The Jewel Seed

by Joan Aiken

  “Wouldn’t it be quicker to go by tube?” Nonnie asked, but he shook his head. “Bike’s much faster. Now, you go five stops, northbound, to Forge Hill, and the Kirlylox shop is just across the road from the tube station, on the right in the shopping arcade.”

  He started scrubbing at some, large red-painted words which said: BEWAIR OV THE BOTLAICE MONSTAR.

  “What’s the Bootlace Monster?” asked Nonnie, watching him work as she waited for her northbound train.

  “Oh yes! Mum said, be sure to warn you,” John told her. “Never walk along the canal towpath after dark. There’s a monster in the canal—or so people say—it swallows you, all but your bootlaces. It spits them out.”

  “Suppose you don’t wear boots with laces?”

  John scratched his head.

  “Maybe it would spit out your bus pass or false teeth instead. Some people think it’s the Loch Ness Monster come south along the waterways from Scotland.”

  A northbound train pulled into the station, the doors opened, and Nonnie stepped aboard.

  “See you at suppertime!” called John as the door closed. Then, having erased the inscription, he went home to work on the sensor lights in the back yard. Euston the cat sat watching him from the top of the rain water barrel.

  “And you’d better stop indoors at night, Euston, or you’ll be setting them off all the time,” John told him. Euston blinked haughtily, then stared up in a meaningful manner at Colonel Njm’s window, which was set just above the gable of the bathroom roof.

  “You mean Colonel Njm’s cat comes out that way? All the more reason for you to stay in at night,” said John.

  Strangely enough, when Nonnie got out of the train at Forge Hill, and crossed the street to the shopping mall, she could find no hairdressing establishment called Kirlylox. The first shop on the right was an open-fronted clothes market with clumps and racks of brilliantly colored shirts and pants and tunics and skirts hanging on metal rails, red and pink lights glowing overhead, and a roar of rock music. A small black stuffed witch dangled above the clothes holding a sign which said: SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE CURSED.

  The name of the shop was Mrs. Wednesday’s.

  Chapter Four

  “WELL I NEVER! WHAT DO you know about that?” exclaimed Mrs. Sculpin sympathetically, when Nonnie returned to Number Five, Pond Walk. “Kirlylox all closed down? And no sign of your sister Una? It’s a proper shame the way shops suddenly go bankrupt and shut down without a word of warning; you can’t depend on the same place from one week to the next. But still, you can be sure that Una will get in touch with you very soon, dearie; she’s probably busy finding herself another job.”

  “You don’t have the address of her house?”

  “No, lovey. What you’d best do is go back to that shop—Wednesday’s, did you say it was called?—and ask the girls there if they know where the Kirlylox lot went.”

  “Yes. I should have thought of that. It was such a nasty place, though,” Nonnie said, frowning thoughtfully.

  “Nasty, love? How can a clothes shop be nasty?” Mrs. Sculpin was surprised.

  “Oh—I don’t know. The colors of the clothes were ugly The lights were much too bright—blinding—and the music was too loud. And I didn’t like the way the salesgirls looked at me—as if the clothes I had on were dowdy and old-fashioned. One of them called out in a kind of a jeering voice, ‘Want a new shirt, Soapy?’”

  “Oh, it’s no use taking notice of such talk,” said Mrs. Sculpin. “But still, if I was you, I’d keep that black skirt and that shirt for best—white picks up the dirt shockingly in London. If you like, you can put the shirt in now, with the Colonel’s wash and hang it out in the backyard. I do the Colonel’s smalls for him every day; very particular, he is; and very thick his underthings are, made of goats’ hair or something like; it’s lucky I’ve the washing machine I picked up for five pounds in Rumbury Market.”

  So Nonnie unpacked her bag and changed into a T-shirt and jeans. Wrapped in the jeans was a present she had brought for her sister. When their parents were still alive, in Tibet, they had posted home a bundle of gifts for all their children. The parcel had taken years to arrive and had not been received until after the senders were dead. There had been a pair of unusual Tibetan scissors for Una, made of copper, an ivory toothpick for Duessa, a pen for Octavia, a copper hammer for Quad, a little bone pipe for Nonnie … all the others had received their gifts but Una was away from home when the package arrived, so Nonnie had brought the scissors to London, and now slipped them into her jeans pocket, in case Una turned up.

  After Nonnie had washed her shirt and hung it out—there was a good deal of noise, was it birds flapping in the elder tree at the end of the yard?—Aunt Daisy said, “Dearie, would you like to step up the stairs with the Colonel’s meal while I dish up for the rest of us?”

  “Yes, of course, Aunt Daisy.”

  Nonnie took the tray, which held a plateful of smoking-hot beef pie and vegetables, a mug of beer, brown bread roll, and a dish of rice pudding with raisins. She knocked at the guest room door and heard a loud hiss from inside. Then there was a kind of scuffle. After a considerable pause, a voice called, “Come in.”

  Entering, Nonnie looked around her for the Colonel’s cat. But, strangely enough, it was not to be seen. She did notice, though, on the bedside table, a tray full of sand—for the cat?—and, on the mantelpiece, two huge black birds, motionless, apparently stuffed. But most of her attention was taken by a big, beautiful globe on a stand. It was rather larger than a TV set and had a relief map of the world on its surface with what looked like real grass and tiny trees growing, and rocky mountains. A red light glowed at the point where London would be in the British Isles.

  “Thank you, child,” said Colonel Njm, receiving the supper tray, and he placed it on a table which stood in the bay window. Doing so, he passed near the sand tray and as he went by the sand swished about and formed itself into a series of lines and hooks and swags and circles. On the table stood a computer console and screen. The screen came to life and displayed the same symbols as the sand on the tray. Colonel Njm waved an impatient hand at both. Quickly, the screen went blank and the sand smoothed itself out.

  “I’ll come back for the tray later, shall I?” Nonnie offered. “Doesn’t your cat want any dinner? Euston likes coley-fish.”

  “Thank you, no, child,” replied the Colonel absently, seating himself. “My pet looks after his own requirements.”

  Oh well, Nonnie thought, running downstairs, I suppose there must be lots of mice in a house as old as this.

  “Does the Colonel always wear his hat in the house?” she asked her aunt.

  “Yes, always. Perhaps because he has only one eye, poor man.”

  “Has he? I didn’t notice that.”

  John came in from working on the yard lights and was helped to pie. He was surprised and sorry to hear that his cousin Una and the Kirlylox shop had gone from Forge Hill High Street.

  “How about advertising for Una in the Rumbury Gazette?” he suggested.

  “Not a bad idea, if she doesn’t get in touch soon.”

  After they had washed the dishes, Nonnie went out to the brick-paved back yard to fetch in the washing. It was a dank, cold, foggy evening. John’s sensor lights flashed on brilliantly as she walked to the clothesline. She found that Colonel Njm’s long, heavy underwear had frozen as stiff as oak planking. Whereas Una’s white shirt was quite soft and dry and felt warm.

  “Just hang the Colonel’s things on the airer in the scullery, love,” said Mrs. Sculpin. “They’ll dry overnight.”

  “I believe there was some creature scuffling about at the far end of the yard, Aunt Daisy. Something seemed to be flapping and panting in that big elder tree,” said Nonnie, very glad to be back in the light and warmth of the kitchen. “John’s lights don’t reach as far as that.”

  “Ma
ybe it was the Colonel’s cat, I think it goes out over the roof,” said her aunt. “Now—won’t you and John give us a little music, dearie?”

  John, it turned out, was a skillful performer on the triangle, and played in the Rumbury Town Percussion Band. So, for an hour, he and Nonnie entertained Mrs. Sculpin with beautiful flute-and-triangle duets. Not only Mrs. Sculpin listened to the concert: the ghost of Marcus Magus, it seemed, had a craving for music, and he came drifting out of the centuries to hum, warble, whistle, tap in time, and applaud ecstatically at the end of each piece.

  “Oh, good evening, Mr. Magus,” said Aunt Daisy, when he first made himself known. “ I don’t believe you have met my niece Nonnie.”

  “Delighted to heare you,” (the ghost could not see them, of course, nor they, him, but Nonnie felt a cool puff of air on her right hand, as if invisible fingers had shaken it), “ah, Mozart, Mozart, whatte a genius! Ynne alle of time or space, backwardes or forwardes, I have never hearde another composer to touche hymme! And ytte is most interesting thatte you should have playede his musick tonighte, for, once or twyce lately, I have hearde Mozart’s own voyce …”

  “His voice?” said Nonnie, transfixed. “You heard Mozart’s voice?”

  “Yesse, child, of a surety. And inne a moste strange contexte.”

  “Context?” said John, who was not familiar with this word. “What do you mean, context, Mr. Magus?”

  “Why, I hearde Herr Mozart conducting a parley withe two or three other folke who, to be sure, canne never have mette hym in true tyme or space—hee was talking with a Frenche commander yclept Napoleon, with Juliusse Caesar the Roman, with a lady hyght (I thynke) Jane Austen—they were alle, so farre as I could comprehende, immured together agaynst their wille, and greatly perplext as to how they mighte fynd the means to free themselves …”

  “Mozart was shut up somewhere with Jane Austen and Julius Caesar and Napoleon? But how could that possibly be?”

  “A most shockynge, evil enchantment, transgressing the boundaries of tyme. Some vile wytche must have done it! Pulling together four greate Personnes of fame and wisdome from the worlde’s historie and confining them in one spotte agaynst their wille, of a surety for some evil purpose. It was a greate piece of wickednesse!

  “Oh well,” said Mrs. Sculpin, yawning, “I daresay it was just one of those TV quiz shows—Lucky Lukie, maybe, you know, the fellow who interviews people in the street for his program. He met up with your sister Una not long ago. There’s no end to the comical, clever things those fellows think up. Like Desert Island Discs, you know: they shut up Mozart and Napoleon and those other fellows on an island and make you guess which one will get away first. Now, dearies, time for bed! Nonnie wants to be off looking for her sister in the morning, and there’s sure to be some nasty messages for John to wash off. Mr. Magus—if you’re wakeful, why don’t you go upstairs and have a nice chat with Colonel Njm?”

  “Noe, noe, I thanke you, madam! Hee is of too high and grande a degree to discourse with soe humble a phantomme as myself.”

  “Oh, good gracious me, I don’t think that’s so at all,” said Mrs. Sculpin, surprised. “I’ve always found him ever such a nice easy gentleman—not a bit stuck up or hard to please.”

  Yawning, she went upstairs.

  “I do wonder where Mozart and those other people were shut up?” said Nonnie, as John made sure that Euston was safe in his basket by the kitchen stove.

  “In the planet Sigma Nine, a smalle planet which lies under the power of a wicked enchantress, those four unfortunates are helde prisoner; ynne a specially constructed house yclept Pemberley,” Marcus Magus informed her. “Mysse Austen, as I recalle, was greatly displeased, since shee was notte able to make progresse wyth a romantical tale she had begunne, in her owne daye, of two young personnes crost in love—”

  “Pride and Prejudice, would that be? But—”

  “And Napoleon was impatient to commence a greate battle—Waterloo, I thinke—and Mozart to worke on a masque or fantasy, The Magic Flute … Goodnyght, my young friends. Your musick has set my aged Vapours a-tingling …”

  Marcus Magus floated away to the warm cranny behind the kitchen chimney-breast which was his favorite resting spot.

  Chapter Five

  NEXT MORNING DAWNED MISERABLY COLD and dark. Freezing fog hung around the chimney pots of Rumbury Town, like smoke from the jaws of an ice dragon.

  “Winter’s nearly here,” said Mrs. Sculpin.

  Colonel Njm went off early to his research at the Unwelcome Institute, shouting a last stern command to his cat through the guest room door in a voice that made the whole house tremble to its foundations.

  Breakfast that day in the Sculpin family was disrupted by two unexpected happenings. One of these was that, when Mrs. Sculpin sliced off the top of her boiled egg, a small snake popped out at her. She let off a shriek that blew off the petals of the geranium on the kitchen windowsill.

  Both John and Nonnie were quite paralyzed with surprise at the sight of the snake, and sat staring; but Euston the cat was perfectly equal to the emergency. A week’s frustration over not being allowed to go into the guest room and tear strips off the Colonel’s pet came boiling out, and while everyone else was wondering how to tackle the snake, Euston had shot up on to the breakfast table and bitten it clean in half.

  “Well—I don’t know, I’m sure!” whimpered Mrs. Sculpin rather shakily, staring first at her broken egg cup and then at Euston who, now on the floor, was triumphantly shaking the tail half of the snake. “Eggs with snakes in them! I shall write to the Consumers’ Association. And to the Co-Op. Oh deary me! If I pour myself a cup of tea, what’s going to come out of the spout?”

  Fortunately, no scorpions were discovered in the teapot, but Mrs. Sculpin, who hated snakes, was really upset by the occurrence, and even the prospect of going to a sale of grandfather clocks in Vicars Green Town Hall did not greatly cheer her.

  The second upsetting event was the sight of an advertisement in the Rumbury Gazette. John, scanning the Personal Notices in order to find out what it cost to place an advertisement, discovered one which said: UNA SMITH. Relatives who wish to see her alive again had better produce the Jewel Seed.

  “Oh, my gracious saints!” exclaimed Mrs. Sculpin when her attention was drawn to this. “Now what? My poor nerves will soon be in tatters. Una must have been kidnapped! By some of these nasty African gorillas or Arabian Knights, I suppose. Oh, whatever shall we do? The Jewel Seed? What is the Jewel Seed? I’ve never even heard of it.”

  Neither Nonnie nor John had heard of the Jewel Seed. Nor had Mrs. Stokes next door. And it was no use trying to consult Marcus Magus; he could never be contacted before about eight o’clock in the evening.

  “But who could have kidnapped Una?” said Nonnie. “And why?” She was terribly upset. Nothing like this had ever happened in the Smith family before. And why should it? The Smiths were ordinary people. Unless—unless—it had something to do with Una’s power of telling extraordinary stories. There was something special about Una …

  “Do you think,” suggested John, “that they—whoever they are—have taken her off—like those people Mr. Magus was telling us about last night?”

  “You mean Napoleon and Mozart? To some peculiar planet?”

  “Sigma Nine,” said John.

  “But why should they want to take Una?” said Nonnie forlornly. “She’s my favorite sister. But she’s not important. Or—or is she?”

  “She never had a Jewel Seed?”

  “Goodness me, no! What is a Jewel Seed, anyway?”

  “I dunno.”

  As John had no Objectionable Inscriptions to erase that morning, he accompanied Nonnie back to Forge Hill, in search of possible clues to Una’s whereabouts.

  They walked slowly past the clothes shop called Mrs. Wednesday’s, staring at the forest of gaudy shirts and pants and skirts
that hung inside on rows of racks. A big new sign said: SHIRTS WANTED! Our new Winter Shirt Swop. Bring your old shirt and exchange for two of ours!

  “I suppose I could exchange that old white shirt of Una’s,” said Nonnie. “It’s too big for me, and the sleeves are much too long. And I suppose Una doesn’t want it, or she wouldn’t have left it behind. But I wouldn’t like to do it till I’ve asked her. Anyway I don’t much care for theirs. And I don’t like them.”

  Two skinny girls with hair in spikes stood at the front of the shop, under the stuffed witch, wagging their heads to the music and staring scornfully at the passersby. They stared specially scornfully at Nonnie and John.

  “Want a new shirt, sonny boy?” one of them said to him.

  “No thanks. But do you know where the Kirlylox people went?” he asked.

  “Emigrated. All went off to Trinidad—”

  “All died of PVC virus—” they both said at the same time.

  “Thanks for nothing,” John said.

  “Why don’t you ask at the estate agents?” suggested a wizened little man who was selling newspapers off a rack just outside. And he nodded at a sign that said: This Property Let by Hard Knox Ltd., Estate Agents, Crow Street, Forge Hill.

  “Good idea,” said John. “Come on, Nonnie.”

  Nonnie, who had wandered in among the clothes racks and burrowed her way to the back of the shop, rejoined John looking puzzled. “They’ve a couple of dressmakers’ dummies at the back,” she said, “all wound about with Indian silk saris. One of them gave me a queer feeling—it looked like Una …”

  “I was thinking about the Jewel Seed in the night,” said John, “wondering what it was. Did Una have any jewelry? Might she have had something—something valuable that she didn’t know was valuable?”

  “No, I’m sure not,” said Nonnie. “She doesn’t even like jewelry. She only wears wooden jewels. What is a Jewel Seed, anyway?