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‘Saturday night,’ Tara said. Her eyes gleamed with gruesome relish. ‘Dad doesn’t know who found him.’
‘Maybe his butler,’ said Jaide.
‘He didn’t have a butler. He cooked and cleaned for himself, and lived here completely alone.’
Jack peered curiously around, at the little they could see through the sheets of heavy rain. He could make out people striding about in boots and raincoats, some of them holding nets and odd mechanical lassoes.
‘I can’t believe Portland has a castle,’ he said, wondering if it was cool for a grown-up to want to live in one, or a bit weird. He had thought Grandma X was the strangest person in Portland, but now it seemed she had some competition.
Used to have competition, he reminded himself. That thought, combined with the thought of her all alone in the hospital, made him worry about her even more.
‘I can’t believe Portland has a castle, either,’ exclaimed Tara’s dad, sticking his head into their huddle of umbrellas with a wide, white-toothed smile. He was, as always, wearing a cap with the name of his company on it, MMM Holdings. ‘And it’s prime real estate, just perfect for redevelopment. When the will is sorted out, we could be sitting on a gold mine! Do you know the main building has thirty-seven bedrooms and hasn’t been lived in for twenty years? Think how many apartments we could fit in there!’
‘Dad!’ protested Tara. ‘The old guy only just died! And you’re already moving in on the property?’
‘Officially the council just asked for a valuation, in case Rourke left it to the state,’ he said, ruffling her black hair before she could flinch away. ‘But it doesn’t hurt to speculate. I mean, imagine the possibilities. There’s a lot of work to be done. We’d have to get that bridge fixed, first of all . . .’
He hurried off to oversee four council workers who were trying to shift a footbridge that had fallen into the stream that fed the castle’s moat. A sheet of water was building up behind it and spreading like a gleaming, translucent pancake across the muddy lawn. Everyone’s footprints were being submerged, human and animal alike. On the far side of the lake, two more council workers were struggling to catch something that looked very much like a zebra.
‘Do you think he had a pet platypus?’ Tara asked. ‘I’ve always wanted to see one of those.’
‘Really?’ said Jack. ‘They’d creep me out, I reckon.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it’s like they’re made from bits of lots of animals, all mixed together.’
‘Like Frankenstein’s monster?’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
Tara was quiet for a moment, then she said in a distant voice, ‘I had a dream like that . . . I think. There was a monster . . . or something . . . made of lots of smaller things. You were in the dream, Jack. And you, too, Jaide. But I can’t quite remember it.’
Jaide sought some way to change the subject. Tara wasn’t remembering a dream, but something that had really happened to all of them. Four weeks ago, they had been attacked by The Evil, which had a nasty habit of taking over living things and mixing them together, creating very real monsters that could in turn attack people. After The Evil had been vanquished, one of Grandma X’s fellow Wardens, a big-haired man named Aleksandr, had used his Gift to cloud Tara’s memory of everything that had happened to her. Sometimes the memory poked up again, though, before returning to the depths. What would happen if it ever came right out, Jaide didn’t like to imagine.
‘Look down there,’ Jack said. ‘Are they statues down by the creek? Let’s check them out.’
Tara shook herself, sending droplets of water tumbling down her green overcoat. ‘They don’t look like anything special.’
‘Come on,’ said Jaide, relieved to hear Tara’s voice returning to normal. ‘We’re going to get washed away if we stay here.’
The pool of water was spreading rapidly towards them, backed up from where the bridge had fallen into the creek. Tara’s dad was waving his arms imperiously, to the annoyance of all, and the sound of raised voices was getting steadily louder as the problem showed no sign of being fixed.
Jack, Jaide and Tara gave the puddle a wide berth and headed past the impromptu dam to where a much-reduced trickle ran along the slimy creek bed. The ground was slippery underfoot and the rain showed no sign of letting up.
It was weird, Jack thought, because Portland had been sunny when they had set out after school. The clouds had only gathered when they’d reached the estate. And it was odder still how it seemed to be raining only on the estate, not anywhere else. It was so heavy and set in . . .
‘There you go!’ Tara called back to them from the line of statues. ‘Men in sheets and women without any arms. What’s with these old guys? Don’t they have any taste?’
Jack opened his mouth to say that being rich meant you didn’t have to have any taste, but Jaide pulled him to a sudden halt.
‘Look,’ she whispered, pointing into an untidy copse at the far edge of the estate. ‘There’s someone in those trees, waving at us.’
‘Where?’
‘There!’
Jack peered into the shadows under the trees, using his Gift to see details Jaide could only guess at. His Gift was strongest at night, but the sun was so hidden right now behind heavy rain clouds that his sight was clear. There was someone in the copse, a lone man in a coat and hat, his eyes invisible behind dark glasses. It was hard to make out more than that, but he was definitely staring right at Jack and Jaide, and his right hand was above his head, waving back and forth.
‘That looks like Dad,’ said Jaide.
Jack squinted. ‘It couldn’t be him, could it? He isn’t supposed to come anywhere near us.’
‘What if he’s here because of Grandma’s accident?’
Jack raised a hand, tentatively, and waved back.
The shadowy figure raised both hands in a triumphant thumbs-up.
‘It is Dad!’ exclaimed Jaide.
The twins hadn’t been this close to their father since their Gifts had woken, apart from once, when the protection supplied by the four wards of Portland had broken. He wasn’t allowed to be near to them because it made their Gifts go crazy.
There was, however, no denying the relief they felt upon seeing him. Someone must have told him about what had happened, and perhaps he had come back to check on them from a distance.
Jaide waved too, and suddenly, with long, energetic strides, their father moved towards them, stepping out from under the trees and across the sodden lawn. Jack and Jaide were torn between being pleased to see him and freaking out.
‘What’s he doing here?’ hissed Jaide. ‘If someone sees . . .’
Jack looked frantically around. Tara was busy poking her finger into the eye socket of a statue. The council workers were hard at work shifting the bridge and chasing the escaped animals – but all it would take was one of them to look around and recognise their father.
‘We need a distraction!’ Jaide said. Their father had already crossed half the distance between them.
Jack thought fast. ‘Use your Gift,’ he said, glancing up at the clouds. Jaide’s Gift was mostly tied to the sun. ‘It should be kind of damped down right now. I’ll go talk to him while you keep everyone busy – just keep your distance while you’re doing it.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Jaide. ‘Besides, I want to talk to him, too!’
‘Can you think of anything else?’
‘Not right away—’ ‘There’s no time. Just do it!’
‘All right, all right!’ said Jaide, giving him the umbrella. ‘I’ll do my best – but don’t use your Gift when you’re near him. Who knows what might happen?’
Jack could easily imagine. When he could control it properly, his Gift gave him power over light and shade, allowing him to shadow-walk, among other useful skills. When he couldn’t control it, it had the power to black out the sun.
‘Be careful,’ he said to Jaide.
‘I will. You, too.?
?
Jack hurried towards the bank of the creek, practically vanishing into the thick, grey sheets of rain.
Jaide shielded her eyes with her hand and turned to look up the slight rise past the dammed creek to the castle, where Tara’s dad was still arguing with the council workers.
‘A distraction,’ she whispered to herself.
She felt for her Gift, and embraced the slight breeze, collecting it around her, building it up so that she could use it. A gust escaped her hold for a moment, pirouetting around her like an invisible dancer, sending her damp hair flying.
‘That’s right,’ she whispered, gesturing with her free hand to usher the wind away from her. Strands of wet red hair lashed her face, but she ignored them. ‘You can do it.’
The gust grew stronger, whisked twice more around her, then shot off up the slope, where it capered around the arguing men, snatching up Tara’s dad’s hat. He clutched at it and missed, knocking the man closest to him onto his backside. The hat smacked the face of a third man, and everything dissolved into chaos.
Jack heard sudden shouts behind him, but he didn’t turn around to see. His attention was fixed on his father, who was approaching rapidly across the muddy field. The rain seemed to fall even more heavily around him, so much so that it came down in visible sheets, beating on Jack’s umbrella so hard it sounded as if it might collapse under the impact.
Hector Shield raised his hat and waved it in one hand. He shouted something that Jack couldn’t make out. They were close enough now that Jack could clearly see locks of curly brown hair plastered to his father’s high forehead, so like Jack’s own. His glasses were completely smeared with rain. Even with the characteristic welcoming smile on his face, he looked strained and worried.
‘It’s not deep!’ Jack called out, as Hector suddenly stopped on the other side of the creek.
Hector didn’t move. He had stopped as if he’d run into a wall, and now he backed up a few feet, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his sleeve. He squinted at Jack with eyes that were a perfect match for his son’s, apart from being desperately myopic.
‘It’s not deep!’ Jack shouted again. ‘Come over!’ The rain was so loud now it drowned his words. He could hardly hear himself.
All of a sudden, one side of his umbrella collapsed, and a great deluge washed down Jack’s back. He cried out and threw the umbrella down in disgust.
His father shouted something in return, but Jack couldn’t hear him. The rain was amazingly loud. Jack pointed at his ears, then at the sky, and shrugged.
