The Book of Beasts (20 page)

Auchinmurn Isle
Present Day

‘I have to go back to the beginning for you,' signed Em, ‘or you'll never understand.'

She lowered her hands and thought for a moment. Then she lifted them again. ‘I know this sounds crazy, but I think the ghostly presence I saw was Albion. The first Animare, the guy who guards the beasts in Hollow Earth.'

Zach gazed at the swirling image of the cave in the picture. ‘So is that…'

‘It's what he, whatever he is, is standing in front of when he's in my room. It's the scene Duncan Fox painted. The picture Dad tried to make me and Matt go into when we were toddlers. The original is kept down in the Abbey vaults, but I've seen copies since.' Em tapped the canvas. ‘When Grandpa told us all that Hollow Earth exists outside time, then I figured Albion must be outside time too. For some reason, he showed himself to me.'

Zach flopped on to a sack of mulch as if his legs wouldn't hold him up any more.

‘How many times has Albion appeared to you?'

‘Three times. The first time, he almost pulled me into Hollow Earth itself.'

‘Are you kidding me?' signed Zach angrily. ‘Why didn't you say something?'

‘Don't worry, it never happened again,' Em rushed on. ‘But I felt this desperate desire to draw. Every time he came, I sketched what came into my imagination.'

‘Albion was putting the images in your mind?'

Em nodded. ‘And a few nights ago, I realized what I had to do with the sketches. I had to paint them, using only materials they would have used in the Middle Ages.'

Zach stared at the painting. ‘So you've used inks made from plants and leaves?'

‘Yup,' said Em. ‘I now know so much about what you can do with lupins that I could cure gout… whatever that is.'

She went over to the table and returned with one of Simon's prehistoric clay pots with a golden honey-like substance inside.

‘Did you know that the colour white was the hardest to make back then, so to capture light artists literally illuminated their art with flakes of gold?' She handed the pot to Zach, who sniffed it warily. ‘I had to make do with honey and crushed sunflowers.'

Zach's gaze settled on the image of the cave mouth. He touched the canvas with his little finger, the paint still wet in places. Em suddenly sensed his mind exploding. As he pressed his hands to his ears, a blast of thought streamed into her head.

Screaming… I can feel screaming. I have never felt screaming before…

Em felt scared and excited.
Someone's screaming?

Not someone, something… It's going right through me… Argh! The pain…
Zach stumbled backwards, knocking into Em.
Jeez, Em. It's like… you've painted yourself into this. Your feelings, your memories maybe… I don't understand… What have you done? Why have you painted this?

Em blazed with fierce pride. It was working!

‘Promise you won't think I'm crazy?' she signed.

He sat up shakily. ‘No guarantees. Look at this place. There's a dead squirrel hanging from the rafters.'

Em took a deep breath. ‘I'm going to use this painting to travel back in time to rescue Matt and Jeannie.'

Zach's eyes widened. Em rushed on before he tried to talk her out of it.

‘Think about it! What if I can connect myself to the right era with art that I've made with medieval materials?'

Zach stood up angrily, shaking his head.
You're not travelling back to the Middle Ages, Em. Even if this does work, you can't go there alone.

Then come with me.

Come on, are you serious?

Em could sense Zach trying to inspirit her, calm her and make her change her mind. But she was prepared. She had known that he'd discover her secret sooner rather than later. They were too close for him not to. As Zach tried to work on her mind, she focused on his, digging through his empathy and his love and getting to his anger at her and his frustration at Matt. She poked at it, shone a light on it.

Stop it, Em!

You first!

They collapsed next to each other on a sack of potting soil, both holding their hands to their heads. Zach surrendered first.

‘You win!' he signed irritably. ‘I'll come. But how do you know for sure it's going to work? And if it gets you there, how can it get us back to the present?'

‘I don't know,' Em admitted.

It was impossible to keep her fears to herself any longer.

Zach took her hand.
Talk to me.

Gratefully, Em let her worries wash through her, into Zach's waiting mind.

The panel on the left isn't the entire image that comes to me. But I can't… I can't bring myself to put on this canvas what I'm actually seeing
.

You have to. It might help us figure out what to do.

Em nodded, biting her lip. Zach was right.

She moved to the table and mixed some paints. Her shoulders relaxed and her hair fell forward, the purple streak framing her cheek like a comma as she turned to the canvas and applied the paint to the unfinished panel. She worked with a fierce concentration, but without the intention of animating. The image stayed flat and obedient on the canvas.

After a little while, Em laid down her brush and pointed silently at what she had revealed.

Auchinmurn Isle
The Middle Ages

Matt had lost his bearings entirely.

They were waist-deep in water now, their pace slowing considerably. At one point the water had reached as high as their chests, and they'd had to doggy-paddle through it. The tunnel pressed in on them, dark and cold and growing ever smaller.

The tunnel suddenly opened up, offering a pocket that was less a chamber than a rock formation. It was enough to give the boys a chance to catch their breath.

‘Almost there!' said Malcolm, as if they were out hiking in the countryside, heading towards a picnic instead of a terrible unknown.

He's mad
, Matt realized. Unbound after ten years inside a painting, his father had clearly lost his humanity as well as his face.

Malcolm pushed them on. His excitement was growing palpable. Matt quietly animated a compass on what was left of the lining in his jacket. Hiding it beneath his sleeve, he watched the needle bounce around and settle. They were tramping west.

Matt couldn't believe it. They couldn't be heading west. West was the bay. West was water. Deep water.

They'd now been gone all of the night and most of the morning. He wondered if Carik was searching for them. He was beyond tired now, running on adrenaline and fear.

The disturbing mechanical sound Matt and Solon had heard reverberating under the grounds of the monastery suddenly began echoing up ahead. Whatever was making the noise was moving towards them. The tunnel walls shook. Dirt and stones began to drop from the roof, raining on them.

‘Pick up the pace, boys,' Malcolm advised. ‘I don't want to have to dig you out from a cave-in.'

The tunnel ended in a sheer drop to a vast cavern. From their position on the precipice, Matt stared into the chamber below. Ancient cave etchings met his eyes. A hellhound snarling in relief. The peryton, its wings so lifelike they appeared to be fluttering.

‘I know where we are,' he said in astonishment. ‘I was here in the summer. This is Solon's Cave.' He stared at his white-faced companion. ‘It's named after you.'

Solon looked terrified. ‘This is the place of the portal to the world of the beasts,' he said. ‘This is where I brought the peryton into the world above, with my master's help. It's how we saved the village when the Vikings came.'

‘Awesome!' said Matt, for a second forgetting the danger they were in, forgetting the threat to Solon's family, with the overwhelming sense of being a part of history.

He didn't forget for long. Rolling out of the darkness beneath them was an enormous mechanical monster like nothing Matt had ever seen.

At the centre of the beast was trapped the body of a man.

Auchinmurn Isle
Present Day

Em's picture was of Matt.

‘His hair is a bit longer,' Em signed, swallowing, ‘but I think maybe time is passing differently for him. You know?'

Matt was standing beneath a gloomy archway, leaning forward at an odd angle. He was wounded. The hilt of a small weapon stuck out from his side, right above his hip bone.

Em was pale.
That's why we need to get back there. To help him.

Zach looked at her with concern in his eyes.
It doesn't look like a knife.

Em shook her head.
It's the bone quill. The ancient object that you use to animate the beasts and free them from Hollow Earth.

Matt gets stabbed by it? Are you even sure this is Matt?

‘I don't know!' Em cried, forgetting either to sign or telepath in her anguish. ‘But I can't risk it!'

‘If this did come into your imagination from Albion,' Zach signed swiftly, ‘then we need help. Matt's hurt. We have to tell someone.'

‘Not yet! You promised!' Em jabbed a finger at the triptych. ‘I wish I knew how the panels are connected. They seem fragmented. Like I'm watching a film that's been put together out of order.'

Em had captured the pencil tower on Era Mina in loose, sketchy strokes. Along with the telltale halo of an animation inside the tower itself, there was a huge hole between two of the arrow slits at the top. It looked like a powerful projectile of some kind had hit the wall.

Zach picked up a book on medieval art from Em's jumble of papers. He flipped to the section on altar adorations and triptychs, then passed it to her.

‘It says here that the central panel of a triptych is often just the most dramatic part of the message, and the panels are not necessarily in sequential order,' he signed.

Like a comic
, Em telepathed, reading swiftly.

Zach nodded.
Think about how comics are laid out on the page. You read the huge central panel first. Then you go to the smaller surrounding panels to get the bigger picture. Does that help?

Em felt a jolt of hope.
If that's the case, maybe some of this stuff hasn't happened yet. Maybe Matt's OK. Zach, I love you!

She threw herself into Zach's arms, knocking them down together on to the sacks of potting soil lined up against the wall of the shed.

‘Sorry,' she signed, giggling as she got up again. ‘If any of this is going to work, I think I need just one more thing before I
…
we try. And I need it soon. Help me get this place straight again, will you?'

Zach worked with Em, returning the hut to the way it had been when they entered. He couldn't help himself. He wished she would kiss him again.

Auchinmurn Isle
The Middle Ages