by Garth Nix
‘It must have a psychic anchor that keeps it alive,’ said a thin-faced bald man. ‘A focus of will, something it has found in a human host.’
‘But that in itself is no cause for concern,’ said a young woman with eyes that twinkled with warmth. ‘This one is obviously not particularly strong in other respects, or else it would have shown itself openly, perhaps even attacked.’
‘Something’s coming,’ said Jack, feeling that the Wardens were downplaying the issue. ‘I don’t know what, but I can feel it.’
He didn’t add that the insects that kept following him and dying were surely a sign of this impending doom. He felt that they were, but he didn’t want to say so.
‘You have no reason to be afraid,’ said the woman with happy eyes. ‘Your grandmother will protect you, and we’re here to help her do just that.’
‘How?’ asked Jaide. ‘You’re all so far away.’
‘That’s what we’ve been discussing. There are several ways to B&B . . . um, that’s “bind and banish” . . . an excision –’
‘They do not need to know the details, Claudette,’ interrupted Grandma X. ‘Particularly if you will insist on using your deplorable acronyms. Suffice it to say, troubletwisters, that we have listened to you and are taking action. Now I want you to attend to the Resonator. I will join you shortly.’
Jack lingered, staring in wonderment at the Wardens in the mirror.
‘Hey, could we talk to Dad through this mirror?’
‘No. You must not.’
The voice was the same one they had first heard. It belonged to a man with a broad face and even broader beard that was the same bright yellow as his thick mane of hair. He looked like a lion, and just as dangerous.
‘Not until you have your Gifts properly under control,’ he said sternly.
Grandma X shooed the twins in the direction of the secret door.
‘Aleksandr is right. Now say goodbye and attend to your duties.’
‘Goodbye, Jack and Jaide,’ said the woman with the smiling eyes. ‘It was nice to finally meet you. Hector says such wonderful things about you!’
Jack wanted to go back and ask her what their father had told her about them, but Jaide was tugging at his arm.
‘Come on,’ she insisted, and he had no choice but to follow.
Instead of going up to the roof, however, she detoured back to their room and opened her schoolbag.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I want to look in that dictionary Rodeo Dave gave us. I want to look up circumspect.’
Jaide pulled the thick book from her bag and thumbed her way to the Cs. ‘I have a vague idea what it means, but I want to make sure.’
She found it and quickly read through the definition while Jack peered over her shoulder, wondering what was going through his sister’s mind.
‘That’s it,’ she said, closing the book so suddenly she made Jack jump. The bang echoed through the otherwise silent house. ‘It means to be careful about what you’re saying. To keep something secret.’
She looked up at Jack. ‘They’re not telling us everything about the excision.’
Jack didn’t feel as affronted as she did.
‘Is that so surprising? They’re not telling us a lot about anything, Jaide.’
‘But –’
‘Come on. Let’s go and do what we’re told before Grandma tells us off. I’m too tired to get into trouble.’
‘All right.’
Ari was on the widow’s walk, but Kleo was out patrolling. The Resonator was wildly active, shooting to a new direction every few minutes, as though an army of The Evil was swarming all around them. Fortunately Grandma X had turned the smoke off. Or maybe it had run out of fuel or something. Now its little eyes just winked, weak in the daylight.
Despite the Resonator’s activity, there was nothing visible under the afternoon sun, and the weathervane hardly twitched.
‘It’s been like this all day.’ Ari yawned. ‘You didn’t bring any food by any change, did you?’
‘Sorry,’ said Jack, who could have used a bite himself. ‘I can go and get you something.’
‘No, you have to stay up here until they finish talking about the ward.’
‘The what?’ said Jaide.
‘The excision,’ said Ari, suddenly finding the energy to sit up straight. ‘That’s what I meant to say.’
Jaide came right up close to him. ‘You said ward.’
‘Slip of the whisker,’ replied Ari. ‘I meant excision of course.’
‘Which ward?’ asked Jack. ‘Not ours, I hope.’
‘If there was anything wrong with that ward, you would feel it,’ said Ari hastily. ‘That’s what happens when you make a ward. You’re connected to it for life, and –’
‘Don’t try to change the subject,’ said Jaide, poking him in his furry chest. ‘If there’s something important going on, we want to know about it.’
‘There’s always something going on here,’ Ari said. ‘I mean, look at that contraption, will you? But I honestly don’t think there is anything for you to worry about. It’s not even a problem any more, mostly. Everything’s almost exactly back the way it was before.’
‘Except for the excision, and Amadeus and the train cats, and the monster that everyone seems to have forgotten about.’ Jaide flopped back on to the wooden deck. ‘It’s like there’s a spell on everyone in this town, making them forget what’s important. Something is coming. Jack can feel it, and so can I. Why won’t anyone listen to us?’
‘You are being listened to, Jaidith.’ Grandma X ascended wearily from the stairs. ‘I would never have called a Gathering of the Glass otherwise.’
She handed the twins half a sticky bun each, and gave Ari a slice of cured meat, which he swallowed in one giant gulp.
‘We’ve decided to conduct a binding and banishing on the excision this Friday night, while you’re in Scarborough.’ She pulled a small silver flask from her hip pocket, opened the top and took a swig. Then she offered it to Jack. He sniffed suspiciously at it, and she said, ‘Pure water. There’s nothing better.’
‘Can’t we help?’ asked Jaide after she too had had a sip.
‘I . . . that is, we . . . believe that it would be too dangerous for you, and not only because of the threat posed by your uncontrolled Gifts. The excision has been too busy to worry overmuch about you this week. But now, with its plans thwarted, it will seek to hurt us another way. Through you. If it can turn one of you, or kill both of you, it could break the East Ward and re-establish its connection with The Evil.’
‘What has it been too busy with, Grandma?’ asked Jaide innocently.
Grandma X smiled. ‘Never you mind,’ she said.
But Jack thought he understood now. The excision, in the form of the monster, must have attacked one of the wards, but its efforts had been in vain. How the weird potions and poisoned rats fitted into the plan, Jack didn’t immediately know.
But then he had a flash of inspiration.
What if Kleo is the Living Ward?
That way, the poisoning of the cats made sense. And Kleo’s anxiety about Amadeus and the other cats too. The insight was so powerful and obvious that he could have kicked himself for not working it out sooner.
The train cats were working for The Evil. They wanted Kleo out of the way just as much as it did. That was how it had turned them. When they had what they wanted, the wards would fall and Portland would be exposed.
No wonder Grandma X was so worried.
She and Jaide were still talking, but not about anything real. The story about the excision wanting to attack them was obviously a cover to hide the Wardens’ real concern. That was OK; Jack didn’t mind as much as Jaide did that things were being kept from them. They were smart enough to work it out for themselves eventually. And smart enough, too, to find ways to be part of the solution.
‘Are we having dinner soon?’ he asked. The half a bun had barely touched the sides of his empty stomach.
Neither of them had the energy to argue with that. After a week of disturbed rest, it was all they could do to stay awake through dinner, even with the excitement of the police car next door to report. Their mother expressed alarm at the thought of trouble so close to the house, but assumed it was only minor vandalism of the kind she was used to from the city.
‘There’s a bad element in every town,’ Susan said. ‘Although I’m surprised we haven’t seen any graffiti at all in Portland.’
‘I don’t approve of it,’ said Grandma X primly.
‘Of course you don’t. Neither do I. But there’s not much we can do about it.’
The smallest hint of a secret smile touched the corner of Grandma X’s mouth, gone so quickly that Jack and Jaide almost missed it. But they saw it, and wondered what particular fate the Warden of Portland reserved for graffiti vandals.
Susan yawned, setting off the twins, which made them all laugh.
‘It’s weird,’ she said, stretching. ‘I sleep so well in Portland, but I hardly sleep at all when I’m on shift. Too much to worry about, I suppose. It’s so peaceful here. I could get used to it.’
She smiled as though in surprise at the thought, and the twins smiled back, thinking, If only you knew!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Cats on a Train
The twins slept so well they wondered if Grandma X had slipped them a potion before putting them to bed. They didn’t even dream, which made it something of a relief for Jack. He woke feeling nervous but confident, as if ready for a test at school, one he had prepared for well in advance.
They said goodbye to their mother and went to school, Jack lathered in Grandma X’s repellent in order to keep the bugs at bay. They barely thought about anything other than finding ways to repel the train cats so Kleo would be safe.
Jack had told Jaide his theory before they had nodded off the previous night, and she agreed that it was watertight. Why else was Kleo hardly to be seen these days? She was in hiding, not patrolling.
‘She doesn’t seem the hiding type though.’ That was Jaide’s only doubt.
‘But she has to obey Grandma,’ was Jack’s counterargument. ‘That’s what it means to be a Companion. They took an oath, remember?’
‘I wonder what it means to be the Living Ward,’ Jaide mused. ‘Does it feel . . . weird?’
‘Maybe she can never leave Portland,’ said Jack. ‘It’d be like a prison.’
That was a gloomy thought, alleviated only by Tara’s relentless good cheer. She had prepared a whole schedule of fun things for them to do that night, starting with a swim and finishing with another late-night movie marathon. Her parents were so less strict than Jaide and Jack’s that it was like they were from another planet. It made even Jaide feel a lot more positive about Martin McAndrew, despite all the weird things that had accrued around him.
That was the only thing Jack couldn’t fit into his new understanding of Kleo and the Living Ward. If she was the Living Ward, then what did it matter if MMM Holdings was building near a particular site? If she had any kind of fixed abode, it was with Rodeo Dave in The Book Herd.
‘Eww,’ said Miralda as they came in from lunch. ‘What’s that on your back?’
Jack twisted and turned, but couldn’t stretch his neck far enough. ‘I can’t see. Get it off, whatever it is!’
‘It’s just a worm,’ said Tara, flicking it from him. Perhaps by accident, perhaps by intention, it landed right at Miralda’s feet. ‘It doesn’t take much to scare you Portlanders, does it?’
Miralda flushed in anger. ‘I’m not scared. I just think it’s unhygienic.’
‘Nothing wrong with worms,’ said Kyle. ‘They’re not even slimy, like most people think.’
‘And you know all about worms, I suppose,’ said Miralda with a sneer.
‘Well, a bit. We’ve got a worm farm at home. I could bring it in for Show and Tell one day.’
‘Spare me.’ Miralda turned to the rest of the class for support.
‘That’d be cool,’ said one boy.
‘Can you really cut them in half and make two worms?’ asked another.
‘That’s an excellent idea, Kyle,’ said Mr Carver, overhearing. ‘Lumbricus terrestis, the humble earthworm, is an essential part of organic gardening. A day discussing the many beneficial creatures living in our back gardens would be an excellent addition to your learning. Let’s make it Monday, shall we?’
Kyle looked startled by Mr Carver’s enthusiasm for anything he had uttered, and Miralda practically had steam coming out of her ears from the way the tables had been turned on her. Jaide couldn’t hide a smile of triumph when Tara shot her a quick wink.
Jack didn’t share their satisfaction. Whatever the excision was up to, he was still the main target. He couldn’t bear the thought of bugs coming in wave after wave, day after day. What would it be next – centipedes in his clothes? Scorpions in his bed? That thought kept him subdued and distracted even after the home-time tune sounded and the weekend had finally arrived.
The twins had brought the stuff they needed for Scarborough with them to school, so there was no need to go home. They went past the old sawmill, all three on foot, with Jack and Jaide wheeling their bikes rather than riding them. Tara chattered happily about the night ahead, then stopped when she saw the MMM Holdings van among others parked outside the building site.
‘That’s weird,’ she said. ‘Dad’s not supposed to be in Portland today.’
‘I saw him drive past the school earlier,’ said Jaide. ‘Maybe something came up.’
‘But he promised he’d pick us up at the railway station in Scarborough.’ Tara looked as though she might want to go and find him, but at that moment the train whistled, telling them that they had only moments to catch it.
‘I guess Mum will be there instead,’ Tara said as they ran the last hundred yards to the station. ‘That must be it.’
They stumbled on to the train, red-faced and out of breath. They had barely collapsed into a seat when the train lurched under them and they were off.
‘Well, well, well,’ said the portly conductor as he clipped their tickets. ‘And then there were three.’
‘Three’s company,’ said Tara, smiling up at him.
‘Or a crowd,’ he said, tapping the side of his round nose.
‘He’s always like that,’ Tara whispered when he had gone. ‘I think it’s how he stops from being bored.’
‘Whenever our dad says “Well, well, well”,’ Jack told Tara, ‘he always follows it with, “And that was the story of the three holes in the ground.”’
Tara laughed. ‘That’s terrible. But at least your dad cracks jokes.’
‘Your dad buys you stuff,’ said Jaide. ‘That’s something.’
‘Oh yes, but still no horse. I ask him every year. Maybe one day, when we settle somewhere permanently.’
‘Do you think you’ll stay in Scarborough long?’
Tara shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But I hope so. I like it here better than the last three places combined.’
She glanced at Jack when she said this, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was staring out of the window, deep in a thought that Jaide couldn’t read. She felt a tiny twinge of jealousy, but didn’t know who she was jealous of exactly. She told herself not to be jealous of anyone, since Jack would always be her brother and Tara didn’t have to choose between them. They could all be friends, just as they were now.
They talked non-stop the whole way, so it seemed like only moments had passed before they arrived at Scarborough Station. There was no one waiting for the return trip: people came to Scarborough for the weekend, not the other way round. Tara looked around when she stepped off the train, but neither o
f her parents was in evidence. Reaching into her schoolbag, she pulled out her phone and checked the screen for messages.
‘Dad’s coming,’ she said, ‘but he’ll be late. We’re to wait until he gets here.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Jack, slouching off to the nearest bench. His bag was heavy and his feet were sore, even though he’d been sitting down the whole trip. That happened a lot. His mother said they were growing pains, but he never seemed to get any taller. ‘Do you think he’ll let us get doughnuts again?’
‘I’m sure he will,’ Tara said with a grin. ‘He always buys me stuff when he’s feeling guilty.’
They sat in silence for a while, watching cars come and go along the street outside the station. Jaide kept an eye out for Amadeus and the train cats, but they were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps, she thought, the council’s countermeasures were working.
Then she saw a pair of pointy ears poke up from the coal tender behind the locomotive, followed by two amber eyes. Seeing her looking, the cat ducked immediately back out of sight.
Jaide grabbed Jack’s arm.
‘They’re on the train,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘They must’ve got on the other side!’
Jack broke off a conversation with Tara about his favourite computer games and turned to look. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew better than to mistrust Jaide’s eyesight. It had once been his after all.
‘What are we going to do? We never decided what to do exactly!’
‘We have to go and warn Kleo!’
‘How?’
‘You’re whispering again,’ said Tara, folding her arms tightly across her chest. ‘I know it’s a twin thing and all that, but I reall –’
‘Can we borrow your phone?’ asked Jaide, seeing it still in her hand.
‘Well, OK, but –’
‘Thanks!’ Jaide took the phone and walked to the other side of the platform to call home. She got the answering machine, which was just a computerised voice telling the caller to leave a message.