Dragon's Green, Page 3

  Cait Ransom-Bookend (she had kept some of her old name when she’d married Effie’s father) read a lot of diet books. She read these books because she wanted to be as thin and beautiful as people on television, even though her actual job was researching a medieval manuscript that no one had ever heard of. The latest diet book was called The Time Is NOW! and told you how you could live on special milkshakes that had no milk in them. These were called ‘Shake Your Stuff’ and came through the post in huge fluorescent tubs. Each tub came with a free book sellotaped to it, usually a romance novel with a picture on the front of a woman tied to a tree or a chair or a railway line. Cait read a lot of these books lately too.

  It seemed that something in The Time Is NOW! (which had a chapter called ‘Don’t Let Fat Kids Ruin Your New Look’) had made Cait choose today of all days to throw out all the nice food – food that might make you feel better if you were feeling a bit sad and worried – and present Effie, who usually made her own breakfast anyway, with a glass of greeny, browny gooey liquid that looked like mud with bits of grass stirred in it. Or, worse, something that might come out of you if you had gastric flu. This, apparently, was the ‘Morning Shake’. It was vile. Not that Effie was that hungry anyway. She was too worried to be hungry.

  Baby Luna had her own shake that was bright pink. She didn’t look that enthusiastic about it either. A pink streak on the wall opposite her high chair suggested that she had already thrown it across the room at least once.

  ‘Looks awesome, right?’ said Cait.

  ‘Uh . . .’ began Effie. ‘Thanks. Any news from Dad?’

  Cait made a sad face that wasn’t really sad. ‘He’s still at the hospital.’

  ‘Can I go?’

  Cait shook her head. ‘The school rang. You missed two whole days last week, apparently. Your father and I talked about this yesterday. You’re not going to help your grandfather by . . .’

  ‘Has something happened?’

  Cait paused just long enough that Effie knew that something had happened.

  ‘Your father . . .’ she began. ‘He’ll talk to you after school.’

  ‘Please, Cait, can you drive me to the hospital now?’

  ‘Sorry, Effie, I can’t . . . Your father . . . Effie? Where are you going?’

  But Effie had already left the kitchen. She walked along the thin, dusty hallway to the bedroom she shared with Luna.

  ‘Effie?’ Cait called after her, but Effie didn’t respond. ‘Effie? Come back and finish your shake!’ But Effie did not go back and finish her shake. She put on her green and grey school uniform as quickly as possible, buttoned up her bottle-green felt cape, and left the house without even saying goodbye. She could go to school after she’d seen her grandfather.

  Effie took the same bus as usual to the Writers’ Monument and walked up the hill to the Old Town, just as if she were going to school, through the cobbled streets, past the Funtime Arcade, the Writers’ Museum, Leonard Levar’s Antiquarian Bookshop and Madame Valentin’s Exotic Pet Emporium until, after cutting though the university gardens, she turned right instead of left and walked down the long road towards the hospital, hoping that no one would notice her uniform and ask where she thought she was going.

  Effie had looked up the word ‘codicil’ in her dictionary the night before. It meant ‘a supplement to a will’. She’d had to use her dictionary several more times to work out what this might mean – there was of course no internet to help any more. A lot of people still had out-of-date dictionaries on their old phones, but Effie had a proper dictionary that Griffin had given her for her last birthday. All dictionaries – except for the very new ones – had a lot of old-fashioned words in them, like ‘blog’ and ‘wi-fi’. Things that only existed before the worldquake.

  Eventually Effie had found that a codicil was something you could add to a will to change it in some way, and that a will was a legal document that said who got what after someone died. Then she remembered the play they’d read with Mrs Beathag Hide a few weeks before, where an old king kept changing his will on the basis of who he thought loved him most.

  But why would Griffin be changing his will now? Was he going to die? Effie couldn’t stop thinking back to him lying there weak and alone in his hospital bed, his long beard looking so fragile and wrong resting on the crisp white sheets. Effie saw him trying desperately to write the codicil, dipping his fountain pen in the bottle of blue ink that made Nurse Underwood tut every time she saw it. On the hospital table was a pile of Griffin’s special stationery that Effie had got from his desk: cream paper and envelopes that looked expensive, but ordinary, until you held them up to the light. If you did this, you would see a delicate watermark in the shape of a large house with a locked gate in front of it. This watermark was on all Griffin Truelove’s stationery.

  Effie had never been into her grandfather’s rooms on her own before last week. She hadn’t liked it at all. Everything sounded wrong, smelled wrong – and she kept jumping every time she heard an unfamiliar noise. The heating was switched off and so the place was deathly cold. Effie kept picturing her grandfather in that alleyway, wondering what had made him go there in the middle of the night. People at the hospital said he must have been beaten up by thugs, or just randomly attacked by ‘kids’. But Effie was a kid and she didn’t know anyone who would be likely to attack someone like her grandfather.

  And what about his magic?

  Because surely that’s when you would use magic? However difficult or boring you pretended it was, and however many lectures you gave on using magic responsibly, or trying all other methods of achieving something first, surely, surely, if someone was attacking you, almost killing you, that’s when you would . . .

  What? Turn them into a frog? Shrink them? Make yourself invisible?

  Effie realised miserably that after all this time studying with her grandfather, she didn’t even know what magic did. All she knew were lots of things it didn’t do. ‘Don’t expect magic to make you rich or famous,’ for example. Or, ‘Magic is not how you will get your true power, especially not in your case.’ But whatever it could do, her grandfather had not done it when he was attacked. It didn’t make any sense to her.

  Of course, the obvious explanation was that magic didn’t really exist. After all, that was what most people in the world seemed to think, despite all the Laurel Wilde books they seemed to read. Orwell Bookend had always said that magic didn’t exist. But then last Wednesday he’d said it was dangerous, and implied that he almost believed in it. What had that meant? Effie wondered yet again how something that didn’t exist could have taken away her mother. How could something imaginary be dangerous? And, furthermore, if magic was so dangerous, why had Griffin not used it on the night he was attacked?

  4

  The small hospital was tucked away in the northeastern corner of the Old Town. It had wrought iron railings outside and a huge blue door with a big brass knocker. Effie, tired from all her walking, and a bit weak from having no breakfast, went in. Usually there was a nurse on the desk, but on this Monday morning there was no one, so Effie went up the stairs by herself and along the gloomy corridor. She opened the door to her grandfather’s room, wondering how he was, hoping he had come through the operation OK, despite what he had said on Saturday.

  The room was empty. Well, there was a bed and a bedside cabinet and an empty vase. But her grandfather and all his things were gone. Effie felt tears come to her eyes. But no – she must have gone to the wrong room. Or maybe they had moved him. Or maybe, maybe . . . But it was the right room. She knew that, really. And she understood what it meant.

  The next thing Effie knew she was being taken into the nurse’s special kitchen where someone gave her a cup of hot chocolate, and she was trying not to cry in front of everyone, and one of the nurses was saying that her grandfather had gone peacefully, during the operation, and that he had looked happy, almost, as if he were just at the gates of heaven.

  ‘Where’s my dad?’ asked Effie.<
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  Another nurse said she thought that Effie’s father had gone off to clear out Griffin’s rooms in the Old Rectory. The nurse offered to page him, but the Old Rectory wasn’t far, and Effie said she’d go and meet him there. And so, all of a sudden, that was it. It was a hollow, horrible feeling. Except . . .

  ‘The codicil!’ Effie gasped. ‘What about the codicil?’

  The nurse frowned. ‘The what?’

  ‘And his things. His silver ring and . . . There should be an envelope for me, and some other . . .’

  The nurse shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, dear. Your father said he didn’t want to take anything, so it’s all gone to charity.’

  ‘What? But I don’t understand.’

  ‘A lot of people do that. You know, to give back to the hospital trust. Your grandfather had a ring, you say?’

  ‘Yes. It was an antique, I think. He wanted me to have his . . . Some of his things, very important things, and . . .’

  The nurse sighed. ‘I can show you the room where we put everything if you like.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I don’t think the charity man has been yet. But we’ll have to hurry.’

  Effie followed the nurse out of the main hospital building and down a passageway to a herb garden full of lavender and sage, just starting to die down now before the winter. There was a little cobbled courtyard and some old steps leading up to a one-storey stone building. The sign on the door simply said CHARITY. Inside, there were clothes and books and alarm clocks and all sorts of other sad-looking objects. Effie looked for her grandfather’s things, not wanting them to spend a moment longer in this gloomy place than was necessary. But there was nothing.

  ‘Well?’ asked the nurse. ‘Any sign of this envelope? Or the ring?’

  Effie shook her head. ‘I’ll just check one more time.’

  The nurse looked around her quickly, with a slightly frightened look in her eyes. ‘Well, you’d better be quick, before the charity man gets here.’

  Effie didn’t like the sound of the charity man. But she had to find her grandfather’s things. She searched and searched, but they were not there. Eventually, her eyes filling again with tears, she had to thank the nurse and leave.

  Outside it was still cold, despite the mellow autumnal light. Effie drew her school cape around her and walked quickly towards the Old Rectory. Perhaps her father had taken the things after all. Effie had only been walking for a minute or so when she heard breathing behind her. Someone was following her. She increased her pace; her follower did the same. Then, suddenly, the follower hissed her name – ‘Effie!’ – and grabbed her arm and dragged her into a thin cobbled passageway.

  It was one of the nurses from the hospital. Nurse Underwood – Maximilian’s mother. She was breathing heavily and her face was very stern and serious. She put her finger to her lips and then took Effie’s hand, opened it, and placed in her palm a silver ring with a dark red stone held in place by a number of tiny silver dragons.

  ‘My grandfather’s ring!’ said Effie. ‘Thank you! I— ’

  ‘Shhh!’ said Nurse Underwood urgently. ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ she whispered. ‘And you must hurry away from here. The charity man is coming. He doesn’t like it when we give things away. Don’t let him catch you.’

  Effie thrust the ring in the pocket of her cape and was about to run, but . . .

  ‘What about the other things?’

  Nurse Underwood frowned.

  ‘My grandfather was writing a codicil. You were there when he was doing it.’

  ‘I think your father may have that,’ Nurse Underwood said. ‘As for the other things . . .’ She looked at her watch.

  At exactly that moment Effie heard the sound of more footsteps. These were heavier than Nurse Underwood’s and made a sharper sound. Then a man appeared.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Nurse Underwood. ‘Dr Black. Have you . . .?’

  ‘Hello, Euphemia,’ he said. ‘I’m the surgeon who operated on your grandfather. I’m so sorry for your loss. I did everything I could to get him to the Otherworld, but I don’t know if he made it.’ Dr Black took a cotton drawstring pouch from the pocket of his large overcoat. ‘These are the items that remained. He particularly wanted you to have them, for, well, obvious reasons. He was concerned that if your father got them first they might be destroyed. I tried to catch you before, but you rushed off. Luckily Nurse Underwood beeped me when she saw you leaving. It is of course vital that as few people as possible know about this.’ Dr Black looked up and down the deserted alleyway. Then he gave Effie the drawstring pouch.

  ‘Good luck,’ he said.

  And then, before Effie could even say thank you or ask what Dr Black had meant about the ‘Otherworld’, he and Nurse Underwood both hurried away.

  Effie didn’t want to be caught by the charity man. She opened the drawstring pouch and saw inside the wonde, the crystal, the letter opener and her grandfather’s spectacles. She closed the pouch carefully and put it right at the bottom of her schoolbag. Then she ran.

  When Effie arrived at the Old Rectory, it seemed as if there was no one there, not even her father. Effie reached under the flowerpot for the spare key, but it was gone. She looked through the downstairs window and saw Miss Dora Wright’s things just as the teacher had left them. How awful to have lost two people so dear to her, one after the other. But Miss Wright would come back, of course. Wouldn’t she? Effie couldn’t see into any of the upstairs windows. Were her grandfather’s books still there?

  Just then a latch clicked from inside the Old Rectory, and the door started to open. It was Effie’s father, looking pale and tired. He was tucking a cream-coloured business card into the pocket of his suit trousers, and looking so distracted that he didn’t seem to notice his daughter at first. Then he saw her and his face changed, reddening slowly like an angry sunset.

  ‘Effie,’ said her father. ‘Why aren’t you at school?’ After a pause he looked at the ground. ‘Oh dear. You know about your grandfather.’

  There was a time when Effie and her father had been a lot closer than they were now. There had been a time when this situation would have led to a jumble of feelings and they would have talked and talked – each interrupting the other – until sense finally came out. Once, Effie would have cried, and this would have made her father get out an old-fashioned cotton handkerchief to give her. That was in the days when he still carried handkerchiefs, before Cait made him throw out all his old things, including his gold bow-ties, and buy some plain suits more appropriate for his new role as Dean of the Linguistics Faculty of the Midzhar New University of Excellence.

  Orwell Bookend used to be the kind of university lecturer who floated around absentmindedly trailing great wafts of chalk dust and eager students wanting to know more about whatever lost language or medieval manuscript he’d just lectured on. And once upon a time Cait had been just another one of his adoring students and Effie’s mother had been alive and everything had been different. Before the worldquake Orwell had been a lot kinder, and back then he would have put his arms around his daughter – however cross he really was – and told her everything would be all right.

  This is not what happened now. Instead, Orwell Bookend just sighed loudly.

  ‘Dad?’ said Effie.

  He frowned. ‘I just wish you would do what you are told sometimes, that’s all. I’m very sorry for you – for us all. Everyone loved Griffin, of course. But we could have talked about this later, properly, not in the freezing cold on some doorstep. Rules are rules for a good reason, whatever has happened. And now . . .’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’m going to be late for my faculty meeting and you are already VERY late for school.’

  All the time this was going on a rabbit was sitting under the front hedge wondering why exactly humans were so complicated. Could they not just share a lettuce together and move on? The older human had a very complex aura, the rabbit noted, but one that was not at all magical. The younger human had an extremely magical aura of a sort the rabbit had ne
ver seen before, including a faint colour that didn’t usually exist in this world. It made the rabbit want to help her – even though it did not know how.

  ‘Grandfather Griffin left me a codicil, but I couldn’t find it at the hospital,’ said Effie. ‘Do you know where he put it?’

  Orwell sighed again. ‘Look, Effie. I’m sure you know that your grandfather lived partly in a fantasy world full of people who believe in magic and other dimensions and so on. It probably seemed real at times, but you do understand that it was not real, don’t you? I’ve been worried about what he’s been teaching you recently. What Griffin thought of as “magic” is at best a complete waste of time, and at worst . . .’

  ‘He hardly said anything to me about magic. He just said it was really difficult and that there were always other ways of doing things.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. But whatever stories he may have told you about travelling to other worlds and battling the Diberi, or whatever he called them, Cait and I want you to understand that they were just stories and you should not take them seriously.’

  ‘What’s Cait got to do with this? She’s not even my real mother.’

  ‘Effie, please. We’ve talked about you hurting Cait’s feelings by saying that.’

  ‘Cait isn’t even here. Anyway, what about my codicil?’

  ‘I may as well tell you. I’ve destroyed the codicil. It’s for your own good. I didn’t read it. I burned the wretched thing immediately. I want all this nonsense out of our lives for ever. You should be learning about how the world really is, not how it appears in the addled minds of a bunch of freaks and madmen. You probably don’t understand now, but you’ll thank me later.’

  ‘But a codicil is a . . . It’s a legal document. I have to take it to . . .’ Suddenly Effie decided not to mention Pelham Longfellow. Her father would probably just write him off in the same way he’d done with everyone else Griffin had known. ‘I have to take it to a solicitor.’