Now that Toby was unable to fall asleep it was all he could think about. The combination of rich food and strong wine made his eyelids feel like slamming porthole covers. Warmth spread through his body from his stomach and, as he looked around the tables, he saw that he was not the only one struggling to keep his head up.
“Toby!” Ayla’s voice snapped him out of it. “Get it together.”
Around him, the other teens were straightening up in response to Ayla’s warning.
Toby felt the fork tine still between his fingers. He jabbed his thigh with it and the sharp pain cleared the fog from behind his eyes.
Mother Hesper glowered at Ayla and stood. “Before you return to your cells, there is time for a tour of the Reliquary.”
Every one of the teens stood, relieved that they were not being sent straight into the soporific darkness. Ayla nodded at Toby and he took a breath. They were about to find out if the inverters really were on the island.
Half staggering with the impact of the alcohol, Toby followed Mother Hesper and Father Dahon back into the main cathedral. Summer giggled suddenly from behind him and Arthur had to catch her when she stumbled on a step. Ayla closed her hand around Toby’s elbow. “Focus. This is a competition.”
“I’m not used to alcohol.”
“You only had one cup and you drank it slowly. It’ll wear off in a bit. In the meantime, just keep moving.”
“Lightweights,” Brody and Moira snorted as they shoved their way to the front through the giggling swaying crowd.
“I suppose you drink all the time.” Adele tossed her head, but Adrien had to catch her as the movement caused her to lose her balance.
“Aye,” Moira grinned. “Kills the bugs.”
“I feel sick,” Summer whispered as Toby stepped warily back into the main part of the cathedral.
“Line up.” Mother Hesper stood in front of the uncles, who remained silent and unmoving, their hands resting on their weapons. Toby and Ayla pushed past Brody to reach the front of the queue.
“Behind this door is the Reliquary.” Mother Hesper gestured, but all Toby could see were the massive attendants, whose eyes seemed to see everything.
“You will touch nothing unless I give you permission. You are to look at each relic only long enough so that you would recognize another if you were to see it. If there are any brothers or sisters inside praying, you are not to disturb them. Understand?”
Toby nodded and Ayla’s grip tightened. He turned to see that her face was flushed and her breath shortened. She was not as unaffected by the drink as she had made out. He could actually tell she was excited.
Mother Hesper said something under her breath to the uncles and they stepped to one side revealing the door to the Reliquary, which was heavy and thick.
“It’s wood,” Ayla breathed.
“Wood so old it’s almost turned to stone.” Cezar limped forward and touched it. “Look, it’s black, like iron.”
Ayla nodded. “It wouldn’t have burned well. Maybe that’s why it was left.”
“It was left because of superstition.” Father Dahon’s voice wound between them and Toby flinched: his hearing was incredibly sharp. “Behind this door was the crypt. The Gozitans thought that if they removed the door, it would release the souls of all those interred below.”
Lenka backed into Matus while Ayla just rolled her eyes. Toby found himself staring at the uncle on his left who glared at them from under thick, frowning brows.
Suddenly the uncle jerked towards Toby and opened his mouth, as if to say “boo”. Only a grunt emerged. Toby stumbled into Ayla, his heart hammering. Inside the uncle’s blackened mouth there had been no tongue.
Ayla pushed him off. “What’re you doing?” she hissed.
Toby shook his head. Maybe he was imagining things. This was what happened when you got drunk. He remembered Peel sobbing after a long night’s drinking and yelling at someone named Carla who wasn’t even there.
Toby’s head had started to thump. The sunlight spearing through the windows high above and glinting from all the gold was hurting his eyes. He wasn’t the only one. To his right Zahir had one arm over his face, while Leila had her head buried in the shoulder of her partner.
“It will be less bright inside. May we go in?” Uzuri was looking at Zahir with concern. “Zahir has an extreme sensitivity to light. His eyes are not like ours.”
Mother Hesper smiled as she regarded the albino boy. Then she took a large key from a pocket of her robe and unlocked the door. “Come then.” She waved them through.
It was dimmer inside, but not completely dark – small cross-shaped windows high up in the walls let light shine in.
Ayla pursed her lips as she looked up, but Toby dismissed the openings with a shake of his head. They were no good as a route into the Reliquary – even Summer wouldn’t fit through them.
Dirt-packed shelves lined the walls on either side of them. Although many of the skulls from the original crypt had been removed, leaving indents behind, several remained, grinning at Toby.
Summer squeaked as she found herself facing the sockets of a skull with clumps of hair still stuck to the bone.
“In here, please,” Mother Hesper said as she ducked under a lintel.
Toby was pushed from behind as the teens hurried to escape the chamber of skulls.
Inside the next room, to Summer’s obvious relief, the shelves had been cleaned. Each displayed different items.
“That’s a solar panel!” Cezar shook off Bianca’s hand and limped forwards. “I never saw one of those before. I thought they were all smashed!”
“Cezar!” Bianca was mortified.
Toby stared at his feet, terrified that one look at his face would give away his knowledge.
Mother Hesper nodded. “We have collected a few but, yes, most were smashed.”
Uzuri raised one hand as if to touch the black silicon, then dropped it quickly when Mother Hesper glared at him.
There was no dust on the panel. Toby’s heart rose. “Someone must clean,” he whispered to Ayla.
“You’re right.”
Toby’s idea about becoming an attendant seemed more attractive to him by the minute. He brought his attention back to what Mother Hesper was saying.
“It is items like this that caused the apocalypse. Using the Sun’s gifts in such blasphemous ways, trapping its rays inside man-made machinery, treating it like a slave rather than the god that it is, no wonder it took its powers from us.”
“Ave Soleil,” Adele whispered.
“Praise the Sun,” Uzuri echoed and Biana raised her hand to make the sun sign, her nails glinting in the halflight.
Toby mirrored her. Lenka and Matus glowered at them all.
“And now, here.” Mother Hesper stopped in front of a set of shelves that glittered with jewellery inside glass cases. Every item depicted the sun: small sunburst earrings, torques in sunbeam shapes, tiaras that looked like rays, crystal suns inside silver pendants, a silver ring with a smiling sun’s face on it. Beside this display was another, of jewellery designed with both the sun and moon. Usually the sun was gold, the moon silver, but some were brightly coloured, almost cartoonish, and in one pendant set apart from the others, the moon was asleep. Toby leaned close. Something about the moon’s slumbering face made Toby think that it was crying. He looked up to find Mother Hesper staring at him and quickly stepped sideways to peer at a bangle with a little dancing sun dangling from it.
“These must be worth a fortune.” Bianca’s nails ticked on the glass case as she lifted her hands to touch.
Mother Hesper sneered. “We do not care. Once placed inside the Reliquary, an item never leaves.”
Ayla’s hand closed around Toby’s forearm and he could feel the sweat on her palm. “Are those real diamonds?” She pointed to a ring in the centre.
Mother Hesper narrowed her eyes. “I believe so. As I said, the value does not matter, if it depicts the Sun, it belongs to the sanctuary.”
Ayla’s thoughtful hum gave Toby a shiver of concern.
“It will be easy enough for you to identify similar items as important.” Mother Hesper waved them onwards and Toby frowned at the next display. This too was in a glass box, but it contained little statues, some with the head of a falcon, some little beetles.
The teens stared solemnly.
“Ah don’t get it,” Moira said eventually.
“These are Egyptian.” Mother Hesper pointed to a statue of a male figure. “The Sun god, Ra. The scarab beetle.” If you see anything like this, it too depicts the Sun.”
She moved along slightly to a statue of a woman wearing an elaborate headdress. “This is Hindu – another solar deity, Surya. Many items come to us from the old museums. Just because they do not show a picture of the Sun, does not mean that they do not belong to the Solar Order. Be ever vigilant. Now this…” She left the display case and pointed to the next shelf.
“What is it?” Leila leaned close to a thin box covered in numbered buttons.
“I’ve seen one.” Ayla spoke up, surprising Toby. “It’s a calculator – for working out sums.”
Cezar shoved his way to the front of the group. “I’ve heard of these.” His fingers hovered over them and the Sister slapped his hand away with horror on her face.
“Don’t touch. These are some of our most dangerous items. See the grey bar at the top of the plastic casing?”
Cezar nodded.
“Tiny solar panels. This item is solar powered.”
With a gasp, Bianca pulled Cezar back.
“But it’s so small.” Zahir tilted his head.
Mother Hesper nodded. “There were many of these once, but they were thrown into landfill once the Sun vanished – useless. Now they are usable once more and when people find them, they are tempted to take the first step towards the second cataclysm. If a pilgrim brings in anything like this, you must immediately hand it over to me.” She glowered at Ayla. “If only you had known to destroy the one you saw. Too late now.” She sighed regretfully and Ayla nodded as if in agreement.
The next area looked to Toby just like the jumble of spare clothing in the storeroom on the Phoenix.
“Each item blasphemously depicts the Sun.” Between two fingers Mother Hesper picked up a T-shirt with Little Miss Sunshine capering on the front. Then she dropped it. “You may touch these – look through so that you can see what I am talking about.”
Summer was first to reach in. She picked up a T-shirt that said Sun’s out, guns out. “What does that mean?”
Ayla picked up another that said Sun, where rock and roll began.
Cezar’s said Sun Gym. Uzuri picked up a T-shirt that said Blue sun and stared at it.
Lenka gasped as she held up a bright red T-shirt that said Hotter than the sun. “Blasphemy.” She threw it to one side.
“You get the idea.” Mother Hesper drew them onwards and Toby’s eyes widened.
“You have books – paper. How?” He thought of Dee’s precious Atlas, the only real book he had ever seen. “Paper’s flammable. The books were burned in the Darkness.”
“Not all.” Mother Hesper sneered at the covers in front of her. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Empire of the Sun, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Sun Also Rises. The bent covers seemed to strain with the force of wasted words bursting to escape.
Mother Hesper turned back to the teens. “If a pilgrim brings a book to you, do not attempt to read it.”
Brody shrugged, Moira with her. “Can’t read anyhow.”
Mother Hesper hummed. “Who among you can read?”
Toby glanced at Ayla and she gave the slightest shake of her head, silently warning him to remain quiet about any possible advantage. Finally Summer raised a hand. “I can and so can Arthur.”
Cezar, too, raised his. “I can read. Bianca only a little.”
Lenka nodded her head. “I read.”
“Adrien reads French.” Adele looked at her brother. “He learned from the gravestones.”
“I read,” Leila said eventually. “Noah doesn’t.”
“Is that everyone?” Mother Hesper looked suspisciously at Toby, but he spread his hands.
“What’s next?” Ayla asked.
Next was a display of what looked like junk – items with no apparent purpose, but which showed a sun logo. “Sun … Sys-tems,” Lenka read out loud.
“These are … a mixture of ‘things’,” Mother Hesper said. “Parts of the most blasphemous machinery ever to be made.”
Ayla nudged Toby sharply enough to make him flinch, but he had already seen what she was trying to draw his attention to – a pile of components stamped with the Solaris logo.
“Can we touch?” Toby looked at Mother Hesper for permission.
She sucked in her breath.
“It’s hard to tell what they are, is all.” Toby pretended disinterest.
“You may touch.” Mother Hesper ducked her head, so that her eyes vanished beneath her lowered brows. “I will be watching.”
Toby reached out for something that looked like the picture his father had shown him, but Ayla pushed his hand sideways, forcing him to pick up another object that held no interest.
He glared at her, but she too had lifted what looked like a round disc, nothing like the inverter they needed. Soon the others had all picked up one of the strange items and were turning it in their hands. Then Ayla passed her disc to Arthur, swapping with the object he held and soon they were all exchanging items.
Suddenly Toby held it in his hand: an inverter. It had to be. It had holes that would fit the wires he had been sorting and was small enough to fit in his palm. How hard would it be to slip it into his pocket right now, surrounded by the whole group?
He swallowed and the hand holding the inverter slid towards his trousers.
Ayla slipped between Toby and Mother Hesper, briefly blocking him from the sister’s view.
“Toby, are you ready to swap?” It was Cezar.
“I…” Toby froze with his hand trembling over his pocket. He swallowed and lifted it once more. “Here.”
With a sinking heart he handed the inverter to Cezar and took an old AA battery pack in return.
Ayla’s face twisted and Toby had a moment of fear for Cezar’s safety as the boy held up the inverter with a wondering gaze. “What are these holes for, do you think? What do you imagine it does?” Cezar squinted closely and Bianca shoved him.
“Put it back, Cezar. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous.”
“I have a matching one.” Matus held his up.
Lenka glared at him. “Stop talking to the competition!”
Matus nodded and his face hardened.
“Now put them all back.” Mother Hesper straightened. She counted each item back on to the shelf and Toby shuddered, relieved now that he had not managed to pocket an inverter then and there.
Mother Hesper led them deeper into the Reliquary to a final shelf filled with crockery, mugs and plates with logos on them. Before it a single brother kneeled, muttering prayers under his breath.
Mother Hesper held a finger to her lips, asking for silence.
Toby leaned nearer to the display. BP, Sun Life, Sun Systems: the mugs declared cheerily that their employees had enjoyed company-sponsored tea and coffee breaks.
Suddenly Leila swayed. “I don’t feel so good.” She closed her hands around her stomach, bent forwards and, as Mother Hesper shrieked and the brother leaped to his feet, she filled a Kellogg’s cereal bowl with vomit.