Being a lump of rock makes it just a little difficult to escape.
Who is he kidding? It’s impossible to escape. And there’s no one to rescue him. Cygnet is dead and the other Guardians are locked away too. Yip envies the other Grotesques. At least they have no idea what’s happening.
He had caused Cygnet to get caught in the Trixie trap. If only he hadn’t been trying to prove himself by chasing down a Trixie. Yip is just a scout, not a proper Guardian. Oh, how the others had liked to remind him of that fact.
It’s his fault Cygnet fell and the girl, the interesting one he has been watching, was injured. It’s his fault the Grotesques were taken down and now stand statue-trapped in some dingy room.
It’s his fault the city is defenceless against the Trixies and any other new menace to slip across from the shadow side. Once word gets out, Haven will become a battleground, overrun by dark creatures. That’s his fault too.
And now Yip’s nose starts itching.
Just what I need.
He is going to go slowly crazy. He just knows he is. He tries to think of something else to take his mind off the maddening itch and the image of the girl flashes before him, her bright blood on the stones. The Guardians are supposed to protect the innocent.
She is his biggest failure by far.
~~~
The second doctor to visit Olivia is tall and important looking—a specialist. The first doctor follows him around like a puppy hoping for a treat. He is not making stupid jokes today.
“The patient shows signs of photophobia, too,” the doctor says.
“Hmmm,” the specialist muses.
Olivia cringes as the bandage comes off her arm. The cuts are still an angry red and the grey has spread. Her elbow, wrist and hand are all a greyish colour and the skin doesn’t look right. Olivia tries to wriggle her fingers. They are stiff and hardly move at all.
Her knee looks just as bad.
“It has to be some type of sclerema,” the doctor adds. “But it doesn’t match any of the forms I’ve seen or read about.”
Olivia starts to cry.
“Don’t worry, young lady, everything will be fine,” the doctor says, patting her arm absently.
Olivia catches a movement out of the corner of her eye and sees the old-fashioned nurse. She looks gravely at the doctor and shakes her head then steps back and disappears from view.
The specialist glances sideways at the doctor. “Have you taken tissue samples?” He gives Olivia a forced smile.
“Yes, but the results of the tests aren’t back yet.”
Both doctors turn and walk from the room without giving Olivia a second glance. They don’t even put the bandage back on.
They don’t care about her. Olivia can tell. She lays there staring at her arm like it doesn’t really belong to her. Wishing it didn’t belong to her. It doesn’t feel like her arm anymore. She turns her head away hoping Mum and Dad come back soon. They have been gone for hours.
The old-fashioned nurse glides into the room. She glances about and hurries to the bed. She tuts at the discarded bandages and expertly puts new dressings on Olivia’s arm and leg.
“Doctors,” she says. Her voice is papery thin and sounds like it’s coming from across the room, not right next to her. “They shouldn’t hide the facts from their patients. Even young ones like you.” She presses a crumpled piece of yellowed paper into Olivia’s right hand and hurries from the room.
Olivia looks at the paper. It’s a newspaper clipping, brittle and dirty-yellow with age. She opens it out.
The New York Times February 1, 1880.
A CHILD TURNING INTO STONE.
ITS SKIN GRADUALLY BECOMING PETRIFIED—
A REMARKABLE CASE.
CLEVELAND, Ohio. Jan. 31. – The most extraordinary case of sclerema, or petrifying of the skin, known in medical history, was made the subject of a medical clinic in this city to-day. The case was that of a child brought here from New-Philadelphia, and it is becoming literally a petrified child. The flesh is as cold and hard almost as marble, and while the child, which is nearly 3 years old, continues to live, it can only freely move its lips and eyes. It has none of the warmth and pliability of human flesh, and sleeps with its eyes open, presenting a most ghastly spectacle. Until six months ago it was in perfect health. The disease is one of the connective tissues between the skin and flesh, whose origin is unknown, but is supposed to be caused by perverted nutrition. This is the thirty-fifth case discovered, and is an important one, in as much as no instance has heretofore been known where the entire body was affected. The child must die, as complete petrification will ensue. [*]
[*] Note: This is a genuine New York Times article.
The paper falls out of Olivia’s hands. The news item is over a century old and it describes what’s happening to her skin. She is going to slowly turn to stone and die.
Mum and Dad come into the hospital room. Olivia scoops the newspaper clipping off the bedcovers and hides it. She doesn’t want them to see it and worry.
Once the IV tube is removed from her hand, Olivia manages to walk to the bathroom. Her knee aches and every step drives a shard of agony into the joint. She grits her teeth and limps but manages the walk by herself.
Olivia thinks about the newspaper clipping. The last paragraph, although it talked about dying, gave her a little bit of hope. It said the girl had the worst case of the condition ever known.
Maybe she won’t get as bad as that poor little girl.
Pushing the bandage on her arm down a little bit, Olivia examines her skin. It’s a light mottled-grey, only a few shades different from her normal skin colour. When she touches it, she winces. It doesn’t hurt, it’s cold and hard as marble. Olivia splashes water on her face and looks in the mirror.
The sight takes her breath away. The right side of her face looks normal, except for red puffy eyes from crying. There is a puckered scar running from her cheek, under the outside corner of her left eye, to the swollen lump under the dressing on her temple. A second cut branches off and slices into her ear. The grey marble skin spreads around the cuts. Her temple and most of her ear are as hard and cold as the skin on her arm.
Olivia removes the elastic holding her ponytail in place and rakes her hair loose. It’s long and shiny black. She uses her fingers to brush it out and arrange it to drape across the left side of her face. She sets her shoulders and refuses to cry any more.
After lunch, the doctors let Mum and Dad take her home. They have to come back every second day for a check-up with the doctor and to change the bandages.
Olivia is just glad to get out of the hospital.
Chapter 12
Don’t Go in the Water
The leader of the Trixies looks down at the gathering. She’d found three more of her flighty younger kin wandering the streets at dusk and had brought them into the fold. There are twenty three of them here now. Four of the oldest are nearly seven-years-old and she can feel them struggle to resist her control.
Most Trixies never reach the age of five, especially on the shadow side of the path. Playing tricks on a human is one thing but there are creatures living in the shadows that eat little pranksters when they catch them.
The leader is far too clever to get caught. She’s the oldest known Trixie ever and has tricked the best of them. Humans, though not very challenging, are still her favourite targets. In her twelve years she has tricked ogres, witches, ghosts, pookas, even one of the old gods. Now, she has tricked two of the Guardians. The little one doesn’t really count but tricking Cygnet, their leader, is her greatest triumph. That trick turned out better than she could have ever planned.
Cygnet is dead and all the Guardians are gone.
The four older Trixies are whispering again.
She turns her gaze on them, her eyes glowing with menace. They fall silent and lower their heads. She is going to have to set an example with one of them soon.
“Cars,” the leader states absently. “Let’s see what
we can do with cars tonight.” She points to a group of six Trixies.
They bob their heads and dash away into the dark.
“You others,” she says. “Go make some mischief.”
~~~
It’s early in the nightclub district. Bitti and Gia cling to the balcony rail at Flash Dance, looking across the street. The neon signs reflect brightly in the scattering of broken glass still laying in the gutter outside Devon’s. The main feature of Flash Dance is the huge first floor balcony. By midnight, the balcony will be packed with dancing patrons.
Bitti and Gia patiently loosen the bolts holding up the rail. Their trick complete, the two Trixies scamper across a power cable to the building on the far side of the road. They settle in to wait for the show.
~~~
In Seven Gates Park, down by the lake, six teenage boys are laughing and drinking. They are all unsteady on their feet. Erik Mayse has just turned fifteen and his friends have raided their parents’ liquor cabinets to throw him a proper party. Each of their parents believe the kids are having a sleepover at one of the other boys’ house. They intend to stay out all night partying.
Erik picks up a small flat stone and skims it across the water. The ripples glitter under the reflected security lights lining the lake shore. He picks up a second rock and lets fly. It skips once, twice, three times then pings off something metal.
He calls the others over.
The floating object is an overturned rowboat. And something is draped over it, trailing into the water. It looks like a…a little girl.
“Shivers!” Erik yells.
The girl raises her head and long, wet black hair falls over her face. She tries to brush it aside but when she moves her hand from the boat, she slides into the water with a terrified squeal. She splashes then her head slips under the water.
Erik jumps in and wades toward the boat. After four steps, the water is up to his chest. The next step drops into deeper water. He starts swimming.
The girl appears for a moment and slips under again. Three of Erik’s friends follow him in.
Erik reaches the boat first and something tugs at his leg. He disappears from sight. The first of his friends to get there looks wildly about.
“Erik!” he shouts. He dives under the water, swimming down, thrashing his arms about and trying to find his friend. He never comes back to the surface.
Only one of the boys makes it back out of the water.
~~~
There are steep hills in Haven Heights. The houses are large, multi-storeyed and have manicured gardens and expensive cars parked in the driveways.
Four Trixies skip along the moonlit streets. They reach the houses at the very tops of the hills and slip along the driveways to crawl under the cars.
When they are not hiding their true natures, Trixie fingers are long and tipped with wickedly sharp talons. It only takes them a flick of the wrist to sever the hydraulic lines leading to the brakes.
The Trixies look a little sad as they make their way back into the cobbled streets of Old Haven. They will miss all the excitement. Most of the cars won’t careen down the hilly streets until after sunrise and they have to go into hiding before then.
On the way back, at the intersection of Drewitt Road and Stanley, the four of them rock the stop sign poles until they are loose enough to pull from the ground.
They hide the signs in the bushes.
The intersection is a bad one, built on a fast corner with some overgrown trees obscuring the vision of oncoming drivers.
“Hopefully, this won’t take all night,” one says.
The Trixies settle in to wait.
Fifteen minutes later they giggle and clap as the screech of useless brakes becomes the sound of twisting metal and breaking glass.
~~~
The backpacker hostel is a rickety old three-storey weatherboard building, near Central, just on the outskirts of Old Haven. A narrow alley runs alongside the building and is a haunt for smokers. Ted Holtquist, the gruff manager of the place, has very strict no smoking rules inside the building.
A row of narrow windows line the lower section of the alley wall. The windows are filthy and smudged, the inside corners thick with cobwebs. Several of the windows close to the alley’s entrance are partially open and there is an almost inaudible hiss coming from inside.
The Trixie coughs as it turns a gas valve all the way open. It is one of the youngest Trixies in the fold and is keen to impress her new leader. It scurries across the room to a second valve that supplies gas to the rear rooms of the hostel and loosens the hose and opens that valve too.
Its coughs increase and it starts feeling light headed.
Footsteps and voices sound outside. It runs to one of the windows and scrubs away some of the grime. Two tall sets of legs tower above. It can see the red pinpoint glow of their cigarettes.
This is going to work. The leader will be so pleased.
One of the smokers drops a glowing butt to the ground. It rolls toward one of the open windows shedding a small shower of sparks. He raises his foot to stomp it out.
The whoop shakes buildings three streets away.
Neither the smokers nor the young Trixie get to see the building go up in flames.
The orange glow of the fire can be seen across the city.
~~~
On the balcony of Flash Dance, someone points at the glowing orange sky. The happy crowd jostles forward for a better view. The balcony rail scrapes and gives way. Dozens of people topple after it, smashing onto the roadway and footpath.
Sirens sound all across Haven.
Chapter 13
The Vanishing Cats
“It’s too early,” Mum says. “Give her some more time.”
Dad looks up from the morning paper. “The doctor said Olivia would be fine to go back to school.”
“It’s only been two days.” Mum leans forward, planting her fists on the table top. “Let her have today and Friday off and she can start back next Monday.”
Dad folds the paper and sets it down. “She’s just moping in her room. It will do her good to get out of the house and be with friends.”
“She does have plenty of reason to mope.” Mum flings herself into the kitchen chair and lowers her face into her hands. “What’s going to happen, Cody?”
Dad looks worried too but he puts on a brave face. “The doctors will work out what’s causing it. They’ll make it better.”
“No they won’t,” Olivia whispers to Rum-Tum. She is sitting on the stairs just out of sight of the kitchen. Her knees are pulled up to her chin. She strokes the big ginger tom. She has reread the old newspaper clipping half-a-dozen times and each time, a chill grows inside her. Somehow she knows the cold creeping grey skin isn’t going to stop at her arm and leg, or at the left side of her face.
Last night, Olivia used a marker from her school bag and drew a thin line where the grey flesh met her normal skin, halfway between her left elbow and shoulder. She pushes the bandage down to see the mark.
Olivia sighs. If it’s creeping up her arm, it’s doing it slowly. She can’t tell if it has spread or not. If it has, it’s only a teeny-tiny amount.
Rum-Tum rowwws loudly and buts his boofy head against Olivia’s hand. She had stopped patting him but he isn’t finished with her attention.
The legs of a kitchen chair scrape on the tiles and Mum pokes her head out through the doorway. “Sweetheart, what are you doing sitting there?” She squats in front of Olivia. “Come and I’ll get you some juice and toast.”
Olivia stands up silently and follows Mum into the kitchen. Rum-Tum pads along behind her.
Dad gives Olivia a reassuring smile. “How are you doing, Poppet?”
“I’m OK.” Olivia swallows the lie and looks away from his eyes. He’ll be able to tell. Her gaze falls to the newspaper.
Another Night of Madness—Vandals, Fire Bugs and a Nightclub Disaster
The death and injury toll rose during a second wild night of esc
alating violent mayhem on the streets of Haven. Police are at a loss to explain the events. They refused to comment when asked if they believe the deadly incidents were connected. Inspector Shane Gorsline stated he was not currently in a position to speculate on wild conspiracy theories and a media release was being prepared.
It’s reasonable to assume the removal of the stop signs on Drewitt Road, resulting in a fatal collision, and the callous cutting of vehicle brake lines in Haven Heights were done by the same offenders. But the arson attack on the Sunrise Backpacker Hostel and the tampering with the bolts on the balcony rail of the Flash Dance Night Club appear unrelated.
Two died and eighteen other young people were hospitalised in the balcony collapse. Full details of this tragedy are covered on page three of this edition.
Police forensic officers and fire investigators are still sifting through the smoking ruins of the backpacker fire. There are three confirmed deaths but sources revealed the death toll is expected to rise. It’s not known how many visitors were staying at the hostel at the time.
See the full story inside.
Dad notices Olivia staring at the front page story. He doesn’t interrupt her as she reads. When she looks up he says, “I think I’ll drive you to school this morning. The streets have been a little unsettled the last few days.”
That is the understatement of the century.
“According to the radio news there were even more incidents last night.” Mum sets down Olivia’s breakfast and rubs her temples. “The city’s gone mad.”
“I’ve latched the cat door but will make sure Rum-Tum stays inside today,” Mum says, giving the cat a scratch behind the ears.
Olivia looks at her mum. “Why?”
Olivia Stone and the Trouble with Trixies Page 4
