The Wind of Southmore Page 8

  “Come on,” Arlen called frantically from above. “Here, I’ll help you.”

  With growing fear, Alice watched as Arlen straddled the side of the vessel and leaned forward, as far as her small frame would allow, her hands outstretched and straining. She would fall, Alice felt sure, and pulled herself up in a quick, desperate motion. Around her the wails crescendoed and her teeth rattled in the wind, but she felt that if she could only reach that hand, she would be alright. The ship welcomed her like an old friend, but still she struggled. Her arms hurt. She was losing strength.

  “Come on, Alice. Just a little further and I’ve got you.” Arlen was now leaning dangerously over the side of the vessel. One more inch and she would topple into the watching, waiting sand, Alice just knew it. She had to reach her sister before that happened.

  With a determined heave she grasped the beam tightly with both hands, refusing to look down. Arlen’s straining fingers were just above her. Although it terrified her, she released one hand from the friendly outpost of the ship, and raised it towards her twin. Their fingers touched lightly, then Arlen found a warmer grasp and clutched on to her sister, pulling with all her might. It was a spring of release for Alice, who immediately felt that she was safe and loosened her grip on the outer beam.

  “Hey, steady,” Arlen called, reaching with both hands to clasp Alice’s. But Alice had lost her hold. Swinging precariously and kicking her legs about, she could feel herself slipping and clung desperately onto Arlen’s hands. But even with two hands, Arlen’s matchstick wrists didn’t have the strength to hold her. Alice felt herself slipping, and damp wood pricked her fingers like needles as she screamed. The sand was rising beneath her, hungry, anticipant. She felt her consciousness dwindling.

  But something lifted her. A light accosted her eyes, and again she could discern a flowing golden shape around her, holding her, and she had the vague impression that it seemed to be emanating from Arlen’s charm. Her strength and determination renewed, she swung her legs, managing to power herself upwards with Arlen’s help, and it was almost in a daze that she heard Arlen saying gently, “It’s alright, I’ve got you,” as she was hauled overboard to land with a gentle thud on the damp, creaking floorboards.

  She closed her eyes. It seemed like hours before she could bear to open them, although it was actually only a few minutes. When she did, she saw Arlen kneeling next to her, her face paler than usual, her eyes large and concerned.

  “Are you alright?” she asked quickly.

  “Yes, I – I think so,” Alice raised herself up on her elbows.

  Arlen sighed in relief and dropped, exhausted, on her back beside her sister. “You gave me such a fright.” She stopped, and lowered her eyes. “I thought I was going to lose you. What happened out there?” She was frighteningly aware of the way the fierce, unnamed power had tried to separate them. Just like last night. She shuddered, the memory of the furious surge of energy still strong in her mind.

  “I’m not sure.” Alice lay back and tried to fully comprehend the incident. But its understanding was beyond her. Anyway, here, safe in the ship, the occurrence suddenly seemed unimportant and out of reach. “I don’t know,” she shrugged, then rose unsteadily, requiring Arlen’s assistance. “But it doesn’t matter anyway. So, are we going to explore this baby or what?”

  Chapter Seven

  There really didn’t seem to be much left to explore, as the pair discovered after several minutes of looking. Not much of the ship was left standing, and the hull was completely waterlogged.

  “Well, there doesn’t seem much else,” Arlen said, with a half laugh, almost relieved.

  “Except – that door,” Alice corrected her, and her voice was strained.

  Arlen turned to where Alice was facing. “What the – ?” she stopped suddenly, a cold chill riding her spine, and took an involuntary step back as she grasped Alice’s arm.

  It was a small door, fashioned of thick wood and positioned almost as if hidden beneath a heavy cornice carved with various types of sea beasts. It would have been interesting if their attention had not been captured by the door itself. A safe door, one would have thought. Heavy wood, good, thick, solid oak, fastened by massive iron hinges as thick as a man’s wrist, and adorned by a large, tarnished door knocker in the shape of a dragon. But no door handle. It seemed thick and impenetrable.

  Yet something had broken through its guard. Something – not human –it seemed. The heavy wood was lacerated with wild, frenzied scratches and claw marks. Something had obviously been determined to enter the room by brute force and, despite the door’s weight, would seem to have succeeded. The fact that the whole lower portion of the door was splintered and cracked and yawning a great dark hole, was testimony to that.

  The wind died down and their swirling hair settled again around their faces, yet both girls continued to shiver violently as the door, without help or invitation, suddenly swung open before them. It was as if they were being summoned. As if on cue, they walked slowly towards the waiting opening and inside, in perfect unison. Behind them, the door slammed shut and the hole grew dark.

  “Wha – what happened? Where are we?” Alice twisted round in confusion, gazing at the sight before her with wide, frightened eyes. “Where are we?” she repeated, stopping her spinning then to stand, curious and bewildered, in the middle of the room. The fear was gone – somehow she couldn’t be frightened in here.

  “I’m not sure,” Arlen replied honestly, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. “But I think it’s some kind of – captain’s office?”

  They were in a small, oddly shaped room. The walls and ceiling were uneven, and the room wound in tiny nooks and crannies and alcoves which would have given a modern day architect a heart attack, but actually gave the room warmth and character and a life of its own. Strange panels jutted from walls where there really shouldn’t be any wall at all, and the ceiling sloped from a height made to accommodate a giant at one end, to a tiny corner designed to allow dwarf standing room only at the other. But the first thing the girls noticed, to their puzzlement, was that the room was completely devoid of anything which even resembled a window. The only possible entrance or exit was through the door by which they had come – or been called – the jagged, gaping wrench in it having been plugged up from the inside with some thick, white stuff.

  A large round table in the corner was covered with some strange metal instruments, so ancient looking that Arlen could only remember having seen something similar in a picture in a book when she was younger.

  “I wonder what these are?” Alice mused, carefully brushing the dust off one of them.

  “Magical instruments,” Arlen answered, dropping into a large wooden chair by the table and gazing round her. She suddenly remembered the torch, which she had slipped into her pocket, and snapped it on, bathing the dimness in a sickly yellow glow.

  The girls stared around them, fascinated. Strangely enough, the room was still good, despite the fearsome hole in the door. The murky green rug on the floor was mouldy with age rather than waterlogging; the few, bulky antique pieces of furniture – the chair in which Arlen was sitting, the curled table with its silent tools and yellowing papers, the sagging shelves around the walls, complete with thick, heavily bound volumes – hadn’t even suffered during the lurching and rolling taken to bring the ship to ground.

  Several large paintings of the sea and sea vessels hung around the room, and also a few dark, curious ones which seemed to be patterns of bright white dots.

  “I guess modern art isn’t so modern,” Alice remarked, with a small laugh.

  “They’re the stars,” Arlen said softly.

  Another part of the wall showed the distinct outline of a large painting that was no longer there. “Curious,” said Alice, now thinking that she’d almost rather be in the other Alice’s Wonderland.

  Still circling the small room, her attention was caught suddenly by another picture on the wall, a dark painting containing a
shining, sinuous figure, which was so bright against the background that it seemed to weave and writhe before her eyes like a ribbon of light. Alice stared, fascinated. She had seen that strange, swirling figure in a kind of golden vapour, only minutes before in the thick fog. A golden serpent, dancing in midair.

  “How is it that it’s managed to stay watertight after so long at the bottom of the sea?” she whispered nervously, as if to the painted beast before her.

  “Hey, Alice, look at this!” Arlen had been prowling around the room softly, letting her fingers rest carefully on items, searching for the answer to some unknown question. She had now stopped once again at the table of instruments, and was poring over a faded piece of parchment which lay beside them.

  “What is it?” Alice dragged herself away from the picture, suddenly realising how tired she was.

  “Look at this,” Arlen was pointing to the document, her eyes wide and excited.

  “What? I don’t see anything. Just your usual old-fashioned writing,” Alice shrugged, after a few minutes’ study. Her limbs were aching now, and she wanted to crawl back to her mattress, as far away from the beach as possible.

  “But look,” Arlen’s voice had taken on a strained sound. “The ink is still wet.”

  Alice could feel the hairs on the back of her neck pricking in a long, static line. “Maybe – maybe it’s just wet with seawater.” She offered the suggestion with dismal hope – it sounded ludicrous even to her own ears.

  “But that hasn’t affected this room. This room is watertight!” Arlen was gripping the sides of the table so tightly that her knuckles showed gaunt and white against the pale flesh. “It can’t be that. Nothing else in this room is wet. Someone’s been using it – ” she stopped abruptly, with the horrified realisation of what she was about to say. “Using it recently,” she finished lamely, her hold on the table weakening until her arms fell loosely by her sides, and she stared silently at the page before her.

  “What does it say?” Alice asked, shivering.

  “I can’t really read it,” Arlen admitted. “Something about – gold – a mark – safety. I don’t know.”

  Steeling herself, Alice reached out and touched the letters softly with her fingertip. The words smudged as her finger blackened, and the parchment slid softly away to reveal a large bound book, sitting unobtrusively beneath it. Its covering was a pink skin colour, which made both girls’ stomachs behave rather unpleasantly, and looked soft to the touch. Alice wasn’t so sure that it was vellum this time. Sewn around the front and back covers at the edge of the pages was a tarnished lock, fashioned in a kind of dragon head guarding the contents, which looked as though it may once have been gold.

  “Maybe – this is the answer,” Alice said softly.

  It sat before them, intriguing and commanding, waiting patiently behind its strange covering. Neither girl really liked to touch it, the soft skin giving a creepy, tingling sensation when handled, and they both sat there for some time, just staring. Then Arlen leaned forward and, with a quick, sharp motion, fingered the old lock. She had not really expected to release it – centuries under the sea certainly couldn’t have done it any good – but to her surprise it answered to her touch and snapped open with a sharp click. It was only later on that neither could remember being the one to actually open the book – loosened from its golden grasp after so long, it had seemed to spring open of its own accord and lay, vibrant and quivering, before them.

  The pages, strangely, were fresh and unstained, as if somehow the lock had prevented its destruction even by age. Arlen turned the pages gingerly; the paper was thick and coarse, and she could feel the raised, powdery mark of ink and paint beneath her fingers. Both recognised the hand as that of the writing on the parchment.

  They could not understand much of it. It was too old, almost like another language, and the letters, large and looking like the calligraphy stencils Alice had used at school, were not formed the way we use them now. They could pick out words here and there, but mostly had to rely on the pictures to make any sense at all.

  And what pictures.

  “That looks familiar,” Alice said thoughtfully, as the page landed on a handsome castle scene.

  “It should,” Arlen replied shortly, her voice slightly strained. “It’s the castle.”

  “What?” Alice looked more closely, and something cold and wild, between fear and excitement, seemed to grip her insides. It was indeed the castle, but the castle as it once must have been, grand and complete. “Look – there’s our tower room,” she said, pointing. “And the rooms at the end of the hall that aren’t there anymore.”

  “That’s the alchemist’s tower,” Arlen pointed slowly to the section of the building that had long since burnt down. “There are just the ruins there now.”

  She reached out and turned the page quickly, as if she couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. But there was more to come. Before them was the picture of the alchemist himself, the one Arlen had described seeing in a full painting, buried beneath the memory of his fallen tower. He stood before them now, captured in oils, a half portrait, his strong face lined and keen and – “He looks very sad, doesn’t he,” said Alice softly. In his right hand rested a blood red jewel, its crimson paint fresh and full and winking, as if just finished. Arlen felt a cold fist in her stomach. It was the ruby.

  “Look behind them,” Alice said then.

  In very dark colours, behind the alchemist, was the outline of a ship, wooden and sturdy, its prow graced with the flowing form of a female figurehead whose deep grey eyes matched the girls’ own.

  “It’s the ship,” Arlen breathed tensely. “I knew I’d seen it before.”

  It was very strange, but the bright colours before her seemed to shine out like a ray, and she could almost see the figures moving within the image, seeming to merge and swim until she felt them whirling before her like a sucking tunnel, and if she wasn’t careful, she knew she would be drawn into them and swallowed. She wobbled, and Alice turned the page quickly, only to gasp and raise her hand to her mouth in agitation.

  “What was it?” Arlen demanded sharply. “Let me see.”

  And Alice, shaking, turned aside to hear Arlen’s short cry.

  There was Arlen, shrouded in darkness, furtively peering out of the narrow tower window into the night to catch a glimpse of the dancing figures. There was Alice, chin resting on hand, nervous and tense, her face tight and pale in the window of the railway carriage. Arlen running, Alice dangling from the side of the ship, and the most curious one of all, the two girls standing, poring over an ancient book on a table in a strange, small room. It was as if they were looking into a mirror.

  “I don’t understand,” Arlen cried nervously, her fear turning to frustration, and she flipped the old pages over mercilessly.

  The pictures changed after that. A scene of a young blonde woman at the doorway of the castle, handing over a baby.

  “That’s our mother,” Arlen said stonily.

  A dark haired woman, in earnest conversation with a young man. “It’s the cart driver!” Alice exclaimed excitedly. “That’s him! I told you I wasn’t making it up. I’d know those eyes anywhere!”

  “So would I,” Arlen answered enigmatically, and her face grew grimmer than ever.

  And then a golden flash, and a strange, beautiful dragon was gliding gracefully around a cliff, and Alice could not help but feel a glow of pleasure.

  But the next page was even stranger, and both girls were silent.

  They were there again, themselves, but some years older, and in the dress of another era, with long rich gowns and shining jewellery, the sort that Alice had only seen in period films and pictures in books, high waisted and low necked with long, close fitting sleeves tapering to the white hands, dark hair falling in a glossy stream down their backs, their eyes grey and clear and with a hint of violet in the depths. And resting against their pale throats were two identical charms, golden and swirling, like the lithe tail of a winged s
erpent.

  It was them and it wasn’t them, and Arlen felt a thin ribbon of ice knotting her throat as she recognised the face of the girl beneath the hood.

  “Who are they?” Alice asked wonderingly. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Arlen muttered, as if to herself. “They must be – ancestors.” She reached automatically for the golden charm beneath her jumper and caressed it gently. “Two of them,” she murmured softly.

  “They’re clues,” Alice said firmly, feeling more like a character in a book than herself. “We have to unravel them and solve the story.” She forced her eyes away from the picture and turned the page quickly.

  One of the sisters, out on the cliff with a man. Tall and very fair, his eyes were of a cold, penetrating grey that seemed to regard the viewer with icy contempt. Both girls shuddered in revulsion; Alice’s face was drained of all colour, her insides cramping suddenly into a tight ball, and everything around her seemed dark and colourless. She had seen him, just a moment ago, standing before her in the fog.

  “Are you OK?” Arlen asked softly. Did Alice guess? she wondered anxiously. Had she seen him too, as he stood above the cliff behind Robbie, feeding on her anger?

  “I think I just need to go outside for a minute.” The room was whirling, and she could not keep an image from her mind of Arlen falling, falling, limp and bloody into the choking waves, although she did not know from where it had sprung. She only knew that she had to stop it. Stop it before –

  She needed to breathe.

  “Shall I come?” Arlen asked quickly. Don’t leave me, Alice, she thought, unable to drag her eyes away from the picture.

  “No – it’s OK – I just need some air. I’ll be right back.”

  Arlen closed her eyes fiercely and turned the page again.