Free Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley by Danyl McLauchlan Page A

think that’s safe?’ Danyl asked. ‘Joy and Sophus saw inside their envelopes and they disappeared.’
    â€˜They were weak,’ Ann assured him. ‘Sophus was young and confused. Your drug dealer was on drugs. But you and I … our minds are robust. Powerful. Don’t shake your head.’ She reached out and took his arm. She smiled at him, and some long dormant region of Danyl’s brain fluttered. ‘Don’t underestimate yourself. You’ve only been back in the valley for one day and you’ve pinpointed the location of the disappearances and revealed the nature of our enemy. You’re better and stronger than you think. Perhaps all those others vanished because, on some level, they wanted to. But not us.’ She met his gaze. Her eyes were clear and black and deep. ‘You and I will not disappear.’

9
The giant
    The next morning, Ann was gone.
    She’d ordered Danyl to meet her at her office at 8 am, but he slept in a little so it was 11.30 before he emerged from the Scholar’s Cottage, where he’d spent the night.
    The cottage was a tiny space containing a single bed, a desk and a dead fern. Posters of mathematicians covered the walls. At least, Danyl assumed they were mathematicians. They were black-and-white portrait photos of elderly bearded men with bulging eyes. Danyl was too tired to undress when he went to bed; he just collapsed, face down under their bulbous gaze.
    When he woke he burrowed under the blankets for a while, warm and drowsy and happy and safe; not quite remembering where he was but content to be there. Then the events of the previous day came back to him unbidden: Steve’s empty house, the alleyway, the fire. He realised he was not safe. He was in Te Aro. People were disappearing and he needed to find Verity and get out of the valley before whatever took them claimed him too.
    And he remembered stealing Eleanor’s phone. He’d switched it off before he went to bed out of a paranoid notion that Eleanor might be able to track it, somehow, and hunt him down while he slept. He turned it on now and dialled Verity again. Still no answer, and the clock on the display informed him that he was late to meet Ann.
    The door to her office was locked. The entire council building was dark and empty. Danyl stood outside it, shivering and hungry, wondering what to do next. Return to the Scholar’s Cottage, climb back into bed and wait for Verity to ring or Ann to show up? That seemed like the smart move. But he was hungry and there wasn’t any food in the cottage. Also, what if Verity didn’t call, and Ann didn’t return?
    He pressed his nose against the office window. Maybe Ann had left behind some sort of sign, or clue? And that’s when he saw it: on her desk, a blue envelope with the top torn open and the contents removed.
    He returned to the Scholar’s Cottage and climbed back into bed. That wasn’t a long-term solution though. He needed to find Verity. Ann had claimed to know where she was, but Ann was gone. She’d opened a blue envelope, taken whatever she’d found inside it, and vanished. She wasn’t coming back.
    Then Danyl had an idea. His mind flashed back to Joy the drug dealer standing in the alleyway, stoned and bewildered, staring at the graffiti. I left the blue envelope at home . He fished through his pockets and found her business card. Yes. Her address was there, and on Norway Street, not far from the Community Hall. So there might be an envelope at Joy’s house with the mysterious contents still inside it. Find the envelope. Find Ann. Find Verity.
    Danyl bounced up and down on his feet, delighted with his brain’s performance. Medicated Danyl never had clever ideas like that. His mind just drifted along, responding to stimuli but never pulling its weight. Now it was back in the game. Danyl felt invigorated. With his brain on his side he felt he could accomplish almost