The Omega Children - The Return of the Marauders (A young adult fiction best seller): An Action Adventure Mystery (22 page)

‘Is that it? That’s what the note wanted us to find?’

‘I can’t imagine so,’ Lexington replied. ‘But maybe it is a big piece in the puzzle. I mean, why would anyone construct a building of this size and then make castle embattlements and hide them under a roof?’

Quixote mock yawned at her.

‘Maybe because it was a castle first.’

‘Ohmygosh,’ Lexington said with a start, ignoring his jibe. ‘You could be right! Ohmygosh! Then that would make the stairs the steps up to the castle.’ In the gray light she looked confused. ‘But wait, that does not make sense. Who would build a castle and put a flight of steps up to the top of the wall.’

Quixote tried to fit his head down the gap.

‘Maybe some invaders did and then just left them and then they built over top…..but where do the bracelets fit in?’

Lexington’s eyes even in the dull light reflected back intellectual hurt.

‘I don’t know...but the bracelets really should be central to...our...well......any hyper-thesis should be based on the bracelets...hmm...oh bother......nothing fits.’ She stopped and glared at Melaleuca. ‘This still proves my point. We don’t know anything. We need to collate all we know and try and make sense of it.’

‘I see,’ Melaleuca said.

A deep feeling beset Melaleuca that some major clue had been missed, that something obvious sat right under
their noses. But that, she conceded was a job for Lexington’s brain, Ari’s exploration skills, and Quixote’s...?
Hmmm, his what exactly?

‘I could throw some more stones and see what happens,’ Quixote said

Oh yes, Quixote’s reckless abandon at overturning everything he touches.

‘Let’s return to our rooms,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Something will turn up. Of that, I have no doubt.’

‘I found a set of stairs going down,’ Ari said. ‘It did not seem what the note referred to so I didn’t mention it.’

Minutes later they tromped down them, abruptly stopping at a
wall in the dark.

Ari pushed and it budged only a few inches.

‘What if it’s boarded up because it leads somewhere it shouldn’t,’ Lexington said.

‘Let’s all push then,’ Melaleuca said. ‘It can’t be worse than where we came in.’

With a massive heave the wall gave way, tearing the wallpaper that had been plastered across it. Spilling out, they stood once again on the fifth floor.

***

That night as they slept Melaleuca tossed and turned, her thoughts churning and churning. Several times she woke up only to find herself thinking about the attic. Out of all the objects and discoveries they had made so far, the empty attic bugged her the most. The last time she woke up Melaleuca sat bolt upright and hugged her knees to her chest, waking Lexington as she did so.

‘Mel?’ Lexington said. ‘What is it?’

‘We missed something in the attic. I don’t know what but I feel it.’ She gave Lexington a serious stare. ‘I have the feeling, now your brains are needed. Ari cannot pull the whole thing apart and well, Quixote could explore forever and maybe find it by accident.’

Lexington did not know what to say. Did Melaleuca mean it was now up to her to solve it? Was she actually awake or was she talking in her sleep?

Melaleuca exhaled a sleepy breath and lay down. ‘In the morning we shall go back up there.’

With such words Lexington lay awake - the burden to solve it now sitting square on her shoulders. She grabbed the torch, switched it on and the light failed. She shook it though no more light came out. Candle and matches in hand, she slipped out and soon stood in the empty attic, eyeing the walls and the roof in the poor candlelight.

She wandered around at a slow pace turning corners, feeling vulnerable and remembering how easily scared she got. Like the others before, she traced a confusing path around the empty attic. A few windows jutted out of the roof but showed nothing extraordinary. Out of them she could see below. In front of the Cathedral-Mansion large pots containing fire steadily burnt away, and in the distance she could make out lights in the small town. Curious about both she reminded herself she had until morning to solve this.

She walked back to where she had started, disappointed. She had only found what the others had found - emptiness. But what if the emptiness is what they were supposed to find? It dawned on her that if the Cathedral-Mansion was hundreds of years old, then the likely hood of the attic being empty was surely slim. What if all the statues and paintings spread along the fifth floor which appeared to be put there in haste, had once been up here? But why take things out of the attic to hide them below in an area that is not hidden?

Thoughts, ideas, that’s all I have
- she chastised herself -
nothing concrete.

She had so wanted to work this out by herself without the help of anyone, even if just to prove that logic and her hypotheses could be useful. She knelt and in the dust on the floor wrote with her finger,
Why?

‘About TIME!!!!’

‘Well, help me’

‘You had the answer! It stared at you right in the face.’

‘Go on.’

‘You saw it. Where did it go, the creature.’

‘It went nowhere. Vanished.’

‘Vanished into what?’

‘Thin air.’

Her inner voice made a noise that sounded like it was miffed.

‘Go back to the window and look out.’

‘Why?’

‘Just do it.’

She hurried back and stood staring out the window into the night.

‘Well?’

‘To your left you see the building. To your right you see the building. But look, you cannot walk as far as the building goes to the right.’

‘Ohmygosh the brick wall!’

She rushed so fast to the brick wall that her candle blew out. She traced her hands along it and the rough brick scraped her palms. Perhaps it hid a trick door and all she needed to do was touch a certain brick and it would pop open.

She groped along it in the dark, the minutes ticking by until her inner voice finally said, ‘
I think you have to get one of the others to help.’

She stiffened a little.

‘Don’t be stupid. You found the brick wall, didn’t you?’

‘You did.’

‘I am you.’

‘Thanks.’

Kneeling, she scrawled,
That’s why,
on the floor and her inner voice went quiet. Sadly she knew it was right. She needed the others.

She snuck into the boys’ room and without waking Quixote convinced Ari to go to the attic, and soon they stood by the window peering out at the side of the attic they could not get to.

‘I think we have to climb out on the roof,’ Ari said. ‘Either that or break the brick wall down.’

Scuffling footsteps sounded behind them and then stopped.

‘Who’s there?’ Lexington called out.

‘Shh,’ Ari said pushing her behind his back. ‘We don’t know who it is. Stay here and I will check it out.’

He surged forward trying to keep as much to the side as possible and made his way toward the direction he had heard the noise come from.

***

Quixote heard Lexington’s voice though pretended to be asleep. With stealth he followed after them. When he heard the words, ‘Break the wall down,’ he decided he would break it down. With no thought for the noise he would make, he ran off, his feet clattering along the attic floor.

He heard Lexington cry out but ignored it, bounding down the stairs, making his way back to his room, and absconding off again with a candle in his hand. He worked his way down to the ground floor and then ran outside.

***

Ari returned to Lexington.

‘No one is there. Let’s go back and get Melaleuca.’

‘Let her sleep. Wake her when we find out what’s behind it.’

‘Lex. It does not matter who gets in first. You have done it. Worked it out.’

‘Maybe. I’ll know for sure when I get through it.’

Unconvinced Ari nudged her arm. ‘Come on, she’ll be happy.’

Lexington reached out, unclipped the window, opened it and the cool night air rushed in.

‘I’ll go myself.’

Struggling, she pulled herself up. Perching on the sill, she wobbled back and forth.

‘Fine. Wait there,’ Ari said. ‘I’ll help.’

Together they climbed out of the window, hoisted themselves up onto the roof, and sat on the rough stone slates.  A cool clamminess hung in the air and a haze of thin fog clung to the rooftops like a mysterious cloud. A fuzzy moon overhead, threw what little light it could muster through the mysterious barrier in the sky, bathing them and their surrounds in an eerie light. Towers jutted up here and there, some dark and foreboding, some silhouetted, and others large and looming. Out in front of them where the roof ended, the ground appeared metres below, and the front lawn and the weird trees lapped up the flickering light from the lit pots on the front steps.

Ari scrambled up to the apex of the roof and stared out over the labyrinth of rooftops. Many hard-angled ridges formed slated valleys amongst the rising and dipping structures that spread out amongst the towers and turrets.

‘Lex come look at this.’

‘Ummmm...’

Lexington clung to the roof unsure of moving. Perhaps coming out here had not been the best idea.

Ari slid back down.

‘Is it the height?’

She nodded.

‘You were okay in the trees at home.’

‘I know. This just feels different.’

‘Take my hand. I will help you up to the top and there we can move along and see what we can find.’

Hand in hand Ari helped Lexington up to the ridge of the roof and they moved along until Lexington felt confident they had passed into the area beyond the brick wall. It stretched for over a hundred metres beyond where she sat, and off that were more wings in the distance - a fact that made Lexington extra confident she had found what the note had told them to find. All she needed now was a way in. Lexington and Ari slid up and down the roof searching and searching. An hour past and they reached the end of the roof having found nothing. Lexington insisted they check again.

‘Lexington. I think you are right but I say we go back and get the others. This is going to have to be teamwork.’

‘Okay. Okay. Okay. We go back. I will wait in the attic. You go get the others.’

While he got the others, she would activate her inner voice as a last chance of finding a way in.

She headed back, Ari following behind her. The morning sun peeked over the horizon miles away, and a far away sound thumped below them, sending vibrations through the roof. It got louder and louder as they approached the window. They dropped into the attic and the distinctive sound of a hammer smashing on a brick wall echoed throughout the attic.

Fuming she spun around to face Ari. Before speaking she saw that he, like her, knew who and what probably caused it. Together they ran back as fast as they could to the brick wall.

Quixote stood there in faint candle light, mallet in hand, knee deep in a pile of rubble and bricks - powdered mortar covering him. Dotted along the wall in the faded shadows, many small holes had been bashed except for one massive gapping gap.

‘Look,’ Quixote said beaming. ‘A door.’

Quixote grasped the candle and held it up to the hole.

‘Get Melaleuca,’ Ari said to Quixote unimpressed.

Quixote hesitated and eyed Lexington.

‘Go Quixote,’ she said peeved. ‘We will wait until you get back before entering.’

Quixote tore off at top speed, returning faster than they thought possible with Melaleuca racing behind him. Puffing, she stared through the broken-down brick wall at the door.

‘Well done. Who...who...found it?’ Melaleuca asked catching her breath.

Both Quixote and Lexington said, ‘I did.’

Before a fight started Ari stepped between them and explained how the discovery had been made.

‘Alright,’ Melaleuca said dismissing any claims to first discovery, ‘let’s look inside.’

She stepped over the bricks and reached out, grabbing a rope hanging out of the wooden door. She pulled it down and the door gave a little, opening a few inches.

‘Here goes,’ Melaleuca whispered.

She pushed on the door. It resisted her. She pushed again harder and it budged a little.

‘Ari.’

He placed his beefy shoulders into the door and heaved forward with all his might. The door fell open with the sound of dry wood scraping across dry wood. Another dark room lay before them.

‘Walk in carefully,’ Melaleuca said to Ari.

Quixote roared past Melaleuca, tripping on the bricks and bashing into Ari - both of them stumbling through the door.

Overhead a light spluttered into life and then a blue light flashed and pulsed out a blinding burst. Melaleuca shielded her eyes and the light died down to normal and together with her cousins they took in the sight. Racks and racks and racks of clothes reached to a distant wall, bathed in a low blue light. Quixote raced up to the first set of clothes that caught his eye, a cowboy costume. He felt the material.

‘Look at this. It looks real.’

Lexington turned to Melaleuca, a pleading tone in her voice. ‘Please tell Quixote to wait. I suggest we scout around before we start pulling anything off.’

‘I agree,’ Ari said.

Melaleuca nodded, her instincts shooting off in all directions. What had they found?

‘Quixote put it back. Explore first,’ Ari said emphasising “explore.”

They headed deeper into the mysterious room, passing the clothes hanging on the racks. They passed by clowns’ outfits, overalls, and gentlemen’s clothes from the Victorian era - top hats, walking canes, colorful soldiers’ uniforms, horsemen’s outfits, grass skirts, lab coats, sailors’ outfits, coal miners’ clothes, hats with feathers and teeth sticking out - so many, that by the time they reached the end of the rows everyone’s head swam with wonder.

Beyond the end of the clothes racks, the attic extended for another ten metres, stopping at another brick wall, against which sat a large mirror. Another light flicked on to their left and right, exposing left and right wings which contained even more racks of clothes. Melaleuca held her arms out wide to contain her cousins behind her, although Quixote rushed forward, swiveling his head in all directions.

‘It’s a play room!’ He glared at Melaleuca all excited. ‘These are play clothes. See. It’s obvious. Mum said to keep playing. This will help us.’

‘Or maybe they are disguises for foreign missions in faraway lands,’ Lexington said.

‘YES!’

‘Oh Quixote I was kidding. We don’t know what they are for….but…I intend to find out.’

She walked off to the left wing and Quixote ran back toward the door. Melaleuca’s eyes begged a question of Ari.

‘What are you thinking?’ He asked.

This had not been what Melaleuca
had expected. With no clear feelings and no decision to make, she knew she had to rely on her cousins.

‘We carry on looking. Something will become obvious.’

‘Quixote’s already doing that.’

Quixote returned with the cowboy suit gathered in his arms, flashing a broad smile as if he had just found a treasure chest full of tricks.

‘And Lex?’ Melaleuca said.

‘Over here,’ she called back. ‘These all look ancient. Roman ancient and Middle Eastern ancient, Greek even.’

She held up a toga similar to what they wore and a leather looking tunic that a Roman Soldier might have worn.

‘Good thing she read all those books,’ Ari said. ‘I could not tell the difference between Greek or Roman clothes.’

‘I wonder,’ Lexington said.

She dashed past them into the last remaining wing on the left and started rummaging around.

Quixote took his toga off, sat down and pulled the baggy cowboy trousers on, laced on the leathers and slipped on the over sized boots with spurs. He threw the shirt, vest, bandana and hat on, completing the ensemble. He stood to his feet with an awkward stumble. The clothes gathered around his arms and legs, and hung baggy and saggy. He picked the belt up and ogled the holster and pistol. The leather felt thick and tough to touch, smelling like it had old grim, sweat and oil rubbed into it. Even the stitching consisted of thick yellowed twine. He ran his hand over it. It felt real enough to have once belonged to a real cowboy.

‘These ones make no sense,’ Lexington shouted.

Melaleuca motioned for Ari to check on her.

‘What is it Lexington?’ Ari said.

‘Where we came in, at a brief look, all those clothes look like they are from the last five hundred years or so. And that lot over there.’ She pointed to the left wing. ‘Are definitely ancient. You can tell. There are no pants. Pants were not used until the last thousand years or so. But these, well these...they look like nonsense clothes, look.’

She handed him some coarse material, studded with flaky bits of other material and a tangle of cords.

‘What is it?’ Ari said turning it over and over.

Lexington shook her head. ‘Look at the others.’

Around them costumes and clothes hung with tassels, strips of leaves, bands of silver, and fluffs of puffy material. Some had multiple sleeves and others looked like dresses and pants sown together.

‘They’re not real clothes. I think they are fun ones,’ Ari said grinning.

‘Perfect for Qui then,’ she replied, standing on tip-toes to see what he was doing.

‘BLAM BLAM. Come here you dirty dogs,’ Quixote said in a fake rough voice.

He looked laughable - like a scrawny runt in over sized cowboy clothes.  Melaleuca snickered. Feigning indifference, he snubbed her, and folding his arms with gusto, one of the sleeves poffed him in the face. Melaleuca laughed out loud, and Quixote snorted at her.

‘Fine. Choose a costume and let’s see how you look.’

She waved him off, calling out to Lexington.

‘Lex, check out Quixote.’

‘I have,’ she said from behind a rack of clothes. ‘If this is the secret we are supposed to find, what does it have to do with the bracelets?’ She trailed off into thought and then said, ‘Do you think our parents used these for anything?’

Melaleuca still had no feelings on them, so just made a decision and trusted it.

‘Everyone, choose a costume. Let’s just start playing and see what happens.’

Quixote picked up his clothes and put them to one side. A yellow bracelet rolled out of his toga pocket and before the others could see it, he grasped it. Without thinking he slid it onto his left wrist. It tightened and loosened a few times as if assessing the size of his wrist, and then faded from sight though he could still feel it. Stunned, he opened his mouth to tell the others but then stopped. A disappearing bracelet seemed to good a trick not to play on the others.

Quixote faced the mirror, snarled at himself and felt a strange urge to spit. With a speed even he could not make out, he reached in and pulled his pistol out, spinning it back and forth - his hands a blur.

Lexington garbed herself in a princess’s outfit. A tiara clung to her head and a dress that had seen better days, puffed its way down her body. Lace lined its edges and many tiny jewels dotted the fabric.

Ari found a faded grey-beige soldier’s uniform made of heavy serge. Worn and ripped, large pockets and official buckles adorned it, and a round tin helmet plopped on his head capped it off.

Melaleuca pulled the costumes apart looking for something that felt right. Small bits of yellowed paper fell to the ground. The first one had a drawing of a man dressed in a singlet, shorts and gumboots, and holding a shovel. Scrawled under it were the words,
“Ditch-Digger.”
The second piece of paper had a person in tights sporting a pair of gloves. Under it the read words,
“Gymnast,”
and then went on to say,
“A hundred feet leap, blurring speed, ten times strength.”

Looking up to where the paper had fallen from, similar clothes to what was drawn on the paper, hung. Melaleuca pulled them on and then approached the mirror.

‘All come and look at us,’ she said.

They gathered around her and in the mirror a gymnast in worn crotch-loose tights, a soldier clad in a moth-eaten baggy uniform, a princess styled in a creased washed-out dress, and a cowboy with perfect fitting clothes, gawped back at them.

‘How did you do that Quixote?’ Melaleuca said.

‘Do what?’

‘Your clothes hung loose and now look. It’s as if it was made for your size and they look newish.’

Quixote placed his hand on the hilt of his pistol. ‘One false moves you curs and I will pump you full of hot lead.’

‘Go on I dare you,’ Ari said.

Quixote whipped out the pistol, and the empty silver barrel pointed its unblinking dark hole at Melaleuca. He squeezed the trigger.

BLAM!

Fire flashed out of the muzzle and the pistol flew out of Quixote’s hand. A bullet whizzed by Melaleuca and hit the roof by the door. They all froze and stared at Quixote, his hand still held out - a shocked look on his face.

Ari bent down and picked up the pistol.

‘Did that just shoot a real bullet?’

The metal pistol appeared hollow and so Ari pointed it away from them and pulled the trigger. It clicked a couple of times but it did not fire.

‘How jolly strange,’ Lexington said.

‘Give it back to Quixote,’ Melaleuca said, a tad suspicious.

Ari handed it back.

‘Now you try again,’ she told Quixote.

He aimed and pulled the trigger.

BLAM!

Fire flashed again and another small hole appeared in the roof. Ari grabbed the pistol off Quixote, aimed and started rapidly pulling the trigger.

Click, click, click.

Nothing.

Melaleuca clapped her hands and congratulated Quixote. ‘Very good. Very clever trick. How did you do that?’

He shook his head.

‘No trick. At least I think not,’ Quixote said sounding like he hid something.

Melaleuca picked up on it straight away. ‘But there is something isn’t there.’

Both Lexington and Melaleuca folded their arms and like unamused teachers, waited with semi-stern looks on their faces for the real explanation.

‘What?’ He said trying to feign innocence.

All at once Melaleuca realized what he hid.

‘This has something to do with the bracelets, doesn’t it?’

His grin gave it away. All together they said, ‘Quixote!’

He tugged at his wrist and the bracelet reappeared, and he slipped it off to show the others. It glowed a dull yellow for a few seconds and then returned to its grey metal colour.

‘I had it on. You could not see it as it turned invisible.’

‘Try shooting the gun now,’ Melaleuca said.

Quixote aimed away and pulled the trigger. It clicked - empty.

Lexington jabbed a finger at his costume.

‘Look the cowboy suit is loose again.’

‘Now put the bracelet on,’ Melaleuca said.

He slid it on and it faded from sight.

‘And shoot.’

He fired a shot, and wood splintered far away and another hole appeared in the roof.

In that moment everything changed.

Quixote jigged up and down on the spot.

‘White to black. All possible combinations.’

‘Meaning,’ Lexington said.

‘The desert man said between black and white all combinations lie. That’s us now. We have the power to fill in the white piece of paper.’

Like a promise of far off greatness, glimpsed but unseen, his words filled them with possibilities. The largeness of Quixote’s heart overflowed and for a few brief seconds it became obvious to the others that his role in this mystery, though unfathomable, lay close to the source of whatever powered the bracelets and the costumes.

‘The bracelets make these costumes work,’ Lexington said - her mind an obvious whirl of wild ideas.