Hollow Earth

by John Barrowman

  Em felt so sad for the drowned girl that she too began to sob. Losing her grip on the rocks, she tumbled into the darkness.

  And then Em was the girl on the rock, looking up at the shimmering angel.

  The angel leaned close to Em’s cheek and whispered, ‘You are a freak of nature.’ Then the angel morphed into a demon, and Em realized she wasn’t dreaming any more.

  She could feel something pressing against her chest, trying to suffocate her. Gasping for breath, Em forced her eyes open, only to face a deformed dwarf-like creature with small, beady yellow eyes sitting on her chest, slobbering and snapping its needle-like teeth close to her cheek. She thumped the side of the demon’s head with her fist, but the dwarf grinned even wider. Its tiny hand reached over and covered her mouth. In her head, Em screamed as loud as she knew how.

  Seconds later, Matt burst into her bedroom. Em appeared to be in a violent wrestling match with a creature that Matt could barely make out in the dark. It shimmered above her like a demonic puppet. Em, eyes wide in terror, was scratching and pummelling the creature’s face and head. He grabbed a tennis racket from behind the door. But before he could swing at the creature’s head, Em sat bolt upright, gasping for breath, and the creature was gone.

  Matt sat on the edge of the bed and held Em’s shoulders. ‘It’s okay. You’re okay. Just breathe. Big air. Big air.’

  When Em’s breathing had steadied, Matt went into the bathroom that separated their rooms and poured a glass of water. He handed her the drink.

  Em could feel her pulse slowing. She took a sip of the water and lay back against her pillows.

  ‘Was it the same dream?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘We should tell Mum.’

  ‘She’s got enough going on right now, getting ready for her exhibition in Glasgow. I don’t want her to worry. I can handle it.’ Em put her hand on her chest. Her ribs ached. Maybe she should tell an adult. Maybe she wasn’t handling ‘it’ as well as she thought.

  ‘We should at least tell Simon or Grandpa. They warned us our imaginations might get a bit out of control when we approached our thirteenth birthdays.’

  Em nodded and gulped down the rest of the water. When she turned to put the empty glass on her nightstand, the creature was perched there, grinning at her.

  Frantic, Em scrambled out of her tangled duvet, pushing Matt on to the floor as she struggled to stand up. She looked again, and the creature was gone.

  ‘What the—’ Matt looked up at Em’s bed. The horror was now sitting on top of Em’s pillows, grinning at him.

  ‘Em!’

  With an audible scream this time, Em threw herself across the bed, pounding the place where the creature sat. This time it exploded into sharp fragments of white light that went flying across the room, hitting the walls like tiny bolts of lightning and then fizzling to flashes of nothing.

  Lying on the bed, Em began to sob from exhaustion, frustration, but most of all from fear.

  ‘Come on, Em … Em!’ Matt soothed helplessly. ‘You’ve imagined worse things. You’ve experienced night terrors since we arrived on the island. Grandpa said they’d stop when you got older and could control your imagination better—’

  Em cut him off. ‘Don’t you think I know that? I’m not upset because of that, you idiot.’

  ‘I don’t get it then. What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m not imagining this night terror, Matt. It isn’t mine. Someone else is animating it.’

  TWENTY

  The next morning, at the far end of the kitchen, Matt and Zach were working on a massive scale model of the Abbey as it had once been. They had already created the exterior of the structure. Now they were working on the medieval village, which had been rebuilt inside the monastery’s stone walls after a Viking raid had laid waste the original.

  When their grandfather had assigned the project, Matt hadn’t been very pleased. He had loved making models when he was younger, but had since lost patience with them, finding it difficult to remain so focused for long periods of time without feeling the need to snap, strike or unintentionally animate something.

  A couple of weeks into Renard’s project, Matt had figured out how to concentrate to the point where he felt, for the first time in his life, that he could let his mind unwind a little. Eventually, he realized that had been his grandfather’s reason for the project in the first place: to use the detailed precision work of the model to train Matt’s patience and help him control his imagination.

  Matt was poring over old drawings describing the layout of the Abbey, while Zach was measuring, cutting and gluing balsa wood for the roofs of the village. While they worked, the boys stopped every few minutes for Matt to sign a word or two to Zach about their plans for the day. Like his sister, Matt had grasped the basics of sign language in a short time, and after only a few weeks, he and Zach were already good friends.

  Renard had business to attend to in Glasgow, so the children’s lessons had been cancelled. Renard and Jeannie sat at the kitchen table, finishing their coffee prior to Renard taking the ferry to the mainland. Renard was reading the newspaper. Jeannie was adding notes to a recipe.

  ‘Hasn’t Em come down for breakfast yet?’ Renard asked, glancing at his watch.

  ‘She didn’t sleep too great last night,’ said Matt.

  ‘Another nightmare?’ Zach signed.

  Matt shrugged, not wanting to say any more when Em had asked him not to.

  His grandfather put the newspaper down. ‘I thought her nightmares weren’t happening as much.’

  Zach knew immediately that Matt wasn’t sharing everything. But Zach was no more inclined to betray Em’s confidences than Matt was.

  ‘I think this was the first one she’d had in a long time,’ said Matt.

  Simon came into the kitchen, dressed in faded jeans and a paint-spattered T-shirt, wielding a hammer. Out in the garden, Mara pushed a tarp-covered painting on a trolley across the lawn, towards her studio in the renovated cloisters of the Abbey.

  ‘How’s Sandie’s art show coming along, Simon?’ asked Renard. ‘Is Mara helping?’

  Simon accepted a cup of coffee from Jeannie. ‘I doubt it. Sandie doesn’t want anyone to see anything yet. The only reason she’s letting me near her studio is because she needs her frames built quickly, and—’ he twirled his hammer like a baton, ‘I’m the man with the tools.’

  Simon was pouring milk into his coffee when Em wandered down the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘You’re still half-asleep, Em,’ he observed.

  Em was rubbing her eyes, completely unaware that a shimmering apparition from her imagination was following her into the kitchen.

  ‘That’s so gross,’ signed Zach to Matt.

  Matt was relieved to see that the illusion close at his sister’s heels was not the horrible creature from last night. Instead, the apparition looked a lot like the actor who played a vampire in Em’s favourite film.

  ‘Eww,’ said Matt.

  Jeannie, who was rolling out dough at the corner of the kitchen island, rushed to Em, waking her completely with an embrace. The apparition disappeared. Embarrassed, Em slouched over to the table, ignoring the boys.

  ‘Listen, hen,’ said Jeannie, pouring Em a bowl of cereal, ‘not to worry, they’ve all done the same. When your dad was a wee boy, he brought Robert the Bruce downstairs with him once, his horse too … so no fretting.’ She tousled Em’s hair, returning to her baking.

  ‘So what’s on the agenda today, since you have no lessons with me?’ asked Renard. ‘It’s the first sunny day of the Glasgow holidays. I expect the island will be packed.’

  We’re counting on it!

  Em glared at her brother. ‘We’re going round to the hill above Seaport,’ she explained. ‘Zach thinks he’s found another Celtic burial mound that absolutely no one in the entire history of the island has ever discovered before. It’s just been sitting there, waiting for us to come along.’

  Zach looked up from glueing a roof on the m
iniature village, aware that Em had spoken about him but having missed the full gist. Matt signed what she’d said. Zach made a face at her, and she smiled back.

  Simon laughed. ‘Well, heed your Grandpa’s warning. The roads will be packed with tourists. Be careful on your bikes. Which reminds me,’ he added, pulling three packages from the desk next to the pantry. ‘These are a bit early as they were meant to be Matt and Em’s birthday presents, but they may come in handy today.’

  The children tore open their gifts simultaneously.

  ‘A sports watch! Thank you, Simon,’ said Em, hugging him across the table.

  ‘Ah, they may look like watches, but they are so much more.’ Simon took Zach’s watch, tapping his fingers across its face a few times. Instantly, Em and Matt’s watches beeped, a text message from Simon appearing on their screens.

  ‘I’m tired of replacing Zach’s lost phones, and Renard and I thought that since Em and Zach’s telepathic connection is getting stronger than ever, with these units Matt can communicate with Zach more directly too. I’ve created each watch with phone and internet capabilities. Plus each one connects to my unit here at the house.’ He held up his wrist.

  ‘Simon, these are brilliant,’ said Matt, immediately texting Zach, who was already fastening his to his wrist. ‘Thank you.’

  TIME 2 GO

  Quickly, the boys tidied up their project, while Em finished her cereal.

  ‘Can I expect the three of ye for lunch?’ asked Jeannie, loading the dishwasher.

  The three children hesitated for just a beat too long.

  ‘We’ll let you know, Jeannie,’ answered Em, hoping to cover the awkward pause, ‘but we’ll probably pick something up in town.’

  ‘If yer lucky ye will. There’ll be queues everywhere. I figured ye’d rather hae these.’ She opened the fridge, pulling out three lunch bags. ‘Here’s a sandwich, an apple and some chocolate biscuits for each of ye.’

  Em accepted hers, hugging Jeannie tightly around her ample waist. ‘You’re the best.’

  They said their goodbyes, rushing out through the French doors. Simon and Renard watched them sprint towards the nearest stable, where their bikes were kept. From across the lawn, Sandie stepped out of the doors of her studio.

  ‘Remember the rules. No drawing in public,’ she yelled after them.

  ‘We won’t!’ yelled the twins in unison.

  Technically, we’re not going to draw in public.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘You know the three of them are up to something, don’t you?’ said Simon to Renard as he waved across the lawn to Sandie, who waved back and returned to her studio.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the twins’ grandfather. ‘But they deserve a little freedom to play as well. They’ve been cooped up in this place for too long. I’m sure Auchinmurn will survive whatever they have planned.’

  ‘It’s not Auchinmurn I’m worried about,’ said Simon. ‘There’s something going on in London. Since Sandie fled with the twins, I hear the split among the Guardians is growing. The twins’ continued freedom is fuelling Sir Charles’s anger that he lost the vote to bind them. He’s been having a lot of meetings at the Royal Academy recently.’

  ‘Wren will always monitor the twins’ abilities, you know that,’ said Renard. ‘Fortunately, the majority on the Council are intelligent enough to see the value of education over Sir Charles’s medieval approach.’

  Simon nodded, checking that his watch was indeed tracking the children. Three tiny blue dots illuminated a map on the watch face.

  ‘Still, it pays to be watchful,’ continued Renard, retrieving his newspaper from the kitchen table and heading for the terrace. ‘I don’t trust Wren to leave them alone, despite the Council’s vote. I don’t think he’ll do anything while they are on the island with me, but still I’m pleased that you have activated a GPS program in the children’s watches. You can monitor them from your unit when they’re too far out of my psychic reach.’

  ‘I’ve heard more, Renard,’ said Simon, following. ‘The rumours about Malcolm and the Hollow Earth Society have surfaced again.’

  Renard set his paper down on a wrought-iron table outside, running his fingers through his thick hair. For a second, Simon had a sense that the older man had made a decision and was about to say something to him – but then Mara headed out of her studio towards the kitchen, interrupting the moment.

  ‘Renard, there’s a reason you trust me with your intelligence gathering,’ Simon said, as Mara approached. ‘I’m good at it. The rumours have resurfaced because of the twins’ exceptional powers. If they can animate themselves in and out of a piece of art, then Duncan Fox and his original Hollow Earth Society were on to something after all. Hollow Earth may well be “real and eternal”, as Fox prophesied. You must admit the twins are transforming at a rate that’s truly unprecedented. Soon they might be able to do things that even we’ve only imagined possible.’

  ‘Keep listening and keep me informed,’ said Renard. ‘I know you’re the best. But also know this. As long as I’m around, Malcolm is not a threat to the twins. You need to trust me on that.’

  Simon shook his head, not happy with Renard’s response.

  ‘Okay. How about this?’ Renard placed his hand gently on Simon’s shoulder. ‘After the twins turn thirteen, I’ll tell them as much as I know about what might be in their future, including the rumours about their father and Hollow Earth. Deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ said Simon, reluctantly.

  Renard was keeping something back. But there was nothing Simon could do about it.

  Matt led the way out of the Abbey grounds, with Zach in the middle and Em bringing up the rear. When they reached the wrought-iron gates, Matt dodged his bike into the cover of trees.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he signed to Zach.

  ‘Sure,’ Zach signed in reply. ‘My dad’s really clever, but he’s not very good at keeping secrets.’

  Zach pulled his laptop from his backpack. His fingers flew across the keyboard. Over the last few years, Zach’s technological abilities had been evolving just as fast as the twins’ imaginative powers. He could design a code for anything, his mind intuitively wired to the infinite possibilities of programming code. Matt and Em watched in awe as lines of code scrolled across his screen.

  Do you need us to do anything, Zach?

  Not yet, Em.

  After a few minutes, Zach signed that he was ready to upload the software patch he had created. Balancing the laptop on his bike saddle, he double-tapped the face of his watch.

  On the count of three.

  Em nodded, counting out loud, ‘One, two, three.’

  In unison, they each tapped an icon on the screen on their watches and, simultaneously, Zach hit ‘return’ on his laptop. The download bar on Zach’s computer screen filled, and their watches beeped when the patch was uploaded. Zach closed his laptop, sliding it back into his pack.

  ‘My dad’s GPS will now follow a route I’ve created around the island,’ he signed with a grin. ‘As for us, we’re offline and on our own.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  As the children biked across the island’s hiking trails, they avoided the majority of the tourist traffic on the main road. When they reached the ferry port to Largs, they realized how right their grandfather had been. It was still early, but already long lines were snaking out from the information centre. The island tours were filling up at every run, and the rental shop was running low on bicycles.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Matt, scouring the crowd.

  ‘How about that American family over there renting the tandems?’ signed Zach.

  ‘How do you know they’re American?’ asked Em, as they watched two adults and four children fastening their helmets and sorting their gear.

  Zach tapped his mouth. ‘Good eye.’

  ‘He read their lips,’ said Matt, pulling a handful of flyers from the front pocket of his backpack. ‘Zach and I will head to the cove and get things set up. Let us know when yo
u’re close.’

  The boys pedalled back in the direction they’d come, while Em kept her eyes on the American family. When they’d pulled out on to Beach Road, she followed them.

  Beach Road was really more of a paved lane. Whenever two oncoming cars needed to pass each other at one of the island’s sharp bends, one of the vehicles had to swerve on to the verge of the hill or pull on to the stony beach. As the American family reached the first bend in the road, the traffic was at a standstill. A car pulling a caravan had taken the curve without checking the mirror on the side of the road, sideswiping a tour bus coming in the other direction. Both were locked together.

  For most of the traffic stuck behind the obstruction, the late summer weather, the calm sea and the peaks visible on the nearby isles were far too beautiful to make it an incident worth complaining about. A few people walked out on to the pebble beach to get around the blocked road, some settled on to the hillside to wait, while the rest turned and went back the other way.

  Em was now directly behind the American family, who were debating whether or not to risk wading through the low tide to get around the bend, turn back or wait until the obstruction was removed.

  ‘Sometimes it can take the tow truck hours to get here,’ Em offered, ‘and that’s if Mr Ralston is even at the garage when the call comes in. He’s probably off fishing on a day like this.’

  ‘Are you a local?’ asked the mum. The youngest son, who looked about five, was sharing her tandem.

  Em wheeled her bike closer. ‘It’s bound to happen again – it always does. You don’t want to spend your entire day waiting around.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘I know a really fun thing for your family to do that’s not too far from here.’

  Em felt a surge of warmth emanating from the mum. She glanced at the dad, balancing a girl of about seven on the back of his tandem, and the warmth deepened. Em could tell they were good parents, that they were genuinely thrilled to be on holiday, and that they wanted their children to really enjoy themselves, too.