《Grandfather Paradox》


 Prologue

    He stood by the shore, watching the calm ocean as it gently lapped against the beach. The sun was especially vicious that day, and he was already drenched in sweat. His doctor had warned him about the dangers of dehydration, especially at this age, but that was the furthest thought in his mind right now.


    What have I done?


    He was horrified, not just because of the consequences of his actions, but because of the actions themselves. He knew no one would understand what he did or why he did it. He also knew his actions were indefensible to most of the general public.


    I have messed with forces I don''t - cannot - understand


    The island of Teracora lay far out in the Pacific Ocean, away from all forms of civilisation. The closest island was Tahiti, more than a day away by boat. The isolation and tranquility offered by the location were the prime reason for his choosing it as the base of his operation.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    And now that isolation has doomed me


    He knew what he had to do. There was really only one solution. He had spent the better half of that morning trying to think of another way but nothing had come to mind.


    I wonder if the geniuses of years past wondered of the consequences of their action. Did Einstein before the atom bomb? Did Nobel before the dynamite?


    But he knew. At the end of the day whatever he was saying was just to soothe himself. He sighed and stood up, looking back at the huge mansion which dominated the skyline of Teracota. There were no other human residents on the island, he was the only one crazy enough to come here. The mansion had been his pride, his joy and he had truly enjoyed living in it. The secrets spread throughout that only he knew made the mansion that much more intimate to him. Over the years he had begun to think of it almost as a friend, especially after the passing of dear old Margie, his wife.


    No, no no. Cannot think like that. Cannot, cannot, cannot....


    He shook his head and stood up again. No, now was not the time for reminiscence, now was the time for action. He would have a lot of time for reminiscence later.


    As he walked back towards the mansion, he wondered whether he was making the right choice, even though he knew that there wasn''t really another one.

 Chapter 1: The Island

    Leo hated the ocean.


    Or more accurately, he hated travelling on the ocean. The undulating waves, the associated nausea and the infuriating ease with which everyone else seemed to endure the journey- all of this irritated him tremendously.


    "Feeling sick?"


    Leo turned around to see his mother approaching him on the deck.


    "No, Mom. I am fine." He grumbled. His mother accompanying him was another source of irritation. As the only grandchild of famed physicist Herbert Cooper below the age of eighteen, his mother had flat out refused to allow him to come to this journey just under the supervision of his cousins.


    "I don''t trust those twins one iota." She had said with a tone of unmistakable disdain.


    The "twins" were Henry Cooper and Charles Cooper. Leo could see them on the top floor, looking out to the sea. They were both twenty years old, and the rumours he had heard about them were quite chilling. Their father, Thomas Cooper, had been the eldest son of Herbert, and was something of a business tycoon. The twins however ran a different kind of business. Leo had heard his mother and father discussing the same multiple times, and though they never discussed the details, he surmised that it had to do with drugs and human trafficking. Leo himself had rarely met the twins, but he had always been creeped out by them. Something about their stare, especially when looking at women, made his skin crawl.


    "Let me know if you feel nauseous, I have some medicines in my bag." His mother said, her voice still laced with concern.


    "Sure Mom, I will." Leo reassured her, and then watched as she went back below decks. His mother, Sophie Bennet (formerly Cooper), was the youngest daughter of Herbert. She ran a successful business of her own along with his father, selling used cars. Normally Leo was extremely proud of both of his parents, especially when considering the tales he had heard about Thomas, but at the moment the rolling of the waves had soured his mood.


    I should apologise to her later.


    Not for the first time, Leo cursed the telegram which had prompted this trip.


    He still remembered the day it had come. He was returning from school, when he had noticed a big brown envelope in front of his door. A neat postcard on top of the envelope had his name clearly written on it. Leo''s first instinct was that it was some communication from his school, otherwise why would someone send a letter particularly addressed to him?


    As he hastily opened it though, a sense of foreboding came upon him. The paper was too high quality, the lettering too glamorous for it to be a normal letter sent to him from school. He slowly unwrapped the paper to read the lines written on the page:


    Dearest Grandchild,


    I hide mine secrets in mine island.


    Find them if you can.


    Or if you dare


    For if you decide to follow this path


    You will mingle with forces incomprehensible


    And then the letter ended. There was no signage or any indication otherwise as to who had posted this letter. Of course the wording on it implied that it was his grandfather but that was impossible.


    Grandpa died ten years ago


    Leo was only six at that time so he didn''t remember much of the affair or his grandfather to be honest. But he remembered his mother crying, going to the funeral, and the somber mood that hung over the house for weeks afterward. He didn''t know at the time how he had died, but when he grew up he had looked it up on the internet.


    ENIGMATIC PHYSICIST FOUND MURDERED


    SECRETS OF TIME TRAVEL LOST FOREVER?


    POLICE NOT ABLE TO FIND THE RUTHLESS KILLER


    His grandfather had been stabbed multiple times in the throat and then thrown in the ocean. His body washed up on shore about a week later. The police wanted to go and investigate the enigmatic island of Teracora, where his grandfather had been cooped up for two years before his death, but they were not able to set a foot there. As per the strict instructions of his grandfather, only members of his family were allowed to set foot on Teracora, even in cases of disaster or, as in this case, murder. And therefore the case got cold, with the police not being able to investigate the very scene where the crime occurred.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Of course, even members of the family.......


    "There you are Leo!" A female voice cut short his reverie.


    Leo turned around to see Margaret coming towards him with a smile. Margaret was the youngest daughter of Benjamin Cooper, who himself was the middle child of Herbert Cooper. Of all his three children, it seemed Herbert was most fond of Benjamin because he was the only one who followed his footsteps and became a physicist at CERN. Leo himself rarely met Uncle Benjamin, but his wife Carrie and his three children stayed close to their house. As such he had grown up with all three of them, but he was particularly close to Margaret, who was the closest to his age.


    Still two years older, Leo thought ruefully. Even his mother would have been happier if there was someone like Carrie, close to her own age, on the journey. As it stood, she was much older than everyone else, though Leo hadn''t seen her complain once about it.


    Margaret had an older sister, Elizabeth, and an older brother, William. Both of them were probably asleep down in the decks. Leo knew William at least shared some of his misgivings about travelling in the ocean but at least he could sleep peacefully through the journey.


    "Vomiting over the deck again?" Margaret asked with a playful smile as she stood beside Leo.


    "Eh you know how it goes." Leo made a grimacing face and then turned to look outside again.


    "Leave that little kid alone and come join us up here!" Henry''s voice called out suddenly from the top deck. Leo and Margaret looked up to see the twins looking towards them and snickering.


    "I''d rather not mingle with perverts." Margaret called out, quick as a flash, with a wink at Leo, who had to suppress his laughter.


    "Suit yourself, bitch!" Henry retorted, as his twin Charles put a hand on his back, seemingly to calm him down.


    "I wish those twins weren''t also sent that invitation." Margaret said under her breath, and Leo nodded in agreement.


    "What do you think it means?" He asked, more thinking out loud than expecting a concrete response.


    Margaret shrugged, "As far as I can see it there are two possibilities."


    Leo waited, and taking his silence as agreement to continue, Margaret said, "Possibility number one: Grandfather himself arranged for these letters to be sent out to us a decade after his death. Why wait a decade? Maybe he was waiting for us to come of age, maybe there was no reason, maybe the letters were lost--- or wait, the last one couldn''t be true because it was addressed to us. All of us were mere children at the time of his death. We couldn''t possibly have made this journey then."


    "Why didn''t he send a letter to our parents then?" Leo interjected.


    Margaret shrugged. "To be honest I don''t know. I heard from my father that Grandfather had shut himself off in his island for two years before his death. He didn''t speak to anyone, he didn''t come to the mainland, he did nothing. Maybe he went mad, and these are the ravings of a mad person."


    "So you think he didn''t invent some time machine?"


    Margaret laughed. "Of course not!"


    Leo looked at her astounded, "But why did you come if you didn''t believe in the existence of a time machine?"


    Here Margaret''s face clouded over. "Because of the much more likely possibility number two: These letters were sent to us by his killer."


    "What?! Why the hell would he do that?"


    "I don''t know. To mock us? Because he was looking for something and he didn''t find it? And now he expects us to find it."


    "You think this is a trap by the person who killed Grandfather?"


    Margaret nodded gravely.


    "Then there was even little reason to come no? You are walking directly into what you think is a trap?" Leo was incredulous.


    "No no, if we know this is a trap, then it ceases actually being a trap no? We can spring a trap of our own on him. Think about it Leo! A decade old case! And we will be the ones solving it and catching the killer! Oh the thrill." Margaret''s eyes were shining with excitement, but Leo felt nothing but dread.


    If Margaret is right, then we are going to a deserted island inhabited by a killer!


    "Wait, you said the killer expects us to find something. Find what? You don''t believe there is a time machine on that island."


    Margaret stayed silent for a bit. She looked up, making sure the twins were still staring out at the sea and not paying attention to their conversation. Then lowering her voice, she almost whispered, "Maybe you don''t know this Leo, but Grandfather was born on that island! I have heard from dad that he had a treasury of gold and diamonds hidden on this island, with which he used to fund his expensive research. The last time Grandfather met dad, he told him that the gold stored in that island was more than the GDP of a few nations!"


    This was all news to Leo. He had never heard his father or mother mention any gold hoard in Teracora.


    "Are you sure about that?" He had lowered his voice to a whisper to match Margaret. "Is it even possible to hide such a large amount of gold on that island in such a place that your killer couldn''t find it even after a decade of searching?"


    Margaret shrugged. "It''s possible. You know how much of a genius Grandfather was. A madman yes, eccentric yes, but also undoubtedly a genius. The man had the world convinced that he had cracked the code to actual factual time travel for goodness sake!"


    "What''s your point?"


    "My point is that there may be biometric locks that the killer couldn''t open. Locks that will only open for us!"


    Leo shook his head. "But that doesn''t make sense. If it were so, then why did the killer wait for us to grow up? Surely it would have been easier to send the telegram to our parents before that?"


    "I don''t know." She frowned, and Leo thought that this point would have also troubled Margaret a lot.


    "There can also be a third or a fourth possibility that we are not thinking of right now." She added.


    "Yeah, a simple variation is your second or first one with the existence of a time machine thrown in."


    Margaret laughed. "Oh come on Leo. Surely you can''t believe such a thing. Time machines are instruments of fiction! Sure Grandfather published some papers on feasibility, and asked for funding for building an actual machine, but all of those were just smokes and mirro-"


    "Hey there''s the island!" Henry''s shout interrupted her and she looked irritatedly up at the twins.


    "Always lacking such grace." She muttered, and this time Leo was the one who laughed.


    His laughter was short-lived though as he turned to behold the island of Teracora. From the distance they were at, it was still only a small blip on the horizon, but Leo still felt a chill run down his spine.


    An island uninhabited for a decade.


    An island where a grisly murder occurred.


    An island which hides numerous secrets......and a killer if Margaret''s theory was true.


    As the island got closer, Leo felt another wave of nausea come over him, this one caused more by the tightening knot of apprehension in his gut than the gentle waves of the ocean.

 Chapter 2: Rude Surprise

    "Leo, we are here." His mother was the one knocking on his door.


    Leo sat up groggily on his bed. He hadn''t slept, of course he could never sleep in the middle of the fucking ocean, but he still felt the drowsiness usually associated with waking up. It had been almost an hour since the island had been first visible, and Leo had come down to rest in his room.


    "Leo?" His mother called out again.


    "Yeah, I''m coming. I''m coming." Hastily getting up from the bed, Leo went and opened the door. His mother had a somewhat worried look on her face, but she brightened up when she saw he was fine.


    I wonder if she knows about the gold....


    Certainly if she did, she hadn''t ever mentioned it to him. Leo was beginning to think that Uncle Benjamin was the only one whom Grandfather had told about that.


    "Come on, we are about to disembark." His mother was saying as she walked forward. Leo followed her up, and soon they came on the upper deck. The boat had been docked on a makeshift port on the island, and everyone else was already there.


    William and Elizabeth were at the far end, near the exit, with Margaret. They were talking in hushed tones with each other, but Margaret nodded towards him with a smile when she saw him. Leo wondered whether her elder siblings were also aware of the gold. William was the eldest among the grandchildren of Herbert Cooper, being twenty four this year. Elizabeth was the second oldest at twenty two. Both of them had a royal aura and beauty about them. In fact her mother used to joke that Carrie must have excellent genes to be able to suppress his own genes so much. Even so William clearly resembled his father, both in gait, manner of talking and his face. As he was growing older, the resemblance was becoming almost uncanny. Elizabeth on the other hand was more graceful, with delicate features that hinted at both intelligence and charm. She carried herself with an elegance that often made people assume she was more reserved than she truly was.


    Due to the proximity of their homes, Leo had grown up with all three of them and he saw William and Elizabeth as more his own brother and sister than cousins. William was a truly dependable person, especially in times of stress and Elizabeth possessed the same sharp wit that Margaret also had, just more developed.


    Opposite to them stood the twins. Leo''s mood soured immediately as he saw Henry leering first towards Elizabeth opposite him and then towards his mother as he saw her arrive.


    "Looking good Auntie." He said with a wink.


    "You two have grown up well." His mother said reservedly. It was quite clear that she didn''t mean a single word she said.


    Henry frowned and was about to say something, when Charles put a hand on his shoulder again to calm him down. Of course he didn''t want an altercation with his aunt on the first day of the trip.


    "We should start to disembark now that everyone is here." William said, stepping forward. He nodded towards Leo.


    "And who died and made you leader eh Will?"


    "Calm down Henry." This time Charles voice was quite forceful and Henry immediately stopped and turned away with a sulking look on his face.


    "Of course I don''t claim to be the leader." William said, as calm and composed as ever. He turned to Sophie and said, "Aunt Sophie, as the eldest here, we will follow your lead."


    Leo saw that his mother had been taken aback at this, but she didn''t let it show on her face for more than an instant and instead nodded. "Very well then children. We should make our way to the manor. I heard there are enough rooms for all of us there."


    Saying so his mother moved forward, with Leo behind him. Margaret came behind Leo, followed by Elizabeth and William. The twins came at the very end. Charles was as gracious as ever outwardly, while Henry still had a sulking demeanour. However, even from this short altercation, Leo felt that Charles was much much more dangerous of the two.


    The captain of the boat in which they had come nodded towards Sophie as they began exiting the boat.


    "You''ll be back next week then?" Leo could see the anxiousness in his mother as she asked this question.


    "Yes ma''am."


    "What if we have some emergency before that?"


    "You can light a flare, but I am afraid that in most cases the flare signal won''t be visible from the mainland due to how far this island is."


    "Any boats or planes nearby?"


    "None. Boats avoid this area and no aircraft goes over it. Especially after Dr. Cooper''s death here."


    Sophie nodded. Leo could see that the answers the captain gave only exacerbated his mother''s anxiousness, but now that they were here it was too late to go back.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    "Very well, we will see you in seven days then." She said with a smile and then all of them began to disembark.


    After everyone had gotten off the boat, the captain bowed towards them and then with a brief blast of the horn, the boat swiftly departed, heading back toward the mainland. Leo had the feeling that the captain wanted to leave this place as soon as he could. Even back in the mainland he had heard the legends regarding how cursed this island was, and that ghosts roamed through it. Of course all of that had seemed little more than superstition to Leo at the time, the kind of eerie tales told to children to make them wary of dark places. But standing on the edge of the rocky shore, with the boat receding into the distance, a strange chill crept down his spine. The air felt heavier here, and the island itself loomed over them with an unsettling presence.


    The mansion of his Grandfather was huge. As the only man-made structure on the island, it towered over the nearby trees. Leo had heard that the mansion could be seen from any point on the island, no matter how low, thereby making it useful as a guide in case you were ever lost in the dense jungle around it. There was no possibility of being lost at that moment though, for a path snaked along from the shore through the forest, towards the large house.


    Leo followed his mother as she took the first step on the path. There were weeds growing all over the road, but the road itself was still clearly visible. His mother deftly stepped over a couple of small tree trunks that had fallen on the path, calling out every time to warn the people behind her. Even though the path was wide enough, by unspoken agreement the group continued to move in single file, which made Leo quite worried.


    If a killer jumps up, it''s Mom and me who are first in line


    But then he reasoned that a killer was as likely to jump out from behind or the sides than at front. It didn''t do much to assuage his concerns, but it was something at least.


    After about thirty minutes of walking, they finally came upon the huge iron gates of the mansion. His mother slowly stepped forward and gingerly touched the iron bars on the gate. William came up beside her and began inspecting the gate as well.


    "Completely rusted." William said, wonderingly.


    There was no sign of life anywhere, and no sign that the gate itself had been touched for a decade.


    "So then there was no one on the island after all." Leo whispered to Margaret, who however shook her head.


    "They may not be living here. Maybe they have a small hut in the jungle."


    Leo chuckled to himself at how obstinate Margaret was with her theory. Meanwhile William pushed the main gate, which opened with a deafening screech. It seemed like a noise as loud as the blast of a bomb in that otherwise serene and silent environment. That''s when Leo noticed that something else was also missing.


    "Why are there no birds?" He wondered out loud, causing everyone to look at him.


    Somewhat embarrassed at the sudden attention, Leo flushed and stammered out, "I mean we haven''t heard any bird noises or animal noises for the last thirty minutes have we?"


    "Is that what is concerning your stupid little brain?" Henry smirked.


    "He is right." William said gravely, making Henry''s smirk falter.


    "In a forest as dense as this, there should definitely be a lot of animals or at least birds." Elizabeth spoke for the first time, thoughtfully tilting her head as she surveyed the sky. There were indeed no birds, not even pigeons, in the sky.


    This unnerved everyone, even the snickering Henry, as a sense of foreboding descended on the group. There was an uncomfortable silence for so long that Leo thought the silence would swallow them all one by one.


    "Anyway let''s move inside." Sophie was the one who broke the silence and confidently strode in. At times like this, Leo greatly admired his mother''s courage and her ability to defuse tense situations. Grinning, he followed behind, with Margaret in tow.


    William shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and said with a small laugh, "We can''t let the youngsters show more courage than us can we Beth." Elizabeth nodded with a smile and followed behind with William.


    The twins, however, did not follow for a long time. Leo looked back once to see Charles whisper something in Henry''s ear. Although he couldn''t hear exactly what they were talking about, the smile on Henry''s face chilled him to the bone.


    Leo, Sophie and William were the first to reach the door. Margaret had fallen behind talking with Elizabeth, but they were just behind them when they reached the door. The twins were further back still, having just started to make their way through the door.


    The door to the mansion was also massive, stretching almost to the height of two humans standing on top of one another. Unlike the main gate, this door was made completely of wood, and surprisingly hadn''t decayed into nothing. Leo would have thought that any wood after this amount of time would be eaten up and destroyed by termites if nothing else. This door however shone brightly as if it had just been commissioned yesterday.


    All three of them needed to push the door for it to slowly creak open. Once there was a small crack, the rest of the door opened naturally fully.


    The first thing Leo noticed was the stench. The absolute horrible stench that assaulted his senses. It seemed that it was not just his nose but all his senses that were drowned in the unbearable stench of rotten meat.


    Then he noticed the bodies.


    His mother was even faster at identifying what it was that she was seeing, and fast as lightning, going back and closing the door before either him or William processed the scene inside completely.


    "What..." It was the first time Leo had seen William truly frightened.


    "What happened Auntie?" Elizabeth asked, at first curious but then becoming serious as she saw the look in the faces of all three of them.


    His mother didn''t answer immediately. Her chest was heaving as she tried to calm herself by taking long breaths.


    "Dead bodies...." Leo croaked out somehow.


    "What?" Elizabeth asked.


    "There....are five corpses inside." William said, as he almost collapsed on the stairway.


    The twins had caught up by now, and with this revelation all of them had been stunned into silence again.


    "Explain clearly. What do you mean?" Elizabeth''s voice trembled slightly as she asked.


    "Very well, I will allow you to see. Not you Margaret." His mother stopped Margaret from approaching, much to the chagrin of the others. Then she stayed behind with her and motioned for the rest to continue. However as soon as Leo stepped forward, he felt his mother''s hand on his shoulder.


    "Nor you son. Seeing that one time is enough for a lifetime." She said softly, and this time Leo did not protest.


    But the scene inside had already been burned into his memory, and Leo knew he would never really forget what he saw.


    Inside the door was a large hall. The ceiling stretched out to the very top of the mansion, and there were two huge portraits on either side of the twisting stairways leading to the upstair rooms. However it was neither the portraits nor the ceiling that Leo would remember.


    It would be the five chairs neatly arranged in the middle of the room.


    Each of them having five rotting corpses.

 Chapter 3: The Five Corpses

    It had been another twenty minutes since the corpses were discovered in the hall. They were rotted beyond identification, so much so that not even their genders could be distinguished. Leo watched as Elizabeth, William and the twins came out from the hall after looking around slightly more. Each one of them seemed to be rocked to their core by what they witnessed and even the twins seemed nauseous now.


    After they had come out, his mother had gone inside, and taken the responsibility upon herself to bury the corpses, despite protests from William and Elizabeth who wanted to help.


    "You are still children in my eyes. It is an adult''s responsibility to handle such things." She had said resolutely, and refused to budge on her position.


    Thus it was that the six of them -William, Elizabeth, Margaret, the twins and Leo himself - were sitting on the overgrown lawn outside the main house while his mother cleaned up the corpses inside. It took about half an hour for his mother to dig five shallow graves and dump the almost skeletal corpses into them. When she came back, her white dress was stained with mud from the effort.


    "Now the house is useable." She declared. None of them addressed the massive elephant in the room yet. They were all too tired and too shocked to discuss such things.


    "There are a lot of rooms in the top two floors. You go up and decide which ones you want, and then let''s meet back at the dining hall around evening to discuss further." Even though she didn''t want to at the beginning, his mother was adapting into the leader role quite well.


    "What about you?" Leo asked quietly.


    His mother took out a flare from her bag. "I think I will set off this flare. These corpses are a new discovery which certainly qualifies as an emergency. And besides maybe the boat hasn''t gone too far." Her voice lacked any conviction, and Leo wondered whether she believed them herself.


    The rooms on the first and second floors of the mansion were truly spacious and huge. The bed itself was so massive that three people could fit in it with ease. There was a small fireplace, and an overall rustic look to each of them. There were also a lot more rooms there than people, so there wasn''t much debate about dividing the rooms up.


    Leo, Margaret and Elizabeth took three rooms on the first floor.


    William and the twins took three rooms on the second floor.


    There were a lot of spare rooms in both the floors for his mother to choose, although Leo was certain she wouldn''t choose the second floor due to her well-deserved disdain for the twins.


    There was an attached bathroom to each of the rooms, with a huge bathtub in there. Of course there was no hot water, but Leo was surprised to find that the normal shower was working fine. There was no electricity in the mansion of course, but having the water systems working perfectly after a decade still seemed too much for him. But he was too tired to think about it much more at that time. He went into the shower, took a quick bath and then immediately flopped down on the bed, going into a deep slumber.


    When Leo awoke, it was already dark. For a moment he waved his hands madly about as he tried to orient himself in the complete darkness his room had become. Slowly as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could make out a small candle on the desk beside the fireplace. Slowly he tiptoed towards the candle. Beside it was a box of matches. He struck a match, careful to stay away from all the wood in the room, and then lit up the candle. The soft glow of the candle lit up the rest of the room, revealing the massiveness he had noticed in the morning. There was no clock in the room, so he couldn''t be sure of the time but from the darkness, he guessed it was past six atleast.


    He stepped out of the room and looked around. There wasn''t anyone in the corridor, but the door to the room opposite him was open, and he saw Margaret sitting on her desk, scribbling furiously on a sheet of paper.


    "What are you writing there, Margaret?" He said, causing her to jump. When she realised it was him, she smiled.


    "Don''t scare me like that Leo, I was half-afraid you were the killer."


    "You still believe in the killer theory?"


    "Of course." Margaret nodded vigorously.


    Leo carefully balanced his candle, as he sat down on the edge of her bed.


    "What do you think about those five corpses then?"


    "Those five corpses prove the existence of the killer!"


    "How exactly?"


    Margaret set her pencil down, and turned to face Leo. He saw that she seemed to be drawing a map of the mansion they were in.


    "How else? Those five corpses are his other victims! After Grandfather died, he must have killed them."


    "No, no that makes no sense. No one comes to this island. No one came here as long as Grandfather lived, and after his death it was blocked for entry except for us. Even the police were not able to enter Teracora, how would your killer find five people to kill?"This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Margaret bit on the top of her pencil.


    "They must have some kind of way! Maybe they were killed off the island and then brought to the island?"


    "Why would they do that?"


    "To prevent detection of course!" Margaret''s face lit up as if she had found a new idea to pursue. "That''s it! The killer wanted to kill these five people but he didn''t want anyone to find out his crime. Therefore he killed them and then dumped their bodies in this island where nobody comes!"


    Leo shook his head. "That''s not possible. For one, there is no boat which comes here. And there is a border coast patrol all around this island. It is impossible for someone to come here without the police knowing about it."


    "But that patrol was set up after Grandfather was murdered! What if the killer killed these people and brought them here before?"


    "If these bodies are a decade old then there would be nothing except bones, not even the flesh we saw. No, these bodies were killed after Grandfather, if they were killed at all."


    "Come now." Margaret scoffed. "What other explanation is there? If they died by natural causes then why would they be arranged like that? It almost seems like a..."


    "A message doesn''t it? Then that begs the question if your killer was really the one who killed these people and sent the telegram to us, then what is the message he is trying to convey?"


    "Get out?"


    "No, no. If he invited us why would he write a message for us to get out? Moreover the first instinct of ours after seeing those corpses would be to flee. If the killer really wanted us to find Grandfather''s gold as you assume-"


    "Of course I am not so much of a romantic that I would believe in time travel."


    "Then why scare us away?"


    Leo and Margaret sat in silence. The stench, the rotting faces kept circling in his mind.


    "By the way have you seen my mother? She sent out a flare today right?"


    "Yeah Auntie is in the kitchen below. I think we should go there as well." Margaret stood up, and then the two of them began walking down towards the dining hall.


    The kitchen was attached with the dining hall. It was a smaller section on the ground floor, leading out behind one of the huge paintings. Going through the hall again, Leo tried to forget the ghastly scene he had seen a few hours back.


    In the kitchen, he found his mother along with Elizabeth, brewing some tea. Both of their moods appeared much improved and they were chatting happily with one another. They looked up as they heard Margaret and Leo enter.


    "No electricity eh?" Elizabeth said with a smile.


    "If they had electricity after a decade, I would probably start believing the stories about ghosts from the mainlanders." Sophie said, laughing.


    "What is the time now?" Leo asked, to which his mother shrugged.


    "No way to know the time here Leo, our watches don''t seem to be working."


    Leo frowned. That wasn''t usual. Even if you didn''t get internet or network, a watch usually worked everywhere in the world.


    "It''s about six-thirty." Elizabeth chimed in.


    "And how do you know that big sis? Guessing from the position of the sun once more?" Margaret asked with an exaggerated sign in between.


    Elizabeth winked. "It''s a trade secret. Maybe if you come join our club, I will teach you."


    "Ugggghhh."


    Leo laughed, and it almost seemed as if the events of today morning didn''t happen. He felt the same cozy sensation he felt back home when he was a child playing with Margaret, Elizabeth and William under the watchful eyes of their parents. Playing without a care in the world.


    And maybe that carefree life would have continued if not for that telegram......


    "I smell some tea cooking." Henry''s voice came through from the corridor, and Leo sighed inwardly. The feeling was mutual, as the energy in the room subtly deflated, the earlier warmth quickly dissipating. Almost imperceptibly Elizabeth tugged Margaret towards her, and there was a hard look which formed in his mother''s eyes.


    Henry sauntered into the kitchen, this time without his twin. He cast a glance around the room, his eyes lingering a little too long on Elizabeth before shifting to Sophie. With an air of self-importance, he strolled to the dining table and dropped into one of the chairs, leaning back as though he owned the place.


    "Well what are we going to do now?" He asked.


    "What do you mean?" Sophie''s tone was polite, but Leo could feel his mother''s hand clench into a fist.


    "Well of course Auntie, I mean how are we going to find Grandpa''s time machine. That is why we are all here no?" He asked, smiling sinisterly.


    "We have no plan yet. Tomorrow morning we should-"


    "Oh shut up Beth. No one wants to hear you yap." Henry dismissively interrupted Elizabeth.


    "You should mind your manners young man." Sophie''s tone was still calm, but now there was a hint of anger subdued in there.


    "Ah Auntie you''ll have to forgive me. " He smiled towards her, but Leo could see the smile didn''t reach his eyes. Instead his eyes were roaming over his mother''s body as if appraising her, sizing her up. Leo stood up, his blood boiling, but his mother put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. The meaning was clear.


    He is just provoking you


    It''s not worth it.


    "What is it young Leo? Got up to protect your mother''s honour? What, you wanna go right now young man?" Henry stood up as well. He was twice the size of Leo, but at the moment the anger boiling inside him overpowered any self-preservation he might have felt.


    "Stop that Henry." A booming voice came from the doorway. Leo looked over there to see Charles standing in the doorway. He casually stepped into the room and slapped Henry right in the face, shocking everyone in the room to silence.


    "I am sorry big brother." Henry whimpered out, his eyes downcast. His earlier arrogant manner had completely vanished, leaving behind a cowering shell. The transformation was so extreme that even Leo who was up on his feet in anger, felt some form of sympathy towards him.


    Charles turned towards the rest of them. He was Henry''s twin, but they were not identical twins. Charles'' eyes curved upwards, and overall his face was more slant as compared to Henry''s more round face.


    "I apologise for the behaviour of my younger brother. He is still too immature." He said bowing deeply. "Especially to you cousin, and to you Auntie." He said bowing to Elizabeth and Sophie respectively.


    There was nothing in his behaviour to suggest that his apology, that his remarks were not genuine. However Leo felt a tugging sensation that they were not, that Charles was even more vicious than Henry. Evidently both his mother and Elizabeth felt the same for they just curtly nodded without any further acknowledgement.


    "I think it is time for dinner. We can discuss tomorrow''s approach as well as our discovery today morning over dinner. Margaret darling would please call your elder brother for dinner?" His mother took charge of the situation once more.


    "No need, I am here already." An exhausted voice came from the door. William walked in, still dressed in his clothes from the morning. It seemed he hadn''t slept or even bathed yet.


    "Are you alright Will?" Elizabeth asked.


    "Oh yeah yeah I am." William answered dismissively.


    Leo could see that even Margaret and his mother were quite concerned about William''s apparent exhaustion but no one commented further on it.


    Soon dinner was served.

 Chapter 4: Does a Time Machine Exist?

    Dinner was a bleak affair. None of them had much of an appetite after today morning, and the recent altercation had left a bad taste in Leo''s mouth. He silently finished his food as fast as he possibly could, and he could see that the same was true for the others. Henry was much deflated and didn''t look at anyone after Charles had entered. As for the latter, he showed no expression and calmly finished his food. William ate very little, it was clear there was something weighing on his mind. His mother didn''t eat anything at all, sitting cross-legged on her chair pondering something. Elizabeth and Margaret only had fruits, it was clear that they were quite worried about William''s despondent state.


    "I see we are all finished." His mother broke the silence, looking at each of them in turn.


    "Perhaps now would be the correct time to determine our path of action forward."


    "But first," Charles'' interruption caused Sophie to raise her eyebrow questioningly. "I apologise Aunt Sophie but I believe all of us here, except you, were mere children when Grandfather passed away. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we know very little about the man. If you would share what you know about her, that would be great."


    At this Charles looked around the table as if expecting some form of agreement from anyone. When none came, he simply sat down with a smile.


    Leo watched his mother regarding Charles with some amount of suspicion. It was clear that she thought this was all an act, a ploy by Charles to make sure the twins were not ostracised after the scene his brother had almost caused some time back.


    "Yes you are right, I suppose." She said at length, nodding.


    Then she positioned herself at the end of the table, looked at each of them in turn and began:


    "Father was in many ways an enigmatic and mysterious man. You say you don''t know him and I do, but I question whether there truly was anyone who knew him. Even when all of us were children, we quickly found out that there was only one thing my father truly loved - physics.


    Of course, all of you may have heard that he was a famed physicist in his own right, even before the controversy surrounding his murder. Father was regularly invited to worldwide conferences, and he was in the running for a Nobel prize for multiple years, narrowly missing out each time. But his crowning achievement, the reason why Dr. Herbert Cooper almost became a household name, were his advances in quantum technology.


    I am not a physicist myself, you''ll have to ask dear Benjamin for more details on the same. But the long and short of it was that my father believed he had found a way to teleport individual quantum particles that make up our body through space and time. Or in layman''s terms, a time machine."


    Here she paused to take a breath, and Leo saw that everyone was enraptured in his mother''s tale. True, he had heard rumours here and there, but till now he had never heard the complete details about Grandfather''s life. In fact he didn''t even remember if Grandfather had ever come to visit them when he was alive.


    "Of course, very few people believed in his claim." Sophie continued, interrupting Leo''s thoughts as he turned his full attention again to his mother''s tale.


    "A time machine is still an object present only in science fiction novels. Father was laughed out of most conferences or gatherings of scientists after he made the claim. That intensified his desire to prove his detractors wrong. It was about then that he created this mansion in this island, and for two years shut off all contact with the outside world, presumably to build the prototype of the time machine here."


    "Did he succeed?" Elizabeth''s voice was almost a whisper.


    Sophie shrugged. "I don''t know. He was murdered before he made anything public, so the common assumption was that he was killed before he succeeded. Of course there are a myriad of conspiracy theories. Some suggest that he was killed because he succeeded, but if you ask me none of them are likely to be true."


    "What do you believe Aunt Sophie?" Charles asked.


    Sophie paused. Leo saw that his mother was grappling with how best to answer this question.


    "I believe he did discover it." She said after a lengthy pause.


    "You believe there is a time machine on this island?" Charles was now almost incredulous.


    "Yes, I do. And I believe the telegram is Father''s way of pointing us towards it."


    "You believe the telegram was sent by Grandfather, Aunt Sophie?" Margaret chirped up. Leo knew her suspicions regarding the origins of the telegram so he knew she would interrupt at this point.


    Sophie simply nodded and smiled towards Margaret.


    Margaret was not convinced by just that though.


    "Isn''t it more likely that whoever killed Grandfather sent that telegram?" She asked pointedly.


    "I think that is quite unlikely myself." William was the one who responded. He had been quietly listening thus far with his head down, and now he raised it to look at his sister.


    "Think about it. What reason does whoever killed Grandfather have to send a telegram to us to invite us here to this island?"


    "Of course to help them find the time machine, or whatever it is that they think Grandfather has hidden in this island."


    "Ah but if that was their aim why didn''t they ask Grandfather for that directly before killing him? Or rather why didn''t they just hide in the forests and tail Grandfather for a few days to find the location of the time machine?"This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Margaret fell silent and frowned. She didn''t have any appropriate answer for this.


    "And besides, I know Father''s writing when I see it. He had a peculiar way with words and I am fully sure that the telegram was written by him." Sophie joined in, reinforcing William''s point.


    "If we assume that, then who were the five corpses we saw today morning?" Charles'' insidious voice floated into the conversation.


    This time it was his mother who frowned. Leo saw that she also was quite stumped on that point.


    "Maybe it was the servants of Grandfather''s time?" Leo proposed, but his mother immediately shook her head.


    "No, Father didn''t have any servants here. In fact he lived completely alone on this island for the entirety of two years, and there was a cordon around it for a decade to prevent anyone not from the family entering this island."


    "Then...." Leo paused. Everyone looked at him expectantly.


    "Well?" Henry asked irritably.


    "Then isn''t the bigger mystery not who killed these five people, but rather who are these five people in the first place? I mean if there was no one in this island for a decade, then from where did these five people come from?"


    Everyone fell silently into their thoughts, none of which were too cheerful. How did five people come to the island when it was cordoned off from the public? Who were they?


    "Actually there may be a simple explanation to their identity, or at least their identity as relevant to us." William broke the silence.


    "That being?"


    "These five people are the ones who killed Grandfather."


    There was a moment of silence as everyone fell into stunned disbelief. Charles was the first one to break the silence.


    "And who killed these five then?"


    "They may have died of starvation. There are no animals or birds we saw in this island. I wouldn''t be surprised if there was nothing to eat or drink either."


    "They died of starvation sitting in chairs?"


    William shrugged. "It''s just a theory, I don''t have all the answers yet. It is just a possibility that could have happened."


    "Why would it take five people to kill Grandfather?" Margaret asked, her brows furrowed as she tried to fit in this possibility with her theories.


    "Well maybe the killer was only one of them, but the remaining four were like accomplices? Like they also wanted to kill him and so did nothing while the killer among them finished the job."


    "Or the killer was someone beside those five, who is still alive?" Margaret wasn''t allowing her theory to die down so quickly


    This time it was Sophie who disagreed. "No, Margaret, that is extremely unlikely. The killer cannot survive on this island for ten years. Psychologically it is impossible for any human to stay alone that long without going insane, but even if I assume that somehow they lived here, the same question arises again. What did they eat?"


    "And how did they send a telegram from this remote island." Leo finished his mother''s thought.


    Again a depressing silence fell over the group. There were no easy answers to any of the questions in their minds.


    Once more it was William who spoke. "There is another question we have not considered."


    Leo groaned. Not more unexplainable mysteries.


    "Grandfather''s laboratory." He said, "We have to find that as soon as possible if we are serious about trying to find the time machine."


    "You think he''d keep his time machine just there in the laboratory?" Henry scoffed.


    William didn''t take the bait. "Of course not, but it will give us an idea of what to look for. For instance do you know what the time machine looks like? How do you know we have not already seen the machine?"


    "Of course I know what a time machine looks like. It will have some kind of chair or...." Henry trailed off as William smiled for the first time that evening.


    "Science Fiction is quite different from reality cousin. If our grandfather really solved the enigma of time travel, then you can be sure that the machine he made will not be anything like we have imagined. My father is a physicist himself, and while he doesn''t believe in the time machine, he has sometimes explained to me the extreme effort and genius required to even broach the subject."


    "If your father doesn''t believe in the machine, why are you three here?" Charles chimed in, his face twisting in a smile.


    "Well, uh, my father doesn''t believe in it, but it doesn''t mean we don''t." William stammered out, but that single moment of indecision was enough for Charles. Outwardly he seemed to accept the explanation, but Leo suspected that he had got the scent that William and his sisters were here to find something else.


    The elusive gold


    Leo realised he had forgotten to ask whether his mother knew about it too. He glanced towards her to see her calmly sipping from a cup of tea, her face an expressionless mask for now. If she had caught William''s slip as well, she certainly didn''t let it show on her face.


    "Uh anyway, the main question before us is Grandfather''s laboratory. I took a cursory glance through this whole mansion, and while it is truly huge, there is no laboratory or study anywhere." William was eager to change the topic.


    "Maybe a hidden door somewhere?" Elizabeth offered.


    "Or maybe it is somewhere out in the jungle." Charles said, his smile still on his face.


    William was obviously discomposed with Charles'' behaviour, so he didn''t respond further besides a curt nod.


    "Then, let''s divide into groups and search for it tomorrow morning." Sophie took hold of the conversation once more. She stood up from her chair, and everyone followed her cue.


    "Tonight we should rest." She smiled at all of them, even the twins, and then everyone left the room, going up towards their bedroom.


    Leo wasn''t able to sleep. The corpses from the morning, along with the discussion after dinner dominated his thoughts. But foremost among them, there was one question which kept circling back in his mind.


    Who were the five corpses?


    He wasn''t satisfied with William''s deduction that they were the killers of his Grandfather. No, that deduction required too many assumptions and required too many actors to behave in an unnatural way. Like, if they were able to come to the island when they were restricted, surely they would have been able to leave as well? And why would they ever throw the body out into the water? If they kept it here, it would rot without people bothering to check for a long long time, especially with the eccentric reputation of Grandfather that he had heard about today.


    Just like they themselves rotted.


    SMACK!


    The forceful sound of a slap reverberated across the silent corridor. The solitude seemed to magnify the sound itself. Leo almost rushed out of the bed and opened the door, to see his mother standing there and Henry looking at her in shock, a hand to his face.


    "Yo-you''ll regret that Auntie!" He said, running away clutching his reddening face.


    "I''ll only regret not hitting you harder." Sophie murmured, and then noticed Leo standing outside.


    "What happened Mom?" Leo felt his anger bubbling up, but he forced himself to stay calm. The hard look in Sophie''s eyes softened for a moment as she glanced at her son.


    "Nothing darling. Nothing you need to concern yourself with." She smiled, and ruffled his hair.


    "Go to sleep Leo. Tomorrow is going to be a harsh day."


    Leo was still not convinced. His mother''s tone was calm, but he could feel her anger simmering as well.


    "Leo." His mother grasped his arm and shoot it. "It''s nothing darling. We have much bigger things to worry about than Henry." She smiled reassuringly at him again.


    Leo nodded. "Good night Mom."


    "Good night Leo."


    She then turned and went into her own room, which was just beside Leo''s. Leo looked around the corridor, but there was no one else there. It seemed only he had heard the sound of the slap. He sighed and went inside.


    Those fucking twins.

 Chapter 5: Four Crosses

    The forest around the mansion was deceptively dense. When Leo first saw the surrounding jungle, he had assumed it was just a sparse collection of trees. But as he made his way through the foliage now, he realised just how densely packed and huge the trees were. His mother was walking at the very back, and she was making sure that the mansion was always behind them.


    "It''s way too easy to get lost in here without that huge mansion looming behind us." She had said grimly when they had started their journey.


    There was considerable contention in the morning about how to separate the groups. Leo had been quite tense at seeing Henry, but the brash twin seemed to have forgotten last night''s humiliation all together. He didn''t glance once at either Leo or his mother, though Charles grinned and nodded at them both.


    On the other hand, William seemed even more distraught and exhausted, if it were possible, than last evening. It seemed he could barely keep his eyes open, and he kept muttering something under his breath. Elizabeth and Margaret both looked quite worried about him, even though they themselves looked quite healthy.


    "William, do you want to rest at the mansion? You look quite unwell child." Sophie had said gently.


    "Yes please. I don''t feel quite well." William had gratefully accepted and trudged right back up to his bedroom.


    "I guess we can divide the groups up now." Charles had said once William had gone upstairs.


    "And how do you propose to do that?" Sophie asked slowly.


    "Well, I am most comfortable with Henry here, so me and him will explore the east side of the island - that is left from the mansion. You four can explore the west and south side - that is to the right of the mansion."


    This seems too good to be true


    Charles was volunteering to go on a different party than the rest of them? Not even accusing them of being biased against the twins?


    No, no there has to be something more to it.


    Evidently his mother thought the same for she asked warily, "Are you sure you two will be all right just by yourself?"


    Charles smiled, baring all of his teeth. Leo thought he looked more like a vicious hyena than a human when he smiled like that.


    "Of couuurse Auntie. Don''t you worry about us. Henry and me can take care of ourselves just fine." Saying so, Charles almost dragged Henry out of the door and they walked off towards the east, quickly vanishing in the trees.


    "They give me the creeps." Elizabeth said once their silhouettes had vanished in the forest.


    Sophie said nothing, but from the expression on her face Leo knew that his mother fully agreed with that. It seemed none of the others knew about the altercation last night between Henry and his mother, which would give them even more reason to be distrustful of those snakes.


    "Anyway. Let''s start moving. We have to get back here before dark." Sophie took command once more, leading out through the door. Once more they decided to proceed in single file through the narrow path in the jungle, with Sophie in the front, Elizabeth behind her and then Margaret and Leo bringing up the rear. The path through this jungle was much less well defined than the one which had led them into the mansion, so Sophie had to be careful at the front.


    "Do we know what we are even looking for at this point, Aunt Sophie?" Elizabeth asked after about twenty minutes of slowly walking through the jungle.


    "A laboratory or some sort of study or some place where Father ran his experiments. He would have needed quite a large open space."


    "Isn''t the mansion a better place to search for that?" Leo asked.


    "It may be. We will search the mansion tomorrow. But for today we need to eliminate the jungle as an option. I don''t want to go out into these woods more than absolutely necessary." Leo knew from her tone that his mother was dead serious about this, and he agreed with her wholeheartedly. The jungle felt weirdly silent, there was no animal sounds that would usually accompany such a dense forest and it made the entire area feel much more ominous. In fact Leo hadn''t even seen any insects which would be essential for such a forest - no bees, caterpillars, ants or even mosquitoes. It was as if this dense jungle had the flora and fauna of the Sahara.


    Suddenly Sophie stopped in front of them. She was looking at something in front of her with wide eyes.


    "What is it Mom?" Leo called out, his voice automatically hushed because of his mother''s expression.


    His call seemed to snap his mother out of her thoughts and she beckoned them to come forward. As they crept forward slowly, they saw what Sophie was seeing.


    Right there in the middle of the jungle, there was a somewhat open area. It was not large, maybe the size of a modest garden plot, but the more interesting structure was the small hut right in the middle of it. It was very old obviously, with vines and weeds completely surrounding it, but it was a hut nonetheless.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    "Is this..?" Margaret began but was cut off by her elder sister.


    "No surely it can''t be this small." Elizabeth leapt ahead of Sophie and began inspecting the hut from the sides.


    "It seems even older than the mansion we are in." She said softly, in a tone of wonder.


    "How can there be a hut this deep in the forest?" Sophie wondered also stepping towards it after Elizabeth.


    Margaret and Leo were next, cautiously stepping towards the hut. Elizabeth was already inside it, but Sophie was more interested in the outer structure of the hut. The hut was made completely of wood, and the roof and sides had already completely rotted away, leaving large holes everywhere. Leo stepped towards the hole in the side, and could see Elizabeth rummaging inside.


    "Found anything?" He called out.


    "No, nothing at all. Isn''t it weird?"


    "What''s weird about it? It''s an abandoned hut."


    Elizabeth looked up through the hole. "But it wasn''t always abandoned right? At some point there were people living here, otherwise why build the hut at all? But there''s no sign of that. No rotted bed, no rotten anything actually inside. It''s spotlessly clean in fact, despite the weeds growing through what I assume were the windows."


    "Clean?" Leo wondered how it could be clean. Clean implies human intervention, surely nothing exposed to nature this long could be clean.


    It seemed Margaret was coming to the same realisation.


    "The killer." She whispered, the gleam of excitement back in her eyes. She had been somewhat deflated ever since William had all but quashed her theory of a killer hidden on the island for the last decade, but this abandoned, clean hut in the middle of nowhere gave credence to her idea.


    "There can be other explanations as well." Elizabeth said, furrowing her brows. It seemed she wasn''t all too keen on the killer theory.


    "Like what? The inside of the hut just happened to be clean over a decade?"


    "If I assume your theory to be correct, then how did the killer live in this hut? There is actually nothing in here except for the clean floor. No way to make food, no bed to sleep in, no protection from the elements, nothing."


    "And besides," Sophie chimed in now, walking into the hut as well, "why would the killer live on this hut for a decade instead of the deserted mansion?"


    Leo stayed silent, but he noticed that every point made thus far was in negation of the opposing view. Nothing either Elizabeth, Margaret or Sophie said were in support of their own viewpoints.


    Probably because neither of the possibilities made much sense!


    If there was actually a killer on the island for a decade, why didn''t they escape? Why did they not live in the mansion? Why did they send a telegram after ten years? And more importantly how did he send a telegram from this island? If he went to the mainland to send the telegram, how did they do so past the navy cordon? And even if somehow they made it off the island, why didn''t they just do it ten years or even five years back and send the telegram to their parents instead?


    On the other hand though, if there was no killer, then what is the purpose of this hut? How is the floor so clean after a decade?


    Again and again Leo''s thoughts circled back to those five corpses. Somehow he knew that identifying those corpses was crucial to understanding everything about this mystery. He was even considering asking his mother where she had buried the bodies so he could dig them up and check them at least once more, when Elizabeth gave a soft cry from inside.


    "Look at that." She said, pulling out what looked like a rolled-up calendar, which was almost hidden amidst the roots of the weeds. This object was however covered with dust, and Elizabeth and Sophie both coughed as the dust billowed out from the object. Then as Elizabeth slowly rolled it open, all of them realised what it was.


    "A map!" Elizabeth''s voice was hushed in excitement.


    Leo and Margaret tried to rush inside, but there wasn''t enough space inside the hut for four people. Therefore they had to look inside from the hole in the ceiling as Elizabeth and Sophie inside pored over the old parchment.


    The map was quite faded, but even so it was clearly one of the island. The mansion was marked clearly at the centre of the island, and there were four crosses marked at the four corners of the map. From those crosses, there were lines drawn to the opposite cross, and they all intersected at the mansion. The lines were quite faded, but still it was quite easy to deduce their path.


    "Gold...." Margaret whispered, but loud enough that all three of them heard it. Sophie looked quizzically at her, while Elizabeth sighed and shook her head.


    "Still going on about the gold Margi-"


    "Sorry sorry big sis, but that''s what it has to be no?" Margaret''s voice shook with excitement.


    "Sorry what gold are you two talking about?" Sophie asked, and Leo finally got the answer to his question on whether his mother knew about the gold or not.


    Margaret quickly explained what she had told him aboard the boat. After she was done, Leo saw his mother furrow her brows, more in concentration than in annoyance, as if she were trying to remember whether she had ever heard any legends about any gold.


    "Don''t listen to her Aunt Sophie. It''s just something Dad said off-handedly once. Neither Will nor me actually believe in gold being hidden here." Elizabeth sounded sincere, but Leo doubted her words. Maybe she herself didn''t believe there was gold hidden on the island, but he was sure William hadn''t dismissed it outright.


    "What else would those four crosses mean then?" Margaret asked indignantly.


    "Well.." Elizabeth looked once more at the map, turning it around to see if it made more sense.


    "It can be the location of the laboratories or research centres as well no?" She said eventually, keeping the map down on the floor.


    "Who would Grandfather be marking them for though?" Leo thought out loud.


    There was no answer.


    "It may be the time machine." Sophie offered.


    "I don''t believe in the time machine still. It must be the gold." Margaret said obstinately.


    "I think we are close to one of the crosses." Leo said slowly, turning his neck to verify that.


    Sophie picked up the map and frowned at it, and then slowly nodded. "Yeah we seem to be close to the one on the bottom left, since we came in that direction from the mansion."


    There was a silence. No one suggested what they were all thinking. Finally it was Leo again who said, "I think we should check it out now. If there is gold or something else, this is the first hint we have found since coming on the island."


    Elizabeth and Sophie looked reluctant, but relented finally. Margaret was already excitedly on the path.


    "Let''s find the gold." She said excitedly. Evidently she was not going to give up on her idea this quickly.


    Leo sighed and just hoped that whatever was there in that place marked with a cross was as harmless as a piece of gold.

 Chapter 6: The Third Cross

    It took the four of them another ten minutes to go the approximate location marked by the closest cross. There was nothing particularly remarkable either about the location or the path to it. Initially none of them even saw anything out of the ordinary. There was just miles and miles of trees surrounding them on all sides.


    It was Leo who spotted it.


    At first glance it was easy to miss. It was a small, weathered stone structure, barely taller than Leo''s waist and half-hidden by creeping vines and moss that had claimed it over the years. The only reason it even came to Leo''s attention were the glowing words on it.


    "What is that?" Sophie muttered, when Leo brought it to the attention of everyone. His mother stepped forward, and slowly removed the weeds and vines that had accumulated over the stone. Initially when it was covered, Leo thought it was written in some exotic foreign language, but when the vines disappeared, he saw it was written in plain English.


    THE THIRD CROSS LIES HERE


    TAKE THE LEFT IN FRONT


    It wasn''t even a cryptic message or anything like that. It seemed like....


    "Simple instructions." Elizabeth said frowning, almost disappointed that there was nothing further there.


    Leo however felt a growing sense of apprehension.


    Margaret, on the other hand, seemed to grow more cheerful by the second. She bounded up forward and waved at them impatiently.


    "Come on, we don''t have all day." She said irritatedly, before disappearing off to the left.


    Elizabeth sighed and ran after her, clearly not willing to let her sister go off alone in the woods. Leo and his mother followed close behind.


    All of them came to an abrupt halt after going to the left.


    In front of them there was a giant rock cliff stretching out to the sky. The cliff was so huge that it was a wonder that none of them had spotted it through the trees and bushes, but Leo guessed that was because the forest was so dense. On the wall of the cliff there were intricate carvings, seemingly meaningless.


    "That''s it?" Margaret said, the disappointment in her voice unmistakeable.


    "Maybe this is just one of Father''s pranks." Sophie said softly, trying to cheer her up.


    Pranks for who? Grandfather lived on this island alone no? Leo thought but he didn''t speak.


    He casually stepped forward, running his hands over the carvings without thinking much about it. The carvings emitted a faint light, and Leo peered closer trying to find the source of it.


    A big creaking noise made him jump. He looked back towards the rest of the group and they seemed just as shocked as he was.


    "Leo, what was that?" His mother asked quietly, looking at him.


    "Why are you asking me?" He answered, and then immediately realized why.


    The sound was coming from his hand.


    Or rather where his hand was touching the cliff wall.


    Leo turned back towards the cliff wall and pushed, slowly at first and then more forcefully. Initially nothing happened, but then in a flash the wall swung around like a revolving door and Leo was on the other side, or rather inside the cliff.


    Darkness


    Complete Darkness


    Coming from the bright sunlight outside, Leo almost felt suffocated by the darkness inside the cliff. Then slowly he could see that it wasn''t completely dark. Up high in the ceiling, though he couldn''t be sure just how high the ceiling was, there were a few twinkling points of light. They gave the impression of stars, but Leo was sure that the material used to make them was the same as he had seen on the carvings outside.


    There was another creaking sound, and Leo looked behind to see his mother coming through the same revolving wall.


    "Leo?" She called out immediately, concern and fear etched in her voice.


    "I''m here Mom." Leo called out from infront of her. Sophie''s eyes hadn''t yet gotten used to the darkness so Leo leaned back and tapped her on the arm to indicate his location. She nodded and breathed a sigh of relief.


    "Don''t disappear on us like that Leo." She chided.


    "I didn''t know there was some where like this hidden in the cave." Leo said, but his attention was already elsewhere. The lights in the ceiling seemed to be almost pointing the way forward.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Soon after Sophie, Margaret and then finally Elizabeth came in through the revolving wall. Once both of their eyes were accustomed to the darkness illuminated by the twinkling lights, Leo suggested they move forward.


    "Of course! After all whatever Grandfather has hidden on this island must be there." Margaret said enthusiastically, almost jumping up and down on the spot.


    "Easy Margaret." Sophie said with a small laugh as Elizabeth just shook her head in exasperation.


    They began moving forwards, gingerly checking for any obstacles or sudden gaps in the floor. As before Sophie moved in front. Leo protested this, but his mother had simply smiled.


    "It''s the duty of adults to protect their children. And all of you are still children to me." She had said and she had brook no argument to the contrary.


    Thankfully however, the path was simple and straightforward. There were no unexpected holes or places where the path suddenly ended. Eventually they found themselves in a sort of small hall, where the path and the cliff ended.


    In the middle of the small hall there was what appeared to be a table. And on that table was an object that shone brightly even in the darkness.


    "The gold!" Margaret said in hushed whispers as she ran ahead before Sophie could object.


    To be honest, Leo had never seriously believed in Margaret''s assertions that there was gold on the island. He always believed that it was too good to be true.


    But now, the proof was in front of his eyes.


    As he stepped forward, he looked at the golden bar that Margaret was now cradling wonderingly. It shone brightly and Leo was sure that this was surely worth a lot of money.


    Something fluttered beneath the gold and Leo frowned. He looked closer. There seemed to be a paper which was underneath the gold.


    A gold paperweight, Leo thought with amusement as he took out the paper.


    "What''s that?" Sophie asked looking at him.


    "Don''t know. Seems like Grandfather''s writing though. It''s too dark to make out what it actually says."


    Sophie nodded. "Let''s go out and read it then."


    After Margaret had finished admiring the gold bar, all of them made their way back through the path they had come out towards the gate. When they reached the wall, for a second Leo was afraid that it was one way only, that the wall wouldn''t open when pushed from the inside.


    But his fears were unfounded. With a now familiar creak, the wall swung around depositing Leo back into bright sunlight, where he squinted at the sudden assault on his eyes.


    After the remaining three had come out as well, Elizabeth was the first to speak.


    "What do we do about the gold?" She asked, her voice serious.


    "What else? We should show it to everyone else! This proves that there is gold hidden on this island." Margaret replied, still excited beyond belief.


    However Sophie had caught onto what Elizabeth was suggesting.


    "You are worried about the twins." It wasn''t a question, just a statement.


    Elizabeth nodded gravely.


    "I am afraid that they may not be above trying to steal this gold and keep it for themselves." She said


    "We should keep it within ourselves then." Sophie said, looking at each of them in turn.


    "To be honest, even I am apprehensive about them. I will keep the gold hidden from them, until we reach back to the mainland. Then we can decide how to equitable divide it among Father''s heirs." She continued.


    Margaret nodded, albeit somewhat sadly, and handed over the gold bar to Sophie, who put it in the pocket of her jeans. It bulged unnaturally there, so she took it out and then put in in her jacket instead, where it was unnoticeable.


    "Now let''s go over the letter." Sophie said, taking the paper from inside the cave out. She was about to read it aloud, when she stopped frowning. Then she folded it and kept it back in her jacket again.


    "What''s the matter Aunt Sophie?" Elizabeth asked puzzled.


    Sophie didn''t answer straight away. Leo saw that she looked quite troubled.


    "I think it''s best we read it aloud in front of everyone else once we go back. The others, even the twins, need to hear this, I feel." She said grimly. Leo had rarely seen his mother troubled or in panic, but now she certainly was.


    Elizabeth must have identified the same for she didn''t argue at all and immediately acquiesced.


    "It''s almost sundown." Leo said pointing towards the horizon. Part of it was due to his concern that they not be out in the forest after dark, but a more major part of it was a bid to help his mother by changing the subject.


    "Yeah we should hurry back." Sophie said, snapping back to attention, even though it was clear that her mind was elsewhere.


    On the way back, Leo led the way with Sophie behind her. Usually his mother would never allow anyone but her to be infront, but it was an indication of her state of mind that she didn''t protest against this arrangement. Margaret followed behind her with Elizabeth at the end.


    During the return journey, for the first time Leo was thankful for the existence of the huge mansion. He was sure he would be lost like a needle in a haystack.


    When they finally returned to the doorsteps of the mansion, the sun was already almost behind the horizon. The twins were already there, and they seemed to be discussing something intensely in hushed tones when they saw Leo''s group approach and immediately stopped.


    "Hello there Leo." Charles said with a smile. "Hope you guys had a productive search?"


    "Indeed we did." Elizabeth answered icily.


    Charles raised an eyebrow as if to ask them to volunteer further information, but none of them spoke further.


    "Well, " Charles said eventually, "so did we. Let''s call over cousin William and discuss over dinner shall we?"


    None of them objected, and this time Sophie stepped forward and opened the door. The door itself was unlocked, and there didn''t seem to be any mechanism to lock it even from the inside, even though individual rooms had locks of their own.


    As Leo milled into the hall with the others, his eyes went back to the two portraits hanging on either side of the huge hall. He had noticed them the first day, but still he couldn''t figure out the faces in them. It must be Grandfather and Grandmother, but both their faces had been scratched out for some reason, and Leo was hardly able to make out any features of the same.


    "Elizabeth, call your brother down please. We have much to discuss." Sophie said, taking charge of the situation again. Elizabeth nodded and immediately went up the stairs to the second floor.


    Leo looked towards the twins who stood by one side of the hall. Charles smiled and waved at him, while Henry looked sullenly. The latter''s mood however seemed much improved from today morning.


    I wonder what they were discussing....


    His thoughts were broken by a bloodcurdling scream.


    From the second floor.


    "Elizabeth!" He realized out loud and then ran up the stairs, his mother and the twins following closely behind with Margaret at the end.


    As he came up on the second floor, he saw Elizabeth collapsed on the floor outside William''s room pointing in shock inside.


    "I.. don''t....I....." She sputtered, not able to even make a full sentence.


    Leo ran up, and before his mother could stop him, went in front to see what Elizabeth was pointing at.


    And immediately wished he didn''t.


    William''s room was a bit smaller than his own. There was no fireplace and even the windows were fewer. The ceiling however was much much higher, stretching up till the roof. However the major source which caught all of their attention was none of this.


    It was William''s body lying on the floor beside his bed, blood pooling around beneath him.


    With a knife sticking out of his throat.