Second Night

by Gabriel J Klein

  I’ve got Loki after me!

  CHAPTER 46

  The boys were sharing an outside room at the hotel. Jasper had left the door unlocked. Caz shook him awake.

  ‘Have you been here all night?’ he demanded.

  Jasper sat straight up, shaking his head, disoriented. ‘What? What?’

  Caz gripped him by the shoulders. ‘I said, have you been here all night?’

  Jasper’s eyes came into focus.

  ‘Oh it’s you,’ he said, yawning. ‘Of course I have.’ He pushed Caz’s hands away and fell back onto the pillow, pulling it over his head. ‘I’m asleep. Get lost.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘Where’s Stat?’

  ‘She’s not here. Wake up!’

  Jasper remembered where he was and groaned. ‘Is it time to go to the hospital already?’

  ‘You don’t have to go to the hospital.’

  The head came out from under the pillow. ‘Is he dead then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What a relief!’ Jasper threw back the covers and lurched out of bed to the bathroom. He turned the cold tap full on in the shower and stood, gasping, under the rush of water until he was fully awake.

  Caz gave him a towel.

  ‘Thanks.’ He stripped off his t-shirt and threw it into the washbasin and sat on the toilet with the towel over his head. The tiled floor was saturated with water.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  ‘About five o’clock.’

  ‘Did the poor old git say anything before he went?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So he really has gone then?’

  ‘Yes. Did you have any weird dreams last night?’

  Jasper lifted the flap of the towel and draped it round his forehead. He stretched and yawned and grinned.

  ‘None I’m ready to talk to you about,’ he said smugly.

  ‘But not bad dreams?’

  ‘Not this buye, bro.’ He noticed Caz’s hair and jacket were dripping. ‘Why are you wet?’

  ‘I walked down from Rame.’

  Jasper rolled his eyes. ‘Didn’t the taxi know where to find this place then?’

  ‘I needed some air.’

  ‘Well, I guess you had enough and to spare, wandering about up there on a night like this.’

  Caz shrugged. ‘The rain’s just about stopped now, and the wind’s died right down. It’ll be fine this morning.’

  Their eyes met.

  Jasper sighed. ‘Yes, tough stuff’s better done in the sun, so they say. I wonder how long the waiting list is down at the bod shop? The sooner the old git’s cindered the better. I suppose we’d better find out if Jeb Hardy and his boat are still in the land of the living.’

  ‘That’s up to you,’ said Caz. ‘I’m on the train out of here as soon as I can get Ma to take me to Plymouth.’

  Jasper opened his mouth to argue and shut it again.

  ‘You’re right, you’ve done your bit,’ he conceded. He pointed to the mirror behind the washbasin. ‘But look at yourself, bro. You look like a convict. You’ll be getting yourself arrested turning up in the big city like that. Borrow my razor and tidy yourself up a bit before you go. The least you can do is spare old Dais a heart attack the minute you get back.’

  She’s seen worse, Caz thought wearily. Why did the spook ship take Grandpa? Was it because of Kyri and me? Did we bring it here? Did it take Dad too? Is that why Grandpa burned the boat? Is that why Loki’s after me?

  He stripped off his wet clothes and stood in the shower, lathering his chin. Sleep was fast becoming an immediate priority.

  Jasper stood up. He pee’d noisily into the pan and burped.

  ‘Ah, that’s better,’ he said grandly.

  Caz was already packed and standing on the terrace, drinking coffee, when Jemima got back from her early morning walk on the beach. She went up the steps and stood beside him at the rail looking out over the water. The sea was calm in the shelter of the Sound, licking gently at the deep-rose and purple, and occasionally green-streaked, rocks buttressing the Cornish fishing villages clear of the tides. The storm had gnawed afresh at their stony roots, grinding the rubble in its mighty molars and spitting the fragments across the jewelled sands. The wrack was washed up in even lines, knotted into the shingle.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Phoning people.’

  The sky was gradually brightening under the thin mottling of yellow cloud. Immediately below them, gulls were diving over something washed up on the rocks. A crow swooped down, stabbing at them with its thick beak. They circled, squabbling and crying, as it settled to feed.

  ‘I love the sea after a storm,’ she said quietly. ‘Why don’t we walk up on Rame Head after breakfast?’

  ‘I’m not staying. I’m going back on the train this morning.’

  Jemima sighed. ‘Lucky you! When I was little I used to think the sea needed me but of course it doesn’t. Nothing’s the same here any more.’

  ‘That’s because we don’t belong here any more.’

  ‘I suppose we don’t,’ she agreed sadly. She lowered her voice. ‘Was it the same as when Dad died? Was it sad?’

  He knew what she was hinting at. ‘Not at all. He just died and his curse went with him.’

  ‘Is that how curses really work?’

  Caz looked down into her anxious face. ‘You’ve got to believe in them to make them happen.’

  ‘Do you believe in them?’

  He smiled. ‘No. Now we can go home and get on with our lives. We don’t ever have to come back here again.’

  ‘Except that there’s the funeral to do first,’ she said fretfully. ‘Why does it have to take a week to cremate someone? I’ve spent all my money and there’s no one left here that I know. I can’t spend a week sitting in the cemetery talking to Grandma Em.’

  ‘You don’t have to stay. Come back with me.’

  ‘What about school?’

  ‘We’re the grieving grandkids. As far as school’s concerned we’re stuck down here until we can get back.’

  ‘Ma might tell them.’

  ‘No, she won’t, I’ll tell her not to. We’ll go first class and I’ll treat you to a posh lunch in London on the way.’

  Jemima’s eyes shone. ‘What about paying for the ticket?’

  ‘I’ve got plenty of money. There won’t be any hassle.’

  ‘Are you staying up at the house?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you think Daisy would let me stay there as well? Just this one time, for a treat?’

  ‘Why not? There’re enough empty rooms. But what about Sara?’

  ‘She won’t care. She likes having the lodge to herself. She said so.’

  ‘She did,’ Caz agreed. ‘So come up to the house.’

  ‘Will Daisy mind if the cats want to come too?’

  ‘She’ll be so glad to have us back she won’t even notice. I’ll talk to Ma. It’ll be okay. Go and get your stuff together.’

  ‘I’ll go and do it right now!’

  She got to the top of the steps and turned back with the Jemima-determined look in her eyes. Pointing to where their old family house stood out on the promontory dividing Cawsand from the neighbouring village, she said hotly, ‘We do belong here, Caz! I’m going to go to university and make sure I get a brilliant job with masses of cash, so that I can buy back our house and get a boat. My children will have the most amazing holidays with all the fun that Grandpa never let us have when he was alive. I’m going to tell Jas to put his ashes in the dustbin. The sea’s too good for him!’

  She stomped down the steps. A door slammed behind her. Caz poured another coffee. The last of the cloud dissolved away and the sea was washed clear blue. The crow had disappeared.

  CHAPTER 47

  They returned to a feast presided over by a delighted Sir Jonas, and the news that Delilah, the white-eyed swan
, was back on the lake.

  ‘She’s still pecking at the others and chasing them half across the water when I’m down there with the feed-bucket,’ said John. ‘You’d think she’d never been away.’

  Daisy’s weekend of brooding anxiety was forgotten the minute she picked up the call from Jemima to say they were coming home. Sara was summoned from the library and John was sent post haste to Matt Poole’s farm across the village to buy cream and eggs and home-cured ham. A fat pheasant that had been hanging in the shed for a week, was plucked and stuffed and set to roast after the bread came out of the oven. The manor kitchen spun in a whirlwind of feverish activity until well into the afternoon, culminating in the production of two large bowls of Daisy’s famous chocolate mousse that was laced with cognac to a level more appropriate to the midwinter festivities than a humble Monday evening in early November.

  His errand accomplished, John slipped upstairs to the little kitchen in the housekeeper’s flat to light the stove that was always kept supplied with wood and kindling in case of emergency.

  ‘Seeing as how there’ll be extra staying over and young Caz can eat up there without fear of being disturbed,’ he whispered.

  Daisy wiped her hands on her apron. ‘And that reminds me! The room’s not ready for young Jemima yet! That bed hasn’t been slept in for years and it will need a thorough airing out. What can I be thinking of? We’ll need to get a fire going up there too, and sort the linen and I don’t know what else!’

  ‘Calm yourself, old Dark-eyes. You carry on with what you’re doing and Sara and me’ll sort it out. Just tell us where she’s going to be lodged and we can get to work.’

  ‘We’ll put her in Lady Christina’s room. That’s always been her favourite.’

  Jemima was overjoyed when she found out where she would be sleeping. The minute supper was over, she went upstairs to find Kresh already curled up on one of the matching cushions on either side of the fireplace. Kush jumped onto the chaise longue at the foot of the four-poster bed and paddled the hand-embroidered upholstery. Jemima dropped him on the cushion opposite Kresh.

  ‘No, you don’t!’ she said sternly. ‘You must behave, or else we’ll be sent home in disgrace and there’ll be no more pheasant for you, wicked, naughty boy!’

  She laid her silver brush set on the rosewood dressing table. All three mirrors were speckled black at the edges. It was the only blemish in the richly elegant room where the gilded ormolu mouldings were still bright at the corners of the furniture. She thought it odd that there were no pictures on the walls. A single nail discreetly protruding from the panel over the marble mantelpiece was the only evidence that anything had ever been hung there at all.

  Perhaps they’ve been put in that cupboard, she thought, eyeing the permanently locked door in the panelled wall on the other side of the bed.

  She sat on the stool, looking into the room reversed in the middle mirror, noticing how the faded blue in the silk curtains draping the bed and the windows perfectly set off the colour of her hair. She straightened her pyjama top and pulled at a particularly difficult wrinkle around the neckline.

  What would it have been like to be Lady Christina and massively rich? she wondered. I bet she didn’t get panda eyes when she took off her mascara. Her maid would have done it for her, and sorted out her disaster pyjamas at the same time. Why on earth did I buy them?

  She turned the outside mirrors inward so that each reflected countless repeated images in the other, framed in misted vignette and receding out of normal vision. In that infinite space she could look into her favourite parallel world where she had inherited the same deep, dark blue eyes as her mother and Caz, her hair was black and straight, and deliciously long, and Jasper was someone else’s brother.

  The drawers in the dressing table were all empty, save for what looked like a flat silver box that opened out as a double picture frame. On one side, a young Sir Saxon in dress uniform brandished a gleaming sword, while a small boy with a mop of blond curls and large, pensive eyes regarded her solemnly from the other. She arranged them in front of the middle mirror beside the silver hairbrush, but soon found such close scrutiny unsettling and put them away.

  Something rattled and dropped down behind the drawer as she closed it. Intrigued, she pulled it right out and put her hand into the space, and drew out an ornate brass key. A wisp of frayed and faded silk ribbon, twisted around the handle, suggested that it had hung there, hidden, for many years. It was too large for any of the tiny locks on the drawers in the bureau and too small to fit the mysterious cupboard door.

  There are so many locked doors in this house, she reflected. But locked doors always have keys. This has to fit somewhere. I’ll sort it out tomorrow.

  She got into bed and put the key under the pillow. The bed was warm and deliciously comfortable. Her eyes closed. She seemed to be sinking down into a sea of endless soft feathers when she felt a paw tapping her nose and whiskers tickling her chin.

  ‘What now?’ she grunted crossly.

  The weight of four paws straddled her chest. Two wide green eyes were looking down at her. The paw patted her nose again. Hooves clattered in the stable yard. She jumped out of bed and ran to the window. The catch was stiff. She levered it open with the poker and leaned out, but the yard was already empty. Kush jumped onto her shoulders, purring loudly in her ear. There was movement in the copse beyond the lake. The colt called out. Nanna answered. Three ghostly shadows charged up the hill.

  ‘He rides wild horses and doesn’t take me,’ Jemima murmured wistfully.

  The sky was uniformly thick with heavy cloud tinged with the faint light reflected from a distant village on the other side of the hills. The lake was still and smooth, a gleam of polished obsidian sliced between the broad expanse of the lawns and the ragged depths of the copse. There was not a breath of wind. The night air was vibrant, quivering on the edge of vision. Jemima concentrated, breathing deeply.

  ‘Help me, Golden Goddess,’ she prayed, looking directly up into the dark sky where a shifting in the cloud cover was taking form.

  ‘I see horses, many horses,’ she whispered. ‘They are all grey and only some have riders. I am one of the riders. I can’t see the others, their faces are blurred, but this isn’t the past. I know it’s the future because Caz is waiting for us on the hills.’ She left the window ajar and collected her cloud book from the bureau and got into bed. ‘I must write it down before I forget.’

  But she had mislaid her pen. Kush paddled the pillow and she nuzzled into his warm fur, too tired to bother with anything any more.

  ‘Clever Kush,’ she murmured.

  Her eyes closed. The book fell onto the floor. She was soon deeply asleep.

  Far away in the West Country, the last quarter moon was rising over a mirror-calm sea. Maddie paced the quiet hotel room, sleepless. Memory raged of the last coherent night before her husband had drifted into the long sleep in her arms.

  ‘They’re coming for me, Maddie girl,’ he had whispered. ‘There’s always the reckoning. If the kids get a chance to sort it out, don’t stand in their way.’

  ‘Sort what out?’ she cried. ‘Tell me! You must tell me!’

  But he could no longer answer and she had wept, already alone. The death agony came with the first light of dawn.

  CHAPTER 48

  Caz came late to Thunderslea. The kettle swung on the iron chain over the fire, steaming gently. Alan was cleaning his sword.

  ‘Are you expecting company or is that intended for me?’ Caz asked.

  Alan gave the blade a final wipe and sheathed the weapon. ‘It’s getting down to the time of year when company’s expected. Better safe than sorry.’

  He took carrots and handfuls of horse nuts out of a deep pocket and shared them among the mares.

  ‘There, there,’ he murmured, ‘all’s home and well now. You’ve got your freedom. There’s no need to fret.’

  Freyja snatched a carrot and darted away, tossing her head. Rúna nosed around h
is pockets, nudging at him to scratch between her ears before she turned away to graze. Kyri stood under the tree, her eyes glowing in the firelight. Blue lay down beside her.

  Alan put a handful of chestnuts in the embers to roast. Caz sat down, propping his boots on the ring of stones to warm his feet. Each waited for the other to speak, aware of the silence between them.

  Finally Caz said, ‘Tell me about this Guardian thing and these meetings.’

  ‘I can only tell you what you already know. You were there.’

  ‘So how long has the old man been into it?’

  ‘Since he was twelve years old.’

  Caz was incredulous. ‘You’re telling me he took that oath when he was just a kid?’

  ‘By his account he knew what he was doing. His mother had done it a few years before that, but his dad had already refused. They say that marriage was never the same afterwards.’

  ‘But would you have taken it if you’d had a son?’

  ‘I still had the wife with me when I was sworn. There was still a chance of me being a dad but, like I’ve said before, there’s some things greater than all of us put together. You should remember that.’

  ‘Is that why your wife left you?’

  ‘She didn’t know anything about the Guardians. She went because she was bored silly stuck out here in the backwoods, as she used to call it.’

  ‘Has anyone ever taken the oath and then got fed up and left after they’ve done it?’

  ‘No.’ Alan drained the last from the cup on the stone beside him. ‘Blood oaths go down deeper than stone. There’s no going back on them without a retribution following.’

  ‘But parents have no right to swear something like that on behalf of their children!’

  Alan kept his attention on the fire. ‘Maybe that’s why none of us has any kids to carry it on.’

  ‘Then what happens to the Guardians when the old man dies?’