“In the meantime,” said Amelia, “we’ve more important things to worry about.” She nodded towards the fairground, where the police were buzzing around. “They do a good job of looking busy, don’t they?” Then her eyes widened, and she looked around. “It’s foggy!”
“Oh, good spot.”
“I haven’t been awake for long. Bit slow when I first get up. How long has the mist been here?”
“Since a few days after you took care of the witch in the woods.”
Amelia stuck her tongue out, tasted the air. She pursed her lips. “Told you one of them is good with weather. She’ll be the one who caused the storm.” She paused, and her face softened. “How is your mum by the way?”
“The same,” said Kirby sadly. “Amelia… you don’t think… well, when we got rid of the first witch, you don’t think we made the others angry, do you? I mean, the mist appeared really soon after. And then this boy was snatched…”
Amelia thought about this.
“Nah, ghosts don’t usually work together. They know I’m here, though. It’s probably rattled them a bit.”
“But why take the boy?”
“Bait,” said Amelia. “This one’s smart. She knows I’ll come after her, but with a little boy in the equation, I’ll have to be careful, make sure he doesn’t come to any harm.”
“So how do we find her? And how do we stop her?”
Amelia gave him a grim smile. “Well, as far as finding her goes, we won’t need to look far.” She pointed to the carnival. “She’s in there somewhere.”
***
Out on lonely Ruby Island, Brothers Swan and Swift sat side by side in the circle of standing stones. Between them were two buckets, each filled to bursting with skittering creatures, all legs and slime and pincers.
“Looks like it’s about to kick off over there.” Brother Swan nodded towards the mainland. He reached into one of the buckets, picking out a many-legged creature, and examined it. Then he popped it, writhing and hissing, into his mouth, and bit it in half. When he chewed, black liquid ran from the corner of his lips. The part of the creature that was still in his hand continued to wriggle. “She’s about to go after our second witch.”
Brother Swift nodded, and selected his own oily black snack from the bucket, picking off a pair of sharp claws before jamming the creature into his mouth.
“Should be an interesting fight,” he said, through a gob full of half-chewed bug. “Our witch has kidnapped a boy. She means business.”
“They always do.” Brother Swan smacked his lips. “And then they meet the Shadowsmith.” Silence for a moment, until he said, “Shall we go and watch?”
“Champion idea.”
There was a swirl of mist, and the circle of standing stones was empty.
Skeletons
“What do we do?” said Kirby, staring into the quiet fairground.
“We have a nosy,” said Amelia. “See what we can see. Come on.”
She moved towards a gap in the dyke that served as the carnival entrance.
“Can’t go that way.” Kirby caught her up. He nodded to the policewoman standing guard. “She won’t let us in.”
Amelia gave him a funny look, like he’d just said something ridiculous. “Just come on.”
As they approached the policewoman, she stared down at them. Amelia gave her a smile. “Hello,” she said brightly.
“Hello,” the policewoman replied, returning Amelia’s smile with an absent-minded one of her own. She stepped aside and let Amelia and Kirby pass, and then went back to guarding the gate.
“How did you do that?” Kirby whispered.
Amelia touched the side of her nose.
“I’d do that all the time if I could,” said Kirby. “I could go to the cinema and see all the films I’m not allowed to see! Can we do that one day?”
“Nope.”
Kirby kicked a stone. He didn’t understand girls at all.
Amelia was no longer paying attention to him. She was staring around, sniffing the air, touching things. They wandered all the way round the carnival, through the rides, between the stalls and among the maze of caravans and trucks. The place was quiet, save for the occasional police officer or carnival hand.
“She’s hidden well.” Amelia scrunched up her nose.
“You sure the witch is here?”
“Definitely. I can feel her. But her signal is weak. She knows we’re here and she’s hiding as best she can. We’ll have to come back later. Tonight. They usually come out to play at night.”
A stabbing pain ran through Kirby’s hand then, where the spider had burst through the flesh. He cringed, stepped back, and thought he caught sight of something, a shadow in the mist, but it was gone as quick as he could blink.
“What’s wrong?” said Amelia. “Is it your hand? Let me see.” She took his hand and examined it. Then she looked around the carnival, worry in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh… nothing. It’s just a feeling I have, that’s all. I’m sure it’s fine.” She shook it off and smiled, but Kirby could tell she was putting the smile on just for him. “Come on, then,” she said.
Back through the thick mist they went, towards the road, when Amelia stopped. “Oho! Look at that. A fortune-teller!” She pointed to a tent Kirby barely recognised in the pale, fog-smothered world.
Kirby frowned. “Aye. I went to see her last night.”
“You never did!” Amelia shot him a scornful look. “Kirby Simpson, I thought I’d taught you better than that! These people are frauds! Clueless imposters! Do you know how difficult it is to see the future? Even for me! I can’t see anything other than a few jumbled tomorrows and maybes.”
When she said that Kirby smiled a proper smile for the first time since he’d visited the fortune-teller. Her words had been playing on his mind from the moment he left her tent.
“She’s really a fake?”
“Of course she is? Why? What’s wrong? What did she say to you?”
Kirby looked at his feet. He was embarrassed he’d let the old woman frighten him.
“She told me… she said I was going to lose someone close to me. It didn’t take a genius to work out she meant Mum.”
For a second he thought Amelia was going to hug him. But she held back and said, “Oh, Kirby! Of all the mean-hearted, hurtful things to tell you! We can’t let her get away with this. In fact…” She didn’t finish her sentence. She turned and marched off towards the tent.
“Oh no,” said Kirby. “Don’t do anything stupid!”
She disappeared through the curtain of beads, and the next moment an ear-splitting shriek burst from the tent.
Kirby looked around, panicked, expecting police officers to come swarming all over them at any moment. They didn’t. It seemed they hadn’t heard the commotion. Or Amelia hadn’t let them. Kirby sped towards the tent and brushed through the entrance.
Amelia was standing in the middle of the small square space, her arms folded, staring at the fortune-teller, who was backed against the other side looking terrified out of her wits. She was holding her hands out, her two index fingers making the sign of a cross. “Demon!” she was yelling. “Monster!”
To which Amelia replied, “Oh for goodness’ sake sit down, you stupid old bag of bones.”
But the woman did not sit down. She seemed genuinely horrified by Amelia. “Be gone! Be gone, you spectre!”
Amelia turned to Kirby and rolled her eyes. “She’s a decent actress, I’ll give her that.” Then she turned back to the fortuneteller and said, “My friend here tells me you’ve been scaring him by saying despicable things about his future. I want you to tell him you’re a fraud and none of it meant anything. Tell him he isn’t going to lose anyone.”
The fortune-teller stared wide-eyed at Amelia. “I cannot take back what I have seen,” she said. “Just as you cannot take back the wickedness in your past.”
It was as if her words had knocked the wind from Amelia.
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“I know what you are,” said the fortune-teller, her twinkling little dark eyes all screwed up. “I know where you’ve been. I know what you’re capable of.”
Amelia swayed on the spot. “Kirby, let’s go.”
“So many bad deeds,” the fortune-teller went on. “Such a dark heart. Monster! Get out of my tent!”
Amelia grabbed Kirby by the arm and dragged him away from the darkness inside, back to the misty world of the carnival. She was breathless and shaken. Kirby had never seen her like this, not even when she was facing a witch. A thought hit him.
“She’s not the witch, is she, that loony?”
Amelia shook her head. “She’s nothing but an old woman messing in things she doesn’t understand.”
“The stuff she was saying about you!” said Kirby with a nervous laugh. “What a load of rubbish! You’re not a monster. You haven’t done anything wrong…”
Amelia looked right into his eyes, the green of her own burning bright.
“Everyone has a skeleton or two in their cup-board,” she said. Then she turned and walked away.
Hide and Seek
Midnight. The witching hour.
Amelia had somehow snuck into the house again, and she stood in Kirby’s room and watched him tie the laces on his trainers. When he stood up, Kirby sighed.
“What’s up?” Amelia said.
Since he left Amelia earlier that day, Kirby had been wondering what kind of terrifying skeletons she might have trapped in her closet. It seemed like she was hiding things from her past. Things she was ashamed of maybe. But he couldn’t ask her. He daren’t. So he said, “I feel a bit bad sneaking out again after last time. I promised Dad…”
“Come with me.” Amelia beckoned him towards Dad’s bedroom.
He was lying on his back, flat out, with his mouth open. She reached into her yellow raincoat and brought out her hazel twig. She pressed the tip of the wand gently against Dad’s forehead and he smiled a dopey smile and said, in a faraway voice, “More bacon please, Mummy.” Kirby sniggered.
“There,” said Amelia, “he’s dreaming. This time we’ll get you home before he wakes up. I promise.”
***
The fairground seemed like a different place under the cloak of midnight. Moonlight fought its way through the thick mist, falling on the towering shapes of the carnival rides. There was an eerie silence to the place, an emptiness that seemed unnatural.
“Feel anything?” Kirby said in a hushed tone.
“Not much.” Amelia was a few paces in front, walking slowly, sniffing the air, considering her every step. “She’s in the background, like static.”
“Is she making this mist?” Kirby swiped a hand through the air. “I wish it would clear off, it makes my skin crawl.”
“I don’t think weather’s her thing. This one likes playing games.”
“Will she hurt Charlie?”
Amelia turned to face him. “One thing at a time.”
On they went, through the creeping blackness, until they had covered the entirety of the fairground, from the rides and stalls to the maze of caravans and trucks.
“Are you sure she’s here?” Kirby was cold, and tired, and cranky.
“Are you an expert all of a sudden?” Amelia snapped.
“You don’t need to be like that.”
“What I need is to concentrate. What I need is to not have you rabbiting on in my ear.”
“Are you here about the boy?” said a third voice.
They turned slowly, to see a girl standing in the open doorway of one of the caravans. She was smaller than Kirby, but also older – maybe thirteen or fourteen – and she wore a dressing gown and slippers.
“Hello,” said Amelia. “What’s your name?”
“Lizzie,” said the girl.
Amelia gave Lizzie one of her sparkling smiles. “Hi Lizzie. I’m Amelia.” She motioned over her shoulder. “That’s Kirby.”
Lizzie smiled. She stepped out of the caravan down two metal steps to the wet grass. “You have come about the boy, haven’t you? The one who got snatched.”
Kirby and Amelia shared a knowing look, and Kirby said, “That’s right. He’s lost and alone, and we want to bring him back home. Back to his mum and dad where he belongs.”
Lizzie nodded.
“You live here, don’t you?” added Amelia. “Seen anything unusual?”
The girl smiled. “I know secrets,” she said.
“What kind of secrets?”
Lizzie didn’t answer. Kirby was beginning to feel uneasy. Was it getting colder?
“Where are your parents, Lizzie?” Amelia asked. “Are they in the caravan?”
Lizzie ignored the question. “I’ll tell you a secret. I’ll show you what you want if you’ll play a game with me.”
“What sort of game?”
“Hide and seek,” said Lizzie. “Come and find me, and I’ll show you where the boy is.”
Amelia reached into her yellow raincoat, pulled out her hazel wand, and the girl made a hissing sound. Her features changed, her face becoming a twisted sneer, her eyes turning black. But only for a moment, and then she was a girl again, smiling, playing with her hair.
A lump of fear crawled from Kirby’s chest up into his throat. “It’s her!” he said. “The witch!”
“Yes, thanks for that,” said Amelia. “So glad you’re here to dispense those nuggets of insight.”
Kirby didn’t have the chance to reply because the girl flickered at the edges, and grew and twisted until she was taller than the tallest adult Kirby had ever seen. Her legs were too long, her arms so elongated that her twisted fingers were almost touching the ground. Her face was still that of a young girl, but there were black circles around her dark eyes, and she had a mouthful of teeth sharp as needles.
In a single leap she was on top of one of the caravans, crouched down, her hair falling over her pale face. She began to sway from side to side, her hair swinging gently, and she sang, in the sweet voice of a child…
Hide and go seek,
Hide and go seek,
Darkness is coming and shadows will creep.
A sweet child is lost.
Will he be found?
Or will he end up in a hole in the ground?
She hissed at Kirby and Amelia, then she jumped down behind the caravan, disappearing from sight.
They sprinted around after her, but the only thing waiting was mist.
And then, her voice somehow so close to his ear that Kirby could feel her rotten breath, she said, “Come and find me.”
“What do we do?” he asked. He was shivering, both with fear and with cold.
Amelia stared around the fairground. Everything was silent. Everything still. She looked back at Kirby. “We play.”
“Play?”
“Just as she asked. We play hide and seek with her. If we find her, we’ll find the missing boy. What’s his name?”
“Charlie.” Kirby paused. “This is probably a trap though, right?”
“Little tip for you, Kirby: any time the soul of an evil witch shows up and asks you to play hide and seek… pretty certain to be a trap.”
“Right. And we’re just going to walk into it?”
Amelia ran a hand through her wild hair.
“We have to find it first.”
The Haunted House
“So where do we start?” Kirby asked.
Amelia tapped her hazel wand against her forehead. “Right,” she said, “let’s think about this properly. She’s taken on the form of a child.”
“Aye, If you can call that thing a child.” Kirby shivered at the thought of the witch’s too-long arms and legs and fingers.
“Yes,” said Amelia, “the point is she’s childlike. So we’re probably looking for something that would come from a child’s mind… I don’t know…” She turned away and began to wander through the mist. “A child. What would a child think of?”
“I hate to point out the obvious,” Kirb
y said, enjoying the fact he might have thought of something before Amelia for a change, “but there are two children right here. I’m a child. So are you. Sort of. Aren’t you?”
Amelia spun to face him, and marched through the rain-soaked mist towards him. “You’re right!” she said. “You are a child! So what would you do, Kirby, if you had all of this to play with?” She motioned around the fairground. “Where would you set a trap?”
Kirby began to walk past stalls and rides, until something made him stop.
“Amelia?”
“Yes?”
“You see that haunted house there?”
“What, the one that looks like a real house? The one with the turrets? The one that fills me with a sense of dread?”
“That’s the one. Well… it wasn’t there yesterday.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Me and Dad covered every inch of this place the other night. No haunted house. Plus, it’s the perfect place for a trap, isn’t it? Dark and spooky. Probably lots of places to hide.”
Amelia gave him a smile. “You know what, Kirby Simpson? You’re actually quite useful to have around. Sometimes.” She nodded to the haunted house. “Shall we?”
The house looked very old. It was made mostly of stained black wood, with a wraparound porch like the houses from old movies, and a spire at one corner with a weathervane in the shape of a skull. The porch steps creaked and moaned as they climbed. When they reached the front door, its paint chipped and cracked, they stopped and listened.
Nothing.
Kirby was frightened, and he knew he was right to be frightened: whatever lay beyond the door was sure to be dangerous. But there was excitement in him too.
Amelia reached for the handle on the front door. It turned with a loud click, and she pushed it, letting it swing open. Then she stepped forward, into the house.
The door slammed shut in Kirby’s face. “Amelia?” he said. “Open the door.”
But Amelia did not answer.
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