"Why don't you like me? I'm smarter than you. One day" - the boy raised his fist - "you'll be sorry."
A door opened behind him and a voice called, "Eric, what are you doing?"
"Come and look."
Two women stepped into the hall. They would have been identical if there had not been twenty years separating them. Both were tall and dark-eyed with thin, chilly mouths and long, narrow noses. But whereas one had bone-white hair, the other's was as black as a crow's wing.
"Look!" Eric pointed up at the three cats.
The older woman uttered a throaty snarl. "What are they doing here? I've forbidden them. Expressly."
The younger woman, Eric's stepmother, grabbed his hand and dragged him back. "I've told you never to approach those creatures."
"I didn't," said Eric. "I'm down here and they're up there. And anyway, they can't hurt me."
"Of course they can," his stepmother retorted. "They're wild creatures."
"With leopards' hearts," her sister added. Raising her voice, she called, "Charlie! Charlie Bone, come here, this minute."
A door opened upstairs and a moment later a boy with tousled hair leaned over the railing. The yellow cat walked up to him and rubbed its head against his arm. The other cats jumped down and circled his legs.
"What is it, Grandma?" Charlie stroked the yellow cat's head and yawned.
"Lazy lump!" said his grandmother. "Have you been asleep?"
"No," Charlie replied indignantly. "I've been doing my homework."
"Did you let those cats in?"
"They're not doing any harm," said Charlie.
"Harm?" Grandma Bone's dark eyes became angry slits. "They're the most harmful creatures in this city. Get them out."
"Sorry, Sagittarius." Charlie lifted the yellow cat off the banister. "Sorry, Aries and Leo," he said to the cats winding themselves around his legs. "Grandma Bone says you've got to go."
Whether it was Charlie's tone of voice or his actual words was not clear, but the cats appeared to know exactly what he was saying. They followed him into his bedroom, and when he had opened his window, jumped through it, one by one, onto the branch of a chestnut tree that stretched close to the sill.
"See you at the Pets' Cafe," Charlie called as the Flames leaped onto the sidewalk. They bounded up the street with a chorus of meows that made a dog on the other side of the street stop dead in its tracks.
Charlie smiled and closed the window. Returning to the landing, he found his grandmother, his great-aunt Venetia, and Eric still staring up at him.
"Have they gone?" Grandma Bone demanded.
"Yes, Grandma," Charlie said wearily.
At this point, a third woman emerged from the sitting room. With her sharp features and abundant gray hair, she was clearly related to the other two women. She was, in fact, Charlie's great-aunt , Eustacia. She was carrying a flat, rectangular object covered in brown paper. It was about four feet wide and maybe three feet deep.
Charlie knew there was no point in asking about the package. He would be told to mind his own business. But he had a fairly good idea what it was. He began to feel unaccountably excited.
"What are you staring at?" Great-aunt Eustacia grunted at Charlie.
"Get back to your homework," ordered Grandma Bone.
Eric's thin little mouth twisted into an unpleasant smirk. "Good-bye, Charlie Bone!"
Charlie didn't bother to reply. He went back to his room and closed the door with a loud click. But then, as quietly as possible, he opened it again, just a fraction. He wanted to know what was going to happen to the object Eustacia was carrying. Surely, it had to be a painting.
It was two years since Charlie had discovered his extraordinary endowment. It had begun when he heard voices coming from a photograph. Over the next few months Charlie found himself traveling into photographs and talking to people who had died many years before. When he had turned his attention to paintings, the same thing had happened; he could meet the subjects in old paintings, people who had lived centuries before. Charlie often tried to avoid these situations; it was one thing to go into the past, quite another to leave it. Once or twice he'd been lucky to get out alive.
For some reason the rectangular object with its covering of wrinkled brown paper aroused Charlie's intense curiosity. He put his ear to the crack in the door and listened.
"Why you've brought it here, I can't imagine." Grandma's voice cackled with irritation.
"I told you," whined Great-aunt Eustacia, "my basement's damp."
"Hang it on your wall, then."
"I don't like it."
"Then give it to..."
"Don't look at me," said Great-aunt Venetia. "It gives me the creeps."
"She made me take it," Eustacia said fretfully. "Mrs. Tilpin isn't someone you can argue with."
Charlie stiffened. He hadn't heard Mrs. Tilpin's name mentioned for some time. Once, she had been a rather pretty music teacher named Miss Chrystal, but she hadn't been seen since she'd been revealed as a witch.
"They won't keep it at the school," went on Eustacia. "Even Ezekiel is wary of it. He says it steals his thoughts, it draws them away like a magnet - he says."
"Joshua Tilpin is a magnet," said Eric.
His stepmother uttered a short, dry laugh. "Ha! The witch's son. So he is."
At this, everyone began to talk at once, and Charlie had difficulty in making out what was said, but it seemed that Grandma Bone had finally agreed to allow the painting, or whatever it was, to be stored in her cellar. Strictly speaking, it wasn't her cellar, because she shared the house with her brother, Paton. Charlie and his other grandmother, Maisie, had been permitted to live there until Charlie's parents returned from their second honeymoon and their house, Diamond Corner, had been restored.
There began a succession of bangs and scrapings and irritated exclamations as the painting was presumably carried down into the cellar. Finally, the cellar door was shut, and after more discussions, thuds, and clicks, Grandma Bone, her two sisters, and Eric left the house.
Charlie waited in his room until he heard everyone bundle into Great-aunt Eustacia's car. Then, with much misfiring and a painful grinding of gears, the old Ford lurched down the street.
After another five minutes had passed, Charlie slipped out of his room and ran downstairs. When he reached the cellar he found that the door had been locked. Luckily, Charlie knew where all the keys were kept. He went into the kitchen and pulled a chair up to the cabinet. Standing on tiptoe he reached 'for a large blue jug patterned with golden fish.
"And what might you be up to?" said a voice.
Charlie hesitated. The chair wobbled. Charlie uttered a shaky yelp and steadied himself. He hadn't noticed Grandma Maisie, folding the wash in a corner.
"Maisie, are you spying on me?" asked Charlie.
Maisie straightened up. "I've got better things to do, young man."
Charlie's other grandmother was the very opposite of Grandma Bone. Maisie wasn't much taller than Charlie and battled hard to keep her weight down. Being the family cook didn't make this easy.
"Now, I wonder why you were trying to get those keys?" Maisie's face was too round and cheerful to look stern. Even frowning was an effort. "Don't deny it. There's nothing else up there that would interest you."
"I think Great-aunt Eustacia has put a painting in the cellar."
"What if she has?"
"I... well, I just wanted to... you know, have a look at it." Charlie clutched the fish jug and drew out a large rusty-looking key.
Maisie shook her head. "Not a good idea, Charlie."
"Why?" Charlie replaced the jug and jumped down from the chair.
"You know them," said Maisie, with meaning. "Those Yewbeam sisters are always trying to trick you. D'you think they didn't know you'd be just itching to take a look at... whatever it is?"
"They didn't know I was listening, Maisie."
"Ha!" Maisie grunted. "Of course they did."
Charlie twiddled t
he key between his fingers. "I just want to take a look at the outside of it, the shape of it. I won't take the paper off."
"Oh no? Look, Charlie, your parents are watching whales on the other side of the world. If something happens to you, how am I going to... ?"
"Nothing will happen to me." Before Maisie could say another word, Charlie walked briskly out of the kitchen and along the hallway to the cellar. The key turned in the lock with surprising ease. But as soon as the door opened, Charlie knew that there was really no doubt - something would happen to him. He could feel it already: a light, insistent tug, drawing him closer, down a set of creaking wooden steps. Down, down, down, until he stood in the chilly gloom of the cellar.
The package was propped against the wall, between an old mattress and a set of rusty curtain rods. Charlie couldn't be certain, but he thought he could hear a faint sound coming from beneath the crumpled wrapping paper.
"Impossible!" Charlie clutched his hair. This had never happened before. He had to see a face before he heard its voice. But this sound was coming from something out of sight. As he stepped toward the package, a deep whine whistled past his ears.
"Wind?" Charlie reached out a hand.
At his touch the paper rustled and creaked. The whole package seemed suddenly alive and Charlie hesitated. But a second of doubt was immediately overcome by his burning curiosity, and he began to tear at the wrapping. Strips of paper flew into the air, from Charlie's frantic fingers and the unnatural wind that blew from who knew where.
The painting didn't even wait to be entirely revealed. Long before every corner was free of the paper, a dreadful landscape began to seep into the dim cellar. This was not how it should happen. Charlie was mystified. He waited for the familiar tumbling sensation that usually overwhelmed him when he traveled into paintings. It never came. He watched in astonishment as the brick walls of the cellar were swallowed by a vista of distant mountains. Tall, dark towers appeared in the foreground; one swam so close to Charlie that he could smell the damp moss that patched the walls. Ugly scaled creatures scurried over the surface, pausing briefly to stare at Charlie with dangerous glinting eyes.
"It has to be an illusion," Charlie told himself.
He put out his hand - and touched the horny spine of a black toadlike thing.
"Ugh!" Leaping away from it, he tripped and fell on his back. Beneath him he could feel rough cobblestones, slippery with gray-black weeds. Above him purple clouds rushed through an ash-colored sky, and all about him the wind roared and rattled, howled and sighed.
"So I'm there already." Charlie got to his feet and rubbed his back. "Wherever there is."
In brief intervals when the wind died to a low whine, Charlie could hear the tramp of heavy feet and a low muttering of voices. "It's here," one said. "I can smell it."
"It's mine." This voice glopped like a sink full of dishes. "I know how to catch it."
"Oddthumb knows," came a chorus of low, tuneless voices.
Charlie backed around the tower as the marching feet drew closer. There appeared to be no windows in the building, and Charlie was just beginning to think that it was without a door when he was suddenly seized around the waist and lifted high in the air. A huge fist closed over his mouth, and a voice close to his ear whispered, "Boy, your life depends on your silence."
Shocked and speechless, Charlie was swung backward through an open door and set down. He found himself on the lowest step of a stone staircase that spiraled upward before disappearing into the shadows.
"Climb," whispered the voice. "As fast as your feet will take you."
Charlie mounted the stone steps, his heart beating wildly. Up, up and up, never stopping until he had reached a door at the very top. Charlie pushed it open and went into the room beyond. A narrow window high in the wall shed a dismal light onto the sparse furnishings below: the longest bed Charlie had ever seen, the highest table and the tallest chair, and... could that be a boat, hanging on the wall? He turned quickly as the owner of the room ducked under the lintel and walked in, closing the door and locking it.
Charlie saw a giant, or the nearest thing to a giant he had ever seen. The man's white hair was coiled into a knob at the back of his head, and a fine, snowy beard reached a neat point just above his waist. He wore a coarse shirt, a leather vest, and brown woolen trousers tied at the ankle with a cord.
The giant held a finger to his lips and then, raising his arm, pushed open a small panel set between the rafters of the roof. Without a word he lifted Charlie up to the dark space revealed. Charlie rolled sideways, and the panel was immediately replaced, leaving him in a dark, stuffy hole with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs.
"They'll not find you. Trust me," whispered the giant, whose head was perhaps only a foot below the rafters.
There was a tiny hole right beside Charlie's ear, and when he turned his head, he could see directly into the room below. He had just positioned himself as comfortably as possible when he heard voices echoing up the stairwell.
"Otus Yewbeam, are you there?"
"Have you seen a boy?"
"Caught him, have you?"
"He's ours."
"Mine," came Oddthumb's husky snarl. "All mine."
A battery of fists and cudgels began to thump against the door.
"Patience, soldiers," called Otus. "I was sleeping." One step took him to the door, which he unlocked, with much sighing and rattling.
A crowd of squat, ugly beings rushed in and surrounded the giant. They wore metal breastplates over their patched leather jerkins, and strapped to their heads were tall helmets like metal top hats. Axes, knives, catapults, and cudgels hung from their belts, though some had bows slung over their backs and quivers bursting with shiny arrows. Most came up well below the giant's waist, but there was one, somewhat larger than the others who, for some reason, looked familiar to Charlie. Could this be the same carved stone troll that had once sat outside Great-aunt Venetia's gloomy house?
"Why did you lock the door against us?" this larger being demanded.
"Not against you, Oddthumb," said the giant. "Against durgles."
"Durgles," spat Oddthumb.
"Durgles are very destructive," said Otus. "Many a day they have eaten my bread, while I slept."
"Liar," said Oddthumb. "A durgle can no more unlock a door than a diddychick. You've got him, I know it."
"Who?" Otus inquired in a mild tone.
"The boy," snarled one of the smaller beings. "He's here. The watch see'd him a-coming from far off. Caught, he was, by the count's guile."
"Enchanted," said the being beside him.
"Spell-brought," chorused the others.
There was a loud creak as Otus lowered himself on to his bed. He was now out of Charlie's sight, though he could still see a long leather-bound foot.
"Respected soldiers, I have seen no boy," said Otus. "Search this room, if you must."
"We will," grunted Oddthumb. "Up, giant!"
Otus had barely risen from the bed when Oddthumb and his crew pushed it over. They slashed at the blankets, battered the straw mattress, tore off a cabinet door, turned over a thin rush mat, poked up the chimney, pulled charred wood from the fire, and hacked at the floorboards. The frenzied attack lasted no more than ten minutes, and from his hiding place, Charlie saw a growing pile of ash and straw, broken pottery, and chunks of bread.
"Squirras!" cried one of the soldiers suddenly.
Charlie couldn't see what he had found. It must have been on the far side of the room.
"Greedy, greedy," said Oddthumb. "Six squirras for your breakfast, Otus?"
"I'm a giant." Otus sighed.
"We'll leave one, the smallest," Oddthumb said spitefully.
"I thank you," said Otus.
A soldier with a warty face came and stood directly under Charlie's spyhole. "No boy, here, General," he said. "In forest, maybe?"
"No boy, eh? No boy." Oddthumb paced across the room. He stopped beside
Wart Face and looked up.
Charlie found himself staring into a stony gray eye. He dared not blink. He dared not breathe. His own eye began to ache as he held it wide open and unmoving. Could Oddthumb see him? Did he sense Charlie's presence, lying above? An urge to sneeze overcame Charlie. He pressed his lips together, brought his fingers slowly up to his face, and clamped them over his nose.
"Dreaded creatures up there," whispered Wart Face. "Blancavamps! Maybe. Let us leave here, General."
"Blancavamps?" Oddthumb stroked his chin with a grotesque thumb, as big as his hand.
Charlie had difficulty in stifling a gasp.
"Have you got blancavamps, Otus?" asked Oddthumb.
"Sadly," said the giant, "they steal my sleep."
Oddthumb threw back his head and gave a hideous burbling chuckle. In a second the room was filled with gurgling laughter as soldiers echoed their general. The dreadful sound stopped abruptly the moment Oddthumb closed his mouth. Without another word the general marched out, followed by his troops.
Charlie listened to the stamp of heavy feet receding down the steps. A door at the foot of the tower clanged shut, and the soldiers began to march down the street. Charlie waited, breathlessly. He dared not move for fear one of the soldiers remained in the room below. He could hear Otus setting his room to rights after the rough intrusion.
Long after the footsteps had faded, the giant finally came and grinned up at Charlie. "You are safe, boy. Be not afraid. I will get you down."
"Thanks," Charlie said huskily.
The giant pushed back the panel, saying, "Step onto my shoulders." He held up his arms and Charlie thrust his legs through the hole. Otus gently lifted him down and set him on the bed.
Charlie wriggled his aching shoulders and rubbed his arms. "I'm not sure how I got here," he said.
The giant pulled his chair up to the bed and sat down. Putting his head to one side, he regarded Charlie quizzically. "Your name?" he asked.
"Charlie Bone, sir."
"You are a traveler?"
"I... yes, I am sometimes. I can travel into photos and paintings." Observing the giant's puzzled frown, Charlie added quickly, "Photos are a bit difficult to explain, but I expect you know what a painting is." The giant nodded. "Anyhow, this time it was different, my traveling, I mean. This time a painting has... kind of... captured me."