Spellfall (17 page)

Someone had come upstairs after him. He got ready to yell something rude. But the voice that followed the knock wasn’t Mrs Carter’s.

“Tim? You in there?”

Jo.

“Go away.”

The handle rattled. “Tim, open up! We have to talk.”

He scowled at the door, then struggled off the bed. Hissing with the pain, he limped to the door, dragged Jo through and quickly locked it again. She tripped over his boots, started to tell him what she thought of people who left their stuff all over the floor, then saw his feet.

“What on earth happened to you?” she said.

“Been on a midnight walk in the woods, what do you think? Why’s your mother here? Where’s mine gone? And where’s Mr Marlins?”

“That’s what everyone would like to know.” Jo plonked herself on the end of his bed and frowned. “Apparently, he took his car out on Wednesday night when your mother was over at our house and he hasn’t come back since. You were here. Didn’t he say anything to you?”

Tim bit his lip. His head was still swirling with muddled images of the twisted stone, the white-haired man with the green eyes... He shook them away. “When does he ever speak to me? Maybe he’s gone off lookin’ for Nat?”

Jo gave him a sharp look. “That’s what the police said. Your mother’s terribly upset, though. Kept going on about him drinking and driving, until the police came. Then she shut up pretty quick. Can’t have wanted to get him into trouble. She’s down at the station now, giving them some photos of you to go with the ones of Nat. She was convinced you’d been kidnapped too. My mother’s phoning to let her know you’re home.” Her voice changed. “It was my fault, you know, making Nat try those stupid skates. If she’d been able to run away, they mightn’t have caught her—” She stared at the window.

Tim followed her gaze. Across the river, Unicorn Wood hung above the roofs of the town like a soggy red and gold blanket whose colours had run in the wash. The top of the hill was wreathed in mist. He shuddered. Wednesday night seemed like a bad dream now that he was safe in his own room. Except he had the blisters and two lost days to prove it.

“It wasn’t your fault, silly.” Surprising himself, he leant across and touched Jo’s arm. “Something very weird is going on in Unicorn Wood. I think it might have something to do with Nat—”

Before he could defend himself, the girl was on top of him, bearing him back across the bed. She grasped his sore ear and twisted hard. “You
bastard!
If you’ve got anything to do with Nat’s kidnapping, I’ll— I’ll—”

Evidently unable to think of a suitable fate, she settled for giving his ear another wrench.

“Ow!” Tim roared, catching her wrists. “I didn’t have nothing to do with it! What do you think I am? Gerroff me! Someone’ll hear us.”

This got through to her. Blushing, she let go of his ear and scrambled off the bed. She flicked her fringe out of her eyes and gave him a measuring look. “I knew your disappearing like that wasn’t a coincidence. All right, tell.”

Tim sat up, clutching his ear. Her attack had set his head off again and he’d knocked his blisters on the end of the bed. He couldn’t decide which hurt the most. “You won’t believe it if I do.”

“Tell!”

Reluctantly, he told her all he could remember from the moment Mr Marlins had screeched out of the drive on Wednesday evening to the moment he’d woken in the shadow of the weird, twisted stone. He left nothing out. With every word he expected Jo to laugh and rush out to tell everyone Timothy Lockley had gone totally loopy. But she listened in silence. He could hardly believe it when he looked up and saw her still standing by his window, frowning.

“You don’t think I’m crazy?” he said.

She gave him a tight smile. “No more than usual.” She began to pace up and down. “It all fits. Nat was convinced something strange happened to her on Saturday at the supermarket and what you’ve told me isn’t any weirder. She saw a man putting what he told her was a spell into a recycling bin. You say Mr Marlins thought the Spell Lord had taken Nat but the Spell Lord claimed the Casters had her and they’re some kind of wizards too, right?”

Tim nodded. “I think so.”

“So the man in the car park must have been a Caster. And if he was recycling his spells there, he must live nearby. The only question is where?”

“The old lodge,” Tim said, startling himself.

“What?”

Tim spoke slowly, dredging the memories from some dark, treacly place in his head. “One of the Spell Lord’s men mentioned a spellclave of Casters in some old lodge about half a mile from the Thrallstone.”

“That’s it, then! That’s where she is!” Jo leapt to the door, eyes flashing. “We must tell the mothers, tell the police—”

Tim looked up in alarm. “Uh-uh! D’you really expect me to tell the police what I just told you? Forget it! They’ll think I’ve flipped. Either that or they’ll arrest me for murdering Mr Marlins.” He laughed. “I’d like to murder him, actually. When I think of the way he abandoned me up there.”

“We’ve
got
to, Tim!” Jo was already unlocking his door. Her voice hardened. “Whoever those people are, they killed Bilbo. Nobody kills my dog and kidnaps my best friend and gets away with it. It might be a good idea to keep the spells out of it but we have to get someone to search that lodge. If you won’t tell them, I will.”

“But how do we know it’s the same spellclave that took Nat?”

“Must be. How many spellclaves could there be in Millennium Green? Anyway, even if they haven’t got her, they might know who has.”

“Oh fine, like they’d just tell us.” But Tim sighed and crawled off the bed. Once Jo got an idea into her head, she didn’t let go. He pushed the door shut before she could rush out and storm the place single-handed. “OK, but we need to get our story straight. If I can’t tell the truth, I’ve got to invent something else.”

Jo flashed him a grin. “Shouldn’t be too hard, then. You’ve a reputation for the best excuses in the book.”

*

Finally, they agreed on a semi-true story whereby Mr Marlins had taken Tim up to the wood to help search for Nat because he’d received an anonymous phone call that claimed a little girl had been seen wandering alone up there. They had got separated in the fog and when Tim found the place where they’d parked the car, it had gone. He’d slipped down a gully in the dark and hit his head on a stone. That would account for the strange bruises he’d acquired on his temples. When he came to, he’d had to walk five miles home.

Tim steeled himself for a yelling match. But what happened was much worse. His mother actually hugged him right in front of Jo and Mrs Carter, making his ears burn. Then she wiped her eyes, pulled out a map and demanded Tim show her the exact route Mr Marlins had taken on Wednesday night. He tried his best. But the map seemed to bear no resemblance to the roads they had raced along in the dark and the fog. In the end, he shook his head in defeat. “It’s just not right,” he said.

“You
must
remember, Timothy!” she said. “You found your way back, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t feeling too good. Maybe I got concussion or something?”

Wrong thing to say. His mother’s exasperated expression immediately melted into one of concern. She prodded his bruises, making him wince. “Oh God, I should have thought. Do you feel sick at all? We ought to take you to hospital for a check up.”

It was Jo who rescued him. Pointing to the map, she said in a bright tone, “There’s a house marked right in the middle of the wood! It looks really isolated. Maybe that’s where they’re holding Nat? I don’t see a standing stone near it, though—”

Tim had had to dig her in the ribs, but at least she’d taken his mother’s mind off hospitals.

Eagerly, Julie looked at the map. Then her shoulders sagged and she sank into a chair. “We’re all overtired,” she said. “Timothy, go on upstairs and run yourself a bath. There’s some antiseptic cream in the cabinet for your cuts. We’ll see how you’re feeling later.”

“But the lodge!” Jo said. “Aren’t you going to tell the police? What if Nat really is up there?”

“It’s the first place they looked, Joanne,” Mrs Carter said gently. “That old house is boarded up, has been for years. No one lives there and there was no sign of squatters when the police searched it.”

“But what if they’ve taken Nat there since?” Tim said. “And even if she’s not there, what if Mr Marlins found the place and fell down some rotten stairs and broke his leg or something?” Catching the expression on his mother’s face, he added quickly, “I mean he might have knocked himself out like I did, mightn’t he? If no one lives up there, we ought at least go up and see if he needs help.”

His mother sighed. “Your stepfather’s a grown man, Timothy. You have to understand the police aren’t worried about his disappearance, at least not in the same way they’re worried about Natalie.” She looked at Mrs Carter and an unspoken fear passed between the two women. “I feel a lot better knowing he set out to look for her, though. And that he wasn’t drunk at the time. That means a lot to me. Try not to worry too much, love.”

Her words were brave but Tim sensed the panic underlying them. “He could’ve phoned you,” he said fiercely. “It’s not fair of him to let you worry like this.”

Julie looked hard at him for a moment. Then she rested a hand on his hairless scalp. “You’re a good boy, Timothy, no matter what your stepfather thinks. When this is all over, things are going to be different, I promise. Sometimes it takes a crisis like this to bring families together.”

*

Bring families together? Ha! That was a joke.

Tim ran the water as hot as he could bear it, yelled as it lapped over his raw blisters, then sank back with a sigh and watched the steam slowly thicken near the ceiling. He half hoped his stepfather
was
lying hurt in a ditch somewhere. Except that would upset his mother.

He shook his head. Thralls. Spell Lords. Earthaven. Casters. Spellclaves. What had he got himself into?

He must have drifted off because when a knock at the door roused him the water was cold. He pulled the plug and quickly towelled himself, avoiding his head and feet. “Just a minute!” he called.

There was a giggle outside the door. “Haven’t you finished in there yet? You’re worse than a girl! Your mother sent me up to help with your feet.”

Tim tugged on his jeans in alarm. “I thought you’d gone home! I can manage.”

Another giggle. “She doesn’t seem to think so.” Jo’s voice lowered. “But that’s not the only reason I’m here. I’ve got an idea how we can rescue Nat.”

Reluctantly, Tim unlocked the door.

Before he knew it, Jo was kneeling on the mat with one of his feet in her lap. “I’ve got it all worked out,” she said as she smothered his blisters in cream. “If no one will believe us we’ll just have to search the lodge ourselves and find some evidence that’ll convince them. We’re going to need help, though. If there are only two of us, we could disappear as easy as Nat. But we’d be safe in a group. I thought of Gaz’s gang.”

Tim snatched his foot away. “Are you crazy? Gaz’d never help! Maybe you’ve forgotten what you did to him at school but he hasn’t. He’s not the forgiving type.”

Jo’s eyes flashed. “I’m not scared of Gaz!”

“Well, you should be! He’s bigger and stronger than he was when you thumped him that day and he’s dying for a chance to have his revenge. You stay away from him.”

Jo laughed and tugged his foot back into her lap. “Timothy Lockley! I do believe you care!” She slapped on more cream.

“Anyway,” Tim said, “we can’t just go barging in there on our own. If Nat’s kidnappers are in the lodge, we could get into a lot of trouble. And your mother’s hardly likely to let you go running around in the woods after what happened to Nat.”

This earned him a scathing look. “I thought you liked trouble? You’re always in some, aren’t you? But I didn’t mean we should try to rescue Nat ourselves, stupid. We’ll just see if she’s there or not. As to letting us go up there, I’ve already thought of that. You can offer to take me to the Hallowe’en Disco at the rowing club tomorrow night. That way our parents won’t worry if we’re late home. We can hide our bikes in the old boat shed. I’ll borrow my dad’s mobile – he never uses it Saturday nights – and we’ll call the police as soon as we find anything. We’ll be there and back before the disco ends. Promise.”

“Hold on!” Tim pulled his foot away again and nearly overbalanced into the bath. “You’re not seriously thinking of wandering round Unicorn Wood at
Hallowe’en?
”

Jo grinned. “That’s the beauty of my plan. We dare Gaz and the others to enter a haunted house in Unicorn Wood at Hallowe’en. They’ll have to do it or lose face.” Her eyes sparkled. She was looking forward to this, Tim realized.

He swallowed. “But Nat’s kidnappers are some kind of wizards! They’ll be up to all sorts of horrible things at Hallowe’en.”

“Not scared, are you?”

Yes! Tim wanted to say. Instead, he mumbled, “Ow! Watch what you’re doing.”

“Think what poor Nat’s going through,” Jo said then. “We can’t just abandon her to her fate. If you won’t come with me, I’ll go alone.”

Tim stared at the thick fringe that had flopped into her eyes again, at the determined set of her jaw. She wasn’t bluffing.

He thrust his last encounter with Gaz to the back of his mind and sighed. “The Heads meet by the fountain in the precinct at six-thirty, Saturday nights. We’ll dare them to do it then, but only if you promise to let me do the talking. Absolutely no mention of spells or wizards or Earthaven, or they’ll laugh in our faces. And if Gaz says no, you come away with me, no arguing, and we forget the whole thing. Agreed?”

“Agreed!” Jo flashed him a smile.

Tim considered her. “I’ll have to walk five miles in those boots again some time,” he said mischievously.

She coloured and scrambled up from her knees. At the door, she flung the flattened tube of cream at him. “Here, you can finish them yourself! Remember to wear your running shoes tomorrow night, tough guy!”

Chapter 13

IN THE HEART

Friday night, October 30