by Amy Wilson
‘I don’t trust her, Clem. I don’t know about any of this . . .’
‘Do you trust me?’
‘You’re twelve, Clementine! It isn’t a question of trusting you . . .’
He hasn’t said no, I realize. Not yet.
‘Maybe we can talk about it more in the morning,’ I say. ‘When we’ve had time to think?’
He sighs, and I pull myself out of the settee and rush to the door before he has the chance to find more difficult words.
‘I’m going to get something to eat,’ I say.
‘Make sure some of it is green,’ he shouts out after me as I head to the kitchen.
I make myself a ham sandwich and find a bag of crisps with green on the packet. Then I eat an orange because I feel guilty. The wedge of my mother’s ruined book is in my back pocket, and I know I should be making a plan to get back in there, but I can’t focus enough. The day clamours in my mind in a whirl of feathers and butterflies and snow and unfamiliar faces. I think about the old woman, and the hints that there’s someone in there who looks like me. Then I fall asleep at the table and dream of tiny fluttering birds that look a little like books, until Pa wakes me with a tut and makes me go to bed.
Once I’m in bed, it’s hard to get back to sleep, even though I’m more exhausted than I thought possible. After what feels like hours of tossing and turning, I drag out the head torch and pick up my mother’s book, stained and battered, the gold-edged pages crinkled and stuck together. I hold it between my hands and picture the house in my mind, calling on my magic to somehow restore what was there before. My palms grow warm as a pale golden light breaks out around me. A thrill rushes through me at the now familiar feeling, and when the moment is over, I open the book eagerly.
It doesn’t look the same. There’s the sketch of the house, only now there is colour in it, and the dark, shaded lines that bordered the steps are trailing vines of flowers. The writing is more evenly spaced, the pages somehow clearer, and when I start to read I feel like I’m really seeing what she actually wrote for the first time. Like all the times before there was something obscuring it.
I don’t know where we are going, these days.
Ganymede is more strict than ever since our parents died, and I can see that it is done out of fear, and love, but it feels like being in a trap, sometimes. Io rebels harder than I do; she is determined to cause mischief with the globes. And the harder Gan fights for control, the harder Io pulls back. Her heart is huge, her capacity for rage even bigger, and she sends whole storms through the snowglobes just to irritate Gan – I feel so sorry for the poor souls inside!
That is the trouble, I think. I do not agree that magic should be trapped away in these glass globes. There is both good and bad in it, as in everything, and a huge number of people have a little magic, if not so much as we are blessed – or cursed – with. Half the world could end up trapped in this little house if they carry on like this.’
I cannot put the book down. It’s like I’ve struck a vein. With every page, I know her more, I understand more of what has happened in that house, and why my aunts are the way they are.
The three of them were alone in that house for years after the deaths of their parents. The place had started life as a small school, set up by their father’s mother when her own magic and that of her children became troublesome. The school grew and grew as magic spread among the growing population of the world, and by the time the sisters’ parents took over, it was cracking at the seams.
Their mother developed the snowglobes: little worlds where magic could make illusion seem real, where magicians could be free of the burden of trying to conceal or control their power. They discovered that time moved differently in those worlds, that what seemed a dozen years in there could be a day in the real world, and so when pupils were unruly they were put inside – just for a day or a week – and prevented from returning home. Gradually the time got longer; gradually more and more of the magicians were put inside. It was easier, and it seemed to keep the real world safe.
By the time the parents died, they had instilled in their daughters the notion that all magic was dangerous, that all magicians should be contained. When their responsibility was handed to the three sisters, each was to play their own part in maintaining that delicate balance. But Ganymede took more than her share of responsibility. She lived like a recluse, rarely going out and using her power to keep them protected from the outside world, a spell around the house that meant they would always be hidden and self-sufficient.
She collected books on magic and taught her younger sisters more about their craft, always warning of the consequences of using it recklessly. But, as they got older, Io instead sought the wisdom and the company of the entrapped magicians, regularly going into the globes to learn more about their ways and developing a bond with their worlds. Unable to challenge her powerful sister, she sought freedom within.
I flick through the book, marvelling at all the beautiful coloured sketches of the globes – there is even a picture of the fox! And then, towards the back, the writing gets smaller, the tone is different, as if ages have passed.
For so long, it was home, that place. I found comfort in the gardens, and that was where I used my power, beneath Ganymede’s careful eye. But it was so lonely! When I saw Piotr, with his flame-red hair, I could not resist saying hello. We talked, day by day, while I tended my garden, and there was such kindness in his eyes, such love for the world in his stories. The house began to feel like a trap. Ganymede’s silver eyes followed me wherever I went, and Io’s own eyes had already turned towards the magical worlds in the globes.
One day, I followed him out of the garden and through the gate, my feet barely touching the ground for fear Ganymede would stop me. And oh, what he showed me – what joy there was! I could not go back, could not unsee what I had seen, could not abandon the life that beckoned so sweetly.
I did return to them once, just a few weeks later. I barely found the house myself, and when I entered the air was dust, and Io nowhere to be seen. Ganymede was a swish and a tumble of icy wrath – without me, I suppose there was nobody to bridge the gap between them. Io had retreated for good into the worlds of the magicians, and every inch of that house was a prison – a beautiful, sparking prison of swirling globes.
I tried to reason with Ganymede, but she was full of a quiet, hard rage against us both. She pledged that any who showed a sign of magic would end up in one of those worlds, and I fled, for there was no more mercy there.
These later pages of my mother’s diary are scrawled and tear-stained, the ink driven deep into the paper. She grieved for her sisters, even as she found light in the outside world, and life with Pa. It’s hard to read it, hard to stay angry with her, when I can see right here in the press of the pen strokes how much we meant to her. How unlikely it was that she would have just walked out. Somehow, I think, her sisters got her back. Somehow, they have kept her.
I close the book and hold it close.
She is there, somewhere. I have to go back. I know it now even more than I did before.
‘Clem! There’s someone here for you,’ Pa calls out in the morning, while I’m testing the static between my fingers to see if I can make things move with my mind.
I can’t.
‘You’re a bit wild around the eyes,’ Pa says, pinging the door open and craning his head round. ‘What are you doing?’
I sit up. ‘I’ve been reading Mum’s book. Who’s here?’
He gives me a long hard look, as if there are a lot of things he wants to say and he’s not sure how to say them. ‘Dylan –’ he comes into the room, closing the door behind him – ‘is he the reason you went back in? Is he the boy you rescued?’
I nod, wondering where this is going.
Pa runs a hand through his hair. ‘It was very headstrong of you, to go marching back into that house,’ he says, folding his arms. ‘And I am not happy that you lied to me.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ I sa
y.
‘It was also brave.’ He sighs, staring at me, sitting at the foot of the bed. ‘And the sort of thing your mother might have done. So I’ve got this for you . . .’ He pulls something from his pocket. ‘She made it when you were born. She planned to give it to you when you were sixteen, but I’d like you to have it now. Perhaps it will give you some protection. I know she put some of her magic into it.’ He hands me a ring made of gold and silver twisted together, a red stone at its centre.
I take the ring and stare at it. It’s warm in my fingers, and the gleam of the stone is soothing – like firelight on a cold night.
‘Callie was pretty careful, Clem,’ he says, standing. ‘I want you to be careful too. And I want you to tell me when you’re going there. And no more lies.’
‘OK,’ I say, when I can trust my voice, sliding the ring on to my right index finger. ‘Thanks, Pa.’ I give him a tight hug, and hope it says everything I can’t find the words for right now.
‘How do you know where I live?’ I ask Dylan, when Pa has let himself out with a little backward look and a whispered, ‘Be careful – remember . . .’
‘Mum was talking about it – the street, the balcony . . . it wasn’t hard to find. Maybe I used magic? I don’t know; everything’s a bit of a blur. We have to go back for Helios,’ he says in a rush. He looks feverish, and I’m kind of surprised his mum let him out at all.
‘We will,’ I say, leaning back against the radiator, enjoying the creep of warmth up my back. I’m so tired, and just the sight of him makes me feel even more weary. We have to go back – he’s right. But just one look at him and I know we can’t – not yet. Besides, I have a plan.
‘Now,’ he says.
‘Dylan, if we go in like this, we’re just going to get trapped. We’ll never get past my aunts and, even if we did, how will we find Helios? How will we find my mother? I’m scared we’ll end up locked in there. You were there for a day, and look what it did to you.’
He looks down at himself. ‘I thought I wasn’t doing too badly.’
‘Well, you look terrible. You should go home.’
‘And just go back to normal?’ he demands, his eyes glittering. ‘After all that, just go back home, go to school on Monday? Is that what you’re going to do?’
‘No, I’m going back to the house. I’m going to get Ganymede to trust me, and teach me how to use magic properly, while I search the house for the globes my mother and Helios are in. And when I’ve found them we’ll go back and get them out.’
He stares at me for a long time, and I smile, trying to look like I’ve got it all under control. I know it’s the right thing to do; it just doesn’t feel that way. I can sense the impatience in him, the buzz of needing to do something right now, and my own blood sings with the need to get back in there. But we can’t. We’re not strong enough.
‘No,’ he says finally. ‘I’m going back to that house. Now.’ And he bangs out of the door.
I grab my coat and fly after him, nearly falling down the steps, because he’s sitting halfway.
‘What are you doing?’ I shout, grabbing the banister.
‘I don’t know.’ He sighs.
I take a deep breath and sit next to him. ‘I swear to you, we will get back in there. We’ll get them out.’
‘You say it like you think it’s going to be easy.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I told you, I’m going to make sure we’re prepared. We have magic, and we can use it when we’re in there, but only when you’re better. Only when we know where we’re going!’
He sighs and pulls himself up, holding on to the banister and looking like an old man on his last legs.
‘I don’t like it.’
‘I don’t like it either! I don’t like any of it. I want Helios out of there as badly as you do, Dylan!’
‘And your mother?’ He stares at me.
‘Yes. Her too.’
He sighs again, and the fire goes out of his eyes. For now. ‘Will you be at school on Monday?’
I’ve absolutely no idea how I’m going to make that happen, but I can’t bear the thought of him walking in there like this, everyone expecting him to be just as he usually is. Jago will see it immediately, surely? He was so quick to see it in me. Maybe if I talk to Mrs Duke, she’ll let me off. I can try, anyway.
‘I’ll be there,’ I say, and he turns and hobbles away.
I’m standing at the bus stop waiting for Dylan, huddled into my coat and trying to ignore the fact that I’m not supposed to go to school at all today. I’ve been practising what I’m going to say to Mrs Duke, about how sorry I am and how it’ll never happen again. I can’t believe I’m really going to do this, especially for a boy who just stood there for so long while I got picked on. Maybe that’s why – because I know what it’s like to go in every day feeling like an outsider, and doing it anyway.
Now I have somebody who understands, so even if I’m still different, more different than I was before, it won’t matter, because so is he. I grin when he comes tearing round the corner, just as the bus arrives in a pile of icy slush, bag flapping, coat hanging off his shoulders.
‘Do you feel better?’ I ask as we clatter up the steps.
‘Ngh,’ he says, tucking himself into the back row, drawing his coat tight and slumping into the patterned seat. ‘I’m OK.’
‘I’ve been thinking about my ma, and Helios . . . I thought maybe I’d pop into town after school, see if I can talk to Ganymede.’
‘Helios . . . yeah,’ he says with a whisper of a smile. ‘Good idea.’
But there’s no spark in his eyes. He looks out of the window, and I chatter on for a bit about the book, and my chat with Pa, but he hardly seems to hear me. It’s no wonder he’s distant after everything that happened, I suppose. I remember how alone he was in that world where I found him. How we ran from place to place, caught in the wonder and danger of it all, how we used our magic to pull ourselves through. I twist the ring on my finger, and the fire-gleam warms me. I know the adventure isn’t over yet, and we’re still connected, because apart from anything else we both want to get Helios back.
But, in spite of all that, the bus is cold, and as we get closer to school, more kids get on, and it starts to feel like any other day. Maybe none of what we went through really matters here at all. The more I think it, the longer he keeps his face turned from mine, the smaller I get, until we pull up outside the school, and I feel just the same as I always did: hopeful and stupid all at once.
My heart sinks when I see Jago waiting by the gate with a couple of his friends. They look up when the bus doors open, and Dylan scrambles past me while I’m still trying to pick up my bag, rushing down the steps and making his way over to them. By the time I get off the bus, they’re heading to the main doors.
‘Dylan!’ I call.
The red bead in my new ring flashes with my frustration, and Dylan turns, his cheeks flushed, eyes sparking. Jago and the others watch with narrowed, curious eyes as I charge up the path and he doesn’t move; he stays right there with his friends. I should just turn round and walk away, I tell myself. I should just go home and try to find a way to get back into the snowglobes. But I don’t even slow, because I can’t. I fought my way back to this world because this is where I belong. And, if I hadn’t done that, Dylan wouldn’t be here either.
‘Well, I thought you’d been suspended,’ Jago says with a nasty little smile as I get close. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘She’s fine,’ Dylan says, standing between us.
A flare of hope goes through me.
‘We talked on the bus; she’s not so bad.’ He smiles at me, though the smile never reaches his eyes. ‘You should go and find your friends.’
I stare at him. I can’t breathe, can’t swallow. I just stand there, and they laugh at the shock on my face. Dylan doesn’t laugh; he just gives me that sorry, pitying smile. And that’s even worse. How is this happening?
‘You’re a coward,’ I say, and my voice thr
ums with anger and the power that I spent the weekend building, for us. So we could go back and get Helios. ‘Standing there with them like nothing ever happened.’
Jago frowns. ‘What happened, Dylan? What’s she talking about?’
‘I don’t know,’ mutters Dylan, shuffling his feet. ‘Come on, let’s go inside.’
Jago stares at me, his eyes full of hate. ‘You’re a freak.’ He spits it, and I can see behind the sneer that he’s afraid of me. ‘Get out of here,’ he snarls. ‘And, if I were you, I’d stay away.’
I stand my ground, but the bell goes, and kids swarm around me, pushing and shoving. I watch as they turn away from me, and Jago and Dylan head up the stairs together. I really thought it would be different today. I was going to beg with Mrs Duke to let me in, just so I could be there for Dylan, but he doesn’t need me at all. Heat prickles my skin, and the ring glows, fire-bright and full of danger. I can’t stay here. There’s nothing to stay for anyway.
After a while, I start walking back to town, and the snow turns into fine, icy rain that stings my face and turns the slush to puddles. I’m going to find the house. I’m going to find it, and I’m going to make my aunt Ganymede teach me everything she knows about magic, and then I’m going to wage war in those snowglobes and get my mother out of there.
I don’t need Dylan to do that. I don’t need anyone.
Be there, be there.
Every footstep, pounding like my heartbeat in my ears. Be. There. Be. There. And then, as I turn the corner, I add a big sparking roar of PLEASE . . . and there it is. Stretching to the sky, a shard of bone against all the grey dark of the houses that have built up around it over hundreds of years. The house they built with all their cursed magic.
I stomp up the steps, my mother’s ring a blinding spark at my side, and sweep the door open with a single gesture to find Ganymede waiting for me on the other side, halfway down the stairs. I am not afraid of her, I tell myself, stepping into the echoing house, looking her square in the eye. I am not. I can do anything she can do.