Endless Winter (Guardians of The Light)

by J Armitage

  Furniture piled up at one end, haphazardly, chairs and sideboards all thrown together like a huge antique bonfire. Next to them stood a mannequin with a faded blonde wig atop its head. It was wearing the same dress that Arcadia had been wearing in her painting in the hallway. The dress was faded with age and had lost some of its buttons. Moths had attacked it at some point and there were now holes here and there in its fabric, a sad reminder of times gone by. A pile of half-finished canvases lay next to frames filled with old maps, and books which were obviously not in good enough condition for the library downstairs. Further along still, were some old travelling chests, some of which had badges stuck to them telling the world how well travelled their owners were. She opened one to find a Victorian doll made out of porcelain and a locked silver jewellery box which had obviously seen better days as it had a few dents in its tarnished surface a ballerina engraved on the top, faded with age, now almost invisible in the dull light of the attic. Anais was fascinated by all the history in the room, even more so as the owners of these antiquities were still very much alive. She had stopped at a box labelled ‘Music’ when from the far corner of the room Alex called her. She looked up just as he turned on the lights near his end of attic. Beside him was a massive table with a model village on it. As she drew closer she realised that it wasn’t a village at all but a scaled down replica of the manor and its grounds. On the outer edges were a few neighbouring houses which is why she had first thought it was a village. The model was set in the summer as all the model trees were painted with tiny green leaves. The manor was right in the centre of the huge table with the driveway leading off the table away from her. She could see Augusts’ cottage by the entrance to the grounds with a tiny August stood in the garden and an even tinier Baker nipping his toes. The tiny figure that represented Alex was stood next to the garage next to a small replica Corvette, the same one she had gone to the city in. It was amazing the amount of detail on the models. She could even read the license plate on the car.

  She looked all over the model but couldn’t see any of the other family members.

  “Where is everyone else?”

  “Ah ha” Alex lifted the roof of the model house.

  She was looking down into the attic in miniature. There was model furniture piled up against the side, just like it was in the real attic. She could even see a model of the model she was looking at which she was really impressed by.

  Alex laid the roof on the floor and then lifted the next floor off.

  Anais saw the whole of the second floor including her room which was decorated identically to the real one although the furniture was slightly different. This is probably how it had been furnished before she was held there.

  She found the Andrew figure in the room next door to hers. He was sitting at a tiny computer surrounded by all kinds of technical looking objects. She had never seen Andrew’s room in real life but it was exactly how she imagined it full of gizmos and gadgets. Alex flicked a switch and the whole board lit up including the tiny machines in Andrews’s room which flickered with minute lights.

  Another floor was pulled up and she found Arcadia and Aethelu in their respective rooms. Finally down to the ground floor and the main entrance hall which held what she assumed to be Rafe.

  “Very impressive,” she said “but you’ve missed your parents.”

  “My father is in his surgery” He pointed to the outhouses “And Mama is here. He lifted the ground floor up and she was surprised to see that the kitchen was somehow built into the table and was lower than the rest. She looked under the side of the table and could see where the kitchen was lower. She was also surprised to see other underground structures.

  “What are these?” curiosity filled her.

  “All part of Andrews defences. See here from the kitchen there is a passage that leads underground to the lodge where August lives. It splits half way and the other passage leads to the edge of the grounds over here.”

  She brought her head up to see where Alex was pointing. A tiny hatch was at the edge of the grounds just before the boundary wall. It was surrounded by rocks. Now that she looked at Winnie in the kitchen she could see that there were other rooms under the house next to the kitchen. They had nothing in them to show what they were. They were plain and undecorated unlike the rest of the house which had been painted with meticulous detail. They were right next to the kitchen but Anais had never seen a door to get to them.

  “What are these rooms?”

  “This house holds many mysteries.” He grinned at her. “Come on I’ll show you”

  She helped him put the model house back in one piece and followed him down stairs to the kitchen. He opened a door at the back of the kitchen which she had always assumed was a larder. When she looked closer she saw that she had been right and it was in fact a larder. Tins of food filled shelves on all sides. It was a big larder but it was nowhere near the size of the rooms she’d seen on the model, nor did she see the start of a passageway. She was expecting something great and was more than a little disappointed.

  “It’s a larder!” she said rather pointlessly

  “Shut the door.”

  “It’s a larder!” she repeated

  “Yes I know it is. Now shut the door.”

  She shut the door and the larder turned pitch black. She could clearly make out Alex in the dark thanks to The Light although she couldn’t see anything else.

  Suddenly the lights went on and she could see again. Alex still had his hand on the light switch and the room looked exactly the same as it had seconds before. She wondered if she should be expecting something or if he’d really just brought her here to show her a larder.

  “Hold on.” Alex grinned and flicked another switch.

  The whole floor began to vibrate beneath her, no not vibrate, lower. The whole floor was going down. What was really disconcerting was the fact that the shelves of food were not moving, so looked like they were rising, though of course they were not. They must have been fixed to the walls somehow.

  The floor lowered until two big oak doors appeared one at either side. Finally the floor reached its destination and came to an abrupt halt. Anais, not expecting it to stop so suddenly stumbled and Alex reached to catch her.

  “I told you to hold on.” He grinned once again.

  “The door behind you is the start of the passages to the lodge and to the boundary, and this door,” He opened it for her “Is our little haven of safety.”

  He gestured for her to go first and she found herself in what she assumed to be an antechamber of some sort. It had unfinished stone walls which were deep into the foundations of the house. It was well lit thanks to a series of lights built into the wall and in front of her was a metal door with a keypad.

  Alex pressed his thumb on a fingerprint reader which lit a small blue light. He then pressed a series of numbers into the keypad which illuminated a second blue light and opened the door which slid to the side rather than opening inward or outwards.

  Nothing could have prepared her for what she was about to see. The secret underground room had screens from floor to ceiling along one wall, each one showing a room of the house or part of the grounds. On one screen she could see Winnie coming into the kitchen through the back door, Arcadia was with her. She sat at the big kitchen table after making a cup of tea for herself and Winnie. The image blinked and now showed the great entrance hall which was empty except for Baker who was pulling baubles from the still erect tree and chasing them around the room.

  “They cover every room in the house except the bathrooms of course, and most of the grounds,” Alex explained.

  Anais made a mental note to get changed either in the dark or in the bathroom from now on.

  She caught sight of Aethelu’s painting studio and blushed scarlet. She almost didn’t hear Alex speaking as she wondered if anyone had seen her in the gold bath

  “These rooms have always been down here as part of the manors cellars. The passageway to the lodge
is an original feature too. It was only when Alistair, sorry, your father was murdered that Andrew got to work installing all this technology. He blocked off the rooms up from here next to the kitchen which were originally laundry rooms and storage and turned them into bedrooms. The only way to get to them now is up this staircase.”

  Anais looked at the stairs and the rest of the room. Apart from the screens it had a couple of sofas which looked like they’d seen better days and a control panel and computer, both of which looked way too complicated to understand.

  A door led off to the left and the stairs led up to the right. Alex opened the door to show her another room, this time a small kitchen and eating area with a small table and eight chairs. It was all very basic and not in keeping with the rest of the manor. She calculated that she was now two floors under the main manor doors. Above her, the secret bedrooms that Alex had told her about. He finally took her upstairs and showed her the last three rooms. Two dormitory rooms with bunk beds and a small bathroom with a toilet, shower and basin. She counted the beds. There were only enough for the family members and Andrew. If anything happened, both she and Judith would have to go elsewhere. Either that or bunk in with Aethelu and Andrew respectively. Actually it might not be so bad after all. She wondered what exactly they were expecting to happen with all these precautions and then remembered they were facing the end of the world.

  She followed Alex down to the screen room and sat on the one of the sofas.

  A thought occurred to her.

  “How did Jago get in?” She wondered out loud

  “Sorry?”

  “Jago. He left a letter did he not? On Boxing Day morning. I think Aldric said it was left on the kitchen table.”

  “Yeah, Andrew came down here as soon as the letter was found but there was nothing on the cameras. One second the table was empty, the next the letter was there.

  There are times when parts of the house are blind so to speak. The images flick between cameras in different rooms as you can see and only tape the images they see.”

  She looked again at one of the screens. The parlour was empty, but as she watched, the imaged flicked to the library where Mrs Smithson was dusting the books. A while later it flicked back to the parlour.

  “Each room has 30 seconds on and then 30 seconds off. It would be quite easy to break in through the kitchen door and leave a letter in 30 seconds.”

  “Was the back door broken into?”

  “No, that’s the worrying thing. The back door was locked, the windows closed. No sign of a forced entry anywhere in the house. He couldn’t have come in through the front door because of the timing of the cameras. One of them would have picked him up for sure.”

  “Could he have found out about the passage and come through there?”

  “Not possible. Just like this room, both the entrance at the lodge and the entrance in the grounds have a keypad and a fingerprint recognition pad which only recognises family members. The outer boundary wall has an invisible electric fence reaching an extra six feet above the height of the wall. My Father and August checked the perimeter and there was no breach in the wall, no tunnels under it. It is completely safe and impossible to get through”

  Anais thought back to the day she and Aethelu went on the tram. Obviously Alex didn’t know about the tree branch they climbed over. She wondered if that was the way Jago had got in and she wondered if she should say anything about it. She decided not to. With everyone under house arrest, the branch was the only way she could get out, should she need to. She would tell Aldric about it if anything else happened.

  Just then the door opened and Andrew walked in. He seemed surprised to see them. In one hand he carried a tool box and the other held a laptop bag.

  “Hey.” He put both bags down. He looked extremely uncomfortable upon seeing Anais.

  “I’m really sorry I didn’t want to be the father.”

  He faltered and looked at Alex who was making some gesture behind Anais head.

  She looked around and caught the gesture.

  “What?” She was confused.

  Both men were silent until Anais demanded to know what they were keeping from her.

  It was Alex that broke the silence.

  “My father asked both of us and Rafe to ‘volunteer’” he made quotation marks with his fingers as he said it “to be the father of your baby. Andrew flatly refused.”

  “No offence meant,” said Andrew “I just really have no desire to father a child, not with anyone, ever, and I have Judith to consider now.”

  “He’s not a baby person, our Andrew.” Alex put his arm on Andrews shoulder.

  “Don’t worry; I’m not sure if I’m a baby person either. How is Judith by the way? Is she settling in well?” Anais quickly changed the subject, partly to get past the awkwardness and partly because she really didn’t want to think about the whole baby thing.

  Andrew brightened up immediately. “She is fine, better than fine, wonderful. I wish I could see more of her actually.”

  “More of her? Isn’t she staying here?” asked Anais

  “Yes, but I seem to be spending all my time here or in my room sorting out the security under Aldric’s strict orders.”

  “Isn’t she sharing your room?” Alex joined in the conversation painfully indiscreetly.

  “No, actually,” replied Andrew turning red in the cheeks. “Everything is proper and above board. She is residing in Abel and Amber’s old room.”

  “We were discussing how Jago got into the house to drop the letter off on Boxing Day morning,” said Anais, once again changing the subject to avoid causing Andrew any more embarrassment.

  Alex continued.

  “He can’t have got in through the main house because a camera would have picked him up somewhere along the line, he can’t have got in through the kitchen because all the doors and windows were locked with no sign of forced entry and he can’t have come through the tunnels as he’d need a pass code and the fingerprint of a family member. On top of that he somehow deactivated the alarms and got through an electric fence which was operational at the time.”

  “That about sums it up” replied Andrew “although I now know how he got past the alarms. He found the alarm wire at the side of the house and cut it which stopped the alarms from going off. I’ve mended the wire and put a failsafe on now. If the wire gets cut again, that will automatically set the alarms off.”

  “Anais looked at the screens again. Mrs Smithson was still dusting in the library but now Baker was darting around her ankles.”

  “What about Mrs Smithson?”

  “Mrs Smithson has worked here for years. There is no way she would let anyone in,” Alex said

  “She couldn’t even if she wanted to” Added Andrew “We all have key fobs which activate the main gate. Visitors have to use the telecom by the gate and the postman posts his letters in a post box by the entrance. Mrs Smithson is no exception. When she arrives she presses the intercom and one of us goes down to meet her and accompany her up to the house. When she has finished for the day, she is once again accompanied down to the gate and seen out.”

  “That’s not entirely the case though,” Anais remembered opening the door to the pizza delivery boy the day of the snowball fight. “I opened the front door for the pizza boy. I didn’t go down to the gate.”

  “No, In that case the front gate was opened remotely. It’s only since the letter has been found that we have changed procedure,” Andrew said.

  “So the letter was placed before the change of procedure, so Mrs Smithson could have put it there after all.”

  “For Mrs Smithson to get through the gate, someone in the house would have had to remotely let her in, even before Boxing Day. She’s never had a key fob of her own.”

  “I’ve already said it’s nothing to do with Mrs Smithson” Alex cut in “Why are you so keen to implicate her?”

  Anais realised she’d pushed it too far. She wasn’t trying to implicate anyone, she was ju
st working all the scenarios through her head and Mrs Smithson seemed a likely option.

  “Sorry,” she said and then to get back to the matter in hand she continued.

  “So if Jago had one of these key fob thingies then he could have got through.”

  “He would need a key fob for the gate and the keys to the house,” said Andrew “On Boxing Day morning, on discovering the letter, Aldric demanded we show him all our key fobs and keys. We all had them. None were misplaced. It does remind me though. He handed her a set of keys and a key fob. These are for you. You are one of the family now. They will be pretty useless to you at the moment as Aldric has put us all under curfew but I’m sure they’ll come in handy at some point.”

  He got a funny looking machine out of his tool box which he asked her to put her thumb on. He then plugged it in to the console which beeped and he typed something in.

  “Ok you can now use our passageways if you should need to. The code is 2103.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now please excuse me, I need to work on some other plans in regard to the safety of the house.”

  Anais and Alex made their way back to the lift. It had gone back up to the larder so they had to call it and wait.

  “The security on this place is amazing,” said Anais.

  “Not amazing enough though. This Jago is like a magician. It’s like he can walk through walls.”

  Eventually they reached the kitchen where Winnie was making dinner. A cake she had baked was now sitting on the table. Arcadia had gone although she’d left a ring from her coffee cup on the table. Alex tried to steal a bit of cake but he was too slow for Winnie who hit him with a tea towel.