Читать книгу Gabriel and the Phantom Sleepers - Jenny Nimmo - Страница 9
ОглавлениеEarlier that same day, when the sky was still the deep grey of a winter dawn, someone rang Jack Silk’s doorbell. Sadie, suddenly wide awake, threw on her dressing gown and ran downstairs, her long pigtail swinging behind her. Gabriel was not expected until the evening, and trains didn’t usually arrive this early.
When Sadie opened the front door and found Cecily Fork on the step, she was too stunned to speak. Cecily’s son, Septimus, glowered beside her, and the dog, Carver, sat mute on the path. A large shiny car was parked in the road behind them.
Sadie clung to the door to steady herself. The shock took her breath away. ‘Oh no,’ she mumbled.
‘Not very welcoming.’ Sadie’s ex-stepmother had a voice like a rusty nail scraping the bottom of a saucepan. ‘I thought I’d beaten the rudeness out of you.’
‘It came back when you left,’ said Sadie, feeling more courageous.
Cecily’s pale eyes narrowed, Carver snarled and Septimus squawked, ‘Stupid girl.’
‘What d’you want,’ demanded Sadie, still clinging to the door.
The sorceress thrust her aside and strode into the house.
‘Dad!’ called Sadie.
But he was already standing in the passage, in his dressing gown, his face white with horror.
A breeze smelling of burnt metal followed Cecily into the house. Sadie could feel it pressing about her, numbing her thoughts, muffling sounds. The sorceress, her son and the dog pushed their way into the kitchen, while Sadie and her father followed, helplessly.
Cecily wore a leopard-skin coat, its wide collar cradling her steel grey hair like a bag of knives. ‘You don’t look pleased to see me,’ she grated, staring at Jack.
He didn’t reply.
Sadie could see the pain in her father’s eyes. It made her want to shout at the sorceress.
Cecily shrugged her shoulders and sat down. ‘Do we care if you’re pleased?’
‘No, we do not,’ said Septimus. In his close-fitting grey suit, white shirt and blue tie, he hardly looked like a boy on holiday. He had a round, pink face, and his shiny black hair clung to his head like a skullcap.
Jack sank on to a chair and murmured, ‘Why have you come back?’
‘Oh, I haven’t come back,’ said Cecily, drawing off a tight leather glove. You could see the sparkle even before she thrust out her hand. A large emerald glinted on her ring finger. ‘I was just passing; had to bring a few Christmas gifts to some friends.’
‘Spies, I suppose,’ Sadie muttered. ‘Some of your relatives keeping an eye on us.’
Cecily ignored her. ‘I’m getting married,’ she announced, with an unpleasant smile.
‘Again?’ said Jack.
‘Congratulations, you mean,’ said Septimus, as he wandered around the kitchen.
Sadie hated the way her ex-stepbrother poked about on counters and shelves. Carver growled and snapped at the boy’s ankles and, occasionally, Septimus kicked at the dog, sending him whining under the table. Poor Carver was the result of a spell. He had once been Septimus’s older brother, but Cecily had turned him into a dog: a punishment for bullying his little brother. The spell was supposed to last for a day, but it still hadn’t worn off.
‘Aren’t you interested in my future husband?’ Cecily asked her third husband.
‘Should I be?’ asked Jack, with a wobble in his voice.
Septimus leaned over Jack’s shoulder and crowed, ‘Dr Ichabod Loth of Ludgarth Hall School. He’s famous.’
‘Indeed.’ Jack took a breath. ‘Perhaps now is the time for you to set me free, Cecily? I don’t know what I did to offend you, but surely my punishment has lasted long enough.’
Cecily raised her eyes to the ceiling, ‘Perhaps not,’ she said.
Jack folded his arms and stared grimly at the table.
‘Dr Ichabod Loth is one of the Hundred Heads,’ boasted Septimus. ‘They’re headmasters of great schools all over the world.’
‘We know that,’ Sadie muttered. ‘We’ve got friends at Bloor’s Academy.’
‘They’re for gifted children like me,’ Septimus went on. ‘Weather-mongers, shape-shifters, animal-speakers and stuff. My gift hasn’t developed yet, but I’ve got a lovely voice.’
Cecily smiled fondly at her youngest, and from under the table, Carver gave a forlorn growl.
‘Of course, your nephew attends Bloor’s Academy,’ said Cecily. ‘Though I wouldn’t call him gifted, poor boy. He has that awful affliction.’
‘It’s not an affliction,’ Sadie burst out. ‘It’s the seventh sense. And it’s wonderful, because he can feel all sorts of emotions belonging to other people, and he can see what happened to them through their clothes.’
‘Huh! Coming to see you, is he?’ said Cecily.
Sadie opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Almost in a whisper, her father said, ‘How do you know that?’
‘As you suggested, I have my spies.’ The sorceress carefully pulled her gloves back on and stood up. ‘Come along, boys,’ she said, drawing the fur over her shoulders. ‘It’s a long drive to Ludgarth.’
‘So you’ve made it your home already?’ Jack said quietly.
‘Of course. It suits me very well.’ Cecily made for the door, and Septimus marched after her, with Carver snapping at his heels.
Sadie followed, at a distance. When Cecily opened the front door, cold air rushed into the house and Sadie breathed it in gratefully.
The sorceress walked to the gate, her steel-toed boots striking the path like hammers. Sadie pulled the door wider, letting the air flood down the passage and into the kitchen.
Cecily stopped by the gate. ‘Aren’t you going to close the door, stupid girl?’ she said. ‘The house will freeze.’
Sadie stared at her ex-stepmother. ‘I’m cleansing it,’ she said, under her breath.
‘What did you say?’
‘Mumble, mumble,’ Septimus said, sniggering. ‘She always mumbled.’ He climbed into the back of the huge black vehicle parked before the house. ‘Mummy’s car goes faster than a jet,’ he shouted through the open window.
I bet it does, thought Sadie, it’s probably spell-driven.
Cecily remained by the gate. Her small eyes glittered. Sadie’s hand went to the place below her neck where a charm lay hidden beneath her sweater.
The sorceress gave a shrill laugh. ‘Your fairy star won’t protect you forever, Sadie Silk,’ she said with a snort.
‘Why won’t you lift the curse?’ Sadie asked gravely.
A cruel smile tilted a corner of Cecily’s purple lips. ‘Because life isn’t perfect,’ she retorted.
Sadie stepped back and closed the door.
When she returned to the kitchen she found that her father hadn’t moved. He sat at the table, his chin resting on his folded hands, and his grey eyes half-closed. Sadie ran and hugged him. ‘Oh, Dad, let’s forget her.’ Sadie leant her head against his. ‘She can’t do any worse, and you’ll be free, one day, I know you will.’
Her father patted her hand. ‘Of course I will. We’ll get on with our lives as if Cecily was just a nasty dream.’
Sadie threw back her pigtail and smiled. ‘Gabriel’s coming, and I’m going to cook a chicken casserole.’ She went to the fridge to check on the chicken. ‘Phew, it’s still there,’ she said. ‘I thought Cecily might have turned it into a wild boar, just to spite me. I don’t know how to cook one of those.’
Her father laughed heartily, and Sadie knew that they would be all right, for a while at least. She spent the next twelve hours cleaning and cooking, and then she put Christmas lights in Gabriel’s bedroom. Her father emerged from his workroom for quick snacks and cups of tea, but otherwise he remained tapping, scraping and chiselling. He was making a very impressive table for the Mayor of Meldon.
Just before seven o’clock, Sadie had a wonderful surprise. She had been gazing at the Christmas tree in the window when she saw pale flakes drifting past the street lamp.
‘Snow,’ she breathed.
Sadie had longed for snow. She loved the way it iced the mountains and brought enchantment to the land.
‘You’re fanciful like your mother,’ her father would say. His voice, slow and gentle when he mentioned his first wife, always brought Sadie closer to the person who had died when she was six, and she would touch the obsidian star, hanging on a gold chain round her neck. It had been a birthday present from her mother; a charm against evil, given in turn to Mrs Silk by a white witch called Alice Angel. It had kept Sadie safe, always, but sadly not her mother, once she had given it away.
To Sadie the whirling crystals seemed to have come especially for her. Her favourite cousin, Gabriel, was on his way to them. He was already on the evening train, and he was carrying the king’s cloak.
She went up to the guest room for the tenth time that day, her long pigtail swinging behind her. She plumped up the pillows, straightened the bed cover and went downstairs again. As usual her father was in the big workshop beyond the kitchen. Sadie waited patiently while he tapped a wooden peg in the end of the mayor’s table. Jack Silk was a fussy carpenter and hated being interrupted.
‘Perhaps I should put some holly in Gabriel’s room?’ Sadie suggested, when her father had laid aside his mallet.
Mr Silk mopped his forehead with a red handkerchief. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Because it’s still the Christmas holidays,’ said Sadie.
Her father’s grey eyes twinkled behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. The lenses were streaked with oil and sawdust. Sadie wondered if he could actually see her. ‘So it is,’ he said. ‘Let’s have some of your magnificent fruit cake.’
Sadie beamed with pleasure. ‘Gabriel’s train is taking a long time.’
Mr Silk consulted his watch. ‘He’ll be here in less than an hour. I’ve asked Ned-next-door to meet the train.’
Ned-next-door was the best friend anyone like housebound Jack Silk could have. But whenever Ned helped out, Sadie thought of her stepmother’s curse.
While the Silks ate fruit cake, Sadie kept an eye on the clock. She had laid a place for Gabriel, ready for his arrival. Half an hour passed, and then another. At eight o’ clock the doorbell rang. Sadie ran to open the front door. Ned stood there, looking serious. Snow fell steadily about him. Sadie took him into the kitchen.
‘Train never arrived,’ said Ned, pulling off his woolly hat. ‘They said at the station that it was held up by snow.’
‘Ah, the snow,’ said Jack.
‘What shall I do? Go back to the station and wait?’ Ned didn’t look too keen on this idea.
‘No, no.’ Mr Silk began to pace up and down the kitchen. ‘They’ll send a bus. They usually do. We’ll just sit tight. You go home, Ned, and thank you.’
But when Ned had gone, Mr Silk began to rub his head, hunch his shoulders and pace even faster. Sadie knew why. Her father was worried about the cloak. Would Gabriel keep it safe? He was known to be a bit dreamy, forgetful even. But Sadie trusted him. He would never let the magic cloak out of his sight, not for a moment. He was the Keeper for a whole week. What an honour!
Sadie had seen the cloak once before. Gabriel’s father had brought it to Meldon, hoping it could break Cecily’s cruel spell. But it was too late. The cloak had been made as a protection against evil; it could not undo a spell that had already been cast.
And yet . . . and yet . . . Sadie remembered how the cloak had gripped her in its silent power when she touched it. There was such great magic there, and it was coming back to them. Gabriel was on his way. ‘I’ll ring railway enquiries,’ she said. Her father was not a practical man. Someone in the family had to be.
But railway enquiries were out of reach, even on the landline.
‘It’s the snow,’ muttered Mr Silk.
Sadie made another pot of tea, and her father sat down again. But Sadie found herself going to the front door. When she opened it there was no one there. So she stood on the step and gazed at the falling snow. For some reason she felt as she had when she touched the cloak, held in thrall by some wonderful enchantment. It was as if the snow was watching her.
