by Emily Rodda
‘Take off your boots, Leo,’ Conker called over his shoulder. ‘Leave them outside the door. Snug rules.’
Wearily Leo did as he was told. Then he opened the cabin door.
Soft light flooded the round room beyond. It illuminated curved pale brown walls as smooth as the inside of a china bowl, a rounded gold-brown ceiling, windows shrouded in thick green curtains, a pile of white quilts, and a floor covered with a thick, pale, spongy substance that looked as soft as thistledown.
And that was all. There were no beds. There was no furniture of any kind. It was just a plain, bare space.
And yet … Leo had never seen a place that looked more inviting.
Welcome, Leo, a hushed voice breathed in his mind. Enter, and leave your cares behind.
Leo knew that it was Bliss. The ancient tree was speaking to him – he felt it without a moment’s doubt or even wonder – and her invitation was irresistible.
He stepped across the threshold. His feet sank deeply into the soft, spongy floor. The air was fresh and faintly scented, something like the inside of the carved wooden chest in which his mother kept the spare blankets at home.
Home …
The light seemed to dim a little.
You are home with me, the soft voice whispered. And it is late, very late. Time to sleep now. To sleep …
And before he knew it Leo was curling up on the feather-soft floor and snuggling into a white quilt as his eyelids fluttered closed. The light was still on. He hadn’t washed his face. He hadn’t cleaned his teeth. He was still wearing his jacket, his belt, his …
Sleep well, Leo, the voice whispered. Sweet dreams.
Soft darkness flooded Leo’s senses. And the next thing he knew, it was morning.
He opened his eyes and blinked in golden sunshine. Conker and Freda were sitting up, stretching and yawning. Mimi was standing at one of the cabin windows. She had opened the green curtains, and dappled light was streaming in. As Leo sat up, she turned around, her face glowing.
‘Have you ever had a sleep like that?’ she cried. ‘Ever in your whole life?’
Leo thought he had. Not for a long time, though. Not since he was very young, and life was very simple.
‘I always say there’s nothing like a Snug to set you up for the day.’ Conker grinned, jumping to his feet and running his fingers through his tangled hair.
Leo couldn’t understand what had happened. He felt twice as alive as he had before he went to sleep. He could feel energy running through his veins like bubbling water. He was filled with a feeling of boundless goodwill that made him want to hug everyone in the room.
‘Is it – magic?’ he asked stupidly.
‘Just trees,’ Conker said. ‘Snug trees, anyway. They love having guests, and they’ve got a real talent for it.’
‘No doubt about that,’ Freda agreed, energetically preening her right wing.
It took quite a time to wake Bertha, who finally staggered to the door of her cabin smiling and blinking and exclaiming at how quickly the night had passed. No one could convince her that she’d been asleep. She said she couldn’t possibly have been, because she never could sleep in a Snug.
When finally they’d coaxed her outside and gathered their belongings together, they whistled to the flying rug. It sailed up to fetch them, then sank to the ground again without a single bump or tremor. The night beneath the Snug tree seemed to have done it good.
The cooking pot was still asleep when they landed, and they didn’t disturb it. They lit the fire again, made tea and toasted the last of the bread, spreading the toast with honey that Dinah had added to their supplies.
‘Excellent!’ said Conker, lying back on the rug and wiping crumbs from his beard with the back of his hand. ‘Bless my bones, that was the best breakfast I’ve ever had!’
‘Me too!’ Bertha, Mimi and Leo agreed. And Leo knew it was true.
Just after breakfast, however, while he was packing the honey jar away, Leo saw some blue butterflies hovering watchfully just outside the shade of Bliss’s spreading boughs. He wondered nervously how long they’d been there. He wondered if he should mention them to the others. Then he suddenly remembered that he’d planned to break the news about the Key to Conker, Freda and Bertha this morning. He’d been feeling so happy since waking up that he’d forgotten all about it.
He glanced at his friends. They were sprawled on the rug, chatting amiably and not even bothering to brush away the dots that had begun scurrying around, attracted by the toast crumbs. Conker had just presented Mimi with her money pouch, and she was very pleased with it. It seemed too cruel to spoil the cheerful, peaceful atmosphere by upsetting them just now.
I’ll tell them later, he thought. There’s no rush. And with a sense of relief he again put the Key to Rondo out of his mind.
Chapter
16
The Bathing party
Well,’ said Conker, scratching his beard luxuriously, ‘It’s still too early to visit Mistress Clogg, so I’m for the bathhouse. Anyone want to come with me?’
Leo had expected just to wash his face and hands in water heated on the campfire, but he wasn’t going to miss the chance of seeing the Snug bathhouse. Mimi obviously felt the same, and Bertha was also keen to join the bathing party, though she was careful to point out that she had had a bubble bath at the tavern only the day before.
Freda shook her head. She said that baths were a waste of time when all you had to do to keep your feathers free of dust was to preen after every meal. ‘Someone should stay and guard the packs, anyway,’ she added. ‘That Scribble fellow might come calling again, and I wouldn’t put it past him to go through our stuff.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t do that!’ Bertha exclaimed. But she didn’t protest too loudly when Freda, Conker and Mimi laughed derisively. The events of the previous evening seemed to have shaken her faith in Scribble.
‘If he does come, Freda, you won’t do anything … rash, will you?’ she asked nervously.
‘I won’t kill him, if that’s what you mean,’ yawned the duck. ‘That would cause too much trouble. I’ll just damage him a bit.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Conker and, ignoring Bertha’s cries of distress, he led the way out into the sunshine.
As they emerged from the shade of Bliss’s broad canopy and moved into the clearing, they saw that people had begun to stir in most of the other cabins. Round front doors were flying open, curtains were being pushed aside, and cheery good mornings were being shouted from tree to tree. A few people were cooking breakfast, and three very slim, pale green creatures in gauzy clothes were working together to draw a bucket of water from the well. A small, red-haired girl was dragging a long skipping rope across the grass, calling up to friends who were still in their cabins to come down and play.
And behind the treetops on the Snug’s western side, looking much too close for comfort, the towers of the Strix rose jaggedly into the light blue sky.
‘It’s still there,’ Leo said uneasily.
‘Yes,’ Conker muttered. ‘Don’t look at it. Especially you, Mimi!’
‘Why especially me?’ snapped Mimi, as if she hadn’t been transfixed by the cloud palace the evening before. ‘Oh, look at that!’ Bertha whispered in scandalised tones. ‘Lawks-a-daisy, what are they thinking of?’
Twin girls in identical blue overalls had joined the girl with the skipping rope. All three girls were pointing up at the cloud towers and jumping up and down together, chanting some sort of rhyme. Leo felt a little shock run through him as he made out the words.
Dare to call the Strix, the girls were chanting. Show the Strix your tricks!
The green creatures at the well looked horrified. Quickly they dipped jugs into the bucket of water they had pulled out of the well and flitted out of the clearing, disappearing into the trees with a flash of gossamer wings.
‘Those sprites have got the right idea,’ Conker growled. ‘All this open space would make anyone nervous, with those silly
children carrying on like that. I’m going to report this.’ He stomped away, heading for Woodley’s fireplace. Bertha, Mimi and Leo hurried after him.
Woodley, still cosily encased in his dressing gown, his cap pulled firmly over his ears, was sitting by the fire on a canvas stool, frying half a dozen eggs in an old black pan that still smelled strongly of sausage and onion. A pile of toast was keeping warm at the edge of the fireplace. A round table covered in a green-and-white spotted cloth and neatly set for breakfast stood nearby.
Woodley greeted his visitors warmly, asked if they had slept well, and beamed proudly when they said they had. When Conker told him about the girls’ chanting, however, his brow puckered and his wings whirred, lifting him off his seat.
‘Oh dearie dearie me!’ he squeaked, kicking his short legs and waving the dripping spatula with which he’d been tending his eggs. ‘Oh, I was afraid something like this would happen! I will deal with it immediately after breakfast.’
‘In my opinion, you should deal with it right now!’ Bertha exclaimed.
Woodley blinked at her. ‘I cannot possibly do it now,’ he said gently, sinking back to his stool. ‘My eggs are nearly ready.’
‘Eggs?’ Bertha squealed. ‘Master Woodley –’
‘The children are overexcited, that’s the trouble,’ Woodley said fretfully. ‘And they have no fear. The Ancient One is just a story to them – just a story, you know.’
The Ancient One, Leo thought, and shivered. Somehow he found that name far more frightening than ‘Strix’.
‘You’d think their parents would warn them,’ Bertha said indignantly. ‘My mother told my brothers and me, over and over again, that the S – I mean, the keeper of the cloud palace – would come and carry us away if we were naughty.’
‘Well, that sort of thing is just the problem, in my opinion,’ Woodley said in a lecturing tone. ‘That is exactly what has made today’s children treat the Ancient One as some sort of joke, like a Langlander tale told around the fire at night. It is quite ridiculous – ridiculous, you know – to claim that the Ancient One cares if children go to bed on time, or eat their vegetables!’
‘Oh, quite,’ Conker said, clearly sick of the whole discussion. ‘Well, we’ve told you what’s happening. What you do about it is up to you. Would you be so kind as to direct us to the bathhouse?’
‘Oh!’ cried the little caretaker. ‘Did I not show it to you on your arrival? That was very remiss of me – very remiss, you know. The bathhouse is directly behind my dining room here – directly behind it, you know – just a few steps away.’ He pointed with his spatula to a narrow path that wound into the trees beyond his picnic table.
‘Thank you,’ Conker said curtly. ‘We’ll leave you to your breakfast, then.’
Woodley gave a little jump, as if the mention of breakfast had reminded him of something. He looked around in rather a furtive manner. ‘Take care not to leave your possessions unattended,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘I hate to say it, I really do, but it seems we have a sneak thief in the Snug.’
‘A thief!’ Leo exclaimed, his thoughts flying immediately to Spoiler.
‘I fear so,’ Woodley said, looking very embarrassed. ‘It cannot be one of our guests, of course – oh dearie me, no. But there has been quite a little crime wave in town just lately, they tell me – and now it seems that the wrongdoer has taken to creeping into the Snug.’
‘What’s been taken from here?’ Leo asked eagerly.
Woodley lowered his voice even further. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘last night, while I was fetching water from the well – for tea, you know – three of the seven sausages I had been keeping for breakfast were taken from my pan. Three perfectly cooked sausages! Can you believe it?’
‘Lawks-a-daisy!’ cried Bertha, very shocked. ‘That’s awful!’
‘Dreadful,’ Conker said solemnly.
‘Terrible,’ Mimi murmured, without a tremor.
Leo muttered awkward agreement and looked down at his boots, not daring to let the little caretaker see his face in case his expression gave him away.
‘As only four miserable sausages remained, I was forced to eat them there and then,’ Woodley confided. ‘I decided that there was no point in keeping so few. What sort of breakfast would four sausages make?’
He glanced at the frying pan again, saw that his eggs were done to his liking, and began lifting them onto a plate. ‘It is just fortunate that I had an egg or two put by,’ he added. ‘Otherwise I might have starved this morning – starved, you know. Oh, by the way, will you be wanting the Bliss cabins again tonight?’
Conker nibbled at his moustache. He was obviously very tempted, despite what they’d seen in the clearing. ‘Ah – do you have regular newspaper deliveries here at the Snug?’ he asked, darting a meaningful look at Bertha, Mimi and Leo.
‘Why, of course!’ Woodley exclaimed, carrying his loaded plate to the table and sitting down. ‘Several copies of the Herald arrive around lunchtime for the use of guests, and lately we have been taking the Rondo Rambler as well. It is rather a sensational paper, I know, but it has become very popular.’
‘Oh, really?’ Bertha said faintly.
‘We probably won’t be back, now I come to think about it,’ Conker said, beginning to edge away. ‘Our business will be taking us elsewhere.’
‘Far elsewhere,’ Bertha put in hurriedly.
‘What a pity,’ sighed Woodley, picking up his knife and fork. ‘Bliss will be very sorry to lose you. Still, I hope we will see you here at the Snug again very soon.’
He began eating his eggs and toast with gusto, merely nodding and waving his fork as the four friends gabbled farewells and moved quickly past him onto the path that led to the bathhouse.
‘He didn’t recognise me without my hat,’ Bertha whispered, as soon as Woodley’s table was safely behind them. ‘And he doesn’t seem to know that Scribble is a reporter, either.’
‘He’ll know it soon enough when he reads Scribble’s story about your trouble with the wishing well in the Rondo Rambler today,’ Mimi said grimly.
‘That’s right,’ Conker groaned. ‘Oh, my heart, liver and lungs, it’s lucky I didn’t pay for two nights in advance. Wait till Woodley reads what Bertha said about how he should be sacked, and the Snug closed down and all that.’
‘I didn’t say that!’ Bertha squeaked indignantly. ‘Scribble said it.’
‘Well, no one who reads the Rondo Rambler will think that,’ Mimi told her. ‘Scribble will make it sound as if it was you.’
‘Lawks-a-daisy,’ sighed Bertha. ‘Being a media megastar is far more difficult than I’d thought it would be. Life was so much simpler on … on the farm.’
Her voice quavered a little as she said the last word. Leo glanced at her sympathetically. He wanted to comfort her, but how could he, when he wasn’t supposed to know about her trouble?
‘Ah!’ Conker exclaimed loudly. ‘Here we are!’
They had rounded a bend, and there before them, in the middle of a shady clearing, was the Snug bathhouse.
It was nothing like Leo had imagined. For one thing, it wasn’t a house at all. It was a clear pool wreathed in mist, surrounded by a narrow border of thick green moss and ringed by trees whose topmost branches met over it, making a leafy roof.
It was dim beneath the trees, but as Leo moved into the clearing, the air felt warm. It took him a moment to realise that the heat came from the pool itself. The mist that hung over it wasn’t mist at all, but steam rising from the water.
Conker plumped himself down on the ground. He pulled off his boots and began unbuckling his belt.
Are we all supposed to have a bath together? Leo thought nervously. He saw that Mimi was turning away, rather pink in the face.
‘Take off your jacket and belt as well as your boots, Leo!’ Conker called, throwing his belt aside and stripping off his leather vest. ‘Leather and Snug water don’t mix. I ruined a belt and two perfectly good swatter holsters before I worked that ou
t.’
Leaving his belt, jerkin and boots on the moss, Conker waded into the pool. Bertha followed, and was soon wallowing in the steamy water with little cries of appreciation.
‘We have a bath in our clothes?’ Mimi burst out.
‘Of course!’ Conker said in surprise. ‘How are you going to get them clean otherwise?’ He lay back in the water and floated, his hair and beard drifting around his face like brown seaweed.
Mimi laughed. Without a moment’s hesitation, she kicked off her shoes and plunged into the pool. ‘Oh, lovely!’ she sighed. ‘Come in, Leo! It’s so warm!’
Leo hesitated. The pool looked inviting, but it would be very uncomfortable to spend the next few hours in wet clothes. At the same time, he’d feel very odd stripping down to his underwear while everyone else was dressed.
‘Hurry up, Leo,’ shouted Conker. ‘We can’t stay here all day, you know!’
Reluctantly Leo took off his jacket, belt, boots and socks and stepped gingerly into the pool. He felt smooth pebbles beneath his feet. Steam swirled around him. The water, deliciously warm and somehow smoother than ordinary water, rose to his knees, to his thighs, to his waist, till finally he was chest-deep. His trousers and shirt flapped softly against his skin like the fins of fish. It was a strange feeling, but not unpleasant at all. In fact, the more he relaxed into the water the better he felt. His worries about the chanting girls, about the Key to Rondo, about Scribble, about Bertha’s troubles, drifted away.
‘Ah,’ sighed Conker, closing his eyes. ‘This is the life! I feel as if I haven’t a care in the world!’
‘I am surprised to hear it,’ a cold voice said from the trees.
Conker jumped, sank and came up spluttering. Battling the waves he was creating, half-blinded by steam, Leo, Mimi and Bertha blinked up in astonishment at the tall, slender figure, the tiger-striped face, the angry golden eyes, of Tye the Terlamaine.
Chapter
17
The Ancient One
Tye! What are you doing here?’ Bertha squealed. ‘I might ask you the same question,’ Tye said, unsmiling. ‘When Freda told me you were lolling around in the bathhouse, I could not believe my ears!’