Enchanted Glass

“Oh, you don’t have to do the polite,” Stashe protested. “Let’s get on and talk business — or don’t you approve after all, Dad?”

“Oh, I like him well enough,” Tarquin said. “But I don’t think the professor quite wants us. Bit of a recluse, aren’t you?” he said to Andrew.

“Yes,” said Andrew, taken aback.

Aidan hooked his glasses across one knee, drank his coffee and stared, fascinated. To his naked eyes, here were three strongly magical people. He had been right to think leprechaun about the brave, shrewd little man with one leg. He almost was one. He was full of gifts. But quite what that made Stashe into, Aidan could not tell. She was so warm. And direct as a sunray.

“Oh, do cut the cackle, both of you!” she was saying now. “I’d make you a good secretary, Professor Hope. I’ve every possible qualification, including magical. Dad’s taught me magic. He’s quite a power, is Dad. Why don’t you take me on for a week’s trial, no strings, no bad feelings if we don’t suit?”

“I — er…” said Andrew. “I suppose I hesitate because I already have two strong-minded employees. And there’s money—”

Stashe put her head back and laughed at the ceiling beams. “Those Stocks,” she said. “Don’t like change, either of them. They’ll come round. Meanwhile, say yes or no, do. I’ve told you how much I’d charge. If you can’t afford it, say no; if you can, say yes. I think you’ll find I’m worth it. And then you can get back to this poor kid sitting here eating his heart out with worry.”

All three turned to look at Aidan.

Tarquin, who had evidently been watching Aidan all along without seeming to look, said, “In several kinds of trouble, aren’t you, sonny?” Stashe gave Aidan a blinding smile, and Andrew shot Aidan a startled look that said, “Oh dear. As bad as that.” Tarquin added, “Who’s chasing you, as of now?”

“Social workers, I suppose. They may have brought the police in by now,” Aidan found himself answering. The little man was really powerful. Aidan had meant to stop there, but he seemed compelled to go on. “And at least three lots of Stalkers. Two lots of them had some kind of fight in the foster family’s garden the night before last. The Arkwrights called the police, but the sergeant said it was probably cats. It wasn’t though. We all saw shadowy sort of — people. They disappear by daylight. That’s why I ran away at sunrise this morning.”

There was a short silence, then Andrew said, “Aidan’s grandmother died last week and told him before she died to come to Jocelyn Brandon if he was in trouble. And of course my grandfather is dead too.”

After another short silence, Stashe said, “Have some more coffee.”

“And give him another biscuit,” Tarquin added. “Had any breakfast, did you?”

Aidan thought he was going to cry again. He managed to stop himself by saying, “I had money for a bacon sandwich.”

“Good,” said Tarquin. “These Stalkers. Haunts, were they? That sort of thing?”

Aidan nodded. “Three kinds. They seemed to know exactly where I was.”

“Difficult,” said Tarquin. “You can’t really expect the police to be much help there. You need to hide, sonny, to my mind. My house has not got as much protection as this one has, but you’d be welcome to stay with me. I could use the help.”

Before Aidan could say anything, Stashe gave her father a scornful look and bounced out of her chair. “Yes, Dad,” she said. “I can just see you trying to fight a bunch of haunts by waving one crutch at them! We need a proper decision here. There must be a way to keep the kid safe. Is that today’s paper I see there?”

Andrew, who was holding the biscuits out to Aidan and slowly coming to his own decision, looked vaguely round and said, “Mrs Stock did bring the paper in here I think.”

Stashe was already pulling the newspaper out from under the tray. She tossed most of it impatiently on the floor among the history pamphlets and took out the sports section, which she spread out. “Where do they put the racing results in this rag? Oh, here, right at the end. Let’s see. Kempton, Warwick, Lingfield, Leicester — lots to choose from. What won the first race at Kempton then? I always go to the first one they give.”

Aidan and Andrew both stared at her. “Why do you want to know?” they said, almost together.

“Advice,” said Stashe. “Predictions. I always use the racing results as an oracle. I do first race and last in the first track on the list, and then the last race in the last one.”

“You can’t be serious!” said Aidan.

“Works for her,” Tarquin said, perfectly seriously. “I’ve never known her fail.”

“Oh, look here!” Andrew said. “A horse that won yesterday, far away from here, can’t have anything to do with—”

He stopped as Stashe read out, “The two-oh-five at Kempton: first, Dark Menace, second, Runaway, third, Sanctuary. That seems to outline the situation pretty well, doesn’t it? Last race now. First, Aidan’s Hope, second, Hideaway, third, The Professor. I think that settles it. Professor Hope, he has to stay here with you.”

Andrew was sure that Stashe was making the names up. “I don’t believe this!” he said and took the paper off her. But they were all there, in print, just as she had read them out.

“Read out the last race at Leicester now,” Tarquin said to him. “She uses that as the clincher.”

Andrew moved the paper along and his eyes widened. He read out, in a fading, astonished voice, “First, Real Danger, second, Flight to Hope, third, Eustacia’s Way. Look here,” he said, “most horses have names like Bahajan King, or Lord Hannibal, or something in Arabic. What do you do when one of those comes up?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” Stashe said sunnily. “Depending if one of those without meaning comes first, second or third, they give you a question mark to the prophecy or advice. They say, ‘This might work’ or ‘This is the best I can tell you’ — things like that.”

This girl is mad, Andrew thought. Barking. But I do need help with the computer.

“She’s quite sane,” Tarquin put in helpfully.

Andrew’s mouth opened to contradict this. But at that moment Mrs Stock put her face round the door. “Here’s our Shaun,” she announced. “And you’re employing him as handyman here. If you don’t and you hire that Stashe instead, I’m leaving and you can just find yourself another housekeeper!”

Everyone stared at her. Trying not to laugh, Andrew took his glasses off and slowly cleaned them with his handkerchief. “Don’t tempt me, Mrs Stock,” he said. “Don’t tempt me.”

Mrs Stock bridled. “Is that a jo —?” she began. Then it dawned on her that it might not be a joke. She gave Andrew a slanting, upwards look. “Well, anyway,” she said, “this is our Shaun.” She pushed a bulky young man into the room.

Shaun was probably about eighteen. It took Andrew — and Aidan too — only a glance to see that Shaun was what people in Melstone called “a bit in the head” or, Aidan thought, what the Arkwrights would call “mentally challenged”. His face and body were fat in that way that showed that his body was trying to make up for his brain. His eyes looked tight round the edges. He stood there, perplexed and embarrassed at the way everyone was looking at him, and twisted his plump thumbs in his T-shirt, ashamed.

“He can do most things,” Mrs Stock asserted, pushing her way in after Shaun. “Provided you explain them to him first.”

Mr Stock had been prudently lurking outside the study windows to see how Stashe got on. Now he stuck his face, and his hat, through the nearest opening. “I am not,” he said, “having that lummock-de-troll glunching about this place! Trod on all my tomatoes he did, last year.”

And suddenly everyone was shouting at one another.

Shaun gave vent to a great tenor bellow. “Was not my fault, so!” Stashe shouted at her uncle to keep his nose out of things, and then turned and shouted at Mrs Stock. Mrs Stock shouted back, shriller and shriller, defending Shaun and telling Stashe to keep her bossy, managing face out of Professor Hope’s business. Tarquin bounced in his chair and yelled that he was not going to sit there to hear his daughter insulted, while Mr Stock kept up a rolling boom, like a big bass drum, and seemed to be insulting everyone.

Aidan had never heard anything like this. He sat back in his hard chair and kept his mouth shut. Andrew rolled his eyes. Finally, he put his glasses back on and marched to his desk where he found his long, round, old-fashioned ruler, swung it back and banged it violently against the side of his computer. CLANG!

The shouting stopped. Andrew took his glasses off again, in order not to see the incredulous way they all looked at him.

“Thank you,” Andrew said. “If you’ve all quite finished arranging my affairs for me, I shall now tell you what I have decided. Shaun, you can work here for a week’s trial.” He was sorry for Shaun and he thought a week wouldn’t hurt anyone. “That suit you?” he asked. Shaun gave him a relieved, eager nod. “And you, Stashe,” Andrew went on, “since you know your way around computers, you can come for a month’s trial. I need a database set up and a lot of documents tapped in and something’s gone wrong with this computer.” Probably a lot more, he thought, now that he had hit the thing. “Is that OK?”

Mrs Stock glowered. Stashe, looking perky and triumphant, said, “I can do Tuesdays, Fridays and Mondays. When do I start?”

“She works down the Stables on the other days,” Tarquin explained.

“Then start tomorrow,” Andrew said. “Nine-thirty.”

Aidan was greatly relieved. Up to now he had thought Andrew was the kind of person that everyone pushed about.

“Mr Stock,” Andrew continued, “I’m sure you have work to do. And Mrs Stock, can you make up the bed in the front spare room, please? Aidan will be staying here until we can sort out what he ought to do.”

“Oh, thanks!” Aidan gasped. He could hardly breathe, he was so relieved and grateful.

Chapter Three (#ulink_45ef4ee2-a5db-5697-9ff9-60b5307abcbf)