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“Please don’t put him in the lock-up. Please,” begged Lucy. “I’ll do anything. I’ll take him away and make sure he doesn’t come back ever. Ooooh, please, please…Oooooh!”
“Lucy, I am not going to put him in the lock-up,” said Marcia quickly. She could see that Lucy was working up to a scream.
Lucy subsided.
“Well, not unless—no, Lucy, it’s all right—not unless he deliberately withholds information. Which I am sure he won’t.
Will you, Simon?”
Simon shook his head.
In the manner of a practiced conjurer, Marcia produced Sleuth from up her sleeve.
“Oh,” said Simon, gazing mournfully at his much-loved Tracker Ball. Something told him that Marcia was not going to give it back.
“I presume this is a Tracker Ball?” Marcia said.
“Yes. Yes, it is. Its name is Sleuth. I trained it myself.”
“Did you? Very good. Very good indeed.”
Simon smiled. He thought it had been pretty good too.
“I want to find Septimus. I need you to Instruct it.”
Simon’s face fell. It was always about Septimus, wasn’t it? Never about him.
Marcia ignored Simon’s sullen expression and carried on. “Simon, I know for a fact that this Tracker Ball has a Tag on Jenna. Jenna is with Septimus, and I want you to Instruct it to follow the Tag.”
“I can’t,” Simon said sulkily.
“Can’t or won’t?” asked Marcia icily.
“Si,” said Lucy, “don’t be awkward. Please. Just do it. What does it matter to you?”
“Luce, I can’t do it—or rather Sleuth can’t.” Simon turned to Marcia. “I’m sorry, Madam Marcia, but Sleuth hasn’t got a Tag on Jenna anymore, so it can’t do it.”
“I’m warning you, Simon, don’t lie to me,” snapped Marcia.
“Si—mon!” wailed Lucy.
“Shh, Luce. Marcia, I—I’m not lying. I promise. Yes, Sleuth did have a Tag on Jenna, but that’s all gone—every trace.
I’ve reprogrammed Sleuth because…well, a few months ago something horrible happened. Something Darke came after me. I don’t want anything more to do with Darke
stuff—it just uses you up and throws you away. It’s awful. And there was a lot of Darke in Sleuth, so I did a complete WipeOut. I’d left Sleuth ReCharging when that little tick took it. I’m sorry. I would have helped if I could have. I really would have.” Simon was almost pleading.
Marcia sighed. She could see that Simon was telling the truth. It was just her luck, she thought, that just when she needed the help of a practitioner of Darke Magyk, he had decided to reform.
Marcia let Simon and Lucy go. As she watched the ferry take them across to the far side of the river she could not help but wonder what was in store for them. And, more to the point, what was in store for Septimus.
The next morning, many thousands of miles away in a small hut, Jenna woke to find Ullr in his daytime guise, sitting on top of the stove. A dull gray light filled the hut and the air felt cold. She pulled the rough blanket around her and whispered, “Ullr, komme, Ullr.” The cat’s tail twitched. He looked at Jenna, considering whether to leave his warm place and decided not to bother. Jenna—who did not like being disobeyed, even by a cat—scrambled down from her bunk, grabbed hold of Ullr and took him back to bed with her.
“Blerrgh,” mumbled Septimus from the bunk below. “I’m gettin’ up, Marcia. Really yam.”
“It’s all right, Sep.” Jenna laughed. “I’m not Marcia.”
Septimus opened his eyes and found himself staring at the rough wood of Jenna’s sleeping platform just a few inches away. He remembered where he was and sat up too quickly. He banged his head on the platform above. “Ouch.”
“The fire’s gone out,” said Jenna. “Can you light it, Sep? It’s freezing in here.”
Septimus groaned and struggled out of his warm cocoon. “You may not actually be Marcia, Jen, but you’re doing a very good impression.” He put some more logs into the stove and, too sleepy to use his tinderbox, he cheated and did a FireLighter Spell. Flames leaped up from the logs and a few minutes later the hut began to feel warm once more.
They ate the last of the dried fish for breakfast and Jenna handed out tin mugs of boiled witches’ brew. To each one she had added a square of toffee that floated stickily on the surface of the cloudy green liquid. Septimus looked quizzically at the contents of his mug. “That’s weird, Jen. Even Aunt Zelda could learn a thing or two from you.”
“Well, I’ll have it if you don’t want it,” Jenna replied.
“No, no. I love
Aunt Zelda’s stuff,” said Septimus, draining the witches’ brew in one gulp and chewing the toffee gratefully, as it took the bitterness away.
While Ullr finished off the bones and fish heads, they packed their backpacks and looked at the map.
“I figure we’re here,” said Septimus, pointing to a drawing of a hut beside a wiggly line that Snorri had helpfully labeled STREAM.
“We’re getting near the edge, then,” said Beetle, running his finger along the margins of the hole in the middle of the map.
Septimus nodded. “I hope when we get out into the light we’ll be able to see something. Maybe even the House of Foryx—whatever that looks like.”
It was hard to leave the warmth and safety of the hut behind and open the door into an unfamiliar world. In fact it was a lot harder than they had expected, as the door would not budge. Septimus and Beetle leaned all their weight against it but it would not shift. “It’s the snow,” said Beetle. “Look how much it’s piled up against the windows. We’re snowed in.” He gave the door another hefty shove. “Oof! It’s no good. It won’t open. We’re stuck.”
“Let me try,” said Jenna.
“Okay, come help us, Jen, but I don’t think it will make any difference,” said Septimus.
“I’ll try it on my own thanks, Sep.”
“On your own?” said Septimus and Beetle.
“Yes, on my own. Okay?”
“Okay.” Septimus and Beetle shrugged and, clearly humoring Jenna, they stepped aside.
Jenna took hold of the latch and pulled the door. It opened with a rush and a pile of snow tumbled in. She grinned. “It opens inward,” she said.
Beetle was right about one thing: it had snowed so much during the night that the hut was very nearly completely covered with snow. It lay where the wind had blown it, piled up against the sides of the hut, a great heap of the stuff barring their way out. Beetle fetched the shovel from the smelly little outhouse and began digging the snow away very energetically, as if to make up for the embarrassing door episode. After a few fast shovelfuls had been thrown to the side, Beetle suddenly stopped.
“Need a break?” asked Septimus.
“No! I mean, no thanks, I’m fine. Only just got started. But there’s something under the snow…something soft.”
Carefully now, Beetle prodded at the snow with the shovel and began to gently scrape it away.
“Look!” Jenna gasped. “Oh no, look.”
Soaked and heavy with snow, a scarcely visible white woolen cloth lay exposed by Beetle’s digging. “Someone’s under here,” muttered Beetle. He dropped to his hands and knees, and along with Jenna and Septimus, quickly scraped away the snow.
“Ephaniah!” Jenna exclaimed. “Oh no, it’s Ephaniah. Ephaniah, wake up!”
39
UNDER THE SNOW
I t took the combined strength
of all three to haul the soaked and frozen figure into the hut. He lay on the floor taking up the entire space between the bunks, a great bulky mass of sodden white robes clinging to his strange rat-man shape. Ullr arched up, hissing, the fur on his tail sticking out like a bottlebrush and shot out of the hut. Jenna did not even notice.
“Oh, this is awful,” she said tearfully, dropping to her knees beside the rat-man. “That scratching last night was Ephaniah. We ignored him. And he couldn’t even shout to tell us he was there—freezing to death. Oh, Sep, we’ve probably killed him.”
Septimus thought Jenna might be right. Marcia had taught him to Listen for the Sound of Human Heartbeat and he could hear only Jenna’s and Beetle’s—both beating fast. But, thought Septimus, as he threw some logs into the stove and got the fire going once more, he didn’t know if the Listening
