The Blood Binding by Helen Stringer Read Free Book Online Page A

you
ready?”
    “I suppose so,” said
Belladonna, tucking her hair behind her ears and taking the bottle out of her
bag.
    “Cool. Let’s go…hang on…who’s
that?”
    Belladonna looked over toward
the parade ground. Branwyn was still sitting on the railway ties, still soaking
wet even though the day was dry, but there was someone else with her, sitting
close and talking up a storm, if the bobbing of her head was anything to go by.
    “It can’t be…” said Steve, as
they walked closer.
    “Hello, chaps!”
    “Elsie! It’s because of
Halloween, right?”
    “Yes,” said Elsie. “It’s the
one day of the year we can go anywhere we like. I thought you might need a
hand.”
    “Elsie’s been telling me
everything that’s happened in history since I…came here,” whispered Branwyn,
happily.
    “Well, not everything,” said
Elsie, a little sheepishly. “Just the good stuff. The best battles and the
really interesting kings and queens. Oh, and trains and cars and gramophones,
that sort of thing.”
    “I bet the British Empire got
a mention, as well,” said Belladonna, smiling.
    “Or three or four,” added
Steve.
    “I just can’t believe the
world is so big,” said Branwyn. “So many other countries and all sorts of
different people.”
    “Well, let’s get you out of
here so you can see it,” said Belladonna. “Or the version on the Other Side, at
least.”
    She put her backpack down and
handed the bottle to Steve, then she closed her eyes and let the Words come.
    “ Igi si gar!” Reveal
yourself! “ Igi si gar! ”
    Even with her eyes closed,
Belladonna could tell that the Spirits of the Black Water had materialized. The
intense wave of menace and hatred was almost palpable, like a punch to the
stomach.
     She opened her eyes and
looked at the black swirling clouds. The other ghosts had noticed too, and were
all standing stock still, and staring.
    “What do we do?” asked Steve,
trying to ignore the audience. “Just pour it around them?”
    “I had a word with a Druid
last night,” said Elsie. “Took for-bally-ever to find the chap. He was a bit
unwilling to talk because he was on his way to Stonehenge and kept going on
about being late for the sunrise.”
    “I thought Stonehenge didn’t
have anything to do with druids,” said Steve.
    “It doesn’t,” said Elsie.
“It’s just a really good place for a party, apparently. Anyway, he said in
order to free the blood binding, the new one has to be inside the old.”
    “Great. Anything else?”
    “You have to recite the
ingredients over and over until the binding is complete.”
    “Please tell me you brought
the list,” said Steve.
    Belladonna rummaged through
her backpack and held the list aloft, triumphantly.
    “I imagine it has to be the
old names,” she said.
    “I should think so,” said
Elsie, leaning over her shoulder. “And I should think the order is important,
too.”
    “Right,” said Belladonna.
“Who’s going to do what?”
    “I think Steve should pour
the potion,” said Elsie. “He can run the fastest. After all, he’s on the
under-15 footie team now.”
    “I am?”
    “They put the notice up
yesterday afternoon. We were all on the Other Side.”
    “Aceballs!”
    “Okay,” said Belladonna.
“That means you and I will recite the list, Elsie.”
    “I’ll help,” said Elsie,
smiling. “But I think it’s the living person who counts.”
    “So all that’s left is to
find out where the old binding line was.”
    All eyes turned to Branwyn.
    “Do you remember?” asked
Belladonna.
    She had an awful feeling that
the limits of the old binding might have been connected to items on the
landscape when Hegland Moss had been a marsh, all of which would be long gone
now.
    “Of course I do,” whispered
Branwyn. “How could I not? This is the western corner. It goes from here up to
that oak just beyond the parade ground, then over to the remains of the
watchtower, there, then back down to those bins and then