Copper

by Rebecca Lisle

  Copper stopped, imagining the awful fall. The crash, the fantastic sight as the gold coins scattered all over the mountain side. The cry as Ash tumbled … it was too horrible. Nervously she crawled towards the rocky wall.

  ‘Poor man. We must take these coins to Granite! We must do it before Cedar wakes up and sees my note, because then he’ll dash up here, putting his big feet in it and making a mess of it all.’

  She looked at her watch. It was six o’clock in the morning. Soon the sun would rise; already the sky was less black.

  ‘Let’s go then,’ agreed Ralick. ‘Before this wolf cub eats me alive.’

  Copper took a few careful steps along the narrow ledge cut into the side of the mountain which spiralled up towards the Rock. It was very slippery.

  ‘I can’t see the edge,’ muttered Copper. ‘The shadows make it look so odd. It’s dangerous. I wish we were home and safe already. I wish, oh, that I was anywhere other than here.’

  ‘Be brave,’ whispered Ralick.

  The gold dragged down her pockets like lead weights as she climbed. The wolf cub was hot and hard on her chest. Her legs felt leaden and stiff. She kept thinking about Great-Grandfather Ash and his terrible fall. She was horribly aware of the black space beside her and how easy it would be to follow him down there. She clung to the mountain’s side as if held by a magnet.

  ‘Just one foot placed wrongly and I will fall into the dark and be nothing,’ she whispered to Ralick.

  ‘Then watch where you’re treading,’ said Ralick.

  ‘I’m scared. It’s as if that massive black emptiness down there is pulling me over. It wants me to fall. Granite wants me to fall. He’d like me to disappear for ever. This was my chance to get things finished; get myself completed. He knew this would happen. He wants me to fall!’

  ‘But I don’t,’ growled Ralick. ‘Cedar doesn’t or Aunt Ruby. And you’ve still got to save Amber. Remember that.’

  ‘I can’t go on,’ Copper moaned. ‘I can’t move.’

  Silver stopped suddenly, ears pricked, hackles raised: she’d heard something. Copper crouched beside her, resting her hand on her neck and listened too.

  ‘What is it?’ whispered Copper.

  The darkness was so close, so dense around her that Copper felt she was going to suffocate. She dug her fingers into the cracks in the mountainside, clinging on. ‘It might be the ghost of Great-Grandfather Ash,’ she whispered. ‘Or Granite’s men, come to push me off. Ralick, I’m so scared. I’m so scared.’

  They listened. The noises were coming from the cave behind them.

  ‘The dragon’s woken up,’ gasped Copper.

  They heard slow dragging footsteps as the dragon crossed the cave floor, nails scratching on the rock, tail swishing from side to side. The animal stopped at the cave mouth, blowing and wheezing, then suddenly there was a whoosh as the creature leapt out of the cave and soared into the air.

  Copper stared into the darkness but she couldn’t see anything except a flash of silvery green. Then the slow, heavy shluff shluff sound of beating wings filled the air as the dragon flew towards them.

  ‘It’s coming!’

  Copper cowered against the wall, squeezing herself flat against the hard rock. She closed her eyes, at every moment expecting the dragon’s sharp claws to dig into her back.

  It was right above her, the noise of its flapping leathery wings filled her head, a snort of warm air as it breathed out, like a hairdryer flying by, snow swirling and floating. Then cold air whipped over her cheeks and just as suddenly, the dragon had passed by and was gone.

  Copper stood up slowly.

  ‘I was scared,’ she whispered, ‘but it wasn’t going to get us. It was Aunt Ruby’s dragon so it wouldn’t hurt me.’

  ‘Copper! Copper!’

  Someone was calling her. Someone was calling and she recognised that voice!

  26

  Brother and Sister

  Silver bounded ahead, disappeared round a rocky outcrop, then came rushing back again yelping and showering snow everywhere. Seconds later a familiar figure loomed out of the darkness.

  ‘Aunt Ruby!’ Copper ran to her and flung herself at her, wrapping her arms round her with relief.

  ‘There, there,’ hushed Aunt Ruby. ‘You dear thing. Here I am, just like you ordered. Oh, those birds, you’ve no idea. The pigeon was so naughty and went off down the road, that’s why I was so long. Look at you. Oh, give me a kiss, darling girl.’

  Copper rested against Aunt Ruby as if she were a cushion and breathed in her aunt’s scent hungrily. ‘I’m so glad to see you. I nearly fell off the cliff. I’ve been so scared.’

  She held on tightly as the dragon flapped noisily above them sending snow whirling around their heads.

  ‘Stop that, Glinty! Stop!’ cried Aunt Ruby, holding onto her hat, but she was smiling. ‘She didn’t frighten you, did she? She came to meet me; after all these years she hadn’t forgotten. I told you dragons were faithful animals, didn’t I?’

  Copper told her how she’d found the dragon.

  ‘Dear Glinty! What a good idea to set up a smoke signal. All those years hoping I’d come, that’s loyalty for you. I shan’t be parted from her again, you can be sure. Now, let’s get off this dangerous narrow ledge and away from the ravine. You were nearly at the end of the path, you know, just round this corner the ground gets wider and you would have seen the front door of the Rock.’

  ‘I can manage anything now that you’re here,’ said Copper, sighing. ‘How did you find me? Have you been to Spindle House? Have you seen Oriole and Questrid and Amber and everyone?’

  ‘I’ve seen Oriole and we talked lots. She told me where you’d gone.’

  ‘And now what?’ asked Copper. ‘Now we have to see Granite and get this sorted out once and for all. Families should stick together you know.’

  ‘Families! Are you truly related to me?’

  Aunt Ruby shook her head. ‘Not really.’

  ‘I know you’re a Stone person,’ said Copper. ‘I realised that, but are you … you couldn’t be Granite’s sister, could you? The one that married a Wood? The one that was called Pearl?’

  ‘You’ve worked it all out, haven’t you? My husband was a member of the Wood clan, his name was Ironwood; a dear gentle man. So I’m a sort of aunt. When he died I came back to the Rock with my son … for a while.’

  The ledge had grown wider and wider and now Copper saw they were coming onto much flatter ground with stumps of dead trees poking out of the snow, and there was the front of the Rock, a black silhouette against the paler sky.

  Copper paused, staring up at it. ‘I suppose we have to go in again?’ she said. She rubbed the front of her coat where Ralick and the wolf cub made it bulge out. ‘I need to get this baby home.’

  ‘Baby?’ asked Aunt Ruby.

  Copper undid some buttons and showed Aunt Ruby the scraggly wolf cub. It mewed and snuffled against Ralick.

  Silver came up to it and sniffed it and whined.

  ‘I see,’ said Aunt Ruby, grimly. ‘We’d better stop and let Silver feed it, hadn’t we?’

  Copper lifted the cub out from her coat and Silver lay down so that the little creature could suckle from her. The cub was weak and Copper had to hold it against the warmth of Silver’s tummy. As soon as the cub tasted its mother’s milk, it latched on to her and began sucking vigorously.

  ‘There, isn’t that wonderful!’ sighed Aunt Ruby. ‘We’d better just sit here until it’s finished. The rest will do us good too. Here, take a sip of this,’ and she handed Copper a flask of warming, fiery liquid.

  ‘I suppose you always knew she was a wolf?’ asked Copper.

  ‘I did. She was Amber’s wolf.’

  ‘Do you know everything?’

  Aunt Ruby shook her head.

  ‘You don’t know about the gold in my pockets,’ said Copper, rattling the coins. ‘Don’t you want to know about it?’

  ‘No doubt I’ll find out when the time is right,’ s
aid Aunt Ruby. ‘There’s no hurry.’

  When at last the wolf cub couldn’t drink anymore, Copper tucked it back into her coat where it went straight to sleep.

  Aunt Ruby turned to Silver and laid her hand gently on her head.

  ‘Well done, Silver. Good girl. Now, go home, Silver. Go and tell them everything is all right. Tell them Copper is safe and we’re coming soon. Go on!’

  Silver looked up at them, her eyes shining again and her nose wet and bright. She barked once and then immediately turned and loped away down the hill.

  When they arrived at the front door, they paused to exchange a look of encouragement before pulling the long bellpull and waiting to go into the Rock once again.

  ‘What a mess it looks,’ said Aunt Ruby, scanning the broken windows and tattered shutters. ‘I might have been gone for twenty years, not six, by the look of it.’

  A face appeared at an upper window, then another poked round behind him. They seemed astonished to see Copper again. Or maybe it was seeing Aunt Ruby that made them stare.

  At last the door opened and Grit let them in.

  ‘What’s going on? I don’t know, I’m sure I don’t know,’ he muttered and he scuttled off down the damp corridor.

  Aunt Ruby marched inside and went straight into the big room where all the Rockers had been the night before. There was a grubby-looking man dozing by the smouldering fire and the tables hadn’t been cleared. The room smelt of old cabbage and stale beer. The wooden tables were cracked and scuffed and the chairs had been mended over and over with bits of metal.

  ‘Build up the fire,’ Aunt Ruby ordered the poor sleepy man, ‘and bring Granite here.’

  She pulled off her woolly hat and out tumbled her wonderful wild hair. Copper was delighted to see a brilliant orange scarf twisted into it and massive glittering red earrings dangling from her ears. The Aunt Ruby she loved and admired.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Aunt Ruby, sitting down herself in the best chair she could find. ‘Looks disgusting, doesn’t it? How can he live like this?’

  Granite came at last. He walked into the room slowly, peering at Copper from his twisted, bent position.

  ‘Well, well, we can’t get rid of you, can we …’ Then he stopped, seeing Aunt Ruby for the first time and his mouth dropped open.

  ‘You! How?’

  He sat down heavily, staring at Ruby. ‘How dare you come here? How dare you …’ He broke off as his attention was caught by a trickle of pale green light coiling from Copper’s pocket. ‘What’ve you done to our light? What’s going on? What is this? Why didn’t they tell me? Grit! Gravel! Come here!’

  But no one came.

  ‘Sit down and listen,’ said Aunt Ruby, calmly undoing her coat and making herself comfortable. She straightened her billowing green trousers and pointed a long finger at Granite. ‘I am still your big sister, Granite, don’t you forget that.’

  ‘Devilish work, this,’ said Granite, but he didn’t say it very loudly. His eyes darted from Aunt Ruby to the green light, then back again. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said. ‘How did you get out?’ he added, addressing Copper. ‘And where’s that wolf?’

  Copper grinned but didn’t say anything. She wanted Aunt Ruby to explain.

  ‘You’ve had things your own way too long,’ said Ruby, her purple eyes flashing. ‘Things are going to change around here. It’s my fault, of course. I should have told Copper sooner, but it never seemed the right moment. It was when your scouts came searching for her, that I knew I couldn’t hide her any longer.’

  ‘We’d been looking for years,’ said a voice from the corridor and Gravel popped his head round the door. He and Grit were hiding. ‘Pardon me, Pearl, but we were. It was the Marble Mountain dragon over the door that led us to you in the end.’

  ‘Ah, the dragon,’ said Aunt Ruby, smiling. ‘My mistake again. By the way, I’m Ruby now, Gravel, not Pearl. She’s gone.’

  ‘All right, Ruby. Whatever you say.’

  ‘And I shall be coming back here to live,’ she told Granite.

  ‘No you’re not,’ snapped Granite, leaping to his feet. ‘I don’t want you here! You can’t come back! You’ve no right to.’

  ‘Cedar is …’ began Aunt Ruby.

  ‘He’s dead!’ snapped Granite. ‘She tried to tell me he was alive but he isn’t. That’s not him down at Spindle House, I won’t believe it. He never came back. He’s dead.’

  ‘You are quite wrong as usual. He’s alive and kicking a lot down at Spindle House. And Amber is there too.’

  ‘I supposed she would be. She slipped out of my grasp again. But she’s still trapped in the ice, isn’t she?’ said Granite, grinning. ‘You’ll never get her out.’

  Aunt Ruby stared at him hard. ‘We will. But the charm bracelet that she made to release herself won’t work. It won’t work because of you!’

  ‘Me? I never touched it. You can ask that Twiglet over there. She’s had it all the time.’

  ‘It won’t work because of all this hate,’ went on Aunt Ruby. ‘Amber won’t come out of that ice until we all change and do something to stop this quarrel. This war between the families must stop.’

  Granite got up and began pacing round the room, looking at the floor.

  ‘Look at this place!’ he roared. ‘It’s your home and it’s falling to pieces, it’s dying and all because of the Woods. Of course I hate them. They’ve destroyed us. Why did you leave us for Ironwood, Pearl? We’re different. Stone and Wood, they don’t mix. They can’t mix. We’ll lose our special gifts, we’ll lose everything to them. They stole our gold and won’t admit it. They’re cheats, every one of them.’

  Ruby looked at Copper and smiled.

  Copper looked at Granite and smiled.

  Granite looked puzzled. ‘Well?’

  Copper walked over to him, dug her fingers into her pockets and drew out the gold coins. The faintest wisp of green vapour still clung to them.

  ‘What is that gold? What is it?’ cried Granite taking one of the pieces of gold and holding it up to inspect. He turned it over. ‘Dragon on the front, pine tree on the back,’ he muttered.

  ‘I found it at the bottom of the green well,’ said Copper. ‘Glinty was looking after it. There’s a whole pile of it there. Lots and lots. There’s a broken bit of cart too. It’s the money that’s been missing. I know it is. Great-Grandfather Ash must have been going back to Spindle House and fallen off the cliff right there. It’s a really sad and horrid place. It’s the money you thought the Woods stole.’

  ‘Glinty loved gold coins,’ interrupted Aunt Ruby. ‘You remember, Granite, how I could roll gold coins down the corridors for her and she’d chase after them? She used to hide them in her bed.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Granite. ‘Glinty. Huh. We’ll check this out, don’t you worry … And where’s the green light gone? You’ve done something to it, haven’t you?’

  They all looked up. It had indeed gone darker. The glow from the coins had now completely subsided and the green light which usually lurked near the ceiling had disappeared.

  ‘Bring some candles,’ said Granite.

  ‘Now you can believe us about the gold,’ said Aunt Ruby. ‘The green light’s gone because Glinty’s gone. She’s right outside at this moment, waiting for me. She’s been breathing on those coins all these years and making that green light to attract my attention. You’ll have to get proper lights now.’

  ‘Shall I open the shutters?’ said Copper. ‘It’s very gloomy.’

  ‘We never open them!’

  ‘Well it’s time to start,’ said Aunt Ruby, marching over to the window and unlocking the fastening, pushing the shutters wide open.

  Daylight flooded the room for the first time in years.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Gravel. ‘Look, that’s really nice, Granite.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’

  ‘I’m going to take Copper to Spindle House now,’ said Aunt Ruby, ‘then I’ll be back. You wanted the truth about Ash and the money
and now you have it. You have no excuses for behaving badly. We can start trading again, we can start having a real life.’

  ‘I don’t want you here,’ snapped Granite. ‘I can’t forgive you. I’ll never forgive any of you.’

  ‘You can’t stop me,’ said Aunt Ruby. ‘This is my home. Like it. Or leave it.’

  A faint cheer sounded from the doorway where Grit and Gravel and several of the women were listening.

  Just before Aunt Ruby reached the door to go, she said: ‘Granite, about Linden. Did he ever … did you find him?’

  ‘No,’ growled Granite, turning away.

  27

  Copper Knows What She Wants to Knit for the First Time

  Copper and Aunt Ruby walked slowly home.

  A watery sun was lighting up the mountainside and the snow was beginning to sparkle and glisten like icing sugar.

  ‘Now, will you tell me everything?’ asked Copper. ‘I want to know exactly what happened six years ago: where you found me, why I need to forgive you. Everything.’

  Aunt Ruby hugged her. ‘It’s rather complicated as you know. But Granite had kidnapped Amber and she was desperately unhappy. She wanted Cedar, she wanted her real home. Granite was forcing her to make gold for him – he wouldn’t let her see you until she’d knitted a hundred ounces each day.’

  ‘Poor thing,’ said Copper.

  ‘Yes. Some people would think that being able to knit gold is a wonderful gift but it isn’t, it’s more like a curse.’

  ‘Could she always do it? Since she was little?’

  ‘I don’t know. She was always very special and could do all sorts of magical things. There are Wood people with those ancient arts too.’

  ‘Yes, they can make chairs that send you to sleep!’

  ‘That’s right. Well, Amber was very unhappy. She gave me the charms she’d made. She told me they were magical and special. She told me to give you one each year until I didn’t need to any longer. She didn’t tell me what she was going to do. It was a terrible decision, but she decided she had to stop Granite from getting his way and she threw herself into a frozen pool.’