The Keeper (3 page)

Chapter 4

Antimony

A
S SOON as Oisín found the Book of Magic, Antimony started in her sleep. Something had shifted in her magical universe, some small ripple from another world, miles and miles away. Probably nothing, she told herself, snuggling back into her moss duvet. Something tugged at her brain, though, like a pea bothering a princess through millions and millions of mattresses: something important was about to happen.

Antimony tried to keep her eyes closed. It was hard to sleep properly when you slept in a tree, though. As soon as the June sun peeped through the leaves, a host of buzzing insects and twittering birds zoomed in. Antimony pulled her duvet over her head as a bird pecked at her toes. Yet again, she imagined she was back in her real home in Nigeria and not living in a tree house with the strangest family she had ever met.

Maybe the Houlihans' house couldn't quite be called a tree house. Ordinary tree houses didn't have seven floors, or bamboo slides, or have segments missing so parts of the trunk hung in mid air. Of course, the Houlihans' house wasn't ordinary at all – it was magic. Antimony couldn't help admiring the Earth Magic that kept parts of the trunk suspended in mid-air. One flat-topped segment of trunk made a great dinner table and it was useful to be able to pass the salt without reaching around a giant hunk of oak.

Each floor, including Antimony's bedroom near the top of the tree, had the same round table in its centre, with the trunk continuing as normal towards the roof. It wasn't really Antimony's room, though. If it had been Antimony's room the table would have had something good on it. A moss trampoline. Or a fireball set. Or she would have left it bare so she could stand on it and pretend she was holding up the tree with her hands. Instead, the table was covered with herbs, small jars of strangely coloured liquids and lots and lots of books.

‘Can you stop reading? I'm trying to sleep,' Antimony grumbled, burying her head in her pillow.

She could almost have liked the Houlihans' house if she didn't have to share a room with Caoimhe.

‘Sorry.' It was Tom, not Caoimhe. That was how it was with those two. Tom was so good-natured he would apologise even when he hadn't done anything wrong.

‘If you'd let me brew you a potion I'm sure you could sleep fine,' Caoimhe said, loudly turning another of the bark pages from the enormous book she was reading.

‘No, thanks. I don't want you to poison me,' Antimony mumbled into her pillow.

She felt a peck at her toes, but she didn't know it was a raven. Otherwise she would have got out of bed. Antimony could always jump straight out of bed when something was important.

‘Keep still, Tom!' Caoimhe said as Tom tried to pat his dog, Giant.

‘Sorry.'

Caoimhe was practising on Tom again. She wanted to be a druid-doctor and was always reading herbal books and mixing medicines. As most of the Tuatha Dé Danann on the island were very healthy, they didn't have much need for medicine, especially when it was brewed by a twelve-year-old girl. Only Tom was too nice to refuse, even though he was a year older than Caoimhe and was setting a bad precedent for older brothers, in Antimony's opinion.

Even Tom was looking a little uneasy about the jar that Caoimhe was holding out. It looked like a brew of nettles, twigs, dandelion petals and something bright purple. Tom's face turned a pale shade of green.

‘Are you sure I need to take this? I only scratched my arm when I was climbing.'

‘Drink it!' Caoimhe said in a bossy voice.

‘You definitely read the recipe right? You remember the time you thought you were going to stop my nosebleed and you turned my nose into a strawberry?'

‘Keep still!' Caoimhe said, twisting her special pen. A strand of grass curled out from the tip and tied around Tom's arm.

‘Not that I minded having a strawberry nose,' Tom continued. ‘My snots were really tasty.'

‘You can't swallow if you're talking,' Caoimhe said.

‘Sorry,' Tom said, taking a gulp from the jar.

His face opened and closed as if it couldn't believe what it had been forced to drink.

‘Keep still!' Caoimhe said, knotting the grass tightly.

‘Sorry,' Tom managed to say, but this ‘sorry' seemed a little more annoyed than apologetic.

Antimony didn't blame Tom. If Caoimhe had been
her
sister (her real sister, that is), she didn't know what she would do.

‘Is my arm supposed to be growing twigs?' Tom asked.

Antimony heard the pages flick rapidly.

‘Oh!' Caoimhe said in a small voice. ‘Two drops of ash-tree sap, not two teaspoons.'

Antimony couldn't help poking her head out. Tom's arm was changing in front of her eyes. Small little twigs were popping out of his skin, his fingers were getting longer and thinner and all his goose pimples had been covered over in bark. Caoimhe had turned Tom's arm into a branch.

‘Well, you definitely fixed that scratch I had. You'd never know it was bruised.'

Tom gave a big smile to show that he thought that having a branch for an arm was rather cool. Giant shuffled over and sniffed Tom's arm suspiciously. He was used to seeing Tom in strange states but he'd never seen him turn into a tree before. Tom ran his twig-fingers through Giant's shaggy coat.

‘Maybe I can be a pirate now,' he said happily. ‘Do you think pirates can have wooden arms as well as wooden legs?'

‘You definitely have a wooden brain,' Caoimhe said as she flicked through her book. ‘It only happened because you moved.'

‘Yeah, that's it,' Tom said with a gentle shake of his head. ‘It has nothing to do with the potion you gave me, just me moving. Careful you don't blink, Antimony, or your face will turn into a tulip.'

Tom gave Antimony one of his smiles, the sort that included her if she wanted to be included. Antimony turned back into her covers. If she had to have a brother, Tom wouldn't be so bad, she supposed. He was good for climbing trees with, and didn't care at all about books.

Only if she
had
to have a brother, though. But they weren't really siblings. How could they be, when they didn't look at all alike? The only thing they had in common was their green eyes. Tom and Caoimhe had the same pale skin and bushy mop of chestnut brown hair, though Caoimhe usually turned her hair green with magic grass. Antimony's black hair was plaited into long dreadlocks and, like everybody else in her real family, her skin was black. Or as her father used to say, it was dark brown but people who couldn't see colours very well called it black.

Antimony snuggled under the covers. She didn't like thinking of her family but she couldn't get back to sleep either. Caoimhe kept flicking through her book of herbal remedies as she searched for a cure and there was still the strange pecking at Antimony's toes. Antimony supposed it was Giant. Back home in Nigeria, her parents would never have allowed so many annoying animals to live with them. Her mother could have mixed some fire dust to fix Tom's arm in seconds. Antimony closed her eyes and told her brain to stop remembering. Her brain wasn't very good at listening to her, though. Once it had started remembering her parents it couldn't stop.

‘Ow! Get that stupid dog off me!' Antimony shouted as she felt another nip at her ankle.

‘It's not Giant,' Tom said. ‘It's a bird.'

‘Maybe I can practise on him,' Caoimhe said excitedly. ‘I need to learn how to fix broken wings.'

‘Fly away, raven, fly away,' Tom called out.

Antimony bolted upright as soon as she heard what kind of bird was at her bed. The raven looked at her with his big green eyes and disappeared back into the forest. Antimony knew what she had to do.

‘You've scared it away,' Caoimhe said, disappointed that she wouldn't have a bird to practise on.

‘I guess you must have fixed his broken wing,' Tom said, rolling his eyes.

‘It's just a stupid raven,' Caoimhe answered. ‘It shouldn't be flying this far south anyway. It means trouble.'

‘Not all ravens are evil,' Tom said, hugging Giant as if he couldn't imagine how any creature could be bad.

While they were arguing, Antimony had already pulled her arms through her favourite orange T-shirt and had slipped into her purple jeans.

‘Where are you going?' Caoimhe said. ‘You know we have to help Mum with the hay?'

‘I know,' Antimony said, slinging her special pouch over her shoulder.

‘Want to play fireball later?' Tom asked.

‘Maybe. Are you sure you want to play with a wooden arm, though?' Antimony said, looking for a large leaf to ride down the slide on.

‘Sure,' Tom said with a laugh. ‘I'll be tree-riffic.'

Antimony jumped onto the slide before Tom saw her smile. The bamboo slide was another good piece of Earth Magic and in a couple of seconds Antimony was on the forest floor. She quickly ran into a cluster of trees. Some of the other children would be searching for magic chestnuts or playing mossball in the clearing. She'd been on the island for six months now, but people still whispered when she walked past. Not on the side trails, though. None of the squirrels or insects cared how famous her parents had been. Instead, the oak, ash and holly trees stretched towards the sun and towered above as if they were gentle guardians, looking out only for her.

As she got deeper into the forest, there were fewer spots of sun and she thought she could hear the bears and snakes that Tom promised were there. Antimony spread her arms wide and took in a gulp of forest air. Nowhere else could make her feel so safe and excited at the same time.

It didn't take Antimony long to find the tall hazel tree where she had carved out her initials. She'd been meeting Cluaiscín there once a week, so she was used to the routine. She picked up a piece of bark large enough to stand on, placed it beside the trunk, and reached into her pouch, which had everything important she'd taken from her parents' laboratory. She found her special slingshot and placed a couple of twigs inside. As soon as they started to glow, she shot the twigs at the bark and watched it begin to fizz. Antimony jumped on top and waited. Seconds later, there was a huge crackle and the bark whooshed up into the air. Antimony leapt sideways and clung onto a branch as the bark whizzed into the clouds.

She could have climbed the tree, but travelling by fire was much cooler. And it reminded her of her parents, of the first time her father had taught her the trick.

Antimony swallowed a sigh. Remembering was hard. Sometimes it made you feel better, as if memories were a warm blanket you could snuggle into. And then sometimes the blanket itched, scratched at feelings you didn't want to think about. Sometimes the memories made you feel cold instead of warm.

Antimony told her brain to stop and turned to the raven. Most people had to transform before they could speak to birds, but Antimony's mother had taught her Raven when she was five.

‘Cluaiscín. This better be important for you to have woken me up.'

Cluaiscín flapped his feathers and shuffled his feet, looking very much like he would roll his eyes if that was something ravens did.

‘Nice to see you too, Miss Antimony,' he said, hopping up and down on the branch. ‘Cluaiscín has had such a long, cold journey with such big news. It's nice to be welcomed home.'

‘What news do you have?' Antimony asked sharply.

‘Such a long, cold journey across the sea,' Cluaiscín said, hugging himself with his wings. He looked down from the treetop at the sea which stretched out for miles without land in sight.

‘OK, fine, but this better be good,' Antimony said, closing her eyes and concentrating. Smoke came out of her nostrils in a moment, billowing over to Cluaiscín and warming him immediately.

‘So what's the news?'

‘Cluaiscín had
such
a long journey. Not a scrap to eat for miles.'

Antimony crinkled her nose in annoyance but fumbled with her bag to pull out some worms. She held one out as Cluaiscín opened his beak.

‘First, tell me what this is about,' Antimony said.

‘I've found the Book of Magic,' Cluaiscín said.

Antimony dropped the worm, which couldn't escape Cluaiscín's beak in time.

‘You're sure?'

‘Positive,' Cluaiscín said through a mouthful of worm.

‘Where did you find it?'

‘Dublin.'

‘Which way is it?' Antimony asked, standing up. She'd never heard of Dublin, but she figured it couldn't be that hard to find once she set off in the right direction.

‘You shouldn't go there,' Cluaiscín said. ‘It's across the ocean. Where the Milesians are.'

‘The people who banished the Tuatha Dé Danann from Ireland? That'll make it easy. None of them know a thing about magic.'

‘I'm not so sure,' Cluaiscín said, thinking of the boy with the green eyes who had found the Book.

‘Whatever they can do, they haven't met me,' Antimony said, standing as tall as she could and flicking her dreadlocks back impressively. ‘Are you going to tell me how to get to this Dublin place?'

‘You shouldn't go there.'

‘Don't tell me what to do.'

‘No. You shouldn't go there because the Book's already coming here.'

Antimony gripped onto the branch beside her for support. After all this time, the Book of Magic was coming to her.

‘Who has it?'

‘Some Milesian boy.'

‘Then it will be easy to take it from him.'

‘It's not that simple. He's the Keeper of the Book now. You can't just take it.'

Antimony gritted her teeth. For years she'd been searching for this book. She wished her parents had told her more about how it worked.

‘There is one time when the Book can be transferred,' Cluaiscín said, sensing another worm.

‘When?'

‘The Lughnasa festival.'