The Game

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “That Autolycus,” Troy said gloomily. “He really hates Hayley, doesn’t he? He stole stuff from your father, Hayley, and your father caught him at it. I think that’s why.”

  Harmony said, equally gloomily, “I don’t think Tollie needs a reason to do the things he does. So if we look for Merope—”

  “I have to have a star off Orion’s bow too,” Hayley said. “Flute said I had to give him one for stealing the apple.”

  Troy whistled. Harmony said, “Flute?” with her smooth forehead all wrinkled. Then the wrinkles cleared away and she said, “Oh, you mean one of those two who own the apples?”

  Hayley nodded. “They’re twins. They take turns at standing in the sun. I call them Flute and Fiddle, but who are they really, Harmony?”

  Harmony looked at Troy, who shook his head, shrugged and said, “No idea.”

  “No more have I,” Harmony confessed. “I’ve always called them Yin and Yang, because you have to call them something, and sometimes I wondered if they might be angels, but I really don’t know. And I’ll tell you this, Hayley. They always make you give them a fee for one of the apples, but I’ve never known them ask for anything as important as a star. The most I’ve had to give them is my old flute – or once they asked for the Old Soldier’s violin – but otherwise it’s just a blue bead or a farthing or a shoelace. Nothing really. If they’ve asked for one of Orion’s stars, it must be serious. We’ll look into that. But let’s get back to Merope. What are the women’s strands?”

  “Witches,” Troy suggested. “Suffragettes, Amazons, the Pythoness, Saint Ursula?”

  “Or all those boring ladies who waited in towers for their prince to come,” Harmony added. “Rapunzel – you know. Oh lord! There’s hundreds! What about that girl who went about making prophecies that no one believed?”

  “None of those are wild,” Troy pointed out. “Go back to witches.”

  “There are thousands of those,” Harmony said. “And what about Boadicea? Jezebel?”

  They were still making suggestions to one another when the plane landed in Edinburgh.

  It took ages to get off the plane and into the airport building. Hayley became nervous all over again. There seemed ample time for Uncle Jolyon to pounce on them while they shuffled along to collect their baggage, or while they stood for minute after minute watching the empty luggage carousel go round and round.

  “I’ve just thought,” Troy said, as Hayley’s duffel bag pushed the flaps aside and toppled on to the metal surface. “Uncle Jolyon knows where we’re going. What’s to stop him marching in on Mother and simply waiting for us at home?”

  “I’m hoping,” Harmony said, as her bag, followed by Troy’s backpack, flopped out on to the carousel as well, “that it’ll take him more than these two days to realise that. He’s quite slow-witted, you know. Grab those, Troy, and let’s get going.”

  Hayley followed them out through the building, fatalistically expecting Uncle Jolyon to be waiting outside for them. But the only person there was Aunt Ellie. Hayley would have known who she was, even without the way the other two dropped their bags and flung their arms round her. Aunt Ellie looked like Aunt May gone respectable.

  “Mother!” Harmony cried out, nestling her smooth dark head against Aunt Ellie’s carefully curled grey one.

  “Good to see you, Mum!” Troy said, wrapping his arms around her neat grey suit. “This is Hayley. Hayley, meet my mother, Electra.”

  Just like Aunt May, Aunt Ellie dived forward and hugged Hayley. “My dear,” she said. She sounded very Scottish. “I’m so glad you’re here! Come along, all of you. The car’s away over there, and you wouldn’t believe how much it costs to park in this place, so please hurry. Besides, your Aunt Aster’s waiting in it.”

  Harmony and Troy both groaned.

  “I know, I know,” Aunt Ellie said, hurrying them across the road. “I had to bring Aster. Jolyon said I wasn’t to let her out of my sight. She’s gone and formed a most unfortunate attachment to a great rough Highlander – at her time of life, I ask you! Even if Jolyon hadn’t told me to keep them apart, I would have put my foot down about it. The whole town’s talking. To think of my sister causing all this scandal – it keeps me awake at nights! The man haunts the place!”

  “Who is he?” Troy asked, trying to hitch the duffel bag on his shoulder alongside his backpack.

  “The Lorrd knows!” said his mother, more Scottish than ever. “I think him to be some gamekeeper from one of those shooting preserves in the North. He carries a gun. Eats with his knife! Jolyon thinks him unspeakable.”

  “Was Uncle Jolyon here?” Harmony asked anxiously. “When?”

  “Two days ago,” Aunt Ellie said. “He seemed to think young Hayley was with me.” At this, Troy and Harmony exchanged pleased, relieved smiles. “Hayley, what have you done to put Jolyon in this terrible mood?”

  “I think,” Hayley said timidly, “I wasn’t supposed to have gone to Ireland.”

  “Now that is unreasonable of Jolyon,” Aunt Ellie said. “Why ever not, you poor child?”

  They had by then arrived beside a neat grey car.

  Aunt Ellie bent down and shouted through its window at the dim figure sitting in the back seat. “Aster! Hayley’s here! Open this window and say hallo to her. Asterope! Do you hear me?”

  The window went down to reveal a pale faced little lady with a fluffy mass of faded fair hair. She fixed washed-out blue eyes on Hayley and quavered, “Pleased to meet you, Hayley. Your hair is very untidy.”

  Hayley stared at her. It was quite impossible to believe that this faded-out little woman could cause great rough Highlanders to haunt her. It just did not seem likely. “How do you do, Aunt Aster?” she said politely.

  “Oh, not so bad,” Aunt Aster quavered. “I’m a poor traveller, you know, and Electra does drive so dangerously.”

  When Troy had slung the bags into the boot and climbed into the back seat beside Hayley, and Harmony had settled in the front, the car set off so sedately that Hayley knew Aunt Aster had been talking nonsense. Aunt Ellie must have been one of the world’s most cautious drivers. But Aunt Aster continued to talk nonsense. While they drove through the city, she kept quavering, “There’s a red light on the other road, Electra. You have to stop.” And when at last they came out into the country, she quavered, “Not so fast, Electra! You’re doing nearly thirty!” or “There’s a car coming, Electra. It’s going to hit us. Stop until it’s gone by!” or “Electra, here’s a bus!”

  Aunt Ellie took no notice and drove slowly on – although once or twice Hayley distinctly heard her mutter, “Silly bizzom!” – while the countryside became more and more beautiful around them. First it was sloping green fields with blue hills above, and then it was real mountains. Hayley leant forward to look at a long narrow loch surrounded in pine trees, among great brown and purple mountains swathed in drifting cloud. Whereupon Aunt Aster quavered, “Sit back, poor child. You’ll get hurt if we stop.”

  Troy whispered into Hayley’s other ear, “Isn’t she a pain?”

  Hayley said, “This country’s lovely!”

  “I agree,” said Troy, at the same time as Aunt Aster quavered, “Oh, no, town is so much nicer! I can’t wait to get back to town. It’s civilisation.”

  Civilisation, when they came to it, was in the form of neat streets of harsh grey houses, looking quite small under a huge brown shoulder of mountain. Each house had different sharp corners and precisely spiked roofs, which seemed to say, We are civilised, we are respectable. Take no notice of this mountain.

  “Ah!” Aunt Aster said happily.

  Aunt Ellie’s house was down the end, up a slight hill. As soon as the car had crunched upwards beyond its gates and stopped by the door, Aunt Aster hopped out of it with surprising speed.

  “Thank you for the drive, dear,” she called out. “I’ll be getting along to my house now.”

  Aunt Ellie shot out of the car even faster and grabbed Aunt Aster by the arm. “No, dear. You�
�re staying to have supper with us. Remember?”

  “But I was only going to look in case the post has come,” Aunt Aster quavered. “I’ll come straight back.”

  “You’ll stay with me,” Aunt Ellie said grimly. “I need your help in the kitchen.” She more or less dragged the protesting Aunt Aster in through the pointed front door, saying, “The children will be starving by now.”

  “Good,” said Troy as they followed the aunts indoors. “I’m hollow inside.” He led Hayley into one of the front rooms, where everything was as neat and heathery grey as Aunt Ellie’s tweed suit. “Hey, Mum!” he called out. “What have you done with my models?”

  Aunt Ellie put her face round the door, looking righteous, with just a hint of guilt underneath. “I tidied them away, Troy. This room looked like a tip.”

  “But you promised me you wouldn’t!” Troy said. “You haven’t thrown them away, have you?”

  Aunt Ellie looked even more righteous. “Of course not. You’ll find them all in the cupboard in boxes.”

  Harmony said to Hayley, “Come upstairs and I’ll show you your bedroom.”

  She was obviously removing Hayley from the midst of two growing rows, one between Aunt Ellie and Aunt Aster and the other between Aunt Ellie and Troy. As they went upstairs, Aunt Aster was loudly quavering that she was expecting an important letter and Aunt Ellie had no right to keep her from it, while Troy was shouting, “You broke them! You broke them all up!”

  Troy must care a lot about his models, Hayley thought. She had never heard him shout before.

  But when Hayley came downstairs again after unpacking her duffel bag, both rows seemed to be over. She could hear Aunt Ellie’s voice and Harmony’s from the kitchen, chatting happily, mixed in with the occasional dreary little quaver from Aunt Aster. When she went and peeped into the front room, she found the heathery grey floor covered with tiny little clay bricks, small square blocks of stone, parts of houses – cottagey buildings and tall town mansions – and tiny marble columns. Troy was kneeling in the midst of it all busily assembling what looked like a marble palace.

  “What are you making?” Hayley asked.

  “The city of Troy,” Troy answered. “The most ancient and famous city of antiquity. Want to help? You can do me some walls.” He tipped up the cardboard box next to him and held out a lump of wall with fortifications on top. It was beautifully built of little blocks of granite all somehow slotted together. “On second thoughts,” Troy said, as Hayley looked doubtfully at the piece of wall, “you’d probably prefer to make the palace gardens. I know I called in a designer to do those.” He tipped up another cardboard box. Little pointed trees, patches of grass, minute hedges and thousands of tiny, tiny flowers came tumbling out at Hayley’s feet.

  Hayley no longer wondered why Aunt Ellie had tidied everything away. There was hardly room to walk on the carpet now. Grandma would have had a fit. She stared down at the heaps of trees and tiny flowers with delight. “Oh, may I?” she said, and plunged to her knees beside the heaps. This was even better than making the rock garden she had built the day Flute first took her to the mythosphere. “A mythosphere garden!” she said.

  “Exactly right,” Troy said.

  They worked away busily for a while. Hayley made an avenue of trees leading down to a pool that was going to be surrounded by banks of flowers and borrowed some of Troy’s marble pillars for the fountain in the middle. Troy carefully fitted a roof on to his palace.

  “I hope you do get the better of Uncle Jolyon,” Troy said at length. “Soon. I’m supposed to be the one who founded Troy, you know. I can’t wait to get back out into the mythosphere and build it properly. It was one of the most beautiful cities ever. I was busy marking out all the foundations when Uncle Jolyon stuck us all down on Earth like this.”

  Hayley thought that the city might be even better now Troy had spent hundreds of years building models of it. She was just going to suggest this to him when Aunt Ellie called out, “Come along, both of you. Supper’s ready. Wash your hands.” And they had to get up and leave the entrancing heaps of houses, walls and gardens.

  The dining room was at the back of the house, where there was a big, low window open on to Aunt Ellie’s garden and the misty, purple mountains beyond. The sweet, moist scent of Scotland blew in through it, across large oval plates of mixed grill that Harmony was putting down in each place. Those smelled equally lovely, but in quite a different way.

  All in all, it was one of the most marvellous meals Hayley had ever had. The chief marvel was the tall cake-stand in the middle of the table. It had four round shelves, each one covered with a lace doily, and on each doily there was a loaded plate. The top layer held thin bread and butter, which you ate with the mixed grill and then with honey if you wanted to. Then you worked your way down to shiny currant teacakes and butter, and after that to scones, which you had with jam and cream. Hayley ate cautiously, pacing herself, with one eye on the bottom layer, where there was a large chocolate cake iced in squashy, thick chocolate. After the scones, she was wondering if she would have room for that cake.

  “No cake for me,” Aunt Aster said in a fading voice. “It’s far too rich, Ellie.”

  As she spoke, the open window went dark. Hayley looked round to see the middle section of what must have been a huge man standing outside it. All she could see at first was a vast faded kilt with a battered and grubby sporran dangling on it and, below that, a glimpse of sharp, hairy knees. Then the man put his huge hands on the windowsill and bent down to push his big, bearded face into the room. The gun he had slung on one shoulder clattered on the window and made everybody jump.

  “Wumman!” he bawled. “Wumman, you said you’d be doon at the hoose! Are you no coming?”

  His voice made the whole room rattle. Its effect on Aunt Aster was extraordinary. She jumped to her feet with a shriek, crying out, “Oh! Ryan! So sorry! They will try to keep me from you!” and rushed towards the window. She was no longer a faded, moaning aunt, but a lovely young woman with a cloudy mass of bright golden hair. She looked almost as beautiful as Aunt Alice. When she reached the window, the huge Highlander held out both arms and Aunt Aster jumped into them as nimbly as an athlete. The Highlander gave a huge laugh and strode away with her, carrying her like a baby.

  It happened so quickly that everyone was stunned, Aunt Ellie most of all. It was several seconds before Aunt Ellie sprang to her feet. “Stop her!” she said. “Stop him! Jolyon’s forbidden it!” When no one else moved, she began dithering about. “What shall we do?” she said. “I’d better go after her. Oh, where did I put my handbag? He’ll be carrying her down the street! What will the neighbours say!”

  Harmony, Troy and Hayley stood up uncertainly.

  Aunt Ellie glared at them. “Don’t just stand there!” she said. “Come and help me fetch her back!” She raced out into the hallway, rummaged for a desperate second or so among the things on the hall stand, found the handbag with a yell of relief and, with the bag held on high, crashed out through the front door.

  By the time the other three reached the top of the drive, Aunt Ellie was already in the street, waving her handbag and shouting. Ahead of her, striding along with Aunt Aster in his arms, the huge Highlander was already halfway through the town.

  “Stop!” shrieked Aunt Ellie, rushing after them. “Put her down! Aster, I forbid you to do this! Jolyon won’t allow it! Think of the neighbours!”

  “If she wants the whole town to know, she’s going the right way about it,” Troy remarked.

  “Yes, she’s lost her head, but we’d better do something to help, I suppose,” Harmony said.

  They set off at a trot after Aunt Ellie.

  Far ahead of them, the huge Highlander strode purposefully on, taking absolutely no notice of Aunt Ellie’s screaming pursuit. About halfway along a row of small grey houses, he veered off at a right angle and marched towards the middle house in the row. When he reached its shiny front door, he put out a huge foot, kicked the door ope
n and bore Aunt Aster away inside. The front door shut with a slam in Aunt Ellie’s face as she came pounding up. Aunt Ellie jumped up and down in frustration. She kicked the door, but it remained shut. Then she seized the little polished knocker and clattered it violently.

  “Aster!” she screamed. “Asterope, let me in at once!”

  Hayley trotted after Troy and Harmony, trying not to giggle. They passed house after house, some with lace curtains twitching and others frankly full of staring faces. While she gulped back her giggles, Hayley wrestled with her memory. She was sure she had seen this huge, bearded man before. His face, as it had loomed through the window, was definitely familiar, beard and all. She tried thinking of him as a more normal human size – and he was even more familiar. She tried him in different clothes. A suit? No. A robe then? No. How about fur then? Yes! She had seen him when Flute first took her into the mythosphere. He was that hunter in a leopardskin with the mighty bow, who looked so like a film star. Now how, why was he important?

  Hayley had got as far as this when they reached the little house. Aunt Ellie was now kneeling on the sidewalk, shouting through the letterbox. “Aster, this is your sister! Let me in! How could you do such a wicked thing? Think of your family, Aster! Let me in!”

  “Er, Mum,” Harmony said gently, “don’t you have Aunt Aster’s spare key?”

  Aunt Ellie swivelled round on her knees to look up at her. “Of course I have. That’s why I brought my handbag.”

  “Then couldn’t you let yourself in?” Harmony suggested.

  Aunt Ellie came out of her frenzy a little, enough to climb to her feet and open her handbag. “Yes, yes indeed,” she said. “I can go in and drag her away, can’t I?”

  “If you think this Ryan will let you,” Troy muttered.

  Ryan! Hayley thought. That’s it! “Not Ryan,” she said. “His name’s Orion.”

  Troy and Harmony stared at Hayley. Aunt Ellie fumbled up a jingling bunch of keys and found the one that fitted Aunt Aster’s door. “There!” she said turning it in the lock. “Now we shall see!” With her grey hair standing wildly out all over her head and almost seeming to give off electric sparks, Aunt Ellie barged the door open and dived inside the house. “Come along!” her voice came back to them.