Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [135]
“Did they?” asked Marcia, amazed, “Why?”
“I don’t know,” said Jenna.
“Well, they never told me, or Alther come to that.”
“Or DomDaniel,” Jenna pointed out.
“No,” said Marcia thoughtfully. “Maybe there are some things it is better for a Wizard not to know.”
They tied the Dragon Boat up to the landing stage, and she settled down into the Mott like a giant swan easing herself onto her nest, slowly lowering her huge wings and folding them neatly along the side of her hull. She dipped her head to allow Jenna to slip down onto the deck, then the dragon gazed around her. It may not be the ocean, she thought, but the wide expanse of the Marram Marshes with its long, low horizon stretching as far as the eye could see was the next best thing. The dragon closed her eyes. The Queen had returned, and she could smell the sea. She was content.
Jenna sat and dangled her legs over the edge of the sleeping Dragon Boat, surveying the scene before her. The cottage looked as peaceful as ever, although maybe it was not quite as neat as when they had left it, due to the fact that the goat had munched its way through much of the roof and was still going strong. Most of the island was now out of the water, although it was covered with a mixture of mud and seaweed. Aunt Zelda, thought Jenna, would not be happy about the state of her garden.
When the water had ebbed from the landing stage, Marcia and the crew climbed out of the Dragon Boat and made their way up to the cottage, which was suspiciously quiet and the front door was slightly open. With a sense of foreboding, they peered inside.
Brownies.
Everywhere. The door to the Disenchanted cat tunnel was open and the place was crawling with Brownies. Up the walls, over the floor, stuck on the ceiling, packed tight into the potion cupboard, munching, chewing, tearing, pooing as they went through the cottage like a storm of locusts. At the sight of the humans, ten thousand Brownies started up their high-pitched squeals.
Aunt Zelda was out of the kitchen in a flash.
“What?” she gasped, trying to take it all in but seeing only an unusually disheveled Marcia standing in the middle of a heaving sea of Brownies. Why, thought Aunt Zelda, does Marcia always have to make things so difficult? Why on earth had she brought a load of Brownies back with her?
“Blasted Brownies!” bellowed Aunt Zelda, waving her arms about in an ineffectual way. “Out, out, get out!”
“Allow me, Zelda,” Marcia shouted. “I’ll do a quick Remove for you.”
“No!” yelled Aunt Zelda. “I must do this myself, otherwise they will lose respect for me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call this respect,” muttered Marcia, lifting her ruined shoes out of the sticky slime and inspecting the soles. She definitely had a hole in them somewhere. She could feel the slime seeping in between her toes.
Suddenly the shrieking stopped, and thousands of little red eyes all stared in terror at the thing a Brownie feared the most. A Boggart.
The Boggart.
With his fur clean and brushed, looking thin and small with the white sash of his bandage still tied around his middle, there was not quite as much Boggart as there had been. But he still had Boggart Breath. And, breathing Boggart Breath as he went, he waded through the Brownies, feeling his strength returning.
The Brownies saw him coming, and desperate to escape, they stupidly piled themselves up in the farthest corner away from the Boggart, higher and higher until every Quake Ooze Brownie but one, a young one out for the first time, was on the teetering pile in the far corner by the desk. Suddenly the young Brownie shot out from underneath the hearth rug. Its anxious red eyes shone from its pointy face and its bony fingers and toes clattered on the stone floor as, watched by everyone, it scuttled down the length of the room to join the pile. It threw itself onto the slimy heap and joined the throng of little red eyes staring at the Boggart.
“Dunno why they don’t just leave. Blasted Brownies,” said