Part 16 (1/2)

”You never summoned us before, Daddy,” said Julia.

”This is rather special,” said Chrestomanci. He was holding his right hand up with his left one by now, and looking tired out. ”I need you to fetch your mother. Quickly.”

”We're holding them,” Mr. Saunders said. He was trying to sound encouraging, but he was nervous. The muttering crowd was coming nearer.

”No, we aren't!” snapped the old lady in mittens. ”We can't do anything more without Millie.”

Cat had a feeling that everyone was trying to fetch Millie. He thought he ought to help, since they needed her so much, but he did not know what to do. Besides, the dragon's flames were so hot that he needed all his energy not to get burned.

Roger and Julia could not fetch Millie. ”What's wrong?” said Julia. ”We've always been able to before.”

”All these people's spells are stopping us,” said Roger.

”Try again,” said Chrestomanci. ”I can't. Something's stopping me too.”

”Are you joining in the magic?” the dragon asked Cat. Cat was finding the heat of it really troublesome by now. His face was red and sore. But, as soon as the dragon spoke, he understood. He was joining in the magic. Only he was joining in on the wrong side, because Gwendolen was using him again. He was so used to her doing it that he barely noticed. But he could feel her doing it now. She was using so much of his power to stop Chrestomanci fetching Millie that Cat was getting burned.

For the first time in his life, Cat was angry about it. ”She's no business to!” he told the dragon. And he took his magic back. It was like a cool draft in his face.

”Cat! Stop that!” Gwendolen screamed from the crowd.

”Oh, shut up!” Cat shouted back. ”It's mine!”

At his feet, the little spring ran bubbling out of the gra.s.s again. Cat was looking down at it, wondering why it should, when he noticed a sort of gladness come over the anxious Family around him.

Chrestomanci was looking upwards, and a light seemed to have fallen across his face. Cat turned around and found Millie was there at last. He supposed it was some trick of the hillside that made her look tall as the apple tree. But it seemed no trick that she also looked kind as the end of a long day. She had Fiddle in her arms. Fiddle was draggled and miserable, but purring. ”I'm so sorry,” Millie said. ”I'd have come sooner if I'd known. This poor beast had fallen off the garden wall and I wasn't thinking of anything else.”

Chrestomanci smiled, and let his hand go. He did not seem to need it to hold back the crowd anymore.

They stood where they were, and their muttering had stopped. ”It doesn't matter,” he said. ”But we must get to work now.”

The Family got to work at once. Cat found it hard to describe or remember afterward just how, they did.

He remembered claps and peals of thunder, darkness, and mist. He thought Chrestomanci grew taller than Millie, tall as the sky-but that could have been because the dragon got extremely scared and Cat was kneeling in the gra.s.s to make it feel safer. From there he saw the Family from time to time, striding about like giants. Witches screamed and screamed. Warlocks and wizards roared and howled.

Sometimes there was whirling white rain, or whirling white snow, or perhaps just whirling white smoke, whirling and whirling. Cat was sure the whole garden was spinning, faster and faster. Among the whirling and the whiteness came flying necromancers, or Bernard striding, or Mr. Saunders, billowing, with snow in his hair. Julia ran past, making knot after knot in her handkerchief. And Millie must have brought reinforcements with her; Cat glimpsed Euphemia, the butler, a footman, two gardeners and, to his alarm, Will Suggins once, breasting the whiteness in the howling, spinning, screaming garden.

The spinning got so fast that Cat was no longer giddy. It was spinning rock-steady, and humming.

Chrestomanci stepped out of the whiteness and under the apple tree and held out one hand to Cat. He was wet and windswept, and Cat was still not sure how tall he was. ”Can I have some of your dragons'

blood?” Chrestomanci said.

”How did you know I'd got it?” Cat said guiltily, letting go of the dragon in order to get at his crucible.

”The smell,” said Chrestomanci.

Cat pa.s.sed his crucible over. ”Here you are. Have I lost a life over it?”

”Not you,” said Chrestomanci. ”But it was lucky you didn't let Janet touch it.” He stepped to the whirling, and emptied the whole crucible into it. Cat saw the powder s.n.a.t.c.hed away and whirled. The mist turned brownish-red and the humming to a terrible bell note that hurt Cat's ears. He could hear witches and warlocks howling with horror. ”Let them roar,” said Chrestomanci. He was leaning against the right-hand pillar of the archway. ”Every single one of them has now lost his or her witchcraft. They'll complain to their MPs and there'll be questions asked in Parliament, but I daresay we shall survive it.” He raised his hand and beckoned.

Frantic people in soaking-wet Sunday clothes came whirling out of the whiteness and were sucked through the broken arch like dead leaves in a whirlpool. More and more and more came. They sailed through in crowds. Out of the whirling many, Chrestomanci somehow collected the two Nostrums and put them down for a minute in front of Cat and the dragon. Cat was charmed to see one of his eagles sitting on Henry Nostrum's shoulders, pecking at his bald pate, and the other eagle fluttering around William, stabbing at the stouter parts of him.

”Call them off,” said Chrestomanci.

Cat called them off, rather regretfully, and they fell on the gra.s.s as handcuffs. Then the handcuffs were swept away with the Nostrum brothers and whirled through the archway with them in the last of the crowd.

Last of all came Gwendolen. Chrestomanci stopped her too. As he did so, the whiteness cleared, the humming died away, and the rest of the Family began to collect on the sunny hillside, panting a little butnot very wet. Cat thought the garden was probably still spinning. But perhaps it always did. Gwendolen stared around in horror.

”Let me go! I've got to go back and be queen.”

”Don't be selfish,” said Chrestomanci. ”You've no right to keep s.n.a.t.c.hing eight other people from world to world. Stay here and learn how to do it properly. And those courtiers of yours don't really do what you say, you know. They only pretend.” ”I don't care!” Gwendolen screamed. She held up her golden clothes, kicked off her pointed shoes, and ran for the archway. Chrestomanci reached out to stop her.

Gwendolen spun around and hurled her last handful of dragons' blood in his face and, while Chrestomanci was forced to duck and put one arm over his face, Gwendolen backed hastily through the archway. There was a mighty bang. The s.p.a.ce between the pillars turned black. When everyone recovered, Gwendolen was gone. There was nothing but meadow between the pillars again. Even the pointed shoes had gone.

”What did the child do?” said the old lady with mittens, very shaken.

”Sealed herself in that world,” said Chrestomanci. He was even more shaken. ”Isn't that so, Cat?” he said.

Cat nodded mulishly. It had seemed worth it. He was not sure he wanted to see Gwendolen again.

”And look what that's done,” said Mr. Saunders, nodding at the hillside.

Janet was stumbling down the slope, past Millie, and she was crying. Millie handed Fiddle carefully to Julia and put her arms around Janet. Janet sobbed heavily. The rest crowded around her. Bernard patted Janet's back and the old lady with mittens made soothing noises.

Cat stood on his own near the ruins, with the dragon looking inquiringly up at him from the gra.s.s. Janet had been happy in her own world. She had missed her mother and father. Now she was probably in this world for good, and Cat had done it. And Chrestomanci had called Gwendolen selfis.h.!.+

”No, it's not that, quite, really,” Janet said from the midst of the Family. She tried to sit down on the fallen block of stone, and got up quickly, remembering the way it was being used when she last saw it.

Cat had a very gallant idea. He sent for a blue velvet chair from Gwendolen's room and put it down on the gra.s.s beside Janet. Janet gave a tearful laugh. ”That was kind.” She started to sit in it.

”I belong to Chrestomanci Castle,” said the chair. ”I belong to Chresto--” Miss Bessemer looked at it sternly and it stopped.

Janet sat in the chair. It was a little wobbly because the gra.s.s was uneven. ”Where's Cat?” she said anxiously.

”I'm here,” said Cat. ”I got the chair for you.” He thought it was kind of Janet to look so relieved to see him.

”What do you say to a little lunch?” Millie asked Miss Bessemer. ”It must be nearly two o'clock.”

”Agreed,” said Miss Bessemer, and made a stately half-turn towards the butler. He nodded. The footman and the gardeners staggered forward with great hampers like laundry baskets which, when the lids were thrown back, proved to be full of chickens, hams, meat pies, ice cream, fruit, and wine.

”Oh, beautiful!” said Roger. Everyone sat around to eat the lunch. Most of them sat on the gra.s.s, and Cat made sure to sit as far away from Will Suggins as he could. Millie sat on the stone slab. Chrestomanci splashed some of the water from the bubbling spring over his face- which seemed to refresh him wonderfully-and sat leaning against the slab. The old lady with mittens produced a tuffet out of nowhere, which she said was more comfortable; and Bernard thoughtfully shook out the remains of the rope that Cat had left by the rock. It became a hammock. Bernard strung it between the pillars of the archway and lay in it, looking defiantly comfortable, even though he had the greatest difficulty keeping his balance and eating as well.

Fiddle was given a wing of chicken and took it into the apple tree to eat, out of the way of the dragon.

The dragon was jealous of Fiddle. It divided its time between breathing resentful smoke up into the tree and leaning heavily against Cat, begging for chicken and meat pie.

”I warn you,” said Mr. Saunders. ”That is the most spoiled dragon in the world.”

”I'm the only dragon in the world,” the dragon said smugly.