December (6 page)

Tom Ormond
.

On the back was Rafe’s name and old address. Why had it been returned? Why had Dad never read it?

Carefully, I prised it open.

4 DECEMBER

28 days to go
…

My hands were shaking as I held Rafe’s rejected letter.
Dad
was the one who’d walked away from his relationship with Rafe? I couldn’t believe it. I always thought Dad was the one who was being shut out, not the other way around.

I’d looked through Rafe’s wedding photos pretty closely and Dad had not been in any of them–he definitely wasn’t standing by his twin as the best man. He must have ended up letting his brother down. Maybe that was why Rafe didn’t look as happy as he should have … Dad must have found it too painful to be around his twin, after the loss of one of his twin sons. It didn’t make complete sense to me, but I knew from my experience that grief can do weird things to people. It can change them.

Like what was happening to Mum.

I refolded the letter and put it back in its envelope.

I thought again of all the things Rafe had done for us since Dad died. He’d given Mum a home when she was losing her own. He’d provided Gabbi with the best medical attention possible when she was in a coma, even changing the structure of his house for her. He’d taken Gabbi and Mum under his wing at a time when they needed protection most.

Maybe this was how involved in our family he’d wanted to be all along.

The coast was still clear outside, but I needed to get going. I figured Rafe would have made it to Marjorie’s by now, and would be back here any second.

I had a quick final glance around the room and noticed Mum’s red leather handbag on the floor near the dining table, half spilling out. She must have been really upset to have left that behind–it was usually glued to her.

Her bag seemed much heavier than it should have been. Inside was a bulging padded envelope. I pulled it out.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing printed on the top left-hand corner of the large envelope. ‘Rathbone and Associates’.

What?

My head was spinning. What was Mum doing with a thick, bulky envelope from Sheldrake Rathbone?

There had to be an innocent explanation.
Right?

The sound of a car in the street snapped me into action. I pocketed Dad’s unread letter, shoved the heavy envelope from Mum’s bag into my backpack and bolted out the back door.

Sure enough, Rafe had returned. He’d just pulled up on the driveway and already I could hear Gabbi’s voice as she climbed out of the car, alongside Mum.

While they trundled into the house, I ran out onto the road.

As my feet pounded the ground, on my way to Memorial Park, my thoughts whirled like a tornado;
Dad
had been responsible for the split from Rafe, not the other way round, and now it seemed as if Mum had been dealing with
Rathbone
. What was going on? Everything I thought I knew had been turned upside down.

Boges and Winter emerged from the shadows as
I ran up the steps and into the circular
enclosure
, where dead leaves skittered over the mosaic floor.

The moon was shining brilliantly through the stained glass window above, while the Ormond Angel seemed to look down sternly on us.

‘What is it?’ Winter asked. ‘You’re so pale.’

‘It’s just the moonlight,’ I replied. ‘Let’s sit down,’ I suggested as the pair scrutinised my face.

After I’d filled them in on my trip to Dolphin Point, I handed them Dad’s unread letter from Rafe. They both skimmed over it, eagerly.

‘Rafe was telling the truth,’ said Boges. ‘He and your dad
were
really close until…’

‘… until the kidnapping,’ Winter whispered.

‘Didn’t see that coming,’ added Boges.

‘Me neither,’ I said, pulling the padded
envelope
out of my backpack. ‘This is what I found in my mum’s bag.’

Winter eyed it closely.

‘Well go on,’ she said. ‘Open it!’

I did so, reluctantly, afraid of what I was about to find. Boges and Winter jostled around me to see.

I tipped the contents out.

None of us could speak at first.

It wasn’t a fat wad of documents. There,
gleaming
in the moonlight, beneath the radiant Angel above us, glowed the Ormond Jewel on top of the Ormond Riddle!

Winter took the Jewel in her hand. ‘
Amor et suevre tosjors celer
,’ she whispered eerily, reciting the inscription inside, as her forefinger traced the almost invisible letters. ‘A love whose works must always be kept secret.’ She looked up at me and asked the question that was in all of our minds. ‘Why would
your mum
have these?’

I could see my own shocked expression mirrored on the faces of Boges and Winter. We should have felt fantastic. We should have felt like
leaping
over the cenotaph in a single bound. Instead, dark questions had taken over.

‘Your mum?’ Boges asked slowly. ‘Your mum is Deep Water or Double Trouble?’

‘It can’t be right.’ I shook my head, refusing to accept it. ‘There must be an explanation.’

‘That scent that you almost identified back there at the undertakers’ … Maybe you’re
repressing
the memory,’ Boges continued, hinting at my reaction to the scent of Mum’s perfume the last time we snuck into Rafe’s house. ‘Maybe you know exactly who it belongs to but can’t bear to face the truth, and that’s why you can’t bring yourself to recall it. It’s your heart stopping you.’ Boges shook his head and ran his hands
through his hair. ‘I can’t believe your mum is in on this … Mrs O,’ he said
in
disbelief.

‘Hang on a minute,’ I said defensively. ‘You don’t know that’s true. She could–’

‘Oh wow! What is that?’ a voice interrupted us.

I swung round.

‘What are you doing here, Gabbi?’

‘You said you were coming here so as soon as Uncle Rafe and Mum went to bed, I snuck out. Don’t worry, they don’t have a clue I’m gone!’

My little sister didn’t look the least bit sorry about breaking the rules. In fact, she looked pretty proud of herself for wandering out alone to find me.

She’d been
kidnapped
before, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her off, especially not right now when I was sick with suspicions about Mum.

She ran over to hug Boges and Winter.

‘That’s the Ormond Jewel,’ I said, finally answering Gabbi’s question, ‘and that is the Ormond Riddle. These are the two things
everyone
’s been after.’

‘Where did you find them?’ she asked.

Winter looked down, avoiding the question, and fiddled with the laces on her sneakers, while Boges remained gobsmacked, the two frown lines on his forehead forging together in a deep trough.

‘Is that a real emerald?’ she said, coming closer.

‘You bet,’ Boges replied, finally speaking up for all of us. ‘It’s the real thing. “Big as a pigeon’s egg”,’ he quoted.

While Gabbi and Boges talked, Winter pulled me aside against the dark, curving wall of the cenotaph.

‘Your
mum
had these? From Rathbone? In her bag?’ she whispered, her worried eyes searching mine.

I nodded.

‘
Mum
had them?’ asked Gabbi, swinging around from Boges. ‘How come Mum had these things if everyone’s been after them? I thought you said she didn’t know anything about this.’

I was lost for words. As I shrugged my
shoulders
, things seemed to slowly come into place. My mum must have always known more than she’d let on. After all, she’d seen the transparency and the empty jewel box, and she’d heard Rafe questioning me about the Ormond Riddle–she’d been there all along. I recalled her staring at Dad’s drawing of the Angel up on my bedroom wall before this mess began …

The cenotaph started to spin around me like I was trapped inside one of those anti-gravity carnival rides.
Mum?
Could Mum have been the person who–I tried to stop my brain from going there, but it was determined. My mum had been
acting like a stranger to me almost all year. If she was capable of turning her back on her son, could she also have been capable of … attacking me? Locking me in a coffin and leaving me to die underground?

‘Somebody say something!’ cried Gabbi,
walking
over to me and tugging on my jacket. She slipped her hands into my pockets and I brushed her away.

‘My hands are cold,’ she whined. ‘What’s wrong with you guys?’

‘There has to be an explanation,’ I said.

‘
Hello?
’ said Gabbi. ‘Am I invisible? Why are you ignoring me?’

‘Sorry Gabs,’ said Boges. ‘We’re just a little distracted right now with some new … umm … developments. Look, Cal,’ he said. ‘Let’s just focus on the fact that we have them back. That’s
good
news. Let’s worry about the other things later, huh?’

‘Boges is right,’ said Winter, with an arm around Gabbi. ‘There could be a perfectly
reasonable
explanation.’

She hugged my sister, who was turning the Jewel over in her hands.

‘We’d better get you back home,’ said Boges, tugging on one of Gabbi’s plaits.

My sister groaned and brushed Boges away. ‘I
can
help
you guys,’ she said. ‘I’m not a kid any more. Why can’t you see that?’