The Steps up the Chimney

by William Corlett

  ‘A word of advice, William Constant,’ the man now said, ‘never make a vow unless you mean to keep it and are capable of doing so. All right?’

  William nodded and was relieved when Stephen Tyler turned away. He was shaking his head and suddenly seemed very tired.

  ‘Ask questions now,’ he said in a quiet voice, with his back to them. ‘But – think before you speak.’

  ‘Are you . . .’ William started and then he had to stop and clear his throat, he was still so nervous. ‘Please,’ he started again, ‘are you related to the Stephen Tyler who made this house during the reign of Elizabeth the First? I mean – was he your ancestor?’

  The man turned again and looked at him. Then he shook his head.

  ‘It’s such an unusual name, you’d think you would be,’ William stammered.

  ‘Are you really a magician?’ Alice asked.

  The man nodded.

  ‘Can you turn yourself into a dog?’ she continued.

  ‘A good question,’ Stephen Tyler replied. ‘The answer to which is – no, not exactly.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think that’s much of an answer,’ Alice told him, then she dodged back behind William again, as the man frowned and made a sound in the back of his throat like a great dog growling.

  ‘Alice,’ William hissed, warning her not to provoke the man further.

  ‘Sorry,’ his sister said, hurriedly. ‘But the dog – my dog – the dog outside . . . you do know him, don’t you? I think you do, you have the same sort of eyes as him.’

  ‘Yes, I know the dog you mean,’ Stephen Tyler replied. ‘But I don’t turn myself into him, it doesn’t work like that. The dog remains himself but I . . . sometimes see through him. I enter him. I live through him, you could say. Is that a better answer?’

  Alice frowned and rubbed the end of her nose, a sure sign that she was confused.

  ‘Do you understand me, little girl?’ Stephen Tyler insisted.

  ‘I expect I will, if you give me time,’ she replied, then she nudged William to say something – anything – to stop the man asking her any more questions.

  ‘Do you enter in the fox sometimes, then?’ William asked.

  ‘Sometimes the fox, yes,’ Tyler replied.

  ‘And the owl?’ Mary asked.

  ‘The owl and I are very close,’ he told her.

  ‘But . . . how?’ Alice asked in a puzzled voice.

  ‘Ah.’ Stephen Tyler sighed. ‘It took years of practice. I’ll show you sometime.’

  ‘Would we be able to?’ Mary asked him.

  ‘With my help,’ the Magician replied. ‘With my help there’s no knowing what you might not accomplish.’

  ‘And would you help us?’ Alice asked, her eyes wide with wonder as she peeped round William’s shoulder.

  ‘If it’s necessary, then yes, of course.’

  ‘Necessary for what?’ William asked, feeling bolder.

  ‘Good questions,’ Stephen Tyler said, beaming. ‘You’re all coming on very nicely. Necessary for my work.’

  ‘What is your work?’ William asked.

  ‘Alchemy,’ Stephen Tyler replied.

  ‘You mean you can make gold out of tin?’ William cried out excitedly.

  ‘No,’ Stephen Tyler said, swinging round, his eyes flashing and raising his staff as though he would beat William with it.

  William cowered back, afraid and shocked by this reaction.

  ‘But I thought that’s what alchy-whatever-it-is was for,’ he protested.

  ‘Yes, people do. There was a man here – Lewis? Was that his name?’

  ‘Jonas Lewis?’ William prompted him.

  ‘That was it. Very good. How did you know it?’

  ‘Uncle Jack brought back a book written by him. That’s how we discovered the steps up the chimney. There were drawings in it. One of them – a sun and a moon on either side of that stick you’re holding . . . sometimes you can see it on the chimney piece.’

  ‘The secret signs. Because the art is so . . . carefully guarded, we cannot just let anyone enter.’ Stephen Tyler smiled. ‘You did well to see it. Good, good. Very good. I’m pleased. What were we talking about?’

  ‘Jonas Lewis,’ William prompted again, feeling pleased that he’d been praised.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Tyler continued, more quietly. ‘Jonas was an apt pupil. I taught him well, of course. But he learned quickly. He was coming along very nicely. Then he got into trouble.’ The old man shook his head, remembering. ‘He got into trouble, and yet he didn’t come to me for advice.’ He shook his head again and, when he continued speaking, the tone was more brusque and business-like. ‘A man called Crawden demanded payment of a gambling debt. Poor Lewis, he gambled – cards, if my memory serves me – in order to finance his alchemical explorations. I told him . . . but he wouldn’t listen to me . . .’

  Tyler was silent for a moment. When he next spoke, his voice had a peculiarly tragic note.

  ‘He used the Art to make gold for himself. He paid off his debts. He thought he was free . . .’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Mary asked.

  ‘What always happens, in the end, when we work for selfish ends. The gold reverted. It became worthless. Crawden took the house. I never saw Lewis again.’

  ‘Were you angry with him?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Angry? Why?’

  ‘In the book,’ William told him, ‘he says, “The Magus knows.” He was obviously very frightened . . .’

  ‘And Uncle Jack says,’ Mary cut in, ‘that a Magus is a Magician . . .’

  ‘I was angry, yes,’ the old man sighed.

  ‘Are you really a magician?’ Alice asked, with wide eyes.

  Again Stephen Tyler studied them thoughtfully.

  ‘I can turn tin into gold, if that’s what you mean,’ he said, at last. ‘But what is the point of that? If I turned all the tin in the world into gold – then tin would be more highly valued than gold is now. The balance would change, that is all.’

  ‘Then please,’ Mary said, ‘what is it that you do?’

  ‘It is true that the alchemist’s art includes the changing of base material into gold, but this is only a step on the way to the greater work.’ Stephen Tyler shook his head and waved his arms in a gesture of irritation. ‘The words I will have to use for you are too simple to encompass the true art. Yet some of it you must know, if you are to help me.’

  ‘You want us to help you?’ William asked, surprised by the idea.

  ‘Of course,’ Stephen Tyler replied. ‘That is why I brought you here.’

  ‘You brought us?’ William said, indignantly. ‘I like that. I worked it out for myself. It was me that found the steps up the chimney.’

  ‘But it was me that built the chimney, William,’ the Magician said. ‘Think of that.’

  ‘Then you are . . .’ William began, then he stopped – for what he was thinking was impossible. ‘You’re having us on,’ he said, crossly.

  ‘How can we help you?’ Mary asked, cutting in quickly. She knew how pigheaded William could be and she didn’t think this was the right moment for him to start an argument – and certainly not with a magician.

  ‘I’ll let you know, when the time is right.’

  ‘But help you doing what?’ Alice demanded. It seemed to her that they were never being given any proper answers.

  ‘A great work,’ the Magician replied. ‘I can’t do it all on my own. I’ll need some support. Particularly in your time. You need me. But at the same time, I need you, I suppose. Therefore, it’s essential that we work together.’

  ‘Work together?’ William exclaimed.

  ‘What sort of work?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Work for the future . . . Even your future. Work for mankind.’

  ‘You mean like saving the world or something?’ Alice asked. She was getting bored now and was only joking.

  ‘Brilliant girl,’ the Magician cried out. ‘That’s precisely what I mean. Before it’s too late we must save all the wo
rlds.’

  Alice looked at William and pulled a long face. The man was obviously potty, she thought.

  ‘You think so?’ he asked her, severely, reading her mind.

  ‘Oh, that’s really mean, doing that,’ Alice protested. ‘Listening to our thinking. It’s rude and besides we can’t do it to you, so it isn’t fair. It’s like cheating . . . or something.’

  ‘Alice. Shut up,’ William warned her.

  But he was too late, the Magician was furious. He turned on them and, holding his silver staff horizontally in front of him, he ran at them, hissing and roaring and making the most awful noise.

  The children turned and ran away from him, back across the room towards the stair door through which they had entered. But just before they reached it, they heard a strange and terrifying sound. It was like a high-pitched squeak, a bit like chalk scratching on a blackboard. Before they had time even to wonder what could have made such a sound the answer came to them, in the form of a huge and hideous rat which leaped over their heads and landed in front of them, teeth bared and hissing viciously.

  William was the first to scream. Later he would deny it, but that is the truth, though the girls took only a moment longer to join him.

  ‘Oh, William!’ Mary shrieked, turning and running back into the depths of the room away from the terrible creature.

  Alice, meanwhile, stopped dead in her tracks and put her hands over her eyes.

  ‘Has it gone? Has it gone?’ she kept repeating in a high, frightened voice.

  The rat was the biggest imaginable. It had sleek grey hair and a long shining tail that swished and twitched and was never still. It had tiny, piercing eyes that glared like pin-pricks of light.

  ‘So,’ it hissed at them, ‘you’re going to be tested, are you?’

  And, as it finished speaking, it ran straight at Mary and round behind her, clearing the children’s way to the door and at the same time forcing them to run away from it out of the room and down the steep, spiralling stairs into the darkness.

  ‘Come on, Ally,’ Will yelled, grabbing her hand and dragging her away from the room.

  ‘Where is it? Where is it?’ she wailed as she allowed herself to be pulled down the narrow stairs into the black.

  ‘Ssss!’ hissed the rat in the darkness. ‘You’re going to be tesssted.’

  And, further down the stairs, Alice could be heard saying:

  ‘If there’s one thing I’m really terrified of, it’s rats.’

  16

  Rats

  IT WAS COLD on the stairs and terribly dark. Mary, who was leading the way, came to the door first.

  ‘Oh, William,’ she shouted, ‘how does it open?’

  A moment later William, still dragging Alice by the hand, arrived behind her, breathing heavily.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, desperately. ‘There isn’t a latch this side.’

  ‘Oh, be quick!’ Alice wailed. ‘I’m sure it’s following us.’

  ‘Sssh!’ William hissed, making them silent, so that they could listen.

  At first there was no sound except their own breathing in the dark but then, up above them, they heard a padding, scratching sort of sound, as if someone was rubbing the fingers of each hand rhythmically across a rough surface.

  ‘What is it?’ Alice hissed, when she could bear the suspense no longer.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ William answered, but without much conviction.

  ‘It’s rat feet on the stairs,’ Mary wailed. ‘It is, isn’t it? Oh, it is. I’m sure it is.’

  ‘Oh, somebody get us out, please,’ Alice shrieked, and then her words turned into a short scream. ‘Something touched my leg,’ she howled and, as she did so, she jumped up on to William’s back with her arms round his shoulders and her legs round his waist.

  ‘Alice!’ William protested, then he also cried out in shock. ‘There’s something crawling about on the ground,’ he whispered.

  ‘I think I’m going to faint,’ Mary said, in a rather matter-of-fact voice.

  ‘Well, don’t,’ Alice told her, still clinging to William’s shoulders. ‘Not now. Just get the door open, please.’ The last word turned into another scream.

  ‘Now what’s the matter?’ William wailed.

  ‘It’s down there, at your feet. I know it is. Oh, William . . .’ and Alice’s voice turned into a whimper of tears.

  William stamped with his feet on the stone steps, trying to frighten away whatever was lurking there. Mary, realizing what he was doing, copied him. They both hopped up and down, banging their feet.

  ‘It’s all right for you, Alice,’ Mary panted, ‘William’s holding you.’ Then she felt William’s hand gripping her arm.

  ‘Listen,’ he hissed in a strained whisper.

  They all stopped moving and held their breath. Once again they heard the strange dragging sound, only this time there seemed to be many more feet, so that it sounded like a soft stampede coming down towards them or a miniature avalanche, and mixed in amongst the awful pattering they could hear squeaks and hisses and whisperings.

  ‘Oh,’ Alice howled. ‘There are hundreds of them.’

  As she spoke the stairs behind them filled with glinting eyes and panting, squealing bodies. All that the three children could do was to huddle together, with their backs to the wooden door, and stare in horror at the wall of evil-smelling rats that pressed down upon them.

  William felt something slide over his feet and at the same time Mary, standing just behind him, let out a gasp.

  The wall of burning eyes pulled back and there was a sound like an excited sigh as a dark shape slithered up the stairs away from the feet of the children and then it stopped and turned, standing alone, to reveal itself as the rat they had seen in the secret room. It was a beast of such proportions that it made all the others seem small. It stood with its tail swishing and its sharp, pointed nose twitching then, very slowly, it opened its mouth in a hideous grin.

  Alice clamped her hands over her eyes, which meant that she let go of her brother’s shoulders. William almost toppled over, knocked off balance by this sudden movement, and he had to grope at the side wall of the stairs in order to steady himself. His hand brushed against an iron ring, set into the wall, and he held on to it to prevent himself falling. A moment later Mary, who was standing behind William and Alice and who was therefore slightly lower down the stairs, with her back pressed against the door, felt a sudden draught and the next thing she knew she was falling backwards as the door swung open. She just managed to regain her balance when William and Alice came toppling down behind her.

  ‘Quick!’ Mary screamed, breaking their fall, and she turned and raced down the steps, closely followed by the others. Soon they were at the foot of the spiral and out on the stone ledge at the side of the fireplace. Without any hesitation, Mary jumped for the ground and William and Alice followed immediately after her so that they all landed in a heap on the hearth of the great hall of Golden House.

  ‘Ow!’ William gasped, as Alice landed on his stomach.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked, trying to get up and digging an elbow into him.

  ‘Alice!’ he yelled. ‘That’s me when you’ve quite finished,’ and pushing with all his strength he managed to roll her off him and to struggle up into a sitting position. One of his knees was smarting and covered with blood.

  Mary was still lying where she had landed, but now she raised herself up and swung round to look back into the chimney. She saw William sitting just behind her inspecting his bleeding knee and Alice lying on the floor beside him. Then, just as she was about to speak to them, a rat jumped down from the side of the chimney on to the hearth.

  ‘They’re here,’ she gasped, making William swing round in alarm, and the next moment the ground was covered with crawling, writhing, wriggling, grey, shining bodies. There were rats everywhere. There were rats on the floor and clinging to the walls. There were rats on the table and rats jumping on the chairs. It was as if the whole hall was
awash with the creatures; tails swishing, teeth gnashing, feet scraping and all the time the terrible, over-excited, high-pitched squeaking.

  ‘What’s going on down there?’ a voice called out from above them.

  Looking up, Mary saw Jack leaning over the banister rail outside his bedroom door.

  She only glanced up for a moment but in that short time all the rats disappeared. In fact, as Mary looked back again at her immediate surroundings she saw a grey-black shape slither under a gap in the wooden wainscot and, if she had not seen that, she could have been excused for thinking that she had dreamed the whole horrible episode.

  ‘They’ve gone,’ she whispered.

  ‘William? Is that you?’ Uncle Jack called.

  William rose unsteadily on to his feet and moved towards the stairs.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied in a shaky voice.

  ‘Who’s that with you? Is it Alice?’

  ‘And Mary,’ Alice called out, sounding guilty. ‘We’re all here.’

  ‘Look at you all,’ Uncle Jack said, coming down the stairs into the gloomy hall. ‘What have you been up to? You’re covered in soot.’

  The three children looked at each other and saw that what he said was true. There were smudges of black on their faces and hands.

  ‘I’ve already prepared the fire,’ Jack said, assuming that that was what they’d been doing. ‘What time is it, anyway?’ he asked, peering at his wrist watch in the half light. ‘Eight o’clock. Oh, I meant to be up hours ago. Sorry, I must have overslept. We didn’t have a very good night. Phoebe’s in a lot of discomfort. I don’t suppose any of you know if she should be, do you?’

  The three children shook their heads and remained silent. They were still too shaken themselves to worry about Phoebe’s welfare.

  Uncle Jack stretched and shivered. He was only wearing a dressing gown. Which meant, Alice decided, that he probably slept with no pyjamas on, which was horribly rude.

  ‘Come on then,’ Jack said. ‘Breakfast. I’ll just put some warmer clothes on . . .’ Then he stopped in his tracks, halfway back up the stairs, and turned with a broad smile on his face. ‘Oh, there!’ he said. ‘I nearly forgot what day it is! Happy Christmas, all of you!’