Crystal

by Rebecca Lisle

  ‘After each visit to him she seems worse. More confused.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re wrong,’ Stella said. ‘Anyway, Effie can’t be that confused because she makes good medicine, doesn’t she? She cured Mr Bolton’s leg ulcers, I heard. Her medicines are famous; everyone uses her lotions … Although Dad told me some cousin – I think her name was Annie Scott – was given stuff by your mum and now she’s worse!’

  ‘Annie Scott? I didn’t know she was your relation … The doctor couldn’t do anything for her so Mum’s medicine was the last resort.’

  Stella fluffed up her long black hair and quickly changed the subject.

  ‘My mum said that Effie’s mind is so empty, you know, with her not having any old memories, that whatever Grint, Bless and Praise his Name, asks her, she gives him a clear answer. And the other thing I heard someone say – though I don’t know if this is true – is that Grint, Bless and Praise his Name, might have come from the same place as Effie. He’s not quite the same as us Towners either, really, is he? He doesn’t have blonde hair like you, but you know what I mean?’ Stella looked at Crystal carefully but Crystal was too busy thinking about this idea to notice.

  ‘Where did Grint come from?’ Crystal asked.

  ‘I don’t know … I’ve never thought about it … I thought Effie might have said … Anyway, listen, a skweener carried off a guard from the Wall last night!’

  Crystal shivered. ‘I still have nightmares that a skweener will come over the Wall and get me.’

  ‘Me too! This one was green and had spiked wings and a long tail,’ Stella said. ‘It swooped down and grabbed this poor man. It had talons like massive hooks, Dad said – and carried him away. And you know we won those tickets to go out and see the mines? Well, what if we get attacked by a skweener when we go out of the gate? I’m scared! You don’t really want to get a permit and leave, do you? I’d miss you. And it’s not safe out there.’

  ‘I don’t feel safe in here.’

  ‘Don’t feel safe?’ Stella cried. ‘But this is the Town! This is our home!’

  ‘Home for you, Stella, but even your dad – well, I’ve heard him in the Square. He sometimes says things – not against Grint – well, not exactly, but he challenges him—’

  ‘Dad is loyal,’ Stella said firmly, ending the discussion.

  If Crystal and her mum got a permit to leave, she would find out what was on the other side of the Wall. Surely it couldn’t be worse than here. Maybe they could travel miles and miles and find …

  ‘What are you dreaming about, Crystal?’

  ‘Nothing. We’ve got to go to the House tonight,’ Crystal said. ‘And Mum is—’

  ‘Yes?’

  No, she didn’t dare tell her what had happened at Lop Lake. ‘Nothing.’

  3

  In the Marble Mountains

  Questrid retrieved his sledge from the shelter of the furzz trees by the split in the mountain wall and pointed it down the hill towards home – Spindle House.

  ‘Yahoo!’ he cried as he pushed off. ‘Yahoo!’

  Sledging downhill was so brilliant it was worth all the effort of lugging it uphill. He shot down like a bullet. Snow flew up around him, the cold wind whipped his cheeks, nipped his nose and made his eyes water. Bliss!

  From a distance Spindle House looked like a giant tree; it was only when you saw the smoking chimneys and the little windows that you realized it was a house. The rooms in the trunk were shaped like slices of cake with the pointed ends cut off, and upstairs, inside the giant branches, the rooms were strange wobbly shapes.

  Questrid paused for a moment on the top of the last rise and stared at the tree. He picked out Copper’s dark window. Like him, she was from both the Rock and Wood tribes, so they understood each other, though it was Wood that predominated in her character and Rock and Stone in his. She and her parents were away. He missed them. Greenwood’s window was at the very top, far away from the rest of the family. Typical. And over there was the stable building on the other side of the courtyard where Questrid spent most of his time. Home.

  Questrid tipped the sledge down the rise and sped on smoothly through the gateway, stopping right inside the walled courtyard. Good fun, but it would be better when Copper was back and they went sledging and skating together again.

  The two horses, Thunder and Lightning, leaned out over the stable door and snorted a greeting at him. He patted their noses and stroked their ears. ‘Good fellows. Good boys.’ Questrid propped his sledge up inside the porch by the back door and went in. Opening the door set off a draft of wind through the kitchen and sent birds rising in a flurry of wings. They burst into a noisy chatter and then settled again just as quickly. Silver, the great dog-like wolf, came up and sniffed him with interest. Questrid patted her head.

  Oriole, the housekeeper, was cooking soup; her partner, Robin, was sitting at the table cradling a bird in his hands. Other birds were perched on the dresser and backs of chairs, while more flew in and out of an opening in the window.

  ‘This thrush has broken a wing feather,’ Robin told Questrid. ‘I’m trying to mend it.’

  A large owl with brilliant sparky round eyes was perched on the back of the rocking chair. It stared at Questrid haughtily. ‘Twit twoo!’

  ‘Twit you are too,’ Questrid said with a laugh. ‘Is Greenwood back yet?’

  ‘He is!’ Oriole said, wiping her hands down her apron. ‘And he’s gone and got himself a fever! You should have seen him when he came in! Eyes glittering and cheeks on fire. I wanted him to go straight to bed, but he wouldn’t. He was muttering on and on about something … I don’t know.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Guess,’ Robin said with a chuckle.

  ‘In the Root Room?’ Questrid said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go tell him dinner’s nearly ready, will you?’ Oriole said.

  ‘OK.’ Questrid went towards the kitchen door. ‘It’ll be good when the others are back, won’t it?’

  ‘I hope it hasn’t been too boring being left with us,’ Oriole said.

  Questrid hugged her. Oriole was so tiny that her head only reached his chest. ‘Of course not! I love you!’ he said.

  A narrow staircase spiralled down below the house to the Root Room. It was an underground space where the family worked carving and sculpting. The ceiling and walls were formed from a network of roots from the giant Spindle tree above.

  ‘Hello! Hello! Greenwood?’ Questrid called out. ‘Oriole says dinner’s nearly ready.’

  To his amazement, Greenwood spun round and glared at Questrid furiously. ‘No!’ Greenwood yelled. He jumped up from his workbench and threw down his chisel. ‘No!’ He threw down his spectacles and tugged at his hair as if he wanted to pull it out. ‘I simply can’t bear it!’ he shouted. ‘No!’

  Questrid was shocked, frozen to the spot. ‘Greenwood?’ he said softly. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Ahh haa!’ Greenwood cried, stabbing a finger fiercely at Questrid. ‘It was you!’

  ‘Me? What?’ Questrid felt the blood rush hotly to his cheeks. Greenwood had seen him at the lake.

  ‘Are you any relation to Grint? You must be! You’re a Rocker. You’ve Stone in your bones. You’re his cousin, are you? You can’t deny it!’

  Questrid backed away. ‘Greenwood! It’s me, Questrid.’ His voice trembled. How could Greenwood say these things? ‘Who’s Grint? What’s the matter?’

  ‘What? Who?’ Greenwood tottered and blinked. ‘What? Oh! It is you, Questrid! Questrid, my dear boy!’ He sat down heavily. ‘Thank my stars. I thought for a moment … when you came … There are forces at work, evil forces and Grint is behind it all. The lake! There was water, oh, my stars! The ice melted and there was water. I saw it. I saw it. I must get on with my work. I’m carving a handle, Questrid. A handle, because the handle will turn and when it’s turned, the door will open. Doors shut things out. You do understand?’

  Questrid gulped. ‘Yes,’ he lied. ‘Yes.’r />
  ‘There’s a glimmer of hope, but that makes it so much worse. Hope. It’s the last thing you want. When that’s gone, it’s all gone. Easier without it: easier with nothing. I must get on with the carving. Don’t stop me. You mustn’t try and stop me!’

  Greenwood had flipped! Gone mad!

  Questrid backed out and ran to get help. But although Robin, Oriole and he went down to the Root Room to try and persuade Greenwood to come upstairs and be looked after, he refused. Nothing they could do or say that afternoon would make him leave the workroom or his chunks of wood.

  Questrid loved Spindle House but he never wanted to stay in there longer than he had to; it was too woody. He certainly couldn’t sleep there. The massive branches of the vast Spindle tree creaked and bent in the wind and every plank and joist sighed and squeaked as it moved. He preferred his nights to be still and so he had a large bedroom above the stables. The sound of the horses’ hoofs shuffling on the straw-covered paving stones and their heavy breathing soothed him.

  Questrid was exhausted after his strange talk with Greenwood and then trying to bargain with him to leave the cellar. He felt the need to be alone in his own room. He ripped off his long scarf and hat and kicked off his boots.

  The afternoon sun was slanting in through the roof windows. It was usually one of his favourite times of day, but now he was worrying about Greenwood.

  Questrid had been planning to design a sculpture of two snow beazles rolling around in a tangle of legs and tails; it would make a good present for his mother, Ruby. Now, because of Greenwood, he hadn’t the heart to start it.

  He opened up his notebook and flicked through the pages of designs.

  Suddenly he stopped.

  ‘Pheeew!’ He looked from his design to the shelf where he kept his carvings: back to the book, up to the shelf.

  He thought he knew what it was that Greenwood had thrown into the lake.

  4

  A Visit to Grint

  Lop Lake had done something to Effie.

  She cleaned the stove and swept the floors. She began digging in the space behind the apartment where they grew turnips and potatoes, saying, ‘We must have a pond. Running water. A river would be good.’ Crystal brought water from the well. She set the bucket beside her mother so that in the evening she could run her fingers through it. She liked the sound it made, she said.

  ‘What came out of Lop Lake? Where did you put it?’ Crystal asked her time and again. She’d looked for the object in their rooms but needed time on her own to search properly. ‘It looked like a stone or an egg or something …’

  ‘I don’t know,’ her mother would say with a smile, ‘but it was wonderful by the water, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Do you remember catching something?’

  ‘No. Did I? I don’t remember.’

  It was impossible! And now they were seeing Grint that night. How would Crystal explain if he noticed the change in Effie?

  She handed her mum a long black scarf. It had become their custom to cover their hair in an attempt not to draw attention to it when they went out.

  ‘No.’ Effie pushed the scarf away. ‘Why should I hide my hair? I never used to have to do such miserable things. I want something lively – blue or gold or silver – to wear! We never wore black at home.’

  Home.

  Crystal had never heard her mention ‘home’ before. She glanced towards the sly-ugg. Its eyes were closed but that didn’t mean it wasn’t listening.

  ‘What do you mean, “we never wore black”, Mum?’ Crystal whispered. She couldn’t keep the longing from her voice. ‘Who’s we? Where’s home?’

  Crystal stared into her mum’s ice-blue eyes, which were gazing directly back at her. She realized with a jolt that her mum usually stared vacantly straight past her.

  ‘I’m trapped,’ Effie said, putting her hands to her throat. ‘Stuck in a terrible limbo. It’s like living one night years and years long but with no dreaming, no waking, no touching, no feeling. He’s taken my memories. No snow! Crystal, it’s like being dead. I want to see the snow.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Snow? I wish—’

  ‘But I’ve woken up, Crystal. We must be careful. Play safe. Yes.’ She looked round anxiously. ‘We can fool Grint. We must not let him know … Give me that stupid bit of cloth!’

  Effie deftly wrapped the black scarf around her pale hair. Usually Crystal had to do it while her mum sat like a pudding on a plate. ‘I have to see his high and mighty-ship, I know. I know,’ Effie rattled on. ‘I should never have let him use me like this. I should have battled and oh, done anything to escape. How have I let this happen, Crystal?’

  ‘What, Mum? I wish I could understand you.’

  ‘This! To be caught here like a salmon in a net.’

  ‘Mum! Hush!’

  ‘Yes, yes, hush! The sly-ugg might hear and then Raek will hear. And Grint will hear. I know, I know, but it’s too late anyway. If only I didn’t have to go! Grint works in mysterious ways. What would you say Mr Grint has coursing though his veins, Crystal? Do you think he has real blood or mercury? What’s in his heart? Iron, or is it marble?’

  ‘I really don’t know, I—’ Crystal quickly dropped an upturned bowl over the sly-ugg. ‘Whoops, how silly of me!’ she cried, then aside in a fierce whisper to her mother: ‘Mum! The sly-ugg! Please! You’re talking treason.’

  ‘Treason! Is it treason to know we’re trapped here, kept against our will? But …’ She paused, thinking. ‘Is having hope worse? It might be. We must escape, Crystal. That’s what we must do! Prisoners escape.’

  Crystal turned away and hid her tears. Her mother was truly mad. She really was.

  ‘Stone in his heart, Crystal,’ her mum muttered. ‘He is grit and gravel and hardness. Quartz in his bones.’

  ‘Shh! Yes, Mum. Come on. We’ll be late.’

  Effie grasped Crystal’s arm. ‘You think I’m crazy. My darling, dearest daughter, I am not mad. I am so not mad. If something goes wrong and I don’t speak like this again; if I seem to forget, try and remember this moment.’ She looked round anxiously and gripped Crystal hard. ‘I have a feeling this won’t last. I don’t know how to hold on to this wakefulness.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember,’ Crystal said. ‘I’ll try and do everything you say.’

  Crystal lifted the bowl off the sly-ugg. Its eye-stalks twisted and waved rapidly then it fixed her with an intense stare as if it had caught a bit of her mother’s new fiery spirit. ‘What’s up with you?’ she said. ‘Sorree! Don’t you like it under there? I suppose it’s not your fault you’re so horrid. Come on. Time for a walk.’

  They had a sly-ugg carry-box for trips, made of light thin metal. It had a handle at the top and one side opened for the sly-ugg to go in and out. The opening side was made of a thin mesh so that the sly-ugg could continue spying wherever it was.

  Crystal put some dandelion leaves into the carry-box and then swept the greasy creature in too. It left a trail of grey, snotty slime behind on the table.

  The black kitten sat at the window and watched them go, flicking his tail backwards and forwards, blinking his green eyes.

  The outlines of buildings were blurred and shadowy. One or two lights glowed through chinks of half-closed shutters. The warm wind moaned. It whistled through glass-less windows and whined like a poltergeist as it whipped round the vast empty factories and rows of abandoned houses and tall office blocks.

  Grint’s stone house in the Square stood in grand isolation. Two columns of granite, carved like totem poles, guarded the front door. Every time Crystal visited the House she felt compelled to look at them. She’d heard that Grint had carved the columns himself: strange faces, mountains and flying beasts. Crystal found it hard to believe that Grint’s hands could ever have made anything so beautiful.

  They rang the doorbell. Raek, Grint’s second-in-command, opened the door. He was dressed in his habitual grey suit, his thin hair neatly greased back over his bony skull. ‘Late,’ he sna
pped. His lips were blistered and his cheeks looked sore. Crystal tried not to stare. Raek looked at them coldly, holding out his gloved hand for the carry-box. ‘I’ll take that.’

  Crystal handed him the carry-box. They were heading through the big hall towards Grint’s receiving room where Crystal usually took her mother, when Raek stopped them. He held up his narrow hand grandly. ‘Wait. Grint, Bless and Praise his Name, has the Elders with him in the hall.’ He pointed to the waiting room. ‘Sit in there.’

  He strode away, taking the sly-ugg with him.

  Crystal stared after him, looking at his narrow skinny shoulders. How did he get the information out of the sly-ugg? She’d seen the sly-ugg retract its eyes and curl up into a tight little coil when Raek walked by. Whatever he did, she reckoned, it wasn’t kind.

  Effie sat down and started tapping her foot on the stone floor. And humming.

  Crystal hushed her. There were voices coming from the hall and she wanted to hear what was being said.

  ‘… There have been several incidents of sorcery,’ said a man. ‘Permission to ban entirely the mixing and making of love potions and the use of so-called magic stones, sir?’

  ‘Granted!’ Morton Grint’s voice was unmistakable, rough and low. It always reminded Crystal of pebbles shifting and grinding against each other.

  ‘There is a lot of medicine-making going on amongst the women,’ another man said. ‘Do you think we should be allowing this? Should we crack down on this nonsense? We have good doctors in Town.’

  ‘Doctors are expensive. Only some can afford them,’ John Carter, Stella’s father, said.

  ‘Maybe, but potions and herbal brews are old-fashioned and I don’t think they should be used unless they’re regulated.’

  Several voices shouted their agreement.

  ‘There is perhaps room for different forms of medicine,’ Grint said slowly. ‘Reflexology. Leeches.’

  There was much muttering and shouting.

  ‘One final point—’ It was John Carter again. He was often in the Square talking loudly to anyone who would listen about Town matters. He was an Elder, a trusted member of Grint’s inner circle, but he spoke out freely against Grint’s policies. ‘What about Barnaby Andrews? Will you explain that, Grint?’