Mrs Fitzgerald chatted on. She knew all about Black Tom’s Ormond Castle, built at the end of the town. It was a feature of the township and a reason why visitors came to Carrick.
‘It’s the best example of an Elizabethan manor house in the land,’ she gloated. ‘I heard that the ruins of one of Black Tom’s other old castles is being shipped back to the USA, block by block, to be rebuilt in Kentucky. Those Americans,’ she said with a smile. ‘Do you know they have a London Bridge in Arizona?’
Mrs Fitzgerald drew the curtains aside and we looked out the window to the rear of the property. There was a short yard, surrounded by a low fence, and beyond that was a broad pathway along the river, wide enough for horses.
The tide was out and a few small canoes lay half on their sides in the muddy sand, awaiting the surge that would lift them up and float them again. In a paddock across the river, a couple of horses leaned over a fence, just visible in the misty air.
Mrs Fitzgerald noticed the direction of my gaze. ‘You like horses?’ she asked. ‘They belong to the Travellers—the gypsies. You could probably hire a couple if you like riding.’
‘I’d love to, but I’m not actually here for a holiday,’ I said, turning back from the window. I wanted information, so I needed to tell her who I was. Kind of.
‘My uncle,’ I lied, ‘Tom Ormond, stayed here last year. Until he became sick.’
Mrs Fitzgerald’s face lost its smile. ‘God rest his soul. You’re Tom Ormond’s nephew?’
‘I am,’ I said, hoping she wasn’t going to think too much about it and ask me any difficult questions. ‘These are my friends, Grace and Josh,’ I repeated nervously.
‘I was so sorry to hear about his illness … and then his death,’ she said, solemnly. ‘It was a terrible job I had, packing up his clothing and things. He was such a lovely fellow. You’ve come to see where he stayed before he was sick?’
‘I’d like to see his room,’ I said, nodding. ‘We were very close. I miss him very much.’
‘Of course you do,’ she said, picking up a key from the hall table. ‘Nothing’s changed in here. It’s exactly as it was when he was staying. We haven’t had many guests this year,’ she admitted with a hint of embarrassment. ‘Come with me.’
We followed her down the hallway to where she opened a door at the end and stepped back, allowing us to walk inside ahead of her. It was a small room, painted white, and in an alcove on the right was a bay window with a vase of yellow paper roses. A sink and tap with a hot plate and an electric jug formed the kitchen area.
‘Your uncle cooked on that,’ Mrs Fitzgerald said, noticing me looking at the hot plate.
‘Uncle Tom? Cooking?’ I asked, surprised. ‘That’s weird. My aunty never let him cook at home—he was a shocker! Aunty Win used to—’ I stopped speaking as memories of my home life with Mum and Dad surfaced. I felt Winter’s light touch on the back of my hand. ‘He was always burning things. Even at family barbecues. I guess being here alone forced him to give it another go.’
‘I’m sorry to tell you he hadn’t improved,’ confessed Mrs Fitzgerald with a chuckle. ‘One night I caught him trying to cook this sloppy soup.’ She wrinkled up her nose in distaste. ‘Some sort of vegetable and herb soup. He must have let it boil for so long that it all just turned to mush.’
I smiled, picturing Dad trying his best.
‘I called in to drop off some clean laundry,’ continued Mrs Fitzgerald, ‘and I could see past his shoulder and into the kitchen sink. He’d made such a mess! There was a pile of veggie skins, herbs and even something that looked like ferns on the bench.’ She shook her head. ‘He hadn’t told me he’d be in for dinner that night, but really, I could have arranged something else for him. Parsley, coriander and basil I understand, but ferns? I think I might have offended him with my offer of a slice of shepherd’s pie, to have instead.’
I wandered further into the room. Beyond the kitchen, a bed, a table and chair, a fireplace set with pine cones and a big, carved wardrobe completed the furnishings.
A wardrobe!
A carved wardrobe!
I stopped, rooted to the spot. Boges and Winter crashed into me.
‘Move along there, dude,’ said Boges. Until he saw the reason for my shock. ‘A wardrobe!’
‘A wardrobe!’ Winter cried, jigging up and down. ‘I told you! I told you! We’re on the right track. The carved doors!’
‘Er, yes,’ said Mrs Fitzgerald, clearly confused about our excitement over a basic piece of furniture. She must have thought we’d never seen a wardrobe before! ‘Tis rather a grand cupboard, I suppose,’ she continued. ‘Big and roomy.’
The telephone rang from down the hall and she excused herself before hurriedly shuffling away.
The fancy carving and the big metal ring at the front of the wardrobe were distinct—this was definitely the door from my dad’s drawing! I darted across the room and opened it. It creaked as I peered inside.
It had an odd, woody smell, a tall space for hanging clothes, and an open shelf on the right on top of three drawers. Quickly, I opened them all, one after the other, but they were empty.
I squatted down to check the dark space underneath the drawers.
‘There’s nothing in here,’ I said, straightening up, disappointment rearing its ugly head again. I felt my fists clench. ‘We’ve come all this way—for what? We haven’t found the last lines of the Riddle, and now there’s nothing in this stupid cupboard!’
‘Cal,’ said Winter, ‘don’t panic. All your dad’s drawings mean something. We’ve been able to work them out. We can do it with this one, too.’
‘But maybe what he wanted us to see isn’t here any more,’ I said. ‘Which means the drawing was pointless. A dead end.’
‘Let’s just all take a breath and wait a moment,’ continued Winter, staring inside the wardrobe. ‘Something could suddenly make sense.’
I turned my head, about to whack the cupboard in hopelessness, when Winter shoved herself in between me and the door.
‘What’s this?’ she said, running a finger over the paper lining on the inside of the door. ‘This isn’t lining, it’s a map!’
She moved over so I could have a closer look.
I looked closer. Right at eye level, and right where I was staring, was a place name—Graignamanagh, and just up from it was another place name—Kilfane.
G’managh and Kilfane! The place names on the transparency!
I swung round to the others, pulling off my backpack. ‘The transparency! That’s why Dad drew this cupboard!’
‘It is a map!’ shouted Boges, peering closer at the lining of the old cupboard. ‘I see what you mean! C’mon, dude! Hurry up and find the transparency!’
I rummaged through my backpack and carefully lifted it out.
My fingers were trembling with excitement as I held up the transparency against the map, lining it up against the inside of the cupboard door, until the two names written by Dad—G’managh and Kilfane—were perfectly superimposed over the names on the old map.
Between them was the black dot.
‘Wow!’ breathed Winter.
‘Will you look at that!’ Boges spluttered.
I stood back, holding the transparency to see that now the black dot sat right on top of another name.
‘Inisrue Marsh!’ cried Winter. ‘Your dad was telling us that we have to go to Inisrue Marsh! This is incredible! Now we know where to go!’
‘I wonder what’s there?’ said Boges. He traced a finger along from our present location on the riverside at the edge of the village of Carrick-on-Suir, moving up to the black dot. ‘Across the river and north,’ he said, pointing. ‘It’s not that far away.’
The sound of scuffling and thudding, topped by a woman’s scream, shocked us away from the map.
‘Mrs Fitzgerald? You OK?’ called Boges, racing to the door and sticking his head around it.
Footsteps pounded down the hallway and Boges jumped back, slammed the door
shut and turned the key. I’d never seen him move so fast.
‘Sligo!’ he hissed, horrified. ‘And Zombie Two! How did they find us?’
‘Sligo?’ Winter repeated, nervously. ‘He’s really here! I guess that means he’s definitely cancelled his New Year’s Eve Ball!’
I grabbed the transparency, shoved it in my backpack next to Lives of the Saints, whipped it over my arm and hurled myself across the room, knocking the yellow roses to the floor in the process. I wrenched the window open and gestured to Boges and Winter to climb through.
As soon as they’d landed on the other side, I heaved myself halfway over the sill, ready to leap into the dark drizzle of the oncoming night. From somewhere outside I could hear Mrs Fitzgerald calling for help and neighbours responding with alarmed shouts.
‘Call the Garda!’ I heard someone scream.
Sligo and Zombie Two were battering on our room’s door.
‘Jump!’ shouted Boges from below.
I pushed off and thudded down. I scrambled to my feet and followed my friends over the back fence, heading for the quay.
‘They’ve escaped out the window!’ Sligo’s voice boomed from behind us. ‘Get the car!’
‘Run for your life!’ Boges shouted to me. ‘Don’t follow us—we’ll do what we can to steer them away from you!’
‘But—’
‘Just go!’ he ordered, slowing to wave his arms and grab Sligo’s attention.
‘Boges!’ I shouted, worried about my friends. ‘Winter, you have to run!’
‘Go!’ she shouted.
I shot away over the back fence, down the quayside and then towards the low stone bridge that crossed the river.
Freezing rain started pouring down in sheets, drenching me as I bolted over the bridge. It was almost impossible to see where I was going—everything ahead of me was a wet, grey blur.
Suddenly something glowed in that grey blur. Headlights! A car skidded and swerved towards me, flying recklessly along the quayside.
I ran out of its wild path, but it jerked and twisted after me, tyres squealing on the slippery ground. It spun and screeched to a halt.
Seconds later, Zombie Two had kicked the front car door wide open and was barrelling after me on foot, pounding down the cobblestones, eyes locked onto me.
I was sure I could get away because he was so big and lumbering and I was faster, but my sneakers skidded on a slippery stone and I went flying, crash-landing on my stomach.
I scrambled to my feet and looked back, but couldn’t see him.
The car started again—he must have run back to it! I was frantic, I couldn’t let Sligo get his hands on me, let alone the transparency and everything else in my backpack.
I ran alongside the river as it curved around a bend. Pulled up on the stones was one of the canoe-style boats that Mrs Fitzgerald had called a Carrick cot, almost completely covered by a canvas tarpaulin. Quick as a flash, I wrenched my backpack off and flung it perfectly into the opening in the skiff, and then I took off in the opposite direction.
I could hear the car coming behind me, accelerating, and I knew I had to find a thin lane where a car couldn’t follow. A narrow bridge crossed the river a little distance away, and I pelted across it.
I’d hoped the narrowness would stop Sligo’s car, but all it did was slow it down. They forged ahead with only centimetres on either side between their vehicle and the bridge’s brick walls.
There were fewer houses on this side of the river, and between two of them was a grassy paddock which led to a dense forested area—my chance of escape. I ran for it.
In seconds, I was sinking up to my ankles in boggy marshland. I struggled and staggered unevenly, slowing down to a snail’s pace. I wrenched my legs out of the bog and ploughed ahead, desperately aiming for firmer ground.
When I finally felt solid ground under my feet, I kicked mud off my legs and ran again, straight for the forest.
A blow on my left sent me flying to the ground, sideways.
Zombie Two had tackled me down. He must have seen that I was heading for the forest, and worked out a way to grab me from the other side. I struggled and kicked, but he had me in a painful wristlock, twisting my arm behind me.
He yelled and spat at me with what I was sure were foreign swear words, as he dragged me by my feet over to his car. I clawed at the muddy ground, trying uselessly to break free.
Once we reached the car, Zombie Two picked me up and tossed me inside, then climbed in and practically sat on top of me to keep me restrained.
A shadowy figure in the front seat turned around.
Sligo was sitting at the wheel.
‘We meet again,’ he growled, his cravat crooked and crumpled around his thick neck. ‘I’ll make this simple for you. If you want to live, you’d better start talking. You tell me about the Ormond Singularity, in exchange for your life.’
I gulped, trying to get my breath back and clear my head.
‘Speak!’ he demanded. ‘What do you have for me, boy? Do you want to live? Where are the Ormond Riddle and the Ormond Jewel?’
‘Back home where you’ll never find them!’ I yelled, wriggling under Zombie Two’s stifling mass.
‘Home? A delinquent like you doesn’t have a home,’ he sniggered, sending shivers down my spine. ‘Neither does that little viper, Winter. Don’t you worry, I’ll find the Jewel and the Riddle. I’ll track down your buddies, too, including my precious ward—I know she’s here with you, and I’ve read the notes she wrote.’
‘Then you know as much as I do!’
‘Did your father find something here?’ Sligo snapped. ‘Tell me what you are doing in Carrick!’
‘They say travel broadens the mind,’ I wheezed.
Zombie Two pushed his weight down on me even more, clearly not finding my joke very funny. I groaned in pain.
‘You obviously don’t value your life, Callum Ormond,’ said Sligo, viciously reversing the car, then accelerating forward. ‘Winter didn’t give me any trouble until she met up with you. This is personal now. This ends now,’ he said with severe finality.
The car sped along, driving through the mist and rain.
‘We’re about to go to a little-known local attraction. Have you ever heard of the Dundrum Oubliette?’
I hadn’t heard of it, but whatever it was, I knew it meant trouble.
‘I said, have you heard of the Dundrum Oubliette?’ he repeated.
‘Yes. You just mentioned it a second ago.’
‘Think you’re funny, eh?’ hissed Sligo. ‘I’ll be the one having the last laugh.’
My blood turned ice-cold as I considered the fact that this was also the man who had left me to die in an oil tank. This was also the man who had left Winter—the girl who was supposed to be in his care—to die.
We drove for another twenty minutes or so, passing the dark Irish countryside. I tried to sit up a bit better to see where we were going, but it wasn’t easy—Zombie Two kept pushing me, face-down into the backseat.
I caught a glimpse of a Y-intersection and could just make out a row of big stones and a signpost pointing to the road on the right that read something like ‘Roland’s Tower’. Sligo wrenched the steering wheel to the left and the car rattled and jerked its way down a dirt road instead.
Eventually he pulled up at a gate. Zombie Two eased off me and I sat up a bit. ‘Dundrum Oubliette,’ I read to myself. ‘Open June–October.’
Sligo climbed out of the car, stepping into the pouring rain. He dragged a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters out of the boot, stalked over to the gate and cut right through the chains woven through them. I peered ahead, trying to see through the rain drumming on the windscreen. Some distance ahead, I could make out what looked like a half-fallen wall.
Sligo lumbered back into the driver’s seat and drove the car through the gateway and up to the stony structure.
‘Get him out,’ he ordered Zombie Two, cursing the rain as he lifted his heavy body out of the driver’s seat
again. ‘Destroy his phone!’
Zombie Two hauled me out into the cold night air and patted me down. My phone was in my backpack that I’d chucked into one of the Carrick cots, so I didn’t have anything on me for them to destroy.
‘No phone,’ he yelled out.
Sligo shone a torch ahead of him while Zombie Two dragged me along after his boss, my arms twisted up behind my back. I was led down some stone steps and into what must have been a courtyard hundreds of years ago, but was now more like a flat, crumbling rock. I noticed Sligo was also carrying a grappling hook on a chain.
What was an oubliette? I wondered, panic rising.
Maybe it was good that I didn’t know what I was in for …
In the middle of the courtyard was a round drain, covered by a heavy iron grille. Sligo knelt beside it. He put down his torch and wedged one of the barbs of the grappling hook under one of the bars on the grille.
His torch sat in a puddle, directing light onto a plaque that had been attached to the ground near the drain.
‘Hold on to the little scumbag while I get the cover off,’ Sligo yelled out to Zombie Two.
Zombie gripped me while Sligo went back to the car. With the other end of the chain attached to the front of the vehicle, Sligo jumped in behind the wheel and revved it up. He slammed the accelerator and the car reversed, ripping the cover off the drain opening. It rolled and landed a few metres away.
I struggled against Zombie Two, as horrifying images of the inside of the oil tank came back to me. Was Sligo going to shove me in a drain? Drown me in stormwater?
Sligo returned and scowled at me, an evil leer on his pudgy face. ‘As you can see from the sign, this is an oubliette,’ his voice boomed over the easing rain. ‘I trust you can read, but maybe if you listened better in school, you’d know that the French word “oubliette” means “place to forget”. You might also have learned that an oubliette is a medieval prison, made for those who had displeased the local noblemen. The offender was dropped into the hole and, well, forgotten! They were abandoned in these deep underground dungeons, sometimes knee deep in water, sewerage, rats … but this one has an extra attraction of another kind.’ Sligo paused and grinned. He turned to Zombie Two. ‘Drag him over so he can see.’
December Page 9