Spellfall (4 page)

“All right,” she agreed reluctantly.

Jo grinned and glanced at the wrapper, still crumpled under the desk. “Why don’t you ask your dad about that thing, Nat? He used to sell weird stuff, didn’t he? He might know where it came from.”

“I don’t think so...” Natalie began, but her friend was already letting herself out and didn’t hear. Thoughtfully, she retrieved the wrapper and smoothed it on her knee. It was a long time since she’d had a decent excuse to talk to Dad.

*

Natalie slipped the spell into her skirt pocket, hoping to catch her father at teatime, but he was in one of his moods and didn’t come to the table. Julie had to take his egg and chips out to the garage on a tray. Tim picked at his food, not even pulling his accustomed faces behind his mother’s back. Natalie assumed he was still in a sulk because of this morning and ignored him in return. She ate as fast as she could get away with, and as soon as she’d cleared her plate, she jumped up and took it to the kitchen. “I’ll go and get the tray off Dad,” she called.

“It’s your turn to help with the washing up!” Tim shouted after her, miraculously coming out of his sulk. But Julie said, “Leave her alone, Timothy. I’ll manage – unless
you’re
volunteering, that is?”

Tim grunted. “I gotta get ready. I’m goin’ out.” A chair scraped and after a moment his heavy footsteps could be heard clumping upstairs.

Natalie went through the utility room and stopped at the door to the garage. She took a deep breath and knocked. “Dad?” she called, letting herself in.

It was dark inside with the up-and-over door shut. A blast of chill air brought garage smells – oil, polish, paint. Taking up most of the space, Mr Marlins’ car crouched like a caged animal. As far as Natalie could remember, this car hadn’t left the garage since the day her mother died, although Dad spent hours out here polishing it. Above its gleaming black roof, loops of cable hung like giant cobwebs. As her eyes adjusted, shelves took shape in the gloom supporting the usual garage junk of sagging cardboard boxes, rusty tins, and jars of old nails.

“Dad?” Her voice squeaked slightly. “Are you there? I’ve come for the tray.” She stood on tiptoe to reach the dangling light cord. Electric light flooded the garage, making her squint.

As if she’d woken it up, the car gave an angry lurch. The driver’s door opened and a rumpled figure with egg yolk in his beard lurched out. He frowned when he saw Natalie. “I thought I told you kids to stay out of here. Where’s Julie?”

“Washing up.”

He grunted and clutched at the car. Inside, empty bottles rolled on the passenger seat. Natalie counted them. Six. Mr Marlins’ gaze followed hers and for a moment he looked sheepish. Then his expression tightened. “Go back in the house, there’s a good girl. I’m busy.”

“I... need to ask you something.”

He blinked at her, as if surprised she might think he had anything useful to give. “Is it trouble with homework? Ask Julie, she’ll help you.”

Natalie gritted her teeth. “She can’t help me with this. I need to know about something I found today – something weird.”

The frown came back.

Feeling slightly foolish, Natalie brought out the wrapper.

She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. Sarcasm, maybe. Or indulgent laughter as if she were five. Her father provided neither. Before she could move, he lurched around the car, kicked the door shut, and snatched the wrapper from her hand. His beer-breath made her feel sick as he thrust her against the wall. Natalie’s heart hammered. The garage was insulated from the rest of the house. Would Julie hear if she screamed?

Her father made as if to rip the wrapper in two, then seemed to change his mind and grabbed her upper arm, fingers digging in painfully. “Where did you get this?” he demanded. “Who gave it to you? What lies did they tell you? Answer me, girl!” He shook her until the elastic holding her ponytail snapped. Green beads rolled across the floor.

Tears sprang to her eyes. “It wasn’t my fault—”

“Who gave it to you?”

“No one. At least, not really. An old man dropped it in the car park at the supermarket this morning.”

“
Dropped
it?”

“Yes! By the recycling bins. He was throwing it away.” Not quite a lie.

The bloodshot eyes narrowed. “You’re never to touch one of these things again, d’you hear? Never!”

He let go of her arm so suddenly she stumbled and bruised her knees. While she stared, heart pounding, he snatched a tin off the nearest shelf, tipped out the screws it contained, and folded the wrapper until it would fit inside. Then he put the tin on the floor and stamped on the lid several times. Natalie put her hands over her ears. Finally, Mr Marlins unlocked the boot of his car and threw the rather mangled tin inside. There were other things in the boot. Small, sealed boxes. But before Natalie could read their labels, the boot slammed shut and her father turned the key.

Still trembling from the unexpectedness of his reaction, she picked herself up. “What
was
that thing?” she whispered. “Is it something to do with what you used to sell?”

“What do you know about that?” He rounded on her, scarlet-faced.

Natalie cringed, and a strange look passed through her father’s eyes. He sagged across the roof of his car. “Never you mind,” he said more gently. “Run along inside now. It was dead, so no harm done. But if anyone else tries to give you one of those things, you come straight to me and tell me so, understand?”

She ventured closer and touched the patched elbow of his jacket. “Dad—” He flinched, but didn’t push her off. “Dad, you know something, don’t you? The old man, he… uh… told me some weird things.”

A grunt.

Encouraged, she took a deep breath. “Dad, there’s no such thing as spells, are there? Real ones, I mean, not kids’ stuff?”

He stiffened. Without looking at her, he said, “Grow up, Nat. You’re not a baby anymore.” He put the tray into her hands and gave her a firm push towards the utility room door.

Natalie went, her thoughts spinning. Then she remembered something else the old man had said. Before she left the garage, she turned and whispered, “What does
‘innocent enough to crawl through the Thrallstone’
mean?”

Her father had started to open another beer. He paused, knuckles white on the bottle, and for a horrible moment she thought he was going to throw it at her. Then he made a sound in his throat that she eventually identified as a chuckle. “Don’t ask me – apparently I don’t qualify any more.”

Was it supposed to be a joke? Her father certainly seemed to think so. When she left him, he was collapsed over the roof of his car, thumping it with one fist, chuckling helplessly. Natalie closed the door and hurried through to the kitchen. She hated it when he was drunk like that.

“Everything OK, love?” Julie gave her a quizzical look as she took the tray.

“Fine,” Natalie mumbled. Stupid to think she’d get any sense out of Dad, and yet he’d acted so strangely when he saw the wrapper. Was it the beer talking, or something else?

Angrily, she pushed her loose hair behind her ears, snatched up a tea towel and started drying the dishes. She and Jo had better find some answers tomorrow, because this whole spell-thing was getting weirder and weirder.

Chapter 3

KIDNAP!

Sunday morning, October 25

~~*~~

During the night, it stopped raining and the wind dropped, allowing thick fog to collect in the river valley. By the time Natalie’s alarm went off at 5.30 a.m. she could barely see the streetlight outside the house. The world seemed muffled by the weather, even as the pillow had muffled her alarm. She shivered and dressed as quickly as she could, added an extra sweatshirt, then crept downstairs in her socks. Quietly, she let herself out, shut the front door and sat on the step to put on her shoes.

She was just congratulating herself on getting out of the house without waking anyone when a voice hissed from the fog, “And just what do you think you’re doing?”

Natalie’s breath stopped in her throat. A stranger stood over her, silhouetted against the eerie orange glow of the streetlights. His head was shaved, a miniature metal skull dangled from one ear, and the cold scent of the night was on him.

For a horrible moment, she couldn’t move. Then she recognized the leather jacket and boots. She giggled in relief. “Tim! You gave me a scare! What have you done to your
hair?
Dad’ll have a fit!”

“Doubt he’ll even notice,” her stepbrother said with a twist of his lips. “He’s such a piss-head.”

“Don’t call him that.” She glanced back at the house and lowered her voice. “Where have you been, anyway? I thought you were in bed.” The chain hadn’t been on the door, but Tim often forgot to lock up when he came in late.

“Likewise.” With some amusement, he eyed the two sweatshirts sticking out beneath Natalie’s anorak. “Going somewhere?”

“None of your business.” She glanced at her wrist, and realized she’d forgotten her watch. “Does Dad know you’ve been out all night?”

Tim’s eyes narrowed. His hand shot out and seized her shoulder. “No, he don’t. And don’t you go whining to him about it or you’ll live to regret it.”

Natalie stiffened. “Let go! Anyway, I thought you didn’t care what he thought?”

“Don’t wind me up, you half-blind little runt. Keep your mouth shut, d’you hear?”

“I’ll keep mine shut if you do.”

Tim stared at her. For a moment she thought she’d gone too far, and her heart hammered. Then his lips twitched and he released her. “So. My little Sis has got secrets of her own, has she?” He watched, smiling, as Natalie hopped down the path still trying to tie her lace. “Where you off to, then?”

“Nowhere.”

“Maybe I’ll follow you and see.”

That was the last thing she needed. “I’m going to walk Bilbo with Jo, if you must know,” she told him, raising her chin.

Tim shook his head and slid his key into the lock. “At this time in the morning? You’re quite crazy, the pair of you – it isn’t even light yet. I’m off to bed. Mind you don’t fall in the river like your mother did.”

Natalie’s heart twisted. But before she could think of a suitable reply, the door closed and she heard the chain rattle as Tim locked up. She clenched her fists, tears in her eyes. Sometimes she hated him so much she wanted to scream.

As she hurried to the corner, worried Jo would think she wasn’t coming, an engine spluttered to life further up the street. Milkman, she thought vaguely, forgetting he didn’t deliver on Sundays.

*

Ringed by the silver cones of the perimeter lights and filled with drifting mist, the supermarket car park was spooky. Shivering, the two friends broke into a run. Jo carried both pairs of skates round her neck, swinging from their laces, while Bilbo bounded ahead, yellow ears flopping and tongue hanging out. Without vehicles to fill it, the car park seemed a lot larger than it had yesterday and Natalie began to wonder if they had missed the recycling area completely. By the time the metal bins suddenly loomed ahead, dark and dripping with moisture, she was tense enough to scream.

“Steady on, Nat! It’s only your spell bank.” But Jo’s breath was coming faster too. “Which one is it, then? This one?” She gave the side of the bottle bin a thump, which caused a resounding clang that must have echoed halfway across town. Bilbo began to bark.

Natalie glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Shh!” She blinked at the collection of bins, trying to remember. They looked different in the fog. She crouched by the one next to the bottle bank, wiped the moisture from its side and looked for the silver graffiti. Gone. A battered Council sign said PAPER AND CARDBOARD ONLY. She sighed, feeling stupid. “I thought it was this one. But it was smaller with a higher opening and it definitely didn’t say paper.”

“Well, it isn’t here now. Or maybe I just can’t see it?” Jo squinted at the empty space between the bottle bin and the one Natalie had just examined.

Her stomach twisted. People had been teasing her all her life about her bad eyesight, but Jo never had before. “Stop it,” she whispered. “That’s not funny.”

Jo’s grin faded. “Oh, Nat... I didn’t mean it like that, silly. I believe you. I expect they took it away last night to empty it.”

“On a Saturday?”

“Maybe it was full. We can come back and look for it tomorrow.” She perched on the kerb and began to change into her skates. “Here, put yours on.”

Natalie glanced round again. If anything, the fog was getting thicker. The car park was eerily quiet. No traffic on the ring road, not even an owl hooting from the river meadows. No sign of dawn.

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” she said with a shiver. “Maybe we should go home now? I didn’t tell Julie I was going out, she’ll be worried if I’m not back for breakfast—”

“Oh come
on,
Nat! Don’t go getting cold feet on me now. This is the best time to learn. No one around to laugh when you fall over, is there?” She gave her a sly look. “Anyway, bet it doesn’t take you half as long to learn as it took me. You’ve a lower centre of gravity, haven’t you? Not so far to fall.”