kidnappers.”
“That’s just what I thought!” exclaimed Paolo. “I know the only way to find Tonino—”
“Hang on,” said Lucia. “I think the fog’s getting thinner.”
She was right. When Paolo leant forward, he could see two dark lumps below, where the Chief of Police and his lieutenant were sitting on the steps with their heads in their hands. He could see quite a stretch of the Corso beyond them – cobbles which were dark and wet-looking, but, to his surprise, neither muddy nor out of place.
“Someone’s put it all back!” said Lucia.
The fog thinned further. They could see the glimmering doors of the Arsenal now, and the entire foggy width of the Corso, with every cobblestone back where it should be. Somewhere about the middle of it, Antonio and Guido Petrocchi were standing facing one another.
“Oh, they’re not going to begin again, are they?” wailed Paolo.
But, almost at once, Antonio and Guido swung round and walked away from one another.
“Thank goodness!” said Lucia. She and Paolo turned to one another, smiling with relief.
Except that it was not Lucia. Paolo found himself staring into a white pointed face, and eyes darker, larger and shrewder than Lucia’s. Surrounding the face were draggled dark red curls. The smile died from the face and horror replaced it as Paolo stared. He felt his own face behaving the same way. He had been huddling up against a Petrocchi! He knew which one, too. It was the elder of the two who had been at the palace. Renata, that was her name. And she knew him too.
“You’re that blue-eyed Montana boy!” she exclaimed. She made it sound quite disgusting.
Both of them got up. Renata backed into the pillars, as if she was trying to get inside the stone, and Paolo backed away along the steps.
“I thought you were my sister Lucia,” he said.
“I thought you were my cousin Claudio,” Renata retorted.
Somehow, they both made it sound as if it was the other one’s fault.
“It wasn’t my fault!” Paolo said angrily. “Blame the person who made the fog, not me. There’s an enemy enchanter.”
“I know. Chrestomanci said,” said Renata.
Paolo felt he hated Chrestomanci. He had no business to go and say the same things to the Petrocchis as he said to the Montanas. But he hated the enemy enchanter even more. He had been responsible for the most embarrassing thing which had ever happened to Paolo. Muttering with shame, Paolo turned to run away.
“No, stop! Wait!” Renata said. She said it so commandingly that Paolo stopped without thinking, and gave Renata time to snatch hold of his arm. Instead of pulling away, Paolo stood quite still and attempted to behave with the dignity becoming to a Montana. He looked at his arm, and at Renata’s hand holding it, as if both had become one composite slimy toad. But Renata hung on. “Look all you like,” she said. “I don’t care. I’m not letting go until you tell me what your family has done with Angelica.”
“Nothing,” Paolo said contemptuously. “We wouldn’t touch one of you with a barge-pole. What have you lot done with Tonino?”
An odd little frown wrinkled Renata’s white forehead. “Is that your brother? Is he really missing?”
“He was sent a book with a calling-spell in it,” said Paolo.
“A book,” said Renata slowly, “got Angelica too. We only realised when it shrivelled away.”
She let go of Paolo’s arm. They stared at one another in the blowing remains of the fog.
“It must be the enemy enchanter,” said Paolo.
“Trying to take our minds off the war,” said Renata. “Tell your family, won’t you?”
“If you tell yours,” said Paolo.
“Of course I will. What do you take me for?” said Renata.
In spite of everything, Paolo found himself laughing. “I think you’re a Petrocchi!” he said.
But when Renata began to laugh too, Paolo realised it was too much. He turned to run away, and found himself facing the Chief of Police. The Chief of Police had evidently recovered his dignity. “Now then, you children. Move along,” he said.
Renata fled, without more ado, red in the face with the shame of being caught talking to a Montana. Paolo hung on. It seemed to him that he ought to report that Tonino was missing.
“I said move along!” repeated the Chief of Police, and he pulled down his jacket with a most threatening jerk.
Paolo’s nerve broke. After all, an ordinary policeman was not going to be much help against an enchanter. He ran.
He ran all the way to the Casa Montana. The fog and the wetness did not extend beyond the Corso. As soon as he turned into a side road, Paolo found himself in the bleak shadows and low red sun of a winter evening. It was like being shot back into another world – a world where things happened as they should, where one’s father did not turn into a mad elephant, where, above all, one’s sister did not turn out to be a Petrocchi.
Paolo’s face fired with shame as he ran. Of all the awful things to happen!
The Casa Montana came in sight, with the familiar Angel safely over the gate. Paolo shot in under it, and ran into his father. Antonio was standing under the archway, panting as if he too had run all the way home.
“Who!? Oh, Paolo,” said Antonio. “Stay where you are.”
“Why?” asked Paolo. He wanted to get in, where it was safe, and perhaps eat a large lump of bread and honey. He was surprised his father did not feel the same. Antonio looked tired out, and his clothes were torn and muddy rags. The arm he stretched out to keep Paolo in the gateway was half bare and covered with scratches. Paolo was going to protest, when he saw that something was indeed wrong. Most of the cats were in the gateway too, crouching around with their ears flattened. Benvenuto was patrolling the entrance to the yard, like a lean brown ferret. Paolo could hear him growling.
Antonio’s scratched hand took Paolo by the shoulder and pulled him forward so that he could see into the yard. “Look.”
Paolo found himself blinking at foot-high letters, which seemed to hang in the air in the middle of the yard. In the fading light, they were glowing an unpleasant, sick yellow.
STOP ALL SPELLS OR YOUR CHILD SUFFERS.
CASA PETROCCHI
The name was in sicker and brighter letters. They were meant to make no mistake about who had sent the message.
After what Renata had said, Paolo knew it was wrong. “It wasn’t the Petrocchis,” he said. “It’s that enchanter Chrestomanci told us about.”
“Yes, to be sure,” said Antonio.
