Charlie Bone And The Red Knight (Children Of The Red King, Book 8) (17 page)

"Alice wants to see you," Maisie told him. "She's up in the spare room."

Charlie took off his jacket and hurried up to the top of the house. A row of candles stood on the spare room's windowsill, and Alice explained that Uncle Paton had been helping her to tidy up. Charlie noticed a small black vest lying on the sewing machine.

"It'll be finished by Sunday," Alice told Charlie when she saw him looking at the vest. "First I had to find enough silver sequins. This room is a real treasure trove."

Charlie guessed that the vest wasn't the real reason for Alice wanting to see him. He was right.

"Something rather" -- she paused -- "strange would be a way to describe it, but it was more than strange. Wonderful would be better. Yes, something wonderful happened up here just before you came back from school, Charlie. There wasn't time to talk about it then, but I think you should know someone has been... calling you."

"Calling?" Charlie sat down rather quickly on the edge of the rocker, and a thread of cane snapped beneath him.

"I touched the window, just here" -- Alice laid her hand on a pane a few inches from her shoulder -- "and I felt another."

Charlie waited for her to continue, but she merely gave him an enigmatic smile.

"Another what?" he asked.

"Another person, Charlie. And then I heard her voice. She asked me if you were here, and I had to tell her no but that you might be later on."

"What sort of voice?" asked Charlie, hardly daring to breathe.

"Faint, but very sweet. I believe I was speaking to someone many hundreds of years distant."

"Matilda!" Charlie's voice was almost as faint as that faraway girl's.

Alice stood away from the window so Charlie could touch the same pane of glass. He took a breath and laid his hand on the window. The glass felt hard and cold. But he let his hand rest there for several minutes.

After a while, Alice said gently. "I must warn you, Charlie, that you may never feel the girl's touch. I am peculiarly sensitive to the past."

"I'll wait," he said. "I'll wait until she comes back."

Alice left him leaning against the window, his hand beginning to turn blue on the cold glass. As she closed the spare room's door, she felt a pang of guilt. Perhaps she had given Charlie false hope, telling him about that distant girl, and yet how could she have kept it from him?

An hour later Alice brought Charlie a mug of cocoa and some cookies. He made her put them on a rickety table beside him, so that he could reach it with one hand.

"The girl might be asleep now, Charlie." Alice carefully lifted his hand and laid her own on the glass. "Perhaps your Matilda can't reach the gate between our worlds just now," she suggested. "I think you should go to bed, Charlie, and try again tomorrow."

Charlie shook his head. "I'll wait," he insisted.

When Alice had gone, he sipped his cocoa and quickly changed hands. "Matilda!" He spoke close to the glass, his breath steaming up the window. "I'm here. It's Charlie. I'm coming to Badlock."

But how could he get there?

Charlie sat back in the rocker, and with one hand still touching the window, he fell asleep.

17

EAGLE THIEF

Emma had gone to bed feeling useless. She lay awake for a long time, her thoughts divided between Olivia and Tancred. And then she began to worry about her aunt. Paton Yewbeam had woefully neglected her with his sudden changes of plan, his lack of attention, and his forgetfulness. As for the enchanter, could that ancient book be right? Was it possible that Count Harken could surround the city with a mist of enchantment and drag it back into the past?

Already, the city was beginning to change. Parts of it were deserted while the inhabitants of Piminy Street appeared to have doubled in a week.

Emma thought of Billy alone in that bleak and dangerous place, and she suddenly sat bolt upright. There was something she could do. She could help Charlie to rescue Billy before it was too late. They should all be together; they stood abetter chance that way.

She resolved to wake up very early and set off for Darkly Wynd. Tancred had suggested the painting of Badlock might be there. And Tancred was always right. Emma chose not to think of the occasions when he had been wrong.

Her mind made up, Emma slept soundly for a few hours and then woke at dawn, refreshed and determined. She decided to get dressed before leaving, even though she would be traveling as a bird. When she opened the window, an unpleasant, musty smell drifted into the room. A thick, gray-green cloud lay just beyond the edge of the city. Was this the fog the radio had been warning them about?

Emma climbed onto the windowsill and closed her eyes. She thought of a bird, small, brown, and inconspicuous. Feathers rustled at her fingertips and she felt herself beginning to shrink. Smaller and smaller. The tiny feathers swept up her arms and covered her head. In a few seconds a small brown wren was perching on the windowsill. It lifted its wings and flew into the gray dawn sky.

The city beneath was silent and still. A few cars were parked in some of the outlying roads, but otherwise the place appeared to be deserted. No early morning joggers, no mail trucks, no garbage collectors. Nothing moved except the birds in the sky and a few cats hunting in parks and gardens.

Emma swooped down toward Greybank Crescent and fluttered along the dark cul-de-sac called Darkly Wynd. The sight of the three tall houses always made Emma shudder. Which one should she choose to investigate first? Perhaps Charlie's great-aunt Venetia was keeping the painting. She had a lot in common with Mrs. Tilpin." Yes, Emma could imagine a poisoner and minor sorceress living happily beside that grim, forbidding landscape.

The little bird flew back and forth across the three houses. The curtains were closed in every window and she couldn't see any that were open. She would have more luck at the back, she thought. But here too the curtains were drawn and the windows shut. Refusing to give up, Emma flew into Venetia's garden.

No one had bothered to mow the lawn ever, by the look of it, and the dry grass grew waist high, completely concealing the lower part of the house. To a tiny bird, this didn't present a problem. Hopping through the stalks, she came to a low basement window. It was uncurtained but not open.

Emma fluttered down to the sill and peered into the room beyond. The pane was grimy with dust and cobwebs, but she could just make out a long table covered in material of every description. Bottles of colored liquid stood at one end.
Poisonous potions,
thought Emma, twisting her head from side to side to get a better view. Now she could see piles of sequins at the other end of the table; beside them were reels of cotton, needles, and scissors of different sizes. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling, and dark, shiny plants snaked their way across the walls. But there was no sign of a painting.

Something glinted at the back of the room. The bird's sharp eyes made out another table, small and round. And there, sitting on a pile of silk, was a mirror.

Even from a distance Emma could see that it was very beautiful. The circle of glass was set in a golden frame and the handle was an oval of twisted gold and silver. Intricate patterns and tiny jewels were set into the frame, and even though the mirror was in shadow, it had a vibrant glow. It was definitely Amoret's mirror, stolen by Mrs. Tilpin and broken by Joshua. Venetia was obviously trying to mend it for them.

How can I reach it?
She had come to find the painting, but perhaps the mirror could be of use instead. Emma hopped along the windowsill. She was too small to break a pane. If only she had chosen to be an eagle or a vulture.
Think,
she told herself.
See what you wish to be.
And she saw an eagle, its dark wings spread like a cloak against the sky, a white head and golden talons as sharp as knives.

Emma shivered and stretched. She could hear her feathers crackling as they grew and multiplied. She was now so tall she could see farther into Venetia's workroom, and so wide she could no longer perch on the narrow sill. A hoarse cry came from her white throat and she lifted in the air. Hovering, for a moment, high above the dismal garden, she measured the basement window with her faultless sight, and then swooped, so fast she could hardly draw breath. Her feet smashed through the windowpane with a bang that resonated like a rifle shot.

Folding her wings, Emma sailed through the broken window, thrust out her talons, and seized the mirror. With a lightning-swift turn she was through the room and out into the air. Success made her give a triumphant cry, and as she flew up into the sky, she saw windows opening in the three number thirteens.

"Eagle!" screeched Venetia from the top of her lofty house. "It's got Titania's mirror."

"Eagle thief!" shouted Eric from the window below her. "Kill it!"

"I'll get it!" cried Eustacia, appearing with a crossbow in a window in the middle house. And an iron bolt came whizzing past Emma's head. She screamed in terror and almost dropped the mirror.

"Missed," yelled Lucretia from a window in the third house.

Before the next bolt could hit her, Emma was out of reach and flying high over the city. Charlie's house was easy to spot because of the chestnut tree that grew in front of it. Emma came down in a whoosh of air, right at the top. The eagle is a heavy bird, and the branch that Emma landed on creaked under her weight as it swung down beside a window underneath the eave.

Spread flat against the window was a hand. Behind the hand was Charlie Bone. He was sitting in a chair, half asleep, by the look of it. Emma tapped the windowpane with her beak, and Charlie's eyes flew open. He stared at the huge bird framed in the window, its feathers covered in shards of glass, and then he saw the mirror clasped in the talons of its left foot.

Charlie opened the window very carefully so as not to push the eagle off the branch. "Em, is that you?" he said, astonished at the size of the huge bird.

Emma thrust her foot through the open window, and Charlie gingerly took the mirror from the lethal-looking talons. Before he had time to thank her, the bird took off from the shuddering treetop and soared into the air.

Charlie sat back in the chair and gazed at the mirror. He wondered how Emma had managed to find it. The eagle was covered in glass. Had she risked her life to get the mirror? He hoped not, for it was still cracked, still useless. He would never get into Badlock with this broken mirror.

The window was still open and from outside, there came a shout. "Charlie, let me in." He looked out and saw Emma, standing on the sidewalk and looking quite herself again, if a little disheveled.

"Hang on!" called Charlie. He ran downstairs and opened the front door.

Emma quickly stepped inside. Little pieces of glass were caught in her long hair and there were scratches on her forehead.

"You OK, Em?" Charlie asked, still amazed by what she had done.

"I thought I could find the painting for you," she said, gulping for air. "Phew! Sorry, couldn't get my breath back."

"It's very... well. Thanks, Em." He didn't know how to tell her that the mirror was useless. "No one's awake yet. Do you want to come up to the spare room?"

"The spare room? Have you been sleeping there, Charlie?"

He reddened. "Sort of."

"Why?" she asked. "And could I have a drink or something?"

"Urn, yes." Charlie shifted from foot to foot. "Can you make it yourself? I've got to get back upstairs."

"Why?" Emma was disappointed. Charlie didn't seem very excited about the mirror.

"Because I'm kind of waiting for someone." Charlie dashed upstairs, saying, "I'm sorry. It's hard to explain. See you up there."

Mystified, Emma went into the kitchen and made herself some hot chocolate instead of tea. Having gotten up so early, she felt desperately hungry and helped herself from a package of cookies sitting on the counter.

By the time Emma had climbed up to the spare room, Charlie had settled himself back in the rocker and placed his hand on the window. It was in exactly the same position as before, all five lingers splayed out on the glass. The mirror lay on a table beside him.

"Charlie, what are you doing?" asked Emma, becoming more and more puzzled.

"Alice started it," Charlie said awkwardly. "She felt Matilda's hand, just here, and heard her voice."

"Matilda?" Emma didn't know anyone by that name.

"The girl in Badlock," Charlie said with slight impatience.

"Sorry, I'd forgotten her," Emma confessed.

Charlie obviously hadn't forgotten.

"I mean it's not as if I've ever seen her," Emma said defensively. "But why have you got to keep your hand there? It's going blue."

"She wanted to talk to me," Charlie explained. "And, Em, I really want to see her again."

"Ohhh." Emma understood at last. "So that's why you want to get into Badlock."

"I want to get BILLY," Charlie stressed, "but I'm hoping to see Matilda as well."

"Try the mirror."

"It's broken, Em. I'm sorry, but I don't think it will work."

Emma's look of dismay made Charlie feel guilty and then, suddenly, her face lit up. "Charlie, look!" She pointed at the mirror.

Throughout the night Claerwen had kept Charlie company, nestled on a duster that Alice had left on a shelf. But now the moth was busily skimming over the cracked glass. The rapid movement of her silver-white wings began to cause shafts of brilliant reflected light to stream out of the mirror. The glass was now so bright they could barely look at it.

"She's mending it!" Forgetting the windowpane for a moment, Charlie screwed up his eyes and stared at the mirror. But it was too bright! He got up and rubbed his tired eyes.

Emma's sight was still as sharp as a bird's. She couldn't tear her gaze away from the dazzling glass. "It's fading, Charlie," she said. "The crack. It's disappearing."

"Claerwen, you've done it," marveled Charlie as the moth, her task complete, left the mirror and settled on his shoulder.

The blinding light became a manageable shine and Charlie's eyes could at last rest on the mirror. There was nothing there, of course. No reflection of his face or the room behind him. The Mirror of Amoret didn't work like that.

"Can it help you to travel now, Charlie?" Emma asked hopefully. "Like Amoret?"

Charlie nodded. "I used it once and saw my father. I nearly reached him, but because of the spell laid over him, I couldn't quite. And then Olivia took the mirror from my hand because I made a dreadful sound and she thought I was dying."

"I won't do that," Emma promised. "Unless you think I should."

"No, no. Don't touch the mirror, whatever happens. Claerwen will bring us both back, me and Billy."

Emma watched Charlie's face. If anyone looked spellbound, he did. She wondered if she should let him go into Badlock looking the way he did, shocked and already almost gone.

"Look into the mirror," Charlie chanted, remembering Uncle Paton's words. "Look into the mirror, and the person you wish to see will appear. If you want to find that person, look again, and the mirror will take you to them, wherever you are."

"So all you have to do is to think of Billy, and you'll see him in the mirror, and then" -- Emma took a breath -- "and then, you'll be traveling."

"Yes." Charlie's voice was so quiet, Emma could hardly hear him.

Charlie wasn't thinking of Billy. He kept seeing the face that he had wanted to see ever since he had returned from that first journey into the past.

"Is he there?" asked Emma, who could see only a misty glow on the surface of the mirror.

"Mmmm," Charlie muttered absently, but the face beginning to appear in the glass wasn't Billy's. It belonged to a girl, a girl with large tobacco brown eyes and soft black curls.

"Matilda," Charlie murmured.

An electric shock passed through Charlie's fingers and he almost dropped the mirror. The handle became red-hot so that he had to use both hands to cling to it.

"What is it?" cried Emma, alarmed by Charlie's grimace of pain.

And then he was gone.

Emma stared at the space Charlie had occupied only a minute ago. She hadn't expected him to vanish quite so quickly. Once before, she had seen him travel, but then his body had remained exactly where it was; it was only his mind that had traveled.

Charlie had progressed.
His endowment must be stronger,
thought Emma,
for his traveling to have become so fast.

But for Charlie, it wasn't like that at all.