“Good night, Grandmama,” corrected the ghost.
“I will never call you Grandmama,” said Jenna as, to her great relief, the ghost began to fade away.
“You will,” came the ghost's high-pitched drill of a voice out of thin air. “You will...”
Jenna picked up a pillow and, furious, threw it at the voice. There was no response;
the ghost had gone. Taking Aunt Zelda's advice, Jenna counted to ten very slowly until she felt calm, then she picked up Our Castle Story and quickly turned the thick yellow pages to Chapter Thirteen. The title of the chapter was “Queen Etheldredda the Awful.”
4
The Hole in the Wall
While Jenna sat reading Chapter Thirteen, Septimus Heap, Apprentice to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, had just been caught reading something he was not meant to have read. Marcia Overstrand, ExtraOrdinary Wizard of the Castle, had been temporarily defeated by a squabble in her kitchen between the coffeepot and the stove. In exasperation she had decided to leave them to it and go check on her Apprentice. She had found him in the Pyramid Library immersed in a pile of tattered old texts.
"What exactly do you think you are doing?" Marcia demanded.
Septimus jumped guiltily to his feet and shoved the papers under the book he should have been reading. “Nothing,” he said.
“That,” said Marcia sternly, “was exactly what I thought you were doing.” She surveyed her Apprentice, trying—but not entirely succeeding—to keep her stern expression. Septimus had a startled look in his brilliant green eyes and his curly, straw-colored hair was tangled from the way Marcia knew he twisted it when he was concentrating. “In case it has escaped your memory,” she told him, “you are meant to be reviewing for your Prediction Practical Examination tomorrow morning. Not reading a load of five-hundred-year-old drivel.”
“It's not drivel,” objected Septimus. “It's—”
“I know perfectly well what it is,” Marcia said. “I have told you before. Alchemie is total twaddle and a complete waste of time. You may as well go boil your socks and expect them to turn into gold.”
“But I'm not reading about Alchemie,” protested Septimus. “It's Physik.”
“Same difference,” said Marcia. “It's Marcellus Pye, I presume?”
“Yes. He's really good.”
“He's really irrelevant, Septimus.” Marcia reached under the book Septimus had hastily placed on top— The Principles and Practice of Elementary Prediction—and drew out the sheaf of yellowed and fragile papers covered in faint jottings.
“Anyway,” she said, “these are only his notes.”
“I know. It's a pity his book has disappeared.”
“Hmm. It's time you went to bed. You've got an early start tomorrow. Seven minutes past seven and not a second later. Understand?”
Septimus nodded.
“Well, off you go then.”
“But, Marcia...”
“What?”
“I'm really interested in Physik. And Marcellus did it the best. He had all sorts of medicines and cures worked out, and he knew all about why we get sick. Do you think I could learn about it?”
“No,” said Marcia. “You don't need it, Septimus. Magyk can do everything that Physik can.”
“It can't cure the Sickenesse though,” said Septimus stubbornly.
Marcia pursed her lips. Septimus was not the first to have pointed this out. “It will,”
she insisted, “it will. I just have to work on it—what was that?” A loud crash came from the kitchen two floors below and Marcia shot off.
Septimus sighed. He put Marcellus's papers back in the old box he had found in a dusty corner, blew out the candle and went downstairs to bed.
Septimus did not sleep well. Every night for a week he had had the same bad dream about the exam, and this night was no exception. He dreamed that he had missed the exam, Marcia chased him, and he fell down a chimney that went on forever and ever ... He kept grabbing at the walls to stop himself but still he kept falling ... falling ...
falling.
“Been having a fight with your blankets, Septimus?” A familiar voice echoed down the chimney. “Looks like you lost,” the voice continued with a chuckle. "Not wise to take on a pair of blankets, lad. One, maybe, but two blankets always gang up on you.
Vicious things, blankets."
Septimus forced himself out of his dream and sat up, gasping from the cold autumn air that Alther Mella had let in through the window.
“You all right?” Alther asked, concerned. The ghost settled himself down comfortably on Septimus's bed.
“Wh ... errr?” Septimus mumbled, focusing with some difficulty on the slightly transparent figure of Alther Mella, ex-ExtraOrdinary Wizard and frequent visitor to the Wizard Tower. Alther was not as difficult to see as some of the older ghosts in the Castle, but at nighttime his faded purple robes had a tendency to blend into the background, and the dimness of the light made it harder to see the dark brown bloodstains over the ghost's heart, which Septimus always found his eye was drawn to, however hard he tried not to look. Alther had a calm and kind expression in his old green eyes as he regarded his favorite Apprentice.
“Same bad dream?” Alther inquired.
“Um. Yes,” Septimus admitted.
“Did you remember to use your Flyte Charm this time?” asked Alther.
“Er, no. Perhaps I will next time. Except I hope there isn't a next time. It's a horrible dream.” Septimus shuddered and pulled one of the obstinate blankets up to his chin.
“Hmm. Well, dreams come to us for a reason. Sometimes they tell us things we need to know,” mused Alther, floating up from the pillow and straightening himself out with a ghostly groan. “Now, I thought you might like a little trip down to a place I know not far from here.”
Septimus yawned. “But what about Marcia?” he asked sleepily.
“Marcia's got one of her headaches,” said Alther. “I don't know why she gets so upset over that contrary coffeepot. I'd get rid of it if I were her. She's gone to bed so there's no need to bother her. Anyway, we'll be back before she knows we're gone.”
Septimus did not want to go back to sleep and get into the dream yet again. He tumbled out of bed and pulled on his green woolen Apprentice tunic, which was neatly folded on the end of his bed, just as he had been taught to do with his Young Army uniform every night for the first ten years of his life, and fastened his silver Apprentice belt.
“Ready?” asked Alther.
“Ready,” replied Septimus. He headed for the window that Alther had Caused to open when he had arrived. Septimus climbed onto the broad wooden windowsill and stood in the open window, looking down at the precipitous drop some twenty-one floors down, something that he never would have dreamed of doing a few months ago, given his fear of heights. But now Septimus had lost his fear, and the reason for this was held tightly in his left hand—the Flyte Charm.
Septimus carefully took the small golden arrow with its delicate silver flights and held it between his right finger and thumb. “Where are we going?” he asked Alther, who was hovering in front of him and absentmindedly trying to perfect a backward flip.
“Hole in the Wall,” Alther replied, upside down. “Nice place. Must have told you about it.”
“But that's a tavern,” objected Septimus. “I'm too young to go into taverns. And Marcia says they're dens of—”
“Oh, you mustn't take any notice of what Marcia says about taverns,” Alther told him. “Marcia has some strange theory that people go to taverns just to talk about her behind her back. I've told her that people have much more interesting things than her to discuss—like the price of fish—but she won't believe it.”
Alther spun around and righted himself so that he was floating in front of Septimus.
The ghost looked at the slight figure standing on the windowsill, his curly hair blowing in the wind that always played around the top of the Wizard Tower and his green eyes flashing with Magyk, as the Flyte Charm grew warm in his grasp.
Although Alther had been helping Septimus practice the Art of Flyte for three months now—ever since Septimus had found the Flyte Charm—he still felt a flash of fear when he saw the boy standing on the edge of a sheer drop.
“I'll follow you,” said Septimus, his voice almost blown away by a sudden gust of wind.