3
The reason Effie had not yet arrived at school that Monday morning in October was because of what had happened the previous Wednesday night. Her father, Orwell Bookend, had come to pick her up from her grandfather’s as usual, but instead of waiting in the car he had come up the two flights of stairs to Griffin’s rooms.
Effie had been sent to the library ‘to study’, but she had hung around in the corridor to try to hear what her father said. She knew something was going on. The week before, Griffin had unexpectedly gone away for three days and she’d had to go straight home after school to help her step-mother Cait with her baby sister Luna instead of studying with her grandfather.
Orwell Bookend had once worn gold silk bow ties and waltzed Effie’s mother around their small kitchen, singing her songs in the lost languages he used to teach. But less than two years after Aurelia’s disappearance, he had started seeing Cait. Then everything changed at the university and he got a promotion that meant he wore dark suits, often with a name badge, and had to go to conferences called things like ‘Offline Learning Environments’ and ‘Back to Pen and Paper’.
‘It’s happened again,’ he had said to Griffin on that Wednesday evening. ‘Your stupid Swords and Sorcery group has written to me. They say you are teaching her “forbidden things”. I don’t know what that even means, but whatever it is, I want you to stop.’
Griffin was silent for a long time.
‘They are wrong,’ he said.
‘I don’t care,’ said Orwell. ‘I just want you to stop.’
‘You’ve never believed in the Otherworld,’ Griffin said. ‘And you think the Guild just administers something like an elaborate game. Fine. I accept that. So why do you care what I teach her? Why do you care what they say?’
‘It doesn’t have to be real to be dangerous,’ said Orwell.
‘Fair enough,’ said Griffin quietly. ‘But all I ask is that you trust me. I have not gone against the ruling of the Guild. Effie is quite safe. Or at least as safe as anyone else is in the world now.’
There was a long pause.
‘I never knew where Aurelia had really gone when she said she’d been to the “Otherworld”,’ said Orwell. ‘But I’m sure it was all a lot more down-to-earth than she made out. In fact I’m certain it simply involved another man, probably from this ridiculous “Guild”. Yes, I know you believe in magic. And maybe some of it does work, because of the placebo effect, or . . . Look, I’m not completely cynical. Obviously Aurelia wanted me to believe in it all, but I just never could. Not on the scale she was talking about.’
Effie could hear footsteps; probably her father pacing up and down. He continued speaking.
‘I don’t know where Aurelia is now. I’ve accepted that she’s gone. I assume she is dead, or with this other man. I don’t even know which I’d prefer, to be honest. But I am not having my daughter get involved with the people who corrupted her. It’s a world full of flakes and lunatics and dropouts. I don’t like it. Do you understand?’
Griffin sighed so loudly Effie could hear it from the corridor.
‘Look,’ he began. ‘The Diberi . . . They . . .’
Orwell swore loudly. There was the sound of him hitting something, perhaps the wall. There were then some quiet words Effie could not pick out. Then more shouting.
‘I don’t want to hear about the Diberi! They DO NOT exist in real life! I’ve already said that I . . .’
‘Well then, you won’t find out what is happening now,’ said Griffin, mildly.
Later that night Griffin Truelove was found bleeding, unconscious and close to death in an alleyway on the very western edge of the Old Town near the Funtime Arcade. No one knew what he’d been doing in that part of town, or had any idea what had happened to him. Cait suggested that he had wandered off and perhaps been hit by a car. ‘That happens to elderly people with dementia,’ she had said. But Griffin didn’t have dementia.
He was taken to a small hospital not far away. The next day, and the one after that, Effie had visited him instead of going to school. Each day he asked her to bring him something else from his rooms. One day it was the thin brown stick she had seen him putting in the secret drawer (which he now called a ‘wonde’, spelling it out so Effie realised it was a word she had never heard before); another day it was the clear crystal. She also had to bring him paper and ink, his spectacles and his letter opener with the bone handle.
On Saturday, Effie had found him sitting up and writing something, or at least trying to. Nurse Underwood, who was the mother of Maximilian, one of Effie’s classmates, kept getting in the way, checking Griffin’s pulse and blood pressure and writing numbers on a clipboard at the end of the bed. Griffin was so weak that he could only manage a word every few minutes. He kept coughing, wheezing and wincing with pain whenever he moved.
‘This is an M-codicil,’ he said weakly to Effie. ‘It is for you. I need to finish it, and then . . . You must give it to Pelham Longfellow. He is my solicitor. You will find him, you will find him, in . . .’ Poor Griffin was gasping for breath. ‘It is very important . . .’ He coughed quite a lot. ‘I have lost my power, Euphemia. I have lost everything, because . . . Rescue the library, if you can. All my books are yours. All my things. The wonde. The crystal. Anything that remains after . . . It says so in my will. I didn’t mean this to happen now. And find Dra . . .’
The door opened and Orwell came in and asked his father-in-law how he was.
‘We’d better go,’ Orwell said to his daughter, after a few minutes. ‘The greyout’s going to start soon.’
Every week there were a number of ‘greyouts’ when people were forbidden to use electricity. There were also whole weeks when the creaky old phone network was switched off entirely, to give it a chance to rest. This was why most people now had pagers, which worked with radio waves.
‘OK, just . . .’ began Effie. ‘Hang on.’
Orwell walked over and patted Griffin awkwardly on the shoulder.
‘Good luck with the op tomorrow,’ he said. And then to his daughter, ‘I’ll wait for you outside. You have three minutes.’
Effie looked at her grandfather, knowing he had been trying to tell her something important. She willed him to try again.
‘Ro . . . Rollo,’ said Griffin, once Orwell had left. There was a long pause, during which he seemed to summon all his strength. He pulled Effie close to him, so only she could hear what he said next.
‘Find Dragon’s Green,’ he said, in a low whisper. Then he said it again in Rosian. Well, sort of. Parfen Druic – the green of the dragon. What did this mean?
‘Do not go without the ring,’ said Griffin. He looked down at his trembling hands. On his little finger was a silver ring that Effie had never seen before. ‘I got this for you, Euphemia,’ said Griffin, ‘when I realised that you were a true . . . a true . . .’ He coughed so much the word was lost. ‘I would give it to you now, but I am going to use it and all the other boons I have to try to . . . to try to . . .’ More coughing. ‘Oh dear. This is useless. The codicil . . . Pelham Longfellow will explain. Trust Longfellow. And get as many boons as you can.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Effie, starting to cry. ‘Don’t leave me.’
‘Do not let the Diberi win, Euphemia, however hard it gets. You have the potential, more, even, than I ever did . . . I should have explained everything when I could, but I thought you were too young, and I’d made a promise, and the stupid Guild made sure that . . . Look after my books. I left them all to you. The rest of my things don’t matter much. Save only the things you brought to me here, and the books. Find Dra . . . Oh dear. The magic is too strong. It’s still preventing me from . . .’