Jenny Nimmo - Charlie Bone and the Shadow of Badlock

Charlie listened to the stamp of heavy feet receding down the steps. A door at the foot of the tower clanged shut and the soldiers began to march down the street. Charlie waited breathlessly. He dared not move for fear one of the soldiers remained in the room below. He could hear Otus settling his room to rights after the rough intrusion.

Long after the footsteps had faded, the giant came and grinned up at Charlie. ‘You are safe, boy. Be not afeared, I will get you down.’

‘Thanks,’ Charlie said huskily.

The giant pushed back the panel, saying, ‘Step on to my shoulders.’ He held up his arms and Charlie thrust his legs through the hole. Otus gently lifted him down and set him on the bed.

Charlie wriggled his aching shoulders and rubbed his arms. ‘I’m not sure how I got here,’ he said.

The giant pulled his chair up to the bed and sat down. Putting his head on one side, he regarded Charlie quizzically. ‘Your name?’ he asked.

‘Charlie Bone, sir.’

‘You are a traveller?’

‘I . . . yes, I am sometimes. I can travel into photos and paintings.’ Observing the giant’s puzzled frown, Charlie added quickly, ‘Photos are a bit difficult to explain, but I expect you know what a painting is.’ The giant nodded. ‘Anyhow, this time it was different, my travelling, I mean. This time a painting has . . . kind of . . . captured me.’

‘Mm.’ The giant nodded again. ‘My wife had a mirror that took her a-travelling.’

‘A mirror?’ Charlie said excitedly. ‘My ancestor, Amoret, had a mirror. It caused a bit of trouble. Someone wanted it . . . an enchanter.’

‘Amoret was my wife!’ The giant clutched Charlie’s hand in his huge fist. ‘My name is Otus Yewbeam.’

‘Then . . . you’re my ancestor, too.’ Charlie’s gaze slid over the giant’s long frame, from the crown of his head to the tip of his long foot. ‘Maybe I’ll grow a bit.’

The giant smiled. ‘I was this high when I was a boy.’ He held his hand about six feet from the ground.

‘Oh,’ said Charlie, a little sadly.

‘What is your century?’ asked Otus.

‘Um . . . twenty-first,’ said Charlie, after a bit of thought.

‘There are nine hundred years between us.’

Charlie frowned. ‘I don’t get it. I’ve never, ever come into the past this way. I was just looking at a painting; I saw mountains and towers, but no people, and then, suddenly, it was all around me.’

‘He is powerful,’ Otus said gravely. ‘He wanted you in Badlock.’

‘Who?’

‘Count, enchanter, shadow of Badlock; he has many names. He brought me here as a captive, twenty years ago, when my wife fled to her brother’s castle.’ The giant’s large eyes clouded for a moment, and he looked up at the fading light in the window. ‘He wanted Amoret. He wanted all the Red King’s children. Five he won easily, they already walked the path of wickedness. The others – Amadis, Amoret, Guanhamara, Petrello and Tolemeo – they fled the evil. It was Tolemeo who rescued my son, Roland, and for that the shadow punished me. His soldiers relish torture. Now they let me bide in peace. I am forgotten, almost.’

Charlie reminded the giant that, today, the soldiers had not let him bide in peace. ‘I’ve put you in danger,’ he said. ‘If they catch me . . .?’

‘No,’ the giant leaned forward earnestly. ‘They will not catch you.’ He got up and strode over to a hearth set into a wide chimney breast. ‘Presently, we shall dine on squirra, boy.’

‘Oh, good.’ A note of anxiety crept into Charlie’s voice. What was a squirra, he wondered.

The giant opened a small door in the wall and brought out a black rat-like creature with an extremely long, hairless tail. ‘Only one,’ Otus sighed. ‘But it will suffice.’

Charlie’s stomach lurched. ‘If that’s a squirra, what’s a blancavamp?’

Otus chuckled. ‘They are what we, in our world, know as bats, but blancavamps are white as snow. The people of Badlock believe them to be ghosts. But I am not afeared of them.’

‘Nor me.’ Charlie darted a quick look in the giant’s direction. Otus was already skinning the squirra and, hoping it was something he would never need to do, Charlie looked quickly away. ‘Have you ever tried to get home again?’ he asked the giant.

Otus gave a rueful smile. ‘My wife’s brother, Tolemeo, tried a second time to rescue me, but Oddthumb and his ruffians caught us. Tolemeo was lucky to escape with his life. And, knowing my wife had perished, I cared less and less how and where my life should end.’

Charlie recalled the fleeting image of a beautiful woman smiling out from a mirrored wall, and a near-impossible plan began to take shape in his mind.

‘Badlock is a country no one from our world can find,’ the giant continued. ‘No one but clever Tolemeo. It is an awful place. There is the eternal wind, and then, in winter, there is a deluge. Water fills the land between the mountains, a fathom deep.’

‘It is a boat, then.’ Charlie nodded at the wooden boat-shape hanging on the wall.

‘Indeed, a boat. There is no other place to live but in a tower.’

‘And where does the Enchanter live?’

‘In a dark fortress, a scar on the mountain. I’ll show you.’ Dropping the meat into an iron pot, Otus wiped his hands on a rag tucked into his belt and, before Charlie could protest, lifted him up to the high window.

Night was falling fast, but the mountains were sharply outlined against a ribbon of pale green sky. Close to the top of the tallest mountain, flickering red lights could be seen and, behind them, a black shape capped with steep turrets.

‘He is seldom there,’ said the giant, ‘but the fires burn constantly to remind his subjects that he is watching them.’

Charlie shuddered. It had only just occurred to him that he might be trapped in this hostile world forever. He was about to be lowered to the ground when he shouted, ‘Stop. I see something.’

A few feet away from the base of the giant’s tower stood a large yellow dog. It was staring up at the window. When the dog caught Charlie’s eye, it began to bark.

‘Runner Bean!’ cried Charlie.

How had his best friend’s dog followed him into a painting? It couldn’t happen.

But it had.

A few minutes after Charlie had travelled into Badlock, his best friend, Benjamin Brown, a small, tow-haired, anxious-looking boy, left his house at number twelve, Filbert Street, and crossed the road to number nine. His dog, Runner Bean, trotted behind him.

When Benjamin rang the bell at number nine, the door was immediately opened by Charlie’s grandmother, Maisie.

‘Benjamin, love,’ cried Maisie, drawing him into the hall. ‘I hope you can do something. Charlie’s gone.’

‘Gone, Mrs Jones? Gone where?’ Benjamin dutifully wiped his shoes on the doormat.

‘If I knew that I wouldn’t be standing here asking you to do something, would I?’ Maisie closed her eyes and scratched the back of her neck. ‘Whatever am I going to tell his parents?’

‘I don’t expect you’ll have to tell them anything,’ said Benjamin. ‘Perhaps my mum and dad can help, being detectives.’

Benjamin instantly regretted saying this. His parents were working on a very important case. They had just left the house, Mrs Brown disguised as a man, and Mr Brown disguised as a woman. Benjamin didn’t much like it when his parents dressed like this; they hadn’t even explained the circumstances that demanded the fake moustache (for Mrs Brown) and the blonde wig (for Mr Brown), they had just told Benjamin to go over to Charlie’s house, where Maisie would give him lunch.