The Wind of Southmore (12 page)

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 serpent.

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.