Amethyst Page 12

  Amy stared at her. The rockgoyle was smirking. She was!

  They were standing in the cavernous hall. The air was cold. Amy tried to think of something cutting to say. As they stood there, a wave of faraway thrumming noises wafted down the corridor towards them.

  Amy turned towards it.

  The rockgoyle kept her pink piggy eyes focused on the floor. ‘Have you been down yet, Miss?’

  Amy shivered. She shook her head.

  ‘Come,’ said the rockgoyle. When Amy resisted her, the rockgoyle took her firmly by the arm; her claws dug into her skin.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry I was so bossy to you,’ Amy said, suddenly afraid. ‘Please let me go. I didn’t—’

  ‘Come.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Come.’

  The rockgoyle was much stronger than Amy and there was something inevitable about this journey, Amy thought. I have to see what’s down there.

  The rockgoyle snatched a lantern from the wall. She took Amy through a metal door below the stairs and down a long cold corridor. It wound downwards, deep into the centre of the mountain.

  They walked without talking. The only sound was the rockgoyle’s flat feet splatting on the stone. Her heavy breathing and sniffling.

  As they went deeper underground, the sounds of the rockgoyles grew louder. Thud, thud, pound, went their many feet, with such a dull monotony that Amy knew they were angry and bored. Now she could hear their mutterings and moanings, their pent-up feelings … It made her blood run cold.

  Amy tried to stop, but the rockgoyle pulled her on. Amy’s mouth was dry. She felt shivery and uncomfortable. She had visions of the horrible faces she’d given some gargoyles; the evil eyes, crooked mouths and scowling expressions. She didn’t want to see those faces. She never wanted to see them again. And definitely not alive, down here in the gloom …

  The air became wetter, heavier and thicker. The ground was slippery. Icy water dripped and dribbled down the black walls. It was pitch black. The only light came from the rockgoyle’s small lantern.

  ‘Have you something to fear?’ asked the rockgoyle.

  ‘No,’ said Amy. She had never felt so fearful in all her life. ‘I’m not a spoiler any more. I’m trying to be nice. I have nothing to fear.’ Her heart was racing. Blood pulsed and boiled in her head.

  The sound of tramping feet and chanting grew louder.

  They came to a large room with a high ceiling. Quickly the rockgoyle lit the candles on the wall brackets.

  In the centre there was a round, raised pond, full of a green liquid. It was thick and glutinous, like green porridge. It hissed, sucked and whispered as bubbles popped on the surface. The place smelt of mush-rooms. The rockgoyle pushed Amy towards the pond.

  Amy couldn’t bring herself to look at it. She looked everywhere except at the fizzing green gunge. She tried to cut out the horrible sounds of the rockgoyles. She stared at the walls; they were solid malachite, with streaks and swirls of emerald, turquoise and viridian.

  She stared at the massive shuttered window behind which, she guessed, were the rockgoyles. She stared at the very deep, large white sink.

  The rockgoyle came and stood next to her.

  ‘Look at the compost.’

  ‘I can’t. I don’t want to …’

  She knew now what the rockgoyle planned. She was going to throw Amy in. That was to be her punishment. ‘Please, I—’

  ‘It’s germinating compost,’ said the rockgoyle. She let go of Amy’s arm roughly. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to push you in. It’s where Granite puts the gargoyles.’

  ‘I remember. Another rockgoyle told me …’

  ‘Let me show you.’ The rockgoyle took a thing like a shrimping net from a rack on the wall. She plunged it into the bubbling green mess. ‘It takes time,’ she said, grimly. ‘But Granite has time.’

  She swept the net backwards and forwards. Bubbles popped and hissed, emitting foul-smelling gases. At last the rockgoyle found what she was looking for. She fished out a grey lump.

  Amy recognised it immediately. It was a gargoyle she’d made just before she left Aunt Agnes and Uncle John. It had a long snout like a warthog and bat wings. It was tinged green.

  It twitched suddenly.

  ‘It’s alive!’ Amy squeaked. She jumped back. ‘It can’t be!’

  It was just like the film she’d seen of unborn babies moving in the womb. It wriggled and jerked and made little sucking motions with its mouth.

  ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. All this spoiling she was responsible for. ‘Really, I am sorry …’

  ‘What are you sorry for?’

  ‘For making them so ugly,’ said Amy. ‘I thought it was clever. Aunt Agnes was pleased.’ She stared at the rockgoyle beseechingly. ‘I didn’t know …’

  ‘We don’t mind being ugly,’ said the rockgoyle. ‘We are all ugly so we are all beautiful. There is no difference. Though you think to be ugly is to be mean … But we do mind being treated like mud. We do mind being ordered around. We do mind having no name. We do mind being made with so much hate. That hatred just fills us with hatred.’

  Amy looked down at her feet. ‘I really am very sorry.’

  ‘I hope so. Come here, there’s one more thing to show you.’

  Amy gulped; she wasn’t sure she could bear to see any more.

  The rockgoyle urged Amy to the window. She threw open the shutters and pulled her up close to look through the dirty glass panes.

  ‘Do you see them?’ she whispered.

  Amy peered down into an enormous cavern. It was packed with hunched grey figures. An army of ugly, twisted rockgoyles. They were trudging round and round in a slow, monotonous circle. Each rockgoyle so close to the next, that there was hardly an inch between them. They hung their heads. Their clothes were ragged. They chanted a slow, sad song.

  ‘Oh, oh!’ said Amy.

  ‘Do you recognise them?’

  Amy nodded.

  ‘Granite has done this in just the four months he has been here. They are so mean and nasty that Granite never lets them out. They are truly dangerous. All Granite lets them do is go deep underground to dig. The rest of the time they stay down there in the pits, tramping the rock like animals. You did this, Amy.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Amy spun round and stared at the rockgoyle. ‘I didn’t, not really. It wasn’t me. I made clay models the way my aunt told me to. That’s all I did. Granite made them alive. The compost made them alive.’

  ‘He is evil, he did give them life, but you are to blame too.’

  ‘I am sorry for making them,’ Amy said. ‘Truly I am. I didn’t know what Granite was doing with my things.’

  ‘You should have found out. You cannot make things and not know what they’re for. Where they’re going.’

  ‘I know. You’re right. I promise I will never, ever, make another horrible object again.’

  ‘Good.’

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘I never asked, but what is your name?’ said Amy.

  ‘Primrose.’

  ‘And I’m Amy,’ said Amy. ‘Not Amethyst … Well, maybe, but not much. Oh, everything’s gone wrong at Malachite Mountain for me. Everything.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the rockgoyle. ‘By coming here you have stopped the production of these evil creatures. Enough. I must take you up to your room as Granite ordered.’

  Amy sat on the bed. She needed to think. She’d been so horrified by what she’d seen in the deep caverns, she’d let Copper and Ralick slip to the back of her mind.

  It’s such a mess, she thought. Copper is walking into a trap and it’s all my fault … As Amy sat there, gradually the sound of the rockgoyles’ faraway chanting and pounding feet crept into her head. It was there all the time, she supposed, but you only heard it when you were quiet and still. So you couldn’t be quiet and still. There was no peace here.

  ‘I hate this place!’ she said. ‘I hate you, Malachite Mountain!’

  Somet
hing wriggled under her bedcover. Amy pulled back the sheet. The white rat twitched his nose at her.

  ‘You! Why didn’t you tell me what Granite and Shane were up to?’ she said. ‘You could have warned me – even if you do belong to Granite, you could have warned me somehow!’

  The rat crawled onto her lap and nudged her fingers with his nose until she stroked him.

  ‘I’ve been tricked. I hate that Shane Annigan and his cobwebs and everything about him. I hope it was me that made him feel sick. I’d like to put his light out! I feel like going right back, right now— In fact I will. I’ll tell Granite just what I think of him and Shane. And then I’ll run away.’

  She pulled the door, but the door was locked. She was a prisoner.

  Amy threw herself back onto the bed. ‘It’s not fair, it’s not fair!’ she moaned. Everything always goes wrong for me. She closed her eyes and let the tears dribble down her cheeks. I’ve done the most terrible things. Those awful monsters down in the caverns. All my fault. Spoiler. Spoiler. I so wanted to stop spoiling things …

  She had a good cry and only stopped when she sensed the white rat creeping around. She felt his tiny claws through her jumper as he climbed onto her chest. Then felt his whiskers tickling her chin.

  Amy opened her eyes.

  The rat’s face was inches from hers. His purple-pink eyes were staring intently into hers.

  Clenched between his teeth was Copper’s crochet hook.

  Amy sat up. The rat tumbled onto the bed, feet in the air. Amy caught him and kissed him.

  ‘The hook! Of course I picked it up, didn’t I? Copper said she’d used it to pick a lock! Oh, you clever rat.’

  Before Amy could try the hook, she heard someone outside the door. She quickly slipped the crochet hook under her pillow.

  A rockgoyle came in bringing her blue ice cakes and crystal fizz to drink. It was a different rockgoyle, Amy was sure, from the one that had taken her to the caverns. This one was fatter and its ears were pointed. It had a spiteful-looking mouth.

  ‘I’ll run you a bath, shall I? Oh, by the way, Miss …’ The rockgoyle looked round the bathroom door at her. ‘Do you know about the mirrors?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The mirrors. The ones in the bathroom here. Did anyone tell you, they’re old and rather wonky? Don’t take any heed of them, will you? They distort things.’

  Mirrors again. That’s what a rockgoyle had said just before Amy left for Spindle House. Amy felt her heart stop.

  She remembered the eye-cycle. The image of her own distorted face popped into her head. ‘Go away!’ she screamed, throwing a pillow at the rockgoyle. ‘I mean please, please go away!’

  The rockgoyle scuttled across the room and slammed the door shut behind her. The key turned in the lock loudly.

  Amy went into the bathroom slowly. She avoided looking at herself in the mirrors which lined the walls. She dived straight into the bath, and lay soaking in the cool foamy water for a long time. She washed her hair. She used every cream and lotion that had been put out for her. She scrubbed her skin till it was red and tingling. Lying in the water she was too low down to see any of her reflection in the mirrors. She was safe for a while.

  The white rat sat between the gold taps and washed and combed his fur and whiskers.

  Amy got out, still avoiding looking into the wall mirrors. They had steamed up a lot now, anyway. She wrapped herself in towels and went to find some fresh clothes. The rockgoyle had laid out the beautiful soft pale blue cloak on the chest. It was lined with blue and grey mottled fur. Granite had bought it for her. It was what she’d seen herself wearing in the fortune eye-cycle – when she had turned ugly.

  Amy kicked the cloak across the room. ‘Putting that on would be asking for trouble!’ she told the rat. ‘I won’t touch it.’ She chose a long dark red dress instead. It had matching blood-red, leather boots. Their soles were so thin and soft she could feel the hard coldness of the floor through them. She laced them up quickly.

  Now she was ready to go. Amy stood very still in the centre of the room.

  It was the mirrors that held her there.

  You have to know, she told herself. You can’t go round suspecting your face is changing all the time. Get in that bathroom, now! She forced herself to turn round, open the bathroom door and go in.

  She leaned close to the nearest mirror. She stared at her reflection.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  Her face was horrible. It was distorted and lopsided. Her eyebrows were thick and shaggy, like twin brown hairy caterpillars crawling over her forehead. Her nose was a swollen, bulbous thing like an old mushroom. She almost couldn’t see her eyes, they were such tiny, bloodshot things, devoid of lashes. And her mouth – that was the worst. Her mouth was twisted into a snarl showing long, sharp yellow fangs.

  No! No! Amy’s eyes filled with tears. The reflection became blurred. Please don’t let this be true! Please! Amy ran her fingers all over her face. It felt the same. It didn’t feel like it looked. Distorted. The rockgoyle said the mirror was wonky, didn’t she? It’s the mirror that’s wobbly and distorts images, it’s not my face changing … Is it?

  Amy was shaking. She knew what this meant. The rockgoyle was warning her, was letting Amy see her true self, just as the eye-cycle had. She went back to her room and picked up the rat.

  I’m ugly and foul inside and it’s showing. I’m turning into the horrid things I made. I’m spoiling myself.

  ‘Why didn’t Aunt Agnes let me make nice things, Rat?’ she said, stroking him, fiercely. ‘If I don’t truly change I’ll have to stay here forever living like a rockgoyle, with the rockgoyles … I don’t want to. I can’t.’

  She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. Through the pillow she heard the dull throbbing sound of those faraway chanting voices. It seemed as if her bed trembled in time to the dull thud of pounding hammers and feet striking rhythmically against the rock.

  My fault. All my fault, she thought. Those poor miserable things, stuck down there away from the light …

  Suddenly Amy felt the rat busying himself about. His little paws trod over her stomach, then up to her face. Something light and warm fell over her cheeks.

  ‘What are you …?’

  She couldn’t speak. All of a sudden she felt so happy. So glad, that she just wanted to hold onto this glorious feeling of bright joy. It was as if she could see inside her own head and the space inside it was enormous. Awhole universe. Or maybe her head had become part of the universe. She buzzed. She glowed. She knew she was smiling. She tried to peer into this great empty space and grasp it. It was such a wonderful, good feeling she wanted to hold it forever.

  She couldn’t though. Already the sensation was slipping away. Amy put her hands up to her face. She felt a cloth. She opened her eyes. It was the two knitted squares that Copper had made.

  ‘Oh, Rat! It was this!’ She pressed the fabric onto her skin. ‘You clever thing! It is magic! Like Squitcher said. It’s wonderful.’

  She closed her eyes again. She couldn’t get that wonderful feeling of space back, but she felt different. She felt good. I am not ugly. I am not ugly. Stop me from going ugly, she begged. Stop the rot, please! I’m not going to spoil anything ever again. I’m going to be different! I can do it. Like Wolfgang said, I have a choice. I choose not to spoil.

  The rat snuggled under Amy’s chin, purring. She lay and watched the sunlight as it moved slowly across the walls, lit up the gold candlesticks and silver ornaments, caught the rich veins in the marble and set it glittering and sparkling. It was very beautiful.

  At last she went back to look in the mirror.

  The glass was old and tarnished. It was misted with condensation. Amy wiped it quickly with a towel. Her face looked back, her ordinary old Amy face. The glass was wonky and wet and that was all.

  ‘Right,’ she said to the rat. ‘I’m going to do my last bit of spoiling – but good spoiling. I’m going to spoil things for that double-crossing Granite.
And horrid Shane. Come on, Rat!’

  Getting out of the room was easy. Amy jiggled the crochet hook in the lock and opened the door. The white rat skidded across the polished floor and bumped into the wall beside her.

  ‘Pss, squeak!’

  Amy picked him up. ‘Rat, dear Rat. Right now, you’re the closest thing to a friend I’ve got,’ she told him. ‘Let me give you a lift.’

  22

  The Rescue Party

  ‘I just can’t believe it,’ said Copper. ‘Amy was – she – she was tricking us the whole time?’

  Questrid shook his head. ‘How mean of her. How mean.’

  Wolfgang nodded. ‘But she was regretting it.’

  ‘I hope you aren’t too jolly squashing-hard on her,’ said Squitcher. ‘She did write you a sorry-note …’

  ‘Yes, I read it,’ said Copper. ‘And I still say Amy’s my friend. She helped us.’

  ‘Did she?’ said Questrid coldly. ‘Think about it. What did she do? Nothing. She watched us and hung around but she never helped.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve always been unfriendly to her, Questrid,’ said Copper. ‘Right from the start.’

  ‘You think everyone’s nice,’ said Questrid, gently. ‘I never trusted her. Remember when I gave her a silver spoon to eat with? It distorted in her hand! She spoiled it. But I never told you because you wouldn’t hear a word against her.’

  ‘I wanted a friend,’ said Copper, miserably. ‘I wanted the Rockers and Woods to be friends.’

  ‘Of course! No blame, Copper,’ said Wolfgang. ‘To think good thoughts is a fine thing.’

  ‘Granite sent her. He probably sent Shane Annigan,’ said Questrid. ‘But she didn’t know Annigan, did she? Unless she’s a brilliant actor. Yet she must have been in on the plot. She kept you in the Root Room longer than you wanted, didn’t she, so he could snatch Ralick?’

  Copper shook her head. ‘I don’t think so … No, the only bad thing she did was to try to persuade me that you’d taken Ralick.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, and worse, I almost believed her!’

  They stared at each other.

  ‘Amy brought you here,’ Wolfgang said. He sat down. ‘Wanted you to come after the wolf cub. So!’ He banged his fist on the table. ‘So! You must not go into Malachite Mountain, Copper!’