The Blackhope Enigma

by Teresa Flavin

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bell, but he did.” Blaise opened his sketchbook and pointed at a drawing. “That’s Hugo Fox-Farratt and a servant boy, Inko. Within an hour of meeting them, Angus had gotten rid of Hugo, luckily not for good, and left Inko for dead. We never saw him again.”

  “That is not the Angus I grew up with.”

  Blaise could only shake his head. “Something must have twisted him up pretty good since then.”

  “When did you draw these?” Sunni turned the sketchbook around so she could get a better look.

  “On the Venus, when I was alone,” Blaise said. “Lucky I had a plastic bag to keep my sketchbook mostly dry.”

  “My sketchbook is totally warped, and a lot of the drawings look like they were done on wet paper towels. But at least Marin’s sketch of the Roman gods is still in there,” she said. “These drawings are fantastic, Blaise.”

  “They most certainly are.” Lorimer thumbed through the drawings and stopped on one page. “That’s a beautiful one of you, Sunni.”

  “You drew me on the labyrinth? How?”

  Blaise was beet red. “It’s from memory.”

  She smiled at him. You’re really, really nice, she thought. How did I miss that before?

  “So these other people found their way into the painting before you,” said Lorimer.

  “Yes, into paintings underneath the top one, that have living things and water and food just like here,” said Sunni. “Corvo made them as a sort of adventure park for Sir Innes Blackhope, with monsters and mazes and sailing ships.”

  Lorimer flipped the sketchbook to a drawing of Angus in his fedora and overcoat.

  “But what’s happened to my cousin? You haven’t said.” Lorimer’s voice was hollow. “The Braeside Sentinel says he’s still in the painting. Is that true?”

  “He is, but . . .” Sunni said. “Oh, Mr. B, it’s really hard to tell you this. Angus is alive, but . . .”

  Blaise broke in. “But he’s trapped. Fausto Corvo is in there, too. We found him and his apprentices in one of the underpaintings. And they have his three lost enchanted paintings with them for protection.”

  “The lost paintings,” said Lorimer. “So they do exist.”

  “Yes. Angus made out to everyone that he was searching for us, but he was really after those lost paintings. So Corvo drew a magical prison portrait of Angus and captured him inside it.”

  Lorimer’s face drained. “Angus — captured by Corvo’s sorcery?”

  “W-we’re really sorry, Mr. Bell. We tried to see if there was a way to bring him back, but there wasn’t.”

  “But —” The art teacher slumped back in his chair. “This is horrible. Caught in a piece of paper. Horrible.”

  “No, no, Corvo is going to free him from the portrait, but only after Angus is banished to an island.”

  “I can’t take this in.”

  “Angus can’t ever come back,” said Blaise in a soft voice. “Corvo told us to close the labyrinth, so Sunni shut it down after she came through.”

  Lorimer put his hand to his forehead. “He’s trapped in the painting we were obsessed by. If I had known twenty years ago that this was how things would end up —”

  “Twenty years ago?” Sunni interrupted.

  “Angus and I were fascinated with Corvo’s work when we were teenagers. We learned everything we could about him and his supposed sorcery.” He gave a hard laugh. “We even tried to do our own magic — but it never worked. Over the years, I lost interest, and I thought Angus had, too. But as soon as the news reported you’d vanished, he guessed you must have learned how to get into the painting — and that’s when he turned up. I told him to leave it alone, but he never listened to me. Now Corvo’s magic controls him.”

  “I’m really sorry this happened,” said Blaise miserably.

  “It’s certainly not your fault! Angus knew what he was doing, and he is paying a very high price for it.” Lorimer sat up. “I didn’t think my cousin could ever be a killer, but he was a criminal. He was in prison until last summer.”

  “Prison!”

  “For forging old masters. It started after we finished art school. He was so good, he could copy almost any painting. Angus liked to show off his copying skills and make a bit of cash on the side. But he got greedy. He wanted really big money, so he made up false documents to go with his forgeries to make them look authentic. He started making paintings to order for some very sketchy people who sold them to museums. I’m glad Angus didn’t get hold of Corvo’s paintings. He didn’t deserve to be the custodian of such treasures — they would have ended up in the wrong hands.”

  “No one can reach Corvo now,” said Sunni. “Or his paintings.”

  A knock on the classroom door startled them. When he saw Blaise and Sunni, the visitor nodded and waited outside.

  “Well,” said Lorimer briskly, “I am delighted you stayed to talk to me. Don’t worry anymore. Just go back to your normal lives. Speaking of which, the deadline for your projects is the week after next!” He tried to smile.

  “Your book!” Sunni exclaimed. “I — I left it in the painting. It got really waterlogged. I’ll replace it, I promise.”

  “Don’t worry, Sunni. I can get another,” said Lorimer as they walked to the door. “I hope that in time you’ll tell me more of your experiences in the painting.”

  “We will. You’re probably the only person who’ll believe us,” said Blaise.

  That night Lorimer sat in his studio, bewildered. No more Angus. His cousin had gone, and he was free. He knew he shouldn’t feel relieved, but he did.

  One thing still bothered him though: Angus’s mysterious associate and his packet of information about Lorimer’s forged paintings.

  Oh, hang it, he thought. I’m not going to live the rest of my life in fear. If he comes forward, I’ll be ready for him. Anyway, knowing Angus, he probably made the whole thing up, just to keep me in line. He jumped to his feet and said aloud, “Well, no more. It’s over.”

  He stacked all his photocopies, notes, and scribbles about Corvo back into their box and carried it into the sitting room, where he stuffed each sheet into the fireplace before setting them ablaze.

  Sunni tapped at Dean’s bedroom door.

  “What?” Dean was swaddled in his comforter with a bag of chips wedged next to him, intent on a video game. “I said, what?”

  He turned and saw the warped sketchbook in her hand.

  Sunni slid Marin’s parchment from between its pages and held it out. “I forgot I had this. You should keep it.”

  Dean glared at his half-finished portrait. “What — to give to my mom for Christmas or something?”

  “I don’t know. Just keep it as a souvenir.” Sunni studied the sketch. “It’s a really nice drawing, even though Marin didn’t finish it —”

  “Yeah, good thing, too!”

  “But just think if he’d been able to stay in Venice and become a painter — he might have become as famous as Corvo.”

  Dean scowled at his game and wrestled with the controls. “Instead he dropped off the face of the earth and no one’s ever heard of him.”

  “We knew him.”

  “I want to forget about him.” He nodded at the portrait. “You keep it. You know you want to, anyway.”

  The next afternoon, Sunni and Blaise strolled past the lions at the gates and up the driveway to Blackhope Tower. The castle had become a major attraction now, and the parking lot was full.

  “Did you tell your parents we were coming here?” asked Blaise.

  “Yeah, no choice. They’ve been tracking my every move since we got back. It’s a miracle they let me out at all. Did you tell your dad?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m not sure he gets why I want to come back, but he’s OK with it, as long as I don’t disappear again.”

  “Rhona doesn’t understand, but that’s nothing new. I had to beg my dad to let me come without her shadowing me,” Sunni scowled.

  “What about Dean? Where’s he?�
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  “He told me to get lost when I asked if he wanted to come. He gets angry if I bring up the smallest thing about Arcadia.”

  “Boy,” said Blaise, “I’m just the opposite. I want to talk about Arcadia because I can’t stop thinking about it. Angus jumps into my head during math, and while I’m playing soccer, I wonder whether Hugo made it back to the palace.”

  “I’m the same. The painting is always at the back of my mind, even in my dreams.”

  “I wonder if we’ll ever get back to normal.”

  “Whatever that is,” she said with a sigh. “Everyone seems to set us apart now, whether we like it or not.”

  “Like staring at us and stuff like that?”

  “Yeah. Will we always be the weirdos who claim they went into a painting?”

  “Well, we are, aren’t we? And even if people think I’m a weirdo, I don’t regret meeting Corvo. Do you?”

  “No way.”

  “The only thing I regret is having to finish my project. Work is the last thing I feel like doing.”

  “Maybe it’ll help chase away the ghosts. That’s why it’s good we’re working together,” she said. “I can kick your butt.”

  “Not so long ago, you hated the idea of me doing your artist,” Blaise scoffed.

  “That was then. After what we’ve been through, the art project isn’t all that important anymore.”

  A guard hurried over to them as they entered the hall. “It’s Sunni and Blaise, isn’t it? Do your parents know you’re here?”

  “Yes, it’s fine,” said Sunni. “We’re not staying long. Just having a quick look at the Mariner’s Chamber again.”

  “You’ll find things are a bit different up there now. But my colleague on that floor will show you around.”

  “Thanks.” She caught up with Blaise, who was already climbing the spiral staircase, and scurried with him toward the buzz of voices on the second floor. They were astonished to find a line of people outside the Mariner’s Chamber.

  “Four at a time,” said a bored guard, counting them off as they shuffled in.

  Sunni and Blaise joined the line, and before they knew it, people were taking photos and asking for autographs.

  “No photography!” barked the guard.

  “It’s Sunni and Blaise!” someone exclaimed. “Come on, let them in ahead of us.”

  Everyone stood aside to allow Sunni and Blaise into the chamber. The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia, bursting with color and detail, beckoned them in as before.

  Sunni sucked in her breath as she walked over what had once been the labyrinth, feeling again the chill of Lady Ishbel’s skull against her cheek.

  “What happened to Ishbel?” she asked Blaise in a whisper.

  “I heard they buried her in the family graveyard out back. You OK?”

  “Yeah.” Sunni headed for the painting, her spirits lifting as she neared it.

  But when she got close, she saw a rope barricade in front of the masterpiece.

  “Keep back, please!” commanded the guard, and Sunni jumped away from the painting, startled.

  Blaise turned to him, incensed. “You can’t go right up to it anymore?”

  “No, son. Those days are over.”

  “How else can you look at it properly?” asked Sunni, but the guard just smiled.

  “I think you’ll find most museums protect their valuable paintings similarly,” he replied.

  “They must have done that because of us,” Blaise said to Sunni under his breath.

  They stood as close to the painting as they dared, drinking in the familiar scenes. Sunni could almost feel herself back in the winding lanes, searching for Dean. Her eyes roved through the fields toward the cave leading into Arcadia, and she wondered for the hundredth time whether Hugo was safe.

  Blaise sensed visitors waiting for him to move out of their view. Then someone pushed in front of him and he drifted away, fed up.

  Sunni found him sprawled on the bench, staring at the decorated ceiling.

  “What’s up?”

  “There are too many people here now. And they all recognize us.”

  “Yeah, and —?”

  “I want to take my time and really look at the painting. Just in case we can see Hugo.”

  “You think he’d come into the top painting?”

  Blaise shrugged. “He’ll have to if he wants to give us a sign he’s all right. Unless he’s forgotten about us — or he didn’t make it.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Let’s come back first thing Saturday morning, before anyone even thinks about visiting here. We can be the first ones in and take as long as we like.”

  She nodded and followed him out of the Mariner’s Chamber, past the line of curious visitors.

  “I feel anxious all of a sudden,” Sunni said, making her way down the staircase at Blaise’s side.

  “Why?”

  She paused on one step and he looked back at her. “Because I’m worried about Hugo. And because the Mariner’s Chamber is ruined and we helped ruin it.”

  “All right, I hate that barrier and the crowds and Sir Innes is probably spinning in his grave right now, but we can’t do anything about it.” He wanted to touch her hair but kept his hand in his pocket. “Listen. Eventually people will get bored and find something else to stare at. And then the Mariner’s Chamber will be ours again.”

  Blaise began descending the staircase, but Sunni’s hand caught his elbow and lingered there for a moment.

  “Thanks,” she said softly.

  Blaise’s heart galloped as he and Sunni made their way into the hall. Casting a happy smile toward the staff, he made for the exit.

  “Hang on a minute, Blaise.” Sunni stopped at the display of information leaflets. A stack of photocopies with the title, The Blackhope Enigma Continues stood out.

  “Those are brand-new,” said the lady behind the desk. “We’re just waiting for the rest of the leaflets to arrive.”

  Sunni took one and followed Blaise outside.

  “Listen to this,” she said, reading aloud from the leaflet.

  “With the return of the three missing children, another chilling discovery was made in the Mariner’s Chamber. A female skeleton dressed in late sixteenth-century clothing was found on the labyrinth. This echoes the last discovery of a skeleton in 1862. While that skeleton’s identity remains a mystery, experts believe this one is Sir Innes Blackhope’s niece, Lady Ishbel, because it wore a distinctive pendant engraved with her name. Castle accounts say she disappeared in 1600, just before her marriage to the Laird of Muckton, who had arranged with her father for Lady Ishbel to become his third wife.”

  “Poor Ishbel.” Sunni shook her head and tried to push the image of the girl’s skeleton out of her mind.

  “Yes and no.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Blaise’s eyes were bright. “Well, she got to do things no girl from her time would ever have been allowed to do — be a sea captain, fight pirates, and hunt for treasure.”

  “You’re right. But the way she died . . .” Sunni shuddered.

  “She’s peaceful now,” said Blaise. “And she’s with her family.”

  Sunni bit her lip and nodded.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

  Sunni gazed back at Blackhope Tower. The sky had darkened behind the turrets and the rain had started.

  “What do you think Marin is doing right now?” she mused.

  “Forget about him, will you?” Blaise grabbed her hand.

  Sunni arched one eyebrow.

  “That guy’s too old for you.” He gave her a sidelong glance and grinned as they ran to the bus shelter. “By about four hundred years!”

  “I’ll sing you twelve, oh, green grow the rushes, oh!” Hugo sang as he turned down another crooked lane and passed the fountain in the square. “I say, Inko, it has been a long time since I was last here. Can’t say I’ve missed it. Silent as a tomb. Not nearly as nice as Arcadia!”
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  He chatted away as they got closer to the harbor and the ships moored there. “Ah, yes, that’s the Speranza Nera. And there stands Sir Innes, master of all he surveys.”

  Hugo strode up the gangway, splendid in burgundy trousers and a peacock-blue coat. When he reached Sir Innes, he stopped and looked around.

  “Where to put it?” He tapped his chin. “Can’t be too obvious. But the children must be able to see it. What do you suggest, Inko?”

  The servant boy tugged on the hem of Sir Innes’s cape.

  “You could be right. It would be framed nicely and just visible from all viewpoints,” Hugo declared.

  He peered under the cape, where Sir Innes’s hand rested on his hip, almost hidden by the heavy fabric. With a nod to Inko, he maneuvered the object under the captain’s hand and wedged it against his crimson tunic. After a few adjustments to make sure it was secure, Hugo stood back.

  Peeping out from behind the captain’s arm was Lorimer Bell’s battered book, The Mysterious World of Fausto Corvo.

  “A sign for you, my friends.”

  Acknowledgments

  Writing The Blackhope Enigma was an extraordinary experience that transformed my creative life. Along the way, I received invaluable support from many sources.

  I thank my husband for his good-humored and unwavering faith in me; my parents, who raised me to love art and to find the magic in everyday life; my agent and mentor, Kathryn Ross, whose wise counsel and caring attention to my work helped make this book possible; Amanda Wood, managing director of Templar Publishing, for giving this book the perfect home; my wonderful editors, Anne Finnis and Emily Hawkins; and the Scottish Book Trust, which provided me with the opportunity and support to develop my writing. I also acknowledge support from the Scottish Arts Council toward the writing of The Blackhope Enigma.

  I am deeply grateful to all of them and to the network of friends and colleagues who spurred me on to bring this book to life.

  TERESA FLAVIN is a former art-school lecturer, amateur radio DJ, and illustrator. She was born in New York and currently lives in Scotland, where she walks every labyrinth she can find. The idea for The Blackhope Enigma sprang to mind one winter’s day, inspired by her love of Renaissance paintings and a book about labyrinths given to her by her father.