“Th-there must be a c-castle,” she stammered. “Dad said!”
“What?” said Fergus nastily. “The same dad who—”
“Shut up, Fergus!” It came out as a shriek, surprising them all.
“Who what?” asked Jesse, looking slowly from Alice to Fergus. “What’s going on?”
“Alice will tell you,” snarled Fergus.
At first, Alice thought she couldn’t do it. Jesse, whom she had all but tricked into coming—who had, she supposed, trusted her, as she had trusted Barney—how could she tell him that her father was a thief? That the danger they faced was much, much graver than any Consequence the major might issue for what now seemed like a silly schoolish prank?
But fears, as the major would say, must be confronted. And so the three sat on the ground, and Alice produced the little carving from her rucksack and told Jesse everything, and afterwards they carried on sitting, looking down toward the wooden jetty and the boat anchored in the harbor, and nobody knew quite what to say because this was not a situation life really prepares you for.
Once the first shock had passed, Jesse tried to be practical. Like Fergus, his first thought was to go to the police. If this Leopard woman was after them, they were in danger, he said. This was a woman who attacked people—maybe even ate them! And those men on the quay had looked mean. Inwardly, he felt bewildered: A priceless Chinese artifact? An infamous cat burglar? Alice’s dad somehow involved?
Jesse, unlike Fergus, had never questioned her claims about her father. He had believed Alice’s dad was an up-and-coming actor. He had even believed that the man was interested in birds. He was disappointed too, as well as shocked, because even though he hadn’t asked for it, he was loving their adventure, and for it to end like this was . . . sad. Knights and heroes, he suspected, would not go running to the police, or surrender priceless treasures so easily. But those were knights, with swords and armor and horses, whereas he and Alice and Fergus were kids. He gave one regretful look at the unclimbed cliff, the unexplored island, and stood up.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll go back to the boat. We’ll be safe there.”
He held out his hand. Alice stood, meekly, and took it. Sighing, she turned and followed him back down the hill.
Fergus could take it no more. Seeing Alice like this! So dejected, and small—his Alice, whom he had seen stand on rooftops with her arms outstretched to the sky! Who had rowed out into the middle of lochs and let off fireworks, who could make Fergus’s blood freeze with the telling of a simple story she made up in her head! Barney Mistlethwaite was a crook, he thought furiously. He didn’t deserve a daughter like her, and he, Fergus Mackenzie, wanted to look him in the eye and tell him so.
“Stop!” he shouted. “We’re going on!”
The others turned and stared uncomprehendingly.
“But there isn’t even a castle!” Alice said.
“There’s always a castle. You just have to look for it.”
“And what about the Leopard?” Jesse cried.
Fergus spun round, arms wide, palms toward the sky. “Look around you, my friend—there are no leopards in Scotland!”
“But it’s dangerous!”
“Do you want an adventure or not?” Fergus shouted. “Come on, Jesse! Call yourself an explorer? This is for Alice! It’s important!”
As he turned to face the cliff, he told himself that this was possibly the stupidest thing he had ever done.
Were they brave, or just reckless? Alice wasn’t sure. She only knew as she trudged up the path after Fergus to the top of the cliff that she was afraid. What if the Leopard woman found them? What if Barney wasn’t here? What if—this was confusing—he was here? What would she say to him? Climbing behind her, Jesse tried to focus only on logistics—the boat that left in an hour, the rising tide and the line they must not cross, the castle that did not exist.
Fergus thought nothing, but marched to the rhythm of his rage.
As the dirt path turned to stone, and the stone path turned to steps carved out of rock, and the world was reduced to black walls and the bright blue sky above, Jesse’s heart began to beat a little faster with almost unbearable curiosity. Fergus’s rage settled into something more like determination.
Alice’s fear remained.
They emerged from their climb onto a kind of plateau, with sheer drops on either side. To the right, a short distance away, the rest of the boat party sat strung along the cliff, looking out to sea, like sentinels of nowhere.
“What are they doing?” asked Jesse.
“Watching for birds, I guess,” said Fergus. “That is the main point of this trip, for most people.”
“But why are they all exactly here?”
The Australian raised his camera, and they heard a whirr of clicks. Curious, they approached the edge of the cliff.
Puffins! Puffins everywhere! Puffins waddling like little fat men going to weddings in black and white suits, puffins watching with their heads cocked to the side, puffins performing a sort of aerial ballet, rising and falling over the edge of the cliffs on the thermals. The runaways stood on the grass at the end of the line of watchers, and Fergus yelped as a bird shot out of the ground between his legs and soared over the edge of the cliff before diving at breakneck speed straight into the waves below.
Even Alice laughed.
“What’s it doing underground?” cried Fergus.
“It’s where they nest.” The Australian had wandered over to them with his camera. “They spend most of their lives at sea, but come to land to lay their eggs in underground burrows.”
“That is so cool.” Fergus knelt on the grass to peer down the burrow. An angry striped beak poked out and squawked at him. “So cool.”
It was . . . joyous. As joyous as the carved Chinese boy, riding his jade dragon. But there was nothing here—not a wall or stone—that once could have been a castle, and the boat left in less than an hour.
“Come on,” said Fergus.
They pressed on.
The Australian with the camera watched them disappear beyond a headland on the end of the plateau. He had a niggling sense that he was missing something. There had been something on the radio this morning, at his hotel. He hadn’t paid attention, but he was almost certain it had something to do with three missing children . . .
Thirty-Seven
Knights and Dragons and Witches
The ground sloped away at the end of the headland, and they saw that Nish was like a figure eight, two fat circles that met in the middle where the land narrowed to a few meters across. The lowest point was barely above sea level, and already damp with the rising tide.
“There’s the Keep Out sign,” said Jesse. “This must be where the captain meant when he said don’t go any farther.”
“That’s it, then.” Alice felt a rush of relief, followed by a sting of disappointment. It was obvious they could not continue. There was nothing for it but to go back to the boat, and safety, and school—but she could not help thinking that this was somehow running away and hiding.
Which, of course, is sometimes the wisest thing to do.
Sometimes. Depending on whether you’re being reckless or brave.
“Oh for God’s sake!” Jesse cried. “FERGUS, COME BACK!”
Alice, dragged back from her thoughts, saw that Fergus had already leaped over the divide.
“The castle must be on this side of the island,” he shouted. “That’s why no one knows about it!”
“ALICE, THERE IS NO CASTLE!” Jesse yelled. “AND WE’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO GO PAST HERE AND THE TIDE IS COMING IN AND WE’LL BE CUT OFF!”
“YOU STAY, THEN! I’M GOING ON!”
They went on.
The going was less steady now, the ground more rugged. They walked around one headland, then another. Jesse glanced nervously at his watch. In another thirty minutes, the boat would leave.
Sooner than that, the tide would cut them off.
They came to a path that hugged t
he edge of a cliff much higher than on the other side of the island, with a choppier sea below. Alice’s vertigo returned. She felt the familiar blurring of her vision, the growing numbness of her limbs. Dumbly, she held out a hand. Wordlessly, Jesse took it.
She must not look down . . . She must not let the vertigo win . . . Round another headland they went, the path began to dip, and suddenly, they were in a different world.
Guillemots and shags, razorbills and gulls—perched, diving, shrieking, soaring. This was a land as far from the human world as it was possible to be—a place of rock and gullies, of swirling water and foaming spray, of wingbeat and feather. Opposite, joined to the mainland by a narrow spit of beach, stood an eroded arch of rock.
It was primitive, and majestic, and epic.
“Beautiful,” breathed Alice, forgetting her vertigo.
“Scary,” admitted Fergus.
“It reminds me of a book I read,” said Jesse. “It was about King Arthur. It had pictures that looked just like this, but with dragons and knights and witches and . . . Alice!”
“What?”
“And a castle—a castle, on a rock, in the sea!”
Alice froze.
“There’s a way up from the beach.” Jesse was looking through his binoculars. “At the foot of the arch’s first pillar. It’s steep, and a bit of a climb, but it’s definitely a way up. Alice! I think we’ve found the castle!”
“Well, don’t get too excited,” said Fergus in a strangled voice. “Because I think the knights and witch have found us.”
Alice and Jesse turned to look behind them. Two men in black and a tiny woman with mosquito sunglasses were running toward them across the grass.
One of the men was carrying a gun.
Thirty-Eight
The Tide Will Go Out
Alice, Fergus, and Jesse ran the only way possible—straight along the path winding tightly down the cliff to a scrap of pebbly beach, already almost submerged by the incoming waves. Jesse, running ahead, glanced over his shoulder and saw that their pursuers were gaining on them, the tiny Leopard running as easily as her henchmen. He stumbled, and pain shot through his ankle. Heedless, he ran on toward the beach, where the tide was rushing in faster than he had ever seen.
Once upon a time, Jesse would have cursed Fergus for his stubbornness, or Alice for being so trusting of her father, and fate for being so unfair to him, but he was discovering a new talent on this trip: the ability to act fast under pressure. Faced with real danger, he thought only of how to get them out of it. He reached the beach and ran straight into the water, gasping as the current threatened to knock him over. Wedging his boots under a boulder, he held out his arms, grabbed Alice as she ran in after him, and swung her toward the fast-disappearing beach at the foot of the arch.
“Find the way up!” he shouted, before turning back for Fergus. “Round the other side—you’ll see a fall of rocks, and then some grass.”
Unlike Jesse, Fergus was panicking, his anger toward Barney now turned on himself for insisting they carry on. He stifled a sob as he splashed into the water, lost his footing, and fell. The current picked him up. A rock slammed into his way. On the beach, a man in black raised his gun . . .
The shot’s echo bounced from cliff to cliff.
Alice screamed. Fergus slumped, blood pouring from his face. Jesse, now in water up to his waist, waded toward him and staggered under his weight, his ankle almost giving way beneath him.
Three more steps . . . two . . . one . . . The boys collapsed onto dry land.
“They’re coming over!” Alice was running to them, and they all looked toward the main island to see the gunman wading toward them. “We have to run!”
“Where to?” Fergus shouted. “Where can we possibly run to?”
There was no answer to this. They were stranded on a rock with nowhere to hide and a man coming after them with a gun.
Suddenly, Alice saw what she must do. She struggled out of her rucksack and began to undo the straps.
“What are you doing?” cried Fergus.
“I’m going to give them the carving,” she said.
She wondered if this was what the major had meant about becoming fearless through facing fears. She was astonished at how calm she felt.
She opened the top of the rucksack, found Barney’s mailer, and pulled out the box containing the carving of the boy and the dragon.
“You go on,” she said. “Just in case, you know, they shoot again.”
This was absolutely the right thing to do, she told herself. This whole situation was her fault. Barney was her father. She was the one who had got the boys into this mess.
“Don’t be stupid!” It was Jesse’s turn now to be furious, as Alice apparently failed to understand the danger they were in. “No one’s leaving you here with them! What do you think will happen, you’ll just hand over the carving and they’ll be all, ‘Oh, thank you so much, Alice, sorry for all the trouble’? THEY SHOT FERGUS!”
“Guys, calm down.” Fergus pointed to the water. “It’s too late. They’re not going to make it.”
The gunman had fallen, was clinging to the same rock that moments ago had saved Fergus, but the body of sea between him and the children was too great now, and there was no hope of a crossing. The other man in black was inching toward him along the foot of the cliff, holding his hand out to drag him to safety. The gunman seized it, fell again, grasped a rock, and hauled himself onto it and from there to what was left of the beach, where he lay on the pebbles, his gun ripped from his hand by the sea.
Alice put the little box in her pocket.
* * *
Away from the shore, they sat Fergus against some boulders, gave him water to drink and soggy chocolate to eat, and carefully cleaned his face.
“Where did he hit you?” Alice asked. “Fergus, answer me!”
“I don’t think he did,” said Fergus. “I don’t know, because I’ve never been shot before, but I think it would probably hurt much more.”
“But the blood . . .”
“I hit my head.” Chocolate and water were helping Fergus remember. “It’s possible I’m suffering from concussion, and it really stings, but I don’t think I’m going to die. Not murdered, anyway. Alice! It’s nice to be hugged, but you’re hurting me. Guys, I’m sorry—this is all my fault.”
“Your fault!” cried Alice. “It’s my—”
“There’s no time for this.” Jesse was already thinking about the next step. He hoisted his pack onto his back and began to lead the way round the pillar to the path.
“You’re limping!” cried Alice.
“I twisted my ankle looking back at the Leopard,” he said shortly. “It’s nothing.”
“Can’t we rest?” Now that the immediate panic was past, Fergus felt utterly exhausted. “The tide’s in. They can’t touch us.”
In the past, Jesse might have rolled his eyes. Now, very calmly, he said, “The tide will go out again.”
The others gulped.
“So . . . we have to try and find Alice’s father,” said Fergus. “And hope that he can help us. And if we don’t find him, or he can’t . . .”
“I guess then we negotiate with the Leopard.”
None of this was reassuring.
It would have been a challenging climb under any circumstances. In wet clothes, carrying heavy packs, with a twisted ankle and a cut forehead and mounting vertigo, they thought it might kill them. The route Jesse had identified was not a path—just grassy ground, winding round the pillar like a steep staircase, sometimes open to the sky, sometimes sheltered by slabs of stone—always with the thrashing sea below. But none of them complained, just as they had not complained what felt like a lifetime ago, on the long walk through the fern forest along the edge of the deer field.
They had come a long way since that first orienteering exercise at Stormy Loch.
Thirty-Nine
On the Bright White Sand
The path, such as it was, ended abrupt
ly at a vertical rock face, the height of a two-story house, covered in yellow lichen and white stuff Jesse said was probably centuries of bird droppings.
There was an opening in the rock just wide enough to squeeze through. They shuffled forward. The ground sloped downward, the sky grew smaller, the air was cold.
“We are going into the bowels of the earth,” observed Fergus, to defuse the tension.
“Shut up, Fergus,” said Jesse.
Another twist, and the sky widened, and now the tunnel was a cave, and the cave was flooded with light. Alice tumbled out first and—just for a moment—felt her heart soar.
Pow! Zap! Take that!
Here was Barney’s castle.
A sunken area of grass, like the courtyard of a ruined medieval keep, with four tall rocks marking corners like watchtowers, joined by battlements of stone. Along the wall facing the open sea, a higher embankment of grass just beneath the battlements, like a promenade reached by a staircase of fallen boulders.
The boys emerged from the tunnel.
“We’ve found it!” Alice said.
They shrugged off their packs. Fergus began to climb the battlement. Jesse, grimacing, sat on the grass and removed his boots.
“I don’t see it,” he said. “And my ankle’s turning black.”
“It is a castle.” Alice ran to the middle of the courtyard. She could see it so clearly! Barney, running along the embankment, a stick for a sword, defending his island kingdom. The image morphed with a memory: she and Barney as medieval knights, chasing each other through the garden at Cherry Grange, and a hundred other games of make-believe—playing at pirates on the beach, jumping out of hiding as highwaymen on country walks . . .
A Talent for Trouble Page 14
