There was something else too, something that was scratching in her memory, something that Mandy had been telling her just before the doorbell rang.
“I saw him throw down a pen, the other day, as if it bit him.”
Just as she’d nearly done, the time she’d felt the pencil stir in her fingers. She scrambled up and walked quickly through the kitchen and up to her room. Maybe she still had the drawing she’d been doing at the time— But a search through her suitcase came up with nothing.
Her glance fell on the printout she’d brought back from Valkenberg, lying on her bedside table. She unfolded the paper and found the last page. There it was, the messages that had appeared on her computer screen.
gia
Mienkie?
nico
Do you know something about Nico?
i ok
How do you know about Nico?
nico nico nico nico nicoam neer see montin train road?? trac train trac
Are you Mienkie
no no no noco nooiic cc
pippl tuk mi nims bile spykr heetim plyc neer see train montin
sleepy go now
Gia sat on her bed, her hands shaking so badly the pages rattled. How could she have been so blind? She’d been so sure that the message was coming from Mienkie that she’d not seen what was right under her own eyes. It was from Nico. It must be Nico, how else could she explain it? He was somehow reaching out to her and to Mandy and her father too and none of them had understood.
So maybe those bits that seemed like random letters—
nico nico nico nico nicoam neer see montin train road?? trac train trac
And further down: plyc neer see train montin.
That could be “place near sea, train, mountain?” Which meant that the first line had to be— She puzzled it out. “Nico... Nico am? Nico am near sea...mountain, train road or train track?” He’d been trying to tell her where he was. And what about this?
pippl tuk mi nims bile spykr heetim plyc neer see train montin
Now that she knew what to look for, it was easier. People took me. Nims. That had to be ‘Names’... She felt numb with it, a cold pain that started in her belly and spread throughout her body. It was right there, in front of her, in black and white. The names she’d just given the Belle Gente.
“Bile” must be Billy. And “spykr” could only be Spyker. For a few heartbeats she sat, hand clasped over her mouth, trying to will it away. But now that she’d made this connection, others came. That shadow at the door, in the security video. Again she closed her eyes, trying to remember the grainy black-and-white footage. There had been a thin, white-haired figure and the bigger one with the mass of hair...and there had been somebody else, at the door. Somebody small. Was it possible that she’d actually seen Nico and not even realised it?
She scrambled down the ladder to the kitchen again. Mandy was drowsing on the sofa in the living room.
“Wait, slow down, Gia,” she said, sitting up groggily. “What are you babbling about? And stop waving that paper at me, you know I can’t read without my glasses.”
Gia waited, nearly hopping with impatience as Mandy rose from the sofa and moved around the room, patting at herself and muttering, “Now where did I put those things?”
At last, glasses found, Mandy was next to her and peering down at the paper. “Slow down, girl. I’m trying to understand. You say that you know where Nico is, because of something a computer printed?”
Gia bit back her exasperated reply. “Mandy. You know you told me about things moving without you making them move? And that it happened to Dad too? Well, it’s been happening to me. When I’m drawing the pencil moves and tries to write. I thought it was...well, that’s not important. But it’s Nico, Mandy. It’s Nico. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but somehow, he’s been trying to talk to us, except we didn’t understand!”
Mandy was frowning at her over the reading glasses. “I don’t know, Gia— Nico’s never done anything like that before. And what does it have to do with a computer?”
“He can make things move, see? Like a pencil? Well, he can make the letters on the computer keyboard move too. He typed these messages. Some of these are mine—wait. Let me read them out to you.”
As Gia read out her translations she could feel Mandy growing very still next to her. She believes me. She knows it’s true. So I must be right about this.
Mandy took off her glasses. “Read that again.”
Gia went through the message once more.
“Place near sea, train and mountain,” said Mandy softly. “And ‘Nico’ over and over again.” She sat, head bent, lips moving, as if she were repeating the phrases over to herself. “I admit,” she said at last. “When you put it like that, it’s almost convincing. And there’s something else.” She took hold of Gia’s hand. “Granny’s cards. She said that it was like somebody was shouting in a storm, trying to be heard. Do you think that could have been this thing?” She swatted at the paper. “But what about the man with the swords? She kept saying ‘treachery’ over and over...”
“I think I know about that too.” Gia wished that she didn’t have to go on speaking. “I—I’ve done something really stupid, Mandy.”
Quickly she explained about Mandla and Doctor Scubbe, and the way that they tricked people into thinking they were part of a plot, even going so far as to give them weapons and explosives and then catching them in the act. “It’s all to do with the referendum. They think that if things like that get in the news, then people will vote the way they want them to, give them even more power to act against the magicals.”
Mandy was frowning again. “And you think that this Mandla, he’s been playing his tricks with these people? This Billy and Spider or whatever his name is? And Nico’s mixed up in all of this?”
Gia nodded. “But it’s even worse than that, Mandy. I’ve gone and made it worse. Just now, at the meeting I had with the Belle Gente—” It was hard to say, even to Mandy. “I didn’t know about all of this yet. I hadn’t figured it out by then. Mandy, I told them about these people. I gave them the names. Billy and Spyker, everything. And they’re going to hunt them down now, to stop them. I didn’t know, Mandy! If I’d known—”
Mandy had hold of both her hands now. “Gia, listen to me. No, shut up for a minute. Listen to me. We don’t know that this is true—no, let me finish! We don’t know that this is true. This is all just a guess. And it won’t help matters if you beat yourself up about it. But if this is true and this is Nico talking to us, then there’s something we can do about it.” Mandy squeezed Gia’s hands so hard they hurt. “We can warn him, Gia. We’ve got a start on who these people are, what they look like, where they are. Granny can help us find them. We can get them to stop doing whatever damn idiotic plan they’ve got with this Mandla guy, for a start.”
“That’s true.” Gia wiped at the tears on her face. “That’s true. But Granny won’t be at her shop now, will she? And she won’t be there until after I’ve got to be back at Valkenberg.”
“You can write a letter to her, explaining all this. I’ll never get it straight. I’ll take it to her tomorrow morning early, as soon as her shop opens.”
“Okay. I’ll do that.”
“Another thing, Gia.” Mandy released Gia’s hands. “I don’t think you should tell your father about this. We just don’t know for sure enough. I don’t want to get his hopes up for nothing and this other thing—” She shook her head.
“But shouldn’t he know, Mandy? I mean, if this is true, then Nico’s alive, wouldn’t he need to know that?”
Mandy grimaced. “That is true. I don’t know, Gia. Maybe—do you think you can call him, somehow? Nico, I mean? If we can speak to him, if we can be sure...”
Gia was already on her feet. “Let’s try.”
-oOo-
“Nico?” Gia was sitting at the big table in the living room, holding a pencil over a piece of paper. Mandy sat opposite her, a cup of tea between her hands.
Mandy nodded.
“This feels silly.”
“Be a little patient, girl. He’s probably asleep. He should be asleep, by this time of night.”
Gia looked at the pencil again and tried to relax. No point in holding it in a death grip. He’s never going to be able to move it then.
“Tell me more about Valkenberg,” said Mandy. “How are you getting on in there? Are the people okay?”
“It’s okay,” said Gia. “Some of the people are really nice. You remember that cadet I told you about, the one that came to speak at our school? Cadet Lee? I like her.”
She told Mandy about the zoo and the doctor’s workroom. And although she’d meant to stay on the positive side of things, somehow the chair came into the conversation and Lizzie and the experiments she’d seen. Mandy listened quietly, drinking her tea, not saying much. She did interrupt when Gia told her about Cadet Lee’s strange reaction to her silver bracelets.
“That girl is playing with fire. That kind of thing will just get worse. If she can’t take her bracelets off, she should put something on under them. Like a sleeve. And she should put a cream on, an oily cream. With something in it to counteract the reaction. Hmm. Butter might work, if you mix it in with some white clay, or even ash.”
Last of all, Gia told Mandy about the letters she’d found in the computer system.
“So,” said Mandy. “This captain has been tricking people into thinking the children are brain dead. So that he can go on doing his experiments on them?”
“That’s what it looks like. And they're just little kiddies, Mandy. It’s just not right.”
Mandy shook her head. “I agree, sweetie, but what can we do about it?” She frowned. “Gia, I hope you’re not going to do anything crazy in there.”
Gia shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about finding Nico, but these kids don’t have anyone looking out for them. What if I—”
Mandy leaned forward. “Gia, I want you to listen to me now. No, look at me, girl. This thing is too big for you. You can’t take it on all by yourself. If you try to do something crazy in there, you’ll probably just make things worse for those children. You hear me?”
Gia nodded reluctantly. “I suppose.”
After a long silence, Mandy relaxed enough to take a sip of her tea. “And this girl, this Lee, she knows about this? About these letters and things? Is she in on it?”
“No, I don’t think she is. Actually, I found a letter like that about her as well. She used to be one of those children too, remember. I think she was one of the first.”
“Hmm.” Mandy put her cup down. “Are you going to tell her about it?”
“I don’t know. How do I explain how I know about it all? I can hardly tell her that I’ve been—”
Then Gia stopped speaking and looked at the pencil. She’d almost forgotten about it. Had it moved? There it went again and this time Mandy saw it too.
“Is it doing it?” she said in a hushed voice. “Nico? Nico boy? Is that you?”
The pencil twitched so hard that Gia nearly lost her grip on it and then it started moving in earnest.
“You’re holding it too tight,” said Mandy. “Just—there it goes!”
The pencil was moving across the paper now. A slanting line and another, a curve...
Yes.
“Look at how it makes the ‘s’,” said Mandy urgently. “From the bottom. That’s just now Nico does it.” Now she leaned forward, speaking directly at the pencil as if it were some kind of microphone connecting her to the little boy. “Are you okay, Nico, boy? Are you safe?”
The pencil gave a little bob then started writing again. Slowly, laboriously, it wobbled out an answer.
Ok safe no hurt
“This is too slow,” said Gia. “He’s going to get tired out before we’ve told him everything we need to know. The computer keyboard was easier. But we don’t have anything like that here.” She frowned at the pencil, trying to think. It was moving again.
game
What did that mean? But it was still going.
mystic for
But Gia already understood. “Mystic Forest!” she exclaimed. “That’s got a bunch of pieces with letters and words. All kinds of stuff. Where is it, Mandy?”
“What, that big old game box? It’s where it always is. There on the shelf.”
“Hold on, Nico, I’ll get it.”
In a moment she had the box out and open and was sorting through it. The pieces started twitching and moving before she even touched them, but stopped when she sat back. “I’ve got to keep my hands near them?” she guessed. “And keep looking at them? Okay then...”
Cards, dice and figurines assembled themselves on the table in front of her, moving one at a time.
“Well,” said Mandy in a shaky voice. “I’ve seen it all, now.”
There was a pair of dice, one with words engraved on its sides, the other with numbers. A pile of cards, all the letter-tiles and three figurines, one of which was a tiny rat. Gia remembered this rat. It was the figure Nico used to show his progress through the mystic forest of the game. She touched it. “Is this you, Nico?”
The die with the words wobbled and toppled over on its side. Now, the uppermost word was “Yes.”
Gia laughed. “And these other two figures, they’re the people you are with. Is that Billy and Spyker? Did they kidnap you, Nico?”
“Slow down,” said Mandy. “One question at a time.”
The die had hopped in place. Yes.
It was faster than writing, but still laborious. Nico answered their questions, sometimes by rearranging the letter-tiles into words, sometimes by juxtaposing various picture cards with one another, or by simply flipping the die from yes to no to try again and other similar messages. In this way, they found that Gia’s guess was right. Nico was somewhere near the sea, in or near the mountain and near train tracks. He was getting enough to eat and wasn’t being hurt in any way.
“But how are you doing this, Nico?” asked Gia.
There was a long pause, during which the cards twitched and moved, but nothing clear emerged. Then the letter tiles rearranged themselves.
thoughts in u me in u thoughts
Gia frowned at this. Nico was never good with words and he was clearly struggling now.
can move things no touching think only
“Doesn’t matter how he’s doing it,” said Mandy. “We’ve got to tell him about the other stuff.”
“Yes. Listen Nico.” Gia paused. How to explain this? “Have you seen a man, a black man, with dark glasses and flashy clothes? He’s called Mandla. Or sometimes Mr Mandible?”
The die rolled to the “yes” side.
“Okay. Listen carefully.”
Mandy made large eyes at her, clearly warning her not to scare the boy.
Gia nodded impatiently. “That man. Is he getting the people you are with to do something? Some kind of secret plan, something like that?”
The die hopped in place. Yes again. Then the cards shuffled and two of them flipped over. One showed a painting, the other a light bulb. Gia didn’t know what to make of that, but pushed ahead. “Okay. Nico. This man, he’s dangerous. He’s trying to trick Billy and Spyker into doing something dangerous. He’s not what he says he is, he’s not from the Belle Gente. He’s from Special Branch, Nico. You know what that is, right? He’s a Special Branch spy.”
Once again, the die hopped. Yes.
But what do I expect him to do? It’s not like he can explain to these people why he suddenly knows all this stuff. And will they listen to him anyway?
“Billy and Spyker. Do they know that you can do this thing? Talk to us like this?”
The die rolled to “No” and a card flipped over, showing a picture of a girl holding something cupped between her hands, surrounded by a scroll of words that said “The Secret Keeper”.
“Good. You keep that secret then. I do
n’t think it’s a good idea for them to know you can do this. So don’t try to tell them what I’ve told you about Mandla—about this guy, Mr Mandible, they’ll either not believe you or want to know why you are telling them these things. Do you understand, Nico?”
Yes.
“But stay away from whatever plan they’ve got. Something bad might happen and if you are with them, you might get hurt.”
There was a long pause during which several of the objects twitched, but nothing was clear enough to convey a message. Then a pile of cards turned over and spread itself out over the table. A few of them slid on front of Gia.
“Convert Enemy to Friend,” she read. “And this one says ‘Your loyalty shall be rewarded. Stay with your comrades and all will be well.” As if to underline the message, two figurines, a bear and a lizard, were pushed close to the rat. Gia looked at Mandy, who stared back at her.
“Nico,” she said and hesitated. It was difficult to know what to say. So recently her thoughtless words had put Nico into danger. “I—I think you are saying that these people are your friends? You don’t want them to be hurt? You feel loyal to them?”
The die hopped emphatically back to the “Yes” side.
“Okay. Look. We’re going to do what we can to get a message to them. And maybe you can find a way to get them to realise that they should not trust this Mr Mandible. Maybe just ask them questions, get them to try and figure out who he really is. But you have to stay away from whatever this plan is, Nico. It’s really, really important.”
Nothing moved. Finally, a card flipped over. Gia read it out loud. “The sun is sinking over the western mountains and you’ve travelled as far as you can through the Mystic Forest on this day. Now you will make your camp and sleep under the stars.”
Wolf Logic Page 23