Hollow Earth (19 page)

‘You might as well tell them, Simon,’ said Mara.

‘Tell us what?’ asked Matt.

Simon signed to Zach to stop sorting the books and join them. ‘When the police searched Sandie’s studio, they found a vial and a partially empty syringe that they think had recently dispensed a fairly strong anaesthetic—’

‘To Mum?’ asked Em.

Simon shrugged, perching on the arm of a chair. ‘They can’t tell with any certainty, Em, but the Chief Constable and her team did think the mess in your mum’s studio looked as if it had been caused by a brief struggle, not a search.’

‘You mean they could have come to kidnap Mum? But why?’ Matt ran his hands through his hair in frustration. ‘It’s not like we have any money.’

‘Kidnapping isn’t always about money, Matt,’ Mara said. ‘Your mum is a powerful Animare. We can’t rule out that she was taken because of that.’

‘So we’re looking for another Animare or a Guardian?’ suggested Em, her voice cracking from exhaustion and a growing sense of unease. ‘They’re the only ones who know we exist.’

Simon nodded. ‘When it’s light, I’ll set an internal investigation in motion.’

‘What does that mean?’ Matt asked.

‘Chief Constable Bond will handle the investigation of your mum’s disappearance from the civilian side of things, but your grandfather has his own network of Guardians. They’ll begin a search on our behalf.’

Mara sighed. ‘Finding Sandie would be so much easier if their dad were here.’

Simon glared at her.

This sudden suggestion from Mara was as surprising as the flash of anger from Zach’s dad. The twins looked from one adult to the other, hoping Mara would elaborate. Their mum and their grandfather had kept promising more details later, but with one in a coma and the other missing, the twins wondered if they’d ever find out more about their dad.

‘Well it’s true,’ Mara went on stubbornly. ‘As Sandie’s Guardian, Malcolm would at least be able to sense if she were alive or not.’

‘Mara!’

‘Do you know where Dad is, Mara?’ Em asked, taking no notice of Simon. ‘Couldn’t we contact him and ask him to help us?’

‘I’m sure if our dad knew Mum was in trouble, he’d want to get involved,’ added Matt, sitting up straight in his chair.

Simon gently squeezed Matt’s and Em’s shoulders. ‘We’ll find your mum. I promise. We don’t need your dad’s help. Mara? Enough,’ he added, letting his fingers graze the back of Mara’s hand.

‘The thing is,’ said Mara, her voice softening the longer Simon focused his attention on her, ‘we’ve not received any kind of ransom demand, which suggests that whoever has taken your mum isn’t looking to trade for her. But Simon is right, we’ll find her.’

Simon is a good Guardian. He’s settled Mara’s frustration.

Maybe. Or maybe she’s just not willing to challenge him in front of us.

‘Whoever took Sandie must have a game plan for her,’ continued Mara, wandering over in front of the shelves they’d just sorted. ‘You know as well as I do, Simon, that that’s not only puzzling, it’s virtually unprecedented.’

‘What do you mean?’ signed Zach, leaning over the chair behind Matt.

‘In all the history of our kind, there are only a few instances of Animare breaking the rules for their own gain or being manipulated or coerced for their powers,’ Mara explained.

‘Were they successful?’ asked Matt. He moved towards the library doors to get a closer look at the scratch marks.

Mara ran her finger along the leather spines of the books above Renard’s desk, stopping midway as she slid a slim volume from its place and carried it back over to the couch.

‘Centuries ago, a wealthy patron of the arts and a Guardian, Grace Fortescue, admitted in her private memoirs to having coerced her Animare for years.’ Mara held up the book, flipping through the yellowed pages. ‘As a result, she built a fortune in priceless artefacts that she made her Animare create for her.’

‘That’s terrible,’ said Em.

‘Quite,’ said Mara, passing the book to Em. ‘But who’s to say that such a relationship didn’t also benefit her Animare? It makes for fascinating bedtime reading, however you look at it.’

‘There are perhaps two or three other examples,’ Simon went on, ‘but Mara’s correct – the instances are rare.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Good grief! It’s almost dawn. I’ll have to answer to Jeannie’s wrath on her return if you three are tired tomorrow.’

He locked up the library, following Mara and the children up the stairs to their bedrooms. Mara turned to Simon and said in a low voice, ‘You do realize that there’s another possible explanation for Sandie’s disappearance, don’t you?’

‘What?’

‘Sandie could have staged this entire episode herself.’

‘That’s absurd!’ Simon said in shock. ‘Sandie’d never abandon Matt and Em, and she’d never do anything to hurt Renard.’

‘She had no problem hurting Malcolm,’ snapped Mara.

Simon watched Zach, Matt and Em disappearing down the hallway to their own wing of the Abbey before answering.

‘This again, Mara? Your spite towards Sandie has always been misplaced, and I’ll not dignify it with any more of my time.’

Simon took the stairs two at a time, leaving Mara standing alone at the bottom.

THIRTY-SIX

T
he next morning, a storm from the Atlantic had anchored off the coast, with heavy winds and pelting rain making travel treacherous. Jeannie had made it back to the island on the dawn ferry before the storm broke, but the grey skies and a late bedtime were making it difficult for Jeannie to rouse the boys for breakfast. While she pounded on their bedroom doors, a lone figure on a motorcycle was carefully cresting the hill into Largs.

Flash-flooding at low stretches of the main road from Glasgow had twice sent the tail of his Harley spinning, taking every skill he possessed to avoid wiping out. When he reached the ferry, he was drenched and disappointed to learn that the ferry wouldn’t leave until the storm shifted inland. Parking his motorcycle in a narrow lane behind a tearoom on Main Street, he went inside. He’d already waited years to return here. A few more hours wouldn’t matter.

The boys came slouching down the stairs to the kitchen, snatching toast from Jeannie before she cleaned up breakfast.

‘You seriously don’t remember Grandpa telling us who Zeuxis was?’ Matt asked Zach, folding a slice of toast together and swallowing most of it in one bite.

‘The head of the Greek gods?’ Zach gulped a glass of juice.

‘Not Zeus –
Zeuxis
.’ Matt slowed his signing to spell out the letters XIS.

‘Zeus’s sister?’

Matt snorted, headed to the utility room at the back of the kitchen and grabbed his raincoat and boots.

Em was already sitting at the hearth, struggling to pull on her wellies, trying not to dwell on what might have happened to her mum. ‘Actually, Hera was Zeus’s sister,’ she said. ‘Oh … but I think she was also his wife.’

‘Ew!’ said Zach and Matt in unison, as they wrestled with their waterproofs.

‘Grandpa told us that this Greek guy – Zeuxis – might have been the first Animare,’ continued Matt. ‘Apparently he laughed himself to death after painting a very funny picture of a woman.’

‘Och, that poor dear,’ sobbed Jeannie, lifting up her pinny and dabbing her eyes. ‘I can’t bear thinking about him.’

Matt and Zach looked quizzically at each other. ‘You two are idiots,’ said Em, marching past the boys and slapping each one playfully across the head. ‘She’s upset about Grandpa, not Zeuxis! Can I get you a cup of tea, Jeannie?’

‘Aye, hen, that’d be grand.’ Jeannie dabbed her eyes. ‘I just keep thinking if I’d not gone upstairs so early, I could’ve helped.’

Em brought Jeannie her tea. ‘Simon said that we can maybe go and visit Grandpa tonight. I’m sure they’ll bring him out of his coma soon. He’ll know what’s happened to Mum.’

Pushing open the French doors a crack, Matt and Zach squeezed out into the storm without letting too much of it gust into the kitchen.

‘Where are you off to in this weather? Ye’ll catch yer deaths!’

Em dashed to the door before Jeannie could stop her. ‘Need some fresh air, Jeannie. We’ll be fine. Promise.’

Outside, the rain was coming off the sea in sheets, forcing the three of them to fold into the wind as they struggled across the lawn. Between the blinding rain and the crashing waves, talking and signing was impossible. Linking arms with the boys, Em marched them towards Sandie’s studio, telepathing with Matt.

Why exactly were you two arguing about Zeuxis?

I think I’ve figured out how that creature got into the library. It’s something to do with Zeuxis.

How?

When Grandpa was telling us about the secret vault, he said that some of those paintings are especially powerful because their Animare is bound in them. What if your terror— I mean the dwarf thing, somehow came from a bound painting?

When they reached Sandie’s studio, they dashed up the steps, huddling under the thick stone eaves for shelter.

Matt tried the door first. ‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘Locked.’

Em cupped her hands, peering through the dark privacy glass. ‘It’s impossible to see anything. We need to get inside.’

‘Draw a key,’ signed Zach.

Matt pulled his sketchpad from his raincoat’s inside pocket. With Zach acting as a barrier to the driving rain, he began drawing a key.

Imagine the lock.

Em nodded, closing her eyes. Matt’s hand scribbled across the paper as if his pen were automated. When he’d finished, Em took the sketch, adding teeth to the key. Then she outlined the lock, and Matt finished it. A flash of blue light surged from under the door handle, the old lock appeared to dissolve and, in an instant, a silver key appeared in a shiny new lock.

Zach opened the door.

‘Wait!’ said Em. ‘Mum will be okay with us doing this, won’t she?’

‘If we want to help get her back,’ said Matt, ‘we have to.’

The twins hesitated for a second, then followed Zach inside.

THIRTY-SEVEN

‘L
ook out!’ yelled Matt, pulling Zach to the ground, as a colossal wave crashed through the window of Sandie’s studio.

Behind them, Em exploded in laughter.

Dazed, the boys looked up from the floor, realizing they’d ducked an angry wave painted on a wall-sized mural. The image had looked so realistic that Matt had thought water was surging through the glass. Sandie had painted the wall to look as if a storming sea was directly outside, matching a similar view she had on blustery days from the real window of her studio. The fact that a storm
was
actually battering the building had made the illusion even more powerful.

Matt remained on the floor for a few minutes, getting his bearings, adjusting to the sheer number of startling images around the walls.

‘Every drawing looks three-dimensional,’ he said, as Zach gazed around in amazement. ‘How did she do that?’

‘It’s called
trompe-l’oeil
,’ Em said. ‘French. Means “trick the eye”, I think. With Mum’s abilities as an Animare, it makes the paintings and murals even more amazing … and almost real.’

Matt felt like clapping. The entire studio was one trick painting after another. So many images were drawn on the walls and up across the ceiling that it was difficult to distinguish between the real objects in the room and Sandie’s imagined creations.

‘It’s going to be impossible to search this place before Simon and Mara get back from Largs,’ he said at last. ‘They mustn’t find out we’re trying to figure out what happened to Mum on our own.’

‘Why don’t we divide the room into sections?’ said Em. ‘That way each of us can look carefully at a smaller area, and the room won’t be so overwhelming.’

Zach began walking the perimeter of his section. Without thinking, he reached into a glass bowl for a sweet – only to have his fingers hit against the wall, the bowl an optical illusion.

Em was briefly transfixed by one corner of the studio, which burst with exotic flowers so lush and beautiful she could almost smell jasmine, lilac and the faint scent of her mother. Choking back tears, she shifted to the area around a long trestle table covered with paint pots and brush jars. On the wall above the table, she ran her fingers along painted images of brass hooks with antique keys hanging from them. There was a pyramid of pigeonholes with ribboned scrolls and poster canisters inside them, and a painting drawn to look like a framed photograph of a Victorian woman wearing a velvet hat. The woman’s hat looked to Em like a hairy black spider perched on her head. But Em’s favourite was a row of fake windows painted at eye level above her mum’s worktable, with views of places Em remembered from her childhood in London: the steps outside the National Gallery, the Henry Moore sculpture at Westminster, the cobbled square at Covent Garden, the pond in Kensington Park.