by Peter Bunzl
“Maybe it’ll be lower round the back and we can get in there?” Robert said.
“Good idea,” Malkin piped up. “I’ll have a scout.” He slunk away along the perimeter.
They waited, crouching low to the ground beneath the fence, so as not to be seen if anyone was watching.
The fox came back a few minutes later. “There’s no easy way in, I’m afraid,” he said. “The fence is as high and sturdy all the way round.”
“Perhaps there’s another entrance?” Robert suggested. Now that they had a problem to solve, the nerves in his belly had all but fluttered away.
“Perhaps there is,” Lily said. She’d noticed something about one of the bill posters plastered against the boards near where they were standing. It was slightly loose, the edges flapping in the wind, as if air was somehow getting in behind it to lift it up. Lily wiped the snow from its surface with her hand and felt the wood shift beneath her fingers.
The boards pulled easily aside and the space between them created a slanted makeshift doorway through the fence, almost as if someone had gained access this way before. “Ready?” she asked Robert and Malkin.
A dread of stepping into this new and strange place shivered momentarily through Robert, but they had to push forward and investigate. All the clues had led them here. He climbed through the gap in the fence first. Malkin slipped through next. Then Lily, who pulled herself in tight to squeeze through the hole. Her scarf caught on a loose nail as she pushed through, and she snagged one of her gloves trying to free it, but finally she was on the other side with them.
They were in a derelict yard full of weeds and brambles that ran along the inside of the fence, filled with abandoned parts of subs and diving machines. Everything was tangled together, with arms and pipes and random pieces of metal sticking out from the snow.
Lily, Robert and Malkin crouched behind a massive metal tube that looked like it should be underwater, and peered round its side carefully, in case anyone might see them.
A pathway led through the tangle to the back of the warehouse and a second path snaked downhill towards a pier and the river further off. At the end of the pier was a spidery crane, its arm stretched out above the frozen expanse of the Hudson River. Chained to the end of the crane’s arm was a metal ball, large as an electrical-wagon, that hung over the frozen river, like a metal moon. It was a diving submersible with propellers extruding from the back and large ballast tanks attached to each side. There was a commodious hatch in both the top and the base. Robert put his binoculars up to his eyes and read the two words painted on the submersible’s side:
“That’s the submersible from the newspaper.” Lily checked the time on her watch. “Quarter to twelve.” She gave a shudder.
“I don’t think we should venture any further alone,” Malkin warned. “We ought to just keep an eye out and wait for Kid Wink, Caddy and the other Cloudscrapers to bring John and the police.”
But as he said this, they saw Dane and Miss Buckle come out of the house and head down the path towards the pier. Miss Buckle had Dane’s wrist grasped in one hand and the engine in its wooden case clasped in the other. Lily shivered. Somehow, they had to wrest that machine and Dane away from her.
Miss Buckle and Dane walked along the length of the wooden pier and stopped beside the hanging submersible.
“What are they doing?” Lily asked, confused.
“I don’t know.” Robert stared at them through his binoculars.
The mechanical nursemaid let go of Dane’s arm, walked over to a control panel at the base of the crane and pressed various buttons.
The crane swung over the frozen river, lowering the spherical Diving Belle down alongside the pier, until it smacked through the ice with a loud KERRRACK! The frozen surface of the water fractured into pieces as sharp and jagged as broken glass.
Miss Buckle pressed another button on the control panel and the crane released the chains that had been holding the Diving Belle up in the air. They trailed across the ice, while the unmoored Diving Belle floated in the freezing water by the pier. Miss Buckle climbed onto a ladder that ran up the submersible’s rounded metal side and threw open the roof hatch.
“I think they’re going to try and get in it,” Robert said.
“Come on,” Lily said, “let’s get a little closer.”
“All right then,” Robert said reluctantly.
He and Malkin followed Lily as she sneaked along the path towards the pier, keeping as low to the ground as possible. As they crept beneath the crane, the cold in its shadow made Robert shiver.
Miss Buckle was carefully lowering the engine in its case down on a rope into the submersible, all the time watching Dane to make sure he didn’t run away.
When she was done, she beckoned to the boy and he clambered up the ladder beside her, then disappeared through the hatch and down inside the craft.
Miss Buckle waited until Dane was safely inside the submersible, then shut the hatch over him, turning its handle to lock it.
Robert, Lily and Malkin shrunk back fearfully as she climbed down to the pier and strode towards where they were hidden. They barely had time to duck behind one of the legs of the crane as she passed by.
“What do you think she’s returned to the warehouse for?” Lily whispered when she’d caught her breath.
“Provisions?” Malkin suggested softly. “Or to get someone else?”
“I thought you said you didn’t smell anyone else?” Lily said.
“I could be wrong.”
“When do you think she’ll be back?” Robert asked, watching Miss Buckle as she retreated through the snowy yard.
“I don’t know.” Lily checked the time. “But it’s five to twelve, which means we only have a few minutes to rescue Dane and stop the prophecy, if it is meant to happen at midday.” She dipped out from behind the crane’s leg and slunk along the creaking wooden boards of the pier towards the Diving Belle.
Robert nodded to Malkin. They had no choice but to set off in pursuit.
By the time they’d caught up with Lily, she was already at the submersible. She slung Malkin around her shoulders with her scarf and climbed the metal ladder.
Robert followed close behind.
At the top, they struggled to unlock the heavy hatch. It took all their strength to throw it open.
They peered down into the interior of the craft.
Dane sat in the centre of the cabin in the pilot’s seat behind the ship’s wheel and a long bank of controls facing a pair of round portholes. Behind him were four empty passenger seats and behind those, row upon row of enormous square battery units screwed into the walls, and a box that housed the engine.
Dane seemed dazed, fidgeting nervously with his fingers, cupping his hands together and breaking them apart, as if he had Spook to play with.
But Spook wasn’t there.
They were.
Dane’s eyes went wide when he saw them. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his face filled with surprise. “I thought we lost you on the rails yesterday?”
“We’re here to rescue you,” Lily said. “Do you need help getting out?” Malkin hung around her neck as she climbed down the interior ladder into the submersible, before holding out a hand to Dane.
Robert followed her down clasping each cold rung. “Quick,” he said. “Before Miss Buckle comes back.” He expected Dane to spring from his seat and follow them to freedom. Instead the boy shook his head.
“I don’t need rescuing.”
The alarm on Lily’s pocket watch rang. She silenced it.
“What…?” she asked, trailing off. She didn’t understand.
But Robert had heard him well enough. He had a sudden sickening realization.
“I said, I don’t need rescuing,” Dane repeated.
“What about Miss Buckle? She kidnapped you and forced you down here…” Lily’s voice was rising. “It’s twelve o’clock…remember the prophecy! Don’t you want to escape her? Hurry!”
Dane laughed. A strange faraway laugh. “Don’t you see?” he said. “There are no kidnappers. Miss Buckle didn’t steal the Ouroboros Diamond. I did. And she didn’t kidnap me or plan the ransom swap. I did all that myself. And now, I’m going to raise the dead.”
Lily’s insides squirmed and her certainty dropped away. She glanced at Malkin, who had jumped down from her shoulders, and Robert, standing beside him in the cabin of the Diving Belle. The pair of them were agog with disbelief and staring at Dane.
“But why?” Lily asked Dane at last. “Why do all this?”
“It was the only way I could get my hands on the Ouroboros Engine.” Dane’s eyes strayed to the professor’s wooden case, safely stowed under the Diving Belle’s control panel. “I wouldn’t have been able to get near it otherwise. My aunt never trusted me. She always took her machine with her in that case whenever she left the room. And she kept it and me under lock and key.”
“So that’s why Miss Buckle was waiting in the street the other night?” Lily asked. “You signalled to her from the hotel room by flashing the lights.”
“Correct,” Dane replied. “After that, the rest of the plan was set in motion… I made the ransom note by cutting out the letters from the newspapers in the bottom of Spook’s cage. Then, after I was taken, Miss Buckle disguised her voice and spoke to my aunt on the phone. With all that, we were able to persuade her that she should come to the ransom swap and give us her case with the machine. Our plan was always to come here so I could take the machine down in this submersible and make my way back to the Shadowsea Submarine Base. It was all going so well, until you followed us onto the train. Luckily we managed to lose you again…until now. I guess this means you’re coming with us.”
“What could you possibly want down there?” Lily asked, aghast.
“My parents,” Dane said.
Robert gasped. “Caddy’s prophecy….”
Lily felt a chill. Of course. “You plan to wake your parents?”
“Yes,” Dane said. “I didn’t recall or even realize that my aunt’s machine might make that possible, not till I met Caddy. Until then I’d forgotten everything. It was her prompting that brought back my memory of my parents. I miss them so, so much.” His voice broke with emotion and raw tears. “Then I realized if I had the Ouroboros Engine, I could save them, bring them back from the dead.”
“I promise you, you can’t,” Lily said gently. “Life doesn’t work that way. It’s too late already. That’s what the prophecy meant…it was a warning. Your parents, they’ve been…they’ve been gone too long to return as they were. To try to wake them would only be… dangerous.”
She stepped across the metal floor of the cabin towards him. “We’ve all lost people, Dane. I lost my mama and Robert and Caddy lost their da. Everyone loses someone in the end, and everyone feels lost and marked by it, and wishes they could bring those people back. But you can’t change the past. And you can’t change the cycle of life, the creation and destruction. It happens to everyone, no matter what. All you can do is learn to live with it.” Lily put her hand over his.
“Please, Dane,” Robert said. “Think again. Come with us.” He gave Lily a sideways glance and together they tried to take Dane’s arms.
“NO!” Dane shouted, brushing them away. “I will change everything. I will bring my parents back. Now I have the Ouroboros Engine, I will control life and death! And you can’t stop me!” He pushed them away angrily. “MISS BUCKLE!” he cried, glancing up at the hatch in the roof. “WHERE ARE YOU? I NEED YOUR HELP!”
Outside they heard a loud scream. Caddy’s scream.
Malkin snarled and raised his hackles.
“LET GO OF ME!” Caddy’s shouts were accompanied by the heavy tread of Miss Buckle’s metal feet ringing on the side of the Diving Belle. “Don’t be concerned, Master Milksop, I’m back!” Miss Buckle called. “And I’ve brought another friend of yours with me.”
Robert and Lily glanced up in time to see the mechanical nurse dangle Caddy over the open roof hatch and drop her in.
Caddy tumbled into the Diving Belle, grasping the interior ladder just in time to stop herself falling.
She clung on, swinging back and forth until her feet found a rung, and then she climbed down the few feet to the floor. She stood in a daze, clinging onto the headrest of one of the seats, her hair a-tangle, her face twisted with horror.
“What are you doing here?” Robert cried desperately at his sister. “We told you to go back to the hotel.”
“I ran away from Kid Wink and came to find you,” Caddy said, wincing.
“Why?” Lily asked.
“You forgot Spook. I had to bring him for Dane.” She held the mouse out to the boy, and for a moment Dane didn’t know what to do. Then he reached out tentatively and took Spook.
“Thank you, Caddy,” Dane said, stroking the mouse. “I’ve missed you, Spook. I was so cross when Miss Buckle forgot to bring you.” He glared up at Miss Buckle.
“I told you how sorry I was about that, Master Milksop. But we couldn’t go back to the hotel again, not if we didn’t want to get caught.”
“Well, Spook’s here now,” Dane said. “Back with me where he belongs. Soon everyone I’ve lost will be back with me,” he finished quietly as he put the mouse in his pocket.
Caddy, who was listening, finally seemed to understand that Dane had planned everything all along. “It’s you, isn’t it? You did this?”
“That’s right,” Dane said. “Close the hatch, Miss Buckle!”
“As you wish.” Miss Buckle descended the ladder and reached up and shut the hatch above her, screwing it tight. She loomed scarily over Robert, Lily, Caddy and Malkin.
“Buckle them in, Miss Buckle!”
“Aye aye, Sir.” One by one, Miss Buckle forced the children into the row of passenger seats behind. Then she closed and locked a cross-shaped seat-belt strap with a complicated buckle over each of their chests. When she got to Malkin, she pushed him into the chair and looped the belt around his neck, tightening it like a lead to keep him from snapping at her.
Caddy was last. “Please…” she said, looking up at the mechanical woman as she was grappled by the arm and strapped into the final spare seat. “You can let us go, you know?”
“I’m sorry, Miss Townsend,” Miss Buckle said. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. We’re on a tight schedule to meet the tide.”
Dane laughed. “Don’t try to appeal to her better nature. I reprogrammed her to obey only me.”
“How?” Robert asked.
“It was easy. I switched a few cogs around. It helps that she knows I’m doing the right thing – trying to reverse what my aunt did to everyone down there.” He peered through the porthole, out along the river to the shadowy sea beyond. “Yes, I’ve had to do a few bad deeds these last few days to finally be able to get there…” Dane wiped a hand across his face, visibly emotional. “But you couldn’t call me evil, not like my aunt.”
“I didn’t,” Lily said. She could see she needed to stay on his side, and Miss Buckle’s, now that she, Robert, Caddy and Malkin were strapped into the Diving Belle with them. As soon as Miss Buckle looked away, Lily struggled, desperately trying to loosen her seatbelt.
Dane placed Spook in his lap and checked the instrument panel on the dashboard in front of him. The needles were all in the black: full battery levels.
He turned an ignition key hidden beneath the steering wheel and the Diving Belle thrummed to life, her whirring propellers cutting a swathe through the dark water. As Lily struggled to try and undo her seat belt, Dane flipped a switch on the control panel and the craft’s high-beam electrical headlight snapped on.
“Let’s go see the sea.” Dane flipped a second switch and the submersible began its descent. Shards of ice broke off the sides of the ship and bubbles fled past the dark portholes as the metal capsule travelled deeper and deeper, down into the shadowy depths of the river and the Hudson Bay beyond, swallowed by the frost-cold and endless s
ea.
Robert, Caddy, Lily and Malkin sat strapped into their seats in the cramped cabin of the Diving Belle. Miss Buckle loomed behind them.
It had taken Dane a few hours piloting the craft to reach the pale desert planes of the seabed. Particles of white sand blasted the window in sparkling clouds, as he changed direction, propelling the Belle forward and skimming them across the bare lunar landscape of the ocean floor.
More hours passed. Lily had no idea how many. Miss Buckle had strapped her in so tightly she couldn’t reach her lock picks or her pocket watch. All she knew was it must be late afternoon by now…or early evening? The truth was there was no way of telling down here. The most important thing was it was long past twelve and they were still travelling, which meant that there was only one more moment left, according to Caddy’s prophecy, when Dane could wake the dead: midnight.
If they could somehow turn the sub around before then they were in with a chance. If not who knew what would happen down on the Shadowsea Submarine Base. Lily closed her eyes, not wanting to think of what had happened last time the engine had been used on the base. Then she shook her head, and glanced around at the others, strapped into their seats. Their outlines glowed in the dark, illuminated by a weak red light from a single bulb at the back of the cabin’s interior. Surely if they worked together, communicated, they could come up with a plan?
Malkin stared stoically ahead, taking in the view.
Caddy was shaking, trying to remain calm.
Robert bit his lip and clenched his hands into fists. His ears had popped as soon as their craft had reached the bottom of the ocean, and now each sound seemed far-off and echoey. He watched as the dials and pressure gauges embedded in the dashboard in front of Dane flickered to and fro, charting the power levels in each of the Belle’s batteries. At first, he had thought of nothing but escape, but now they’d descended so far, he accepted that there was probably no turning back.
Through the portholes, Robert glimpsed strange-shaped fish, plankton, jellyfish and octopuses distorted by the water, appearing briefly outside the glass then disappearing again. Ghostly aliens of the deep. Soon the green water became so tenebrous it felt as if they had ventured into a distant cosmos. Only the electric lamp on the front of the Diving Belle guided them onwards into the infinite darkness.