The Chosen Ones, Page 2

  And then, after passing the ruined crofts, Raven was hoping to see the shimmering mystery again. For the last hour, she had been trying to explain to Echo in Caballo what she thought it was. This was almost impossible because not only was the shimmering mystery very difficult to describe, there were no words in Caballo for ‘shimmering’ or ‘mystery’. The closest Raven could get was ‘bog in the moonlight’, which was something deep and mysterious with a hint of unpredictability and danger. But Echo just snorted and asked why on earth they were looking for bogs in the moonlight. He didn’t like bogs; in fact, he went out of his way to avoid them. Bogs were dangerous. You could sink into them and never come out.

  ‘Not a bog, exactly,’ said Raven with her mind. Caballo was an unspoken language. ‘Maybe like a very high jump.’

  Echo didn’t much like very high jumps either, and said so.

  ‘But not an actual high jump,’ Raven tried to say. ‘Just something that makes you feel like you’re approaching one. Or I suppose like the way I feel about approaching one. Or maybe the way you feel just before you do a vamos.’

  Echo hardly ever ran away when Raven was riding him. But it did very occasionally happen that he would see a vast expanse of beautiful empty moorland in front of him and want to vamos through it. And so he would go, not thinking, galloping hard and fast. The way Raven felt about this was a bit like the way Echo felt about very high jumps. And each allowed the other their little indulgence from time to time. He let her jump, and she let him vamos. He never threw her. That was the main thing. And she always gave him such a nice mixture of oats and alfalfa at the end of the day. She even remembered to buy him Polo mints, which were his favourite thing in the whole world. They understood each other.

  It had been after a vamos episode the previous Saturday that Raven had first seen the shimmering mystery. It had been as if the moorland in front of them was different in some way. Sort of greener, wilder, more vivid, more magical. The more Raven had asked Echo to walk towards it, the further away it had seemed. That day it had taken almost four hours to get back to the folly – a sort of pretend castle where Raven lived with her mother.

  Laurel Wilde hadn’t even noticed that her daughter had been missing, of course. She had been too busy drinking expensive sparkling wine and talking about the latest money-making scheme invented by her glamorous publisher, Skylurian Midzhar.

  ‘The first billion-pound book in the world,’ Skylurian had said to Laurel Wilde over tea that Saturday afternoon. ‘Imagine.’

  Raven had been eating her sandwiches and cake quickly so that she could go out on Echo, and had pretended not to be listening. Skylurian and Raven ignored one another most of the time anyway. Laurel Wilde wrote about witches (and warlocks) who went to a magical school, but she didn’t believe they truly existed. She was half right because there really was no such thing as a warlock. But Laurel Wilde would have been very surprised to learn that both her daughter and her publisher were powerful witches, and, what’s more, that they had recently been on different sides in the same battle. Skylurian had never actually done anything bad to Raven, though. Indeed, she still occasionally tried to befriend her. It was all rather creepy.

  ‘Imagine, darling,’ Skylurian had gone on. ‘And a whole 7 percent of it will be yours.’

  ‘I thought we agreed on 7.5 percent,’ Laurel Wilde had said.

  ‘Whatever,’ breathed Skylurian dismissively. ‘It hardly matters. After all, what’s 0.5 percent of one billion?’

  It was actually five million, but no one did the sum.

  ‘We will be rich beyond our wildest dreams, darling. And all because you were so clever and wrote such a beautiful book.’

  Raven had never completely understood why her mother’s first book, The Chosen Ones, had done so well. It had sold over ten million copies worldwide, and been made into a film and a board-game. It was about magic, of course, but not the real magic that Raven did. In the normal world, the one Raven lived in, anyone could awaken their magical powers if they tried hard enough (or if, as in Raven’s case, someone had given them a precious boon from the Otherworld). But in Laurel Wilde’s books only a few people were magical.

  The Chosen Ones, as they were called, were all born with a strange rash behind their left knee. If you’d been born with the rash, you had almost unlimited supernatural powers. If not, well, bad luck. You were one of the ‘Unchosen’: unpopular, ugly, often fat, and doomed to a life of having spells cast on you by the Chosen Ones, who were not just beautiful and powerful but quite smug, too.

  In the real world, Raven’s world, magical power was limited. In Laurel Wilde’s books, anyone born with the rash behind their knee could do pretty much anything they wanted with simply a flick of their thin, white wrist (they were all white). Despite all the magical power at their disposal, the Chosen Ones actually spent much of their time having midnight feasts and worrying about their lost homework. If any of the Unchosen bothered them, they got turned into frogs.

  The Chosen Ones was set a very long time ago when people wore frilly bonnets, went on steam trains to boarding school and spent their summer holidays being locked in the cabins of ships or kidnapped by gypsies. Raven had given up halfway through the first one, but most children had read all six in the series.

  ‘And you’re sure Albion Freake will buy it?’ Laurel had asked Skylurian that previous Saturday afternoon over tea.

  ‘Of course, darling. I have his word. If we can create a limited-edition single volume of The Chosen Ones, bound in calf leather with real gold leaf on the page edges, he will give us a billion pounds for it.’

  ‘But every other copy of the book in the world will have to be destroyed first?’ Laurel Wilde had looked a bit sad at the thought of that.

  ‘As already discussed, that is indeed what we mean by “limited-edition single volume”.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Everyone’s read it, darling. Who needs to keep a copy of a book they’ve already read? And for 7 percent of a billion pounds . . .’

  ‘Or 7.5,’ said Laurel.

  ‘With 7 percent, you’ll be rich, darling, and that’s all that really matters.’

  Echo snorted. His breath froze into tiny crystals in the mid-November air. Raven put all thoughts of her mother’s books out of her mind. Out here on the moor she felt free of all those unimportant worldly things. Out here she felt closer to nature. Closer to her true spirit. And closer to something she didn’t recognise or understand, but was definitely there.

  Echo snorted again. ‘Is that it?’ he asked Raven, nodding to the left. ‘Your bog in the moonlight?’

  And sure enough, up ahead, slightly to the left, was the shimmering mystery.

  ‘Give me the ring,’ said Dr Green again.

  ‘No,’ said Effie.

  Feelings of courage, strength and daring were rippling through her. This always happened when she was wearing the ring, and now even sometimes when she wasn’t. She could feel power in her shoulders, down her back, through all the muscles of her legs. Effie was only eleven years old, but she would always fight for what she thought was right and true.

  ‘You are going to regret this, young lady,’ said Dr Green, who began to turn a shade of purple that looked quite wrong set against his brown suit and yellow shirt.

  Effie took one step towards the door, but Dr Green took a step in the same direction, blocking her.

  ‘Don’t you dare defy me! I have never—’

  ‘Please let me pass,’ said Effie.

  ‘Give me the ring first.’

  ‘I thought you said you could make me give it to you,’ said Effie. ‘You obviously can’t. Now please would you get out of my way?’

  ‘I have never heard such utter rudeness,’ said Dr Green. ‘Unless you give me that ring right now, you are expelled from this class. Do you hear me? Expelled.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Effie. ‘Expel me. I don’t care. I don’t think you know anything worth learning anyway.’

  ‘You impu
dent little . . . I have never, in all my years of teaching this class – which I do for free, mind you, out of the goodness of my heart – heard such rudeness from a child. You, young lady, will be hearing more about this from the Guild of Craftspeople. Threatening a teacher. It won’t do. Never in all my years . . .’

  ‘But I didn’t threaten you. I—’

  ‘You are expelled. Didn’t you hear me? Now get out.’

  3

  The Old Town was quiet and cold. The frost was now calmly working its way around rooftops and the tops of chimneys.

  The sundial in the small walled-garden of the Apothecary Museum was entirely draped in silver. The cobblestones were slippery under Effie’s feet as she walked down the hill towards the Writers’ Monument, which now looked as if it was wearing a white bed-cap. Into the black of the sky came the brief flicker of another small meteor. An owl hooted again, sending into the Cosmic Web news of the frost and the meteor and many other things besides.

  Effie wondered what the Guild of Craftspeople would do to her. She remembered that they had once forbidden her grandfather from practising magic for five years. Five years! If that happened to Effie, she didn’t know what she’d do. She’d only recently epiphanised and found out she was a true hero. She didn’t want to lose her powers so soon afterwards. That would just be too unfair.

  Not that she had ever done any real magic, of course. It came so easily to her friends Maximilian and Raven. But Effie’s skills seemed more annoyingly practical. She had once defeated a dragon, but had not used a single scrap of magic in so doing. Had being expelled meant she’d lost the chance to learn magic for ever? Her grandfather had begun to teach her something called ‘Magical Thinking’. Effie knew she needed to progress from that. But how? Perhaps she could ask her cousins in the Otherworld the next time she visited. Or her great-uncle Cosmo. She certainly would never be able to go back to Dr Green’s classes.

  Most people have to go through a portal if they want to visit the Otherworld. Then they have to travel from wherever the portal delivers them to their intended destination. But Effie had a magical calling card – her most precious boon – that transported her directly outside the ornate gates of Truelove House, in the extremely remote and highly secretive Otherworld village of Dragon’s Green, where her cousins Clothilde and Rollo lived with the wizard Cosmo and looked after the Great Library that was housed there.

  At least that was what the calling card was supposed to do. But for the first few days that Effie’d had it, she hadn’t been able to get it to work at all. Just taking it out did precisely nothing. Effie had tried again and again. She had gone to all the portals she knew – including the Funtime Arcade and Mrs Bottle’s Bun Shop – and tried taking out the card in each one, but that hadn’t worked: she’d just ended up making the acquaintance of a lot of extremely shady people who wanted to offer her unbelievable sums of money for it. She’d tried sitting in her bedroom in darkness and silence and reading out the address on the front in a very solemn voice. Nothing.

  Despairing, she’d eventually asked the card what it wanted of her.

  To her surprise, it had replied.

  It’s almost impossible to relate completely in any written language what the card actually said about what you do with a portable portal – they are, in fact, so rare that there are barely more than five left in each of the known worlds – but gradually Effie got the knack.

  First, you have to find a natural, magical place where you definitely cannot be seen (behind the hedge on the village green near the old Black Pig pub had proved to be a good spot). Then you have to clear your mind. This is not easy. Then, looking only at the card, you have to sort of knock on its door (which sounds a bit odd, but is the closest way of describing how it feels) and wait for a reply. Keeping your mind completely clear – which is hard to do for more than a couple of seconds, but Effie practised a lot – you then have to wait while the card sort of magically frisks you.

  After all, not just anyone could go to Dragon’s Green. Indeed, one of Rollo’s jobs in Truelove House was finding new ways to keep people out. Once Effie was cleared for entry, and while still keeping her mind blank, she had learned to sort of melt downwards – a bit like going underwater – and thus move from one dimension into the next. She always came out in a sort of grey mist just outside the gates to Truelove House. The guards, who now knew her well, then unlocked the gate and let her through.

  So Effie had developed rather a pleasant habit. Each morning on the way to school she took out her calling card and popped off behind the hedge to spend a couple of happy days in the Otherworld. Time passed a lot more quickly in the Otherworld, a quirk that meant Effie’s two days there amounted to only about forty-five minutes in the Realworld. When her time was up, Effie would hurry away to the portal by the old willow tree on the Keepers’ Plains (her calling card only brought her to the Otherworld – she had to go back to the Realworld through a normal portal like any other person) and emerge in her school field five minutes before registration. It had taken a bit of practice to get the timing of this right, which had led to several detentions and a rather stern letter home.

  But those first few times Effie had been to the Otherworld had been the very best days of her life so far. Effie’s beautiful cousin Clothilde had made her two silk jumpsuits – one in silver and one in a very dark blue – because everyone in the Otherworld wore loose, flowing clothes. It was always midsummer in the Otherworld – or so it seemed to Effie. The days were bright and warm enough to swim outdoors, but the nights were cool enough for an open fire. The complex time differences between worlds meant that Effie never knew precisely when she was going to arrive at Truelove House, but she usually got there in time for supper, which her cousins often ate by the fire in the large drawing room. After that, each day would begin with breakfast in bed, brought by a cheerful woman called Bertie. Effie usually had a large, soft, homemade croissant, porridge with cream and honey, and a whole pot of strong tea. Then she was free to do whatever she wanted, as long as she stayed in the house and grounds.

  Some children might have taken advantage of the time difference and used the stolen time in the Otherworld to catch up on their homework. But Effie preferred to lie on the lawn reading Otherworld books, eating Otherworld cakes and dreaming of Otherworld adventures. Lunch each day was a picnic by the stream at the bottom of the garden, with dragonflies of every possible colour skimming the clear water. Clothilde occasionally took some time off in the afternoon to swim in the pool with Effie, or to walk with her in the nearby woods. But usually Rollo would come out and find Clothilde and take her back to the Great Library, where something important and secret seemed to be going on.

  Effie wasn’t allowed in the Great Library until she had the mark of the Keeper. Even though she’d passed the test that meant she could have the mark, she couldn’t actually get it until Pelham Longfellow came back from the island (which was the Otherworld word for the Realworld). When Pelham Longfellow returned, he was going to take Effie to Froghole to get her mark and to do some shopping. Effie was also due to have a special consultation to determine her ‘kharakter, art and shade’, whatever that meant. Well, she knew what kharakter was: that was her main ability as a true hero. But the rest was a mystery.

  From snatches of conversation Effie had picked up, it seemed Pelham Longfellow was very busy trying to uncover a big conspiracy brewing in Paris, or maybe London. Effie had meant to ask if she could help him in some way, but she hadn’t seen him for ages. She longed to be of some help in the great fight against the Diberi. But even though she had killed the powerful Diberi mage who had attacked her grandfather, no one seemed to want her to do anything else.

  Sometimes Effie went up to the very top of one of the towers in Truelove House to see the wizard Cosmo, who had said she could use his small personal library whenever she wanted. It was here that Effie found books to read on the lawn: adventures of true heroes from long ago, strategy guides for fighting demons and monsters
, or tales of the Great Split. Cosmo had talked vaguely of things he might teach Effie when he had time. ‘Another language,’ he’d said recently. ‘Map reading. Meditation. Depending on your art and shade, of course. But not until after the Sterran Guandré has passed.’ Effie had heard the words Sterran Guandré a few times recently. She had been planning to ask Clothilde what they meant.

  But the last time Effie had visited the Otherworld she had accidentally overheard a conversation between Clothilde and Rollo that she had instantly known was about her. Perhaps she shouldn’t have stayed to listen – eavesdroppers never hear good about themselves, after all – but she had.

  ‘Her place is not here,’ Rollo had said. ‘Why do you keep encouraging her? Especially now that we hear of this new conspiracy on the island, and with the Sterran Guandré so close. Griffin is no longer there to watch what’s happening around the northern portals. She should be doing something. And she can’t be of use on the island if she squanders all her energy here giggling on the lawn with you.’

  ‘She’s a child,’ said Clothilde, sighing sadly. ‘She should not have to bear all this responsibility. And we already know the conspiracy is around the southern portals. She can do nothing about that.’

  ‘For some reason the universe has chosen to give her this “responsibility”,’ Rollo had said. ‘We should be training her to be useful. Although I don’t know how exactly a true hero is supposed to be of use to us – why couldn’t we have had an interpreter, an explorer, or another engineer?’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘And the girl needs more lifeforce, not less. Being here just drains her. I think perhaps we should tell her about . . .’