Carry On Read online

  “I don’t know, I guess so.… Why would the Pitches blame the Mage for this?”

  Penny bites her lip and looks down. “I think because of you, Simon. Everyone is saying that you went to the Pitches’ on Christmas Eve and did some dark ritual to kill their magic.”

  “I was fighting the Humdrum! I mean, I was trying. The Humdrum did something to Baz—he sent him after me like he does the dark creatures.”

  “So you fought Baz?”

  “No! I gave him my magic, so he could fight the Humdrum off. It was like a spell. The Humdrum was there, Penny, looking like me again—and he talked to me this time. In my voice. He watched us. And then … then he just disappeared. What if he stole the magic at Baz’s house out of spite? Because I beat him?”

  Penny keeps biting her lip. “I still don’t understand why you had a tail.…”

  “I—I needed to get out of there.” I’ve got my hands in my hair. I try to remember it, clearly, how it happened. “When Baz was himself again, we walked out of the forest right into a dead spot. His parents were freaking out, and Baz told me to go. So … I did. I didn’t have any other way to get here.”

  “So you flew.”

  “Yeah.”

  She looks more worried than I’ve ever seen her outside of a kidnapping situation. “What spell did you cast, Simon?”

  “Penny … It was just like last time. I didn’t cast any spell. I just—I did what I needed to do.”

  She’s watching herself wring her hands in her lap.

  “Penny?”

  “Yeah?” She doesn’t look up.

  “What should I do?

  She sighs. “I don’t know, Simon. Maybe Agatha’s right.” She finally meets my eyes. “Maybe it is time to talk to the Mage.”

  * * *

  Penny decides we should eat lunch first. Late lunch. I’ve been sacked out most of the day.

  Her parents are gone, and there’s nothing in the fridge but a raw turkey. Penny doesn’t trust herself to spell it cooked, so we eat cereal and toast and Christmas sweets.

  Her little sister wanders in. “You’re the reason that Father Christmas didn’t come,” she says to me. “You scared him off.”

  “Father Christmas will come, Priya,” Penny says. There are five kids in their family: Premal, Penny, Pacey, Priya, and Pip. (Penny says her mother should be charged for child cruelty, and her father for neglect.)

  “Father Christmas is a lie,” Pacey calls from the living room. “So is God.”

  I don’t know Pacey well. He’s at Watford, year five, but he and Penny don’t get on. Penny and her siblings all argue constantly. I’m not sure they know how to communicate any other way.

  I still feel terrible: cold and wet, even though I’m perfectly dry and wearing some of Pacey’s clothes. (I woke up in ladies’ trackie bottoms.) And even though I couldn’t feel that weird dragon tail when I had it, now that it’s gone, it kind of aches. My Weetabix keep lurching up my throat, and I swallow them down hard.

  I’m trying not to worry or think about what I should do next. Penny’s right—we’ll go to the Mage. The Mage will tell us.

  When someone knocks at the door, I think it must be him. Priya goes for it, and Penny stops her. I stand up and summon my blade, just to be safe.

  It’s Baz.

  Standing on Penny’s doorstep, wearing that greenish black suit again and smelling faintly of smoke. His hand is in his pocket, and his eyes are narrow. He tilts up his chin. “Let me in, Bunce. There’s no time for pleasantries.”

  “Don’t you have to be invited in?” she says.

  He sneers, and she waves him in. “Come on.”

  Baz shoves past her and looks around the living room. “Where’s your dad’s office?”

  “My dad isn’t here—he’s at your house. And what makes you think I’d let you in his office? Why are you even here?”

  “I’m here,” Baz says, looking over at me, then looking me up and down, “because we have an agreement.”

  Penelope steps between us. “If you make a single move towards Simon—even a gesture—in my house, I will slaughter your whole family, Basilton. I’ll kill them so hard, they won’t even be able to find the Veil. Simon didn’t do this.”

  He sneers at her some more. “That’s where you’re wrong—show me your father’s office. Are there maps? I’m assuming there are maps.”

  We both stare at him. Me, because I can’t help it. Penny, in shock.

  “Truce!” he says. “Come on, we’re still on truce. Make haste!”

  I nod. “Come on, Penny. Take us up.”

  She sighs and unfolds her arms. “Fine, but you can’t touch anything up there. Either of you.”

  We follow her up the stairs. Baz knocks against me with his shoulder and elbow. “All right, Snow?” he asks softly.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Fine,” he says.

  “Your magic?” I whisper.

  “Fine.”

  He touches my back so lightly, I’m not sure it’s not an accident.

  We take the last step up into the attic, where Penny’s dad works. I’ve never been up here before—the whole room is maps. Maps on the walls, covered with string and pins. Maps spread out on high tables, held in place by empty tea mugs. One entire wall is a blackboard, filled with numbers and sentence fragments.

  “Lovely,” Baz says. “You come by it honestly, Bunce.”

  He walks around the room until he finds what he’s looking for. “There,” he says. “Already labelled.” I step up behind him. It’s a map of the South East with a red string around Hampshire. The flag on the pin says, CHRISTMAS EVE 2015.

  “Last night, the Humdrum attacked Simon—and the biggest hole in Britain opened up.” He glances back at us. “When did the dragon attack Watford? What day?”

  I shrug.

  “It was after our Magic Words exam,” Penny says. “The middle of November.”

  “Right…” Baz walks around the room, reading the flags. He stops in front of a map of Scotland. “There,” he says. “November fifteenth. The Isle of Skye.”

  “Are you saying that the Humdrum is linked to the holes?” Penny asks. “Because we already knew that.”

  “I’m getting there, Bunce.… Now, when did the holes first appear?”

  “Do we really have to do this by Socratic method?”

  Baz frowns at her.

  Penny sighs. “Nobody really knows. We didn’t start documenting the holes until 1998, but there were small ones all over the country by then—”

  He nods quickly, cutting her off. “And when were you born, Simon? You’d think I’d know, but I can’t remember you ever celebrating your birthday.”

  I shrug again. Then clear my throat. “I don’t know. I mean … Nobody knows. They just guessed when they found me.”

  “But you’re probably eighteen now. Maybe nineteen?”

  “They put 1997 on my papers.”

  Baz nods. “Good—1997, shortly before the holes were discovered. And when did you realize you were a magician?”

  Penny’s paying attention now. She and I have never talked about this. I don’t like to talk about this.

  “I didn’t realize it,” I say. “The Mage told me.”

  Baz is pinning me to the wall with his eyes. “But how did the Mage know? How did he find you?”

  I clear my throat. “I went off.” They both know what that means. But I didn’t, not at 11. I woke up in the middle of the night, during a vicious nightmare—I’d gone to bed hungry, and in my dream, my stomach was on fire. I woke up, breathless, and magic was pouring out of me. Blasting out. The children’s home was burnt to the ground, and everyone in it woke up streets away. Unharmed, but still, streets away. (Once I watched a show about tornadoes in America, and they showed furniture that had been picked up and set in a yard miles away without breaking. It was like that.)

  “You lit up the magickal atmosphere like a Christmas tree,” Baz says.

  “Like a carpet bomb,�
� Penny chimes in. “My mum actually threw up when it happened.”

  “When?” Baz says. “When did it happen?”

  “August,” I say. I know he already knows this. “The year we started school.”

  “August,” Baz says, “2008.” He walks around the room. “Here,” he says, pointing at a dead spot on the map. “And here.” He points at another.

  Penny and I stare at the map.

  Then she steps forward. She points at a string circle. “And in Newcastle…,” she says softly. “And a bunch of tiny ones on the coast. The holes changed that year. My dad says they metastasized.”

  “But—but I wasn’t any of those places!” I sputter. “I’ve never been at the site of a new dead spot before last night.”

  Baz turns to me. “I don’t think you have to be there. To make it happen.”

  “Simon,” Penny asks, “when did you go off on the chimera?”

  “Our fifth year,” Baz says. “Spring 2013.”

  “Here,” Penny says, pointing. “And a big one over there.”

  “Are you saying I’m the Humdrum?” I step away from them. “Because I’m not the Humdrum.”

  Baz meets my eyes. “I know. I know you’re not. But Simon, listen. The Humdrum told us—he said he doesn’t take the magic, that he’s ‘what’s left when you’re done.’”

  “I don’t even know what that means, Baz!” I feel like I might go off right now. My fingertips are buzzing.

  “It means, the Humdrum doesn’t take the magic, Simon—you do.”

  Penny gasps. “Simon. The first time you went off, you were eleven years old—”

  “Exactly,” Baz says. “Probably wearing a shitty T-shirt and cast-off jeans—and bouncing that bloody ball.”

  They’re looking at each other now. “Simon went off,” Penny says, “and he sucked up so much magic—”

  Baz nods eagerly.

  “—he tore a hole in the magickal atmosphere!” Penny says.

  “A Simon-shaped hole…,” Baz agrees.

  I hold my head in both hands, but it still doesn’t make sense. “Are you saying I created an evil twin?”

  “More of an impression,” Baz says.

  “Or an echo,” Penny says, still awestruck.

  Baz tries to explain it again: “It’s like you tore so much magic out at once, you left fingerprints.… Whole-being prints.”

  “But—,” I say.

  “But…” Penny shakes her head. “Why didn’t the magickal atmosphere just accommodate Simon the way it accommodates every powerful magician? It’s a balanced system.”

  “So is the earth,” Baz says, “but if you clear-cut a forest, the ecosystem doesn’t just bounce back.”

  “This doesn’t make sense!” I say. “Even if I did tear a me-shaped hole, how did it come alive? And why is it a monster?”

  “Is it alive?” Penny asks.

  “And is it a monster?” Baz wonders.

  “We’re talking about the Insidious Humdrum!” I shout.

  “We’re talking about a hole,” Baz says calmly. “Think about it. What do holes want?”

  “To be filled?” I guess. I know I’m not keeping up.

  “Crowley, no,” he says. “To grow. Everything wants to grow. If you were a hole, all you’d want is to get bigger.”

  “That’s it, Baz!” Penny throws her arms around him. “You’re a genius!”

  He shoves her off after a second. “Careful. I’m also a vampire.”

  I slump against one of the walls; a few pins fall to the floor. “I still don’t get it.”

  “Simon,” Penny says, “you’re too powerful. You use too much magic at once. The magickal atmosphere can’t take it—it just collapses when you go off.”

  “Theoretically,” Baz says.

  “Theoretically,” she agrees.

  “But…,” I say. There must be more “but’s.” “Why does the Humdrum keep trying to kill me? Why send every dark creature in the UK after me?”

  “He isn’t trying to kill you,” Baz says. “He’s trying to get you to go off.”

  “And use more magic,” Penny says.

  Baz holds his hand up to the maps behind him. “To make a bigger hole.”

  I stare at them.

  They stare at me.

  They still seem so proud of themselves—and excited—as if they’re not staring at the greatest threat the magickal world has ever known.

  “We have to tell the Mage,” I say.

  Baz’s face falls. “Over my dead body.”

  75

  BAZ

  “If this is true,” Snow says, “if even a little bit of it is true—we can’t keep it a secret. We have to go to the Mage.”

  I knew this was coming.

  I knew this would be his solution.

  I’ve known from the beginning that Simon would go running for the Mage when things got serious.

  “The fuck we do,” I say. “We have to go to the numpties.”

  “The numpties,” Snow says. As if he can’t believe what I’m saying. “You just told me that I’m destroying the World of Mages, and now you want to go numpty hunting?”

  “We have an agreement,” I remind him. I try to sound urgent, not desperate.

  Snow looks at me funny—like maybe I’m talking about how we’re boyfriends now. As if that even matters anymore.

  I sigh bitterly. “Not that agreement, you twit—you promised to help me find my mother’s killer.”

  “I will help you find your mother’s killer,” Snow says, “after we figure out how to stop this.” His head falls back. “Maybe. I mean. If I’m still alive then, if the Mage doesn’t decide the answer is just ending me.”

  “Simon,” Bunce admonishes.

  “He’ll have to get in line,” I say, “once my family finds out what’s happening—once the whole World of Mages finds out. The Old Families already think you and the Mage are scheming to take their magic. The person who takes you out will be given a crown.”

  “Baz,” Penny says.

  “I suppose you think it will be you,” Snow says, narrowing his eyes.

  “We have a truce,” I say, my voice rising. “The shit has already hit the fan, and if we don’t solve my mother’s murder now, we never will. And you promised, Simon. I promised.”

  “There are more important things to worry about right now!” Snow shouts at me.

  “Nothing is more important than my mother!”

  76

  BAZ

  I only remember where the numpties live because Fiona said, “Christ, what a mess, and right under Blackfriars Bridge—this city has gone straight to hell,” when she was dragging me to her car.

  It doesn’t take long to get to Blackfriars from Hounslow. It’s Christmas Day, and there’s no one out. I park the car and clear a path in the snow to the head of the bridge.

  I’m starting to feel a bit panicky.

  I know I shouldn’t have come alone, but anyone I could have asked for help would have dragged me back to the matter at hand—the fact that my family is now magickally homeless. Even Fiona wouldn’t have listened to me today.

  Simon and Penny are back to saving the day. Or destroying it. Maybe both. That’s all right; I always knew where I stood with Simon—just below the rest of the world. And far, far below the Mage.

  All right. It’s all right.

  I’m afraid—but that’s reasonable. You try going back to the place where you were kept in a coffin until you couldn’t remember what light looked like.

  But I’m in a better position than I was last time. I’m conscious, for one. I have my wand. And my wits about me.

  The door to the numpties’ lair is easy to find—it’s basically just a hole in the pilings. I slide down some mud, and my stomach churns at the smell. Wet paper and decay. I’m in the right place.

  It’s too dark down here even for me to see, so I hold my hand and start a fire in my palm, illuminating a circle of nothing around me.

  I let the flame
s grow larger … and see a lot more nothing. I’m in a chamber full of debris. Hunks of pavement. Large stones. None of it’s familiar; I was unconscious when I was brought here and mostly unconscious when I left. I don’t even really know what the numpties look like.

  I clear my throat. Nothing happens.

  I clear it again. “My name is Basilton Pitch,” I call out loudly. “I’m here to ask you a question.”

  One of the big rocky things starts to tremble. I hold the fire in its direction. And my wand.

  The big rocky thing opens like a Transformer into a bigger rocky thing that seems to be wearing a giant oatmeal-coloured jumper. “You,” it rumbles in a voice like roadworks.

  It’s a familiar rumble. I feel the walls closing in on me, and my mouth tastes like stale blood. (Blood’s thicker when it stales; it clots.)

  “You,” the thing says. “You killed some of us.”

  “Well, you kidnapped me,” I say. “Remember?”

  “Didn’t kill you,” it says. There are more of the things now, ca-runching around me. I don’t see where they’re coming from, but there does seem to be less debris lying around. I try to make out their faces—everything about them is yellow-grey on yellow-grey. They’re like piles of wet cement.

  “You were well on your way to killing me,” I say, “but that’s not why I’m here. I came to talk to you.”

  I’m surrounded by them now. It’s like standing inside a stone circle.

  “Don’t like talk,” one rattles out. It might be the one in the jumper again. Or it might be this one, right next to me, wearing an electric blanket, the plug dragging behind it on the ground.

  “Too cold to talk,” another growls. “Time to rest.”

  That’s right, I forgot. Numpties hibernate. I must have woken them. “You can rest,” I say. “I’ll leave you. Just tell me this one thing.…”

  They rumble to themselves.

  “Who sent you after me?”

  The numpties don’t answer. I feel like they’re moving closer to me, even though I can’t see it happening.

  “Who sent you to take me?” I shout. I’m holding my wand in the air, my arm coiled back behind my shoulder. Maybe I should already be casting spells at this point, but killing them won’t bring me answers. And what if they fight back?