by Patricia Bow
“Look, if you can believe in gigantic lizards —”
Ike whooped. “I got it! Soccer shoes!”
“Sure, the cleats!” Simon laughed. “No, wait! Crampons. You know, you’ve seen the people who go climbing here. Crampons are those pointy steel things they strap to their boots.”
“But those look like bare feet.”
“Um ... moccasins?”
“That would be it, then.” Ike sighed. “I feel a lot better. Not that I really believed in the gigantic lizard theory.”
“Right.”
“Only, how come the trail starts in the cave?” Ike peered into the opening, where Ammy had disappeared. “Where’d our guy come from?”
Simon nodded at the cliff, where the tracks stopped. “You’ve got it the wrong way round. He must’ve climbed down from above, went in the cave, was in there while it snowed — which covered up his first tracks — came out, and climbed up again.”
The pink was back in Ike’s cheeks. “That makes sense. Sometimes your brain works pretty good, Hammer! All right, where’s Ammy? I want to test that artifact.”
“Ammy?” Simon bent to look into the cave. You couldn’t see anything after the first couple of feet. “Ammy?”
No answer. He called again, louder. Nothing. “How deep is this thing?”
“Well, if aliens are using it as a rendezvous —”
“Ike!”
“No idea.”
“Got a flashlight?”
“Sure.” Ike rummaged in his parka and pulled out a key ring with a folding knife and a finger-sized flashlight on it. He detached the flashlight and gave it to Simon. “You lead.”
§
The cave was deeper than it looked from the outside. Just when it started getting really dark and Amelia was thinking about crawling back out, a dim light appeared. Ice crunched and gleamed under her hands. Space opened above her. She stood up.
“Huh!” she said. The air whispered back at her. It sounded bigger than it was, too. But aside from that, it was a disappointment. No measureless caverns here, no bottomless pools. And no stalagmites or stalactites, unless you counted the icicles hanging from the ceiling.
Amelia stood on a rough, ice-slicked floor in a bottle of rock. It was about ten feet across at the bottom, narrowing to a jagged crack of brightness high above, where two rock faces leaned together.
That crack, she realized, as her eyes adjusted to the dimness, was the reason she could see at all. Up above in the park there must be a heap of rocks with a gap in the middle. That also explained the icicles and the ice on the floor.
It wasn’t even a secret cave. People had been here before. They’d scratched initials and hearts and rude words into the rocks. Right in front of her, on a smooth patch, someone had used thick purple marker to print: “R U ANYONE YET?”
“Who knows?” Amelia said to the wall. Her voice bounced back at her from all around. “Knows ... knows ... no...”
An echo, in this little cave. Now, that was cool. “I’m me!” she declared. “So there!”
“Me ... there ... me ... air...” muttered the echoes. Amelia laughed, and touched the wall with her gloved hand, and turned to go.
Blue light tugged at the edge of her vision. She swung around.
Down the rock face she’d just touched hung a gauzy blue curtain. No, not gauze. It was light: blue light, first pale and vague, then brighter, more definite. Now it was a tall rectangle with an arched top. Its blue was the rich colour of a clear evening sky the moment before true night closes in. Or a sapphire with light shining through it, which Amelia recognized because her mother had a small one in a pendant.
She backed away until her head hit the slanting rock on the other side of the cave. Her vision darkened. Bright motes swarmed across the darkness.
When her sight cleared the blue rectangle looked even more solid. Like you could actually touch it, if you dared. Intertwining ridges, like the stems of ivy, covered the surface. It could have been a door, only there was no handle. Or a window, because it looked like a slab of glass, with the blue glow behind it, only you couldn’t see through it.
“Hey, guys!” Amelia croaked.
In the time it took to draw another breath, the image changed again. The blue glow seeped away like water sinking into sand. Patches of dark rock seeped forward. Another breath and, whatever it was, it was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
UNBREAKABLE
“Aha!” Ike said. “She remembers! It all comes back!”
Simon played the flashlight’s thin beam over her face. She put up a hand to shield her eyes. She did look pretty stunned. “You all right, Ammy?”
“What can you remember?” Ike demanded.
“No. Yes. Nothing. I...” She closed her eyes. Then opened them. Speaking quietly and precisely she said, “I don’t remember anything. From last night. I saw something. Now.”
“Yes!” Ike punched the air. “Oh, wow! Listen to the echo!”
“It was blue. It was the same colour as that blue light last night. It was tall and like a door, with a curve on top. It was right there.” She pointed at the cave wall. Ike stepped over and felt the wall.
“A door to another dimension!” He nudged Simon. “That would explain how the light got brighter and then faded. It was the door, opening and closing. That’s perfect!”
“You’re playing,” Ammy said, still in that small, precise voice.
“Of course not!” Ike turned on his most endearing grin. “I’m totally serious.”
“You’re playing. I’m serious.” She pulled off her gloves, stuffed them in her pockets, and swept her hands over the wall. “It was right here!” She slapped the rock. “I just touched it, like that, and there it was.”
“Ammy, take it easy.” Simon pulled her sleeve. “I think I know what you saw.”
“I saw a door.”
“Well, maybe it looked like that. There’s a hole up above, right? Some sun shone down the hole and over the rocks.”
“That wasn’t just a bit of sun. Sun isn’t blue.”
“Look, Ammy —”
“It’s Amelia!” There, she was back to normal.
She pushed past them and crawled out of the cave. Ike and Simon followed. The snow-reflected light out on the ledge was blinding. Ammy turned around at once and started lowering herself down over the lip of the ledge.
“She’s right, y’know,” Ike said. “Sun isn’t blue. Besides, we all saw the blue light last night. And there wasn’t any sun then.”
“So what caused it?”
“UFO, obviously.”
“Ike, seriously.”
Ike sighed and thumped his hiking pole on the ledge. “There’s nothing in there that could make a light like that. I’m out of ideas. What do you think?”
“I think we need to investigate. We need special equipment. A Geiger counter, maybe. It’ll take some work.”
§
The climb back up to the park at the end of Deacon Street was slower than the trip down, and much less exciting, which was the way Simon liked it. Once up top again, the first thing they did was walk back along the clifftop path to the spot above the cave.
“To confirm my theory about the footprints,” Simon said, “we’ll find the place where the guy took off the crampons.”
Ike was already uncasing his camera.
They found the place on the cliff edge where the footprints appeared in the snow. But there were none of the dragging marks you’d get where a person had hauled himself over the edge. And no welter of marks where a person might have kneeled down or hopped on one foot to remove the crampons. No boot tracks leading away, either.
It looked just as if the person, whoever he was, had climbed the cliff and stepped onto the snow at the top without the help of a rope or even hands. And then walked away on his little steel points.
“This I’ve got to show my dad,” Ike said, patting his camera case.
The trail led to a cedar hedge at the back of some-body
’s yard and disappeared through a gap at the bottom. It had left a trough scooped in the snow. “The marks go on past that house,” Simon said, pulling his head and shoulders back.
Without having to discuss it — even Ammy seemed fascinated — they trotted along the path to Deacon Street, then around the block. Then stood, groaning, at the sight of neatly cleared sidewalks and salted road. They walked up and down the street on both sides, but the trail was lost.
Heads down, hands stuffed in pockets, they scuffed along Park Street towards the bridge across the gorge.
“Hey, Ammy!” Ike, always the first to perk up after a disappointment, dropped back level with her. “You still got that artifact?”
“The ring, he means,” Simon said.
“I know what he means.” Her gloved right hand clenched.
“Can I see it a minute?” Ike took off his mitt and held out his hand. Ammy looked like she was going to refuse, then shrugged, pulled off her glove, and handed him the ring. She’d been holding it against her palm. In the sun the stone blazed like fire. The scratches on it stood out clearly.
“There’s a picture on it, a sort of cat’s eye.” Simon nudged it with his mitt as it lay on Ike’s palm. “Maybe it’s valuable after all. It could be a signet ring, like kings used to wear. To stamp papers with,” he explained to Ike, who was looking puzzled. “To make things official.”
“Your minute’s up.” Ammy reached for it.
Ike whisked it aside. “One more sec!” He knelt down and carefully wedged the band into the crack between two cement slabs, so that the stone shone up at them. Then he stood up, hefted his hiking pole, and stabbed it straight down at the stone. The steel point bounced back. Ammy shrieked and punched Ike in the shoulder so that he sprawled in the snow of somebody’s lawn. She scooped up the ring and peered at it. “Don’t you ever —” she began.
Simon leaned in for a better look. “Now, that’s weird.”
Ike was on his feet again. “Is it —”
“Not even cracked.”
“You see? Looks like glass, but harder than steel. Obviously it’s made of some exotic mineral not known on this planet.”
“Ike, a ruby is harder than steel, and it’s known on this planet.”
“Well, maybe it’s harder than that. We’ll go and test it properly.”
“How?”
“You are not touching it again!” Ammy shoved it into her jeans pocket.
“Diamond,” Ike said across her to Simon.
“Where would you get a diamond?”
“I have my sources.”
“You keep your paws off it.” Ammy sidestepped them and clomped away up the street.
Ike and Simon followed her across the Queen Street bridge. The town hall clock bonged three times as they rounded the bend onto King Street. Ammy quickened her step. The next three blocks were already closed to traffic. People were stringing lights in the trees and hanging banners above the street: “DUNSTONE’S 15th ANNUAL NIGHT OF MAGIC.” Other people were setting up booths along the sidewalk.
Ammy ignored the activity. She ignored Ike’s pleading, too. He would have followed her into the lobby of the Hammer Block if Simon hadn’t diverted him.
“C’mon, I could use a doughnut. And then let’s ask your dad about those tracks, eh?”
“That’s right!” Ike forgot about Ammy. “We’ve got proof, now. Pictures never lie. Dad can tell the police.”
§
“Good pictures, Ike. Well composed, beautifully clear. Simon, keep that jelly doughnut away from my keyboard, would you?” Oscar Vogelsang zoomed in on the image on his computer screen. Ike’s father was huge, red-bearded, and untidy. Ike leaned on his left shoulder, beaming, while Simon edged in on the other side, holding his doughnut out sideways.
“When are you going to call the police?” Ike asked.
“I’m not. Sorry.” Oscar swivelled his chair to face him.
“But why not?”
“These pictures aren’t proof of anything, let alone a UFO. You could have made those marks yourself.”
“Dad, no!”
“We would never —” Simon started.
“I know, I know!” Oscar waved both hands. “Of course I believe you! But my belief isn’t proof, you see? Certainly not to the police.”
“Bummer.” Ike picked up his camera. “So what do you think made those marks?”
Oscar swivelled back to look at the screen. He scratched his jaw through his beard. “Mm ... a giant lizard?”
“Aw, Dad.”
“Never mind, Ike. If you get a really good picture from the street party tonight I’ll run it in the paper, how’s that? I’ll even pay you.”
“Cool!”
Ike and Simon walked back past the service desk to the front of the office and stood at the window finishing their doughnuts. A young woman with short dark hair sat behind the desk tapping at a computer. “There’s my diamond source,” Ike said. “Melissa. New engagement ring.”
The phone rang. Melissa snatched it up on the third ring. “Dunstone Independent. Yes, you are too late. You should have had it in before closing Saturday.” She dropped the phone into its cradle and shook her head at Simon. “People! They know the deadline for placing ads, but they always push it.”
“An ad. Right! Simon, that’s what we should do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That artifact Ammy found. We should run an ad for her in the lost and found column.”
Oscar sauntered over. “An ad? What did you lose?”
“It’s just something my cousin Ammy found out on Riverside Drive yesterday,” Simon said.
“Valuable?”
“Could be,” Simon began.
Ike broke in. “It’s a ring. We think the stone may be a gem. A ruby, maybe. It’s harder than steel.” He said to Simon out of the corner of his mouth, “I’d like a sight of the character that dropped it.”
“It’s too late to place an ad.” Simon pointed at Melissa. “She just said so.”
“Oh, I think we can squeeze in two lines for a neighbour,” Oscar said.
Melissa looked at the clock. “No way, we’re just about to send the disk to the printer.”
“We can, if we’re real quick. I’ll take care of this, Melissa.” He waved her away and sat down at her computer and started typing. “Found: December 30, Riverside Drive, small object, possibly valuable.”
“Shouldn’t we say what it is?” asked Simon. Then he smacked his forehead. “Of course not! Then we’d never know if the person is telling the truth.”
“You got it.” Oscar’s fingers flew. “If confirmed, owner pays ad cost.” He looked at Simon. “How about a phone number? Celeste’s? Perfect. There, done — just in time, eh, Melissa? Two dollars, please. Best deal in the county.”
CHAPTER TEN
MARA
The apartment was deserted when Simon returned. So was 3A. Simon found Ammy and her new friend on the roof. The girl sat cross-legged on the parapet at the front of the building, looking down at the street. The low-slanting sun and the wind caught her hair and it streamed out like a flame.
“Not again!” Simon said.
Ammy looked back over her shoulder and then crunched across the snow to meet him. “I think she just likes being in high places,” she whispered. “Be cool. Don’t scare her.”
“She scares me.”
The girl smiled back at them. “So much moving down there!” She waved a hand over the street. “What they do?”
“It’s a party,” Simon said. “To celebrate the first night in the new year.”
“Parrr-ty? Parrr-ty.” She turned the word over in her mouth. Then spun herself around on the parapet, still cross-legged, and fixed her eyes on him. “Means what?”
“It’s when people get together and have fun.”
“Ah! Fun. What way they have fun?”
“Well, they play games, and dance, and skate. Stuff like that. There’s music and food, too. And there a
re prizes for the best costumes.”
“Coss-tumes.”
“That’s when you dress up,” Ammy put in. “You disguise yourself. You make yourself look different.”
The girl spun herself around again and bent at the waist to look down at the street. Simon’s hand shot out. Ammy took a quick step forward.
“Blue, white, shining.” The girl shaded her eyes. “So sharp!”
“What is?” Ammy bent over the parapet beside her. Simon grabbed the back of Ammy’s jacket. She swatted his hand away.
“The colours of this — this place.” The girl held out both arms. “So cold, so bright! Where I come from, the colours are soft and hot.”
Aha, a clue! Simon poked Ammy in the arm. “So it’s hot where you come from?”
“Yes, much. How I wish I know what happens there!”
He cleared his throat. “Um ... where is there?”
“My home.” Her voice went flat.
“I give up!” Simon shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away. He stopped at the nearest chimney and kicked at the snow at its base. Then he stopped his foot in mid-kick, put it down, and studied the snow. “Uh-oh.”
“How about coming inside?” Ammy coaxed. “You don’t have a coat. Aren’t you cold?”
“Ammy!” Simon broke in. “Over here!”
“It’s Amelia!”
“Amelia. You’ll want to see this.”
“Oh, all right. What’s the big deal?”
He pointed. Next to the chimney, where the snow was sheltered from the wind, a trail of scuffed footprints marked the surface. Some of them looked like they were wearing crampons. Beyond the chimney they faded into the blown powder.
“But that’s just like...”
“Right. How did he get up on the roof?”
“Well, if he could climb out of the gorge...”
“But why is he still wearing the crampons? That’s just weird.” Unless those aren’t crampons, he thought. Unless those prints are his actual... “Nah.” He shook his head.
A long shadow fell across the snow. The girl stood beside them looking down. Her mouth widened slowly into a smile that bared all her teeth.
“I saw these marks somewhere else today.” Simon watched her face. “You know them?”
