The Book of Beasts (9 page)

The evening sky looked as bruised as Em felt. The sun was setting behind the small island with lines of orange, yellow and purple streaking across the horizon.

She wanted to punch something. She wanted to scream. So she did. She gave a shriek so loud and piercing that it rattled the glass doors behind her. A shriek for her own powerlessness, her grief for Matt and Jeannie.

When she finally quietened, her face was red and her throat was raw. She felt better; calmer and in control. Taking a long deep breath, she unclenched her fists and loosened her neck muscles. Then she turned and marched back inside.

She glared first at her mum, and then at Renard. ‘When exactly were you planning to tell me that we… that I have a living grandmother?'

‘It's not an easy conversation to have,' said Sandie. ‘Your father's mother is not a friend of ours.'

Did you know about this, Zach?

Em was shocked to see how pale and trembling Zach was. She realized with a stab of guilt that her explosive tantrum had sliced through his mind like a cleaver. His response to her inquiry was faint.

News to me, too.

Em was filled with remorse.
I'm so sorry. Are you OK?

I will be. But don't do that again without a warning.

Em sat down, and looked searchingly at the adults. ‘Explain,' she said.

‘Don't look at me,' Simon said, catching Sandie's glance. ‘I never wanted to keep Henrietta a secret in the first place.'

‘Henrietta and I never got along,' said Renard finally. ‘And she wanted to travel, to see the world… she did not want to live here for longer than she had to. One day she packed up and left with your dad when he was about five or six. I remained here.'

‘Why didn't you go with them?'

This time, the emotions among the adults were more subtle, complex and confusing. Em concentrated to catch the full range and depth of them. A volatile mix of regret and revenge was the strongest, but there were others too difficult to describe. They were emanating most strongly from Renard and Vaughn. The best Em could come up with was a discordant mash-up of loathing and longing.

Do you feel that?

Zach gave a subtle nod.
It's like love and hate at the same time. Is that possible?

‘Please, Renard… Grandpa,' said Em, holding her grandfather's attention in her mind, gently soothing it. ‘Tell me everything.'

Renard gave a throaty guffaw that flushed his grey face with colour and animated his worried eyes. ‘Emily Calder, are you trying to inspirit me?'

Em flushed as Vaughn started to laugh. Then Simon and Sandie. Soon everyone was roaring, and the tension of the past half-hour was broken.

‘Not cool, Em,' Vaughn grinned, ‘but awesome for trying.'

When the laughter settled, Renard clasped his hands on the table.

‘I did not leave the island and travel with your grandmother for two significant reasons,' he said. ‘Firstly, I thought that your father would be better living with his mother for a while, and seeing the world while he could.'

An odd use of words, Em thought.

‘Malcolm was schooled in Paris, Berlin and Hong Kong,' Renard continued. ‘He lived in Brazil and Bangkok and he grew up to be an excellent Guardian.' He hesitated. ‘Or so I thought.'

Vaughn jumped in. ‘We have recently had confirmation that Henrietta had been planning a coup among Guardians for decades, and grooming Malcolm to lead it. I believe that when Malcolm discovered Hollow Earth was not just a story, he shared the information with Henrietta. For her, the power and wealth that controlling such an enchanted place would give them… I think it was irresistible.'

‘What was the second significant reason?' signed Zach.

‘I cannot travel,' Renard said after a moment. ‘At least, not for as long as Henrietta would have had me do.'

‘But you're always travelling!' Em said in surprise.

As she spoke, however, she realized Renard hadn't left the island since Jeannie and Matt's disappearance.

‘The treasures created by Animare that we keep in the Abbey vault cannot be left unattended,' said Renard. ‘A direct descendant of the island's First Animare, Albion, must be present on Auchinmurn at all times to fulfil this duty. In past years, Jeannie and I have had that responsibility. With Jeannie gone, I bear the responsibility alone. The islands' connection to our kind, and our connection to the islands, are supernatural, intensely powerful and never to be neglected.'

Em tried making sense of this information. ‘You and Jeannie are both descendants of Albion?'

‘We are. It has never seemed like a burden, until recently. But as long as Jeannie is gone, then I must be here.'

‘Dumb rule,' Em scoffed. ‘Who decided that was the way it had to be? What would happen if you left?'

‘I would die,' Renard said simply. ‘The islands would die too, along with whatever else they are protecting.'

Sandie took Em's hand. ‘You know that means that you and Matt are descendants of Albion too, Emmie.'

Em's eyes widened. Her mum hadn't called her that in ages.

‘So Matt and I can never leave the islands? We're trapped here for our whole lives?'

‘Not as long as Jeannie and I are alive,' said Renard.

Em needed to move around, to think this through. She got up from the table and walked over to the model of the Abbey in the Middle Ages, which sat on a table in the corner of the kitchen. Matt and Zach had been working on it since they'd come to the island, and it was perfect in every detail. Renard had always told them that it was a good means of focusing their growing minds and controlling their imaginations.

Em picked up one of the tiny monks that Matt had taken such care in painting and turned it over in her hand. It had been rendered in fine detail, down to the tiny symbol of the monastic Order of Era Mina on the back of the monk's robe.

A geometric shape like a swirling helix.

A crowd of thoughts pounded into Em, all at once. The helix. The mysterious figure that had haunted her in the night. He was connected to the Abbey.

She held the proof in her hand.

And with it, she knew the identity of the mysterious figure of haunting her. He was Albion.

Auchinmurn Isle
The Middle Ages

The sun dipped behind the horizon. The wind howled across the bay. Matt's clothes were damp against his skin and his body ached from exhaustion. Worse, his stomach was rumbling furiously. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. He dug his fingers into the corner of his coat pockets in the hope of finding something, but there wasn't even a fuzzy Polo mint.

They were heading silently north-west towards the more rugged, uninhabited part of Auchinmurn. Solon was in the lead, his tunic singed and torn, with Carik following, clutching her wounded hand close to her chest. Matt brought up the rear.

Matt was astonished at how much Auchinmurn had changed over the centuries. He was adapting, slowly, to the overwhelming stink that permeated everything – a heady mix of burning peat, cooking pig fat, human waste and animal manure, all punctuated with the sour smells of sweat. But unlike in the twenty-first century, the island's forest reached all the way to the shoreline, giving them cover as they climbed to the caves high up in the hillside.

Solon stopped under a cluster of pine trees. ‘Can you climb this, Matt?'

Matt looked up at the dense, overgrown cliff face in front of them, and nodded.

Solon began to clear the way by hacking through the heavy wet brush with his sword as they climbed slowly up the cliff. Mud and water were still flowing through the bracken on this part of the island, so their ascent was a slippery one. Because of her swollen blistered hand, Carik fell backwards twice on to Matt. Her mistrust and wariness of him was still strong; he sensed it every time he set her back on her feet. He did his best to respond neutrally, but it wasn't easy. She and Solon both smelled sour, like burning wood tinged with rotting meat. It was hard not to wrinkle his nose and convey the wrong impression of his own feelings towards them both.

You hardly smell of scented soap
, he reminded himself. The phrase was Jeannie's, and the memory caught in his throat. He hoped his dad's lifelong relationship with the old housekeeper was keeping him from harming her.

As they climbed, Matt wondered what was on this part of the island in the present day. He, Em and Zach knew all the coves and caves near Seaport and on Era Mina, but he didn't think Auchinmurn's spelunkers were aware of smugglers' caves on this side of the island.

‘Look out!' Solon suddenly yelled, flattening himself against the crags as an avalanche of rocks and roots tumbled towards them.

Matt covered his head with his hands as rocks rained down on him, battering and cutting him. Curled against the rock face, he experienced a jolt of homesickness that took his breath away.

Carik reached out her good hand to Matt as the avalanche trickled to a halt.

‘You will see your sister again soon,' she said.

Kindness at last
, Matt thought wryly. She had obviously sensed his longing.

‘I'm fine,' he said shortly. ‘Keep going.'

They climbed on in silence. Solon was some way ahead now, almost at the ridge line.

‘Why did your father send those knights to attack us?' Carik asked abruptly.

Matt focused on where he was placing his hands. ‘I don't know. Maybe he didn't want us following him, seeing where he took Jeannie.'

The higher they climbed, the thicker the bracken and brambles became. The moon was full now, glittering on the bay below them. Matt's hands and face were covered in scratches. Above them, Solon had stopped at a thick curtain of bramble and hawthorn bushes, and Matt detected a cave opening behind their swinging branches.

‘May I use your magic glasses again?' Solon asked.

Matt breathlessly handed the opera glasses over. They huddled together on the ledge as Solon focused on the small island of Era Mina.

‘What are you looking at?' asked Matt.

Solon returned the glasses to Matt. ‘Brother Renard's tower on Era Mina. The one we are building to keep him safe from his own fracturing imagination. Look.'

The tower on Era Mina stood full height in Matt's time, slender and commanding. Right now, it was part-way through the process of being built.

The rocky promontory was swarming with hundreds of black knights in identical armour, cutting stone, mixing mortar, carrying bricks – building the tower at record speed and all moving in the same precise way that Matt, Solon and Carik had witnessed earlier on the beach. Matt wondered again at how his father was doing all of this. Guardians could not animate. What
were
these creatures? Where had they come from?

Solon took the glasses again. ‘Why does your father not animate the tower itself?'

‘He's a Guardian,' said Matt. ‘Not an Animare.'

Solon looked startled. ‘Then how is he doing this?'

‘I have no idea.'

They moved inside the cave and Solon dropped the brush cover, plunging them into darkness. Matt could feel and smell Carik standing next to him. The sense of her mistrust and intense curiosity assailed him.

Who are you?
she was saying, as clearly as if she were speaking the words aloud.

Matt wasn't sure he knew the answer to that either.