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Jack felt hard, mechanical digits digging into his shoulder and realised that the hand wasn’t real flesh at all.
‘Rodeo Dave gave it to me,’ Rennie said, holding up the hand for closer inspection. It was strapped to her wrist, a device of fiendish complexity made of thin slivers of wood and metal, with thousands of tiny gears connecting them to a complex of nested springs within. They could hear the mechanism ticking when it was still, then whirring into busy life when Rennie moved it. ‘He said your grandmother had ordered it from her ‘special connections’ before her accident, but it only just arrived.’
Jack stared at it more closely, looking for evidence that it had come from The Evil. What if the hand went crazy and attacked them? But it showed no immediate sign of going on a rampage.
‘Does being touched by The Evil change you permanently?’ Jaide asked, emboldened by desperation. Everyone else who understood The Evil was busy fighting it, or forbidden by their father from talking about it. ‘I mean, would there be some way to tell if it had happened to someone we know, even if it was a long time ago?’
‘Maybe,’ Rennie said. ‘Why do you ask? Have you been threatened by someone?’
‘Not exactly . . . but he has been acting pretty weird lately.’
‘Who? Tell me at once, Jaide.’
Rennie took her by the shoulders. There was no refusing that anxious stare.
‘Rodeo Dave,’ Jaide said in a weak voice. ‘I mean, he was friends with Young Master Rourke, whose grandfather was definitely Evil, and he’s doing some pretty strange stuff out at the castle, and we thought Grandma might have sent you here to keep an eye on him, and—’
Jaide stopped as the mechanical hand closed firmly over her mouth.
‘I still have much to learn about The Evil, the Wardens, and the wards,’ said Rennie. ‘But I do know that people who have been taken over by The Evil have been released without permanent damage. In rare cases, people have even managed to free themselves, without the intervention of Wardens. But if you are part of The Evil for too long, it changes you. It steals away your humanity, your love. You become hollow, twisted, lost . . .’
She hesitated, and looked at her artificial hand.
‘I was a part of The Evil for long enough to feel that I was lost, but I wasn’t. And now I am a Living Ward. Such a thing has never happened before, and it is hard to deal with. Rodeo Dave . . . David has had some similarity of experience, so he can help me—’
‘You mean Rodeo Dave was once part of The Evil!’ Jaide couldn’t believe her ears.
Rennie hesitated again, biting her lip.
‘Don’t jump to conclusions,’ she said firmly. ‘David’s history is his story to tell. Ask him and perhaps he will share it with you. Let me just say that he, too, has known sorrow and loss, and he has helped me.’
Jack and Jaide looked at each other. That explained why Rodeo Dave was somehow connected with Warden business, and wasn’t freaked out by weird stuff happening. But if he had once been part of The Evil or working for it . . . maybe he wanted to go back to it, and finding the card was how he would make up for leaving The Evil before.
‘I didn’t bring you here to show off my new hand,’ Rennie said, snapping its fingers to bring their attention back to her. ‘I want to tell you something important. I have felt The Evil nearby, through the wards. It has come very close in the last few days, to the west and north, but not once has it directly tested the strength of the wards. I sense that it is waiting for something.’
‘Like what?’ asked Jack.
‘That I do not know,’ she said. ‘But I feel it . . . where I felt it before.’
‘In your hand?’ asked Jaide.
Rennie shook her head. ‘The Evil burns like a fire, but it is not fire. It is nothing, and it leaves nothing behind. I feel it in the absence of my hand.’
She raised the clockwork hand and flexed it again, marvelling at its complexity.
‘In losing much, I have gained much,’ she said. ‘But I would not lose any more. Be careful, my troubletwisters. If you leave the boundary of the wards again, as I sensed you doing yesterday, I will have to tell your grandmother.’
Jaide and Jack nodded very seriously, struck by the thought that Rennie could barge into the hospital and wake up Grandma X if they didn’t obey the rules, even if it was for a good purpose.
‘Listen, Rennie—’ Jaide started to say, wanting to explain.
Rennie cut her off. ‘You are late for school. You’d better get going before I land you in more trouble.’
‘But we just want to tell you—’ tried Jack.
‘Enjoy your ordinary life while you can,’ Rennie insisted, ushering them down the stairs. ‘It won’t stay ordinary for long.’
Outside, they found Cornelia sitting on Jack’s handlebars.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Jack angrily. ‘Are you following us?’
‘Rourke!’
‘Well, don’t. Go away and leave us alone.’
Jack tried to shoo her from his bike, but one sharp lunge reminded him of the vicious hole in the photo where his father’s face used to be.
‘Here, Jack, let me.’
Rennie held out her clockwork hand. Cornelia nipped at it, but soon realised it was immune to her formidable beak. Leaving barely a scratch, she gave up, hopped onto the hand and was lifted away.
‘Off you go now,’ said Rennie. ‘I’ll find something to keep her occupied.’
The twins pedalled furiously down the street, leaving Rennie and Cornelia behind to take each other’s measure.
School had never seemed more pointless. After the usual welcome and group discussion about dreams (which the twins joined halfway through, making stuff up) the first lesson was Artistic Expression, which involved drawing or writing while Mr Carver improvised on a variety of musical instruments. Students were encouraged to join in, or even to dance, but no one ever did that. While the others sketched horses or spaceships, Jack concentrated hard on drawing a map of the castle from memory, looking for any secret spaces they hadn’t visited yet. Maybe one of them was where the entrance to Professor Olafsson’s other universe was hidden.
Tara, who normally sat with them, had greeted them warmly enough that morning, but soon picked up on their mood and went to join Kyle, who had been sitting alone at the table in front of them. Ever since he had argued with Miralda, no one else would talk to him.
Now the two of them were whispering excitedly with their heads close together, and Jaide was unable to avoid hearing what they were saying.
‘. . . Peregrinators pick a mystery every month, and they explore it until they figure it out or get bored,’ Kyle was saying. ‘I followed Dad once and listened in. They were talking about giant rats living in the sewers. Some of them wanted to go down there and check it out.’
‘Eww.’
Jaide agreed with Tara. She’d seen what Jack had looked like after he’d been down there.
But that wasn’t what made her want to join in the conversation.
‘Did the Peregrinators ever hear anything weird about the Rourke Estate?’ Jaide asked, switching tables while Mr Carver wasn’t looking.
‘Sure,’ said Kyle. ‘I was just getting to that bit.’
But with a sniff, Tara leaned back with her arms folded.
‘So now you want to talk to us – when we have our own thing going?’
Jaide stared at her in surprise. ‘What?’
‘It’s really difficult being friends with you and Jack, you know that? You’re always whispering and skulking around, keeping things secret from me. Sometimes I wonder if you want to be friends at all.’
‘I do,’ said Jaide. ‘That is, we both do. It’s just really hard to explain.’
‘Is it?’
‘It’s a twin thing,’ said Kyle. ‘I’ve got identical sisters, Esther and Fi. They can be real pains, too, but it’s not their fault. It’s the way they’re made. You just have to get used to it.’ He smiled calmingly at Tara. ?
??Don’t let it get to you. That’s my advice.’
‘All right . . . I guess. But why do I have to do all the work?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jaide. ‘We’ll try harder, I promise.’
Tara relented a little. Her arms unfolded. ‘Okay. Good. Because I want to hear about what you did yesterday.’
‘You first,’ said Jaide to Kyle. ‘What were you about to say?’
‘What? Oh, yeah. The Rourke Estate.’ Excited to have doubled his audience, Kyle recommenced his story. ‘A few months ago, Dad had this thing in his head that there was buried treasure there.’
‘What kind of treasure?’ Tara asked.
‘Gold.’
Jaide leaned in even more closely, excitement rising in her.
‘Did they find anything?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Kyle.
‘So why did your dad think there was treasure there in the first place?’ asked Tara.
‘There’ve always been rumours, and then a few months ago Dad found this weird thin strip of cloth with some words stitched on it. Not stitched very well – like maybe a kid did it for a craft project – but do you know what?’
‘What?’ asked Tara and Jaide together.
‘The thread was pure gold wire. And the cloth was velvet. So Dad went out a few nights in a row to search – I guess it was easy for him, since he’s the groundskeeper there and no one would’ve thought it weird if he was poking around with a shovel. But he never found anything. I assume he didn’t, anyway, because we didn’t suddenly become rich or anything.’
‘Maybe it never existed,’ said Tara.
‘Or it’s still there, waiting for someone to find it,’ said Kyle. ‘Wouldn’t that be cool?’
‘What were the words embroidered on the cloth?’ Jaide asked him.
Kyle nodded. ‘Dad used to walk around the house saying it under his breath. We all knew it, eventually.’
He leaned in closer and in a low, breathless voice intoned:
The path between fields,
