Cat said “Thanks” to him and hurried toward the stables, thinking. If he understood rightly, these Gammers and Gaffers were the heads of these tribes of witchy people, and if Mr. Farleigh the gamekeeper was one, the whole thing was much more frightening than Cat had realized. No wonder Marianne had been so upset. And here was he, Cat, with only one poor, second-rate idea to put against it all. Joe was no help. Cat hurried out into the yard, feeling small and weak and heartily wishing he had not agreed to help Marianne.
As Cat crossed the yard, Jason came out of his herb shed with a stack of flat wooden boxes. Cat went over to him. Jason, by the time Cat reached him, was standing on one leg, holding the boxes on one knee while he locked the shed. He spared Cat a harried smile. “What can I do for you, young nine-lifer?” The smells of many kinds of herbs, faint and sweet or rich and spicy, swam round the pair of them.
“Can you give me a lift to Woods House today?” Cat asked.
“Well, I could,” Jason said, “but you’d have to find your own way back. We’re moving in there for good today. Irene’s busy packing.”
Cat had not realized that things had moved on so quickly. He was quite taken aback. But he supposed that when an enchanter did things, he did them more swiftly than other people. And he was going to miss Irene. “Not to worry, then,” he said. “Thanks.”
He stood aside and watched Jason carry the boxes away across the yard. That did it, then. He was let off. But somehow that did not make him terribly happy. Marianne would be expecting him. He would have let her down. No, he would have to find a way to get to Ulverscote on his own. It was a pity that he had such a poor, thin idea to take there.
He could teleport, he thought, there and back. That ought to have been easy, but for the mis-direction spell—and then there was that barrier. If he tried it without one of the Pinhoes, he could end up caught behind the barrier like Chrestomanci. Better think of some other way. Cat walked slowly over to Syracuse’s stall to tell it to muck itself out, considering.
Joss Callow met him as he got there. “When you’re ready, we’ll ride out over the heath,” he told Cat. “Half an hour?”
Cat’s mind had this way of making plans without Cat knowing it was. “Can you make it later than that?” he asked, without having to think. “Jason and Irene are leaving today and I’ll need to say good-bye.”
“Suits me,” Joss said. “I’ve plenty to do here. Eleven o’clock, then?”
“Fine,” Cat said gratefully. While he cleaned the stall and gave Syracuse his morning peppermint, he found out what he meant to do. His mind had it all neatly worked out. He was going to ride to Ulverscote on Syracuse, and the way to make sure he got there was to follow the river. He was fairly sure the same river ran past the Castle and through Ulverscote. And, surely, even the most secretive of Pinhoes and the angriest of Farleighs could not change the way a river ran. They might deceive him into thinking it ran the other way, but Cat was fairly sure he could guard against that if he kept his witch sight firmly on the way it was really flowing.
Cat gave Syracuse a pat and a strong promise to ride him later and went indoors. Before he went upstairs to the playroom for breakfast, he dodged into the library where, much to the surprise of old Miss Rosalie, the Castle librarian, he asked for a map of the country between the Castle and Ulverscote.
“I don’t understand this,” Miss Rosalie grumbled, spreading the map out on a table for him. “Everyone seems to want this map at the moment. Jason, Tom, Bernard, Chrestomanci, Millie, Roger. Now you.”
Miss Rosalie always grumbled. She thought all books and maps should be on shelves. Cat paid no attention to her. He leaned over the map and carefully followed the wavy blue line of the river as it snaked through its steep valley beside the Castle. Sure enough, the valley, and the river with it, curved its way on, around the hill with Ulverscote Wood on it, and ran along the bottom of the slope where Ulverscote village was. By that stage, the valley was a simple dip, but it was the same river. Cat’s brain had gotten it right. He thanked Miss Rosalie and raced away.
In the schoolroom, Klartch was sitting on the sofa trying very seriously to eat a banana. “He’s in disgrace,” Euphemia snapped, banging toast and coffee down in front of Cat. “Don’t you go and be nice to him.”
While Janet was loudly protesting that Klartch was only a baby and that the way to teach babies was to be nice to them, Julia said to Cat, “Jason and Irene are moving out today, did you know? Are you coming down to the hall to say good-bye to them?”
Cat nodded. His mind was busy with the problem of how to get rid of Joss without making Joss suspicious. He thought he had it.
Julia said, “Roger?”
Roger just grunted. He was busy making diagrams on scraps of paper. He had been doing this at every meal for weeks now. Julia looked at the ceiling. “Boys! Honestly!”
Here Chrestomanci sailed in, wearing a kingly red dressing gown with ermine down the front. He took a long stride and got the banana skin away from Klartch just as Klartch tried to eat it. “I think not,” he said. “We don’t want any more accidents on the stairs.”
“Good morning, Daddy,” Julia said. “Why does everyone always have their minds on something else?”
“A good question,” Chrestomanci said, tossing the banana skin into the air. It disappeared. “I suppose it must be because we all have a lot to think about. Roger.” Roger looked up guiltily. The scraps of paper had somehow disappeared, like the banana skin. “Roger, I need to talk to you,” Chrestomanci said, “on a matter of some urgency. Can you come with me to my study, please.”
Roger got up, looking pale and apprehensive. Chrestomanci politely ushered him out of the schoolroom ahead of himself and gently closed the door behind them both. The other three looked at one another, glanced at Euphemia, and decided to say nothing.
Roger had still not come back when everyone gathered in the hall to say good-bye to Irene and Jason. He and Chrestomanci were almost the only people missing.
“Never mind,” Jason said, shaking hands with Millie. “We’ll see him when we give our house-warming party.”
“I’ll make sure he’s there,” Millie said. “Jason, it’s been a pleasure having you.”
Jason went round shaking hands with everyone. Irene followed, hugging people. Cat stood a little back from the throng. He was engaged in the most delicate piece of long-distance magic he had ever done, trying to make Joss’s big brown horse lose a shoe in a way that looked completely natural, without hurting the horse. He took its off hind foot up in imaginary hands and gently prized at the long iron nails that held the shoe on, going round them each several times, easing them out a bit at a time, until the horseshoe was hanging away from the hoof. Then he gave the horseshoe a sharp sideways push. It flew off. At least Cat thought it did. He certainly felt the horse give a jump of surprise. He let its foot carefully down. Then he picked the shoe up in imaginary hands and looked at it with imaginary eyes. Good. All the nails were most satisfactorily bent, as if the horse itself had twisted the horseshoe off. He tossed the shoe into a corner of the stall so that the horse was less likely to tread on it and injure itself.
He came back to himself to find Irene hugging him. “You’re very quiet, Cat. Is something wrong?” she asked. There were scents around Cat of spice and flowers. Irene always smelled lovely.
“I shall miss you,” Cat said truthfully. “May I come and visit you later today, or will you be too busy?”
“Oh, what a nice idea!” Irene said. “Be our first visitor, Cat. I’m longing to show off what we’ve done to the house. But make it after midday so that we can unpack a little first.”
Cat grinned a trifle anxiously as he shook hands with Jason. How soon would Joss notice that missing horseshoe? He hadn’t yet. Perhaps the shoe hadn’t really come off. It was often quite hard to tell if magic had worked or not.
He came to the door with everyone else and watched as Jason and Irene climbed into the small blue car. They could not have fit
ted Cat into it anyway. There was luggage strapped all over it and more piled into the backseat, with Jason’s herb boxes on top of that. They drove off in a waft of blue smoke, herb scent, and Irene scent, waving joyously as they vanished down the drive.
“I think they’ll be very happy,” Millie said. “And I’m longing to see their house. I think I shall drive over there as soon as they’re settled in.”
She won’t get there, Cat thought, without a Pinhoe to take her. I wonder what will happen then. He was edging away as he thought, wondering more about that horseshoe than about Millie. As soon as no one was looking at him, he turned and ran for the stables. It was nowhere near eleven yet, but he had to know.
He got there just as Joss was leading the big brown horse out through the stableyard gate. “Cast a shoe,” Joss called over his shoulder to Cat. “I have to get him down to the blacksmith before we can ride out. So don’t hold your breath. We could be gone hours if the forge is busy. I’ll send someone to tell you when I’m back. All right?”
“All right,” Cat said, trying not to look as relieved and joyful as he felt.
Chapter Fifteen
Marianne was having even more difficulty getting away than Cat was. She was in such disgrace at home that Mum was making her do all sorts of chores in order to keep Marianne under her eye.
“I’m not having you going round spreading any more tales,” Mum said. “If you’ve cleaned your room, you can come and sort these herbs and worts for me now. Throw out any leaves and berries that look manky. Then put worts in this bowl and just the fresh tips of the leaves in that one. And I want it done right, Marianne.”
As if I was four years old again! Marianne thought. I know how to sort herbs, Mum! It looked as if she was never going to get out of the house today. The only good thing about today was that, thanks to Mum’s lotions, Marianne’s bruises and scrapes had almost disappeared in the night. But what was the good of that when she was a prisoner? Marianne sighed as she spread the fresh green bundles of plants apart on the table. Nutcase jumped up beside her and rubbed sympathetically against her arm. Marianne looked at him. Now there was an idea. If she could persuade Nutcase to wander off again…
“Go and visit Woods House, Nutcase,” she whispered to him. “Why don’t you? You like going there. Go on. As a favor to me? Please?”
Nutcase moved his ears and twitched his tail and stayed sitting on the table. But I live here now, he seemed to be saying.
“Oh, I know you do, but pay a visit to Woods House anyway,” Marianne said. She opened the side window and put Nutcase out through it.
Two minutes later, Nutcase came in through the back door with Mum when she brought in an armful of plants and unloaded them in the sink to be cleaned. He jumped onto the drainboard and gave Marianne a smug look.
As soon as Mum had gone out into the garden again, Marianne picked Nutcase up and carried him through the house to the front door. She opened the door and dumped him on the path outside. “Go to Woods House!” she whispered fiercely to him.
Nutcase’s reply was to sit in the middle of the tiny front lawn, stick a leg up, and wash. Marianne shut the front door, hoping he would leave when he was ready.
Five minutes later, Nutcase came in through the back door again, with Mum and another bundle of herbs.
This is hopeless! Marianne thought, while Mum ran water in the sink. I shall just have to walk off without an excuse and get into worse trouble than ever. Wasn’t there any way she could tempt Nutcase to Woods House? Could she do something like the bacon spell she had tempted him with, the time she gave Cat the egg? But I can’t do that from here, she thought, right at the other end of the village. Or could she? When she looked at Woods House in a special, witchy way, she could feel that the bacon spell was still there. It only needed reactivating. But could she manage to start it up again from here, strongly enough to tempt Nutcase all the way from Furze Cottage? No, I’m not strong enough, she thought.
But Cat had said she was. He had said she had nearly enchanter-strength magic but just didn’t trust herself. He had made her bold enough to get into this trouble. Surely she could be bold enough to get herself out of it.
All right, she said to herself. I’ll try.
Marianne nipped the last fresh leaf tips into the bowl and concentrated. And concentrated. And trusted herself and concentrated some more. It was odd. She felt as if each new push she gave herself spread her mind out, wider, and then wider still, until she almost seemed to be hovering beside the faded remains of the bacon spell in the hall of Woods House. She gave it a flip and brought it to life again, and then a further flip to make it stronger—or she hoped she did. It was so hard to tell for sure.
But look at Nutcase!
Nutcase’s head went up and then went up farther, until he was nose upward, sniffing. Marianne watched him, hardly daring to breathe. Nutcase gave himself a shake and got up and stretched, front legs first, then back legs. Then, to Marianne’s acute amazement, Nutcase really did walk through the kitchen wall. He trod toward the wall, steadily and deliberately, but when his head touched the whitewashed bricks, he didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. He walked on. His head disappeared into the wall, then his shoulder ruff, then most of his body, until he was just a pair of black, walking hind legs and a tail. The legs walked out of sight and left only the bushy, waving tail. Then there was only the tip of the tail, which vanished with a jerk, as if Nutcase had given a pull to fetch it through. Marianne was left staring at the bricks of the wall. There was no sign of the place where Nutcase had gone through. Well, well! she thought.
She gave Nutcase ten minutes to get on his way. Then, when Mum came in from the garden again, she said, “Mum, have you got Nutcase?” She was surprised how natural she sounded.
Mum said, “No. I thought he was with you. Oh—bother!”
They searched the house as they always did, then Dolly’s stall, because Dolly and Nutcase seemed to have struck up a friendship, and then they went to Dad’s work shed and asked if Nutcase was there. Of course Nutcase was in none of these places. Mum said, “Better go after him quick, Marianne. If he gets down to the Dell again and your uncle Isaac finds him, there’ll be hell to pay. Hurry. Get a wiggle on, girl!”
Marianne shot out of Furze Cottage, delighted.
At the top of Furze Lane, the men building the Post Office wall all pointed uphill with their thumbs, grinning. “Off again. Went that way.”
It was a relief that Nutcase had not suddenly decided to visit the Dell instead. Marianne turned uphill. There was no Nicola to shout to her where Nutcase had gone, but Nicola’s mum was standing in her doorway. She pointed uphill and nodded to Marianne.
Marianne hovered backward on one foot for a second. “How’s Nicola?”
Nicola’s mother put one hand out and made swaying motions with it. “We’re hoping.”
“Me too!” Marianne said, and went on, past the grocer, past the Pinhoe Arms and then the church.
The big gates to Woods House, when she came to them, seemed really strange, newly mended, newly painted, and shut. Marianne had never known those gates to be shut since Gaffer died. It felt odd to have to open one half of the gates and slip round it into the driveway. The overgrown bushes there seemed to have been cut back a bit. They gave Marianne a sight of the front door long before she was used to seeing it. A small, battered blue car was parked outside.
Oh, they’re here! Marianne thought. She suddenly felt a total trespasser. This was not one of the family houses anymore. She had had no business arranging to meet Cat here. And she would have to knock at the front door—which was now painted a smooth olive green—and ask for Nutcase.
Marianne found she could not face doing this. She sheered away round the house into the garden, hoping Nutcase had gone to sun himself there. She could always say, quite truthfully, that she was looking for Gammer’s cat if anyone asked, and it was always possible that Cat would see her out of one of the windows—always supposing Cat was here, o
f course.
The garden was transformed.
Marianne stood for a moment in amazement, looking from the smoothly trimmed square shape of the beech hedge to the lawn that was almost a lawn again. Someone had scythed and then mowed the long grass. It still had a stubbly gray look, but green was pushing through in emerald lines and ovals, showing where there had once been flower beds. Marianne went along the trim hedge, pretending to look into it for Nutcase, and marveling. The gooseberry bushes at the end, where the wood began, had been cleared and pruned, along with the old lilac trees behind them. No sign of Nutcase there. But there had been currant bushes there all these years, and Marianne had never known, and a stand of raspberry canes that still had raspberries on them. When she turned alongside the canes—keeping to the edges just like a cat might—she saw that the long flower bed against the wall that hid the vegetable garden actually had flowers in it now: long hollyhocks, asters, dahlias, and montbretia mostly at this time of year, but enough to make it look like a flower bed again.
She slipped guiltily round the end of the wall and found that the vegetable garden was most transformed of all. It was like Uncle Isaac’s professional market garden. Everything was in neat rows in moist black earth, pale lettuces, frilly carrots, spiky onions. A lot of the beds were plain black earth with string stretched along, where seeds had not yet come up. And—Marianne stared around—she had not known that the walls had roses trained along them. They had always seemed a mass of green creeper. But this had been pared away and the roses tied back, and they were just now coming into bloom, red and peach colored and yellow and white, as if it were June, not nearly September.
Marianne crunched her way timidly down a newly cindered path toward the house. I’m looking for my cat when somebody asks. When she reached the archway beside the conservatory, she peered cautiously through.
The little man energetically digging in Old Gaffer’s herb patch drove his spade to a standstill beside the tall mugwort and smiled at her. “Made a bit of a change here,” he remarked to her. “How do you like it?”