She tried again, harder. ‘It doesn’t open!’ Vita stared at the box, turned it over in her hands. ‘There’s no lock.’
Silk took it. ‘There’ll be a concealed lock somewhere. Can I—’
But as she spoke, there was a scream from downstairs. Vita’s eyes met Silk’s.
‘Samuel! Let’s go.’ Vita pulled the oil cloth from her back pocket and fumbled to wrap the box in it as she limped. She shoved the box down the front of her shirt, cold against her skin.
Vita tried to take the stairs at a sprint. All the years of being told to slow down, take care were, just for that second, pushed away, and she ran, her boots thumping, down the steps towards Samuel and Arkady. Once Silk slipped and landed with a crack on her hip and swore, but was up again and pushing Vita in the back when she turned to offer help.
They burst out of the wooden door into the corridor, no longer wary of the noise.
‘Wait!’ panted Silk. ‘We need to listen.’
Vita tried to hold her breath. The house was utterly silent. Then it came again: a scream that rose and rose again before it fell.
Vita frowned. It wasn’t a scream of panic – it was deliberate, a shriek that cut through the icy air like a battle cry.
‘It’s coming from downstairs,’ said Silk.
‘Let’s go,’ said Vita.
They moved as quietly as they could down the dark corridor, passing silent closed doors.
One of the doors flew open and a figure burst out of it. It tackled Vita round the middle, pinning her hands to her sides, and drove her, nose first, to the ground.
She fought one arm free and was about to claw at the face when a voice gasped, ‘Vita!’ and the grip let go. ‘I thought it was Sorrotore!’
It was Arkady. He rolled sideways and jumped to his feet. ‘Are you OK?’
She was not – some nerve deep in the bridge of her foot had caught fire – but she only said, ‘What happened? Tell!’
‘I saw Sorrotore going past, the way you had gone, so I ran to the bedroom opposite, and shouted that I had the jewels – and he came charging in. I hid inside the chest of drawers – I thought the wardrobe would be too obvious – and he was just about to open them, and then …’
‘And then?’ said Vita.
‘Samuel screamed. But not from the bedroom. From somewhere downstairs. And Sorrotore made this noise – like a cat spitting – and ran. But I saw through a crack in the wood – Vita, he has a gun.’
‘Come on,’ said Vita. She got slowly to her feet and tried out her left leg. It held. ‘Samuel!’
‘Do we go quietly, or charge?’ said Silk.
‘Quietly,’ said Vita. ‘For now. We need to see what’s happening.’
Arkady handed Vita the torch and she led the way to the top of the staircase. She paused. ‘Something’s going on.’
No further screams came, but fast footsteps rang on the marble floor of the hall.
Then a voice bellowed, ‘Boy! There’s no way out, boy! Where are you? This isn’t a game.’
Vita led the way down the staircase, taking care to step at the far edge, where the woodworm was least thorough and the staircase creaked less.
At the bend in the hallway, she hesitated. If they went a step further, Sorrotore would see them.
Vita looked at Arkady, who looked at Silk, who looked at Vita.
‘That’s my best friend in there,’ said Arkady. ‘I’m not being quiet.’
‘Then let’s charge,’ said Vita.
Arkady let out a great war cry and they ran, legs flying, Vita leading, down the last feet of the corridor and into the great stone hall. Sorrotore stood in the centre of the cavernous space, a lamp in one hand, a shotgun in the other. He whipped round.
At that moment, several things happened. Sorrotore saw Vita. He let out a shout – a sound that was so choked with rage that Vita stopped where she stood, frozen, staring, not breathing. She had never seen anger laid out so raw on the skin; she had never seen a face more frightening.
At the same moment, from the highest window, forty feet up, a figure came swinging down on a rope. The rope was tied to the bars in the window, and it creaked and strained as the body soared through the air.
Everyone looked up. Mid-air, Samuel let go of the rope, snatched the bottom of the chandelier, and swayed above them, the larger crystal drops crashing together, the smaller ones falling to earth like hail.
Sorrotore stood staring, incredulous, at the sight.
‘Run!’ Vita whispered to Silk and Arkady. ‘Get to the cellar. Start taking the grate off.’ They hesitated, and she pushed them. ‘Please!’
And this time they ran, tearing past Sorrotore, whose face was trained on the boy pulling himself up the structure of the chandelier to cling to the chain from which it hung.
Vita ran with them, a few paces behind, but swerved at the edge of the hall to crouch behind the grandfather clock, its broken face pointing to midnight.
‘Boy! Was it you who shouted? Do you have the emerald?’ said Sorrotore.
Samuel said nothing.
Vita’s hand was at her penknife. She flicked open the blade. She calculated, with the precision of a professional, the exact curve the knife would have to fly to dig into Sorrotore’s chest.
But she could not let it go. She thought of her grandfather, and his easy trust in her. ‘Your weapon in life is not going to be a knife.’ Her wrist would not bend and flick and release. Her body was rigid.
‘Get down right now, boy,’ said Sorrotore, ‘or I will shoot you first, and then your friends.’
To throw the knife would be death. Vita’s body began to shake where she crouched, hidden, watching. She wanted nothing to do with death – nothing to do with finality, with endings, with the dark of it. She hated the man more than she hated any living thing, but he was living.
Samuel’s eyes were wide and staring.
Throw the knife, Vita screamed inwardly. Throw it.
Her knife hand fell to her side, and as it did she felt, in her pocket, the heft of the rusted padlock from the tower.
She pulled it out, and her body was suddenly her own again. She took aim – a brief, sharp calculation of distance and angle – her arm drew back at the shoulder, and she threw.
The lock struck Sorrotore on the temple, just above his left ear. He staggered backwards, one step, a second step, and then crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.
Vita scrambled to her feet. ‘Samuel! Can you jump down?’
Samuel looked down at the stone floor. He shook his head. ‘Not on to stone. I’ll shatter my ankle.’
‘Don’t move! I’ll find a ladder,’ she called, and though she felt so stiff she could barely stand, she made to run down the corridor.
‘Hang on!’ Samuel shook his head, high above her. He began to pump his body back and forth, so that the chandelier swung crazily on its chain, shedding crystals on to Sorrotore’s body below. At the furthest swing, he made as if to let go – but he hesitated, his face lined with fear, and swung back.
Vita remembered; remembered the vivid joy with which he had soared in the midnight ballroom, remembered the words he had used.
‘Listo!’ she called. ‘Samuel, listo!’
His voice was a gasp. ‘Ready!’
The chandelier swung up, up to the right, and, ‘Hep!’ yelled Vita, and with a cry that echoed round the great hall, he let go of the clattering chandelier and soared through the air.
He flew past Vita, stretched out his arms, spun once, twice, in a double somersault, and hit the soft, worm-eaten wood of the corridor, landing on his shoulder and rolling twice, jumping up and rubbing his side and grimacing.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked him. She crossed to Sorrotore, snatched up his gun, and ran to Samuel. The wood had scraped at his skin. ‘You’re bleeding!’
He didn’t bother to answer. ‘Did you get it?’
It took Vita half a second to remember what he meant.
‘Yes,’ she said. There w
as no triumph in it now. She looked at the mess of shattered crystals, at the man lying among them. She spoke the words of all heroes, criminals, and escape artists.
‘Let’s get out of here.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
They ran, looking back over their shoulders every step. As they limped through the kitchen they heard, very faintly, the sounds of the guard and his companion, the clang of metal spades. They reached the cellar to find it empty. Vita cast her fading torch around the room. The stuffy smell of dust had gone, and the cold night wind blew in through an open hole cut straight into the wall, perhaps a foot across. They peered out. On the other side there was no bank, no earth: just a direct short drop into the lake.
Vita dropped Sorrotore’s gun out of the hole, then looked at the width of Samuel’s shoulders, and felt a sudden terror. ‘Will you fit?’
‘Only one way to find out,’ he said. ‘You go first.’
‘No!’ said Vita, ‘You’re bigger, so you first. If I fit and you don’t, you’ll be stuck here alone.’
He looked as if he were about to argue, but she pushed him towards the hole.
‘Don’t be so noble! It’s just logic!’
‘Fine,’ he said. He went feet first, arms over his head to make his shoulders as narrow as he could. His skin, already raw from his landing, scraped against the stone. He said nothing, only pushed himself backwards, his eyes screwed up with pain.
‘I’m stuck!’ he gasped.
As he spoke, the door above them began to open.
Vita dropped the torch, put both her hands on his arms and gave him a great shove. There was a gasp as he fell, and then a splash, and she darted away from the dying torch, into the darkness, down one of the rows of shelves, and ducked low behind some bottles of red wine.
Sorrotore’s polished black shoes came through the door, down the stairs, and paused, his eyes taking in the open grate and the spinning torch. It flickered and went out.
‘I know you’re still here,’ he called, and his voice echoed through the darkness. ‘I can hear you breathing.’
His footsteps rang down the corridors of wine bottles. He carried a small oil lamp; the light was two rows away from her. Vita tried to shuffle backwards and found she could not move.
‘Enough, child,’ came the voice. It was cold as the stone floor. ‘I’ve had enough.’
In the blackness, Vita crouched. Her fear welled up in her, and for once she could not beat it down. It threatened to cover her head. It rose, and as it rose her body became frozen, animal, something foreign clothed in her own skin.
And she thought: I can’t.
And she thought, unbidden, of the elephant, chained on the stage. Its hopelessness was her hopelessness.
And the fear rose over her head, and she was covered in it.
And her beating heart summoned up the elephant again, chained, and with it came the memory it had first conjured, of Jack Welles, her grandpa: her grandpa as he had been, drawing bullseyes on hospital walls, so unruly and so talented, and so alive.
And the fear crossed paths with the love, and the two merged.
And the love became her weapon.
And she rose with a shout of the kind of fury that Sorrotore had never dreamed, and flew at him.
This was nothing like the fight in the alley with a gang of pickpockets. This was rage, on both parts; his rage at this sudden prospect of failure, at this staring, ugly, maimed child; her rage at the stupidity of a world that admired men who took so much and broke so much.
He was larger but she was angrier, and she, despite her age and size, was the more ruthless of the two, and the more accustomed to pain. His hand grasped her round the middle, and she twisted and bit down on skin, she was not sure what or where, but hard enough to draw blood. He shook her like an animal; like an animal fighting an animal.
Her hand swept backwards, found the neck of a bottle, gripped it, and swung it at his head. And he was down, for a second, slipping in the spilt alcohol and glass, and she ran for the open grate.
He was up again, wet, gasping, and he made a start towards her.
Vita flicked open the blade of her penknife, breathed a single breath in which she took aim, and threw. It went straight and true through the heart of the glass whisky bottle behind his head. The bottle exploded, coating Sorrotore’s hair with whisky and knocking the other dozen bottles to the floor. Glass flew everywhere, rebounding off the walls. With a roar, Sorrotore ducked, putting up his hand to protect his eyes.
Vita darted to the hole in the wall. She laid a hand on the brick, steadied herself, turned.
‘Your man, Dillinger,’ said Vita. ‘He said I was playing with fire.’
And she focused all of her anger and fear down into her hand. She snatched up her torch, spun it in her fingertips, and threw it, not at the bottles, but at the oil lamp Sorrotore had placed on the floor. It exploded; the flames caught at the whisky, snaking across the ground towards Sorrotore.
She gasped, and took in a mouthful of smoke, as the flames reached Sorrotore’s oiled, profoundly flammable hair. He screamed, trying to smother them with his jacket.
She pushed herself through the thick wall, and fell head first through the air. The water was hard as earth as she hit it, but it opened to receive her, and she was tumbling, over and over, through the dark water.
It was pitch black. No way was up. She forced herself not to panic. She opened her eyes and spun, disorientated. Then she remembered: you breathe out bubbles – they rise to the surface. She blurted out half the air in her chest, inhaling some water in return, trying not to choke – and the bubbles rose, sideways it seemed to her, but she swam after them, one hand clutched to the box under her shirt, one straining at the water.
Her head broke free and she gasped, spitting and choking, for mouthful after mouthful of air. Ahead of her in the moonlight, a figure was just emerging from the lake at the shore: Samuel. Hands reached out to pull him into the bushes.
She struck out wildly, thrashing in the water, then remembered the watching eyes. ‘Careful!’ she whispered to herself, and tried to swim under the surface, her chest red hot with water and smoke, her arms and legs forcing the water behind her with a strength that was more desperation than muscle. Every second she expected to hear the motorboat coming after her. She risked a glance. Smoke was snaking from the gap in the castle wall.
She kicked again and felt her feet hit earth. She stood up in the mud, fell to her knees, stood again, and stumbled into the hands of Silk, who had waded waist-deep to grab her wrist, and now pulled her into the bushes.
Arkady and Samuel were waiting, soaking wet. With them were the dogs, Viking and Hunter, also soaking wet.
‘I think they escaped down the jetty when all the men were coming in to dig,’ said Arkady. ‘I’m taking them with us.’
Without another word they stumbled together, Vita’s leg shrieking in pain, mud-covered and soaking, through the night to reach the horses. They whinnied in recognition at Arkady’s face and he climbed on to one, and hauled Vita, who was fighting to stay vertical, up in front.
Silk held out her hand, cupped, and Samuel stepped into it. Blood dripped from a deep graze on his shoulder on to the bay mare, but he reached out with his good hand and helped Silk swing up behind him. They went at a gallop, through the wood, Viking and Hunter loping on either side of Arkady’s horse, out on to the country roads, clinging on to each other, riding straight into the sunrise.
As they went, it began to snow.
Back at the castle, the guard looked up from the eight-foot-deep hole in which he stood, and sniffed, then went running. He discovered a half-doused fire, a barely conscious Sorrotore lying on the stairs, and a great deal of broken glass. He roared for buckets, for water, for help.
And in a corner, where the fire had not yet reached, was a pile of clothes, belonging to the kind of children who had never had a dangerous thought in their lives.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next
train wasn’t for several hours. The black horse lay down on the platform, and the four humans and two dogs curled up against it, seeking each other’s soft animal heat. Arkady found some horse blankets in the field, but even so, by the time they scrambled on to the train, every inch of Vita ached. She clenched her jaw shut to stop her teeth from chattering.
The train was blessedly warm, though, and soon their clothes were steaming, misting the windows of their carriage on the inside. A food cart passed through the train. Arkady found a dime in his pocket, and they shared a single hot chocolate between four, drinking without waiting for it to cool. Then Vita tucked her feet up under her, ignoring the rule she’d been taught about no-shoes-on-seats, and leaned against the corner of the carriage.
She woke as they approached New York. Silk and Arkady were asleep, but Samuel was still staring out of the window. He turned to Vita.
‘I’ve been trying to work it out – that red book. It didn’t just have the plan in it – not just the map and the train times and all that. In the back, I saw there was … like a diary. About your grandfather, and the knife. What was that for?’
‘That was for Sorrotore too,’ said Vita. ‘I wanted him to know what kind of man he had tried to hurt.’
At Grand Central Station the ceiling stars winked in welcome. They trudged, shivering, through the snow, the two German Shepherds following, across West 45th and up Seventh Avenue, out of Times Square and towards Carnegie Hall.
‘I wonder if they’ve noticed we’re gone at home,’ said Arkady.
‘I think it’s safe to assume,’ said Samuel, ‘that they have.’
‘I wonder what they’ll do to us.’
Vita was wondering the same thing; she tried to silence the thought. The trouble that she would be in on her return had seemed so insignificant compared to the danger of going that she had barely considered it. Now the thought was proving itself to be more than usually loud.
They turned the corner, and Vita’s heart dropped. A cluster of people stood on the pavement outside Carnegie Hall: Arkady’s mother and father; Morgan Kawadza, his face tight with fury; and Maiko the acrobat. A policeman was taking notes. At the edge of the group stood her mother, scanning the street. Her eyes were desperate.
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