The Missing

by Garth Nix

  ++Open the way! Open the way!++

  Susan reached out, gripped the leech firmly between her fingers, and yanked it from her daughter’s face. Grabbing a wooden oar from an elephant-foot hatstand at the base of the stairs, Susan swung it like a club, knocking leeches out of the air and squishing them before they could reach her. Tara found something that looked like a squat baseball bat and did the same. Kyle pulled a wooden shield from the wall and hunkered down behind it, inching across the room to where Jack was grimly squashing leeches underfoot.

  ++Open the way! Open the way!++

  Jack pulled two leeches from his neck. Instantly, the voice in his head fell silent. A wind whipped up around them, and Grandma X called over her shoulder to Jaide, “Control your Gifts!”

  Grandma X was hunched over Stefano, who was rolling wildly on the floor, glowing leeches stuck to every exposed part of his body — his face, his hands, his back where his shirt had ridden up, his ankles. There were leeches on his eyes and ears, and his fingers scrabbled blindly to get a grip on their squishy bodies.

  “Get them off me!” he cried. “Get away from me! Leave me alone!”

  Sparks crackled from his hair and discharged into the wooden floorboards, leaving tiny scorch marks.

  “Stefano, listen to me!” Grandma X was shouting at him as she played the light of her moonstone ring over him. “You have to control yourself.”

  “I can’t — it wants me to —”

  Light from the ring played across his face. The leeches on his eyes curled up and dropped off, smoking. His eyelids flickered open. Terrible whiteness swirled across his pupils.

  ++The way … must be opened.++

  “It’s trying to trick you,” said Grandma X. “Fight it!”

  His eyes cleared. “I will! I will fight it!”

  Stefano raised his hands and electricity sparked between them. The leeches clinging to his palms burned instantly to ash. He cried out in triumph and the lightning sparked again, running all over his body and sending tendrils out across the room. Grandma X fell back, her hair smoking, and Jaide called out a warning.

  “Hey, be careful with that!”

  Stefano ignored her. He staggered to his feet, blasting leeches wherever he saw them, not caring who might be standing nearby. The sole of one of Jack’s shoes caught fire when he stomped on a leech Stefano had targeted. Jaide narrowly missed a bolt aimed at a clump hanging over her head.

  “Yes!” Stefano cried, his eyes turning milky again. ++Yes!++

  A particularly powerful bolt illuminated a section of the wall next to an old grandfather clock, which was chiming double time. The wall glowed, and a door the twins had never seen before appeared. The handle turned and the door blew open, revealing a room large enough to contain a plinth. On the plinth was something they immediately recognized — something long and brassy that was drawing every spark of lightning toward it.

  “Stefano, no!” Grandma X cried, levering herself upright with the help of a chair shaped like a dragon’s mouth. Her right hand came up, moonstone glowing.

  Stefano turned to her with arms outstretched and eyes almost fully white. He raised his hands. A tendril of yellow light swirled between him and Grandma X, a rush of energy shooting from her heart into his. The light of the moonstone flickered and went out, and a jagged bolt of lightning stabbed into the center of her chest. She flew backward, skidded across the ground, then lay on her side, completely still.

  The twins stared at Grandma X’s body in horror.

  “Is she dead?” asked Jack.

  “She can’t be dead,” Jaide touched Grandma X’s temple. Her skin felt warm and vital, but that didn’t mean anything. “She can’t be, Jack!”

  Suddenly Susan was beside her, reaching a hand down to take the old woman’s pulse.

  “She’s unconscious. I think she’ll be okay. But what are we going to do about him?”

  Jaide turned to where Stefano stood, now facing the cross-continuum conduit constructor. Her Gifts rose up inside her, even more angry and powerful than they had been when they had attacked Aleksandr. This time she would not lose control of them. This time she would let them attack.

  Stefano glanced at her with his Evil white eyes, and the corners of his mouth twitched in a smile. One hand pointed at her. Yellow energy flowed out of her, and all her strength drained with it. She hadn’t lost her Gifts, but they could manage no more than a slight breeze to ruffle his hair. She didn’t know what The Evil had done, but whatever it was, it was new and terrible.

  “Jack!” she called.

  Jack whipped around, and saw Stefano gloating over his powerless sister. Darkness swirled at his command and the earth quaked underfoot, but then Stefano turned his gaze to him and with a terrible wrench, all the power drained out of his body, just as it had drained out of Jaide’s.

  Into Stefano’s.

  ++Thank you,++ said The Evil. ++That is exactly what we needed.++

  He turned back to the cross-continuum conduit constructor and punched the air with both fists. A bolt of lightning leaped to the metal bar, and it was so thick and powerful that for a moment Jack’s sensitive eyes were blinded. All he could see was a jagged blue line across his vision. All he could smell was electricity. All he could think was: Why did The Evil want to destroy the cross-continuum conduit constructor?

  ++Yes!++ Stefano cried in The Evil’s terrible voice. ++Yes!++

  Then there was a sharp thud and a cry of pain. The lightning went out, and Jack, blinking, saw Stefano slumped on the floor, holding his head, and Tara standing over him with a wooden club in her hand. Kyle stood next to her, protecting her with his shield.

  “What happened?” Stefano said, blinking dazedly. “What am I doing?”

  “Just you stay where you are,” said Tara, hefting the club. “Zap anyone else and you’ll get it right between the eyes.”

  Kyle shoved him with the shield for emphasis. “Wood doesn’t conduct electricity, remember?”

  “All right, all right,” Stefano said, “but what did The Evil make me do?”

  “You took our Gifts!” said Jaide.

  “I’m sorry, but I didn’t mean to!”

  Jack looked around and wondered why the slugs had stopped attacking. There were still dozens of them on the loose, glowing and alien-looking, but apparently harmless now. He poked one with the toe of his still-smoldering shoe, and it didn’t react. Ari sniffed one and all it did was curl up into a ball.

  Jaide felt five tiny points of pain on her calf and looked down.

  It was Kleo; her tail was swishing in agitation.

  “Look at the Bridge, Jaide!”

  “The what?”

  Kleo pointed with one paw.

  The cross-continuum conduit constructor was shining bright orange. Whatever Stefano and The Evil had done to it, with the combined strength of Grandma X and the twins, it hadn’t been destroyed. It was shaking on its plinth as though trying to escape. And it was bending in a way that hurt Jaide’s eyes. Or perhaps it was the light that was bending. Jaide couldn’t tell. Either way, she didn’t think it was a good sign.

  “He turned it on,” she shouted over a rising hum emanating from the Bridge. “This must be the way The Evil was talking about. It wants to come through!”

  They crowded together outside the door to the secret room, Cornelia flapping down to land on Jack’s shoulder. The wooden frame was twisting into impossible curves, and the cross-continuum conduit constructor itself was now a brassy circle singing with golden light. In the center of the circle a vortex was forming. To Jack it felt like looking down the mouth of a hurricane. He braced himself and reached for his Gifts automatically, but they were still drained. He could only hope his strength returned in order to resist The Evil when it arrived.

  Something wasn’t quite right with the vortex, though. It swayed and rippled, and the whiteness at the end of the tunnel wasn’t getting any closer. Maybe it hadn’t had enough power from Stefano to fully open. Or maybe something w
as interfering with it. Either way, it didn’t look stable at all. And it was sucking rather than blowing, as it should have been if The Evil was about to come through.

  Deep in the heart of the vortex was a point of bright, white light.

  “Charlie!” called Cornelia. “Charlie!”

  The Evil wasn’t trying to invade, Jack realized. It wanted to drag them in.

  “Keep back,” called Susan, reaching for the twins and Kyle and Tara but not having enough hands to reel them all in. “Don’t get too close.”

  “We have to do something,” said Jaide, retreating to search the chaos of the blue room. Where was the Compendium? Perhaps there was something in there that could close the vortex. Already the wall was bending around the door, and a rising wind was pulling in dust bunnies and flakes of ash.

  Jack was looking worriedly at the cats. If the vortex got any stronger, they would be in trouble.

  “Ari, Kleo, get out of here,” he said. “We’ll deal with Grandma.”

  Kleo nodded, seeing the sense in it immediately, but Ari’s fur rose.

  “I’m not a coward,” he spat.

  “I know, and if you had hands instead of paws to help with the lifting, you could stay,” said Jack. “Wait for us outside. I’m going to try closing the door.”

  Ari bristled but obeyed, claws digging into the wood to stop him slipping.

  “What can I do?” asked Stefano.

  “Keep out of the way and don’t cause any more trouble!” Jack said.

  While Tara, Susan, and Kyle struggled with Grandma X’s unconscious body, Jack picked up the oar his mother had dropped. Inching along the wall, his hair whipping around his face, he reached out with the oar to touch the door. Using both hands, he poked the door with the oar and swung it out from the wall. When it reached halfway, the rising vortex caught it and slammed it shut with such force it broke the door in half and ripped it off its hinges.

  With a searing, crackling sound the door vanished into the spinning maelstrom.

  As though emboldened by the meal, the vortex snatched the oar out of Jack’s hands and might have taken him, too, had he not caught the edge of a bookcase in time and hauled himself back. The wind was so strong that for an instant his feet actually lifted off the ground.

  Jaide had found the Compendium behind the mahogany desk, which had somehow been tipped over during the chaos. Sheltering behind the desk and gripping the folder tightly with both hands, she concentrated fiercely on the situation for two full seconds, then opened her eyes and the folder to see what it revealed.

  Sealer of Bifrost Breach Takes Secret to the Grave

  Great Steward Earl Henschke left no notes or sketches concerning the method by which he sealed the rent leading to the realm of The Evil. This was confirmed by his widow, who conducted a thorough search of his office in the weeks following his death. Warden Sally Henschke married the Great Steward, her second husband, one year earlier, and inherited all of his effects. Speculation concerning his methods have run rampant among the Progress Party, with Chief Speaker Aleksandr Furmanek …

  “Gah!” That was no help at all.

  Jaide tried again, concentrating on Professor Olafsson’s theories instead. There had to be something in there that could help them.

  This time the Compendium opened on a page entitled Magical Properties of the Elements. It was written in tiny, crabbed script that she had to peer closely at to read at all. One line stood out:

  Copper: This most conductive metal allows the flow of energies within our world … and beyond. Instruments made of copper can be used to open and close conduits between continuums, if properly exercised.

  That was the clue Jaide needed, and which Aleksandr had missed. No one had known that cross-continuum conduit constructors were made of copper until they found the one in Rourke Castle. This had to be the key.

  With the Compendium held in one hand, she stood up in order to shout to Jack.

  The wind had risen without her realizing it. It snatched at her, and it snatched at the Compendium, too, almost ripping it from her hands. She clutched at it and barely caught it in time. Several pages slipped free and went fluttering into the white center of the vortex.

  Jack was trying on his own to drag a heavy bookcase across the doorway, without much luck. Distantly, over the roar of the wind, he heard his sister shouting. He glanced behind him. She was on the mezzanine floor, waving her arms.

  “What?”

  “Look for something made of copper!”

  “Why?”

  “That’s how he must have closed it! She didn’t give it to Aleksandr so it must still be here!”

  Jack didn’t know who “he” or “she” were, but he had to assume that Jaide knew what she was talking about. She had the Compendium, after all.

  The wind snatched more pages and sucked them into the vortex.

  “Stop that!” Jaide shouted, but the wind wasn’t responding to her command. Either her Gift was still drained or this was a different kind of wind. A wind from another world, she thought with a shiver. The world of The Evil.

  Several loose hats and a cloudy crystal ball followed the pages into the vortex, which only made it hungrier. A heavy fur coat flapped in next, then the Oracular Crocodile, its jaws snapping uselessly at the air. Each time the vortex absorbed something, the wind got stronger and it became harder to move around. Each time, the urgency to find a way to close the Bridge increased. What happened if it wasn’t closed, wondered Jack as he rummaged through boxes and cupboards for anything made of copper. Would the entire house be sucked into the Evil Dimension? The whole world?

  Tara and Kyle had successfully helped carry Grandma X out of the blue room. They returned to look for the missing copper artifact. Through the open panel where she crouched next to Grandma X, Susan urged them all to leave.

  “It’s not safe!”

  “It really isn’t,” Stefano agreed. He was hanging on to the dragon chair for grim life. “Let me call Hector. He’ll fix this.”

  “It’ll take him too long to get here,” said Jaide, even though she would have liked nothing more than to see her father walk in at that moment. He would know what to do. “We need to fix this ourselves and we need to do it now!”

  “What about this?” Jack held up a roll of copper wire.

  “Here,” called Tara from the other side, clapping her hands together. “Toss one end across. We’ll try to tie it up.”

  Jack wound one end of the wire around the grandfather clock, unwound several feet more, and tossed the roll to Tara, who did the same on her side, using the bookcase Jack had been struggling with earlier as an anchor. There was just enough to cross the doorway four times. When they’d finished, the wire was singing a series of strange, high notes. Jack stepped back to test the wind. It did seem to him that the vortex was losing some of its strength, and the white heart of the vortex appeared to have receded slightly.

  But the wind was fighting back. The grandfather clock and the bookcase shuddered and rocked, yanked by the wires. The high notes became a screech, then a scream, then a series of four piercing twangs as the wire snapped, unable to bear the forces arrayed against it.

  Jack and Tara fell back. The storm was more powerful than ever. A silver sword stuck in a block of timber was sucked in next, followed by a trio of flapping umbrellas. The sound of the wind was deafening. They could no longer speak over it.

  Jaide could barely stand in front of the doorway, but she was determined to. She had found a large copper bowl in a chest, inscribed with symbols that might have been letters in a language she didn’t understand. Hopefully this was the Warden artifact they needed. Cupping it with both hands, she held the base against her midriff and pointed the bowl into the vortex.

  The wind made it sing, too, but with a low mournful wail, like someone blowing over the top of a giant bottle. The bowl shivered in her grip, and she felt herself being inched toward the door no matter how determinedly she pushed back. The bowl was making it worse!
With a cry of frustration, she let go and dropped to the floor.

  The bowl tumbled through the door and into the vortex, spinning as it went. When it hit the white heart, a shockwave rippled back up toward them, and suddenly she was hanging on for dear life, scrabbling at the floorboards for the smallest amount of grip.

  Something heavy, perhaps a chest of drawers, tumbled past her, which only made the vortex hungrier. Jaide felt her hands and feet slipping on the floor. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth and willed her Gift to respond. “Help me,” she hissed with her face pressed against the floor. “You have to help me!”

  Instead of her Gift, she felt a strong hand grip her wrist and pull her firmly back from the hungry doorway.

  “Here!” said Stefano, pressing something into her hands. “Try this!”

  Jaide looked down and saw a polished copper mirror, stained with age. There was a symbol on the back, a triangle with no equal sides. She nodded. It was worth a shot. Stefano had one elbow hooked into the balustrades of the mezzanine. The other he wrapped around her waist so she wouldn’t slide. Gripping the mirror tightly in both hands, she thrust its shiny side right down the throat of the hurricane.

  The effect was instantaneous. Confronted with its reflection, the vortex reeled and swayed, losing half its strength in the matter of a second, then half again. Jaide’s ears were ringing from the powerful roar, but slowly she became aware of her own gasping. She felt as though she had played a hundred games of soccer in five minutes. But she kept her arms outstretched and the mirror exactly as it was. She put all her faith in it and the triangular symbol, because that was all she could do.

  The hurricane became a gale, and then a stiff breeze. The flickering light from the spinning cross-continuum conduit constructor ebbed, too, and after a moment she heard a solid clang as the long, metal rod fell back onto its plinth.