by Garth Nix
‘Use the Compendium like you did last night. Let it guide you. I’ll call you again tomorrow to see how you got on.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘But Dad . . . we could go with Tara to Scarborough for the day so you can come into the wards without affecting our Gifts. Wouldn’t that be easier?’
‘It would, but there’s no way your mother would let you skip school just to have fun, and we can’t wait as long as the weekend. If the card was lost or fell into The Evil’s hands before then, that would be a disaster.’
‘How would The Evil get through the wards?’ asked Jack.
‘I saw Custer on the estate,’ said Jaide. ‘Ari said he was picking up something weird.’
‘Jack is right,’ Hector said. ‘The Evil would know that the wards are being closely monitored after your grandmother’s accident. The slightest open attack would be noticed immediately.’
‘How would it know about the accident?’ Jaide asked. ‘Would it sense it somehow?’
‘Grandma says that some people work for The Evil without being taken over by it,’ said Jack. ‘There could be someone like that in town right now.’
‘There probably is,’ Hector said, ‘and you would never know. There’s no way to tell until they act against you. The Evil has even been known to plant sleeper agents who lead an ordinary life for years, decades sometimes, before they’re activated to work against the Wardens. Ideally, it would be someone who’s around a lot and completely trusted by everyone. Someone harmless and easy to overlook.’
That was a creepy thought.
‘It could be anyone,’ said Jack with a shiver.
‘It could be the person who drove Grandma off the bridge!’ exclaimed Jaide.
For a moment there was nothing but the drumbeat of rain over the phone, and both twins feared that the call would be lost. But then Hector’s voice came through.
‘That’s true,’ their father said. ‘Don’t be frightened unnecessarily, though. All most sleeper agents do is watch and report. Just be careful who you talk to . . . and find the card as soon as possible. You’ll do that for me, won’t you? You’ll have good news for me tomorrow?’
‘We will,’ they promised over the thickening hiss.
‘Good. And now, children, I must go.’
‘Already?’ protested Jack. They hadn’t talked about Grandma X or Professor Olafsson yet. Even over the phone, though, he could feel his Gift growing restless. The shadows were lengthening and growing darker, and Jaide’s Gift was scooting dust bunnies around the floor.
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Hector. ‘Be careful, both of you. You’re very brave.’
‘We love you, Dad!’ said Jaide.
But the call was already over. She lowered the phone and held it in her lap for a moment, unwilling to let go of the tenuous connection it provided to their father.
‘We’d better charge it,’ said Jack. ‘The battery’s getting low.’
Jaide forced herself to move. The charger was in a drawer. She plugged it into an outlet near her bed and connected it to the phone.
‘I wonder if Mr Carver is a sleeper agent,’ she said. ‘That might explain the nose flutes and everything.’
‘That’s weird, but it’s not actually Evil. And Dad said it would be someone easy to overlook. He’s impossible to ignore.’
‘Someone who’s been around for a long time,’ Jaide mused. ‘Someone harmless and trusted.’ ‘The only person like that is Rodeo Dave,’ Jack joked.
‘And it can’t be him because . . .’
He stopped, because Jaide wasn’t laughing and he couldn’t think of anything to follow ‘because’.
‘No way,’ he said. ‘He can’t be. Can he?’
‘Why not? He’s all Dad told us to look out for.’
‘Yes, but . . . but . . .’ Everything Jack wanted to say came back to the criteria of a sleeper agent. But Grandma trusts him. But he’s been around forever. But he’s just a funny old bookseller.
And then there were other things that occurred to him as the horrible thought took root in his brain.
‘The van,’ said Jaide. ‘Grandma was knocked off the bridge road by a van. Rodeo Dave drives a van.’
‘And you remember at school when we found out? Grandma was cut off when she was trying to talk to us, and suddenly he was there.’
‘And he was surprised when Mum said that Grandma was awake.’
The twins stared at each other, shocked by the possibility. Rodeo Dave had given no sign he knew anything about the Wardens or The Evil, so could he really be a traitor, lying low in Portland and biding his time? How could he just pretend to be Grandma X’s friend, and the troubletwisters’ friend, too, while planning to betray them all along?
The thought was an awful one. So, too, was the thought that they would be stuck in the castle with him all day tomorrow.
‘We should tell someone,’ said Jaide. ‘Custer, or Kleo—’
‘What if we’re wrong? We don’t have any actual evidence. Remember when we thought Tara’s dad was Evil, and it turned out he was just a property developer?’
Jaide did, and that cooled some of her desire to leap up and take action. Grandma was always telling them not to be so impetuous. Perhaps she should think it through, first, before making any wild accusations.
‘If Grandma knew, she’d be furious,’ she said.
‘If we were wrong, she’d be furious at us.’
‘I know. I guess we’ll have to keep an eye on him tomorrow and see if he does anything suspicious. When we know for sure, we’ll do something about it then.’
They agreed by bumping their fists, but neither felt reassured. Worst of all, Jack thought, was the possibility that Grandma X already knew about him. That would explain why Kleo supposedly lived at the Book Herd, to keep an eye on him. It might also be why Rodeo Dave didn’t know Rennie was the Living Ward, even though she was living and working there. But why would Grandma X put the twins into his hands so readily, without even warning them?
‘It just doesn’t make any sense,’ he muttered.
‘In Portland, nothing ever seems to make sense.’
The sound of footsteps outside the door interrupted them again. Jaide swung into action, throwing her backpack over the phone so their mum wouldn’t see it.
The door opened and Susan leaned in.
‘Time for bed.’
She ushered them towards the bathroom, where they brushed their teeth. Jack cleaned his much more carefully than usual, since he thought that it might be his breath that was putting Cornelia off him.
‘I’ve changed my shifts so I’ll be around in the evenings all week,’ said Susan as she tucked them into bed. ‘That’s one good thing to come out of all this,’ she added, brushing an errant hair out of her daughter’s eyes. Both eyes and hair were the same colour as Susan’s own, and although Jaide had the shape of her father’s face, it was clear that she and her mother would resemble each other closely when Jaide was grown up. ‘I miss you terribly while I’m away. You know that, right?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Jaide said. ‘We miss you, too.’ On an impulse, she added, ‘Do you think Dad will be able to visit Grandma soon?’
‘I don’t know, dear,’ Susan said, dropping her eyes. ‘You know how . . . how busy he is right now . . . how difficult it is for him to come home. It’s not something I have any control over. But I wish he would come back. I wish it could be the way it was when we were all together and everything was . . . normal.’
Both twins wanted to tell her that he was just outside the bounds of Portland, but even if they could have told her that, there was no way they could ever be normal again, not in the way their mother meant. That was the deep and abiding truth Susan still wrestled with, under the veil of reassurance that Grandma X had cast over her. Susan rarely thought about what had brought them to Portland – the explosion of their home in the city, the truth about her husband’s work, and the legacy her children had been born into – but even with Grandma X’s cl
ouding of her mind, the facts still swam to the surface, and there was no hiding from the more painful truths of their new lives.
Susan blinked and shrugged off the dark mood that had fallen across her. She had two wonderful children and a job she enjoyed. She was even making friends, in town and at work. Life could be so much worse.
‘Sweet dreams, Jack and Jaide,’ she said, giving them both a kiss. On the way out she only half closed the door behind her, so the room wouldn’t be completely dark.
CHAPTER NINE
Between The Evil and the
Deep Blue Sea
IT TOOK THEM BOTH FOREVER to fall asleep, and then only seconds seemed to pass before the alarm went off again. The twins tiptoed groggily past their mother’s room and went upstairs for the second night in a row. They had a mission: to find the skeleton key and witching rod. Without them, the Card of Translocation might vanish forever – into obscurity or into the hands of The Evil, which would, presumably, use the Gift it contained against the Wardens.
In the blue room, they found Kleo and Cornelia in exactly the same positions as before, except the silk cover of the brass cage was off.
‘Hello, troubletwisters,’ said the cat, sitting up straight the instant they appeared. She hopped off the dragon-mouth chair and hurried to greet them. Cornelia watched her pad across the floor with one sharp yellow-rimmed eye.
‘Rourke?’ the macaw said, but in a way that suggested she was making wary conversation rather than looking for her dead master.
Jaide gave Kleo a pat. ‘Have you been in here ever since last night?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. The life of Warden Companion isn’t a constantly exciting and adventurous one, and I’m thankful for that most of the time, but I will confess to getting a little bored today.’
Jack reached for the bag of seeds and offered a nut to Cornelia. The great macaw was crouched on her uppermost perch, about eye level with him, and she looked at him with patient curiosity.
‘Has she said anything?’ he asked Kleo.
‘Safe harbour,’ the bird announced in a clear, distinct voice.
Kleo sat down and coiled her tail around her legs. ‘Yes, there’s that,’ she said. ‘We think that’s why she came here, to get away from whatever it was that scared her. All the animals around here know, or at least sense, that Watchward Lane is a safe haven – unless you’re a mouse or a bird when Ari’s around.’
‘You mean you don’t eat mice and birds?’ asked Jack.
‘Not when they are seeking refuge,’ sniffed Kleo.
‘The devil and the deep blue sea,’ said Cornelia, waddling over to inspect the nut Jack held. She sniffed him first and, after a moment’s careful consideration, deigned to take the offering.
‘She says that a lot, too,’ Kleo observed. ‘I don’t know what it means.’
‘Isn’t it a saying, like caught between a rock and a hard place?’ asked Jaide.
Jack nodded. Hector Shield liked to say that he was stuck between the kettle and the steeped oolong tea.
‘So she was frightened at the estate and she’s frightened here, too,’ Jack said. ‘But she’s safe here, isn’t she?’
‘Perfectly, while Custer is keeping Ari distracted,’ Kleo said. ‘She might be the only witness who can tell us what really happened to Young Master Rourke on the night he died.’
‘Can you tell us, Cornelia?’ asked Jack, offering her a big shiny pumpkin seed this time. ‘We just want to stop it from happening again.’
Cornelia raised her head and tilted it to one side, glancing at Jack first, then Jaide, then back again. She seemed to be trying to work something out.
‘Out of the rain,’ she said.
‘That’s new,’ said Kleo, ears pricking up.
‘Out of the rain,’ Cornelia said again, more firmly than before.
‘What are you trying to tell us, Cornelia?’ asked Jack.
‘That’s not rain.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘You daft old fool. Batten down the hatches! Rourke! Rourke!’
Cornelia spread her wings and flapped them up and down, sending tiny feathers and seed husks flying all around them. Jaide retreated, spluttering, while Jack tried to calm the bird down.
‘Shhh! Cornelia, it’s all right! We’re here – you’re safe!’
But the bird couldn’t be consoled, and in the end they had to throw the cover back over the cage in the hope that she would settle down. Slowly, with the occasional raucous ‘Rourke’, Cornelia did become quiet, although Jack could hear her moving about inside the cage.
Kleo went back to the dragon seat and sat like a sphinx, facing the twins.
‘Well.’ She sighed. ‘That was all new. I don’t think it means anything, but it’s progress of sorts. She likes you, Jack.’
‘She still doesn’t like the way I smell, though,’ he said, sniffing his fingertips. They didn’t smell like anything more sinister than hamburger, and perhaps a small amount of dirt. Next time he would wash his hands to be sure.
‘I’m just going to look in the Compendium,’ Jaide told Kleo, giving Jack a keep her distracted look as she went to the desk.
‘Not gold cards again, I hope,’ said the cat, looking amused.
‘No,’ Jaide said truthfully. ‘We’re just worried about getting out of touch while Grandma’s in the hospital and we’re busy helping Rodeo Dave.’
She opened the Compendium and began to focus her thoughts on the idea of skeleton keys in general, since she didn’t know what this one looked like.
‘Speaking of Rodeo Dave,’ said Jack, ‘has he seemed all right to you lately?’
‘Not really,’ Kleo said. ‘He has been very tense since the old man died.’
‘Were you with him the night it happened?’
‘I was. The phone call woke us both up.’
‘What phone call?’
‘The one from the old man.’
‘Young Master Rourke called Rodeo Dave?’ This was a twist Jack hadn’t anticipated. ‘What did he want with him?’
The cat shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but it was definitely him. Rodeo Dave said “Rourke” three times, then he went out to the estate in a hurry. That’s why he was the first to find the old man.’
Jack sat on his knees in front of Kleo, struggling to absorb all this new information. Rodeo Dave had spoken to Young Master Rourke while he was still alive. Then Rodeo Dave had rushed out to the estate and found the old man dead and the lodge thoroughly ransacked. Or had he? Had he taken the opportunity to look for the Card of Translocation while Young Master Rourke had been out of the picture? Or had he killed the old man himself because of something he had been told on the phone . . . ?
That was a picture of Rodeo Dave quite unlike the man Jack thought he knew. But as Jaide said, nothing in Portland was ever simple.
‘Jack?’ said Jaide. ‘Come look at this.’
There was something odd about Jaide’s tone, and with good reason. Her thoughts had been distracted by Jack and Kleo’s conversation. Instead of focusing on skeleton keys, she had been thinking about Young Master Rourke, living alone on the giant estate, the son of a man who had made such an impact on Portland’s prosperity but had not been terribly well liked.
Then she had turned the page and seen a familiar picture.
‘This one again?’ said Jack, leaning close over her shoulder. ‘Portland in 1872,’ he read. The image showed a whale carcass being winched ashore in front of a crowd of old-fashioned people. Everyone in the photo had wide, white eyes, indicating that they belonged to The Evil.
‘Look at him,’ said Jaide, pointing.
Standing with one arm upraised, facing the camera, was a man in a black suit.
‘Do you recognise him?’ Jaide asked.
Jack squinted, then gasped.
‘That’s Young Master Rourke’s father!’ he said. ‘The one in the portrait and the statue in the library . . . but it can’t be, can it? I mean, it’s too long ago.’
> ‘It looks like him,’ said Jaide. ‘And he was Evil.’
Kleo made them both jump as she hopped up onto the desk and nosed the picture.
‘That’s the first Rourke,’ she said. ‘The grandfather. He started the whaling, but it was his son who built up everything else. They looked very alike. And the white eyes there might just be because it’s an old photograph.’
‘Oh,’ said Jaide, disappointed. ‘There are too many Rourkes.’
‘Only three,’ Jack pointed out. ‘Grandfather Rourke, the whaler. Mister Rourke, the rich one who built everything. And Young Master Rourke.’
‘I still think Grandfather Rourke was part of The Evil,’ said Jaide, studying the photograph again. She shuddered and said, ‘Look at all those white eyes . . .’
‘Can you imagine what it would be like to have a dad who was part of The Evil?’ Jack wondered aloud.
Jaide shuddered again, as though something slimy had slithered down her spine. She didn’t want to imagine anything as horrible as that – not on top of Grandma X being in hospital and Rodeo Dave being a possible sleeper agent.
‘I don’t think I want to look at this for a while,’ she said, shutting the Compendium. ‘I guess we should go to bed.’
Jack looked at her in surprise. ‘I don’t want to go to bed. It’s too early.’
‘I suppose we could stay here and keep Cornelia company for a while,’ said Jaide, with a wink that the cat couldn’t see. ‘Do you want a break, Kleo?’
Kleo’s ears twitched.
‘I could do with a stroll,’ she acknowledged. ‘The night does beckon.’
‘Well, we’ll stay here for, say, half an hour,’ said Jaide. ‘Would that be okay?’
‘That is most considerate of you,’ said Kleo. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’
She jumped down from the table, shot up the steps to the tapestry-covered door, whisked behind one corner, and was gone.
Jaide waited for a few seconds, in case the cat came back, then shut her eyes and placed her hands on the Compendium. This time she thought ferociously about skeleton keys and, in particular, the one owned by her grandfather.
