Alfie Bloom and the Secrets of Hexbridge Castle (11 page)

He needed to get as far away from it as he possibly could, but Artan seemed to know that it would give chase the second he took flight. As the light of the flame died away, someone in the house switched on the floodlights and the farmyard lit up as bright as day. The dragon let out a low hiss, beat its powerful wings twice and shot upwards into the night, the breeze nearly sweeping Artan from the roof. By the time the adults ran outside in their pyjamas it had disappeared from view.

“Quick, head to the trees,” Alfie hissed to the bear.

Artan launched himself into the air and swooped down to skim the grass by the oaks. Alfie leapt from his back and began to climb the tree, calling back to the bear, “Go back to the castle – I'll see you tomorrow.” Artan had only just made himself scarce when Alfie's dad and Aunt Grace ran towards the tree house, calling up to the children. Granny headed for the barn with Uncle Herb who was gripping his shotgun, ready to confront whatever was disturbing his sheep.

After half an hour helping to calm the animals and secure the barn and outhouses, Alfie was back in the farmhouse kitchen sharing tea and toast as Robin and Madeleine explained what they had seen.

“It was huge,” announced Madeleine, “with MASSIVE wings. It flew right over us to our barn. It was as big as a plane!”

“A very
small
plane,” Robin interrupted quickly. “It was really big though.”

Alfie had also seen his aunt and uncle glance at each other. It was obvious that the adults thought they were exaggerating.

“Could have been an eagle owl,” suggested his dad.

“True,” said Uncle Herb, rubbing his whiskers. “A friend of mine down in Dunsop Bridge said there's a nesting pair not far from his farm.”

“We thought it might be a bird when we first saw it, but it really wasn't!” insisted Madeleine as the conversation turned to how heavy a lamb an eagle owl could carry. “Alfie saw it, didn't you? Tell them it wasn't an owl.”

Everyone looked at Alfie. His mouth opened and closed uselessly as he tried to figure out what to say. Telling them that he had seen a two-headed dragon certainly wasn't going to make Madeleine's story any more convincing. He could hardly believe it himself, and he had seen it with his own eyes.

“Tell them what you saw, Alfie,” she pleaded. “He saw it up close. He flew over with Artan and they watched it from the roof of the bale shed.”

“Flew?” smiled Aunt Grace, pulling Madeleine on to her knee. “And who is Artan, Pumpkin?” Alfie groaned inwardly as he realized what was about to happen.

“He's Alfie's flying bear,” said Madeleine looking up at the adults who were starting to smile. “He's not a live bear – he's a bearskin rug,” she added as her mother began to laugh. “It's true! Stop laughing at me! He flew Alfie over to look at the thing on the roof. It wasn't an eagle owl, was it, Robin? We've seen it before – it chased us on the way back from London. It was a dragon, I'm sure it was!”

Alfie felt helpless as everyone collapsed into full-blown laughter.

“Isn't that the story in Alfie's comic?” asked Aunt Grace. “Is this a preview of the next issue? I wish you were this dedicated to your homework.”

Madeleine looked at Alfie and Robin tearfully. Alfie still couldn't think of a single word to help her. He wasn't going to tell them about Artan – he'd never be allowed to fly again. He raised his hands helplessly as Madeleine pushed her way out of her mother's arms and ran out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. As the adults wiped their eyes and tried to stop laughing, he heard Madeleine scream in anger and stomp upstairs to her room.

“Well it's been quite a birthday this year,” said Granny, getting up and planting a kiss on each of the boys' foreheads. “I hope you two weren't trying to frighten Madeleine out there. I'd have been scared to see a bird that size at night, never mind a dragon.”

The tree house was off-limits for the rest of the night, so Alfie was back in the top bunk bed in Robin's room. As Uncle Herb began to snore in the bedroom next door, he leant over the edge of his mattress to whisper down to Robin about the dragon on the barn.

“It's just …
unbelievable
,” said Robin. “That's really what chased us. A dragon. I mean, I've read stories about them that say they died out or were killed by knights, but I never thought they really existed! Where do you think this one came from?”

“Don't ask me,” said Alfie. “But remember Granny told us that animals have been disappearing from this area since before her granddad's time? What if it has always nested around here, coming out to steal animals every new moon?”

“For hundreds of years,” whispered Robin. “It must have hidden itself well. Why do you think it's being more reckless now?”

“What do you mean?” asked Alfie.

“No one has ever seen any sign of it before, right? It seems weird that we've encountered it twice since the castle reopened and you arrived back in Hexbridge with Orin's magic.”

Alfie chewed his lip. Could Robin be right? Dragons were supposed to be magical creatures. Had it sensed the magic inside him that night in the sky, or was it the castle itself that it was interested in? “Do you think Maddie is asleep? Should we go and tell her?”

“Are you kidding?” asked Robin incredulously. “I'd rather face the dragon! We'll be lucky if she speaks to us again this year, never mind tonight.”

Alfie barely heard his cousin; a terrible image had popped into his head that kept him awake long after Robin had drifted off to sleep. As Alfie lay in the top bunk staring up at the ceiling, all he could think about was the blackened patch of earth where they had found Mrs Emmett's melted glass eye…

 

Robin was right. The next morning Madeleine disappeared to visit Holly. Alfie didn't see her until the following morning at school, where she stayed well away from him and Robin. This continued for the entire week.

“I'm done trying to apologize,” said Robin in frustration as Madeleine passed them in the corridor, turning her head sharply to avoid looking at them. An embarrassed Holly shot them an apologetic glance as she hurried along behind her. “What did she expect? We couldn't get a clear picture. How could we back her up with no evidence?”

“What's bothering me is that we can't even do anything about it,” said Alfie. “You saw how they all reacted to Madeleine. Imagine if we called the army to tell them there's a dragon loose in Hexbridge!” He twirled his finger by his temple, then stopped as a thought hit him. “It's half-term and my birthday next week. What if she's still upset with us?” They'd planned to explore the castle cellars during the holidays. He couldn't imagine Madeleine not joining them.

“Don't worry – the village festival starts on your birthday,” said Robin. “She loves that. She's bound to come round before then.”

 

By the start of the holiday, Madeleine was still determinedly avoiding them. Alfie was worried. It really seemed as though she was never going to speak to him again. Robin came up to the castle to visit Alfie on the first night of half-term and told him that Madeleine had moved into the spare room of Granny's cottage.

“She told Mum she needed to be there all week to help Granny with festival duties. Well, she can stay there for ever for all I care. I'm staying here.”

Alfie didn't mind having Robin around at the castle as he seemed quite happy to amuse himself reading in the library. He was obviously planning on sticking around for a while as he had already moved some of his things into the room Alfie had given him.

On the second day of half-term they spent the morning down at the lake with Alfie's dad. He had been inspired by the da Vinci replicas he had seen in Caspian Bone's office and was trying to recreate some of the artist's inventions, starting with two huge pairs of boat-like shoes designed for walking on water. What Alfie thought was going to be a relaxing morning fishing turned into a very wet few hours testing the shoes. His dad had supplied each of them with two ski poles with floats on the bottom to help them balance.

“It's easy,” Alfie heard his dad shout from the shore as his feet shot out from under him, dunking him into the lake for the third time. “Just walk across the surface of the water.”

“If it's so easy, why don't you try it?” spluttered Alfie as he tried to stand up.

“I would,” replied his dad, tapping the video camera he was using to record their progress. “But I need to observe the strengths and weaknesses of the design.”

Alfie thought that the design had more weaknesses than strengths as he wobbled around with Robin. The most either of them could manage was five steps before falling face first into the water.

Just as he was about to plead with his dad to end the torture, Ashford turned up with warm towels and a hamper of food. Alfie sat draped in his towel eating a steaming freshly baked pie as his dad showed Robin the footage of their disastrous attempts to walk on water in the camera's viewfinder. Alfie turned to grab a napkin from the hamper and noticed a lone figure high on the riverbank. It disappeared almost as soon as he looked, but not before he recognized Madeleine's red jacket.

 

Ashford took that evening off. He had taken a few days and nights off since starting work at the castle. Alfie wondered where he went on those occasions. He still knew very little about Ashford, and the butler seemed determined to keep it that way, avoiding any personal questions. With no one to make dinner, Alfie's dad ordered pizza before disappearing into his workshop to improve his designs. Alfie was quite relieved Robin wouldn't get to experience his dad's bizarre cooking.

After they'd eaten, Alfie led his cousin down from the kitchens to the levels below. He had decided that tonight they would make a start on exploring the cellars.

At the bottom, Alfie flicked a large brass switch and the torches on the walls flared to life, illuminating the undercroft's vaulted ceilings and columns. He took one of the torches from the wall and looked around. This first chamber was the neatly stocked pantry. Jars of pickles, preserved fruits, chutneys and marinades filled the shelves, all labelled in Ashford's perfect handwriting.

“Careful,” said Alfie as Robin caught his foot on one of the large sacks of fruit and vegetables that lined the wall, sending potatoes rolling across the floor. Alfie unlocked the door that led from the undercroft into the main cellars and they made their way down the corridor, detouring through the network of rooms that led off from it. Alfie sorted through the surprisingly large bunch of cellar keys, matching them to locks as they went. One room was lined with large oak casks labelled as elderberry, elderflower, blackberry or fruits he hadn't even heard of. He was amazed to see they all still had wine in them. Robin pulled the stopper out of a barrel marked
ARMAGNAC
, 1402. Alfie laughed as he took a deep sniff of the contents and pretended to faint.

“Blimey, why would anyone drink that stuff?”

Most of the other rooms were empty, containing only benches, tables and baskets of blankets and fleeces. Like everything else in the castle, they were in perfect condition.

“Orin's letter said that the whole village would move into the castle whenever they needed protection,” said Alfie. “I bet this is where some of them slept.”

In one room Robin found a small leather pouch containing a whittling knife and a number of little half-carved wooden animals including a boar, a wolf and a hare. Alfie let him have these under the finders-keepers rule and enjoyed the delighted look on his cousin's face as he examined the animals one by one, gently brushing away loose wood shavings.

At the far end of the corridor was a heavy studded door with three large padlocks. Alfie unlocked them and hauled the door open. A cool wave of damp-smelling air washed over them. Alfie flicked on his torch and picked out a long flight of stairs that led downwards.

“What do you think is down there?” asked Robin, his voice echoing back at them.

“Let's find out!” said Alfie, hoping he sounded a lot braver than he felt. He forced himself to move before he had time to chicken out. “Stay close.” He was a little disconcerted by their own echoing footsteps as they descended into a dark, mossy labyrinth, which made the cellars they had just left seem cheery by comparison.

“We must be at lake level now,” said Robin, as they finally reached the bottom.

There were no lights down here and the glow from Alfie's torch only made the blackness seem even darker. He had to be very careful to remember where they had come from and where they had already been.

After what felt like hours searching the dank, dark cellars, they finally found something interesting in one of the furthest corners: a vast round trapdoor set into the floor. An intricate array of bolts ran around the edge of the ebony wood surface, which bore silver runes that spiralled towards the centre. They looked immediately familiar to Alfie.

While Robin tried to find a way to prise apart the bolts, Alfie quickly checked his talisman. The runes matched. Hadn't Emily Fortune said that the talisman was also a key? He noticed a small round indentation in the centre of the trapdoor and knew that the talisman would fit it perfectly, but something stopped him from trying it out. There was something ominous about this huge door. Someone had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to seal it, so he wasn't going to try and unlock it until he knew exactly what was down there.

“Come on,” he said, ushering a protesting Robin away. “It'd take an army to pull that up. We'd better get back upstairs. Dad will be wondering where we are.”

As they were passing through what Alfie had worked out to be the central chamber, Robin stopped moving and shushed him.

“Shh! I just heard something.”

Alfie held his breath and listened carefully. A soft
plink-plink
broke the silence. “It's just dripping water,” he said with a sigh of relief. “You nearly gave me a heart attack, Rob!”

“Sorry,” said Robin as he began walking again. “It's just so creepy down—” He disappeared with a loud splash.

“Robin!” shouted Alfie, his torch picking out a round pool of water in the middle of the room. Robin had tripped over the low stone lip and was thrashing around in the dark water, grasping for the sides. Alfie began to laugh, but quickly saw that something was wrong. “Quick, grab my hands!” he shouted as Robin disappeared beneath the surface. He grasped at Robin's flailing arms as he resurfaced spluttering – his fingers closed on Robin's jumper, but his cousin slipped out of it and below the surface. With barely a thought, Alfie kicked off his shoes and leapt into the water, taking a deep breath before diving down. The second he submerged he could feel a strong current dragging him deeper. He scrabbled at the sides but couldn't grip on to the slippery stones as the current pulled him down and around a bend.

Fighting the impulse to breathe, he found himself tumbling towards a rusted iron grate. As he hit the bars, he felt something soft next to him. Robin. His eyes were bulging and bubbles escaped his mouth as he clung to the grate. He gestured towards an area that seemed almost rusted through and began kicking at it frantically. Alfie joined in, stomping the metal as it began to crumble away in large pieces.

Alfie's lungs were screaming for air; he was desperate to give in and take a deep breath but he kept on kicking. Finally, a large section of grate broke away and Robin shot through the hole like an eel.

The jagged metal scraped Alfie's arms as he dragged himself through and out into what could only be Lake Archelon. Weeds grasped at his ankles as he kicked up towards the surface and swam for his life. He could just make out the light of the moon piercing the murky water and kept kicking towards it. His lungs burnt and his waterlogged clothes seemed to be dragging him down. Just as he felt he couldn't take another stroke, he broke the surface next to Robin and took a huge breath of sweet night air.