Alex banged on the door, not stopping until the key turned again and Grandpa Jacob’s irate face appeared.
‘I’m busy,’ he snapped.
Alex slipped under his arm before he had a chance to stop her. The room was cosy, each wall lined with brimming bookshelves. In the middle of the room was a wooden desk covered in stacks of papers. At the back of the room, a window overlooked the burnt olive grove.
‘Tell me what did that!’ Alex demanded, pointing out the window.
‘It’s none of your concern!’
‘Tell me!’
Grandpa Jacob raised his voice to match hers. ‘I will not be ordered around in my own house! Get out!’
‘Not until you tell me what just happened!’
He glared at her. ‘It’s none of your —’
Alex’s rage boiled then overflowed. ‘It is my concern! I nearly died !’
That brought Grandpa Jacob up short.
Hovering in the door, Leeuie looked anxiously from Alex to Grandpa Jacob.
Alex took a breath. ‘Tell me what’s going on,’ she said, calmer. ‘Maybe I can help?’
Grandpa Jacob shook his head. ‘You can’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I do.’
Alex swallowed down a groan. Mum had been right about him being as stubborn as a goat. ‘You can’t possibly know if I can help or not. You don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know enough to know you can’t help,’ he shot back.
‘But —’
Grandpa Jacob had had enough. ‘How many times do I need to tell you!’ he bellowed. ‘You can’t help!’ He stamped his fractured leg on the ground so hard that the books on the shelves jumped. All the blood rushed from his face and a string of expletives flew out of his mouth. He sank into a chair, clutching his leg, still cursing.
Serves you right, Alex thought, but then immediately felt guilty. ‘Do you need help?’
‘No!’ Grandpa Jacob shouted. ‘I. Do. Not. Need. Help!’ He squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing. ‘There’s tablets in the kitchen. Yellow bottle.’
Alex hesitated. ‘You want me to get them for you?’
‘No, I want you to stand there gaping like a goldfish!’
Alex wanted to let him wallow in the pain of his broken foot but, given the sheet-white colour of his face, decided against it. She brushed past Leeuie and raced through the pantry into the kitchen. On the counter were two yellow pill bottles with identical pharmacy labels. She took both to the study.
Grandpa Jacob waved away the bottle in her left hand. ‘Those make me fall asleep. Horrid things.’ He took the other bottle, tipping out a pill and swallowing it without water. He stared into space for a few moments then slumped back into the chair.
‘Are you okay, Mr Ortiz?’ Leeuie said, still in the doorway.
For a few moments the old man said nothing. And then he let out a heavy sigh. ‘I just don’t know what to do,’ he muttered, more to himself than his audience. ‘It’s begun and I don’t know how to stop it.’
‘What’s begun?’ Alex couldn’t keep the frustration out of her voice. ‘How to stop what ?’
He put his head in his hands and said nothing.
Alex glared at him. Well, okay, fine. If he wasn’t going to tell her, she would just start guessing and not stop until he spilled the beans. And she had a pretty good idea where to start. The strange symbol. The one Leeuie said was something to do with their family history. The one Grandpa Jacob had refused to tell her about.
‘The symbol made the fire start, didn’t it.’ Alex spoke with the same certainty Mum used when she knew Alex was not being totally truthful about something. Like when Alex claimed she truly had no idea what happened to the packet of chocolate biscuits and maybe Mum accidentally left it at the store?
Grandpa Jacob jerked his head up. ‘What do you know about that symbol?’
Bingo, Alex thought. She repeated what Leeuie had told her earlier. ‘It represents our family history and it’s the reason you live here.’ She paused. ‘And it’s connected to something in the forest. Something that started the fire.’ Leeuie hadn’t told her that bit, but Alex was sure she was right.
Grandpa Jacob scrutinised her. Alex stared back at him, not blinking. He looked away first. His eyes brushed over Leeuie, but the boy had obviously passed whatever test Grandpa Jacob deemed necessary for hearing this big secret.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Seeing as you’re so eager to know, I’ll tell you.’
Alex sucked in a breath. Finally!
Grandpa Jacob stared at the ceiling for a frustratingly long time. ‘This is not an ordinary farm,’ he eventually said in a low, secretive voice.
Alex rolled her eyes. Seriously? It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.
Grandpa Jacob continued. ‘The land belonged to my father. And before that my father’s father, and before that my fa—’
‘I get it,’ Alex said, ‘it’s been in the family for ages.’
He regarded her coolly. ‘If you’re going to constantly interrupt, this will take quite some time.’
‘I interrupted once!’
‘That’s twice now,’ he said.
Alex made a show of pretending to zip up her mouth and lock it.
‘My point,’ Grandpa Jacob said with a stern look, ‘is that I am not here by accident. My family bought this land several generations ago because it is our duty to protect it.’
Alex forgot about her locked mouth. ‘Protect it from what?’
‘Not from what. From whom,’ Grandpa Jacob said. He lowered his voice. ‘From Kiala.’
Alex hesitated. Was that name supposed to mean something to her? She looked to Leeuie, to see if the name registered with him, but he looked as confused as she did.
‘Who’s Kiala?’ she asked.
‘Shhhh!’ Grandpa Jacob winced, glancing to the open window. ‘Kiala is a powerful spirit who is imprisoned in the forest here.’
If Alex hadn’t already been subjected to eerie winds, freak firestorms and talking animals, she would have started laughing. But after those, a spirit in a forest seemed scarily credible. Still … ‘Why is a spirit imprisoned in the forest here?’
‘Because …’ Grandpa Jacob trailed off, then sighed. ‘I suppose I may as well start from the start.’