Crystal by Rebecca Lisle Read Free Book Online

snowflake.’ She straightened up; her eyes gleamed with a sudden burst of light. ‘Just the thought of it! I feel so much more me. Snowflake! Come on. Come!’
    They walked home quickly.
    Crystal put the sly-ugg’s carry-box down on the table and swivelled it round to face the wall. She pretended to forget to open it. The sly-ugg could push the lever that held the side closed, but it would take a few minutes – precious minutes she would have unobserved with her mother.
    Effie was pulling her bed out from against the wall. She lifted up the torn lino beneath it to reveal wooden planks.
    ‘Mum?’
    ‘Shh!’ Effie prised out a strip of wood and took something out from the cavity below. Crystal almost stopped breathing. It must be that thing from Lop Lake. At last!
    But it wasn’t.
    ‘It’s a picture,’ Effie said. ‘It’s for you!’
    It was a tiny, framed painting of snow-covered hills. A minuscule man, woman and girl tramped up towards a high peak. Everything was covered in white.
    ‘Touch it,’ said Effie.
    Crystal touched it. The white surface depicting snow was cold to touch. And it was raised; she could feel it with her fingertips.
    ‘It’s been carved out of spindle wood,’ her mother said. ‘I put it away for safekeeping and forgot … It’s for you. He’d only just made it. A present.’
    ‘Who made it?’
    ‘It was … He was … Sorry, Crystal, I don’t remember.’
    ‘Never mind.’
    Crystal had never seen real snow. It was never cold enough for the lake to freeze or for snow to fall, though she’d heard about it. There were distant places where it snowed.
    ‘So that is snow. It’s so beautiful!’ Crystal said. ‘It’s wonderful. I feel, I feel …’ She gazed into the picture. ‘I feel I know that place. Is it where we were before?’
    ‘Is it? I don’t know. Mountains. Hills. Everything covered in white. Snowflakes as big as leaves. A sky so blue and a sun so big and yellow … There’s never a sun like that here! Never a sapphire sky. Never anything glinting and sparkling …’
    She squeezed Crystal’s hands in hers and smiled.
    ‘Oh, Mum!’ Crystal had never seen her look so beautiful and happy. ‘It must be where we were before we came here—’ She spotted a movement; the sly-ugg had oozed into the room and was listening to them with great attention. ‘I think it’s where we came from,’ Crystal said quietly. ‘It must be beyond the Wall. We’ve got to get back there, Mum. We have to!’
    Effie sighed loudly. She sank down on her bed. As quickly as her interest and energy had flared up, they’d died again.
    ‘We’ll never get out. Nothing is worth bothering about. We are lost, Crystal. Lost.’

8
Greenwood is Low
    Questrid had searched his room again. The acorn holder was definitely missing. It had to be what Greenwood had thrown into the lake. He was determined to try and talk to him about it as soon as he could.
    Next day he was in the kitchen helping Oriole prepare lunch, when a redwing flew in through the window and landed on the back of a chair beside him. A tiny roll of paper was tied around its left leg.
    ‘It’s from Greenwood,’ Questrid said, reading the message. ‘He says thank you for lunch and don’t worry about him. He wants to be left alone. I get the feeling he’s a bit low.’
    That was a nuisance. He was determined to try and talk to him about it as soon as he could, but he didn’t want to admit to Greenwood that he’d spied on him. It was very difficult. But then everything about Greenwood was rather difficult. He was calm and kind and solid, and yet Questrid got the feeling he was rather sad. When all the family was together Greenwood was the first to leave a meal, the last to stop work. He was a shadowy splinter of a person.
    Questrid turned the slip of paper over and over in his hands. Everyone in the house used the birds to send messages to each other as a matter of course. A small slip of paper, a few tiny letters …
    Questrid