The broom bucked, shuddered and then plummeted further. A clamour of muffled voices surrounded them.

Lee’s voice rang out: “Don’t listen to them, darling! The spirits of evil doers will try to trick you. Don’t listen! Don’t listen! Don’t listen!”

Her voice was so powerful, it drowned out the muttering of the spirits.

The wind whipped Lee's red hair in all directions. She pointed with a long finger into the confusion of lights and shadows below. “There! Your Summer Palace! It’s our only chance. The Wall has crumbled and the palace is back in this world.”

Karl chanced a glimpse below. There it was! The Summer Palace surrounded on both sides by the glowing barrier.

They plummeted like a stone, Karl feeling that sickening sensation of dropping from a great height in the pit of his stomach. They alighted beside a small side door in the palace. Karl was still strapped to his mother and clung to her as she stood and took hold of the broom in one hand. He did not want to look at the Wall. He pressed his face against Lee’s cold, slippery shoulder.

“Alright, my love?” She sounded breathless.

He mumbled assent.

Lee gripped hold of the door handles, and giving a little cry, broke open the door and strode inside.

The first thing Karl noticed was the fusty smell of the place, more pungent than Lee’s body odour. He looked up. The hallway was so dingy and shabby now. It was jarring to see it this way.

“You OK, Karl?” Lee crouched down and unstrapped him and then gripped his shoulders. “Look at me…” She fixed him with the gaze of her unblinking, blue eyes. “The spirits didn’t get to you, did they?”

“I couldn’t even hear them. I was only listening to you.” Why did she ask? She should know the terrific volume of her own voice.

Lee grinned. “That’s my good boy.”

She slipped her arm in his and he remained close to her. His mother was the only bright and alive thing in sight. With her lurid skin tone and fiery hair, she seemed almost to glow in the dinginess of this place…

It was spooky, seeing the corridors so empty and the palace a mere shadow of its former self. The air was so still. The fusty reek was like an underground dungeon.

“Mum… is this as far as we’re going to get?”

She shook her head, her red hair rippling and bouncing. “No darling. He just needs a rest. But I doubt he can fly further today.” She was holding her broom in her other hand. To Karl’s disgust it squirmed like a great, wooden snake. Lee looked at it and gave a wry smile. “It’s best to be in the shelter of the building while we wait.”

They came to the great dance hall again. Karl felt himself trembling. The memories here were too strong.

His mother gave a piercing cry as she caught sight of that life-sized portrait of his royal family that dominated the far wall. At the time of the revolution, it was newly painted and showed his royal mother, his father and his sisters too. Anna looked solemn, but the artist had painted him with a broad grin.

“That artist is sooo talented, hey?” Lee pointed a long green finger at the painting. “Look at you. That big grin... So perfect.” She peered close to the painting. “If I could pluck the little man from the canvas and hug him tight…”

Karl felt only melancholy at seeing the painting. His family looked like they had no idea what was coming. That moment was captured forever in oils, but there was no going back to it.

Lee gave a sigh as she gazed at the canvas. Her blue eyes had that faraway expression that meant she was lost in thought.. “Such a beautiful family… such a tragedy…”

At that moment, Karl became aware of a pale light flaring up on the dance floor. He turned and gave a little start.

The floor was full of people, dancing in pairs, the ladies in glittering dresses. What could he be seeing? And then his heart thudded in his breast, for he saw his father, his royal mother and his sisters at the far end of the hall, standing around the thrones, glowing with an ethereal light. Anna beamed and glided forwards.

“Hey!” Lee was there in an instant and grasped him by the arm with a strong hand. “They’re not real, Karl. These are netherworld shape-shifters, from the rift that made the wall.” Her voice was trembling. He had never heard her sound this frightened.

The apparition that resembled Anna reached out her hands. “We’ve been waiting for you, baby brother. How can you doubt that?”

“Stay away from my son, evil spook!” screamed Lee and lashed out with her broom.

The spectre hissed as the broom made contact and the image of Anna flickered to be replaced by the shadowy outline of a strange man, fuzzy and indistinct, with awful, staring eyes with no light or soul behind them. Something like surprise flickered in his dead eyes as the broom knocked him back and he was hurled backwards as though he were light as a cobweb.

“Back! Get Back!” screamed Lee as the other shapeshifters floated forwards, shedding their royal disguises and showing themselves as shadowy men... The twigs of the broom seemed to burst alight into flame again as Lee waved it from side to side in front of them. The spectres hissed and fell back in disarray.

“On my back!” screamed Lee, and squatted down.

It took Karl a moment to realise what she meant, but as soon as he did, he gripped her shoulders and heaved himself up, putting his legs around her waist, holding tight. She leapt up the stairs, in great bounds, six at a time and then knocked aside the double doors at the top of the stairs and then bounded down a number of deserted corridors and passageways.

They entered a side-room, now like an old lumber room, silent and dingy. There were ornaments on all the tables now covered by a fine layer of dust.

“There is someone coming,” murmured Lee, “a living mortal. I can hear their footfalls and breathing… it is a she!”

Karl peered over his mother’s shoulder as the far doors swung open and a red headed girl entered and gave a start and a little cry as she saw them. It was Cintia, from the village! What were the odds of that? Embarrassed, Karl slipped off his mother’s back and stood beside her, taking hold of her free hand.

“Cintia, how did you get here? I was worried…” began Lee.

Cintia’s sky blue eyes narrowed. “You’re the toymaker. I recognise you. Even without the stupid mask. Who are you, really?”

Lee touched her green cheek. “I’m a night-hag. My name is Leevana. This is my son, Karl. He used to be Prince of the realm. We’re looking for a way out of Ostinia. And fast.”

Cintia peered at Karl, narrowing her blue eyes. "The prince? Is that a fact?"

Lee gazed at her steadily. “Yes, it's a fact. I have adopted him. Listen Cintia, are you OK? You should not be trying to pick a path through the Wall alone. It’s dangerous.”

Cintia wrinkled her freckled nose in semi-disgust. “Don’t patronise me. I’ve just escaped Steel’s purge of my village.”

Lee drew her brows together and bit her grey lip. “Oh Cintia.” She laid her broom to one side and reached out to touch Cintia's arm, but Cintia took a step back. Lee blinked.

“I’m glad you escaped,” said Karl, feeling himself blush a little. He did not really know what else to say. How many friends and relatives had Cintia lost? How could he ask her about that? It was a painful kind of subject for him as well...

Cintia came over to him and touched him on the arm. “You never felt the need to stick a mask on your face in front of me.” Karl gazed back at her unable to speak for the moment. She had certainly grown into her looks. Her fiery hair cascaded down her back, glossy and shiny. Her nose, broader than his, was nonetheless so cutely formed. Her round face and pink lips were covered all over with vibrant freckles. She had once been skinny, but now her chest had developed. Her jacket fit her very tightly…

“What do you mean by that?” said Lee, puzzled. “Never mind. The Wall is a rent into the netherworld and spirits of evil-doers lurk around it. Stay close to us, Cintia. Since I am immortal, the spirits of death are repulsed by me, but they will be drawn to you.”

“Oh? What do you suggest?” said Cintia. She turned to Karl and scrunched her nose. “I should have been calling you, ‘Your Highness’ all this time Karl. In fact, now that Steel has taken over, any sane person should see we would be better off under the royals. I wish you were on the throne now.”

“Karl has always been my Prince, Steel or no Steel,” said Lee. Was there a hint of coolness in her voice?

“What mum would say otherwise?” said Cintia. She leaned close to Karl. “You do have the best of the royal features. Truly worthy of a statue.”

“Cintia dear, we have a pressing problem,” said Lee. “The building is infested with evil spirits and we have to find a way through the Wall. You must have found a gap in the wall, hey?”

Cintia looked askance at the night-hag before her. “Can’t you just fly us out? Or wave that ugly wand you have?” She curled her lip at the broom.

“Hey! He has feelings. Don’t you?” Said Lee to the broom. “And I can’t fly anymore today. My travel bag must have been too heavy.”

“Some night-hag,” said Cintia, shaking her head. “What use is being a night-hag if you can't fly?”

Karl thought she was rather cheeky. Ulva and Aila were night-hags and they couldn't even fly. Lee had got them this far.

“Now I know you’re upset about everything, but we must travel together and to do that, we must get along,” said Lee, with a tone of forced lightness. “I am a supernatural being, but I have limits. Can you show us the path you found?”

Cintia flicked a strand of her long, red hair away from her face and glanced around the room. “It looks like the PLATs did not ransack this place.”

Karl remembered Ulva’s report ten years previously. The PLATs raised the Wall quickly, so as to end the war. They did not care if Ostinia lost some land, or about ransacking the Summer Palace.

“Everything left here is mine, so we should take anything we can use on the journey,” he said aloud.

“Good thinking,” said Cintia smiling at him.

“Well then, to the kitchens, kids,” said Lee. “I want you both to have a balanced diet on the journey.” She grinned at Cintia. “For myself, I could live off rats and bugs if I had to, but there is really no need, and I don’t want to. That’s one useful thing about being a night-hag. You can do things you would rather not.”

Cintia smirked.

00O00

Karl led them to the kitchen. It wasn’t as if he’d ever had cause to go there when he was Prince, but Anna had taken him once, wanting to have a midnight feast without including their sisters … There was no doubt he had been her favourite. The happy memories of her were still painful sometimes, even now he had accepted that she was dead.

The great stone kitchens had the fusty reek of an underground dungeon. Lee kept hold of his hand at all times, for which he was grateful. Cintia went ahead, her footfalls echoing. She did not tread as lightly as Lee, even though she was much smaller. On the other hand, Karl thought her red hair and pale skin were easily visible in the dim light. They both almost glowed in the dark…

Cintia pulled open a cupboard, showering herself with dust. “Ah good. Preserved fruit and pickled eggs in sealed jars. These at least will have kept all this time. How much could you carry, Leevana?”

“We’ll pool our provisions and I’ll carry the lot,” said Lee.

“The meat vault is over there,” said Karl, pointing. “How long does salted meat last, mum?”

“I'm not entirely sure, darling. It would last forever for me. I could eat decaying meat. But neither of you should take that chance.”

Cintia came over, her arms laden with jars. “It’ll probably be alright. Same goes for any cured cheese.”

Lee carefully placed the jars into her bag.

Cintia went over to the door of the meat vault and fumbled with the lock. At that moment, there came the sound of scrabbling and scratching from within the vault.

Lee froze, still stooped over the bag, her blue eyes wide.

“What?” said Cintia.

Lee’s green face showed real fear. “An evil spirit, far worse than the ones in the Dance Hall.”

There came the sound of a harsh, man’s voice. “The butcher is here… the butcher will get you now… Steel sent me… the Wall crumbles and we have broken free of the netherworld… Steel has recruited his kindred spirits from the dead and we are ready to do his will.”

A shadow emerged from the vault, through the iron door, and coalesced by Cintia. It was roughly humanoid, but with any humanity long since lost. It stared at them, with glowing red eyes. “Steel has delivered me. The Butcher is back and ready to kill again. You cannot hide, piggies… or you, greenie. There’s no escape…”