As they followed a zigzag path up the hill, the light continued to shine. All the while, the tainted snow fell relentlessly on them. Edwin was afraid it might be poisonous, and he slowed them down by stopping to brush Mandoline’s blankets free of it. He knew that a scattering of flakes had reached her face. He was also concerned by her silence. If she was getting too cold to complain, that was a worrying sign.
“Prickly bush!” Lanthorne warned.
Edwin avoided it, slipped and fell backwards into another clump of sharp twigs. Several painful jabs told him that some of them had penetrated his coat and anorak.
“These thorns are everywhere,” he said. “Can’t you find a way through?”
Lanthorne was doing his best. Their tiny light revealed so little of their surroundings and they were constantly being caught out by the treacherous ground underfoot. He waved the lanthorne in arcs as wide as his diminutive arms could manage. “There’s a wall of them,” he said. “Wherever I take a step, I meet one. They’re not meant to let people through.”
“That’s it then,” said Edwin. “I hope whoever’s shining that light is enjoying themselves. They’re not different from the other people here. They’re the worst of all. They wanted us to follow the light and get torn to bits by all these thorns. It being night-time and snowing probably makes it even funnier for them.”
The little arcs of light continued flitting around the thorn bushes as Lanthorne tried to find a way through. Edwin could hear him muttering under his breath with increasing desperation.
“I can’t go on or back or round,” Edwin said. “I’m really, really tired. I’ve never had to carry something for so long.”
The arcs of light were becoming frantic and Edwin could feel the strength in his legs and arms draining away, as if hopelessness had turned on a tap.
Suddenly Lanthorne called out, “Over here! Edwin, over here!”
Edwin wanted to respond, but his feet wouldn’t move. A voice in his head was starting to say You’ve done all you can. Time to give up and get it over with. He could feel his knees sagging.
Then a lanthorne was held very close to his face, and he was being nudged forward.
“I think I’ve found a way in.”
Edwin rallied. These were magic words, and he tightened his hold on Mandoline. Lanthorne had found a hidden gap behind one of the bushes, which turned out not to be a tricksy dead-end. There was a path that led to the front door of a small cottage which actually seemed to be painted a greyish yellow.
When they reached the front door, Edwin said, “No time to check. You bang on the door and we’ll both shout.”
There was no response to their noise at first, then from inside the house came a sound which was unexpected and which gave them heart. Someone was singing—a gentle, crooning sound that persisted despite their banging. It grew louder, as if the singer were determined to take no notice of them.
Edwin moved along the front of the cottage to the downstairs window they had seen lit up from the main street. A bright lanthorne had been placed between the curtain and the glass. He knocked sharply.
“Please let us in. I’ve got a baby.” He hoped they didn’t think he meant that he had brought something for them to eat, in the way that his parents took offerings of wine or chocolates when they were invited out to dinner. “It’s a live baby.” That wasn’t any clearer.
The heavy curtain was moved aside a fraction, enough for the person inside to weigh up the boy standing outside, but not enough for the boy outside to see who had peeped at him.
Edwin returned to the front door where, all this time, Lanthorne had been shouting and banging for all he was worth.
The door opened and a voice said, “You’d better come in.”
They needed no second invitation.
It wasn’t exactly warm in the cramped hallway, but Edwin could tell at once that he was in a different kind of house altogether. The background smell was different for a start, almost sweet with a hint of the drainy smell he had noticed in Lanthorne’s home. There wasn’t a trace of Special Menu. He sniffed very hard to be sure of this.
The relief of getting out of the snow was so great, Edwin felt his legs buckle and he plonked himself down on the single chair, uninvited. He peeled away the wet outer layers of Mandoline’s blankets.
Two large candles set on shelves around the bare hallway gave Edwin a clear view of who had invited them in. She was old and grey and her hair had the usual I’ve just been given an electric shock look, but her expression was kind and her smile revealed a set of teeth that were severely off-white rather than grey. There were even hints of colour in her clothes, blue in her skirt and red in her blouse. The main colour was still grey, but the hints of brightness were exactly what Edwin needed.
“I’m Nanna Bowle,” said the old woman. “I’m sorry I took so long answering. I thought you were the neighbours. They hate to see a Nollig lanthorne in the window or hear Nollig songs. That’s why I sang them when you knocked. Now come inside properly. I’ve got a bit of a fire in the main room. It’s a good thing I like to stay up late. Whatever were you thinking of, bringing a tiny baby out on a night like this?”
As they were led into the main room of the cottage, a room with four more candles and a number of half-comfortable chairs set around a thin brown square of carpet, Edwin said, “My name’s Edwin and we’re escaping from Lanthorne’s Auntie Necra. She wants to turn my baby sister into a cannibal. Please help us.”
“That Necra and her nasty Old Ways,” said Nanna Bowle. “I hope you gave her a serious piece of your mind before you left her house.”
“Better than that,” said Lanthorne. “My snarghe was skinning her toes.”
“A boy with a snarghe. There’s a turn-up,” said Nanna Bowle. “Now, you two sit down here and get the benefit of the fire. The first thing to do is make this baby comfortable.”
Edwin adjusted Mandoline on his lap, so that he could take the tin of powdered milk and the bottle from his pockets.
“I’ll add a few herbs to her milk to help her sleep.”
“No!” Edwin said sharply. “My mother wouldn’t like that.”
He was the only person Mandoline could trust and he wasn’t going to be tricked by an old grey lady into having his sister filled with strange herbs. For all he knew, they were designed to make her tender for Nanna Bowle’s Nollig dinner.
“If you insist, dear. My, you do have a bright little face.” She stretched out her hands to take Mandoline, but Edwin shook his head.
“There’s no need for you to come too, dear,” said Nanna Bowle. “I believe it’s going to be a little messy.”
“I’m not letting her out of my sight.”
Nanna Bowle nodded and she and Edwin went into the kitchen where there was another small fire. Mandoline was cleaned, changed and fed, with Edwin looking on and wishing he didn’t feel obliged to do so. His sister was as messy and smelly as he had been warned. She seemed grateful for the attention and didn’t cry, until Edwin tried to amuse her with her squeaky mouse.
Nanna Bowle showed Edwin the herbs. They smelt as if they could only do you good, but he didn’t see any point in taking chances and his response was still a firm no.
“If you’ve got some herbs for an itchy back, though, I wouldn’t mind having them,” he said. “I’ve been pricked by the thorns outside your house. They’re not poisonous, are they?”
“Not exactly. But they can cause unsightly lumps. They’re the best thing in the world for keeping annoying neighbours away. You should have told me straight away that they’d got you.”
She took a pot of black grease from a shelf.
“Rub this where they’ve pricked you. Do it now and as soon as you get up in the morning, and then every day for as long as you need. The unsightly lumps only last a week or two in any case. Now, when I’ve tucked this baby up, we can think about some food for you boys. You’ll also have to meet my grandson. He’s sorting out his animal at the moment.”
A nest was made for Mandoline in a basket lined with the softest blankets Edwin had come across in Lanthorne’s world. She fell asleep as soon as she was laid in them, and Edwin could have cried with relief.
“We’ll leave her in peace on the table, if that’s allowable,” said Nanna Bowle, “while I get the food. Go and sit with Lanthorne in the other room.”
“I’m a Shiner, you know,” Edwin told her. “I’m not from here and I can’t eat ripe food.”
“Can’t eat, won’t eat. It’s all the same. I understand exactly who you are and where you’ve come from. Now you go and join your friend, and put some of that ointment on your back before you’re dancing up and down with itches. And for Nollig’s sake, take those wet coats off and dry them in front of the fire.”
With surprising firmness, she pushed Edwin out of the kitchen. He found Lanthorne sitting well away from the fire in the main room and looking thoughtful.
“Let’s dry our coats,” Edwin said. “Mine’s sopping.”
“What if we have to leave again very suddenly?” Lanthorne asked.
“I’m not going anywhere till I’ve rubbed some of this stuff on my back. It’s worse than itching powder.” Edwin took off his coat and anorak and asked Lanthorne to hold his shirt up while he smeared handfuls of Nanna Bowle’s grease over most of his back. The itching subsided very quickly.
“We can drape our coats over the backs of these chairs,” he said. The fire was so half-hearted he imagined it would take at least a fortnight for them to dry. Lanthorne was still looking very thoughtful.
“What’s the matter?” Edwin asked him.
“I know the lady’s helped Mandoline and we’re out of the snow, but why isn’t she more surprised that you’re a Shiner? She doesn’t meet them every day.”
Edwin had no chance to reply, because Nanna Bowle appeared in the doorway carrying a tray. “Will apples and a bit of bread and cheese do?” she asked. “Don’t worry,” she looked at Lanthorne, “yours is lovely and ripe. I’ve warmed up two cups of tea. It’s nice and fresh. I only made it two days ago.”
Edwin took his food and sat as near to the fire as he could, trying not to see what was on Lanthorne’s plate. He hadn’t eaten properly for days. He was ravenous, and here he was with the same barely edible selection staring up at him. He turned to Nanna Bowle.
“I was wondering… I don’t like to be rude,” he said. “But whenever I’ve been given anything to eat here, it’s always apples and bread and cheese.”
“It’s an invalid’s meal,” Nanna Bowle told him. “When we’re a bit peaky and our stomachs can’t take proper food, we’re given the unripe things I’ve just given you. They’re completely tasteless, but they settle the system.”
Edwin gazed down at his plate. He tried hard to look grateful.
“It’s just… Do you have an egg or baked beans?”
“You’re very welcome to an egg, dear. I collected the eggs in June, so they’re not completely ripe.”
“That was six months ago.”
“Eighteen months. It was June last year, now I come to think of it.”
Edwin decided to make the most of his bread and cheese.
They had hardly begun their meal when there was the sound of a door being slammed shut and an outburst of crying from Mandoline, who was showing her annoyance at being woken up.
“That grandson of mine,” said Nanna Bowle. “He can’t do anything gently! You’ll meet him in a minute. That’ll be nice. I’ll get the baby back to sleep, and then you can tell us your side of the story.” She left the room.
“Do you think her grandson’s our age, Edwin? We could make friends with him.”
Edwin had no intention of staying around to find playmates for Mandoline and himself. He shrugged and concentrated on checking his piece of bread for signs of mould. Your side of the story, she had said. How could there be anybody else’s side?
“They both looked exhausted,” Nanna Bowle was saying as she re-entered the room.
“Serves them right,” replied a gruff voice behind her.
Nanna Bowle and her grandson surveyed their guests.
“I’ve caught up with you at last.” The grandson’s yellow-blotched face was all too familiar to Edwin and Lanthorne. It was Trunke.
Edwin’s jaw sagged, and what was left of his meal slid onto the floor. Lanthorne jumped up and ran to stand beside him.
Trunke looked very “out of countenance”, as Edwin’s great-grandmother used to say. A baleful glare from his sunken eyes took in both boys and let them know he held a grudge against them. Lanthorne half hid behind Edwin while Nanna Bowle gave a little, knowing nod.
For Edwin, it was a rerun of the emotions of betrayal he had experienced several times already in his search for his sister. “Mandoline!” he shouted, and rushed out of the room. It had suddenly occurred to him that the sound they’d heard might be that of the door closing after Auntie Necra left with his sister, while he was being craftily kept out of the way.
He returned a minute or two later to find that no one had moved an inch.
“She’s still asleep on the table,” he said.
“As we all knew she would be,” said Nanna Bowle. “Why don’t we all sit down? There are things we need to talk about.”
“You knew who we were all the time,” Edwin said, as soon as he had sat down.
“That’s right, dear, but I thought if you saw Trunke as soon as you walked in, you’d be off into the snow again with that baby, like a jiggle after worms. So I told him to wait outside for a while, till I’d got you settled down. You do know that Trunke waited for days in that horrible inne until he could find another hansomme? He paid for it with his own money and drove all the way out to Morting to find you. How many other people would do that?”
Edwin refused to look impressed. For one thing, it wasn’t Trunke’s own money, and for another, he was wearing Edwin’s watch.
“He’s a good man, my Trunke is. That’s why he’s my favourite grandchild. He’s not exactly cheerful, but who is these days? What possessed you to run away from him? And fancy stealing his hansomme, when he was taking such good care of you.”
“Fancy eating people!” Edwin raised his voice at her. “He drives customers to that place for their Special Menu.”
“Yes, I’ve told him it isn’t nice,” said Nanna Bowle, as if they were talking about Trunke biting his nails. “He doesn’t partake himself. At least, not for years. Old habits die hard. I’m sure you find that in your world too. I’ve never tasted the Special Menu myself, and how many people can claim that?”
“I don’t know what stories Swarme told you about me,” Trunke interrupted, “but you were fools to listen to him. Look where it landed you! You could be home now, if you’d trusted me. As it is, I only arrived this afternoon.”
“Now then, Trunkie, let’s not dwell on past things,” his grandmother told him. “They’ve been silly and ungrateful, because they’re only young. I’m sure you’ve done things you’re sorry for.”
“And I’m sure I haven’t,” he said. “I’ll get my own hansomme from Necra’s tomorrow and then take them back to Landarn. I’m handing them over to Jugge as soon as I get there. The hansomme I hired will have to stay here until I can make arrangements. They’ve caused difficulties for everyone.”
“I said now then, Trunke. If we’re just going to get cross, we should go to bed and sleep it off. We’ll keep the arrangements until tomorrow. Although… I’ve got some lovely treats for Nollig Day. What about a titbit or two before you go to bed, Lanthorne?”
Lanthorne looked eagerly at Edwin. He was very tempted.
“Don’t mind me,” said Edwin.
“We’ll go into the kitchen,” Nanna Bowle told Lanthorne, “and Trunke can put down something for you to sleep on.”
“I’m not their servant,” Trunke said roughly.
“No, dear, but for the moment you’re mine. Now be a good man and you shall have some Nollig treats too.”
“Mandoline’s sleeping next to me,” Edwin announced. He went into the kitchen to fetch her, while Trunke collected their bedding. It consisted of a number of large, flat cushions and a pile of blankets, which he simply tossed onto the floor. He was about to douse the fire with a jug of water when Edwin stopped him.
“Nanna Bowle insisted my sister has to be kept warm all night, so we need the fire,” he said.
Trunke grunted. He was obviously still keen to pour the water on the fire, but he wasn’t prepared to disobey his grandmother. “I’m blowing out two of those candles, anyway,” he said. “They’re making my eyes sore.”
“Thank you for coming after us,” Edwin said. “What Swarme told us was very believable.”
“And what I told you wasn’t?”
Edwin had no answer to that, so he set about constructing beds for himself and Lanthorne. When Trunke left to enjoy the Nollig treats in the kitchen, Edwin put his sister on the floor next to him and said a very quiet, “Good night. Sleep tight.” He would have kissed her if he thought he could get away with it.
Sometime later, Edwin heard Lanthorne slip into the second makeshift bed.
“Was the food good?” he asked.
“Delicious. We had…”
“No need to tell me.” He didn’t want a good night’s sleep ruined.
Edwin slept so soundly that Lanthorne had to wake him the next morning. Mandoline’s basket had already been whisked away, which annoyed him. He should be the one making decisions about where she went, not them. She would have been reassured, and friendlier, if he had been the one chatting to her when she woke up, and they had to go and spoil it by taking over. He dressed quickly and made his way to the kitchen. Lanthorne had already breakfasted but he kept Edwin company at the table.
Nanna Bowle said, “We’ve all eaten our fill. So has your sister. She seems to like it here.”
Edwin made a non-committal noise. He was given a cup of the tea that was now three days old, a wizened apple and a piece of bread spread with butter that had an aftertaste.
“You won’t like the jam, Edwin,” Lanthorne warned him. He accepted the advice.
“Trunke’s outside, having a word with his animal,” Nanna Bowle told them. “He doesn’t like the way it answers back. Now, I need to tidy up in here and you boys need to put your beds away. You don’t mind if I keep Mandoline with me so I’ve got someone to talk to, do you?”
Edwin did mind, but he was gracious. He made a point of saying a few silly things to his sister—so that she remembered he was the most important person in her life at the moment, not a grey old lady—and then he accompanied Lanthorne back to the main room.
“Did you have a nice chat with Trunke over breakfast?” Edwin asked as he folded up his blankets.
“Trunke doesn’t chat. He only shouts and threatens. He says he’s going to do things to Swarme when he meets him again.”
“I’ll help him, in that case.”
“Help Swarme?”
Edwin laughed. “No, help Trunke.”
“Edwin, he’s my brother.”
“And he thought what Limbe was going to do to me was funny!”
They piled their bedding in a corner. Someone had added a couple of miserable pieces of wood to the fire while Edwin was asleep, and it was just about alive. Edwin looked around him.
“I know Nanna Bowle’s doing her best,” he said, “but I don’t want to spend Christmas here.”
“I wish you could spend Nollig with my family, Edwin. We’d have so much fun together.”
“I can’t do that. My parents need to have Mandoline and me home for Christmas. We’ll eat a turkey straight out of the oven, not one we cooked in September.”
Lanthorne chuckled. “You Shiners and your unripe food.”
“Yes, we’re a strange lot,” said Edwin. “We scrape mould off our food. You spoon it on like chutney.”
“I really have enjoyed meeting you, Edwin. I’ll never have a better friend. I know we’re going to be in touch always.” He was clearly waiting for Edwin to say the same sort of thing back, and his face fell when Edwin remained silent. Edwin was afraid that if he said something like, “Yes, let’s meet up again,” no matter how insincere it was, the doors might be listening and spitefully decide to make it happen.
“I’ve got a Nollig present for you,” he said instead.
The disappointment which had threatened to make Lanthorne’s face even greyer disappeared at once.
“A Nollig present! Where did you get it?”
“It isn’t an it. I’ve actually got two. I’ve had them with me all the time, but I’ve only just realized I was meant to give them to you. One you’ll like and the other you might not.”
Edwin took his coat from the back of the chair, it was slightly drier now, and put a hand in each pocket. At first he couldn’t feel anything. He pushed his hands into the pockets again. He couldn’t believe they were both empty. Surely Trunke hadn’t sneaked into the room during the night, gone through his pockets, found the penknife and lighter and stolen them? Edwin wanted to run straight into the kitchen and denounce Trunke to his doting grandmother. His fingers stabbed down into the pockets several more times.
“What’s the matter, Edwin?”
“It’s all right. For a moment I thought I’d lost them, but my coat was so wet the bottoms of the pockets had stuck together and buried them.”
He took out the penknife and lighter.
“These are your Nollig presents. Happy Christmas and Nollig, Lanthorne. I wish I could wrap them in Father Christmas paper and put them in a stocking, but I don’t expect you go in for that. A penknife’s always useful, and this,” he ignited the lighter and made Lanthorne jump backwards, “well, you’ve seen it before. You never know, there may come a time when you need to set fire to something—the whole of Morting, for example.”
“They must have cost your family so much money, Edwin,” said Lanthorne, as if a lump of precious metal had been placed in his hand.
“They’re just ordinary things that I want you to have. It’s only friendship that makes them valuable.”
“I’ll try really hard to find something to set fire to,” Lanthorne promised. “You’ll be proud of me.” He was still looking in awe at his two Nollig presents when Trunke banged into the room.
“Nanna wants you in the kitchen,” Trunke said. “It’s time to discuss things.”
Lanthorne suddenly jerked his head up, as if there were something of interest directly behind Trunke. Trunke wasn’t distracted and he didn’t turn round. He watched Lanthorne slide Edwin’s gifts into the pockets of his shorts, storing the information for later.
Here we go again, Edwin thought. It was into the kitchen, out of the kitchen, into the main room, out of the main room. Why couldn’t he and Mandoline just leave, without having to hold a conference on it? He put on his anorak, hoping it was a powerful enough hint that they shouldn’t waste any time before setting off.
Nanna Bowle was sitting at the kitchen table with Mandoline, awake and interested, in her basket beside her.
“All the best decisions are made sitting around a table,” said Nanna Bowle. “Take your seats, please.”
Edwin and Lanthorne sat next to each other on one side of the table, facing Trunke. Edwin couldn’t understand why Nanna Bowle was acting as if there was something to discuss. All that had to happen was for Trunke to retrieve his hansomme, tell Auntie Necra and Swarme where to get off, assuming they were still alive, and then they would head for Landarn and Jugge as fast as the nagge could be made to go. With no overnight stop at the inne serving Special Menu.
Edwin looked out of the window. Snow was still falling, drifts of grey covering everything in sight. Nothing sparkled. It turned the whole world into some region of hell where the fires have temporarily gone out.
Trunke twisted round in his seat and followed Edwin’s gaze out of the window.
“We’ll never get a hansomme through this snow,” he said. “Mine or the hired one. So don’t get your hopes up about leaving any time soon.” He seemed to enjoy giving this disheartening news.
“But you said…” Edwin cried out.
“I never said we’d leave in weather like this. The snow will soon be up to the nagge’s belly, and I promise you she’s really nasty when she’s uncomfortable. No, it’s here we’ll stay till the sun comes out. Could be ages.”
You love rubbing it in, Edwin thought. He hated Trunke more than ever. “If we set off straight away, couldn’t we beat the snow?”
“No,” replied Trunke and Nanna Bowle in unison.
“What about finding a door in Morting? That would mean there’d be no need to travel at all.” The panic in his voice was so pronounced it even communicated itself to Mandoline, who started to grizzle.
“I’ve never heard of anyone opening a door in Morting,” said Nanna Bowle, “and I’ve lived here all my life. I’m going to finish my days here as well, so Lanthorne’s Auntie Necra and her ‘Old Timers’ can put that in their toilette room and roll in it. Pardon my language.”
Lanthorne sniggered, but stopped immediately when Edwin shot him a look.
“Couldn’t I at least go round your house opening every door until I find one that lets us through? It worked when I did it in Jugge’s house.”
“You’re welcome to try that, dear, but I don’t expect it will do a bit of good,” replied Nanna Bowle. “Morting’s just not that sort of place. It’ll be nice to have a house full of people for Nollig. I haven’t had that for years. I don’t know where I’ll find enough unripe food this late, though.”
Nollig. Christmas. Edwin had lost track of how near to the 25th of December they were. If neither he nor Mandoline were at home on Christmas Day, his parents would have the worst time imaginable, staring at two piles of presents and thinking about their son and daughter who had disappeared.
There was a sound outside.
“There he is again,” said Nanna Bowle. She got up and went over to the window.
“He and she,” said Lanthorne. “It’s both. It likes us to remember.”
“They look very cold. Shall I let them in?”
“Yes please,” said Lanthorne. “It’s my snarghe, Edwin. It’s followed us here.”
That meant something had happened over at Auntie Necra’s house. Possibly the snarghe had eaten everyone. Edwin wasn’t too bothered if that was the case.
Nanna Bowle opened the back door and the snarghe rushed in. At the same time, something else rushed out. There was a streak of green. A long streak of green.
“There goes the jiggle,” said Nanna Bowle. “We won’t see him for the rest of the day. Not with a snarghe in the house.”
Edwin could have done without the arrival of the snarghe and it bouncing around at his feet. It was an unwanted interruption when they needed to concentrate on finding him and Mandoline a door. Against his better judgement, he patted the nearest head. The second head shot him a hurt look so he had to pat that too.
“Perhaps they’re hungry,” he said.
The snarghe showed how much it agreed with this suggestion by putting out both tongues and swinging them backwards and forwards.
“I expect I can find it a stalk or two in the bucket,” said Nanna Bowle. “They live on vegetables, you know, so, unless you’ve got a wooden nose, we’ll need to go next door.”
“A wooden nose?”
“Vegetables give them terrible wind. It’s why they don’t make very good pets.”
These people ate food so ripe, the stink practically rendered you unconscious. If they found a snarghe smelly, Edwin was afraid Mandoline was in danger of being suffocated by one. He quickly gathered up her basket and returned to the fireside in the main room.
A tiny thought was beginning to grow in his mind, and he wondered whether everyone else would laugh at him and think him off his head if he suggested it. They sat in the main room for a while, with their idle chat turning more and more to how they liked to spend Nollig. Even Trunke became a little sentimental. Edwin couldn’t let their talk of returning home end just yet.
“Don’t laugh when I say this,” he began nervously. “When I wrote my first letter to Lanthorne, it was because I’d found a strange newspaper in an old house. It wasn’t like one of our newspapers. I mean, the advertisements were really peculiar, magicky.”
“I was feeling a bit lonely, so I put an advertisement for a pen-friend in The Incredible Times,” said Lanthorne. “I never dreamt it would get through to Edwin’s world.”
“That’s a newspaper for weirdos,” said Trunke. “You should stay well clear of it.”
Edwin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Trunke’s own activities fitted every definition of weird you could possibly come up with!
“Isn’t there a magic spell you can use to make a door?” Edwin asked.
The other three looked at him in horror.
“It’s very rude indeed to say things like that,” said Nanna Bowle stiffly. “I was just beginning to think you were a nice boy, despite your stealing Trunke’s hansomme. I hope you’re not accusing anyone here of casting spells.”
Edwin couldn’t understand their reaction.
“I’m going to check on the snarghe,” said Nanna Bowle. “I may have to leave the kitchen door open for a bit.”
“Now look what you’ve done,” said Trunke, once his grandmother had left the room.
“What exactly have I done?”
“You suggested she might know spells,” Lanthorne said. “That was ever so impolite, Edwin. We don’t do spells nowadays. If we talk about them at school…”
“I know. Your teacher hits you with a stick. I can’t understand it!”
“People want to be modern.”
“This world doesn’t make sense! Nothing’s worse than eating rotten dead bodies.”
They sat in silence for a while, then Edwin got up and ran round the entire house, opening every door he could find, including the cupboards and the door of the toilette room.
He didn’t dare go into the kitchen, where Nanna Bowle had shut herself. Nothing happened when he opened the doors except that dust flew out of the cupboards, and in Nanna Bowle’s bedroom he caught sight of a gigantic pair of knickers draped over the end of the bed. This was the second time he’d run all over a stranger’s house, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
When he re-entered the main room, he gave the door a terrific slam behind him. The noise had the inevitable effect on Mandoline.
“It didn’t work,” he said when he sat down.
“I hope Nanna Bowle isn’t going to ask us to leave,” said Lanthorne. “We’ve nowhere to go.”
“I’ll go and talk to her,” said Trunke. “She might need some persuading not to throw you out.”
A whole hour later, Trunke and Nanna Bowle reappeared with very serious expressions on their faces. Edwin feared the worst. Perhaps he would need to take back the lighter from Lanthorne and threaten to set fire to Nanna Bowle’s furniture if she showed him and Lanthorne the door. He imagined she might take pity on Mandoline.
“I’m willing to give it a try,” said Nanna Bowle. “I should warn you, I’m more than a bit rusty.”
Lanthorne’s eyes were wide with shock. “A spell…” He gulped.
“It seems to be the only way. I’ve had a little practice on the snarghe. Not to find it a door, of course, but to see if I could still call up the power. I don’t expect the creature will ever forgive me.”
Tears filled Lanthorne’s eyes. “Did you hurt it badly?” he asked very softly.
“No dear, though some spells have been known to make animals fall to pieces. This time the snarghe only rose up into the air and began to spin round so fast you wouldn’t believe it.”
“A good thing the back door was open,” said Trunke.
“You should have seen the speed with which it flew out the door. Gone in a flash, like a…”
“Like a missile,” said Edwin. He didn’t want a spell that turned him or Mandoline into missiles.
“We need to sit round a table,” said Trunke. “Come into the kitchen.”
More backwards and forwards, thought Edwin. This had better be the last time.
He picked up Mandoline’s basket, and he and Lanthorne followed Nanna Bowle and Trunke out of the room.
Both boys were taken aback by the odd smell when they entered the kitchen. It was metallic, with a hint of strawberries.
So that’s the smell of magic, Edwin thought. He wondered whether he would ever come across it again.
Nanna Bowle drew the curtains and made them sit in particular places at the table, which she had already prepared. Edwin had to sit facing the window, because he wanted to move into a world of greater light, and Trunke was made to sit opposite him with his back to the window, because he was the most rooted in his own world. Mandoline’s basket was on the floor a few feet from Edwin, near enough for him to take hold of it if he needed to, and far enough away so that nobody tripped over it.
“Lanthorne and I are halfway houses,” Nanna Bowle said. “Free spirits, or whatever else you want to call us, so we sit at the sides.”
She pointed to four small dishes she had placed on the table. “We have something to stand for each of the elements. That’s earth. Trunke took it from the garden. Water from the tap, and the candle represents fire. All we need is air. Trunke, dear, could you put a coal from the fire in that empty dish? The smoke will do for air.”
As Nanna Bowle was pointing across the table and giving her commentary, Edwin’s chest began to rise and fall very quickly. Nanna Bowle took no notice, but Lanthorne was alarmed. Try as he might, Edwin couldn’t banish the picture of the snarghe spinning round in the air like a catherine wheel, a catherine wheel that turned into a rocket. The giggles burst out of him as if they had a life of their own. He had only laughed like this once before, when he broke his arm and the doctor was about to set it. All through the stabs of pain and the tears, he had shrieked with hysterical laughter, and then he’d passed out in a dead faint.
“I know how you feel,” said Nanna Bowle. “Magic used to get me like that, only with me it was uncontrollable hiccups. Now we need something from each of our worlds. A piece of bread from our world will do the trick nicely. Trunke, could you oblige, please? Everybody here uses bread to mop up their gravy, don’t they?”
Edwin wondered what exactly she meant by “gravy”. Certainly not the hot, recently cooked kind.
“We also need something from your Shiner world, Edwin. I don’t expect you’d let me put your sister on the table?”
Edwin definitely wouldn’t let her do that. He was only asking for a door to be opened for a moment. There was no way he was going to run the risk of Mandoline going up in flames or disappearing or taking off. He intercepted an unhappy look from Lanthorne, who was obviously thinking that he might have to forfeit the penknife or the lighter. Edwin gave a little shake of his head.
“I haven’t got anything of my own in my pockets,” he said. “But I do have a watch, a horlogge. Trunke’s been keeping it safe for me.” He looked hard at Trunke, who gave the most convincing I don’t know what you can possibly be talking about look Edwin had ever seen.
“Come along, Trunkie,” said Nanna Bowle. “You can have your horlogge back in a few minutes. Unless we all explode.”
Trunke reluctantly took the watch off his wrist and laid it on the table, about six inches away from himself.
“I’d move it a bit further away, just to be on the safe side,” his grandmother told him.
Mandoline lay quietly in her basket all this time. Edwin nodded to himself and bent down and lifted her up. He wrapped the blankets tightly round her, making sure that the squeaky mouse was inside. Then he sat back down in his place, with Mandoline cradled on his lap. If anything good or bad happened, it would be better if it happened to them both and at the same time.
Nanna Bowle now began to work her spell. Her voice changed. It became deeper and echoey, and Edwin couldn’t catch her exact words. They might not even have been in English.
Each wave of Nanna Bowle’s hands and each intoned sentence changed the atmosphere in the kitchen a little more. The temperature dropped, and the light from the candle and the thread of smoke from the coal dish began to waver. Edwin could hear Lanthorne’s teeth chattering. Something strange was definitely going on.
He held Mandoline more tightly against him, making her fidget because the new position was uncomfortable. Please let a door burst open and bright light pour through it, he wished. If that happened, he would be on his feet in an instant. He pushed his chair away from the table and raised himself six inches from the seat. No Olympic athlete could ever have started a race as fast as Edwin was determined to move towards the door when it opened.
Nanna Bowle clapped her hands and made them all jump. The candle flame went out and the smouldering coal on the plate flew across the room, barely missing Lanthorne’s head. His squeal was drowned out by the sound of every door in the house bursting open and slamming shut as if closed by someone who was very angry.
In the silence that followed, everyone visibly sagged, hardly daring to breathe.
Is that it? Edwin thought. “Is there a door now?” he asked. He wasn’t aware of one.
“Not right away, dear, but I might have set something in motion. Everyone, take a deep breath and put your hands flat on the table to ground yourselves.”
Lanthorne’s hands were shaking so much he couldn’t stop them from slapping the table. Edwin relaxed his hold on Mandoline. So they weren’t going home just yet.
Nanna Bowle stood up and handed Edwin’s watch back to Trunke, who made a great show of refastening it on his wrist, avoiding Edwin’s disappointed gaze. He wouldn’t be giving it up again.
When the doors had slammed, Edwin was sure he’d heard screams mixed in with all the crashing. As Nanna Bowle drew back the curtains, they saw who was responsible for uttering them. Four faces were pressed against the glass, wide-eyed, panicky faces. Two of them were Auntie Necra and Swarme, but the others were strangers.
Edwin clutched Mandoline tightly again.
Nanna Bowle craned her neck to get a better view outside. “The snarghe won’t let them move away,” she said.
“Who are those other mad-looking people?” Edwin asked nervously.
“It’s my mum and dad!” Lanthorne shouted with delight.
He rushed out of the kitchen and ordered the snarghe to release its prisoners. They scrambled into the safety of the kitchen and were disappointed and annoyed when Lanthorne allowed the snarghe to join them. It immediately herded Auntie Necra and Swarme into the furthest corner of the room and squatted in front of them to make sure they didn’t move an inch. Auntie Necra had a normal boot on her left foot, but the boot on her right foot was huge and misshapen. Ends of rag hung over the top of it, and Edwin suspected that her damaged toes were now wrapped in the universe’s grubbiest bandages.
Swarme got as far as saying “Mum…”, but a yelp from each of the snarghe’s heads silenced him at once.
Lanthorne hugged his parents and seemed not to care or not to have heard when Edwin said they were “mad-looking”. Mad-looking they certainly were, their grey, pinched faces rising not quite vertically from the enormous coats they had both put on against the cold. Their hair was the wildest Edwin had yet seen but there was a kindness in their faces which made a change from almost everyone else Edwin had met in this world.
Nobody could be bothered to move out of the crowded kitchen and into the main room, because there was so much to say and so much catching up to do. Edwin felt ignored. Lanthorne’s parents looked at him and Mandoline briefly, because they had never seen Shiners before, but they were really only interested in their two sons.
It appeared that Jugge had received Edwin’s note sent via the chimney in the inne, and he had passed its contents on to Mr and Mrs Ghules. They had hired a hansomme so they could travel up to Morting to sort out Auntie Necra “not before time”. Jugge had refused to come along with them.
Nanna Bowle set about preparing drinks, while Lanthorne’s parents had their say. Because these were guests from Landarn, she produced cups of lukewarm tea with a suspicious scum on top which suggested it was even more ancient than the days-old brew Edwin had been drinking.
“Lanthorne, you shouldn’t throw stones at your brother’s face,” said Mrs Ghules. “It’ll spoil his looks.”
“But, Mum, he’s been serving up dead people, and eating them himself! They call it ‘Special Menu’.”
“It’s just a phase. He’s growing out of it already.”
“Mum!”
“And call off that thing before it gets nasty.”
Lanthorne motioned for the snarghe to move away from its captives. Reluctantly, it obeyed, but Nanna Bowle rewarded it with two cabbage stalks, one for each head.
Swarme smirked at Lanthorne. He was beginning to think he might come out of this better than he had expected. He touched his face and winced dramatically.
“It really, really hurts,” he said.
What happened next was a surprise to everyone. Mr Ghules put his lips beside Swarme’s left ear and bellowed, “Act your age!” He shouted so loudly that his son rose off the floor.
Mrs Ghules opened her mouth, ready for an outburst, but she was silenced with a look.
“More tea, anyone?” Nanna Bowle asked.
“I’m going next door,” said Trunke.
“I’m ashamed of too many members of this family, you in particular, Necra,” said Mr Ghules. “I’m ashamed of myself for not sorting you out earlier. All that ordering us about in our own home. As for the guests you have staying with you. Thank goodness that horrible man with the bad leg has cleared off home! It ought to be slaps all round. Except for our Lanthorne. He’s the only one who’s kept the family name out of the drain.”
“My Swarme’s not—”
Another fierce look from her husband cut off the end of Mrs Ghules’s sentence.
“Our son started to go off course as soon as he joined that clubbe for youthe,” said Mr Ghules, warming to his subject. “I could see the warning signs, but I wasn’t paying proper attention. All those questions he used to ask about the olden days and what they ate, and him and his friends daring each other to dig holes in the graveyard.”
“All young people do that,” interrupted his wife, who was determined to find something to say in support of her elder son. “Where else would they go to have fun?”
“And wanting his food riper than ripe,” said Mr Ghules, without paying her any attention.
“You should blame Necra for leading him astray,” said Mrs Ghules defensively.
“I most certainly do. She won’t be welcome in our house ever again.”
“I quite like unripe food, don’t I, Edwin?” said Lanthorne, who was enjoying Swarme’s comeuppance.
Edwin couldn’t help thinking that it would be a while before Swarme felt in the mood to hum again.
The family turned in on itself like a doubles match in tennis, Mr Ghules and Lanthorne taking on Mrs Ghules and Swarme. Lanthorne enjoyed playing sharp little shots, incriminating comments meant to get Swarme into as much trouble as possible. His hero-worship of his brother was definitely a thing of the past. Auntie Necra shrank further into the corner from which she hadn’t strayed since entering the kitchen. She looked like someone who knew she would have to watch her step in future.
Nanna Bowle caught Edwin’s eye and pointed towards a very ordinary-looking cupboard door.
“That’s the one,” she mouthed.
Edwin showed that he understood.
He carefully skirted the quarrelling Ghules family and took a farewell look at his friend.
Lanthorne was glowing with pleasure at being with his family again; it was an extremely grey glow. Edwin felt in his pocket for the purse of coins he had planned to return to Jugge when they were back in Landarn looking for a door. He slipped it into Lanthorne’s hand and nodded. Lanthorne nodded back and added a little poke to Edwin’s arm. It was all over in a few seconds, and then Edwin was standing by the cupboard door to which Nanna Bowle had pointed.
With a final glance at Lanthorne, and making sure Mandoline was secure in the crook of his left arm, he took hold of the door knob.
Nanna Bowle had followed him. As soon as Edwin opened the cupboard door, she pushed him out of her world and back into his own. One moment he was in a kitchen, with its lingering smell of magic and the noise of a family in uproar, and then suddenly he wasn’t.
As he was passing between the two worlds, Edwin felt something brush against his leg—a bucket or mop head—but he didn’t look down. He was too happy gazing out into a bright December late afternoon.
It seemed an age since he’d last seen such real colours—an intense orange streaking the blue, with a hint of the first star. He breathed in the welcome vegetable smell of the allotment. So he had come through the shed door again, which meant he wasn’t far from home. It was sometime near Christmas and appropriate for him to be standing with a baby in his arms. He shook Mandoline and she squawked. She was all right.
Some distance away, a couple of the frosted brussels sprouts plants began to shake violently. Foxes, Edwin thought. It was good to be able to work out what was going on. In Lanthorne’s world it had been one hideous surprise after another.
As he threaded his way between the sections of the allotment, Edwin chattered to his sister.
“Just a short walk and then you’ll be snug in your own little cot again,” he said. “I expect you love that idea as much as I do, Mandy. You don’t mind if I call you Mandy? You see, as I’ve saved you from a fate worse than anything you could imagine, I think we need to get on a different footing. Friends, not you getting me into trouble all the time. Okay?”
Mandoline winked up at him, or perhaps it was just her eye twitching as the first flake of snow settled on it. Edwin took it as a yes.
Something nuzzled his leg. Something nuzzled both legs, in fact. Looking down, he met the adoring gaze of two sets of crossed eyes. The bizarre heads which contained them were decorated with the remains of the recently savaged brussels sprouts.
When Edwin walked through his front door with the best Christmas present his parents would ever receive, they would be too overjoyed to bother him with questions at first. But sooner or later he was going to have to say, “Mum, Dad, I’ve got something to tell you. We were followed home by a snarghe.”