Fyre

  Behind her Morwenna had put on a surprising turn of speed. The witch raced to the end of the landing stage, wheeled around and headed right back. The next thing Jenna knew was the smell of leaf mold behind her as Morwenna placed her dainty witch foot into Jenna’s last footstep. As Jenna wheeled around in surprise, the heavy hands of the Witch Mother descended on her shoulders and her talonlike grip dug into the top of her arms.

  “Got you!” Morwenna crowed triumphantly. “At last.”

  21

  WHAT IS TO BE

  “Get off me!” yelled Jenna, twisting and turning, trying to get free.

  “You can’t get away; I have put a Grasp on you,” hissed Morwenna.

  Jenna could not believe it—she had been so stupid. She should have run away while she could. Morwenna propelled her back along the jetty and Jenna was convinced that the witch intended to drown her. They reached the mooring post and Morwenna—keeping her Grasp on Jenna—leaned down and pulled a small coracle out from underneath.

  “Get in!” she puffed.

  There was no way Jenna intended to get into something that looked like a large teacup floating on the river—especially with a witch. “No!” she said and gave Morwenna a shove backward. But the witch’s Grasp held firm and Jenna found herself teetering on the very edge of the rickety planks. She grabbed hold of the mooring post with both hands. If Morwenna wanted to take her, she would have to take the post too.

  Suddenly a movement on the riverbank, dark against the snow, caught Jenna’s eye. Two figures were moving fast toward the landing stage. With a sinking feeling Jenna guessed it was witch reinforcements—witches always traveled in threes. An old rhyme came into her head:

  One Witch to Find you,

  Two Witches to pay,

  Three to remind you

  You won’t get away.

  And she’d bet anything that one of them was Marissa. But suddenly a very un-Marissa voice boomed out. “Stop right there!”

  Never had Jenna been so happy to hear that voice. “Milo!” she yelled. “Help, help!”

  The rickety planks shook as Milo pounded toward them. Morwenna gave Jenna a massive shove, but Jenna was ready. Using the momentum—and the fact that Morwenna could not let go—Jenna swung around the mooring post in a full circle, taking the witch with her. She had heard that witches and water did not mix well. Her only hope was that the shock of the water would make Morwenna break her Grasp. As Morwenna began to topple, Jenna prepared herself for the fall into the icy water.

  Milo’s heavy hand suddenly landed on Morwenna’s shoulder, pulling her back from the edge. “Eerf ym dlihc!” he yelled.

  Morwenna gave a cry of fury and Jenna felt the witch’s Grasp fall from her arm. She jumped back and both she and Milo gave Morwenna a hefty push. The witch landed neatly in her coracle, feet sticking out, arms flailing like a beetle stranded on its back. The coracle began to do what coracles do best: go round in circles. Around and around it went, spinning off into the middle of the river. Milo and Jenna watched the witch twirl through the moon’s reflection; then the current took the coracle and pulled it rapidly along, bouncing through the choppy waters in the middle of the river, taking the Witch Mother back to the Forest.

  “What was it you said that made her let go?” asked Jenna.

  Milo had made a decision that morning after Jenna had blown him her kiss. At last, Jenna was allowing him to be her father, and he would start acting like one. Probably for the first time ever, he answered a question directly. “I said, ‘Free my child.’ In Reverse.”

  Jenna had not expected that. “Oh . . .”

  It was not easy, but Milo made himself continue. “When . . . yes, when Cerys, your mother, was first expecting you she got very worried about CradleSnatching. It is something that the Wendron Witches used to do, snatch baby girls from their cradles to bring them up as witches—and they particularly liked to take Princesses. A Princess is a great prize for a Coven, so they say.”

  Jenna nodded. She knew all about that.

  “By the time Cerys was Queen, the Wendrons had stopped taking Castle babies, but your mama was afraid that they might still be tempted by a baby Princess. So she told me a powerful Reverse.” Milo smiled at the memory. “Well, actually, she sat me down and made me learn it over and over again.”

  Once again Jenna was overwhelmed with the what-might-have-been feeling. “And you remembered. After all this time.”

  Keeping to his resolve to be straight with Jenna, Milo had something to admit. “Well, I almost did. Actually, I’m sure I would have done. But luckily your mother reminded me. It’s something you want to get right the first time. There’s not always a second chance with a witch.”

  Jenna knew she’d been lucky: she had escaped from the Port Witch Coven once and from the Wendrons twice now. “Third time unlucky,” was another well-known witchy saying. But something Milo had said did not make sense to Jenna. And as he seemed to be actually answering her questions for once, she asked,

  “What do you mean, my mother reminded you?”

  Milo looked at Jenna with an odd expression in his eyes. She seemed so young to him, too young. But what did he know? The Queen was always right. “Jenna, your mother, or rather the ghost of your mother, is here.”

  “Here?”

  “There.” Milo gently guided Jenna around so that she was looking toward the Palace.

  “Oh!” Jenna gasped.

  Standing on the riverbank at the far end of the landing stage was the ghostly figure of a young woman wearing the long red robes of a Queen.

  Milo asked softly. “Shall we go and meet her?”

  Jenna was lost for words. She nodded.

  Milo put his arm around Jenna’s shoulders and together they walked toward the ghost. As they drew nearer Jenna saw that her mother was just as she appeared in her dreams. She was surprisingly young, her long dark hair was caught up in a golden circlet, and her large, violet eyes did not leave her daughter for a moment.

  With every step Jenna took, she felt as though she were walking out of one life and into another. The ghost of Queen Cerys stretched out a translucent hand and in response Jenna held her hand out to meet it, careful to allow the ghost to make the first touch, if she wished. Cerys did wish. She placed her hand on Jenna’s and Jenna felt something fleeting, like a warm breeze on a winter’s day.

  “Daughter . . . dearest. My . . . Jenna.” It was hard for Cerys to say Jenna’s name, because it was not the one she had chosen for her. Milo and Cerys had decided that Jenna would be named after her two grandmothers, but the Naming Day had never happened.

  Jenna stood silently. She did not know what to call her mother. “Mother” felt too formal, “Mum” was Sarah Heap and “Cerys” felt too much like a friend.

  The ghostly Cerys guessed what Jenna was thinking. “Perhaps you would like to call me Mama?” the ghost asked.

  Jenna was not sure. Mama sounded kind of babyish. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  Cerys withdrew her hand and looked downcast. “Of course. You already have a Mama. For more than fourteen years you have lived your life with another family. A family that I would never, ever have . . .” The ghost’s voice became faint with emotion. Marcia’s selection of Sarah and Silas Heap as adoptive parents had horrified Cerys when she had first found out from the ghost of her own mother—who had wholeheartedly approved. “They will love her as their own,” Queen Matthilda had told her grieving daughter. “And that is the most important thing for a child.” But Cerys did not agree, and the choice of the Heaps still rankled.

  Milo could see that Cerys was working herself up into what he used to call one of her “states.” “What’s done is done,” he said quietly. “The Heaps are a good family. And it is your time now, Cerys.”

  Jenna watched her parents together with a feeling of disbelief. Ever since she had been given The Queen Rules on her fourteenth birthday, she had known that one day soon she would meet the ghost of her mother, but she had never expected
to see her mother and her father together as a couple. It was a shock. There was none of the easy, happy banter that she was used to between Sarah and Silas. Jenna at first supposed it was because one of them was a ghost, but they seemed to slip into their roles with such ease that she began to suspect that they had always been like this—her mother edgy, and her father conciliatory.

  Milo’s soothing words had their intended effect and Cerys calmed down. The ghost held out her hand to Jenna, saying, “Come, daughter, we have a Journey to make.”

  Jenna was not surprised—a Journey was mentioned in the Arcane section of The Queen Rules, although no details were given. She wondered where the Journey would take them. She placed her hand into the shadow of her mother’s and allowed the ghost to lead her along the riverbank toward the Palace. Milo watched his daughter and the ghost of his wife walk away together, then set off after them at a discreet distance. He sighed, overcome as Jenna had been earlier, by the sense of what-might-have-been.

  Sarah and Silas were dozing by the fire in Sarah’s sitting room. Ernold and Edmund Heap had long gone to bed but Sarah knew that Jenna was still out, and I can’t go to bed until I know she is safely home, Silas. You go on up without me.

  But Silas had stayed with Sarah. He wasn’t going to leave her alone in that sitting room ever again. So when the door creaked open and Silas looked up to see Jenna peering round, he nudged Sarah.

  Sarah opened her eyes and smiled at Jenna. “Nice time?” she asked.

  Jenna did not return her smile. She came into the sitting room and—using the tone that announces something no parent wants to hear—she said, “Mum. Dad.”

  Sarah and Silas were on their feet in an instant. “Ohmygoodnesswhatisit?”

  In reply Jenna stepped to one side and pushed the door behind her wide open.

  “Oh!” gasped Silas.

  “Your . . . Your Majesty,” said Sarah. “Oh . . . my.”

  “Sarah Heap. Silas Heap.” The ghost of Queen Cerys smiled uncertainly.

  “Oh, Your Majesty. Please come in.”

  The ghost drifted into what had once been her (immaculately tidy) sitting room and stared at the chaos in horror. Sarah saw the Queen’s gaze settle on the remains of that night’s supper, which was piled on the floor beside the fire, and she quickly threw a towel over it. A red stain from some pickled beetroot (Silas loathed pickled beetroot) spread up through the towel as though someone had shot it. And that made Sarah even more embarrassed. She glanced at Queen Cerys, trying unsuccessfully not to look at the great dark bloodstain over the ghost’s heart.

  “Um . . . Mum, Dad,” Jenna said again, not knowing where to start.

  “Yes, love?” Sarah said anxiously.

  “My mother. The Queen. She has something she would like to say to you and Dad.”

  “Oh, dear . . .” This was a moment that Sarah had been dreading—the moment the past came back to haunt them.

  “It’s nothing bad, Mum,” Jenna said hurriedly. “Really.”

  Sarah was not convinced.

  Queen Cerys looked upset—she could not believe what Sarah Heap had done to her beautiful sitting room. Was this how her daughter had lived too? She was silent for a moment as she tried to compose herself. Sarah and Silas waited nervously.

  “My husband and I . . .” the ghost began, and then turned and beckoned someone in from the corridor. “Come in,” she said, a little impatiently, Sarah thought. Milo squeezed in through the door and tried to hold it open with the fluffy pink rabbit doorstop, with little success. With some difficulty, he found a place to stand, wedged between two stacks of dog-eared romance novels, which were liberally splattered with duck poo. The ghost started again. “My husband and I wish to thank you both, Sarah and Silas Heap, for looking after our daughter.”

  Sarah glanced at Silas. She didn’t like Jenna being described as someone else’s daughter. Silas raised his eyebrows in response. Neither did he.

  The ghost continued. “We are both deeply grateful for the love and care you have given her. And we are well aware of the hardships that have befallen you as a result of your guardianship . . .”

  Sarah flashed a look of dismay at Silas. They were not Jenna’s guardians—they were her parents.

  “. . . of our daughter. We trust those difficulties are at an end and that you will now be able to resume your simple, yet happy life.” Silas let out a spluttering sound. Sarah looked like a goldfish that had been thrown out of its bowl.

  Silas spoke for them both. “Your Majesty, Jenna has brought us nothing but good. And we have always considered Jenna to be our daughter. We always will consider Jenna to be our daughter. Nothing is at an end.”

  “Things end, Silas Heap,” said Cerys. “Things begin. It is the way of the Castle. The way of the world.”

  Sarah was becoming increasingly agitated. “What do you mean?” she burst out.

  “I mean that today things begin.”

  “What things?” demanded Silas.

  “That is not for you to know, Silas Heap.”

  Silas thought differently. “If it affects our daughter, it most certainly is for us to know.”

  The Heaps were not quite what Cerys had expected. She had assumed that they would curtsy and bow respectfully, gratefully hand over her daughter, and she would see no more of them. Cerys felt quite rattled: when she had been Queen no one would have dreamed of speaking to her like that—especially Sarah and Silas Heap. Stranded at the doorway by the sheer amount of junk she would have to Pass Through in order to go any farther into the room, Queen Cerys raised her voice and spoke very slowly.

  “It is time for our daughter to go on her Journey,” she said.

  “What journey?” Sarah demanded. “Where?” Memories of a similar visit by Marcia Overstrand to take Jenna away from their room in the Ramblings some four years in the past had come flooding back. “You can’t just come here and take Jenna away. I won’t allow it; I won’t.”

  “It is not for you to allow or disallow, Sarah Heap,” Queen Cerys informed her.

  Milo watched in dismay; he had become very fond of the Heaps and did not like to see them upset. He had forgotten quite how bossy Cerys was. Time had thrown a rosy hue over his life with her—now he remembered why he had gone away on so many voyages. Milo was back to his role of fifteen years ago: smoothing the waters. He threaded his way across the room to the upset Heaps.

  “Silas, Sarah,” he said. “Please don’t worry. All Princesses go on a Journey with the ghost of their mothers before they become Queen. They go back to where their family came from, I believe.”

  This did not make Sarah feel any better. “Where on earth is that?” she asked. “And how does Jenna get there? How long will she be away?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Milo. He shrugged just like Jenna, thought Sarah. “It’s Queen stuff,” he said with a rueful smile. “They do a lot of that, you’ll find.”

  Jenna pushed past a stack of washing and hugged Sarah. “Mum, it’s okay. Milo’s right; it is Queen stuff. And that’s what I have to do. You know I do.”

  “I know, love.” Sarah noisily blew her nose into a large handkerchief and woke Ethel. Since the Darke Domaine the duck was easily frightened, particularly in Sarah’s sitting room. Ethel now launched into full-scale panic. A frantic quacking filled the room and the duck rose up, flapping her little bony wings. She careered across the tiny room, bouncing from Milo’s head to washing pile to flowerpot stack, and shot out of the door, Passing Through the astonished ghost of Queen Cerys.

  The ghost of the Queen had never been Passed Through before. It is a shocking experience for any ghost the first time it happens, particularly when the Passer-Through is a hysterical duck. Queen Cerys fell out of the room with a groan and Milo rushed after her.

  Jenna had a few moments with Sarah and Silas. “Mum. Dad. You mustn’t worry. I will be fine. I know she—I mean, my mother, the Queen—seems a bit . . .”

  “Rude,” Silas supplied.

  “Y
es,” Jenna admitted. “But she hasn’t spoken to anyone for ages and I think things aren’t quite what she expected.” Jenna took a deep breath. She felt excited at what she was going to say. “And I think I am going to be Queen soon.”

  Sarah nodded. “I think so too, love.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I can tell. There is something different about you. I do understand that The Time Is Right.”

  Hearing this from Sarah made Jenna feel relieved and happy. “You don’t mind?”

  “Of course we don’t. We knew it would happen one day. Didn’t we, Silas?”

  Silas sighed. “Yes, we did.”

  Milo appeared anxiously at the door. “All right?” he asked. “Ready?”

  “Yes.” Jenna nodded. “Bye, Mum. Bye, Dad. I’ll be back soon.” She hugged them both hard, then Sarah and Silas watched Jenna pick her way across the room.

  Queen Cerys’s pale hand stretched out toward Jenna. Jenna turned, blew Sarah and Silas a kiss and then she was gone.

  Tactfully, Milo slipped out, leaving Sarah and Silas together. There was a long silence in the sitting room.

  After a while, Silas said gruffly, “I’d better go and find that blasted duck.”

  22

  RELATIONS

  Now that it was known that the Princess was gone on her Journey, a strange collection of objects and people began arriving at the Palace.

  Never a day went by when Sarah Heap was not called to the entrance hall—always hoping it would be Jenna—only to find someone holding some kind of pot, box or bizarre object. At the sight of Sarah the person would make a formal bow and say: “Comptroller, I bring you this Wonder for the Coronation. We, the family (insert family name here) are honored to be the Keepers of the Coronation (insert description of object here, e.g. trumpet, fire shovel, broom, eggcup, shoehorn, stuffed ferret) and as is our bounded duty since Time Began, we now present this to thee, O Comptroller, for its sacred duty. Safe Journey.” The donor would then bow three times, walk backward across the Moat bridge, taking care not to fall prey to the snapping turtles—and once out of role, he or she would either give Sarah a cheery wave and shout “Good luck!” or scuttle off in embarrassment.