The Maloneys' Magical Weatherbox (12 page)

I stopped. In all my running and jumping and chasing I had noticed without noticing that the woods were full of the strangest of sounds. It was like there was a whole orchestra playing, or more like a whole orchestra furiously fighting each other with their instruments. Or maybe it was the instruments that had decided they'd had enough and started playing the players so they screamed and wailed while the instruments cackled and laughed.

Hugh was there in the middle of the clearing, laughing, his arms spread out, conducting the horrible torture of the orchestra.

There were pillars all around the clearing, birch thin and tall as Hugh, and each pillar was a living thing and each living thing was weather. There was a whirlwind going round and round. There was a waterspout coming out of nowhere and digging into the ground, making a muddy hole and a foaming pool. There was a pillar of ice that crackled and creaked, another of blue-white light, too bright to look at, which crackled and sparked, and one of cloud that was a twisting black mist, which billowed and gushed. And there were many others—hazes and shimmers and fogs and snow.

“You're not supposed to be here,” Hugh said. “The woods are mine. You can't come in here anymore without permission.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What your dad should have done years ago. Look at them—they're brilliant! And I'm only just getting started! I'll make them the size of mountains, big enough to flatten whole cities!”

“What? Why? Why would you want to do that? What would anyone want to flatten a flippin' city for?”

He looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language.

“Because if you're strong, you have to show it to make everyone do what they're told!”

“But the Seasons won't let that happen. You'll be messing with the weather, and they hate that!”

“You're so stupid! I keep telling Mum how stupid you are! I don't know why she wants to keep you. I mean, look at you! Did you steal those shorts from that dumb brother of yours or from a charity shop? When you come to live with us all you'll be allowed to wear is a bin liner, and you can sleep in the doghouse, you hear? You'll be a scrawny chicken in a plastic bag.”

I gaped at him.

“Live with you?” I blurted.

He laughed. “Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? She thinks you can learn magic, but all you're good for is doing the dishes!”

“The only thing I'd do to the dishes is break them over your head! How do you think you can be Weatherman, Hugh? You can't even wash up after yourself! You can't even run a farm but you think you can run the world? Oh, you lot are good at stealing stuff all right, but what good is stealing stuff you don't know what to do with?”

Hugh glared and stuck his lower lip out and his face went bright red. “You and your useless family! Looking down your noses at us and blaming us for losing your farm, which my dad got fair and square anyway. It's not our fault your granddad couldn't handle his money! Mum's right, your dad shouldn't be the Weatherman—your family don't deserve it. We do! And when we control the weather, we'll do what we like. People will pay us money for the weather they want, or we'll freeze them or boil them or sink them or wash them away! Nobody will mess with us and no one will be able to tell us what to do! We'll tell
them
!”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

“I knew it! You don't even know what the Weatherman does—or what he's supposed to do. You think he's like some sort of weather Santa Claus—going around making storms and sunshine or whatever he feels like. You're going to get everyone killed!”

“Oh, yeah? If that was true, then do you think I'd be able to make these?”

The columns had all slowed and thinned, going quiet while our shouting had got louder and louder, the rain and wind and lightning dying down to gentle drizzles and soft breezes and tiny flickers.

“I call them Weatherbots,” Hugh said.

“Weatherbots?”

“Or Weathertrons.”

I made a face. He made a face back.

“Names are hard,” he said.

“Still, Weatherbots?”

“I'd like to see you do better.”

“I could do better than that.
Owen
could do better than that. He'd call them Rainies, Foggies, Snowies, and Coldies, and even that'd be better than flippin' Weatherbots!”

“Fine, whatever. Shut up now.”

“They're
elementals
, you ignorant flippin' eejit! Complex elementals that you've somehow built out of simple elementals, and the more complex elementals get the more dangerous they are! And you're trying to turn them into slaves or servants? That's wrong and stupid! You don't know what you're doing! Please let them go!”

“Oh, yeah? Whatever you call them, we knew enough to send one after your brother!”

“What?”

Hugh grinned.

“Oh my God, you didn't! Why would you
do
that?”

He laughed louder than ever.

“Dad was watching from the woods and saw the truck drive off. He told Mum, and Mum reckoned your cowardy custard dad was sending his little boy off all on his own to the Weathermen's Club. Well, he won't find much there, and if he's smart he'll turn around and come straight back, but if he goes to AtmoLab? Kablooey!”

“Don't you dare! Nobody kablooeys my brother! Wait, where's Owen?”

I looked around, and saw something beyond the clearing. I moved past Hugh, who followed with his repulsive grin.

Standing a little way along the path was Mrs. Fitzgerald, in a black dress with her black hair long and smooth around her face, smiling at me as I walked up warily. Owen was standing in front of her, glaring, rigid with rage and frustration, his arms stiff by his sides.

“Liz! Tell her to let Neetch go!”

“Owen, come away! Come on, quick!” I pointed at Mrs. Fitzgerald. “You! Leave my brother alone!”

She raised her eyebrows. “I'm not doing anything to your brother, dear.”

“Give me back Neetch!” yelled Owen.

“Not Owen, Neil!”

“Oh, him. He should be fine, for the time being, so long as he doesn't go where he shouldn't.”

“Stop it! Call it back!”

“Too late, I'm afraid. Much too late.”

“Please!”

“I think you should go home now. Take your brother and go. Your parents will need you. You can comfort them and they can comfort you. Things are about to get very busy, and you should try to make the most of what time there is left. When all this is over and done, everything will have changed, Liz.”

She sounded almost sad as she said this, her eyes far away, her voice soft, like Mum's when she's telling Owen a story, just as he's falling asleep.

“What do you mean?'

“I will bring a Season of the world like no other—a Season beyond all imagining. I will break every law of man and nature into pieces and remake them to my own liking. My Season, Liz. But first, the Weatherman will fall, and everything and everyone you've ever known will fall with him. I'm sorry, but I will not go back. I will never sing again. I will end the world first.”

Her presence was like a physical force pressing down on me. I could barely breathe.

“I won't…” I started to say, and stopped. My mouth was dry. “I won't be your hostage. Or … or your apprentice.”

She seemed to come back to herself, and smiled brightly. “Oh, my dear, but of course. I understand. I was wrong to try and drag you away from your family. Don't worry. When the time is right you'll come to me. There'll be nobody else left.”

“No!”

She looked at me. Her gray eyes never blinked and the smile on her lips never touched them. Nothing in the world ever seemed to touch her. She was so strong and sure. I longed to be that strong and sure. Nobody would ever call me mad again, and, if they did, I wouldn't care. Nobody could ever hurt me if I was like her.

“Come on, we're going. Owen, come on!”

“Not without Neetch!

“Oh, for God's sake! Where is—Oh!”

It was right beside me, standing just to my left and her right. It was so thin and gray and still, it had basically camouflaged itself against all the trees and bushes. The Gray Thing that had been such a weird mess on the floor of the barn had grown twice as tall as Mrs. Fitzgerald, even hunched over and crouched the way it was. Its body and its arms and its legs were as thin as hosepipes, and its hands and its feet were long and graceful. Its face was a sort of stretched oval shape on top of its neck, and its eyes and its mouth were the same: black hollows that barely moved or changed but were sometimes sad and sometimes angry and always scary. It had sort of hair that stuck out like branches of a tree or icicles from the back of its head, and it was holding its hands cupped together to make a cage. Curled up in the cage, shivering and shaking, still a kitten, the scars on his face livid, was Neetch.

“Let him go!” I said.

Mrs. Fitzgerald shook her head, no longer smiling. “No,” she said. “He's a long way from home. Like me. I want to know what he's doing here and how he got here. When I'm finished, I might let you have whatever is left. He's only a filthy old bog beast. I was never that fond of the nasty thing.”

Owen wailed. I took a step back.

How was I different from her? I wanted to be like her. I wanted to have her power and her control and her freedom to be whatever she wanted to be. But if I was like her, would I do the things she did?

How was I different?

For a start, I wouldn't leave a friend behind, even if I had to take Owen's word for the “friend” part. I already felt bad enough about the poor Gray Thing. Could that weird, crooked creature really be a whole new Season? Had Mrs. Fitzgerald really made a baby Season her slave? Years trapped under the water, and now this? And if this was a Season, she was using it to make slaves of the elementals for Hugh to play with, to send after my brother. My mind was flat with rage. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. I wouldn't let her do it to anyone else—not even the wretched cat. I steadied myself.

“You'd better start running, Owen,” I said. “Go! Now!”

He hesitated, then ran across the clearing, into the trees and down the hill. I had my bow in my hand. I drew the arrow and loosed before I really thought about what I was doing. If I had thought, I think she would have read it in me.

The arrow flew at Hugh, who never even saw it coming.

 

CHAPTER 15

NEIL

We caught one of the electric trams to the canal. Then we walked across a bridge and down the towpath until we reached a strange and disturbing building. The corporate headquarters of AtmoLab Inc. were a sort of metal and glass shape, like a giant letter of the alphabet that had been melted and twisted until you couldn't quite work out what the letter had been. We walked between a pair of huge black cars parked in front of the entrance with trunks open wide like the jaws of a weird, deep-sea fish and the insides full of metal boxes and wires. The doors slid open on their own, and the cold of the air-conditioning froze the sweat in my shirt and made me shiver. Our shoes clattered loudly on the polished floor of the lobby, echoing up and down so it sounded as if there were an army of caterpillars in big brown boots tramping around.

There was a pile of boxes and cables and electronic equipment to one side. As we went past the pile, a short, plump man with a beard and a pair of round glasses crossed our path, arms outstretched, carrying something heavy and expensive-looking from the pile to the car. He gave us a nod as he went past.

A tall thin man in a colorful shirt and shorts that came down to his knees hurried after, arguing with a glum-looking woman in a blue dress. They both had iPads in their hands.

Behind the reception desk there was a security guard whose main job seemed to be to disapprove of everything that happened in the lobby. His peaked cap was pulled low over his forehead, almost hiding his eyes, his thick lips were curled downwards as though he had weights hanging off the ends of them, and his shoulders were bunched up nearly as far as his ears. He looked at Ed. Ed nudged me.

“We're here to see Mr. Holland,” I said, trying not to squeak. “Tell him we're from the Weatherman.”

The security guard held up his own iPad, peered at it closely, glowered at me, swiped it once or twice with a thick finger, then gave a grunt and a single, short nod.

“Thank you!” said Ed. The guard glared at him and led us to the elevators.

“I love the way all the doors in Dublin just slide open for you,” said Ed, his voice booming out through the empty air. I saw the security guard flinch, ever so slightly. The elevator pinged and the doors opened.

“See!” said Ed, and we went in.

“Maybe we should have called home,” I said as the elevator rose.

“What would we tell them? We don't know what the story is and there's still no sign of the Shieldsmen. Honestly, the worst that can happen is the boy Holland has us thrown out by Mr. Personality there. Your mum and dad have enough on their minds without us calling every five minutes.”

“I suppose,” I said.

The doors opened again three floors later, and we wandered down a corridor until we came to a door with the name
Tony Holland
written on it. I knocked.

Mr. Tony Holland, CEO and senior managing director of AtmoLab Inc., sat behind a small desk covered in black leather, leaning back in a large leather seat with his stockinged feet up on the desk. He was sipping from an extremely large take-out cup of coffee and nibbling a muffin, occasionally brushing a few crumbs onto the deep, soft, beige carpet. His dark hair was streaked with gray and tied back in a long ponytail. He wore jeans and a shirt, no tie. On the desk there was yet another iPad, as well as a laptop, a big, wide desktop monitor, and three cell phones.