Night Gate (22 page)

“I think we have to go back over the river and see the witch Mother. Ania says she wants to help us because she wants the wizard found, to save Valley. Maybe she will be able to figure out the riddle on the hourglass. And she might even know something about the firecat.”

“So, which tunnel?” Elle asked.

Rage studied the first tunnel. It led to people, so it probably came out somewhere in Newfork, which was the last place they wanted to be just now. The second tunnel? She liked the sound of trees and flowers, but the smell of sadness was daunting. The tunnel probably led to one of the provinces, where there was clearly something wrong. And anyway, there would be lots of keepers there. The third tunnel led to water. That sounded most promising. It might even lead them to one of the tunnels Hermani had mentioned, which had become saturated with water seeping from the encroaching river.

Rage hesitated, worried about Bear. “I think we should take the tunnel that smells of water, but I will go down it alone to see where it leads.”

Billy said anxiously, “Don’t let’s split up again.”

Rage bit her lip. “But, Bear—”

“I can walk,” Bear said gruffly, struggling to her feet.

They had been on the move for half an hour when they came to a grille embedded in the walls of the tunnel, completely blocking their way. Rage stared stupidly at it, knowing they would have no hope of shifting it. Bear was swaying on her feet, eyes cloudy and unfocused.

“We’ll have to go back and try one of the other tunnels, but I think we might as well rest here,” Rage said. “I’ve been thinking that if we take long enough, the blackshirts will think we’ve gone over the river, and they’ll give up searching.”

“What about Goaty and Mr. Walker?” Elle asked.

“If anyone questions them, they’ll simply say they’re wild things and they’ll be left alone.” Rage said this with more confidence than she felt. The blackshirts were bound to be suspicious if they found two wild things wandering about when they had already taken three as prisoners. But they could not go on with Bear in such a state. Given everything, it was sensible to stay where they were for the time being, though she dared not look at the sand in the hourglass.

The old dog lay down with a profound sigh. Billy took her big, misshapen head onto his lap and ran his fingers over her soft ears. Again she did not reject his caress.

“I wonder what is happening to Goaty,” Elle said wistfully, peering through the grate. “He will be afraid if he is all alone.”

“I hope he is
not
alone,” Rage said. She leaned back against the sloping side of the tunnel, wishing Mam could see Bear and Billy together. It had always upset her that Bear was so cold to Billy. But Mam seemed so far away. It was becoming harder for Rage to imagine being home with her again. Having entered a magical world, she had somehow lost touch with her own world. The longer she was away from it, the less real it seemed. She closed her eyes and slipped into a deep sleep.

A voice was calling her name.

Rage opened her eyes and found she was sitting on the grassy lawn at Winnoway Farm. The dogs were sleeping around her, and she could see Goaty standing on the Johnsons’ fence and eating the new buds off the plum trees. She shook her head, thinking Mr. Johnson would go mad when he saw the damage.

“Ra-age!”

Someone was calling, but there was no one in sight.

“Who is it?” she cried, wondering if Mam was calling her from inside the house. Strangely, the dogs remained asleep.

“Help me,” the voice called.

It was the same voice that had called her before, out of the streamers of light in the forest.

“How can I help you?” Rage asked.

“Break…release…before…too late…”

“I don’t know how to break the spell,” she cried.
“I already told you. Who are you? Where are you?”

But there was no answer.

Rage woke to find herself sitting in the cold tunnel by the metal grille.

“Rage!” a voice called.

“I must be going mad,” she muttered to herself. “First I dream of a voice calling me, and then when I wake up, I can still hear it.”

“Rage!”

Rage looked through the grille and was astounded to see a pixie-sized woman wearing a tight-fitting brown catsuit and flat-heeled, high-topped boots. Her hair was a floating cloud of yellow, like spun sugar, and it shimmered in the light of the tiny lantern she carried.

“You must move back so that I can open the grille,” she told Rage, waving the lantern with a shooing action.

Billy had been sleeping with his face pushed up against the grille. Wakened by their voices, he opened his eyes and gave a yelp of surprise. “What are you?” he asked.

“I’m Kelpie.”

The small stranger lifted her lantern, the sole source of light in the tunnel. Rage glanced anxiously at the hourglass. It was safe where she had left it, but it had gone dull.

“It’s a kelpie,” Billy told Elle, who had woken, too, and was sniffing through the grille.

“Kelpie is my
name
.” The woman giggled. “And you are Billy Thunder.”

“How do you know our names?” Rage demanded warily, wondering if the little woman was a wild thing.

“Mr. Walker told me.”

“Mr. Walker!” Billy cried in delight. “Then he’s safe.”

“I will bring you to him as soon as you let me open the grille.” Kelpie tapped her tiny fingers impatiently against the metal. Billy woke Bear, and they all moved back down the tunnel. Kelpie knelt and pressed her hand to the ground. There was a grinding noise, and the grille swung open like a gate.

Rage was intrigued. She had supposed Kelpie was a wild thing, yet she was drawing magic from the earth just as Ania had done, and wild things weren’t supposed to be able to do that. After they had all come through the grille, it swung back into place with a gritty screech.

“Come,” Kelpie said imperiously, dusting off her hands.

“Wait just a minute,” Rage said firmly, refusing to be dazzled into acting without thinking. “Before we go anywhere, you’d better tell us how you met Mr. Walker.”

“He fell down a shaft and found us.”

“And how did
you
find
us
? Mr. Walker didn’t know we were coming here,” Rage said.
“We
didn’t know we were coming here.”

“The Mother foresaw it,” Kelpie answered. “Now we must hurry. She awaits us with Mr. Walker, in the Place of Shining Waters.”

“The witch Mother foresaw us trapped in a drain?”

Kelpie nodded.

Rage did not know what to think. Obviously someone with magical powers might be able to look into the future, but if that was so, why hadn’t Ania said that the witch Mother had foreseen
them
meeting?

Rage glanced at the others. Elle and Billy were eager to go, while Bear looked exhausted and ill, but none of them said a thing. They were leaving it to Rage to choose.

Kelpie turned to hurry away down the tunnel, and Rage led the way after her. Though rested, Bear moved slowly. She was still suffering from having breathed in the High Keeper’s poisonous gas. Rage hoped she had not suffered any permanent damage. After a time the tunnel began to narrow. Rage’s heart sank, but she told herself sternly that her experience outside the conservatorium had made her oversensitive.

“It doesn’t get much smaller, does it?” Billy asked Kelpie nervously.

“A bit,” she answered cheerfully.

“Why didn’t Mr. Walker come with you?” Elle asked.

“The Mother foresaw
me
finding you,” Kelpie answered proudly.

This was not really an answer. Rage wondered if the Mother hadn’t deliberately kept Mr. Walker with her to ensure that the rest of them came with Kelpie. She had heard nothing bad about the witch women, except from the keepers, and the witch Mother had enabled her to get away from the banding house. But Rage had expected a long, difficult trip back to Wildwood to see the witch Mother. It was unnerving to find that she was here, waiting to see them. And why was she in Fork? If she had come in the hope that Rage had located the wizard, she was about to be bitterly disappointed.

“What about Goaty?” Elle asked, interrupting the flow of Rage’s thoughts. “Did the Mother foresee anything about him?”

Kelpie giggled. “Oh, he is waiting for you as well. Mr. Walker told us where to find him. Goaty was very afraid of us at first. He shivered and shook and thought we meant to eat him. ‘I must be brave,’ he kept saying.”

Her imitation of Goaty was so accurate, Rage relaxed. No matter what was going on, at least they would all soon be together again.

Billy and Elle went on questioning the woman, but she only repeated, in various ways, that all of their questions would be answered by the Mother. Rage had returned the dulled hourglass to her pocket. She ran her fingers over it, wondering again why it had glowed. Had it really answered their need, or was there another reason?

Perhaps the Mother would know.

The way split again, and without hesitation Kelpie chose the left-hand tunnel, which was so low that everyone except Rage and Kelpie was forced to stoop. Bear only just fit. If the way became smaller, she would not be able to go on.

“How much further?” Billy asked worriedly, again voicing Rage’s fear.

“I smell something,” Elle said.

The tunnel turned a corner and opened out into a vast cavern that seemed to have no walls. The air was filled with an emerald glow, and at first glance Rage thought the cavern held a lake of luminous green water. But as they came closer she saw that there were hundreds of rivulets of shining water flowing around a multitude of small islands. The cavern was a vast subterranean wetland!

Her skin began to prickle as they approached the water. She looked down at her arms and found the hairs were all standing on end, just as they had when she approached the bramble gate.

“The Place of Shining Waters,” Kelpie announced reverently, before leading them along a path where the ground was higher and quite dry.

“The witch Mother is here?” Rage asked, for the cavern appeared deserted.

“We must go beyond the hills,” Kelpie said, pointing past the shining water to the darker end of the cavern.

Bear was at the end of her strength by the time they reached the first of the dark hills, which proved to be carpeted in a thick moss. She staggered and then lay down panting, tongue lolling from her mouth.

“She must rest,” Billy told Kelpie, and he sat by his mother’s head and stroked the fur around her ears tenderly. Rage sank onto the soft moss, too.

Elle wandered over to peer into a streamlet of the glowing green water. Sniffing, she squatted down and cupped her hands.

“Don’t drink it!” Rage cried in alarm.

Elle looked over at her in puzzlement. “Why not? It doesn’t smell bad.”

“I don’t think it’s bad. I think it’s magic, and who knows what it would do if you drank it.”

“You are wise to be wary of the waters, Rage Winnoway,” came a woman’s voice, cold, sharp, and familiar.

Rage looked around and saw the baker’s sister, Rue, coming over the hill. She now wore a long, floating dress of russet brown, and her unbound hair hung in a wild and shining tangle to her knees. Woven through it were leaves and flowers, and a plait circled her brow like a crown. She looked younger than she had in the village, but no less severe. With her were two younger women in similar attire, carrying lanterns that gave off a buttery yellow light.

Kelpie went to her with an expression of shy adoration. “Mother,” she murmured, and reached out to stroke Rue’s hand.

“
You
are the witch Mother?” Rage said in amazement.

Rue smiled, and suddenly she was very beautiful, though her eyes remained stern. “I am.”

“Your bands are—” Rage began, but Rue interrupted her gracefully.

“False, of course. But all questions that can be answered will be answered in good time. Now you must come to the place where your friends wait anxiously for your arrival.” She looked at Bear with compassionate eyes. “Let the great beast sleep here. These witches will watch over her. Later she will be brought to join us.”

“I will stay with her,” Billy said.

“No,” Rue said. “You can do nothing for her now. The witches will tend her ills, and they will work best if left to their own devices.” Such was her serene authority that Billy did not argue. He took a long and longing look at his mother before leaving her side.

Rue caught hold of one of the yellow lanterns and began to walk back over the hill, holding Kelpie’s hand. Billy and Elle followed, emanating excitement.

“Is the baker really your brother?” Billy asked the witch woman.

“I am Rue, who is sister to the baker and who cooks and cleans for her keep,” the witch woman answered. “Unknown to my brother, I am also a witch who dwells in Wildwood when I can.”

“Why are you called Mother?” Elle asked.

“To remind me that I do not rule the witch folk for my own pleasure or gain. Like a mother, I love and I serve and I nurture. Occasionally I scold.”