The Puzzle Ring (20 page)

Max laughed. ‘You are crazy.'

Just then, Linnet came in to say everyone's parents had come to pick them up and take them home. As Hannah scrambled to her feet, she saw a slinky grey shape slip out the library door. She scowled, not at all liking the idea that the bogey-cat had been listening to their conversation.

The next morning was the thirteenth anniversary of Robert Rose's disappearance. Linnet lit a fire in the drawing room, as if to comfort them, but it only served to show how dark it was outside, with an icy rain hammering against the windows. Everyone tried to be cheerful, for Hannah's sake, but it was a false charade. Roz barely managed to eat a thing, while Lady Wintersloe was white and drawn. Jinx prowled the room, spitting at anyone who came near and sharpening her claws on Lady Wintersloe's cherrywood antique chair. Even Hannah found it hard to swallow down more than a mouthful of Linnet's delicious hot cinnamon roll.

The phone shrilling made everyone jump as if stuck with a pin. Then Linnet came trotting in, a wide smile on her face. ‘It's Genie,' she announced. ‘She says she's taking Max and Donovan and Scarlett to the Winter Wonderland in Edinburgh for their birthdays, and do you and Hannah want to go too, Roz?'

‘It's freezing cold outside,' Roz said doubtfully.

‘I'll wear my new coat. Come on, Mum. It'll be fun. Please?'

The sun was setting over the loch as they drove home along the winding road, turning the water to liquid gold. The pine trees stood up stiff and black, casting elongated shadows, while above the mountains a spectacular stack of clouds was lit to an incandescent rose.

‘Look at that,' Donovan said. ‘If you painted that colour everyone would laugh at you.'

‘Do you think there's snow in those clouds?' Hannah was huddled under a thick warm rug, happy and tired after the long day in Edinburgh.

‘Maybe,' Max said. ‘It feels cold enough.'

‘I'd love a white Christmas,' Hannah said wistfully. ‘I've never even seen snow.'

‘Never seen snow?' Scarlett sat upright. ‘You're kidding!'

‘What's Christmas like in Australia?' Max asked.

‘Hot. Boiling hot. We usually go to the beach.'

‘Going to the beach on Christmas Day.' Scarlett shook her head, incredulous.

‘It's funny, though,' Hannah said. ‘Everyone still has snowmen and reindeers and fake snow on their Christmas trees, even though it's stinking hot. And some people have baked turkey too.'

‘Traditions can persist a very long time, even when people no longer understand the meaning behind them,' Roz said from the front seat. ‘Things like decorating the Christmas
tree and hanging Christmas lights—these all come from pagan traditions.'

‘I'll never forget my first Christmas here in Scotland,' Genie said. ‘I'd never seen snow before either, Hannah, and that year there were the worst blizzards. Fairknowe was snowed in, and we were all stranded.'

‘That was the year I was born, wasn't it?' Max said. His mother made a noise of agreement, leaning forward to study the road. Mist was rolling down from the hills, like a grey flannel curtain drawn by a giant hand. They drove into it, and within seconds loch and trees and stone walls were gone, and all the world was mist.

‘And me too. Thirteen years today since I was born, and my mother died.' Donovan's voice was very low and quiet. ‘It would have been somewhere around here that she died too.'

There was a long moment of silence. Hannah could almost hear the way everyone's hearts grew heavy. She would have liked to have put out her hand and touched Donovan, offering comfort, but she did not dare. The silence dragged on.

‘So don't they have snow where you came from, Genie?' she asked, trying to shield Donovan's grief.

‘No, never. It was always warm and sunny there. We used to swim all year round. There was a grotto, a cave under the sea, which we used to swim down to, called the Blue Hole, and the most amazing pillars and towers of rock. Figs and grapes grew everywhere, so we could pluck a handful whenever we wanted, and it was so safe no one locked their houses and we children could run quite free, exploring wherever we liked.'

‘It sounds like paradise,' Roz said. ‘Why did you ever leave?'

Genie shrugged. ‘Oh, the same old story. You know, fell in love, thought it'd last forever. But he turned out to be not so kind. Ancient history now.'

‘And you've never gone back?'

Genie shook her head. ‘Can't go back.' She didn't say any more. They drove in silence for a little while, the only light coming from the glowing dashboard.

It's dusk
, Hannah thought.
The thin time
. And she wondered to herself whether she really would go to the fairy hill tonight, at midnight, and try to cross through the doorway in the yew tree, the winter gate.

I have to go
, she thought.
If it doesn't work, I'll just have a cold and rather creepy walk through the woods at night. No harm done. But I bet it will work
. . .

She fell again into the familiar daydream of finding the puzzle ring and breaking the curse, and returning peace and joy to Wintersloe, and began to think about what she must take with her to the fairy hill. Her guitar, a blanket and some food, her walking-stick, and maybe a dagger from the downstairs hall . . .

A few lights prickled out of the mist ahead. Genie sighed as if in relief. The old truck began to labour up the hill. Suddenly the engine died. They came to a halt on the verge of the road. Genie exclaimed in dismay and wrenched the key in the ignition again and again. Nothing happened.

‘Heap of junk.' Genie slammed her hand on the steering wheel.

‘Do you want me to take a look under the bonnet?' Donovan said. An offer like this from any other thirteen year old boy would have had most adults snorting in amusement, but
Donovan had to help out in his father's car workshop all the time, and had built the motor for his bicycle all by himself.

‘That'd be great,' Genie said.

Everyone clambered out and stood, shivering and stamping their feet on the side of the road, watching as Donovan peered under the bonnet with the help of the torch in Genie's mobile phone. Mist swirled around them. It was so thick that Hannah could barely see Scarlett standing next to her, or the shape of the truck. Hannah turned to stare out across the loch. Slowly the string of lights that marked the village on the far shore was engulfed by the mist. Everything was deathly quiet. Hannah turned back, and could see nothing on either side of her. No dark hunched figures muffled in parkas and hats and scarves. No truck with its bonnet propped open. No narrow beam of light probing the engine. The mist had swallowed everything.

Hannah started forward a few steps. ‘Mum!' Her voice was weirdly muffled, as if she was shouting through a gag. ‘Mum! Donovan!'

No one answered.

Hannah stood still, her heart beating frantically. She strained her eyes to see, but it was as if she were blindfolded as well as gagged. A slow creeping horror stole over her. She stretched out her hands and carefully felt forward with her feet. There was rough ground under her feet, not the smooth, hard tarmac of the road. She could scarcely breathe for panic.
Don't be silly
, she told herself.
It's just the mist. Of course everyone's still here. You only turned away for a second. They're just a few more steps away
.

Hannah stumbled forward, feeling her way like a blind person. The silence and the darkness were terrifying. Then
she heard, distinctly, the flap of leathery wings right above her head. She ducked, and felt giant claws rake her back, as if seeking to wrest her off her feet. Hannah fell to her knees and crawled hastily away. She heard again the swoop of huge wings, and then a long drawn-out, high-pitched shriek that seemed to drill through her ears and into her brain. She cowered, covering her ears, and rolled away, feeling the cold breeze of movement past her ear. The mist swirled and eddied.

Shakily Hannah thrust her hands into her pockets, searching for the comforting shape of key and stone, but realised with a sharp drop of her heart that she had left them in the pockets of her cardigan.

Another screech sounded to her left. Behind her Hannah heard the drumming of hooves. Panting, terrified, she scuttled away, rocks and thorns tearing at her knees and the soft palms of her hands. The wings swept down above her. She glanced up and caught a glimpse of some giant bat-like creature with a fanged mouth and huge black eyes. Someone crouched on its back, amongst a tatter of black draperies and flying hair. Hannah caught her lip in her teeth and scrambled away. A sharp-tipped spear thudded into the ground only centimetres beyond her leg. Hannah lurched to her feet and ran, ducking and weaving, stumbling in the darkness.

Shrieks and screams and hullaballos filled the air all around her. Giant horses with flaming eyes galloped, massive hounds bounded, strange hunched figures ran and shouted and shook clubs and spears. No matter how Hannah ran and swerved, sobbing in exhausted terror, her pursuers were always panting and slavering on her heels.

The next moment the ground vanished under her feet. Hannah plunged into black icy water. It closed over her
head with a great green roar, thrusting her down, down, down. The cold penetrated to the very marrow of her bones, numbing every nerve in her body so that she could not move a muscle despite the screaming of her brain. She felt the weight of her heavy winter clothes and her boots dragging her downwards.

In a panic, Hannah wondered if this was how her father had died too. Chased into the loch by the Wild Hunt and left to drown.

The water was so cold. Cold as ice. Cold as death. Something was twining around her ankles, her wrists, her knees, dragging her down. It felt like bony fingers. Hannah struggled, her hair suspended all about her, blinding her, choking her. She kicked hard, glancing down desperately. She saw pale ghostly faces, dark malevolent eyes, brackish-green draperies like floating waterweed.

Hannah sobbed involuntarily, and water burst through her mouth and down into her lungs. Instinctively she tried to gasp a mouthful of air, and swallowed only water. Head spinning, eyes blind and ears deaf, she flailed her arms and legs, fighting against the merciless cold hands dragging her ever deeper. It felt like she was climbing an endless staircase into darkness.

Suddenly the dark water convulsed with a great splash. A heavy body hurtled down past her. Hannah had a confused impression of a face, broad and white, searching through the gloom. Then her clothes were seized. A dark blade flashed out, sweeping through the floating, tangling draperies. Shrill cries pierced the water, and Hannah's ankles and wrists were released. She kicked feebly, trying to help as she was dragged swiftly to the surface.

Her head broke through the surface of the loch. At last Hannah was able to gulp oxygen. Almost at once she sank again, but her rescuer dragged her up once more, panting for breath. Hannah grasped rocks with her outstretched hands and dragged herself out on the stones of the shore, shivering violently, gasping and sobbing and vomiting. But alive.

‘Are you all right?' a voice demanded. Hannah was turned roughly onto her side, and hands squeezed her, causing a gush of loch water to come bursting out of her mouth. She coughed and coughed, her throat feeling like she had swallowed acid. Dimly she realised it was Morgana Underhill, the owner of the fairy shop, who had plunged into the water to save her.

‘It's all right, I've got you now,' Miss Underhill said, smoothing back Hannah's wet tangle of hair. ‘What was it? Who lured you away? Was it a water-wraith?' There was a peculiar eagerness in her voice.

‘Something . . . they hunted me . . . drove me here . . .' Hannah could scarcely speak.

Miss Underhill nodded her head sharply. ‘Ah, the Wild Hunt. I thought I heard something. I was waiting and watching, but that damned mist, it came from nowhere.'