Shadowghast

by Thomas Taylor

  When we arrive, I stoke up a comforting fire in my wood-burning stove. Vi plonks herself down in my big armchair and folds her arms.

  “I wonder if your so-called aunt—this Caliastra—has anything to do with all this?” she says.

  “Why would you think that?” I ask with surprise.

  “Well, isn’t it a bit funny?” Violet replies. “That she should arrive out of the blue and take over the Ghastly Night show, just as someone is seen creeping around Sebastian Eels’s house and Jenny vanishes into thin air?”

  “Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence,” I reply, doing my best Erwin impression. But Violet isn’t impressed.

  “You ought to tell her to leave you alone,” Violet continues. “Caliastra, I mean. Coming here and trying to change everything!”

  “I doubt Caliastra has anything to do with Jenny,” I say, slamming the door of the stove louder than I mean to. “Why would she?”

  Violet glares at me from beneath her mass of curls.

  “I will help you find Jenny, Vi,” I continue. “I promise. She’s mine to lose as well, you know.”

  Violet softens her eyes but looks worried all the same. She chews on a fingernail and stares into the flames.

  “Stay here tonight,” I tell her then. “I don’t think you should be alone. Then tomorrow we can ask around to see about Eels’s house and who might have a key.”

  “But we need to do something now, Herbie!” I can’t sit around waiting for tomorrow. Shouldn’t we . . . shouldn’t we tell someone about Jenny?”

  “Tell who?” I reply. “We’ve already told Mrs. Fossil and the doc, and they’re Jenny’s friends. I bet Dr. Thalassi is already looking into it. He’ll know what to do.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?” Violet cries. “Shouldn’t we get out there and search ourselves?”

  “It’s just . . .” I start to say, my mind drifting back to the woman with the raven hair. Now that she has been conjured into the conversation, I feel the nape of my neck tingle again at the memory of her dark, honey voice and her dazzling smile. “I thought . . . this afternoon . . . I might go along to the Theater at the End of the Pier, to see what my aunt . . . what Caliastra is up to. That’s all.” And then I add, when I catch the look on Violet’s face, “I’ve always wanted to see behind the scenes of a magic show. Haven’t you?”

  And I try a grin.

  “You believe her, don’t you?” Violet replies, and the atmosphere is suddenly frosty, despite the jolly blaze in my stove. “You think that she really is your aunt. You’ve decided!”

  “Um . . . well . . . I don’t know, but . . .”

  “I see!” Violet jumps up, upsetting a basket of lost hairbrushes. “Now you’ll be leaving me, too. So that will be my parents gone, Jenny gone, and then my best friend—gone!”

  “Violet, wait . . .” I start to say, but Violet doesn’t wait. She runs to the window that she uses to get in and out of my cellar. It’s a small window, and near the ceiling, but Violet is up and through it in a moment, and I hear her feet running off across the cobblestones.

  “Wait!” I cry one last time, but now she’s gone, leaving me.

  Should I run after her? Probably.

  “You’re always running after her, aren’t you, Herbie?” says the voice of Caliastra in my imagination. “Why can’t she just be happy for you?”

  “Because Violet always thought she would find her parents first,” I reply aloud, suddenly realizing this truth. “I don’t think she ever really believed I’d find family of my own.”

  “Well, let her go,” Caliastra’s honeyed voice continues. “Come see me anyway. You don’t need Violet’s permission.”

  I shake my head and rub my eyes.

  The last thing I need right now is to start hearing things.

  I go up to my cubbyhole and pick up Clermit automatically. I stare at his pearly shell in my hand. Then I put his winder key in the little hole and get ready to wind it . . .

  But I don’t.

  Instead, I put the clockwork hermit crab back on the shelf, flip my sign over to CLOSED, and go back down to my cellar.

  It can’t hurt to pay a quick visit to the theater, can it? Just to see?

  And since there’s no one there to answer except me, I pull on my coat, slip out through the window, and set off at a run toward the pier.

  The wind whistles around the flaking Victorian railings as I make my way along the pier. The summer deck chairs are chained together and stowed, and the ice-cream stands are closed for winter. Above me, the tall neon letters that spell—during the summer months—CHEERIE-ON-SEA in bright candy colors are creaking in the wind. The letter C has already fallen off, as it always does this time of year, and the letter H looks like it won’t be far behind. Then the town will return to its truer, darker identity.

  But the dark won’t have the pier all to itself. Even in the depths of winter, Seegol’s Diner—the best fish and chips shop in town—will glow with a warm welcome at the very heart of the pier.

  Seegol waves to me as I walk past, and he slides open a steamy window.

  “Ah, Herbie!” he cries. “You come to eat chips alone? Or will your friend Violet be joining you?”

  Inside the diner, a few locals sit and chat, and the smell of freshly fried fish and salty chips takes me by the nose.

  “No time for chips, thanks,” I reply, unable to quite believe what I’m saying. “Have you seen Jenny Hanniver, Mr. Seegol? She’s gone missing.”

  “Missing?” The front of Seegol’s bald head wrinkles with concern, and he scratches his stubbly chin. “She hasn’t been here today, Herbie. And I am sure she hasn’t been to the end of the pier, either. No one has.”

  “No one?” I ask. “No one’s been to the theater?”

  “The theater?” Seegol looks amazed at the suggestion. “The theater is all closed up, Herbie. No one’s there at all.”

  My heart sinks.

  Maybe I’m wasting my time. Maybe I should have run after Violet, after all. Perhaps, if I had, we’d be here together now, ordering lunch! If Caliastra and her troupe aren’t even here yet, then I’ve just let my best friend run away and said no to fish and chips, all for nothing.

  I wave goodbye to Mr. Seegol, but I don’t head back to the hotel—not just yet. I should leave a note for Caliastra, to let her know I came. And then I’ll go find Violet.

  The Theater at the End of the Pier is open for only one month of the year—and sometimes not even that. The rest of the time it sits empty and crooked, threatening to fall into the sea with every large wave. Its four towers are lopsided, and its golden Sinbad dome hasn’t looked golden for decades. Sinbad would probably be embarrassed if he saw it now.

  I came to see the Summer Show here once—a handful of third-rate tap dancers, variety performers, and an impressionist who didn’t make much of an impression on me. I never came again. As I look up at the creaky old building that hulks defiantly against the elements, surrounded on three sides by the squally sea, I’m surprised that anyone comes here at all.

  I’ll tuck a note under the door, I decide, so that Caliastra will know I didn’t forget. But that’s when I notice that the door is slightly open.

  I poke my head in, just in case.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  The foyer of the theater is empty and covered in dust—and more than a few seagull droppings. A shabby old chandelier tinkles lightly above me as the sea wind finds its way inside. On one side there is an ornate ticket booth with a CLOSED sign across the window. And ahead, above the auditorium doors, there is a bust of old Mayor Bigley, who had this whole thing built in the first place, way back in the beginning. He looks down at me, all beady eyes and bronze whiskers, as if he doesn’t approve of Lost-and-Founders. On the other side, opposite the ticket booth, are the arched glass panels of the Eerie-on-Sea amusement arcade—full of old penny machines, one-armed bandits, and ancient video games—that shares the foyer with the theater.

&
nbsp; I cross to the dark glass of the arcade and wipe some grime off with my sleeve.

  Inside, the machines and game cabinets are just shapes in the gloom.

  My hand goes to the doorknob before I realize what I’m doing. In fact, my brain is still sending urgent messages to my hand, pointing out that this is (a) a bad idea, (b) actually quite spooky, and (c) not likely to help find Jenny, when I feel a sharp draft around the door.

  “No wonder seagulls are getting in,” I say, giving a little jump at the sound of my voice in this dusty place. “There’s a window open in there.”

  I push the arcade door, shoving it wider against the dust and detritus on the floor, and slip inside. But the window, when I reach it, is stuck fast with age, so I decide to leave it.

  “I wonder what games they’ve got,” I say to myself, now that I’m actually in the amusement arcade itself. “I’ve never been here before . . .”

  I pull out the little keychain flashlight I always carry and switch it on.

  “Argh!”

  A face leers at me in the narrow beam of the flashlight, and I almost fall over with shock.

  But then I see that the face—which is cracked and peeling—isn’t a living face at all but belongs to a plaster man beneath a silken turban. He’s sitting in a glass box marked with the word Zoltar, and then, in curly lettering:

  “Thanks for the scare, Zoltar,” I say, straightening my cap and giving the fortune-telling machine a friendly kick. “But I don’t have a coin on me. Besides, you aren’t even plugged in.” And I look around at all the outmoded devices and games around me—Ultra-Galactic Pinball, Polybius, Whack-Octopi, and Slap the Donkey. “None of the machines are.”

  It’s just as I’m deciding to leave that my eye falls on one particularly old arcade game.

  “Space Invaders!” I cry.

  Sure enough, a grimy cabinet of the classic arcade video game stands in one corner, beneath of a blanket of dust.

  Even though I know nothing will happen, I can’t help tapping the cracked old buttons and waggling the joystick.

  BOOP!

  The machine makes a sudden electrical sound, and I snatch my hands away.

  On the screen, a small white square has appeared, right in the middle, flashing with a steady rhythm.

  “I didn’t do anything!” I call out, and hold my hands up, but there’s no one here to make excuses to.

  Then, before my disbelieving eyes, the small white dot types out a short message.

  PRESS START

  Is it talking to me? Feeling foolish, I reach out and press START.

  Instantly the words vanish and are replaced by the classic display of a Space Invaders machine: a fleet of intergalactic aliens—fizzing in crude pixels—begin a slow, juddering descent toward four bunkers at the bottom, to the sound of a slow DUH . . . DAH . . . DUH . . . DAH beat. At the bottom of the screen is the little mobile laser cannon the player uses to shoot the aliens.

  I bang the side of the cabinet, causing the image to crackle and dust to fall.

  “Stop! I’m not actually playing . . .”

  On the screen, the aliens creep closer in their low-tech approach, and the beat begins to speed up.

  DUH, DAH, DUH, DAH . . .

  Earth is being invaded and I’m just standing around doing nothing about it!

  So, I grab the joystick and start zapping. Well, what else can I do?

  PEW! PEW! PEW!

  I blast a few of the baddies as they get closer, but it’s clear they have the advantage. I waited too long before starting to play, and now there are just too many of them. I mash the fiRE button as fast as I can, but the laser blasts don’t seem to be going in the right direction, and suddenly I realize that something strange and eerie is happening . . .

  I let go of the controls.

  On the screen, the remaining aliens are arranged in a crude shape. A shape that slides from side to side on the screen as the game rushes to its end.

  “What!” I cry, trying to move my head with the crazy DUH-DAH-DUH-DAH beat, so that I can check that I’m really seeing what I think I’m seeing.

  Then the earth is invaded and I lose. The screen fills with a terrible image: a horned head with two slanted eyes and a leering puppet-like grin.

  The Shadowghast!

  The hideous face of the Shadowghast rushes at me—out from the screen!—in a roar of electronic noise. I fall back in horror as the horned man swoops down, electric-light hands snatching at me, awful mouth opening as if to consume me whole, and . . .

  He collapses.

  Into a riot of dust and static and the sparkle of dying pixels, the face disintegrates in the air above me and is gone. I’m left lying on the floor as the last of the twinkling motes descend around me.

  But not for long.

  Because I’m on my feet in a second, aren’t I?

  And running !

  I burst out of the arcade, cross the foyer, and charge through the theater doors—pelting, with my hand on my cap, back down the pier as fast as a Lost-and-Founder has ever run.

  And straight into something big and horribly soft that brings me to a sudden stop and sends me rolling on the boards of the pier.

  I sit up to see a homburg hat land with a plop beside the stout form of Mr. Mummery, who is lying where I knocked him down. He forces himself up onto his elbow and glares at me.

  “What the devil . . . ?” he splutters, grabbing his hat. “You! Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Face!” I shout, pointing back at the theater. “Face Invaders! No, Spade Infacers! But . . . with a face!”

  Then four hands close on my arms and elbows and I find myself being lifted roughly upright by the two black-clad men named Rictus and Tristo. Their facial features are still twisted by stage makeup into a leering grin for Rictus, and a terrible frown for Tristo.

  “Herbie!”

  Caliastra appears.

  “Unhand him!” she commands Rictus and Tristo. “Can’t you see he’s had a shock?”

  The hands release me. Rictus steps back and gives me an exaggerated silent plea for forgiveness, while Tristo makes a show of brushing down my uniform and straightening my cap and buttons.

  “What’s this about a face?” Caliastra asks, putting one hand on my shoulder and looking searchingly into my eyes. “Did something scare you, Herbie? Something in the theater?”

  “I . . .” I begin. Then I’m not sure where to go from there. “There was a . . . um . . .”

  But I really don’t know how to describe the strange thing that just happened to me in the amusement arcade. So I decide to leave the “um” hanging there and see what happens next.

  “No matter.” Caliastra smiles kindly then. “The theater is a spooky old place. You probably jumped at the sight of your own shadow. But you came to see me, Herbie, and that’s the most important thing. I’m only sorry we weren’t there yet, but please do come with us now. We are going to rehearse, and you can be our audience.”

  Mr. Mummery gets to his feet and sets his hat on his head. With a final glare at me, he strides off toward the theater, with Rictus and Tristo behind him. Then I follow with Caliastra.

  “Have you had a little more time to think about everything I said this morning, Herbie?” Caliastra asks. “I know it must be hard for you, after all these years of not knowing anything about your past.”

  “Well, I have been wondering,” I admit. “If you are who you say you are, then . . .”

  The next words just come tumbling out:

  “. . . then you could tell me about my mum! What color eyes she had. What she used to say about me! Or, or about my dad! What was he like? What did we do together? Or about my brothers and sisters. Do I even have any brothers and sisters? And where was I born? And what’s my real name ? And . . . ?”

  “Herbie, enough!” Caliastra comes to a stop and turns me by the shoulders to look at her. “You need to take it easy. I see now that my appearance has been more of a shock than I realized
. Of course, I will tell you all those things in time. But right now, I think you need to just get used to me being here and to the change that is happening in your life. OK?”

  I manage a nod.

  “And I am a bit disappointed, I admit, to hear you say ‘If you are who you say you are . . .’” Caliastra turns a hurt smile on me. “I hope you don’t think I’m lying.”

  “No!” I say quickly, wanting to fix that smile. “But, it’s just that I was talking about it with Violet, and . . .”

  “Ah, yes, your friend.” Caliastra nods. “You know, I have a feeling she doesn’t quite trust me.”

  “I think . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I think she’ll be sad if I leave.”

  “Oh, she’ll make other friends,” Caliastra replies, waving the problem away like an annoying fly. “But you must always be careful of others being jealous, Herbie.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Not everyone can have an opportunity like the one I’m giving you,” says Caliastra. “Violet has a different destiny.”

  “I’m really going to be a magician’s apprentice?” I ask, trying to steer the conversation as far away from Violet as I can. The idea of leaving her behind is not something I want to think about just yet. In fact, the whole idea of leaving Eerie-on-Sea, the Grand Nautilus hotel, and my Lost-and-Foundery is all so utterly incomprehensible that I’m amazed I’m even considering it. And yet, here I am, chatting with a woman—my aunt!—who seems about to make it happen.

  “Of course,” says Caliastra. “But no one will force you to do anything, Herbie. I just hope that once you have seen my work, you will understand what adventure awaits you.”

  “Lady Kraken . . .” I begin, but Caliastra waves her name away, too.

  “Oh, don’t worry about the old lady.” She laughs. “I have everything I need to convince her that this is the best thing for you. Don’t you worry.”

  And that’s when we arrive at the flaky doors of the theater.

  “Perhaps,” the raven-haired magician continues, looking at me closely, “in exchange, before we leave town, you will give me a thorough tour of your famous lost-property cellar.”