Shadowghast

by Thomas Taylor

  Afterward, no one could say quite how he’d done it. With the light came creeping shadows, which the sailor, seemingly by using little more than his hands and fingers, was able to bend and twist in the smoke and lantern light above the audience—bend and twist into wonders!

  Creatures from legend, characters from old tales, monsters from prehistory—all flew and slithered and strode around the clouds of scented smoke. Eerie-on-Sea’s own Malamander crept in and out of view to cries of happy fright from the audience. Pterosaurs and thunderbirds wheeled and arched in the air to gasps of wonder, and even the great storm fish Gargantis rolled across the sky, swimming through the clouds. It was the most astonishing show the people of Eerie had ever seen, and all of it was narrated by the Puppet Master himself in his strange, lilting voice.

  Throughout the show, just at the edge of sight, many thought they saw an extra shadow, one not mentioned in the stories and narration—the shadow of a grinning man with horns upon his head, who flicked and flew between the other shadows, snatching at any that tried to escape the clouds, and swirling them back into the spectacle.

  “Who is that?” cried a small, round-eyed child near the front.

  “That,” answered the Puppet Master, with a dark twinkle in his eye, “is the Shadowghast. A ghost that haunts my lantern and who keeps my shadows for me.”

  “Why does he snatch them?” cried a little girl from behind her dad. “When they try to escape?”

  “What kind of puppet master would I be,” replied the stranger, “without puppets to master? And now, good people, my show is over.”

  The wonderous forms collapsed back into the creeping and wretched shades from which they had arisen. The Puppet Master held up the silver orb and commanded them to return to the light. The shadows in the clouds were dragged back into the lens as if sucked by an unseen force, leaving only the hiss of the lantern, and the Puppet Master bowing in the eerie light, and everyone clapping madly. Some even threw coins.

  Mayor Bigley smiled to himself the smile of a man who had just been proved right. With entertainment like this, his pier was bound to be a success. And he was bound to become the richest man for miles around.

  “I don’t suppose,” said the mayor to the Puppet Master, just as he was about to replace the silver orb in the dragon’s mouth, “that you could be persuaded to stay and put on your show once the theater is finished? The tourists will pay a fortune . . . I mean, they will pay tolerably well to see a . . . a goodish puppet show like that.”

  The Puppet Master raised one long eyebrow.

  “Even if the showman is a ‘poor, dirty fellow’ like me?” he asked. “But I cannot stay. I am traveling and would like my two gold coins now, so that I may sail with the tide.”

  “Well, really!” declared Mayor Bigley, stamping one foot in annoyance at seeing such a profitable opportunity slip between his fingers. “And as for your fee, did we really say two coins? I believed I was paying for a proper puppet show, and yet all you did was make shadows with your hands. As everyone knows, a shadow is only half a thing and not its whole. Therefore, I shall pay you only half the fee.”

  And he dug out a single gold coin from his pocket.

  “Two was the price agreed,” the Puppet Master replied, narrowing his eyes. “And you will regret it if you double-cross me.”

  The mayor of Eerie-on-Sea snorted. Who was this little vagabond to threaten him? There were plenty of other clowns and players around—hungry artists who would perform for next to nothing and be grateful. And no one—no one—waggled their finger at Standing Bigley and got away with it.

  “Here is your coin, wretch,” said the mayor, holding it up. “And I will give it to you in the same way you gave us your so-called puppet show!” And with this he flicked the coin up into the beam of lantern light, sending a shadow of the coin flitting across the clouds of smoke. “Catch that, if you can!”

  But something strange happened. Even though the mayor caught the actual coin in his pudgy little fist, the shadow of the coin continued to tumble through the clouds above. When it finally fell silently to the deck of the pier, it began to roll—a tiny black disk of shade, and nothing more—around and around the mayor until it came to lie at the feet of the Puppet Master. The Puppet Master picked up the shadow coin and held it in his own fingers, to gasps of astonishment from those nearby.

  “But . . .” Mayor Bigley gasped, too, staring at the actual gold coin in his own hand. He waved it in front of the light, but the only shadow he made was that of an empty hand, holding nothing. “But how . . . ?”

  “Did I not say my lantern was magic?” said the Puppet Master, slipping the shadow coin into his pocket. “And did I not say you would get what you paid for? You will regret the day you mocked me, Mayor Bigley! The Shadowghast is always hungry for one more shadow.”

  And he made a motion in the lantern light as if drawing something out of the lens.

  A shadow slipped across the clouds, darting here and there, always just at the edge of sight, as new clouds of smoke poured from the lantern . . .

  The shadow of a grinning man with horns upon his head.

  The Shadowghast!

  The mayor backed away from the shadow, waving the smoke from his face, coughing.

  “Stop!” he cried. “Stop, I cannot see . . . !”

  Soon he was completely shrouded, visible only as a silhouette in the lantern-lit cloud.

  The Shadowghast darted forward, reaching his terrible crooked hands toward Mayor Bigley. At a nod from the Puppet Master, the Shadowghast snatched Standing Bigley’s cowering shadow and pulled it with a silent scream into the lantern.

  “Another silly trick!” spluttered the mayor as the clouds parted and revealed him still standing there, waving the fug away. “Smoke and mirrors, that’s all! Why, I’ve a good mind to . . .”

  But he stopped speaking when the gasping started.

  All around, people were pointing at the deck of the pier behind the mayor. Mayor Bigley swung around, and to his horror he saw not the shadow of a well-fed a man of business, but . . .

  Nothing.

  He had no shadow at all!

  Disbelieving, the mayor raised his right arm and waved his fat little hand.

  Nothing waved back.

  “What . . . ?” he cried. “What have you done?”

  “Your greed has fed my Shadowghast.” The Puppet Master grinned. “And your debt is settled. And it seems the good people of Eerie-on-Sea will have an entertainer for their pier after all. You! Dance, Mayor Bigley! Dance!”

  And the Puppet Master waggled his finger to and fro, as if conducting music only he could hear. The mayor began to dance, leaping from one foot to the other and turning a pirouette when the puppeteer twirled his hand.

  “Stop!” cried Mayor Bigley as he spun on his heel perilously close to the edge of the pier. “Release me! I command you!”

  “No,” replied the Puppet Master, waving his hand and making the mayor lurch back toward the stage. “I have your shadow, so it is I who command you.”

  But just then, in his desperation, Mayor Bigley grabbed onto the makeshift stage and pulled the cloth and planks down. The lantern tipped, and fiery liquid spilled out over the wreckage. The dark at the end of the pier was suddenly filled with towering light as the flames took hold. The mayor, still clutching the flaming curtain, was engulfed in fire and leaped screaming off the end of pier, dragging the lantern with him into the rolling sea.

  The people of Eerie ran to the burning stage, and using their chairs or whatever came to hand, pushed the rest of the flaming ruin into the waves before the town could burn. But search the waves as they did, there was no sign of Mayor Bigley.

  “And so,” said the Puppet Master, visibly shocked in the silence that followed, “it seems my show really is over.”

  “The sea is deep here,” said one of the fisherfolk. “You won’t see your lantern again in a hurry, showman.”

  “No matter,” replied the Puppet Master after
a long sigh. “The lantern has a new home now, on the bottom of the ocean. And perhaps it’s for the best. But never forget my show, good people, for the Shadowghast certainly won’t! And it’s always hungry for one more shadow.”

  And with this he threw the silver orb off the pier after the lantern.

  Before the sun could rise next day, the stranger had sailed away from Eerie-on-Sea, never to be seen again.

  But the same cannot be said of the Shadowghast. Even today, there are some who swear that on All Hallows’ Eve, a disembodied shadow can sometimes be seen in the streets of Eerie—the shadow of a grinning man with horns upon his head, searching hungrily for new shadows to snatch.

  “And that, my friends, is the story of Ghastly Night,” says Dr. Thalassi.

  Mrs. Fossil’s hurdy-gurdy grinds to silence, while the doc lowers the screen and puts down his puppets. They both look at us—the doc peering from inside his striped booth—anxious to know what we thought.

  “Hurray!” I cry, spraying cookie crumbs around like I don’t care (which I don’t) and clapping as if I enjoyed the show (which I did!). And beside me, Violet is clapping, too.

  “Bravo!” she cries. “That was great. And so spooky!”

  Dr. Thalassi climbs out of the canvas frame, tugs down the front of his waistcoat, and gives a deep bow of satisfaction. But Mrs. Fossil remains in her chair, her face slowly changing to a look of horror as she stares past us into the corner of the room.

  I turn and look where she’s looking, into the corner where the manglewicks are.

  And I see it immediately.

  One of the candles is alight.

  And on the wall behind it leaps the quivering shadow of a grinning man, with horns upon his head.

  That wasn’t lit before,” says Dr. Thalassi as he strides over to the corner of the shop and blows out the candle. “Or was it?”

  “I lit it earlier,” I say. “But then we blew it out, didn’t we?”

  “Well, it’s usually considered bad luck to light a manglewick candle before dark,” Dr. Thalassi explains. “I thought you knew that, Wendy.”

  But Mrs. Fossil doesn’t reply.

  “Of course,” Doc continues, “that’s nothing but a simple superstition.”

  “So now I know the story of Ghastly Night,” Violet says then. “And you put that show on every year?”

  “We do,” Dr. Thalassi replies as he makes some adjustments to the puppet booth. “It would be a shame to let the old tradition die out. We’ll have to train some younger puppet masters one day, to take over when Wendy and I are old and doddery.” And he raises one caterpillar eyebrow at us suggestively.

  I’m not sure what to make of this, but I can see a light in Violet’s eye that tells me all I need to know about what she thinks.

  “Shall we go again, Wendy?” the doc asks then, tweaking the crooked arms of his Shadowghast puppet. “Your playing was lively, as ever, but I fluffed some of Mayor Bigley’s lines. Wendy? Are you listening?”

  But it’s clear the beachcomber isn’t. It’s only when the ginger cookie that was stuck to the ceiling finally falls onto the floor with a soft thud that Mrs. Fossil speaks again.

  “I think I really did see it,” she says as if taking part in some other conversation none of us can hear.

  “See what, Mrs. F?” I ask.

  “Last night. When I was out on my rounds.” Her eyes are wide and fearful now. “When I . . . when I had my funny turn. In the window of the boarded-up house, I do think I saw the Shadowghast. Creeping across the room!”

  “Oh, honestly!” Dr. Thalassi scoffs, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “That’s preposterous!”

  “But I did,” Mrs. F insists. “And now, if Jenny Hanniver is missing . . .”

  “Jenny’s missing?” The doc stops laughing. “How long has she been missing?”

  “We don’t know for sure that she is missing,” I say, feeling that it’s time for the expert opinion of a Lost-and-Founder. “Only that we don’t know where she is.”

  “But it’s just not like her, Herbie,” Violet insists, “to go away for so long without leaving me a note. And we were going book shopping this morning. It was all arranged. It’s one of our favorite things to do together. She’d never miss that.”

  “You’re right.” The Doc frowns. “That is very unlike Jenny.”

  “We should go,” says Violet, looking panicked again. “We shouldn’t have delayed, Herbie! Oh, why did we stay here? Come on, we need to find her!”

  And she grabs her coat and runs out of the Flotsamporium before I or anyone else can respond.

  So, of course, I follow.

  Sebastian Eels’s house is only a few doors down from Mrs. Fossil’s ramshackle place, but in terms of style it might as well be a million miles away. It’s the tallest and grandest house in all of Eerie, standing four stories high and painted sulphur yellow, with a great front door of gleaming black wood. But these days, with its owner gone for good, the old place is locked up and neglected—all eight front windows boarded up.

  “Wait, isn’t that a bit odd?” says Vi as we stand together on the cobblestones and look up at the abandoned building. “Why board up the upstairs windows as well?”

  “To keep people out,” I reply.

  “What, out of the fourth floor?” Vi nudges me. “Who’s going to climb in up there, Herbie? A cat burglar?”

  “Meow?” says a voice, and we look down.

  Without our noticing, and as quiet as mist, Erwin has appeared and is winding himself around Violet’s legs.

  “Hello, puss,” says Violet, scooping Erwin up. “Has Jenny come home? Is there any news?”

  Erwin, as if he were just like any other cat in the world, says nothing. And yet, we can still tell from the twitch of his whiskers that Jenny has not come home.

  “So, in which window was it that Mrs. Fossil saw . . . whatever it is she saw?” I say, clutching my cap as I look up at the grand town house. “All these seem firmly shuttered to me.”

  But when we walk around to look at the side of the house, we see that on one of the smaller windows, the boards have blown loose and are hanging down, giving a view into the dark of an upstairs room.

  “That must be it,” says Vi. “I wonder if we could get up there somehow.”

  “Up there?” I blink. “Vi, if I’d known we were going to do a bit of burglary, I’d’ve put a couple of ladders under my cap. And a crowbar!”

  Even if we climbed the tree that grows low over the garden wall, there would be no way up to this particular window. Not without climbing the sheer wall.

  “Did you bring Clermit?” Violet asks, glancing at my cap. “Your clockwork hermit crab? Like I asked?”

  I give her one of my looks.

  “Well, maybe Erwin could do it instead.” Vi rumples the bookshop cat’s head. “His claws are like grappling hooks.”

  “Na-o,” Erwin meows, and he starts to wriggle in Violet’s arms.

  So she puts him down.

  “Hey, where’s he going?” I say as Erwin scoots off along the street, toward the front of the house. “There’s no way in over there.”

  “Apart from the front door,” says Vi as we follow.

  “A front door,” I reply as we reach it, “that’s firmly bolted shut with this.” And I rap my knuckle on a large steel padlock and iron bar across the main entrance of Sebastian Eels’s house. “Unless you’re planning to use Erwin’s claw to pick the lock.”

  Erwin gives me a stern look of disapproval.

  “I don’t think we could pick that lock anyway,” says Violet. “But maybe that’s the point! Even though this house is locked and boarded up, all it would take to get in would be just one key. In fact, maybe that’s why all the windows are boarded up. Someone could even live in this house, Herbie, and if they’re careful, no one in Eerie-on-Sea would even know.”

  “Until,” I reply, completing the thought, “the wind blew down some of the planks one night, and Eerie’s jumpiest residen
t happened to walk past while you were poking around with a flashlight, and she saw your shadow.”

  “Yes, that would give the game away,” Violet agrees. “Because you can’t have a spooky shadow without a not-so-spooky light to cast it. The question is, who was shining that light? And why?”

  But, of course, neither of us have an answer for that.

  “Prr-rrp,” goes Erwin, standing up against Vi’s leg and rubbing his ear on her thigh.

  “What?” she says to him, but the cat—now that he has her attention—pads away up the steps and approaches the front door. At the side of the door, set in the large flagstone on the top step, is an old iron foot scraper. From among the dead leaves and paper wrappers that are caught behind it, Erwin pulls something into view.

  It’s a blue woolly hat, stitched with little golden stars, a bit like the stars on the ceiling of the Eerie Book Dispensary.

  Violet gasps and snatches it up.

  “This hat!” she cries, waving it under my nose. “It’s Jenny’s!”

  Personally, I would never dream of making a scene in the street, and hammering and shouting “Open up!” on the door of Eerie-on-Sea’s most famous resident, but Violet isn’t like me. She spends a good five minutes hammering and shouting very loudly indeed on the dead author’s gleaming black door before finally giving it a good hard kick with her boot.

  “There’s no one there, Vi,” I tell her. “At least, no one who wants us to know it.”

  “What if Jenny is in there?” Vi demands. “Trapped? Or worse? And if she isn’t, where is she? Herbie, where has Jenny gone?”

  But all I can do is shrug.

  And then, since we can do no more at the house of Sebastian Eels, we head off through the streets toward the Grand Nautilus Hotel. The Lost-and-Foundery—stuffed to the rafters as it is with all the misplaced things that have ever been handed in and not yet reclaimed—is my home, as it has been to all the Lost-and-Founders before me. You’ll find everything there from glass eyes to eyeglasses, but you won’t find Jenny Hanniver, owner of the Eerie Book Dispensary.