Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones [0]
THE CHRONICLES OF CHRESTOMANCI
CHARMED LIFE
Contents
Note: THERE ARE THOUSANDS of worlds, all different from ours.
1 CAT CHANT ADMIRED his elder sister Gwendolen. She was a witch.
2 CAT WAS ALARMED by Miss Larkins. She was the daughter of Mr. Larkins at the junk shop.
3 THE TRAIN JOURNEY lasted about an hour, before the train puffed into Bowbridge. . .
4 THE SAME SOFTNESS and silence were there when the red-haired Mary woke Cat. . .
5 GWENDOLEN REFUSED TO tell Cat what she was going to do.
6 GWENDOLEN GAVE VENT to her fury in her room after dinner.
7 IT RAINED ON Saturday afternoon. Gwendolen shut herself into her room. . .
8 GWENDOLEN WENT DOWN to the village to get her dragons’ blood on Wednesday afternoon.
9 BY THIS TIME, Cat was as bewildered as the strange girl seemed to be. Chant?
10 CAT WATCHED HIS moment and, when Mr. Saunders called them to lessons. . .
11 BY THE TIME Janet had laced both her boots, Cat was sure it was lunchtime.
12 CHRESTOMANCI’S STUDY WAS a large, sun-filled room with books in shelves. . .
13 THEY WERE USHERED into a private parlor in the White Hart.
14 CAT SCREAMED. Flames burst out of him all over. He screamed again. . .
15 IT WAS A GLORIOUS start-of-autumn day, with everything green and gold, hot and still.
16 “CAT,” SAID CHRESTOMANCI, from almost behind Cat’s head. “Cat!”
HarperCollins e-book Exclusive Extras:
Who Is Chrestomanci?
About Dressing Gowns
Related Worlds
Types of Magic
Chrestomanci Castle
The Importance of Cats
The Willing Warlock
Oneir
Tonino
The Worlds of Diana Wynne Jones: An Interview
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BOOKS BY DIANA WYNNE JONES
CREDITS
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
COPYRIGHT
Introduction
T HERE ARE THOUSANDS of worlds, all different from ours. Chrestomanci’s world is the one next door to us, and the difference here is that magic is as common as music is with us. It is full of people working magic—warlocks, witches, thaumaturges, sorcerers, fakirs, conjurors, hexers, magicians, mages, shamans, diviners and many more—from the lowest Certified witch right up to the most powerful of enchanters. Enchanters are strange as well as powerful. Their magic is different and stronger and many of them have more than one life.
Now, if someone did not control all these busy magic-users, ordinary people would have a horrible time and probably end up as slaves. So the government appoints the very strongest enchanter there is to make sure no one misuses magic. This enchanter has nine lives and is known as “the Chrestomanci.” You pronounce it KREST-OH-MAN-SEE. He has to have a strong personality as well as strong magic.
DIANA WYNNE JONES
1
C AT CHANT ADMIRED his elder sister Gwendolen. She was a witch. He admired her and he clung to her. Great changes came about in their lives and left him no one else to cling to.
The first great change came about when their parents took them out for a day trip down the river in a paddle steamer. They set out in great style, Gwendolen and her mother in white dresses with ribbons, Cat and his father in prickly blue-serge Sunday suits. It was a hot day. The steamer was crammed with other people in holiday clothes, talking, laughing, eating whelks with thin slices of white bread and butter, while the paddleboat steam organ wheezed out popular tunes so that no one could hear themselves talk.
In fact the steamer was too crowded and too old. Something went wrong with the steering. The whole laughing, whelk-eating, Sunday-dressed crowd was swept away in the current from the dam. They hit one of the posts which were supposed to stop people being swept away, and the paddle steamer, being old, simply broke into pieces. Cat remembered the organ playing and the paddles beating the blue sky. Clouds of steam screamed from broken pipes and drowned the screams from the crowd, as every single person aboard was swept away through the dam. It was a terrible accident. The papers called it the Saucy Nancy Disaster. The ladies in their clinging skirts were quite unable to swim. The men