‘It can’t be coincidence,’ said Daniel, holding up the open notebook against the symbol on the wall. Rosie looked from the pages to the wall and back again and nodded.
‘We need to find out for sure though. And what it means.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Let’s try again. Make the fit. See what happens.’
Daniel shook his head. ‘It didn’t feel right yesterday,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what might happen if we push too hard.’
‘You mean I’ll end up like Lawson?’
‘Or something just as bad maybe.’ Daniel shifted his feet in the dust on the floor. ‘You’ll get it all back, I’m sure you will. We’ll help my dad. And we’ll help you too.’
Rosie looked at him. But she didn’t say a word.
They inspected the walls in the pantry for more clues, but there were no other symbols or marks anywhere.
‘So? How else are we going to find out what it means?’ asked Rosie eventually, tapping the symbol on the wall with a finger.
Daniel looked at Rosie for some time, thinking everything through.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘But we stop if we feel it’s not right. Before anything can go wrong.’
But, as soon as they tried to make the fit, Rosie coughed and spluttered and Daniel felt needle pricks in his chest almost immediately. They became so painful he thought they might be drawing blood.
‘Stop, Rosie! It’s not right. It’s not working.’
‘No,’ she hissed through gritted teeth, her face tensing until it seemed to be twisting out of shape as if her skin was made of rubber. But when Daniel felt the pain in his chest become harsher he yelled at Rosie, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her until her green eyes popped open.
‘It’s too dangerous,’ he said, panting. ‘I can sense it. We can’t use the fit, not like this.’
She nodded and leant against the wall, gulping in great shuddering breaths as she tried to speak. A single drop of blood appeared at one nostril and splashed on to her chest before she had time to wipe it away.
‘I can’t . . . it’s me . . . something inside me’s definitely not working like it should.’ She drew another shaking breath. ‘But I saw something.’
‘What, Rosie? What did you see?’
‘Lawson was here. He definitely drew this symbol. There are more in the house. They’re important. Hiding things . . .’ she hesitated, ‘. . . no, protecting them . . .’ But then she shook her head. ‘No, that’s not right either.’ She brushed her fingers over the wall as if trying to feel for a clue. ‘It’s like . . .’ She paused, struggling to find the right words. ‘It’s like each one is an X that marks the spot or something like that.’
‘Are they anything to do with the flask?’
‘I don’t know.’ Rosie wiped her face. Another drop of blood appeared out of her nose and she caught it on a finger and sucked it away. Daniel watched her, saying nothing. She was calmer now, her breathing more even. She slid down the wall and crouched down and waved Daniel away. ‘I just need a minute to get my strength back.’
Daniel stared at the symbol on the wall. Touched it again with a finger. He went so close to it he could see the dirt caught in the dimples in the plaster.
‘If it means something’s here, maybe we can find out what it is.’
He put his hands on the wall and pushed as if expecting it to roll back. He knocked on it, listening for any off-key sounds that might alert him to something out of the ordinary. He knelt down and felt along the skirting board, trying to discover if it lifted away. Defeated, he sat back on his haunches for a moment and then he knelt forward to inspect the black rubber doorstopper in front of him. It had been screwed down through its rubber centre into an old floorboard secured by nails that had clearly been hammered into each corner decades ago. He gripped the stopper and tried to twist it round. But it didn’t turn.
He sat back and looked at the symbol again and then stood up and disappeared into the kitchen. Rosie watched him pick up an old silver knife from the floor and return to the pantry and kneel back down. The tip of the knife fitted the head of the screw and Daniel pushed down hard as he tried to turn it between his hands as if preparing to make a fire with a spindle. With a yelp, the screw turned and he spun it looser until the doorstop came free from the floor.
But there was nothing beneath it except for the screw disappearing into the floorboard. He was about to twist the rubber doorstop back when Rosie stopped him.
‘There’s something odd about it.’ She ran her finger over the wood the doorstop had been covering. ‘The doorstopper must be new, otherwise the wood beneath it would be a lot brighter and cleaner, wouldn’t it? And look at the screw: it’s shiny. Not like those,’ she said, pointing at the old brown nail heads, one in each corner of the floorboard. ‘Perhaps Lawson put it on?’
‘Why?’ But Rosie shook her head. Daniel bit the inside of his check as he tried to figure it out and then he screwed the doorstop back in and stood up and brushed himself down. ‘Let’s see if we can find another of those,’ he said, pointing at the symbol. ‘You said there were more. It might help.’
They went from room to room, inspecting the walls, window frames, the ceiling. They kicked away the dust from the floorboards where it had drifted into piles.
Rosie found it eventually, the same symbol as the one in the pantry, drawn in black marker pen on the skirting board in a room that might once have been a library or a study, with bare shelves lining the walls. Daniel knelt beside it, knocking on the skirting and making a hollow sound. There were old nails hammered into the wood, but he worked his fingers all the way down the top edge, trying to see if it would come away. When he felt a small section move, he pulled harder, his fingernails trying to find some purchase. He pulled again, his nails turning white, until suddenly a small section of skirting came free with a clunk, disengaging from two round magnets stuck to the wall behind it. He ran his fingers over the two other magnets fixed to the piece of skirting in his hand, observing how the old nails hammered into the front of it had been sheared off flush to the wood on the other side.
He rubbed their clean silver ends. ‘It’s supposed to look like you can’t take it off.’
‘Look! Daniel, there’s something behind it.’ Rosie reached into a nook lined with cotton wool that had been gouged into the plaster behind the piece of skirting and drew out a gold wedding band. A piece of black twine was knotted round it with a loop tied at the free end, just like a Christmas tree decoration ready to hang. Inside the ring was an inscription that read:
David and Helen Forever
‘We should go back to the pantry,’ said Daniel.
When he knelt down again, Daniel gripped the black rubber doorstop and pulled as hard as he could. The piece of floorboard came away cleanly, popping free from four magnets attached to the joists below. On its underside were four more magnets with the old brown nails sheared flush to the wood, just as they had been on the piece of skirting board that had been hiding the wedding ring.
Lying in the cavity below, between the joists on a bed of cotton wool, was a silver–plated, rectangular box.
‘It looks like something my mum would keep her jewellery in,’ said Rosie as Daniel lifted it out. When he opened the lid, Rosie gasped and put her hand to her mouth, muffling a string of swear words. There were four wooden compartments, each of equal size, and lying in the furthest one to the left was a man’s severed finger. The nail was long and yellow and pointing at them. A tangle of black hairs covered the knuckles. Black twine was wound round the finger and a loop had been tied at its other end and hooked through a small metal clasp fixed to the underside of the lid.
Daniel placed the ring in the compartment next to the finger and hooked the piece of black twine around it through the clasp after pinching it open. Nothing happened after he shut the clasp. But Daniel wasn’t sure if anything should and he shrugged at Rosie.
‘Perhaps there are two other things to go in the box,’ she said.
‘So two more symbols, you think?’
Rosie nodded.
‘And then what? What do you think it does?’
‘I don’t know.’