The creature’s arm sags under the weight.
Then the mermonkey judders.
The arm lifts—slowly—slowly—with a tick-tick-ticking of grinding gears till it plops the heavy hat onto its own head. The coins fall in a hectic rattle down into the creature’s mechanical insides, and its light-bulb eyes flash on.
The mermonkey begins to scream.
“Noisy!” Caliastra mouths to us, holding her hands over her ears to block out the terrible sound. Clockwork grinds, gears rattle, and puffs of steam—or is it smoke?—curl around the infernal machine. The comforting smell of the old bookshop—a mix of hot chocolate, wood fire, and aging paper—is smothered by the stink of antique electrics and singed fur as the mechanical creature reaches one bony fist toward the typewriter, extends its index finger to type, and . . .
Stops.
A sudden fizzing, clicking silence falls over the shop.
The mermonkey’s finger remains poised over the keyboard, but instead of stabbing out the code it types to dispense its books, the creature does nothing.
Well, not quite nothing.
The mermonkey’s eyes flicker, as if it is blinking at Caliastra.
Then it tips its head to one side. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was carefully considering what to do next.
Outside, I notice that Erwin—the bookshop cat—is watching us closely through the window.
“What happens now?” Caliastra whispers.
“I don’t know,” Violet whispers back. “It’s never done this before.
“Maybe it needs a little encouragement,” Caliastra suggests, and she raises her glass cane.
“Prestocadabra!” she cries.
And before anyone can say or do anything, she twirls the cane and then taps its tip firmly onto the mermonkey’s forehead.
The mermonkey gives another mechanical shriek, and its eyes blaze with light. Its crooked hand crashes down onto the keyboard, and with a KLACK! and a KLICK! and a KLICKETY-KLACK! it bashes out its book prescription. Then it yanks its hand back as if the keys are too hot to touch and returns the hat to the “Try me?” position faster than I’ve ever seen.
Its eyes wink out, and the mermonkey falls still.
There’s a TING from the typewriter, and a card flies out. It flutters to Caliastra’s feet.
The magician plants the tip of her cane onto the card. With a lightning-fast motion, she sweeps the card up off the floor and snatches it from the air.
On one side of it we can see the familiar drawing of the mermonkey. On the other is the code—the code that will lead to the book the mechanical creature has dispensed for the lady with the raven hair.
Caliastra hands the card to Violet.
“Your mermonkey has, it would appear, chosen me a book. Though, I’m not sure how to claim it.”
“This code,” Violet explains, holding up the card so we can all see the line of numbers and letters on it, “leads you first to the floor of the shop your book is on. Then it leads to the room it’s in, then to the wall in that room, then to the shelf on that wall, and finally to the book itself. Would you like me to show you . . . ?”
“Oh, I think I can trust you to handle it for me, thank you,” says Caliastra, in a tone that suggests she has better things to do. Violet is left with little choice but to set off into the heart of the Eerie Book Dispensary, in search of Caliastra’s book.
And now, for the first time, I’m alone with the magician—the magician who claims she’s my long-lost family.
“May I . . . ?” I blurt out. “May I ask you something?”
“You may, Herbie.” Caliastra smiles kindly. “You must have so many questions. I will do all I can to tell you whatever you wish to know.”
“Are you . . . ?” I’m still blurting. “I mean, is it true . . . ? That you . . . ?”
“Yes, Herbie?”
“. . . that you’ve been on television?”
Caliastra raises her eyebrows in surprise. Then she throws her head back and laughs.
“Yes, Herbie, it is true. I’ve come a long way since my cruise ship days. But I still sometimes tour provincial theaters,” Caliastra explains, “like yours here in Eerie. Indeed, my ulterior motive for visiting Eerie-on-Sea is to give a special shadow puppet show for this year’s Ghastly Night celebrations. Perhaps you’ve heard?”
At that moment, Violet returns with a book in her hands.
“Did you say . . .” she asks, “the Ghastly Night show?”
“I did.”
Violet’s face is alight with interest. Ever since she first heard of Ghastly Night she’s been obsessed with it. Apparently, Eerie-on-Sea is the only place in the world where it’s celebrated, though I find that hard to believe. But that’s what Violet says, and she knows more about the outside world than I do.
“How do you know about it?” Violet asks. “I thought it was just a funny old Eerie tradition.”
“It is,” Caliastra says. “But the legend of Ghastly Night, and the terrible Shadowghast, is often discussed among members of the Magic Circle. There is, after all, a magic trick at the heart of it, in the form of a shadow puppet show like no other. I have studied the old story, and I believe I have discovered the secret of that trick. It is a great honor to be invited to perform it myself, here, in Eerie-on-Sea.”
“But I thought . . .” I start to say. “I thought you came here because of me.”
Caliastra lays one slender hand on my shoulder.
“Herbie, I did come here for you,” she says. “But I may never have found you if I wasn’t already studying the lore of Ghastly Night. It was as I researched the legend of the Shadowghast that I first heard about Eerie-on-Sea’s famous castaway and began to wonder. I’ve been looking for my lost nephew for years and had all but given up hope. When my contact in Eerie-on-Sea told me about the boy who washed up in a crate of lemons, I knew at once I had found more than some old magic trick here. That’s why I wrote to Lady Kraken and, eventually, why she invited me here. Ghastly Night is just an excuse. You, dear Herbie, are the reason.”
I nod. I can’t think what to say.
“What contact in Eerie-on-Sea?” Violet asks.
“Ah!” Caliastra’s eyes light up as she finally notices what’s in Violet’s hands. “Is that my book?”
“Oh.” Vi looks as if she had already forgotten about it. “Yes. This is the book the mermonkey chose for you. Here . . .”
And she hands a thick, grubby yellow hardback book over to the magician. On the cover is a drawing of two masks—one with an exaggerated happy face, and the other with a sad frown—the kind of tragedy and comedy faces you sometimes see at a theater.
“The Subtle Mask,” Caliastra reads the title aloud, “by Questin D’Arkness. Interesting choice. A bit long-winded, though. These Victorian writers did like an endless sentence, didn’t they?”
And she hands to book back to Violet.
“But”—Violet looks confused—“it’s yours.”
“I’ve already read it,” Caliastra replies. “And besides, I know precisely why that particular book has been dispensed to me.”
“You do?” Violet and I both say at exactly the same time.
“Oh, yes.” The magician nods. “Even the name of the author is significant.”
When we don’t respond, Caliastra continues.
“Questin D’Arkness?” She gives a bright chuckle. “No one is really named Questin D’Arkness, Herbie. It’s a pen name, just as Caliastra is a name for the stage. The author was really one Pumphrey Doolittle, but you can’t write Gothic horror stories and be taken seriously with a name like Pumphrey Doolittle, now, can you?”
“I guess not,” I reply.
“The Subtle Mask,” the magician explains, “is the story of an actor who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for supernatural talent and the fame and fortune that comes with it. By the end of the novel, he has lost himself entirely in fiction and lies, and the devil claims his soul. It’s a reminder to me, Her
bie, to be more honest with you. No more tricks or stage effects; no more clues hidden in breakfast pastries. I should have just given you that ticket instead of playing games. And I am very sorry.”
“Oh,” I manage to say.
“And I want you to promise me something in return,” Caliastra continues. “I want you to feel you can always come to me, Herbie. For anything. No more running away. Agreed? We are family, after all.”
I nod.
“Don’t look so alarmed.” Caliastra smiles, giving my nose an affectionate tweak. “This should be a happy time. I know—come watch me rehearse later today. You can both come, if you like. We’ll be in the theater on the pier, preparing for the greatest show Eerie-on-Sea has ever seen. It will be good for you to see all the props and mechanisms, Herbie. You have a lot to learn; although, something tells me that you will be perfect for the job.”
“Job?”
“Of course,” Caliastra replies. “For some time now, I’ve needed help with the more subtle tricks and contraptions. From what I’ve seen already, you will be just the assistant I need.”
Violet gasps.
“Does that mean you’re staying in Eerie-on-Sea?” she says. “For good?”
“Staying?” Caliastra cries, with the face of someone who has just heard something preposterous. “Of course I’m not staying. I’m performing in Copenhagen in ten days’ time, then on to Oslo, Helsinki, and St. Petersburg. No, when I leave Eerie, after the Ghastly Night show, my nephew will leave with me. To start his new life as a magician’s assistant.”
Then she turns to me with her radiant smile.
“Your long wait in this strange little town is over, Herbert Lemon. You are finally going home.”
After Caliastra has gone, I flop back down in the armchair and stare into space.
I’m leaving? Going home? I can’t take it in. How can I just leave Eerie-on-Sea? And am I really going to travel the world with a great magician?
I look at the ship’s ticket in my hand—the proof that Caliastra and I are connected—then down at the two rows of gleaming brass buttons on the royal porpoise blue of my uniform. I’m a Lost-and-Founder, not a magician’s apprentice. And yet, I can’t help noticing that there’s something about the words magician and apprentice that go together very nicely indeed.
“But . . . but you can’t go!” Violet declares. “She can’t just waltz in here and take you away, Herbie! We don’t even know if she is who she says she is.”
“But, the ticket . . .”
“That doesn’t prove anything!” Violet cries. “It’s only a piece of paper.”
“A piece of paper can change your life,” says a voice. “It just depends what’s written on it.”
And Erwin jumps up onto the counter.
“You’re back, then, are you?” Violet says to the cat, scratching him behind the ear. “Have you seen Jenny?”
Erwin must have slipped in when I opened the door for Caliastra. Now he strolls along the countertop and peers down at the grubby yellow book. He twitches his whiskers.
“Where is Jenny?” I ask, suddenly realizing I haven’t seen her yet. I notice the cold, empty hearth again and feel a sense of unease.
Jenny always keeps a merry blaze going in the colder months, and she often treats customers to hot chocolate or cups of herbal tea and spiced biscuits, to cheer them up before their lives are turned upside down—or flipped right-side up, or just knocked sidewise—by the books the mermonkey dispenses. It’s strange not to have been greeted by her or offered a biscuit, and that Violet has been left to mind the shop all by herself.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you, Herbie!” Violet declares. “Didn’t you read my note? That’s the emergency. Jenny is missing!”
“Missing?” I ask. “Are you sure?”
“I heard her leave late last night, and she hasn’t come back,” Violet replies, pulling her notebook back out of her coat pocket. “Her bed hasn’t been slept in. Plus, we were going out to buy books this morning, and she’d never miss that. And then there’s the curtains not drawn, as they always are, and . . .”
“OK, OK, I get it,” I interrupt, straightening my cap. Then I put on my most professional voice. “But when it comes to Lost-and-Foundering, Violet, missing people aren’t as straightforward as missing things. Missing things don’t have legs, for example.”
“Herbie”—Violet fixes me with a fierce look—“Jenny hasn’t just wandered off. She’d never go away without telling me, and that’s that.”
There comes a meow from the counter, and I see that Erwin is pawing at the yellow book. I wonder for a moment if Caliastra was right about why she’d been dispensed The Subtle Mask, by Questin D’arkness. She seemed very sure about it. Violet snatches Erwin up into her arms and holds him like a hot-water bottle, furiously stroking his head.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I feel bad now that I thought this was just another of Violet’s attempts to start an adventure.
“It’s horrible,” she replies. “To get up in the morning and find myself all alone . . .”
“Wow!” says Erwin.
“I mean, all alone except for you, puss,” Violet corrects herself. “But it’s the first time for a long time that I’ve felt so . . . abandoned.”
Erwin rubs his head on her chin and gives one of his best purrs.
Violet lost her parents when she was only a baby. And while she believes they’ll one day find their way back to her, she and I both know that’s not guaranteed. Jenny is the closest thing to a parent . . . to a mother . . . that Vi has ever known. And Violet is the closest thing Jenny’s ever had to a daughter.
So, I agree: Jenny would never, ever leave Violet alone without explaining why.
“I think you’d better tell me what happened,” I say.
“It was late last night,” Violet explains. “I went to bed with some good books and left Jenny down here tinkering with the mermonkey. Then I heard a loud banging on the front door of the shop.”
“A visitor?” I ask. “Who was it?”
“Mrs. Fossil,” Vi replies. “I was curious, so I crept downstairs. I heard Mrs. Fossil talking hurriedly to Jenny, and Jenny making soothing noises back. It sounded as though Mrs. F had had a scare.”
I nod. “It does often sound like Mrs. F has had a scare,” I say. “She’s got one of those voices. Besides, she’s always especially jumpy around Ghastly Night. What did she say was the matter?”
Violet looks at her toes.
“I . . . I don’t know. I crept back upstairs to bed.”
“Really? You? Whatever happened to looking for adventure?”
“Herbie!” Violet looks annoyed. “You’re the one who tells me to stop looking for adventures under every rock and to read books instead. And now, when I finally do as you suggest, BOOM—an adventure started without me!”
“But what happened?” I ask, getting annoyed myself. “How do you know this is an adventure and not just a misunderstanding?”
“Because soon afterward, I heard the shop door close, and I saw Jenny leave with Mrs. Fossil. I thought she was just going to walk her home. But when I got up this morning, Jenny’s toolbox was still open, and there was no sign that she’d slept here. And it looked as if the whole place had been searched.”
“Searched?”
“Yes, like someone had rifled and rummaged every shelf,” says Vi, “looking in every book. And I haven’t seen Jenny since.”
“Have you gone to Mrs. Fossil’s place to ask?”
“That’s the first thing I did,” says Vi, “but I think she was out beachcombing. That’s when I came to find you, Herbie, but you weren’t there, either, so I left my note. Where were you, anyway?”
Spying on breakfast is where I was, but I don’t want to admit that.
“On a scale from one to ten,” I say instead, “how worried about Jenny are you? Where one is not very worried at all, and ten is so worried that you might actually explode.”
“I’m a seven,�
�� says Violet without hesitation. “But I might go up to an eight if we don’t do something soon.”
“The tide’s back in now,” I say. “We could try Mrs. Fossil again. I’m sure there’s just a simple explanation for all this.”
“Thank you, Herbie.” Violet smiles gratefully at me.
“Ahem!” says Erwin from the countertop as we head for the door. We turn to find him regarding us, his head on one side. He hooks one claw into the cover of the yellow hardback book and flips it open.
“We don’t have time to read now, puss,” I say. “If Jenny comes back, tell her we’re looking for her.”
And with that—and with Erwin glaring at us icily from beneath very flat ears—we slip through the door of the Eerie Book Dispensary and head out into Dolphin Square.
When we arrive at Mrs. Fossil’s Flotsamporium, the sun is almost shining.
On the pavement outside the ramshackle shop lie buckets and baskets of sea-tumbled things for sale, while more beachcombed curios hang from lengths of salt-bleached rope. But already the change of the season is making itself felt: the ropes are tangled by the wind, and the baskets have a huddled look, as if gathering for warmth while they wait for their owner to take them inside for the winter.
Wedged upright beside the peeling shop door is a surfboard, with what looks like a shark bite taken out of it. And on the surfboard, Mrs. Fossil has painted some words:
“They’re hardly world-famous,” says Violet. “I’d never even heard of a manglewick candle till a few days ago. Just as I’d never heard of the Shadowghast or any of this Ghastly Night business.”
“Do they really not have manglewicks where you come from?” I ask.
“Nope,” says Vi. “On Halloween, people mostly leave carved pumpkins out to scare off evil spirits—not weird homemade candlesticks that . . . argh! What’s that?”
Above the gusting of the wind, a strange droning sound cuts through the air. Then the drone is joined by a melody, leaping jauntily and dancing around in our ears.
Shadowghast Page 4