(I am heartily sorry that I took so long to write this chapter. Next one will be quicker, honest.)

*

This time, they got to approach Wallfruit Cove at a leisurely pace, not tearing ahead in a fit of worry about a missing sister.  That meant that Rube noticed the way the trees changed as they went on.  Around a certain corner, you went from knotty, bent old oak trees to something stiff and aromatic, covered in dense ferns and lianas.  It was like crossing from the part of the zoo with the penguins to the part with the tigers.

Rube had found that it made things easier to concentrate on one thing at a time.  If she thought about the trees, then she wouldn’t have to worry about running into Dad when they crossed from Wallfruit Cove to Opal Hill.  If she thought about running into Dad, then she wouldn’t have to worry about what they were meant to do when they got to Opal Hill.  If she thought about Opal Hill, then she didn’t have to think about everything she’d learned this morning.

They rounded another corner, and the pools opened up before them.  Cool and blue and tempting, but full of strange people.  She’d only seen Sleet and Comet up close, but she’d seen grey and green, and she thought she’d seen markings like the suckers an octopus had on the underside of its tentacles.  You had to take things a little bit at a time.

Sleet saw them coming, and splashed their way out of the pool they were in.  They looked as if they were trying to run through syrup.  “You came back!” they cried, waving their arms (with definite sucker-marks) in the air, “I thought you weren’t coming back ‘til tomorrow?”

“We got in touch with Colwyn,” said Rube.  (And never mind how, she thought.)  “The Iridescence family thought that he helped Kai escape, so they’re holding him prisoner.”

Sleet’s mouth fell open.  (Rube tried not to look at what was in there instead of a tongue.)  “They can’t do that!”

Rube wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to that.  She ended up just staring blankly.

“They’ve always been…”  Sleet shook their head.  “But this?  Kidnapping Colwyn?  We need him!  They can’t do that!”

“Well, they did,” said Jeanette, sounding a little impatient, “So…”

Rube spoke quickly, to pre-empt Sleet taking offence.  “We’re going to go to Opal Hill and get him back.  Do you think the council will listen to us if we talk to them?  I know you said they…”

“They’ll have to!” said Sleet, “How are we supposed to…?”

Just then, a little shadow appeared on Sally’s shoulder.  “What’s going on?” asked Kai.

(To be continued)

(A lot sooner this time)

The horse’s head was talking.  Every minute, Jeanette had to remind herself not to freak out about that.

“I think people must have known that this place existed for thousands of years.  There’s evidence, you see- local stories about what you should do if you found yourself lost on the paths. But people preferred to stay away from it.  The first people to build on this site arrived around two hundred years ago.  I don’t know much about them.  I don’t know if they planned to be in the middle of the paths and find out as much as they could about them, or if they just found an empty space to build on and got more than they bargained for.  But that was the start of what is now Dovecote Gardens.  It was another hundred years before it was called that, though.

“There’s an old folk tale you might have heard at some point.  An elderly midwife is called out in the middle of the night to deliver a baby.  She is taken to a mysterious grove, and it gradually becomes clear that the expectant parents aren’t human.  The midwife is shocked, but remains professional and successfully delivers the baby, earning the parents’ eternal gratitude.  Something similar happened here, two hundred years ago, but I don’t think it involved delivering a baby.  I think it was more to do with communication.”

They had a plan.  They’d pack some lunch, some toiletries and a couple of changes of clothes, and then they’d go off to Wallfruit Cove to tell Kai what was going on.  After that, on to Opal Hill to break Colwyn out of prison.  Somehow.  Supposedly, this information he was giving them was going to help, but Jeanette couldn’t see how.

“You see, the people of the paths- there really isn’t any other collective term for them- they can’t visit each other.  They can come to our world, if they want to, but they can’t go to each other’s.  Dovecote Gardens is the hub- if they want to pass on a message to each other, they have to go through us.”

“Which is why Sleet and Comet couldn’t do anything about the Iridescence family, right?” asked Rube.

“Sleet from Wallfruit Cove?  Yes, exactly.  All they could do was offer Kai shelter when he got there.”

“Why do they need to pass on messages?” asked Rube, “What kind of thing do they talk about?”

The horse’s head raised its chin for a moment, then looked back down at Rube.  “They exchange knowledge.  That’s the only thing they can exchange, you see.  They can’t trade with each other, and they definitely can’t declare war on each other, so they’ve got no choice but to be interested in each other’s point of view.”

“They probably could trade with each other,” said Jeanette, “They’d just have had to go through you.”

“That would be a lot of trust to put in one person.  And far too much work for me.”  The horse… smiled?  It was hard to tell.  “I’m their messenger.  Their ambassador to each other, I suppose.  The job comes with the house.”

Something occurred to Rube.  “If Mum grew up here, then she’d have known about all this, right?”

“She did,” said the horse, “That’s how she knew you’d be safe here.”

“Kai wasn’t,” said Jeanette.  The words seemed to come out on their own, without consulting her first.

Rube gave her a pointed look, but the horse just looked sad.  “Kai’s parents didn’t know where to look,” he told them, “I would have.”

“Then why didn’t you look for him at the time?  When he first went missing?”

The horse… shrugged?  Its neck seemed to go up and down, anyway.  “I didn’t know,” he said, “I didn’t know anything about him until two weeks ago.  His parents never reported him missing.”

(To be continued)

Sally wouldn’t have thought it was possible to surprise her anymore, not after the morning she’d had.  But as the horse’s head bent and shook, crackling the twigs that made it up as it did, she couldn’t take her eyes off it.  It looked as if it had changed the material it was made out of into something softer and more flexible, just by Rube talking to it.  And when it finally focused its glass eyes on them and opened its mouth, it spoke in Uncle Colwyn’s voice.

“Ruby?  Girls?  Is that you?”

“Yes,” said Rube, and her voice sounded like a kettle whistling, it was so high-pitched and breathy.  She almost seemed to breathe the word in instead of out.

“Are you alright?  I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived.  If I could have been…”

“How are you talking through a horse’s head?”  This was Jeanette, who was still frozen to the spot next to Sally.

The horse turned its head so it could look at her properly.  “It’s my security system.  When I’m away from the house, I can keep an eye on…”

“Where are you?” asked Rube.

“I’m…  It’s a little hard to explain. Have you seen the paths around the gardens?  The ones with the white walls?”

“We’ve seen them,” said Rube, “We’ve just been to Wallfruit Cove.”

“Ah,” said Uncle Colwyn, as if Rube had cut him off mid-thought, “I suppose I should have guessed.  You wouldn’t have known to speak to Falada if you hadn’t seen some of it.  Well… have you heard of the Iridescence family?”

“Yes!”  Sally was pretty sure all three of them had shouted out at once.  To her, it was as if Colwyn had made them jump and say it against their will.

The horse flinched a little at the force of their answer.  “I see.  Well, they won’t let me leave.  I went to their estate to bargain for the release of a hostage, but he managed to escape while I was there, and now they think I only came here as a distraction.”

Rube nodded.  “This hostage- his name wasn’t Kai, was it?”

“Yes- Kai Domino.  Have you met him?  Did he get out safely?  I heard he’d been injured…”

“He’s fine.  Sally actually…”  Rube turned to look at her.  Sally felt a bit of pride welling up in her chest.  Rube and Jeanette had probably thought she was wasting her time trying to make that moth better, and now look where they were.  “He’s in Wallfruit Cove.  They said he could stay.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful.”  Sally didn’t know how you could tell if a horse was smiling, but she thought she could hear it in his voice.

“Now what about you?” asked Rube, “How do we get you out of where they’re keeping you?”

“You don’t,” said the horse, “I’ll be fine.  They’re not stupid people.  Sooner or later, they’ll realise it’s not worth the trouble they’ll have with the Opal Hill council, and they’ll let me go.”

“But what if they don’t?  What if they try the same thing on you as they did on Kai?”

“Ruby, they won’t.  Not on a member of our family.  Trust me.  I’ll be back in a day or two.  Until then, you three just sit tight and stay in the house.  You’re safe here.”

“When we were in Wallfruit Cove, they said that the Opal Hill council doesn’t do enough to rein in the Iridescence family.  It doesn’t sound as if you can rely on them doing their jobs.”

“They may not do enough, but you mustn’t think that they do nothing.  The Iridescence family know that they mustn’t push things too far.  In a couple of days…”

A strange, chiming noise rang out from the back of the room.  It took a moment or two for Sally to realise that it was the phone ringing.

*

It didn’t occur to Rube until later that she really should have sent Jeanette or Sally to answer the phone.  She was the one talking to the horse’s head.  She had her hands full.  Once a big sister, always a big sister, she guessed.

The phone was a red plastic thing on a little side-table near the French windows at the back.  It had one of those circular dials on the front that Rube had never learned how to use.  She wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d found out that Colwyn had had the same one since the Seventies.  She picked up the receiver and tried to sound calm.  “Hello?”

“Ruby, it’s your dad.  Are your sisters there, too?”

Rube’s heart sank.  The voice had a jolly tone to it, but she knew how quickly that would evaporate when he didn’t get his way.  “Yes.  How are you?”

“Could you put your mother on?  I want a word with her.”

Here it was.  “Um, she’s not here, I’m afraid.”

“Put her on.”  The voice was still calm, but he’d let a little bit of coldness seep into it.  “Do it.”

“No, she’s really not here.  She didn’t come with us.”  A second later, she could have kicked herself.  She’d basically told him that their mother was home alone.

“Oh, I see.”  The coldness had gone, for now.  Rube even thought she heard him chuckle.  “New bloke, is it?”

“What?”

“Is that why she wanted you off her hands for the summer?”

“Um…  I don’t think so…”  Rube couldn’t even remember the last time Mum had been out on a date.

“Well, tell your uncle that I’m coming to pick you up.”  Rube heard him jangle his keys, like an actor using a prop.  “If she can’t be bothered to take care of you, then I’m going to have to step in, aren’t I?”

Rube wondered what her father would have thought if he’d seen what Rube had been doing before he rang.  He’d probably have got angry.  That was how he usually reacted to things that surprised him.  “No, we’re OK here…”

“I’m coming to pick you up.  No arguments.”  And then he hung up on her.

Rube looked back at her sisters, still standing by the horse’s head.  They’d only heard her half of the conversation, but that had probably been enough.  They’d got the gist.

“So, that’s that decided,” she told Colwyn, “We’re not staying in the house.”

(To be continued)

The first thing Rube did when they got back to the house was to walk up to the wicker horse’s head on the wall and say, “OK.  What do I have to do to get you to talk?”

She’d been like that for the last hour- looking ahead and speaking in clipped, decisive sentences.  Back at Wallfruit Cove, she’d asked Sleet and Comet, If we went home to think things over, would we be able to find our way back here tomorrow morning?  Yes?  Then that’s what we’re going to do.  Then they’d barely spoken on the walk back.  Sally had seemed worried that Rube was mad at her for going off with Kai, but Jeanette was half-convinced that she’d had some kind of mental break.

“What makes you think it’s going to talk?” asked Jeanette- quietly, as if she was worried that the horse was going to overhear her.  It didn’t make sense, but not much had today.  And it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

“The name.  It’s from that fairy tale- The Goose Girl.”  She looked sideways at the horse.  “Falada the horse gets his head chopped off and hung over the stables, but it starts talking.”  She frowned.  “I’m trying to remember if there was some kind of spell that got him to…  No, I think the idea was that he could always talk?  Or maybe that he got the ability naturally after he died?”

“There might be a button or something,” suggested Jeanette, feeling kind of superfluous.

“I don’t think so,” said Rube absently.  She shut her eyes tight, screwing up her face, then opened them again.  “OK…  Alas, young queen, passing by / If this your mother knew / Her heart would break in two.”

A few seconds went by.  Jeanette found herself holding her breath.

Rube looked back at her sisters.  “I think there’s another…”

The horse’s head began to move.

(To Be Continued)

By the time her sisters turned up, Sally had probably been in Wallfruit Cove for a few hours.  She’d had three milkshakes (lemon, strawberry and grape).  She’d used the toilet once, and found out that they’d had one specially installed for people who visited from Dovecote Gardens and didn’t want to use the “gutter-streams,” whatever those were.  And, after listening for long enough, she was pretty sure she understood most of what Sleet and Comet were trying to tell her.

It was actually quite lucky- Sally turned her head at exactly the right moment to see Rube and Jeanette come round the corner near the treeline and freeze, as if they’d hit an invisible wall in the air.  It took Sally a moment or two to realise that they must have seen the people in the pool.  The grey and green people.  And if that shocked them, just wait until they saw them close-up.

Sally raised her hand and waved to Rube and Jeanette, before they could start to worry about not being able to see her.  “My sisters,” she explained to Sleet and Comet, “We should go over and say hi.”

“Good idea,” said Kai, glancing around the pool.  He’d probably noticed them freeze as well.

As they made their way across the rocky path, Kai perched on Sally’s shoulder, Sleet and Comet hung back a bit.  That meant that Sally was the first to get to Rube and Jeanette.  It also meant that there was enough room for Jeanette to shove Sally behind her and step in between her and Sleet and Comet, glaring daggers at them.  “What do you think you’re playing at?” she roared.

“It wasn’t their fault!” said Kai, “I was the one who called the piper!”

“I don’t think they know what a piper is,” Sally told him.  Rube and Jeanette seemed to be trying to keep an eye on both Kai and the other two at the same time, twitching between one and the other like they were getting electric shocks.  “He means he was the one who brought me here.  But he only did it because he needed our help- he wasn’t trying to cause any trouble.”

Jeanette, still standing across the path as menacingly as she could, glanced back at Rube, who took a deep breath.  “Alright, Sally.  How about you go right back to the start, and talk us through everything that’s happened this morning.”

Sleet leaned around to look at her properly.  “We could sit in the pool if you…”

Rube held up a hand.  “I’d… rather not.  If that’s OK.”  Her voice sounded a bit like a robot’s, but it was firm enough to get Sleet to drop it.

Sally thought through everything that had happened and everything she’d been told.  “Well… do you remember I said I rescued a moth last night?” she asked, pointing at Kai.

“Yes,” said Rube dully.

“Well, he hasn’t always been a moth.  His name’s Kai, and he says he got lost near Dovecote Gardens when he was younger.”  Sally noticed a few of the people back at the pool turn around to stare at them.  Sleet seemed to be trying to wave them off- like, nothing to see here.  “You know the paths around Dovecote Gardens?  The ones with the little white walls?”

“Yes,” said Rube.

“Well, they lead to other places.  Like this one.  And you can only get there by going to Dovecote Gardens in the first place.  I think Sleet and Comet called it a hub?”  She looked round, and they nodded.  “So Kai, when he was little, wandered off down one of the paths, and someone kidnapped him.”  Sally wasn’t sure how to tell the next bit- her first thought had been to say, And turned him into a moth, but that would probably sound a bit silly if she said it out loud.  She didn’t want to sound as if she was making fun of something upsetting.

“And turned me into a moth,” said Kai, and Sally relaxed.

Jeanette had relaxed a little by now, and Sleet managed to edge around her (Comet stayed put, looking at bit intimidated.)  “They’re called the Iridescence family,” said Sleet, “They’ve done this sort of thing before.  The council down in Opal Hill don’t…”

“Could you explain why any of that means you get to take our little sister off without telling us?” snapped Rube.

Sally shook her head.  “I told you- it wasn’t them!  It was Kai!  And he only did it because he was worried about some of those Iridescence people coming to the house while Colwyn wasn’t there!”

“And what if they’d come by while me and Jeanette were there?”

“They wouldn’t have,” said Kai, “They were just after me.  And they can’t come here because…”

“Why did you take Sally?”  Rube was shouting by now.  There were definitely people in the pool turning round to stare.

“Because he thought I might be able to help!” Sally shouted back.

“How?”

Sally thought about it, and glanced round at Kai, who shrugged.  “You’re Colwyn’s niece,” he said apologetically, “I kind of thought we’d figure it out from there.”

(To be continued)

There was a map- a sort of map, anyway.  There was a small metal plaque on the platform at the top of the stairs, and etched into it was the shape of the hills and towns around them.  The ones that Rube definitely hadn’t been able to see from the ground.  The ones that she definitely hadn’t seen when they’d driven up here yesterday afternoon, either.

“So, you said it looked like Sally was heading this way,” said Jeanette, pointing in the direction of the mountains and then tracing the equivalent route on the map.  “So…”

“So what’s the quickest way for us to get to her?” Rube finished.  Because that had to be the priority.  Find Sally first; worry about how screwed-up everything was later.  Maybe when they found her and stopped panicking, they’d finally see that there was a simple explanation for everything, but even if they didn’t, at least they’d all be together again.

The staircase ended at a white, rectangular platform- maybe four or five yards across- with a safety rail around the edges.  (Rube didn’t know why the platform had a safety rail when the stairs didn’t have any bannisters.  Maybe it was just there so there’d be somewhere to put the map.). Rube wasn’t about to lean over the edge and check, but she was pretty sure there wasn’t anything under the platform, any more than there had been anything under the staircase once it left the ground.  The whole structure was just jutting out into thin air.

“We could see if we can hitch a ride on one of those purple things?” Jeanette suggested, “If they could come over to the house and pick up Sally, they must be able to come over here too, right?”

Rube looked back down at the map.  The places had little labels carved onto them- Opal Hill, Wallfruit Cove, Reynard Woods.  They were such weirdly nice names.  Like street names in a really dull, wealthy part of town.  “I think we should keep an eye on those purple things,” she told Jeanette, “If it turns out that there’s a place they all go back to, we should probably head there.”

“Ok,” said Jeanette, “Sounds like a plan.”

“I just wish we’d brought a notebook.  Or even just a pen.”  She traced the wobbly routes between the places on the map.  She didn’t need to double-check to see that they corresponded with the little white walls down on the ground.  “Because when we do work out where we’re going, we’ll have to find our way there by…”

Rube broke off.  She’d spotted something.

There were labels on the map, with their weirdly nice names, and it wasn’t such a surprise that there was one for Uncle Colwyn’s house, slap bang in the centre.  But it was a little bigger than most of the others- three words instead of two.  It read, “Dovecote Gardens (Falada).”

(To be continued)

Practically the first thing that happened when Sally arrived at Wallfruit Cove was that somebody put a lemon milkshake into her hand. That was the sort of thing that made you a friend for life.

The person who had given her the drink was tall and thin, with grey, clammy skin, and Sally couldn’t exactly tell whether they were a boy or a girl. “Welcome to the Cove!” they said, speaking with a slight lisp, “You’ll be one of Colwyn Ballantine’s neices, I assume?”

“Um, yes. My name’s Sally.” That was two people so far who not only knew who Uncle Colwyn was, but also knew that he had nieces. “This is Kai,” she added, pointing to the moth on her shoulder, “He’s the one who brought me here.” Hopefully she wouldn’t have to add, And also the one who knows what’s going on. Hopefully that was implied.

“I’m Sleet of the Meadows,” said the milkshake-giver, “Official greeter.” When Sleet talked, Sally thought she could see more than one tongue in their mouth. That was probably the reason for the lisp. “Now, why don’t we sit down somewhere a bit nicer, hm?”

Sleet had met them where they’d landed, in the middle of a kind of ferny wood, but when they led Sally and Kai to the edge of the treeline, it seemed like all they could see was water. A series of shallow pools, with little stony paths and bridges between them. Tables and chairs in the water, so that in some of them you had to sit submerged up to your waist. One deep, wide pool with a moat circling around it, which seemed a bit over-the-top to Sally. And all around, people sitting and talking, playing games, or just floating aimlessly. About half of the people Sally could see had the same grey, scaly skin as Sleet. The rest were green.

Sleet led them to a table in the shallower part of the water (so that Sally had to take off her shoes, but didn’t have to get her shorts wet), and called another person over. “Comet of the Marshlands,” they explained, “Friend of mine.”

“News from Colwyn?” asked Comet, shifting themself up onto the chair next to Sleet. As they moved, Sally thought she saw little suction cups on the underside of their hands, like you saw on squids and octopuses.

Sleet made the kind of noise that meant ‘yes.’ “This is Sally. She’s one of his nieces.” They smiled. “She says a moth brought her here.”

Sally was just about to explain what she meant when Kai said, a lot louder than you’d expect, “You know, I am at the table. You can ask me directly.”

Sleet’s mouth fell open. Comet clapped a hand over the lower half of their face. Sally looked from one to the other, and realised something: People from Wallfruit Cove weren’t any more used to talking moths than she was.

She began to explain. “He hasn’t always been a moth…”

“It’s OK, Sally,” said Kai, waving a furry leg, “I think they’re getting the idea now.”

“Sweet Colubraria…” muttered Comet, who still hadn’t taken their hand from their face.

Sleet leaned forward. “This is the Iridescence family again, isn’t it?”

“Got it in one,” said Kai.

“I’m so sorry. What you must have been through…” They took a shaky breath. “There’s no excuse…”

“Others have been through worse,” he said gently, “I’m Kai, by the way.”

Sleet moved their hands over their face, pulling themself together. “Well, you’re welcome to stay in the Cove as long as you want, Kai. Sally, how much has Colwyn told you about the paths?”

Sally bit her lip. She felt as if she was in school and she hadn’t done her homework. “He, um, he hasn’t. We only got here last night. Me and my sisters, I mean.”

“Colwyn hasn’t been around since Sally got here,” added Kai, “Otherwise, I’d have thrown myself on his mercy instead.” He gave a little laugh, which made him feel as if he was vibrating on Sally’s shoulder.

“You’re welcome, both of you,” said Comet. They were leaning forward in the same way as Sleet, which made the two of them look like book-ends. “The important thing about these paths, Sally, is that Dovecote Gardens is right in the middle. And only people who start off in Dovecote Gardens can go anywhere else.”

Sally frowned.

“What we mean is,” explained Sleet, “you can come here, because you come from Dovecote Gardens. And we could go there. But we couldn’t get to the place Kai came from, if you follow me.”

“Right…” said Sally.

Sleet pinched their nose. “Oh, I’m not explaining it right…”

Sally did her best to look as if she was willing to learn. She quite liked Sleet and Comet, so far. Not everyone gave her milkshakes in the first two minutes of meeting them.

(To be continued)

Halfway up the stairs, Rube stopped in her tracks.  “It was one of them!  The purple things!”

Jeanette looked at where she was pointing.  It was one of those colourful flecks she’d seen earlier, flying around the mountains.  “Sally went off on one of them?”

“Yes!”

It was strange to think that, half an hour ago, Jeanette had been worried that if she looked away from this view, she’d never see it again.  Now both of her sisters were involved in it, but somehow that didn’t make it seem any more solid.  The three of them were probably close enough to share the same hallucination.  “Did you see which way it was going?”

“Um…”. Rube squinted into the distance.  “Up towards the mountains, I think.”

Jeanette nodded.  The mountains behind the house.  The mountains that weren’t there until you climbed this staircase.  Those mountains.  “Do you want to go up to the top?  There might be a map, or…”

Jeanette was sure that Rube was going to say no.  She was sure that Rube was going to insist on going back down and trying to follow Sally on foot, even if that looked hopeless.  She was sure that they were going to have an argument about what would be the bigger waste of time, going upstairs and looking for clues that they had no reason to think would even be there, or walking towards the mountains they couldn’t even see and hoping Sally and the purple thing hadn’t got a thousand-mile head start.  But instead, Rube just sighed like a deflated balloon and said, “I… sure.”

(To be continued)