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great love who could knit gold out of rock.
    Amy got a shock. Amber did not fit the image she’d invented for her. She was younger and more attractive. She wasn’t at all fat and greedy looking. Her thick hair was the colour of a gleaming, freshly-opened conker. She had friendly, happy eyes.
    ‘I’m so pleased you’re here,’ Amber said. ‘Copper has so few friends in the mountains. You must stay as long as you wish and treat this as your home – if you can.’
    ‘I’m Cedar, Copper’s father,’ said the man who had opened the door. ‘Ah, and this is Greenwood,’ he added.
    Amy blinked and had to take a second look at the identical man who had entered the room. The twin brothers were so alike it was as if there was a mirror in the room somewhere, playing tricks on her.
    Greenwood nodded at her. He collected a pile of drawings from a shelf. ‘Glad to meet you,’ he said, then he went out again.
    Copper grinned. ‘Don’t mind him, he’s very kind, really. Come on, Amethyst, I’ll show you your room. I hope you like it. It’s not very big because the branches of the Spindle Tree are a little on the thin side.’
    Amy felt as if something horrible – a splinter of wood perhaps – was lodged in her stomach. There was a real pain there. All this tree! This terrible wood. She knew she had a frozen smile on her face. She heard her voice and it sounded strained and awkward. There was absolutely nothing she could do about it. If I’d known what it felt to be a traitor and a spy I don’t think I’d have agreed to this, she thought. Why can’t they be the way I thought they’d be? Stiff, ugly, mean …
    Amy followed Copper up the creaking spiral staircase to the next floor.
    ‘It’s all quite new for me, too,’ Copper told her. ‘I was living down in the South with my Aunt Ruby. I didn’t even know about the Woods or the Rocks until I came here – about five months ago. The mountains are fantastic, aren’t they? I just feel so at home here. Before I came, I felt as if I was in the wrong place all the time, trying to do the right thing and never managing. But I didn’t know why.’
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Amy. ‘I understand.’
    ‘Oh, do you? I’m so glad. I knew we’d have lots in common.’
    Amy had spoken without thinking, but it was true. What Copper described was exactly how she had felt. But how could a girl with Wood blood and a pure Rocker like Amethyst ever share feelings?
    The wooden staircase was so different from the cold, hard one which spiralled up the centre of Malachite Mountain. This was like walking on jelly.
    ‘Is everything made of wood?’ Amy stared up at the beams on the ceiling. Her fingertips fluttered on the wooden bannister. It felt warm and smooth and strangely alive: like touching a snake.
    Copper laughed. ‘I expect it’s really peculiar for you, but for me it’s glorious. Absolutely everything is wood. Spindle House is special. It moves, you know? It can tell things about people. I think it listens and watches and feels …’
    ‘Really?’ Amy’s smile felt as if it was set in concrete. The girl is mad, she thought. As if wood could do that! It can’t listen to me!
    At the top of the spiral staircase was a circular landing. The main tree branches forked off it. This made all the rooms oddly shaped, with curved ceilings and curved walls. The floor slanted and some rooms had four or five steps going up or down in them, to incorporate the steep climb of the branches.
    ‘Here’s yours,’ Copper said, opening a tiny door. ‘Mind your head.’
    Amy felt Copper beaming happily at her. Why was the wretched girl so merry? ‘It’s pretty,’ Amy managed to say. ‘I shall love it here.’
    The room was round, with a small arched window set deep into the thickness of the tree trunk wall. The wooden floor and walls gleamed like golden honey. Awful, Amy thought as a wave of nausea swept over her. I’ll get claustrophobia. Or woodphobia. I’ll be sick. And if Copper keeps