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Copper told her how she'd found the dragon.

"Dear Glinty! What a good idea to set up a smoke signal. All those years hoping I'd come. I won't be parted from her again, you can be sure. Now, let's get off this dangerous narrow ledge and away from the ravine. You were nearly at the end of the path, you know. Just round this corner it gets wider and you would have seen the front door of the Rock."

"I can manage anything now that you're here," said Copper, sighing. "How did you find me? Have you been to Spindle House? Have you seen Oriole and Questrid and Amber and everyone?"

"I've seen Oriole and we talked lots. She told me where you'd gone."

"And now what?" asked Copper.

"Now we have to see Granite and get this sorted out once and for all. Families should stick together, you know."

"Families! Are you truly related to me?"

Aunt Ruby shook her head. "Not really."

"I know you're a Stone person," said Copper. "I realized that, but are you . . . you couldn't be Granite's sister, could you? The one who married a Wood? The one who was called Pearl?"

"You've worked it all out, haven't you? My husband was a member of the Wood clan. His name was Ironwood—a dear, gentle man. So I'm a sort of aunt. When he died I came back to the Rock with my son ... for a while."

The ledge had grown wider and wider, and now Copper saw they were coming onto much flatter ground with stumps of dead trees poking out of the snow, and there was the Rock, a black silhouette against the paler sky.

Copper paused, staring up at it. "I suppose we have to go in again?" she said. She rubbed the front of her coat where Ralick and the wolf cub made it bulge out. "I need to get this baby home."

"Baby?" asked Aunt Ruby.

Copper undid some buttons and showed Aunt Ruby the scraggly wolf cub. It mewed and snuffled against Ralick.

Silver came and began licking the cub and whining.

"I see," said Aunt Ruby grimly. "We'd better stop and let Silver feed it, hadn't we?"

Copper lifted the cub out from her coat and Silver lay down so that the little creature could suckle from her. The cub was weak and Copper had to hold it against the warmth of Silver's tummy. As soon as the cub tasted its mother's milk, it latched on to her and began sucking vigorously.

"There, isn't that wonderful!" sighed Aunt Ruby. "We'd better just sit here until it's finished. The rest will do us good too. Here, take a sip of this." She handed Copper a flask of warming, fiery liquid.

"I suppose you always knew she was a wolf?" asked Copper.

"I did. She was Amber's wolf."

"Do you know everything?"

Aunt Ruby shook her head.

"You don't know about the gold in my pockets," said Copper, rattling the coins. "Don't you want to know about it?"

"No doubt I'll find out when the time is right," said Aunt Ruby. "There's no hurry."

When at last the wolf cub couldn't drink any more, Copper tucked it back into her coat, where it went straight to sleep.

Aunt Ruby turned to Silver and laid her hand gently on her head.

"Well done, Silver. Good girl. Now, go home, Silver. Go and tell them everything is all right. Tell them Copper is safe and we're coming soon. Go on!"

Silver looked up at them, her eyes shining again and her nose wet and bright. She barked once and then immediately turned and loped down the hill.

Copper and Aunt Ruby paused at the front door to exchange a look of encouragement, then pulled the long bellpull.

"What a mess it looks," said Aunt Ruby, scanning the broken windows and tattered shutters. "I might have been gone for twenty years, not six, by the look of it."

A face appeared at an upper window, then another poked round behind him. They seemed astonished to see Copper again. Or maybe it was seeing Aunt Ruby that made them stare.

At last the door opened and Grit let them in.

"What's going on? I don't know, I'm sure I don't know," he muttered, and he scuttled off down the damp corridor.

Aunt Ruby marched inside and went straight into the big room where all the Rockers had been the night before. A grubby-looking man was dozing by the smoldering fire and the tables hadn't been cleared. The room smelled of old cabbage and stale beer. The wooden tables were cracked and scuffed, and the chairs had been mended over and over with bits of metal.

"Build up the fire," Aunt Ruby ordered the poor sleepy man, "and bring Granite here."

She pulled off her woolly hat and out tumbled her wonderful, wild hair. Copper was delighted to see a brilliant orange scarf twisted into it and massive glittering green earrings dangling from her ears. The Aunt Ruby she loved and admired.

"Sit down," said Aunt Ruby, sitting down herself in the best chair she could find. "Looks disgusting, doesn't it? How can he live like this?"

Granite came at last. He walked into the room slowly, peering at Copper from his twisted, bent position.

"Well, well, we can't get rid of you, can we . . ." Then he stopped, seeing Aunt Ruby for the first time, and his mouth dropped open.

"You!
How?"

He sat down heavily, staring at Ruby. "How dare you come here? How dare you . .." He broke off, his attention caught by a trickle of pale green light coiling from Copper's pocket. "Green vapor! What's going on? What is this? Grit! Gravel! Come here!"

But no one came.

"Sit down and listen," said Aunt Ruby, calmly undoing her coat and making herself comfortable. She straightened her billowing green trousers and pointed a long finger at Granite. "I am still your big sister, Granite, don't you forget that."

"Devilish work, this," said Granite, but he didn't say it very loudly. His eyes darted from Aunt Ruby to the green light, then back again. "You shouldn't be here," he said. "How did you get out?" he added, addressing Copper. "And where's that wolf?"

Copper grinned but didn't say anything. She wanted Aunt Ruby to explain.

"You've had things your own way too long," said Aunt Ruby, her purple eyes flashing. "Things are going to change around here. It's my fault, of course. I should have told Copper sooner, but it never seemed the right moment. When your scouts came searching for her, I knew I couldn't hide her any longer."

"We'd been looking for years," said a voice from the corridor, and Gravel popped his head round the door. He and Grit were hiding. "Pardon me, Pearl, but we were. It was the Marble Mountain dragon over the door that led us to you in the end."

"Ah, the dragon," said Aunt Ruby, smiling. "My mistake again. By the way, I'm Ruby now, Gravel, not Pearl. She's gone."

"All right, Ruby. Whatever you say."

"And I shall be coming back here to live," she told Granite.

"No you're not," snapped Granite, leaping to his feet. "I don't want you here! You can't come back! You've no right to."

"Cedar is ...," began Aunt Ruby.

"He's dead!" snapped Granite. "She tried to tell me he was alive but he isn't. That's not him down at Spindle House, I won't believe it. He never came back. He's
dead."

"You are quite wrong as usual. He's alive and kicking a lot down at Spindle House. And Amber is there too."

"I supposed she would be. She slipped out of my grasp again. But she's still trapped in the ice, isn't she?" said Granite, grinning. "You'll never get her out."

Aunt Ruby stared at him hard. "We will. But the charm bracelet that she made to release herself won't work. It won't work because of you!"

"Me? I never touched it. You can ask that twiglet over there. She's had it all the time."

"It won't work because of all this hate," Aunt Ruby went on. "Amber won't come out of that ice until we all change and do something to stop this quarrel. This war between the families must stop."

Granite got up and began pacing around the room.

"Look at this place!" he roared. "It's your home and it's falling to pieces, it's dying and all because of the Woods. Of course I hate them. They've destroyed us. Why did you leave us for Ironwood, Pearl? We're different. Stone and Wood,
they don't mix. They can't mix. We'll lose our special gifts, we'll lose everything to them. They stole our gold and won't admit it. They're cheats, every one of them."

Aunt Ruby looked at Copper and smiled.

Copper looked at Granite and smiled.

Granite looked puzzled. "Well?"

Copper walked over to him, dug her fingers into her pockets and drew out the gold coins. The faintest wisp of green vapor still clung to them.

"Is that gold? What is it?" cried Granite, taking one of the pieces and holding it up to inspect. He turned it over. "Dragon on the front, pine tree on the back," he muttered.

"I found it at the bottom of the well," said Copper. "Glinty was looking after it. There's a whole pile of it there. Lots and lots. There's a broken bit of cart too. It's the money that's been missing. I know it is. Great-Grandfather Ash must have been going back to Spindle House and fallen off the cliff."

"We've never found anything," said Granite. "Where is this cart?"

"Under the snow. Outside the cave."

Granite grunted. "Glinty! Huh. She's been the bane of my life, lurking down there in the caves. Nobody could go anywhere near the well without her scorching them with her breath. Nobody would hurt her because she was yours!" He glared at Aunt Ruby. "Perhaps now that you're here she'll leave."

"Good old Glinty," said Aunt Ruby, grinning.

Granite grunted. "Huh. Then she started blowing this green stuff about...."

Aunt Ruby laughed. "Don't you remember? Glinty's breath's a lovely turquoise, but when she blows on different things it changes. It goes pink when she blows on tree bark, Copper. Funny, isn't it?"

"Not really," said Granite, scowling.

"And green's my favorite color," explained Aunt Ruby. "Dear little dragon."

"Huh. Well—at least it came in useful when we closed all the shutters." He looked up at the ceiling. "It's fading," he said. "Bring some candles, someone!"

"There won't be any more green vapor, Granite," said Aunt Ruby. "Glinty's stopped guarding the coins. We'll have to get proper lights now."

"Or I could open the shutters," said Copper. "It's very gloomy in here."

"We never open them!"

"Well, it's time to start," said Aunt Ruby, marching over to the window and unlocking the fastening, pushing the shutters wide open.

Daylight flooded the room for the first time in years.

"That's nice," said Gravel. "Look, that's really nice, Granite."

"Oh, shut up!"

"I'm going to take Copper to Spindle House now," said Aunt Ruby, "but I'll be back. You wanted the truth about
Ash and the money, and now you have it. You have no excuses for behaving badly. We can start trading again, we can start having a real life."

"I don't want you here," snapped Granite. "I can't forgive you. I'll never forgive any of you."

"You can't stop me," said Aunt Ruby. "This is my home. Like it. Or leave it."

A faint cheer sounded from the doorway where Grit and Gravel and several of the women were listening.

Just before Aunt Ruby reached the door to go, she said, "Granite, about Linden. Did he ever . .. did you find him?"

"No," growled Granite, turning away.

27. Copper Knows What She Wants To Knit For The First Time

Copper and Aunt
Ruby slowly walked home.

A watery sun was lighting up the mountainside, and the snow was beginning to sparkle and glisten like icing sugar.

"Now, will you tell me everything?" asked Copper. "I want to know exactly what happened six years ago: where you found me, why I need to forgive you. Everything."

Aunt Ruby put her arm around her. "Granite had kidnapped Amber and she was desperately unhappy. She wanted Cedar, she wanted her real home. Granite was forcing her to make gold for him—he wouldn't let her see you until she'd knitted a hundred ounces each day."

"Poor thing," said Copper.

"Yes. Some people would think that being able to knit gold is a wonderful gift, but it isn't. It's more like a curse."

"Could she always do it? Since she was little?"

"I don't know. She was always very special and could do all sorts of magical things. There are Wood people with those ancient arts too."