The Grotto's Secret: A Historical Conspiracy Mystery Thriller (31 page)

142

Kelby grimaced at the sweat pouring off Punch-bag’s brow. More ran down his arms and hands gripping her face and into her mouth.

‘Yuck!’ She shook her head vigorously trying to stop the flow, but her words were muffled behind his hand.

‘Once the dragon … infects you, then you’ll … know what deadly …
duidelik
means.’ His voice faltered.

A sudden kick from him made Kelby glance down. She frowned at his leg kicking out in every direction.

‘If you hated Stacie that much … you …’ He shook his head violently. ‘You would’ve enjoyed … watching her … get infected.’

Oh my God!
Kelby stifled a scream. What terrible things had he done to Stacie? She clenched her fists at her sides, suddenly realising she still clutched a bottle.

‘But the dragon …’ Punch-bag muttered, his words fading.

Kelby gripped the bottle’s lid and slammed it backwards, against the wooden shelf. The glass bottle splintered in her hand, breaking in half. Ignoring the sudden biting pain of broken glass stabbing into her palm, she plunged the jagged edge of the bottle into his thigh. Punch-bag crashed down beside her, gripping his leg with both hands and groaned.

Kelby grimaced at the sight of the bottle’s neck sticking out of his leg. She wiped her bloodied hand against the wooden shelving. A sharp splinter of wood stabbed into her thumb’s pad. She yanked her hand away and sucked the wound.

As Punch-bag leaned over in an attempt to pull the bottle out of his thigh, she sidled sideways. Noticing movement, he reached to grab her, but his hand stopped in mid-air. His muscles twitched. With bulging eyes, he leaned against her, as though trying to keep himself up. ‘
Sle-eett.’
He slurred, ‘What did you throoo … at meee.’

Now, Kelby remembered the label:
Strychnine and brucine.

He must be reacting to the poison. Thank God, none had touched her. If she could shove him off and run away, he’d be much slower at catching her. His fingers shuddered and his arms began to spasm. His body leaned into her, and she felt the sheer weight of him pressing her into the shelf. Behind her, bottles rattled. On the end, one crashed to the floor, splashing its vile contents across his feet.

She watched in horror as his face slowly distorted into a monstrous grimace. ‘Blik-semmm.’ He frothed at the mouth.

To Kelby, it looked like an alien had suddenly possessed his body. Thrashing about, he rasped for each breath. His arms flapped. Kelby tried to shove him off her, but his weight kept her pinned between him and the shelf.

‘I …
animaal.
’ He clutched his throat, struggling to breathe.

As he fell sideways, Punch-bag’s body convulsed. He hit the floor and his body contorted into a stiff arch.

Then it lay still.

143

Madre took a step and cried out in pain. She stumbled and sank to her knees, dragging María to the floor with her.

‘God protect us! We will not make it.’

‘We will, Mama. We will go slowly, one step at a time.’

‘Why will
you
not listen to your mother? I think it is better if you fetch rizado to heal you and then we leave.’

‘And
I
think we should persevere.
And
make haste. They could return at any moment, Mama.’

‘
Dios
! It’s like having your father back with us.’

María chuckled. ‘Then it is good fortune you can talk with him again.’ Stretching her back, María raised her mother into a standing position. ‘There. Now, seek out the place under your feet that gives you the least pain when you stand.’

For a few moments, Madre tried placing her weight on different parts of her feet. For each area, she grunted and lifted her foot.

‘Can we go?’

Madre flinched, but nodded.

María took a step and dragged her mother behind her.

It took nearly an hour to get out of the door. She’d rather die than leave her mother here to the mercy of those soldiers.

Dragging her mother over the croft proved to be the worst part of the journey. They tripped over each cobble. A few times Madre’s arms came loose. Each time it happened, María knelt on the cobbles, and shuffled her body under her mother’s. At a woeful sluggard’s pace, they hobbled closer to the underground cellar. María had to use her foot to kick open the stable door before they made their way to the cellar at the back.

The pain in her hands frustrated María. Madre had little strength left. If only she could use her hands to lift her mother. She wouldn’t be able to carry her mother, she was too heavy, but at least she was able to drag her along. With toiling, she might even be able to pierce one of the chemises between two strong branches, and drag her mother along behind her, as she had seen traders lugging bags of vegetables to the market. But her hands were useless.

Suddenly the sound of hooves startled María. The soldiers! They were back.

144

For a long moment Kelby stared at the body on the floor at her feet. She couldn’t work out if he was dead or unconscious. Not daring to go near him, in case he suddenly grabbed her ankle, she had to get away from here fast. And find Annie.

Punch-bag had hinted she was upstairs, but this place was abandoned. Maybe he had taken her to the clinic next door. She remembered his eyes indicating the direction of the tunnel. Kelby pulled herself together and darted out of the room. At the door, she remembered the journal. Leaping over Punch-bag’s stiff body, she grabbed the journal from the desk.

Kelby tried Roy’s number, but her phone didn’t respond. She squinted at the bars on her phone. No signal. She’d have to get out of here and try again. She dumped the phone back into her sling bag.

Glancing left and right, she spotted a tunnel winding its way to the basement of the sprawling mansion. Dim globes strung along the roof showed raw bricks arching into the dark. Compared to the rest of the mansion’s once splendid décor, the tunnel looked bare.

Kelby shivered with cold and unease, yet she turned into the tunnel. Despite the sensation of stepping into a horror film, she descended into the gloomy passageway. The overpowering odour of damp and mould almost forced her back. The rancid smell made her feel as though she were entering her own grave. But this wasn’t nearly as putrid as the stench of those dead things floating in chemicals.

Wishing Roy were with her, she stepped into the bricked tunnel. Fighting against her instincts to escape, Kelby crept along, using her right hand on the rough chipped bricks to guide her. The dirt encrusted stones underfoot hadn’t seen the light of day in centuries. A cobweb, dangling from the brick ceiling, floated over her cheek. Kelby squealed and bolted forward.

Her hand chafed along the rough walls. A few bumps and jutting bricks caught her knuckles, scratching the skin off them. Heat still emanated from her burns. She had to ignore the pain. She couldn’t focus on anything except finding Annie.

Following the yellowed, flickering globes, Kelby bit down on the fear welling inside her. Refusing to think of Punch-bag and what he had revealed, she resisted looking at her blistered fingers and raw palm. Although tears threatened, she denied them. Her whole body trembled, but she stumbled along blindly.

She had one focus. Get out of here before anyone else found her. After no more than five minutes that seemed like hours, she came to the end of the tunnel.

A heavy oak door barred her way.

145

María and Madre stood frozen in their tracks. They listened to the hooves in the distance, expecting them to come closer. After a few minutes the sound disappeared and they remained still, holding their breath.

‘¡Dios santo!
We must hurry, Mama.’

‘The soldiers are everywhere, María. You must leave me. You can get to the village and get help. There will be time before they kill me.’

‘
¡Cállese!
Be quiet, Mama, I am not going to let them have you.’

‘Wait, María, I have an idea. Leave me in the cellar. They will never find me there locked under the ground. You go … get rizado to heal your hands … and hide the journal. Then, come back for me.’

María tried to interrupt, but Madre poked her back.

‘When you see … they are not here, open the cellar. We can smear … rizado over me.’ Madre took a deep breath and continued, There is food enough for … many days down there. We can hide until … we are strong enough to escape.’

‘But Mama —’

‘
¡Por dios!
By God, this is the … only way. Can you not see your … stubbornness will only get us … killed? Like … your father. When the wall was falling … he refused to give up and he got trapped. Don’t let me … lose you too!’

Her mother’s desperate weeping made María squirm. It was a good suggestion, she had to admit. If she could get her hands even a little better she would be of more use to them both.

‘As you will, Mama. I will hurry back.’

María used her remaining strength to drag Madre to the cellar. After she lifted the hidden wooden lid, she gritted her teeth against the agony of helping her mother down the steps.

A sense of victory spurred her on, even though the smell of her burning flesh would never leave her.

146

Kelby flung herself against the solid door and heaved. It didn’t budge. She tried again and a slow creak groaned at her. Shoving her weight against the door, Kelby huffed. It moved a little, but not enough.

Placing one foot far behind the other, Kelby anchored her front toe against a crack in the floor and leaned her weight onto it. She heaved against the door, and it creaked open a little more — enough for her to squeeze through.

Something dangled onto Kelby’s hair. She jumped back, thrashing her arms in the air. The thought of spiders and other creepy crawlies made her twitch.

An old-fashioned light switch, dangling on a long cord, swung back and forth in front of her face. She yanked on it and the room lit up.

Homerton’s basement.

In front of her, an old-fashioned set of iron stairs led upstairs. Along the far side, an empty hospital trolley bed leaned against the wall. Beside it, another exit showed a sloping ramp that didn’t look Victorian. Maybe it had been built when the clinic was renovated.

Kelby thought of medical trial patients being taken to the mad scientist’s lab. She shuddered, but raced up the wrought iron stairs. At the top, she entered another cellar. Under the bright lights, this one didn’t look dirty or feel scary. She thundered up the wooden stairway, clomping her way to the top and into the clinic’s reception.

Kelby came face-to-face with Jon Thompson.

147

María glanced around the stone cellar. Its wooden shelves were rickety with the weight of the meat supplies and without Padre’s constant attention.

Long ago, she had transcribed another copy of
Herbal de Carbonela
, and concealed the grotto map between the double layers of calf skin. Then, she had hidden the leather book inside one of Madre’s clay pots for safe keeping.

Now, she lay her mother in the far corner and ran back to the house. Using her elbows, she gathered an armful of bedding and clothing to place under her mother. A second journey brought over her mother’s medicina basket. ‘Here, Mama, you can smear the last of your rizado on your wounds.’

Madre gave a weak smile, and María could see she wouldn’t have the strength to do it. Her breasts were in a terrible state. María returned to the house and collected a few of mother’s chemises. After smearing the remaining rizado paste from Madre’s medicina basket over her mother’s breasts and the cuts on her calves, María wrapped three chemises around Madre’s body.

‘This will protect your wounds until I bring more rizado back from the grotto.’

A third trip to the house allowed her to give her mother cooked food and a pail of water. She lifted Madre’s shorn head to help her sip. ‘You need food and water to build up your strength so we can escape.’

After Madre had a drink, she clutched María’s hand. ‘You are a good girl, strong like Padre. You will never let anyone or anything beat you.’

‘You are strong too, Mama. You will survive this.’

‘María, you must find Padre’s stone, it will protect you and bring you back to me.’

María saw Madre grimace in pain. In that moment a flood of determination filled the space inside where hatred boiled. ‘Mama, these soldiers and their queen will not win.’

Madre nodded. ‘I am proud of you, María.’ A smile filled her eyes and removed the agony from her face.

Although she left supplies right beside her mother, poor Madre was too exhausted and in too much pain to feed herself. ‘Mama, I am going now. I will be back soon.’

Her mother didn’t answer. María leaned closer to see her mother was asleep. The slow, shallow rise and fall of her chest assured her that her mother was still alive. She must hurry to get the rizado to heal her hands, and return to attend to her mother’s wounds. With one last glance at her mother, María exited the cellar. She placed a few twigs and a layer of green branches over the wooden lid. Covered in animal feed it looked part of the stable floor.

The animals brayed to get free of their pens. Her heart skipped a beat. Getting help for Madre came first.

She glanced at her blistered raw palms. Even if her hands were able to free the animals, the returning soldiers would know she was strong enough to escape. They would ransack the farm in their search and they might find the cellar.

María had to get to the grotto fast.

The grotto’s secret held their only hope.