Green

by Laura Peyton Roberts

He bowed to the judges. "Not slyful, Your Honors. First count dis proven."

  178

  The gallery went crazy again, making so much noise that bailiffs in black vests had to go up and down the aisles shutting everyone up. The judges leaned their heads together and whispered among themselves. I held my breath.

  "The first point will attach to the second count," the chief justice finally announced. "On with your case, Prosecutor."

  Beryl shot Balthazar a triumphant look.

  "What? What does that mean?" I whispered.

  "Double or nothing," Balthazar said grimly. "Winner o' the second count takes both."

  "Is that even legal?"

  "The prosecution calls Lilybet Green," Beryl announced loudly.

  "What? You can't call me!" I protested. "A person has the right not to testify against herself."

  Beryl appealed to the judges. "Your Honors, will the court please instruct my witness to stop talking nonsense?"

  "The witness will answer the questions," the chief justice ruled without pausing to blink.

  "But--"

  "Lilybet Green," Beryl interrupted me. "Will you raise your right hand above your head?"

  "No. I won't," I said, shoving both hands deeper into my sweater pockets.

  All three judges glared at me. Balthazar poked my calf. "You've no choice, Lil. Go ahead and show them."

  179

  Slowly, with, extreme reluctance, I slid my right hand out of my pocket and raised it into the air. A collective gasp went up at the sight of my scarlet skin.

  "Red-handed!" Beryl crowed. "Second count proven!"

  Cheers for him and hisses for me filled the dining hall. The chief justice banged away with her gavel. Stuffing my hands back into my pockets, I begged Balthazar with my eyes to come to my rescue again.

  He met my desperate gaze with one of his own. Then he raised his pilgrim hat and waved it wildly, shouting over the crowd. "Point of factual accuracy!" he cried. "If it please the court, F.A.!"

  The chief justice looked skeptical. "State your basis."

  Balthazar shot me a now-or-never look. "We will concede that Lilybet Green was caught red-handed trying to steal Scarlet gold."

  The gallery cheered thunderously.

  "But!" Balthazar shouted over the din. "But she was not successful. There was no stolen gold in her possession. Factual accuracy has not been met. Lilybet Green has been mischarged!"

  The galley gasped. Beryl turned pale. Balthazar had obviously scored somehow.

  "What? Tell me!" I begged. "What did you just do?"

  "Got him on a technicality," Balthazar whispered back.

  The judges conferred again. The center one banged her

  180

  gavel. "Is the stolen gold in court?" she asked Beryl. "You did recover the stolen gold?"

  He was totally panicking now. Sweat streamed from under his wig. "Well, um ..." He looked desperately from Tully to each of his men as if searching for an answer. My heart swelled with hope. There was no stolen gold--Balthazar totally had him!

  Then Beryl's eyes landed on Kylie. "Yes!" he cried. "Yes, Your Honors! The prosecution calls Kylie Scarlet!"

  Hope shriveled as Kylie shuffled forward and stopped a few feet away. I didn't know what he and Beryl were up to, but I knew it wouldn't be good.

  "Kylie Scarlet," Beryl said, recovering some of his arrogance, "will you show the court your keeper key?"

  Kylie pulled his key over his head and held it up for the whole room to see. The chain had been repaired so perfectly I couldn't tell it had ever been broken.

  "When Lilybet Green was caught, she was in possession of this key. What is it made of, Kylie?"

  Kylie smiled slightly. "Gold."

  "And how did Lilybet get it?"

  This ought to be good , I thought, knowing he wouldn't be able to tell them because of the clover swear.

  But once again Kylie proved too smart for me.

  "I really can't say," he answered. His words were one

  181

  hundred percent true, but his tone distinctly implied he didn't know how I'd gotten it.

  "Did you give it to her?" Beryl persisted.

  Beryl had to have been in on the plan since before the clover swear to ask such perfect questions, I realized. He'd probably wanted this chance to look the hero as much as Kylie.

  "No," Kylie answered innocently.

  "Your Honors!" Beryl said triumphantly. "Lilybet Green was caught in possession of the Scarlets' keeper key. The key in question is gold. And it was taken without Kylie's permission, which is to say, stolen. Second count proven!"

  The resulting applause rocked the hall. The judges began conferring. I turned to Balthazar, praying he had another rabbit to pull out of his pilgrim hat. "Say something!" I begged.

  He shook his head apologetically. "Can't see where to go with this one, Lil. You did have the key."

  "Yes, but it wasn't ... wasn't ..." Chewed clover rose into my mouth. Frustrated, I tried to swipe some out to show him, but I couldn't get anything on my fingers, just spit stained a nearly invisible shade of green.

  "It was me and ... and ... and ..." I strained to say Kylie's name, to give Balthazar anything he could work with. The word wouldn't come out, but Balthazar finally clued in.

  "Oh, Lil! You never made a clover swear?"

  182

  I tried to nod, but my head wouldn't move. That swear was bulletproof.

  The chief justice pounded her podium. Trumpets blared. The bailiffs ran up and down, calling out for order.

  "I am ready to rule," the judge announced. "Lilybet Green, you are found guilty of slyful entering and petty theft. I hereby sentence you to five years' confinement."

  The gavel that slammed the podium might as well have hit my skull. My body went numb from the neck down. "Five years?"

  "What a relief!" Balthazar exclaimed triumphantly. "Five years! I've slept longer than that!"

  The disgruntled crowd obviously agreed with him. They began filing out, muttering about the good old days when thieves were turned loose in the forest and hunted down like deer. The judges climbed off their stools.

  "You can't do this!" I screamed, bringing the crowd surging back. "Five years ... I'll be eighteen! I didn't do anything!"

  "Lilybet! Lil, calm yourself," Balthazar begged. "Don't make them reconsider. It's a light sentence, the lightest! Five years will pass in--"

  "I'll be eighteen! Can't you people add? You can't do this! You can't!"

  Guards rushed in to tie my legs with binding gold. They

  183

  became useless instantly. Golden lassoes flew over my head, pulling me down by my neck.

  "Balthazar!" I screamed, but he couldn't hear me anymore, not under the spell of Scarlet binding gold.

  "I'll come collect you personally the instant your time is up," he promised. "You won't wait an extra minute."

  "I don't want you to collect me! I want to go home now!" I crashed to the floor. Scarlets swarmed around me, making their knots tighter.

  Balthazar stood beside my head, gazing down with true sympathy. "I'm sorry, Lil. I did my best. If it's any consolation, one day you won't remember any o' this."

  Because they're going to erase my memory! I realized. No way were the Greens waiting five years for their new keeper. I began screaming at the top of my lungs. I wasn't just going to jail and losing every memory of Gigi; I was losing five years of my life! I would "wake up" one day like a coma patient and discover I'd completely missed high school and my sweet sixteen and prom and every normal thing about being a teenager--and I wouldn't even remember why!

  "You can't do this to me!" But I was no match for so many Scarlets. They picked me up like a rolled carpet and marched me out through the crowd.

  Just before the doorway, I found myself looking up at

  184

  Kylie. I could guess why he'd done it: no one would ever say boys couldn't be good keepers again. Making it look as if he'd caught me at my
own plan made him seem even more clever. But he'd never thought too deeply about what would happen to me--I could read that in his eyes. For a moment, I thought I saw remorse there too.

  Then his gaze flicked away.

  "Kylie!" I screamed. "Don't let them do this!"

  The last thing I saw in that hall was Kylie turning his back on me, abandoning me to my sentence.

  185

  Chapter 15

  Things went kind of black after that, what with the panic and screaming and all. The next thing I remember is a long blur of branches overhead, then hitting the dirt on my back.

  "Get the door," Tully's voice ordered.

  My head crunched through fallen leaves as I looked side to side for a building. We were out in the middle of the woods somewhere, not a thing around us but trees, dirt, and boulders the size of minivans.

  Hinges squealed.

  "Hoist her up and in she goes!"

  186

  Hands pushed me back into the air. I saw the short, squeaky door as I was carried past it--a six-inch-thick slab of wood reinforced with iron bars. Daylight gave way to dim shadows. There was stone overhead, stone all around. I hit the ground again, harder. There was stone beneath me too.

  "Good enough," a rough voice said. "Lively now, lads."

  I felt tugging on the binding gold around my legs and neck. "Crying shame to turn this over to that maggot o' an ambassador," someone said.

  "Aye, but what can we do? Council's ruled in the maggot's favor," Tully replied disgustedly.

  Hinges squealed and the door slammed. I lay motionless another minute before I realized I'd been untied and all the leprechauns had gone. I was free--free inside a smaller, drearier, even more escape-proof cell than I'd been held in before.

  My prison seemed to be a huge, hollowed-out boulder. Chisel marks pocked the curved walls and ceiling, making a rounded space the size of my bathroom at home, only with a lower ceiling. Near the center, I could stand up straight; everywhere else I had to stoop. A ledge along the wall held a moldy mattress. There were two buckets against the opposite wall, one filled with water and an empty one the purpose of which I didn't want to think about.

  The only way in or out was through the battering-ram-proof

  187

  timber door. The single other opening was a hole eighteen inches square, crisscrossed with so many bars I could barely reach my hand out. The stone through which that window had been cut formed a foot-wide ledge in front of the grate. Resting my chin there, I tried to see where I was, but there was nothing I recognized outside, just rocks and trees and a pond so small it looked more like a puddle. I had been carried so far from town I couldn't even guess which direction it was in.

  Something clanged loudly behind me. A bag was being shoved through a slot that had opened in the door. Sprawling flat, I peered through the slot before it closed again.

  "Help! Stay! Wait!" I cried, startling the leprechaun on the other side into nearly tumbling over. He was too young to grow a beard, and he wore a waiter's apron.

  "Don't try anything, Green, or I'll call Tully!" he warned.

  "I just want to see Balthazar. Or Cain. When are they coming?"

  The waiter collected himself and ventured back to the door. "Here? You're in confinement, aren't you? No visitors."

  The slot cover slammed in my face.

  "No visitors when?" I shouted. "You don't mean ever! No visitors ever?"

  "No visitors for prisoners in confinement. Everyone knows that."

  188

  "No, they don't!" I cried. "No visitors? Are you kidding me?"

  No answer came from outside the door. Silence descended over the woods, driving me into a fresh panic.

  "Let me out!" I shrieked, charging the window. I scraped my knuckles trying to shake the bars loose, but the iron didn't budge. Screaming until my throat was raw, I collapsed into a hysterical heap on the mattress.

  No one is coming to rescue me , I realized.

  I was on my own. Abandoned.

  For all I knew, the Greens had already left.

  I sobbed inconsolably, heartbroken by all I had lost. I had arrived desperately missing Gigi, and in a few years I wouldn't remember her. I couldn't even be certain I'd ever see my mother again; one of us could die in five years. I had taken her completely for granted, and now it was too late. Never once had it crossed my mind that I could lose her too.

  I huddled tighter in Gigi's sweater. Its yarn was getting grubby, but it was still the most comforting thing there, next to Gigi's key. I reached for that under my collar.

  There was no gold chain around my neck.

  Bolting upright, I frisked myself, then looked wildly about the cell. Gigi's key was gone.

  They took it! I realized. I remembered the tugging around my neck, hearing something about a maggot of an ambassador ...

  189

  Ludlow! I thought, furious. This was all his doing!

  If my wardens were bringing him my key, though, that meant the Greens were still in the Hollow. And unless Fizz wanted to drive in the dark, they probably wouldn't leave before morning.

  Which did me exactly no good at all.

  I sank back onto the mattress, watching miserably as a square of light from the window inched slowly across my cell wall. I would never survive five years in this place. I'd lose my mind the first week.

  I had to escape.

  But how?

  It wasn't as if I had much to work with. I took an inventory: one moldy mattress, two buckets, the clothes I was wearing, a pack of peppermint Life Savers, and Lexie's good-luck charm--which obviously hadn't been lucky for me.

  How was I supposed to accomplish a jailbreak with that?

  Words from Gigi's letter popped into my head: Be what you'd become .

  Okay, fine . Except that I had no idea what that meant.

  I struggled to reason it out: I want to go home now with my memory intact. That means I have to become keeper. Keepers are clever. I have to be clever .

  Great .

  The last thing I felt at that moment was clever, but I forced myself to start trying.

  190

  Was there any way I could use Lexie's gold button? Untying it from my wrist, I laid it before me. The belt on Gigi's sweater could serve as a short rope; I put that on the mattress too. Then I took out her Life Savers.

  I wish these were butter rum now , I thought, examining the worn foil of the roll's unopened ends. If that was the only candy I'd see for the next five years, it could at least have been one I wanted to eat.

  Placing the Life Savers next to the belt, I stared down at my meager tools. Maybe I could tie the belt to the window and use it to pull out the bars?

  No way. That yarn will break before those bars ever do .

  I got up for another look anyway. The woods outside the window had slipped into twilight and were darkening fast. I longed to lose myself in them, but the iron bars were spaced so tightly that even a leprechaun couldn't slip through. There was barely room for a pisky.

  I froze where I stood, struck by a sudden inspiration. Was I completely insane to be thinking what I was thinking?

  Do I have any choice?

  191

  Chapter 16

  T his is a stupid idea , I thought. Give up now and admit it .

  It had to be past midnight, and my legs were so cramped from crouching that I wasn't sure I'd be able to stand, let alone spring up to the window. But I stayed where I was.

  I had no Plan B.

  Directly above me, on the window ledge, my meager offerings were spread: Lexie's gold charm and four peppermint Life Savers. I'd shredded the foil off the candy's waxed paper and scattered those shiny scraps around too. They glimmered in the moonlight, adding badly needed

  192

  flash, but I didn't have any real silver, or ale, or anything else that a pisky might like. All I had was hope and my desperation.

  A pisky will come , I argued with the part of me that wanted to quit. Lexie's go
ld button is worth taking, and I put that right up front .

  My cramped legs began to quiver--I had to stretch them out. Scooting over a few inches, I rose painfully beside the cell window, flattened my back to the wall, and peered out sideways. The sky above the pines was full of stars. Beneath the trees, a pattern of silver and shadow patch-worked the ground like a quilt. I was jiggling blood back into my feet when a blur of wings cut through a moonbeam and a pisky landed on my windowsill.

  I went as still as the stone wall. The pisky hesitated, listening, then walked in through the bars, headed for Lexie's button.

  Don't move. Don't even breathe! I warned myself. I'd only get one chance.

  The pisky bent to pick up the gold.

  I pounced.

  Launching myself at the ledge, I grabbed for the pisky as if my life depended on it. The startled creature fell backward onto its wings. Before it could flip over to fly, both of my hands clamped down like a dome, trapping it on the ledge.

  193

  "Sorry! Sorry!" I cried as it flailed against my palms. "I'm not going to hurt you! I'm really, truly sorry, but I've got to have a wish."

  The whirring wings slowed to a flutter. I imagined the pisky baring its fangs, choosing the juiciest spot to sink them. I braced myself to hold on despite any amount of chomping.

  And then the pisky started to laugh.

  Its reedy giggle filled my hands, my ears, the entire cell. "Release me!" it chirped mirthfully.

  I watched in disbelief as my hands peeled away on their own, leaving the pisky completely uncaught. The creature brushed off its skinny arms and wriggled its spotted wings, twitching itself back into position. My hands hovered inches away, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't force them to grab. The scars on my thumbs glowed silver, tiny clovers in the moonlight. The pisky grinned as it pointed them out.