Royal Institute of Magic: Elizabeth's Legacy (2 page)

He grabbed the chair and with a
giant heave swung it into the glass frame. There was an almighty
crash and the sword fell to the floor, along with shards of glass.

He picked up the weapon. Before
the guard had time to investigate the noise, Michael ran to the
double doors, grabbed the iron handle and disappeared through them.

Present Day

Ben
Greenwood sees the two police cars from the top of the hill, parked
on either side of his dad’s Mini Cooper. He stops and squints,
searching for anything that might explain their presence. He’s
not concerned they might be there because of his parents; they’re
the last people who would ever get in trouble with the law.
Nevertheless, he starts jogging down the hill, eager to get home and
find out if they know what’s going on.

He is almost at the driveway when he sees the shattered front window.

Their
shattered front window.

Ben
stops, as if his jogging is somehow impairing his vision. It can’t
be his house. But next to the broken window is the yellow front door,
painted with the number 68. He leaps down the driveway, practically
crashing through the entrance.

Ben’s
run comes to a shuddering halt in the hallway, as he stares in horror
at the scene before him. It looks like a bomb has exploded. The coat
rack, ordinarily piled with clothes, is empty. Jackets and hats flung
across the floor, along with enough shoes to cover the carpet. Ben
picks his way through the mess and enters a lounge from hell.

The
furniture is upended, including a glass table lying shattered on the
floor. Broken photo frames lie strewn across the room, shards of
glass sprinkling the carpet.

Ben’s
attention to the devastation lasts only a moment; there are people in
the room – lots of people, making lots of noise.

He
feels dizzy watching everyone. Is this real or just a dream? Is this
even his house? There are police officers and people in suits tearing
around the place as if someone has hidden the crown jewels. The
cacophony of stampeding feet and shouting voices creates an energy in
the air that sets Ben’s hair on end. He stands there, lost in
the maelstrom until one of the police officers spots him.

“You okay, son?” the officer asks, tapping him on the shoulder.

The touch snaps Ben out of his stupor.

“Are my parents here?”

The officer curses under his breath and turns to the others in the room.

“Jamie! The son’s arrived. Get over here!”

*

Something soft and fluffy
connected with Ben’s head and his dream came to an abrupt end.

“Charles, you’d
better be up – it’s 8:20am!”

There was the sound of shuffling
feet and then another voice, this one far closer. The pillow hit him
again.

“Wake up, Ben,”
Charlie said. “My worthless alarm didn’t go off again.
You need to get out of here before my mum comes in!”

Ben sat up, still half asleep,
and rubbed his back. There was something about Charlie’s
bedroom floor that always made it ache.

“Don’t make me come
upstairs, Charles Hornberger!”

Charlie’s mum sounded like
she was holding a megaphone, her voice penetrating through doors as
if they didn’t exist.

“I’m coming!”
Charlie shouted back with nearly as much gusto.

Charlie was trying to put on his
trousers, hopping on alternate feet, like a waddling penguin. His
large cheeks rippled with every jump and his tongue was thrust out –
a reminder that coordination was not Charlie’s strong suit.

“Please get a move on, Ben.
You know my mum will go mental if she finds you here on a school
night,” Charlie said, panting a little from the constant
hopping.

“I thought she was already
mental.”

Charlie was too freaked out to
appreciate the joke.

“Relax, Charlie,” Ben
said. “I’m practically ready.”

He threw on his school clothes
and walked into Charlie’s en-suite bathroom. He took a moment
to make sure his mop of blond hair was ruffled enough to look good
without being messy and then washed his face, inspecting it hopefully
for a sign of facial hair in the mirror – nothing doing. Ben
wiped the sleep from his dark blue eyes. He could never understand
how they looked so bright despite his lack of sleep, though he didn’t
complain. His eyes had got him into, and out of, more trouble than he
could remember.

A sudden thumping noise made Ben
freeze. Someone was coming up the stairs.

“Right, that’s it.
I’m throwing you out of bed!”

Ben left the bathroom and saw
Charlie with his mouth agape and eyes wide with horror.

“Stall her, would you,
Charlie?” Ben asked, giving his friend a pat on the shoulder as
he moved toward the bedroom window. He grabbed his backpack, slung it
over his shoulder and pushed the window open. He stuck one leg out
and turned back to Charlie, who was looking increasingly terrified.

“I can’t stall her,”
Charlie replied in a fierce whisper, his face swiftly resembling a
ripe tomato. “A loaded machine gun wouldn’t stall her.”

The footsteps got louder as she
marched up the stairs. Ben thought he could hear Charlie’s mum
breathing behind the door, like a raging bull about to charge. He
hung both legs out the window. There was an apple tree outside and he
focused on the exact spot his feet would have to hit to make a safe
landing.

He gave one last look to Charlie
who was waving frantically at him to go.

“Remember my breakfast,”
Ben said with a smile and a little salute. “I like my eggs over
easy.”

Ben jumped just as he heard the
door being thrown open. He landed with a soft thud on the trunk and
quickly climbed down until he was safely in Charlie’s back
garden. He sneaked a look through the kitchen windows and saw
Charlie’s dad eating breakfast, his back turned. Ben sprinted
to a hedge that ran along the side of the garden, keeping as low as
possible. He got onto his hands and knees and squeezed through a tiny
gap in the bushes, ignoring the scratchy branches, and re-appeared in
the adjacent garden. The Lamberts, Charlie’s neighbours, were
early risers and their place was always empty. He dusted himself off
and walked round the side of their house. Jumping over the gate, he
walked up their driveway and on to the pavement. There he merged with
the other kids making their way to school.

At the corner of the road Ben
stopped and leant against a large tree to wait for Charlie. Several
of the boys, some a year or two older, stopped and asked if he were
playing any football over the summer. The girls in his class smiled
and waved as they passed.

All of them would have woken up
in their comfy beds, probably eaten cooked breakfasts and then would
have been nagged out the door by their mums. Ben never thought he’d
miss the nagging.

Charlie turned up moments later,
holding a sandwich in his hands.

“I didn’t have time
to do eggs, so you’ll have to settle for peanut butter and jam.
Unfortunately, it’s not up to my usual standard, as my mum
kicked me out before I could finish. She thinks I have an eating
problem.”

“It’s perfect,
Charlie, thanks,” Ben said, taking the sandwich and attacking
it with relish.

They started their journey to
school, walking through well-kept but uninspiring neighbourhoods
filled with neat flower beds and silver hatchbacks.

Ben’s dream came drifting
back despite his best efforts to forget it.

“Seventeen days,” he
said, his voice tinged with frustration.

Charlie groaned. “I was
sure you’d got rid of it this time.”

“So was I,” Ben said,
kicking a pebble.

Ben mentally put the counter back
at zero. Seventeen days without having the dream had been a record
and he’d begun to believe it had finally gone. Two years was a
long time to have a recurring dream, but maybe that was normal when
it was based on such a traumatic experience. Was it really two years
since his parents disappeared? He was almost fifteen now, so it must
be. Ben still remembered the weeks after they vanished as if it were
yesterday. Every time someone came in the house, every time the phone
rang, every letter they received, Ben thought it would be his parents
explaining where they had gone and why. But after a few months he had
stopped rushing downstairs to collect the mail and he had stopped
asking his grandma “Who called?” every time she hung up
the phone. Then the nightmares had begun and he had to relive the
incident every night.

“Speaking of which,”
Charlie said, “I have some news. Guess who emailed me this
morning?”

There was something about
Charlie’s voice – it was too casual. Charlie was never
casual.

“Someone important, judging
by the way you’re trying to stay relaxed but look as if you’re
about to burst.”

Charlie slapped his thigh in
frustration. “How do you do that calm look? You need to teach
me.”

“Impossible, Charlie, with
your hamster-like face. So who emailed?”

“The textile expert!”
Charlie raised his arms as if he’d just scored. “We even
agreed a price that doesn’t involve selling one of my kidneys.
Best of all, he’s based up in London so we don’t have to
ship it – we can travel there ourselves. I know you were
concerned about that. He’s really good. If he can’t
answer our question, nobody can.”

Ben suppressed his excitement in
a manner Charlie had failed to do moments earlier. There had been too
many false leads already to get his hopes up. Charlie, though, seemed
oblivious to the dozen experts they’d already gone through.

In Ben’s left pocket was a
small piece of fabric that he ran between his fingers. Ben knew the
feel of the fabric down to the last stitch. He pulled it out and
admired it as he had done a thousand times before. As always, he was
struck by its beauty. It was no bigger than a handkerchief, but it
was the colour and texture that stood out, not the size. It
constantly shifted colours to match its surroundings. Right now it
was light brown and blended in perfectly with Ben’s hand. As
soon as he moved it against his trousers, it turned black.

He still remembered finding the
fabric hidden amongst the wreckage of their house after the police
had gone. It was his one link to the crime scene and he’d never
told anyone in case they took the swatch away. Ben felt certain it
was a unique piece of material and a valuable clue. The only problem:
it was too unique – nobody had ever seen it before and, though
he had lots of offers to buy it, nobody could tell him anything about
it.

“Sounds good, Charlie.
Let’s see him this weekend.”

“Already booked,”
Charlie said, rubbing his hands together and grinning.

Ben had a sudden thought. “How
much is he going to cost?”

Charlie’s grin vanished.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m paying.”

Ben shook his head and wagged his
finger. “I’m paying at least half. How much is he
charging? And don’t even think about lying to me.”

Charlie stared at him and sighed.
“It’s £100 for a fifteen-minute consultation.”

Ben cringed. “Wow –
does that include breakfast?”

“Very funny, Ben. This guy
is a professional; he’s worth it.”

“I hope so,” Ben
said, “because I’ll need to take an extra paper round for
this.” There was a little pause and he grabbed a handful of his
blond hair. “Can we pay him at a later date? Because I’m
a little short right now. Otherwise, we might have to postpone it.”

Charlie rolled his eyes and threw
his arms up in the air in a fit of theatrics.

“Come on, Ben,” he
said. “I’m sorry, but you can’t even afford a place
to live while you’re down here for school. You are
not
”
– Charlie stamped his foot – “paying for this.”

Ben was torn between stubborn
refusal and amusement at Charlie’s little drama show. Down
here was Dukinfield, a little town in West Sussex and home until his
parents had disappeared. A wealthy family had agreed to take him in
afterwards and he had spent his weekdays in Sussex at school and his
weekends up in Croydon with his grandma. It was the perfect
arrangement, until last year when the family moved abroad. He had
asked around, but none of his other friends’ parents could
afford to let him stay. Ben, however, wasn’t deterred. Rather
than tell his grandma, he took living arrangements into his own
hands. He had enough close friends, so why not sleep over on a
rotating schedule? It was perfect – none of the parents would
suspect a thing as he’d only ever stay at the same house once
per week. Unfortunately, Ben hadn’t accounted for the secret
pact between mums – no weekday sleepovers. This made things
trickier, but Ben still managed two or three nights a week at
someone’s with their parents’ permission. The other
nights, like the last, were slightly more adventurous.

“I’m going to pay you
back,” Ben said. “I’m getting some extra work this
holiday.”

Summer holidays were right round
the corner and Ben was grateful that this was the last Monday at
school for several weeks.

With the trip to the textile
expert and end of term on the horizon, the final week of school
dragged on forever. When Friday eventually arrived, Ben slept over at
Charlie’s again and the following morning they were on the bus
heading up to London.

“Do we really have to
detour to your grandma’s?” Charlie asked.

“It’s hardly a
detour, we pass right through Croydon. I just need to drop my stuff
off.”

“Will the devil be home?”

“My grandma is not the
devil,” Ben said, smiling despite the insult. “Besides,
isn’t the devil a male?”

“I thought so until I met
your grandma. Could you tell her to stop calling me Fatty?”

“You could stand to lose a
little weight.”

“My mum says it’s
just baby fat,” Charlie said a little defensively.