Ruins by Joshua Winning

volumes of The Sentinel Chronicles out across the floor. They were all from Aileen’s study. He hoped she wouldn’t mind that he’d borrowed them.
    “What are you doing?”
    Nicholas nearly jumped out of his skin.
    Isabel’s voice had rung right in his ear. He was poring over the volumes so diligently that he hadn’t noticed her uncurl on the edge of the bed and crane over his shoulder.
    “Jesus,” he said. “You’ve got to stop doing that.”
    Isabel stared intently at him. The lamp light brightened the silver flecks in her black fur and her whiskers bristled. It was over a week since she’d taken over the body of the cat he’d rescued in the countryside and she was behaving more like a wild animal every day. She began preening her fur.
    “You’re almost convincing as a cat when you do that,” Nicholas said without looking up from the book.
    Isabel stopped. She squinted at him and sniffed.
    “You could do with one yourself,” she told him. “It’s already starting to smell like my father’s hunting cupboard in here and we have only been here for one evening.”
    Nicholas shrugged.
    “What are you reading?”
    Nicholas raised the book over his shoulder so she could see. The Sentinel Chronicles – September 1997.
    “Riveting, I’m sure.”
    “It’s useless,” Nicholas said, not even trying to conceal his annoyance. He dumped the book on the floor. In the days that followed the defeat of Diltraa, he’d been attempting to go through every instalment of the Chronicles from 1997 to find out what had happened in the months surrounding his birth. But there was no mention of him. Nor Orville. Nor the things that had happened there. It was like the Sentinels had turned a blind eye to the events that had taken place in that spooky little village. Whether it was out of disinterest or guilt he wasn’t sure.
    “You’re trying to find out what happened in Orville,” Isabel noted.
    “So?”
    “It is only natural,” the cat said. She wrapped her tail around herself, as if to keep her toes warm. “You discovered that everybody in the village died because of you. That’s a heavy burden.”
    “Why did they die?” Nicholas demanded.
    “There’s a power in you,” Isabel told him. “It came into this world with you, and it blasted through that forsaken place like a storm of arrows.”
    “And they’re dead, but not dead,” Nicholas said. “They’re, what, frozen?”
    “They’re dead, as far as I could tell,” Isabel said. “But their souls are trapped. Pinned to that place like butterflies.”
    “Like you were in the Pentagon Room.”
    “Quite so. After my death, that room was sealed off, and me with it,” Isabel explained. “No doubt Jessica hoped one day she would resurrect me, and that meant preserving my body in the exact state of its demise.”
    “You came back,” Nicholas mused. “So that means the villagers have a chance, too.”
    “Possibly,” Isabel said. “If somebody discovered a way. Until then, there’s nothing we can do.”
    “There must be something.”
    Nicholas rested back against the bed with a sigh. He’d also been scouring the Chronicles for clues about the girl Esus wanted him to find, but that search had been equally futile.
    “This girl... Lydia,” he murmured. “How exactly are we supposed to track her down?” They had nothing to go on apart from a name that the girl apparently wasn’t using anymore.
    “Let’s see,” Isabel said. She hopped down from the bed and padded across the carpet, peering at a velvet box that rested among the books. It was the box that his parents had left him; the one that he couldn’t open. He’d found it in the study behind his parents’ bedroom wall, along with the box that contained the raven pendant. The pendant was in his pocket.
    “Ah,” the cat uttered, sounding pleased. “You have this already. This should help immensely.”
    “What are you talking about now?”
    “The box,” Isabel said. “Open it. We’ll