Carpet Diem

  Simon involuntary jumped away from the wall of bars he’d been leaning against, since he shared them with Harriet.

  “Hey, look at you, all moving and talking,” the voice answered.

  “Let’s go, Wizard of Oz,” said Harriet. “Pull back the curtain.”

  “And rude too. Quite an attitude for such a fine young lady.”

  “I’m older than I look.”

  “Funny how that’s true of a lot of folk here, ain’t it?”

  “So, you going to tell us who you are or not?” Harriet cut to the heart of the matter with her usual subtlety.

  “Well, I suppose the thing you want to know is not who I am, but why I’m here. You see, this is my island.”

  ----

  Faunt paced around his straw bed. He wasn’t going to get any sleep. The problem with knowing everything is that you also know when there isn’t a solution to a problem. However Faunt looked at it, he couldn’t see a way around the Rules. As long as he was alive, Faunt’s non-aggression pact with the Spaniard was binding, at the cost of his life. While, currently, he was angry enough to risk that eventuality, he was aware of his own importance in events and not angry enough to take all leave of his senses.

  Faunt’s limitations in knowing everything were few. But the biggest, and most frustrating, were in not knowing things that were directly beneficial to him specifically. For example, he didn’t know how to reverse the curse that turned him into a deer at midnight. He also didn’t know how to prevent Bob from … he preferred not to finish that thought.

  Of course, in the big picture, the worrying thing was that Simon might end up hurt, or even dead.

  Wait.

  Simon.

  Of course!

  Simon was under his protection – he’d announced it in no uncertain terms to Luke and Gabby. Therefore, he was justified in sending protection for Simon. And if that help happened to help someone he was with, as a consequence, that was not under Faunt’s jurisdiction, surely?

  As loopholes went, it was tenuous. But it was a plan.

  In the morning, Faunt would ask a favour he had no right to ask. He knew they’d both say yes.

  In fact, he’d barely have to ask.

  ----

  “You’re Priest?” Simon asked.

  “That diable?” the voice answered. “I wouldn’t spit on that boy if he was on fire. Again.”

  This was a confusing turn of events. This was Priest’s island. Priest was nowhere to be seen and a man with no name in a dungeon was claiming ownership of the place. If nothing else, he’d made an odd choice of accommodation. Crazy, some might say.

  “No, that big side of beef stole the island from me. It was mine for years, you see, and once, while I was away on vacation, the fat rogue set up camp here, changed the whole place around and claimed it for himself!

  “When I came back, he even had the gall to tell me I was in the wrong place! As if I didn’t know my own home. I grew up here. Every tree, every blade of grass, every waterfall, I know ‘em all. And he stole ‘em.”

  Prisoner’s accent was getting thicker the more excited he got.

  “What did you do?” asked Bob.

  “What could I do? I challenged that boy to a duel for ownership of the island, and do you know what he said?”

  Silence. It soon became clear that he actually wanted an answer.

  “No,” Simon filled the uncomfortable gap.

  “He said, ‘I don’t need to have no duel, I’m The Omission’. And he threw me down here.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t say ‘Exception’?” Simon asked.

  “That’s right; ‘The Exception’.”

  “Right.” Harriet stood up. “So you’re about as much use as non-alcoholic beer.” She turned to look at each of the boys. “How are we going to get out of here?”

  Bob looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know.”

  He was trembling and seemed to be repeatedly counting his fingers.

  “You OK?” Harriet asked.

  “I … don’t like cages,” the giant answered. “I’d like to get out.”

  “Aye, well, seeing as Amelia’s mum is planning to skin you alive tomorrow, we thought that’d be best, too.”

  Harriet had broken the news gently, as usual. Bob’s face drained of colour. Simon found himself singing ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ to himself. Sometimes his mind did really inappropriate things. Actually, it was quite often.

  “Well, well, sounds like maybe you all need my help after all,” said Prisoner.

  “And what good are you likely to be?” Harriet asked. “You can’t even remember your own name.”

  “Ah, but I can remember which one of these cells I dug a hole in the wall of. All we have to do is get into it.”

  “We? You’re coming with us, are you sunshine?” Harriet asked.

  “You don’t think I’d help you escape and stay here on my own, do you?”

  “Wait,” Simon interrupted, “it’s all well and good you saying there’s a way out in one of the other cells, but how are we supposed to get out of our own cells? The guards don’t strike me as the type we’re going to be able to trick into letting us out.”

  Bob cleared his throat. The colour was beginning to return to his face.

  “I can help with that.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Wait. You’re a locksmith?” Harriet asked. “So, you could have let yourself out at any time? What the fuck?”

  Harriet was less impressed than Bob had imagined at the news of his lock picking skills.

  “I thought escaping might just make it worse. And where would I go?”

  Bob’s face confirmed his genuine belief that there had been no point in letting himself out. And he clearly would have, given half a chance.

  “OK, so you can pick locks. Get us out of here,” she stood up, unable to sit still any longer.

  “Well, that’s the other thing. I need tools. I left mine in my room. I didn’t expect to need them for dinner.”

  “So what, would a hairpin do?” she asked.

  “Probably,” Bob brightened. Harriet put her hands into her hair.

  “Oh, wait, I don’t have any hairpins because it’s not 19 fucking 53!”

  Bob shrunk again.

  “So you need, what, something long, thin and sturdy?” came the voice from the darkness.

  “Yeah,” Bob answered.

  “Would these do?”

  A hail of white and grey came through the window, clattering over the stone floor and spreading into Harriet’s cell.

  “Are those what I think they are?” Harriet asked with distaste.

  “Bones,” Prisoner confirmed.

  “Of what?” Simon asked, sounding a little more horrified than he intended.

  “A few birds; a few rats. Maybe a vole.”

  Harriet picked up the bones in her cell and the few that she could reach outside it. She handed them to Bob.

  “Remind me to wash my hands,” she said.

  Bob turned the small pile of dusty bones over in his hands. They weren’t the best tools he’d ever used. Then again, they weren’t the worst either.

  An hour, a lot of concentration, and a great deal of swearing from Harriet later, the three of them were gathered in front of the door of Prisoner’s cell. Simon kept glancing nervously along the corridor towards the main gate and the guard station, but there was no sign of activity or of anyone considering coming down to check on the prisoners. Despite their individual skills, it had been a while since they actually had anyone new to guard.

  Bob finally clicked open the lock on Prisoner’s door. He turned the rusty iron handle, which squeaked in protest. All three stopped, staring intently down the corridor, afraid to breathe. Still no movement. Slowly, Bob pulled the heavy door open to reveal a thick, damp gloom.

  Simon waited expectantly to see the ragged, dirty form of Prisoner emerge from the gloom, like a particularly old and dirty baby being born back into the light. As a shape began t
o take form, a foot emerged first.

  To Simon’s surprise, the foot that appeared was not a foot, per se, at all. It was, in his best estimation, an expensive and beautifully polished Italian black leather shoe, draped in crisp, clean white trousers.

  Of course.

  Out of the dark stepped a small, immaculately dressed man. He had shaved, his clothes were clean and pressed and he looked for all the world like a businessman on his way to his daily commute. To New Orleans, admittedly, but still.

  Based on their expressions, the other two were also a little surprised.

  “What?” Prisoner asked. “I ain’t been outside in an age. Thought I best make an effort.”

  His grin was infectious.

  Simon added it to the list entitled: ‘Things to Worry About Later.’

  ----

  “So, have you decided what you’re going to offer him?”

  Lily had exhausted Final Fantasy on the stupidly huge plasma screen. She had to keep reminding herself to use the XBox controls and not just will the characters to do what she wanted.

  Daniel looked up from his book. He’d finally stopped pacing at around 3 am and settled down with it. The silence had been welcome for a while, but Lily had reached the stage where she needed to hear someone’s voice, even if it was her own.

  “Of course. I’ve known for some time. Why?” Daniel’s reply was cordial, with just a little hint of niggle. He liked the idea that Lily wasn’t sure what to offer, yet.

  “Just wondered. What do you think you’ll do next?”

  “After I win, you mean?”

  Lily half snorted. “Yes, Daniel, after you win.”

  “I don’t care really. I just want to get out of this place, to be honest. It’s so … uncivilised, don’t you think?”

  “Really? Huh.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “I think it’s kind of fun, if you let it be.”

  “Fun? Look at the way they treat each other. They start wars over nothing. The rich throw away the lives of their poor in pursuit of ever more money. They’re savages.”

  “To be fair, isn’t that mostly your lot?”

  Daniel took a deep breath. “I suppose it is. But that’s largely because we’re dominant.”

  “Yeah, but that’s only because you got to have your guy down here first. If we’d carried on for long enough to have our girl come out…”

  “Isn’t she already here?”

  “Yeah, but Mother got so distracted going after this thing, I think she just shelved it. Plus, I think she’s kind of complacent about it. She’s pretty sure she can force a draw, even without playing her ace.”

  “Typically arrogant,” Daniel laughed. “Always thinking she’s got it all in hand, isn’t she?”

  “Unlike you, you mean?” Lily smiled sweetly.

  “Touché,” the angel answered.

  “So, you know what you’re going to offer?” he asked after a silence.

  She knew he couldn’t resist asking.

  “Oh yeah,” Lily answered chirpily, “I’ve known since before we met him.”

  The demon smiled angelically at her partner cum enemy. Daniel smiled back.

  He didn’t mean it.

  ----

  Simon’s heart was pounding. He could feel the pulse of the veins in his hands as they pressed against the rough stone floor. Whether this was more due to him being slightly claustrophobic and therefore uncomfortable in the currently cramped confines of the tunnel they were crawling through or to the adrenaline that had begun coursing recklessly around his body on the realisation that he was taking part in a genuine jailbreak was hard to say.

  While one might imagine the latter would distract him from the former, Simon was more than capable of being excited and terrified at the same time. Like a mouse, he could live perpetually on the edge of a significant coronary event.

  “Hope you’re not getting too excited back there, kiddo!”

  Harriet was crawling ahead of Simon. She’d already joked about him not staring at her arse.

  “Are we nearly out?” he called towards Prisoner, who was leading the merry band of moles.

  “Pardon?” he shouted back.

  “I said, are we nearly there?”

  “Sorry, son, I can’t hear you over the wind. We’re almost at the end of the tunnel!”

  Moving just a little further forward, the howling wind indeed drowned out all other noise. Ahead, Simon saw Prisoner disappear out into the darkness, followed by Bob, then Harriet. As he reached the end, Simon could smell the salt in the air and felt the whip of the wind across his face. He stopped a moment before moving out of the end of the tunnel and breathed deeply.

  Sea. Salt. Crisp, clean air. Rain.

  Rain?

  What was it doing raining on Priest’s Island? The place was supposed to be paradise. And come to think of it, that was no gentle summer breeze – it was proper, full on wind. The kind more commonly found battering North Sea oilrigs than meandering lazily through palm trees.

  Then Simon focused in on something else. A deep, rumbling sound: rhythmic, crashing waves. As he crawled the last foot to exit the cave and stood up, a distant lightning flash briefly lit the scene, showing the sheer drop to weather-beaten, behemoth rocks below. For a moment, his balance deserted him as his brain struggled to come to terms with what he was seeing.

  At the same moment, the thunder from the gathering storm rumbled through, taking Simon’s final equilibrium with it. Suddenly, there was nothing beneath his feet and a long drop in front of him.

  ----

  “Good lord, boy, whoever gave you the impression you were a damn bird?”

  Prisoner hauled Simon up ignominiously by his collar. The old man was deceptively strong. He set Simon back on his feet on the wet, grassy cliff ledge, just above the tunnel’s exit. There was a persistent drizzle, which stung when the wind drove it across his face. Lightning flashed again at sea, and the rumble of the waves on the rocks below mixed with another growl of thunder.

  “What the fuck is this?” Harriet asked nobody in particular, gesticulating at the world in general. “I thought this was an island paradise! What’s with the Moby Dick set?”

  The four stood on a ledge no more than ten feet long and about the same width. Above them rose a sheer cliff, slick with torrents of water and moss. Below: rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  The words came out of Bob’s mouth like the last, dry gasp of a dying man. His shoulders hung low. His face was pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. It was hard to tell in the insistent drizzle, but Simon suspected he may even have been crying.

  Harriet stepped towards him like a gladiator braced for battle.

  “Fuck sorry, sunshine. Listen, you didn’t do a damn thing wrong.”

  “Hey,” Simon piped up. “Sean! Sean said he thought there was something weird about all this. He thinks maybe this isn’t really about you at all!”

  Bob looked confused. “What?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, actually. He said it was all a bit odd,” said Harriet, “like some bastard was trying to get at us, through you.”

  “But…” Bob hesitated as he took in the full implications of this news, “wouldn’t that mean that there was somebody here, on the island, who knows why you’re here and is trying to stop you?”

  Simon felt a little colder. “That does seem likely, doesn’t it?”

  Harriet took a deep breath. “OK, well at least we know, right? So we can go back to vinegar wings and the tart and tell them that we tried, but we were sabotaged. Then it’ll be up to them to sort something out.”

  Simon hoped that was right, but he couldn’t get rid of the memory of Daniel’s face when he discovered the missing carpet. All things being equal, he’d rather have to own up to Lily. Preferably in Faunt’s house, which, right now, felt like the only place in the world he might be safe.

  “If you three are done jawing, I’ve remembered wh
ere we go next,” Prisoner announced.

  He stood at the far side of the ledge, holding what appeared to once have been some kind of rope ladder, anchored to the cliff face.

  “Remembered?” Harriet asked. “You’ve been here before?”

  “Yep, at least once,” Prisoner confirmed.

  “What happened?” asked Bob.

  “I got caught.”

  “You got caught?” Harriet was doing a pretty good impression of a tripped land mine. “You’ve brought us on an escape route that you got caught on before?”

  “Well, yeah, but don’t worry. We’re as good as free. There’s a boat at the bottom of this ladder. We get in that and we’re gone,” he reassured her.

  Harriet looked murderous. Which was a worry…

  “How did they catch you?” Simon asked, hoping the answer would calm her, at least slightly.

  “Can’t remember,” Prisoner answered chirpily, as he climbed onto the remains of the ladder and began his descent, “but I can’t be that unlucky twice, right?”

  This answer was not good for Harriet. Lightning flashed again in the distance. Whatever threat she mouthed in reply was lost in the rolling thunder.

  ----

  Cherry woke early, annoyingly. She felt as if she’d spent the night drinking tequila on an empty stomach rather than sleeping like a corpse. Her back and shoulders ached and her lips were cracked. Her dry tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and her head throbbed. Still, at least she wasn’t actually a corpse.

  Her pillow was damp.

  She found a bottle of water and painkillers on her bedside table. He might almost have gotten her killed, but she still had a pretty awesome boss. The smell of coffee wafted into the room. With a grunt, she pulled herself out of bed and stumbled for the shower.

  ----