13 Treasures (27 page)

Fabian didn’t walk off. He didn’t shout, or laugh, or mock her. A mixture of expressions crossed his face in a few short seconds: confusion, fear, hope, dread. Finally, when he opened his mouth to speak, his clear blue eyes met Tanya’s.

“I’ll listen to what you have to say. But it’d better be good.”

Fabian stared at the tiny bottle in his palm, slowly rotating it. Inside, the murky fluid tipped back and forth. Tanya sat beside him, watching the swirling water of the stream and breathing in its fresh smell. She had told him everything—omitting only Red and the changeling—and he had listened without interruption. Finally, it seemed that he believed her.

“The day after my mother died,” he said eventually. “I was sitting in this very place.” He stopped, and with a trembling finger, pointed toward a tree at the edge of the brook. “It was over there when I saw it. Warwick brought me here because it was one of my mother’s favorite places. He didn’t need to explain—I was old enough to know she was never coming back.

“We threw white roses and a bunch of rosemary into the water: the rosemary for remembrance and the roses because they were her favorite. I had just thrown the last flower when I noticed a creature sitting on the lowest branch of the tree. She was wearing a green dress and a hat made of woven grass. She… she looked straight at me, and then took off her hat and threw it into the water with the roses. I blinked, and she was gone. I would have put it down to my imagination if it hadn’t been for the hat, still floating down the stream. I watched until it got pulled under the water.”

“Did you tell anyone?” Tanya asked.

Fabian shook his head. “No, never. But I always remembered. A couple of months ago I wrote about it in here.” He tapped the cover of his brown leather book. “I never saw anything like it again. I always put it down to the shock of losing my mum.”

“Maybe it was,” said Tanya. “Maybe grief opened up some kind of window in your mind. Or maybe it just appeared to comfort you. They can be seen by us when they choose, I think. Not all of them are bad.”

Fabian ran his thumb over the tiny bottle, then removed the lid and sniffed its contents. “It smells even worse than it looks,” he said, offering it to Tanya. “Which is bad considering that it looks like a liquidized frog.”

“It stinks,” she agreed. “I wouldn’t want to drink it.”

“Me neither,” said Fabian. “So it’s just as well I don’t have to.” He held up the lid of the bottle. On the underside was a thin wand that, due to the density of the liquid, Tanya had not noticed. Fabian pushed the wand into the bottle and then retracted it slowly. A murky droplet glistened at the end.

“Eyedrops,” said Fabian. He tilted his head back and lifted the wand. “Let’s see if they work.”

Tanya placed a hand on his arm. “Don’t waste it.”

“I’m not wasting it. I’m testing it.”

“We already know it will work,” said Tanya. “Because the compass does.”

“I don’t care,” Fabian said sulkily. “I want to try it now.”

“Try it later,” said Tanya. “Tonight, when everyone’s gone to bed. That way, if anything happens nobody will be around to see it.”

Fabian hesitated, then pushed the stopper back on.

“What about the goblin tooth? Can I at least see that?”

Tanya nodded. “It’s in my room, hidden. I can show you.”

“Let’s go,” said Fabian, springing to his feet. “Oh, but wait—Warwick’s probably hanging around—we should go separately. You go ahead and I’ll join you in a few minutes so he doesn’t suspect we’ve been together.”

“Good idea,” said Tanya. “Come to my room when it’s all clear.”

Warwick was sitting reading a newspaper when Tanya arrived back at the house. He barely looked up when she came through the kitchen door.

“Have you seen Fabian?”

“No,” she muttered. “Sorry.”

Warwick grunted dismissively, removing the sports section of the paper and discarding the rest. Tanya went to move past him but found herself jerking to a halt when she saw the headline on the front page of the newspaper. It was accompanied by a grainy photograph of a face she recognized: Red.

MISSING CHILD: NEW LEADS.
Tanya snatched up the paper, ignoring Warwick’s curious glance.

T
HE MOTHER OF A NEWBORN CHILD SNATCHED FROM AN
E
SSEX MATERNITY WARD SEVEN DAYS AGO FINALLY CAME FORWARD YESTERDAY AFTERNOON
. T
HE WOMAN, WHO CANNOT BE NAMED FOR LEGAL REASONS, HAD ABANDONED THE BOY ONLY HOURS AFTER GIVING BIRTH
. A
T PRESENT, HER REASONS FOR THE ABANDONMENT ARE UNKNOWN.

T
HE PRIME SUSPECT IN THE ABDUCTION IS A AT THE TIME THE CHILD VANISHED
. T
HIS MORNING, DETECTIVES REVEALED THAT THEY BELIEVE THE GIRL TO BE FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD
R
OWAN
F
OX, PICTURED AT LEFT, WHO HAS BEEN ON THE MISSING PERSON’S LIST SINCE RUNNING AWAY FROM A CHILDREN’S HOME ALMOST EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO
. M
UCH OF THE GIRL’S BACKGROUND CANNOT BE EXPOSED DUE TO HER AGE
. I
NVESTIGATORS REFUSED TO COMMENT ON SPECULATION THAT
F
OX IS RELATED TO ANOTHER CHILD THAT DISAPPEARED WHILE AT THE HOME.

P
OLICE WOULD ALSO LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE GIRL IN CONNECTION WITH TWO OTHER ABDUCTIONS, BOTH OF WHICH OCCURRED IN THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS AND BEAR CHILLING RESEMBLANCES TO THIS ONE
. I
N
A
UGUST LAST YEAR, ONE-YEAR-OLD
S
EBASTIAN
C
ONNOR VANISHED FROM HIS GARDEN IN
K
ENT WHILE HIS FOSTER FATHER’S BACK WAS TURNED
. T
EN DAYS LATER HE WAS FOUND UNHARMED IN A DISUSED WAREHOUSE FOLLOWING AN ANONYMOUS PHONE CALL
. T
WO MONTHS LATER, TODDLER
L
AUREN
M
ARSH DISAPPEARED FROM A SWEET SHOP IN
S
UFFOLK WHILE IN THE CARE OF HER OLDER SISTER
. S
HE HAS NOT BEEN SEEN SINCE
. P
OLICE ARE APPEALING FOR ANYONE WITH INFORMATION TO COME FORWARD.

Underneath was a contact number. Tanya swallowed hard and put the paper back on the table. She felt sick with worry and confusion, no longer knowing what to believe.

“Something wrong?” Warwick asked.

“No,” Tanya answered abruptly, annoyed at his attention. She left the kitchen and made her way upstairs. The door was ajar when Tanya reached her room. Frowning slightly, she pushed it open. The first thing she saw was the mess.

Every item she owned had been wrenched from the drawers and thrown across the room in a frenzied manner. The wardrobe doors were open and the contents emptied—there was now a pile of clothes, shoes, and coat hangers lying haphazardly on the floor. The bed had been stripped, and even the pillows had been ripped from their cases.

The second thing Tanya saw was the drain-dweller.

It was over by the fireplace, and, having rolled back the carpet, had lifted out the loose floorboard and was standing in the space where the shoebox was hidden with only its head visible. When it saw her it gave a small yelp of surprise and leapt out from between the floorboards. Tanya edged closer to the gap where the shoebox was. It lay untouched, still wrapped in the red scarf. The drain-dweller stood with its back pressed flat to the wall, not daring to move.

Tanya knelt and lifted the shoebox, grasping it to her chest. She stared at the fairy’s crestfallen face.

“You’re looking for something. What?”

The drain-dweller’s eyes shifted craftily to Tanya’s wrist, where the charms on the silver bracelet danced with her movements, glittering alluringly. The creature’s pupils dilated at the sight of them. It seemed to be in some kind of trance. It had found what it was looking for. The awful stench of the drains filled Tanya’s nostrils. She began to back away.

A loud rap on the door startled them both, and then Fabian pushed his way into the room.

“I saw one,” he said, breathless with excitement. “In the garden! It was one of the goblins, the one with the bruises—” He broke off as he surveyed the mess. “What happened? And what the hell is
that
?”

He pointed in horror at the fairy, which was still gazing at the bracelet with a look of adoration that was tinged with madness.

Tanya stared at him, furious. “
It’s the drain-dweller!
I don’t believe you! You just couldn’t resist, could you?”

“Sorry,” said Fabian, looking anything but apologetic. In fact, he looked as if he had just won the Nobel Prize. “It’s revolting!” he exclaimed, looking delirious and appalled all at once. He knelt and reached toward the suspicious drain-dweller. It lunged forward and snapped at his fingers, missing only by a fraction of an inch. Fabian jumped and retracted his hand quickly.

“This is incredible!
Amazing!
This is going to revolutionize the world of science!”

“Shut up, Fabian—” Tanya began, but her momentary distraction was all the drain-dweller needed. It threw itself upon Tanya’s wrist with incredible force and began wrenching at the bracelet frenziedly.

“What’s it doing?” Fabian yelled in alarm.

“Get it off me!” Tanya shrieked, batting at the creature with her free hand.

“Grab it by the neck!”

Tanya reached for the scrawny neck, but every time she made contact the creature wriggled and slid out of her grasp. Finally she managed to catch its head, though her grip was weak upon the slimy frog-like skin beneath her hand. As she tried to pry it away from her wrist her hand slid in front of the fairy’s face. She felt a sharp pain, as if twenty little needles had pierced her all at once. It had sunk its teeth into her forefinger. She felt, rather than saw, the blood running down her arm and dripping from her elbow. In her shock she allowed the drain-dweller’s head to slip free from her hand.

“You’re bleeding!” said Fabian, horrified.

“Guard the bathroom,” Tanya cried. “Put the plugs in the sink and the bath. We can’t let it escape!”

With a final wrench the bracelet broke at the clasp. Now satisfied, the fairy slithered from Tanya’s grip, its fist clenched around the object of its desire, and bolted for the open door.

Tanya flew past Fabian out onto the landing. “Don’t let it get away!”

The drain-dweller was halfway down the first flight of stairs. Immediately, Tanya could see that it was struggling. In a split second she registered that the dry, dusty carpet was hampering its escape. The creature was used to slithering and sliding through moist pipes and water. It was not equipped for life on dry ground.

Tanya thundered down the stairs, fearing that any moment her legs were going to get tangled up in each other. She was gaining on it.

As the creature neared the grandfather clock on the landing, it stopped suddenly and froze. For a moment Tanya thought it was about to take refuge inside the clock—but then she saw what it was staring at.

The tip of a matted ginger tail was just visible from the side of the grandfather clock. It flicked once in agitation.

What followed would replay itself in Tanya’s head in sickening clarity for years to come. Often she would ask herself whether Spitfire had had one last good pounce in him, whether she had vastly underestimated him, or if he had simply been lucky. In the scheme of things none of it really made a difference. The result was the same.

The drain-dweller’s eyes widened as Spitfire sprang toward it. It did not try to run. It made no attempt to fight. Maybe it was too afraid to do either. Or maybe it just realized its fate and was accepting of it.

The creature did not scream when the cat’s claws found their target, or even whimper as the broken, aged teeth clamped down on its windpipe for the kill. Spitfire, for his part, seemed to sense his good fortune, knowing enough not to push his luck by toying with his prey longer than necessary. There was a crisp, sharp snap, and then the drain-dweller’s body twitched before going limp.

Tanya heard her own cry get lodged in her throat. The sound of it startled her, and urged Spitfire to make off with his rare catch. She could only watch as he loped down the stairs and into the hallway, eager to find a darkened corner to feast in.

She became aware of Fabian standing close behind her, and turned. His expression mirrored her own. Like her, he had no words to describe what they had just witnessed. In silence he stooped and picked something up from the threadbare carpet, then gently pushed it into Tanya’s hand.