A Tangle of Gold

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  ‘I can’t,’ he said aloud. He was muttering to himself. He sounded mad, he knew. But he said it again. ‘I can’t. Don’t make me do it again.’

  The girl, Princess Jupiter, skated closer.

  ‘Run,’ he said.

  Mischka glanced his way.

  ‘Run!’ he shouted.

  He ran towards the lake, falling forward at each step in the deep snow, his boots dragged by snow. He could feel his shoulders cringing already.

  ‘Turn around!’ he howled.

  On the lake, the girl kept skating.

  ‘Elliot!’ she called out. ‘Elliot, it’s me!’

  That voice, he knew the voice, and now he knew the shape of her, the sense of her, and that wasn’t Princess Jupiter at all.

  That was Madeleine.

  His Madeleine, the Girl-in-the-World.

  He turned back to Mischka and shouted urgently: ‘It’s not Princess Jupiter! It’s Madeleine! She’s from the World! It’s a mistake!’

  Mischka stared back with a look that was part exasperation, part amusement. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is Princess Jupiter.’

  For a moment, Elliot felt happy. This was just a nightmare—it must be! The Girl-in-the-World was here in the Magical North, which made no sense! And Mischka seemed to think that Madeleine was Princess Jupiter, which again made no sense!

  But the hope was inside truth. This was real. It was happening right now.

  He was on the ice now. He bellowed: ‘Turn around! Run!’

  Mischka’s voice spoke. ‘Oh, Elliot.’

  Madeleine was slowing. She was frowning at Elliot. He saw her gaze shift towards Mischka and then back to him.

  He slipped, skidded and stumbled on the ice towards her. He fell to his knees and scrambled up again. Click-click-click, a pause and another two slow clicks. They were already coming, it was third-level Greys again, he knew their shadows, their approach, he could smell them, taste them, they were coming right for him and for Madeleine in front of him. They were going to kill them both.

  ‘Get away!’ he screamed at Madeleine.

  But she was skating even faster now, directly towards him. She was speed-skating, her coat forming a straight flag behind her. Her hat blew off her head. Her eyes narrowed to lines.

  She closed in on him with her arms outstretched. She grabbed both his hands in hers, and then she was swinging him in a circle, swinging him behind her so fast that he crashed onto the ice, and slid away.

  He tried to scramble to his feet, shouting at her to get down. The air was dark with Greys. She had turned from him and was facing them. Her hands were waving in the air. She was trying to keep her balance. There was a moment when his heart broke at that: they would hurl her to the ice and tear her to pieces, and there she was, trying to keep her balance.

  Then her hand-waving became precise. Her fingers were fluttering. She was playing an invisible flute. Now she was skating in a tight circle, her hands moving so fast he almost couldn’t see them.

  The Greys flew towards her and then, an arm’s length from her face, they stopped so abruptly he imagined a thud. They curved around and swooped again. Again, they stopped short, now reeling back and slicing towards her at a different angle.

  She spun on the ice, her hands climbing the air.

  The Greys gathered into a column, high above them. Madeleine and Elliot looked up. The Greys climbed higher, crowding the air. There was a long pause.

  Elliot had time to notice that Mischka Tegan was standing on the lake shore, watching. The kiosk across the way shone silver in its security shutters. The skaters on the other side of the lake had disappeared.

  When he looked up again, the Greys were so high they looked like a great metallic dragon. Then they were diving. The dive was magnificent, a mighty burst of speed. Elliot closed his eyes, covered his head with his hands, buried himself face-first in the ice. He waited for the claws.

  He waited.

  There was a long silence.

  He realised that it wasn’t just silence, it was a breeze, the clinking of distant shutters, a bird’s hesitant call, footsteps on dirt, the cutting of skates on the ice.

  He looked up.

  The Greys had gone.

  On the shore, Mischka Tegan was striding away, satchel high beneath her arm.

  Madeleine was still spinning on the ice, her hands still sorting through the air.

  1

  It seemed to be a dash, and then the dash grew long, it was a line.

  The line stopped. A second line appeared beside it.

  So it was parallel lines, Keira thought.

  A road. A river.

  The points joined. A rectangle. A tablecloth.

  Keira felt herself nodding. Tablecloth. Now that made sense. She slipped down to the ground. It was gluggy with melted snow.

  A thaw had come in the night. The sun was out.

  The tablecloth flung itself upward, down and away, and something new began at once.

  A circle. A series of dots surrounding the circle. A dash beside the circle.

  Exquisite, thought Keira. Now I see.

  It was the first Colour-free day in a week. Not a single warning bell all morning. Yet here was a Lime Green drawing pictures in the air. It must have slipped by the towers unseen.

  Clever, she thought. You’re very smart, Green.

  It was slithering now, rising up and down.

  That’s a snake, Keira decided. You mean there is a snake in our midst.

  The curves grew taller.

  Those are mountains, not a snake. So I should climb a mountain? We should all climb mountains?

  Gabe was beside her. He was also cross-legged on the mud. Green shapes were patterning before him too.

  They’d been walking somewhere, she recalled, she and Gabe.

  They’d set out from the farmhouse.

  The Green changed again. A series of ‘W’s. Those were upside-down birds. Birds signalled flight. She glanced up at the blue. She should fly? The shapes erased themselves. She leaned forward.

  Where had she and Gabe been going?

  She had no idea.

  The Green formed itself into a series of numbers. 7 11 2 7 00 222. She added up the numbers. They circled and switched places. She added the new sequence.

  Probably, they’d just wanted to get out of the farmhouse.

  The ‘7’ in the series tipped to its side, forming a partial triangle now. Several others joined it so it seemed to scream along, a row of jagged edges.

  This last week in the farmhouse had been edges and angles. A week ago they’d woken to find Madeleine was gone. She’d left a note saying she was going to meet Elliot.

  Next they’d discovered that Samuel had also disappeared. He hadn’t left a note.

  The house had lost its mind.

  Seriously, Keira told the Green. It lost its—well, okay, she conceded, houses don’t have minds.

  The Green seemed satisfied. It erased itself and began to form a musical stave. A treble clef appeared. Quavers, crotchets and semi-breves.

  The Queen and Princess Ko had both shrieked that they had to go after Madeleine. The others had ignored them. There’d been a snow blizzard and a Colour hurricane outside that day. Both had continued until last night.

  ‘I will not lose another child,’ Holly had howled.

  Princess Ko had slammed doors so hard that pieces of wood had splintered.

  A couple of days later, the King arrived, crawling through the Colours on his hands and knees.

  No one had been happy to see him.

  ‘This is what she does,’ he’d said grimly when he heard the news. ‘She runs away.’

  That had not been helpful. Holly had almost thrown him down the staircase.

  ‘Perhaps it will be all right,’ Sergio had said. ‘Perhaps she will reach the meeting point, and Elliot will take her to a secret Loyalist army. And so. The Kingdom will be saved. Beautiful.’

  Nobody had paid any attention to him.

  He had re
turned, gloomy, to the empty basement.

  Today, Keira thought, is the day of Madeleine’s meeting with Elliot.

  She wondered if Madeleine had reached the lake, and if Elliot had been trying to lure the Royals there on behalf of the Hostiles. It didn’t sound like Elliot, but it sounded like the Hostiles. She wondered if Madeleine was alive.

  The Green lined up more numbers. Keira began to see their pattern.

  A vertical row of letters appeared. She saw that she should make these into a word. Somehow the numbers and the letters would add up, and that would answer her questions.

  What about Samuel? she thought. Will you tell me where he’s gone?

  But she was asking this more out of duty than because she wanted to know. Sergio was morose about Samuel—he’d stopped hopping around like a kid on a sugar high—but everyone else seemed to find Samuel irrelevant. He’d probably gone to a doctor or something, people said vaguely.

  ‘Maybe Madeleine and Samuel are together?’ Gabe suggested.

  The others thought it was just a coincidence, their vanishing the same day.

  Actually, it was a relief that Samuel was gone, Keira admitted now. He’d become unbearable with the welts and swellings! Dying away in the basement.

  It was polite of him to leave.

  The Green spread itself wide, forming a starburst. Keira smiled. It spiralled and became a line of trees. Each tree blossomed. Flowers fell.

  I see what you mean, she said to it.

  You want me to dance. No. You mean that everything is—wait, she’d almost had it a moment ago.

  Show me again.

  The Green formed itself into the shape of a balloon.

  ‘Close your eyes!’ shouted a voice. A small hand grabbed Keira’s shoulder, little fingers digging in. ‘Both of you! You idiots! Close your eyes!’

  Keira brushed the hand away.

  The Green was the shape of a bird. The bird’s wings opened and closed. It wheeled. Its beak dwindled. Its wings grew. Antennae appeared. It was going to be—what? I see just what you’re saying!

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud.’ Two hands shoved Keira sideways so she fell into the mud.

  2

  Keira frowned into the sunlight.

  She looked across at Gabe, also sprawled in the mud.

  His eyes ran left and right, like someone trying to catch up with his thoughts.

  ‘Don’t you dare turn around.’

  The child who’d just tackled her stood and glowered down at them.

  ‘Don’t you turn around!’ she repeated.

  What are you going to do when a kid tells you not to turn around? Keira swivelled back towards the Green.

  ‘STOP that! You look at me! I told you!’ The girl’s fists were pounding Keira’s shoulders.

  Reluctantly, she turned back.

  ‘Keep your eyes on me. Both of you. Okay. Wait. Wait. It’s gone now.’

  Keira and Gabe spun.

  There was nothing there.

  ‘It goes if it doesn’t get attention,’ the child explained. ‘You realise that was a Lime Green? You know people die from that, right? They get so drawn in, they can’t stop watching. Their minds get all tangled trying to figure out what it means. Thinking it has some sort of message.’

  Beside Keira, Gabe sighed deeply.

  ‘Corrie-Lynn,’ he said, ‘you just saved us. I know exactly what a Lime Green does, and there I was, stuck in it anyhow.’

  ‘I know, too,’ Keira said. ‘I remember hearing about them and thinking they’d never get me. But I was totally transfixed. What time is it? We must’ve been here for hours. Thanks,’ she said to the girl. ‘Seriously. Thanks.’

  She was trying to figure out how she knew the girl’s face. Also, the name. Corrie-Lynn.

  ‘You’re both as muddy as my bike,’ Corrie-Lynn observed.

  A child’s bike was lying on its side in the grass.

  ‘You rode out here all on your own?’ Gabe said. ‘You ever met my cousin, Sophy? Soph, this is Corrie-Lynn. She’s Elliot’s cousin.’

  Corrie-Lynn Baranski. The girl whose father had died.

  But the girl, unexpectedly, was rolling her eyes.

  ‘That’s not your cousin named Sophy, if you even have a cousin named Sophy,’ she said to Gabe. ‘That’s Keira Platter. She was on the R.Y.A. with Elliot. She’s done something weird to her face, changed the way she looks, and her hair’s wrong, but I can still tell it’s her.’ She reached for Keira’s hand and shook it. ‘Pleased to meet you, Keira.’

  Keira felt as if a traffic signal box had got rammed inside her throat.

  ‘Anyhow, I can’t stay cause my mother thinks I’m in my room,’ Corrie-Lynn continued. ‘I only came to show you this.’

  She took a book from her bicycle basket and held it up.

  The Kingdom of Cello: An Illustrated Travel Guide.

  ‘It’s got an appendix.’ Corrie-Lynn was flipping pages. ‘Like a glossary of Colours? And there’s a way to fix Cello in here.’

  Keira and Gabe glanced at each other. They straightened their faces again as Corrie-Lynn looked up.

  She regarded them sternly. ‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I’m not being cute. I’m referring to a particular Colour.’

  ‘Okay,’ Gabe and Keira said, contrite.

  ‘It’s a Gold.’

  ‘No such thing,’ Gabe said at once.

  ‘They’re just a myth,’ Keira agreed.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Corrie-Lynn philosophically. ‘That’s what everyone says. But listen to this. I’ll read it out to you: GOLD. Many claim this Colour does not exist, and I myself have made futile attempts to locate it, once fracturing my arm in the attempt. (That is another story—and an amusing one.) Legend says that the Gold, unlike all other Colours, can be made. One requires only a magic-weaver, a truth-seer and the Philosopher’s Stone. Legend further holds that, once made, Gold is the Elixir that can cure an ailing Kingdom.’

  Corrie-Lynn looked up.

  ‘See?’ she said. ‘It can save the Kingdom. If Elliot was here, I’d tell him to go make a Gold—like, find a magic-weaver and a truth-seer and that stone thing. But since he’s not, you could do it, Keira. On account of, you were on the R.Y.A. And you can help her if you like, Gabe,’ she added generously.

  ‘Thanks,’ Gabe smiled.

  ‘Can I read it myself?’ Keira asked.

  She would read it to humour the girl, she thought, but everybody knew that Gold did not exist.

  She looked at the page. ‘What’s this?’ she said.

  ‘It’s the guidebook.’ Corrie-Lynn was patient. ‘I told you. It tells all about Cello, and the appendix has—’

  ‘No. There’s something behind the words.’ Keira held up the book.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Corrie-Lynn said promptly.

  ‘She’s got super eyesight,’ Gabe told Corrie-Lynn. ‘She can see things other people can’t.’

  ‘There’s some kind of a code behind the words,’ Keira said. She was turning pages, back and forth. ‘It’s everywhere! Numbers and letters. Circles all around the edges.’

  Gabe frowned, uneasy. ‘Could it be residue from the Green maybe? You sure it’s there?’

  Keira kept flicking.

  She turned to the front cover. ‘T.I. Candle wrote this? He’s been writing columns for the Herald, hasn’t he? I don’t like him.’

  ‘Neither does Elliot,’ Corrie-Lynn reflected.

  The sound of a car approached. All three looked towards the road.

  Corrie-Lynn grabbed the guidebook, tore out the page and handed it to Keira.

  ‘Go make a Gold and save the Kingdom,’ she said, reaching for her bike.

  ‘I’ll give you a ride back to town,’ Gabe offered.

  ‘Nope.’ She was pedalling already. ‘Need some air.’

  They watched as she sped down the driveway, pursued by muddy spray. When she reached the road, her feet dropped to the ground. The car turned in. A window was lowered. Corrie-Ly
nn spoke to the driver, then hopped back on her bike and rode away.

  ‘Looks like Jimmy,’ Gabe said. ‘It sure is all happening today.’

  Keira folded the torn page into her pocket. ‘He’s got people in the car. Can’t tell who they are.’

  The car bumped towards them and stopped. They waited in the sun.

  Three doors opened, sunlight dashing against metal and glass.

  Jimmy stepped out. A boy and girl followed. The boy was grinning, the girl blinking rapidly.

  ‘Hello there,’ Jimmy said, his voice unusually formal.

  ‘Hello there back,’ Keira and Gabe replied.

  ‘These two’—Jimmy indicated the strangers—‘have just turned up at the Sheriff’s Station. Seems they’re from the World. Let me introduce you. This is Jack and this is Belle.’

  ‘Hiya,’ the boy said.

  The girl tilted her head. ‘All right?’ she said.

  3

  Keira and Gabe stared. After a moment, Keira spoke. ‘You’re proper Worldians?’

  ‘Proper,’ agreed the boy, Jack, his grin widening.

  ‘They’re friends of Madeleine’s,’ Jimmy said. ‘They’re looking for her. She inside?’

  ‘She’s gone. She left a week ago. To meet Elliot.’

  ‘We know Elliot,’ the girl put in. She had a soft baby-face, Keira thought, so you expected her to be docile, but her eyes and her voice were unnerving.

  ‘You surely didn’t let her go?’ Jimmy demanded.

  ‘We didn’t let her. She just went. In the middle of the night.’

  Gabe was still staring at the newcomers. ‘How’d you get through to Cello?’ he asked them.

  ‘We’d seen Madeleine and Holly stumble,’ Jack explained. ‘I thought, hang about, does that mean they sort of created a crack? And we could use it?’

  ‘No, you never,’ Belle said. ‘I thought it. Only without the hang about part. I would never think those words to myself: Hang about. What sort of a tosser would think that? Would you?’

  She looked at Keira, challenge in her eyes.

  Keira took a step back. ‘No,’ she hazarded.

  These two had the wildest accents—maybe a cross between O.Q. and N.S. but with some J.E. edges thrown in? But also none of the above—and who knew what they were talking about.