Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones [26]
“No. Number three, by the look of its hair. A revenant,” said Chrestomanci. “For which we must be thankful.” He began to come down the stairs. Cat was too scared to move. “I’ll have to get the Examining Board to revise their Elementary Magic Courses,” Chrestomanci called back as he came downstairs, “to include more theory. These hedge wizards push their good pupils straight on to advanced work without any proper grounding at all.” Saying this, Chrestomanci came down around the corner and saw Cat. “Oh, hello,” he said. “I’d no idea you were here. Like to come up and have a look at Michael’s workshop?”
Cat nodded. He did not dare do otherwise.
Chrestomanci seemed quite friendly, however, and so did Mr. Saunders when Chrestomanci ushered Cat into the room at the top of the stairs. “Hello, Eric,” he said in his cheerful way. “Have a look around. Does any of this mean anything to you?”
Cat shook his head. The room was round, like his own, but larger, and it was a regular magician’s workshop. That much he could see. He recognized the five-pointed star painted on the floor. The smell coming from the burning cresset hanging from the ceiling was the same smell that had hung about Coven Street, back in Wolvercote. But he had no idea of the use of the things set out on the various trestle tables. One table was crowded with torts and limbecks, some bubbling, some empty. A second was piled with books and scrolls. The third bench had signs chalked all over it and a mummified creature of some sort lying among the signs.
Cat’s eyes traveled over all this, and over more books crammed into shelves around the walls, and more shelves filled with jars of ingredients—big jars, like the ones in sweet shops. He realized Mr. Saunders worked in a big way. His scudding eyes raced over some of the labels on the huge jars: Newts’ Eyes, Gum Arabic, Elixir St. John’s Wort, Dragons’ blood (dried). The last jar was almost full of dark brown powder. Cat’s eyes went back to the mummified animal stretched among the signs chalked on the third table. Its feet had claws like a dog’s. It looked like a large lizard. But there seemed to be wings on its back. Cat was almost sure it had once been a small dragon.
“Means nothing, eh?” said Mr. Saunders.
Cat turned around and found that Chrestomanci had gone. That made him a little easier. “This must have cost a lot,” he said.
“The taxpayer pays, fortunately,” said Mr. Saunders. “Would you like to learn what all this is about?”
“You mean, learn witchcraft?” Cat asked. “No. No thanks. I wouldn’t be any good at it.”
“Well, I had at least two other things in mind besides witchcraft,” Mr. Saunders said. “But what makes you think you’d be no good?”
“Because I can’t do it,” Cat explained. “Spells just don’t work for me.”
“Are you sure you went about them in the right way?” Mr. Saunders asked. He wandered up to the mummified dragon—or whatever—and gave it an absentminded flick. To Cat’s disgust, the thing twitched all over. Filmy wings jerked and spread on its back. Then it went lifeless again. The sight sent Cat backing towards the door. He was almost as alarmed as he was the time Miss Larkins suddenly spoke with a man’s voice. And, come to think of it, the voice had been not so unlike Mr. Saunders’.
“I went about it every way I could think,” Cat said, backing. “And I couldn’t even turn buttons into gold. And that was simple.”
Mr. Saunders laughed. “Perhaps you weren’t greedy enough. All right. Cut along, if you want to go.”
Cat fled, in great relief. As he ran through the strange corridors, he thought he ought to let Gwendolen know that Chrestomanci had, after all, been interested in her apparition, and even angry. But Gwendolen had locked her door and would not answer when he called to her.
He tried again next morning. But before he had a chance to speak to Gwendolen, Euphemia came in, carrying a letter. As Gwendolen snatched it eagerly from Euphemia, Cat recognized Mr. Nostrum’s jagged writing on the envelope.
The next moment, Gwendolen was raging again. “Who did this? When did this come?” The