Icefire

  Lucy had arrived in her outdoor clothes. “Come and see Spikey’s house,” she begged, dragging David across the drive. “Mom got the rabbit hutch down for me. I’ve put it in the garden with some leaves for a bed and a ramp for Spikey to climb up.”

  “OK,” said David. “But I can’t stay long. I really have to be working on my essay.”

  “The dragon one?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much have you done?”

  “Erm, nothing. I always leave them till the last minute.”

  Lucy reached up and opened the door. “Is it true what Mom says, you can see the dragons now?”

  David looked at her as if she was being silly. “I’ve always been able to see the dragons.”

  “I mean really see.”

  “Yes,” said David, wondering what she meant. He went in and said hello to Gruffen.

  The young guard dragon was sitting in the small square window by the door. He had a sorry sort of look in his violet eyes. He flapped his wings to acknowledge David’s greeting, then let them droop like a pair of wet socks.

  “He’s upset,” said Lucy, “because Gretel’s in charge. She’s guarding the den and Aunty Gwyneth’s room. Gruffen’s been made into front-door monitor.”

  Hrrr-oo, went Gruffen and lowered his snout.

  Just then, Aunty Gwyneth stepped out of “her” room. She was dressed in her usual matching suit; today the color was a bright lime green. Her sharp eyes picked out David’s. “Good. It’s you. There is work to be done.”

  “Where’s Mom?” asked Lucy.

  “Here,” said Liz, coming down the stairs. She looked a little tired, as if she hadn’t slept well. “Hello, David. Are you all right?”

  Aunty Gwyneth poked his shoulder. “Take a shovel and remove that eyesore from the garden.”

  “What eyesore?”

  “That ridiculous chunk of ice.”

  “It’s still here? After all the rain we’ve had?”

  “Destroy it,” said Aunty Gwyneth, her eyes flashing violet. “And when you’re done, prepare a light lunch. I will have my usual: six peeled mushrooms and half a lemon.” She turned and disappeared into her room.

  “Six peeled mushrooms,” David muttered. “Are you sure she wasn’t a badger in a previous life?”

  “Don’t be smart,” said Liz, tapping his arm. “Just do as she says and we’ll all be happy. She’s right about that ice, it could do with clearing; it gets in the way when I’m putting out the washing. Don’t worry about making lunch. I’m sure I can peel a few mushrooms.”

  “No, it’s OK. I’m happy to help.” David lowered his voice and patted his tummy. “You’ve got other things to think about.”

  “Are you coming?” Lucy shouted from deep within the kitchen.

  “He’ll be with you in a minute,” Liz shouted back, and beckoned David farther along the hall. “How are things at Henry’s? Are you coping all right? How’s … Gadzooks getting on?”

  “He’s been in a mood,” David replied. “Missing his windowsill, I think. He seems a bit restless. Out of sorts.”

  “Yes,” Liz nodded, looking concerned. “All the special dragons are on their toes. I can’t quite figure out why.”

  “Elizabeth, it’s time,” Aunty Gwyneth’s voice called.

  “You go,” said David. “I’ll shift this ice.”

  But as he went to turn away, Liz pulled him back. “David, wait. I’m so preoccupied I nearly forgot. You had a telephone call — from Dilys Whutton. You know, at the publisher’s? She’d like to see you at eleven tomorrow. I told her you’d call if you couldn’t make it. She sounds really nice. I think you should go.”

  “Oh, right —” David managed to say before Lucy reappeared and yanked him down the hall as if she’d just captured a runaway dog.

  A few moments later, standing by the window in David’s room and watching him fetch a shovel from the shed, Liz said to her “aunt,” “I’m really not sure about this, you know. I still say it was unwise, allowing David to see.”

  “A temporary diversion,” Aunty Gwyneth replied. “Making the boy a part of our world has removed his need to poke and nose. He accepts what he sees as commonplace. Therefore, he will not make a nuisance of himself.”

  Liz sighed and tightened her lip. “I asked him about Gadzooks just now. He says the dragon’s unhappy.”

  “That, my dear, was Gretel’s doing.”

  Hrrr? went Gretel, looking around. She was hunkered on the floor by a table leg, grinding up seeds against a large piece of plaster taken from the growing mess of rubble around her.

  “Too much dill in the mix,” said Aunty Gwyneth. “The writing dragon is active, but helpless; muted by the boy’s muddled state of mind.”

  “What?” Liz turned away sharply from the window. “Is this what you meant by testing him? I don’t want their relationship harmed. David’s meeting a publisher tomorrow. He’s going to need all the help he can get.”

  “The boy was a threat,” Aunty Gwyneth hit back. “He smells of bears. Powerful bears. You expect me to tolerate that?”

  “David’s a storyteller,” Liz said tautly. “Writing’s in his auma. Take that from him and he’ll have nothing left.”

  “Storytellers,” Aunty Gwyneth scoffed. “Whistlers, wastrels, and woebegones, all. The boy can scribe what nonsense he likes — that’s exactly what it will be for now: gibberish.”

  “But his essay? He can’t win his competition if he can’t write well. He won’t be able to go to the Arctic.”

  “How sad,” said Aunty Gwyneth, sounding anything but. “The bears will soon grow tired of him anyway — then move on as they always do. Now, enough prattle. We need to progress.”

  Liz looked in disgust at the bed. Not only was it stripped of its blanket and sheets, but the mattress had been torn in several places, too. Plaster dust lay in every seam. Wood lice were scuttling in and out of the stuffing. “Do we have to turn the room into a cave?” she sighed.

  “It will aid you,” Aunty Gwyneth replied. “You must dream back, to the first encounter. Take the egg. Hold it close to your body.”

  Liz lay down, cradling the bronze egg just above her waist. The embryo inside it wriggled and squirmed and swished its scaly dragon tail. “But I can dream back — with ease,” she said. “I’m not even sure I need her potions.” She rolled her head and looked at Gretel. The dragon was stripping an Honesty plant of all its pearl-colored papery shells. “Why are you using Honesty flowers? I don’t remember them when Lucy was born.”

  Aunty Gwyneth raised her chin. “New developments occur all the time, my dear. The seeds have a soothing, aromatic quality. They will calm you during the transfer of auma. Hurry up,” she snapped at Gretel.

  The dragon gave out a disgruntled hrrr, scrunched up a nearby heap of shells, and emptied the flat brown seeds into a bowl. They fizzed as they sank into the curious yellow liquid simmering and popping to her scorching breath.

  “There is something else to show you today,” said Aunty Gwyneth, a sly tone creeping into her voice. She turned to her suitcase and barked out the password. The case clicked opened and the scale rose smoothly into her hands.

  Liz was immediately up on her elbows. “Great Gawain!” she gasped. “You brought that here? No wonder the dragons are all on edge.” She raised her head to the ceiling. To the well-trained ear, a rumble of excited growls was beginning to pervade the upper reaches of the house.

  “They would never dare touch it,” Aunty Gwyneth said coldly. “I would turn them to vapor before they could snort.” She teased her fingers through Liz’s soft hair. “This kindling is very special, my dear. There has been nothing like it since Guinevere’s time. It requires something from you: a curl of your hair.”

  “My hair?” said Liz, with a visible start. “Are you out of your mind? There’s a chance he’ll be born with fire.”

  “Every chance,” the sibyl said darkly.

  Liz pushed herself up. “No. This is wrong. What’s go
ing on, Gwilanna? What —?”

  But in a flash, it was done. The sharpened end of the scale came down and a lock of Liz’s thick red hair was severed. She let out a cry and fell back against the mattress, her bright green eyes turning instantly to violet and her lips parting with a gentle cry.

  Gwilanna looked down her nose at her and smirked. “Dream it, my dear. Even the faintest contact with the dragon will bring him flying through the clouds of time. What a pity your reverie will not last.” She snapped her fingers at Gretel. “Quickly!”

  Grizzling and growling, Gretel dipped a green stalk into the bowl. She rolled it, then withdrew it fast from the mix. A droplet of glistening, pearl-colored liquid hung, suspended, from the end of the stalk. Gretel swung it upright, into the light. She examined it with a hooded stare, then, with barely a twitch of her nostrils, cured it with a jet of warming fire. The droplet dried with a satisfying crackle, then bloomed into a beautiful four-petaled flower with a variegated pattern of green and violet. She flew it to the bed.

  “Begin,” said Aunty Gwyneth.

  Gretel wafted the flower under Liz’s nose.

  “Now,” said the sibyl, caressing the lock of hair in her fingers, “let us see if your Honesty has worked.” She touched Liz’s mouth with the tip of one finger and traced the lines of her wide pink lips. “Speak,” she commanded. “Tell the secret of your auma.”

  Liz rolled her head, first left, then right. Her mouth played out a bubble of dragonsong.

  “Speak. I command you!”

  The lips moved again. And this time something meaningful emerged. “Catch …” Liz breathed, and her face was that of a joyous little girl.

  “Catch?” sneered Gwilanna. “Catch what, girl? What?”

  Liz clapped her hands around the egg and giggled. “Snow,” she said. “Lizzie catch snow….”

  24

  BLAZING ICE

  While the events in the house were unfolding, at the top of the garden, on the patch of wild ground where David had discovered Bonnington’s treasure, Lucy was demonstrating her knowledge of hedgehogs. “As well as slugs and beetles and worms and moths and earwigs and spiders and snails, they eat these.” She pulled a small cluster of grapes from her pocket.

  David smiled. “Tasty, after a crunchy beetle. Is Spikey actually using the hutch?”

  “He’s in it,” smiled Lucy. “Fast asleep. You can’t see him because he’s wrapped in leaves. That’s his poop, though.” She pointed to some rod-shaped droppings, near to the top of the short wooden ramp that led up to the raised hutch proper.

  “Lovely,” said David.

  “They are,” Lucy nodded. “If he was poorly they’d look like this.” She opened her book at a diagram of various types of droppings. She pointed to a lime green puddle.

  “Yeah, I get the picture,” David said, squirming. He stood up and brushed off the front of his jeans. “Well, that’s great. You’ve done really well. I expect Spikey’s very grateful to have a nice warm hedgehog hotel in the garden. I hope Bonnington’s not bothering him.”

  Lucy shook her head. “Bonnington sits by the hutch at night, guarding.”

  David looked across the garden. The Pennykettles’ big brown tabby cat was fussing about around an old stack of bricks. “Or he’s swiping those grapes while Spikey’s out foraging.”

  “He wouldn’t do that; the dragons would be cross.”

  David looked her up and down. “What are you talking about?”

  “I read it in here.” She flourished her book. “White hedgehogs are close to the earth.”

  “Well, they would be, with legs as short as theirs.”

  Lucy scowled rather darkly at that. “You’re stupid,” she muttered, and turned away clutching the book to her chest.

  With a shrug of indifference, David followed her down the garden, dragging his shovel across the lawn. He sank its blade into the ground beside the ice. “Shame we have to break this up. It’s done really well to survive this long.”

  Lucy crouched down and stroked the surface, as if she was petting the head of the bear. “When will you do that story about Lorel?”

  Lorel. No sooner was the word off Lucy’s lip than the name was exploding through David’s mind. Gasping, he pressed a hand to his head, struck by a tilting bout of dizziness.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Lucy, looking up.

  “Don’t know. Something touched me. Something … cold.” Lorel. Lorel. Lorel. The name pulsed like a distant star: possible to see, impossible to reach.

  “A ghost?”

  David shivered and reached for the spade. He pulled it from the ground with a sucking squelch. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. Stand back.” He lifted the spade and prepared to strike. And it was then that something peculiar happened. He was looking down the shaft at the likely point of impact, when a low wind blew across the ice and its surface ignited in a pure white fire.

  David staggered back with his mouth wide open, letting the shovel fall out of his hands. And, as it did, a small miracle occurred — or so it seemed to Lucy, at least.

  “Yes!” she whooped. A snowflake had just fluttered past her eyes.

  In an instant she was gone, running to the house. She spurted through the kitchen and slammed open the door into David’s room — right at the moment that her mother was uttering the word snow.

  Aunty Gwyneth whipped around like a snarling dog.

  “Hhh!” gasped Lucy, falling back against the wall. The woman she knew as her sharp and bossy aunt looked more like an ancient, craggy old hag, with smoke-matted hair and teeth like snail shells and nails like pincers and eyes like wrinkled purple raisins.

  And then, in a second, she was normal again. “Let that be a lesson!” she roared. “Never barge in when I am at work!”

  Lucy cast a terrified glance at her mother. “What are you doing to Mom?” She ran to the foot of the bed, and her eyes grew as round as milk bottle tops when she saw the egg and its unborn contents.

  “That is your brother,” Aunty Gwyneth said quietly.

  Lucy searched for words and found only these: “Mom, wake up!” She reached out to shake her mother’s ankle, but an unseen force pushed her back against the wall.

  “Leave her,” the sibyl hissed. A contraction of her fingers brought Lucy to her tiptoes, as if a hand had squeezed her like a toy. “Your mother is dreaming. Lost in the old world. She will wake when the transfer of auma is complete.”

  Lucy, struggling against the spell, found she was almost pasted to the wall. “I’m going to tell David. I know who you are! DA-VID! HELP!”

  “Be quiet!” Aunty Gwyneth commanded. “Why is it that all of Guinevere’s daughters come to inherit such crushing insolence? The boy knows who I am. He is in my grip. You are all in my grip. And you, most of all, will do my bidding or be locked in the attic — in a spider’s web.”

  Lucy shuddered and her lower lip trembled. Spiders she didn’t mind; spiders’ webs she did.

  “Now, speak plainly. What reason did you have for disturbing me?”

  “I came to tell Mom it was snowing, that’s all.”

  This remark seemed to hit Aunty Gwyneth like a hammer. She whipped around and stared through the uncurtained window. The sky was littered with pretty white flakes. “Impossible,” she muttered. She flashed a quick glance at Elizabeth Pennykettle, frozen deep inside another time, then switched her angry gaze to David, who had sunk to his knees by the table of ice. “What’s the matter with the boy? Answer me. Quickly!”

  “Don’t know,” said Lucy, her eyes growing moist. “He said something touched him. Something cold.”

  Hrrr, went Gretel, who had flown to the windowsill to watch the snow.

  Aunty Gwyneth answered her in dragontongue. “Yes, my dear. I sense it, too. The Teller is here. He must be trying to restart his contact with the boy. But why?”

  “I can hear you,” said Lucy. “I know what you’re saying.”

  “Festering nuisance, be gone,” her aunt rapped
. She clicked her fingers and Lucy was free to scamper away in search of David.

  Meanwhile, Aunty Gwyneth walked to the window. She opened it a crack and caught the first bright snowflake dancing past. She smothered it deep within her fist. “How?” she muttered, as if by taking this one speck hostage she could come to understand the strange connection between the girl who had once caught the fire of Gawain and the drifting flecks of ice in the sky. But the answer to the mystery, as frail and delicate as the dot in her fist, eluded even her, and as the wind changed course and a pillar of flakes carried into her hair, she banged the pane shut and focused her attention on David once more. He was already being harangued by Lucy, and motioning with his hands that she should calm herself. “Of course,” said Aunty Gwyneth, “the boy is the key.”

  Hrrr? went Gretel with a sweep of her tail.

  “We have failed to ask ourselves a vital question.”

  The dragon tilted her head.

  “Why him?” Aunty Gwyneth brooded darkly. “What do the so-called guardians of the tear want with a useless storytelling boy? We must find out.”

  Gretel immediately reached into her quiver.

  “No, not with potions, by simple observation. The boy desires to travel north, does he not? Very well, we will aid his quest. We will encourage this alliance, not try to prevent it.”

  Hr-rrr? went Gretel, wiggling her snout.

  “Of course I’m sure!” her keeper snapped. “The boy made a wish to know about the fire. Where better could he learn than the ice world of the Arctic? And when he travels there, we will follow. You, me, and our newborn friend.” Together, they glanced at the egg. “But first we have to know how our dear Elizabeth has managed to use snow to raise her auma.”

  Gretel flew to the foot of the bed. Hrrr, she growled.

  “Yes, yes,” said Aunty Gwyneth. “I know we cannot ask her; she is far away now. But we do have this”— she twirled the lock of hair —”and her daughter, and their creations.”

  This made even Gretel shudder. She, after all, had been made by Liz’s hand. The rattle of her scales drew her mistress’s attention.

  “Not you,” Aunty Gwyneth chided. “You broke with the Pennykettles long ago.”