Septimus Heap, Book Six_ Darke - Angie Sage [112]
Jenna had appropriated her old box bed in the cupboard, which still had the rough, threadbare blankets of her childhood. They were very different from the heirlooms of fine linen and soft furs that covered her four-poster bed in the Palace, but Jenna loved her old blankets and box bed as much as she ever did. She kneeled on the bed and peered out the tiny window for some minutes, looking up at the stars and down at the river far below, just as she had always done before she went to sleep. But the combination of the Dark of the Moon—which she sleepily remembered Aunt Zelda explaining to her one night on the Marram Marshes—with the thick, snowy clouds that covered most of the stars meant she could not see much at all. Her cupboard was colder than she remembered but before long Jenna too was asleep, curled up on the bed (which she had to be, because the bed was too short for her now), covered in the rough blankets, her fine fur-lined Princess cloak and her newly acquired Witch cloak. It was an odd combination but it kept her warm.
Septimus and Marcellus took turns through the night watching the door—two hours watching, two hours sleeping. When at about four in the morning the Darke Fog rolled down There and Back Again Row and pushed against the Big Red Door, Septimus was on watch. He woke Marcellus and together, on tenderhooks, they watched the door. The door tightened its hinges and long minutes passed, but the Darke Domaine did not get in.
The reason for this was not only Septimus’s Magyk; it was also the Big Red Door itself. Benjamin Heap had suffused the Big Red Door with Magykal SafeScreens of his own before he gave it to his son, Silas. It was his way of ensuring that his son and grandchildren would be protected after he had gone. Benjamin’s SafeScreens could not stop anything or anyone who had been invited in (like the midwife who had stolen Septimus) but they were pretty good at stopping anything that the Heaps had not invited over the threshold. Benjamin had never told Silas this, for he did not want his son to think that he doubted his Magykal powers—even though he did. But Sarah Heap had guessed long ago.
And so the Darke Domaine began its unrelenting onslaught—just as it was doing in the three other places in the Castle that had protected themselves: the Wizard Tower, the Hermetic Chamber—and Igor’s own secret SafeChamber in Gothyk Grotto, which, in addition to Igor, contained Marissa, Matt and Marcus. But those behind the Big Red Door were safe for the moment. And when the light of the rising sun began to shine through the dusty mullioned window, Septimus and Marcellus relaxed their guard and fell asleep beside the glowing embers of the fire.
Sarah Heap woke with the sun as she always did. She stirred awkwardly, her neck stiff from the night spent on a threadbare rug with only a rocklike cushion for a pillow. She got up and walked stiffly over to the fire, stepping over Marcellus, and gently placing a pillow beneath Septimus’s head. Then she added some logs to the embers and stood, arms wrapped around herself, watching the flames begin to wake. Silently she thanked Silas for all the stores he had laid in: logs neatly stacked under Jenna’s bed, blankets, rugs and cushions, two cupboards full of jars of preserved fruit and vegetables, a whole box of dried WizStix, which would become strips of tasty dried fish or meat when reconstituted with the correct Spell (the tiny, sticklike Charm for which Silas had thoughtfully left tucked beside them). Plus, Silas had mended the loo. This had been the bane of Sarah’s life when the Heap family had lived there. Plumbing was not one of the Ramblings’ strong points and the lavatories—little more than huts perched precariously on the outside walls—were always messing up. But now, at long last, Silas had fixed it. All this, along with a late-night discovery of a WaterGnome hidden in the back of the cupboard, made Sarah think of Silas with wistful affection. She longed to thank him and apologize for all the times