The Glass Town Game Read online

  Charlotte and Branwell sat on one side of a thick, scuffed, ancient walnut table, Emily and Anne on the other. They could hardly do more than sit. The dining car was an awful mess. As beautiful as the engraved silver car looked on the outside, it seemed no one had bothered to clear out the inside in years. Every other table and chair groaned underneath piles of cast-off hats: naval tricorns and bicornes, bonnets and boaters, army caps with golden braids, top hats and fearsome spiked helmets. Heaps of old swords and boots blocked the door into the next carriage. Dented stirrups from a thousand horses stacked up the corners to the ceiling. They’d had to kick over a small mountain of gold and silver and bronze and very nicely jeweled medals of valor and bravery just to clear enough space to crowd in round the table. Emily still felt quite guilty about it. Branwell did not. But then again, Branwell had not nimbly swiped a ruby-encrusted cross with FOR LAUGHTER IN THE FACE OF CERTAIN DEATH stamped on it and tucked it into his coat pocket. He had very much less to feel guilty about, on the whole. But not nothing—Bran had got his sketching pencil out of his coat and begun to draw out the pyramid of hats on the tablecloth.

  A wooden soldier elbowed the dining car door open and wedged himself through with a great deal of grunting and swearing. Branwell hurried to hide his bit of tablecloth graffiti with one sleeve. It was not Crashey or Bravey. He had a completely different face, with a curly beard carved into his pinewood jaw and a splendidly tall black hat tied under his chin with balsam straps. His chest was covered with odd, lumpy burls and knots and craters of scabby, unsanded wood. He wore a waiter’s apron over his uniform and carried a dish covered with a silver dome hoisted up in one strong hand. With the other hand, he blew a short blast on a tin whistle.

  “Good afternoon, passengers!” the soldier bellowed. “I trust you and your luggage are comfortable?”

  “I don’t know why you’re all so excited about luggage,” sighed Emily. “We left ours in our seats.”

  The soldier blushed. It was the oddest thing! When the wooden man blushed, a thin, soft green moss sprang up over his cheekbones in the most handsome way. “I certainly do hope it will forgive you, young miss! My name, if it please you, is Leftenant Gravey—”

  “Gravey!” yelped Branwell.

  Gravey was his second favorite of all the toy soldiers in their latched box back home. That was why Bran always made sure he died gallantly in battle at the end of every game. Charlotte shushed him hurriedly. He didn’t see why they couldn’t just tell the lads they owned them! It would make everything so much easier. Branwell thought it would be terrifically pleasant to find out you were owned by such a splendid person as himself. But Charlotte had the most maddening way of making the rest of them do as she said without saying anything at all. He would have to study that more closely, now he was so near to being a man.

  “As I was saying,” Gravey continued with a pointed glare, “my name, if it please you, is Leftenant Gravey, and I have been charged with the honorable and hazardous duty of bringing you our finest luncheon service, compliments of the Glass Town Public Rail. Now, I must apologize straightaway. We have not had . . . breathers . . . on board in some time. Oh! You’ll find that term offensive! I am a stupid stump! I shall hold my hand in the fire for a full minute when my watch ends, you have my word. Bleeders, then? Oh, no, that’s worse! Meat sacks? What about weepers, that’s mostly polite.”

  “Human beings,” said Charlotte curtly, putting the poor man out of his misery. “Thank you.”

  “Homo sapiens sapiens, if you’re fancy!” Anne piped up.

  Gravey wrinkled his broad nose. “I’m only an enlisted man, miss. Fancy is above my pay grade. Human beings is rather an ugly phrase, but it’s not for me to say, I suppose! Well then, we have not had any humans on board in some time, so the kitchen had a spot of trouble. More than a spot. A whole cup and a few tablespoons on top. But we’ve done our best, and we are very sensitive, so if you don’t eat every crumb, we shall all take mortal offense and put our hands in the fire for five minutes.” Gravey lifted the silver dome with a flourish. Steam rose from plates and bowls as he laid out a dizzying number of spoons and four puzzling dishes. “For the young human lady, we have a lovely vol-au-vent; for the gentleman, a delightful pot au feu; for the quiet lass, a sweet éclair, and for the littlest miss, a positively sinful galette des rois.”

  Leftenant Gravey set down a small, tightly lidded blue china pot like an unhatched robin’s egg in front of Charlotte. He laid another pot before an astonished Branwell: a miniature black iron cauldron full of roaring blue flame. With a dramatic flourish, he produced a storm cloud crackling with violet lightning on a green glass saucer for Emily. Finally, he placed a red velvet cushion shaped like a cupcake into Anne’s greedy, clasping hands. A magnificent silver crown set with black pearls floated ridiculously, in midair, above the pillow.

  “And for your splashables, a round of champagne flutes for all!” cried Gravey.

  He held one well-manicured wooden hand in front of his face like a magician and waggled his thorny eyebrows. Four crystal flutes sprang up behind his fingers. But they had no champagne in them. They couldn’t possibly. These were the sort of flutes you played music with, not the sort you drank from. Any wine would just drip out through the finger holes.

  “It’s a fine vintage, a crisp, dry, publicly rambunctious, but privately confused ’21 all the way from Acroofcroomb in the wicked wilds of Gondal!” The Leftenant waited for them to be impressed. He was disappointed. They only blinked a lot and opened their mouths and shut them again. Very unsatisfactory. “It’s absolutely contraband,” he pouted. “I swiped it myself at the Battle of Wehglon. All the other boys took jewels and paintings and silverware. But I knew what I wanted. I knew where to find the real Gondalier gold! I brought it out of my personal stash especially for you and you . . . you humans don’t appreciate it one bit and I shall NEVER recover! Good day to you!”

  Leftenant Gravey turned on one oaken heel and marched out of the dining car in a bitter fury. Branwell called after him, but no answer came. He could not bear the fine fighting man’s looking at him with such contempt. Like he was no more than a little bug in a plaid scarf. He ought to have exclaimed at the soldier’s tale of battle and looting, so that they could bond together as stalwart men and become comrades. Stupid, stupid, Bran cursed himself silently.

  Charlotte, Emily, and Anne stared down at their lunch.

  “It’s all French!” Emily said with a hot little thrill in her voice. “Papa would make us throw it all out!”

  But they could not quite sort out a plan of attack. They poked at their dishes with a few of the spoons, though the spoons didn’t make much of a dent. One white crystal one melted halfway to the stump the minute it touched Emily’s storm cloud. A rather brown, papery one started to smoke and smolder when Bran tried to get it up under a scoop of fire.

  “Well, this is just the worst,” snapped Branwell, throwing down his burnt spoon. “We can’t eat this rot! They’re trying to poison us. Or make fun of us. Or both at the same time.”

  Anne shrugged. She’d got the best out of the lot, if you asked her. She lifted her silver crown and put it on her head. If you had to miss lunch, better to get a new hat out of it! She giggled as it settled perfectly into her blond curls.

  “Oh!” Anne shouted suddenly. “Oh! Em! Bran!”

  She waved her hands frantically as the sensations of a wonderful meal filled her mouth and her belly, even though she hadn’t eaten a bite. The talk tried to get out, but it stumbled over her excitement and the taste of almond cream cake. “It’s marmalade and cheese on toast and a pigeon pie and almond sponge cake! I can taste it, I swear! As soon as I put the crown on! And I’m getting quite full. It’s so much!”

  “Galette des rois,” Charlotte said thoughtfully, and in a very nice accent, for Aunt Elizabeth insisted that all the children learn French, now that all that nasty business with the war was over. She looked down at her little china pot and said: “Let’s see my vol
-au-vent, shall we?”

  Charlotte lifted the blue china lid, but the bowl was empty. A swift, noisy whirlwind spun up out of it, twisting like a miniature tornado straight into her curious face. “Oh!” Charlotte coughed, and smiled for the second time that day as she breathed in the wind. “I’ve got roast lamb and buttered artichokes and a strawberry soufflé!”

  Emily and Bran peered doubtfully at their rather more alive and dangerous food. Almost at the same time, they each stuck a brave finger in. They yelped together as the lightning shocked her fingers and the blue flames scorched his. But in half a second they were laughing with their sisters and stepping all over each other’s sentences.

  “Mince pie and custard—” crowed Bran.

  “Apple puffs and mushroom tart—” whooped Emily.

  “And creamed lobster!”

  “And oyster soup!”

  “I’ve figured it out,” Charlotte announced with triumph. She put her hands flat on the table. You could always tell when Charlotte was thinking as hard as she could. She’d stretch her fingers out like she was reaching for the truth and just about to grab hold of it. “Galette des rois. Vol-au-vent. Pot au feu. Éclair. Listen! Everything here is just what it is!”

  “What are you on about?” Bran rolled his eyes, savoring the salty, creamy lobster and the rich mince pie. They only ever got mince pies at Christmas back home.

  “Look!” Charlotte pointed at Anne in her crown. The silver prongs slowly began to disappear as the girl finished her meal. “Remember our lessons! Galette des rois! That’s ‘kings’ cake.’ Vol-au-vent means ‘windblown.’ Pot au feu means ‘a pot of fire.’ And éclair means ‘a bolt of lightning.’ I think . . . I think in Glass Town, everything does what it says on the tin.” She pointed out the window at the blanket moors whipping by. “Doesn’t everyone always talk about the patchwork fields? Well, there they are! I think they haven’t got turns of phrase or colorful sayings or anything like that here, they’ve got the things themselves. Look!” She held up Bran’s blackened spoon, a strange, brown, papery thing made with what looked like old leaves. “Teaspoon.” She snatched another, a pale, fragile white one, then Emily’s craggy crystal spoon, and yet another sticky yellow one. “Egg spoon. Salt spoon! Mustard spoon!”

  “And champagne flutes!” Emily laughed. She blew a high, gentle note on hers and grinned as the bubbling, golden taste of real champagne filled her throat. Her first real champagne! Tabitha would be scandalized.

  Charlotte started to laugh, too, helplessly, holding on to her cheeks to keep her smile from flying away with her. She opened her arms to take in all the cluttered piles of old helmets and hats and medals and swords. “Don’t you see? We’re in the Officers’ Mess!”

  Branwell roared until his stomach hurt. Anne started to hiccup, she’d laughed so hard.

  Emily’s face went suddenly quite serious. “We must be very careful, then. We could run into a great deal of trouble if people think we mean just what we say.”

  “But what about our tickets?” interrupted Anne, holding up her calligraphed lemon. “A ticket’s not a lemon and a lemon’s not a ticket.”

  “Perhaps things get confused on the borderlands,” mused Bran. “Perhaps they’re only half what they mean. But I think . . . I rather think . . . every sailor needs to take lemons when he goes adventuring, or else he’ll never get home with all his teeth still in his head. We’d best not lose them, anyhow. They’re both-ways tickets. They’re our way home.”

  A large wooden head popped through the door between carriages. It belonged to a wooden soldier with a wooden patch over one eye and several piratical earrings in his left ear. “Lads and Lasses, Officers and Enlisted, Lords and Laborers, Breathers and Bolters, Sweethearts and . . . and . . . oh, hang it all, I’ve run out. You lot! I am to inform you that the Glass Town Main Line is presently disembarking at the charming riverside destination of Port Ruby. Due to . . . er . . . local weather, you are also presently disembarking. Hold on to your luggage and do try not to get killed—it’s an awful bother. Mind the gap!”

  “But that’s Rogue,” whispered Anne. “How can that be Rogue? I made his patch out of a bit of kindling and pitch and it wasn’t nearly so neat and tidy a job as he’s got now.”

  None of her siblings heard her. While they had been busy translating their luncheon, the world outside the train had changed once again.

  The patchwork moors had vanished. The train rocked from side to side as it steamed through a sea of red glass. A city rose up all around them. And not a city like Keighley. Not even a city like Leeds. A city like London. A city like Paris. A city like every metropolis the children had ever dreamed about visiting one day, all crammed together and forced to get along. Glittering towers and palaces and shops and pubs, sparkling statues and elegant houses and long, broad streets shaded by graceful trees, all shimmering brilliantly in the sun, all made entirely of scarlet stained glass. Branwell, even in his bloodiest dream, had never imagined so many shades of red existed in the universe. Scarlet, yes, but also crimson and vermilion and coral and maroon and fuchsia and garnet and pink and blush and burgundy and a million billion others he couldn’t even think of names for. The glass streets shot prisms into the sky. Hot, molten blown glass cypress trees bulged up along the edges of handsome parks filled with cut-glass rosebushes. And through it all ran a river as wide as the Thames, as wide as the Amazon, frothing and roaring with deep red claret wine, all the way to the sea.

  A deafening boom rocked the train. It careened up on its side, threatening to topple off the tracks and into the copper-colored stained-glass station house. All four of them lurched and tumbled and fell against the other end of the car, were instantly buried in officers’ helmets and medals and Sergeant Major Rogue’s extremely surprised wooden body, then hurtled back painfully against their table as the train righted itself, shattering the remains of their lunch and cracking the lovely wide carriage window straight down the middle.

  Anne and Emily saw the creature sprinting toward them on one side of the crack. Charlotte and Branwell and Rogue saw it on the other.

  It was a rooster.

  A rooster the size of their village church in Haworth. A rooster made, not of rooster parts, but smashed, mismatched porcelain dishes spackled together into the shape of a demonic cockerel, with fiery, insane eyes and a tail of a thousand enraged shattered china feathers streaming behind it. It screeched and green flame vomited out of its teacup-beak. A young man no older than fourteen or fifteen rode the rooster down the scarlet streets of Port Ruby, screaming war cries fit to wake the Romans. His legs in the rooster’s stirrups were long brass spyglasses. He wore a bicorne hat on his head like an awful black half-moon. His arms were two long muskets. With one he swung a great emerald hammer strapped onto the barrel, shattering crimson steeples and gates as he came. With the other he fired again and again, into the towers, into the palaces, into the tall, elegant houses of Port Ruby. But the face beneath that bicorne hat was bare, pure, white bone.

  “What is that?” choked Branwell, terror eating up his heart. He reached for Charlotte’s hand and squeezed it awfully, though he would never admit to such a thing later.

  Sergeant Major Rogue stumbled to his feet and straightened his eye patch. He glared out the window with mixed irritation and admiration in his good eye.

  “That, my lad, is the local weather. Napoleon bloody Bonaparte.” The wooden soldier slammed open the door between carriages and shouted down the train. “Man positions! Form up! Sound the alarm! Oh, bugger, has Gravey died again already? Get him up! Give him a stiff drink! All hands on deck! Old Boney has come for us at last!”

  PART II

  In This Imperfect World

  SIX

  Out of the Train and Into the Fire

  Port Ruby exploded around them. Charlotte and Emily dashed down a red cut-glass alleyway after the squad of wooden soldiers in tight formation, clutching their suitcases and each other for dear life. Branwell and Anne scrambled close beh
ind them. Anne held her hands over her ears as she ran. Napoleon’s impossible arms and his rooster’s jets of green flame thumped against the city like awful thundering drums. The demonic chicken scored a hit on a beautiful scarlet stained glass theater just ahead of them. It shattered with a terrible cry, as though it had been a living thing and not a building at all. Shards of broken windows fell into their hair. One sliced through Branwell’s ear, but he hardly felt it. It was finally happening, a real battle, all around him! He whooped in joy, twisting round to see if he could catch another glimpse of the great man astride his astonishing war-bird. Charlotte could feel the heat of that rooster-fire on her skin as she ran past the smoking ruin, scorching the hem of her dress, singeing her hair. She would never have confessed it to a grown-up person, but her heart burned with excitement, too. Only this morning her life seemed a gray, cold shroud. Now she, little Charlotte nobody, was running through ruby crystal streets after her old toys while a dead Emperor bore down on them like the devil come to life. It was just like a story. It was the most interesting the truth had ever been!

  The lot of them burst into a wide plaza, paved in garnet looking glasses and ringed by smart vermilion cafés where giant overturned wineglasses served for tables. Loads of people huddled beneath the table stems and hid behind thick pink quartz trees, praying desperately for glass to stop being quite so easy to see through, if you please. The four children careened into a rather splendid maroon muffin cart just as a stray arrow of green fire crashed into the pretty pastry pyramid on display. They crouched down behind the toppled cart as currants and almonds and crumbly cake rained down all over them. The wooden soldiers ignored them, taking up positions, barking orders, counting off their numbers and weapons. Charlotte and Emily shook off a little rain of exploded muffins and hauled up their suitcases in front of themselves and their siblings like a pair of knight’s shields. Anne buried her face in Emily’s back—but after a moment, she peered out between her fingers, so as not to miss anything. Branwell felt so extremely cross at being shown up in his duty by his sisters’ old bags that he stopped being afraid at all. It’s a very difficult job to be cross and terrified at the same time. One always wins out. He pinched Charlotte savagely and hissed: “Get over yourself! What are you going to do with those, throw your knickers at Napoleon?”