Septimus Heap, Book Six_ Darke - Angie Sage [49]
“No!” Jenna gave a silent yell and her hand flew up to her head. “You are not having it. You are not.”
“Oh, I so love goldfish spells,” spluttered the witch with her hair matted into a tall spike on top of her head.
“Quiet, Veronica,” said the Witch Mother sternly. “Now, Marissa, take the Princess away.”
Marissa looked very pleased with herself. She grasped Jenna’s arm and pulled her to her feet, then she propelled her toward a heavy curtain hanging at the far end of the room. Jenna tried to resist but her feet betrayed her and took her seemingly willingly along with Marissa. As they reached the curtain the Witch Mother called out, “Bring me her nice red furry cloak when you’re done, Marissa. It gets so cold here. Shakes my old bones, it does.”
Linda glared at the departing Marissa; her long-nurtured position as Witch-Mother-in-waiting was looking precarious. She got to her feet. The Witch Mother looked up suspiciously.
“Linda, where are you going?” she asked.
Linda passed a hand wearily across her forehead. “It’s been a long day, Witch Mother. I think I’ll take a little nap. I do so want to be at my best for tonight’s . . . proceedings.”
“Very well. Don’t be late. We start at midnight on the dot.”
Gimlet-eyed, the Witch Mother watched Linda leave. She listened to the witch’s footsteps clumping loudly up the stairs; she heard the creaking of the bedroom floorboards above and the squeak of Linda’s bedsprings.
However, although Linda’s footsteps had gone upstairs to bed, Linda had not. The Witch Mother had never mastered the art of Throwing footsteps and consequently did not believe it was possible. But it was. When Linda left the room, her footsteps had stomped up the stairs and into her bedroom, then they had jumped up and down on her bed and squeaked the bedsprings. Linda herself, however, had some-where else to go.
Unaware of Linda’s deception, the Witch Mother surveyed the remaining three witches with an air of satisfaction. “We are on the up,” she said. “Not only are we now six in our coven, we will soon be seven—and our seventh member will be a Princess.”
From somewhere at the back of the house came the sound of a scream.
“Goodness me, what is Marissa doing to our dear Princess?” the Witch Mother said with an indulgent smile. But the Witch Mother was—as Linda often commented—getting forgetful. And what she had forgotten was that Jenna was still Silent.
It was Marissa’s scream.
Chapter 16
Call Out
Beetle arrived at the Wizard Tower breathless and flustered. Hildegarde opened the door to him. She looked surprised.
“What are you doing here?” she said. “You and Princess Jenna have just been the subject of a nine-nine-nine from Gothyk Grotto. You should be there waiting for the Emergency Wizard.”
Beetle fought to get his breath back. “I . . . she . . . they . . . let us go. Must see Marcia . . . now . . . urgent.”
Hildegarde knew Beetle well enough to send an express messenger straight up to Marcia’s rooms. While the messenger set the stairs on emergency and disappeared in a whirl of blue, Beetle paced the Great Hall impatiently, not daring to hope that it would have any result. He was as amazed as Hildegarde when, no more than a few minutes later, a flash of purple appeared at the top of the spiral stairs and whizzed its way down. In a moment Marcia was hurrying across to the agitated Beetle.
Marcia listened to Beetle’s story of Merrin in the Palace attic, the Two-Faced Ring, the Darke Domaine and finally, Jenna’s disappearance, with increasing concern.
“I knew it,” she muttered. “I knew it.”
Marcia heard Beetle out and then sprang into action. She sent Hildegarde up to the Search and Rescue Center on the nineteenth floor of the Wizard Tower to begin a Search for Jenna at once.
“And now,” said Marcia, “we must do a Call Out to the Palace.