Jack Gregson & the Forgotten Portal (4 page)

All of a sudden Jack felt his hand tingling,
as the glove he wore tightened on his hand. He lifted it up to eye
level as it started to sparkle and shimmer. The brown leather was
pealing away, and transforming before him. He started feeling
pressure on his three middle fingers, as something started to form
on each. Eventually the shimmering died down, and Jack saw the
glove was completely gone, replaced by three silver rings, all
exactly the same.

“What was that?” asked David in awe.

“More magic!” shouted Rosie.

Jack looked at the rings on his fingers,
admiring the detail of the small vines carved into the metal. Three
voices said in unison “Now then, perhaps we can continue.”

He looked up and saw there were now three
versions of the woman in the room, one sitting and the other two
standing side by side.

“There are three of you.” Jack blurted.

“Observant, he is,” said the one sitting
down sarcastically. “Smart as a whip,” said another, with just as
much sarcasm as the first. “I really should have started with the
fat one,” the third one put in the final insult.

Jack yelled in annoyance as he gripped one
of the rings and started to wriggle it off his finger.

He pulled it free and immediately one of the
red women disappeared.

He pulled the second one off and dropped it
to the ground as another vanished.

“Hey now, be careful with them,” the last
red woman said, just as she realised Jack was pulling off the third
ring. “Now, hang on a moment! I was just jokin…” her sentence was
left unfinished as he removed the last ring and she
disappeared.

Sighing with relief, he looked up at the
model and saw that the Attic was gone as well. In fact without the
glove or rings on, the model looked plainer, lacking the detail it
had before.

He glanced to his bedroom window and saw
that the light was no longer on, and the tiny unmade bed no longer
there.

“What is going on?” Rosie demanded.

“Something to do with the rings,” David
guessed, picking the one up from the floor and putting it on before
Jack could stop him. A look of surprise came to his face as he
gazed upon the model coming to life in front of him.

Suddenly David spun around. Jack and Rosie
looked on as he put his hands on his hips, and said “who are you
calling fat, shorty?” to thin air.

“Now I get why you were confused,” Jack said
to Rosie.

“Were confused? What the heck is going on?”
she begged.

“Here,” Jack said as he placed one of the
rings on her middle finger. As soon as it was on her eyes widened
just as David’s had, as she looked upon the room anew. Jack then
took a deep breath and put the third one back on his finger.

He looked around, paying more attention than
when he’d first put on the glove. He realised it wasn’t just the
woman and the model that had changed, but everything in small ways.
Colours were all of a sudden more vibrant, the smells of the room
more distinct. It was subtle, and he could understand how he had
missed it when he’d donned the glove.

He turned to David and the woman as they
continued to argue. He was telling her how rude and weird she was,
as she was firing back about how dumb all three of them seemed to
be. Jack still exhausted from the last conversation with her,
decided to stand back and watch them go at it.

Jack was wondering if David’s stubbornness
would beat the strange woman’s arrogance when Rosie yelled out,
“What is THAT!” Her fear tinged voice cutting through the
argument.

Jack and David raced around the table to
where Rosie stood gawking. “Bloody Hell.” David said as he followed
her gaze to the Rear Garden.

“It’s what I’ve been trying to show you,”
the red woman said as she caught up to the kids, a look of deep
concern on her face, “Someone’s taken the Rear Garden, and it’s
only a matter of time before they come after the rest.”

Chapter
Four

The Rear Garden

Taken the Rear Garden? The first thing that
came to Jack’s mind was his mother.

Like all Gregson family members who passed
away, she was buried in the family graveyard, located at the back
of the garden. He had never known her, she had died the day of his
birth, but he visited her grave often. Usually he’d think about his
happy memories of her, shared to him as he grew up. If the gardens
were “taken,” how would he be able to visit her any more? He put it
out of his mind as he looked down on the model.

“What is it?” Rosie asked, still shaky. The
“it” she referred to was a black statue in the centre of the
garden. It was of a powerful man in black armour, standing as if in
battle and pointing his sword at an unseen enemy. Unlike the other
statues that were lifeless stone, this one pulsated, sending a
black mist crawling across the earth. It seemed to infect
everything it touched as trees and plants once lush and blooming
sat lifeless, their wood twisting them slowly to death. His dark
red eyes glowed, as he seemed to stare at the three of them.

“It’s the Warden of the Blue Emerald, he’s
been attacked!” the Red woman said.

“Who?” Jack asked.

“WHO?” the red woman said shocked. “The heir
to the Gregson Manor is told a Warden is in danger and he says
‘WHO!’ It’s bad enough you don’t even know who I am.”

“Who are you?” David asked, ignoring her
frustration.

“I am the Curator of the Attic!” she
snapped. Realising she was becoming hysterical, the curator closed
her eyes and took some deep breathes. Suddenly her eyes snapped
open again, a quizzical look coming over her face. “It seems you
don’t know much of what you should Jack Gregson. Where then did you
learn of the Attic?”

“From ‘The Gregson Estate’ book, Ms
Curator.” Jack replied, using her title in hope it would calm her
down. He walked over to Rosie as she was pulling it from her bag.
“We found it in the library and it has a full chapter on every room
of the house, including the attic, and clues on how we could get
here.” He took it from Rosie and handed it over to her.

“It told us you like lilies and ponds.”
David added.

“I’ve never heard of such a book,” the
Curator replied as she began flipping the pages.

“Curator you say I should know things, but
from where? Who was supposed to teach me of the Wardens and the
Attic?” Jack asked

“Every owner of the Estate must hand down
their knowledge to the heir of the property. Once your father…left,
you became heir.” She closed the book and handed it back to Jack.
“Your grandmother knows this and should have started your teachings
from a much earlier age.”

“Grandma? But Great Uncle Peter is the one
who knows more than anyone about the house.” David asked
confused.

“Ha! That old man has been trying to sniff
out the secrets of this house for years. Oh he knows more than the
rest of the family, but what he knows only scratches the surface.
Getting you kids to use dynamite on the door in the Western
Gardens. Madness! No your Grandmother is the eldest child of her
generation and she should have passed on her knowledge to
Jack.”

“If it’s all such a secret then why are you
telling us this?” Rosie asked. “Shouldn’t you just be telling
Jack?”

“Because of that!” the Curator replied as
she pointed at the dark statue on the model. “A black soldier now
stands in place of the Warden in the rear garden. If the blue
emerald has been stolen that means some bad people will be trying
to overtake the manor. If they do and they are successful there
will be no more secrets to keep. You must go down to the Rear
Gardens and see what has become of the blue emerald.”

“What does the emerald do?” David asked

“We don’t have time for a history lesson
right now, boy. There will be time for that later, but suffice it
to say if the emerald is gone we’re in serious trouble. You need to
get down there now!”

Jack looked back to the model and shivered.
The mist had nearly covered the entire garden, clinging to the base
of the statues, trees and gravestones. As he moved around the
table, the eyes of the black statue seemed to follow him. And she
wanted them to go down there? Suddenly he had a thought and raced
off towards the rear of the attic.

“Where are you going?” David yelled after
him.

Jack didn’t respond but continued his way to
the glass wall at the end of the room. He looked down at the actual
rear garden and saw that the black statue was there too. Seeing it
life size and in one of the gardens he had grown up in sent a chill
down his spine. He gripped the ring on his finger, held his breath
and pulled it off. Suddenly the black statue and mist were gone.
Not only that, but the twisted trees had returned to their upright
state. The foliage seconds ago dead now drifted slowly in the mild
winters breeze.

“It’s gone!” Jack said calling back to the
others.

Rosie and David caught up to Jack and looked
down on the garden in disgust and fear, “It’s an illusion. Take off
your rings, and it’ll all go away.” Jack urged. They both took them
off and they too saw the garden return to normal. “Maybe it’s the
rings, causing us to see things,” Jack said hopefully, not truly
believing it himself. He put his ring back on and turned to the
curator who was slowly approaching where they stood. “What do these
rings do? How come we can only see you when we wear them? Why does
the backyard look normal without them on?”

“I think I’ve answered enough of your
questions Jack Gregson. As I said I’m the curator of this Attic,
not your bloody tutor! If you want some more answers, you need to
do something for me, and that is go down to that garden and see
what has happened to the emerald,” she said, losing her patience
once again. “You have to,” she added almost pleading.

“Must we wear the rings when we are down
there?” Rosie asked, having put her ring back on. “Perhaps we could
check on the emerald better without all that black mist.”

“You can go down without wearing the rings,
but do take them. The book as well…I think you’ll need that too
given your startling lack of knowledge. Go to where the statue of
the Warden is, the exact spot the black soldier now stands. He
should hopefully hold the blue Emerald. You must see if it still
remains there.”

“Will you come with us?” David asked
hopefully.

“ I cannot leave the Attic,” the curator
said, almost apologising. “Now go, quickly!”

With that Jack, David and Rosie ran off to
the exit, descending the stairs out of the floating attic above the
Gregson Manor.

***

Jack ran out the back door, his cousins
right behind him. His heart pounded as he crossed the patio and
ascended the small grass incline to the Rear Garden, nervous about
what they would find. They all breathed a sigh of relief, as they
saw the garden looked as it usually did, no mist or black statue in
sight. He considered putting on the ring, but quickly decided
against it with a shiver.

“This way,” Jack said as they slowed to a
walk.

The Rear Garden was the least used and least
maintained of the four gardens. Jack had been told they were once
beautiful with mowed lawns and paths surrounded by statues, maples
trees and thriving garden beds.

Once the Gregson’s could no longer afford
gardening staff, there was always too much to do around the manor
and the rear garden was gradually overlooked. First the lawns
didn’t get mowed anymore, then autumn came and as the maple leaves
fell to the earth they were no longer raked away as they smothered
the flowerbeds.

Gradually the fine dirt paths had turned to
mud, the plants died or were overgrown by weeds and the furniture
began to rust. The Rear garden became simply a pathway people used
on occasion to visit the graves at the back of the manor. Jack
thought that if you were going to “capture” the gardens one by one,
this would be the place to start.

They continued down the mud track until
reaching a junction where three paths met and the Warden Statue
stood before them.

“The Monk,” David said as they looked up at
it. Over the years the three of them had named all twenty-three
statues of Gregson manor, based purely on what the person looked
like. While they knew each represented important Gregson family
members from different generations, that hadn’t stopped them
inventing some of the more childish names such as The Fat Dwarf,
Big Butt Betty and Jacks personal favourite The Constipated
General.

The Monk stood on a small pedestal, the
total height of the statue being around two metres. He had bare
feet, with low flowing robes closed by a rope tied around his
waist. His hands were pressed together at chest height as if
praying and his shaved head was bowed with eyes closed.

“What do we do now? There’s no blue emerald
here that I can see.” Rosie asked, examining the statue from all
angles.

“Don’t know, that nutty woman didn’t say.”
David replied referring to the curator. “She did tell us to the
bring the book though, maybe that will tell us something.”

Rosie pulled it out, then dropped the bag to
the ground and sat on it. She went to the contents page and read
down the list until she came to the chapter on the Rear Garden. She
started to read:

The Rear Gardens are situated at the rear of
the Gregson Manor…

“Whoever wrote this really spells things out
don’t they? Does it mention that the grass is green and the trees
point upwards in a tree like fashion?” David asked sarcastically.
“It’s like it’s written by a moron, for morons.”

“What? The wording, it’s changing!” Rosie
exclaimed. “Listen to this.”

The Rear Gardens, situated at the rear of
the Gregson Manor was where David Gregson tripped on the root of a
maple tree. Rather than get up, he cried for his mommy to kiss it
better. He was eight.