Troubletwisters

by Garth Nix

  Jack nodded. ‘It was spinning like a top.’

  ‘That means The Evil is all around us here, but not in any particular hosts.’

  ‘So it’s left the rats and the insects?’

  ‘Yes. But it will only have done that if it’s been able to move up to something . . . or someone . . . that suits its purpose better.’

  ‘That’s bad, right?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Very bad,’ said Kleo.

  ‘Let’s not think about it,’ said Jaide. ‘We have to get Grandma X back down and into bed before we can do anything else.’

  ‘All right.’ Jack started to climb up through the hatch, out to the widow’s walk.

  ‘Wait,’ said Jaide, peering closely at him. Two red dots burned on his cheeks, as though he had a fever.

  ‘Did The Evil try to get into your head?’ she asked. ‘When you were down underground?’

  ‘Yes.’ The way Jack spoke the one word suggested it was all he wanted to say about the subject for now, and perhaps ever.

  IT WAS A LOT MORE difficult to get Grandma X off the slippery widow’s walk and down to her bedroom than Jaide had expected. Jack was very tired and kept having to rest, and the top flight of stairs was a big problem. But somehow they managed to half-drag and half-carry Grandma X to her bedroom door without dropping her even once.

  ‘Come on,’ whispered Jack as Jaide hesitated by the door. ‘Hurry up – I’m losing my grip.’

  Jaide turned the crystal handle, opened it, and peeked in, wary of some kind of magical surprise. It was a perfectly ordinary room, though smaller than she’d expected. There was a single bed, a narrow cupboard, a dressing table and a bedside table. On the bedside table was a glass of water, a hairbrush and two pictures in frames. The first was a black-and-white photo featuring the clockmaker Jaide had seen in Grandma X’s memories. The second photo was in faded colour, of two young boys. Jaide wasn’t sure, but she thought it looked like her father as a child with a twin brother. But since her father didn’t have a twin, she figured it had to be some sort of trick shot with a mirror.

  There wasn’t time to worry about that. She returned to Grandma X and lifted her arms. Jack took hold of her legs. With a lot of grunting and numerous stop-starts, they managed to get her into the room and levered up onto the bed. Through all of it, Grandma X didn’t wake even once. When she was settled, Jaide brushed the hair back from her face and hoped she was going to be all right.

  Jack looked on, an extremely worried expression on his face.

  ‘We should try the phone again,’ he said. ‘See if we can get an ambulance.’

  ‘Nothing like that will work,’ said Kleo with feline certainty.

  ‘When I saw her all fallen over by the railing . . . I . . . I thought she was dead,’ Jaide said.

  ‘Are you sure she’s not dead?’ Jack asked hesitantly.

  ‘She’s breathing,’ said Jaide. ‘I think. . .’

  Kleo leaped up onto the bed and gave Grandma X’s face a testing lick with her little pink tongue.

  ‘She lives. But she has delved deep into herself and exhausted her Gift trying to bring the storm under control after Jaide destabilised it,’ said the cat. ‘Troubletwisters are dangerous to be around. Your Gifts are unformed and unpredictable, and you haven’t learned to control them.’

  ‘You shouldn’t think of it as your fault, though,’ said Ari. ‘If The Evil hadn’t managed to manifest here, somehow, all would have been well. In any case, you can’t worry about that now. The Evil is here, and it wants you and your Gifts, so you need to work out what to do about it.’

  ‘We have to get help,’ said Jaide. ‘I know the phones and power are out, but maybe —’

  ‘The whole town is cut off,’ said Kleo. ‘The Evil is strong enough now to make sure of that.’

  ‘So what can we do?’ asked Jack.

  ‘You need to look after your grandmother’s body until her spirit returns.’

  ‘Where has it gone?’

  ‘Very deep inside her innermost self.’

  ‘When will it come back?’

  ‘Who knows? But the longer she stays there, the harder it will be for her to come back. Wardens have been lost that way before.’

  ‘What if The Evil attacks before she does? We can’t stop it!’

  ‘Alarms have been sounded. Help will come . . . eventually.’

  ‘Eventually!’ Jaide protested. ‘That doesn’t sound very good.’

  ‘All that can be done has been done,’ said Kleo.

  ‘Well, that’s not quite —’ Ari began, but he stopped at a sharp glance from Kleo.

  ‘What?’ asked Jack. ‘Is there something you can do?’

  ‘No,’ said Kleo. ‘We are constrained by an oath we took as kittens.’

  ‘There are some loopholes —’ Ari stopped again as Kleo’s tail slowly beat out three short thuds on Grandma X’s bedspread. Ari looked imploringly at the twins, as though begging them to read his mind.

  Jaide looked at Jack. They were both thinking the same thing.

  Cats!

  ‘Grandma X said we’d be safe in this house,’ said Jaide slowly. ‘But I guess without her, that’s not true anymore.’

  Kleo didn’t move one iota. Ari’s whiskers twitched as if he was desperately trying to keep his mouth shut.

  ‘Maybe not completely true?’ said Jack eagerly, trying to interpret the weird vibe the cats had going. ‘Is there a way we can defend the house against The Evil? At least until Grandma X wakes up?’

  Ari looked at Kleo and then down at the floor.

  ‘Downstairs?’ Jack guessed immediately.

  Kleo’s fixed stare turned withering.

  ‘I didn’t say a word!’ Ari protested. ‘I didn’t even mention the door.’

  ‘The blue door? That’s it! We need to look in there!’ Jaide exclaimed.

  Kleo put her head to one side, looking pointedly away from Ari, and sniffed in disappointment.

  ‘I didn’t say “blue” door,’ said Ari innocently. ‘It could have been a green door, or a pink door . . .’

  Jack was already heading downstairs, Jaide hot on his heels. With a loud tattoo of shoes they pounded down the stairs and to the front of the house.

  They hesitated at the front door, thinking of the rain and The Evil still at large, until Ari caught up with them. Kleo came down more reluctantly behind them, still not looking at Ari, as though she wanted no part in the expedition.

  ‘Is it safe to go out?’ asked Jack, thinking of the white eyes shining in the dark. ‘I mean, The Evil won’t be right outside, will it?’

  Ari sniffed around the base of the door and shook his head.

  ‘Does that mean it won’t be safe or that The Evil isn’t right outside?’ asked Jaide.

  ‘The Evil is close, but it has not yet dared cross the boundaries,’ he told them.

  Even with this assurance, the twins went out very cautiously, remembering the rats that had been in the yard the previous night. The rain had eased off a lot, but it was still sprinkling. The yard was a mess, with fallen leaves and branches, and out in the street a light pole leaned over at a drunken angle with a cable hanging off it, sparking occasionally.

  There were no birds in the dark sky, and no sign of anything else, be it under the control of The Evil or not. It was quiet, the quiet after disaster, or the unnatural stillness found in the eye of a storm.

  The twins hurried to the blue door, but the cats stayed behind, out of the rain. Jaide looked back at them and saw Kleo buffet Ari’s ear with her paw, followed by a short, hissed ‘Fool of a cat!’

  ‘How do we open it?’ Jaide asked, thumping the door so hard it rattled on its hinges. It still didn’t have a handle or doorknob. The cats didn’t answer.

  ‘Look!’ Jack had stepped back and was looking up at the sign. ‘It’s changed!’

  The handwritten words now said:

  Jaide read it through twice. It didn’t make sense. ‘The door isn’t open, otherwise we’d open
it.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not open on this side,’ said Jack, ‘but it is on the other.’

  ‘What’s the use in that?’ Jaide’s frustration was mounting. ‘Why would Grandma X leave us such a stupid note?’

  ‘It’s a test,’ said Jack, suddenly remembering Grandma X’s words, weirdly accompanied by the aftertaste of hot chocolate in his mouth. ‘She said, “Some doors are not meant to be opened before their time.”’

  ‘It’s definitely time now. But how do we lift a latch on the other side?’

  They stared at the door with identical expressions. This was a challenge, and they were determined to be up to it.

  ‘It’s a secret room for Wardens, right?’ said Jack.

  ‘I guess.’ Jaide could see the way he was thinking. ‘So you need a Gift to open it?’

  ‘Grandma X probably does it with her spirit, or whatever it was she sent to me in the tunnels. She just goes in there and lifts the latch.’

  ‘But we can’t do that,’ Jaide pointed out. Even after joining with Grandma X, she wasn’t sure exactly what her Gifts were. But she was clear on what they weren’t – and sending out a spirit form was definitely not something she could do. ‘At least, I can’t. Do you know what you can do now? Grandma X said your Gifts were of the night and darkness – but it won’t be dark for hours and we don’t have hours. Remember what Kleo said about Grandma X finding it harder to come back the longer she was away? We have to get help before we lose her forever.’

  Jack nodded and looked up at the sky. Though it was full of dark clouds and showers, there were also patches where the sun was breaking through.

  ‘I can see in the dark,’ he said, remembering his experiences in the tunnels. ‘And hide in shadows.’

  He stopped and looked down at his own shadow, faint on the doorstep. Jaide followed his glance and then swiftly looked back at him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jack. He knew she had the same idea. ‘I can give it a try, anyway.’

  Jack closed his eyes and imagined his mind leaking out the soles of his feet and into his shadow by the door. Nothing happened at first, but then he felt a strange sensation, like cold water running down on the inside of his skin, from the top of his head to his toes.

  He opened his eyes and saw Jaide above him, as if he was lying on the ground. Then he saw himself standing next to her, completely still – and he felt the shadow. All the shadows around him were connected, where they overlapped. Darkness bled and joined, allowing someone special like him to travel through it.

  Shadow Jack slid under the door, into the shadows of the room. It was like being on a waterslide: easy to get started, but difficult to change direction or stop once you were going. It took him a few tries to get the hang of it before he was able to glide up the inside of the door, next to the latch.

  It was a metal bar not much thicker than his thumb. Normally he could have lifted it without thinking. As a shadow, however, it was a completely different matter.

  His shadow hand just slid over the metal and the bar didn’t shift a millimetre. He couldn’t interact with it at all.

  Just as he was about to give in, a miniature whirlwind blew in from under the door and spun about on the floor. It went one way and then the other, before approaching the door. It hesitated there for a moment before turning on its side and starting to climb. But before it got close to the bolt, it fell apart, and the dust and tiny pieces of gravel it carried all fell to the ground.

  ‘Dratnation!’ said Jaide on the other side, utilising one of the unique swear words their father invented when he didn’t want the twins to hear what he usually said. Jack realised it had been his sister’s whirlwind, and she had been trying to use her Gifts to open the door, just as he was.

  Shadow Jack slithered down and under the door, then back into his own flesh-and-blood body. He was disoriented for a moment, particularly when he opened his eyes. The light blinded him for an instant, and his head spun from more than just the light. Jaide was squatting next to him, with the fingers of both her hands pressing against the bottom of the door. A thin whistling sound came from the far side, with the occasional tinkling crash.

  ‘That’s not going to work,’ Jack said, tapping her on the shoulder.

  She didn’t give up. ‘Give me a minute and I’ll get it for sure.’

  ‘But you can’t see, and that whirlwind is going all over the place. You need help from the inside.’

  She blinked and looked up at him. Understanding dawned. ‘We need to do it together – me pushing and you telling me where to push!’

  ‘Yep,’ said Jack. Then his face fell. ‘Uh, that’s if I can talk as a shadow . . .’

  ‘Maybe we can talk inside our heads, mind to mind,’ said Jaide. ‘Grandma X could do it —’

  ‘And so can The Evil.’ Jack shuddered. ‘I don’t know if I can cope with mental voices after that.’

  ‘I know.’ Jaide remembered the feeling of The Evil trying to force its way into her mind. ‘But it’ll feel different with us, I’m sure. Anyway, maybe your shadow-self can talk. Let’s try!’

  They turned back to the door. Shadow Jack went under and up again so he could see the latch. Jaide’s miniature whirlwind followed a minute later.

  Shadow Jack tried to talk, but nothing happened at first. He was moving his mouth, but no sound was coming out. Or at least that’s what he thought, until he heard a voice on the other side of the door that wasn’t Jaide’s but did sound kind of familiar.

  ‘Testing . . . testing . . . I can’t make this work, Jaide . . . can you hear me?’

  It took him a moment to realise it was his own voice, coming out of his body on the outside.

  ‘Of course I can,’ snapped Jaide. It took a lot of effort for her to keep her miniature tornado going. ‘Which way and how far?’

  Shadow Jack slid along the door a bit to get a better view.

  ‘Move to the right about a foot . . . a bit less . . . a bit less . . . Perfect! Now go straight up . . . straight up . . . Stop! Go back down and left a bit . . . Left! Okay, start going up again, steady . . .’

  The latch shivered and rose up out of its cradle.

  ‘Almost there! That’s it!’

  The tornado winked out, and Shadow Jack slipped down and under the door. A few seconds later, the twins leaned on the blue door with all their weight, and with a crash it finally opened.

  The secret room was secret no longer.

  THE TWINS SLIPPED WARILY INSIDE. TWO crystal chandeliers fixed to the ceiling sparkled into life, revealing an unexpectedly large room, with one half-flight of steps leading down to a lower level and another flight up to a mezzanine floor dominated by a huge mahogany writing desk covered by pots of pens, pencils and feathery quills, plus stacks of receipts impaled on spikes. Shelves and display cases lined the walls, and they were filled with even more exotic items than the shelves inside Grandma X’s house. There were clocks, crystals, telescopes, globes, goggles and goldfish bowls – far too many things to take in at once.

  The room itself was littered with objects too big to fit on shelves. Jack saw a tall rack heavily loaded with outrageous hats, a chair shaped like a dragon’s mouth, and a bed board containing the repeated motif of a four-pointed star. Jaide’s gaze lit on two cases full of gleaming jewellery, a gold suit of armour and a fur coat that seemed to be made out of an entire bearskin, including its head. The air was thick with the stink of age and discovery.

  ‘What is this place?’ Jack asked.

  ‘What the sign originally said, I guess.’ Jaide cast her mind back. ‘“Antiques and Articles” – something like that.’

  ‘So it is a shop?’

  ‘It’s a collection.’ Ari appeared from behind them. One ear was kinked over, but he seemed otherwise unharmed by Kleo’s wrath. ‘Wardens are always looking for old things. The older the better. But not just any old things. They wouldn’t like something that had been buried in the ground for a hundred years, for instance. They like their antiques to be worn i
n.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Things that Wardens use take on power from their Gifts,’ said Kleo in a tight voice. She was sitting stiffly in one corner, beside a trio of large, faded umbrellas. ‘Particularly when it was made to do that in the first place.’

  ‘So are you okay to tell us things now?’ asked Jaide pointedly.

  ‘We are bound by our oaths to keep everything we know from all but full Wardens,’ said Kleo. ‘Until they are no longer secret. Like this room.’

  ‘You mean you can’t tell us things until we practically already know them or can work them out anyway?’ asked Jack. ‘Great.’

  Kleo didn’t look at all repentant. ‘Sardines don’t grow on trees,’ she said with a sniff.

  ‘We’re not looking for sardines,’ said Jaide. ‘We need to help Grandma before she’s lost forever. Won’t you even give us a clue?’

  The cat met her gaze unflinchingly, and it was Jaide who turned away, feeling faintly ashamed. Promises were important. That was something her parents had hammered into her since she was old enough to talk. But surely when someone’s life was at stake, that was the perfect time to break them?

  ‘Troubletwisters are dangerous,’ the cat repeated. ‘You being in here is dangerous.’

  ‘More dangerous than The Evil?’ Jack asked, picking up a skull that had once belonged to a small crocodile or alligator and looking in its crystal eye.

  Before Kleo could answer, the crocodile’s eye flashed and its jaws snapped open. Jack hastily put it back down, only just avoiding getting one of his fingers bitten off.

  ‘One brass plate,’ chattered the reptile, ‘three inches by four, fixed by four two-eighth screws fashioned entirely from silver.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Jack asked.

  The crocodile didn’t answer.

  ‘Be careful, for one thing,’ said Jaide. ‘Don’t touch anything.’

  But she didn’t follow her own advice, picking up a brightly coloured tube with an eyehole at one end.