by Angie Sage
“Now, young man,” said Aunt Zelda, “there’s no rush. Just snuggle yourself back down and drink this while it’s still hot.” She offered a mug of milk and the biggest slice of toast to Boy 412, who looked, she thought, like he could do with fattening up.
Boy 412 sat back down, wrapped his quilt around him and somewhat warily drank the hot milk and ate his buttered toast. In between sips of milk and mouthfuls of toast he glanced around him, his dark gray eyes wide with apprehension.
Aunt Zelda settled herself down on an old chair beside the fire and threw a few logs onto the embers. Soon the fire was blazing, and Aunt Zelda sat contentedly warming her hands by the flames. Boy 412 glanced at Aunt Zelda whenever he thought she wouldn’t notice. Of course she did notice, but she was used to looking after frightened and injured creatures, and she saw Boy 412 as no different from the assortment of marsh animals that she regularly nursed back to health. In fact, he particularly reminded her of a small and very frightened rabbit she had rescued from the clutches of a Marsh Lynx not long ago. The Lynx had been taunting the rabbit for hours, nipping its ears and throwing it about, enjoying the rabbit’s frozen terror before it would eventually decide to break its neck. When, in an overenthusiastic throw, the Lynx had hurled the terrified animal into her path, Aunt Zelda had snatched the rabbit up, stuffed it into the large bag she always took out with her and gone straight home, leaving the Lynx wandering around for hours searching for its lost prey.
That rabbit had spent days sitting by the fire looking at her in just the same way that Boy 412 was now. Aunt Zelda reflected as she busied herself with the fire, careful not to frighten Boy 412 by looking at him for very long, the rabbit had recovered, and she was sure Boy 412 would too.
Boy 412’s sidelong glances took in Aunt Zelda’s frizzy gray hair, rosy cheeks, comfortable smile and friendly witch’s brilliant blue eyes. He needed quite a few glances to take in her large patchwork dress, which made it hard to tell exactly what shape she might be, especially when she was sitting down. It gave Boy 412 the impression that Aunt Zelda had walked into a large patchwork tent and had just, that very minute, poked her head out of the top to see what was going on. Briefly, a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth at the thought.
Aunt Zelda noticed the hint of a smile and was pleased. She had never in her life seen such a pinched and frightened-looking child, and it upset her to think about what could have made Boy 412 become that way. She had heard talk about the Young Army in her occasional visits to the Port, but she had never really believed all the terrible stories she had heard. Surely no one could treat children in such a way? But now she began to wonder whether there was more truth in them than she had realized.
Aunt Zelda smiled at Boy 412; then with a comfortable groan she heaved herself out of the chair and pottered off to fetch some more hot milk.
While she was gone Nicko and Jenna woke up. Boy 412 stared at them and moved away a little, remembering only too well Jenna’s armlock of the night before. But Jenna just smiled sleepily at him and said, “Did you sleep well?”
Boy 412 nodded and stared at his almost empty mug of milk.
Nicko sat up, grunted a hello in Jenna and Boy 412’s direction, grabbed a slice of toast and was surprised to find how hungry he was. Aunt Zelda arrived back at the fireside carrying a jug of hot milk.
“Nicko!” Aunt Zelda smiled. “Well, you’ve changed a bit since I last saw you, that’s for sure. You were just a little baby then. Those were the days when I used to visit your ma and pa in The Ramblings. Happy days.”
Aunt Zelda sighed and passed Nicko his hot milk.
“And our Jenna!”—Aunt Zelda smiled a broad smile at her—“I always wanted to come and see you, but things became very difficult after the…well, after a while. But Silas has been making up for lost time and telling me all about you.”
Jenna smiled a little shyly, glad that Aunt Zelda had said “our.” She took the mug of hot milk that Aunt Zelda offered her and sat sleepily looking at the fire.
A contented silence fell for a while, broken only by the sound of Silas and Maxie still snoring upstairs and toast being munched downstairs. Jenna, who was leaning against the wall by the fire, thought she could hear a faint sound of meowing from inside the wall, but as that was obviously impossible, she decided it must be coming from outside and ignored it. But the meowing continued. It became steadily louder and, thought Jenna, crosser. She put her ear to the wall and heard the distinctive sounds of an angry cat.
“There’s a cat in the wall…” said Jenna.
“Go on,” said Nicko. “I don’t know that one.”
“It’s not a joke. There is a cat in the wall. I can hear it.”
Aunt Zelda jumped up.
“Oh, my. I completely forgot about Bert! Jenna love, could you just open Bert’s door for her, please?” Jenna looked confused.
Aunt Zelda pointed to a small wooden door set into the bottom of the wall beside Jenna. Jenna tugged at the little door. It flew open, and out waddled an angry duck.
“I’m so sorry, Bert darling,” apologized Aunt Zelda. “Have you been waiting for ages?”
Bert waddled unsteadily over the heap of quilts and sat herself down by the fire. The duck was cross. It very deliberately turned her back on Aunt Zelda and ruffled its feathers. Aunt Zelda leaned over and stroked her.
“Let me introduce you to my cat, Bert,” she said.
Three pairs of bewildered eyes stared at Aunt Zelda. Nicko inhaled his milk and started choking. Boy 412 looked disappointed. He was just starting to like Aunt Zelda and now it turned out she was as mad as the rest of them.
“But Bert’s a duck,” said Jenna. She was thinking that someone had to say it, and they had better say it straight away before they all got into the let’s-pretend-the-duck’s-a-cat-just-to-humor-Aunt-Zelda thing.
“Ah, yes. Well, of course she is a duck at the moment. In fact, she has been a duck for a while now, haven’t you, Bert?”
Bert gave a small meow.
“You see, ducks can fly and swim and that is a great advantage in the marshes. And I have yet to meet a cat who enjoys getting her feet wet, and Bert was no exception. So she decided to become a duck and enjoy the water. And you do, don’t you, Bert?”
There was no answer. Like the cat she really was, Bert had fallen asleep by the fire.
Jenna tentatively stroked the duck’s feathers, wondering if they felt like cat fur, but they were soft and smooth and felt entirely like duck feathers.
“Hello, Bert,” whispered Jenna.
Nicko and Boy 412 said nothing. Neither of them was about to start talking to a duck.
“Poor old Bert,” said Aunt Zelda. “She often gets stuck outside. But ever since the Quake Ooze Brownies got in through the cat tunnel I’ve tried to keep the cat door CharmLocked. You have no idea what a shock it was to come downstairs that morning and find the place heaving with those nasty little creatures, like a sea of mud they were, swarming up the walls and poking their long bony fingers into everything and staring at me with those little red eyes. They ate everything they could and messed up anything else they couldn’t. And then, of course, as soon as they saw me they started all that high-pitched screaming.” Aunt Zelda shuddered. “It set my teeth on edge for weeks. If it hadn’t been for Boggart, I don’t know what I would have done. I spent weeks cleaning the mud off the books, not to mention making up all my potions again. Talking of mud, would anyone like a dip in the hot spring?”
A little later, Jenna and Nicko felt a lot cleaner after Aunt Zelda had shown them where the hot spring bubbled up into the little bath hut in the backyard. Boy 412 had refused to have anything to do with it and had stayed huddled by the fire, his red hat crammed down over his ears and his sailor’s sheepskin jacket still wrapped around him. Boy 412 felt as if the cold of the previous day was still deep in his bones, and he thought he would never again feel warm. Aunt Zelda let him sit by the fire for a while, but when Jenna and Nicko decided to go out and e
xplore the island she shooed Boy 412 out with them.
“Here, take this,” Aunt Zelda said, handing Nicko a lantern. Nicko gave Aunt Zelda a quizzical look. What were they going to need a lantern for at midday?
“Haar,” said Aunt Zelda.
“Ha?” asked Nicko.
“Haar. Because of the haar, the salt marsh mist that rolls in from the sea,” explained Aunt Zelda. “Look, we’re surrounded by it today.” She waved her hand around in a grand sweep. “On a clear day you can see the Port from where we’re standing. The haar’s lying low today, and we’re high enough to be above it, but if it rises it’ll come over us too. Then you’ll need the lantern.”
So Nicko took the lantern and, surrounded by the haar, which lay like an undulating white blanket over the marshes below, they set off to explore the island while Aunt Zelda, Silas and Marcia sat inside talking earnestly by the fireside.
Jenna led the way, closely followed by Nicko, while Boy 412 lagged behind, shivering every now and then and wishing he was back by the fire. The snow had melted in the warmer, damper marsh climate, and the ground was damp and soggy. Jenna took a path that led them down to the banks of the Mott. The tide had dropped and the water had all but disappeared, leaving marsh mud behind it, which was covered with hundreds of bird footprints and a few zigzag water snake trails.
Draggen Island itself was about a quarter of a mile long and looked as if someone had cut a huge green egg in half length-ways and plopped it down on top of the marsh. A footpath ran all the way around it along the bank of the Mott, and Jenna set off along the path, breathing in the cold salt air rolling in from the haar. Jenna liked the haar surrounding them. It made her feel safe at last—no one could find them now.
Apart from the boat-dwelling chickens, which Jenna and Nicko had seen earlier that morning, they found a nanny goat tethered in the middle of some long grass. They also found a colony of rabbits living in a burrow bank that Aunt Zelda had fenced off to keep the rabbits out of the winter cabbage patch.
The well-worn path took them past the burrows, through a lot of cabbages and wound down to a low-lying patch of mud and suspiciously bright green grass.
“Do you reckon there might be some of those Brownies in there?” Jenna whispered to Nicko, hanging back a little.
Some bubbles floated to the surface of the mud, and there was a loud sucking noise as if someone was trying to pull a stuck boot from out of the mire. Jenna jumped back in alarm as the mud bubbled and heaved.
“Not if I’ve got anything ter do with it, there won’t be.” The broad brown face of the Boggart pushed its way to the surface. He blinked the Ooze away from his round black eyes and regarded them with a bleary gaze.
“Mornin’,” he said slowly.
“Good morning, Mr. Boggart,” said Jenna.
“Just Boggart’ll do, ta.”
“Is this where you live? I hope we’re not disturbing you?” Jenna said politely.
“Well you is disturbing me, as a matter of fact. I sleeps in the day, see.” The Boggart blinked again and began to sink back into the mud. “But you’s not ter know that. Just don’t mention them Brownies as it wakes me up, see. Just hearin’ the name gets me all wide awake.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jenna. “We’ll go away and leave you in peace.”
“Yeah,” agreed the Boggart, and he disappeared back into the mud.
Jenna, Nicko and Boy 412 tiptoed back up the path.
“He was cross, wasn’t he?” said Jenna.
“No,” said Nicko. “I reckon he’s always like that. He’s okay.”
“I hope so,” said Jenna.
They carried on walking around the island until they reached the blunt end of the green “egg.” This consisted of a large grassy mound covered with a scattering of small, prickly round bushes. They wandered across the mound and stopped for a while, watching the haar swirling below them.
Jenna and Nicko had been silent in case they should wake the Boggart up again, but as they stood on top of the mound Jenna said, “Don’t you think there’s a funny feeling under your feet?”
“My boots are a bit uncomfortable,” said Nicko, “now you mention it. I think they’re still wet.”
“No. I mean the ground under your feet. It feels kind of…er…”
“Hollow,” supplied Nicko.
“Yes, that’s it. Hollow.” Jenna stamped her foot down hard. The ground was firm enough, but there was something about it that felt different.
“Must be all those rabbit burrows,” said Nicko.
They wandered off down the mound and headed toward a large duck pond with a wooden duck house beside it. A few ducks noticed them and began to waddle over the grass in the hope that they might have brought some bread with them.
“Hey, where’s he gone?” Jenna suddenly said, looking around for Boy 412.
“He’s probably gone back to the cottage,” said Nicko. “I don’t think he likes being with us much.”
“No, I don’t think he does—but aren’t we meant to be looking after him? I mean, he might have fallen into the Boggart patch, or the ditch or a Brownie might have got him.”
“Shhh. You’ll wake the Boggart up again.”
“Well, a Brownie might have got him. We ought to try and find him.”
“I suppose,” said Nicko doubtfully, “that Aunt Zelda will be upset if we lose him.”
“Well, I will too,” said Jenna.
“You don’t like him, do you?” asked Nicko. “Not after the little twerp nearly got us killed?”
“He didn’t mean to,” said Jenna. “I can see that now. He was as scared as we were. And just think, he’s probably been in the Young Army all his life and never had a mum or dad. Not like us. I mean you,” Jenna corrected herself.
“You have had a mum and dad. Still have. Silly,” said Nicko. “All right, we’ll go and look for the kid if you really want to.”
Jenna looked around, wondering where to start, and realized she could no longer see the cottage. In fact she could no longer see much at all except for Nicko, and that was only because his lantern gave off a low red light.
The haar had risen.
20
BOY 412
Boy 412 had fallen down a hole. He hadn’t meant to, and he had no idea how it had happened, but there he was, at the bottom of a hole.
Just before he had fallen down the hole, Boy 412 had become decidedly fed up with trailing around after the Princess-girl and the Wizard-boy. They didn’t seem to want him with them, and he felt cold and bored. So he had decided to slip off back to the cottage and hoped that he might get Aunt Zelda to himself for a while.
And then the haar had come in.
If nothing else, the Young Army training had prepared him for something like this. Many times, in the middle of a foggy night, his platoon of boys had been taken out into the Forest and left to find their own way back. Not all of them did, of course. There was always one unlucky boy who fell foul of a hungry wolverine or was left lingering in a trap set by one of the Wendron Witches, but Boy 412 had been lucky, and he knew how to keep quiet and move fast through the night fog. And so, quiet as the haar itself, Boy 412 had started to make his way back to the cottage. At some point he had actually passed so close to Nicko and Jenna that they could have put their hands out and touched him, but he had slipped by them noiselessly, enjoying his freedom and the feeling of independence.
After a while Boy 412 reached the large grassy mound at the end of the island. This confused him because he was sure he had already walked across it, and by now he should have been nearly back at the cottage. Maybe this was a different grassy mound? Maybe there was one at the other end of the island too? He began to wonder if he might be lost. It occurred to him that it would be possible to walk endlessly around and around the island and never get to the cottage. Preoccupied with his thoughts, Boy 412 lost his footing and fell headlong into a small, and unpleasantly prickly, bush. And that was when it had happened. One moment the bush was there
, and the next moment Boy 412 had crashed through it and was falling into darkness.
His yell of surprise was lost on the thick damp air of the haar, and he landed with a heavy thud on his back. Winded, Boy 412 lay still for a moment, wondering if he had broken any bones. No, he thought as he sat up slowly, nothing seemed to hurt too much. He was lucky. He had landed on what felt like sand, and it had cushioned his fall. Boy 412 stood up and promptly hit his head on a low rock above him. That did hurt.
Holding the top of his head with one hand, Boy 412 stretched up his other hand and tried to feel for the hole he had fallen through, but the rock sloped smoothly upward and gave him no clues, no handholds or footholds. Nothing but silk-smooth, ice-cold rock.
It was also pitch-black. No chink of light shone from above, and however much Boy 412 stared into the darkness hoping his eyes would get used to it, they didn’t. It was as though he was blind.
Boy 412 dropped to his hands and knees and began to feel about him on the sandy floor. He had a wild thought that maybe he could dig his way out, but as his fingers scrabbled the sand away he soon hit a smooth stone floor, so smooth and cold that Boy 412 wondered if it might be marble. He had seen marble a few times when he had stood guard at the Palace, but he couldn’t imagine what it might be doing out here in the Marram Marshes in the middle of nowhere.
Boy 412 sat down on the sandy floor and nervously ran his hands through the sand, trying to think what to do next. He was wondering if maybe his luck had finally run out when his fingers brushed against something metallic. At first Boy 412’s spirits rose—maybe this was what he had been looking for, a hidden lock or a secret handle—but as his fingers closed around the metal object his heart sank. All he had found was a ring. Boy 412 lifted the ring, cradled it in his palm and stared at it, although in the pitch blackness he could see nothing.