tentacles.
“Come on!” screamed Leaf. She ran down a flight of concrete steps to the back door, Arthur close behind. “I know… we have got some silver!”
The back door led into a garage that had obviously never housed a car. It was part plant nursery and part storage area, with bags of potting mix stacked up next to boxes identified by contents and date.
“Look for a box marked MEDALS or SKI JUMPING!” instructed Leaf urgently, pushing Arthur on. She turned back herself and locked the door, using a key from the drip tray of a hanging planter. She was just withdrawing the key when several tentacles punched through the door and lashed across her arm. They cut deeply and Leaf staggered back, shocked into silence. She tripped over a tray of seedlings and fell heavily on to a sack of sand.
Arthur took a step towards her, but she waved him back, before pushing her hand hard against the cuts to try and slow the bleeding.
“Silver medals,” she coughed out. “In a box. Dad won lots… that is, came second… silver medals ski jumping. Before he met Mum and became a neo-hippie. Hurry!”
Arthur glanced at the door. The Scoucher was cutting through it as easily as it had the front door. He would have less than a minute to find the medals, maybe only seconds.
Rapidly he scanned the boxes, dates and contents labels tumbling through his brain. Children’s toys from ten years ago, an encyclopedia, Aunt Mango’s paintings, tax records, Jumping—
Something splintered behind him and he heard Leaf’s sharp intake of breath.
Arthur grabbed the box marked JUMPING, pulling down three others at the same time. They fell on his feet but he ignored the pain, ripping through the cardboard. A shower of small velvet boxes fell out. Arthur caught one, flipped it open, grabbed the medal inside, spun on one foot and hurled it towards the Scoucher that was coming through the door.
The medal flew true, smacking into the thin figure as it bowed its head to pass through the doorway. The Scoucher took a step back, puzzled, but otherwise seemed unharmed as the medal slid down its chest.
“Gold!” shrieked Leaf.
Arthur was already bending down to get another medal. This time he opened the box and threw the contents in one swift motion. Something silver flashed through the air as the Scoucher charged forward. The medal hit with a satisfying clunk, but did not slide down. It stuck like a fried egg to a pan and started to sizzle like one as well.
The Scoucher let out a pathetic groan and folded in on itself. Within a second, it was rabbit-sized again, but without the shape of a rabbit. Just a blob of pinky flesh with the silver medal still sizzling on top of it. Arthur and Leaf stared as black smoke poured out of the blob – smoke that curled round and round but didn’t rise or dissipate. Then the Scoucher disappeared, and the silver medal spun and rattled on the concrete floor.
“How’s your arm?” asked Arthur anxiously before the medal came to a stop. He could see the blood coming out between Leaf’s fingers. She looked very pale.
“It’s OK. There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen, under the sink. Bring me that and the phone. What was that thing?”
“A Scoucher,” shouted Arthur over his shoulder as he ran inside. He found the first-aid kit and the phone and ran back, desperately afraid that he’d find Leaf dead on the ground. Strangely, the cut on his hand had completely closed up. Though it had bled profusely for a few minutes, he could hardly see where it was now. Arthur immediately forgot about it as he crashed through the remnants of the door.
Leaf’s eyes were shut but she opened them as Arthur knelt by her side.
“A Scoucher? What’s that?”
“I’m not really sure,” said Arthur. He opened the first-aid kit and prepared a wound dressing and a bandage, suddenly very glad he’d taken the course last year and knew what to do. “Keep the pressure on until I’m ready… OK… let go.”
Rapidly he got the dressing on to the deep cuts and bandaged Leaf’s arm firmly from the elbow to the wrist. There was a lot of blood, but it wasn’t arterial bleeding as he’d feared. Leaf would be all right, though she still needed an ambulance and professional help.
He picked up the phone and dialed 999, but before he could speak, Leaf snatched it away from him. She spoke quickly to the operator, shaking her head when Arthur tried to take the phone back.
“You can’t call,” she said after hanging up. “I’ll tell them some story. You have to go over to…”
She closed her eyes, and her mouth and forehead creased in concentration. “Go to the old Yeats Paper Mill on the river. Go under it to come to the House.”
It sounded like something Leaf had memorised from someone else.
“What?” asked Arthur. The Atlas had led him to Leaf, but – “How come… how…”
“The girl with the wings, the one who was with you yesterday,” Leaf said slowly. Shock was clearly taking hold. Arthur got a coat out of one of the fallen boxes and draped it over her as she kept talking. “Just then I kind of blacked out and it was like she was sitting next to me. She told me what I just told you. There was more, but you woke me up just when she was getting into it.”
“The Yeats Paper Mill?” asked Arthur. “Go under it?”
“That’s it,” confirmed Leaf. She had shut her eyes again. “It’s not the first true dream I’ve had. My great-grandmother was a witch, remember.”
Arthur looked at his watch. 11.32. He had less than half an hour and the paper mill was at least a mile away. He wasn’t even sure where his bicycle was. He could never make it into the House before the Grotesques unleashed their full plan.
“I can’t make it in time,” he said to himself.
“Take Ed’s bike,” whispered Leaf, pointing to the black and red racing bicycle racked up between three sturdy green mountain bikes. “He won’t be back from the hospital for a few days.”
Arthur stood up but hesitated. He felt he should wait for the paramedics to arrive.
“Go,” said Leaf. She tapped her forehead weakly. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. I can tell.”
Arthur hesitated until he heard the faint call of a siren. It got a little louder.
Leaf smiled. “Not second sight. Just good hearing.”
“Thanks,” said Arthur. He ran and wheeled the bike over to the garage door. The lack of an automatic opener puzzled him for a second, till he worked out he had to push the door up himself.
“Hey, Arthur!” Leaf called out as he got on the bike. Her voice was so weak that it came out a little louder than a whisper. “Promise you’ll tell me what this is all about.”
“I will,” replied Arthur. If I get the chance.
Arthur pedalled furiously, coasted till he got his breath back, then pedalled furiously again. He wasn’t sure that he actually would get his breath back, as that familiar catch came and his lungs wouldn’t take in any air. But each time he felt his chest stop and bind, there was a breakthrough a moment later and in came the breath. His lungs, particularly the right one, felt like they were made of Velcro, resisting his efforts to expand them until they suddenly came unstuck.
He tried not to look at his watch as he cycled. But Arthur couldn’t help catching glimpses of its shining face as the minute hand moved so quickly towards the twelve. By the time he got to the high chain-link fence around the old Yeats Paper Mill, it was 11.50. Arthur only had ten minutes, and he didn’t know how to get through