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‘The Evil has grown strong enough to command anyone who might come close,’ said Kleo. Her eyes glittered in the candlelight.
‘I’m sorry, Grandma,’ Jaide said quietly. ‘Sorry we didn’t trust you, and sorry if . . . if we brought all this trouble on you . . . on everyone.’
Jack turned back from the window and knelt down next to Jaide. He put his hand over Jaide’s in what he hoped was a confident, comforting grip. He didn’t voice the resentment he felt for being in their position. He had never asked to be a troubletwister, and he certainly didn’t like the feeling that Grandma X had been keeping secrets from them. Perhaps his parents, too. Why hadn’t they said something?
‘We just want this to stop,’ he said. ‘Why won’t you help us?’
Warmth blossomed under the twins’ hands, and a soft light spread between Grandma X’s closed fingers.
+Troubletwisters.++
Jack jumped. The voice came to him the same way The Evil’s did, but it sounded like Grandma X, and it possessed none of the heavy pressure of that horrible presence.
‘Grandma?’
+Troubletwisters?++
Jaide leaned close. Grandma X’s mouth wasn’t moving, but her voice was clear.
‘We’re right here, Grandma,’ Jaide said, holding more tightly to her hand. The cats pressed in close beside her. ‘Are you okay? What can we do to help you?’
A wisp of light danced on the old woman’s forehead. There appeared a tiny version of Grandma X’s glowing, ghostly form. Her eyes were closed and her expression was pained, but her voice was clear inside Jaide’s and Jack’s heads.
+Lighthouse,++ whispered the voice. ++On the lighthouse.++
‘The lighthouse?’ Jack asked urgently. ‘Is the broken ward on the lighthouse?’
+Brass plate,++ said Grandma X. Her voice was fading and the shining figure was beginning to flicker. ++Brass plate.++
‘Wait, Grandma,’ said Jaide as Jack said, ‘Tell us more!’
+Replacement. Blue room.++
The ghostly image vanished, along with the light shining from between Grandma X’s fingers. At the same time, there was a ripple of wind through the room, and all the candles guttered and went out.
Jaide fumbled for matches and cried out, ‘Jack! Check the window!’
‘It’s shut,’ said Jack, who could see perfectly well.
‘Don’t panic,’ said Kleo. ‘That wasn’t the storm.’
Jaide lit the candles and looked at Jack. He had an expression she had rarely seen before. It was one of determination underlaid by extreme fear.
‘We need to replace a brass plate on the lighthouse,’ he said, relieved to be sure of something finally. ‘And there’s a replacement in the blue room.’
‘Don’t count your sardines before the tin opens,’ said Kleo. ‘We’ll have to find it first, and that room is tricky.’
‘But at least we know where to look,’ said Jaide. ‘That’s half the battle.’
‘It is?’ asked Ari. ‘I would have thought it was more like ten per cent at most.’
‘Come on,’ said Jack. He was looking at the window frame. It was shuddering with the impact of wind and rain, and the storm had barely got started.
Their arrival in the antique shop was met with a pronunciation from the crocodile skull.
‘One brass plate, three inches by four, fixed by four two-eighth screws fashioned entirely from silver.’
‘We know now,’ said Jack, tapping it on the top of its cranium. ‘Thank you, anyway.’
‘Where do we start looking?’ asked Jaide.
‘There’s an old toolkit over here,’ said Ari, leaping in one direction.
‘And I seem to recall a collection of brass signs in that box,’ said Kleo, pointing an elegant paw.
The twins followed the cats’ directions, but while they did find a toolkit with various screwdrivers that would be useful for dealing with screws, silver or otherwise, the box of brass signs did not contain a brass plate.
Nor did the chest that held a complete bronze dinner set, or the small cupboard with the horse brasses, or the sack with the tarnished white metal and lapis lazuli coffee demitasse cups, or the inside of the grandfather clock that had lost its pendulum and was now full of stacks of what Kleo assured them were gold florins of a long-ago French king.
‘There’s too much stuff here,’ said Jaide after another thirty minutes of fruitless searching, with the sounds of the storm growing steadily all the while. The house was groaning, and there had been several thuds outside, probably from more power poles blowing over or big trees losing their limbs. ‘We’ll never find it!’
‘I don’t suppose you can tell us,’ said Jack conversationally to the crocodile skull. ‘I might even let you bite my finger.’
The skull’s eyes lit up, which was considerably more eerie in the dim candlelight than under electrical illumination, and its jaws snickered rat-a-tat-tat.
‘In the third drawer down on the left of the serpent-wound bureau of Indian teak,’ it said. Then it chattered a bit more, shivering itself along the table to orient its mouth directly at Jack.
Ari and Kleo were already at the bureau. Jaide followed them and opened the third drawer down on the left. She held her candle close and examined the contents.
‘It’s here, Jack,’ she said. Then she looked back. ‘I guess you’d better let it . . . try to . . . maybe just a nip . . .’
Jack nodded and very carefully extended the tip of his little finger toward the crocodile skull. It lunged forward, right off the table, and managed to tear off a tiny flap of skin and a bead of blood before crashing to the floor.
‘Ouch!’ exclaimed Jack, sucking his finger.
‘Worth it,’ said Kleo. ‘Worth a whole finger, for that matter.’
‘Hey,’ protested Jack.
‘You’ve got lots,’ said Ari, ‘and those famous opposable thumbs. Besides, it’s only a scratch.’
Jaide lifted out an open leather pouch that contained what she was sure must be the replacement ward. Everything was exactly as described by the skull. There was the brass plate, with its four silver screws, each in a little loop so they would not be lost. The screws had a strange spiral pattern instead of the usual straight groove or Phillips head.
The plate was the right size, and its deeply etched words said:
To all the Keepers of the Portland Light,
past, present, and future, who serve to
guard and ward against the darkness
‘That has to be it,’ said Jack, who had come to look over Jaide’s shoulder.
‘Yes,’ said Jaide. ‘Now all we have to do is get this to the lighthouse.’
Jack was about to speak when the drumming bear suddenly started smashing at his drum and every single clock in the room began to strike wildly. The face of a barometer shattered, sending glass raining onto a chess set below. The white knight jumped out of the way, the king retreated behind his castle, and the white pawns moved in a panicky rabble.
‘The Evil!’ hissed Ari.
The cat’s voice was lost in a sudden noise that was even louder and more threatening than the storm. A very deep, angry and mechanical bellow – the throbbing menace of some very big engine.
Jaide shut the leather wallet with the plate and screws and picked it and the toolkit up. Jack had paused to pick up the artillery shell cigarette lighter, but he was already lifting the tapestry that hid the secret passage while Ari zoomed through the doorway.
A minute later, they were crouched out on the widow’s walk once again, looking over the rails as the wind whipped at their clothes, the rain beat down on their heads, and water cascaded down their noses to join the rush from the gutters of the roof.
The throbbing engine noise was even louder than wind and
rain.
‘Where’s it coming from, Ari?’ shouted Jack. ‘Oh . . .’
