The Riddles of Epsilon

by Christine Morton-Shaw

  JESS: So—you used to sleep in a hammock? Cool!

  E: No. I do sleep in a hammock. Present tense. Although I don’t really sleep as such—just rest. But in that hammock, yes.

  JESS: Present tense? You still live there?!????!!!!!!!!

  E: Of course.

  JESS: But—you never leave any footprints in all the dust!

  E: Haven’t you gathered by now, you are dealing with something that does not follow the rules of the world?

  JESS: Tell me then. I need to know. What am I dealing with?

  E: You’ll understand much more when you read the documents in the second box.

  JESS: Aha! So I was right—the boxes ARE in order!

  E: Of course. The key will fit the others when the time is right for you to learn more.

  JESS: And why am I learning all this weirdo stuff? I mean, why me?

  E: Because of your mother. Because of the danger that she is in.

  JESS: Oh, not back to her again. I’m not talking about her, all right? I just want some answers. Like—when can I see you?

  E: But you have seen me.

  JESS: Not a coat on a door, not glimpsed in a mirror! When can I really see you? Sebastian did—he said you appeared in his room—in this attic room—and made him spill his inkpot. So if he did, why can’t I?

  E: You will. In a fortnight. At the Greet. Maybe even before that.

  JESS: You’ll be at the Greet?

  E: I’ll be around. You will see me. You will see a friendly enemy. You will see a hostile friend. You must not get them mixed up.

  JESS: Oh, gawd—more riddles. Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on?

  E: Hidden things need a place to hide.

  JESS: Why? I mean, why all the secrecy? Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on?

  E: Don’t forget—there are others watching, waiting, listening in all the time. They want to solve all this, too. That’s why I can only tell it to you piece by piece. They might find one piece of it, or a few pieces, but they must not find the whole. So we have to keep things hidden.

  JESS: And that reminds me—who hid the bucket?

  E: Sebastian, of course. He buried it.

  JESS: Why?

  E: Because he got scared.

  JESS: What of?

  E: Of you, mostly.

  JESS: Look, Epsilon. I am asking you really nicely. Please, please tell me—what is going on? What’s so important about the bucket? Where did it come from? Why did it have your name carved on it?

  E: Because I made it. And signed it.

  JESS: You made the bucket?

  E: I made it out of special wood—bog oak. There’s a lot of it lying about here. It’s ancient—that’s the important thing. Ancient materials have always been used on this island. A message from something ancient about something ancient.

  JESS: What on earth is bog oak?

  E: Bog oak is wood that has been covered in peat. It preserves it. It lies there for centuries—whole tree trunks, whole stumps. It carves well. And if you’re going to make a special bucket, you might as well use a special wood.

  JESS: A special bucket?

  E: Part of my job is to guide you. I tried to guide Sebastian, too. So I implanted the symbols into something I knew he’d use, down at the cottage. He spent whole days down there, hot thirsty days—I knew he’d drink from the well. I hoped he would find the symbols.

  JESS: The symbols that were reflected onto my bedroom wall? About “a mirrored dream” and “a followed sound”?

  E: The very same.

  JESS: And did he find them?

  E: Not at first. At first he just played with the bucket. He sailed little paper boats in it. Kept his pet frog in it—that sort of thing. This was when he’d first met me, when he’d first found the cottage.

  JESS: And then?

  E: And then he started dreaming about you. He started getting the messages. He saw the symbols, just like you did, reflected from the bucket. He got scared. Even of me. For a time, he just hid everything to do with all this. Hid everything, in all sorts of places.

  JESS: Hang on—reflected on his bedroom wall by what? How can anything reflect from solid wood?

  E: I keep telling you. You are not dealing with something that follows the rules of this earth. It was more a matter of time. It was time for the message to be seen. So—you saw it. Both of you.

  JESS: But then he got scared? And buried the bucket? Why didn’t you just dig it up again, if you knew I needed to see it?

  E: Because there was no need. I knew that whoever carried on his search—his work—would find it anyway. Once power comes to the surface, there is no stopping it. But I gave you a bit of help. I carved the arrow into the wall.

  JESS: Don’t tell me—you also rocked the rocking chair to make me run out of the cottage and down the garden. You scared me half to death!

  E: Of course I did.

  JESS: And the symbols? The symbols on the volcano stone—the doorstep? Did you carve those, too?

  E: Yes.

  JESS: To leave a code, to help me decipher the symbols?

  E: Yes.

  JESS: So why volcanic glass?

  E: I told you—I am not from your time. I deal with ancient things. Things that have been around since time began. I like to surround myself with reminders of those times. Bog oak. Volcanic glass. Fossils. Have you seen my kitchen floor, for example?

  JESS: Seen it? Of course I have—I’ve walked on it.

  E: Look closer next time you go. And make it soon. Tomorrow. There are some interesting things in my room. Go and take a look.

  JESS: Oh, I now have your royal permission to snoop about, do I? You wouldn’t let me, back at the cottage! Why, thank you, O great one!

  E: No! Please do not call me that! I am just a worker of the One.

  JESS: What One?

  E: Come back to the cottage tomorrow.

  JESS: Epsilon . . . who is the One that you work for? What is his name?

  E: He is the One.

  JESS: One? Is this another clue—like, the number one?

  E HAS NOW LEFT THE CHAT ROOM

  LATER

  Sebastian’s diary has upset me a bit. I keep reading it over. Epsilon warned me about my mom; Epsilon warned Seb about his mama. Seb is going to go to the Greet; we are going to go to the Greet. Seb’s mom began acting strangely. And this is what’s bothering me more than anything else.

  Mom.

  Much as I hate her, I can’t help worrying. She’s been busy baking for the Greet, cakes and scones and stuff—the freezer is full of them. But she keeps stopping what she’s doing and staring out the window. Like she’s far, far away; like she’s not here at all. Then Dad will get cross and have to repeat himself. “Elizabeth!” he snaps. Then she comes to herself again and goes on working. But she keeps sighing, sighing all the time. And doodling. Endlessly sketching. (Which is not unusual in itself—after all, she is an artist.) But she’s doodling the same weird thing, over and over.

  I keep coming across it up and down the house—the same image. In her sketch pads, over and over. On the table napkins. On the steamed-up kitchen window.

  A face.

  A faintly drawn woman’s face, staring out from behind something like a net curtain. Or from behind wobbly glass. Big, scared eyes and such an expression—such a desperate, pleading look, it wrings my heart. Over and over, the same face, and she draws it all the time.

  I can’t work it out. Last time she got all faraway, last spring, it was all because of That Man. Her boyfriend. The boy toy, as Dad called him. Days and days of it, every time you looked up there she was, sighing, staring into space, listening to soppy music—all that icky “in love” stuff. And sneaking off at all hours, telling lies all the time about where she was. So here we are on a remote island and I keep thinking, is she at it again? But who on earth with? Dr. Parker, maybe? Then I remember how brash and jolly he is, and besides—it feels all different. Not like she’s pining for a new man at a
ll—more like she’s getting sick or something.

  At least my dad is a bit nicer than poor old Seb’s! My dad would send for the doctor straightaway if Mom got ill. So that’s all right.

  As to the ballad, I have to agree with Seb. Yolandë’s song is cool! Why all the dire warnings about it? I don’t know. Keep racking my brains about all the “V then V then V then V” stuff, but I’m no wiser than Sebastian about it.

  The page full of symbols was easy, though. I had it translated in a jiffy. I had to fiddle around and add punctuation but managed it in the end.

  It says:

  The Key

  In the space below the well

  A map to the tooth lies hidden.

  The space is marked by an infidel

  Whose hand reveals what’s bidden.

  Through merrow hair

  In Neptune’s lair

  Past thirty fingers pale—

  Then hark for a river

  In the dark

  And reach for the spout

  Of the whale.

  So there it is. Clear as mud.

  And there are more clues, written in English on the back. I almost missed them.

  Lemon Sq.

  Ecclusad 5

  Cloves—tooth

  Which tells me absolutely nothing!!! Apart from the fact that the Lemon Squire is mentioned in Yolandë’s song.

  Ecclusad sounds a bit like Latin or something. But I looked it up in the dictionary and it’s not there, so it must be a name.

  As to cloves and tooth—well, on the other side of the paper, The Key mentions a tooth—a map to the tooth.

  Gotta go . . . Dad’s yelling up the stairs, yakking on about garden chairs or something. Why can’t They just leave me alone?!!! Back soon.

  Later. Oh, no. What’s happening?

  Just ran downstairs, to find Dad in the garden, pulling stuff out of the shed.

  “So there you are! At last—didn’t you hear me calling?”

  (Yessss!!! He’s talking to me again! Thank goodness for that.)

  “Need a hand, Dad?”

  “I’ll say, kitten. Just wriggle your way in there, will you? You’re thinner than me. Gotta get those deck chairs out. Sorry, but they’re all the way at the back.”

  They were, too—seven, eight, nine, ten deck chairs! And one old bench.

  “What you doing, Dad? Having a party?”

  “Not me, worse luck. The doctor and his flaming Greet thing. Been here the whole week—every time I turn round, there he is again! Wants us to take these over, says half the village’ll be sitting on their thumbs if not.”

  I thought of Seb’s benches and settles, going to the Greet. My mouth went dry.

  “What’s up, old girl? Still feeling sick? Maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to do this . . . . Your mother will probably have a fit!”

  “I’m fine. Really. So—don’t you like the doctor then?”

  “Like him? Course I like him! Seems like a decent chap. Just want to get on in the darkroom—I’ve films waiting to develop. No rest for the wicked, and all that. Okay—that the last of them?”

  I handed the last deck chair out.

  Just then, the garden gate went sneak! sneak! on its hinges, as it always does. We both turned round and watched Mom come up the path carrying a plastic shopping bag.

  She was wearing a dress! In the day! Now that is a first is all I can say.

  “Tsk. Must oil those hinges,” muttered Dad. He stared at her, a little frown between his brows. Then she looked up and saw us watching.

  “Hello, you two! Just had a lovely walk with Domino—right along the bay! His tongue’s nearly lolling out of his mouth, poor pet, and I could do with a cup of tea myself. What about it, Jess?”

  I was just about to say “Oh, why me?” when she opened the bag and tipped it upside down—right over the flower bed.

  Shells came pouring out—hundreds of shells, of all shapes and sizes.

  She smiled down at them fondly. Dad’s mouth fell open.

  “Did you have to dump them just there?” he said quietly. “I rather liked those hollyhocks . . . .”

  Chapter Eleven

  THERE ARE TWO PEOPLE IN THE CHAT ROOM:

  JESS AND AVRIL

  JESS: You must be CRAZY!!!

  AVRIL: Oh, listen to you—after all the bunkum you’ve been going on about for weeks, I’m the one that’s crazy all of a sudden?

  JESS: Yes, but—to smoke pot at your mom’s house—no wonder she went berserk!

  AVRIL: Oh, don’t you start! How was I to know she was going to come back a day early? You should have heard her: How dare I throw a party when she’d trusted me to stay here alone, and that your parents had the right idea, to send you away from it all and get rid of the problem once and for all. She didn’t stop yelling for an hour!

  JESS: They didn’t send me away.

  AVRIL: What?

  JESS: My parents. They didn’t send me away.

  AVRIL: Course they did!

  JESS: They came with me.

  AVRIL: Yeah, more fool them. I mean, I can always send you some wacky backy. Where do they think they are, Timbuktu? If you want some drugs, I’m your man!

  JESS: Avril, have you ever come across the word “Ecclusad”? Or Ecclusad 5?

  AVRIL: That a drug? Never heard of it. Do you want me to look it up? Baz has a copy of the Druggies’ Bible. He’ll be here in a minute—I can ask him.

  JESS: I doubt it’s a drug—not up here.

  AVRIL: So why you asking? Sounds more like a plant to me—or a Latin verb.

  AVRIL HAS NOW LEFT THE CHAT ROOM

  E: You are following a red herring there, dear. Just thought I’d tell you.

  JESS: <> Did you have to kick Avril off just to tell me that?

  E: No. I had to kick her off because your mouth is too big.

  JESS: Well, thank you very much!

  E: You are welcome.

  JESS: Look, what do you want?

  E: I want you to reread Yolandë’s ballad. You haven’t much time—the Greet is getting nearer. You need to understand the words.

  JESS: Why?

  E: And I told you before, you also need to go back to the cottage.

  JESS: Why?

  E: It is time to open the second box.

  JESS: Admit it. You work for the FBI.

  E: I work for someone far more powerful than that.

  JESS: Don’t tell me. The CIA? Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise?

  E: You are being foolish. Just read “The Ballad of Yolandë” again.

  JESS: I can’t boldly go where I’ve gone before! I’ve read it. Time and time again.

  E: Read it once more. It is important—take it from me. From Epsilon. From E. Or should I say, from V? From V!

  JESS: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oh, RIGHT!!! Five! How incredibly stupid of me!

  E: I agree.

  JESS: I find the fifth word, then the fifth word after that, and so on?

  E: At long last! Well—what are you waiting for?

  JESS HAS NOW LEFT THE CHAT ROOM

  MY DIARY

  So. Back to, let’s see . . . page fifty-nine of this rapidly growing file!!! “The Ballad of Yolandë.”

  “V then V then V then V.”

  Start at the fifth word, then the fifth after that, then the fifth after that. And so on!

  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

  It started as fun. This Yolandë with her lovely song. (I had actually wished I could hear the music—thought it’d make an amazing dance!) But now the words are starting to look plain nasty.

  So this is what I got. Every fifth word of the Yolandë song says something quite opposite to the words of the song itself.

  I awake in the time of dark choices

  I stir in my wrath

  For the treasures of the deep

  Are hidden from my eyes.

  The workers of my enemy are busy.

  I will call my faithful
out

  From east, west, north, and south.

  I sip weakness like nectar—

  Crush honesty to dust.

  My bone hands bring lies and death.

  I must possess!

  My black heart sows ruin;

  To ruin is my delight.

  Mark my chanting, travelers—

  Flee from my song of beauty!

  Oh, YUCK!

  Whoever this Yolandë is—I’m dreading meeting her.

  TWO DAYS LATER

  Just when I think I can handle all of this, something else happens that really freaks me out.

  Mom and Dad had gone to bed early, so I sneaked downstairs for a midnight feast. All that working out the “V then V” bit left me tired and hungry. But halfway through a box of chocolate cookies, I heard it. The weirdest, eeriest singing I’ve ever heard. Muffled, as if behind several doors. It set my hair on end.

  I opened the kitchen door very quietly—and there was Mom, sneaking out the front door. She had her dressing gown on. She was humming in a secret, happy way. Instantly, rage rose up inside my chest and grew and grew. Just like before—sneaking off to meet someone. And I’d followed her that time last summer and caught them at it. Told Dad. So I followed her again.

  In the moonlight, she walked straight down the driveway and out of the big front gates. Here she turned left, taking the path that leads to the lake.

  I followed her a little distance away, keeping to the shadows. But even when the clouds came to cover the moon so that I lost her for an instant, I always knew where she was. Because she was humming that same tune, over and over. A haunting tune, and what with the wind whispering in the trees and the creeping about in the dark, it started to really spook me.

  Along the lake path she went, not even shivering, although there was a white mist over the water and I was a bit chilly. I had to clench my teeth together to stop them from chattering. Then, suddenly, she left the path and walked straight across the open ground. Now we were going uphill.

  I kept slipping and stumbling on stones, but Mom seemed to be able to see in the dark. She didn’t trip or hesitate—she just walked with an eerie sureness of foot, as if she knew this path and had walked it many times before.

  I stopped a minute to catch my breath, trying to get my bearings. I’ve only been out of the grounds a few times since we arrived, walking Domino—usually I just take him down to the cottage with me. So although I’ve seen the lake from a distance, from near our big front gates, I’d never been out this far before. Suddenly I saw where she was heading. The moon came back out—lit up the whole of the hillside.