The Blood Binding by Helen Stringer

Author:Helen Stringer [Stringer, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile, Fantasy, Magic
ISBN: 9781480195448
Google: q66rNAEACAAJ
Amazon: 1480195448
Barnesnoble: 1480195448
Goodreads: 16169159
Publisher: Createspace
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

“We’re going to get in so much trouble,” muttered Belladonna, as she joined the grinning Steve by the door. “See you in a few minutes, Elsie.”

“Righty-ho!”

“Um…could you go first?” asked Steve.

Belladonna rolled her eyes and took his key-ring flashlight.

“Honestly,” she said. “I don’t see how you can be so scared of leggy insects when you keep dropping spiders onto the chess club’s boards.”

“That’s different. It isn’t dark.”

“That makes no sense,” muttered Belladonna as they stepped through the door and started the descent.

Journeys usually feel shorter once you’ve done them a few times, but the aged winding staircase beneath the school library always felt never ending. Eventually, however, they arrived in the Cumaean Sibyl’s temple. The torches on either side of the great stone chair sprang to life and the Sibyl’s disembodied voice echoed around the chamber.

“WHO DARES TO…oh, it’s you again.”

“Yes, sorry,” said Belladonna. “But we just need to use the lift.”

“You don’t need to know the future?”

“Not this time. Thanks, though,” said Steve.

“Not even a little?” asked the Sibyl, rather plaintively. “I could tell you if it’s going to rain tomorrow.”

“We don’t really need an oracle for that,” said Steve, smiling. “Maybe next time.”

“’Bye,” said Belladonna. “Sorry.”

“Typical,” muttered the Sibyl.

“Arate Thyras!” commanded Belladonna.

“Oh, I see,” complained the voice of the Sibyl, which had moved from the vicinity of the great stone chair to somewhere up in the ceiling near the stairs. “Now you know ancient Greek. Very clever.”

The doors of the elevator slid open and Belladonna and Steve stepped inside. Steve pressed the now-familiar button for the Land of the Dead, and the lift shot off sideways, before descending rapidly at a slight angle and landing with a bump.

Belladonna said the ancient Greek for “open the doors” again and they found themselves back in the huge rotunda of the House of Mists, the home of the ghosts’ seat of government, the Conclave of Shadow.

Elsie was waiting, but other than that, the building was strangely silent.

“Where is everyone?” asked Belladonna.

“Getting ready for Halloween,” said Elsie. “Come on, she’s in the garden.”

She led they way out of the huge doors, across the pillared portico, and down to the garden that had so impressed Belladonna the first time she saw it, with its lawns and arbors, interlocking flower beds and meandering paths. It had been beautiful then, even though everything had been dead, but now it was simply glorious, the flowers and foliage cascading over each other in a riot of color and fragrance.

Elsie walked to the small pavilion in the center of the garden and tapped on the side of the open door.

“Hello?” she called, cautiously.

“Just a moment! I’m thinning a seedbox!” The voice was slightly husky and ridiculously posh, like people in old movies.

“I bet she’s got secateurs,” whispered Steve.

“Shh!”

“Ah, well now! What can I do for you?”

Even though Belladonna knew that the dead could choose to be any age they wanted, for some reason she had still been expecting a ninety year old woman. But the girl who stepped out into the sunlight was young and hearty, her cheeks flushed pink from working.

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