“Tea’s ready!”
Mrs. Proctor was leaning over the balcony and waving down at her. Belladonna smiled and waved back, then ran up the stairs for tea. Tomorrow, she thought. I’ll have a proper look at that apartment tomorrow.
* * *
But she didn’t. The next morning she felt so tired she could hardly get out of bed. Mrs. Proctor said that it was probably just delayed stress and she’d feel better in a day or two. Mr. Proctor gave her a ride to school and picked her up at the end of the day, and even though she still (against her better nature) slightly resented them, Belladonna had to admit that they were being really nice.
The next day was Saturday and she was up early and although her reflection in the bathroom mirror still looked tired, she certainly felt a lot better. She told Mrs. Proctor that she was going out for a walk and headed into town, breathing in the fresh, cold February air and feeling that perhaps everything was going to change and it would all be alright after all.
She stopped by the graveyard at St. Abelard’s where the dead leaves and grass crackled under her feet as she walked to her favorite table tomb and sat down. She gazed across the grassy expanse, the graves slightly crystalline with frost, and for a moment it felt as it always had.
“Aren’t you cold sitting on that?”
Belladonna looked down. Aya, the charnel sprite, was standing in what remained of the tall grass, her head to one side and the curls of her purplish hair bobbing slightly in the breeze.
“A little,” said Belladonna, “but I think it’s to be expected in February.”
Aya smiled and jumped up beside her.
“I know,” she said. “We’ve been really busy. Lots of people pop off in February.”
Belladonna nodded, then suddenly had a thought.
“Has…” She hesitated for a moment; there was something dreadful about saying it out loud, but she had to know. “Has anyone from my family been through?”
“Died, you mean?”
Belladonna nodded. Conducting the Dead to the Other Side was just a job for Aya, but Belladonna couldn’t share her matter-of-fact attitude. Even though she knew it was alright and that the Land of the Dead was quite a nice place (when it wasn’t being turned into slime by evil ex-alchemists), there was still something slightly unsettling about it.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Aya. “Was it someone in particular?”
“My Gran is missing. I thought … you know … maybe…”
“When did she go missing?”
“I’m not sure. Tuesday, I think.”
“No,” said Aya, after thinking about it for a bit. “Funnily enough, we haven’t had any old ladies this week.”
Belladonna felt relieved and a little disappointed. She didn’t want her Gran to be dead, but she hated not knowing and couldn’t get rid of the knot in her stomach that told her that something really bad had happened.
“Don’t worry.” Aya was gazing into her face and seemed genuinely concerned. “I’m sure she’s alright.”
“It’s just not like her,” whispered Belladonna.
“Look,” said Aya, her tiny hand grasping Belladonna’s, “I’ll ask around. She could have come through when I wasn’t there. When I was on break or something.”
Belladonna smiled. Most people would have assured Belladonna that her Gran wasn’t dead, but in Aya’s world it was roughly equivalent to having retired and bought a villa in Spain.
“Thank you.”
“No problem,” grinned Aya, jumping down. “I’d better get back. I’m supposed to be making the tea.”
“Charnel sprites drink tea?”
“Of course! There’s nothing like a good cuppa to keep you going. Bye! I’ll ask about your grandmother!”
And she was gone. Belladonna waited for a while to see if she’d return, but all was silent except for the faint whine of a distant jet. She got down from the tomb and strolled through the graveyard to the far gate, wondering if charnel sprites had electric kettles or if they boiled the water over an open fire.
She was still pondering the eating habits of charnel sprites and trying to picture them with tiny cups and saucers when she found herself in front of Evans Electronics. The blaring cacophony of competing stereos, TVs, and radios drowned out all quiet thought and banged around inside her aching head like marbles in a jar.
Mr. Evans was with a customer, so she waited until he was finished.
“Looking for Steve?” he said, his voice a perpetual half shout.
“Yes,” nodded Belladonna.
“He’s in the back. Reading comics,” grinned Mr. Evans. “He thinks I don’t know, y’know.”
Belladonna smiled and made her way past the teetering towers of noise to the small door at the back of the shop and the relative calm of the old theatre. She stood for a moment in the cool darkness, looking over the labyrinth of boxes and cartons.
“Steve?”
“Over here!” His head bobbed up like a meerkat and was gone again.
She picked her way through the maze in what she thought was the right direction but soon found herself at a dead end.
“Where are you?”
“Here!”
The voice seemed further away than when she started.
“Well, stand up so I can see you!”
“I don’t want my Dad to see me,” said Steve, standing up. “He thinks I’m checking the inventory.”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Belladonna. “He thinks you’re back here reading a comic.”
She made her way through and finally arrived at a small space among the towering boxes that Steve had cleared for the scroll. It was spread out on the floor, the corners held down by two MP3s, a camera, and a discarded caster from some kind of rolling cabinet.
“Any progress?”
“No,” said Steve gloomily. “I made this.…” He held up a piece of cardboard tube covered in foil. “But I can’t stop the foil from wrinkling, so it’s not really working.”
“Let me have a go.” Belladonna dropped her bag and took the tube. She tested it on the moon drawn on the parchment and it seemed to be the right size. “Have you got any more foil?”
“Yes,” said Steve, handing her the box, “but it’s getting a little low. I’ve been trying for ages.”
Belladonna carefully removed a piece of foil, laid it on the floor, and slowly rolled it around the tube. She thought she’d been really careful, but when she looked at her handiwork, it was almost as wrinkled as Steve’s effort and reflected nothing except the most abstract shapes and colors.
“See?” he said. “It just doesn’t work.”
“No.” Belladonna examined the tube and some of the foil still in the box. “It doesn’t even reflect properly when it’s not wrinkly, though, does it?”
Steve shook his head and sighed. “Have you got any sweets?”
Belladonna handed him a half-empty packet of Parma Violets and he poured them into his mouth.
“Hey!”
“What?”
“Never mind.” She glared at him for a moment, then returned her attention to the parchment. “What we need,” she said finally, “is something the right shape that’s already shiny, like a piece of chrome off a car or a silver cup or something.”
“A cup?”
“Yes, like a—”
But before she elaborated further, Steve leapt to his feet and ran out of the theatre. A few moments later he returned with his school bag.
“Thank goodness I didn’t take it home,” he gasped.
“Since Thursday?” said Belladonna, incredulous. “What about your homework?”
Steve rolled his eyes and flipped the top of the backpack open. After a few seconds rifling through the contents, he made a small grunt of triumph and produced his thermos flask. Its lid was shiny, tubular, and just about the right diameter.
“Brilliant!” said Belladonna, pushing her hair back from her face and leaning over the parchment as he unscrewed the lid and placed it over the
moon.
And then they saw it. A perfect reproduction of a circular, or nearly circular, stone building with a conical roof and tall windows. Walls seemed to extend out from either side and a small skull was lying right next to the large studded door.
“Cool,” said Steve.
“It looks familiar,” mused Belladonna.
“But … hang on.” Steve sat up. “I thought it was supposed to be a map.”
“Maybe it is. Maybe the thing … whatever it is … is inside this building.”
“So where’s the building?” said Steve, a note of irritation creeping into his voice. “Maps are supposed to tell you where things are; drawings just show you what they look like. They only work if you’ve seen the place before.”
Belladonna shrugged. “I don’t know, but I feel like we should recognize…”
“It looks kind of like a piece of a castle … or … Yes! It’s the—”
“Monastery!” said Belladonna. “It’s the chapter house! The chapter house was round!”
They both grinned and stared at the silvery image for a few moments. Then Steve shook his head.
“Typical,” he said finally. “We were standing in the chapter house when he gave it to us. Why couldn’t he have said, ‘It’s over there’? We could’ve got the secret thingy, hidden it somewhere else, and saved everyone from the return of the Dark Times with the minimum of fuss. But noooooo, it has to be on a scroll that you can’t read without a silver cup.”
“Maybe because there’s something else,” said Belladonna, sitting up and looking at the whole parchment again. “Maybe the picture isn’t the only thing on the parchment.”
Steve sat back on his heels and stared at the scroll.
“The margins are very big.”
Belladonna nodded—the margins were very big. The actual picture of the chapter house occupied only the central portion of the scroll, leaving two wide empty borders on either side. It might have just been the design, but Belladonna felt sure there was something else.
Steve leaned over the parchment until his nose was nearly touching its aged yellow surface. He sat up again.
“I can’t see anything.”
“What if … Did they have invisible ink in the Middle Ages?”
“Yes!” Steve’s face lit up. “Yes, I saw this film once; I think they used things like lemon juice. You have to hold the paper over a flame and the heat makes the writing visible.”
“So we need a candle or something.”
“Yes, although…”
“We might set it on fire.”
“Which would be bad.”
They stared at the parchment, thinking.
“We need something warm,” said Belladonna finally. “Something very warm but not so hot that it’ll damage it. Do you have central heating here? Maybe if we put it against a radiator…”
“Central heating?” said Steve. “You must be joking. There’s no way my Dad would pay for that. There’s a little electric fire in the shop, but … Hang on, I’ve got it—a car!”
“A car?”
“Yes, a car. They get really hot, well, warm anyway. We could put the parchment on the hood of a car that someone’s just left. One that’s still warm.”
“I suppose…” said Belladonna, unconvinced.
“Oh, come on, it’s worth a try. We could go to that parking lot around the corner.”
Belladonna bit her lip and considered.
“Okay.”
Steve grinned and put the lid back on his thermos, picked up the various items holding the parchment in place, and rolled it up.
“Let’s go out the back.”
Belladonna nodded and followed him to the stage and back past the dressing rooms to what had been the stage door of the theatre.
They stepped out into the alley and blinked in the cold daylight. Steve zipped up his jacket and shoved the scroll inside.
“Come on.”
They ran up the alley, then out onto Glebe Road and into the throngs of people meandering through town, looking for the best Saturday bargains. Steve led the way to the parking lot, dodging through the crowds with the ease of a Dickensian street urchin. By the time Belladonna caught up, he was already waiting impatiently in the entrance of the town’s only multistory car park.
“It’s pretty full,” he said. “Let’s go to the roof.”
They piled into the tiny lift with half a dozen exhausted shoppers and one screaming baby and waited while it ground slowly upward, stopping on every floor before hauling itself up to the next. By the time it got to the roof, they were the only ones left, though there was a small crowd waiting to descend.
“Ugh!” said Belladonna, stepping out and gasping for air. “Why do they always smell so horrible?”
Steve opened his mouth to speak.
“No! Never mind—I don’t want to know.”
He grinned and scanned the ranks of cars.
“We need one that’s only just got here. And the older the better.”
“What about that one? My Gran’s got one of those and it’s always overheating,” said Belladonna, pointing to the top of the entry ramp, where an aged green Morris Minor had just labored its way to the roof.
“Brilliant!”
They watched as the old car crept along the aisles of cars before finally pulling into a parking space in the far corner, then made their way toward it as nonchalantly as they could.
The driver was an elderly man with a pipe, which he removed from his mouth and shoved into his jacket pocket before adjusting his scarf and walking toward the entrance.
“He’ll set his pocket on fire doing that,” whispered Belladonna.
“No,” said Steve. “My Granddad used to do it all the time. It’s probably not even lit. Come on.”
They scurried over to the car. Belladonna removed a glove and felt the hood.
“Ow!”
“Hot?”
“Yes. I don’t think he should be driving it.”
Steve smiled and took the parchment out of his jacket.
“Hang on,” said Belladonna. “Let me get some paper out. Just in case. If there is any writing, we should write down what it says in case it only appears once.”
“Good thinking.”
Belladonna rummaged through her bag and produced her Geography exercise book and a ballpoint pen. She opened the book at the back and checked the pen. It worked.
“Okay.”
Steve nodded and tried to press the parchment onto the hot hood, but it was too large.
“We’ll have to do one side and then the other.”
Belladonna nodded and watched as he smoothed the left-hand margin of the scroll over the car and held it in place. For a moment it seemed that nothing was happening.
“I don’t think it’s going to—”
“Wait! Look!”
Belladonna leaned in and stared as slowly, slowly something began to appear on the margin. At first it seemed like random squiggles, pale brown and curving. Was it another drawing?
“It’s words!” said Steve.
“Is it English? Can you read it?”
“It’s … no … it’s some other language.”
Belladonna leaned in. At first she thought it was going to be Latin, but it was something else, something that she could read but not understand, although some words did seem like English ones. Then the penny dropped—of course she’d seen it before! In all these weeks and weeks of studying about the establishment of the monasteries in England in the Middle Ages, they’d seen dozens of illustrations of old parchments and illuminated manuscripts. Most of them had been in Latin, but a few had been in early versions of English. An English that seemed almost totally foreign now, but it was English.
“I think it’s Old English,” she said, wondering if this whole adventure was going to improve her chances in the History exam at the end of term. “You know, the language they spoke in the Middle Ages.”
“Great,” muttered Steve. “Now we have to f
ind someone who speaks that.”
He stared at the parchment, then suddenly turned to Belladonna.
“Hang on … isn’t that the language Mr. Watson’s been banging on about? The one in … what was it called … Beowulf?”
“Yes!” said Belladonna, unable to conceal her surprise.
“You needn’t look so stunned. It had monsters in it … and a dragon. Anyway, maybe he’ll know what it says.”
He picked up the parchment as if to put it away.
“I don’t think so,” said Belladonna. “He said he’d only read translations of it.”
“Rats.”
“Wait, I’ve got an idea. Put it back again.”
He put the parchment back and pressed it against the hood again. Belladonna leaned in closer, held one hand above the parchment and closed her eyes. At first nothing came, but slowly, slowly the Words came to her.
“Igi si gar.” She opened her eyes and said it again: “Igi si gar.”
“Look!”
Belladonna smiled. The tangle of unintelligible words slowly unwound and twisted on the page, like earthworms on a rainy day, until nothing remained but a pattern of lines. Then, as they watched, the lines curled and twisted again, forming new words—modern English words.
“Yowza,” muttered Steve. “What did you say?”
“‘Reveal yourself.’”
“That’s all?”
Belladonna nodded.
“Read it out.”
Steve smoothed the parchment again and began to read.
“Thrice times three the cromlechs be
And thrice times three the charm,
Thrice the knight who failed the fight
And thrice be mercy’s balm.
But twain is all the angels keep
Though none do they mistrust,
For the last is lost in the land of sleep
In the murksome house of dust.”
Belladonna scribbled it down, but Steve seemed less than impressed.
“Oh, great. Another stupid riddle. Why can’t people just say what they mean and be done?”
“Never mind, never mind!” said Belladonna excitedly. “Do the other side. Quick, before the car cools down.”
Steve rolled his eyes and pressed the other margin to the still-hot hood.
“It’s not cooling down at all. I’m sure this thing isn’t roadworthy. Oh, here it comes.”
The Midnight Gate Page 9