Spellbinder (27 page)

“What?” asked Elsie, turning around and noticing the strange expression on Belladonna’s face.

“Oh, nothing,” mumbled Belladonna. “You have nice hair.”

Elsie smiled and pushed a mass of curls back. Belladonna turned away, looped the wide ribbon around her hand, and shook her head. It was broad, but she could see that it would never take Steve’s weight. She looked around again.

“Your belt,” she said finally. “Let’s try that!”

Elsie grumbled that she couldn’t see why all these experiments had to be made with articles of
her
clothing, but she unfastened her sturdy canvas
belt and handed it over. Belladonna lay on her stomach over the edge of the opening and dangled it down toward Steve.

“Can you reach this?”

Steve stretched his hand out and got a good grip. “Yes!”

“Good. Now, come on, Elsie—pull!”

Belladonna and Elsie heaved on their end of the belt and hauled Steve up to the point where he could grab the edge of the opening with his other hand and scramble up.

“Brilliant!” he said as he stood up.

Belladonna smiled and gave Elsie her belt back. Elsie clipped it around her waist, retrieved the ribbon, and tied up her shiny curls.

“Nice hair,” said Steve.

“Thanks,” said Elsie, tying it back in a perfect bow again.

Belladonna glanced darkly from one to the other before turning back to the gloomy attic. As she did so, she felt a sudden sharp gust of wind on her neck and quickly aimed the flashlight at what seemed to be its source.

“Is that a door?”

Steve took the flashlight and made his way carefully across to the far angle of the roof. He brushed the cobwebs away from the beams and revealed a rusty deadbolt.

“Yes!”

He heaved back the bolt and pushed. There was a screech of wood and metal and the small door slowly swung open, revealing a perfect rectangle of starry sky. Elsie ran across the attic and leaned out.

“Oh, doesn’t it look gorgeous . . . ohhhh . . .”

She suddenly looked ill and shrank back inside.

“It’s the roof,” said Steve. “It’s high. What did you expect?”

“Does it look like we can get across?” asked Belladonna.

“Sure. I think. Come see.”

Of course, he didn’t turn around to try and light the floor, so Belladonna was left to feel her way over. The fact that Elsie had made it without any difficulty didn’t fill her with any confidence—Elsie was one of those surefooted, sporty types. Her kind never tripped over their own feet, bumped into the furniture, or dropped the cut-glass trifle bowl that had been handed down in the family for years all over the brand-new beige carpet.

Sure enough, Belladonna walked about four steps before she tripped and landed flat on her face. Elsie laughed, but Steve was less amused.

“Belladonna!” he hissed. “Quiet! He’ll hear us.”

“Oh, right, he’ll hear
me
,” she muttered, standing up and brushing away as many of the cobwebs as she could find, “but he won’t have heard you crashing about on the landing like a bull in a china shop! Anyway, I tripped over something.”

“What,” said Elsie, still sniggering, “a piece of spiderweb? A dead insect?”

Belladonna ignored her. For once, it hadn’t been her innate clumsiness; she really had fallen over something quite big. She tried to feel around in the dark, but it was no good.

“Shine the light over here.”

Steve turned around and pointed the light onto the floor with the attitude of someone who’s fed up messing about with girls and really just wants to get out on the roof, thank you very much. He wafted the light back and forth impatiently and then stopped.

“What’s that?” he said, suddenly interested.

There was a large, faded green box in the middle of the floor. It was covered in dust and cobwebs and looked as if it hadn’t been touched for years. Belladonna peered at it—there was a single yellowing label in the center of the lid. Steve brought the light over and she crouched next to it, squinting at the overly florid script.

“What does it say?”

“It says ‘Hunt’ and there’s a date: October 1753.”

“Open it!” whispered Elsie excitedly. “I love presents!”

Belladonna hesitated. There was something about this simple green box that seemed dangerous . . . and tempting. She reached forward and removed the lid.

“What is it?”

“Tissue paper . . . hang on . . .”

She folded back the crumbling paper and revealed a small brass horn, about a foot long and almost black with tarnish.

“Hmph,” said Steve, “is that all? Come on, we’d better get going.”

He returned to the door and leaned out.

“We’ll have to climb up here, onto the top. Then I think we can get all the way along to the end.”

“There is no way that I can—” began Elsie.

“Hang on,” interrupted Belladonna, still staring at the horn. “I think I know what this is. We should be able to go out the front door.”

Steve and Elsie looked back as Belladonna took the horn out of the box.

“It’s a hunting horn,” she said.

Steve thought about this for a moment.

“So?”

“I think it will call the Hunt. The Wild Hunt.”

“The who?”

“The Wild Hunt,” explained Elsie. “It’s a legend. They’re hunters or knights or something and they’re cursed to ride the night sky for all eternity.”

“They didn’t seem very cursed to me,” said Belladonna. “They seemed quite happy about things, really. They’ve been showing up at home in the middle of the night for the last few days and every time they do, Aunt Deirdre takes off after them. She hasn’t caught them yet. At least . . . I don’t think she has.”

Steve looked at her in disbelief. “Cursed?” he said finally. “Erm . . . are you sure that calling them on purpose is a good idea?”

“No,” Belladonna stood up and joined them at the window. “But it would make a fantastic diversion, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose . . .”

“Wait a minute,” said Elsie. “What if it just produces another problem and blocks us off from this exit as well?”

Belladonna and Steve thought about this for a moment.

“It’s worth a try,” announced Steve. “I mean, it’s not like you can get onto the roof at all without having an attack of the heebies, and it’s entirely possible that Belladonna and I will plunge to a sticky end way before we reach the last house. And even if we do reach the last house, what if the door into that attic is locked? This one was.”

Belladonna leaned out of the window, put the horn to her lips, and blew.

The result wasn’t quite what she’d expected. Instead of a clarion call to the night, what emerged was more the sound of a wet raspberry.

“Oh,” she said, crestfallen, “there must be some kind of knack.”

“Purse your lips up,” said Steve, “like this.”

His face looked so ridiculous that Elsie started to snigger again and this time Belladonna couldn’t help joining in. The more she tried to straighten her face, the less likely it seemed that she would ever manage to purse her lips in the approved fashion.

“Stop it!” she squealed at Elsie. “You’re making it worse!”

She raised the horn to her lips once more, caught a glimpse of Elsie making the “purse your lips” face, and collapsed in giggling hysterics again.

“Oh, give it here!” said Steve.

He snatched the horn from her hands, raised it to his lips, and loosed a deep, brassy peal into the sky. The long note started low, but soared upward until it seemed to reach to the horizon, clawing at the clouds and splitting the air itself. It was still echoing around the rooftops as he lowered the horn and handed it back to a stunned Belladonna.

“Trumpet lessons,” he said. “My Dad’s idea.”

“What’s that?” asked Elsie, pointing toward the horizon.

Out where the gray dawn was just beginning to prowl around the skyline, clouds were starting to gather. At first it seemed as though a wind must be moving the small night clouds toward a single point, but as they reached their destination, they started to swell and roll outward, like smoke billowing from a wet bonfire. Huge black thunderheads formed and the distant, deep sound of thunder itself rumbled across the sky.

“Um . . . whose idea was this?” said Steve.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when there was a deafening crack and the great thunderheads began to take on form as the Wild Hunt stampeded into the Land of the Dead, their hounds baying for blood and their great steeds foaming at the mouth and kicking up fire and sparks with their steely hooves. The
black cloaks of the riders billowed behind them, and leading the pack was the tall man with the flashing, bottomless eyes and the mirthless smile.

“Get inside!” said Belladonna suddenly, as the Hunt bore down on the tiny house. “Get inside!”

Steve and Elsie were frozen with fascination and terror as the riders came closer. Belladonna grabbed first one and then the other and shoved them both back into the attic. Then she reached out and slammed the door shut, shooting the bolt and sinking to the floor with her hands over her ears as the Wild Hunt circled the house, shaking the whole terrace to its very foundations. The walls boomed and cracked and dust fell from every crevice as if a hurricane were bearing down from the tropics intent on reducing every decaying structure in the Land of the Dead to a pile of rotting splinters. The sound of the hounds and the rattle and crash of horse, bridle, and man filled their ears until they thought they could bear it no longer.

And then there was another sound. Far below the noise of the Hunt itself—the whimpering of a dog.

And then silence.

Belladonna, Steve, and Elsie looked at one another, straining to hear. Finally Belladonna stood up, slowly slid the bolt back, and pushed the door open. It swung out easily, revealing the rising sun and a clear sky. Steve and Elsie joined her and they each scanned the horizon for any sign of the black riders, but there was nothing.

“What about Ashe?” asked Steve.

Elsie turned on her heel, marched across the attic, and swung down to the floor below, temporarily forgetting her fear of heights. They heard her feet clattering down the stairs, then running to the back of the house.

“He’s gone!” she yelled. “And the dog too!”

Belladonna and Steve joined her downstairs. Sure enough, the street outside was empty and the only sign that the Hound had ever been in the garden was a small patch of dead grass where its drool had fallen.

Belladonna picked up her jacket and shoved the horn into her backpack.

“Right,” she said, “let’s go.”

“Now?” said Steve, not entirely convinced that Ashe was really gone. “He could be hiding behind a bush or something!”

“No,” Belladonna shook her head. “He’s gone. Which way is the House of Mists?”

“Um . . . west,” said Elsie, who tended to agree with Steve on this one. “That way.”

She pointed up the street. Belladonna flung open the front door and marched outside. The fresh air felt good after the stifling fear that had filled the house all night.

“Come on.”

Steve and Elsie stepped outside and they started up the street toward the edge of town. As they put distance between themselves and the scene of the night’s events, their strides became quicker and more confident.
In the morning light, it seemed entirely possible that all their problems would be solved when they reached the House of Mists.

Belladonna was glad to be on the move and to be doing something definite, but behind her decisive action and breezy attitude something darker lurked. It was the memory of the last thing she saw before she bolted the door against the Wild Hunt: the face of the Leader, his smile flashing and his eyes glistening with recognition as he nodded slightly toward her. Belladonna had understood in that moment that although he had allowed himself to be used this time, there would be a price and he expected her to be the one to pay it.

T
HEY HADN
’
T GONE
far before the changes to the streets around them turned the town into something strange and unfamiliar, and for the first time Belladonna felt that she really was in a different world. The rapidly spreading decay had reduced the familiar buildings to an alien landscape. All around them, brick was rotting and flaking, plaster and stucco had fallen off in vast powdery sheets, and windows were cracked and broken. All plant life had succumbed to the spreading blight that had struck the great tree and been reduced to nothing more than dead, dusty compost and gaunt skeletons.

And then there was the silence.

Not a bird or insect sang or thrummed, no cars could be heard in the distance, and no planes flew overhead. The almost-imperceptible sounds that are all around wherever people live: the brush of bodies pushing past each other, the murmur of voices, the whisper
sounds of jeaned legs walking. All this was absent. There was just the emptiness of the streets and the echo of their own footsteps on the crumbling tarmac.

After about half an hour, the road became narrower and the buildings were replaced with a long, high wall of pale brick. It reminded Belladonna of the grim Victorian warehouses she’d seen at the docks on a school trip last year. But unlike the warehouses, this wall was unpunctuated by windows and no effort had been made to add some decorative contrasting brickwork.