The Lighter That Shone Like A Star (Story of The South) (22 page)

“Phine, please don’t do this! None of that is true! Whoever is at the front door is the real criminal, and Sofia and I are in serious danger! Please!” Russell pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears. Their saviour turned out to be their captor after all, and she opened the front door.

Four tall men wearing grey, hooded cloaks barged through, knocking Phine to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, Russell saw Sofia slip her ScribblePad beneath her cardigan. Following her lead, he quickly pocketed his moments before two of The Creeps grabbed him by his arms.

“Let me go!” Russell shouted, kicking and writhing. They were too strong. He considered using his bracelet, but even if he could manage to turn the clasp it only made him invisible. They would still be holding him, even if they could not see him. His yells mixed with Sofia’s, although she was much more forceful than he was, managing to pull away from one of The Creeps. The back of his heavy hand slapped the side of Sofia’s face, and she and Russell were dragged from the cottage as Phine watched on in horror. She would not be getting her reward.

Still trying to fight back, but to no avail, Russell and Sofia were dragged to two vans and thrown into the back. They were separated.

“Where are you taking us?” he asked.

No answer.

“What do you want with us?”

No answer.

“Who are you?”

No answer.

The young man gave up. He remained in silence for just over an hour, according to his ScribblePad. He kept sneaking glances at it, just in case.
In case of what?

Maybe they were going back to Pipton. That would be the best-case scenario. But then Russell thought about his family and what The Creeps might have done to them. He felt sick, and only partly because of the bumpy tracks along which the vehicle was now rumbling.

He could feel the vibrations through the bench, making his stomach churn. Whatever he had eaten during the day would surely reappear at any given moment…

But then he felt another vibration, one that he recognised immediately.
One that he had not felt in a fortnight. His ScribblePad.

Nervous and excited, he glanced through the grate that divided him from The Creeps. They were too busy talking to keep an eye on their prisoner. Russell pulled the device from his pocket and his heart leapt.

Private Message from :

Hi

He unlocked his ScribblePad and used his stylus to write back,

Private Message to

MAX! Are you okay? Where are you?

He had to wait a full minute for his response.

Private Message from :

Do not leave.

Private Message from :

All of you stay here. Do not lock.

Russell realised that he was not the only recipient; some of his other friends began to join in wanting to know what was going on. Sofia, Freddie, Lornea…
But no Matthew. His heart sunk as he let out a low groan. He clasped a hand over his mouth.

“What are you doing?” asked the non-driving Creep. He looked back and saw Russell with his ScribblePad. The van slowed down to a halt. The Creep exited the van and threw open the back doors.

“Give it to me,” he ordered.

“No,” Russell refused.

The Creep stepped up into the van. Russell backed up to the metal grate, clutching the ScribblePad in his hand. He tapped the screen to stop it from unlocking itself and briefly saw the word ‘now’…

He was being pulled forwards, as if the small screen was sucking him in… And the van, The Creeps, the ground and the sky all disappeared from around him.

“Clemari, I’m afraid I have no idea what you are talking about,” Luc said calmly.

Max was far from calm. It was on the tip of his tongue, on the edge of his memory, but it had disappeared.
Think
.

“It doesn’t ring a bell for you at all?” he asked, frustrated.

“Ring a bell? What are the connotations?”

“It doesn’t sound familiar? ScribblePads… Your father said before he died, he said something about ScribblePads and a secret weapon. He told me to find them… He knew how, but he never told me. And I know; I know I do, but I just can’t remember.” Max was shouting, but he could not help himself. Anger, or perhaps excitement, was coursing through his veins but he did not know why. No, he could not
remember
why.

He stormed out of the grand hall and returned to his bedroom. There, on his bed where he had left it was his ScribblePad.

What do I do?

He picked it up and inspected it. There were no clues – nothing on any of his friends’ or Light on Landing’s Scribblers. His ScribblePad was the same as it always had been. It was infuriating, he felt so close to a breakthrough and yet nothing was happening.

Jill
.

Breaking all the rules, he found and pressed the telephone icon. After four long rings, her familiar raspy voice answered.

“Max, what’s wrong?” She sounded panicked.

“Nothing’s wrong, nothing at all,” replied Max.

“Then why are you calling me?! You know this is for emergencies, they’ll be able to trace this.”

“Exactly, but how?” Max asked.

She paused. “What do you mean, how?”

“How can they use ScribblePads to find people? Before Joz di… passed over, he tried to tell me but it was too late. Please, Jill. You’ve got to know. You have to!”

She sighed deeply, blowing air down her ScribblePad’s minute microphone. “I want you to know one thing: I never agreed with this. But there are many things my husband did that I did not agree with… Yes, I know.”

“Tell me, please.” Max did not ask this time, he ordered.

“There’s a room…”

When Jill had finished explaining where the room was, and how to enter it, Max felt as though he already knew – he was remembering rather than learning. As soon as he had hung up, he retrieved Luc and led the way to the hidden room.

The key was behind the tapestry, the door dissolved when he turned it in the lock, and the screens were before him. His mind accelerated, images whizzing before him. His friends’ faces on the screens, wondering if he had seen Zaak, questioning the meaning of what stood before him, and finally of Joz being thrown against the wall, smirking as he removed all memory of the room from Max and Luc’s minds.

“I… I seem to remember this place.”

Max smiled, “Oh, Luc. We’ve been here before. Many times. I
knew
I remembered!” He placed his forefinger to Luc’s forehead and showed his friend what he had seen, what he had recollected.

“My father was a powerful man and, at times, a nuisance,” Luc said.

It did not matter; they were on the cusp of bringing Max’s friends to Naegis, he knew it. Max walked over to the hub in the centre of the room. The computer was lit up, Max’s Scribbler profile on the screen. He did not need to know how or why; Joz had known that the next time Max and Luc were to enter this room it would be the right time.

All the screens were blank, but Max knew how to see his friends’ faces. He just knew.

Using the touch screen, he clicked on the ‘Private Message’ option and typed into the address bar:
, , , , .

In the message box, he simply wrote, ‘Hi’.

Almost instantly after hitting send, his friends’ faces appeared on the screens before him, except for Matthew’s. They were looking at their ScribblePads in shock, surprise, and excitement. Max allowed himself a grin, glad to see that his friends had missed him too.

“Clemari, you have to transport them here now, this instant. What if they turn them off, or lock them?”

Max shook his head. “Matthew isn’t there. Wait here, tell them to keep looking.”

The room around Max evaporated and he was back in his bedroom. He picked up his ScribblePad, found

and, for the second time that day, pressed the telephone icon.

Ring
ring…

Ring
ring…

Ring
ring…

Ring
ring…

Nothing.

He hung up, defeated, and transported himself back to the screens. Matthew’s face was still missing. Luc was typing frantically, trying to keep everyone from turning their gaze away from their ScribblePad.

“What do we do now?!” Luc asked, urgently.

“I have no idea! There must be something, a button or–”

Max looked at the screen in front of him. Two arrows, small and faint, were either side of the screen. Instinctively, the Clemari grasped it at either side and twisted it round and round.

When it felt loosened enough, Max yanked the screen and it came apart from the rest of the hub. Immediately it burst with bright purple light and rapidly grew hotter until Max could not bear to touch it any longer. He threw it onto the ground in front of him and the entire room filled with violet sparks.

Max was thrown backwards onto the floor near the doorway. Suddenly, another screen lit up on the wall, two dark eyes staring through the secret lens, and then the room was filled with a burst of white light. Jumping back to his feet, Max looked around him.

There stood Freddie, Sofia, Lornea and Russell. But there was no Matthew. Instead, stood where he should have been, was Jimmie from Light of the Landing. From behind him, Max heard a gasp.

He spun on his feet and saw Anne-Alicia. Finally – his friends back together again. But as he made to voice his joy, a wrinkled hand clasped around Anne-Alicia’s wrist. She smirked and, turning the clasp of her bracelet, vanished.

Freddie was the first to break the silent stillness of the room.

“Sofia!” he gasped, rushing towards his twin that he had not seen for weeks and throwing his arms around her. She
sighed a laugh of relief, the sight of her brother, safe and alive, filling her with gladness.

They loosened their tight grip on each other, eyes searching the room to see who else had arrived. Max smiled wearily at Sofia, walking up to her and planting a delicate kiss on her lips. Lornea hugged Freddie, catching Jimmie’s eyes over his shoulder.

Russell stood alone, crushed by Matthew’s absence. He noticed that Anne-Alicia, too, was missing. Had they not been found? Were they in trouble? Were they dead? All thoughts that were undoubtedly racing through his mind.

The only person in the room who had not moved was Luc. He was filled with a second-hand joy that came with witnessing so much happiness and relief in such a small space. His eyes fell upon reunited relatives, lovers, and friends. Perhaps he would not have felt such powerful emotion had he never have met his one and only friend, who was currently running his fingers through Sofia’s sleek red hair.

Max broke his tight squeeze on his girlfriend and made his way over to Russell. A brief hug, an exchange of words, and the shake of a head. Was he conveying Matthew’s inevitable demise to his friend, or acknowledging his lack of clarity on the situation? Whichever it was, thought Luc, Russell had not handled the news well.

As if magnetised by his muffled sobs, the rest of the room gravitated towards Russell offering words of comfort that could offer no solace. The five friends joined in a group embrace. Luc looked to his left, where the sixth member of their throng stood.

“I’m not being funny,” the young, olive-skinned man said. “But I really need to get back.”

“I know, and that will be arranged in due course. Despite what Max will tell you, it is no accident that you are here today,” Luc replied.

“In due cou… No, you don’t understand. I have to get back now!”

“I believe your friends are all currently at parties. They will not notice your absence for a few hours yet. By which time, you should be safe in your hotel room.”

“Should?”

Luc replied with a nod, before turning his head back towards the hugging group, dismissing an irked Jimmie.

His eyes caught Max’s. The Clemari understood and broke away from his friends.

“Clemari, we must act now. I too saw Anne-Alicia and her companion. Eimaj will know that both you and Freddie are here and she will be preparing her attack. You must act quickly. Make decisions without hesitation. Get your castle ready. This war from which you have been hiding has begun, and it is time to show Naegis that you are its king.”