lt’s getting close to Halloween, so I thought I’d illustrate a creepy (yet somewhat charming) old song. If you want to listen to it, here it is: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6FDnPb0Iocg
(In my head, the bogeyman’s voiced by Adrian Edmondson.)
Five Girls and the Witch’s Tree (part four)
A big part of Orla’s A-level coursework was a spectacular multimedia presentation on the evolution of popular music. Her parents were pleased as punch. They told people they’d always encouraged her interest in culture.
Amy’s parents told her that periodically checking in on Irene at her foster parents’ place was DEFINITELY the wrong thing to do. The girl was clearly unhinged. None of them knew what had really gone on that night- how did they know that she hadn’t hacked her father to death and then hidden up the tree to play innocent? Why couldn’t Amy leave well enough alone?
(In later years, Amy would look back on this as the point where she started to wonder why she’d ever listened to them in the first place.)
During Unity’s second year of university, her grandmother died, and, good as her word, left Unity the house. Not long afterwards, Unity’s parents invited her down to theirs for dinner. It had been a long time, they said. There was a lot to talk about.
Unity thought she knew what this was about. She remembered what her grandmother had told her to do if her parents tried to get hold of the house, and decided again that she wouldn’t be able to do it, no matter how bad things got. You didn’t burn things down after you’d spent years fixing them.
When she got there, however, things didn’t go as expected. Unity’s parents hung on her every word, asking for stories from university or from her job. They were proud of her, they said. She was making a life for herself.
Opposite Unity, her sister seemed to shrink into herself.
As the night wore on and Unity’s parents drank more and more wine, things got nastier. They’d picked the wrong one, they told each other. They’d had an honest girl and a liar. They’d had a grafter and a lazy piece of shit.
Unity should have pushed back against it more than she did. She found herself tongue-tied, caught between the way things had always been and the way they seemed to be tonight. But when her sister ran out of the house in tears, Unity snapped out of it and ran after her.
By the time Unity got outside, her sister was nowhere to be seen. Unity got into her car and drove off to look for her. For hours and hours, she had no luck. And then she passed the hill with the Witch’s Tree at the top.
There was a shadow under the lowest branch. Something was hanging from it.
Unity’s first thought was to try and ram the tree over with her car… but she knew that by the time she managed to drive up that steep hill, it would be too late. Her second thought was that if she had a hammer or a set of pliers, she could use it to wrench the branch from the trunk… but she didn’t. So instead, she got out of the car and ran.
Later on, the paramedics said that it was practically a miracle. If Unity’s sister had tied the knot properly…. If the branch hadn’t already been weakened by woodworm…. If Unity hadn’t managed to hit exactly the right spot with all her weight…
The branch came down, taking Unity’s sister and a big strip of bark with it. Unity heard her gasp for breath, and called the ambulance. She didn’t notice how much damage she’d done to the tree until a few minutes later, as she turned around to get back into her car and follow the ambulance to hospital. She felt a little guilty- it was clearly an old, magnificent-looking tree, and it looked as if she’d practically peeled it to the core. But she didn’t regret what she’d done. Her parents might have been wrong about her sister being more important than her, but Unity was pretty sure that she was more important than a tree.
The End
The Warbeck Sisters (part fifteen)
After they’d been walking for half an hour, they came across a wide green meadow at the foot of some hills, and Rube told everyone that this would be a good place to stop for lunch. Sally couldn’t believe it was only just lunchtime. They hadn’t even spent a whole day here yet. And after this one, there would be thirty-three or thirty-four just as long.
Sally and her sisters had crusty baguettes stuffed with sliced cheese (which tasted nice but tended to slice up your gums if you weren’t careful), while Kai got a container of fruit salad that Rube had found at the bottom of the bag. He’d just finished a bit of pineapple when Rube started asking him questions.
“Kai, do you remember much about the day the Iridescence family kidnapped you?” She’d finished her sandwich, and now her hands were clasped in her lap, fidgeting a bit.
Kai shrugged. His wings twitched whenever he did that. “Oh, bits and pieces… I remember thinking my parents were right behind me, until they weren’t…”
“Right,” said Rube, sounding as if she was being strangled.
“Next thing you know, I’m in a city. Just like that. The bushes parted, and suddenly there was silver and neon everywhere. And then there was something, at first I thought it was a tree…” He made a movement as if he was trying to click his fingers. “You know how the Opal City guys can combine, right?”
Sally almost rolled her eyes. Of course they didn’t!
“We haven’t met any of them yet, remember?” said Jeanette.
“Well,” said Kai, “Their thing is that hey can join up into a weird pod with their siblings. So, mothers in their world usually give birth to five or six children at once, like litters of puppies or kittens, and all the children who are born at the same time can form into a pod together. It’s supposed to be for protection or something, but its been a long time since they’ve actually had anything to protect themselves from, so…”
Rube interrupted. “So the tree you saw, was that actually the Iridescence family combined?”
“Oh,” said Kai, stopped in mid-flow, “No, actually but I think it was one of their friends.” He went quiet for a few seconds. “Anyway, it wasn’t long after that that I ended up in the Iridescence folks’… villa? Chateau? What would you call it? It’s made out of fancy white stone…”
Rube fidgeted again. “When do you think you lost track of…”
And that was when a group of strangers appeared from behind the nearest hill.
They were wearing red uniforms that made Sally think of the “Nutcracker” film she’d seen once at Christmas, but that was the most ordinary thing about them. They looked as if they were made out of china and gold- that was how pale and blonde they were. Their hair was piled up on their heads in delicate little ringlets, like chain links on a necklace.
As they approached Sally and her sisters, their leader drew a sword. “You need to come with us,” he said.
(To be continued)
Five Girls and the Witch’s Tree (part three)
A few years went by. Unity’s parents occasionally dropped hopeful hints that she might like to come home. Orla’s parents banned her from doing things almost as quickly as she thought up ways to do it anyway without them finding out. Ellen went to live with her dad for a bit, and Amy found herself thinking about the tree whenever she worried about making a mistake.
And then there was Irene.
Irene’s father was at his wit’s end. He’d tried to find other people to take her off his hands. He’d looked everywhere. He’d even tried to track down Irene’s mother, who’d made it clear long ago that she didn’t want to be found. But it seemed as though he was stuck with her. It was like being shackled to a vicious animal.
So one night- one of those nights when Irene actually came home instead of sleeping in the park down the road- he just snapped. He’d helped a friend of his with some building work a few weeks back (Irene having laughed in his face when he’d tried to get her to do it), and he still had a brick hammer lying around.
Irene saw him coming, and ran. She ran out of the house, through the dark streets, over fences and hedges…. And she found herself running towards the hill, and the Witch’s Tree.
Irene didn’t get as many opportunities to socialise as most girls her age, but she’d heard the stories, here and there. They’d taken on a whole new life when word had got around about Amy and Ellen.
The tree, when it saw her approach, wondered what to do. Irene was one of the girls conceived on the one particular night, after all. She was just as likely to be the one to destroy it as any of the others. And here she was, jumping up to it and climbing its branches.
And yet…
At about ten yards from the tree, Irene’s father tripped over a stray root. He went flying, and so did his hammer, which came down right on his head and killed him instantly.
It was Amy, walking past the hill on her way to school the next morning, who first saw what had happened. She found Irene clinging to the upper branches of the tree, coaxed her down and took her back to hers to call the cops and have a decent meal. This was another thing her parents said she’d done wrong, but this time, she found it hard to take them seriously.
(To be continued)
The Warbeck Sisters (part fourteen)
As soon as they’d explained what had happened, Kai was adamant- he wanted to come with them.
“But you’re safe here!” protested Sleet.
“Colwyn’s not! The whole reason they took him prisoner is that they think he helped me escape!”
“He wanted you to escape! He’d want you to stay here!” Sleet looked at Jeanette and her sisters as if asking them to confirm it, but the horse’s head hadn’t said anything about what he wanted Kai to do, so they were out of luck.
Rube tried anyway. “Kai, we’ll get him back. Don’t worry.”
“But I know the area!” Kai waved his furry front legs in frustration. “I broke out-I can help you break back in!”
“But it’ll be horrible for you,” said Rube. She was crouched down so that her face was level with Sally’s shoulder and she could (sort of) look Kai in the eye. “You only just got away from them- you need some time to rest.”
“I’m rested! Trust me!”
Jeanette found herself listening closely to Kai’s voice, trying to work out how old he was and what he might look like if he was still human-shaped. There had been a little high-pitched crackle on the vowels there that made him sound like a musician. A guy about Rube’s age with a wide-eyed, slightly craggy face. “If he wants to help us, I think we should let him,” she said.
Sleet gave her a wounded look. “But he’s still recovering!”
Jeanette looked over at Kai, who seemed to have made himself comfortable where he was. “Well… he can recover on Sally’s shoulder, right?”
“Not if he’s going back to Opal Hill!”
Kai decided to cut in. “You said yourself, the council are useless! What if they won’t help? What are Sally and the others supposed to do then?”
“Of course they’ll help!” snapped Sleet, “It’s Colwyn!”
“You don’t know that! It’s never happened before!”
Sleet went quiet. It was hard to tell whether or not a face had gone pale when it was already grey, but Jeanette thought theirs had.
Sally looked at Kai, and then at Sleet. “If he does come, we’ll take care of him,” she said, a little meekly.
Rube gave Sleet an apologetic look. “I guess… he’ll be safer in a group, right?”
Sleet made a noise- a kind of defeated growl that Jeanette had sometimes heard from her mum (usually when she was on the phone to Dad). “I don’t like this.” They paused for just long enough for Jeanette to think of a response, then added, “Look, Kai, if you change your mind… if any of you change your mind… just come back here.” They pointed to the pool behind them. “You’re always safe here. That’s a promise.”
It was impossible to know for sure, but Kai definitely looked as if he was smiling.
(To be continued)
The Warbeck Sisters (part thirteen)
(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)
Five Girls and the Witch’s Tree (part two)
Up til now, none of the girls had paid much attention to the Witch’s Tree itself. Three of them still lived nearby, and they passed the tree and the hill now and then, but none of them had thought much about it. Until one day Ellen pointed up at it, and told Amy a story she’d overheard at school.
Amy and Ellen had, separately, worked out that they could hide from their parents for a couple of hours every afternoon if they went round a friend’s house and claimed to be doing homework. If the friend had a big house, then that was better, and if they had parents who worked late, then that was best of all. For a little while every day, Amy and Ellen felt a little more free.
They were on their way to Amy’s when Ellen told her about the old woman who’d lived on that hill a century ago, who’d been the exact person to go to if you needed a cure for an ailment or a way to get a certain person to notice you. (Some versions of the story went on to say that the townsfolk had burned her alive and she’d cursed them in revenge, but no-one really believed that. For one thing, she wasn’t the kind of woman who cursed people, and for another, she wasn’t the kind of woman who let a bunch of stupid townsfolk get the better of her.) Anyway, the tree had been her main source of ingredients, and, in return, it had absorbed some of her power. They said that even today, if you needed a cure or a love potion, you could do a lot worse than getting hold of some of those leaves.
Amy listened to Ellen’s story, but she didn’t give it much thought. Until recently, she hadn’t dared to give much thought to anything, in case she thought the wrong thing and it led to disaster. But she never seemed to make quite as many mistakes when she was spending the afternoon at one of her friends’ houses.
At around the same time, Orla’s parents suddenly became very disappointed in her. She used to love reading, they said, but now all she cared about was TV and magazines and pop groups. She was trying to fit in by pretending to be something she wasn’t, they said. She was dumbing herself down and turning herself into just another shallow little bimbo, they said. Orla didn’t say anything. She was just glad they didn’t know about her and the boy from down the road.
Unity’s parents were also disappointed. Not in Unity herself, obviously- you can’t be disappointed when you never had any hope to begin with- but in her sister. The girl had begun slacking off and getting into trouble. Every so often, they threatened to send her off to her grandma’s, too.
When Ellen complained about the pains in her stomach, her mother told her to stop overreacting. Some people had real problems.
Unity’s grandmother rewrote her will to leave the house to Unity, who had practically rewired it from top to bottom at this point. Privately, she gave her granddaughter permission to burn the whole place down after she died if it looked as though her parents were going to get their grubby hands on it. Unity found, to her surprise, that she was a little offended by the suggestion. Why would she burn it down after she’d worked so hard on it?
Ellen’s mother told her that she didn’t have time to take her to the doctor’s for every little ache and pain. Instead, Ellen’s PE teacher called an ambulance when she collapsed in the middle of a netball match. Amy thought about asking to go with her to the hospital, but then changed her mind and headed to the Witch’s Tree instead.
She knew it was just a stupid story. She knew she was supposed to be in school. She knew she was making her parents and teachers worry themselves sick. She knew she was doing the wrong thing, again, for the millionth time. But it was the only way she could help.
The Witch’s Tree held its breath when Amy approached, but she didn’t do too much harm. She broke off a small twig with a couple of leaves hanging off it, then rushed to the hospital.
The nurse on duty probably wouldn’t have agreed to take the twig into Ellen’s room if Amy hadn’t mentioned the Witch’s Tree. The nurse had grown up in this area, and she’d seen a few things in her time.
As Ellen recovered, her mother complained that the nurses here had no respect for people’s feelings, leaving scraggy little bits of weed on patients’ bedside tables because they were too cheap to buy real flowers. Ellen, still only half-awake, told her to give it a rest.
(To be continued)
The Warbeck Sisters (part 12)
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)
Five Girls and the Witch’s Tree (part one)
(Presented as an apology for taking so long with the next “Warbeck Sisters” chapter.)
*
The Witch’s Tree was old, and it had seen more than most. It stood on the hill overlooking the town, and on the night the person who would one day destroy it was conceived, it knew. It was stuck up on the hill and it couldn’t do anything about it, but it knew.
There were five children conceived within a mile of the Witch’s Tree on that fateful night, and the tree knew that it could be any one of them. Five different girls started in five different ways. One through a happy (if a bit routine) moment between a couple who’d been married for ten years. One through a frightened girl mistreated by somebody she thought she could trust. One through a pair of old friends meeting for the first time in years and letting their emotions get the better of them. One through two people meeting for the fist and only time. And one through a scandal that would break up three marriages and cause outraged gossip for years to come.
To save time, we’ll name them after the vowels: Amy, Ellen, Irene, Orla and Unity. Not necessarily in that order.
Amy was told that her parents didn’t have time to explain every little thing to her. She spent most days in a confused haze, not sure what anything meant or what the right thing to do was on any situation. The kind of behaviour that would and wouldn’t get her in trouble was a complete mystery. She couldn’t go on past experience, because it seemed to change depending on the situation. And she couldn’t use her own judgement because it had become increasingly clear that she didn’t have any to use.
Ellen never considered her mother’s feelings when things went wrong. She was always asking about when she was going to see her dad again, instead of remembering how the collapse of her marriage made her mother feel like a failure and keeping quiet. She was always asking when dinner was, instead of considering that maybe her mother had had a hard day and needed a bit of time to herself. You expected better behaviour from the smartest girl in Year One.
Irene’s father had a lot of political beliefs, one of which was that every person had to rely on his or her own efforts. This meant that he didn’t have to give Irene proper food or clothes if he didn’t feel like it, and that, when a friend of his asked for help moving some boxes around, he immediately volunteered Irene in order to teach her about responsibility. She threw her back out doing this, but that, too, wasn’t his problem. And besides, his friend now owed him a favour, so it was all worth it.
Orla’s parents expected big things from her, and gave her the complete works of Charles Dickens for her fifth birthday. When she didn’t start reading it on her own, they scheduled two hours every afternoon in which they’d supervise her. When she told them it was too hard, they told her to keep trying. When she brought picture books home from school, they sent enraged letters to the headteacher.
Unity was less important than her younger sister, and she accepted this. Her sister succeeded in everything she did and made her parents proud, instead of just sitting there like a useless lump. Unity was firmly told not to try and claim anything for herself- it was her sister who deserved it. Unity was OK with this. There never seemed to be anything to claim.
Each girl learned certain lessons early on in life. Irene learned to steal and forage and scrabble for what she needed, since it was the only way to get it. Ellen learned to shut up and keep her feelings to herself. Orla learned to hide the books she brought home before her parents could get to them. Unity learned to be seen and not heard, and Amy learned to do exactly as she was told.
The Witch’s Tree watched it all, with great interest,
Both Unity and Irene were sent away while they were still in primary school, though in Irene’s case it didn’t last long. Her would-be adoptive parents came back to her father after barely a month, demanding their money back. The child was a demon from Hell, they said. Wouldn’t listen to a thing they told her.
Unity was sent to her grandparents’ house in the country, so that her parents could better concentrate on the wonder that was her younger sister. Unity went uncomplainingly, but was surprised at what an improvement it was. Her grandparents actually seemed to like having her around. Obviously Unity knew it was only because they didn’t have her sister around to compare her to, but it was still nice.
Orla had read most of the books in the school library by the time she was seven. Her parents took the credit for that, which was odd because they’d never wanted her to read any of the books in the school library. Some people just had short memories.
Ellen’s mother was constantly worrying about her future. When Ellen piped up with her own ideas about that, she was told to be quiet. Obviously she wasn’t going to be an astronaut. This was a serious conversation.
Starting when she was twelve, Amy’s parents searched her room every morning and evening for evidence of drugs. Amy wasn’t completely sure what drugs looked like, but she expected that one day she’d bring some into her room by mistake. It seemed like the kind of thing she’d do.
After Unity’s grandfather died, her parents offered to take her back, possibly because her sister’s uninterrupted perfection had got exhausting. Unity’s grandmother practically laughed in their faces. She needed Unity around, she told them. She was the only one who knew how the fuse box worked.
Irene’s father proclaimed her an albatross around his neck. In some ways, she was quite flattered.
(To be continued)
The Warbeck Sisters (part 11)
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)
