Charlie Bone and the Hidden King (Children of the Red King)

by Nimmo, Jenny

The cats padded after Charlie as he crept downstairs. In the kitchen he warmed a pan of milk and poured it into three saucers. Deep, delighted purring filled the room as the cats lapped the milk. As soon as it was gone, Charlie laid slices of turkey on the empty saucers.

  Snowflakes whirled past the uncurtained window, glistening in the beam of the kitchen lamp.

  ‘Something different about that snow,’ Charlie observed. ‘Should I put two and two together and guess why you’ve come?’ He watched the cats vigorously wash themselves. ‘I was twelve last week and where were you then? Parties don’t interest you, I suppose?’

  Leo, the orange cat, stopped washing and returned Charlie’s gaze. Not many cats could look you in the eye like that. Leo’s gaze burned with knowledge, with wildness and with memories of a life most mortals could only dream of. Leo was nine hundred years old, as were his brothers.

  Aries and Sagittarius now added their intense gaze to Leo’s. Charlie had the impression that they wanted to tell him something. He would have to wake the boy upstairs if he was to understand what the cats were trying to tell him.

  Three pairs of golden eyes followed Charlie out of the room. He could still feel them on his back as he climbed the stairs.

  ‘Billy! Billy, wake up!’ Charlie gently shook the white-haired boy’s shoulder.

  ‘What? What is it?’ Billy opened his round, ruby-coloured eyes.

  ‘Ssh! The Flames are here. I want you to come and talk to them.’

  Billy yawned. ‘Oh. OK.’ He tumbled out of bed, still not fully awake.

  ‘You must be quiet,’ warned Charlie, ‘or Grandma Bone will hear us.’

  Billy nodded and reached for his spectacles.

  Billy was eight years old and a head shorter than Charlie. He could communicate with animals, but only if they allowed him to. He had always been a little fearful of the Flame cats. They knew when he was lying.

  ‘Come on,’ Charlie whispered urgently.

  ‘I’ve got to find my specs,’ said Billy, ‘or I’ll fall. Ah. Here they are.’ He pushed them on to his nose and crept after Charlie.

  The cats watched the two boys enter the kitchen. Three pairs of ears flicked towards Billy when he sat, cross-legged before the stove, neat and alert. Charlie closed the door and sprawled beside the smaller boy.

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Charlie.

  A sound came from Billy’s throat: a soft, lilting mew. You have news for us?

  Aries replied with a growl that grew in strength the longer he held it. The other cats joined in and Charlie wondered if Billy could take in the chorus of information that came mewing and wailing at him in three different voices.

  Billy didn’t make a sound. With his arms tucked inside his crossed legs and his chin resting on his clasped hands, he listened attentively. Charlie looked anxiously at the door. He dared not hush the cats but he worried that Grandma Bone would hear their yowling.

  Billy frowned as the cats continued in their lilting, anxious voices. When, at last, their speech was over, Billy’s eyes were wide with alarm. He turned to Charlie. ‘It’s a warning.’

  ‘A warning?’ asked Charlie. ‘What kind of warning?’

  ‘Aries says that something might wake up if they can’t stop . . . stop . . . er . . . another thing from being found. And Sagittarius says that if that happens, you must be watchful, Charlie.’

  ‘Watchful? But what am I supposed to watch?’

  Billy hesitated. ‘A woman – I think. Your –’ The next word stuck in his throat.

  ‘My what?’ Charlie demanded.

  ‘Your – mother.’

  ‘My . . .’ Charlie stared at Billy and then at the cats. ‘Why?’ His voice was husky with dread. ‘Is someone going to make her disappear – like my father?’

  Billy asked the cats and Leo responded with an apologetic warble.

  ‘Leo says he wishes he could tell you more,’ Billy interpreted. ‘He will help you to watch.’

  Leo gave several loud mews.

  ‘He says that if the shadow has moved, then you’ll know it’s been released.’

  ‘What’s been released?’ begged Charlie, tugging at his wild hair. ‘Can’t they be a bit more specific?’

  At that moment the door opened and a voice said, ‘Will someone kindly turn off that light?’

  Charlie leapt to the switch and, as soon as the lamp over the table had gone out, a tall man in a red dressing gown appeared. He was holding a lighted candle in a brass candlestick.

  ‘I see you have visitors.’ Charlie’s great-uncle Paton nodded in the cats’ direction. ‘Morning, Flames.’

  The cats trilled a greeting and Charlie said, ‘Is it really morning?’

  ‘It’s two am,’ said Uncle Paton, who didn’t seem at all surprised to see Charlie and Billy downstairs at such an early hour. ‘I’m feeling peckish.’ He crossed the room and opened the fridge. ‘I detect an air of mystery. What’s been going on?’

  ‘The Flames came to warn me,’ Charlie told his uncle, ‘about Mum.’

  ‘Your mother?’ Uncle Paton turned away from the fridge with a frown. ‘Did you say your mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And a shadow,’ added Billy.

  Uncle Paton brought a plate of cheese from the fridge and set it on the kitchen table, beside the candlestick. ‘I want to know more,’ he said.

  ‘Billy, tell the cats to explain,’ begged Charlie. ‘Ask them what the shadow is.’

  But the cats were eager to be gone. They stretched themselves and ran to the door.

  ‘Wait!’ said Charlie. ‘You haven’t told me about the shadow.’

  Aries yowled and Leo scratched the door. Charlie had no choice but to open it. And then the cats were out and bounding through the hall.

  ‘What shadow?’ Charlie whispered fiercely as he followed the cats.

  Sagittarius growled. Charlie couldn’t tell if it was an answer or a demand.

  ‘Let them go, Charlie.’ Billy ran and opened the front door. ‘They’ve got to get somewhere else, fast. To see if the thing is found.’

  With a sudden chorus of trills the Flames darted through the door and were away up the street; three bright flames swallowed by the whirling snow.

  ‘They didn’t explain,’ Charlie grumbled. ‘Now I’ll never know.’

  ‘They did,’ said Billy. ‘They –’

  Before he could say any more a voice from the top of the stairs shouted, ‘What’s the meaning of this?’

  Grandma Bone was an unpleasant sight at the best of times, but after midnight she looked her worst. Her skinny frame was wrapped in a shaggy, grey dressing-gown and her big feet were encased in green tartan bootees. A long white pigtail hung over her shoulder and her sallow face had blotches of white cream dotted across it.

  ‘Hello, Grandma,’ said Charlie, trying to make the best of things.

  ‘Don’t be insolent.’ Grandma Bone didn’t like people being cheerful at night. ‘Why aren’t you in bed?’

  ‘We were hungry.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ She treated everything Charlie said as a lie. ‘I heard cats.’ She began to descend the stairs.

  ‘They were outside, Grandma,’ Charlie said quickly.

  She stopped and stared at the glass fanlight above the front door. ‘What sort of snow is that? It doesn’t look normal.’ She had a point. There was something different about those spinning flakes, but Charlie couldn’t have said what it was.

  ‘It’s cold, white and wet,’ said Uncle Paton, stepping out of the kitchen. ‘What more do you want?’

  ‘You!’ snarled Grandma Bone. ‘Why didn’t you send these boys back to bed?’

  ‘Because they were hungry,’ answered her brother in a superior tone. ‘Go to bed, Grizelda.’

  ‘Don’t you order me about.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Paton ambled back into the kitchen.

  For a moment Grandma Bone remained on the stairs, glaring down at Charlie.

  ‘I’ll get a glass of water, Grandma,
and then we’ll go straight to bed.’ Charlie looked at Billy. ‘Won’t we, Billy?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ To an orphan like Billy, Charlie’s strange, quarrelling family was endlessly fascinating. He nodded emphatically at Grandma Bone and added, ‘Promise.’

  Grandma Bone gave a ‘Hmph’ of doubt and shuffled upstairs.

  Charlie drew Billy into the kitchen again and asked in a whisper, ‘What did they say, Billy? The Flames. About the shadow?’

  ‘They just said a word,’ Billy replied. ‘It sounded like listen. No, something different, an old-fashioned word for listen.’

  ‘Hark?’ Uncle Paton suggested.

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’

  ‘That’s hardly a name, dear boy.’ Uncle Paton bit into a hunk of Cheddar. ‘It’s more of a command. Perhaps you misheard.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Billy said gravely.

  By now the three cats had crossed the city and were stepping lightly over the snow that had drifted against the walls of Bloor’s Academy. They passed the two towers on either side of the entrance steps and kept going, along the side of the building, until they reached the end, where a high stone wall began. Ivy had taken root in the ancient stones and the cats skimmed up the creeper and dropped down into a snowy field.

  On the far side of the field, the dark red walls of a ruined castle could be glimpsed. The cats became cautious. They paced carefully across the white field, their ears tuned to any sound that might come from the ruin. And then they heard the cry.

  ‘I know what you’re doing,’ shrieked a woman’s voice. ‘But I can’t be stopped, you fools. Did you think that snow would hinder me? Granted, it has slowed me down, but never will it stop me.’

  The cats moved closer. Through the great arch into the castle, they could see a dark figure, bent in half, her arms buried in snow up to her elbows. She swayed this way and that, tugging, pulling and moaning with effort. With a sudden, deep groan a large, flat stone was heaved upright, then fell back on to the snow.

  The woman stooped and groped in the earth. With a cry of triumph she lifted something out and held it up to the white air, her hands torn and bleeding from the struggle. ‘Mine! It’s mine!’

  A small shudder passed through the earth; a movement imperceptible to humans but enough to send a tiny thread of fear through every creature in the region. Birds awoke and screamed, small frantic rodents scurried desperately for safety and the mournful howling of dogs carried through the bitter air.

  Their eyes bright with alarm, the Flames watched the woman stumble from the ruin. The hem of her black coat was heavy with snow and her lamp swung in the icy breeze. She reached a door in the great grey building that was Bloor’s Academy and disappeared. A few minutes later a glimmering light appeared in a high window.

  The cats gazed at the window, fearing the worst.

  The woman was standing before a gold-framed portrait of the Red King, her lamp illuminating the thick, cracked paint. ‘I have it,’ she whispered. She was not addressing the king. With her free hand she withdrew an object from the folds of her coat. At first glance it looked like an imperfect circle of rusty metal, no more than six inches across. She held it by a thick oval stem.

  The king gazed out of his portrait with dark magnetic eyes. A circle of gold glinted on his black hair and his red cloak had the appearance of real velvet.

  As the woman twisted her metal circle it caught the rays from her lamp and a sudden, bright flash lit the painting. A shadow could be seen behind the king’s shoulder. Gradually it defined itself, its outline becoming sharper and brighter.

  ‘Awake, my lord,’ the woman urged in a voice heavy with yearning. ‘I have found the Mirror of Amoret.’

  Slowly the shadow moved. It slipped from behind the king and drifted forward, closer and closer.

  The woman gave a gasp of ecstasy. She sighed and swayed; her lamp swung, the circle glittered and the light on the painting danced and flashed. A sudden, thunderous explosion brought the portrait crashing to the floor and the woman screamed.

  A shadow rose out of the frame and came towards her.

  Vanishing animals

  The deep boom of the cathedral clock travelled across the city, and the boy on the hill lowered his arms.

  ‘One o’clock.’ He gave a sigh and yawned. ‘Surely, that’s enough.’

  A cloud of melting white flakes drifted away from the hill. Gradually the storm subsided. In a few minutes the sky was a clear, velvet black pierced by a million stars.

  Tancred put his head on one side and regarded the results of his work: the white roofs, the silent, snowfilled streets and the network of wires strung above the city like a sparkling spider’s web.

  ‘Not bad for a first attempt,’ Tancred said cheerfully. He shook his sleeves and a few remaining snowflakes floated out and settled on his slippers. In a few seconds they were gone.

  Tancred was surprised to find that he was wearing slippers. He had been only half awake when he followed the cats. He hadn’t even noticed the cold. Now, all at once, he was shivering. As he ran back up the narrow lane, he occasionally leapt into the air and brought his feet together with a satisfying ‘smack’. It was a recently acquired habit and often made his friends laugh.

  By the time Tancred reached his secluded three-towered house, his father’s thundery snores had become volcanic. Both the Torssons were weather-mongers and Tancred looked forward to a chat with his father about snow.

  ‘I wonder if he’s tried it?’ Tancred said to himself as he stepped indoors. He stamped his feet on the doormat. ‘Must tell Sander,’ he murmured, ‘and Charlie.’

  ‘Tell them what?’ Mrs Torsson, unable to sleep, was drinking tea in the kitchen.

  ‘About the snow,’ said Tancred.

  ‘Ah. That was you, was it? I wondered where you were.’ Mrs Torsson had grown used to her son’s unusual behaviour. A boy’s got to do what a boy’s got to do, her husband was always telling her, especially when it comes to the weather.

  ‘Phew! Dad’s making a racket.’ Tancred shook his damp cape and hung it on the back of the door.

  Mrs Torsson absent-mindedly put a third spoonful of sugar in her tea and then poured a cup for Tancred. He took a chair opposite her and drank thirstily. Snow-making was an exhausting business. He hoped he wouldn’t be called upon to do it again too soon.

  ‘The Flame cats were here,’ he explained to his mother. ‘They wanted snow – don’t ask me why. But I get the feeling something’s not right down there in the city.’

  ‘Your father said he had a foreboding. He hasn’t been sleeping well.’ Mrs Torsson shook her head. ‘Sometimes I wonder if we should move away from here. You could go to a nice normal school and –’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ Tancred said emphatically. ‘I belong here. Just as much as Charlie and Sander, and Gabriel and . . . and Emma. The Red King lived here and we’re his children. We’ve got to stick together. You know that, Mum.’

  ‘Yes, Tancred.’ His mother sighed.

  Mrs Torsson wasn’t the only mother to wish that she and her family were far away from the city. Charlie Bone’s mother longed to escape her dreary life in a house that didn’t belong to her, in a place that echoed with the whispers of its terrible past, and where her son had been forced to attend a school run by a malevolent old man.

  But Amy Bone had no money and nowhere to run to. Besides, Charlie was perfectly happy. Nothing ever seemed to get him down. He was an extraordinarily optimistic boy. Nothing could shake his conviction that his father was still alive and that, one day, Charlie would find him. It was something that Amy had given up counting on.

  It was eight o’clock on Saturday. Apart from Charlie’s mother, the occupants of number nine Filbert Street were all asleep. Even Amy’s mother, Maisie, could be heard gently snoring as Amy tiptoed past her room.

  After a hasty breakfast, Amy left the house and began her ten-minute walk to the greengrocer’s where she worked. Not a hint of last night’s snowfall remained. The air was c
hilly and the pavements still damp, but no one would have guessed that, a few hours ago, several inches of snow had covered the city.

  ‘Mrs Bone! Mrs Bone!’

  Amy turned quickly. The voice came from a boy on the other side of the road. Could it be . . .? Was it possible?

  ‘Benjamin!’ cried Amy, running back towards number nine. ‘It’s you!’

  The boy looked left and right, then dashed across the road.

  ‘Oh, Benjamin, I’m so, so happy to see you.’ Amy gave him a tight hug. She’d never done such a thing before and Benjamin was rather startled.

  ‘Are you all, er, r-right, Mrs Bone?’ he asked, embarrassment and lack of breath causing him to stammer. ‘I mean are you all all right?’

  ‘Charlie’s just fine,’ said Amy. ‘He’s still asleep, but I’ll let you in and you can surprise him.’ She ran up the steps, unlocked the door of number nine and opened it. ‘You know where his room is. I’ll have to dash now, or I’ll be late for work. But go in, go in.’ She gave Benjamin a little push into the house and closed the door behind him.

  Benjamin looked round the silent hall, pleased to see that nothing had changed. He was a small fair-haired boy with a perpetually lost expression. At the moment he was slightly jet-lagged, but he couldn’t wait to see Charlie and Runner Bean, the dog he’d left in Charlie’s care.

  Benjamin peeped into the kitchen. No dog basket. No bowl. Of course, Runner Bean must be sleeping in Charlie’s room.

  As he climbed the stairs Benjamin heard footsteps above him, and then Charlie’s grandmother, the kind one, appeared on the landing. She was wearing a bright pink dressing gown.

  ‘Benjamin Brown! What a sight for sore eyes!’

  Benjamin was subjected to yet another breathtaking squeeze. Maisie Jones was a round, curly-haired, twinkle-eyed person and the squeeze threatened to send Benjamin tumbling down the stairs.

  ‘You lovely normal boy,’ said Maisie. ‘No magical endowments for you. No poncy acting, no fiddling flutes, no animal gruntings. You’ll do Charlie a power of good. Go on up!’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Benjamin, breathless again.

  Maisie swayed downstairs, still talking. ‘I’ll make some toast and a nice cup of tea. Cornflakes? I s’pose it’s all noodles now. Do they have noodles for breakfast in Hong Kong?’