The Fetch of Mardy Watt Read online

  “Whatever did you write on that note?” hissed Hal.

  “Nothing! I mean – it wasn’t me who threw it.”

  “No?” replied Hal with frank disbelief.

  “No!”

  Hal crooked a smile and peered at her again with that look of strange half-recognition. “Have it your way.”

  This made Mardy furious. “Why don’t you believe me? Friends should trust each other!”

  For the rest of the afternoon Hal made himself very busy with chemistry notes. When the final bell rang, Mardy waited for him at their usual spot, under the larch tree in the front playground. The snow had stopped falling, had thawed a little and then frozen harder, so that the asphalt was growing a treacherous, invisible skin, with an inch or so of snow underfoot. She saw Hal at an upstairs window once, being hustled along by a group of larger boys. Five minutes later she spotted his back, already halfway down the road from school. That was odd – he must have passed right by her. Even if he wasn’t talking to her, how had she missed him?

  Crunch crunch, like walkers on a gravel beach, the children left the school. Cars were waiting for many of them, lights on, moving tenderly up the road edges and away. Mardy hung back. She sketched a circle round the larch tree with her heel. She had not seen Rachel leave either and was thankful.

  3

  URANIBORG

  AT LENGTH, MARDY sighed and started up the long avenue of plane trees to the main road and the tangled streets beyond, one of which was her own. Already, the road had largely cleared. There were only a few children in sight. Some were trying to make snowballs from a fall no more than a fingernail’s depth. The distracting snow suited Mardy. She did not want to talk to anyone. Now she had another incident to ponder and for once she did not miss Hal’s company. Hal would have irritated her by telling her that her imagination was playing tricks. But Mardy suspected that a ghost had preceded her home yesterday and bought a Nut Krunch Bar from Mrs Hobson this morning. Perhaps the same ghost had been responsible for hitting Rachel with a piece of crumpled-up paper this afternoon. It was possible, she supposed. Mardy had heard of such things: poltergeists, they were called.

  She had heard of other things, too. People fooling themselves, for a start. If you disliked someone the way she disliked Rachel, perhaps you might chuck something at her and then deny it – even to yourself. No one wants to think of herself as a bully, do they? And no one wants to think of herself as the kind of greedy pig who would scoff two Nut Krunch Bars in half an hour. How much easier to blame it all on a poltergeist, a double, an imposter …

  By this time she was more than halfway up Bellevue Road, and nearly at Hal’s house. Perhaps she would call on him after all. She could use some of his common sense now. Hal would keep her feet on the ground, frozen toes and all.

  But there in front of Hal’s front gate was a most unlikely group. Rachel Fludd herself was nearest, with her back to the street – and either side of her stood two of the Bluecoat girls, leering unpleasantly down the road at Mardy as if she had turned up on the underside of a shoe. They weren’t just standing, either – they were standing guard: feet apart and waiting (Mardy was immediately certain of it) for Mardy herself. And from one of them came yesterday’s catcall: “Mardi Gras!”

  That was just the opening round. Most of it came from the Bluecoat girls, but not all. Mardy was surrounded by voices. The leaden clouds themselves were echoing back their low opinion of her.

  “Lardy Mardy!”

  “Pink and sweaty, legs like a Yeti, hair like a plate of cold spaghetti…”

  “Where do you get your clothes from, Mardy? A tent-hire shop?”

  “And who are you calling a witch?”

  The last voice cut through the rest and silenced them. It silenced everything. Mardy could not help looking towards it. There was Rachel, standing alone. Gone were the Bluecoat girls, gone Rachel’s own tearful sulk. Her dark eyes were trained on Mardy like shotgun barrels.

  “Never,” said Rachel, in a voice as cold as flint, “do that again. Ever.”

  She stepped into the road and began to cross without once taking her eyes off Mardy. Mardy realised with a jolt that Bellevue Road was not merely growing emptier as the school traffic cleared. It was quite deserted. The plane tree avenue stretched on into the distance and ended in a shimmer of sickly, yellow light that made her think of the smoke from damp leaves. It was the same both ways. No school any more, no shops, no people. Just two interminable rows of blinkered houses. Just Mardy and Rachel.

  “Where is everyone?” Mardy asked, her voice trembling, as Rachel approached her. “What have you done?”

  Rachel seemed different now, as everything was different: taller, more powerful. She did not speak at first. She was staring into Mardy’s face, apparently searching there for some concealed mark or sign.

  “Stand still!” she commanded – but distractedly, as if Mardy were a needle she was trying to thread, rather than a human being.

  “Rachel, what’s going on?” said Mardy.

  “It must be here. Is it at the nape of your neck?”

  “What?”

  “Or inside your elbow? I’d have seen if it was in one of the obvious places.”

  “Rachel, listen to me! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “I’m looking for your mark, of course! The Crescent of Initiation! How else could you know I was a witch?” asked Rachel irritably. “How could you know a thing like that without being one yourself?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “You wrote that note, didn’t you? In the hieratic script! Foolish, foolish.”

  “I don’t know what you’re-’

  “And, if more proof were needed,” Rachel added in deep disgust, “here you are in Uraniborg itself.” She gestured around her, to the smoky, yellow horizons at either end of the endless street and at the blank-eyed windows facing them.

  Uraniborg. The word was strange to Mardy, but it seemed to waft through her mind like mist through moonlight, with a dreadful melancholy. She repeated, limply, that she wasn’t a witch and hadn’t called Rachel a witch – didn’t even believe in witches (Rachel snorted here) and had certainly never heard of Uraniborg. “I just want to get home,” she said.

  Rachel did not seem to be listening anyway. Whatever she had been looking for on Mardy’s face was obviously not to be found. Finally, she put her hands on her hips and admitted defeat.

  “OK – I was wrong. You’ve got Artemisian blood, of course, but you’re not an initiate.”

  She still seemed to be talking to herself more than to Mardy. Standing there in her school uniform – one size too small – with her face screwed up as if she was in the middle of a tricky maths problem, Rachel looked for a moment as out of place as Mardy felt. She wasn’t at all Mardy’s idea of a witch. But for all that, Mardy did not doubt her. Whatever else the air of Uraniborg did, it made believing that kind of thing easier.

  Perhaps Mardy’s eyes were only now growing accustomed to the strange light here; or perhaps it had only now chosen to show itself, but something was becoming visible at the end of the street – just where Bellevue School ought to have been. It was a tall, thick tower with a conical roof. Its walls, as far as Mardy could make out, were of rusty, red brick, but its roof was gold and in this sunless world it was the brightest thing she could see. Powered by some unseen engine, the roof was turning slowly and in complete silence. The golden tiles were revolving on the axis of that central turret.

  Just coming into view was a place where the expanse of gold was broken by a small square of darkness. Mardy realised that this was a raised hatch: one of the golden tiles had been lifted on a hinge and propped open. And from the hatch a tube projected, crimson and silver.

  “A telescope?” said Mardy.

  “The Mayor…” breathed Rachel. “Quick, I’ll hide us.”

  There was a new and urgent note in her voice. Rachel began rubbing her hands together, one over the other, as if she were washing with s
oap. Within moments her hands were no longer empty. They held an object the size and shape of a duck egg, a smooth bolus of yellow smoke. She threw it to the ground, where it cracked open and bubbled out a dull, tarry liquid. Steam rose, the same nicotine yellow as the air of Uraniborg, and hung in a thick curtain between them and the tower. The tower was invisible again.

  “If he’s really looking hard for you, this won’t stop him, of course,” said Rachel. Even her voice was muffled by the curtain of yellow air. “Let’s hope it’s a routine survey.”

  Clearly, she expected Mardy to understand what she was talking about. But Mardy’s incomprehension must have been obvious from her face.

  “You really don’t know what’s going on, do you?” said Rachel.

  “No. And I don’t think I want to.”

  “I keep forgetting. It’s because you’ve found your way here even though you don’t understand about having a separable soul, and I don’t see you how could have … Oh, bother!”

  Rachel looked petulant, as if she had failed to guess a simple riddle. She even stamped her foot. “Oh, bother!” she repeated. “I see it all now.”

  She stood there biting her lip for such a long time that Mardy was eventually forced to prompt her: “What do you see?”

  “What you’re here for, of course! We knew he was preparing the Binding Spell again, but I never thought he’d act so fast. Come to the horse trough and I’ll show you.”

  Rachel took Mardy’s hand and turned about so that they were facing the blank wall between Hal’s house and the next. Only now the wall was no longer blank. Most of the pavement was obscured by a large stone trough and above it a tombstone-shaped plaque had been engraved in leafy letters.

  Weary traveller take your ease

  Lay down the burden that you carry,

  It is compact of foolish cares

  Then stay and by this fountain tarry.

  Life’s a race not won by hurry

  Chasing every flattering breeze

  Let Fortune brag and Care be sorry

  Weary traveller take your ease.

  Near the bottom of the plaque a cherub puffed his cheeks and blew. A green copper pipe projected from his mouth like a pea-shooter and there was a pump handle.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” said Rachel. “It’s been there all the time, you know.”

  Mardy was quite certain that it had not, but she did not wish to provoke another of Rachel’s snorts by protesting. She noticed, however, as she and Rachel moved the few paces to the horse trough, that the curtain of yellow air Rachel had created followed them obediently, smudging the light as it came and blocking the far end of the street from view.

  The trough was empty, but Rachel began working the pump at once. At first, she produced nothing but a hollow clanking, alarmingly loud in the empty street. Then the clank got mixed up with a deep-throated gargle, the gargle progressed into a gloop and finally a stream of rather murky water spilled from the pipe. Filling the trough took some time, but long before Rachel had stopped pumping it was obvious that water in Uraniborg was not what Mardy was used to. As it rippled and spun at the bottom of the trough, mixing with dust and moss and fragments of twig, it also found time to glisten. It was thicker than ordinary water, with a metallic look to its surface, and somehow sluggish. What was strangest, amidst the scum and bubbles Mardy sometimes thought she caught a reflection of people or places quite unknown to her. A circle of women chanting in a forest clearing. The inside of a bedouin tent. A venerable Chinese face, frowning intently and just on the point of speech. Then the water would eddy and slide to a new angle.

  “That should be enough,” said Rachel at last. She sounded out of breath from all that pumping. She stood beside Mardy, waiting for the water to settle. In her hand was a pin. When the water was still, she took Mardy’s finger quickly and-

  “Ouch!”

  “Don’t be a baby. I only need a drop.”

  Rachel had pricked the very tip of Mardy’s index finger. Now she was holding the finger over the trough, squeezing out a cherry-red bead of blood. Mardy seemed unable to do anything but submit and watch as if it were all happening to another person – though the pain in her finger was sharp enough.

  “The pin’s silver – the only substance that will pass freely between the Mayor’s world and your own.”

  “It still hurts!”

  “The blood will earth you,” Rachel explained. “We must show the spirit the way to its lodging.”

  She let the pin fall. As it hit the water it ripped a hole in its surface, like a bullet tearing through cloth. Through the hole Mardy saw things moving. Very small things, it seemed – or perhaps just a long way down. She was looking at the world from the bottom of a cloud. She blinked.

  “That’s – here! Bellevue Road! I can see the trees, and people walking about in the snow, and—”

  “Yes?”

  “And me,” Mardy added weakly. “Only it can’t be…”

  It was. Mardy saw herself plodding up the road from Hal’s house, her shoulder bag swaying to left and right as she hugged herself against the cold.

  “You are there,” said Rachel. “In body, I mean. If one of your friends came along now and spoke to you, you’d smile and say hello and do all the things people do when they pass the time of day. And perhaps they’d never guess your immortal spirit was here in Uraniborg. Unless they looked into your eyes …’

  “Just stop it!” shouted Mardy. “This is getting too weird for me. No one can be in two places at once.”

  “Calm yourself,” said Rachel soothingly, and she laid a hand gently on Mardy’s arm. Perhaps she was trying to be kind, but Mardy knew that part of Rachel was enjoying herself thoroughly. Rachel could not quite keep a sneer out of her voice as she added: “Whoever said Uraniborg was a place? It’s a way of being, that’s all. A way of living in spirit.”

  “It looks like a place.”

  “Because you’re used to three dimensions,” said Rachel condescendingly, as if that were a common shortcoming. “You see it all that way, of course. You don’t know any better.”

  “But whatever it is, I still don’t know why I’m here. Maybe you like it – if you’re a witch like you say.”

  “Like you wrote!”

  “I did not – I’ve told you! And what’s more,” Mardy added quickly, seeing Rachel about to interrupt again, “I don’t know anything about witches, and I’ve never seen a ghost, and I think Halloween is an advertising racket. I don’t like adventures, understand? And I’ve had enough of you treating me like some puzzle you’ve got to solve, Rachel Fludd.”

  “Shh! Don’t say my name out loud. The Mayor’s got ears as well as eyes. Sharp, sharp!”

  “There’s no need to twist my hand! I promise I won’t say your precious name again. Just tell me what’s happening.”

  Rachel gave her a long, hard look. “It’s quite simple. It’s the Mayor. He wants your soul, to slave for him up there.” She gestured cautiously through the air-curtain, towards the tower behind it. “And if you’re already visiting Uraniborg, he’s well on his way to getting it.”

  “Who’s this Mayor you keep talking about?” demanded Mardy. The bit about slaves sounded too alarming. “Is he Count Frankenstein or something?”

  “You don’t think I know his name, do you?” exclaimed Rachel. “He’s – well, he’s a very strong enchanter, that’s all. He’s old, you see, and clever, and he knows all the Harmonic Combinations – he’s had a long time to learn them. Spells of binding and releasing, summoning and breaking – he probably knows more about them than anyone except the Artemisians themselves. And he’s got hundreds of spirits waiting on him and spying for him. There’s no hiding for long.” She added, a little resentfully: “He doesn’t like us Artemisians at all.”

  “I see,” said Mardy, who didn’t, of course – but just now she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Except the most important thing and it took her a little time to summon the nerve to ask it. “Thes
e slaves. How does he get them?”

  “By calculating their Reverberant Chord, usually. Everyone has one – unique, like a fingerprint – but it needs a great enchanter to work it out. Have you heard any strange music recently?” Rachel asked in a serious and methodical way. “String music – strings being plucked?”

  Mardy thought immediately of the War Memorial and the thought-deadening music she had heard there. How it had seemed to pluck at her and shake the soul out of her body like a coin out of a piggy bank. “Yesterday – after school. I think I may have seen the Mayor, too.”

  “His face?” asked Rachel excitedly.

  “Just the back of him, as he was walking away. He had some kind of instrument in a case. Anyway, since then – things have happened to me. Odd things…”

  Mardy told Rachel about her conversation with Mrs Hobson that morning and the intruder in her room. “I keep thinking I’ve got a double following me about.”

  Rachel nodded. “That’s likely enough. A Fetch. Like the one we just saw. It’s a copy of you, made when the Mayor played the Reverberant Chord. Right now he’ll be nursing it up, getting it ready to take your place.”

  “Take my place?” echoed Mardy.

  “That’s the idea. You wane, it waxes. It’s not a straightforward process, mind. You’ll probably find it fades in and out for a while. But make no mistake, in the end the Fetch will be Mardy Watt and you’ll be a slave for ever here in Uraniborg. And none of your friends or family will know that anything’s changed.”

  “Of course they will!” protested Mardy. “Do you think they wouldn’t notice the difference between me and a Fitch?”

  “That’s ‘Fetch’,” corrected Rachel. “Oh, I don’t say they won’t see any change at all. ‘Mardy’s in a strange mood today,’ they’ll say. ‘She’s just not herself. And hasn’t she gone off her food? I hope she’s not sickening for something.’”