“But it’s alright, see?” Belladonna showed them her wrist. “It grabbed the scarf; it didn’t touch me.”
“That looks like an awful lot of blood, Belladonna,” said Steve.
She looked at the scarf. He was right.
Her grandmother put her arms around her. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
Then everything went black.
26
Secrets
SHE WOKE UP in her own bed at home, with her grandmother by her side and her parents hovering anxiously near the foot of the bed. She looked at her wrist, which had been expertly bandaged.
“I did that,” said Grandma Johnson proudly. “I was in the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade once. Great way to get into football games for free.”
Belladonna smiled, then remembered Mrs. Lazenby. She looked at her grandmother, suddenly anxious.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “They have no record of you or the Proctors. Miss Parker may not be able to leave the school, but her reach is still very long.”
“How do you feel?” asked her mother.
“I feel … actually, I feel fine,” said Belladonna, surprised. “This hurts a bit.”
“You’re staying off school this week,” continued Mrs. Johnson. “I just can’t believe these people. Putting children in the way of danger like that! They should be arrested! I’m going to make the dinner.”
And with that, she disappeared, followed within moments by the sounds of rattling pans and silverware in the kitchen.
“You did very well,” said her Dad. “And that young lad. Very good.”
Belladonna smiled and closed her eyes. She was home.
* * *
“Mr. Evans.”
No answer.
“Mr. Evans!”
Steve was staring out of the window at the trees and the clouds, the end of a pencil in his mouth and absolutely nothing on his mind.
Madame Huggins strode up to his desk and rapped on it loudly.
“This is a classroom, Mr. Evans! It is for learning.”
Steve’s eyes came into focus and he shrugged.
“Sorry.”
“Right. Now I asked if you could conjugate—”
Steve was never to find out what he was going to have to conjugate because at that moment the classroom door opened and Mrs. Jay stepped inside. Twenty-five pairs of eyes shifted their attention from Steve’s inevitable dressing-down and detention to the bulldog face of the school secretary.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, not looking sorry at all, “but Miss Parker would like to see Belladonna Johnson and Steve Evans in her office.”
“What, now?” asked Madame Huggins.
“Yes. Now.”
Belladonna and Steve got up and followed Mrs. Jay out of the classroom, through the school and up the stairs to Miss Parker’s office. As they reached the landing, there was a loud bang as the office door slammed shut and Sophie Warren, her face like thunder, pushed past them on her way down the stairs.
“Score,” whispered Steve, grinning at Belladonna.
Mrs. Jay pretended she hadn’t heard, opened the office door, and leaned in.
“Johnson and Evans.”
They stepped inside and Mrs. Jay closed the door quietly behind them, returning to whatever it was she usually did.
“Sit down,” said Miss Parker.
Two chairs had been placed in front of the huge desk. Belladonna sat in one and Steve perched nervously on the other.
“You have done very well. Much better than I had expected. I was quite sure we’d be looking for a new Spellbinder by now.”
She smiled somewhat disconcertingly. Belladonna wasn’t sure she liked being thought of as disposable.
“There are a couple of things, though.… Um … Mr. Evans, I am told that you breathed fire. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” said Steve, unable to suppress a grin.
“I despair, I really do,” sighed Miss Parker. “Do you still have this ability?”
“No, it went away,” said Steve ruefully. “It was totally cool, though! You should have seen that faceless thingy! Aaaargggh!!!”
He grabbed his face and did a passable impression of the injured Allu. Miss Parker rolled her eyes, and Belladonna tried to suppress a giggle.
“And you used a quarterstaff?”
“Yes,” said Steve, grinning. “Actually it was a buck-and-a-quarter staff, but don’t tell anyone.”
Belladonna giggled. “I am him for whom thou theeketht!” she lisped in her best Daffy Duck voice.
“What about the nobles?” asked Miss Parker, ignoring them.
Belladonna reached into her pocket and handed them over.
“Good.”
Miss Parker placed them on the desk in front of her and pushed them into the shape of a circle, then she waved her finger over them and sat back as the coins slowly rose above the desk and began to spin slowly around. Belladonna and Steve watched, mesmerized, as the coins spun faster and faster.
Miss Parker whispered a Word, then clapped her hands together sharply. The coins immediately shot in toward one another. There was a brief flash and something heavy fell to the desk.
“It’s a Nomial!” said Belladonna.
“Yes,” said Miss Parker, picking it up. “It’s a toadstone. Now we have three.”
“Four,” said Belladonna.
“Four?”
She reached into her pocket and removed the amulet that Mr. Proctor had placed around her neck.
“Ah,” cooed Miss Parker, “the Cornerinal. The bloodstone. Some call it the fever stone. A rather nasty thing. Excellent. Good. Now.”
Silence. She looked from one to the other, and Belladonna could see Steve bracing himself for the worst.
“I have arranged for some extra classes.”
“What!?” blurted Steve, horrified.
“Ancient languages, mythologies, self-defense, that sort of thing. It really was irresponsible of us to select a Spellbinder so young, and you have both proven that you have a great deal of natural talent. It just needs honing.”
“But … didn’t we win?” asked Steve.
“Yes, you did.”
“Well … then, isn’t it over?”
“No. She got through,” said Belladonna quietly, realizing the truth. “Mrs. Proctor … the Kere … she said that the Empress could only escape if the Dark Spaces took another body. She said there had to be balance. But the Allu … the Dark Spaces took the Allu. It got its body and she’s … the Empress is still here.”
“Yes. Yes, that would seem to be the situation. She’s got a lot to learn, though. Your world has changed a great deal since she was last here, and she wasn’t able to bring any of her minions from the Dark Spaces with her, so there should be plenty of time. Classes start next Monday. That is all. You may go.”
They drifted out of the office and stood on the landing, staring at the floor.
“We failed,” said Steve finally. “After all that, we failed.”
Belladonna thought about it for a moment. “No. We stopped her doing what she wanted. Now she’s just stranded here, isn’t she?”
“She’s very powerful, though.”
“Yes.”
“We should probably take the classes.”
“Yes.”
They smiled and started to walk down the stairs, then Steve turned back to look at Belladonna.
“How is your wrist?”
Belladonna instinctively grasped at it. “It’s fine.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it’s fine.”
“Okay.” He turned and continued down the stairs just as the bell sounded for lunch. “Yes! We missed the rest of Latin. See you!”
Belladonna smiled as he raced outside. The corridors were suddenly full of children as everyone dashed outside or in to lunch or loitered near the radiators. She made her way to the library, where it was quiet and she was sure she could be alone. She needed to think.
The Empress was her
e, and that was really, really bad. But she had started out as just another girl, plain Margaret Morville. A girl in a priory. She was probably supposed to become a nun. Then she had been chosen to be the Spellbinder. But what had happened to make her turn against everyone, even the Queen of the Abyss? Had just being the Spellbinder changed her so much?
Belladonna chewed on her lower lip and let her hair fall in front of her face. Outside she could see Steve playing football with his friends, jackets off in the near-freezing temperatures and oblivious to everything except that game and that moment.
She wished she could feel that way, but she never had. Steve was the sort of person who could set things aside to worry about later or not at all, but now that she knew the Kere had not only disguised herself as Mrs. Proctor but had also lived for years as Steve’s mother, it changed everything.
What did that make Steve? Looking at him running across the field, she couldn’t imagine that he was anything more or less than human. So why had the Kere posed as his mother?
She knew she ought to tell Miss Parker. Now that the Empress was here, even ordinary secrets could be dangerous, and this one was far from ordinary.
But she had a secret of her own.
She pulled back the sleeve of her cardigan and looked at her left wrist where the creature had grabbed her. There, beneath the skin, there was a shadow, like a wisp of smoke.
And it was moving, wreathing around her wrist like a slender bracelet.
A piece of the Dark Spaces.
A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK
An Imprint of Macmillan
THE MIDNIGHT GATE. Copyright © 2011 by Helen Stringer. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stringer, Helen.
The midnight gate / Helen Stringer. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Twelve-year-old Belladonna Johnson, who lives with the ghosts of her parents, once again teams up with her classmate Steve, whose mother has suddenly disappeared, when they are given a dangerous assignment by a ghostly monk involving the return of the Dark Times.
ISBN: 978-0-312-38764-8
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Ghosts—Fiction. 3. Orphans—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. England—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S9182Mi 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010036476
Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
First Edition: 2011
mackids.com
eISBN 978-1-4299-2304-0
First Feiwel and Friends eBook Edition: May 2011
The Midnight Gate Page 29