The Blue Seal of Trinity Cove (14 page)

Bobby looked at David to see if she could read his expression. She knew that sometimes boys loved the whole idea of murder and war, no matter what the reason. It held some kind of glory or romance for them and intrigued them. They loved to play cowboys and Indians and soldiers at war. Most boys were born and bred that way – but not David, or so it seemed. She felt she knew him well enough now to almost know what he was thinking from the expression on his face. His face had a look of abject horror written on it. His lips were pursed and his complexion was reddening. Clearly, she thought to herself, he was not one of the boys included in the vast majority.

“I find your whole story and the behaviour of the white men rather disturbing,” was what he finally managed to say and he gave the table a little thump with his closed fist.

“Excuse me,” he said, still with the look of anger on his face. He stood up and gave a slight bow and then left the shack closing the door behind himself. Madden continued to smoke on his pipe, still deep in thought. Bobby felt extremely uncomfortable for a moment, not knowing what to do. Should she go outside to see where David was or try to make conversation with Madden? Both of the ideas seemed impossible and yet sitting still at the table was not an option either. She had just resigned herself to go and check on David when Madden spoke, breaking the silence.

“When the Shaman of our tribe died she passed the crystal ball and the Blue Spectre onto my mother, Inuwatu, who passed it on to me.” Of course, Bobby thought to herself, she had almost completely forgotten the original reason she had left the island. She and David were searching for the Blue Seal to save their beloved island paradise.

“Would you like to see them?” he asked. Bobby nodded her head enthusiastically.

“Would I ever,” she answered. Madden walked to the back of the shack and lifted the trapdoor in the floor, just as his father before him had when he had taken out his weapons to protect Wanda. Bobby knew instinctively that something was about to change the course of their lives forever.

M
adden laid a muslin wrapped package on the table. David came back into the shack and Bobby told him what was going on. The muslin was unwrapped to reveal a crystal ball almost exactly the same as the one Bobby had found in her grandmother's attic. The words ‘oracle in the mist' were not inscribed on the ball but other than that it was an exact replica. Bobby produced her own ball to show Madden and laid the balls side by side on the table. The spectre was literally a long piece of ancient wood that had been whittled to the shape of a wand and painted blue. At the end of the wand was a claw-shaped cup that was wide enough to hold the ball.

“This is what was used to cast the spells by our Shaman,” Madden said. “Of course these days there is no use for them and all of my people have been absorbed into the tribe of the white man, or at least most of them have. There are still some that roam the outback and shapeshift into trees. For them the spell never wore off and they have become immortal. We don't know why.” He took the ball and placed it on top of the wand. It had an ominous kind of presence; it looked as if it would dance away from them at any minute and do something quite surprising. They all stared at it. But it stayed, standing there on the floor, with Madden's hand firmly wrapped around it.

“May I?” asked David. Bobby looked at him incredulously. She had just wondered to herself what would happen to the spectre if David were to hold it. It was him, and his family, after all, who were in some mysterious way connected to the Blue Seal, the island Crone and the future wellbeing of the island.

As soon as David held his hand on the spectre Bobby noticed that it started to vibrate ever so slightly. It also made a buzzing sound and even Madden stepped back and looked surprised.

“What is this?” Madden said, staring at them.

“I don't know,” David said in a high-pitched voice, “but I have a feeling something very big is just about to happen and I seem to be unable to let go of this thing even if I wanted to.” Madden reached out to wrap his hand around the wand again but was flung back against the wall by what appeared to be an electric shock.

“I have never seen it do this before,” Madden said, “but it does know you and that isn't really a surprise because all of the people of my tribe – when I was a boy – knew about the children, Bobby and David, who would come back to us from the future and rescue our people from the clutches of tyranny and injustice …” His speech was interrupted by a wave of pulsating and vibrational noise that was building in intensity, so that it was becoming louder and louder. Bobby and David looked to one another and shrugged their shoulders. This news didn't surprise them; it wasn't the first time they had been told something like that, but just how to break it to him that they had no idea what they were supposed to tell him or to do … They didn't know anything about saving his people – even though they wished they did.

“I'm not sure I know what you mean,” Bobby shouted to be heard above the wave of noise.

“Only the two of you can tell us exactly what it is we need to know to get away from this place, the few of us that remain. Only you can lead us away from here and to a place that is like heaven on earth … it has been talked of in our dreamtime legends for hundreds of years and we have been waiting for you for a long time,” he shouted back at them. The noise was becoming intolerable. Bobby and David frowned at one another, obviously even more confused than before.

“But we're just a couple of ordinary kids who are looking for a way to save our island,” David explained, “which is actually just a figment of our imaginations that came into our lives because our ancestors dreamed it up – it is actually a parallel dimension or reality – I suppose you'd say but …”

Bobby and David stared at each other wide-eyed with a sudden look of realisation on both of their faces.

“I see now,” Bobby said excitedly, “Madden and their people are the natives of our island. Oh, my gosh, how could I have not seen it before?”

“Yes exactly,” answered David, “and this is the tool that gets them there. Sweet mother of …” he said almost to himself. “So now there's only one question left – how do we get those people remaining here back to the island with us?” he shouted, blinking heavily and looking rather excited. And then Bobby saw a movement in her peripheral vision. She turned to look out of the window.

“Oh, my gosh, David, look!” she yelled. They all went to the window and what they saw was beyond belief. Even Madden was shocked by what he saw and obviously had not expected it at all. Dozens of people (obviously from Madden's tribe), men, women and children were walking toward the shack as if in some kind of trance. Right before Bobby and David's eyes they saw trees that walked transforming themselves into people. Whole families of people were trees no longer. Bobby wondered if they had been trapped like that against their will and if so, how long had they been that way? Her question was answered when she noticed mothers embracing children and husbands reaching out for their wives. Even from where she stood inside the shack she could hear their shouts of joy at being released from the spell and able to be together again in human form. The women and children and even some of the men wept openly and Bobby thought that she might too, such was the emotion of the moment. Carefully holding the spectre, the small party made its way to the porch of the shack. The first of the wandering masses arrived at the shack. An important-looking man stepped forward and talked to Madden.

“You are Madden,” he said.

“Yes, that is right,” answered Madden and turned to look at Bobby and David. How could a stranger know such a thing?

“I see your surprise that I know your name. I knew your father,” and with those words Madden reached for the porch chair to steady himself and went quite pale in the face.

“Are you all right, Madden?” Bobby asked and she reached for his arm.

“No, no, I'm fine,” he answered. “It's just that no-one has ever spoken of my father except the women of my tribe when I was a boy. Please tell me more,” he addressed the man.

“He knew that I would see you one day and he wanted me to tell you that you should take care of your mother and that all of the land here belongs to you now. I'm sorry to say but he died of pneumonia within months of being taken to the town, or of a broken heart some say. He was a fine man, my boy, and you should be proud that your papa was a man who stood up for what he believed in and didn't cower under the rules of an oppressive enemy.” All of this was spoken in their own Aboriginal language but Bobby and David got the general gist of the conversation.

“Madden, is that you?” was the next thing they heard called out from the back of the crowd. Everyone turned to look at two elderly women, one with greying brown hair and green eyes and the other with white skin hobble forward.

“Mama, mama,” Madden replied and wept openly now. He took the small frail woman in his arms and swung her around several times until she screamed out for him to stop. And then he noticed the white-skinned woman.

“Wanda, my sister,” he yelled out and held her so tightly that it looked as though he might break her. She was younger than the other woman but still just as frail.

“My brother, at last,” she answered and she held him by the shoulders and looked him up and down. “You grew up,” she said and they all laughed. They hadn't set eyes on each other for the longest time. Then she looked at the porch and saw Bobby and David.

“Bobby and David?” she asked, with perfect pronunciation. Madden nodded.

“Ah, so long have we waited for you,” she said in their own language, and Inuwatu translated for the people. “There will be plenty of time to share our news later. But now is the time; now we leave this land. All of us must form circles, one within the other and hold hands around David, who will stand in the middle of the inner circle and hold up the wand and point it toward the sky.” And so she instructed the people, and David. “Now come, David, come stand in the circle of our people, turn six times and we shall see what happens.”

Bobby looked around at all of the faces of the people who were surrounding her and saw many different expressions; some were apprehensive, some were nervous but most of the people looked completely relieved at finally having a chance to get away from there and very happy at the prospect of being permanently reunited with their loved ones. She watched as David turned himself around six times. Was this going to save her island? She couldn't answer that question just yet. And she couldn't ask herself any more questions because before she knew it, she found herself being swirled around and around with the others. A rainbow of brilliant colours which was the result of all of them becoming combined and she thought to herself, it's so beautiful and there's nothing to be afraid of. And then they were whisked at the speed of light through what seemed to be a long tunnel with many and varied lights of all hues of white and violet and gold. Her last thought was that she wished she could do this again one day very soon.

B
obby and David and the others arrived on the island. It wasn't what she had expected. It wasn't the same island they had left some short days ago. It was a brand new island with scarcely any inhabitants. It really was the original Garden of Eden, or how she expected that to be anyway. The Crone was there and the professor and Sebastian but they were the younger versions of themselves.

“Ah, hip hip hooray,” the professor said, clapping his hands together gleefully, “this is what we've all been waiting for – some new people on the island.” He cast a glance over the many people standing before him and even though he had not met Bobby and David before, he knew from the Crone that they featured strongly in his and the island's future. “Professor and Sebastian,” cried Bobby joyfully and she jumped into their arms to give them both a big hug.