Hollow Earth (28 page)

‘So who’s the Animare that’s manipulating it?’ asked Zach.

‘There are a few things we’ve learned for sure about being an Animare,’ Em said. ‘The First Rule: we can’t – well, shouldn’t – animate in public. Second: we have to stay in control of our imaginations. Third: an Animare can be bound in a work of his or her own art, making that art enchanted in some way.’

‘
Enchanted?
’ snorted Matt. ‘You make it sound like sprites and wood nymphs are sprouting everywhere. If that creepy dwarf and the scary hooded figure in the library the other night are from a bound painting, and that same painting had something to do with a man’s murder two months ago, then there isn’t anything so enchanted about it.’

‘Then what would you call it?’

‘Jinxed,’ signed Zach.

‘Cursed,’ Matt returned.

‘Hexed.’

‘Blighted.’

‘Okay, stop!’ said Em. ‘No matter what you want to call it, if that painting is in the Abbey or on Era Mina somewhere, it’s dangerous.’

‘But what’s it got to do with Mum’s disappearance?’ Matt demanded.

With the exception of a few animations they’d kept from their mum, the twins believed they’d had a fairly uneventful childhood. Now they were starting to wonder if they had been oblivious to a secret world going on around them.

‘Maybe we should call Violet and Anthea back at Raphael Terrace?’ Em suggested. ‘They’ve known Mum for ever. Maybe they could tell us something about what she was up to when we lived with them.’

‘Not a bad idea,’ Matt agreed. ‘It’s been weeks since we talked to them. I’ll get the number from Simon’s desk and call from the study.’

‘Matt, you can’t just call them up out of the blue and be like, “Oh, hey Auntie Vi, say, just a quick question, but did you know my mum was a crook?”’ Em protested. ‘You’ll terrify them.’

Matt was already heading out of the kitchen. ‘That’s not what I’ll say,’ he said indignantly over his shoulder. ‘Besides, my call won’t be completely out of the blue. Simon talked to both of them yesterday and told them Mum was missing. I’ll just ask if she’s been in touch, and if they happen to know of anyone Mum might have trusted that we could call for information.’

Em went back to scanning the paper. As she turned to the last page, a photograph of a woman being helped into a police car in Glasgow caught her eye. She was folding the page over to get a closer look at the picture when Matt returned to the kitchen and distracted her.

‘Violet sends her love,’ Matt said, settling back down at the kitchen table. ‘She hasn’t heard from Mum in weeks, but she did say something very interesting. After she spoke to Simon yesterday, she and Anthea remembered that two days ago, when they were helping a new tenant move into our old flat, they noticed that a pane of glass had been removed from the skylight. Aunt Violet says it must have happened when the flat was empty.’

‘So someone might have broken in through the roof?’ asked Em.

Matt nodded.

‘Was anything stolen?’

‘That’s the odd thing,’ said Matt. ‘As far as they could tell, nothing was missing.’

‘Think it might have been your mum?’ signed Zach, getting up to load his dishes into the dishwasher.

‘That’s exactly what I’m thinking,’ said Em.

‘I did ask Aunt Violet if Mum had any friends we could contact,’ said Matt. ‘But she told me what we already knew. Mum kept herself to herself. The only friends she had were the few people she worked with at the galleries, and us. She said she had given a list of those names to Simon already.’

Em sighed. ‘Too bad.’

‘I vote we stick with our original plan,’ Matt said. ‘Take advantage of the grown-ups being gone and see if we can find that horrible painting.’

Zach smacked his spoon on the counter to get their attention. ‘If you two want to explore, I might go over to Era Mina to see if I can figure out what the man in that boat was looking for. Maybe he’s looking for the painting, too? Plus it wouldn’t hurt to check on our stuff in the cave either.’

The caladrius’s vision of Zach floating injured in a tidal pool with the stranger beside him flashed across Matt’s mind. He shivered. ‘I don’t think we should split up,’ he said quickly. ‘Let’s pack lunch and
all
go over to the island. We could look for the painting later.’

Em looked down at the photograph of the woman in Glasgow on the back page of the paper, while the boys cleared away the rest of the breakfast dishes. ‘Hey!’ she said, peering more closely. ‘Check out this picture.’

‘Isn’t that the woman we trapped in the quicksand yesterday?’ Matt asked, staring over Em’s shoulder.

‘It says here,’ skimmed Em, reading aloud, ‘that she was taken to hospital after she was found wandering around in Glasgow with no memory of who she was. The police are contacting authorities in the US because of her accent.’

‘She knew who she was when we were with her,’ signed Zach.

‘So someone must have done something to her mind,’ said Matt. ‘What’s it called when Guardians do that memory-wiping thing?’

‘Inspiriting,’ Em snapped at him. Typical Matt, forgetting important facts. ‘But you need to be a powerful Guardian to be able to wipe a person’s memory. Even Simon couldn’t inspirit like that.’

‘Maybe that’s what happened to Mum,’ Matt said suddenly. ‘Maybe somebody inspirited
her
!’

FIFTY-FIVE

T
he distant peaks of the islands of Kintyre and Bute looked majestic in the morning sunshine as the trio stood at the boathouse, pulling on their life jackets. But the brilliant beauty of the bay was in stark contrast to the growing disquiet the twins and Zach were feeling.

‘Try texting your dad again,’ Em suggested to Zach, setting his backpack and their fishing gear – a useful cover – inside the rowing boat.

Matt looked at the Abbey’s speedboat. ‘What if—’ he began.

‘No way,’ said Em at once. ‘The speedboat would draw way too much attention. You know we’re not allowed to drive it.’ Matt reluctantly lifted the rowing boat’s oars from their shelf, sliding them under the seats.

‘Nothing from Dad yet,’ Zach signed. ‘My texts are piling up. Even a phone call just goes through to his voicemail.’

‘Mara’s, too,’ said Matt, tapping the face of his watch to disconnect his attempted call.

Em climbed into the boat. Matt settled behind her. Zach untied the rope, pushing the boat clear of the dock before climbing in next to Em.

‘Ready?’ asked Em.

Zach nodded. ‘One day, we’re going to get in so much trouble for doing this.’

Pulling a pad of paper from Zach’s backpack, Matt sketched their boat with the addition of a small outboard engine. Bursting into life in a flash of silver and blue, the motor morphed on to the wood behind Matt, who flipped up the tiller handle and steered them out into the bay.

‘It’s hard to believe that Simon and Mara could still be hanging out at a coffee shop,’ said Em.

‘Of course it’s not,’ said Matt. ‘Grown-ups can do strange things at the weirdest times, and whether we like it or not they keep secrets. They’re all up to something and don’t want us involved.’

‘That may be sort of true,’ Em admitted. ‘But when has Simon ever gone anywhere for longer than thirty minutes without checking in with us? That’s why he gave us these watches.’

The water was choppy, forcing Matt to concentrate on his steering, while Em and Zach kept their eyes peeled for the coastguard or a local who might recognize them and know they were too young to operate a motorized vehicle of any kind.

At last, Matt steered the boat around to a rocky inlet on the western shore of Era Mina and moored it in Monk’s Cove.

‘Do you hear that, Matt?’ said Em, cocking her head. ‘Sounds like circus music. It’s coming from the caves.’

Matt’s eyes widened. ‘Someone’s discovered our hideout.’

Once they’d explained the situation to Zach, the three of them waded ashore and headed for one of a series of caves that faced out to sea. A high-water mark indicated that most of the caves would be inaccessible at high tide.

Tapping the face of his watch a couple of times, Zach signed, ‘We’ve got about four hours until today’s high tide. Should be enough to check it out.’

He put on his helmet with its cave light attached to the front, grabbed a torch and flipped the backpack over his shoulders. The twins put on their helmets and followed Zach into the cave.

They used the crevices and outcroppings to climb up inside the island. It wasn’t particularly high, but when there had been a lot of rain, like yesterday’s storm, it could be treacherous.

Matt and I are still hearing music, Zach.

Maybe we left music on last time we were here?

Em doubted it. They were always extra cautious when they left their hideout, turning things off and sealing things up, never knowing when they’d be able to sneak back across to the island again. The adults knew they had been exploring Monk’s Cove on Era Mina, but had no idea how much of the network of caves they had staked out for themselves.

The higher they climbed, the more Em’s uneasiness grew. Without warning, she stopped, causing Matt to crash into her.

I feel something … we should go back.

Hearing Em’s apprehension, Zach stopped and turned. Losing his balance for a second, he steadied himself against the slick wall, dropping his torch as he did. It clattered off the walls, landing with a splash in the tidal pool below.

Now we definitely should go back. You’ve never dropped the light before, Zach.

‘What’s wrong, Em?’ asked Matt, as Zach started climbing back down towards them.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Em unhappily. ‘My stomach is flipping out, and the music is getting louder.’

The vision of Zach in the tidal pool appeared again in Matt’s mind. This time he couldn’t stop it from lingering, which meant that Em saw the vision, too. She almost lost her grip on the cave wall.

‘Is that what the caladrius showed you? You said it was no big deal! Just that Zach got injured!’

‘Yes, but hear me out—’

‘The caladrius showed you an image of Zach drowning, and you still let him come to this cave? We’ve got to go back down and get out of here!’

‘He would have come without us,’ Matt shouted. ‘You know that. At least this way, we can do something … animate if we have to …’

‘Animate? Is that your answer to everything?’

Angrily, Matt squeezed passed Em on the ledge. ‘Well, we’re not going back down. I want to know who’s up there.’

A man’s voice called to them from the mouth of their cave several metres further up.

‘Are you planning on arguing for much longer? Because I wouldn’t mind a sandwich if you have one, and I’d rather not have to climb down to get it.’

FIFTY-SIX

Z
ach climbed over the lip of the hideout first. Reaching above his head, he pulled a cord attached to a string of lights, which blazed into life. The twins hoisted themselves into the cave directly behind Zach. The stranger they had followed with the caladrius stood in front of them, a torch hanging by his side.

‘You shot me!’ said Matt in shock.

The stranger held up his hands. ‘In my defence, I shot an animation. Impressive piece of work, by the way. Although I’m sure you realize how dangerous and stupid it was to animate something that distinctive in public.’

‘Did you know how much it was going to hurt me when you shot it?’ yelled Matt. The stranger shrugged. ‘Maybe you needed to know what being hurt like that felt like.’

Matt lunged at the stranger, but Zach and Em held him back.

Matt, wait. He looks familiar. Can we at least find out who he is and what he wants before you try to pummel him?

‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ said the man, walking carefully across the slick, uneven floor to a couch where a rolled-up sleeping bag, a bike helmet and a black saddlebags were stacked. ‘It wasn’t too bad spending the night here, apart from the damp and the smell of rotting fish. There was certainly lots to entertain myself with.’

The old couch faced two long trestle tables shoved together, the kind their mum and Mara used in their studios. But instead of art supplies, the tables held a desk-top computer, an array of open circuit boards, dismantled hard drives and at least two games systems.