Read Online The Midnight Carnival by Erika McGann - Free Book Online Page A

anthill garnet – mined by fire ants in the deserts of Arizona. I have also a stunning flute of pithed alder shoots that produces the most beautiful sound you’ve ever–’
    ‘I’m looking for something in particular. A propellant.’
    ‘My dear witchlet, that could be anything.’
    ‘I need a propellant to help me send a message throughthe waterways. That’s possible, isn’t it? I can send a message anywhere through water, I just need ignition? Like a spark plug in a car.’
    ‘Indeed, it is a generous element, but water-messaging is not without risk. The telephone is infinitely better.’ He picked up a bronze trinket, polishing it to a high shine, and held it out. ‘When have you ever seen a more beautiful bindrune? The workmanship is spectacular, don’t you think?’
    Adie took the ornament and set it firmly back on the table.
    ‘I need a spark plug, Mr Pamuk. Can you help me or not?’

    It was near dusk when Adie took the long, curving road that led from the back of the school, around the woods and down to the river. She walked the bank for some distance to make sure she wouldn’t be seen by any passersby, then kneeling by the water with her shoes sinking into the mud, she untied the tweed bag in her hands and clutched the blackened leaves inside.
    ‘Twice-burned mugwort,’ Mr Pamuk had said, ‘will ignite your message. But please, little witchlet, take care. A message sent is like a bird released; you cannot take it back. And who knows who may be listening.’
    Adie took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
    ‘ Incende .’
    The leaves began to smoke and hiss, their ends glowing embers as they burned afresh. She tried not to cough as the smoke reached her lungs, then set the leaves down in the water and watched them fizzle and sink. It was now or never.
    Holding back her hair with one hand, Adie plunged her face into the water. The shock of the cold made her desperate to gasp, but she fought the urge and kept her head down. Even in the water she could feel the gentle heat of the quenched mugwort and it made her a little dizzy. She opened her eyes, shuddering once more against the freezing water, and watched the muddied leaves below.
    Within seconds they spat, broken bits of mugwort hopping up like frogs on a hotplate, suspended in the murky water. They were moving then, like little sea horses with minds of their own, and she followed them. Her body stayed where it was, but she could feel her mind pulling away from it. It was like she was being stretched, thinner and thinner, so thin she felt sure that she would snap. But she didn’t. Leaving the discomfort of her body behind, her mind soared after the blackened mugwort leaves.
    She rushed past fish and squiggling larvae, swooping through the estuary and out into the sea. The leaves picked up speed, and the crabs and lobsters and sharks and awful strings of discarded plastic went by faster and faster until she couldn’t see them anymore. It was just a spinning wall of water now, varying shades of green and blue, until the leavesslowed and she began to see real things again. Creatures, weird ones, creeping, crawling and swimming above and below. A merrow, with the muscular torso of a human and the sharp-toothed mouth of a moray eel, snapped at her as she passed. She was in a river now, she could sense the banks either side, then she was in the air, carried like a feather on the millions of tiny droplets in the atmosphere.
    Ahead of her was the barren, cracked land of Hy-Breasal. The stone towers and battlements of Tithon Castle brought back more bad memories than good. She saw the black turret, where she and the girls had been imprisoned. There was the outdoor arena where Una’s dragon had battled the horrible beasts originated by other trainee witches. There were the narrow, arched windows, through which the vengeful faeries had crawled, some of them desperate to taste human flesh. Inside the castle, the faeries had clashed with specially trained