Wildspark Read online

  Panic was setting in. Francis would’ve been able to manage it; he was always much better at drawing the plans for machinery than she was. What if she was about to be found out? She tapped her pencil rapidly on the paper. What could she do? A fish? Too boring. A whale? Not practical. Then she thought of a book Francis used to read her when she was tiny. It was a myth from their father’s homeland called The Merman.

  She drew a circle for the face and then attempted a body with a fish tail.

  Cora, who was beside her, was drawing a perfect tentacled creature. She sniggered. “Seriously. What is that? Is that some country bumpkin folklore?”

  Prue scowled and put down her pencil.

  Craftsman Primrose walked over. “Is everything all right, Frances?”

  She nodded, “I’m just thinking.”

  “Why don’t you try something simple first, perhaps like Agapantha’s drawing – a sea serpent?”

  “I wanted to come up with my own idea.”

  “Sometimes the best ideas are well-executed copies of existing things which you bring your own flair to. Besides, human forms are strictly forbidden for personifates.”

  “Even those with a fish tail?”

  He laughed. “Look, we can’t all excel in every area at the factorium, but if you can’t draw your ideas, you won’t be able to share them as easily.”

  Prue glanced across at Cora’s perfect drawing. “Master Woolstenbury said we need to be able to turn our hands to all aspects if we’re to be successful.”

  “As long as you are willing to work on your weak areas. If I’m correct, your strengths will lie primarily in mechanics, but it doesn’t mean you can’t improve in other areas.”

  Prue nodded.

  “Let’s see if I can help you on your way a little with this design.”

  Craftsman Primrose clipped a fresh piece of paper to the board and started helping Prue design a sea serpent, giving her instructions of shape and where to shade.

  After a while he smiled reassuringly. “Now you’re off to a better start. I’ll go and see how the others are doing.”

  Prue noticed that Cora not only kept looking across at her work and throwing sneering looks, but she kept glancing at Edwin’s, her lips tight.

  At the end of the task Prue had produced a design that, while not as good as the other drawings, was something that she wasn’t wholly embarrassed of.

  Craftsman Shad congratulated them all on their first foray into personifate design and smiled warmly as he observed each finished artwork in turn. “Lovely serpent there, Apprentice Young; I like the way you’ve labelled the internal workings of the fins, and you’ve included calculations, I see … yes, extremely thorough and advanced mathematics.” He nodded in approval, then moved on to Cora. “Apprentice Duval, I can see you’re going to have no issues in design. Such a clever idea to go with a small octopus with easily manipulated tentacles – sure to reach places other personifates may fail to reach! Now, Apprentice Snow-Moon, this is what I’m looking for. Oh yes indeed, a sea monkey with gills and webbed opposable thumbs! An ingenious idea!” When he observed Prue’s, there was an uncomfortable pause. Prue saw the glint of pity when he turned to look at her and said, “Valiant attempt, Apprentice Haywood.”

  PLACE AND TIME

  After the Design Lab, to Prue’s relief, Cora went with her brother Larkin to meet Master Sollentude. Prue, Edwin and Agapantha had been instructed to meet Master White by the front entrance. She was waiting for them standing hand on hip, her blonde hair blowing messily in the soft breeze and a large backpack by her feet.

  “Good afternoon!” she said brightly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with you this morning, but I trust Craftsmen Primrose and Shad gave you an excellent introduction to the Design Lab.”

  They all nodded.

  “Good. Craftsman Primrose and I have decided to pool our mentoring skills where possible – we each have specific expertise which we feel you’ll benefit from, plus it helps us to have two perspectives on our apprentices.” Master White began walking and they all followed.

  “Additionally, as you discovered this morning, we have the small matter of preparing one hundred personifates by the blood moon, so the start of your apprenticeship is going to require fast learning. We’ve decided to give you introductions to as much as we can manage over the coming week, then it will be all-hands-on-deck for the next few moons. You won’t see as much of us as you should, but we’ll do our best. We’ll need all the help we can get with the hundred, although your tasks will of course be limited due to your inexperience.

  “You may wonder why I have chosen to take your lesson outside,” said Master White.

  The three exchanged questioning glances. She smiled. “Curiosity is a great motivator, so I will tell you the answer lies at the top of that chimney.”

  The three apprentices gazed up at the soaring structure.

  “How do you all feel about heights?”

  For once, Agapantha’s cheeks didn’t fill with red, but her face became alabaster white.

  “No objections? Excellent. I’ve turned off the artificial smoke for us. Let’s get climbing!” said Master White, striding towards the highest chimney of the factorium. Edwin leapt behind, but Agapantha didn’t move.

  Prue put her arm around Agapantha’s shoulder. “Someone once told me that if you do one brave thing, the next one will be easier and before you know it, you’re climbing mountains. Sometimes you’ve just got to go for it – come on.”

  Agapantha smiled weakly and let Prue grab her hand, pulling her along after the others.

  They began climbing the exterior metal staircase spiraling up to the top. It had a sturdy railing, although Prue went behind Agapantha to help her feel safer. Agapantha moved rigidly and she kept a firm grip on the handrail.

  As they climbed higher and the staircase twisted around the back, Prue looked down to see an orchard and great vegetable patches behind the factorium with what appeared to be the mole personifate, Abel, busying around, although Prue couldn’t be sure from this distance.

  “We pride ourselves on being self-sufficient and grow all manner of things at the factorium,” Master White called.

  By the time they reached the top rim, they were hot and thirsty. Although the rim had high-bricked edges almost to their shoulders, Agapantha stayed equally distant from either side. Master White laid out a picnic blanket and passed Prue and Agapantha cups of elder water. Prue leant her elbows on the wall. The views were breathtaking: Medlock’s great towers and spires glimmered like crystals and to the sides were lush green hills and sun-soaked valleys.

  “Who can tell me what lies in a straight line eastward?” asked Master White.

  Edwin tapped Prue’s leg. “May I?”

  She smiled and nodded, and he jumped up on to her shoulder to see over the walls.

  “The city of Gawthorpe,” he said.

  “Indeed. How about in the west?”

  “Doric Wells?” Prue suggested. She’d never been there, but Mum had told her it was a traditional city, resistant to technology. Grandpa Haywood had come from there.

  “Correct. And to the south?” Master White moved her arms as though conducting the landscape.

  Prue looked behind her where trees stretched into the distance. “The forest?” said Prue.

  “Yes, but far beyond where the eye can see?”

  “The city of Augustine,” said Agapantha.

  “Yes, good. And to the north, we have not only Batterthwaite, but Scar Pike.”

  Prue knew that place; her parents had taken her and Francis there when they were little. They called it the haunted mountain because it was so tall and bleak.

  Master White took a rolled-up piece of paper from her pack then spread it out on the floor. It was a map detailing the cities and the landmarks she’d mentioned.

  “For your first lesson with me, let’s get down to basics. Master Woolstenbury discovered that there are locations where the walls between our world and the spirit worl
d are weaker –intersections which we as humans gravitate naturally towards but are usually unaware of.”

  Prue frowned. It all sounded rather unscientific.

  “Bear with me, Apprentice Haywood.” Master White smiled. She drew neat lines joining the sites and sat back. “What do you see?”

  “The lines all cross right where we are,” said Edwin, jumping down from Prue’s shoulder for a closer look.

  “Indeed, this factorium is situated in an intersecting weak spot between worlds. When Hannah Woolstenbury, then a promising young scientist, first started ghost hunting, as it was called several decades ago, she explored all the existing methods of spirit searching, practices which were generally ridiculed by the scientific community. It alienated her from many colleagues, and she was targeted by the Medlock press as a sham. She lost her position in society.”

  Master White carefully took some papers from her bag; they were old newspaper cuttings with headlines such as: Ghost Sham Brings Shame to City; Give up the Ghost, Woolstenbury; and Once Eminent Scientist Laughing Stock of Medlock.

  “A lesser person would have given in, but Hannah knew that although many were false leads and superstitions, there was something big waiting to be discovered. Through persistence, determination, a lot of trial and error, and a sharp scientific brain, she found a way.”

  Master White took a book from her backpack and opened it before them. There were images of the different stages of the moon.

  “One of the biggest breakthroughs came when Hannah discovered that not only were there physical intersections where the walls between worlds were weakest, but there were also time intersections.”

  “When it’s a full moon?” said Prue.

  “Yes, the full moon phase is seen as a most favourable time to harness spirit frequencies, or as we usually refer to it, the wildspark – so named on account of how hard it is to capture. But there is also the new moon phase; that’s when the moon rises at the same time as the sun and the sun’s bright rays mean you can’t see the moon. The nights are darkest then, and spirits are also near.”

  Prue tried to remember which moon phase they were in at the moment; approaching a full moon, she guessed.

  “Now, this connection between the moon stages, locations and the ghost world weren’t necessarily new thinking – for centuries people have associated the full moon with the supernatural, and been drawn to certain sites, but what Hannah Woolstenbury did was to pin down the details, and most importantly she found the practical connection with science.”

  Master White reached inside her jacket pocket, then held out her hand, clenched fist downwards. Slowly, she turned it over and opened her fingers.

  There, in the centre of her palm, about the size of a plum, was something crystal-like – but this was no ordinary mineral. It glowed with kaleidoscopic light in a myriad of colours: gleaming silver, lightning blue, blazing pink, blistering gold, searing red. It radiated shimmering light on to Master White’s hand.

  Master White spoke in a hushed tone. “This, young apprentices, is qwortzite.” She let the moment sit with them while they all huddled in, transfixed. “When Hannah Woolstenbury discovered there was a wildspark beyond, she looked for a way of luring it back into our world. She suspected it could be trapped or harnessed inside a material, so she travelled the world searching, never giving up, following every lead, until she discovered qwortzite. Thanks to this, some twenty years ago, the Imperial Personifate Guild of Medlock was formed, or the Ghost Guild as you may have heard it referred to informally.”

  Prue couldn’t take her eyes from this amazing crystalline substance. “Where does qwortzite come from?” she asked.

  Master White smiled. “Deep in the ground, but that’s all I can reveal. I’m afraid that part is highly secret to both apprentices and craftsmen.”

  After a few moments, Master White put the qwortzite back in her pocket.

  Prue sat back on her heels but kept looking at the pocket. That material was the key to getting back to Francis. Everything she did with the machines on the farm was so mechanical – she understood the workings, the connections, it all came naturally to her – but here there was a new mystical element which made her feel dizzy to think about.

  “Right, time for some lunch. This was prepared by Lavender,” said Master White, placing neatly wrapped parcels of brown paper tied with string on top of the picnic blanket. Inside was a rye loaf, cheeses, red apples and a sweet berry pie.

  “Sorry, Edwin, I do feel quite rude eating when you can’t. Do you mind?” said Master White.

  “Not at all, I’ll do some sketching,” he said, taking a small notebook and pencil from the bag around his body.

  “Do you ever miss eating?” asked Prue.

  Edwin thought for a moment. “I don’t miss hunger, but I do miss what I think is a memory of what it felt like to enjoy food.”

  “Our gardener personifate always said he gets great pleasure out of working the vegetable garden even though he doesn’t get to enjoy the spoils,” said Master White. “Frances, what about the farm your family have – what does it grow?”

  Prue told them about the vegetables and fruit they produced, and about the machines she’d built. She felt bad taking all the credit for them when really it was always her and Francis together.

  The sweet-berry pie was delicious, almost as good as Dad’s island plum pie. Prue helped herself to a second slice and thought how extraordinary the day had been so far. She was still unsure about the moons and thin wall between worlds, but seeing a bit of qwortzite made the prospect of finding a way to Francis feel closer.

  Just as they were starting to pack up, a scream echoed below. They all hurried to the edge to look, apart from Agapantha. Movement attracted Prue’s eye at the forest edge; a personifate hawk swept over from the tower towards a cat who was standing stock-still, pointing to something.

  Master White ran towards the steps and the apprentices hurried after her.

  They made it down twice as quickly as it had taken them to climb up. By the time they reached the bottom, a master who Prue recognized from the morning was already there, along with several other personifates.

  They jolted to a halt as they reached the scene. Prue put her hand to her mouth.

  “Oh no,” said Edwin.

  “Poor thing,” Agapantha said quietly.

  A pearl coloured personifate that looked like a winged rabbit was lying limp and lifeless in the ferns. Its belly was ripped open, revealing the inner wires, synthetic muscles and mechanical workings. It was distressing to see the complex components hanging out and ripped apart, but also to think this poor personifate had died again.

  “What happened, Master Tinubu?” Master White said, her voice hoarse.

  “Go ahead,” Master Tinubu said to the personifate cat.

  “I was taking a walk about the grounds, when the white fur of this poor jackalope caught my eye,” the cat said sadly.

  Edwin slumped against Prue’s leg.

  The personifate cat shook her head. “I think she was called Rayana. She had just joined the messengers. She’d not even been in her second life for a full moon cycle.”

  “I know her,” said Master White. She swallowed hard, her eyes filming. “I harnessed her.”

  Zareen the lynx came bounding across the field. She looked more closely at the body of the dead personifate hare, then at Master White and Tinubu. “The qwortzite has been ripped right out.”

  “It’s like what happened at the beginning,” said the personifate cat.

  “What do you mean?” asked Prue.

  “It was before my time, but early on there were incidents of people catching and dissecting personifates to learn their secrets.” The personifate cat shivered. “It all stopped when people came to accept that the qwortzite was useless without knowledge of the technologies used to capture the spirits.”

  “Indeed, but I doubt that would be the cause here. It’s likely a confused wild animal,” said Master White. “Never
theless, say nothing to anyone until we’ve spoken with Master Woolstenbury.” Master White glanced at Prue, Agapantha and Edwin. “That means you too. We don’t want panic breaking out – Master Woolstenbury will want to handle it directly.”

  They nodded obediently.

  Master Tinubu went to alert Master Woolstenbury, while Master White sent the hawk up to the top of the chimney to fetch the picnic blanket, then they carefully wrapped the body before Zareen took it in her mouth and hurried back to the main factorium building.

  The three exchanged a wide-eyed look as the personifate crowd swiftly dispersed.

  Master White turned to them. “I think we’ll call it a day, apprentices. You can go back to the house. Craftsman Primrose will be conducting your lessons tomorrow.”

  Back at the house, they were greeted by Lavender and Liddy, who were dusting the pictures in the hallway.

  “You’re back early,” Lavender remarked, then she noticed Edwin. “Ah, Edwin. Master Woolstenbury said we should expect you!”

  “We’re delighted to have you at the house,” said Liddy. “We’ve put you in with an apprentice called Samir who’s been here six moon cycles. I’ll show you up.”

  “Before you go, there are some letters on the mantelpiece in the parlour, girls,” said Lavender. “I haven’t had a chance to sort through them yet.”

  Prue’s stomach lurched with a sudden realization; if her parents had written to her, they would address it to Prue Hayward, not Frances! She’d be found out. “I’ll have a quick look for us,” she said hastily, then looked to Agapantha and Edwin. “I’ll meet you both upstairs in a minute.”

  Liddy, Edwin and Agapantha climbed the stairs, while Lavender continued with her dusting. Prue hurried to the parlour and looked through the letters. Sure enough, there was one for “Miss P Haywood”. She ripped it open and drew in a long breath.

  The handwriting was her dad’s. They were angry and exasperated with her, he wrote, for leaving without even discussing it with them. But, he continued, they understood she was safe, and cross as they were, they had decided after a long debate not to come after her. He finished by saying they hoped to hear from her soon. Prue exhaled the breath she’d held while reading. She would give it a day’s space and write back tomorrow.