chatting happily, mixed in with the occasional dreary little quaver from Aunt Aster. When she went and peeped into the front room, she found the heathery grey floor covered with tiny little clay bricks, small square blocks of stone, parts of houses – cottagey buildings and tall town mansions – and tiny marble columns. Troy was kneeling in the midst of it all busily assembling what looked like a marble palace.
“What are you making?” Hayley asked.
“The city of Troy,” Troy answered. “The most ancient and famous city of antiquity. Want to help? You can do me some walls.” He tipped up the cardboard box next to him and held out a lump of wall with fortifications on top. It was beautifully built of little blocks of granite all somehow slotted together. “On second thoughts,” Troy said, as Hayley looked doubtfully at the piece of wall, “you’d probably prefer to make the palace gardens. I know I called in a designer to do those.” He tipped up another cardboard box. Little pointed trees, patches of grass, minute hedges and thousands of tiny, tiny flowers came tumbling out at Hayley’s feet.
Hayley no longer wondered why Aunt Ellie had tidied everything away. There was hardly room to walk on the carpet now. Grandma would have had a fit. She stared down at the heaps of trees and tiny flowers with delight. “Oh, may I?” she said, and plunged to her knees beside the heaps. This was even better than making the rock garden she had built the day Flute first took her to the mythosphere. “A mythosphere garden!” she said.
“Exactly right,” Troy said.
They worked away busily for a while. Hayley made an avenue of trees leading down to a pool that was going to be surrounded by banks of flowers and borrowed some of Troy’s marble pillars for the fountain in the middle. Troy carefully fitted a roof on to his palace.
“I hope you do get the better of Uncle Jolyon,” Troy said at length. “Soon. I’m supposed to be the one who founded Troy, you know. I can’t wait to get back out into the mythosphere and build it properly. It was one of the most beautiful cities ever. I was busy marking out all the foundations when Uncle Jolyon stuck us all down on Earth like this.”
Hayley thought that the city might be even better now Troy had spent hundreds of years building models of it. She was just going to suggest this to him when Aunt Ellie called out, “Come along, both of you. Supper’s ready. Wash your hands.” And they had to get up and leave the entrancing heaps of houses, walls and gardens.
The dining room was at the back of the house, where there was a big, low window open on to Aunt Ellie’s garden and the misty, purple mountains beyond. The sweet, moist scent of Scotland blew in through it, across large oval plates of mixed grill that Harmony was putting down in each place. Those smelled equally lovely, but in quite a different way.
All in all, it was one of the most marvellous meals Hayley had ever had. The chief marvel was the tall cake-stand in the middle of the table. It had four round shelves, each one covered with a lace doily, and on each doily there was a loaded plate. The top layer held thin bread and butter, which you ate with the mixed grill and then with honey if you wanted to. Then you worked your way down to shiny currant teacakes and butter, and after that to scones, which you had with jam and cream. Hayley ate cautiously, pacing herself, with one eye on the bottom layer, where there was a large chocolate cake iced in squashy, thick chocolate. After the scones, she was wondering if she would have room for that cake.
“No cake for me,” Aunt Aster said in a fading voice. “It’s far too rich, Ellie.”
As she spoke, the open window went dark. Hayley looked round to see the middle section of what must have been a huge man standing outside it. All she could see at first was a vast faded kilt with a battered and grubby sporran dangling on it and, below that, a glimpse of sharp, hairy knees. Then the man put his huge hands on the windowsill and bent down to push his big, bearded face into the room. The gun he had slung on one shoulder clattered on the window and made everybody jump.
“Wumman!” he bawled. “Wumman, you said you’d be doon at the hoose! Are you no coming?”
His voice made the whole room rattle. Its effect on Aunt Aster was extraordinary. She jumped to her feet with a shriek, crying out, “Oh! Ryan! So sorry! They will try to keep me from you!” and rushed towards the window. She was no longer a faded, moaning aunt, but a lovely young woman with a cloudy mass of bright golden hair. She looked almost as beautiful as Aunt Alice. When she reached the window, the huge Highlander held out both arms and Aunt Aster jumped into them as nimbly as an athlete. The Highlander gave a huge laugh and strode away with her, carrying her like a baby.
It happened so quickly that everyone was stunned, Aunt Ellie most of all. It was several seconds before Aunt Ellie sprang to her feet. “Stop her!” she said. “Stop him! Jolyon’s forbidden it!” When no one else moved, she began dithering about. “What shall we do?” she said. “I’d better go after her. Oh, where did I put my handbag? He’ll be carrying her down the street! What will the neighbours say!”
Harmony, Troy and Hayley stood up uncertainly.
Aunt Ellie glared at them. “Don’t just stand there!” she said. “Come and help me fetch her back!” She raced out into the hallway, rummaged for a desperate second or so among the things on the hall stand, found the handbag with a yell of relief and, with the bag held on high, crashed out through the front door.
By the time the other three reached the top of the drive, Aunt Ellie was already in the street, waving her handbag and shouting. Ahead of her, striding along with Aunt Aster in his arms, the huge Highlander was already halfway through the town.
“Stop!” shrieked Aunt Ellie, rushing after them. “Put her down! Aster, I forbid you to do this! Jolyon won’t allow it! Think of the neighbours!”
“If she wants the whole town to know, she’s going the right way about it,” Troy remarked.
“Yes, she’s lost her head, but we’d better do something to help, I suppose,” Harmony said.
They set off at a trot after Aunt Ellie.
Far ahead of them, the huge Highlander strode purposefully on, taking absolutely no notice of Aunt Ellie’s screaming pursuit. About halfway along a row of small grey houses, he veered off at a right angle and marched towards the middle house in the row. When he reached its shiny front door, he put out a huge foot, kicked the door open and bore Aunt Aster away inside. The front door shut with a slam in Aunt Ellie’s face as she came pounding up. Aunt Ellie jumped up and down in frustration. She kicked the door, but it remained shut. Then she seized the little polished knocker and clattered it violently.
“Aster!” she screamed. “Asterope, let me in at once!”
Hayley trotted after Troy and Harmony, trying not to giggle. They passed house after house, some with lace curtains twitching and others frankly full of staring faces. While she gulped back her giggles, Hayley wrestled with her memory. She was sure she had seen this huge, bearded man before. His face, as it had loomed through the window, was definitely familiar, beard and all. She tried thinking of him as a more normal human size – and he was even more familiar. She tried him in different clothes. A suit? No. A robe then? No. How about fur then? Yes! She had seen him when Flute first took her into the mythosphere. He was that hunter in a leopardskin with the mighty bow, who looked so like a film star. Now how, why was he important?
Hayley had got as far as this when they reached the little house. Aunt Ellie was now kneeling on the sidewalk, shouting through the letterbox. “Aster, this is your sister! Let me in! How could you do such a wicked
