Utterly turned to Casper. ‘But . . . but that doesn’t make sense. How can you be carrying more and more but then leaving more and more behind?’
Hortensia glanced over at the cauldron. ‘I think it would be wise to begin measuring our guests for The Pickling so that we can look out the right-sized jars, because these children are not going anywhere.’
But Arlo, as it turns out, was. He hopped off Utterly’s shoulder onto the coffee table and began pattering back and forth across the surface.
‘Not much of a dragon, is he?’ Hortensia snorted as Gertie hobbled over with a measuring tape, wrapped it around Casper’s head and noted down the circumference.
Casper watched as Utterly’s hands scrunched into fists and her spine straightened, but just as she was about to unleash a torrent of abuse at Hortensia, Casper butted in.
‘The more you take, the more you leave behind . . . what about cake? That would work! You’d leave crumbs behind if you took lots.’
‘Not if you were greedy.’ Hortensia curled her lip. ‘A pathetic attempt.’
Sylvara held another tape measure up to Utterly’s hair. ‘Can you pickle hair, Hortensia? I never know.’
Hortensia smiled. ‘My dear, you can pickle just about anything.’ She glanced at the clock above the door, then glared at Casper and Utterly. ‘You have until five o’clock to give me your answer, then we shall commence The Pickling.’
‘But that’s in one minute’s time!’ Utterly cried.
‘Precisely,’ Hortensia snapped. ‘So, if I were you, I would stop wasting it.’
Utterly and Casper exchanged panicked glances while the clock ticked on into the silence and Gertie and Sylvara continued to hobble around with their tape measures.
‘I can’t think of anything!’ Casper groaned. ‘My mind’s gone blank!’
And then he noticed that Utterly had gone unusually quiet and was watching Arlo pacing back and forth across the coffee table. Every now and again the little dragon looked up at Utterly and Casper before continuing his steps. And then Casper’s heart quickened and Utterly’s eyes lit up. In the dust on the surface of the coffee table lay the answer to the drizzle hags’ riddle, only Arlo had worked it out long before they had – just like he had with Utterly’s password for the door leading into the castle!
Hortensia clapped her hands together as the clock struck the first of its five chimes. ‘Well, that concludes this afternoon’s miserable affairs. I suggest you—’
‘FOOTPRINTS!’ Casper and Utterly blurted out together, pointing to the little claw marks in the dust. ‘The more you take, the more you leave behind!’ Hortensia’s face contorted and for a moment Casper wondered whether she was going to be sick.
‘It’s right, isn’t it?’ Utterly cried. ‘Arlo solved your riddle!’
Hortensia’s eyes shrunk to slits, then she sent her neck down to inspect Arlo’s footprints. She blinked in surprise, then she scowled at the dragon. ‘You think you’re clever? Well, what is 13,565 divided by 2,713?’
Arlo was thoughtful for a moment, then he pawed his answer into the dust: 5.
Hortensia gasped. ‘He’s right!’
‘What’s the chemical symbol for sodium chloride?’ Gertie asked.
Arlo grinned as he wrote four letters onto the coffee table: NaCl.
Sylvara leant closer. ‘What’s a pentasyllabic word for rain?’
Arlo rapped his tail on the table as he thought, then he wrote ‘precipitation’ into the dust.
‘The dragon is a genius,’ Hortensia muttered. ‘And just think how splendid it would be to pickle the brain of a genius dragon. Like Christmas come early!’
Sylvara and Gertie licked their lips and their necks rose once more and curved around Arlo. But as they did so, Casper thought of the way Arlo had nuzzled into his legs as they passed through the Silver Tears and of how he had purred in his lap after the mudgrapple attack, and before he could stop himself he found that he was on his feet.
‘You will not pickle Arlo! How dare you even say such a thing, you miserable old toads!’
He paused to catch his breath – no one had warned him quite how exhausting being brave was – but then Utterly was on her feet, too.
‘Casper’s right,’ she snarled. ‘We beat you fair and square and you have to honour your word and help us.’ She scooped up Arlo and held him close. ‘So, we’d very much like to know where in the kingdom Casper can find a familiar face. Then we’ll be on our way.’
Like a sulking child, Hortensia slipped her teeth off the string she’d fashioned into a necklace, shook them in her crinkled palm, then rolled them across the table.
To Casper and Utterly the scattered teeth looked like what they were – scattered teeth – but Hortensia, Gertie and Sylvara were crowded around them now, twisting their necks this way and that and tutting as they thought. Then, finally, Hortensia looked up.
‘At the mouth of the river, take a right. Then, keep climbing.’
‘That’s it?’ Utterly cried. ‘Couldn’t you be a bit more specific?’
Casper nodded. ‘When will we reach the mouth of the river? What are we climbing? Do you at least have a map you could give us?’
‘We will send a message to the castle to let the Lofty Husks know your progress, if only to stop them hounding us for news of a missing Bottler-in-training called Utterly Thankless.’
Utterly looked suddenly hopeful, then tried her best not to show it. ‘Do they know I’m not guilty of working with the Midnights, then?’ she mumbled.
Casper thought back to the note he’d sent Utterly’s mum. Had it already arrived? And had Utterly’s mum told the Lofty Husks that her daughter was innocent and that’s why they were hounding the magical creatures in The Beyond for news? Casper didn’t want to tell Utterly he’d gone behind her back, so he said, ‘Maybe the Lofty Husks realised there was no way you could be bound up in all this really.’ He paused. ‘When they read the drizzle hags’ message though, they’ll know for sure, and then I bet they’ll rush out here to help us in any way they can.’
Out of pride, Utterly pretended not to care. But Casper had seen her face back with the Midnight and the mudgrapple and he knew that both times she’d felt far, far out of her depth.
Hortensia, meanwhile, eyed the children with contempt, then swiped up her teeth from the table. ‘If you leave now, you will reach the mouth of the river by sunrise tomorrow morning. If you leave any later, you will risk immediate pickling – starting with the angry girl’s bottom. Now, be gone!’
And so, keen to avoid The Pickling and anxious about the Midnight escaping the jailbird soon, Utterly, Casper and Arlo left the Damp Squib.
Utterly paddled them downstream and within minutes the mist had lifted, the drizzle had cleared and a cloudless evening sky stretched above them. It was orange in parts, and pink too, but the sun itself was blocked by rocks which rose up to form a craggy gorge either side of them. And as they left the drizzle hags’ enchantments behind, the river started behaving more like a river ought to: an otter (albeit in long johns) splashed in the shallows and dragonflies (albeit carrying minuscule briefcases) flitted between rocks.
Casper leant towards Arlo, who was keeping a lookout for Midnights from Utterly’s shoulder. ‘You were brilliant back there.’
The dragon blushed and Utterly tickled his chin. ‘You really were. I knew you were clever but that was really quite something!’ She looked over her shoulder at Casper. ‘Did you see Hortensia’s face when she realised Arlo had helped us with the answer? And her neck – it went all wobbly!’
Casper nodded. ‘You could say Arlo solved the riddle at breakneck speed.’
The corners of Utterly’s mouth twitched. ‘He really made the drizzle hags wind their necks in.’
‘I’d love to see Hortensia in a polo neck.’
And they laughed then, great belly-hugging laughs, and Casper realised that it had been a very long time since he’d done so because there wasn’t an awful lot of time left fo
r giggling, what with hiding in Lost Property baskets and double-checking his timetables. But he made a mental note to schedule a few minutes of it into each day when he got back. Because laughing felt even better than crossing the last thing off a to-do list. It was like trampolining for the spirit, and as Casper looked across at Utterly, he wondered whether this was the first time she had laughed properly for a long time, too.
She looked different somehow. The stars on her cheeks glittered brighter, her eyes bent into half-moons and even her hair seemed to be having a ball (though possibly that was down to Arlo skipping in and out of it). And every time Utterly laughed, it set Casper off again and vice versa. Perhaps laughing is best enjoyed with someone, Casper thought, which was something to consider when timetabling it back home.
He wiped his eyes. ‘We should upgrade ourselves from work colleagues.’ He stiffened as he realised he’d said the words aloud; all the giggling had knocked his common sense sideways. ‘Or not,’ he added hastily.
Utterly thought about it. ‘Acquaintances?’
Casper relaxed a little and then nodded. ‘Acquaintances.’
Yes, he thought to himself, that will do very well for now. A bit more friendly than work colleagues but not so intense that I need to start panicking about messy emotions.
They sailed on through the gorge, ordering two pepperoni pizzas and a miniature garlic bread from the just-in-case and (thanks to Utterly cracking a half-decent joke) three much-needed hot water bottles because the air was growing colder the further downstream they travelled.
But as night fell, the jolly mood in the canoe fell with it, and the three of them listened carefully for the slightest noises from the crags either side of them. It was their second night out in The Beyond and they couldn’t help feeling they’d been lucky up until now. The Midnights were bound to be on their scent. If they were stealing marvels now, as well as damaging them in the Mixing Tower, it could well mean they were growing in numbers, or power, or both.
Casper thought about the paper aeroplane he’d sent Utterly’s mum and the fact that she’d not written back. And, even if his note hadn’t reached the castle, surely the Lofty Husks knew of Utterly’s innocence through the message the drizzle hags had said they’d send? So, why hadn’t the kingdom’s rulers raced out into The Beyond to help Casper and Utterly on their quest? Or at least sent their best Ballooners, like Utterly’s dad, to the rescue? But no one had come. Was Utterly so much of an outsider everyone had given up on her, even her mum? Maybe the Lofty Husks had only been hounding the magical creatures for news because they were cross? But Utterly’s mum had sounded desperate to see her again in her message . . . Something didn’t make sense, but Casper couldn’t see how talking to Utterly about any of it would help – it would mean admitting that he’d written back to her mum, for a start.
The canoe floated on through hundreds of lily pads, which opened as the stars came out to reveal a river full of flickering candles, but, despite the beauty around them, Casper’s mind would not stop whirring and he could tell that Utterly was finding it impossible to relax, too. The night felt full of watching eyes and unwanted shadows, and though they did eventually fall asleep, their dreams were full of beating wings and yellow eyes.
* * *
Casper woke to birdsong, so he assumed it must be sunrise, but as he opened his eyes there was no sign of the sun itself, which was strange. There were no clouds in the sky so the sun should have been obvious and yet there was nothing at all – only a faint glow beyond the gorge further upstream that hinted at the sun down at the horizon, but it seemed to show no sign of rising. Casper waited a little longer but the glow didn’t move and the morning didn’t brighten so he nudged Utterly awake.
‘Something’s not right,’ he said. ‘It feels like sunrise but it’s all gloomy, like dusk, and no matter how long you watch that light behind the rocks, it doesn’t budge.’
‘You’re right,’ Utterly replied, rubbing her eyes. ‘That glow is in the east, where the sun should rise but . . . is it stuck down at the horizon?’
Casper thought for a moment. ‘The drizzle hags said the Midnights are stealing marvels, so perhaps they’re trying to cut the magic off at the source as well as tainting it in the Mixing Tower – a two-pronged attack to break the link between Rumblestar and the other kingdoms! That could cause the weather here to change . . . With fewer sun marvels, maybe it means the sun won’t shine as much and might even have trouble rising . . .’
Utterly shifted in her seat. ‘But the sun scamps over at Dapplemere are the hardest working of any magical creature. I know they’d work double time and overtime to produce enough marvels in their mills to replace anything that’s stolen.’ She glanced up at the sky. ‘Unless the Midnights aren’t just stealing the marvels . . . What if they’re attacking the creatures making them?’ She bit her lip. ‘I hope the sun scamps are okay. I visited Dapplemere with my mum and dad a few months ago for my birthday – I wanted to see the wishing trees again because you never know where in the kingdom the magic might dry up next – and the sun scamps who showed me around were so friendly and kind. But they’re tiny; they won’t stand a chance against the Midnights!’
Casper grabbed the remaining paddle. ‘Then we need to move faster. Your mum said there’s an emergency supply of marvels in the Mixing Tower but that will run out eventually and if the Midnights really are starting to attack the creatures that make the marvels, then we’re really in trouble. If we don’t stop them, there won’t be anything left to save.’
Casper paddled quickly down the river, which was narrower now, the crags either side of them towering slabs of rock. It was even colder here, so Casper buttoned his duffel coat right up to his chin. He eyed the enormous pile of boulders blocking the river some way ahead. There was something organised about the way they lay: two protruding round rocks, then a long pointed one below them, and beneath that, a gaping hole where the river rushed through.
Casper pointed at the boulders with a shaking finger. ‘It’s . . . it’s a head.’
Utterly leant forward to get a better look. ‘A witch’s head, by the look of that nose.’
The canoe hastened towards it and then Casper gasped. ‘The drizzle hags said to take a right at the mouth of the river. The water following through that hole – that’s the witch’s mouth and the mouth of the river!’
Utterly’s eyes widened, and Arlo zipped himself into her dungaree pocket as they drew closer still. ‘And beyond that there seems to be . . . NOTHING! We’ve reached The Edge!’
Casper rammed the paddle into the water, the way he’d seen Utterly do before the tributaries, to try and slow their course. But the canoe spun wildly and showed no sign of stopping.
‘Swift Exit!’ Utterly screamed, reaching over her seat to slam a fist on the button under Casper’s armchair, then swivelling back to activate her own escape.
Before Casper could react, the springs in their seats burst through the fabric, propelling both children out of the canoe, up into the air and smack down onto a ledge of rock jutting out of the gorge to the right.
Utterly whirled round to Casper. ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt? How many fingers am I holding up?’ Arlo curled into her neck and Utterly bit her lip. ‘I should’ve given you more warning, Casper. It’s my fault – all over again – if you’re broken beyond repair, too.’
Casper struggled to his feet. He was bruised all over and his lip was bleeding but he was, generally speaking, all right. He looked at Utterly and saw a gentleness there that he hadn’t noticed before. ‘Was that you worrying about me?’ he asked.
Utterly breathed a sigh of relief on hearing his voice. ‘Phew. You can talk and move.’ The softness went out of her at once. ‘And no. I wasn’t worrying about you. You’re obviously dazed and confused from the crash landing.’
But Casper knew Utterly had been worried – she’d looked almost vulnerable when she thought Casper might be truly hurt – and he wondered whether, perhaps, she had acted like
this because of something that had happened in the past. But as he readied himself to ask, Utterly narrowed her eyes.
‘If you even think about throwing personal questions at me now,’ she snapped, ‘I’ll hurl you back into the river.’
‘I was also going to thank you,’ Casper said, ‘for remembering the Swift Exit button and saving both of our lives.’
Utterly gave a moody shrug.
Casper thought of the canoe, which had now vanished from sight. He’d been deeply suspicious of it to begin with, but during their journey he’d grown almost fond of it, so he was a bit sad to see it disappear so suddenly. All the same, he, Utterly and Arlo were alive and they had a job to do, so he gathered his breath and looked at the boulders above them. ‘If in doubt, keep climbing,’ he said, echoing the drizzle hags’ words.
Utterly nodded. ‘Somewhere up there has to be your familiar face.’
Casper’s mind spun with the possibilities: who from his world had managed to follow him through the grandfather clock? With everything inside him, he hoped that it was his mum or his dad, that somehow they had known he’d hidden inside the clock and climbed in after him. Or had one of them found another phoenix tear and entered Rumblestar a different way? He clambered up the boulders after Utterly and Arlo, his heartbeat quickening the closer they got to the top.
But when they did, finally, haul themselves up onto the last boulder, Casper’s eyes didn’t meet with a familiar face. Instead they met with a dense forest. Suddenly the drop in temperature made sense, because the tightly packed spruce trees before them were sprinkled with snow.
‘But it was spring further upstream,’ Casper panted. ‘How can it be winter here?’
Utterly gathered her breath. ‘This must be Shiverbark Forest, where snow is conjured. It’s winter all year round here.’ She peered into the trees. They were dusted with white flakes but nothing like as much snow as she had seen in the pictures in her schoolbooks. ‘Back at the castle, we were taught that it never stops snowing here, that every single day snowflakes the size of dinner plates fall and snow piles up as high as houses.’ Her voice turned dark. ‘Either the magic has already dried up in these parts or the Midnights have been stealing marvels from here, too.’
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