Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones [89]
If you enter Chrestomanci Castle from one of the side doors, you will be confronted by a choice of stairs, corridors, doors, and more stairs. There is soft green carpet everywhere, flanked by highly polished wooden floors. Corridors, doors, more stairs. It is — no other way to describe it — a maze. In fact, to all but the very longest-serving members of the household, navigating Chrestomanci Castle is a most confusing challenge!
Of course, there is yet another way to enter Chrestomanci Castle — by magic. You will probably land in the centre of the tiled pentagram in the main hall. It’s best to make sure that you are definitely invited if you plan to pay a visit in this way, as otherwise you are likely to be caught in a particularly uncomfortable security device.
It is impossible to count all the rooms in Chrestomanci Castle. There are hundreds and hundreds, and even the resident Chrestomanci is unlikely to know exactly how many or even to have visited them all. There are the sorts of rooms you would expect to find in a castle, such as a huge dining room, and Large and Small Drawing Rooms (both massive). There are more unusual rooms too, such as the magician’s workshop. There’s an enormous library, which boasts a copy of every book in the world — and many more from other worlds as well.
If guests come to stay, there are plenty of bedrooms to choose from, each with its own bathroom. Some of the more interesting bedrooms are in the older, turreted part of the castle. Here, the rooms are round and the walls are nearly three-feet thick. If you kneel on one of the deep window seats and look out, you will see a breathtaking view of the castle grounds, with its smooth green lawns, immaculate flower gardens, and splendid orchards. If you look carefully, you might even get a glimpse of Chrestomanci’s private, walled garden. But don’t try and go there without his permission — you will probably find yourself somewhere else altogether!
Chrestomanci himself tends to influence the atmosphere of the building. In Gabriel De Witt’s day, Chrestomanci Castle was very businesslike and efficient — definitely the headquarters of a powerful magic task force! Then, later, when Gabriel realised the value of identifying and harnessing talent at an early age, it was opened up as an academy for children with magical abilities.
When Christopher Chant became Chrestomanci, the everyday business of policing magic carried on, with the invaluable help of his wife, Millie (also a powerful enchantress). But the arrival of two magical children of their own (Roger and Julia) and the adoption of two more (Eric and Gwendolen) meant that part of the castle was transformed into a family home.
The thing that everyone notices when they go to Chrestomanci Castle is the calm, quiet atmosphere everywhere, as if it were cloaked in a blanket of cotton wool. This is, of course, magic, for the whole building is suffused in it. Visitors who are up to no good feel very uncomfortable as the castle works on them, but if you live there for a while you gradually absorb what you need to help you deal with your own sort of magic.
When it’s time to leave Chrestomanci Castle, you’ll probably be quite sad to go. But a word of warning — don’t try to take any souvenirs with you unless they have been specifically given to you as gifts as they tend to protest in VERY LOUD VOICES!
THE IMPORTANCE OF CATS
ALL SORTS OF CREATURES are found linked with magic. Sometimes this is because they are, by nature, magical beasts — such as dragons and unicorns and griffins. Sometimes they are enchanted humans — frogs and toads, in the main. Sometimes they are ingredients — usually of the multi-legged, creepy-crawly variety. The entire animal is not always required — i.e., hair, claws, or whiskers will often do just fine.
The animal that crops up time and time again in the worlds of Chrestomanci, and particularly in connection with witches, is the cat. One of the prime reasons cats are such magical creatures is because