Deep Amber (5 page)

Florence looked momentarily horrified and put her hand to her mouth, as if to cram the name back in, but it was too late. Both her children were looking up at her expectantly, memories of the tall, lanky, dark-haired man who'd been such a constant presence in their childhood suddenly crowding into their heads… She sighed.

“Lou was Great-Aunt Irene's son. Your father's cousin,” said Florence, reluctantly. “He was around quite a bit when you were younger, but it's been a long time…”

“Aren't there some photos of him in the old album?” said Cat suddenly. “You know, the blue one – where is it? We haven't had it out for years!”

“It's in that grey box in my room,” said Florence,
and then added, as if making the best of it, “Why don't you go and get it and we can have a look through the pictures.”

When Cat came back down with the tatty blue photo album, Florence turned to the early photos, showing Simon as a baby, with his dad holding him up proudly, and two-year-old Cat looking utterly uninterested in the new arrival.

“There,” said his mum, pointing her finger at a shadowy figure standing behind his dad. “That's Lou. He never did like being photographed, I only got that one because he wasn't paying attention.”

Uncle Lou looked a little like a scarecrow, Simon thought – all long arms and legs and a shock of messy dark hair, looking slightly away from the camera, and half hidden by his dad. His dad was a much stockier figure, with strong arms and very fair curly hair, and a wide smile. Cat had inherited their dad's bright hair and blue eyes, he thought. His own was dark and straight, like Mum's. Like Uncle Lou's.

“He and your dad were cousins, but they seemed more like brothers,” said Mum, smiling at the photo. “Irene took your dad in after his parents died, so they more or less grew up together.
Lou was a total computer geek, used to write games. Actually, that old game you like playing on your DS, Simon, the one with all the knights – that was one of his, originally.”

“
Castle Quest
?” said Simon, surprised. “He
wrote
it?”

“Well, he wrote the prototype. He'd gone off travelling by the time it was made. But it was mostly his characters and his ideas.”

“It's funny,” said Cat, frowning. “I remember Uncle Lou now, but I'd hardly thought of him till you said his name.”

She turned a few pages of the album, past the point where their father suddenly faded out of the family snaps, to one of her standing proudly in her new school uniform next to a pair of very long legs. “Look – there's one here – isn't that Uncle Lou?”

Florence nodded, and turned the page to another photo of Simon and Cat side by side on a bench, eating ice-cream.

“Look, that's when we went to Wareham!” she said brightly.

“I remember,” said Simon, turning the page back. “I remember him taking
me
to school when
I first started, too. I don't know why I'd forgotten. But where did he go? And if he was Great-Aunt Irene's son, how come she left
us
the house, and not him?”

Florence sighed. “Well, she always said the house was meant to go to your dad, so after he died she said we should have it. There was some heirloom or other for Lou. But I don't know if she managed to pass it on to him – he disappeared years ago and he didn't come back for the funeral. I'm not sure she really knew how to get hold of him, they hadn't spoken in ages.”

“So what happened to him?” said Cat, curious. “Why did he disappear?”

Florence's expression suddenly turned rather vague. “We had a bit of a row,” she said. “When Simon was about five. He went off in a temper, decided he was going to travel the world.”

“A row?” said Cat. “What about?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” said Florence briskly. She stood up. “Right, it's late. You need to get to bed, and so do I. The sword can go back down in the cellar, since it's been there safely all this time. Come on – upstairs. No arguments.”

Simon knew better than to object, but he caught Cat's eye, and she nodded slightly. Much later, when Florence had turned off her light, Cat came padding up to Simon's attic room in her dressing-gown and slippers, and settled down on the end of his bed.

“We need to talk,” she said. “Something odd's going on.”

“I know,” said Simon. “Mum was being weird. How can this sword be
Dad's
? And how come we'd completely forgotten Uncle Lou?”

Cat wrinkled up her nose, thinking hard.

“No idea. I suppose it's possible I just got used to him not being there and forgot about him, but – I don't know – that seems unlikely. I must have been
seven
when he went. He practically lived with us most of the time we were little. And then… he just didn't come round any more.” She frowned. “And then there's the sword. Mum didn't leave it there, you were right.”

“Do you think Uncle Lou had anything to do with it?” said Simon.

“What, like he sneaked in and left it on the stairs?” said Cat doubtfully.

They looked at each other. It wasn't a very
comforting idea, that someone could have broken into the house in the early morning and left a whacking great sword on the stairs. But otherwise, the sword had just appeared on its own, and that wasn't a very comforting idea either.

“Could he have anything to do with those people in suits?” said Simon. “The radiation people – Smith and Jones. Could one of those have been…?”

“Uncle Lou?” said Cat, sounding shocked. “No way! They were creepy. He was never, ever, creepy! He was always joking and being an idiot. He was more like the other one. Albert Jemmet. But tall and thin.” She chewed her thumbnail, deep in thought. “The sword,” she said, tentatively. “How come it
felt
so strange?”

Simon was quiet for a moment, then he got out of bed and went across to his chest of drawers. He rummaged in his sock drawer, and then came back holding out a small wooden box.

“I thought it felt a bit like this,” he said, and held out the object to Cat. “I was going to show you once I'd got it open, but – well, maybe you'd better have a look now.”

It was a narrow jewellery box of dark wood,
with strange markings on the top. There were three deeply carved symbols, and just above them, a carving of what looked like a precious stone. It had been painted, once, but the paint was faded, and almost worn off. It was just possible to see that the stone had been coloured a deep orange-yellow, like a fiery sunset.

Cat took the box, and almost dropped it.

“You're right!” she said. “It's just like the sword, all prickly and electric.” She looked accusingly at Simon. “Where did it come from? When did you find it? Why didn't you
tell
me?”

“I found it under the floor just by my bed, a few days ago,” he said. “A bit of Lego went down a crack between the floorboards, and I was digging around trying to get hold of it when I realised one of the boards was loose. So I pulled it up to see if I could find the Lego piece, and the box was just there. I
was
going to tell you – I just wanted to see if I could open it first.”

Cat tried to lift the lid of the box, getting her fingernails under and pulling from different sides. But although there didn't seem to be a lock of any sort, the box remained firmly closed.

Simon shook his head. “It's no good – I've tried
everything. I even tried to get my penknife in and prise it open.” He rummaged in his drawer again and brought out his Swiss Army Knife to show her – the end of the blade had been snapped off cleanly.

Cat frowned at the box, and then ran her fingers over the symbols on the top.

“There's something about these,” she said. “They look familiar. I'm sure I've seen them somewhere before… Maybe they're a clue about how to open it.”

“Should we show it to Mum, do you think?” said Simon. He looked at her with a very neutral expression.

Cat met his gaze. “We should, you know,” she said. “After all, it must have belonged to Great-Aunt Irene. So it's Mum's, really.”

There was a moment's silence.

Then Cat raised one eyebrow. “But… she did say we could have anything we wanted from Great-Aunt Irene's things. And neither of us has chosen anything yet. So…”

“… we could choose this,” finished Simon.

They grinned at each other, then Cat dug in her dressing-gown pocket and pulled out the card
Albert Jemmet had left. She twirled it in between her fingers.

“You know, I really didn't want to move here,” she said. “I thought it would be boring. But right now I'm beginning to think it might have…
interesting
possibilities.”

Chapter Five

The Great Forest was old, and peculiar. It had always been part of the kingdom, but the forest had its own laws, and you couldn't enter it without magic. Very few people had ever met any of the folk who lived there, and those who had couldn't agree on what they looked like. Some said they were tall and thin, with faintly green skin, while others swore they were short, fat men with long beards who smelled of the earth. The innkeeper who'd pointed out the way to Dora and Jem said the only forest folk he'd ever seen had been three inches high, with wings.

It had taken them about an hour to reach the edge of the forest from Bridbury. Now the outer trees loomed above them, large and forbidding, and the way forward appeared to be barred by
a tapestry of dark thorny brambles and vines growing between the trunks.

“Now what?” said Jem, dumping his pack on the ground. “We can't get through there. What a waste of time. We've obviously gone the wrong way.”

Dora slipped her own pack off her shoulder and flexed her fingers. “You have to use a finding spell to see the path,” she told him. “The Druid showed me.”

“Oh, of course!” said Jem, his face clearing. “That'll be why I had to have you along, instead of just going by myself. To do the magic. Well, come on then, Dora, get on with it.”

He grinned at her, and Dora wondered if he knew how annoying he was being. She suspected he did, and that just made her feel even more cross. Trust Jem to think that he was the messenger and she was just along to help him, when it was completely the other way round. And he might need her, for her magic, but she wasn't sure exactly what she needed
him
for.

Dora turned to face the forest, a scowl on her face. She held out her hands and said the exact words of the spell the Druid had shown her.
Almost immediately, a path appeared in the gap – it was narrow, and slightly ghostly, a pale ribbon slipping in between the gnarled trunks and on into the cool shadows. Jem hesitated, looked at Dora with one eyebrow raised, then shouldered his pack and strode forward with a cheerful whistle.

Dora trudged after him, seething. There he was, swaggering his way through the Great Forest whistling, when everyone knew that you had to be extremely respectful and
extremely
humble in the Great Forest. Expecting Jem to be humble was like expecting a hawk to roost with the chickens.

Suddenly Jem stopped, and held up his hand.

“Can you hear something?” he whispered.

Dora looked behind her. She could no longer see the place where they had entered. Branches swept low across the path, and the gleam of sunlight from beyond the edge of the trees was barely visible. Everything was still, and quiet. Then, just as she was about to shake her head, she heard a faint hiss, coming from up ahead. She froze. The hiss was followed by a clanking sound, and then what sounded like a whistle.

Jem's hand went to his short sword. He eased
it out of the scabbard, and gestured to her to get behind him. “Follow me – stay close,” he mouthed, and set off cautiously up the path.

Dora stayed about as close as she could without tripping him up, her ears straining for the faint metallic clanking up ahead. As they moved forward, the sounds got louder, and they could see wisps of smoke filtering through the trees. Suddenly, there was a huge shriek, and a sound like thunder. The ground under their feet shook, and a shadow seemed to pass through the trees to their left.

Dora and Jem froze.

But then slowly the noise and tremors faded, moving off deeper into the forest, away from the path.

Jem shrugged, and put his sword away.

“It's gone. Probably just the forest folk,” he said, and clapped her on the shoulder. “No need to be scared, Dora. There's bound to be a few odd noises in a place like this.”

But before Dora could answer, he had set off up the path again, whistling tunefully. Dora gritted her teeth, and headed after him.
It was about mid morning when they reached a fork in the path. They were now deep in the forest, and their footsteps were barely leaving any mark in the soft layers of dead leaves. Jem's whistling had finally died away under the weight of the surrounding silence. The light had faded to a greenish dimness, and when Jem turned round, Dora could only just see his pale face in front of her.