AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mr Carver glanced at Kyle.
‘No more monsters, please. I think we’ve had enough of them for two lifetimes.’
‘What is it?’ whispered Jack to Jaide as the noise levels of the classroom returned to their usual high pitch. ‘What have you found?’
Jaide glanced at Tara. She was getting up to talk to Mr Carver and the troubletwisters were free to converse in private.
‘This paper,’ she whispered, tapping the sheet she had stolen from the Compendium, ‘is all about what happens when wards are suddenly restored. “Decerebration” means to cut off something’s head, and that’s what happens to The Evil – or some of it at least. Most of it’s pushed back out of the world, back wherever it came from, but some of it is cut off – like the tip of a finger caught in a door.’
‘Or bitten by the Oracular Crocodile,’ Jack muttered.
‘Exactly. But a bit of The Evil isn’t like a bit of us. The Evil is evil all the way through, and it can still control things. So if a bit of it was cut off when we fixed the East Ward –’
‘It could still be here!’ said Jack, gripping the edge of the table. ‘It could be in Tara’s dad, or it could be the monster . . .’
‘Professor Chiruta says that these leftover bits of The Evil – he calls them excisions – are usually very small and weak, so it’s probably in something tiny and unnoticed.’
‘It could be a rat, which would explain why it’s targeting the cats. They’re natural enemies.’
‘That’s true. But what do we do about it?’
‘You mean you haven’t worked that out yet?’
Despite this friendly sneer, Jack was mightily impressed with Jaide for deciphering the article. He doubted even Grandma X had ever heard of these excision things. When she found out, maybe then she would believe them. ‘Straight after school, we’ll –’
‘You two are whispering again,’ said Tara, plonking herself down between them. ‘It’s very irritating. Anyone would think you didn’t want me around.’
Jaide sympathised. She and Jack had also been picked on by the locals in their first few days, and would dearly have loved a friend. It wasn’t Tara’s fault her timing was terrible, or that her father was probably in league with The Evil.
The excision in Portland didn’t have to be controlling Martin McAndrew to get its work done. All it had to do was offer him something he wanted badly enough, for which he might betray Grandma X – something like her house, for example . . .
Tara put a thick envelope down on the table between them.
‘Are they the pictures of Rennie?’ Jaide asked, knowing she had to make the effort.
‘Mr Carver said I could have them.’
‘What are you going to do with them?’
‘I don’t know, but we can’t just throw them out. Someone will want them.’
‘If her parents died in Portland,’ Jack said, ‘they might be in the graveyard.’
‘Good thinking, Jack. I’ll look into that.’ Tara stuffed the pictures into her bag and then turned brightly back to the table. ‘So, what are we going to draw now? Miralda and Kyle as a two-headed ogre?’
‘With a bad attitude,’ added Jack with a grin.
‘How do I draw that?’
‘Like sad,’ said Jaide, ‘but meaner.’
CHAPTER TEN
Heart of Darkness
Once again, Jack and Jaide were out of the door the second the farewell tune finished, but this time they paused just long enough to say goodbye to Tara.
‘See you on Monday!’ she called after them as they rode away, and that startled both of them. The troubletwisters had been so wrapped up in their research that they had forgotten it was Friday.
They waved back, then put their heads down and pedalled as hard as they could.
At the house, they found the blinds up again, the front door unlocked and no creepy sensations of being watched from the house next door.
‘Grandma? Grandma?’
There was no answer.
‘She’s done it again,’ said Jaide, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at Jack as though it was entirely his fault.
Jack was shocked by how much Jaide looked like their mother when she was mad. ‘Maybe she left a note.’
‘Not a note exactly,’ said a voice from the stairs.
It was Ari, padding lightly down from the first floor to join them in the hallway.
‘Where is she?’ asked Jaide.
‘Busy. She asked Kleo and me to look after you.’
‘Kleo’s here?’ Jack craned to look up the stairwell.
‘I am.’
The voice came from the kitchen, where Kleo was sitting on the table, looking regal.
The twins rushed to her. The cat narrowed her eyes and looked away.
‘Kleo, we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to interfere.’
‘If there’s anything we can do to make it up to you . . .’
Kleo sniffed, rejecting all forms of apology. ‘Your grandmother asked me to remind you to do your exercises. She promised me that she would be back as soon as she can.’
Jaide’s hopes fell. There was no mistaking the cat’s frosty tone.
‘All right, but please . . . can you help us with something?’ Jaide asked. ‘We think there’s a piece of The Evil left in Portland, an excision, and it’s behind the poisonings –’
‘Or the monster,’ added Jack.
‘Or both!’
Kleo deigned to look at them.
‘Exercises first, talk later.’
‘But Kleo!’
‘Exercises first,’ said Kleo, very coolly. ‘Talk later. If at all.’
‘Yes, but what’s Grandma X doing and why won’t she tell us exactly what’s going on?’
‘That’s her business, and her business it will remain.’
Jaide bit her tongue and tried her best to swallow the urge to argue. Kleo was wrong, but it was clear she wasn’t going to change her mind. They would have to wait until Grandma X came home, and hope it wouldn’t be too late to convince her then.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll do our exercises. In the Blue Room as usual?’
‘That is correct.’
Kleo hopped down from the table and loped out of the kitchen. The twins followed her, and Ari followed them. They made a tense, silent progression up the stairs to the house’s second floor, passing through the secret door to the basement and closing the elephant tapestry behind them.
The Blue Room looked much the same as it had the previous night, apart from a pile of herbs and multicoloured powders in the centre of the desk. Jack eyed them curiously, wondering if they would be part of their training, but Kleo didn’t mention them once.
‘Your grandmother wants you to practise the skills you have already been using,’ Kleo said, taking up position on the back of a princely leather chair that looked as though it had been made from the skin of a dinosaur. ‘Jaide, you will concentrate on keeping this candle burning while Jack does his best to put it out.’
In the centre of the room was a small circular table on which stood an elaborate, wax-covered candelabra, containing one single yellow candle. Beside it was a box of matches.
‘That’s all?’ asked Jaide.
‘That’s all,’ Kleo said, meeting her gaze with feline immovability.
‘I think,’ said Ari, curling up on a gold-threaded cushion and closing one eye, ‘doing only that is the point, troubletwisters.’
‘All right,’ said Jack, resigning himself to doing nothing new or interesting that afternoon. He lit the candle with a match. It burned with a clear, yellow light. Above him, the chandeliers went out, and strange shadows stretched across the crowded, antique-filled room. Kleo’s eyes shone back at him like glass coins.
‘Begin,’ she said.
Jack pursed his lips and blew the candle out.
‘Not like that,’ Kleo said in a weary tone. ‘Using your Gift.’
‘But why use my Gift when doing it the ordi
nary way is easier?’
‘Because this is an exercise for your Gift.’
