Alexa reached out a hand and cupped a flower of her father’s rose. “Did he do a spell on you?”
“A very bad one, yes.”
Alexa thought about this a moment. She opened her mouth, then closed it smartly (there were, after all, other flies around). “Do you want an ice pop?”
“What?”
“You said you were hungry. We’ve got ice pops in our freezer. I don’t think we’ve got any fly-flavored ones. The strawberry ones are the best. They’re Bonnington’s favorites, too.”
The raven sighed like an out-of-shape football. She tapped a wrinkled foot. The nostrils in her black beak twitched a little and she looked as though she might fall off the fence in boredom. But then she suddenly rose up again, as if her feathers had been plumped with hope. “Did you say, ‘freezer’?”
Alexa nodded, setting her sun hat flapping.
The raven’s eyes stood out like two black peas. She stepped half an inch to her left. “Is there still a plastic box in there? A gray one with a pale blue lid?”
“It’s near the fosh,” Alexa answered.
“Fosh? What is ‘fosh’? What are you blabbering about now, you stupid girl?”
“Fish,” Alexa laughed. She liked to call it “fosh” because Lucy always did. It came from a story Lucy had read as a girl.
The raven wasn’t in the mood for humor. “Bring it to me, child.”
Alexa tilted her head. She put her hands behind her back and shook her dark curls. “That’s Aunty’s snowball. That’s for the dragons.”
The raven’s eyes shone. “I was sent here to protect you. That … snowball will help me. Now stop this insubordinate behavior and —”
But before the raven could get its words out, a jet of water from Mr. Bacon’s side struck it firmly under the tail and sent it flapping skyward, wet and angry.
At the same time, Liz appeared beside Alexa and gripped her hand. “I said to come in, Lexie, what are you doing?”
“Talking,” said the girl. “The birdie’s funny.”
Liz looked up. The raven was spiraling above them.
Mr. Bacon’s face appeared at the fence. “Can’t be doing with those things,” he said. “Keep the sparrows off the porch. Bullies. Nothing more.”
“She’ll be mad that you wet her,” Alexa said. “She might come back and make a spell on you. Hrrr!”
Henry Bacon could not translate that, of course.
But Elizabeth Pennykettle could. “She’s a witch?” she muttered, drawing Alexa back toward the house.
“Mmm,” mumbled Alexa. “And she’s very, very old.”
Liz swallowed slowly. “Does she have a name, this witch?”
“Yes,” said the girl. “I dreamed her once. She’s my Aunty Gwyneth.”
27
TESTING LUCY
Grass. Long, thick, uncut grass. Glistening with water. Every blade soaked. Lucy could feel it under her palms. Damp, nerve-chilling, odorless grass.
She sat up, gasping with shock.
She was outdoors, under a thunder-filled sky. Grassland all around her. A strange wind thieving all the warmth from her blood. A sense of the sea (as though the land were heaving to its faraway swell). Salt in the air. Turbulent, bloated cloud formations. No buildings, save a squat stone tower, which she thought might be a lighthouse but she guessed must be the folly on Farlowe Island. Farlowe Island. Yes. Surely that was where she was? Marooned in acres of ragged grassland — and sitting at the center of a ring of standing stones.
The first shiver hit her and she clamped her arms. Her top was drenched. So, too, her red hair, flattened against her face by excessive rain. How long had she been here? And who had left her — alone, without any shoes or socks? Her bare feet were almost as blue as her jeans. When she stood up, the ground felt like a sponge against her heels.
It was ludicrous, she knew it, but she had to cry out. It was a shallow form of comfort. Help! Where am I? The sky rumbled. A lightning bolt cracked the gloom. Lucy squealed and ran to the nearest stone for cover. The moment she touched it, it turned into a monk.
She screamed and staggered backward, then ran for the gap between the monk and the next stone in the circle. But how could she know that escape was impossible? Or that her trajectory was always curving?
The next stone she collided with became Brother Bernard.
“You are ours, child,” he said.
Then the lightning came again and struck the center of the ring where Lucy had been lying, scorching a dark pattern in the earth. From the pattern rose a creature, half as tall as herself. In general shape it resembled a dragon. Serpentine body. Powerful wings. But it was thicker-set and ugly. Cabbage ears. A gargoyle. Its feet and paws were stout and immensely strong, the claws inside them conical, tapering to points. It had no ordered rows of scales. Instead, the surface of its body was pocked and ridged as if the skin had been sheared from brittle rock. And apart from its pulsing, bile-colored eyes, hooked green tongue, and gray-tipped claws, it was completely black. Yet Lucy could see lightning spidering inside it, as though she had opened a box of mirrors. She shook her head in fear as the creature turned toward her. With a granitelike click it unlatched its jaw. From its throat came a bolt of pure black fire.
She screamed and was suddenly sitting upright again, surprised to find herself on a narrow cot in a stonewalled room. She was covered in a blanket that smelled of hay. Logs were crackling in a fire nearby. Orange light was radiating from the same source.
In a chair put together from sanded planks, a round-bodied man shook himself awake and unfurled his plumpish limbs like a cat. “Thank goodness,” he said. It was Brother Bernard. He rang a small hand bell and stepped into the light.
“Get away from me!” screamed Lucy, looking for a weapon. Finding nothing but a pillow, she pulled it in front of her to use as a shield.
Brother Bernard strayed no nearer. He brought his hands together in a gesture of concern. “Be at peace, child. I have no wish to harm you.”
“Where’s that thing?” she yelled. Her frightened gaze probed all the darkest corners.
Bernard’s thick brown eyebrows came together in a frown. “This will be difficult to comprehend,” he said. “Your mind has been tampered with. You are being tested. You have been made to see what you most fear.”
“I saw you,” Lucy said, venom spitting from her mouth. “In the fields. In that tower! Your eyes were black.”
“We found you in the folly, passed out,” he said.
Another monk walked in, carrying a tray. On it was a bowl, a plain cotton napkin, and a wedge of bread.
Lucy started and drew her knees into her chest. “I’m not your prisoner. Let me go!”
“Brother Cedric has brought you broth,” said Bernard. “It is made from wild rabbits we trap on the island. It will nourish you. Please eat. You must be exhausted.”
The second monk, a slack-jawed man with hollow eyes and very little strength in his upper body, leaned forward and placed the tray on the cot. As he backed away, Lucy kicked it to the floor. The earthenware bowl turned over by his feet, spilling broth around the contours of his fraying sandals. In the puddle, Lucy saw a piece of cut meat. A rabbit’s foot, twitching. She gagged and clapped a hand across her mouth.
Brother Bernard nodded silently at his companion. Cedric picked up the napkin and quickly cleared the mess before exiting the room.
“He will return with more,” said Bernard.
“It was alive,” said Lucy, shaking, looking sick. “The soup was …” She vomited slightly into her hand.
Bernard sat down and placed a handkerchief beside her. “Do you hear a humming noise in your left ear?”
A tear, triggered more by shock than despair, trickled down the left side of Lucy’s cheek. Humming noise. Yes, she’d noticed it. She nodded.
“That is them,” said Bernard, touching the outline of a crucifix under the neck of his habit.
“The Fain?” she snapped.
He seemed a little surprised by that
and took a moment to reconsider his thoughts. “Yes, of course, my old friend, Brother Vincent — your mother’s … companion, Arthur — would have talked at length about them, but he may not have mentioned a higher order of the Fain who call themselves the Ix.”
Lucy had a stinging taste of acid in her throat. “Higher order?” she said, grimacing as she gulped.
“More advanced,” he said. “It is they, the Ix, who have come to the island. You will know, I think, that the Fain can possess your body and meld to your mind through a process called commingling.”
“They’re in my cat,” said Lucy. “One of them got fused into his brain and now he can turn into any kind of … well, it doesn’t matter.” She bit her tongue, wishing she hadn’t given so much away. What she wouldn’t do to have Bonnington with her now, baring the fangs of a saber-toothed tiger.
Brother Bernard smiled. “We do not know how long the Ix have been among us. They confuse our linear perception of time. They invade us periodically, then leave us at will, but we cannot entirely escape their presence.”
Lucy snatched up the handkerchief. “This is an island. You must have boats?”
He steered a hand toward the window. Lightning flashed, as if by his command. The open fire flared, making Lucy jump. “To cross the water in a launch would not be advisable.”
“You’ve got phones.”
“All disabled. We are trapped,” he said, very matter-of-factly.
Too much so for Lucy. She balled her fists. “Why did they dump me outside?”
“They did not. You were dreaming. Did you see yourself among the standing stones?”
Lucy glanced at him sideways. The humming noise, she noticed, had suddenly gone.
“That circle is the center of the island,” he said. “In a geological and a spiritual sense. Millions of years ago, during the formation of the landmasses here, this was an area of high volcanic activity. Eons later, when the Fain first visited this world, it became the perfect location for a dragon eyrie. Do you understand what I mean by that?”
Lucy frowned and shook her head.
“It was a breeding ground for dragons, the nest of a female called Ghislaine. On this site, the Fain created a multidimensional time rift. A place where a portal called a fire star could be opened and dragons, once prepared, could be sent to Ki:mera, the home world of the Fain.”
“How do you know about dragons?” hissed Lucy. Her mouth curled into a snarl.
“We’ve been learning,” Bernard said, turning slightly sideways. “The Ix have no secrets. They are confident enough of their own superiority to shield nothing from us.”
“Then what do they want? Why did they steal me?! One minute I was in Blackburn and now … I’m here!”
Brother Bernard unlaced his fingers. He made a circling motion by his left ear.
“Gone,” Lucy whispered, guessing he meant the hum.
His finger moved to his lips. “If it comes back, point to your ear but do not speak.”
Lucy squeezed her pillow even tighter and nodded.
“The Ix are planning to return to this world in far greater numbers — to breed a new kind of dragon.”
Lucy’s mouth made a what? shape.
Bernard raised his hand to be sure of her silence. “Suffice it to say, not a dragon of your liking. The earth was once the perfect environment for dragons, and in its ecological profile it still is. But in the old times things were very different. Life was more natural. The people were fewer and better attuned to their surroundings. Some of them, like you, had great … harmony with dragons.”
Lucy gulped. “What are they going to do with me?”
Bernard tilted his head. “You will be among the survivors,” he said.
Lucy’s eyes dilated suddenly. “What do you mean? What’s going to happen?”
Bernard shushed her and pressed his hands together. For a moment, he could have been sculpted from wood. “What I’m about to tell you will be of deep concern, but do not cry out, for that will attract them.” He paused until she signaled that she understood. Then he said, “This planet is facing ecological disaster. The melting of its ice caps will cause untold damage and widespread despair. The Ix will do all they can to accelerate this process, to clear away as much unnecessary human disturbance as possible from their breeding program.”
“How?” said Lucy.
“They will prey upon your fears of destruction, child.”
For a second, Lucy thought she heard the hum coming back. She began to raise her finger, but the whine was gone again as Bernard continued. “They will exploit your lethargy, make you believe that nothing can be done to reverse the decline, then encourage you to submit to the earth spirit Gaia who will wreak devastation through volcanoes and storms. There will be nothing left but the earth, its breeding grounds, and some chosen Prem:Ix.”
“Prem:Ix?” Lucy jumped on it quickly.
“Their name,” he said, “for people like yourself, who will be permanently, fully commingled to the Ix.”
Lucy shook her head violently. “That will never happen.”
His face grew rounder (and she thought a little smug), inviting her to say how it could possibly be avoided. So she gave in to her heart and began to blurt out, “David won’t —” but then stopped herself quickly, for the name had caused an obvious flicker of interest in his eyes. All around her now, she thought she felt their presence. Creepy, like ghosts. Like nightmares. The Ix.
“Unfortunately, Lucy, David will be their greatest ally.”
“Never!” she shouted.
This time he didn’t bother raising a hand. “David’s spirit has survived, and they fear him,” he said.
Lucy sat forward. “Really? He’s alive?”
Bernard turned to the window. “He is in the Arctic, about to make a grave mistake. He is going to use the eye of the dragon Gawain to open the heart of Gaia herself, to draw upon the well of The Fire Eternal. With it, he will crystallize human consciousness and attempt to raise awareness of the problems faced by this unstable planet. He will use human thoughts to shape dark matter and manifest …”
“What?” said Lucy, so tense she could break.
She saw his gaze narrow. “A solution,” he muttered. “It is futile. He will fail. The Ix will intervene and quickly overpower him, poisoning human consciousness at the same time. David Rain will be helpless against them.”
Lucy threw her pillow aside. “Then we’ve got to help him. We need to tell him somehow. There must be a way?”
At the door, the monk arrived again with soup. He had his cowl up this time, as if to protect himself from any more outbursts. Lucy pouted and shut herself up. The monk stepped toward the cot. He picked up the soup bowl and knelt as though to place it on the floor. But then, in a thick Scottish accent, he mumbled, “Brother Bernard?”
Bernard turned toward him, looking down. “What is it?”
Suddenly, the bowl came up and hot broth splashed in Brother Bernard’s face. He cried out in great pain and covered his eyes. He did not see the other monk swing the tray and was unconscious by the time the second blow had struck him.
Lucy squealed in terror as he slumped.
“Shush!” hissed the monk, and pushed back his cowl. “Wow, that’s one heck of a story,” he said.
It was Tam Farrell.
28
IN THE CHAPEL
How did you get here?” Lucy gasped.
“Never mind,” Tam said, already lifting Brother Bernard by the shoulders and dragging him manfully toward the cot. “Grab his feet. Help me get him onto the bed.”
“Is he dead?” Lucy asked, feeling just as queasy as she had before. There were several spots of blood on Brother Bernard’s habit and his normally rosy face had turned as gray as fish skin.
“No, but we will be if they find us,” hissed Tam. “Now, pick him up. Quickly. We need to get out of here.”
“Why’d you hit him?”
“Why do you think? I was outside the door, lis
tening in. That wasn’t him talking, that was the Ix.”
“But —?”
“You heard what it said. They’re so ‘superior’ they have no need to keep secrets. It was bluffing you, Lucy. Bragging, through this monk. It was telling you exactly what they plan to do. Come on, get his feet.”
Lucy bent down and grasped the thickset ankles. “Ugh, he’s got varicose veins.”
“Just lift,” sighed Tam.
She wrinkled her nose and tugged. With a clumsy heave they slid the body onto the cot. Tam rolled Bernard to face the wall and covered him up to his neck with the blanket.
“Here, put this on.” Tam grabbed a shabby monk’s habit off a chair.
Lucy gave him her grossed-out look.
“You kind of stand out at the moment,” he said. “We’re not trying to make a fashion statement.”
She snatched the habit from his hands and slipped it on. He pulled up her cowl until her red hair was covered and her face was lost in shadow. “OK, listen. I managed to do a quick tour before I found you. There’s a jetty and a boathouse half a mile away. I know this island. It’s not far to the mainland, even if I had to row —”
“Row?” she snapped, sounding like a small dog underneath her hood.
“I rowed in college. I can do it.”
“But they’ll see us.”
“They’re like zombies. If we act the part, we’re out and gone in a matter of minutes. Follow me. Keep your head down. Shuffle. Speak to no one.”
“Wait!” she hissed, and tugged him back. “What about David?”
“David? What about him?”
“We have to warn him.”
“We’ll do that when we get off the island.”
“But I’ve been trying for years to reach him and I don’t know how. The Ix must have a way — or how would they know so much about him?”
Tam chewed his lip slightly and looked at Brother Bernard. Lucy read Tam’s face in a flash.
“You know something, don’t you?”
He shook his head. “Come on.”
“Stop!” She held his arm again. “I thought you wanted to find him?”
“If this is right,” he said, talking low through his teeth, “all this stuff about … The Fire Eternal, I think David can take care of himself.”