‘You mean like both of us there at the same time?’
Lana nodded.
‘The only problem with that is I think my visions might be prompted by the water. Like, literally being in the water.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘It’s the only time I’ve ever had one, and it was while I was at the bottom of the pool.’
‘Oh,’ Lana looked a little downtrodden.
‘But we could still try it?’
Lana raised her eyebrows before looking down into the deep end. ‘I’d have to go in there, wouldn’t I?’
Nodding, Emma held her sister’s hand. ‘But we’d do anything for Lucy Jo, right?’
Lana grinned and nodded and, before she could even think about it, Emma had slid into the cold water, pulling her sister down with her.
They barely even heard their father yell their names.
‘What are they doing?’ he shouted from the side of the pool. ‘It’s freezing in there! I know that Emma can withstand the cold and the water, but Lana can’t, can she?’
‘Just watch, mate,’ Declan said, putting his hand on his shoulder.
The men stood there, surrounded by the rest of the girls’ classmates and watched as a glow appeared from the deep end. If they looked closely, they could tell that the glow was coming from Emma, who had her arms wrapped tightly around her sister.
‘What are they doing?’ asked Arabella.
Grinning, Declan said, ‘They’re trying to combine visions. Smart.’
‘But Lana can’t breathe down there,’ their father muttered.
‘With Emma’s help she can, I’m sure. Don’t worry, they’re absolutely fine. But if it works, they’ll be knackered when they come up, so can someone go and get some towels and hot drinks ready? Thanks, Cassie.’
oOo
The only other time that Lana had been under water like this was when the two of them were in the Thames, in London, but then they’d come up for air at regular intervals. Now, though, Emma seemed to have been able to create a little air pocket for Lana to breathe in. It felt totally weird, but she was okay; she felt safe and, thanks to the heat glow Emma was emitting, she felt relatively warm too.
After about a minute, Emma loosened her grip around Lana and they took each other’s hands instead. They both opened their eyes for a second and nodded to each other, before closing them again and focussing all their energy on one thing: Lucy Jo.
Both girls felt it at the same time, a strange dizziness that rose from their stomachs to their heads and back again, causing a slightly nauseous sensation in both of them, but they didn’t let go. Instead they focussed harder.
Lana opened her eyes first. ‘Sis? Are you coming?’ she asked as she tried to take in her surroundings, but it was so dark she couldn’t see a thing.
‘Emma, I need you. I can’t see.’
‘Erm… I’m here,’ Emma whispered in the blackness that encased them. ‘Just a sec.’
Soon, her body began to emit a light that shone from within, slowly brightening until they could see all around them.
‘We did it,’ Lana squealed. ‘I knew we could.’
Emma smiled. ‘It was a great idea. The problem is, how do we know this is related to Lucy Jo? We could be anywhere.’
‘Were you focussing all your energy on finding our little sister?’
Emma nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Then believe me, this place, wherever it is, has definitely got something to do with her.’
‘Wait, I recognise this and that smell, that’s the North Sea, Lana. We’re on the oil rig.’
Lana sighed. ‘But they left the oil rig ages ago and if they were… did you hear that?’
‘What?’
‘Voices.’
Straining to listen, both girls held their breaths and waited.
‘Lucy Jo!’ they said at exactly the same time before running towards the sound of a little girl sobbing. Leaving the darkness behind, they soon found themselves in an illuminated corridor, with doors along each side.
They listened, trying to follow the sounds of the sobbing, walking as quickly as they could.
But she wasn’t sobbing, she was singing.
They found her in a kitchen of sorts, sitting at a table with a large slice of cake and a glass of milk in front of her. She was singing one of her favourite songs and she was smiling. She looked quite happy, actually.
‘Lucy Jo,’ Emma cried as she hurried to her side and tried to hug her. ‘Oh, I wish I could hold her right now. Why can’t I hold her, sis, why can’t I?’ she wailed.
Lana stood beside her. ‘It’s just a vision, hon, nothing more. We can’t touch her. She doesn’t know we’re here. We just have to find out as much as we can before the vision fades, okay?’
Emma slowly stood, nodding, tears collecting in the corners of her eyes.
Both looking around, they noticed a woman standing at the other side of the kitchen, making herself a cup of tea. They watched as she finished stirring in two teaspoons of sugar before turning back towards the little girl.
‘Are you enjoying the cake, little one?’ she asked. ‘I made it especially for you, you know?’
Lucy Jo nodded. ‘It’s yummy.’
‘I can make you another one tomorrow, if you like? What’s your favourite kind?’
‘Chocolate and vanilla, with lots of chocolate sprinkles,’ the little girl shouted across the room. ‘Can I help? I help mummy bake cakes all the time. I love baking. Mummy says I’m a natural.’
The woman pushed a hand through her short black hair and nodded. ‘Of course you can. In fact, I’d like that very much. Don’t forget to drink your milk, too. I’ll be right back,’ she said, before walking out the room, leaving Lucy Jo to finish off her cake in silence.
‘Let’s follow her,’ Lana suggested. ‘Come on, Em. We can’t just stay here staring at her. I know it’s so good to see her, but we can’t help by watching her. Let’s go.’
Tearing herself away, Emma brushed the tears from her cheeks and followed her sister out of the room.
Ahead of them, the woman walked slowly down the passageway until she reached a door at the end of the corridor. Pushing it open, she smiled at the sight of a man standing with a mobile phone to his ear.
‘Yes, Father, she’s fine. What now? Erm she’s…’ He turned to the woman and asked, ‘What’s she doing now?’
‘Eating cake, drinking milk, singing her favourite songs. She’s fine.’
‘Did you hear that, Father?… okay … but why there? When? We’ll be ready. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her.’
Putting the phone down, the young man turned to face the woman and held out his hand to her. ‘Thank you for doing this. I would never have heard the end of it if we couldn’t pull this off.’
‘I know. You just want to make him happy. It’s what we all want for our parents. Well, sometimes, anyway,’ she smiled as he pulled her forward and kissed her.
‘Your parents were happy with you before they died, weren’t they?’
‘I don’t know. I guess so. Probably. I think they were just glad I wasn’t anything like my brother. Drake is such a bad ass.’
‘You can be a bad ass too,’ the man joked.
‘Yeah, maybe, but Drake? He’s totally nuts. Having said that, here we are on an oil rig in the middle of the sea with a child who doesn’t belong to us. The things we do for your dad, right?’
He nodded.
‘I’m glad your dad asked us to do this, and not your stupid little brother. Stan is so messed up, I think he might have hurt her.’
‘At least we know Dad’s not gonna hurt her. She’s sweet. I kinda like her. Maybe we’ll have one of our own, one day?’
‘Really? You want me to have your babies?’
The guy smiled. ‘Come on, let’s go make sure she’s okay. Did you put something in her milk to help her sleep?’
‘A little bit.’
‘Then she’ll be fast asleep for t
he journey to Portugal.’
‘I’ve never been to Portugal before. Where exactly are we going?’
‘That’s a secret.’ He grinned, tapping her nose.
‘Awww, c’mon, give us a clue.’
He stopped halfway down the middle of the corridor and turned to her. ‘You’ll see little but ocean for miles around, and the cliffs are like nothing you’ve seen before, babe. It’s spectacular.’
‘But what’s it called, where we’re going?’
‘I said it’s a secret. That would be telling.’
‘Aww, babe, I want to know,’ she said, pulling his arms and stopping him from going any farther.
He chuckled and took her in his arms again. ‘We’re going to the most south westerly point, okay? Does that satisfy your inquisitiveness? Or should I saynosiness?’
He leaned forward and rubbed his nose against hers before Lana suddenly started coughing and spluttering.
‘Jeeze, Em, I can’t breathe. Oh God… the water, Emma, the water.’
And then everything went black.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘Get them out, get them outnow! There’s something wrong, look…’ Eleanor yelled from the side of the pool.
Both Declan and Patrick dived in, reaching the girls at the same time.
As they pushed themselves off of the bottom of the pool, Emma finally released Lana’s hands.
Both girls were unconscious.
‘Oh, God. Oh, God. I knew we should have stopped this insanity,’ Patrick gasped as he dragged Lana to the side of the pool.
‘Patrick! Patrick! Patrick… Stop,’ Eleanor demanded.
As he leaned over his two daughters, he turned his head, sobbing. ‘I can’t lose them too, Eleanor.’
‘And you won’t. They’re going to be absolutely fine. Just step away and watch.’
‘I can’t, Eleanor, I can’t.’
‘Mr. Morgan, please,’ Diarmuid said, as he gently tried to pull the older man away. ‘They’re going to be absolutely fine. Back to normal in no time. Please would you give me some space?’
Defeated, Patrick stood up and stepped backwards. ‘You’d better know what you’re doing.’
‘Patrick, mate. Are you forgetting who we are?’ Declan smiled warmly.
Holding his hands up in defeat, Patrick nodded and let them get on with it, watching as Diarmuid put a hand on each of his girls’ chests, where a bright light began to erupt from his fingers. Within moments, the girls both opened their eyes at the same time. Lana coughed and spluttered for a moment until she realised her head was resting on Barber’s knees. She looked up at him and smiled.
Emma grinned at Diarmuid as she was slowly pulled up to her feet. ‘Are you okay, sis?’
Lana nodded. ‘A bit tired.’
‘You scared me half to death,’ said Patrick as he stepped towards them both and pulled them to him.
‘Sorry, Dad. But we had to do it. We had to do something.’
‘I know, girls. I know. But that doesn’t make this any easier.’
‘Did you discover anything?’ asked Eleanor.
Both girls looked at each other with a grin. They nodded, trying hard not to cry.
‘We saw her, Dad. We saw Lucy Jo. They’re taking really good care of her. She’s fine. She’s eating her favourite cake and stuff,’ Lana laughed.
‘Where is she?’
‘Well, we saw her on the oil rig, but they said they were going to the most south westerly point of Portugal.’
‘Sagres, they’re going to Sagres,’ Arabella interrupted, before rushing inside to pick up her mobile phone to start making calls.
‘You did good, girls. You did real good,’ Declan said. ‘I told you not to worry, Patrick. You need to trust me, mate.’
‘I know, I know,’ Patrick said, relieved that his girls were fine as he finally let them go. Lana rushed back into Barber’s arms and Emma did the same with Diarmuid.
‘Thanks for helping to bring us back,’ she whispered.
He didn’t say a word, but kissed her very gently on the lips and squeezed her tight.
‘I’m freezing,’ Lana announced.
‘Oh, we’ve got towels and hot tea for you here,’ Cassie said, rushing towards them with two enormous beach towels. Penny followed her, carrying two cups of tea—one green for Emma and one strong black for Lana.
‘Oooh, you girls are angels.’ Emma smiled.
‘Yep, you could say that,’ Penny laughed.
‘Actually, you’re quite right,’ Cassie smirked. ‘Well, children of angels, anyway.’
oOo
‘They just seemed so normal, you know?’ Emma said quietly.
‘What exactly do you mean by normal, Emma?’ Eleanor asked the girl as they sat indoors, in front of a raging log fire, half an hour later.
‘They were like a regular couple. In fact, they seemed kinda nice,’ replied Emma.
‘I actually felt like I liked them. They were concerned for Lucy Jo’s welfare and the woman wanted to bake cakes for her and stuff. I dunno, it’s just weird,’ said Lana.
‘Were you able to ascertain who this woman is?’ asked Eleanor.
They both nodded. ‘She said she was Drake’s sister. And because they talked about him being a ‘bad ass’, we think they must be referring to the Drake we all know and hate,’ Lana answered.
‘Yes, I think so. Let me go and make some calls and see if we can find out more about her,’ said Eleanor as she stood up.
‘But what’s going on in Sagres? When are we going?’ Lana pouted.
‘We’ve got some Watchers down there at the moment, but so far, we’ve got nothing. It might be possible that Sagres was just a stopover. Which would be strange, considering it’s like the end of the world down there,’ Eleanor said.
‘Huh?’ blurted Lana.
‘She means that it’s the most south westerly point of the Algarve. There’s nothing else in between us and America. Not really,’ Arabella answered.
Gulping loudly, Lana closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘Please don’t tell me that they’re going to take her to America. We’d never find her.’
‘No, at least not from there. They’d need an airport for that, or an aerodrome of some sort. I think the nearest to there is Lagos. No, if they were planning on going to America, they would probably have gone by now,’ Arabella replied..
‘No they wouldn’t, Arabella,’ Emma stated, ‘they need Almerinda’s sister, first.’
‘Yes, that’s true, that’s true. Perhaps they were just using Sagres as a base, because it’s so far out? Perhaps they figured it would be a good hiding place—temporarily, anyway.’
‘Yes, I agree, Bella. I just hope they haven’t already left,’ Eleanor said, putting her hand to her chest and taking a deep breath.
‘Are you alright?’ Arabella asked.
‘Yes, yes, I’ll be fine. It’s just the change.’
‘Ah, yes, I see. Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘No, don’t worry. It’ll pass momentarily. Just give me a moment.’ The old Eleanor returned to a seated position and leaned back on the sofa, carefully lifting her legs up until she was lying down. A deep guttural sound erupted from her lips as her body began the process of becoming young again. Her hair began to change colour from silvery white to a beautiful shade of blonde and her deep wrinkles puffed out until they were non-existent. Moments later, a beautiful young woman sat in the same place.
‘Ooh, that’s better.’ She grinned, jumping up. ‘Just going to change out of these old clothes,’ she said, disappearing into another room. She returned ten minutes later wearing skinny jeans, a black turtle neck and knee high boots… and a huge grin. ‘Right, where were we? Oh yes, Drake’s sister. Right, I’m going downstairs to make some phone calls and go online to do some research. Girls, I think you should rest for a while. No doubt we’ll need you to go out again later, so you need to get your strength back.’
Nodding, the girls curled up on the thi
ck blanket on the floor, yawning. They lay staring into the flames until they both drifted off to sleep.
oOo
‘There were two sisters, apparently. Sadly, one was murdered when she was five years old. A twin, I understand,’ Eleanor told everyone as they sat having something to eat at different spots around the open plan room. ‘The surviving twin, Kimberly, would be twenty-three now. Is this her, girls?’ she asked, turning the tablet around so they could see the image on screen of the young woman with long red hair.
‘Yes! But she has really short hair now, and it’s jet black,’ Lana smiled.
‘Kimberly’s parents died a few years ago. Her father had a car accident and her mother a heart attack, just days later. Tragic, really. But from what I can understand, the parents weren’t supernaturals. Which begs the question, how has Drake become a Skull? Oh, wait… Oh I see,’ Eleanor said, reading from the screen. ‘He was adopted after Kimberly’s sister passed away. That explains it, then. Kimberly must have started hanging out with the bad crowd with Drake. Such a shame because, according to much of this, she had such promise. Straight A student until she was about fifteen years old, and then she just spiralled out of control. That must have been when she met Drake’s friends. So you said this young man she was with is Sthenelaus’ son?’
‘We think so,’ Emma said, between mouthfuls of pasta and pesto. ‘But not… what was he called? Fred? Steve?’
‘Stan!’ Lana exclaimed with her mouth full.
‘Yes, that’s it. Not Stan. They talked about Stan, he’s the younger brother. The guy on the oil rig was older than Stan. They said something about being glad his dad had asked them to do this and not Stan. If Stan had done it, he might have hurt Lucy Jo,’ Emma added.
‘Okay, so Sthenelaus has two sons. Did you get his name?’ asked Eleanor.
‘Sorry, no,’ Emma replied.
‘Don’t worry, we can try to find out.’
‘So, to recap,’ Patrick said, almost wearing the carpet out, pacing up and down, ‘Lucy Jo was taken on Christmas Eve by this Sthenelaus character’s son, the older one…’
‘No, she must have initially be taken by Stan, because he was the one on Andilyse Island, remember? That Hummer jeep was sold by Stan? Remember, Lana?’ said Emma.