Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [140]
The empty body of the Apprentice.
Like a deflated balloon, the Apprentice lay, drained of all life and substance. His empty skin, still clad in its wet, salt-stained robes, lay strewn across the mud, discarded like an old banana skin.
“This,” said Marcia, “is the real Apprentice. I found him this morning on my walk. Which is why I knew for sure that the ‘Apprentice’ you had sitting by the fire was an impostor.”
“What happened to him?” Jenna whispered.
“He has been Consumed. It’s an old and particularly nasty trick. One from the Cryptic archives,” said Marcia gravely. “The ancient Necromancers used to do it all the time.”
“Is there nothing we can do for the boy?” asked Aunt Zelda.
“It’s too late, I’m afraid,” replied Marcia. “He is nothing more than a shadow now. By midday, he will be gone.”
Aunt Zelda sniffed. “He had a tough life, poor little mite. Snatched from his family and Apprenticed to that awful man. I don’t know what Sarah and Silas are going to say when they hear about this. It’s a terrible thing. Poor Septimus.”
“I know,” agreed Marcia. “But there’s nothing we can do for him now.”
“Well, I shall sit with him—what’s left of him—until he disappears,” murmured Aunt Zelda.
A subdued party minus Aunt Zelda made their way back to the cottage, each occupied with his or her own thoughts. Aunt Zelda came back briefly and disappeared into the Unstable Potions and Partikular Poisons cupboard before returning to the duck house, but everyone else spent the rest of the morning quietly cleaning up the mud and setting the cottage to rights. Boy 412 was relieved to see that the green rock Jenna had given him had not been touched by the Brownies. It was still where he had put it, folded carefully into his quilt, in a warm corner beside the fireplace.
In the afternoon, after they had coaxed the goat down from the roof—or what was left of it—they decided to take Maxie for a walk on the marsh. As they were leaving, Marcia called out to Boy 412, “Can you help me with something, please?”
Boy 412 was only too happy to stay behind. Although he was used to Maxie by now, he still was not entirely happy in his company. He never could understand why Maxie would suddenly take it into his head to jump up and lick his face, and the sight of Maxie’s glistening black nose and slobbery mouth always sent an unpleasant shiver through him. Try as he might, he just did not get the point of dogs. So Boy 412 happily waved Jenna and Nicko off to the marsh and went inside to see Marcia.
Marcia was sitting at Aunt Zelda’s small desk. Having won the battle of the desk before she went away, Marcia was determined to regain control now that she was back again. Boy 412 noticed that all of Aunt Zelda’s pens and notebooks had been dumped on the floor, apart from a few Marcia was busy Transforming into much smarter ones for her own use. She was doing this with a clear conscience as they had a definite Magykal purpose—at least Marcia hoped they were going to have—if all went as she planned.
“Ah, there you are,” Marcia said in that businesslike way that always made Boy 412 feel as though he had done something wrong. She dumped a scruffy old book on the desk in front of her.
“What’s your favorite color?” demanded Marcia. “Blue? Or red? I thought it might be red, seeing as you haven’t taken that awful red hat off since you got here.”
Boy 412 was taken aback. No one had ever bothered to ask him what his favorite color was. And, anyway, he wasn’t even sure if he knew. Then he remembered the beautiful blue inside the Dragon Boat.
“Um, blue. Sort of deep blue.”
“Ah, yes. I like that too. With some gold stars, don’t you think?”
“Yes. Um, that’s nice.”
Marcia waved her hands over the book in front of her and muttered something. There was a loud rustling of paper as all the pages sorted themselves out. They got rid of Aunt Zelda’s jottings and doodlings, and