Hollow Earth (37 page)

‘What on earth is going on in here?’ demanded the doctor crossly, checking the screens. ‘Every monitor is registering extremely high levels of brain activity.’

She turned to admonish Simon and the twins. But instead, she was confronted with a speechless nurse and Renard’s hospital bed covered in bright red poppies.

Outside the main entrance of the hospital, Simon turned towards Largs pier, the children beside him, the painting tucked under his arm.

‘Don’t you want to know what we learned?’ asked Matt, walking a little way ahead.

‘I’m guessing your grandfather told you he helped bind your dad in a painting,’ answered Simon, guiding the twins across Main Street and out on to the busy pier.

Em was jogging a little so she could keep up with Matt and Simon’s long strides. ‘But how did you know that?’

‘After you all went to bed last night,’ explained Simon, ‘Vaughn and I talked about everything that happened yesterday. We realized that although your mum is a powerful Animare, she wasn’t capable of binding another person on her own. If Tanan was right, and your mum had done what he claimed she had, then we knew a Guardian must have helped her. And the only one it could have been was your grandfather.’

‘Do you think Mara’s okay, wherever she is?’

‘I can feel that she is,’ said Simon, squeezing Em’s hand. ‘I think Tanan managed to get back over to the Abbey as soon as the peryton appeared. It’s likely he freed Mara from the painting before we got there, and I have a feeling they both escaped from Auchinmurn together.’ He sighed, adding, ‘I hope she’ll get away from him and come back to us some day.’

The pier was packed with tourists buying ice-cream cones, sausage rolls and sandwiches and carrying them down to the beach. Fishermen were casting off the edge of the pier, bags and buckets filled with ice next to them, seagulls circling hopefully above. Simon pointed the twins to the picnic tables set up at the end of the pier, where Zach and Vaughn were unpacking one of Jeannie’s famous picnic lunches.

‘Do you think Grandpa’s going to get better soon?’ Em asked, slipping her hand into Simon’s.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I think what you and Matt did this morning might have been just the jolt his system needed.’

‘How did you know that we would be able to bring Grandpa into a painting with us?’ asked Matt, one eye on Simon and the other on Zach and Vaughn lifting treats out of the picnic basket.

‘It was Vaughn who suggested it,’ said Simon. ‘He figured that since you could imagine yourselves into a painting when you’d had very little training, there was the distinct possibility that now you would be able to take another person along with you.’

The lure of lunch was finally too much for Matt. Keeping his broken arm tight against his body, so it wouldn’t bounce against him, he ran on ahead to Vaughn and Zach and the food.

‘I like Vaughn,’ said Em. ‘And I think he really likes my mum.’

‘I know he does,’ Simon smiled. ‘And I’m glad to hear that you like him, too.’ They had reached the picnic table. Simon mussed his son’s hair in greeting. ‘Because until Renard fully recovers, Vaughn will be your new tutor.’

Vaughn handed each of them one of Jeannie’s sandwiches. ‘And despite all the intriguing revelations of the past few days,’ he said, ignoring the children’s groans of horror, ‘real lessons begin again tomorrow morning.’

After lunch, while Zach helped Vaughn pack up the picnic basket, and Simon went to fetch the Range Rover, Matt and Em sat at the end of the pier, feeding the seagulls with the leftovers.

‘Where do you think Mum is now?’ asked Em, lobbing a crust high into the air and watching a gull snap it up. ‘Do you think she can feel us? And do you think we’ll ever see her again?’

There was a catch in her voice, and she stared hard out to sea.

‘I don’t know where she is, but we’ll find her, Em. I know we will.’ Matt mashed a piece of a sausage roll between his fingers. ‘Simon and Vaughn have promised to help us, and when Grandpa’s better, he’ll teach us everything we need to know about Hollow Earth. The next time anyone comes after us, we’ll be ready for them.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because we’ve survived amazing things these past couple of days. If we can get through that, we can get through anything.’ He turned to smile at his sister. ‘Mum always said we were special, you know.’

Em knew Matt was right. She felt excited about their growing powers. She was part of a fantastic world that was as old as the islands themselves. But she was a little nervous too. Despite how well she was controlling her fears, she was still anxious about what the future might hold.

Lobbing a handful of crusts into the bay, Em laughed as the gulls dive-bombed the water. ‘Next time we go into a painting, let’s take Zach with us,’ she said. ‘We owe him. After all, he saved us from Tanan’s demon with his amazing archery skills.’

‘How about we go into something wild – like by that Dali guy or maybe some computer art?’ said Matt with enthusiasm.

Em rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, yeah, that’s all we need. To take Zach inside computer art and let him loose! Can you imagine it?’

They looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

‘Yeah,’ Matt grinned. ‘I can.’

Vaughn whistled from the other end of the pier, waving at them as Simon pulled up to the kerb in the Range Rover. Without warning, Matt scooped up all his crusts and crushed them into Em’s hair. Then he scrambled on to his feet and darted down the pier towards Vaughn and Zach.

Shaking crumbs from her hair, Em leaped to her feet. ‘You’d better run, Matt Calder, ’cos special or not, I’m going to kill you!’

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We first imagined this book while driving from London to Cardiff. The traffic was heavy, so the trip took ages. When we finally crossed the bridge into Wales, we already knew who the main characters would be and we had the beginnings of the plot. The journey since then has been an exciting one, so we have people to thank who helped us to reach this place.

Thank you to everyone at Michael O’Mara Books Ltd and Buster Books – Alison Parker, Philippa Wingate and Liz Scoggins. Philippa shepherded us along with a healthy balance of nurturing and nudging, and editors Michelle Misra and Lucy Courtenay deserve an exploding fist-bump or two.

As always, Gavin Barker of Gavin Barker Associates Ltd continues to be the best backseat driver (thanks G), and a warm welcome to Team Barrowman, Georgina Capel of Capel and Land Ltd.

To suit our story, we’ve taken some liberties with geography, renaming and repositioning a few places, and although we hope the book will encourage you to visit your nearest art gallery, you won’t find
Witch with Changeling Child
or the Scottish artist Duncan Fox on display in any of them. The painting
Witch with Changeling Child
was inspired by the horrible creatures in the corner of Henri Fuseli’s
Titania and Bottom
(1790), and William Blake’s
The Ghost of a Flea
(1819–20) inspired Fox’s
The Demon Within
. Both of the real paintings can be viewed at Tate Britain in London.

One of the most famous medieval manuscripts is
The Aberdeen
Bestiary
, which inspired our
Book of Beasts
. Also part of an inscription attributed to Duncan Fox – ‘imagination is the real and the eternal’ – comes from the poet William Blake, who believed that a place like Hollow Earth was possible.

For more information about the art that you’ll find in these pages (and lots of other creative stuff), visit our website at
www.hollow-earth.co.uk
.

Finally, Auchinmurn Isle, the Abbey and all its inhabitants have existed only in our imaginations. We’re thrilled that now they’ll come alive in yours.

Carole and John

2011