Galloglass

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘By noon?’ said Wolf. ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t be late,’ said the voice. ‘In fact, I’d get here as quick as you can. We operate on a first come, first served basis. And there’s intense competition for the places on our programme. I’d waste no time, if I were you. This will probably be the only chance you’ll get to find out where your sister is. It is your sister you seek, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Natasha Reed. Please can you just tell me where she is?’

  ‘Everybody is searching for something, young man. What makes you think your quest is so special?’

  Wolf didn’t know what to say to that. ‘She’s only ten,’ he said. ‘She needs to be protected.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the voice. ‘Get here by noon and we’ll talk.’

  7

  Effie sat down on the large white sofa in the drawing room of Truelove House. Cosmo sat next to her. The female wizard sat on a dark pink armchair and peered at Effie closely.

  ‘This child needs to return to her own world soon,’ she said to Cosmo.

  ‘I agree,’ said Cosmo. ‘She is running low on lifeforce.’

  It was true. Effie’s headache was intensifying.

  ‘She has not . . .?’ said the woman.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Cosmo. ‘We’ve been waiting.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the woman.

  Effie wanted to ask what they were talking about. But the atmosphere in the room suddenly became dense and heavy, and then sort of ethereal, and then, gradually, very, very still and calm. It was as if someone had dimmed the lights and lit a particularly beautiful scented candle. Effie felt both more sleepy than she’d ever felt and more awake. Great smoky waves of relaxation settled over her like powerful incense. Was this magic? If so, it was the best magic Effie had ever experienced. She tried to will more of it to come to wash over her.

  ‘Yes, and she has no resistance either, has she?’ said the wise-looking female wizard, lowering her hands. Was that a spell she’d been casting on Effie? Effie didn’t want her to stop.

  The female wizard got up, walked over to Effie and touched her lightly on the head. Effie’s headache disappeared. She felt strong again. She wanted to ask what the wizard had done, but she suddenly felt shy and a little afraid. Whatever it was, it was something even Cosmo couldn’t do. Effie could just tell.

  ‘My name is Suri,’ said the woman. ‘I’m a member of the Council of Wizards. Like your family, we’re based here in Dragon’s Green. I’ve been told you don’t yet know much about our world.’

  ‘No,’ said Effie. ‘But I’m trying to learn.’

  ‘And you had an unfortunate encounter today, I believe?’

  Effie told Suri as briefly as she could what had happened in Froghole.

  ‘And then you attacked her?’ said Suri, when Effie got to the part in her story about Dr Wiseacre turning the lever that she’d said would hurt Clothilde.

  ‘I was trying to protect Clothilde,’ said Effie.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I don’t know what else I could have done,’ said Effie. ‘She wanted me to tell her where Dragon’s Green was. Apart from anything else, I don’t actually know how to explain how to get here, so I couldn’t have told her even if I’d have wanted to.’

  ‘Would you have told her, if you’d known how to explain it?’

  ‘No,’ said Effie. ‘I would never help anyone get here who wasn’t supposed to be here.’

  ‘What made you so sure she wasn’t supposed to be here?’

  ‘Um . . .’

  ‘People do come here sometimes for meetings, or after completion of a Wizard Quest.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘But I’m guessing that Dr Wiseacre didn’t seem like someone on a Wizard Quest?’ Suri smiled kindly. Effie got the feeling that, although she was in trouble, Suri was trying her best to help her.

  ‘No,’ said Effie.

  ‘And you had reason to believe that she was hurting your cousin, and that she would continue to hurt her if you didn’t tell her how to get here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You do know, don’t you, that we never use violence here?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Effie. ‘Well, I sort of understand. You can attack demons, but not people?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct.’

  ‘So I’m in trouble for attacking Dr Wiseacre?’

  ‘Potentially, yes.’

  ‘What should I have done instead?’

  There was a long pause. Suri and Cosmo looked at each other.

  ‘My grandfather left me the sword – you knew all about it,’ Effie said to Cosmo. ‘I had to pass a test before Pelham gave it to me. It comes from here – from the mainland, I mean. Why shouldn’t I use it to protect Truelove House and the Great Library, and everyone here?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ said Cosmo.

  ‘Did Dr Wiseacre mention the Great Library in particular?’ said Suri.

  Effie nodded. ‘Yes. At first she just said Dragon’s Green, but then she said something about the Great Library being in the hands of . . . I can’t remember how she said it exactly, but she said that the Trueloves shouldn’t be in charge of the library. And then . . .’

  ‘I see,’ said Suri. ‘So she already knew about the Great Library?’

  Effie felt herself blushing a little.

  ‘Sort of. She suspected. But . . . then when I said something about the Great Library she said that she only knew then that it was real. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was a secret from people here. I truly didn’t realise I was giving anything away. I didn’t say anything else, I promise.’

  ‘It makes sense for them to want to get into the library,’ said Cosmo to Suri. ‘It’s how the Collective could achieve everything they think they want, just like that.’

  ‘Well, not “just like that”,’ said Suri. ‘There’d need to be the right book, and . . . Anyway, Effie.’ She sighed. ‘There are always going to be problems with travellers – in both directions. Pelham is often in trouble in your world, for example. But you need to try to learn more about this world. You need to open your eyes more when you are here. None of us can tell you how to get to the next stage of your development, but I fear you must, or you risk being sent back for ever.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Hush, child,’ said Cosmo. ‘Just listen.’

  ‘We will overlook this incident for now. Indeed, my next step is to find out where Millicent Wiseacre disappeared to and bring her in to a tribunal in Froghole.’

  ‘So she’s not dead?’

  ‘You mean reborn, of course,’ said Suri. ‘No. We don’t think so. We’re not sure exactly where she is, though. All this is most unusual. This world normally runs very smoothly.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Effie. ‘I really didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘Don’t worry, child.’ Suri stood up to leave. She was wearing layers and layers of colourful material draped over her in ways that looked both beautiful and comfortable. She took Cosmo’s hand in hers and pressed it gently. ‘I’ll slip out the back way,’ she said. And then she was gone. It was as if she had simply melted into the air.

  ‘You need to return to the island,’ said Cosmo to Effie kindly. ‘When you come back we can talk more about what happened today. But please try to learn all you can about the mainland. I fear I haven’t been much of a guide, and my books are not the sort a young girl needs growing up in our world. There is so much you still don’t know. Just be open to new things.’

  Moonface, Cosmo’s black cat, walked into the room at this point and looked at Effie as if to say, I know the secret, why don’t you?

  ‘Cosmo,’ said Effie, ‘why does everyone hate the island so much?’

  ‘People are afraid of what they don’t know,’ he said. ‘But also, people hear that your world runs on selfishness and greed, and that it is a very frightening place where the people exploit the poor, and the weak, and all the animals. Individualism often makes people forget others. It’s mainly be
cause you have money in your world, of course. And some other fundamental reasons as well.’

  ‘Why is there no money here?’ asked Effie.

  ‘Aha. That’s a good question, and one you need to keep thinking about,’ said Cosmo. ‘But now you must return. I think Pelham will go with you. Let’s go to find them.’

  When Cosmo opened the door, there was no sign of Clothilde, Pelham or Rollo.

  ‘They must be in the conservatory,’ he said.

  And so they were. Perhaps because Suri hadn’t left in the normal way via the front part of the house, they had not been alerted to the fact that she had gone. So they had no idea that the meeting was over, and that Effie could now hear them.

  ‘And what if she really is a galloglass?’ Rollo was saying when Effie and Cosmo entered the room. ‘What will we do then? We can’t have a galloglass in our midst. We can’t have a galloglass with access to the Great Library. Bringing the book back was bad enough, however right it supposedly was. Who knows what would—’

  ‘Hello, Rollo,’ said Cosmo. ‘Speculating again?’

  Rollo blushed red, something that Effie had not seen before. Clothilde had gone a little pink too. Had they all been discussing her? Had they actually decided that she might really be a galloglass? Effie couldn’t bear it any more. This was her favourite place, full of her wonderful new family that she was still getting to know, but with whom she felt safe and loved. But now it was all ruined.

  Bertie entered the room carrying a mug of hot chocolate.

  ‘Before you go back to the cold island,’ she said to Effie.

  But Effie hardly heard her. She turned and ran, out of the conservatory, down the long path to the gate, and out onto the Keepers’ Plains, where she hurled herself into the portal that took her home, tears streaming down her face. Effie never cried; it was true. But she was crying now.

  Wolf looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock in the morning. He had no idea how to get to the Borders, or how long it would take. In the olden days, apparently, people had computers that told them exactly how long a particular journey was going to take, by car, public transport or on foot. They could even book travel on their phone. Wolf had to rely on an old map he’d found at the back of Leonard Levar’s shop. Using a ruler and mental arithmetic, he worked out that it was just under a hundred miles to the area he needed to get to. If he had a car, and drove at fifty miles per hour, it would take two hours to get close, which was plenty of time.

  Except Wolf didn’t have a car. And he was too young to drive.

  His older brother Carl had a car, but Wolf hadn’t seen Carl for a long time. Was it weeks, or even months now? Would Carl even care about Natasha? Carl had a different mother from Wolf, and Natasha had a different father. So in fact she and Carl weren’t even related. And Carl always wanted something in return for the favours he did. No, there had to be some other way.

  A train would be too expensive, and hitchhiking would be too unpredictable. Perhaps there was a bus? While he was still thinking about transport, Wolf began packing his rucksack for the day. What was he going to need? He didn’t know where he was going, or what was going to happen when he got there. He didn’t even know how long it was going to take. The voice on the phone had talked about ‘places’ on a ‘programme’. What on earth had that even meant?

  Wolf neatly folded a change of clothes and put them in the bottom of his rucksack. He packed several homemade energy balls – he made them every week out of seeds, coconut oil, chocolate and dried fruit. He also packed a bar of soap, a toothbrush, a tiny battery-operated radio, a length of rope, some water-purification tablets, his Swiss army knife, a small can of WD-40, a magnifying glass, a notebook and pencil, an OS map of the Borders from Leonard Levar’s maps section, an old phone with a torch function and a dictionary, and a small bag of bloodstones. He filled his old army canteen with water from the tap and attached it to his rucksack.

  It was now quarter past eight. Wolf had almost finished packing. All that remained was adding his Sword of Orphennyus, in its benign form as a letter opener, to the side pocket of his rucksack, where he could get it easily. Wolf had to wear a special glove when he touched it: any contact with a true warrior caused the sword to grow to full size. He packed the glove in the other side pocket.

  He washed quickly and dressed in his jeans, a T-shirt, a hoody and his battered old bomber jacket. He wore his sturdiest, most comfortable waterproof-duty boots, which he’d got from the army surplus shop in the Old Town.

  Wolf’s walk to the bus station was a bit of a blur. There was snow: it had come overnight. But his boots powered through it; their special soles didn’t skid on ice. As he walked, Wolf kept thinking about Natasha. If he could save her . . . If he could give her a better life . . . But maybe she didn’t need saving. Maybe Wolf’s mother had gone off and married a rich man. Maybe Natasha was having a great life. But that wasn’t how Wolf remembered his mother. She was always caught up with the wrong men, in the wrong situations. Maybe Wolf could help her too. He still hadn’t forgiven her for leaving him with his uncle. He just wanted to get his sister and look after her.

  In less than half an hour, Wolf was on a bus to the Borders. He’d been lucky. When he read the timetable, he found he’d picked the best bus and wouldn’t even have to change. Through the steamed-up windows Wolf could see that the whole city was covered in snow. But the streets were clear, and the bus chugged on.

  The old phone Wolf used as a torch and dictionary had quite a good music collection on it. He put his headphones on and listened to the same Borders hip-hop album again and again. Most old phones were beginning to die now, almost six years after the worldquake. After this one ran out, Wolf would have to get a Walkman like everyone else and either play antique tapes or spend tons of money on new ones.

  The bus eventually reached a village about twenty miles south of the Old Town and came to a halt. The driver killed the engine.

  ‘All change,’ he said, dinging his bell. ‘All change!’

  This wasn’t exactly what the timetable had said. Or was it? Wolf wasn’t sure.

  By now, he was the only person left on the bus. When had everyone else got off? The only other person he actually remembered seeing in the past hour was a girl of about his age who had been running across a bridge over a river in the opposite direction from the bus. She’d been dressed almost exactly the same way as Wolf, but seemed to have a large cross around her neck and was wearing a black headscarf. She wasn’t the kind of person you usually saw from a bus window, which was probably why he’d noticed her.

  ‘Hey, you lad,’ said the driver.

  ‘Me?’ said Wolf.

  ‘Yes. I hear you might be needing this.’

  The bus driver gave Wolf a small yellow device. It was a piece of old-fashioned technology attached to a karabiner clip, and was just the right size and shape to fit in the palm of his hand.

  ‘What is it?’ said Wolf. He turned the yellow plastic device over a couple of times, to get the feel of it. It seemed quite durable, probably even waterproof. It had a little off/on button and a case at the back for batteries. On the front was a small dot-matrix screen. Wolf pressed the ON button and it winked slowly into life. A small pixelated triangle soon appeared, like a little arrow. Was this some sort of GPS unit?

  Wolf must have been tired. Perhaps he’d dropped off for a second. When he looked up to ask the bus driver again what he’d just given him, the man, and the bus, and indeed the whole village, were gone. He was completely alone in the rugged, endless countryside.

  He looked down at the GPS again and realised that the triangle was him. And the completely empty grey area around the triangle was where he was now, completely alone.

  8

  ‘Come on!’ said Marcel Bottle, knocking on Lexy’s door yet again. ‘Why is everyone so slow this morning?’

  Marcel had been up since around six. He’d done a bit of yoga and then meditated for a whole hour. Bliss! Well, except for the bit
when Buttons had decided to sit on top of his head. At some point he thought he’d heard the front door opening quietly, but it had probably been the wind. Or maybe their houseguest had decided to take an early morning stroll. Nothing wrong with that; the early morning was by far the best part of the day.

  And now the whole family was going on a rare car trip so that Jupiter Peacock could see all the main sights in the town. It had been Hazel’s idea. Other families, she had decided, would be giving their honoured guests tours in their cars. Well, the Bottle family had a car too, didn’t it? So they could give their honoured guest a tour too.

  The Bottle family car was in that unfortunate category between antique and ancient. It only worked because of the healing spells Octavia Bottle cast on it when she borrowed it each year to go on her annual seaside holiday. It was a peculiar colour: somewhere between rusty red and orangey brown. It was fair to say that no one who really liked cars would have been seen dead in it. Its upholstery, which had been lovingly wrought in brown leatherette many decades earlier, had been equally lovingly mended by Marcel, who, when he wasn’t doing yoga, rather liked sewing. Indeed, Marcel liked sewing so much that he had once spent the weekend making a hundred mice stuffed with catnip for the troubled local cats’ home.

  ‘Come on, Lexy!’ Marcel called again.

  By now, everyone else was assembled in the open-plan living area of the Bottle House. Hazel Bottle was wearing her best rainbow-patterned heavy wool kaftan over what looked like a pair of pyjama bottoms. She had put on her only pair of high-heeled wedge boots, which made her look as if she was about to topple over at any moment. On top of the boots were a pair of purple legwarmers that Marcel had knitted for her. Hazel had a matching scarf, that she couldn’t find, so instead she had put on a snood made from yellow glittery hemp yarn that had been given away for free at the local jumble sale.

  Jupiter Peacock was ready too, although had only just emerged from the spare room in a cloud of French aftershave and hair pomade. His pompadour was immaculate once more. He was wearing a light turquoise linen suit through which it was unfortunately possible to see the outline of his pants. He was carrying a brown briefcase that looked as if it might hold evil plans, and his faintly bloodshot eyes were those of a man who had been up all night plotting and talking philosophy with wrongdoers and ne’er-do-wells.