Mystery of the Golden Card

by Garth Nix

  Cornelia looked uncertain.

  ‘Oh, right – Ari. That was why you didn’t come down earlier, wasn’t it? Okay. I’ll come with you and see if we can find a way past him.

  She nodded, then said, ‘Anchors aweigh! Push the boat out!’

  ‘Just let me get my bike.’

  Jack glanced at Jaide, who was peering out at him with the others. She was practically bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, as though there was something she desperately wanted to tell him, but there was nothing he could do about that now.

  Cornelia stayed put on his shoulder as Jack pedalled up to speed, and as they swept over the bridge at the centre of town, she opened her wings and held on so the wind of their passage could ruffle her feathers.

  ‘Full steam ahead!’

  If only, thought Jack.

  There was no sign of Ari back at the house, or anyone else.

  Jack and Cornelia sneaked inside without incident. The house was empty and silent, apart from the usual creaks and ticks that sometimes made it sound like a giant clock. Cornelia didn’t want to go back into the blue room, so Jack put her in the bedroom he shared with Jaide, where she seemed happy enough.

  ‘I’ll be back later,’ he said. ‘Please don’t bite any more books or photos. Or Olafsson. He’ll be here if you need to talk to someone.’

  ‘Indeed, I appear to be going nowhere,’ said the death musk grumpily.

  Cornelia nuzzled her downy head into Jack’s hand and softly clucked her tongue. He grudgingly tickled her under the ridge where her ears would have been and said goodbye to both of them.

  Satisfied that Cornelia and Professor Olafsson would keep each other company, Jack returned to school the way he had come, conscious of the curious stares of his classmates, and enduring Miralda King’s sharp remark that she hoped he had the proper license for such a wild and dangerous animal.

  ‘I mean, it’s bad enough that some of Young Master Rourke’s menagerie animals are still prowling around town,’ she said. ‘But when they could swoop down on you from above, at any moment . . . ?’

  She shuddered in theatrical horror.

  ‘Captivity is just as cruel for animals as it is for people,’ said Mr Carver, eyeing the damaged woodwork. ‘Perhaps your feathered friend deserves a home somewhere else, Jack – somewhere far away from here. In a forest.’

  Jack slipped into his seat, hating the blush he felt boiling up over the collar of his T-shirt and turning his face pink. Mr Carver had written a series of mathematical equations on the board, and Jack tried to concentrate on what they said in order to blot out his embarrassment.

  But Jaide was still bouncing.

  ‘I know where it is!’ she whispered to him when everyone’s attention returned to the front.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The card!’

  She nodded furiously, and pointed to her exercise book, where she had written out the words Kyle had told them.

  The path between fields,

  the season grows old,

  the deuce is revealed –

  there lies the gold.

  ‘It’s the painting,’ she whispered.

  ‘What painting?’

  Jack had spoken more loudly than he intended, loud enough for Mr Carver to come over. Jaide hastily shut her exercise book as Jack looked up at their teacher and gave him an innocent smile.

  ‘Do you need help with the questions?’ asked Mr Carver. ‘If so, that is what I am here for, and I expect I will be able to answer your questions more effectively than your sister, smart as she is.’

  ‘No, no, I’m okay now,’ said Jack. ‘I just got a bit distracted, with the parrot and all.’

  He looked at the maths questions and realised that he did need help. But it was too late to ask now. Sighing, he bent his head and tried to concentrate.

  It wasn’t until just before lunch that the twins got the opportunity to talk again, because Mr Carver had to go to the office five minutes early to play his ‘Welcome to the Midday Meal’ song over the PA system.

  As soon as he went out the door, Jaide leaned in close.

  ‘The painting in the library – the woman playing solitaire – remember? The leaves on the tree are brown, so it’s autumn. the season grows old. There are fields behind her with a road between them. And she’s holding the two of hearts. The deuce of hearts! Jack, it has to be her. It has to be – and it was right under our noses all the time!’

  Jaide’s excitement was infectious. Jack felt himself getting caught up in it even as he got stuck on the obvious question.

  ‘But there’s nothing behind the painting, remember? We took it down. The wallpaper is unbroken.’

  ‘That’s because it’s not behind the painting. It’s in it.’

  ‘How can the gold card be in a painting?’

  ‘Think, Jack!’ Jaide sighed. ‘It’s just like Professor Olafsson said. It’s a door to another dimension. All we have to do is open it and we can go through!’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Jack. ‘How are we going to get back to the castle in the first place? Mum won’t let us go.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jaide deflated a little at that. ‘We’ll just have to think of something.’

  They sank back into their seats, minds whirling with possibilities, most of them discarded instantly.

  ‘I wish we could call Dad,’ said Jack. What if he hadn’t escaped The Evil after all? What if he was out there, needing their help? What if, this time, being troubletwisters wasn’t enough to help anyone?

  ‘Oh, hey, that reminds me . . .’ He pulled the scrap of paper from his pocket and laid it out flat on the table. ‘Cornelia gave me this.’

  Jaide scanned it, but the mystery was as opaque to her as it was to Jack. It seemed relatively unimportant, too. So what if Cornelia knew they were troubletwisters? The main thing was that they had figured out where the card was. All they had to do was get their hands on it before Rodeo Dave did, and then get it to their father.

  Tonight, thought Jack, as the now-familiar notes from the nose flute came drifting through the speakers in the corridor outside. Tonight could be our last chance.

  Tara and Kyle had also been whispering all through class, and they took their conversation out into the playground, where the twins interrupted them.

  ‘Can we tell Mum that we’re going to stay at your place tonight?’ Jaide asked Tara.

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘but only if I can tell my parents that I’m going to be staying at yours. Kyle and I are going to the estate to look for the treasure!’

  For a second, Jaide just blinked at her in surprise.

  ‘But . . . aren’t you afraid of rats?’

  ‘They’re only inside the castle, Jaide,’ Tara said. ‘We’re going to look outside. I think season refers to seasoning, which is like spices, and Kyle says there’s an old herb garden on the estate. He’s going to sneak out and show me where.’

  ‘Sometimes there are advantages to being the youngest in a big family.’ Kyle grinned.

  Jaide’s instinct was to try to talk them out of it. The Evil was still sniffing after the wards, after all.

  ‘Do you really think the treasure’s still there?’ Jaide asked. ‘What if it never existed at all?’

  ‘What if you’re planning to go treasure-hunting, too?’ said Kyle. ‘I saw the way you two have been twin-thinging all day. You don’t want us to go because you want to find it first!’

  There was no denying that, because it was utterly true. But if Jack and Jaide were inside the castle, where Tara wouldn’t go, there was no possibility of them being in direct competition.

  ‘It’ll be like a race,’ said Jack. ‘The first to the gold wins.’

  Kyle’s green eyes twinkled with the challenge. ‘It’s so on.’

  The afternoon seemed to drag and race by at the same time. Jack’s stomach was full of butterflies as the farewell song sounded and the class dissolved into chatter and scuffling feet. Kyle and Tara hurried off in one d
irection, waving and promising to see them later, while Jack and Jaide got on their bikes and rode up the street, keeping their fingers crossed that Susan would let them go. That was the first hurdle to overcome.

  They skidded their bikes to a crashing halt by the back door and ran inside.

  ‘Mum?’ Their voices echoed up the stairs and through the house’s many rooms. ‘Mum, where are you?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘The car isn’t there,’ said Jack. ‘Maybe she went to work.’

  ‘Or maybe she’s at the hospital . . .’

  Both twins jumped at the sound of a crash from upstairs, followed by a distant squawking.

  ‘That was Cornelia,’ said Jack, already running for the stairwell.

  Jaide overtook him, her Gift lifting her up so she could take four steps at a time. What if something was attacking Cornelia so she couldn’t tell them what she knew? Inside the house!

  ‘Rourke!’

  There was another crash. It came from the bedroom. The door swept open ahead of Jaide, and the twins crashed through it.

  Within they found a scene of utter chaos. Curtains were torn, books had been knocked over, the sheets were pulled off their beds, and their clothes were scattered into every corner. It looked like they had been burgled by a thorough but incompetent burglar.

  The source of the mess, a rather harried-looking Ari, was currently running in circles in the middle of the room being dive-bombed by Cornelia.

  ‘Rourke! Rourke!’

  Ari took a running leap for the macaw but only succeeded in knocking over Jack’s bedside lamp.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jack asked, skidding to a halt with his sister at his side. ‘Ari, what’s going on?’

  With one last squawk, Cornelia landed on the top of Jaide’s four-poster bed frame.

  ‘She started it,’ said Ari, looking up at Jack with slightly addled eyes. He looked that way sometimes on a full moon, but this time he didn’t have that excuse. The old moon was barely a sliver in the evening sky.

  ‘Started what, exactly?’ asked Jaide. ‘Have you been trying to kill each other?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to make them stop,’ said the death mask from where it had been tipped into a half-empty bin.

  ‘Professor Olafsson!’ Jack fished him out and put him upright next to where his lamp normally went.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Jaide, before turning on Ari and Cornelia. ‘You two should be ashamed of yourselves. What were you thinking?’

  She sounded very angry. Even Jack was scared of her when she was like this. Ari stood behind him with only his tail and his face showing.

  ‘Were you trying to eat Cornelia?’ Jaide asked him.

  ‘A fat old bird like that? No, thanks.’

  Jaide ignored Cornelia’s squawk of indignation. ‘So what were you doing?’

  ‘She was calling me names,’ Ari said, scuffing at the ground with one of his front paws.

  ‘Sound the bell, Mr Dingles!’

  ‘See? Why, you—’

  Ari ran for the bed, but Jack caught him. Cornelia danced from foot to foot, cackling, ‘High and dry, high and dry.’

  ‘Cornelia, stop it,’ said Jack. ‘That’s not very nice.’

  ‘I tried to explain to your furry friend here,’ said Professor Olafsson, ‘that Mr Dingles was probably a ship’s cat Cornelia once served with, but he won’t listen.’

  ‘I don’t even know who you are!’

  ‘He’s a former Warden,’ said Jaide. ‘We found him in the castle. You should do as he says.’

  ‘Why, when she won’t?’

  ‘Is that it, Cornelia?’ asked Jack. ‘Do you think Ari is Mr Dingles?’

  Cornelia looked down at him with one yellow-ringed eye, and slowly nodded her head. Jack didn’t know if Cornelia genuinely misunderstood or not, but that was something.

  ‘Ari, if I let you go, will you leave her alone?’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said the cat, going limp in his arms. ‘But why does she get to call me anything at all? What’s she even doing here? I’m the Warden Companion, not her.’

  Jack and Jaide exchanged a glance. It hadn’t occurred to either of them that he might be more jealous than hungry when it came to the new animal in their midst.

  ‘You are one of Grandma’s Warden Companions,’ Jack said, ‘and you’re still our friend. Having Cornelia here doesn’t change that one bit.’

  ‘Jack’s right, honest,’ said Jaide, bending down to give him a hug.

  ‘You promise?’ he said into her neck.

  ‘We promise,’ said the twins together.

  ‘Okay, then. You can let me go now.’

  Jaide stood back, and Ari put his rear down and began licking his fur flat again.

  Only then did Jack realise that they couldn’t talk to Professor Olafsson with Ari in the room. Grandma X may have given them permission to go back to the estate when they’d visited her in the hospital, but if she knew the full story about Rodeo Dave and The Evil, it would only make her upset, which their father had told them not to do.

  ‘Erm, Ari, we need to talk in private,’ he said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I can’t tell you . . . it’s private.’

  Ari narrowed his eyes and looked from one twin to the other.

  ‘But the bird gets to stay?’

  Jaide glanced at Cornelia, who looked back at her innocently.

  ‘I guess not,’ Jaide said, holding out her arm for Cornelia to climb down.

  One swift jab of the beak made her reconsider the wisdom of doing that.

  ‘Jack, could you . . . ?’

  He coaxed Cornelia down from her perch and took her out of the room, putting her on a banister. Once she was outside, Ari followed, taking a seat a foot or two away from Cornelia. They did nothing but glare at each other as Jack closed the door behind him. He hoped it would stay that way.

  Jaide was crouched down at eye level with the death mask in the wreckage of their room.

  ‘We’ve done it, Professor Olafsson,’ she said. ‘We’ve found out where the card is, and we think it’s in one of your weird universes.’

  ‘Really? How absolutely marvellous!’ Professor Olafsson grinned from ear to ear. ‘Well, the first thing we must do is get back there and apply the cross-continuum conduit constructor to the portal.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jack, ‘but—’

  He stopped at a shrill noise coming from the chest next to Jaide’s bed.

  ‘That’s the phone!’ she cried.

  Jack couldn’t believe it. The phone was sitting on a piece of paper covered in Susan’s neat writing, charger plugged into the wall, as though it had been there all day. They both lunged for it at the same time, but Jaide got there an instant before her brother’s grasping hands. Susan’s note fluttered to the floor, unread.

  ‘Dad? Dad? Where have you been? We’ve got good news!’

  ‘How can you have good news?’ Hector Shield said, voice harsh through some kind of heavy interference, perhaps even rain again. ‘I’ve been calling you all day and you didn’t come to the castle even once. I’m beginning to wonder if I made a mistake entrusting this mission to you. Perhaps it’s not too late to give it to someone I can truly rely on.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Fields of Gold

  THE TWINS ROCKED BACK ON their heels, feeling as though they had been punched in the guts. The lights flickered and the air swirled around them as their Gifts reacted. They had never heard their father speak so cruelly before, not even when he was mad at them. He was never mean to anyone, really, and only ever raised his voice when certain household appliances didn’t behave as they were supposed to. Which was pretty much everything with an on/off button, all the time, for him.

  ‘But we couldn’t come today,’ said Jack, feeling sick to his stomach. ‘Mum wouldn’t let us. And she took the—’

  ‘Your mother has nothing to do with this. The Card of Translocation is what’s important, no
t the petty rules and regulations of the ordinary world.’

  ‘We tried, Dad,’ said Jaide, fighting hard not to stammer. ‘And we know where the card is now. All we have to do is get it.’

  ‘Why should I believe you?’ The static was so thick they could hardly hear him.

  ‘Because it’s true!’ Jaide stamped her foot, something she hadn’t done since she was five years old. It wasn’t fair that he should treat them like this, not when they were so close to getting the card. ‘It’s in a painting in the library. And we know how to get it out. We can do it – I know we can!’

  ‘I gave you a simple task,’ Hector Shield said through the background noise. ‘. . . I’m really disappointed . . .’

  ‘We just need a little more time,’ said Jaide.

  ‘. . . no time left . . . can’t hold it back much longer without the card . . . taking all our energies just to protect the wards . . .’

  Behind their father’s distant voice they heard the sound of a wolf howling. Jaide shuddered, and Jack reached out to take her hand.

  ‘We can do it,’ Jack told him. ‘Mum’s not here but we can leave her a note—’

  ‘But what if she calls Tara’s parents?’ Jaide asked, seeing the flaw in that plan immediately. ‘She’ll know we’re not where we’re supposed to be.’

  ‘Yes, but she won’t know where we are, right? As long as we find the card, we can deal with her afterwards.’

  Jaide groaned. Success was dangling just out of their reach, but to attain it they would have to play one parent off against the other. It would be so much easier if they could just talk to Susan about what was really going on!

  There was a moment’s roaring silence over the phone.

  ‘Dad? Are you there, Dad?’ she said. ‘We can do it. I know we can.’

  ‘All right,’ he finally said. ‘But you mustn’t fail me! This is your final chance.’

  ‘You can trust us,’ said Jaide. ‘You really, really can.’

  ‘We honestly won’t let you down, Dad,’ said Jack.

  ‘Be sure you . . . I mean, we’re counting on you . . .’