Conrad's Fate (31 page)

I woke up finally when white morning light was coming through both ends of the caravan. The clopping hooves seemed louder, with a lot of echo to them. I sat up and saw Stallchester Cathedral going past, very slowly, at the back of the caravan.

A moment later, the Traveler leaned backward to say, “This is where we must put you down.”

Christopher jumped awake in a flurry, to say, “Oh. Right. Thanks.” I don't think Millie woke up until we were down in the street, watching the caravan swiftly rumbling away from us, jingling and tinkling all over, with the horse now at a smart trot.

Millie started to shiver again. I was not surprised. Her striped Stallery uniform was not at all warm—neither was mine, for that matter. We looked very out of place, in the middle of the wet, slightly foggy street. Christopher's clothes must have been caught in one of the changes. He was wearing wide, baggy garments that could have been made of sackcloth, and he looked even odder than Millie and I did.

“Are you all right?” he said to Millie.

“Just freezing,” she said.

“She lived most of her life in a hot country,” Christopher explained to me. He looked anxiously around at the touristy boutiques on either side of the street. “It's too early for these shops to be open. I suppose I could conjure you a coat …”

Coat, I thought, sweaters, woolen shirts—I know where to find all these things. “Our bookshop is just down the end of this street,” I said. “I bet my winter clothes are still there in my room. Let's sneak in and get some sweaters.”

“Good idea,” Christopher said, looking worriedly at Millie. “And then show us the way to the train station.”

I led them down the street and into the alley at the back of our shop. Our yard gate opened in the usual way, with me climbing to the top of it, leaning over to slide the bolt back, and then jumping down and lifting the latch. Inside the yard, the key to the back door was hanging behind the drainpipe, just as usual. I might never have been away, I thought, as we tiptoed through the office. In the shop it was not quite as usual. The cash desk and most of the big bookcases were in different places. I couldn't tell whether this was from one of Uncle Alfred's reorganizations or because of all the changes up at Stallery. The place
smelled
the same, anyway, of book and floor polish and just a whiff of chemicals from Uncle Alfred's workroom.

“You two stay here,” I whispered to Christopher and Millie. “I'll creep up and fetch the clothes.”

“Will anyone hear?” Millie asked. She settled into the chair behind the cash desk with a weary shiver.

As far as I knew, my mother was still up at Stallery. She had missed the last tram by the time she came into the Grand Saloon, and the first tram in the morning didn't get down to Stallchester until eight-thirty. Uncle Alfred needed two large alarm clocks with double bells the size of teacups in order to wake up in the mornings. “No,” I said, and ran up the stairs as lightly as I could.

It was strange. Our stairs seemed small and shabby after Stallery. The fizz of old magics coming from Uncle Alfred's workroom felt small and shabby, too, after the magic I had felt from Christopher and from Stallery itself. And I had forgotten that the private part of our house smelled so dusty. I hurried through the strangeness up to the very top, to my room.

And I could scarcely believe it when I got there. My mother had taken my room to write in. It was full of her usual piles of papers and copies of her books, and there by the window was her splintery old table with her typewriter on it. For a moment I thought it just might be one of the changes from Stallery, but when I looked closely, I saw the marks where my bed and my chest of drawers had been.

Still scarcely able to believe it, I shot down half a floor to Mum's old writing room. My bed was in there, upside down, and rammed in beside it was my chest of drawers with all its drawers open, empty. All my clothes were gone, and my model aircraft, and my books. They had truly not expected me to come back. I felt—well,
hurt
is the only word for it. Very, dreadfully hurt. But just in case, I went on down and looked into Anthea's room.

That was worse. When I left, there had still been Anthea's furniture in there, along with Mum's papers. Now that was all cleared away. Uncle Alfred had made it into a store for his magical supplies. There were new shelves full of bottles and packets on three of the walls and a stack of glassware in the middle. I stood and stared at it for a moment, thinking about Anthea. How did she feel at this moment, now they had arrested her new husband for fraud?

I felt quite as bad.

I pulled myself together and tiptoed across the landing to my mother's room. This was better. This room looked and smelled the same as always—though perhaps dustier—and her unmade bed was piled with heaps of her dusty, moth-eaten clothes. There were more clothes puddled in heaps on the floor. Mum had obviously thrown everything out of her cupboards when she hunted out that awful yellow dress to wear at Stallery. I picked up one of her usual mustard-colored sweaters and put it on. It smelled of Mum, which somehow made me feel more hurt than ever. The sweater looked awful over my green and cream uniform, but at least it was warm. I picked up another, thicker sweater for Millie and a jacket for Christopher and hurried away downstairs.

As I went, I thought I heard the shop door open, with its usual muffled tinkle. Oh no! I thought. Christopher is doing something cleverly stupid again! I put on speed and fairly charged out into the shop.

It was empty. I stood in the polished space beside the cash desk and stared around miserably. Christopher and Millie must have left without me.

I was just about to charge on out into the street, waving the clothes, when I heard the flop, flop of slippers hurrying down the stairs behind me. Uncle Alfred bustled out into the shop, tying his dressing gown over his striped pajamas.

“Someone in the shop,” he was saying as he came. “I can't turn my back for a moment—never a wink of sleep—” Then he saw me and stopped dead. “What are
you
doing here?” he said. He pushed his spectacles up his nose to make sure it
was
me. When he was certain, he ran his hands through his tousled hair and seemed quite bewildered. “You're supposed to be up at Stallery, Con,” he said. “Did your mother send you back here? Does that mean you've killed your Uncle Amos
already
?”

“No,” I said. “I haven't.” I wanted to tell him that Mr. Amos had been arrested. So there! But I also wanted to tell Uncle Alfred just what I thought of him for putting spells on me and pretending I had an Evil Fate, and I couldn't decide which I wanted to say first. I hesitated, and after that I had lost my chance. Uncle Alfred more or less screamed at me.

“You haven't killed him!”
he shrieked. “But I sent you up there with death spells all over you, boy! I sent you to summon a Walker! I sent you with spells to make you
know
it was Amos Tesdinic you had to kill! And you let me down!” He advanced on me in dreadful flopping of slippers and his hands sort of clutching like claws. “You'll pay for this!” he shouted. His face was wild, with strange blotches all over it, and his eyes glared at me through his glasses like big yellow marbles. “I might have had Stallery in my hands—
these
hands—but for you!” he screamed. “With
you
hanged and Amos dead, they'd give the place to your mother, and I can manage
her
.”

“No, you're wrong,” I said, backing away. “There's Hugo, you see. And Anthea.”

He didn't listen to me. He almost never did, of course, unless I forced him to by going on strike about something.
“I could have been pulling the possibilities this moment!”
he howled. “Just let me get my hands on you!”

I could feel the fizz of his magic rising around me. I wanted to turn and run, but I didn't seem to be able to. I didn't know
what
to do.

“Summon the Walker again!” Christopher's voice whispered urgently in my ear. I could feel Christopher's breath tickling the side of my face and the invisible warmth of him beside me. I don't think I have ever been so glad to feel anything. “Summon it
now
, Grant!” The corkscrew key hung around my neck was tugged by invisible fingers and flipped out over Mum's mustard-colored sweater.

I dropped the jacket and the sweater for Millie and grabbed the corkscrew key gratefully. I held it up. The string it was hanging on lengthened helpfully so that I could more or less wave the thing in Uncle Alfred's glaring face. “I hereby summon a Walker!” I screamed. “Come to me and give me what I need!”

The cold, and the feeling of vast open distances, began at once. I could see the immense curving horizon beyond Uncle Alfred's untidy hair, glowing from the light that was out of sight below it. Uncle Alfred whipped around and saw it, too. His mouth opened. He started to back away toward the cash desk, but he did not seem to be able to. I could see dents on the sleeves of his dressing gown where two pairs of hands were hanging on to each of his arms. As the figure of the Walker crossed the huge horizon with its hurried, pattering steps, I could feel Christopher on one side of Uncle Alfred and Millie on the other, both holding on to Uncle Alfred like grappling irons.

Uncle Alfred shouted, “No, no! Let
go
!” and plunged and pulled to get free. His arms heaved as if there were lead weights on him as Christopher and Millie hung on.

The Walker approached with surprising speed, its hair and clothing blown sideways without moving, in the unfelt frozen wind it brought with it. In no time at all, it was towering into the shop and looming among the bookcases, filling the space with its icy smell. Then it was standing over us. Its intent white face and long dark eyes turned from Uncle Alfred to me.

“No, no!”
Uncle Alfred cried out.

The Walker's long dark eyes turned to Uncle Alfred again. It held out to him the small crimson-stained wine cork labeled
Illary Wines 1893
.

“Don't point that at me!” Uncle Alfred shrieked, pulling away backward. “Point it at Con! It's got a really strong death spell on it!”

The Walker's white face nodded at him. Once. Both its arms swept out. It picked Uncle Alfred up bodily and pattered on past me, carrying Uncle Alfred as easily as if he had been a baby. The last I saw of him were his striped pajama legs kicking frantically as he was carried away beside my right shoulder. As the Walker itself passed me, there was a jerk at my neck, and the corkscrew key flew out of my hands and vanished. The feeling of wind and the horizon of eternity vanished at the same instant.

Millie and Christopher became visible then, staggering away sideways, both looking extremely shaken. Christopher said, in an unusually small, sober voice, “I don't think I like either of your uncles, Grant.”

“That,” said a deep, dry voice from behind me, “must be the first sensible notion you have had for months, Christopher.”

Gabriel de Witt was standing there, gray and severe, and looking tall as the Walker in his black frock coat. He was not alone. All the staff who had come with him into the Grand Saloon were there, too, crowded up against bookcases and standing in the space where the Walker had been. Mr. Prendergast was with them, and the King's solicitor, and one of the Sorceresses Royal—Madame Dupont, it was—and the dreadful Mrs. Havelok-Harting as well. My mother and Anthea were standing beside Gabriel de Witt, both very weary and tearstained. But I was interested to see, looking around, that every single person there seemed as shaken as I was by the passing of the Walker. Even Gabriel de Witt was a little grayer than he had been in Stallery.

At the sight of him, and of all the other people, Christopher looked as dumbfounded as I had ever seen him. His face went as white as the Walker's. He gulped a bit and tried to straighten the tie he wasn't wearing. “I can explain everything,” he said.

“Me, too,” Millie whispered. She looked downright ill.

“I shall speak to the two of you later,” Gabriel de Witt said. It sounded very ominous. “For now,” he said, “I want to talk to Conrad Tesdinic.”

This sounded even more ominous. “I can explain everything, too,” I said. I was scared stiff. I thought I'd rather talk to Uncle Alfred, any day. “I come of a criminal family, you see,” I said. “Both my uncles—and I'm sure I
do
have an Evil Fate, whatever Christopher says.”

For some reason, this made Anthea give a weepy little laugh. My mother sighed.

“I need to ask you some questions,” Gabriel de Witt said, just as if I had not said anything. He pulled a packet out of an inside pocket of his ink black respectable frock coat and passed it to me. It seemed to be a packet of postcards. “Please look through these pictures and explain to me what you see there.”

Though I could not for the life of me see why Gabriel de Witt should be interested in picture postcards, I opened the packet and pulled them out. “Oh,” I said. They were prints of the photographs I had taken of the double spiral staircase where we saw Millie. There was one of just the staircase, then two of Millie on the same staircase, shouting across at Christopher, and then one of the same staircase, looking up toward the dirty glass of the tower. But something had gone wrong with all of them. Behind each one, misty but quite distinct, were the insides of other buildings, dozens of them. I could see fuzzy hallways, other stairways, domed rooms in many different styles, ruined stone arches, and, several times, what looked like a giant greenhouse. They were all on top of one another, in layers. “I think I must have loaded a film that someone else had used first,” I said.