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‘That’s right,’ said Jack, picking up on Jaide’s quick thinking. They had to stop Tara from remembering The Evil and the old Living Ward, everything she had seen in the cave under Little Rock. ‘There was no one to give the pictures to, and you didn’t want them to be thrown out. You had them in your backpack during the train crash. I guess you took them home afterwards. That must be where you’ve seen her face before.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Tara, some of her confusion slipping away. ‘That’s it. The pictures. I don’t know why I’ve been keeping them. It’s like I dreamt her . . . dreamt you . . .’
‘I would like to see those pictures,’ said Rennie.
‘I’ll bring them in,’ said Tara. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Thank you.’
Tara blinked and looked away. Whether the explanation made sense or not, it seemed to have helped. Rodeo Dave pulled up another chair and she sat down with the others to eat her lunch: a cold noodle salad, and a chocolate bar that she broke into five pieces and shared with everyone.
CHAPTER SIX
Treasure Hunt
IT WAS JACK’S TURN TO hold the phone that afternoon, and although he waited anxiously for it to buzz, it stayed resolutely silent. Jack couldn’t help but wish their father would check in again. He could, at least, have sent them a text . . .
The last hour of school dragged horribly, but finally it was over, and Jack, Jaide, and Tara hurried off, hoping that they would be given permission to go with Rodeo Dave to the Rourke Estate.
Outside the Book Herd, the twins were surprised to see their mother’s car. They hadn’t expected to see her there. She tooted her horn as they approached, and a few moments later Rodeo Dave appeared from the shop, waving at them.
‘Hop in,’ he called out. ‘We’re getting a lift.’
‘So it’s okay for us to go, Mum?’ Jack asked as the three kids piled into the back seat.
‘Of course, Jack, as long as you’re home in time for dinner. I said I’d drop you there and pick you up afterwards to make sure. Tara, your dad will collect you from our place later.’
‘Great!’ Tara said brightly. ‘Thanks!’
On the way through town, Susan drove over the old iron bridge. There was no sign of the rescue crew that had been there yesterday, just a couple of skid marks on the road leading up to the bridge and some broken glass on the verge.
‘Can we see Grandma?’ asked Jaide. ‘The hospital’s kind of on the way to the estate.’ Actually, it was in a completely different direction, but everywhere was close in Portland.
‘I’m really sorry, we can’t today,’ Susan said. ‘She’s undergoing more tests. I spoke to the new specialist not long ago. Doctor Witworth says she needs to double-check a couple of things showing on the first scan.’
‘What kind of things?’ asked Jack, feeling his heart begin to race.
‘She didn’t say . . . “Abnormalities” was the exact word she used, but I wouldn’t read too much into that. It’s just something doctors say when they don’t know what’s going on.’
Neither Jack nor Jaide was terribly reassured by the suggestion that something was going on that doctors didn’t understand. Especially if it meant Grandma X staying in the hospital and them not visiting her.
‘Your mother’s right,’ said Rodeo Dave, turning around in the front seat to beam at them. ‘If they’d looked into your grandmother’s head and not seen something out of the ordinary, it would’ve been cause for serious concern.’
‘True enough,’ said Tara. ‘There’s no one in the world like her.’
‘And I did speak to her on the phone this morning,’ Susan added. ‘She sends her love and reminds you to do as you’re told and keep up with your homework. That sounds like her, doesn’t it?’
It did, and the twins were willing to let their worries on that front ebb slightly. Until they saw her with their own eyes, though, they wouldn’t be completely reassured. With her suddenly absent, there was an enormous void in their lives. Jack had dreamt the previous night that he had woken to a world where no one had ever heard of Grandma X or the Wardens, and his Gift had vanished. Jaide occasionally found herself daydreaming about moving back to the city – and not in the excited way she once had. Their life was with Grandma X now. Without her, everything was at risk of turning upside down again.
The sky above was grey, mirroring their moods, but there was no sign of the rain that had saturated them the previous day, not even as they approached the high hedges and elaborate gates of the estate. Wide enough for two carriages to pass side by side, the gates rose up in a high arch over the drive, wrought-iron curlicues swirling and tangling in a pattern that Jaide hadn’t been able to make out the previous day.
The right-hand gate was closed. This time, without the rain to obscure her vision, she discerned a fish’s tail in its elaborate design.
Then, as the car passed onto a thickly gravelled drive, Jaide noticed that the open left-hand gate wasn’t a mirror image of the right. Instead of a fish-like tail, there was a great, rounded head with a single metal eye. Putting the two halves together in her mind, Jaide realised that the gate, when closed, depicted not a fish but a whale.
That wasn’t all. High on the corner of each gate was a ship braving the turbulent seas, crewed with men waving harpoons, hemming the whale in.
The drive curved to the left, and a stand of trees blocked her view of the gates. Rodeo Dave guided Susan along a path forking away from the smaller building in which Young Master Rourke had been found. This stretch of drive wound around the lake and up towards the castle. The creek was now running clear, and there was no sign of council workers, just one large man in overalls tending a rose garden – Kyle’s father, Jack presumed – and a young, round-faced security guard sitting half on, half off the seat of a golf buggy. He stood up as the car approached and crunched to a halt in front of him.
Rodeo Dave stepped out of the car, wiped his palms on his jeans, and cleared his throat.
‘David Smeaton,’ he said. ‘And these are my three helpers.’
‘I don’t have any helpers on my list,’ said the guard, glancing at a clipboard.
Jaide’s stomach sank. If the guard wouldn’t let them in, how were they supposed to find the card? She bet that wouldn’t have been a problem had Grandma X been there. She would have just bossed him into it. Jaide couldn’t imagine Rodeo Dave bossing anyone around. He was already turning to them with a look of apology.
‘Thomas Solomon, isn’t it?’ said Susan, getting out of the car with a sunny smile. ‘I used to know your mother, years ago. We bumped into each other again today, in the bakery, and she said you were working up here. It’s nice to meet you.’
‘Ah, and very nice to . . . um, who did you say you were?’
‘Susan Shield. These are my children, Jack and Jaide, and their friend Tara. I’ll be back in two hours to pick them up.’
‘Well . . .’ Thomas Solomon looked as though he might argue the point, but then he smiled and said, ‘What’s the harm? Just don’t tell anyone else, or we’ll have all the kids up here.’ He put the clipboard facedown on the seat of the golf buggy. ‘Two hours it is.’
The twins and Tara climbed eagerly out of the car and waved as Susan drove off. Jack was impressed. He’d thought they were going to be turned back for sure, and he was amazed at how well his mother was fitting in to Portland, having never wanted to come here at all.
As Jack turned to follow Dave across the drawbridge over the moat, he caught a glimpse of a huge, muscular animal running through the grounds. He immediately thought of the escaped menagerie animals. No one had mentioned a tiger! But then it raised its head to look at him, and he saw the enormous teeth.
There was only one sabre-toothed tiger in the world that he knew of. It was the animal form of Custer, the Warden whose job it was to look after the wards while Grandma X was in the hospital.
Jack automatically went to wave, then turned it into a tug at his hair in case anyone had noticed. Cu
ster winked and kept running, vanishing behind some bushes an instant later.
‘You saw him, too?’ Jaide whispered.
‘Yes.’ Jack wished they could talk to him about their father. If Custer had been able to stop, he could have helped them look for the Card of Translocation. But he supposed it was hard work, minding four wards single-handedly. Grandma X made it look easy, but that, Jack was sure, only came from years of practice.
‘Come on,’ called Tara. ‘Dave’s almost inside!’
They hurried after her, their feet making hollow wooden sounds on the drawbridge. The moat surrounding the castle was deep and dark, with smooth, steep sides. Jaide didn’t want to imagine what it would be like to fall in. Luckily, despite the hollow sound, the planks of the drawbridge were as unmoving as solid stone.
Two high towers loomed over them. Thick chains connected the drawbridge to the castle walls. On the other side of the moat was an open gateway, where Rodeo Dave was waiting.
‘This way!’ he said. ‘There are a lot of books a-waiting!’
