The Crystal Heart Read Free

what she looks like?’ I said.
    Serek shook his head. ‘No. And nobody wants to, either.’ He leaned forward. ‘I’ve heard that if she meets your eyes, she can burrow into your mind and read your dreams. And then she destroys you.’
    â€˜I don’t really understand how that power can remain to her when she’s locked in the Tower,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it supposed to ward off all magic?’
    â€˜It does,’ said Marcinek, ‘but I guess the bosses think it’s better to be safe than sorry. I tell you what, if I had to go up there, I’d make certain I was wearing a blindfold! And if ever you draw the short straw, Kasper, you’d better do the same thing!’
    â€˜Ha! I’m neither a blind cleaner nor a bigwig, just a lowly kitchenhand,’ I retorted. ‘So there’s no chance of my going up to face the witch.’
    â€˜And I would keep it that way,’ said Franz. ‘Now how about dealing those cards you’ve got in your hand?’
    Despite her fearsome reputation, the witch seemed to eat and drink like anyone else, for her food was prepared inthe kitchens and sent up the Tower by a contraption called a dumb waiter – a mechanical platform that went up a narrow elevator shaft from the cellar. I’d seen the food before it went up – and there were certainly no eyes of newts or toads’ legs or whatever you expect to see on a witch’s menu. No, the witch ate the food we ate, which is to say, big hearty stews and the occasional roast – nothing fancy. Our cook, Flamel, prided himself on his plain meals. ‘Food fit for soldiers,’ he’d declare, waving his spoon around. ‘And if your society ladies ever visit, they’ll have the same menu, no matter what!’ Franz and I would look at each other and stifle a desire to laugh. For what lady would ever visit the island, anyway?
    Only once did anything trouble the even tenor of my days. I was crossing the courtyard on some errand when I happened to glance up at the single window of the Tower, and just for an instant I saw a blurred shadow move behind the dark, barred glass. My pulse quickened. I thought to look away, just in case the power of the witch’s glance could pierce through the glass. But I was much too curious. Look as I might, though, I could see nothing beyond the merest hint of a form, nothing more. Suddenly, I became conscious of an odd feeling in my throat – a thickening, a choking. Quickly, I looked away – and when I looked back, she was gone.
    I told my friends about it that evening. ‘I feel stupid that I looked away so quickly,’ I confessed.
    Franz laughed. ‘You’d have been stupid if you hadn’t looked away!’
    â€˜You’d have been a lunatic,’ Serek chimed in.
    â€˜No, you’d have been a statue,’ said Marcinek, ‘frozen there with your mouth wide open like a goldfish.’
    They’d never seen anything at all at the window, not even a shadow, not even the faintest shadow of a shadow, and they intended to keep it that way. ‘Don’t look up there again,’ Franz advised me.
    I nodded, but truth to tell, a part of me wished I’d seen more. I sneaked glances up at the window over the following weeks, but I never saw anything else. And in time, I forgot about it.

    Three months into my time on the island, and it all felt normal to me. The island, the Tower, the unseen prisoner – it was my life now. I was homesick at times – I missed my parents, the village, my beloved woods, my old friends. But I had made new friends, and despite the pot-scrubbing and floor-washing, life on the island was much better than life in the recruits’ hall with that bully Gawel bellowing in my ears and having slops served up on tin plates. Flamel’s food might be plain but it was hearty and good, and we young guards were all treated fairly.
    I wrote to my