magic
“The wind was blowing harder now, and the snow was coming down in thick flurries, which quickly turned the fronts of their clothes white and made it difficult either to see or hear; but Dora thought she heard a snatch of music. Then one of the little boys started jumping up and down and pointing. 'Look! Look! They're dancing! They're dancing!' Everyone looked where the little boy was pointing. On the far side of the snow-field, next to the fir trees, the snowmen and snow-women were moving.”
"The mouse did seem to be waiting: instead of scampering into the darkness it held itself almost completely still, except for small attentive movements of its ears and the constant trembling of its whiskers."
On the run from Urizen's henchmen, the children undertake a hazardous underground journey. At the bottom of a frozen cavern, they find out more about one of the clue cards.
"Urizen separated out a region from the rest of eternity, shrank it into solid matter, weighed it in his scales, measured it with his rods and plumblines, circumscribed it with his compasses, and wrote laws for it in his great brass-bound books. This sorry region, the region over which Urizen rules, is the universe in which we live..."
"There are lots of faces like this in old churches – faces made out of leaves. Some of them are in wood and some in stone. They're always called Green Men.”
“Why does this one look so horrible?”
“I believe they're supposed to represent the plight of an immortal soul when it's forced to live in a mortal body..."
Dora starts to find out about the first clue. She converses with a vicar. One of the cards is stolen. The black beetle reappears.
http://www.edwardpicot.com/puzzlebox/
- Edward Picot
"She opened the lid. The inside of the box was divided into two halves, and each half contained cards. On the left hand side were red cards with yellow lettering on them, which said 'Help'; and on the right hand side were blue cards with red lettering on them, which said 'Clue'..."
Just what has happened to Dora's dad, exactly what is the present he left for her, and who is that strange boy who keeps appearing and disappearing so mysteriously? The second of 12 chapters.
