Page 27 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

Slowly, she cleaned up the sloppy mess, apologising to Grace, and to Hamish as she tore a page from one of their mushroom books for the task. Then she slid back behind Grace’s wheel and turned on the ignition. Although being surrounded by the lights of the monkeys made her feel infinitely better, the wood’s deafening growth seemed to have quietened, and the stillness made her more afraid, as if the new growth was settling in for the long haul. Around her, she could hear the groan of a fence straining under the weight of a fallen branch, the grumble of a wall being upturned by a new root system.

Maybe Dozy wanted to bury them all. But as she looked at Jellybean, his tiny paws picking pieces of popcorn out of his fluffy moustaches, there was a miniscule, shielded place inside her heart that remembered, too, the warmth in Dozy’s dark eyes when they’d looked at her, like forest pools that reflected the stars, and the gentle touch of their hand on her cheek.

I trust you.

The words were a ghost in the dark. For a second, it had seemed as if they’d wanted her help. Or had she imagined it?

She swallowed the lump in her throat and started easing Grace back onto the road.

‘C’mon Jellybean. I have an idea!’

Chapter Sixteen

Magician’s Island (or as Antony liked to call it, Old White Man’s Island) was in the middle of Ocean, and on it stood the New Library, a tower constructed of pale limestone, complete with tall black spires and hulking stone gargoyles. As well as looking like an arch villain’s holiday retreat, it contained the greatest collection of extraordinary literature in all of Britain. If Lucky couldn’t tell her how to wake up a sleeping fairy and get rid of a thorny wood bent on destruction, then maybe the library could help.

She didn’t love research, but Cliff had drummed it into all of them during their training. It was all very well being able to haul feedbags with one hand, but you had to know your charges first. Before you could even think about giving Issy a belly rub.

The same, Frida assumed, applied to monsters and fairies.

As they passed under the coral encrusted arches of Ocean though, even the monkeys fell silent, no longer tag-teaming passing rubbish bins. They huddled in Grace’s back tray, gazing out over the pounding waves, their storms fizzing nervously. She’d omitted to tell them that Ocean contained more Level 8s than any other section combined.

‘Don’t worry,’ Frida said with feigned confidence. ‘All the monsters are asleep.’

In the distance, the white stone library loomed, and she fixed her sights on it, determined not to let Ocean faze her. Usually, she loved the pounding waves, and found a jaunt across one of the twelve elevated stone causeways that intersecting the habitats like a clock’s face quite pleasant. But today, it could easily have been LEZ Apocalypse Scenario No. 127, in which Frida and half the keepers get devoured by a rabid kraken in league with Dame Judi Drench, the most salacious of all the seven-tongued poisonous shrimps.

Over the water, Dozy’s canopy felt heavy and as she drove, the unceasing groans and rustles from the heavy branches far above bounced off the dark waves, amplifying the ominous thundering to something truly immense. Her hands were vice-tight around the steering wheel when Jellybean, trembling, crawled inside her shirt with a squeak of fear. She could feel his tiny heart pit-pattering against her chest, his electricity simmering at a low-level crackle. Below them, the underwater tunnels gleamed like luminous sea snakes. She wondered with a shudder if there were any guests trapped down there. Sent into oblivion whilst watching the kraken’s aquatic ballet or taking selfies with the yuanapel, floating lazily in their handmade coves of coral and gold. So beautiful they could make a person weep – before ripping your eyeballs out and using your tears as a lubricant on the way down their throats.

She stroked Jellybean’s fur beneath her shirt for reassurance. At least the wards still hummed within the glass barriers, a soothing lullaby that said all was safe for now.

Just as Grace gave a distressed stutter and Baked Potato, in the back tray, squealed a cracklingly ominous question, ‘Who’s that?’

Cream Pie cheeped, with dour certainty, ‘Bad water.’

And Jellybean poked his heads out of her shirt and pointed with morbid fascination.

Frida watched, horrified, as the languorous shape of a shrimp surged up out of the dark waves to their right. What was it Antony used to tell them, as they’d taken breaks sitting on the steps of Magician’s Island? That some sea creatures slept with only half their brains! Suddenly, she could have kicked herself. Unihemispheric, he’d called it.

Oh god. Could a shrimp kill you with only half their brains?

‘We are not going to get killed by shrimps,’ she proclaimed to Jellybean firmly.

‘No!’ he chirped in cheerful confirmation. ‘Bad shrimps.’

Henry Gladstone, the inventor of the wards, was surely in heaven right now. She accelerated hard and the shrimp – probably Dame Judi Drench, knowing her luck – flicked her venomous ten-metre-long tongue, eye-sockets bulging as pitch-dark as the Mariana trench. Those tongues could cause full body boils, shrivelling a person’s skin off in ten minutes flat. Jellybean pressed his faces against the windshield, his lamp-like eyes wide. Frida had to resist the urge to grab him and shove him back inside her shirt as a few flying turtles burst out of the water alongside the shrimp, their shells electric blue. Grace’s wheels squealed as Frida swerved in surprise, and a trayful of storm monkeys shrieked in terror.

Righting the buggy with alacrity, Frida wiped the sweat off her brow with the back of one sleeve as the teacup-sized carnivorous turtles plunged through the waves, half-dreaming perhaps of hapless keepers and their salty, delicious blood.

Frida didn’t think she’d ever been more relieved to reach Magician’s Island. Shaking all over, she parked Grace alongside Fritz’s Extraordinary Pancake booth, which was at the bottom of the hundred white marble steps that led up to the New Library. There was no sign of Fritz, and Frida prayed he’d taken the day off, safe at home with his cat Dandelion, whose picture was pinned above the chocolate sauce. As Ocean spread around them in all directions, full of flying turtles, deadly sea snakes, leviathans, a dreaded Nuckelavee and ballet-dancing kraken – the storm monkeys made a beeline for the pancake mix.

Frida left them to it, taking the steps to the library two at a time.

‘Don’t move!’ she shouted to Jellybean over her shoulder. ‘I won’t be long.’

He gave her a little wave, chocolate sprinkles twinkling rapaciously in his electrified mohawks. He stuck out both his tongues in the direction of the library, before shoving Oops and Twiglet out of the way in a mad dive to get to the sugar-dusted countertops. She had to pray it was enough, and that no flying turtle would be feasting on monkey when she got back.

On the drive here, she’d suppressed the fact that she hadn’t been back to this spot since her mum had died. But now as she raced up the steps, the knowledge hit her, along with the familiar scent of sea salt and cold limestone. Finally, when she reached the top, she faced the large ebony door and all thoughts of death by flying turtle left her. She knew she had to hurry for the longer she waited, the more of the LEZ would crumble, the deeper into sleep her friends would fall, and the higher the chance of the habitats failing, bit by bit. But she and her mum had spent so many hours right here, their backs against the library tower, waiting for the Japanese ‘sea monk’ Umi the umibōzu to make an appearance out of the writhing waves.

With a shaking hand, she touched the door, tracing the familiar shapes of the carved unicorns that embossed the dark ebony. Fighting back the sting of tears, she searched for her mum’s favourite unicorn – the one who seemed to be caught eternally in time between a wild grimace and a laugh.