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The Baxter Blog

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Thursday April 30th 1936

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3 am. 200 metres above New York City

Copyright

About the Publisher

YET ANOTHER NEW blog. How many sites have I been kicked out of now? There aren’t any UK-based hosts left that aren’t under their control. I’m having to use a Dutch server. That isn’t a clue as to where I am though, so don’t bother trying to find me, Mr Fellows. You won’t.

So – it’s been how many months since that foul book was published? I can’t and don’t keep score any more. I won’t waste time or space here by doing the whole ‘told you so’ routine, but I want you to know I did my best. I tried – we tried – to warn you. Some listened, but not nearly enough – not until it was too late and it had gotten too strong a hold.

Just look at the state of the UK now. The anger and the protests and curfews have stopped because there aren’t enough of you left out there with your own minds. Somehow they got to you; somehow you were made to read, or listen, or ate that foul muck and now you’re the same as the rest of those brainwashed sheep.

For those of you who are still resisting (I know there are still a scant few) by whatever means, either through strength of will or simply because you’re just naturally immune to that madness as I am, I urge you to get out, as soon as you can. Leave the country; there’s nothing you can do there now. Britain is finished. But you can help stop the evil spreading across the world. Find the escape route – the links are out there on the Web. If you can satisfy our agents you’re genuine, you’ll be given instructions and directions and real help. Apologies for the hoops you’ve got to jump through, but we have to protect ourselves. They are watching; they will stop at nothing to catch us. Good luck!

Martin Baxter

REGGIE TUCKER HOISTED his rucksack on to his shoulders. It was time to leave the park. Crawling from the safe cover of the rhododendrons by the far wall, he joined a path and hurried along. He clamped his mouth shut tightly as he passed through a cloud of fat, buzzing flies. A stink of decay hung heavily over this gloomy corner. The weird, repulsive plants that had first appeared several months ago were firmly established now. They had taken over the rose beds and their bristling trailers stretched through the railings in search of fresh soil.

Reggie stepped over them carefully then quickened his pace. The smell from the ugly grey flowers caught in his throat. He glanced back in disgust at the swarms of bluebottles that clustered round the sickly petals and hastened on.

Keeping his head down, the boy avoided eye contact with a dog walker and a small group of people sitting close together on the grass. They were reading intently from a book, rocking backwards and forwards as they uttered the words aloud. He didn’t need to wonder what book it was. There was only one book now.

Reggie hoped nobody would notice him, or if they did then the low-numbered playing card he had pinned to his coat would be enough to satisfy any curiosity.

He was desperately hungry. He had eaten the last of his hastily packed rations yesterday. There was money in his pocket, but he was too scared to go into a shop to buy food.

He was tired too. For three nights now he had been sleeping rough. So far he had been lucky. It was a warm, dry April and no one had spotted the twelve-year-old boy skulking around empty back streets, trying to gain entry to deserted buildings or hiding in a burnt-out van that had blazed during the recent riots, or under some boards in a skip.

And yet, at that moment, Reggie wasn’t thinking about his stomach or lack of proper sleep. He was anxious and worried, but not for himself. It was late afternoon now. Where was Aunt Jen? They had arranged to meet here at midday, but she hadn’t appeared. He knew she was being watched, yet surely she would have texted if there had been any problem slipping away? He checked his phone once again. There were still a couple of bars of charge left and a good signal, but no new texts from her. The last had been yesterday morning.

From: Aunt J

Will meet 2moro at 12. U know where!

Plz be careful. X

Reggie tried to ignore the other texts that had come in since, but his eyes couldn’t help flicking over them.

From: Mum

You won’t get far

From: Dad

Filthy aberrant!

From: Mum

I hope they kill you

There were others from his sister and the lads who used to be his best friends. It was all the same: vicious threats and insults. Reggie marvelled at how unmoved they left him. Was he really so used to it now? Before this madness started, he had never even heard the word ‘aberrant’. For the past month it had hounded him wherever he went, at home, at school, in the streets around town. Strangers yelled abuse and spat at him. Then last week the first stone was flung. The bruise was still there on his leg. Others had bloomed across his body since.

The twelve-year-old thrust the phone back into his pocket. Aunt Jen was the only other person he knew who had not been taken over. For some reason, just like him, that mad book hadn’t affected her. Uncle Jason and her two kids treated her with contempt because of that and she was ready to go. She and Reggie had planned this escape in secret. They had intended to make a run for it at the end of this week, but Reggie couldn’t stick it out at home any longer and had fled. It had ruined their careful plan. She was going to steal the family car on Friday, drive the forty miles to his house and then they would make for the coast. She had contacted someone on the Net. There were people out there who could help, unaffected people like them, who could get them out of England, away from this country that had gone insane.

“Hey, you!” a voice called suddenly. “Blessed be!”

Reggie looked up. A young girl, no older than seven, was twirling around on the grass. She was wearing what had been a Disney princess costume, but the outfit had been customised so that the sleeves now hung emptily from the shoulders and her arms were slipped through holes cut beneath them. Ribbons and tasselled curtain ties had been sewn to the bodice and around the skirt for a more medieval look.

“That’s a little number!” she cried, checking the playing card on his coat as she skipped towards him. “You’re only a three! I’m a six. I’m better than you.”

The boy looked around nervously. Where were her parents? But then families weren’t the same any more. They wouldn’t worry or even care if she was missing all day long, especially if it fitted the character she was playing from the book.

“Read to me!” she demanded.

“I have to be somewhere,” Reggie muttered, continuing along the path.

“Read to me!” she commanded again in a louder voice. “You’re just a three. I have to get back to the castle, but I don’t know the big words. Read to me now!”

“I don’t have my book with me,” Reggie explained hurriedly.

The girl stared at him in surprise. She had a pale, pretty face and her mousey hair was plaited into a stubby rope. Her grey eyes were glassy but questioning and her lips and chin were stained with the livid juices of fruits like those he had just passed.

“Everybody has a book,” she told him. “Mine is over there. I get it. You read it me.”

She was about to return to where she had left her copy of that horrible book, but Reggie called her back.

“Let me go get mine,” he said quickly. “It’s at home. I forgot to bring it with me. I’m on my way there now.”

The girl put her head on one side and looked at him quizzically. Something about the boy was wrong. There were no stains around his mouth and the dark centres of his eyes were too small. She started to back away. Then her young features scrunched up and she screamed at the top of her voice.

“ABRANT!” she shrieked, pointing accusing fingers and shaking her head violently. “ABRANT!”

Reggie reached out and tried to shush her, but she jumped clear – still screaming.

“ABRANT!”

Reggie looked back fearfully. The group of readers were rising to their feet. One of them was checking an iPad. The boy knew the online list of UK aberrants was being consulted. It was updated daily so his picture was sure to be there. His mother had probably provided his last school photograph. Yes, he saw the man with the iPad look up sharply. He had to get away, fast.

The readers began running towards him. The dog walker came hurrying back along the path and, with the girl’s shrill screams in his ears, Reggie legged it.

The street where Aunt Jen lived wasn’t far from the park. He had spent the past few days making his way here. It had been slow going, trying to keep out of sight, but he had been pleased and surprised by his own resourcefulness. It had brought him so close. But why hadn’t she shown up?

Reggie ran until the people in the park had been left behind and he was sure no one else was following. Slowing down, he caught his breath. He walked for another half a mile, but felt sick from hunger and leaned against a garden fence as he looked around cautiously.

This was a pleasant, leafy suburb. The housing estates were agreeable groupings of detached homes, each one different to its neighbour, with well-tended front lawns and faux leaded windows. His aunt’s house was close, just two streets away. Reggie knew it was stupid to go there, but he had to find out what had happened. Besides, where else could he go now?

Setting off again, he noticed how eerily quiet it was here. No sound of traffic. No music or noise coming from the houses, not a single person in sight. It was all so still and deserted that when a magpie came swooping down from a tree and landed on a lawn nearby, it startled him so much he jumped sideways into the road.

Reggie began to wonder if these streets had been evacuated due to an emergency, perhaps a gas leak or something? That would explain the forsaken emptiness of the place. It might also explain Aunt Jen’s silence, if she had been forced to leave the house suddenly and in the rush had left her mobile behind…

“That must be it,” he told himself. “She’s had to clear out with everyone else. So why am I still going to the house? Why don’t I turn round and get out of here as well? It might be dangerous. It might be poisonous – or explode.”

He frowned and turned the corner into the street where his aunt lived. “But then everywhere’s dangerous now,” he told himself grimly.

His aunt’s house was almost in view. Reggie gripped the straps of his rucksack and continued, taking short, sampling sniffs of the air as he went. He couldn’t smell gas, just the faint reek of that horrible plant. People were growing it in their gardens now.

The boy’s imagination began inventing other explanations for these empty streets.

“Radiation,” he suggested fancifully. “A dirty bomb has gone off and this whole area is contaminated. Or… a chemical spill in the water supply? Subsidence? A big hole might’ve opened up in one of the roads and the houses aren’t safe. Plague! All these houses are filled with dead bodies; it kills instantly and turns you green – with huge spots full of pus. A lion might’ve escaped from a zoo, though there isn’t one anywhere near here…”

Reggie grimaced. He knew that whatever had happened was bound to be because of that book. He almost wished there had been a chemical spill or radioactive fallout – or even a crazed killer with an axe. At least they were things he could understand.

There were no garden fences or hedges in this street. The lawns sloped gently up from the pavement and paths edged with solar-powered lamps led to the front doors. Soon the boy was standing outside number 24. It was large, detached and half-heartedly half-timbered. The lamp post outside was hung with long coloured streamers like a maypole. He saw that the driveway was empty. Then he stared at the front door. It was ajar.

Had they abandoned the place in such a hurry that they hadn’t bothered to close it? Was someone in there?

Reggie looked left and right, up and down the street. There was still no sign of another human being anywhere around. Should he chance going inside? He had come this far – besides, there would be food in the kitchen and he was starving.

The boy sprinted across the lawn and pushed the door wide open. The hallway was neat and tidy. There was no sign of any hasty evacuation. He stepped inside and his heart beat faster. Moving warily through the hall, he peered into the living room. Everything looked normal: sofa, plasma TV, cork coasters on the coffee table, family photos on the wall. A framed print hanging above the fireplace caught his attention. That was new. The print was of a white castle, the one featured in that book.

The boy shuddered and looked away in disgust. He quickly made his way to the kitchen where he tore into a bag of bread and stuffed a soft white slice into his mouth. Then he pulled open the fridge and gave a grunt of satisfaction as he gazed on the illuminated contents. Grabbing ham and cheese, he threw them into two more slices and ate them so fast he almost choked. Then he found a can of Coke and guzzled half of it down in one swig. He checked the fridge again. There were some sausage rolls. He wolfed one down and shoved two more in his pocket.

Chewing greedily, he knew he should take as much as he could fit in his rucksack. Removing it from his back, he set to work. There were some things though that he didn’t dare touch: yoghurt, juice cartons and a fruit pie. The packaging bore the logo of that book and contained the pulp and juice from the foul-smelling plant.

Once that was done, Reggie turned his attention to the cupboards. Fresh stuff wouldn’t last long. He should take some tins as well. Two lots of beans, an oxtail soup, macaroni cheese, they were all his bag could take.

“Tin-opener,” he told himself sharply. He yanked open a drawer and began searching through the cutlery. A knife and spoon went clattering on to the tiled floor and the unearthly silence was broken.

Reggie froze. Why hadn’t he been more careful?

“Who’s there?” a voice called suddenly.

The boy turned.

“Who is it?” the voice called again.

Reggie’s stomach flipped over. He knew who that was! His face broke into a huge grin and he rushed to the hall and clutched at the banister as he glanced up the stairs.

“Aunt Jen?” he cried. “It’s me – it’s Reggie.”

“Oh, Reggie!” the voice answered faintly. “I knew you’d make it.”

The boy ran up the stairs. His aunt sounded tired. What had his uncle done to her? Had she been locked in a room? Perhaps she was tied up.

“Why didn’t you come to the park?” he called when he reached the landing. “Why didn’t you meet me? What’s happening here?”

He looked quickly into the bathroom, then in his cousins’ bedrooms. They were all empty.

At the end of the landing his aunt and uncle’s bedroom door was half open. It was dark inside.

“I couldn’t, Reggie,” his aunt answered from the darkness. Reggie’s relief and joy disappeared. Dread and fear took their place.

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s no use, Reggie,” Aunt Jen replied.

The boy took a step closer. “Why didn’t you text me?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not? What did Uncle Jason do? Where is everyone?”

There was no answer. Reggie put his head round the door. The curtains were drawn, but the light of the April afternoon leaked in at the edges. At first he thought someone was slumped on the bed then he realised it was only a mound of clothes. The drawers and wardrobes had been ransacked, their contents strewn about the room. Then he saw, in front of the curtains, a figure sitting before a dressing table mirror, gazing at her reflection in the gloom.

“Aunt Jen?” he ventured. The person didn’t move.

“Jen?” he said again.

Reggie didn’t want to go any closer. He shouldn’t have come here. He could just make out that the woman’s head was covered by a veil of black lace.

“I expected you here hours ago,” she said, still staring into the mirror.

Reggie took a step back. The figure did not move.

“I thought something had happened to you,” the boy muttered. “Something bad.”

“Something did, Reggie,” she said softly. “But it was good not bad – so very, very good.” The woman rose from the chair and turned, lifting the veil from her face.

Reggie let out a sob of dismay and stumbled out of the room. Aunt Jen came striding after. Leaving the darkness, she stepped on to the landing. Reggie blundered backwards, retreating to the top of the stairs.

His aunt was wearing a long gown of black tulle and taffeta that rustled like dead grass when she moved. Long gloves of black silk reached to her elbows and a necklace of jet beads glittered about her neck. Her once friendly face was now set in a scowl. Raven-black lips made her mouth ugly and her eyebrows looked like they had been inscribed with coal. At her bosom she had pinned a playing card and upon her cheek she had painted a large black spade.

“Not you!” Reggie cried. “Not you!”

“I am the Queen of Spades,” she told him. “Last night it happened. At long last the way opened for me. I was drawn beyond the Silvering Sea and awoke in the great castle of Mooncaster and finally knew this grey world for what it was, a flat dream. I am one of the four Under Queens. That is my true life.”

The boy shook his head. “No, it isn’t!” he shouted, but he knew it was no use arguing. He had lost her, just like he had lost his sister then his parents. He had to get out of there.

“It is not too late for you, Reggie,” she said as he hurried down the stairs. “The woman Jennifer was fond of you, her nephew. I will entreat the Holy Enchanter. He may be able to help. You cannot remain an aberrant. Join us.”

“Not on your life!” he spat as he raced through the hall and into the kitchen to retrieve his rucksack. “You and the rest of them can stick it.”

“Aberrants will not be tolerated,” she said as she came swishing down the stairs.

Reggie closed his eyes tightly and drew a deep breath. He had to control himself. There wasn’t time to grieve for her. That could happen later, when he was safe, if he could ever be safe. Right now he had to run.

He rushed back into the hallway. The woman he had known as Aunt Jen was standing on the bottom stair, a black-feathered fan in her hand.

“You cannot leave,” she said, tapping it lightly against her gloved palm.

“Watch me,” he growled.

Reggie barged out of the front door then staggered to a halt. With despair and defeat in his eyes, he gazed around and a deathly cold clasped him. The street was filled with people. A crowd of several hundred residents and neighbours had gathered silently in front of the house. They were all dressed as some medieval fairy-tale character and every one of them wore a playing card on their home-made costume. Close by, on the lawn, stood his uncle and his cousins.

Uncle Jason was wearing a smock and apron. Pewter tankards were hooked to his belt. He was supposed to be an innkeeper, but he merely looked ridiculous. His sons, Tim and Ryan, were also dressed up. One was a page, the other a kitchen boy.

Reggie felt his courage disappear. He was trapped.

“Aberrant,” his cousins said.

“Aberrant,” his uncle repeated.

“Aberrant,” spat the voice of Aunt Jen in the doorway behind him.

The word spread through the large crowd until everyone was chanting it like a mantra, their faces twisted and angry.

“We must not suffer an aberrant to live!” Uncle Jason shouted.

“Burn him!” Ryan called out.

“Burn him!” echoed the crowd.

Reggie stared at them in horror. Yes, they would do it. They would burn him alive. The madness had gone that far.

“Lock him in the shed and set light to it!” Uncle Jason cried.

“No,” Aunt Jen commanded. “It must be done properly, as we would burn the Bad Shepherd in Mooncaster. Build a bonfire. Bring wood and fuel.”

The crowd gave a mighty cheer. Many went running to their homes to fetch anything that would burn. The rest came surging towards Reggie and closed in around him. There was nothing he could do, no chance of escape. Strong hands grabbed at him. He was hitched high off the ground and carried to the road.

The beginning of a bonfire was swiftly thrown on the tarmac. Chairs, tables, empty bookcases, shelves ripped from walls, tied towers of newspaper from recycling bins, anything that a flame could bite was brought there in euphoric haste. A man emerged from his house with a chainsaw and immediately set to work, carving the furniture into useful, stackable pieces.

Reggie was paraded around the mounting timber pyramid like a living guy. He saw a pensioner gleefully throw his walking stick into the midst of the growing pyre and watched a woman come laughing from her garage carrying a can of paraffin. She looked up at Reggie and he saw the joyous expectation on her face. Dancing around the woodpile she sloshed the paraffin over it with carefree abandon.

Reggie was held so tight he could not even struggle. He knew there was no way out of this. He tried to shout, to tell them they were insane, that the book had possessed them – that they were about to commit murder. But nobody listened and they sang the stupid songs from those evil pages all the louder. This was it. He was going to be burned to death.

And then, suddenly, a siren cut through the excited babble of voices and, to Reggie’s overwhelming relief, two police cars came roaring down the street, screeching to a stop in front of the bonfire.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Reggie yelled.

“Break it up, break it up!” the officers shouted as they slammed the car doors shut.

The crowd grew quiet. One officer moved forward, his hand poised close to the firearm at his hip. Since the beginning of the protests and street violence some months ago, the British police force had been armed.

“Put the boy down,” he ordered.

There was a moment of hesitation, but the mob could tell he meant business. The men carrying Reggie lowered him to the ground.

“Step away from him,” the officer instructed.

The crowd obeyed, grudgingly, and the boy ran over to the squad cars.

“I can’t believe it!” he cried. “I thought you were all got at. I thought you were all taken over by the book! These nutters were going to burn me!”

The policeman ignored him. “Who’s in charge here?” he called out.

“I am,” Aunt Jen’s voice rang out.

The crowd murmured and parted, forming a path for her to come forward. Fanning herself, the woman sauntered regally through them.

Reggie glared at her and countless accusations blazed as fiercely in his mind as the bonfire would have done. But before he could speak, the officers did something that caused his newfound hope to shrivel and die.

Every police officer removed his cap and dropped to one knee before the Queen of Spades. Reggie knew that somewhere, under their stab-proof vests, they too would be wearing playing cards.

“Majesty,” the policeman said. “I am Sir Gorvain of the Royal House of Diamonds.”

“You are come just in time to join our revel,” the woman greeted him. “This day we burn one who defies the Holy Enchanter, a foul malefactor in league with the Bad Shepherd.”

“Grant me the honour of escorting the fiend to the flames.”

The Queen of Spades slapped her fan shut and pointed over the policeman’s shoulder with it. “First, Sir Knight,” she said crossly, “you shall have to catch him again.”

Everyone turned. Reggie had seized his chance and was racing down the street. The crowd jeered and booed. The boy had discarded his heavy rucksack and was running faster than he had ever done before. He knew the bonfire was blocking the way of the police cars. They wouldn’t be able to chase him. He might just manage to get away. There was still a slender chance!

Two shots were fired, but Reggie only heard the first. A moment later, he was on the ground. At last he had escaped, to a place where the evil of the book could never catch him.

The crowd cheered. Sir Gorvain waved his gun with a flourish and took a bow as they applauded. Then one of them began to sing, another played lute music loudly on a mobile whilst someone else shook a tambourine and a courtly dance commenced. The colourful streamers hanging from the lamp post were taken up and the courtiers skipped around it, laughing. Others took out their copies of the book and began to read aloud in unison. What a glorious April evening it was.

The woman who had been Aunt Jen gazed impassively down the street where the body of the young aberrant lay. Then she snapped her fan open once more and joined the dance.

“AS MANY OF you out there may be aware, something strange is happening across the pond in good old Blighty. You might have seen news reports or read about it on the Internet, but do you really understand, in the name of all that is sane, just what those Brits are up to? I’ve been trying to follow this phenomenon, but frankly it’s clear as chowder to me. Here’s Kate Kryzewski, reporting from London, England, with the Jax Fax.”

The VT rolled and the news anchor leaned back in his chair.

“Damn crazy little ass-end country,” he said, shaking his head dismissively. “Let them keep their crappy books to themselves this time. We don’t want it. Am I right?”

A make-up girl darted in from the side and dabbed at his glistening forehead.

“How’m I looking, Tanya?” he asked, almost purring.

“Just wonderful, Mr Webber,” the professional and pretty Tanya answered.

“You don’t think I need a little tuck and lift round my eyes then, huh? Still holding up well, yeah?”

Tanya wisely refrained from telling him she knew he’d already undergone two procedures for the eye bags and the crows’ feet. It was good work though, probably done here on the East Coast where politicians go for the subtle stuff, not the Californian waxwork-under-a-blowtorch look.

“So you want some sushi after?” he asked, switching on his best bedroom eyes. “I know a great place where I won’t get mobbed and we’ll be left alone – just me, you and the wasabi.”

“That would be a no, sir,” she declined for the sixteenth time that month.

“Always with the no,” he said with a shrug of his Armani-suited shoulders. “A good-looking, successful guy could lose confidence around all those noes. I had enough noes when I was with my wife, until the divorce. Then it changed to yeses. Yes, she wanted my apartment, yes, she wanted my cars, yes, she wanted my alimony checks, yes to all nine pints of my O negative. I was lucky to get out with both my… ahem… ‘wasabi’ still attached.”

“Still a no, Mr Webber,” Tanya said, ducking out of shot behind the camera.

“Would a little bit of raw fish be so offensive?” he entreated, staring at her departing chest.

“It’s not the fish, you dick,” she muttered under her breath.

Harlon Webber cast around for someone else to engage with, but the crew knew him well enough to only catch his eye when they needed to. Reluctantly he turned his attention to the monitor and watched the pre-filmed item that was going out.

The whole of the United Kingdom had apparently gone nuts. Five months ago a children’s book called Dancing Jax had been published and had sold a staggering sixty-three million copies, at least one for every member of the population. It had completely taken over everyone’s life in that country.

Reporter Kate Kryzewski was speaking over footage of violent clashes in Whitehall between opposing factions. Police officers in riot gear could be seen battling on both sides, most often fighting against one another. A bookshop burned to the cheers of a mob, petrol bombs were hurled against the gates of Downing Street and an army tank rolled through Trafalgar Square, scattering the incensed crowds. In Charing Cross Road water cannon and tear-gas grenades were deployed against a tide of protesters.

“These were the alarming scenes here in London just seven weeks ago,” Kate’s voice-over said. “Similar pitched battles were being waged right across the UK. It seemed that all-out war had broken out, here in the home of fish and chips and the Beatles. The cause? An old children’s book of fairy tales first published in 1936. Unbelievable as it sounds, this nation was bitterly and brutally divided between those who had read it and those who refused to read it. The angry protests have since died down and peace has returned to the British Isles. Why? Because just about everyone has now read this book. So, what is it about Dancing Jax that could have triggered such an extreme reaction? I haven’t read it and won’t until I find out more, so I went on to the streets to do just that…”

The report continued with her interviewing random people around London, against such familiar touristy backdrops as Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. They all praised the book and what it had brought to their lives.

“It is my life,” said a distinguished man in a dark blue suit outside the Houses of Parliament. “You might as well ask what it’s like to breathe. No question about it. I have to have the book with me always because I can’t bear to be away from Mooncaster for very long. In fact, I’ve got five spares dotted about in case of an emergency. It’s market day there and I shouldn’t be messing about playing politics here. I’ve got to get the stall ready and set my wares out…”

“Excuse me, sir,” Kate said, “but you don’t strike me as someone who would be interested in that kind of role play.”

“Role play?” he snorted indignantly. “I don’t have time for games, madam. Only the Jacks and Jills can indulge in idle sport.”

The picture cut to the main entrance of Selfridges on Oxford Street where an overly made-up elderly woman, decked out in countless necklaces and three earrings per ear, was staring aghast at the reporter. “You haven’t read it?” she cried in disbelief. “Oh, you must, dear. Get a copy this very minute. Don’t do anything else – go right now and get it!”

“Why is it so important to you?” Kate asked.

“Important?” the woman repeated in bafflement. “It’s just everything, dear, simply everything. ‘Important’ doesn’t come into it – it gets me back home, out of all this.”

“It makes this bumhole of a place bearable, dunnit?” a black cab driver said to camera as he leaned out of his window.

“And how many times have you read it?” Kate enquired.

“No idea, darlin’, but there’ll never be enough, never. My real life there is sweet as a nut. Look at that bloody bus, thinks he owns the bleedin’ road! Why the hell can’t I bring my longbow with me into these soddin’ dreams, eh? I’d soon have him.”

Back in the studio Harlon Webber threw his hands in the air for attention.

“Why are all those schmucks wearing playing cards?” he asked anyone who would listen. “Is it some kinda cult of Vegas?”

Nobody answered. They, like the rest of the world, were bewildered and intrigued as to what was happening in the UK and were watching the report closely.

“Hey, Johnny,” Harlon called, squinting into the gloom behind the cameras. “Didn’t you say you got a kid sister over there? Weren’t you worried about her a while back?”

Jimmy the cameraman was used to the jerk getting his name wrong. It used to bug him, but now it didn’t matter.

“She’s just fine, Mr Webber,” he answered flatly. “It’s all just fine.”

“Kate’s looking trim there, isn’t she? Hey, anyone here nailed her? I don’t normally dig redheads, but I’ve been trying for two years. Maybe I need to wear army fatigues. Yeah, I bet that’s why she goes to all them war places. She must have a thing for jarhead grunts. One of those power broads who has to feel superior the whole damn time.”

No one in the studio answered him.

“Hey, hi!” a young American student said into the lens outside the British Museum. “I’m Brandon from Wisconsin – or that’s who I’m supposed to be when I’m here, right? I’m really a farm guy in the Kingdom of the Dawn Prince and hey, you just watch out for that Bad Shepherd. He’s been sighted over by the marsh and that’s just way too close, man. He’s like real bad news and if he goes anywhere near my goats, I’m going after him with my axe and getting me some shepherd brains. He tore the hearts clean out of Mistress Sarah’s geese last fall, every one…”

“If I could just speak to you as Brandon for a moment,” Kate interjected.

“Sure, that’s cool. That’s why I’m here, right? To be Brandon and rest, so I can be stronger there – awesome.”

“What do your parents make of all this, back home in the US?”

“Yeah, I like Skyped those guys the other day. It’s real weird having a set of folks in this dream place, when my true mom is back in our cottage right now, teasing the wool, or out in the field pulling up the turnips.”

“But your family in Wisconsin, what do they think?”

“Oh, they don’t understand, man. They don’t have a copy of the sacred text so how could they? They’re nice people an’ all. Not their fault. They were like freaking out and stuff.”

“Because of your devotion to Dancing Jax?”

“Just ignorance, dude, that’s all. They’ll know real soon though. I FedExed them a copy yesterday.”

“You sent one of these books to the United States?”

“Sure, I can’t believe it’s not out there already. Wake up, America!”

“Thank you, Brandon.”

“Hey, blessed be, man.”

Kate Kryzewski, a no-nonsense breed of reporter who had been to Afghanistan and Iraq, seemed genuinely disturbed by what she was hearing.

She turned to camera and stared at it gravely.

“‘Wake up, America,’” she repeated. “That’s what the young man said and I couldn’t agree more. Every person I have met here in London has been obsessed by this seemingly ordinary and old-fashioned children’s book. When I say obsessed, I use the word quite literally. These people aren’t just ardent fans. I would go so far as to say they’ve been possessed by it, so much so that they have assumed the identity of a character from the story. They aren’t interested in anything that doesn’t relate to it. They read and reread the stories whenever they can and the British government has just passed new legislation for seven fifteen-minute intervals throughout the day when everything will stop so mass readings can take place. Apparently, the reading experience is best shared. Can you imagine this happening in America?”

“Damn freaky, that’s what it is,” Harlon stated, leaning back in his chair and slapping the news desk. “Wackos, the lot of them. That’s what warm beer and bad restaurants do to you. Last time I was there they tried to serve me beans for breakfast. I was like, ‘You frickin’ kidding me? Get that redneck pig slop outta here!’ Dumb, backward, Third World douches.”

“… And in every garden and park,” Kate continued, standing in the Palm House at Kew, “are these strange new cultivars of trees and fruiting shrubs called minchet.” The camera panned past her to zoom in on a row of ugly and twisted bushes that had strangled and killed most of the exotic plants.

“This plant features in the book and just be thankful we don’t have smell-o-vision because these things stink of swamps, halitosis and damp basements all in one. And yet the British have developed such a taste for this fruit that they’ve started to put it in juices, sodas, cosmetics – even candy. You can buy a MacMinchet Burger, a Great Grey Whopper and there are now twelve herbs and spices in the colonel’s secret recipe. No doubt you’re thinking there’s some addictive substance at work here – that’s what I suspected too – but we’ve had it tested and there’s absolutely no trace of anything that could account for this behaviour.”

The report cut to the exterior of the Savoy Hotel and Kate was wearing her most serious face.

“At the centre of these strange new phenomena is the man responsible for bringing Dancing Jax to the attention of a twenty-first-century audience. He too has assumed the identity of a character from those very pages, that of the Ismus, the Holy Enchanter. He’s the charismatic main figure in these fairy tales and I have been granted an audience with him. So let’s see if he can explain just what is going on here…”

The scene changed to the plush interior of a hotel suite where a lean man with a clever face and perfectly groomed, shoulder-length dark hair listened to her first question with wry amusement. He was dressed in black velvet, which made the paleness of his skin zing out on camera.

“No, no,” he corrected, “Dancing Jax is not a cult. Cults, by definition, are small, hidden societies of marginal interest.”

“Then can you explain to the millions of Americans, and the rest of the people around the world, just what is going on with this book?” Kate asked. “And why you Brits are so hooked on it?”

The man stared straight down the lens.

“Dancing Jax is a collection of fabulous tales set in a far-off Kingdom,” he said. “It was written many years ago by an amazing, gifted visionary, but was only discovered late last year…”

“Austerly Fellows,” Kate interjected. “He was some kind of occultist in the early part of the twentieth century. There is evidence that suggests he was, in fact, a Satanist, a founder and leader of unpleasant secret sects, and controlled a number of covens.”

“Malicious rumours spread by his enemies,” the Ismus countered. “Austerly Fellows was without equal, a man far ahead of his time, an intellectual colossus, bestowed of many gifts. Jealousy and spite are such unproductive, restraining forces, aren’t they?”

“What I don’t understand is why such a man, Satanist or not, would even write a children’s book.”

“It is merely the format he chose in which to impart his great wisdom. The truths Dancing Jax contains have enriched our country beyond all expectations. It speaks to you on a very basic, fundamental level.”

“So you’re saying it’s a new religion.”

“No,” he laughed. “It is not a religion. It is a doorway to a better understanding of life, a bridge to a far more colourful and exciting existence than this one.”

“But don’t you have two priests dressed as harlequins in your entourage and isn’t there a woman, called Labella, who is a High Priestess?”

“There are many characters in my retinue.”

“But surely these mass readings that are scheduled to take place… might they not be viewed as a form of organised worship?”

“Only if you consider breakfast the organised worship of cornflakes.”

“I’m a black coffee and donut person myself. Can you explain the significance behind the playing cards that readers of the book wear?”

The Ismus smiled indulgently. “If you’d read it yourself, you’d know,” he said. “But it isn’t giving anything away to say that Dancing Jax is set in a Kingdom where there are four Royal Houses which have, as their badges, Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts and Spades. The numbers indicate what type of character the reader identifies with, so a ten of clubs would be a knight or noble of that house, whilst a two or three would be further down the social scale – a maid or groom. Perfectly simple.”

“But the harlequins I mentioned earlier, and the priestess, as well as certain other characters in your entourage, I notice they don’t wear a card. Why is that?”

“They are the aces; they are special. They don’t need to.”

“I don’t see a card on you either. Does that mean you’re an ace?”

He laughed softly. “No,” he told her. “I suppose you could say I’m the dealer.”

“Yeah!” Harlon Webber quipped in the studio. “You look like one, pal!”

Kate continued. “But could you ease the growing fears and genuine concerns that we in America have about this book and its inexplicable power over the people of Britain? Can you understand why it would be viewed as strange, even menacing and sinister, from the outside?”

“Of course it must appear odd to any outsider, but let me allay your fears and concerns. There is nothing to be afraid of. The benefits it has brought our society are endless.”

“And yet, just under two months ago, there was civil unrest in all your major cities. People were protesting against this very book, in scenes reminiscent of the clashes in the Middle East. We all saw the CNN footage of those battles in the streets and the Internet was disconnected throughout the UK for almost three whole weeks. How do you account for that? Were there not also several deaths?”

“There are no riots now,” the Ismus assured her. “Those misguided crowds were agitators who had not read the book and did not understand why it was important they should do so. The deaths were regrettable accidents, no more. Such violence could never occur again.”

“Because the anti-Jax groups have now read the book and are under its, and therefore your, control?”

“Like I said, there are no riots now. In fact, across the board, crime isn’t just down – it’s non-existent.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“It’s true. The last reported crime was over a month ago, that’s all types of crime. Just doesn’t happen now.”

“That’s incredible.”

The Ismus grinned at her.

“Isn’t it?” he said. “Then there’s the sale of prescription drugs such as Prozac and Valium – down to nil. People don’t need that junk any more. They don’t need any type of drug, legal or otherwise. Drug and alcohol rehab are things of the past; every former user and addict is now completely clean.”

“I’m finding this very hard to accept, Mr Ismus.”

“Just Ismus.”

“You’re saying clinical depression has been cured by this book? That violent and petty felonies have been wiped out by this book? That dependence on hard, Class A drugs such as heroin has been totally eradicated by this book?”

“You should take a look inside one of our maximum-security prisons. Now they’ve each got four teams of Morris Men and their own internal league.”

“That really is astonishing.”

“It’s just one of the joys of Dancing Jax,” the Ismus told her. “It has united this broken country. Made it into a better place.”

“So can you explain just how that has happened? What exactly are the readers of this book getting from it? What is the power it has over them?”

The Ismus looked into Kate’s eyes until she found it disconcerting and uncomfortable, but she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. She’d interviewed more powerful people before – or so she thought.

“It gives them order,” he said. “That’s what people want, but are too conditioned to admit. They want to believe in a simpler world where the burden of choice doesn’t exist, where they know who they are and how their jigsaw life fits into the larger pattern. To know and to belong…”

“The burden of choice?” Kate interrupted. “Excuse me, but freedom of choice, free will, freedom of speech are what define us, especially we Americans; our constitution is founded upon that. How can you call it a burden?”

He waved a hand in airy dismissal, which she felt insulted and antagonised by. “What a pretty illusion that is,” he said. “The choices you think are yours are just smoke and mirrors. What choice is there in this world where all the shops and food outlets are the same? Take the Internet, for example; where is the choice there?”

“I don’t see what you’re driving at. There are an infinite number of choices on the Internet.”

His face assumed a pitying, patient expression. “Millions of people online,” he said. “You’d think there should be unlimited choices, unlimited options open to them. But that isn’t what they want.”

“It isn’t?”

“Too much choice is confusing. As I said, they want order; they want to be told what to buy and from whom. People need herding. That’s why the chaos of the Internet is being tamed and moulded, by every one of their sheeplike clicks of the mouse. They’re building boundary walls within infinity because they’re terrified at the prospect of something so limitless and arbitrary.”

“I can’t say that I agree with…”

“It’s a waste of your spearmint-scented breath to deny it. There is only one place to download music, one auction site, one social network site, one search engine, one place to share your videos, one place to buy books, one encyclopaedia and one way to pay for it all… and you say you believe in the illusion of choice? Come now, are attractive women still pretending to be less intelligent than they are to get by in what they see as a man’s world?”

Kate refused to let herself get nettled by him any further and switched back to the book.

“And what about the people here who haven’t been seduced by Dancing Jax?” she asked.

“Interesting word choice. Yes, there are a very few sad individuals. Less than a fraction of a per cent of the population who just can’t appreciate the power and beauty of Dancing Jax.”

“Is it not true that those very people are now facing discrimination, persecution and violent oppression?”

“That’s profoundly untrue; they deserve our pity and understanding, and get plenty of both.”

“Not according to my sources.”

His eyes locked on her and Kate, despite being a veteran of war reporting in some of the most dangerous hot spots of the world, felt a stab of fear unlike anything she had ever experienced.

“Now I wonder what those sources can be?” he asked.

“I can’t disclose that.”

“You don’t have to. I can guess. Tell me, do you always give credence to paranoid conspiracy theorists with personal grudges? Martin Baxter is just a jealous, embittered maths teacher from Suffolk. His grievance isn’t with Dancing Jax. It’s with me. His ex left him to become my consort. Her son is also with me; the boy is one of our four prime Jacks – the Jack of Diamonds. Martin Baxter just doesn’t know when to let go. I feel sorry for the man, I really do. He should move on.”

“Is that why he’s in hiding?” she pressed. “Is that why he’s too afraid to even meet with me and communicates via email only? He is very outspoken and critical of what you and your book have done here.”

“The guy is delusional and a militant agitator. He’s wanted by the authorities here for stoking the very unrest you were talking about earlier. His accusations against me and Dancing Jax have been totally discredited and condemned and the papers uncovered some very unpleasant, shameful details about his personal life. Why would you even listen to someone like that?”

“Sir, what I’m more interested in is the treatment of the people who haven’t embraced your book. What is happening to them?”

The Ismus looked down the lens again and continued. “I intend only to help those people, to try and enable them to come join the rest of us and reap the same incredible rewards from this amazing work. Just as I hope to share it with other countries, yours included.”

“Sir,” she repeated without any respect in her tone. “The rest of the world is watching what is occurring here, watching extremely closely. Washington will not permit this controversial book to be published in the US if it provokes such heated demonstrations and turns citizens into brainwashed zombies who think this life is not their real existence. I really don’t think you can expect the book to be published anywhere else but here.”

The Ismus grinned at her. “And yet,” he said, “earlier this month, at the Bologna International Book Fair, Dancing Jax was sold to many different countries. At this very moment it’s being translated into nine languages. I can’t wait to see those foreign editions, I really can’t. The words of Austerly Fellows are going global.”

The interview ended on his crooked smile and the picture cut once again to Kate Kryzewski outside the Savoy.

“And so there you have it, the current situation in the United Kingdom. I still can’t begin to understand it, but I will say this and once again echo the words of Brandon from Wisconsin: ‘Wake up, America’.”

The camera did a slow zoom on her face.

“Do not permit this book to get a foothold in our country,” she warned. “Do not let it take root; do not let Dancing Jax brainwash our citizens, our precious children, as it has here. Never let the Land of the Free become subject to the tyranny of this insidious book. If you receive a copy from a relative or friend over here, destroy it immediately. Don’t even leaf through the pages. Don’t give it a chance to hook you in. America, I love you. Be vigilant. This is Kate Kryzewski for NBC Nightly News, reporting from London, England.”

The familiar environment of the studio snapped back on air. With eyebrows slightly raised, Harlon Webber appeared as calm and professional as ever and ready to introduce the next item.

Suddenly a voice yelled out in the studio and Jimmy the cameraman ran in front of Camera Two. He raised his right arm, brandishing a copy of Dancing Jax for millions of Americans to see.

“Hail the Ismus!” he roared, flecks of spittle flying from his mouth and dotting the lens. His eyes were wide and the pupils dilated so much that hardly any iris could be seen. “Hail the Ismus!” he continued to bawl until Security dragged him away. “Hail the Ismus! He is amongst us!”

EARLY MORNING AND it was overcast, almost chilly. Not quite the glorious sunshine they were hoping for in the first Friday of May. Perhaps later on it would brighten up a little, in time for the special arrivals. Still, everything else was perfectly in order.

The man now known as Jangler, or the Lockpick, after the gaoler character in Dancing Jax, ran through his checklist one last time and twirled his fingers through the neat little grey beard that sprouted from his chin. Meticulous and methodical in habit and training, he made a bluff mumbling sound under his breath as he satisfied himself he had missed nothing. Everything was organised, nice and tidy. Turning, he glanced up from his clipboard and peered over his spectacles at the holiday compound behind him.

Up until three months ago, this idyllic retreat in the heart of the New Forest had been a favourite place for hostellers and school parties on outward bound trips. The main block housed the kitchen, refectory and lecture room, while seven lesser buildings were dormitories. They were designed to resemble log cabins, with various degrees of success, but the cumulative effect was not unattractive. They looked sufficiently picturesque and rural, surrounded as they were by trees and bedecked with spring flowers in a myriad of pots and window boxes and fluttering heraldic banners and bunting. It looked good on camera and that was the important thing today.

Jangler drew a tick on his list. He enjoyed drawing ticks. They signified something had been completed. It was a leftover habit from his previous existence as a solicitor in a drab, file-filled office in Ipswich. Before the power of Dancing Jax had taken control, his former name had been Hankinson, but he hardly ever remembered that now. He had spent that entire former life waiting for this. Through the generations, his family had been disciples of Austerly Fellows and were entrusted with keeping the documents and secrets of that incredible personage safe down the decades.

He continued to twiddle with his beard and checked the list once more.

The news crews were assembled inside the main block for the press conference that the Ismus had convened. With two exceptions, everyone there was in the thrall of Dancing Jax. Reporters were dressed in medieval-type clothing, with a playing card pinned somewhere on their outfit. They showed a nauseating deference to the personage of the Holy Enchanter when he came striding in. The lecture hall popped and flared with white light as camera flashes went wild. The Ismus paraded up and down, so that everyone could get a great photo, and the tails of his velvet jacket whipped about him as he strutted before them.

Five chairs were lined up at the front, facing the press. Occupying four were the Jacks and Jills, the teenagers from Felixstowe who had become the embodiment of the lead characters in the book. They were now the most famous teens in Britain. Their faces appeared everywhere, endorsing products that suited their royal personalities. No magazine or newspaper was complete without photographs of them and there were endless articles about the minutiae of their lives in this drab world. Each had their own reality TV show.

Currently, the one featuring the Jill of Spades had the highest ratings. The girl had been responsible for the Felixstowe Disaster the previous autumn, in which forty-one young people had died, and the consequences of her confession were most entertaining to watch. At the moment, she was out on bail and her trial was due to commence in two months’ time. It promised to be a total circus. The Audience Appreciation Index figures for her programme were unprecedented. Her sly, devious ways made it unmissable viewing. The British public were hooked, not only on Dancing Jax, but also on her outrageously amusing antics in this world.

Kate Kryzewski and Sam, her unshaven cameraman, waited for the applause to die down as the Ismus took the vacant seat in the middle. His bodyguards, three burly men with blackened faces, stood behind him and two Harlequin Priests assumed their positions at either end.

“Blessed be to you,” the Ismus addressed everyone.

Again Kate and Sam were silent while those around them responded.

The Ismus smiled.

“My loyal subjects,” he began, “I crave pardon for summoning you, but I wished to explain the events taking place here this weekend. It has come to my attention that in this Kingdom of ours there are certain children who have not yet found their way to the Realm of the Dawn Prince. The words of the sacred text have as yet been unable to reach them.”

The news teams began to murmur and some people spat on the floor in contempt.

“Do not be hasty to judge and denounce them as aberrants,” the Ismus chided gently. “Some paths meander and veer deep into shadowy woods before rejoining the true way. We must practise patience and show kindness to these sad wretches. Consider how isolated and empty their unhappy existence must be. To be locked in this drabness with no waking in the real world and no sight of Mooncaster’s white towers to set their hearts a-racing. They are to be pitied and must be guided to the right path. Have faith that, given time, the hallowed text will heal them of their ignorance. We are going to give them the weekend of their lives to atone for any sorrows they have endured. Glorious Mooncaster-themed fun, packed with games and feasts worthy of Mistress Slab, the castle cook, interspersed with communal readings led by our finest Shakespearean actors.”

The assembled press clapped and cheered at this most charitable intention. The Jacks and Jills joined in. Even the Jill of Spades seemed moved by this benevolence.

“Excuse me,” Kate interrupted.

“Miss Kryzewski!” the Ismus greeted her. “We meet again. How good of you to accept my invitation back to these shores.”

“It wasn’t easy,” she replied. “There are no direct flights from the US to Britain any more. Not since planes started to land back home with every passenger and crew member having been inducted into this… whatever you want to call it, somewhere over the Atlantic. Sam and me had to fly to France and come here on the Eurostar.”

“I hope the regrettable misunderstanding between our two countries will soon be resolved,” he said. “It must be very inconvenient for so many people.”

“The ‘misunderstanding’, as you call it, will stay in place for as long as your book continues to pose ‘a clear and present danger’ to our citizens. Since our last meeting, there have been outbreaks of violence across Europe. In the cities where Dancing Jax is being translated there have so far been two murders, one suicide and a German publishing house was the scene of an all-out battle between the staff. Do you still insist this book is anything but a negative and destructive force?”

“Change is always resisted,” the Ismus replied. “Every advancement mankind makes is met with suspicion and mistrust. Man’s first instinct is to smash what he fears and doesn’t understand. Luddites hatch faster than bluebottles, but their lifespan is just as brief.”

Kate hadn’t come all this way to hear the same old tunes. With this latest report, she was determined to cut through the tinsel and tights of this unhealthy mania and expose the man behind it as the pernicious dictator he really was. She wanted to put the Holy Enchanter right at the top of America’s Most Wanted List. The American Ambassador and his staff had been recalled from London, but they too were under the book’s insidious spell. They, together with the passengers and crews of the planes she had mentioned, were currently being detained at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and undergoing psychological testing. Last week in Illinois there had been a tragedy involving three families who had come into contact with just one smuggled copy of the book. There had been five separate incidents in other states.

So far the President was dragging his feet over ‘the UK Issue’, as it had become known, and his procrastination was infuriating many. The Republicans were calling it a ‘Jaxis of Evil’. Kate intended her report to put even more pressure on him to finally initiate strong, maybe even military, action. She was going to provide irrefutable evidence that Dancing Jax was a weapon of mass mind destruction.

She was aware the other news crews around her were shifting in their seats, casting hostile glances in her direction, but she took no notice and continued to goad the Ismus. If she could get that soft-soap façade to crack just a little…

“So let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re rounding up all the minors who haven’t yet been brainwashed and bringing them here? Is that correct?”

His face might have been made from marble. “Only those between the ages of seven and sixteen,” he explained. “Any younger would be unthinkable. We are not barbarians.”

“And over the course of this weekend,” she carried on, “you’ll be hoping to work your voodoo on their impressionable minds? Isn’t that more than a little sinister?”

The Ismus laughed at her. “It is no more sinister than one of your Renaissance Fairs!” he said. “But a hundred times more authentic and joyful – and with a greater purpose.”

“So what happens after this jolly weekend? What happens to those kids who still haven’t found their way to your narrow idea of paradise? What will you do to them then? Have them put away?”

“That is why the gentlefolk of the press are here,” he answered suavely. “To inform their audience to treat such individuals with compassion.”

“That would certainly be a change from what I’ve heard…”

“You will insist on listening to scurrilous rumours. I assure you, and the rest of the world, that my only desire is to repair any wrong or hurt that has befallen them and usher in a new age of kindness and consideration for those little ones who, through no fault of their own, are shut out. They are still a precious part of the Dawn Prince’s flock, remember – and our future after all.”

Kate folded her arms. She wasn’t buying any of this snake oil.

“Sounds like a blatant PR exercise in damage limitation to me,” she said. “It’s got ‘desperate stunt’ stamped all over it.”

The Ismus’s eyes glittered at her.

“Why don’t we go outside,” he suggested, “and see what delights we have planned, before the children arrive? I’m sure your readers and viewers would find it most fascinating. The world should see what merry times are to be had in this, united, kingdom. There is nothing for them to be afraid of.”

He rose and his entourage moved with him to the doors. The crowd of press followed.

Kate hung back with Sam.

“I thought he was going to set his goons on you just now,” Sam said, lowering the camera. “Don’t push him too far, Kate.”

“He may be a crazy-assed sociopath,” she replied, “but he’s not stupid. He needs to keep us sweet right now. His grand plan isn’t going as smooth as he expected. He’s more anxious than ever to show the world his warped vision of Merrie Olde England.”

“I don’t get why he asked you back here in that case. You’re never going to give him a glowing testimonial.”

The woman agreed. “Just remember what I told you,” she warned. “Eat and drink only what we brought with us. If someone offers you anything, don’t touch it, not even if it’s an unopened can of soda.”

“Sure thing! Hey, do you think it’s true the Queen of England thinks she’s a miller’s wife and now bakes all the bread in Buckingham Palace?”

“Nothing would surprise me any more. OK, let’s go out there and do our job.”

The sun was finally attempting to break through the cheerless clouds and the spring flowers threw out their deepest colours. Four horses, arrayed in the pageantry of Mooncaster’s Royal Houses, were standing patiently by one of the cabins. A group of mummers were rehearsing and the narrow road outside the compound was already lined with cars and vans. Musicians and brightly dressed folk in the best replicas of Mooncaster apparel had arrived to make this an extra special celebration.

Here and there, in the gathering crowd, snatches of song could be heard and toes were pointed as steps of courtly dances were practised and instruments were plucked, or strummed or blown into. One of the horses leaned forward and grazed idly on the cascading blooms of a hanging basket.

With this in the background, Kate recorded an introductory segment to camera, explaining the farcical pantomime that was being put on today for the world to witness.

It was another forty minutes before the first cheerfully painted coach came lumbering up the forest road. The Ismus and his tame press crews stepped forward to welcome the weekend’s special guests.

“Here they are!” he declared, holding his arms wide. “Our lost and lonely lambs. What a time they shall have; what pleasures and adventures lie in store for them.”

Pulling Sam through the crowd, Kate Kryzewski ploughed her way to the front and directed his lens up at the coach’s windows as it slowed to a stop.

Dozens of young faces were pressed against the glass.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Those poor kids. They look shell-shocked.”

No one would have believed the children in the coach were coming for a “glorious” weekend. Their little faces were sombre and still and a measure of fear dimmed every eye. Some had been crying. The adults who sat beside them had not bothered to wipe those tears away. Kate scanned along the wide windows. There was a mix of ages. Some appeared as young as seven but, here and there, were sullen teenagers who refused to look out and were staring morosely at the headrest immediately in front of them. Only the adults in the coach seemed excited to be here. They were all grinning and pointing and waving and laughing.

The door of the coach slid open.

At once the musicians struck up a joyous tune and the carollers sang a Maying song from the book.

“Welcome!” the Ismus called. “Welcome, one and all!”

The parents of the children rushed out, keen to breathe the same rarefied air as the Holy Enchanter and see the Jacks and Jills who were now seated upon the horses and were saluting and nodding in greeting.

Kate hadn’t even tried to interview any of those four. They were too deeply immersed in this madness to shed any light on it. They were living puppets, enslaved to the wishes of the Ismus, and had almost forgotten their original identities completely.

But at that moment she wasn’t thinking of them. She urgently wanted to speak to these stunned-looking kids. Impatient, she waited for the adults to leave the vehicle and, when no child came following, she jumped on to the coach, dragging Sam with her.

Right away her nostrils were assaulted by the rank stink of that foul plant and she saw that the seats and floor were strewn with stalks and well-chewed fibrous lumps. She knew the slimy debris was down to the adults. Minchet didn’t work on these kids. That was why they were here.

Seventeen children were still sitting in their allocated seats, dotted evenly down the length of the coach. The younger ones stared up at her, confused and unsure, cuddly toys clenched in desperate headlocks.

It had been a long journey. They had been collected from across the southern counties and hadn’t been allowed to sit together or talk to one another for the entire trip. Kate doubted if they even wanted to. They looked so withdrawn and unwilling to make eye contact with one another.

Kate was moved in the same way the grieving families of Gaza, Baghdad and Haiti had moved her when she reported from there. But she was a veteran at detachment. She had an important job to do and she trusted Sam to capture and linger on the children’s frightened, damaged expressions. It would make striking footage.

“Hi,” she began quickly. “My name is Kate and I’m a reporter for American TV. This scruffy guy with the camera is Sam. You don’t have to be scared of us. We’re your friends. We haven’t read that book. We haven’t tasted that minchet stuff. We’re on your side.”

Someone at the back hissed through his teeth. Kate looked over to where a pair of Nike trainers poked between two headrests, but whoever it was had slouched too far down and she couldn’t see who they belonged to.

“If I could have a few words with some of you,” she continued, fiercely aware that this precious time alone with them was limited. She was amazed no one had already come running in after her to shepherd the children out. A cursory glance through the window told her the Ismus was being mobbed by the kids’ parents and his bodyguards were being kept very busy. Good.

“Please, Miss,” a girl of seven near the front piped up in a timid whisper. “I’ve been sick.”

Kate went over to her. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Puke-arella!” a boy of twelve said before she had a chance to answer.

The girl’s face crumpled, but she didn’t cry.

Kate glared at the boy. “Hey, watch your mouth, wise-ass,” she told him.

The boy looked up at her with an anguished, jumbled expression of gratitude and helplessness on his face. Then he burst into tears. That one rebuke was the most normal interaction he’d had in the past few months. Kate bit the inside of her cheek. Dear God, this was tough. These poor kids were totally messed up and traumatised.

“It’s OK,” she told him in a gentler tone. “You’re going to be all right. My report is going to show the whole of America what’s happening here. You’ll be fine. I promise.”

Another dismissive hiss sounded from beyond those Nikes at the back.

“Christina,” the girl who had been ill voiced meekly. “My name’s Christina.”

The front of her dress was soaked in a spectacular display of sick. It was cold and Kate wondered how long her parents had let her sit like that. How could they not care? How could they forget all the love they must have had for her before the pages of that book ruined everything? Which of those hyper couples, now fawning over the Ismus and capering around the Jacks, trying to get their autographs and have their pictures taken with them, were her mom and dad?

“Well, don’t you worry, Christina,” Kate said, taking hold of her small hand and squeezing it comfortingly. “We’ll find you clean clothes and have you feeling better in no time.”

“The cases are in the luggage hold,” a new voice piped up. It belonged to an older, studious-looking girl, with short, mouse-coloured hair, wearing a shapeless, apple-green cardigan and faded, baggy jeans. “You really think they’ll let you broadcast this? You’re a deludanoid.”

Kate ignored that for the moment. “Hi,” she said. “And who are you? Where’s that lovely accent from?”

“Jody. From Bristol. Could you be any more patronising?”

“Hello, Jody. And what would you like to say to the Americans watching this?”

The girl looked away. “Not much,” she answered flatly. “They’ll find out soon enough I reckon.”

“I’d really like to hear your story, Jody,” Kate persevered. “I’m sure it’s a fascinating one.”

Still gazing into space, the girl shook her head. “Nothing to tell,” she answered. “’Cept I’ve been in this cattle wagon for eight hours an’ there weren’t enough bog stops.”

“What about Dancing Jax? How has it affected your life and that of your family and friends?”

Jody shrugged. It was obvious she was afraid to criticise any aspect of the book. “Just didn’t work on me, that’s all,” she answered evasively. “It didn’t work on none of us in here. We’re duds – rejects.”

“That isn’t true!” Kate said sternly. “You’re the innocent victims of some mass hysteria, a nationwide sickness that we haven’t been able to understand yet. But it is containable. I’m going to use this report to ensure you all get away from this country, to places of safety where this won’t ever touch you. The UN is going to intervene and begin putting everything right.”

The older children turned their eyes away. They had experienced too many crushed hopes in recent months to invest in any more. The younger ones, however, grew excited. One of them punched the air and another cheered.

“Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens,” Jody mumbled with weary sarcasm.

Kate knew exactly what she meant. Pity and promises weren’t what they needed. But first things first…

“This is what’s going to happen,” she told them. “Sam is going to walk down the middle here and I want each of you to look into the camera and state your name, age and where you’re from. Speak up nice and clear – you’ll be famous the world over.”

Again the hiss sounded at the back.

The reporter liked whoever that was. At least one of these kids had some fight left in him. She’d get to Nike boy soon, but first she told Sam to start. She knew it was of vital importance to get a record of the kids. Heaven knows what the real intention of the Ismus was, but it certainly wasn’t to give them a fun weekend. She’d stake her life on that.

As Sam moved down the coach, they heard the noise of another vehicle approaching. Kate stared out and saw a second coach driving up the forest road.

“More rejects,” Jody observed.

It turned into the compound and parked close by. Again eager parents came piling out first. Kate saw more wretched young faces left behind in their seats.

Sam concentrated on the task at hand. The older kids gave their names grudgingly; the ones of around ten and eleven did it with stilted shyness. Most of the youngest stood up to do it, with emphatic nods. Others had to be prompted to speak louder.

“Daniel Foster, nine and a quarter, Weymouth.”

“Beth McCormack, Marlborough, twelve.”

“Patrick… Patrick Hunter, eight… ummm Horsham – twenty-three Elm Tree Grove.”

“Christina Carter, I’m seven and a half and… I’ve forgotten.”

“Never mind, honey,” Kate reassured her.

“Jody, fourteen, Bristol and you’re wasting your time.”

“Mason Stuart from Ashford, eleven.”

“Brenda Jenkins, ten, Epsom.”

“Rupesh Karim, Upton Park, nine.”

The next child was a thin, frail-looking boy with an ashen face. There was a large bruise on his forehead. Sam made sure the camera picked that up. The boy stared dumbly into the lens, like a startled baby bird.

“And what’s your name, little buddy?” Sam asked.

The boy mouthed something inaudible, then murmured a bit louder, “I’m seven.”

“Tell the folks in the US who you are,” Sam coaxed.

The boy took a breath and the bruise crinkled as he frowned with concentration.

“I think I was called Thomas Williams,” he began in a bewildered, faltering voice. “But now… now…”

“Now? What do your mom and dad call you?”

“Punchbag.”

Sam choked. He laid the camera down and put his arms round him. Other children craned their heads round the seats to see. From their envious stares, Kate realised they were completely starved of affection and had forgotten what a hug felt like.

She clenched her teeth, but banked the anger for later. She’d seen and heard enough. The crass PR stunt that Ismus creep had planned to pull today had blown up in his arrogant face. What good press was he hoping to wring from these abused and neglected kids? One thing was certain, they weren’t going to spend another day in this malignant, twisted country. She’d get each one of them out somehow.

“It really is Julie Andrews time,” she said, taking out her mobile. “I’m calling Harry. He’ll know who to yell at or put the squeeze on to cut through the red tape and BS. We’re out of here, Sam, and the kids are coming with us – if it means sending in the goddamn marines.”

She found her producer’s number in New York and pressed the phone to her ear, waiting for it to connect. Suddenly a shrill squeal filled the coach and she dropped the phone as if it had bitten her. The screen went blank, no signal – no nothing.

“Sam,” she urged. “Get your cell. Call Harry.”

The cameraman obeyed hurriedly. The same piercing shriek blasted from his mobile.

The younger children stared at them. Jody grunted and muttered under her breath. At the back of the coach the hiss was replaced by a mocking snort.

“Has anyone got a cellphone?” Kate begged. “I need to speak to people who can get you out of here, away from this.”

Several hands rose slowly. Then, at the back, the trainers withdrew and the angry face of a black youth reared up from behind the seats.

“What is wrong with you?” he shouted at the reporter. “You terminal stupid or something? They won’t let you call nobody. They’ll burst every phone you try.”

“He’s right,” Sam said. “They’re jamming us. We can’t call out – we can’t contact anyone.”

Kate clenched her hands. She should have expected something like this, but even in the most remote places of the world she’d always managed to get her reports back to the network. Still, she wasn’t overly worried yet. She should have been.

“Thanks,” she addressed the boy at the back. “What’s your name?”

“You don’t need my name, lady and I ain’t interested in yours, cos you and Spielberg there are the biggest fools I seen in a long while. What you even doing here? You’re a couple of turkeys who don’t know it’s Christmas. You don’t know nothin’!”

Thumping the headrest, he dived back on to his seat, pushed in his earphones and turned up the volume of his MP3 player.

“My laptop’s in the hire car,” Kate told Sam. “I’ll go email Harry and get things moving.”

“You think they won’t be jamming the Internet as well?”

“That’s what I admire about you, Sam, always so positive. If they’re doing that, I’ll just have to drive till I’m out of range.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, stay here and finish what you’re doing. Then get over to that other bus and do the same. It’s important.”

She clapped her hands. “Listen up, kids,” she said. “I need to leave for a little while, but I’ll be back. Sam is staying and I want you to start talking to one another and make friends. OK? You’re in this situation together now. You have to pal up and begin looking out for one another. You hear me?”

The muted responses were not encouraging.

“Oh my days!” Jody observed sharply. “What Top Shop travesty is assaulting my eyes out there?”

She was staring out of the window at the second coach, where a teenage girl dressed in a pink and white leather outfit was looking expectantly about her, searching for the news crews and smiling widely for any cameras.

“Tanorexic Barbie spawn,” Jody commented. “With an IQ lower than the dead animals she’s wearing. What plastic planet is she on?”

Kate Kryzewski was too focused on composing the urgent email she was going to send to even look. She turned to hurry back to the door. Then she halted and drew a sharp breath.

There was the Ismus. His lean, velvet-clad frame ascended the two steps into the coach and he broke into a crooked grin. The younger children shrank down into their seats.

“Welcome, my pretty pigeons,” he greeted. “Time for you to fly into the sunshine and see what delights and marvels have been prepared. Such fun you shall have.”

He prowled closer to Kate and brought his face uncomfortably near. “We wouldn’t want them to miss a moment of what’s in store for them, would we?” he said, breathing dead, stagnant air upon her.

THE TEENAGER IN pink and white leather was oblivious to the sneers directed at her from Jody in the first coach. She was too busy flicking her blonde hair extensions back and casting a critical eye at her reflection in the glass of the vehicle’s door. Her mother was just as eager to meet the Ismus and the Jacks as the other parents, but she had resisted the powerful urge and remained with the girl.

“Make sure you get your face on camera as much as possible,” she instructed. “Soon as the rush dies down, we’ll move in. You latch on to his Lordship and hang in there like a limpet.”

The girl nodded. “I know,” she said. “Like he’s a Clooney or a Rooney. Aww, I made a poem, innit!”

“And remember, you’re here to learn as well as get your face in the papers and glossies. I don’t know why the book hasn’t worked for you yet, but I’m sure there’s a good reason. Just taking a bit longer with you than the rest of us.”

“It’s not cos I’m fick, Ma.”

“I didn’t say you was. But this is your big chance – don’t cock it up. What has your mother always said? ‘You have to turn every setback into a lesson to do better next time.’”

“You ain’t never said that! You always told me to act dumb and common cos no one likes a clever bird.”

“Well, I’m saying it now. There might not be a next time after this. You’ve got to grab this chance by the curlies and make the most of it. You’re gonna wake up from this miserable dream world sometime this weekend and find out you’re royalty – a Jill or higher, not a three of clubs laundress like me. Can’t be nothing else with that pretty face.”

“I’m a princess, innit,” the girl told herself. “You an’ Uncle Frank always said I was.”

Her mother gave her an appraising look then prodded her chest. “You got those chicken fillets in? Should have used ostrich’s. Put your shoulders back so they stick out more.”

“Do they have things like these in Mooncaster?” the girl asked. “I don’t wanna be no flat-chested munter when I wake up there. I wanna good boob rack.”

“Don’t you worry about that. We’ve got corsets and bodices to show off our milk puddings a treat. It’s Boots’ make-up counter I miss when I’m there and those other silly fripperies they have here in my dreams. I’m not sure about sleeping with raw bacon on my eyes to keep the crows’ feet at bay or rubbing goose fat on my poor chapped fingers. If I could afford some of the Queen of Hearts’ concoctions, I would, but laundresses don’t earn many sixpences – silver coin isn’t easy to come by. I’m not complaining – that’s just how life is there and it’s a bushel better than here, I promise you.”

“You don’t half talk funny since you been goin’ there. It’s mad. Like you’re in an old film about history, like that Shakespeare’s Got Love. It’s not fair the book hasn’t worked on me. It should of. You know how hard I been tryin’. You know me an’ readin’ don’t get on, unless it’s Cosmo or Hello or a catalogue or Garfield or a text message. That book’s the longest fing I ever read in my life. Took me over a month solid an’ I’ve done it dunno how many times since – and had that sloppy minchet stuff in all my Slim Fasts an’ mixed in with my avocado salads, but I’m still bleedin’ here! What’s that about then?”

Her mother shushed her. The Black Face Dames had emerged from the first coach, leading a straggly line of unhappy children. The musicians played with even more gusto and dancers came skipping forward to perform. The Ismus was there, accompanied by a woman and a straw-haired young man who was busily filming the last few children emerging from the vehicle. The black youth at the very end pushed the lens out of his face and gave him the finger.

“There’s His Highness, the Holy Enchanter!” her mother exclaimed. “And there’s a camera – perfect moment. Get in there!”

The girl didn’t need any persuasion. She tottered hastily over the grass in her pink diamanté heels, making a beeline for the Ismus.

Kate Kryzewski was wondering how she could get away from him and his bodyguards and make it to the car without being noticed, when the girl and her mother bore down on them.

“Your Lordship!” the woman cried, bobbing into a curtsy. “I am Widow Tallowax of the wash house. A lowly matron, though of good character, far beneath your notice I’m sure. After a long day at the steaming coppers, when I nod off on my comfy rocker by the ingle, I find myself here where I am this girl’s mother. The pity of it is the poor mite can’t find her way back to the castle so we’ve no idea who she really is, but she’s a rare beauty and obviously a personage of quality and standing whom no doubt the Limner will be sure to paint a likeness of.”

The Ismus listened with faint amusement.

“And what is your name here?” he asked, addressing the girl directly.

“Charm,” the teenager said, nodding perkily and pushing her shoulders back. “Charm Benedict, but we dropped the last bit. It were goin’ to be Charm Bracelet for my modellin’, but Uncle Frank, he’s my manager, said that were a bit naff. I really liked it, but he said brands work best with just one word and he’s right when you fink about it. So it’s just Charm now, innit?”

The girl thrust her arm through his and ran a hand over his sleeve.

“This velvet is well lush,” she said enthusiastically. “You look well elegant. Ooh, that sounds funny! Is there such a word as ‘welegant’? There should be.”

“Thank you, now if I may…”

“I bet you’re an After Eight!”

“A what?”

“You know… them skinny square chocs at posh dinner parties. See – I reckon everyone has their own flavour. You’re classy, right – like an After Eight. There it is, nice and slim in its special little bag fing, all dark chocolate but wiv a minty cream fillin’. Smoove an’ sleek on the outside, zingy like toothpaste in the middle. Hidden Depps – like the actor.”

“She’s always putting flavours to people,” her mother added, beckoning to Sam to bring his camera over. “It’s just one of the pretty quirks she has. I’m cookie dough apparently. Tell them what you are, Charm, go on.”

The girl managed to flick her hair back and swivel both herself and the Ismus round so that the camera was fully on them.

“I’m a rainbow sherbet,” she said with a perfected smile. “Mixed with that space dust stuff, so I froth and sparkle with sweetness on your tongue.”

“Effervesce,” her mother corrected in a muttered aside. “Froth makes you sound like you’ve got rabies.”

The Ismus tried to disentangle himself, but the girl wasn’t going to let him escape that easily.

“I am well looking forward to this weekend!” she declared, clinging on with determination. “I’m so excited I could wet my knickers. This is what I’ve been waiting for, ever since the book come out and I couldn’t get my head round it. There’s no one who wants to go to Mooncaster more’n I do. Me ma’s told me so much. Sounds amazin’! I am going to work so hard and make sure I get there. I’ll do anyfink I will. Look what I had done soon as I knew I was coming here.”

She unzipped her leather jacket and lifted a skimpy T-shirt to show the heart-shaped, pink diamanté stud that pierced her navel.

“You getting that?” she asked Sam, angling her midriff so the diamanté glinted in the sunlight. “Matches my Dolce Gabbanas as well, see. Course I don’t know what I’ll be when I wake up in the castle, but I hope it’s Hearts, cos I luuurve ’em; them’s the prettiest, but I don’t mind what I am – honest. I can change this for whatever. Diamonds would be well good.”

Sam kept the lens on her. The teenager’s attitude was the weirdest he had encountered so far. She babbled away like a Valley girl, not letting the banal chatter drop for a moment. She fired off questions then gabbled over the answers and her mother chipped in whenever there was a pause for breath. The longer this went on the better, thought Sam, because Kate had slipped quietly away.

Kate Kryzewski made it to the hire car without any hindrance. Market stalls displaying food fit for a medieval banquet had been set up right in front of it. This ye olde bake sale formed the perfect screen. The car was completely hidden from view.

Once inside, she quickly typed the explosive email that would jump-start America and the UN into action.

“Blue touchpaper well and truly lit,” she told herself as she clicked on send. But there was no wireless signal.

“Failure to launch. Damn you, Sam for being right.”

The reporter frowned and thought calmly. Maybe there just wasn’t any coverage in this nowhere place anyway. She slid across into the driver’s seat and turned the engine over. She’d drive to the nearest village or town, until that little graphic began to blink on her laptop.

Kate glanced in the mirror to reverse out, but braked sharply. While she had been typing, a large wooden wagon loaded with hay bales had been wheeled directly behind, blocking her in.

“Unbelievable!” she seethed impatiently.

There was nothing for it but to get out of the car and get the wagon moved. But there was nobody near it and no one she asked had seen who put it there.

“The carter’ll be having a mug of ale, most like,” a pie-seller told her. “Try asking over yonder, at the brewer’s stall. There’s a tidy crowd there.”

Kate glanced across, but it was too close to where the Ismus was being monopolised by that teenage wannabe.

She returned to the wagon and pushed against it. The thing wouldn’t budge. How did it even get here? There had to have been a horse pulling it. She ran back to the pie-seller. He was a big, beefy man with thick forearms and looked strong as an ox.

“Hi again,” she said, with her most winning smile. “I wonder – could you please do me a massive favour? I don’t want to disturb the wagon guy if he’s having a beer. I’m sure if we both push, that thing’ll move out of the way and I can get my car out.”

The man stared back at her blankly.

“I can’t leave my pies unattended,” he told her. “Not when the Jack of Diamonds is about. He’ll nab the lot soon as my back is turned. Beggin’ your pardon, Mistress, but you won’t find none here in the market who’ll neglect their wares whilst Magpie Jack’s around.”

Kate understood. No one was going to help her. The wagon had been put there deliberately to keep her inside the camp.

“Fine,” she uttered. “Just fine – dammit.”

But it wasn’t fine. The unspoken menace here was mounting. She’d been in tight spots before, but this, this was something else. She wished she’d brought a truck full of US troops with her instead of one laid-back Californian cameraman. Why did she always think she could handle any situation on her own? Why did she think she was Teflon-coated?

For the first time in too long she thought of her father. He had served in the military all his life. By the age of nine, she had lived in half the US army bases in the world. Kate hadn’t spoken to him in three years. Their political views were poles apart and the last row had been nuclear with lots of fallout. Still, if he was here now, he’d have broken the Ismus’s jaw before those blacked-up bodyguards had guessed what was coming. At that moment, Kate would have given anything to see that. She smiled faintly at the thought and promised herself that, after this, she’d make the first move and call Lieutenant Colonel Pete Kryzewski and say, “Hi, Dad.”

She took off her jacket, retrieved the laptop and wrapped it inside. Holding them under her arm, she cast a careful glance towards the coaches and moved quickly but discreetly through the bustling people. Everyone under the influence of that book appeared to be having the time of their lives. Carollers were singing and the minstrels were filling the spring sunshine with lively music. Kate kept to the edge of the crowds and wove her way towards the main gates. If she ducked around the far side of the second coach, she could reach the forest road without being spotted.

The urge to run was strong, but she forced herself to walk as nonchalantly as possible. The children and teens from this other coach were now standing in front of it, bewildered and ill at ease. Kate saw the same traumatised expressions on them as before. She didn’t dare stop or speak to them. It was vital to get this email sent.

She ducked round the side of the vehicle and sprinted along the length of it. Then she checked her pace and sneaked out of the camp gates.

The narrow forest road stretched in front of her. Kate looked searchingly at the lines of cars parked on either side. She couldn’t keep darting to and fro, checking every car. Someone would be sure to spot her. Choosing the left-hand verge, she hurried past the cars parked there, trying the doors.

“Come on,” she whispered urgently. “Show me some keys! There’s no larceny in this country any more, right? No reason to worry about auto theft. Why do you Brits have to be so uptight, even when you’re all nuts? Just one set of keys in the ignition. I’m not fussy – doesn’t have to be a Porsche.”

It was no use. Every vehicle was locked. Finally she understood why. The owners had known the Jack of Diamonds was going to be here today. His character in the book was cursed with itchy palms. He couldn’t help himself. He stole anything he took a liking to. The drivers weren’t taking any chances with that roguish Knave at large.

Kate uttered a curse of her own. She would have to reach the nearest village, or wherever she could get a signal, on foot.

Half running, she set off down the tree-lined road and tried to recall the journey that morning. Sam had been driving and she had been concentrating on her notes, so barely noticed the landscape they passed through. Sam had commented at the time that this place wasn’t his idea of a forest. Sure, there were lots of trees, but they were clumped in many separate areas of woodland, interspersed with open tracts of heath and pasture. His idea of an English forest was based solely on Robin Hood and King Arthur movies and some of them were cartoons. Still, she remembered he had pointed out several riding centres, hotels and restaurants along the route. Surely they couldn’t survive without Internet bookings?

It took her ten minutes to reach the junction where the narrow road joined a wider way. Kate knew they had turned right off there. Staying close to the trees, she began retracing their journey and unwrapped the laptop from her jacket.

Still no signal.

She swore under her breath and hastened on.

Behind her, in the camp, a horn sounded a warbling fanfare and a great cheer went up. She wondered what that meant – the call to a mass reading or a free-for-all at the pie stall? She hoped Sam would have the sense to get in the car whilst any reading took place. She’d briefed him on it enough times before they arrived. It was too dangerous to risk hearing just one sentence from that infernal book.

Suddenly she stopped walking and whipped her head around. She could hear the thudding of horses galloping along the road and the whooping of the following crowd.

“Oh, Jeez,” she breathed. “They really are totally insane.”

Now she understood why that horn had been blown. It was the start of a hunt, and they were hunting her.

Kate clutched the laptop tightly and ran. She was in good shape – female reporters had to be or they didn’t get on TV. She went to the gym three times a week and did plenty of cardio: rowing machine, bike, stepper, always finishing with half an hour on the treadmill and when she didn’t go there, she jogged.

She had to get off this road. So far, the riders hadn’t emerged on to the main road and she wanted to be out of sight when they did. The trees on the other side grew sparsely and she saw a stretch of open heath beyond them.

Kate dashed over and jumped into the thin woodland opposite. She had seen a car in the distance headed this way. She hoped the driver hadn’t spotted her, or if they had, wouldn’t be suspicious of a woman haring across the road. It was a ridiculous hope.

Not looking back, she plunged into the trees and then out over the green expanse of coarse, scrubby heathland.

The Jack of Clubs’ horse was the first to clatter out on to the main road. He reined it around, looking right and left for the fleeing reporter. Presently the other riders were alongside him.

“Where is she?” the Jill of Spades asked. “Did you mark where she went?”

Jack shook his head. “We must divide our number,” he instructed. “You come with me; we shall take the left way. The others must ride yonder!”

“Why can I not go with you?” the Jill of Hearts asked. “I like the look of that left way better.”

“Are you sure it is the way you prefer the look of?” the Jill of Spades asked pointedly.

The girls exchanged spiked glances. By now the car was almost level with them. It slowed to a stop and the driver, a woman in her fifties with a five of clubs pinned to her coat, got out and sank to her knees.

“My Lords and Ladies!” she exclaimed, elated beyond measure. “A mighty honour this is, to find you here, in my grey dream – of all places! ’Tis really you! Our dear own Jacks and Jills, right in front of me, here in this nothing place! How blessed I am!”

The Jill of Spades sneered at her and the Jack of Diamonds leaned over to whisper in the Jill of Hearts’ ear. They laughed together.

“Good mistress,” the Jack of Clubs declared, with a charming smile. “We are hunting one who has defied the Holy Enchanter. Have you seen sign of her?”

The woman nodded her head vigorously. “Just seconds ago!” she cried, delighted to be of assistance and pointing with excitement back down the road. “She ran across that way, through those trees!”

The Jack of Clubs thanked her and they spurred their horses on.

“Blessed be!” the woman shouted after them.

She rose to her feet just as a black SUV, with impenetrable tinted windows, pulled out of the forest road, flanked and followed by a crowd of stern-looking people.

“These dreams are so peculiar,” the woman said, getting back into her modest hatchback.

Kate Kryzewski was over halfway across the heath when she heard the horses’ hooves leave the tarmac and come thumping on to the grass behind.

Another area of woodland spread out ahead. If she could reach that, the riders might not be able to follow. But, as she ran nearer, she saw the trees were too evenly spaced to prove any obstacle to her pursuers. Her efforts would be wasted. Undeterred, she sped on. One thing those early years growing up in army bases had taught her: you never gave up.

The galloping came closer and closer.

Kate sprinted past the first of the trees and looked around wildly. Filtering through new spring leaves, the warm sunshine caused the bluebell-carpeted floor to glow. It was an enchanting, idyllic place, but its beauty was lost on the reporter. Escape was all she could think of.

Some distance away there was a dense thicket of young birches. No horse could get through there. With renewed hope, she tore off diagonally towards it.

The four riders came charging into the wood.

Before Dancing Jax had ensnared them, not one of those teenagers had ever ridden a horse. The book had made them masters of the saddle. Now, flushed with the thrill of the chase, the Jacks stood in their stirrups and urged their steeds on. The Jill of Spades applied her riding whip and the horses thundered through the bluebells.

Kate called on her last reserve of strength. The birches were almost within reach. She might just make it.

“Bring the peasant down!” the Jill of Spades cried, pulling a dagger from her belt and waving it threateningly.

Kate felt the ground shudder. The horses were almost upon her. A snorting breath blasted against her neck. She yelled and, with an extra spurt of energy, flung herself forward. The horses shied and reared behind her as she stumbled into the cover of the birches. She heard the Jacks call out in anger and frustration and she gave a rueful grin before hurrying on.

As she ran, she discarded the jacket and fumbled with the laptop. To her overwhelming relief and surprise, the wireless symbol was blinking. She couldn’t believe it and staggered to a stop. Her fingers were shaking from exertion and fear and it took two attempts to reopen the email.

“Go…” she blessed it breathlessly. “Get this party started.”

But the email was never sent. At that moment, a violent blow punched into her spine. The laptop flew from her hands and suddenly she was on the ground – her face buried in bluebells.

Almost immediately she flipped over on to her back and there was the Jack of Diamonds standing astride her, looking very pleased with himself. He had leaped off his horse and come tearing after her.

Having just turned twelve, he was the youngest of the Jacks. Kate knew everything about him, who he had been before the book had taken control.

“You’re Paul,” she panted desperately. “Paul Thornbury.”

“Be silent, serf!” he commanded. “You must not address me so.”

“I’ve spoken to Martin Baxter. You remember him. You and your mother lived with him in Felixstowe, remember?”

“I am the Jack of Diamonds!” the boy retorted haughtily. “Son and heir of an Under King. I will not heed such untruths from so common a ditch trull as you!”

Kate shook her head in exasperation. He was too profoundly lost in the book’s power. There wasn’t time for this.

“In dances Magpie Jack,” the boy began to chant, the expression draining from his face and his eyes staring fixedly ahead, the pupils dark and glassy. “So hide what he may lack. In his palm there is an itch and the spell he cannot crack. Jools and trinkets he will…”

“Oh, shut up, Your Royal Jackness!” the woman snapped. With an angry yell, she brought her legs up and kicked him in the chest.

The boy cried out in astonishment and tumbled backwards, hurled off balance.

Kate scrambled to her knees. The laptop was still open and lying upside down, just out of reach. The woman lunged for it, but the heel of a riding boot slammed her aside. Then she felt a steel blade press against her neck.

“You dare strike out at a Prince of the Royal House of Diamonds?” the Jill of Spades snarled. “You will die for this, serf!”

Kate twisted around and saw the fierce expression on the girl’s face. She knew that was no empty threat.

“Emma Taylor,” the reporter told her. “Your name is Emma Taylor. Think before you do this. You’re Emma Taylor!”

“I know who I am in my dreams!” the teenager scoffed. “What business is it of yours?”

“This isn’t a dream! This is the real world. There is no White Castle. There is no Mooncaster! You’re caught up in some mad delusion. If you use that knife, you’ll be committing murder.”

The teenager snorted with scorn.

“The girl Emma is already guilty of so many crimes,” she boasted. “What is one more? It will make good viewing for her reality show here.”

Behind her, the Jack of Clubs and the Jill of Hearts were dismounting and the Jack of Diamonds picked himself up, brushing grass from his doublet.

“Is it proper for serfs and thieves to affront and assail us so?” asked the Jill of Hearts. “Dispatch her quick and let us return to the merrymaking.”

The Jill of Spades grinned cruelly and turned the dagger in her hand, admiring the sunlight flashing over the blade.

“Hold!” the Jack of Clubs ordered. “The Ismus wishes her unharmed.”

“That Ismus is a sick, psycho wack-job!” Kate blurted. “You kids don’t know what you’re doing!”

The teenagers ignored her. Everyone had heard a car approaching. They turned and saw the SUV stopping at the edge of the wood. The three Black Face Dames got out and strode towards them.

The bodyguards seized Kate roughly. They pulled her to her feet and dragged her over to the car. There was no point trying to struggle against them.

The Ismus was leaning casually against a wheel arch, his arms folded. Behind the vehicle, a large crowd, dressed in their Mooncaster best, was waiting in expectant silence. The reporter saw many parents of the newly arrived children among them. She wondered what was happening back at the compound. What was the Ismus really up to? What did he really plan to do with those poor kids?

“Miss Kryzewski,” he hailed her. “How ill-mannered of you to leave the festivities without bidding adieu.”

“Oh, gee,” she replied sarcastically. “Did I forget my goody bag?”

“You left before the reading commenced.”

“Yeah, well, that’s one treat I can skip. Thanks for having me. I had a real swell time. Now tell your Jolson homies to let go of my arms.”

The man merely smiled back at her and held out his hand. One of the Harlequin Priests stepped from the crowd. With a reverent bow, he handed him a copy of Dancing Jax.

“The plan was for you to hear the sacred text read by one of our greatest Shakespearean actors,” he told her. “In a more intimate, cosy setting than this. But I do believe yours is the better choice. Let it be alfresco. It’s such a lovely day.”

He nodded to the crowd and every single one of them took a copy of the book from a large pocket or bag and turned to the first page in unison. It was the most chilling and sinister sight Kate had ever seen.

“You can’t do this!” she shouted. “I’m an American citizen! You have no idea how severe the consequences of your actions here will be. My country will instigate full and major punitive measures on your skinny ass!”

The Ismus chuckled mildly. “After the glowing report you’re going to send in about this wonderful weekend?” he asked. “I very much doubt that, Miss Kryzewski.”

“They having snowball fights in hell today? Cos that’s the only time I’ll be doing anything you want.”

The man’s chuckle turned into a full-blooded laugh.

“If you only knew how droll that was,” he told her. “But no, you will do just as I ask. Why else do you think I invited you back?”

Kate pulled and tugged at her arms, but the bodyguards gripped her more fiercely than ever.

“Now shall we begin?” the Ismus asked. “Are you comfortable? Perhaps not, but you will be very soon. I promise.”

The woman glared back at him. “You won’t convert me so easy,” she growled. “Come on – bring out your best Shakespeare guy, let’s see what he’s got. Personally I always thought your actors were overrated, only good for playing bad guys in dumb action movies. I’m a Pacino girl through and through.”

“I guessed as much,” the Ismus replied. “That is why I thought it would be more amusing to have someone more familiar read to you.”

He rapped his knuckles on the SUV’s roof. The rear door opened slowly and a tear rolled down Kate’s cheek when she saw who got out. She screwed her face up and turned away.

“Hello, Sam,” the Ismus greeted him.

THE YOUNG CAMERAMAN smiled shyly, the lids of his glassy eyes blinking sleepily. Then he tore another impassioned bite from the grey, slimy fruit in his hand. The livid juices had already stained his chin.

“Here’s the book, Sam,” the Ismus said. “It’s time for Miss Kryzewski to join us in the Realm of the Dawn Prince.”

Sam shoved the rest of the minchet in his mouth and chewed it urgently. Then he wiped his hands and took hold of Dancing Jax.

“Don’t do it, Sam!” Kate pleaded. “Please don’t.”

The fair-haired man swallowed the fibrous lumps in his mouth and grinned. “It’s all right, Kate,” he assured her. “It’s just like they said. We were dead wrong. This place, this crap – it isn’t real. We belong in Mooncaster. You’ll see.”

He lowered his eyes and began to read.

“Beyond the Silvering Sea, within thirteen green, girdling hills…”

The assembled crowd muttered along with him, following the words as he read them aloud. The Jacks and Jills came to join them and everyone began to nod their heads in time to the rhythm of the sentences.

Kate Kryzewski felt the day darken around her. The sunlight dimmed and a faint buzzing sounded in her head. She tried to think of something else, anything – it didn’t matter what.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and the skin crept on her scalp as something drew close to her.

She blotted out Sam’s voice and flooded her mind with her most vivid memories: a child searching the rubble of Haiti for her mother, the smoking wreck of a bus after a suicide bomb in Gaza, a rocket attack over Baghdad that made the night bright as day, pouring a glass of Merlot over Harlon Webber’s hair plugs when he made a pass at her at the Emmys, the crooked smile of the Ismus…

Frantically she shook that last image out of her head. Sam’s voice filled her ears. She couldn’t blot it out any more. She couldn’t fight any longer. She had to listen. There was nothing else.

Before the darkness rushed in, one final thought of her own flickered briefly.

“Poppa, I’m so sorry!” she cried.

The Ismus’s stark white face reared in her mind. His lean, hungry features were triumphant and she felt her will, her spirit, everything she was, spiralling out of her – till there was nothing left. She threw back her head and her eyes fluttered open. The tall white towers of a magnificent castle stood against the bright blue sky. She gasped in amazement. Then the Black Face Dames let go of her arms and she sprawled on the ground. The grass tickled her hands like feathers.

Columbine looked up from the goose on her lap and wiped her brow, leaving a faint smear of blood behind. Her fingers returned to the dead bird and she continued to mechanically rip the snowy feathers from its body. The goose’s head dangled and jerked to the motion of her hands.

The kitchen was unusually quiet that wintry afternoon. Mistress Slab was in the slaughterhouse across the courtyard, elbow deep in a basin brimming with a bloody mixture. That pink, sticky mash of minced pork, breadcrumbs and herbs would soon be fed into empty lengths of pig intestine. The Mooncaster cook would not permit anyone else to learn the secret recipe of her sausages and always barred the slaughterhouse door when she was busy at this task.

Ned and Beetle, the kitchen boys, were in the village, bringing fresh loaves from the miller’s wife in a barrow. Columbine was completely alone.

It was a huge kitchen, much larger than the four others that prepared the meals of the Royal Houses. It was kept at a constant summer heat by two great fires. Their flames shone in every copper pot that hung on the limewashed walls and sweat splashes were an ingredient in every dish that Mistress Slab prepared.

Columbine was used to the fires by now and she dressed in loose, ragged garments, patched and mended with more squares of cloth than a quilt. She was a young, red-haired girl whose face was only clean on high days or when the pranking kitchen boys carried her to the horse trough and threw her in. She went about her endless chores barefoot, for it was good to feel the cool flagstones under her soles and trail her grubby toes through the straw or cinders.

She never complained when Mistress Slab beat her with the largest wooden spoon if she found her idling. The girl knew how privileged she was to work in the castle and in rare free moments she would creep up the kitchen stairs and peep out at the finely dressed courtiers going by in the Great Hall. What a feast for the eyes they were, so sumptuously dressed and lordly. During the revels, when the music came filtering down into the kitchen, she would close her eyes and twirl in time to the dance, imagining herself draped in the finest gowns wearing slippers of golden silk.

But Mistress Slab’s bear-like voice would always summon her from those reveries: the onions needed peeling or the grates needed sweeping or the spit needed turning or peas needed shelling or the butter needed churning.

When the goose was plucked naked, and looked faintly embarrassed to be in such a state, the girl sat back on the stool. She reached for the second bird she had been instructed to denude before the cook returned.

High above, on the battlements, a trumpet sounded. Down in the kitchen, Columbine heard and knew it heralded the return to Mooncaster of the Jack of Clubs from the day’s hunt.

A delighted smile flashed over the girl’s dirty face. She leaped from the stool and raced up the stairs to the passageway that linked to the Great Hall.

At the end of the passage a carved wooden screen hid the entrance from view of the nobles within. Columbine waited there, peering eagerly through the fretwork. Lords and their ladies came sweeping by, speaking of the day’s adventure and how the Jack of Clubs had the almond hind in his sights at least twice, but refrained from loosing his bow. The Jill of Spades was most scornful. His love of beast and bird was well known, but such displays of mercy were foolishness.

Hearing their chatter, the girl grinned and moistened her lips. The Jack of Clubs always took a long time to enter the Great Hall, for he would not suffer any groom to stable Ironheart, his splendid horse. He did the work himself, speaking to it like a lover, and often slept in the stall for it was the last of the untameable steeds and there was no finer beast in the land.

Columbine stroked the back of the screen with her rough fingertips, impatient for a sight of the handsome youth. He was the pride of Mooncaster, the hero of many hearts, and his golden hair and steadfast voice were always capering through her dreams when she was away from this place.

The gossip of the Court fell to a hush and the Jack of Clubs came striding through the main doors. He laughed with the Jill of Hearts, who stepped forward to try and capture him with her beauty, and shared a pleasantry with his father, the King of Clubs.

Columbine drank in every detail: his curling hair that was likened to a ram’s fleece bathed in the sunset, the soft, wispy moustache that curled at the ends and heightened his beguiling smile. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up past the elbow and she clasped herself in her own grubby arms, breathless with imaginings. She closed her eyes and shivered with secret pleasure.

Suddenly a real hand closed tightly round her arm. She gasped in fright as a tall, portly man came sidling further behind the screen.

“Haw haw haw,” he chuckled softly.

It was the Jockey, the one courtier whom everyone in Mooncaster feared. He played unpleasant tricks and games on them, always seeking to cause mischief and strife between friend and neighbour. Even the Ismus found his presence unsettling and ungovernable.

He brought his stout bulk closer and the caramel-coloured leather of his tightly buttoned outfit creaked and strained. Columbine tried to pull away, but his grip was fierce.

“You set your eyes on too high a trophy,” he told her. “But what eyes they are, as green as the stone in the head of a wishing toad. How they flash and glare at me. Such hate, such pride in one so low.”

“My arm!” she protested. “You hurt, my Lord.”

“Haw haw haw,” he laughed. “No bruise will show through the filth on your flesh!”

“I shall cry out.”

“Then do so. None shall attend. The Jockey’s ways are never questioned.”

Columbine pushed at his paunch and his fingers loosed on her arm. She spun around and darted back along the passage and down into the kitchen.

The creaks and squeaks of the Jockey’s costume followed her. He came tippy-toeing down the stairs.

The girl ran to her place and the heap of goose feathers whirled up into the air.

“And where is Mistress Slab?” he asked, stealing closer. “Why is she not broiling over her pots?”

“She is in the slaughterhouse,” the frightened girl replied.

The Jockey laughed. “Ah, yes, ’tis sausage day. How the Punchinello Guards adore them. How readily they accept them as bribes. Would that you were so easy, my dirty scullion. Still, now we are quite alone, with only dead geese for witness and they shall not honk any secrets.”

“Keep back,” Columbine begged, reaching for a knife. “Else there will be one more fat pig stuck this day.”

The man hesitated. Yes, she would dare do it and that inflamed him even more.

“My glance has oft been your shadow ere today,” he said as he paced warily from side to side. “Your hands are coarse as an ox’s tongue and your smudges and smuts rival only the midden-man. And yet… I have observed you long and I am enamoured and enslaved by you. The dirtier you are, the more like a queen you appear. A celestial goddess, come down amongst us, disguised in rags and ashes. My Lord, the Ismus, would bring you to his bed only if you were soaped and scrubbed by the tiring women till you shone like a shield. But I… I would have you as you are, all grimy from your base toil, with mutton grease and straw in your hair, soot etched in every cranny and aglow with sweat that smells of pepper and freshly sliced onions. I would tongue-bathe every inch of your fire-bronzed skin, baste you with the juices of my mouth and rip those rags from your shoulders and hips, as you have torn the feathers from that goose. You are a banquet I intend to gorge on and my appetite will never be sated.”

“No closer,” she warned, brandishing the knife.

“You have already pierced my heart, my pretty slattern. Bitter steel would only relieve me of that keen pain. Jab away, prick me, fillet me – shred my being even more than your grubby beauty already has.”

He lunged forward. She struck out. The blade sliced into his reaching palm. He yelled in anger, slapped her with the back of his other meaty fist and smacked the weapon from her grasp. It went clattering across the flagstones.

Then his strong fingers were around her throat and she was pushed against the table. He leaned in and licked the sweat trickling down her cheek. The cut on his palm dragged a vivid scarlet wake over her skin.

“The Jockey rides everyone at Court in the end,” he hissed into her ear as she struggled. “One way or another. You must give him his due.”

His frenzied paws snatched at her rags and tore them. Her bare shoulders glistened in the firelight and he buried his florid face into her dirty neck as his bloody fingers went roving.

“My Lord Jockey!” a voice called suddenly.

The man snarled and glared round at the stairs. The small, dumpy figure of the Lockpick was standing at the top of them.

“What business have you here, Jangler?” the Jockey demanded angrily.

Jangler bowed. “His Highness, the Lord Ismus, would speak with you,” he said.

“His Highness can wait.”

“On a matter most urgent.”

The Jockey ground his teeth. His eyes shone as fiercely as the fire in the grates. Then, reluctantly, he stepped away from the girl.

“Do not think I am done here,” he told her, clenching a fist till the blood squeezed between his fingers. “I shall be back; the Jockey will have his sport.”

Columbine watched his stout figure go skipping up the stairs after the Lockpick. Then, shaking, she covered herself with the tatters of her clothes and sank down on to the feather-strewn floor where she sobbed quietly. What was she to do? There was no escaping the whims and fancies of the Jockey and she was now the next game he was determined to play. Who could she turn to for protection? Nobody would dare stand against him. If she tried to run away from the castle, he would surely loose the hounds and hunt her down like an animal.

Lifting her face, she saw the glint of the knife he had knocked from her hand.

“Next time I shall not fail,” she told herself. “Before he lays another greedy finger upon me, I shall let out every last gill of his blood. There must be a whole hogshead’s worth swilling in his veins.”

At that moment, a gentle but insistent tapping sounded upon the kitchen door. Columbine wiped her eyes before answering. She did not want Mistress Slab, Ned or Beetle to see she had been crying.

A draught of sharp, wintry air came biting in when she opened the stout oak door. Standing upon the frost-glittering step was the bent figure of an old woman, wrapped in a thin shawl that was no defence against the icy wind. A large wicker basket sat heavily on her crooked back and the wide brim of a black straw bonnet hid her downcast face. In her cold, pinched hands she carried another basket. When the door swung inward, she lifted it in greeting.

“Chestnuts,” her cracked and weary voice said. “And apples, as sweet and juicy as last autumn when they was picked off the bough.”

Columbine did not recognise her, but there were many strange folk who dwelt in the woods and forests. She wondered how far the woman had walked that day. Even the effort of lifting the basket seemed too much. For a moment, she forgot her own predicament and pitied her.

“I cannot buy your wares,” the girl answered apologetically. “I have no purse and my mistress is busy. She would box my ears if I disturbed her. Have you called on the lesser kitchens in the castle? Or down in the village?”

The old woman’s shoulders sagged even more.

“Slammed doors and curt words are the only blessings Granny Oakwright has been given this bitter day,” she said unhappily. “I must return to my hut in the Haunted Wood, where no fire, no crust and no cheer await me.”

She turned to leave, looking more hunched and feeble with each shambling step. Columbine could not bear it.

“Wait!” she called. “I haven’t any pennies, but there are no warmer hearths in all Mooncaster than here. Come you in, old dame, and thaw yourself.”

The woman shuffled about and entered the kitchen, muttering her thanks. Columbine guided her to the stool by the largest fire where she eased herself down and removed the basket from her back.

“Oh – my old bones!” Granny Oakwright exclaimed, holding her mittened hands towards the leaping flames. “Granny can feel her chilblains resurrecting! What a tingling in her knobby fingers!”

Columbine smiled then ran to the larder, returning with a thick slice of mutton pie and a wedge of cheese. She knew Mistress Slab would beat her for this charity, but what did that matter?

“Here,” she said kindly. “’Tis a meal fit for the Lord Ismus’s table and you shall have hot spiced ale to wash it down.”

The old woman gasped in astonishment and clapped her hands at the sight of such princely fare.

“What a virtuous, generous child you are!” she cried, with her mouth full. “The most unselfish heart in the whole Realm – and a pretty face to match.”

Columbine busied herself with adding cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to a mug of the best October ale. Then she plunged a glowing fire iron into it, causing a ribbon of fragrant steam to hiss upwards as it bubbled and foamed over the sides.

When she handed the hot brew over, the old woman had already finished the pie and cheese and was dabbing at the crumbs on her shabby kirtle.

“I could wrap more cheese in a scrap of muslin for you to take home,” the girl suggested. “If we had any bread, you’d be welcome to that too, but the kitchen boys are fetching it from the miller’s even now.”

Nursing the steaming mug in both hands, her guest took appreciative sips whilst regarding her keenly. Two dark little eyes, webbed with age, shone out from the shade of the bonnet’s wide brim.

“I would rather eat poisoned snake livers than the finest table loaf baked by Gristabel Smallrynd, the miller’s wife,” she said with sudden vehemence. “Threatened to set her wall-eyed dog on me this day she did and swung a stick at Granny’s head… but she’ll come to rue that.”

Her warty chin moved from side to side as she glugged the ale down. Then, with a contented sigh, she said, “I will take no cheese. Though I thank you for the offer of it. You have been open-handed enough already – and with such victuals that will be missed, which I wager you’ll be punished for. No other in Mooncaster would show such tenderness to a wizened, friendless crone such as I.”

“I could not see you hobble from this door, on so cold a day as this, tired and hungry.”

“Then I must repay you, child. Is there aught you would ask of a grateful forest hag? Granny is in your debt and that must be settled at once.”

Columbine almost laughed, but checked herself in time so as not to bruise the old woman’s feelings. What could one so steeped in poverty afford to give her?

“I wish for nothing,” she said.

The old woman leaned forward and her dark eyes glinted.

“Yet your face tells a different tale,” she said. “Tears leave loud tracks upon cheeks smirched with soot and ashes. And there are bloody stains of violence upon you. How came ye by such gory daubs? What troubles you so sorely? Tell Granny your woe; she may find a way of easing your burden.”

And so Columbine told her what had happened, how the Jockey had caught her, peeping out at the Jack of Clubs, and his unwanted attention afterwards.

“He has sworn to return later,” she said. “But I will not surrender unto him. He or I will die.”

To her surprise, the crone began to chuckle. It was the last reaction she had expected.

“I mean it!” Columbine cried. “I would rather jig a deserving dance at the gibbet than have that fat villain steal my maidenhead.”

Granny Oakwright slapped her bony knees and laughed all the louder.

“I see no merriment in this!” the girl shouted angrily. “My plight is most hopeless and grim. Is this how you reward my kindness? Be still and silent, old dame! How can you laugh so cruelly?”

The woman’s mirth eased and she fixed the girl with a glare so powerful that Columbine caught her breath and took a step back.

“Large in heart thou mayest be, child,” Granny Oakwright said, her voice now harsh. “But thy wits are shrivelled for balance. Let this be an end to play-acting. No more pretence, no more poor old grateful Granny.”

“I do not understand…”

The old woman’s face became sour and severe. “Dost thou truly believe any aged dweller of the forest would brave this deadly frost and tramp the many leagues from their squalid hovel to beg at this door? Hestia Slab is renowned for her parsimony. She is too mean to bait the traps. I can hear a mouse even now, over by the salt sack. No empty-bellied wretch would come a-knocking here.”

“Then…?”

“I am no peasant!” the stranger proclaimed. “I am no starveling, scratching a life in the wild wood. I am she whose name is whispered with awe and dread, with powers enough to challenge even the Holy Enchanter.”

Columbine gasped. “Malinda!” she blurted. “Malinda – the Fairy Godmother!”

“Malinda?” the crone shrieked with indignation. “Malinda of the clipped wings and mangled wand? Idiot girl! Malinda is no more than a mere dabbler and a faded one at that! That spangle-dusted amateur gave up knocking on doors and granting hearts’ desires to silly young maidens many years ago. I am not she!”

“Then who are you?”

“I am Haxxentrot!” the old woman announced and, when she spoke her name, the nearby hearth roared and the flames blazed violet, shooting high up the chimney.

“The witch of the Forbidden Tower!” Columbine uttered fearfully. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

“To see with mine own eyes how the peoples of Mooncaster are faring,” the witch replied. “Though I own many spies, it pleases me to walk amongst the village folk from time to time and relearn why I despise them so. When I have toppled the Holy Enchanter and the White Castle is a smoking ruin, there is not one whose wretched life I shall spare.”

She tapped her foot irritably on the flagged floor.

“Thus I must be in no one’s debt!” she told the girl as she took two chestnuts from her basket and spat on both. “Place these as nigh to the fire as ye dare. Consider this one to be thine own self and this… he is the Jack of Clubs. If the scorching heats cause them to burst and fly into a thousand pieces, thy secret yearning will ne’er blossom and bear fruit. Yet if they ignite and burn together with steady flame then ye shalt become lovers and remain constant evermore.”

Columbine obeyed. She had heard many stories of the fearsome old witch who hated the Ismus and the inhabitants of Mooncaster. Haxxentrot was always seeking new ways to bedevil and inflict pain upon them. Warily the girl put the chestnuts as close to the fire as she could manage. Haxxentrot muttered some words under her breath and they waited.

Presently the two chestnuts began to smoulder. Then they both crackled and were wrapped in a pinkish flame.

“Behold!” the witch declared with a satisfied, matter-of-fact nod. “Thy future is clear. Great love ’twixt thee and the Knave of Clubs shalt surely come to pass.”

She took up the straps of the other basket and prepared to haul it on to her shoulders once more.

Columbine stared at the burning chestnuts in disbelief. An overwhelming sense of disappointment took hold of her.

“Wait!” she cried. “Is that it? Is that all?”

“All?” the witch repeated. “What more could there be? Hast thou not lain awake, many nights, aching for his embrace? Now thou knowest it will surely happen.”

Columbine felt so cheated she could barely speak. Then her resentment found its voice and any fear she had of the witch was swept aside.

“What sort of magickal reward is that?” she demanded. “Was that the best you can do? This is not how kind deeds are repaid in old tales. Where are the wishes? Where are the magickal gifts? The gown of gold, made with cloth so fine it fits into a walnut shell! Where are the enchanted slippers to make the wearer the daintiest dancer in the Realm? Where is the jug of moon dew that bestows shining beauty on whoever bathes in it? Where is the potion to make he who drinks it fall into a stupor of love for me? Where is the mirror that shows any view I desire?”

“Ye modern maidens expect too much,” the witch observed with a sniff.

“I expect more than two musty old nuts and a bundle of hollow pledges! You call that a debt repaid? You’re naught but a hoodwinker. Hoaxxentrot should be your name!”

The witch rounded on her.

“A morsel of hard cheese and a slice of day-old mutton pie are not equal to a feat of high magick!” she snapped. “That pastry was like elm bark and what meagre specks of mutton it housed were a chewing chore of fat and gristle. Witchery is no exchange for a hard seat with no cushion and a night of griping gut-groan.”

Before Columbine could think of a fitting retort, the kitchen door flew open. The sudden draught gusted through the goose feathers, driving a ticklish blizzard against the girl’s face. She spat out the ones that had blown into her mouth and wafted the rest aside. Then she saw. Standing on the step was none other than the Jack of Clubs.

Surprise, excitement, wonder, adoration, hope and fear played equal parts in the confusion that seized her in that startling instant. Haxxentrot turned her face away and sat down quietly on the stool.

Jack looked even more handsome than before. Silhouetted against the bleak winter light, he seemed no ordinary being. Here was a hero of legend, made flesh and living.

Columbine gazed on him. How fine he was, how noble and fair, how strong. Why was he here? Princes of the Royal Houses never visited the kitchen. Perhaps he was seeking Mistress Slab on a matter of oats for his fabulous steed? Only the best would suffice for that beast. Or perhaps he wanted Ned or Beetle to help the grooms? Or perhaps…? Columbine could feel her heart thumping. No, she must not allow herself to think such fanciful things in his presence. She clasped a hand to her bosom. Surely he too could hear the mighty pounding of her heart? It was louder than the steady, rhythmic clamour of the smithy, only here she was the anvil and the Knave’s unwavering glance was the hammer. Into what shape would this dreamed-of moment be fashioned?

The Jack of Clubs said nothing. His blue eyes stared back at her. With long, purposeful strides he entered and approached. The servant girl stood as still as stone. Her own eyes grew increasingly wider until the pride of Mooncaster stood before her. The corners of his mouth lifted and the gentle smile made him even more charming and adorable. Then he pointed a toe and made the most perfect, courteous bow.

Columbine felt faint as she dipped into the answering curtsy. Here was her every desire, unfolding right in front of her at last.

“M…my Lord!” she finally managed to stutter.

He reached out and placed a fingertip against her lips. This was not a time for words. Taking her dirty hands in his, he held her close. From somewhere, maybe it was merely inside her own head, Columbine thought she heard music. Clasped in each other’s arms, the prince and the kitchen maid began a slow dance. The cool flagstones beneath her feet might have turned to clouds for all she could feel of them. Around and around they danced. His eyes locked on hers and the air almost sparked between them. She would embed this beautiful moment in her memory forever more. Her jubilant heart flew up through the ceiling, up through the beams and stones of the castle and up into the clear sky.

Still lost in the devoted stare of her prince, a movement in the corner of her eyes caused them to flick aside. There was Haxxentrot, perched on the stool, hugging herself in amusement. In the shock and joy of what was happening, Columbine had completely forgotten about the witch. And there was something else…

She looked across the kitchen, over Jack’s athletic shoulders, to where the copper pots and pans gleamed on the walls. The rippling reflections that glided over polished lids and swollen curves made her frown. Those imperfect, broken echoes of she and her gallant knave were twisted, molten likenesses that flowed from one surface to another. It was difficult to recognise the fractured, merging figures and she began to peer at them intently, to try and untangle them. Yes, there was her own revolving form, with arms held out. But Jack’s shape looked so odd, even the colour of his velvet jerkin was wrong. She could see no scarlet or gold in those copper surfaces. What was that teetering tower of four white globes that followed her wherever she twirled? Columbine could not decipher it until finally, in a lightning flash of comprehension, her mind unpuzzled what she saw.

The girl shrieked and leaped away.

Standing on one another’s shoulders, four Bogey Boys sniggered and mocked her. The illusion was broken. Here was no Jack of Clubs, just these ugly creatures of Haxxentrot. They were her stunted servants, with large, white, wobbly heads and mouths crammed with baby teeth. Their yellow eyes were ringed with ginger lashes and their noses were upturned. The one at the top had an adder coiled around his brow. The one beneath wore a necklace of living spiders. Below him was a wig of rats’ tails. The Bogey Boy at the bottom was the fattest of the four and had powdered his shiny cheeks with green pigment and blackened his thin lips with ink.

Their hideous appearance, coupled with their snaky laughter, revolted Columbine and she snatched up a ladle to smite them and knock them down.

“Jub! Crik! Hak! Rott!” Haxxentrot commanded. “Enough!”

The creatures stopped sniggering and leaped from each other’s shoulders. The witch lifted the lid of the larger basket. Leering at the girl and making insulting gestures, they hopped inside. Haxxentrot closed the lid and patted it.

“Now is pie and cheese repaid in full,” she stated flatly.

“Repaid?” Columbine objected.

“Thou hast experienced thy heart’s great dream! Thou canst not deny thou had much joy of it. I saw thy rapture.”

“It wasn’t real! It was false and ugly.”

“Love is always thus,” the hag observed with a dismissive shrug.

“It isn’t good enough!” Columbine protested. “I gave you food and warmth and all you do is trick and deceive!”

“The food was not thine to give!”

“The bruises I’ll get from Mistress Slab will pay for it and more! Malinda would not have treated me so…”

“I am not Malinda!!” the witch reminded her hotly. “The lover’s heart is a region unmapped by me! I do not deal in longings and gladful ever-afters. Seek out that wingless Fairy Godmother in her cottage, deep in Hunter’s Chase, if thou wouldst procure a philtre to turn a prince’s head, but ask it not of me! Venom and curses and ill deeds are all I know.”

She was about to lift the basket on to her back again when she paused and gave Columbine a sidelong look.

“And yet,” she murmured, “there is one gift I could grant unto thee. A present more useful than the way to a Jack’s heart.”

“What could you give me?” the girl asked sceptically.

Haxxentrot tapped the wicker lid. It creaked open and a Bogey Boy’s white face appeared beneath.

“Jub,” the witch ordered. “Fetch me the timbrel.”

The face vanished and the lid closed once more. A moment later, a small hand appeared, clasping a tambourine. Haxxentrot took it and rattled it in front of her with a flourish.

“What use is that?” Columbine asked.

“Patience provides every answer,” the witch answered tetchily. She placed the tambourine on the table then sorted through a leather pouch hanging at her waist.

“Here,” she said, removing a small velvet bag and emptying it.

Columbine uttered a cry of disgust at the thing that fell on to the instrument’s circle of taut parchment. It was a human ear, dried and blackened and scabbed with old blood.

“What horror is this?” the girl demanded.

Haxxentrot’s crabbed mouth broke into a depraved grin. “’Tis the only relic of Sir Lucius Pandemian left above ground or uneaten by wolf, gore toad, marsh snake and battle crow,” she explained. “A valiant questing knight was he. Most courageous in Mooncaster.”

“I’ve never heard tell of him.”

“Hast thou not? How easy the denizens of Mooncaster forget. How my hatred festers for them anew. ’Twas many long years past, when the Dawn Prince’s exile was still fresh in mind. The Realm was plagued by countless terrors, dreader fiends than they who abide in the dark forests today. One such was the Lamia. She harried cattle and carried off infants in her claws, devouring them in the ivy-choked ruins of the Black Keep, nigh to mine own tower.”

Haxxentrot snorted with displeasure and her face became more twisted with rancour than usual.

“A noisesome neighbour was she,” she grumbled. “Entry to the vault, wherein she slept during the hours of day, was granted only by the tolling of a great bronze bell high above. This bell couldst not ring lest she commanded it. Three deafening clangs and the marble cover stone would slide aside. Then out she would fly – on webbed wings. Never was so deafening a clamour as that bell heard in the land. Deathknelly the peasants named it, in their usual vulgar fashion. When its fearsome voice shook the night clouds, they would flee to their homes, cowering till they heard it resound again ere dawn when all was clear.”

Columbine cleared her throat and held up her hand to interrupt. “How does that lead to this foul object?” she asked, grimacing at the severed ear.

“’Twas Sir Lucius who pursued the Lamia back to the forest one rain-lashed night,” Haxxentrot said. “His spear pierced her side and she did drop the latest child victim from her claws. Bellowing in pain and fury, she swooped upon the knight, seizing his horse by the head and bearing both beast and he aloft. Over field and treetop she carried them and all the while he hewed and grappled with her, fending off her blows and fangs till his shield shattered. And so he raised his sword for one final thrust, but she cast his mount from her grasp and horse and rider fell from the sky. At the very entrance to the Black Keep they came crashing. The steed burst on the forest floor, but he fared a little better. Though one eye was torn from his head and his body was slashed by twig and talon, still he lived. He saw the Lamia come screeching down to rend his limbs and feed on his noble flesh, but luck had not yet deserted Sir Lucius. In that very instant, as his death seemed writ and certain, the sun pushed above the eastern hills. The Lamia screamed and rushed to the safe darkness of her lair. The mighty bell clanged direct over the brave knight’s head and his ears bled. Marble grated back in place and the vault was closed. Then Sir Lucius knew what must be done.”

The witch paused and regarded the blackened lump of skin with almost tender eyes.

“Wounded, ripped and broken, driven half mad by the bone-jarring sound, he climbed the ruined keep – up to the lofty pillars where the monstrous bell did hang. Without its voice, the tomb could ne’er open again so he reached into Deathknelly’s mouth and removed its tongue. Yet the thing was so grievous heavy and he so beaten, he could not bear the weight and so he toppled.”

Haxxentrot took up the ear and held it close as she inspected and stroked it.

“I found him there, late that day, crushed ’neath the bronze bell tongue. Already the forest creatures had been at him. They are such busy, eager workers. This I took in token of a brave man, the best in this putrid Kingdom. He had rid me of a rival scourge and for that I was grateful. The Lamia has ne’er been heard of since. The sealed vault became her tomb.”

Her voice faltered and she stared at the gruesome souvenir intently.

Columbine shuddered. “And you think I would want that as a gift?” she muttered incredulously. “Are you as mad as you are ugly?”

The witch did not answer, but put the hideous thing to her withered lips and kissed it. Then, before Columbine could prevent her, the crone lunged forward, pressed the ear against the girl’s shoulder and rolled it in the Jockey’s still glistening blood. She called out strange words, picked up the tambourine and slammed the two together.

At once the hearths erupted. Torrents of green and purple fire exploded into the kitchen. The flames whooshed and roared about Haxxentrot and Columbine and fiery stars went zinging about the room, ricocheting off pots and plates. One struck a large glazed jug and it shattered into dust. Another shot into the salt sack and the precious grains came streaming out. The air screamed. The witch spun around shrieking an incantation. Columbine yelled for her life. The coppers shivered on their hooks. Tables juddered across the floor as the flagstones trembled beneath them and the big basket quaked as the Bogey Boys rocked with wild laughter within.

Then, abruptly, it was over. The fireplaces crackled cheerfully once more and the kitchen was as normal as ever.

Shaken and afraid, Columbine stumbled away from the witch.

“Begone, foul hag!” she cried. “Leave now, before I call the Punchinello Guards.”

Haxxentrot gave a throaty cackle. “I am done here, my pretty pie-giver,” she said. “Here is the magickal gift thou didst demand of Haxxentrot.”

She held out her aged hands and presented the tambourine. Columbine stared down at it.

“It cannot be!” the girl exclaimed.

“And yet thine own eyes say it is so,” the witch replied. “They tell no lies this time.”

In the centre of the drumhead, where moments ago there had been only blank parchment, there was now a human ear. The two were fused together, with no visible seam. The ear was no longer black and shrivelled, but the same hue as the stretched skin to which it had been joined.

“What have you done?” Columbine breathed. “And why?”

“Sir Lucius Pandemian was the last to hear Deathknelly’s strident voice,” Haxxentrot told her. “Just as the final image is retained in the eyes after death, so the din of the great bell was locked inside his ears.”

She waggled the tambourine experimentally and looked very pleased with herself. “To thee and me, ’tis but a harmless jingle,” she said. “But shake this timbrel when the Jockey comes a-leching and the thunderous voice of Deathknelly shalt awake and resound in his head, for it is bonded to him by blood. One shake will send him reeling and yowling from thy presence. Another will cause his own ears to gush as freely as the fountains in the Queen of Hearts’ garden. One more and his oafish head will crack like a hen’s egg and the yoke of his brains shalt bubble forth. So, child, is this not a most marvellous recompense for pie and cheese? What say thou? Art thou not most adequately repaid for thy kindness to Granny Oakwright?”

Columbine received the instrument in amazement. She was too stunned to know what to say.

Haxxentrot nodded with pride and rubbed her bony hands together.

“You have saved me,” the girl cried at last. “He will never get close enough to touch me again!”

She was so delighted she capered around, smacking the tambourine against her hips and over her head.

“Be certain to keep the timbrel with thee always,” the witch cautioned. “Do not let it stray out of arm’s reach or thou shalt suffer the consequences.”

Columbine swore she would carry it with her wherever she went.

“Let me help you on with your pack,” the girl offered.

Haxxentrot refused. “No more kindnesses!” she said. “Or I shalt be obliged to thee for another gift, ye greedy girl. Dost thou truly…”

Her voice trailed off. She was staring into the far corner, where the salt had leaked freely over the floor.

“Mistress Slab will be in such a rage!” Columbine cried when she saw the mess. “Its value is great! I must sweep it into another sack and hope she…”

The witch grabbed at her arm. “Hold, child!” she snapped. “Canst thou not see? What marks are those?”

Then Columbine noticed the shapes sunken into the spilt salt.

“They are footprints,” she murmured in astonishment.

“Just so,” Haxxentrot said. “Yet neither of us hath ventured thither this whole while.”

The girl turned a frightened face to her. “Then what made them?” she asked.

“’Twould seem the mouse I heard was no mouse. There is an eavesdropper here. A trespasser who veils himself from our eyes.”

“But who in Mooncaster can do such a thing? Is this some new torment of the Bad Shepherd? Is he here now? Are we to be butchered and slain?”

“That is what I shalt discover!” the witch declared. “Jub! Crik! Rott! Hak! Jump out! Hunt down the unseen spy!”

The lid of the basket flew up and the four Bogey Boys leaped out.

“Arm thyselves with knife and skewer!” the witch commanded. “Sniff out the shadow-wrapped sneak. Bring it down! Kill it!”

The Bogey Boys gave frenzied yells and dashed about the kitchen, snatching up weapons. Then they began questing the air and, one by one, their yellow eyes turned towards the pantry door.

“The skulker is cornered!” Haxxentrot shouted. “Hack it into invisible collops!”

The four creatures shrieked shrilly and raced towards the pantry, brandishing their cleavers, pokers, slotted spoons and knives.

A chair suddenly lifted into the air and was hurled at the attacking Bogey Boys. They yowled and dived out of the way. Then pewter dishes came sailing from the shelves and went spinning at them. One struck Jub on the forehead. He screeched and somersaulted backwards, losing his rat-tail wig. There was the sound of footsteps, running towards the kitchen door. Crik, Hak and Rott whirled around and went charging after. The door yanked itself open and the footsteps went echoing out into the courtyard.

The Bogey Boys flung their weapons after them in frustration. Jub sat up and uttered a string of curses as he jammed the wig back on to his shiny white head. Haxxentrot rubbed her warty chin.

“Well, now,” she said, sucking her gums. “Mooncaster hath a new terror to dread. One to make the Holy Enchanter’s head ache most grievously. Yea, and the rest of us also – it hath entered the Kingdom at last.”

“What manner of fearsome monster is it?” Columbine murmured in dismay.

The witch narrowed her eyes and answered gravely, “Ye shalt find out soon enough, aye – soon enough…”

Kate Kryzewski heaved a sharp, gulping breath, as if surfacing from deep water. She stared about her in shock. The vibrancy and colour was gone. The sunlight was pale and weak and her pupils dilated to compensate. How flat and grey this world was. Already she ached to return to Mooncaster.

“I am the Two of Hearts,” she exulted, rolling back on the grass. “I am Columbine! Praise to the Holy Enchanter and the glory of Mooncaster! I am Columbine! Blessed be this day!”

The crowd around the SUV cheered and applauded and Sam came rushing over to help her off the ground. The reporter jumped up and hugged him. Then she turned to the Ismus and lowered her gaze respectfully as she curtsied.

“My Lord,” she said in a worshipful whisper. “Your commands are my joys. Bid me and I will obey. The report to the network shall be just as you wish.”

The Ismus was barely aware of her. He was gazing distractedly at the copies of Dancing Jax in everyone’s hands and for once his gaunt features looked troubled.

“Another manifestation,” he muttered to himself. “Another trespass. It is happening ever more frequently.”

He cast a shrewd glance back across the heath. Doubt and uncertainty moved over his face. His thin lips pressed together and the shadows deepened beneath his brows. A dark, speckling blemish appeared on his forehead.

His devoted followers shifted uneasily. They had never seen him in this humour before. The Harlequin Priests pointed to the blue patches on their motley robes and the Black Face Dames did not know what to do. The Jacks and Jills drew close to one another. No one understood what ailed their Lord.

Then, abruptly, the Ismus tossed his head back. The crooked smile returned and the blemish faded.

“Why do we delay here?” he announced, casting off the disconcerting mood. “We should be giving those precious children a rousing welcome. We must make their stay here one they will never forget… for as long as they live.”

JANGLER HAD WATCHED the crowd hurrying from the camp, chasing after that bothersome American reporter, with only the mildest of interest. There was still much to do on his timetable and this would be the perfect opportunity to show the newly arrived children their accommodation.

With his clipboard under his arm and the iron hoops at his belt clinking and rattling with large keys, he marched over to both groups. The winkle-picker shoes he wore, to go with his medieval gaoler’s outfit, were new and he hadn’t had time to break them in. They pinched his toes and chafed his heels. It was spoiling his enjoyment of the day.

“Now then, if I could have your attention,” he began, in his usual officious manner. “While His Highness, the Holy Enchanter, is otherwise engaged, I will show you where you are to be billeted.”

The children were looking anywhere but at him. The older ones were pulling their bags from the luggage holds in the coaches while the youngest were gazing around the camp, unsure and afraid. They eyed one another shyly. Trust had been ripped from their lives, but they were desperate for friendship and company. They were damaged and wary, but soon the first hesitant smiles were exchanged.

It was more difficult for the teens.

“That’s my case there, that pink one – and that one!” Charm’s voice shouted. “Careful – they’re genuine Louis Vuitton repros!”

A sandy-haired lad, with a guitar slung over his shoulder, shrugged in bemusement. “You planning on stoppin’ here permanent?” he asked dryly. “How many frocks can a body wear in one weekend?”

“These is just me basic essentials,” she replied, pulling up the handles and trawling the cases back to where her mother was waiting.

Another boy, in a pale blue Hackett polo shirt with the collar turned up, stared after her, inclining his head to one side.

“Now that’s tasty,” he said appreciatively.

“I dinnae eat plastic,” the other lad commented.

“Afford to be fussy, can you? Even now? You’re wrong though, matey. That there would have been top trophy totty even before DJ ruined everything.”

“You reckon? Did you no hear her and her mother yakking on the coach all the way here? I can do without that earache.”

“Trick is not to listen to them, amigo. Just nod when they look at you and flirt a bit with their mums. Works a dream.”

“Dinnae call me amigo.”

“What then? I’m Marcus. Do you play that guitar?”

“Aye, you look like a Marcus. And no, I just carry this with me to use as a paddle in case I get washed overboard my luxury yacht.”

“No need for the attitude. We’re in this cack together.”

The Scottish boy considered him a moment. He had seen Marcus get on the bus at Manchester. He was about fifteen, the same as himself, but a type he would normally never associate with, in school or out. He was far too cocky, sporty and wore casual clothes that had never been chucked on the bedroom floor after use. He probably folded them before putting them in the laundry basket and ironed his socks and underwear. He certainly spent way too long in front of the mirror and too much money on self-grooming products, if his painstakingly arranged hair, moisturised skin, pungent shower gel and aftershave were anything to go by. Before that book had taken over and changed all the rules, he must have been a swaggering fish in his own little north-west pond. But, despite those unappealing traits, this Marcus was undoubtedly right. Aberrants such as themselves faced enough battles out there without picking quarrels among their own kind.

“Alasdair,” the Scottish boy muttered, extending his hand. “Just dinnae call me Al, Ally – and if I hear a Jock or a Jimmy, at any time over the next few days, I will have to kill you.”

Marcus grasped the hand and shook it, too heartily in Alasdair’s opinion. He was like a teenage estate agent or used car dealer.

“Nice to talk to another normal person for a bloody change!” Marcus said.

“Whatever normal is, aye.”

“Not being a raving Jax-head, that’s what I call normal.”

“I wouldnae know any more. It’s been so long.”

“It’s mental. I still don’t get it. Soon as that ruddy book came out, every girl I know… knew, cracking pieces they were, no rubbish, dumped me and chased after some scrawny loser just because he had a ten of clubs on his Primark anorak. I was like, what?”

Alasdair glanced at the branding on Marcus’s shirt and smiled to himself. In Scotland the word ‘hacket’ meant ugly.

“Aye, well,” he said. “If your own parents can kick you out as mine did, there’s no many surprises left.”

If he had expected Marcus to sympathise or ask him about it, he would have been disappointed. He wasn’t.

“So,” Marcus continued, reverting to his favourite topic, “if you don’t fancy that hotness, it’s a shame to let it go begging. I’ll have a crack at her. I am having one hell of a dry spell. Before they brainwash me this weekend and do my head in good and proper, I’m going to cop off with a fit bird one last time.”

Alasdair seriously began to wonder if this boy’s brain actually was located in his underwear.

“Did you check out that other coach?” Marcus continued. “No talent at all in that. Just more kids and a definite ‘Avoid’ in a manky green cardy. The blonde bit is the only thing worth chasing.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Alasdair told him. “Yon plastic dolly’ll no be interested in you. Fancies herself way too much that one.”

Marcus pushed the short sleeves a little higher up his biceps and picked up his case.

“No skirt in its right mind can resist the Marcus magnetism,” he boasted as he sauntered after Charm. “When I shift into fifth gear pulling mode, I’m the Stig’s knackers.”

Behind him, Alasdair winced.

“Total tool,” he muttered.

Jangler was irritated and his feet were throbbing. No one was taking the least bit of notice of him. He cleared his throat and clapped his hands. Eventually he called one of the minstrels over and banged crossly on his drum.

The children’s heads turned his way. The teenagers dug their hands deep into their pockets or folded their arms. Charm stood to attention and waited politely, posing her head this way and that, as cute and as coy as she knew how, all the while wondering where the cameras had disappeared to. Marcus positioned himself behind her and admired the view. Jody sunk her chin into her chest and huddled into her cardigan. Alasdair looked at the pompous little man, staring over his spectacles at them, and hummed the theme to Dad’s Army to himself. For all his medieval costume, the Lockpick reminded him of Captain Mainwaring and in spite of everything, the Scottish lad couldn’t stop smiling. At the back, Nike boy hissed through his teeth and kept his earphones in.

“As there are thirty-one of you,” Jangler addressed them, “eighteen girls and thirteen boys, I’m going to call out your names in groups and assign each group a cabin. Make your way to it, unpack and freshen up, and we will foregather here again in one and one half hours to commence the weekend’s revels – won’t that be nice? Now females first…”

He began to read from his clipboard. The younger children looked confused. Their parents had trailed after the Ismus, but help was at hand in the form of women, dressed as serving maids, who found their bags and cases and ushered them to the right cabins.

The camp had only been open a couple of years so these dormitories were modern, comfortable and pretty spacious inside, considering. Usually they slept five, but extra frames and mattresses had been fitted into them for this special weekend. The girls were allocated three cabins. The boys were crammed into two.

Shaking her wet hands, Jody Barnes emerged from the toilet and returned to the bed where she had dumped her holdall. She looked around her. The place was clean, if spartan. She assumed the prints of painted Mooncaster landscapes had been hung on the walls for their benefit, but there was also a TV and a games console.

Each cabin was laid out the same. This ground floor housed four beds and there were two more on the small, partly enclosed mezzanine area up the stairs. Jody should have raced straight up there and bagged one of those bunks for herself, but her bladder had decreed otherwise. Two of the younger girls from the other coach had claimed them instead. Still, she didn’t mind; this wasn’t so bad. After so many months being the only person in Bristol shut out from the world of Dancing Jax, it was going to be a breeze sharing this place with other rejects, even if they were mainly kids.

The only downer was that Charm creature. She’d been put in here as well. Her mother was still fussing around her and Jody felt a pang of jealousy. Her own parents were outside with the Ismus somewhere. They only came today so they could meet him. They took no interest in her any more. They were bored of having to be her mum and dad in this world. Five months on, the pain of that rejection was still there and induced tears if she picked at it, so she never did. Jody turned away and her attention rested on the child sitting uneasily on the corner of the bed next to her own.

It was little Christina Carter. Her dress was still covered in cold sick.

“Where did the nice TV lady go?” the seven-year-old asked when she saw Jody looking at her.

“As far away as she can if she’s got any sense, which isn’t very likely,” Jody replied.

“She said she was going to take us with her,” the little girl said, staring down at her feet. “I don’t like it here.”

Jody pitied her. This new life must be so much worse for the very young ones. If she couldn’t understand what was going on, how could they?

“Open your bag,” she said. “Let’s get you some fresh togs out. Then come with me to the bathroom and we’ll clean you up. How does that sound?”

Christina’s answering grin was the widest she’d ever seen and they made a game of searching through the little girl’s bag to see what had been packed for her.

“We should have them two beds upstairs,” Charm interrupted them, addressing Jody, hands on hips. “We’re like the oldest in here, innit? I’m gonna kick them kids out. What do you say?”

“You’re orange,” Christina told her.

Jody’s nostrils widened as she suppressed a laugh. “I’m fine where I am,” she replied. “It’s only for two nights. Let those girls enjoy themselves for a change. They must have a miserable time of it back home.”

“I want to sleep up there,” Charm insisted. “And I’m gonna. Them kids’ve gotta shift. If you won’t help then I’ll do it on me own, makes no difference. But don’t expect to kip up there when I’ve sorted it.”

Jody squared up to her. Although she was a year younger than this painted gargoyle, she knew she was stronger and wasn’t afraid to smack the lipgloss clear off her face.

“You leave them alone,” she said forcefully. “They got there first, so the penthouse is theirs. If you try to evict them, I’ll drag you down the stairs by your extensions so fast, you’ll slide out of your tan like a snake sloughing its skin. You got that?”

Charm glowered at her. Jody half expected her to throw a tantrum.

“Come away, child,” Mrs Benedict interjected, shooting Jody a scolding glance and drawing her daughter back to where the pink suitcases were waiting. “Don’t you mingle with the likes of that common sort. Naught but a lowly two at the most, I’ll wager, if she ever makes it to the castle, which I doubt. What a surly face. I’ve seen prettier sights round the backs of cows and what comes out of them. We don’t want her kind in Mooncaster. A proper dirty aberrant and no mistake.”

Jody snorted. That was the most fun she’d had in months and she promised herself a weekend of Barbie baiting.

“I know what her flavour is,” Charm told her mother in a deliberately loud voice. “Old cabbage and sprouts!”

Christina stuck her tongue out at her. Then the seven-year-old’s attention was arrested by a strange circular object, fixed high on the wall. She pointed to it and asked Jody, “What’s that?”

In the boys’ cabin that had been fitted with seven beds, Marcus was looking at an identical device and wondering the very same thing. It resembled an old-fashioned radio from the 1930s, being made of brown Bakelite, with a central dial and a brass grill. But it was too large and didn’t match the rest of the interior decor. He dragged a chair over from the TV corner and stood on it for a closer inspection.

“It’s bust,” he announced to anyone listening. “These knobs down the side don’t do anything and the needle doesn’t go round the dial. It’s just for show. It’s junk.”

A slightly younger boy gazed up at it. “Maybe it’s just a speaker?” he suggested. “To wake us up in the morning and tell us when to go for breakfast and make announcements.”

Marcus looked down at him. The boy wore what he could only describe as “geek goggles” and was going through the first flush of puberty, if his crop of zits was anything to go by.

Back in the pre-Jax days, Marcus wouldn’t have even noticed the likes of him. His posse consisted only of the cool kids, at the top of the school food chain. It was a pity that Alasdair dude hadn’t been put in this cabin as well. He didn’t seem so bad. If he was here, they both could have avoided talking to dweebs like this.

“There’s no wires connecting it to anything,” he said, jumping off the chair. “And why the phoney dial?”

“Was only an idea.”

“So who’re you, know-all?”

The boy hesitated. He’d got out of the habit of speaking to people who weren’t possessed by the book and was now always on his guard.

“Er… Spencer,” he said with some awkwardness.

“Herr Spencer?” Marcus scoffed. “You German?”

“No, just Spencer.”

Marcus punched him playfully on the shoulder.

“OK, Herr Spenzer,” he laughed. “You zee any pretty Fräuleins, you zend them to Marcus, ja?”

“I’m not German,” Spencer reiterated, rubbing his shoulder. “I’m from Southport.”

“Just teasing ya!” he said, flicking the boy’s spectacles so they sat at an angle on his face. “Take a joke.”

Spencer backed away, adjusting his glasses, and returned to his bed. He sat there protecting his bag, in case Marcus thought it would be funny to run off with it.

The older boy groaned. What a useless bunch of kids he’d been lumbered with. Every one of them could win a misery guts contest in ugly town.

“Oh, lighten up, the lot of you!” he called out. “This has got to be better than what you left behind at home, hasn’t it?”

Five sullen faces stared back at him. He rolled his eyes and knocked his knuckles on his temple.

“Hopeless!” he uttered. “Bloody hopeless. Right, I’m going to grab a shower. I’ve a feeling I’m going to get lucky, not that any of you can possibly understand what that means. If you need a wazz, go now while I get my towel. Just a wazz though; if you want to drop a log, tough – you’ll have to wait till I’m done.”

He went up the stairs to the mezzanine. At least he’d had the sense to be first up here and take ownership of one of those beds. He wouldn’t have to sleep down there, which would be an airless pit of sweaty socks, bad breath and BO by tomorrow morning. Herr Spenzer’s zits probably glowed in the dark too.

At the top of the stairs Marcus stopped. The other bed up here had been taken by the black lad from the other coach. He was reclining on the covers with his earphones in, puffing away on a cigarette. The grey smoke had gathered in a ghostly canopy overhead.

Marcus scowled. “Hey, dude,” he said. “You wanna take that outside? I don’t want me or my stuff to stink.”

Nike boy’s eyes opened and appraised him slowly, up and down. Marcus folded his arms so he could push the biceps out a bit more. He wasn’t going to be intimidated. Still, that lad was stocky, not gym-toned but naturally brick-wall solid.

“You just call me ‘dude’?”

“Take your cancer sticks outside, man,” Marcus told him.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, white boy.”

“Oi, don’t start that!”

The lad rose from the bed and Marcus saw he was a good bit taller than himself. He stood his ground as the other approached, the cigarette hanging on his lip.

“I will start what the hell I want,” he said as he came closer. “Who is you to lay down rules in here? Lab rats don’t get to say what’s what. You’re in the same experiment as the rest of us. If you don’t like my nicotine then you better go find somewhere else to lay your head this weekend cos I will be lighting up in bed, I will be blowing smoke in your face while you sleep and I will be burning holes in your AussieBum panties. You better pray to baby Jesus that’s all I’ll do, cos I got me a blade and your pussy face could do with a few lines of interest. You hear what I’m saying?”

Marcus blinked nervously. The boy leaned into him and exhaled a dense fume of smoke. Marcus spluttered and backed away, clenching his fists in readiness.

Suddenly the other boy broke into a laugh.

“Just teasin’ ya!” he roared, throwing his words back at him. “Take a joke!”

Marcus glared fiercely for a moment. Then he pushed past to collect his toiletries bag and a towel from his case. In stony silence he stomped downstairs to the shower. On the way he heard Spencer chuckling. He’d remember that.

On the mezzanine the smoker returned to his bed and stretched out on it luxuriously. “Lee Jules Sherlon Charles,” he congratulated himself. “You is the last of your kind.”

It wasn’t too long before the drum was beaten again outside and everyone was summoned from the cabins.

Alasdair emerged feeling hungry and was glad to see serving maids weaving through the crowd, bearing trays of food from the stalls. He grabbed a large slice of ham and chicken pie and a ceramic goblet of ale and made short work of both. At least the food was good here and one thing he did admire about the world of Dancing Jax was the quantity of booze the characters got through. They drank ale in place of tea, coffee or soft drinks and the nobles were always quaffing wine. If that’s what life was really like in the olden days, they must have been perpetually off their faces.

“Is there a vegetarian option?” Jody asked one of the wenches. “That’s just a lump of death wrapped in a murder parcel that is.”

At her side, now washed and in clean, dry clothes, little Christina absorbed her words and shrank away from the proffered tray.

“There is cheese and bread, Mistress,” the serving maid told them helpfully.

“I like cheese,” Christina declared brightly. Her very empty tummy was growling.

“It’ll have been made with the chopped-up insides of a baby cow’s stomach,” Jody informed her.

Christina wrinkled her nose and shook her head with disgust.

“We’ll just have the bread,” Jody said. “Though that’ll be packed full of additives and made with chlorine-bleached flour.”

She took several slices of a rustic-looking loaf and sniffed them. “You wouldn’t believe what they put in this rubbish,” she grumbled. “There’s a list of E-numbers long as your arm, trans-fats, preservatives, traces of pesticide.”

Christina was too busy devouring her second slice to comment.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a banana?” Jody called after the departing serving maid.

A snigger sounded behind them. Jody turned to see Marcus shaking his head in disbelief at her.

“Don’t you worry,” he laughed. “They’re going to roast a wild tofu for you veggies later.”

Chuckling, he continued on his way. He was carrying two goblets of ale and was on a mission. Jody watched him push to the front. She recognised his type, and marked him down as not worth talking to.

The Ismus had returned with the Jacks and they were sitting in places of honour around a raised stage area. Cameras were snapping away and Jody saw that American TV reporter among the other news crews.

“So much for Julie bloody Andrews,” the girl muttered. “Didn’t take her long to get Von Trapped.”

Charm and her mother had stationed themselves right by the stage. Charm had changed into a short skirt and scraped her hair into a ponytail. They were waiting for the performance to commence, or for a lens to stray in their direction. A large pair of Gucci sunglasses shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun, but she would have worn them whatever the weather.

“This has got to be the glam corner!” Marcus declared, blinking in feigned surprise as he came bowling up to them. “No one told me there was going to be a Mooncaster’s Next Top Model contest going on here today. Would either of you two lovely ladies like a drink? It’s not bubbly, but it’s the best they’re offering; the mead smells like a wino’s emptied himself in it, so we’ll have to make do with this. Now rev up your fun glands, the party starts here!”

Mrs Benedict pursed her lips and viewed him suspiciously as she took one of the goblets.

“I don’t like your manner, young man,” she said. “It’s overly familiar and flippant and we don’t know you.”

“Call me Marcus!”

“Why? What’s your real name?”

“That is my real name. I’m just being friendly. I saw you two beautiful damsels over here, on your lonesome, and thought I have got to go over and say hello.”

He held out the other drink. Charm regarded him and the ale through her shades.

“There’s more’n four hundred calories in a pint of that stuff,” she said.

Marcus looked shocked. “You don’t need to think about things like that!” he cried. “Not a stunner like you.”

“She’s been on some sort of faddy diet ever since she was nine,” her mother informed him. “She won’t allow so much as a Jaffa cake in the house. She’ll be so much happier in the castle – there’s none of that silliness there. You don’t need to count calories when you’re laced into a good strong bodice with a panel of wood tucked down the front.”

“Well, whatever made her beautiful, I’m glad of it,” Marcus said, raising the goblet and drinking a toast to them. “You’re the hottest babes here.”

Mrs Benedict tutted, but she was always ready to praise her daughter.

“She is most fair, isn’t she?” she said proudly. “Two years ago that was the face of Lancashire Pickles. You couldn’t eat an onion in a Bootle chippy without seeing her smile on the jar. ‘Only our vinegar is sour’ the slogan said.”

Marcus smacked his forehead. “I knew you had to be a model!” he exclaimed. “I said so, didn’t I?”

The girl’s mother nodded. “Oh, yes, she’s a true professional. Been doing it since she was ten, haven’t you, child? This was going to be a big year for her. We had The Plan all worked out, didn’t we? Still, what a prize she’ll be when she finally awakens to the real world.”

“Maybe we’ll know each other there!” Marcus suggested hopefully. “That would rock, knowing you here and there as well. So what is your name, beautiful?”

“Charm,” she answered in a voice of lead.

“It couldn’t be anything else!” he said with a grin. “I’m charmed to meet you.”

The girl said nothing and those sunglasses made it impossible for him to read her expression. He tried one of his trademark winks. They had a pretty good success rate. The girl turned back to the stage and he thought he caught what sounded like a bored sigh.

It was time for the performance to begin. First there was a display of courtly dancing, in which the Jacks and Jills took part. Then there was a re-enactment of an episode from the book, when the Jill of Hearts was kidnapped by a Punchinello Guard, who carried her off to a cave under one of the thirteen hills. The short, hideous creature was realised by a dwarf actor wearing an ingenious costume with built-up shoulders and a large, false head jutting from his chest. The head was suitably repulsive, with swivelling eyes and, when it menaced the captured girl, the younger children in the audience covered their own. But the Jack of Clubs came to the rescue just in time. He sliced his sword straight through the creature’s neck and the head went rolling across the stage.

“Oh, them fings is well vile,” Charm said to her mother. “I fink I’d scream if I saw ’em.”

“When you see them,” Mrs Benedict corrected. “But don’t you worry, child. The Punchinellos are usually kept in strict order by their captain, Captain Swazzle, who reports to the Ismus direct. It’s the fiends that go creeping outside the White Castle and in the woods and fields that are to be feared, but you’ll never have to worry about the likes of them, being of such obvious high-born quality.”

“I dunno… I still wouldn’t like to see them every day. Snow White always used to freak me out. When she woke up an’ all them tiny old bald blokes were pervin’ at her. That was well dodgy, know what I mean?”

Marcus remained silent. He heard Mrs Benedict speaking about Mooncaster as though it was a real place, in exactly the same way everyone else he knew spoke about it. He could not understand how or why anyone could believe such infantile rubbish. When this madness had first started, he had wondered if it was a massive con and they didn’t actually believe in it at all, but why they would pretend to do so was an even bigger mystery. What were they getting out of it?

In his darkest moments, and there had been many of those in recent months, when he felt utterly alone and filled with despair, he had questioned his own reason. But his ego was indefatigable and pulled him through every time. He almost wanted this weekend to successfully change him into a believer, just to see what the fuss was about, but he really couldn’t see it happening. How could it? It was only a stupid book.

Elsewhere in the crowd, Christina turned to Jody and whispered in a frightened voice that she hadn’t liked ‘Mr Big Nose’ and was glad he’d been ‘deheaded’.

Jody put her arm round her. “There’s no such things as Punchinellos,” she assured the seven-year-old. “They’re only monsters in a story; they don’t exist.”

“But the Jacks and Jills are in the book too,” Christina said. “They’re real.”

“Just kids playing dress-up. There aren’t any witches or fairy godmothers, no Mauger beast at the gate, no werewolf and no castle.”

“My mummy and daddy say there are,” the little girl uttered unhappily.

Jody glanced over to where Christina’s parents were standing. Mr and Mrs Carter had forgotten about their young daughter and were transfixed by what was happening on the stage. Jody looked away in disgust. She didn’t even wonder where her own mother and father had got to.

“People are the only real monsters,” she said.

It was time for the reading. A distinguished actor, who had appeared in countless movies and voiced umpteen CGI characters, stepped on to the stage to appreciative applause. The serving maids made sure every child had a copy of Dancing Jax and the recital commenced. The actor’s voice rang out, with that dry, clipped, resonant gravitas only the best Shakespearean thespians possessed.

“Dora, poor Dora the blacksmith’s daughter, was a lumpen girl, built like bricks and mortar. When she was ten, she was as tall as her father, at sixteen even he could not have fought her. She could wrestle the burliest farmhand and punch out a horse’s molar. The villagers of Mooncot were justly proud of her prowess, but none of them would court her. Dora, plain Dora despaired how nature had wrought her, so one bright morn she set forth – with ham and cheese and a flagon of well-drawn water. Every young maid knew of magick Malinda, so off she went and sought her. A pretty face and voice of silver was all that she was after. But Dora, dim Dora lost her way, forgetting what her father taught her. ‘Don’t go down the dingling track, where the toadstools grow much taller!’ Down the dingling track she tramped and heard strange voices call her – to Nimbelsewskin’s forest house where soon began the slaughter.”

Through force of habit, Jody followed the words on the pages. She had learned very early on that rejects who showed willing were persecuted far less than those who rebelled. Marcus was doing the same. He pretended to read along with the rest, but all the while his eyes were flicking left and right.

The face of every adult was transfigured with rapture as they found their way back into the Realm of the Dawn Prince and resumed their vivid lives there. Soon they were rocking back and forth, their eyes rolling up into their heads. Only the children who arrived that day remained motionless – they and the Ismus.

The Holy Enchanter gazed out over the sea of bobbing heads. His questioning stare fixed upon each and every one of those youngsters. Which of them? he asked himself. Which of them?

He saw Charm concentrating, desperately wishing for the power of the book to swallow her up. She even tried nodding her head, but only succeeded in catapulting her sunglasses on to the stage. She let out a squeal of frustration. The Ismus looked further back, to where Lee Charles was moving his head from side to side, in time to the music blaring in his eardrums. He hadn’t been paying the slightest attention to anything and wasn’t even holding a copy of the book. Then the Ismus regarded Spencer. He was fidgeting nervously while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

A twelve-year-old boy next to him caused the Ismus to narrow his eyes. There was something unusual and furtive in the way Jim Parker was gently patting his shirt, as if he was hiding something beneath it. Nearby, Tommy Williams was still peering around like a baby bird. He and the other small boys had been put in the same cabin as Alasdair and they were now gathered about him. The Ismus considered the Scottish lad and discovered he was staring straight back. Such deep hatred blazed in those young eyes. Could he be the one?

When the reading ended, the crowd uttered wretched groans and gasped miserable breaths as they were torn from the blissful existence in Mooncaster and found themselves back here.

It was time for the parents to depart in the coaches. The Ismus thanked them for bringing their children on this journey. He was confident the next time they met they would have found their rightful places in the world of Dancing Jax.

Kate Kryzewski and Sam filmed the farewells eagerly. In spite of the neglect and unhappy home life, many of the smaller children cried when they saw their parents board the vehicles without them. Rupesh Karim tried to jump on after his father and had to be dragged clear. Jody disappeared into her cabin long before her parents thought to look for her.

There was only one sad parting.

“Now don’t you worry,” Mrs Benedict told her daughter. “When this weekend’s over, you’ll be a real-life princess – I know it.”

Charm tilted her head back and fanned her eyes to stop the tears.

“I wish you wasn’t going, Ma,” she said. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“S’only two days,” her mother consoled her. “I’ll be here first thing Monday morning to pick you up and take you back home. Don’t you fret none.”

“You promise?”

“I vow it, if you’re not too grand for me by then. And don’t you forget, when you finally wake up in the castle, come find Widow Tallowax in the wash house and spare her a silver penny or two so she can buy ointment for her poor chapped hands.”

“It’ll be the first thing I do!” Charm swore. “I’ll buy you everyfink the Queen of Hearts has got.”

Her mother smiled and stroked the girl’s face tenderly.

“You’re a good child,” she said softly. “Your real mum will be so proud. Blessed be.”

Charm wanted to tell her how much she loved her, but the lump in her throat made further speech impossible. Instead she threw her arms round her mother’s neck and sobbed.

“Don’t you worry,” Marcus declared, imposing on this intimate moment. “I’ll take care of her.”

Neither took any notice of him. Mrs Benedict stepped on to the coach and Charm mouthed the words she hadn’t been able to say. Her mother found a seat and waved.

When the coaches pulled away and drove up the long forest road, Charm covered her eyes with the sunglasses once more.

“If you want a great big cry,” Marcus invited, holding out his arms, “my shoulders are damp-proofed and I give good hug.”

Charm flicked her ponytail back and walked briskly away.

“You’re a cucumber, you are,” she said over her shoulder.

Marcus wasn’t sure what she meant, but he called after her, “In every way except the colour, gorgeous!”

“I hate cucumber,” she clarified. “It’s wet and borin’, pointless, tastes rubbish, keeps repeatin’ an’ you can’t get rid.”

Marcus was too busy ogling her bottom in that short skirt to be offended or discouraged. It was only early evening Friday – still plenty of time.

Jody had emerged to watch the coaches leave. Leaning against the cabin wall, she saw them turn off at the junction and disappear behind the trees in the distance.

“On my own now then,” she murmured. “No change there.”

A small hand slipped into hers. “No, you’re not,” Christina said. “You’ve got me.”

The unexpected human contact and the simple, loving statement took her totally by surprise. Jody looked down at the seven-year-old, but the grateful smile froze on her lips. What was she doing? She wanted to tell her they would be like sisters this weekend and that she would protect her. But what about afterwards? What if Christina did get snatched away by the power of that book like everyone else in her life? She couldn’t endure the pain of losing another person she cherished. She couldn’t put either of them through that.

Jody shook her hand free. “Go make friends with kids your own age,” she said coldly. “I don’t want you hanging round me all the time. I’m not here to nanny nobody.”

Christina flinched as if she had been slapped. Then she ran around the cabin, out of sight.

“You’re a spiteful mare, you are,” Charm said as she walked past to go inside. “That’s just cruel.”

Jody didn’t answer, but she despised Charm more than ever for being right.

Over by the stage, the Ismus surveyed the remaining crowd. The entertainers and stallholders were milling around, enthusing about their other existence, while the younger children were either crying or staring in crushed silence at the empty forest road.

“Now the weekend can really begin,” Jangler’s enthusiastic voice broke into the Ismus’s solemn contemplation. “Won’t be long before dusk and then, in the night…”

The Holy Enchanter considered the old man gravely. He came to a decision.

“Walk with me,” he said brusquely.

“It’s almost time for dinner,” Jangler reminded him, consulting his watch and schedule. “There is a feast prepared in the main block…”

“That can wait!” the Ismus snapped. He signalled to his bodyguards to remain and strode away.

Jangler nodded meekly; he had been looking forward to soaking his feet while the feast was going on. With delicate, hobbling steps, he followed the Holy Enchanter through the compound. What was on his Lord’s mind? He seemed so preoccupied and troubled of late. In silence they crossed the grassy area behind the cabins, and passed into the trees beyond. The new leaves were rustling lightly overhead, stirred by the gentlest evening breeze.

“Is it something I have done, my Lord?” Jangler asked. “Have I displeased you? Has the day not gone in accordance to your plan?”

“It could not have passed more smoothly,” the Ismus said. “Miss Kryzewski will send an enthusiastic report back to America and, while her government puzzles and dithers over it, the delay will be enough for the book to take a firm hold there. Within four months the home of the brave shall fall – to my most intelligent design.”

“Then what disturbs you? That’s splendid, is it not?”

The Ismus looked back at the compound. A blanket of soft purple shadow had stolen over it. The sun was low. Its amber light caught only the tops of the surrounding trees. None of that was reflected in the darkness of his eyes.

“Those children disturb me,” he whispered.

“The aberrants?” Jangler asked in surprise. “No, no, no. They present no problem. I’ve never seen a more thoroughly subdued and timid lot. They’ll be no trouble. They’re utterly cowed and defeated, just as it should be. They’re nothing, just insignificant wastage.”

“You think so, do you?”

“I know it, my Lord. I’ve encountered disruptive elements before now; there’s none in that dismal collection. They went to their chalets as compliant and docile as rabbits to hutches. Submissive and harmless dregs, that’s all they are. The gullible clods truly believe they’re only staying here for the weekend! They don’t know what your true intent is, or what the bridging devices are for. Not the vaguest idea, I’m sure.”

The Ismus shook his head. “You are mistaken, Jangler,” he uttered. “One of those docile rabbits could be the greatest threat to the world of Mooncaster imaginable.”

“You’re having a jest with me! Nothing can endanger the blessed Kingdom, nothing!”

“One of those children back there… is the Castle Creeper.”

The old man caught his breath and slowly removed his spectacles. “Are you sure?” he asked in a shocked, dismayed whisper.

“Oh, most definitely.”

“But Mr Fellows doubted such a personage could exist. Theoretically it’s possible, but…”

“Yes, I doubted! There was a chance! Incalculably remote, but a chance nevertheless.”

“But to have been found so soon, in this country… and a child?”

The Ismus closed his eyes. The shadows of evening deepened in the hollows of his gaunt face. Beneath the enclosing trees it grew chill.

“I have sensed the incursions,” he said with a slight shudder. “Felt every trespass, as keenly as a cold scalpel razoring through my skin. One of those children, one of those ‘harmless dregs’, has the ability to enter the Dawn Prince’s Kingdom, to insinuate him or herself into my wondrous creation, yet not become a part of it. Somehow they do not assume one of the prescribed roles. They appear in Mooncaster as they are here, whilst retaining a footing in this world and, with each fresh visit, their presence gains in strength.”

“Then we must kill every child in the camp at once!” Jangler insisted – appalled by what he was hearing. “Massacre them! We can set up another bridging centre in the next country that falls. The Castle Creeper is a threat to the Realm – a deadly menace!”

“Only if he, or she, strives against us. Have you forgotten what the Creeper is capable of? Must I remind you of what only they can do? What even I, even His Majesty the Dawn Prince, cannot?”

Jangler blinked and groped through his memory for the relevant passage. Then, in a voice wavering with excitement and wonder, he quoted the hallowed text.

“And who can hinder the Bad Shepherd’s wild, destructive dance? None but the unnamed shape; the thing that creeps through the castle and the night.”

“Yes!” the Ismus declared. “Now do you see?”

Jangler exhaled. His eyes were sparkling. “We must discover which of them is this Castle Creeper!” he said urgently. “There must be no delay!”

“It is too soon!” the Ismus warned. “That would be the ruin of this one incredible chance. We must wait, we must watch, keep those aberrants close and under scrutiny. When the Creeper is grown in strength and conceit, they will betray themselves. Then we shall know.”

“What are my Lord’s wishes?”

“Live up to your name,” the Ismus instructed with a foul grin. “Be the gaoler of that place. When this weekend is done, you will remain. Keep the children under lock and key.”

“It shall be just as you command and I shall report to you every day.”

“No need,” the Ismus said with a low chuckle. “I will monitor everything, know everything, before you do, Jangler.”

“My Lord?”

The Ismus took three steps back and threw open his long arms.

“Dancing Jax must go out into the world and do its glorious work,” he exulted. “There is much to be done and I, Austerly Fellows, must oversee the domination of every country. But I shall spare a part of me – leave a splinter of my essence – here. To observe and do what must be done.”

As he spoke, dark blemishes broke out across his skin until his face was peppered with ink like spots of black mould. They bloomed and spread, foaming over his features until his head was a pulsating mass. Only his mouth was visible – a cave within a festering cloud. Mycelia branched through his hair, writhing and sprouting fresh growths. Then he arched his back and a flood of black strands and spores went shooting upward – into the leaves above. The putrid stench of decay and corruption rained down.

Jangler watched, enthralled, and he fell on his knees to worship the true form of Austerly Fellows.

The mould blossomed overhead, swelling and crackling softly, forming a thick, clotted web in the trees. And then, from within its dark heart, a malignant, bubbling voice spoke.

“Rise, Jangler. Rise, grandson of Edgar Hankinson. For three generations your family have proven their worth and loyalty to me.”

Jangler got to his feet and stared adoringly up at the frothing horror clogging the shadows.

“It has been an honour to serve,” the old man answered, raising his hands in adulation. “You are the Abbot of the Angles, founder of the candle faith, author of the sacred text. When I was a small boy, I dedicated my whole being to your great glory and grandeur. All my life I have venerated you.”

“This shall prove your greatest labour,” the voice told him. “I entrust to your safe keeping the smooth running of the camp. Fortify it. Make it a stronghold from which there can be no escape.”

“Alone? Will you not guide me?”

“You will not be alone. Help shall be sent, extraordinary help. It will support and assist you.”

“But the splinter of yourself? May I not come here, to this place, and consult with it?”

The mould cluster quivered as a gurgling laugh issued out. The sound filled the gathering gloom beneath the trees and the strands connecting the Ismus to the thing overhead vibrated wildly. Then they snapped apart. The hideous growths covering the Holy Enchanter’s face retreated back, disappearing into his pale skin. The disembodied laughter ceased, and was immediately taken up by him. He put his arm round the old man and pointed to the repulsive, throbbing mass above. It crawled higher up the tree and hid itself among the leaves.

“I don’t understand,” Jangler said.

“You won’t be able to consult with that fragment of myself,” the Ismus told him. “Because you won’t know where it is. One night this weekend, that little part of me up there is going hunting.”

“Hunting? What will it hunt?”

“One of those young aberrants. That fragment of me is going to wait, out of sight, and you, dear Lockpick, will drive them in here tomorrow evening. Make a game of it. Employ whatever ruse or method seems best to you. Just see that they are all roaming this woodland when darkness falls. I shall make my selection then.”

“Ho! What an amusing scheme. And what will you do with the filthy scum, once caught?”

The crooked smile appeared. “I shall hide within its body, possess it as I did the man Jezza – the previous owner of this host flesh.”

“But what if your choice is the Castle Creeper? The child will be dead and its skill with it.”

“One life out of thirty-one,” the Ismus said. “That is a gamble I am prepared to take. Have I ever baulked at risk?”

“No, my Lord. And after you have taken possession, how shall I know which of them you are? You must make yourself known to me in a manner that will not arouse the suspicions of the others. Young people are so distrustful.”

“Certainly not! I don’t want you treating that host any differently to the rest. The other aberrants will know for certain if you bow and scrape every time it walks by. Your devotion would give the game away in the first five minutes. Just forget I’m there. As soon as it becomes clear who the Creeper is, I’ll step forward and take command.”

“Whatever you say, my Lord.”

“But remember, it is only a splinter of myself which I shall view and operate remotely. I can channel no power through it. It will be no stronger than the body it animates. Do not think to call on it for help if you fail here. It is merely a direct link to me, nothing more.”

“I will not fail,” came the confident reply. “And I shall not even try to guess in which of them you are concealed.”

The Ismus clapped him on the back. “Then let us return to our unwary little rabbits and their hutches!” he announced. “My Black Face Dames will be getting anxious. For such burly bruisers, they really are the most terrible worrywarts.”

He led Jangler back towards the compound. At the edge of the wood he paused and glanced over his shoulder. High in the trees a patch of foliage rustled against the breeze. The breathing darkness within was trembling with anticipation. The hungry wait had begun.

THE FEAST WAS an excessive, ostentatious display of a Mooncaster banquet. The refectory in the main block had been converted to a scaled-down facsimile of the Great Hall inside the White Castle. No expense had been spared. The walls had been faced with faux stone panels, but genuine medieval tapestries, requisitioned from stately homes and museums, had been hung across them. Four long oak tables were arranged in a rectangle and laden with even more food than had been on the stalls outside. Whole suckling pigs and roast fowl of various sizes, decorated with their former plumage, added to the pies of before.

The children were shown their places by the serving maids and minstrels played as they sat down. None of the young guests looked at the food; every eye was staring at the thing that dominated the central space. Within the rectangle of tables, on a large dais of its own, was a great model of the White Castle.

Painstakingly recreated by a team of special-effects craftsmen, it was perfect, down to the smallest detail, with three concentric walls and the five-storeyed keep in the middle. There were tiny lights in turret windows, banners of the Royal Houses flew from the four corner towers, the courtyards were cobbled, and white lead miniature guards were stationed on the battlements. There was even a moat, made of clear resin – and trees, with brass-etched leaves, grew from the flocked, grassy banks.

Alasdair stared at it intently. He couldn’t help admiring the workmanship and untold hours that had gone into its making, but he loathed everything the model represented.

The Ismus welcomed them with a speech about the hearty meals that would be lavished on them in here this weekend. The presence of the model was to focus their minds on their objective and to make the transition from this world to that much easier.

“Now eat, most honoured guests,” he commanded, his eyes glinting in the light of the many candles burning on large iron stands around the room.

The wenches came forward bearing flagons of ale and filled the goblets on the table. The younger children were given a weak, watered-down version, but they still grimaced when they sampled it.

Marcus had changed into a Paul Smith shirt with thin vertical stripes and knew he was the sharpest dresser in the room, apart from the Ismus, but that black velvet ensemble was hardly the height of fashion. Not yet at any rate. Marcus was disgruntled not to have been seated anywhere near Charm. She was diagonally opposite him and his view of her was blocked by the castle. What was the point of looking so good if she couldn’t even see him? He had hoped he could win her over by playfully throwing a grape or a rolled-up bit of bread in her direction. He didn’t want to chance lobbing a missile over the castle, blind.

“I might get her in the face or in her eye,” he muttered to himself. “She’s not the sort to laugh at that. Probably cause a big stink about it. Does she find anything funny?” A smile tweaked the corners of his mouth briefly as he imagined getting a bullseye right down her cleavage.

He let his gaze roam over the castle in front of him. “So that’s what it’s all about then?” he said. “That’s where everyone thinks they are when they read DJ. Couldn’t they have just gone to Disneyland or Alton Towers?”

He jabbed his elbow in the ribs of Spencer who had the misfortune to have been placed next to him.

“Zo, vot do you zink, Herr Spenzer?” Marcus asked. “Zat ist der Colditzcaster, ja?”

Spencer ignored him and sipped at the ale as he chewed a mouthful of pie crust.

“All that lard is just going to feed those zits, dude,” Marcus commented with disgust.

Jody didn’t like the look of the model. To her the castle appeared grim and forbidding, a feudal fortress from which privileged nobles ruled the downtrodden lower classes. She gave her attention to the food instead and was relieved to see bowls of fruit on the table. That minchet muck was there among the grapes, pears, pomegranates and apples, but she could easily wipe its acrid residue from them. There were small dishes of almonds and hazelnuts too. She tucked in hungrily.

Christina and the other small children were mesmerised by the castle. Part of them longed to play with it, but they also knew it was a bad thing. It had taken the love of their families away from them. It was fascinating and fearsome at the same time, in the same way that fire had been when they were much smaller.

Christina glanced over to where Jody was sitting and her face clouded with hurt and resentment. Then she picked up a skewer and banged her pewter plate with it. When she was sure she had Jody’s attention, the seven-year-old plunged the skewer deep into the snout of a suckling pig.

Jody started. Christina dug her nails into one of the pig’s glazed ears and tore it free. Jody looked away, wishing she hadn’t been so nasty earlier. She had tried to spare Christina from getting hurt, but perhaps she’d damaged her even more.

There was a remote expression on Jim Parker’s face. With that detailed model in front of him, he could imagine it was a real building and he was flying above it. Jim was a lover of comic books and, since the takeover of Dancing Jax, had immersed himself in them completely. DC, Marvel, he loved them all, but his favourite was the X-Men. If he was a mutant with the power of flight, or maybe even just Superman, he could look down on every building like this. He smiled secretively and pressed the tip of his knife into his thumb when he was sure no one was watching. A blob of blood popped out.

“Not yet then,” he murmured to himself with disappointment. “How much longer?”

Spencer felt another dig in the ribs.

“Wouldn’t it be awesome if a topless dancer jumped out of that castle right now, like it was a big cake?” Marcus laughed. “I would so love that!”

Spencer didn’t hear him. Something had been gnawing away at the back of his mind the whole afternoon. From the time they had been shown their cabins it had been there – a vague sense of wrongness. Of course there was the unease and dread that they all felt, knowing they were here to get brainwashed. But this was something else, something more tangible and immediate. Suddenly it struck him and he sat upright. He stared around at the other children and fizzed with the satisfaction of having worked it out.

He had to tell someone, but he didn’t want to speak to Marcus so he turned to the boy on his right.

“Thirty-one!” he blurted excitedly. “There’s supposed to be thirty-one of us! The Lockpick guy said so, didn’t he?”

Tommy Williams dropped his fork and cowered away from him. Cringing, he waited for the inevitable punch.

“I didn’t do nothing wrong!” he cried, covering his face.

Spencer was shocked at how scared he was. He couldn’t begin to imagine what cruelty the boy had endured since the publication of the book. Perhaps it went back even further than that? Only Tommy knew. Spencer simply understood that he had to make him feel better as soon and as best as he could. He was too hesitant, insecure and self-conscious to put his arm round the boy and cuddle him as Sam had done earlier, so he did the only thing he could think of. He tickled him. For the first time in months, Tommy Williams laughed and laughed.

“Stop! Stop!” he begged hysterically. “I’ll wee!”

It was Spencer’s turn to shrink away and he turned back to his food hastily. Tommy slid down in his chair, out of breath and giggling.

“What was you on about, Herr Spenzer?” Marcus demanded. “Thirty what?”

Spencer adjusted his spectacles and twitched his shoulders.

“The Lockpick said there’s eighteen girls and thirteen boys,” he began. “But there aren’t. Count them – there’s only seventeen girls.”

“So? The old git can’t add up.”

“Or one girl still hasn’t arrived yet.”

Marcus immediately became intensely interested. “Herr Spenzer!” he exclaimed, punching him on the arm. “If you’re right and if she’s a babe, I’ll buy you some spot cream!”

Lee Charles ate in silence. He watched everyone: the little groups who were tentatively getting along, the young kids slowly opening up to their neighbours, testing those strangers with small questions and giving timid answers. He saw the Indian boy, Rupesh, staring unhappily at the food before him. He didn’t touch any of the meat and pushed the watered-down ale away. Lee wondered what his home life was like now. All religions in the UK had been affected by Dancing Jax. Worshippers still attended the churches, mosques, temples and synagogues, but it was only through habit and the perceived need to continue acting out what they believed were their pretend lives here. How long would that continue, he wondered?

Lee’s own grandmother had been a devout Christian her whole life. Her immaculate front room, which he had been forbidden to enter unaccompanied until the age of ten, was filled with her treasures such as the old radiogram as big as a sideboard, glass swans, photographs of the family and a framed print of a painting called Christ at Heart’s Door. Every Palm Sunday she would bring home the small cross she had been given at the service and tuck it behind the print where it would remain for twelve months. This year she hadn’t and the once beloved picture had been replaced with one of the many views of Mooncaster that were now in the shops. The last time Lee visited his grandmother he had discovered the print hidden down the side of the china cabinet.

He looked over to where the Ismus was sitting with the Jacks and Jills. Nothing about Lee’s face betrayed the anger and hatred he felt towards the Holy Enchanter. Under the table his fist closed slowly and he imagined the weight of a gun in his hand. In his mind’s eye he saw himself holding it sideways, like in the movies and music vids, and busting caps into that scrawny poser. That would be so sweet. He turned his head before the grin became too large and watched the wenches passing in and out of the kitchen. From the glimpses afforded through the swinging door, he saw that no alterations had been made in there. It was electric lights, brushed steel surfaces and magnolia paintwork.

He placed a piece of pie on his trencher, smashed it flat with the heel of his hand then slapped it on to a slice of bread, folded it over and ate it. His mind ticked steadily.

Along the next table, Charm was making cooing noises as she drank in the castle model.

“I’m gonna hang pink curtains in one of them windows when it’s my turn,” she promised, with a big smile to the cameras she had gathered about her. “Whoever I turn out to be, I just know I’ll be painting everyfink pink. I loves it I do.”

She posed and performed for the lenses then carved a slice of pheasant for herself, declaring it to be “a ropy-looking chicken” but everything else was “carb city”.

“Bread, pies, beer and pasties!” she exclaimed, raising her hands in mock horror. “All the bad stuff! Go straight to my bum that would. Good job there’s no spuds or I’d make a pig of myself. I love spuds. There ain’t any in Mooncaster though, is there? Not invented yet or summink my ma says. God knows what I’ll do without my bit of mash and gravy on a Sunday when I’m there. Have you tried them purple spuds? They is gorge –and proper purple all the way through like beetroot, no word of a lie! I tried mashing them with ordinary to make pink, but they just went an ’orrible grey. It were revoltin’!”

Scrupulously removing the “killer fattening skin” from the meat, she put a morsel of pheasant into her mouth and chewed. The instant she tasted the gamey flavour her expression changed and her eyes popped wide. A moment later, she was spitting it out and retching. Seizing the ale, she downed 300 calories in one swig.

The feast continued until nine o’clock when there was one final reading for the night. Jody rested her forehead on the table. What was the point of going on with this charade? It wasn’t going to work on them now.

The other children watched in stony silence as the adults around them shivered with pleasure to be back in their other lives. Marcus folded his arms and stared fixedly at the castle model, refusing to take any notice of their slack-jawed faces. He was sick to the back teeth of it. Charm clasped her hands in front of her as though in prayer and tried to imagine roaming around those battlements or gazing up at one of the towers, willing herself there. Under one table the youngest feet nudged and scuffled one another. The playful kicks travelled back and forth in a kinetic pulse. Christina was at one end and Alasdair formed the cut-off point at the other, until he started joining in as well. The adults were too absorbed in the world of Mooncaster to notice and the mind of the Ismus was on other matters.

When the reading was over, the children were allowed to return to their cabins with promises of an even better day tomorrow.

“Lucky us,” Jody mumbled to herself. “Can hardly wait.”

Alasdair rounded up his group. Most of them were half asleep. It had been one long, exhausting day for everyone and their feet were dragging. He led them out and was pleased to see Tommy Williams smiling at last.

Marcus made his way over to Charm, who was put out to have lost the interest of the cameras.

“How did you like the scoff then, gorgeous?” he asked.

“It were mingin’,” she answered, striding past him.

“So,” he called after her. “What you up to now? It’s still early! We should hang out and chillax.”

“Do you ever hear yourself?” Lee asked with a shake of his head as he left.

Marcus made a gesture behind him.

When the refectory was empty of children, the Ismus thanked the minstrels and the news teams. They bowed and followed the Jacks and Jills outside. Kate Kryzewski lingered and approached.

“I trust you now have enough for your report?” he asked.

The woman looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, my Lord,” she said. “It is strange for me to be out here in the Great Hall, when I know I should be in the kitchen. What will Mistress Slab say? She will cuff my head with the big spoon, I know it!”

“Peace,” he told her. “Remember that in this dream you are Miss Kryzewski; you have a report to make and send to America. You are only Columbine when you awaken back in the castle. Here, you must be the best Miss Kryzewski you can be, so that you are stronger in your real life – or else how will you ward off the Jockey’s advances?”

“Yes,” she said, collecting herself and working with the traces of Kate that remained. “The report, what I need – what it needs – is to see some ‘afters’. These dumb kids are the ‘befores’. This piece won’t pack any punch unless we get to see them after the sacred text has opened their eyes. That’s the pay-off, that’s what’ll resonate and make Americans sit up and realise the awesome benefits of your great work. They’re suckers for happy endings. If they can see these kids get turned around from surly aberrants to overjoyed at discovering who they really are, that’d clinch it.”

The Ismus listened attentively. She was right and he needed to stall the US, to keep them from taking action for a little while longer.

“I agree,” he said. “I promise you shall have your ‘afters’. But not tomorrow. Spend that day up in London. Film in the hospitals, nursing homes, the day centres with the disabled. I can arrange for you to visit a prison to see how reformed the inmates have become. Return here on Sunday and you shall have a whole merry bunch of children anxious to tell the world of their newfound joy.”

She thanked him profusely and hurried out to join Sam in the car. Jangler came over to join his master.

“Can you really turn those children?” he asked. “I thought it was impossible. That was never the reason they were gathered here – or why the other centres around the world will be needed.”

“Oh, yes,” the Ismus said. “It’s possible. But it isn’t a simple matter. I shall have to call on aid, as I did back in 1936. The night I ‘disappeared’.”

“That is most dangerous!” the old man cried.

“As I said, I do not baulk at risks. It will be uncomfortable certainly, but necessary. We are so close to achieving our goal. I cannot turn back now. Whatever Miss Kryzewski asks for, she gets. That is why I invited her. She is the key to America. Her report will unlock it for me.”

“How many children will you give?”

“That is impossible to answer. The power I call upon is… very difficult to control. It will be like using a battering ram to gain entry to their minds. I must be careful not to cause too much damage within. Their young heads exploding would not make good footage, especially in high definition.”

Jangler chuckled at the prospect then became serious.

“As long as you do not place yourself in danger, my Lord,” he said.

“If I had never placed myself in danger, I would never have heard the voice of the Dawn Prince Himself, uttering my name.”

“I cannot even dare hope I shall one day hear Him – or look upon His great Majesty.”

The Ismus smiled. “What we do here, Jangler,” he said, “will bring that glorious day ever closer.”

The old man puffed out his chest proudly. “And the Lady Labella?” he asked. “Might I enquire after her health?”

“She is blooming, Jangler, blooming!”

“Most highly favoured Lady! That is gratifying news, my Lord.”

The Ismus held up his hand. “But we run ahead of ourselves!” he told him. “Tonight our little aberrant rabbits must earn their carrots. That is the primary reason they are here.”

Outside in the compound, a chorus of car doors and engines started. The Jacks and Jills each had a black or red BMW waiting and were driven off to the nearest five-star country hotel. The vehicles outside the camp followed them up the forest road.

Jody sat on the step outside her chalet and watched the headlights sweep over the trees and disappear in the distance. The kids inside were waiting to brush their teeth before bed, but Charm was hogging the bathroom. Most of them, including Christina, were fast asleep long before she emerged. It had been a long, exhausting and stressful day.

In Alasdair’s cabin the boys had crowded round the sink together and were already under the crinkly linen of the brand-new duvets. The Scottish lad strummed his guitar in the semi-darkness for a time, lulling them to sleep with gentle tunes.

It was different and more rowdy in Lee and Marcus’s hut. The boys there were older and, though tired, no one was going to be the first to admit he wanted to go to sleep. Jim was lying on his bed, rereading one of his favourite issues of X-Men, admiring the artistry and imagination all over again.

Spencer was engrossed in his portable media player, watching a Western. He was heavily into cowboy movies; they were as removed from the world of Mooncaster and his own unhappy, timid life as he could imagine.

Living in Southport, he had taken to roaming the seemingly endless tracts of beach and sand dunes there, pretending he was thousands of miles away, in the Nevada Desert. With classic cowboy soundtracks playing in his earphones, he would mosey on down the trail, tracking coyotes or outlaws, and practise sharpshooting with his two-finger Colt 45. Jackrabbits fled at the jingle of his spurs and the towering cacti of his mindscape were riddled with his quick-draw lead. Immersing himself in the fantasy of a lone, silent lawman, as the world around him went haywire, was the only way he had kept sane. He had even bought a Stetson off eBay and, when he was sure no one was around, would wear it on those solitary walks. Everyone had their own way of coping. That was his. He had brought his hat along this weekend as a reassuring talisman. He wasn’t going to unpack it. As long as it was with him, in the bag, that was enough.

The three other boys, Mason, Drew and Nicholas, wanted to play on the cabin’s games console, but Marcus had possession of the TV remote and was flicking through the Freeview channels.

“Nothing but crap on nowadays,” he grumbled, hopping from station to station. “DJ gets everywhere. They’ve tarted up the Rover’s Return to be an old inn and the street is pretending to be that village – they’ve thatched all the houses! Ken Barlow looks a right knob in tights. You can’t even get Friends any more – you think Joey looks like me? Girls have said… Hey, we made the news! This place is on the TV. That’s today, when we first got here – and there’s that Charm bird all over the Ismus bloke. Talk about sucking up! Look at her! I’m still going to get in her pants though. More blah de blah from him, what else is on? How about this – Celebrity Minchetchef? There’s no way anyone can make that vomit taste good, no matter how many chunky chips you stack next to it like Jenga. My Big Fat Jaxy Wedding, nope. Home shopping – get your cloaks, leather tunics and pointy shoes here, Have I Got Jax For You?… Oh, look, here’s the black and white Nazi channel. At least that never changes. All they ever show on there is ancient stuff about Hitler. Who watches that?”

“You should, Ladies’ Man,” Lee said as he walked by. “You really got no idea what’s going down here.”

“What is it with you?” Marcus demanded, infuriated by the lad’s attitude. “You’ve been on my case since we got here. Just what is your problem?”

“We all got the same problem,” Lee told him. “But some of us is too blind or too dumb to see it yet. You think we’re here to get our caps twisted? No way.” He put a cigarette in his mouth and pushed against the door. “I’ll take this one outside,” he said as he left. “Wouldn’t want you to choke in the night, Lily-lungs.”

“Jerk,” Marcus muttered when he was gone.

He glanced up at the mezzanine and took the opportunity to dash up and open the small window to let in some fresh air. Then he picked up his carefully folded clothes, sniffed them for smoke and checked for burns. Downstairs three boys leaped on the games console and were soon hunting flesh-eating zombies and blasting heads and legs off with sub-machine guns. They were glad that games based on Dancing Jax were still only at the development stage. This was what they wanted.

With the unlit cigarette still hanging on his lip, Lee strolled in front of the cabins.

“Hi,” Jody greeted him, looking up from the step. “How’s it going with…?” But he ignored her and continued walking.

The girl shrugged with indifference and put her chin on her knees. She had grown to accept being as noticeable as wallpaper and it only proved her earlier decision with Christina had been the right one.

“No point trying to make friends here,” she told herself. “Other people only ever let you down.”

Lee sauntered round the corner out of sight. The main block was before him. When he was certain no one was about, he ran across to it, veering sideways when he heard voices approaching, and crouched in the shadows.

The Ismus came striding out, followed by his bodyguards and Jangler. The men crossed to where the SUV was parked and Jangler waved them off with a flourish of his hand.

“Till the morrow, my Lord!” he called, bowing as low as his portly figure allowed.

The SUV drove through the gates and rumbled up the forest road. Jangler returned to the main block, took a hoop of keys from his belt and locked the doors.

Concealed in the darkness, Lee waited till the old man had finished, then watched him head towards the cabins.

Jody was still huddled on the step when Jangler came ambling by. He touched the brim of his floppy hat in salutation and wished her a good night.

“Are you staying here?” she asked in surprise.

He paused and a strange, unpleasant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“Where else should the Lockpick be but on guard?” he replied. “You young people need someone to watch over you.”

“You make us sound like prisoners.”

“Prisoners?” he repeated, making a staccato noise like a cross between a cough and a laugh. “Here, in these luxury holiday chalets, with all this beautiful scenery and invigorating fresh air around you? Tut tut, what an overactive imagination.”

“Shame I can’t apply it to Dancing Jax though, huh?”

“Oho,” he said. The old man inclined his head and touched his hat once more. “Sweet dreams,” he added.

Jody jerked her head aside. “Fat chance,” she huffed. “Been nothing but bad ones since this started.”

Jangler’s eyebrows lifted and the moustache jiggled on his lip. “How… distressing,” he murmured. “We must see what we can do about that, mustn’t we?”

Then he clicked his heels together, an action he immediately regretted because his feet were still suffering in those shoes, and continued on his way.

Something about the way he spoke those last words made Jody’s skin creep. Her eyes followed him till he reached the cabin at the other end. She wondered who, if anyone, was going to occupy the empty one next to it.

Jangler hesitated before entering. He turned his gaze towards the night-shrouded forest that surrounded the camp and chuckled to himself, knowing what was lurking out there. He gave another chuckle when he anticipated what would happen later, when everyone was asleep, and let himself in.

Lee circled the main block, testing each window he came across. Finally he found one that had been left open. He climbed inside and took a slim torch from the pocket of his trackie bottoms. He was in the lecture room, where the press conference had been held earlier that day, and where Sam, the cameraman, had later been lured by the Ismus, so the Black Face Dames could hold him down and force minchet into his mouth.

Lee shone the torchlight around; there was nothing in here, nothing he could use. As silently as possible, he made his way into the next room. It was the dining hall. The tables had been cleared, but the model of the castle still dominated the centre.

The boy curled his lip at it then made his way to the kitchen.

In there the torchlight bounced over the brushed steel surfaces and sparkled in the utensils hanging on the wall. Lee wasted no time. He pulled open every cupboard, searched in every drawer. Then he rushed to another door and yanked it open. Behind was a well-stocked storeroom, crammed from floor to ceiling with catering-sized tins and packets of dry goods. None of it was Mooncaster fare.

“Sweet!” he whispered as the torch beam revealed the treasures on the shelves.

He frowned when he realised he should have brought his holdall. He couldn’t carry more than two of those great tins at a time without it. Looking around, he saw, tucked under the lowest shelf, a collection of empty Tupperware containers.

“Hallelujah!” he muttered, smiling.

Taking the biggest, he put a bag of pasta and two bags of rice inside. Then he filled up the remaining space with packets of dried fruit and one of sugar. Sealing the lid back on and pocketing the torch, he carried the box through to the kitchen.

“I’ll be back for the rest of you foxy bitches,” he addressed the darkness of the storeroom.

It wasn’t long before he was climbing back out of the window. Kneeling on the ground outside, he waited till he was sure the coast was clear. Then, lugging the container, he darted over the lawn behind the main block – towards the forbidding expanse of night-smothered trees.

Lee wasn’t afraid of the deep gloom, but he almost choked at the rank smell that hit his nostrils as he pressed deeper into the wood. Was there a stagnant ditch close by? Hailing from an estate in South London, he wasn’t overly familiar with the countryside. Did it always stink like this? It was stronger than the drains in July.

Although he tried to move as silently as possible, the leaves of the previous autumn crunched as noisily as crisps and cornflakes under his trainers and twigs snapped even louder. When he had gone a short distance, he stopped and took out his torch again. He had to find something distinctive, something he would recognise again. Ahead he saw a fat tree. He had no idea what sort, but its bottommost branches spread out like two arms and the gnarled bark of the trunk suggested a face with puckered lips. It reminded him of a girl he had known in the days before the book. Yes, that would do.

He deposited the box at its base and hunted around for twigs and bracken to use as camouflage. As he collected it, the sensation he was being watched began to grow in his mind and the putrid smell of decay became stronger.

Unnerved, Lee looked around. It was too dark to see; the black shadows concealed everything and he hesitated to switch the torch on again.

“That you, pussy boy?” he murmured, thinking Marcus had followed him. “Don’t you try no tricks on me.”

There was no answer except the listless stirring of the leaves overhead and the faintest of noises, like the soft and subtle popping of bath foam. Lee turned towards the strange sound and thought he saw a shadow slide down from above. He blinked. Trying to pierce the darkness was a strain on the eyes.

He snapped on the torch. The beam shone directly on to the bubbling mass of black mould that was rearing in front of him.

ALASDAIR SAT HIMSELF down on the chalet step and picked out a tune on his guitar.

“Bit miserable,” a girl’s voice called over to him. “But you’re pretty good.”

He looked up and saw Jody still on her own step.

The Scot acknowledged her with a nod.

“You get in a lot of practice when there’s no anything else to do – and no pals to do it with neither,” he said. “And I like ‘miserable’.”

“So what bands you into?”

Alasdair shook his head. “Och, no,” he replied. “I’m no playing that game.”

“What game?”

“Do you really have to shout? Can you no come sit here and talk civil? I’ve got a hut full of wee lads trying to get their heads doon.”

Wrapping her green cardigan about her, the girl wandered over and sat next to him.

“What game?” she repeated.

“The ‘I know more obscure bands than you do’ game,” he said dismissively. “That sort of music snobbery doesnae interest me.”

Jody stood up again. “Oh, forget it,” she said, exasperated. “I was only trying to make conversation. I shouldn’t have bothered. None of you are worth bothering with. I keep telling myself I’m better off on my own; dunno why I don’t listen. Stick your ruddy guitar, stick your dirges and stick your snitty attitude.”

She turned to leave, but the boy asked her to wait.

“Sorry,” he groaned. “When you spend months being defensive, it’s a tough habit to crack and my social skills are rusty. Knee-jerk rude, that’s me. Sit down… please.”

“Not easy, is it?” she said, softening. “I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to talk to someone normal.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “Would you look at the state of us – it’s tragic.”

“After what we’ve been through it’s not surprising: the riots, the firebombing of the bookshops, the persecution… And there’s only so many times you can get the hope and trust kicked out of you. We’re too scared to even try to make friends – I know I am and I can be a right cow about it.”

The boy laughed.

“I can!” she insisted. “I was foul to a little girl earlier. I wish – oh, it’s too late now.”

“We could learn a lot from the bairns here,” he told her. “They’re still able an’ willing to have a go at making pals without worrying it wilnae last. My lads in there are going to be thick as thieves come Monday morning.”

“The day they have to leave their new friends and go back to families who don’t want them,” Jody said bitterly. “Provided they haven’t been zombified by then.”

Alasdair looked down at his guitar and played the opening notes of a song.

“Well, that’s less miserable than the other one,” she observed.

“‘I am a Rock’ by Simon and Garfunkel,” he told her.

“And there’s you talking about obscure!”

“Good tunes are good tunes however old they are. It’s all ear food – and that one seemed appropriate.”

He gave the guitar his attention once more and sang the last few lines.

I touch no one and no one touches me.

I am a rock,

I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;

And an island never cries.

“Do you have a pithy playlist for every occasion?” she asked dryly.

“Empathic jukebox, that’s me,” he answered with a grin. “Name’s Alasdair and – oh, no – I’m going to make friends with you so deal with it. If I’m not brainwashed by the end of this weekend, you can even have my mobile number. Make a change having someone call it. I dinnae bother charging it up half the time.”

Jody smiled with pleasure and the wall she had built around herself crumbled a little.

“Music’s always been a massive part of my life,” she said, gazing at the guitar. “When I was three, my mum and dad took me to Glastonbury. There’s photos of me covered in the thickest mud, like some midget swamp monster. We went back every other year. The bands I’ve seen…”

She looked off into the darkness of the distant trees. She didn’t want to think about the past. It was gone.

“Your mum and dad sound cool.”

“They were,” she said with a stark finality in her voice. “What about yours?”

Alasdair screeched his fingernail along a string for dramatic effect. “Next question!” he said evasively.

Jody tactfully reverted to the previous subject. “I wonder if they’ll even have Glastonbury this year?” she murmured. “I was going to go without them this time, just me and my best mate, before all this happened. If they do have it, it’ll probably be full of mass readings and minstrels and hey nonny nonnying.”

“Do they no have plenty of that there anyway, wi’ all the tree-hugging hippy caper and henna tattoos?”

Jody coughed to disguise her laughter. She’d hugged plenty of trees and had her hands decorated lots of times.

“That’s only a tiny part of it!” she said. “The best, most amazing artists in the world play on those stages. It’s incredible – was incredible.”

Before Alasdair could continue, they were distracted by Marcus emerging from the next cabin. He had changed into a Man United strip and came jogging over.

“Going to do some exercise before turning in,” he addressed the Scottish lad, ignoring Jody. “Want to join me?”

“No, I’m good thanks.”

“Play me something to work out to then!” Marcus called, trotting to the centre of the lawn, sparring with the night air as he hopped from foot to foot.

“I do believe I’d rather catch leprosy,” Alasdair remarked to Jody.

“He’s full of himself that one,” she said.

“Aye, well, that’s probably what’s kept him going. With me, it was my guitar. I dinnae know what I’d have done without it these past months. Takes my mind off it, mostly. How did you manage?”

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