Griffin of Darkwood Read online

  Will waited a long time for a bus and it was dark before he got back to Aunt Mauve’s house. He carried his cold supper of fried eggs into the living room, where his aunt sat glued in front of the television. He had given up looking through the TV Guide, because they always watched Aunt Mauve’s favourite game shows. Aunt Mauve was supposed to be looking for a job, but in the three weeks that he had lived in her house, she had only ventured out once, to buy their meagre groceries.

  The next day, two things arrived in the post that changed his life forever.

  Chapter Three

  Magic!

  Hunched over his greasy sausages, Will heard the doorbell ring. Aunt Mauve stopped slurping her cup of tea and said, “That’ll be the postman.”

  “Maybe it’s a job offer,” said Will. He’d given up on Mr. Barnaby and his talk about money, and he was worried that soon there would be nothing to eat in the house. He raced to the door.

  Aunt Mauve got there first. “Don’t give me any of your sass!” she cried. She scooped up a long white envelope lying on the carpet and stuffed it in the pocket of her dressing gown. She disappeared into her bedroom. Will abandoned the sausages and got his backpack.

  “I’m leaving for school,” he called from the dingy hallway. He opened the door and almost stepped on a package wrapped in brown paper that the postman had left on the step. The words Master William Poppy leapt out at him. He picked up the package and tucked it into his backpack.

  Aunt Mauve appeared suddenly in her purple boots and squirrel cape. The top of the white envelope peeked out of her big black purse.

  “Where are you going?” asked Will.

  “Places. Not that it's any of your business."

  Something’s happened, thought Will. He twisted his head to see the envelope. In the corner there was a very large colourful stamp with a kangaroo on it and the word Australia. Who would write a letter to Aunt Mauve from Australia? He followed his aunt up the road to the bus stop, sloshing around puddles.

  Will’s bus arrived first. He sat on the back seat, squeezed between two men with drippy umbrellas. He twisted around, keeping his aunt in sight through the foggy window until the bus rumbled around the corner.

  What was Aunt Mauve up to? What was in that big white envelope?

  < • >

  The two men got off three stops later and Will had the seat to himself. He took the package out of his backpack and tore off the brown wrapping. Inside was something hard wrapped in tissue paper with a note taped to the top. The note said,

  Will, dear,

  The new tenant in your flat found this at the back of a cupboard. I meant to send it to you weeks ago. I hope this finds you, if not happy, at least well.

  Your friend, Mrs. Ginny.

  He pulled back the tissue paper and unwrapped a photograph in a gold frame. It was a picture of a man, a woman and a little girl, sitting on a blanket under a tree beside a picnic basket. At first, he thought the woman was his mother. He turned the frame over. On the back someone had written Adrienna, Carmelita and Sterling. Adrienna’s sixth birthday.

  The little girl was his mother, and the man and the woman were his grandparents! He had never seen a picture of them before. He studied their faces. His grandfather, Sterling, had a determined square chin and haunting black eyes. Carmelita had been a dancer and was very glamorous. She had died the Christmas after Adrienna turned eight, and Sterling had left Adrienna in the care of a housekeeper.

  “Your grandfather passed away the year before you were born,” Adrienna had said once. “You have my blue eyes and brown hair, but you have your grandfather’s chin. He was a writer like you.”

  Will started to wrap the photograph back in the tissue paper when he spotted a piece of cloth, rolled up tightly and buried in the rustling paper. He unrolled a long narrow strip of woven material. It had jagged edges as if it had been cut roughly out of a larger piece. Silver stars glittered against a royal blue sky. Woven into the design in gold thread as delicate as spiderwebs were the words:

  The Griffin of Darkwood

  The Griffin of Darkwood? What did it mean? A griffin was Will’s favourite mythological creature. He’d seen a painting of one in a library book. He’d been in awe of its powerful lion’s body, outstretched wings and magnificent eagle’s head with snow-white feathers, curved beak and piercing eyes.

  Where had the scrap of cloth come from? One word popped into Will’s head – Magic!

  The bus driver announced his stop. Hastily he rolled up the cloth, wrapped it and the photograph in the brown paper, put the package in his backpack and scrambled off the bus.

  < • >

  When Will got back to Aunt Mauve’s house that evening, it was empty. He shut his bedroom door, unzipped his backpack and took out the photograph of Adrienna and his grandparents. He lay on his bed and stared at it. Then he unrolled the cloth and examined it.

  The magical feeling on the bus had disappeared. The cloth had probably slipped into the tissue paper by mistake. It might be a piece of an old tablecloth or part of a curtain belonging to Mrs. Ginny. He rolled it up again and put it in the pencil box, with the photograph on top. The pencil box was acting very ordinary now, but Will knew he hadn’t imagined the mysterious light.

  At ten o’clock, the front door rattled. Aunt Mauve had forgotten her key. Will opened the door with a huge yawn. “I’m going to be dead for school tomorrow. I was fast asleep.”

  “You’re not going to school tomorrow,” said Aunt Mauve.

  “What?”

  “You have to pack. We’re moving to a place in the country. That’s why I’m so late. I was making arrangements all day and missed the last bus.”

  “Moving? No way!” said Will. “Forget it! I’ve got friends at school! Besides, how can you afford a house in the country?”

  “It’s not just a house. I’ve bought an estate! It’s called Sparrowhawk Hall.”

  For a second, Aunt Mauve shrank under Will’s astounded stare. “Well…not quite what I intended…it was extraordinary…it was like I was under some kind of spell.”

  “A spell!” said Will. “What do you mean?”

  “The agent was a very peculiar man. I told him I was looking for a cottage in a little village outside of London. He didn’t seem to hear a word I said. He made me feel quite dizzy. It was his eyes. Before I knew it, I was signing the deeds to Sparrowhawk Hall.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Will. “You should go back and tell him you’ve changed your mind.”

  “I tried,” said Aunt Mauve. “After I got a few blocks away, my head cleared, and I went right back. But the office had disappeared.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Will.

  Aunt Mauve glared at him. “Anyway, the idea is growing on me.” She took a piece of paper out of her black purse. She read out loud. “Sparrowhawk Hall. Elegant country estate in quaint village. Includes two loyal servants.”

  “An elegant country estate! Two loyal servants! That would cost a fortune!”

  “It was cheap, for your information. A bargain.”

  “Because no one else wanted it!” said Will.

  “I’ll take none of your lip,” said Aunt Mauve. “You miserable child, you can start packing.”

  Chapter Four

  Sparrowhawk Hall

  The movers picked up the packing boxes and Will’s trunk at the end of the week. The next morning, Will and Aunt Mauve took a taxi to the bus station. Will stared out the taxi window at the city streets, his stomach clenched. Leaving London made him feel like he was losing his mother forever.

  The bus was almost full. Will shoved his backpack and his aunt’s big battered suitcase into the overhead rack. His aunt pushed ahead of him and took the window seat.

  She was wearing her squirrel cape. Will breathed through his mouth so he didn’t have to smell the mothballs, and he tried to ignore the row of glassy eyes and look out the window, but he soon gave up.

  The bus was stuffy and warm and his eyes refused to stay
open. The next thing he knew, it was dark outside and the lights in the bus had dimmed. The bus driver called out, “Last stop. End of the line.”

  Will dragged Aunt Mauve’s suitcase and his backpack down from the rack and followed his aunt off the bus. A cold wind blew and thunder rumbled.

  “Over there!” Will had spotted another bus at the far end of the station. Its lights were on and a sign in the front window said Sparrowhawk.

  The bus was much smaller than the first, and the driver was a gaunt man wearing a wool knit cap and a plaid jacket. “Tickets,” he muttered.

  Aunt Mauve couldn’t find the tickets. While she hunted through her bulging handbag, only one other passenger boarded. It was a woman with frizzy hair wearing a long red skirt and strings of beads. “Evening, Purvis,” she said.

  The driver grunted.

  The woman smiled at Will and passed to the back of the bus.

  “Here they are!” Aunt Mauve produced the two tickets and plunked herself down in a seat a few rows back. Will sat in the first seat, so he could see out the front window.

  The door swung shut and the bus pulled out of the station. Its headlights lit up a narrow strip of black road with blowing trees on either side. The road climbed, gradually at first and then with steep switchbacks. We’ve gone right over the top of a mountain! thought Will, as they began a sharp descent that made his stomach do a flip.

  What if? he thought suddenly. What if the bus was really a giant rollercoaster and the driver was an evil gnome? What if he’d tampered with the tracks?

  Something made Will spin around. The Muses were back, sitting in the rear of the bus on either side of the woman who was reading. “Why didn’t they listen the first time?” he muttered. “Why are they here? I don’t want them! I don’t write any more!”

  Will shut his eyes tight and then opened them, and the Muses were gone. He stared out the window. After a while, he lost count of how many times the bus climbed and descended, rattling and swaying around corners.

  “You're the ones who bought Sparrowhawk Hall,” said the driver.

  A fork of lightning streaked across the black sky. Will saw a river and a jumble of village roofs and then the bus plunged back into darkness. Thunder crashed.

  The driver grunted. “Stirrin’ things up. No business being here. Go back where you came from!”

  Another jagged fork of lightning lit up the sky. “For heaven’s sake, Purvis Sneed!” said a voice behind Will.

  He twisted around in his seat. The woman with the frizzy hair was standing in the aisle. “Pay no attention to Purvis, or for that matter, to any of the others.”

  Will stared at the woman. What did she mean, the others?

  “We’ve had enough death –” Purvis began. His next words were drowned in a peal of thunder but Will heard him say, “You’ll be sorry. You’ll wish you’d never heard of Sparrowhawk Hall!”

  The bus swerved around a sharp corner, over a stone bridge and under an old brick archway. With a rattle and a jerk, it came to a stop. Purvis turned off the bus lights and swung open the door. Will lugged Aunt Mauve’s suitcase and his backpack off the bus. They were parked at the end of a cobblestone square. Narrow streets dimly lit with old-fashioned lamps disappeared in every direction between the dark buildings. The storm stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and through a break in the clouds, a full moon beamed down.

  The woman gestured toward a street that rose steeply from the square. “Stay on Black Penny Road. It’ll take you right through the village and up to Sparrowhawk Hall.”

  A large Persian cat rubbed up against the woman’s leg. It had rich gold fur with black around its eyes. “Here’s Macavity come to meet me,” she said.

  She disappeared up one of the twisting streets with Macavity following close behind. Purvis Sneed vanished up an alley. Pale moonlight bathed the square. A hand-painted sign that read EX LIBRIS hung over a nearby doorway, creaking as it swung back and forth in the wind.

  “I think it’s a book shop,” said Will. He pressed his face against the window. A lamp cast enough light for him to make out shelves crammed to the ceiling with books and more books piled up on the floor. A tiny figure, with big pointed ears, sat cross-legged on the floor, hunched over an open book.

  “Someone's in there!” said Will.

  “Books! Is that all you think about?” snapped Aunt Mauve. “Perhaps your highness could pick up my suitcase and we could get going!”

  Reluctantly, Will pulled himself away from the window, and he and Aunt Mauve started walking up Black Penny Road. The street was narrow and steep with twists and turns. The lamps cast odd shadows. They passed other streets with strange names – Three Cats Lane, Half Moon Road, Goatsbeard Road, Shadow Alley.

  Shop signs hung over dark doorways. They passed a bakery, a hardware shop, a delicatessen, a chemist’s, a dress shop and a shoe shop. Above the shops were windows with tightly closed wooden shutters. Light peeped through the cracks, and in the occasional window without shutters, curtains twitched as they walked by. The suitcase was heavy and Will had to switch arms several times.

  Black Penny Road passed under another archway of crumbling brick. From there the road climbed until they looked down on the grey moonlit roofs of the village. They passed a scattering of little stone houses and rounded the final bend in the road.

  “Aunt Mauve!” gasped Will. “You’ve bought a castle!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Aunt Mauve. “I detest castles!”

  They were indeed staring at an ancient stone castle. The enormous walls were like blank grey faces with narrow windows for eyes. At one end a round tower rose high above the castle roof. At the other end loomed a massive square tower, half in ruins. A pink van was parked in the weeds that grew right up to the castle walls.

  A sign nailed to a huge oak tree announced in bold letters: SOLD.

  “Come on!” shouted Will.

  They waded through the weeds to the front of the castle. A granite gargoyle crouched on its haunches on top of an archway. It had a dog-like face with sunken eyes, flaring nostrils and big ears.

  On the other side of the archway, a heavy wooden door creaked opened. A tall thin man in a black suit and a short thin woman in a black dress stepped out of the shadows.

  “They must be the loyal servants,” whispered Will.

  Chapter Five

  The Tower

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” said the woman. “A trunk and some boxes were delivered yesterday. My name is Mrs. Cherry and I am the housekeeper. This is Mr. Cherry. He will be your butler.”

  Mrs. Cherry had pursed purple lips and tightly permed brown hair. Will couldn’t stop staring at a single black hair that sprang out of a mole on her chin. Mr. Cherry’s hair was black and oily and he had a long pointed nose. His skin was sallow with a greyish tinge. His white wrists and hands dangled out of the ends of his jacket sleeves.

  “I also do the cooking,” Mrs. Cherry continued.

  “I like everything fried,” said Aunt Mauve. “And I never eat breakfast before eleven o’clock and –”

  “Really,” said Mrs. Cherry. “We were hired two weeks ago by the Linley estate to put things in order. You understand there is a lot to do. Now, if Madame would care to come inside.”

  Aunt Mauve and Will walked between the servants into a large entrance hall. The room was like ice. The walls were stone and the high stone ceiling was supported by wooden timbers. A dusty suit of armour glinted dully in the corner and two crossed swords hung on the wall above a yawning fireplace. At one end of the entrance hall rose a wide stone staircase. At the other end was a low curved wooden door half-hidden in a shadowy alcove. All along the walls narrow passageways disappeared into darkness.

  “This is the part of the castle where the living quarters are,” said Mrs. Cherry. “The castle was built by a king but the Linley family have owned it for generations. There are seventy-three rooms. The last Linleys who lived here put in water pipes and electricity. Otherwise
it has been quite unchanged for centuries.”

  She glanced at Mr. Cherry. “We’ve been paid to stay for another month. I’m quite sure our work will be finished by then.”

  “We’ve put you, Madame, in the Red Chamber in the west wing,” said Mr. Cherry in a high-pitched voice. “We’ve put the brat…uh, the boy, in the round tower.”

  “I’ll show you to your room,” said Mrs. Cherry, walking right past Aunt Mauve’s suitcase.

  Aunt Mauve scowled, picked up her suitcase and followed Mrs. Cherry down one of the narrow passageways. Will was alone with Mr. Cherry.

  The man took a huge ring of keys from his pocket. He inserted an old-fashioned key in a brass lock in the low curved wooden door and swung the door open. Will peered past him at a stone spiral staircase. Mr. Cherry leaned over until his long pointed nose almost touched Will’s forehead. The nauseating smell of garlic wafted over Will. He wanted to jump back, but he forced himself to keep still. Mr. Cherry shoved him onto the first step. “Find your own way from here!” He slammed the door shut.

  Will shivered but it wasn’t with fright. His whole life he had wanted to sleep in a tower.

  < • >

  The steps twisted around and around and were very narrow and steep. Lamps set in small alcoves lit the way. Centuries of footsteps had worn smooth hollows in the stone. At the top of the winding staircase, Will stepped under a low arch into a small round room lit by a brass lamp on the wall.

  The heads of birds circled the room above his head, carved into the round stone walls about a foot below the ceiling. They glared down at him, each one with sharp eyes and a curved beak like a bird of prey. Were they sparrowhawks?