The Hairy Hand Read online

  Next, Sept had a peek inside his bag. Inside he found one half of a mouldy garlic sausage that had been in the cupboard for ages, two small apples, some matches and a bottle of water.

  Oh well, he thought, the journey cannot be as long as it sounds, otherwise I am sure mum would have packed more food. I guess I’ll be there in no time at all, or at least there will be plenty of people along the way to give a boy travelling on his own food and shelter!

  But it was a very long walk. Very long indeed. During it, Sept decided exploring wasn’t his destiny, after all.

  One night a pack of Wargs[1] picked up his scent. Their wolf cries and yapping woke him, as he scrambled to his feet in a panic. They pursued him for miles, Sept running blindly, going deeper into the Lost Woods than he had ever dared. Soon he lost the path as he ran through brambles, stumbling over roots, the rough bark of the trees grazing his flaying hands in the darkness until his knuckles had no skin left on them. Just when Sept thought his lungs would burst with the effort of running, he fell into a river and was taken downstream for several miles, scrabbling to keep his head above water. He was washed up eventually onto a sandbank, and he lay there until dawn, wet and shivering, not daring to move. The water had covered his scent but he could still hear the starving Wargs criss-crossing the forest, searching for him.

  In the Thorny Desert his water ran out and he had to drink from stinking pools of slime and eat bitter leaves found growing on plants by the wayside. By day his skin went red and peeled in the ferocious heat and by night he lay and shivered with nothing but his now empty rucksack for comfort. How to be Happy, Chapter 7, page 3: “when things seem terrible, cheer yourself up with thoughts of Home Comforts and Happy Memories”.

  That really didn’t help much so he kept his spirits up by thinking of how he was doing the right thing, paying his respects to an uncle who must have been fond of him to leave him not one but three things of his choice in his will. But, as he lay alone looking at the cold bright stars, Sept did wonder why his uncle had never once visited.

  And despite his hope to meet people along the way, he did not see a soul and he had no-one to talk to. The only words he had actually uttered in all that time were, ‘Aaargh!’ and ‘Ouch!’ and ‘Heeeeeeeeeeelpppp Meeeeee!’.

  So Sept’s first experience of the world outside of the muddy valley and the village was that it was every bit as pointlessly dangerous and scary as Nowhere. And Sept felt no more at home in it than he did with the Plogs. Each evening, before it got dark, he would take out his book, and look for comfort in How to be Happy. He read: “Every day is a wonderful new beginning!” and “Turn your frown upside down and show the world your sunny side!” or “Every bad turn is just an opportunity for something good just around the corner”.

  As the days went on, he began to doubt that whoever wrote the book had ever visited the Thorny Desert, the Lost Woods or ever had anything even slightly bad happen to them. But the book was all he had now.

  Eventually, after a whole month of unpleasantness, he finally came over a sand dune to be met by an emerald field of shining grass and vermillion poppies that stood as high as a horse.

  Sept had made it. He was alive and he still had all his arms and legs. He didn’t know this, but even the toughest travellers avoided the route he’d taken: grownups, with packs of mules laden with food and sharp weapons hidden in unexpected places. One boy, with half a sausage, a bottle of water and a book written by a dangerously optimistic lunatic had done the impossible.

  The rolling hillside before him swayed to a steady wind that pushed the meadow this way and that, like waves coming into shore, and the air smelled strongly of salt.

  Sept had never seen anything so beautiful in his life and he felt his spirits lift at the prospect of finally seeing the wide ocean: its tumbling breakers, with their white crests like icing sugar and frothy pebbles that crackled and rolled as the waves slipped back and forth.

  Far off in the distance, he could see a large wooden house with a stone tower.

  Looking at it gave him a funny feeling.

  1Forest wolves: bad tempered with huge appetites.

  Chapter 3

  Sept makes a tough choice (or three)

  That must be Petunia Rise, he thought. Strange name for a warlock’s house. From the little he knew about naming houses, it sounded like somewhere an old lady lived quietly with a cat or four.

  In spite of its name, there was something about the house that almost seemed alive, thought Sept, as he stared at its dark windows, hooded by half-drawn blinds like eyelids. The front door hung open, looking more and more like a gaping mouth with every step. Sept had the feeling that this house had been waiting for him to arrive.

  A battered sign above the porch read Petunia Rise. Please wipe your feet.

  It’s just a house, he reassured himself, belonging to a kind old man, who sent me a lett...

  ‘SEPT YOU NITWIT. SO YOU ARE HERE... FINALLY... YOU TOOK YOUR TIME?’

  Sept’s first, second and third thoughts were to run very far away as fast as he could. The voice was quite the loudest thing he’d ever heard, and for anyone who spent any time at all with Mistress Plog that was saying something.

  He glanced nervously about the hallway. There was nobody there.

  ‘OF COURSE THERE’S NOBODY HERE. I’M DEAD.’

  Sept’s brain felt like a jumper that had been turned inside out. ‘Um, is this magic, then?’

  ‘OH, YOU MUST BE SOME SORT OF A GENIUS. I WAS A VERY POWERFUL WARLOCK, YOU KNOW, OR DIDN’T THAT EVIL HARPY GERTRUDE TELL YOU ANYTHING?... COME TO THINK OF IT, SHE PROBABLY DIDN’T... ANYWAY, ETERNITY WAITS FOR NO MAN, SO DOWN TO BUSINESS... STEP FORWARD BOY!’

  ‘Um, yes, of course.’ Sept took two tentative steps into the dusty gloom of the house as the door slammed shut behind him. When the voice came through a second time, it was a lot less loud and just a bit more kindly.

  ‘Alas, I am all that remains of your Uncle Xavier, otherwise I would be here in person to greet my heir. There was so much I needed to tell you...’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Humph, yes, well,’ the voice interrupted before Sept could get any further, ‘...never mind all that now, you’ve got a job to do, otherwise that long journey of yours will have been a complete waste of effort. Now, pin your ears back: by the time the sun reaches the horizon, at the end of this day, I will cease to exist, even as the ghost I am now and the house will finally shut its doors to all non-warlocks, for ever. So, in a nutshell, you got here just in time, my boy. A day later and your legacy would have been beyond even my efforts - the Lore is clear on that. It’s also clear that you may take three items only from a deceased member of any warlock’s family. BUT, REMEMBER THIS, YOUR CHOICE WILL BE MADE WHEN YOU LAY YOUR FINGER, OR HAND ON THAT ITEM AND IT CANNOT BE UNMADE.’

  Sept peered around properly for the first time. He’d always supposed that warlocks’ houses were filled with treasures and strange objects with discoveries - mostly nasty - when you picked them up. More to the point, if he was beginning to learn anything since he had left home, it was caution.

  However, the inside of the house looked as ordinary as the outside. A neat rug in the centre of the hallway supported a round table with a nice vase. On his left, a doorway led through into what looked like the dining room with an elegant, but dull sideboard, and to his right was the kitchen with a blue stove and washing up neatly stacked near the sink.

  Nice, comfortable and not, at all, wizardy.

  ‘What did you expect - stuffed frogs, black cauldrons and eyeballs in jars?’ His uncle’s ghost really did seem to have a knack for reading his mind. ‘Magic’s about using your brain, not French cooking.’

  ‘OK, um... Sir,’

  ‘Well, you’ve got good manners, at any rate. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been allowed to do anything much on you
r own, so now’s your chance.’

  Sept cast about. There was nothing to remotely interest an eleven-year-old boy. ‘...what should I choose?’

  ‘That’s up to you, obviously.’ His uncle’s Shade was beginning to sound like it might get tetchy again, so Sept stepped forward and picked up the first object he could lay his hands on.

  ‘Like this?’

  ‘That’s the dog’s brush.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘FIRST CHOICE CHOSEN - and a very poor one, I must say. You’ve got two more choices, then. Might I suggest that you think about it more carefully next time.’

  ‘Sorry... yes, OK.’

  But something had been bothering Sept since he had got inside the house. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t run from the first moment the voice came booming out of nowhere. Actually, it was probably the only reason.

  A large roast ham - sitting on a silver platter on the kitchen counter. It filled Sept’s nostrils with delicious meaty thoughts and made his mouth water. The disembodied voice came again.

  ‘Didn’t Gertrude give you any food? I thought not, she’s too stupid to know they have to keep you safe. Well, you’ll need food for the way home, I suppose. Take as much as you like, including the chocolate in the pantry. If you want to make it back alive, you’ve just made your second selection!’

  Oh dear, he only had one choice left. Sept remembered all the riches his mother had mentioned and had the scary feeling his parents weren’t going to be pleased. He took a deep breath and thought hard.

  Assuming there wasn’t much of interest downstairs, there might be something in the stone tower. So, Sept began to climb the stairs, taking great care not to touch anything.

  ‘Better,’ said the voice as he reached the top and came to a vaguely mysterious looking door. ‘My study. Just don’t break anything.’ Sept pushed the door tentatively and, as it swung open, found himself in a small, round room with a pleasant view of the sea far below.

  A large, cluttered desk dominated the circular chamber and in one corner there was a recessed alcove containing shelves stacked with ancient-looking books. And not just any kind of books: Books with symbols in silver and gold, writing that moved across the covers, books that whispered to one another.

  Magic books!

  This was it, his final choice. Finally he had found something he had been expecting to discover. A vague smell of cowhide and dust emanated from that corner of the room but something else, Sept felt his fingers itch. He was sure that in any one of these books lay the answers to many of his problems: a spell to conjure up the most delicious fresh food whenever he wanted, perhaps; or another to stop it raining quite so much; one to magic his parents into a better mood. Or a spell that revealed where he fitted in... His uncle had gone quiet, as if waiting.

  Sept stepped forward, stretching his arm out but, just as he did so, his eye was drawn to a quite ordinary wooden box that was wedged between several of the more tatty volumes on the bottom shelf. Ordinary maybe, but Sept had always been very interested in boxes of any sort.

  Boxes contained things. Things that belonged went in boxes and, as a boy who had never belonged, this made them fascinating.

  There was nothing remotely sinister or magic-looking about the box, in fact it was quite dull. But, in his limited experience, people put extraordinary things inside ordinary packages. Like Gertrude’s sinister book she kept in that grubby apron pocket. It was a way of hiding them - so perhaps he was turning into a Sneaker just like his dad. He should have been pleased but, in fact, the thought briefly horrified him.

  The point was, Sept’s hand felt drawn towards the box, as if pulled by an invisible string, and he reached forward. Time slowed as a warm wind sprang up from nowhere in his uncle’s study, carrying with it the smell of hot sand, rich spices and whispering voices - like dry pages of a book having a conversation with itself. Slowly, deliberately, Sept stretched out and placed his finger on the cheap, wooden casket.

  There was dead silence for a few moments - Sept held his breath, expecting to hear his uncle shout at him for being an idiot for not taking any of the important and powerful books of spells. However, when his uncle did speak again, there was a new kind of quietness to his voice. If Sept had been a boy to have received any praise or encouragement in his life, he would have recognised it for a tone of respect.

  ‘Hmm, not so stupid after all. Many years ago, this box was washed up on the shore at the foot of the cliff, hundreds of feet below the very window you are standing by. It was the night of a great storm, the most violent I can remember on this coast or any other, for that matter. In spite of the danger, I was drawn down to the crashing waves, howling winds and biting cold... Something called me from the safety of this house, something more powerful than I have ever felt in my long years as a warlock... and there, sitting on the shore, was this simple box. I carried it back home. Climbing the old rope ladder that twisted in the wind like an Egyptian snake, I nearly fell to my death several times.

  ‘It took me many years and all my skill to uncover just a few of its secrets.

  ‘I dared not hope this would be your choice. For this box, or rather its contents, is perhaps the best thing you could have chosen, or perhaps the worst. Either way, your life from now will be interesting, mark my words.’ The voice paused. When it continued, his uncle sounded grave. ‘I regret I cannot tell you more for there is an unbreakable enchantment between you and me that makes it impossible. One day, I hope you will find a way to uncover the truth.’

  ‘What tru-’

  ‘HOWEVER,’ his Uncle’s voice cut across him, ‘one word of advice I can tell you, my boy, is do not open what you have chosen until you are home and the door is firmly locked and very securely bolted. For what is contained in this casket will be strange and shocking to you. And until it accepts you as its new master, if it ever does, beware!’

  Chapter 4

  In which Sept gets caught in a sand storm, survives and cooks a delicious meal

  Sept took the box carefully in both hands and stowed it in the bottom of his rucksack. Then he stocked up on the ham, bread and the large slab of chocolate that had been his second choice. Before he left Petunia Rise, he picked up the dog brush. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful, after all.

  By the time Sept had walked through the lush grasslands to the edge of the desert, it was almost night. More worryingly, charcoal-grey clouds filled the darkest edge of the horizon. A gigantic dust storm had gathered in the east and, within minutes of entering the Thorny Desert, it was hurling great, giant-sized fistfuls of sand at Sept who searched in vain for shelter.

  The sand blasted his cheeks until they felt as if they were on fire; it filled his ears, his nostrils and the grit got under his eyelids.

  As the wind increased in power, the large bushes he had been very careful to avoid the first time of crossing the sands, were pulled out by their shallow roots. Now they flew across the surface of the sand like great balls of barbed-wire. Sept ducked as one hurtled towards him in the gloom, iron hard thorns - each as long and sharp as Warg teeth - and narrowly missed his head.

  His bag was getting heavier. He soon realised that was because it was filling up with sand. Sept swung it off his back - the straps were half undone: how stupid, he thought as he loosened them and tipped the rucksack to get rid of the sand. Just then, a larger gust than before tore across the dunes and Sept could only watch helplessly as How to be Happy was whipped away and into the air, flying off into the murk like a tattered bird.

  ‘Noooo!’ howled Sept after it. He stared into the swirling sands feeling faint: his precious book was lost forever. ‘That’s so... unfair!’ he shouted uselessly into the wind. For the first time since he was very, very small, Sept began to cry. And it felt quite good to start with - and at least it got some of the sand out of his eyes

  He stayed on his knees
as the sand lashed into him. Images of his short, largely unhappy life ran through his memory like a film as Sept tried to think of a single reason to go back home. Finding none, he searched his memory for a happier time, when he was very little, perhaps? But all Sept remembered from a time before he was about five were confused images of a cart, someone raising their arms and muttering strange words and two shadowed faces that faded when he tried to make out their features.

  He was thinking about his lost book, feeling lost himself, when he remembered something, one last piece of advice in How to be Happy - yet seemingly added on, in quite a different tone to the rest of the book.

  You always have a choice, boy.

  Sept frowned, the funny thing was, he couldn’t remember which chapter it came in. But, now he thought about it, Sept realised that, for once the advice seemed to fit: he really did have a choice. He could get up and walk and find shelter or he could choose to stay out in the storm feeling sorry for himself for a while... and die.

  Sept looked at his uncle’s mysterious box in the bottom of the rucksack. On the subject of choices, he had chosen the box and whatever it contained. His uncle had said it was important and that it would change his life... now, surely, that was one big reason to go on?

  So slowly, his teeth gritted in determination, he dragged himself to his feet. Head down, he trudged on. And on. And on.

  Hours went by.

  All about him was a world of blinding sand and screaming wind... perhaps he should try and make it back to the grasslands before he collapsed...

  DUCK!

  The voice was so clear in his head it was like someone had just shouted in his ear. So Sept ducked.

  One of the barbed bushes missed the back of his head by millimetres.