Read Online Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones - Free Book Online

food was simply indigestible—or just that the mere idea of poison had made his stomach think it was .
    He watched Tonino carefully to see if he was showing any signs of poisoning. But Tonino evidently trusted Cat’s judgment. Under the soft lamplight, Tonino’s eyes became brighter as he ate, and his dirty, drawn-looking cheeks became rounder and pinker. Cat watched him use his teeth to scrape the very last of the cheese off the rind and decided that there was no poison in this food. His stomach unclenched a little.
    “I’m still hungry,” Tonino said, laying the rind down regretfully. “I’m so hungry I could even eat those dry beans.”
    Cat remembered that he had crammed those beans into his pocket when Master Spiderman had come charging down the steps. He fetched them out and laid all seven under the lamp. He was surprised to see that they were glossier and plumper than they had been. Four of them had lost their wrinkles entirely. Even the oldest and most withered one looked more like a bean and less like a dried brown lump. They glowed soft reds and purples under the light. “I wonder,” he said, pushing at them with a finger. “I wonder if these are all enchanters, too.”
    “They might be,” Tonino said, staring at them. “He said he was to make a ten-lifed enchanter. Here might be seven lives, with an eighth one coming soon. Where does he get the other two lives from, though?”
    From us, Cat thought, and hoped that Tonino would not think of this, too.
    But at that moment the newest and glossiest bean gave a sudden jump and flipped over, end to end. Tonino forgot what they had been talking about and leaned over it, fascinated. “This one is alive! Are all the others living, too?”
    It seemed that they were. One by one, each of the beans stirred and then flipped, until they were all rolling and hopping about, even the oldest bean, although this one only seemed to be able to rock from side to side. The newest bean was now flipping so vigorously that it nearly jumped off the workbench. Cat caught it and put it back among the others. “I wonder if they’re going to grow,” he said.
    “Beanstalks,” Tonino said. “Oh, please, yes!”
    As he spoke, the newest bean split down its length to show a pale, greenish interior, which was clearly very much alive. But it was not so much like a bean growing. It was more like a beetle spreading its wings. For an instant the boys could see the two mottled purplish red halves of its skin, spread out like wing covers, and then these seemed to melt into the rest of it. What spread out then was a pale, greenish, transparent growing thing. The growing thing very quickly spread into a flatness with several points, until it looked like nothing so much as a large floating sycamore leaf made of greenish light. There were delicate veins in it and it pulsed slightly.
    By this time five of the others were splitting and spreading, too. Each grew points and veins, but in slightly different shapes, so that Cat thought of them as an ivy leaf, a fig leaf, a vine leaf, a maple leaf, and a leaf from a plane tree. Even the oldest seventh bean was trying to split. But it was so withered and hard and evidently having such difficulty that Tonino put a forefinger on each half of it and helped it break open. “Oh, enchanters, please help us!” he said, as the bean spread into a smaller, more stunted shape.
    Wild service tree leaf, Cat thought, and wondered a little how he knew about trees. He looked sadly at the cluster of frail, quivering, greenish shapes gathered by the base of the lamp and realized that Tonino had been right to be doubtful in the first place. The green shapes might once have been enchanters—Cat thought Tonino was right about that—but they were not ghosts. These beings were soft, helpless and bewildered. It was like asking newly hatched butterflies for help.
    “I don’t think they can help,” he said. “They don’t even know what’s happened to