Castle of Shadows Read Free Page B

the door rattled.
    Charlie blew out the candle, grabbed Tobias’s book and dived behind the nearest chair. The door thudded open. Lantern light invaded the room, followed by a thin man dressed in a greasy leather poacher’s jacket and baggy trousers. He had a thatch of grey hair and hollow cheeks. His nose and chin curved to meet each other. Her luck had run out: it was Watch.

Three
    Charlie squeezed her eyes shut and tried to grow into the back of the chair. She heard Watch sniffing, and in her mind she saw all too clearly his nose twitching and snuffling.
    Watch hunted largely by scent. He had a nose like a bloodhound, Maria said, and could smell out a fruit cake be it wrapped in ever so many layers of greaseproof. Charlie thought of the contents of the pencil tin and was almost sick with relief that she had emptied it. Watch would have sniffed her out and taken her straight to O’Dair. As it was…she crouched, barely breathing, listening to Watch shuffle further into the library. What was keeping him? Did the tin still reek? Could he smell it?
    She heard the sound of springs groaning. A muttering, a shuffling and squeaking. Long minutes dragged by. Charlie didn’t dare move. She spent the time thinking of twelve very unpleasant things she would do to Tobias the first chance she got.
    The silence was splintered by a gasping, rasping snort. Then another. Inch by inch, she pulled herself up and peeked over the back of the chair. There, on a long leather sofa, stretched the lanky figure of the night watchman.Snores burbled out of his nose. His kerosene lantern sat on the floor beside him and hissed in unison. Watch had settled in for the night.
    Drat the lazy gannet! Why did he have to choose the library for his midnight nap? Charlie waited for her heart to slow down, then stood, clutching Tobias’s book to her chest. This was all his fault! She stepped from behind the chair and tripped over her candlestick. As Charlie tumbled backwards, she watched One Thousand and One Arabian Nights fly from her arms, arc through the air and crash to the floor with an almighty thud.
    She scrambled to her feet, scooped up the book and raced for the darkest corner of the library. Watch spluttered and rolled off the sofa with an oath. He staggered up, grabbed his lantern and swirled it round, raking the room with light. He was sure to find her now. Even Watch would soon figure out that there were two people in the library – she had left the candlestick behind.
    Charlie shoved Arabian Nights on top of the nearest row of books, stubbing her fingers on the shelves which rose like rungs in a ladder. She tucked her skirts into her drawers, her hands reached high, her toes scrabbled and pushed. She climbed quickly. When her head bumped, she bent over and climbed higher still, until her back pressed against the ceiling, and she was crouching twelve feet above the floor, clinging to the bookshelf like a squirrel on the side of a tree.
    She couldn’t see Watch – but she could hear him. Hemust have found the candle, because he was searching now. The yellow gleam of the lantern strode up and down the rows, approaching ever nearer. It turned the corner, and Watch stood below her.
    He held the lantern high, and the light shone about his head and puddled onto the floor. It did not reach the curtain of darkness at the top of the room. Watch turned away. The lantern continued its circuit of the library, then dithered for a moment in the middle of the room. ‘I knows you’re in here!’ His voice creaked into the silence. ‘Might as well come out now, you little snip, from wherever you be hiding!’ The voice grew wheedling. ‘If you comes now, I’ll not fetch Mrs O’Dair. I’ll let you nip off to bed and no one the wiser.’
    Charlie scowled at the yellow glow. Watch was a terrible liar. O’Dair would give him double rations of beer for a week if he caught Charlie out of her room at night – and they both knew it. ‘Right then, you little