Illustrated by Tim Stevens

Dedication

For Claire, Nicholas and Frances

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Beyond The Book

Spotlight on… Diana Wynne Jones

Have you ever wondered?

Wizards, Witches and Enchanters

Magicians and Illusionists

Parallel Worlds

Other Works

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Cat Chant admired his elder sister Gwendolen. She was a witch. He admired her and he clung to her. Great changes came about in their lives and left him no one else to cling to.

The first great change came about when their parents took them out for a day trip down the river in a paddle steamer. They set out in great style, Gwendolen and her mother in white dresses with ribbons, Cat and his father in prickly blue serge Sunday suits. It was a hot day. The steamer was crammed with other people in holiday clothes, talking, laughing, eating whelks with thin slices of white bread and butter, while the paddle boat steam organ wheezed out popular tunes so that no one could hear themselves talk.

In fact the steamer was too crowded and too old. Something went wrong with the steering. The whole laughing, whelk-eating Sunday-dressed crowd was swept away in the current from the weir. They hit one of the posts which were supposed to stop people being swept away, and the paddle steamer, being old, simply broke into pieces. Cat remembered the organ playing and the paddles beating the blue sky. Clouds of steam screamed from broken pipes and drowned the screams from the crowd, as every single person aboard was swept away through the weir.

It was a terrible accident. The papers called it the Saucy Nancy Disaster. The ladies in their clinging skirts were quite unable to swim. The men in tight blue serge were very little better off. But Gwendolen was a witch, so she could not drown. And Cat, who flung his arms around Gwendolen when the boat hit the post, survived too. There were very few other survivors.

The whole country was shocked by it. The paddle boat company and the town of Wolvercote between them paid for the funerals. Gwendolen and Cat were given heavy black clothes at public expense, and rode behind the procession of hearses in a carriage pulled by black horses with black plumes on their heads. The other survivors rode with them. Cat looked at them and wondered if they were witches and warlocks, but he never found out. The Mayor of Wolvercote had set up a Fund for the survivors. Money poured in from all over the country. All the other survivors took their share and went away to start new lives elsewhere. Only Cat and Gwendolen were left and, since nobody could discover any of their relations, they stayed in Wolvercote.

They became celebrities for a time. Everyone was very kind. Everyone said what beautiful little orphans they were. It was true. They were both fair and pale, with blue eyes, and looked good in black. Gwendolen was very pretty, and tall for her age. Cat was small for his age. Gwendolen was very motherly to Cat, and people were touched.

Cat did not mind. It made up a little for the empty, lost way he was feeling. Ladies gave him cake and toys. Town Councillors came and asked how he was getting on; and the Mayor called and patted him on the head. The Mayor explained that the money from the Fund was being put into a Trust for them until they were grown up. Meanwhile, the town would pay for their education and upbringing.

“And where would you little people like to live?” he asked kindly.

Gwendolen at once said that old Mrs Sharp downstairs had offered to take them in. “She’s been ever so kind to us,” she explained. “We’d love to live with her.”

Mrs Sharp had been very kind. She was a witch too – the printed sign in her parlour said Certified Witch – and interested in Gwendolen. The Mayor was a little dubious. Like all people who had no talent for witchcraft, he did not approve of those who had. He asked Cat how he felt about Gwendolen’s plan. Cat did not mind. He preferred living in the house he was used to, even if it was downstairs. Since the Mayor felt that the two orphans ought to be made as happy as possible, he agreed. Gwendolen and Cat moved in with Mrs Sharp.

Looking back on it, Cat supposed that it was from this time on that he was certain Gwendolen was a witch. He had not been sure before. When he had asked his parents, they had shaken their heads, sighed, and looked unhappy. Cat had been puzzled, because he remembered the terrible trouble there had been when Gwendolen gave him cramps. He could not see how his parents could blame Gwendolen for it unless she truly was a witch. But all that was changed now. Mrs Sharp made no secret of it.

“You’ve a real talent for magic, dearie,” she said, beaming at Gwendolen, “and I wouldn’t be doing my duty by you if I let it go to waste. We must see about a teacher for you right away. You could do worse than go to Mr Nostrum next door for a start. He may be the worst necromancer in town, but he knows how to teach. He’ll give you a good grounding, my love.”

Mr Nostrum’s charges for teaching magic turned out to be £1 an hour for the Elementary Grades, and a guinea an hour for the Advanced Grades beyond. Rather expensive, as Mrs Sharp said. She put on her best hat with black beads and ran round to the Town Hall to see if the Fund would pay for Gwendolen’s lessons.

To her annoyance, the Mayor refused. He told Mrs Sharp that witchcraft was not part of an ordinary education. Mrs Sharp came back rattling the beads on her hat with irritation, and carrying a flat cardboard box the Mayor had given her, full of odds and ends the kind ladies had cleared out of Gwendolen’s parents’ bedroom.

“Blind prejudice!” Mrs Sharp said, dumping the box on the kitchen table. “If a person has a gift, they have a right to have it developed – and so I told him! But don’t worry, dearie,” she said, seeing that Gwendolen was looking decidedly stormy. “There’s a way round everything. Mr Nostrum would teach you for nothing, if we found the right thing to tempt him with. Let’s have a look in this box. Your poor Ma and Pa may have left something that might be just the thing.”

Accordingly, Mrs Sharp turned the box out on to the table. It was a queer collection of things – letters and lace and souvenirs. Cat did not remember having seen half of them before. There was a marriage certificate, saying that Francis John Chant had married Caroline Mary Chant twelve years ago at St Margaret’s Church, Wolvercote, and a withered nosegay his mother must have carried at the wedding. Underneath that, he found some glittery earrings he had never seen his mother wear.

Mrs Sharp’s hat rattled as she bent swiftly over these. “Those are diamond earrings!” she said. “Your Ma must have had money! Now, if I took those to Mr Nostrum – But we’d get more for them if I took them round to Mr Larkins.”

Mr Larkins kept the junk shop on the corner of the street – except that it was not always exactly junk. Among the brass fenders and chipped crockery, you could find quite valuable things and also a discreet notice saying Exotic Supplies – which meant that Mr Larkins also stocked bats’ wings, dried newts and other ingredients of magic. There was no question that Mr Larkins would be very interested in a pair of diamond earrings. Mrs Sharp’s eyes pouched up, greedy and beady, as she put out her hand to pick up the earrings.

Gwendolen put out her hand for them at the same moment. She did not say anything. Neither did Mrs Sharp. Both their hands stood still in the air. There was a feeling of fierce invisible struggle. Then Mrs Sharp took her hand away. “Thank you,” said Gwendolen coldly, and put the earrings away in the pocket of her black dress.

“You see what I mean?” Mrs Sharp said, making the best of it. “You have real talent, dearie!” She went back to sorting the other things in the box. She turned over an old pipe, ribbons, a spray of white heather, menus, concert tickets, and picked up a bundle of old letters. She ran her thumb down the edge of it. “Love letters,” she said. “His to her.” She put the bundle down without looking at it and picked up another. “Hers to him. No use.” Cat, watching Mrs Sharp’s broad mauve thumb whirring down a third bundle of letters, thought that being a witch must save a great deal of time. “Business letters,” said Mrs Sharp. Her thumb paused, and went slowly back up the pile again. “Now what have we here?” she said. She untied the pink tape round the bundle and carefully took out three letters. She unfolded them.

“Chrestomanci!” she exclaimed. And, as soon as she said it, she clapped one hand over her mouth and mumbled behind it. Her face was red. Cat could see she was surprised, frightened and greedy, all at the same time. “Now what was he doing writing to your Pa?” she said, as soon as she had recovered.

“Let’s see,” said Gwendolen.

Mrs Sharp spread the three letters out on the kitchen table, and Gwendolen and Cat bent over them. The first thing that struck Cat was the energy of the signature on all three:

The next thing he saw was that two of the letters were written in the same energetic writing as the signature. The first was dated twelve years ago, soon after his parents had been married. It said:

Dear Frank,

Now don’t get on your high horse. I only offered because I thought it might help. I still will help, in any way I can, if you let me know what I can do. I feel you have a claim on me.

Yrs ever,

Chrestomanci

The second letter was shorter:

Dear Chant,

The same to you. Go to blazes.

Chrestomanci

The third letter was dated six years ago, and it was written by someone else. Chrestomanci had only signed it.

Sir,

You were warned six years ago that something like what you relate might come to pass, and you made it quite clear that you wished for no help from this quarter. We are not interested in your troubles. Nor is this a charitable institution.

Chrestomanci

“What did your Pa say to him?” Mrs Sharp wondered, curious and awestruck. “Well – what do you think, dearie?”

Gwendolen held her hands spread out above the letters, rather as if she was warming them at a fire. Both her little fingers twitched. “I don’t know. They feel important – specially the first one and the last one – awfully important.”

“Who’s Chrestomanci?” Cat asked. It was a hard name to say. He said it in pieces, trying to remember the way Mrs Sharp had said it: KREST-OH-MAN-SEE. “Is that the right way?”

“Yes, that’s right – and never you mind who he is, my love,” said Mrs Sharp. “And important’s a weak word for it, dearie. I wish I knew what your Pa had said. Something not many people’d dare say, by the sound of it. And look at what he got in return! Three genuine signatures! Mr Nostrum would give his eyes for those, dearie. Oh, you’re in luck! He’ll teach you for those all right! So would any necromancer in the country.”

Gleefully, Mrs Sharp began packing the things away in the box again. “What have we here?” A little red book of matches had fallen out of the bundle of business letters. Mrs Sharp took it up carefully and, quite as carefully, opened it. It was less than half full of flimsy cardboard matches. But three of the matches had been burnt, without being torn out of the book first. The third one along was so very burnt that Cat supposed it must have set light to the other two.

“Hm,” said Mrs Sharp. “I think you’d better keep this, dearie.” She passed the little red book to Gwendolen, who put it in the pocket of her dress along with the earrings. “And what about you having this, my love?” Mrs Sharp said to Cat, remembering that he had a claim too. She gave him the spray of white heather. Cat wore it in his buttonhole until it fell to pieces.

Living with Mrs Sharp, Gwendolen seemed to expand. Her hair seemed brighter gold, her eyes deeper blue, and her whole manner was glad and confident. Perhaps Cat contracted a little to make room for her – he did not know. Not that he was unhappy. Mrs Sharp was quite as kind to him as she was to Gwendolen. Town Councillors and their wives called several times a week and patted him on the head in the parlour. They sent him and Gwendolen to the best school in Wolvercote.

Cat was happy there. The only drawback was that Cat was left-handed, and schoolmasters always punished him if they caught him writing with his left hand. But they did that at all the schools Cat had been to, and he was used to it. He had dozens of friends. All the same, at the heart of everything, he felt lost and lonely. So he clung to Gwendolen, because she was the only family he had.

Gwendolen was often rather impatient with him, though usually she was too busy and happy to be downright cross. “Just leave me alone, Cat,” she would say. “Or else.” Then she would pack exercise books into a music-case and hasten next door for a lesson with Mr Nostrum.

Mr Nostrum was delighted to teach Gwendolen for the letters. Mrs Sharp gave him one every term for a year, starting with the last. “Not all at once, in case he gets greedy,” she said. “And we’ll give him the best last.”

Gwendolen made excellent progress. Such a promising witch was she, indeed, that she skipped the First Grade Magic exam and went straight on to the Second. She took the Third and Fourth Grades together just after Christmas, and, by the following summer, she was starting on Advanced Magic. Mr Nostrum regarded her as his favourite pupil – he told Mrs Sharp so over the wall – and Gwendolen always came back from her lessons with him pleased and golden and glowing. She went to Mr Nostrum two evenings a week, with her magic-case under her arm, just as many people might go to music lessons. In fact, music lessons were what Mrs Sharp put Gwendolen down as having, on the accounts she kept for the Town Council. Since Mr Nostrum never got paid, except by the letters, Cat thought this was rather dishonest of Mrs Sharp.

“I have to put something by for my old age,” Mrs Sharp told him crossly. “I don’t get much for myself out of keeping you, do I? And I can’t trust your sister to remember me when she’s grown up and famous. Oh dear me no – I’ve no illusions about that!”

Cat knew Mrs Sharp was probably right. He was a little sorry for her, for she had certainly been kind, and he knew by now that she was not a very good witch herself. The Certified Witch which the notice in Mrs Sharp’s parlour window claimed her to be was, in fact, the very lowest qualification. People only came to Mrs Sharp for charms when they could not afford the three Accredited Witches further down the street. Mrs Sharp eked out her earnings by acting as an agent for Mr Larkins at the junk shop. She got him Exotic Supplies – that is to say, the stranger ingredients needed for spells – from as far away as London. She was very proud of her contacts in London. “Oh yes,” she often said to Gwendolen, “I’ve got the contacts, I have. I know those that can get me a pound of dragon’s blood any time I ask, for all it’s illegal. While you have me, you’ll never be in need.”

Perhaps, in spite of having no illusions about Gwendolen, Mrs Sharp was really hoping to become Gwendolen’s manager when Gwendolen grew up. Cat suspected she was, anyway. And he was sorry for Mrs Sharp. He was sure that Gwendolen would cast her off like an old coat when she became famous – like Mrs Sharp, Cat had no doubt that Gwendolen would be famous. So he said, “There’s me to look after you, though.” He did not fancy the idea, but he felt he ought to say it.

Mrs Sharp was warmly grateful. As a reward, she arranged for Cat to have real music lessons. “Then that Mayor will have nothing to complain of,” she said. She believed in killing two birds with one stone.

Cat started to learn the violin. He thought he was making good progress. He practised diligently. He never could understand why the new people living upstairs always banged on the floor when he started to play. Mrs Sharp, being tone-deaf herself, nodded and smiled when he played, and encouraged him greatly.

He was practising away one evening, when Gwendolen stormed in and shrieked a spell in his face. Cat found, to his dismay, that he was holding a large striped cat by the tail. He had its head tucked under his chin, and he was sawing at its back with the violin bow. He dropped it hurriedly. Even so, it bit him under the chin and scratched him painfully.

“What did you do that for?” he said. The cat stood in an arch, glaring at him.

“Because that’s just what it sounded like!” said Gwendolen. “I couldn’t stand it a moment longer. Here, pussy, pussy!” The cat did not like Gwendolen either. It scratched the hand she held out to it. Gwendolen smacked it. It ran away, with Cat in hot pursuit, shouting, “Stop it! That’s my fiddle! Stop it!” But the cat escaped, and that was the end of the violin lessons.

Mrs Sharp was very impressed with this display of talent from Gwendolen. She climbed on a chair in the yard and told Mr Nostrum about it over the wall. From there, the story spread to every witch and necromancer in the neighbourhood.

That neighbourhood was full of witches. People in the same trade like to cluster together. If Cat came out of Mrs Sharp’s front door and turned right down Coven Street, he passed, besides the three Accredited Witches, two Necromancy Offered, a Soothsayer, a Diviner, and a Willing Warlock. If he turned left, he passed MR HENRY NOSTRUM A.R.C.M. Tuition in Necromancy, a Fortune-teller, a Sorcery For All Occasions, a Clairvoyant, and lastly Mr Larkins’ shop. The air in the street, and for several streets around, was heavy with the scent of magic being done.

All these people took a great and friendly interest in Gwendolen. The story of the cat impressed them enormously. They made a great pet of the creature – naturally, it was called Fiddle. Though it remained bad-tempered, captious and unfriendly, it never went short of food. They made an even greater pet of Gwendolen. Mr Larkins gave her presents. The Willing Warlock, who was a muscular young man always in need of a shave, popped out of his house whenever he saw Gwendolen passing and presented her with a bullseye. The various witches were always looking out simple spells for her.

Gwendolen was very scornful of these spells. “Do they think I’m a baby or something? I’m miles beyond this stuff!” she would say, casting the latest spell aside.

Mrs Sharp, who was glad of any aid to witchcraft, usually gathered the spell up carefully and hid it. But once or twice, Cat found the odd spell lying about. Then he could not resist trying it. He would have liked to have had just a little of Gwendolen’s talent. He always hoped that he was a late-developer and that, some day, a spell would work for him. But they never did – not even the one for turning brass buttons into gold, which Cat particularly fancied.

The various fortune-tellers gave Gwendolen presents too. She got an old crystal ball from the Diviner and a pack of cards from the Soothsayer. The Fortune-teller told her fortune for her. Gwendolen came in golden and exultant from that.

“I’m going to be famous! He said I could rule the world if I go the right way about it!” she told Cat.

Though Cat had no doubt that Gwendolen would be famous, he could not see how she could rule the world, and he said so. “You’d only rule one country, even if you married the King,” he objected. “And the Prince of Wales got married last year.”

“There are more ways of ruling than that, stupid!” Gwendolen retorted. “Mr Nostrum has lots of ideas for me, for a start. Mind you, there are some snags. There’s a change for the worse that I have to surmount, and a dominant Dark Stranger. But when he told me I’d rule the world my fingers all twitched, so I know it’s true!” There seemed no limit to Gwendolen’s glowing confidence.

The next day, Miss Larkins the Clairvoyant called Cat into her house and offered to tell his fortune too.

CHAPTER TWO

Cat was alarmed by Miss Larkins. She was the daughter of Mr Larkins at the junk shop. She was young and pretty and fiercely red-headed. She wore the red hair piled into a bun on top of her head, from which red tendrils of hair escaped and tangled becomingly with earrings like hoops for parrots to sit on. She was a very talented clairvoyant, and, until the story of the cat became known, Miss Larkins had been the pet of the neighbourhood. Cat remembered that even his mother had given Miss Larkins presents. Cat knew Miss Larkins was offering to tell his fortune out of jealousy of Gwendolen

“No. No, thank you very much,” he said, backing away from Miss Larkins’ little table spread with objects of divination. “It’s quite all right. I don’t want to know.”

But Miss Larkins advanced on him and seized him by his shoulders. Cat squirmed. Miss Larkins used a scent that shrieked VIOLETS! at him, her earrings swung like manacles, and her corsets creaked when she was close to. “Silly boy!” Miss Larkins said, in her rich, melodious voice. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to know.”

“But – but I don’t,” Cat said, twisting this way and that.

“Hold still,” said Miss Larkins, and tried to stare deep into Cat’s eyes.

Cat shut his eyes hastily. He squirmed harder than ever. He might have got loose, had not Miss Larkins abruptly gone off into some kind of trance. Cat found himself being gripped with a strength that would have surprised him even in the Willing Warlock. He opened his eyes to find Miss Larkins staring blankly at him. Her body shook, creaking her corsets like old doors swinging in the wind. “Oh, please let go!” Cat said. But Miss Larkins did not appear to hear. Cat took hold of the fingers gripping his shoulder and tried to prise them loose. He could not move them. After that, he could only stare helplessly at Miss Larkins’ blank face.

Miss Larkins opened her mouth, and quite a different voice came out. It was a man’s voice, brisk and kindly. “You’ve taken a weight off my mind, lad,” it said. It sounded pleased. “There’ll be a big change coming up for you now. But you’ve been awfully careless – four gone already, and only five left. You must take more care. You’re in danger from at least two directions, did you know?”

The voice stopped. By this time, Cat was so frightened that he dared not move. He could only wait until Miss Larkins came to herself, yawned, and let go of him in order to cover her mouth elegantly with one hand.

“There,” she said in her usual voice. “That was it. What did I say?”

Finding Miss Larkins had no idea what she had said brought Cat out in goose pimples. All he wanted to do was to run away. He dashed for the door.

Miss Larkins pursued him, seized his arms again and shook him. “Tell me! Tell me! What did I say?” With the violence of her shaking, her red hair came down in sheets. Her corsets sounded like bending planks. She was terrifying. “What voice did I use?” she demanded.

“A – a man’s voice,” Cat faltered. “Sort of nice, and no nonsense about it.”

Miss Larkins seemed dumbfounded. “A man? Not Bobby or Doddo – not a child’s voice, I mean?”

“No,” said Cat.

“How peculiar!” said Miss Larkins. “I never use a man. What did he say?”

Cat repeated what the voice had said. He thought he would never forget it if he lived to ninety.

It was some consolation to find that Miss Larkins was quite as puzzled by it as he was. “Well, I suppose it was a warning,” she said dubiously. She also seemed disappointed. “And nothing else? Nothing about your sister?”

“No, nothing,” said Cat.

“Oh well, can’t be helped,” Miss Larkins said discontentedly, and she let go of Cat in order to put her hair up again.

As soon as both her hands were safely occupied in pinning her bun, Cat ran. He shot out into the street, feeling very shaken.

And he was caught by two more people almost at once.

“Ah. Here is young Eric Chant now,” said Mr Nostrum, advancing down the pavement. “You are acquainted with my brother William, are you, young Cat?”

Cat was once more caught by an arm. He tried to smile. It was not that he disliked Mr Nostrum. It was just that Mr Nostrum always talked in this jocular way and called him “Young Chant” every few words, which made it very difficult to talk to Mr Nostrum in return. Mr Nostrum was small and plumpish, with two wings of grizzled hair. He had a cast in his left eye, too, which always stared out sideways. Cat found that added to the difficulty of talking to Mr Nostrum. Was he looking and listening? Or was his mind elsewhere with that wandering eye?

“Yes – yes, I’ve met your brother,” Cat reminded Mr Nostrum. Mr William Nostrum came to visit his brother regularly. Cat saw him almost once a month. He was quite a well-to-do wizard, with a practice in Eastbourne. Mrs Sharp claimed that Mr Henry Nostrum sponged on his wealthier brother, both for money and for spells that worked.

Whatever the truth of that, Cat found Mr William Nostrum even harder to talk to than his brother. He was half as large again as Mr Henry and always wore morning dress with a huge silver watch-chain across his tubby waistcoat. Otherwise, he was the image of Mr Henry Nostrum, except that both his eyes were out of true. Cat always wondered how Mr William saw anything. “How do you do, sir,” he said to him politely.

“Very well,” said Mr William in a deep gloomy voice, as if the opposite was true.

Mr Henry Nostrum glanced up at him apologetically. “The fact is, young Chant,” he explained, “we have met with a little setback. My brother is upset.” He lowered his voice, and his wandering eye wandered all round Cat’s right side. “It’s about those letters from – You Know Who. We can find out nothing. It seems Gwendolen knows nothing. Do you, young Chant, perchance know why your esteemed and lamented father should be acquainted with – with, let us call him, the August Personage who signed them?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, I’m afraid,” said Cat.

“Could he have been some relation?” suggested Mr Henry Nostrum. “Chant is a Good Name.”

“I think it must be a bad name, too,” Cat answered. “We haven’t any relations.”

“But what of your dear mother?” persisted Mr Nostrum, his odd eye travelling away, while his brother managed to stare gloomily at the pavement and the rooftops at once.

“You can see the poor boy knows nothing, Henry,” Mr William said. “I doubt if he would be able to tell us his dear mother’s maiden name.”

“Oh, I do know that,” said Cat. “It’s on their marriage lines. She was called Chant too.”

“Odd,” said Mr Nostrum, swirling an eye at his brother.

“Odd, and peculiarly unhelpful,” Mr William agreed.

Cat wanted to get away. He felt he had taken enough strange questions to last till Christmas. “Well, if you want to know that badly,” he said, “why don’t you write and ask Mr – er – Mr Chres—”

“Hush!” said Mr Henry Nostrum violently.

“Hum!” said his brother, almost equally violently.

“August Personage, I mean,” Cat said, looking at Mr William in alarm. Mr William’s eyes had gone right to the sides of his face. Cat was afraid he might be going off into a trance, like Miss Larkins.

“It will serve, Henry, it will serve!” Mr William cried out. And, with great triumph, he lifted the silver watch-chain off his middle and shook it. “Then for silver!” he cried.

“I’m so glad,” Cat said politely. “I have to be going now.” He ran off down the street as fast as he could. When he went out that afternoon, he took care to turn right and go out of Coven Street past the Willing Warlock’s house. It was rather a nuisance, since that was the long way round to where most of his friends lived, but anything was better than meeting Miss Larkins or the Nostrums again. It was almost enough to make Cat wish that school had started.

When Cat came home that evening, Gwendolen was just back from her lesson with Mr Nostrum. She had her usual glowing, exulting look, but she was looking secretive and important too.

“That was a good idea of yours of writing to Chrestomanci,” she said to Cat. “I can’t think why I didn’t think of it. Anyway, I just have.”

“Why did you do it? Couldn’t Mr Nostrum?” Cat said.

“It came more naturally from me,” said Gwendolen. “And I suppose it doesn’t matter if he gets my signature. Mr Nostrum told me what to write.”

“Why does he want to know anyway?” Cat asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Gwendolen said exultingly.

“No,” said Cat. “I wouldn’t.” Since this had brought what happened that morning into his mind, which still made him almost wish the Autumn term had started, he said, “I wish the conkers were ripe.”

“Conkers!” Gwendolen said, in the greatest disgust. “What a low mind you have! They won’t be ready for a good six weeks.”

“I know,” said Cat, and for the next two days he carefully turned right every time he left the house.

They were the lovely golden days that happen when August is passing into September. Cat and his friends went out along the river. On the second day, they found a wall and climbed it. There was an orchard beyond, and here they were lucky enough to discover a tree loaded with sweet white apples – the kind that ripen early. They filled their pockets and their hats. Then a furious gardener chased them with a rake. They ran. Cat was very happy as he carried his full, knobby hat home. Mrs Sharp loved apples. He just hoped that she would not reward him by making gingerbread men. As a rule, gingerbread men were fun. They leapt up off the plate and ran when you tried to eat them, so that when you finally caught them you felt quite justified in eating them. It was a fair fight, and some got away. But Mrs Sharp’s gingerbread men never did that. They simply lay, feebly waving their arms, and Cat never had the heart to eat them.

Cat was so busy thinking of all this that, though he noticed a four-wheel cab standing in the road as he turned the corner by the Willing Warlock’s house, he paid no attention to it. He went to the side-door and burst into the kitchen with his hatful of apples, shouting, “I say! Look what I’ve got, Mrs Sharp!”

Mrs Sharp was not there. Instead, standing in the middle of the kitchen, was a tall and quite extraordinarily well-dressed man.

Cat stared at him in some dismay. He was clearly a rich new Town Councillor. Nobody but those kind of people wore trousers with such pearly stripes, or coats of such beautiful velvet, or carried tall hats as shiny as their boots. The man’s hair was dark. It was smooth as his hat. Cat had no doubt that this was Gwendolen’s Dark Stranger, come to help her start ruling the world. And he should not have been in the kitchen at all. Visitors were always taken straight to the parlour.

“Oh, how do you do, sir. Will you come this way, sir?” he gasped.

The Dark Stranger gave him a wondering look. And well he might, Cat thought, looking round distractedly. The kitchen was in its usual mess. The range was all ash. On the table, Cat saw, to his further dismay, Mrs Sharp had been making gingerbread men. The ingredients for the spell lay on the end of the table – all grubby newspaper packets and seedy little jars – and the gingerbread itself was strewn over the middle of the table. At the far end, the flies were gathering round the meat for lunch, which looked nearly as messy as the spell.

“Who are you?” said the Dark Stranger. “I have a feeling I should know you. What have you got in your hat?”

Cat was too busy staring round to attend properly, but he caught the last question. His pleasure returned. “Apples,” he said, showing the Stranger. “Lovely sweet ones. I’ve been scrumping.”

The Stranger looked grave. “Scrumping,” he said, “is a form of stealing.”

Cat knew that as well as he did. He thought it was very joyless, even for a Town Councillor, to point it out. “I know. But I bet you did it when you were my age.”

The Stranger coughed slightly and changed the subject. “You haven’t said yet who you are.”

“Sorry. Didn’t I?” said Cat. “I’m Eric Chant – only they always call me Cat.”

“Then is Gwendolen Chant your sister?” the Stranger asked. He was looking more and more austere and pitying. Cat suspected that he thought Mrs Sharp’s kitchen was a den of vice.

“That’s right. Won’t you come this way?” Cat said, hoping to get the Stranger out of it. “It’s neater through here.”

“I had a letter from your sister,” the Stranger said, standing where he was. “She gave me the impression you had drowned with your parents.”

“You must have made a mistake,” Cat said distractedly. “I didn’t drown because I was holding on to Gwendolen, and she’s a witch. It’s cleaner through here.”

“I see,” said the Stranger. “I’m called Chrestomanci, by the way.”

“Oh!” said Cat. This was a real crisis. He put his hat of apples down in the middle of the spell, which he very much hoped would ruin it. “Then you’ve got to come in the parlour at once.”

“Why?” said Chrestomanci, sounding rather bewildered.

“Because,” said Cat, thoroughly exasperated, “you’re far too important to stay here.”

“What makes you think I’m important?” Chrestomanci asked, still bewildered.

Cat was beginning to want to shake him. “You must be. You’re wearing important clothes. And Mrs Sharp said you were. She said Mr Nostrum would give his eyes just for your three letters.”

“Has Mr Nostrum given his eyes for my letters?” asked Chrestomanci. “It hardly seems worth it.”

“No. He just gave Gwendolen lessons for them,” said Cat.

“What? For his eyes? How uncomfortable!” said Chrestomanci.

Fortunately, there were thumping footsteps just then, and Gwendolen burst in through the kitchen door, panting, golden and jubilant. “Mr Chrestomanci?”

“Just Chrestomanci,” said the Stranger. “Yes. Would you be Gwendolen?”

“Yes. Mr Nostrum told me there was a cab here,” gasped Gwendolen.

She was followed by Mrs Sharp, nearly as breathless. The two of them took over the conversation, and Cat was thankful for it. Chrestomanci at last consented to be taken to the parlour, where Mrs Sharp deferentially offered him a cup of tea and a plate of her weakly waving gingerbread men. Chrestomanci, Cat was interested to see, did not seem to have the heart to eat them either. He drank a cup of tea – austerely, without milk or sugar – and asked questions about how Gwendolen and Cat came to be living with Mrs Sharp. Mrs Sharp tried to give the impression that she looked after them for nothing, out of the goodness of her heart. She hoped Chrestomanci might be induced to pay her for their keep, as well as the Town Council.

But Gwendolen had decided to be radiantly honest. “The town pays,” she said, “because everyone’s so sorry about the accident.” Cat was glad she had explained, even though he suspected that Gwendolen might already be casting Mrs Sharp off like an old coat.

“Then I must go and speak to the Mayor,” Chrestomanci said, and he stood up, dusting his splendid hat on his elegant sleeve. Mrs Sharp sighed and sagged. She knew what Gwendolen was doing, too. “Don’t be anxious, Mrs Sharp,” said Chrestomanci. “No one wishes you to be out of pocket.” Then he shook hands with Gwendolen and Cat and said, “I should have come to see you before, of course. Forgive me. Your father was so infernally rude to me, you see. I’ll see you again, I hope.” Then he went away in the cab, leaving Mrs Sharp very sour, Gwendolen jubilant, and Cat nervous.

“Why are you so happy?” Cat asked Gwendolen.

“Because he was touched at our orphaned state,” said Gwendolen. “He’s going to adopt us. My fortune is made!”

“Don’t talk such nonsense!” snapped Mrs Sharp. “Your fortune is the same as it ever was. He may have come here in all his finery, but he said nothing and he promised nothing.”

Gwendolen smiled confidently. “You didn’t see the heart-wringing letter I wrote.”

“Maybe. But he’s not got a heart to wring,” Mrs Sharp retorted. Cat rather agreed with Mrs Sharp – particularly as he had an uneasy feeling that, before Gwendolen and Mrs Sharp arrived, he had somehow managed to offend Chrestomanci as badly as his father once did. He hoped Gwendolen would not realise. He knew she would be furious with him.

But, to his astonishment, Gwendolen proved to be right. The Mayor called that afternoon and told them that Chrestomanci had arranged for Cat and Gwendolen to come and live with him as part of his own family. “And I see I needn’t tell you what lucky little people you are,” he said, as Gwendolen uttered a shriek of joy and hugged the dour Mrs Sharp.

Cat felt more nervous than ever. He tugged the Mayor’s sleeve. “If you please, sir, I don’t understand who Chrestomanci is.”

The Mayor patted him kindly on the head. “A very eminent gentleman,” he said. “You’ll be hobnobbing with all the crowned heads of Europe before long, my boy. What do you think of that, eh?”

Cat did not know what to think. This had told him precisely nothing, and made him more nervous than ever. He supposed Gwendolen must have written a very touching letter indeed.

So the second great change came about in Cat’s life, and very dismal he feared it would be. All that next week, while they were hurrying about being bought new clothes by Councillors’ wives, and while Gwendolen grew more and more excited and triumphant, Cat found he was missing Mrs Sharp, and everyone else, even Miss Larkins, as if he had already left them. When the time came for them to get on the train, the town gave them a splendid send-off, with flags and a brass band. It upset Cat. He sat tensely on the edge of his seat, fearing he was in for a time of strangeness and maybe even misery.

Gwendolen, however, spread out her smart new dress and arranged her nice new hat becomingly, and sank elegantly back in her seat. “I did it!” she said joyously. “Cat, isn’t it marvellous?”

“No,” Cat said miserably. “I’m homesick already. What have you done? Why do you keep being so happy?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” said Gwendolen. “But I’ll tell you part of it. I’ve got out of dead-and-alive Wolvercote at last – stupid Councillors and piffling necromancers! And Chrestomanci was bowled over by me. You saw that, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t notice specially,” said Cat. “I mean, I saw you were being nice to him—”

“Oh, shut up, or I’ll give you worse than cramps!” said Gwendolen. And, as the train at last chuffed and began to draw out of the station, Gwendolen waved her gloved hand to the brass band, up and down, just like Royalty. Cat realised she was setting out to rule the world.

CHAPTER THREE

The train journey lasted about an hour, before the train puffed into Bowbridge, where they were to get out.

“It’s frightfully small,” Gwendolen said critically.

“Bowbridge!” shouted a porter, running along the platform. “Bowbridge. The young Chants alight here, please.”

“Young Chants!” Gwendolen said disdainfully. “Can’t they treat me with more respect?” All the same, the attention pleased her. Cat could see that, as she drew on her ladylike gloves, she was shaking with excitement. He cowered behind her as they got out and watched their trunks being tossed out on to the windy platform. Gwendolen marched up to the shouting porter. “We are the young Chants,” she told him magnificently.

It fell a little flat. The porter simply beckoned and scurried away to the entrance lobby, which was windier even than the platform. Gwendolen had to hold her hat on. Here, a young man strode towards them in a billow of flapping coat.

“We are the young Chants,” Gwendolen told him.

“Gwendolen and Eric? Pleased to meet you,” said the young man. “I’m Michael Saunders. I’ll be tutoring you with the other children.”

“Other children?” Gwendolen asked him haughtily. But Mr Saunders was evidently one of those people who are not good at standing still. He had already darted off to see about their trunks. Gwendolen was a trifle annoyed. But when Mr Saunders came back and led them outside into the station yard, they found a motor car waiting – long, black and sleek. Gwendolen forgot her annoyance. She felt this was entirely fitting.

Cat wished it had been a carriage. The car jerked and thrummed and smelt of petrol. He felt sick almost at once. He felt sicker still when they left Bowbridge and thrummed along a winding country road. The only advantage he could see was that the car went very quickly. After only ten minutes, Mr Saunders said, “Look – there’s Chrestomanci Castle now. You get the best view from here.”

Cat turned his sick face and Gwendolen her fresh one the way he pointed. The Castle was grey and turreted, on the opposite hill. As the road turned, they saw it had a new part, with a spread of big windows, and a flag flying above. They could see grand trees – dark, layered cedars and big elms – and glimpse lawns and flowers.

“It looks marvellous,” Cat said sickly, rather surprised that Gwendolen had said nothing. He hoped the road did not wind too much in getting to the Castle.

It did not. The car flashed round a village green and between big gates. Then there was a long tree-lined avenue, with the great door of the old part of the Castle at the end of it. The car scrunched round on the gravel sweep in front of it. Gwendolen leant forward eagerly, ready to be the first one out. It was clear there would be a butler, and perhaps footmen too. She could hardly wait to make her grand entry.

But the car went on, past the grey, knobbly walls of the old Castle, and stopped at an obscure door where the new part began. It was almost a secretive door. There was a mass of rhododendron trees hiding it from both parts of the Castle.

“I’m taking you in this way,” Mr Saunders explained cheerfully, “because it’s the door you’ll be using mostly, and I thought it would help you find your way about if you start as you mean to go on.”

Cat did not mind. He thought the door looked more homely. But Gwendolen, cheated of her grand entry, threw Mr Saunders a seething look and wondered whether to say a most unpleasant spell at him. She decided against it. She was still wanting to give a good impression. They got out of the car and followed Mr Saunders – whose coat had a way of billowing even when there was no wind – into a square polished passageway indoors.

A most imposing lady was waiting there to meet them. She was wearing a tight purple dress, and her hair was in a very tall jet-black pile. Cat thought she must be Mrs Chrestomanci.

“This is Miss Bessemer, the housekeeper,” said Mr Saunders. “Eric and Gwendolen, Miss Bessemer. Eric’s a bit car-sick, I’m afraid.”

Cat had not realised his trouble was so obvious. He was embarrassed. Gwendolen, who was very annoyed to be met by a mere housekeeper, held her hand out coldly to Miss Bessemer.

Miss Bessemer shook hands like an Empress. Cat was just thinking she was the most awe-inspiring lady he had ever met, when she turned to him with a very kind smile. “Poor Eric,” she said. “Riding in a car bothers me ever so, too. You’ll be all right now you’re out of the thing – but if you’re not, I’ll give you something for it. Come and get washed, and have a look-see at your rooms.”

They followed the narrow purple triangle of her dress up some stairs, along corridors, and up more stairs. Cat had never seen anywhere so luxurious. There was carpet the whole way – a soft green carpet, like grass in the dewy morning – and the floor at the sides was polished so that it reflected the carpet and the clean white walls and the pictures hung on the walls. Everywhere was very quiet. They heard nothing the whole way, except their own feet and Miss Bessemer’s purple rustle.

Miss Bessemer opened a door on to a blaze of afternoon sun. “This is your room, Gwendolen. Your bathroom opens off it.”

“Thank you,” said Gwendolen, and she sailed magnificently in to take possession of it. Cat peeped past Miss Bessemer and saw the room was very big, with a rich, soft Turkey carpet covering most of the floor.

Miss Bessemer said, “The Family dines early when there are no visitors, so that they can eat with the children. But I expect you’d like some tea all the same. Whose room shall I have it sent to?”

“Mine, please,” said Gwendolen at once.

There was a short pause before Miss Bessemer said, “Well, that’s settled then, isn’t it? Your room is up here, Eric.”

The way was up a twisting staircase. Cat was pleased. It looked as if his room was going to be part of the old Castle. And he was right. When Miss Bessemer opened the door, the room beyond was round, and the three windows showed that the wall was nearly three feet thick. Cat could not resist racing across the glowing carpet to scramble on one of the deep window-seats and look out. He found he could see across the flat tops of the cedars to a great lawn like a sheet of green velvet, with flower gardens going down the hillside in steps beyond it. Then he looked round the room itself. The curved walls were whitewashed, and so was the thick fireplace. The bed had a patchwork quilt on it. There was a table, a chest-of-drawers and a bookcase with interesting-looking books in it.

“Oh, I like this!” he said to Miss Bessemer.

“I’m afraid your bathroom is down the passage,” said Miss Bessemer, as if this was a drawback. But, as Cat had never had a private bathroom before, he did not mind in the least.

As soon as Miss Bessemer had gone, he hastened along to have a look at it. To his awe, there were three sizes of red towel and a sponge as big as a melon. The bath had feet like a lion’s. One corner of the room was tiled, with red rubber curtains, for a shower. Cat could not resist experimenting. The bathroom was rather wet by the time he had finished. He went back to his room, a little damp himself. His trunk and box were there by this time, and a maid with red hair was unpacking them. She told Cat her name was Mary, and wanted to know if she was putting things in the right places. She was perfectly pleasant, but Cat was very shy of her. The red hair reminded him of Miss Larkins, and he could not think what to say to her.

“Er – may I go down and have some tea?” he stammered.

“Please yourself,” she said – rather coldly, Cat thought. He ran downstairs again, feeling he might have got off on the wrong foot with her.

Gwendolen’s trunk was standing in the middle of her room. Gwendolen herself was sitting in a very queenly way at a round table by the window, with a big pewter teapot in front of her, a plate of brown bread and butter, and a plate of biscuits.

“I told the girl I’d unpack for myself,” she said. “I’ve got secrets in my trunk and my box. And I asked her to bring tea at once because I’m starving. And just look at it! Did you ever see anything so dull? Not even jam!”

“Perhaps the biscuits are nice,” Cat said hopefully. But they were not, or not particularly.

“We shall starve, in the midst of luxury!” sighed Gwendolen.

Her room was certainly luxurious. The wallpaper seemed to be made of blue velvet. The top and bottom of the bed was upholstered like a chair, in blue velvet with buttons in it, and the blue velvet bedspread matched it exactly. The chairs were painted gold. There was a dressing-table fit for a princess, with little golden drawers, gold-backed brushes, and a long oval mirror surrounded by a gilded wreath. Gwendolen admitted that she liked the dressing-table, though she was not so sure about the wardrobe, which had painted garlands and maypole-dancers on it.

“It’s to hang clothes in, not to look at,” she said. “It distracts me. But the bathroom is lovely.”

The bathroom was tiled with blue and white tiles, and the bath was sunk down into the tiled floor. Over it, draped like a baby’s cradle, were blue curtains for when you wanted a shower. The towels matched the tiles. Cat preferred his own bathroom, but that may have been because he had to spend rather a long time in Gwendolen’s. Gwendolen locked him in it while she unpacked. Through the hiss of the shower – Gwendolen had only herself to blame that she found her bathroom thoroughly soaked afterwards – Cat heard her voice raised in annoyance at someone who had come in to take the dull tea away and caught her with her trunk open. When Gwendolen finally unlocked the bathroom door, she was still angry.

“I don’t think the servants here are very civil,” she said. “If that girl says one thing more, she’ll find herself with a boil on her nose – even if her name is Euphemia! Though,” Gwendolen added charitably, “I’m inclined to think being called Euphemia is punishment enough for anyone. You have to go and get your new suit on, Cat. She says dinner’s in half an hour and we have to change for it. Did you ever hear anything so formal and unnatural!”

“I thought you were looking forward to that kind of thing,” said Cat, who most certainly was not.

“You can be grand and natural,” Gwendolen retorted. But the thought of the coming grandeur soothed her all the same. “I shall wear my blue dress with the lace collar,” she said. “And I do think being called Euphemia is a heavy enough burden for anyone to bear, however rude they are.”

As Cat went up his winding stair, the Castle filled with a mysterious booming. It was the first noise he had heard. It alarmed him. He learnt later that it was the dressing-gong, to warn the Family that they had half an hour to change in. Cat, of course, did not take nearly that time to put his suit on. So he had yet another shower. He felt damp and weak and almost washed out of existence by the time the maid who was so unfortunate in being called Euphemia came to take him and Gwendolen downstairs to the drawing room where the Family was waiting.

Gwendolen, in her pretty blue dress, sailed in confidently. Cat crept behind. The room seemed full of people. Cat had no idea how all of them came to be part of the Family. There was an old lady in lace mittens, and a small man with large eyebrows and a loud voice who was talking about stocks and shares; Mr Saunders, whose wrists and ankles were too long for his shiny black suit; and at least two younger ladies; and at least two younger men. Cat saw Chrestomanci, quite splendid in very dark red velvet; and Chrestomanci saw Cat and Gwendolen and looked at them with a vague, perplexed smile, which made Cat quite sure that Chrestomanci had forgotten who they were.

“Oh,” said Chrestomanci. “Er. This is my wife.”

They were ushered in front of a plump lady with a mild face. She had a gorgeous lace dress on – Gwendolen’s eyes swept up and down it with considerable awe – but otherwise she was one of the most ordinary ladies they had ever seen. She gave them a friendly smile. “Eric and Gwendolen, isn’t it? You must call me Millie, my dears.” This was a relief, because neither of them had any idea what they should have called her. “And now you must meet my Julia and my Roger,” she said.

Two plump children came and stood beside her. They were both rather pale and had a tendency to breathe heavily. The girl wore a lace dress like her mother’s, and the boy had on a blue velvet suit, but no clothes could disguise the fact that they were even more ordinary-looking than their mother. They looked politely at Gwendolen and at Cat, and all four said, “How do you do?” Then there seemed nothing else to say.

Luckily, they had not stood there long before a butler came and opened the double doors at the end of the room, and told them that dinner was served. Gwendolen looked at this butler in great indignation. “Why didn’t he open the door to us?” she whispered to Cat, as they all went in a ragged sort of procession to the dining room. “Why were we fobbed off with the housekeeper?”

Cat did not answer. He was too busy clinging to Gwendolen. They were being arranged round a long polished table, and if anyone had tried to put Cat in a chair that was not next to Gwendolen’s he thought he would have fainted from terror. Luckily, no one tried. Even so, the meal was terrifying enough. Footmen kept pushing delicious food in silver plates over Cat’s left shoulder. Each time that happened, it took Cat by surprise, and he jumped and jogged the plate. He was supposed to help himself off the silver plate, and he never knew how much he was allowed to take. But the worst difficulty was that he was left-handed. The spoon and fork that he was supposed to lift the food with from the footman’s plate to his own were always the wrong way round. He tried changing them over, and dropped a spoon. He tried leaving them as they were, and spilt gravy. The footman always said, “Not to worry, sir,” and made him feel worse than ever.

The conversation was even more terrifying. At one end of the table, the small loud man talked endlessly of stocks and shares. At Cat’s end, they talked about Art. Mr Saunders seemed to have spent the summer travelling abroad. He had seen statues and paintings all over Europe and much admired them. He was so eager that he slapped the table as he talked. He spoke of Studios and Schools, Quattrocento and Dutch Interiors, until Cat’s head went round. Cat looked at Mr Saunders’s thin, square-cheeked face and marvelled at all the knowledge behind it. Then Millie and Chrestomanci joined in. Millie recited a string of names Cat had never heard in his life before. Chrestomanci made comments on them, as if these names were intimate friends of his. Whatever the rest of the Family was like, Cat thought, Chrestomanci was not ordinary. He had very black bright eyes, which were striking even when he was looking vague and dreamy. When he was interested – as he was about Art – the black eyes screwed up in a way that seemed to spill the brightness of them over the rest of his face. And, to Cat’s dismay, the two children were equally interested. They kept up a mild chirp, as if they actually knew what their parents were talking about.

Cat felt crushingly ignorant. What with this talk, and the trouble over the suddenly-appearing silver plates, and the dull biscuits he had eaten for tea, he found he had no appetite at all. He had to leave half his ice-cream pudding. He envied Gwendolen for being able to sit so calmly and scornfully enjoying her food.

It was over at last. They were allowed to escape up to Gwendolen’s luxurious room. There, Gwendolen sat on her upholstered bed with a bounce.

“What a childish trick!” she said. “They were showing off just to make us feel small. Mr Nostrum warned me they would. It’s to disguise the thinness of their souls. What an awful, dull wife! And did you ever see anyone so plain and stupid as those two children! I know I’m going to hate it here. This Castle’s crushing me already.”

“It may not be so bad once we get used to it,” Cat said, without hope.

“It’ll be worse,” Gwendolen promised him. “There’s something about this Castle. It’s a bad influence, and a deadness. It’s squashing the life and the witchcraft out of me. I can hardly breathe.”

“You’re imagining things,” said Cat, “because you want to be back with Mrs Sharp.” And he sighed. He missed Mrs Sharp badly.

“No I’m not imagining it,” said Gwendolen. “I should have thought it was strong enough even for you to feel. Go on, try. Can’t you feel the deadness?”

Cat did not really need to try, to see what she meant. There was something strange about the Castle. He had thought it was simply that it was so quiet. But it was more than that: there was a softness to the atmosphere, a weightiness, as if everything they said or did was muffled under a great feather quilt. Normal sounds, like their two voices, seemed thin. There were no echoes to them. “Yes, it is queer,” he agreed.

“It’s more than queer – it’s terrible,” said Gwendolen. “I shall be lucky if I survive.” Then she added, to Cat’s surprise, “So I’m not sorry I came.”

“I am,” said Cat.

“Oh, you would need looking after!” said Gwendolen. “All right. There’s a pack of cards on the dressing-table. They’re for divination really, but if we take the trumps out we can use them to play Snap with, if you like.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The same softness and silence were there when the red-haired Mary woke Cat the next morning and told him it was time to get up. Bright morning sunshine was flooding the curved walls of his room. Though Cat knew now that the Castle must be full of people, he could not hear a sound from any of them. Nor could he hear anything from outside the windows.

I know what it’s like! Cat thought. It’s like when it’s snowed in the night. The idea made him feel so pleased and so warm that he went to sleep again.

“You really must get up, Eric,” Mary said, shaking him. “I’ve run your bath, and your lessons start at nine. Make haste, or you won’t have time for breakfast.”

Cat got up. He had so strong a feeling that it had snowed in the night that he was quite surprised to find his room warm in the sun. He looked out of the windows, and there were green lawns and flowers, and rooks circling the green trees, as if there had been some mistake. Mary had gone. Cat was glad, because he was not at all sure he liked her, and he was afraid of missing breakfast. When he was dressed, he went along to the bathroom and let the hot water out of the bath. Then he dashed down the twisting stairs to find Gwendolen.

“Where do we go for breakfast?” he asked her anxiously.

Gwendolen was never at her best in the morning. She was sitting on her blue velvet stool in front of her garlanded mirror, crossly combing her golden hair. Combing her hair was another thing which always made her cross. “I don’t know and I don’t care! Shut up!” she said.

“Now that’s no way to speak,” said the maid called Euphemia, briskly following Cat into the room. She was rather a pretty girl, and she did not seem to find her name the burden it should have been. “We’re waiting to give you breakfast along here. Come on.”

Gwendolen hurled her comb down expressively, and they followed Euphemia to a room just along the corridor. It was a square, airy room, with a row of big windows, but, compared with the rest of the Castle, it was rather shabby. The leather chairs were battered. The grassy carpet had stains on it. None of the cupboards would shut properly. Things like clockwork trains and tennis rackets bulged out. Julia and Roger were sitting waiting at a table by the windows, in clothes as shabby as the room.

Mary, who was waiting there too, said, “And about time!” and began to work an interesting lift in a cupboard by the fireplace. There was a clank. Mary opened the lift and fetched out a large plate of bread and butter and a steaming brown jug of cocoa. She brought these over to the table, and Euphemia poured each child a mug of the cocoa.

Gwendolen stared from her mug to the plate of bread. “Is this all there is?”

“What else do you want?” asked Euphemia.

Gwendolen could not find words to express what she wanted. Porridge, bacon and eggs, grapefruit, toast and kippers all occurred to her at once, and she went on staring.

“Make up your mind,” Euphemia said at last. “My breakfast’s waiting for me too, you know.”

“Isn’t there any marmalade?” said Gwendolen.

Euphemia and Mary looked at one another. “Julia and Roger are not allowed marmalade,” Mary said.

“Nobody forbade me to have it,” said Gwendolen. “Get me some marmalade at once.”

Mary went to a speaking tube by the lift, and, after much rumbling and another clank, a pot of marmalade arrived. Mary brought it and put it in front of Gwendolen.

“Thank you,” Cat said fervently. He felt as strongly about it as Gwendolen – more, in fact, because he hated cocoa.

“Oh, no trouble, I’m sure!” Mary said, in what was certainly a sarcastic way, and the two maids went out.

For a while, nobody said anything.

Then Roger said to Cat, “Pass the marmalade, please.”

“You’re not supposed to have it,” said Gwendolen, whose temper had not improved.

“Nobody will know if I use one of your knives,” Roger said placidly.

Cat passed him the marmalade and his knife, too. “Why aren’t you allowed it?”

Julia and Roger looked at each other in a mild, secretive way. “We’re too fat,” Julia said, calmly taking the knife and the marmalade after Roger had done with them. Cat was not surprised, when he saw how much marmalade they had managed to pile on their bread. Marmalade stood on both slices like a sticky brown cliff.

Gwendolen looked at them with disgust, and then, rather complacently, down at her trim linen dress. The contrast was certainly striking. “Your father is such a handsome man,” she said. “It must be such a disappointment to him that you’re both pudgy and plain, like your mother.”

The two children looked at her placidly over their cliffs of marmalade. “Oh, I wouldn’t know,” said Roger.

“Pudgy is comfortable,” said Julia. “It must be a nuisance to look like a china doll, the way you do.”

Gwendolen’s blue eyes glared. She made a small sign under the edge of the table. The bread and thick marmalade whisked itself from Julia’s hands and slapped itself on Julia’s face, marmalade side inwards. Julia gasped a little. “How dare you insult me!” said Gwendolen.

Julia peeled the bread slowly off her face and then fumbled out a handkerchief. Cat supposed she was going to wipe her face. But she let the marmalade stay where it was, trundling in blobs down her plump cheeks, and simply tied a knot in her handkerchief. She pulled the knot slowly tight, looking meaningly at Gwendolen while she did so. With the final pull, the half-full jug of cocoa shot steaming into the air. It hovered for a second, and then shot sideways to hang just above Gwendolen’s head. Then it began to joggle itself into tipping position.

“Stop it!” gasped Gwendolen. She put up a hand to ward the jug off. The jug dodged her and went on tipping. Gwendolen made another sign and gasped out strange words. The jug took not the slightest notice. It went on tipping, until cocoa was brimming in the very end of its spout. Gwendolen tried to lean out sideways away from it. The jug simply joggled along in the air until it was hanging over her head again.

“Shall I make it pour?” Julia asked. There was a bit of a smile under the marmalade.

“You dare!” screamed Gwendolen. “I’ll tell Chrestomanci of you! I’ll – oh!” She sat up straight again, and the jug followed her faithfully. Gwendolen made another grab at it, and it dodged again.

“Careful. You’ll make it spill. And what a shame about your pretty dress,” Roger said, watching complacently.

“Shut up, you!” Gwendolen shouted at him, leaning out the other way, so that she was nearly in Cat’s lap. Cat looked up nervously as the jug came and hovered over him too. It seemed to be going to pour.

But, at that moment, the door opened and Chrestomanci came in, wearing a flowered silk dressing-gown. It was a red and purple dressing-gown, with gold at the neck and sleeves. It made Chrestomanci look amazingly tall, amazingly thin, and astonishingly stately. He could have been an Emperor, or a particularly severe Bishop. He was smiling as he came in, but the smile vanished when he saw the jug.

The jug tried to vanish too. It fled back to the table at the sight of him, so quickly that cocoa slopped out of it on to Gwendolen’s dress – which may or may not have been an accident. Julia and Roger both looked stricken. Julia unknotted her handkerchief as if for dear life.

“Well, I was coming in to say good morning,” Chrestomanci said. “But I see that it isn’t.” He looked from the jug to Julia’s marmalade-glistening cheeks. “If you two ever want to eat marmalade again,” he said, “you’d better do as you’re told. And the same goes for all four of you.”

“I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Gwendolen said, as if butter – not to speak of marmalade – would not have melted in her mouth.

“Yes, you were,” said Roger.

Chrestomanci came to the end of the table and stood looking down on them, with his hands in the pockets of his noble robe. He looked so tall like that that Cat was surprised that his head was still under the ceiling. “There’s one absolute rule in this Castle,” he said, “which it will pay you all to remember. No witchcraft of any kind is to be practised by children unless Michael Saunders is here to supervise you. Have you understood, Gwendolen?”

“Yes,” said Gwendolen. She gripped her lips together and clenched her hands, but she was still shaking with rage. “I refuse to keep such a silly rule!”

Chrestomanci did not seem to hear, or to notice how angry she was. He turned to Cat. “Have you understood too, Eric?”

“Me?” Cat said in surprise. “Yes, of course.”

“Good,” said Chrestomanci. “Now I will say good morning.”

“Good morning, Daddy,” said Julia and Roger. “Er – good morning,” Cat said. Gwendolen pretended not to hear. Two could play at that game. Chrestomanci smiled and swept out of the room like a very long procession of one person.

“Tell-tale!” Gwendolen said to Roger, as soon as the door had shut. “And that was a dirty trick with that jug! You were both doing it, weren’t you?”

Roger smiled sleepily, not in the least disturbed. “Witchcraft runs in our family,” he said.

“And we’ve both inherited it,” said Julia. “I must go and wash.” She picked up three slices of bread to keep her going while she did so, and left the room, calling over her shoulder, “Tell Michael I won’t be long, Roger.”

“More cocoa?” Roger said politely, picking up the jug.

“Yes, please,” said Cat. It never bothered him to eat or drink things that had been bewitched, and he was thirsty. He thought that if he filled his mouth with marmalade and strained the cocoa through it, he might not taste the cocoa. Gwendolen, however, was sure Roger was trying to insult her. She flounced round in her chair and stayed haughtily looking at the wall, until Mr Saunders suddenly threw open a door Cat had not noticed before and said cheerfully:

“Right, all of you. Lesson time. Come on through and see how you stand up to some grilling.”

Cat hastily swallowed his cocoa-flavoured marmalade. Beyond the door was a schoolroom. It was a real, genuine schoolroom, although there were only four desks in it. There was a blackboard, a globe, the pitted school floor and the schoolroom smell. There was that kind of glass-fronted bookcase without which no schoolroom is complete, and the battered grey-green and dark blue books without which no schoolroom bookcase is complete. On the walls were big pictures of the statues Mr Saunders had found so interesting.

Two of the desks were brown and old. Two were new and yellow with varnish. Gwendolen and Cat sat silently in the new desks. Julia hurried in, with her face shining from soap, and sat in the old desk beside Roger’s, and the grilling began. Mr Saunders strode gawkily up and down in front of the blackboard, asking keen questions. His tweed jacket billowed out from his back, just as his coat had done in the wind. Perhaps that was why the sleeves of the jacket were so much too short for Mr Saunders’s long arms. The long arm shot out, and a foot of bony wrist with a keen finger on the end of it pointed at Cat. “What part did witchcraft play in the Wars of the Roses?”

“Er,” said Cat. “Ung. I’m afraid I haven’t done them yet, sir.”

“Gwendolen,” said Mr Saunders.

“Oh – a very big part,” Gwendolen guessed airily.

“Wrong,” said Mr Saunders. “Roger.”

From the grilling, it emerged that Roger and Julia had forgotten a great deal over the summer, but, even so, they were well ahead of Cat in most things, and far ahead of Gwendolen in everything.

“What did you learn at school?” Mr Saunders asked her, in some exasperation.

Gwendolen shrugged. “I’ve forgotten. It wasn’t interesting. I was concentrating on witchcraft, and I intend to go on doing that, please.”

“I’m afraid you can’t,” said Mr Saunders.

Gwendolen stared at him, hardly able to believe she had heard him right. “What!” she almost shrieked. “But – but I’m terribly talented! I have to go on with it!”

“Your talents will keep,” said Mr Saunders. “You can take up witchcraft again when you’ve learnt something else. Open your arithmetic book and do me the first four exercises. Eric, I think I’ll set you going on some History. Write me an essay on the reign of King Canute.” He moved on to set work for Roger and Julia.

Cat and Gwendolen opened books. Gwendolen’s face was red, then white. As Mr Saunders bent over Roger, her inkwell sailed up out of the socket in her desk, and emptied itself over the back of Mr Saunders’s billowing tweed jacket. Cat bit his lip in order not to laugh. Julia watched with calm interest. Mr Saunders did not seem to notice. The inkwell returned quietly to its socket.

“Gwendolen,” said Mr Saunders, without turning round. “Get the ink jar and funnel out of the bottom of the cupboard and refill that inkwell. And fill it properly, please.”

Gwendolen got up, jauntily and defiantly, found the big flask and funnel, and started to fill her inkwell. Ten minutes later, she was still pouring away. Her face was puzzled at first, then red, then white with fury again. She tried to put the flask down, and found she could not. She tried whispering a spell.

Mr Saunders turned and looked at her.

“You’re being perfectly horrible!” said Gwendolen. “Besides, I’m allowed to do witchcraft when you’re here.”

“No one is allowed to pour ink over their tutor,” Mr Saunders said cheerfully. “And I’d already told you that you’ve given up witchcraft for the time being. Keep on pouring till I tell you to stop.”

Gwendolen poured ink for the next half hour, and got angrier every minute of it.

Cat was impressed. He suspected that Mr Saunders was rather a powerful magician. Certainly, when he next looked at Mr Saunders, there was no sign of any ink on his back. Cat looked at Mr Saunders fairly often, to see whether it was safe to change his pen from his right to his left hand. He had been punished so often for writing left-handed that he was good at keeping an eye on his teachers. When Mr Saunders turned his way, Cat used his right hand. It was slow and reluctant. But as soon as Mr Saunders turned away again, Cat changed his pen over and got on like a house on fire. The main trouble was that, in order not to smudge the ink with his left hand, he had to hold the paper sideways. But he was pretty deft at flicking his book straight again whenever Mr Saunders seemed likely to look at him.

When the half hour was over, Mr Saunders, without turning round, told Gwendolen to stop pouring ink and do sums. Then, still without turning round, he said to Cat, “Eric, what are you doing?”

“An essay on King Canute,” Cat said innocently.

Then Mr Saunders did turn round, but, by that time, the paper was straight and the pen in Cat’s right hand. “Which hand were you writing with?” he said. Cat was used to this. He held up his right hand with the pen in it. “It looked like both hands to me,” Mr Saunders said, and he came over and looked at the page Cat had written. “It was both.”

“It doesn’t show,” Cat said miserably.

“Not much,” Mr Saunders agreed. “Does it amuse you to write with alternate hands, or something?”

“No,” Cat confessed. “But I’m left-handed.”

Then, as Cat had feared, Mr Saunders flew into a towering rage. His face went red. He slammed his big knobby hand down on Cat’s desk, so that Cat jumped and the inkwell jumped too, sending ink splashing over Mr Saunders’s great hand and over Cat’s essay. “Left-handed!” he roared. “Then why the Black Gentleman don’t you write with your left hand, boy?”

“They – they punish me if I do,” Cat faltered, very shaken, and very perplexed to find Mr Saunders was angry for such a peculiar reason.

“Then they deserve to be tied up in knots and roasted!” roared Mr Saunders, “whoever they are! You’re doing yourself untold harm by obeying them, boy! If I catch you writing with your right hand again, you’ll be in really serious trouble!”

“Yes,” Cat said, relieved but still very shaken. He looked mournfully at his ink-splashed essay and hoped Mr Saunders might use a little witchcraft on that too. But Mr Saunders took the book and tore the page right out.

“Now do it again properly!” he said, slapping the book back in front of Cat.

Cat was still writing all over again about Canute when Mary came in with a tray of milk and biscuits and a cup of coffee for Mr Saunders. And after the milk and biscuits, Mr Saunders told Cat and Gwendolen they were free till lunch. “Though not because of a good morning’s work,” he said. “Go out and get some fresh air.” As they went out of the schoolroom, he turned to Roger and Julia. “Now we’ll have a little witchcraft,” he said. “And let’s hope you haven’t forgotten all that, too.”

Gwendolen stopped in the doorway and looked at him.

“No. Not you,” Mr Saunders said to her. “I told you.”

Gwendolen whirled round and ran away, through the shabby playroom and down the corridor beyond. Cat ran after her as hard as he could, but he did not catch her up until they came to a much grander part of the Castle, where a big marble staircase curled away downwards and the light came from an elegant dome in the roof.

“This isn’t the right way,” Cat panted.

“Yes it is,” Gwendolen said fiercely. “I’m going to find Chrestomanci. Why should those two fat little fools learn witchcraft and not me? I’ve got twice their gifts. It took two of them just to levitate a jug of cocoa! So I want Chrestomanci.”

By a stroke of good fortune, Chrestomanci was coming along the gallery on the other side of the staircase, behind a curly marble balustrade. He was wearing a fawn-coloured suit now, instead of the imperial dressing-gown, but he looked, if possible, even more elegant. By the look on his face, his thoughts were miles away. Gwendolen ran round the head of the marble staircase and stood herself in front of him. Chrestomanci blinked, and looked vaguely from her to Cat. “Was one of you wanting me?”

“Yes. Me,” said Gwendolen. “Mr Saunders won’t give me witchcraft lessons, and I want you to tell him he must.”

“Oh, but I can’t do that,” Chrestomanci said absentmindedly. “Sorry and so on.”

Gwendolen stamped her foot. It made no noise to speak of, even there on the marble floor, and there was no echo. Gwendolen was forced to shout instead. “Why not? You must, you must, you must!”

Chrestomanci looked down at her, in a peering, surprised way, as if he had only just seen her. “You seem to be annoyed,” he said. “But I’m afraid it’s unavoidable. I told Michael Saunders that he was on no account to teach either of you witchcraft.”

“You did! Why not?” Gwendolen shouted.

“Because you were bound to misuse it, of course,” said Chrestomanci, as if it were quite obvious. “But I’ll reconsider in a year or so, if you still want to learn.” Then he smiled kindly at Gwendolen, obviously expecting her to be pleased, and drifted dreamily away down the marble stairs.

Gwendolen kicked the marble balustrade and hurt her foot. That sent her into a rage as strong as Mr Saunders’. She danced and jumped and shrieked at the head of the stairs, until Cat was quite frightened of her. She shook her fist after Chrestomanci. “I’ll show you! You wait!” she screamed. But Chrestomanci had gone out of sight round the bend in the staircase and perhaps he could not hear. Even Gwendolen’s loudest scream sounded thin and small.

Cat was puzzled. What was it about this Castle? He looked up at the dome where the light came in and thought that Gwendolen’s screaming ought to have echoed round it like the dickens. Instead, it made a small, high squawking. While he waited for her to get her temper back, Cat experimentally put his fingers to his mouth and whistled as hard as he could. It made a queer blunt noise, like a squeaky boot. It also brought the old lady with the mittens out of a door in the gallery.

“You noisy little children!” she said. “If you want to scream and whistle, you must go out in the grounds and do it there.”

“Oh, come on!” Gwendolen said crossly to Cat, and the two of them ran away to the part of the Castle they were used to. After a bit of muddling around, they discovered the door they had first come in by and let themselves outside through it.

“Let’s explore everywhere,” said Cat. Gwendolen shrugged and said it suited her, so they set off.

Beyond the shrubbery of rhododendrons, they found themselves out on the great smooth lawn with the cedar trees. It spread across the entire front of the newer part of the Castle. On the other side of it, Cat saw the most interesting high sun-soaked wall, with trees hanging over it. It was clearly the ruins of an even older castle. Cat set off towards it at a trot, past the big windows of the newer Castle, dragging Gwendolen with him. But, half-way there, Gwendolen stopped and stood poking at the shaved green grass with her toe.

“Hm,” she said, “Do you think this counts as in the Castle?”

“I expect so,” said Cat. “Do come on. I want to explore those ruins there.”

However, the first wall they came to was a very low one, and the door in it led them into a very formal garden. It had broad gravel paths, running very straight, between box hedges. There were yew trees everywhere, clipped into severe pyramids, and all the flowers were yellow, in tidy clumps.

“Boring,” said Cat, and led the way to the ruined wall beyond.

But once again there was a lower wall in the way, and this time they came out into an orchard. It was a very tidy orchard, in which all the trees were trained flat, to stand like hedges on either side of the winding gravel paths. They were loaded with apples, some of them quite big. After what Chrestomanci had said about scrumping, Cat did not quite dare pick one, but Gwendolen picked a big red Worcester and bit into it.

Instantly, a gardener appeared from round a corner and told them reproachfully that picking apples was forbidden.

Gwendolen threw the apple down in the path. “Take it then. There was a maggot in it anyway.”

They went on, leaving the gardener staring ruefully at the bitten apple. And instead of reaching the ruins, they came to a goldfish pond, and after that to a rose garden. Here Gwendolen, as an experiment, tried picking a rose. Instantly, another gardener appeared and explained respectfully that they were not allowed to pick roses. So Gwendolen threw the rose down too. Then Cat looked over his shoulder, and discovered that the ruins were somehow behind them now. He turned back. But he still did not seem to reach them. It was nearly lunch time before he suddenly turned into a steep little path between two walls and found the ruins above him, at the top of the path.

Cat pelted joyfully up the steep path. The sun-soaked wall ahead was taller than most houses, and there were trees at the top of it. When he was close enough, Cat saw that there was a giddy stone staircase jutting out of the wall, more like a stone ladder than a stair. It was so old that snapdragons and wallflowers had rooted in it, and hollyhocks had grown up against the place where the stair met the ground. Cat had to push aside a tall red hollyhock in order to put his foot on the first stair.

No sooner had he done so than yet another gardener came puffing up the steep path. “You can’t go there! That’s Chrestomanci’s garden up there, that is!”

“Why can’t we?” said Cat, deeply disappointed.

“Because it’s not allowed, that’s why.”

Slowly and reluctantly, Cat came away. The gardener stood at the foot of the stair to make sure he went. “Bother!” Cat said.

“I’m getting rather sick of Chrestomanci forbidding things,” said Gwendolen. “It’s time someone taught him a lesson.”

“What are you going to do?” said Cat.

“Wait and see,” said Gwendolen, pressing her lips together in her stormiest way.

CHAPTER FIVE

Gwendolen refused to tell Cat what she was going to do. This meant that Cat had rather a melancholy time. After a wholesome lunch of swede and boiled mutton, they had lessons again. After that, Gwendolen ran hastily away and would not let Cat come with her. Cat did not know what to do.

“Would you care to come out and play?” Roger asked.

Cat looked at him and saw that he was just being polite. “No thank you,” he said politely. He was forced to wander round the gardens on his own. There was a wood lower down, full of horse chestnuts, but the conkers were not nearly ripe. As Cat was half-heartedly staring up into one, he saw there was a tree-house in it, about halfway up. This was more like it. Cat was just about to climb up to it, when he heard voices and saw Julia’s skirt flutter among the leaves. So that was no good. It was Julia and Roger’s private tree-house, and they were in it.

Cat wandered away again. He came to the lawn, and there was Gwendolen, crouching under one of the cedars, very busy digging a small hole.

“What are you doing?” said Cat.

“Go away,” said Gwendolen.

Cat went away. He was sure what Gwendolen was doing was witchcraft and had to do with teaching Chrestomanci a lesson, but it was no good asking Gwendolen when she was being this secretive. Cat had to wait. He waited through another terrifying dinner, and then through a long, long evening. Gwendolen locked herself in her room after dinner and told him to go away when he knocked.

Next morning, Cat woke up early and hurried to the nearest of his three windows. He saw at once what Gwendolen had been doing. The lawn was ruined. It was not a smooth stretch of green velvet any longer. It was a mass of molehills. As far as Cat could see in both directions, there were little green mounds, little heaps of raw earth, long lines of raw earth and long green furrows of raised grass. There must have been an army of moles at work on it all night. About a dozen gardeners were standing in a gloomy huddle, scratching their heads over it.

Cat threw on his clothes and dashed downstairs.

Gwendolen was leaning out of her window in her frilly cotton nightdress, glowing with pride. “Look at that!” she said to Cat. “Isn’t it marvellous! There’s acres of it, too. It took me hours yesterday evening to make sure it was all spoilt. That will make Chrestomanci think a bit!”

Cat was sure it would. He did not know how much a huge stretch of turf like that would cost to replace, but he suspected it was a great deal. He was afraid Gwendolen would be in really bad trouble.

But to his astonishment, nobody so much as mentioned the lawn. Euphemia came in a minute later, but all she said was, “You’ll both be late for your breakfast again.”

Roger and Julia said nothing at all. They silently accepted the marmalade and Cat’s knife when he passed them over, but the sole thing either of them said was when Julia dropped Cat’s knife and picked it up again all fluffy. She said, “Bother!” And when Mr Saunders called them through for lessons, the only things he talked about were what he was teaching them. Cat decided that nobody knew Gwendolen had caused the moles. They could have no idea what a strong witch she was.

There were no lessons after lunch that day. Mr Saunders explained that they always had Wednesday afternoons off. And at lunchtime, every molehill had gone. When they looked out of the playroom window, the lawn was like a sheet of velvet again.

“I don’t believe it!” Gwendolen whispered to Cat. “It must be an illusion. They’re trying to make me feel small.”

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