Goodly and Grave in a Bad Case of Kidnap

by Justine Windsor

  “How much time?”

  “A day. P’raps less.”

  “Amethyst will kill us long before that! Or we’ll all freeze to death! Isn’t there any magic you can do to get us out of here?”

  “Me?” Smell said. “I’m a cat, not a magician.”

  “But you’re not just a cat? You can talk for a start – that’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?”

  “Too complicated to explain now.”

  “What about Bathsheba?”

  “Bathy? No magic there. She might ’ave a complete set of ears, but there’s not that much going on between ’em if you ask me.”

  Bathsheba growled as though she understood she’d just been grievously insulted.

  “So what are we going to do?” said Lucy, hope draining from her.

  “Well, there is this one particular magical skill. Involves imagining where you wanna be and then—”

  “But that’s no good. None of us are magicians!” said Lucy crossly. “Unless … Bertie! You’re the son of a magician. You must have some magic in you!”

  “That’s not a very scientific conclusion!” Bertie replied.

  “You can review the evidence later! Come on! You need to imagine us back to Grave Hall!”

  “’Ang on. Who’s the son of a magician? What you talking about?” Smell said.

  “I’ll explain later, Smell. Come on, Bertie!”

  “But I don’t remember what Grave Hall looks like!” Bertie said.

  “There’s a room called the Room of Curiosities. I’ll describe it and you try to imagine it. It’s our only hope, Bertie.”

  Bertie agreed, and they both closed their eyes. Lucy conjured up an image of the Room of Curiosities, trying to remember details of the place where they so desperately needed to be. Then she described those details to Bertie. The pink marble floor. The plinths with their strange objects.

  “Lucy, I’m starting to remember it myself! I used to sneak in there when I was little! Some of the curiosities really gave me the creeps!” Bertie cried.

  “You remember the Room of Curiosities? ’Ow?” Smell asked.

  But neither Lucy nor Bertie stopped to explain, because sparks had begun to appear in the frosty air, forming a bright slash, which widened into a hole. The two children stared in amazement as sure enough, there on the other side of the hole, lay the Room of Curiosities. To Lucy’s delight and relief, she could see Mrs Crawley and Lord Grave waiting there.

  “Thank goodness you’re safe,” Lord Grave said. “You must hurry, all of you! Lucy, as the opener of the hole you must go last, otherwise it’ll shut as soon as you reach this side.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  Lord Grave went rather red in the face. “For once, will you do exactly what I say! You, boy, come through, hurry!”

  A shell-shocked Bertie clambered through the opening, then Smell and Bathsheba leaped to safety after him. Lucy slung the bag of bottles over her shoulder and grasped the edges of the opening. It felt soft and rubbery. But at the very last moment, when Lucy was almost in Mrs Crawley’s welcoming arms, she was jerked painfully backwards by her hair.

  “You’re going nowhere!” Lucy heard Amethyst screech.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  SEALED

  “Take the bag, Mrs Crawley!” Lucy yelled. “Quickly! They mustn’t get it!” Mrs Crawley whipped the bag from Lucy’s shoulder, which was thankfully a few inches inside the Room of Curiosities.

  Amethyst pulled harder at Lucy, who hung on desperately to the edges of the springy hole.

  “Shade, let the girl go,” Lord Grave commanded, over Lucy’s head.

  “I’m keeping her. She’s something special. You know it too. Why don’t you join with us? We could be so powerful together,” Amethyst said in a wheedling voice.

  “Never,” Lord Grave said. “Now do as I say and give me the girl.”

  “She’s mine!” screamed Amethyst, her fingers pulling spitefully and painfully at Lucy’s hair.

  “Very well. I gave you the chance to end this peacefully.” As he spoke, Lord Grave seemed to swell with power and anger. Sparks danced along the edges of his moustache. Then suddenly the sparks launched themselves into the Tower side of the hole, like angry golden insects. Lucy felt their warmth graze her cheek as they zoomed past.

  Unfortunately, they bounced straight back out again.

  “Duck!” yelled Lord Grave.

  Everyone in the Room of Curiosities hastily obeyed.

  The sparks hit the wall at the far end of the room and instantly ignited. Lord Grave rapidly muttered some words and the flames died before they could take hold.

  Amethyst laughed and dug her sharp fingernails into Lucy’s scalp. “You can’t do anything, Grave. I spent years protecting this place when I still had power. No human can get through unless I say so. Any magic you try will rebound on you.”

  “Let the girl go.”

  “I will. But only if you send my son back through.”

  “Your son? What are you talking about, woman?”

  “I’m not your son!” Bertie shouted. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  “You are! You are! I swear it! I’m coming to get you!” Amethyst shrieked.

  “Don’t be stupid!” Havoc shouted. Although Lucy couldn’t see what was happening behind her, Havoc sounded out of breath, as though he’d been running. “You don’t have the power to challenge him now! What about our plans?”

  “I don’t care about any of that! I want him. I want my son!”

  The grasp on Lucy’s hair suddenly loosened. She wrenched herself free and tumbled into the Room of Curiosities. She twisted round to see what was happening in the wintry world she had just escaped. She watched as Havoc dragged Amethyst away from the hole. Amethyst, hair hanging over her face, wailed and screamed as she struggled to fight Havoc off and get to her beloved Bertie. Nevermore was there too, flapping around in front of Amethyst’s eyes.

  “Shall I peck them out, shall I, shall I?” she squawked.

  Lord Grave darted forward and helped Lucy to her feet. “You need to close the hole, quickly!”

  “Me? But it was Bertie who—”

  “Lucy. You made the opening. That boy you brought through isn’t magical.”

  Lucy’s brain scrambled to understand what this meant. “So I’m a—”

  “Yes, a magician. You have been all along. Now you must hurry, imagine the hole closing! As strongly as you can.”

  Lucy shut her eyes. Imagined the edges of the opening reaching towards each other, getting closer and closer together. A huge gust of wind whipped through the Room of Curiosities, ruffling Lucy’s hair. She opened her eyes again just in time to see the hole seal itself shut, leaving Amethyst, Havoc and Nevermore trapped in the barren, frozen wasteland with only a pile of collapsed rubble to shelter them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE EYEBROWS HAVE IT

  Lucy found herself engulfed in arms and a beard.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right, you’re safe now,” Mrs Crawley said in a choked voice, stroking Lucy’s hair. Lucy was happy to stay there for a while, waiting for her heart to slow and her legs to stop shaking. She might also have secretly shed a tear or two of relief.

  When Lucy finally emerged from the cook’s comforting embrace, she saw Lord Grave staring dumbstruck at Bertie.

  “You look just like … is it … could you be …?”

  “Please open this, sir. I think it’ll prove everything,” Bertie said, his voice trembling. He handed his velvet pouch to Lord Grave.

  Lord Grave touched the velvet gently, but didn’t open it. “I don’t need proof. I’d know you anywhere. You’re my Albert!”

  “Well, wet my whiskers! ’As to be, I s’pose, with them eyebrows,” said Smell.

  Lord Grave guffawed and then hugged Bertie. He didn’t let him go for a long time. When he finally did, his eyes were wet.

  Lucy smiled to see them together, but at that moment, more than anythin
g else in the world, all she wanted was to feel her own parents’ arms round her.

  Lord Grave took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. Then he stepped towards Lucy as though he wanted to hug her too, but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. In the end, he settled for shaking her hand up and down very vigorously.

  “Well done, Lucy, well done. We thought we’d lost you,” he said.

  “Where’s Violet?” Lucy suddenly panicked because she couldn’t see the little scullery maid.

  “Calm yourself. Vonk is taking care of her. We know her memory has been tampered with, but we can deal with that. She’s come to no real harm, thanks to you.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Lucy said, touching Lord Grave’s sleeve. “I’m sorry I stole the Wish Book and caused all this trouble. Havoc lied to me about everything. I shouldn’t have been so quick to believe him.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Taking you away from your parents like that, with no explanation, was a serious error on my part.”

  “I blooming told you so,” Smell said.

  “But why did you take me away?” asked Lucy.

  “I used to be head of an organisation called MAAM. Which stands for—

  “Magicians Against the Abuse of Magic?” Lucy said.

  Lord Grave raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Correct. I retired when Albert was stolen as I no longer had the heart for the job. But when I heard about a young girl winning an unusual number of poker games, I suspected misuse of magic. All my old MAAM instincts kicked in, so I investigated. When I met you, I realised you had no idea how powerful you were. You needed guidance to develop your talents in the proper manner. That’s why I brought you here.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this from the start?”

  “I wanted to discover what sort of person you were first. To be sure of you before I let you learn of your gifts. After all, you were abusing magic for financial gain, which is a very serious crime.”

  Lucy blushed. “Sorry. I had to though …”

  Lord Grave waved his hand dismissively. “No need to explain. We’ve both made mistakes. Now, you must all be very hungry. Let’s have some breakfast.”

  After breakfast (which was served by a mystified and extra grumpy Becky Bone, who deliberately dropped the milk jug in Lucy’s lap), Bertie and Lucy went with Lord Grave, Mrs Crawley and Smell into the drawing room where Bertie stood and stared for a long time at the portrait of him and his mother.

  “If only she was still alive,” he said wistfully.

  Lord Grave put his hand on Bertie’s shoulder. “You know, you kept that teething ring with you all the time after she died, refused to let it go. So I had a pouch and cord made for it so you could wear it round your neck. You were wearing it when you vanished from your bed that night.”

  “Stolen, you mean. By Amethyst?” Bertie asked.

  “I actually always rather suspected Havoc Reek did it at Amethyst Shade’s request. Although I couldn’t know for sure. To the outside world, I pretended you were dead. But I never stopped trying to find you. Now, let’s sit down.”

  When everyone was settled on the various drawing-room sofas, Smell padded over to Lucy and jumped up on to her knee.

  “Wish I’d been able to stop that blackguard Reek nicking you in the first place,” he said, looking up at her.

  “Another mistake. I should have known he’d get distracted by food or fall asleep on the job. It’s not the first time it’s happened,” Lord Grave said.

  Smell didn’t reply. He seemed to have decided it was vitally important at that precise moment to wash his tail.

  “So, what about Amethyst, sir, who is she really? Why did she end up at that tower?” Bertie asked.

  “It’s a long story, my boy. The short version is that Amethyst Shade and Havoc Reek began dabbling in a forbidden branch of magic. One which involves harnessing the power of children. We stopped them. Took their powers away. Or at least, we thought we had. Shade managed to retain just enough power to escape. No one could find her. Now we know why. She was hidden in some remote part of the world. She must have created her refuge there before we took her powers.”

  “And what about Havoc?” Lucy asked.

  “We did the job properly with him. Caught and imprisoned him in the Room of Curiosities. We could have killed him instead, but I thought he might one day lead me back to Bertie.”

  “Did you know Amethyst was the one stealing children?” Lucy asked.

  “We suspected as much; that she must be out there somewhere, experimenting with the power of children,” Lord Grave said. “But she was always one step ahead of us.”

  “You were right,” Lucy said. She explained how Amethyst had been bottling children’s tears, planning to use their power to take on Lord Grave and MAAM again. Then she looked through the bag of bottles until she found a half-full one.

  “These are Kathleen’s tears, I think. She was a friend of ours,” Lucy said, holding it up.

  Lord Grave took the bottle from her and stared at it thoughtfully.

  “She was so kind,” Lucy added, remembering Kathleen finding clothes for her. How she’d looked after Violet and comforted her when she’d been upset. Perhaps Lord Grave would be able to bring Kathleen back? How wonderful that would be. She imagined Kathleen with them in the drawing room, alive and well and happy.

  There was the sound of breaking glass. Lucy opened her eyes. She hadn’t even realised they were closed. To her amazement, the bottle in Lord Grave’s hand had exploded into shards of blue. Everyone watched, transfixed, as the shards swirled around the room before beginning to change colour and form themselves into a flesh-and-blood girl, who turned slowly in mid-air, before gently dropping on to the thick rug.

  Bertie ran to Kathleen and knelt beside her.

  “Where are we, Bertie? What happened to me?” Kathleen looked around, dazed.

  “It’s all right. Don’t worry, we’re safe here,” Bertie said, hugging Kathleen.

  “Mrs Crawley, take the girl to the kitchen, give her some hot sweet tea,” Lord Grave said, as Bertie helped Kathleen stand. The two of them followed Mrs Crawley out of the room, Bertie turning and smiling gratefully at Lucy.

  “Would you be able to do the same to the rest of them?” Lucy asked, when she’d recovered a little from the shock of seeing Kathleen unbottled.

  “We can give it a try. Let’s get them out of their bag. Line them up on the table here,” Lord Grave said, and began clearing papers off a table that stood in the bay window of the drawing room. When they’d put the last bottle out, Lord Grave said, “Well, come along, Lucy, it’s over to you now.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “I didn’t liberate your friend from that bottle just now. You did that.”

  “Are you really sure?”

  “Think about all the other things you’ve done. You used the playing card, for one. Only a magician would be able to do that. You trapped Turner and Paige by controlling the magical door that guards the reading room. And of course, the Wish Book responded to your command.”

  “But only the very first time, and that was with Havoc telling me what to do. And the second time I used Violet’s tears to make the book work.”

  “It was all you Lucy, Reek may have needed the power of tears, but you didn’t. And what you did just now, the way you freed that girl …” Lord Grave shook his head. “Even I’m not sure what magic was involved there.”

  “But all I was doing was thinking about what a nice person she was and all the kind things she’d done.”

  “Fascinating,” Lord Grave said. “Most unusual. I think we should use the same method for the rest of the bottles. If we work together, I’m sure we can do it.”

  “But I don’t know any of these children or even what they look like.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Lord Grave. He went over to a desk on the other side of the room. He rummaged around and brought a small pile of newspaper cuttings back with him.

  “The Penny is a f
rightful old rag, but it did tirelessly report the children who’ve gone missing over the last few years.” He spread the cuttings out on the table. Each had a drawing of a missing child printed on it.

  “Does that help, Lucy?”

  “I think so. Maybe if we imagine them here in this room with us?”

  Lucy sat next to Lord Grave and studied all the pictures of the missing children, fixing their faces in her mind. She imagined them in Lord Grave’s drawing room with them, chatting and laughing.

  The bottles began to shudder. Then, like Kathleen’s bottle, they exploded, the glass flying right up to the ceiling. The shards hovered, tinkling gently, before separating into groups. The groups began to spin, the shards forming into outlines of girls and boys, which quickly became flesh-and-blood children. One by one they dropped gently to the drawing-room floor. The last to land was a short, thin boy with untidy hair and a mole on his left cheek.

  “Where am I?” said Eddie Robinson. Then he stared at Lucy, “And why are you wearing my shirt?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  GOODLY AND GRAVE

  Over the next few days, the bottled children were reunited with their parents. They all had their memories tweaked (as Lord Grave called it) before leaving Grave Hall, so that they really did believe they’d been trapped in a freezing long-john factory the whole time, weaving woollen undergarments for no pay.

  “But why do you need to tweak their memories? Why not let people know the truth?” Lucy had asked.

  “We prefer to keep magic hidden from non-magicians as much as possible. They wouldn’t understand. It would frighten them. That’s why most of the staff here are magical.”

  “But not Violet and Becky?”

  “They’re the only ones who aren’t. Violet works part-time and doesn’t live here, so it’s reasonably easy to keep things secret from her.” Lord Grave coughed. “As for Becky … well, she is the most unobservant non-magical person I have ever encountered. She wouldn’t notice magic if it wrote her a letter introducing itself.”