Hollow Earth

by John Barrowman

  Tanan was flipped against the kiln, his head slamming into its control panel. The easel wobbled on its three legs, as the ground shifted beneath it. ‘My painting!’ he screamed.

  Mara was knocked off her feet, as she tried to get across the room to the children. Without seeing exactly what he was drawing, Matt trusted his hand was following his mind’s eye. Next to Matt, Zach was using his body as a barrier.

  Em, what on earth did you do?

  I thought … about how Mum might never come back. That she might be gone for ever.

  Tanan held the painting high above his head, as the rising water swirled around him, angrier than ever. ‘Get her under control, Mara!’

  Mara lunged at Em, grabbing her shoulders and ducking her under the water. Em gasped and choked.

  Em, it’s okay. Make the water stop.

  Em tried to settle her dreadful fear the best way she knew how – by imagining her mum watching a movie with her, helping her decorate her new bedroom, the soft lilt of Sandie’s voice echoing in her head. And in an instant, the waters receded.

  Dripping wet and unable to contain his fury, Tanan grabbed Mara’s arm, shoving her to the floor next to Em. ‘They were supposed to be prepared for this. We need her imagination clear if she and her brother are to do what we want. Cut her loose!’

  Mara reached down to cut off the plastic tie that bound Em to Zach. She stopped, turning white as she realized what had just happened.

  Zach was missing.

  ‘Where is he?’ she screamed at Matt, shoving Em against the wall.

  Tanan grabbed a blade from one of Mara’s worktables and lunged at Matt, who instinctively covered his head with his arms. Em gasped, struggling to free herself from Mara’s painful grip.

  Tanan yanked Matt upright, cutting the plastic tie around his wrist to see the wall behind him more clearly. The ties that had bound Zach cracked under his foot. He stared in disbelief at the residue of two etchings carved into the stone. The first was a roughly drawn cat-flap – just wide enough for a tall, thin boy to crawl through. And next to it, an etching of a crude pair of scissors.

  ‘You are going to be very sorry you did that,’ said Tanan, dragging Matt over to the easel where Witch with Changeling Child shimmered in the deepening shadows of the day.

  SIXTY-TWO

  Zach squeezed himself out through Matt’s imagined hole in the wall, sprinted across the lawn – then suddenly stopped. Darting back to the kitchen he grabbed his watch, his backpack and a set of keys from the pegboard in the utility room, before hurrying to the boathouse, where he pulled the tarp from the Abbey’s speedboat.

  Sorry Dad, wherever you are. You can take away as many computer privileges as you want after this day is over.

  Zach slowly reversed out of the slot in the boathouse, pointed towards Era Mina and gunned the throttle.

  Tanan threw Matt to the studio floor in front of the painting. ‘I’ve not spent the last ten years of my life pretending to support Sir Charles Wren’s views on the Council so that two kids can trick me out of my destiny.’

  Mara dragged Em next to her brother, tore a sheet of paper from a pad on her worktable and began sketching. Iron bars shot out of the floor, inches from the twins, circling them, then morphed two feet above their heads into a massive steel lock. Huddling together for warmth, the twins felt like terrified birds.

  ‘Em, come over to the bars,’ said Mara.

  Do it, Em. We need to give Zach time to get to the island. Without us, he actually has to row across the bay this time.

  ‘Hands through, please.’

  After snapping another plastic tie on to Em’s wrists, Mara did the same to Matt. Outside, a boat engine roared to life. Tanan rushed to the door just in time to see Zach crashing through the waves toward Era Mina.

  I guess Zach isn’t rowing after all.

  Tanan stormed back to stand in front of the painting. For a few minutes, he simply stared at it, rubbing his temples, lost in thought. Then he pulled out his notebook and began to draw. In a burst of yellow light, the changeling leaped from the crone’s lap and out of the painting, scuttling across the floor to the cage, where it leaned close to Em. She struggled to pull herself away from its foul, icy breath. Close to her ear, the dwarfish creature snapped its jagged teeth up and down, up and down, then scampered out of the door.

  Warn Zach!

  Acting on Matt’s urgent advice, Em sent out a telepathic warning, repeating it in her mind over and over again every few seconds. No reply. What if something had already happened to him? Did he really know how to drive that boat?

  He’ll be okay, right?

  When he gets to Vaughn, he’ll be fine.

  ‘What are we going to do about Zach?’ Mara asked Tanan, sounding tense.

  ‘He’s no longer a concern. When he gets to the island, he’ll be shocked to discover that Vaughn has had a nasty accident. Then he’ll have one too.’

  The caladrius’s vision slammed into the twins’ minds at the same time. Tanan knew about Vaughn.

  I’m going to be sick.

  No, Em, you’re not. We’re going to do as they ask until we think of a way to get ourselves out of this cage. When we do, we’ll get to Era Mina to help Zach and Vaughn. Now think!

  Tanan flipped his hood up over his head. ‘Can you handle them on your own for a few minutes?’

  ‘Of course,’ Mara said. ‘But where are you going?’

  ‘To Sandie’s studio,’ Tanan replied. ‘I left something there for safe-keeping the night Blake and I broke in to get the satchel for Wren.’ He looked at the twins. ‘I believe it’s time that you were formally introduced to your father.’

  SIXTY-THREE

  Em’s instincts had been right. Drops of sweat trickled down her spine. Her hands were clammy, and the drumming in her head had returned in full force.

  I knew it! This all has something to do with Mum and Dad.

  I know. I know …

  Matt needed to think this through for himself. He slouched back against the bars, his fury now fusing with his fear over what the next few minutes might bring.

  The strange notion that their father was somehow next door could mean only one of two things. The first was that he had come to help them find their mother, and that Tanan and Mara had taken him prisoner. The second option was much more chilling, but if Matt was being honest with himself, it seemed more likely. Their dad was part of Tanan and Mara’s plan, somehow hiding in Sandie’s studio, biding his time until he could use his very own children to achieve some mysterious, shared goal.

  Mara repositioned the painting near the studio doors, leaving an empty board on the easel with its clamps hanging loose. The old crone’s lap was now empty, her hands clutching her ragged robes instead of wrapped around the creature. Em could swear that she could hear the witch weeping through the dreadful drumming in her head.

  We need to animate something before Tanan gets back, Matt. He seems be stronger than Mara.

  The twins were silent for a while, watching Mara wrap some of her glass pieces and set them into packing boxes stuffed with straw.

  We need to copy something. It’ll be easier to animate.

  We’d still need to draw it. We’re all out of paper and pencils.

  Em glared at her brother across the cage.

  So we’re giving up?

  Mara and Tanan were very powerful together; they had put Renard in a coma and done something terrible to Simon. But Em knew that their mum would want them to try to find a way out of their predicament. She would not want them to stop trying.

  Matt burst out laughing. I love it when you think like Mum.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ asked Mara, stopping her packing. She checked the room, clearly afraid that the twins had animated something behind her back.

  The scent of fish and seaweed wafted into the studio through the open doors. Matt stared out at the Abbey’s north tower, at the ever-present flock of seagulls perching on the balustrades, at the Abbey’s two fla
gs snapping in the evening breeze. And he had an idea.

  Tanan was coming back. The twins heard his footsteps on the stones outside. Em’s body tensed. Matt sat up straight.

  Tanan was carrying an airtight aluminium tube, the kind artists used to protect their unframed canvases from damage. The twins looked at the tube in confusion. Their mum had given it to Violet before they fled the London flat. So why was it here?

  What had Mara said? Blake found something important at the house in Raphael Terrace the morning that you fled London. It didn’t take much for her to take it from that old woman, Violet. She didn’t quite appreciate what it was at the time, and to be quite honest, nor did we …

  Dry-mouthed, Em looked at her brother.

  Be ready, Em.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Matt realized the significance of the tube as soon as Tanan broke its thick wax seal and withdrew a tightly rolled canvas. His idea for escape was sidelined in an instant.

  Dad’s bound in that picture, Em! I bet they want us to release him somehow. Can you sense him? Do you hear anything? Feel anything?

  Em shook her head very slightly at her brother, who was struggling to contain his excitement. Nothing.

  Tanan carried the canvas over to the easel recently vacated by Witch with Changeling Child, placing each corner reverently under the clamps. With their backs to the children, the two adults stood in front of the painting as if it were an artefact on a religious altar. They stood there for so long that the twins thought – hoped – they’d been forgotten.

  The canvas was the size of a school notebook, but the demon captured on it was truly monstrous. Its body was the size of three men, its muscles and skeletal structure visible beneath red, scaly skin. Matt thought it looked like an anatomical drawing of a body without skin. Em thought it was simply horrible.

  Tanan’s back was still turned to the twins. ‘This is a copy of Duncan Fox’s The Demon Within, painted by your mother.’

  ‘Fox was a brilliant Animare in the nineteenth century. He claimed this was the first monster he saw in Hollow Earth.’

  Matt and Em gasped. Mara’s eyes were expressionless.

  ‘Oh yes. Fox found Hollow Earth,’ Tanan murmured. He was pleased with the effect he was having on the twins, and stroked the face of the monster in the picture before him. ‘Disturbing creature, isn’t it? It’s no wonder Fox went insane.’

  Matt glanced at Em. I thought you said Hollow Earth was a legend!

  Em swallowed, too shocked to respond. They both thought of the strange yellow, green and black drawing Arthur Summers had sent them; Matt remembered the painting in the vault. Zach’s laptop described the picture as showing ‘the entrance to a mythical purgatory’ …

  The two adults stepped away from the painting and walked over to the cage. The twins did their best to stand with as much dignity as they could muster, given that their hands were bound and their heads were hitting the top of the cage.

  ‘When you were very young, your mother bound your father in this painting,’ said Mara. ‘We need you to use your significant abilities to release him.’

  ‘But why would Mum do that?’ said Em, her voice cracking slightly.

  ‘Because your mother lacked your father’s vision for the future,’ Tanan said.

  Suddenly the cage began to rattle, knocking Em to her knees. Matt clenched one of the bars to steady himself. It changed into a snake, hissing and spitting venom at him, and he yanked his hand away, staring at Em.

  ‘Are you doing this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Em cried, looking at the canvas on the easel. ‘Maybe. That painting scares me.’

  The studio floor rolled, buckled and cracked underneath the cage, dropping the twins into a huge fissure.

  ‘You told me you had her under control!’ Tanan shouted. ‘Bring them here.’

  Grabbing the twins from the buckled and useless cage, Mara cut their ties, dragging them over to the easel. The twins instinctively took each other’s hands.

  ‘Your father, Mara and I revived the Hollow Earth Society right after you were born,’ said Tanan softly, ‘because we believed, like Duncan Fox, that Hollow Earth was real. We understood how a very powerful Animare and Guardian together could open Hollow Earth. However, unlike Fox – who sought to protect the world from the creatures within – we have somewhat bigger plans.’ An expression close to rapture filled Tanan’s face as he recited the lines the twins remembered from the inscription on Arthur Summers’ drawing. ‘To our sons and daughters, may you never forget imagination is the real and the eternal. This is Hollow Earth.’

  Em stared at her mum’s copy of The Demon Within stretched on the easel. The image at its centre was like nothing she’d ever seen before – monstrous, skeletal and scaly. ‘Mum bound Dad in this painting so he could find Hollow Earth?’

  Tanan leaned close to Em. ‘Your mother bound him in this painting to stop him finding Hollow Earth!’

  Help me!

  For a beat, Em thought Zach must have come back to the studio. She was so sure that she turned, expecting to see him. But he wasn’t there. His voice was only in her head.

  Zach’s in trouble. We need to get out of here.

  ‘We need you to release your father from this painting so the Society can continue its mission,’ said Tanan, his eyes flaring angrily. ‘We need your father to find Hollow Earth, and, when he does, we need you to open it.’

  He’s insane, Matt.

  Matt needed to focus on getting them out of here. He looked again at the Abbey’s flags.

  ‘If you want to see Simon or your mother again,’ added Tanan, ‘you will do this for us.’

  ‘But we don’t know how!’ wailed Em.

  ‘Concentrate. Feel your connection to your father—’

  ‘We can do it,’ Matt said, interrupting. He squeezed his sister’s hand. Trust me and empty your imagination, Em.

  Confused, Em did as her brother suggested, sending images and emotions flying out of her head in trails of brilliant light and streams of magnificent colours. For a few seconds, they filled the studio; then, just as quickly, they exploded into a million sparkling pieces, like embers from a fire, fading to nothing. Her mother’s voice popped into her mind. She forced that out into the room, too.

  ‘Good,’ said Tanan, relaxing. ‘You need a quiet mind. Now, are you ready?’

  The twins turned so they stood back to back, their shoulders pressing against each other. Tanan and Mara took each other’s hands, barely able to contain their excitement. On the easel, the canvas was pulsing, the monster’s scaly hands twitching and flexing.

  Instead of sending words to Em’s mind, Matt telepathed lines, curves, dots, smudges of black, white and silver. Instead of the rhythm of Matt’s voice, Em accepted the texture and dimension of an image. Instead of sentences, Em let a picture take shape.

  Suddenly it sounded as if a helicopter was hovering outside. Mara looked up, staring in confusion as all the natural light from her stained-glass window was blocked from the room. The canvas had returned to stillness as Matt had shifted his imagination to Em. There was no shimmer, no bursts of colours, no creative energy – no Malcolm.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ said Tanan.

  ‘They look as if they’re in a trance,’ said Mara, her voice displaying a twinge of anxiety. She grabbed Matt’s wrist, feeling for his pulse.

  The twins’ eyes were closed, their heads pressed together, their hearts beating in sync, their minds creating in unison.

  ‘This should be working,’ yelled Tanan, rushing forward.

  But he didn’t get very far. A magnificent white stag with expansive silver wings crashed through the stained-glass window, landing on top of the twins’ cage, crushing it under its hooves.

  ‘A peryton!’ gasped Mara.

  Tanan was too stunned to move. The twins’ eyes snapped open. For a couple of seconds, they stared in awe at their animation. Then Mara screamed in anger, lunging for a piece of pipe lying near one of her
crates, just as Tanan reached for his sketchpad. But neither Tanan nor Mara moved fast enough.

  It was as if the peryton knew their next move. It dipped its enormous white antlers, hooked them on the nearby crate and launched it across the room. The crate landed on top of them, sending Tanan’s sketchpad across the floor, coloured glass showering down on them.

  The twins ran to the peryton. Cupping his hands, Matt hoisted Em on to the beast, pulling himself up in front of her. The beast took one, two, three paces forward then lifted itself back out through the smashed window.

  ‘Nice job with the whole earthquake thing to get us out of the cage, Em,’ Matt shouted against the wind. ‘But I could have lived without the snake.’

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Tearing pieces of crate and shards of glass from his robes, Tanan let out a feral howl, as the peryton carried the twins out through the remains of the stained-glass window. He kicked over the easel, sending Mara to the floor to retrieve the canvas of Fox’s demon, then pulled his sketchpad from his sleeve, pacing like a maniac and waving it in the air like a weapon.

  ‘Malcolm wasn’t bound in that painting at all, and the twins sensed it. Sandie must have made another copy …’

  For the first time, Tanan wondered if his ambitions might have impaired his vision. Sandie had been one step ahead of him the whole way.

  Mara thrust the canvas into his hands and backed away. Tanan stared down at the image. The demon’s coral skin was scaly and pockmarked, its muscles and bones distinctly visible, and its bald head couched demented eyes. So if this was not the picture in which Malcolm had been bound, then where was the first copy? The satchel …

  ‘I’m going after the twins,’ said Mara. She was about to take the canvas and return it to the tube when Tanan put his hand on her arm.

  ‘Wait,’ he said softly. ‘I have a better idea. Let’s send Fox’s demon to fetch them.’

  The peryton landed with grace, setting Matt and Em down on an outcropping of rocks at Monk’s Cove on Era Mina.

  ‘So how long do you think our animation will last?’ asked Em, stroking the beast’s wings with awe.