Spellbinder (23 page)

“Come with me,” she said. “There’s another way.”

Belladonna hesitated, but Aya smiled and squeezed her hand.

“It’s alright. Come on.”

The stairs were narrow and made of wood, polished to a shine by hundreds of years of running, rough-clad feet. They descended steeply beneath the
tree at first, then settled into a steady, gentle incline, winding beneath the earth. After a while the wood steps gave way to stone and then to packed dirt as Belladonna and Aya walked into the depths of the charnel world. The roots of the tree twisted around and down on either side of them, writhing through the packed earth and pushing the lumpen profiles of rocks and stones into the narrow corridor. Aya didn’t notice them, but Belladonna’s height meant she was constantly ducking and dodging to avoid being beaned by a chunk of rock.

After a while, she realized that many of them weren’t just rocks, but the jagged remains of ancient tombstones. Letters and fragments of phrases glistened on the damp stone, as epitaphs, carefully crafted by grieving families, themselves long dead, slowly crumbled to dust.

Belladonna had just settled into a contemplation on the transitoriness of life, when more solid reminders of the fate awaiting us all began to emerge from the walls and between the roots of the tree. Bones jutted from the clay: femurs, ribs, and convoluted spines. As she ducked to avoid a larger-than-usual chunk of tomb, she noticed the bones of a single finger beckoning her into the earth.

“Are these . . . um . . .” she began.

“Dead people,” said Aya matter-of-factly, “and a few ex-cats and dogs. People bury all kinds in graveyards.”

Belladonna nodded and pressed her lips together. Aya looked at her.

“They’re not
people
,” she insisted.

“I know, but . . .”

“They’re just . . . I don’t know. Bones.”

The tunnel seemed to contract as they descended, and though Aya still stepped bouncily, Belladonna became less sure. She wondered whether following a vaguely purple charnel sprite down a tunnel deep into the earth was any wiser than accepting the invitation of the Hunt. She glanced back the way they had come, but couldn’t see very far before path, root, bones, and stone disappeared into the all-enveloping blackness. Aya was humming softly.

Belladonna stopped.

“You know,” she said, “I really think I should be getting back.”

“We’re here!” announced Aya, smiling.

She took Belladonna’s hand and led her gently around a sharp right turn and under a piece of root so low that even the charnel sprite had to duck.

Once around the corner, Belladonna found herself near the top of a vast cavern lit by the phosphorescent glow of thousands of bowls of cave-dwelling fish suspended from the roof by cobweb-covered chains. A narrow staircase, cut into the rock, led to the cavern floor. The stair didn’t have a rail on the outside but Aya trotted down as if it were no more dangerous than
the front steps at home. Belladonna followed much more carefully, making sure to stay as close to the wall as she could.

As they got closer to the floor, she noticed hundreds of small alcoves in the stone walls. Most were dark, but a few seemed to be dimly lit from within.

“Is this where you live?” she asked.

“Here?” said Aya, surprised. “No. This is just . . . what’s the word you use up there? It’s where we work, where we . . . it’s the office!”

She grinned triumphantly at finding the word.

Belladonna smiled thinly. It wasn’t like any office she’d ever seen, though there were a few desks on the far side where enormous piles of paper were stacked. The rest of the cavern was taken up with long tables, potted plants, jugs, glasses, and plates of sandwiches.

Once she reached the floor level, Belladonna could see the alcoves more clearly. Each alcove had two or three beds or couches inside, on which were what appeared to be sleeping people. She glanced at Aya.

“Are they—?”

“They’re transitionals,” explained Aya, as if that made it all perfectly clear.

“Transitionals?”

“They’re not dead. I mean they are dead. Just not
dead
dead. You see?”

Belladonna stared at her, mystified. “Not
dead
dead,” she repeated.

“They died up there, then they were buried. Then they emerge. Then they need to rest . . . and then they go.”

“To the Other Side?”

Aya nodded and led the way to a recess in the cave wall. It was surrounded with iridescent draperies and bits of beads and crushed-up foil and sweet wrappers.

“This is the way they go,” she said, “only we can’t send any now, obviously.”

Belladonna peered into the black opening. “Because the ghosts have vanished.”

“Yes. We can’t be sure . . .”

“Is it safe?”

“Charnel sprites are forbidden access to the Land of the Dead,” shrugged Aya. “But all the dead people go this way and I’m sure someone would have told us if no one was getting through.”

She pulled aside one of the draperies and peered into the darkness, then quickly dropped it again.

“I shouldn’t let you do this,” she said. “It’s forbidden. It’s always forbidden for the Living. But now . . . we’ve all been told not to let anyone through until we know everything is alright.”

Belladonna smiled at her and stepped forward into the tunnel. Aya watched for a moment, then rushed forward again. Belladonna felt the soft touch of her small hand and turned around. Aya thrust a small green lamp into her hand and tried a smile herself, though the up-turn
of the corners of her mouth was contradicted by the concern in her wide eyes.

“Good luck,” she whispered.

“Thank you,” said Belladonna, and she walked forward again, holding the lamp ahead of her.

When she had gone a few meters, she glanced back, but the entrance to the tunnel was already just a pinhole of light. She held her breath for a moment, before deciding that no, she would keep going. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been to the Other Side before.

Last time had been different, however. The transition through the door in the theatre had been instant; there was no passage, no sense of moving from one place to another at all. The tunnel, by comparison, was narrow, low, and dark. The walls felt like thick velvet and the sound of her footsteps was swallowed by the blackness. Belladonna felt apprehensive. The silent darkness seemed to weigh her down, filling her mind with shapeless fear.

As if this weren’t enough, she slowly became aware that the air was growing warmer and more stale, though the tunnel itself was growing higher. At least she could straighten out of the half-crouch she’d had to assume so far. She paused and stretched her back, then raised the lamp and carried on.

Was this really the route that the Dead took? It seemed more than a little mean to force them through a narrow tunnel like this when they’d already been
through whatever it was that led to their deaths. Belladonna’s mind wandered back to family funerals and the deaths of others she’d heard of or seen. Images of lines of hearses, dark hospital rooms, and grim news reports played and replayed through her mind with increasing detail and sharpness as she began to breathe in great gasps. She shook her head in an effort to dispel the dizziness and realized that the air really was disappearing. And why shouldn’t it, she thought, the Dead didn’t need it.

Her feet kept on walking forward long after all conscious effort at locomotion had ceased. The fog in her mind spread until even the dim light of the green lamp had closed in, leaving a narrow peephole in her perception. Her face felt hot, but the fingers holding the lamp were icy. She tried to blink away the feeling, and thought that perhaps she saw some light. But it was too late. The velvet darkness closed in.

The last thing she remembered was the sound of the lamp hitting the ground.

“S
HH!
QUIET!
I think she’s waking up!”

Belladonna felt like she was lying at the bottom of a deep pit and the only way out was to open her eyes. Except she didn’t seem to be able to do that.

“No. Look, I told you, I can’t eat those things!”

“They’re really good.”

“Shut up. Come on, Belladonna—breathe!”

“Is she cold?”

“A bit.”

“Maybe she’s dead. We’re always cold. See?”

“Ow! Keep your clammy hands to yourself!”

Belladonna took a deep breath, mustered all her strength, and strained to open her eyes. It felt like the hardest thing she’d ever done, like she was wading through treacle, digging out of a snowdrift, lifting an enormous weight from her chest. Her eyes opened slowly and the sun streamed in. She closed them again.

“Belladonna!”

She opened them. Two shadows were leaning over her. Her fingers moved over something soft. It was grass.

“It’s Steve,” said the worried voice. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” her own voice was suddenly husky.

“I told you she’d be alright,” said a no-nonsense girl’s voice.

“You said she was dead.”

Belladonna tried to push herself up, but her arms seemed to be made of jelly. Steve reached forward and helped her to sit.

“We heard you,” he explained, “down there. Then you fell.”

“There was no air,” she rasped.

Looking around, she realized she was sitting at the base of the great tree in the town on the Other Side. Steve was looking at her, genuine concern on his face, while Elsie ate lemon bon-bons from a quarter bag.

“You shouldn’t have come that way,” she pointed out. “It’s for the Dead. We don’t need air. Or light, for that matter.”

“Then why is there light here?” asked Steve, who had clearly had just about all he could take of Miss Personality 1912.

“It’s nice,” shrugged Elsie. “I said we don’t need it, I didn’t say we didn’t like it. Are you sure you don’t want a sweet? Belladonna?”

She held the bag out, but Steve pushed her hand away.

“I told you,” he hissed, “we can’t eat the food of the Dead. Besides, I’m pretty sure taking sweets from a shop is still stealing even if it is the Land of the Dead.”

“It was the only way through,” whispered Belladonna. “Your mother destroyed the other door.”

“On purpose?” Steve looked confused.

“I don’t know. Things are getting complicated. Where’s my backpack?”

Steve handed her the backpack and she rummaged through it, removing a can of Tizer and Dr. Ashe’s book. She popped the can and handed the book to Steve.

“It belonged to Dr. Ashe,” she said. “I found it in the old launderette. I tried to conjure a ghost. I thought you might come, or Elsie. But first it was Slackett and then Ashe. He tried to . . . he’s not—”

“We know,” said Steve. “Turns out they really did start them on Latin and Greek early.”

“I wasn’t very good at it,” said Elsie, “but we had to read bits of
The Iliad
and I always liked Odysseus. He was a liar too, though not like Ashe, who is an absolute rotter, if you ask me.”

“I got rid of him, but then the Hunt came. Aya took me into a cavern beneath the graveyard. Where the charnel sprites work. The tunnel is theirs.”

Steve exhaled slowly. “You’ve been busy,” he said.

“That’s not all.” Belladonna got to her feet carefully
and tried walking around a bit. “According to my Gran, the ghosts bring dreams to the Living. With no ghosts, no one’s been dreaming.”

“So?” asked Steve, eyeing the can of Tizer hungrily.

“Without dreams, we die. That’s what she says anyway. Aunt Deirdre says so too.”

“We do? Can I have a swig?”

Belladonna handed him the can.

“That’s interesting,” said Elsie, licking the powdery coating off her last bon-bon. “It makes you wonder who the target is, doesn’t it?”

“What d’you mean?” asked Belladonna.

“Well, we . . . that is, the ghosts, we’ve been disappearing and it looked like that was the problem, but if the Living need us to survive, then it’s not just us, is it? It’s something bigger.”

“You mean, is someone after the ghosts, or are they really after the Living?” suggested Steve.

“Or possibly both,” said Belladonna.

They looked at each other with grim faces. Belladonna picked up her backpack and stared up into the tree as her eyes slowly got used to the light and the details around her came into focus. The leaves were turning brown.

Not brown like autumn, but brown like they’d got some sort of disease. She looked out at the High Street—every tree and bush was suffering from the same blight, and the decay that was destroying the plant life seemed to have turned the remainder of the buildings
into semi-derelict shells of their former selves, like fruit in a bowl that’s been left too long.

“It’s getting worse,” she said. “I think we should go back. I only came to help you get home, but look at the tree . . . and the houses. Whatever it is seems to be spreading.”

“I know, but how can we get back now?” said Steve. “We can’t go the way you came.”

“I think we’ll have to.”

“You could hold your breath,” suggested Elsie brightly, “and run.”

“We need to speak to my Gran and I need to give her Dr. Ashe’s notebook. Are you coming?”