And then suddenly, in the distance, out in the woods, there was an unforeseen, dreadful noise.
Wish turned white.
The Witches who were out there waiting had been quiet, so quiet, up until now. Eerily quiet.
But Wish knew that new, fresh sound. It was the dreadful, heart-stopping noise of attacking Witches.
“Bodkin!” gasped Wish. “They must be ambushing him! We have to help… Thank goodness he’s taken the sword with him.”
“Maybe not ‘thank goodness,’” said Xar, even whiter than Wish. “Because if Bodkin took the sword with him, the iron will have created a hole in the Magic protecting Pook’s Hill…”
Xar was right.
When Bodkin took the sword out of the school, the iron had indeed tunneled a hole in the Magic, and even now, a gigantic feathered nightmare was crawling ratlike through that hole.
For the first time in hundreds of years, the sacred space of the learning place was invaded by a WITCH.
Much nearer than those distant dreadful noises, there was a confused screeching and a great cry of “WITCH ATTACK!” and the sound of swarms and swarms of pixies from inside the school hissing, “WitchesWitchesWitchesWitchesWitchesWitches…”
The Witch feathers in Xar’s waistcoat glowed with a strange unnatural light.
And little Squeezjoos’s eyes lit up with a similar, unearthly green as he crept forward in the air, hissing, “Sehctiw… Sehctiw… Sehctiw…”
Instinctively, Xar grabbed the little sprite and put him in one of his pockets, buttoning it tight and sticking it fast with the do-it-yourself Magic staff.
“Lets me out!!!” squeaked Squeezjoos, peering through a little tear in the material.
“No, Squeezjoos,” said Xar, “I think you’re safer in there for the moment.”
Wish and Xar ran toward the noise, the animals running beside them, their huge sympathetic bodies giving them courage, and the sprites flying above in a twitter of speculation.
It is sometimes only when we sense we are about to lose something that we really see it and appreciate it. The electric shock of the attack had woken Xar into a state of bright awakeness, so that every one of his senses was highly alert, and as he ran through the beloved, friendly, messy world of Pook’s Hill in his bare hob feet, vaulting over the twisting tree trunks, gaining speed with every comforting familiar piece of ground that his feet touched, he had the oddest and dreadest sensation that he was seeing it for the very first and also the very last time.
He hadn’t wanted to come here. But now he didn’t want to leave.
They burst into the eastern clearing to find Perdita, great streams of Magic coming out of her fingers, fighting a swooping, diving shock of a Witch.
They were too late to help her.
Wish had her eyepatch up, ready, as they ran forward.
Perdita swelled. The energy force racking her got more and more intense, and a great heat came off her so that Xar and Wish had to throw up their arms in front of their faces to protect themselves… and they were blown right off their feet by some sort of combined explosion from Perdita and the Witch.
There was a terrible, tearing shrieking, and the ghastly vision of the swooping Witch turned invisible again… and patterings of green blood fell like rain as the Witch retreated, back toward the hole in the Magic at the eastern entrance of the school.
The animals gave howls of victory all around Xar.
The Witch has gone, thought Xar.
But at what dreadful cost?
“Madam Elfrida! Mister Yewtree! Chase the creature from the school. Close up the Magic there. Don’t step in the Witchblood,” screamed Hoola.
Madam Elfrida and Mister Yewtree ran after the invisible, retreating Witch, carefully avoiding the drips of green.
The terrible form of Perdita, in the shape of a great unmoving bear, lay on the ground.
Oh no… please let her be all right, begged Wish to herself.
Xar and Wish crawled forward to Perdita’s side. She was still steaming hot, too hot to touch.
“Is she going to be all right?” whispered Wish.
“I don’t know,” hooted Hoola, anxiously fluttering above Perdita’s heart.
For a few dreadful seconds the bear remained unmoving.
And then an eyelid flickered, and weakly, the bear opened an eye.
“Oh, by the great green gods that protect us,” breathed Hoola, “I think she didn’t have to use a life… I think she will survive. No thanks to you,” snapped Hoola fiercely, her head swiveling around to look furiously at Wish. “It’s all very well for you young people… You may have many lives, Wish, but Madam Perdita may only have one left.”
The relief of Perdita being alive was almost as if Wish’s own heart had stopped for a second, only to start beating again.
A little troop of pixies came buzzing up in a state of high excitement, for nothing as sensational as this had happened in many a long while. “Madam Elfrida says she has made good the hole in the Magic, and she thinks it was just the one Witch who got in,” one of the pixies gabbled before they all flew off back to where the action was.
Thank goodness—so at least that was one problem solved.
“I’m so sorry, Perdita,” said Wish. “But Bodkin is in trouble. We have to leave in a hurry. Thank you for everything.”
At this the bear lifted her head weakly. “No!” growled Perdita-as-a-bear, and she staggered to her feet, shook her shaggy fur, and in front of their eyes the outline of the bear faded. She stood before them, much smaller than normal, and terribly old and weak. Her face was blasted with Witch lightning. “You should not leave… It is too dangerous…”
“You know they must leave, Madam!” snapped Hoola. “It is only your weakness that has let them stay here this long. I don’t like to say, ‘I told you so,’ but for the first time in centuries, a WITCH has entered this sacred learning place. And these cursed children have let it in. I TOLD you that the boy was unsaveable and that we’d have to expel him in the end.”
Xar’s face darkened, and he looked furious.
“I TOLD you that the girl’s Magic could not be controlled and that she would bring bad luck on all of us,” said Hoola. “What am I supposed to do with all this Witchblood?”
Hoola pointed an angry wing at the steaming spots of green that the teachers were now surrounding with force fields so that nobody accidentally stepped on them.
“It’ll be years before we get those stains out. Maybe even decades! And listen to those creatures clamoring outside… Look at the calamities these children have brought on us! Burning forests… Witch attacks… And now Pook’s Hill itself is in danger…”
“We’re sorry about everything… but we have to go to the Nuckalavee to save Bodkin!” said Wish in a wretched state of anxiety. “Xar and Bodkin changed places, and—it’s too long to explain. Please let us out!”
“I said it myself,” said Perdita sadly, “you were always just passing through. You can’t run away forever…” She burst into tears. “But when I said that, I never knew I was going to like you all so much…”
Caliburn patted her on the shoulder with one wing.
“Love is weakness,” warned Hoola, still huffy.
“Maybe it is,” said Perdita, smiling, “but what a very nice weakness it is indeed.”
“Can you come too, Perdita?” asked Wish wistfully, for she knew what the answer was already.
Perdita looked affectionately into Wish’s eye. “I cannot,” said Perdita. “Spells must be tended, suppers must be made, trees must be looked after, even when the world is burning. This is your quest… And my brother will look after you, won’t you, brother?”
Caliburn sighed. “I’ll do my best. Thank you, sister, for hiding us for so long. We leave Pook’s Hill a lot more prepared than we were when we arrived.”
“Until we meet again!” replied Perdita. “And if you need me, all you have to do is… Knock three times…”
Right on cue, just a
s Perdita finished speaking, there was a very loud knocking at the eastern entrance. KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
Hoola’s head swiveled around one hundred and eighty degrees. “Whoooo could that be?”
“Oh! Maybe it’s Bodkin!” said Wish in horror. “Trying to get back in because the Witches are attacking him! Let him in! Let him in!”
Perdita tipped her head to one side, listening. “That’s not Bodkin,” she said. “The Nuckalavee is to the west. Summon your door, and, Hoola, take them all to the western entrance very secretly and quietly, and then I’ll go and see who’s at the eastern entrance. Whoever they are, they may be in trouble.”
“But, Madam, are you well enough?” asked Hoola.
Perdita drew herself up to her full height. She looked quite wild, for she had been in the middle of looking after a spell when the Witch attack happened, and she had been so distracted that as well as everything else the spell had exploded on her. So she had bits of slimy seaweed tangled in her scorched hair, and other unidentifiable but revolting-looking ingredients smeared all over her clothes, and her hands were wrist deep in some sort of goo that had a sulfurous and most appalling stink of rotten eggs.
And on top of that, she could hardly stand up because she was so bruised and battered by fighting off the Witch. She clearly wasn’t well at all. But…
“I’m fine, Hoola, stop fussing!” snapped Perdita. “I’m only four hundred and eighty-five years old, after all, the prime of middle age. I don’t know why you keep treating me as if I’m on the brink of death. OFF YOU GO!”
As soon as she had said these words, a great humming bee-cloud of pixies appeared out of nowhere, several of them so wildly overexcited that they actually threw up.
“Nothing to see here, pixies…” said Hoola uneasily, but she might as well have been hooting at the wind.
“They’re OFF! They’re OFF! On a VERY SECRET QUEST! One bear one giant one werewolf TWO humans three wolves three snowcats eight USELESS sprites one peregrine falcon and a baby noneofthemgreenanymore… OFF… on a very, very secret… absolutelycrazy… absolutelySecret… terrifyingStupyfyingIdioticLunioticLOSEYOURBREFFDIOTICdeathdefyingIMPOSSIBLEnew QUEST!” sang the pixies.
Perdita transformed into a bear larger than Wish had ever seen before and ROARED at the pixies, who stopped buzzing a moment in shock.
“That’s better,” said Perdita, changing back into herself again. “Now, pixies. I have somebody arriving at the eastern entrance…”
“OOOOOOOOOOH,” said the pixies.
“…and you absolutely must NOT tell anyone they are here. Not a word, pixies. I mean it… NOT A WORD.”
“OOOOOOOOOH, wewonttellwewonttell…” sang the pixies in a positive swarm of delight, and they buzzed off in vast bee-swarm numbers, a hum of creative curiosity to see what was going on in the eastern entrance.
Only one or two very tiny ones were left to squeak about what Xar and Wish were doing.
“I have faith in you, Xar,” said Perdita. “Never forget that. And I have a parting gift for you…” She pressed something into Xar’s hand. He shoved it in the pocket of his waistcoat, trying not to cry and pretending he did not care, and then they all hurried off after Hoola toward the west.
Perdita watched them go a moment. And then she turned and limped to the east, where the knocking was getting more and more urgent.
“You’d better use invisibility spells now,” Hoola warned Xar and Wish as they reached the western perimeter of the learning place. “From the moment you leave this place, the Witches will be watching. Remember, don’t stay invisible too long, just until you get out of range of the Witches who are surrounding us. Invisibility is very bad for you.”
The sprites took out their wands, and Xar and Wish used their spelling staffs to turn everyone invisible. As she looked down at her disappearing legs, Wish felt a familiar queasy lurch of the stomach. Turning invisible was almost like parts of you were going to sleep, or as if you had become a ghost.
Hoola led them to the wall at the edge of the mound, and Wish put the door up against it and knocked three times with her now-invisible fist.
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
The door swung open.
Outside, the cold night air was full of shrieks and the screams of Witches, so loud and eerie Wish’s blood ran cold to hear them. It went against every instinct to leave the warmth and safety of the learning place.
But they had to do this.
The invisible Wish and Xar walked through, leaving Hoola and two little pixies hovering on the other side.
Wish made it bigger for a second, so Crusher the giant could walk through the door too.
And then smaller again.
And then slowly, sadly, Wish closed the door.
“HOOOOOOOOO…” Hoola hooted through the keyhole.
“One giant one bear TWO humans three wolves three snowcats eight USELESS sprites one peregrine falcon and a baby noneofthemgreenanymore… OFF… on a very, very secret… absolutely crazy… absolutelySecret… terrifyingStupyfyingIdiotic new QUEST,” chanted the two little pixies from the other side of the door. “Leaving their wond-er-ful… marv-elous… magnificent new Ho-o-ome… probably never to see it again… but to die miles away from anywhere in the ravenous jaws of the Nuckalavee… instead of staying cozycomfyhappy… and I think it’s galiciousstarcurlers for supper again…”
“We’ll be back, I promise,” Wish whispered back through the keyhole.
She let her hand rest on the door a second. And then, firmly, she stepped away.
“Follow Bodkin and Nighteye,” Xar whispered into the invisible ears of the snowcats.
Then they climbed on the invisible door and Wish whispered a word to make it fly, moved the key, and they flew very low over the ground—for up above was the terrifying sight of the Witches attacking the school. Wish could see the dark outlines of their feathers, swarms of them, Magic screaming out of their mouths like lightning, and her palms began to sweat.
14. Encanzo and Sychorax Have a Little Explaining to Do
Wish and Xar only just left in time, for:
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
KNOCK knock KNOCK knock KNOCK!!!!!
The person knocking frantically at the eastern door was Xar’s father, Encanzo.
The eastern door was the official entrance, so it was enormous and had a stone with big curly sprite-writing on it saying “Pook’s Hill, the Learning Place for Spectacularly Gifted Wizards,” just in case anybody had any doubt where they were.
Encanzo wasn’t just knocking with both fists, he was drumming on the door with his feet, shouting, “COME ON! COME ON! FOR MISTLETOE’S SAKE, LET US IN!!!” for he was in a terrible state.
Riding through the forest on their snowcats, Encanzo and Looter, Xar’s elder brother, had been ambushed by Witches. Encanzo had begun by fighting them off with Magic, but there were too many of the creatures, so in desperation Encanzo had to set up a force field over the two of them, and they had only just reached the learning place in time. Now they had their backs against the door, and Witches were attacking the force field with terrible cries.
Looter was tall, handsome, good-looking, and extremely pleased with himself. He had just spent three months changed into a Graxerturgleburkin,* but he seemed to have recovered from the experience. In fact, it may even have improved him somewhat. He was ever so slightly less self-satisfied than he had been three months earlier.
But right at this very moment he was looking absolutely petrified. Looter had never come this close to a Witch before, and he was cowering at the back of the force field, scrabbling at the door as the terrifying creatures swooped and struck. It was so dark that you could not really see them, but you could hear the appalling noise as they dived and see the red of their eyes.
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!!!!!!!!
And then, to Looter’s and E
ncanzo’s intense relief…
“All right, all right!” came a rather harassed voice from a long way away. “I’m coming! I’ve just forgotten the password. What is it again? Oh, I remember now… ARDEN!”
C-R-e-e-e-akkkkk! The door opened. The light was so dazzling that Encanzo and Looter couldn’t quite see what they were stepping into, but they and their snowcats FELL in through the door, Encanzo exploding the force field simultaneously so that the attacking Witches fell back with terrible screams of pain.
SLAM! The door closed behind them with the sound of a rain of talons landing as it shut.
“Thank the green gods…” gasped Encanzo, and Looter was so out of his mind with fear that he could only just gulp slightly. Even Encanzo’s very dignified ancient snowcat had his fur standing up like the quills on a hedgehog, and his equally distinguished sprite was a mess of anxiety.
But when Encanzo’s and Looter’s eyes adjusted, to their surprise they were not standing in the large impressive entrance hall that the appearance of the eastern entrance for the Learning Place for Spectacularly Gifted Wizards might suggest.
No, they were standing in a small, very tidy study. There was only one person in the room and that person was Queen Sychorax, sitting down with her hands on the desk.
Looter and Encanzo could not have been more surprised than Queen Sychorax.
For from Queen Sychorax’s point of view, the knocking had come from the other side of her cupboard door.
Imagine how alarming it must have been to have the door of a cupboard, in which you have very tidily left the head of Madam Clairvoy, suddenly start knocking at you, and behind that door hear the dreadful scream of attacking Witches.
That would be truly terrifying, particularly when you can’t run away because your hands are stuck to the desk. She hadn’t been behaving very well recently, but you have to feel sorry for Queen Sychorax in this situation. A lesser person than Queen Sychorax would have passed out with the shock of it.
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