December

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘I’m so sorry, Cal.’

  I shook my head and fought back tears.

  ‘We wanted to go with him,’ cried Winter. ‘We wanted to help him find you, but he wouldn’t let us—said it was too dangerous. I can’t believe it. We only just saw him yesterday. He only just got here!’

  A woman with hair even wilder than Winter’s handed me a hot drink in a chipped mug, and gently touched my shoulder.

  Winter smiled at her, gratefully.

  Boges sat down beside me. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He saved me,’ I said, finally finding my voice. ‘Sligo had thrown me in an oubliette—a deep dungeon. I was minutes from death, praying for the Ormond Angel to come and save me, and then Rafe appeared. It was a miracle. He drove us away—we were headed here—but I’d thrown my backpack into one of the cots by the river when Zombie Two was chasing me, so I asked him to pull over so I could get it. Then I heard a gunshot, ran back to the car and found him lying there … bleeding.’ I was dizzy again at the thought of him lying there so helplessly. ‘Locals started running over. I don’t know what happened after that. I must have blacked out.’

  ‘You were practically frozen, Cal. You were in shock. You’d lost a lot of blood, too. We’re lucky to have you back so soon,’ said Winter.

  There was a pause while we listened to the quiet gypsy camp around us. A fire crackled nearby and I noticed a couple of scruffy kids looking our way, peering out from behind tent cloths.

  ‘What about Mrs Fitzgerald?’ I asked.

  ‘Mrs Fitz was fine,’ Boges said. ‘We figured we couldn’t stick around. Not with the Garda asking questions. Winter stole—’

  ‘Borrowed,’ she corrected him.

  ‘Borrowed one of the Travellers’ horses, and when we came here to return it, they welcomed us in and offered us a place to sleep. Ashling and Quinn said we could stay as long as we wanted. They said they’re always more than happy to help out good folk on the run from the Garda.’

  I was hearing some of what Boges and Winter were saying, but Rafe’s face wouldn’t leave my mind. I buried my head in my hands.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ I asked my friends. ‘People are dying! For what good reason? Why? For the sake of the Ormond Singularity? I don’t even know if I can trust my own mother, so who am I doing this for? Why does it even matter any more?’

  ‘You have to keep going, Cal,’ insisted Winter.

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘For the rest of your family. For Tom and Rafe. For your great-uncle. For your great-aunt.’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘For all the people who’ve helped you along the way—Jennifer Smith, Lachlan, Melba Snipe, Repro, Ryan Spencer, Nelson Sharkey … For us,’ she added, grabbing Boges’s hand. ‘Me and Boges. We’ve both been here with you for almost all of this insane journey. We believe in you. We want you to see it through to the end. If you quit now, everything will have been for nothing.’

  ‘You know she’s right,’ said Boges. ‘Today’s the last day, dude. You can’t give up now. You have to keep it together for just a little bit longer.’

  My body was aching. Rafe’s murder was consuming my thoughts, and the pressure of having only hours left was sending me into a sweat. But they were right. I had barely one more day to get through. A matter of hours to find the answers.

  Everything Dad had left me was pointing to Inisrue Marsh. Was this where I’d find the ruin he’d photographed? Would there be an inscription around the walls, like we’d seen in the faded sketch?

  For a moment I thought I could hear my dad’s voice again, telling me to keep going. I had to find the Ormond Singularity. I had to.

  ‘The map in the cupboard pointed to Inisrue Marsh,’ said Boges. ‘Winter and I have directions. We’re going there whether you want to or not, and we’re going to find out why it was marked. Now see if you feel strong enough to get up.’

  ‘OK,’ I said as I began to shakily stand. ‘Did you just say you have directions?’

  ‘Sure do, thanks to Ashling.’

  ‘Ashling?’

  ‘The woman who brought you here,’ explained Boges. ‘She had a book, listing all of Black Tom Butler’s land holdings in Inisrue in the sixteenth century. The bad news is that Inisrue is a swamp, but the good news is that it is home to the ruins of three of Black Tom’s buildings—Slievenamon Castle, Cragkill Keep and Ormond Tower. One of them has to be the one your dad took the photos of. One of them has to hold the secret.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ I said, feeling my strength returning.

  ‘So do I,’ admitted Boges. ‘Winter made a copy of their location, so we don’t get lost.’

  ‘The buildings were originally on an island in the middle of the river,’ Winter added, ‘but that was hundreds of years ago. They’re still there, but now the island has turned into an unpredictable swampland. We’ll have to be really careful.’

  ‘At least we don’t have to worry about Rathbone any more,’ I said. ‘Thanks to Sligo.’

  ‘What?’ asked Winter, suspiciously. ‘He killed him?’ she guessed.

  I nodded. ‘He said the bogs have already proven to be a great place for dumping a body …’

  My hands were sore, red and swollen from the failed attempts to climb the deadly spike, so Boges helped me slowly shuffle into warmer clothes. I was getting worried. We’d come all this way, I’d survived almost a year, despite the dangers of the Ormond Singularity. One of these ruins had to be the place.

  I could feel Boges and Winter looking expectantly at me. Whether the ruins were rubble or not, we needed to search them.

  ‘So we have three ruins to search,’ said Winter, as she shoved bits and pieces back into her bag. ‘We have about ten hours left. Before midnight. Before the Ormond Singularity runs out.’

  ‘Even if we do find whatever the Ormond Singularity is before midnight,’ I said, ‘how do we prove it? There’ll be no-one there to witness it, except us.’

  ‘Relax, dude,’ said Boges. ‘I’ll film it on my mobile.’

  I was moving awkwardly, in pain, as I gathered my things. I had been counting on everything falling magically into place over here, but I was still unsure of the basics. How was I going to clear my name?

  I didn’t see Lives of the Saints on the floor until I skidded on it, twisting my ankle, and falling hard.

  I yelped in pain. ‘Useless book!’ I shouted, picking it up and throwing it at the wall of the tent. It made a slapping sound on the tarpaulin-like fabric before hitting the ground.

  ‘Take it easy,’ said Boges. He picked it up from the floor. ‘This is a valuable old book, man. Was a valuable old book,’ he corrected.

  The cracked leather on the spine of the book had come apart, and the front cover was left hanging by a few threads.

  I looked closer. Where the binding had come away from the book’s spine I could now see a narrow strip of vellum that had been wrapped around under it. Some kind of reinforcement for the stitching?

  I snatched it from Boges and peered even closer. The piece of vellum was familiar. It had been sewn into the underside of the cover, but was now loose because of the torn stitching.

  Carefully I pulled it out.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ I breathed, mesmerised, smoothing it out.

  ‘What is it?’ Winter asked, coming over to see.

  Slowly, I held up the piece of vellum.

  Winter blinked, amazed. ‘It’s the missing part of the Ormond Riddle! The last two lines!’

  ‘Dude! Let’s have a look!’ said Boges, leaning over her shoulder, staring at the strip that I was holding up.

  Winter read it out, slowly, but instead of reading ‘yifte’ she said, ‘gift’.

  ‘I can’t believe it, Dr Brinsley was right!’ she said.

  ‘But what does “riven” mean?’ I asked.

  ‘I think it means “split apart”,’ replied Winter.

  ‘Grab the rest of the Riddle,’ said Boges. ‘Let’s put them both together.’

&nbs
p; ‘“Apye”,’ I quoted. ‘The form of an ape? The monkey! Winter! The white monkey in the portrait you saw of young Princess Elizabeth! It’s holding an orb, and Dad drew a monkey holding a ball.’

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ said Boges. ‘What does it mean? What’s the “Queenes fonde Jaype”?’

  We both looked to Winter.

  ‘Shakespeare uses that word,’ she said. ‘A “jape” is a trick of some kind. A joke. Or some sort of deception. And in those days, the word “fond” actually meant “foolish”.’

  ‘A foolish joke,’ I said, thinking aloud. ‘What do these last lines mean? Black Tom is supposed to have written these lines, according to Dr Brinsley—what foolish joke is he playing?’

  ‘Quick!’ hissed Ashling, suddenly storming into our tent. ‘Get into the caravan, the Garda are here!’

  ‘What?’ I asked, panicking. ‘They’re here?’

  ‘You need to go and hide in the chests in the caravan. Now!’

  Winter, Boges and I grabbed our bags and ran out of the tent, following Ashling into a caravan. Once inside, she started pulling books out of three separate chests, making room for us to climb inside.

  ‘Get in!’ she ordered.

  The three of us awkwardly squashed ourselves inside, then the heavy, dusty books were piled back on top of us.

  ‘Don’t move until I come back!’ she hissed before leaving.

  Cramped in a box of books, the minutes were flying by. Every minute passing meant less time and less daylight to get out to Inisrue Marsh and search the three potential locations.

  Being found would hold us up at a time when time was as crucial as air. I was petrified we’d be caught by the Garda with our fake passports and be unable to answer their questions about Sligo’s raid on Clonmel Way Guest House the other afternoon… and about Rafe’s body left lying in his car on the road.

  I wondered if my mum had been notified yet. She’d be devastated. Again.

  I also couldn’t help thinking about what Rafe had told me before he died—about Mum’s involvement with Rathbone.

  At least for now it was quiet in the caravan. I hoped Boges and Winter were holding up in their hiding places OK.

  We were wasting so much time and my body was killing. I couldn’t help lifting the lid of the chest and peering out.

  ‘Boges? Winter?’ I hissed.

  ‘Stay down,’ I heard Boges reply. ‘No point getting caught now. Surely they can’t hang around for too much longer.’

  ‘We just use this one as our library,’ I heard Ashling say as she entered the caravan, followed by heavy footsteps. ‘The children come in here to grab a book and quietly study.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ an unknown voice replied, tapping what I suspected was a baton on top of the chests. ‘Books, you say,’ she added.

  The sound of one of the chest lids opening sent chills down my spine. I heard some prodding and gritted my teeth, praying my friends weren’t about to be sprung. I prepared myself to launch out of the chest and run, but in moments, Ashling and the unwanted guest had left the caravan. For good, I hoped.

  ‘It’s OK, you can come out now,’ said Ashling, finally lifting up the lid on the chest I was in.

  I stretched out my aching limbs and saw Boges and Winter also emerging, looking like dishevelled, broken jack-in-the-boxes.

  ‘I thought they’d never leave,’ said Ashling. ‘They were very thorough, investigating the Clonmel Way raid and the shooting. Checking our camp, making sure we weren’t harbouring any fugitives. Are you all right?’

  Clearly, by the light-hearted way she said ‘fugitives’ she thought we were kids who’d been caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. If only she knew how serious this was.

  ‘We’re fine,’ I said. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for us, but we really need to get out of here. We must go to Inisrue Marsh.’

  Ashling shook her head. ‘I don’t think you should set off now. It’s far too dangerous to go there. There’s not enough light and you only have to wander a little way off the path and you’ll never be seen again. The Marsh has claimed a lot of lives over the years. Why don’t you wait till morning? It’ll be much safer then. You can stay here and celebrate the start of the new year with us!’

  Morning would be too late, party or no party.

  ‘What about by river?’ I asked, thinking we could take one of the Carrick cots. ‘That would be safer, right?’

  ‘It will take you longer, but it probably would be safer. Have you ever handled a boat?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Ashling thought about it then shook her head.

  ‘You don’t know how dangerous the bog lands can be,’ she said, trying again to talk us out of it.

  ‘That won’t be a problem,’ Winter interrupted, confidently. ‘How will we know when we’re nearing Inisrue Marsh?’

  Ashling could see there was no point in trying to make us stay. ‘You head north from Waterford,’ she began, ‘and follow that direction for some time. When you reach the old St Mullins Bridge—it has six stone arches—you’ll know you haven’t too much further to go. And when you’re close to the marsh area, you’ll find a stone landing. You can pull up the cot there.’

  ‘Thanks, Ash,’ I said, already out the caravan door and heading for the tent, while my friends rushed along behind me.

  ‘OK,’ I said, back in the tent. ‘Make sure you have everything.’

  ‘But we’ve gotta try the Caesar shift on the last two lines,’ said Boges.

  I shook my head. ‘Not here, we don’t have time. Let’s do it on the way.’

  The flap on the tent was suddenly pulled open once more. ‘Someone else is here!’ shouted Ashling. We stopped dead. ‘Hide! There’s no time to get you back into the caravan!’

  I rushed to the opening to peer out. A huge wave of relief hit me when I saw who the camp intruder was.

  ‘It’s just Sharkey!’ I said to my friends. Boges and Winter instantly relaxed. Winter even giggled. ‘He’s with us,’ I explained to Ashling.

  ‘Nelson!’ I said, hurrying out to see him.

  ‘Cal, my boy, I heard you had a close call last night. I’m so sorry to hear about your uncle,’ he said, uncomfortably stepping forward to give me a hug.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, awkwardly stepping out of his embrace. ‘We have to get going—we have three ruins to search and time’s almost out.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Sharkey said.

  Boges and Winter had joined us now. Boges shook Sharkey’s hand, and Winter leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘I just wanted to let you know,’ continued Sharkey, ‘that I’ve spoken with Mrs Fitzgerald from the guesthouse and I am going to accompany her to the police station now. I feel confident she’ll be able to identify Vulkan Sligo as her attacker. I also believe I have found something that will prove he was responsible for not only Theophilus Brinsley’s murder, but also your uncle’s. I will do what I can to ensure he’s found and arrested.’

  ‘You found something? Evidence?’

  ‘Sure did,’ he replied. ‘Just call it the luck of the Irish.’

  ‘He murdered Sheldrake Rathbone, too,’ I added. ‘Admitted it to me himself.’

  Sharkey exhaled loudly and cocked his head to one side before continuing. ‘The truth will come out, Cal. With Oriana de la Force behind bars, and only a matter of time before Sligo joins her, I promise your name will be cleared and you’ll have your life back.’

  Boges, Winter and I crouched low in one of the Carrick cots. We pushed it out in the icy water and paddled the narrow skiff along the river. The tide was behind us, helping us towards Inisrue Marsh.

  It was well and truly dark, except for the glow of lights in the sky above a distant town, and the heavy-duty torch Boges had managed to borrow to help guide our way.

  As soon as we’d settled into a steady rhythm, Winter began working on the Riddle by torchlight.

  ‘I’ll start with a one letter shift,’ she said,
struggling to hold her pencil, paper, the Riddle and torch all at the same time. ‘I have a good feeling about this. A lot of trouble went into hiding these two lines—I’m sure they’re going to tell us where to go next!’

  As Winter worked, we glided past villages built along the watercourse, and the wide barges moored beside them. Fairy lights dotted some of the houses, reminding us again that it was New Year’s Eve—a time for celebration. Rafe and I had both almost died on a small boat in Treachery Bay, exactly one year ago. I didn’t know if it was possible, but I could tell we were all silently hoping we’d be celebrating on the stroke of midnight, too.

  With a bit more luck, now that Nelson Sharkey was going to present evidence against him, the Garda would hunt Sligo down before the night was out. Then Winter, at least, could resume a normal life, with him safely behind bars.

  Further along, the tidal water rattled over the stones on the banks, as we passed a small village and smelt the fragrant scent of wood fires burning in the cottages. Stars twinkled through clouds.

  A milky mist hung over the water, and the sound of the tide moving to the coast was all I could hear. The skiff followed the course of the river. We couldn’t really get lost—there was only up river or down river, and we knew we were heading in the right direction, looking out for the old St Mullins Bridge.

  A chill, different from the frosty air of the night, shivered through my bones, registering a sudden danger alert. I shuddered, uneasy. As the countdown to midnight ticked away, danger was increasing, tensing like a coiled spring.

  ‘How are you going, Winter?’ I asked, as a distant town clock chimed six o’clock. We only had six more hours before the Singularity ran out, yet here we were, still trying to decipher the Riddle when we had three locations to search. Three! Slievenamon Castle, Cragkill Keep and Ormond Tower.

  The secret of the Ormond Singularity had to be in one of the ruins, but we didn’t have time to search all of them.