Triskellion (16 page)

One
of his hobbies.

Adam didn’t want to think about what some of the others might be.

Without thinking, he reached into his pocket and found the coin that Honeyman had given him. As he turned it over and over between thumb and finger, he began to banish the horrific images that his mind had conjured up and, slowly, another image began to form. With his eyes shut, Adam began to see a picture of the room around him as if it were fully lit, but in monochrome; as if it were night vision on a video camera.

He saw it clearly: bricked and circular, with alcoves that contained wooden boxes. He saw the stairs, twelve of them, leading back up into the lodge and he saw the earth floor at his feet. Reaching out, he found that the position of the alcoves and the steps related
exactly
to those in his mind’s eye.

It was amazing.

Somehow – perhaps it had been the stress of the trauma, or the deep breathing and concentration – Adam could see in the dark with his eyes shut.

Amazing … and scary.

As he looked round, the black and white shapes in the cellar began to take on colours: the bricks, a dark brown mass, bluish round the edges where they were cooler; the niches in
the wall glowing green, as if their relative heat or moisture level gave them a colour, like a thermal image.

Adam marvelled at his new-found vision for a moment. He waved his head around, eyes tightly shut, astonished at the variations in colour that the cellar projected, until he came to rest on what appeared to be a glowing orange disc on the wall ahead of him.

There was a blank section of wall in between the alcoves, where the pattern of bricks changed. There was an arch clearly visible, and the orange light glowed and shimmered like a full moon at its centre.

Adam took two steps forward and held his hand to the wall, touching the centre of the disc. It was warmer than the surrounding bricks. Suddenly he could feel an energy spreading into his hands and up his arms; could feel a strength pouring into them. He pushed at the circle and felt the brickwork shift under his hands. He leant his full body-weight against it and shoved until, with a dull clunking sound, an area of wall gave way under the arched section of brickwork, and fell to the ground.

Adam stepped back from the cloud of dust and disintegrating mortar; tried to refocus his internal vision. The orange disc of light was still there, but was now hovering above a hole in the bricks almost as big as he was.

Adam thought for a moment. Tried to be rational.

There was no way he was going to escape by going back up the stairs into the lodge. The thick wooden door was
heavily bolted, and he certainly didn’t want to risk walking into anywhere where Hilary Wing was waving a gun about. He did not want to think too hard about what Hilary Wing might have in store for him, but he knew that if he stayed where he was, he would be a sitting duck.

And now there was a hole in the wall; a hole that looked suspiciously like the opening to a tunnel…

Adam pushed his head through the area of orange light and into the blackness. There was certainly a cavity there, but as he probed further with his arm, he could feel earth crumbling in front of him.

It smelt warm, damp and fertile.

Adam scratched at the soft earth with his hands. It fell away, creating a bigger hole still. As he felt the peaty soil crumble beneath his busy fingers, he pondered a moment and then stepped over the remaining bricks into the earth cavity and began to work faster.

Began to tunnel.

Gabriel supported Rachel with an arm round her waist and Rachel steadied herself against his shoulders. As they stumbled through the thick undergrowth, Rachel ran her fingers through her hair, feeling for scratches and checking her fingertips for traces of blood.

“There’s nothing there,” she said. “Not a scab or a scratch.” She turned her head to look Gabriel in the eye. “What did you do?”

Gabriel smiled and waved his hands. “Magic fingers,” he said. “C’mon, we should get you home.”

“What about Adam?” Rachel asked. But before Gabriel could speak, her question was answered by the roar of a shotgun dangerously close by. Shotgun pellets peppered a tree overhead and a flock of small birds that had been hidden deep in the branches took flight, swooping and zigzagging around their heads in a frenzy.

Gabriel’s green eyes darted around, searching for the gun.

“Who’s shooting at us?” Rachel asked.

Gabriel nodded towards the dark figure thirty metres away, working its way towards them through the spindly trees. “Quick, follow me…”

Rachel grabbed at the hand that was offered and, as she took it, it were as though Gabriel had disappeared. It wasn’t the first time this had happened; he had been there one minute and gone the next since the first time they had met.

But this time, Rachel disappeared with him.

Jacob Honeyman opened the door to his shack and gulped when he saw who had come to visit.

“What have you been saying, Honeyman?” asked the first man, pushing him in the chest, forcing him back into the cottage.

“Been blabbing, Jacob?”

“No …
please
.”

“Giving away our secrets?” The second man punched
Honeyman hard in the face, knocking him to the floor.

The beekeeper moaned and continued to plead as the first man shut the door behind him; screamed as the first kick found its target.

D
eep underground, Adam heard a gunshot. Or at least he felt the vibrations of a gunshot ripple through the earth around him. Somehow he was able to sense the orchestra of tiny squeaks and hisses made by the thousands of insects that surrounded him, ultra-sensitive to any minute change in their environment.

Adam could guess who was doing the shooting, and the possibility that Hilary Wing might be targeting his sister made him dig with greater determination.

As the earth fell away easily in front of him, Adam felt sure that someone had dug through here many years before. Cavities opened up in front of him, supported by gnarled roots and rotting, wooden props. He felt suddenly at one with the bugs and worms as he tunnelled his way through the peat, his body twisting and turning, pulling himself along through the earth on his elbows. His eyes were still shut tight against the falling dirt, but he continued in his mind’s eye towards the orange orb of light that continued to glow ahead
of him, his hands working away at the soft soil like a giant mole.

In the forest above, Rachel and Gabriel stepped gingerly through huge fans of damp fern, ducking under swags of bindweed, keeping their heads down.

Rachel told herself that Gabriel had not
literally
disappeared. That would have been ridiculous. But he did seem to have a knack of making himself invisible when he needed to: of somehow diverting the eye so that he did not attract attention. He was good at blending into the background. It was a skill that he would need to put to good use now. It was obvious that whoever was doing the shooting had a keen eye, and probably knew the woods like the back of his hand. Just when Rachel was starting to think that they had shaken him off, another gunshot rang out, a little too close for comfort.

Rachel and Gabriel ducked low into the ferns.

“He’s still after us,” Rachel whispered hoarsely.

Gabriel smiled. “I think he’s just guessing. Or maybe he’s just shooting birds.”

Rachel shivered at the thought. She pulled out the crumpled map from her pocket and looked at it, no longer sure which direction she was facing. “Which way now?”

Gabriel did not glance at the map. Made a firm gesture ahead with his hand. “This way.”

Rachel was starting to think that for someone who had earlier claimed to have no sense of navigation, Gabriel
seemed to have a pretty good idea of where he was headed.

She didn’t have time to think about it for very long.

Another shot rang out, even closer this time.

Gabriel grabbed Rachel’s hand. “Let’s go…”

Adam’s fingernails, already split and ragged, dug into something solid. Wet chunks of rotten log came away beneath his fingers, but the bulk of the wooden prop lay jammed across his path. He scraped away at the soil packed tightly around him on either side, but the earth was firm and unyielding. The log must have been a tunnel prop that had collapsed into the narrow shaft, blocking the way.

The golden glow still hovered directly ahead, but now following it seemed impossible. Adam let out a deep sigh and lay still for a moment, suddenly feeling completely exhausted. With his eyes shut, he tried looking back, but he had dug so far that he could no longer sense the entrance to his tunnel. Shifting his weight from side to side and pushing his shoulder to the wall, he quickly realized that the space was too tight for him to turn round.

There was no going back.

Adam opened his eyes momentarily. Blinked away the damp particles of soil from his eyelids.

Nothing.

This deep into the earth it was pitch black. Light had never penetrated this narrow tunnel. As Adam shut his eyes again, trying to keep the golden glow alive in his mind’s eye,
he suddenly realized that this was what it must be like to be buried alive.

“Adam’s in trouble,” Rachel said.

Safe for the time being in the high branches of an oak tree, Rachel had suddenly been reminded of her brother. It had felt like a punch in the stomach.

Gabriel said nothing. He sat next to her, lying back on the high branch, casually, as if it were only a metre from the ground.

“I can feel it,” Rachel said. “I know when he’s OK … I always have this feeling that he’s right here beside me, but…”

Rachel could not find the words to describe the sickly, hollow sensation that was spreading through her gut. The sense of an energy fading, of part of her drifting away, slipping from between her fingers. Rachel chewed at her bottom lip and looked round among the leafy branches as if they might give her a clue to Adam’s whereabouts.

“You don’t think…?” A sudden panic had inflected her urgent whisper; the question she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask.

Gabriel considered for a moment, shutting his eyes as if deep in thought. Then he sat up, fixing Rachel with his green eyes. “No. I don’t think he’s dead.”

“Thank God.”

“But you’re right about one thing. Your brother’s in trouble. Something’s not going according to plan.”

Rachel wasn’t aware that there was a plan, other than their stupid idea about hunting for some old bit of tin in these creepy woods. She looked to Gabriel; waited for his next bright idea. Gabriel said nothing, then, after a moment, simply pointed towards the ground and began to climb down.

Adam’s breaths were getting shallower.

There was just enough air getting through to the tunnel, but now he had stopped, Adam had become aware that he was not getting quite enough oxygen, and his mind was beginning to drift.

The golden light still shimmered in front of his eyes, but was becoming pale and merged with other images. He felt quite relaxed, and as his breaths became shorter, he felt as if he were slowly drowning in the moist, warm underground air.

Slowly, from the flood of golden light, rose an image of his mother, smiling, leaning over him, stroking his hair like she had when he was ill as a child. It was very comforting and gradually Adam became resigned to the thought that he might never see her again. Maybe that’s why she was appearing to him now, to comfort him, to say goodbye. To say all sorts of things…

Adam realized that he was about to pass out.

R
achel jumped down on to the soft undergrowth at the base of the oak and promptly burst into tears. She was tired and frightened. She had suddenly felt something that took the wind out of her and tore through her with a terrible stab of grief.

“He’s losing consciousness,” she said. “I know it. He’s been shot or something, Gabriel… I can feel it
here
.” She clutched her hand to her chest and, for the first time since they had met, Gabriel looked confused. “Where is he?” she yelled. “
You
seem to know everything.
You
sent us off.” Rachel jabbed her finger accusingly at him.