To Whom Enchanters Are Familiar

The Boys in the Basement

     "In an enchanter's basement anything was possible."

- Diana Wynne Jones, Stealer of Souls

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     Eric and Tonino were to travel to Dulwich - a pleasant village just south of London - to visit Gabriel de Witt, the former Chrestomanci. Gabriel had once said of Cat that he was a strange, reserved boy, though neither Tonino nor Cat were there to hear it. Mordecai Roberts (who was an accomplished magic user in his own right) picked the two boys up at the station and they took a cab to Gabriel de Witt's residence, a house that by our standards would be considered very old-fashioned; but you see, the world that Cat and Tonino lived in was set back a number of decades. The year was truly 1979, but everywhere you looked, it would appear that they lived in Edwardian times. And so both Cat and Tonino thought that Gabriel's house looked quite clean and modern, as it adhered to the latest styles in architectural design. What Tonino understood of Gabriel, was that he was very old and he was slowly dying. In fact, Tonino and Cat actually saw him die while they were there. Gabriel's soul stood up and walked out of his body. But Gabriel was a nine-lifed enchanter, so this was not quite the end. Nonetheless, the boys found the sight chilling. They left soon after. This was how the abduction happened.

     Mr. Roberts hailed a cab, a horse drawn hackney, for the two of them and paid the driver. Cat and Tonino would be back at the castle earlier than intended, and Mordecai Roberts had to stay behind to tend to Gabriel. But to Mr Roberts' upset, when the cab reached the end of the street, it simply disappeared. Into thin air. Meanwhile, Cat and Tonino were none the wiser that a wicked plot was afoot. They began to forget where they were, where they had been, where they were going. They reached the outskirts of London. They soon forgot who they were themselves, or who they were to each other. The door was pulled open by an old man in a dirty black gown neither of them had known before or after getting into the cab. "Two blondie lads, just like you said, governor," said the driver.

     "Ah yes, the right two, as ordered. . . . Out you get then. Make haste now," the man commanded. Cat and Tonino scrambled out of the cab. The driver tipped his hat, cracked his whip, and drove away. The hackney disappeared just as it had before, not quite reaching the end of the street. Tonino asked how that happened. 

     "Belongs to the future, doesn't it?" the old man snapped. He then told Cat and Tonino that they were two apprentices hired from the poorhouse, and as bewildered as they were, they had no recourse but to believe him. They were hurried into an old tumbledown house, through a wooden hallway and a magician's workshop, down cold stone stairs to a cold stone basement. When he asked their names, neither Cat nor Tonino could think what they might be. The old man sighed and muttered something about "too much of the forgettery." This turned out to be a very good thing for both Cat and Tonino's sakes, but they would not realize that until much later. This man, an evil enchanter, was looking for a boy named Eric Chant. He intended to kill the boy. Instead, Cat and Tonino were locked in the basement to tend to the tasks the Master set for them. And after a time, the Master may very well have killed both of them anyway - but in the end, they had managed to escape. It was a whirlwind of running and flying over rooftops, a chase that ended in a Dulwich hospital. Chrestomanci returned. Tonino and Cat regained the memories that had been stripped of them, and they left Dulwich at last. This was how Cat discovered that he liked Tonino after all.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

     For the sake of those who may not be familiar with the Chronicles of Chrestomanci up to this point, this particular chapter is more of a brief retelling of events than anything else. The details of Cat and Tonino's abduction and escape are far more tumultuous than what is described here. If you are curious as to the full story, I highly recommend reading Diana Wynne Jones's novella Stealer of Souls.