The Glass Puzzle

by Christine Brodien-Jones

  Ian gave her a confused glance, as if he had no idea what she was talking about. “Iris is Iris,” he said, “always with a sour expression, like she just ate a ground-glass sandwich. You know what Granddad says: Iris was born old and cantankerous—she hasn’t changed in sixty years and neither has her café.”

  “I know, I know. That’s why my mom loathes Tenby so much: nothing ever changes.” Zoé enjoyed using words that sounded last-century, like loathe and maudlin and languish. “She used to get panic attacks because Tenby was so backward and out of date. That’s why she eloped with my dad to America.” She was fascinated by the idea of two people madly in love running off together—those kinds of things happened in the old days—but it made her sad to think how her parents’ marriage had fizzled.

  Ian threw her a sympathetic glance, which she appreciated, since she’d told him several different versions of this story, and she knew he felt sorry for her not having a dad. But it only bothered her a little bit, since she had no memories of her father at all.

  “I want to move to Tenby and live here forever,” she went on, “but my mom says don’t get any ideas because she’s not coming back to Wales. She wants to be on the road with an exciting career.”

  On the road about summed up her life. Her father had jumped ship (her mom’s expression) when Zoé was six months old. Now that she was eleven, Zoé wanted to go to school in Tenby, where she was sure there were kids like her: kids whose desks were hopelessly cluttered and who were terrible at long division, free-thinking types who invented secret codes and drew astrological signs on their fingers. Tenby was different from the other towns and cities: it was the only place she seemed to fit in.

  Two sets of pale white vampire fangs clattered onto the table.

  “There you go,” Iris said, and walked off.

  The wax teeth were majorly melted, but Zoé didn’t complain. Although she’d never admit it, not even to Ian, she found Iris somewhat intimidating.

  Predictably, Ian reached for the more crumpled set of teeth. That was the chivalrous side of his nature, which in Zoé’s opinion balanced out his serious, nerdy side. Although he didn’t know it, Ian often appeared as the hero in the stories she wrote.

  Iris’s odd behavior made Zoé think of something. “Hey, did you ever see Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the movie Granddad’s taking us to tomorrow night?” she whispered to Ian. “You know, the one where people get taken over by these bizarre giant pods from outer space?”

  “Nope, never saw it.” Ian put in his vampire teeth and made a scary face.

  Zoé leaned across the table, knocking over a jar of malt vinegar. “I think something’s happened to Iris, because she looks and acts like Iris but she’s not Iris anymore. Just like in the movie, when fake people hatch out of the pods! What if Iris is a pod person and we don’t know it?” She gave a nervous snicker, realizing how silly she sounded. “Just kidding.”

  “Pod person is good,” Ian lisped through his vampire teeth. “I vote for pod.”

  Zoé put in the vampire fangs and gazed around the room, watching Iris putter around behind the counter, working the handles and spigots of the ice cream machine like a mad scientist in slow motion.

  Inspired, she opened her journal and wrote: “Ms. Iris Tintern, café owner, Tenby, Wales, once beautiful, proud and pitiless, swallowed a ground-glass sandwich and turned into a time-ravaged old crone. Then aliens invaded and changed her into a pod person.”

  Not a bad start. As she slid the journal into her backpack, Zoé’s fingertips grazed a small object rolling around at the bottom. “Hey, want to see what I found on Granddad’s front steps?” She pulled out a chunk of blue glass that had been wedged between the stone steps of the cottage. Deep inside swirled a fiery light, intense and glowing—and profoundly mysterious—making her wonder if the light had the power to hypnotize. “Do you like my pirate’s spyglass?” She held it up to one eye.

  Before Ian could answer, Iris trundled over with two dishes, setting them down with trembling hands. “Ice cream’s a bit off, dearies. My Electro Freeze seems to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown.”

  Yeah, thought Zoé, suppressing a giggle, and so are you.

  “All those knobs and switches,” Iris went on, her eyes moving to the side. “Terribly off-putting.”

  Zoé watched the oversized glasses slide down Iris’s nose. What if she really was a different person?

  “Guess they don’t make ice cream machines like they used to,” joked Ian, sounding like their granddad.

  Zoé peered through her blue glass at Iris and felt the hairs crawl on the back of her neck. At the center of Iris’s forehead, she could see a black craterous eye whirling crazily.

  “What’s that in your hand?” asked Iris in a threatening tone. Zoé could see the eye growing bigger. “Did you pinch one of my salt shakers?”

  Zoé whisked the glass into her pocket. “It’s not a salt shaker. It’s not anything, just a piece of old glass,” she said, shrinking back in her chair, heart pounding against her ribs.

  She looked up at Iris. The eye had vanished.

  “Thanks, Ms. Tintern,” said Ian, winking at Zoé. “The ice cream looks delicious.”

  Iris doesn’t have three eyes, Zoé told herself. I completely imagined that. Must be some sort of trick glass.

  “Enjoy your softies, dearies,” Iris said with a vapid smile, but Zoé could tell she didn’t mean it.

  Scuffing over to the window, Iris drew the green-and-black curtains, making the room even gloomier.

  “This softie ice cream tastes like rubbish, don’t you think?” grumbled Zoé.

  But Ian, caught up with eating ice cream and looking at the photos on his camera, didn’t answer.

  Zoé peered through the glass at the room around her: the tables and chairs appeared oddly distorted, the daffodil wallpaper obscured by a blue haze. All of a sudden, the room swung to one side, and for a chilling moment she saw not Iris, but something that wasn’t human: a primeval figure with massive wings, shimmering in the dark. On its forehead was a glistening eye that seemed to be expanding. The eye was a dark space ringed with green fire—the kind of space you could fall into and disappear.

  Terrified, she dropped the glass, and Iris was instantly her old self again, humming an off-key tune and running a duster over a rack of postcards while the coffee urn burbled. The café seemed normal—as if nothing extraordinary had happened—and Zoé wondered if she could be losing her mind.

  “Look through this,” she whispered, handing Ian the chunk of glass. “Look at Iris and tell me what you see.”

  Ian wiped his mouth on his sleeve and held the glass to his eye. “Arrgghhh! Avast, ye mateys,” he rasped, squinting through it, using pirate expressions Granddad had taught them. “Thar she blows!”

  He moved the glass slowly in the direction of Iris Tintern and Zoé saw him go rigid with fear. “What the heck?” he croaked.

  Zoé looked up to see the café owner advancing on them, her face twisted in fury, hands raised like withered claws. She was like something roused from a nightmare, a mummy come to life.

  “Give me that glass!” snarled Iris. Behind the tinted lenses her eyes gleamed like chips of black ice. “Give it over or I’ll—”

  “Run!” yelled Zoé, grabbing Ian’s arm and snatching the backpack and messenger bag as they fled.

  They sprinted across the café, stumbling over chairs, bumping into tables, and eventually charging through the front door, jangling the overhead bell to escape into the fogbound streets of Tenby.

  Zoé felt a cold rain sweep in from the sea as they raced up St. Julian’s, dodging puddles and bicyclists and mothers pushing strollers, past the houses and shops that lined the cobblestone streets. Fog snaked through the lanes like a giant smoky caterpillar, swallowing signs and awnings, turning people into shapeless lumps. Goblinesque trees crouched on the cliffs, and from far below came the crashing of waves.

  Every time she thought about the café, Zoé
felt her heart crawl up into her throat. Had she imagined Iris Tintern’s humongous third eye? And Iris turning into a creature with wings—what was that all about?

  They slipped behind the Saracen’s Head Pub, run by Granddad’s friend Mirielle Tate. While passing through the seventeenth-century graveyard where pets supposedly had been buried, Zoé caught a glimpse of Ian running beside her, his face deathly pale beneath his hood.

  “Tell me! What did you see?” she shouted, wheeling on her cousin and screeching to a halt. “Did you see the eye?”

  “Yeah, and it was horrendous, like some kind of monster’s eye, and it was getting bigger by the second,” he panted. “I was never so scared in my life! Thanks for getting me out of there.”

  “No problem.” She knew Ian was hopeless at making fast getaways. That was because he tended to overanalyze everything: obviously not good if you were being chased by pirates or monsters—or by Iris Tintern.

  “Why did Iris want that old piece of glass?” he whispered. She could see him shaking all over.

  “She thought it was a salt shaker at first,” said Zoé. “But when she realized what it was, she went crazy.”

  Ian thought a moment. “But what is it exactly besides a broken piece of glass? Maybe the glass is valuable. Hey, what if it creates optical illusions?”

  “It sort of did make everything in the café look different,” said Zoé. “Everything was swimming around, and I saw Iris with this huge whirling eye. Then she turned into some awful creature with wings.”

  Maybe the glass had a curse on it, though she knew Ian would laugh at an idea like that, since he had a logical mind. Even though he loved horror movies and scary games, she knew that real-life monsters, curses and dark magic were way off his radar. Ian preferred neat grids, balanced equations and columns of figures that added up.

  “Listen, we need to find out more about that glass,” said Ian, fidgeting with the strings of his hood. “For starters let’s ask Granddad. He’s bound to know something. You found it on his front steps, so maybe he’s been looking for it. Better not ask too many questions, though, or things could get complicated. Let’s not mention the weird eye or anything.”

  “Okay, mum’s the word,” said Zoé. “We keep the King’s Ransom a secret and don’t tell Granddad.”

  “We don’t tell anybody,” said Ian firmly.

  “Secret shake,” said Zoé, and, crossing right arms over left arms, they shook hands—their secret handshake to seal deals that really mattered.

  Fog, thick and cottony, closed in around them as they followed St. George’s Street to a medieval stone archway called the Five Arches. One of Tenby’s original gates, the Five Arches was part of the Old Town wall, with crenellated battlements, huge arrow slits and massive archways. To Zoé’s and Ian’s delight, Granddad lived two doors away, in a stone cottage squeezed between a fish-and-chips takeaway and a frame shop.

  Lace covered the windows and a string of tiny white lights framed a door with diamond-shaped panes. A brass plate at eye level read: THE GRYPHON AND THE PHOENIX, ANTIQUE WELSH FURNITURE BOUGHT AND SOLD, JOHN LLOYD BLACKWOOD, PROPRIETOR. Zoé was entranced by the cottage, with its peaks and turrets, its tilting chimneys and a weathervane twirling on the highest gable. Who else in Tenby had a weathervane that was a Welsh goddess? Nobody, she was quick to say, just as she was quick to tell kids that Granddad consulted the goddess like an oracle, for everything from betting on the Triple Crown to predicting Tenby’s spring tides.

  Arianrhod (that was the goddess’s name) was made of beaten copper, with starburst hair, eyes of blue glass and a fierce expression. She wore a flowing dress and looked as if she were flying like the wind, holding a shield embossed with a Welsh dragon. Imagining the goddess as an avenging warrior, Zoé often wished she could change her name to Arianrhod. It sounded kind of classy.

  “Granddad!” she shouted, running up the high stone steps and bursting into the shop.

  What a relief to be in a familiar place, a place she loved beyond all measure—just as she loved her grandfather—breathing in smells that were old and musty. Weighed down with time and heirlooms, the shop had what Granddad called a quaint geometry. There were windows of leaded glass, thick as the bottoms of soda bottles; a curved stairway was flanked by portraits of whiskered ancestors, and maps of medieval Tenby hung on the staircase walls.

  “Hello, you two,” said Granddad from his leather armchair, where he sat reading The Count of Monte Cristo, dressed in his usual tweed jacket. No matter what time of year it was, John Lloyd Blackwood always wore a tweed jacket. The only variation was that in wintertime he wore a waistcoat underneath. He seemed thinner and more fragile than last year, but Zoé thought her granddad cut an elegant figure with his silver hair and clipped mustache.

  People said Zoé was the spitting image of her grandfather. They both had the same sea-green eyes and aquiline nose, the same square teeth with a gap in the front. His wife, Louisa, had died years ago, but Granddad often showed them photos of her, reminiscing about bygone days, and in a way, Zoé felt as if she’d known her grandmother.

  “Everything all right?” asked Granddad. “You both look like a bit of chewed string. Had a rough morning, did you?”

  The two cousins exchanged a knowing glance.

  “That’s because we were running like maniacs through the rain,” said Zoé, flopping onto a worn velvet settee and leaning back on the cushions. “Nonstop from the King’s Ransom to here.” She closed her eyes, trying to block out the frightening image of Iris Tintern. “There’s a new shop on St. Julian’s, Granddad, did you know? Zival’s Optical.”

  “Zival, you say? Zival’s Optical?” Granddad often repeated things because he was slightly hard of hearing. “Never heard of him, Magpie.” Magpie was his pet name for her, because she squirreled away last-century treasures like glow-in-the-dark skulls, magic decoder rings and Looney Tunes figures.

  “I took a ton of pictures, Granddad,” said Ian. “I got some real gems of the Tudor Merchant’s House in the fog. Very atmospheric.”

  “Well done,” said Granddad with an approving nod. “Extraordinary town, Tenby. It was once a Welsh stronghold, as you know, and in medieval times a Norman castle was built on Castle Hill where Tenby Museum now stands.”

  “I wish I’d been around when the castle was here,” said Zoé, disappointed that only isolated fragments of the castle walls remained, along with a single watchtower, perched above the sea cliffs.

  “Aye, in those days Tenby was safe from invaders, enclosed behind an impregnable ring of walls, towers and gateways,” Granddad went on, “with a great castle on the headland to protect it.”

  “Just as well the pirates are gone,” said Ian with a grin. “Today they’d overrun Tenby in no time.”

  “Yeah, but we’d escape down the tunnels and they’d never catch us in a million years,” said Zoé. “Hey, Granddad, have they found the tunnel to Dragon’s Mouth yet?”

  Dragon’s Mouth was a spooky-looking cavern on Castle Hill overlooking the sea, impossible to access—unless you went by boat and climbed hundreds of feet up the steep cliff.

  “I know how fond you two are of the tunnels,” said Granddad, knitting his thick brows, “but I’m afraid I have some bad news. The town council shut them down earlier this year.”

  Zoé’s face fell. “Shut the tunnels down? But … why?” Whenever she came to Tenby, she always visited the tunnels. Not going down there was unthinkable.

  “What with coastal erosion and unpredictable tides, they’ve declared the tunnels hazardous.” Granddad closed his book. “Last winter a spelunker went down and lost his way, so the authorities have become hypervigilant. They’ve sealed off the entrances.”

  Zoé sucked in her breath. “Okay, so some of the tunnels are dangerous, like maybe the one to Dragon’s Mouth, but not all of them!”

  Her grandfather threw her a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, Magpie, but that’s how it is. No one’s allowed in and anyone caught down there will
be fined.”

  Zoé silently counted up the things that were different this year: the new optical shop, the closing of the tunnels, and—oh yeah—Iris Tintern.

  “Zoé, weren’t you going to ask Granddad something?” said Ian.

  She blinked at her cousin, confused, then noticed the blue glass in his hand. “Oh, right. I found some old glass on the front steps, Granddad, and I was wondering if you knew anything about it.”

  “Glass? Old glass?” he echoed, a puzzled expression on his face.

  “This one.” Ian’s hand shook slightly as he gave it to their grandfather. “We were just wondering,” he added. “Like, is it part of a computer game or something?”

  The glass looked ancient, like a treasure handed down through generations of wizarding families, or maybe a secret brotherhood of monks. Staring at the light smoldering inside, Zoé felt strangely drawn to it.

  Granddad produced a magnifying glass from his jacket pocket. “Let’s have a look, then.” Watching him examine the glass, she was reminded of how much she loved her grandfather’s gentle, inquisitive nature. “Well, I’ll be jiggered. You know … I have an entire box of these things!”

  Zoé threw Ian a sidelong glance. There were more glass pieces?

  “Could we take a look at them, Granddad?” Ian asked.

  “By all means.” Their grandfather rose gracefully to his feet. “Back in a tick.”

  Granddad’s physical stature never failed to impress Zoé: John Blackwood was well over six feet tall. He had to stoop to fit through the doorways of his cottage, and his head often brushed against the low beams.

  “Maybe it really is trick glass,” whispered Ian. “I mean, what if it actually can create illusions? There’s got to be a rational explanation for what happened at the King’s Ransom.”

  Somehow Zoé wasn’t so sure.

  Granddad returned with a box the size of a small bread loaf. It had a curved lid, and the outside was encrusted with seaweed, barnacles and dried mud, as if culled from the bottom of the sea. Like something a king’s messenger would carry across a battlefield, thought Zoé.