Sentinel (27 page)

Drawing a grateful breath, Sam found he was alone once more.

*

Nicholas stuffed another pair of trousers into his suitcase and squeezed it shut, zipping it up hurriedly. Enough was enough. All night he’d lain awake, replaying the evening’s events on the blank canvas of the dark ceiling. The creature Garm, the shopkeeper and his raven tattoo, Isabel forbidding him from ever leaving the house again.

After thinking himself into a corner, he’d resolved that it was time to take matters into his own hands. At first light he’d thrown back the covers and decided to get the hell out of this place.

When Sam had suggested coming here, Nicholas had stupidly agreed, lost in the fog of grief, curious about the secretive godmother, eager to escape his parents’ memory-heavy house. But it had been wrong. If anything, this place was worse than home. Nicholas felt like the old, desolate manor had swallowed him whole and was slowly digesting him, reducing him to nothing. He’d been put here to be forgotten about, and he was forgetting.

Anger scorched through him; anger at Sam, anger at that wretched godmother. And most of all, anger at his parents for leaving him. He couldn’t even look at photos of them anymore. Their faces only stirred up confused emotions that tumbled furiously, poking at his insides like thorns.

Still, if he could get back to Cambridge, the house on Midsummer Common was still there, as far as he knew. Sam would have to cut through a lot of red tape to sell it, and even if it had been put on the market, there was nothing stopping Nicholas from squatting there for a while. Just long enough to plan his next move.

Yes, that’s what he’d do. First, he’d go to Reynolds or that other village Isabel had mentioned, Fratton, and figure out a way back to Cambridge – back to his old house, back to a world that didn’t include talking cats and strange masked visitors. Back to normality.

The boy pulled on his coat and seized his suitcase. He was just heading for the bedroom door when he stopped.

There, sat in the doorway, was the cat.

“Nicholas,” it said, and for once that aged voice wasn’t patronising. It creaked softly, knowing.

“I’m leaving,” Nicholas said. “Don’t try and stop me.”

The cat blinked, but didn’t move. “I think we both know I couldn’t stop you,” it said tiredly. “But before you go, I want to show you something.”

“I’m not interested,” Nicholas said. “I don’t care. I’m sick of this place. You’re all a bunch of nuts. I’m going.” He pushed past her into the hall, dragging his suitcase behind him.

Isabel turned and padded after him. “It’ll only take a second,” she called. “Do you really want to leave here never knowing who you are?”

Nicholas stopped warily. “What do you mean?” he asked, suspiciously.

“Follow me,” Isabel said plainly. She trotted down the stairs and out of sight.

Nicholas struggled with himself.
Who he really was
. What did she mean? Part of him didn’t care, was sick of the riddles and half-answers, just wanted to get away from here as fast as possible. But the other part – the part that had helped him find his parents’ secret room – willed him to swallow his pride and go after the cat. Sighing, Nicholas dropped the suitcase and chased after her.

“In here,” the cat said when Nicholas had caught up. She nodded at a closed door, which the boy pushed open. They went inside, and Nicholas found they were in the painting room.

The circular alcove that contained those two strange canvasses – one depicting a crotchety old woman, the other two girls and a young man spinning joyfully in the sun’s warm rays. The chandelier above shone down on the twin canvasses, and the dancers revelled in its light.

Isabel sat beneath the portrait of the woman and stared up at it. Her whiskers bristled and she said: “Isabel Hallow.”

“What?”

“That’s her name,” the cat explained, craning to look up at the wrinkled woman with the curled black hair and thin, pressed lips. “Isabel Hallow.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Nicholas’s patience was fast waning, but what the cat said next took him by surprise.

“She’s me,” Isabel said simply. “I’m her, and she’s me. She’s who I used to be, once upon a time.”

“Oh,” Nicholas said. And suddenly it fit, that brittle voice, the grave expression of the painted woman, those merciless eyes. He could see it exactly. The odd animal suddenly seemed to make a fraction more sense.

“I was a miserable, bitter thing, as you were right to point out,” the cat continued, still peering up at the canvas. “My brother never liked me. My parents thought me a bore. My only friend was my nanny. She’s the one who raised me, taught me things my parents could never have understood.” Nicholas edged further into the room behind the animal, intrigued. “It was a different time, a horrible time. The rich were rich and the poor were miserable. And my parents were despicable. I was glad when they died. Glad but lonely, because suddenly the house was quieter than I’d ever imagined it could be.”

“It was like that after my parents died, too,” Nicholas said softly. “I couldn’t wait to get away.”

“And you found yourself here,” Isabel laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “How sorry you must have felt.”

A silence fell between them. Then the cat looked at the boy.

“Hallow,” she said, her whiskers trembling. One of her ears twitched of its own accord as if swatting at a fly. “It’s your surname, too.”

The boy nodded.

“Then we’re related somehow. My brother married as soon as he could and left this place. He had many children. You’re no doubt of his lineage, though I don’t see any of him in you. Apart from your temper, perhaps.”

Nicholas smirked at that, unable to stop himself. “Dad had a temper,” he said. “Sometimes we’d wind him up so much he wouldn’t speak to us for days. He made it too easy.” It felt odd talking about him as if he were gone. Because he was gone, Nicholas had to remind himself. But, perversely, talking about his dad almost made him feel alive again.

“You were a handful,” Isabel noted. “I’m not surprised.”

“And you’re not?” Nicholas shot back. He stopped, suddenly aware that this was the first conversation he’d had with Isabel that didn’t involve shouting and jutting egos. It felt different. Less lonely. His anger had subsided and he almost felt human again, like he could think clearly for the first time in days.

“You,” he began. “You were dead, weren’t you?”

Isabel sniffed, and her tail whipped behind her in agitation. “Yes, I suppose I was,” she said.

“But you came back. Jessica brought you back.”

“Yes.”

“So… it’s possible,” Nicholas said. “People can come back.”

“No.”

“They can! Because you’re here,” the boy persisted, stepping into the shaft of light cast by the chandelier. “If you found a way back after being dead for hundreds of years, that means anybody can!”

“There were very specific circumstances,” Isabel said, her tail still sweeping the floor. “I was trapped in that room, like a cork in a bottle. I was dead, but not in the way that most are dead. I was still here.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Nicholas felt himself getting irritated again, felt the pressure building in his chest.

“Don’t get all het up,” Isabel snapped. “I’m here. And I shouldn’t be. But I am. That doesn’t change anything about your parents, so don’t start getting any silly ideas.”

Nicholas slid down the wall until he was slumped on the floor, his jacket puffing up around him. He picked at a stone that was caught in the sole of his shoe. Another thing that he didn’t understand. It would take years to get to grips with the strange workings of the Sentinels and their laws, and he was so behind. Light years behind. It was like he was on a treadmill that stretched for miles, and no matter how hard or fast he ran, he’d never get to the end.

The boy flicked the stone across the floor. “What did you mean earlier?” he said. “About who I am?”

Isabel went to chase the stone, then seemed to decide against it. She sat with her front paws together, the chandelier casting a circle of light around her. Staring at the boy with half-closed eyes, her little, triangular nose moved nervously.

“Well?” Nicholas said. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

“You’re more than a Sentinel,” Isabel complied eventually, disregarding the bad joke.

“What does that mean?” Nicholas demanded, though he was now more curious than annoyed.

“Esus has never divulged the full facts,” Isabel said. “But you’re, Trinity forbid,
special
. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re being protected.”

“Esus? He was here the night you–” Nicholas paused. “You know. Arrived.”

Isabel’s tail batted the floor. “Esus,” she burred, rolling the sound around her mouth, feeling it properly for the first time in centuries. “He is our protector. When I was alive, he came to me and reminded me of my calling. My parents, ignorant fools, ignored theirs. They used this house as a place for revelry and parties, forgetting its significance. Esus came to me after their deaths, and I received him gladly.”

“He looks like he’d kill somebody in their sleep,” Nicholas said.

“Blasphemy!” Isabel cried in outrage. Her tail made a
whump
as it hit the floor. “His is the purist of souls. He is our cherished guide and guard. Speak ill of him and have him cleave the malicious tongue from your mouth.”

“Woah, okay,” Nicholas held his hands up. “Don’t get your whiskers in a twist. This is all new to me.”

Isabel licked a paw and rubbed it absentmindedly across her muzzle. “You won’t see him often,” she continued resignedly. “He travels from place to place, wherever he’s most needed. If you see him, you’re either in trouble, or soon will be.”

“I hope I never see him again, then,” Nicholas muttered. “And what do you mean ‘special’? There’s nothing special about me.”

“You’re meant for something,” Isabel said. “‘Destiny’ is a detestable word – how can anything ever be destined? Far too many variables in life – but I’m sorry to say it best applies here. You entered the world for a reason.”

“What reason?” Nicholas demanded hungrily. This was more like it. He knew that Jessica was holding out on him. Even as she’d explained the Sentinels and their cause, he’d sensed there was something else that she was keeping from him. Sensed. Sensitives. “Jessica said I could be a Sensitive,” the boy said, searching the cat’s furry features for a confirmation.

Isabel heaved out a puff of air. “Who knows?” she sighed. “That much I was never informed of. But now you see why you must–” she broke off, then more tactfully continued, “why it would be best for you to remain here.”

Nicholas smirked at Isabel’s attempt at diplomacy – he didn’t expect she’d had much practice. So they thought he was special? That explained a lot. What that red–haired woman had said to him on the bus, for a start.
“I can smell it on you; in your veins, your skin, your hair. You’re different.”
Different. Special. At school, those words meant bad things. Here, among the Sentinels, maybe they meant something good. Maybe he hadn’t been put here to forget and be forgotten. Perhaps he was merely waiting, on standby for something that was just over the horizon.

“I’ll stay,” the boy said finally. “But I want to go back to Rumours and see Reynolds again.”

“Out of the question!” Isabel snapped. “It is too dangerous.”

“He was a Sentinel, I know it!” Nicholas maintained. “And those people in the village. You’re just going to let them face that monster alone?”

“I won’t allow you to go back there. You very nearly didn’t survive the first time.”

“Like I need your permission,” Nicholas returned sulkily. “I’m going back and that’s it.”

“Wretched Hallow blood,” Isabel grumbled, emitting a low rumble of disapproval. “If your mind’s decided, there’s nothing I can do. Not like this, anyway.”

“Good.”

“If you insist on this ridiculous escapade, though, you’ll need some form of protection.”

“There’s a suit of armour in the hall,” Nicholas suggested helpfully.

“I see wits haven’t sharpened any in my absence.” Isabel got to her feet and trotted over to her portrait. “This painting. Open it.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t sit there like an idle cow, help me,” Isabel said. “There’s a latch on the right, release it and open the painting.”

Nicholas jumped up and ran his fingers up the side of the frame.

“Are you sure there–” he began doubtfully, but then he felt it. A small metal catch that flicked up easily. The enormous portrait began to swing away from the wall, revealing behind it a stone archway that was completely covered in a net of cobwebs.

“Am I the only one who doesn’t have their own secret door?” the boy said, brushing away the mesh of sticky webbing and rubbing the remnants on his trousers.

“Follow me.”

Isabel hurried into the wall of blackness beyond the arch. Nicholas chased after the soft pitter-patter of her paws on bare flagstones. The dank stink of mould rushed into his nostrils and almost immediately the boy crashed into something hard and metallic. He swore. The word echoed in what must be a cramped space with a high ceiling.