Mystery of the Golden Card

by Garth Nix

  ‘Saturday night,’ Tara said. Her eyes gleamed with gruesome relish. ‘Dad doesn’t know who found him.’

  ‘Maybe his butler,’ said Jaide.

  ‘He didn’t have a butler. He cooked and cleaned for himself, and lived here completely alone.’

  Jack peered curiously around, at the little they could see through the sheets of heavy rain. He could make out people striding about in boots and raincoats, some of them holding nets and odd mechanical lassoes.

  ‘I can’t believe Portland has a castle,’ he said, wondering if it was cool for a grown-up to want to live in one, or a bit weird. He had thought Grandma X was the strangest person in Portland, but now it seemed she had some competition.

  Used to have competition, he reminded himself. That thought, combined with the thought of her all alone in the hospital, made him worry about her even more.

  ‘I can’t believe Portland has a castle, either,’ exclaimed Tara’s dad, sticking his head into their huddle of umbrellas with a wide, white-toothed smile. He was, as always, wearing a cap with the name of his company on it, MMM Holdings. ‘And it’s prime real estate, just perfect for redevelopment. When the will is sorted out, we could be sitting on a gold mine! Do you know the main building has thirty-seven bedrooms and hasn’t been lived in for twenty years? Think how many apartments we could fit in there!’

  ‘Dad!’ protested Tara. ‘The old guy only just died! And you’re already moving in on the property?’

  ‘Officially the council just asked for a valuation, in case Rourke left it to the state,’ he said, ruffling her black hair before she could flinch away. ‘But it doesn’t hurt to speculate. I mean, imagine the possibilities. There’s a lot of work to be done. We’d have to get that bridge fixed, first of all . . .’

  He hurried off to oversee four council workers who were trying to shift a footbridge that had fallen into the stream that fed the castle’s moat. A sheet of water was building up behind it and spreading like a gleaming, translucent pancake across the muddy lawn. Everyone’s footprints were being submerged, human and animal alike. On the far side of the lake, two more council workers were struggling to catch something that looked very much like a zebra.

  ‘Do you think he had a pet platypus?’ Tara asked. ‘I’ve always wanted to see one of those.’

  ‘Really?’ said Jack. ‘They’d creep me out, I reckon.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, it’s like they’re made from bits of lots of animals, all mixed together.’

  ‘Like Frankenstein’s monster?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  Tara was quiet for a moment, then she said in a distant voice, ‘I had a dream like that . . . I think. There was a monster . . . or something . . . made of lots of smaller things. You were in the dream, Jack. And you, too, Jaide. But I can’t quite remember it.’

  Jaide sought some way to change the subject. Tara wasn’t remembering a dream, but something that had really happened to all of them. Four weeks ago, they had been attacked by The Evil, which had a nasty habit of taking over living things and mixing them together, creating very real monsters that could in turn attack people. After The Evil had been vanquished, one of Grandma X’s fellow Wardens, a big-haired man named Aleksandr, had used his Gift to cloud Tara’s memory of everything that had happened to her. Sometimes the memory poked up again, though, before returning to the depths. What would happen if it ever came right out, Jaide didn’t like to imagine.

  ‘Look down there,’ Jack said. ‘Are they statues down by the creek? Let’s check them out.’

  Tara shook herself, sending droplets of water tumbling down her green overcoat. ‘They don’t look like anything special.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Jaide, relieved to hear Tara’s voice returning to normal. ‘We’re going to get washed away if we stay here.’

  The pool of water was spreading rapidly towards them, backed up from where the bridge had fallen into the creek. Tara’s dad was waving his arms imperiously, to the annoyance of all, and the sound of raised voices was getting steadily louder as the problem showed no sign of being fixed.

  Jack, Jaide and Tara gave the puddle a wide berth and headed past the impromptu dam to where a much-reduced trickle ran along the slimy creek bed. The ground was slippery underfoot and the rain showed no sign of letting up.

  It was weird, Jack thought, because Portland had been sunny when they had set out after school. The clouds had only gathered when they’d reached the estate. And it was odder still how it seemed to be raining only on the estate, not anywhere else. It was so heavy and set in . . .

  ‘There you go!’ Tara called back to them from the line of statues. ‘Men in sheets and women without any arms. What’s with these old guys? Don’t they have any taste?’

  Jack opened his mouth to say that being rich meant you didn’t have to have any taste, but Jaide pulled him to a sudden halt.

  ‘Look,’ she whispered, pointing into an untidy copse at the far edge of the estate. ‘There’s someone in those trees, waving at us.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There!’

  Jack peered into the shadows under the trees, using his Gift to see details Jaide could only guess at. His Gift was strongest at night, but the sun was so hidden right now behind heavy rain clouds that his sight was clear. There was someone in the copse, a lone man in a coat and hat, his eyes invisible behind dark glasses. It was hard to make out more than that, but he was definitely staring right at Jack and Jaide, and his right hand was above his head, waving back and forth.

  ‘That looks like Dad,’ said Jaide.

  Jack squinted. ‘It couldn’t be him, could it? He isn’t supposed to come anywhere near us.’

  ‘What if he’s here because of Grandma’s accident?’

  Jack raised a hand, tentatively, and waved back.

  The shadowy figure raised both hands in a triumphant thumbs-up.

  ‘It is Dad!’ exclaimed Jaide.

  The twins hadn’t been this close to their father since their Gifts had woken, apart from once, when the protection supplied by the four wards of Portland had broken. He wasn’t allowed to be near to them because it made their Gifts go crazy.

  There was, however, no denying the relief they felt upon seeing him. Someone must have told him about what had happened, and perhaps he had come back to check on them from a distance.

  Jaide waved too, and suddenly, with long, energetic strides, their father moved towards them, stepping out from under the trees and across the sodden lawn. Jack and Jaide were torn between being pleased to see him and freaking out.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ hissed Jaide. ‘If someone sees . . .’

  Jack looked frantically around. Tara was busy poking her finger into the eye socket of a statue. The council workers were hard at work shifting the bridge and chasing the escaped animals – but all it would take was one of them to look around and recognise their father.

  ‘We need a distraction!’ Jaide said. Their father had already crossed half the distance between them.

  Jack thought fast. ‘Use your Gift,’ he said, glancing up at the clouds. Jaide’s Gift was mostly tied to the sun. ‘It should be kind of damped down right now. I’ll go talk to him while you keep everyone busy – just keep your distance while you’re doing it.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Jaide. ‘Besides, I want to talk to him, too!’

  ‘Can you think of anything else?’

  ‘Not right away—’ ‘There’s no time. Just do it!’

  ‘All right, all right!’ said Jaide, giving him the umbrella. ‘I’ll do my best – but don’t use your Gift when you’re near him. Who knows what might happen?’

  Jack could easily imagine. When he could control it properly, his Gift gave him power over light and shade, allowing him to shadow-walk, among other useful skills. When he couldn’t control it, it had the power to black out the sun.

  ‘Be careful,’ he said to Jaide.

  ‘I will. You, too.�
�

  Jack hurried towards the bank of the creek, practically vanishing into the thick, grey sheets of rain.

  Jaide shielded her eyes with her hand and turned to look up the slight rise past the dammed creek to the castle, where Tara’s dad was still arguing with the council workers.

  ‘A distraction,’ she whispered to herself.

  She felt for her Gift, and embraced the slight breeze, collecting it around her, building it up so that she could use it. A gust escaped her hold for a moment, pirouetting around her like an invisible dancer, sending her damp hair flying.

  ‘That’s right,’ she whispered, gesturing with her free hand to usher the wind away from her. Strands of wet red hair lashed her face, but she ignored them. ‘You can do it.’

  The gust grew stronger, whisked twice more around her, then shot off up the slope, where it capered around the arguing men, snatching up Tara’s dad’s hat. He clutched at it and missed, knocking the man closest to him onto his backside. The hat smacked the face of a third man, and everything dissolved into chaos.

  Jack heard sudden shouts behind him, but he didn’t turn around to see. His attention was fixed on his father, who was approaching rapidly across the muddy field. The rain seemed to fall even more heavily around him, so much so that it came down in visible sheets, beating on Jack’s umbrella so hard it sounded as if it might collapse under the impact.

  Hector Shield raised his hat and waved it in one hand. He shouted something that Jack couldn’t make out. They were close enough now that Jack could clearly see locks of curly brown hair plastered to his father’s high forehead, so like Jack’s own. His glasses were completely smeared with rain. Even with the characteristic welcoming smile on his face, he looked strained and worried.

  ‘It’s not deep!’ Jack called out, as Hector suddenly stopped on the other side of the creek.

  Hector didn’t move. He had stopped as if he’d run into a wall, and now he backed up a few feet, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his sleeve. He squinted at Jack with eyes that were a perfect match for his son’s, apart from being desperately myopic.

  ‘It’s not deep!’ Jack shouted again. ‘Come over!’ The rain was so loud now it drowned his words. He could hardly hear himself.

  All of a sudden, one side of his umbrella collapsed, and a great deluge washed down Jack’s back. He cried out and threw the umbrella down in disgust.

  His father shouted something in return, but Jack couldn’t hear him. The rain was amazingly loud. Jack pointed at his ears, then at the sky, and shrugged.

  Hector Shield nodded, and pointed urgently at something behind Jack, stabbing the air with his finger.

  Jack whipped around, squinting against the rain. Even through the downpour he could see what his father was pointing at so emphatically.

  A thick, black twister was rising up over the castle like a supernatural cobra gathering its strength to strike.

  A tornado.

  Jaide’s Gift had gone out of control.

  ‘No, no,’ she hissed into the wind. She’d forgotten about trying to be unobtrusive, and was making wild hauling-in motions with her hands. ‘That’s way too much!’

  The twister didn’t listen to her. It sucked in the rain and blew it out sideways like a fire hose, knocking a council worker upside down and sending him sliding across the mud with the speed of an ice-hockey puck. Then it swooped down and picked up the bridge, raising it high up above the heads of the cowering workers.

  ‘No!’ shrieked Jaide. ‘Listen to me! Obey me!’

  The twister slowed and bent forward, towards Jaide, the bridge still spinning thirty feet up in the air. The huddle of council workers suddenly split, everyone running in different directions.

  Jaide felt the tension in the tornado, the built-up energy that just had to go somewhere. It needed to do something.

  ‘All right,’ said Jaide sternly. ‘Just don’t hurt anyone, and then you really have to go back to normal.’

  The tornado spun faster still, crouched down like a discus thrower about to throw, and then the bridge suddenly flew out of it, sailing across the field and smashing into the distant pyramid, broken pieces of timber sliding down the reinforced concrete slope.

  Downstream, Jack watched open-mouthed as the twister reared up even higher, got thinner, and then winked out of existence.

  He had to shut his mouth as he suffered a massive raindrop straight down his throat. Coughing, he turned back towards his father, shrouded in rain on the other side of the creek. The water level had suddenly risen, now that the fallen bridge was no longer blocking the creek upstream, so there was no chance for either of them to get across.

  ‘Jack! Mmmm the mmmmm.’

  ‘What?’ shouted Jack, as loudly as he could.

  ‘Catch – the – phone!’

  The twins’ father pulled back his left arm and threw something small and black high across the creek bed. Jack stepped back, stretched, and caught the object. In the next instant his feet slid in the mud and he went over backwards, landing with a jarring thud.

  ‘Ow,’ said Jack. ‘Major ow.’

  He looked at the phone clutched tightly in his hand. It was in a plastic bag, with a charger. The screen was lit up, showing a message.

  I heard about Grandma. Will call you later. Don’t tell your mother I was here!

  Jack looked across the stream. His father was backing away, disappearing into the darkness of the torrential rain.

  ‘Wait! Don’t go!’

  A hand tugged at his shoulder.

  ‘Jack? Are you all right? Did the tornado get you?’

  It was Tara.

  ‘Yeah, no, I just slipped.’

  ‘Well, come on. Don’t just stand there! You’ll drown.’

  The creek was rising with incredible speed. The rain was phenomenal – it had to be some kind of cloudburst. Jack staggered to his feet, slipping the phone and charger into his pocket as Tara helped him up. She tried to hold her umbrella over him, but one last, errant remnant of the twister blew past, smashing the umbrella’s ribs and turning it inside out.

  ‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Tara. ‘That was Mum’s! This weather is crazy!’

  ‘You can say that again,’ said Jaide, who had just run up. She looked apologetically at Jack, but there wasn’t time to say anything more before Tara’s father bore down on them.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  He pulled Tara into a hug. Tara’s dad had been much more protective of her since The Evil’s last attack, when she’d been caught up in a train wreck. Tara had told the twins she both liked and disliked his new attention. This time, she let him keep his arm around her.

  ‘Do you three want to go home?’ he asked. ‘I can come back later by myself. You’re soaked, and this rain, this amazing wind . . .’

  ‘I think it’s easing,’ said Tara. ‘I’m not cold. And I don’t mind being soaked. I want to see the rest of the estate.’

  The rain was easing, at least near the castle. Further off, towards the woods where the twins’ father had gone, it was still bucketing down.

  ‘What about you two?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Jaide. ‘Lead on, McLin!’

  She fell back a few paces as they headed for the pyramid.

  ‘Did you speak to Dad?’ she whispered to her brother. ‘What did he say?’

  Jack retrieved the message and held the phone out to her, keeping it cradled in his palm.

  Jaide stared at it, her pale brow creased, the rain trickling down her face like tears.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘He didn’t have time for more. If someone saw him and told Mum—’

  ‘But still—’

  ‘We can ask him when he calls us. Besides, look, Jaide – he gave us a phone.’

  The upside of their brief encounter with their father only occurred to her then. The twins had been hankering for a phone for months, but neither their mother nor their grandmother had given in. It was hard to play them off against each othe
r when they agreed so absolutely, if only on that single point. But now their father had given them one, and they hadn’t even had to ask!

  Despite the circumstances, it was a welcome development.

  ‘Let’s call him,’ Jaide said.

  ‘The number he texted us from is blocked . . .’

  Tara glanced over her shoulder to hurry them up, and Jack hastily put the phone away again. Whatever their father had to say to them would have to wait a little while longer.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Mission

  THE PHONE BURNED A HOLE in Jack’s pocket all the while they were on the castle grounds, following Tara’s father from place to place as he inspected the other structures for their market potential. None of it was all that interesting, because a lot of the rooms were locked. Even the pyramid was a let-down, although Jack was kind of impressed that the bridge hadn’t even dented the outer face.

  Ordinarily, the twins would have been interested in the makeshift menagerie and its unhappy occupants, but by that stage they just wanted to get home and find out how Grandma X was.

  Most of the animals were being patched up by Portland’s vet after being recaptured. The vet was a slender woman with surprisingly big hair, even with the rain weighing it down. She explained that several animals were still missing, including a grey wolf and both chimpanzees.

  ‘There’s a macaw, too,’ she said. ‘If you see it, leave it well alone. Parrots can have a nasty bite.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Tara. ‘All I want to do now is get out of the rain.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Jack. ‘Can we go?’

  Tara’s father was staring at the porter’s lodge, no doubt thinking about how it could be redeveloped or knocked down.

  ‘What? Oh, sure. I’ve seen enough.’

  Susan was waiting for them when they got home. Dinner was on the stove, a stir-fry whose vegetables had been cooked so long it was hard to tell the chicken from the carrots. Neither twin cared about that, though. The appearance of their father at the estate had thoroughly rattled them. His presence suggested that Grandma X was sicker than anyone was telling them.