station. You’re still only a Muddle, the only one here…”
Recalling, remembering all the terrible things she had done to him, at home, Box pulled in his horns, and he said, “I was only asking…”
“And I was only telling,” she replied. “Now listen, I have something to ask of you, in confidence…” Shepherding him away from Miocene, she said, “Sorry Miocene, it’s nothing personal.”
By the time Harry had finished explaining, Box was scratching his head in bewilderment, wondering if the missing ghost was the only one who was mad.
“Are you sure they are there?” he asked, scratching his head, wishing he had said nothing.
“Yes, now pipe down, will you? It’s supposed to be a secret,” she insisted.
Far way, in a world between worlds, Holdavort had no intention of being outmanoeuvred by a child, again “This time,” he said, “I will finish her off so fast, that troublesome girl, Harry, won’t know what hit her. She will be history…”
“Where is Box going?” Miocene asked when she saw him heading down the stairs.
“On an errand,” Harry replied.
“An errand?”
“Yes, but it’s nothing for you to be concerned about. “Now where is your wand?” she asked, changing the subject.
“My wand? It’s here, of course.” Miocene showed Harry her garishly pink wand.
“I never liked that colour,” Harry mumbled.
“It’s pink – for a girl!” she said. “It’s my favourite colour!” Having thus been distracted, Miocene forgot all about Box’s mysterious errand.
Just then, a few of Harry’s classmates approached, and one of them, a boy named Tommy Sutton, asked, “Are you going to finish him off? I hope there’s loads of blood!” Another classmate, a redheaded girl named Sylvia Slark, said, “Where is McGonagain?” I haven’t seen her – for ages”
“She’s gone.”
“Gone – are you sure? Where?”
“Listen,” Harry explained, “we have more things to be concerned about than the old coot’s fancy women. Be off with you!”
Giggling, the girl scurried away.
A third child, a heavyset boy, whom Harry shared little or no interests with, (apart from mysticism and magic, that is), said, “It’s your fault!”
Feigning innocence, pointing to her chest, Harry said, “Me? I am sure that I have no idea what you are talking about.”
However, being a particularly stubborn individual, the boy persisted, and he said, “We all knew what you were up to, back there, when you stole that first marble thingy.
“And what might that be?”
“You wanted the rest of them, of course!” he declared, looking very pleased with himself. “Oh, and – ”
Cutting him off, Harry let rip with her wand. No child pupil was going to dictate to her. Harry’s electro magical wand punished him with a vengeance.
“Stop it, STOP IT!” Miocene shouted, ignoring the fact that she might be next on Harry’s sometimes-unfathomable agenda. “What do you think you’re doing, Harry?” she asked.
The boy child, lying in a tangled heap upon the floor, his clothes smouldering from Harry’s vicious attack, scrambled away. “I’ll see you later,” he warned, disappearing behind his fellow pupils, to the rear of the balcony.
“What was all that about?” Miocene asked, worried for the boy.
“He’s a creep,” Harry hissed, “and a fat one at that.”
Downstairs, making his way through the maze of dimly lit corridors, on that errand for his troublesome, bothersome and problematic cousin, Box came to a abrupt halt. “Is it right and then left?” he whispered, “Or left and then right?” He had absolutely no idea. Then he saw it, on a nearby wall; he saw a picture, a wonderful painting of an old man; a knight on horseback. Approaching it, he studied the picture with growing interest. “I’m sure this is the same painting…” he mused. “But the figure within it, Lord Catchyfoe, if it really is him, was much closer to the front of it... And why is it here?” Scratching his German head, Box struggled to make sense of it.
The old man in the picture, turning to face him, smiled, and said, “So we meet again, Sir Box. Can I be so bold as to assume that your quest is now over?”
“It is you!” Box exclaimed with excitement. Then, shaking his head, he said, “No, unfortunately my quest is far from over, my lord.”
“I am sorry to hear that, Sir Knight,” the old man replied.
Guiding his steed that bit closer to him, he said, “Does a fellow knight need of some assistance?”
Destiny’s Child
“It’s no problem, no problem at all,” Lord Catchyfoe said, offering Box a hand up.
“Are you sure you can do this?” Box asked, looking up at the painting, with some uncertainly.
“Yes, of course,” the knight insisted. “Come on, through your leg up, if what you have told me is correct, we have no time to waste.”
As the old man pulled, Box struggled with his leg, raising it, trying to lift it across the ornately carved frame. Then with one huge last effort, he scrambled across the frame and entered the painting. “Wow!” he said, quite in surprise. “It’s so different in here than I had imagined!”
And so it should be,” Lord Catchyfoe insisted. “It is a painting after all, and an extremely fine one at that. Now follow me,” he ordered. “I know some shortcuts between paintings; I’ll have you there in no time at all…”
Following the old knight from painting to painting Box passed through Hagswords at a far greater speed than he had ever imagined possible. Their progress was so fast Box had no time to stop and admire any of the fine things he saw on their way, such as cows grazing contentedly in lush meadows, wild animals in far away places stalking their prey, and happy, carefree people saving the hay in times gone by. Box also saw terrible, cruel things; scenes of bloody battles and even bloodier wars, so much suffering he wanted to cry.
“Almost there,” said the lord, as he entered a particularly large painting. It was of a old bearded man, wearing a black robe decorated with star and planet motifs, so many Box thought it impossible to count. And in his hand, this man was holding what looked surprisingly like a little black pouch.
“Is that Merlin,” Box asked, already believing that it was.
Lord Catchyfoe nodded. “We have no time for stopping,” he warned. “Perhaps we can speak with him, later?”
“I’d love to,” said Box, catching a glimpse of the old wizard as he began opening his pouch.
Stepping out from the painting, onto a dark wooden floor, Lord Catchyfoe instructed Box to do likewise.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“We are in what was the inner sanctum of Necromanter.”
“Necro – who?”
“Necromanter,” the lord said again, “He was a necromantic sorcerer, perhaps the best who ever lived.”
“But…?”
“I know,” said the old man, “you want to know more. However, this is not your destiny – or is it?” he asked rather cryptically.
Confused, Box mumbled a simpler question, “Are we nearly there?”
“Your destination?” Opening the door, the lord said, “Follow me, and see for yourself.”
Box had expected the door to lead on to another drafty old hallway, but surprisingly it didn’t. Instead, he found himself in the girls’ dormitory, the Lythyndoor House’ girls’ dormitory to be precise. “How did you do that?” he asked, quite in surprise.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” The old man replied.
“Pardon?”
Without explaining what he had meant by this, the lord said, “Time is getting away… Retrieve that which you have come for, and let us depart.”
Making his way down the isle, between two rows of narrow, steel tubular framed beds, Box said, “She told me that her bed is the last one on the left.” And so it was, Harry’s bed, exactly as she had left
it, had none of the pink frilly bits the other girls had adorned theirs with. Instead, her only concession to decoration was a poster sticky taped to the wall above it. This poster was advertising a circus. Box read the wording out aloud, it said, ‘The Circus of Grotesques – It will change your life forever’. “I don’t like the sound of that,” he whispered, getting goosepimply all over.
“Have you got it?” the lord asked, egging him on.
Forgetting about the poster, Box got down on all fours and made his way under the bed. Covered in cobwebs, he replied, “Give me a minute… It’s dreadfully dusty down here…” Then finding the loose floorboard Harry had told him about, he prised it up with the end of his stumpy wand. It broke. With a snap, his little wand broke in two. Box was devastated. In an instant, his stumpy little wand had become two even stumpier wands. “Dratts,” he hissed.
“Is everything all right?” the lord knight asked.
Crawling out from under the bed, covered in cobwebs, Box showed the lord knight what he had found – two shiny bright Philosopher’s Marbles. Then showing him the broken remnants of his little wand, he replied, “That’s a matter of opinion.”
Paying absolutely no attention to the broken wand, but admiring the glass baubles immensely, Lord Catchyfoe said, “My, you have been busy.” Then opening the door, he said, “Come on, we must be away.”
Meanwhile, in the Great Hall, Holdavort had returned with a vengeance. Amidst thunderous clashes and lightning flashes, he left Miocene and Harry in no doubts whatsoever that he had returned with all guns blazing.
Shrieking with fear, Miocene asked Harry what she should do. But