Urchin and the Heartstone
Text copyright © 2006 by M. I. McAllister
Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Omar Rayyan
All rights reserved.
Published by Disney • Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690].
ISBN-13: 978-1-4231-4169-3
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CONTENTS
For Marilyn Watts and Alison Sage
Great Heart of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my vision, Thou ruler of all.
—Eighth-century Irish hymn,
translated by Mary Byrne, versified by Eleanor Hull
N THE
I
SLE OF
W
HITEWINGS
, three animals met in an underground chamber by night. One was Brother Flame, a tall, thin squirrel in a priest’s tunic. The second was Larch, a small female hedgehog with a serious, pointed face. And the third was Cedar, a squirrel the color of firelight, darting urgently into the chamber.
“It’s too late,” she said. “They’ve gone.”
“Then they’re sure to find the squirrel and bring him here,” said Flame gravely. “They won’t dare come back without him.”
“He’ll be in great danger,” said Larch. “Did you find out his name?”
“Urchin,” said Cedar. “Urchin of Mistmantle.”
She spoke the island’s name carefully, as if it were something precious. Cedar had never been to Mistmantle, but she had dreamed of it all her life.
ILD SEAS AND STORMING RAIN
had battered the coast of Mistmantle all night, making squirrels scurry down from lurching treetops and hide in the roots. But by morning the gale had passed and the island lay washed and sparkling, with the wet stones of Mistmantle Tower gleaming pale pink and gold in the summer light. Squirrels darting from the windows on errands scrabbled to keep their grip as they ran down the walls. On the rocks around the tower, columns of moles saluted and stood to attention, as Captain Lugg the mole had trained them, and in the tower itself there was breathless bustle. The island was preparing for the coronation of Crispin the squirrel.
Delicious wafts of spice and heat came from the kitchens, where moles, squirrels, and hedgehogs chopped nuts, lifted sticky golden cakes from ovens, and hung bunches of mint in the windows to keep the flies away. Otters piled up casks of wine in the cellars. Dancers and choirs ran up and down stairs looking for somewhere to practice; acrobats rehearsed on turrets and hung up tightropes, which Mother Huggen the hedgehog used as washing lines for the choir robes; and young animals hurried from the Spring Gate with splashing buckets of cold water for thirsty animals. Hedgehogs struggled to carry robes and Threadings down the stairs to the vast Gathering Chamber, where carpenters sawed and hammered to finish a new gallery.
The Gathering Chamber was the most impressive room on the island, but today it was crammed with stacked-up benches, robes, busy animals preparing for the coronation, and more animals trying to look busy so they’d be allowed to stay and help. Threadings, the stitched, woven, and painted pictures showing the stories of the island, lay draped across chairs until somebody could hang them up. In the middle of all this, Urchin, a young squirrel with unusually pale fur, was trying to find a way out.
Captain Padra the otter had given him a very simple order—“Just nip down to the shore, Urchin, and ask Arran to come up”—but it was easier said than done. Urchin may have been Captain Padra’s page and a Companion to the King, but at this moment he didn’t feel at all significant. He was just a very young squirrel trying to get out the door while a dozen large hedgehogs carrying stepladders were coming the other way; and somebody had just left a stack of cushions in the doorway because there was nowhere else to put them. It was easiest to jump out of a window and run down the tower wall.
The fresh, warm air was wonderful, and sunshine soaked into his fur. He delivered his message to Padra’s wife, Captain Arran, who jammed her captain’s circlet onto her rough, tufty fur and made her way around the tower to the Gathering Chamber.
Urchin paused for a moment, absorbing the sun and the fresh sea breeze. A few leisurely otters rowed, fished, and taught their little ones to swim in the shallows as if they didn’t know a thing about a coronation or the flurry in the tower. It was late summer, too beautiful a day to spend it all in the tower. He looked out to sea, and looked again.
Enchanted mists surrounded Mistmantle. No animal who truly belonged to the island could leave by water and return by water. The mists prevented it, and few ships found their way through them to the island. But something was moving in the mists now. Shading his eyes with his paw, Urchin watched. First he saw something, then he didn’t, then he did. He should let Padra know.
He ran around the tower again and skimmed up to the window of the Gathering Chamber. As his best friend, Needle, a young female hedgehog, was spreading red velvet cushions on the window seat, he was very nearly knocked back down again. He managed to keep his balance and scramble over, but Needle’s spines were exceptionally sharp, and he couldn’t avoid being prickled. He wriggled his way through the crowd to Padra and caught the smile on his face, but Padra always looked as if he were about to laugh.
“Captain Arran is on her way, sir,” he said, “and I think there’s a ship coming. Something’s moving in the mists.”
“Strange,” commented Padra. “Visitors for the coronation?” Needle glanced around the Gathering Chamber as if trying to work out where to put them.
“You two, go and have a good look,” said Padra. “Send word if you need me, but I’ll be down presently. Get a bit of fresh sea air and sunshine. And, Urchin, look out for a squirrel called Juniper.”
“Juniper?” repeated Urchin.
“Young squirrel, bit younger than you two, dark fur,” said Padra. “He has a crippled hind paw so he was brought up in hiding, but he’s free now. He needs to get to know other animals. He’s had a lonely sort of life and lived among otters more than squirrels, which hasn’t done him any harm, of course, but he needs to meet other young squirrels. I mentioned you, and it turned out that his foster mother had already told him about how you brought Crispin back to Mistmantle. He really wants to meet you.”
“Captain Padra, sir!” called someone, and Padra was hurried away by a hedgehog carrying a robe. Urchin ran down the tower wall again and waited on the shore until Needle, trundling over the rocks, caught up. There was no sign of anything in the mists now; maybe it had just been a trick of the sunlight.