Apart from the bats and the weather, nothing else had changed at the school. At first David had been surprised that nobody seemed to care about Christmas. Later on he had glumly accepted it. Captain Bloodbath came to the school once a week, on Tuesdays, but he never brought any letters or took any so there were no Christmas cards. There were no Christmas decorations either. David had seen Mrs Windergast with an armful of holly and that had raised his spirits – at least until lunchtime, when he had had his first taste of holly soup. There was no Christmas tree and, of course, no Christmas presents. Despite the snow, nobody threw any snowballs and the only snowman turned out to be Gregor, who had dozed off on his gravestone just before the heaviest fall and had to be thawed out the next day.
Only one teacher even mentioned Christmas, and this was Mr Creer in religious studies. Mr Creer was the only normal-looking teacher in the whole school. He was the youngest too, about thirty, short with curly hair and a neat moustache. His full name was Ronald Edward Creer. David had been a little unsettled to see the same name on a tombstone in the school cemetery – “Drowned off Skrull Island: 1955-1985” – but he had assumed it was a relative. Nonetheless, Mr Creer did smell very strongly of seaweed.
“Christmas, of course, has very little to do with Christianity.” Mr Creer gave the class a ghostly smile. All his smiles were rather ghostly. “There were festivals at the end of December long before Christianity appeared; the Roman ‘Saturnalia’ and the Persian ‘Birth of the Sun’, for example. In the north it is a festival of the dark spirits, for it is at Christmas that the dead return from their graves.”
This was all news to David. But he had to admit that living in London and being surrounded by tinsel, department-store Santas, last-minute shopping, mince pies, puddings and too many old films on TV, Christmas had never had much to do with Christianity there either.
Christmas Day began like any other day: baths, breakfast, three lessons, then lunch. For some reason, however, the lessons in the afternoon had been cancelled and David and Jill found themselves free to wander as they pleased. As usual, all the other pupils went to bed. That was what they did whenever they had any free time. Then, late at night, they would go to the library. And then they would disappear.
David and Jill had tried to follow them several times, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, but without success. The trouble was that there was no way they could follow the others into the library without being seen, and by the time they opened the door everyone had gone. One afternoon they searched the room thoroughly, certain that there must be a secret passage. But if there was a secret passage, it must have had a spectacularly secret entrance. All the walls seemed to be made of solid brick. A fireplace with a stone mantelpiece dominated one of them, and there was a full-length mirror in a frame decorated with bronze flowers on the other. But though David pressed and prodded all the animals while Jill fiddled with the mirror and even tried to climb up the chimney, they didn’t find anything.
And where was Jeffrey during all this?
In the weeks that they had been at Groosham Grange, Jeffrey had changed and this worried David more than anything. He still remembered Mr Kilgraw’s words. “If anything, he’ll be the easiest…” It was certainly true that Jeffrey had taken to spending more and more time by himself and less and less time with David and Jill. Quite a few times now, David had seen him in deep conversation with William Rufus and although he had questioned him about it, Jeffrey had refused to be drawn. Although there were no books in the library, he seemed to be reading a lot; old, dusty books with yellowing pages bound in cracked leather.
It was Jill, with her short temper, who had finally started an argument. She had rounded on him one evening in an empty classroom as they talked about their progress – or lack of it.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “You’re beginning to act as if you actually like it here!”
“Perhaps I d-d-do,” Jeffrey replied.
“But the whole school is mad!”
“All p-p-public schools are mad. But it’s a lot b-b-better than Godlesston.”
“But what about our promise?” David reminded him. “Us against them.”
“We may be ag-g-gainst them,” Jeffrey said. “But I’m not so sure that they’re ag-g-gainst us.”
“Then why don’t you just go off and join them?” Jill snapped.
It looked as if Jeffrey had.
David and Jill were alone as they trudged across the playing fields, up to their ankles in snow. They knew every inch of the island by now. Groosham Grange was in the north. A forest sprawled all the way down to the eastern side. Its trees could have been sculpted out of stone and looked at least a thousand years old. The point, where the jetty stood, was at the southernmost end. This was a long, flat area below the multicoloured cliffs which soared up behind. David was sure that he could see the entrance to a cave at the bottom of the cliffs and would have liked to explore it, but there was no way they could reach it. The cliffs themselves were too sheer to climb down and the point was separated from the cave by an inlet, the waves pounding at the rocks and sharpening them into needlepoints.
There was also a river on the island – although it was more of a wide stream – running from the north into a lake beside the forest. This was where they went to now. The water had frozen over and they had thought it would be fun to go skating. But they didn’t have any skates. And anyway, they didn’t feel much like having fun … even if it was Christmas Day.
“Have you learnt anything since you got here?” Jill asked.
David considered. “Not really,” he admitted. “But then there are never any tests or exams or anything so it doesn’t really seem to matter.”
“Well, I’ve learnt one thing.” Jill picked up a stone and threw it across the lake. It hit the ice and slithered into a tangle of weeds. “The boat comes every Tuesday. Captain Bloodbath unloads all the supplies and then he and Gregor drive up to the school. So for about one hour there’s nobody on the boat.”
“What of it?” David asked, suddenly interested.
“The day after Boxing Day is a Tuesday. And when they’re up at the school there is going to be somebody on the boat. Me.”
“But there’s nowhere to hide.” David had been with Jill when she had examined the boat a week before. “We looked.”
“There isn’t room for two,” Jill admitted. “But I reckon one of us can squeeze inside the cabin. There’s a heap of old rags on the floor. I think I can hide underneath.”
“So you’re really going.” David couldn’t help feeling sad as he spoke the words. Jill was his only true friend in the school. With her gone, he would be more alone than ever.
“I’ve got to go, David,” Jill said. “If I stay here much longer I’m going to go crazy … like Jeffrey. But once I’m away, I’ll send a letter to the authorities. They’ll send someone over. And I bet you anything you like, the school will be closed down a week later.”
“Where will you go?” David asked.
“I’ve got four brothers and two sisters to choose from,” Jill said. She smiled. “We were a big family. I was number seven!”
“Did your mother have brothers and sisters?” David asked.
Jill looked at him curiously. “What on earth has that got to do with anything?”
“I just wondered…”
“As a matter of fact she was a number seven, too. I’ve got six uncles. Why do you want to know?”
“Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter,” David muttered and said no more. It meant something. It had to mean something. But what?
He was still pondering over it later that evening as he sat by himself in the library. Christmas dinner – if you could call it that – had been ham and chips, the chips only slightly warmer than the ham. David was feeling really depressed for the first time since he had arrived. Jill had gone to bed early and there wasn’t even any television to cheer him up. There was one television in the school but it was a black and
white model held together by Sellotape. The volume switch had fallen off and the reception was so bad that the screen always resembled a miniature snowstorm. It was fine if you were watching a programme about deaf and dumb coal workers in Siberia. Otherwise it was useless.
The door opened and he looked up. It was Jeffrey.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello, D-D-David.” The fat boy stood hovering beside the door as if he was embarrassed to have been caught there.
“I haven’t seen you around for a while,” David said, trying to sound friendly.
“I know. I’ve been b-b-busy.” Jeffrey looked round the room, his eyes darting behind his wire-frame spectacles. “Actually, I w-w-was looking for W-W-William.”
“Your new friend?” Now David sounded scornful. “Well, he’s not here. Unless of course he’s under the c-c-carpet or in the f-f-fireplace or wherever it is they all go at night! And all I can say is, if you want to join them, they’re welcome to you.”
“I d-d-didn’t…” Jeffrey stammered to a halt, blushing, and David felt angry with himself for having lost his temper. He opened his mouth to speak again but at the same time Jeffrey backed out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
David got up. He’ll be the easiest. Once again Mr Kilgraw’s words echoed in his mind. Of course Jeffrey would be the easiest of the three of them – whatever it was that Groosham Grange had planned. He was fat. He wore glasses and he had a stutter. He was one of life’s victims, always the one to be bullied. And by rejecting him, David had just played right into their hands. It had been three against the rest when they began. But his own thoughtlessness had left Jeffrey out there on his own.
Quickly, he left the library. Jeffrey had already disappeared down the corridor but David didn’t mind. If he could find out what was really going on at Groosham Grange – behind the façade of the lessons and everyday school life – then perhaps he might be able to put a stop to it, saving Jeffrey and himself at the same time. And he was in the perfect place to start looking. The answer had to be in one of two rooms.
He began with the door marked HEADS. In all the time he had been at the school he had never once seen the two headmasters, Mr Fitch and Mr Teagle. But for the fact that he had heard their voices, he wouldn’t have believed they even existed. Now he knocked gently on the door. As he had expected, there was no reply. Glancing over his shoulder, he reached for the handle and turned it. The door opened.
David had never been in the headmasters’ study before. At first sight it reminded him more of a chapel than a study. The windows were made of stained glass showing scenes from what looked like the Last Judgement, with devils prodding naked men and women into the flames. The floor was made of black marble, and there was no carpet. The bookcases, filled with ancient books like the one Jeffrey had been reading, reminded him of pews and there was even a pulpit in one corner, a carved eagle supporting a Bible on its outstretched wings.
The room had one riddle of its own. There were two headmasters at Groosham Grange. So why was there only one desk, only one chair, only one gown on the clothes-stand behind the door? David could find no answer to that – and no answers to anything else. The desk drawers were locked and there were no papers lying around. He spent five fruitless minutes in the study. Then he left as quietly as he had gone in.
It took more courage to sneak into Mr Kilgraw’s study opposite. David remembered the last time he had been there – he still had a mark on his thumb to show for it. Eventually he opened the door. “He can’t eat you,” he muttered to himself, and wished that he believed it.
There was no sign of the assistant headmaster but as he crossed the carpet, he felt he was being watched. He stopped, scarcely daring to breathe. He was quite alone in the room. He moved again. The eyes followed him. He stopped again. Then he realized what it was. The pictures…! They were portraits of grim old men, painted, it would seem, some years after they had died. But as David moved, their eyes moved with him so that wherever he was in the room they were always looking at him.
He paused beside what looked like a chest of drawers and rested his hand against it. The wood vibrated underneath his fingertips. He pulled his hand away and stared at it. Had he imagined it? No – standing there alone in the study, he could hear a faint humming sound. And it was coming from the chest.
Squatting down, he reached for one of the drawers and pulled it. That was when he made his first discovery. The whole chest was a fake. All three drawers were no more than a front and swung open like a door. The chest was actually a modern refrigerator.
David peered inside and swallowed hard. The chest might be a fridge but it certainly didn’t contain milk, butter and half a dozen eggs. Instead, about thirty plastic bags hung from hooks, each one filled with a dark red liquid. “It’s wine,” he whispered. “It’s got to be wine. Of course it’s wine. It can’t be anything else. I mean, it can’t be…”
Blood!
But even as he slammed the door and straightened up, he knew that it was. Wine didn’t come in bags. Wine was never labelled AB POSITIVE. He didn’t even want to ask what thirty pints of it were doing in Mr Kilgraw’s study. He didn’t want to know. He just wanted to get out of the study before he ended up in another eight bags on a lower shelf.
But before he had reached the door, he managed to stop himself. It was too late to back out now. This might be the last chance he had to search the study. And time was running out for Jeffrey. He took a deep breath. There was nobody around. Nobody knew he was there. He had to go on.
He walked over to the desk. The book that he had signed on his first evening at the school was still in its place and with a shaking hand he opened it. He tried to lick his thumb but his mouth was as dry as sandpaper. His eye fell at once on the last three names: DAVID ELIOT, JILL GREEN, JEFFREY JOSEPH. Although they had faded from red to brown, they were still fresher than the names on the other pages. Leaning over the desk, he began to read.
It took him about thirty seconds to realize that there wasn’t one single name in the book that he recognized. There was no William Rufus, no Bessie Duncan or Roger Bacon. So he had been right. The other pupils had taken false names some time after their arrival. The only question was – why?
He closed the book. Something else had attracted his attention, lying at the far corner of the desk. It hadn’t been there that first night. In fact David had never seen one before, at least not off someone’s hand. It was a ring, a special ring with a black stone set in plain gold. David reached out for it … and yelled. The ring was white-hot. It was as if it had just come out of the forge. It was impossible, of course. The ring had been lying there on the wooden surface ever since he had come into the room. It had to be some sort of illusion. But illusion or not, his fingers were still burnt, the skin blistering.
“What are you doing here?”
David twisted round, the pain momentarily forgotten. Mr Kilgraw was standing in the room – but that was impossible too. The door hadn’t opened. David had heard nothing. The assistant headmaster was dressed as usual in black and white as if he was on his way to a funeral. His voice had sounded curious rather than hostile but there could be no mistaking the menace in his eyes. Clutching his hand, David desperately grappled for an excuse. Ah well, he thought to himself. Refrigerator, here I come.
“What are you doing here, David?” Mr Kilgraw asked for a second time.
“I … I … I was looking for you, sir.”
“Why?”
“Um…” David had a flash of inspiration. “To wish you a happy Christmas, sir.”
Mr Kilgraw’s lips twitched in a faintly upwardly direction. “That’s a very charming thought,” he muttered in a tone of voice that actually said, “A likely story!” He gestured at David’s hand. “You seem to have burnt yourself.”
“Yes, sir.” David blushed guiltily. “I saw the ring and…”
Mr Kilgraw moved forward into the room. David was careful to avoid glancing in the mirror. He knew what
he would see – or rather, what he wouldn’t see. He waited in silence as the assistant headmaster sat down behind the desk, wondering what would happen next.
“Sometimes it’s not wise to look at things we’re not meant to, David,” Mr Kilgraw said. “Especially when they’re things that we don’t understand.” He reached out and picked up the ring. David winced, but it lay there quite coolly in the palm of his hand. “I have to say that I am very disappointed in you,” Mr Kilgraw went on. “Despite the little talk we had, it seems that you aren’t making any progress at all.”
“Then why don’t you expel me?” David asked, surprising himself with his sudden defiance. But then there was nothing he would have liked more.
“Oh no! Nobody is ever expelled from Groosham Grange.” Mr Kilgraw chuckled to himself. “We have had difficult children in the past, but they come to accept us … as you will one day.”
“But what do you want with me?” David couldn’t contain himself any longer. “What’s going on here? I know this isn’t a real school. There’s something horrible going on. Why won’t you let me leave? I never asked to come here. Why won’t you let me go and forget I ever existed? I hate it here. I hate all of you. And I’m never going to accept you, not so long as I live.”
“And how long will that be?” Suddenly Mr Kilgraw’s voice was ice. Each syllable had come out as a deadly whisper. David froze, feeling the tears welling up behind his eyes. But he was certain about one thing. He wouldn’t cry. Not while he was in front of Mr Kilgraw.
But then it was as if Mr Kilgraw relented. He threw down the ring and sat back in his chair. When he spoke again, his voice was softer.
“There is so much that you don’t understand, David,” he said. “But one day things will be different. Right now you’d better get that hand looked at by Mrs Windergast.”
He raised a skeletal finger to the side of his mouth, thinking for a moment in silence. “Tell her that I suggest her special ointment,” he went on. “I’m sure you’ll find it will give you a most … refreshing night’s sleep.”