The Forest of Lost Souls (19 page)

She thought about her gran again. She’d believed she was dead and now it seemed that she might be alive after all. The tiny possibility that she might see her again had been undermined by the Lunatrix’s remarks. Then the image of her grandfather, Leomido, popped into her head—she hadn’t known him for long, but she already loved him so much—followed by a string of other faces: Pavel, so tormented and yet so endearing; Abakum, the Fairyman who knew and understood everything; Gus… her confidant, whom she loved with all her heart. Unconditionally. Absolutely. He didn’t even know and, anyway, he loved Oksa, she was certain of it. How could anyone not love Oksa? Suddenly, she heard the Lunatrix’s words again. “An Impictured Runaway will make surrender of their life”. Zoe caught herself wondering something awful: if she had to decide who should die, whom would she choose? Emptiness immediately flooded into the panicky part of her mind and caused it to snap shut, protecting her from the terrible answer. The girl huddled smaller in her armchair and tried to force herself to breathe normally.

“W
E’RE POWERLESS TO DO ANYTHING TO HELP
!” roared Naftali suddenly, letting go of Brune’s hand. “It’s so frustrating…”

Dragomira jumped.

“Which is why we must focus on damage limitation here!” continued the imposing Swede, his emerald eyes shining with anger.

“But the harm has been done, my friend,” remarked Dragomira, sounding resigned.

Naftali jumped up.

“Where’s the Dragomira I know and love?” he thundered, towering over her. “Where’s the fighter, the confident, spirited Gracious who’s supposed to show us the way to Edefia? You’re not the kind of woman who gives up so easily!”

Dragomira sighed in vexation, her eyes fixed on the hard-working Spinollias deftly stitching her arm.

“What can we do?” she asked, straightening up.

“First of all, we need to find out whether Marie is being well treated,” said Naftali. “Has the Tumble-Bawler returned from its fact-finding mission in the Sea of the Hebrides?”

“Not yet…”

“It’ll be here soon,” said the tall man reassuringly. “But I already know what it’ll tell us about Marie: the Felons can’t risk mistreating her. I think we’re bound to be contacted soon. Marie will be used as a hostage to demand certain things from us.”

“The picture,” murmured Dragomira.

“Think about it,” continued Naftali. “What’s most important for the Felons? What’s their ultimate aim?”

Dragomira, Brune and Jeanne thought for a few seconds, then chorused:

“Returning to Edefia!”

“Exactly!” agreed Naftali. “And what—or rather, whom—do they need to do that? Oksa! She’s the only one who can open the Portal and that’s the only thing they’re concerned about: using Oksa as a key. Their attempts to kidnap her are proof of that. Let’s face it: at the moment, the picture is only one way to lay their hands on our Young Gracious. Thanks to you, Dragomira, the picture is safe. And it must stay safe no matter what. Forgive me for asking, but are you sure it can’t be found?”

“I’m sure,” declared Dragomira. “To be honest, I don’t even know where it is at the moment.”

The four Runaways looked at her in amazement. Had she lost her mind? Was she becoming senile? Naftali narrowed his eyes, his forehead creased in a worried frown, then his face lit up with a broad smile as he grasped the meaning of his old friend’s words.

“You secretly asked a third party to help!” he exclaimed in relief. “Do you know how glad I am that you’re still in full possession of your wits, Dragomira Pollock?”

“That’s very clever,” added Brune. “There’s no better way of keeping it safe than not knowing where it is. Well done!”

Dragomira smiled humbly and gave a disparaging wave of her hand.

“Here’s my theory,” continued Naftali. “The Felons, like us, have to wait for Oksa to be Disimpictured, which keeps her out of their clutches for the time being. But when she reappears, they’ll use Marie to apply pressure on Oksa to lead them to the Portal and open it for them.”

“You’re forgetting that Oksa cannot open the Portal unaided!” remarked Dragomira. “We need the medallion and the Felons need the Guardian of the Definitive Landmark.”

“That’s true,” admitted Naftali. “The ball’s in their court because Marie gives them a serious advantage over us. Will we be able to withstand their demands? I fear not and you know that as well as I do. We’ll be forced to capitulate at some point or other. Or at least to make some concessions.”

“Unless we rescue Marie,” said Zoe in a small voice.

“Unless we rescue Marie,” confirmed Naftali, nodding.

“But we’re in no position to do that!” exclaimed Jeanne. “We don’t have the resources.”

“You’re right,” agreed Naftali. “We must wait patiently until our friends are Disimpictured, so that we leave nothing to chance. There’s strength in numbers, after all. In the meantime, we’ll have to be extra vigilant, because there’s no guarantee that the Felons will just sit and wait patiently. We need to be prepared for them to bring out the big guns to get hold of the picture before Disimpicturement.”

“There’s absolutely no danger they’ll find the picture!” exclaimed Dragomira triumphantly. Naftali turned to her, looking far less convinced.

“Careful, Dragomira. Underestimating our enemies may be our Achilles heel and could weaken our position. Particularly as our worst fears have already been realized,” he added sombrely.

Embarrassed, Dragomira looked down and nodded, without saying a word.

“Hey! Look who’s here!” cried Zoe suddenly.

She rushed over to the skylight and opened it for the breathless Tumble-Bawler, which was tapping on the windowpane. The small scout fluttered over to a rickety occasional table, where it perched and gave a weary sigh. Zoe handed it a thimble-sized glass of water, which it gulped down in one, eyes half-closed, as it caught its breath. She stroked its tiny back, which was aching after its long journey.

“Mmm, what a divine massage!” it purred, rocking from left to right.

“Tumble, did you see Marie?” asked Dragomira, unable to contain her impatience.

“Tumble-Bawler of the Old Gracious reporting!” exclaimed the
creature
. “There are 398 miles between this house and the place where the Young Gracious’s mother is being held captive on the island in the Sea of the Hebrides. I travelled nine and a half miles between the coast and the island of the Felons on a fishing boat moving at a speed of sixteen miles an hour, then one and a quarter miles on the back of a very helpful seal and the last half-mile swimming in water whose temperature was fifteen degrees centigrade. When I came to the island, I covered 2,438 feet to arrive at the building where Marie Pollock now resides. It is a very big house: seventy-two feet long by fifty-nine feet wide. It has a raised ground floor, an upper floor and two basements hollowed out of the stone in which I spotted at least four laboratories.”

“Two basements?” repeated Brune in surprise.

“Yes,” confirmed the Tumble-Bawler. “One basement the same size as the ground floor and a second basement beneath the first. It was hard for me to gauge the measurements of the second basement, because I couldn’t get in there. But, from my calculations, it’s twice as big as the first.”

“That’s huge!” remarked Naftali.

“The building is densely populated with human beings,” informed the Tumble-Bawler. “I counted twenty-eight people living there, as well as the Young Gracious’s mother.”

Dragomira frowned.

“Twenty-eight?” she exclaimed, looking at her friends in alarm. “That means Orthon and Mercedica have put together quite a commando group… Would you happen to know, Tumble-Bawler, if they’re all Runaways?”

“Yes, they are Runaways and their descendants,” it assured her. “I spotted Mercedica de La Fuente and her daughter Catarina, as well as Gregor and Mortimer McGraw.”

“Mortimer!” exclaimed Zoe, sounding upset.

“Yes, and also Lukas’s two sons and three grandsons.”

“Wait a moment,” broke in Naftali, raising his hand. “You mean Lukas, Edefia’s renowned mineralogist?”

“The same!” declared the Tumble-Bawler.

“Do you know him?” asked Zoe.

“Oh yes,” sighed Naftali. “Lukas was a brilliant mineral specialist back in Edefia. If I remember correctly, he concentrated his research on the energy potential of stones from Retinburn, isn’t that so, Brune?”

The tall woman nodded regretfully.

“He was also extremely interested in crystallochemistry,” Brune recalled. “Lukas was an out-and-out Firmhand. In other words, he had all the typical personality traits of that tribe in spades. He was particularly known for that chilly arrogance which caused some of the Firmhands to join forces against the ruling Gracious. Of course, I haven’t forgotten that I belong to that tribe too, as does my husband, and that you both have Firmhand blood,” she added, turning to Jeanne and Zoe. “I’ll respect the Firmhand tribe to my dying day, but I can’t turn a blind eye to the part they played in bringing about the Chaos which destroyed Edefia. Because of men like Ocious. Or Lukas.”

“Was he dangerous?” asked Zoe.

“Very!” replied Brune. “That’s what we discovered, in any case, when the Chaos began. Lukas showed his true colours and there were some who paid for it with their lives.”

Brune nodded, lost in her memories.

“He must be about ninety now,” remarked Dragomira.

“Ninety-three, four months and fifteen days exactly,” said the Tumble-Bawler. “His two sons are called Hector and Pyotr, and they are fifty-two and forty-nine respectively. Pyotr has three sons who live on the island, Kaspar, Konstantin and Oskar. Let me add that it was Oskar who visited your apartment with Catarina and Gregor, my Old Gracious.”

“This new generation is certainly keen to follow in the footsteps of
its grandparents,” muttered Dragomira sarcastically. “Did you recognize any other Felons, Tumble?”

“I snooped around with the greatest enthusiasm, but the fear of being discovered and captured caused me to take certain precautions which prevented me from performing a more in-depth inspection. I did however hear the Goranov wailing in one of the rooms in the basement. Then I recognized the Abominari and a Long-Gulch who used to be in charge of the Memorary in the Gracious’s Archive Department.”

“Well, well!” said Naftali bitterly. “Don’t tell me you’re talking about Agafon?”

“You must be psychic!” replied the Tumble-Bawler. “It was indeed Agafon, who’s now eighty-nine, eight months and twelve days old.”

“So quite a few of us were ejected from Edefia,” remarked Dragomira. “More than I thought.”

“From what I found out,” continued the Tumble-Bawler, “Agafon ended up in Finland after passing through the Portal. He now lives on the island in the Sea of the Hebrides with his twin granddaughters, Annikki and Vilma, who are both twenty-eight years and seventeen days old. I couldn’t identify anyone else, my Old Gracious. As for Marie Pollock, I found her in the fifth room on the first floor to the left of the central corridor, starting from the southern end of the building. I took the liberty of slipping into her room to speak to her.”

“How is she?” asked Dragomira eagerly.

“She is physically fine. The Felons are treating her well and her room is comfortable. Unfortunately, the Robiga-Nervosa continues to decimate her nervous system, but I saw Agafon’s granddaughter, Annikki, who is a nurse, give her some injections of Vermicula, which seemed to make our dear invalid feel better. Annikki looks after her attentively, because she knows she’s the mother of the Young Gracious and she respects that, despite being a Felon. However, the care she lavishes on Marie does nothing to relieve her anxiety: her imprisonment and the absence of news about those she loves are a continual source of suffering.”

The Tumble-Bawler continued rocking from left to right, disturbed by these recent memories.

“When I saw how upset she was, I took the risk of approaching her,” it continued. “I waited for two hours and forty-three minutes until Annikki went out and I entered the room. The Young Gracious’s mother seemed extremely happy to see me. I told her where she was being kept and assured her that the Runaways were making plans to come and rescue her. She told me to beware the power of the Felons and not to take any risks. Then Annikki came back and sat down in the room. I had to hide under the bed, where I waited for one hour, eighteen minutes and three seconds before I could get out. I escaped by crawling over to the hearth and climbing up the smoke-filled flue for seventeen feet and nine inches at a temperature of fifty-two degrees centigrade. It took eleven hours and twelve minutes to get back to Bigtoe Square in London, taking various means of transport: seagull, pilot whale, boat, cattle truck, pigeon and tourist coach. I hope my report will be useful to my Old Gracious and her friends.”

“No doubt about that, Tumble,” said Dragomira reassuringly, leaning back against the armchair. “No doubt at all.”

Z
OE’S MIND WAS RACING AFTER HEARING THE
T
UMBLE
-Bawler’s report, which made it hard to fall asleep. She was comforted by the thought that Marie was being well treated and the Felons were doing their best to alleviate her suffering. It was in their interest to do so, she reasoned. If Marie died, they’d lose their only means of exerting pressure on them. But what was really occupying her thoughts in the half-dark of this summer night was the news she’d had of Mortimer. The Tumble-Bawler might not have said very much, but the mere mention of her second cousin had unsettled her. For a few months he’d been like a brother to her and, despite his brusque manner and intense dislike of the Pollocks, he’d treated her with a kindness that made up for the
affection
she’d missed so much since the death of her parents and her gran. He’d shown her nothing but consideration and generosity since she’d arrived at the McGraws’. His behaviour had been the complete opposite of what she’d expected from his outward appearance… She’d even wondered how someone could be so different! “Go to your room, Zoe. Don’t worry. I’ll pop up and see you in a bit.” Those were the last words Mortimer had ever said to her. He was crying as he said them. Naturally: his father had just been vaporized before his very eyes. But, despite his promise, Mortimer had never showed up. He’d run away, leaving her all alone, knowing nothing about what was going on. Was she angry with him? Yes, a little. He could have taken her with him; she could have
made herself useful. Instead, she was now living with the Pollocks. And fate had been very kind to her. The Pollocks had accepted her and she felt like she really belonged to this amazing new family. They were all so loving and warm, which was so much more than she could have hoped for when she arrived in Bigtoe Square. But despite their many qualities, they could never replace the family she’d lost. She thought about her gran. If, by some stroke of luck, she was reunited with her, how would Reminiscens react? Whom would she feel drawn to? Leomido, her lost love, one of the mainstays of the Pollock family? Or Mortimer, the son of her twin brother, Master of the Felons on the Outside? Zoe was more aware than ever of the dual heritage which made it impossible for her to be sure of her own feelings. The Gracious-Firmhand-Werewall mix weighed heavily on her, plunging her into an abyss of doubt. Which part of her was the strongest?

Everything was such a muddle. She thought about Ocious, the great Felon who’d instigated the downfall of Edefia and the Gracious’s clan—that man was her great-grandfather. Malorane, the naïve Gracious, was on the other side of the family tree. The blood of those two illustrious figures flowed through her veins… She sighed, feeling unsettled. Did she have a role to play in this saga? And if she did, would she stand with Leomido or with Mortimer? Did she really have to take sides? She rolled over onto her stomach in bed and threw off her duvet. When the time came, she’d listen to her heart, which was now aching and silent.

Exhausted, she eventually fell asleep, her head spinning with
nightmarish
images and tantalizing hopes. Gus’s sad eyes kept coming back to fill her dreams. She half-opened her eyes and drifted, not quite awake and not asleep. She knew Gus was very much like her. Although their origins were different, they were similar in that they both had a darker side which caused them heartache and stemmed from the fact that they didn’t know where they belonged. Struggling with feelings of low self-esteem, Zoe never stood up for herself and showed people what she was really made of. And she knew nothing would ever change until she
could truly accept her origins.

A sudden shiver ran down her spine, like a draught of cold air passing through her body. She shut her eyes, upset by all these gloomy thoughts, and didn’t see the strange figure, which had just risen from the surface of her back, pass through the wall and disappear into the night…

A couple of miles away from Bigtoe Square, Merlin Poicassé suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. He had the nasty feeling there was someone in his room. He turned on his bedside lamp and looked around with a frown. There was nothing there. He turned off the lamp and lay down again. A second shiver ran down his spine, although not as strong as the one that had just woken him. He glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table: ten past two. He sighed, stretched and pulled his duvet over him. A few minutes later he was in a deep sleep.

The man passed through the wall and looked round the dark room. He silently walked over to the girl’s bed, his hazy body floating above the ground. His fingertips lightly caressed the sleeping girl’s arm and she shifted slightly at his cold touch. The man froze for a second, his senses alert. The girl turned over in bed and half-opened her eyes. She lay like this for a moment, gazing vacantly into space. The light from the street filtered through the curtains, bathing the room in the milky glow she liked so much. Her eyes wandered around the room before settling on an odd form standing by her bed. A human form with fragmented outlines which looked like a pixelated photo. Was it a ghost? A hallucination? She knew, logically, that she should scream and jump out of bed, but she wasn’t afraid, which surprised her almost more than the blurred figure standing there. She narrowed her eyes, then opened them wide when
the form came nearer and put his indistinct hand on her forehead.

“Sir?” she murmured in surprise. “Is that you?”

An icy wave washed over her brain, flooding every inch of her body. Before she sank into a dreamless sleep again, she could have sworn she recognized the malicious smile of the late Dr McGraw.