There was a stunned silence in the annex. It was broken a few moments later by Septimus, who gasped, "The bridgeit's on fire!"
Nicko turned his attention from Jenna, who was sitting with her hand clasped over the small circular burn that Sleuth had left on her arm, and followed Septimus's gaze. Flames were flickering from the charred hole that Sleuth had made in the bridge, and as they watched, the dry, old, wooden bridge suddenly erupted in a ball of fire and fell six floors down to the ground with a crash.
"Uh-oh..." said Septimus.
"Rats," muttered Nicko.
"It's nothing to do with rats," Stanley protested. "It's all because of that Mr. Heap, if you ask me. And I don't know what old Nursie's going to say about her bridge going up in flames either."
"Bother what old Nursie has to say about it," Nicko retorted. "That's the least of our worries. Have you forgotten where we are?"
"Stuck at the top of the headquarters of the Port Witch Coven," said Septimus glumly.
"Exactly," muttered Nicko.
Another silence fell. Wolf Boy shoved his burned hands under his arms and looked preoccupied. He was doing a slow dance from foot to foot, trying to take his mind off how much they were hurting. Jenna shook herself out of her own worries and went over to him.
"Are they bad?" she asked. Wolf Boy nodded, gritting his teeth.
"We ought to bandage you up," Jenna said. "Protect your hands. Here." She unwound the gold silk sash she wore around her waist and, using her teeth to start it off, she tore the sash in half.
Septimus and Nicko watched Jenna carefully wrap the gold silk around Wolf Boy's burned hands. But their minds were elsewhere, trying to think of a way to get out of the witches' house.
"Listen," said Septimus in a low voice.
"What?" whispered Nicko. Jenna and Wolf Boy looked up anxiously. What had Septimus heard?
"Can you hear anything?" muttered Septimus.
There was a tense silence while everyone listened forwhat? Footsteps outside the door? Simon Heap at the window? Nurse Meredith discovering her bridge had been burned to cinders? After a few minutes, Nicko whispered, "I can't hear anything, Sep."
"Exactly. Nothing."
"Oh, Sep," protested Nicko. "We thought you'd heard something. Don't do that again, okay?"
"But that's it, don't you see? The bridge fell down with a great crash into their backyard and the witches haven't stirred. Not a peep. Nothing. It's dawn and now they must have gone to bed. Marcia says that Darke Witches usually sleep all day and do their stuff at night. So we can just walk out. Easy."
"Oh, yeah, easy to walk all the way through a creaky old house stuffed full of traps and witches waiting to grab you and change you into a toad and then even easier to get out their front door which, I'll bet, is Barred with something nasty. Easy-peasy."
Jenna looked up from finishing off Wolf Boy's hands. "There's no need to be so grumpy, Nik. We don't have any choice anyway. We have to get out through the witches' house. Unless you want to jump the twenty-foot gap back to that creepy house full of dolls."
A few minutes later they were standing in the dingy, cobweb-strewn passageway outside the annex. Nicko was invisible. He was using his Silent Unseen Spell that, with Septimus's help, he had eventually managed to get right, after much prompting"No, Nik, it's Not seen, not heard, not a whisper, not a word. And you have to imagine it too. It's no good just rattling it off like a demented parrot." So far the spell seemed to have workedat least they had managed to get out of the room without activating the Creak on the door. Jenna and Septimus both had an Unseen Spell, which was not silent, but they had decided not to use it. It did not seem fair to leave only Wolf Boy visible to the witches.
They stood uncertainly outside the annex door, wondering which way to go; it was difficult to work out which way led up and which went down. The Port Witches were great home-improvement enthusiastsalthough improvement was not the word most people would have used to describe the results of their efforts. Over the years the Coven had turned the house into a warren of dead-end corridors and twisted staircases that usually ended in midair or dropped you out of a window. There were doors that opened into rooms where the witches had taken the floors out and not got around to putting them back; there were dripping pipes sticking out of the walls and at every step a rotten floorboard threatened to snap and send you plunging to the floor below. Added to the home improvements were the Blights, Banes and Bothers that infested the house and were designed to trip up any unwary intruder.
A small blue Bother was hanging from the ceiling by a string just outside their door. The Bother was an unpleasant, one-eyed, spiky creature covered in fish scales whose sole purpose in life was to stop anyone from doing what he or she wanted to dobut first, before it could do anything, it had to catch the person's eye. Jenna had not noticed the Bother and had walked straight into it. She had stepped back at once, but it was too lateshe had glanced up and met its beady blue eye staring at her. Now the Bother set about its task with glee. It bounced around in front of Jenna, chattering in its babyish way. "Hello, ickle girly. Hellooo, there. Are 'ooo losty-wost? Me wanoo help 'ooo. Ooh me dooo."
"Oh, shut up," Jenna muttered as loud as she dared, trying to edge away from the creature.
"Oooh. That's rudy-wude. Me only wanoo help 'ooo..."
"Sep, can you stop this Bother Bothering me before I throttle it?"
"I'm trying to think of something. You've got to calm down, Jen. Try to ignore the stupid thing."
"Oooh. Nasty boy. Nasteeee..."
"Sep," said Jenna irritably. "What are you waiting for? Just get rid of it, will you? Now!"
"Not rid of meeee. I help 'ooo."
"Oh, shut up!"
"Jen, Jen, don't let it get to you, that's how it worksit irritates you so much that you can't do anything. Just give me a moment. I've got an idea."
"Oooh. Nasty boy's got an idea. Oooh."
"I'm going to kill it, Sep. I am."
"Oooh, bad girly. Not nice saying things like that. Oooh."
Septimus was busy rummaging in his Apprentice belt. "Hang on, Jen. I'll just find my Reverse. Ah, here it is." He took out a small triangular Charm and laid it in the palm of his hand with the sharp end pointing toward the Bother.
The Bother looked at it suspiciously. "What 'ooo got there, nasteee boy?" it asked querulously.
Septimus did not reply. He took a deep breath and chanted very slowly and quietly so as not to wake the witches,"Bothersome Bother, Bother no more,Forget what you're created for."
"Oh, dear," said the Bother faintly. "I feel all peculiar."
"Good," muttered Septimus. "Sounds like it's working. Now, I suppose I had better test it."
"Be careful, Sep," said Jenna, who suddenly felt much less hot and Bothered.
Muttering a simple SafeShield Spell to himself, Septimus forced himself to look at the Bother.
"Good morning," said the Bother brightly. "How may I help you?"
"You're getting good at this Magyk stuff," Jenna whispered to Septimus.
Septimus grinned. He loved the feeling of a spell working right. The Bother hung from the ceiling patiently awaiting an answer. "Could you please show us the way out?" Septimus asked it politely.
"With pleasure," replied the Bother. "Follow me, please." The creature detached itself from its piece of string and landed lightly in front of them on all four of its spindly legs. Then it scuttled off and, to everyone's surprise, leaped into an open trapdoor.
"Quick," said Septimus, "we'd better follow it. You go first, Nik, so that we're still Silent."
They followed the Bother down a long and very precarious ladder, which took them all the way through the house. The ladder bounced and flexed with the unaccustomed weightfor none of the witches ever dared use itand by the time they reached the ground, Septimus was shaking.
As they stepped off the ladder into darkness they were greeted with a chorus of malevolent hissing. Wolf Boy hissed back.
"What's that?" Jenna whispered.
"Cats," muttered Septimus. "Loads of them. Shh, 409, don't annoy them." But Wolf Boy's hissing had done the trickthe cats were quiet, terrified by the sound of the biggest, fiercest cat they had ever heard.
The Bother waited until they were all safely off the ladder. "As you see, ladies and gentlemen, we are now in the Coven kitchen, which is the hub of household activities. Follow me, please, and I will conduct you to the exit."
The Coven kitchen smelled of old fried fat and cat food. It was too dark to make out much except for the dull glow of the stove and the green glittering of a forest of cats' eyes, which followed their Silent progress across the room.
They were soon out of the kitchen and keeping close behind the Bother as it scuttled along a narrow passage. It as hard to see where they were going, for the house was very dark and gloomy; black cloths were pinned up at the windows and the walls were covered with a dirty brown paint and a few cracked paintings of witches, toads and bats. But as they squeezed around a narrow corner, a dusty shaft of light suddenly fell across the passagewaya door creaked open and a witch wandered out.
Nicko stopped dead and Septimus, unable to see him, crashed into him, followed closely by Jenna and Wolf Boy. Stanley, who was running in front of Nicko, was caught in the shaft of light.
The witch stared at Stanley with wide eyes, and, aghast, Stanley stared at the witch.
"Hello. You're my rat, aren't you, boy?" the witch said in a strange singsong voice. "Let me turn you into a nice fat toad."
Stanley's mouth opened and closed again, but no sound came out. The witch blinked slowly; then she turned and peered at Septimus, Jenna and Wolf Boy, who had all shrunk back into the shadows.
"You've brought your friends with you too ... mmm yum. Children. We like children, we do ... and here's my own special Bother, which I hung up last night..."
"Hello, Veronica," said the Bother, somewhat disapprovingly. "Are you sleepwalking again?"
"Mmm," murmured the witch. "Sleepwalking ... lovely."
"Go back to bed now," the Bother said crossly. "Before you fall down that trapdoor again and wake them all up."
"Yes. Back to bed now ... nighty-nighty, Bother," murmured the witch, and she shuffled off down the passageway, eyes wide-open and staring into space. Jenna and Wolf Boy squeezed against the wall to let the sleepwalking witch go by.
"Oh, phew," breathed Septimus.
"This way now, if you don't mind please, ladies and gentlemen," said the Bother briskly, and it scuttled off under a thick black curtain that was draped across the passageway. Septimus, Jenna, Wolf Boy, Stanley and the Silent Unseen Nicko pushed their way around the dusty curtain and sighed with reliefon the other side was the front door.
The Bother ran up the door like a lizard on a hot wall and busily set about opening an array of bolts, locks and chains. Jenna smiled at Septimusthey were nearly out.
And then it started.
"Ow! Help. Help! Someone's attacking me. Help. Get off. Get off me!" screamed a piercingly high metallic voice. One of the locks was Alarmed.
"Shh, Donald," the Bother told the lock crossly. "Stop fussing, it's only me."
But the lock would not be shushed. It set itself into a loud, repetitive wail. "Ooh-ooh-ooh help ... Ooh-ooh-ooh help ... Ooh-ooh-ooh help..."
Suddenly above their heads came the sound of running footsteps and then agitated voices. The Port Witch Coven was awake. A few moments later came sounds of heavy footsteps on the stairs, followed by a loud crack of splintering wood and a scream.
"You idiot, Daphne!" yelled a voice. "I'd only just fixed that step and now look at it. Ruined." An answering groan came trom Daphne.
Another voice shouted, "I smell intruders. I smell a rat! Quick, quick! Go down the back way." What sounded like a herd of stampeding elephants thundered above. The house shook. The Port Witch Coven was on its way.
"Ooh-ooh-ooh help ... Ooh-ooh-ooh help..." shrieked the lock.
"Sep?" Jenna turned to Septimus in a panic. "Sepcan you do anything?"
"Dunno. I'm thinkinghang on." Septimus fumbled in his Apprentice belt again and pulled out a small packet labeled Rush Dust. Quickly he poured it into his palm and threw it over the Bother. The Bother coughed and spluttered; then suddenly it speeded up until it was nothing more than a blue blur, scrambling up and down the door, shooting bolts, undoing locks and freeing chains, while all the time the lock continued its ear-splitting wail. "Ooh-ooh-ooh help ... Ooh-ooh-ooh help ... Ooh-ooh-ooh help..."
Suddenly Jenna heard the sounds of witches downstairs in the kitchen, but at that moment, the front door flew open, pinning the Bother flat against the wall. In a flash Jenna, Septimus, Nicko, Wolf Boy and Stanley were out of the house and tearing down The Rope Walk, hardly daring to glance behind to see if a stream of witches were after them.
Back in the house of the Port Witch Coven the hall floor finally surrendered to years of being eaten by Daphne's giant woodworm colony and plunged the entire Coven headlong into the basementwhere their fall was broken by the accumulated contents of a leaking sewage pipe.