The Pinhoe Egg (23 page)

Everyone stirred then, except for Gammer Norah and Dorothea, who seemed to be asleep. Dad looked up and said, “Well, it makes a good story.”

“It's more than a story,” Chrestomanci said. He turned to a piece of the air beside him and asked, “Have you got a record of all this, Tom?”

Chrestomanci's secretary, Tom, was unexpectedly standing there, holding a notepad. Beside
him stood old Miss Rosalie, the Castle librarian. She had her glasses down her nose and her nose almost inside the large blue folder she held, which she seemed to be reading avidly.

Tom said, “Every word, sir, right from the start.”

Miss Rosalie looked up from the folder and, in her usual tactless, downright way, declared, “I've never met such flagrant misuse of magic, not
ever
. Not to speak of conspiracy to misuse. You can prosecute the lot of them.”

Chrestomanci and Millie looked as if they had rather Miss Rosalie had kept her mouth shut. There was an outcry of anger and dismay from all round the yard. The Pinhoe uncles stood up threateningly and so did most of the Farleigh cousins. Gammer Norah woke up with a jump, glaring.

Unfortunately, that was the moment when Klartch woke up too, and staggered inquiringly out across the cobbles.

C
at was sure that either Chrestomanci or Millie—or possibly both of them—had caused Klartch to wake up. It was otherwise hard to understand how Klartch slipped so easily between Cat's clutching fingers, or how Marianne missed her grab for his tail.

Dad said, “What the hell is
that
?”

“It's what came out of the egg,” Uncle Charles told him. “Didn't I mention it to you? I know I told Arthur.”

Their voices were almost drowned in Dorothea's screams. “It's an abomination! Kill it, Mother! Oh, the folks are loose! We're all dead meat!
Kill
it!”

Gammer Norah sprang to her feet and pointed at Klartch, who turned his head toward her inquiringly. “Death,” Gammer Norah intoned. “
Die
, you misbegotten creature of night.”

To Marianne's embarrassment and Cat's heartfelt relief, nothing happened. Klartch just blinked and looked wondering. Dorothea pointed a finger at him and shrieked, “
Melt!
Die! Begone!” Klartch stared at her, while a crowd of hard-to-see beings rushed to him and hovered round him protectively. Quite a number of people could see these. Everyone began shouting, “The folks are loose! The folks are loose!” Some of those gathered by the gate screamed as loudly as Dorothea.

Rather shakily, Chrestomanci stood up. “Do be quiet, all of you,” he said wearily. “It's only a baby griffin.”

The noise died down, except for Gammer Norah, who said angrily, “Why didn't I kill it? Why is it not dead?”

“Because, Mrs. Furlong,” Chrestomanci said, “while we were talking, my colleague Jason Yeldham here has been busy removing your magic.”

Gammer Norah gaped at him. “
What
?”

Dad said, “That
has
to be nonsense. Magic's an inborn part of you. And, Marianne, you had no business at all giving that blasted boy that egg. You've betrayed our sacred trust and I'm very angry with you.”

Chrestomanci sighed. “You didn't listen to a word we said, did you, Mr. Pinhoe? There
is
no sacred trust and the hidden folks were only confined as a temporary measure for their own safety. And magic may be inborn, but so are your appendix and your tonsils. They can be removed too. Better show them, Jason.”

Jason nodded and made a gentle pushing motion. A huge ball, made up of half-transparent green-blue strands, all wound up like a vast ball of knitting wool, rolled away from beside Jason's knees. In a light, drifting way it rolled to the middle of the yard and came to a stop there. “There,” Jason said. “That's all the Farleigh magic. Every bit of it.”

Gammer Norah, Dorothea, and the Farleigh cousins stared at it. One cousin said, “You'd no right to do that to us.”

“I not only have the right,” Chrestomanci said, “but as a government employee it's my duty to do
this. People who use their magic to give a whole village a dangerous disease like smallpox are not to be trusted with it.”

“That was just Marianne telling stories,” said Dad.

Chrestomanci nodded at Tom, who flipped back pages in his notebook and read out, “‘We sent you whooping cough, we sent you smallpox, and you still didn't stop!' Those are Mrs. Farleigh's exact words, Mr. Pinhoe.”

Dad said nothing. He picked up his saw again and bent it about, meaningly.

Irene nudged Jason and whispered to him. Jason grinned and said,
“Yes!”
He turned to Chrestomanci. “Irene thinks the wood folks ought to have this magic as compensation for wrongful imprisonment.”

“A very good idea,” Chrestomanci said.

Irene stood up to make happy beckoning movements to the walls, forgetting that Nutcase was asleep on her knee. Nutcase thumped to the ground, looked irritably around, and saw all the half-seen creatures leaving Klartch in order to dive delightedly upon the ball of magic. He was off like a black streak. He got to the ball of magic
first and plunged into it, straight through and out the other side. Trailing long strings of blue-green, with a crowd of angry beings after him, he raced up across Dorothea, up the pile of barrels behind her, and from there to the top of the wall.

There will be no holding Nutcase now, Marianne thought, watching Nutcase jump off the wall into the alley and Dorothea resentfully licking scratches on her arm. She was depressed and worried. Dad was never going to understand and never going to forgive her. And Gaffer had still not turned up. On top of that, school started on Monday week. Though look on the bright side, she thought. It'll keep me away from my family, during the daytime at least.

Meanwhile, the hard-to-see people were helping themselves enthusiastically to the rest of the ball of magic. The ball shrank, and tattered, and seemed to dissolve away like smoke in a wind. There were a lot more of the folks than Cat or Marianne had realized. Some of them must have been completely invisible.

Cat conjured a sausage roll from somewhere inside the Pinhoe Arms and set out to coax Klartch away from the middle of the yard. He did
not like the way Gammer Norah and some of the Pinhoes were looking at Klartch. He found himself, with the sausage roll held out in front of Klartch's beak, backing away past a row of Marianne's aunts.

“Strange-looking creature, isn't he?” said one.

“You can see it's a baby from the fluff. Rather sweet in a yicky way,” said a second.

The third one said, “What are you doing with one of my sausage rolls, boy?”

And the one who Cat was sure was Marianne's mother said, thinking about it, “You know, it's going to look just like Charles's painting on the inn sign when it's grown. And it's going to be vast. Look at the size of the feet on it.”

Before Cat could think of anything to say in reply, the Farleighs were leaving, trudging sullenly out of the yard, muttering murderously about having to walk home now they had no magic.

“It isn't exactly like tonsils,” Chrestomanci remarked as they tramped past him. “It can grow back in time if you're careful.” He was standing with Tom on one side of him and Miss Rosalie on the other, and it is doubtful if any of the Farleighs
heard him, because Miss Rosalie was saying brightly at the same time, “I make that forty-two charges of misuse of magic, sir, in Ulverscote alone. Shall I read them out?”

“No need,” Chrestomanci said. “Yet.” He said to all the Pinhoes, “You all understand, do you, that I can take your magic too, or have nearly all of you arrested? Instead of doing that, I am going to ask for your cooperation. You have a whole new set of magics here, and one of my duties is to study unknown magic. I would particularly like to know more about the kind you call dwimmer.” His eyes flicked to Cat for a moment. “I think I need to know more of dwimmer as soon as possible. We would like as many of you as feel able to visit the Castle and explain your working methods to us.”

He got eight outraged glowers from Marianne's uncles and great-uncles for this. Dad twanged his saw disgustedly. Millie bustled happily up to the aunts, who all turned their backs on her, except for Marianne's mother, who folded her arms and stared, rather in Aunt Joy's manner.

“You're the famous herb mistress, aren't you, Mrs. Pinhoe?” Millie said. “I really would be
grateful if you'd come and give me a lesson or so—”

“What, give away all my secrets?” Mum said. “You've got a hope.”

“But, my dear, why ever do you need to keep things secret?” Millie asked. “Suppose you'd been killed in the fight just now.”

“I've tried to bring Marianne up to know herbs,” Mum said. She gave Marianne an irritated look. “Not that it seems to have taken very well.”

“Well, of course it wouldn't,” Millie said, smiling at Marianne. “Your daughter's an enchantress, not a witch. She'll have quite a different way of doing things.”

While Mum was staring at Marianne as if Marianne had suddenly grown antlers and a trunk, Millie sighed and whirled away to Chrestomanci, saying, “Get in the car, love. You look wiped.”

“I need to have a word with Gammer Pinhoe first,” Chrestomanci said.

“I'll drive you down to the Dell, then,” Millie said.

This caused Cat to have to tempt Klartch all the way back across the yard to the car. They
went rather slowly because both Cat and Klartch were constantly turning to watch strings of blue-green magic fluttering along the walls, or being dragged into barrels, or flying in tatters from chimneys, as the half-seen folk carried it away. Millie waited for them, and Jason held the rear door open and helped Cat heave Klartch in beside Irene. Klartch instantly ramped upright to look out of the window. There were loud popping sounds as his talons went into the expensive leather upholstery.

By that time, the Pinhoes had gathered that Chrestomanci was going down to the Dell. They were not going to let him loose on Gammer on her own. Cat found himself between Marianne and Miss Rosalie, inside a crowd of Pinhoes, all of them trotting, jogging, and crunching broken glass behind the car as it glided down the hill.

“Gaffer must be
somewhere
,” Marianne said miserably as they passed Great-Uncle Lester's ruined car.

Dad answered her by giving vent to his feelings. “Look what you brought us to, Marianne! This is all your fault for thinking you know better than the rest of us. The good old ways are not
good enough for you. No. You had to get us noticed by the Castle. And see where we are now, at the mercy of these jumped-up, jazzy know-it-alls in good suits, who'll have us arrested if we don't do—”

He was interrupted for a second here by Nicola's mother, swooping uphill past them on her broomstick. “I can't wait, Lester!” she called out. “I'll miss visiting hours.”

As Great-Uncle Lester gave her a dismal wave, Dad took up his diatribe again. “Them and their threats! How can they say we've misused magic and then want to know what it is we do? It makes no sense. But they think they have the right to give us a going-over with their newfangled stuck-up ways and their stupid stories about slaughter in history and children misunderstanding—I don't believe a word of it. We're just ordinary folk, doing what we've always done, and they come along—”

Miss Rosalie, who had been looking increasingly annoyed, snapped, “Oh, shut
up
, man! Of
course
you can go back to your good old ways. We want to
study
them.”

This simply set Dad off again. “Poking and
prying. Going on about craft things nobody should talk about. Letting out the hidden folk. That's just what I'm complaining about, woman! What are we, a flaming
fish tank
?”

“I refuse to argue with you!” Miss Rosalie panted haughtily.

“Good!” said Dad, and went on with his diatribe in an increasingly breathless mutter as the car gathered speed down the hill. He did not stop, even when the car was turning the corner at the bottom of the hill, where they encountered Aunt Joy standing on her half-built wall.

“I meant what I said!” Aunt Joy shouted, and hurled a suitcase at Uncle Charles. “You're not coming back, and here's your things, wedding suit and all. I jumped on it.”

Uncle Charles did not try to answer. He simply picked up the battered suitcase and trotted on, smiling sheepishly at Uncle Richard. “Staring at us,” went Dad. “Thinking they're so clever. Fish tank. All Marianne's fault.”

At the Dell, they found Gammer outside the front door, surrounded by hard-to-see flying folk. They did not appear to love Gammer. They darted in, pulled her hair, tweaked and scratched
at her, and darted back away. Gammer beat at them with a rolled-up newspaper. “Shoo!” she shouted. “Gerroff! Shoo!”

Aunt Dinah, who could not seem to see the flying ones at all, was dodging helplessly in and out, ducking under the newspaper and saying, “That's enough now, Gammer dear. Come inside now, dear.”

“Fish tank,” said Dad, and ran down in a kind of moaning sound as he saw how easily Gammer had managed to walk out through his careful containment spells.

Gammer stared at Chrestomanci as he climbed stiffly and shakily out of the car. She seemed to know at once who he was. “Don't you dare!” she shouted at him as he walked toward her round the duck pond. “You've only come to interferret me. I didn't do it. It was Edgar and Lester.”

The half-seen ones knew who Chrestomanci was too. They flew up from Gammer in a body and roosted on the cottage roof to watch.

“I know about Edgar and Lester, ma'am,” Chrestomanci said. “I want to know why you were persecuting the Farleighs.”

“Jedded my head,” Gammer said. “My mouth is porpoised.”

“Means her lips are sealed,” Uncle Charles translated from among the crowd.

“Utterly dolphined,” Gammer agreed.

“And possibly whaled as well,” Chrestomanci murmured. “I think you had better unwalrus them, ma'am, and—”

The gate from the back way, through Uncle Isaac's vegetable acres, clicked quietly open to let Molly and Gaffer through.

Not everyone saw them straightaway, because the corner of the cottage was in the way. But Marianne saw. And she knew why Gaffer had been so long on the way. His legs were bent and bowed and his feet twisted so that it was all but impossible for him to walk. He had both arms across the unicorn's back. She was walking one careful step at a time, and then stopping so that Gaffer could swing himself along beside her. Each time his legs had to take his weight, Marianne saw him shudder with pain.

She turned and screamed at her great-uncles. She was so angry that both of them recoiled from her, almost into the hedge at the back. “That is the cruelest thing I ever saw! Uncle Edgar, I shall never speak to you again! Uncle Lester, I shall never go
near
you!” She raced toward Gaffer and tore the ensorcellment off him. It was a bit like clearing weeds and creepers off a struggling overgrown tree in Mum's garden. Marianne clawed and pulled and dragged, and the spell fought back like thorns and nettles, but she finally hauled it all away, panting, with stinging hands and tears in her eyes, and threw it to the hard-to-see folk to get rid of. They swooped on it and took it away gladly.