Troubletwisters

by Garth Nix

  Furthermore, Jack thought, everything he knew about The Evil came through Jaide, the cats, or Grandma X. No one had given it the chance to speak for itself.

  ‘What are you, really?’ Jack asked The Evil. ‘And what do you really want?’

  ++Open your mind to us, Jackaran Kresimir Shield. Open your mind and find out!++

  ‘Can’t you just tell me?’

  ++No words can contain us.++

  ‘What?’ said Jaide from the top of the ladder. She could hear Jack talking but couldn’t make out the words over the storm. She was leaning out into space, held only by her brother’s strength. She had the replacement plate in one hand, the screwdriver and the first screw in the other, and the bag in her teeth.

  Jack didn’t answer her. Jaide brushed salty spray out of her eyes and pressed the plate into place against the beam. The brass shone in defiance of the storm and The Evil. Jaide slotted the first screw into the hole made by its predecessor. It turned straightly and smoothly, as though it wanted to go in. She fitted the screwdriver on, and quickly tightened the screw.

  ++Tell her to stop,++ the voice told Jack.

  ‘Why?’ he asked it. ‘What difference does it make if she does?’

  ++All the difference in your world. Accept our embrace and know an end to fear and grief.++

  ‘And happiness and love as well!’

  ++All emotions are one. When you join us, you will understand.++

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jack. The Evil looked horrible, but so did Brussels sprouts, and they were supposed to be good for you. Could Grandma X and the Wardens really have it the wrong way around?

  ++The Wardens keep your father from you. Tell your sister to stop, or you will never be allowed to see him again.++

  Jack stared out into the night, knowing that The Evil must have a tiny foothold on his brain to be able to read that small, creeping doubt. Why hadn’t his father come with them to Portland? Why had he abandoned them the day their house exploded?

  ‘Got it!’ cried Jaide, sliding her finger into the leather case and pulling out another screw. She put that in place, turned it once with her finger, and —

  A tentacle smashed down ten feet away, wrapped itself around the railing, and pulled. Steel shrieked in protest, and the tentacle tore a whole section of the walkway off the side of the lighthouse.

  At the same time, the bloodied, white-eyed Rennie struggled up the other side, webs dangling from her in all directions like parachute shrouds.

  ++Tell her to stop!++ The mouths of the rats on her shoulders moved in unison with her words. ++Tell her to stop, Jackaran Kresimir Shield, or we will stop her for you!++

  Jack stared, frozen, as the tentacle struck again. This time it did not tear away the walkway, but came questing forward. Another tentacle followed, reaching about like a blind snake seeking its prey.

  Jaide started on the third screw, frantically pushing it into place with cold-chilled fingers and leaning far out in her efforts to do so. Were she to drop the screw, it would almost certainly be lost. There was no walkway underneath them now, and nothing but The Evil to catch anything – or anyone – that fell.

  ‘Hold me properly!’ she called to Jack. His grip shifted as though he was growing tired. She wasn’t worried about falling, but being blown away by the gale would be bad enough. There was no time left now for mistakes.

  Jack stared back at Rennie as she tried to climb over the rail. The webs that had helped her before were a hindrance now, all tangled and confused. Cockroaches squished under her fingers, making her grip treacherous. Jack thought she might be trapped there, but that hope was dashed as a tentacle came toward her, wound itself around her chest, lifted her out of the tangle, and deposited her on the desperately leaned-over walkway near the ladder and the twins. With staring white eyes, Rennie looked up at Jaide as she screwed in the third screw, oblivious to Jack’s struggle below.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Jack said. ‘It’s me you want, not her.’

  ++Tell her to stop.++

  ‘But she doesn’t understand —’

  ++Tell her to stop.++

  ‘Wait —’

  ++We have waited long enough. She must stop!++

  Rennie started to climb toward the twins, her slimy fingers groping through the diamond mesh, her white eyes fixed on Jaide as the girl pushed in the fourth and final screw.

  A sigh of relief had just begun to form in Jack’s throat when a tentacle suddenly whipped up over his head.

  It hung in the air for a second, then the very tip curled around and flicked Jaide away from the plate, just like someone whisking away a fly. She fell on Jack, and both of them ended in a tangle, hanging off the rung of the ladder with only a six-foot length of bent and slanting walkway between them and the long fall to certain death.

  A length of walkway that had Rennie on the other end.

  Jaide looked at Jack in despair. The screwdriver was gone, dropped as she scrambled for a hold on the ladder.

  Both twins looked up and saw the fourth, final screw teetering where Jaide had put it in and done a half turn with her fingers.

  The tentacle came back again, brushing over them as it smashed blindly at the lighthouse. The whole structure shook as the tentacle hit, and Jaide saw the last screw fall, like a single silver teardrop, to be lost forever. They had no way now of finishing what they had started.

  The East Ward could not be replaced. ‘No,’ sobbed Jaide. ‘No . . .’

  ++Yessss!++ cried The Evil, entirely in their minds.

  Rennie’s voice was silenced by cloying webs. ++It is pointless to resist. And now you will join us, both of you.++

  ‘No!’ shouted Jack. He let go with one hand and held out his palm toward Rennie. ‘It’s me you want. Spare her.’

  ‘Jack?!’

  ‘I’ll go with you.’ Jack was almost babbling, reaching out desperately to Rennie, who continued her slow climb toward them. ‘I’ll go with you – just let Jaide go!’

  The Evil laughed. They had never heard it laugh before, and the sound was more horrible than anything they had ever imagined. It came from the throat of every animal and insect surrounding the lighthouse. It came from Rennie. It came from the storm itself, thundering and rumbling.

  ++It is too late, Jackaran Kresimir Shield, much too late, to bargain with us!++

  The twins felt all the power of The Evil gather around them and flow into Rennie. She would be the agent of their assimilation. The Evil would flow into them through her hands.

  ‘So good, so good to have my children back,’ mumbled Rennie in her normal voice, though the white never left her eyes. Somehow that was even more horrible than hearing The Evil speak through her.

  Still mumbling, Rennie dragged herself another foot up the broken walkway, her powerful fingers gripping the mesh as hand over hand she edged closer and closer. The rats growing from her shoulders squeaked in happy anticipation and the cockroaches rustled in applause.

  Jaide averted her eyes. She couldn’t look at Rennie as she approached. The lighthouse beam swept over them, and she saw her parents’ graffiti just inches away from where they clung to the bottom of the ladder.

  SAH ♥ HJS

  Inspiration nearly blinded her, just for a moment. She knew what they had to do – if there were only time left to do it!

  ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘give me your hand!’

  He didn’t hear her. His whole attention was on Rennie’s slow but inexorable climb toward them. He was transfixed by the horror of what was going to happen. He could still hear The Evil laughing. It seemed to fill up his whole world.

  ‘Jack! Your hand!’

  He snapped out of his daze. ‘What?’

  ‘“Something read”, the rhyme goes,’ Jaide was saying. ‘Something read. Maybe it doesn’t have to be that plaque. Maybe it doesn’t even have to be words. Just letters might do if we make it happen – look!’

  He looked where she was pointing and saw the graffiti. ‘But we don’t know how to make i
t into a ward.’

  ‘How do we know we can’t? We’re troubletwisters! A week ago we didn’t know we could fly or shadow-walk. Who knows what we can do?’

  Jack grinned suddenly, and it was like the clouds parting.

  ++Join us!++ screamed The Evil as one of Rennie’s clawing hands reached for Jack’s leg. Behind her, all around the lighthouse, thousands of white eyes stared out of the dark. ++Join us at last!++

  In reply, Jack and Jaide entwined their hands together and pressed hard against their parents’ graffiti.

  As their palms touched the stone, a terrible scream exploded in their minds, to be repeated a split second later by every throat for miles.

  ++Wait!++ shrieked The Evil. ++Do not — ++

  ‘“Susan Anne Hungerford loves Hector Jamieson Shield”,’ whispered the twins together. ‘Be the East Ward.’

  Silver light streamed through the carved initials, like molten metal following a mould. They felt their Gifts drawn to the light. Jack’s sense of shadow and darkness drained away from him, and his vision dimmed, so that he could only see by the lighthouse’s sweeping beam. Jaide felt the iciness of the wind, but nothing more, and no longer needed heavy thoughts to stay on the ladder.

  But they didn’t mind this ebbing of their Gifts. They knew instinctively that it was only temporary, part of the creation of a new ward and the containment of The Evil.

  They could feel The Evil going, retreating back whence it came. The huge squid-thing was breaking apart, leaving tons of flopping marine creatures piled high from lighthouse to sea. Masses of mice were fleeing in all directions, their running columns crisscrossing with those of spiders and cockroaches, fierce battles happening at every collision.

  ‘What have you done?’ said Rennie sadly in something approaching her ordinary voice, although a hint of The Evil’s power remained. ‘Why won’t you join me?’

  Her clawlike hands reached out for them. The rats and bugs in her flesh writhed in anger and pain, and her mouth was twisted in some deeper agony.

  Jack acted instinctively, drawing back his feet. The woman’s fingers grasped for his toes, but missed. She fell back down the walkway, rats screeching and her hands scrabbling for a grip. But she failed, sliding over the edge without a cry, her staring, all-white eyes fixed upon Jack and Jaide as she fell into darkness.

  Jaide hugged her brother with her one free arm. He shifted his position to be more secure, then hugged her back.

  Around them, the storm was fading. The wind had changed direction, and there were patches of clear sky opening up to show starlight and the promise of light from a still-hidden moon.

  But the storm had left its mark. Water surged up the river and spilled onto Main Street on both sides. The lights in the town were off again, save for the distant hospital and the sweep of the lighthouse.

  A moth flew up against Jack’s face and he flinched. But it was just a normal insect, drawn by the light.

  Jaide’s plan had worked. The Evil had left Portland.

  ‘We did it,’ she said, staring at the graffiti they had turned into the East Ward. The silver light was fading from it now, and soon it would look no different from any other graffiti, but they knew it was special, and that it would last.

  ‘We sure did,’ said Jack, grinning like a loon.

  The twins butted their foreheads together in their ancient and time-honoured ritual of triumph.

  ‘Ow,’ complained Jaide. The only problem with the ritual was that someone’s head always hurt more than the other’s.

  ‘Brr,’ said Jack, feeling the cold more than the pain in his skull.

  ‘We need to get back and check on Grandma and the cats,’ said Jaide.

  She looked over at the door to the lamp room. The walkway was now a good three feet under it, slanting down to a gaping hole, and was slippery and wet.

  ‘Do you think we should try to reach the door?’

  ‘We have to,’ said Jack. ‘We can’t hang on here all night.’

  ‘I can’t do anything with the wind now,’ said Jaide. ‘If we fall . . . we fall.’

  Jack examined the walkway very carefully the next time the light came around.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘We can hold on to the bottom of the window frames. They stick out.’

  ‘I guess,’ said Jaide.

  ‘You’re the climber,’ Jack pointed out.

  ‘All right.’

  Gingerly, they both left the ladder and, holding on to the window frames, managed to clamber to the door and get inside.

  Jaide shut the door behind them. It clicked, and the slight sound was immediately followed by an incredibly loud explosion that rattled all the windows, while a simultaneous flash of lightning blinded the twins. An almost horizontal stroke of electricity struck through to the lamp itself.

  That’s not right, thought Jack. There’s a lightning rod up top, and lightning doesn’t go sideways, and . . . oh no!

  He grabbed Jaide and pulled her down.

  ‘The Evil!’ he shouted, even as his vision cleared.

  Thunder answered him, rolling out across the bay.

  ‘No . . . no . . . it can’t be,’ said Jaide.

  ‘It would be wrong,’ said a voice, ‘to think you’ve ever seen the last of The Evil. But in this case, it might be gone for a while.’

  Both twins looked up. There was a man crouched on the top of the lamp, smoke rising from his clothes. More amazingly still, they recognised his voice.

  It was Jack who put the impossible into words.

  ‘Dad?’

  HECTOR SHIELD SWUNG HIMSELF down from the top of the lantern and landed with a light thud on the platform next to the twins. His hair was even wilder than it normally was, and his flapping coat was singed. He looked as though he had come down a chimney. There was a wild light in his eyes as he embraced the twins, drawing them into a very tight and smoky hug.

  ‘I came as fast as I could, my dear troubletwisters,’ he said. ‘When a ward fails, there is an alarm. The signal reached me just after I arrived in Venice, where the weather was annoyingly fine. Luckily things were stormy at this end or I might have been even longer. Am I the first here?’ He looked around and, without giving them the chance to say anything, said, ‘Good. Are you all right? Where’s your grandmother?’

  The twins didn’t realise for a second that it was their turn to talk, and their reply was a rather jumbled account of everything that had happened in the previous days.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘Mother is even tougher than she looks, and it is not unusual for a Warden to fall into the kind of sleep you’ve described when they have overtaxed their Gifts. Speaking of Gifts, it looks like yours have really been going to town. All perfectly normal, but perfectly worrying, too.’

  ‘Dad,’ said Jaide, slightly muffled by his shoulder, ‘why didn’t you tell us about being a Warden? And us being troubletwisters and all?’

  ‘Didn’t your grandmother explain that to you – that it’s dangerous to know too much too soon?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jaide. She felt angry now, almost as much as she was relieved to see him. ‘But you should have told us!’

  ‘Would you have believed me?’

  Their father smiled in his lopsided way. His nose was just a little too large, which made his face seem slightly unbalanced.

  ‘Yes,’ said the twins. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Um,’ said their father, looking contrite. ‘Well, the truth is that Warden parents are usually the worst— ah!’

  He stopped and suddenly went to the window. The twins joined him and followed his gaze downward. A long, muscular shape was loping across the car park. The lighthouse flash gleamed off sharp, curving teeth. Jack gasped. It was a sabre-toothed tiger!

  It disappeared from sight, but a second later there were three loud cracks from below, followed by a booming thud.

  ‘Padlocks,’ said their father. ‘And the door. Not subtle, not subtle at all.’

  The metal staircase below them r
ang like a crazy xylophone as the tiger ascended.

  The twins looked at their father. They had no fear left in them now, just a kind of incredibly weary anxiety.

  Hector chuckled with something that sounded very much like relief.

  ‘I should’ve known Custer would be next. Don’t be frightened. Tiger-shape is just how he gets around – and it’s a deal more comfortable than lightning, I bet.’

  Heavy footsteps reached the lamp room, but what emerged onto the hatch wasn’t a tiger of any kind, but a high-cheeked man with long, flowing blond hair. His eyes were close-set and intense. He was dressed entirely in brown suede and leather, with a fur collar. He was, against all odds, perfectly dry.

  ‘I received the signal,’ he said. ‘But the ward is up?’ Taking in the contents of the lamp room, he performed a double take on seeing Hector. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Never fear, Custer,’ said the twins’ father. ‘It’s all under control. These two just got themselves in a bit of a tangle.’

  ‘Not surprising, if you were lurking about.’

  ‘No, I swear. All I did was answer the alarm.’

  Custer’s stiff disapproval eased slightly.

  ‘Well, lucky you came in time to bring everything under control, Heck.’

  ‘What?’ said Jack. ‘He didn’t do anything.’

  ‘It was us,’ said Jaide, her indignation a match for his. ‘We replaced the East Ward!’

  ‘Replaced? I hardly think so.’ Custer chuckled, patting her heavily on the head. ‘All’s well that ends well, I guess.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hector. ‘The ward’s fine,’ he announced, almost as if he’d fixed it himself. ‘That’s what matters.’

  Jack and Jaide swelled up in outrage.

  Before they could say anything further, however, there was a bright flash outside, and a twisting, golden tendril of light grew out of the new ward, shot past the open door and Custer, split into two, and plunged into the hearts of the twins.

  Jaide felt her Gift return in a rush and reached out to the wind around the lighthouse, welcoming it back. Jack felt energy pouring into him, fierce and uncontrollable, and had an overwhelming desire for the calming surrounds of darkness. The lighthouse’s lamp suddenly dimmed, and even the stars above seemed fainter.