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‘Where has it gone?’
‘Very deep inside her innermost self.’
‘When will it come back?’
‘Who knows? But the longer she stays there, the harder it will be for her to come back. Wardens have been lost that way before.’
‘What if The Evil attacks before she does? We can’t stop it!’
‘Alarms have been sounded. Help will come . . . eventually.’
‘Eventually!’ Jaide protested. ‘That doesn’t sound very good.’
‘All that can be done has been done,’ said Kleo.
‘Well, that’s not quite —’ Ari began, but he stopped at a sharp glance from Kleo.
‘What?’ asked Jack. ‘Is there something you can do?’
‘No,’ said Kleo. ‘We are constrained by an oath we took as kittens.’
‘There are some loopholes —’ Ari stopped again as Kleo’s tail slowly beat out three short thuds on Grandma X’s bedspread. Ari looked imploringly at the twins, as though begging them to read his mind.
Jaide looked at Jack. They were both thinking the same thing.
Cats!
‘Grandma X said we’d be safe in this house,’ said Jaide slowly. ‘But I guess without her, that’s not true anymore.’
Kleo didn’t move one iota. Ari’s whiskers twitched as if he was desperately trying to keep his mouth shut.
‘Maybe not completely true?’ said Jack eagerly, trying to interpret the weird vibe the cats had going. ‘Is there a way we can defend the house against The Evil? At least until Grandma X wakes up?’
Ari looked at Kleo and then down at the floor.
‘Downstairs?’ Jack guessed immediately.
Kleo’s fixed stare turned withering.
‘I didn’t say a word!’ Ari protested. ‘I didn’t even mention the door.’
‘The blue door? That’s it! We need to look in there!’ Jaide exclaimed.
Kleo put her head to one side, looking pointedly away from Ari, and sniffed in disappointment.
‘I didn’t say “blue” door,’ said Ari innocently. ‘It could have been a green door, or a pink door . . .’
Jack was already heading downstairs, Jaide hot on his heels. With a loud tattoo of shoes they pounded down the stairs and to the front of the house.
They hesitated at the front door, thinking of the rain and The Evil still at large, until Ari caught up with them. Kleo came down more reluctantly behind them, still not looking at Ari, as though she wanted no part in the expedition.
‘Is it safe to go out?’ asked Jack, thinking of the white eyes shining in the dark. ‘I mean, The Evil won’t be right outside, will it?’
Ari sniffed around the base of the door and shook his head.
‘Does that mean it won’t be safe or that The Evil isn’t right outside?’ asked Jaide.
‘The Evil is close, but it has not yet dared cross the boundaries,’ he told them.
Even with this assurance, the twins went out very cautiously, remembering the rats that had been in the yard the previous night. The rain had eased off a lot, but it was still sprinkling. The yard was a mess, with fallen leaves and branches, and out in the street a light pole leaned over at a drunken angle with a cable hanging off it, sparking occasionally.
There were no birds in the dark sky, and no sign of anything else, be it under the control of The Evil or not. It was quiet, the quiet after disaster, or the unnatural stillness found in the eye of a storm.
The twins hurried to the blue door, but the cats stayed behind, out of the rain. Jaide looked back at them and saw Kleo buffet Ari’s ear with her paw, followed by a short, hissed ‘Fool of a cat!’
‘How do we open it?’ Jaide asked, thumping the door so hard it rattled on its hinges. It still didn’t have a handle or doorknob. The cats didn’t answer.
‘Look!’ Jack had stepped back and was looking up at the sign. ‘It’s changed!’
The handwritten words now said:
Jaide read it through twice. It didn’t make sense. ‘The door isn’t open, otherwise we’d open it.’
‘Maybe it’s not open on this side,’ said Jack, ‘but it is on the other.’
‘What’s the use in that?’ Jaide’s frustration was mounting. ‘Why would Grandma X leave us such a stupid note?’
‘It’s a test,’ said Jack, suddenly remembering Grandma X’s words, weirdly accompanied by the aftertaste of hot chocolate in his mouth. ‘She said, “Some doors are not meant to be opened before their time.”’
‘It’s definitely time now. But how do we lift a latch on the other side?’
They stared at the door with identical expressions. This was a challenge, and they were determined to be up to it.
‘It’s a secret room for Wardens, right?’ said Jack.
‘I guess.’ Jaide could see the way he was thinking. ‘So you need a Gift to open it?’
‘Grandma X probably does it with her spirit, or whatever it was she sent to me in the tunnels. She just goes in there and lifts the latch.’
‘But we can’t do that,’ Jaide pointed out. Even after joining with Grandma X, she wasn’t sure exactly what her Gifts were. But she was clear on what they weren’t – and sending out a spirit form was definitely not something she could do. ‘At least, I can’t. Do you know what you can do now? Grandma X said your Gifts were of the night and darkness – but it won’t be dark for hours and we don’t have hours. Remember what Kleo said about Grandma X finding it harder to come back the longer she was away? We have to get help before we lose her forever.’
Jack nodded and looked up at the sky. Though it was full of dark clouds and showers, there were also patches where the sun was breaking through.
‘I can see in the dark,’ he said, remembering his experiences in the tunnels. ‘And hide in shadows.’
He stopped and looked down at his own shadow, faint on the doorstep. Jaide followed his glance and then swiftly looked back at him.
‘Yes,’ said Jack. He knew she had the same idea. ‘I can give it a try, anyway.’
Jack closed his eyes and imagined his mind leaking out the soles of his feet and into his shadow by the door. Nothing happened at fir
st, but then he felt a strange sensation, like cold water running down on the inside of his skin, from the top of his head to his toes.
He opened his eyes and saw Jaide above him, as if he was lying on the ground. Then he saw himself standing next to her, completely still – and he felt the shadow. All the shadows around him were connected, where they overlapped. Darkness bled and joined, allowing someone special like him to travel through it.
Shadow Jack slid under the door, into the shadows of the room. It was like being on a waterslide: easy to get started, but difficult to change direction or stop once you were going. It took him a few tries to get the hang of it before he was able to glide up the inside of the door, next to the latch.
It was a metal bar not much thicker than his thumb. Normally he could have lifted it without thinking. As a shadow, however, it was a completely different matter.
His shadow hand just slid over the metal and the bar didn’t shift a millimetre. He couldn’t interact with it at all.
Just as he was about to give in, a miniature whirlwind blew in from under the door and spun about on the floor. It went one way and then the other, before approaching the door. It hesitated there for a moment before turning on its side and starting to climb. But before it got close to the bolt, it fell apart, and the dust and tiny pieces of gravel it carried all fell to the ground.
‘Dratnation!’ said Jaide on the other side, utilising one of the unique swear words their father invented when he didn’t want the twins to hear what he usually said. Jack realised it had been his sister’s whirlwind, and she had been trying to use her Gifts to open the door, just as he was.
Shadow Jack slithered down and under the door, then back into his own flesh-and-blood body. He was disoriented for a moment, particularly when he opened his eyes. The light blinded him for an instant, and his head spun from more than just the light. Jaide was squatting next to him, with the fingers of both her hands pressing against the bottom of the door. A thin whistling sound came from the far side, with the occasional tinkling crash.
‘That’s not going to work,’ Jack said, tapping her on the shoulder.
