The Pinhoe Egg (24 page)

Gaffer slowly and creakily stood to his proper height, the same height as Chrestomanci. He smiled at her. “Why, thank you, pet,” he said.

Molly turned her head to say sadly, “I can heal wounds of the flesh, but that was magic.” She added to Gaffer, “Keep your arm over me. You won't walk easily straightaway.”

They moved on, around the corner of the cottage. Chrestomanci, now leaning beside Cat on the long black bonnet of the car, could see them perfectly, but Gammer, with Aunt Dinah dodging around her, was too busy screaming insults at Chrestomanci to notice.

“Inkbubble chest of drawers!” she yelled. “Unstuck bog!”

Cat thought that both the unicorn and the tall old man had a curious, unreal, silvery look as they came round into the sunlight at the front of the cottage.

There was a long murmur from the Pinhoes. “It's old Gaffer!” and “Isn't that his old mare, Molly?” they said.

This alerted Gammer. She swung around, with dismay all over her ruined face. “You!” she said. “I told them to kill you!”

“There were times when I wished they had,” Gaffer answered. “What have you been up to, Edith? Let's have the truth now.”

Gammer shrugged a little. “Frogs,” she said. “Ants, nits, fleas. Itching powder.” She giggled. “They thought the itching was more fleas and washed till they were raw.”

“Who did?” Gaffer asked. He took his arm off Molly and stood looking down at her on his own. The unicorn backed herself round and stepped across to Chrestomanci. There she stretched her neck out and gave Chrestomanci's ragged, bleeding arm the merest flick with her horn.

Chrestomanci jerked and gasped. Cat could feel the warm rush of health from the horn, even
though it was not aimed at him. “Thank you,” Chrestomanci said gratefully, looking into the unicorn's wise blue eyes. “Very much indeed.” He was a better color already and, although the blood was still there, all over Joe's shirt, Cat was fairly sure that there was now no bullet wound in Chrestomanci's arm.

“My pleasure,” replied the unicorn. She winked a blue eye at Cat and stepped around again toward Gaffer.

“
Who
did?” Gaffer was repeating. “Who have you been tormenting now?”

Gammer looked mulishly down at the grass. “Those Farleighs,” she said. “I hate the lot of them. That Dorothea of theirs met a griffin by the Castle gates and they said I let it out.”

“The griffin was only looking for her egg, poor creature,” Gaffer said. “She thought it might have arrived at the Castle by then. What had you done with it?”

Gammer scrubbed at the grass with one toe. She giggled a little. “It wouldn't break,” she said, “not even when I threw it downstairs. I made Harry stick it in the attic with a binding on it and hoped it would die. Nasty thing.”

Gaffer pressed his lips together and looked down at her with great pity. “You've gone like a wicked small child, haven't you?” he said. “No thought for others at all. But your spells on them are stronger than ever, and they still all do your bidding.”

The unicorn softly approached.

Gammer looked up and saw the long, whorled horn coming toward her. “No!” she said. “It wasn't me! It was Edgar and Lester.”

Gaffer shook his head, floppy old hat and all. “No, it was
you
, Edith. Let go now. You've gone your length.”

He stood aside and let Molly gently touch the tip of her horn to Gammer's forehead. Cat felt the warm blast of this too, but this time it seemed to be blowing the other way. Gammer gave out a small noise that was horribly like Klartch's “Weep!” and crumpled slowly down on the grass, where she lay curled up like a baby.

Aunt Dinah charged forward. “What has that monster done?”

Gaffer looked at her with tears running on his withered cheeks and into his beard. “You wouldn't wish to be forced to obey madness for
the next ten years, would you?” he said. His pleasant voice was all hoarse. He coughed. “She'll last three days now,” he said. “You'll have time to choose your new Gammer before she dies.”

Aunt Dinah looked helplessly at the other Pinhoes crowded around the car and the pond. “But there's only Marianne,” she said. Marianne's heart sank.

“Ah no,” Gaffer said. “Marianne has her own way to go and her own race to run, bless her. You mustn't lumber anyone with this who hasn't found her own way in life first.” He looked toward the rear door of the car, where Irene and Jason were trying to shove Klartch back inside. Klartch wanted to get out and examine the ducks. “My friend Jason's lady has more dwimmer than I've known for many years,” Gaffer said. “Think about it.”

Irene looked up into the massed stares of the Pinhoes and turned bright, warm red. “Oh, my goodness!” she said.

U
ncle Richard and Uncle Isaac walked carefully around the edge of the pond, and the Reverend Pinhoe followed them. Warily, giving the unicorn a very wide berth, the two uncles picked Gammer up and carried her away indoors. Aunt Dinah rushed in after them. Dad watched them with a scowl. “I wouldn't have Marianne anyway,” he said. “She's not suitable.”

“No indeed,” Chrestomanci agreed. “She can override any of your spells any time she pleases. Awkward for you. Tell me, Marianne, how do you feel about being educated at the Castle? As a weekly boarder, say, coming home every weekend? I've just made the same arrangement with
your brother Joe. Would you like to join him?”

Marianne could hardly think, let alone speak, for huge, nervous delight. She felt her face stretching into a great smile. Looking up at Gaffer, she saw his eyes twinkling encouragement to her, even though he was busy mopping his cheeks on his ragged sleeve.

Before either of them could say anything, Dad burst out, “
Joe
, did you say? What do you want with
him
? He's even more of a disappointment than Marianne is!”

“On the contrary,” Chrestomanci said. “Joe has immense and unusual talent. He has already invented three new ways of combining magic with machinery. A couple of wizards from the Royal Society are coming down to interview him tomorrow. They're very excited about him. So what do you say, Marianne?”

“I see!” Dad burst out, again before Marianne could speak. “I see. You're going to take them off and make them think they're too good for the rest of their family!”

“Only if you make it that way,” Chrestomanci replied. “The surest way to make them think they're too good for you is to keep telling yourself
that and then telling them that they are.”

Dad looked a trifle dazed. “I can't get my head around this,” he said.

“Then you have a problem, Mr. Pinhoe,” Chrestomanci said, and then turned away to Gaffer. “Are you going to be taking your former place again as Gaffer, sir?” he asked.

Gaffer slowly shook his head. “Molly and I are not really with this world anymore,” he said. The twinkle with which he was looking at Marianne began to glow. “I was always one for walking the woods,” he said. “Now I can walk again, I'll be going far and wide with Molly, bringing young Jason more odd herbs than he's seen in his life, I reckon. Besides,” he added, and the glow blazed into humor now, “if you're wanting them all to go on the way they always did, then Harry will do you a fine stout job at that. Let him carry on.” He bent and kissed Marianne, a soft, tickly brushing with his beard. “Bye, pet. You go and find who you really are, and don't let anyone stop you.”

He and Molly turned to go. Chrestomanci went striding back to the car, where Tom was standing with Miss Rosalie. “Tom, take Miss Rosalie back with you,” Cat heard him say.
“Make a list of her forty-two misuses of magic and send a copy to each of the Pinhoe brothers and both their uncles. I want them all to know what trouble they could be in if they don't cooperate with us.” Tom nodded and took hold of Miss Rosalie's skinny arm. Both of them vanished. Chrestomanci turned to tell Cat to get into the car.

But there was a frantic, pattering, yelling disturbance at the back of the crowd. Marianne's uncles and aunts scattered this way and that, and the Reverend Pinhoe, who was still only halfway round the pond, was dislodged into the water with a splash. He stood up to his knees in green weeds, staring as Dolly the donkey came racing past. She was somehow not Dolly as Marianne had always known her. She was taller and slenderer, and her ears were not so big. Her usual yellowish color was now silvery, almost silver gilt. And a small, elegant spire of horn grew from her forehead.

“My other daughter!” Molly said, and turned round to lay her head across Dolly's back.

“I thought I'd missed you!” Dolly panted. “It's been such years. I had to break the door down.”

Uncle Richard, who was just coming out through the cottage door, stood astonished. “Dolly!” he said. “Why did I never know—how didn't I know?”

“You never looked,” Dolly said, rubbing herself against Molly's shaggy side.

Chrestomanci said impatiently to Cat, “Get in. Let's go.”

But Klartch had decided he wanted to meet Dolly. Jason had to grab him around his wriggling body and dump him in the backseat of the car, where he somehow covered Irene in green pond weed. And now Millie was climbing out of the driver's seat to help the Reverend Pinhoe out of the pond and offer him a lift back up the hill. More pond weed arrived in the car. Chrestomanci looked exasperated. He went back to Marianne. “The car will come for you at eight thirty on Monday,” he said to her. “I hope it will be cleaner by then. Pack for five days.”

I see how Dad feels, Marianne thought. He
does
expect everyone to do what he says. And she thought, I'll miss school. Suppose they throw me out of the Castle after a week? Will school have me back? But I'll learn all sorts of new magic. Do
I want to? She gave Chrestomanci a nervous and slightly indefinite nod.

“Good.” Chrestomanci strode back to the car. Cat was now packed in beside everyone else, with Klartch across their knees. Nothing would possess Klartch to get down on the floor. He wanted to look out of the window. “Thank
goodness
!” Chrestomanci said, throwing himself in beside Millie. “I really
must
have a word with Gaffer Farleigh before all the other Farleighs get back!”

The Pinhoes stood aside and watched unlovingly while Millie turned the car and drove out of the Dell. She drove along the lane, where a few enchanted frogs still croaked in the hedges, and then on up the hill, past groups of mournful people sweeping up broken glass, past Great-Uncle Lester's stranded car, and stopped by the vicarage to let the Reverend Pinhoe squelch away, along with Irene and Jason, all of them covered in green weed. After that, Cat and Klartch expanded in the backseat and Millie put on speed.

It was not long before they began passing Farleighs. Gammer Norah and Dorothea first, since they had been the last to leave, shot the car poisonous looks as it purred past them. After that
came a whole line of Farleighs, trudging along the side of the road pushing bent bicycles or carrying useless broomsticks. Some of them made rude gestures, but most of them dejectedly ignored the car as it whispered by. When they had passed the last Farleigh, still only about halfway home, Chrestomanci seemed to relax. “How come you turned up so providentially?” he asked Millie.

“Oh, I only went down to the village to post a letter,” Millie said, “and the first thing I saw was a really
peculiar
statue of a tree, standing in the middle of the green. Norah Farleigh was stamping about beside it, haranguing people. As I walked past, I heard her say something like ‘and we'll do for those Pinhoes!' and I saw there was going to be trouble. Then while I was posting the letter and wondering what to do, I recognized one of our horses outside the smithy. So I hurried over there and found Joss Callow. I said, ‘Leave the horse and come with me at
once
. We may be in time to stop a witches' war in Ulverscote.' I knew I had to have a Pinhoe with me, you see, or their spells would stop me getting there. And Joss was only too glad to come with me. He was afraid someone was going to get killed—he kept saying
so. But we hadn't reckoned on the Farleighs being so
quick
. By the time we'd gone back to the Castle and I'd gotten the car out, they were already on the way. The road was blocked by bicycles and the air was thick with broomsticks. We had to crawl behind them the whole way. So I went to Woods House and picked up the Yeldhams, in case they got hurt—I knew I could keep them safe in the car—but when we came out into the village they were fighting there like mad things and none of us could think of how to stop them. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't come along in that flying machine.”

“I was
not
happy to be there,” Chrestomanci said. “I'd only persuaded Roger to take me in order to get an overview of the misdirection spells.”

“I'm glad the boys survived it,” Millie said. “I
must
remind Roger that he has only one life.”

They purred on for another couple of miles. They were almost in Helm St. Mary when they saw a man in the distance wrestling with a horse. The man was being bounced and dangled and dragged all over the road.

Cat said, “It looks as if Joss has run out of peppermints.”

“I'll handle it,” said Chrestomanci.

Millie crept up behind Joss and whispered to a stop far enough away not to outrage Syracuse any further. Chrestomanci rolled down his window and held out a paper bag of peppermints. More of Julia's, probably, Cat thought.

“
Thank
you, sir!” Joss said gratefully.

Cat said sternly, “Syracuse,
behave
!”

Chrestomanci said, “By the way Mr.—er—Carroway—”

“Callow,” Joss managed to say. He was hanging on to the reins with both hands, with the paper bag between his teeth.

“Callow,” Chrestomanci agreed. “I do hope you are not considering giving in your notice at all, Mr. Carlow. You are by far and away the best stableman we have ever had.”

Joss flushed all over his wide brown face. “Thank you, sir. I—well—” He spat the bag into his hand and waved it enticingly under Syracuse's nose. “It's a job I'd be glad to keep,” he said. “My mother lives in Helm St. Mary, see.”

“She was born a Pinhoe, I take it,” Chrestomanci said.

Joss flushed redder still and nodded.
Chrestomanci did not need to say he knew that Joss had been planted in the Castle as a spy. He gave Joss a gracious wave as Millie drove on.

Very soon after this, the car was scudding round the village green of Helm St. Mary, just below the Castle. There, slap in the middle of the green, stood the stone oak tree, looking like a twisty, granite, three-armed memorial of some kind. Hard for Gammer Norah to miss it there, Cat thought guiltily. He'd had no idea he had sent it here.

“Dear me,” Chrestomanci murmured as the car crunched to a halt beside the green. “What a very ugly object.” He climbed out. “Come on, Cat.”

Cat scrambled out and persuaded Klartch to stay inside the car. He was not looking forward to this, he thought, as he followed Chrestomanci over to the stone tree.

“Uglier than ever, close to,” Chrestomanci said, looking up at the thing. “Now, Cat, if you could turn at least his head back, I'd be glad of a word with him. You can leave the gun as granite, I think.”

Cat was somehow very much aware of Klartch watching anxiously through the car window as he
put his hands on the cold, rough granite. And because Klartch was watching, Cat knew there was also a ring of half-seen beings watching quite as anxiously from behind every tuft of grass on the green. In fact, Klartch made him see that they were everywhere, swinging on the inn sign, sitting on the roofs, peering out of hedges, and perched on chimneys. Cat saw that he had let them all out, all over the country. They would always be everywhere now.

“Turn back into Mr. Farleigh,” he said to the stone oak.

Nothing happened.

Cat tried again with his left hand alone, and still nothing happened. He tried putting both hands on the rough, knobby place that must have been Mr. Farleigh's face, and then pushing both hands apart to clear the stone away. Still nothing happened. Chrestomanci moved Cat aside and tried himself. Cat knew that this was unlikely to work. Chrestomanci almost never could turn anything back once Cat had changed it: their magic seemed to be entirely different. And he was right. Chrestomanci gave up, looking exasperated.

“Let's try together,” he said.

So they both tried, and still nothing happened. Mr. Farleigh remained a gray, faintly glistening, obdurate oak made of stone.

“It comes to something,” Chrestomanci said, “when two nine-lifed enchanters together can make no difference whatsoever to this thing. What did you
do
, Cat?”

“I told you,” Cat said. “I made him like he really was.”

“Hmm,” said Chrestomanci. “I really must learn more about dwimmer. It seems to be your great strength, Cat. But it's very frustrating. I wanted to tell him what I thought of him—not to speak of asking him how he managed to be a gamekeeper we didn't need for all those years.” He turned discontentedly away to the car.

A flitting half-seen being drew Cat's attention to Joss's bored horse, still hitched up outside the smithy. “I'd better bring Joss his horse back,” Cat said. “You go on.”

Chrestomanci shrugged and got into the car.

Cat ran over to the horse. It had all four shoes again. “All right if I take him?” he called to the blacksmith, deep inside his coaly cave of a shed.

The blacksmith looked up from hammering
and called back, “About time. I'll send the bill up to the Castle.”

Cat mounted the horse from the block of stone beside the smithy. It was much taller than Syracuse. Otherwise, it had no character at all. He got no feelings from it, not even a wish to go home. This felt very strange after Syracuse. But at least its dull mind left Cat free with his own thoughts. As he clopped round the green in the early evening light, Cat wondered if he had left Mr. Farleigh as a stone tree because he
wanted
him that way. Mr. Farleigh had scared him. He had scared the half-seen beings even more. As Cat turned up through the Castle gates, the beings skipped and skittered among the trees lining the driveway, laughing in their delight that Mr. Farleigh was no longer a threat. Cat wondered if they had helped him leave Mr. Farleigh as he now was.

He had had no lunch, and he was starving. Klartch would be hungry too. Cat made the lumpish horse go faster and—because it was now thinking dimly of home and food—he took it the short way he was not supposed to go, along the gravel in front of the newer part of the Castle. The flying machine was spread out on the lawn
there, in front of four deep brown skidmarks in the grass. It looked as if Roger and Joe had had a rough landing.