Return to Groosham Grange (3 page)

“Hurry, young master,” Gregor insisted.

“All right,” David said. “I’m going.” He turned his back on the porter and walked quickly toward his classroom. But now he was certain. He had been listening to the voice of his sixth sense when he was down on the rocks—and hadn’t Groosham Grange taught him that the sixth sense was much more important than the other five?

Something was going on at the school. In some way it was connected to the Unholy Grail. And whatever it was, David was going to find out.

D
avid opened the classroom door nervously. He was ten minutes late, which was bad enough, but this was French with Monsieur Leloup, which was worse. Monsieur Leloup had a bad temper—hardly surprising considering he was a werewolf. Even on a good day he had been known to rip a French dictionary to pieces with his teeth. On a bad day, when there was going to be a full moon, he had to be chained to his desk in case he did the same to his class.

Fortunately, the full moon had come and gone, but even so, David walked gingerly into the room. His empty desk stared accusingly at him in the middle of all the others. Just as he reached it, Monsieur Leloup turned from the blackboard.

“You are late, Monsieur Eliot,” he snapped.

“I’m sorry, sir . . .” David said.

“Ten minutes late. Can you tell me where you have been?”

David opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. He could see Vincent out of the corner of his eye. Vincent had the desk behind his. He was pretending to read his book, but there was a half smile on his lips, as if he knew what was going to happen. “I was just out walking,” David said.

“Walking?” Monsieur Leloup sniffed. “I shall deduct three points from the standings list. Now will you please take your seat. We are discussing the future perfect . . .”

David sat down and opened his book. He had gotten off lightly and he knew it. Three points deducted still left him twenty-seven ahead. There was no way Vincent could catch up, no matter what happened in the last exam. He was fine.

Even so, David concentrated more than usual for the next fifty minutes just in case he was asked something, and he was relieved when the bell rang at five o’clock and the class was over.

He joined the general stream out of the class and down the corridor to the last lesson of the day. He found this one a lot more interesting: general witchcraft, taught by Mrs. Windergast. Even after a year at the school, David still hadn’t quite gotten used to the matron’s methods. Only a week before, he had gone to her with a headache and she had given him not an aspirin but an asp. She had fished the small, slithering snake out of a glass jar and held it against his head . . . an example of what she called sympathetic magic. David had found it a rather unnerving experience—although he’d been forced to admit that it worked.

Today she was discussing the power of flight. And she wasn’t talking about airplanes.

“The broomstick was always the favored vehicle of the sisterhood,” she was saying. “Can anyone tell me what it was made of?”

A girl in the front row put up her hand. “Hazelwood?”

“Quite right, Linda. Hazelwood is the correct answer. Now, who can tell me why some people believe that witches used to keep cats?”

The same girl put up her hand. “Because
cat
was the old word for broomstick,” she volunteered.

“Right again, Linda.” Mrs. Windergast muttered a few words. There was a flash of light, and with a little shriek, Linda exploded. All that was left of her was a puddle of slime and a few strands of hair. “It is never wise to know all the answers,” Mrs. Windergast remarked acidly. “To answer once is fine. To answer twice is showing off. I hope Linda will have learned that now.”

Mrs. Windergast smiled. She was a small, round woman who looked like the perfect grandmother. But in fact she was lethal. She had been burned at the stake in 1214 (during the reign of King John) and again in 1336. Not surprisingly, she now tended to keep herself to herself and she never went to barbecues.

“Linda was, however, quite right,” she continued. She pulled a broomstick out from behind the blackboard. “Witches never had cats. It was just a misunderstanding. This is my own ‘cat’ and today I want to show you how difficult it is to control. Would anyone like to try it?”

Nobody moved. All eyes were on Linda’s empty desk and the green smoke still curling above it.

Mrs. Windergast pointed. “Vincent King . . .”

Vincent stood up and moved to the front of the classroom. David’s eyes narrowed. Mrs. Windergast was obviously in a bad mood today. Maybe Vincent would say something to annoy her and go the same way as Linda. Or was that too much to hope?

“My broomstick is very precious to me,” Mrs. Windergast was saying. “I normally keep it very close to me—as do all witches. So this is very much an honor, young man. Do you think you could ride it?”

“Yeah—I think so.”

“Then try.”

Vincent took hold of the broomstick and muttered some words of power. At once the stick sprang to attention and hovered in the air, several feet above the ground. Gracefully, he climbed onto it, swinging one leg over it as if it were a horse. David watched, annoyed and showing it. It seemed there was nothing Vincent couldn’t do well. He had both feet off the ground now, hovering in space as if he had been born to it.

“Try moving,” Mrs. Windergast suggested.

Vincent concentrated and slowly rose into the air, perfectly balanced on the broomstick. Gently he curved round and headed over the blackboard, the handle ahead of him, the twigs trailing behind. He was smiling, growing in confidence, and David was half tempted to whisper the spell that would summon up a minor wind demon and knock him off balance.

But in the end there was no need. When things went wrong, they all went wrong at once. The broomstick wobbled, the end pitched up, Vincent cried out and the next moment he fell off and crashed to the floor with the broom on top of him.

“As you can see,” Mrs. Windergast trilled, “it’s not as easy as it looks. Is there any damage, Vincent dear?”

Vincent got stiffly to his feet, rubbing his shoulder. “I’m all right,” he said.

“I meant the broomstick.” Mrs. Windergast picked it up and cast a fond eye over it. “I never let anyone ride it as a rule,” she went on. “But it seems undamaged. Well done, Vincent. You may return to your seat. And now”—she turned to the blackboard—“let me try to explain the curious mixture of magic and basic aerodynamics that makes flight possible.”

For the next forty-five minutes, Mrs. Windergast explained her technique. David was sorry when the final bell went. He had enjoyed the lesson—Vincent’s fall in particular—and he was still smiling as he left the classroom. Linda followed him out. She had been reconstituted by Mrs. Windergast, but she was looking very pale and sickly. David doubted if she would ever make a decent black magician. She’d probably end up as nothing worse than a crossing guard.

There was a knot of people outside in the corridor. As David came out he saw that one of them was Vincent.

“That was bad luck,” Vincent said.

“What?” Maybe it was just an innocent remark, but already David felt his hackles rise.

“Losing three points in French. That narrows the gap.”

“You’re still a long way behind.” It was Jill who had spoken. David hadn’t seen her arrive, but he was glad that she seemed to have taken his side.

“The exams aren’t over yet.” Vincent shrugged and once again David was irritated without knowing why. Did he dislike Vincent just because he was his closest rival or was there something more? Looking at his easy smile, the way Vincent slouched against the wall—always so superior—he felt something snap inside.

“You looked pretty stupid just now,” he said.

“When?”

“Falling off the broomstick.”

“You think you could have done better?”

“Sure.” David wasn’t thinking. All he knew was that he wanted to goad the other boy, just to get a reaction. “You’re going to have to get used to coming in second,” he went on. “Just like in the race . . .”

Vincent’s eyes narrowed. He took a step forward. “There was only one reason I came in second . . .” he began.

He knew what David had done. He had felt the web slipping over his foot. And he was going to say it, now, in front of everyone. David couldn’t let that happen. He had to stop him. And before he knew what he was doing, he suddenly reached out and pushed Vincent hard with the heel of his hand. Vincent was caught off balance and cried out as his bruised shoulder hit the wall behind him.

“David!” Jill cried out.

She was too late. Without hesitating, Vincent bounced back, throwing himself onto David. David’s books and papers were torn out of his hands and scattered across the floor. Vincent was taller, heavier and stronger than David. But even as he felt the other boy’s hand on his throat, he couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself. He had wanted to get past Vincent’s defenses and he’d done it. He’d taken the upper hand.

Right now, though, Vincent’s upper hand was slowly strangling him. David brought up his knee, felt it sink into Vincent’s stomach. Vincent grunted and twisted hard. David’s head cracked against the paneling.

“What’s going on here? Stop it at once!”

David’s heart sank. Of all the people who could have happened along the corridor just then, Mr. Helliwell was unquestionably the worst. He was a huge man with wide shoulders and a round, bald head. He had only recently joined the school, teaching arts and crafts by day and voodoo by night. He came from Haiti, where he was apparently so feared as a magician that people actually fainted if he said “good morning” to them and for six months the postman had been too scared to deliver the mail—which didn’t matter too much as nobody on the island was brave enough to write. David had somehow found himself on the wrong side of Mr. Helliwell from the very start and this was only going to make things worse.

“David? Vincent?” The teacher looked from one to the other. “Who started this?”

David hesitated. He was blushing and it was only now that he realized how stupid he had been. He had behaved like an ordinary boy at an ordinary school. At Groosham Grange, there was no worse crime. “It was me,” he admitted.

Vincent looked at him but said nothing. Jill and the other onlookers seemed to have vanished. There were just the three of them left in the corridor. Mr. Helliwell glanced down at the floor. He leaned forward, picked up a sheet of paper and quickly read it. He handed it to David. “This is yours.”

David took it. It was the letter from his father.

“You started the fight?” Mr. Helliwell asked.

“Yes,” David said.

Mr. Helliwell considered. His gray eyes gave nothing away. “Very well,” he said. “This is going to cost you nine points. And if I see you behaving like this again, I’ll send you to the heads.”

Mr. Helliwell turned and walked away. David watched him go, then leaned down and picked up the rest of his books and papers. He could feel Vincent watching him. He glanced up.

Vincent shrugged. “Don’t blame me,” he said.

And then he was on his own. In one afternoon he had lost an incredible twelve points! His lead had gone down by almost half—from thirty to eighteen. At lunchtime he had been right at the top of the standings list, secure, unassailable. But now . . .

David gritted his teeth. There was only one more exam to go. It was his best subject. And he was still a long way ahead of Vincent. The Unholy Grail would be his.

Scooping up the last of his books, David set off down the empty corridor, the sound of his own footsteps echoing around him.

T
hat night David had a bad dream.

Vincent King was part of it, of course. Vincent laughing at him. Vincent holding the Unholy Grail. Vincent slipping out of the East Tower and disappearing like a wisp of smoke into one of the graves.

But there were other, more frightening things woven into the night canvas. First there were his parents—only they weren’t his parents. They were changing, transforming into something horrible. And then there was a face that he knew, looming over him. He would have been able to recognize it, but he was lying on his back, in pain, blinded by a fiery sun. And finally he saw the school, Groosham Grange, standing stark against a darkening sky. As he watched, a bolt of lightning streaked down and smashed into it. A great crack appeared in the stonework. Dust and rubble exploded out.

And that was when he woke up.

There were nine dormitories at Groosham Grange. The one that David slept in was completely circular, with the beds arranged like numbers on a clock face. Vincent had been put in the same room as him, his bed opposite David’s, underneath a window. Propping himself up on one elbow, David could see the other boy’s bed, clearly illuminated by a shaft of moonlight flooding in from above. It was empty.

Where could Vincent be? David glanced at the chair beside Vincent’s bed. Wherever he had gone, he had taken his clothes with him. Outside, a clock struck four. At almost exactly the same moment, David heard a door creak open somewhere below and then swing shut. It had to be Vincent. Nobody else would be up and about in the middle of the night. David threw back the covers and got out of bed. He would find out what was going on.

He got dressed quickly and crept out of the room. There had been a time when he would have been afraid to wander through the empty school in the darkness, but the night no longer held any fear for him. And he knew the building with its twisting corridors and sudden, plunging staircases so well that he didn’t even need to carry a flashlight.

With the wooden stairs creaking beneath his feet, he made his way to the ground floor. Which door had he heard open and close? Ahead of him, the main entrance to the school rose up about thirty feet, a great wall of oak studded with iron. The door was bolted securely from inside so Vincent couldn’t have passed through there. Behind him, going back underneath the staircase, a second door led into the Great Hall, where meals were served.