I shake my head.
“They’re cool,” he grins. “I don’t know if most of them really work, but the words you use are wicked. I feel like a real magician when I’m casting them.”
“Could you teach me some?” I ask.
“No,” Bill-E answers promptly. “That’s the first thing Dervish taught me—only a teacher is allowed to teach. He says if he ever catches me passing on my spells to anybody, he’ll can the lessons and ban me from coming here. And he means it—Dervish isn’t the sort to yank your chain about stuff like that.”
I’m warming to Bill-E Spleen – I like the way he talks about Dervish – but it’s been a while since I made a new friend, so instead of saying something simple, I find myself asking cynically, “Did Dervish tell you to come chat to me? Are you supposed to be my new best friend?”
Bill-E sneers. “My friendship can’t be bought or bartered. I usually come over a few evenings every week and at weekends. Dervish asked me to stay away this week, to give you a chance to settle in. I was looking forward to checking you out and showing you around the Vale – as a fellow orphan, I thought we might have stuff in common – but now I don’t think I’ll bother. You’re a bit too up-your-own-ass for my liking. I’ll just go see Dervish and leave you to scurry around out here on your own.”
Bill-E turns to leave in a huff.
“When did your mum die?” I ask quietly.
He stops and squints at me. “Nearly seven years ago. I was just a kid.”
“And your dad?”
He smiles crookedly. “I never knew him. Don’t even know who he was. He’s still alive – I think – so I’m not an official orphan. But I’ve felt like one since Mum died.”
“My folks only died a few months ago,” I say. “It still hurts. A lot. So if I act like a spazz, sorry, but that’s just the way I feel right now.”
Bill-E’s features soften. “When my mum died, I didn’t speak to anyone except Gran and Grandad for almost a year. If other kids came near, I’d scream and attack them. Their parents stopped them hitting back. One day, in a shop, I tried it on a kid when there was nobody around—he knocked the crap out of me. I was fine after that.”
I offer my chin. “Take a pop if you want.”
Bill-E pads over, makes a fist, then taps my chin lightly. “Come on,” he laughs. “Let’s go see what whirling Dervish is up to.”
→The study. Dervish and Bill-E catching up. Lots of names I don’t recognise. Bill-E talking about school, looking forward to the summer break. Dervish telling him about a new book on Bavarian sorcerers which he bought off the web.
“What about the eye spell?” Bill-E asks. He looks at me and points to his lazy left eye. “I’m supposed to have this operated on in a few years, but I’m sure Dervish can conjure up a spell to spare me the hassle.”
“I’ve asked around,” Dervish laughs, “but the great magicians of yore didn’t bother much with drooping eyelids. Besides, magic shouldn’t be used for personal gain, Billy.” Dervish always refers to Bill-E as Billy. I guess he’s known him so long, he finds it hard to change.
“Tell that to great-great-wotsits Garadex!” Bill-E snorts. “He used his magic to make millions, didn’t he?”
“Bartholomew Garadex was an exception,” Dervish says.
Bill-E treats the study as though it’s his own. Pulls books out and only half-pushes them back. Shoves Dervish out of the way to go surfing on the web. Opens a drawer in the desk to show me the skull of a genuine witch, “burned at the stake for casting lascivious spells on the virile young men of the community,” he informs me, waving it around in front of his face, poking his fingers into its empty sockets. Dervish lets Bill-E do as he pleases. Sits back and smiles patiently.
“He’s not normally this wound-up,” Dervish remarks when Bill-E goes to the toilet. “Your arrival upset him. He’s used to having the run of the house. I think he’s worried that things are going to change now that you’ve moved in.”
“Why does he come here?” I ask.
“His mother and I were friends,” Dervish says. “She died in a boating accident, leaving Billy in the care of his grandparents.” He pulls a face. “All I’ll say about that pair is they’re aptly named—Spleen! A more cantankerous old couple you couldn’t imagine. I felt sorry for Billy, so I started visiting and taking him out on my bike. Ma and Pa Spleen weren’t too keen – they still do everything they can to stop him coming over here – but persistence is something I’m good at. I tend to get my own way when I really want to. The odd persuasion spell helps.” He winks. I can’t tell if he’s serious or joking.
Bill-E returns, shaking water from his hands. “No towels, Derv,” he grumbles.
Dervish raises an eyebrow at me. “Fresh towels are your department, aren’t they, Master Grubbs?”
“Sorry,” I grimace. “I forgot.”
“If I was you, Mr Grady, sir, I’d sack ’im,” Bill-E says with relish, then laughs and asks Dervish to teach him a new spell.
“Will I make the two of you disappear?” Dervish asks innocently.
“Yeah!” Bill-E gasps, face lighting up—then curses as Dervish shoos us out of the room and slams the door shut behind us.
→The hall of portraits. Bill-E knows the faces and names off by heart. Giving me a lecture, filling me in on my family background. I listen with pretend politeness, only paying attention to the occasional juicy snippet.
“Urszula Garadex—pirate,” Bill-E intones, tapping the frame of a large canvas portrait. The woman in the picture only has one eye, and three of her fingers are missing, two on her left hand, one on her right. “A cut-throat. Utterly merciless.
“Augustine Grady. Servant to some prince or other. Cause of death—he got kicked in the head by a horse.
“Justin Plunkton—a banker. Nothing interesting about him.”
And so on.
After a while I ask Bill-E about the teenagers and if he knows how they died.
“Dervish doesn’t say much about them,” he replies. “I think it’s some ancient family curse. You’ll probably go toes-up any day now.”
“I’ll try hard to take you with me,” I retort.
We come to Dad and Gret. Bill-E pauses curiously. “These are new. I don’t know who –”
“My dad and sister,” I inform him quietly.
He winces. “I should have guessed. Sorry.” He looks at me questioningly, licks his lips, stares back at the photos.
“An unasked question is the most futile thing in the world,” I prod him.
“That’s one of Dervish’s sayings,” he notes. Licks his lips again. “Do you want to tell me how they died, or is it a secret? I asked Dervish, but he won’t say, and Gran and Grandad don’t know—nobody in the village does.”
My stomach tightens. Flashes of a crocodile-headed dog, a hell-child, their eerie master. “They were murdered.”
Bill-E’s eyes widen. His lazy left eyelid snaps up as though on elastic bands. “No bull?” he gasps.
My expression’s dark. “No bull.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“I was there.”
Bill-E gulps deeply. “When they were being killed?”
“Yes.”
“How’d