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Conrad’s Fate
Conrad’s Fate
Conrad’s Fate
Ebook285 pages4 hours

Conrad’s Fate

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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  • Magic

  • Adventure

  • Mystery

  • Coming of Age

  • Family Dynamics

  • Fish Out of Water

  • Secret Identity

  • Magical School

  • Chosen One

  • Family Secrets

  • Power Struggle

  • Hidden Identity

  • Secret Passages

  • Rags to Riches

  • Prophecy

  • Family

  • Friendship & Loyalty

  • Social Class & Hierarchy

  • Identity

  • Personal Growth & Self-Discovery

About this ebook

Glorious new rejacket of a Diana Wynne Jones Chrestomanci novel – now a book with extra bits!

Conrad is young, good at heart, and yet is apparently suffering from the effects of such bad karma that there is nothing in his future but terrible things. Unless he can alter his circumstances – well, quite frankly, he is DOOMED.

Conrad is sent in disguise to Stallery Mansion, to infiltrate the magical fortress that has power over the whole town of Stallchester, and to discover the identity of the person who is affecting his Fate so badly. Then he has to kill that person. But can any plan really be that simple and straightforward? Of course it can't! And things start to go very strangely for Conrad from the moment he meets the boy called Christopher…

This is trademark DWJ – packed with laugh-aloud humour, insane logic, spot-on observations, organised chaos, and all wrapped up in a rattling good adventure which oozes magic from every seam. Literally.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 6, 2012
ISBN9780007383511
Author

Diana Wynne Jones

In a career spanning four decades, award-winning author Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) wrote more than forty books of fantasy for young readers. Characterized by magic, multiple universes, witches and wizards—and a charismatic nine-lived enchanter—her books are filled with unlimited imagination, dazzling plots, and an effervescent sense of humor that earned her legendary status in the world of fantasy. Her books, published to international acclaim, have earned a wide array of honors, including two Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honors and the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award for having made a significant impact on fantasy. Acclaimed director and animator Hayao Miyazaki adapted Howl’s Moving Castle into a major motion picture, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

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Reviews for Conrad’s Fate

Rating: 4.0285714285714285 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After listening to Fallen, some DWJ was just the ticket. Conrad's story is on of neglectful family and being a twelve year old ready for adventure despite the dire fate that his uncle warns him of. A young Christopher Chant features prominently, so I got a nice little Chrestomanci fix while I was at it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was the first of the Chrestomanci sequence that I read, and it is testament to its standalone qualities that the story was intelligible without previous familiarity with the others in the series. Like many a traditional fairytale hero Conrad is thrust into a magical adventure where he has to balance his innate gifts with the usual resourcefulness required of such a hero. I liked the underlying idea that, while a lot of fantasy is reliant on the fulfillment of predictions, prophecies and "fate", Conrad has to come to terms with whether such a fate is predetermined (because everybody says it is so) or whether he is indeed master of his own fate and therefore able to change the future that has been expected to happen.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a new Chrestomanci novel, this time set in a Series Seven world where Christopher Chant has, for various good and sufficient reasons of his own, gone in defiance of his guardian and teacher, Gabriel de Witt.

    But this is really the story of Conrad Tesdinic, who has grown up in a bookstore with an inattentive mother who spends all her time writing; an uncle who generously allows his sister and her family to live with him after her husband sold his share of the bookstore to her brother, gambled away the money, and then killed himself; and a sister who is intent on her own very sensible agenda of completing her education and getting out of the house before her magician-uncle realizes what she's doing and takes steps to keep her there permanently.

    Conrad, who has his own plans to continue his education and move out, is horrified when his uncle tells him he has bad karma from an important deed left undone in a previous life, and if he doesn't take the opportunity to complete the task immediately in this life, he'll soon die and be forced to start over in his next life. And in order to do this, he has to leave school now, take a job as a servant in Stallery Mansion (home of the local Count), find the person he didn't deal with in the last life, and kill him.

    Conrad would almost rather die than leave school and take a job as a servant at the Stallery—but not quite, and he reluctantly boards the tram, armed only with a false name—Conrad Grant—and wine cork and a spell to summon a Walker and get "what he needs" when he's identified the villain and is ready to do the job. Almost the first person he meets, of course, is Christopher Chant, who's looking for his missing and possibly trapped friend Millie, and has also come to take a job at the Stallery in order to look for. From there things get delightfully strange, as Conrad and Christopher attempt to sort out who's who, and who's putting what over on who, and not get caught or killed in the process.

    Great fun.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've read or re-read four of the book in the Chrestomanci series, and three of them have almost the same general plot: a boy or girl is taken advantage of by elders and persuaded that they are mostly powerless. At the conclusion of the book, things change, and the character escapes their bad situation and misapprehension about themselves. Jones really had this concept on the brain. Within this overall plot, though, Jones works in a great deal of variety. In many ways, this book was a bit lighter than the others with the same plot. It is set in a stately home and grounds, and I felt convinced that it was a satire on "Downton Abbey", but it was published about five years before the show was broadcast. So, again, Diana Wynne Jones was a bit ahead of a phenomenon, but in the best way.This tale is told in the first person, which is also an enjoyable change, and we get to meet the teenage Christopher Chant, which is fun.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Currently rereading this series in the authors suggested order. I'm enjoying myself but it does seen strange to be about to follow up this book with one written over 2 decades before it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Interesting back story on Christopher.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Book 5 of the Chrestomanci books, and terrific in every conceivable way. Conrad is an endearing character, and the Chrestomanci 'verse is fabulous.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The fifth in the Chrestomanci series sees Diana Wynne Jones in fine form.
    It's light, but not too light, charming but not saccharin. It's witty, but also touches on serious topics.
    I really despise reviewers who say every single even slightly fantasy-related book should be read by 'fans of Harry Potter,' but I have to say that this series really is one that Potter fans would probably like.

    Although it's part of a series, it's also a stand-alone story. Fans will recognize some of the characters as they appear, but a reader isn't required to know their background & history.
    As the title implies, this is a story about Conrad, a boy who wants to go to high school, but instead is convinced by an obviously cockamamie story cooked up by his uncle that in order to expiate his karmic sins, he must go into service at the Castle and magically assassinate an unknown person... Luckily (as it turns out) for him, he makes friends with another boy who's applying for the same job - but also has an agenda that involves more than learning the finer points of the serving arts.
    As always, in these books, parallel worlds and plenty of magic come into play...
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is my favorite Chrestomanci book so far, and the only one I'd recommend (so far.)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Conrad's Fate is...perhaps the least interesting Chrestomanci book, for me. Conrad is such an idiot at times - he's being strong and tricky and figuring out how to get his way, and his uncle has him so neatly wrapped around his finger.... It took me two readings to figure out what the heck was going on at the castle, and it's still not really clear. The sidelight on Christopher's youth is mildly interesting, though I thought he and Gabriel had reached an agreement by the end of Lives of Christopher Chant. And like that. Not a favorite. Not bad, and a good addition to the Chrestomanci series, but it doesn't stand on its own very well.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Full of interesting ideas as usual, though the story wasn't quite as well-paced as I'd like. I agree with some of the other reviewers that the ending is a bit pat, and Conrad feels rather passive. Still enjoyable though, mainly because of learning more about Christopher's background and getting to see a little of Millie.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Fun book, though the pacing is a little odd, I think. It suddenly gets frantic at the end, so many events cramped into the space that would've gone to describe less than a day earlier in the book. That didn't quite work for me -- sedate to breakneck in five seconds flat. But then, that happens a lot in Diana Wynne Jones' work, to a greater or lesser extent, for me.

    Besides, it's another one of those where the answers are right in front of the main character the whole time and he just doesn't get it.

    Still a fun read. It's fun to see Christopher from Conrad's point of view, and learn all over again how insufferable he can be. Did keep expecting to see Howl at any minute.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I liked parts of this very much. Don't know if it was just that I was in a mood or if it was the book, but I lost interest in the last couple of chapters and felt bored by the rather ex machina conclusion. Chrestomanci shows up out of nowhere and saves the day, rewards and punishes everyone according to their just deserts and sets everyone straight. Yeah, maybe I was just in a mood.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A solid Wynne Jones book, with her usual resourceful children, neglectful and self-centred parental figures, neat plotting and ever-present sharp humour. Marred only slightly by a too-pat ending, I think.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Conrad is told that everything bad that happens to him he deserves because he was a rotten person in a past life. He is told that the only way to fix his curse is to go to Stallery Castle and kill the evil person he was supposed to have killed in his past life. At Stallery Castle he meets a strange boy named Christopher who is looking for his enchantress friend Milly. Together they try to find the right people while being servant boys. The book cumulated in the way that Diana Wynne Jones books often do; everyone of import being in the same room at the same time while dramatically revealing the history to the plot. However it is a quite well written book, and I would definitely read this again. I was able to envision the characters really well; they are well described.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A new Wynne Jones is always good news, and a new Chrestomanci book was decidedly unexpected – although Christopher Chant takes a supporting role in this. Generally delightful, although it suffered from Diana's (I've met her twice, I can call her Diana) habitual tendency to go off at a sudden tangent just as the plot seems to be about to be resolved which, although admirable in some ways, does tend to muddy the waters.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've read most of Wynne Jones's other Chrestomanci books - they are "kids books" but very well-written and can be enjoyed by open-minded adults as well. Quite a British flavor, clever, quirky. Excellent characterizations.Just finished listening to this. Makes me want to re-read the earlier ones. The reader was excellent as well (of course, I can't recall his name just now).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It could well be argued that, for me, the Chrestomanci books are the most lasting books I've read. I first encountered them when I was pretty young, probably around 9 or 10, and have read most of them multiple times. When Jones came out with a new one a couple of years ago, I was very excited, and I remember reading part of it in the Indigo on Ste. Catharine. But, for some reason or another, I never got around to reading it until now.Thankfully, it didn't disappoint. I don't think I liked it more than Charmed Life or the Lives of Christopher Chant, but it was still a very good book, with a nicely realized world and good characters. I felt that I probably was missing some of the tie-ins from the other books, since I hadn't actually read any of them for a long time, but I think I got most of it, anyway. What I didn't were probably just throwaway references to reward very loyal readers. Maybe I'm not loyal enough.The story follows Conrad Grant through an appointment at the local nobility's mansion as a valet-in-training, and goes through meeting different of the Chrestomanci series characters and encountering the mysteries of the grounds. Some of it's fairly guessable, but not all of it, and one can be forgiven for guessability in a book aimed at younger audiences. All in all, it's good writing, and twisty without feeling like the author's cheating. I continue to love this author, and I'll have to read more by her again soon.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This was a reasonably enjoyable read, and has several good ideas: I particularly liked the series of overlapping buildings in alternate realities. However, I felt that the resolution of the plot really didn't hang together consistently with the previous behaviour of some of the major characters. No doubt many children reading this book would neither notice nor care, but I don't think that's an excuse in a genre such as fantasy with so many adult readers. When the author works so hard (possibly too hard) to construct a self-consistent setting, I think the coherence of plot and characterization deserves at least as much attention. There were also some pretty clunky links to the rest of the series, which jar if (like me) you're reading this book in isolation. (For example, the author laboriously explains the existence of the drably-named "Series" of alternate worlds, but it seems out of place for Conrad either to know about this, or to refer to it in exactly these terms early in the book.) Not her best. MB 2-vii-2007
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A good book, but not as strong as other Chrestomanci volumes.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm amused at this series being re-released riding on the cloak-tails of Harry Potter, as it were. Then again, it's not that I mind. It's an excellent series which I thoroughly enjoyed as a child, and still do.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I liked this Chrestomanci book much more than Witch Week! The characters in this one were just so great -- I especially loved Conrad's mother, who is a rather batty and forgetful (although that's not all her fault...) academic who writes feminist texts that no one reads.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A new Diana Wynne Jones is always cause for celebration. This is another book in the Chrestomanci universe(s) and, though not among her BEST, still very enjoyable, humourous and well-written. It was neat to see what Chrestomanci was like as a teenager. Good stuff.

Book preview

Conrad’s Fate - Diana Wynne Jones

Author’s Preface

This book, and all the other books about Chrestomanci, takes place in a universe made up of many worlds. People living in these worlds have explored them and given them the name Related Series on the grounds that the same languages are spoken in each. There are twelve such Series, numbered One to Twelve, and there are usually nine different worlds in each Series, each of which will share the same geography as others of the same number. (For instance, Series Two is a mass of marshy land and rivers, Series Five is all islands, and Series Seven has the worlds where the British Isles have not split off from the continent of Europe).

Chrestomanci himself lives in Series Twelve A, which is like our own world except that magic is common there. Our own world is Twelve B and does not have magic to speak of. A magic user using the proper spells can easily cross from one world to another, which is what Christopher does in this book.

Conrad’s Fate takes place in Series Seven and, although there are in fact thousands of different worlds, none of the others need concern you here.

Diana Wynne Jones

Chapter One

When I was small, I always thought Stallery Mansion was some kind of fairy-tale castle. I could see it from my bedroom window, high in the mountains above Stallchester, flashing with glass and gold when the sun struck it. When I got to the place at last, it wasn’t exactly like a fairy tale.

Stallchester, where we had our shop, is quite high in the mountains too. There are a lot of mountains here in Series Seven and Stallchester is in the English Alps. Most people thought this was the reason why you could only receive television at one end of the town, but my uncle told me it was Stallery doing it.

It’s the protections they put round the place to stop anyone investigating them, he said. The magic blanks out the signal.

My Uncle Alfred was a magician in his spare time so he knew this sort of thing. Most of the time he made a living for us all by keeping the bookshop at the cathedral end of town. He was a skinny, worrity little man with a bald patch under his curls and he was my mother’s half-brother. It always seemed a great burden to him, having to look after me and my mother and my sister Anthea. He rushed about muttering, "And how do I find the money, Conrad, with the book trade so slow!"

The bookshop was in our name too – it said GRANT AND TESDINIC in faded gold letters over the bow windows and the dark green door – but Uncle Alfred explained that it belonged to him now. He and my father had started the shop together. Then, just after I was born and a little before he died, my father had needed a lot of money suddenly, Uncle Alfred told me, and he sold his half of the bookshop to Uncle Alfred. Then my father died and Uncle Alfred had to support us.

And so he should do, my mother said in her vague way. We’re the only family he’s got.

My sister Anthea said she wanted to know what my father had needed the money for, but she never could find out. Uncle Alfred said he didn’t know. And you never get any sense out of Mother, Anthea said to me. She just says things like ‘Life is always a lottery’ and ‘Your father was usually hard up’ – so all I can think is that it must have been gambling debts. The casino’s only just up the road after all.

I rather liked the idea of my father gambling half a bookshop away. I used to like taking risks myself. When I was eight I borrowed some skis and went down all the steepest and iciest ski runs, and in the summer I went rock climbing. I felt I was really following in my father’s footsteps. Unfortunately, someone saw me halfway up Stall Crag and told my uncle.

Ah, no, Conrad, he said, wagging a worried, wrinkled finger at me. I can’t have you taking these risks.

My dad did, I said, betting all that money.

"He lost it, said my uncle, and that’s a different matter. I never knew much about his affairs, but I have an idea – a very shrewd idea – that he was robbed by those crooked aristocrats up at Stallery."

What? I said. You mean Count Rudolf came with a gun and held him up?

My uncle laughed and rubbed my head. Nothing so dramatic, Con. They do things quietly and mannerly up at Stallery. They pull the possibilities like gentlemen.

How do you mean? I said.

I’ll explain when you’re old enough to understand the magic of high finance, my uncle replied. Meanwhile… His face went all withered and serious. Meanwhile, you can’t afford to go risking your neck on Stall Crag, you really can’t, Con, not with the bad karma you carry.

What’s karma? I asked.

That’s another thing I’ll explain when you’re older, my uncle said. Just don’t let me catch you going rock climbing again, that’s all.

I sighed. Karma was obviously something very heavy, I thought, if it stopped you climbing rocks. I went to ask my sister Anthea about it. Anthea is nearly ten years older than me and she was very learned even then. She was sitting over a line of open books on the kitchen table, with her long black hair trailing over the page she was writing notes on. Don’t bother me now, Con, she said without looking up.

She’s growing up just like Mum! I thought. But I need to know what karma is.

Karma? Anthea looked up. She has huge dark eyes. She opened them wide to stare at me, wonderingly. "Karma’s sort of like Fate, except it’s to do with what you did in a former life. Suppose that in a life you had before this one you did something bad, or didn’t do something good, then Fate is supposed to catch up with you in this life, unless you put it right by being extra good of course. Understand?"

Yes, I said, though I didn’t really. "Do people live more than once then?"

The magicians say you do, Anthea answered. "I’m not sure I believe it myself. I mean, how can you check that you had a life before this one? Where did you hear about karma?"

Not wanting to tell her about Stall Crag, I said vaguely, Oh, I read it somewhere. And what’s pulling the possibilities? That’s another thing I read.

"It’s something that would take ages to explain and I haven’t time, Anthea said, bending over her notes again. You don’t seem to understand that I’m working for an exam that could change my entire life!"

When are you going to get lunch then? I asked.

"Isn’t that just my life in a nutshell! Anthea burst out. I do all the work round here and help in the shop twice a week, and nobody even considers that I might want to do something different! Go away!"

You didn’t mess with Anthea when she got this fierce. I went away and tried to ask Mum instead. I might have known that would be no good.

Mum has this little bare room with creaking floorboards half a floor down from my bedroom, with nothing in it much except dust and stacks of paper. She sits there at a wobbly table, hammering away at her old typewriter, writing books and magazine articles about Women’s Rights. Uncle Alfred had all sorts of smooth new computers down in the back room where Miss Silex works, and he was always on at Mum to change to one as well. But nothing will persuade Mum to change. She says her old machine is much more reliable. This is true. The shop computers went down at least once a week – this, Uncle Alfred said, was because of the activities up at Stallery – but the sound of Mum’s typewriter is a constant hammering, through all four floors of the house.

She looked up as I came in and pushed back a swatch of dark grey hair. Old photos show her looking rather like Anthea, except that her eyes are a light yellow-brown, like mine, but you would never think her anything like Anthea now. She is sort of faded and she always wears what Anthea calls that horrible mustard coloured suit and forgets to do her hair. I like that. She’s always the same, like the cathedral, and she always looks over her glasses at me the same way. Is lunch ready? she asked me.

No, I said. Anthea’s not even started it.

Then come back when it’s ready, she said, bending to look at the paper sticking up from her typewriter.

I’ll go when you tell me what pulling the possibilities means, I said.

Don’t bother me with things like that, she said, winding the paper up so that she could read her latest line. Ask your uncle. It’s only some sort of magicians’ stuff. What do you think of ‘disempowered broodmares’ as a description? Good, eh?

Great, I said. Mum’s books are full of things like that. I’m never sure what they mean. That time I thought a disempowered broodmare was some sort of weak nightmare, and I went away thinking of all her other books, called things like Exploited for Dreams and Disabled Eunuchs. Uncle Alfred had a whole table of them down in the shop. One of my jobs was to dust them, but he almost never sold any, no matter how enticingly I piled them up.

I did lots of jobs in the shop, unpacking books, arranging them, dusting them, and cleaning the floor on the days Mrs Potts’ nerves wouldn’t let her come. Mrs Potts’ nerves were always bad on the days after she had tried to tidy Uncle Alfred’s workroom. The shop, and the whole house, used to echo then with shouts of "I told you just the floor, woman! You’ve ruined that experiment! And you’re lucky not to be a goldfish! Touch it again and you’ll be a goldfish!"

But Mrs Potts, at least once a month, just could not resist stacking everything in neat piles and dusting the chalk marks off the workbench. Then Uncle Alfred would rush up the stairs shouting and the next day Mrs Potts’nerves kept her at home and I would have to clean the shop floor. As a reward for this, I was allowed to read any books I wanted from the children’s shelves.

To be brutally frank with you – which is Uncle Alfred’s favourite phrase – this reward meant nothing to me until about the time I heard about karma and Fate and started wondering what pulling the possibilities meant. Up to then I preferred doing risky things. Or I mostly wanted to go and see friends in the part of town where televisions worked. Reading was even harder work than cleaning the floor. But suddenly one day I discovered the Peter Jenkins books. You must know them – Peter Jenkins and the Thin Teacher, Peter Jenkins and the Headmaster’s Secret and all the others. They’re great. Our shop had a whole row of them, at least twenty, and I set out to read them all.

Well, I had already read about six, and those all kept harking back to another one called Peter Jenkins and the Football Formula that sounded really exciting. So that was the one I wanted to read next.

I finished the floor as quickly as I could. Then, on my way to dust Mum’s books, I stopped by the children’s shelves and looked urgently along the row of shiny red and brown Peter Jenkins books for Peter Jenkins and the Football Formula. The trouble is, all those books look the same. I ran my finger along the row, thinking I’d find the book about seventh along. I knew I’d seen it there. But it wasn’t. The one in about the right place was called Peter Jenkins and the Magic Golfer. I ran my finger right along to the end, and it still wasn’t there, and The Headmaster’s Secret didn’t seem to be there either. Instead, there were three copies of one called Peter Jenkins and the Hidden Horror which I’d never seen before. I took one of those out and flipped through it, and it was almost the same as The Headmaster’s Secret, but not quite – vampire bats instead of a zombie in the cupboard, things like that – and I put it back feeling puzzled and really frustrated.

In the end, I took one at random before I went on to dust Mum’s books. And Mum’s books were different – just slightly – too. They looked the same, with FRANCONIA GRANT in big yellow letters on them, but some of the titles were different. The fat one that used to be called Women in Crisis was still fat, but it was now called The Case for Females, and the thin floppy one was called Mother Wit, instead of Do We Use Intuition? like I remembered.

Just then I heard Uncle Alfred galloping downstairs whistling, on his way to open the shop. Hey, Uncle Alfred! I called out. "Have you sold all the Peter Jenkins and the Football Formulas?"

I don’t think so, he said, rushing into the shop with his worried look. He hurried along to the children’s shelves, muttering about having to reorder as he changed his glasses over. He peered through them at the row of Peter Jenkins books. He bent to look at the books below and stood on tiptoe to look at the shelves above. Then he backed away looking so angry that I thought Mrs Potts must have tidied the books too. Would you look at that! he said disgustedly. "That’s a third of them different! It’s criminal. They went for a big working without even considering the side effects! Go outside and see if the street’s still the same, Conrad."

I went to the shop door, but as far as I could see, nothing…Oh! The postbox down the road was now bright blue.

"You seel said my uncle when I told him. You see what they’re like! All sorts of details will be different now – valuable details – but what do they care? All they think of is money!"

Who? I asked. I couldn’t see how anyone could make money by changing books.

He pointed up and sideways with his thumb. "Them. Those bent aristocrats up at Stallery, to be brutally frank with you, Con. They make their money by pulling the possibilities about. They look, and if they see they could get a bigger profit from one of their companies if just one or two things were a little different, then they twist and twitch and pull those one or two things. It doesn’t matter to them that other things change as well. Oh no. And this time they’ve overdone it. Greedy. Wicked. People are going to notice and object if they go on doing this. He took his glasses off and cleaned them. Beads of angry sweat stood on his forehead. There’ll be trouble, he said. Or so I hope."

So this was what pulling the possibilities meant. "How do they change things?" I asked.

By very powerful magic, said my uncle. More powerful than you or I can imagine, Conrad. Make no mistake, Count Rudolf and his family are very dangerous people.

When I finally went up to my room to read my Peter Jenkins book, I looked out of my window first. Because I was at the very top of our house, I could see Stallery as just a glint and a flashing in the place where green hills folded into rocky mountain. I found it hard to believe that anyone in that high, twinkling place could have the power to change a lot of books and the colour of the postboxes down here in Stallchester. I still didn’t understand why they should want to.

It’s because if you change to a new set of things that might be going to happen, Anthea explained, looking up from her books, "you change everything just a little. This time, she added, ruefully turning the pages of her notes, they seem to have done a big jump and made a big difference. I’ve got notes here on two books that don’t seem to exist any more. No wonder Uncle Alfred’s annoyed."

We got used to the changes by next day. Sometimes it was hard to remember that postboxes used to be red. Uncle Alfred said that we only remembered anyway because we lived in that part of Stallchester. To be brutally frank with you, he said, half Stallchester thinks postboxes were always blue. So does the rest of the country. The King probably calls them royal blue. Mind games, that’s what it is. Diabolical greed.

This happened in the glad old days when Anthea was at home. I think Mum and Uncle Alfred thought Anthea would always be at home. That summer, Mum said as usual, Anthea don’t forget that Conrad needs new school clothes for next term, and Uncle Alfred was full of plans for expanding the shop once Anthea had left school and could work there full time.

If I clear out the boxroom opposite my workroom, he would say, we can put the office in there. Then we can put books where the office is – maybe build out into the yard.

Anthea never said much in reply to these plans. She was very quiet and tense for the next month or so. Then she seemed to cheer up. She worked in the shop quite happily all the rest of the summer and, in the early autumn, she took me to buy new clothes just as she had done last year, except that she bought things for herself at the same time. Then, after I had been back at school a month, she left.

She came down to breakfast carrying a small suitcase. I’m off, she said. I start at University tomorrow. I’m catching the nine-twenty to Ludwich, so I’ll say goodbye now and get something to eat on the train.

"University! Mum exclaimed. But you’re not clever enough!"

You can’t, said Uncle Alfred. There’s the shop – and you don’t have any money.

I took an exam, Anthea said, and I won a scholarship. That gives me enough money if I’m careful.

"But you can’t! they both said together. Mum added, Who’s going to look after Conrad? and Uncle Alfred said, Look here, my girl, I was relying on you for the shop."

Working for nothing. I know, Anthea said. Well, I’m sorry to spoil your plans for me, but I do have a life of my own, you know, and I’ve made arrangements for myself because I knew you’d both stop me if I told you. I’ve looked after all three of you for years. But now Conrad’s old enough to look after himself, I’m going to go and get a life.

And she went, leaving us all staring. She didn’t come back. She knew Uncle Alfred, you see. Uncle Alfred spent a lot of time in his workroom setting up spells to make sure that when Anthea came home at the end of the University semester she would find herself having to stay with us for good. Anthea guessed he would. She simply sent a postcard to say she was staying with friends and never came near us. She sent me cards and presents for my birthdays, but she never came back to Stallchester for years.

Chapter Two

Anthea’s going made a dreadful difference, far worse than any change made by Count Rudolf up at Stallery. Mum was in a bad mood for weeks. I’m not sure she ever forgave Anthea.

So sly! she kept saying. So mean and secretive. Don’t you ever be like that, Conrad, and it’s no use expecting me to run after you. I have my work to do.

Uncle Alfred was tetchy and grumpy for a long time too, but he cheered up after he had set the spells that were supposed to fix Anthea at home once she came back. He took to patting me on the shoulder and saying, "You’re not going to let me down like that, are you, Con?"

Sometimes I answered, No fear! but mostly I wriggled a bit and didn’t answer. I missed Anthea horribly for ages. She had been the person I could go to when I had a question to ask, or to get cheered up. If I fell down or cut myself, she had been the one with sticking plaster and soothing words. She used to suggest things for me to do if I was bored. I felt quite lost now she was gone.

I hadn’t realised how many things Anthea did in the house. Luckily, I knew how to work the washing machine, but I was always forgetting to run it and finding I’d no clothes to go to school in. I got into trouble for wearing dirty clothes until I got used to remembering. Mum just went on piling her clothes into the laundry basket as she always had, but Uncle Alfred was particular about his shirts. He had to pay Mrs Potts to iron them for him and he grumbled a lot about how much she charged.

The ingredients for my experiments cost the earth these days, he kept saying. "Where do I find the money?"

Anthea had done all the shopping and cooking too, and this was where we all suffered most. For the week after she left we lived on cornflakes, until they ran out. Then Mum tried to solve the problem by ordering two hundred frozen quiches and cramming these into the freezer. You can’t believe how quickly you get tired of eating quiche. And none of us remembered to fetch the next quiche out to thaw. Uncle Alfred was always having to unfreeze them by magic, and this made them soggy and seemed to affect the taste.

Is there anything else we can eat that might be less squishy and more satisfying? he asked pathetically. Think, Fran. You used to cook once.

That was when I was being exploited as a female, Mum retorted. The quiche people do frozen pizzas too, but you have to order them by the thousand.

Uncle Alfred shuddered. I’d rather eat bacon and eggs, he said sadly.

Then go out and buy some, said my mother.

In the end, we settled that Uncle Alfred would do the shopping and I would try to cook what he bought. I fetched books called Simple Cookery and Easy Eating up out of the shop and did my best to do what they told me. I was never very good at it. The food always seemed to turn black and stick to the bottom of the pan, but I usually had enough on top to get by with. We ate a lot of bread, though only Mum got noticeably fatter.

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