The Turnkey

by Allison Rushby

  “Thank you,” Flossie said to his departing back.

  Grace’s form was almost doubled over in her chair. What was it about her? Flossie was used to dealing with all sorts of people in the twilight due to her job as Turnkey, but every so often she met one who was special. Someone who she really wanted everything to work out all right for. Like Amelia.

  And Grace.

  “I’m so very sorry, Grace,” she said, placing her hand on Grace’s rounded back. As she connected with her, she was shocked to feel that Grace’s presence was now much stronger in the twilight world. Flossie tensed. She couldn’t let Grace do this. She couldn’t let her make this choice. Not now. Not like this. She would regret it. Flossie knew she would.

  It was in that moment Flossie understood why she’d come. Why she cared so much.

  It was because Grace had no one else to fight for her. Her mother was gone; her sister was gone now too. Her father had been stolen away to war. Perhaps her aunt and cousin were also no more?

  If Flossie didn’t take the time to fight for Grace, who would?

  Flossie thought back to her old life and how lucky she had been to have people who would fight for her. She had come close to death several times when the rheumatic fever had first hit. It hadn’t been like later on, when her heart had simply given out and there had been no choice to make. With her initial illness there had been several moments when she had had to make that final decision. When she’d felt that if she wanted to she could have closed her eyes, let go and sunk deep, deep down into her bed for all eternity. Her mother had brought her back from that place time and time again. Talking to her. Sitting with her. She would never forget the sound of her mother’s voice calling her back, cajoling her, forcing her to remain in the land of the living. “Which dress should I wear today, Flossie?”, “Cook wants to know if you’d like beef or chicken broth today”, “Which book should we read this afternoon? Come on now, I won’t start until you point to one”.

  “Grace,” Flossie said now, moving around so she stood directly in front of her. “Look at me.”

  Slowly, as if the effort was almost too much, Grace raised her head.

  “Grace, I know what it is to lose people you love – to have them torn away from you. My father, my sister, my niece … it happened to me too. Right now, you’re being asked to make a decision and it isn’t a decision to be made lightly. It might seem like following your mother and sister is the easier option, but it’s not–”

  The wail of the air-raid siren cut through Flossie’s words and Grace’s eyes darted up suddenly. Grace grabbed the notebook and pencil Flossie had left for her and wrote as fast as she could.

  You want me to live?

  She wrote the words in angry, jagged letters, underlining the final word several times.

  Flossie met Grace’s angry expression. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

  Again, Grace scribbled furiously, her writing spiky and disturbed.

  Why should I stay here? In this place?

  The drone of enemy planes outside seemed to become louder.

  Flossie had no time for this. She had to go. If she didn’t find a way to stop Viktor Brun, there would only be more planes. More and more and then … invasion. There would be no choices for anyone – dead or alive – if Viktor Brun had his way.

  Flossie struggled to think of a good answer to Grace’s question because there was no good answer. As she tried to think of something to say, she clenched her iron key tighter in her hand.

  “You should choose to live because your life matters, Grace.” Flossie felt a flare of anger as a picture of Viktor Brun standing over the crystal skull came into her mind. He’d taken her father and now he wanted to take her cemetery, her country, even Grace. Well, he had taken enough. Flossie wouldn’t let him take one more thing. Not one. She got down onto her knees next to Grace. “Every life matters. Even more so than usual right now. Don’t give yours away easily.”

  Grace didn’t move, holding the notebook and pencil still in her hands. When she eventually went to write something, her face crumpled as soon as the pencil hit the paper.

  “Oh, Grace.” Flossie squeezed Grace’s shoulder. She didn’t want to promise her anything, but surely they would send her father to her soon. Surely he would be granted compassionate leave. Perhaps that might change her mind.

  It felt like an eternity before Grace’s pencil connected with the paper again.

  Just go.

  * * *

  Flossie exited the hospital. Michael was sitting on the stairs, observing the night sky, his scarlet coat spilling out around him.

  “Hello,” Flossie said, her voice flat.

  “Hello there.” Michael took off his tricorn hat and patted the place beside him.

  “I’m sorry, I have to go,” Flossie said, her mind already on Viktor Brun.

  “Oh, you can sit for a moment. We have all the time in the world, remember?”

  If only that was true. Flossie did what she was asked and sat down.

  “Grace has a good head on her shoulders,” Michael said. “I think she’ll make the right decision in the end.”

  “I hope so.”

  “There’s nothing else you could have done or said, love,” Michael told her. “For Grace, I mean. It’s up to her now.”

  Flossie shrugged. She didn’t know how to help Grace. “You know, my father was a rear admiral,” she said, taking in Michael’s kindly face and twinkly eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if there’s any of him in me at all.”

  “What? Of course there is! Is he buried in your cemetery too?” Michael asked.

  “I wish he had been, but no. He was lost at sea.”

  In life, whenever Flossie had met anyone who had served with her father, they would always tell her of his skill as a leader. How they trusted him. How they would have followed him anywhere. Every single time she had met someone who had known him, they had told her what a courageous man he had been. Oh, she wished he were here so he could tell her what to do. He would have worked out what to say to Grace. He would have convinced her to stay in the land of the living.

  With a start, Flossie realised she’d wasted too much time here. She had to get back to Highgate. The full moon was coming and she had to be ready for it.

  Just as she was about to get up, she felt a presence behind her – the Turnkey of Brompton. She couldn’t handle explaining everything again. Especially to another Turnkey.

  “Hello! And goodbye!” she called out to him as she darted down the steps and away. “I really must go.”

  * * *

  “Hazel? Hazel!” Flossie had fled through the cemetery gates and to her Turnkey’s cottage.

  “Mistress Turnkey.” Hazel materialised in an instant. “Is everything all right?”

  “No, Hazel, it most certainly is not,” Flossie replied, sitting on the small upholstered footstool, her hand gripping her iron ring and key tight. She spent the next few minutes filling Hazel in on everything that had occurred. “Violet believes the only way we can stop Viktor Brun from delivering even more harmful information is by destroying the crystal skull in the living world. But I don’t see how that’s possible. Even though she thinks it will be in a good position when it’s taken to the rock formation, we’d have to be able to move the skull in the living world in order to destroy it and we don’t have the ability to do that.”

  An ominous silence filled the room.

  “Hazel?” Flossie spoke slowly.

  Hazel stood stock-still.

  “If it’s possible to move objects in the living world, you have to tell me now. Don’t you understand? Highgate is at risk. Our country is at risk!”

  Hazel’s eyes slid to meet hers. “Mistress Turnkey, there are things you are not meant to know about the Magnificent Seven. That no Turnkey is meant to know. There is information that I am not at liberty to divulge.”

  “Hazel,” Flossie’s voice had a warning to it, “how can you not tell me if you know something? You’re suppo
sed to advise me. Remember?”

  “I do apologise, Mistress Turnkey. But to part with this knowledge could put Highgate at just as much risk as you are suggesting it is already in.”

  Flossie couldn’t believe her ears. Hazel knew the way out of this mess and was deliberately withholding information that might well save the cemetery and all those within it from devastation. Not to mention their city. Their country, even!

  Flossie crossed her arms. “So that’s it, then. You won’t tell me.”

  There was another long pause before Hazel spoke again. “I will say no more other than there is one person in the twilight who is privy to this information.”

  “And who would that be?”

  Hazel’s golden eyes bore into those of her mistress. “The Turnkey of Kensal Green.”

  Chapter 22

  In which Flossie confronts Hugo Howsham

  Flossie stormed out of her own cemetery, away from Hazel. Her Advisor’s cryptic answer infuriated her but didn’t surprise her – things often worked this way in her cemetery – Highgate had always been full of dark shadows, whispers and secrets.

  This could sometimes be most annoying.

  So intent was she on rapping on the gates at Kensal Green that she startled herself by arriving there with her nose pressed almost to its iron bars. She retreated a fraction and then tapped away insistently with her iron ring.

  Hugo Howsham attended to her tapping within seconds, Violet by his side. When he saw who was at the gates, he glared that ever-present glare of his. As per usual, his Advisor was not with him. Flossie knew he had brought forth his Advisor in the form of Princess Sophia, who was buried within his cemetery. Hugo Howsham’s Advisor had a low-key role. It was so like him to think he knew it all. And also so like him to think he was fit company for a princess.

  Oh, how she despised him.

  “Miss Birdwhistle,” he acknowledged her.

  Flossie didn’t care for formalities right now. She concentrated on Violet. “Apparently your brother knows a way to move objects in the living world. Did you know that?”

  Violet frowned, turning to her brother. “Hugo?”

  But Hugo Howsham wasn’t interested in explaining himself to his sister. Instead, he unlocked the gates to his cemetery, then took two long steps to tower over Flossie, forcing her to withdraw, so her back pushed into one of the entrance’s high columns.

  “Hugo!” Violet rattled on the locked gates, trapped inside the cemetery. “What are you doing? Stop that at once and–” Her words were drowned out by the air-raid siren’s whine.

  Flossie squared her jaw. She had to appear as if she wasn’t scared of him, despite the fact that she always had been and he knew it. She had to show him that she was a worthy Turnkey. A Turnkey of a cemetery just as important as his. A cemetery that was just as at-risk as his.

  Hugo Howsham used the rise and fall of the siren to mask his words. “I saw those building plans – the plans for the barracks at Highgate and Kensal Green.” He brought himself to his full intimidating height. “And I agree with Violet. The skull must be destroyed.”

  Flossie’s eyes bored into his. “Well then, how are we going to do that? It seems you’re the one with all the information here.”

  He laughed then. “Plucky, aren’t you?”

  Flossie didn’t know how to reply to this.

  “I will help you if you require, because I must. But only when the time comes.”

  “So you do know a way to move objects in the living world?” Flossie said.

  His mouth twisted, bemused. “Now, I never said that. I only said I would help you if required. Until then, you must promise that you will not speak of my involvement. To anyone. Is that clear?”

  Annoyed at his cryptic reply, Flossie didn’t answer him, tilting her chin further.

  He moved back a tad, giving her some space, and his expression changed. “All I can tell you is that when the time comes, you will know what to do and I will help you to do it. It is most important that you don’t reveal anything about this. Most important.”

  What did he mean? Flossie caught sight of a slight vulnerability in his eyes. Was this something to do with Violet? She wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t understand. Why can’t you tell me? Why can’t you explain?”

  His eyes flashed with anger then. “Because I cannot. And that will have to be good enough for you if you wish for my assistance.” He paused. “Is it good enough, or should we part ways right now?”

  Still not willing to give the man what he wanted, Flossie offered up a shrug.

  He took this as her agreement. “Violet will tell us when the time is right,” he continued. “Until then, Miss Birdwhistle.” He bowed slightly and headed back to the gates, which he unlocked swiftly, already flicking Violet’s concerns away with a shake of his keyed hand.

  * * *

  Flossie gasped when she saw the view from the Golden Gallery. She had retreated there in the hope of finding a quiet place to think. It was anything but quiet. Smoke filled the sky and London below was dotted with flames, the horizon of the city ablaze. Searchlights roamed the hazy sky, ready and waiting for enemy planes. In the distance, a searchlight honed in on a plane and an ack-ack gun opened fire.

  And beneath that noise something else. A low drone.

  Louder.

  And louder still.

  Flossie took a step back and watched as the planes passed overhead. She remained transfixed as the scene played out before her: the flashing of the incendiary bombs, the tearing apart of buildings, the grinding machinery of the planes, the flames whipping the air.

  She moved up to the ornate iron railing, anger flaring inside her. Anger at Hugo Howsham. Anger at Viktor Brun. Anger at this stupid, senseless war.

  “Stop it!” she screamed. “Just stop! Stop it now!”

  She was being ridiculous. She knew it. She was screaming at nothing and no one. The living couldn’t hear her, and even if they could, they wouldn’t listen to her anyway. She was just a child and a child of the twilight at that.

  With the planes gone, a brief reprieve saw her eyes roam the heavens for answers.

  And then she found one.

  There. There in the night sky.

  One single small, lonely star.

  For some reason, the star reminded her of Grace who, in turn, reminded her of her interred. All those people she had been entrusted to care for at Highgate. She could see their faces. Knew their names. Cared for them all.

  And right now she felt powerless to protect them. Another Turnkey held all the cards. A Turnkey who had always despised her.

  Flossie sank down the wall onto the floor below.

  Now more than ever, she couldn’t let Highgate down. She had to make sure that skull was destroyed before Viktor Brun’s soldiers trampled their way into her country and her cemetery.

  Flossie simply couldn’t imagine it – St Paul’s gone. Kensal Green and Highgate cemeteries flattened to make way for armies of men.

  It would be terrible enough for her interred, but the living, all those people below … All those Londoners …

  To be honest, she hadn’t given them much thought until now. After spending so long as a Turnkey, she felt as if she barely knew them.

  She knew what they had to do, of course, each time that air-raid siren wailed – taking to their Anderson shelters in the back garden, running to the Underground shelters far below the city. Caught up in her own little world at Highgate, she had never seen it. Never seen what they were going through – the fear in their eyes. The not knowing.

  Maybe she should see that, she thought.

  Maybe she should see them. See the people she was begging Grace to remain with.

  Flossie closed her eyes then and thought of the steep escalators of Piccadilly Circus station.

  * * *

  “Oh!” was her immediate reaction. Deep down in the Underground, she hadn’t expected to see what she did – people had set up camp all over the steep escalato
rs. Children slept, people chatted. A woman knitted a long sock. A girl read a book. A man read a newspaper, the headline London Can Take It! jumping out at her.

  She picked her way through the crowd, wandering towards the sound of a violin that wafted from one of the platforms.

  On the station platform itself, she was greeted with yet more people, sandwiched between suitcases. Some had blankets and pillows; some did not. Some dozed, fully clothed in suits and ties, hats on their heads. Some sat, their backs against a curved wall, and listened to the man and his violin. A baby cried and was soothed by its mother.

  Flossie watched them – all these Londoners – for some time. She hadn’t expected this. No one quivered in fear, or seemed panicked. They went about their business, uncomplaining, tired more than distressed. As if they knew they must simply bear this to get through to the other side.

  This was what got to her – that they believed there would be a life on the other side of this war.

  They were like that star in the sky – like Grace – faint, but still shining, despite everything.

  Seeing them gave Flossie a sudden burst of faith. And hope. If they could do this, she could too.

  She wouldn’t give up now, or be put off by Hugo Howsham.

  So, Hugo Howsham wanted to keep secrets? Well, she had a secret as well. He still had no idea about her personal connection to Viktor Brun. Maybe that was something she needed to explore in greater depth. After all, the more she knew about what was going on here, the more likely she was to find out something that might be of use.

  Chapter 23

  In which Flossie turns to her father

  Flossie appeared atop a high cliff. Down below, the wintery North Sea crashed and rolled, booming as it hit the jagged rocks. A fierce wind buffeted the tiny tufts of plant life that could be seen through the snow. Flossie stood steady in the twilight, impervious to it. She stared far out to sea, at the white-tipped waves – her father’s domain.