The Jewel Seed

by Joan Aiken

  Like John, Nonnie wore a cord around her neck. On hers was slung the little bone pipe that her parents had sent her from the Himalayas. Now she unslung this pipe and played three soft notes on it, kneeling by the clock, holding the pipe very close to the keyhole.

  Nothing happened.

  “Maybe we should sing?” suggested John. “After the pipe music?”

  “Sing what?”

  “You sing ‘Wrap her in white.’ I’ll sing ‘Apples, apples.’”

  They did so. Several minutes passed with no result. But then, slowly, gently, the lock clicked, the hinges creaked, the door on the clock fractionally shifted. Trembling with cold and terror and suspense, Nonnie lifted the door, very slowly and gingerly, exposing to view a pair of thin hands, crossed one over the other, and tightly bound together round the wrists by a thick skein of pale-gold hair.

  “I don’t believe it!” whispered Nonnie in horror. “Those are Una’s hands! That’s her walnut-wood ring. I’d recognize it anywhere. But where is the rest of her?”

  “She’s been stuck inside the clock, I suppose.”

  Very carefully, John touched the hands, and said, “They are warm. I can feel a pulse, just. She’s alive. But whoever squeezed her in there? And how in the world are we ever going to get her out?”

  “We’ll have to break the clock.”

  “But how could we do that without harming her? And she’s hurt already. That blood—”

  The telephone rang, making them both jump. John picked up the receiver.

  “Hullo?” he said nervously.

  A loud, rasping voice in his ear hissed, “This is the Queen of Winter! You must give us back the clock, it is ours. And the shirt! Or your lives will be worth no more than a dead leaf. Give us the Jewel Seed!”

  John answered politely, “We can’t give them to you. The clock belongs to us. My mother bought it. And the shirt belongs to my cousin. And we don’t have the Jewel Seed. We don’t even know what it is.”

  He replaced the receiver. The phone instantly began to ring again. “Oh, bother!” said John.

  “Don’t answer it,” said Nonnie.

  But John had already picked up the receiver.

  This time it was the voice of Marcus Magus.

  “That was well answered, lad! Nowe, singe the rune agayne—continue singing to loosen the lock of the clocke—singe, singe! …

  So they knelt by the clock chanting “Apples, apples,” and “Wrap her in white,” while slowly, splinter by splinter, shard by shard, the clock crumbled apart until it had completely collapsed into a pile of shavings and sawdust on the stone floor. Curled limply among the heap of shavings, pale and bloodstained, wrapped in moss, tied at the wrists and ankles by her own hair, lay Nonnie’s eldest sister. By her head stood a small basket of green crystal apples.

  “It’s Una! It is Una! But—oh, John—she’s bald! Someone shaved off all her hair. Oh, poor Una! John, is she alive?”

  “Yes, she’s breathing,” said John steadily. “And I don’t believe she’s even very badly hurt—the blood seems to come mostly from cuts and scrapes where they crammed her into the clock.”

  “We must get her to a hospital. Can we call the emergency services?”

  “No, only the Parks Department from here.”

  John tried the Parks Department number. But all he got was a recorded message telling him that due to shortage of staff the office would not be open until nine a.m., and to call again then.

  “What’ll we do?” said Nonnie.

  “I’ll switch the light on in the top room. The police will be sure to see that, and they’ll come. Mr. Finch must have reported our burglar by now.”

  He ran up the circular stairs. Nonnie, meanwhile, with her copper scissors, sliced through the strands of hair that tied Una’s wrists, and gently rubbed her ice-cold hands and cheeks. She took off the voluminous white linen shirt, wrapped it round her sister, and put Una’s arms through the sleeve holes.

  “Una!” she whispered. “Can you hear me?

  No reply.

  John came running down the stairs, big-eyed.

  “I saw an awfully queer thing from the window. The path that leads to the canal—I saw a whole procession of people walking along it. They were dressed in black. And—this is the craziest thing of all—they were all balancing tombstones on their heads. Do you suppose that was what we heard in the bushes? Them digging up the tombstones? They look like professors in huge mortarboards. Where can they be going?”

  “Goodness knows! I hope the police come soon,” said Nonnie, shivering. Then she looked past John and let out a gasp.

  “Colonel Njm!”

  John whirled round.

  The upstairs room of the tower had undoubtedly been empty when he went up to switch on the light. But now here, walking down the stairs, came Colonel Njm in his long dark overcoat and slanting, broad-brimmed hat. He moved very slowly, and appeared to grow in size at each step. In his hand he held a long staff. On his shoulders perched two huge black birds. A freezing draft accompanied him. The air all around him seemed to burn with a dark glow.

  Two loud raps sounded on the door of the tower.

  “Who’s there?” called Nonnie nervously. “Is that the police?”

  “No. It is the Winter People!”

  Chapter Ten

  “OH, GOOD EVENING, P.C. FINCH,” said Mrs. Sculpin, all in a puzzle, to the policeman who stood on her front doorstep. “How can I help you? Mind you, there have been some very funny goings-on round here.”

  “I understand that you had a break-in? And that your clock was stolen?” said P.C. Finch.

  “We did? Who told you that? Well, it’s true, I did ask myself where the clock had gone.” Now, for the first time, Mrs. Sculpin noticed the hole cut in her front door and let out an indignant cry. “My sakes! Just look at that hole in the door! Somebody pinched the lock! What next, I’d like to know? And there’s something very peculiar going on in our back yard, a pretty kettle of fish, if you ask me—”

  “In your yard, Mrs. Sculpin?”

  “Yes, two young girls went out there looking for ashes, and they never came back.”

  “Shall I just take a look?”

  P.C. Finch stepped out into the back yard, where the sensor lights still shone, as if some person or persons were already there.

  Almost at once, Mrs. Sculpin heard a scuffle and a shout. And, immediately after, the policeman whisked in again at top speed, looking highly discomposed, with his canister of repellent gas uncapped.

  “You’re quite right, Mrs. Sculpin. There’s something there that shouldn’t be there, at the far end,” he said. “It took a swipe at me, so I gave it a squirt of gas. But I think it would be best to wait for daylight on that one, Mrs. Sculpin, if it’s all the same to you. I would not go out there, just at present. And I would advise the rest of your household to follow the same advice.”

  “But what about those two girls? And my son John and my niece Nonnie?” wailed Mrs. Sculpin.

  “I dunno about the girls. But your son John and your niece Nonnie were last seen in Pond Walk proceeding in the direction of the graveyard, in pursuit of the malefactors who absconded with your clock,” P.C. Finch told her. “A squad car has been summoned to go to their aid. I will now proceed to contact Rumbury Central.”

  He did so, on his mobile phone, and listened with an expression of growing astonishment.

  In Lady Ermintruda’s Tower John and Nonnie watched, petrified, as Colonel Njm pointed one, slightly luminous, finger at the door.

  Despite being locked, it slowly opened, to reveal Mrs. Wednesday standing on the threshold.

  When she saw the Colonel she let out a faint moan, as if she were suffering from heartburn, and looked as if she would have liked to back away, but lacked the strength to do so.

  The Colonel began to s
peak, in slow, biting words.

  “Wretch! Not only are you a traitor to me, but to your own evil faction as well. While they assemble and argue, you plan to make off with the treasure. Do not deny. It is so! But you have failed, in spite of all your cunning. You have lost the Jewel Seed.”

  “Aaaaaah!” she wailed.

  “You had it under your hand, in Sesame Green, but now it is lost to you for ever. Iduun has been wrapped in her mantle of white. At last! She will be restored to her full power. As for you—scum of the universe!—I cannot destroy you entirely, but I can reduce you to your components.”

  “Aaaaah—lord! No!” quavered Mrs. Wednesday, but already she was shrinking and crumbling, as the clock had done, and soon she was reduced to a handful of black dust like volcanic lava that lay on the snowy path.

  “Now,” said Colonel Njm, turning to Nonnie and John, “human hands are needed for this part of the rite. But you will be protected, fear not. Lift Iduun gently. Place her on the trolley. Convey her back to your living-place. She will not be fully recovered until sunrise, until you have given her full, faithful assistance.”

  Greatly puzzled, but trusting the Colonel’s authority, they hoisted Una as best they could on to Mrs. Sculpin’s shopping trolley. Nonnie carried the basket of apples. They shone, faintly, like mother-of-pearl.

  “Now, home—with all speed,” said the Colonel. “Pay no heed to anything you may hear.”

  What they did hear was quite terrifying. Great shadowy figures seemed to be all about the cemetery, looming high above the trees. As they pushed the stretcher along the narrow snowy paths, among the dark thickset bushes, loud noises exploded all around them. Yells and screeches and howls of utter dismay and despair and agony echoed from the direction of the canal. It sounded as if a whole multitude of creatures, not all human, were suffering some unbelievably grisly fate.

  “What do you think is happening?” croaked John, and Nonnie, trembling, said, “Let’s hurry—let’s get away as quick as we can.”

  “Pay no heed,” said the Colonel, who accompanied them, limping slightly, while his two large black birds flew overhead. “Pay no heed. It is merely my servant, Iormungandr, dispatching my enemies.”

  At Number Five, Pond Walk, they found Mrs. Sculpin in a high state of anxiety, with a kettle full of boiling water and several plates of sandwiches cut.

  When she saw Una, pallid, bruised, shaved, and lying unconscious on the stretcher, Aunt Daisy let out a long lamenting wail.

  “Oh, that poor darling girl, my poor dear Una, what have they ever done to her? Oh, just look at her hands, all bruised, and her poor feet, all cut—where was she? And her beautiful hair all shaved off as if she was one of those cooperators—the monsters! Where did you find her?”

  “She was in the clock,” said Colonel Njm. “And before that, in outer space, in the planet Sigma Nine. But now, soon, she will be well again and returned to her proper place. See, already her hair commences to grow.”

  He was right, it did: a faint frosty shine had begun to prickle over her bare scalp.

  “When we have disposed of the Jewel Seed, it will grow even faster,” said the Colonel.

  “The Jewel Seed?”

  “Somewhere in this house it lies hidden at present,” said the Colonel. “It had been sewn into the sleeve of the white shirt. So much we knew, but not where the shirt itself would next be found. For it is continually destroyed and re-fashioned, like the leaves of trees, and so must be, from age to age, for ever.”

  “But the shirt-sleeves were all burned up?”

  “Then the seed must lie among the ashes. The seed is indestructible.”

  “Oh—I know!” exclaimed Aunt Daisy, suddenly enlightened. “A tiny, tiny red stone, Colonel?”

  He nodded.

  “I found it when I riddled out the boiler ashes before supper. I put it in one of Nonnie’s little boxes—fetch it, Nonnie, do, there’s a dear. It’s upstairs on your shelf.”

  Nonnie found and brought down a tiny enamel box, one of her collection, which now contained a red stone in it about the size of a tomato seed.

  “That little object has generated a lot of harm,” said the Colonel. “The tricker, Loki, cast it into a field of flax to cause strife and dissension among gods and men. He loves to do such mischief. But now it shall cause no more trouble. I shall blow it away into the deepest recesses of Ginnunga-gap, where none may find it for many eternities.”

  He stepped towards the back door.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go out there, Colonel dear! Not just now! Not till P.C. Finch has been again and disinfected the yard,” Mrs. Sculpin hastily informed him. “There’s something really nasty out there: in fact I think it might be the Bootlace Monster, come up out of the water.”

  “Do not disturb yourself, my friend. The beast out there is merely my bond- servant, my cat, Iormungandr,” Colonel Njm told her, and he stepped out of the back door and could be heard addressing some very severe words of command to whatever was outside. An explosion of loud hissing responded to his order.

  “Now the Jewel Seed is well on its way to uttermost distances and can do no further mischief,” the Colonel announced, after a short time, coming back into the kitchen and absently helping himself to a cucumber sandwich.

  “But what about the thing out in the yard?” said Mrs. Sculpin.

  “That I regret. It is the Midgard Serpent, Iormungandr, my bond-beast, who, by my ordinance, lies coiled three times round the circuit of the globe. But, at need, he accompanies me in the guise of a cat. Only,” acknowledged Colonel Njm, “I was obliged to administer to him a daily pill, to keep him within his cat-shape, and when, at times, I omitted to do this, he would rampage forth in his own shape to lurk in the canal and prey upon passers by. It was unfortunate. I am sorry for that.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Mrs. Sculpin rather faintly. “I suppose it was Eeyore-whatever-you-said who kept dropping those snakes about the house?”

  “I must beg your forgiveness for that also,” apologized the Colonel. “I guarantee that it shall occur no more. No indeed; now that our beloved Iduun is returned to us, we shall travel back to our own place.”

  “Iduun?”

  “There she lies, soon to be restored to health—Iduun, daughter of the gods, the Queen of Spring. Sing to her, my friends—that will hasten her recovery.”

  “What should we sing?” asked Nonnie.

  “Summer is icumen in,” suggested Marcus Magus, who had been taking a keen, if unseen, interest in all these revelations.

  So John and Nonnie sang:

  “Summer is icumen in,

  Loude sing cuckoo!

  Bloweth seed and groweth mead

  Now springs the wood anew …”

  They sang it round and round, for it is a song without beginning or end, and, after the ninth repetition, the cuckoo in the mended toaster suddenly put its head out of the proper hole and shouted “Cuckoo!” and Una stretched her arms and yawned, and smiled, sat up, and said, “Good heavens! I must have been asleep for a long time. How did I get here?”

  “A long time indeed,” agreed Colonel Njm gravely. “Since the autumn leaves fell from the branches. And you would have slept until the pages of time were all turned had not this pair come to your aid.”

  “Oh, Una! Are you truly all right? What happened to you?” Nonnie cried, giving her sister a warm hug.

  “It was after that television fellow met me in the street,” remembered Una. “Lucky Loki, was that his name? He asked some question about lucky charms. And I told him about finding a little red stone in the seed pocket of an apple core—I thought it must be lucky—so I kept it and sewed it into the cuff of my shirt-sleeve—I thought it might be a talisman. But then I kept seeing an old lady who looked like Mrs. Wednesday—and her horrible little dog. What happened to her dog, by the way?”

  “My bond-se
rvant ate it,” said Colonel Njm.

  “Oh! And two girls with spiky hair kept following me about … I’m not sure what happened after that. But then I found myself shut up somewhere terribly cold and dark, in outer space, down below the bottom of everything … and I was told that unless I gave them the Jewel Seed a lot of things would never happen … spring would never come again, and America would never be discovered, and Jane Austen would never write Pride and Prejudice and Shakespeare would never write Hamlet, and people would start dying at the age of three … there would be a fold in time that nobody could get past. So I told them I didn’t know where the shirt was.”

  “Iduun must re-fashion her shirt every new season,” said Colonel Njm, nodding gravely. “And the old one vanishes into the limbo of time.”

  “So,” went on Una, “I told them the shirt might be at Granny’s house, unless she had given it to a jumble sale. Then, I think, they shut me in the clock—something to do with beginning the fold in time …”

  As she told this story, Una’s hair had grown another inch. Now it was down to her shoulders.

  “Dearie, wouldn’t you like a nice cup of tea?” said her Aunt Daisy.

  “What I’d really like is one of those apples.”

  Una reached out a thin white arm and took one of the green glowing crystal apples from the basket.

  “But—” began Nonnie. To her petrified astonishment, her sister bit into the apple as if it were a fresh fruit. And, as she did so, it became a fresh fruit.

  Colonel Njm smiled for the first time.

  “Those are the apples that renew eternal life in the gods,” he said. “Now we know that Iduun will soon be better.”

  Nonnie said anxiously, “But you are Una, aren’t you? My big sister Una? Who used to help me with my schoolwork? And—and tell me stories?” Her voice quivered a little.

  “I was your sister for a term of life,” Una said, taking her hand. “I remember it all now. The fold has unfolded. You are part of me and I shall always remember happy days at Sesame Green.”