AT LENGTH, MARDY sighed and started up the long avenue of plane trees to the main road and the tangled streets beyond, one of which was her own. Already, the road had largely cleared. There were only a few children in sight. Some were trying to make snowballs from a fall no more than a fingernail’s depth. The distracting snow suited Mardy. She did not want to talk to anyone. Now she had another incident to ponder and for once she did not miss Hal’s company. Hal would have irritated her by telling her that her imagination was playing tricks. But Mardy suspected that a ghost had preceded her home yesterday and bought a Nut Krunch Bar from Mrs Hobson this morning. Perhaps the same ghost had been responsible for hitting Rachel with a piece of crumpled-up paper this afternoon. It was possible, she supposed. Mardy had heard of such things: poltergeists, they were called.
She had heard of other things, too. People fooling themselves, for a start. If you disliked someone the way she disliked Rachel, perhaps you might chuck something at her and then deny it – even to yourself. No one wants to think of herself as a bully, do they? And no one wants to think of herself as the kind of greedy pig who would scoff two Nut Krunch Bars in half an hour. How much easier to blame it all on a poltergeist, a double, an imposter …
By this time she was more than halfway up Bellevue Road, and nearly at Hal’s house. Perhaps she would call on him after all. She could use some of his common sense now. Hal would keep her feet on the ground, frozen toes and all.
But there in front of Hal’s front gate was a most unlikely group. Rachel Fludd herself was nearest, with her back to the street – and either side of her stood two of the Bluecoat girls, leering unpleasantly down the road at Mardy as if she had turned up on the underside of a shoe. They weren’t just standing, either – they were standing guard: feet apart and waiting (Mardy was immediately certain of it) for Mardy herself. And from one of them came yesterday’s catcall: “Mardi Gras!”
That was just the opening round. Most of it came from the Bluecoat girls, but not all. Mardy was surrounded by voices. The leaden clouds themselves were echoing back their low opinion of her.
“Lardy Mardy!”
“Pink and sweaty, legs like a Yeti, hair like a plate of cold spaghetti…”
“Where do you get your clothes from, Mardy? A tent-hire shop?”
“And who are you calling a witch?”
The last voice cut through the rest and silenced them. It silenced everything. Mardy could not help looking towards it. There was Rachel, standing alone. Gone were the Bluecoat girls, gone Rachel’s own tearful sulk. Her dark eyes were trained on Mardy like shotgun barrels.
“Never,” said Rachel, in a voice as cold as flint, “do that again. Ever.”
She stepped into the road and began to cross without once taking her eyes off Mardy. Mardy realised with a jolt that Bellevue Road was not merely growing emptier as the school traffic cleared. It was quite deserted. The plane tree avenue stretched on into the distance and ended in a shimmer of sickly, yellow light that made her think of the smoke from damp leaves. It was the same both ways. No school any more, no shops, no people. Just two interminable rows of blinkered houses. Just Mardy and Rachel.
“Where is everyone?” Mardy asked, her voice trembling, as Rachel approached her. “What have you done?”
Rachel seemed different now, as everything was different: taller, more powerful. She did not speak at first. She was staring into Mardy’s face, apparently searching there for some concealed mark or sign.
“Stand still!” she commanded – but distractedly, as if Mardy were a needle she was trying to thread, rather than a human being.
“Rachel, what’s going on?” said Mardy.
“It must be here. Is it at the nape of your neck?”
“What?”
“Or inside your elbow? I’d have seen if it was in one of the obvious places.”
“Rachel, listen to me! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I’m looking for your mark, of course! The Crescent of Initiation! How else could you know I was a witch?” asked Rachel irritably. “How could you know a thing like that without being one yourself?”
“Are you crazy?”
“You wrote that note, didn’t you? In the hieratic script! Foolish, foolish.”
“I don’t know what you’re-’
“And, if more proof were needed,” Rachel added in deep disgust, “here you are in Uraniborg itself.” She gestured around her, to the smoky, yellow horizons at either end of the endless street and at the blank-eyed windows facing them.
Uraniborg. The word was strange to Mardy, but it seemed to waft through her mind like mist through moonlight, with a dreadful melancholy. She repeated, limply, that she wasn’t a witch and hadn’t called Rachel a witch – didn’t even believe in witches (Rachel snorted here) and had certainly never heard of Uraniborg. “I just want to get home,” she said.
Rachel did not seem to be listening anyway. Whatever she had been looking for on Mardy’s face was obviously not to be found. Finally, she put her hands on her hips and admitted defeat.
“OK – I was wrong. You’ve got Artemisian blood, of course, but you’re not an initiate.”
She still seemed to be talking to herself more than to Mardy. Standing there in her school uniform – one size too small – with her face screwed up as if she was in the middle of a tricky maths problem, Rachel looked for a moment as out of place as Mardy felt. She wasn’t at all Mardy’s idea of a witch. But for all that, Mardy did not doubt her. Whatever else the air of Uraniborg did, it made believing that kind of thing easier.
Perhaps Mardy’s eyes were only now growing accustomed to the strange light here; or perhaps it had only now chosen to show itself, but something was becoming visible at the end of the street – just where Bellevue School ought to have been. It was a tall, thick tower with a conical roof. Its walls, as far as Mardy could make out, were of rusty, red brick, but its roof was gold and in this sunless world it was the brightest thing she could see. Powered by some unseen engine, the roof was turning slowly and in complete silence. The golden tiles were revolving on the axis of that central turret.
Just coming into view was a place where the expanse of gold was broken by a small square of darkness. Mardy realised that this was a raised hatch: one of the golden tiles had been lifted on a hinge and propped open. And from the hatch a tube projected, crimson and silver.
“A telescope?” said Mardy.
“The Mayor…” breathed Rachel. “Quick, I’ll hide us.”
There was a new and urgent note in her voice. Rachel began rubbing her hands together, one over the other, as if she were washing with soap. Within moments her hands were no longer empty. They held an object the size and shape of a duck egg, a smooth bolus of yellow smoke. She threw it to the ground, where it cracked open and bubbled out a dull, tarry liquid. Steam rose, the same nicotine yellow as the air of Uraniborg, and hung in a thick curtain between them and the tower. The tower was invisible again.
“If he’s really looking hard for you, this won’t stop him, of course,” said Rachel. Even her voice was muffled by the curtain of yellow air. “Let’s hope it’s a routine survey.”
Clearly, she expected Mardy to understand what she was talking about. But Mardy’s incomprehension must have been obvious from her face.
“You really don’t know what’s going on, do you?” said Rachel.
“No.