Not Just a Witch

Chapter Twenty-One

It had been a splendid place once — a long, low building with towers and turrets and an avenue of lime trees. There was a statue garden with queer griffins and heraldic beasts carved in stone, and a lake and a maze — a really frightening maze, the kind with high yew hedges that could trap you for hours and hours.

But now the hall was empty and partly ruined. The people who owned Hankley couldn’t afford to keep it up and then it was found that an underground river was making the back of the house sink into the ground, so nobody would buy it.

The ballroom, though, was in the front and it looked almost as it had done a hundred years ago. There were patches of damp on the ceiling and the plaster had flaked off, but the beautiful floor was still there, and the carved gallery. And now, with candles flickering in the holders and graceful shadows moving across the windows, it might have seemed as though the grand people who had danced there had come back to haunt the place in which they had once been happy.

But the creatures who moved between the pillars wore no ball gowns and carried no fans — and when they turned and wove their patterns on the floor, it was on four legs, not on two.

The leopards had been quiet when Heckie made them, but now it was different. The men who brought them had handled them roughly, prodding and poking with long-handled forks to send them faster down the wire tunnels and into the room. The big cats had smelled the fear in the men; their eyes glinted and they lashed each other with their tails.

A door opened high up in the gallery and a man dressed in black leather came out. His gas-mask hung by a strap round his neck and he carried a zinc-lined box which he lowered carefully on to the floor.

Sid would do anything for money. It didn’t matter to him what he killed. Only the week before he’d shot two dozen horses between the eyes so that they could be sent off to be eaten. He never asked questions either. How Mr Knacksap had got hold of three hundred leopards was none of his business. All the same, as he looked down on the moving, frosty sea of beasts, he felt shivers go up and down his spine.

I wish I hadn’t take it on, thought Sid.

Which was silly… He’d clear a thousand just for an hour’s work and nothing could go wrong. The windows were sealed up; the men who drove the lorries would drag the brutes back into the vans. They had masks too. There’d be no trouble.

Better get on with it. He fitted the rubber tight over his face. Now, with his black leather suit, he looked like someone from another planet. Then he bent down and began to prise open the box.

‘Stop! Stop!’ A wild-haired woman had burst through the door and was running between the leopards who, strangely, parted to let her pass. ‘Stop at once, Flitchbody! Those aren’t leopards, they’re people!’

‘And one of them is Cousin Alfred,’ yelled a second woman, small and dumpy, in a boiler suit.

Sid straightened up. He could knock off these two loonies along with the leopards, but killing people was more of a nuisance than killing animals. There were apt to be questions asked.

‘Get out of here!’ he shouted, his voice muffled by the mask. ‘Get out or you’re for it!’

Neither of the witches moved. Heckie couldn’t touch the assassin with her knuckle because there were no steps from the floor of the ballroom to the gallery. Dora couldn’t look at him out of her small round eyes because he wore a mask.

They were powerless.

Sid picked up the canister of gas. The women would just have to die too. Nat and Billy could throw them in the lake afterwards.

A large leopard, scenting danger, lifted its head and roared. And high in the rafters, a family of bats fluttered out and circled the room.

The witches had always understood each other without words. Heckie knew what Dora was going to do and it hurt her, but she knew it had to be done.

‘Ouch! Ow! Ooh!’

The shriek of pain came from Sid, hopping on one leg. Something as hard as a bullet had crashed down on his foot — a creepy, gargoyle thing with claws and wings made of stone. And now another one — a bat-shaped bullet hurtling down from the ceiling, missing him by inches. This wasn’t ordinary danger, this was something no one could endure!

Sid put down the canister and fled.

He didn’t get far. Almost at once he ran into someone who was very angry. Someone whose voice made both witches prick up their ears.

‘It’s Li-Li,’ cried Heckie. ‘It’s Li-Li telling off the horrible man who’s been trying to kill the leopards!’

‘It’s Lewis,’ cried Dora at the same time. ‘He’s come to save his Cousin Alfred!’

Mr Knacksap appeared on the gallery. He had snatched Sid’s gas-mask and was heaving with temper. No one could be trusted these days. He’d have to do the job himself.

‘Li-Li!’ shouted Heckie. ‘Thank goodness you’ve come!’

‘Lewis!’ cried Dora. ‘You’re just in time!’

The witches looked at each other.

‘What did you call him?’ asked Heckie.

‘Lewis. He’s my Lewis. The man I’m going to marry. What did you call him?’

‘Li-Li. He’s my Lionel. The man I’m going to marry.’

Then at last the scales dropped from the witches’ eyes and they understood that they had been tricked and double-crossed and cheated.

And in those moments, Knacksap fixed on Sid’s mask, lobbed the canister of gas high into the room — and ran.