Darwen looked at the others.
“Would save us some time.” Alex shrugged. Rich considered the long road snaking through the darkened fields and nodded.
Darwen, relieved, smiled, not so much at not having to walk, but at the idea that someone was helping them. Lately it had started to feel like the world was conspiring against them, when all they’d wanted to do was rescue Mr. Peregrine. He climbed up and into the front, belting himself in as Rich and Alex got in the back.
“Blodwyn Evans,” said the woman, offering him a large pink hand.
“Darwen Arkwright,” said Darwen, shaking it.
“Hello,” said Rich from the back. “Thanks for the ride.”
“It’s no problem,” said the woman. “It’s on my way, near enough. Mind if I drop something off en route? I’ll still get you to the station in time.”
“That’s fine,” said Darwen. “Thanks.”
“So, Blodwyn, eh?” said Alex. “Interesting name.”
Darwen turned and gave her a warning look, but the woman seemed unoffended.
“Shows my age, doesn’t it?” she said. “Not many little Blodwyns around these days.”
Before Alex could say anything else, Blodwyn’s radio crackled and she snatched it from under her seat.
“Ie,” she said, “fi wedi eu gyda mi yn awr.”
“Welsh, I take it,” said Alex.
“Yep,” said Darwen.
“Another European language you don’t speak, even though you were born, like, a hundred miles away.”
“Less,” said Darwen, unoffended.
He gazed out of the window at the moonlit hedges and fields as they flashed by. Once away from the coast, they moved quickly through a little town that merged into a bigger one with an industrial-looking port and a major railway station, and then they were on ever-narrowing country lanes, sometimes barely wide enough for a single car.
“What happens if something comes in the other direction?” asked Rich.
Blodwyn, who had finished on the radio, grinned. “We all take a deep breath,” she said, “and hope for the best.”
They paused once to navigate a bus that squeezed implausibly past them, the hedges rattling the passenger-side windows, until, just outside Menai Bridge, they reached a deserted gravel parking lot off a winding country road and came to a stop.
Blodwyn got out, leaving the keys in the ignition and snapping on a large, rubber-clad flashlight.
“So these errands you had to run . . . ?” Darwen began as they climbed out of the car. There were no houses or shops to be seen, no streetlamps, nothing around them but fields and stands of trees divided by dry stone walls. The road they had come in on was deserted, and the only eyes watching them belonged to shadowy cows, gray in the moonlight.
“Have to check on the cattle,” said Blodwyn, crossing the road and making for a narrow footpath.
Darwen glanced at Rich, who just shrugged back.
“Checking on the cattle,” said Alex. “Rich, you ought to be right at home.”
“We never kept cows,” said Rich. “Too much work.”
They walked for a while in silence, following Blodwyn, watched by the bright, glassy gaze of the cattle, which stood chewing thoughtfully by the fence. Alex moved away from them.
“Scared of cows?” asked Rich.
“Things are big, man,” said Alex. “Never really been up close to them before.”
“Nearly there,” said Blodwyn, taking a left on a plank bridge over a little stream.
It was beautiful, this countryside, and it reminded Darwen of the fields and walls and hedges that surrounded the little town he’d come from. Seeing it at night, though, was eerie. Is that why you feel something isn’t right? he asked himself.
“That sign back there,” said Rich. “Said Bryn Celli something. What’s that?”
“Bryn Celli Ddu,” said Blodwyn without turning around. “It’s a Neolithic burial mound. You’ll see it in a moment.”
Rich’s face lit up, but Darwen felt his footsteps slowing. He was sure. This wasn’t right.
“You know,” he said, “I really think we should be getting back. I don’t want to miss that train.”
“Nearly there now,” said Blodwyn, still not turning, not slowing. “Just round this corner.”
As they came around the next bend, they saw a little metal gate and beyond it—unearthly in the moonlight—a miniature dome-shaped hill covered in green turf, around which was a ditch and a series of irregular standing stones.
“Oh, yes!” said Rich. “Can we go in?”
“Certainly,” said Blodwyn.
Rich jogged across the ditch toward the grassy dome. “Cool,” he called back. “There’s a passageway into the hill. It’s a tomb!” He stood, pointing happily inside the dark interior, the door to which was braced with large slabs of stone.
“Wait,” said Darwen. “Rich! Stop.” He waited till the other boy turned to face him, then said in a low, serious voice, “That’s a portal.”
“Darwen!” gasped Alex, flashing a glance at Blodwyn before hissing, “She’ll hear.”
“She already knows,” said Darwen. “Don’t you?”
Blodwyn had been standing quite still with her back to him, but now she turned very slowly and her broad, friendly smile was gone. In its place was something more cautious, puzzled, as she found him with her flashlight’s beam. “Now,” she said, “how on earth do you know that?”
Darwen just looked at her, conscious that Rich and Alex were exchanging panicked glances. Blodwyn held his eyes for a long moment, then said, “You’re right. It’s a portal, but how did you know? Mirroculists can’t sense them.”
“I can just tell sometimes,” said Darwen. “Just recently. I don’t know why. So who are you really?”
A version of the woman’s smile came back on, and she looked quite harmless, even as Rich and Alex drew closer to him, as if bracing themselves to fight.
“I am Blodwyn Evans, like I said,” she answered. “Really and truly. And you, Darwen Arkwright, are looking for an old friend of mine, Mr. Octavius Peregrine.”
“You’re a gatekeeper, like he was,” said Rich, his eyes sparkling with excitement at the realization.
“And still working for the Guardians,” said Alex.
“Right and correct both times,” said Blodwyn. “I’m sorry about the cloak-and-dagger routine, but I needed to be sure you were who I thought you were. I’ve had a few thoughts of my own that I want to talk to you about. About something bad from long ago that needs stopping.”
“We have come to find Mr. Peregrine,” said Darwen. “We need to get to Conwy.”
“Well,” said Blodwyn, “I think your task and mine might be related. Solving one mystery might well solve both, if you know what I mean. But you’ll need to know what to do, so I’ve asked for someone from the council to have a word with you. I’m not sure who the Guardians will send, but they should be here any minute, so have a seat. Won’t take but a minute.”
They sat cautiously, eyeing one another, finding spots on the turf and the lower standing stones. Blodwyn paused, then resumed her narrative.
“See, long ago, the Guardians had a problem. Running Silbrica took work, and I don’t just mean mental work, I mean the kind of work that took muscle. Now the Guardians themselves are thinker types as you have probably noticed, so . . .” She paused, considering the burial mound. “Told you they wouldn’t keep you waiting. Here they are now, look you.”
There was a pulse of bluish light from inside the tomb, bright as the glare of the lighthouse in the night, and before it faded completely, Darwen could just make out the silhouette of a man-sized figure with a strangely distorted head.
He first thought it was a scrobbler, but then it stepped out into the moonlight, and Darwen could see that it was not as big as a scrobbler. He—if
it was a man—was wearing a long coat and something over his face, something Darwen found awfully familiar.
It was a gas mask, and it was exactly the same as that worn by the man he had seen in a newspaper photograph of a small green Fiat. . . .
No. It couldn’t be.
The mask had green lenses that covered the wearer’s eyes and a miniature flashlight attached to the side so that he directed a hard, bluish beam of light wherever he looked. Something in his hand was smoking, producing a thick green fog that billowed around him.
For a moment there was silence, then Blodwyn took a cautious step forward. “You?” she said, aghast. “What are you doing here? They’re just kids!”
The figure turned his ugly glass-and-rubber face toward her and pressed a button on the smoking device in his left hand. Blodwyn’s flashlight bulb popped and went out. As the darkness thickened, the man drew something from his right-hand pocket. It looked like an old flintlock pistol, but the long barrel was surrounded by a basketlike metal mesh. Blodwyn turned back to face him, her face now wild with panic and dread.
“Run!” she shouted.
Rich didn’t need to be told twice. He stumbled backward, eyes on the figure in the mask. Darwen, meanwhile, just stared, horrified.
Before Blodwyn could say more, the odd-looking pistol in the man’s hand flashed once with a sudden whooshing sound that sent crows crying from the trees nearby. Something struck her, and her body flickered with electricity.
Blodwyn’s face tightened, and she dropped to the grass.
For a second, nothing happened. The three children just stared at the woman where she lay.
“He shot her,” gasped Alex, numb with shock. “He just shot her.”
Then the masked man stepped clear of the dispersing gas cloud and the full horror of the situation hit Darwen with almost as much force as what had happened to Blodwyn.
There could be no doubt. He knew that mask. It was the man who had been driving behind his parents on the day of their accident.
Which meant . . .
Terrible things. Awful things that turned the world upside down. Greyling had been hunting him for years. And now his agent would finally kill them all.
Chapter Twenty-three
Driving Lessons
Darwen took a step toward Blodwyn, who lay motionless, but his eyes slid onto that blank, gas-masked face as its owner came striding toward them, mechanically resetting his weapon and raising it to fire.
They had to get out of here. Darwen grabbed Alex by the shoulders and started to run. He wanted to say something but could find no words, so he just dragged her after him, praying that Rich would follow.
They sprinted back the way they had come. Darwen heard the gun fire twice, heard the shrill fizz of electricity flashing off the stone wall to his right, and he ran harder, faster, his heart racing, his eyes wide and streaming.
But to where?
He checked over his shoulder once and was relieved to see Rich lumbering only a few yards behind as Alex streaked past both of them. Greyling’s masked henchman was walking purposefully through the night. The gun was down by his side and he carried a briefcase in the other hand. He was coming after them, but his manner, though purposeful, was slow and assured. He wasn’t going to waste energy shooting at this range, but he was absolutely confident that he would get them.
“Where do we go?” Darwen shouted as they left the cow pasture behind and reached the empty road. The man in the gas mask was still following.
“Car,” Alex called back.
“What?” Darwen returned, panting. “What good does that do us? We can’t drive.”
“Rich can,” said Alex, crossing into the parking lot. “Keys are still in it.”
“You can drive this?” Darwen gasped, staring at Rich as he reached them, pink and scared-looking.
“No!” he answered. “Of course not.”
“It’s a stick shift,” said Alex, throwing open the driver’s door, then stepping aside. “Pretend it’s a tractor or a ride-on lawn mower.”
Darwen looked at Rich, whose eyes were flashing over the car’s controls uncertainly.
“I could try,” he said.
Darwen looked back over the road. The man in the gas mask was less than a hundred yards away. “Try,” he said.
“Belt yourselves in,” said Rich, climbing into the driver’s seat. “Okay, so the gearshift is here—”
“Quick,” said Darwen.
Greyling’s agent had reached the gate.
“Clutch,” he muttered. “Where’s the clutch? Maybe this.” Rich turned the key and the engine caught.
“GO!” shouted Alex from the back.
The man in the gas mask was crossing the road, his gun hand rising.
And then, suddenly, it wasn’t. There was the blare of a horn and he stepped back as a car shot past in a blaze of headlights.
Rich shifted gears, grinding them, then twisted in his seat to look backward. The car shot forward, hitting the stone wall with a dull crunch.
“Reverse!” shouted Alex.
“Trying,” he answered, pushing the gearshift and sending the car shooting backward, kicking up a cloud of dust and gravel. He swung the Land Rover around as it moved till they were facing the exit to the parking lot, an exit now dominated by the masked man and the business end of his weapon.
“Get down!” shouted Darwen.
The electric flintlock flashed and the windshield was suddenly a maze of cracks with two holes in the center, around which blue energy flickered briefly like lightning.
Rich slammed his foot down and the car rocketed forward. The man in the gas mask held his ground for one more shot, then leapt sideways as the Land Rover missed him by inches, slewed across the road, and sped back toward Menai Bridge with a scrape of gears.
“Everyone okay?” asked Rich, whose face and voice had both taken on a grim calm.
“Yes,” said Darwen.
“Never better,” said Alex. “Nice job.”
“It’s actually not that hard,” said Rich, just as a bus came speeding around the corner and right at them.
“Drive on the left!” shouted Darwen.
Rich twisted the steering wheel hard and the Land Rover swerved across the road till it brushed the hedges. The bus blared its horn, but they stayed on the road. “Okay,” said Rich. “Not so bad.”
“And put your lights on,” said Alex.
“Find them for me,” he said.
Darwen reached over and messed with the controls. The radio crackled and the wipers leapt into action, but he eventually found the headlights.
“I can do this,” said Rich. “But no one talk to me for a while.”
That was fine with Darwen. There was too much to say and not enough words in the world to say it. But the silence lasted only a couple of minutes.
“Blodwyn . . .” said Alex, her voice taut.
“I know,” said Darwen.
“It was so casual,” she said. “So ordinary.”
“I know,” said Darwen again.
“She saved us,” said Rich, not taking his eyes off the road. “She didn’t know she was leading us into a trap and, when it counted, she chose to save us.”
Darwen just nodded.
“How did you know it was a portal?” asked Alex.
Darwen shrugged.
“It was a guess, right, Darwen?” said Rich, shooting him a quick sideways look. “Because it was an ancient place, like the ring of cedars at Hillside, somewhere people have associated with mystical power for a long time, yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Darwen, avoiding his eyes. “That must have been it.”
Alex didn’t let him out of her gaze. “That’s not it, though, is it?” she said.
Darwen hesitated, then shook his head slowly. “Partly, perhaps,�
�� he said. “But not really, no. I can’t explain it. I just felt it was a portal. I don’t mean that I had some sort of mystical experience or something. It was more like . . . I don’t know, like a smell.”
“It smelled like a portal?” Alex repeated. She didn’t sound skeptical or mocking so much as concerned, like she was trying to clarify something that bothered her.
“It wasn’t actually a smell, no,” said Darwen, struggling to find the words. “But it was that kind of feeling. An ordinary sensation, like touching something, or seeing. I could just tell.”
Alex continued to watch him thoughtfully, and then she nodded, accepting his answer. She said no more, though Darwen glanced at her in the rearview mirror and thought she looked troubled.
“How long before we get pulled over by the police?” Darwen wondered aloud. “Think we can make it to Conwy?”
“We should be okay,” Alex remarked. “Good thing Rich is twice the size of every other sixth grader in the world.”
“Good thing it’s dark,” Rich added. “Still . . . Conwy,” he mused, shifting. Darwen saw that his friend’s knuckles on the steering wheel were white though the speedometer read only thirty miles an hour. “That’s like a big town, right? I’m just about managing to keep us on the road. Not ready to handle a city or serious traffic. I really wish Eileen were here.”
“It’s late,” said Alex. “Traffic shouldn’t be too bad. But the guy in the mask is bound to be coming after us. Can we go faster?”
“Not if you want to get there alive,” said Rich.
“Slow it is,” said Alex. “You got a map up there, Darwen?”
Darwen wasn’t listening. He was staring out of the window at the hedges flashing by, nothing in his mind but the newspaper article about his parents’ death, and the photograph of the masked man sitting in the driver’s seat, moments after he had done the job for which Greyling had employed him.
Had Greyling thought Darwen was in that car? Had it been an attack on the kid who was to be the next mirroculist? An attempt to wipe him out of the wars to come before he even developed his gift? If that was the case, then Darwen’s parents had been killed for him. It was his fault.
Darwen Arkwright and the School of Shadows Page 19
