“Mr Stock,” Andrew continued, “I’m sure you have work to do. And Mrs Stock, can you make up the bed in the front spare room, please? Aidan will be staying here until we can sort out what he ought to do.”
“Oh, thanks!” Aidan gasped. He could hardly breathe, he was so relieved and grateful.
Chapter Three
Andrew was anxious to question Aidan further, but he had to leave that until the evening when Mr and Mrs Stock had left. Aidan fell into an exhausted sleep anyway, as soon as Mrs Stock had shown him to the spare room.
Downstairs, things were very unrestful. Mr Stock was enraged at the way Mrs Stock had thrust Shaun into the household. Mrs Stock could not forgive Mr Stock for producing Stashe. She was fairly annoyed with Andrew too. “I do think,” she told her sister, “that with all I have to do, he didn’t ought to have taken in that boy. I’ve no notion how long he’ll be staying either. World of his own, that man!”
As always when she was annoyed, she made cauliflower cheese.
“I’ll eat it,” Aidan said, when Andrew was about to throw it away.
Andrew paused, with the dish above the waste-pail. “Not pizza?” he asked, in some surprise.
“I can eat that too,” Aidan said.
Andrew, as he put the offending cauliflower back in the oven, had a sudden almost overwhelming memory of how much he had needed to eat when he was Aidan’s age. This brought with it a flood of much vaguer memories, of things old Jocelyn had said and done, and of how much he had learned from the old man. But he was unable to pin them down. Pity, he thought. He was fairly sure a lot of these things were important, both for himself and for Aidan.
After supper, he took Aidan into the living room and began to ask him questions. He started, tactfully, with harmless enquiries about school and friends. Aidan, after he had looked round the room and realised, with regret, that Andrew did not have a television, was quite ready to answer. He had plenty of friends, he told Andrew, and quite enjoyed school, but he had had to give all that up when the social workers had whisked him off to the Arkwrights, who lived somewhere out in the suburbs of London.
“But it was nearly the end of term anyway,” Aidan said consolingly. He thought Andrew was probably worried about his education, being a professor.
Andrew secretly made a note of the Arkwrights’ address. They were surely worrying. Then he went on to questions about Aidan’s grandmother. Aidan was even readier to answer these. He talked happily about her. It did not take Andrew long to build up a picture of a splendidly quirky, loving, elderly lady, who had brought Aidan up very well indeed. It was also clear that Aidan had loved her very much. Andrew began to think that Adela Cain had been as wonderful as he had thought she was himself, in the days when he collected all her records.
Now came the difficult part. Andrew looked around the long, peaceful room, where the French windows were open on the evening sunlight. A fine, sweet scent flowed in with the sunset, probably from the few flowers Mr Stock had spared time to plant. Or was it? Aidan had taken his glasses off and looked warily at the open windows, as if there might be a threat out there, and then looked relieved, as if the scent was a safe one. Now Andrew remembered that there was always that same sweet smell in here, whenever the windows were open.
He was annoyed. His memory seemed to be so bad that he needed Aidan to remind him of things he ought to have known. He decided to treat himself to a small drink. It was so very small, and in such a small glass, that Aidan stared. Surely there was no way such a little sip of a drink could have any effect at all? But then, he thought, you did take medicine by the spoonful, and some of that was quite strong.
“Now,” Andrew said, settling himself in the comfortable chair again, “I think I must ask you about those shadowy pursuers you mentioned.”
“Didn’t you believe me?” Aidan asked sadly. Just like the social workers and the police, he thought. They hadn’t believed a word.
“Of course I believe you,” Andrew assured him. He knew he would get nothing out of Aidan unless he said this. “Don’t forget that my grandfather was a powerful magician. He and I saw many strange things together.” They had too, Andrew realised, though he couldn’t for the life of him think what they had seen. “When did you first see these creatures?”
“The night Gran died,” Aidan said. “The first lot came and stood packed into our back yard. They were sort of tall and kingly. And they called my name. At least, I thought they were calling me, but they were really calling out ‘Adam’—”
“They got your name wrong?” Andrew said.
“I don’t know. A lot of people get it wrong,” Aidan said. “The social workers thought my name was Adam too. And I went charging off to Gran’s bedroom to tell her about the Stalkers and—” He had to stop and gulp here. “That’s how I found she was dead.”
“What did you do?” Andrew asked.
“Dialled 999,” Aidan said desolately. “That’s all I could think of. The Stalkers vanished away when the ambulance arrived. I didn’t see them again until they turned up outside the Arkwrights’, with the other two lots that fought one another. That was two nights later. I suppose I’d mostly been sitting in that office, while people phoned about what to do with me, until then, and they couldn’t get at me. They don’t come indoors, you know.”
“I know. You have to invite them in,” Andrew said. “Or they try to call you out. And you weren’t fool enough to listen to them.”
“I was too scared,” Aidan said. He added miserably, “The other two lots got my name wrong too. They called out ‘Alan’ and ‘Ethan’. And the Arkwrights got it wrong too. They kept calling me ‘Adrian’ and telling me to forget all about Gran.”
What a strange and unhappy time Aidan must have had of it, Andrew thought, full of strangers who couldn’t even get his name right. And it did not sound as if Aidan had been given any time for grief, or even been invited to his grandmother’s funeral. People needed to grieve. “Can you describe any of these Stalkers in more detail?” he asked.
But this Aidan found very hard to do. It wasn’t just that they always appeared by dark, he explained. He just couldn’t find words for how strange they were. “I suppose,” he said, after several failed attempts, “I could try drawing them for you.”
Andrew found himself glancing out of the windows at the red sunset. He had a very strong feeling that drawing the creatures was a bad idea. “No,” he said. “I think that could be a way of calling them to you again. My grandfather kept his lands pretty safe, but I don’t think we should take any chances.” He put his tiny glass down and stood up. “Let’s drop the subject until daylight now. Come and help me get rid of Mr Stock’s punishment while we can still see.” He led the way back to the kitchen.
Aidan could not really believe that vegetables might be a punishment, until Andrew led him to the pantry and pointed to the boxes. Then he believed all right.
“I’ve never seen so many radishes together in my life!” he said.
“Yes, several hundreds, all with holes in,” Andrew said. “You carry them and I’ll take the swedes and cabbages.”
“Where are we taking them?” Aidan wanted to know, as they each heaved up a box.
“Round to the woodshed roof. It’s too high for Mr Stock to see,” Andrew explained. “I never ask what it is that comes and eats them.”
“Must be a vegetarian — a dedicated vegetarian,” Aidan panted. Radishes in such bulk were heavy. Then, as he staggered round the corner to the blank side of the house and saw the woodshed, a high and ramshackle lean-to, he added, “A tall, dedicated vegetarian.”
“Yup,” said Andrew, dumping his box on the ground. “But, as my grandfather always said, you really don’t want to know.”
But Aidan did want to know. While Andrew fetched the usual kitchen chair and stood on it on tiptoe to roll cabbages on to the woodshed roof, and then handfuls of radishes that came, many of them, pattering straight down on to the grass, Aidan felt quite scornful of someone
who refused to find out about something as odd as this. Could the vegetarian be something that flew? No, because what Aidan could see of the grass, as he collected fallen radishes, was quite trampled here. A giraffe? Something like that. Andrew at full skinny stretch on the chair, with one arm up planting a swede up there, must measure a good fifteen feet. Or three metres, say.
“Where did your grandfather say this eating-creature came from?” he asked.
Andrew swung round and pointed with the big purple swede. “From over Mel Tump,” he said. “Pass me the rest of the radishes now, will you?”
Aidan turned round. The garden petered out here, into a low hedge with wire in the gaps. Beyond were red-lit meadows, several of them, that stretched all the way to a sunset-pink hill about a mile away. The hill was all bristly with bushes and little stunted trees. Full of hiding places, Aidan thought, scooping up radishes. Didn’t the professor ever go and look? Curiosity ran about inside him, like an itch. Aidan swore to himself that he would look, would solve this mystery. Find out. But not tonight. He was still dead tired.
He was so tired, in fact, that he went off to bed as soon as they were back indoors. The last thing Aidan remembered as he went up the dark, creaking stairs was Andrew saying from the hall, “I suppose we’ll have to get you a few more clothes.”
It was almost the first thing Andrew said the next morning too, when Aidan had sleepily found his way down to the kitchen where Andrew was eating toast.
“I need to go into Melton anyway,” Andrew said. “You could do with something to keep the rain off at least.”
Aidan looked to see if it was actually raining. And he saw, really saw for the first time, the coloured panes in the back door. While Andrew was putting more bread in the toaster and politely finding Aidan some cereal, Aidan took his glasses off and stared at the window. He had never seen anything so obviously magical in his life. He was sure that each different-coloured pane of glass was designed to do something different, but he could not see what. But the whole window did something else too. He itched with curiosity almost as strongly as he had last night. He wanted to know what it all did.
Andrew noticed Aidan taking his glasses off. He intended to ask Aidan about that. While they were having breakfast, Andrew wondered what magical talents Aidan had, and how strong these were, and how to put the question to Aidan in a way that was not nosy or offensive.
But just then he had to throw the cereal packet down on the table and rush to the door as Mr Stock’s hatted outline appeared behind the coloured glass.
Mr Stock had thought carefully. He was still very angry with Mrs Stock and he wanted to annoy her by not producing any vegetables at all today. On the other hand, he was pleased with Andrew for giving Stashe a job — though why Andrew had to take in this runaway kid as well Mr Stock could not see. What the racing results suggested were just Stashe’s nonsense to his mind.
So that morning, he marched into the kitchen without a word, nodded to Andrew, but not to Aidan, and slapped down a very small baby’s shoebox beside the cereal. The box contained a tiny bunch of parsley.
Andrew shut the door behind Mr Stock and burst out laughing. Aidan thought of all those radishes last night and got the giggles. They were still laughing on and off when Mrs Stock arrived, bringing the day’s paper and carefully pushing Shaun in front of her.
“You have to explain to him carefully, mind,” she said.
“Fine,” said Andrew. “Just a moment. I want to look at today’s racing results.”
“I don’t approve of betting,” Mrs Stock said, taking off her coat and getting out her crisp blue overall.
“Wasn’t that stuff about racing results all nonsense?” Aidan asked.
“Probably,” Andrew said as he opened the paper. “But I want to test it out. Let’s see. First race at Catterick—” He stopped and stared.
“What’s it say?” Aidan asked, while Mrs Stock pushed Shaun out of the way as if he were some of the living room furniture and started to clear the table.
“First,” Andrew read out in a slightly strangled voice, “Shaun’s Triumph—”
“I never!” Mrs Stock exclaimed, in the middle of putting on bright pink rubber gloves.
“Second,” Andrew read on, “Perfect Secretary, and third, Monopod. Third place means something with one leg. If you take that to mean Tarquin O’Connor, it all sounds surprisingly apt. I’m driving into Melford this morning, Mrs Stock. Can you write me a grocery list?”
Shaun cleared his throat anxiously. “What do I do, Professor Hope?”
Andrew had no idea of what Shaun should do, or could do. He toyed with the notion of getting Stashe to find work for Shaun when she arrived, but decided that this was not fair on either of them. He thought quickly. Where could Shaun do no harm? “Er — um. The old shed in the yard needs clearing out, Shaun. Think you can do that?”
Shaun beamed eagerly and made an effort to look clever. “Oh, yes, Professor. I can do that.”
“Come with me then,” Andrew said. Thinking that Aidan might have better ideas about what Shaun could do, he asked Aidan, “Like to come too?” Aidan nodded. Mrs Stock was going round the kitchen like a whirlwind, making him feel very uncomfortable.
The three of them went outside into a light drizzle of rain. They were just crossing the front of the house to get to the yard when a small car came hurtling up the drive and stopped, in a scatter of wet gravel. It was Tarquin’s specially adapted car, with Tarquin driving it. The passenger door opened and Stashe leaped out. Andrew stared a little. Stashe had chosen to dress like an official secretary today. Gone were yesterday’s wellies and body warmer. She was wearing a neat white shirt with a short dark skirt and high-heeled shoes. Andrew had to admit she looked pretty fabulous, particularly about the legs. Pity she was crazy.
“I’ll get straight on with sorting that computer, shall I, Professor?” she called out, and went dashing through the rain and in through the front door before Andrew could answer.
Tarquin, meanwhile, was levering himself out of the driver’s seat and assembling his crutches. “Can I have a short word with you, Professor, when you’ve a moment?” he said. “Short but important.”
“Certainly,” Andrew replied. The word would be something on the lines of Don’t-you-go-messing-about-with-my-daughter, he thought. Understandable. It must be worrying having a beautiful, mad daughter. “Wait for me in the living room, if you would. I won’t be a minute. I have to set Shaun to work.”
Tarquin nodded and crutched himself to the front door. Andrew, Aidan and Shaun went on round to the yard where the broken-down old shed stood. Andrew always wondered what it had been built for. An artist’s studio perhaps? It was old, built of bricks of a small, dark red kind that you hardly ever saw nowadays, with its roof in one slope. Someone had, long ago, given these bricks a thin coat of whitewash, which had largely worn off. The shed would have been big enough — just — for a stable or a coach house, except that it had no windows and only one small, quaintly arched door. Its roof leaked. Someone, long ago, had draped several layers of tarpaulins across the tiles to keep the wet out. Nettles grew in clumps against its walls.
Andrew forced the stiff door open on to a dimness stacked with bags of cement (When had his grandfather needed cement? Andrew wondered) pots of paint (Or those either?) and old garden seats. In the middle stood the huge old rusty motor mower that only Mr Stock had the knack of starting.
Shaun stumbled against the mower and barked his plump shin. “Ow,” he said plaintively. “Dark in here. Can’t see.”
“One moment.” Andrew went outside again, where he stood on tiptoe among the nettles and just managed to reach the corner of one of the tarpaulins. He dragged. The whole lot came down on his head in a shower of plaster bits, twigs and nameless rubbish.
Inside the shed, Aidan exclaimed and Shaun stood with his mouth open. There was a window there, slanting with the roof. It was made of squares of coloured glass, just like the top half of the kitchen door
and obviously just as old. Unlike the glass of the back door, though, these panes were crusted with ancient dirt and cracked in places. Spiderwebs hung from them in strands and thick bundles, swaying in the breeze from the door. But it still let in a flood of coloured light. In the light, Aidan saw that the walls of the shed were lined with wood, old, pale wood, carved into dozens of fantastic shapes, but so dusty that it was hard to make out what the shapes were. He took his glasses off to investigate.
Outside the shed, Andrew trampled his way out from the tarpaulins and they fell to pieces under his feet. He took off his glasses to clean them, ruefully realising that he had just destroyed quite a large number of his grandfather’s spells. Or his great-grandfather’s. Possibly his great-greatgrandfather’s spells too.
“Come and look!” Aidan shouted from inside.
Andrew went in and looked. Oak, he thought. He patted the nearest panel. Solid oak, carved into patterns and flowers and figures. Old oak. The brick walls outside were just a disguise for a place of power. “My goodness!” he said.
“Cool, isn’t it?” Aidan said.
Shaun, who had eyes only for the motor mower, said, “Church, this is.”
“Well, not exactly,” said Andrew, “but I know what you mean.”
“Professor,” Shaun said urgently, “I can mend this mower. Make it work. Honest. Can I do that?”
“Um,” said Andrew. He thought of how jealously Mr Stock guarded his knack with this mower. But he had not the heart to disappoint Shaun. The lad was looking at him so eagerly and so desperately trying to seem cleverer than he was. “Oh, very well,” he said. He sighed. This probably meant sixty-two cabbages tomorrow, but what did that matter? “Mend the mower, Shaun. And — listen carefully — after that, your work will be to clean up this place properly. Do it very gently and carefully and make sure you don’t break anything, particularly that window up there. You can take days and days if you want. Just get it how it should be. OK?”