Hollow Earth

by John Barrowman

  ‘Look out!’ screamed Em.

  Matt had dodged out on to the street to avoid a family crowding the promenade, steering right into the path of an oncoming tour bus. Swerving up on to the kerb, he used his momentum to jump his bike over the beach steps and bounce on to the sand, before nailing a perfect landing. Behind him, the driver honked furiously.

  ‘Who the heck taught that guy to drive?’ yelled Matt in rage, as Em and Zach set their bikes down on the sand beside him.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re so upset. That was totally your fault,’ chastised Em. ‘You could have been killed!’

  Matt glared at her. ‘You’re not my mother.’

  ‘We’re losing him,’ signed Zach, watching the stranger receding through the binoculars. Matt threw his bike on to the sand in frustration.

  ‘Very mature!’ said Em, jumping out of the way just in time.

  Matt paced anxiously. ‘We need to draw something.’

  ‘Too many people,’ signed Zach.

  ‘It has to be something that’ll allow us to see where he’s going without having to follow him directly,’ Matt muttered, ignoring Zach’s warning. ‘And something that won’t call attention to any of us.’

  ‘That rules out a jet-pack or a speedboat,’ signed Zach, only half-joking.

  ‘What if we leave our bikes and get a taxi somewhere quieter?’ suggested Em. Zach hadn’t brought any money. Matt did have a fiver in his pocket, but he had plans for that and kept quiet about it. Picking up his bike, he locked it to a nearby stand. Then, pulling out a small sketchpad and three badly chewed pencils from his pack, he slouched against the beach wall to draw.

  Mum needs our help, Em urged, mutely. If someone took her, they could be watching us, too.

  I don’t care. I’m doing this.

  Zach and Em locked their bikes next to Matt’s. Climbing up on the beach wall, Zach kept the binoculars trained on the stranger, while Em sat close to her brother, worried she might be called on for damage control. Matt’s hand was flying across the sketchpad. After a few seconds, Em realized what he was drawing. She didn’t care whether he wanted or even needed her help; in her own imagination, she began to follow his every stroke. If nothing else, their combined efforts would make the animation even stronger.

  Jumping down from the wall, Zach let the binoculars fall to his chest. ‘He’s gone. I can’t see him anywhere. He didn’t come into shore at the memorial. I think he’s gone further down the coast,’ he signed.

  He peered over Em’s shoulder at Matt’s drawing. A bird the size of an osprey with piercing blue eyes and a rounded, gull-like head was emerging.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A caladrius,’ signed Matt, ‘a mythical bird that can see the future. Renard told me about it.’ He shaded the bird’s wings.

  ‘You think a bird that sees the future is going to help us see where the man in the boat’s going!’ exclaimed Em.

  Matt grinned.

  ‘Show off.’ Zach shook his head. ‘Seriously, how are we going to see what the bird sees?’

  Matt erased the top of the drawing, reworking the bird’s head. ‘You two had better be ready for this. I’ve never done it before.’

  At first Em didn’t think Matt’s drawing had animated, as the only thing visible in the sky was a plane banking into the airport. She was just about to reach for a pencil, when the most beautiful bird she’d ever seen soared out of the blue, as if the sky was a curtain it had been hiding behind. Its feathers looked like crushed velvet.

  She smiled in admiration at Matt. The pupils of his eyes were eerily wide. Em’s admiration morphed to panic.

  A few tourists waiting in line for ice creams had noticed the bird, pointing and gawking up at it. An elderly Englishman cupped his hands over his eyes to get a better look. ‘My goodness,’ he said, ‘even the seagulls are bigger up here.’

  Now the caladrius hovered directly above the twins, its wingspan creating a current of air so strong that Em was knocked back on her heels a little. Before someone had the opportunity to find a camera, Matt concentrated on his image, sending the caladrius soaring farther out over the bay. And that was when Em saw exactly what was wrong.

  Zach, a little help here.

  Em’s hand was cupped under Matt’s elbow as she directed him where to walk. Grabbing the drawing, Zach saw Matt’s eyes gazing out of the caladrius’s head. Matt had sent his own vision soaring into the sky with the bird.

  ‘It didn’t quite work out the way I imagined,’ Matt admitted, feeling his way up the steps from the sand with Em’s help. ‘But it’ll have to do.’

  ‘What if this has permanent effects?’ asked Em, worried for her brother.

  ‘It’s a risk I had to take,’ Matt said seriously. ‘For Mum’s sake.’

  FORTY-THREE

  Arms linked, Zach and Em guided Matt across traffic to the nearest bus stop on Main Street. Em was relieved to see there wasn’t much of a queue. The last thing she needed was someone recognizing them and reporting their antics to Jeannie or Simon.

  ‘Matt, seriously, are you okay?’ They’d never actually put a part of themselves into a picture before. Em didn’t remember her grandfather saying such a thing was even possible.

  ‘I feel a little strange but not bad,’ replied Matt. ‘Really.’

  ‘I can’t believe you did something this stupid!’ Em pinched her brother’s arm angrily.

  ‘Ow!’

  Ask him what it feels like to fly.

  ‘Zach wants to know what it feels like to fly.’

  ‘Great – but weird, too. Sometimes the sky is down and the sea is up, but what’s really bizarre is that I can see the three of us walking to the bus stop.’ Matt stopped, losing his balance for a moment and tilting against Zach. ‘Sorry. My legs are a bit wobbly. My stomach feels like I’m on a roller coaster!’

  The caladrius was swooping above the bay, skimming across the water’s surface for a few seconds before soaring back up into the clouds.

  ‘Now I feel dizzy,’ said Matt.

  ‘Hey,’ said Em, taking Matt’s weight against her for a second, ‘fair warning if you’re going to be sick.’

  Straightening up, Matt tightened his grip on Em and Zach’s arms. ‘I’ll be okay, but we should probably get on to the next bus. It doesn’t matter where it’s going as long as it’s south. The caladrius can see the stranger’s already past the putting green.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we just find a bench and let the bird follow the boat?’ Zach signed.

  ‘We can’t risk losing the stranger if the power of the animation suddenly doesn’t reach that far,’ Em answered, pulling Matt upright as he tipped forward again, almost falling on his face.

  ‘I think the caladrius is playing with my head,’ Matt said thickly. ‘It keeps swooping and zooming.’

  ‘That’s just the way birds fly,’ Em said, unsympathetic.

  ‘We need to get on the next bus.’

  Zach flagged the Troon bus down, and Em fished her pass out of her pocket, digging in Matt’s back pocket for his. Clumsily, the two of them helped Matt up the narrow bus steps, ignoring the stare from the driver. They squeezed into a double seat towards the front of the bus, with Matt in the middle.

  Em telepathed her brother. Where’s the stranger now?

  He’s slowing down … I think he’s heading to the Pencil Monument.

  The Pencil Monument had been built on the shore of Largs to commemorate an ancient Viking battle.

  Suddenly, Matt jumped back against the seat, startled. The woman sitting behind them hugged her shopping bag tighter against her chest, tutting under her breath.

  He’s spotted the caladrius. He’s staring up at me … at it. I’m going higher.

  Is it anyone we know? Zach telepathed Em.

  ‘Any idea yet who the guy is, Matt?’

  ‘He’s taken off his hooded jacket. We definitely need to get off at the stop for the Monument. He’s coming in towards the beach there. I can almost see his f
ace … He’s not stopping at the yacht club … He’s docking on the rocks before the tower.’

  Getting off the bus was less of a commotion than boarding, mainly because Matt was getting used to negotiating his physical surroundings while his imagination soared above the clouds. The sensation was a lot like playing a video game while walking.

  Arm in arm, they crossed the bridge to the yacht club and into the park. Keeping out of sight of the stranger, Em and Zach guided Matt to a picnic table hidden in the middle of a copse of overgrown bramble bushes. Matt glided the caladrius inland.

  ‘It stinks in here,’ said Em, kicking a pile of empty lager cans and takeaway containers out from under the table.

  While Matt kept the caladrius circling, Zach and Em watched the stranger examine the ground around the Monument in the same manner he had investigated the tower on Era Mina.

  ‘What do you reckon he’s looking for?’ asked Em.

  ‘No clue,’ said Matt.

  ‘Try and draw his face.’

  ‘But I can’t see the paper,’ Matt objected.

  ‘You’ll have to sort of feel your way, then.’

  Landing the caladrius on top of the Monument, Matt peered down at the stranger while Em flipped to a clean page in the sketchpad, sliding it under Matt’s fingers.

  ‘Nothing clever, Matt,’ Em advised, as she pressed a pencil into his hand. ‘We don’t want him leaping off the page at us. Just sketch the man’s face.’

  Matt concentrated on what the bird was seeing and tried to make his fingers work.

  As if someone had dropped a curtain, everything went black inside Matt’s mind. Then, just as quickly, the curtain lifted. But instead of watching the stranger examining the base of the Monument, Matt was seeing something quite different. The stranger looked injured, and he was leaning against a wounded Zach. They were both in a cave somewhere.

  Matt leaped up from the picnic table, tripping over his own feet and ending up on his knees next to the pile of rubbish.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Em in alarm. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘The guy …’ Matt managed. ‘Zach … is everyone okay?’

  ‘He’s just getting back in his boat,’ Em replied. ‘Zach’s fine. Why?’

  ‘I think I saw something that hasn’t happened yet,’ said Matt, feeling sick. He felt Em and Zach pulling him back on to his feet. ‘It must have been the caladrius … it was showing me the future.’

  Matt tried to sketch the stranger’s face, feeling his way across the paper, wondering why he looked so familiar. The vision kept disturbing his concentration. Zach and the stranger had been lying injured in the tidal pool in the caves at Monk’s Cove on Era Mina, and that was something he didn’t want to share with anybody.

  ‘I’m going to be sick,’ said Matt, putting his head between his legs, this time actually throwing up.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Thirty minutes later, when the stranger was returning the boat to a rental shop north of Largs pier, the twins and Zach were getting off a bus a few yards away.

  ‘I can’t go any farther,’ said Matt, still feeling nauseous. ‘Get me behind the wall on the beach. The caladrius can follow him the rest of the way on its own. I don’t care any more how far that is. I need to lie down.’

  Zach and Em helped Matt behind the wall, watching the hooded stranger retrieve a motorcycle from the public car park next to the pier. Leaning his head back, Matt kept the caladrius hovering above the buildings.

  ‘He’s heading back to Main Street,’ said Em. ‘Now what?’

  ‘We let the caladrius keep following until I lose the connection.’

  Swooping the caladrius over Largs, Matt lifted it up into the clouds. Zach followed with the binoculars until the biker and the bird vanished towards the Haylie Brae.

  ‘I guess he’s going back to Glasgow … Oh no … please … No … don’t …’

  ‘Matt, what’s wrong?’ Em asked urgently. ‘What are you seeing?’

  Matt gripped his hands to his head and rolled into a foetal position on the sand.

  ‘Matt! Can you hear me? Mattie!!’

  Em knelt in the sand next to her brother, not sure whether to take his hands or support his head, not sure what to do to stop his obvious suffering.

  ‘Eyes burning … chest hurts. I can’t breathe, Em, and I can’t see anything.’

  ‘It’s the bird. Zach, get the drawing!’

  A man and a woman broke from the busy promenade and rushed down on to the beach. Quickly, the man removed his jacket, rolling it up and tucking it under Matt’s neck. The ring on his little finger flashed in the sunlight, making Em blink. These two were the same couple that had tried to get them to perform one of their tourist shows.

  ‘Has he had seizures before?’ the man asked.

  ‘Never.’ Em watched helplessly as Matt continued writhing in the sand.

  The man pressed his hands on Matt’s shoulders, restraining him, nodding pointedly at the woman.

  Em noticed the odd look. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I need to keep him from hurting himself,’ said the man, while the woman was digging in her shoulder bag.

  A small crowd was gathering, Matt’s convulsions beginning to cause concern. Em was feeling very strange in her own head. Something disturbing was emanating from this couple attempting to help Matt.

  ‘I’m calling 999,’ said a woman at the front of the crowd, taking a mobile from her pocket.

  ‘I’m a doctor,’ said the man restraining Matt. He glanced at the woman with him. ‘And my wife’s a nurse. We can get him across the street to the hospital more quickly than an ambulance.’

  Zach, this man isn’t who he says he is. Something’s weird about these two. I can feel it. They were hanging about the other day too – remember?

  Finally reaching the drawing of the caladrius in the sketchpad, Zach tore out the page, ripping the drawing into pieces. Matt’s eyes rolled up into his head, and his body became perfectly still. Terrified, Em threw herself on top of her brother, not feeling any relief until his breath brushed against her cheek.

  Can you hear me?

  ‘I’m calling an ambulance whether you like it or not,’ said the worried woman.

  The man who’d said he was a doctor grasped Em’s arm, lifting her off Matt and setting her behind him in the sand. ‘He’ll be fine in a minute. His seizure’s passed. But we’ll take him across to the hospital anyway.’

  Zach, we need to get Matt away from here. These two are trouble.

  Matt’s sight was returning. He was startled to discover a strange man pinning him against the sand. ‘Hey! Get off me!’ He began to squirm, attempting to get himself out from under the man’s grip.

  ‘Son, I’m a doctor …’

  Matt, he’s lying.

  No sooner had Em articulated her bad feeling to Matt than Zach spotted the doctor’s wife pulling a syringe from her shoulder bag, slipping it underhand to her partner, whose knees were now pressing hard on Matt’s chest.

  Struggling frantically to get up, Matt saw the transfer of the syringe, too. With as much momentum as he could muster, he kneed the man in the groin. It wasn’t a very graceful or even a seriously debilitating move, but it was good enough to give Matt the few seconds he needed to roll free and give Em a chance to toss a handful of sand in the woman’s face.

  Run!

  FORTY-FIVE

  Zach, Em and Matt raced off down the beach. As Matt blinked in the bright sunshine, he was just grateful that he was able to see again. And by the time the first police car skidded up to the pier, the only person left who had witnessed what had happened was the concerned woman with the phone. The so-called doctor and his wife were long gone.

  Zach guided the twins away from the beach front, eventually ducking inside an empty bus shelter in the centre of town.

  ‘What happened there?’ Em asked, gasping. ‘Who were they?’

  ‘I’ve got a horrible feeling they were the people
Simon told us about yesterday – the ones the police are looking for,’ answered Matt. His voice was hoarse, he had a pounding headache, and every time he took a breath, his chest hurt.

  Hands on hips, Em stood in front of her brother. ‘And what about that fit you had?’ she demanded. She punched Matt in the arm, and he yelped. ‘I thought you were having a stroke or something. What happened with the caladrius?’

  ‘You won’t believe it,’ said Matt, rubbing his arm.

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘The stranger shot me – or rather, shot the caladrius.’ Matt’s heart quickened as he thought about the incident. ‘After he got to the top of the Haylie Brae, he pulled his motorbike into a lay-by, and … and he looked up, grinned and took a shot.’

  ‘With what?’

  Matt glanced at Zach’s questioning hands. ‘I don’t know … some kind of gun. The kind hunters use.’

  ‘Is that why you had a fit?’

  ‘When the caladrius was hit, all I could see was this explosion of colours and light, and then it felt as if I’d been shot, too.’ Matt brushed his hair from his eyes, as if he could sweep away the memory. ‘The pain was terrible. My chest was on fire.’

  Em stared at her brother for a minute. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in red, his skin the colour of chalk. She sat next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. ‘Why do you think he took a shot at the bird? Did he work out it was following him?’

  ‘He’d have to be pretty clever to know that,’ Zach shrugged. ‘Unless he was an Animare or a Guardian? Look, I’m glad you’re okay, but I think we may have an even bigger problem right now.’

  Across the road from the bus shelter, two police cars had pulled in alongside each other, the policemen chatting through their open windows.

  ‘Do you think they’re looking for us?’ asked Matt, standing too quickly and feeling light-headed again.

  ‘Surely they’d be more likely to be looking for the couple who tried to kidnap Matt?’ said Em.