The Book of Beasts (12 page)

‘Bit of a mess this, isn't it?' Malcolm remarked, looking around.

The events of the day were taking their toll on the elderly Guardian. Her hands trembled when she accepted a ginger snap from Vaughn, who had found a tin in the kitchen. ‘Wyeth collected anything wi' a connection to the Western Isles,' she said stiffly. ‘He has left most of this collection in his will to the Scottish National Gallery. A few favourites he's given to me.'

Vaughn noticed that she kept her eyes on Malcolm, who had shifted his attention to an open jewellery box beside a locked display cabinet that hung beneath the painted curve of dragon's belly on the wall.

The old Guardian stiffened in her seat as Malcolm peered closer into the cabinet.

‘This is an interesting artefact,' said Malcolm conversationally. He tapped the glass, pointing at a dull golden medallion within. ‘What's its provenance, Alice?'

‘I believe it belonged to Wyeth's sister,' answered Alice in guarded tones.

Malcolm's blue eyes were calculating. ‘You've really no further information?'

Alice jumped to her feet as the undertakers carried the coffin from the bedroom on their broad shoulders, knocking her cup and saucer to the floor. ‘Oh my goodness,' she said, as if her clumsiness startled her.

Vaughn moved to help her, but she waved him away and kneeled down to pick up the pieces. So instead he followed the coffin outside, helped lift it on to the back of the hearse, and waited until he saw it safely on its way along the beach road before he stepped back inside.

The main room was empty. The glass case was unlocked. No Alice. No Malcolm.

A horrible scream filled the vast room, full of anguish and most certainly human. Vaughn looked up in shock at the balcony. Alice was splayed on the floor with Malcolm looming over her, his hands gripping her shoulders.

Vaughn sprinted up the ramp, barrelling into Malcolm. The impact sent Malcolm flying backwards, crashing through the wooden rails and out over the edge of the balcony. Reacting in an instant, Malcolm grabbed at the carpet, stopping his fall but leaving him dangling dangerously high above the stone floor.

‘Help!' he shouted, struggling. ‘Vaughn, get me up!'

Ignoring Malcolm's cries, Vaughn kneeled next to Alice and checked her pulse. It was strong, but one of her ears was bleeding, the blood trickling down her pale neck.

On the other side of the broken rail Malcolm was trying to haul himself up, swinging his legs like a pendulum. His momentum caused the carpet to tear from its mooring, dropping him further. Vaughn stomped on the runner, slowing Malcolm's descent.

‘No. No,' Alice groaned.

Vaughn realized with disgust that Malcolm had inspirited the old Guardian to the point of suffering. Enraged, he took his foot off the runner again. The carpet slipped further. Malcolm howled.

‘What did you do to her?' demanded Vaughn, stepping back on to the carpet.

‘She was lying to me about that medallion!' Malcolm's exertion was reddening his face as he swung, frantically trying to keep a grip. ‘How was I to know how frail her mind was?'

‘By
looking
at her!' Vaughn roared.

The carpet gave up, sliding away completely from under Vaughn's foot. For a beat Malcolm bicycled in the air, grasping at the shifting rug for traction. Vaughn shot out his arm and grabbed Malcolm's hand. Wordlessly, he dragged his Guardian's upper body on to the balcony, leaving him to scramble up the rest of the way on his own.

Vaughn set the unconscious Alice gently on a daybed on the balcony. Holding a corner of his T-shirt to the cut above his eye, Malcolm slowly stood up and went down the ramp.

Alice's eyes fluttered open.

‘What happened?' asked Vaughn.

She opened her fist.

The medallion from the locked cabinet looked very like the coins the Council of Guardians used for secret votes, until Vaughn looked closer. Instead of a white stag on the front of the coin – the symbol for Animares – and the helix indicating Guardians on the reverse side, this medallion had an inverted spiral with its point on the top. On the other side was the image of a black peryton with a flaming saddle.

Vaughn pressed the coin back into Alice's hands. ‘What is this?'

‘Have ye ever heard of Hollow Earth?'

‘Of course. It's one of our myths, part of our creation story.' Vaughn smiled and squeezed her hand. Had Malcolm rattled her more deeply than he thought? ‘It's a story, Alice,' he went on gently. ‘No one believes in Hollow Earth's existence any more.'

‘Wyeth did.' She nodded feebly down towards the kitchen, where Malcolm was noisily opening and closing cupboards. ‘And he believes it too.'

‘Malcolm?' Vaughn said disbelievingly.

‘Yes. He wanted to know about the Hollow Earth Society.'

Vaughn tried to keep hold of the conversation. ‘The Hollow Earth
Society
? Who are they?'

Alice's eyes gazed steadily at him. ‘A secret organization who believe that Hollow Earth must be protected at all costs. An organization Wyeth's sister belonged to.'

Someone believed Hollow Earth was real? Not just real, but worth protecting? ‘Protected from whom?' Vaughn said at last.

‘Wyeth's sister and several others believed that someone of immense power had started up a rebel faction inside the society.' Alice's voice was growing weaker. She rolled the coin in her hand. ‘This faction wasn't interested in protecting Hollow Earth. They wanted to open it, and use the beasts for their own purposes. Wyeth's sister said that this coin was a way of identifying those rebels.' She lay back against the pillows, exhausted. ‘Go, son. I'll be fine. I promise. Go and leave me to my grief. You've enough of your own coming your way.'

She drifted away into a deep sleep, the kind Vaughn knew came from a powerful inspiriting. The balcony was cold; she needed a pillow and blanket to keep her comfortable.

Vaughn went downstairs, hunting for the linen closet. When he found it next to Wyeth's bedroom, he grabbed a pillow and a blanket, and carried them back up the ramp to Alice. Lifting her softly snoring head, he slipped the pillow underneath and draped the blanket across her frail legs.

Her hand was open and the coin was gone.

Vaughn sprinted outside just as Malcolm and the Land Rover disappeared round the curve of the island. It was a long trek on foot to the ferry.

Vaughn returned to the Abbey, packed up his belongings and left. He couldn't stay any more. Although his heart broke at leaving Sandie, he hoped never to see Malcolm again.

Two things haunted him as he took his motorbike south. Who was the person with ‘immense power' that Alice mentioned leading the quest to control Hollow Earth? And – more pressingly – would he one day regret having saved Malcolm Calder's life?

Auchinmurn Isle
Present Day

‘Enough moping around,' Renard said briskly, setting a brown leather satchel on the table. ‘We need a plan.'

As he opened the satchel's buckles, Em could see a handful of silver medallions inside, a stack of letters tied with twine and the opening page from
The
Book of Beasts
in its Plexiglas sleeve.

Renard took two coins from the bag and slid them across the table, one to Zach and one to Em. Em turned hers over in her hand, recognizing the white peryton on one side and the etching of the silver helix on the other. She thought about her ghostly visitor again now that she knew who he was.

Simon took over the conversation. ‘In our research, we have discovered that the black and white perytons are the Protectors of these islands. They appear whenever a descendant of the First Animare calls for help.'

‘So they're like the island's avatars?' signed Zach.

‘Exactly.' Simon picked up the coin in front of his son. ‘We've always known that this peryton was a symbol of the Animare.' He tapped the tiny peryton on the medallion. ‘Until recently, we always assumed that the etching on the back, the helix, was the Guardian symbol.'

‘And now?' asked Em, studying the silver helix on the back of her coin, rubbing her thumb over the etching.

‘Now that we know the stories of Hollow Earth are in fact true,' Simon continued, ‘we think the helix means something quite different.'

‘What?'

‘It once stood for the monastic Order of Era Mina, representing both Animare and Guardian,' Renard said. ‘But now we think it has something to do with time. How we perceive it, how we measure it. The shape suggests time is not linear, as we generally perceive it to be – one event after another, creating ripples of complex causes and effects, measured as seconds, then minutes, accumulating into hours and days and so on. We think this represents the fact that Hollow Earth exists outside the normal way we measure time. It is eternal.'

The quote etched on the woodcut that Arthur Summers sent them right before his death jolted into Em's mind.

To our sons and daughters. May you never forget imagination is the real and the eternal. This is Hollow Earth.

If time was a series of overlapping circles as Renard described, it was exactly like the great gyroscope of beasts they had just seen spinning over Era Mina.
Real and eternal
. If it was true, Hollow Earth existed
outside
time.

More understanding surged through Em. The quote had never been just about the place where the beasts of the ancient stories and myths had been imprisoned. It was also about those who must protect Hollow Earth with their imaginations. The sons and daughters of the island's first defenders, through all of time. Countless individuals down the generations. Renard and Jeannie.

Em and Matt.

‘Years ago, Em,' said Vaughn, pulling her attention back to the conversation, ‘your dad found a coin similar to these, but with a black peryton on the reverse. I think that discovery set him and his mother Henrietta on their quest to find and open Hollow Earth.'

Simon passed two mugs of hot chocolate to Zach and Em. Em sipped the rich creamy drink, letting it soothe her. Fresh ideas shifted and settled in her head.

‘Do you know where Hollow Earth is, Grandpa?' she asked.

‘It lies beneath and between the two islands, in a supernatural hollow at the centre of the earth.'

I knew it!

Zach arched his eyebrows at Em.
You did not.

Renard slipped the page of
The
Book of Beasts
out of the satchel. ‘In ancient times, the monks of Era Mina began this book to bind the beasts in Hollow Earth, lock them away forever. Albion is said to live there with them, guarding them. Only direct descendants of Albion can open Hollow Earth again.'

‘One to use the sacred bone quill Dad stole from the monks to draw the beasts out again,' Em guessed. ‘And the other to keep their emotions steady and controlled as they do it. Right?'

Renard nodded.

Sandie paled. ‘Malcolm is a Guardian descendant of Albion. He only needs
The
Book of Beasts
, the bone quill, and an Animare?'

Vaughn swore loudly and got up from the table. Em jumped from her chair.

Take it easy, Em
…

‘Mum!' Em was barely able to hear Zach's voice through the drumming in her head. ‘Matt's the Animare. Dad already has the bone quill. If he finds
The
Book of Beasts
, all he has to do is inspirit Matt to do what he wants. Then he'll have everything he needs.'