Witches, warlocks, necromancers and wizards poured out into the meadow, with Gwendolen mincing among them, and hurriedly cast spells as they came. Muttering rolled round the garden. The smell of magic grew thick. Chrestomanci held up one hand as if he was asking for silence. The muttering grew instead, and sounded angry. But none of the people muttering came any nearer. The only ones who were still moving were William and Henry Nostrum, who kept spilling out from the trees, running hard and bawling faintly, each with a large flapping eagle after him.
Bernard chewed his pencil and his face looked ribby. “This is awful! There are so many of them!”
“Keep trying. I’m giving you all the help I can spare,” Chrestomanci said, with an anxious look at the muttering crowd.
Bernard’s bushy eyebrows bobbed up. “Ah!”
Miss Bessemer was standing above him on the slope. She had the works of a clock in one hand and a cloth in the other. Perhaps because of the slope, she seemed taller and more purple of dress than usual. She took in the situation at a glance. “You’ll need a full muster to deal with this lot,” she said to Chrestomanci.
A witch in the muttering crowd screamed, “He’s getting help!” Cat thought it was Gwendolen. The smell of magic grew, and the muttering became like a long roll of thunder. The crowd seemed to be edging forward slowly, in a bobbing of fancy hats and a bristle of dark suits. The hand Chrestomanci was holding up to stop them began to shake.
“The garden’s helping them, too,” said Bernard. “Put forth your best, Bessie-girl.” He chewed his pencil and frowned intensely. Miss Bessemer wrapped her cloth neatly round her pieces of clock and grew noticeably taller.
And suddenly the rest of the Family began to appear round the apple tree, all in the middle of the peaceful Sunday things they had been doing when they were summoned. One of the younger ladies had a skein of wool between her hands, and one of the younger men was winding it. The next man was holding a billiard cue, and the other young lady had a lump of chalk. The old lady with mittens was crocheting a new pair of mittens. Mr Saunders appeared with a thump. He had the dragon tucked playfully under one arm, and both of them looked startled to be fetched in the middle of a romp.
The dragon saw Cat. It wriggled out from under Mr Saunders’s arm, bounded across the grass, and jumped rattling and flaming into Cat’s arms. Cat found himself staggering about under the apple tree with quite a heavy dragon squirming on his chest and enthusiastically licking his face with flame. It would have burnt him badly if he had not remembered in time to tell the flames they were cool.
He looked up to see Roger and Julia appearing. They both had their arms stretched stiffly above their heads, because they had been playing mirrors again, and they were both very much astonished. “It’s the garden!” said Roger. “And loads of people!”
“You never summoned us before, Daddy,” said Julia.
“This is rather special,” said Chrestomanci. He was holding his right hand up with his left one by now, and looking tired out. “I need you to fetch your mother. Quickly.”
“We’re holding them,” Mr Saunders said. He was trying to sound encouraging, but he was nervous. The muttering crowd was coming nearer.
“No, we aren’t!” snapped the old lady in the mittens. “We can’t do anything more without Millie.”
Cat had a feeling that everyone was trying to fetch Millie. He thought he ought to help, since they needed her so much, but he did not know what to do. Besides, the dragon’s flames were so hot that he needed all his energy not to get burnt.
Roger and Julia could not fetch Millie. “What’s wrong?” said Julia. “We’ve always been able to before.”
“All these people’s spells are stopping us,” said Roger.
“Try again,” said Chrestomanci. “I can’t. Something’s stopping me, too.”
“Are you joining in the magic?” the dragon asked Cat. Cat was finding the heat of it really troublesome by now. His face was red and sore. But, as soon as the dragon spoke, he understood. He was joining in the magic. Only he was joining in on the wrong side, because Gwendolen was using him again. He was so used to her doing it that he barely noticed. But he could feel her doing it now. She was using so much of his power to stop Chrestomanci fetching Millie, that Cat was getting burnt.
For the first time in his life, Cat was angry about it. “She’s no business to!” he told the dragon. And he took his magic back. It was like a cool draught in his face.
“Cat! Stop that!” Gwendolen screamed from the crowd.
“Oh shut up!” Cat shouted back. “It’s mine!”
At his feet, the little spring ran bubbling out of the grass again. Cat was looking down at it, wondering why it should, when he noticed a sort of gladness come over the anxious Family around him. Chrestomanci was looking upwards, and a light seemed to have fallen across his face. Cat turned round and found Millie was there at last.
He supposed it was some trick of the hillside that made her look tall as the apple tree. But it seemed no trick that she had also looked kind as the end of a long day. She had Fiddle in her arms. Fiddle was draggled and miserable, but purring.
“I’m so sorry,” Millie said. “I’d have come sooner if I’d known. This poor beast had fallen off the garden wall and I wasn’t thinking of anything else.”
Chrestomanci smiled, and let his hand go. He did not seem to need it to hold back the crowd any more. They stood where they were, and their muttering had stopped. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “But we must get to work now.”
The Family got to work at once. Cat found it hard to describe or remember afterwards just how they did. He remembered claps and peals of thunder, darkness and mist. He thought Chrestomanci grew taller than Millie, tall as the sky – but that could have been because the dragon got extremely scared and Cat was kneeling in the grass to make it feel safer. From there he saw the Family from time to time, striding about like giants. Witches screamed and screamed. Warlocks and wizards roared and howled. Sometimes there was whirling white rain, or whirling white snow, or perhaps just whirling white smoke, whirling and whirling. Cat was sure the whole garden was spinning, faster and faster. Among the whirling and the whiteness came flying necromancers, or Bernard striding, or Mr Saunders, billowing, with snow in his hair. Julia ran past, making knot after knot in her handkerchief. And Millie must have brought reinforcements with her. Cat glimpsed Euphemia, the butler, a footman, two gardeners and, to his alarm, Will Suggins once, breasting the whiteness in the howling, spinning, screaming garden.
The spinning got so fast that Cat was no longer giddy. It was spinning rock-steady, and humming. Chrestomanci stepped out of the whiteness and under the apple tree and held out one hand to Cat. He was wet and windswept, and Cat was still not sure how tall he was. “Can I have some of your dragon’s blood?” Chrestomanci said.
“How did you know I’d got it?” Cat said guiltily, letting go of the dragon in order to get at his crucible.
“The smell,” said Chrestomanci.
Cat passed his crucible over. “Here you are. Have I lost a life over it?”
“Not you,” said Chrestomanci. “But it was lucky you didn’t let Janet touch it.” He stepped to the whirling, and emptied the whole crucible into it. Cat saw the powder snatched away and whirled. The mist turned brownish red and the humming to a terrible bell-note that hurt Cat’s ears. He could hear witches and warlocks howling with horror. “Let them roar,” said Chrestomanci. He was leaning against the right-hand pillar of the archway. “Every single one of them has now lost his or her witchcraft. They’ll complain to their MPs and there’ll be questions asked in Parliament, but I daresay we shall survive it.” He raised his hand and beckoned.
Frantic people in soaking wet Sunday clothes came whirling out of the whiteness and were sucked through the broken arch