Elidor (Essential Modern Classics) (10 page)

Helen squeaked.

“Har, har,” said Nicholas.

“What do you want?” said Jennifer.

The pencil moved.

“What is that?” said Jennifer, speaking precisely.

“An amœba,” said David.

“I do not understand,” said Jennifer.

The pencil scribbled again.

And then,

“I still cannot understand,” said Jennifer. “Please tell me more.”

The pencil swept across the paper.

And then it wrote,

“Findhorn!” cried Helen.

“What?” said Roland. “What?” The planchette immediately slid away.

“Did it write that? Findhorn? Malebron? This unicorn?”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have stopped!” said Jennifer. “It was coming so well.”

“Enough’s enough,” said Mr Brodie.

“He’s trying to tell us about Findhorn!” said Roland.
“The Song of Findhorn, remember! Findhorn’s a unicorn! He had to keep trying…”

“All right, you did it nicely,” said Nicholas. The other guests were staring. “Your writing’s crummy, but you always could draw. You’d be even better with practice.”

“It wasn’t me! Try it yourself!”

“OK,” said Nicholas. “I will.”

He put his fingers on the board as Roland had done.

“Go on, write your name!”

“OK, OK; cool off.”

But no matter how he tried Nicholas could not manage the planchette. It rolled in all directions. One of the boys laughed.

“Here, give it to me again,” said Roland. “He may be wanting to tell us something else. Quick!”

“Er – I think that about wraps things up for tonight, don’t you, people?” said Mr Brodie. “Carriages at eleven-thirty, you know.”

He became brisk and Mrs Brodie removed the planchette. Everyone started to pick up coats in the hall, and to say thank you. Some were waiting for their parents, and others were being taken home by Mr Brodie. He switched on the outside light, and opened the door to go and bring his car round to the front of the house. A white mist coiled through the doorway into the hall.

“Oh dear, what a bore,” said Mrs Brodie. “It won’t be much fun driving in this. Those who aren’t going with John had better take your coats off: your parents may be some time. Put the gramophone on, Jen, and we’ll have another dance.”

“I think we’d be quicker walking, don’t you?” said Nicholas. “It’s not far.”

“Yes,” said David. “Really, we mustn’t stay, thanks all the same.”

“Can we ring up home to stop Dad from turning out, please?” said Nicholas.

“Certainly,” said Mrs Brodie. “If you’re sure that’s what you want to do.”

Nicholas rushed to the telephone. “Hello, Dad,” he said. “It’s Nick. Look don’t bother to fetch us: we’ll walk. No, honest, we’ll be home by the time you could get here in this. We’ll cut through the new estate and up Boundary Lane – you know, that cinder path by the allotments. Yes, of course I know the way. Yes, we’ll borrow a torch. Right. See you in about half an hour.”

They borrowed a torch, but found that there was no need to use it. The mist was a ground mist, and they could clearly see the tops of trees and houses, and the bright moon.

“Anything rather than another dance,” said Nicholas as they went down the drive from the house. “Well done,

Roland. You broke it up nicely. Old Jo-jo thought you were going to throw a fit.”

Roland did not answer.

“How did you pick up the knack of that board so quickly?” said Nicholas.

“Shut up,” said Roland.

“You what?”

“I said shut up.”

“Oh, all right.”

They walked in silence. The concrete road of the new estate was easy to follow, except where it branched, or produced a roundabout. Near the Brodies’ house the estate was almost finished. The upstairs windows were dabbed with whitewash. And then further in, the windows were raw holes, and the moon shone through the roofs. After that there was nothing but the mist, and they followed the kerbstone across what was still a field.

“It – it was a lovely unicorn you drew,” said Helen at last. “Just like the one on my jug.”

“I didn’t draw it,” said Roland.

“Oh, lay off,” said Nicholas.

“Malebron drew it,” said Roland. “He was trying to tell us something, and you stopped him.”

“Now listen,” said Nicholas. “It’s about time you grew up. Shall I tell you what all that was about? You’ve got this Malebron thing on the brain. OK, so you didn’t fake it on
purpose: you wrote it unconsciously, and you drew the unicorn because Helen found the jug when you were digging that hole in the garden. That’s how people’s minds work. If you’d read the books about it you’d see for yourself you’re up the creek.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Roland.

The road ended near a stile that led into the cinder path by the allotments. The path had chestnut palings on one side and a hedge on the other. It ran through a no-man’s-land between two built-up areas and came out on the road where the Watsons lived. At one point it crossed a stream over a bridge of railway sleepers.

The path was so narrow that the children had to walk in twos. The night was absolutely still.

“Careful at the bridge,” said David. “There aren’t any hand-rails. We’re nearly—”

The sound of air being torn like cloth burst on them, a dreadful sound that cracked with the force of lightning, as if the sky had split, and out of it came the noise of galloping hoofs. There was no warning, no approach: the hoofs were there, in the mist, close to the children, just ahead of them, on top of them, furious.

“Look out!”

They fell sideways against paling and hedge as a white horse charged between them out of the moonlight, pulling the mist to shreds. All about them was hoof and
mane and foam, and they heard the horse gallop away along the path and leap the stile into the field.