I want to play marbles,’ said James.
Henry shook his head. ‘Sorry, Jamie. Not now. Tomorrow. But I’ll come and read to you later.’
‘Promise? Will you finish the story of the Wallypug?’
‘James, come here,’ shouted Aunt Gudrun.
‘I promise,’ said Henry, and he meant to keep his promise. But Zeke had other plans for him.
Hanging his head, James trailed back towards the tall figure at the end of the passage.
‘And you, Henry!’ called Aunt Gudrun. ‘You keep out of trouble.’
‘Yes, Aunt,’ said Henry.
He was about to descend the rather grand staircase down to the hall when he had an idea. It was already so chilly he could see his own breath, billowing away from him in little grey clouds. The great hall would be even colder. He might freeze to death.
Henry retraced his steps until he found the door to a room he had already investigated. It was a huge storeroom, full of clothes left behind by past students of the academy. There were rows of coloured capes: blue, green and purple; shelves of hats and suits, and boxes of ancient leather boots.
Henry selected a warm blue cape and put it on. It reached well over his knees, a perfect length for a draughty hall. He would be able to kneel on it without feeling the cold stone floor.
Henry descended into the hall. His hoard of marbles was the envy of all his friends. Henry’s father travelled extensively and never came home without at least one precious new marble for his son’s collection. Henry’s leather bag held onyx stones, polished agate, glass, limestone, quartz and even spheres of painted china.
There were no lights in the hall but an early moon sparkled through the long, frosted windows, giving the grey flagstones a soft pearly glow.
Henry decided to play Ring Taw, his favourite game. Deprived of an opponent, he would try to improve his skill by playing alone. With a piece of chalk, kept handy in his pocket, Henry drew a large ring in the centre of the hall. He then chalked a smaller ring inside the first. Selecting thirteen marbles from his bag, he placed them in a cross inside the smaller circle.
Now Henry had to kneel on the icy floor, just outside the large ring. Already his hands were blue with cold and he could hardly stop his teeth from rattling. Tucking the blue cape under his knees, he took out his favourite marble; it was a clear blue with a silvery glint inside it, like starlight. This was always his taw, or shooter.
Placing the knuckles of his right hand, palm outwards, on the floor, Henry put the blue taw on the tip of his first finger and flicked it with his thumb towards the marble cross. With a sharp clink it hit an orange marble right out of the two circles.
‘Bravo!’ Henry shouted.
There was a light creak from behind him. Henry squinted into the deep shadows on the oak-panelled walls. Was he imagining it, or did a long tapestry shiver slightly? On the other side of the tapestry a small door led into the west wing. Henry preferred the main staircase, for the passage behind the door was dark and creepy.
A cold draught swept past his knees and the tapestry billowed again. A flurry of hailstones clattered against the windows, and the wind gave a sudden moan as it rushed round the snowy courtyard.
‘Wind.’ Henry shivered and drew his cape closer. For good measure he even pulled the hood over his head.
In the passage behind the tapestry, Ezekiel Bloor stood with a lantern in one hand, and in the other – a glowing glass sphere. Dazzling colours swirled out of the glass; a rainbow laced with gold and silver; sunshine and moonlight, one after the other. Zeke knew he mustn’t look at them. He held one of the oldest marbles in the world.
On her deathbed, Zeke’s great-aunt Beatrice, a witch if ever there was one, had pressed the marble into his hand. ‘The Time Twister,’ she said in her cracked, dying voice. ‘For journeys through time. Do not look on it, Ezekiel, unless you want to travel.’
Ezekiel didn’t want to travel. He thrived in the great gloomy building that was his home and could seldom be persuaded to leave it. However, he longed to know what would happen if someone did look into the Time Twister. No one, in Zeke’s opinion, was more deserving of a shove through time, than his wretched cousin Henry Yewbeam.
Henry had by now knocked another three marbles out of the small chalked ring. He hadn’t missed once, in spite of his freezing fingers. He was just stepping back to his place outside the circle when a glass ball came rolling towards him. It was slightly larger than Henry’s blue taw, and tiny points of coloured light danced and shimmered all around it.
‘Oh, my,’ breathed Henry. He stood where he was while the strange marble rolled on until it reached his foot.
Henry picked it up. He gazed into the bright depths within the glass. He saw domes of gold, cities in sunlight, cloudless skies and much, much more. But even as he watched the scenes taking place before his eyes, Henry became aware that a change was taking place within his body, and he knew that he shouldn’t have looked upon those unbelievable and breathtaking scenes.
The oak-panelled walls were breaking up. The frosted moonlight was fading. Henry’s head whirled and his feet began to float. Far, far away, a cat began to mew. And then another cat, and another.
Henry thought of his small brother. Would there be time to reach him before he faded away completely? And if he did, and James saw a brother disappearing before his eyes, might he not be so frightened he would have nightmares forever? Henry decided to leave a message.
While he still had the strength, he took the chalk from his pocket and with his left hand (the right was still clamped round the Time Twister), he wrote on the stone floor, ‘SORRY, JAMES. THE MARBLES . . .’
It was all Henry had time for. The next moment he had left the year of his eleventh birthday and was travelling forward, very fast, to a year when most of the people he knew would be dead.
In a small, chilly room at the top of the west wing, James waited for his brother. He was so cold he had put his coat on over his flannel nightshirt. On the table beside him the flame from his candle, quivered in a draught from the door. Where was Henry? Why was he taking so long?
James rubbed his eyes. He was very tired but too cold to sleep. He drew the bedcovers up to his chin and listened to the patter of freezing sleet against the windowpane. And then his candle went out.
James sat rigid in his bed, too frightened to call out. Aunt Gudrun would be cross and Cousin Zeke would tease him for being a baby. Only Henry would understand.
‘Henry! Henry, where are you?’ James closed his eyes and sobbed into his pillow.
Before he had completely run out of tears, James stopped shivering. The room was getting warmer. He opened his eyes and found that he could see his pillow, his hand, the window. A soft glow had spread across the ceiling. When James looked to see where it was coming from, he was amazed to find that three cats were silently pacing round his bed. One was orange, another yellow and the third a bright coppery colour.
As soon as the cats knew they had been observed, they jumped up and rubbed their heads against the boy’s cold hands, his neck and his cheek. Their gleaming fur was as warm as sunlight, and as James stroked them, his fear began
