“Donde esta Matteo?” Pedro demanded. Where’s Matt?
It seemed to Richard that he, too, had changed since whatever had taken place in the desert. Pedro had always been quiet. He’d had no choice when so much of the conversation had been in English. But he had also seemed detached, somehow on the edge of events. Now, for the first time, he was in command. He knew exactly what he was doing. He had marched out of the hospital and into a taxi. He had persuaded the driver to bring him here. He knew what he wanted and he wasn’t going to let anyone stand in his way.
Professor Chambers must have sensed this too. “Matt’s up there,” she said, pointing at the stairs, then realized that Pedro would never make it up there on his own. She held out an arm. Pedro gathered up his crutches and the two of them began to climb up together awkwardly. As he went, Pedro turned and glanced briefly at Richard, and in that moment Richard felt a sense of relief that he couldn’t begin to understand. But suddenly he was sure that Matt was going to be all right.
Pedro rested briefly against the door of Matt’s room. He took everything in. Professor Chambers wanted to go in with him but Pedro shook his head, then muttered a single word, in English. “Alone.”
The professor hesitated. But there was no point arguing. She watched as Pedro dragged himself into the room. The door closed behind him.
Pedro didn’t move.
He still wasn’t sure what had brought him here and now that he had arrived he didn’t know what he was meant to do. The English boy looked dead. No. That wasn’t quite true. His chest was moving and Pedro could hear the rasp of his breath behind the oxygen mask. Apart from the last day and a half, Pedro had never been in hospital in his life and the sight of the equipment unnerved him: the metal cylinder pumping out its carefully measured quantities of air, the liquid dripping down the plastic tube into Matt’s arm.
He knew that he had to be here. The two of them had spoken, of course. Pedro asleep in the hospital. Matt unconscious here. They had met one last time and Matt had urged him to come.
“I need you, Pedro. I’ll die without you…”
But why? What could he possibly do?
Pedro limped over to the bed and sat down on the edge, letting his crutches slide gently to the floor. Now he was leaning over Matt, who was spread out beneath him, underneath the white sheet. The oxygen hissed. The plastic mask briefly misted. Otherwise everything was silent and still.
Pedro reached out.
He knew. It was as if someone had given him a book of his entire life and he was reading it and understanding it for the first time. He had once told Matt that he had no special powers but he knew it wasn’t true. After the flood, when his entire family had been killed, he had been aware of something inside him. A new strength. And over the years it had grown.
He was a healer.
Living in Poison Town, there were so many diseases. People were getting ill and dying all the time. But not those who lived close to him. They were never sick and Sebastian had often remarked upon it. He had said as much when Matt was there.
There is no illness in this house or in this street And nobody understands why…
He had been aware of it again when Matt had been brutally beaten up by the policemen at the hotel in Lima. After just one day together, all the bruises had gone. The cracked ribs had somehow healed themselves. Pedro hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t needed to. Just being there was enough.
Gently, Pedro placed a hand on Matt’s chest. At last he was fully aware of his power and now he was going to use it.
But would it work? Had he left it too late?
Pedro closed his eyes and let the energy flow.
A week had passed.
The sun was beginning to set over the town of Nazca and the air was heavy and warm. Professor Chambers came out of the house carrying a jug of iced lime juice and four glasses. She had lit a barbecue and the flames were leaping up, filling the garden with smoke and the smell of charcoal.
Richard, Matt and Pedro were waiting for her, sitting in wicker chairs around a table. Pedro’s crutches were lying on the grass. He would need them for a couple more weeks but his ankle was already on the mend. But it was Matt’s recovery that had been all the more remarkable. He had woken up just a few hours after Pedro’s return. A day later he had been eating and drinking. And now, here he was, sitting as if nothing had happened.
Richard found it impossible to believe, even though the professor had tried to explain it to him.
“Radiesthesia,” she said, as if it had been something she had been expecting all along.
“Radio what?”
“It’s one of many names we have for faith healing. It’s also been called mesmerism, autoscopy… the laying on of hands. Of course, in this day and age few people believe in it any more. But ancient civilizations relied on it. The Incas, for example. They used it all the time. What I’m talking about is the ability to treat sickness using some sort of inner, psychic power.”
“And Pedro…?”
“Well, the Incas seemed to think he was one of their own. So I suppose it’s no surprise that he can do it.” She shook her head. “What does it matter how it happened?” she exclaimed. “He saved Matt’s life. That’s all we need to know.”
Now, Richard watched as Professor Chambers put down the tray and went over to the barbecue. The coals had begun to glow. She spread four steaks over the grill and went back to the table.
Nobody spoke while the meat cooked. In the days that had passed since Matt’s recovery, they had all got used to his long silences. Matt still hadn’t told them what had happened at the place of Qolqa and they knew not to ask. Everything would be said in its own time. Sometimes, still, Richard worried about him. Matt wasn’t quite his old self. The pain had changed him and now and then Richard could see it; the evidence was in his eyes.
Matt was reading a newspaper. It was several days out of date but Susan Ashwood had sent it to them from England with an article highlighted on page five.
CHURCH DISPUTES DISAPPEARING BOY
Was it a miracle, as some are suggesting, or is there a rational explanation for the disappearing boy of San Galgano, as he has come to be known in the ancient Tuscan city of Lucca?
The facts are these. San Galgano is an ancient abbey just outside Lucca, dating back to the twelfth century. It is occupied by a devout order of Cistercian monks who are unused to the glare of modern publicity. But earlier this week, in the cloisters, one of these monks encountered a young boy who spoke to him in English. The boy picked a flower and then walked through a door and disappeared.
The story may seem ordinary enough until you examine the facts. First of all, the abbey is not open to the public and it would be impossible to enter without being noticed. But more bizarre is the door which the boy used to enter the cloister. This door is not only kept locked. It was actually bricked up a hundred years ago by the abbot.
It seems now that the door has a curse attached to it. According to local legend, the appearance of the boy signals nothing less than the beginning of the Last Judgement! However, a church spokesman, speaking at the Vatican today, insisted that this was more likely to be a simple case of a tourist who had lost his way…
As the professor sat down, Matt folded the newspaper. He knew he was the boy that the monk had seen. He had gone through a door in London and it now seemed that he had come out of one in Lucca, somewhere in Italy. William Morton, the antique dealer who had briefly owned the diary, must have learned of the passageway. That much was clear to him. He had tested Matt by making him walk through the door at St Meredith’s. By returning with a flower plucked in another country, Matt would have proved that he was, indeed, one of the Five.
But how had the doorway worked? Had it been constructed by the same people who had built the gates – and if so, why? These were things that Matt still didn’t understand.
The steaks finished cooking, and Professor Chambers served them with salad that she had grown herself. It was only when they had eaten that Matt began to speak.
“We have to talk about what happened,” he began. His voice was soft and somehow didn’t sound like him. Richard glanced at him, trying to conceal a sense of sadness. Matt’s childhood had ended. He could see it. It was as simple as that.
“The Incas told me that the gate would open and that the Old Ones would come into the world,” he said. “It
