The Last Phoenix Read online

  Chapter Twenty

  “Fenella can’t have just gone!” said Jess, looking around. “She must be here somewhere.”

  “Wait,” said Jason. “Look, the kiln’s not working. The power’s cut off.”

  “This is weird,” said Michael uneasily. “No bird. No egg. No nest. No power.”

  “Let’s look at the map,” Milly suggested. She wrapped her ragged raincoat more closely around her, still feeling some of the mountain chill in her bones. “If something’s lost, the map always shows us where it is.”

  Jason pulled the map out of his pocket and unfolded it. It had changed once again. Now there was a small building marked in one corner and the rest of the paper was taken up with a much larger building crisscrossed with lines. It looked like lots of rooms overlaid on top of each other with corridors in between.

  “It’s a house,” Jason said. “I think it’s Mr. Milton’s house—and the small building is the workshop.”

  “And that must be Fenella!” said Michael, stabbing his finger down on a red cross in the middle of the big building.

  “So what’s this?” said Milly pointing to another much smaller cross, marked on the map.

  “I bet it’s the egg in the nest,” said Michael.

  “But why are they in Mr. Milton’s house?” asked Jason.

  They were all silent for a moment. Each of them frowning, lost in worried thoughts.

  Milly’s face was pale. “Do you…do you think something bad might have happened?”

  Michael shrugged helplessly. “She wasn’t looking too hot last time we saw her.”

  “Hot,” Jess echoed. “Of course, if the kiln has packed up, she might have gone looking for warmth in Mr. Milton’s house.”

  “She might be in his oven,” said Jason anxiously. “We’ve got to find her!”

  Milly was already racing across the lawn. Jason pulled away from Michael and Jess and caught up with her easily, barely out of breath. In a single athletic bound, he leaped up the five stone steps that led to the back of the house and ran up to the big French windows that led inside. They stood ajar, but he hesitated. “I suppose we can’t just go in, can we?”

  Jess lingered at the foot of the steps. “Maybe we should go around the front and knock.”

  “And say what?” asked Michael. “Sorry, Mr. Milton, but there’s an invisible phoenix flying round your house, can we have her back, please? Oh, and we need to look for her egg on the way!”

  Milly shrugged. “He said we could drop in anytime, didn’t he?”

  “But then he’ll take us to his living room so he and his old duffer mate can bore us to death,” Michael pointed out. “I say we go straight in and find Fenella.”

  Jason looked at the map. The big red cross was right in the center. “Michael’s right. Fenella might need that dewdrop right now.”

  “If we run into Mr. Milton, we could say we came to say bye or something,” Milly said with sudden inspiration. “Anyway, if the door’s open it might mean he’s in the garden.”

  They glanced about, but there was no sign of the old man.

  “Someone should stay out here as lookout, just in case he is outside,” said Jess.

  “You stay, Mil,” said Michael. She opened her mouth to argue but he shushed her. “You can wind people around your little finger, you know you can. If old Milton comes along you’ll be able to make up some sort of story and distract him while we get out.”

  Milly’s frown softened. “I suppose so.”

  “That’s a really good idea.” Jess nodded. “Maybe you should stay out here too, Jason.”

  Jason shook his head. “We might need to climb up and get Fenella or something. Then my extra agility might come in useful.”

  “Okay, the three of us will go.” Jess reached into her pocket. “Here, take my cell phone, Milly. Ring Michael if you see Mr. Milton.”

  Milly took it quickly. “I will.”

  “Meanwhile we’ll go in and get Fenella—and the egg,” said Michael. He looked at the others. “Let’s go!”

  Leaving Milly on the lookout, Michael, Jess, and Jason moved cautiously into a large sitting room. The smell of furniture polish hung in the warm, still air. The walls were paneled in old dark wood. It felt very strange to be standing there—strange and wrong, Jess thought, her skin prickling.

  There were big double doors on the other side of the room. Michael nodded at them, and Jess and Jason followed him over. Michael turned the handle and they found themselves looking into a long corridor lined with portraits in ornate gold frames.

  Jason got the map out. “I think we’re here,” he whispered, pointing to the map. He traced a winding route from where they were to the biggest red cross with his finger. “And this is where we have to go.”

  “Lead the way then, mate,” Michael said in a low voice. “You’re the whiz with maps.”

  With Jason in the lead, they set off down the corridor. Jess half expected Mr. Milton to open a door at any moment and see them. Her breath felt short in her throat, her palms were sweating. What would they say to him?

  “One, two, three…” Jason muttered, counting the doorways as they went. “Four! I think we have to go through this room!”

  Michael put his hand on the door and slowly opened it. It led into a small sitting room. The curtains were closed and the furniture was covered in sheets. On the other side there was another door. When they went through it they found themselves in another corridor.

  “This place is like a maze,” Jess whispered.

  They turned right and went down the corridor before going up three steps. They passed strange objects on the landing—a tiger skin was hung on one wall, its mouth wide. There was an old dusty carousel horse in one corner. A stuffed crocodile in a glass case lay in another, glaring beadily at them. A display of old medical instruments cluttered a tabletop.

  Several times the corridor split into two and they had to choose whether to go left or right. Jess’s head began to spin. She didn’t like the twisty, turning corridor, didn’t like all this weird, old bric-a-brac. “Are you still following where we are on the map?” she asked Jason in a low voice.

  He nodded. “Fenella should be in the next room on the right.”

  They reached the room and paused. Michael listened. “There’s no sound,” he reported, and slowly opened the door.

  They were in a study with a big desk and bookshelves. The chair had been pushed back and a pen was lying by some paper without its top on. There was a half drunk glass of water. It looked as if someone had been there recently.

  “Fenella!” called Jess softly.

  The three of them looked around. “She’s not here,” said Michael.

  “I’m sure this was where the map wanted us to go,” said Jason. He looked down at the parchment and cried out.

  “What is it?” Jess asked in alarm.

  Wordlessly, Jason held out the map, and Jess and Michael both gasped.

  The parchment was blank. Every line, every marking, had completely vanished.

  A cold feeling shivered over Michael’s skin. “How could that happen?” He took the parchment to check the other side—but at his touch it crumbled like stale flaky pastry.

  “The map!” Jess cried. “You clumsy—”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Michael protested, staring at the brittle fragments that were all that was left of the map. “It just fell apart.”

  Jason picked up a piece and it disintegrated. “Maybe—maybe it ran out of magic.”

  Jess felt sick. “What if this means we’re too late? What if Fenella…?”

  “Don’t,” said Michael through gritted teeth. “She’s okay. She’s got to be—”

  Suddenly a squeal of hinges tore through the air. The door to the room was swinging shut.

  On instinct, Jason dashed across the room and stood in the doorway. But the door was still trying to close, as though someone invisible was leaning against it.

  “Quick, get out!” Jason gasped. �
�I can’t hold it.”

  Michael and Jess bundled out through the closing gap. Jason moved aside with them—and the door banged shut.

  “What was that all about?” Michael whispered.

  “I don’t know,” said Jess. “This all feels really wrong.”

  Jason nodded. “Let’s go back the way we came.”

  They set off down the gloomy passage. But it was hard to remember which way to turn and which rooms to go through.

  “I don’t remember that,” Jess said pointing to a glass case of stuffed snakes.

  “Me neither,” said Michael anxiously.

  The more they wandered around, the more bewildered they felt. Jess felt panic clawing inside her. “What happened to the stairs?”

  “It’s like they’ve vanished,” Michael said grimly.

  “The house can’t be this big,” Jason said miserably, “it just can’t be!”

  “We’re lost,” Jess agreed. “Completely and utterly lost!”

  Milly had spent the first five minutes after the others had gone looking eagerly around for any sign of Mr. Milton. But when he failed to appear, she sat down on the stone steps, feeling bored.

  It was dull being here on her own, and she couldn’t wait to see Fenella again and show her the dewdrop.

  She’s going to be so happy, Milly thought. We’ve got everything she needs now to hatch her chick.

  Of course, Fenella had urged her to taste the dewdrop. Could it really help her to sing? She knew that she wouldn’t be Annie—but was that because she did taste the dewdrop, or because she didn’t? How could she ever know?

  She sighed, tired from trying to make sense of it all. Where were the others? She took the mobile out of her pocket and called Michael. The call went straight through to Michael’s voicemail.

  Maybe there’s no signal inside the house, Milly thought. She went to the door. Perhaps she should go after them…

  But as she reached the door she heard a sound that made her freeze. It was halfway between a squawk and a loud shriek.

  Fenella! Milly thought.

  The sound rent the air again. It seemed to be coming from outside somewhere, around the corner of the house. She must have got back out, Milly thought as she leaped down the steps, her heart pounding. And it sounded as if the phoenix was in trouble.

  Milly didn’t stop to think. She charged across the paving stones and around the side of the house. She hadn’t seen this part before. There was a pale octagonal stone building linked to the house by a covered passage. The building had windows on each of its eight sides. One of them was open and through it came another horrible cry.

  Milly raced up to the building. She was about to burst through the door when common sense suddenly gripped her. What if someone—or something—was threatening Fenella? Something really bad?

  She ran to the window instead and peered in.

  Fenella, her feathers still pale and tarnished, was perched on a stone table right in the center—and Mr. Milton was in there too! He had his back to her and was picking something up from one of eight cluttered workbenches lining the room. What was going on? Maybe Fenella had flown inside and then Mr. Milton had found her there…

  Milly frowned as she suddenly noticed a locked manacle around Fenella’s leg. It was attached by a chain to a stout metal ring in the center of the table. The phoenix seemed to gather her strength and rose up into the air, wings flapping, shrieking loudly as she fought against the chain.

  Goosebumps prickled across Milly’s skin. What was going on?

  “Be quiet, phoenix!” snapped Mr. Milton, swinging around. His eyes met Milly’s through the window. “Ah, hello, my dear,” he said, with that familiar smile. “I’m so glad you decided to stop by.”

  He reached out one hand in her direction and clenched his fist. Milly felt her throat tighten. She gasped as her vision spun and her legs buckled beneath her…

  And suddenly she was inside the octagonal room, sprawled on the patterned stone floor, looking up at Mr. Milton. And in a heartbeat, the old man had changed. Gone were the old, tweedy clothes—now he was wearing an expensive dark suit and a black fez with two white tassels. He was no longer stooped, but seemed tall and powerful.

  “The board is set, the players are assembled…” The smile on Mr. Milton’s face twisted into a cruel leer. “Let the final game begin.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “Get away, pet,” Fenella croaked from the table. “Run, lovie, run!”

  Milly jumped to her feet, but as she turned back to the open window it slammed shut with a loud bang. Mr. Milton chuckled softly. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.

  “I don’t understand,” Milly said, her mind still struggling to accept the change in him. “You seemed so nice…”

  Milton arched an eyebrow. “Would you have come here with your phoenix had I been bad-tempered or aloof? I had to seem a harmless, lonely old man of whom you could take advantage.” He snorted. “You thought you were tricking me wonderfully, didn’t you? That I was unknowingly providing you with the perfect home for your golden friend.” His face hardened. “But all the time, I was the one pulling the strings.”

  Milly stared, realizing how completely they had been fooled. “So you knew Fenella would come to us and you made friends with my stepmum just so we would know about the workshop and think of it as a hiding place?”

  He nodded. “And, gracious me, the kiln was jammed on full blast twenty-four hours a day. How convenient!”

  “I thought it was destiny,” croaked Fenella.

  Mr. Milton’s eyes glinted. “Ah, but your destiny is to serve me—all of you!”

  Fenella launched herself into flight, straining once more against her chain. “Quickly, lovie!” she squawked to Milly. “I’ll distract him, you run!”

  “No! I won’t leave you!” Milly cried.

  “And you, phoenix, are going nowhere.” Milton reached out, grabbed Fenella by the neck and hauled her roughly back down to the table, where she lay panting for breath. “After all, you don’t want to miss a happy reunion between a girl and a worm, do you?” He laughed, crossed to the nearest workbench and picked up an object that Milly recognized in a heart-stopping second. It was a brass lamp with a round body and a long tall spout. The handle was twisted and had a snake’s head rearing up at the end of it.

  “The genie lamp,” Milly breathed. “Skribble’s lamp?”

  “My aged guest—or, more accurately, my prisoner.” Milton plucked out the brass stopper. “Ho, worm! Are you still in there, you cringing cur?”

  Milly forgot her own predicament and Fenella’s for a moment. “Don’t you talk to Skribble like that!” she shouted.

  “I will talk to him as I choose,” said Milton calmly. “For he is in my power. I took the lamp when you placed it in that junk shop, you see. I summoned the genie.” He held the spout to his lips and raised his voice. “You have no choice, do you, Skribbaleum! Not now that I have commanded from you an endless stream of wishes that must be granted!” He rubbed the lamp disdainfully on the sleeve of his suit and in a purple puff of smoke, Skribble appeared, just as he had done outside the workshop, a tiny mustached figure in a cloak and turban floating on an iridescent cloud. He looked worried and furious in equal measure.

  “Milly,” Skribble cried. “And Fenella, are you all right? Has this misanthropic microbe harmed you in any way?”

  “Harm them, wormish one?” Milton laughed. “Does a craftsman damage his tools before he begins work?”

  “These are not tools,” Skribble stormed. “They are living things, marvelous and magical. The girl is but a child—”

  “And most necessary,” Milton interrupted. “Which is why I’ve separated her from her siblings.”

  Milly swallowed down her frightened tears as she looked at her beloved bookworm. “Oh, Skribble, why didn’t you warn us more that something was wrong when you came to us?”

  “Milton compelled me to go to you,” said Skribble wretchedly. “He is the wish-m
aker and by my genie oath I can do nothing but serve him. He wished that I would appear to you to keep you focused on your quest—but forbade me from warning you of his true nature.”

  “I remember,” Milly groaned. “You found it hard to speak…But you warned us somebody was watching. We just didn’t think you meant Mr. Milton!”

  Skribble sighed. “I could sense that Michael had doubts about him. I tried to make him look at the words I had placed on the map right from the start: ‘Know yourself, trust yourself, believe in yourself’—and not in me. I couldn’t be clearer because of the wish but, oh! How I wanted to say more!” The worm shook his head. “Forgive me, my dear Milly…and please, Fenella, forgive me also. For I have been forced to deceive you all along, right from our first encounter in Morocco…”

  Fenella blinked, incredulously.

  “The worm was my puppet,” Milton said. “That prophecy of the egg he shared with you was entirely my invention. I wished of my genie that he fool you into thinking it had come from the Great Library…and naturally he had no choice but to obey.” He gave her a jackal’s smile. “For centuries now I have been planning…plotting…planting the seeds of my eventual triumph!”

  Milly stared. “Centuries? But how can you be that old?”

  “Once,” put in Skribble, “‘Mr. Milton’—or to call him by his real name, Miltakbar Memesis the Thrice-Born—was a genie himself. Yes, by all accounts a very great genie indeed, way back when even I was but a stripling.”

  “A great genie?” Milton snorted, threw back his head and set his fez tassels twitching. “You wrong me, worm—I was master of all!”

  Milly was struggling to take in so many revelations. “He’s a genie! But then how come he’s got a hold on you, Skribble? I thought genies weren’t able to work magic on each other!”

  “He is a genie no longer,” Skribble explained. “The scraps of magic he possesses now were stolen from the human world in the dark, savage times of old.” The worm scowled. “Many centuries ago, he and his witch-bride attempted to overthrow the Genie Council. Their revolution was crushed, and this would-be master’s magic was taken from him. He was sentenced to walk the earth in mortal form forever. As for his charmless lady friend—”