Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [67]
Crazy as a cuttlefish,
Nasty as a RAT,
Put her in a pie dish,
Give her to the CAT!
But the rhyme didn’t make Boy 412 laugh anymore, and it didn’t seem to have much to do with Marcia at all. In fact, the more he thought about the Young Army, the more Boy 412 realized the truth.
The Young Army was crazy.
Marcia was Magyk.
23
WINGS
That night the easterly wind blew up into a gale. It rattled the shutters, shook the doors and unsettled the whole cottage. Every now and then a great gust of wind howled around the cottage, blowing the smoke back down the chimney and leaving the three occupants of the fireside quilts choking and spluttering.
Upstairs, Maxie had refused to leave his master’s bed and was snoring as loudly as ever, much to the irritation of Marcia and Aunt Zelda, neither of whom could sleep.
Aunt Zelda got up quietly and peered out of the window as she always did on stormy nights, ever since her younger brother Theo, a Shape-Shifter like her older brother, Benjamin Heap, had decided he had had enough of living his life below the clouds. Theo wanted to soar up through them into the sunlight forever. One winter’s day he had come to say good-bye to his sister, and at dawn the next day she had sat by the Mott and watched as he Shifted for the last time into his chosen Shape, a storm petrel. The last Aunt Zelda had seen of Theo was the powerful bird heading out over the Marram Marshes toward the sea. As she watched the bird go, she knew that she was unlikely to ever see her brother again, for storm petrels spend their lives flying over the oceans and rarely return to land, unless blown in by a storm. Aunt Zelda sighed and tiptoed back to bed.
Marcia had stuffed her pillow over her head in an effort to drown out the dog snores and the high-pitched howl of the wind as it swept over the marshes and, finding the cottage in its way, tried to batter its way through and out the other side. But it wasn’t just the noise that kept her awake. There was something else on her mind. Something she had seen that evening had given her some hope for the future. A future back at the Castle, free from Darke Magyk. She lay awake planning her next move.
Downstairs, Boy 412 couldn’t sleep at all. Ever since he had done the spell he felt odd, as if a swarm of bees was buzzing inside his head. He imagined little bits of Magyk left behind from the spell, spinning around and around. He wondered why Jenna, who was now sleeping soundly, wasn’t awake. Why wasn’t her head buzzing too? He slipped his ring on, and the golden glow lit up the room, giving Boy 412 an idea. It must be the ring. That was why his head was buzzing, and that was why he could do the spell so easily. He had found a Magyk ring.
Boy 412 started thinking about what had happened after he had done the spell. How he had sat with Jenna looking through the spell book until Marcia had noticed and made them put it away, saying that she didn’t want any more fooling around, thank you very much. Then, later in the evening, when no one else was about, Marcia had cornered him and told him she wanted to talk to him the next day. By himself. To Boy 412’s way of thinking, that could only mean trouble.
Boy 412 felt unhappy. He couldn’t think straight, so he decided to make a list. The Young Army Facts List. It had always worked before.
Fact One. No early morning roll call: GOOD.
Fact Two. Much better food: GOOD.
Fact Three. Aunt Zelda nice: GOOD.
Fact Four. Princess-girl friendly: GOOD.
Fact Five. Have Magyk ring: GOOD.
Fact Six. ExtraOrdinary Wizard cross: BAD.
Boy 412 was surprised. Never before in his life had the GOOD outnumbered the BAD. But somehow that made the one BAD even worse. Because, for the first time, Boy 412 felt he had something to lose. Eventually he fell into an uneasy sleep and woke early with the dawn.
The next morning the east wind had died down, and there was a general air of expectation in the cottage.
Aunt Zelda was out at dawn checking for storm