Crystal (8 page)

‘Mum’s busy tonight. She has a lady coming to get some ointment for her rash.’

‘Then the lady will have to cancel.’

‘Maybe you’d like some of it instead?’ Crystal asked, staring pointedly at Raek’s sore cheeks.

He frowned. ‘Take care,’ he snapped. ‘Take care. Look at her with that black cat on her knee! You should watch out, Crystal. Some people in the Town would like to see an end to your mother’s potions. An end to her, too!’

Crystal gasped and tried to push the door shut but Raek stuck his foot in the way.

‘Can’t get rid of me that easily! You should respect me, Crystal; I’ve told you before. I’m like you. I was an outsider too once. I might be able to help you.’

‘I don’t want your help. Go away!’

‘You’ll be sorry, Crystal, I’m warning you.’

He took his foot out of the way and sauntered down the path. ‘Until this evening … with the sly-ugg!’

Crystal leaned against the closed door, holding her hand over her racing heart. She looked over at her mum; she had pushed the cat away and was hugging the lump of wood as if it were a long-lost friend.

It was warm but raining again, and Raek put Crystal in the waiting room while her mother was seeing Grint. Crystal was glad; ever since Raek had visited she’d been hoping for this: now she could sneak out again and spy. She had to. This would be her very last chance to see what Grint got up to in that cold room, because tomorrow they’d be gone.

Crystal sat in an old wooden chair waiting for Raek’s hard clacking footsteps to die away. The chair was a new addition to the waiting room; it seemed to pulse and tremble beneath her as if it were just about to take off. When they were free of the Town they’d have wooden furniture too. No more metal and stone, but lots of wood. Just sitting in it made her feel stronger.

When it was quiet, she slipped through the door again, down the corridor and out into the garden. She pulled up her hood to keep the rain off her hair and tucked up her long skirt so it wouldn’t get muddy.

The shutters were open, so she could see right into the room where Grint and her mother were. The windows were slightly cloudy. Crystal laid her fingertips on the glass; the panes were frosted on the inside.

Grint and Effie were both wrapped in furs and sitting at either end of the iron table. On the table stood a strange, rather beautiful object. It appeared to be made of pearly glass and was about two feet high. It consisted of a central pole carved with faces and peculiar creatures. A slender tube shaped like a telescope passed through it at a right angle near the top. Strange shapes dangled from the crosspiece. Crystal had no idea what it could be.

She was alarmed at the way her mum looked. Effie’s fair skin was snow white, the shadows beneath her eyes plum purple. Despite the furs she still appeared cold. And she looked even more blank than usual, as if she wasn’t there at all, as if her eyes and ears weren’t really working. She looked like a paper cutout of herself. A nerve twitching in her temple was the only sign of any life.

‘Effie! Come on!’ Grint said. ‘Read it! Tell me what it says!’

‘Icicle,’ said Effie, softly, resting her fingertips against the glass crosspiece. ‘It’s beautiful. Cold.’

Icicle? Like the kitten? Cold? Was it made of ice then, not glass? That would explain the icy room, Crystal thought.

‘Don’t touch it too much,’ Grint said. ‘I don’t want it damaged. We’ll never get another one of these, Effie, will we? Because we can’t go back up there, back to the Marble Mountains, can we?’ Effie flinched, as if something he’d said had finally got through to her. ‘
Marble Mountains?
Do you remember? No, you don’t, not really and it’s just as well … Come on, now. I want a
fortune
. Make it play a fortune, Effie.
Effie!
You know you can do better than this. You’re not really trying. I’ve been very fair up to now, very fair. Just remember little Crystal,’ he went on. ‘You wouldn’t want any harm to come to her, would you?’

Effie jumped as if a small electric pulse had jolted her. ‘Don’t hurt Crystal!’

‘There we go. A reaction. Good. Now, Effie, just imagine Crystal out there in the mines—’

‘No!’

‘… out in the mines, knee-deep in mud, freezing cold and dressed in rags. Snakes slithering round her ankles. Rockgoyles as her bosses! She’d be so scared, Effie. Rockgoyles are evil creatures. And she’d be lonely. Miserable. She wouldn’t die – at least not straightaway – but she’d be unhappy and get sick, she’d be hungry and—’

‘Be quiet! Don’t say those things!’

‘I’ll be quiet when you start using this!’ He pointed to the strange ice thing. ‘Tell me what it’s saying!’

Suddenly the dangling objects on the icicle began to jiggle and bounce. They produced a faint tinkling melody.

‘Is it a fortune?’ Grint asked. ‘Come on, Effie! You’ll be in trouble if you don’t look. I swear you will! I’ll see that daughter of yours off to the mines if you don’t do this. Or there’s still a skweener to scare her with. I’ll—’

With what seemed an enormous effort, Effie leaned over the table and put her eye against the end of the crosspiece.

‘Is it a pastune or a fortune?
Look!
’ Grint raked his hands through his long hair. ‘Can’t you make a picture come? I’m sure you could if you tried. Those damned ice pixies didn’t have any problems using these things. I saw them doing it.’

‘Pixies?’ Effie sat up.

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. I was just remembering, back up there, on top, the pixie creatures that made these things. They could see so much, backwards and forwards in time. You’re not trying!’

With a sigh, Effie slowly leaned over the table so she could see into the horizontal tube again. A tear dribbled down her cheek.

‘This is a pastune,’ she said quietly. ‘I can see Molly Webber in her garden. She’s planting carrots.’

‘For crying out loud!’ Grint roared. ‘Carrots! Molly Webber! I’m not interested in gardening. I want to know what important things are
going
to happen!’

There was silence in the room for a whole minute then another tune rippled across the ice sculpture.

‘Fortune. John Carter,’ Effie said. Her voice was flat and expressionless and Crystal realized that her mother had no idea what she was saying because she would never give out information about Stella’s father like this. ‘He’s plotting against Morton Grint. He wants to be the new leader. He is going to challenge Morton Grint. He has not forgiven Morton Grint for putting him down in front of the others. He plans to surprise him at the next meeting.’ She spoke as if what she said had no meaning and was of no importance.

Grint, however, leaped up and clapped his hands.

‘Ha! I shall be ready! Well done! It’s good. It’s good. What else?’

‘A pastune,’ Effie said, staring into the ice tube. ‘Mrs Wilkins made a love potion for Mary Smith to make Jim Collett fall in love with her—’

‘Love potions are forbidden! That’s witchcraft. I’ll stop that. She will be punished.’ He wrote down the names quickly in a small notebook.

Effie’s flat voice went on. ‘This is a fortune: there will be more trouble from the Barnaby Andrews family. They don’t understand how you found out he was going to rebel … They blame Sam Smith. There is unrest. Trouble is coming to Morton Grint.’ Her voice was getting weaker and weaker.

‘Good, good! As long as we’re forewarned we can win. This is no trouble at all for me. More. Come on, give me more. Crystal’s happiness is at stake here, Effie. Remember that!’

‘Another fortune. I can see … something going on at the Wall, at the West Gate. I don’t understand what it is, Morton Grint … It looks like … I can see …’ Effie’s voice trembled and shook, as if what she was seeing was too awful or incomprehensible to describe.

There was a sudden clap of thunder overhead and Crystal jumped. Every nerve in her body was jangling and her brain was spinning. She moved away from the window.

She hadn’t understood everything, but enough to know that the ‘icicle’ on the table was what was draining her mother’s strength and taking away her memory. And this was why Grint appeared so clever, always one step ahead of the Towners: he used Effie and the ‘icicle’ as a sort of oracle, to see into the future.

A flash of lightning was followed by rain suddenly splintering down around her. Crystal ran towards the green door, but passing the shed she heard an awful moan and stopped. The creature! Perhaps it was scared of the storm? Lonely? Hungry? Forgetting about the danger she was in, she searched her pockets. She found a sweet, half an apple and a bunch of herbs. Kneeling down quickly at the door, she whispered, ‘Hello?’

There was a snuffling and whining in reply from behind the door.

‘Here’s some food,’ she said. ‘I’ve got you some food.’ She didn’t suppose that the creature, whatever it was, could understand, but she sympathized with it being locked up. She put the food close to the bottom of the door, and then, fearing for her fingers, pushed it nearer with a stick.

There was silence, total stillness on the other side, and then the long tongue slipped out and hooked first the apple in, then the rest.

‘Sorry I haven’t more,’ she whispered. ‘Sorry you’re in there, whatever you are. I know what it’s like being a prisoner.’

The day of the trip arrived.

Crystal stoked Icicle’s silky ears. ‘Goodbye, kitty!’ The kitten mewed sadly, as if he knew what was happening. ‘Sorry, puss,’ she whispered into his black fur. ‘I’ve left a note with Mrs Babbage to feed you. I know she loves you and she’s always wanted a cat. You’ll be happy with her. I wish we could take you, but pets aren’t allowed through the gates and anyway, Icicle, we don’t know what it will be like out there. We may be making a terrible mistake … Best you stay here.’ A shiver rippled through her. Too late for worrying now. ‘Are you ready, Mum?’

Effie was sitting by the window with her half-carved piece of wood on the round table in front of her. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. I’ve told you, Crystal, I want to stay here.’

‘I know, I know, but … Listen, Mum, look at me. Do you remember what you and Grint talked about last night?’

‘No. I never remember, you know I don’t.’

‘You don’t remember being cold? An icy room? A sculpture made of ice that you looked through?’

Panic flashed across Effie’s face as if she did remember and Crystal squeezed her hand encouragingly. ‘You do? I see you do!’

‘No,’ her mum said. And the spark of light in her eyes vanished. She shrugged. ‘I just want to stay here, Crystal, please.’

Now Crystal was more certain than ever that she was right to get her away from Grint. ‘I know, I know, but the trip will do you good. It will be fun. We’ll have a good day, Mum, I know we will.’

She put her mother’s cloak round her shoulders and urged her to stand up. ‘There we go. Trust me.’ She pushed her gently towards the door. ‘Come on, Mum.’

Just as they were about to leave, a sudden high-pitched, urgent whine filled the room. Crystal stood rock still; the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. It was not a noise that could be ignored.

‘I forgot the sly-ugg.’ She stared at it. She didn’t want to take it. But if she left it here it would go on crying and someone would come. She didn’t want Raek to torture it again either. She quickly scooped it up in the carry-box. Perhaps she could set it free somewhere? Somewhere beyond the Wall?

‘I don’t want to do this, Crystal,’ her mum said as Crystal closed the door of the apartment. ‘It’s not a good idea.’

Crystal turned the key and put it under the stone by the step. Her mum was probably right. And now she would never find the egg-shaped object from Lop Lake. Crystal would never know why Effie had briefly changed, but it was too late. The answer to the puzzle of their past had to be beyond the Wall – and that’s where they were going.

The tour bus was a covered wagon pulled by four very large horses. It was parked in the Square by the clock tower. The other Towners who had tickets for the trip to the mines were chattering and laughing, excited about their outing. Crystal could barely stop herself from shaking. She kept glancing at Grint’s house. If he saw her, would he stop her? Just to be safe, she kept the wagon between her and his house.

Mrs Hopkins, who lived two blocks north of them, was also going. ‘Never thought of you and your mum being interested in this sort of trip,’ she said. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t think I am either. I mean, it’s a bit like gloating over the misfortunes of others, isn’t it? Seeing the ugly old rockgoyles slaving away and all those folk that have been banished having to live like animals in holes.’

Crystal nodded. ‘Yes. No. I mean, well, we got the tickets for free and—’

‘I know, you feel you have to, don’t you, when everyone else wants to go? I really don’t think Effie will enjoy it. But the scenery’s nice. I went two years ago. Shame about Annie Scott passing on, wasn’t it? Still, with those lumps and bulges and that fever, she was unlikely to recover. Well, I hope you’re right about your mum, dear, she doesn’t look too good to me.’

‘She’s fine,’ Crystal said. ‘She’s looking forward to it. Really.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. Effie was tense and her fingers constantly snatched at her bag as if she were going to open it but couldn’t remember how. Her blue eyes darted backwards and forwards nervously.