Xinder Rises Read online

  Olivia, Anika, and Danny streamed out of the room while Sap poured the drinks.

  ‘Mr Sapwood, I’ll get straight to the point. Can you give the children the kind of assistance they need if - and I do hate to say this - if anything goes wrong.’

  ‘Depends what kind of ... wrong, Headmaster?’

  ‘Well, say if Danny was to break his arm again. How would you get him to the hospital? And what if there’s a house fire?’

  Sap burst out laughing, his vibrant, joyful tones bouncing back off the walls. ‘They are quite capable of looking after themselves, with or without me.’

  His comments had the effect of making Wynn-Garry feel rather idiotic. ‘With respect, Mr Sapwood,’ he shot back. ‘Even though Olivia has conducted herself outstandingly well in her academic studies, can we be sure she won’t disgrace the school by violently interfering with the officials during our remaining football matches? And, while Anika shows exceptional sporting ability, she is on course to fail her exams.”

  Sap didn’t know what to say, so he simply smiled back.

  ‘And then there’s Danny,’ Wynn-Garry continued. ‘Lovely fellow that he may be, he has no redeeming features, aside from his siblings, to earn a place at our school.’

  Wynn-Garry wondered if the old man had listened to a single word.

  ‘Mr Sapwood, I will be frank with you. I have no argument with your family in any way.’ He removed his spectacles, rubbing them on a cloth before setting them back on his nose. ‘But I must tell you that I am to retire at the end of the term, and I’ve heard through the grapevine that my successor - a modern, disciplinarian sort – is looking to shake up the school. ‘I very much fear that the children’s bursaries will almost certainly come to an end.’

  Sap scratched an imaginary beard. ‘I’ll make sure the children’s parents understand the situation entirely.’

  ‘Good, thank you,’ Mr Wynn-Garry replied. He cleared his throat. ‘Are you fit and well enough to continue in the role as the children’s caretaker? I worked out you must be nearing the heady heights of ninety years—’

  ‘Oh, Headmaster,’ Sap said, ‘body and mind are ticking along quite nicely, thank you.’

  ‘I ask for the children’s sake—’

  ‘Mr Wynn-Garry,’ Sap chuckled. ‘When you are as old as I am, you will find that love and well-being are the things that matter. While it is hard to hold on to the memories from one’s youth, we are lucky to be in possession of decent health, and blessed that Mrs Puddy feeds and nurses us.’ He flicked him a smile. ‘But, you’re right to be checking up. We don’t have so many visitors up here in the hills. Have you made plans for your retirement?’

  Wynn-Garry leaned back in the armchair.

  ‘Yes,’ he sighed, pleased to switch subject. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m hoping to go to the Middle East to see some of the ancient tombs and archaeology for myself. It’s a small passion of mine, if you will.’ He exhaled loudly at the thought of the unknown life to come after he left his beloved school.

  When the men stood up, scuffling noises scratched towards the kitchen. Sap and Wynn-Garry exchanged a smile.

  ‘Children!’ Wynn-Garry boomed. ‘I have something to say to you, so you may as well come back here.’

  The children emerged, sheepishly.

  ‘I’ve decided the time has come to hang up my leather binder and my red marker-pen.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’ Olivia said.

  ‘Yes, my dear. It is time for some fresh blood at Sutton School. Please promise to keep this information to yourselves until I have made the announcement official, after half term.’

  He looked each of the children in the eye. ‘I would be hugely disappointed if any of you were to exit the school before me, so I suggest you work together to improve those areas that need addressing. For example, Danny and Anika, a mastery of the periodic table and basic algebra.’ He gave them a knowing look over his half-moon glasses. ‘I have a suspicion that these may feature heavily in your exams.

  ‘The other thing is that I would like you to win the football trophy tomorrow. I don’t mean to put any additional pressure on you both, but it would be wonderful to finish my tenure here knowing that we had reached the pinnacle of both sporting and academic endeavours. So, Danny, please hold your concentration for the entire game.’

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ Anika said. ‘I promise.’

  He smiled and headed out of the oak door.

  Olivia seized her chance. ‘But what about the storm, sir?’

  He turned. ‘Olivia, this is Yorkshire, for goodness’ sake.’

  ‘But I’ve studied the charts and...’

  The door closed in her face, Wynn-Garry’s footsteps tip-tapped across the flagstones.

  Sap pushed the thick bolt into the wall. ‘What a fine man,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about what he said. You’re doing well at school, you’re fit and well, and you’ve got friends – what more could you want, eh? Now, off to bed, right now.’

  A rumble of thunder boomed high up in the night sky. Sap sniffed the air.

  ‘Something tells me tomorrow is going to be a big, big day.’

  5

  Luna, Thursday

  The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed twice, its ring echoing around the old farmhouse. Two in the morning of the next day and the children’s sleep was long and deep: the night-hour of dreaming.

  Four Animais arrived in a flash.

  Using their long, wiry legs, each Animais flew across the air until they stood above the children.

  ‘You are here to witness the final part of the First Dream, for there must be no doubting it,’ Luna said, through her vibrations. ‘Their sleep pattern is flowing. It is time. Come.’

  Luna walked deftly through the air towards Olivia. Bending impossibly forward, as if made from soft rubber, she pushed her head and one arm into her own churning, electrically-active void.

  Moments later she held out microscopic-sized granules of powder at the end of a long pincer.

  Fragments that hold so much power, she thought, realising that power was the wrong word. They were far more than that, these were the opportunity of life itself.

  Luna positioned herself so that her two long legs anchored above Olivia’s sleeping head, steadying her for the dream Luna was about to deliver. She bent down, almost doubled-over, and soon her fingers moved freely by Olivia’s lips, ready.

  With her ovoid, jet-black eyes, Luna studied the girl.

  Instinctively, she tuned in to the rhythm of Olivia’s breathing.

  IN … OUT.

  IN … OUT.

  ‘Sacrum,’ she thought, ‘interpret this dream as best you can.’

  Beneath her, Olivia inhaled. As she did so, Luna’s two fingers spun at an incredible speed, releasing a fine dust which was drawn deep into Olivia’s lungs.

  Without taking her eyes off the girl, Luna plucked more dust from within her infiniti and, at the optimum moment, lowered her fingers towards the child’s mouth and repeated the process.

  After every breath, Luna stopped and gauged the girl’s reaction, making tiny adjustments to the rate of powder in proportion to the volume of air drawn in.

  So far, so good, Luna thought. Already she tosses and turns. Soon she will begin her lucid and vivid journey. Nothing will wake her.

  Luna glided through the air, across the dark room, and settled above Anika. She repeated the procedure, scrutinising every movement, looking for signals, and making sure her dream was perfect.

  Only the boy, now.

  She noted the strong, intense reactions of the male sibling. But his haunting, wailing cries were reminiscent of someone else. Someone with whom she hardly dared to compare: Xinder.

  Luna studied the reaction of the children, noting that the noises they made were not just the anguished cries of their previous dreams. These were sounds that exuded certainty and confidence; Anika laughing, Danny smiling, Olivia’s face beaming with happiness.

 
; Maybe the final part of the First Dream was a reassurance that it would be worth the trouble ahead.

  She dipped a hand into her infiniti. After all, there is always balance, she thought. Where there is fear, there is hope. And where there is life, there is death.

  Luna, tired and aching, addressed the Animais.

  ‘Last of all, the Gifts of Genartus. And then their journey will commence.’

  Luna’s silvery-grey, ghost-like body now sat directly above Olivia’s sleeping face, her infiniti emitting blue shards of light over the girl’s peaceful, pale face.

  Quietly, Luna began.

  ‘For the eldest, yellow dust – for hands and feet. Hands that guide, heal and lead. Swift feet for running.’

  She transformed the end of one of her fingers into a needle so long that it was like a sliver of pure ice that melted into nothing. She injected a tiny yellow speck into the soft flesh between thumb and finger on each of Olivia’s hands. Moving down Olivia’s body, she repeated the action on her ankles, the needle entering the tender skin by her Achilles tendons.

  As she withdrew the needle for the final time, Luna noted a fizz of electric blue energy flowing through and over the girl’s sleeping body.

  The gifts are undamaged by time, she thought.

  Without hesitating, Luna walked across the night air to Anika, moving directly over her face. As she extended her legs Luna signed again, the vibrations clear to the onlookers.

  ‘Blue dust, for eyes to see when blackness falls, and ears to hear the smallest of sounds. With eyes so sharp and ears so keen, she will understand what others do not hear or see.’

  A minuscule blue crystal fragment sat at the tip of the needle. With astonishing precision Luna injected the tiny particles through the delicate tissues of Anika’s closed eyelids and into the retinas of her eyeballs. Carefully, she slid a needle down each of Anika’s ear canals, and injected the crystals directly into her eardrums. As she withdrew the needle, Luna saw the same strange electrical effervescence momentarily splaying over Anika’s outer body.

  So skilful was her technique that, apart from the gentle rise and fall of their chests, Olivia and Anika did not flicker, nor spill one single drop of blood.

  Now it was the boy’s turn. Luna sensed the other Animais vibrating nervously nearby. She stretched out an arm and drew it slowly back in, twisting her slender hand from side to side.

  ‘Animais,’ she announced. ‘His first gift is to the heart. When the needle leaves his body it will trigger a reaction that will herald the start of their quest to open Genartus, and to save the Earth from damnation.’

  ‘From this moment forth,’ she continued, her vibrations like a whisper, ‘clouds will build. There is no turning back.’

  Luna stood above Danny’s chest, legs astride his face.

  A roll of thunder drummed high above them as she steadied herself and vibrated.

  ‘Yellow gifts for hands and feet,’ she said. ‘Blue to hear and see, but red is the one for heart and mind – for power – and understanding what may be.’

  With aching limbs, Luna galvanised herself.

  ‘Red Dust, a gift of power, when strength is needed.’ And on the word "power", Luna thrust her arm high into the air.

  She paused and steadied herself, marking the exact spot on Danny’s chest where she would thrust the needle.

  Moments later, the needle swept down and pierced the boy’s heart.

  His body fizzed as his chest cavity rose. Luna held it as long as she dared, making sure every last speck of dust was instilled into the boy.

  As she withdrew, a terrific thunderbolt spat out, rattling every window of the farmhouse.

  Even Luna trembled. Nature was awakened.

  A sign from one of the other Animais confirmed her suspicions that Danny’s sleep waves were already changing. A strange feeling filled her. A sense of exposure, a sense she had known only once before.

  My invisibility!

  She concentrated hard on the boy.

  Finish this.

  She dipped a leg into her infiniti and withdrew her final gift. ‘Red Dust,’ she vibrated quickly. ‘One for strength – another for courage.’

  A minuscule red fragment flashed into the tender flesh beneath Danny’s chin. But before she could fulfil the task, she heard a gasp and felt a movement.

  She withdrew the needle as a pain seared into her, her face burning.

  Luna looked up.

  In front of her, with a face contorted by fear, Danny’s eyes were open. Staring right back at her.

  Sas

  Sleep, on this quiet, sultry night, hadn’t come easily to Sas. She’d tossed and turned, but something was niggling her, preventing her from nodding off fully.

  Now, as she lay in bed, she flicked through the family photo albums.

  She was particularly drawn to the pictures of herself as a baby, the ones in which she lay in her cot alongside Olivia. Friends from the very beginning. Friends now, and friends until they passed away.

  There were only four pictures before she graduated to a toddler. One of the pictures was cut in half, the others were of Sas staring upwards on her tummy, always next to Olivia. A warmth spread through her.

  She wondered why she’d been visited by the dreams. Why had she been lumbered with nightmares concerning the Delauxs?

  Someone had once quipped that she and Olivia might be twins, but it couldn’t be possible, not here. There would have been an outcry. People would have noticed.

  Why would either the Delaux parents or her own mother give away a child? Besides, if that outside possibility was true, then one of their parents would have told them by now, surely?

  She examined one picture which seemed a little more grainy than the others. She noticed, in the corner, a large, old hand. She squinted as she tried to make out the background.

  She pulled out her phone and applied the magnifying glass.

  The picture rushed out of focus before regaining its sharpness. The camera phone blinked and, moments later, a ‘bing’ on her laptop told her the image had saved itself on her computer.

  A couple of clicks later, and Sas was staring at an enlarged digital version of the grainy picture.

  Opening her image-editing programme, she added the picture and started playing around with the options.

  Zooming in on the background, she noticed a strange brown vertical wiggle in the corner, as if it might be a wooden beam of some kind. She sharpened the image and played with the contrast.

  Quizzically, she slanted her head first one way, then the other.

  An upright post, on a bed?

  She thought about it and realised it might be a four-poster bed.

  As far as she’d ever known, they’d never had one of these. Their house was modern and full of contemporary furniture. Sas knew it was the only thing her father had left her mother when she was small.

  She looked again. That hand in the corner. So old and leathery, the nails thick and hard.

  An uncle or her grandfather, perhaps. But her grandpa lived in Australia. She first met him when she was four years old. Her first real memory. And her uncle had brown, slender hands. Fit for an accountant.

  Could it be …

  She frowned.

  Zooming back out, she looked at the overall image again.

  She and Olivia were staring up at the lens, looking remarkably similar, although her mother insisted she was the baby on the right.

  But now, zooming in on the picture, she queried this information.

  She examined it close up. Wasn’t that the same flop, the same little tuft of hair that fell forward on Olivia’s brow, on the child on the right?

  She realised whose hands they were: Sap’s. The bed had to be the old four-poster with carvings that she had seen in his room.

  She noticed her pulse racing.

  Twins? It was impossible.

  A plan quickly formed in her head. During half-term, she’d ask for her birth certificate. If that wasn’t for
thcoming, she’d head to the Town Hall and ask to see the registrar for Births and Deaths. That would, at least, confirm where she was from. She would then start asking questions, targeting those who might have seen them all those years ago: Hospital workers, perhaps, or the local postman.

  With this knowledge, she’d be able to knock her doubts on the head.

  She’d need a diversion, so that Olivia and her mother wouldn’t ask questions. She’d also need a companion.

  Instantly, she thought of Ryan. He’d been so kind to her earlier. He’d understand the situation and, moreover, he could be trusted. She was certain of it.

  In return for finding him a partner for his ‘do’, she’d ask him to join her on her investigations. He loved doing strange things like this, even if he was a bit of a dork.

  And, if she couldn’t find a girl to go with him to his party, she’d go herself — at least with Ryan it was bound to be a laugh.

  She climbed out of bed and made her way to the window. Opening the curtains, she pushed the windows open and looked out over the rooftops of Sutton.

  Glancing up, the cloud loomed larger than ever. Its blackness filled her soul with dread.

  In bed, she opened her notebook. She read over exactly what she’d written down moments after she’d woken up, stains of her sweat still marking the pages.

  All she had to do was tell Olivia. At least, that would unburden her from the feeling that a heavy chain hung around her neck.

  She lay back and closed the book. Yes. She’d tell Olivia before the game.

  After that, in secrecy, she’d get to the root of the twin thing once and for all.

  She returned her diary to the desk and made her way over to the window, peering out over the eerie night sky with pinpricks of light from the streetlights in the distance.

  As she looked, she heard a piercing cry from somewhere outside, the haunting notes of a scream caught on the wind. It chilled her to her core.

  Quickly, she shut the window and raced back to bed.

  She lay panting.

  If that wasn’t a cry of intense pain, then it was the cry of someone wrestling with agony.