"I"ve got a compa.s.s," said Tanya, thinking of the one that the gypsy woman had given her. She felt more than a little disturbed as the thought occurred to her how coincidental it was that she now needed to use it.
"You don"t mean that lump of junk Mad Morag gave you?" Fabian rolled his eyes. "All right. It might come in useful if I can"t get hold of Warwick"s. I"m going to hide my backpack with all this stuff in the garden in a few minutes, while no one"s around. Meet me there and bring the compa.s.s. I might be able to fix it."
"Maybe this isn"t such a good idea . . ."
Fabian gave her a hard look. "You"re not having second thoughts are you?"
Tanya squirmed. "No . . . it"s just, well, I heard the weather forecast for this evening. It"s not good. There"s going to be a storm. Maybe we should leave it until another night."
Fabian shook his head. "No. The forecast isn"t always right anyway. Plus, if there is a storm it could be an a.s.set to us."
"How?"
"Because n.o.body not even Warwick will be expecting us to sneak off in the middle of a storm. If he"s guessed we"re planning anything, he"ll think that the storm will deter us."
Tanya was silent as she pondered his words. In a way, he was making sense, although this did nothing to comfort her. "We might not even find anything," she said in a small voice. "Maybe the girl we saw wasn"t her . . ."
Fabian scowled. "That girl was Morwenna Bloom. You know it as surely as I do." He folded the map and shoved it in his rucksack violently, then stalked over to the window. On the window ledge, Tanya noticed for the first time, was a framed photograph of Warwick with his arms around a woman who was holding a small baby. For once, he looked happy.
"Is that your mother?"
Fabian would not look at her. "You"d better get the compa.s.s," he said abruptly. "Meet me in the garden in five minutes."
Tanya left quietly, feeling foolish for mentioning his mother. The subject was obviously still raw and always would be. She collected the compa.s.s from beneath the floorboard in her room and took it out to the back garden. She had to trample through a substantial amount of weeds before she found Fabian sitting on a tree stump with his head in his hands. Balanced on his knees was his brown leather book, which he was reading so intently he had not noticed that his gla.s.ses were nearly falling off the end of his nose. He jumped up when he saw her approaching and snapped the book shut.
"Did you bring it?"
Tanya reached into her pocket and fished out the compa.s.s, thankful that his mood seemed to have improved.
"Here. I don"t think it"s going to be of much use, though."
Fabian took the compa.s.s and examined it. "Seems all right now," he said, giving Tanya a strange look. "Maybe it was just damp that day or something. Lucky you didn"t sell it to that dodgy fellow after all."
"But the needle wasn"t working," she argued, s.n.a.t.c.hing it back off him. "It oh . . . that"s funny."
Sure enough, the tarnished hand on the old compa.s.s was pointing steadily to the bottom, back the way she had just come.
"What did you do with that note he dropped, anyway?"
"Nothing," Tanya replied. In truth she had completely forgotten about the money she had pocketed that day but she could have hugged Fabian for reminding her of it. Now she could simply use the money the antiques dealer had dropped to buy the items on Red"s list. She suddenly became aware that she was starting to smile to herself and quickly pulled herself back to the task in hand before Fabian noticed her expression.
"I"ve never seen a compa.s.s like this before," she said. "What does the "H" stand for? And where are all the other directions, north, east, south, and west?"
Fabian grabbed it out of her hand and scrutinised it.
"That"s odd. This "H", where the "N" for north should be if we turn this way, towards the house, the needle meets it perfectly."
"So?" said Tanya.
"It"s wrong," said Fabian. "I know for a fact that the house, from the back door to the woods, faces northeast. So facing back in the opposite direction, the compa.s.s should read southwest, but it doesn"t. It reads north." He thrust the compa.s.s back into Tanya"s hand. "You"re right, it is useless. And as Mad Morag gave it to you it"s probably cursed anyway. I"d get rid of it."
"Oh, don"t be so ignorant. The things people say about her about her being a witch it"s probably just made up to keep kids out of the forest."
"I doubt it," said Fabian at once.
Tanya glared at him. "It"s a rumour. And you"re the last person I would have expected to believe rumours, especially with what you told me about Amos."
"If Amos is innocent, then he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that gypsy woman . . . people have been saying things about her for years."
"I think she was trying to help me," said Tanya.
Fabian ignored her. "Only last week old Rosie Beak who owns the tea shop told my dad that Morag got rid of her warts last winter, all three of them. Two weeks after the last one had gone, Ned Baker called Morag an old fraud because she refused to tell his fortune. And do you know what? Within days, he had three warts. Never had a wart in his life before, he said."
"Shut up," said Tanya, exasperated. She lifted the compa.s.s to face the house, her face screwed up in thought as the needle swung to "H" and sat there, perfectly still.
"She knew," Tanya whispered.
"Knew what?"
"She knew I was going to need this."
For finally, she understood what the "H" stood for.
Home.
14.
T WAS TEN MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHT. Outside, a wild wind howled and torrential rain hammered at the windows. Tanya was growing increasingly jittery. She had dressed warmly in a woollen jumper, jeans, two pairs of socks and trainers, and an old raincoat that she had left at the manor two winters ago. By a stroke of luck, it also happened to be red. This, she hoped, combined with a rusty iron nail she had prised loose from her doorframe, would protect her from any fairy activity. It would not be enough to prevent her getting soaked, however. In the pockets she"d found a stale dog biscuit, a fluffy boiled sweet, and a crumpled ten-pound note that she had completely forgotten about. She immediately tucked it into her purse to go towards the items Red needed.
For the past two hours she had been asking herself exactly what she expected to find in the woods, aside from seven catacombs and an old witch who gave away magical compa.s.ses. The possibility of discovering a fifty-year-old skeleton was at the forefront of her mind for if Morwenna Bloom was out there, then her bones would surely be all that was left of her.
She ran her thumb over the compa.s.s in her pocket. Since discovering its true use Fabian had remained oddly quiet, occasionally muttering about anomalies in the earth"s magnetic field. Tanya, however, was feeling increasingly troubled by the old gypsy woman"s involvement and the nature of her intentions.
The minutes slipped away until she could put it off no longer. Her heartbeat quickened as she stepped out of her room into the dim hallway. If she was caught now, her time at the manor was sure to become very unpleasant indeed. She crept down the stairs, with only the light of a small lamp on the telephone table to guide her.
"Some-body"s-in-trou-ble!" said a sly, sing-song voice from inside the grandfather clock.
"Shut up!" Tanya whispered.
She was to regret speaking instantly as a light snapped on from above. Someone was making their way across the second-floor landing with slow, shuffling footsteps.
Amos.
Instinctively, she dropped to the floor and crouched in the shadows. The old man"s slow pace continued onwards towards the staircase. At the top of the stairs he seemed to pause for the briefest of moments before hobbling on. She waited for the sound of the bathroom door closing, then hastily slipped down the rest of the stairs.
She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. It was cold and clammy. In the kitchen, the back door was rattling from the gusty wind. Tanya looked longingly at an umbrella propped against the wall. There was no point taking it. The gales would render it useless.
Oberon got up from his bed and padded over to her, his claws clicking softly on the tiles.
"Come on, boy," she said. "How about a nice walk?"
The dog"s ears p.r.i.c.ked up at her suggestion and then he lowered his head, allowing her to slip his leash on.
The back door had been left unlocked as Fabian had planned.
"Here goes," she whispered to herself, and then stepped outside.
Even though she tried to brace herself for it, the wind and rain hit her hard. The sheer force nearly knocked her off her feet. Had she not been wearing the raincoat she would have been drenched in seconds. As it was, her legs were soon soaked below the knee where the raincoat ended. Oberon, however, did not appear overly bothered by the wetness of it all. He just seemed glad of an extra walk.
She stumbled through the garden, the utter darkness from the combination of the weather and the towering trees preventing her from seeing any further than a few feet ahead. She slid through puddles of mud, soaking her feet completely. By the time she reached the gate she was half drenched, cold and miserable. Already, she knew her decision to come to be a mistake.
"What took you so long?" Fabian asked, his lips blue with cold.
"Amos," said Tanya, through chattering teeth. "He decided to take a little walk across the landing just as I was on my way downstairs. I had to wait in case he saw me."
"And what did you bring him for?" he said, looking at Oberon in disgust.
"Protection. I always feel safer when he"s at my side."
"Hiding behind you, more like. He"s a coward."
"He"d defend me if he needed to!"
Fabian gave her a disbelieving stare then looked towards the forest, squinting through the rain.
"Let"s get going. Better not waste any more time. It should be drier in the woods, once we"re under the trees."
They set off towards the forest, unsteady on the waterlogged ground. The squelching of their footsteps and the tumultuous pouring of the rain filled their ears. Then a low rumble of thunder began in the distance. There was no moon or stars to guide them; no streetlights glowed as they would in the city. The darkness was a heavy, suffocating vacuum. Only the silhouette of the forest stood out ahead, one shade of black darker than the sky.
Tanya"s courage began to fail her.
"This is stupid," she said, stopping suddenly. "Anything could happen on a night like tonight. What if we get caught? Or what if one of us gets injured? We could get hypothermia by the time help arrives! And what if the ground caves in like it did in Tickey End-"
"The ground isn"t going to cave in, idiot!" said Fabian.
"It might, it"s happened before! You told me yourself!"
Fabian lost his temper.
"If you"re going to whinge like a baby then I don"t know why you bothered coming. You might as well go back. Otherwise, shut up! We"re nearly there!"
Tanya opened her mouth to reply, but was struck dumb as a large, black shape swooped soundlessly through the air towards them. With a small cry she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding being hit by the flying object but Fabian was not so fortunate. She heard him wince as the thing grazed the top of his head before it disappeared into the night.
"What was that?" he exclaimed, rubbing his crown.
"I don"t know!" Tanya gasped, scanning the dark sky. The swirling ma.s.s of rain thrown into her eyes by the wind was blinding her. Her hair whipped around her face. "A bat, I think!" Before she had even finished the sentence, she saw another dark swoop and this time Fabian yelled, clutching at his scalp.
"What?" Tanya cried.
Fabian pulled his fingers away from the top of his head. They were smeared with blood. They both watched as the lashing rain washed it away in seconds.
"It"s attacking me!" Fabian managed. "Whatever it is . . . it"s attacking me!"
"Look out!" Tanya shouted, as the thing swooped silently once more, seemingly out of nowhere. Oberon lunged into the air with an enthusiastic snap of his jaws, but the creature was long gone before his teeth had even clicked together. Fabian ducked, then stumbled and lost his balance, falling down onto the waterlogged earth. He emerged wearing a suit of mud, shaking violently. There was no time to speak or even think of what was happening before the creature launched another a.s.sault and this time it did not fly off. Instead, it hooked onto the back of Fabian"s mud-drenched clothes with long, black talons and began a frenzied attack on the back of his head. Suddenly, Tanya was able to see the thing for exactly what it was: not a bat but a bird. A large, black bird. A raven. Tearing and jabbing at Fabian"s hair and scalp for all it was worth because, she realised, it could not get to her. By speaking, she had surrendered the protection of the red raincoat but she was still protected by the iron nail in her pocket.
"Get it off!" Fabian yelled, batting at his head to no avail. "Make it stop!"
Oberon growled, jumping up at Fabian in an attempt to get at the bird. Ultimately, he only served to make things worse. His huge bulk collided heavily with Fabian"s gangly frame and Fabian went down for a second time, the wind knocked out of him. The raven, sensing its vulnerable position, released its hold on Fabian and soared up, above them. Tanya hauled Fabian out of the mud. He was shaking with rage or cold or fear or perhaps all three. A thin line of blood trickled down his forehead. Glancing above fearfully, Tanya quickly pulled her left arm out of her raincoat and bundled it around Fabian"s mud-soaked shoulders, doing the only thing she could think of to project the protection of the raincoat onto Fabian as well as herself. All the while her mind worked furiously to come up with a lie that she hoped would convince Fabian to do as she instructed.
"What are you doing?" Fabian said weakly.
"Put this on," said Tanya. "Put your left arm through that"s it and now put your other arm around me."
"What use is that?" Fabian spluttered. "This is no time for a cuddle, you know!"
"It"s to fool the bird, you idiot! Don"t you see? It"s been driven mad by the storm and for some reason it"s attacking you! If it thinks you and I are one person, we might be able to make it back to the house with your head intact!" She hoped she sounded convincing enough. For a moment, Fabian"s expression led her to fear the opposite.
"Back to the house?" he said, looking toward the forest.
Tanya followed his gaze. Water was trickling down her spine and her hair was plastered to the sides of her face. "We can"t do this, Fabian. Not tonight, it"s all wrong. We have to go back."
They stared at the woods and Tanya felt Fabian slump with defeat next to her. They started to turn to go back when a flash of lightning lit up the sky. In that instant they both saw it. A shadowy figure was standing perfectly still by the brook. Even though it was no more than a split second, the outline of the figure was unmistakable.
"Warwick," Tanya whispered.
They stood, rooted to the spot in fear.
"What are we going to do?"
"Run," said Fabian, sounding choked. "And pray he hasn"t seen us!"
They turned and ran as fast as they could back towards the house, jostling and b.u.mping together in the raincoat like some kind of four-legged and two-armed mythical monster. Oberon galloped along beside them happily, his tongue hanging out like a slice of ham. To him it was all a game.
Tanya turned to look over her shoulder. The raven was gone; successful in its attempts to prevent them from venturing further. There was only the more imminent danger that was Warwick. All she could see through the sheets of rain was the outline of the forest against the sky. "Do you think he saw us?"
"I don"t know," Fabian gasped. "But if we saw him, then there"s a good chance he saw us too!"
"I told you this was a bad idea!" Tanya yelled. "We should never have left the house!"
They neared the gate, wheezing for breath. Fabian shrugged out of the raincoat and fumbled with the latch. A clap of thunder made them jump.
"Quickly!" said Tanya. "Before the lightning strikes again!"