I lagged Smith as we looped back around to my wing of the warehouse, past the kitchen, a right turn by my room and the study and then on to Aunt Bea’s in the front corner for more unpleasant revelations. For once, I yearned for a soothing cup of tea and the chance to sit at the kitchen table and reflect, to try and get my head around it all. It was a lot to ask of weak tea, but we didn’t stock horse tranquilisers.
Stalking ahead, he turned and threw his hands up in frustration. “Winnie. This is not a Sunday tour of the real estate. Right now, Bea and the others are risking themselves to keep you safe. The least we can do is toe the line from our end. Do I really have to carry you?”
The stand off took place on the veranda outside Bea’s room. I didn’t appreciate his tone, self-pity at the craziness of this new existence getting the better of me.
“Maybe this is all easier for you to accept, Smith. You’ve been astral travelling in my life for months. Wouldn’t you be shocked too, if the judge turned out completely different to what you’d always assumed?”
How did other teens spend their Sundays? Not ransacking their homes for weapons to defend against ill-defined devils, I bet. Not scared witless because their family was decaying before their very eyes. My voice rose as stress threatened to tow me under.
“Everything and everyone I know, including you, is suddenly an alien.”
“Believe me, having a new stepmother every other year is alien enough. Especially when some of them are more appropriate as sisters.” He took a step towards me, palms raised. “Try and concentrate on the present. Keep calm, Bear.”
“You keep calm,” I yelled, thoroughly over it. “Who made you the boss, anyway?”
“The voice of reason.”
“Reason?” I scoffed. “That particular friend of logic and common sense flew out the window a while ago.”
Smith rolled his eyes to the heavens. “We really don’t have time for this. Can we just delay the nervous breakdown until we get below?”
“How many times must I remind you? I’m claustrophobic. Going below will promote the nervous breakdown.”
Outside, the downpour broke loose with a deafening roll of thunder that rattled the windows. We both flinched. He looked at me from beneath long lashes with pleading eyes and I relented. It was hard to reconcile his man’s physique with the fretting boy before me.
With a put-upon sigh, I said, “Bea’s room it is, then.”
He gave me a cheeky grin, swinging the door wide. “I need to remember that trick.”
“What trick?” I scowled at him.
“The one where I get my way without further argument.”
I cuffed him over the ear as we entered, peering around curiously. He flicked the lights on. Illuminated by stark white fluorescence, the space was bare, more like what I’d imagined for Fortescue. A single bed sat unmade and almost an afterthought in the centre of the functional space. A long workbench, its top lined with felt, took up one wall to the left. On it rested dozens of guns, some dismantled for cleaning, others sitting in cases next to boxes of ammunition. The air smelled of polishing compound and chemicals.
“Bingo.” Smithy strode over to busy himself sighting down barrels and examining rounds, taking his time with selections, while I wandered.
She also had an assortment of high-tech bows and arrows mounted over the gun table on brackets. The other two walls to the right held open shelving that extended to the ceiling. Trays of yellowing bones, fixing jars containing what appeared to be floating human organs, and other specimens I dared not study, were jammed across every spare millimetre. Aunt Bea’s room resembled a police ballistics lab, or maybe the Anatomy Department, far more like an industrial workstation than a space for relaxing in.
Her qualifications were treated with even greater disregard than Fortescue’s, stacked haphazardly on a chair in the corner nearest a door which led to other rooms along a short hallway. At least she’d bothered to have the degrees framed. I picked each up in turn, all from Oxford University: Archaeology, Forensic Anthropology and Religious Iconography. Gun club medals were scattered on the floor, firsts in a range of events. Bea was a sharp shooter, a sniper.
Smithy sidled up next to me, pockets bulging with the butts of two pistols that dragged his boardies low on his hips. I was too disgruntled to notice the exposed sliver of firm tanned belly – much. He’d also collected a nasty looking modern crossbow for good measure, arrows jutting from a quiver slung over his back.
“That looks spectacularly practical in an enclosed place.” I snorted and shook my head. “I hope Seth’s prepared to stand still while you take aim.”
He blithely ignored the mockery. “I would’ve thought one of the most harmless things we could do was check out the bedrooms of a bunch of nice oldies. I’m used to being mistaken, but this? Bea has an AK-47. And let’s not mention the body parts. Why the old bones? They’re not fossils, are they?”
“You just mentioned the body parts.” I stooped to take a closer look at several pieces that rested on black velvet in sealed glass cubes, which occupied a cleared position on the middle level of tiers. “These are human. One’s a hyoid bone that’s snapped in half. It’s the little bone in the throat that moves when you swallow. The other is a jigsaw of reassembled cranium from an infant.”
I didn’t have to explain the baby’s death was not gentle, as Smithy’s face contorted in horror. Another dreadful artefact, only this one was strangely personal. I felt an intruder on something meant to stay private.
“The remains are charred, like the bone has been cremated. These in particular have been very carefully preserved.” He gazed at me quizzically. “Mrs Paget’s been teaching me Medicine for years and my great-aunt’s profession is keeping old things in their best condition. I just had no clue of the wider purpose.”
“Who would have, really?” He glanced down the corridor leading to a parlour. “Bugger. So many rooms. This place is a maze.”
“We’ve come this far, there’s no way I’m not going all the way. Besides, you’ve got what you came for.” And then the thought that had been trying to emerge finally hit me. “Guns are useless against Seth anyway. So are all weapons, in fact. I remember now. He told Raphaela that he’d been trying to do himself in for years. Nothing works while the Crone lives.”
“Yep,” Smithy answered casually, inspecting his fingernails. “Is it really necessary to check Bea’s bathroom?”
I glared at him, which seemed to be the main reaction he got lately. I was not entirely sure he’d earned it, just trying to do his best under testing circumstances, but I was too addled for nicety.
“Why the wild-goose chase, then?”
“Winnie, I’m not so stupid to think a mortal weapon can kill the right-hand man of the Crone. That would be just too easy.” He stared back at me, unabashed. “But Bea and Mrs Paget and Fortescue went out armed, so at least some of our enemies can be neutralised with a gun. I aim to be prepared for every circumstance. In any case, bullets will cause Seth pain and slow him down.” He looked like he’d enjoy that possibility. “I suppose there’s no point demanding we hurry downstairs? We’ve already wasted so much time.”
“Not even if you give me those lost-puppy eyes.”
At the end of the hall, we stepped through into a cosy library filling three walls with small, unmarked books bound in black leather. Some of them were falling apart with age. Another wall was completely taken up by a huge chart, the written detail packing its surface so dense and miniscule, two loupes on chains swung from the roof either side. Pressing one of the magnifying glasses to heavy fabric, Smith bent to inspect the chart’s content, his back to mine.
Meanwhile, I pulled an edition out at random and gingerly turned the delicate pages, scanning snippets of neat cursive writing in red ink that had faded over the long expanse of time. I blinked in disbelief as the book’s meaning became clear.
“These are biographies. Fanny Montgomery. She died in 1632 of tuberculosis. It’s so sad, she was only fifteen.”
Replacing the first, I got on tiptoes to select another. I heard Smith inhale sharply and started to turn in his direction. His hands were upon my shoulders, ushering me forcefully back along the corridor to Bea’s bedroom before I could fully comprehend what was happening. The little book flung out of my grip and tumbled to the floor, where the cover ripped from its spine.
“Hey! Cut it out.”
“You don’t need to see anything else,” he said. “We’re done here.”
I narrowed my eyes over my shoulder in accusation, trying to twist from his grasp. “What don’t you want me to see?”
“Trust me, please,” he pleaded. “It’s for your own good.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” I wrenched free, exploiting the fact he’d rather release me than risk a bruise.
Smithy groaned. “I’m the son of a judge. You don’t think I’m qualified?”
“You really think keeping me in ignorance is the best approach?” I challenged.
He grudgingly shook his head. I collected the little book from the floor and returned along the hall to stop in front of the chart. He followed, joining me to take the book from my hands, before carefully reassembling it and replacing it in the gap on the bookshelf.
By the time he stood next to me, I was already busy scrutinising what was obviously an intricate family tree extending back to 900AD. The vast stretch of centuries up to the present was noted in minute script along one side. At its top, three names glittered in gold leaf, distinct without the need of magnification: Isadore, Rose and Dexter. The title ‘Order of the Sacred Trinity’ rested above Rose and Dexter. Isadore, their sister, was circled in red ink. I peered down at the legend across the bottom, and then back up to apply the key.
“Isadore was the original Keeper. She was present at the beginning. Rose and Dexter started the Trinity. All the rest are descended from these three. It’s so staggering, I keep thinking I’ll wake up.”
“Yeah, when the psychiatrist comes to change the drip,” Smith muttered unhappily.
Applying the lens, a name in spindly gold caught my attention. “Fanny.” She was there, her lifeline cut short. In fact, after scanning more names at random it became clear: all the lifelines were remarkably short. “Not a single person lived to see their thirties.”
“High mortality was the norm back then,” he said without conviction.
“Maybe, but this death toll is pretty ruthless.”
I bent closer and inspected entries in turn, each bearing an inscription noting how the person died. Everyone was despatched in a grisly, agonising way.
“No, it can’t be.” Until that point, I hadn’t really understood Smith’s reluctance for me to see this chart.
I pulled away and rubbed my eyes, then returned to the impossible name that had riveted my focus through the jeweller’s glass. From the perspective of my measly seventeen years, Fortescue had always seemed ancient. But even my exaggerated estimate would not have placed him at over seven hundred years old.
“Can this really be true?” I fixated on Fortescue’s entry, as if a hard gaze could generate a proper explanation.
“Apparently the old boy was around when Saint-Saëns made the top forty.”
“Fortescue had a wife,” I said. “She died in 1405 during childbirth and so did the baby. Her name was Anna. He wasn’t even born into the Sacred Trinity. Anna was one of Rose’s kin.”
“No good can come of this, Bear. Let’s just go downstairs.”
But I was mesmerised. “Here’s Aunt Bea. Beatrice Lumiere born circa 1470. Some of her relics are younger than she is.”
“We ought to go easy on them—” He quickly swallowed the rest. I knew he could not finish that sentence because it ended in my fragile, beloved guardians crumbling to dust and blowing away on the slightest breeze. “Bear?” I turned to him. “Do you think your minders fade as the Stone grows stronger? Like the process keeping them young is now in reverse?”
I shrugged, hoping that if I didn’t admit his theory out loud, it might prove false. Chewing my lip, I returned to the chart.
“Bea also had a husband. Vincent. Killed in the Thirty Years’ War.” I searched for Mrs Paget and had to go way back. “Grace. Approximate birth year 1113. Her proper name is Grainne and she’s been in this almost from the beginning. Married Arthur Paget in 1282. He died in 1303 of an infected wound from a farming accident. None of them ever remarried.”
“That’s a long time to be without anyone,” Smithy said gently. “Okay. Curiosity satisfied. Let’s go!”
I followed the inevitable train of thought. “They are the only three remaining from the Order of the Sacred Trinity. And Fortescue is the single outsider to have survived his connection to the family.” The full implications hit home. These weren’t strangers, individuals without any connection whatsoever to me. This was my family tree. “Association with me is a death sentence!”
“Winnie.” Smithy edged closer. He held out his hand. “Please.”
“No, get away from me.” I batted his hand to the side. “I’m bad for your health.”
There were two more names I had to see. Taking a deep breath for courage, my focus dropped to the bottom of the history. There, in ink less oxidised than any others, were the names of my parents, alone on their own line.
I had to touch, and kneeled to reach, just as Smith lunged to snatch my hand and stop me. But he was a tad slow and my fingertips made contact. Together, momentum carried us into the final minutes of the lives of Shiloh and Isaiah Light. Smithy’s shout of “No!” echoed in my ears as we were yanked into the past once more.
The young couple were seated at the front of a beaten-up vintage coach with bench seats, its only passengers. Dressed in well-worn jeans and the scuffed hikers’ boots of perpetual travellers, canvas duffle bags rested at their feet. In their early twenties, the girl was closest to the open window. She stared towards a hilltop on her right, the boy next to her.
Both wore frowns ingrained by constant worry. She had my wild, dark curls tied in a scrap of red ribbon, and he had my eyes, in the exact same shade of green. They squinted through glass at the fading glare of sunlight cresting the horizon, as if searching for something. Seeing them for the first time, my belly constricted with yearning. I’d never before missed having parents.
Idling at the bottom of a short, steep rise, the bus jutted straight across double lanes from a T-intersection. The driver clearly suffered a momentary blank, his head swivelling either side in indecision as dusk fell. He could take the hill or skirt fields of scraggly brown grassland in the opposite direction. They were in the middle of nowhere, not a stray cow or tumbledown shack in view, just the occasional withered tree in distant silhouette.
A low rumble cut the silence, growing rapidly louder. And I knew what would happen. I wanted more than anything to pull from the vision, but once in its mental vice, the choice to follow until the bitter finale was already made. She looked back at him, reaching to lift a small locket from beneath her threadbare jumper. Of plain silver, it was not an expensive piece, but the reverential way she handled it told me that this was their most treasured possession.
Gently clicking it open, they stared at the tiny image within. A sleeping newborn cocooned in a blanket decorated by embroidered sky-blue bunnies filled the oval frame. Bea had a photo just like it on the sideboard in our TV room. My parents and I had shared that picture, at least.
“She’ll be okay,” he said in a low, soothing voice. “Our little girl is with Bea.”
“That’s what I’m most afraid of,” my mother said. “No matter how skilful, the Trinity are too few against the Crone and her servants. Who can remain standing in the face of such bottomless spite?”
“I believe in Winsome.” My father’s answer was resolute. “She will prove the very best of us.”
With a look of sorrow, his wife closed the locket. “You are right, Isaiah. I should not lose faith. I just wish I could have held her one last time.”
They tightly clasped the locket in layered fists. My father reached over to slide the window shut, before wrapping Shiloh in a hug with his spare arm, and they huddled together, foreheads touching and eyes squeezed tight, no longer bothering to watch what was coming for them.
Was that why I wasn’t with them where I belonged? My parents had somehow anticipated their deaths and ensured I wasn’t at risk. I’d always believed I had survived the crash, that Bea had taken me in after. This was an assumption she’d never bothered to correct. The facts told of a deeper, more slippery motivation at work that inspired in me deepest dread.
But overriding all else as events converged was despair for everything my parents had lost. Like my ancestors who’d suffered an untimely end, they were so young. I gritted my teeth and swore blackest vengeance upon the foul creature to blame, and any who chose the Crone’s side. Over the lip of the hill, roared a white tow-truck. The coach driver belatedly wrangled the gearstick in a panicked grind of cogs, attempting to put his bus in reverse.
The distance was not so great that the headphones and closed eyes of the joyriding youth at the wheel of the truck were not obvious. I saw his acne-scarred cheeks and a muddy-brown fringe combed to one side, his exposed eyebrow pierced by a barbell. His seatbelt hung limp and neglected by his shoulder. I couldn’t help willing him to look up, despite the certainty this was history and had already come to pass. Some other-worldly influence ensured that he wasn’t vigilant. He tapped the dash in frenetic rhythm to whatever song had doomed my parents, piloting his missile in oblivion.
Until it was too late.
On some impulse the youth finally attended to the road, eyes snapping wide when he sighted the immovable obstacle blocking his path. He clutched the wheel and stomped the brake. The truck careened onwards in a plume of screeching burned rubber. The bus driver finally managed to get his vehicle in reverse, inching back for the safe haven of the road where he should have been from the outset.
All his effort achieved was to better align his human cargo with their onrushing fate. The impact made a thunderous boom that rolled over the barren land, the truck’s engine ripped from its mount to breach the cabin and crush the youth’s body from the top of his hips to his knees, his mouth a stunned ‘O’ at the fatal twist his day had taken.
In response to the abrupt halt, the top half of him whiplashed ahead, pounding his forehead onto the windshield hard enough to leave a bloody, cracked star. He was thrown back into his seat and with a final huff of breath, his eyelids slid together, never to part again. The tinny bleats issuing from headphones skewed about his neck, now competed with the pinging of traumatised metal and glass hitting the asphalt in a shattering cascade. The radiator hissed and the stench of baked oil filled the air.
Bile flooded my throat. The insult had only just begun for my parents. Images of the carnage within the coach were relentless and, although it was futile, I clamped my hands over my eyes. The collision speared the bus from its wheelbase, flinging it onto the side. Carving a bounced, spinning skid along the road, a fountain of shrieked sparks trailed its wake.
The interior landscape was utterly wrong, like a camera lens recording from a crazy tilt. The driver had died instantly, half his face caved in. Belted to his now-horizontal seat, he flailed violently on each jolt of his vehicle meeting the road’s resistance, blood spatter decorating the roof. Unrestrained, Shiloh and Isaiah didn’t fair so well.
Confronted by the extended brutality of their end, my senses finally recoiled. The curtain descended for a blessed period of nothingness, but not before a final lingering image of wreckage strewn far and wide. A red ribbon fluttered across the paddock on a whirl of smoke.
I woke flat on my back, staring overhead at a ceiling of flaked cream paint. It took several moments to reorientate myself, the awful truth of my parents’ death bringing a wave of grief. Sitting up, a ragged howl rose up my throat.
Next to me on his knees, Smith cupped his head in his hands, murmuring, “I didn’t want you to see that.” Strangely, my foremost thought was relief he hadn’t impaled himself on those stupid arrows when we fell. He raised his head and peered at me. “I’m so sorry, Bear.”
I failed to choke back a sob, melting into the comfort of his extended arms. “You tried …” I hiccupped, burying myself against his chest, “—to stop me.”
But any solace was all too brief. The proximity alarm flared to life for the second time that morning, and no matter how desperately my imagination conjured a lost pizza-delivery boy, there was no denying the reality of an intruder on our doorstep.
“We’re out of time,” Smith declared, his voice turned to steel.
