by Ariel Dodson
“Well, Grandad always says that there’s a million things to be learned from the birds,” Robbie poked up the fire. “He says that all you have to do is wait for a sign. It’s almost like a secret code sometimes, he says.”
“Where is your grandfather?” Arlen asked suddenly. “I haven’t seen him for a while.”
“I’m not sure,” Robbie gazed around him, as if anticipating the appearance of the old man at any minute. “I was sure he was going to be here. We had the board all set up for a game.” He stopped, and the three suddenly uncomfortably remembered how the door had been swinging wide open upon their arrival, the small front room cold and damp with the sea wind, and the chess pieces, which Robbie had so carefully rearranged on the board, indignantly spilt in the grate and covered in grey ashes. Robbie shrugged, a worried expression crossing his face. “I don’t know where he is.”
“What’s that?” Arlen asked then, quickly. The others followed her gaze to the front room curtain, where a scanty piece of net beckoned from between the thick drapes. There was something there. They could hear a dragging, tearing sound from behind the material, as if in tune with the fierce gusts of air.
“Well, there’s one way to find out,” Robbie strode over to the curtain and pulled it back with a firm yank. Behind it the sea wind raged and whined its call into the room as the net billowed in fat, shapeless form, snagged halfway down by several shattered, jagged pieces of glass where the window had been broken. Clinging to the toothlike edges were a few fine, white hairs and several grey and white feathers, stained brightly with blood.
“One thing’s for sure. It was a bird that did it,” Arlen remarked firmly, as she arranged her pillows. Robbie had insisted they take the small attic room where he had been sleeping. He was going to bunk in the front room to wait for his grandfather, and he wanted to leave Mac’s room clear in case he was hurt. None of them had liked the look of that window.
They had searched the outside of the house but there was no sign of the old man, and the strength of the storm had grown, the harsh bullets of rain blinding their vision and the wind swelling in a fierce roar against them, almost as if it were herding them back to the house. They could do nothing but wait.
“But you don’t think a seagull – well, I mean,” Alice stopped for a moment, as if in disbelief, “dragged him through the window?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Arlen stopped by a small round porthole and sighed as she gazed out to sea, the wind of Southmore harping her elflocks around her face. She frowned. “Something doesn’t quite add up here. Why would old Mac have his telescope trained on our castle? And it was. And why would he devotedly be following the antics of the birds? He’s never appeared to be all that keen on birds to me.”
“Not unless – he was waiting for a signal from them,” Alice turned to face her sister, her voice rising to a squeak.
“And if that’s the case,” Arlen finished, “it makes me wonder just whose side old Mac is actually on.”
Arlen twisted onto her left side again. Surely it was nearly morning. As if in answer, a large clock struck two hours in a booming voice from somewhere downstairs.
“Ohhh,” Arlen threw herself onto her front and pulled the pillow over her head in an effort to drown out the noise and hopefully suffocate herself to sleep. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t find a comfortable position. A hard lump digging into her side wasn’t helping, and, rolling over again, she felt curiously through the bedclothes. Her fingers rested on something round and rough and very cold, which shone, pale and luminous, in her palm. It was the pearl she had found on the beach, still half wrapped in its dark, damp covering. It must have fallen out of her jeans pocket when she was preparing for bed. She had forgotten about it, and now, in the dusky moonlight weaving through the porthole, she examined the small object carefully.
The wrapping was made of a thick, rich material, although it was wet and crusty from the salt of the sea. Midnight blue and raven black, and a strange interlacing pattern of coils and swirls in silver thread. She knew it – she just couldn’t remember where. Running her fingers lightly over it, the subtle pattern was suddenly disturbed by a jagged, uneven break in the woof. She shuddered suddenly, and turned her attention to the gem.
It looked like a normal pearl. Quite large, but nothing unusual. Not like the alchemist’s pair, which lay wrapped together in Alice’s pullover, resting on the book by her pillow. And yet there was something strange about it. A fierce dent, so savage that it had punctured the smooth, round surface and left it craggy and rough. Arlen traced her fingers carefully over the harsh marks. They were strange – almost like teeth marks, she thought, shivering, as the fragment of silvery threads seemed to turn to ice in her hand, painful to the touch, and she was suddenly gripped with a fierce intensity of vision, her body so cold and alert that she was shaking. Waves of images flooded through her like a sea, until she felt like a doll hurtled through the cruel roar of the ocean. Memories submerged her, the woven cloak flapping in the gale, hair streaming around her face in stinging lashes. The rage tore through her like an iron lance, and she felt as though her heart had been sliced in two, drowning in its own blood.
He was there, his iron grey eyes steely in the dawn as she faced him, the wind rising above them like walls, his greed resting on his lips.
Anguish seemed to pour from her, every breath she took screaming pain, and the hand which held the charm firmly around her neck trembled slightly. She would not succumb. She would not yield. Her cloak billowed about her, mingling with the dark strands of hair, and its silver pattern seemed to lift and meet the stars like a cold flash of fire. She could see the image – it was so familiar – but she couldn’t distinguish it. Her eyes smarted, and she blinked them furiously. From somewhere outside of herself she could see her twin, standing on the edge of the cliff behind her, and the pain of the separation tore through her. But she had no choice. It was the only way.
Almost unaware of what she was doing, Arlen climbed out of bed, and made her way downstairs. From the hallway she could see the dim figure of Robbie by the window, and the pain was so severe that she thought she might faint. But she passed on, and out of the door, across the narrow, creaking pier, and onto the sand.
The storm had stilled, and the place looked devastated. Mounds of rocks and rubble lined the beach, black water lapping possessively around them. The shipwreck had almost been demolished, and she could not bring herself to look up towards the bare, white cliff. The wind of Southmore sang softly as she picked her way through the debris. She could not tell what she was looking for, or what strange memory channelled her forwards, but the pain was too great to ignore. She felt a stabbing in her calf, and vaguely remembered the earlier events of the day.
There it was, before her. She stopped, her hand resting on one of the stone boundaries. The circle was beckoning.
The strange sphere of sand looked distant and remote as she entered its centre. Nothing seemed changed or unusual, and she twisted this way and that, not sure of what she was looking to find, but eager to end her search. No other evidence of the cloak, or the ancient fragments of the scene she had just witnessed, greeted her eye. Yet, suddenly, as she was turning to leave, a white fleshy object caught her attention. Thinking perhaps it was a starfish or some other sea creature hurt by the landslide, she dropped down to examine it, but drew back immediately with a gasp of horror. Later she remembered vaguely thinking that she had never noticed any marine life out on the beach anyway, except for the birds. And this was certainly no marine life. It was a hand.
Arlen froze.
The hand was white and soft, the flesh still fresh, the wrist savagely torn. The sand around it was stained red with blood. The only distinguishing mark was a large signet ring of gold and black opal, which sat mockingly on the little finger. Arlen felt her heart stop for a second. She knew that ring. She had seen it on the owner’s hand nearly every day of her life.
It belonged to Mr MacKenzie.<
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Alone in the attic room, Alice was jolted awake suddenly. She had the unpleasant sensation of having just dreamt something which left her uncomfortable and uneasy, but which she couldn’t remember, and the not being able to remember part almost disturbed her more than anything. Snatches of memory invaded her mind, none sharp enough for her to catch or name, and she shuddered, cold suddenly, and looked over to see if Arlen was awake.
But Arlen was gone.
Slowly, almost as if in a dream, Alice rose and dressed, and hoped that the unpleasant dreams she could not remember were not about to come true. Instinctively, she slipped out of the house and made her way down to the beach, where a figure crouched amongst the rocks.
Alice stopped. It looked like Arlen. But was it Arlen? And what was she doing there, in the middle of the night, in the very place she had warned Alice against? Doubt found her suddenly, with creeping, sticky fingers. Why was Arlen in the circle? That circle, that she had fought so hard to keep them from? Ambiguously, she almost felt that all this was Arlen’s fault; if she had not gone searching for answers that she obviously wasn’t meant to find, most of this probably wouldn’t have happened. She stood stiffly, unsure of what to do, and horribly aware of the cutting guilt which was rising in her as she realised that she was not rushing to protect her own twin. From the corner of her eye, she seemed to see another figure standing behind Arlen, blurry in the shadows, its dark cloak flapping in the rising wind, the long strands of hair hiding the face so that she could not see who it was. It startled her, and she jolted to suddenly, as if awakening a second time, and she drew her breath and quickly ran into the circle towards her sister.
Arlen was still and silent, and for a horrible moment Alice wondered whether she had been turned into stone, like something from an old myth that one of her teachers would have once read in class. But Arlen was breathing, harsh and hoarse, and, as Alice stood beside her and gently raised her, the tide rolled in and drowned the circle, washing over the girls’ feet and soaking their jeans. Before them the sucking froth of the water claimed the hand and carried it off, a white object jolted amongst the foam and spit of the waves, and then it vanished, sinking beneath the heaving darkness.
The moon emerged suddenly from behind a cloud, its pale reflection casting a shallow, sickly light on the long black shadows running down the sand and the cliffside. The wind had died, and the beach seemed eerie and lonely. It was then that Arlen turned and faced her twin, her eyes dark and hopeless.
“Has he come back?”
She knew the answer already, and Alice shook her head, slowly and sadly.
“How do we tell Robbie?”
The tide was weakening now, although the gurgling water still lapped near to the girls as they made their way slowly through the rubble. White tongues licked around them lazily, confident of their claim, drawing smugly back into the mass of darkness with a menacing hiss. Alice felt that she would never be able to wash the prickling of sand and sea water from her clothes. It was just as she was abstractedly thinking that she hadn’t seen a washing machine since London, that she nearly tripped over something.
“Hey, wait a minute!” she called to Arlen, who was walking miserably on ahead. Arlen turned and faced her, exhausted. All her energy was spent, and yet the sharp rush of fear and pain that swept through her when she saw what Alice had nearly fallen over was almost blinding.
The obstacle was no rock or log, but a foot, and, unlike the hand, it still had a body attached.
Alice was staring, her face white and incredulous in the impassionate glow of the moon. There was a body lying in the breaking waves of surf, face down in the sand, water lapping it softly. Its arms were flung forward into the low waves, the left one chopped short and colouring the water like wine.
Arlen gasped, her face a mixed mask of relief and fear. She’d know those sturdy black shoes anywhere. They had found him. For a moment she couldn’t seem to move. It seemed that she had seen something like this before, long ago, except that she couldn’t remember what or when, and for a few moments Mr MacKenzie’s body seemed to flicker and fade, and she thought she saw the moonthread cloak wet and bedraggled and choking in the seaweed.
But no. It was Mr MacKenzie, and she almost felt that she was standing aside watching herself, still and wooden, while Alice ran to the motionless man lying helpless in the foam, and seized him by the ankles.
“Arlen, help me!” she cried frantically. “We’ve got to get him out of here!” She was pulling and tugging with all her strength, and though he was slowly moving away from the water, the weight was too heavy for her alone. “Oh, help me, please,” she sobbed.
A streak of lightning bolted suddenly from a sagging dark cloud above, tearing it as scissors rent material, and soared through the sky in a whirl of electric colour, lighting the landscape and illuminating, for a few brilliant moments, the tears of the small girl struggling on the beach. The remnants of the wreck suddenly wrenched apart from the rocks, heaving into the air, a proud moment, dark and tall against the flashing skies, as a great clap of thunder served as a drumroll. Something called in Arlen. Her mood snapped and she turned to face her sister, drenched in the gushing torrents, and ran to aid her, splashing into the sea as she gripped the old man’s arms. Together they dragged him from the dark waves and onto the shore, away from the sucking sand of the forbidden rocks behind them.
The sky cracked and the heavy, brooding clouds were stripped apart in a jagged tear as the thunder shook the scene like an earthquake, and the sea heaved and spewed in shades of deep red and crimson and black beneath the furious spears of lightning. One soared right through the ancient vessel, striking the groaning old carcass in a blaze of triumph and sending it into a bright orange, burning burst of flames, which danced and shook in eerie figures and gestures against the cheeks of the two girls watching. And the sky was a great mess of rent and savaged clouds, hanging shredded and wilting in the dark red, flashing picture above like forlorn wisps of cobwebs, when the twins were met by a frantic Robbie, who had somehow appeared on the beach before them to help them carry his grandfather home.
Chapter Ten
Miraculously, the old man had survived, although he was weak from pain and loss of blood. It was several hours later before he had calmed himself sufficiently to even talk to the three little personages clustered worriedly around him. He had regained consciousness almost as soon as they had reached home, as if some great spell had been broken and he was unleashed. He had bathed, been dressed in soft, warm clothes, and had eaten and drunk to his fill. The stump of his left hand had been tightly bound and bandaged. They had had to do it themselves; no one in the village, including the doctor, it seemed, had wanted to be raised from their warm beds into a wild night, and Robbie’s frantic cries at their doors had gone unheeded.
Now, however, his grandfather sat by a blazing fire, the cold shut out from the broken window by the great sheets of newspaper crammed into it. He had just consumed his fifth cup of sweet, hot tea, and had made a reach for the brandy bottle on a nearby shelf, when he finally turned and faced the three youngsters. He looked at them with something akin to sorrow in his eyes, his pupils boring from one to the other at regular intervals, and then he sighed heavily, and turned his head away from the trio to stare at the bulky curtained picture of the stuffed window before him. The pain and anguish visible in his clouded blue eyes was more than Arlen could bear, and she ran to him, her heart almost breaking, and sat on the side of his own comfortable armchair, placing her arm around his shoulder, her small wet cheek soft against his coarse, bristly skin.
“Don’t worry, Mr MacKenzie,” she said. “You’re alright now. You’re safe.” She didn’t know what the old man’s part was in it all, but she couldn’t forget that he had been her only friend when all the other villagers had shunned her.
“Yes, you are,” Alice echoed her words as she moved to sit by his feet, and Robbie looked on, a pleading expression in his eyes as he silently begged his grandfathe
r to speak. But Mr MacKenzie just looked at them once again, one by one, through the tired, faded blue eyes that once must have been so like Robbie’s, then sighed and turned his face away again.
The twins and Robbie looked at each other, misunderstanding, each wondering frantically what they had done to warrant such a cold reaction, when suddenly Mr MacKenzie, still gazing out at the faded curtain which hid the stuffed, splintered window, opened his mouth and spoke, and his voice was dull and broken.
“I didn’t deserve that.”
“Of course you didn’t, Grandad.” Robbie rose quickly and placed his hand firmly on his grandfather’s shoulder. “You certainly didn’t deserve to be left on the beach the way you were. And your hand – ” he broke off, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand suddenly, furiously, and Arlen, seated opposite, could have sworn that for just a moment or two she saw the glint of tears in the bright blue of his eyes. “You could have drowned,” the words were almost a whisper.
“That’s what I deserved,” his grandfather’s voice was gruff, and he rose suddenly, trembling on his feet and shaking off the aiding hands as he struggled over to the window and tore the curtain from its hooks. “This is what I deserved!” he cried passionately, pointing at the shattered glass.
“Grandad, I – ” Robbie ran to him, hurting, wondering if perhaps his grandfather’s sanity had suffered a little during the trauma. But Mr MacKenzie waved him back.
“I deserved to be left out there on the beach,” he was almost shouting. “I deserved to be sucked into the sea, the same way as the others. I did,” he broke down then, and his words were coming in blurred, sobbing whimpers, mixed with the hard, hot salt of a seaman’s tears.