Spellbinder (14 page)

“Dullworth’s?” said Belladonna skeptically.

“In the library,” said Dr. Ashe.

Steve snorted and laughed, a noise that always irritated the socks off any adult within earshot.

“Have you seen our library?” he said. “It’s practically the smallest room in the school! If some Greek fortune-teller was hiding in there, we’d know about it!”

“Obtuse child,” muttered Dr. Ashe, “it’s probably
under
the library.”

“You mean there’s a secret passage or something?” asked Belladonna.

Dr. Ashe nodded and managed a smile, “Quite so.”

Belladonna thought about the small octagonal library with its rows of useless books. Most of them were so out-of-date that nearly everyone went to the big library in the center of town if they really needed to look anything up.

“How do we find the entrance?” she asked.

“Use your intelligence,” said Dr. Ashe impatiently. “Now get away with you, I have work to do.”

He waved a bony hand in the direction of the door and buried himself in his books. Belladonna and Steve waited for a moment, but it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything else. They edged out of the room, trying to avoid knocking bottles to the floor, and watched by dozens of eyes on stalks. When they got out onto the street again, Steve gulped in lungfuls of fresh air and laughed nervously.

“What a couple of nutboxes!”

“What happened?” asked Elsie, stepping out from a narrow alley next to the building.

Belladonna looked at them both, then turned and started to walk back up the street. Steve and Elsie ran and caught up.

“You do think they’re nutboxes too, right?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, yes, Slackett does
seem . . . odd. And Dr. Ashe is a bit scary, but . . . what if he’s right? What if things
are
out of balance?”

“Yes, but are they?” asked Steve. “I mean, something’s wrong here, obviously, but everything seemed pretty normal back home. Well, except for the dog and the birds.”

“They’re Night Ravens,” said Elsie, “and if they’re getting through to your world from here, then something is definitely wrong.”

Belladonna looked at the ground, her hair making a curtain around her face while she thought about this. Finally, she looked up again.

“Dr. Ashe said there are nine worlds. Maybe it’s not our world that’s off balance. Maybe it’s another one.”

“Nine worlds!” scoffed Steve. “Why on earth should we believe that?”

“Well,” said Elsie, “you already know about two.”

“Yes, but one’s for the Living and the other’s for the Dead. They’re like copies of each other. That’s not the same as nine completely different worlds, is it?”

“They’re only the same because we like it that way. Besides, you seem to think your world is better just because the people in it are alive.”

“Well . . .”

“Maybe that’s just practice,” suggested Elsie, a humorous glint in her eye. “After all, you’re dead for a lot longer than you’re alive.”

“But . . . so what? None of this is our problem! It’s your lot who are vanishing, not ours!”

“That’s a rather selfish attitude, if you don’t mind me saying so,” huffed Elsie.

Belladonna looked at them and walked on, heading for the theatre and home. Steve trudged behind, hands shoved in pockets.

“Did you see the beetles?” asked Elsie, catching up.

Belladonna nodded.

“He can’t get rid of them, apparently. He’s been spoken to, of course, but he said he can’t do anything about them. He threw some eggs or something into that little furnace of his and they’ve been breeding in there ever since.”

Belladonna stopped in front of the theatre and turned around. “There’s an amulet,” she said, “made out of a jewel from a dragon. He said that if we got it for him, he would be able to open the doors and fix whatever’s going on.”

Elsie’s smile faded and she looked from Belladonna to Steve. “Wait . . . you’re not going to try to find it, are you?”

Belladonna shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Probably,” said Steve.

Belladonna smiled and tucked her hair behind her ears.

Elsie shook her head. “It seems to me,” she said, “that there are enough strange things going on here without digging up magical amulets.”

“Who said it was magical?” said Steve.

“It has to be. If it wasn’t, it would just be called
a necklace or a stone. When people start throwing around words like
amulet
you know you’re dealing with magic.”

“Dr. Ashe said it was science,” suggested Belladonna.

Elsie rolled her eyes. “I know Dullworth’s admits boys now,” she said, “but don’t tell me that standards have sunk so low that you can’t tell the difference between science and magic?”

Steve glared at her.

“The thing is,” said Belladonna, “that he said the problem is probably caused by something from another world being brought here—”

“Or vice versa,” volunteered Steve.

“And this . . . amulet could help him locate whatever it is.”

“But you don’t know that,” said Elsie. “What on earth makes you think he can solve anything that has to do with whole worlds? And even if he can . . . well, that could be worse.”

“I just thought it might be worth a try,” said Belladonna quietly.

She suspected that Elsie might be right, but she wasn’t quite ready to give up just yet.

“Tell you what,” said Steve, “why don’t we go and see this Cumean Sybil and hear what she has to say. Then we’ll decide.”

This sounded like a really good idea to Belladonna. At least it was something and she really wanted to do
something
. The idea of just sitting around and waiting for things to sort themselves out reminded her too much of the time she’d spent sitting in the hospital after the accident or waiting for relatives to arrive on the day of the funeral. She nodded.

“Good idea. Let’s go home.”

Elsie sighed with exasperation, but Belladonna just smiled.

“See you later,” she said.

“Or not,” muttered Steve.

Elsie followed them around to the back of the theatre. She waited for a moment after they’d gone inside, then made her way back to her perch in the great tree and continued her watch over the town, her right hand rising unconsciously to the spot just beneath the knot on her school uniform tie.

T
HIS TIME
, when they stepped out of the back door of the theatre, it was what you’d expect from a late October day. The sky was overcast, a weak sun struggled to penetrate the clouds, and an icy wind was getting in practice for winter by whipping around exposed ankles and knees. The streets were crowded with shoppers and the buzz of conversations mixed with the roar of traffic, the yells of the market vendors, and the mellow tones of the town’s brass band as it gave a free concert near the war memorial.

Belladonna and Steve were quiet when they emerged. Suddenly it was
this
world that seemed unreal. Steve hesitated at the corner. His parents’ shop was contributing to the general cacophony with several television sets running at full volume, and they could hear his mother shouting at a customer.

“Well,” said Belladonna, “I suppose I should go home and see if my aunt’s come back.”

Steve nodded. “Right,” he said. “See you at school on Monday, then. I suppose we can check out the library at lunchtime.”

“Bye,” said Belladonna as she turned to make her way through the crowds.

She walked down the street a short way and stopped at a crossing, her mind racing with the day’s events. The light changed and she stepped out into the road, barely thinking about what she was doing.

“Stop!”

A hand grabbed her from behind and pulled her backward just as a car skidded, screeching through the pedestrian crossing, knocked a man off his bike, and destroyed a concrete rubbish bin on the side of the road.

Belladonna froze for a second, then turned around. It was Steve.

“How did you—” she began.

“I don’t know,” he seemed just as surprised as she was. “I just . . . are you alright?”

She nodded and looked over toward the bicycle man. He seemed alright too—just a bit shaken. Passersby were trying to help the driver out of the car. It was a portly man in a suit and his hands were still gripping the steering wheel in shock. The sound of a siren began to whine in the distance.

Her heart was still racing when she turned to Steve and nodded her thanks. She didn’t know what to say. It seemed like an ordinary accident. They happened all
the time, after all. But something told her it wasn’t. She turned and started to walk home again, but Steve quickly caught up.

“You know,” he said, “it’d probably be much easier to root around in the library if we go now.”

“No teachers.”

“Exactly.”

Belladonna smiled gratefully—home wasn’t where she wanted to be right now.

They walked on, took a left just after the post office, and headed down Umbra Avenue toward the school. They glanced at the launderette as they passed, but there was nothing remarkable about it—no brass urns, mysterious bottles, or huge beetles. Just a dusty shop front with a “For Sale” sign in the window. It could have been any Saturday afternoon stroll, but as the school came into view, Belladonna stopped.

“This is silly,” she said. “The school’s closed. How are we going to get in?”

“Guess,” said Steve, smiling.

“You’re joking.”

“Me and Jimmy McLeish snuck in nearly every weekend last year.”

“Why?”

“Dunno,” he shrugged. “Coz we could, I suppose.”

As they got closer, the streets became more quiet, the bustle of the town center on a Saturday giving way to the weekend silence of bicycles, gardening, and car
washing. Belladonna’s courage began to wane, however, as the three old houses that made up the school buildings loomed before them.

“Come on,” said Steve cheerfully, “the best way in’s around the back.”

They circled the school and squeezed into the grounds through a hole in the fence near the netball courts. Steve glanced around cautiously.

“Sometimes there’s a watchman,” he explained, before darting across the tarmac toward the back of the Art room.

Belladonna was not reassured by this information, and began to mentally rehearse her explanation for when they were caught. She wasn’t too worried about coming up with something for the watchman, but facing her aunt or Miss Parker would take some work, and if Steve’s performance after the chemistry incident was anything to go by, she suspected she wouldn’t be able to depend on him for anything remotely plausible.

By the time she ran across the netball court to join him behind the building, she had decided that there really wasn’t a reasonable excuse for their being there and that if they got nabbed, they were pretty much for the high jump.

Steve was crouched next to the back door of the Art room. There was a small sash window next to the door and he was enthusiastically jiggling the bottom pane up and down.

“What are you doing?” asked Belladonna, alarmed at the incredible racket it was making.

“The latch is loose,” he said, still jiggling. “If you rock it like this, it comes undone.”

Belladonna peered through the window. She could see the old latch moving a little further back with each movement. Finally, after what felt like forever, the window slid jerkily open.

“Ha!” said Steve. “Told you!”

He clambered inside. Belladonna glanced around and followed him into the dim interior. She couldn’t believe that no one had heard.

“It’s not exactly cat burglary, is it?” she hissed.

“It worked, though,” grinned Steve.

They made their way past rows of old easels and the artistic works-in-progress of the sculpture class, most of which wouldn’t have been out of place in one of Dr. Ashe’s experiments. Belladonna opened the door into the corridor and they slipped out and along the hall toward the library.

The Dullworth’s school library was not one of its best features. The parents of prospective students always reacted with surprised disappointment when they got to the part of the school tour where Miss Parker led them into the small octagonal room. Surely, they thought, this can’t be it? A school with the academic reputation of Dullworth’s must have a library with more resources than this? There were usually one
or two parents who assumed that this was perhaps the junior library and there would be another, more impressive one somewhere else. Miss Parker would always smile kindly and explain that no, this was it. The parents would then wander around the room, with its three rectangular wooden tables and nine chairs, and examine the contents of the shelves. It didn’t improve their opinion. Most of the books were old or out-of-date (frequently both) and large chunks of shelf space were taken up with tomes on subjects no longer even taught. Miss Parker would then smile cheerfully and herd everyone out and upstairs to the science labs, which were much more impressive, and then to her office, where tea and buns would be served.

Steve marched into the library and turned on the light. Belladonna turned it off again and glared at him.