Blackfoot

by W. R. Gingell

  “I’m going to see what other parts of the castle have come in since yesterday,” said Annabel. Blackfoot couldn’t accuse her of not doing anything if she was exploring. Besides, she was hoping that the new rooms had filled themselves in by now: perhaps she would be able to find something else to wear other than her flannels. And perhaps the larder would have filled itself, too.

  Peter raised his eyebrows at her, but she ignored him. “All right,” he said. “I’ll come with you, then. I can look at the sealing after we’ve explored a bit more. Maybe this old pile has some useful spells and books lying about somewhere.”

  Annabel, remembering her drawings from the night before with some wistfulness, said: “Maybe.” She would rather find clothes than books, at this stage. “I’ve already washed. You can use the pump if you want it.”

  “Might as well stink this morning,” said Peter carelessly. “We’re going to be exploring, anyway. There’s probably a lot more cobwebs and dust around the place yet. Starting at the lower levels?”

  “Mid levels,” Annabel corrected. “The lower ones we went through yesterday are all kitchens and middens and cooling systems. Blackfoot says the mid levels should be more interesting if they’re filled in by now: guest quarters and galleries, and maybe a library or two.”

  Peter considered this, and said handsomely: “Well, we’ll do it your way today: mid levels it is. I wonder how big the castle has got overnight?”

  The castle had become dauntingly big overnight, as it happened. Now that it was warmer, Annabel felt the cool shadow of it as soon as she pushed through the last remaining vines, and Peter whistled as he exited behind her. There were at least two more levels than there had been yesterday, though the skeleton of the castle was still climbing to the sky in crooked fingers of unattached stairways and teetering spires of stone.

  Annabel, who should have seen it earlier when she washed, but had been too much asleep and too little curious, said airily: “Pretty big, isn’t it? I think all the really big blocks that were around the throne room are up in that bit, now.”

  Peter whistled again. “It is pretty big. I like that diamond thing it’s done along the front: what is it, a view-station?”

  Something like that, said Blackfoot. That’s the court wizard’s quarters.

  “Court wizard’s quarters,” Annabel said knowledgeably, and heard Blackfoot snort.

  “All right,” Peter said, for once ceding to someone else’s knowledge. “Where do we start, Ann?”

  “The same place as yesterday, I suppose,” said Annabel, thrown off-guard. She wasn’t used to Peter asking her what to do. Despite the fact that he was a year younger than she was, Peter had always taken the lead. Annabel wasn’t sure if he had done so because, Peter-like, he considered it his due, or if it was simply that she had never tried to assert leadership before. “We got in by the laundry. Can you do something to make sure I don’t fall through any of the floors again, though?”

  It was Peter’s turn to look surprised. “That’s a good idea. Only, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to fall through a few more: I’d like to get back to that snake-room, actually.”

  I doubt you’ll have a chance to fall through any more floors, unless you’re very careless, Blackfoot remarked. The castle is looking rather more solid today than it did yesterday.

  “Yes,” agreed Annabel, who didn’t much care, so long as there were floors in the rooms today. “Hey! What’s that?”

  “A nice, handy little spell,” said Peter, grabbing the wrist she tried to pull away.

  “Yes, but why are you tying string around my wrist?” protested Annabel. “That’s just silly.”

  “Stop wriggling, Ann! I’ve put the spell in a bit of string I had.”

  Annabel stopped pulling away, but said: “Why, though?”

  “Because you don’t have any magic, and things get really sticky when I put them on you without putting them in something else first. Lack of magic creates a vacuum– Ann, I’ve told you this before!”

  “Not that,” Annabel said impatiently. “I meant why do you have a bit of string?”

  Peter, momentarily taken aback, said: “I don’t know. It was around somewhere. I thought it would come in useful. Well, if it comes to that, why do you always have that scrubby little pencil on you?”

  Blackfoot, interrupting Annabel’s protests that a pencil was much more use than a random piece of string and Peter’s meaningful look at the string bracelet around her wrist, said: This discussion is, of course, very interesting, but who knows? perhaps exploring the castle will prove to be exciting as well.

  Annabel made a face at him and was pleased to find that her face was no longer too stiff to do so. “Blackfoot wants to get on with exploring the castle,” she said.

  “I don’t know why the cat is so eager to explore,” muttered Peter. “If Mordion gets in, do you think he’s going to bother to chase a cat? We’re the ones he’ll come after. If anyone wants to be exploring the castle, it should be us.”

  So I would have thought, said Blackfoot. And yet, here we are, still in the courtyard.

  “Oh, shut up,” Annabel said amiably. “I can’t be bothered telling Peter everything you say, so you might as well stop being clever at his expense.”

  “Hey!” said Peter indignantly. “What did the cat say?”

  Annabel, ignoring him, started across the courtyard again, her eyes running along the base of the castle. It looked differently than it had looked with all the rubble around it, and she wasn’t quite sure of her ability to find the same door they’d used yesterday. To Peter, who hadn’t moved, she called over her shoulder: “Didn’t you want to see if you can find a way out by going further in?”

  “Don’t know why you’re so active this morning,” Peter muttered, but he caught up with her anyway. “It’s not like you know what I mean when I say we should be trying to get out by going further in.”

  “You didn’t say it,” sniffed Annabel. “Blackfoot did. You just agreed. Oh! There it is!”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not,” Annabel argued. “The castle was the subject, and– oh! Why won’t it open?”

  “Let me try.” Peter pushed her aside, but to his obvious chagrin, couldn’t push open the door any more than Annabel had been able to do so. “Ann, I think it’s locked.”

  “It wasn’t locked yesterday,” protested Annabel. “Why is it locked today?”

  Well now, said Blackfoot, sounding pleased. That’s progress. We can be reasonably certain that most of the inside will be complete today, in that case.

  “It could be a good sign,” said Peter, at the same time.

  “That’s what Blackfoot says. Can your tickerbox unlock it?”

  Peter fished about in his pocket and brought out the small box, but when he held it up to the lock, it scrambled back along his arm on its spindly legs and tried to crawl down his collar.

  “I think it’s scared!” Annabel said, much amused. “It probably remembers the last lock you tried to get it to pick.”

  “It can’t be scared: it’s a clockwork box. As for remembering– well, I suppose it could be. I’ve been working on a special program to make it able to remember and learn. It’s not exactly remembering, but it’s close and–”

  Nan, you’ve set him off again, said Blackfoot, reproachfully. At this rate, we’ll never get into the castle.

  “Peter.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” Peter reclaimed the tickerbox from his collar and shoved it at the lock again. This time, the tickerbox only pranced back and forth worriedly once or twice before it settled itself over the lock. Beneath its regular ticking, Annabel could hear fainter clicks. Peter said: “Got it!” a moment later, and when Annabel tried to push the door open, it moved.

  “Up we go, then!” said Peter.

  Annabel, who could smell a gloriously familiar smell, said: “Wait!” She pushed through a door that had yesterday only been an empty doorway, and through two more successiv
e doors that hadn’t been there yesterday.

  Peter, following behind, said incredulously: “Is that bread I can smell?”

  Annabel charged down the few curved steps that led to the kitchen, and made directly for the huge ovens at the opposite end of the room. They were, unaccountably, lit; and from all four of them came the distinct aroma of freshly baked bread. “Yes!” she said. “So much bread!”

  “But that’s impossible!” protested Peter.

  Annoying, isn’t it?

  “Don’t just stand there!” Annabel said. “Help me get the bread out! It’s going to burn if it stays in much longer.”

  Peter helped, but she could hear him muttering: “It’s not possible! Where did it come from? There’s no reason for bread to reappear with the castle!”

  Annabel shrugged. She didn’t care: there was deliciously fresh bread to eat. “It might have been cooking when the castle disappeared.”

  “That’s– actually, that’s something to think about,” Peter remarked. “I still don’t hold with the idea of time travel, but it really does seem like the castle is coming back from somewhere.”

  A difference so fine as to be almost invisible, sniffed Blackfoot. Good heavens, Nan! Are you inhaling or eating?

  Annabel, with her mouth full, only mumbled at him.

  “Don’t eat it all, Ann. Pack up some for later: we can’t expect the castle to keep coming back with food inbuilt.”

  Annabel mumbled again.

  “What?”

  Annabel gave up on mumbling and trotted across to the series of cold-boxes that lined the inner wall, clutching the remains of a bread loaf to her chest. She couldn’t see the spells on the cold-boxes, but when she was near enough she could feel the cool seeping from them. Triumphantly, she threw open the door of the first, displaying a dizzying amount of cold meats, pies, open preserves, and cream.

  Peter’s mouth dropped open. “What? And the cold-boxes! This is– this is– I’m having a pie, then!”

  “Think the cupboards are full as well,” Annabel said, still a little thickly. “’T’least we won’t have to worry about food for a while. Oh! If you’re getting one of the pies, get me one, too. We can take them with us.”

  “You could get your own if you weren’t so busy stuffing your face with bread,” Peter pointed out, but he picked up two of the apricot pies anyway. “All right, we’d better keep going. There isn’t anything else in the ovens, is there?”

  “No,” said Annabel regretfully. Even more regretfully, she followed Peter back up the stairs.

  Further in, further up, the corridors were almost whole. Still munching on her pie, Annabel was pleased to find that there was far less of the unsettling darkness lurking, and that her stomach wasn’t doing the odd, squishy thing it had done yesterday.

  The rooms that had doors to them were whole, too. There was still the odd doorway with no door, opening into that awful stretchy blackness, but by and large the lower level of the castle nearest the kitchen was complete. Annabel and Peter opened doors to galleries, libraries, and a small receiving room in which Annabel would have liked to stay a little longer.

  “Not interesting,” said Peter, and forged onward.

  On the second level, things became more interesting. The corridor was less complete there, and Annabel could feel a subtle chill to the air that suggested there were still quite a few holes in the higher sections of the castle. That sensation of incompleteness was overshadowed, however, by the fact that the first door they opened on the second level led to a particularly useful room.

  “Ugh,” said Peter, leaning into the door. “Boring.”

  It was a whole room full of clothes. In fact, it was a whole room especially dedicated to displaying clothes.

  Peter gave it one more look of disgust. “Nothing here, then.” He wheeled and went on to the next door, but Annabel, her fingers closing tightly around the doorknob, said: “Wait!”

  “What? There’s nothing here.”

  “Yes, there is!” said Annabel. “I’ve been wearing these flannels for days. I can finally change!”

  Peter made a face. “Fine. But I’m going on to the other rooms.”

  Annabel made a face in retaliation, but he already had his back to her. Shrugging, she pushed back through the door and looked around the whole room in gleeful anticipation.

  Good heavens, said Blackfoot, padding a swift circle around the room. I could have sworn you only look at food like that.

  “I’ve never had any pretty clothes to look at,” Annabel said, hugging herself with delight. “Look at all the colours! I’m going to wear this one!”

  Nan, no. Not that one. It’s by far too long for you– and red, for heaven’s sake!

  “But it’s so pretty!”

  We’ll agree to disagree, shall we? By all means, wear it– if you have no objections to looking like a particularly over-ripe tomato.

  “I’m going to try it,” said Annabel, unheedingly. She began to wriggle out of her flannels, and Blackfoot disappeared like a whisp of smoke. He always did when she changed, though Annabel, who had spent many summer days swimming in her small-clothes with Peter, and had no modesty to speak of, didn’t know why he should be more circumspect than she. He was a cat, after all.

  The red dress was delightfully light and cool after her flannels, and although it was, as Blackfoot had warned, a little too long, the petticoat that Annabel found to go along with it pushed it out sufficiently so that she only had to lift the skirt a little when she walked. She tied the sash around her waist—more tightly than it was used to being tied, since it subsequently folded in on itself—and twirled in front of the mirror. Then, very much pleased with herself, she emerged from the room to find Blackfoot and Peter.

  She found Blackfoot at the end of the hall. He stared at her in silence for some time before she heard him say in a pained sort of a way: And the worst of it is, the child is actually proud of looking like a tomato.

  “Hey! I can hear you, you know!”

  Is that so? I would beg to differ, since you’ve completely ignored my advice.

  Annabel glared. “What advice? It was an insult.”

  A statement of fact.

  “Well, I like the dress!” said Annabel sulkily. “I think it’s pretty.”

  There was a sigh. I am regretfully aware of that.

  “What does it matter what you think, anyway?” Annabel demanded. “You’re a cat! I’ve never had a dress as pretty as this before.”

  There was another moment of silence before Blackfoot said, more mildly: That’s a good point. Oh well, so long as you’re happy, Nan. Don’t trip over your hem, will you?

  Annabel beamed at him, and twirled her way around the next corner. “I won’t! Did you see the rosettes around the hem, Blackfoot?”

  I could hardly help seeing them, said Blackfoot, following her languidly. They’re rather large and quite red. Where has this dreadful child hidden himself, I wonder? Could we be fortunate enough to have had the castle spirit him away somewhere?

  When they came upon Peter again, he was in one of the other rooms, half-way in and half-way out of a shirt that was much finer than his now stain-ridden original. She stayed in the doorway, smirking, until he turned about in his attempts to wriggle into the shirt and saw her.

  “All right, all right, don’t just stand there grinning,” he complained. “Help me pull this thing down! It’s tighter around the shoulders than I expected.”

  “You should have unlaced it a bit more,” said Annabel, coming far enough into the room to yank on the hem of his shirt. Peter emerged, flushing and untidy, and straightened his new shirt.

  “Good grief, Ann! What are you wearing?”

  “Don’t you start, too! It’s pretty!”

  Peter looked her up and down. “You look like a tomato that someone’s sewn around the middle.”

  “Well, you look like a grubby little boy dressing up in his older brother’s good clothes,” snapped Annabel.

  Pe
ter went slightly pink. “I thought I should get something to wear if you were getting something, too.”

  “Rubbish,” said Annabel. “You were just pretending to be above clothes because you thought there weren’t any for you. You went out and looked for boys’ clothes, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t care what I wear,” Peter said. “They only get oily and untidy when I take things apart, anyway, so–”

  Annabel folded her arms. “So put your own shirt back on.”

  “Ann, I just changed,” argued Peter, marching from the room. “I’m not going to change again.”

  “Isn’t that convenient,” Annabel muttered, and followed him. “Where are you going now?”

  Peter, very haughtily, said: “We weren’t here to look for clothes, Ann. I’m going back to work”

  A delightful idea. Do you suppose he makes an effort to be so very emphatic about everything he does?

  “Blackfoot says you should be more careful about how you go looking around the castle.”

  “Stop telling me what the cat says! I don’t care.”

  Of course not. That would be the height of stupidity. It’s always turned out so well for you when you ignore me, after all.

  Annabel rolled her eyes at Peter. “You will if you do something wrong.”

  “Well, I won’t do something wrong!”

  Was that me snorting with laughter? Dear heavens, how rude of me.

  “That’s what you always say and it’s not always true,” said Annabel, but she said it to deaf ears. Peter was already outpacing her along the hall. She groaned and tried to walk more quickly, but her breakfast of bread and pie was beginning to weigh her down. “I think I ate too much.”

  What can have given you that idea? wondered Blackfoot. I wonder if our young idiot is trying to get further in, or find the source of the castle’s magic. He seems to vacillate between the two.

  “Blackfoot,” said Annabel, panting a little as she trotted after Peter, “what do you and Peter mean when you say that the only way to get out is to go further in?”

  Will wonders never cease, the child is asking questions!

  “Just say so if you don’t want to tell me,” Annabel said sulkily. “I don’t care!”