The Lives of Christopher Chant. Diana Wynne Jones

I’ll be along at once.”

      Christopher saw him leave the window and walk away to one side. Mama had only time to turn to the Last Governess and say, “There, I’ve done my best!” before the door of her dressing-room opened and Uncle Ralph strode in.

      Christopher quite forgot his sobs in the interest of all this. He tried to think what was on the other side of the wall of Mama’s dressing-room. The stairs, as far as he knew. He supposed Uncle Ralph could have a secret room in the wall about one foot wide, but he was much more inclined to think he had been seeing real magic. As he decided this, Uncle Ralph secretly passed him a large white handkerchief and walked cheerfully into the middle of the room to allow Christopher time to wipe his face.

      “Now what’s all this about?” he said.

      “I’ve no idea,” said Mama. “She’ll explain, no doubt.”

      Uncle Ralph cocked a ginger eyebrow at the Last Governess.

      “I found Christopher playing with an artefact,” the Governess said tediously, “of a kind I have never seen before, made of metal that is totally unknown to me. He then revealed he had three more artefacts, each one different from the other, but he was unable to explain how he had come by them.”

      Uncle Ralph looked at Christopher, who hid the handkerchief behind him and looked nervously back. “Enough to get anyone into hot water, old chap,” Uncle Ralph said. “Suppose you take me to look at these things and explain where they do come from?”

      Christopher heaved a great happy sigh. He had known he could count on Uncle Ralph to save him. “Yes, please,” he said.

      They went back upstairs with the Last Governess processing ahead and Christopher hanging gratefully on to Uncle Ralph’s large warm hand. When they got there, the Governess sat quietly down to her sewing again as if she felt she had done her bit. Uncle Ralph picked up the bells and jingled them. “By Jove!” he said. “These sound like nothing else in the universe!”

      He took them to the window and carefully examined each bell. “Bullseye!” he said. “You clever woman! They are like nothing else in the universe. Some kind of strange alloy, I think, different for each bell. Handmade by the look of them.” He pointed genially to the tuffet by the fire. “Sit there, old chap, and oblige me by explaining what you did to get these bells here.”

      Christopher sat down, full of willing eagerness. “I had to hold them in my mouth while I climbed through The Place Between,” he explained.

      “No, no,” said Uncle Ralph. “That sounds like near the end. Start with what you did in the beginning before you got the bells.”

      “I went down the valley to the snake-charming town,” Christopher said.

      “No, before that, old chap,” said Uncle Ralph. “When you set off from here. What time of day was it, for instance? After breakfast? Before lunch?”

      “No, in the night,” Christopher explained. “It was one of the dreams.”

      In this way, by going carefully back every time Christopher missed out a step, Uncle Ralph got Christopher to tell him in detail about the dreams, and The Place Between, and the Almost Anywheres he came to down the valleys. Since Uncle Ralph, far from being angry, seemed steadily more delighted, Christopher told him everything he could think of.

      “What did I tell you!” he said, possibly to the Governess. “I can always trust my hunches. Something had to come out of a heredity like this! By Jove, Christopher old chap, you must be the only person in the world who can bring back solid objects from a spirit trip! I doubt if even old de Witt can do that!”

      Christopher glowed to find Uncle Ralph so pleased with him, but he could not help feeling resentful about the Last Governess. “She said I stole them.”

      “Take no notice of her. Women are always jumping to the wrong conclusions,” Uncle Ralph said, lighting a cigar. At this, the Last Governess shrugged her shoulders up and smiled a little. The hidden prettiness came out stronger than Christopher had ever seen it, almost as if she was human and sharing a joke.

      Uncle Ralph blew a roll of blue smoke over them both, beaming like the sun coming through the clouds. “Now the next thing, old chap,” he said, “is to do a few experiments to test this gift of yours. Can you control these dreams of yours? Can you say when you’re about to go off to your Almost Anywheres – or can’t you?”

      Christopher thought about it. “I go when I want to,” he said.

      “Then have you any objection to doing me a test run, say tomorrow night?” Uncle Ralph asked.

      “I could go tonight,” Christopher offered.

      “No, tomorrow,” said Uncle Ralph. “It’ll take me a day to get things set up. And when you go, this is what I want you to do.”

      He leant forward and pointed his cigar at Christopher, to let him know he was serious. “You set out as usual when you’re ready and try to do two experiments for me. First, I’m going to arrange to have a man waiting for you in your Place Between. I want you to see if you can find him. You may have to shout to find him – I don’t know: I’m not a spirit traveller myself – but anyway, you climb about and see if you can make contact with him. If you do, then you do the second experiment. The man will tell you what that is. And if they both work, then we can experiment some more. Do you think you can do that? You’d like to help, wouldn’t you, old chap?”

      “Yes!” said Christopher.

      Uncle Ralph stood up and patted his shoulder. “Good lad. Don’t let anyone deceive you, old chap. You have a very exciting and important gift here. It’s so important that I advise you not to talk about it to anyone but me and Miss Bell over there. Don’t tell anyone, not even your mama. Right?”

      “Right,” said Christopher. It was wonderful that Uncle Ralph thought him important. He was so glad and delighted that he would have done far more for Uncle Ralph than just not tell anyone. That was easy. There was no one to tell.

      “So it’s our secret,” said Uncle Ralph, going to the door. “Just the three of us – and the man I’m going to send, of course. Don’t forget you may have to look quite hard to find him, will you?”

      “I won’t forget,” Christopher promised eagerly.

      “Good lad,” said Uncle Ralph, and went out of the door in a waft of cigar smoke.

       CHAPTER THREE

      Christopher thought he would never live through the time until tomorrow night. He burned to show Uncle Ralph what he could do. If it had not been for the Last Governess, he would have made himself ill with excitement, but she managed to be so boring that she somehow made everything else boring too. By the time Christopher went to bed that next night, he was almost wondering if it was worth dreaming.

      But he did dream, because Uncle Ralph had asked him to, and got out of bed as usual and walked round the fireplace to the valley, where his clothes were lying on the rocky path as usual. By now this lot of clothes were torn, covered with mud and assorted filth from a hundred Almost Anywheres, and at least two sizes too small. Christopher put them on quickly, without bothering to do up buttons that would not meet. He never wore shoes because they got in the way as he climbed the rocks. He pattered round the crag in his bare feet into The Place Between.

      It was formless and unfinished as ever, all slides and jumbles of rocks rearing in every direction and high overhead. The mist billowed