Spellfall (31 page)

“Looks like the woman was telling the truth,” said one of the officers. “No sign of anyone else creeping around in there – though I kept seeing ghosts all night, only to find there was no scent when I put my dog on it.”

“You think
you’ve
been seeing things?” said another. “Larry here swears he saw a unicorn!”

“I seen three,” Larry mumbled but the others were too busy laughing at him to hear.

Tim and Jo exchanged a glance.

“And what about the riot that was supposed to be going on right under our noses, then?” said another. “Hundreds of bodies? Ha! Pull the other one.”

“Bet it was them government people, jamming the signals.”

“Yeah, mighty secretive about what they had in that van of theirs, weren’t they?”

“Shh!”

The men fell silent as an Inspector approached. He pointed to the Thrallstone, and the men groaned. But they whistled for their dogs and went to investigate, obediently tapping the stone with their sticks and poking the undergrowth around its base. One shone his torch into the hole. The helicopter hovered overhead.

Jo drew a sharp breath. “What are they doing? You don’t think they can see Earthaven, do you?”

Tim stared at her. A chill rippled down his back at the thought of having to go through all that again.

But after a few minutes, the searchers returned shaking their heads. “That fancy infrared camera of theirs is up the creek, if you ask me,” one muttered. “You wouldn’t believe some of the wild goose chases they sent me on last night. Someone hiding in the stone, indeed! Have you seen the size of that hole? Couldn’t even fit my little finger in. They’ll be asking us to believe in magic swords next.” Which set them all off laughing again.

One of them noticed Tim and Jo were listening, and quickly straightened his face. “Hey, isn’t someone supposed to be taking these kids home? The poor mites look all done in to me.”

Chapter 20

REUNION

Saturday, November 7

~~*~~

It was almost a week before Natalie was allowed home from hospital. The doctors said she’d made a “miraculous recovery”, but wanted to keep her in a few extra days for observation.

They were the worst days of Natalie’s life, worse even than her imprisonment in the Lodge. She wanted to scream that she wouldn’t get sick again and they had to let her out but they wouldn’t have understood why, and screaming in hospital only brought another needle.

During this time, her magehound was a flickering, fuzzy presence at the edge of her thoughts. All night she lay awake whispering,
“K’tanaqui, K’tanaqui, K’tanaqui,”
under her breath in the hope he’d reply. But wherever he was, he couldn’t hear her. She thought about climbing out of the window while everyone else was asleep and going to look for him, but the memory of what her family had already been through kept her lying meekly in bed. Besides, she didn’t have any outdoor clothes, and running around scantily clad in the November fog would only have put her straight back in hospital again.

Dad and Julie visited every day. They told her Claudia would go to prison but she’d have the minimum sentence because of her cooperation with the doctors and the Ministry people. This cheered Natalie up a bit. The Caster woman had been punished enough by the loss of her familiar. It didn’t seem fair that she should be locked away too.

When the doctors eventually let her out on Friday afternoon, all Natalie could think of was starting the search for K’tanaqui. But Julie, Mr Marlins and Tim watched her every second, as if she might slip between the floorboards the moment they took their eyes off her. Then Jo came round to say Mrs Carter was taking her and Sarah to the RSPCA kennels tomorrow to choose a new puppy, and would Nat like to come? Julie looked doubtful but to Natalie’s surprise Mr Marlins said he thought it was an excellent idea and offered to drive them. At which Julie said she certainly wasn’t going to be left behind, Jo said Mr Carter was going too, and Tim said, hey, what about him?

In the end, the kennel visit turned into a real family outing. The Carters led the way, while Mr Marlins followed with Julie, Tim and Natalie in his sleek black car. This was a first for the Marlins family, but Natalie was too busy trying to hear K’tanaqui to appreciate this. As they drove, she stared hopefully out of the window, fingering the handful of unicorn mane that had replaced Itsy’s box in her anorak pocket. She didn’t notice the little smile on Julie’s face, nor the way Tim and Mr Marlins kept glancing at each other, and then at her, as if planning a surprise.

The kennels were at a farm about ten minutes’ drive from Millennium Green. The outbuildings had been converted into pens, and as soon as they opened their car doors, the excited yapping and whining and scrabbling claws of hundreds of dogs greeted them. Jo tugged her cap further over her eyes and stared at the dogs, a strange expression on her face, while Sarah immediately rushed to a pen full of squirming Labrador puppies and pushed her hand through the netting so they could lick her fingers.

Natalie barely noticed the puppies. She wiped a few drops of rain from her new glasses and made a quick search of the pens. But no white wolf-like mongrel flipped its tattered ear, no amber eyes blinked at her, no voice spoke in her head. She sighed. It had been too much to hope for.

“I want this one!” Sarah announced. “His eyes are exactly like Bilbo’s used to be – look!”

Mrs Carter glanced at Jo. “It’s your sister’s dog too, Sarah,” she said gently.

Jo shook herself. “It’s OK, let Sarah choose. I think I’ll go take a look round. Coming, Nat?” She walked quickly down the rows of pens, her shoulders stiff, face averted from her family. Natalie hurried after her, concern for her friend momentarily dislodging K’tanaqui from her thoughts. Tim came too.

They caught up with Jo in a long barn where older dogs and those recovering from illnesses were being kept warm. The girl was staring at a scruffy brown mongrel lying on its side in some straw. Natalie hesitated. Tim whispered, “She took it pretty hard. You should’ve seen her just after it happened.”

Jo heard them and looked round with a little smile. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not going to burst into tears or anything like that. I wanted to get you away from the mothers, that’s all.” She glanced round the barn to check they were alone and gave Tim a hesitant look. “Do you still remember?”

“Course I do! Nobody wipes Timothy Lockley’s memories!”

“Right.” Jo took a deep breath. “Then I think I know what happened to Hawk.”

“What?” said Natalie and Tim together.

“I’ve been thinking about what happened up at the Thrallstone, with the infrared camera? What if it
was
working properly? After all, the Boundary had shut by then and my watch was working again.”

“Don’t be silly.” Tim said, frowning. “They detected a body inside the stone, didn’t they? A
living
body.”

“Exactly.”

They both stared at her.

“It was probably one of the Spell Lords checking to see the gateway was closed properly,” Natalie said. But her stomach was doing strange things.

“If that’s so, then why doesn’t our technology detect people in Earthaven the rest of the time? No, listen, it all makes sense. You said transporting was risky, didn’t you Nat? And that no one can transport across the Boundary once it’s shut? If this Caster kid Merlin really did transport his father as far from the Heart as possible, mightn’t he have ended up inside the stone? It’s big enough, isn’t it?”

Tim started to grin, then shook his head. “Na, even I know that’s impossible. People can’t breathe inside stones. Worse luck, ’cause that hawk-man deserves it if anyone does.” He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck.

“How do we know?” Jo insisted. “The Thrallstone’s a place of power. It’s not like normal stone. Nat? What do you think? You know more about Earthaven than we do— Hey, what’s wrong?”

Natalie was growing colder by the second. Most of the dogs were standing up at the fronts of their cages now, panting and whining for attention; but she saw only a silver wolf with curling yellow fur, hurt and trapped, crying for her to rescue him.

“K’tanaqui,” she whispered, hugging herself. “What if it was
K’tanaqui
the camera detected inside the Thrallstone? That would explain why he’s so fuzzy and I can’t hear him any more.”

The other two glanced at each other. Tim mouthed,
“Now, see what you’ve done?”

“I’m sure it’s not K’tanaqui,” Jo said quickly. “Tim’s right. The camera must have been malfunctioning, that’s all.”

“No,” Natalie said, trying to think. “You’re right about the Boundary shutting. Their equipment would have been working again, and maybe their camera could sort of see inside it. I’ve got to get up there! Oh poor K’tanaqui, I’m so stupid, I should have thought.”

She was already running, out into the November drizzle, across the yard, past the astonished group of adults clustered around the puppy pen.

“Nat, wait!” Jo shouted, coming after her. She saw Tim pull Mr Marlins away from the others and whisper something in his ear. Julie hurried after them, demanding to know what was going on. There was just one building between Natalie and the wood now. She ran faster, not stopping to think how far it might be to the Thrallstone from the kennels, nor what might happen if she collapsed in the wood on her own.

She was almost past the building when emerald stars burst behind her eyes, forcing her to stop and clutch her head. When the stars cleared, she found herself staring at a notice on the door.

Jo panted up behind her. “You’re acting crazy, Nat! If you’re not careful, they’ll put you straight back in hospital again. At least let your dad drive you up there, instead of trying to finish yourself off like this.”

Then she saw what Natalie was looking at, and her eyes brightened with sudden understanding. “Veterinary Section? You don’t think—”

Slowly, her head itching inside, Natalie opened the door. They found themselves in a well-lit corridor that smelt of antiseptic. At the far end was another door, this one with a small square window near the top. People wearing green aprons and masks could be glimpsed moving about inside. Without hesitation, Natalie reached for the handle.

“Wait!” a uniformed woman said, hurrying up behind them. “You can’t go in there!” But Natalie had already ducked through the door, leaving Jo to explain.

The metallic smell of blood hit her, bringing memories of the battle. Her stomach clenched but she forced herself to stillness. A large silver dog was having an operation, stretched out under a green plastic sheet beneath bright lights. A tube ran from a bottle of anaesthetic into its muzzle, and a tattered ear flopped over the edge of the table. The vet and his assistants glanced round in surprise as Natalie burst in. One of the women frowned and came towards her, pulling off her mask and blood-spattered gloves.

Natalie stared at the table, relief surging from her toes, up her wobbly legs and into her heart. Her head blazed with a bright amber light. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and ended up doing both at once. “That’s my dog,” she told the veterinary nurse. “He’ll be all right, won’t he?”

The nurse’s initial anger melted to sympathy. She put an arm around Natalie’s shoulders and drew her gently to the door. “He’ll be fine, don’t worry. He was in a bad way when we found him, but we’ve operated and he’s got a strong heart. We thought he was a stray. What happened? Did he get hit by a car?”

“I lost him.”

The nurse steered her out of the operating theatre. “A handsome animal like that deserves a good home. To tell you the truth, the vet wasn’t very enthusiastic when we brought him in, him not being a young dog, but I had a strange feeling about that one from the start. He has such intelligent eyes, you’d almost think he was trying to talk. You can watch from out here, all right? I’m sure you understand we have to keep the operating theatre as sterile as possible.”

By now everyone was clustered in the corridor, all asking questions at once. Jo was trying her best to explain without giving anything away. Tim kept quiet, fingers hooked in his jacket pockets, though Natalie saw him fighting a smile. Julie raised an eyebrow at the sight of the magehound and murmured, “I was thinking more of a puppy.”

But Mr Marlins took one look through the window, linked an arm through Julie’s and smiled at the nurse. “Yes, that’s him all right. We’ll take him home as soon as he recovers from the anaesthetic – if that’s all right with you, Nat?”

Natalie could only nod dumbly. As her father led the others back outside, she pressed her nose and palms against the window of the operating theatre and smiled through her tears.

“I know you can’t hear me, K’tanaqui,” she whispered. “But I promise we’ll visit Earthaven soon. We’ll go to see Lady Atanaqui in the Heart and tell her everything, maybe take Dad along too. I might even let Merlin show us what he’s done with the Root System. You concentrate on getting better, and I’ll take you for walks in the river meadows to get your strength back. You might have to put up with Jo’s new puppy, and you’ll have to pretend to be an ordinary dog for a while, but I’m sure you’ve done that before.”