Floods 3 (11 page)

‘You don't have an Auntie Noreen,' said Vessel. ‘Do you?'

‘Not have, but want one,' said Parsnip, because he felt at that moment the one thing that would make his life totally complete would be to have an Auntie Noreen.

‘Anywhere begins with “A”,' said Vessel. ‘So the “A” we will use is autopilot. We will all go below deck and stay there until the autopilot takes us to land. Parsnip will sit up in the crow's nest and keep lookout.

The ‘A' where they finally ended their journey is shrouded in secrecy.

Under cover of darkness they slipped ashore on a deserted beach. Vessel tied a long bit of string to a cork in a hole in the bottom of the boat, and when they were safely ashore he pulled the bit of string until he heard the cork pop out. The boat sank and slowly settled out of sight into the mud, where it remains to this day. The Hearse Whisperer, who had changed herself from a sea eagle into a barnacle and glued herself to the hull of the
Maldemer
, now changed into a duck and swam ashore, where she changed again into a sparrow.

‘We need to find an estate agent,' said the Queen.

‘Haven't we been through enough horrible stuff already?' said Mordonna.

‘Our best way to stay hidden from the King's spies is to find a remote house in a big forest as far as possible from any other houses,' said the Queen.

‘I don't agree, my dear,' said Vessel. ‘Remote houses miles from anywhere will be the first place they'll look.'

‘Even if it is,' said the Queen, ‘it would take them years to find us.'

‘I have a better idea,' said Vessel. ‘The best place to hide is the last place they would look and that is right in the middle of a human city in an ordinary house in an ordinary street.'

So, in extremely heavy disguises that made them look as human as most people in seaside bed and breakfasts in winter do, Nerlin, Mordonna, the two children and the Queen booked into Seagull View, a grey, nondescript hotel three streets back from the sea front. Here they had to suffer far
worse things than they had ever had to whilst at sea. They had to eat salty porridge for breakfast, share a bathroom with a Morris-Dancing group who kept practising all night for the upcoming World Silly Dancing Olympics, and they were forced to sleep in rooms with dreadful wallpaper covered in suspicious stains.

Meanwhile, Vessel went in search of their new home. Although he thought they would be safer in a normal house in the middle of the city, he agreed to look for a big old house miles and miles from anywhere because he was totally in love with the Queen. He changed into a crow and flew with Parsnip out into the countryside.

The Hearse Whisperer flew behind them.

The seaside town gave way to fields and small villages.

‘Too many people there,' Vessel said and the two of them flew on.

The fields gave way to open country and a large forest that stretched away to the horizon.

‘This looks promising,' said Vessel, landing on the top branch of a tall tree.

Here and there dirt tracks cut wavy lines through the trees, but they all seemed to lead to dead ends. Vessel and Parsnip split up and flew down different tracks, returning to the tall tree every hour. Below them, hiding under a big leaf, the Hearse Whisperer had collapsed, exhausted.
Sparrows have much smaller wings than crows and she had had a terrible time keeping up with Vessel and Parsnip. Given a choice, she would have changed herself into an eagle, but form-changing wasn't something you could do too often without bursting lots of veins inside your head and turning into a second-hand car salesman for ever and ever.

It was dusk before Vessel finally found a house. From the air, it looked perfect: semi-derelict but watertight, overgrown with deadly nightshade and ivy, home to a family of bats and armies of spiders. What more could a family of wizards ask for? Perhaps the Queen had been right. Perhaps this
was
the perfect place for the Floods to settle down. It was certainly far more appealing than any house in suburbia could be.

He flew back to the tree to tell Parsnip.

‘We'll go and spend the night there,' Vessel said. ‘You can only get the true feel for a place in the dangerous hours after midnight. There may be ghosts and we'll need to make sure they're friendly.'

As midnight struck, something made the hairs in his throat tingle and Vessel knew there was danger nearby. He tried to ignore it, but it was like when you know you are going to be sick – no matter how still you keep and how much you try to sleep in the hope it will go away, you know that it will never go away until you have thrown up. Whatever you do is just putting it off until later.

Vessel tried to think nice thoughts, like himself and the Queen sitting hand in hand in a big hammock on the veranda watching the moon and listening to the owls tearing tiny mice to pieces in the moonlight. It was the most perfect daydream he had ever had and, since the Queen had shown that she cared for him as much as he cared for her, he had realised that the dream could actually become real. Yet it still seemed too good to be true.

And when something seems too good to be true
, he thought,
it usually is.

There was someone else in the room. Vessel knew he should have changed back from being a crow, but now, as he began the spell, the someone
grabbed him round the neck, stuffed him into an enchanted birdcage and sprayed him with SuperStickIt, which meant he would stay in the form he was until he was rinsed off in the Terrible Pool of Vestor.

‘Change back now if you can,' said the someone.

‘Hearse Whisperer?' said Vessel.

‘Yes. You might have been clever enough to thwart Cliché, Stain and Ooze,' said the Hearse Whisperer, back in her real form, ‘but you can't fool me.'

‘Can we talk about this?' said Vessel, playing for time to let Parsnip slip off into the night before the Hearse Whisperer saw him.

If his assistant could reach the Queen before the Hearse Whisperer – and if the Queen could actually understand what the crow was saying – the runaways would be able to escape and disappear into the heart of some big city.

‘What's to talk about?' said the Hearse Whisperer.

‘We could work together,' said Vessel. ‘The Queen is the only one I care about, not the others. If I helped you and you agreed not to harm the Queen, we could easily kidnap Mordonna and take her back to the King.'

‘Umm, maybe,' said the Hearse Whisperer, suspiciously. ‘I'm not sure I can trust you. I'll sleep on it.'

She hung Vessel's cage up on a hook and lay down on the floor to sleep.

Trapped in the enchanted cage, Vessel was powerless, but at least he had bought a good six hours' time. He nibbled the cuttlefish stuck between the bars and fell into a deep depression.

He had failed his one true love. Even if the Hearse Whisperer fell for his trick and she did take Mordonna back to the King, the Queen would never forgive Vessel for any part he might have had in the plot. Also, he couldn't stand the taste of cuttlefish. It tasted like something that had come out of the inside of a squid.

‘Will you stop with the wretched cuttlefish?' the Hearse Whisperer snapped. ‘I'm trying to sleep.'

Meanwhile, Parsnip had reached the B&B and sat on the windowsill tapping feebly at the glass. Nerlin opened the window and lifted the soggy, exhausted bird inside.

‘Are you Vessel or Parsnip?' said the Queen.

‘Snip-Snip,' said Parsnip. ‘Wessel lost, gone bye bye.'

‘Not dead?' cried the Queen. ‘Not my beloved Vessel, my one true love, cut off in his prime at a mere hundred and twenty years of age, a star that shone so brightly in this sad world of ours, now turned into a black hole lost in the mists of time, my genius and protector gone from my life forever, leaving us all alone and desolate to fend for ourselves and our children and our children's children without his magic, his mystery, his dark sombre voice and his exceptionally well-fitting tights?'

‘No.'

‘What?'

‘Wessel not dead, him twapped in urnchanted cagey wire thing by worse hisperer,' said Parsnip.

‘Oh no,' cried the Queen.

‘Right,' said Mordonna, taking charge. ‘We must get out of here immediately. With a bit of luck we've got a few hours' start and should be able to get away.'

‘I will stay,' said the Queen, ‘in case my true love, my only …'

‘No you won't. You'll do as you're told and come with us,' Mordonna ordered. ‘I'm going to have another baby fairly soon, you know, so I'd like to get settled into somewhere safe. We can look for Vessel later.'

So they took a cab to the station, a train to another city, another cab to a different station, another train to a third city, walked across the road, got on a bus to yet another station, and
went to a fourth city that was not so much a city as a large town.

Just to make doubly sure they would not be followed, they covered their tracks with garlic powder then walked backwards to another station where they took the fifteenth train to a town that was so ugly no one would ever think they would choose to live there, even if they were playing a double-triple-quadruple-bluff. Then they bought a street map.

‘Right, let's have a look,' said Mordonna, unfolding the map. ‘We need a nice anonymous street … Wow, I don't believe it.'

‘What?'

‘Which plant scares wizards more than any other?'

‘Deadly nightshade?' said Nerlin.

‘No, that's their favourite. Which one is the opposite?'

‘White roses?'

‘Worse.'

‘Not the “A” plant?'

‘Exactly. Acacias,' said Mordonna, crossing her fingers for protection.
⁴²
‘You'll never believe this but there's a street in this town called Acacia Avenue.'

‘See, I told you humans were stupid,' said the Queen.

‘Yes, we all know that,' said Mordonna, ‘but if we bought a house in Acacia Avenue, it would be the last place the King's spies would ever look for us.'

‘But wouldn't we all burst out in huge warty boils and die horribly if we went to live there?' said Nerlin.

‘Of course not,' said Mordonna, pretending to be brave. ‘That's just an old wives tale.'

‘I'm an old wife,' said the Queen. ‘And I believe it.'

But Mordonna insisted, and to prove it was all silly superstition she made Parsnip fly down Acacia
Avenue and back. Then she walked down the street herself and then she walked down it again taking her two children with her. Finally, she made Nerlin and the Queen walk down it.

‘And,' she said, when the others had reluctantly agreed she might be right, ‘did you notice that there was a For Sale sign on one of the houses?'

‘No,' said Nerlin, the Queen, Valla and Satanella all at once. ‘I had my eyes shut.'

‘And how's this for a good omen?' Mordonna went on. ‘It's the luckiest number in the world, number thirteen.'

So they drew straws and the loser went and got the estate agent. The Queen paid for the house with the King's gold, and they moved in to their new home.