Spellbinder (10 page)

“Well, if you’re not an elf, what are you?” Belladonna was getting irritated.

Aya jumped off the tomb and into the long grass. “I’m a charnel sprite, of course. Don’t you know anything?”

“Well, no . . . um . . . I’m sorry.” She tried to look friendly. “What do . . . what do charnel sprites do?”

“Duh!” Aya rolled her eyes. “We wake them up and show them where to go, of course!”

“The dead people?”

“No, cows and squirrels. Of course dead people! Honestly! No wonder no one talks to you living people—you’re so slow on the uptake!”

And with that, she was off, running through the grass and gone. Belladonna sighed and was just about to get off the tomb herself, when Aya was suddenly in front of her again.

“Watch out for the Hound,” she said. “It came when we were leaving. It got my arm, and the rest of my family ran away.”

“Thank you,” said Belladonna, “but I think it’s dead. Steve killed it.”

“Can’t have,” said Aya matter-of-factly. “What did he do?”

“He threw half a ham sandwich at it.”

“Did it eat it?”

Belladonna nodded, “And then it vanished in a sort of inside-out way.”

Aya smiled, “What a good idea. Who is this Steve? Where did he learn about the food?”

“He’s just a . . . just a friend,” said Belladonna. “What about the food?”

“The dead can’t eat food from the Land of the Living,” explained Aya, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It’ll be back, though. I’m pretty sure it’d take more than half a ham sandwich to destroy the Hound.”

She seemed very cheerful about the whole thing, particularly considering it had apparently tried to drag off her arm. She wiped the back of her hand across her face again and looked at Belladonna.

“You’re looking for something,” she said.

“What makes you think that?”

“You are, though, aren’t you?”

“I’m looking for the door,” said Belladonna. “It’s red, with the number seventy-three on it.”

“Why?” asked Aya.

“I have to get to the Other Side. The ghosts are missing.”

“I know.”

“Well, I have to . . . I don’t know, I just feel like I have to do something.”

Aya looked at her narrowly. “It’s over there,” she announced finally.

Belladonna stared at her. “I thought it was lost,” was all she could say.

“Lost to some,” said Aya, “and just as well, if you ask me. Anyway, it’s in a building on that busy street. The one with the Chinese take-away.”

“You like Chinese food?”

“All charnel sprites like Chinese food,” said Aya. “We have very sophisticated tastes. Do you want to know about this door or not?”

“It’s inside a building?” said Belladonna, quickly returning to the subject. “But I thought it’d be outside. I mean, with the number and everything. It sounds like a house door. Oh, I suppose it could be a hotel door.”

“It could be,” said Aya, “but it isn’t. You shouldn’t be so literal. Also, it’s not really a door.”

“Not really a door?”

“It
is
a door,” explained Aya slowly, as if she were speaking to a very small child, “but at the same time it isn’t. Though it can be. And in some ways it actually is.”

Belladonna stared at her. It was the most unhelpful explanation she’d ever heard.

“You can’t go through unless you have the Words, though. I mean you can, but it wouldn’t be a door then. It only becomes a door when you say the Words.”

At that moment there was a loud whistle over near a cluster of rhododendron bushes. Aya’s face lit up. “They’ve come back for me!”

“Who have?”

“The others . . . my family.”

“Your family? Do you live here?”

“We help the Dead, and this is where they are,” said Aya.

“And you show them how to get to the Other Side?”

“Yeees,” said Aya, clearly impatient, “I told you.”

“Could you show me? I mean, I wouldn’t need to waste time finding the door.”

“It’s not allowed,” Aya glanced back nervously. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you. I only started because I thought they’d gone. Anyway, it only works one way. I have to go.”

Belladonna peered across to the long grass and thought she could make out the glinting of purplish skin. Aya waved her good hand and ran happily toward her family.

“Wait!” said Belladonna. “Do you know the Words?”

“I don’t need to. Bye! Good luck!”

And with that, she turned, began to run, and was gone. The rhododendron bushes shook for a moment and then all was silent. Belladonna smiled. It was nice to think that there was someone waiting to show the Dead how to get to the Other Side. It was probably a confusing time. Her parents had never talked about it. Well, she’d never asked, and it had never occurred to her that there would be some sort of otherworldly tour guides to show the way. She’d have to ask her Mum and Dad about it when . . . well, if . . .

No. She shook her head to get the thoughts out of it. No wallowing. Wallowing never helps.

She jumped down off the tomb and walked toward the lych-gate, the grass slowly soaking her jeans. So it was somewhere on the High Street, but inside a building. That made things more difficult; the High Street was shops from one end to the other so it would have to be in a back room or something. How on earth was she going to get into the back of a shop without anyone knowing? Something like that would involve sneaking, which strictly speaking would be breaking and entering.

“You want to do what?”

Steve had to work at his parents’ electronics shop on Saturdays, but spent most of his time lounging at the back near the CD players, reading comics.

“Have a look inside some of the shops. In the back. Without anyone knowing.”

“But that’s against the law.”

“What about climbing over the gate into my Grandma’s garden? That was against the law as well. At least I think it was.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Steve put the comic down and shoved his hands into his pockets, the way he did when a teacher had got him into a corner and he actually had to come up with a reason for the First Reform Act or something.

“And your Mum and Dad probably know most of these people,” Belladonna could sense that he was weakening.

“What are we looking for again?”

“I told you,” sighed Belladonna. “A red door with the number seventy-three on it.”

“A door with a number
inside
a house? That’s stupid. Who told you that?”

“Aya. Um . . . she’s a charnel sprite.”

Steve looked at her for a moment, then picked up the comic book again. Belladonna knew she was losing him. Then inspiration struck—flattery.

“She also said she thought you were very clever. Thinking to give the Hound your sandwich.”

“Clever?” said Steve. “Stupid, you mean. That thing could’ve eaten us both whole and had room for five more.”

He went back to pretending to read the comic, but Belladonna knew he’d have to ask.

“Why was it clever?”

“Because,” she said, “creatures from the Land of the Dead can’t eat food from the Land of the Living.”

“Really?”

Belladonna nodded. Steve put down the comic.

“That
was
pretty clever, wasn’t it?”

In a few moments he had given his parents the slip and they were outside walking down the street, looking for likely shops.

“Does it work the other way around?” asked Steve after a while.

“What?”

“If you’re in the Land of the Dead and you eat their food, will something terrible happen?”

Belladonna stopped. This was a really good point. “I don’t know. . . .”

“Oh, well,” shrugged Steve. “If we ever find our way in, I reckon we’d better take sandwiches and juice. Just to be on the safe side.”

And with that, he strolled on, appraising each of the shops with a practiced eye.

The buildings on the High Street had been there for years; most of them had been built in the town’s heyday back in the nineteenth century and featured stone pilasters and marble cherubs, tall windows and elaborately carved stone eaves. Nearly all of the architecture was now concealed behind billboards and neon signs, though, and the overall impression was of a busy but scruffy street that had seen much better days. None of the shops seemed to afford much prospect of abandoned back rooms, however. In most of them it was obvious that every square inch had been given over to selling space in an effort to eke the maximum income out of the property. Belladonna and Steve crossed the road when they reached the top and headed back down the other side.

“So,” said Steve, “what’s a charnel sprite when it’s at home, then?”

“I don’t really know. They live in graveyards, but I’d never actually seen one till today.”

“Well, what do they look like?”

“Small,” said Belladonna. “Smaller than us, and sort of untidy and slightly purple.”

“Purple? Cool. What do they do?”

“She said that they wake people up after they’ve, you know, died.”

“Like zombies?” said Steve, perking up.

“No, not like zombies. At least I don’t think so. She said they wake them up and show them how to get to the Other Side.”

“Ooohh. Right.”

“What? What d’you mean, ‘Right’?”

It didn’t really make much sense to her; surely it couldn’t make sense to Steve?

“It was in a film I saw at my Gran’s,” he explained. “There were these ghosts, but they didn’t know they were ghosts, they thought they were alive and that the people who really were alive were ghosts. Someone had to tell them. It was a pretty boring film, mostly, but it picked up at the end.”

Belladonna nodded. No wonder he never got any homework done; he seemed to spend all his time reading comics and watching films.

They kept walking, but she had stopped looking for possible locations for the doorway to the Land of the Dead and had begun eyeing bakeries and take-aways with a hungry eye. She hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast—and that had only been a bowl of cereal. The smell of Cornish pasties drifted across the pavement, melding with the aroma of chop suey rolls and chicken korma. She was paying so little attention that she didn’t notice that Steve had stopped and was
looking at something across the street. She narrowly avoided bumping into him, regained her footing, and then followed his gaze.

He was staring at his parents’ electronics shop.

Evans Electrics occupied what had once been the town’s best theatre. There was an enormous new sign above the door, but you could still make out the marquee behind it. Belladonna remembered her mother attending protests when it was announced that the building was to be let out for retail. The theatre had been closed for years, but the idea of it being gutted to make a shop had galvanized the whole town and protesters had camped on the pavement outside for weeks. Mrs. Johnson had spent hours in the garage painting increasingly outraged placards, but it was all no use. No financial angel had appeared to rescue the old music hall and it had finally been approved for retail space and let out to Steve’s Mum and Dad for their electronics shop. Now what had been the lobby was full of shelf upon shelf of DVD players, CD combo units, and home theatre setups. Ranks of flat-screen TVs flickered at passersby, and toaster ovens and microwaves lurked at the back where uniformed ushers had once sold ice cream. It wasn’t what you could call a classy-looking place, and Belladonna’s Dad had frequently aired his opinion that most of the stock looked like it had fallen off the backs of trucks.

“What is it?”

Steve looked at her and smiled. “I know where there are loads of doors.”

They dodged traffic across the road and darted down an alley at the side of the shop. Steve dashed around the rear of the old theatre and tried the back door. It was locked.

“Not to worry,” he said, running over to where a small, dirty window looked down on the alley from about six feet above the pavement. “Give us a bunk up.”

“What? Steve, this is
your
shop. Why can’t we just go in the front?”

“Because my parents would have a cow. Come on!”

Belladonna made a basket with her hands; Steve put one foot in it and heaved himself up, grabbing the windowsill and dangling on one arm while he jiggled the sash with his free hand. The old latch slowly worked its way loose and the window slid open. Steve grinned at Belladonna and scrambled inside.

“Wait there!” he yelled, before vanishing into the darkness.

Belladonna wiped her hands on her jeans and hung about, visions of police stations dancing in her head. After a few moments there was the sound of bolts being slowly drawn back and the old door swung open.

“Get inside, quick!” Steve glanced nervously up and down the alley as Belladonna dashed inside.

As soon as the door was shut, Steve turned to Belladonna, suddenly serious.

“We have to be really quiet. If my parents find out we’re back here, I’ll be hung from the nearest lamppost.”

“Why?”

“I promised. Now, hush and follow me.”

He led the way down a narrow passageway that eventually turned a tight left-hand corner and widened out. Once they were away from the door, what little light there was vanished altogether. Steve put a hand up to the wall and felt his way along until he found a light switch. He flicked it on and a single bulb sparked to life halfway along, illuminating the dusty corridor and ranks of doorways on each side.

“Dressing rooms,” whispered Steve, before leading the way forward through the corridor and out to a wider space, where an old standard lamp stood near a row of about eight hefty ropes that descended from the darkness above and were tied off on large wooden rods. He turned on the lamp, which cast a pool of sickly light, illuminating an area of about four square feet and revealing a huge board of switches on the wall. He hesitated for only a moment before pushing a switch near the left-hand side. There was a flicker and the space in front of them was suddenly bathed in light.

Belladonna gasped. “It’s still here!”

“Well, sort of,” said Steve, leading the way out onto the stage. “The seats had to go.”

Below them, where the audience had once sat, was row upon row of boxed electronics. Belladonna stared
out into the dimly lit theatre. Above the ranks of boxes, she could just make out the faded glory of the dress circle. Paint hung in long strips from its decorated facade and most of the gold decorations had long since dropped off, but there was still enough of a breath of former glories to make her understand why her mother had spent so many long, cold days standing in front of the place and hanging about the corridors of the town council offices. She turned back to Steve.