Which Witch?

  But Mother Bloodwort was not daunted. Leaving the duck to stare moodily at a clump of reeds, she took her broomstick back to the fountain and led out the Eastern princess, lovely as an orchid in her shimmering trousers and golden tunic.

  ‘Oi!’ moaned Mr Chatterjee. He had never married, not being sure if his wife would settle in a bottle, and the Princess Shari was all that he desired.

  Again the princess followed the old witch meekly, again Mother Bloodwort rode round and round her on her broomstick, reciting her rhyme.

  ‘It’s going to work this time,’ whispered Belladonna to Terence. ‘Look, the feathers are black! It’ll be a lovely swan, you’ll see.’

  They watched, breathless, as Mother Bloodwort slowed down and dismounted.

  ‘I see that I am to be spared nothing,’ muttered Arriman the Awful, while beside him, Mr Chatterjee howled with pain.

  For the bird now tottering like an overfed alderman towards the lake, was a fat, sleek and foolish-looking penguin.

  For a moment, Mother Bloodwort was very much put out. But once more she pulled herself together, and, coughing up a number of dead flies, she regreased her broomstick and went to fetch the German princess with her flaxen pigtail and her dirndl.

  But the Princess Waltraut Hohenstifterbluts did not seem to be as hypnotised as the others.

  ‘Eet iss diss-gussting,’ she hissed. ‘Ve are beink made schtocking-laughs off. Me, I vill be a black schwann or I vill write to ze newspapers.’

  But it was not to be. And of all the heart-rending things they’d had to watch, one of the worst was seeing a great-great-great granddaughter of Atilla the Hun sitting on a branch and saying in that silly way that budgies have, even in Germany, ‘Plees to giff Walti a biscuit. A biscuit quickly to Walti, plees.’

  It was Belladonna who knew what was going to happen next. Mother Bloodwort had dropped her broom, her shoulders sagged, her Cloud of Flies grew silent.

  ‘Don’t!’ cried Belladonna. ‘Oh, please, Mother Bloodwort, don’t!’

  Too late. Already the budgie, looking surprised, had hopped on to the thing that now stood, four square, upon the path beside the lake.

  The ghoul woke and said, ‘Vomit!’ Mr Chatterjee shook his turbaned head sadly from side to side. And Arriman the Awful rose from his seat.

  ‘No one,’ he said, ‘can accuse me of not doing my bit for wizardry and darkness. But there is one thing I will not do and that is marry a coffee table!’

  And pulling his mantle close about him, the outraged wizard strode away.

  Twelve

  On the night before Madame Olympia was due to do her trick, Terence had a dream. Not a dream, really – a nightmare – a truly horrible one in which he was back at the Sunnydene Home with all the miseries and cruelties he knew so well.

  In his dream, Terence was looking for something. Something terribly important, but he didn’t know what it was, and growing more and more frantic, he ran through the drab cold rooms, opening battered locker doors, tearing the lids off serving dishes with their soggy dumplings and clammy meat balls, snatching the rough grey blankets from the iron beds. And all the time, as he searched, he heard the sound of laughter – jeering, taunting laughter. Unable to bear it, Terence ran down the mottled steps into the garden.

  ‘I’ll find it,’ said Terence, ‘I’ll find it here.’

  He bent down and pressed his hands against the gravel, but the laughter was growing louder and more malevolent, and then, suddenly, rearing up in his path, was the dreaded figure of Matron with her sneering lips and baleful eyes, Matron, grown ten foot tall and still trailing the roots which had tethered her – roots which he saw were now made of plaited, blood-stained human teeth.

  ‘I must find it!’ sobbed the little boy.

  ‘You’ll never find it! You’ll never find it!’ screamed Matron. And as her pointed shoe, sharpened to a saw blade, came up to cut him in half, Terence woke.

  At first, just finding that he was in his little room at the Hall, wearing Mr Leadbetter’s pyjama top and miles away from Matron, was a tremendous relief. But this dream was one it didn’t seem easy to shake off.

  What had he been looking for so desperately? What had Matron said he’d never find? And suddenly, awake, Terence knew what he had not known when he was sleeping.

  Rover. It was Rover he’d been looking for.

  Only that was silly. Rover was safe in his box. Terence had said goodnight to him only an hour ago and he’d been in splendid shape, rippling along the rim of the wash basin like an anaconda.

  Still, he’d just make absolutely sure. Jumping out of bed, Terence turned on the light and went over to Rover’s box which stood where it always stood, under the window.

  He lifted the lid.

  ‘Rover?’ he called.

  The worm was underground; he usually was, and turning the moist, crumbly earth over with his hands, Terence began to search for his friend.

  He was a long way down. And gradually, a s he searched, Terence’s movement became faster and his breath seemed to stick in his throat.

  Even then he didn’t panic, but went to fetch a newspaper from the pantry and spreading the sheets out on the floor, upended Rover’s box.

  In the thinly-spread scattering of earth, the truth could no longer be denied. Rover was gone.

  An hour later, the ogre, the secretary and Terence were in Mr Leadbetter’s room, desperately deciding what to do. The ogre had rubbed his eyepatch on to the back of his head. Mr Leadbetter was pacing the floor, and Terence, still in the secretary’s pyjama top, was crouched on the bed like a worried fledgling on a nest.

  ‘I suppose it wouldn’t be possible to use another earthworm for the competition?’ said Mr Leadbetter coming to rest for a moment.

  Terence shook his head. ‘Belladonna said she’d tried being black sometimes with other worms when I was up at the Hall and it didn’t work at all. It isn’t any worm that makes her black, it’s Rover.’

  ‘But if we got another worm and told her it was Rover—’ began Mr Leadbetter, and broke off because he knew he was being silly. Belladonna could tell each ladybird from all its fellows, call a dozen grimy sparrows on a rooftop by their names. It was as foolish to think that all Chinamen looked alike as it was to imagine that she couldn’t tell Rover from every earthworm in the world.

  ‘It’s only Friday,’ said Terence in a rather shaky voice. To him. Rover had not been just a powerful familiar; Terence had lost a dear and valued friend. ‘It’s Madame Olympia’s turn tomorrow and Sunday’s a free day, isn’t it. So by the time Belladonna does her trick on Monday night, don’t you think Rover might be’ – he gulped and pulled himself together – ‘might be found?’

  The ogre and Mr Leadbetter exchanged glances. Terence believed that Rover was simply lost, and they thought it was better he went on thinking so. They had their own suspicions, but the boy had quite enough to bear.

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it, son,’ said Lester, laying his enormous hand on Terence’s shoulder.

  ‘I suppose we’ll just have to give up all hope of Belladonna winning,’ said the secretary wearily.

  ‘No!’ Terence had jumped from the bed and his voice was strong again. ‘No! We mustn’t give in. Look – Belladonna’s just got to win the actual competition, hasn’t she? I mean, once Arriman’s seen her he’s bound to want to marry her and by that time maybe Rover’ll have turned up. So can’t we fake her trick? Pretend to have raised Sir Simon?’

  ‘Get someone to impersonate the ghost, do you mean?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Terence eagerly. ‘There could be lots of smoke and spotlights and things, like in a pantomine. And then this horrible spectre suddenly appearing – alive!’

  Mr Leadbetter looked shocked. ‘That would be cheating, surely?’

  Terence turned to him, surprised. ‘Well, cheating’s black, isn’t it? And blackness is what Arriman wants.’

  Mr Leadbetter saw the logic of this. ‘But who could we get to take the part
of Sir Simon?’

  ‘Ought to be a professional,’ said Lester. ‘An actor. I used to know some when I was in the fair, but not now.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Mr Leadbetter. Now that he had got used to the idea of cheating, his brain was beginning to tick over once again. ‘You know my sister Amelia? The one that’s Terence’s mother and didn’t marry the swimming bath attendant?’

  The others nodded.

  ‘Well, she keeps a boarding house for theatricals in Todcaster. You know, actors and people connected with the stage generally. I wonder if she could find us someone to impersonate Sir Simon?’

  ‘We’ll have to move fast,’ said Lester. ‘There’s only two days and one of them’s a Sunday. And I don’t really see how I can leave the old man with that Madame Olympia due to do her trick tomorrow.’

  ‘And I can’t either,’ said Mr Leadbetter. ‘She’s asked for some most complicated stuff. Strobe lights and amplifiers and goodness knows what. Oh, dear!’

  ‘I can go,’ said Terence.

  There was a pause. Terence had looked wonderfully better since he’d come to the Hall, but he was still the smallest and skinniest boy imaginable. And Todcaster was thirty miles away: it meant a train and then a bus into the town.

  ‘Amelia’d look after you,’ said Mr Leadbetter slowly .

  ‘But . . .’ His voice trailed away. He was too polite to say that he didn’t think an actor or anyone else would take much notice of Terence.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said the ogre. ‘I’ve got an idea. The old man’s been making paper money: fivers, tenners, the lot. Says he’s sick of humping bags of gold around. I’ll just go and have a look.

  He was back in a few minutes with a large wallet crammed to bursting with notes.

  ‘If you take these you’ll be all right,’ said Lester. ‘No one’ll care a stuff what size you are when they see these. And remember, not a word to Belladonna! She’s got to believe that she’s really raising Sir Simon and that it’s Rover she’s touching inside his box. However nutty she is on Arriman, she’ll never cheat to get him and that’s for sure!’

  And then, at last, they went to bed to wait for dawn.

  But one light still burnt at Darkington. A single lamp in the window of Madame Olympia’s caravan where the enchantress sat, gloating over something she held in her cruel, rapacious fingers. Something moist and gentle which, greedy as she was, she prized beyond any jewel.

  She had always been certain she would win the competition. But now . . . No one could beat her now!

  Thirteen

  Belladonna woke on the morning of Madame Olympia’s trick feeling worried and out of sorts. The bloodshot eyeballs on her sleeping-bag had gone very pink and fragrant in the night and she had a nasty feeling that they might be turning into the begonias she was so often troubled with. Then there was Mother Bloodwort who’d been so upset by the budgerigar that not all Belladonna’s coaxing could get her to remember the undoing spell for being a coffee table, and Belladonna had had to drag her into her own tent and just hope she’d come round in time. And being Belladonna, she was worried about the flies. Were they all right inside the coffee table; what did they think?

  But of course she cooked breakfast for the others and took a cup of tea to Nancy Shouter (who still lay on her camp bed in her vest and knickers telling everyone that it didn’t matter which chicken was which) and then she followed Mabel Wrack and Ethel Feedbag up to the Hall.

  When she reached the steps leading to the South Terrace, she met Mr Leadbetter and the ogre who told her that Terence had gone into Todcaster to do some errands for Arriman.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Belladonna. ‘He’ll miss Madame Olympia’s trick and he’s so fond of magic.’

  And feeling ridiculously miserable at the thought of spending the day without the little boy, she went to look for the other witches and find a hiding place from which to watch.

  Madame Olympia had chosen to do her trick in the underground vaults and cellars of Darkington Hall itself; a cold, dark, echoing warren of passages which opened into a wide cave, as big as several rooms, where in the olden days prisoners had been tortured to death or left to starve. No daylight ever reached this subterranean maze, and as Arriman strode to his place at the judge’s table, holding the genie’s bottle under his cloak against the cold, he shivered and pulled his collar round his ears.

  But when Witch Number Six strode into the cave, his mood changed. For here, at last, was a witch to be taken seriously.

  One moment they were sitting in a dark and gloomy cellar – the next, the cave was aflame with flashing lights which changed from sulphurous yellow to livid green and searing crimson, casting strange and flickering shadows on the walls. Next, the vault was filled with a pulsing, sobbing, shrieking sound as the music of ‘The Groaning Gizzards’, amplified to screaming pitch, pierced the eardrums of the listeners with a song about greed and wretchedness and hate.

  Having thus set the stage, the enchantress walked over to the judges’ table and bowed low. She was wearing the hood and gown that Arriman had insisted on, but she did not look at all like Mother Bloodwort or Ethel Feedbag or Mabel Wrack. In the secrecy of her caravan, the enchantress had sewn a thousand jet-black sequins on to her gown which now trembled and glittered in the light of the strobes, as did the rhinestones on the collar and lead of her sinister familiar. Witch Number Six was tall and carried herself like a queen and she had looped her necklace of ninety-three molars, fifty-seven incisors and eleven wisdom teeth so as to make a column of palest ivory round her throat.

  ‘THE SYMPHONY OF DEATH PERFORMED BY A CAST OF THOUSANDS,’ announced Madame Olympia.

  Arriman nodded. He didn’t understand a word but it sounded good, and the witch’s low, husky voice sent a most agreeable shiver up his spine.

  Madame Olympia stepped into the centre of the cave. Then she closed her eyes and raised, not her wand, but a whip. A whip like no other in the world. Stolen from an accursed Egyptian tomb, its thongs were made of the plaited skins of human slaves; its lapis-lazuli handle had been wrought by an ancient sorcerer so powerful that it had meant death even to know his name.

  Three times Madame Olympia laid the whip across the back of the aardvark, charging it with the evil beast’s devilish power. Then she cracked the whip – and everybody gasped.

  A minute before, the cellar had been empty. Now, from every nook and cranny, from the walls, the ceiling, the floors, from the very air itself, there came tumbling and squeaking and clawing, a hundred, two hundred, five hundred – a thousand huge grey rats.

  Not ordinary rats. Lurching, swollen, putrid-eyed rats with scabrous tails and bloated fleas clinging to their matted fur. Rats with death in their filmed eyes – vicious, maddened, plague-bearing rats!

  Belladonna, hiding behind a pillar, gasped with terror, turned to take Terence’s hand, and remembered that he was not there. The ogre said, ‘Cor!’ and Arriman the Awful leant forward intently in his seat.

  There were so many rats now that they could not all put their diseased and twisted feet on the ground but walked on each other’s faces, climbed on each other’s backs . . . And now Madame Olympia turned off the music of ‘The Groaning Gizzards’ and adjusted the amplifier so that it was the squeaks and squeals and hideous scamperings of the rats, magnified beyond bearing, which filled the cave.

  Once more she flicked her whip and now, unbelievably, each one of the deformed and frightful animals swelled and swelled . . . grew to twice its size . . . three times . . . Rats the size of large dogs, now, so that the beasts’ heavy scaly tails thumped like hawsers against the stones. And the fleas, those dreaded carriers of bubonic plague, fell off them, large as saucers.

  Smiling her cruel, complacent smile, the enchantress watched as the sickening monsters in their thousands filled the cave, pressing each other against the walls, stamping each other underfoot, their whiskers flicking like thongs into the oozing eyes and twitching limbs of their fellows. And still more rats appeared
, layer upon layer of them till the cave was filled almost to the roof with the mis-shapen, screeching monsters.

  Only the ghoul was smiling now. The ogre, though the bravest of men, had pulled Mr Leadbetter away to stand behind Arriman, and the three witches, their differences forgotten, clung together trembling.

  Again the enchantress cracked her whip – and they saw that Madame Olympia had not come to the end of her devilry. For even as they watched, the flesh, the hair, the eyes and skin of the giant rats began to pucker up, to shrivel – and then to vanish altogether till the whole cellar was packed with skeletons. But skeletons which still ran and climbed and fought and bit. Eyeless, hairless, tail-less, these were still rats, and on the walls their shadows reared and capered in a grotesque and frightful dance of death.

  ‘Is good, is very good,’ said Mr Chatterjee inside his bottle, but he was shaking like a leaf, and Belladonna, almost fainting with disgust, could be glad at least that Terence was not there.

  Another crack of the whip, and, lo, the giant rats were clothed in their own flesh again: their grey fur returned, their rheumy eyes, their scabrous tails. But the most horrible part of the trick was still to come. For as they heard the last crack of the whip, all the rats were seized at the same moment with a passionate and uncontrollable desire for the taste of each other’s flesh. It was cannibalism run riot, cannibalism in its most ghastly form, as the rats sank their yellow teeth into thighs and shoulders and cheeks and slowly devoured each other – crunch by horrendous crunch.

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ said Belladonna beneath her breath.

  There were fewer rats now, and fewer, as more and more twitching bodies vanished into the maws of their fellows. Soon only fifty rats were left, then twenty, then five . . .