The clattering died away, and Gritting’s footsteps approached the door. The nearer they came, the softer and slower they seemed. He was very close now. Nothing separated them except the width of the door.
She clung desperately to the handle, knowing it was hopeless. There wasn’t a chance of holding the door closed against him. She stood there for what seemed like a long time, although it wasn’t much more than a second or two, waiting for the terrible feel of his grasp on the other side of the handle. It never came. Instead she heard something unexpected.
It was the sound of the key turning in the lock.
Daisy caught her breath in surprise. His steps retreated. She heard him in the kitchen and then the sound of the back door closing. She waited another minute and then pushed against the door. It was as solid as a wall.
She was locked in.
Daisy almost never went into the wine cellar. There was nothing in there to interest her. Just a lot of cobwebby bottles on shelves. Yet she had been down there often enough to know that there was no other way out of the place. Her hand crept up the wall, searching for the light cord.
The bulb hadn’t been replaced in a long time. The light was dim and flickering. But now she could see down the narrow staircase to the cavern below.
She turned and banged loudly on the door. Bad as it might be to confront Gritting, it was still better than being trapped down there.
“Hey!” Daisy called. “Hey! I’m locked in!”
She listened for a moment. “I’M LOCKED IN!”
Nobody answered.
Daisy sat down on the top step. It was warm and airless in the cellar, and she was already feeling thirsty.
“Good thing you’ve got plenty to drink, then,” Frank said in a sarcastic voice. She was down below, leaning casually against the nearest shelf of bottles.
“I can’t drink it,” Daisy said. “It’ll make me sick.”
“Sir Clarence drinks whiskey,” Frank commented. “Once he drank a whole bottle and started running around on his knuckles.”
“His knuckles?”
“He thought he was an orangutan,” Frank explained. “He climbed up a baobab tree. Took me half an hour and seven bananas to get him down.”
“I don’t believe a single thing you say!”
“A tomb is a funny place to keep wine,” Frank said, looking around her. “Who’s buried here, anyway?”
“It’s not a tomb—it’s a wine cellar.”
“Is that what you call it in Valcadia?” Frank pulled out a notebook and pencil. “Interesting . . . ”
“I was only trying to make Gritting go away,” Daisy said, changing the subject. “But he didn’t go away. All he did was get wet.”
“And very angry,” she added, remembering the sight of his face at the window. Despite the warmth of the cellar, she shivered slightly.
“I’ll give you points for effort,” Frank said, putting her notebook away. “But it was a complete and utter failure.”
Daisy didn’t say anything. For once, Frank was right.
“The main thing wrong with your plan,” Frank continued, “was you aimed too low. You tried to make him leave. You’ve got to do more than that. You’ve got to defeat him. To do that,” she said casually, “you’ve probably got to hurt him.”
“I’m not going to hurt him!” Daisy cried. “Why would I do that?”
In the dim light of the cellar, Frank’s figure was half lost in shadow, her eyes no more than two dark holes. “Why not?” she said. “He’s already tried to kill you twice.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“What about the strawberries?” Frank said.
Daisy didn’t answer.
“You knew your pet got sick from the strawberries,” Frank continued. “You didn’t want to admit it, did you?”
“That’s not true!” Daisy said, pressing her hands tight between her knees. “It’s not . . . ” She paused, drawing a deep breath. “There’s a tub of weed killer in the gardener’s old shed,” she said slowly. “I know he went in there. He said he was looking for tools.”
“Of course he did!” Frank said. “And what about the next day, when he saw you walking around like nothing had happened? Remember what he said?”
Daisy thought of Gritting in the Winter Grove, with the black trash bag in his hand and his eyes on her face.
Didn’t you enjoy the strawberries?
“He knew I hadn’t eaten them!” Daisy said with a rush of horror.
“Now you get it,” Frank said. “It’s taken you enough time! Don’t feel bad,” she added in a kinder voice. “Not everyone can be clever, you know. I’m sure you have many other good qualities . . . ”
“What was the other time?” Daisy said. “You said he’s tried it twice. To kill me, I mean.”
Frank shrugged and looked around. “He’s locked you up in here, hasn’t he? Thinks you can’t get out.”
“Maybe it was just a mistake,” Daisy said. But she knew it was a feeble explanation. She had banged on the door of the wine cellar and shouted as loudly as she could. Gritting must surely have heard her.
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” she protested. “He could have tried to hurt me when . . . when we were drinking tea, or when we were standing outside, or anytime. He didn’t have to be sneaky about it.”
“I think he wants to make it look like an accident,” Frank said. “You’ll be just one more little skeleton among all the dead down here. And once you’re gone, he gets to keep Valcadia all to himself.”
“What am I going to do?” Daisy cried. “How am I going to get out?”
“It’s a tomb, isn’t it? There are always trapdoors and secret passageways in places like this. To foil tomb robbers, you know.”
“There aren’t any trapdoors or secret passageways!”
“Have you looked?”
“I don’t have to!”
Above Daisy’s head, the lightbulb made a crackling noise and then went out.
TWENTY-THREE
“Frank? Are you still there?”
The wine cellar was silent. Daisy got to her feet and felt her way down the stairs, her hands groping along the wall. At the bottom, not knowing where the stairs ended, she nearly tripped, her arms flailing in the darkness.
“Please still be there,” she whispered. There was no reply. The sharp, fruity smell of the wine was even stronger. Daisy stretched out her hands and took a few tiny steps forward. She felt the cool curve of glass and ran her fingers over a row of bottles. To the best of her memory, there were about five or six rows of shelves in the wine cellar, with more bottles stacked against the walls. She crept along to the end of a shelf and turned. There were bottles on either side of her now.
“Where are you?” she said.
Daisy wished that she hadn’t gone down the stairs. She should have stayed at the top, where there was at least a crack of light underneath the door.
She fumbled her way towards where she thought the stairs had been and found she was blocked. She turned. She couldn’t be lost. Not in a space that was barely bigger than her bedroom. The darkness had robbed her of all sense of direction. She turned again, stumbled, and grabbed at a shelf to keep from falling. Bottles tumbled around her. She heard the sound of breaking glass and felt liquid splash on her legs.
Her feet were bare. Daisy leaped back automatically to avoid cutting herself and slammed into another shelf, sending more bottles toppling. She fell hard, curling into a ball and covering her head with her hands. For a moment or two, she was aware of nothing except the crash and thunder of objects falling all around her.
If Gritting were anywhere nearby, he must surely have heard the noise. Daisy waited for the sound of the wine-cellar door opening. But it never came. She staggered to her feet, half gagging on the thick, rich smell of wine that rose all around her. The floor was covered with bits of broken glass. She turned to her right and immediately bumped into a cold wall of the cellar. She groped her way along it, hoping
to find the stairs again. Instead she found something else.
It was the handle of a door.
There was a way out after all. Frank had been right.
Daisy didn’t give herself a chance to worry whether the door was locked or not. She pulled the handle.
The door opened and Daisy instantly felt along the wall for a light switch. She was standing on a tiny landing with a flight of stairs leading out of sight. The stairs were extremely narrow and covered with a thick layer of dust. Although she had never seen them before, Daisy wasn’t completely surprised to find them. There were many such flights of staircases in Brightwood Hall. Her mum had told her that the servants used them in the old days.
The stairs turned a corner and continued up. Daisy thought she must be on the second floor of the house by now. She reached another landing, with a door to the left and one to the right. She tried each but they were both locked.
Up and up she went, her bare feet leaving tracks in the dust. At the top, there was a corridor and a single door. Below the handle, there was the outline of a handprint in faded blue paint. It was tiny, far smaller than Daisy’s own hand would have made.
She drew in her breath and opened the door. The room was dark. Her fingers searched for the light, found it, and switched it on.
Daisy knew at once where she was because there was a garden painted on the walls. Dandelion spores drifted above the meadow and rose like stars up to the blue-sky ceiling. Around the little window, the trees were in blossom and trailing roses curled above the bed.
The room had been her mum’s bedroom when she was a little girl.
Daisy entered slowly, as if her step might break something.
Her mum had awoken every morning in this little bed. She had played with the toys in the cupboard. And at night, she had gone to sleep with the moonlight casting shadows over the painted foxgloves and forget-me-nots.
The room hadn’t been touched since then. It had simply been left behind.
Daisy walked over to the bed. It was still made up, although the sheets were yellow with age and a corner of one trailed in the dust. She bent to tuck it back in. There was a box underneath the bed. Daisy got down on her stomach and pulled it out.
It was just an old shoe box, not nearly as sturdy as the boxes her mum used now. But Daisy knew it was a Day Box because it had a date written on one end. Inside was a twisted handkerchief, a label from a cereal box, a plastic bracelet, and a beautiful doll. The doll was wearing a yellow dress with yellow matching shoes.
Daisy lifted her out carefully. She touched the doll’s hair and ran a finger over the outlines of her face.
It was Dolly Caroline. She had been made to look exactly like Daisy’s mum, with the same shape to her nose and mouth, the same beautiful gray eyes. She was so lifelike, it was almost like meeting her own mother when she had been a child. Years and years ago, long before the accident. When the topiary creatures had still been green, and there were parties in the ballroom and Brightwood Hall was filled with laughter instead of dusty boxes.
“Oh, Mum,” Daisy said, hugging the doll tight to her heart. “Poor little Mum . . . ”
All Daisy’s life, her mum had taught her that if you didn’t hold on to things, they would be lost. But if Dolly Caroline hadn’t lost a shoe all those years before, her mum would have stayed on the Everlasting. She would have died with the rest of her family. And then Daisy herself would never have been born.
Maybe losing things wasn’t so terrible.
Maybe some things were meant to be lost.
TWENTY-FOUR
There was another door out of her mum’s bedroom. It opened onto a corridor almost completely jammed with objects and furniture. Daisy got to her knees and began to crawl through the thickets of chair legs and floor lamps, over logs of rolled-up carpets and deep into forgotten caverns beneath tables.
At one point, the way was completely blocked by several huge dressers. She couldn’t climb over them because they were covered with a jumble of what looked like plates and china ornaments. And the dressers were wedged so tightly against the wall that she couldn’t squeeze past.
It seemed no wonder her mum’s old room had been forgotten. Nobody could reach it.
She hesitated for a second and then jumped, straddling the width of the corridor with her palms and the soles of her bare feet pressed tight against the walls. It was hard, but by bracing her arms and legs and moving quickly, she managed to keep her body suspended above the dressers while making her way to the end of the corridor before dropping to the floor again.
Daisy squeezed her aching arms and tried to figure out where she was in the house. She went along another corridor and then down a flight of stairs, and suddenly found herself at the far end of the Portrait Gallery.
She heard the clock striking. It was late. Eleven o’clock at night.
Daisy went back to her room. Her face was pale when she looked in the mirror, her hair wild around her face. She tried to tuck the strands back into her braid, but it was no use.
She looked terrible. She looked like a frightened little ghost.
Normally her mum did her hair. She used a silver-backed hairbrush that used to belong to her grandmother. She brushed and brushed until Daisy’s hair fell in a satin sheet to her waist. Sometimes she sang:
Down in the valley, the valley so low,
Hang your head over, hear the winds blow . . .
Gritting for sure thought she was a frightened little ghost. Daisy clutched her braid at the nape of her neck, pulling it as tight as she could, and reached for her knife with the other hand. He thought he could get rid of her like he had gotten rid of the weeds and the rabbits.
He was wrong.
Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,
Angels in heaven know I love—
Daisy closed her eyes and cut as firmly as she could.
When she opened her eyes, she looked completely different. She didn’t look frightened any longer. She looked ragged and fierce and real. Daisy glanced down at the long coil of her braid still hanging from her hand. Now that it wasn’t a part of her anymore it looked like any other object. Something that she might not even have recognized as hers unless she had just cut it off her own head.
“That’s better,” Frank said from the other side of the room. “Now you look like you’re ready to put up a fight. But you can’t be wearing those little-kid shorts. I suggest a stout pair of jungle pants.”
“Jungle pants?”
“Dark green with plenty of pockets,” Frank informed her. “Plus loops for hanging things off.”
Daisy went to her chest of drawers. “These are the right color,” she said, holding up a pair of trousers she wore when she helped mow the lawn. “Will these do?”
“I suppose they’ll have to,” Frank said, clearly unimpressed.
Daisy was changing into the trousers when she remembered the card with the kangaroo that she’d found in her mother’s bedroom. It was still in the pocket of her shorts.
“I found another relic,” she told Frank, pulling it out.
The kangaroo was brown, with a baby peeking out of its pouch. Underneath the photo, it said: GREETINGS FROM DOWN UNDER!
Daisy turned the card over and looked at the date. “It’s from ages ago,” she said. “Eleven years.” Gritting had written:
Dear Caroline,
You’ve ignored me for a long time, but now you won’t need to do it any longer! I’ve left the country. I’m going into the hotel business with a partner in Australia. I don’t plan on coming back.
I hope you have a good life. I certainly will!
Daisy thought it was a rather nasty message, although she wasn’t sure exactly why. She had felt the same about the letter Gritting had written to her mother. As if there was something bad hiding just behind the words.
“He killed my horse,” she told Frank. “Did you know that?”
Frank shook her head in disgust.
“He did it for n
o good reason,” Daisy said. “Just for the fun of it.”
“You can’t trust anyone who kills things for fun,” Frank commented. “They’re rotten on the inside. You’ve got to deal with this fellow.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Daisy said.
“I find most things easy,” Frank said.
“So how should I deal with him?”
“It’s obvious,” Frank said, looking smug. “So obvious, even you should get it.”
Daisy thought that real or not, Frank was begging to be kicked.
“So tell me!”
Frank folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head to one side in a patronizing manner. “I’ll make this simple. Lost cities always have temples in them, don’t they? And what do temples have?”
Daisy stared at her blankly.
Frank sighed. “They have traps! Floors that slide open, knives that come out of the wall—that kind of thing. All you have to do is lure this rival explorer into the temple and wait for him to get caught.”
Daisy was furious with herself for believing—even for a moment—that Frank might have anything useful to suggest. “That’s completely ridiculous!” she snapped.
“Where’s the fellow now?” Frank said, ignoring her. “Thanks to you, he can’t get back across the river because you destroyed his boat. Which means he could be . . . anywhere.”
“I think he’s in the room above the garage,” Daisy said. “The lights are on up there. He must be staying there for the night.”
“Good,” Frank said. “That gives us time. It’s still hours to morning.”
“I don’t even have a temple!” Daisy burst out.
“Then you’d better hurry up and find one,” Frank said.
TWENTY-FIVE
Daisy didn’t dare to switch on the chandelier in the Marble Hall in case Gritting was still awake. There was a clear view of the house from the room above the garage, and she didn’t want him to look out and see her. Instead she put on a couple of lights that stood on a table near the entrance to the ballroom.
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