The Serpent in the Glass (The Tale of Thomas Farrell) (32 page)

Jessica smiled. ‘We hid in the Undercarriage. It’s all a heap of timber now, but it cushioned us against the crash I think. When we crawled out from under the wreckage, the creature had gone. We thought it’d gone after you, that’s why we were running to find you when — when we came across this —
this!
’ She pointed at the Gruagach who eyed her back suspiciously.

‘Well, we should try to find our way out,’ Penders said rubbing his stomach. ‘I’d like to be home for tea.’

Ghillie shook his head. ‘Hungry One not make it back for tea. Hungry One never have tea again.’

Penders looked shocked.

‘What do you mean?’ Jessica said.

Ghillie twisted his head as he looked at her braces. ‘Chatty One in Muddlestump Wood. You not find way out.’

‘That is why it is forbidden,’ Thayer said glumly and everyone looked at him. ‘It is said that once a person steps into Muddlestump Wood he is lost forever. It was one of the bad places I was supposed to help you avoid.’

Ghillie’s eyes narrowed and he stared at Thayer. ‘Now I see, yes I thought so! You are Grey Skin child. You lead Og Tiarna into Muddlestump to trap him here! Ghillie sort you out!’

Ghillie raised his crook staff and started to inflate again so that he was quickly almost twice the height he had been just moments before.

‘Wait, wait!’ Thomas said interposing himself between Ghillie and Thayer. ‘He was brought up by Humbalgogs, and he’s my friend. He didn’t lead us here, we were chased here by the Fachan.’

Ghillie swayed again as he had before, then deflated to what Thomas supposed was his normal size. ‘Well,’ he said once he had regained his composure and brushed a few twigs from his reddish-brown fur, ‘Og Tiarna’s friend is my friend, but a great misfortune, yes, to be a Grey Skin and also brought up by Bumbleclogs!’

Thayer didn’t seem offended by the remark, although a little surprised perhaps. Merideah meanwhile had removed her watch, turned it over and flipped it open. Thomas peered into her hand and saw a compass.

‘Right,’ she said pointing toward the part of the forest from which Thomas had come. ‘That way’s east. If we follow it we’ll come to the edge of the forest.’

Ghillie was very interested in the compass and jumped every now and again to catch glimpses of it as he followed alongside. Thomas wondered why he didn’t just inflate himself instead.

Merideah stopped after about thirty feet and shook her head. ‘The compass is now showing us to be walking west, but we’ve walked in a straight line!’ She tried again and again, but the compass kept on swinging around at certain points as if it had a will of its own. Finally, she closed it and strapped it back to her wrist. ‘There must be magnetic interference. It’s useless.’

‘Great, so we’re stuck here with no food and a small hairy creature with an attitude problem,’ Penders moaned.

The Gruagach’s small, beady eyes flashed at Penders. ‘I could find mouse for Hungry One. Ghillie always willing to help Og Tiarna’s friends!’

Penders grimaced. ‘No thanks.’

‘If there’s a way in then there’s a way out!’ Merideah said defiantly. ‘We couldn’t have come more than fifty paces into the wood. We just need to test out each direction for the same distance from this central point.’

Merideah pulled a chunk of chalk from one of the many pockets in her trousers. ‘The trees are too dense to get our bearings by climbing them, unless we find a really high one.’

Ghillie looked up at a nearby tree through narrowed eyes. ‘They not let you climb them anyway. And they not dense — no, they cunning and mean!’

Merideah ignored the Gruagach. ‘So, we’ll have to try another method.’

‘It won’t work.’ Ghillie sat down and watched the children. ‘Nothing will work.’

Thomas got the impression that Ghillie Dhu lived a very dull existence. He seemed glad of the entertainment. But it was no light matter for Thomas and his friends. They needed to get out of this place, but Thomas had a horrible feeling that Ghillie was right: Merideah’s idea wasn’t going to work. It was as if Muddlestump Wood had decided they were going to stay. Permanently.

After marking a cross on a tree with her chalk, Merideah instructed everyone to explore fifty paces in the direction from which they’d come. Thomas insisted they all stay together. There was no sense in getting separated; Thomas wasn’t as convinced as Ghillie about never seeing the Fachan again, besides who knew what other dangerous creatures dwelt in Muddlestump Wood? So everyone followed after Merideah through the wood, even Ghillie who shuffled along behind, his eyes and small face fixed with an intense expression of curiosity.

‘This is impossible!’ Merideah exclaimed about an hour later, just after coming across the fifth tree marked with a white cross. ‘The trees keep on moving!’ Merideah’s face reddened as she realized what she’d said.

‘Trees not move,’ said Ghillie. ‘Younglings move and get confused.’

‘Can you do any better?’ Merideah snapped.

‘Ooooh!’ Ghillie whooped. ‘No, Ghillie not do any better than Bossy One. Ghillie only a lowly Gruagach.’

Merideah gave Ghillie a hard stare, but the Gruagach screwed his face up at her, and she turned away in disgust.

Penders sat down on the forest floor and leant back against the tree with Merideah’s cross on it. His stomach rumbled. ‘I’m having a rest. I think we should conserve our energy until we can eat.’

‘You’re always thinking about your stomach,’ Merideah said, as she sat down against another tree. She pulled something from one of her many pockets and tossed it into Penders’ lap.

‘What’s this?’ Penders said as he picked it up.

‘A Cornish pasty. I always keep some on me in case of emergencies.’ She rooted though her pockets and threw one to each of the others.

Penders unwrapped the pasty with a smile on his face. ‘Merideah, you know a way to a man’s heart.’

Merideah gave Penders a withering look, tore open her pasty, and took a bite. The others thanked her for the unexpected food.

‘Father taught me to always be prepared. Anyway, Thomas, you never told us about your eyes?’

‘Oh, my contacts fell out. They’re filtered,’ Thomas explained.

‘Obviously,’ Merideah said. ‘I find glasses more comfortable.’

‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with my sight. It’s just that they used to freak out Mrs Westhrop, so Mr Westhrop made me wear the contacts all the time — except at night of course.’

‘How unusual.’ Merideah took another bite of her pasty.

Thomas wondered if Merideah meant it was strange that he’d been made to wear the contacts or that it was strange that his eyes were so bright a green.

Ghillie, whose eyes were a similar colour to Merideah’s, didn’t have a pasty. He ambled over to Thomas, a curious look upon his face as he eyed the item of food. ‘What’s Cornish posty?’

‘Pasty,’ Thomas corrected, as he broke off a piece and put it into Ghillie’s thick-skinned hands, careful to avoid the creature’s sharp claws.

Ghillie sniffed the pasty with his thick, rubbery nose and then cautiously put it in his mouth and began to chew. He stopped suddenly, swallowed, and — eyes alight — his lips curled upwards in what Thomas thought must be a smile. ‘Mmmmm!’

Thayer, like Ghillie, had also never had a pasty before, and so naturally took his time eating it. Unfortunately for him, Ghillie was somewhat more enthusiastic in devouring the snack, and so seeing Thayer as the only one in the group who still had some of the delightful new food left in his hand, went and sat next to the Fomorfelk, staring up at him with puppy eyes. Thayer’s soft nature soon got the better of him and he passed the remainder of his pasty to the Gruagach. Ghillie gobbled it down in seconds.

‘They say a young cadet wandered into here a few years ago on a dare,’ Thayer said after Ghillie Dhu had returned to sit by Thomas.

‘What happened to him?’ Jessica asked.

Thayer shrugged. ‘He was never seen again.’

Everyone looked at Thayer, but he didn’t notice. He was staring blankly out into the wood. Thomas felt his marbles digging into the flesh of his thigh, so he straightened his leg and pulled the bag from his pocket.

‘What’s in the bag?’ whispered Ghillie in his husky voice, his eyes widening in interest and his mouth displaying a row of small, sharp teeth. ‘Is it more patsies?’

‘Just marbles,’ Thomas said, deciding not to tell him about the Serpent in the Glass. ‘And it’s pasties not patsies.’

‘Marbles?’ Ghillie said, ignoring the correction. ‘What’s marbles?’

Thomas slipped his hand into the bag and pulled out a large marble with a golden band in its glassy depths.

‘Ooohhh! Pretty. Yes, Og Tiarna. Pretty.’

Thomas gave him the marble and the Gruagach shuffled off to examine the strange little glass ball.

‘Why does he keep on calling you that?’ Penders looked at Ghillie, who was now testing the marble’s hardness by biting on it with his small, sharp, white teeth.

‘Calling me what?’ Thomas said.

Penders frowned at the creature. ‘You know, “Og Tiarna”. Probably some made up word.’

Thomas looked up. ‘No, it’s not. It means Young Lord.’

Penders frowned. ‘How’d you know that?’

By the look on their faces, everyone else also wanted to know how he knew. But so did Thomas. He knew what it meant, but he couldn’t say how. It was as if he knew the words, as if they were part of his own language. He’d not even thought about it until now. The words weren’t English. How could he know their meaning?

Thomas slowly shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I just do somehow.’

Jessica cocked her head to one side. ‘Don’t you find that strange, Thomas?’

‘This whole place is strange.’ Thomas sighed. ‘Maybe I heard it in Havelock’s class or read it in the library?’

The others went back to casting glances about the forest in the hope of seeing its edge, all except for Merideah who seemed lost in thought, though she cast a glance back at Thomas every now and again. Ghillie eventually came back over to sit beside Thomas, the marble he’d been given now rolling about in his dark, wrinkled hands.

Thomas smiled. Despite the wild look and crude behaviour of the Gruagach, Thomas found himself glad that Ghillie was with them. ‘You can keep it if you want.’

‘Keep pretty ball? Og Tiarna is very generous, yes. But Ghillie Dhu has no pockets.’ He reluctantly put the marble back into Thomas’s hand. ‘Ghillie not want to lose pretty ball. Ghillie give it back to Og Tiarna.’

Thomas nodded and opened up the bag to put the marble back in. But, as he did so, Ghillie saw the Serpent in the Glass and his eyes went wide.

‘Og Tiarna has fun with us, yes, walking around Muddlestump when he has way out?’

His words got everyone’s attention.

Thomas froze. ‘What do you mean?’

The Gruagach pointed to the bag. ‘Og Tiarna has the Serpent Glass!’

Thomas looked at the others who were all now looking at him. Clearly they weren’t going to speak. Perhaps Ghillie had just called it that because it was made of glass and had a serpent in it. But something about the way he said it made Thomas doubt that was true. The Gruagach must’ve seen it before, or at least known of its existence.

‘It was a gift from my father,’ Thomas said, somewhat cautiously.

‘Ghillie not doubt that,’ he rasped. ‘Why Og Tiarna not use it? Summon the Power?’

Merideah stood. ‘Ghillie, how do you know about the Serpent in the Glass?’

Ghillie Dhu stared at her as if reluctant to speak, but then he seemed to remember something, probably the pasty. ‘Ghillie served the Ard Tiarnai. Ghillie saw them use it.’

‘Who are the Ard Tiarnai?’ Merideah asked, looking first to Ghillie and then to Thomas.

‘High Lords,’ Thomas answered, eliciting raised eyebrows from Penders and the two girls. Thomas shook his head at the question he knew was in their minds. He didn’t know how he knew that either. He just did.

‘Ard Tiarnai were strong in the Old Power, not like silly Bumbleclogs,’ Ghillie explained. ‘They were kind to Ghillie Dhu, but then went away and never came back.’ Ghillie looked sad as he whispered these words, but then he looked up at Thomas and his eyes lit up again. ‘But now Og Tiarna is here.’

Thomas reddened and was suddenly glad of the forest’s gloom. Ghillie had obviously decided to attach himself to Thomas and there wasn’t a lot Thomas could do about it. Despite the Gruagach’s confidence in Thomas using the Glass to escape the wood, Thomas was sure they would still need Ghillie’s help, and if that meant allowing Ghillie to believe Thomas was some returned young lord then so be it. ‘Ghillie, do you know how to use the Glass to find our way out of Muddlestump?’

Ghillie cackled what must have been a laugh. ‘Og Tiarna plays with Ghillie! Gruagach cannot use Serpent Glass.’

Thomas didn’t know anything of the sort, and he certainly wasn’t laughing. They’d been in Muddlestump Wood for several hours now and the gloom seemed to be growing heavier. He wanted to get out of this cloying, windless, tree-filled cage.

‘Maybe if we move around, the Glass might glow when we get near something — like it did with the Way Gate?’ Penders suggested.

Thomas nodded. ‘Sounds as good an idea as any.’

Thomas got up and started to walk around. Ghillie followed behind, scratching in the undergrowth with his staff every now and again to root out small rodents, which he caught in his clawed feet and swallowed whole.

‘It’s disgusting,’ Merideah whispered to Penders the third time the Gruagach did it.

‘Yeah,’ Penders replied. ‘But at least he’s not eating the pasties.’

Merideah eyed him. ‘How did you know I had more?’

Penders grinned. ‘I didn’t, until you just said that.’

Merideah shook her head and turned her attention back to Thomas.

‘This isn’t working.’ Thomas dropped down against an old gnarled tree. The Glass hadn’t so much as glimmered, and Thomas wondered if they were doomed to be trapped here forever like that poor cadet Thayer had mentioned.

‘How can it be so difficult to find the edge of this wood?’ Penders slipped down beside Thomas and yawned widely.

‘Let’s rest,’ said Thomas.

‘Not long,’ said Merideah as she and the others sat. ‘It’s getting darker, and we won’t have enough light to see where we’re going.’