Triskellion 3: The Gathering (7 page)

Adam went in and Levi followed.

As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, Rachel and Adam were alarmed to see four figures, the size of small humans, square-shouldered, with large, domed heads, painted on the walls around them. Lash-like lines radiated from their eyes, and a similar halo of rays was painted in bright orange around their heads.

They looked like four guardsmen, protecting the cave.

“
Wandjina
,”
Levi said. “Ancestors.”

The twins blinked and tried to focus on the paintings. Orbs of golden light seemed to swim in front of their eyes. Rachel thought it must have been the image of the strong sun still imprinted on their retinas – but how ever much she blinked, the orbs still circled around the inside of the cave.

“Can you see the blobs, Adam?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“Not just me, then,” Adam replied. “What are they?”

“I guess ‘energy’ is the best answer,” Levi said. “Look, you know when beings die—”

“You mean they’re ghosts?” Adam gasped.

“It’s not that simple,” Levi said. “When beings die, the body is finished with. It was just a home for the … energy that drove it along. That energy has to go somewhere.”

“Are you saying that these orbs are people’s souls?” Rachel hazarded.

Levi sighed. “You two always want everything to be so precise. Can’t you just live with the idea that these are orbs of energy harnessed from the world around you?”

Rachel didn’t want to live with the idea. She wanted answers, but she guessed she would have to live with it for the time being.

“And if you’re tuned in – which you two
are
– then this energy will help you,” Levi continued.

Rachel held her hand out to try to touch one of the orbs, but her fingers went straight through it. She got close enough to see that inside the ball of pale golden light, other things moved around. They looked phosphorescent, like the inner workings of a jellyfish. As she stared, the luminous strands started to reform and brighten, as if they were filaments in a bulb.

“Look, Adam,” she said.

Adam was already looking. The lights began to revolve and separate – spinning and rotating until there were three small wheels of light intersecting gyroscopically within each orb. All the orbs were becoming brighter. They spun and grouped together until they became a swarm – creating a vortex that reached up into a corner of the narrow cave. In the brighter light, the paintings of the Wandjina seemed to throb with life.

“Go and look,” Levi said. He pointed at the corner of the cave where the orbs had gathered. “Climb up!”

For the first time since they had known him, Levi was showing excitement – the look in his eye so unfamiliar that Rachel was slightly unnerved. But before she could express any doubt, Adam was climbing the wall. He quickly found a foothold and began pulling at lichen near where the activity of the orbs was focused. He rapidly scraped away a hole in the wall, pulling at the rocks that filled it and dropping them to the floor of the cave below.

In minutes Adam was clambering back down with a metal box the size of a biscuit tin in his grimy hands.

“Open it,” Levi encouraged. “We need to move fast.”

Adam and Rachel knelt down and peeled away the tape that was sealing the lid. Inside was a package of newspaper. Adam lifted it out and began to unwrap it.

Rachel could feel excitement fizzing up inside her – although she had no idea what she expected them to find. Adam had unrolled the newspaper to find a cloth beneath it. His hands shook as he unfolded it. The activity of the orbs became suddenly frenzied, bouncing around the walls of the cave. Levi bent down beside them, his eyes bright as Adam undid the last layer of cloth.

Triskellions.

Two of them. Gold and beginning to shine.

“Take one each,” Levi said; “then hold hands.”

Rachel and Adam each picked up a Triskellion and joined hands, and as they did so, the cave lit up, bright and white, the orbs glowing with the ferocity of halogen bulbs.

Energy surged between the twins. Their hands shook and their minds raced with the images flashing before them: a chalk circle, a burial, a knight and a maiden, a saint and a burning, twins, bees, darkness…

It was as if the software of Rachel and Adam’s life was being reinstalled; as if they were being rebooted from the state of inertia that had held them and kept them dormant for the past two years.

Their joint memories refilled their brains, and the twins opened their eyes and looked about the bright cave. The figures of the Wandjina surrounded them, looking down on them like benign relatives at a baptism. Rachel and Adam stared at Levi in amazement. Layer upon layer of his flesh was beginning to peel away, revealing a face more angular, more familiar…

It was as if Levi’s face had been an illusion they had wished to believe. A disguise that had made him acceptable to them.

Rachel found it hard to catch her breath. Something leapt in her stomach as she saw the face of Gabriel.

T
he plane’s engines were already running by the time they got back to the base of the rock. A heat-haze shimmered across its wings. The cockpit’s small window opened and Clifford Possum leaned his head out. “Come on, you guys; hop on board…”

Rachel, Adam and Gabriel ran, ducking beneath the wing and turning towards the cockpit.

“Where’s Charlie?” Gabriel asked.

Clifford peered back over his shoulder into the plane. “Oh, he’s around here somewhere. Probably taking a leak.”

“I’m here.”

Rachel, Gabriel and Adam froze as Charlie Possum walked round from the other side of the plane.

He was pointing a shotgun at them. “Get your hands up and don’t do anything stupid,” he said.

From the cockpit, Clifford Possum stared down, open-mouthed, at his brother. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

Charlie shouted up at him without taking his eyes off Gabriel and the twins, and he kept the gun pointed at them. “
One million dollars
, bro. That’s the reward for these kids. You any idea what we could
do
with that kind of money?”

The next time Clifford Possum spoke was as he was jumping down from the cockpit and walking slowly towards his brother. “It’s not right, Charlie. You know that.”

Charlie grunted and shook his head.

“Put the gun down, Charlie,” Clifford said.

Charlie said nothing. Keeping one eye on Gabriel and the other on his brother, who was getting closer with every step, he raised an arm to wipe away the sweat that was running down his face.

“Why don’t you
do
something?” Rachel hissed at Gabriel.

“I don’t have to,” he said. “Watch…”

Charlie Possum was shaking, the shotgun veering back and forth between the children and Clifford, who was now no more than a metre away from him.

“You know this is wrong,” Clifford said.

Charlie shook his head vehemently. “Don’t make me shoot you too.”

“You wouldn’t,” Clifford said, taking another step towards his brother.

“Stop!” Charlie cried, waving the gun.

But Clifford kept going. He lunged forward at the last second – just as Charlie raised the weapon – and made a grab for the gun.

The shots were deafening.

As Rachel, Adam and Gabriel backed away, they could see that the fuselage was peppered with bullet holes, and fuel was beginning to pour from one of the engines.

Oblivious to the danger, the two brothers wrestled over the gun, their screams of anger and frustration echoing off the rock that towered high above them.

“Can’t you stop them?” Adam asked.

Gabriel shook his head and dragged the twins back, pulling them away from the plane until they were a safe distance from the explosion that he knew was coming.

The force of it knocked the three of them off their feet. By the time Rachel had managed to stand up again and wipe the sand from her eyes, the plane was already engulfed in flames. She stared into the inferno, trying to make out the figures of Charlie and Clifford Possum. She knew there was no way they could have survived the blast, but just for a second she imagined she saw them: two dark figures, twisting together against a wall of flames.

The spirits of two warring brothers.

Rachel watched Gabriel turn and saunter away and was gripped by panic. It was as if they were suddenly out of control on a terrible rollercoaster ride. She took hold of her brother’s arm, which was trembling. Their heads spun with images, memories, feelings; few of them good. Since holding the Triskellions, they had returned to a shocking reality; one in which they remembered the traumatic adventures that had brought them to this continent in the first place.

And now they were out of immediate danger, the full realization hit them both in the stomach like a low punch.

Rachel began to cry and she could clearly see the distress on her brother’s face; could feel it in her mind. She turned away from the terrible heat of the fire and saw Gabriel sitting on a rock. He was holding the Triskellions and smiling.

“We were happy, and safe!” Rachel screamed at him. “Then you come along and … start all
this
again.”

“You weren’t safe,” Gabriel said.

“And we are now?” Adam snapped.

Gabriel shrugged and stood up. “We need to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Rachel said. “I want to go back and see Mom. Make sure she’s OK.”

Gabriel said nothing.

“I’m with Rachel.” Adam’s voice quavered with fear and panic. “Whenever we’ve followed you, it’s ended in disaster.”

“But that’s just it” – Gabriel rested a hand on his shoulder – “it hasn’t ended yet, and it can’t end without your help.”

“I want it to end,” Adam said.

“Good. Then let’s make it happen. Aren’t you both sick of running? Of hiding?”

Rachel could read her brother’s thoughts and knew the answer.

Gabriel had remained so calm and seemed so unmoved by Rachel and Adam’s pleas that it was clear there was only one possible way to go.

His way.

“So how do we help you?” Rachel asked.

“There’s another one,” Gabriel said; “another Triskellion.”

“And what happens when we find it?” Rachel asked. “
If
we find it?”

“We need to bring the three together,” he said. “That will be the end of it. And yes, we will find it. You already know where it is.”

Rachel had a sudden hunch. “It’s in the United States, isn’t it.”

Gabriel nodded.

“Home,” Adam said.

They turned at the sudden scream of sirens. A fire engine from the visitors’ centre was racing across the scrub towards the burning plane.

“We need to move,” Gabriel said. “They mustn’t find us here.”

They dodged through the undergrowth and skirted round the base of the mountain until they could see the visitors’ centre in the distance. Adam went in and bought some water, and Rachel said she needed the toilet. She checked her purse; she still had some money.

After buying something to eat, she found a payphone and dialled the number of the house they had left some days before. There was no answer. Just a piercing continuous disconnected tone.

Rachel had not expected her mother to be there, but having it confirmed only added to her panic.

She thought for a moment; she really needed to speak to someone. She looked around. No one was waiting for the phone.

She dialled another number…

“M
el Campbell…”

Laura had barely been able to hear the ringtone of her phone over the grumble of the Jeep’s tired engine and had only just remembered in time to use her alias.

“No names,” the girl said. “It’s me.”

Laura slowed down and pulled over. “Are you OK?” she asked. Her heart leapt at the sound of Rachel’s voice on the line.

“Sort of,” Rachel said. “It’s all come back to us, though… Who we are; what we’ve been through.”

Laura sighed and felt a pang of guilt. The worst had happened, and yet the scientist in Laura Sullivan felt a nagging urge to know what would happen next. “Are you safe?”

A brief snort came down the phone. “Guess not.
He’s
come back.”