Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [44]
“Do I hear a Boggart?” asked Silas.
“Yeah,” said the Boggart.
“Zelda’s Boggart?”
“Yeah,” said the Boggart.
“Has she sent you to find us?”
“Yeah,” said the Boggart.
“Good,” said Silas, very relieved. “We’ll follow you, then.”
“Yeah,” said the Boggart, and he swam off along Deppen Ditch and took the next turning but one.
The next turning but one was much narrower than the Deppen Ditch and wound its snakelike way deep into the moonlit, snow-covered marshes. The snow fell steadily and all was quiet and still, apart from the gurgles and splashes of the Boggart as he swam in front of the canoes, every now and then sticking his head out of the dark water and calling out, “You followin’?”
“I don’t know what else he thinks we can do,” Jenna said to Nicko as they paddled the canoe along the increasingly narrow ditch. “It’s not as if there’s anywhere else to go.”
But the Boggart took his duties seriously and kept going with the same question until they reached a small marsh pool with several overgrown channels leading off it.
“Best wait for the others,” said the Boggart. “Don’t want ’em gettin’ lost.”
Jenna glanced back to see where Marcia and Silas had got to. They were far behind now, as Silas was the only one paddling. Marcia had given up and had both hands clamped firmly to the top of her head. Behind her the long and pointy snout of an Abyssinian wolfhound loftily surveyed the scene before him and let drop the occasional long strand of glistening dribble. Straight onto Marcia’s head.
As Silas propelled the canoe into the pool and wearily laid his paddle down, Marcia declared, “I am not sitting in front of that animal one moment longer. There’s dog dribble all over my hair. It’s disgusting. I’m getting out. I’d rather walk.”
“You don’t wanter be doin’ that, Yer Majesty,” came the Boggart’s voice from out of the water beside Marcia. He gazed up at Marcia, his bright black eyes blinking through his brown fur, amazed by her ExtraOrdinary Wizard belt that glinted in the moonlight. Although he was a creature of the marsh mud, the Boggart loved bright and shiny things. And he had never seen such a bright and shiny thing as Marcia’s gold and platinum belt.
“You don’t wanter be walkin’ round ’ere, Yer Majesty,” the Boggart told her respectfully. “You’ll start followin’ the Marshfire, and it’ll lead you into the Quake Ooze before you know it. There’s many as has followed the Marshfire and there’s none as has returned.”
A rumbling growl was coming from deep down in Maxie’s throat. The fur on the back of his neck stood up, and suddenly, obeying an old and compelling wolfhound instinct, Maxie leaped into the water after the Boggart.
“Maxie! Maxie! Oh, you stupid dog,” yelled Silas.
The water in the pool was freezing. Maxie yelped and frantically dog-paddled back to Silas’s and Marcia’s canoe.
Marcia shoved him away.
“That dog is not getting back in here,” she announced.
“Marcia, he’ll freeze,” protested Silas.
“I don’t care.”
“Here, Maxie. C’mon boy,” said Nicko. He grabbed Maxie’s neckerchief and, with Jenna’s help, hauled the dog into their canoe. The canoe tipped dangerously, but Boy 412, who had no desire to end up in the water like Maxie, steadied it by grabbing hold of a tree root.
Maxie stood shivering for a moment, then he did what any wet dog has to do: he shook himself.
“Maxie!” gasped Nicko and Jenna.
Boy 412 said nothing. He didn’t like dogs at all. The only dogs he had ever known were the vicious Custodian Guard Dogs, and although he could see that Maxie looked nothing like them, he still expected him to bite at any moment. And so when Maxie settled down, laid his head on Boy 412’s lap and went to sleep, it was just another very bad moment in Boy 412’s worst day ever. But Maxie was happy. Boy 412’s sheepskin jacket was warm and comfortable, and the wolfhound spent the rest of the journey dreaming that he was back at home curled up in front of the fire with all the other Heaps.
But the Boggart had gone.
“Boggart?