Lily (9 page)

They raced along the passage to the orangery, flinging the glass doors open, and stumbled out through the night gardens. It was a moonlit night, but still the overgrown garden seemed full of confused and disturbing shapes, which only resolved themselves into familiar landmarks as they dashed past.

Lily risked a glance back at the house, its dark bulk shining here and there with tiny lights. One of the lights was moving now across the dining room windows.

‘She’s gone to Mama. They’ll be after us any minute,’ she hissed to Georgie. ‘Run faster!’

But Georgie had stopped dead with a sharp little gasp, as a bulky figure rose up in front of them.

Lily tried not to scream. How had Marten – or was it Mama already? – ended up in front of them?

But then the dark form came closer, and she realised it was too small for Mama or Marten, and the strange growths on either side of it were baggage – hers and Georgie’s.

Peter stuffed Georgie’s bag into her arms, made a strangled, urgent sort of noise, and jerked his head to tell them to hurry and follow him down a narrow little path through the gorse bushes.

‘Is this the quickest way?’ Georgie asked him, but of course he was in front of her, and it was dark, so he didn’t answer. ‘It looks like we’re just walking into the bushes. Lily, this can’t be right.’

‘Shh. Peter knows where he’s going. And I bet Mama doesn’t know this path. It goes straight down to the cliff edge. I didn’t know he meant to come and help us,’ Lily gasped out, as they chased Peter through the gorse. The path was so narrow it looked as if had been worn there by the rabbits, and the spiky gorse seized at their hair and their dresses.

‘There’s a light coming out of the orangery door. Lily, come on!’ Georgie seized Lily’s hand and pulled her on faster. ‘We can’t be caught, we just can’t. Mama will know we’ve been snooping. Who knows what they’ll do to us both.’

‘They can’t risk losing both of you,’ Henrietta pointed out. ‘Whatever the plan is, clearly they need a child.’

‘I’d rather be dead,’ Lily muttered. She said it without properly thinking, but as they blundered on through the gorse in dismayed silence, she realised it was true. Lily could imagine nothing worse than to be bound in a spell the way Georgie had been. Days seemed to have flowed past her sister like water, marked only by those frightened moments when she’d dimly seen that something was wrong. But those strange glimpses had never lasted long, and as they swam away from her, she’d been left to struggle on, alone and forgetful.

At last they came out of the gorse thicket and onto the cliff path itself, its wide stone steps carved into the side of the island by the first Powers who’d built Merrythought. The boathouse sat at the bottom of the path, half built into the cliff itself, and protecting the family’s boats from the wild seas.

The path petered out as they reached the jetty. Lily put Henrietta down, fumbled in her dress pocket for the boathouse key, and unlocked the door with fingers that suddenly fumbled and slipped. At last she managed to haul it open, its creak echoing eerily in the black, watery space beyond the doors.

‘I can’t see…’ Lily whispered worriedly. ‘Where’s the boat? We should have brought a lantern.’

‘Oh!’ Georgie sounded embarrassed. There was a moment of muttering, and then the boathouse was suddenly a place of ripples and shadows, as a soft silvery light glowed from Georgie’s hands.

Peter made a frightened gasping noise, and Lily sighed admiringly. So useful, and so pretty. Perhaps Georgie could even teach her… Then she remembered they were running for their lives, and turned back to look for the little rowing boat she’d seen the butler use the one time she remembered him crossing to the mainland.

It floated almost at her feet, an oily puddle of water slopping disconcertingly around its boards as the sea rocked it up and down.

‘There’s water in it,’ Henrietta pointed out gloomily. ‘But it seems to be the best we have. Hurry. I can hear voices on the cliff top.’

Lily quickly undid the ropes that tied the boat to the metal rings on the jetty, and Henrietta jumped onto one of the wooden seats, skidding across it and digging in her claws with a whimper.

Peter threw Lily’s bag in, and flapped his hands at Georgie – clearly he didn’t dare touch her.

Georgie stepped into the boat, flinching as the water soaked into her stockings, and Lily climbed after her, leaving Peter to push them off. She caught his hand as he bent to shove them away. ‘Won’t you come? Please?’

But he only shook his head, and pointed upwards, making angry faces at her.

Lily’s eyes filled with tears. She had not cried at the thought of leaving home, but Peter was the only friend she’d had, for so many years. ‘You have to hide then. Don’t let them see that you helped us!’

Peter nodded, and pushed the boat out towards the doorway while Lily fumbled for the oars. He groaned in panicked frustration as she tried to get them into the rowlocks, and then jumped into the water after them, stumbling along waist-deep to shove the boat further out into the true sea.

‘Thank heavens it’s calm,’ Georgie whispered, staring fearfully at the rolling water ahead of them.

‘Thank you!’ Lily called softly back to Peter, as she dipped the oars into the water. ‘I’ll come back for you,’ she added in a whisper. ‘I hope…’

Her last sight of him was a wet bedraggled figure – much like the smaller, thinner child she’d seen that first time three years before. He waved once, and then ducked quickly underneath the jetty, moulding himself against the pilings in the darkness.

‘Do you know how to do that?’ Georgie murmured in surprise, watching Lily struggling with the oars.

Lily shook her head. ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘But we’re moving, that’s what matters. I don’t mind where we end up, as long it’s away from here. Can you see anyone? Are they on the path?’

‘There’s a lantern, I think. Stop glowing, Georgie,’ Henrietta commanded. ‘We don’t want them to see us.’

Georgie looked down at her hands worriedly, and then leaned over the side and dipped them in the water. The light faded slowly away, leaving them out on the sea in black night. Suddenly the noise of the water seemed louder, slapping against the side of the boat, dripping and splashing as Lily tried to row.

‘I can see lights in the other direction, too.’ Henrietta had scrambled up to the little seat in the prow of the boat, and was staring ahead of them. ‘That must be the village. Keep going, Lily! Faster!’

‘I’m trying, but the oars don’t seem to want to go where I want them to go.’

‘Here, I’ll take one.’ Georgie wriggled forward, trying not to tip the boat, and sat next to her, taking the right-hand oar. Squashed together on the narrow wooden seat, Lily felt a sudden surge of happiness, one she almost felt she had no right to when they were running for their lives. But she had Georgie back, close enough to touch.

‘Lily, watch out! You’re about to drop that,’ her sister hissed crossly. ‘Listen, we have to do this together. Dip your oar in. Pull…pull…pull…’

‘We’re getting closer to the village,’ Henrietta reported. ‘
Oof!
’

‘What’s the matter?’ Lily didn’t dare turn round to look at her. ‘Henrietta, what happened?’

‘The sea’s getting rougher,’ a small, rather spluttery voice told her. ‘A wave came over the front and splashed me.’ There was a scrabble of paws as Henrietta came back into the main part of the boat.

Lily stopped concentrating quite so hard on the rhythm of the oars, and looked around. Although it was still so dark, her eyes had adjusted a little, and she could see shapes, as though there were different shades of black. The waves were definitely higher.

‘This isn’t natural,’ Henrietta said suddenly. ‘It was almost a flat calm when we set out, and now this? This is a spell. Your mother has bewitched the sea.’ Her voice had dropped to a half-whimper, and Lily realised with a jolt that the dog was scared. But seconds later Henrietta had wriggled past her, and was up on the bench seat in front of the girls, her paws on the coaming, barking defiantly at the water that slopped over her as the waves grew taller, and at the unseen magician on the beach.

Almost in answer, a wind began to shriek around the boat, whipping the waves up even higher, so that the boat plunged and spun around.

‘Pull the oars in,’ Lily cried. ‘Henrietta, get down, you’ll be swept overboard,’ she called to the little black dog, who was still perched at the side in a frenzy of barking – but Henrietta was so angry she didn’t seem to notice Lily’s voice, or the water that swept past her, swallowing her angry barks.

Lily crawled forward against the wind to try to grab her, but Georgie caught her skirt. ‘Lily, you have to get down, the waves will take you!’

‘I have to get Henrietta!’ Lily screamed in her sister’s ear.

‘Then I’m holding on to you!’ Georgie yelled back. ‘I’ll hold the seat and you, while you grab her.’ She seized Lily’s ankle and gripped it tightly, all the while muttering the words of a spell that Lily didn’t think was working.

Lily reached out and tried to catch Henrietta, but the little dog bounded away, skittering across the seat to the other side of the boat to bark furiously at the walls of water on the other side.

‘Come back!’ Lily wailed, tears filling her eyes once more. She lunged after Henrietta, but the boat tipped, and she found herself hanging half out into the water.

‘Lily!’ she heard Georgie scream after her, and she wriggled back a little, sobbing, and watched in the darkness as her silvery tears fell into the sea.

‘That was clever,’ an interested voice said from by her shoulder. ‘Did you do it on purpose?’

Lily sat up, and caught the glint of Henrietta’s huge black eyes in the darkness.

‘It stopped,’ she murmured.

Georgie was uncurling herself from the bottom of the boat. ‘What did you do? I was trying, but I’m sure it wasn’t me.’

‘She cried,’ Henrietta said smugly. ‘When her tears hit the water, she broke your mother’s spell. You’re rather good at breaking spells, Lily.’

‘The storm swept us closer to the mainland, look!’ Georgie pointed ahead. The sea was thumping against a rock-strewn beach, and the current seemed to be pulling the little boat onto the shore. They sat huddled together, shivering in their soaking wet clothes, as the friendly waves swept them closer in. At last, there was a soft crunching sound, and the boat grounded on the sand.

Lily climbed over the side, hardly noticing the water splashing round her boots, and looked around them. The lights from the village up on the top of the cliff were going out now, and the darkness was so thick she could almost touch it. She heard a splash as Georgie climbed out of the boat too, and went wading up onto the beach. Lily leaned back over the boat. ‘Shall I lift you?’ she asked Henrietta. ‘It’s still up past my ankles.’

There was no answer.

‘Henrietta, what is it? I won’t let you get wet.’ Lily laughed. ‘I know you’re soaked already, but it’s different jumping into it.’

There was a scuffling noise, and Henrietta came closer, and nuzzled her hand. ‘I don’t know if I can.’

Lily ran a hand over her damp fur. ‘Why?’

‘I’m a family dog. Part of your family, your magic. I belong in the house, in that portrait. This is a Merrythought boat still. But once I step onto the land…’

Lily stopped stroking, and stared at the little lump of darker night that was Henrietta. She had known her for only a day and a half, and she couldn’t imagine what she would do if the pug disappeared. ‘What would happen to you?’ she stammered. ‘Will you just go back to the painting? Why didn’t you say?’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference.’ Lily could feel Henrietta’s shrug. ‘You had to go. And you needed me to help you get away, even if all I did was make you cry at just the right moment.’

‘You can’t.’ Lily put her arms round Henrietta tightly, making sure not to pull her away from the boat. ‘You can’t go back to that painting. I won’t let you.’

‘I might not. I simply don’t know.’ Henrietta sounded offhand, as though she was discussing whether or not to drink a cup of tea, but Lily could hear her voice shaking, just a little.

‘Lily! Are you coming?’ Georgie splashed back towards them. ‘Shall we walk up to the village? It’s awfully dark, I don’t know what would be best… We don’t want anyone to see us, but it would be easy to get lost…’

‘I think we should spend the night here,’ Lily murmured distractedly. She couldn’t bear the thought of taking Henrietta out of the boat in the dark. She wanted to see her again, properly, at least once more.

‘At dawn,’ Henrietta whispered in her ear, and Lily nodded.

Lily woke, cramped and frozen, with Henrietta curled in a ball of black fur on her lap. Georgie was lying next to her, with her head resting on the sodden bag of clothes she’d brought with her. The boat was rocking gently as the tide came in, and the sky was a soft rose-pink, streaked with yellow as the sun came up. She gazed wearily over the side of the boat to the beach. Soft biscuit-brown sand spread up to grassy dunes, so unlike the grey rocky cliffs of Merrythought that it seemed another world. How could the two places exist, less than two miles from each other?

The world across the sea had come to seem almost imaginary, since Lily had dreamed of it for so long. Now that she was here, and it was so clearly real, Lily found herself wondering if she were the dream. A strange, half-grown magician’s child, with no proper understanding of magic. She sounded unreal, even to herself.

‘Shall we try?’ Henrietta had woken, and was standing on her lap, digging in her sharp little claws as she fidgeted anxiously back and forth.

Lily nodded, wriggling out from under Georgie, and leaving her sister sleeping. Stretching out her cramped legs, she scrambled over the side of the boat, hissing at the cold of the water as it sloshed around her ankles. Then she held out her arms to Henrietta, and the little dog closed her eyes and leaped.

Lily hugged her tightly, standing there in the water, waiting for her arms to suddenly be empty. But it didn’t happen. When she opened her eyes, Henrietta was still there, looking slightly surprised.

‘Well. Good.’ She shook her ears in relief. ‘Perhaps it’s because I’m with a Merrythought girl,’ she told Lily, licking her cheek. ‘Shall we go and explore?’