by Garth Nix
Jack was about to second what Jaide had said, intending to add that they had to go back to Rodeo Dave soon, but before he could speak he felt a sudden buzz in his pocket. The phone was ringing.
‘I agree with Tara,’ he said. ‘And she’s it!’
With that he ran from the guardhouse, down the stairs and along the corridor, trying doors at random. Most of the rooms were locked on the top floor, but some were open. A broom cupboard would do, just so long as he could get there before his father hung up.
He found a door that would open and flung himself through it, slamming the door shut behind him, not seeing what the room contained. He didn’t even turn on the light. Jack could see perfectly well with the lights out.
He whipped the phone from his pocket and pressed the flashing green button.
‘Dad?’
‘Hello, Jack,’ came the voice on the other end of the call. ‘You sound out of breath. I was beginning to wonder if you were going to pick up.’
‘Had to hide from Tara,’ he gasped. ‘We’re in the castle!’
‘I know. I saw you arrive.’
‘You did?’
‘From the trees. I’ve been waiting for you.’
Jack imagined Hector Shield stretched out on a branch with a pair of binoculars.
‘Did you see Custer go by?’
‘I did, and I’m glad you didn’t interrupt his work. You mustn’t interfere with his concentration. I saw your mother as well – you didn’t tell her about me being here, did you? It would only upset her, and I’ve done enough of that already. Unfortunately Warden business must take priority over our feelings.’
‘No, we haven’t told her.’
‘Good. I know it’s difficult, but it won’t be for long, I promise. Everything will be the way it’s supposed to be once the card is found.’
‘And once Grandma’s better.’
‘Yes . . . that, too.’
Jack’s father sounded distracted and very serious. There wasn’t even a hint of his usual jokey friendliness, reminding Jack that the war against The Evil was far from a game.
‘I don’t have much time,’ Hector said. ‘Tell me what progress you’ve made.’
‘Well, we’ve only just started exploring. The castle is huge. It has hundreds of rooms. Most of them are locked.’
‘You’ll have to find a way into them.’
‘We’re helping Rodeo Dave clear out the library. He has keys . . .’
‘Best to keep him out of Warden affairs. Don’t ask for the keys – or even think about stealing them from him. You don’t want to raise his suspicions.’
The thought had crossed Jack’s mind. He suppressed it with reluctance, although what Rodeo Dave had to be suspicious of, exactly, he didn’t know. But he didn’t want to attract his attention. Rodeo Dave wasn’t a Warden, but he did seem close to Grandma X, and he hadn’t freaked out when the whirlwind had carried him up the drive when they’d first arrived in Portland, so maybe he did know about Warden stuff and The Evil.
‘If it’s not in one of the open rooms, you’ll have to find another way into those locked rooms, one that doesn’t involve David Smeaton or his keys. Perhaps there’s some way you could use your Gifts.’
Jack suddenly remembered something. ‘Of course! It’s just like in The Second Spiral Staircase.’
‘The what?’
‘One of your old books. Don’t you remember? There was a locked room that no one could get into. The keys had been lost. But they found a skeleton key that would work on lots of doors. That’s how they got it open.’
‘Good thinking, Jack. Skeleton keys . . . hmmm. Father . . . your grandfather . . . wasn’t a Warden, but he used to have a key for opening clock cases. It’s probably in the blue room.’
‘We’ll look for it as soon as we can.’
‘Tonight, Jack. It’s vital you find the Card of Translocation as soon as possible.’
‘We will, Dad. Don’t worry. We’ll find it soon, I promise.’
Jack spun around in surprise as a voice suddenly spoke from behind him.
‘Well, you won’t find anything in here, I can assure you of that!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Seeking and Hiding
THE VOICE HAD COME FROM inside the room in which Jack was hiding, but it belonged to neither Jaide nor Tara. It wasn’t Rodeo Dave, either. It sounded like a grouchy old man.
‘Who’s there?’ Jack scanned the room, an ordinary attic by the look of it, with boxes stacked up against one wall and lumpy furniture covered in sheets along the other. Even with his sensitive night vision, there was no one to be seen. ‘Who said that?’
‘Ignore me and I’ll go away. It won’t be the first time.’
Jack reached out to the nearest sheet and whipped it off the stuffed armchair it covered. No one.
‘Why can’t I find you?’
‘Nobody ever wanted to before.’
‘Are you a ghost?’
‘Of course not!’ Now the voice sounded offended. ‘Although I am dead.’
Jack nerved himself to whip away another sheet, revealing a chest of drawers.
‘Where are you?’
‘If I could see, perhaps I could tell you. It’s so dark in here . . . so very dark.’
Jack reached behind him to turn on the light. It dazzled him for a second, before his eyes adjusted.
‘How’s that?’
‘I can see a white blur, a considerable improvement on my former state, but still far from ideal.’
Jack began tearing at the sheets at random, raising a thick cloud of dust and revealing more armchairs, a selection of tea chests, and one broken hat stand.
‘Don’t trouble yourself, sir,’ said the voice. ‘Just turn the light off and leave. That’s what I would do in your shoes. I was rather unpopular even when I was alive.’
The second-to-last sheet revealed a table. On the table was a selection of oddments: candlesticks, chipped plates, a tarnished silver service, and something that Jack mistook for a scuffed plaster bust similar to the one of Mister Rourke in the library . . . until it moved.
‘Gadzooks!’ it said, blinking up at him. ‘Are you a child or has everyone evolved into midgets during my absence?’
Jack stared at the plaster head in amazement, or the half-head, since it was really only the face – behind the ears was just a flat surface. It wasn’t a very flattering face at that. The nose was too large and the cheeks too fleshy. The head had no hair, and its chin receded sharply, giving its expression a look of permanent disapproval. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing an artist would make to flatter a rich patron. It looked entirely too . . . authentic.
‘What are you?’ Jack asked.
‘Don’t you mean who was I? Professor Jasper Frederik Olafsson, at your service. Forgive me for not bowing. You haven’t answered my question, remember.’
‘I’m not a midget,’ said Jack, although he did wonder sometimes if he was growing too slowly. ‘I just came in here to talk to . . . whoops, hang on.’
Jack had forgotten the phone and his father. He turned away and raised it to his ear. Nothing but silence. Hector Shield had hung up.
He had sent a text message, though: Call you tonight 9pm. Keep looking.
‘What is that contraption?’ asked the head calling itself Professor Jasper Frederik Olafsson. ‘The last time I was uncovered, people still spoke face to face. Is this the way people communicate in your world – via machine?’
‘What do you mean, in my world? It’s the same as your world, surely.’
‘Most likely, but your present is my future. Everything changes: that is the only certainty. I must therefore take nothing for granted.’
Jack put the phone away. ‘We still talk face to face, mainly, but there are lots of other ways, too. How long have you been down here?’
‘I have no way to tell,’ Professor Olafsson said. ‘There is no clock in this room. I cannot see the daylight coming or going, so I cannot count the days. I have no pulse, even.
Just the sensation that a vast epoch of time has passed – large enough that young men such as yourself are not startled by the apparition of a talking death mask. Are you considered normal for your kind?’
Jack was beginning to feel confused under the barrage. ‘Yes. That is, no, not really. What’s a death mask?’
In the hallway outside, Jaide could hear voices. She knew Jack must have felt the phone buzz and run off somewhere to take the call, so Tara wouldn’t overhear. She had left Tara searching fruitlessly on the other side of the castle, figuring that Jack wouldn’t have gone far from where they had started. But if that was him talking on the phone in the room ahead, why could she hear a second voice, answering his questions?
She inched up to the door and put her ear against it.
‘. . . a wax impression of my face as I lay on my deathbed, then cast in plaster. It was a common custom in my time. For loved ones, you see, so they could gaze upon the countenance of their dearly departed and think fond thoughts. Except I had no loved ones . . .’
‘But this is what you looked like . . . when you died?’
That was Jack. Jaide turned the handle and wrenched the door open, not liking the idea of dead things talking to her brother, even if he didn’t sound terribly frightened himself.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Oh, hi, Jaide.’ Jack was sitting on the edge of an upholstered chair, facing a head on a plinth resting on a cluttered table. ‘This is Professor Olafsson. He was a professor, anyway, before he died.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Jaide. The white face wasn’t the weirdest thing she’d seen since becoming a troubletwister and it looked harmless enough. At least it couldn’t move about.
‘What about Dad?’ she said, not yet accepting the idea of talking to someone dead, but prepared to let it go for the moment in order to concentrate on more important things. ‘I thought you were talking to him.’
‘I was, but we got interrupted.’
From behind her came the sound of Tara’s footsteps. Jaide ducked into the room and shut the door behind her, motioning for quiet.
‘We don’t have long, Jack,’ she said. ‘Tara’s too good at this game. What did Dad say?’
‘Not much. Just to keep looking.’
‘We already knew that.’
‘Yes, but now we know he’s still nearby, watching.’
‘He is?’ Frustration rose up in her. ‘I wish he could come closer.’
‘I wish so, too, Jaide, but he said he’ll call us later.’
‘What is it you seek?’ asked the plaster head. ‘I have lived in this castle a long time. Perhaps I can help you find it.’
‘How?’ asked Jack. ‘You’ve been under a dust sheet practically forever.’
‘Actually, I haven’t been under a sheet the whole time. Death masks are a collector’s item, you know, and I have often been on display.’
‘Why would someone put a talking death mask on display? Shouldn’t you be in a museum?’
‘Oh, I can’t talk to everyone. Imagine the fuss that would cause!’
‘But you talked to me.’
‘There’s something special about you,’ mused Professor Olafsson. ‘And your sister. Tell me what you’re looking for, before your friend arrives, and I will help you if I can.’
Jaide looked at Jack. It was clear he wasn’t afraid of Professor Olafsson, which meant something. Besides, a plaster head couldn’t be Evil, not within the Portland wards as the castle most definitely was.
‘We’re looking for something gold,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘Like a gold brick but flatter – about this big.’ She mimed the size with her hands. ‘It will probably be blank.’
‘But it might not be either,’ added Jack.
‘A gold card,’ Professor Olafsson said. ‘Why didn’t you say? For the Divination of Potential Powers and Safekeeping Thereof, I presume.’
She gaped at him. They were the exact words the Compendium had used. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Ah, I know what you are now! Troubletwisters! I was a Warden when I was alive, and a very good one, too, if I can be so bold. My death mask was imbued with my Gift, and so it has in effect become me . . . or I have become it, rather . . . and here I am, Professor Jasper Frederik Olafsson, formerly of Uppsala, and currently . . . wherever this is.’
Jaide was amazed that such a thing was possible, but she wasn’t about to look a gift-horse – or a gift-head – in the mouth.
‘Do you know of any gold cards in the castle?’
‘Not specifically, I’m afraid, but there are many places one might be hidden. I will give it some thought. Perhaps—’
‘Shhhh!’ said Jack. He had heard a noise from the other side of the door, as though someone had stopped just outside. The handle twitched.
Jaide acted without thinking. The nearest sheet was out of her reach, so she used her Gift to sweep one up off the floor and hastily drop it over the table and Professor Olafsson’s head.
Before he could protest, Tara burst through the door.
‘Aha!’ she cried. ‘I thought I heard you in here. But you know you’re not supposed to hide together, right?’
Jack and Jaide feigned innocence. Professor Olafsson stayed quiet, although the sheet did move as he wrinkled his nose. Jaide tried to flatten it back down with a swift blast of air, but her Gift rebelled, making the sheet flap.
‘What’s that?’ cried Tara, backing away with her hands at her mouth. ‘It’d better not be a rat! I hate rats!’
‘I think it is a rat,’ said Jack, hurrying her out of the door before a full-on tornado could erupt. After his first encounter with The Evil, he was wary of rats, too, so it wasn’t hard to fake. ‘Run!’
Jack and Tara fled up the corridor while Jaide did her best to get her Gift under control. The sheet whipped up into the air and flew around the room, trailing a hurricane of dust. The door slammed shut behind her. Coughing, she gathered the wind up in her hands and crushed it down into a ball, where it evaporated.
‘Finely done,’ said Professor Olafsson. The sheet had fallen back over the bust, but he could still see her with one eye. ‘You had best run after them or suspicions will be raised.’
‘Yes, but we’ll be back,’ she said, brushing her hair back into its usual place and blinking dust from her eyes. ‘I don’t know how or when, but we will.’
‘Naturally. Gold cards don’t find themselves. Until next time, Jaide the troubletwister, sister of Jack.’
She stopped with her hand on the door.
‘How did you know our names?’
‘You used them right in front of me.’ Professor Olafsson looked smug.
She exited the room, hurrying along the corridor to catch up with Jack and Tara. If they could talk Tara into another game, this time Tara would hide and the twins could search, pretending to find her choice of hiding place too difficult.
Echoes of a very real sound immediately dispelled that plan.
‘That’s the gong from the library,’ said Jack as Jaide ran up to him. ‘Rodeo Dave wants us.’
‘Then I guess we’d better go,’ said Tara. ‘The thought that this place has rats just makes me shiver.’
Jaide consoled herself with the thought that the card might actually be in the library, in which case they would be poking around exactly the right place. The trick then would be to be able to locate it before Tara or Rodeo Dave did. If they didn’t, there would go their father’s chance of ever using it to fight The Evil.
It took them three tries to find the right corridor. Rodeo Dave looked frustrated when they finally reached the library, which was a surprise because normally he never looked anything other than cheerful. He had the gong’s padded mallet in one hand as though he’d been about to ring it again, but when he saw them, he put it down. They quickly realised that he wasn’t frustrated with them, but with the job at hand.
‘It’s going to be a much bigger task than I thought,’ he said, wiping one hand acr
oss his forehead and leaving a grey smear behind. ‘The books used to be in alphabetical order by author, but they’ve been all mixed up since I was last here. Tara, do you think you could steady the ladder while I check the topmost shelves? Jack and Jaide, I’d be grateful if you could wipe all the shelves you can reach, using these cloths – they don’t need to be dampened. We should have enough time to finish this part of the job before your mother arrives to take you home.’
The twins put their back into their job willingly enough, peering into every corner of every shelf in the hope of seeing a telltale flash of gold. The air was soon thick with dust, and Rodeo Dave gave them masks to put over their mouths to filter out the worst of it. That made talking difficult, let alone whispering, so the twins had to be content with searching alone. The matter of their father’s phone call and the professor’s death mask would have to wait until later.
Mister Rourke’s stony statue watched them as they worked, still maddeningly familiar to Jaide. Every time she looked at it, it seemed to be looking right back at her tauntingly, as though daring her to remember.
Finally, Rodeo Dave climbed down from the ladder and declared that it was time to go. They took off their masks and brushed themselves and each other down. The twins were covered with cobwebs, even though they hadn’t seen a single living spider.
‘No rats, at least,’ said Tara. ‘I think I’d die if I saw another one.’
‘You’ll find lots of them here,’ said Rodeo Dave. ‘Mice, too. George hated cats.’
Tara put her arms around herself and went brrr again. ‘Why?’
‘George thought they talked about him behind his back. So did his father.’
Jaide hid a smile. Knowing Kleo and Ari, the Rourkes might well have been right.
They filed through the corridors to the entrance hall, then outside. The sun was hanging low on the horizon over the countryside, unprotected by the wards of Portland. Jack wondered if his father was still watching them and resisted the urge to wave.
Susan was already winding up the drive towards them, while Thomas Solomon’s security buggy whirred into view from around the moat. The two vehicles converged on the waiting pedestrians where they stood by the drawbridge readjusting their eyes to the natural light. Dusk shadows stretched everywhere, making Jack’s feet itch.