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Jack stared out into the night, knowing that The Evil must have a tiny foothold on his brain to be able to read that small, creeping doubt. Why hadn’t his father come with them to Portland? Why had he abandoned them the day their house exploded?
‘Got it!’ cried Jaide, sliding her finger into the leather case and pulling out another screw. She put that in place, turned it once with her finger, and —
A tentacle smashed down ten feet away, wrapped itself around the railing, and pulled. Steel shrieked in protest, and the tentacle tore a whole section of the walkway off the side of the lighthouse.
At the same time, the bloodied, white-eyed Rennie struggled up the other side, webs dangling from her in all directions like parachute shrouds.
+Tell her to stop!++ The mouths of the rats on her shoulders moved in unison with her words. ++Tell her to stop, Jackaran Kresimir Shield, or we will stop her for you!++
Jack stared, frozen, as the tentacle struck again. This time it did not tear away the walkway, but came questing forward. Another tentacle followed, reaching about like a blind snake seeking its prey.
Jaide started on the third screw, frantically pushing it into place with cold-chilled fingers and leaning far out in her efforts to do so. Were she to drop the screw, it would almost certainly be lost. There was no walkway underneath them now, and nothing but The Evil to catch anything – or anyone – that fell.
‘Hold me properly!’ she called to Jack. His grip shifted as though he was growing tired. She wasn’t worried about falling, but being blown away by the gale would be bad enough. There was no time left now for mistakes.
Jack stared back at Rennie as she tried to climb over the rail. The webs that had helped her before were a hindrance now, all tangled and confused. Cockroaches squished under her fingers, making her grip treacherous. Jack thought she might be trapped there, but that hope was dashed as a tentacle came toward her, wound itself around her chest, lifted her out of the tangle, and deposited her on the desperately leaned-over walkway near the ladder and the twins. With staring white eyes, Rennie looked up at Jaide as she screwed in the third screw, oblivious to Jack’s struggle below.
‘Leave her alone,’ Jack said. ‘It’s me you want, not her.’
+Tell her to stop.++
‘But she doesn’t understand —’
+Tell her to stop.++
‘Wait —’
+We have waited long enough. She must stop!++
Rennie started to climb toward the twins, her slimy fingers groping through the diamond mesh, her white eyes fixed on Jaide as the girl pushed in the fourth and final screw.
A sigh of relief had just begun to form in Jack’s throat when a tentacle suddenly whipped up over his head.
It hung in the air for a second, then the very tip curled around and flicked Jaide away from the plate, just like someone whisking away a fly. She fell on Jack, and both of them ended in a tangle, hanging off the rung of the ladder with only a six-foot length of bent and slanting walkway between them and the long fall to certain death.
A length of walkway that had Rennie on the other end.
Jaide looked at Jack in despair. The screwdriver was gone, dropped as she scrambled for a hold on the ladder.
Both twins looked up and saw the fourth, final screw teetering where Jaide had put it in and done a half turn with her fingers.
The tentacle came back again, brushing over them as it smashed blindly at the lighthouse. The whole structure shook as the tentacle hit, and Jaide saw the last screw fall, like a single silver teardrop, to be lost forever. They had no way now of finishing what they had started.
The East Ward could not be replaced. ‘No,’ sobbed Jaide. ‘No . . .’
+Yessss!++ cried The Evil, entirely in their minds.
Rennie’s voice was silenced by cloying webs. ++It is pointless to resist. And now you will join us, both of you.++
‘No!’ shouted Jack. He let go with one hand and held out his palm toward Rennie. ‘It’s me you want. Spare her.’
‘Jack?!’
‘I’ll go with you.’ Jack was almost babbling, reaching out desperately to Rennie, who continued her slow climb toward them. ‘I’ll go with you – just let Jaide go!’
The Evil laughed. They had never heard it laugh before, and the sound was more horrible than anything they had ever imagined. It came from the throat of every animal and insect surrounding the lighthouse. It came from Rennie. It came from the storm itself, thundering and rumbling.
+It is too late, Jackaran Kresimir Shield, much too late, to bargain with us!++
The twins felt all the power of The Evil gather around them and flow into Rennie. She would be the agent of their assimilation. The Evil would flow into them through her hands.
‘So good, so good to have my children back,’ mumbled Rennie in her normal voice, though the white never left her eyes. Somehow that was even more horrible than hearing The Evil speak through her.
Still mumbling, Rennie dragged herself another foot up the broken walkway, her powerful fingers gripping the mesh as hand over hand she edged closer and closer. The rats growing from her shoulders squeaked in happy anticipation and the cockroaches rustled in applause.
Jaide averted her eyes. She couldn’t look at Rennie as she approached. The lighthouse beam swept over them, and she saw her parents’ graffiti just inches away from where they clung to the bottom of the ladder.
SAH ? HJS
Inspiration nearly blinded her, just for a moment. She knew what they had to do – if there were only time left to do it!
‘Jack,’ she said, ‘give me your hand!’
He didn’t hear her. His whole attention was on Rennie’s slow but inexorable climb toward them. He was transfixed by the horror of what was going to happen. He could still hear The Evil laughing. It seemed to fill up his whole world.
‘Jack! Your hand!’
He snapped out of his daze. ‘What?’
‘“Something read”, the rhyme goes,’ Jaide was saying. ‘Something read. Maybe it doesn’t have to be that plaque. Maybe it doesn’t even have to be words. Just letters might do if we make it happen – look!’
He looked where she was pointing and saw the graffiti. ‘But we don’t know how to make it into a ward.’
‘How do we know we can’t? We’re troubletwisters! A week ago we didn’t know we could fly or shadow-walk. Who knows what we can do?’
Jack grinned suddenly, and it was
like the clouds parting.
+Join us!++ screamed The Evil as one of Rennie’s clawing hands reached for Jack’s leg. Behind her, all around the lighthouse, thousands of white eyes stared out of the dark. ++Join us at last!++
In reply, Jack and Jaide entwined their hands together and pressed hard against their parents’ graffiti.
As their palms touched the stone, a terrible scream exploded in their minds, to be repeated a split second later by every throat for miles.
+Wait!++ shrieked The Evil. ++Do not — ++
‘“Susan Anne Hungerford loves Hector Jamieson Shield”,’ whispered the twins together. ‘Be the East Ward.’
Silver light streamed through the carved initials, like molten metal following a mould. They felt their Gifts drawn to the light. Jack’s sense of shadow and darkness drained away from him, and his vision dimmed, so that he could only see by the lighthouse’s sweeping beam. Jaide felt the iciness of the wind, but nothing more, and no longer needed heavy thoughts to stay on the ladder.
But they didn’t mind this ebbing of their Gifts. They knew instinctively that it was only temporary, part of the creation of a new ward and the containment of The Evil.
They could feel The Evil going, retreating back whence it came. The huge squid-thing was breaking apart, leaving tons of flopping marine creatures piled high from lighthouse to sea. Masses of mice were fleeing in all directions, their running columns crisscrossing with those of spiders and cockroaches, fierce battles happening at every collision.
‘What have you done?’ said Rennie sadly in something approaching her ordinary voice, although a hint of The Evil’s power remained. ‘Why won’t you join me?’
