by Amy Wilson
I get to the top and take a shuddering breath, looking up at the tree, wondering how it really came to be here. It’s beautiful. Twisted, and bent to one side as if always in the same wind, its bare branches gleaming. Dylan grunts as he reaches level ground, sliding on his hands and knees away from the edge, Helios capering around him.
‘How did you do that?’ he asks, breathing heavily.
‘I don’t know,’ I whisper. ‘Magic?’
‘Well, you are related to the monsters who made this place,’ he says. ‘I suppose it makes sense that you can make things happen too.’
‘A thank you would probably do it,’ I say in a tart voice, turning to the hut.
‘No,’ he whispers behind me.
‘What now?’
‘A storm,’ he says, his eyes flicking up to the swirling dark clouds in the sky. ‘Io’s coming! I knew this would happen – you’ve made such a racket with all your magic! What’s she going to say about all this? What’s she going to do to us?’
‘Quick, into the house,’ I burst, and we scarper across the frozen ground, flinging ourselves into the wooden hut with Helios.
It’s as barren and cold as it was when I first came in, and there is no flurry of magic, no sudden carpet. I’m so tired I can barely keep to my feet, so I suppose it’s no wonder I can’t make it happen. The storm whistles around the house and snow blows through the gaps in the wood.
‘Ugh, this is miserable,’ Dylan says. ‘Can’t believe I spent so long trying to get up here to this.’
‘It was different before—’ I start, but then there’s a shudder and a creak – the whole room vibrates, and the walls fall away.
Dylan pushes me roughly to one side as the snow rushes in, and I trip over the wooden planks, losing my footing and tumbling back down the hill, too shocked to even scream, battered by ledge after ledge, finally landing hard on an icy patch of rock. I mean to get up, but I can’t breathe. I mean to race back up there and stand by him and face Io for myself, but I can’t move.
Boy! Her voice makes all the hairs on my arms stand up. It has an undercurrent of magic, a golden song that shivers through the globe and makes the whole place ring.
‘Io?’
I could not see you, and now I have ruined that mean little house of yours! I shall mend it, by and by, now that you have found the courage to get there. It would be a shame if you could not use it, I suppose. But what is this, Dylan? Did you make that tree? Have you finally embraced your magic? Her voice thrills with excitement.
‘I don’t know how it happened. I was playing with Helios and it just appeared.’
Things do not just appear here, boy, not without a little magic. I am glad you are finding your way to it. Perhaps now you can embrace what you have, and brighten up this place – I don’t know why you have insisted upon all this snow and desolation for so long. But this tree . . . it does not feel like you, Dylan. Familiar, and yet completely unexpected! Her mind-voice sharpens. Have you had company?
‘No!’
There’s a long silence, and the clouds darken even further; the wind sends up a great flurry of churning snow and ice.
I will take the dog away from you if you lie to me.
‘I swear, I don’t know what happened – please don’t take him away!’
Oh, be quiet. You may have your secret, for now. I have other things to attend to. You will just have to fix your house for yourself.
There’s a sharp boom, and then a tumult of blowing ice, a bitter wind that tosses the whole world around. I cling to the frozen ledge and bite my lip to stop from crying out, praying she won’t find me now. My hands and feet are numb with cold, and I’m half blinded by the rushing swirl of snow.
‘Dylan?’ I whisper, getting painfully to my knees once the storm has stopped screaming. I haul myself up, head-spinning, knees trembling, and skid down the rest of the hill to find a newly white, untrodden world. ‘DYLAN!’
He doesn’t answer. A loud bark is the only response, and then I see Helios kicking at the ground, where a huddled shape lies crumpled by the glass, half covered in snow.
Dylan doesn’t stir, not even when I push him on to his back. Did Io do this? It’s unnerving, how cold and still he is. Barely a lift of his chest to show he’s alive.
What did Io mean about him having magic?
‘Dylan? Wake up!’
If he has magic, that would make sense of his being here. But why didn’t he say something? Why wouldn’t he have used it already to find a way out of here? At least to get to the house.
The house!
I look up the hill. My tree spreads its snow-covered branches out to one side, and it is still beautiful, standing in isolation against the iron-grey sky. But there is no house now. Only one of the old planks is visible, and my tree is no consolation. I don’t know how to get us out of here without the house.
That was the way out, and it’s gone. Io didn’t fix it, and I have no idea how I’d start and, even if I could, even if I rebuilt that little wooden hut, it wouldn’t be the same . . . I might never find the way through to Ganymede’s house.
What if we’re truly stuck here now, forever?
‘Dylan,’ I whisper, choking back a rising tide of panic. ‘Wake up!’ But whatever Io did to him hasn’t worn off yet. I pull at him and brush the snow and ice away from his face. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I whisper, looking from him to Helios, who lays his head on Dylan’s chest and looks at me with huge moss-green eyes. I’m guessing he’s done this before, and there’s something about his loyalty that makes me feel just a little warmer on the inside. Surely, I tell myself, if Io can get in and out, so can I.
‘OK,’ I say to Helios. ‘You stay there and keep him warm. I’ll find us another way out.’
Helios huffs at me and turns his head away, and I get up, staggering to the edge of the globe where the glass rises up in a great shining dome, and put my hand against the surface. It’s cold and hard, completely unyielding.
I prowl the perimeter with sharp eyes, watching for movement on the other side, pressing my fingers against it and steaming it up with my breath. There’s a place where I can see the giant shapes of Ganymede’s tower room, but, however hard I will it, there is no way out through there. I carry on my inspection until I’m so cold I can barely feel my nose, but there is no shift, no hole, no change at all, and when I try to make sparks fly all that happens is a dull ache deep in my belly.
Dylan is still a shape on the ground, Helios still stands over him, and I think that maybe I have made things worse. Now there isn’t even the hope of getting to the house. I pound my fists against the glass with a small, repressed howl of rage. It rings with a mournful chime, and I spread my hands over it quickly, to dim the noise before Io returns.
There’s a soft spot.
I run my fingers over it again, peering close. The glass here is definitely different. It warps slightly, and when I push hard it stretches, clinging to my fingers. I whip my hand away, and it bounces back into shape.
‘Ew,’ I whisper, prodding at it and watching as ripples cascade away across the surface of the globe. Something shifts on the other side as I stare, and I realize I have no idea where I’ll end up, if I make it through. Will it be another globe? Will a magician be waiting for me on the other side?
I back off and go to check Dylan, huddling up against Helios for a bit, tucking myself into his warmth. Dylan sleeps on and is no help at all, and Helios is pretty awesome, but even here it seems that dogs don’t talk, so he’s no help either. After a while I get my mother’s book out and flick through the pages, but I’m not sure she was ever inside the globes; there’s certainly no mention I can find of soft spots in the glass, or ways through magicians’ prisons. I tuck the book back into my pocket with a sigh.
This bit is on me.
I get up and stomp back to the warped place in the glass, and in my haste slip on a treacherous bit of ice. My feet fly out from under me, and I land hard on my already bruised back
side, cursing as I collide with the glass. I lie there for a moment, looking up at the snow-filled clouds, half wishing I were safely back at home. What will Pa be thinking? Will he even know I’ve gone, what with the strange way time passes in here?
‘No good worrying about that now,’ I tell myself savagely. I pull myself up on to my elbows with a sigh, and see that my foot has gone right through the glass. For a startled second, I just stare at it. My foot, in its old black boot, on the other side.
I wiggle it. It moves. When I pull it towards me, the glass around it starts to ripple. I sit up and shift myself towards the glass, and thrust my hand through, my tongue between my teeth. Then I pull my foot out and kneel on the snow, slowly putting my hand down on the other side. The ground feels hard, and scrubby. Strands that fold beneath my palm, like grass. It’s warmer there, which gives me hope. Dylan could do with getting out of this cold. We all could.
‘OK,’ I whisper, glancing back, my heart sinking a little when I see that Dylan still hasn’t woken. Helios stares at me, and I take a breath and stretch my other hand into the warm space. I take it steady, pushing myself inch by inch through the glass, breathing slowly. Both shoulders, and then my head – it’s like pushing at a wall of water, just hoping I’ll be able to breathe once I break through.
There’s a pop, and then I can’t see, can’t hear anything, barely remember who I am. I’m drowning, unravelling, panicking and trapped. I try to shout, but nothing comes out, and my breath gets stuck.
Something pulls; something bites.
I yank myself back into the snowglobe, choking and spluttering. Helios bounces up at me, licking my face, his head butting against my shoulder.
‘Thank you,’ I breathe, putting my arms round him and resting into his warmth. I guess it was never going to be easy, but I couldn’t have imagined this; it’s like fighting my way into a swirl of nothingness so complete that even existing within it feels impossible.
I try again and again until despair begins to creep in. I can’t do this for much longer; I’m exhausted. I brace myself and give it one last attempt, holding myself tight in my mind, aware of every movement of my limbs, every breath. I put all of my mind into it until my veins are roaring, and I push harder, reach further, until warm air is kissing my fingers, and I am in a new world.
Where a fox is staring out at me from a pile of golden leaves beneath an autumn tree.
When I dreamed of bravery, it was all a bit more shiny. The sun, the glint of my sword and the golden horn of a unicorn as I jumped on its back and rode down the enemy. There was a feeling of freedom about it, of leaping and whooping and punching the air. Not pushing myself through warped glass clutching a sleeping boy and really hoping the enormous dog will just follow.
‘Come on,’ I burst, tugging as the glass resists around us. I curve my back and push out behind me as hard as I can, but Dylan is heavier than I thought.
In the end, I do it with a shout of frustration and a burst of orange light, pulling and heaving until we’re both all the way through.
I sit in a heap on wet grass for a while, looking at a beautiful coppery autumn tree, then prop Dylan up against the inside of the glass dome, and stick my head back into the icy world, trying desperately to ignore the strange pull of the grey stuff that swirls around my shoulders. A doggy head tilts to one side.
‘Come on,’ I call. ‘Come!’
He whines, stretches out one paw and quickly retracts it.
‘Helios, come!’ I smile and wave my hands around. ‘Please – he’ll be cross if I leave you here. Come!’
He makes a funny little noise at the back of his throat and then leaps for me. I manage to grab a handful of bright yellow fur and brace myself on the other side, heaving until we’re in a big old heap in the grass. After a moment, he shakes himself all over and bounces off into the leaves.
‘You’re welcome,’ I whisper, looking back at Dylan. I thought he’d wake here; instead he’s almost paler, as if the sun has bleached him out. Autumn leaves fly in a cool breeze, and the branches of the vast tree knock against the glass. After a few minutes, the fox bounds out of the heap of leaves at the base of its trunk.
Helios races back to me and presses himself back against the glass.
‘Fox, this is Helios. Helios, this is a fox. Not going to hurt you, probably. You’re too big to be food.’ I shove at Dylan, and he slumps into the grass, so I heave him up, brushing leaves out of his hair. ‘Sorry,’ I whisper, propping him up again.
I stare at the fox and the dog, who are approaching each other, low-backed and snuffling suspiciously. ‘Fox, Helios, you’ll just have to get along for a bit; we’re too tired to move. As you can see.’
And I hope it isn’t another spell, or Io on her way, because all of a sudden I really can’t keep my eyes open. ‘Keep watch, Helios,’ I slur, curling up.
Dylan is still asleep when I wake, sprawled out now in the muddy grass, smiling faintly. I wonder if he knows, even through the sleep, that he’s not in winter any more. That it’s warmer, that the light is golden, and even the leaves are somehow comforting, in a dry, rustling sort of way. Helios stands over him, and the fox has disappeared back into its bunker beneath the leaves.
‘Dylan, wake up,’ I whisper. ‘Please, we need to work out what to do next.’
Because actually, though it was a really good idea to get out of the snow and the cold, now we’re just stuck in another world. I walk the perimeter of the globe and look out to the tower room in Ganymede’s house. There’s not much to make out: I can see the domed roof with its curved iron frame in the distance, and some of the shelves with the globes upon them. Mostly, though, it’s just shadow. I can’t even really tell what time of day it is.
Then I see the globe next to ours, where the sky is pink and tiny bright birds spiral around an ancient green sundial, a shadowed figure flitting between them in an iridescent cloak. Do we have to get in there next? How do we get out of the whole place and back to Ganymede’s house? I move around the globe, testing the glass, but I can only feel that strange warp between ours and the one with the sundial; it’s the only way out.
I shiver and turn my back on it, sitting by Dylan and hoping he’ll wake up with some miracle idea. Helios snuffles at my hair and breathes on me, which is kind of disgusting and kind of nice all at the same time.
‘Hey,’ I say, putting my hands deep into his wiry coat. ‘I’m glad you’re here. How did you get to be here, I wonder? Are you a magician, Helios?’ I grin, and he licks my face, and finally Dylan begins to stir.
‘You’re awake!’ I say, relief flooding through me.
‘Am I?’
Dylan pulls himself up and sits cross-legged, frowning. After a while, he picks up one of the copper leaves that carpet the grass. He spends a really long time looking at it, turning it over, holding it up to his nose, stroking the dry veins.
‘Do you know how long it’s been since I saw a leaf?’ he asks, his voice still drowsy.
‘A while?’
He yawns and rubs his arms. And then bounces up all in a flurry, looking from me to Helios, back at the snowy world we came from, and then at the tree.
‘We’re in the fox globe!’
‘You noticed.’
‘Is it real?’
‘Yes. We’ve even met the fox. He’s gone back to his den now.’
Dylan leans down and peers at me, frowning. His eyes are all bright and alert; the sleep has done him good. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘It was difficult,’ I say. ‘And I didn’t know when you would wake up, so I was a bit worried about that, and now we’re here, and I don’t really know what that means.’
‘It means everything!’ he flutes, throwing a handful of leaves up into the air. ‘It means we can travel between globes!’
‘Which is useful how?’
‘If we can travel between them, we can find a way out! You can use your magic! Thank goodness Io didn’t see you; she’d have separated us for sure.’
/> ‘She said you have magic.’ I push myself up and fold my arms, looking him in the eye, trying to see a trace of it. I’ve never even caught a hint that he might have magic, and yet Io sounded so sure.
He stares at me.
‘Well?’ I ask.
‘No.’
‘She sounded pretty sure to me, Dylan.’
‘If I had magic, I’d have got out of here, wouldn’t I? I’d have tried anything!’
‘But it makes sense. My mother’s book said the globes are prisons for magicians. Why would you be in here if you didn’t have magic?’
‘I don’t know,’ he breathes, closing his eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Dylan . . .’
‘What?’ His eyes open and there’s a flash there, something silver-blue, that I recognize immediately.
‘It’s OK! You don’t have to hide it.’
‘Oh, what do you know about it? You’re not me, Clem. What else does your mother’s book say about it?’
‘I haven’t read it all.’ I sigh. ‘It’s a diary she wrote; it’s not an instruction manual or anything. And it’s difficult to read . . . I only know what I’ve already told you. I only knew for sure that magic was real when I pushed Jago. I didn’t know about any of this!’
‘That was my last day out there,’ he says.
‘Which was yesterday, I keep telling you. Time’s different here, obviously. When was the last time you had anything to eat, or drink?’
He blinks. ‘Not since I’ve been here.’
‘So you see? It’s an illusion, Dylan! It’s been a day, that’s all. Or you’d be a skeleton by now.’
He sighs. ‘So what kind of magic do you have?’