Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

Charlie recognised Dr Bloor’s deep voice. ‘I came to give Manfred some lines, sir, and then the door closed.’

‘How did you get in?’

‘Mr Ebony let me in, sir.’

‘Did he, now?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Charlie wished Dr Bloor would shine the torch away from his eyes.

‘Well, it’s detention for you, Charlie Bone. You’ll stay in school an extra night. Now, get back to your dormitory.’

Dr Bloor hauled Charlie out of the room and gave him a push down the passage. Charlie had almost reached his dormitory when the matron loomed round a corner and grabbed his shoulder.

‘Ouch!’ cried Charlie. ‘If you were going to give me detention, don’t bother. I’ve already got it.’

Charlie could hear Lucretia Yewbeam grinding her teeth. ‘Be quiet, until you’re spoken to. Where have you been?’

‘Stuck in Manfred’s study,’ said Charlie with a sigh. ‘He asked me to give him my lines.’

‘Lines? On the first day of term. You’re hopeless. I can’t believe we’re related.’

‘Nor me,’ said Charlie in an undertone.

Next morning, on their way down to breakfast, Charlie told Fidelio everything that had happened the night before. His friend listened attentively until Charlie began to talk about the photographs.

‘So you’ve been listening again,’ Fidelio said wryly.

‘I couldn’t help myself,’ Charlie admitted. ‘They were a nasty pair, Fido. But how can I tell Billy?’

‘Let’s just hope you’re wrong, and those people weren’t the de Greys.’

The two boys walked into the dining-hall and took their places at the music table.

‘Interesting about the horses,’ Fidelio said as he buttered a piece of dry toast.

Billy Raven looked up from his cornflakes. ‘Did you say horses?’

‘Tell you later, Billy,’ said Charlie. ‘By the way, I’ve got detention this weekend, so I’ll be keeping you company.’

‘My new parents are coming to fetch me on Saturday,’ said Billy.

‘So soon?’

‘I shall have my own home!’ Billy bounced up in his seat. ‘Yippee!’

Charlie grinned. He didn’t want to dash Billy’s hopes, but he was sure that real adoptions didn’t happen this way. How did the Bloors get away with it? They kept children hidden from their relatives, they moved orphans around without them having any say in it, they even made fathers disappear.

‘Charlie!’ Fidelio nudged him. ‘If you don’t want your breakfast, I’ll eat it.’

Charlie spooned cornflakes into his mouth as quickly as he could. ‘I s’pose you don’t feel like getting detention with me?’ he asked.

Fidelio looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry. Can’t. I’ve promised to play in my brother’s band on Saturday morning.’

‘At least I might get a look at Billy Raven’s parents. That should be interesting’ said Charlie.

During the first break, Charlie saw Emma and Olivia running round the field.

‘Hey, you two!’ cried Charlie, as he panted beside the girls. ‘Are you, er . . . occupied on Saturday?’

‘Bookshop!’ said Emma. ‘It’s Aunt Julia’s busy day.’

‘Have you got detention again, Charlie?’ asked Olivia, slowing her pace.

‘Yep. So, are you busy?’

Olivia stopped running and Emma drew up beside her.

‘Well?’ said Charlie, taking a deep breath.

‘Actually,’ said Olivia solemnly, ‘Saturday is probably going to be the most important day in my whole life.’

‘Definitely,’ agreed Emma.

‘I’m auditioning for a movie. It’s a really big movie. There are at least three huge stars in it, and I’m going to be Tom Winston’s daughter, or at least I think I will be.’

‘Tom Winston?’ Charlie asked.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Tom Winston,’ said Olivia, frowning. ‘He’s a HUGE star!’

‘Oh. OK. Well, good luck. Hey, you might be famous, Livvie!’

‘Bound to be,’ said loyal Emma.

‘Might be,’ said Olivia with a confident smile.

‘So, will you talk to us when you’re famous?’ asked Charlie.

‘What do you think?’ Olivia’s smile grew wider.

The hunting horn rang out and Charlie never got to answer Olivia, because the two girls tore away and reached the garden door long before him. Charlie decided they must have been in training over the holidays.

‘Guess what?’ Charlie said, leaping into the blue cloakroom. ‘Olivia Vertigo’s going to be a movie star.’

Fidelio was sitting on a bench, changing his shoes. ‘How come?’ he said, dropping one of his trainers.

Several other children stared at Charlie and Gwyneth Howells, the harpist, said, ‘Olivia Vertigo thinks she’s so brilliant.’

‘But she is,’ said Rosie Stubbs generously. ‘I mean, I bet she will be famous.’

Gwyneth gave her best friend a withering look, and Rosie said, ‘Oh come on, Gwyn, you must admit she’s a fantastic actress.’

‘She’s going to an audition on Saturday,’ Charlie told them. ‘It’s for a part in a gigantic movie. She’ll be Tom Winston’s daughter.’

‘If she gets the part,’ sniffed Gwyneth.

‘She will,’ said Fidelio. ‘No question.’

Soon the whole school was buzzing with talk of Olivia Vertigo’s imminent fame. And Olivia began to wish that she’d kept her audition a secret.

Somehow, Charlie managed to keep out of trouble for the rest of the week, and when Friday arrived he found that he wasn’t dreading his extra night in school as much as he expected.

He went down to the main hall to wish Olivia good luck before she left, but she didn’t thank him.

‘I wish you hadn’t told so many people,’ she grumbled. ‘It’s bad luck.’ And she strode away without a backward glance.

‘She’s nervous,’ Emma explained. ‘Sorry about your detention, Charlie. We’ll meet on Sunday, shall we?’

‘Pets’ Café at two o’clock,’ said Charlie.

‘You’re on.’ Emma dashed after Olivia, her long blond pigtails bouncing against her cape.

A familiar smell assailed Charlie when he walked into the dormitory, and he wasn’t surprised to see Cook’s dog, Blessed, sitting at the foot of Billy’s bed. Today the old dog looked even more depressed than usual. Charlie assumed this was due to his great age and bad health (Blessed was extremely stout), but Billy quickly put him right.

‘He’s upset,’ said Billy, who was trying to pack a battered-looking case. ‘Partly because I’m being adopted, but mostly because he saw a terrible thing happen.’

‘Oh?’ Charlie sank on to the bed next to Billy’s. ‘What did he see?’

Billy glanced at Blessed, who gave a small grunting sort of whine.

‘It’s difficult to explain. I keep thinking I’ve got it wrong and he means something different, but then he says, “True! True! Horse fly through wall.”’

‘What?’ Charlie’s eyebrows shot up.

Billy stopped packing and sat on his bed. ‘He says he was at the top of the house in a long, long room. Manfred was there, and old Mr Ezekiel, and your three great-aunts, Charlie. He says there were things on a table: fur and metal things and – very, very old bones.’

Charlie’s scalp tingled. ‘What sort of bones?’

‘Horse bones.’

Blessed gave a sudden, throaty growl.

‘He said that the bones turned into a horse.’ Billy spoke very slowly, as though he were waiting for Charlie to stop him. But Charlie just listened, open-mouthed.

‘Two of your great-aunts did things to the stuff on the table,’ went on Billy, ‘and Mr Ezekiel had a tin that made sparks. There was a bang and a lot of smoke and a horse jumped off the table and crashed through the wall.’

‘What the hell are they up to? I didn’t know my aunts could do stuff like that.’

‘There were four of them, remember? Manfred and Mr Ezekiel as well. Perhaps that made their power stronger.’ Billy frowned and shook his head. ‘It must have been the horse that I saw in the sky.’

Charlie realised that this strange spell explained a great deal: the pictures on Manfred’s desk, for instance, the ghostly presence in the garden, and the hoofbeats Charlie had heard in the courtyard. ‘But what’s the purpose of it all?’ he muttered.

Billy shrugged. ‘Perhaps we’ll never know.’

‘Oh, I think we will. In fact, you can bet your life on it.’

‘If I could see the horse, I could talk to it,’ said Billy.

‘Maybe you could talk to it anyway,’ Charlie suggested.

Billy stared at Charlie through the thick round lenses of his spectacles. ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. He jumped down from the bed and resumed his packing. The small pile of clothes laid out on the bed only half filled the large suitcase.

‘I haven’t got any more. That’s it.’ Billy closed the suitcase and heaved it on to the floor.

‘Nothing else?’ Charlie was concerned. Where were Billy’s toys, books, games, trainers, weekend clothes? At home the cupboard in Charlie’s room was packed with stuff. Was this all that Billy owned in the world?

‘There is something else.’ Billy pulled a plastic bag from his bedside cabinet and emptied it on the bed. As well as the five small books that Cook had given him, there was a pack of cards, a small one-eared bear, and something wrapped in yellowing tissue paper.

‘The Bloors usually give me food for presents,’ said Billy, carefully unfolding the tissue paper, ‘so most of my possessions have been eaten.’ He gave a sheepish grin. ‘But I kept these.’ He peeled back the last piece of tissue, revealing four white candles. ‘I found them in my aunt’s cupboard before I was sent to Bloor’s. Her dog told me they came with a birthday cake, but she never put them on the cake, and I never knew who sent it to me.’

Charlie stared at the four candles lying in Billy’s hand. Each one looked as though it had been made from a coiled feather. The delicate wax filaments curved round the candles in spirals that made them appear mysterious and magical.

‘I never lit them,’ said Billy softly.

‘I can see that.’ Charlie screwed up his eyes and bent closer to the candles. ‘I wonder who sent them.’

‘I wish I knew.’ Billy carefully folded the candles into the tissue paper and slipped them in his pocket.

It was just as well that he did, because the next minute, Lucretia Yewbeam marched into the dormitory and began to examine Billy’s packing.

‘This is a mess,’ she said, throwing everything out on to the floor. ‘Fold your clothes properly, Billy Raven. Your new parents won’t accept slipshod packing.’

‘Who are Billy’s new parents?’ asked Charlie.

‘None of your business,’ snapped his great-aunt.

‘But it is Billy’s business,’ argued Charlie. ‘He only knows their name, not where they’re from, or if they’ve got a family, or if they live . . .’

‘You don’t need to know these things,’ said the Matron. ‘Billy will know soon enough. Now brush your hair before supper, boy. You look as though you’ve just crawled out of bed.’

Charlie gave a grunt of disgust. Trust Lucretia Yewbeam to mention his hair. She’d probably guessed that he’d forgotten to pack his hairbrush.

When the matron had gone, Charlie helped Billy to repack his suitcase. Not that it looked any neater the second time around.

‘It’ll have to do,’ said Billy cheerfully. ‘Just think, I’ve got a home to go to!’

Charlie wondered if the small boy was as happy as he sounded. That night Billy thrashed about in his sheets. Starting a new life with unknown parents was not exactly any everyday occurrence.

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