The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones
Christopher bit into his own sandwich. It was salmon. He thought of mermaids and was nearly sick.
“What’s the matter?” whispered Flavian.
“Nothing. I just don’t like salmon,” Christopher whispered back. It would be stupid to give himself away now after Tacroy had worked so hard to keep him out of it. He put the sandwich to his mouth, but he just could not bring himself to take another bite.
“It could be the effect of that life-removal,” Flavian murmured anxiously.
“Yes, I expect that’s it,” Christopher said. He laid the sandwich down again, wondering how Tacroy could bear to eat his so ravenously.
The questions were still going on when the butler wheeled the trolley away. He came back again almost at once and whispered discreetly to Gabriel de Witt. Gabriel thought, decided something, and nodded. Then, to Christopher’s surprise, the butler came and leaned over him.
“Your mother is here, Master Christopher, waiting in the Small Saloon. If you will follow me.”
Christopher looked at Gabriel, but Gabriel was leaning forward to ask Tacroy who collected the packages when they arrived in London. Christopher got up to follow the butler. Tacroy’s eyes flickered after him. “Sorry,” Christopher heard him say. “My mind’s getting like a sieve. You’ll have to ask me that again.”
Mermaids, Christopher thought, as he crossed the hall after the butler. Fishy packages. Bundles of dragons’ blood. I knew it was dragons’ blood in Series Eight, but I didn’t know the dragon was objecting. What’s going to happen to Tacroy now? When the butler opened the door of the Small Saloon and ushered him in, he could hardly focus his mind on the large elegant room or the two ladies sitting in it.
Two ladies?
Christopher blinked at two wide silk skirts. The pink and lavender one belonged to Mama, who looked pale and upset. The brown and gold skirt that was quite as elegant belonged to the Last Governess. Christopher’s mind snapped away from mermaids and dragons’ blood and he stopped short halfway across the oriental carpet.
Mama held out a lavender glove to him. “Darling boy!” she said shakily. “How tall you are! You remember dear Miss Bell, don’t you, Christopher? She’s my Companion these days. Your uncle has found us a nice house in Kensington.”
“Walls have ears,” remarked Miss Bell in her dullest voice. Christopher remembered how her hidden prettiness never did come out in front of Mama. He felt sorry for Mama.
“Christopher can deal with that, can’t you, dear?” said Mama.
Christopher pulled himself together. He had no doubt that the Saloon was hung with listening spells, probably one to each gold-framed picture. I ought to tell the police the Last Governess is here, he thought. But if the Last Governess was living with Mama, that would get Mama into trouble too. And he knew that if he gave the Last Governess away, she would tell about him and waste all Tacroy’s trouble. “How did you get in?” he said. “There’s a spell around the grounds.”
“Your mama cried her eyes out at the lodge gates,” the Last Governess said, and gestured meaningly around the room to tell Christopher to do something about the listening spells.
Christopher would have liked to pretend not to understand, but he knew he dared not offend the Last Governess. A blanketing spell was enchanter’s magic and easy enough. He summoned one with an angry blink and, as usual, he overdid it. He thought he had gone deaf. Then he saw that Mama was tapping the side of her face with a puzzled expression and the Last Governess was shaking her head, trying to clear her ears. Hastily he scraped out the middle of the spell so that they could all hear one another inside the deafness.
“Darling,” Mama said tearfully, “we’ve come to take you away from all this. There’s a cab from the station waiting outside, and you’re coming back to Kensington to live with me. Your uncle wants me to be happy and he says he knows I can’t be happy until I’ve got you. He’s quite right of course.”
Only this morning, Christopher thought angrily, he would have danced with joy to hear Mama say this. Now he knew it was just another way to waste Tacroy’s trouble. And another plot of Uncle Ralph’s of course. Uncle Wraith! he thought. He looked at Mama, and Mama looked appealingly back. He could see she meant what she said, even though she had let Uncle Ralph rule her mind completely. Christopher could hardly blame her for that. After all, he had let Uncle Ralph fascinate him, that time when Uncle Ralph tipped him sixpence all those months ago.
He looked at the Last Governess. “Your mama is quite well off now,” she told him in her smooth, composed way. “Your uncle has already restored nearly half your mama’s fortune.”
Nearly half! Christopher thought. Then what has he done with the rest of the money I earned him for nothing? He must be a millionaire several times over by now!
“And with you to help,” said the Last Governess, “in the way you always used to, you can restore the rest of your mama’s money in no time.”
In the way I always used to! Christopher thought. He remembered the smooth way the Last Governess had worked on him, first to find out about the Anywheres and then to get him to do exactly what Uncle Ralph wanted. He could not forgive her for that, though she was even more devoted to Uncle Ralph than Mama was. And remembering that, he looked at Mama again. Mama’s love for Christopher might be perfectly real, but she had left him to nursery maids and Governesses and she would leave him to the Last Governess as soon as they got to Kensington.
“We’re relying on you, darling,” said Mama. “Why are you looking so vague? All you have to do is to climb out of this window and hide in the cab, and we’ll drive away without anyone being the wiser.”
I see, Christopher thought. Uncle Ralph knew Tacroy had been caught. So now he wanted Christopher to go on with the smuggling. He had sent Mama to fetch Christopher and the Last Governess to see that they did as Uncle Ralph wanted. Perhaps he was afraid Tacroy would give Christopher away. Well, if Tacroy could lie, so could Christopher.
“I wish I could,” he said, in a sad, hesitating way, although underneath he was suddenly as smooth and composed as the Last Governess. “I’d love to get out of here—but I can’t. When the dragon burned me in Series Eight, that was my last life but one. Gabriel de Witt was so angry that he took my lives and hid them. If I go outside the Castle now I’ll die.”
Mama burst into tears. “That horrid old man! How awkward for everyone!”
“I think,” said the Last Governess, standing up, “that in that case there’s nothing to detain us here.”
“You’re right, dear,” Mama sobbed. She dried her eyes and gave Christopher a scented kiss. “How terrible not to be able to call one’s lives one’s own!” she said. “Perhaps your uncle can think of something.”
Christopher watched the two of them hurry away, rustling expensively over the carpet as soon as they came out from the silence spell. He canceled the spell with a dejected wave. Though he knew what both of them were like, he still felt hurt and disillusioned as he watched them through the window climbing into the cab that was waiting under the cedar trees of the drive. The only person he knew who had not tried to use him was Tacroy. And Tacroy was a criminal and a double-crosser.
And so am I! Christopher thought. Now he had finally admitted this to himself, he found he could not bear to go back to the Middle Drawing Room to listen to people asking Tacroy questions. He trudged miserably up to his room instead. He opened the door. He stared.
A small girl in a dripping wet brown robe was sitting shivering on the edge of his bed. Her hair hung in damp tails around her pale round face. In one hand she seemed to be gripping a handful of soaking white fur. Her other hand was clutching a large waxed-paper parcel of what looked like books.
This was all I needed! Christopher thought. The Goddess had somehow got here and she had clearly brought her possessions with her.
17
“HOW DID YOU GET HERE?” Christopher said.
The Goddess shook with shivers. She had left all her jewelry behind, whic
“Proudfoot?” said Christopher.
The Goddess opened her hand with the white fur in it. The white fur squeaked in protest and began shivering too. “My kitten,” the Goddess explained. Christopher remembered how hot it was in Series Ten. Sometime ago someone had put the scarf old Mrs. Pawson had knitted him neatly away in his chest of drawers. He began searching for it. “I c-couldn’t leave her,” the Goddess said pleadingly. “I brought her feeding bottle with m-me. And I had to g-get away as soon as they l-left me alone after the p-portent. They know I know. I heard M-Mother P-Proudfoot saying they were going to have to l-look for a new L-Living One at once.”
And clothes for the Goddess too, Christopher realized, hearing the way her teeth chattered. He tossed her the scarf. “Wrap the kitten in that. It was knitted by a witch so it’ll probably keep her safe. How on earth did you find the Castle?”
“B-By looking into every v-valley I c-came to,” said the Goddess. “I c-can’t think why you s-said you didn’t have w-witch sight. I n-nearly m-missed the s-split in the s-spell. It’s really f-faint!”
“Is that witch sight?” Christopher said distractedly. He dumped an armful of his warmest clothes on the bed beside her. “Go in the washroom and get those on before you freeze.”
The Goddess put the kitten down carefully wrapped in a nest of scarf. It was still so young that it looked like a white rat. Christopher wondered how it had survived at all. “B-Boys’ clothes?” the Goddess said.
“They’re all I’ve got,” he said. “And be quick. Maids come in and out of here all the time. You’ve got to hide. Gabriel de Witt told me not to have anything to do with Asheth. I don’t know what he’d do if he found you here!” At this, the Goddess jumped off the bed and snatched up the clothes. Christopher was glad to see that she looked truly alarmed. He dashed for the door. “I’ll go and get a hiding place ready,” he said. “Wait here.”
Off he went at a run to the larger of the two old tower rooms, the one that had once been a wizard’s workshop. A runaway Goddess just about put the lid on his troubles, he thought. Still it was probably very lucky that everyone was taken up with poor Tacroy. With a bit of cunning, he ought to be able to keep the Goddess hidden here while he wrote to Dr. Pawson to ask what on earth to do with her permanently.
He dashed up the spiral stair and looked around the dusty room. One way and another, he had not made much progress furnishing it as a den. It was empty apart from an old stool, worm-eaten workbenches, and a rusty iron brazier. Hopeless for a Goddess! Christopher began conjuring desperately. He fetched all the cushions from the Small Saloon. Then on second thought he knew someone would notice. He sent most of them back and conjured cushions from the Large Drawing Room, the Large Saloon, the Middle Saloon, the Small Drawing Room and anywhere else where he thought there would be nobody to see. Charcoal from the gardeners’ shed next to fill the brazier. Christopher summoned fire for it, almost in too much of a hurry to notice he had got it right for once. He remembered a saucepan and an old kettle by the stables and fetched those. A bucket of water he brought from the pump by the kitchen door. What else? Milk for the kitten. It came in a whole churn and he had to tip some out into the saucepan and then send the churn back—the trouble was that he had no idea where things were kept in the Castle. Teapot, tea—he had no idea where those came from, and did the Goddess drink tea? She would have to. What then? Oh, cup, saucer, plates. He fetched the ones out of the grand cabinet in the dining room. They were quite pretty. She would like those. Then spoon, knife, fork. Of course none of the silver ones would respond. Christopher fetched what must have been the whole kitchen cutlery drawer with a crash, sorted hastily through it and sent it back like the churn. And she would need food. What was in the pantry?
The salmon sandwiches arrived, neatly wrapped in a white napkin. Christopher gagged. Mermaids. But he arranged them with the other things on the bench before taking a hasty look around. The charcoal had begun to glow red in the brazier, but it needed something else to make it look homey. Yes, a carpet. The nice round one from the library would do. When the carpet came, it turned out twice as big as he had thought. He had to move the brazier to make room. There. Perfect.
He dashed back to his room. He arrived at the exact moment when Flavian opened its door and started to walk in.
Christopher hastily cast the fiercest invisibility spell he could. Flavian opened the door on utter blankness. To Christopher’s relief, he stood and stared at it.
“Er-hem!” Christopher said behind him. Flavian whirled around as if Christopher had stabbed him. Christopher said airily, and as loudly as he could, “Just practicing my practical magic, Flavian.” The stumbling sounds he could hear from inside the blankness stopped. The Goddess knew Flavian was there. But he had to get her out of there.
“Oh. Were you? Good,” Flavian said. “Then I’m sorry to interrupt, but Gabriel says I’m to give you a lesson now because I won’t be here tomorrow. He wants a full muster of Castle staff to go after the Wraith.”
While Flavian was speaking, Christopher felt inside the invisibility in his room—using a magical sixth sense which up to then he did not know he had—and located first the Goddess standing by his bed, then the kitten nestled in the scarf on the bed, and sent them both fiercely to the tower room. At least, he hoped he had. He had never transported living things before and he had no idea if it was the same. He heard a heavy whoosh of displaced air from among the invisibility, which was the same kind of noise the milk churn had made, and he knew the Goddess had gone somewhere. He just had to hope she would understand. She had after all shown she could look after herself.
He canceled the invisibility. The room seemed to be empty. “I like to practice in private,” he told Flavian.
Flavian shot him a look. “Come to the schoolroom.”
As they walked along the corridor, Christopher caught up with what Flavian had been saying. “You’re all going after the Wraith tomorrow?”
“If we can get him,” Flavian said. “After you left, Mordecai cracked open enough to give us a few names and addresses. We think he was telling the truth.” He sighed. “I’d look forward to catching them, except that I can’t get over Mordecai being one of them!”
What about Mama? Christopher wondered anxiously. He wished he could think of a way to warn her, but he had no idea where in Kensington she was living.
They reached the schoolroom. The moment they got there, Christopher realized that he had only canceled the invisibility on his room, not on the Goddess or the kitten. He fumbled around with his mind, trying to find her in the tower room—or wherever—and get her visible again. But wherever he had sent her, she seemed too far away for him to find. The result was that he did not hear anything Flavian said for at least twenty minutes.
“I said,” Flavian said heavily, “that you seem a bit vague.”
He had said it several times, Christopher could tell. He said hastily, “I was wondering what was going to happen to Ta—Mordecai Roberts now.”
“Prison, I suppose,” Flavian answered sadly. “He’ll be in clink for years.”
“But they’ll have to put a special clink around his spirit to stop that getting away, won’t they?” Christopher said.
To his surprise, Flavian exploded. “That’s just the kind of damn-fool, frivolous, unfeeling remark you would make!” he cried out. “Of all the hardhearted, toffee-nosed, superior little beggars I’ve ever met, you’re the worst! Sometimes I don’t think you have a soul—just a bundle of worthless lives instead!”
&nbs
“You seem to think,” he shouted, “that those nine lives give you the right to behave like the Lord of Creation! That, or there’s a stone wall around you. If anyone so much as tries to be friendly, all they get is haughty stares, vague looks, or pure damn rudeness! Goodness knows, I’ve tried. Gabriel’s tried. Rosalie’s tried. So have all the maids, and they say you don’t even notice them! And now you make jokes about poor Mordecai! I’ve had enough! I’m sick of you!”
Christopher had no idea that people saw him like this. He was astounded. What’s gone wrong with me? he thought. I’m nice really! When he went to the Anywheres as a small boy, everyone had liked him. Everybody had smiled. Total strangers had given him things. Christopher saw that he had gone on thinking that people only had to see him to like him, and it was only too clear that nobody did. He looked at Flavian, breathing hard and glaring at him. He seemed to have hurt Flavian’s feelings badly. He had not thought Flavian had feelings to hurt. And it made it worse somehow that he had not meant to make a joke about Tacroy—not when Tacroy had just spent the whole day lying on his behalf. He liked Tacroy. The trouble was, he did not dare tell Flavian he did. Nor did he dare say that his mind had mostly been on the Goddess. So what could he say?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly sorry.” His voice came out wobbly with shock. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—not this time anyway—really.”
“Well!” said Flavian. The pink in his face died away. He leaned back in his chair, staring. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say sorry—meaning it, that is. I suppose it’s some kind of breakthrough.” He clapped his chair back to the floor and stood up. “Sorry I lost my temper. But I don’t think I can go on with this lesson today. I feel too emotional. Run away, and I’ll make up for it after tomorrow.”