Hollow Earth

by John Barrowman

  He roused himself from his self-pity when he spotted the three of them hurrying towards the café from the direction of Covent Garden Tube station. Rather than join the line of customers waiting to be seated, Sandie and the twins ducked under the velvet rope bordering the café’s perimeter.

  Vaughn stood and greeted Sandie with a warm embrace, holding her in his arms. The twins dropped their backpacks on to the ground and perched on a couple of empty chairs.

  ‘Em, Matt, say hi to Vaughn. You won’t remember him, but he was … is an old friend of your dad’s and mine.’

  Before Em had a chance to say anything, Matt blurted out, ‘Do you still see my dad then?’

  Vaughn glanced at Sandie. ‘I’m sorry, Matt. I haven’t seen him in a long time.’

  ‘Does my dad even know we’re leaving?’ Matt demanded.

  ‘Matt, that’s enough.’ Sandie sat close to Vaughn, pulling her bag off her shoulder and setting it on her lap. Matt began playing with the salt and pepper at the centre of the table, pouring salt into the napkin holder. Em was paying attention to the man. She thought she remembered his face. He was kind of cool for a grown-up. Plus he had amazing blue eyes. He was tall and dressed nicely in a suit. His fingertips brushed along her mum’s arm and rested lightly on the back of her hand. She let it rest there.

  I think Mum likes him.

  She likes everyone.

  I mean she like likes him, idiot.

  That’s sick.

  ‘Do you want to order something to eat? Drink?’ Vaughn asked, as the waitress worked her way through the throng to their table.

  Sandie shook her head. ‘We’ll eat on the train.’ She snatched the salt from Matt, and he threw himself back in his chair, sulking. Vaughn waved off the waitress.

  ‘I’ll feel safer when we get out of their reach,’ Sandie added.

  ‘They’ll know you’ve returned to Renard.’

  ‘I’m counting on it,’ Sandie said, standing. ‘With Renard’s protection and your position here with the Council, we should be safe there for a while.’

  Vaughn stood, too, and pulled Sandie close to him. ‘It’s not too late. I can come with you.’

  ‘But I need you here,’ said Sandie, nestling into his embrace. ‘I need to know how deep the split in the Council has become. Renard was always the voice of reason when it came to binding. Now I’m afraid Sir Charles and those who support his more traditional ways will no longer be so … accommodating.’

  Scowling at the sight of Vaughn and his mother, Matt ducked under the rope and turned his back to the table. He spotted the busker across the square passing his porkpie hat into the crowd, nodding gratefully as the appreciative audience tossed coins into it. When the hat was returned, the busker emptied the change into his tattered coat pocket, set his hat on his head, slung his funny-looking instrument over his shoulder and began to shuffle back across the square.

  Brushing a strand of hair from Vaughn’s forehead, Sandie said, ‘Maybe someday. But right now I need to help Matt and Em learn about who they are … and I need you to help keep the others at bay until Matt and Em know more.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can for as long as I can, but you know as well as I do that the divide is growing,’ said Vaughn quietly. ‘The Council knows that it will have to decide whether to support Renard’s more relaxed views on binding or stay with Sir Charles’s medieval ones. But Sandie, when word spreads that the twins can move in and out of paintings, I don’t think it’ll help Renard’s cause. The Council will feel far too threatened by them.’

  Sandie flinched.

  Vaughn reached for her hand. ‘You know what else this means as much as anyone. If the Hollow Earth Society really has reformed, then they may try to get the twins.’

  ‘What’s Hollow Earth?’ Em asked.

  The adults both jumped, as if they had forgotten she was there. Sandie didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Hollow Earth is an ancient legend, Em. A myth, the stuff of fairy tales and bedtime stories,’ Vaughn explained. ‘It’s said to be a supernatural space in the earth, a shadowy home for all the demons and monsters ever imagined.

  ‘But there are some who believe it to be real, and not a legend at all. About a hundred and fifty years ago, there was a group of believers led by a Scottish artist named Duncan Fox. They founded the Hollow Earth Society, whose aim was to protect and guard Hollow Earth, so the monsters and demons trapped there would never escape into the real world.’

  Em laughed in disbelief. ‘That’s mad,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Sandie firmly. ‘Completely mad, and nothing that you should worry about.’ She turned back to Vaughn. ‘As long as Renard’s alive, he’s still the most powerful among us. The Abbey and the island are impenetrable when they need to be. Renard will know what to do.’

  ‘Does he know you’re coming?’ Vaughn checked.

  ‘I called as we left the flat.’ Sandie paused for a beat, her voice breaking when she spoke again. ‘He told me about Arthur. I know you didn’t approve of what we were doing, but if it hadn’t been for Arthur—’

  ‘Arthur used you, Sandie,’ Vaughn cut in angrily. ‘He may have kept your big secret, whatever it is, but he used you to make himself and those he worked for a great deal of money.’

  Sandie suddenly grabbed Em’s arm. ‘Where’s your brother?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Em said. ‘He was right here a minute ago.’

  Sandie darted under the rope and through the crowd into the square, panic tightening her chest and adrenaline spiking every nerve in her body. Matt, please, please – where are you?

  There were too many people to spot one child. She stifled a sob. Her panic was quickly morphing to terror. She didn’t care about consequences any more. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her sketchpad. She had to find Matt.

  ‘Sandie, don’t!’ Vaughn warned. ‘There are too many people. We’ll find him.’

  The two adults began to call Matt’s name, asking anyone and everyone if they’d seen a boy in a tatty T-shirt. No one had. Em watched; concentrated.

  Where are you? Mum’s really scared.

  Over by the busker.

  ‘The last I saw him,’ said Em, improvising as best she could without giving away how she knew, ‘he said … I mean he was listening to the man with something that looked like a violin.’

  ‘The hurdy-gurdy man,’ gasped Vaughn.

  Sandie darted into the crowd in the direction Em was pointing.

  Vaughn pushed back through the crowd to the café, dragging Em with him, two terrible realizations crashing through his brain at the same time. He’d left the satchel under the table, and his instincts had been right – the busker was dangerous.

  Relief flooded Vaughn’s entire being when his hands reached under the café table and gripped the satchel’s hard leather handles.

  ‘Stay there and hold this tight, Em.’

  He handed her the bag, then stepped up on to the wrought iron chair, his shins banging against the table and knocking over the mounds of salt Matt had left behind. Patrons at nearby tables stared at him angrily. The couple having lunch cursed at him. The manager and the waitress hollered from the front of the café. Vaughn ignored them. Scanning the crowd, he spotted the hurdy-gurdy player in the middle of the square. Matt was at his side.

  Vaughn whistled to Sandie and pointed. His heart still pounding, he jumped down from the chair, grabbed Em’s hand and the satchel and darted back through the crowd. Sandie had already caught up with Matt, who was squirming under her firm grip and obvious fury.

  The hurdy-gurdy man was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Let me go!’ Matt spat. ‘I wasn’t lost, and nobody was taking me!’

  ‘You know we’re in trouble and you wandered off anyway?’ Sandie shouted.

  ‘Like you even noticed.’

  Vaughn intervened. ‘Look, Matt, your mum needs to get you all to Scotland in one piece. Tonight. As a favour to me and to your dad, will you help her?’


  Yanking himself from Sandie’s grip, Matt shifted his backpack on his shoulders, pulling himself taller. That was as much as he was going to give any of them.

  Vaughn took the satchel from Em. But before releasing it to Sandie, he asked, ‘You sure you really want to take this? If its contents fall into the wrong hands, they could destroy us all.’

  ‘When the time comes,’ Sandie said, accepting the satchel, ‘what’s inside may be my only leverage.’

  ELEVEN

  Sandie had left her suitcase at the flat, so while they waited for the Glasgow train at Euston Station, she bought some extra supplies. Exhausted, the twins slouched behind her. She hoped as soon as the train left and Matt and Em had a late dinner, they’d settle comfortably and be far too tired for explanations and much too exhausted for any more squabbles.

  For once, Sandie’s high hopes were rewarded. Matt and Em were asleep before the overnight train whizzed past Watford. Sandie was asleep by Milton Keynes.

  Surprisingly, given the chaos and the trauma of the day, they all slept soundly until a few minutes before the train pulled into Glasgow Central. Sandie had decided to take the bus to Largs instead of renting a car. Until the twins were safely under their grandfather’s protection, Sandie believed that travelling in public among lots of people was her safest strategy.

  However, she hadn’t bargained on the August heat. Every Glaswegian in the city appeared to be packing into buses and heading to the seaside.

  After the first bus of the morning filled without them, Sandie finally managed to get seats upstairs on the second bus. Matt picked the back row, curled himself into the corner, shoved his headphones in his ears and cranked up his iPod.

  ‘Do you think your brother will be angry with me his whole life?’

  ‘Maybe ’til he’s twenty,’ Em said, snuggling against her mum. ‘Will our grandfather be happy to see us?’

  ‘He’ll be thrilled, Em.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because he was very sad when we left.’

  Sad and very, very angry, added Sandie to herself. Angry because she was taking the twins from him against his wishes as their grandfather, and very angry because she was acting against his authority as a Guardian.

  ‘What’s he like?’ asked Em.

  ‘Your grandfather? He’s a lovely man.’

  ‘Then why did we leave?’

  Sandie wasn’t sure where to start. ‘Something happened when you were both very young, and it resulted in your grandfather and I having a big fight.’

  ‘Worse than your fights with Matt?’

  ‘Much, much worse. I said things to your grandfather that I’m now really sorry I said. I just hope he’s forgiven me.’

  ‘Did you tell him you were sorry?’

  ‘Not yet, Em.’ Sandie closed her eyes. ‘But I plan to.’

  The trip west was blessedly uneventful. When the bus crested the Haylie Brae, and the panorama of the Ayrshire coastline unfolded in front of them, Em leaped from her seat, roused Matt from his music and leaned her face against the window next to him.

  ‘Wow! It’s like a painting, Mum,’ she exclaimed.

  She was right.

  In the midday sun, the Firth of Clyde was a ribbon of brilliant blue laced with white sailing boats, the western isles of Arran, Kintyre and Bute bordering its far horizon. Nestled in Largs Bay, like a jigsaw piece broken off from the mainland, was Auchinmurn Isle – craggy and green and soon to be their new home.

  Matt turned off his iPod and wrapped the earphones around it. He glanced out at the stunning sight of sea and islands. ‘Looks boring.’

  Sandie couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing.

  Two ferries carried passengers and vehicles back and forth to Auchinmurn on the half hour, their paths crossing in the middle of the bay. While they waited to board in the pedestrian queue, Matt and Em checked out the Largs beach front, noting the kiosks spread across the sand, topped with brilliantly coloured beach balls, huge kites and over-sized sand toys, and lots of displays of delicious-looking cones and summer treats on every surface. Main Street was lined with souvenir shops and cafés bursting with customers in shorts and sandals.

  Matt really fancied an ice cream. ‘I can get us one and be back before this queue moves.’

  Sandie looked at him anxiously.

  ‘Look, Mum, the kiosk’s right there,’ Matt said. ‘You can keep your eye on me the entire time.’

  ‘Please, Mum. They do look … refreshing,’ added Em.

  ‘You just read that on the sign! Okay. But my eyes will be glued to you, and if you as much as veer off in another direction, I’ll be on to you so fast—’

  Matt grabbed the coins from his mum’s hand and backed up through the queue. Vaulting over the sea wall, he jogged across the sand to the closest kiosk.

  Sandie didn’t blink.

  The curve of the street in front of the ferry dock was blocked to through-traffic to allow tour buses to offload their passengers quickly and pedestrians to gather safely for the ferry. When Matt made his way back to his mum and Em with the ice creams, he wanted to avoid walking directly through a family with toddlers, bikes and prams so he cut into the queuing traffic waiting to board the ferry – at the same moment that the crew lifted the ferry’s security arm and waved the traffic on board.

  Matt’s move forced a delivery driver to hit his brakes and stall his lorry, allowing a Peugeot and a Mini Cooper to cut in front of him. The lorry driver was not happy. He leaned on his horn for so long, Matt thought it had stuck.

  Matt handed the ice creams over. Clutching their dripping cones, the three of them climbed to the top deck of the ferry and found an open spot with a clear view of the crossing. Auchinmurn Isle stretched before them.

  ‘Do people other than our grandfather live on this island?’ asked Em.

  ‘Oh, yes. And it gets lots of visitors in the summer. This side of the island is mostly biking and hiking trails, lots of them with amazing animal and bird habitats.’ Sandie felt like an estate agent selling her children on the attributes of what she hoped would be their home for a long time. She didn’t want them to know that this island was also to become their prison.

  ‘One paved road runs the perimeter of the island and one cuts across its middle,’ she continued, as the ferry lifted its ramp like a giant jaw clamping shut. ‘There’s a lovely little town – Seaport – directly on the other side from the Abbey. But the coolest thing about the island is that it has a sister, a smaller island that actually belongs to your grandfather, and is full of all kinds of secret caves and ancient ruins.’

  ‘What’s the small island called?’ asked Em.

  ‘Locals call it “wee Auchinmurn”, but its real name is Era Mina, after the Abbey and the monastery that used to be spread across both islands.’ Sandie pointed to a jut of land that peeked from behind the southern tip of Auchinmurn, an ancient Celtic tower visible on the horizon. ‘Your grandfather’s place is on the far side of Auchinmurn, facing Era Mina.’

  Matt and Em looked nervous and not nearly as excited as Sandie had hoped. Still, the circumstances were far from ideal for a homecoming.

  Seconds after the ferry lurched from the dock, the irate lorry driver marched towards them. ‘That wean needs a good smacking, he does,’ he yelled at Sandie, jabbing his fingers angrily in the air above Matt’s head. ‘Now ’cos of him ah’m stuck at the back of this tug. Ye should keep a better eye on yer weans!’ Then he stomped off down to the parking deck.

  A well-dressed elderly woman, with a briefcase at her feet and blue chiffon scarf protecting her hair from the sea spray, stepped away from the rail and came over to Matt. ‘Ne’er mind him, son,’ she said kindly. ‘Some folks are born rude. Al Swanson’s one of them. He’s a miserable fella.’

  A few other locals seated in the foredeck nodded in agreement. Matt shifted from his mum’s side to an empty bench.

  Em, who was looking over the side at the churning water, squealed in delight. ‘Mu
m, look – jellyfish! Hundreds and hundreds of them. They’re following the boat!’

  Sandie looked. The water was thick with translucent pink bell-like creatures of varying sizes, some as big as footballs, others as small as a baby’s fist, trailing the wake of the ferry.

  The lady in the chiffon scarf peered over the deck next to Em. ‘We call them moon jellies, dear. When the light of a full moon hits them, it’s like the stars have fallen into the sea. It’s quite a sight. But they’re not really following the ship. The ferry’s creating a current that’s dragging them along.’

  Sandie took a quick look at Matt behind her. He was slumped over his backpack. She tried to stifle her irritation. Was he drawing? He looked like he might be. But since Em was thoroughly engaged with the jellyfish, she decided to let him be.

  The ferry ride lasted about fifteen minutes. As soon as the ship docked, the pedestrians streamed off to waiting tour buses, bike rentals or their own cars left in the car park.

  Sandie stepped off the ferry and on to the island, immediately spotting Renard’s right-hand man, Simon Butler. He was leaning against a Range Rover, reading the newspaper, looking exactly as Sandie remembered: a handsome, thirty-something ex-football player, with a dodgy knee and lots of attitude. As he spotted Sandie, he tossed the paper into the front seat and jogged to greet her.

  With the leather satchel and her messenger bag bouncing against her hips, Sandie ran to him. They met in the middle of the car park in a swinging, wild embrace. When the twins caught up, their mum and Simon were laughing and crying and making complete fools of themselves.

  ‘Matt and Em,’ said Sandie, pulling away at last, ‘this is Simon.’

  Em smiled and shook Simon’s hand. Matt nodded, keeping his hands in his pockets.

  Sandie was about to make Matt take his hands from his pockets when Simon spoke. ‘It’s lovely to see you both. I help run your grandfather’s business.’ He opened the car doors. ‘My son, Zach, lives at your grandfather’s place, too. He’ll be thrilled to have some company his own age.’

  From the ferry behind them, car horns were blaring.

  The twins looked over at the parking deck. The first two rows of vehicles were exiting the ferry, but the rest of the cars were caught behind Al Swanson’s lorry. He and a few of the ferry crew stood in front of the lorry’s cab, gazing in utter bewilderment at a jellyfish the size of a beach ball that was firmly attached to the windscreen.