The grey stones of Castle Silverhill glisten in the midday sun. I’m sitting at a small picnic table in the courtyard outside the kitchen waiting for Grimmon to bring me my lunch. A large umbrella I’d borrowed from a pub garden a few worlds ago, provides pleasant shade while I admire the scenery on the other side of the moat.
Yesterday we arrived in a landscape like something out of a painting by Constable. In the distance, a patchwork of fields stretches to the horizon, but closer to us there are no signs of civilisation, apart from a muddy track winding past a stand of beech trees near the moat. The castle has a knack for emerging from the enchanted dimensions far enough away from towns and villages so as not to cause a fuss. And the way it blends itself into the countryside when it materialises makes it look like it’s been there for hundreds of years.
I heave a sigh. It’s not a bad existence, on the whole. Although getting the Post Office to deliver my letters can be a little problematic. The only ones that arrive without fail are bills, usually printed in red and threatening to send bailiffs around. And, once a week, a pamphlet urging me to buy pizza from a takeout place that promises to deliver within twenty minutes. I’m tempted to try it to see how they’ll manage the inter-dimensional barriers, but the pictures of the pizzas, with their lurid colours and unidentifiable toppings, puts me off.
My attention is grabbed by something moving in the sky.
What I’d thought was a large bird, turns out to be a dragon. And it’s flying straight towards us.
“Perhaps we should go inside,” says a voice at my elbow.
Grimmon was standing next to me, a plate laden with sandwiches in his hands, staring at the dragon, his greenish brow creased in a frown. Maybe it’s a goblin thing, but even in his old-fashioned buckled shoes, he can move in eerie silence. It is quite unsettling, and he knows I don’t like it when he creeps up on me.
I hide my annoyance by being flippant. “Oh, don’t be such a ninny. I’m sure it’s friendly.”
At that moment, the dragon screeches like a hundred bagpipes in a mud-wrestling pit.
I jump up, snatch the plate from Grimmon, and hurry into the kitchen.
Seconds later the courtyard is engulfed in fire. The picnic table, chairs and umbrella burst into flames.
The dragon screams. A long and warbling wail, as though the creature is saying something.
“Ah,” says Grimmon, who must have been on my heels when I ran inside. “It’s complaining you haven’t finished the next book in your Hollow series.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Too busy to let everyone know there’s been a delay?” said Cook.
She had probably been standing sideways when I ran into the kitchen, for I hadn’t seen her, but as she spoke she turned to face me. Her apron, sharp-featured face and black hair were dusted with flour, her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and her hands were caked with dough. She looks perfectly normal from the front, but due to a backfiring spell (which I may have cast, but I’m not sure she knows that), she is two-dimensional and vanishes when she’s sideways-on.
“All right.” I sink into a chair. “It’s taking longer than it should… I know that. The trouble is, I’ve been too busy writing the next Daphne Mayne book. It’ll probably be a few months late. I’m doing my best.”
Cook and Grimmon both snort at the same time.
I pretend I didn’t notice. “May I eat my lunch now?”
If you don’t already have a mindlearn inside your head, then approach one of the many nodes scattered around Hollow, and touch the trunk. One of the stubby branches will extend, smack you on the forehead, and instantly insert a mindlearn.
