Free Amethyst by Rebecca Lisle

seen again!’
    ‘Ah, you are so right,’ said Shane Annigan, coming in at that moment. ‘I am as light as a mite of dust and will float over the crystals like a flake of snow myself. Is that porridge? Lovely. Do you know,’ he added, ‘that snow fairies freeze porridge and use it as missiles? I once had a fight with a giant yeti, sure, he was a brute of a creature, living up on a lonely mountain top. I flew round and round him, riding my dragon like a warplane,bombarding him with frozen fairy porridge balls.’
    ‘Cool!’ breathed Questrid. ‘Oh, I wish I could!’
    ‘Questrid, don’t worry. It’ll all be there for you when the time is right,’ said Greenwood.
    ‘Well, I’ve had a lovely time here, and that’s the truth,’ said Shane. ‘But now, before I go, might I have a look at the Root Room you’ve told me about?’
    The Root Room was where Greenwood, Cedar and Amber worked at wood carving. It was a big, natural room made beneath the fanned out roots of the spindle tree.
    Amy and Copper followed Cedar and Shane down the narrow stairs. The strong, sweet smell of the wood and fresh wood shavings made Amy cough and her eyes water.
    ‘We’re making a mirror at the moment,’ Cedar said. ‘We have a buyer in the South. Someone who appreciates our work.’
    The mirror stood two metres high. It was made from walnut and rosewood, and carved with animals and flowers. One side of the frame was patterned with filigree strands of gold and embedded with silver and precious stones, the other side was still to be decorated.
    ‘That’s mighty fine,’ said Shane. ‘Those strands of gold are so delicate.’
    ‘My wife does those intricate bits,’ said Cedar proudly.
    ‘And you’ve got plenty of gold, have you?’ asked Shane Annigan.
    Cedar went so still that Amy knew he was shocked. Or angry. Something about Shane’s question disturbedhim. Did he wonder if Shane had heard the stories of Amber knitting gold too? Maybe he had? Maybe he was hoping to get some himself.
    ‘We’re trading with the Rockers again, now,’ Cedar said. ‘There’s plenty of gold coming out of the mountains.’
    ‘Do you enjoy making things, Amethyst?’ Shane asked. Amy shrugged. In her mind’s eye she saw the hunched forms of the grey clay gargoyles on the stone table at home. ‘I’m quite good at some things,’ she said. ‘But I—’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘But, well, I’ve never tried to make anything beautiful .’
    ‘So what have you made? Just ugly things?’ Copper laughed.
    It was on the tip of Amy’s tongue to say ‘yes’. How wonderful if she could fling herself into Amber’s arms and confess all. If only Shane Annigan wasn’t glaring at her with his cold, light eyes. Amy went red. She shook her head. ‘I’ve made nothing.’
    They watched Amber’s long, nimble fingers wind the gold thread through minuscule holes in the wooden mirror frame. She bent it and plaited it and knotted it into flowers, birds and stars. Watching her made Amy’s insides shrink and tangle. How could anyone do such delicate, clever things? How did the birds and the flowers look so real? She studied Amber; it wasn’t hard to imagine her making gold.
    ‘See this flower here, Amethyst?’ Amber pointed to a blue stone with a darker centre. ‘That’s a StarAmethyst. It’s a very special stone, an amethyst with a flaw in its centre. The flaw makes it more valuable. They’re rare.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Amy.
    A vast wave of sadness washed over her, so violent was it, that she nearly fell over. I’m a spoiled amethyst, she thought. There’s no hope for me. Flawed. Ruined. She bit her bottom lip to stop it from trembling. She didn’t even hear the last words Amber had said about the Star Amethyst being the most valuable and rare.
    Cedar was carving a rosebud from a knob of brown wood and they watched as it grew like a watered seed bursting into life before their eyes.
    ‘It’s truly wonderful, so it is,’ Shane said.
    ‘I wish I could do