Hollow Earth (20 page)

‘Hey, take a look at this. It’s incredible!’ Matt called from his corner of the room.

Em nudged Zach. They both looked. A tower of luggage, consisting of an old-fashioned shipping trunk, a boxy black suitcase, a bulging red tote and a brown leather doctor’s satchel, which Em thought looked vaguely familiar, were painted on top of each other to look as if they were balancing precariously on a luggage trolley that was collapsing from the weight. The image was as tall as the studio’s door, much taller than any of the children.

They spent the next ten minutes examining the other images in the room. Matt and Em began feeling more and more overwhelmed by the sheer volume of their mum’s art and the aching sadness of their loss.

I miss her.

Me, too.

Do you think she’s okay, Em? Can you sense if she’s okay?

I can’t. I really can’t.

And as much as Em hated to admit it, the fact that she couldn’t sense her mother worried her most of all.

After about twenty minutes in Sandie’s studio, Em lost hope. A dark shadow seemed to cover her mind. She sensed Matt’s thoughts as clearly as her own, spiralling into despair beside her. They’d never find their mum this way. She was gone – maybe for ever.

A spider the size of a cat suddenly pounced out of the painting of the woman with the funky hat. Leaping over two pots of paint and scampering down the table leg, the hairy black spider scuttled across the floor towards the twins.

Em screamed.

Grabbing a stool from under the table, Matt flipped it over and slammed it on top of the creature. The spider exploded in a burst of black charcoal dust. Em screamed again, as a swarm of spiders spewed from the woman’s hat as if it was an egg sack.

With bulbous middles and bulging eyes, they streamed across the table, washing on to the floor in thick waves.

Next, a thick, ropey vine from one of the exotic plant pictures untangled itself from its roots, slithered across the floor and wrapped itself around Em’s ankles. It tightened its grip, pulling Em to her knees.

Three bigger spiders leaped from the table edge. Landing on Matt’s shoulder, they dug their legs into his neck, their hair scratching his skin like wire brushes. Matt batted them off with his hands, filling the room with more clouds of black charcoal.

Zach ran to help Em, as still more spiders cascaded from the painting. By this time, Em had curled herself into a ball, covering her head with her arms, howling as one spider after another landed on her, tangling their legs in her thick hair and nipping at her skin.

‘You both hate spiders,’ signed Zach urgently. ‘
You’re
doing this! You’re upset about your mum … all these images … you’re losing control!’

Em was now blanketed in angry spiders, but they kept on coming.

I can’t stop them!

‘Help me get her outside,’ Matt gasped at Zach.

Ignoring the spiders scampering up their own arms, the two boys tried to pull Em towards the door. They didn’t get very far. The vine was still holding her tight, squeezing the circulation from her legs.

Zach darted to the spot where they’d dumped their wet raincoats, rifling in Matt’s pockets until he found the sketchpad and pencil. Matt was cloaked in the spiders too, but he was valiantly keeping as many from his sister as he could, booting them across the room when they landed near her. The air was choked with charcoal dust.

I can’t … breathe …

‘Draw something!’ Zach shoved the sketchpad into Matt’s hands. ‘She’s going to suffocate!’

Ignoring the hundreds of spiders thickening across his shoulders, Matt drew as fast as he knew how. He had to save his sister.

THIRTY-EIGHT

M
att drew the first thing that came into his imagination. A wooden axe with a bright red blade thudded on to the floor next to Em. With one swift swing, Matt picked it up and hacked through the vine. Suddenly free, Em was able to drag herself outside with Matt and Zach close behind. As soon as Matt slammed the door to the studio, the spiders covering their bodies began popping like black, chalky firecrackers.

‘Thinking about Jack and his mighty beanstalk, were you?’ said Em a few minutes later, wiping her filthy face with her sleeve.

‘If I had drawn a chainsaw, I wasn’t sure that it would work without electricity,’ said Matt.

Em laughed shakily. ‘I’m sure your imagination would have been a strong enough power source.’

‘Matt!’ Zach suddenly looked electrified. ‘Do you realize what you just did?’

‘Cracked a whopping big hole in my mum’s floor?’

Em’s eyes widened. ‘You drew the axe without me! I didn’t help in any way. I wasn’t imagining an axe at all. All I was thinking about was missing Mum, and getting those disgusting spiders out of my hair.’

Matt shrugged, as if this development was no big deal. Inside he was punching the air with excitement. ‘I guess I did animate that axe on my own, but Grandpa did say that might happen eventually … to both of us.’

‘Yeah, eventually,’ signed Zach, tossing each of them their raincoats, ‘but most Animare are adults when their powers are fully evolved. You’re not even thirteen yet. Think about what you might be able to do when you’re older!’

The three children walked across the wet lawn to the jetty, trailing clouds of soot behind them like exhaust fumes. The rain had stopped, and the storm was passing. Zach and Em sat down on the bench at the end of the dock, while Matt skipped stones into the sea, trying to mask his excitement and nervousness at the striking development in his abilities.

‘Well, no matter what we figured out about my powers,’ Matt said between skips, ‘that was a fairly useless hour. We didn’t discover anything that could help us find Mum.’

‘Maybe not,’ answered Em, ‘but we learned that Mum is an amazing artist … and … and—’ Something suddenly came to her. ‘The brown satchel!’ she gasped. ‘Why didn’t I think of it before?’

She jumped from the bench, heading towards Sandie’s studio again.

‘Wait!’ Matt yelled, running back along the shore. Zach joined him. ‘You can’t go in there again. You might get something worse than spiders this time!’

‘What satchel, Em?’ Zach signed as they caught up.

‘The brown satchel on top of the funny mural with all the suitcases. Like the kind doctors in old movies carry. It looks exactly like the one Mum brought from London when Matt and I first came to the island!’

‘Oh, yeah … I remember!’ said Matt in excitement.

‘I need to go back inside and take a closer look at it,’ Em said.

‘Okay, you two draw the lock and key again,’ signed Zach. ‘But we can’t risk the walls coming to life again. This time I’m going inside on my own.’

THIRTY-NINE

Z
ach left the twins standing outside the studio’s closed door. They were supposed to be watching for Simon and Mara to return, but spent most of the time peering through the dark glass, trying to track his progress.

With the storm’s passing, sunlight filled the studio with light, making every image look even more alive than before. Waving his way through the charcoal haze that still permeated the studio air, Zach went directly to the luggage mural.

Got it yet?

You’ll be the first to know, Em. Now be quiet. Watch for my dad and Mara. I don’t want to lose any more computer privileges because of this.

Zach was too short to reach the top of the painting where the satchel lay. Grabbing the stool Matt had used to smash the spiders, he climbed on and stretched his arms up the painting, trying to reach the satchel.

Your dad and Mara are pulling into the garage. You’ve got maybe two minutes before they see us out here. Hurry up!

Zach was aware of something tingling beneath his fingers as he touched the mural. It almost felt like … electricity.

Thirty seconds.

Before he could process Em’s warning, his fingers hit against something hard directly underneath the image of the satchel. It was a clear Perspex shelf, camouflaged into the mural with a real satchel, not an imagined one, perched on top of it.

Got it, Em! It’s real all right. And there’s something underneath the mural, too – some weird kind of power current.

Matt says leave the satchel where it is for now or we’ll get caught with it. It’ll be safer where it is. We can’t let your dad or Mara know about it until we see what’s inside first.

Locking the door, Zach sprinted back outside to join the twins. With only seconds to spare, the three of them plonked themselves on the end of the jetty, as Mara and Simon walked out of the garage. Matt quickly tore up their drawing of the lock and key.

Mara headed inside, while Simon came down to join them.

‘What have you three been up to this morning?’ He looked more closely at the state they were in. ‘You look like you’ve been cleaning chimneys. What’s with the soot?’

‘The flue backed up in Em’s bedroom,’ said Matt. He gathered more stones to skip on the water. ‘We helped her with the mess.’

‘We’re thinking we might walk along the shore to Seaport now,’ said Em, brushing excess charcoal from her jeans. ‘See if the storm washed up anything interesting.’

‘Good idea.’

‘Will we be able to see our grandfather this evening?’ Em asked.

‘I think so,’ Simon said. ‘We can go after dinner if you’d like. I heard from the Chief Constable this morning,’ he went on. ‘They’ve accounted for everyone on and off the ferry yesterday – except for one couple who came on to the island earlier in the afternoon. The curious thing is there’s no evidence of the couple returning to Largs on any later ferry runs.’

‘So they might still be on the island?’ asked Matt, alert. ‘And they might have Mum?’

‘The police have canvassed all the B&Bs. There’s no record of them staying overnight anywhere,’ Simon told them. ‘Of course, they may have found another way on to the mainland that kept them clear of CCTV cameras, but I doubt it – particularly in the light of this morning’s storm. I think they’re still here.’ He stood up. ‘The police have every dock and boat charter under surveillance and, as of this morning, your mum has officially become a missing person. That’ll put her on every alert in every constabulary in the country.’

‘I guess that’s good news,’ said Matt uncertainly.

‘It is.’ Simon looked like he was about to say something else to the children, but his mobile rang. He walked a little way up the beach to take the call.

Em nudged Zach. Zach peered to read his dad’s lips and sent his thoughts directly to Em to avoid detection.

He’s talking to someone at the hospital.

Simon closed his phone and marched across the lawn to the kitchen. Zach’s mind went dark as he shut Em out of his thoughts and processed what he thought he’d read. This was something he had been working on with his dad, who had told him that there might be times in his life when he might have to keep things from Em. Zach had protested that he couldn’t imagine such a time, but his dad had been right.

‘What’s wrong, Zach?’ Em said urgently. ‘Who was that?’

Zach thought carefully about his response. ‘I think it was the Chief Constable. She must have told my dad something about some marks they’ve discovered on your grandfather’s legs and ankles.’ He paused.

‘Tell us!’ demanded Matt angrily.

‘Remember all I got was my dad’s side of the conversation,’ signed Zach at last. ‘I may have read him wrong. But I think he said, “Good God, bite marks. You know what that means.” Then he hung up.’

‘And what
does
it mean?’ said Em.

‘I think it means that the dwarf creature you saw in the library attacked Grandpa,’ Matt guessed. ‘The scratches on the library door looked like bite marks.’

Em felt sick. ‘You know something?’ she said. ‘If that creature did hurt Grandpa … it means there’s an Animare on this island giving it orders to do a lot more than just haunt my dreams or visit the library.’