The Glass Puzzle

by Christine Brodien-Jones

  Zoé nodded, wondering uneasily what Gwyn meant by fatal.

  The three Messengers closed their eyes and began reciting the incantation, their shallows glowing eerily. Zoé let the poetry flow over her, like shadows on water, sunlight against stone: timeworn words shaped like stars, like shells, like the ruins of lost temples, soft as the breaths of mystics.

  She heard a great terrible whirring as a shadow passed overhead, blotting out the sun. Was Arianrhod coming to life? Wildly excited, she leapt out of the niche, Ian and Pippin crowding close behind her. Craning her neck, Zoé stared up at the wall, expecting to see the warrior goddess waving her shield in a gesture of triumph.

  She felt her body go numb as her breath stopped inside her throat. An immense winged shape hung suspended above the turret, wings crackling, only inches from the goddess.

  Pippin clutched Zoé’s arm. “It’s one of them Scravens!”

  “Oh cripes,” croaked Ian. “We have to get out of here, like, now!”

  Zoé could see that the Messengers were too immersed in their incantation to realize what was going on.

  “Gwyn told us to chase off the Scravens,” she said to Ian. “We’re not supposed to stop the incantation.”

  “Can’t you see?” Ian’s eyes were enormous. “The incantation’s not working!”

  Zoé looked up at the Scraven’s face, shrunken back around its long, sharp teeth. It seemed to be grinning at her.

  Ian shouted, “Hey, Gwyn, there’s a Scraven up there and it’s about to come down!”

  Eyes closed, the three Messengers droned on, lost inside their secret mythology, oblivious to their friends’ frantic warnings.

  “Oh no!” screamed Ian. “It’s coming!”

  Something came hurtling toward them: openmouthed, the Scraven swooped down. Ian staggered back, Pippin clutched her head to her knees, and Zoé gave a sob of terror, feeling the strength rush out of her. It’s over, she thought. The Scravens are too powerful, we can’t destroy them.

  As the Scraven flew closer, bringing with it a terrifying darkness, Zoé heard a rumbling sound, like a giant awakening, and she realized the ground was shaking, the earth trembling beneath her feet as the noise grew stronger and more insistent. Chunks of rock fell from the wall, plummeting down around them, dust billowing up into their faces.

  There was an enormous crack as, far up on the turret, the goddess weathervane shimmered with unearthly light, filling the sky with a profusion of colors. The next instant Zoé saw the goddess begin to move—slowly, imperceptibly—picking up speed, eyes shining fiercely, growing larger, brighter, more luminous.

  The Scraven, hovering so near that Zoé could smell its swampy breath, gave a startled cry as flames charred the tips of its wings. She watched the goddess continue to whirl faster, throwing off waves of light—gold, silver, emerald, crimson—raining sparks down on the Scraven. The creature howled, flinging itself backward and fleeing over the wall, back into the Harshlands.

  More Scravens swooped down, flapping and snarling, talons slashing at the air. Zoé watched in amazement as, one by one, they flew into the dazzling light, wings catching fire, their bodies weakened and shriveling. With terrified shrieks they retreated into the forest, their powers quelled, just as Miss Glyndower had predicted: defeated but not destroyed.

  Traipsing back to Wythernsea, her heart lighter, Zoé listened to Gwyn explain how the Messengers would take turns beneath the goddess weathervanes, reciting the incantation.

  Miss Glyndower, anxiously waiting at the cloister gate, threw her arms around them, murmuring, “What brave children!” She gave them each a thick white candle, scrounged from the nuns’ cupboards, to light their way up a windowless staircase to what Jasper called the Round Tower.

  Before heading up, Zoé turned to Miss Glyndower. “If we seal the puzzle, is there any way we can contact you? What if we put on scuba suits and dive down to sunken Wythernsea—would we find you then?”

  “I’ve often wondered whether Wythernsea was of the earth, attached to your world by some mystical thread.” Miss Glyndower gave a wry, sad smile. “But over time I’ve come to realize that our world is totally apart from yours. Wythernsea exists in the beyond. I am afraid that our Wythernsea and your world will always be separate.”

  Tears running down her face, Zoé emerged at the top of the tower into bright sunlight, thinking how she’d soon be leaving and wondering how to keep herself from falling apart. More Messengers appeared, congratulating one another and exchanging stories about their experiences, all in a state of high excitement.

  “Never seen anything like it,” said Gwyn. “Like the Aurora Borealis, it was—brilliant light coming off the goddess and them monsters making a mad dash for the forest.”

  “Frightened to death, they was,” added Tegan in her fairylike voice.

  “Same with us,” said a girl with hair falling in spirals. “The Scravens flew off, their wings all afire.” She leaned so far over the tower rail that Zoé was afraid she’d fall off.

  “Will ye look at the town wall now!” said Jasper in an awestruck voice. “Never seen anything like it!”

  One by one, the goddesses flared—the weathervanes on the east wall, the south wall, even the worst-damaged ones on the far wall to the north—throwing off glimmering waves of color, ringing the city in a necklace of light, far brighter than the rays of the sun. Zoé heard shouts all around her as the Messengers wrestled and cheered and laughed, thumping each other on the back. Even Jasper Morgan was smiling.

  In the Harshlands, the forest was turning an ominous shade of blue, and it was clear that beyond the town walls something extraordinary was happening: countless Scravens were on the run. Zoé imagined them fleeing into the swamps, taking refuge in the dank dreary shadows, exhausted and weakened, their dark powers thwarted, the evil scorched right out of them.

  Hurtling through the tunnel of glass, clutching the runestone to her chest, Zoé was overwhelmed by sadness.

  Miss Glyndower had given them the runestone, along with instructions on defeating the Scravens, and Zoé had embraced her, knowing that Wythernsea was lost to them forever and their paths would never cross again. When at last she hugged Gwyn and Tegan, she broke down sobbing as they said farewell.

  Will I ever see them again? she wondered. Her common sense told her no, yet another part of her said something else. After all, who really knew what the future might hold, especially when magic was involved?

  Zoé, Ian and Pippin spread out on the attic floor around the glass puzzle. Zoé was in her favorite position, legs folded, arms wrapped around her knees; Pippin sat cross-legged, cradling the runestone; Ian lay flat on his back, arms propped under his head.

  “Ten-thirty a.m. exactly,” he said, checking his watch. “Am I brilliant or what? I guessed we’d be away six hours and I was right.”

  “It seemed longer than that to me,” said Pippin. “It seemed like forever when that wretched monster was comin’ at us.”

  “I hate that we have to seal it,” said Zoé, leaning over the puzzle.

  “Yeah, but we don’t have a choice,” said Ian. “It’s like chess, when you sacrifice a pawn or a knight. For the higher good, that sort of thing.”

  Zoé rolled her eyes, thinking that Ian had been reading too many historical novels. “We’re not talking about chess pieces. Those are real people down there!”

  “But the puzzle’s flawed! We can’t leave the gateway open for The First to come and go as he pleases,” said Pippin. “End of story, as Bron would say.”

  Zoé held the Thirteenth Piece between her thumb and forefinger, watching the glass reflect light from the window. It felt oddly heavy, as if weighed down with spells and old memories, and she could see the others staring at it with dreamy expressions.

  She heard the wind pick up outside, wailing past the corners of the cottage as dark clouds rolled past the window.

  “Storm’s brewing,” said Ian, snapping back to attention. “C’mon, guys, let’s do this.�
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  Yet there was no clue at all where an extra piece might go. If this puzzle’s really magical, Zoé reasoned, it’s not about using my brain the way Ian does. As her mom would say, Zoé would have to go with her gut.

  Before she could make a move, her grandfather’s voice boomed up the attic stairs. “Ian! Zoé! Are you kids up there?”

  Oh no! she thought, alarmed by his shrill tone. What’s happened now?

  “I need your help! It’s the weathervane!”

  “Be right down!” Ian shouted.

  “Quick, take it apart!” hissed Zoé.

  Moments later they were thundering downstairs, the puzzle safe inside the sea chest. Granddad was standing at the front door with a cup of tea, looking weary and overwhelmed.

  “I was up in the kitchen and I heard a clattering on the roof,” he wheezed. “I think the blinkin’ weathervane’s come loose. Sounds like the bolt holding it up has popped out.”

  “Don’t worry, Granddad,” said Zoé. “Stay here and finish your tea, we’ll see to it.”

  They rushed outside into the cobbled street, rain falling in torrents, soaking through their clothes. Hair hanging in limp strings, Zoé breathed in the smell of the wet stones, watching tiles clatter off the cottage roof. Thunder rumbled, the wind shaking streetlamps, whipping the awning off the fish-and-chips shop across the way and flinging a child’s tricycle clear across the road.

  Then her heart gave a little flip at the sight of Granddad’s goddess weathervane turning in reckless circles on the roof.

  “The wind’s got hold of it!” shouted Ian. “It’s moving too fast!”

  The weathervane spun wildly, completely out of control. Hearing a loud crack! as lightning glanced off the shield, Zoé gasped as the goddess lurched to one side. The wind howled, gusting around them, tearing the weathervane from the roof and lifting the goddess into the air. Arms outstretched, Arianrhod soared skyward in a graceful arc.

  “She’s being spirited away!” cried Pippin.

  Zoé stood beneath the ragged clouds, watching Arianrhod sail off into the thickening fog. “She’s going home,” she said excitedly, and for a moment she believed it was true. “Arianrhod’s going back to the North Star!”

  The goddess seemed to float on air, weightless and transparent, a mist of light around her head like a halo, distancing herself from the ordinary world. Then with a shudder she came to a halt in midair and Zoé gasped as she plunged earthward, falling at breakneck speed, plummeting down, down, down, vanishing behind the cottage.

  “I knew that was going to happen,” Ian groaned.

  High on the roof where the goddess had stood, a wisp of smoke hung in the air, shimmering like ghostly runes.

  “Looks like a signal from another world,” said Pippin, her voice muffled by the wind.

  Zoé didn’t have time to speculate. “You know what this means, don’t you?” she yelled. “The cottage isn’t protected anymore!”

  “Granddad, Granddad!” shouted Zoé as she rushed inside the shop, the goddess hoisted across her shoulders, dripping water and wet clods of earth, the wind howling at their backs.

  “The goddess fell off the roof and we’re bringing her inside!” yelled Ian. “We found her in the back garden!”

  “Arianrhod’s pretty banged up, but at least she’s still in one piece,” puffed Zoé, setting the metal figure on the floor. All around she could hear beams creaking and walls rattling, as if the cottage was ready to fly apart at any moment.

  “You were right, a bolt came loose,” said Ian. “The weathervane fell behind the cottage and the pole snapped off. The metal was rusted.”

  “I knew it,” said Granddad. “Lovely, though, ain’t she? A right beauty. Always brings me luck, the goddess does.”

  Zoé had never seen Arianrhod up close before: roughly two feet high, she was made of copper, her features finely detailed, and beautiful in a dreamy medieval sort of way. Zoé was drawn to her solemn eyes and starburst hair—and she adored the unsmiling mouth that hinted at dark secrets. One wing was twisted from the fall and the shield was mangled, making the dragon appear a bit squashed.

  When Zoé touched Arianrhod’s face, flakes of copper came off in her hand. She pressed her lips to the goddess’s ear, which resembled a delicate shell, whispering, “Please keep us safe. And don’t let the Scravens get inside the cottage!”

  “Zoé, Ian!” shouted Pippin from the front door. “Come look!”

  Zoé rushed over, her knees going weak as she gazed into the street. Adults and children were walking over the cobblestones, moving steadily through the fog toward the cottage, all of them silent, none of them smiling. Many were faces she recognized: Catherine Beedle, Fritha Pooke, Ned Larkin, Dr. Thistle, Iris Tintern, Mirielle Tate, Dr. Brown the optometrist. And although they looked like humans, she knew they were nothing of the sort. They were … Scravens!

  “They’ve all got blue-tinted glasses,” said Ian. “No surprise there.”

  “They’re coming this way,” hissed Pippin. “Catherine Beedle’s leading them! And look, there’s old Bascomb!”

  “We have to go—now!” gasped Zoé, slamming the door and bolting it. So much for the cottage being a vantage point for fighting off Scravens, she thought. Miss Glyndower’s strategy was now in total disarray.

  “The puzzle!” said Ian, heading for the staircase.

  “Don’t forget the runestone!” Zoé shouted after him.

  “The Book of Astercôte’s up there, too!” yelled Pippin.

  Zoé grabbed her granddad’s raincoat and scarf, along with his galoshes. Pippin ran to the kitchen, emerging with cans of soup and corned beef and packets of tea, which they loaded into their backpacks.

  “I don’t understand.… Did I miss something?” said Granddad while Zoé helped him put on his coat, trying not to appear too panicky. “Where are we going in such a rush? And what’s that girl doing with my Glengettie tea?”

  “It’s all right, Mr. Blackwood,” said Pippin, hooking her arm through his. “The house isn’t safe because of the storm: we’ve had to call a plumber because the pipes are overflowing, and, oh yeah, rain from your gutters disturbed the moles in your garden, and, well, frankly, it’s just one big mess, so we have to leave for a short while.”

  “Moles, you say?” Zoé could see Granddad looking more befuddled than ever. “That’s funny, I’ve never seen moles near my cottage before.”

  “We won’t be gone long, Mr. Blackwood,” said Pippin in a convincing tone. “Just be sure to bundle up warmly.”

  Zoé tossed The Count of Monte Cristo into her backpack as Ian came charging downstairs with the silver box, Dr. Marriott’s book and the runestone.

  “They’re almost to the front door,” he said, his eyes wide with fear. “We’ll have to go out the other way. Here, you carry this stuff in Zoé’s backpack, okay, ’cause she has to see to the goddess.” He handed the runestone and The Book of Astercôte to Pippin. “We’ll go through the neighbors’ back gardens to Upper Frog Street. I’ve got the puzzle in my messenger bag. And the vial’s in my pocket.”

  Zoé lifted the goddess, cradling the metal figure in her arms, trying to straighten out her bent wing. The sight of Arianrhod’s serene face made her feel a little bit braver.

  Pippin guided Granddad out of his shop, murmuring reassurances.

  “Are we in some sort of danger?” Zoé heard her grandfather say.

  “Not at all, Mr. Blackwood, but with all these water problems, we might get our feet wet!” Pippin giggled. Zoé had to hand it to her: Pippin was a fabulous trickster. “Let’s say we’re playing a kind of game, Mr. Blackwood, and we need to move very quickly. This way.”

  As they hurried through the parlor and out the back door, Zoé winced, hearing loud noises coming from the antiques shop.

  Scravens had made it to the cottage—and they were inside!

  Zoé felt like a standard bearer from medieval times, carrying the warrior goddess in a procession through the fog-laden stre
ets of Tenby, the sea wind howling in her ears. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning, yet the skies were black with clouds and the streetlamps had flickered on.

  The fall of the weathervane had turned their game plan on its head: Granddad’s cottage was obviously no longer a danger-free zone. They’d decided to enlist Dr. Marriott’s help in their battle against The First. He’d offered to help if there was trouble, and they were in trouble, all right. They also needed to get Granddad somewhere safe.

  “Why are you carrying the weathervane goddess, Magpie?” asked their grandfather, looking mystified. “I don’t understand—”

  “We rescued her, Granddad, remember? She’s too valuable to leave lying around.” Zoé knew she didn’t sound very convincing, maybe because she lacked Pippin’s dramatic talents.

  “She’s right, y’know,” said Pippin. “Some little urchin might come around and spirit Arianrhod away. Then you’d be in a right pickle.”

  “Hmm, perhaps my hearing aid needs adjusting,” murmured Granddad, and Zoé could see all this was too much for him. Everything was happening so fast.

  Her grandfather looked fragile and confused; his skin had taken on a sallow tint. As she looked at his trim mustache and silvery hair, Zoé’s heart ached. For a moment she contemplated telling him everything, beginning with Iris’s demented behavior and the events of the past few days. On the other hand, a crash course in Scravens might be too much of a leap for him; Granddad was too old for this kind of struggle.

  But how on earth were they going to keep Granddad safe from the Scravens? How were they going to keep themselves safe and at the same time defeat The First?

  “If I was to add up the total volume of all the tea I’ve drunk in my day, I could float a blooming battleship,” Zoé heard her grandfather say to Pippin. Smiling to herself, she thought how lucky she was to have such an interesting and joke-cracking granddad.

  A few more turns and they stood before the tall pink house with bay windows and a black lacquered door. Zoé could hear waves rising and falling at the bottom of the cliff, the sea obscured behind a thick, soupy fog. The sign by the front door that read GEORGE R. MARRIOTT, ANTIQUARIAN BOOKSELLER looked reassuringly normal—but was everything normal inside? There was only one way to find out.