The Bone Quill

by Barrowman, John

  That was too close, Em. I felt the heat from that engine.

  ‘I told you my plan would work,’ said Matt.

  ‘We were lucky,’ replied Em, climbing off the collapsed table. ‘One second more and we’d all be …’ Are you okay, Zach?

  Not sure. I feel like that soldier AND that train hit me.

  Pulling up Zach’s T-shirt and hoodie, Em gently touched his back. She felt raw, pink welts criss-crossing his skin; a couple felt as though they were bleeding.

  How bad is it, Em?

  Bad. We can cover them up in the morning. But we all need showers first. If we go to bed smelling like this, we’ll never be able to hide what we’ve done from Jeannie.

  ‘I’m not okay either, by the way,’ said Matt. ‘Thanks for asking.’

  Em stroked her brother’s cheek and rapidly bruising eye. Poor baby. I’ll get some ice.

  Suddenly, the sitting-room lights burst on, blinding the three of them. Simon was looming over the crushed table, hands on his hips. He let loose a current of barbed energy at them.

  ‘You are so busted,’ he growled.

  Em knew they were in trouble. But the moment she spotted her grandfather sitting on the couch she didn’t care. Scrambling up off the floor, she threw herself into Renard’s arms.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re home from the hospital!’ she said in delight.

  ‘And I could say the same about you,’ said Renard, squeezing Em tightly, ‘but my word, you smell awful.’

  ‘Why didn’t anyone tell us you were coming back tonight?’ Em asked.

  ‘Would it have mattered if we had?’ said Simon, angrily pulling Matt and Zach up from the floor.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Matt. ‘It would at least have given us something to look forward to other than what’s on the stupid menu for dinner.’

  Jeannie had heard the thunderous commotion on her way up the stairs. She rushed into the room, ignored the broken furniture and swooped Em and the boys up in her embrace. Then she caught their stink and threw her hands in the air.

  ‘You all stink like you’ve been rolling in horse dung!’

  Simon suddenly cried out and put his hands to his temples. Renard did the same. His tea cup, which had been balancing on a plate of crumbs, tipped on to the floor.

  ‘Where have you three been?’ Jeannie went on.

  Em could tell that both Simon and Renard had just sensed a wave of extreme energy. The kind of energy Guardians feel when their Animare are animating. But before Em had time to think this through, Matt’s thoughts crashed into her head.

  Don’t tell them we time-travelled.

  Em was getting really tired of her brother telling her what to do.

  She sat down on the couch and looked at her grandfather. The words exploded from her. ‘We went into the Monet for fun, to be in London again for a few minutes. And then we discovered we were actually in London at the same time as Monet when he painted the scene, rather than just being in the painting. But Zach got separated from us when we were animating – we’re not sure how – and then he got arrested. Oh, and right before that a soldier on a horse whipped his back. It looks pretty bad.’

  Jeannie was staring at the three of them in shock. Em charged on, trying to ignore the way Simon had dropped on to the comfy chair with his head between his legs like he was about to pass out. Her grandfather was as pale as porridge.

  ‘Then a child-catcher threw Zach into his wagon, but Zach managed to escape, which meant that Matt and I were able to find him.’

  ‘You animated into the nineteenth century through this painting?’ asked Renard.

  ‘Yes,’ said Matt reluctantly. He felt the jolt of alarm pass among the adults. ‘I think there must be something in the way our abilities react together.’

  ‘You think? You think?’ Simon shouted.

  Simon seemed more angry about this than Matt thought it warranted.

  I don’t get why he’s so upset, Em.

  Well, we did almost get his son killed.

  Zach can take care of himself. His dad needs to realize that.

  Maybe, but we put him in danger.

  Zach came along with us willingly. Remember?

  ‘Have you done this before?’ Simon asked. Renard appeared lost in his own thoughts. ‘The truth!’

  ‘No!’ said Em.

  She felt the way she had when she and Matt had first arrived at the island, wanting to impress Renard and Simon. To show them that she, Matt and their special talents were worth caring about.

  ‘Wait a wee minute there, young man!’ said Jeannie suddenly, stepping in front of Matt and placing her hands on his chest as he was about to sit next to Em. ‘Don’t you dare sit yourself on that couch stinking like my grandfather’s auld bothie.’

  ‘But Em’s sitting,’ said Matt. Exhaustion was settling over his mind and his body with a weight he’d never felt before. He guessed that animating to another century had physical consequences.

  ‘Jeannie’s right,’ said Simon. ‘Showers and wounds cleaned.’ He took a quick look at his son’s back and flinched. ‘Get to your rooms, now.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Teenagers and adults all gathered in the hallway of the children’s wing of the Abbey. The sitting room separated Em’s and Matt’s bedrooms. Zach’s was next to Matt’s, and the boys shared a bathroom. Em, as the only girl, had a bedroom with an en-suite bathroom.

  ‘Can you remember anything else about the night Mum disappeared, Grandpa?’ asked Em, walking Renard to the stairs. ‘Anything?’

  ‘Nothing, Em,’ Renard replied. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Behind them, Em could hear Simon still grilling the boys, while Jeannie dashed down to the kitchen to get the first-aid kit for Zach’s wounds. Em sighed, knowing the dressing-down would come her way sooner or later.

  Her grandfather’s suite was in the south tower of the Abbey, which meant he had to go downstairs, across the foyer and along the hallway to reach his room. Renard lifted Em on to her toes on the edge of the stairs, giving her a fierce bear-hug.

  ‘We’ll discuss what you and your brother have done more fully in the morning.’ Looking deep into Em’s eyes, he added, ‘Please … please stay put until then. Promise me?’

  ‘I will,’ she said, kissing his forehead. She was aware that when she snuggled under the duvet on her bed, she would sleep like a log, exhausted and glad to be back in the twenty-first century.

  Halfway down the stairs, Renard stopped, staring up at a still-life painting on the wall above him.

  ‘Is this a new piece?’ he asked.

  ‘Hasn’t it always been there?’ said Em.

  One of the things that the twins had first noticed when they arrived at the Abbey was that every wall in every room was covered in paintings of every artistic style and historical period. If there wasn’t a window on a wall, there were paintings.

  The still-life in question showed a primitive writing desk with carved legs and one narrow drawer. On the surface of the desk sat a brass candelabra with two burning candles of similar lengths, a skull with a gaping hole for a mouth and a pewter goblet tipped on its side on a piece of mirrored glass. Zach and Matt leaned over the upstairs banisters as Simon joined Renard on the stairs to look more closely at the painting.

  ‘Are ye all waiting for a parade out here?’ Jeannie asked, coming across the landing from the kitchen staircase with the first-aid kit. ‘Mr R, this is enough for one night. These weans should get cleaned up and be off to bed.’

  ‘Grandpa’s curious about this painting,’ said Matt. ‘Did you hang it here, Jeannie?’

  Jeannie passed Simon the lotion for Zach’s back and handed an ice-pack to Matt for his eye, before glancing at the painting. ‘It looks like any number of still-lifes we have all over the Abbey.’

  Simon looked at the date on the gilded frame. ‘This says 1848. Must have been one of your great-grandfather’s acquisitions, Renard.’

  Jeannie took her reading glasses from her pocket, slipped them on and pe
ered at the painting more carefully. ‘You know Mr R,’ she said after a moment, ‘even after a blow to yer head, when you’re right, you’re right.’

  ‘What?’ the twins asked in unison.

  ‘That’s one of the Abbey’s pewter goblets sitting on that old desk,’ said Jeannie, pointing at the goblet with the arm of her glasses before returning them to her pocket.

  ‘Maybe the painting was done here at the Abbey,’ said Em.

  ‘No, lass, that’s not what I meant. I bought six of those goblets in Glasgow last Christmas. How did one of them get into a still-life painted more than one hundred and sixty years ago?’

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Monastery of Era Mina

  Middle Ages

  The Abbot sat alone in his study atop the west tower of the monastery. He had not slept since Solon took flight on the peryton over the island towards Skinner’s Bog, and his burdens weighed on him like a suit of armour. His worries about old Brother Renard had been overthrown by his fears for the island, and the dark secrets that seemed to be revealing themselves more with each passing day.

  He tapped the first page of the unfinished Book of Beasts with his fingers. He had removed it from the scriptorium, in a bid to help him think more clearly about the problem before him.

  The illuminations shone in the gloom. It was Brother Renard’s finest and most profound work, the Abbot had to admit: a sacred legacy for the Order of Era Mina and a gift for all of mankind – the corralling of the beasts of an uncivilized time in one mystical place.

  But the bestiary had to be completed. An unfinished manuscript would leave the world in peril. Incomplete, the manuscript could be used to reverse all of Brother Renard’s vital work. The Abbot worried that the Order of Era Mina – that Brother Renard himself – would not survive long enough to see this mission fulfilled. The Book of Beasts had to be finished, and then buried deep inside the island with its secrets sealed for ever. It was inestimably important.

  The Abbot leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his tired eyes. His skin was leathery, even to his own touch.

  I’m getting old, he thought, and still with so much left to accomplish.

  That evening after Vespers, the Abbot had intervened as the monks, some of them still struggling with their injuries from the bloody Viking attack, had protested loudly about the imprudence of not giving the Viking chief what he had wanted. They couldn’t endure another attack like this one, should he choose to return with fresh demands. They simply didn’t have the numbers.

  ‘With all due respect, Father,’ Brother Cornelius had said, ‘we should have given the relic to the Norsemen. It means nothing without the book, and both mean nothing without the islands.’

  The Abbot’s voice had boomed out across the chapel, echoing in the side chapels filled with statues, bouncing off the stone floor.

  ‘My brothers in faith and imagination, we cannot return the bone quill to the Norsemen. It is the only remaining relic from the creation of our islands. Our martyred forefathers, who gave their lives to retrieve and protect it, are owed our steadfastness. Even in the face of terrible danger.

  ‘The bone quill is ours to defend, like the island itself. It must remain here at all costs. Let me repeat with no lesser emphasis: the bone quill and The Book of Beasts must be protected at all costs.’

  Sitting at his desk, reflecting on the evening’s draining events, the Abbot knew that he hadn’t quelled the brothers’ fears and dissatisfaction. Who knew what might happen during the next Viking invasion, or attack from the powerful northern clans, or the Sassenach tribes further south?

  These were desperate, dangerous times.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘A long time ago, when the world believed monsters roamed the earth,’ said Brother Renard, his eyes holding his apprentice’s gaze with such intensity that Solon’s toes curled against the soles of his sealskin boots, ‘a young boy had a strange and beautiful dream.’

  Solon had come to Brother Renard’s cell first thing that morning to let him know he had returned from his quest unharmed, although with a new-found respect for the monster that lurked in the bog. Brother Cornelius had taken a weakened Carik under his wing, locking her for safety in Brother Renard’s old cell with promises to tend to her.

  Solon had also told Brother Renard about their terrible confrontation with the Grendel and the peryton’s role in their escape. The effect on the old monk was like lightning. He had launched into this tale with more vigour than he had shown since the Viking attack.

  ‘Hush, Brother,’ said Solon, worried. ‘You are tiring yourself.’

  ‘You must hear this, Solon, my boy. You must. I cannot leave this life until The Book of Beasts is finished. The Grendel is the last beast to be locked into that book before I depart this earthly world. Heed this story before my strength fails completely.

  ‘The boy dreamed that two giant stags, one black as the coal deep inside the earth and one as white as the snow that capped its peaks, shattered through a mountain top on the wild Scottish coast,’ the old Animare continued. ‘First their colossal antlers cracked open the summit, tearing up the very core of the hillside.’

  Brother Renard jumped from his chair and raised his hands above his head, mimicking the massive antlers of the stags. Solon’s eyes widened, afraid that a pair of antlers would burst through the wrinkled skin of the old monk’s head. To his great relief, they did not.

  The old monk dropped back to his seat, gripping his hands together once again on his lap.

  ‘The presence of two giant stags on the mountain sent a great avalanche of rock thundering down into the sea. Standing on the craggy summit, the giant stags sloughed off the mountain’s debris, stamping their hooves with such might that the mountain cracked in two.’

  The shutters on the only window of the tower room clapped noisily. The wind howled through the slits. Solon braced himself, preparing for sharp rocks to slide in through the rattling window. Thunder erupted above his head, resounding across the thick wooden beams. Solon put his hands over his head as splinters showered down from the ceiling. He shook a splinter of wood from his shaggy blond hair. ‘Please, master, go on.’

  ‘When the mountain split its core, it separated into two islands – one large and one small. The force of the rupture also separated the stags, leaving the white one on the bigger island staring longingly at the black stag on the smaller one, across a great and treacherous divide.

  ‘With their antlers shining like polished gems, the two beasts stood at the summit of each island and wept at their division. Their tears became a tidal wave that crashed on to the land, filling the crevices and rocky fissures with water, creating bays and channels and secret coves.’

  Brother Renard moved his hands restlessly. Solon knew that he was picturing the unfinished Book of Beasts lying in his lap.

  ‘According to our sacred teachings, the white stag could stand its loneliness no longer. It wanted to reunite with its twin. Unfolding a pair of great silver wings, it rose close to the heavens and swooped across the divide.’

  ‘The peryton?’ asked Solon.

  The old monk nodded. ‘Unfortunately, the black stag had grown bitter that it had landed on the smaller island. It did not want to share, especially with such a powerful beast as its twin. When the silver-winged stag landed, the black stag charged.

  ‘The battle raged for an age. Finally, exhausted and with its strength dwindling, the white stag did the one thing it had dared not do before. Under cover of the darkest night, the white stag lifted itself above the black stag, smashing the black stag’s antlers and splintering the pieces across the world. Then it lifted its twin into the air and carried both of them far away from the two islands.

  ‘The white stag carried the black one deep into the cold lands of the north, flying until webs of ice laced across its wings. When the ice thickened like leather, it could no longer hold on to its twin. The massive bulk of the black stag fell from the sky to the land of frozen mo
untains and ice castles.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Solon reached for the jug of warm perry by the fire, made with pears from the monastery orchard. Carefully, he poured two cups: one for the old monk and one for himself.

  ‘Did the boy understand what his dream meant?’ he asked, passing Brother Renard his cup.

  Brother Renard smiled in appreciation, reminding Solon of the man he had first known: a grumpy yet generous monk with a quick intelligence. But his hands shook as he took the cup, and he seemed more frail than ever. He took a long draught before continuing.

  ‘The dream invaded the boy’s sleep more than once. He told his father about it. He hoped his father would understand what it meant, because what occurs when a person is asleep means as much as what happens when he is awake.’

  The world Solon lived in believed that ideas came in dreams, or were sent by witches or wizards, angels or demons, even gods or monsters. The origin of any idea or dream was important, making ideas either especially dangerous or incredibly brilliant. As he learned more about the world, Solon had begun to wonder: who decided which ideas were good and which were bad? Which held truths and which lies?

  ‘But although the boy’s father was a clever man, he was a poor, uneducated miller, and his son’s dream terrified him,’ Brother Renard continued, gulping the last of his perry. ‘At first, he ignored his son’s restless nights. But word began to spread that the miller’s son was having visions. The lack of sleep was making the boy weak. He was no longer any help to his father in the mill.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Then it rained for weeks,’ said the old monk, exhaustion hunching his shoulders and weakening his voice. ‘The turnips, leeks and cabbages rotted in the fields. The villagers started to get hungry, and when a wolf carried off the village’s last healthy goat, anger set in like the chill in winter.’