Copper

by Rebecca Lisle

  ‘So do I,’ agreed Questrid.

  ‘What did happen when I was four? Only Aunt Ruby can tell me. Dear Aunt Ruby, she’s so good at getting things sorted out, I do hope she comes soon.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I’m any use?’ said her father suddenly.

  Copper jumped up in surprise. Cedar had slipped into the kitchen very quietly.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘Yes, just me. Copper, will you come into the sitting room and talk to me? I need to talk to you,’ and he held out his hand and touched her briefly on her cheek, ‘please …’

  Copper thought about that moment a lot afterwards. She knew that if her father hadn’t touched her, hadn’t said please, she might never have gone with him and then she might have been shut off from him for ever.

  ‘I shall sit here in the oak tree chair,’ said Cedar, ‘because I need its strength. Sit there, Copper, in the sandalwood tree. It’s very soothing.’

  Nervously, Copper did as he suggested.

  Then they looked at each other.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Cedar. ‘That’s the main thing. I am really sorry that I am just about the worst father that a girl could have. I’m sorry for everything and if you could ever forgive me, then I will try and do better.’

  Copper didn’t know what to say. She stared at her father. He was so tall and thin and awkward-looking. So shy and anxious with such pleading eyes and the way he leaned forward towards her, his long fingers covering his knees like the roots of a tree clutching a rock, was endearing. She recognised herself in him. She recognised the need to be wanted.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said, shyly.

  ‘You don’t need to be,’ said Cedar, dropping down onto this knees and taking her hands in his. ‘I’ve failed you and you’ve done nothing wrong at all. If I’d ever thought you were alive, Copper, I swear I would have combed the world for you until I found you.’

  Copper grinned at him.

  ‘Good,’ she said.

  They talked for a long time and afterwards she and Cedar began to be real friends.

  Much later that night Copper found she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t settle. She moved piles of clothes from here to there, rearranged the books and her knitting, unmade then remade her bed.

  ‘You can move it all a thousand times,’ said Ralick, ‘if you must, but it won’t sort out your life, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ said Copper, pulling the rug straight. ‘But it helps.’

  ‘I’m tired. My tummy still hurts, can’t we go to bed?’

  ‘Poor Ralick,’ said Copper, stroking his mended seam. ‘I’m not very good at sewing. It was the best I could do. I keep thinking about Aunt Ruby and my mother. About how to stop this crazy war between the Woods and the Rockers. It’s up to us, Ralick, you know. I don’t think the grown-ups have any intention of sorting things out. I don’t think you’re going to agree with me, but I think we’ve got to do it!’

  21

  An Extraordinary Block of Ice

  The kitchen seemed crowded next morning with the addition of the two brothers.

  ‘It will be strange not sending things up in the lift, anymore,’ said Oriole. ‘And I shall have to learn which of you is which.’

  Cedar winked at Copper. ‘I’m more handsome!’ he said. ‘I can’t wait to see Granite’s face when he sees me alive and kicking!’

  ‘And it’s all thanks to Copper,’ said Robin.

  Copper grinned. ‘Did you send a message to Aunt Ruby, Robin?’

  ‘I did,’ said Robin. ‘The pigeon’s not back yet. Still, it’s a long way to the other end of the line and they do go off course sometimes.’

  ‘She said she would come. I know she will.’

  ‘Well, I for one can’t wait to meet this mysterious person,’ said Cedar. ‘She looked after you for all these years and she seems to have made a very good job of it. I have a lot to thank her for.’

  Suddenly, the door burst open and cold air whooshed into the room. Questrid appeared, scattering snow everywhere. His cheeks were red from the cold, his hair stuck up in a mop and he was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Come and see what I’ve found. It’s Amber. She’s here!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here? She can’t be.’

  They jumped up, sending their chairs clattering to the floor and ran out into the snow.

  The lumps of ice that had streamed down the hill behind Questrid and Copper and their faithful boat, had collided against the wall beside the gateway and now lay there like a pile of gigantic empty milk bottles.

  But one of them was different. One of them was bluer than the others, with sharp edges and a shine on it like a polished mirror reflecting the sun with dazzling brightness.

  ‘It is her,’ Cedar whispered. ‘It’s Amber, my own dear, sweet Amber. It really is. We’ve got to get her out of this. Think how cold she must be, how frightened and lonely. We must light a fire and melt the ice. Come on, everyone, you said she was alive, didn’t you? Come on!’

  ‘Calm down, Cedar,’ said Greenwood, holding onto his brother’s arm and pulling him back. ‘Wait. Granite said only the charm bracelet will get her out.’

  ‘Why should I believe anything Granite says? He did this to Amber and I’ve got to get her out.’

  Cedar picked up a hammer and tapped the blue ice pillar. It bounced off as though the ice were solid steel. He tried a pickaxe, chisels, saws, every sharp-edged tool there was in the house, but nothing even scratched it.

  ‘We’ll melt it, then,’ he said. Everyone helped to gather wood for a fire and soon a good fierce heat came from the blaze and around them the snow melted, the other ice blocks melted, but the blue ice with Amber inside would not thaw.

  ‘Granite was right, I’m afraid,’ said Greenwood.

  Cedar sank down with his head in his hands.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening. To see her there, after all these years and not be able to reach her. It’s terrible.’

  ‘This is the bracelet,’ said Copper, showing them. ‘It may help, because it did before and Granite wants it more than anything. Here, take it.’

  ‘It’s yours,’ Cedar said. ‘You try.’

  Copper patted his arm as if he were a child. ‘OK. I’ll try the hammer again. It worked in the underground lake, but …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘But it’s not glowing. In the Rock it sparkled and hummed and was charged with energy.’

  ‘And now it’s just ordinary,’ agreed Questrid.

  ‘Try anyway,’ urged Cedar.

  Copper struck the ice with the tiny hammer.

  Nothing happened. No chimes. No thundering noise. Nothing.

  ‘Well, try something else,’ said Cedar. ‘Try that coin! Try the dog! The babies! Anything!’

  One by one, Copper tried each charm, touching or hitting the block of ice with them but nothing happened.

  Cedar jumped to his feet and roared: ‘I’ll get that Granite! He did this, locked her up and stole her from me. I’m going to go up there and fight him and this time I’ll kill him!’

  ‘No, no, you’re not,’ said Greenwood, calmly. ‘There mustn’t be any more fighting over Amber. She wouldn’t want that, Cedar, would she?’

  ‘It wasn’t Granite, anyway,’ said Copper. ‘He told me Amber did it herself, she threw herself into the freezing water.’

  ‘And you believe him?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’s a Stone! A Rocker. He’s Granite!’

  ‘Amber’s from the Stone clan too. Being a Rocker doesn’t mean you have to be a liar too.’

  Cedar breathed out slowly. ‘You’re right, of course you’re right. I just want Amber. I want to see her alive, moving, speaking, looking at me. She is my wife.’

  Copper stared at the figure of her mother. ‘I don’t think she wants to come out. I think she wants to stay shut away from us all. She’s matched her insides with her outside.’


  ‘What?’

  ‘I think she was so sad and cold on the inside that she built ice around her to sort of mirror it. She won’t let herself be set free until there is something good to come to. Now there’s me and I hope she wants me, but you and Granite have to stop behaving so badly. You have to make friends, trust each other, start trading again.’

  Cedar made a choking noise.

  ‘But I hate him!’

  ‘You have to stop hating him,’ agreed Greenwood. ‘I think Copper’s right.’

  ‘We need to know if Great-Grandfather Ash really did steal that gold. If he did we should give it back. If he didn’t we must prove it to Granite, then he might listen to us instead of trying to fight us.’

  ‘I’m not giving anything back to him,’ said Cedar, then held up his hand in apology. ‘Sorry. Sorry. I know, how will we ever get anywhere if I carry on like this? I will try and be better, I promise.’

  22

  Copper Has to Go Back to the Rock

  Copper flung herself onto her bed.

  ‘I have to go back to the Rock.’

  Ralick nearly jumped out of his furry skin. ‘You are joking!’

  ‘Ralick, I have to. Cedar and Greenwood are just not the type to get things done. They’ll never do anything, or if they do, they’ll do the wrong thing. I have to talk to Granite and make him see reason. If I could get him to come down here and talk to Cedar and explain how he feels, then I think maybe the charms will start to work to get Amber out. What do you think?’

  ‘I think I want to stay here.’

  ‘Oh, please come, Ralick. I need you.’

  ‘I’m not up to it. I’m all undone. I need major surgery.’

  ‘Ralick?’

  ‘Oh, all right then. But this time no hat.’

  Copper knew there was no point in getting her father’s permission to go. She knew he’d say no, they all would, so she wrote a note telling them what she was doing and left it on her bed. Then, when everyone was settled down for the night, she crept out.

  It was dark, but the moon was full and bright. The snow was a glitter of blue and silver, the shadows black blots of ink.

  ‘Aren’t you frightened?’ gasped Ralick from inside her coat.

  Copper shook her head. The air was crisp and dry and all around her the still night seemed to be waiting for her. She wasn’t afraid.

  ‘I’ve got the bracelet. I’ve got you. I’m going to settle this quarrel for ever and get my family back.’

  She set off across the snow. The only noise was the crunch beneath her feet and the soft sound of her breath in the still night air. I will do it, she told herself, I can do it.

  When they finally reached the Rock, Copper’s resolve began to slip away, as if it were melting and sliding out of her boots. She trembled as she stared up at the bleak, cold fortress feeling very small and hopeless and cold.

  The Rock showed a silent face: the shutters were all locked tight, the door bolted. A tiny stream of smoke trickled out of the chimney. The green light lingered and hung around the Rock where it seeped out through the cracks in the windows.

  ‘Well, I can’t go home again,’ said Copper. ‘I suppose I’ll have to … have to knock on the door.’

  So she walked up to the massive front door which, in hard silver moonlight, was a more crumbling, rotting thing than she’d first realised; the great rusty nails and metal cross bars were the only things holding it together.

  With a trembling hand she pulled the iron bellpull. From deep in the Rock she heard it clang faintly. A few minutes later, a smaller door within the vast one opened and Grit appeared.

  ‘What, you?’ he grunted. ‘Coming back for more punishment? You must be mad. Come in, come in. Granite will be delighted to see you.’

  He let her in and took her to a room where Granite and a large group of men and women were eating and drinking. There was a fire roaring in the grate and on the table were some meagre scraps of food. There were tall glass flagons of red wine and large pewter mugs full of frothing beer.

  ‘What have we here?’ cried Granite, slamming down a silver goblet. He twisted his bent body round and stared at Copper intently. ‘Could it be a Wood in our midst? A stick? A twig?’

  ‘I’m only half a Wood if you remember, the other half is Stone and so I have just as much right here as any of you.’

  The men roared with laughter banging their mugs on the table.

  ‘She’s definitely got some Rock in there!’ someone cried.

  ‘Marble in her veins,’ another shouted.

  Granite wasn’t pleased.

  ‘What d’you want?’ he demanded.

  Copper took a big breath. ‘I came to ask you to make peace. I want to get Amber out of the ice like you told me. I want things to be settled. You need wood, we need metal tools and gold too …’

  ‘You need GOLD!’ roared Granite. ‘What about the cartload your great-grandfather stole, eh? Wasn’t that enough? Have you finished spending that yet? You surely aren’t expecting me to do a deal with a bunch of robbers!’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t steal …’ began Copper.

  ‘And I’m sure he did!’ shouted Granite.

  The Rockers cheered in agreement.

  Copper was heating up in her coat and her cheeks felt hot and red. How was she ever going to make them take any notice of her?

  ‘Please listen,’ she began again. ‘I promise we’ll try and find out exactly what happened to Great-Grandfather Ash and if he did steal the money we’ll pay it back, every penny and if he didn’t, well then that’s OK.’

  Granite walked lopsidedly over to her and grabbed her arms.

  ‘OK? OK? What do you know about anything? OK that the Woods have everything? Amber and the charm bracelet. OK to send a stick child up here to me? Phah! You don’t understand anything!’

  Copper opened her mouth to speak, but Granite shouted her down:

  ‘They’re using you. Lying to you. They want Amber, sure, but not because they love her. Not because she’s kind or sweet.’ He pushed his face close to hers, smiling as she squirmed under his gaze. ‘They want her because Amber is special. She was very like you, you know, she loved click clack knitting and in out, in out crochet work, all kinds of needlework …’

  The crowd laughed and cheered. Copper stared round at them, perplexed, unable to see the joke.

  ‘So?’ she whispered.

  ‘So, so, Amber had a very special way of knitting. Really, most special …’

  Again the Rockers roared with laughter, thumping their hands on the tables and hooting like animals.

  Granite lowered his voice and said: ‘Amber used her needles to … MAKE GOLD!’

  Make gold? Make gold? The words didn’t make sense to Copper.

  ‘What do you mean?’ She stared round unhappily at everyone, at their open laughing mouths and unfriendly eyes and suddenly the room dipped and shifted, as if she were on the deck of a boat. Make gold?

  ‘What do you mean?’ she whispered, again.

  ‘I mean she made gold. With her knitting needles – I don’t know how, but you only had to give her a lump of rock and she did it. She could make gold, knit gold out of stone. Extraordinary eh?’

  The Rockers cheered their agreement.

  ‘She would stroke the rock or trickle tiny bits through her fingers, feeling it, searching for the vein of gold inside. Then she’d knit it out. The finest gold you’ve ever seen.’

  It went quiet. Copper felt all eyes on her.

  ‘So that’s why you want her,’ she said, quietly. ‘No wonder you hated it when she left. You didn’t love her at all, you just wanted to keep her here so she could make you lots of gold.’

  ‘No. No. That’s why they want her at Spindle House,’ Granite insisted. ‘To make gold for them.’

  ‘No,’ she said, but without conviction. Why didn’t Cedar tell me? she wondered. Did he know? Was he trying to hide it? And is the whole bizarre story true anyway? Can Granite tell the truth?


  Copper tried to look into Granite, into the answer which was surely there in his eyes and all she could see was the misty features of her mother, deep in the ice and all she could think was how cold her mother must be. So cold, so much colder than Copper could ever imagine, and how unhappy she must have been.

  Then Granite’s face re-emerged and it seemed to Copper that the black letters on his cheek spelt out a new word now and that word was

  GREED.

  ‘You’re lying,’ she said. ‘My father loves her. It’s not true.’

  Granite grinned, then he looked puzzled, his smile slipping off his face in bewilderment. He looked at the others, then back at Copper.

  ‘Did you say father? What has your father got to do with it?’

  ‘Yes. He’s down there at Spindle House right now!’ said Copper triumphantly.

  Granite turned his hard gaze on the Rockers.

  ‘Is this true? Is he there? Tell me!’ he demanded.

  ‘The other night, when they came looking for the girl …’ someone ventured to say.

  ‘It was so dark,’ said another.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Granite. ‘Alive … I’ll make sure I do kill him this time. He won’t get away again. Here, take this Stick away!’ cried Granite. ‘She seems to like it here, so lock her up and throw away the key. We’ll keep her.’

  ‘You can’t!’ Copper cried as three men took hold of her roughly and quickly whisked her away. ‘Stop! You can’t kidnap me! Let me go!’

  The men were deaf to her pleas. They half carried her down the steps and into the depths of the house where the cold seeped right into her bones and her breath showed in a frosty cloud. They thrust her into a cell, shut the steel door with a clang and left her alone in the dark.

  23

  Locked in the Rock

  Copper stood very, very still, breathing heavily and listening to herself breathing. She blinked three times, hoping the blackness around her was some sort of illusion. It wasn’t.

  ‘Sorry, Ralick,’ she whispered at last.