Snowglobe

by Amy Wilson

  He flicks his fingers, and the book, tightly wedged under my arm, flies out towards him.

  ‘Stop!’ I gasp, and the book flutters in mid-air, caught between us.

  Timothy’s eyebrows shoot up with surprise that turns to outrage when the book flies back my way.

  ‘Ooh, what a child.’ He pouts. ‘Truly you do belong in here, don’t you? All that magic just wriggling around inside, waiting to pounce. And did I see the Paradis name there? I think I did!’

  ‘We should get out of here,’ Dylan whispers, backing towards the door.

  But I can’t move. I can’t just turn away, not when Timothy’s eyes gleam like that. Not when he knows something about my mother’s book. Not when he’s in charge of a whole library that might tell me all the things we need to know. How to get out.

  Where my mother is.

  ‘Tell me how I can help you, my dears,’ Timothy says. ‘No judgement here: whatever your problems, whatever you need, I’m sure we can find a way!’

  His eyes glitter. I don’t trust him. He’s probably on Io’s side, just waiting for the chance to call out to her. Maybe if we can divert him, I can search for the book that will tell us how to get home. There must be one somewhere. We just need to distract him and find it before he alerts Io.

  ‘We’re looking for unicorns,’ I say, ignoring Dylan’s wild-eyed stare and looking Timothy square in the eye. ‘Perhaps if you had a book on one . . . ?’

  He nods. ‘Unicorns are indeed both magical and popular. Let me help you. Let me see . . .’

  He climbs on to the first rung of the ladder and starts to scoot it along, getting faster and faster, smaller and smaller. And then he whizzes back. ‘Stay right there,’ he barks at us. ‘No browsing!’

  I nod, and we watch him scoot off again.

  ‘OK,’ I say, turning to Dylan.

  He’s gone a bit pale.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he says with a wan smile. ‘What are you doing asking about unicorns?’

  ‘Just distracting him. You sit with Helios for a bit, and I’ll see if I can find something about getting out in one of these books . . .’ I say, and he nods, slumping down on to the wooden floor with one arm round Helios.

  I start off down the shelves, kicking up golden-yellow dust as I go, watching it spool off the shelves closest to me. Please, I say, deep in my mind where I hope my magic is listening. Show me what I need. I think it, over and over, imagining the globes, the house where Ganymede stalks, keeping it all live in my mind, and reaching out at random, traipsing through the aisles, just hoping Timothy has gone far enough that he’s not about to pop out at me. He seemed to recognize us just from our appearance, and goodness knows what he’ll make of the Paradis name. I guess it’s my mother’s maiden name, and so it would be Io and Ganymede’s name too. I wonder how many worlds we’ll have to go through before we find our way out. What we’ll see along the way.

  My mother?

  The thought flashes, bright as a star, and my chest hitches.

  No. I promised I’d get Dylan out of here, and that’s what I’m going to do. My mother, wherever she is, is a powerful woman. Pa told me so, many times. If she were here, she could get out by herself. If she were here, she could find me.

  ‘Snowglobes,’ I mutter to myself, running my fingers along the shelves.

  A book about snowdrops pushes itself out. I pick it up, flick through and tut at myself. ‘Snowglobes,’ I say. ‘The magic of snowglobes, and how to get out!’ I wedge the book back on to the shelf and make for the next aisle.

  ‘What are you doing?’ thunders the man in the top hat, popping up when I get to the end. ‘You are browsing!’

  ‘It was difficult to stay still,’ I say, clamping my mother’s diary even tighter under my arm. ‘You have so many beautiful books.’

  ‘I do, ’tis true,’ says the man. ‘Always loved books, you know. Read my first when I was two and been reading ever since. These are no ordinary books, though, girl! You may not flounce willy-nilly through these shelves!’

  ‘No, I see. I’m sorry. Did you find anything?’

  ‘Plenty, plenty.’ He sighs. ‘Not the one you’re looking for, though. You want to know about unicorns, no?’ His eyes narrow suspiciously.

  ‘Yes, unicorns.’

  ‘I’ll look again,’ he says. ‘And I suppose you may wander my shelves, if you like. But don’t touch – some of them bite!’ He grins, revealing yellowed, papery teeth, and scurries off again.

  After a moment, he swings past me on his ladder, about halfway up this time, propelling himself with great sweeps of his arm.

  ‘Anon!’ he calls.

  I dart down the next aisle, and the next, and the next, until finally I stumble upon a glass case, a small book resting on a cushion inside, a sketch of a snowglobe on the outside. ‘Instruction and Destruction,’ says the title, ‘and Everything in Between’.

  I frown at the way the ins seem to glow. It seems familiar, as though it’s trying to tell me something I’ve already heard.

  ‘Ooh, you’ve found my treasure,’ says the man, scuttling back over to me. ‘That one is a biter, for sure!’

  ‘Really?’

  He scowls. ‘Yes. And I have just remembered that my book about unicorns is already out on loan.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry about that.’

  He stares at me. ‘My lady is a little partial to a unicorn herself.’ He taps his foot against the wooden floor.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask, my mouth dry. ‘Do you mean Io? Is she your lady? Have you already told her we’re here?’ My voice rises, and I back away from him. I’d thought I was diverting him, but perhaps he’s already found a way to alert her.

  ‘No, no, not at all; I’m trying to help you!’ he says, but his eyes are shifty, his forehead more shiny than ever as he hurries after me.

  I turn and rush back towards Dylan.

  ‘You must stay here. I insist. I cannot let you continue to roam, with all your magic and your little secret book that shouts of magical royalty! I have questions! I need to have that book – you must wait!’

  ‘Get up!’ I shout, running back the way I came. ‘Dylan! We have to get out!’

  ‘No, my dear!’ Timothy laughs, sweeping after me on his ladder. ‘Where do you think you’re going? You think that getting out of here will be so simple? My lady is coming; she wants to meet you!’

  ‘We have to go,’ I mutter, as Dylan struggles to his feet. ‘Io’s on the way – we have to go now!

  ‘What are you doing?’ Timothy demands as we head for the door.

  ‘We’re going to get some air,’ I say. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Oh no . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘Oh no, that’s not the plan.’

  The wooden doors shut with a bang, the lights dim and the yellow dust begins to spiral around us. The man’s eyes light up.

  ‘Oh, she is coming,’ he murmurs, clasping his hands together. ‘Wait here, children! I must find my good hat . . .’ He strides to the ladder and propels it into motion, stepping on to the bottom rung.

  I look at Dylan, and he looks at me. His eyes are ringed with fatigue, his fingers trail over Helios’s coat, as if he’s all that’s keeping him upright.

  ‘What do we do now?’ he asks. ‘She’s going to find us, Clem, and she won’t let us out! All this time, she never let me out, and you’re her family – he said it was on that book of yours – she’s not going to just let you go!’

  ‘We just need to stay ahead of her until we have a plan,’ I say. ‘We’ll find a way, Dylan. Starting with getting out of here!’

  I stride to the door, put my fingers on the big brass lock and push at it with my mind, my blood singing, my whole self tuned in and questing for freedom. OPEN! I command, and the library rings with my unspoken voice as the doors blow outward, landing in a heap of splintered wood at the bottom of the steps. There’s a scream behind us and a rush of whizzing wheels across the polished floor, but we don’t
linger.

  We tumble out, our fists battering against the glass at the edge of the globe, running, running. Timothy is behind us, and a storm is brewing in the yellow clouds over our heads, but finally Dylan’s hand goes through the globe. In the world before us, we can see nothing but a riot of colour and activity, a blaze of red and gold, a rush of fire, and the roar of a tiger.

  We plunge headlong into it.

  The whole world is a roar of sound and light. Stars wink in a velvet-blue sky and, before us, a circus tent has been pitched in a vast field. The grass is high, and the stalks of poppies dance with cornflowers as performers stride in and out of the tent, their costumes dazzling, music blaring. Little stalls have been set up under striped awnings, and the sellers shout while acrobats whirl past, juggling fiery torches, throwing spangled hoops high into the air.

  We stand in the shadows watching unseen, until the tiger saunters past us. Helios whimpers and hides behind our legs, but the tiger doesn’t stop. It just stares at us with unblinking amber eyes, before loping off into silver woodland at the edge of the field.

  ‘That was weird,’ Dylan says.

  ‘Everything is weird,’ I reply tiredly. ‘The tiger’s the least of it. Did you want it to eat us?’

  ‘No. But the way it stared and then ran off . . .’

  ‘Oh.’ I look after it towards the tall, bare winter trees.

  ‘Like maybe it’s a spy for Io?’ Dylan says. ‘Gone to get her.’

  ‘Let her come,’ I say. ‘I’m tired of running. I’ll tell her who I am, and ask her how to get out of here.’

  Dylan shakes his head. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about. You think she’ll care who you are? You won’t get straight answers out of Io, whoever you are. You’ll be lucky if you can find your voice at all.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’

  ‘Someone here might help us,’ he says, looking around. ‘They can’t all be on her side, enjoying their prisons.’

  ‘Timothy seemed to be. It’s all an illusion anyway, Dylan. When I was in the house in your globe, it started to become home . . . the same rug, pictures on the wall. Whatever you imagine, I suppose. Why did you imagine snow?’

  ‘I don’t remember imagining it,’ he says. ‘It was just there. I’d have changed it if I could . . .’ He hesitates, looking at me. ‘I could have, couldn’t I?’

  ‘Maybe.’ I shrug. ‘If you’d really believed in your magic. You weren’t ready.’

  ‘Do you think these are all magicians, then?’ he says. ‘Coming together for a circus?’

  ‘Let’s ask someone and find out.’

  We venture in closer, watching the acrobats warm up as clowns stalk through on stilts, and we steal candyfloss from a stall while the vendor juggles cups, and though it tastes of nothing it makes Dylan’s eyes shine.

  ‘Dad used to take me to the circus,’ he says as we start towards the main tent.

  Whispers follow, and the bright eyes of the performers are on us, but he doesn’t seem to notice, and I don’t think I trust them enough to ask for help. I pull us into the shadows.

  ‘It came every summer, and we’d have candyfloss, and he’d get me one of those light-up whizzy wands, and we’d sit and watch together. He loved it, loved seeing magic happen. He always said one day he’d show me real magic, but he died before he could . . .’ He holds up the candyfloss and it sparkles in the torchlight. ‘It’s just an illusion, though, isn’t it? The food, the lights – none of it’s real.’

  ‘It was real when you went with your dad,’ I say, noticing the stalls are getting quieter now, the performers heading towards the main tent. ‘I’m sorry he died before he could show you more.’

  ‘Mum blamed the magic,’ Dylan says. ‘She said it drew him to the sea, even when he should have known better. There was a storm one night, and he’d taken our little boat out . . .’ He stares up at the star-filled sky, his voice dropping to a murmur. ‘They found him, a couple of days later. So I guess magic can’t do everything. It didn’t save him.’

  ‘No,’ I say, watching as a lone figure comes towards us, a woman dressed all in black. ‘It saved us, though, Dylan. You saved us, when we were trapped under the sea.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’

  The woman steps in front of us. Her black dress is threaded through with silver, her veil drawn back from her lined face, sweeping over her head and down her back. ‘Do you have the instructions?’ she whispers. ‘Poor dears, you have been looking all the time for the way to get out. We’ve been trying to tell you, we who can – you must get back in.’

  ‘In?’

  ‘In, to Ganymede’s house and back to your own reality,’ she hisses. ‘You, my girl, who wandered in of her own magic, who wanted to be here, you alone are not under Io’s control! All these other souls are under her spell, building illusions in the sky, happy with fresh air and their dreams.’ She tuts. ‘Not many of us remember what this is, my dear. It is a prison, and I know it. And so do you. So it must be you. Find your way back into the house and back to reality, and then you will be free!’ Her brown eyes shine. ‘You are strong, my dear. Perhaps if you are free, there will be hope for all of us . . . You smell of the earth and the flowers. You look just like the one who—’

  We are quickly surrounded by a huge mob of magicians all wanting to get inside the tent, and she melts into the crowd. Dylan grabs my hand and we’re shoved along into the tent, just as the music starts up again.

  The one who what?

  Who do I look just like?

  A whirling, sparkling show has unfurled on the stage ahead of me. There are trapeze artists tumbling through the air, torches burning, clowns juggling and all I can see is that old woman’s eyes. All I can hear is her voice.

  You look just like the one who . . .

  I realize I have been wondering, as we travelled through these worlds, whether she might be here somewhere. I’ve tried to block it out, to focus on just getting me and Dylan out of here alive. But it’s been building, and now I can’t stop imagining. She didn’t mean Io, because she would have said ‘my lady’. So there must be someone else here who I look like.

  My mother? Is she here?

  The faces of the magicians are glowing against the lick of flames upon the stage. There are men and women of all ages, each of them with their own bright spark of magic. All of them – magicians, prisoners – nodding and happy under Io’s spell. I search the crowds until my head spins, looking for something familiar, hoping for just a glimpse of something I haven’t seen for nearly ten years. Would I recognize her, even if she was here?

  Dylan nudges me. Helios lies across our feet, his eyes closed, turned away from the tumult on stage, but Dylan is entranced . . . and now the lights dim, now the music fades.

  We turn and stare with the rest of the crowd as Io enters, and all the starry lights in the fabric ceiling glow. The torches around the edges of the tent wink to golden life, so that she’s in the middle of a storm of light, the tiger by her side. Her cloak is a rustling tapestry of copper and green, the hood lined with fur, and golden butterflies shiver in her long, wheat-coloured hair. Io doesn’t walk – she seems almost to glide – and as she sweeps up on to the stage, there’s a collective intake of breath.

  ‘There will be no show today,’ she says softly, sitting on the edge of the stage, the tiger settling by her side. ‘For there are traitors in our midst. Traitors, and interlopers.’ She smiles, fondles the tiger between his ears. ‘Some of you have tried to waylay them, so that I might meet them for myself. Some of you have tried to help them to get away.’ Her eyes glitter, but the smile remains. ‘It does not matter, either way. I am your lady, and this is our world. All who are here are under my protection. Have you not had fun? Have I not looked after your every whim? Did I not, Dylan, bring you that divine puppy, that you might have warmth, when you denied your own magic and locked yourself in the bitterest winter?’

  Her eyes meet his, and he stiffens by my side. The other magic
ians slowly filter away until it’s just the two of us, standing before her. The music stops. The performers are gone.

  ‘It was a sad, lonely place in which you found yourself,’ she says, sliding down from the stage and coming towards us, the butterflies open-winged, nestled in her hair. ‘I thought I did you a kindness, Dylan, when I stopped by. When I brought you company. I gave you a puppy! I gave you a house, but you never even tried to get there, so defiant you were. So determined to refuse your magic. And now this girl, this one small creature, comes in and changes everything! I have felt your power, Dylan! I have felt your travels. I have watched you walk through walls – do you think I was not leading you here all along?’ Her eyes spark, and the tent sways around us, its walls silently crumpling to the ground until we are standing before her in a cold, starlit field. ‘Do you not realize I can do anything here? This is my realm!’

  ‘But you have no control over me,’ I say, clutching the fortune teller’s words tight against this woman, my aunt, holding her at bay even as the golden sense of her floods through the field, and the sky fades to a pale, new dawn.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demands, stooping to look more closely, a movement that makes me think of Ganymede.

  Around us, the flowers turn to stalks of barley and wheat, and the air gets warmer. Dylan stares at Io, his cheeks flushed. He wavers on his feet, and there is nothing for him to hold on to except me. I realize with a sharp pang of fear that we truly are alone. Helios isn’t here.

  ‘Where’s Helios?’ I demand.

  ‘Oh, he is with my friends.’ She smiles. ‘I decided you did not deserve him. He is safe.’ She waves a hand at my alarm. ‘And Dylan may have him back, once he has recovered his senses. I do not harm any here, little girl, not any who are loyal to me. Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Clementine,’ I say, putting power behind the words so they sparkle in the air. Poppies and cornflowers begin to bloom between the dry grass once more, and Io startles as she watches them take over the field.