Rube ended up making a few false starts and doubling back on herself, but after an hour or two, they started to see strange silver and purple lights on the horizon, and Jeanette had a hunch that they’d found what they were looking for.

As they got closer, the lights came into focus- tall, glassy buildings in a kind of pointed rectangle shape (like corncobs, Jeanette thought), with smaller versions of themselves clustered around them, spreading out all over the side of the nearest mountain.  And then there was the music.  You’d have thought that you’d either hear one tune over everything else or a weird cacophony of instruments, but instead it all seemed to harmonise, as if the whole city was playing together.

As they approached, the sky became a little darker- nowhere near sunset, but definitely the afternoon turning into evening- and one by one, glowing shapes began to appear.  Neon lights, if the people of Opal Hill had neon.  A pink palm tree here, a green pineapple there.  Probably dozens more over the next few hours.  And in the distance, behind the buildings on the mountain, was a calm, green sea that definitely hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Opal Hill.  Soon they’d be there.

(To be continued)

For a long time, High Priest Tavin and his family didn’t want to believe it was true.  But as the day faded into night, they could no longer deny it.  Those girls weren’t coming back with the bird.  They had never intended to find it in the first place.

Their youngest daughter began to sob- she was the one who missed the rocfinch most- and Sameander took her into her arms to comfort her.  She looked at her husband, her lovely face creased in anguish.  “In our own house,” she whispered, “How can anybody behave like that?”

High Priest Tavin shook his head grimly.  It hardly bore thinking about.  It seemed as though loyalty and deference were foreign concepts at Dovecote Gardens these days.  And to think their family had once trusted them so!

It was his oldest son, Onrey, who finally roused the High Priest from these dark thoughts.  He waited for the women to quiet their sobs and sighs, and then raised his powerful young voice above the throng.  “I’ll go to Dovecote Gardens,” he announced, “I won’t leave until they’ve agreed to put things right.”

Sameander’s hand went to her heart.  “Would you really do that?” she gasped.

Onrey looked at her in surprise.  “It’s my duty, mother.”

High Priest Tavin felt himself quite touched by his son’s bravery.  Barely seventeen years old, and already willing to go out and defend his family name.  “A prayer circle,” he announced, and drew his wife and children around him, hand in hand, o that they could begin.

Each family member took their turn in explaining why they felt they were blessed at this moment.  Onrey’s brothers and sisters said what was expected- they were blessed because Onrey might be able to get their pet back, they were blessed because they might hear from him what Dovecote Gardens looked like after so long.  Sameander counted herself blessed for having such a brave, high-minded son.  Finally, it was High Priest Tavin’s turn to speak.  “I am blessed,” he told them, “because today, we are addressing a two-hundred-year-old wrong.  If our ancestors had thought to do this at the time- to go to Dovecote Gardens and demand justice- then many of the terrible things that have happened since might never have come to pass.  I am blessed to know that there are limits to the indignities that can be placed on Tavin Chapel.  The people of Dovecote Gardens should have considered that from the start.”

*

Onrey’s father had told him the story countless times.  Two hundred years ago, the owner of Dovecote Gardens had been a good man and a close friend to the High Priest at the time.  The two of them had planned for Tavin Chapel and the rest of Kindling Grove to take their place in the alliance of communities around them, and direct them to new and better things.  But sadly, all this was not to be.  The owner died suddenly, and his stepson- a cruel, wicked man- wrested control of the estate from his true children. Since then, the Tavin family had been cut off from Dovecote Gardens and the rest of the alliance, forced to live like exiles in disgrace.

Onrey said goodbye to his parents and set out on foot.  Dovecote Gardens would be expecting him (if they expected him to come at all) to arrive on horseback, waving a sword in the air.  He would take them by surprise instead.

He did have a sword, of course; the servants had worked hard to find him the right clothes and weapons for the journey.  Most of it had been in the family for centuries.  The leather jerkin on his chest had belonged to his ancestor of two hundred years ago, the very one who had been betrayed by the owners of Dovecote Gardens.  At a moment like this, it was impossible not to feel the weight of history upon you.

Onrey Tavin set out down the mountain, towards the paths and the white walls, on the way to reclaim his birthright.

(To be continued)

The Iridescence family had a windowless, whitewashed attic, shaped (as most rooms were in Opal Hill) in a kind of circular cone, with the ceiling tapering up towards a point in the middle.  Colwyn Ballantine had had nothing to do for the past three days but walk circuits of the room and think about how worried he was about his nieces.  Had Sleet of the Meadows persuaded them to stay in Wallfruit Cove with Kai, or had they set off to find him as they’d planned?  Colwyn hoped it was the former.  At least that way they’d be safe

When he felt the ache between his eyes that told him Falada had been activated, Colwyn’s legs went weak with relief.  This would be Ruby, calling to apologise because their plans had changed.  But when he opened his eyes to look through Falada’s, all he could see was the living room floor.

Colwyn heard a crash from somewhere else in the room, and understood what had happened.  Falada hadn’t been activated; he’d been knocked off the wall.  Most likely by the same person who was smashing up the rest of the room.  Were they throwing a tantrum because they hadn’t found what they were looking for?  Colwyn certainly hoped so.  He had a nasty feeling that he knew who it was.

(To be continued)

You’d have thought that the one perk of being forced to work in a garden in some kind of alternative universe would be that there would be new and interesting things to look at.  No such luck.  This place looked like every miserable allotment Jeanette had been  dragged to in primary school when the teachers had decided the kids needed to get some dirt under their fingernails.  Rows and rows of tangled bushes in such a dull shade of green that it was almost grey, and hundreds of sickly-looking carroty-parsnip things to pull up and put in the basket until your back ached like buggery.

She probably noticed the feather because it was the only thing in sight with any actual colour in it.  A vibrant red (or, at least, it looked vibrant against all the grey) fading to dark pink near the top.  On a whim, Jeanette picked it up and put it behind her ear.  After a few minutes, she more-or-less forgot it was there.

*

They were taken back into that weird red dining room to report to the family, and Lady Sameander noticed the feather right away.

She jabbed her finger in Jeanette’s direction.  “That feather.  Where did you get it?”

Jeanette shrugged.  Where do you think I got it, you daft old cow?  “The garden.”

She put out a hand.  “Give it to me.  Now.”

It had been a long day, and Jeanette was too tired to argue.  She took it out from behind her ear and handed it over.  “There you go.”

Lady Sameander stared at it for a few seconds, then leaned over to her husband and whispered frantically.  He said something back, but no matter how hard Jeanette tried to hear what it was, she couldn’t.  After a few back-and-forths, the High Priest turned back to Jeanette and her sisters.  “Did you see the bird this came from?”

Jeanette thought about it.  “No.”

“You must have.  It would have been looking for food in the berry bushes.  It wouldn’t have looked like any of the other birds around here- it would have been red with a golden crest on its head.”

Jeanette shrugged.

“It’s important.”

“Sorry,” said Jeanette, “I didn’t see it.”

Apparently deciding that Jeanette either really hadn’t seen the bird or was too stupid to realise that she had, the High Priest gave a long, irritated sigh.  “I want you to look through the grounds for the bird.  Red, with a golden crest.  We need it back.”

Jeanette nodded.  “Can my sisters come and help?”

“If they must.  But the important thing is to find it.”  He jabbed a finger at Jeanette’s face, just like his wife had a minute ago.  “Don’t stop until you’ve found it.  If you come back without it, There will be consequences.”

*

For the first twenty minutes or so, they tried their best to move stealthily.  Then, about halfway down the hill, they realised that nobody was following them.

“So… are they just going to let us wander off?” asked Sally, who was still taking care to stay near her sisters as they walked.

“I think so,” said Jeanette.  She’d barely let herself think about what they were doing until now, in case she jinxed it somehow.  But now, it all seemed to fit.  “I don’t think it occurred to them that we wouldn’t do as we were told.  I think they’re too used to getting their own way.”  She glanced over at Rube, who wasn’t twitching and checking behind her as much as she’d have expected.  “Remember how surprised that servant woman was when I told her to kiss my arse?”

“When you told Lady Sameander to kiss your arse,” murmured Rube.  She seemed to be getting the idea.

“Exactly.  We’d just been kidnapped and locked in a cell, and she was surprised that we didn’t want to do a job for her boss.”  Jeanette hadn’t thought about it before, but now she actually felt bad for the shocked servant woman.  It was probably one of those jobs where they docked your pay for not smiling enough when people yelled at you.

From here, they could see the field they’d had lunch in yesterday. Obviously they weren’t safe there, if the High Priest’s weird little army thought they could arrest them for trespassing just for having a picnic, but a little further and they’d be back on the path.

“I hope Kai’s able to find us,” said Rube, after a while.

“It’ll be fine,” said Sally, “He knows we’re heading to Opal Hill.”

“I just hope we can find it without the map.”

(To be continued)

(The triumphant return!)

*

It got dark, and then it got light again.  Rube made everyone change their clothes, just so they could say they had.

Eventually, somebody else came by.  Not the woman from earlier, but a man in a black uniform that looked like the male version of the dress she’d been wearing.  High Priest Tavin’s servants had a strict dress code, Rube guessed.

“The Lady Sameander has a job for you,” he said, a little testily, as if they hadn’t heard his co-worker properly and just needed her words repeating fourteen hours later.

Rube looked sideways at Jeanette, who shrugged and looked innocent.  It was safe to go ahead.  “What is it?”

The man reached through the bars and handed Rube a piece of paper.  “Lady Sameander wants this sewn onto everybody’s shirts in time for the reception tomorrow.”

Rube looked at the paper.  It was in an alphabet she didn’t recognise- it looked like it was made up of squares and triangles.  “How many people’s shirts?”

“The whole family.  All seven of them.”  He sounded impatient.

Rube looked back at the paper.  “Right.…  but this is about a hundred words long.”

“Is there a problem with that?”

Rube thought about it.  What else was there to do in this cell?  “I guess not.”

“You guess not?”  The man raised his eyebrows and put his hands on his hips.  “That’s not a very nice thing to say.  Sounds doubtful.”

Rube got the impression, from the over-dramatic outrage on his face, that he was expecting an apology.  Instead, she stared at him as blankly as she could, and waited to see what happened next.

After twenty seconds or so, the man gave up.  “I’ll bring you the materials,” he said, and left.

*

Between the three of them, they managed to get it done in a few hours.  By (they estimated) lunchtime, Jeanette was sucking on her sore, sliced-up fingers, and Sally was whingeing as if she’d been forced to work down a mine, but they had seven freshly-sewn shirts.

After a while, a couple of black-uniformed servants came by and took them out of the cells.  “You’ll be presenting these to the High Priest and the Lady Sameander,” they were told.  Up through the dark hallways they went, and eventually they found themselves in a dining room.  The lighting in here was surprisingly good, revealing a room that was painted- walls, floor and ceiling- the same shade of dark red.  Ketchup red.  Tomato-soup red.

The High Priest sat at a table that looked as if it was carved from a big block of black marble, next to a woman covered in diamonds- a tiara in her hair (golden ringlets, obviously), bracelets all the way up to her elbows, necklaces from under her chin to halfway down her chest.  Rube didn’t need anyone to tell them that this was Lady Sameander.

She inspected each shirt closely, squinting at the stitches and holding it up to the light.  Eventually, she sighed.  “Well, I’ll take it, but it wouldn’t have been my first choice.”

Rube wasn’t sure what she was expected to say to that.  “Right…”

“This is a sacrifice for me.”  Lady Sameander gave Rube a plaintive look.

Rube was getting quite good at staring blankly and not apologising. 

Lady Sameander’s brow creased, and she turned to the servants.  “Put them to work in the garden.”

(To be continued)