“I told you,” muttered Steve.
The parchment was yellowed with age and worn around the edges, but the contents were quite clear … and utterly meaningless. Instead of the map that she had expected, Belladonna found herself staring at a series of black streaks of ink that seemed to have been smeared at random across the page. The only item that made any sense was a rough drawing of the moon near the center of one long edge.
“I thought that was probably the top,” said Steve.
“Brilliant,” said Belladonna, squinting at the ink smears.
“I know what that is,” mused Elsie.
Belladonna and Steve looked at her expectantly.
“It’s a … I can’t remember the word. It begins with an A. We used to have them all over the house. Argh! Why can’t I remember?”
They stood around the table and stared at the parchment, as if hoping that by some freak of nature the whole thing would suddenly resolve itself into something legible or leap up vertically like a pop-up book.
“Nuts,” said Steve finally.
“Can’t you say some Words over it or something?” asked Elsie.
“I don’t think so,” said Belladonna. “I don’t feel anything.”
They stared at it for a few more moments, then Steve rolled it up and shoved it back into his backpack.
“I’m going to have lunch,” he announced. “I’m starving.”
Belladonna put the books away and wandered out into the corridor. Elsie trailed along behind, lost in thought, and slowly vanished.
The lunch room was almost empty by the time Belladonna got there. Except for the chess club, of course. They were always there banging their little clocks and peering earnestly at the ranks of wooden figures. She helped herself to some fish and chips, and some peas that seemed to have the mass of Jupiter, and then selected a table as far from the chess club’s perpetually pinging clocks as she could manage. Steve wasn’t there. He refused to eat school lunches and had been given special dispensation to bring in food from home. When his mother had still been around, his lunches had been the envy of all his friends, but now that it was just him and his Dad, it was nearly always just a ham sandwich, an apple, and a thermos of tea, all of which he ate outside while watching the under-15s football practice.
Belladonna thought about the parchment as she pushed the food around her plate. She could understand the map being disguised in some way, but why wouldn’t Edmund de Braes have given them the key? Or a clue to the key? Or the vaguest of hints? He’d said it would help them find the “Instrument of Life.”
She stopped pushing the remains of the fish and chips about and looked up.
No, he didn’t, she thought. He said it would help us prevent her return, find the Instrument, and hide it again.
Perhaps that was what the map would lead them to—something that would prevent the return of the Empress of the Dark Spaces. That had to be the first thing, surely? But even if that was the case, why not just tell them? Why make everything so complicated? He knew she was the Spellbinder; why not just tell her?
She took her plate back, scraped the remains of the fish and chips into the bin, and put the plate and cutlery into the tub marked DIRTY PLATES in large block letters. She noticed that a lot of people didn’t bother scraping off their plates before they stuck them in the tub and reflected that there were worse things in the world than being the Spellbinder.
After lunch it was double English followed by French, by which time Belladonna was having difficulty staying awake while Madame Huggins read some endless passage out of a “very important” book. She had prefaced this by going on at length about how she couldn’t understand why none of them had ever read it. Then Steve had piped up brightly that possibly it was because it was in French, which everyone had thought was very funny, though he was rewarded for his pains by being forced to sit at the very front for the rest of the class.
Belladonna had just diverted her attention from doodling in her book to gazing blankly out of the window when suddenly Elsie appeared, standing right on Madame Huggins’s desk.
“Whoops!” she said cheerily, jumping down. “I’ve got it! I know how we can read it!”
Steve stared at her in disbelief, but Belladonna managed to maintain a bit more composure as Elsie ran up to her desk.
“Honestly, it’s so simple!”
Belladonna sighed, turned the page of her exercise book, and wrote in large letters at the top: NOT NOW. GO AWAY.
Elsie read it, thought about it for a few moments, and glanced around the class. “Oh, righto. Sorry. Wasn’t thinking and all that. Reconvene in the library at half three, then?”
And she was gone.
* * *
“Can you believe her?” hissed Steve as they made their way down to the library after school. “She doesn’t have the sense of a turnip!”
Elsie was waiting in the library when they got there.
“Roll it out!” she commanded.
Steve glared at her for a moment but did as she said, placing the books on the corners just as before. Elsie examined it closely, squinting and crouching down until her eyes were at the same level as the tabletop.
“Right,” she said finally, straightening up. “I remembered the word. It’s anamorphic.”
“Ana-whatsis?” asked Steve.
“It’s a kind of art. My Dad used to collect examples. Prints, mostly, of course. He thought they were really great.”
Belladonna and Steve just stared at her.
“Look,” she said, “you make a painting or a drawing and then you have to tilt it at a certain angle or you need a mirrored cylinder or something to view it properly. They used to hide secret messages in them or just use them for … well, jokes, I suppose. There’s a famous one with a skull … um … by Holbein, I think. He was the court painter to Henry VIII. Is there a book on him here?”
Belladonna scanned quickly along the half shelf of books dedicated to art.
“I’m not…,” she began.
“There it is!” said Elsie triumphantly, pointing to a slender volume with a green cover. “English Art in the Sixteenth Century! Gosh, I think that book was here when I was alive.”
“Dullworth’s does pride itself on being on the cutting edge,” grinned Steve.
Belladonna removed the book and placed it on the table.
“Look at the list of illustrations,” said Elsie. “See if there’s something called … um … I think it was The Doctors … or The Diplomats … or…”
“How about The Ambassadors?” asked Belladonna.
“Yes!”
Belladonna turned to the page and was surprised to find herself looking at something that seemed perfectly normal to start with: two men in the clothes of the period leaning on a desk covered with papers, scientific instruments, and a large lute, but as her eyes traveled down, she noticed a strange whitish smear that spread diagonally from the center of the picture to its lower left-hand corner.
“What’s that?”
“It’s the anamorphic part,” said Elsie. “Hold the picture up so it’s level with your eyes and then kind of look at it sideways.”
“It’s a skull!” said Belladonna, amazed.
“The picture was supposed to hang on a staircase, so you’d see the skull as you came up the stairs.”
“Give me a go,” said Steve, taking the book and holding it up. “Huh. Cool. But I thought you said you needed a mirror.”
“Not always,” admitted Elsie. “But you can sort of see how it works. The ones that needed mirrors were usually drawings or engravings. There’d be a circle or something on the page that told you where to put the cylinder. The moon on our picture is probably where the mirror goes.”
“So we need a round mirror with the same diameter?”
Elsie nodded. “I think you mean cylindrical, though.”
“Maybe a piece of pipe,” suggested Steve, ignoring her. “With foil around it.”
“Or maybe—”
Belladonna didn’
t get any further.
“Seems to be clear,” said a voice right outside the library. “I’ll just check in here.”
Belladonna swept the anchoring books out of the way, and Steve rolled up the parchment and shoved it inside his bag just as Mr. Watson walked into the room.
“Steve Evans! Belladonna Johnson! What are you doing in here?”
Belladonna stared at him, her mind a total blank, but Steve immediately went into trouble mode and picked up the books that had been holding the parchment in place.
“Just getting some books!”
“Really?” said Mr. Watson.
“Yes,” said Belladonna. “For a project for … Geography.”
“Hm. Alright. Don’t forget to sign them out. Surprised you know where the library is, Evans.”
Belladonna went to the sign-out book and hurriedly listed the titles and signed her name.
“Right,” said Mr. Watson. “Off you go, we’re locking up.”
Belladonna shoved two of the books into her bag and handed the other two to Steve as Mr. Watson steered them out of the library and out of the front door with a hasty “good night.”
“Good job he didn’t want to know what the project was for,” said Belladonna.
Steve looked quizzical, then examined the spines of the two books she had handed to him.
“A Beginners Guide to Forensic Science and Britain’s Endangered Species. Well, maybe we’re going to open a detective agency.”
Belladonna laughed and for a moment almost forgot that she wasn’t going home.
“Where are you staying?” asked Steve.
“Foster parents,” said Belladonna, her mood suddenly darkening again. “They’re very nice, really. They try. I feel a little guilty … but … well, it isn’t home and…”
“Do they live close by?”
Belladonna nodded.
“Good,” said Steve. “I have to stay off school tomorrow. My Dad sent a note saying I have to visit some sick relative somewhere, but really it’s just to help him get ready for the latest sale. Come over on Saturday and let’s see if we can find a way to look at this map.”
“Okay,” said Belladonna. “Saturday. This is my road.”
She stopped at the turn to Nether Street, the long road that led to Shady Gardens, but instead of just saying good-bye and sauntering off home, Steve looked suddenly concerned.
“Down here?” he said, “But there isn’t … Where did you say you were staying?”
“It’s an old apartment building,” said Belladonna. “It’s a bit grotty, actually, but it’s going to be restored, apparently. At least that’s what the Proctors said. It’s called Shady Gardens.”
“Is it round?” asked Steve.
“Like a big arena, yes.” Belladonna had noticed the change in Steve’s expression. “What is it?”
“You can’t be staying there,” he said grimly.
“Why not? I mean, it’s a bit run-down, but the Proctors keep their house nice and clean and—”
“No,” said Steve, “you don’t understand. It was demolished three years ago. My Dad took me to see them blow it up. Shady Gardens doesn’t exist anymore.”
9
Walking
BELLADONNA DRIFTED along Nether Street. Demolished? He had to be mistaken. It must have been another building. Maybe they’d built two. Then the building itself came into view as she rounded a bend in the road and she realized that he had to be wrong. Shady Gardens was huge and solid and most definitely there.
She stopped for a moment and stared. Her headache had gone and suddenly she didn’t feel like going back just yet. She turned and walked away with every intention of just having a bit of an aimless wander, but before she really knew where she was going she found herself in front of her house. Her real home. She looked around to make sure no one was watching, then opened the gate and slowly walked up to the door.
Out of habit, she reached for her key in the side pocket of her backpack, forgetting for a split second that she’d given it to Mrs. Lazenby. She sighed and pushed open the letter box, peering into the empty hall. It seemed dark and cold and above all empty.
She let the letter box flap shut with a quiet creak and walked over to the living room window, but the curtains were closed. They were closed around the back too and so were the kitchen blinds. Mrs. Lazenby must have done that when she picked up her clothes.
She returned to the front of the house and opened the flap again.
“Hello?”
She was surprised by how small her voice sounded.
“Hello?” she said again, more loudly. But there was no reply. Just silence and the distant tick-tick of the kitchen clock.
Of course, there was no reason why they should be there. They only haunted the house so they could take care of her, and if she wasn’t there, they probably just stayed in the Land of the Dead. Still, she’d have thought they might have heard her. But perhaps not. Perhaps she needed to be inside the actual house. She sighed and wished she’d asked them how the whole “haunting” thing worked when she’d had the chance.
She let the flap close and walked away, closing the gate after her. How could this have happened? And after all the trouble they’d had rescuing them in the Land of the Dead! She began trying to think of suitable ways of revenging herself upon Sophie Warren but wasn’t having much success. The only things she could think of would probably end up with her getting in even more trouble and Sophie just carrying on as usual. She was starting to wonder what the point was of being the Spellbinder if you couldn’t get own’s back against irritants in your life, when she realized she was on Yarrow Street. She scurried along to her grandmother’s house. That, too, was shut solid, curtains and blinds drawn.
“Belladonna, is that you?”
For a moment her heart leapt, but when she turned around, it was just Mrs. Proctor. She was standing at the gate, holding two heavy shopping bags full of groceries and smiling.
“Oh, hello” was all Belladonna could muster.
“What on earth are you doing here?”
“It’s my Gran’s house,” explained Belladonna. “I just thought I’d … you know … see if she was back.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Proctor, “I see. I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.” She closed the gate and joined Mrs. Proctor.
“Shall we get home and have some tea?”
Belladonna nodded.
“That’s the girl! Why don’t you take one of these bags? There you go! We’ll be back in no time.”
“Have you talked to Mrs. Lazenby today?” asked Belladonna.
“Of course I have!” said Mrs. Proctor in a resolutely cheery voice. “No news, I’m afraid.”
“Have they reported my Gran missing? To the police, I mean?”
“I think so.”
Belladonna sighed and trudged on beside Mrs. Proctor, who prattled on cheerily about her day and what she did in town and what the latest news was about the restoration of Shady Gardens. Belladonna smiled and tried to pretend to be interested, but all she could think about was finding her grandmother and getting away from the Proctors and Mrs. Lazenby. She knew they all meant well, but they weren’t family and they didn’t know her.
The one thing that had made seeing ghosts and then being the Spellbinder bearable was the fact that her family knew. So while she had to pretend that she couldn’t see the dead at school or out in town, at home she could relax and be herself and talk about it. Without those conversations, that understanding and release, she felt as if she was somehow locked in her own head, peering out at the world and always on guard.
They walked down Yarrow Street, turned the corner up Jeremiah Place, and made their way past the end of Umbra Street. There were ghosts everywhere and it took all of Belladonna’s concentration to pretend not to see them. The spirit of old Mrs. Renshaw, who had spent the last twenty years of her life housebound with crippling arthritis, sped by on a ghostly skateboard, her hair flying in the wind.
Belladonna smiled a greeting but could do no more than that.
Then the Phillips sisters, all four of them, came running toward her. They’d all died in a diphtheria epidemic back in the 1870s and had a beautiful gravestone in the churchyard near her house, complete with a weeping angel and a sad-looking marble puppy.
“Have you seen Mary?” gasped Irene, the eldest.
“She’s on one of those boards—the ones with little wheels,” said Rose. “She said we can have a go if we can catch her.”
Belladonna glanced back over her shoulder. For a moment the girls seemed puzzled, then Irene got the message.
“Oh, right,” she whispered, as if that made any difference. “Sorry. Come on, you lot, she went this way!”
And they were off. Belladonna was almost relieved when they reached Shady Gardens and there were no ghosts for her to pretend not to see. Just the silent Shadow People lurking in doorways and clustered in the arches.
“I think I’ll play on the swing. Just until tea is ready.” She tried to sound cheerful.
“That’s fine,” said Mrs. Proctor, smiling. “I’ll call you when it’s ready. Would you like me to take your bag in for you?”
“No, that’s alright.” Belladonna smiled brightly and wandered off to the swings. The bag contained everything that was most precious to her now—Dr. Ashe’s book, the hunting horn, the bell for calling the Dead, and her rapidly dwindling supply of Parma Violets.
She dumped the bag near the swing, sat down, and slowly wound it around and around. As it spun she could see the shadows clearly, standing in small groups around the building. She did it again … and again. There seemed to be more of them. Maybe they were ghosts after all. Then the third time she spun, she saw something else. There seemed to be someone moving around in one of the ground-floor apartments.
She jammed her foot into the hard dirt beneath the swing and stared. It wasn’t possible—the apartment was boarded up. She got up and walked over to it. She pushed on the boards to see if they were loose, but they were all new and firm. It was really weird. She went back to the swing and spun again and while the Shadow People appeared in their ones, twos, and threes, the apartment remained boarded up and blank.
The Midnight Gate Page 8