Charlie's other grandmother was the very opposite of Grandma Bone. Maisie wasn't much taller than Charlie and battled hard to keep her weight down. Being the family cook didn't make this easy.
"Now, I wonder why you were trying to get those keys?" Maisie's face was too round and cheerful to look stern. Even frowning was an effort. "Don't deny it. There's nothing else up there that would interest you."
"I think Great-aunt Eustacia has put a painting in the cellar."
"What if she has?"10"I... well, I just wanted to... you know, have a look at it." Charlie clutched the fish jug and drew out a large rusty-looking key.
Maisie shook her head. "Not a good idea, Charlie."
"Why?" Charlie replaced the jug and jumped down from the chair.
"You know them," said Maisie, with meaning. "Those Yewbeam sisters are always trying to trick you. D'you think they didn't know you'd be just itching to take a look at...
whatever it is?"
"They didn't know I was listening, Maisie."
"Ha!" Maisie grunted. "Of course they did."
Charlie twiddled the key between his fingers. "I just want to take a look at the outside of it, the shape of it. I won't take the paper off."
"Oh no? Look, Charlie, your parents are watching whales on the other side of the world.
If something happens to you, how am I going to... ?"
"Nothing will happen to me." Before Maisie could say another word, Charlie walked briskly out of the11kitchen and along the hallway to the cellar. The key turned in the lock with surprising ease. But as soon as the door opened, Charlie knew that there was really no doubt - something would happen to him. He could feel it already: a light, insistent tug, drawing him closer, down a set of creaking wooden steps. Down, down, down, until he stood in the chilly gloom of the cellar.
The package was propped against the wall, between an old mattress and a set of rusty curtain rods. Charlie couldn't be certain, but he thought he could hear a faint sound coming from beneath the crumpled wrapping paper.
"Impossible!" Charlie clutched his hair. This had never happened before. He had to see a face before he heard its voice. But this sound was coming from something out of sight.
As he stepped toward the package, a deep whine whistled past his ears.
"Wind?" Charlie reached out a hand.
At his touch the paper rustled and creaked. The whole package seemed suddenly alive and Charlie12hesitated. But a second of doubt was immediately overcome by his burning curiosity, and he began to tear at the wrapping. Strips of paper flew into the air, from Charlie's frantic fingers and the unnatural wind that blew from who knew where.
The painting didn't even wait to be entirely revealed. Long before every corner was free of the paper, a dreadful landscape began to seep into the dim cellar. This was not how it should happen. Charlie was mystified. He waited for the familiar tumbling sensation that usually overwhelmed him when he traveled into paintings. It never came. He watched in astonishment as the brick walls of the cellar were swallowed by a vista of distant mountains. Tall, dark towers appeared in the foreground; one swam so close to Charlie that he could smell the damp moss that patched the walls. Ugly scaled creatures scurried over the surface, pausing briefly to stare at Charlie with dangerous glinting eyes.
"It has to be an illusion," Charlie told himself.13He put out his hand - and touched the horny spine of a black toadlike thing.
"Ugh!" Leaping away from it, he tripped and fell on his back. Beneath him he could feel rough cobblestones, slippery with gray-black weeds. Above him purple clouds rushed through an ash-colored sky, and all about him the wind roared and rattled, howled and sighed.
"So I'm there already." Charlie got to his feet and rubbed his back. "Wherever there is."
In brief intervals when the wind died to a low whine, Charlie could hear the tramp of heavy feet and a low muttering of voices. "It's here," one said. "I can smell it."
"It's mine." This voice glopped like a sink full of dishes. "I know how to catch it."
"Oddthumb knows," came a chorus of low, tuneless voices.
Charlie backed around the tower as the marching feet drew closer. There appeared to be no windows14in the building, and Charlie was just beginning to think that it was without a door when he was suddenly seized around the waist and lifted high in the air. A huge fist closed over his mouth, and a voice close to his ear whispered, "Boy, your life depends on your silence."
Shocked and speechless, Charlie was swung backward through an open door and set down. He found himself on the lowest step of a stone staircase that spiraled upward before disappearing into the shadows.
"Climb," whispered the voice. "As fast as your feet will take you."
Charlie mounted the stone steps, his heart beating wildly. Up, up and up, never stopping until he had reached a door at the very top. Charlie pushed it open and went into the room beyond. A narrow window high in the wall shed a dismal light onto the sparse furnishings below: the longest bed Charlie had ever seen, the highest table and the tallest chair, and...
could that be a boat, hanging on15the wall? He turned quickly as the owner of the room ducked under the lintel and walked in, closing the door and locking it.
Charlie saw a giant, or the nearest thing to a giant he had ever seen. The man's white hair was coiled into a knob at the back of his head, and a fine, snowy beard reached a neat point just above his waist. He wore a coarse shirt, a leather vest, and brown woolen trousers tied at the ankle with a cord.
The giant held a finger to his lips and then, raising his arm, pushed open a small panel set between the rafters of the roof. Without a word he lifted Charlie up to the dark space revealed. Charlie rolled sideways, and the panel was immediately replaced, leaving him in a dark, stuffy hole with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs.
"They'll not find you. Trust me," whispered the giant, whose head was perhaps only a foot below the rafters.16There was a tiny hole right beside Charlie's ear, and when he turned his head, he could see directly into the room below. He had just positioned himself as comfortably as possible when he heard voices echoing up the stairwell.
"Otus Yewbeam, are you there?"
"Have you seen a boy?"
"Caught him, have you?"
"He's ours."
"Mine," came Oddthumb's husky snarl. "All mine."
A battery of fists and cudgels began to thump against the door.
"Patience, soldiers," called Otus. "I was sleeping." One step took him to the door, which he unlocked, with much sighing and rattling.
A crowd of squat, ugly beings rushed in and surrounded the giant. They wore metal breastplates over their patched leather jerkins, and strapped to their heads were tall helmets like metal top hats. Axes, knives, catapults, and cudgels hung from their belts, though some had bows slung over their backs17and quivers bursting with shiny arrows.
Most came up well below the giant's waist, but there was one, somewhat larger than the others who, for some reason, looked familiar to Charlie. Could this be the same carved stone troll that had once sat outside Great-aunt Venetia's gloomy house?
"Why did you lock the door against us?" this larger being demanded.
"Not against you, Oddthumb," said the giant. "Against durgles."
"Durgles," spat Oddthumb.
"Durgles are very destructive," said Otus. "Many a day they have eaten my bread, while I slept."
"Liar," said Oddthumb. "A durgle can no more unlock a door than a diddychick. You've got him, I know it."
"Who?" Otus inquired in a mild tone.
"The boy," snarled one of the smaller beings. "He's here. The watch see'd him a-coming from far off. Caught, he was, by the count's guile."
"Enchanted," said the being beside him.18"Spell-brought," chorused the others.
There was a loud creak as Otus lowered himself on to his bed. He was now out of Charlie's sight, though he could still see a long leather-bound foot.