Lily and the Shining Dragons (13 page)

‘Children.’

Lily started as Mary slipped out of the bushes behind them, her grey pinafore streaked with green, as though she’d been curled up there a while.

‘It’s to put children in,’ she repeated, watching Lily’s face. ‘Children people don’t want. Magician children. Little witch babies.’

‘You put the baby in the half of the circle that’s outside the wall,’ Elizabeth explained.

‘Then you ring the bell, you see?’ Lottie put in, pointing up to the black iron bell dangling above their heads.

‘And someone comes and takes the baby in,’ Lily said slowly. ‘Are there a lot of the stone children?’

‘Only me, and one of the boys, at the moment. I think it was commoner just after the Decree, when people were really scared. Seeing magicians everywhere.’ Mary stroked the smooth stone.

‘But you can’t tell if a baby has magic, can you? It doesn’t show till later, I thought.’

Georgie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe sometimes. Or perhaps if people were just frightened? If a baby had strange-coloured eyes, or something like that.’ She managed not to look at Mary as she said it.

‘Nothing magical’s happened to me yet. So maybe I just looked wrong,’ Mary said, in a flat little voice.

Lily wanted to say something comforting – something to cheer Mary up. But she really couldn’t think of anything at all.

L
ily had expected that a reform school would mean working all the time. She’d even had vague ideas of a giant treadmill hidden in the cellars, perhaps powering some strange furnaces. But from what the others told them, apart from lessons in the mornings, and needlework and suchlike after lunch, it seemed the children at Fell Hall were left to amuse themselves.

The girls had been given one of the parlours, where there were a few tattered books, and an assortment of old furniture that had been exiled from the smarter rooms. A similar room further down the passage housed the boys, but in the summer weather they stayed mostly in a hideout down by the lake, so Elizabeth told them.

Upstairs there were two long, chilly dormitories, with rows of ugly metal beds. Lily stared down the girls’ dormitory in horror. She had always had her own room at Merrythought, and at the theatre she’d only had to share with Georgie, and there had been plenty of other hidey-holes around the warren-like building. How could she ever be on her own here?

‘I’m not sure how Fell Hall is supposed to be reforming us,’ Lily murmured to Georgie as they got ready for bed on that first night. ‘It can’t just be lessons where Mr Fanshawe shouts about how awful magic is, can it?’

‘The spells in the blue bottles, I suppose,’ Georgie said sadly, holding up the skimpy white cotton nightgown she’d been given. Tomorrow they would have to wear the same white blouses and grey pinafore dresses as the other girls, and Georgie was missing the clothes from Aunt Clara’s house already. ‘And perhaps Miss Merganser’s meant to terrify us into giving up magic. It would work on me.’ She looked Lily up and down. ‘That nightdress is horrible.’

‘So is yours,’ Lily pointed out.

Sarah, one of the few older girls, about the same age as Georgie, came in to the girls’ dormitory carrying a huge tray, laden with thick white china mugs. A pleasant smell of chocolate floated across the room, and Lily’s nose twitched.

‘Cocoa!’ Sarah yelled, and the girls hurried between the iron bedsteads to fetch their cups.

‘You see?’ Lily muttered, frowning. ‘It isn’t like a prison, at all. They’re all lining up to get their cocoa! Cocoa, honestly.’

‘Are you really complaining because Fell Hall is too nice?’ Georgie asked her.

‘Yes. I don’t trust it.’ Lily sat down on the lumpy bed, and folded her arms. ‘I’m not having any. I’m full, anyway.’ A lifetime of scratched and stolen meals at home meant that a whole dinner – even the solid, uninspiring food at Fell Hall – felt like a feast. The idea of a mug of cocoa on top actually made her feel queasy.

‘Well, I’m having some.’ Georgie had a taste for chocolate, from sharing violet creams with Maria and the ballet dancers in the theatre wardrobe. She went to fetch her cup, and came back with one for Lily too. ‘I told Sarah you didn’t want it, but she said Miss Ann – that’s the pasty one who follows Miss Merganser around, isn’t it? Anyway, Miss Ann would fling it at her, she said, if she didn’t give them all out.’

Lily sighed, and glanced around. Most of the girls were still changing, or sitting drinking their cocoa. Only Lottie was looking at her. She put her finger to her lips, winked at Lottie, and poured the cocoa out of the window next to her bed.

Lottie giggled, and pattered over to whisper in Lily’s ear. ‘That’s clever. I don’t like it either, but I give mine to Elizabeth. She loves cocoa.’

‘I don’t suppose you know, Lottie, if there’s anyone hidden at Fell Hall?’ Lily whispered back hopefully. ‘A boy, a little bit older than me? Do they keep people upstairs anywhere?’

Lottie shook her head. ‘It’s all empty upstairs, I think. But I’ve never been up there.’

Lily sighed. How could they all be so quiet, and obedient, and just not curious? Maybe it was only that they’d been here so long, she thought with a shiver, pulling her blanket up round her ears. She supposed you could get used to anything. But she wouldn’t…

Lily lay in bed that night, listening to everyone breathing. She wondered where Henrietta was sleeping. At least it was a warm night. But she missed the solid, wheezing lump curled up in the small of her back.

The gentle sighing of the sleeping girls was maddening. Lily gave up trying to sleep, and sat up in bed, with the blankets wrapped around her knees. Why didn’t anyone else seem to feel the way she did? She was desperate to escape Fell Hall, but all the others seemed so resigned to being there. Even grateful, almost, that they were safely tucked away!

She looked across at Georgie, with her long fair hair spread across her pillow. She was smiling in her sleep – dreaming of sewing, probably. Miss Merganser had been graciously approving of Georgie’s needlework – luckily, she hadn’t had time to examine Lily’s.

Lily scowled. What was Georgie looking so happy for? They needed to be finding Peter and making their escape plans, not sleeping. It wasn’t as if their family would get into trouble if they ran away. Lily sniggered to herself at the thought of the red-faced guard turning up at Merrythought. He would probably come back as a beetle – or inside out, depending on how bad-tempered Mama was feeling. Then she shuddered, remembering that Merrythought had been raided, and Mama was gone. She could be anywhere.

Lily wondered if her mother could have fought off the bottled magics the red-faced guard had used. They must have something similar to restrain prisoners. Her father hadn’t been able to resist them – unless he hadn’t tried. He had sounded so
good
in the letter she had read, so very honest. Perhaps he had let them bind away his magic. Until now Lily had wanted to find him mostly for her sister’s sake – her father was the only one they could think to ask to help them remove the buried spells. But now, cooped up in Fell Hall, and not even for a day, Lily knew she had to help him escape. She couldn’t imagine what years of this must feel like. And what if Penelope and Cora decided to make more trouble? There were all sorts of things they could accuse him of. Jonathan Dysart could probably have her father executed, if he wanted.

Whoever made those spell bottles must have been very strong. Lily folded her arms on her knees, thinking hard. How was it fair to punish her and Georgie and all these other children for using magic, when all the time Miss Merganser and the others were using it too, to keep them shut away?

Lily sighed, and stretched out her fingers, cautiously. There was a bubbling heat in her blood that made her almost sure her magic had come back. When she’d woken up from the spell that morning, she had thought for several awful moments that it was gone for ever. She couldn’t imagine being without it. Especially after she’d spent a day being told that magic was dirty, and dead. It made her want to fling spells at people, cover them in glittering light, send them flying around the roof of this strange old house. Her fingers burned, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip, hard. Not yet. She had to be careful.

Lily was almost sure someone sighed. She glanced suspiciously over at Lottie – had the little girl been awake and watching her? But Lottie was only a hump under her blankets. She must have imagined it.

What would happen if she did magic here? Were there alarm spells? She couldn’t sense them. But then, they wouldn’t be much use if she could, would they?

All she could feel was the strange warmth, under the blocking spell. She reached for it, but there was that musty layer in between. Lily hissed with frustration. The spell wasn’t actually as strong as the one Aunt Clara had created back in the London house. Their aunt’s hatred of magic had repelled it like a waterproof cloak. This spell felt old. As though no one had paid much attention to it recently. Lily sniffed. If all the children at Fell Hall were as frightened as Elizabeth and her friends, it was no wonder. No one dared to do any magic here. The spell had nothing to work against. Why would anyone waste time renewing it?

‘I wonder how far it goes up?’ Lily muttered to herself. If no one used the attics and upper floors, perhaps the spell didn’t cover them. She would go searching tomorrow, after she had found where they were keeping Peter. It still worried her that he wasn’t with the other boys. What if they had sent him somewhere else after all? She couldn’t think why he should be shut away, separated from all the others. Unless he’d been difficult, and it was one of the other things, the ones that Elizabeth couldn’t bring herself to speak about. Lily shivered. Peter was very determined. And not easily scared.

What had he done?

She glanced over at Georgie, but her sister was so sound asleep, it would be a shame to wake her. She would tell her the idea about the spell in the morning, Lily thought sleepily, already half-dreaming.

She had to be dreaming. For how else would there be that strange, rustly voice in her head, whispering?

Soon, please! Soon!

L
ily had to be shaken awake the next morning, the last shreds of her dream shimmering away as Georgie muttered in her ear. Scales, glittering in the sunlight – and so much magic.

‘Lily!’

Lily sat up, scowling. ‘I’m awake! Stop shouting at me!’

‘You need to be more careful – you were talking in your sleep. About things you shouldn’t have been.’

Lily sighed. ‘How am I supposed to stop that? I can’t help what I dream about!’

Georgie shrugged helplessly. ‘You’ll have to. Come on. We have to do something called drill before breakfast.’

Lily fought her way into her grey uniform pinafore, splashed her face quickly from the jug of water at the end of the room, and hurried after Georgie and the others to the terrace.

Further down the gardens, the boys were already lined up in rows, swinging what looked like the clubs the jugglers at the theatre had used.

‘Are they doing tricks?’ Lily whispered, surprised. ‘Aren’t they meant to throw them?’

‘They’re Indian clubs,’ Lottie told her. ‘It’s an exercise. We aren’t allowed them, which isn’t fair, they look much more fun than drill.’

Lily was about to ask her what drill actually was, but Miss Merganser marched out to the front of the terrace, wearing a white blouse, and what Lily thought was a rather daring divided skirt.

‘That’s improper,’ Georgie muttered, conveniently forgetting that they had worn much more improper costumes themselves. ‘What does she think she looks like…’

Lily thought she looked quite sensible, but Miss Merganser was already glaring at them, so she didn’t say anything.

‘Arms!’ Miss Merganser barked. ‘Right arm. One!’

Resignedly, the three rows of girls raised their right arm straight out to the side to shoulder height. Lily and Georgie quickly did likewise.

‘Two!’

Everyone put their arms down again.

‘Left arm. One!’

Lily glanced hopefully sideways as she lifted her arm – yes, she was doing it right.

It went on for ever – or so it seemed. Arms. Legs. At least five minutes of simply turning their heads from one side to the other. Miss Merganser shouted at her, because she didn’t have her hands properly on her waist. Fingers were to face forward. The rest of the class eyed her pityingly.