Auchinmurn Isle
Present Day
Em’s picture was of Matt.
‘His hair is a bit longer,’ Em signed, swallowing, ‘but I think maybe time is passing differently for him. You know?’
Matt was standing beneath a gloomy archway, leaning forward at an odd angle. He was wounded. The hilt of a small weapon stuck out from his side, right above his hip bone.
Em was pale. That’s why we need to get back there. To help him.
Zach looked at her with concern in his eyes. It doesn’t look like a knife.
Em shook her head. It’s the bone quill. The ancient object that you use to animate the beasts and free them from Hollow Earth.
Matt gets stabbed by it? Are you even sure this is Matt?
‘I don’t know!’ Em cried, forgetting either to sign or telepath in her anguish. ‘But I can’t risk it!’
‘If this did come into your imagination from Albion,’ Zach signed swiftly, ‘then we need help. Matt’s hurt. We have to tell someone.’
‘Not yet! You promised!’ Em jabbed a finger at the triptych. ‘I wish I knew how the panels are connected. They seem fragmented. Like I’m watching a film that’s been put together out of order.’
Em had captured the pencil tower on Era Mina in loose, sketchy strokes. Along with the telltale halo of an animation inside the tower itself, there was a huge hole between two of the arrow slits at the top. It looked like a powerful projectile of some kind had hit the wall.
Zach picked up a book on medieval art from Em’s jumble of papers. He flipped to the section on altar adorations and triptychs, then passed it to her.
‘It says here that the central panel of a triptych is often just the most dramatic part of the message, and the panels are not necessarily in sequential order,’ he signed.
Like a comic, Em telepathed, reading swiftly.
Zach nodded. Think about how comics are laid out on the page. You read the huge central panel first. Then you go to the smaller surrounding panels to get the bigger picture. Does that help?
Em felt a jolt of hope. If that’s the case, maybe some of this stuff hasn’t happened yet. Maybe Matt’s OK. Zach, I love you!
She threw herself into Zach’s arms, knocking them down together on to the sacks of potting soil lined up against the wall of the shed.
‘Sorry,’ she signed, giggling as she got up again. ‘If any of this is going to work, I think I need just one more thing before I… we try. And I need it soon. Help me get this place straight again, will you?’
Zach worked with Em, returning the hut to the way it had been when they entered. He couldn’t help himself. He wished she would kiss him again.