Crystal (18 page)

The dragon shot out of the water like a cork popping from a bottle. It flew up, steadied itself with its outstretched wings then skidded down onto the ice, panting. Smoke billowed from its nostrils, its exhausted wings hung damply over the ice like wet dusters. Questrid and Crystal didn’t move from its back but sat very still too, just breathing.

‘Yahoo!’ Questrid said weakly. ‘We did it.’

Crystal quickly and gently removed her arms from his waist.

‘Are you all right?’ Questrid asked.

‘Yes. Yes. I’m all right.’ She turned round slowly to stare up at the smooth hills and to look at the spread of ice all around them. ‘Snow,’ she said. ‘And ice. It’s lovely. Where’s Mum?’ Her voice was tiny. ‘It’s cold,’ she added with a shiver.

‘We got wet,’ Questrid said. ‘But feel the heat inside the dragon, eh? Isn’t it something!’ He patted the dragon’s back. ‘Thanks, skweener-dragon. Thanks a lot!’

‘Where do you think my mum is? I really—’

‘Oh, look at the lake!’ Questrid interrupted. ‘Look, Crystal!’

Fresh ice was creeping between the sharp broken fragments, linking the pieces together and repairing the break. It creaked and sighed and squeaked.

‘There’s a face there!’ Crystal cried, staring at the cloudy ice. ‘Oh, no, look!’

It was Grint.

They hadn’t seen him do it, but Grint had jumped into the lake after them. Without Crystal or Effie or the eye-cycle, he had chosen to leave the Town. The hole in Lop Lake was the only way home for him too.

He hammered his fist on the ice, but his movements were slow and heavy. They made no impact on the thick ice. The ice didn’t even crack. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound reached them. Finally Grint slowly sank down and out of sight.

‘P-p-poor Grint,’ Crystal said. She was so cold her lips could hardly form words.

‘Bless and Praise his Name,’ added Questrid quickly. ‘Isn’t that what I should say?’

Crystal didn’t smile. ‘Do you think he’ll get back all right?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, he’ll get back to the Town, but not home. Not this time.’

Crystal shivered. ‘I’m so very cold,’ she said. She turned to the Glass Hills as if she were turning away from her past life and everything about it. ‘I want to go home, too,’ she said.

The dragon began to flap its wings gently. Inside, deep within its belly, a fire had been started up again and the warmth began to flood through its blood and skin and warm them too; their wet clothes began to steam.

Slowly the dragon rose up and flew over the Glass Hills.

Questrid felt as if he’d thrown off dirty old clothes or had a bath. The air in the Marble Mountains was so clean and sharp, so perfect. The sun was low in the sky but it was still making the snow sparkle and glitter. The purple shadows were long and beautiful. It was home.

When they flew over the last hill and the vast tree house came into view, Questrid cried out a ‘Yahoo!’ and this time Crystal laughed. Smoke billowed from the chimneys. Lights shone from all the windows. The place twinkled like a Christmas decoration. This really was home.

‘Spindle House?’ Crystal cried. ‘It’s even better than I’d hoped. It’s wonderful! It feels so right! Will Mum be there? Please let her be there … Oh, look, a purple skweener!’

‘
Dragon
. That’s Boldly Seer. She belongs to the pixicles. And there are the pixicles coming out and waving their hats. And, look! Look! Your mum!’

‘I see her!’ cried Crystal with a sob. ‘She’s safe! Mum! MUM!’

The dragon skidded down through the snow and slithered to a stop beside the gate. Its body was so warm that the snow immediately melted in a circle around it. Crystal slid off its back and ran to her mother. Questrid tried not to feel a twinge of envy as they hugged. He tried not to mind when Greenwood joined them and slipped his arms round them both, circling them, bringing them all together. He knew that he would always be apart; that was how it was. When Silver came to greet him, Questrid hugged her enthusiastically, throwing his arms round her and resting his head in her shaggy fur.

‘Skweeeen!’ the yellow dragon cried. It spun round to face Boldy Seer, wagging its tail from side to side and showering Questrid with snow.

Boldly Seer had been watching the new dragon’s arrival. She was a much larger beast, three times the size of the newcomer. She thrashed her tail from side to side and blew smoke rings. Then she ran straight at the yellow dragon. Questrid thought that she was going to attack the skweener. He cried out in alarm. But Boldy Seer stopped just before she bumped into the skweener and snorted loudly. Then she nodded her head and walked round it slowly.

They touched noses and wrapped their tails together.

‘Well, look at that, I think the skweener’s a
he
—’ Questrid’s words were drowned out by the cries of the pixicles as they rushed up to him.

‘Lanky Boy! Brave boy!’ they cried, tugging at his jacket. ‘Have you got it? Have you brought us a present-gifty thing? A coldly-freezing one? Say you have. Say you have!’

‘Look, I’m really very, very sorry,’ Questrid said, undoing his jacket and taking out the damp bundle. ‘It wasn’t my fault. I tried but you see Raek had already got it out of the freezer and it was melting and …’

He laid the bundle on the snow. ‘Sorry.’

The pixicles quickly unwrapped the eye-cycle. All the small protruding bits had melted away, the carving was lost; faces and figures had all melded together. The pixicles kneeled beside it as if it were a dying pet they’d been extremely fond of and stroked it sadly. ‘It was a brave-courageous thing you tried, Lanky Boy,’ Grampy said. ‘And you have done a wonderful-clever thing to return-it back, even though it is no more use to us than an icicle hanging off a roof!’

‘At least Grint can’t use it either,’ Questrid said.

‘That is true. Very true.’

‘And it wasn’t that we actually needed it,’ Squitcher said, ‘just that we wanted it returned-back and we have it returned-back and now—’

An extraordinary noise, something between a shriek and a sigh and a laugh, made them all turn round. It was the two dragons. Boldy Seer and the skweener were snuggling down in the nest by the wall cooing at each other.

‘Boldy Seer has found a mate! Our Lanky Boy has found her a boyfriend-partner at last!’

‘Well, you have achieved-done something!’ Grampy said. ‘For many years we have been looking for a matey-friend for her. She was sick-disgusted by our choices but now she looks so blissfully-contented! Yellow must be her colour!’

Questrid was still watching the happy dragons when Greenwood came up to shake his hand. Greenwood looked different, younger somehow and with a sparkle in his eyes. ‘Welcome home,’ he said. ‘You have done a wonderful thing for us, Questrid. Thank you. Thank you so very much.’

‘It was nothing.’ Questrid blushed and looked at his feet.

‘It was everything,’ Greenwood said solemnly. ‘We will never forget it. Never.’

Effie and Crystal joined them. Someone had wrapped a thick coat round Crystal’s shoulders, but she was still shivering.

‘You’re freezing! You must go in!’ Questrid said.

‘In a minute.’

‘Thank you, from the bottom of my heart,’ Effie said, and she kissed Questrid on the cheek. ‘You risked everything for me. I’m home at last and I can live a full, proper life, thanks to you. We’ll talk later, but now I must get Crystal inside. You too, Questrid, you should go in. You’re all wet. Go change and get warm.’

‘This place is better than the snow picture,’ Crystal said through her chattering teeth. ‘It’s better than anything I could ever imagine. I’m so happy, you just can’t imagine! The only sad thing is the sly-ugg …’

‘
Sad
about a sly-ugg? What exactly is this flesh-eating sly-ugg?’ Questrid asked.

‘A spying slug. Ours was nice. I saw it in the water,’ Crystal told her mum. ‘I think it drowned.’

‘Somehow it got onto my clothes,’ Effie told them. ‘It undid my straps so I could get out of that chair and through the Gateway—’

‘And then I saw it,’ Crystal said, ‘as we came through but it got swept away … after all it did for us. I wanted to save it. It’s so unfair.’

‘Right, that’s it!’ Greenwood’s voice was loud and authoritative. ‘Questrid, go and get warm dry things on. Crystal, you too. You’re nearly dead with cold.’

As Questrid went into the stable he noticed the pixicles had built themselves a little ice shelter in the corner of the courtyard. He hoped they’d stay another night and he could talk to them about dragons.

Upstairs in his room he stripped off his clothes and dropped them onto the floor. As his jacket fell, he felt sure it was heavier than it should be, or maybe that was just all the water soaked in it. Then from the corner of his eye, he caught a tiny movement in the damp heap.

Questrid poked the jacket with his toe and the sly-ugg tipped out of his pocket. ‘I think I know what you are,’ Questrid said. He squatted down next to the strange sluggy thing. The sly-ugg swivelled its eye-stalks round to stare at him.

‘Hello, Sly-ugg,’ Questrid said. ‘Crystal will be pleased to see you.’

The sly-ugg’s orange spots had been washed away during its journey, as had its mucus coat, and it had dried to a pale greyish blue, edged with gold. Or perhaps it was cold.

Questrid didn’t want his skin to blister and bubble or his fingers to fall off. He picked the sly-ugg up with his sock and let it sit on his covered palm. It felt like an ordinary (very large) slug and he had to fight back his disgust because he didn’t want to offend it. ‘Are you all right? I’m just using the sock, you know, because I haven’t any gloves and well, what you did to Raek … Not that I’m going to torture you, of course …’

The sly-ugg was shifting slowly about. It stopped when it was facing the blank wall. It closed its eyes.

‘Going to have a nap?’ Questrid asked it. ‘I’ll just put you down then—’

But he stopped when he saw the circle of light start to glow on the wall opposite and a picture begin to appear. There were craggy mountains with thick forests growing on their slopes and pointed snowy peaks rising into the clouds. It was the Marble Mountains.

Questrid felt he was inside the image, flying through it. He skimmed over Malachite Mountain and flew past Spindle Tree House then slipped over the Glass Hills. Through a dark forest, down into a valley where a frothing white river twisted and turned he went. And there, perched on a rocky ledge, were five sly-uggs. They were waving their eye-stalks and smiling.

The sly-ugg couldn’t speak, but it didn’t need words. Questrid knew what he was looking at as plainly as if the sly-ugg
had
spoken.

‘It’s your home, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Your
own
home! I must tell Crystal.’

Questrid pulled on dry clothes and hurried to the kitchen, taking the sly-ugg with him.

‘You’ve found it!’ Crystal cried as soon as she saw them. ‘Where was it? Or he? It must be a he or a her! Dear Sluggy,’ she went on, taking the sly-ugg from Questrid tenderly. ‘I’m so happy I love everything.’

Greenwood and Effie were sitting by the fire – Questrid quickly looked away when he saw they were holding hands. Greenwood with a wife! It was extraordinary.

Oriole was flitting about, twittering as she cooked. She was beaming. ‘Isn’t this lovely, Questrid? A full house! What a surprise it will be for the others!’

‘Do you know I’ve even got my own room here?’ Crystal told him. ‘I always have had. It’s right next door to Greenwood’s, but it’s tiny and it’s only got an old cot in it!’

‘Where will you sleep then?’

‘I don’t know. Isn’t it exciting? I love this tree house. I love the way it bends and creaks. But Greenwood says there won’t be room for us for ever.’

‘I’ll find an empty tree not far away—’ Greenwood said.

‘Near a lake or a river,’ Effie put in.

‘Yes, of course. And we’ll build us a new home. A water and wood home.’

‘I love the sound of that. No more curfew. No grey. No Grint. No Raek!’ Crystal said. ‘I am so happy! There’s so much for me to find out about; so much to learn. And we’ll take Sluggy home, won’t we, Questrid? We’ll find that place you saw.’

‘Yes, we’ll do that.’

And, Questrid thought, maybe I’ll find a proper home for myself too. One where I truly belong.

End