The Omega Children - The Return of the Marauders (A young adult fiction best seller): An Action Adventure Mystery (13 page)

Melaleuca stopped abruptly, telling the others to do likewise. ‘We shall not go any further until we know what is happening.’

Sheer panic crossed Uncle Bear-Nard’s face and he turned in haste to Aunty Gertrude who tightened her mouth. For the second time she looked like she would choke on her words and trying to suppress her rage, said, ‘At great inconvenience to myself and the landed staff of this great estate have I allowed the tranquillity to be upset by your presence.’

Spittle frothed at the corners of her mouth.

‘It is obvious that of these things you have little understanding. Here in New Wakefield we abide by the strictest of rules AND DO NOT tolerate insolence lightly! I suggest you learn this if you are to harmoniously reside here, AND I suggest you learn it now.’

‘Maybe we shall see what our parents say about that when we see them,’ Melaleuca said.

Aunty Gertrude rushed at Melaleuca and raised her hand to strike her.

‘Your parents ─ ’ 

Uncle Bear-Nard heaved his rotund body into her path, cutting her short. Her livid faced screamed in silence at him.

‘Please..dear....allow me,’ he said cowering.

She glared at him even more.

‘For your sake...I mean...dear. A lady of your breeding should n..n..not be accosted by such loutishness.’

‘Fine!’ Aunty Gertrude said and strode off in a huff into the Cathedral-Mansion. She let out a put-on cry as if the whole affair had greatly upset her.

‘She is just what I imagine a witch to be like,’ Quixote said.

Uncle Bear-Nard coughed politely and said, ‘Please d..d.d.d.d.don’t let her hear you say s.s.s..such a thing.’

Lexington looked at their poor downtrodden Uncle - a pitiable sight for a man whom she guessed was supposed to be the Lord of the Cathedral-Mansion.

Melaleuca beat him with her sharp gaze. ‘I am not easily fooled Uncle. Much is not being told to us. We need rest. I will expect answers after that.’

He shied away from Melaleuca. 

‘Mel. You are scaring him,’ Lexington said.

‘No. No. No. She is right. Come follow me. In good time all will be explained.’

‘We are forthright and have been taught to be so,’ Ari offered hoping to make him feel a little better.

‘Yes the little I heard from your mother...mothers, suggested you children were spirited. You...er...will find things...um...a little different around here.’

Inside the Cathedral-Mansion Uncle Bear-Nard led them through the largest kitchen they had ever seen, though too quick to take in much detail. He headed through some dark, narrow, old-smelling passageways to a set of stairs where he stopped and bade them to wait, and then dashed back the way they had come.

The cousins stared at each other puzzled.

Quixote started to follow after their Uncle when he appeared again and hoofed it up the passage with a wobbling trot as if someone chased him.

‘Here q..q..quick. Eat,’ Uncle Bear-Nard said and handed them each a large piece of thick bread with a rich smelling paste on it. ‘Sp...sp...sp...spiced vegetable spread. Good f..f..for you. Now hurry.’

The food felt warming inside them, somehow making them feel a little more settled.

They trotted up creaking set of stairs, ascending three levels, stopping at a dead end. Uncle Bear-Nard pushed hard on the insides of an unfinished wall, and after considerable effort it swung open spilling dust and tearing cobwebs.

‘Your Aunt thought it best to use the back stairs.’ 

He ushered them through the opening
into a large dismal corridor. An
old worn carpet ran down the middle of it with wooden floors either side. Colour-faded stripy wallpaper, tarnished with stains, adorned the walls. Uncle Bear-Nard rammed the door shut behind them and Melaleuca saw the wallpaper ran continuously over the door, blending it with the wall.

A small bell hanging off a curly strip of metal, high up on the wall, started to jingle.

‘We all have codes,’ Uncle Bear-Nard said, happy to explain this, ‘to tell us when to come and where to go. That is the bell for the butler. He is needed by your Aunt in the drawing room.’

‘A butler? A real butler?’ Lexington asked.

‘I think we have stepped into olden times,’ Quixote said. ‘Are their knights and tournaments and jousting?’

He pranced up and down the corridor shouting and jabbing at the air while pretending to spur on
an imaginary horse.

Uncle Bear-Nard tittered unsure. ‘Th...th...this way p..p..please.’

Along the corridor they walked following its twists and turns, passing door after door, each one as curious as the next.

‘Are all these rooms occupied?’ Melaleuca asked

‘Just follow.’

Uncle Bear-Nard stopped by a five foot high door and opened it, revealing a tight corridor, at the end of which a small window let in the barest of light. At the same end Uncle Bear-Nard led them through another door into a large bedroom with two four-poster beds and a large fireplace protruding out of the wall. Stone floors and stone walls greeted them with coldness, though a lot more light filtered in through two large bay windows constructed out of tiny lead-framed panes of glass.

‘There are only two beds,’ Melaleuca said.

‘This b..b..b..bedroom just for the boys.’

‘But we always sleep together,’ Quixote said. ‘It’s more fun.’

‘Unheard of in New Wakefield. Not allowed,’ Uncle Bear-Nard said with more firmness than any of his words so far. ‘Boys and girls after dark, unchaperoned in a room, unthinkable.’

He sounded just like Aunty Gertrude and he winked at them.

‘Why did you just wink?’ Lexington asked.

‘W..w...w..wink?’

‘Yes. Wink.’

‘D..d..d.definitely not allowed.’

He lit a small candle and placed it on a rickety table and put the matches beside it, turned and walked out the door. The cousins stood in the room unsure of what to do.

‘Come along girls. I will send up more f..f..food and a b..b..bath for the boys.’

Ari smiled at Melaleuca who hesitated.

‘We’ll be fine.’

The girls trotted after their Uncle passing through several more musty-smelling dimly-lit corridors of awful wallpaper. Lexington asked Uncle Bear-Nard several more questions along the way, making him more nervous and jumpier with each question. Soon he opened another door and ushered them into their room shutting the door behind them. Melaleuca yanked it back open to talk to him though he walked away at a surprising speed.

The bedroom had the addition of two writing desks under the bay windows and above the fire place sat a large ornate mirror. A thick layer of dust covered everything.

Lexington walked to her four-poster bed, leaving footprints in the dusty floor. She threw herself on it, landing hard, almost knocking the wind out of her.

‘Ow! It’s as solid as a rock! Feel it.’

Melaleuca pushed on it. ‘It feels like there are boards inside the mattress.’ She felt her bed as well.

‘The same.’

Lexington flicked her hair back over her shoulder. ‘Don’t know why I am surprised. This Cathedral-Mansion does not look like it was built for comfort.’

‘Mmm. No it certainly doesn’t.’

Melaleuca crossed to the window and stood looking out.

Lexington lowered herself onto her bed and started jotting her thoughts down.

‘Mel, what was that comment about? The harder stick breaks.’

‘Our Aunt has a tough outside but I do not think she is so tough.’

Lexington asked more questions but Melaleuca ignored them and instead let her mind drift free. It felt like months had passed since they had fled from their home under the threat of danger, followed a man sent by their parents, met a strange looking humanoid creature, only to end up here. And still with no answers. And according to Antavahni there would be no answers. The words of their parents filtered through her mind.

‘Do you remember what Mum said the day you wanted to leave and go and find other children,’ Melaleuca said.

‘You know I do. They simply said not until 16 or maybe 18.’

‘And why was that?’

‘They wouldn’t say.’ Lexington screwed her face up. ‘But you know what was strange. They didn’t say go and work it out for your selves like they always did.’

‘They hid so much,’ Melaleuca said deep in thought.

‘Hid?’ Lexington said pen in hand. ‘What are you not telling me now?’

‘I could never read our parents is all I meant,’ she said striking Lexington with her hawk-eyed stare. ‘My instincts never fail me.’

‘Well not yet.’

‘I could never get a feeling off any of them. They were closed to me. Yet since leaving I have been bombarded with different sensations and got clear messages off Argus and Aunty Gertrude. Yet right now...’

She looked back out the window, closed her eyes and dove deep inside herself, relaxing, letting her instincts talk. The same sense of adventure and dread flooded up, the same one she had felt when they first set out over the hill. Nothing clear came of searching her feelings, just images, lands, people and a flood of emotions.

‘I can’t see what to do,’ Melaleuca said. ‘What is next? I know we are to  keep moving forward. But I can’t get a feeling on it. It’s all jumbled.’

Lexington breathed out heavily. This is why she had often said facts needed gathering, then arranging, analysing and investigating.

‘Of course you can’t. What data do you have to go on?’

‘Maybe our first task is to work out what our first task is but I can’t see it,’ Melaleuca said.

Lexington looked annoyed yet pleased at the same time.

‘Logically what you say makes sense. You make decisions. But right now, what have you got to decide about? Trying to make a decision on everything we have seen so far, without facts, would be like sitting out in the middle of the ocean wondering which way to go.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘You keep on telling me to just move forward and now look at you. You have stopped and all the questions come up. That’s my job. Perhaps you need to move again. Besides, to make a decision you need contrasting options between which you must choose. I bet you have never analysed the basis of decision making.’

Melaleuca’s gut feelings had never been wrong, a fact Lexington knew. Yet now with their world turned upside down Lexington insisted her logic was better, even though in the past it had failed. Melaleuca fought her feelings down knowing that Lexington needed facts and logic as much as she needed to make decisions. Besides, her mother had said to take good counsel from Lexington.

‘Well,’ Lexington said. ‘Do you have contrasting options?’

A decision surged into Melaleuca. She needed to encourage and steer Lexington, not resist her. Lexington’s words about “decisions needing contrasting options” struck her as true. She had wanted to resist her, but that also meant a contrasting option of not resisting her, lay before Melaleuca.

‘You’re right,’ Melaleuca said.

She pulled one of the pieces of card from her pocket and read it again –
“trust.”
I should not let my thoughts get the better of me.

‘I am going to find the boys,’ Melaleuca said.

‘I am going to devise a hypothesis. It’s what all great people do at moments like this.’

‘Do what you will. Mum was clear that if they did not come back, we just keep on moving forward. I will listen when you have formulated your hypo thing.’

She crossed to the door and opened it, walking off down the corridor, leaving Lexington to pound out her hypothesis.

Lexington started furiously
writing down what she thought. A few minutes into it she stopped. Did she want to stay and finish it or go after Melaleuca? If she stayed, she could end up with what she sought - a reasonable explanation behind all the events so far. Though, what if Melaleuca found a valuable clue? What if she did not know it was a clue? What if she knew it was a clue, but reported it back to her wrong? What then?

She tossed up staying or going, back and forth until she was as unsure as she was when she started. She poked her head out the door and looked both ways down the empty corridor, and then wrote,
“why,”
on a blank page in her notebook.

‘GO!’
the voice in her mind screamed.

***

Melaleuca turned another corner, passing yet another locked door for what seemed like the twentieth time. Instead of finding the boys’ room she soon found herself walking down a corridor. It got wider and wider and wider until she could see light streaming down from somewhere high, up ahead.

The wooden floor ended at a hard stone floor, and two stories above sat a massive cathedral-like ceiling, swaddled in light and dark areas. Great rafters held it up, spilling forth like giant whale ribs from five points. Scant patches of light streamed down in long narrow shafts from murky glass panels, and massive columns of chiselled marble rose – floor to ceiling – slicing through some of the light beams, and creating pockets of darkened mystery.