‘Curse?’ Holly echoed. And Coco said, ‘What curse?’
‘The curse that entraps you. The curse of Miss Molpe.’ When everyone continued to stare at her doubtfully, the gypsy girl tried to explain further. ‘Miss Molpe is a monster. A chovexani. We call her Trushal odji – the Hungry Soul. Shibilis has fought her many times.’
‘With magic, you mean?’ Marcus suddenly began to feel more hopeful. ‘Is he a wizard, or something?’
‘He is a seer. Drabarno. Also a warrior, a healer and a judge. He communes with the spirits and with captive souls like yourselves.’ Without warning, the girl leaned towards Jake and gently touched his elbow. ‘Come,’ she urged. ‘Speak to him. He will show you the right door and tell you how to open it.’
Jake flushed as he shook her off. He then retreated a few steps. Marcus and Holly exchanged questioning glances. Newt was wearing her usual scowl, while Edison was leaning against his father, looking pale and pinched and ready for a nap.
Sterling scratched his neck. ‘I don’t know,’ he murmured. ‘It’s tempting . . .’
‘Does anyone recognise this?’ Marcus asked quietly. ‘Is this anyone’s dream or nightmare holiday?’
‘No,’ said Sterling.
‘No,’ said Coco.
‘No,’ said Holly.
‘Are you kidding?’ said Newt. ‘What kind of loser would come up with a dumb idea like this?’
‘Not me!’ her brother protested, as if he’d been accused of something. And then Jake spoke, his voice deep and harsh.
‘We’ve got my suitcase,’ he declared, ‘and your steel hand too. If this girl does turn out to be Miss Molpe, we can smash her skull with the hand and throw her in the suitcase again.’
Holly winced. ‘Oh, Jake . . .’ she remonstrated. But no one else seemed troubled by Jake’s plan. Marcus, in fact, found it quite reassuring.
‘I vote we talk to this Shibilis guy,’ Sterling proposed. ‘Unless someone’s got a better idea? Because I certainly haven’t.’
‘Me neither,’ said Newt.
‘I don’t think we’ve got much choice,’ Coco agreed.
Holly looked at Marcus, who nodded. She then addressed the gypsy girl, announcing tartly, ‘We’ll only come if you promise to get us home.’
The gypsy girl laughed. ‘How can I make such a promise?’ she rejoined. ‘Shibilis will show you the portal, but only you can pass through it.’ She lifted a hand as she turned her back on them. ‘If you wish, you may follow. If not – farewell,’ she concluded.
‘Wait!’ Coco rushed forward to catch the grey door, which was starting to swing shut. ‘We’re coming, okay? We’re coming right now. Aren’t we?’ She appealed to the rest of her family, who mumbled in agreement. So did Holly and Marcus and Jake. ‘Let’s go,’ Coco instructed. ‘Kids at the back, men at the front.’
They set off after the gypsy girl, who led them down a very drab, narrow hallway. Fluorescent lights in the ceiling leached everything of colour; a worn grey carpet deadened the sound of their footsteps. At the end of the hallway was another door, which the gypsy girl opened with a flourish.
‘Welcome!’ she cried. ‘Welcome to the vardo of Bulibasha Shibilis!’
And she flung out her arm invitingly.
The room beyond her shapely silhouette was very dark, though Marcus could just make out the glint of brass and the firelit sheen of leather. He could smell smoke and cooked meat. He could hear the crackle of flames and the sighing of the wind. But he couldn’t see Shibilis – not from his vantage point.
‘Give me that,’ said Jake, snatching Prot’s metal hand from Sterling’s grip. He then approached the gypsy girl. ‘Ladies first,’ he ordered. ‘In you go.’
She obeyed with a simper and a sidelong glance, her hips swaying as she crossed the threshold ahead of him. He followed her cautiously, braced for an ambush, his suitcase in one hand and his raised weapon in the other. The shadows soon swallowed him up completely. There was a brief, tense wait.
At last, however, his voice came floating back to them, clear and firm and confident.
‘It’s all right! You can come in!’ he shouted.
So they did.
47
THE AMBASSADOR
SHIBILIS WAS SITTING BESIDE A BRAZIER, SURROUNDED BY what looked like the contents of a secondhand shop; there were stools, boots, pots, cushions, saddles, books, lamps, jewellery, embroidered quilts, musical instruments and antique guns. The flickering light of the brazier picked out a gleam of silver here, a shimmer of silk there. Smoke drifted up towards a low wooden ceiling. Two large dogs slumbered on the floor.
Shibilis himself was a big, swarthy, unshaven man with lots of wild black hair and a nose like an eagle’s beak. He wore a bulky fur cloak and gold earrings. When he lifted his gaze from the red-hot coals in the brazier, the dogs twitched and whimpered in their sleep.
‘Martiya,’ he said to the gypsy girl.
‘Bulibasha,’ the girl replied, with a half-curtsey. Then she gabbled something that Marcus couldn’t understand, before retiring into a corner.
Shibilis squinted at his guests through a pall of smoke. He had dark, haunted eyes. ‘Besh!’ he commanded. ‘Sit!’
Everyone looked around. There wasn’t much to sit on. Sterling lifted a cocked hat off one of the stools, then passed the stool to Coco.
‘I can hardly see you,’ Shibilis went on. ‘You are like mule – spirits of the dead. You are like morning mist. Can you speak to me?’
‘Of course we can speak to you,’ Newt snapped. ‘We’re not comatose.’
Shibilis nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You have a strong voice. That is why I heard you. Who spoke to me from behind the veil?’
‘Um . . . that was me, I guess,’ Holly volunteered. Then she cleared her throat and added, ‘Can you show us the way home, please?’
‘Of course.’ Shibilis cocked his thumb. ‘It’s over there.’
Everyone else gasped – except Martiya. She just giggled.
‘What?’ said Coco.
‘Over where?’ asked Newt. ‘I can’t see anything.’
Marcus was peering at a blank stretch of wall, which was made of wood, just like the floor and ceiling. It occurred to him suddenly that they were in a caravan – a gypsy caravan.
‘You can see nothing because you are blinded by the curse of Miss Molpe,’ Shibilis explained. ‘But I have a draba – a charm – that will open your eyes.’ With the toe of his boot he nudged at a plain earthenware pot that was sitting next to the larger of his two snoring dogs. ‘Here,’ he continued. ‘Each of you must reach inside and draw out your own key, for it will unlock the door to your slobuzenja.’
When he didn’t go on to translate, Coco said, ‘Our what?’ She sounded suspicious, as if she thought he might be talking about a toilet cubicle.
‘Your freedom,’ Martiya supplied. ‘Slobuzenja is freedom.’
There was an awkward pause. Marcus glanced at Holly, who glanced at Jake. No one really wanted to reach into the pot.
‘It isn’t a trick, is it?’ Edison piped up. ‘You haven’t put a mousetrap in there, have you?’
Shibilis smiled. ‘Are you such a little mouse, to be afraid of a mousetrap?’ he teased.
Newt scowled at him. ‘That’s not an answer!’ she said sharply. Then her father stepped forward.
‘I’ll go first,’ he offered. ‘Just give me Prot’s hand, Jake, will you?’
Jake promptly surrendered the hand, which aroused great interest in Shibilis.
‘Ah!’ the gypsy exclaimed. ‘A talisman! Clever.’
‘It’s not a talisman.’ Marcus couldn’t help correcting him. ‘It’s part of a robot.’
‘But you brought it from the real world, did you not?’ Shibilis inquired. When Marcus nodded, the gypsy king said, ‘Then it is a talisman. A talisman against Miss Molpe. She has no power over objects from the real world because she is weak – physically weak. That is why she likes to prey on children. That is why she must t
rick them with elaborate snares. Instead of hunting her victims like a wolf, she must lure them like a spider. Once she had her sweet songs to trap them with. Now she has only her magical tricks.’
Sterling, meanwhile, had inserted Prot’s hand into the pot. Upon encountering nothing squishy or sharp or otherwise unpleasant, he then reached in with his own hand – and uttered a yelp of surprise. ‘This isn’t a key!’ he spluttered, withdrawing a long, rectangular card. ‘This is an airline ticket!’
‘Keys may come in all shapes and sizes,’ Shibilis pointed out.
‘Let me see that.’ Coco wrested the ticket from her husband. ‘RepAir?’ she read. ‘I’ve never heard of RepAir.’
‘Yes, but look at the destination,’ said Sterling. ‘“Home”. That’s where we want to go.’
‘Terminal one,’ murmured Holly, who was studying the ticket over Sterling’s shoulder. ‘I don’t get it. Where’s terminal one?’
Again Shibilis gestured at the blank wall. ‘Through there,’ he replied. And Coco suddenly caught her breath.
‘Oh my God!’ she squeaked. ‘I can see it!’
‘See what?’ asked Holly.
‘The door! I can see the door!’ Coco was jigging with excitement, her damp curls bouncing and her hands flapping. ‘Quick! All of you get a ticket! When you’ve got a ticket you can see the door!’
Hearing this, Jake immediately reached into the earthenware pot – and pulled out another rectangular card. Then he stepped aside so that Holly could fish around for her own ticket.
As the Huckstepps lined up behind Holly, Marcus found himself hanging back. ‘Did you hear Mum’s voice because she called you on her phone?’ he asked Shibilis, who seemed quite happy to answer questions. ‘Is her phone a talisman too?’
‘No doubt,’ said the gypsy, in a careless sort of way.
‘I guess that’s why Jake could lock Miss Molpe in his suitcase. Because his suitcase is a talisman.’ Without waiting for a response, Marcus muttered to himself, ‘I thought so. I figured it had to be something like that.’
‘Marcus!’ Holly beckoned to him. ‘Come and get your ticket, please.’
‘Yeah, okay.’ Before joining the end of the queue, however, Marcus had one last query for Shibilis. ‘Do we really have to fly home? I don’t get it. Why can’t we just take a lift? It can’t be very far.’
The gypsy stared at him for a moment before remarking, quietly and solemnly, ‘There is no greater distance than that between night and day.’
‘Marcus!’ Holly reached over to grab his arm. ‘Hurry up, we’re waiting!’
‘Okay, Mum!’ Yielding to her pressure, Marcus squatted down and plunged his hand into the pot. When he drew out his ticket, he saw his name printed on it.
‘Oh, wow,’ he said. Then he spotted a pair of automatic doors made from steel and frosted glass, embedded in the caravan wall under a sign that read ‘Departures’. ‘Oh, wow!’
‘So our flight’s through there?’ Coco asked Shibilis. ‘Our flight home?’
The gypsy inclined his head. ‘It is your drom,’ he replied. ‘Your way back.’
‘I still don’t get it.’ Newt’s tone, as she addressed him, was anxious and irritable. ‘We’re supposed to walk through there, get on a plane, take off, land, and . . . then what? Walk through another door into the Bradshaws’ cellar?’
Shibilis sighed. ‘Please understand, this is your way back, not mine. I gave you the key. You must do with it as you wish.’ After a moment’s pause he added, ‘What is a “plane”?’
‘Auugh!’ Newt turned on her heel and marched towards the double doors, which parted smoothly in front of her. Beyond them lay the walls of glass, rows of desks and endless expanses of carpet that characterise airports everywhere.
‘Newt! Wait!’ cried Coco, sprinting after her stepdaughter. Sterling grabbed Edison and set off in pursuit. Jake looked at Holly. Holly seized Marcus.
‘Bye!’ said Marcus, as he was towed towards the door. ‘Thanks for helping!’
‘Goodbye,’ Martiya crooned, smiling at Marcus. Shibilis, however, looked grave.
‘Tread softly,’ he advised Marcus. ‘Miss Molpe may be weak now, but she will grow bigger and stronger with every child she consumes. Remember that. Only your blood will satisfy Miss Molpe. Only your death will bring her life.’
Having issued this warning, he raised his hand in a gesture of farewell. Then the smoke billowed up and engulfed him.
48
TERMINAL ONE
‘IDIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO ASK ABOUT MISS MOLPE,’ Marcus complained. ‘Maybe that guy could have told us about her. We should have talked to him . . .’
No one was listening. They had emerged into a gigantic airport terminal, where it seemed to be the middle of the night. Impenetrable darkness lay beyond the vast sweep of floor-to-ceiling windows. There were no slow-moving lines or heaps of luggage scattered around. The rows of check-in counters stretched almost as far as the horizon, yet only one of them was staffed.
‘Look!’ said Holly, pointing. ‘There’s RepAir! And the check-in’s open!’
Everyone immediately hurried towards the only human being in sight. When Marcus finally reached the RepAir check-in, however, he began to wonder if the woman behind the desk really was a human being. She looked a bit like a shop dummy, with her heavy make-up, glossy hair, cheery smile and perfect proportions.
The badge on her teal-coloured uniform blazer read ‘Candi’.
‘Good evening!’ she chirped. ‘Where are you folks heading tonight?’
‘Uh . . . home.’ Holly presented her ticket, then reached for her son’s.
‘And you’re a party of . . . ?’
‘Seven,’ Coco supplied. As she placed her own family’s tickets on the counter, she asked, ‘Are we in business or economy?’
Holly pulled a face. ‘Coco . . .
’ ‘I never travel economy,’ Coco insisted. ‘It’s inhumane.’
‘These are all first-class tickets,’ Candi assured her. ‘Do you have any luggage to check in?’
Every eye swivelled towards Jake, who shuffled forward, suitcase in hand.
‘Only one piece?’ said Candi, upon accepting his ticket.
Jake nodded. Sterling cleared his throat. ‘I guess it’s too big to take on as cabin baggage?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, sir, I’m afraid it is.’ Candi confirmed. ‘And you’ll also have to check in that other item you’re carrying.’
‘This?’ Sterling waggled Prot’s hand. ‘But—’
‘That would be classified as a dangerous article, being a weapon or tool,’ Candi explained. ‘It can be stowed in your luggage, though.’
Jake looked at Holly, who gave an apologetic shrug.
‘Airport security has got really tough,’ she murmured. ‘You can hardly take anything on planes these days.’
While Sterling packed Prot’s hand into the suitcase, Candi issued them all with boarding passes. ‘You’ll be leaving from gate number one,’ she revealed, ‘and the scheduled boarding time is in approximately one hour, though there might be a slight delay.’
‘Is there a special lounge for first-class passengers where we can relax in the meantime?’ asked Coco.
Candi’s wide smile grew wider still. ‘Ma’am, there’s a special terminal,’ she responded. ‘Terminal One caters for first-class passengers only.’ She indicated the nearest exit. ‘If you go straight down there and turn right, you’ll pass through the baggage screening. Then gate number one is to your left.’
‘Thank you,’ said Holly, moving away. But Coco hadn’t finished.
‘Is there somewhere we can eat?’ she demanded. ‘Or buy toiletries?’
Candi’s smile didn’t flicker. ‘Most of our outlets are closed at this hour,’ she had to admit. ‘However, there are vending machines near every restroom.’
‘And what about foot massages?’ Coco wanted to know – triggering a chorus of impatient sighs from everyone except Candi and Sterling.
<
br /> ‘Oh, come on!’ groaned Newt. Marcus rolled his eyes. Holly said, ‘I’m sure we’ll manage, Coco. I’m sure it won’t be a very long flight. Will it?’ This question was aimed at Candi, who shook her head.
‘But we’ll be getting on a plane, right? A plane back to Diamond Beach?’ Marcus was anxious to clear this up. ‘It’s an actual flight, is it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Candi trilled. ‘I think the word “flight” defines it very nicely, though you could also call it an “escape”, a “getaway” or a “retreat”.’
‘Good! Terrific! Let’s go, then!’ Newt forged ahead, stomping towards a distant sign that read ‘Passengers only beyond this point’. The rest of her family set off in pursuit, leaving Holly, Jake and Marcus with no choice but to follow.
‘Can you tell me who actually booked these tickets?’ was Marcus’s final question, thrown back over his shoulder as Holly dragged him away from the check-in counter. ‘Was it someone called Shibilis?’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Candi sounded genuinely apologetic. ‘This station is closed now. I just logged off the system and can’t access those booking files.’
‘Oh.’
‘But I hope you enjoy your trip!’
‘So do I,’ Jake muttered. He didn’t sound too confident, though – and when he reached the security screening area, the sight of it failed to reassure him. In fact he scowled.
‘What the hell is all this?’ he demanded.
‘Haven’t you been on a plane before? I have.’ Marcus couldn’t help preening himself a little. ‘It was five years ago, but I can still remember it. I went to visit my dad.’
‘Don’t worry, Jake,’ Holly said. ‘We don’t have any bags, so it’ll be easy. Just walk through that gate and they’ll scan you for concealed weapons.’
Jake blinked. Then he peered down at his naked midriff, his bare feet and his ragged shorts. ‘Can’t they tell just by looking?’ he grumbled.