Darkwater (10 page)

seventeen

“P
ut that stuff away. You won't need it.” Azrael came and took the mop and bucket gently from him and dumped them behind a door.

“I thought you wanted . . .”

“Not that sort of work.” The man stood back and looked at him, an almost troubled look. “This is a strange place for a boy of your age, Tom. You should be out with the village boys. Or at least, doing some schoolwork.”

Tom went red.

The cat mewed.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Azrael said at once. “Stupid thing to say.” He seemed embarrassed, turning and putting the book back on its shelf. “I have a terrible habit of interfering; please forget I said it.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Yes . . . well look, I have to set up my laboratory. I've made a start, but I really need an assistant. It's down here.” He turned and walked quickly down the corridor of books, the cat stalking after him, its tail high.

“A real nutcase,” Simon whispered.

Tom ignored him. Azrael's remark had stung him. It was right. What on earth was he doing here, scrubbing floors? He should be studying, reading, doing everything he could to get the highest grades, to get away from the stupid hateful Tates. Why did he waste so much of his time?

They came to the doors of the room at the end; a room that was always kept locked, as far as Tom knew. But the dark man took a bunch of keys from his pocket and fit one carefully into the lock.

“I do hope Scrab's brought everything,” he said thoughtfully.

“Well yer needn't get yerself in a twist about that.” The testy voice came from behind; Tom turned in alarm.

“All yer junk's in there. And there's this great ugly contraption. Gawd knows what yer want with it all.”

A small, round-shouldered man in grubby white overalls was shuffling sideways down the passage. He carried a large domed jar, and his greasy hair was slicked back, leaving a scatter of dandruff on the dusty glass he struggled with. He lowered it wearily to the floor and glared at Tom.

“This the new one?”

“That's right,” Azrael said quietly.

“Only 'im? I thought there was—”

“Tom,” Azrael said instantly. “Would you mind carrying the jar in for Mr. Scrab? I think he finds it heavy.” He gave a covert glare at the little man and turned, and Scrab shrugged carelessly at his back. “Suit yerself. Just don't get ringing down for coffee and fancy cakes in this lifetime. Yer'll get none.”

The jar was heavy. As Tom lifted it Azrael said, “Oh, I think I might.” He turned the key. Then he flung the two doors wide.

The laboratory was astonishing. On the walls great murals were painted, of constellations and zodiac symbols—a huge crab, a water-carrier, a scorpion scattering golden stars from its tail. A telescope stood at one window, brand-new. From crates and boxes straw spilled out, and Tom saw the edges of flasks and test tubes, scales and burners. An electron microscope stood on the bench. In one corner a computer screen flickered. And from the ceiling, an ancient mechanical model of the planets drifted silently in the sudden draft.

Azrael looked pleased. “This is excellent. Here the Great Work can really go on.”

He went in. Scrab scratched thin hair and stared gloomily at Tom. “Go on,” he said. “Enjoy yerself.” Then he turned and shuffled down the corridor.

Tom staggered in and lowered the jar carefully onto a bench.

“Who is
he
?”

“The caretaker.” Azrael was pulling complicated zigzags of glass out of a packing case. “Essentially harmless.”

“He seems to know you.”

“We've worked together before.” Azrael glanced over. “Set this up first. All right?”

“Whatever you say.”

It was better than scrubbing floors. All afternoon he assembled a vast mass of tubing, piecing it together from Azrael's absentminded instructions; parts for distillation, filters, tripods. He unrolled diagrams and charts and pinned them up, and a huge periodic table with the names of the elements in strange text like a spell—iridium, rhodium, helium. There were boxes of labeled specimens that had to be arranged on shelves, and other things that he thought bizarre for a chemistry lab—a drawing of the human body, a statue of Anubis, small copper bells, a feathered dream-catcher. All the while Azrael unpacked notebooks and papers, riffling through them with muttered comments.

At last Tom looked around. “Is all this yours?”

“Just a few bits and pieces.”

“Doesn't the school have stuff?” He tugged open a crate and saw rows of gleaming crucibles. “Some of this looks pretty old-fashioned. I don't do chemistry, but is this the right sort of thing?”

Azrael smiled briefly. “Let's say I have my own ways. What are your subjects, Tom?”

“History, English, math.”

“Math! Good. That will be useful.”

Behind him, Simon examined the telescope. “Not just a nutcase,” he muttered. “But a rich one.”

Outside, the short December day died quickly, the sun setting in a brief red hollow in the clouds. Finally, Azrael glanced up. Fiery light caught the edge of his face. “Right. That's enough for now. And despite Scrab's mutterings, I'm thirsty, aren't you?”

He went to the fireplace and pressed an old button-push there. “None of those work,” Tom said. “Otherwise all the kids would be pressing them.”

Azrael shrugged gracefully. “You never know.”

He cleared a space on a bench, pulled up two chairs and sat on one, resting his feet on the other with a sigh. “So. This is a nice place. Do you enjoy living here, Tom?”

“It's okay.”

“Sea. Beaches. The moor. Lots of wealthy visitors. Quite idyllic.”

“It could be,” Tom said shortly. He played with the computer cable. Azrael watched him closely. Then the door handle turned. Azrael sat up, delighted. “What did I tell you?”

Scrab must have been expecting the call. He came in with two mugs of tea on a tray and a chipped plate of shortbread biscuits, which he dumped on the papers with bad grace.

“As if I 'ad nowt better to do.”

“Your reward will come,” Azrael said coolly, “in the next world.”

“Aye. And yer so sharp yer'll cut yerself.” The cat on the chair by the radiator stopped licking itself and stared at him.

“Any sign?” Azrael asked quietly.

“Not yet. Got till New Year, ain't she?”

“Indeed.”

“What if she don't show? If we 'as to go looking?”

“She can never go far enough.” Azrael poured the tea thoughtfully. “Not in all the twelve dimensions. Not from me.”

Tom listened. Simon was wandering between the benches; he came to the glass jar and gazed in, his face distorted in the thick, bubbled sides.

“Well,” Scrab said, sliding out. “She did all right with 'er time. One of yer better bargains.”

Azrael gave a sharp sideways nod at the door. Scrab spat in the empty fireplace, and went.

“Tell me . . .” Azrael leaned forward. “Do you have any brothers or sisters, Tom?”

The suddenness of the question threw him. “One.” Then, instantly, “None.”

“A bit confusing.” Azrael selected a biscuit daintily.

Tom shrugged. “I was one of twins. The other one—my brother—died. At least, he wasn't born properly.”

Azrael's hand was still. Then he dropped the biscuit back on the plate. “I see.” His voice was strange. He got up and wandered to the jar, holding it with both hands, looking in, as Simon had done. “That explains things. It must have been hard on your parents.”

Tom sipped uneasily at the tea. “I suppose.”

“And you.”

“I was just a baby.”

Azrael turned. The room was very dark now; he leaned over and plugged a lamp in, and the sudden glow woke reflections in hundreds of glass surfaces, and in the eyes of the Anubis statue. “And you go to this school?”

“No.” Tom stood, putting the mug down. “Look, I should be going.”

“No? But it would be so suitable!” Azrael's hands spread wide on the jar. He turned. “Wouldn't it? Wouldn't you like to come here?”

Tom was at the door. “Yes,” he breathed, “but . . .”

Azrael took a step forward. To Tom's surprise he pulled what seemed to be a playing card out of a pocket and laid it on the bench and looked at it. It was the Jack of Clubs. “But what?”

“I don't know.” Tom's voice was tight; he felt as if he couldn't breathe. “I've got to go.”

“Look.” Azrael came up to him. “I need help with my work. I have vital research going on.” He smiled coyly. “You'd enjoy it, and you'd learn a lot. Five pounds an hour, when you can come. Is that fair?”

He was amazed and oddly relieved. “More than fair.”

“Excellent. Up to Christmas and after. Until . . . oh let's say until New Year, shall we?”

Downstairs, the Hall was in darkness. Paula had gone; her overalls swung on their hook. Tom let himself out into the cold. Overhead, the frosty stars glinted; far out to sea a great cloudbank streamed from the west. As he stood on the porch, the gargoyles were openmouthed against the light. Behind, footsteps stirred the crisp leaves.

“I wondered where you'd got to,” he said. “Did you hear what he's paying?”

There was no answer. He turned, quickly. “Simon?”

Cloud drifted from the moon; eerie light lit the eyes of the gargoyles, their gleaming teeth.

Under them, the blond girl from the post office was watching him curiously.

eighteen

H
e stared at her. “Where did you spring from?”

“Keep your voice down!” She glanced at the moon anxiously; cloud was drifting over it again. “Is Azrael in there?”

“Yes. But . . .”

“Blast.” She swung the backpack up; it seemed heavy. He remembered the cans of food she had bought. “One of those thugs in the post office said your mother was the cleaner here.”

He was annoyed. “So?”

“So you owe me a favor. I need you to get me inside. And I need a key. Someone's changed all the locks.”

“I can't!”

“Of course you can.”

Tom was silent. There was something about her that puzzled him. Something not quite right. Over his shoulder he said to Simon, “What is it?”

“Never mind him,” the girl snapped. “Give me the key.”

Astonished, they stared at her.

“You can see me?” Simon came out of the shadows, intensely interested. “You really can?”

“Why shouldn't I?”

“This is brilliant!”

“Quiet!” Tom shook his head. This scared him. “If it's thieving, forget it.”

The girl looked tired. She almost smiled. “I just need
somewhere to stay. Till New Year. This place is empty till term. There are plenty of beds.”

An owl hooted; she looked up quickly. “You owe me. No one else needs know, not your mother. Especially not Azrael.”

“And Mr. Scrab?”

She sighed. “Him too.”

A window clattered above them. Instantly the three of them flattened into the shadows, Tom feeling Simon's warmth at his shoulder. A slot of faint light shone out briefly into the dark trees, a man's indistinct shadow flitting across it. Then the shutters were slammed.

The girl hissed with relief. “Let's get inside.”

“But he's living here. Azrael. Isn't it . . .”

“It doesn't matter where I go in the end. Now come on!”

Tom hesitated. “Do it,” Simon said quickly.

So he unlocked the door, turning the well-oiled catch silently. As they slipped in he whispered, “I don't know your name.”

“Sarah.” She looked around the black-and-white hall.

Tom bit his lip “You could go . . .”

“I know where to go,” she muttered. Quickly she climbed the curved stairs and they followed, among small creaks of floorboards and the old building's shifts and murmurs in the windy night. The girl knew the way. She went up to the old servants' quarters, tiptoeing carefully past the library wing. Everything was in darkness. Azrael must have gone to bed, Tom thought.

The servants' stair was a mass of shadows; they inched their way up, keeping to the edge of the steps, Sarah letting a small mouse run over her feet with only a sudden intake of breath.

Beyond the alcove filled with filing cabinets she seemed suddenly lost. “They've changed this,” she whispered, close to his ear. “There used to be a corridor here.”

“Through there.” He opened the fire door; it slid behind them with a slow swish. This area was the sixth-form bedrooms; in his wanderings he'd been up here often, pretending, dreaming. He had a favorite room halfway down that he used as his. To his surprise, that was the door she stopped at.

“My room. Open it.”

He fumbled with the keys. Around them the vast house was silent, the only sound the chink of iron in the lock and almost too far off to hear, the thunder of the tide in Newhaven Bay.

And suddenly, something else.

A low sound. It rose from the depths of the house, so that Simon muttered “Listen,” and the key stopped in mid-turn.

Water. Deep, rumbling water, as if it ran inside them, in their veins, vibrating, a sound almost felt.

The girl was the first to move. “The Darkwater. Haven't you heard it before?”

“Sometimes. It's not often you can.”

“Give me that.” She took the keys, slid off the ones she needed, and dumped the rest back in his hands. “You'll get them back.”

Then she had opened the door and slipped through. He took a step after her; the wooden panels closed firmly in his face.

“See you tomorrow,” the keyhole whispered.

In the morning he took the long way around the village. Up Deerham Lane and over the fields. It was cold and the sky was gray, and Simon ran ahead and opened the small kissing-gates for him so he wouldn't have to take his hands out of his pockets.

“It sounds like a nice job,” his mother had said last night, eating toast and turning the newspaper pages. “I'm amazed he's paying you so much.”

So was Tom. “What about this girl?” he asked now.

“On the run,” Simon said wisely. “You watch the papers, there'll be something.”

“Should we tell someone?”

His brother shrugged, climbed the last stile, and jumped down. “Not till we know more. One thing: She's been in that school before.”

“Ex-pupil?”

“Too young.”

“Maybe she came and then left.”

“Possible.”

Tom climbed the stile and walked into the wood. “Her face is familiar,” he said softly.

At the Devil's Quoits someone had broken the iron fence around the stones. On the largest one was written STEVE WAS HERE in white letters made from straggly dollops of paint. Standing looking at it, hands in pockets, was Azrael.

He glanced up darkly. “Look at this! Who's Steve?”

Tom shrugged. “Probably Tate. His father runs the post office.” Then, hastily, he added, “But don't say I said so.”

Azrael glanced at him sidelong. “Don't get along?”

“No.”

Azrael laughed. He had his dark coat on. “I'm just taking a stroll around the old place, Tom. I'd be grateful if you'd go to the lab and start up. I've left instructions. Be careful of the one burner; it takes ages to light.”

He turned. Tom said, “What sort of research is it?”

Azrael ducked under the low fir branches. “Didn't I say? Transmutation. Of elements. A very long process.”

There was no sign of Scrab, and Paula had gone to Truro Christmas shopping, so he went up and tapped on the girl's door. “Sarah? It's Tom.”

No answer.

He tried the handle, but it was locked. Worried, he wandered down to the library, where Simon was waiting.

“Maybe she's gone.”

“No such luck,” Tom said gloomily.

Azrael's instructions were written on a rectangular white card pinned to the mantelshelf. Tom assembled the listed glassware, spooning in chemicals from the rows of jars over the shelf. The bottles of acid were huge and heavy; he poured from them with infinite care, seeing one drop of the sulfuric escape and burn into the bench with a whiff of acrid vapor.

The room filled with dim, unpleasant smells. Simon lit the burner, turning it up so the flame roared white-hot, and Tom scowled at him. “Stop messing.”

“Your trouble,” Simon sighed, “is that you're too serious. That's why they make fun of you.”

His brother jammed the stopper in furiously. “Drop dead.”

Simon giggled, and went over to the wall safe. “I wonder what's in here.”

“It's locked. And Azrael keeps the key.”

The girl was leaning inside the door; she came in and closed it and looked around. “Well. This brings it all back.”

Tom straightened. “I think you should tell us . . . I mean . . . We don't know anything about you.”

Amused, she perched on a bench, her feet on a stool. She wore muddy walking boots and a thick fleece jacket, expensive-looking. Her hair was dyed. She looked about sixteen, he thought.

“Tell you what?”

“Well, have you run off?”

“No.”

“Left home, I mean.”

“No.” She grinned. “The opposite. This is my home.”

“It's a school,” Simon said, and came and sat by the telescope.

She looked at him. “Maybe it is, now. But not always. I used to live here; in fact, I still own the place. I'm Sarah Trevelyan.”

Tom turned the burner down; the hot hissing died but the heat had warmed the lab. “Her descendant, you mean? Sarah Trevelyan was the woman who made this place a school—they read her will every year on Founder's Day. A kid that goes here told me. She left money so that . . .”

“Every child that is able, whether boy or girl, rich or poor, may receive, without payment, the education that their heart desires. I know. I wrote it.”

A flask bubbled suddenly. Tom stared at her. “Are you crazy?”

Sarah smiled sadly. She hugged her knees. “I've dreaded this, but now it's come, it's such a relief. Keeping a secret for a hundred years is a torment—it bubbles inside you like that potion—it's never still and you can't stop it rising to the surface.” She laughed at their bemused look. The shapes of the planets began to drift in the warming air.

“I was born in 1885. I made an arrangement with a . . . creature. A supernatural power. The one you know as Azrael. He gave me a hundred years to live, and my own estate and fortune. The time runs out at New Year. That's why he's come back. He's come for me.”

“Oh yes,” Tom said. “And I'm the Queen of Sheba.”

Sarah shrugged. “Kids. I thought you'd be different.” She glanced at Simon. “Having him around, I mean.”

“What about him.”

She got up, impatient. “All right. I'll prove it. Come on.”

She went to the door and out along the crowded library corridor with its chained volumes to a room by the entrance to the wing. On one wall a mothy rhinoceros head peered down. On the other was a painting.

Tom had seen it many times. The young Sarah Trevelyan looked down at him from a luxurious Victorian sofa. Her dress was dark blue, with an ivory lace collar, her brown hair long and intricately pinned.

“It looks like you,” Simon said, considering. “Was she your great-grandmother?”

“It's me.” Sarah stood with her back to the painting.

The likeness was incredible, if you could ignore the short blond hair. Tom was shaken, but he shrugged.

“How could it . . .”

“Look at her hands.”

The girl in the painting had her hands on her lap. She was looking at the watcher with an amused, knowing smile, and her palms were turned up. Across one of them were five red weals.

Sarah held up her own hand, facing him.

Five red marks crossed it. Identical.

“I had it painted like that deliberately, though the wretched artist had to be nagged to put them in. I knew I might need them.” She leaned back against the bookshelves. Tom said carefully, “How did you get them?”

“Beaten. You think they should have faded in a hundred years, don't you? But when the clocks started ticking, I just stopped. My nails didn't grow, my hair stayed the same length. I never lost a tooth or an eyelash. It took me a while to notice it, but then I knew I was static. The world moved around me, but I never grew up.”

She smiled, spinning an old Empire globe, fingering the dusty countries absently. “It's so ironic. I never wanted to grow old. What I did want was knowledge, and I got it. Do you know how many schools I've been to? At least sixteen, till I got sick of it. I've got dozens of exams—O Levels, A Levels, Certificates, even a few GCSEs. I've had jobs—in the wars it was easy; I worked on the land, in factories, got evacuated from London. I've traveled too. Rome, Paris, I know them like you know that beach down there. Every country in Europe, I trailed around them, learned their languages, saw their history happen, was in Berlin when the Wall came down. Trouble was, it wasn't the sort of knowledge I really wanted. Maybe it took me the first fifty years to realize that.”

They were staring at her. She looked away, up at the
picture. How could she tell them how it had all been, that hundred years? More than a lifetime, places and people she could barely remember, all the friends, enemies, houses, mistakes, brief happinesses. And it had changed her. Azrael had known it would.