by Paula Wynne
Kelby shivered with cold and unease, yet she turned into the tunnel. Despite the sensation of stepping into a horror film, she descended into the gloomy passageway. The overpowering odour of damp and mould almost forced her back. The rancid smell made her feel as though she were entering her own grave. But this wasn’t nearly as putrid as the stench of those dead things floating in chemicals.
Wishing Roy were with her, she stepped into the bricked tunnel. Fighting against her instincts to escape, Kelby crept along, using her right hand on the rough chipped bricks to guide her. The dirt encrusted stones underfoot hadn’t seen the light of day in centuries. A cobweb, dangling from the brick ceiling, floated over her cheek. Kelby squealed and bolted forward.
Her hand chafed along the rough walls. A few bumps and jutting bricks caught her knuckles, scratching the skin off them. Heat still emanated from her burns. She had to ignore the pain. She couldn’t focus on anything except finding Annie.
Following the yellowed, flickering globes, Kelby bit down on the fear welling inside her. Refusing to think of Punch-bag and what he had revealed, she resisted looking at her blistered fingers and raw palm. Although tears threatened, she denied them. Her whole body trembled, but she stumbled along blindly.
She had one focus. Get out of here before anyone else found her. After no more than five minutes that seemed like hours, she came to the end of the tunnel.
A heavy oak door barred her way.
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María and Madre stood frozen in their tracks. They listened to the hooves in the distance, expecting them to come closer. After a few minutes the sound disappeared and they remained still, holding their breath.
‘¡Dios santo! We must hurry, Mama.’
‘The soldiers are everywhere, María. You must leave me. You can get to the village and get help. There will be time before they kill me.’
‘¡Cállese! Be quiet, Mama, I am not going to let them have you.’
‘Wait, María, I have an idea. Leave me in the cellar. They will never find me there locked under the ground. You go … get rizado to heal your hands … and hide the journal. Then, come back for me.’
María tried to interrupt, but Madre poked her back.
‘When you see … they are not here, open the cellar. We can smear … rizado over me.’ Madre took a deep breath and continued, There is food enough for … many days down there. We can hide until … we are strong enough to escape.’
‘But Mama —’
‘¡Por dios! By God, this is the … only way. Can you not see your … stubbornness will only get us … killed? Like … your father. When the wall was falling … he refused to give up and he got trapped. Don’t let me … lose you too!’
Her mother’s desperate weeping made María squirm. It was a good suggestion, she had to admit. If she could get her hands even a little better she would be of more use to them both.
‘As you will, Mama. I will hurry back.’
María used her remaining strength to drag Madre to the cellar. After she lifted the hidden wooden lid, she gritted her teeth against the agony of helping her mother down the steps.
A sense of victory spurred her on, even though the smell of her burning flesh would never leave her.
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Kelby flung herself against the solid door and heaved. It didn’t budge. She tried again and a slow creak groaned at her. Shoving her weight against the door, Kelby huffed. It moved a little, but not enough.
Placing one foot far behind the other, Kelby anchored her front toe against a crack in the floor and leaned her weight onto it. She heaved against the door, and it creaked open a little more — enough for her to squeeze through.
Something dangled onto Kelby’s hair. She jumped back, thrashing her arms in the air. The thought of spiders and other creepy crawlies made her twitch.
An old-fashioned light switch, dangling on a long cord, swung back and forth in front of her face. She yanked on it and the room lit up.
Homerton’s basement.
In front of her, an old-fashioned set of iron stairs led upstairs. Along the far side, an empty hospital trolley bed leaned against the wall. Beside it, another exit showed a sloping ramp that didn’t look Victorian. Maybe it had been built when the clinic was renovated.
Kelby thought of medical trial patients being taken to the mad scientist’s lab. She shuddered, but raced up the wrought iron stairs. At the top, she entered another cellar. Under the bright lights, this one didn’t look dirty or feel scary. She thundered up the wooden stairway, clomping her way to the top and into the clinic’s reception.
Kelby came face-to-face with Jon Thompson.
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María glanced around the stone cellar. Its wooden shelves were rickety with the weight of the meat supplies and without Padre’s constant attention.
Long ago, she had transcribed another copy of Herbal de Carbonela, and concealed the grotto map between the double layers of calf skin. Then, she had hidden the leather book inside one of Madre’s clay pots for safe keeping.
Now, she lay her mother in the far corner and ran back to the house. Using her elbows, she gathered an armful of bedding and clothing to place under her mother. A second journey brought over her mother’s medicina basket. ‘Here, Mama, you can smear the last of your rizado on your wounds.’
Madre gave a weak smile, and María could see she wouldn’t have the strength to do it. Her breasts were in a terrible state. María returned to the house and collected a few of mother’s chemises. After smearing the remaining rizado paste from Madre’s medicina basket over her mother’s breasts and the cuts on her calves, María wrapped three chemises around Madre’s body.
‘This will protect your wounds until I bring more rizado back from the grotto.’
A third trip to the house allowed her to give her mother cooked food and a pail of water. She lifted Madre’s shorn head to help her sip. ‘You need food and water to build up your strength so we can escape.’
After Madre had a drink, she clutched María’s hand. ‘You are a good girl, strong like Padre. You will never let anyone or anything beat you.’
‘You are strong too, Mama. You will survive this.’
‘María, you must find Padre’s stone, it will protect you and bring you back to me.’
María saw Madre grimace in pain. In that moment a flood of determination filled the space inside where hatred boiled. ‘Mama, these soldiers and their queen will not win.’
Madre nodded. ‘I am proud of you, María.’ A smile filled her eyes and removed the agony from her face.
Although she left supplies right beside her mother, poor Madre was too exhausted and in too much pain to feed herself. ‘Mama, I am going now. I will be back soon.’
Her mother didn’t answer. María leaned closer to see her mother was asleep. The slow, shallow rise and fall of her chest assured her that her mother was still alive. She must hurry to get the rizado to heal her hands, and return to attend to her mother’s wounds. With one last glance at her mother, María exited the cellar. She placed a few twigs and a layer of green branches over the wooden lid. Covered in animal feed it looked part of the stable floor.
The animals brayed to get free of their pens. Her heart skipped a beat. Getting help for Madre came first.
She glanced at her blistered raw palms. Even if her hands were able to free the animals, the returning soldiers would know she was strong enough to escape. They would ransack the farm in their search and they might find the cellar.
María had to get to the grotto fast.
The grotto’s secret held their only hope.
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Kelby’s heart beat in time with her panting breath. ‘Jon, thank God, you’re here!’
He immediately spotted her burnt hand, ‘My God, Kelby, what happened?’
/> Two of her fingertips looked like roasted prawns. For a moment, she wanted to shrug it off as nothing. Perhaps seeing someone familiar or the desperate need to share her horrific experience below brought the pent up fear tumbling out, ‘There’s this huge thug downstairs. He’s in the other part of the building. And —’
‘Wait, calm down. What other building?’
‘There’s another place next door where they’re doing terrible tests on animals and maybe even humans. It’s disgusting. There’s body parts in bottles and it stinks.’
‘Your hand, Kelby, how did you get burnt?’
‘I told you, the thug.’
‘You’re not making sense.’
‘He followed me. He’s been stalking me on Twitter for ages. And he killed Fat Cat and put him in a bottle.’
Jon gaped at her.
Kelby suppressed a sob. ‘I know, isn’t it terrible? Who would want to harm a cat? He trapped me in the lab and burnt my hand while he told me how he killed Stacie and Gary.’
‘God, Kelby, I am so sorry.’
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. ‘I need to find Annie!’
Jon placed an arm around her shoulders, leading her towards a door. ‘Come on, we can talk in private in the office. Then we’ll find Annie.’
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María entered the thick copse of trees that surrounded the grotto. She waded across a shallow pond where the rizado grew on the rocks.
Before collecting the slimy herb, she had one more task to carry out so she must make haste. María glanced up. High above, a dark black hole scarring the rocky outcrop hid a secret cueva.
Normally scaling up, she only reached here and there for support. Today though, she reached out every few steps. The horror of the past day made her weak and helpless. And the pain in her hands sapped the last threads of vigour she had left.
At the cueva entrance, María had to rest for a moment to catch her breath. Whenever she came to collect rizado and explore the grotto, she passed the sharp rocks along the walls and ceiling. Yet now, the tunnel leading into the hidden cave looked as though it bared its jagged teeth, forbidding anyone to enter. Normally, the damp sour smell of earth didn’t trouble her, but today it made her retch.
From inside the cave, with a ceiling three times the height of her cottage, she could look out at the rizado pond below. Beyond, the wooded copse kept the grotto hidden. Inside, at one end of the grotto, water plunged into a huge pool. Here, María could dive into water that shone as blue as the sky.
In the middle, the cave’s roof opened up, like clouds parting to let the sun through. On the far side, the pool descended into another lower cave in the depths of the earth.
Climbing deeper into the back of the cave, María searched for her hiding place. On some rocks, skinny figures brandishing spears, chased a group of umber buck across the rocky wall. The yellow ochre buck leapt into the air, escaping from a shower of arrows. María spotted her beloved painting on the rock and went straight to it.
Her usual hiding place for her secrets.
150
Kelby explained everything that had happened to her and Roy. It took only minutes to get the bare facts out. She finished with a plea. ‘Please help me to find Annie.’
‘Of course. Look, there’s no signal in here so I’ll go and call the police. Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.’ He shut the door on his way out.
Adrenaline raced through Kelby like electricity. She had an odd feeling she’d been trapped on the wrong side of the door. She stood in the office, trying to decide if she should bolt around the clinic to find Annie or wait for Jon to return.
Kelby spotted a tray with a bottle of water and realised how dry her mouth was. Her shoes clomped on the tiled floor as she loped across.
She grabbed the bottle and squeezed the lid. It remained clenched shut. She stuck the bottle cap in her mouth and tried to turn it with her back teeth. It still wouldn’t budge. Looking around for something sharp
to stick under the plastic lid, she spotted a letter opener inside the briefcase lid.
She lifted a decorative emblem of an angel out of the sheath. In its centre a ruby gleamed. Kelby spotted a magnifying glass beside it with the same angelic decoration. Strangely, the magnifying glass bore the same sharp end as the letter opener. Using the blade on the other end to prize off the lid, Kelby grimaced as the blade sliced right through the plastic.
‘Phew, that’s sharp.’ Kelby gulped the water, and replaced the blade, being careful not to cut her finger.
Agitated, Kelby paced the room. She couldn’t wait around for Jon to call the cops. She needed to find Annie. Fast and before Punch-bag’s conspirators found her.
Suddenly her phone beeped a few times. Signal at last. She watched as a rush of messages came flooding in. The last one was from someone called Gabrielle Abelli. The preview read:
I am Teresina Piccoli’s solicitor
Kelby opened the email and scanned it:
I spoke to her before her accident. As her solicitor, I wouldn’t do what I am about to do, but I was also her friend. In the last hours of her life Teresina was afraid. She asked me to send this unsent letter to you if anything happened to her. I am bound by law not to divulge my client’s confidentiality, but maybe you can help me find out what happened to her. Someone killed her. I can stake my life on that! And I think it could be the man in this letter.
Kelby tapped on the attachment and read the letter. It was addressed to Jon Barker Thompson. Kelby flicked on the desk lamp to read the tiny writing on her phone. The fluorescent tube lit the windowless room, casting shadows into the corners.
My name is Gabrielle Abelli. I am Teresina Piccoli’s solicitor. You are named as the father on Majella’s birth certificate.
‘What?!’ Kelby gasped, ‘Majella is Jon’s daughter!’ She tried to recall if Jon had ever mentioned being that close to Teresina. Did Jon know about this?
She thought of Teresina’s call only hours before she died. For the hundredth time, a pang of guilt shot through her, and she regretted not accepting the call. Maybe that could have saved Teresina’s life.
Could Jon have killed Teresina? But why? Kelby swallowed the lump in her throat and read the email again.
Someone killed her. I can stake my life on that! And I think it could be the man in this letter.
Then, another thought struck her like a lightning bolt striking a tree: Jon killed his own daughter. In killing Teresina he had taken his own child’s life. He had known Majella was in the car with Teresina that day. If he could kill his own daughter, he’d kill Annie without flinching.
The door handle turned and Kelby’s eyes flicked up. The man who had killed Teresina was about to enter.
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The first time she had seen the painting of the huge charging bull, his head down and horns ready to attack, María had stared at it for hours, dreaming up scenarios for her stories. When she had run her fingers along his powerful chest, coloured in a lively burnt brown, and around his twisted horns of white chalk, she had discovered a hollow alcove.
Since then, she had used it as a hiding place for keeping secrets even Madre did not know. ‘Take care of my notes, el Toro.’ she whispered.
With careful movements María squeezed the rizado notes, still curled in the calf skin, into the hole. For now, rizado would be safe beside her Spanish bull. When Queen Isabella had forgotten about her, and the soldiers no longer hunted for Ana-María de Carbonela, she would return to find her notes. Right now, it held too many dangers for her to carry it with her. Turning back, she glanced at the rock wall. The bull stood proud, his head turned slightly as if he watched her every move.
Back beside the grotto’s pond, María slumped and used her burnt fingertips to pluck rizado off the rocks. The only way to crush the curly, mossy
herb was between her singed palms. Glancing around, she found a thick twig and lifted it, placing it between her teeth.
With clumps of sticky rizado resting on her palms, she ground the mossy herb between her hands. The rubbing made them bleed again. Biting hard on the twig, María kept crushing the herb into her wounds. Spasms of agony clawed up her arms. Within seconds, her whole body trembled. Her breathing leapt around in her chest like a frog chasing an insect.
When she could take no more, María fell back against the damp grass and shrieked in pain. ‘Dios, why, why, why?’
María had always been a good Catholic girl, believing God would do the right thing. God, would never — should never — want to hurt her innocent mother. Something had gone wrong, but now she had no time to question her faith. It had perished along with the use of her hands.
Her hands needed healing so María could rescue Madre before the soldiers returned.
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Barker had been obsessed with two women for so long. Like Teresina, Kelby was a devil when she was angry or upset. Her constant rejection only made him want her more. Almost the same as when he’d first met the Italian she-devil.
Having Kelby think he was one of the good guys, he loved. Having his plans go awry, he hated.
He couldn’t let anyone know he was linked to rizado; yet he had to warn Willow. If Kelby found the flaky bastard, he would probably panic and reveal all. Not only that, Willow would have to lock down Homerton Hall. If she reported what had happened in Willow’s lab, hell would break loose. MG couldn’t afford to have the cops snooping around. Neither could he.
His throat dried from his rushed breathing. He had to calm down. He had come too far to let a snag get in his way. The evidence could easily disappear and no-one would find out the truth. If matters took a turn for the worst, MG would take a hit, not him. Although, it would take years to pin anything on them; Gordo had covered his tracks better than a bushman hunter. Besides, Kelby thought Olaf was the stalker. Best he leave it that way, especially if the thug was dead.
