The Omega Children - The Return of the Marauders - Book 1

by Shane A. Mason

  ‘Focus! How do we get into the attic?’ Melaleuca said.

  ‘We could try that.’ Ari pointed up.

  A rope hung down from a trapdoor in the ceiling, right in front of them. Ari pulled it and nothing happened. He tugged it harder - still nothing. He gripped the rope with all his might and yanked hard. The others cringed with expectation and a small creaking noise started in the ceiling above them.

  Melaleuca lay on her belly and crawled to the edge of the Grand Ascension Stairs and peered down to the bottom watching for Aunty Gertrude.

  Quixote tapped his foot. The attic and its secrets lay just moments away, the great revealing of their secret purpose, perhaps super powers, perhaps.......He jumped with all his might, soaring through the air and latched onto the rope adding his weight to Ari’s. The ceiling creaked louder and then with a crashing sound the trapdoor gave way, opening with such force that the boys flew through the air. The trapdoor swung back and smacked hard against the ceiling. A loud noise echoed throughout the empty space of the Cathedral-Mansion’s Grand Hall and bounced back and forth until it petered out like a far away dying echo.

  Melaleuca held her breath. This time for sure, Aunty Gertrude would beat the living daylights out of them or worse, borstallise them. The silent moments after became an eternity as she waited for their Aunt’s appearance, or for that matter, anyone’s appearance. No one showed and nothing moved, and as the realisation sunk in that the noise had gone unnoticed, she started to breath. An excited intense alertness grew inside her.

  The ceiling shook and rumbled, and a ladder fell rapidly out of the trapdoor, sounding as loud as a hundred chairs bashing together. Again the noise filled up the vast Grand Hall, and again it died away to a faint echo.

  ‘RUN UP THE LADDER,’ Melaleuca cried out.

  As if chased them, they all tore up the ladder into the dark attic.

  ‘Hurry, shut it behind us,’ Melaleuca said.

  Ari heaved the ladder up and reached for the trapdoor and with surprising ease swung it upwards, and it clicked into place. Melaleuca listened for the charge of Aunty Gertrude. From somewhere below, small footsteps clip-clopped around and a faint voice cried out for Uncle Bear-Nard but never got any louder.

  Melaleuca rolled onto her back.

  ‘Whew! So much for sneaking.’

  Her heart beat slowed and her breathing settled. Expectant of the very source of what drove the maddening notes on, she peered into the darkness along with the others. Small crevices of light and tiny holes of weak sunshine peered down from the roof into another capacious empty space - of nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  Totally bewildered and feeling let down, Quixote took off at a trot, gamboling across the attic in search of something, anything that might be what the note meant for them to find. An excited Quixote imagined all the things he might find, and thinking he saw objects that were not there, dashed in this direction and in that direction.

  ‘Spread out and start looking,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Lex. Stay by the trapdoor, on guard.’

  Melaleuca and Ari headed in the opposite direction to Quixote though soon branched apart as the attic floor turned left and right. Melaleuca searched further and further turning this way and that way, finding dust, spiders, old cobwebs, more dust, but nothing else. Every corner she turned just delivered more emptiness.

  Lexington sat by the trapdoor staring into the emptiness for quite some time. Unnerved at being alone, she wondered what kept her cousins so long. Obviously nothing was up here - another reason why her logic and finding the correct hyper-thesis should be taken seriously. She thought about the word “serious” and how they were instructed to carry on playing. Perhaps she could convince the others to use her hyper-thesis for some sort of “serious play.”

  The emptiness started stirring around her, bringing life to the silent attic. The wind skimmed over the roof, birds ambled along the shingles and unseen rodents scurried along the floor, and every now and then she heard a gnawing noise. A shape formed in the darkness a small distance away from her. It shimmered and flashed off patterns similar to the creature she had seen and then died away, racing off in a blur. With curious caution she shuffled toward it - stopping when she hit a brick wall. Maybe she was just seeing things again, or maybe it was connected to the strange effects of light in this land.

  Whichever, it resembled nothing like the hyper-thesis she had announced was the right one. Nothing in her reading of ancient Europe or the Middle Ages looked like this. She ran her hands over the wall and checked for secret doors and instead discovered a two foot high wall hidden by the lack of light where the roof sloped down and met the floor. Inspecting it revealed gaps all along, until she realised they were crenellations - the sort found on the top of castles where archers could hide behind while fending off attackers. The gaps extended downwards, below the level of the floor.

  Why would they build them under the roof?

  Melaleuca returned to the trapdoor having found nothing.

  ‘Lex? Where are you?’

  ‘Over here. Come look what I have found,’ Lexington said.

  Melaleuca shuffled over and Ari and Quixote arrived back, both a little downbeat.

  ‘We found nothing,’ they said half in unison.

  ‘Neither did I,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Lexington has.’

  They crowded around Lexington as she showed them her find. Quixote screwed his face up at the castle wall.

  ‘Is that it? That’s what the note wanted us to find?’

  ‘I can’t imagine so,’ Lexington replied. ‘But maybe it is a big piece in the puzzle. I mean, why would anyone construct a building of this size and then make castle embattlements and hide them under a roof?’

  Quixote mock yawned at her.

  ‘Maybe because it was a castle first.’

  ‘Ohmygosh,’ Lexington said with a start, ignoring his jibe. ‘You could be right! Ohmygosh! Then that would make the stairs the steps up to the castle.’ In the gray light she looked confused. ‘But wait, that does not make sense. Who would build a castle and put a flight of steps up to the top of the wall.’

  Quixote tried to fit his head down the gap.

  ‘Maybe some invaders did and then just left them and then they built over top…..but where do the bracelets fit in?’

  Lexington’s eyes even in the dull light reflected back intellectual hurt.

  ‘I don’t know...but the bracelets really should be central to...our...well......any hyper-thesis should be based on the bracelets...hmm...oh bother......nothing fits.’ She stopped and glared at Melaleuca. ‘This still proves my point. We don’t know anything. We need to collate all we know and try and make sense of it.’

  ‘I see,’ Melaleuca said.

  A deep feeling beset Melaleuca that some major clue had been missed, that something obvious sat right under their noses. But that, she conceded was a job for Lexington’s brain, Ari’s exploration skills, and Quixote’s...? Hmmm, his what exactly?

  ‘I could throw some more stones and see what happens,’ Quixote said

  Oh yes, Quixote’s reckless abandon at overturning everything he touches.

  ‘Let’s return to our rooms,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Something will turn up. Of that, I have no doubt.’

  ‘I found a set of stairs going down,’ Ari said. ‘It did not seem what the note referred to so I didn’t mention it.’

  Minutes later they tromped down them, abruptly stopping at a wall in the dark.

  Ari pushed and it budged only a few inches.

  ‘What if it’s boarded up because it leads somewhere it shouldn’t,’ Lexington said.

  ‘Let’s all push then,’ Melaleuca said. ‘It can’t be worse than where we came in.’

  With a massive heave the wall gave way, tearing the wallpaper that had been plastered across it. Spilling out, they stood once again on the fifth floor.

  ***

  That night as they slept Melaleuca tossed and turned, her thoughts churnin
g and churning. Several times she woke up only to find herself thinking about the attic. Out of all the objects and discoveries they had made so far, the empty attic bugged her the most. The last time she woke up Melaleuca sat bolt upright and hugged her knees to her chest, waking Lexington as she did so.

  ‘Mel?’ Lexington said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘We missed something in the attic. I don’t know what but I feel it.’ She gave Lexington a serious stare. ‘I have the feeling, now your brains are needed. Ari cannot pull the whole thing apart and well, Quixote could explore forever and maybe find it by accident.’

  Lexington did not know what to say. Did Melaleuca mean it was now up to her to solve it? Was she actually awake or was she talking in her sleep?

  Melaleuca exhaled a sleepy breath and lay down. ‘In the morning we shall go back up there.’

  With such words Lexington lay awake - the burden to solve it now sitting square on her shoulders. She grabbed the torch, switched it on and the light failed. She shook it though no more light came out. Candle and matches in hand, she slipped out and soon stood in the empty attic, eyeing the walls and the roof in the poor candlelight.

  She wandered around at a slow pace turning corners, feeling vulnerable and remembering how easily scared she got. Like the others before, she traced a confusing path around the empty attic. A few windows jutted out of the roof but showed nothing extraordinary. Out of them she could see below. In front of the Cathedral-Mansion large pots containing fire steadily burnt away, and in the distance she could make out lights in the small town. Curious about both she reminded herself she had until morning to solve this.

  She walked back to where she had started, disappointed. She had only found what the others had found - emptiness. But what if the emptiness is what they were supposed to find? It dawned on her that if the Cathedral-Mansion was hundreds of years old, then the likely hood of the attic being empty was surely slim. What if all the statues and paintings spread along the fifth floor which appeared to be put there in haste, had once been up here? But why take things out of the attic to hide them below in an area that is not hidden?

  Thoughts, ideas, that’s all I have - she chastised herself - nothing concrete.

  She had so wanted to work this out by herself without the help of anyone, even if just to prove that logic and her hypotheses could be useful. She knelt and in the dust on the floor wrote with her finger, Why?

  ‘About TIME!!!!’

  ‘Well, help me’

  ‘You had the answer! It stared at you right in the face.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You saw it. Where did it go, the creature.’

  ‘It went nowhere. Vanished.’

  ‘Vanished into what?’

  ‘Thin air.’

  Her inner voice made a noise that sounded like it was miffed.

  ‘Go back to the window and look out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  She hurried back and stood staring out the window into the night.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘To your left you see the building. To your right you see the building. But look, you cannot walk as far as the building goes to the right.’

  ‘Ohmygosh the brick wall!’

  She rushed so fast to the brick wall that her candle blew out. She traced her hands along it and the rough brick scraped her palms. Perhaps it hid a trick door and all she needed to do was touch a certain brick and it would pop open.

  She groped along it in the dark, the minutes ticking by until her inner voice finally said, ‘I think you have to get one of the others to help.’

  She stiffened a little.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. You found the brick wall, didn’t you?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘I am you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Kneeling, she scrawled, That’s why, on the floor and her inner voice went quiet. Sadly she knew it was right. She needed the others.

  She snuck into the boys’ room and without waking Quixote convinced Ari to go to the attic, and soon they stood by the window peering out at the side of the attic they could not get to.

  ‘I think we have to climb out on the roof,’ Ari said. ‘Either that or break the brick wall down.’

  Scuffling footsteps sounded behind them and then stopped.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Lexington called out.

  ‘Shh,’ Ari said pushing her behind his back. ‘We don’t know who it is. Stay here and I will check it out.’

  He surged forward trying to keep as much to the side as possible and made his way toward the direction he had heard the noise come from.

  ***

  Quixote heard Lexington’s voice though pretended to be asleep. With stealth he followed after them. When he heard the words, ‘Break the wall down,’ he decided he would break it down. With no thought for the noise he would make, he ran off, his feet clattering along the attic floor.

  He heard Lexington cry out but ignored it, bounding down the stairs, making his way back to his room, and absconding off again with a candle in his hand. He worked his way down to the ground floor and then ran outside.

  ***

  Ari returned to Lexington.

  ‘No one is there. Let’s go back and get Melaleuca.’

  ‘Let her sleep. Wake her when we find out what’s behind it.’

  ‘Lex. It does not matter who gets in first. You have done it. Worked it out.’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll know for sure when I get through it.’

  Unconvinced Ari nudged her arm. ‘Come on, she’ll be happy.’

  Lexington reached out, unclipped the window, opened it and the cool night air rushed in.

  ‘I’ll go myself.’

  Struggling, she pulled herself up. Perching on the sill, she wobbled back and forth.

  ‘Fine. Wait there,’ Ari said. ‘I’ll help.’

  Together they climbed out of the window, hoisted themselves up onto the roof, and sat on the rough stone slates. A cool clamminess hung in the air and a haze of thin fog clung to the rooftops like a mysterious cloud. A fuzzy moon overhead, threw what little light it could muster through the mysterious barrier in the sky, bathing them and their surrounds in an eerie light. Towers jutted up here and there, some dark and foreboding, some silhouetted, and others large and looming. Out in front of them where the roof ended, the ground appeared metres below, and the front lawn and the weird trees lapped up the flickering light from the lit pots on the front steps.

  Ari scrambled up to the apex of the roof and stared out over the labyrinth of rooftops. Many hard-angled ridges formed slated valleys amongst the rising and dipping structures that spread out amongst the towers and turrets.

  ‘Lex come look at this.’

  ‘Ummmm...’

  Lexington clung to the roof unsure of moving. Perhaps coming out here had not been the best idea.

  Ari slid back down.

  ‘Is it the height?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You were okay in the trees at home.’

  ‘I know. This just feels different.’

  ‘Take my hand. I will help you up to the top and there we can move along and see what we can find.’

  Hand in hand Ari helped Lexington up to the ridge of the roof and they moved along until Lexington felt confident they had passed into the area beyond the brick wall. It stretched for over a hundred metres beyond where she sat, and off that were more wings in the distance - a fact that made Lexington extra confident she had found what the note had told them to find. All she needed now was a way in. Lexington and Ari slid up and down the roof searching and searching. An hour past and they reached the end of the roof having found nothing. Lexington insisted they check again.

  ‘Lexington. I think you are right but I say we go back and get the others. This is going to have to be teamwork.’

  ‘Okay. Okay. Okay. We go back. I will wait in the attic. You go get the others.’

  While he got the others, she would a
ctivate her inner voice as a last chance of finding a way in.

  She headed back, Ari following behind her. The morning sun peeked over the horizon miles away, and a far away sound thumped below them, sending vibrations through the roof. It got louder and louder as they approached the window. They dropped into the attic and the distinctive sound of a hammer smashing on a brick wall echoed throughout the attic.

  Fuming she spun around to face Ari. Before speaking she saw that he, like her, knew who and what probably caused it. Together they ran back as fast as they could to the brick wall.

  Quixote stood there in faint candle light, mallet in hand, knee deep in a pile of rubble and bricks - powdered mortar covering him. Dotted along the wall in the faded shadows, many small holes had been bashed except for one massive gapping gap.

  ‘Look,’ Quixote said beaming. ‘A door.’

  Quixote grasped the candle and held it up to the hole.

  Chapter 14 – What are these?

  ‘Get Melaleuca,’ Ari said to Quixote unimpressed.

  Quixote hesitated and eyed Lexington.

  ‘Go Quixote,’ she said peeved. ‘We will wait until you get back before entering.’

  Quixote tore off at top speed, returning faster than they thought possible with Melaleuca racing behind him. Puffing, she stared through the broken-down brick wall at the door.

  ‘Well done. Who...who...found it?’ Melaleuca asked catching her breath.

  Both Quixote and Lexington said, ‘I did.’

  Before a fight started Ari stepped between them and explained how the discovery had been made.

  ‘Alright,’ Melaleuca said dismissing any claims to first discovery, ‘let’s look inside.’

  She stepped over the bricks and reached out, grabbing a rope hanging out of the wooden door. She pulled it down and the door gave a little, opening a few inches.

  ‘Here goes,’ Melaleuca whispered.

  She pushed on the door. It resisted her. She pushed again harder and it budged a little.

  ‘Ari.’

  He placed his beefy shoulders into the door and heaved forward with all his might. The door fell open with the sound of dry wood scraping across dry wood. Another dark room lay before them.

  ‘Walk in carefully,’ Melaleuca said to Ari.