by D B Nielsen
I found the pile of correspondence where Mum said it would be, lying next to a bowl of artistically arranged oranges decorated with cloves on the hallway table; a remnant of our Christmas celebrations that Mum had yet to clear away. Amongst the various Christmas cards delivered from friends around the globe, bearing prettily coloured stamps from Australia to Sweden, was a noticeably official-looking envelope, postmarked Lyon in France. Its heavily textured, starkly white appearance smacked of formality. Turning it over within my hands, I almost gave myself a paper cut on one of its sharp, crisp corners.
An official-looking letter. For me. That was something of an event. But it gave me a queer feeling when I saw that it bore no return address.
Placing my thumbnail under the flap and being careful this time to avoid the sharpness of its edges, I tore the envelope open. I pulled out a single sheet of heavily-weighted A4 paper, and felt my heartbeat rapidly accelerate when I caught sight of the sender’s place of employment.
Interpol.
My eyes widened in shock.
The letter began with a curt “Mademoiselle Woods” – no “Dear” preceding my name, nothing to suggest that the contents and tone of this letter was anything other than a demand, an order.
I was hereby requested to attend an “informal” interview to give a deposition concerning any knowledge I might have of the artefact stolen from the British Museum. This interview was to take place in Lyon the following Monday. I was assured that my parents had given their consent for my full cooperation in this matter. A car would be sent to meet me from the noonday arrival of the TGV at the Lyon Saint-Exupery train station. The signature of the sender was equally stark and heavily etched onto the paper.
Jacques Renauld.
I did not know this man. From the tone of his letter, I did not care to know him. But I did know that he had lied or, at the very least, exaggerated the truth – my parents would never have agreed to allow me to travel to Lyon on my own to face an Interpol inquisition. Whatever consent Monsieur Renauld had obtained from them, I was almost sure would have been under false pretences. And I was certain that they would have expected any interviews to take place in London, not at the headquarters of the organisation in France.
I don’t know how long I stood there in the hallway after reading the letter. I simply felt like I’d been taken prisoner.
With the letter still in my hand, I retraced my steps to the kitchen where now only my mother still sat. In my absence, Dad must have left for work. I had no memory of hearing him leave – not the engine revving, or the Lexus passing down the driveway at the front of the Manor. Instead, I returned to face my mother with an expression so pale that she jumped up in alarm, fearing a relapse from my illness. Wordlessly, I handed her the letter and watched as the blood drained from her face too – a mirror of my own.
I moved towards her like a sleepwalker, pressing a cold cheek into the warmth of her dressing gown, wanting to be comforted as if I was Jasmine or Alex having a nightmare, as I slid down into the chair beside where she still stood.
Feeling punch drunk and stunned, I stared mindlessly at the beauty of the creeping pale morning light that turned the silver birch trees into cool, slim ghosts, spellbound in the hazy distance outside the kitchen window.
But my thoughts had already fled miles away to an interrogation room in Lyon. And I wondered if I was capable of lying to the authorities.
And, more importantly, getting away with it.
A STRANGE ENCOUNTER
CHAPTER SIX
After my uncharacteristically timid response to the letter from Interpol, I found my usual feistiness bouncing back and a new resolve took hold. I was determined not to be cowed by some bureaucratic pencil-pusher. I’d met their like before – my old Headmaster was little better, and the doctors and psychologists at the hospital.
But my parents could not hide the fact that they were deeply disturbed. And neither could Sage.
Having taken Indy for a walk in the woods, hoping to meet Finn again but to no avail, I found my twin sister waiting anxiously for me in my bedroom on my return that evening. She was sitting on the edge of my bed with her head in her hands, surprisingly slumped in a posture of dejection. She’d heard me come up the stairs and enter with Indy at my heels and looked up, white-faced.
‘What’s up?’ I asked, darting forward in concern. My first thoughts flew to the threat posed to the Seed and St. John – for nothing else could make her look so fearful.
I was wrong.
She seemed too shocked to speak. Her hands fluttered in the air, almost of their own accord, in a mute gesture of desperation, before slowly dropping limply into her lap. Her dismayed amber coloured eyes met mine and she sighed deeply, failing to notice that Indy had picked up on her agitation and was trying to provide comfort of sorts by placing his mangy head on her lap.
I tried to maintain a semblance of calm, shifting in next to her and let my arm drop around her shoulders.
‘What’s wrong, girl?’ I asked, hearing the anxiety now in my own voice. ‘Has something happened? Is it the Seed? Is it St. John?’
When she finally spoke, her voice was shaken, ominously low and weary. ‘I never thought it would come to this. What are we going to do?’
‘“Do”? Sage? What’s happened?’
‘Interpol. Your interview.’ She said bleakly. She made it sound like it was the end of the world.
I sighed in relief, looking around my bedroom at the mess – papers, clothes, make-up and dirty mugs still peppered the floor and any available space on my bedside tables, desk and dressing table in abandoned disarray – and I realised that things weren’t really that bad at all. There was a sense of normalcy in my room; nothing had changed since this morning even though I’d received the summons to attend an interview with Jacques Renauld at Interpol.
‘It’s all my fault,’ she said, and I began to understand.
‘It’s not your fault!’ I spoke firmly, with absolute certainty. ‘Don’t be stupid!’
Sage looked up at me. Her expression had not changed. There was no sign of relief. ‘Of course it’s my fault! I involved you in this! It’s my deception that will land you in trouble! I should be the one going to Lyon!’
‘Now you are being stupid!’ I protested. ‘I involved myself in this! And I’m the one who came up with the plan to swap identities! Sage, I hate to say this but you’re just not that ... imaginative!’
I squeezed her shoulder and was going to say more but she interrupted me.
‘But I’m the one responsible.’
I shook my head in disbelief. Poor Sage! Always having to shoulder the responsibility; always having to be the sensible one.
I realised that some sort of explanation was called for.
Standing up suddenly to look down on her, clasping her clammy palms in my own, I said, ‘Look ... I’m as much involved in this as you are, girl.’
It was then that I informed her of what I had discovered on my various visits to Satis House, of my hair-raising adventure on New Year’s Eve, and of my meeting with Finn earlier that morning. By the end of my tale, Sage’s expression was one of utter astonishment.
‘And now I will have an interview in Lyon with Interpol ... but I don’t intend to tell them anything,’ I stated resolutely.
Her eyebrows furrowed, but she waited for me to continue.
‘Anyway, it’s better this way. Better me than you.’ I said, knowing her inability to lie convincingly.
I waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. The small frown creasing her brow was a sure sign she was deep in thought. After a time I spoke again.
‘What’s the problem now?’
Sage pulled herself together, away from her train of thought to answer me. ‘I’m thinking of how we’re going to pull this off.’
My eyebrows raised a few millimetres in surprise. ‘“We”? Oh no! I’m doing this alone! You’re not coming to Lyon, Sage. It’s way too dangerous for you. St. John would have my he
ad if he knew what you were planning!’
‘He doesn’t need to know!’ she protested hotly, hands fluttering in the air again.
I shot her an exasperated look, not bothering to remind her of the last time she tried to keep secrets from her fiancé. She must have been thinking the same thing because she blushed, looking slightly sheepish.
‘Well, what about Gabriel?’ she asked hesitantly.
I briefly wondered if Sage had run mad.
‘What about Gabriel?’ I repeated.
‘I’m sure he’d be only too willing to help.’ She smiled one of her “I have a brilliant idea” smiles, probably hoping to convince me that it was a brilliant idea, before continuing, ‘I know that both Mum and Dad, and St. John and I would feel a lot better if we knew that Gabriel was watching your back in Lyon. You wouldn’t be on your own ... alone ... unprotected. Especially if you ran into any trouble with Jacques Renauld or with Louis Gravois or ... any other entity. And I’d at least know that you’re safe ... or as safe as a person can be with an Anakim looking after them.’
I was aghast. This smacked too much of emotional blackmail.
There was a short silence. I didn’t quite know how to respond – after all, when Sage had refused to tell St. John about Louis Gravois’ appointment as independent investigator to the British Museum liaising with Interpol, I had encouraged her to inform Gabriel. In fact, I had insisted that she do so immediately, placing enormous pressure on her, and had spent every minute dogging her steps in an effort to keep her safe. Now it seemed it was her turn to insist on keeping me safe.
Directing her gaze vaguely into the distance beyond my window at the gathering dusk, and speaking lightly so that I could take up her words or let them go as I chose, she murmured, ‘Two Wise Ones ... Daughters of Ishtar ... Chosen by the Seed ... How unexpected. I guess I’m not the only one with a role to play in all this.’
I sighed deeply, this time admitting defeat. ‘Awww, man. All right. Go ahead, involve Gabriel. No doubt you will anyway – with or without my approval. I suppose I should be grateful that at least he’s good company – and he does look like a movie star.’
‘Well, Mum and Dad will be much happier knowing Gabriel will look after you,’ she said, hammering the final nail into the coffin with mention of our parents’ fears and throwing a small smile my way that did little to hide her worry that she wasn’t going to be there to accompany me personally. ‘I just hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘Meh, I’ll be fine,’ I said with as much confidence as bluster. ‘What’s the worst that could happen? I doubt that they’re going to be too hard on a seventeen-year-old, especially as I could hardly be viewed as a criminal mastermind on the Most Wanted list. Besides, like I’ve told you before, there’s a timeline to the disappearance of the Seed.’
‘I know,’ she stated bleakly, fidgeting with her engagement ring.
And I realised then that part of her concern was also for St. John. ‘Don’t worry, Sage. I won’t let anything happen to your fiancé either. Trust me.’
But despite my assurances that all would be well, neither Sage nor my parents acted like they believed me.
The rest of the week before my departure was spent in a household electric with tension. My mother lamented being unable to accompany me to Lyon herself as the school term began with a round of meetings with the new teachers and tutors which was to take place that same Monday. The invitation had been accepted weeks ago, and Jasmine and Alex needed my parents there more than I did. Meanwhile, Gabriel had organised for me to travel to Paris by Eurostar on the Sunday so I would be well rested for my interview – and perhaps he felt the need to coach me or fuss over me like I was some scared child – while St. John had volunteered his apartment for the length of my stay while he remained in London.
In this way my immediate future had been organised without me and I felt helpless with frustration at how quickly everything had been arranged without my input or consent.
I left home on an ordinary English mid-winter day, the weather having turned again back to its usual blistering cold. My mother chided me to keep warm and to eat regular meals, continuously smiling a disturbing taut, pale-lipped smile so unlike her usual sparkling self while talking brightly over breakfast that it made me slightly uneasy. Her prattle filled with trivialities; her inability to find the right shade of red oil paint for her latest masterpiece, an outbreak of swine flu in the neighbourhood, road works on the motorway to London. The banal, empty chatter produced to keep her fears at bay and fill the tense, anxious void around the breakfast table brought shadows to Dad’s eyes as Sage and I exchanged a look of deep concern. Mum’s performance fooled nobody.
We waited until Mum went to wake up our siblings in order to make their farewells to me – which was unusual in itself as Sage’s trip to Paris hadn’t warranted such treatment, but then Sage wasn’t the worrisome child with an eating disorder – and for Dad to leave the table to make a fresh cup of coffee before speaking in hushed tones of tomorrow’s interrogation.
‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Fi?’ Sage asked for the hundredth time since the arrival of the summons to Lyon. ‘I don’t feel right about this. I wish I could go with you. Or St. John. So much depends on you now. And it’s not the same as lying to our parents or teachers.’
I gave a long, drawn out sigh, looking out the window for inspiration. Behind my sister’s reflection, dark, ghostly branches stretched naked across a gunpowder sky. There was nothing to encourage me in the denuded flower beds at the edge of the garden, the rose bushes’ spindly roots buried beneath the barren, blackened soil, nor in the distance behind the thick copse of trees where Satis House lay.
It was as if my impending interview with Interpol had robbed my family of their usual animation and optimism and replaced these with a bleak despair that seemed to fill every crevice of our home. There was a thick silence which burdened us with an intolerable heaviness as I strove to find the right reply.
But finding none, instead I said, ‘I think we have to trust that what’s meant to happen will happen. But I don’t intend to give away anything to Jacques Renauld, so don’t worry, Sage. He and Louis Gravois can keep digging if they want to find something, but they won’t get what they’re looking for from me.’
I briefly glanced up at Sage, her body wound tight with anxiety like a corkscrew as she sat at the breakfast table sipping her cup of tea, before turning back to the woods beyond the window. Sage looked like she wished to caution me further as typical of her being the eldest but instead, catching sight of the direction of my gaze, she narrowed her eyes and said accusingly, ‘He won’t come to your rescue this time, Fi! If Louis is in Lyon, you’re on your own! Finn won’t save you! You’re thinking of this as some grand adventure, aren’t you? It would be just like you to throw yourself headlong into danger over some guy!’
I looked up at her startled, feeling the injustice of her words prick me. Perhaps it was because we were all so much on edge but anger swamped me, white and hot, and for the first time since we were children I wanted to hit her.
Thoughts crowded my mind. It wasn’t me who had rushed headlong into danger, I wanted to remind her. I hadn’t been the one traipsing all over Europe from Paris to Rome, following some guy, threatened by Rephaim and almost killed. I might have taken a small risk in my visits to Satis House but, prior to the discovery of the Seed, in all my seventeen years I certainly hadn’t done anything more exciting or dangerous than simply riding the waves at Bondi. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself.
It was just sheer coincidence that Mum chose that moment to return with Jasmine and Alex in tow as my blood began to boil and accusations of my own rose up in my throat clamouring to be released. Instead, I turned my back on her to avoid giving voice to things that were better left unsaid.
As a result of my turbulent emotions, the farewells to my family were stilted and stiff. We may as well have been strangers or mere acquaintances instead of a close
-knit family circle. And, in an unusually subdued mood, I remained all but silent in the car as Dad drove me to Ebbsfleet International in Kent, giving me instructions for my trip as he drove, to embark upon the Eurostar bound for Paris Gare du Nord.
I’d left home under a bruised, temperamental sky which perfectly matched my black thoughts, only to find that the clouds were massed thicker and darker, heavily swollen, as I alighted from the car with little more than a perfunctory kiss on my father’s weather-roughened cheek. It was only after being ensconced in the warmth of the premier business carriage as the train pulled away from the station that I felt my first twinges of misgiving. I never could remain angry for very long – it wasn’t in my nature, especially as I usually erupted in anger in the moment, and when it was over, it was over – and, forlornly, I gazed out the window at the passing countryside wishing that I could make my farewells again and, this time, depart on a less bitter note.
But it was too late for that. The train was already rapidly gathering speed, charging me towards Paris and my encounter with Jacques Renauld on the morrow.
Lulled by the rhythmic motion of the train, I felt my eyelids growing heavy as I stared at the blurred streaks of undefined, colourless terrain outside the window. At any moment I expected to see the first scattering of raindrops upon the dusty windowpane but I must have fallen asleep when the rain finally came as my last conscious thought was that Sage, in some ways, was right – this was to be my first grand adventure.
Perhaps it was the perpetual swaying movement of the train or the sound of the wheels upon the steel rails and sleepers that penetrated my subconscious but, suddenly restless in a semi-conscious state between dreaming and waking, I became aware of distant chanting and a voice calling out to me again, drowning out all other noise.
