Seek the fire in the bite of a dragon
If by darkness you be pursued.
Look where my mournful gaze alights
One heart broken, one renewed.
‘Very helpful,’ said Fliss sarcastically. ‘What on – or under – the earth does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Archie. ‘Why would you want to seek a dragon’s bite? That would hurt a lot. I can’t make sense of the rest.’
‘One heart broken, one renewed,’ read Billy. ‘Maybe she’s talking about the Treeheart, the Jewel of Renewal. Perhaps it’s a spell?’
‘We need to think about this,’ said Archie, ‘but not here. Let’s get back to the Hall.’
He turned and stubbed his toe against something solid and heavy that was lying in the gloom nearby. It was a smallish wooden coffin. There were three of them, side by side, sat as if waiting for their occupants.
‘They look new,’ Billy said. ‘Who are they for?’
Archie leaned over the first, curious to see the name that had been roughly scratched into the unvarnished lid. It said
WILLIAM MacCRABBIE
The next one read:
FELICITY FAIRBAIRN
Archie felt his blood run cold, as he looked at the third.
ARCHIBALD McBUDGE
The coffins were for them.
‘If this is what the g-g-grave-digger calls customer service, then I want to make a very s-s-s-strongly worded complaint!’ stuttered Billy.
They ran back towards the entrance, stumbled up the stairs, expecting to see grey-washed daylight. But they were met by dark, rusty iron.
‘The door to the vault is closed!’ said Archie. ‘We’ve been shut in!’
‘Trapped!’ squealed Billy. ‘Buried alive, like the phantom Druid of Rubblehenge, Macabre Creepy Scale rating of seven point four!’
‘I left the door wedged open!’ said Archie, putting his weight against the cold metal. The door didn’t budge. ‘Fliss, you were last in – did you see anything?’
Fliss looked up at them from the shadows of the steps below. She was quite calm. There was that look in her eyes again. Was she even smiling?
‘I didn’t want to leave the door open,’ she said coolly. ‘It might have attracted attention.’
‘Don’t you see how dangerous that is?’ shouted Archie, as Billy joined him, vainly shoving against the entrance. ‘What if the door won’t open? It’s obvious someone meant us to come here – maybe Preen! You saw the coffins, he could have been planning something horrible!’
‘I’m sure someone will let us out. Eventually.’
‘Fliss! Help us!’
There was a pause. Fliss seemed confused for a moment. Then she stomped up the steps.
‘All right, don’t get your toffees in a twist,’ she said. ‘If we all push together, perhaps it will move.’
They leaned against the door, their wet shoes slipping against the stone floor. With an unpleasant, metallic shriek, the door reluctantly gave way. Watery light flooded in.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so pleased to see rain,’ sighed Billy.
Archie was silent. He was angry, and worried. Fliss had deliberately shut them in the vault. Was one of his own friends, one of the people he trusted most, actually his enemy?
Archie didn’t sleep a wink that night. He knew the Mirk was dangerous, but it hadn’t ever occurred to him that someone might want to harm him and his friends. And what about Fliss? She’d been acting so strangely. She wasn’t her usual self at all, and he really needed his friends’ help right now. Lying in the darkness, his mind clouded with fear.
Monday morning eventually dawned, sunny and warm. Archie awoke with a burning desire to stop the Mirk at all costs. Perhaps the Mirk had been using his fear against him? Whispering its malice and darkening hearts, the brownies had said. Was this what they had meant? He remembered how the dread had stopped him from taking action earlier.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this,’ he said, when he and Sherbet met up with the others in the hideout. Blossom was with them sitting in her usual spot on Fliss’s shoulder. ‘Yesterday was pretty scary.’
‘Forget it,’ said Fliss dismissively, though she looked pale. She was playing absent-mindedly with the clockwork dragon she’d been gifted by Miss Clabbity. ‘Someone’s just trying to frighten us.’
‘But how did they know we were going to the graveyard?’ said Billy, who had been the most shaken. Sherbet was getting used to his anxious hugs.
‘Preen must be keeping watch on us somehow,’ said Archie. ‘He must be behind this. It would be just his style of humour – creepy.’ He picked up Fliss’s red pen and started writing on the paper that was still stuck to the pipe. ‘Let’s recap what we know so far. We’re missing something, I’m sure of it, and it might help us work out what.’
‘Firstly, there’s the weird rhyme in tomb,’ said Fliss. ‘Though that’s not been much use.’ She threw the dragon toy on the floor dejectedly.
‘What happened to that black star puzzle thing you had?’ said Billy, as Archie wrote out the lines of the poem. ‘You’ve stopped playing with it.’
‘I lost it somewhere,’ said Fliss despondently. ‘I can’t think where. One minute I had it and then I didn’t. I told Miss Clabbity, but she didn’t seem to mind. I was worried because it looked really precious.’
Meanwhile, Archie wrote Edward Preen on the board.
‘We know Preen’s involved,’ he said. ‘I’m sure he might even be the Mirk in disguise. So far he seems intent on wrecking Unquiet Night and turning people against the factory, even roping the P-Ps into his plan. And he’s been using tree bark to make the Safer Wafers. I’m willing to bet he got that from those cut-down trees we found.’
‘If he’s cutting down the trees, it will weaken the protective magic of the forest and the Wyrdie Tree, according to the brownies,’ said Billy. ‘It all helps the Mirk, either way.’
‘To be fair, the wafers make a nice change,’ said Fliss. ‘Gingerbread Dragons can give you belly ache.’
‘Only if you stuff yourself,’ snapped Billy, ‘and you won’t be able to do that for much longer. People have stopped making them, thanks to Preen.’
‘What?’ said Archie.
‘Clootie is the only person in town still baking them,’ said Billy. ‘I picked up one of the last bags from her shop on my way here, although it was a struggle to get past those protestors. We’ll have to start making our own at this rate, which is the other thing I have to tell you …’ He took the journal of Belle McBudge from his bag. He thumbed through the book until he found a page thicker than the others. It was a pocket, formed by two pages stuck together. ‘There was something hidden in the journal, just like the map was hidden in the atlas.’ He carefully eased a small, fragile piece of parchment from inside the hidden pocket. It was covered in words – a list of ingredients and instructions – written in Belle’s familiar handwriting.
‘A recipe?’ said Archie, taking the parchment from Billy and studying it. ‘A recipe for Gingerbread Dragons.’
‘So what?’ said Fliss. ‘That just means she liked baking.’
‘In my research,’ said Billy, ignoring her, ‘I’ve not found evidence of anyone making Gingerbread Dragons before Belle’s time. I think this could be the very first recipe for a Gingerbread Dragon. Look, it’s dated the day before the Unquiet Night when she defeated the Mirk.’
‘Belle invented the Gingerbread Dragon!’ grinned Archie, impressed. ‘It has to mean something!’
‘It’s just a biscuit,’ snorted Fliss.
‘Then why is Preen so bothered by it?’ retorted Archie. ‘What could he have to fear from biscuits? Unless …’
‘What?’ said Billy.
‘Unless they’re magic,’ said Archie slowly.
Fliss laughed. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said.
Archie examined the Gingerbread Dragon recipe, looking for anything that might give him some kind of clue. There
was nothing obvious. But then Belle would have made sure there was nothing obvious, he thought. An idea suddenly struck him. Belle’s map that showed the way to the Wyrdie Tree – she had used Arcanolux Ink to draw the secret path! Maybe she had used the same trick twice.
‘Blossom – give me a fire-burst please,’ he said, holding up the recipe. The little dragon obliged, the golden light of her magical breath reflecting off the pipes of the hideout. There was a glow from the ancient paper. He’d been right! Under the list of ingredients, there were hidden instructions in shining letters:
Ginger is the most important ingredient, for it is the fire root that will keep the Mirk at bay. Then bake in an oven of DRAGON-FIRE to enhance its power.
Dragon-fire! The biscuits had been cooked by a dragon!
‘The rhyme from the tomb!’ gasped Archie, pointing at the paper he had just written on. ‘Seek the fire in the bite of a dragon, if by darkness you be pursued – not a real dragon, a bite from a dragon biscuit with fiery spices!’
‘You’re right!’ said Billy. ‘The Gingerbread Dragons have magic powers! Powers that protect you from the Mirk! Preen must have known, so he tried to stop people making them.’
‘Not only that,’ said Archie, his mind churning, frantically trying to put pieces of badly fitting puzzles together. ‘He made his own, evil version. Georgie said Preen was using a mind-control potion, but wouldn’t tell me how. I’ve only just worked it out – he put it in the Safer Wafer. And everyone who ate one is under his control.’
‘Everyone?’ said Billy. ‘But that means … that means …’ He turned to look at Fliss.
‘Yes,’ said Archie. ‘Fliss is working for Edward Preen.’
‘Fliss is helping the Mirk?’ said Billy, horrified. ‘She – she can’t be. It’s not true is it, Fliss? I know you’ve been a bit cranky lately but …’ His voice dried up in his throat.
Fliss looked back at them with that cold look in her eyes that had so worried Archie.
‘Think about it, Billy,’ said Archie. ‘You said so yourself, how did someone know we were going to the McBudge vault? It was Fliss’s idea to go there in the first place – we were meant to go there. Then she shut us in with the coffins!’
‘I can’t believe she would do this to us!’ said Billy, shaking.
‘It’s not her,’ said Archie, grasping him by the shoulder. ‘It’s not our Fliss. She’s being used, like the rest of Dundoodle. They’re all bewitched.’
‘Where’s the Treeheart, Archie?’ said Fliss, her voice mechanical and distant. ‘I know you’re hiding it somewhere. Where is it?’
Archie and Billy edged away. Sherbet growled.
‘Where’s the Treeheart?’ Fliss repeated. ‘Give me the Treeheart.’ She reached out her hand to grab Archie’s throat. Blossom, alarmed at the change in her friend’s behaviour, let out a burst of flame. It swept dangerously close to the girl’s fingers. Fliss screamed, instinctively withdrawing her hand from the heat. At that moment, Billy snatched a broken Gingerbread Dragon from the bag he had brought from Clootie’s, hurling a piece of biscuit squarely into Fliss’s open mouth.
‘Careful!’ said Archie. ‘She could choke!’
‘It’s worth the risk,’ said Billy. ‘We have to save her!’
Fliss couldn’t help but bite down on the gingerbread. As she did so her eyes warmed, and a spark of life appeared in them. She started chewing, slowly first then faster, the Fliss they recognised gradually returning. The spell was breaking! She looked around her, confused, as if she didn’t remember where she was or how she’d got there.
‘What’s going on?’ she said. ‘I feel like I’ve been outside my body watching myself.’
She was furious when they told her what they had guessed about the wafers.
‘It should have been Billy who was bewitched, not me,’ she said. ‘If anyone is pathetic enough to be mind-controlled, it’s him.’
‘That’s really rude,’ said Billy, ‘but a fair point. Though I’d make a lousy henchman.’ He didn’t mind Fliss’s insults, he was just glad to have her back to normal.
‘I remembered how different I felt after I’d eaten a Gingerbread Dragon that day Preen came to school,’ said Archie. ‘Like I was suddenly shaking off my fear of the Mirk. That’s the same time you began acting strangely, just after you’d eaten the Safer Wafer.’
‘Cursed Confectionery,’ said Billy. ‘Macabre Creepy Scale rating of five point seven!’
‘But who knows what else I’ve done?’ said Fliss. ‘My memory is really hazy. The Mirk could have made me do terrible things!’
‘We can’t worry about that now,’ said Archie. ‘Just keep away from the Safer Wafers. We’ll have to ration the Dragons, too. There aren’t many left.’
At that moment, a voice called up from the factory floor below.
‘Archie, are you up there?’ It was Mum. Fliss bundled Blossom into her bag and the children clambered out of the mess of pipework on to the gangway and saw Archie’s mum looking up at them with a grim face.
‘Archie, children – I’ve got some bad news,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid the festival isn’t going ahead. Unquiet Night has been cancelled.’
They looked at each other, horrified. Mum explained as they hurried back to the Hall.
‘The committee for organising the festival has resigned,’ she said with a heavy sigh. ‘No one is interested in doing anything, apart from complaining about sweets and talking about wholesomeness, as if they’d know what that is. Mean Preen has got to them somehow.’
‘This is a disaster!’ said Billy bitterly. ‘Unquiet Night is the most important day of the year! This has never happened before. Dundoodle without Unquiet Night is like chips without curry sauce – unthinkable.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mum. ‘It does sound like you’ll be missing out on a lot of fun.’
‘Fun?’ said Billy, his eyes welling up. ‘It’s a day for serious study of supernatural and paranormal phenomena. Without the festival, the emotionally-generated psychokinetic energy field will be substantially suboptimal for any wyrdological events to manifest themselves.’
‘Yes … that too,’ said Mum, gently patting him on the back.
She left them in the library, each with a reassuring ice cream sundae with McBudge Fudge sauce, Tablet’s summer alternative to hot chocolate.
‘We need to work out what the rest of the rhyme means and find the Treeheart,’ said Archie. ‘We can do it, I know we can!’ He was trying to sound positive, but the situation was urgent. Regardless of whether the festival took place or not, the Wyrdie Tree must renew itself. Its power would be at its weakest, and the Mirk was ready to attack. They got to work.
‘Look where my mournful gaze alights, one heart broken, one renewed,’ Archie recited, scratching his head. Billy was sat scouring Belle’s journal, desperately searching the elegant handwriting for any clues he might have missed. Meanwhile, Fliss was looking through a pile of books on the history of the old forest, to see if she could find any mention of the Treeheart. She couldn’t help yawning: it wasn’t exactly riveting stuff. Blossom yawned in sympathy.
‘You’re not helping, Blossom,’ Fliss said, smiling for the first time in a while. ‘I wonder if Corignis helped Belle. Maybe he was the dragon that baked the first Gingerbread Dragons? I wonder why Belle didn’t use a normal oven.’
Archie looked up from an old scroll he was reading, about the McBudge family jewels.
‘Honeystone!’ he said, his eyes lit up. ‘Dragon-fire turns nectar from flowers into honeystone. Nectar’s a type of sugar, isn’t it? So perhaps dragon-fire turned the sugar in the biscuits into tiny little crystals of honeystone too!’
‘So as well as making the gingerbread tastier,’ added Billy, ‘its magical properties might enhance the protective effects of the ginger.’
In spite of the urgency of the situation, Archie grinned. ‘I’ve had another idea,’ he said.
There was no time to lose. Archie ran back to the factory, follo
wed by the others and refusing to answer their questions. They found the manager’s office. Mr Fairbairn looked a lot like Fliss and had the same logical mind.
‘Hello, you lot,’ he said, ushering them into the office with a welcoming smile. ‘Your mum said you might be popping in, Archie. Looking to do some kind of project, she said.’
‘Yes,’ said Archie, thinking quickly. ‘I’d like to make a new sweet for Unquiet Night. The McBudge factory doesn’t make anything especially for the festival, does it?’
‘No – it’s an interesting notion, all right, Archie. But haven’t you heard? Unquiet Night has been cancelled.’
‘I only want to make a small amount of sweets. Just enough to … to test out something.’
Archie was going to take on the responsibility of being Guardian, but on his own terms. He was going to create something new. The Gingerbread Dragon was going to get an Archie McBudge upgrade …
The day of Unquiet Night arrived. It was blisteringly hot, and Dundoodle was smothered by a blanket of sticky air that caused sleepless nights, bad tempers and sweaty, bum-shaped patches on seats. All the windows of Honeystone Hall were open to let the air circulate, sending miniature dust storms and cobweb-paragliding spiders through the hundreds of forgotten, empty rooms.
Archie awoke, exhausted, from a feverish dream about Dragon-fire and jewels (and a badger called Clive) to find a red leaf lying on his bed. Written on its surface, in golden ink, were the words:
The Tree begins to shed its leaves. Tonight it must be renewed or all magic fails!
It was a depressingly unhelpful message from the Fjurge Brownies. A reminder of how desperate things were. He had failed to find the Treeheart. It was the very first time he had been called into action as Guardian, and he hadn’t been up to the responsibility.
The Dentist of Darkness Page 7