The Midnight Carnival (8 page)

Adie had a brainwave. She whispered under her breath and, in a split second, the water curled out of the bowl in a long spiral above the large cat’s head. She held her concentration until a sleek tabby ventured into the hall, then let the liquid go in one devastating splash that sent Mephistopheles tearing after the tabby in a cacophony of screeching and snarling.

‘Mephis!’ Mrs Quinlan yelled, dropping the teapot into the sink and chasing after the noise. ‘What the bloody hell are you up to?’

The Old Cat Lady’s screaming was louder than all the animals put together, and it wasn’t long before she came stomping down the stairs with the scruff of a cat in each hand.

‘You’ll stay out all bloody night for that, and like it.’

She opened the back door with one elbow and threw the unfortunate beasts outside.

‘I’d better go, Mrs Quinlan,’ Adie called. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

She hurried down the driveway, holding her schoolbag to her front, zipping it closed over the tattered cover of
In the
Mists of the Atlantic.

The ringmaster slammed the small wooden box down on the table inside a run-down trailer. The man sitting opposite couldn’t see it; his pearly white eyes couldn’t see anything. He reached his hand towards it.

‘Something changed?’ he asked.

‘It’s empty, Grigori,’ the ringmaster snarled.

The blind man started. ‘Is not possible.’

Felix knocked gently on the lid – his face red as if he fought the urge to punch his fist right through it – and it opened.

‘Empty. See, blind man?’

The white-eyed fortune-teller pulled a set of tarot cards from his pocket.

‘Then maybe is all over.’

‘It ain’t over, you damn fool, don’t you get it?
He
took it.’

‘Is not possible.’

‘He took it. He thinks he can play with fire on my turf, thinks he can keep us in chains. But I’ll burn this place to the ground before I let him win!’

All water is connected
…

Adie lay on her front in bed, the duvet pulled up over her head shielding the large, hardback book on the mattress. Her pencil torch swept over the words of the fifth chapter as she read and re-read them. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning and she’d already read through a good chunk of
In the Mists of the Atlantic
, and learned more about the mysterious island of Hy-Breasal than when she’d been trapped on it.

A powerful spell, cast by dozens of witches born and raised on the island, had sent squirmy worms to suck Adie and her friends to that distant place, somewhere in the Atlantic. It had been terrifying – they had only just escaped with their lives – but being amongst other trainee witches had felt good for a time. Adie missed the friends they had made – sweet and understanding Gaukroger, brave young Aura who had saved their lives. She wished she could reach out to them. She was tired of feeling alone.

All water is connected
, the book said. Adie was good with water spells – she was better than good. All she had to do was figure it out.

She sighed and snapped the book shut. Her brain was too tired to work now, so she might as well sleep on it. She turned onto her back, closed her eyes and thought of her Hy-Breasal friends. With school getting so serious, and the girls seemingly drifting away from her, Adie longed for some understanding.

7

On the Waterways

‘Has everyone filled a vial? Good, now give it a shake and take a quick sniff.’

Ms Lemon’s classroom looked more like one of the science labs, with jars and bottles of weird-looking ingredients and flames dancing on three camping stoves.

‘Ooh!’ Grace gasped. ‘That’s rotten.’

‘It smells like a bottle of vinegar ate dog poo and threw up.’

‘Thanks Una. I didn’t really need the visual aid.’

‘It may not be a bunch of roses,’ Ms Lemon said, shaking another vial, ‘but that’s a good, healthy smell.’

‘Miss,’ said Una, ‘I’m sorry, but my dad says the same thing when we’re driving through the countryside and there’s a stink of silage. I don’t believe him then, and I don’t believe
you now.’

‘Trust me, Una, Choki balm is your new best friend.’

‘Choki?’

‘Short for
cho ku rei
. It’s what Vera and I call it anyway. In terms of healing, this is magical First Aid. It’s a universal balm and, from now on, I want you girls to carry a vial of it on you at all times. It doesn’t last forever, mind, so you’ll need to make a fresh batch every six months or so. You can pickle it in miso to make it last longer, but it reduces the effectiveness a bit.’

‘Do you use it on cuts, Miss?’ asked Rachel.

‘Cuts, bruises, scrapes, gashes, rashes, you name it.’

‘If you sliced off your finger, Miss,’ said Una, ‘would you put this on it?’

‘Choki balm would slow the bleeding and keep off infection until someone could perform a reattachment spell.’

‘You mean you can reattach a finger with magic?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Seriously? So if I cut off my leg–’

‘Don’t cut off your leg.’

‘No, I know. But if I
did
–’

‘Anybody got a bruise,’ Ms Lemon said loudly, ‘or a cut? Anything we can heal?’

‘I’ve got a bruise, Miss. It’s a whopper.’

Jenny pulled off her boot and wrenched down her sock to reveal a mean-looking bruise, deep purple with an angry
red centre.

‘Ow, Jenny,’ said Grace. ‘How’d you get that?’

Jenny’s face coloured all the way to her auburn hair.

‘Dropped a weight,’ she said. ‘I was lifting one of the bigger ones, just to try it out, and it slipped out of my hand. It’s really sore.’

‘That’ll do perfectly,’ the teacher said. ‘Now, everyone watch. You just apply a small amount in a circular motion, like this.’

The pale brown substance went hard and flaky as soon as it touched Jenny’s skin but, as Ms Lemon gently rubbed at the bruise, it turned to goo once more and was absorbed in just a few seconds.

‘Oh.’ Jenny sat up straight and blinked. ‘It’s gone all fizzy, like pins and needles.’

‘Give it a minute.’

The girls watched in awe as the various shades of purple began to move around Jenny’s shin. They swirled and sank, slipping back to her calf and zipping forward again, before curling into a spiral with a line through it. It looked a bit like an upside-down treble clef.

‘
Cho ku rei
,’ Ms Lemon said. ‘The symbol enhances your body’s natural healing powers.’

‘How long will it stay like that?’ asked Grace.

‘For a few days. But try pressing on it now, Jenny. See how it feels.’

Jenny gently pushed a finger into the centre of what had been the bruise, and grinned.

‘It doesn’t hurt at all,’ she said. ‘And it looks
awesome
. It’s like a tattoo!’

‘And for that reason, young lady, you’re going to keep it covered until the symbol fades.’

‘Aw, but Miss, it’s so cool!’

‘It’s a Wiccan badge,’ said the teacher, ‘and you’ll keep it hidden.’

The tall girl looked sullen as she pulled up her sock.

‘Okay.’

Adie stood in front of a shop window.
The Penny Farthing
was a decrepit-looking newsagents on the far side of town. The sign above the door featured the old-fashioned bicycle with one huge wheel and one small, which was its namesake. Through the window Adie could see rows and rows of dusty jars, filled with boiled sweets in a hundred different flavours. The shop was always open; and always empty.

She didn’t go in. Instead she slipped down the alleyway next to it, scanning the ground for a little clump of wildflowers. Smiling, she plucked a daisy from a crack in the pavement, tore it between her fingers and scattered the remains against the red-brick wall of the shop. There was a
whoosh
of perfumed air and the red bricks pulled apart, dropping to
the ground which folded under their weight, revealing stone steps leading downwards. Glancing left and right to make sure no-one had seen, Adie hurried down the steps, hearing the entrance crunch shut behind her.

The air cooled at the bottom of the stairs, and Adie followed the faint light that led her to an underground cavern. The high walls were stained with damp and lit with numerous fiery torches. The cave was filled with tables and trunks, half-rolled rugs, lamps and pots of every size, shape and colour. Every flat surface was strewn with trinkets, books and wooden ornaments, and the musky scent of incense was overpowering.

Adie’s fingers slid over an ancient text, bound in deerskin, with a title she couldn’t read.

‘Good evening, young wiccan,’ said a voice behind her.

‘Hello, Mr Pamuk.’

The shopkeeper’s smile was welcoming as ever.

‘A delight to see you, as always. Are you shopping for something special today? If so, let me tell you what treasures are new in this week. I have a range of pink amulets – perfect specimens of anthill garnet – mined by fire ants in the deserts of Arizona. I have also a stunning flute of pithed alder shoots that produces the most beautiful sound you’ve ever–’

‘I’m looking for something in particular. A propellant.’

‘My dear witchlet, that could be anything.’

‘I need a propellant to help me send a message through
the waterways. That’s possible, isn’t it? I can send a message anywhere through water, I just need ignition? Like a spark plug in a car.’

‘Indeed, it is a generous element, but water-messaging is not without risk. The telephone is infinitely better.’ He picked up a bronze trinket, polishing it to a high shine, and held it out. ‘When have you ever seen a more beautiful bindrune? The workmanship is spectacular, don’t you think?’

Adie took the ornament and set it firmly back on the table.

‘I need a spark plug, Mr Pamuk. Can you help me or not?’

It was near dusk when Adie took the long, curving road that led from the back of the school, around the woods and down to the river. She walked the bank for some distance to make sure she wouldn’t be seen by any passersby, then kneeling by the water with her shoes sinking into the mud, she untied the tweed bag in her hands and clutched the blackened leaves inside.

‘Twice-burned mugwort,’ Mr Pamuk had said, ‘will ignite your message. But please, little witchlet, take care. A message sent is like a bird released; you cannot take it back. And who knows who may be listening.’

Adie took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

‘
Incende
.’

The leaves began to smoke and hiss, their ends glowing embers as they burned afresh. She tried not to cough as the smoke reached her lungs, then set the leaves down in the water and watched them fizzle and sink. It was now or never.

Holding back her hair with one hand, Adie plunged her face into the water. The shock of the cold made her desperate to gasp, but she fought the urge and kept her head down. Even in the water she could feel the gentle heat of the quenched mugwort and it made her a little dizzy. She opened her eyes, shuddering once more against the freezing water, and watched the muddied leaves below.

Within seconds they spat, broken bits of mugwort hopping up like frogs on a hotplate, suspended in the murky water. They were moving then, like little sea horses with minds of their own, and she followed them. Her body stayed where it was, but she could feel her mind pulling away from it. It was like she was being stretched, thinner and thinner, so thin she felt sure that she would snap. But she didn’t. Leaving the discomfort of her body behind, her mind soared after the blackened mugwort leaves.

She rushed past fish and squiggling larvae, swooping through the estuary and out into the sea. The leaves picked up speed, and the crabs and lobsters and sharks and awful strings of discarded plastic went by faster and faster until she couldn’t see them anymore. It was just a spinning wall of water now, varying shades of green and blue, until the leaves
slowed and she began to see real things again. Creatures, weird ones, creeping, crawling and swimming above and below. A merrow, with the muscular torso of a human and the sharp-toothed mouth of a moray eel, snapped at her as she passed. She was in a river now, she could sense the banks either side, then she was in the air, carried like a feather on the millions of tiny droplets in the atmosphere.

Ahead of her was the barren, cracked land of Hy-Breasal. The stone towers and battlements of Tithon Castle brought back more bad memories than good. She saw the black turret, where she and the girls had been imprisoned. There was the outdoor arena where Una’s dragon had battled the horrible beasts originated by other trainee witches. There were the narrow, arched windows, through which the vengeful faeries had crawled, some of them desperate to taste human flesh. Inside the castle, the faeries had clashed with specially trained witches – the Hunters. Adie hadn’t seen the fight, but Rachel had described it in grisly detail.

She glided through one of the skinny windows, swinging through stone halls and corridors. It had been a while, but she could still remember everything. It was so quiet though, and completely deserted.

Of course it was. The Witch Trials were over and the students had gone home. Adie stopped suddenly. What had she been thinking? She could never have reached her friends here. There was no-one left in Tithon Castle.

The burnt leaf fragments hung in the air as if waiting for further instructions, and Adie’s mind drifted aimlessly. She would never see the witch apprentices again. They were long gone, they would all be back where they had come from, getting on with their lives. She had never even asked Gaukroger or Aura where they were from, she didn’t know why. Her heart sank in disappointment, and she cursed herself for being so stupid. She had done all this for nothing.

I want to go home now
, she thought to the mugwort.

That seemed instruction enough and the fragments darted back into the hallway. Making little effort, she let the leaves drag her along like the end of an elastic band that had been stretched and let go. The stone walls shot past, the steps flew below her in less than a second, and she was through the entrance hall and out before she knew it.

She skimmed along the barren, cracked ground surrounding the castle, through the woods and into the rushing stream. She felt cold as the weird river creatures of Hy-Breasal swirled and blended until she could no longer make them out. The wall of water continued until she could finally see the seals and fish she knew filled the seas on the Irish coast.