The Watching Wood (14 page)
Authors: Erika McGann
Behind her, a pattern followed on the fissured rock. Wet footsteps left by invisible feet.
Grace was losing the feeling in her legs but was too anxious to move. She sat on the stone floor of the turret, her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them.
When three moons have set
. The Ferryman’s words kept echoing in her mind. Moonlight drifted across the floor; the third moon was passing.
Delilah had been gone for ages. The tiny girl had safely glided from one of the tower windows to the wild-grown grounds below. The others had watched her creep into the building, and hadn’t heard or seen anything since. The night was running out and they had a boat to catch.
Suddenly, there was a
c-clunk
of a key in the lock, and the door swung open. Grace’s heart leapt when she saw Delilah in the doorway; the tiny wood nymph was perched on her
shoulder, with Gaukroger and Aura standing behind.
‘We have to hurry,’ Aura said urgently. ‘It’ll be sunrise soon. Come on.’
Grace pushed Una ahead of her, starting down the spiral stone steps. Behind her she heard Gaukroger’s voice, low and serious.
‘I’m sorry about before. I had to–’
‘Thank you.’
Grace snatched a glance back, and saw Adie smile and take his hand.
‘You can hide in the library until morning,’ Aura said, taking furtive looks up and down the corridor when they reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Then sneak out when everyone’s in the dining hall. You don’t want to go now; you don’t want to be outside the castle walls in the dark.’
‘We have to get to Madame Three’s room first,’ Grace said. ‘There’s something there we really need.’
‘That’s crazy,’ Gaukroger said. ‘What do you need from Madame Three?’
‘A blue rose. It’s … it’s hard to explain.’
‘We need it to get home,’ said Adie. ‘It’s payment for the Ferryman.’
Gaukroger’s face fell. ‘Then it’s true.’
‘We’re not bad people,’ she said, taking his hand again. ‘We didn’t even want to come here, we just got sucked into the Trials.’
‘Literally,’ said Una. ‘Down a chute.’
‘We never meant to cause any trouble. We just want to get home.’
Gaukroger looked to Aura, and the little girl shrugged gently.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Then let’s get you your rose.’
‘What about Jenny?’ asked Una. ‘We’ve got to get her out before we leave.’
Aura looked frightened and shook her head.
‘She’s in the dungeons,’ Gaukroger said gently. ‘She’s gone.’
‘No,’ said Grace. ‘If there’s a way in, there’s a way out. We’ll get the rose, we’ll get Jenny, and we’ll get out of the castle in time to make the ferry.’
‘We can’t help you get into the dungeons.’
‘That’s alright,’ Adie said. ‘We’ll find our own way. You’re doing too much for us as it is. And don’t worry,’ she gave him a comforting smile, ‘we’re good at getting out of a pickle. It’s what we do.’
Keeping to the shadows, they skirted along the walls, and raced to the safety of the library.
* * *
Una lay on the check-out desk in the library, bouncing a rubber ball she had found off the wall. Grace flinched every time it hit the flaking plaster.
‘Knock it off, Una. Someone’ll hear.’
‘Don’t distract me,’ Una said, her focus on the ball, ‘I’m up to ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred. A hundred and one– Hey!’
Grace caught the ball mid-air making Una scowl. She looked around for Adie who had disappeared into the maze of bookshelves with Gaukroger. Her friend had seemed so keen when he mentioned his favourite titles. Grace smiled to herself; Adie had never been enthusiastic about books before.
‘Here,’ Aura had been rummaging in a narrow cupboard behind the desk. ‘I knew they had one left.’
She handed Grace a black slate, like the ones she had given them before.
‘Oh that’s okay,’ Grace said. ‘I don’t think I could handle seeing my mum right now.’
‘It’s not a home slate,’ the young girl replied. ‘It’s a prope plate.’
‘You’re going to have to help me out there.’
‘A
prope
plate. You can use it to see how Jenny is. Because I don’t think …’ Aura seemed to reconsider, and reached for the black shard. ‘Maybe it’s not a good idea.’
‘No, no! It is. Thank you.’ Grace held it out in front of her. ‘How does it work?’
‘Holding something personal of hers, you’ve to imagine yourself inside her mind, and spit on the plate. Just be careful; these ones crack like glass. We’ve never got any at Balefire, they all get broken in the first term.’
‘Cool. Here, Jenny gave me one of these.’ Una pulled a thin, leather bracelet from her wrist and, before Grace could stop her, leaned forward and spat all over the plate. Grace wiped some stray spit from her eye.
‘You’ve still got your binding ring on, Una.’
‘Oh, whoopsie.’
Una handed Delilah the bracelet, and the tiny girl closed her eyes for a moment, then spat neatly onto the black slate. Nothing happened at first, then there was the smell of burning, the spit evaporated in wispy smoke, and a dim image blurred into view on the stone.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Grace. ‘I don’t see Jenny.’
‘You’re seeing through her eyes,’ Aura replied. ‘This is what she sees.’
Grace’s heart sank. Giant green-moulded slabs made up the walls of the dungeon, decorated by rusted rings with thick, corroded chains hanging between them. Squares of faint light from far above slightly illuminated the gloom, and Grace could hear steady drips of water landing in puddles across the floor.
‘There’s sound,’ she said, her voice cracking.
‘We’re close enough to hear.’
‘Oh, poor Jenny!’ Una gripped Grace’s sleeve, then harder still. ‘What’s that? In the corner, in the dark.’
Two flecks of yellow blinked in the dusk of the room, narrowed, and blinked again.
‘Hello?’ the girls heard Jenny say. ‘Is someone there?’
There was no answer, but Grace could hear breathing.
‘Hello?’ Jenny’s voice again, anxious this time.
‘Who is it?’ Una snapped at Aura. ‘Another witch? Someone dangerous?’
‘They haven’t thrown anyone into the dungeons for decades, as far as I know.’ Aura replied. ‘But–’
‘But what?’
‘But I’ve heard it’s where they kept captured faeries, from way back. From when the castle was first built.’
‘But they’d be dead by now,’ Grace said. ‘That’s so long ago, they’d be dead. Of old age, right?’
‘Some faeries live for a few years,’ Aura said, shaking her head. ‘Some for decades, some maybe for centuries. They’re all different.’
Grace snapped her attention back to the plate, where the yellow eyes grew rounder and a husky voice laughed in the dark.
* * *
Rachel stood at the edge of the woods, listening to the gentle rustle of the wind through the leaves. Once she stepped through the trees, though, she knew that weird silence would cloak everything. She wriggled her fingers, playing with the buzz that moved up and down her knuckles. Her safest bet was to glamour herself now, and become
just another faery moving through the forest. She wanted to be something small, out of sight, but the vegetation sprouting from the woodland floor was high in places, and she needed to see where she was going and what was coming towards her.
She built up the buzz and rippled her fingers down her face. Asrai was a faery she had studied in the
Faery Encyclopaedia
– tall and lithe, it was a creature that stayed near water and loved the moonlight. It was cover that would only work before the dawn though; Asrai melted in direct sunlight.
She would find the stream, follow it to the river that curved around the woods and, from there, she would be able to see the castle. Standing tall, with silver hair that spilled to her waist, she stepped into the quiet.
Her own footsteps were the only sound she could hear. Before long the fireflies came, pairs of white light that blinked in the bushes.
The nosey ones
, Alinda had called them. Faeries that watched passersby in silence and sometimes, if they were unlucky, scared them for fun. Rachel was alarmed at how many there were, but these ones seemed just to be watching. And watching.
She found the stream by the sound of rushing water, but cringed at the memory of the washer women. She hoped she wouldn’t see them again. She followed the stream as it wound its way through the woods. She hopped over rocks and climbed down when the water tipped over a small fall,
spraying cool mist on her face that kept her alert. She was getting close, she could feel it.
But Rachel’s good luck couldn’t last. Straight ahead, a blue-skinned creature sat hunched on the bank. It was only half her faery-size, but she knew it was some kind of water sprite, and they were capable of bending water to their will. The wings on its back were actually large, delicate fins that cut through the water, making it a swift swimmer.
‘Good evening, asrai.’
Rachel jumped with fright. The creature had its back to her.
‘Good evening, sprite.’
With that polite greeting she hoped to be on her way, but the sprite raised her face to the moon and turned a little for more conversation.
‘And so you go to gather?’
The creature’s deep set eyes were huge in its small, oval face. The irises were a deeper shade than its skin, and even the whites of her eyes were pale blue.
‘You cannot fight in sunlight,’ the sprite continued. ‘And yet you go to gather.’
Rachel didn’t answer, and the blue faery took that as confirmation.
‘I waited here among the fireflies, but they speak only nonsense. I long for conversation and for …’
‘For what?’ Rachel dreaded the answer.
It was long coming.
‘For
hope
,’ the sprite said finally.
Shaking a shower of droplets from her long fins, she suddenly leapt from the bank, slipping her hand into Rachel’s and smiling.
‘And so I will go with you to gather.’
She took off at a run, dancing over the ground with beautiful grace, pulling Rachel behind her.
* * *
Time was short. Grace tucked the prope plate into her waistband and tried not to think of the yellow-eyed thing that cackled at Jenny in the mouldy dungeons. All the girls could do was watch, and that didn’t help anyone. They would split up – Gaukroger would take Adie and Una to Madame Three’s room, Grace and Delilah would travel into the depths of the castle and rescue Jenny – with as much direction as Aura could give them. They slipped out of the library, with the young girl on point.
‘There,’ Aura pointed down a corridor without windows, and unlit by candelabras. ‘I don’t know how far it is, but somewhere down there is the entrance to the dungeons.’
‘Thank you, Aura,’ Grace said, squeezing her hand. ‘Adie, Una, you sure you’re alright with your part?’
‘It’s no biggie,’ Una said, hiding her fear with a smile. ‘Gaukroger’s gonna show us Three’s room, we nip in, get the
rose, nip out, Bob’s your uncle.’
‘Rendez-vous point is the Closet.’
‘Right you are. See you there.’
Grace gave her friends as confident a smile as she could manage, then turned down the dark corridor with Delilah. The nymph had taken to squirming inside Delilah’s shirt, just under the collar. It gave the girl a little hunchback that looked eerie in the duskiness.
Behind them, in the distance, there were the sudden sounds of a scuffle. A sudden cry from Adie made Grace’s stomach lurch.
Racing back to the mouth of the corridor, they hid behind the corner and watched, in horror, as Adie and Una grappled against the six members of the Hawk Falls team, plus the Raven girl who had been their guard. Aura slipped into hiding in the shadows.
‘Checked the turret myself,’ Raven girl said. ‘I told you they were on the run.’
‘Real stealthy,
Raven
.’ Gaukroger walked towards them as if he had just arrived, gripping Adie’s arm and keeping as stern a face as he could muster. ‘I’ve been following these two so they’d lead me to the others. Guess we’ll just have to forget about catching their little friends now, won’t we?’
The Raven girl blushed, while Victoria Meister pushed through the group, her arm swaddled in potion-stained bandages.
‘Where the hell are the rest?’
‘They can’t have got far,’ her purple-haired friend replied.
‘We should keep these two safe for now.’ Gaukroger’s cheeks were reddening as he spoke, and Victoria watched him suspiciously. ‘The Supremes will go mad if they haven’t got someone to try this morning.’
‘Fine,’ Victoria said sharply. ‘Raven and I will take them back to the turret, while you take everyone else to find the others.’
Gaukroger gave Adie a pained look, doing his best to steer the group in the wrong direction. At least he would keep them well away from the dungeon passageway.
‘Come on,’ Grace said, grabbing Delilah’s sleeve and pulling her back into the darkness. ‘There’s nothing we can do for them. We’ll get Jenny first, then go back for Adie and Una.’ She sighed. ‘Guess it’s all up to us now.’
The small girl nodded, her big eyes wide and worried, and she followed Grace down the sloping floor to the dungeons ahead.
