CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Jane hung onto the mushroom stalk, with her knees up against her chin. The mushroom bumped and dipped and made itself as unsafe as it possibly could. Trinket stood with her legs apart, and holding the top of the stalk she used her body weight to change the direction and climb angle of the mushroom. She moved with the stalk, like a dancer leading a partner.

A bird, as dark as a bat, flew past. The air rushed and grew colder.

Jane said, ‘I am sorry that I didn’t support you in front of the Governor .’

Trinket ignored this. She was busy getting the mushroom up through the remaining branches of the giant tree. The darkness beneath was like the throat of a monster. Finally the mushroom and its occupants rose above the canopy of the giant woods. On all sides now were snow capped mountains, hemming in the giant forest and the northern meadow. The mountains were dark and brooding and the snow on top was a mysterious grey colour, the snow slipping down the mountains like half melted icing.

The lights of Wyld Fell became hazy below.

As the mushroom climbed the air grew increasingly colder and Jane pulled the thrip cloak around her and thought of Borrowdale who had given her the cloak - Borrowdale on the floor of the strange little gaol, dead.

A jagged line of orange flashed as lightning lit up the sky behind the snow capped mountains to the south.

‘A storm is coming,’ said Trinket. ‘Half a day away. It's going to be big.’

The mushroom quivered on a current of wind and Trinket’s legs bent into the movement.

Jane thought about Borrowdale, and the way his woolly hair lay in the blood that seeped from the jagged cracks in his skull. She played the scene of the Governor entering the room, over and over in her mind, trying to imagine what she could have done to save Borrowdale's life. The feeling of it was horrible. She pressed her face into the mushroom stalk. Her teeth chattered. She was too cold to talk.

The air currents were becoming tricky as they neared the mountains. Wind blew Trinket's hair sideways, like a green curtain.

After a moment Trinket said, ‘We are flying well. We will get to the river in plenty of time to intercept the ship.'

Jane didn’t reply. Her fingers were so cold she had trouble holding the coat shut against her throat.

Trinket leaned to pull the mushroom over onto a steep angle. She didn’t seem to feel the cold. There was not one goosebump on her bare legs or arms.

‘I hope we don’t crash,’ Jane said, but her teeth chattered so much it was difficult to make out the words.

Trinket pointed a toe out and tapped Jane lightly in the leg.

‘Don’t bother talking. Just appreciate my magical flying ability.’

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The pain in Jane’s left ankle seemed to be freezing away. Her hips had stopped hurting. She was so cold now that she felt warm. This was a strange thing. Her nose bulged like a flower bulb. Her lips had hardened and were cracking. The air whistled a tune.

The air beneath the mushroom became bumpy, and Trinket absorbed it all though her body, rising and falling like a Californian surfer working a wave. They were now really close to the mountain, alongside black rocks and snow, and dark purple shadows. The wind across the mountain moaned.

‘Once we get over the mountains we will start a descent to the Milkstone River. We will have plenty of time to intercept the river ship from Rivertown to Coronet,’ said Trinket.

Jane didn’t even know if she cared. Something about a ship. Something about Coronet. Her mind was made of honey.

They crested the snowy peaks of the mountain range and the moon came into view, blue and white, bringing out an aqua reflection off Trinket’s face.

Trinket turned her head back and forth, looking for something, and a moment later she said, ‘There it is.’

She stood on tiptoes like a ballerina, and she glanced at Jane then back at whatever she had just discovered.

‘White Mountain,’ she said , and her breath floated up in front of the moon like the outpouring of pipe smoke when the Chaplain came to school and decided to have a little Argentinian hooch.

With a creaking turn of the neck Jane looked in the direction of Trinket’s pointing. In the distance was a solitary, monolithic mountain. The mountain was enormous and conical, like an old volcano - like the picture Jane had seen of Mt Fuji in the book on Japan which the nuns used to explain the deviousness of the Japanese mind, and their ability to show no empathy to the human race due to their godless traditions and their worship of an Emperor.

The Mountain reflected an eerie quality of light, like the blue green of a photographic negative. As the mushroom rose, more of the mountain came into view. Deep grooves formed by avalanches held large pools of moon shadows.

Behind the mountain Jane could see the ocean, and the pale horizon beyond.

The mushroom rose and fell on the curious winds that poured off in multiple directions. Trinket stared at the mountain as though trying to breathe it in. After a while she looked down at Jane and smiled.

‘Im sad and happy and afraid and ecstatic.’

The updrafts and air sinks were colder than freezing and even the thrip coat couldn’t stop the chill and Jane got blunter as the cold slowed her brain. Could the fluid in her brain be actually freezing? She felt as though her arms had seized around the mushroom stalk. She felt as though the cheek pressed against the stalk might be stuck, glued by the cold. Nothing mattered. If she could only let go of the stalk she would fall into that soft snow just below the mushroom, and she could lay down and sleep.

Unaffected by cold, Trinket stood with her legs apart and guided the mushroom through the mountain peaks that slipped past a few feet beneath.

Finally they made it through the peaks and troughs of the mountain range, emerging and disappearing in moonlight and moon shadow.

Now the mountains fell away and below was a valley filled with utter darkness.

With a dreamy smile Jane looked up and the sun was shining and she was holding tight to a beach umbrella, and because she was young she sang a little song to her doll while listening to waves crash onto pebbles. Maybe now her mummy would get her an ice cream from the man with the ice cream cart ...

A hard stinging slap shocked Jane back into the moment. Trinket had slapped her across the face.

‘Stay awake,’ Trinket yelled.

Jane tried to reply, but sound didn’t come out.

‘We can start our descent,’ said Trinket, and she stooped and began tearing off spongy chunks of mushroom. The severed pieces rose into the darkness. Trinket crouched and tore off more mushroom, and the sound of it was like the tearing of sticking plaster coming off a smooth surface. The broken mushroom pieces kind of smelled like rotting eggs, and kind of like moss, and kind of like the ocean. One after another the shattered piece of mushroom flew into the night.

The mushroom bumped over an air current, and Jane felt a grain of anxiety that something was going wrong.

Trinket fell.