When a person is Fetched, there is no stopping, no rest, no respite, until the person has reached the place to which he is Fetched. For a whole day and half a night Simon waded through marshes, scrambled through hedges and stumbled along stony paths. Rain soaked him, winds buffeted him, snow flurries froze him, but he could stop for nothing. Relentlessly on he went until finally, in the cold, gray light of the next day's dawn, he swum an ice-cold river, hauled himself out, staggered across the early morning dew and climbed up a crumbling wall of ivy. At the very top he was dragged through an attic window and frogmarched to a windowless room. When the door was barred behind him and he was left alone, sprawled on the bare floor, Simon no longer knew or cared where - or who - he was.
Chapter 2 Visitors
Night and a cold drizzle were falling fast when the Port barge drew up at the New Quay, a recently built stone jetty just below Sally Mullin's Tea and Ale House. Accompanied by assorted children, chickens and bundles, the frazzled passengers rose stiffly from their seats and stumbled down the gangway. Many of them made their way unsteadily along the well-trodden path to the Tea and Ale House to warm themselves by the stove and fill up with Sally's winter specials: mulled Springo Ale and warm spiced barley cake. Others, longing to get home to a warm fireside, set off on the long trudge up the hill, past the Castle amenity rubbish dump, to the South Gate, which would remain open until midnight.
Lucy Gringe did not relish the thought of the walk up the hill one little bit, especially when she knew that the Port barge was probably passing by where she was headed. She glanced at the woman sitting beside her. Lucy had spent the first half of the journey trying to avoid her oddly unsettling gaze but, after her neighbor had ventured a tentative question about directions to the Palace - which was where Lucy's first errand was taking her - they had spent the second half of the journey in animated conversation. The woman now rose wearily to follow the other passengers.
"Wait a minute!" said Lucy to her. "I've got an idea . . . 'Scuse me?" she shouted at the barge boy.
The barge boy swung around. "Yeah, darlin'?"
With some effort, Lucy ignored the "darlin'." "Where are you docking tonight?" she asked.
"With this North wind blowin' up, it'll be Jannit Maarten's," he replied. "Why?"
"Well, I just wondered . . ." Lucy gave the barge boy her best smile. "I just wondered if you could possibly let us off at a landing stage on your way there. It's so cold tonight. And dark too." Lucy shivered expressively and looked mournfully up at the barge boy with her big brown eyes. He was lost.
"'Course we could, darlin'. I'll tell Skip. Where d'you want to get off?"
"The Palace Landing Stage, please."
The barge boy blinked in surprise. "The Palace? You sure, darlin'?"
Lucy fought down an urge to yell "Don't call me darlin', creep boy!" "Yes, please," she said. "If it's not too much trouble."
"Nothin's too much trouble for you, darlin'," said creep boy, "though I wouldn't have put you down for the Palace meself."
"Oh?" Lucy was not sure how to take this.
"Yeah. You know that landing stage is haunted, don't you?"
Lucy shrugged. "Doesn't worry me," she said. "I never see ghosts."
The Port barge cast off from the New Quay. It made a U-turn in the wide part of the river, rocking scarily as it cut across the current and the chop of the waves whisked up by the wind. But as soon as the barge faced downstream all became quiet once more and, about ten minutes later, it was gliding to a halt beside the Palace Landing Stage.
"Here y'are, darlin'," said the barge boy, throwing a rope around one of the mooring posts. "Have fun." He winked at Lucy.
"Thank you," said Lucy rather primly. She got up and held out her hand to her neighbor. "We're here," she said. The woman gave Lucy a grateful smile. She got stiffly to her feet and followed Lucy off the barge.
The Port barge drew away from the landing stage. "See ya!" yelled the barge boy.
"Not if I see you first," Lucy muttered. She turned to her companion, who was gazing at the Palace in amazement. It was indeed a beautiful sight - a long, low building of ancient mellow stone with tall, elegant windows looking out over the well-tended lawns that swept down to the river. From every window, a welcoming candle flickered, making the whole building glimmer magically in the deepening twilight.
"She lives here?" the woman murmured in a singsong accent.
Lucy nodded shortly. Anxious to get going, she started purposefully up the wide path that led to the Palace. But her companion was not following. The woman was still on the landing stage, talking to what appeared to be an empty space. Lucy sighed - why did she always pick the weird ones? Reluctant to interrupt the woman's one-sided conversation - which seemed to be a serious one, for she was now nodding sadly - Lucy carried on, heading toward the lights of the Palace.
Lucy did not feel good. She was tired and cold and, above all, she was beginning to be anxious about the kind of welcome she would receive at the Palace. She put her hand in her pocket and found Simon's letters. She drew them out and squinted at the names written in Simon's large, loopy handwriting: Sarah Heap. Jenna Heap. Septimus Heap. She placed the one addressed to Septimus back in her pocket and kept hold of the ones addressed to Jenna and Sarah. Lucy sighed. All she wanted to do was to run back to Simon and know that it was "all right, Lucy-Lu." But Simon had asked her to deliver the letters to his mother and sister, and - whatever Sarah Heap thought of her - deliver them she would.
Lucy's companion was now hurrying after her.
"Lucy, I am sorry," she said. "I have just heard such a sad story from a ghost. It is sad, so very sad. The love of her life - and of her death - has been Banished. By mistake. How can any Wizard make such a mistake? Oh, it is a terrible thing." The woman shook her head. "Truly terrible."
"I suppose that must be Alice Nettles," said Lucy. "Simon said he'd heard that something horrible had happened to Alther."
"Yes. Alice and Alther. So very sad . . ."
Lucy did not have much time for ghosts. The way she saw it, ghosts were dead - it was being with the person you wanted to be with while you were alive that mattered. Which was, she thought, why she was back at the Castle right now, shivering in the bitter north wind that was blowing in off the river, tired and wishing she was wrapped up warmly in bed.