Triskellion Read Online Free Page B

out the driver clearly but, as the car rolled past, Rachel and Adam could see a grey dog the size of a small horse sitting upright in the passenger seat.
    The air was still heavy and humid, but the heat had gone out of the day, and as they walked up the garden path, their grandmother’s cottage was bathed in a golden light and the long shadows of hollyhocks, growing either side of the path, stretched out in front of them, as if pointing Rachel and Adam towards the door.
    Rachel stepped up confidently to rap the knocker, its brass gleaming as if it had just been cleaned.
    “It’s that same shape,” Adam said.
    “What shape?”
    “Like that thing on the station windows and on the war memorial. What d’you think it is?”
    “Your guess is as good as mine,” Rachel said, about to knock.
    Before the knocker touched wood, the door swung open, revealing Celia Root behind it in an electric wheelchair.
    The old lady flung her arms out wide. “My
poor
darlings … I’ve been so
worried
…”
    Rachel and Adam fell into the hallway and into their grandmother’s open arms, all three promptly bursting into tears.

T he kettle whistled on the Aga and Granny Root’s wheelchair hummed across the tiled kitchen floor as she moved to take it off. For the hour or more since their arrival, Rachel and Adam had been recounting the strange events of their journey to their horrified grandmother.
    For a woman in her late seventies, Celia Root was remarkably well preserved, and though the wheelchair gave the impression of frailty, it was only that. Though heavy, her make-up was immaculately applied and her silvery-blonde hair looked as though it was set on a daily basis.
    “You poor things,” she said. “What must you think of us?”
    “Shouldn’t we call the cops or something?” Adam said.
    The old woman smiled indulgently. “There hasn’t been a station here for years, darling. We have a local constable who pops in every few weeks, but he has two other villages to deal with. There’s really not much goes on around here.”
    “We were probably just unlucky,” Rachel said.
    “That’s right,” Granny Root said. “I’ll have a word with the commodore up at Waverley Hall. He’s the local magistrate, tends to sort these things out…”
    Rachel and Adam looked at each other. What on earth was a commodore?
    “Anyway, you’ve got the worst behind you now.” She smiled and squeezed Rachel’s hand. “Now you can relax, and start to enjoy yourselves.”
    Sitting at the long kitchen table, Adam tapped out a number for the umpteenth time on his mobile phone and, after a long pause, thumped it down again.
    “Nothing. Is there anywhere around here you can get a signal, Gran?”
    “I don’t really understand these mobiles, dear. You could try the telephone again.”
    Rachel’s earlier attempt at calling home on the land-line had met with nothing but static and a series of electronic bleeps. The third time she’d dialled, a recorded voice had told her something she didn’t understand in French, and New York had never felt further away.
    “The weather’s been a bit unpredictable, dear,” her grandmother said, “and it sometimes affects the line. We had a power cut just last week, on Tuesday … or was it Wednesday?”
    Rachel smiled affectionately, while Adam wondered what kind of Third World backwater they’d ended up in, where phones didn’t work and power failed in the rain.
    Granny Root put a large plate of warm scones on the tablein front of Adam. “Help yourself, darling.”
    Adam grabbed two scones and put them on his plate, slathering them with butter and jam, and shoving the first one into his mouth almost whole. His grandmother’s eyes widened slightly, then softened into a smile.
    “You poor darling, you’re half starved.”
    While Rachel buttered her own scone with considerably less urgency than her brother, Granny Root brought a teapot to the table and looked at Adam. “Milk and sugar?”
    Adam, mouth