Troubletwisters

  ‘Shove you in . . . an oven?!’ Ari’s tail twitched for an instant, either in amusement or surprise. ‘I think you are somewhat confused.’

  ‘Can you really understand what he’s saying?’ asked Jaide.

  ‘Yes!’ snapped Jack. ‘Obviously!’

  ‘Well, don’t listen!’ Jaide snapped back. ‘It . . . it isn’t right. You shouldn’t be able to talk to cats, or think you are! It’s part of everything that’s wrong here! Come on!’

  She pushed him again, and this time Jack didn’t resist. Stepping around Ari, he followed his sister. But Ari followed, too, and began to weave in and out of Jack’s legs, slowing him down.

  ‘I don’t know what’s so wrong about talking to me,’ said Ari. ‘Like I said, we’re friends, and as a friend, let me repeat: You should go back home now.’

  ‘Are you sure you can’t hear him?’ Jack asked anxiously as they rounded the corner.

  ‘Of course I can’t,’ said Jaide. ‘Ari’s just a cat. He can’t talk.’

  Ari looked heavenward and sighed.

  ‘The words just and cat were never meant to go together,’ said the ginger tom to Jack. ‘Tell your sister she could hear me if she listened properly. Maybe I could talk some sense into her.’

  ‘He says —’

  ‘I don’t want to know!’ Jaide put her hands over her ears. ‘Whatever he’s saying to you, it has to be a trick. Ignore him before he talks you out of escaping!’

  ‘Ah, the foolishness of the troubletwister,’ sighed the cat. ‘Remember that I tried to warn you.’

  The cat angled away from them, slinked between the shops on Dock Road, and swarmed up and over a fence.

  ‘He’s going to tell Grandma X where we are,’ said Jack.

  ‘Was that what he said to you?’ asked Jaide. She might have protested otherwise, but she did believe Jack had talked to Ari, and she didn’t like it. She was worried, too, that Jack was beginning to doubt her plan. She couldn’t see it through without him.

  ‘No. He said that we should go back to her house, that we’re not safe out here. I’m sure he’ll tell her, though.’

  ‘Then we’d better hope Mr Carver gets to work early,’ said Jaide. Her eyes flickered as she spoke. There was something in the corner of her vision again, something that was moving with them, that she just couldn’t get a good look at.

  Please, please make all this weird stuff stop, she thought. If we can just get to school, I’m sure we’ll be okay.

  The school was on the elbow formed by Main Street and Dock Road, but the entrance was from River Road, which defined its northern edge. The river was sluggish and wide where Main Street crossed it via the old iron bridge. A steep bank sheltered by willows led down to the water opposite the school. Birds squawked and argued in the hanging branches as the twins turned left off Main Street and hurried toward the front gate of the school.

  ‘We’re going to make it!’ said Jaide happily, a microsecond before she saw the first rat.

  It shot out of a roadside drain and came crawling directly toward them with its nose upraised. Its eyes were the same horrible, shiny, milky white as the eyes they had seen in their old home.

  Instinctively Jaide stopped. The rat looked at them with those hideous white eyes for two very long seconds, then it turned and fled, its pink tail whipping behind its fat, black-furred body. It ran up the path and ducked through a hole in the school wall.

  A moment later, it reappeared atop the wall, and it wasn’t alone. Dozens of rats slowly spread out along the wall, every one of them looking at the twins, every one of them with those same milky, staring eyes.

  ‘They’re all around the school,’ said Jaide grimly. ‘That cat must have told Grandma X already.’

  Jack’s face was pinched and pale. ‘What do we do now? We’ve got nowhere else to go!’

  ‘Troubletwisters!’

  The call came from behind them, but it wasn’t Grandma X’s voice. This was a softer, straining kind of whisper.

  ‘Young troubletwisters, come closer.’

  ‘Who’s there?’ Jaide called out. She and Jack edged nearer to each other, both of them peering around in all directions.

  ‘Look under the trees. Come to us and we will help you. We are your friends.’

  Jaide and Jack took a step back, paused, and looked across at the school. The rats’ heads tracked their every movement.

  ‘Let’s look,’ Jaide whispered. ‘But be ready to run.’

  The twins warily crossed the road and looked down the slope, through the gnarled branches and misshapen trunks to the river. But they couldn’t see anyone – or any rats – which was a relief.

  ‘Where are you?’ called Jaide. ‘I can’t see you.’

  ‘There,’ said Jack, pointing.

  As if he had made the person appear, Jaide now saw a solitary human figure standing under one of the twisted trees, wrapped in shadow.

  ‘We are your friends,’ the whispering voice repeated. ‘Only we can save you from the witch. Come.’

  There was something fascinating about the voice. The twins took a step closer without even thinking, and would have taken another step, but the voice was interrupted by a car that drove across the bridge to their right. The iron bridge hummed with its passage, and strange, rhythmic echoes spread across the water.

  ‘Who . . . who are you?’ Jaide called.

  ‘You do not know us yet, but you will. It is time. We will tell you everything,’ the figure said. It thrust out an arm in a jerky, peculiar wave. ‘Come with us. Hurry.’

  Jack started to head down the slope, moving like a sleepwalker. Jaide made a grab for him but missed.

  ‘Jack, wait!’

  ‘We will tell you the truth,’ said the voice. The figure stepped partly out of the shadow of the tree, legs jerking like a puppet’s. Jaide hesitated, then jumped down the slope after Jack.

  ‘Jack! Come back!’ she shouted. ‘Something’s wrong!’

  ‘We want only to help,’ said the figure soothingly. ‘Come to us, troubletwisters. Quickly!’

  Jack moved faster. Jaide slipped in the mud and fell on one knee.

  ‘Jack! Stop!’

  The figure under the tree reached out, as if in welcome, but its arms were too long. A cat yowled somewhere in the distance behind them.

  Jack started to run toward that strange embrace.

  ‘Yessss,’ said the voice. ‘Welcome!’

  With that last word, the figure fell apart, white-eyed rats cascading off a decaying, scarecrow framework of sticks and black cloth, the illusion of a person completely gone.

  In that same moment, the ground in front of Jack collapsed. His balance went, and he fell backward, twisting around as the earth carried him down into a sudden sinkhole.

  Jack slid down, down, down, the loose soil carrying him deep underground. Desperately he tried to scrabble and claw his way to the surface, but there was nothing to hold on to, and nothing solid under his feet.

  He sank deeper, gulping one desperate breath before the earth closed over above his head.

  UNLIKE HER BROTHER, JAIDE DID scream as she tried to stop herself from being swallowed up by the hole as well. She was already sliding in the mud, slipping inexorably toward the patch of turbulent earth, which was moving as if in answer to strong currents below the surface. But at the last second she managed to grab a tree trunk, forcing her fingernails into the bark so hard they broke. She came to rest with her feet in loose earth up to her ankles.

  ‘Jack!’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Jack!’

  Again Jack did not answer, but something else did. There was a flicker of movement in the hole. Jaide pulled herself back with a shriek as thousands of red ants boiled up out of the earth.

  But the ants
didn’t attack. They were busy filling in the hole, burying her brother. Jaide scrambled upright and put her back to the tree, just as a dozen milky-eyed rats poked their heads out of the roiling mix of dirt and ants. The rats turned as one and opened their mouths, speaking together.

  ‘Come! Come to us, troubletwister!’

  Jaide screamed again and went up the tree faster than she had ever climbed before. The rats watched her, their horrible eyes moving in unison, and then a great column of white-eyed red ants swarmed out of the dirt and came straight to the tree, climbing in an incredibly fast swathe of red and black and white.

  Twenty feet up, Jaide looked down, just for a moment. The tide of ants was almost upon her, and the rats had disappeared back under the loose earth. There was no sign of Jack at all.

  The vanguard of the ants reached her foot. Jaide shut her eyes and jumped toward the river, her arms outstretched in the approved safety-jump style.

  The wind shrieked across her face. Light spun around her. River, sky and sun dazzled her as she braced herself for the sudden impact of the water.

  But there was no impact. Jaide felt something cold under her hands and she instinctively gripped an iron rail. She opened her eyes, utterly disoriented as, far too close, a car honked its horn.

  She wasn’t in the river. For a moment Jaide feared that she might faint, but she couldn’t do that. Jack needed her, and the rats and ants might be coming for her at that very moment. She needed to do something!

  Jaide’s vision cleared, and she looked in wonderment around her. She was on the bridge.

  Below her, the trees whipped and swayed. She was high above the bank, at least momentarily safe from what she knew lay in the shadows.

  I flew, Jaide thought. The wind took me here!

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Jaide felt a hand on her shoulder and gasped with fright. She pushed herself away, but it was only a portly man in a baseball cap, who had just got out of the car that was stopped close by in the middle of the bridge.

  ‘I didn’t see you at first,’ said the man. He held up his hands to show that he meant no harm. ‘I didn’t . . . I didn’t hit you, did I?’

  ‘My brother,’ said Jaide, pointing frantically over the safety rail. ‘My brother!’

  ‘It’s all right, Alf,’ said a familiar voice. ‘She’s with me.’

  All the blood drained to Jaide’s toes. She didn’t need to turn to know that Grandma X was on the bridge, too – with her hair wild and her slippers showing from under her hastily donned coat. Her expression was furious and her eyes bored into Jaide’s.

  ‘I’ll take care of her.’

  Jack’s chest was burning and he was desperate to breathe, but he didn’t dare open his mouth. Then he felt himself fall again, the earth giving way completely, and he landed heavily on his backside.

  He instinctively took a breath, a breath that turned into a series of sobs and coughs. But at least he could breathe. More dirt rained down on him and he quickly scrabbled backward to avoid being buried under a miniature landslide.

  The shower of earth stopped. Jack brushed himself off and looked around, his eyes slowly adapting to the darkness. He was relieved to find that he could see as well as breathe, even though there was no visible source of illumination. He guessed there must be daylight leaking in somewhere.

  He was in a dimly lit tunnel that might once have been some kind of sewer. It was circular, wide enough to stand up in, and made out of concrete. A jagged hole had been smashed in the ceiling, through which he and a small mountain of dirt had just fallen. Dozens of tiny red ants crawled across the ground, waving their angry feelers at him.

  Thin, white tree roots stretched like harp strings across one end of the tunnel, to his right. He couldn’t see what was at the other end, but for the moment his thoughts were directed above the ground.

  What was happening to Jaide?

  Jack picked himself up and started to dig at the ceiling with his bare hands, but as fast as he tried, more earth fell down on him. Ants followed, scrambling into his clothes and biting him. Then a big lump of concrete missed him by an inch, forcing him to stop.

  He told himself to stay calm. He was scared, he was covered in matted earth, there were ants crawling all over him, but at least he was alive. And he could see, too, which was a great relief – although he still couldn’t work out where the light was coming from.

  Then he heard the voice. A soft, slurring voice that did not sound at all human.

  ‘Troubletwister . . . Troubletwister . . .’

  Jack looked up. Directly above him, a great mass of white-eyed ants was hanging down like a swarm of bees migrating from a hive. The ants moved as one, tens of thousands of them working together. As Jack watched, a large and very dead rat was pushed to the front of the mass, and then the ants pulled and pushed the mouth and inflated the dead rat’s chest.

  The voice came out of this dead rat’s mouth.

  ‘So good you have come at last, troubletwister!’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t see you there . . . Good morning.’

  ‘Not to worry, Alf. I appreciate your stopping. There’s some traffic building up now. Best you be moving on.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  Alf nodded to Grandma X, almost bowing, and hurried back to his car. A truck and two other cars were queued up behind him, as close to a traffic jam as Portland ever saw. Their drivers watched curiously, wondering what an old lady and a young girl were doing in the middle of the iron bridge.

  Jaide opened her mouth to call for help, but at that moment Grandma X’s ringed hand came down on her shoulder and the girl could neither move nor speak. Jaide was locked into her body as though it were a coffin.

  Grandma X waved with her other hand as Alf drove away and the backed-up traffic began to flow again. Jaide found that she could move her eyes, but looking at Grandma X didn’t help. The old woman had the air of someone dragged backward out of bed, and she wasn’t happy about it at all.

  ‘When I take my hand off you, I want you to tell me where Jackaran is,’ said Grandma X calmly. ‘It’s vital you do so without delay.’

  Jaide couldn’t nod or shake her head. All she could do was stare in frustrated silence and wait for her chance.

  ‘Don’t run, Jaidith,’ said Grandma X, as though she could read her mind. ‘I don’t know what on earth you think is going on, but I am not your enemy. Your brother needs help, and only we can give it to him.’

  The spell came off. Jaide pushed herself away and immediately tripped over Kleo, who yowled and retreated behind Grandma X. Jaide landed on her elbow. The pain was sharp and startling. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  Grandma X showed little sympathy as she hauled Jaide to her feet.

  ‘Every second counts, Jaide. Tell me what happened to Jackaran.’

  Jaide clambered to her feet, very confused. She’d thought the rats and ants and everything else worked for Grandma X. Surely the woman already knew what had happened to Jack?

  ‘We were going to school, but the rats were there . . . your rats . . . then someone called to us from the trees and it was . . . it was like we couldn’t resist . . . or Jack couldn’t. He went first and . . . he fell into a hole that swallowed him up and there were ants and I climbed a tree and jumped and . . . then I was here, I don’t know how.’

  ‘Show me where it happened,’ said Grandma X urgently. She pushed Jaide into movement and followed closely behind. ‘There were rats, you say? White-eyed rats?’

  ‘Yes, at the school and then . . . the person, the one calling, he . . . it . . . was just all rats as well,’ Jaide said. ‘Look, under that willow with the two branches in an F, the clear patch of dirt. That was a hole and Jack went in it! Your rats and ants have probably got him right now!’

  ‘They’re not my rats and ants,’ said
Grandma X. She was peering at the bare patch of ground and fumbling with something in her bag.

  ‘Who do they belong to, then?’ Jaide asked weakly. She recognised the feeling that was starting to spread through her, underneath her fear for Jack. She didn’t want to acknowledge it, but she recognised that Grandma X was speaking the honest truth – and that was accompanied by the dawning, awful realisation that she had made a bad mistake.

  ‘I will explain everything as soon as I can. Right now we need to rescue Jack.’

  Grandma X strode down the slope to the bare patch where Jack had disappeared. The live ants were gone, but when Jaide got closer she could see quite a number of dead ones sprinkled around.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Grandma X, waving her back. ‘That’s how he was taken, through unsound soil.’

  ‘Taken where?’ Jaide still wasn’t sure about Grandma X, but she didn’t know who else she could turn to, to get help for Jack. The police or the fire department certainly wouldn’t listen if she showed them apparently solid ground and said that Jack had been taken down into the earth.

  ‘Probably into an old drain. The town is crisscrossed with them. We had a very energetic engineer for several decades back in the nineteen hundreds.’ Grandma X looked up from her examination of the soil. ‘Did you see any other creatures apart from the rats and the ants?’

  Jaide shook her head. ‘No. Does that matter?’

  ‘It gives us . . . and Jack . . . a little more time. Let’s go!’

  Grandma X started up the hill.

  ‘But shouldn’t we stay here . . . and dig or something?’

  ‘No. Jack won’t be directly underneath anymore. Come on!’

  Grandma X was already halfway back up to the bridge. Jaide hesitated, then hurried after her grandmother.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she gasped. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘The first step is to find out exactly where Jackaran is, and to do that I must get inside, out of the daylight.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because my Gift is tied to the moon, and the sun interferes with it,’ said Grandma X.