CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THREATS IN THE DARKNESS

Griselda finds herself approaching dark forces that are beyond her understanding

The time, thought Griselda, is here. The time for me to sort that darned Professor out once and for all is as here as it will ever be, and I'm going to do that. Expelling me from his crap University like he did! Of all the cheek! But if I do something in retribution it'd be best if it was something he didn't expect. So, sweet Griselda, be careful! He'll be there, waiting for me to crawl back through the front door, but I'm not going to do that! I'll do what I did first, and find my way in through the back door, but this time I'll not announce myself by knocking the door like I did last time. Oh no, I reckon I remember the way so that's what I'll do, find my own way down the dark dank corridor.

She crept through the undergrowth and squeezed past brambles whose sole task on the planet seemed to be to draw her blood, and before many moments had passed she found herself wishing she was wearing something more protective than the tiniest of miniskirts, which was no protection at all, and no sooner had she wished it than it happened: after squeezing only a few yards her skirt changed into a pair of jeans reinforced with dozens of steel studs.

That's better, she thought. I wish I'd thought of it " but I must have done or it would never have happened! Now I'll get to that blasted door with my flesh still intact and see what I shall see.

It took her longer than she'd thought it would, though, getting to that ancient back door. It was on the other side of the University complex which itself occupied a considerable acreage of land, and she needed to keep out of sight from as many of its dark, satanic windows as much as she could. She found herself becoming obsessed with what might be lurking on the other side of the small blind rectangles of glass set high in the side walls of the ancient, craggy building.

Had she paused to think she might have worked out that there were better ways of moving unseen round an old building than actually crawling on her teenage belly and cursing every time something unpleasant stuck in her, but she didn't. She might have muttered any one of the increasing number of incantations that she was discovering, but she was still a novice when it came to actually incorporating her witchy powers into daily life. So she did it the hard way and after what seemed an age a sweaty (or perspiring) Griselda Entwhistle stood before the back gate of the building.

I'd better not draw attention to myself, she thought, and I'd better keep out of the way of that Hagman creep! She shivered when she remembered the lank and apparently crawling hair of the sallow-faced janitor as he had guided her from the rear of the building only yesterday. It seemed like weeks ago, but time has a habit of playing tricks like that, even on witches and other magical souls, and sometimes stretches out interminably.

She pushed the door, but it was locked, and she clicked her tongue against her teeth impatiently. She knew she could open the door, but found herself confusing the nonsense spells in Harry Potter films with the real thing, which weren't, of course, nonsense at all. She knew she didn't need words, not as such, not sounds that have meaning in the shallow world we like to call reality. Instead, she had to mutter almost inaudible shapes, like images wrought out of sound, and it was then that things happened, magical things, powerful things. And she knew it was herself performing mighty feats and not some satanic power or devilish assistant. The whole idea pleased her and added a purpose to her cranky old life. At least to her, it did.

So instead of words she created shapes and gave a kind of hissing timbre to those shapes. Like a goddess she waved those shapes around her, joined them here and there into a weird three-dimensional creation that only she could see, and then slid them like a key into the rusted old lock

And with those shapes she unlocked the door! She heard a groaning, rusty click, and then the door swung open.

She slid inside, silently, scared of making the least of sounds. In the hierarchy of any college and not just this one she rather suspected the Janitor had a disproportionate amount of power because he was in a position to know things about people that they didn't want being broadcast about, and here, in Scrumblenose University with its strange and bearded Principal and long hidden history she rather suspected there might be quite a lot inside the Janitor's head that most people wanted keeping quiet. And until she knew the way things worked better than she did she considered it wise to keep her own activities as secret and hidden as possible. A long life had taught her the wisdom of secrecy.

She remembered the general direction she had been guided along by the lank-haired and very creepy little man, and tried to retrace the route she'd taken. At first it was quite easy because the corridor was like a normal stone-lined passageway, but after only a few yards it became dank, dark, and smelt almost of death itself. At least, that was what she told herself it smelled like.

The corridors grew darker, with only lighter shadows seeming to act as a contrast to darker ones. Every so often there was the rusted husk of an oil lamp, but it was clear they hadn't been lit for ages. But her memory was sound and she could visualise recent events. So slowly she made her way along, and all was well until she came to a forking of the corridor that she couldn't remember.

Left or right? she asked herself. This way or that? Eenie meenie miney mo...

In the end she decided that the right way looked the most familiar, and she started off down there. But she hadn't made her way furtively for too many minutes before she realised she was going the wrong way. It became darker, the lighter shadows illuminating their darker comrades were fewer, and, horror of horror, there were cobwebs lining the craggy ceiling and hanging down to drag across her face like the threads of ancient death.

But when she turned to go it was to discover she had failed to notice other shadowed branches as corridors criss-crossed each other in the darkness, and before long she was hopelessly lost.

She knew she could mutter a few of her audible shapes and be somehow (hopefully) guided the right way, but she also knew there were forces in this huge building that were beyond her understanding. It was, after all, one of those forces that had propelled her at a sedate but embarrassing rate from the place after she had been peremptorily told she had been expelled. And from her own experiences she knew that it is best to keep any opposition ignorant of her whereabouts until the time came for them to find out. So using incantations and spells wasn't an option if their very presence in the air might give her away. Not yet and not unless desperate circumstances made it necessary. Being lost might have been unpleasant, but it didn't, in her eyes, constitute desperate circumstances.

So she crept along, trying to use logic and intelligence to find the right way to where the awful Professor Stroggleoff might be lurking. First one way then another she crept along until, after what seemed like ages, she froze against a gnarled and knobbly stone wall as voices from not so far away found their way to her ears.

“She's in here, I know it!!” she heard the professor's voice hissing with the sibilance of a snake. The nasty serpent, she thought, and grinned mirthlessly when it crossed her mind that she knew roughly where he was but he was ignorant of her whereabouts.

“I'll find her, master,” moaned the sound of the Janitor's voice. “What will I do to her wretched flesh when she falls into my arms?”

“Be warned, Hagman, she is no normal mortal. Oh no, she is not! Don't let her mutter any of her feeble little spells or she might achieve more than we want her to! If she comes into your arms in the form of a pretty young woman, then do what you please to her delightful young flesh before you kill her, but make sure you do kill her in the end! I know some of the nasty games you like to play, and you can feel free this once to play them! If, on the other hand, she is her real self and older than the hills, then just kill her anyway. Drain her blood and drink it if you must " a disgusting habit, but you seem to like it " but make sure her life is switched off as certain as if it was a candle in a gale! Our futures, yours and mine, depend on nothing going wrong. She may look like a frail old woman but I sense she is dangerous, and I reckon to understand these things.”

“Yes, Master,” whispered the Janitor, and Griselda shivered with an unpleasant mixture of fear and cold.

This wasn't like her earlier adventure, when she'd entered politics and actually become Prime Minister. This involved dark and magical arts, and despite a life-time of witchy appearances in truth she had almost no understanding of them. And most important of all, her life was at risk, and that was something she didn't like thinking about.

So she shivered in the darkness, and tried to make a plan.