The magic hour, p.10
The Magic Hour, page 10
But it wasn’t.
Bad things could and did happen to good people, Ailsa knew, and breaking the rules like this was only possible when you felt immune to the consequences. Credenza’s dad was indeed a founder here; she was part of the inner circle, and chances were she’d be let off the hook for any rule-breaking. But Ailsa was a guest, a random one at that, and she had felt the difference when she was alone out there. They wouldn’t treat her so kindly. Ailsa had left the place she was born and left it in a hurry. She knew that when things go badly wrong and you fall, there isn’t always someone around to catch you.
At the top, the hatch in the ceiling was stiff and it took both of them to push it up and open. A frosty wind smacked into them as they emerged into the air.
Clambering out on to the roof of the Belltower, the sky above them was dark and starless. The floor was stone, a wrap-around terrace, like a large, circular balcony. It offered perfect views over the Middlemarket rooftops and the sky above.
Across the chimneys and rooftops, Ailsa tried hard to take it all in. The lights of the Middlemarket glowed among the roof slates and chimney stacks. Braziers were burning and there was the smell of smoke in the air. Beyond the city walls was darkness to distant treelines, and beyond that Ailsa thought that she could see a kind of shimmering curtain of light. It was hard to concentrate on it for too long; it faded in and out of focus, and seemed to travel in a wide circle around the entirety of her vision. It looked like a warped shower curtain, a membrane.
The whole Middlemarket, Ailsa could now see, was in fact a small, fortified town, surrounded by high walls on all points of the compass. The alleyway courtyard that they arrived in was simply the base of a large guard tower. There were two others that she could see, one to the west set in a large arch, and one to the east that looked more like a garden gate. Ailsa suddenly thought of Tobias. She had that knot in her stomach again, knowing she had promised to come and find him, and she had singularly failed at that. But that extra hour often whizzed by at such speed, her mind so busy and full, she had no time to do what was needed to look for him.
The permanent twilight of the Magic Hour was changing rapidly, plunging them further and further into darkness. Past the rooftops, across to the wall and beyond, Ailsa spotted a vast shadowy wood, and a hill to the north which disappeared into low swirling clouds.
There was something beyond that hill, however.
Something very peculiar.
Over the horizon, enveloped in cloud, was a glow in the sky. It looked like an almost-risen moon on the darkest night.
A flagpole was pitched in the centre of the tower’s roof upon a huge stone, a flag snapping and wafting above, displaying what Ailsa assumed was the coat of arms of the Middlemarket. Set into the centre of the base was a metal hole that looked like a flower.
Ailsa peered closer. “Did you see this?” she asked.
“One on this side too,” said Credenza. “A crescent moon.”
“This one’s more like a flower. Or maybe it’s a sun.”
Credenza pulled at Ailsa’s sleeve and pointed.
“Oh, and look down there,” she said, eyes bright with mischief, all of her previous fear now vanished. “Look what’s happening to their clothes.”
Ailsa peered, trying to make sense of what she could see. One moment, she could focus on the people in the street, walking in their tartan costumes. Then, in an eyeblink, they would disappear one by one. Looking closer, it was their clothes that had changed. Instead of colour, it seemed, there was nothing but the faintest moonlight. The people were still walking, but appeared ethereal, translucent. Their Highland dress replaced by flowing robes and jerkins.
What also struck Ailsa was the silence. The town was transforming from a bustling metropolis to a ghost town. As if sensing that thought, the night air was pierced by a shrill whistle.
Glancing down at the square, Ailsa could see what looked like Virgil Merrimack. He was in his finery and longcoat, a long silver whistle in his lips.
In an instant, the people of the Middlemarket were suddenly back in their tartan finery. Conversations sparked again, shouts and laughter, as if nothing had happened.
Ailsa turned back to tell Credenza but screamed in shock.
Virgil Merrimack was standing right beside them. Ailsa tried to speak, but all her mind could do was ask the same question: how on earth did he get up here so fast?
“What is the meaning of this? We’re long past final bell!”
Credenza feigned an impish giggle, the kind that small children attempt with their parents in order to get out of trouble. “Funny story,” she said. “Thing is, Mr Merrimack, we came up here and the door locked, and we couldn’t get out. Thank God you heard us from all the way down there.”
“You know the rules, Miss Dingwall.”
“Oh, come on, it’s me—”
“Those rules apply to everyone. No exceptions. Lady Blackthorn will look upon this very seriously.”
He then turned to Ailsa with a revulsion in his face that Ailsa had never seen before. “I see what’s happened here,” he said. “I imagine this was your idea, was it? You insisted on leading poor Denzie Dingwall up here, did you not, young lady?”
Ailsa’s face burned with indignation. “I did no such thing. We came in here together. Now help us leave together too.”
Virgil looked at his timepiece.
“The moment has passed; the bell has tolled,” he said.
“Can’t we work something out?” simpered Credenza.
Virgil went quiet, as if assessing a bet.
“It’s possible I can help you,” said Virgil. “But you cannot be seen by the others. After all, if word gets around that outsiders have disregarded our most sacred pact…”
“Oh, come on, I know that people do this all the time.”
“No, Miss Dingwall,” said Virgil darkly, “they most certainly do not.”
They tiptoed back down the stairs from the roof. The door was now hanging wide open. Outside it, framed by the door like a painting, was a white horse. It was laden with saddlebags and cloth.
“Oh my God,” started Ailsa, “what a beautiful—”
Virgil placed his hand on her shoulder to stop her going further. It was then that Ailsa saw the horse had a single horn on its forehead.
“A unicorn? Are you kidding me?”
“Be quiet and do exactly as I say,” said Virgil. “Climb in and keep your heads down. But do not ever do this again. I only help you because your father once helped me. Now our account is settled.”
“Climb in? To what?”
“The bags, of course. Now haud yer wheesht and move yourselves before I change my mind!”
There was a sharper, coarser tone to Virgil Merrimack now. Ailsa assumed he was taking a risk in helping them and vowed to herself never to bow to peer pressure again.
The two girls clambered up and into the low-slung saddlebags. As they did, Virgil draped a cloth over the hind of the unicorn and leapt on.
Ailsa curled herself into the smallest ball she could. The haunches of the horse bumped against her roughly as they bounced and clopped along the street. Surely this animal can’t be a unicorn? Ailsa thought. Then again, here I am in the land of the Shee, so it would seem that right now, in this moment, anything is possible.
All she could see were the red and green fibres of the blanket over her head and body. All she could hear, however, was everything.
There was the sound of hooves, of course, echoing against the walls of the buildings. She could feel them climbing a slope; perhaps Virgil was taking them back up St. Ninian’s towards the west gate. There were other sounds beyond the rhythm of the journey. Whistles and murmurs, laughter and hissing. Every so often, a glowing orb passed by her vision, a torch, perhaps, or something larger. For a minute she thought she could hear scampering nearby, and immediately thought of Sydekyck.
Eventually, the noises subsided.
When Virgil spoke again, his voice was a mere whisper. “When I tell you, climb out and run towards the light.”
“What light?” asked Credenza from the other saddlebag.
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
A few more steps, and the animal stopped.
In a single movement, the covering was whipped off and Ailsa and Credenza clambered out of the saddlebags into what first appeared to be utter darkness. Ailsa turned this way and that, looking for a reference point. Suddenly, it sparked into life. Past the tail of the horse, on Credenza’s side, she saw a sparkling glow in the middle of the grand archway – the west gate, her exit.
Credenza was already running, and Ailsa took off after her. But Ailsa’s curiosity got the better of her, and she could not help but look behind her one final time.
What she saw was a vortex.
Ailsa had never seen a vortex before, outside of watching the water drain down the plug in the bath.
The lines and shapes of the Middlemarket were still there, but now stretched and warped like faces in a funhouse mirror. It was like space itself was being pulled apart. The more she stared into it, the more she felt it pulling at her, like the feeling of vertigo you might get at the top of a building or on the high diving board at a pool. Suddenly, she saw the laughing eyes of the couple she’d first met, the friendly faces now warped and mocking, grey as moonlight, eyes lit with sparks of menace just like the young man’s had been earlier.
Ailsa suddenly felt dizzy and began to spin as Credenza grabbed her by the collar and dragged her back towards the port. The two girls fell, emerging once again in their own world, out of breath and unsettled.
“Maybe we don’t stay after the final bell next time?” said Ailsa.
“Copy that,” said Credenza, biting her bottom lip.
* * *
33Spoiler alert. Maybe.
CHAPTER 28
ONLY GOOD THINGS CAN HAPPEN
As Ailsa slept that night, the red-eyed presence was there again. It felt closer this time. As if it already knew her well. It was lurking in a kind of mist. It had one foot in her dreams, and one foot, she felt sure, outside them, in her own world.
In her dream, Ailsa was standing at the far end of the same dark stone hallway, the red door with the stag’s head looming in shadows at the far end. Next to the door, she could see, was a man.
It was Sandy Munro, and he was talking to someone.
When? came a voice. That voice.
The same one that had spoken to her outside the door.
She could hear it echo, and clearly so could Sandy Munro.
When I tell you, said Sandy, though his lips did not move.
You cannot hold me for ever, came the reply from behind the door.
The way things are is the way things are, said Sandy.
For now, said the voice.
It was here, in her dream, that Sandy Munro turned to look right at her.
Ailsa woke up to the darkness of the early hours and decided to read something cheery till she fell asleep again.
(She did not fall asleep again.)
It was not, to put it mildly, a restful night.
The next day at school, despite her exhaustion, Ailsa was a whirlpool of questions. She rose early and left her dad a note saying goodbye. (This was allowed in the goodbye rules of the house.) Getting extra time to do things meant she had started setting her alarm even earlier. She was curious to see how much she could squeeze out of one day.
She also wanted extra time to think.
The previous night had been wild. She wasn’t even that sure it had happened the way she remembered it. Ailsa knew she had to find Credenza before school. It didn’t help that, at the same time, she was having to navigate a whole new world.
As she walked into the entrance hall, four girls from her year descended upon her: the popular, shiny ones, bright-eyed with intent. Ailsa knew this quartet as Credenza’s friends, the gang of acolytes who sat behind her in science.
Ailsa flinched, fearing the worst.
Instead, the girls grinned.
This was a new phenomenon, and Ailsa was still confused. It had been going on at school ever since her first visit to the Magic Hour. Credenza’s posse of friends had decided, overnight, to be nice to her. She was still trying to get used to it.
“You all right?” said one of them.
“How’s it going then?” said another
“Cool hat, Ailsa Craig,” said a third with a wink.
When Credenza came up to her and hugged her tight, like an old friend, Ailsa was thoroughly befuddled.
Before she could say anything, Credenza had linked her arm in Ailsa’s. “So, did you see the shoes Dr Matthews has on this morning?” Credenza said in a confidential tone. “Utter cringe.”
Ailsa smiled, and the other girls laughed in echo.
The group moved as one towards the stairs, and Ailsa felt herself swept up in their current. Settling into Dr Matthew’s class, Ailsa heard them all whispering again. Except now, they were also whispering to her, instead of about her.
Ailsa was baffled. She was part of this now? Was this what being part of the in-crowd felt like? She made a joke, and they laughed. This only confused Ailsa more. They were the same kinds of jokes she had always told. Yet somehow, as if responding to a memo, everyone suddenly found them funny.
As class was breaking up, Ailsa took Credenza to the side and finally asked the question that had been bothering her all night. “So what happened yesterday, do you think?”
“Where?” Credenza had the bright and breezy tone of someone who certainly had not been recently running for their life in a dark void.
“Um … in the Middlemarket.”
“Middlewhat?”
“When we were running for the…?”
“Seriously, Ailsa, what are you talking about?” said Credenza a little louder, as if for public consumption. Her face now hardening along with her tone of voice. She already had her brow furrowed and a finger to her lips. She leaned in to give Ailsa a pretend hug.
“We don’t talk about that stuff here,” she said.
“But we need to talk about it sometime, don’t we? You and I?”
“Not here.” Her words were like tiny darts. Precise and sharp. “Don’t forget. VIP. Secret.”
Ailsa drew breath to speak, but Credenza cut her off.
“Come over to mine after school,” she said, as if this was the final word on the matter. “I need to explain some things to you.”
Ailsa spent the rest of the day wondering why anyone would keep something like the Magic Hour secret. She had never felt more accepted at school. She was officially in the club. She had more time to get on top of her problems. Life seemed so much easier than it had before. And she hadn’t even been going that long! Imagine what life was going to be like after a year…
It was then that she saw Stu.
She found him in the entrance hall at break, his eyes red and puffy again. He looked, frankly, exhausted.
“Phonics,” he said mournfully. “I can’t get my head round them. The letters keep dancing whenever I look at them. They keep telling me I’m special, but I don’t bloody feel it. How am I supposed to get anywhere in life if I can’t ruddy well read properly?”
It was coming up to half term soon, Ailsa knew, and that meant even more hassle for poor Stu. Holiday weeks were tough for him at home, and he already had no time to keep up with his schoolwork.
Ailsa’s stomach knotted.
Maybe, she thought. Maybe I can tell him?
Just him?
Seeing him standing there, sniffing and desperate, it made Ailsa’s heart ache. It was so tempting. After all, it was the easiest thing in the world to bring him to the Middlemarket. Alone. Just once. Far more so than herself, or Credenza, it was people like Stu who would benefit most from an extra sixty minutes in the day. It would mean the world to him.
She cleared her throat. But at the last minute, she pulled back, recalling her promise to Credenza, and bit her tongue. She had said it out loud. I promise. She had to keep her word.
“What’s up with you?” asked Stu, seeing the contortions in Ailsa’s face.
“Nothing,” said Ailsa, biting her tongue even more.
Stu didn’t look very convinced, but he shrugged anyway.
Ailsa didn’t like lying to her friends, even if it was to protect another’s confidence.
As Ailsa was leaving to walk to Credenza’s house, her phone rang. It wasn’t a fancy mobile, and to her dismay it had no internet on it (her parents had agreed to get her a better one when she turned twelve, and she was counting the days). It was her dad.
“I got an email from school about you, Ailsa,” he was saying. “And I’m getting Mum on the call too, OK?”
She couldn’t read the tone of his voice. It made her nervous.
“It’s me, sweetheart,” said Mum, joining the call.
Both parents? Not good. Not good at all.
“It’s about your report card,” said her dad, followed by one of his signature dramatic pauses. Then, he began to read. “After a slow start to the term, Ailsa has really applied herself in these final weeks. A+ work, Ailsa! Whoo hoo!”
“Amazing!” said Mum. “Well done! It’s been … quite a while since we’ve seen you so applied at school, darling. We’re so proud of you.”
Ailsa felt a warm, golden glow in her chest. So, this was what it felt like to do well. “I’m managing my time better,” she said.
Credenza’s neighbourhood was far away from the high street. The afternoons were still dark, and holiday songs were still playing in some of the shops, as if people had forgotten to turn them off.
The house was vast, with two animals on the gateposts: a lion and a dragon. There was a complicated buzzer to get in, and Ailsa’s feet crunched on the gravel as she walked up to the front door, past a garage full of fancy cars. Two large black Range Rovers were parked nearby. Credenza ran out to greet her and beckoned her round the side of the house.
