Chapter Two

Aunt Mauve

“There’ll be no writing in this house!” said Aunt Mauve. She stood in the doorway of Will’s tiny bedroom, her eyes flashing.

Will stared at the top of the dresser where he had stacked his writing books and the royal blue pencil box. The books were gone. His stomach lurched. “My novels!” he cried.

“You’re too late,” crowed Aunt Mauve. “I tossed them in the rubbish while you were at school.”

Will shoved his way past Aunt Mauve and raced down the narrow hallway and through the kitchen. He yanked the lid off the trash bin that stood on the back step and stared, horrified, at a lone banana peel.

“No use looking in there!” screeched Aunt Mauve. “The trash was picked up at noon. Your books are gone. Every last one.”

She disappeared into the living room and turned on the TV. Will stormed back to his bedroom and flung himself on the bed. He felt sick at the thought of losing all those words. “Witch!” he muttered under his breath.

He rolled onto his side and studied the pencil box. At least Aunt Mauve hadn’t thrown that away. Suddenly, a pale golden light seeped out from under the lid of the box, as if there were a tiny sun trapped inside. His mouth dropped open. He sat up and reached for the box. Holding his breath, he opened the lid. The light had disappeared. There was nothing inside.

It was crazy! There had been a light, but now it had vanished. The box came from the Abracadabra shop. Was it a magic box? Even the possibility sent a chill through him.

He closed the lid, waited and then opened it one more time. Nothing.

For a second, he thought about telling Aunt Mauve about the box, but she would accuse him of lying. Mr. Barnaby would be interested, but Will didn’t know if he would ever see Mr. Barnaby again.

After a long time, he knelt on the floor and reached into his trunk. He took out the brand-new writing book. He sat on the bed and opened the cover. A clean lined page stared back at him. He waited for the usual thrill of excitement, but instead he felt afraid. He hugged his cold arms. When his mother had died, something died inside Will too.

“I can’t write any more,” he whispered. “I just can’t!”

< • >

It took Will two hours and four bus transfers to get all the way across the city to his school. One afternoon, when school was finished, he walked the eight blocks to the brick building where he had lived all his life. He lingered on the street, shivering in his thin jacket, and watched lights blink on in their old window. A small boy’s face appeared, pressed against the glass. He waved. Then someone pushed him away and pulled the curtains, shutting out the empty street and Will.

Something tingled inside Will. The plot for a new novel? What if the boy was one of those kids you heard about on the news who had been abducted? He’d make the kidnapper an insane wizard who… A sickening feeling of despair welled up in him again. He heard a clanking sound and spun around. The knight in shiny armour and the woman with the wreath were standing beside a lamppost.

“Leave me alone!” shouted Will. “I don’t write any more!”

He ran, away from the Muses and away from his old flat, all the way to the office of Barnaby Book Publishers Inc. He banged hard on the narrow black door, but no one came. He peered through the post slot. Piles of letters were scattered across the floor, but not the large brown envelope containing Adrienna’s last chapter. It looked like Mr. Barnaby had gone away. He had deserted Will.

Will waited a long time for a bus and it was dark before he got back to Aunt Mauve’s house. He carried his cold supper of fried eggs into the living room, where his aunt sat glued in front of the television. He had given up looking through the TV Guide, because they always watched Aunt Mauve’s favourite game shows. Aunt Mauve was supposed to be looking for a job, but in the three weeks that he had lived in her house, she had only ventured out once, to buy their meagre groceries.

The next day, two things arrived in the post that changed his life forever.