Orwell Bookend used to be the kind of university lecturer who floated around absentmindedly trailing great wafts of chalk dust and eager students wanting to know more about whatever lost language or medieval manuscript he’d just lectured on. And once upon a time Cait had been just another one of his adoring students and Effie’s mother had been alive and everything had been different. Before the worldquake Orwell had been a lot kinder, and back then he would have put his arms around his daughter – however cross he really was – and told her everything would be all right.
This is not what happened now. Instead, Orwell Bookend just sighed loudly.
‘Dad?’ said Effie.
He frowned. ‘I just wish you would do what you are told sometimes, that’s all. I’m very sorry for you – for us all. Everyone loved Griffin, of course. But we could have talked about this later, properly, not in the freezing cold on some doorstep. Rules are rules for a good reason, whatever has happened. And now . . .’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’m going to be late for my faculty meeting and you are already VERY late for school.’
All the time this was going on a rabbit was sitting under the front hedge wondering why exactly humans were so complicated. Could they not just share a lettuce together and move on? The older human had a very complex aura, the rabbit noted, but one that was not at all magical. The younger human had an extremely magical aura of a sort the rabbit had never seen before, including a faint colour that didn’t usually exist in this world. It made the rabbit want to help her – even though it did not know how.
‘Grandfather Griffin left me a codicil, but I couldn’t find it at the hospital,’ said Effie. ‘Do you know where he put it?’
Orwell sighed again. ‘Look, Effie. I’m sure you know that your grandfather lived partly in a fantasy world full of people who believe in magic and other dimensions and so on. It probably seemed real at times, but you do understand that it was not real, don’t you? I’ve been worried about what he’s been teaching you recently. What Griffin thought of as “magic” is at best a complete waste of time, and at worst . . .’
‘He hardly said anything to me about magic. He just said it was really difficult and that there were always other ways of doing things.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. But whatever stories he may have told you about travelling to other worlds and battling the Diberi, or whatever he called them, Cait and I want you to understand that they were just stories and you should not take them seriously.’
‘What’s Cait got to do with this? She’s not even my real mother.’
‘Effie, please. We’ve talked about you hurting Cait’s feelings by saying that.’
‘Cait isn’t even here. Anyway, what about my codicil?’
‘I may as well tell you. I’ve destroyed the codicil. It’s for your own good. I didn’t read it. I burned the wretched thing immediately. I want all this nonsense out of our lives for ever. You should be learning about how the world really is, not how it appears in the addled minds of a bunch of freaks and madmen. You probably don’t understand now, but you’ll thank me later.’
‘But a codicil is a . . . It’s a legal document. I have to take it to . . .’ Suddenly Effie decided not to mention Pelham Longfellow. Her father would probably just write him off in the same way he’d done with everyone else Griffin had known. ‘I have to take it to a solicitor.’
‘Effie,’ her father said, sighing. ‘Do you even know what an M-codicil is?’
Effie realised that she did not know. But she remembered that was indeed what her grandfather had called it. An M-codicil. She shook her head.
‘The M stands for magic. The idea of an M-codicil is that it adds something to an M-will. A magical will. So the stories go: when normal people die they leave wills, and when magical people die they leave M-wills. They might leave particular spells or magical items behind that can’t be covered in a normal will. And these wills can supposedly only be dealt with by magical solicitors. So that’s who he wanted you to find, I expect. Some sort of ridiculous “magical” solicitor.’
‘But . . .’
‘But these are just stories. Fantasy. Like those stupid Laurel Wilde books you used to read. And recent events have shown just how dangerous some of these fantasists can be. I don’t want you anywhere near the people or the world that your grandfather was so caught up in.’
Effie’s eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let her father see her cry.
‘How could you? That codicil was for me.’
‘You are eleven years old. You are too young for all this. Do you even know where magical solicitors supposedly live? Do you?’
‘No.’
‘In the “Otherworld”. Another dimension! It’s all just another story.’
Effie looked up towards the top of the building. ‘Well, what about the books that Grandfather Griffin left for me? I’m supposed to look after his library and . . .’
‘That lot of old leather-bound junk?’ Orwell Bookend snorted, forgetting how passionate he had once been about rare books and manuscripts. ‘Your grandfather was being completely unrealistic, as usual. Where would we put a library, for heaven’s sakes? We’ve barely got enough room for the four of us. It was completely unfair of him to give you the impression that you’d be allowed to keep all those books. You can choose one book to remember him by, Effie. That’s reasonable.’
‘What? One book! But they’re rare last editions and— ’
‘Don’t push me, Effie, or there won’t be even one book. I don’t know what’s happened to you lately. You used to be such a normal, happy child. Now . . . It’s probably my own fault. I should have found you proper after-school care rather than leaving you in the clutches of a deluded old man. Anyway, you must try to pull yourself together and go to school and put all this out of your mind. After school you can come back here – five o’clock on the dot – and you can choose one book before the charity man comes.’
The charity man again.
‘And then we can all talk about our grief together. I think Cait might have a book on the subject . . .’ As well as diet books, Cait had a number of self-help books that either told you things that everyone already knew, or told you things that no one in their right mind would think. In the last few months the house had been filling up with these books, all published by the Matchstick Press.
Effie knew better than to argue with her father when he was in this mood. She would have to go to school and try to think of some way to rescue her grandfather’s library before five o’clock. She could cry in the toilets if she felt upset. And as for Pelham Longfellow . . . He was apparently in this Otherworld, where her grandfather may also have gone. She’d have to work out how to get there. There was so much to think about. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Effie looked at her watch. It was still only ten past ten. If she hurried she could be at school in time for the end of double English. At least at school she would be warm.
When Effie had gone, the rabbit noticed that the child’s father was putting a human metal object – the thing they called a key – under a flowerpot. This was the object the child with the strangely-coloured aura must have been looking for. Would she need it again? When the man had gone, the rabbit went and knocked over the flowerpot and took the key in its teeth. It then took the key deep into its burrow where it would remain until the child needed it. Satisfied, the rabbit emerged and went back to chewing on the wild strawberry leaves that grew down by the well at the end of the Old Rectory garden.
5
Mrs