by Anni Taylor
“I wish I did know more,” I told him. “But I’m afraid that Rosemary is dead, and everything she knew died with her.” I hesitated before adding, “I have to go now. I wish you luck.”
I pressed the end option on my phone and threw it into my bag, not giving him a chance to say more.
I should dispose of the phone. It served no purpose if I no longer wanted contact from Gray. Dear God, I was the one who brought him to Europe.
Puffing up the pillows, I crawled into bed. I wanted to escape from everything. Because everything I touched had gone wrong.
I slept for a short time but then woke into a terrifying silence. I switched on the TV just to create some noise, flicking from channel to channel. An English detective series was showing. I used to like watching these. Not anymore. It was all vile to me now, watching people murder others as entertainment.
Switching to a news show, I half sat up. I shouldn’t have let myself nap—I wouldn’t sleep tonight. I’d lie awake for hours, haunted by the sight of Rosemary’s bloodied and lifeless body.
They were showing the lighter end of the news. The squealing winner of a reality-show bake-off, an antique painting that had sold at auction for a crazy figure, a high-society charity dinner. I’d attended many such dinners together with James. They’d mostly been pretty boring, with a bit of celebrity spotting to break up the tedium.
In the background of an art show, a silver-haired man sported a much younger wife, the wife looking excited by all the attention of the press. But it wasn’t his wife I was interested in. It was him. He was familiar—who was he?
The answer came to me. He was Wilson Carlisle, the man in the photographs Rosemary had shown me.
It was him. I was sure of it.
He was still in Australia when Rosemary last checked. But he was here now.
Instant revulsion crawled up my spine. He was the man that Kara had been staying with. Most likely, he either owned or rented an apartment near the Sydney casino that his wife didn’t know about—the apartment Kara had lived in.
I needed to find out what Mr Carlisle was doing in London.
Somehow, I had to follow him.
If Rosemary was here, she’d know exactly how to do that. But she wasn’t. It was all up to me.
THE FOURTH CHALLENGE
44. EVIE
JUST BEFORE SUNSET, THE MENTORS GATHERED all of us on the edge of the cliff to hold a memorial for Saul. We tossed flowers from the garden down into a fissure where the ocean rushed in.
Poppy and I held each other while we cried for Saul, who’d had no idea that this island would be the place he’d draw his last breath.
I watched as Poppy cast an anxious look at Brother Vito as he passed by us. I guessed she was feeling pretty embarrassed at what she’d done and at Brother Vito’s rejection of her. I’d already decided not to judge. Richard and I had done the wrong thing, too. Saul’s death had left us all shaken and looking for easy answers.
I fell asleep that night in a black despair. None of us knew how or when we’d die.
Only the numbers knew.
I woke near midnight, the calls and screams of the peacocks shaking me from sleep.
I’d been inside a nightmare of my girls being at the monastery.
I’d turned a corner to see Lilly standing there, alone in a corridor, a cough hacking through her small chest, her eyes reddened and weepy. As I rushed to her, a voice called her away. Suddenly I caught sight of Willow standing at the other end of the corridor. “Come on, Lilly”, Willow said. “You can’t be with Mummy anymore.” Lilly ran to her sister before I could reach her. I heard the two of them running, until they were on the other side of the wall from me. No matter which room I ran into, they were on the other side of the wall. The sound of their footsteps turned into scraping, rustling noises. I screamed their names. “Lilly! Willow!” When I spun around, I saw a man dressed in hooded monk’s clothing, staring at me.
Sitting up, I folded my knees against my chest. I missed my girls. I desperately needed to see them, to hold them, to know they were okay. My fingers ached to touch their soft skin, their silky dark hair, their little hands. So much of what I did with the girls was touch: hugs, washing them in warm baths, changing their clothes, snuggling on the sofa with a well-loved book. And I missed Gray. In some ways, my need for Gray went even deeper. He wasn’t my other half—he was my whole. When I met him, for the first time I saw myself whole, too. I could see myself reflected in his eyes, in his smile and the things he said to me when we were alone.
The fourth challenge was almost here. Just this one and then two more. And I’d be gone. Or sooner if I didn’t make it through a challenge. I allowed myself to think about the house that Gray and I could buy and what colours we’d paint the rooms to make it ours.
I wondered what Saul had been dreaming of doing with his money. Whatever it was, those dreams died with him.
I waited in my bed for the bells. It seemed that hours passed. And the metronomes never stopped ticking. They were soldiers marching in some crazy, eternal war.
The challenges were nothing like I’d expected. These were no fuzzy, feel-good puzzles. They were strange and even dangerous. Who were the mentors, really? Why bring us all this way to a remote island where an order of silent monks designed the challenges? The monks weren’t psychologists and didn’t even have contact with the outside world.
I tried to doze and rest my mind and body, but I couldn’t relax a single neuron or muscle. My fingers entwined in the bracelet Gray had bought me. The bracelet grounded me, calmed me.
But when the sound of the bells crashed through the room, I jerked upright, immediately tense.
The lamps in the room flickered on as they always did at midnight. The faces that stared at me and each other looked the same as I felt. No one had slept well, with the possible exception of Ruth, whose face held the same hard-set expression as always.
Raw anticipation needled my back.
My wristband flashed.
Number one.
My turn. First up.
I realised I hadn’t even looked to see who else was in my group by the time I reached the door. Did that mean I was playing my own game now and had stopped caring about anyone else? I didn’t know. Maybe Ruth had gotten inside my head. She was certainly playing her own game.
Yolanda’s eyes met mine as I turned my head, pale brown against her dark skin. The bracelet on her wrist was flashing green. I barely knew her, having spoken with her only three or four times. She’d lost the friends she’d made on her first day here—the two blondes, Greta and Roxy.
Someone else appeared behind her. Ruth.
Harrington met us outside. My heart fell at getting Ruth and Harrington on my team again.
But this was my group of four for the fourth challenge and I had to make the best of it. Yolanda, Ruth and Harrington. Maybe they were cursing being put with me.
There were no whispers or rustling behind the walls this time as we rushed to the garden. The mentors stood silently beside the stream, encouraging us with serene, close-lipped smiles.
“You can do this,” said Brother Vito. “But there can be no hesitation or mistakes with this challenge. You haven’t got this far without either being extremely good or extremely lucky. If it is that you are good, keep faith in yourself and study the patterns carefully. If it is that you are merely lucky, may luck still be on your side.”
That sounded kind of terrifying. I wasn’t at all sure if I’d shown any skill in the challenges so far. Skill could continue. Luck couldn’t.
The dark air smelled strangely metallic as we walked in, and the door closed behind us.
The lights flashed on all at once, blinding me for a moment.
My vision cleared, and huge objects came into focus.
Birds. Made of metal. Six of them. Similar to the metal bird in the monastery foyer.
The birds—each twice as large as a man—were suspended from the ceiling on thin rods that stretched down to
about my chest height. With their wings straight out in flight, they formed a tight circle close to the centre of the room.
“Son of a—” said Ruth, scowling. “What is this?”
I peered between the birds. For the first time, there was no hexagonal box in the centre of the room. Instead, pieces of chunky wood in geometric shapes were scattered about the room.
“I’d lay bets those are the box,” said Yolanda, pointing. “Looks like we’re meant to put it together.”
“Saul . . .” I said softly.
“Wasn’t he the one who got killed?” Yolanda shot me a nervous, confused glance.
I nodded. “He was a puzzle box hobbyist. This one would have been right up his alley.”
“Well, he’s not here to help us,” said Harrington in a pinched voice, as if Saul was being selfish. “Anyway, how hard can it be?”
“I don’t know,” said Ruth “I mean, how do the birds figure into it?”
“Fine.” Harrington took a step back, crossing his arms. “Let’s all stand here having a pleasant conversation, shall we?”
Yolanda’s temple twitched, and she shot Harrington a scornful look. “You sound just like my mother. Passive aggressive. I had such a pleasant conversation with her in the mirror during the last challenge.” Angered, she marched forward towards the nearest of the wooden pieces. Before she reached it, a sound vibrated through the air.
One of the birds shifted out on its metal pole. Then one by one, each of them did the same. The vibrating sound became a high-pitched whirring as the enormous birds began swinging to and fro.
Yelling out in fear, Yolanda fled, a bird beak narrowly missing her.
The birds began moving in sharp, erratic arcs.
We rushed back against the wall.
Heavy, whooshing sounds filled the air as the birds rose and fell in long swoops, crisscrossing each other’s paths but never touching.
I raised my face, gazing up at the top ends of the pendulums that the birds were suspended on. The pendulums were suspended on metal balls and able to swing in any direction. The birds swung straight past where the hexagonal box should be.
Ruth did a slow clap. “Great work. How do we put that box together now?” She sighed then. “We’re going to have to grab the pieces one by one and put it together back here.”
“No,” I replied. “The box goes where it always goes.” I sounded certain. Was I certain? No, I wasn’t. But it was my best guess. There isn’t time for second-guessing.
“I’m with Evie,” said Yolanda. “The box has to go dead centre. Something had to have been triggered when I walked over there before,” said Yolanda.
“Maybe you should go untrigger it,” said Harrington.
“Can’t be that simple,” Ruth mused.
“Here we go again,” said Harrington. It was the first time I’d ever heard him criticise Ruth.
“No . . . look . . . the birds are moving in patterns,” Ruth insisted. “Otherwise they’d be smashing into each other, right?”
Yolanda nodded. “But figuring out the pattern doesn’t help us. We can get past the birds if we’re super careful, but we can’t put the box together.”
“We have to stop the birds.” I watched them swinging for a moment, mesmerised.
“They’re working on some kind of motors,” said Yolanda.
I continued to observe the paths and movements of the birds. “The birds get a bit wobbly when they pass over the puzzle pieces. Kind of like they’re being held in place for a moment. Like . . . they’re a giant version of those novelty paperweights that move about on magnets.” I looked around at the other three. “If it’s magnets, could there be magnets in the pieces of the box?”
Yolanda shot me a worried look. “I can’t claim to be an expert on magnets, but I was a physics major before my life went off the rails. And if there’s magnets in the puzzle pieces, we’re in for a world of trouble. Because magnets that strong would be neodymium. They’re crazy strong. Get in between two of those puzzle pieces, and you’ll be crushed to death.”
Ruth sucked her mouth in, making a popping sound. “Yeah, looks like magnets. Well, they didn’t make this one easy.”
I pressed the back of my head into the wall. “It’s damned dangerous.”
Harrington blew out a hard breath. “What choice do we have but to get out there and just do it? We’ve got to dodge those killer beaks and move those bad boys.”
“The birds seem to be losing a bit of height in their arcs,” said Yolanda. “The motors started them off and the magnets are keeping them going. But air resistance will win out, and the birds will eventually stop.”
“How long do we have?” demanded Harrington.
Yolanda shook her head. “I said I was no expert on this, and I don’t know how it’s set up. And we don’t know how they’re triggered. Once we go in, we could set the whole cycle off again.”
“Should we try to work out the trigger?” I asked quickly.
“We could do that,” said Yolanda. “But I don’t know if it would help us. The birds could stay in motion for a long time just on this one trigger, with only a small loss of energy.”
I spun around to check the clock, shocked to realise that I’d forgotten to look at it since I’d walked into the room.
Eight minutes left.
Ruth threw up her hands. “You lot are complicating things. I like things simple. If the puzzle pieces are magnets, why don’t we just try flipping ‘em? North and south poles and all that. If the magnets are repelling the magnets in the birds now, then maybe we can flip the magnets and make the birds stay tight.”
“I want to hug you right now.” Yolanda flashed a row of white teeth at Ruth.
“Touch me and die.” Ruth glared at her.
“You women all have to hug me if I head in there first.” Harrington creased the right side of his face in a wink.
“Like fun we will,” Ruth called out after him as he strode to the first puzzle piece.
Ducking low, Harrington made a grab for the piece and turned it over. Yelping at the swift return of the bird, he sprinted back to the wall.
The bird didn’t stop immediately, but its arc was interrupted. It moved chaotically for a few seconds before settling on top of the puzzle piece.
The four of us cheered out loud.
“Okay, people,” said Ruth with the voice of a sergeant major. “Let’s work out which pieces of the puzzle go on the bottom and which go on the top.”
Staying hard against the walls, we moved quickly around the room, studying the pieces.
“Look!” I called. “See the pattern? The pieces with the pattern would go on top, right? Wouldn’t see them on the bottom.”
Ruth nodded. “You got it.”
“And the pieces with the parallel lines could go around the sides, horizontally.” Yolanda had both her hands out in front of her, moving them as though rotating an invisible piece of wood.
“Right, people,” instructed Ruth. “I want these two pieces of wood first. We’ll go in and stop all the birds. Then bring me the pieces I asked for. That way, we cut down on the number of birds in flight until the end. Capisce?”
Ruth had taken over and was already ordering us around. But that was her usual. And if it got this challenge done, that was okay with me.
Within a heart-stopping minute, we had every bird stopped and under control.
But not for long. Now, every puzzle piece had to come out, setting each bird off again.
Yolanda and I eyed each other from across the room and nodded. We grabbed the puzzle pieces Ruth had asked for.
Harrington waited by his piece.
Two birds were now in flight.
This piece of wood was heavy. Much heavier than I’d expected.
I lugged the solid chunk of wood across the room.
Wait. Stop.
A bird swooped past, sending a sharp breeze over my face and prickling every nerve in my body.
Run.
Yolanda ma
de it to the middle of the room first, Ruth waiting there to take the puzzle piece.
Panting, I stepped carefully towards Ruth. Was this thing going to jump from my arms or what? I set it down on the floor and bent to push it the rest of the way. Frowning in concentration, Ruth took my piece and turned it to and fro before deciding how it fitted with her piece. She began sliding it towards the other. My puzzle piece slid to hers, crashing violently into place at the last moment with a loud clatter.
A grin spread over Ruth’s face.
A bird was swinging our way.
“Down!” I screamed at her, then scrambled to lie flat as a bird headed straight for us.
Ruth threw herself to the ground. From the floor, Ruth pointed to two more pieces. “Those!”
Harrington was already standing by one of the pieces. I was closest to the other. Ducking a bird again, I ran to the other piece.
“Okay. Now!” Harrington yelled.
I moved my piece out.
Four birds were now in swing.
I weaved through the swinging birds.
Watch the birds.
Why did the monks even design this challenge?
Stop. You’re losing focus. They don’t give us anything too hard, remember? Another few minutes and this will be done. Another challenge over.
“No, I want Harrington’s piece first.” Ruth waved at me to stop.
Yolanda’s scream echoed across the room. “Evie!”
I whirled around just as two birds were set to cross paths—straight through me. I went to drop to the ground. In the same moment, Ruth was beside me, knocking into me, sending my puzzle piece flying from my hands. The tip of a bird’s wind sliced into my back.
I hit the floor backwards, my head slamming hard into the marble.
The room spun.
Silver flashes of enormous birds.
Yells and shouts.
Then darkness.
45. GRAY
I JUMPED IN A CAB AND instructed the driver to take me to a cheap hotel. I needed to get away from the airport, but I had no idea where to go. I couldn’t even actually stay at a hotel—cheap or not—because they’d want ID. And I didn’t want to identify myself.
