Organ Music by Margaret Mahy Read Free Book Online Page B

desperately. Bullets! Yes! He was certainly firing those words out into the room and once he had turned them loose, Quinta had the power – a sort of ghost power – to use them as actual weapons. He certainly wouldn’t have been able to invent words, let alone fire them, if he had drunk that drugged coffee. He glanced at the pot plant and saw that the poor thing had collapsed and tumbled out of its pot. Meanwhile Harley was struggling to stay awake. But then Harley met his eyes and made a clumsy gesture. Clumsy or not he was trying to point to the door. Within himself, David heard music – the same music that had haunted the corridor outside.
    â€˜Fire the words!’ Quinta ordered him. ‘Send them through me. I’ll give them dominance – I’ll give them substance. I’m nothing but a dream now ... a sort of dream ... but I’m a dream set free, and free dreams have power.’
    â€˜Yes! Yes! Call a team together!’ Winnie Finney was saying, but he was starting to stammer a little. ‘Call a ... call ... call ... ’ Then he stiffened, dropped the phone, and swung around to stare at David.
    David immediately began trying to remember all the fierce words he knew. ‘Avenge! Avengalatum!’ he shouted – remembering, then inventing.
    Winnie Finney took a step towards him.
    â€˜Avengalatum!’ hissed Quinta, an echo that only David could hear, and the word flew from her like a bullet from a gun.
    Winnie Finney stopped and stood staring at David, swaying as if he had been struck. Behind him, Harley seemed to revive a little, sitting up in his chair, then standing unsteadily.
    â€˜Devastation! Bashaboutabit!’ screamed David, and felt Quinta seize his words and fire them at Winnie Finney, whose knees began to tremble. The words were knocking him about. Harley looked just as unsteady on his feet, but David could tell at once that Harley had a plan. He must keep Winnie Finney from turning around.
    â€˜What are you trying to say?’ Winnie Finney demanded. ‘Speak clearly!’
    â€˜I am a master of words,’ David was thinking fast. ‘Destructosaurus!’ He began to chant:
    Destructosaurus!
    Ichthyosaurus
    Tyrannosaurus Rex!
    Harley was almost at the door, staggering but silent.
    â€˜Oh no!’ Winnie Finney said softly, staring from side to side as if voices came from all directions.
    Harley! thought David. Harley, even drugged and stumbling, was joining in the crazy chant, and the ghostly Quinta was using it to absorb all Winnie Finney’s attention. Perhaps there were other voices, too, that David couldn’t hear, though the room seemed to ring with echoes. People might have died in this room, but now David’s words were bringing some part of them to life again, and those voices from the past were growing powerful.
    Behind Winnie Finney, Harley struggled to turn the key in the lock.
    â€˜Dastardly! Diabolical!’ cried David. ‘Snarlopendous! Gnashgnash! Gnashgnash!’ He hissed these words ferociously, and Quinta seemed to spin, arms wide, gathering the words and gaining strength from them. Winnie Finney threw up one arm as if defending himself from a blow.
    Then two things happened: Harley pushed the door wide, stumbling then falling through it, and Winnie Finney’s face grew pale, the colour of uncooked pastry.
    â€˜You!’ he shouted. ‘You’re dead. Don’t you look at me like that! My little girl was worth a hundred of you. You know very well that since she died, I’ve helped humanity – those that deserved it. I’ve only used villains and useless wretches of the world. Humanity’s garbage!’
    Quinta was looking at him fixedly. David could only see the red stubble on the back of her head – a skull sprinkled with cayenne pepper.
    â€˜You’re being paid though, aren’t you?’ she said to Winnie Finney. ‘You don’t give our parts away.