The Key to Rondo

by Emily Rodda

  ‘She’s not a vampire, if that’s what you mean,’ Conker said with assurance. ‘She walks around in the sun, and they say she’s got a big mirror in her room that reflects her perfectly. Vampires can’t bear the sun, and they have no reflections.’

  Leo stared at him, and he shrugged. ‘Freda and I know a lot about vampires,’ he said, with a touch of pride. ‘Vampire dens are always crawling with dots. We’ve cleaned up quite a few of them – for good money, too. Right, Freda?’

  ‘Right,’ the duck agreed.

  ‘We go to the dens during the day, while the vampires are asleep,’ Conker went on chattily. ‘Safety first, I always say. They usually leave our pay in envelopes stuck to the tops of their coffins.’

  ‘I doubt Leo and Mimi believe that the queen is the ordinary sort of vampire,’ Hal murmured. ‘But, whatever they were thinking, they were wrong. She won’t gain any new power by capturing them. That’s one thing we don’t have to worry about.’

  Leo caught his breath. Hal sounded so confident. It was impossible to disbelieve him. So – George Langlander hadn’t helped the Blue Queen create the Dark Time. He’d just battened on to her, encouraged her, flattered her and enjoyed the power and the wealth her wicked deeds brought him. In a way, that made Leo despise him more than ever.

  ‘Then why did the queen try to make us go with her?’ Mimi demanded. ‘And why did she take Mutt?’

  ‘Perhaps she found you and your dog … interesting,’ Tye said, very softly. ‘The Blue Queen likes curiosities. I myself was once part of her collection. I was kept chained in a cage, with a leather collar around my neck. Oh, I was a curiosity indeed! The only one of my tribe the Blue Queen had not murdered. The last Terlamaine.’

  As Mimi and Leo stared at her in horror, she lifted her head proudly.

  ‘Hal freed me,’ she said. ‘He found me in the castle, and he freed me. He is my tribe, now.’

  So you defy Hal at your peril. The unspoken words were as clear as if they had been scrawled on the walls in blood.

  Mimi refused to be cowed. ‘Listen,’ she said, leaning forward and speaking directly to Hal. ‘You don’t like Langlanders. You don’t want Langlanders coming into your world any more. And we want to save Mutt. So … what about if you help us, and in return we promise never to come here again, and to make sure no one else does either.’

  Hal’s face went blank. Freda burst out laughing, her masked eyes sparkling with malicious humour.

  Mimi scowled. ‘Don’t you believe we’ll do it?’ she demanded.

  She thrust out her hand and tapped the black and gold ring gleaming on her finger. ‘We know all about this,’ she said. ‘The Blue Queen told us. We know it’s the Key that’s let Langlanders move in and out of Rondo for generations. And if you help us save Mutt, I swear that the moment we get home I’ll destroy it – smash it with a hammer or something – so no one will ever be able to use it again.’

  There was a stunned silence. Even Leo was tongue-tied.

  Leo’s mind was whirling with a powerful mixture of emotions. He was full of admiration for Mimi’s bold plan. At the same time he was irritated because Mimi had offered to destroy the ring without consulting him. And most of all he was deeply satisfied, because he’d suddenly thought of the perfect way to deal with Spoiler.

  Abruptly Hal pushed back his chair and stood up. His eyes were deeply shadowed. Suddenly he looked like a man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  ‘That is enough for tonight,’ he said. ‘Early as it is, we all need sleep.’

  ‘Hal, you must –’ Tye began.

  ‘But –’ Mimi began at the same moment.

  ‘We will talk again in the morning,’ Hal said. And his voice was so firm, and his face so haggard, that Tye fell silent and even Mimi seemed to realise that there was no point arguing.

  Conker lit a candle and took Mimi and Leo to a small white room that opened off the kitchen. In the room were two narrow beds with green spreads, separated by a simple but beautifully made cabinet. Above the cabinet was a window covered by a green and white striped curtain that stirred in the soft night breeze.

  Leo went to the cabinet and ran his fingers appreciatively over the smooth golden-brown wood.

  ‘You’ll find blankets in there,’ Conker said gruffly. ‘Nice piece, isn’t it? Hal made it. He made every stick of furniture in this house, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Really?’ Leo asked eagerly.

  But Conker seemed to regret having started a conversation. He thrust the candle into Leo’s hand, muttered a hurried goodnight and left the room.

  ‘He’s not very friendly any more, is he?’ Leo said. ‘And Hal’s just … cold.’

  ‘So? What do you care?’ Mimi pulled the cabinet doors open to reveal a pile of thin, neatly folded grey blankets and two extra pillows. She threw some blankets onto her bed, then turned and regarded Leo with her head on one side.

  ‘You know, Leo,’ she said. ‘Your trouble is, you’re not used to people not liking you. You should try being me some time.’

  Leo didn’t know how to answer that. Suddenly the room felt stifling. Suddenly all he wanted was to open the window wide, and breathe fresh air. He pulled the curtain aside, and stepped back in shock.

  The window was open, but rough boards had been nailed across the frame on the outside, leaving only narrow gaps through which air could flow.

  Leo remembered the hammering he’d heard when they’d first arrived at the house. Conker preparing this room for us, he thought numbly.

  ‘Right!’ Mimi snapped, glaring at the boards. ‘That’s it. Whatever game Hal’s playing, he’s not going to help us, that’s obvious. In fact, it looks like he’s going to try to stop us getting to the Blue Queen at all. I’m getting out of here. Are you coming?’

  Leo nodded. Despite the open door, the bare little room felt like a prison.

  Quickly, he and Mimi arranged blankets on the beds, padding them with pillows so that they looked as if someone was asleep beneath them. Then Leo blew out the candle and they slipped out of the room, into the dark kitchen.

  Hearing that Conker and Freda were still awake, murmuring to one another before the fire, they crept to the back door, pressed themselves into the deep shadows, and waited.

  Minutes ticked by. Mumbling snores began drifting through the house.

  Soon we can go, Leo thought. He was longing to move. His body seemed a mass of aches and itches. He’d stopped even trying to make sense of all this.

  First you trust them, then you don’t. Then you trust them, then you don’t …

  He heard the tiny sound of a board creaking and abruptly he was fully alert. Someone was moving through the house.

  A slender figure glided silently into the kitchen. It was too dark for Leo to see the prowler’s face, but he knew it was Tye. She can see in the dark, he thought with a shiver.

  Tye stopped at the doorway of the small bedroom, and cautiously peered in. She stared into the darkness for a long moment. Then she pulled the door shut, locked it noiselessly with a key she had ready in her hand and prowled back the way she had come.

  Suddenly Leo was furiously angry. He hadn’t a moment’s doubt that Hal had given Tye the order to lock him and Mimi in. What game was Hal playing? Shaking off Mimi’s hand as she tried to hold him back, he edged out of hiding.

  He felt his way to the other end of the kitchen, and peeped into the living room. Bertha was still stretched out by the fireside. Conker was slumped in the armchair, snoring, twitching and mumbling in his sleep. Freda was on the wooden stool, her head tucked under her wing.

  But Tye was standing at the door of another room that lay right beside the kitchen. Hal’s bedroom, Leo guessed.

  Leo heard soft, rapid breathing behind him. Mimi hadn’t been able to resist following him. He hoped Tye’s ears weren’t as sharp as her eyes.

  ‘They are asleep, and the door is locked,’ he heard Tye say in a low voice. ‘But I cannot understand why you insist
ed on this delay, Hal. The task is distasteful to you, I know, but time will not make it any easier. You should have let me do it. It would not have worried me in the least.’

  Mimi drew a sharp breath. Leo’s heart felt as if it had stopped.

  ‘No!’ Hal said grimly from inside the room. ‘This is my responsibility.’

  ‘Oh, everything is your responsibility, Hal!’ spat the Terlamaine. ‘Why should these reckless Langlanders weigh on your conscience?’

  ‘They’re so young, Tye!’ came Hal’s low, agonised whisper.

  Tye growled. ‘They were old enough to come here,’ she replied remorselessly. ‘They are old enough to face the consequences.’

  Chapter 27

  Escape

  Horrified, Leo and Mimi crept back into the kitchen, praying that Conker’s snores and mumbles, which had grown louder, would mask the sound of any creaking boards.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here, right now!’ Mimi whispered frantically. ‘What about Bertha?’ She was shivering as if she were freezing.

  Leo fought down his confusion and fear. ‘She’ll be okay,’ he whispered back. ‘Hal’s got no reason to hurt her.’

  Hoping with all his heart that what he’d said was true, he felt his way to the back door. He ran his fingers over the heavy bolt and gave it a small, experimental tug. The bolt didn’t budge.

  He resisted the urge to tug harder. The bolt was too stiff to open silently, and he knew that even Conker’s snores wouldn’t mask the squeal of grating metal.

  He turned his attention to the window.

  ‘Hurry, Leo!’ gasped Mimi through chattering teeth. ‘Tye might come back. She might decide to kill us herself, whatever Hal says. And if she finds us gone …’

  ‘She won’t come back,’ Leo muttered, and wished he felt as sure as he sounded. He found the window catch and cautiously slid it open. It was loose, and didn’t make a sound.

  Holding his breath, he pushed the window gently. There was the faintest sigh of wood sliding against wood, then the window swung smoothly open.

  Leo let out his breath in relief. He caught the window as it began to swing shut again. He helped Mimi climb through the gap and heard the soft thump as she landed on the grass outside. He was halfway through the window himself when, over the buzz of Conker’s snores, he heard sounds he’d been dreading.

  Voices. Footsteps. Coming closer.

  Recklessly, Leo leaped for the ground. He caught his foot on the windowsill, twisted awkwardly in the air and fell, sprawling. He lay stunned, gasping for breath. Trailing willow tips tickled his nose. That’s not how it works in the moovlies, he thought, and had an absurd urge to laugh.

  ‘Leo!’ he heard Mimi whisper urgently. He felt her tugging at his shoulders. Dazed, he looked up and saw light glowing behind the kitchen window, which had swung shut again. He could hear the dull murmuring of voices. Then his heart jumped into his throat as he heard the rasping sound of the bolt on the back door being drawn back.

  The door was opening. Soft, flickering light was spilling out onto the grass. There was no time get up, no time to run. Leo rolled desperately beneath the shelter of the trailing branches of the willow tree, pulling Mimi with him.

  ‘Thank you very kindly,’ they heard a voice say in a piercing whisper.

  Leo parted the leafy curtain and peered through the gap.

  Bertha, her hat balanced crookedly on her head, appeared in the lighted doorway. Tye, candle in hand, was close behind her.

  ‘I’m so sorry to be a trouble,’ Bertha whispered, stepping out onto the grass. ‘And I do hope we haven’t woken Leo and Mimi. But I just had to get out of there. If I’d stayed I wouldn’t have got a wink of sleep. I must have dozed off for a minute, and the next thing I knew the house was dark and Conker was making that terrible noise!’

  Tye murmured something Leo couldn’t hear.

  ‘It’s not just the snoring,’ Bertha went on, blowing a trailing ribbon out of her eyes. ‘He seems to be fighting something in his sleep as well! Mumbling and groaning and thrashing around. He gets nightmares, I suppose, poor thing … monsters, and the Blue Queen, and so on.’

  ‘Dots, actually,’ Tye said sombrely. ‘He hates them.’

  She pointed to her left. ‘The work shed is that way, beside the house. There is plenty of sawdust on the floor. You should be quite comfortable.’

  She turned to go back inside.

  ‘Ah – you will call me in time for breakfast, won’t you?’ Bertha whispered anxiously after her. ‘I wouldn’t want to miss it. Not that I usually eat very much breakfast, of course, but I have to keep up my strength.’

  Tye hesitated. She glanced at the dark, barred window of Mimi and Leo’s bedroom, and quickly looked away again.

  ‘Breakfast will be … quite late,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Hal has something to do before he will eat. Sleep as long as you wish.’

  ‘How kind!’ Bertha said graciously. ‘Goodnight, then.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ said the Terlamaine. With another glance at the barred window, she slipped back into the kitchen and closed the door. The bolt rasped as she secured it again. The flickering light shining through the kitchen window went out.

  Humming softly to herself, and keeping her head very steady so her hat wouldn’t fall off, Bertha ambled towards the side of the house. She rounded the corner and disappeared from view. After a few moments, Leo and Mimi heard a door creak. Bertha had found the work shed.

  ‘What luck!’ Leo whispered. ‘Now we can tell Bertha what’s happened, and she can come with us.’

  Mimi moved uneasily. ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered. ‘She thinks Hal’s so wonderful. She might not believe us. She might even try to stop us leaving – or raise the alarm, or something.’

  ‘Mimi, don’t you trust anyone?.’ Leo sighed.

  Mimi considered this. ‘I trust you,’ she said seriously.

  Leo was dumbfounded, pleased, moved, and terribly embarrassed, all at the same time.

  ‘For the moment, anyway,’ Mimi added, spoiling the whole thing. ‘I’ve got no choice, really.’

  They crawled out from the shelter of the willow tree, and stood up. It was very dark. The sky was like black velvet, sprinkled with stars. There was no moon but it seemed to Leo that a faint glow was visible above the willow trees that sheltered the front of the house. He wondered what it was.

  As silently as they could, he and Mimi felt their way around to the side of the house. The dark bulk of the work shed loomed to their right, not far away.

  ‘Be careful,’ Leo whispered as Mimi crept to the door and raised her hand to knock. ‘If we scare her, she might–’

  ‘Who’s there?’ squeaked Bertha’s voice from the other side of the door.

  Mimi jumped back in fright.

  ‘Shh!’ Leo hissed. ‘Bertha! It’s only us.’

  The door swung open. Bertha’s startled face peered out from the gloom within. Her head looked as if it were floating in darkness, all by itself.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered. ‘Did Tye and I wake you? I’m terribly sorry, but I just had to have some privacy. What with Conker snoring and having nightmares about dots, and that creepy, bad-mannered duck who wears her mask even to sleep –’

  ‘Bertha, let us in!’ Leo broke in desperately. ‘We have to talk to you. It’s urgent!’

  ‘Urgent?’ Bertha’s eyes brightened. ‘Ooh, how exciting!’

  She backed away from the doorway. Mimi and Leo slipped into the shed, closing the door after them.

  They sat down in the darkness, which was filled with the tangy smell of wood shavings, and Mimi started telling Bertha about what had happened, and why they wanted to run away.

  This must be where Hal makes his furniture, Leo thought, breathing in the wood smell. He wished the shed wasn’t so dark, so he could see Hal’s workbench.

  ‘Well!’ Bertha’s gasp broke into his thoughts. He realised that Mimi must have reached the end of her story.

 
; ‘I never would have believed it!’ Bertha went on, sounding very upset. ‘Barred windows! Locked doors! And a death plot! It’s – it’s incredible! Mind you, I never did trust that Conker person …’

  ‘I don’t think Conker even knows about it,’ Mimi said. ‘It was Tye who –’

  ‘Well, of course!’ hissed Bertha. ‘Everyone knows Terlamaines are cunning. And I’d believe anything about that duck! But are you quite, quite sure that Hal –?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mimi said firmly. ‘We both heard it.’

  ‘And I heard something else,’ Leo added, suddenly remembering Hal’s conversation with the messenger mouse. Quickly he repeated everything he’d heard through the kitchen window while Conker was washing up.

  When he’d finished, there was a short, stunned silence.

  ‘Leo, why didn’t you tell me this before?’ Mimi exclaimed at last.

  ‘First I couldn’t get you alone, then I forgot,’ Leo said, his face growing hot.

  ‘Forgot?’ Mimi snapped. ‘How could you forget something like that?’

  ‘At the time it just seemed strange,’ Leo said, defending himself as best he could. ‘It didn’t seem so – ominous.’

  ‘I can’t see why,’ Mimi said coldly. ‘Obviously the message was for the Blue Queen. I suppose Hal was telling her we’d escaped the troll, but that he’d deal with us himself.’

  ‘This is terrible, just terrible,’ said Bertha, shaking her head. ‘Hal! In league with the Blue Queen! But Hal was the one who broke her power!’

  ‘He wouldn’t talk about that, though, would he?’ Mimi said slowly. ‘How do we know what happened when their magic clashed? The clash took most of the Blue Queen’s power, sure, but it burned away all of Hal’s. For all we know it left the Blue Queen with some sort of hold over him that he can’t break. He mightn’t like doing what she wants, but he mightn’t be able to help it. I’ve read about things like that.’

  ‘Oh, it can’t be!’ Bertha wailed softly.

  But Leo said nothing, because Mimi’s explanation, which once would have seemed to him the wildest of wild guesses, made a horrible sort of sense.