The Crystal Caves

by Jamie Smart

  ‘That BEAR!’ Cled shouted, clambering out from the crumpled Village. ‘He did it AGAIN! Knocked our Village right over this time!’

  Rebecca wasn’t far behind. She pushed past Cled, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘Dev! I thought you were lost! I thought you were under the waves!’

  Before she could reach him, however, Dahlia bundled out in front of her. She stood, bustled her gown, and glared at Rebecca with the most furious of expressions. ‘TAKE ME TO MY DADDY!’ she demanded.

  ‘Your … daddy?’ Rebecca stuttered, struggling to process her thoughts.

  ‘My DADDY,’ Dahlia insisted. ‘He’s taller than me, and he’s older than me, and he’s fatter than me, and he has BIG FLUFFY CHEEKS!’ She mimed hairy sideburns with her fingers.

  Rebecca stared at her in disbelief. ‘That sounds like …’

  ‘… Albert Wilburforce!’ Dev gasped.

  ‘My DADDY!’ Dahlia shouted. ‘He brought me all my food. Then he went back up to the surface. He said he wouldn’t be long, but he’s been a-a-a-ages.’ A thunder billowed across her face. ‘And he is going to be SO ANGRY when he finds out what you did!’

  ‘Never mind who her daddy is.’ Prickles stumbled between them. ‘Look at her! She’s covered in GOLD!’

  Grippins pushed him out of the way, grabbing one of Dahlia’s three crowns and holding it up to the sunlight. Then he too was shoved aside, as both Nobbins and Elise crowded around the little girl. ‘Ohhh, we’ll be rewarded WELL for this!’ Nobbins slobbered, drawing a pair of devious eyebrows upon his forehead. ‘We’ll take all this gold straight to Dahlia.’

  Elise gazed over to where the Sanctuary used to be. ‘Where IS Dahlia?’

  Dahlia snorted indignantly, and wasted no time in punching Elise hard on the leg, and Nobbins even harder in the stomach. While they both wheezed and crumpled to the floor, she snatched her crown back from Grippins and perched it back upon her head. ‘I’m Dahlia, stupid! And this is MY gold.’ She backed against the cart, fists clenched. ‘I traded food for it. It’s MINE, FAIR AND SQUARE.’

  Something she was wearing caught Dev’s eye too. The golden F from the front of the flember book. It was clamped to her gown like a brooch, still crackling and glowing with flember.

  ‘But that’ – Dev swiped the F – ‘is mine.’ Dahlia swung around, preparing to punch someone, but as she did Boja tightened his arms protectively around Dev. His eyes blazed. His nose crumpled. All the extra flember he was carrying crackled around him like an electrical storm.

  The assembled crowd of miners shuffled back in awe.

  ‘He looks so … magical,’ Rebecca gasped. She reached out towards the glowing red bear, and watched in amazement as flember sparkled around her hand. ‘Dev, what happened down there?’

  With a great moan, Keeper heaved herself out from underneath Boja’s buttocks. She tumbled over the side of the cart, crumpling to the ground in a loud hiss of steam. ‘They found the last of Darkwater’s flember,’ she puffed, lifting her head and squinting out towards the sea. ‘Just a shame there’s no Darkwater left to make any use of it.’

  Dev slipped out from Boja’s arms and helped Keeper sit upright against the cart.

  ‘Well, you got what you wanted.’ She smiled. ‘A whole load of flember to take back to your village. You can go home, Dev, go home and save your tree.’

  The thought of going home made Dev’s stomach leap with joy. He’d see his mother again, Santoro, Ventillo, Mina and all his friends. He’d sleep in his own bed. He’d eat duck eggs and wildertoast, so much duck eggs and wildertoast, with hot sweet tea on the side. But most importantly of all, he’d lead Boja up to Shady Acres, and with Darkwater’s flember they’d finally bring the Eden Tree back to life.

  And then everything would be fixed.

  He looked up to Boja, bright, glowing Boja, who grinned back in sheer delight. ‘Go … home?’ Boja asked.

  ‘I think we can.’

  Boja yelped excitedly, his whole body sparkling with flember. Dev stood with a cheer in his heart, as he turned to say goodbye to Rebecca, to Cled, to all the miners huddled in front of their collapsed Village.

  And then he saw their dirty faces.

  Their blackened lips.

  Their torn, weathered overalls. Their home now just a small, dusty cliff top covered in rusting metal. And somewhere, deep inside, he realized what they had to do.

  ‘But this is Darkwater’s flember,’ he muttered.

  ‘Eden Tree!’ Boja proudly gurgled. ‘Take it … for the Eden Tree!’

  ‘Boja, we can’t.’ Dev clutched his paw. ‘It belongs here. They’ve been so long without it, we can’t just carry it away now!’

  Boja’s excited face slumped into a frown. ‘But … we go … home.’

  ‘We will. We WILL. But first we have to give Darkwater their flember back.’ A smile crept between Dev’s cheeks. ‘And I think I know how we can do it.’

  36

  The Garden

  Dev paced around, his mind lost in thought, his fingers fiddling with the glowing, golden F in his hands.

  ‘Ohhhhh no,’ Cled shouted. ‘I recognize that face. He’s coming up with another invention. He’ll blow something up, or he’ll make that bear fart, or … or …’

  Cled was absolutely right, Dev was thinking about an invention. But this time there would be no explosions, no metal bottoms, no flying off into the Wildening. This time he already had everything he needed right here.

  ‘We need to recreate the Flember Stream, but above ground,’ he muttered. ‘And to do that, we’ll need …’

  He stopped, swung around, and pointed a finger at Dahlia.

  Panicking, she clung onto her jewellery.

  ‘BOJA!’ Dev beamed, now thoroughly enjoying the thrill of a new invention whizzing around inside his head. ‘All the flember you took from the caves, from the crystals, I need you to give it all to DAHLIA!’

  The miners looked confused. Dahlia looked confused.

  And Boja looked most confused of all.

  Dev’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘Please, Boja, trust me.’

  Boja huffed. Then he nodded and held out his arms, his fur rippling as a mist of beautiful blue flember flowed across them. To the amazement of all those watching, it swirled into the air, shimmering like the starlight, before wafting down upon Dahlia. Or, more specifically, upon all her golden jewellery: her crowns, her necklaces, everything weighing down inside her pockets.

  All of it now crackling with the magical light of flember.

  ‘I … look … MAGNIFICENT!’ she boomed.

  ‘Gold acts like a battery.’ Dev started pacing again. ‘It’ll hold all of Darkwater’s flember. It’ll be your own version of the Flember Stream. But to use it, we’ll also need something to draw that flember out of the gold, to move it around, to conduct it. And to do that, we’ll need flemberthysts …’

  He paused. Something glimmered inside his mind. It was a memory of something Priest had told him.

  He said he’d been taking flember from everyone.

  ‘Could you all please turn out your pockets?’ Dev asked.

  The miners looked at each other, confused.

  ‘Snap to it,’ Rebecca ordered with a clap, pulling mostly cutlery from hers. Forks, spoons, and then a small, glowing flemberthyst. ‘How … how did that get in there?’

  ‘I’ve got one in my hat!’ Prickles yelped, slipping a crystal out from behind its buckles.

  ‘I found one too!’ Grippins tipped a crystal out from his boot.

  ‘We had them all along?’ Elise gazed at her own lumpy, glowing crystal.

  ‘Priest hid them on you,’ Dev said. ‘He hid them on all of you! They’ve been slowly taking small amounts of your flember.’ He held Rebecca’s flemberthyst away from her, watching as its swirling, glowing flember slowly drifted out, rose like a cloud and then sunk back into her heart.

  Rebecca’s cheeks flushed with colour. Her chest heaved with a relaxed sigh.

  ‘Well th
at feels a lot better.’ She smiled.

  ‘Me next!’ Nobbins demanded, as Dev took his flemberthyst. Then flemberthysts from Cled, Grippins, Prickles and all the other miners, pausing just long enough for the crystals to return their flember where it belonged.

  As each miner breathed a long, contented sigh.

  ‘Right.’ Dev beamed. ‘Now …’

  ‘BEHHHH!’

  He swung round to see a small goat. Its fur was matted, its legs wobbling, and a gently glowing flemberthyst was clamped between its two yellow teeth.

  ‘Mean Fervus!’ Dev grinned. ‘You made it out!’

  ‘FEVVUS!’ Boja shrieked, running towards the little goat and grabbing it up into a hug so huge, so furry, that soon no one could see any goat in there at all. Dev reached in, plucking Mean Fervus’s flemberthyst from between Boja’s arms and waiting for its faint wisps of flember to waft back towards the goat.

  ‘Thank you, Fervus.’ He smiled. ‘As I was saying, now these flemberthysts aren’t taking your flember, they can channel Darkwater’s flember instead. From the gold, through the flemberthysts, and all the way into …’ He thrust a hand into his own pocket, and pulled out his last pepper, his last mini cauliflower, his last spricket, and his last flonion. ‘… FOOD!’ He grinned.

  ‘FLONION SOUP!’ Rebecca yelled across the bar some hours later. ‘Third helpings, if anyone wants any.’

  Every miner inside the Garden cheered, grabbing at the bowls of hot, steaming soup as they were passed from table to table. Dev took one, Boja took three. Even Mean Fervus got a whole bowl to himself, which he sat in. Still there was plenty to go around. Thanks to the magic of flember, and the rather ingenious apparatus Dev had built to channel it, the few withered vegetables he’d pulled from his pocket had not only grown plump and healthy, but also offered up a bounty of seeds.

  Seeds which, with the help of some extra flember, grew quickly into even more plump healthy vegetables.

  ‘IS ANYONE LISTENING TO ME?’ Dahlia yelled from high above them all. She waggled a frying pan around like a weapon. ‘THIS MAN’S BORING. SEND SOMEONE ELSE UP!’

  Nobbins clambered down the ladder to ground level. ‘Someone else’s turn to go and keep her amused,’ he grumbled, rubbing the bruises on his head.

  Elise duly took her turn, getting a poke in the eye the moment Dahlia’s cart whizzed past her.

  ‘Cauliflower and spricket stew next, I think,’ Rebecca grinned, clutching a crate full of fresh sprickets. She admired the bubbling pots on the stove, taking a deep breath of all the delicious smells around her. ‘Oh, Dev, thanks to you we have food like we could only have dreamt of!’

  Dev scraped the last spoonful of soup into his mouth, then licked the bowl clean. ‘We’re making the most of it too.’ He beamed. ‘Filling up before we leave.’

  ‘Leave?’ Rebecca gasped.

  ‘Leave?’ Boja echoed, a lump of flonion tumbling from his mouth.

  ‘LEAVE?’ the other miners shouted.

  ‘We … we have to,’ Dev stammered. ‘We still need to find the Flember Stream, and we can’t reach it from Darkwater anymore!’

  ‘But … but …’ Rebecca panicked. ‘Where would you go? Dev, where else is there to look for it?’

  Dev pulled the flember book from his backpack. He opened it onto the bar, and flipped to Chapter Three. Then he pulled the glowing, golden F from his pocket and ran it across the pages. The lines of the map emerged, twisting and turning, winding through the whole chapter until the very end, where they all stopped inside a circle.

  A circle marked with one word.

  ‘Prosperity,’ Dev whispered.

  Rebecca’s pale eyes stared into his as if she was looking at a ghost. Then she stood up straight, walking out from behind the bar and towards the doors. ‘All of you, keep eating,’ she shouted to the other miners. ‘Dev, Boja, you two come with me.’

  37

  Prosperity

  ‘Boja, if you wouldn’t mind?’

  Dev stood by the quarry wall, in front of a stacked pile of rusting metal. It was night now, the Garden having taken all day to build, and the food having taken all evening to enjoy.

  A chill crept upon the air.

  Dev rubbed his arms for warmth.

  Boja put down the fourth, fifth and sixth bowls of flonion soup he’d brought with him, then he reached up and started pulling scraps of metal away from the rocky walls.

  ‘This is where we dump things,’ Rebecca said. ‘Years of broken machines, towers, tools, all left to pile up here. But we chose this spot for a reason.’

  She dug the tip of her boot into the crumbly, grey soil.

  It hit metal.

  A length of it, riveted into the ground.

  ‘Tracks!’ Dev gasped. He clawed at the mud with his hands, following what looked like railway tracks away from the Garden, through the piles of metal and towards the quarry wall.

  You came out of those mines the same way the crystals used to,’ Rebecca said. ‘Along these tracks, and then right … through … there.’

  As Boja dragged the last few sheets of metal away, they revealed a tunnel carved into the quarry wall.

  Dev stepped towards the tunnel and peered into the musty darkness. ‘Prosperity? Darkwater dug up all their flemberthysts, and then sent them to Prosperity?’

  Rebecca nodded. ‘For every cart of crystals we sent, we got a cart filled with food in return. Special food, the stuff we couldn’t grow here. Breads, meats, jars filled with sweets and pickles. For a while, it was wonderful. Everyone was happy. But when Wilburforce disappeared, the mines stopped working, and we had no more crystals to send.’

  She folded her arms defiantly. ‘Priest, rest his soul, said Wilburforce had gone back to Prosperity and abandoned us all. So he said we should make Darkwater our own. Persuaded the miners to block this tunnel off. Course, by then the land was dying – nothing was stubborn enough to grow here except for hibbicus – but Priest insisted we make a go of it. Said it was important we stay by the sea.’ She sighed a long, pained sigh. ‘I didn’t believe Wilburforce would just leave us, but what else could I do? If we were going to live here, well then, I’d try to make the Village to feel like a home.’

  ‘You did a great job,’ Dev said. ‘Thank you for looking after us.’

  Rebecca smiled. ‘Well, thank you for bringing us back our flember. I don’t think anyone particularly enjoyed my hibbicus stew.’

  Dev laughed. ‘So we can use this tunnel? Will it take us to Prosperity without having to go through the Wildening again?’

  Rebecca nodded.

  ‘Did you hear that, Boja?’

  Boja sat, busily slurping through his bowls. ‘MMF!’ he agreed through a mouthful of flonion soup.

  ‘If you have to go.’ Rebecca sighed. ‘If you really, really have to go, then this is the safest way.’

  ‘I almost forgot that tunnel was there!’ Keeper called out, as she CLANK-CLANK-CLANK-ed towards them on a new set of robot legs.

  She came to a stop beside Dev, savouring his stunned expression for a moment. ‘Well, you seemed to have the Garden all in hand. So I thought I’d have a rummage through whatever’s lying around and … y’know … fix myself up.’

  ‘We work with what we’ve got,’ Dev cheered.

  ‘Exactly.’ Keeper beamed. ‘So, you’re still looking for the Flember Stream, then?’

  ‘We are. We have to find it.’

  ‘Shame.’ Keeper tightened Dev’s scarf a little tighter around his neck. ‘I was just getting used to you two being around.’

  Suddenly there came a clatter of empty bowls from behind them. Dev turned to see Boja, tears welling in his eyes, his arms out wide, as he scooped them all up into a hug so big, so tight, everyone involved had to gasp for air.

  ‘Boja!’ Dev croaked.

  ‘FAMILYYYYYY!’ Boja sobbed.

  It took a fair bit of persuasion, and a few of Keeper’s gaskets blowing up Boja’s nose, for the huge bear to finally loosen his grip.
Everyone took a moment to catch their breath.

  ‘Look after yourselves,’ Rebecca finally wheezed. ‘I’m sure wherever you go, whatever you do, everyone back in your village will be very proud of you.’

  Dev smiled at the thought of it. ‘I hope so,’ he replied.

  ‘I’m sure they will be.’ Keeper affectionately patted his arm. ‘They’re lucky to have you, Dev. Don’t stay away from them for too long. Maybe bring them with you next time you visit.’

  ‘We will,’ Dev said. He could feel a lump rising in his throat, as he coughed to stifle it. ‘Thank you, both, for everything.’

  Boja, who had gone back to licking his soup bowls clean as a way to distract himself, dropped them to the ground and shuffled towards the tunnel entrance.

  ‘Ready,’ he sniffled.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Dev asked, gripping onto his finger.

  ‘Hungry,’ Boja replied.

  Dev laughed. ‘Of course you are. Well then, let’s go and see what there is to eat in Prosperity.’

  What Happened Next

  Once Rebecca had made her way back inside the Garden, Keeper climbed on top of its roof. Her night was not to be spent in the warm. As well as rebuilding her legs, she’d also taken time to boost up her headlamps, rejangling the trobbletrons just like Dev had suggested. Now they beamed brighter than ever, bright enough that they might be seen for miles.

  Bright enough to warn the ships away.

  She paraded back and forth, Darkwater’s very own human/robot beacon, keenly watching for any lights sailing between the reef. It didn’t take long, however, for her to notice something else entirely. A noise, not from the sea, but from the quarry wall behind her.

  She swung her lights around, shining them up towards the Wildening. They blinded whoever was up there, causing them to slip out and skid down the near vertical drop where they crashed into the piles of rusted metal.