’ Almanac said. ‘Beats me how you two – and Etta, for that matter – didn’t crack your skulls open!’
‘The house would never let that happen,’ said Doctor Mithily. ‘No one has died by accident or natural cause who was invited here. This is another of its mysteries.’
Hackett muttered something heated in the twins’ secret language, but he didn’t seem angry at Almanac anymore.
‘We’ve decided to help you break the spell,’ said Elsie. ‘It’s nice here now, but like you said, what if someone cuts off the food supply or comes along and causes us harm? We might as well be in gaol.’
‘We’re never going to gaol,’ Hackett growled. ‘I’ve sworn it. Constables are all bullies and villains.’
Almanac was pleased to hear such determination in his voice.
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Because your roles are critical.’
‘What are they?’ asked Elsie.
‘We’ll do anything.’
‘Hackett, you’re going to go back to the wall,’ Almanac told him. ‘Even if you can’t escape, it’s very important that you try. Will you do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And me?’ asked Elsie. ‘What do I do?’
‘The most important thing of all,’ Almanac said. ‘When you hear the signal, you’re going to set the house on fire.’
Fire.
It was a word guaranteed to strike fear into anyone who lived in a fine mansion far from the nearest village, bucket line or river. For that reason, it was the perfect weapon to use against the spell. If the material it was written on lay within the house an
d could be burned or melted, letting the fire burn out would ensure its own destruction. Therefore, it must make every effort to stop it. But could it do that if its attention was elsewhere?
The plan relied on the spell’s one known weakness: it wasn’t very good at doing two things at once. Almanac and Etta had proved that by simultaneously attacking the heart of the spell and escaping.
So if the house was on fire while at the same time Hackett was trying to escape while at the same time every ghost in the walls was trying to break the rules by talking to Elsie about the spell … all while Almanac was in the cellars, trying to find and read the source, which would rob it of its power … well, something had to give.
The plan wasn’t to be entered into lightly. The following day was spent making preparations, which gave Almanac far too long to run the details over and over in his mind, looking for anything he had missed. They had decided to light the fire in a place no one inhabited: the conservatory, which had the added bonus of being full of flammable material and at a slight distance from the main body of the house. That way if they succeeded and broke the spell, the house was unlikely to burn down by accident. Almanac didn’t want to destroy the house, just to threaten the spell.
In case the plan did go awry, Etta requested that the painting of the green-eyed girl be moved somewhere safe. She couldn’t bear the thought that, after all these years watching the front door of the manor, ‘Permilia Stormleigh’ might not survive.
Nothing could be done about the ghosts, though. Did phantoms burn? That was another question to which Doctor Mithily didn’t know the answer. Hopefully, it wasn’t an experiment she was about to perform on them.
Almanac thrust that worry aside. They had discussed other possibilities, but none had the promise of testing the spell to its uttermost limits.
Their plan would work … because it had to.
It was while watching Almanac move the painting to the stables that Etta thought of a problem they hadn’t discussed.
Leaving him to his task, she swept up through the walls of the manor to the East Attic.
Doctor Mithily was behind her screen, tinkering with apparatus that seemed to be comprised mainly of lenses. They were for measuring the magical aether, she had told Etta, although how remained a mystery.
Seeing Etta appear in the wall, she tucked a pencil behind one ear and said, ‘Yes? What is it?’
‘What if the spell has powers we haven’t even seen yet?’
‘It undoubtedly has.’
The calmness of Doctor Mithily’s response was at odds with how Etta felt about the possibility. ‘So what if it does something worse than turning us into ghosts? It could take away our voices, or our sight, or our existence, such as it is … or something else that I can’t even imagine!’
‘You’re right. What if? We have no way of telling if any of the horrid possibilities you imagine might come true or of preparing for them.’
‘Doesn’t that worry you?’
‘Of course it does. I don’t want to disappear any more than you do, so if the spell destroys us, I will be greatly annoyed – but there are many here, I suspect, who would be grateful for release. They would welcome it as a merciful relief from their long imprisonment. And if we suffer a worse infliction than oblivion, well … ’ She shrugged. ‘We will have tried, and gained information that will aid us in our next attempt.’
‘If there is a next attempt … ’
‘Neither scientists nor sorcerers can predict the future, so let’s keep our options open, shall we?’
Unsatisfied, and only slightly mollified, Etta retreated to her scullery, where she too double-, triple- and quadruple-checked the details of the plan before everyone gathered for the last time.
‘I think we’re ready,’ Almanac said. The twins nodded, and the ghosts murmured their assent too.
‘When do we start?’ Etta asked him. ‘Now?’
‘No. Let’s give the spell credit for having some brains.’ He smiled, reminded of something he’d overheard the mistress once tell a visitor to the orphanage: Never assume an orphan is stupid, because the moment you do, your dress will be on fire.
‘We’ll surprise it,’ he went on. ‘Elsie and Hackett and me. That way it won’t be ready. We won’t have a signal, either. Just keep an eye out. You’ll know when it’s time.’
‘We will post a watch,’ said Lord Nigel, giving his moustache a minuscule adjustment. ‘Reminds me of my days in the army. Tell the young man we will be ready for action!’
Etta passed on the general gist of his comment.
‘Is there anything else anyone wants to say?’ she asked the gathered hosts. ‘Last chance to change the plan, if you’ve thought of a better one.’
One of the most transparent ghosts stepped out of the shadows. She had the face and dress of a young woman, no more than eighteen years old. Her skin was so black it was almost luminous.
‘My name is Lakitia,’ she said. ‘I came here to be a governess but the Dagget children were already nearly faded. I don’t expect anyone will remember me. I just wanted to introduce myself … before … in case … ’
‘It’s nice to meet you, Lakitia.’ Etta smiled at this faded, ancient person reaching out of the shadows at the eleventh hour.
‘And I am Everard,’ said another faded ghost, a middle-aged man in an out-of-date tuxedo. ‘Valet.’
‘Roderick. Coachman.’
‘Abigail. Uh, Abigail.’
‘Noah. Hall boy.’
A nagging, stressful ache had formed in Etta’s brow long before the parade was over. Now she knew what everyone looked like and had heard their voices – everyone whose names contributed to the name of the manor – it was so much harder to bear the thought of something going wrong. They could all be obliterated soon … or in a hundred years she could be exactly like them, faded almost beyond existence.
‘Are you still there?’ asked Almanac.
‘We … we are,’ Etta told him, clearing her throat. ‘We’re all here. Don’t muck this up, will you?’
He gripped both thumbs so tightly that for a moment he thought they might break. Sky and chocolate, he thought. Or fire and death.
‘We won’t muck it up, I promise.’
In the middle of the night, as the granddaughter clock in the hall finished chiming four, Almanac sat up. It was time to put the plan into action. Somehow it had become his responsibility, and not through any conscious effort of his own. At the orphanage, he had never wanted to be at the centre of the pranks the other boys played. He was simply happy to follow along. But here he was, masterminding a plan that would affect the lives of everyone in the manor. He wished Etta could decide when to put the plan into action instead. He wished he had longer to think – but what if she was already fading? He couldn’t bear the thought that his inaction might result in her disappearance.
There was a note lying next to his makeshift bed.
My dear Almanac –
Our hopes are with you. Brave heart!
Mr Packer, Head Butler
Through the butterflies in his belly, Almanac remembered the crotchety message he’d received after trying to find Madame Iris. The duties of a second footman do not extend to creating ruckuses in the midnight hour. That had been another attempt to guide him away from Iris. Now a ruckus was exactly what was needed.
He slipped his feet onto the cold kitchen floor and quickly dressed. Rustling from the chimney suggested that he was being watched. Saying nothing, he proceeded without hurrying up the stairs to the servants’ bedrooms, where he shook awake Hackett and then Elsie. They shared a single bed, top-and-tail, and woke immediately. Elsie rubbed her eyes, and winced as she touched the bruise she had received two days earlier.
Again, no words were exchanged. They knew, as everyone watching also knew: it was time.
Etta hadn’t meant to go to sleep, but it had been a long day and she’d nodded off without realising. Curled up in her nest of towels and cloths in one corner of the scul
lery, she came out of a dream about her sister Dizzy writing Sorcerers don’t grow old, they just sit down for a spell fifty times on a blackboard to the sound of Ugo calling her name. She could smell magic in the air. Something was happening.
‘It is beginning,’ Ugo told her.
Instantly, she was on her feet, listening for sounds of movement in the house. Almanac was coming down the stairs, towards the scullery.
‘Good luck,’ she said to him as he passed by. ‘Don’t forget the … items.’
He stopped by the door for a moment and rattled the heavy metal tools in his arms. ‘Got them. Good luck to all of us.’
She tried to say, If the spell is distracted, maybe I’ll be able to talk properly now, but not a single word emerged from her throat. ‘Cranberries’ was all she could manage.
Then Almanac was gone, trudging downstairs into the cellar, where he had set up the oil lantern in readiness. Fishing for his matches, he lit the wick and retraced his steps towards the mushroom maze.
Etta moved into the walls to follow Hackett and Elsie. Hackett was heading out the front door with a grappling hook made from bent and twisted silver cutlery slung over his shoulder. Etta expected the hook to come free every time he thought it anchored or the rope to fray and break, but that was okay. The point was to try, not to succeed – to distract the spell, not to escape and lead someone else into the trap.
She turned to Elsie, who had just opened the conservatory door and was inspecting the flammables prepared earlier. As well as dead plants, they had some of the house’s inexhaustible supply of coal, firewood and tinder ready to blaze, along with oil to get the fire really going. The girl swallowed nervously and began splashing the last of it liberally about.
When she was done, she stepped back to the door and put the oil can next to her feet. Reaching into her pocket, she produced her own box of matches. From it she took one and lit it with a deft scrape.
‘Tell Almanac,’ Etta said to Olive. ‘Hurry.’
The match dropped. Flames caught and spread.
Elsie turned on her heels and ran.
Her Perilous Mansion Page 16
