Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones [64]
“I’m awfully sorry. I thought that would help,” Janet stammered.
“It ought to have done,” said Chrestomanci, rolling Cat over, with flames whirling through, over, and along his velvet arms. “How did he do it?”
“He struck one of the matches. I told him—”
“You stupid child!” Chrestomanci was so angry that Janet burst into tears. He lugged at the last of the carpet and Cat rolled free, flaming like a straw faggot. He was not really screaming anymore. He was making a long thin noise that had Janet covering her ears. Chrestomanci dived into the heart of the flames and found the book of matches. It was tightly clasped in Cat’s right hand. “Thank God he didn’t have it in the left one,” he said. “Go and turn your shower on. Quick!”
“Of course. Of course,” Janet sobbed, and raced to do it.
She fumbled with the taps and had just got a strong spray of cold water hissing into the sunken blue bath as Chrestomanci hurried in carrying Cat, in a ball of roaring flame. He dumped Cat down into the bath and held him there, turning him this way and that to get him wet all over.
Cat steamed and hissed. The water coming from the sprayhead shone like water against the sun, golden as the sun itself. It came down like a beam of light. And, as the bath began to fill up, Cat seemed to be turning and threshing in a pool of sunshine. He boiled it into golden bubbles. The room filled with steam. Coils of smoke drifted up from the bath, smelling thick and sweet. It was the same smell that Janet remembered from the morning she had first found herself there. As far as she could see through the smoke, Cat seemed to be turning black in the golden pool. But the water was wet. Chrestomanci was getting soaked.
“Don’t you understand?” he said to Janet over his shoulder while he heaved at Cat to keep his head under the spray. “You shouldn’t go telling him things like this until the Castle has had time to work on him. He wasn’t ready to understand. You’ve given him the most appalling shock.”
“I’m truly enormously sorry,” Janet said, crying heavily.
“We’ll just have to make the best of it,” said Chrestomanci. “I’ll try and explain to him. Run along to the speaking tube at the end of the corridor and tell them to send me some brandy and a pot of strong tea.”
As Janet raced away, Cat found himself soaking wet, with water hissing down on him. He tried to roll away from it. Someone held him in it. A voice said insistently in his ear, “Cat. Cat, will you listen to me? Do you understand? Cat, you’ve only got three lives left now.”
Cat knew that voice. “You told me I’d got five when you spoke to me through Miss Larkins,” he grumbled.
“Yes, but you’ve only got three now. You’ll have to be more careful,” said Chrestomanci.
Cat opened his eyes and looked up at him. Chrestomanci was fearfully wet. The usually smooth black hair was hanging over his forehead in wriggles, with drips on the ends. “Oh. Was it you?” he said.
“Yes. You took a long time recognizing me, didn’t you?” said Chrestomanci. “But then I didn’t know you straightaway when I saw you, either. I think you can come out of this water now.”
Cat was too weak to get out of the bath alone. But Chrestomanci heaved him out, stripped off his wet clothes, dried him and wrapped him in another towel in no time at all. Cat’s legs kept folding. “Up you come,” said Chrestomanci, and carried him again, to the blue velvet bed, and tucked him in it. “Better now, Cat?”
Cat lay back, limp but luxurious, and nodded. “Thanks. You’ve never called me Cat before.”
“Perhaps I should have done. You just might have understood.” Chrestomanci sat beside the bed, looking very serious. “You do understand now?”
“The book of matches was my nine lives,” Cat said. “And I’ve just burned one. I know it was stupid, but I didn’t believe