The Midnight Gate

by Helen Stringer

  “Okay,” said Steve, barely glancing at them. “Next!”

  Belladonna shoved the coins into her pocket and turned to the rhyme again.

  “‘And thrice be mercy’s balm.’”

  “Ew … that’s a bit sort of … vague.”

  They turned to look at the chapter house again. But Belladonna couldn’t see anything that made her think of mercy. Well, except for the angels, but they’d already got the coins from them.

  “Of course!” said Elsie suddenly. “Over there!”

  “What?”

  “The misericord!”

  “The whosis?” asked Steve, none the wiser.

  “Misericords were sort of little shelves that the monks could lean their bums on in long services,” explained Belladonna. “But I thought they were only in churches. That’s what Mr. Watson said, anyway.”

  “Well, there are some over there.”

  Elsie was right. Just to the left of the arched entrance of the chapter house was a row of six carved stone seats, each with only a small shelf to rest against.

  “But I don’t understand—” began Steve.

  “Misericordia,” said Elsie as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s Latin for mercy.”

  “Huh. I should’ve known Latin would come into it somewhere. Alright, here we go.”

  He scooped the rug up and marched over to the stone seats, but this time Elsie appeared a little more slowly and seemed suddenly slightly transparent.

  “Are you alright?” asked Belladonna.

  “I’m tired. It’s harder manifesting like this … away from the school.”

  “Then let’s be quick,” said Steve. “Can you see anything?”

  Elsie nodded, leaned forward, picked something up from three of the small shelves, and dropped them into Steve’s hand. He smiled slowly as they materialized.

  “That’s it,” said Elsie faintly. “That’s all I can do.… I’m sorry.”

  She began to disappear.

  “That’s alright,” smiled Belladonna. “We’ll see you back at school.”

  “And well done!”

  Elsie smiled weakly and was gone.

  “There’s a train in fifteen minutes,” said Steve, who had been examining a scrap of paper with a handwritten list of times. “If we get a move on, we can make it and be back before it gets dark.”

  “But we’ve only got eight coins.”

  “What?”

  “Two from the angel and three each from the tomb and the misericord.”

  She looked at the rhyme again and sighed.

  “What? What is it?”

  “‘For the last is lost in the land of sleep / In the murksome house of dust.’”

  “The land of sleep,” muttered Steve. “Great. That’s the Other Side, isn’t it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Murksome house of dust isn’t very encouraging either.”

  “No.” Belladonna put the coins into a side pocket of her bag and hoisted it onto her shoulder. “So … How are we going to explain this to the visitor center lady? She’ll think we missed our bus.”

  “We won’t need to explain it,” said Steve. “We’ll just run.”

  Belladonna rolled up the mat and handed it to him, then they both walked quickly across the wet grass and into the visitor center. The lady at the counter looked concerned and was about to say something when Steve gave Belladonna a nod and they both raced out of the building, through the car park, and away up the road toward the station.

  The train was already there, so they found themselves seats and settled down for the ride back.

  Belladonna sighed as the train pulled out of the station. It had all been really disappointing. She had thought that once they found the nine things, everything would be clear, but it wasn’t. They’d found the coins and knew they had something to do with the stones in her dream, but she had no idea what they were supposed to do with them and, anyway, they still had to get the ninth coin. She wasn’t any better off than she’d been when she left the house that morning and she still had to go back to the Proctors and pretend that everything was alright.

  The thought of the Proctors filled her with even more gloom, and her head had started pounding again. She reached into the side pocket of her backpack and took out the coins.

  “Here,” she said, holding them out, “you’d better take these.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want the Proctors to get them.”

  Steve nodded and took the gleaming nobles. He looked at them for a moment, shining in his hand, then placed them on the table in a ring.

  “So there are nine coins.…”

  “Nine Nomials.”

  “Nine Worlds.”

  “And nine stones.”

  “The coins probably have something to with the Nomials, with the Metaversal Orrery.”

  “I suppose they must do. It’d be too much of a coincidence otherwise. And if my Granddad was right and the orrery can give you power over the Nine Worlds…”

  “… and the spaces in between, then we have to go there, don’t we? To the Other Side.”

  “Yes,” said Belladonna. “Maybe someone in the Land of the Dead will know what the House of Dust is.”

  “It makes sense, really,” said Steve, picking up the coins and putting them in his pocket. “I mean, if they’re really valuable, it would’ve been stupid to hide them all in one place.”

  “I suppose.”

  “We’d better show up in some classes tomorrow, though, or all hell is going to break loose. And I don’t think old Parker would really buy the whole mystical-doodads-Spellbinder-Paladin sketch. How about lunchtime? We could meet in the library and go down to the Sibyl. She’d let us use her lift, wouldn’t she? I mean, it is to save the world … again.”

  “Good idea,” said Belladonna, rubbing her left temple with a finger.

  “Headache?”

  “Yes. They seem to be worse the further I get from Shady Gardens. It’s fine, though. I mean, it isn’t, but it will be.”

  Steve smiled unconvincingly and turned to look out of the window as the train clacked through the countryside, retracing their steps back home. The pale February sun had broken through the gray clouds and was casting a silvery light over the fields and fells, and Belladonna settled back into her seat and watched sheep give way to crops, and drystone walls to hedgerows.

  The Other Side. She could see her parents again. Perhaps they would know … or maybe the Conclave of Shadows could help. Her grandmother and the Eidolon Council had been sure they could help last October. And even though they had turned out to be imprisoned with the rest of the ghosts back then, perhaps this time they would be able to come up with some advice.

  The Eidolon Council! Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Surely the whole point of having a group of living people that could confer with the Conclave in the Land of the Dead was to deal with this sort of thing! But then … Edmund de Braes had told them not to tell anyone. She bit her lip and tried to convince herself that it would be alright to tell the Council, but she had to admit that she didn’t know who half of them were.

  No, she decided finally, they should just stick to their plan, go to the Other Side, get the final coin, and see what they could find out about the Proctors and the stones.

  She tried to feel optimistic, but something told her that the last coin was not going to be easy to find and that the House of Dust, whatever it was, would not give up its secrets without a fight.

  15

  Crossing Over

  THAT NIGHT the dreams were far worse and, for the first time, Belladonna remembered almost everything.

  She remembered being woken up, but not in her bed. It was as if she had been sleeping in a large empty room. A cold room. She had never been so cold. She couldn’t see who woke her; it seemed to be a person, but she couldn’t quite make them out. And then there were stairs, flights and flights of stairs, all leading down into an impenetrable glo
om. The dark figure led the way, but only the step immediately ahead was illuminated, so Belladonna had no sense of how long the stairs were, how far they had come, or how far they had to go. She stumbled occasionally but kept following. She wanted to stop, to turn around and run away, but it was as if she had no control, as if she were merely a passenger in the shell of her body.

  After what felt like hours, they arrived at the foot of the stairs, and Belladonna found herself in a barren landscape of brush and bracken. The dark figure led her to another equally misty form. This one took her to a particular spot and placed something around her neck.

  “Make them rise, Spellbinder,” it said. “Make them rise.”

  For a moment Belladonna was confused. What was he talking about? But then she heard herself speaking.

  “Sag-en-tar na szi. Sag-en-tar na szi. Sag-en-tar na szi.”

  She wanted to stop, but she just kept repeating the same phrase. They were Words of Power, she knew that, just as she knew that these Words were not coming to her lips in the way the others had. They had nothing to do with what she wanted to say or do and everything to do with what the dark figures wanted. It was as if she were a radio and someone was tuning her to a channel she had never heard before.

  “Sag-en-tar na szi.”

  Guardians of stone, arise.

  “Sag-en-tar na szi.”

  As she kept repeating the Words, she became aware of a low rumbling, growing louder with each repetition. At first it felt like the rumble of traffic on a distant highway, but soon it became clear that it was the earth itself shaking and tearing and eventually spewing up … nine standing stones.

  The stones were huge, similar to some of the photographs in Steve’s books, but without the erosion of age and weather. Fresh-honed by hands that understood what they were for. They formed a circle around Belladonna and the dark figures, with two stones closer together than the others, forming a sort of frame for the almost-full moon.

  “Sag-en-tar na szi.”

  One of the figures laid a hand on her shoulder and she stopped speaking.

  “Very good,” it said. “Now call the Darkness.”

  * * *

  The next morning, she could barely move. Mrs. Proctor scuttled into her room and felt her brow with just the right kind of clucking concern. If Belladonna hadn’t known better, she would have thought she really cared.

  “Well, you don’t have a temperature,” she said. “That’s a mercy. You don’t look at all well, though. Perhaps you’d better stay off school today.”

  “No!” said Belladonna, a little too quickly. “No, I’ll be fine, really.”

  “Why don’t you get dressed and come down to breakfast; then we’ll see. How’s that?”

  Belladonna mustered a smile and nodded. Mrs. Proctor bustled out of the room and down the stairs.

  Ten minutes later, Belladonna was sitting in the kitchen, trying to pretend that she felt fine and forcing herself to eat the Proctors’ horrible toast. They only ate whole-meal bread and when it was made into toast, no matter what you put on it, all you could taste was the whole-wheatness of it. Belladonna couldn’t understand why anyone would want that for breakfast. There was something sort of stern and puritanical about healthy food at the beginning of the day. Breakfast, to her mind, should be all about cheerful food, like Pop-Tarts or some variation on chocolate frosted sugar bomb cereal.

  She finished the toast and smiled at Mrs. Proctor.

  “I feel much better now.”

  “Alright, off you go then.”

  Belladonna ran into the hall, put on her coat, grabbed her bag, and was out of the house and away up Nether Street almost before the words were out of Mrs. Proctor’s mouth. Her burst of energy didn’t last, however, and by the time she actually got to school, she was feeling ill again and now had the worst headache she’d ever experienced. Running seemed to make it much worse, so she decided to move as slowly as she could.

  She hung up her coat and dragged herself along to the classroom. Steve wasn’t there, but almost everyone else was, and they all stared as she walked in and sat down. At first, Belladonna thought someone was going to say something, but the general hubbub rose again and it was only Lucy Fisher who came over and looked at her earnestly.

  “Are you alright, Belladonna? You don’t look very well.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” She smiled at Lucy and opened her bag as if she were looking for something.

  Lucy seemed to want to say something else but just drifted away back to her own seat. Belladonna put her bag down. She didn’t feel fine at all, but she knew that her only option was to go to the school nurse, who would probably send her home, and she didn’t want to be with the Proctors any more than was absolutely necessary.

  The noise in the room seemed to be pulsing at the same rate as the throbbing in her head. She reached up and rubbed her temples and became aware that she was being watched.

  It was Elsie. She was standing right in front of her desk and looking very worried.

  “Belladonna! What have they done to you?”

  Belladonna shook her head.

  “Well, they’ve done something. You look awful.”

  She was just about to pull out a notebook so she could tell Elsie to go away, when she noticed Steve standing in the doorway. If anything, he looked even more grim, and as soon as she met his gaze he nodded his head slightly toward the hall and walked away. Belladonna waited a few moments and then followed him out and down the hall. He walked quickly to the stairs and darted underneath them.

  “What’s happened?” he whispered, his voice anxious.

  “I’m tired, that’s all.”

  “You look more than tired,” said Elsie, materializing at her elbow. “Belladonna, have you looked in a mirror?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—” Steve’s concern was starting to frighten her. Did she really look that bad?

  “What was I supposed to do? Stay at home with the lovely Proctors?”

  “Good point,” said Elsie.

  “Let’s go back.” She turned to go back to the classroom, but Steve held her back.

  “Wait,” he said, “I think we should go now. To see the Sibyl. One look at you and I’m sure she’ll let us use her lift to the Land of the Dead.”

  “But we’ll miss Math.”

  “I know, it’s a terrible sacrifice,” said Steve, managing a grin. “But, listen, you look worse every day. Those people are doing something to you, and the only clue we’ve got is the gold nobles. We have to do something now, today.”

  “Hear, hear.”

  Belladonna thought about it. They were right. It was obvious now that her dreams weren’t dreams at all. She was really doing that stuff, standing out in the cold and calling … something. She shuddered. How many more nights could she do whatever it was she’d been doing without ending up in the hospital … or worse?

  “Okay,” she said finally. “But let’s try Mrs. Jay first.”

  “Mrs. Jay?”

  “Yes. I mean she knows all about the Nomials and the Land of the Dead, and she probably knows a lot more besides.”

  “I know.” Steve hung back. “But she really gives me the creeps.”

  Belladonna rolled her eyes and marched off down the corridor toward Mrs. Jay’s office, sure that she would know what to do. After all, she was the one who pulled them into her office last October and explained about the Nomials and why the stars went out and everything. And Mrs. Jay had known that Belladonna was the Spellbinder and Steve the Paladin (though she hadn’t seemed too happy about that last part). So it only made sense that she’d know what to do about the Proctors and the Shadow People.

  They had arrived at the door to Mrs. Jay’s domain. Steve still hung back, but Elsie stood next to Belladonna, offering as much support as she could. Belladonna smiled slightly and rapped on the door confidently. Silence.

  “Good,” said Steve, “she’s out. Let’s go see the Sibyl.”

  Belladonna ignored him a
nd knocked again. Silence.

  “She’s not in,” said Steve again. “I don’t know why you—”

  “Honestly!” said Elsie, turning on him. “You’ve called the Hunt, fought a hell hound, and defeated Night Ravens. Why on earth are you scared of a secretary?”

  “None of them can report me to Miss Parker or get me expelled,” explained Steve.

  Belladonna sighed and knocked again. Silence … and then the scraping of a distant chair, the click of a door, footsteps, and the office door opened.

  “Yes?” said a querulous voice.

  Belladonna’s heart sank, and Steve grinned as though it was Christmas. It wasn’t Mrs. Jay—it was the mouse-like assistant.

  “Is Mrs. Jay in?” asked Belladonna, already knowing the answer.

  “She’s taken a few days off,” murmured the assistant. “Some sort of Scandinavian holiday, I think.”

  “Scandinavian?” said Steve. “But she’s not Scandinavian.”

  “No,” said the assistant, who had clearly never thought of this. “Maybe it was Scottish. I can’t really remember. Anyway, she’s not going to be back until next week. You can see Miss Parker if you like.”

  “No!” said Steve, darting forward. “No, that’s alright. We’ll be fine.”

  “Okay,” said the mousy woman, closing the door. “Sorry.”

  Belladonna stood staring at it as the sound of the footsteps padded away. Why would Mrs. Jay take a holiday now, right in the middle of term? And for a Scandinavian holiday …

  “Right,” said Steve cheerfully. “The Sibyl it is!”

  They made their way to the library just as the bell sounded for the first class of the day, but to their dismay, instead of the empty room they’d come to expect, the library was full of people. Sixth formers were clustered at tables, riffling through sheets of paper. They looked up at the mere second years with disdain.