The Gorgons Gaze # 2 (Companions Quartet) (11 page)

Horace joined them in the entrance hall. Over his shoulder, Connie could see her great-uncle outside, sunning himself against the old stone dragons, looking up at the building in wonder.

“I hope you’ve learned something today,” said Horace as they signed themselves out.

“Yes, loads of things, thanks,” said Connie, showing him her fat notebook. “I only wish I could try them out. I know I won’t really understand them until I do.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” Horace replied, his broad smile beaming at her. “I was thinking that you might have learned that where there’s a will, there’s a way.” She looked at him blankly. “What I mean is that where you have a will to do something, a way will be found. A universal cannot be kept from her destiny.”

“Ah, Miss Lionheart, I heard that you were in the building.” Mr. Coddrington, the assessor who had originally refused Connie membership in the Society, glided stealthily from behind a pillar to intercept them on their way across the foyer. A tall, thin man with limp brown hair, he had the look of a plant kept in a dark room, straining to grow toward the light. Connie’s party stopped.

“Oh, it’s you,” Horace said, his normally genial voice laced with disdain. “How’s the New Members Department treating you?”

“Same as usual,” Mr. Coddrington replied evasively, his eyes still fixed on Connie. “I wondered if I might have a brief word with Miss Lionheart. Alone.” He attempted a pleasant smile that was truly painful to behold.

Horace glanced at his watch. “If Connie doesn’t mind, I suppose we have a few moments.” Connie wished he had not said this, wished he had given her a decent reason to excuse herself, for now her head was full of the last time Mr. Coddrington had spoken to her “alone”: the rush of wings, the terror of being swept away by a black dragon and taken to Kullervo.

“Good. If Miss Lionheart would not mind stepping this way into my office, I have something I would like to ask her.”

Connie was too shy to be overtly rude to him. She followed Mr. Coddrington down a tiled corridor leading off the entrance hall. There were many doors opening on either side, some ajar, giving her a glimpse into the administrative heart of the Society, but she was too preoccupied by what Mr. Coddrington might want with her to take much in. The assessor paused by a closed door marked “New Members Department,” unlocked it, and ushered her inside.

There were three desks in the room but no occupants.
Two desks were piled high with files, adorned with children’s pictures and potted plants. One desk was meticulously tidy—not a stray paperclip in sight—with a pale gray blotter set squarely in its gleaming center and an in-tray in one corner. Behind the desk on the wall, it was another matter: a huge map of the British Isles was covered with tiny pins, each color-coded for one of the companies and bearing a number.

“It is fortunate that my colleagues are out assessing,” Mr. Coddrington said, nodding at the two untidy desks. “Please have a seat.”

Connie sat down nervously in a low chair across the desk from him. Avoiding his gaze, her eyes drifted to the map. She realized with a jolt that on the spot marking Chartmouth there was single silver pin—the only silver one on the whole map.

“Oh, yes, I like to keep tabs on everyone,” he said with a wintry smile. “Literally, that is. Each pin is cross-referenced to my filing system with a note of date assessed and eventual allocation of companion species. They are all filed in one of my cabinets.” He nodded at four metal filing cabinets standing along one wall. “I did not know what to do with you. Your entry is still here, waiting to find a home.” He picked up a thin piece of paper from his in-tray, the only thing in it, holding it between his finger and thumb, before dropping it back down. “I suppose I will just have to get a new cabinet for you, won’t I?”

Connie was not sure what she was expected to say to
this, so she said nothing, her eyes now straying to the despised piece of paper that recorded her membership details.

“Actually, it is about this that I wanted to talk to you, Miss Lionheart.”

Filing cabinets? Connie had lost track of what he was saying.

“I was wondering if you could give me any idea of just how many of you there might be out there—to help us adjust our systems to cope with the burdens you will place on them.”

“Me?” Connie stared at him. “How should I know?”

Mr. Coddrington leaned forward intently, elbows on his blotter, fingertips touching lightly. “We thought you might be in a position to find out. At the very least you might have your suspicions about other universals.”

Connie recalled the “suspicions” she and her aunt had about her brother Simon some time ago, but they’d not had an opportunity so far to follow up. Mr. Coddrington would be the last person with whom she would share these thoughts.

“I really have no idea, Mr. Coddrington,” she said as sweetly as possible. He frowned slightly and sat back.

“Well, if you change your mind, you’ll let us know immediately, of course,” he said, rising to his feet. “Here, take my business card in case you want to ring me. Call anytime. It is very important that we understand whether
you are an aberration or the beginning of a revival of a whole new company. If the latter is the case, then there will be many adjustments to make.” He sighed, the frown lines on his brow deepening.

“Sure, I’ll keep that in mind,” Connie said quickly, also getting up. “Can I go now?” He nodded curtly, and Connie bolted for the door without a backward glance. Half running down the corridor, she could not get the image of that map out of her head. There was something about Mr. Coddrington that was just not right. It could be the creepy way he always looked at her as if he was plotting something against her; or perhaps it was his opposition to her very existence in the Society. She had believed for many months that Mr. Coddrington was in league with Kullervo, despite Col and Dr. Brock’s skepticism on the subject. Information as to the whereabouts of every companion would be very valuable to Kullervo—make it absurdly easy for him to anticipate and neutralize the counter-attack the Society was preparing. And the person best placed to betray this information was sitting in the heart of the Society headquarters, allowed to continue unchecked.

And as for her membership details, Connie had been in the Society for almost a year now—when was he going to accept that he was overruled and she was a full member? Or perhaps he did not expect her to survive long enough for it to be worthwhile to move her from his pending tray? With these dark thoughts, she rejoined Horace and Antonia.

6
Gorgon

C
ol sat cross-legged on his bed with his mother’s gift beside him. His bedroom, every inch decorated with pictures of horses, was flooded with golden evening sunlight. He liked to be surrounded by them, even though they didn’t hold a candle to Skylark, the real thing. He should have felt safe in these surroundings but the package loomed before him like an unexploded bomb. He was right to be nervous; his experience of his mother’s gifts was not encouraging. He was not sure that he had ever got over being given a snake’s rattle—with original owner still attached—for his third birthday. Only the rapid intervention of his grandmother had prevented disaster. His mother had been testing whether or not he had inherited her particular skill and had seemed surprised by the family outcry at her choice of birthday present. Luckily, this
present did not appear to be alive—he had already prodded it with a stick before taking it up into his room.

What had his mother said? He had “grown up.” “Seen danger and mastered his fear.”

Okay then.

He ripped off the paper and laughed with relief as a polished circular mirror fell onto his lap, the unreflective side decorated with the bronze head of a snake-haired gorgon. A note fluttered out. He saw his mother had written it in looping green ink:

Use this when you visit me. Remember, the first rider of the pegasus braved the gorgon. Do likewise and you have nothing to fear
.

Col, of course, knew exactly what she meant. In Ancient Greece, Perseus had foiled the gorgon’s killing gaze by looking at her in the reflective surface of his shield. According to the legend, the blood spilt at that encounter gave birth to the first pegasus, which Perseus then rode. However, more important to Col was the fact that his mother was actually inviting him back; it was the first time she had recognized him as a companion to pegasi, as an equal. Her talent for choosing presents was improving. Col rubbed off the mist of his breath on the mirror and stowed the gift carefully away in his backpack, determined that he would one day soon show her that he was as courageous as Perseus.

He didn’t have to wait long for the invitation. Col was camping out with Rat. They had begun the evening tending the animals in Rat’s impromptu hospital that he had made in the space under the bus. First, Rat showed Col how to put a splint on the wing of a blackbird they had rescued from the roadside. He then went on to introduce Col to his other charges—a fox with a bandaged tail, two orphaned rabbits, and a pheasant with a broken leg. Col marveled that Rat’s family dog, Wolf, an impressive black and tan Alsatian, allowed these residents to live undisturbed only a few feet from his nose.

“He’s an old softie when you get to know him,” Rat said as Wolf bared his teeth at Col and growled.

“Oh?” said Col, unconvinced.

“He does what I tell him,” Rat said with a shrug, “even guards them for me. I have more problems persuading the fox not to go after the others.”

Yes, the fox did look a bit resentful, thought Col as Rat shut the rabbits and the pheasant back in their temporary hutch. The blackbird he placed on the bus dashboard, ignoring his mother’s protests that he should “get that filthy animal out of here.”

“She’s not serious,” he said airily to Col. “Her voice sounds different when she means it.”

Now they were lying in the open, wrapped warmly in sleeping bags, contemplating the constellations overhead. Rat turned out to be very knowledgeable about the star
systems—a training he put down to one summer spent with a cousin who told fortunes for a living.

“A load of garbage,” he admitted cheerfully, “but she was really into stargazing, science and all that stuff. The telling was just to make money to buy a half decent telescope.”

Col turned onto his elbow and lay for a moment watching the sharp profile of his friend as Rat pointed out two more constellations—the Great and Little Bears—for Col’s benefit.

“Don’t look much like bears to me,” Rat was saying. “I s’pose it works if you kind of think of them as skeletons.…”

“Rat?” Col asked abruptly.

“Yeah, what?”

“Are you gonna come to school with me after the summer?”

Rat looked a bit shifty, like his namesake, and turned his head away. “Sure, I’ll go to school. It’s the law, ain’t it?”

“Well, if you do,” Col said, lying back down, “you might find you can do more stuff about planets and stars in science class. You’re really good at it already.”

“Yeah?” Rat sounded pleased.

“Yeah.”

There was a silence and then Rat spoke: “I can’t read. Not that I’m dumb or nothing,” he added defensively.
“Just haven’t got ’round to it.”

Col was surprised but didn’t say it; he also didn’t say how impressed he was that Rat had managed to get by without exposing the truth.

All he said was: “Come to school with me then. About time you got ’round to it.”

They lay in silence again, listening to the sounds of the wood at night. The leaves whispered to one another in the gentle breeze; distant bursts of laughter came from the main encampment; an owl hooted mournfully in a nearby tree. A police siren wailed into the night. Col wondered who was causing trouble now: had Rat’s dad and his friends broken into the builders’ compound again? They’d been threatening to decorate the bulldozers with luminous green paint. Or perhaps one of the tunnelers had been discovered in his hideout beneath the field scheduled for clearance the next day?

Rat’s breathing was now coming deep and even; he had fallen asleep. Col put his arms under his head, thoughts of Connie stealing into his mind as they so often did when he stopped for a moment. He was missing her. He wanted to talk to her about his mother—introduce her to Rat—he felt sure they’d get along. And she’d be so interested to hear about the gorgon. He knew she would be feeling terrible without her companion creatures. Was there really no way of getting in to see her?