Spellfall (2 page)

Natalie ran faster, one hand in her pocket to stop Itsy’s box from bouncing out.
Don’t look back,
she told herself firmly.
Whatever happens, don’t look back.

Behind her, the old man grew erect and tall, loosened his scarf and tapped his stick against the kerb. Narrow yellow eyes watched his prey flee into the supermarket, while all around him the drivers involved in the accident argued.

“You drove straight into me!” sobbed a woman. “Look at my car! My husband’s going to kill me.”… “My windows were steamed up,” said another. “I didn’t see you.”… “At least no one’s hurt,” said a third. “Which is a miracle, if you ask me.”… Eventually someone thought to ask, “Where’s the old man? There was an old man and a girl…” and people started to peer through the rain but by this time the recycling bins were deserted. No one could say which way the man had gone.

*

In the passenger seat of a battered white van parked behind the recycling bins, a red-headed boy hugged his bony knees to his chest. Unlike the people involved in the accident, Merlin hadn’t taken his eyes off his father since he’d jumped out into the rain more than three hours earlier, ordering Merlin to stay put. It was cold with the engine turned off and every time someone passed with a laden shopping trolley his stomach growled. But he hadn’t dared move, not even to get one of the filthy blankets from the back. Now, he watched in a mixture of relief and panic as the man everyone called Hawk strode through the traffic towards the van, waving his stick at any car that refused to stop for him. It was probably too much to hope for that they would just go home.

The driver’s door squeaked open and rain gusted in. The barrage started immediately. “Take your feet off the seat, boy!” The stick cracked across Merlin’s knees before he could move them, stinging through the holes in his jeans. “What are you shivering for?”

Seeing the pretty blonde girl in the anorak stand up to his father made Merlin bold. He muttered, “I wouldn’t be shivering if you’d let me have a spell.”

This earned him a sharp look. “A spell? And what good would that have done?”

“I could’ve made spellfire.”

“Ha! You’d never raise a spark. Either that, or you’d have burnt the van down round your grubby ears.”

“I could’ve tried...” Merlin could hear his own voice growing fainter.

“Meaning you don’t usually try?” His father’s tone was dangerous. But Merlin was spared a second whack from the stick, as Hawk’s yellow gaze had fixed itself back on the supermarket doors, obviously a lot more interested in the girl than he was in his son. “You know very well we need every live spell we’ve got for the Opening next weekend,” he went on, still not looking at Merlin. “That’s two wasted this morning already, and nothing to show for it.” He reached under his scarf, pulled out something that looked like a dead leaf and flung it into Merlin’s lap.

Merlin cringed but caught the spell by reflex. It was cold as only a dying spell can be. His father must have used up most of it, making himself look old and frail. “Er… she wasn’t one of us, then?” He surreptitiously shifted the spell from hand to hand.

“She’s one of us, all right,” his father said very softly. “Even saw through the illusion I cast. It’s a long time since anyone’s done that to me.”

Merlin blew on his left hand, shifted the spell again. “Then she’s going to join us?”

“Oh yes. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Good!”

He must have sounded too eager. His father’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t think I’m finished with you yet, boy! You might be the most useless Spellmage ever to carry the ancient blood in your veins – if anyone deserves to be called a Caster, it’s you! – but you’re still my son. I’ll not allow you to make a laughing stock of me. I’ll be keeping Redeye a little longer.”

Merlin’s heart sank. He’d been hoping his father might let him have Redeye back once the spellclave was complete. Sometimes, the thought of his poor defenceless mouse locked in that cellar made him physically sick. He quickly thought of something else before the link he shared with his familiar could drag him into the dark again.

“She isn’t going to be as easy as the others,” his father continued, his gaze back on the supermarket doors. “She’s got a family, so we’re going to have to be careful. And she’s a smart little thing. Powerful, too, though she doesn’t seem to know it yet. I’m looking forward to teaching her but if we’re going to catch this year’s Opening, we’ll have to move fast. No time for the soft touch.” Again, those eyes blazed gold.

Merlin crouched in his seat, trying to make himself as small as possible. He felt a flicker of sympathy for the girl; but rather her than him.

Unexpectedly, Hawk reached across and opened the passenger door. “Make yourself useful for a change,” he said. “Get out there and go make friends with that girl. I don’t care how you do it but get hold of her familiar. She keeps it in her anorak pocket – some sort of insect I think. Then come back here fast.” He pushed Merlin into the rain and added darkly, “Don’t come back without it or you know what’ll happen to Redeye.”

Merlin’s legs turned weak. He clung on to the door. “B-but what if she won’t give it to me?”

“Use your brain! She looks about your age. It shouldn’t be too hard, even for you. Get my spell back too if you can. Oh, and I suppose you’d better recycle this one on your way, or we won’t be getting any more visits from the Thralls. Not that we’ll need them after the weekend but no sense alerting them to our plans before we’re ready.” He chuckled.

Merlin had dropped the icy spell on the floor of the van, hoping his father wouldn’t notice. Now it was thrust back into his hand and his fingers cruelly crushed around it.

“It’s in your own interest to help me,” Hawk said, still crushing his hand. “When she joins us, I’ll no longer need you and Redeye.”

Merlin had thought of little else since he’d seen his father bait the first trap all those years ago. He bit his lip and nodded. The rain was going down his neck, water was seeping through the holes in his old trainers, and the dying spell was slowly turning his arm numb. But he knew better than to let his discomfort show. The more fuss he made, the longer the torture would continue.

At last, his father released him. “Hurry up then,” he said with a cold little smile. “Before she goes home.”

*

Natalie didn’t stop running until she’d skidded through the supermarket doors, where the warmth and brightness calmed her. Panting, she pushed back her hood and shook out her ponytail, took off her glasses and wiped them on her sweatshirt with trembling hands.

In all her life she’d never done anything so stupid as diving into traffic without looking. Her heart was pounding and her legs felt weak but at the same time she wanted to laugh. Among the familiar trolleys and bickering families doing their food shopping, her fear seemed silly. She almost expected the weird wrapper the old man had insisted upon calling a
spell
to have gone. But when she checked, it was still in her pocket on top of Itsy’s box. She pulled it out, stared for a moment at the shifting colours, then put it back again. Jo was coming round later. Maybe she’d know what it was.

Natalie made her way slowly through the crowded aisles until she found her stepmother scratching her head over a long shopping list. “Julie,” she said. “I was just outside, and—”

“Natalie love! What happened? You’ve been ages. I sent Timothy out to look for you.” Her stepmother’s face assumed that look of concern adults tended to give Natalie from time to time. “You look awfully pale, love. I do hope you’re not coming down with something for half-term.”

The story of the old man and his “spell” was on Natalie’s lips but the whole thing seemed so pathetic now. It wasn’t as if she were five years old any more. “I’m just cold,” she mumbled.

“And no wonder! You’re soaked through. Are you sure you’re feeling all right? I don’t want you catching pneumonia.” Julie’s hand found her forehead.

People were starting to stare. She pulled away, embarrassed. “I’m fine,” she said, then bit her lip. “Uh, Julie?”

“Mmm?”

“Did you notice the new recycling bin?”

But her stepmother was frowning at her list again, pushing a wisp of hair behind her ear. “What was that, love?” she said distractedly. “A new bin, did you say? That’s good. We have to be sharpish now or your father will be wondering where we’ve got to. Can you be a darling and find me some salt? Big packet, you know, the one with the blue stripes?”

Normally, Natalie enjoyed the challenge of finding awkward items, especially when the supermarket changed the shelves around as they had this week. But today, her thoughts kept drifting to the crazy old man and his spell bank. She found herself wandering along aisles she didn’t recognize, bumping into bad-tempered people in dripping raincoats. They scowled at her as if the rotten weather and the fact they couldn’t find anything were her fault. To make matters worse, a grubby boy with red hair and holes in his jeans seemed to be following her, stopping to look hard at something on the shelf every time she turned to scowl at him.

The hairs on the back of Natalie’s neck rose. She kept her hand firmly in her pocket with Itsy and the wrapper. The red-head looked like just the sort of boy who would sneak up behind you and try to steal something. Whenever she turned fast enough to catch him looking at her, his eyes made her shudder. They seemed so desperate.

She was so busy keeping one eye out for the boy and the other for salt, she didn’t see Tim until he grabbed her arm. “What you got in your pocket then,
Sis?
” he hissed in her ear, nearly bringing on her second heart attack of the day.

Tim only ever called her “Sis” when he wanted to be cruel. His blond curls were plastered to the collar of his birthday jacket like wet straw, and raindrops shimmered on the shiny black leather. The jacket looked a lot more waterproof than her own tatty anorak but Tim obviously didn’t see it that way.

“Suppose you thought that was funny, did you?” he went on. “Lettin’ me search the whole car park for you, when all along you were hiding in here in the dry? C’mon, Sis, show me.”

Natalie caught the red-headed boy staring again and made a face at him. “It’s nothing,” she said.

“Funny nothing.” Tim scowled. He must have thought she’d been making the face at him. His nails dug painfully into her wrist as he dragged her hand out of her pocket. “It’s that stupid spider of yours, ain’t it?” he said with a smirk. “Fancy bringing it shopping! Aren’t you worried it might escape and get
trodden
on?” One by one, he forced her fingers open.

Natalie squirmed. But her stepbrother was more than a year older than her and quite a bit stronger. Shoppers frowned at them but pushed their trolleys past and pretended not to see. She began to wish she’d left Itsy at home and risked her dad finding him and stamping on him just as he’d stamped on her last spider. “That hurts, Tim,” she said, fighting tears. “Stop it! If you let him out in here, there’ll be a panic.”

“And whose fault will that be?” Tim bent back her last finger.

Natalie blinked in surprise. She’d been certain it was Itsy’s box in her hand, but it was the old man’s “spell”. Beneath the fluorescent tubes the colours glimmered brighter than ever. A strange heat crept up her arm and tingled into her toes. Vaguely, she became aware of the red-headed boy creeping closer, his desperate eyes fixed on her hand. The shelves blurred and shifted… everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion as if they were underwater.

“Huh!” Tim dropped her wrist in disgust. The supermarket snapped back into focus, the wrapper fluttered to the floor and the red-headed boy dived after it.

Natalie’s blood rose. With the same strange determination that had come over her in the car park, she flung herself on top of the boy and wrestled with him among all the feet and trolley wheels. They both made a grab for the wrapper at the same time and, for a second, their eyes met over the glimmering, shifting colours. “Please,” whispered the boy. “If you don’t let me have it, he’ll—” The rest of his words were lost in a blinding purple flash.

Someone screamed, “Firework!” Natalie’s stomach clenched. But the boy let go. Quickly, she pushed the wrapper back into her pocket. In the resulting purple smoke, a foot knocked her glasses askew. Stars exploded in her head, tins rattled and rolled, and a sickly smell of burnt sugar forced her to cover her nose. By the time she’d climbed to her feet, rescued her glasses, and sorted herself out, Tim was fidgeting over by the checkouts where Julie had just reached the front of the queue. The red-headed boy had vanished, leaving Natalie to face the aisle full of furious shoppers looking for someone to blame for their overturned trolleys and spilt food. “Sorry,” she said, backing out of the mêlee. “I must’ve tripped. Sorry…”

An employee came hurrying along to disperse the crowd who, in the absence of physical evidence, had begun to argue about what they had seen. Natalie seized the opportunity to slip away. Her legs trembled as she joined Julie and Tim at the checkout but inside she was fuming. Fancy setting off a firework in the middle of a busy supermarket on a Saturday morning. That red-head must be a prize idiot.

They were halfway home before she discovered that, in all the confusion, Itsy had escaped.

Chapter 2

SECRETS

Saturday afternoon, October 24