The Morrow Secrets (10 page)

The next afternoon they retraced their steps to Asenathe’s apartment. At the top of the winding staircase Tallitha stepped out onto the sunlit gallery and stopped dead. There was someone below, staring up at her. They had been discovered.

‘Come down Tallitha, and whoever it is lurking behind you. I’ve been expecting you,’ exclaimed Esmerelda.
One by one they climbed out of the secret hatch. Esmerelda stood, her long silky dress floating behind her, with Licks circling her legs and purring loudly.
‘What you doing sneaking around? You’re not supposed to be up here,’ she snapped.
‘We were exploring,’ said Tallitha, ‘playing hide and seek.’
‘Don’t try that old trick. I used that one before you were born,’ said Esmerelda coldly. ‘Who gave you permission to be up here? Or is Aunt Agatha oblivious to all this?’ Esmerelda’s dark eyes flashed as she moved towards them. ‘She will be cross when I tell her,’ she teased.
‘Please don’t, Essie, we weren’t doing any harm,’ pleaded Tallitha.
‘No, we were...,’ said Benedict, but Esmerelda put her finger to her lips.
She was only interested in the girl. Esmerelda circled them holding their gaze with her smouldering eyes. She began to hum in a strange repetitive way, the sound coming from deep within her throat. They were easy prey and fell quickly under her powerful spell. She encircled them, once, twice, three times wrapping her long scarves around their faces and smothering them in strong heady perfume. Tallitha tried to keep her focus but the boys were entranced and went to mush.
‘Please don’t tell her, Essie.’ Her voice tailed off. ‘We can explain. We were just exploring and came across this room.’
‘Well you paint such an innocent picture. But I don’t believe you,’ she snapped. ‘Benedict, you for one, look guilty’, she said, holding his drooping face in her hands. Benedict’s eyes rolled back in his head. ‘I know why you came here,’ said Esmerelda, turning to Tallitha. ‘You were searching for my cousin Asenathe’s rooms, weren’t you?’
Esmerelda spun round with her scarves flying wildly behind her. Then she began twisting an amulet before Tallitha’s face, moving it backwards and forwards, emitting a foul smelling odour. Tallitha could not resist the smell, the awful sweet heady smell, lulling her, making her drift and lose her senses.
‘Essie! What are you doing? Leave me alone,’ pleaded Tallitha.
But she was slipping, sliding away from her body. Esmerelda made the strange bauble dance erratically before Tallitha’s eyes. It shimmered and flashed, throwing a thousand sparkles across the room.
‘Relax. Breathe deeply and listen to what I tell you,’ she said bewitchingly.
Esmerelda’s haunting voice penetrated Tallitha’s mind.
‘I can’t breathe, Essie. I’m so hot,’ she said pulling at her face and hair, ‘I’m falling.’
‘Then fall, Tallitha. Let go, don’t resist me!’ demanded Esmerelda.
Tallitha felt herself slipping into the infinite space that stretched before her, squeezed out from her body and taken beyond her world. Coloured whirlpools, deep and alluring, green, blue and violet pulled her in. They dragged her down through the ever-increasing spirals of colour; green, turquoise, blue, violet. Her will vanished and whoosh‒she entered a separate reality where all was silent.
Tallitha slipped easily into the foggy-light. Flashing images cascaded, randomly flicking before her eyes. She was trudging through a dream, her feet like leaden weights. Then she heard the rich lilting sounds of Ennish, dark and repetitive, flooding her senses.

‘Snenathe ne certhe merl can an le ner
Cerna la bernatha ne tor na lam, berche berche ne cer Snenathe ne certhe merl can an le ner.’

What awful fantasy was this? Suddenly she felt her body become weightless and she was whipped up a long tunnel with a silver cord floating behind her. At the top, the cool rushing air transported her amongst the images which kept rippling, forming, blurring and disappearing again. One image was just out of her reach and she put out her hand. It was the vaguest outline of a girl, sitting with her back to Tallitha and looking out of a window.

Then Esmerelda spoke. ‘Tallitha‒where are you? What can you see?’ she whispered.
But the vision blurred. It kept coming into view then receding as if Tallitha was looking down a telescopic lens.
‘A girl in a black dress, her hair is in spirals down her back. I can’t see her face.’
Tallitha’s voice was flat. Then she heard Ennish.

Tallitha reached out to touch the vision and the outline began to fade like ripples in a muddy puddle.
Suddenly a desperate, wailing scream filled the room.
‘Essie, Esmerelda, stop this at once. Tallitha! Oh Tallitha. Essie, you must do something. Bring her back. Do you hear me? What foul loathsome trickery are you up to now?’ cried Cissie, running towards Esmerelda and pushing her to one side.
Esmerelda snapped her eyes shut in annoyance and touched Tallitha just once. Then Tallitha felt herself falling down a bumpy tunnel, lights flashed before her eyes and there was an enormous whoosh flooding into her whole body. There was a thud and a tremendous thump and Tallitha woke with a start. The air was rushing back into her lungs with huge searing gulps. Someone was shaking her, shaking her awake. It was Cissie.
Then she passed out into the darkness.

Some time later, when Tallitha came round, she was resting on Asenathe’s bed covered in rugs. Cissie was stroking her hand and whispering fondly to her.

She handed Tallitha a black-coloured drink which tasted of salt and liquorice. Tallitha gulped at the strange liquid and it began to revive her. ‘What happened to me? Where’s Esmerelda?’
Cissie shook her head, ‘She went off in a bit of a blither, saying I’d

spoiled everythin’. But she’ll be back. She’s found what she was looking for and she won’t let that go, not after all this time,’ said Cissie angrily. ‘What’s she found, Cissie?’ asked Tallitha apprehensively.
‘You, Miss, she’s found you. She knows you’re a channel, you can see things for her. Things she can’t see on her own.’
It was true then. It had really happened.
‘Where are the others?’
‘She let them go. They went into the hidey-hole to get away from Esmerelda’s strange goings on. Lookin’ for summat’ they said. Wait, I’ll call them. Benedict, Tyaas!’
But there was no response.
‘They’ve prob’ly found the other rooms by now. They were a bit unnerved by what ’appened.’
Tallitha rubbed her throbbing head.
‘I don’t understand. I went to a strange place.’
Cissie frowned. ‘She shouldn’t ’ave done that.’
‘I left my body and it was misty all around me. Did Essie do that to me?’
‘She hypnotised all of you, Miss, to try you out, so to speak. With you she found her channel and that’s what she’s been searching for. You’re part of her bloodline, aren’t you?’
Cissie put her arm round the trembling girl and gave her a hug.
‘She’s probably tried before, if you think on.’
Tallitha remembered her strange experience in the sisters’ apartment when Essie had completed her needlework.
‘Yes I remember. So maybe it was Essie that left the sampler for me to find, and perhaps she led us to the turret where we found Asenathe’s book?’
‘I don’t know about all that. There’s queer goings-on in this old house, that’s for sure,’ exclaimed Cissie.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Tallitha.
‘There’s thems that would do bad things, if they could, to the family,’ explained Cissie, ‘I don’t mean Essie. She’s just after finding Asenathe, but there’s others.’ Cissie’s voice trailed off.
‘But who are they?’
‘I don’t know Miss, so no use quizzing me like you always do. There’s summat unsettling about the Spires these days, something I can’t quite put my finger on.’
Cissie smoothed down her apron and sighed.
‘She’ll want to try again. ’Tis only with practising that you’ll see things clearer and she’ll find what she wants to see. But is that what you want too? She’s been searching for Asenathe for manys a long year‒since she went missin’. The Grand Morrow has no truck with it. She thinks Asenathe is never comin’ home and that Miss Esmerelda’s wastin’ her time.’
‘I think it’s what I want, but I never imagined it would turn out like this.’
Tallitha paused and took Cissie’s hand.
‘You won’t get into trouble, will you? With Essie, I mean?’
‘Not likely. Her and me go back a long way. She knows I’m lookin’ out for you. Her ways are strange though. She’ll stop at nothin’ to get Asenathe back, you mark my words.’
Tallitha looked out of the window, over to the mountains in the north. ‘Asenathe’s somewhere out there,’ she whispered.
Cissie shuddered. She felt like someone had just walked over her grave.
‘’Appen she is,’ she said quickly. ‘There’s evil goings-on. ’Tis a fearsome place, out beyond Wycham Elva, and especially not safe for the likes of you.’
They lapsed into silence and Tallitha sipped the liquorice drink. She had always known there was something nudging her in another direction, making her yearn for a different life, and now she was beginning to find out what that life might be like.
‘I’m going to look for the others,’ she said, ‘I’ll be back in time for dinner.’
Tallitha kissed her nurse, scrambled off the bed and climbed into the hidey-hole.
Cissie watched Tallitha disappear through the hatch. She sat for a while on Asenathe’s bed and absent-mindedly played with a chain around her neck, hidden under her dress. It had a small silver key on the end which she twisted and turned, turned and twisted.

It was dark in the secret room and Tallitha saw candlelight flickering behind a curtain. Tyaas and Benedict were sitting cross-legged on the floor studying the map. They both looked up when she pulled the curtain to one side.

‘Sorry we went off. You OK?’ asked Tyaas.
Tallitha nodded and sat next to them.
‘That was the weirdest thing ever,’ said Tyaas, looking spooked. ‘We left when Cissie arrived and Essie’s power wore off. Hope you

Tallitha understood only too well. ‘She put me in a trance. I saw strange things, people...’ said Tallitha mysteriously.
‘Wow, what happened?’ asked Tyaas.
‘I went to another place outside my body. It was weird. I think I saw Asenathe.’
Tyaas thought the whole episode was bizarre. It gave him the collywobbles.
‘What do you think Asenathe and Essie used to do in here?’ asked Tallitha, surveying the room by candlelight.
There was a circular glass table in the middle of the room with large cushions positioned around it.
‘Practise the black arts. It’s a bit sinister if you ask me,’ said Tyaas looking warily around him.
The boys had discovered a book of translations in the bookcase. Benedict was leafing through the pages.
‘I’m sure this is what we were supposed to find, it’s the cipher to the map.’
‘It’s too dark in here, let’s move to the glass table,’ suggested Tallitha.
They pressed the map firmly down on to the table so that the candlelight from below shone through. The heat began to affect the map and slowly more of the brown spidery handwriting began to take shape on the yellow paper.
‘Look, there are more place names showing up,’ exclaimed Tyaas.
‘It’s the ink that’s special. It’s invisible until you warm it up. Then it reveals all the hidden words,’ explained Benedict.
‘Take a look at the cipher. These Ennish names translate as Smear-seat Knells, Ragging Brows Forest and Weeping Holes.’
‘There!’ shouted Tyaas, pointing at the book, ‘this translation means “Through water, or by the water”.’
The map was a curious collection of names and places written in Ennish. It was a disjointed pattern of small drawings without any obvious destination. What leapt out at them was Shivering Water, a cold bottomless lake in the north of Wycham Elva.
It had the drawing of a silver key next to it. They stared at each other in the candlelight.
That had to be the start of their journey to Breedoor.

Cissie sat by the fire, staring into the flames as she twisted the threads of her needlework in and out of her fingers. She must tell them the truth. She had lied to Tallitha. Not a vicious nasty lie to hurt her but a good lie, if such a thing existed, to protect her. But it was no use pretending any more, they were sure to notice the silver key in the corner of the map. If only she’d got rid of that dreadful map, but Esmerelda had stopped her and made her promise. So she sat, full of trepidation, and waited for them to return after supper. At last she heard their voices chattering on the landing. The door opened and the three of them came in.