The Midnight Carnival (22 page)

‘I don’t think it speaks English,’ called Grace.

‘
Cómo estás?
’ Una yelled up at the creature.

It didn’t reply.

‘
Conas atá tú?
’

There was no response but another spear, and Una shrugged.

‘Doesn’t speak Spanish or Irish either.’

Grace rolled her eyes.

‘Excellent. Now that we’ve established it doesn’t speak English or Spanish or Irish, can you get over here? Jenny needs all of us for this to work.’

But Una got only a few metres before being pushed back by two near misses.

‘We need a distraction,’ said Jenny.

Something to distract a big baby
, Grace thought.

Without a word, she grabbed Jenny’s wrist and focussed on her leather bracelets. She was using them as a life template
to originate the most complicated thing she had ever attempted. Minutes later Grace’s creations filled the air. The others were awestruck.

‘Holy crap,’ said Jenny. ‘I’d no idea you could do that.’

‘Neither did I,’ Grace replied, sweat dripping down her freckled cheeks.

There were tiny creatures hovering in the air in front of her, each with a needle-like body and delicate wings like the finest silk. They were white, but glimmered with a sparkling sheen, and they fluttered upwards like gravity-defying confetti.

One hundred dragonflies. She had originated one hundred dragonflies. Grace, exhausted but elated, was positively glowing with pride.

It had the desired effect. The creature seemed intoxicated, its round eyes widening even further as it grasped at the teeny insects. But Grace couldn’t hold them for long. Within seconds, they began popping into nothing like bubbles in the wind, and the more the creature grabbed at them, the quicker they vanished.

Una had wasted no time though. She picked her way around the creature’s feet to join the girls on the other side. As the last dragonfly popped, together they ran, hunched and silent, to a new hiding place in a large crevice in the wall.

‘What do we have to do?’ asked Rachel, huddling into a corner.

‘Nothing,’ Jenny whispered, ‘just hold on to me.’

‘You’re the boss,’ Una said, gripping her elbow firmly.

When all three girls had hold of her arms, Jenny stood up in full view of the creature, and got angry. Grace could see it in her neck, the tendons that stood out and the skin that flushed red.

There was plenty to get angry about. Grace thought about Rachel nearly being impaled by a spear, about Una’s feet twisting into roots, about Jenny getting lost in a shifting maze of mirrors. She thought about Justine letting the girls believe she was their friend. She imagined the ballerina, or one of those awful clowns, hiding the straw doll in the sewer. She thought about the fake map, how Justine had told her it was Drake’s handwriting, how Drake had been maligned and made to look like a monster. Looking up at the creature that towered above her, she thought of the danger into which her friends had been led, and she got angry too. Very angry. So angry she felt she could explode. Energy rushed out of her arms into Jenny’s, and that’s when the push happened.

It shot through the tall girl like an enormous shudder of relief, like a wave bursting onto the shore. It widened as it left her body, engulfed the entire cavern, splitting boulders and making pebbles on the ground dance. The creature reached for its head, but it never got the chance to pluck out a deadly hair spear. The wave hit the giant like a massive blunt object, smashing it into the rock face. It slid, unconscious, to its
knees and fell face-first to the ground. There was silence.

‘Holy crap,’ said Una.

The cavern shook, creaking like a great rusty machine. The creature’s body began to shrink. And as it shrank, it pulled the cavern with it. The rocks and boulders and pebbles were pulled towards the shrivelling creature, revealing carpet underneath. The walls slunk away to reveal grubby wallpaper and a broken window. The mirage disappeared inside the body that was now a fraction of its original size, still lying face down on the floor.

‘Now,’ Grace said, ‘before it wakes.’

She didn’t wait for an answer, but grabbed Jenny by one of her weakened limbs and took flight. Jenny was woozy and limp, it was like flying with a dead weight, and Grace needed help to lift her through the broken window. They sailed over patchy, yellow grass, a poorly maintained front wall, the pavement beyond it, and landed on black tarmac.

Jenny slumped on the road, surrounded by her friends, her head lolling about. Grace held her face and lifted her eyes to the light of a streetlamp.

‘She’s okay,’ she said. ‘She’ll be okay.’

Everyone hugged the girl sitting on the tarmac, squeezing and patting her back.

‘Mrs Quinlan.’ Jenny slurred. ‘Mrs Quinlan’s still inside.’

Grace swept the auburn hair back off her friend’s face.

‘I know.’

21

No More Secrets

Almost as soon as Grace had touched down on the tarmac, clutching Jenny’s arms with Rachel and Una holding her legs behind, the house had shut itself up. If it looked dilapidated before, now it looked condemned. Planks of wood were nailed across the doors and windows, the yellowing grass of the front lawn had withered to brown, and a grey gloom had set in all over the grounds, as if the house had its own stormclouds permanently poised above the roof.

By the time Jenny was standing on her own feet, Adie and Delilah were jogging back towards the group on the street, and Bob had materialised nearby.

‘We can’t even get into the driveway,’ Adie panted, rubbing knuckles that Grace noticed were skinned and raw. ‘It’s like bulletproof glass blocking any way into the garden.’

‘Jenny hurt it,’ said Grace. ‘Maybe it doesn’t want to play for a while.’

‘So Mrs Quinlan kept hold of the doll then, after she took it from you?’

Adie looked enquiringly at Grace. But Grace still felt an inkling of distrust.

‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘Why?’

‘I think she’s the focus of the hex now. Drake said that someone has to take the doll willingly, in order to bring the curse on themselves.’

‘So how do we get her out?’ asked Una.

‘I don’t think we can,’ Delilah replied.

‘That’s rubbish.’ Grace was surprised by her own outburst. ‘What’s going on with you two? Adie, you’ve been lying to us and ditching classes, and Delilah? You never worried about casting spells outside of class before, and you never believed there were limits to magic. Now it’s as if you’re afraid to cast a basic spell. Something’s happened with the two of you, and I want to know what.’

The two girls seemed reluctant to talk, and Adie turned to Bob.

‘Don’t look at him.’ Grace was aware she was speaking as the adult she wasn’t ready to be. ‘I asked you a question, and I want you to answer. And tell us everything. No more secrets.’

And so Adie and Delilah told their story. They told about Adie’s water-messaging spell and the creature she believed
she had pulled back from Hy-Breasal; they told of how she had asked for help to catch it, first from Bob and then from Delilah. They told about their disastrous attempt to identify the creature, and their summoning of the witch Murdrina. Adie held it together when she spoke of her mother, of the black worm in her eyes and how it could jump from person to person, and of Niall’s odd behaviour in school.

‘So it wasn’t you,’ Grace said when they had finished, ‘who sprayed the water, and originated the mice.’

Adie shook her head.

‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t explain that without having to explain everything.’

‘I knew that couldn’t have been you,’ Una said. ‘You’re too nice to throw rodents at people. Hey,’ she turned abruptly to Bob, ‘where are
you
going?’

Bob was nearly to the hedge that led to the football pitch by the school. He turned and glared at Una with his mismatched eyes.

‘What I mean is,’ Una gulped, ‘it’s very nice to see you again, Mr Bob. It’s a shame we haven’t kept in touch all this time, but I was just wondering,’ she gestured to the house, ‘can you get Mrs Quinlan back?’

‘In time,’ the man grunted, ‘perhaps.’

He pushed his way through the hedge.

‘Well, that sounds fair,’ Una called after him. ‘Any time you’re ready. We’ll keep an eye on the house in the meantime
and, eh, nice to see you again! Have a good night. Bye, Bob.’

‘Una, he’s gone,’ said Jenny.

‘I know.’ Una wriggled her shoulders. ‘He makes me nervous.’

‘Can he stop Murdrina?’ said Grace.

‘I don’t think so,’ replied Adie. ‘She talks about him like he could be her nemesis or something, but she’s looking forward to the fight. She doesn’t seem scared at all.’

‘And he does?’

‘He doesn’t seem sure, anyway.’ Then Adie snapped to attention as if she had just realised something. ‘Hey, you lot lied to us as well. We didn’t know anything about the straw doll before Drake told us. You kept secrets too.’

‘Oh,’ said Grace, ‘yeah, I suppose we did… sorry about that.’

‘How come I wasn’t in on any of the secrets?’ Jenny asked.

‘You were fraternising with the enemy,’ replied Una.

‘Oh right, so I make friends with Agata and I’m out of the group. I’m out of all the groups?’

‘There were just two groups – after Adie and Delilah broke off.’

‘Three if you count me.’

‘You can’t be a group on your own. There were two groups, and you on your own.’

‘I don’t know what either of you are talking about,’ said Rachel, looking from Jenny to Una.

‘What has happened to us?’ Grace said it to herself, but
everyone heard and was silent for a few moments.

‘As relationships go,’ said Una, ‘ours for the last couple of weeks have been very unhealthy. But music is a great healer. I’ve got some brilliant stuff here–’

‘Oh God, Una, please, no…’ said Rachel.

As they made their way home Grace pulled away from the others to avoid the tinny noise emanating from Una’s mp3 player.

‘She’s not dropping that any time soon, is she?’

Adie caught up with her and they smiled shyly at each other.

‘No, I’m afraid the power ballads album might be a keeper.’

‘Could be worse. She could have discovered death metal.’

Grace laughed, then felt suddenly sad.

‘I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you too.’

‘You know, you left out a bit of your story.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yeah,’ said Grace. ‘You started at the point when you tried to send Gaukroger and Aura a water-message.’

‘Yeah?’

‘But you had stopped hanging out with us before that. Why?’

Adie shrugged, but Grace could tell she’d touched a nerve.

‘I didn’t like the carnival,’ Adie finally replied.

‘What was so bad about it?’

‘Nothing, I just didn’t like it.’

Grace was interested now.

‘Could you somehow tell that some of them were wicked?’

‘No,’ said Adie, ‘because I didn’t like having tea with Agata either. And she’s lovely.’

‘So what was it?’

Tears started rolling down Adie’s cheeks.

‘I’m a bad person.’

‘What?’ Grace snorted. ‘Of course you’re not. What are you talking about?’

‘I didn’t like the carnival people because…’ Adie choked out the last few words, ‘I thought they were weird.’ Grace was perplexed.

‘They
are
weird.’

‘No, I mean the way they looked, they way lived, the food they ate, everything. I found it weird, and I felt bad about it but I couldn’t help finding it weird. So I stayed away from them.’

‘So, you mean…’

‘I’m a racist!’ Adie snuffled.

This time Grace laughed out loud.

‘Don’t laugh,’ Adie snapped. ‘I didn’t like them because they didn’t look and talk like me. I am a racist… or a xenophobe or something, I’m not sure which.’

Grace had the urge to laugh again, but Adie was too distressed, so she patted her friend’s shoulder and let the silence drag out instead. As the sky darkened further, they could hear distant arguments from the other girls. Finally, Grace spoke.

‘Jenny puts chocolate in her ham sandwiches.’

Adie gave her a queer look.

‘I know.’

‘I find that weird.’

There was no answer, and Grace went on.

‘Rachel spends half an hour on her make-up and picking out clothes every morning. I find that
really
weird.’

There was only a stubborn sniffle from Adie, so Grace continued.

‘You collect candles, but never light them. I find that weird.’

Adie retaliated.

‘You love homework. I find that weird.’

‘I don’t love it, I just don’t mind–’

‘You love it.’

Grace grinned.

‘Una could dance and wiggle her bum in front of the whole school and not get embarrassed. I find that weird.’

‘That
is
weird.’

Grace looked at Adie’s tearful face in the moonlight.

‘It freaked me out when I met her first,’ she said. ‘But now I like it.’

‘Me too.’

‘So I guess we shouldn’t worry about thinking new people are a bit weird. ’Cos we’re all weird.’

Adie smiled reluctantly and gave Grace a firm nudge in the ribs. After a minute she said, ‘I’ll never like power ballads, though.’

‘Oh God, neither will I.’

Ms Lemon’s pretty little sitting room didn’t easily seat seven people. The girls were perched on the arms of the sofa, the coffee table, the windowsill, with only Una sharing the couch with their teacher. They all instinctively felt that Ms Lemon should be given plenty of room while they filled her in on the bizarre series of events that had led them to their current predicament and, also, to the imprisonment of Mrs Quinlan in her own house.

Their teacher sat with her hands clasped in her lap, her gaze focussed on the floor as they spoke. As soon as the extent of their rule-breaking became apparent, she stopped interrupting them for further details. Her hazel eyes grew wider as she listened, her face almost expressionless except for a deep crease in her brow. Grace thought she saw a flicker of recognition at the name Murdrina but, other than that, Ms Lemon didn’t react at all. When everyone had finished telling their part of the story, the room settled into an uncomfortable
silence, broken by the occasional cough or someone fidgeting in their seat. In the distance, Grace heard the faint wail of a siren and the beeping of traffic on the road outside.

‘Delilah,’ Ms Lemon said suddenly, ‘you will stay with me. It’ll be a bit of squeeze with the two of us, but we’ll manage.’

‘Um, yes, Miss,’ the small girl replied.

Ms Lemon returned her focus to the floor and fell silent again.

‘Miss?’ Grace said. ‘What should we do?’

‘Nothing. You do nothing. Bob will battle this witch and, if we’re lucky, that will be the end of it.’

‘But we don’t know if Bob is a match for Murdrina. What if he loses?’

‘It’s our fault she’s here at all,’ Adie said. ‘We can’t let Bob fight her alone. What if she kills him?’

‘Then you will have to live with that,’ Ms Lemon replied.

Grace was taken aback. The teacher looked drawn, her face pale and her voice filled with resignation. It seemed like she had given up before even trying.

‘You’ve heard of her, haven’t you?’ said Grace. ‘You know who she is.’

‘I’ve heard a legend,’ the teacher said, ‘a fable about some sorceress, that’s all. Murdrina is a name thrown about by some witches like a bedtime story made to scare children. She doesn’t exist.’

‘She does exist,’ Adie said. ‘She’s in my house.’

Ms Lemon sighed with one hand over her eyes.

‘If what you’ve told me is true, if she’s stronger than Bob, then I haven’t a hope of beating her.’

‘Mrs Quinlan would try,’ said Grace.

Ms Lemon looked up with red eyes.

‘She would. But you handed her a hex that made sure she never could.’ The teacher got to her feet. ‘I’ll get you some blankets and pillows for the sofa, Delilah.’

‘You can’t just give up, Miss,’ Jenny interjected. ‘There has to be something we can do.’