Crystal Read Online Free PDF Page A

them.
    ‘Watch where you’re going!’ he said. He had put on an ankle-length coat and was carrying two lanterns. His frog-eyes were bulging with excitement.
    He meant to go with her!
    ‘ He doesn’t need to come,’ Crystal said.
    ‘Raek will go with you to the swamp. It’s the curfew.’
    ‘But – Oh …’ What could she do? She had to accept Raek’s company during the curfew because on her own she’d be arrested.
    Moon moss was a tiny plant that produced small white globular flowers all over a dense mound of leaves. From a distance it looked like one giant flower glowing like moonlight. Crystal had picked some a few weeks ago for Annie Scott. And they had some at home. Surely she didn’t need to go and pick fresh leaves – but if her mum had said she should …
    It was now quite dark outside. The streets were deserted; no one was allowed out unless they had special permission.
    Crystal walked briskly, hating having Raek jogging behind her, feeling him watching her back. She focused on the light from their swinging lanterns making their shadows lurch into vast monsters or shrink to a weird nothing. It was a novelty being out in the dark.
    ‘Town Guard!’ Raek snapped suddenly.
    The sound of the Guards’ boots pounding the ground had been audible for some time. Now their lanterns came into view. The light flashing off their gold buttons glittered like hundreds of watchful eyes.
    ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ the lead Guard asked. ‘Papers!’
    Raek flashed his identity card.
    ‘Of course you have permission. Apologies, Mr Raek,’ the lead Guard said. ‘I thought I recognized you but I had to be sure.’
    He glanced suspiciously at Crystal. ‘Is everything all right, missy?’
    ‘We’re on business,’ Raek snapped. ‘Morton Grint’s business.’
    ‘Very well.’
    The Town Guards’ footsteps died away as they marched off. The darkness crept in again. Crystal shivered.
    ‘You and me are not so different you know, Crystal,’ Raek said. ‘I have no parents and you can hardly count your mother as a proper parent, can you? And who knows who your father was? No one. I was from the outside. I learned how to adapt. I changed. You could do that too and then you could get on. You could learn to fit in and then I think being different could be an advantage. Even though you’re a blonde freak. If you just showed a bit of respect towards me, Crystal … You’re not natural. I think …’
    Crystal pulled her cloak over her hair. ‘ You’re not natural,’ she said under her breath.
    ‘I don’t understand why Grint, Bless and Praise his Name, hasn’t locked you both up, I really don’t.’
    Crystal sighed. ‘We don’t do any harm—’
    ‘He needs Effie, I can see that,’ Raek persisted from behind her. ‘He locks the door. I listen; I eavesdrop. I know she’s important to him. But there’s more. Some other link.’ His voice was low, as if he were really talking only to himself.
    They passed down a street of empty houses with corrugated steel sheets nailed up over them; and across a patch of rubble and stone to the end of the broken tarmac road. One more group of Town Guards came past and checked Raek’s papers before moving off into the dark again.
    ‘People can sleep easy in this place,’ Raek muttered. ‘Don’t you agree, Crystal, they can sleep easy with the Guard around?’
    Crystal hated the sound of their marching boots going by in the night, but she didn’t say so.
    ‘They are saying your mum’s a witch. The Elders are cracking down on witchcraft, Crystal. Anything that smells like witchcraft, anything that is remotely connected to witchcraft will be dealt with harshly. If you ask me, moon moss is pretty much—’
    ‘Mum can’t remember things. Now she’s ill.’
    ‘Humph,’ Raek puffed. ‘I say Effie can remember when she has to, and what she has to.’
    They were climbing over mounds of debris, clattering over stones and fallen bricks. Crystal tried not to listen to him.