Lily and the Prisoner of Magic (11 page)

Lily eyed the contents of her parcel, wrinkling her nose. ‘It’s got a bit squashed. It’s a spider, a very dead one, don’t worry. I found it in the orchestra pit and I thought it might be useful. Spiders seem to come into quite a lot of the traditional sorts of spells. I think that’s another reason Georgie never enjoyed her magic much.’

Henrietta leaned closer and shuddered. ‘Wrap it up, Lily, please! I can’t help myself, in this shape, it looks so succulent and leggy, I just want to eat it!’

Lily whipped the spider behind her back. ‘You mustn’t. We have to use one of the legs to pick the lock.’

Henrietta squawked derisively, and looked almost surprised at herself. ‘We’d better hurry up, I’m starting to sound like a real parrot. I don’t believe you can pick a lock with a dead spider, Lily. Daniel’s book was having you on. Or it was just one of those misguided books full of silly myths about magic.’

‘The spell sounded real to me. I’ve tied red cotton in and out of all the legs, like it said, and it’s a nice long-legged one, the book said that was important. Now we’re supposed to poke it into the lock, and pull the thread out again.’ She eyed the parcel unwillingly – she had worn gloves (Georgie’s: she hadn’t told her) to wrap the thread around the spider, and she didn’t really want to touch it now, with her bare fingers. Gingerly, she picked it out of the cloth, flinching at the slight furriness of its body and the shiny hardness of the legs.

‘Hurry, Lily, I want to snap it up,’ Henrietta moaned.

Lily closed her eyes and shoved, remembering to keep hold of the end of the thread. There was a most unpleasant squishing sensation, and she tugged convulsively on the thread, remembering at the last moment to mutter, ‘Weaver of tiny miracles, slip this knot and open for me…’

The lock gave a satisfying clunk, and Lily tried the handle and pushed the door open. She whisked inside, closing it quietly behind her, and looked around.

The suite was prettily, fussily decorated, all gold and white like the door. It didn’t seem right for Lily’s mother at all. Lily always thought of her in dark places, like the library back at Merrythought. ‘When we found that list of spells that she’d taught Georgie, the one that set us off thinking about the plot, it was in her photo album,’ she murmured to Henrietta. ‘Do you think she still has it? That little green leather book?’

‘I remember.’ Henrietta jumped down from her arm onto the bed, waddling up the silken coverlet and cursing squawkily as her claws caught in the slippery fabric. ‘Not by the side of her bed, or under the pillows.’

‘Look!’ Lily hurried across the room to a small leather trunk banded in brass, like some sort of pharmacist’s kit. It was full of little bottles with heavy glass stoppers, most of them filled with sludgy-looking liquids. And tucked down one side of the trunk was the green leather book.

‘Be careful. She’s not at home now – she might have set some sort of guard on it,’ Henrietta snapped, as Lily crouched and reached out for the book.

‘It looks just the same.’ Lily longed to pick it up – she was suddenly sure that whatever they needed was inside, and she wanted it, so, so much. Her mouth watered, as though the little book was sugary sweet.

‘Lily, stop it!’ Henrietta flapped and skidded and landed on top of the trunk with a ringing of little glass bottles. She snapped her beak at Lily’s fingertips. ‘You see, there’s something burning these glamoured feathers,’ she added, jumping to the floor, and fluttering about like a green and grumpy feather duster. ‘We can’t touch the book until we’ve taken it off. Ow.’

Lily wriggled back, stroking Henrietta anxiously – some of her feathers were smoking, but the real fur under the glamour felt no different. ‘What is it?’

‘Some sort of spelled poison. It smells like mushrooms. I do like a nice mushroom,’ Henrietta sighed. Then she shook herself, and made a spitting sort of noise. ‘I do
not
! Horrid greyish things, and the most innocent-looking ones are always poisonous. Whatever this spell is, it’s very good at making people want to pick it up. I call that just plain nasty.’

‘It made you think of food too,’ Lily said thoughtfully. ‘I wanted it because it was sugary, and lovely, like a little pink cake.’ She glanced over at the table by the bed, and smiled. ‘I thought so. There’s a biscuit barrel in our room too.’ She went over to open it, and brought out a handful of sweet biscuits, glazed with sugar crystals. She stuffed one into her mouth, and then crushed another in her hand so that it was just a mess of sugary crumbs. ‘You have this one,’ she told Henrietta, feeding a third to the parrot, and then she crouched back down by the trunk. ‘But keep it in your mouth, don’t swallow it. It’s to stop you wanting to pick up the book.’

‘This is very unkind,’ Henrietta muttered, crumbs leaking out of both sides of her beak.

‘And it means you can’t peck me when I do this,’ Lily said, swiftly whipping out one of Henrietta’s imaginary tail feathers.

‘What did you do that for?’ the parrot squawked, spitting crumbs.

‘Oh dear, I was hoping you wouldn’t feel it, since they were only glamour feathers…’

‘It felt like you were pulling half my tail fur out!’

‘I’m really sorry. But look, now we’ve got something we can touch the book with.’ Lily dropped the handful of crumbs on top of the little book, and swept them over its surface with the feather, which sizzled into a haze of glittering, burnt-sugar-smelling sparks.

‘The crumbs have gone,’ Henrietta said, curiosity overcoming her fury about her tail.

‘I think they’ve fed the spell, hopefully,’ Lily muttered. ‘It isn’t making me want to pick it up any more – I mean, I do want to, but I’m not desperate… I don’t think it’s gone, it’s just not hungry, for a minute or so…’ She darted a hand out, seizing the book and closing her eyes hopefully.

She seemed still to have a hand when she opened them again a moment later.

Hurriedly, she flicked through the pages, flinching as she saw the solemn faces of her older sisters again. Tucked next to the photograph of Georgie as a baby was a folded paper, a list, in purplish spidery writing.

‘Is it any use?’

‘Addresses,’ Lily said slowly. ‘In New York, and some in other cities in America. Mortimer Jones. Isabella Fountain. Rose Fell! Look, an address for her, in New York!’

‘Magicians she’s hoping to bring into the plot, like we thought.’ Henrietta nodded with satisfaction. ‘Remember it, and then put the list back.’

‘Shouldn’t we get rid of it?’ Lily glanced at her in surprise. ‘To stop her finding them?’

‘No! Of course not – then she’d know we were here! We’ve two more days shut up in a floating coffin with her, Lily, think! Put it back. And sweep up those crumbs.’

Lily slipped the list back into the book and closed the covers, shuddering at the hungry sucking sound they seemed to make. Then she dusted away the crumbs as carefully as she could, and they hurried out of the sweet-smelling room.

‘Look at it!’ Lily breathed. She had never seen such a magical-looking city. A huge greenish statue towered over them as the ship sailed slowly by. The massive figure was swathed in metal draperies, and it seemed to be hazed in a cloud of golden magic. The huge torch it held up in one hand burned with streaming blue and scarlet flames, obviously made by some sort of spell.

‘Can you imagine anything like that at home?’ Georgie said, staring. ‘I knew magic was allowed here, but I didn’t expect
this
. They actually like it…’

‘It’s so beautiful,’ Lily whispered, staring at the tall building along the shoreline, lit up in the mist of the early evening.

‘It is,’ Colette agreed. ‘But you need to go back to the cabin, girls. I’m really sorry,’ she added, as Lily flinched at the thought of squashing back into the hidden compartment. ‘They’re going to come and take our baggage really soon, before we go through Customs. They need the trunks. I had to tell the steward I’d accidentally packed a necklace in the wrong one, and I needed to find it before we docked. He’s given me a few minutes’ grace. I hate having to make you leave all this.’ She waved at the violet-streaked sky.

‘It’s all right,’ Lily murmured, turning reluctantly away from the shimmering green-gold figure.

‘I tipped the steward,’ Colette said, hugging her. ‘I told him a lot of my costumes were really fragile, so please could he take special care of the trunks.’

They hurried back down to the cabin, sneaking quickly in between the anxious-looking staff.

‘Did you hear?’ Henrietta hissed when they were safely inside Colette’s cabin. ‘Mrs Archibald is throwing a fit, saying that someone’s been in her cabin.’

‘I hope that maid doesn’t get into trouble,’ Lily said, feeling guilty. She hadn’t even thought about it until now.

Colette shook her head. ‘I doubt she will. They’ll just assume she’s in one of her fusses. Everyone thinks Mrs Archibald is mad.’

‘They’d be right.’ Georgie shivered. ‘I hope she doesn’t do anything stupid. Did you leave something behind, Lily?’

‘No. But maybe she can tell that the spell’s been disturbed. That would explain why she hasn’t made a fuss until now – it was only when she went to look at that list for herself that she noticed. Maybe she was working out where to go first, when we land.’

Someone knocked on the door, and Lily flung her arms round Georgie, whispering, ‘See you soon!’ Then she hugged Henrietta, and climbed quickly inside the trunk, closing her eyes and breathing the faint jasmine scent of Colette that lingered on her clothes. She could hear Colette hastily stuffing the clothes back on top of her and apologising to the steward – it sounded as though she was tipping him again.

Then the trunk was being carried, and Lily fought against the panic beating in her chest. It was the darkness, mostly – that and having no idea where they were going. Or who was carrying her. She clenched her fists, wishing she could put them over her eyes for another layer to shut out the dark. But she couldn’t move her arms. Gasping, she fought to turn her head a little, suddenly sure that there was no more air. The sweet jasmine scent was suffocating her now.

Lily, stop it.

Lily gulped, unsure for a moment who it was that was talking to her.

Georgie?

Stop panicking, it doesn’t help.

I didn’t know you could do that! What about the spells, are you safe? Be careful!
Worrying about Georgie wakening the spells suddenly made breathing less of a terror.

I didn’t know I could either. And it isn’t using much magic. The trunks are right next to each other, I think. I probably can’t do this from much further away.

It’s very clever
, Lily told her humbly.
Sorry. I hate being shut in. I never liked it in the act, but at least I knew it was only for a minute or so.

Georgie seemed to laugh inside her head.
I know. It’s quite nice being better than you at something.

Funny. I always thought you were better at everything, when we were back at Merrythought.

She could feel Georgie’s sigh.
I like things better now.

‘I’m sorry it’s not very grand.’ Colette looked around, her cheeks flushing pink. ‘In fact, it’s a horrible hole. But until I’ve definitely been engaged by the theatre, I don’t really know what I can afford.’

‘It’s fine,’ Lily said. She’d been going to say that the room was nice, but it so obviously wasn’t that it would have sounded stupid. They were high up in a tall, rickety house, and every floor they had climbed through on the way had been festooned with washing that smelled of fish. Colette had let them out of the trunks once they were in the battered old cab that had brought them from the harbour, thankfully. She’d had to pay the driver an enormous sum to carry the trunks up as it was; he would have expired halfway up the stairs if the girls had still been hidden away inside. He had looked rather surprised when they’d all three got down from the cab, but Colette had looked meaningfully at the flask strapped onto his belt, and he’d just shaken his head wearily.

‘And I did manage to tuck away some provisions – I’m too tired to try arguing with that landlady about supper.’ Colette shuddered. ‘It would almost certainly be fish, and I just don’t fancy it.’ She dug a parcel wrapped in napkins out of one of her bags. ‘Some pastries, and I can’t remember what’s in them. Could be anything. Lucky dip.’

Henrietta pranced over eagerly. ‘Jam. Prawn. Something in curry sauce. Whatever that one is, don’t eat it, it smells disgusting. And the rest are cheese puffs.’ She looked meltingly up at Colette. ‘I adore cheese puffs.’

Colette laid a napkinful of cheese puffs in front of her, and collapsed wearily onto the creaky iron bedstead. ‘I’m actually not hungry. I think it’s being back on dry land – most of me seems still to be swaying.’

Lily and Georgie shared out the rest of the pastries, and then curled up next to Colette. The amazing adventure of their arrival seemed to have slipped away, and instead they were left with convincing a stranger to accompany them back to England: a stranger that they hadn’t even found yet.

‘It’ll be all right,’ Lily said in a small voice. She wanted someone to agree with her. She was used to being the one who made things work, but she didn’t feel like that in this dingy, fish-smelling room, with people shouting on the floor below.

‘It’ll be better tomorrow,’ Georgie told her, reaching over to stroke her hand. ‘It’s late, that’s all. Tomorrow we’ll be able to see everything, and it’ll be exciting again.’

‘Do you promise?’

Lily felt Georgie hesitate, and then Georgie patted her hand firmly and Lily felt like a little sister again.

‘Yes.’

‘This is it.’ Lily looked up at the smart brick building. ‘Spring Street. Number 110.’

‘What is
that
?’ Georgie asked, peering up at the side wall of the building, which was on a corner.

Lily frowned. ‘An advertisement, I think. For sauce? And pickles…’ She giggled. ‘Look at the bit in the middle, it’s a enormous sparkly cucumber.’

Emblazoned on the wall was a huge green vegetable, glowing with a soft, delicious magic. Lily could feel her mouth watering as she stared at it.