Olivia didn't stop when Benjamin reached her. She didn't even smile, but kept on walking.
"GOOD MORNING, Olivia!" Benjamin shouted after her. "Nice of you to stop."
"Good-bye," she called over her shoulder.
Benjamin looked at his dog and shrugged. "She's in a funny mood," he said, and Runner Bean barked in agreement.
As Olivia drew closer to her home, she began to think about her godmother, Alice Angel. Alice kept a flower shop in a place called Steppingstones. It was Alice who had helped Olivia to discover her endowment. Alice knew things instinctively. She always knew when Olivia needed her. Alice was a white witch and Olivia recalled her warning, "Where there is a white witch, there is always another of a darker nature." And so it had proved, when Mrs. Tilpin had revealed her true identity.
And now Olivia found herself passing the turn to her own street and walking on toward the park. She turned the corner onto Park Road, murmuring, "Number fifteen." The houses in this street were half hidden behind tall hedges and overgrown shrubs. The gate of number fifteen had come off its hinges and stood propped against the fence. The path was overgrown with moss, and the white paint on the door had all but peeled away. Ivy covered the walls and had even made its way across the windows.
Alice Angel had lived here once. Had she returned, as Manfred said? The house looked deserted. Olivia walked up the mossy path and pulled a rusty chain that hung beside the door. A soft chime could be heard within the house.
Olivia waited. A lace curtain twitched in the window that overlooked the garden, and a voice came whispering out of the house. Was it a voice or the rustle of evergreens?
"Come in, my dear!"
Olivia tried the door handle. It turned smoothly and the door creaked open.
She stepped inside a chilly hall. Was Alice living here? The house felt as though it had been empty for a very long time. At the end of the hall a door opened into Alice's living room.
The ivy covering the windows made the room so dark, Olivia could barely make out the furniture. It was so cold her breath condensed into tiny clouds.
Olivia blew on her hands. Even in gloves her fingers were freezing.
"Alice?" she said tentatively.
"Here, my dear!"
The voice made Olivia jump. She peered into the corner where the voice had come from. A woman sat in an armchair; her hair was smooth and white, just like Alice's. Her face was pale and her eyes had a greenish tinge. It must be Alice, and yet... The face wavered and almost disappeared. One moment the features were clear and then they became vague and incomplete.
"Alice, is it really you?" asked Olivia, her throat contracting in the cold air.
"Of course it is, my dear." Alice's voice was little more than a whisper. "I haven't been too well. Come and kiss me."
Olivia hesitated.
"What is it? You're not afraid, are you?" Alice's voice was stronger now, but... was it her voice?
Olivia walked over to the armchair. She looked down at the woman resting against a faded blue cushion. It was Alice... although how thin she had become.
"Oh, Alice, I've missed you!" Olivia bent and kissed the cold cheek.
Immediately her heart flooded with love for this frail woman, the godmother who had watched over her from far away.
"I've got a present for you." Thin fingers pushed at Olivia's arms. "It's on the table over there. Try it on, dear."
Olivia saw a white package on the table. Tissue paper wrapped around something soft and sparkling. She peeled back the paper and drew out a black velvet vest covered in tiny circles of mirrorlike silver.
"Oh, it's beautiful!"
"Try it on."
Olivia slipped out of her denim jacket and put on the glittering garment. The silver was so bright she could hardly look at it, and for some reason, the featherlike fabric pressed heavily on her shoulders, as though it were weighted with stones. And yet she could not bear to take it off.
Three hundred miles away, Alice Angel was arranging flowers at the back of her shop. She liked to do this very early on a Sunday morning when the shop was closed. As soon as she had made up a dozen or so small bouquets, she would display them on a stand outside, where she would wait beneath a white canopy for people visiting relatives or friends in the hospital.
Alice sold only white flowers. She was surrounded by tall vases of blooms whose pale petals ranged from deepest cream to bluest white. It was cool in the shop but Alice kept warm, moving through her flowers, snipping, twisting, wrapping, and binding. The sweet fragrance made her sing.
A petal fell onto her arm, and then another. Alice looked up from her work, surprised that her fresh flowers were shedding petals already. A white rose dropped from its stalk, and then another and another. Petals began to fall like snow. They became a white storm, showering Alice with the scent of dying flowers. She dropped the bouquet she had been holding and pressed her hands to her face. "Olivia!" she cried. "What has happened to you?"
10. TIGERFIELD STEPS
Charlie sat in the kitchen, eating oatmeal. He felt as though he'd run a marathon. He ached all over and could hardly keep his eyes open. On the other side of the table Emma was drinking tea. She had just told Charlie about her aunt's unwelcome visitors and now, in a rush, she repeated Cook's description of the Sea Globe.
Charlie's eyes widened just a fraction. "So that's how he does it?" he mumbled through a yawn.
"You don't seem very surprised." Emma looked disappointed.
"After yesterday, nothing surprises me," said Charlie. "I've been prodded and interrogated, hit by gargoyles, burned by a mad person, and chased by a sword, and I've fallen off a ten-foot wall."
Maisie paused in her ironing and gave a huge sigh. "We've got to leave this city," she declared. "It's not a normal place. It's too dangerous. As soon as your parents come back, Charlie, we should pack up and leave."
"You can't," said Emma. "Not until it's all sorted out. And we've got to do that."
"We?" Maisie banged down her iron on a hapless shirtsleeve. "I suppose you mean you Children of the Red King. Well, it seems to me that half you lot are causing all this trouble."
"Only half," Emma pointed out. "That's why the other half must stop them."
"Humph." Maisie continued ironing, banging down her iron with more force than was absolutely necessary.
Emma watched her for a moment, then turned her gaze on Charlie, who was now leaning his head against his hand and yawning again. "Anyway," she said sharply. "We've got to do something today, before it's too late. We'll be back at school tomorrow and things will get more and more difficult. I don't know how we're going to tackle Lord Grimwald.
I've just had to put that at the back of my mind until we've sorted out this box problem."
Charlie reflected that Emma had been off from school for a whole week. No wonder she was so perky. "Have you seen Tancred?" he asked.
Emma blushed. "What's that got to do with anything?"
Charlie shrugged but couldn't stop himself from grinning. "I only asked."
Emma's blush spread to the roots of her hair, but she continued, rather fiercely, "Well, are you coming to see Mr. Bittermouse with me?"
"What?" Charlie said slowly. "Why?"
Emma leaned across the table, looking more animated than Charlie had ever seen her. "I had this idea, you see. Mr. Bittermouse is a lawyer and he knew your dad, so maybe your dad gave him this box, with the will in it. I mean"—
she spread her hands—"what could be more obvious? Auntie Julia agrees with me."
"Don't you think they will have thought of that?"
For a moment Emma's determined look wavered, and then she said, "Maybe. But it's worth a try."
Charlie sighed and licked his spoon. He could have done with another bowl of oatmeal, but he contented himself with a large spoonful of honey, which he sucked very slowly while Emma reeled off the names of all the people she'd phoned before coming to him. Olivia was spending the day with her parents, Fidelio was playing the violin at a concert, and Gabriel was "doing something important" with Lysander and Tancred up at Lysander's grand house on the Heights.