by Gill, J. G.
“Umm, excuse me,” I said, trying for the door again. The woman didn’t move.
“You can’t leave,” she said softly. It was the first time I’d heard her speak. Her voice sounded musical, like tiny bells, and she had an accent which was impossible to place.
“You are in great danger Clare, you have no idea.”
I stared at her. “How do you know my name?” I said. “And what do you mean ‘great danger’?” Then I twigged. This had to have something to do with my dad.
“Do you know Philip de Milo?” I asked.
“I know of him. But your father is not the reason that you are in danger right now,” the woman replied.
“How did you know he’s my Dad then? And what do you know about him anyway? Where is he?” I said.
“We can’t talk here, it’s not safe,” said the woman. “You have to follow me.”
“Who are you?” I said, as I gave her a sceptical look.
“A friend,” she said, as if that answered my question. “Come now, there’s really no time to lose. Every second we’re standing here gives him time to sense our presence.”
“Gives who time?” I said.
Ignoring my question, the woman grabbed my arm and began pulling me towards the opening of a dark tunnel that began just to the right of the door. I didn’t like the look of it and I certainly didn’t want to go anywhere near a tunnel with this strange woman. She was really starting to freak me out.
“I think you should let me go,” I said, trying to pull away from her. But the woman pulled back even more strongly and I lurched towards the tunnel. It was clear that, physically, I was no match for her and that I would need to try another approach if I had any hope of escaping.
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?” I said.
“No, not here. He’ll know.”
“He? Who’s he?”
“I’ll tell you as soon as we’re safe. But right now, you have to take a leap of faith and follow me.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “You’re asking me to follow you – a complete stranger – into some big dark hole, when I’ve got a brother running around outside looking for me.” I really hoped that the last bit was right and that Bede would find me soon.
“Please don’t make me force you,” said the woman. I felt a chill run down my spine. Despite the soft, musical lilt of her voice, the threat was obvious, like a cold iron bar hiding just below the surface of a warm bath.
I weighed up my options. Going back outside (assuming I could even escape from this crazy woman) meant running the risk of bumping into Mick before I had a chance to find Bede. I had to face it, I had absolutely no idea where he’d gone or where to find him. On the other hand, I could follow this possibly homicidal woman, down a long dark tunnel. Neither option was great but I really wasn’t a fan of long dark tunnels.
“Look, I know you’re just trying to help me and all, and in fact you really have helped, but, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll be on my way now. Thanks again,” I said.
I tried to back towards the door again, but this time the woman was much less polite. She clenched my arm, and yanked me towards the tunnel. I screamed, and tried to wrestle myself free but her grip was too tight. Before I knew it, the woman had pulled me into the darkness and I realised I was powerless to stop her.
“Hang on don’t you know about human rights?” I shouted. “You can’t just drag me off somewhere because you feel like it!” I knew I was right, we’d just done a module on it in social studies. “Not even the police can just drag you away like this, for no reason…” I trailed off as I remembered the stolen bread incident. “Well, okay, maybe the police could question me about being an accomplice to bread theft, but you’re not the police.”
Annoyingly, my protest seemed to make no difference to the woman, as she continued to haul me down the tunnel. The small wisps of light coming from the door were growing weaker and weaker, while the path beneath my feet was getting much more difficult to see.
“Where are we going?” I said.
The woman paused and turned towards me, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the dark.
“Hush,” she whispered. “I will tell you everything once we are safe, I promise.”
“Fine, but it would make it easier to follow you if you let go of my arm,” I said. The woman looked at me and smiled, although not unkindly.
“No, you’ll run away.”
No kidding I thought. Unfortunately, I knew sarcasm was unlikely to help the situation.
“Can you at least tell me your name then?” I said.
“It’s Min-Isis,” said the woman. “My friends call me “Min.”
I suddenly noticed that the tunnel was starting to become slightly lighter. Glancing around, I could see that burning torches had been bracketed to the walls at regular intervals. They were secured by wrought-iron holders that had intricately sculpted into the shape of a snake eating its own tail. Still gripping my arm, Min reached up and took one of the torches. The floor of the tunnel instantly bloomed a dusky beige colour through the darkness. I had no real idea where we were, although I figured it had to be somewhere below the streets of the Old Town. All I really knew was that the tunnel was sloping downwards and that we seemed to be going deeper and deeper.
“Come on Clare, we need to hurry,” said Min, lengthening her stride as she dragged me alongside her.
“Err, yeah,” I said, limping as fast as I could go. Min paused.
“Are you injured?”
“Kind of,” I said. “I twisted my ankle last night and it’s still really painful.”
“Hold this.” Min thrust the torch into my hands and crouched down beside me, taking my right foot into her lap.
“What are you doing?” I said nervously.
I glanced down and saw that Min’s eyes were closed and her hands were cupped around my ankle. Soft, blue light was now pouring into my foot, making it feel cool and slightly numb.
“See if you can put some weight on it now.”
Min set my foot back down on the floor and I shifted my weight onto it. I started slowly at first, the shooting pains still fresh in my memory, but it wasn’t long before I was standing perfectly normally again. The pain had completely gone.
“How did you do that?” I said. “Are you one of those homeopathic healers?” Min smiled.
“Just a trick I learnt at home,” she said. “We really must be going.”
She stood up, took my arm, and we began running down the tunnel again. This time it was much easier to keep up. We had only been running for a few minutes when it suddenly became lighter up ahead and I was sure I could see the end of the tunnel. As we drew closer it looked as if it came to a dead end, the mouth opening up into an octagonal chamber that was about half the size of the school gym. The wall on the far side of the room was comprised entirely of a series of stone archways, all linked together. It was impossible to tell if they had doors, or if their black hollows were just empty space.
“We’re almost there,” said Min. She paused to place the torch back into one of the holders. “Okay, we’re almost safe.” She seemed visibly more relaxed. I was relieved too; at least I might now get some answers from her.
I followed Min across the threshold into the chamber, and was instantly overwhelmed by the beauty and vastness of the room’s stained glass windows. They started from midway up the stone walls and rose as far as the eye could see, high above our heads. The panes were made of thousands of tiny pieces of glass in pretty much every colour imaginable – greens, reds, and purples – which together formed a rich mosaic of fruit, flowers and woodland animals. As I gazed at the sheer wonder of the glass I could see other things as well: insects with fine, spindly legs, inhabiting golden corn fields that stretched into vast blue horizons, and pearly green water filled with jumping silvery fish. I found myself so lost in it that I was literally speechless.
“This is the Consus Room,” said Min. “The part we�
�re in now is very deep below the ground, but the windows can still be seen from the street above. Passers-by would just think they’re windows in the basement of an old house.”
“What’s the room used for?” I asked.
“It was first used in ancient times, and well into the middle ages, to store grain for the city. Beautiful isn’t it?”
I nodded dumbly. “I can’t believe I’ve lived in Wiltsdown my whole life and never seen it before,” I said.
“No one knows it’s here,” said Min. “It’s been a well kept secret for many, many years.”
I continued to stare at the stained glass, mesmerised by the colours and patterns, when I suddenly noticed how cold I was. So cold in fact that I’d begun to shiver. I crossed my arms, drawing my coat around me closely. As I glanced at Min I could tell that she was shivering too. For some reason, she also looked extremely worried.
“We have to get out of here now,” she said, grabbing my arm and starting to haul me back up towards the mouth of the tunnel.
“I don’t understand, we just got here,” I said, stumbling after her.
We had only taken a couple of steps when a man’s voice called out behind us.
“Going somewhere?”
The voice had a cold, sharp, arrogant edge. It was the type of voice that my Dad had sometimes described as being like ‘cut glass’. I’d never really understood what he meant, until now.
Min and I turned to face the stranger, who was standing under one of arches on the far side of the room. He was tall – easily taller than me – and dressed completely in black, from his long, winter coat down to the heels of his boots. The thing I noticed most of all were his eyes; from a distance they were as black as his clothing. He was staring at us in the same way that a butterfly collector might use pins to stick specimens to a board. Except that I didn’t feel as if I’d been pinned to the spot, I felt as if I’d been nailed there.
The man began to stride purposely towards us, each footstep swallowing up large swathes of the floor. As his boot’s struck the ancient slate-grey cobbles of the Consus Room, the sound rebounded off the walls like a ceremonial gong. The late morning light was now pouring in through the stained glass windows, covering the man in a riot of colours which made him look like a fantastical creature out of a story book.
He stopped immediately in front of us, ignoring Min entirely, but looking me up and down as if he was pricing furniture. His eyes were even more extraordinary up close. Set wide apart, they owned a perfectly equal share of his face, each a slightly asymmetrical leaf-shape, framed with long, black eyelashes. Most startling of all, though, was that each eye was a different colour: his right was a deep, dark hazel, flecked with black, while his left was darkly blue-green. It was almost as if each eye should have belonged to a different person and yet, at the same time, the combination seemed so completely right for the face they were in.
My gaze shifted slowly to the rest of the man’s features. He had high, sharp cheek bones that gave his face an angular look, softened slightly by the way that stray pieces of his dark hair that had managed to escape from being tied back. His jaw framed a mouth that I suspected had had a lot of experience of saying things that made people jump.
The man’s clothing was immaculate, down to the minutest detail. He wore a black suit, with a vest embossed in fine, squiggly lines that ran down the entire length the satin. Beneath the vest, the man’s black, silk shirt was fastened at his throat with a tiny emerald cross. As I studied the strange figure, I also began to notice a distinct perfume in the air that was strangely familiar. It was a delicious, woody mix of warm cinnamon and sweet spices. I knew I’d smelt it somewhere before, I just couldn’t place it. Then I remembered. It was exactly like the sandalwood soap my mother used to buy when I was little.
I tried to distract myself from the intoxicating scent by guessing how old the man was. It was impossible to say. He could have been the same age as my English teacher, Mrs Burlington, and yet there was something different about his face, something timeless. It was as if he’d already seen everything there was to see, and done everything there was to do, and there was nothing left that could ever shock him. He was, by far, the most terrifying person I had ever seen in my life. He was also the most beautiful.
“What do you want?” said Min. The metal in her voice was palpable.
The man smiled, and casually crossed his arms.
“You know exactly what I want,” he said.
“You’ve got the wrong person. She’s not the one you’re looking for,” said Min.
The man laughed derisively. “Do I look like a fool? Just give me the girl, Min Isis.”
“Who’s he talking about?” I whispered to Min. She replied with a sideways glance that made it clear now was not the right time to ask.
“How did you find us?” she asked him.
“Oh come on, you can’t be serious? I saw the girl in the Square. Then all that clattering down the tunnel and the, ‘let me fix your ankle’, routine. All very touching, just not very sensible if you’re trying to slip by unnoticed. Now, before we have to waste any more time, hand her over.”
“Never,” said Min, shaking her head vehemently. “I’ll never give her to you.”
Who were they referring to? I tried to catch Min’s eye again, but she was glaring fixedly at the man. The description seemed to fit me, but that would be ridiculous. What could either of them want with me? I didn’t even know them. Was this something to do with Dad? Had he made this strange guy so angry that he now wanted to hold me hostage?
I desperately wanted some answers, but it seemed unlikely that I was going to get any from these two. I needed to find Bede, and I needed to find my Dad, and I needed to do it right away. Whatever drama was going on between Min and this man, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be involved. I began to edge slowly back towards the entrance of the tunnel, relieved that my ankle was now good enough to run on. But before I’d taken more than a couple of tiny steps the man gave a short, snorting laugh and raised his right eyebrow.
“Stay where you are,” he said. I was so shocked he’d even noticed me, that I stopped immediately in my tracks.
“You’re not having her,” said Min.
“And why’s that?” said the man. He sounded as if he was merely humouring her.
“You know why,” she said.
“Well, it’s not as if you exactly have a choice, is it?” he said.
“You will have to get through me first if you want the girl,” said Min, spreading her arms protectively in front of me.
“Very well,” said the man, shrugging as if slightly bored by the whole thing. “I’ve no idea why you Aeons always have to make it so hard for yourselves, but if you want a skirmish, I’m more than happy to oblige.”
I glanced at Min again, begging her with my eyes to explain who this man was and what was going on. Before she could respond, the man’s face hardened and a crackling stream of painfully bright light burst from his fingers. In the split seconds it took for my eyes to register the light, I realised that the man must be holding some sort of new-fangled laser gun. This was serious. Min dodged the blast just in time, while I was thrown to the floor. I went rolling across the smooth marble as fast as a wheel on a moving car, before finally coming to an abrupt stop at the entrance to the tunnel.
“Run Clare, run!” Min screamed at me.
By the time I’d scrambled to my feet, she was already preparing to face the man again. I stood my ground, waiting to see if I could help. Min glanced over her shoulder at me.
“Go!” she screamed.
I began running back up the tunnel as fast as I could. I was so frightened I didn’t stop to think about what I’d just seen, let alone, try to make sense of it. I was several metres into the tunnel before I turned and crouched in the darkness, watching to see what would happen next. I figured the police would want the whole story.
“Tut, tut,” the man said shaking his head. “That was a very silly thing
to do Min-Isis. Now I’ll have to use one of my scouts, and you know how much people hate them. You could have spared Clare a great deal of anxiety but what can I do? You’ve forced my hand.”
He drew up his sleeve and the thick coils of an iridescent green snake began to stir.
It looked up and gazed at the man with lidless black eyes, its forked tongue quivering restlessly between its lips. I shook my head in disbelief. I’d only seen a snake like that once in my life before, and that was the green mamba in Wiltsdown Zoo. There could only be one explanation – this had to be one of the snakes that Dad had been importing. I felt a hard lump form in my throat as I realised that Bede must have been telling the truth.
“After her, my pet,” said the man, gently lowering his arm.
The snake unravelled itself and slunk elegantly to the floor, before gliding rapidly across the cobbles in long “s”-shaped rivers of green. Min spun around just as the snake was sliding past her. She clenched her fists, her fingers springing open to release a volley of vivid blue sparks. There was a piercing scream as they hit the snake’s tail. The smell of burning flesh wafted into the tunnel. By the time the smoke had cleared though, the snake had fully recovered and was heading towards the tunnel faster than before. That should have been my cue to leave, but I still needed to know who Min-Isis and this guy really were. I made a quick bargain with myself: listen for two more seconds, then scram.
“Min-Isis, really.” The man spoke to her as if she were a child. “You know you can’t possibly compete with me here. In the Slipworld, maybe, but not here. There really isn’t a contest.”
“I don’t need to win, Demarge,” said Min. “Look, the girl has already gone.”
“Not for long, she hasn’t,” said the man. “She’ll be no match for Arius.”
Before Min could reply a hailstorm of brilliant white sparks streaked across the room. This time I could clearly see the man’s hand. There was no laser gun. I did a double take, convinced my eyes were playing tricks on me. A couple of seconds later, I realised that Min-Isis hadn’t been quick enough to miss the strike. A spine-chilling howl flooded the room, as a million splinters spiralled up towards the ceiling in a tornado of blue diamonds.