Page 85 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

Arrow-tailed birds shot across the sky.

Claws padded through the grass.

A thousand jaws gnashed.

She and Dian and Moth were just a tiny part of it. They were an army pouring towards Forge House, like a gushing river engulfing the world. When the panicked human screams began, Dian’s smile was electric. Frida couldn’t help smiling too as she imagined wires being gnawed, carpets defecated on, saucepans upturned, lamps shattered, papers destroyed.

‘Dragon magic,’ Moth whispered, awed.

‘Dragon magic,’ Frida repeated. She felt the wildness of it wrap around her, lifting her hair. For a moment, she laughed, thinking of the little girl she’d been, freckles across her nose, overwhelmed to even be within a mile of a dragon. Now look at her.

Now look at me, Mum.

She paused to drink in the sight for another minute, watching the writhing bodies of voles, the families of foxes, the hulking badgers, the crows, big dark shapes hopping down the tree-lined paths, a wolfhound with a robin on his back, white hares and one particularly ancient buck who stopped to rub a nose against her leg.

It was then that the words of a National Trust pamphlet came back to her, and she felt the memory of the yellowed paper like a ghost under her fingertips. She’d read it so many times, and like the others, she could recall it almost word for word.

In 1837, in the wake of the basilisk’s escape, Sir Joshua Beaufort decided to temporarily relocate his entire household to another of his estates, Havisford Manor, on the east coast of England. From there, the LEZ board planned the relocation of the animals to the all-new London Extraordinary Zoo in the nearby village of Melody-Upon-Sea, and Forge House was closed for refurbishment. It was the footnote that came back to her now though, the words rising in her mind with a frisson of unease. *The reason given for this relocation in the household accounts was a brief influx in rodents, due to the high temperatures of that summer, and outdated refrigeration methods.

Frida listened, feeling dizzy as the screaming from the house continued to echo, and the tolling of alarm bells grew. As they headed back towards the cages, they heard running booted footsteps, crunching over the gravel, but Dian’s raindrops kept them hidden, the shadows of cedars and pines, young monkey puzzle trees, the late white-pink blooms of magnolia passing overhead. Frida, trembling all over with what they were doing, could almost feel the roots of these trees, their minds still caught in the memories of their ancestors, far distant across stormy seas and mountain passes, as the Jewel blazed steadily in her pocket, a clarion call.

When they finally reached the little walled garden where the basilisk and the unicorn should have been, they were just in time to see the blue spring-morning coils of a huge serpent’s tail slipping away triumphantly, over the high stone wall. The basilisk’s cage door was already broken. The creature was gone, slithering to freedom. Frida sent a whispered prayer in the basilisk’s wake, wishing the monster luck, even as another stab of uncertainty rose inside her. The sense that far away in Buckingham Palace, a fancy dinner for Queen Victoria was already being planned . . . It was too much to encompass, but –

‘He’s gone too.’

Frida startled, pushing away the web that seemed to tighten abruptly. She turned to look towards where Dian had pointed. Indeed, although the unicorn’s cage was undamaged, the unicorn was no longer there. As if the stallion had slipped through the metal itself.

‘How?’ she gasped.

Dian’s lips twitched. When they stooped to tell her, their warm breath brushed the shell of her ear. ‘Unicorns can move through worlds, even easier than fairies can.’

With those words, Frida forgot everything else as the great oceanic breadth of the universe opened before her. She imagined the flash of a white mane as the unicorn cantered away, leaving this garden and this place far behind. Closing her eyes, she swayed a bit. She wished she and Dian had been able to give him back what he’d lost here, but there hadn’t been time.

When Dian touched the small of her back, ever so gently, she came back to herself with a start. ‘Right,’ she said, grinning up at them sheepishly. The heat of their touch made her mouth water, and she ached to sink into them, ached for more.

Instead, she put that thought away for later and cleared her throat, determining to focus on what was important right now: smashing things. Finding a good-sized rock, she started bashing the padlocks off the doors of the remaining cages with great satisfaction. Soon, three pure golden stags were galloping away into the night. The elephump, no bigger than a chihuahua, disappeared with a whoop into the grass, along with the broonies. Twelve sapphire friperits and the blue-blond hippogriff spread their wings and soared in the direction of the moon. It was wondrous, and it was terrifying, for she had no idea what might happen to them, or whether they would be safe. Hopefully some would find their families, back in the clearing, amongst the creatures waiting for them. As she watched the jackalope’s tiny stag’s horns bob through the undergrowth, she called after him, begging him to be careful.

Finally, there was only the carbuncle left. Tiny armadillo claws clacking on the earth. She could hear them speaking of a far-off jungle made of charms and crystals, sunny lagoons and stones of peachy gold. In South American lore, carbuncles were the guardians of untold riches, but listening to their soft clicks, she wondered if those riches weren’t simply the jungle itself. Misunderstood by Western interlopers.

Embedded between the carbuncle’s beady eyes was the deep red mirror-like gemstone that made their species such a prize. She lowered herself down on her heels before them.

The carbuncle’s bucket ears swivelled.

‘This isn’t your home,’ she whispered.

‘No,’ they padded their paws. ‘No, no, no it is not my home.’

The cage loomed between them.

‘When you leave here, there will be no human to feed you, and no one will protect you from predators, but you will be free, whatever that entails. Do you wish that?’

‘Yes,’ the creature clicked, the carbuncle’s armadillo shell hard as the gem between their eyes. Dian had already set their fingers to the cage’s padlock and thrust a blaze of dark magic into the metal. When Dian lifted their hands, the padlock fell to the grass with a thud.

Together they watched as the carbuncle scurried away, the gleam of their red stone following them through the darkness. Frida leaned against Dian, knocking her shoulder tentatively against theirs. She offered them a lopsided smile, not sure what to say, just dizzy with what they’d just done. She waved her hand at the broken lock.

‘Is that a learned skill?’ she asked with a low laugh. ‘Breaking metal with one’s interminably graceful hands?’

Dian looked delighted. ‘Oh well, as an interminably graceful fairy,’ they said with an exaggerated preen that Hamish would have deeply envied, ‘you should know I was born with many gifts.’ Their voice lowered to a deep purr, and Frida’s beaming smile fixed on her face, as she imagined the full scope of what they meant. She cleared her throat hoarsely and in her free hand, the Jewel blazed with renewed life, a beacon to guide the way.