Moonlocket

by Peter Bunzl

  Peering into the workshop, his stomach heaved at the sight of the crumbled cupboard he and Lily had pushed across the doorway to try and stop Roach and Mould’s attack. He tried not to think about what had happened in that room on the night of the fire, but that was impossible. The air was thick with damp, sooty sadness; bitter memories.

  Through the skeletal remains of the cupboard, Robert glimpsed the humped, charcoaled frame of Da’s workbench. The tools on the wall were warped beyond recognition – white ash and twisted metal was all that remained of them.

  “Look.” Lily pointed at the outline of a space where a screwdriver had been removed from its hook. The soot on the floor beneath it was newly scuffed. “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know,” Robert replied hoarsely. “But I don’t like it. Someone’s been rifling through this room.”

  They ducked back through the doorway, and walked down the corridor to what had once been the clock shop. Smashed cabinets lay overturned everywhere. The heavy iron till was tipped over on the counter, but otherwise fine. Funny how some things came through a fire practically unscathed, while others were reduced to ash.

  “This room’s been searched too, by the looks of things.” Lily bent down, examining a scattering of fresh footprints, and then froze as they heard a low creak from the floor above.

  “What was that?” Robert asked.

  “I told you – old houses.” Malkin pointed with his nose at the ceiling. “There’s more evidence of your visitor on the first floor. If you come with me, I’ll show you.”

  The three of them returned to the hall, and stared up the stairs. They were in a terrible state – the bannisters dwindled to twiggy stumps and the risers ringed in black.

  “Is it too dangerous to climb them?” Lily asked.

  “Keep to the sides,” Malkin advised, “the wood’ll be stronger.”

  He trotted ahead, skirting the damage in each step.

  Robert and Lily followed cautiously.

  Lily’s pulse echoed in her ears, sputtering like an overwound watch. She clutched the ammonite stone in her pocket and its cold shape against her palm calmed her down.

  Robert coughed. There was a dry scratchiness at the back of his throat. This place – he could taste the closeness of it in every breath.

  The floor of the upstairs passage was riddled with scorched holes. Edging carefully around them, they took care to keep only to the main joists, which were almost all whole. They passed the dilapidated kitchen, where Robert had spent his days eating with his da, then his blackened old bedroom and, finally, they stepped into what had once been Thaddeus’s sleeping quarters.

  A few stray shards of moonlight filtered through an opening in the roof, revealing a broken iron bedstead, teetering on the edge of a thicket of loose boards that stuck out over a jagged abyss. In the far corner, beside the chimney breast, a pile of charred rags lay on one of the few surviving islands of floor.

  The room had been almost completely destroyed. The only thing that had survived unscathed was the cast-iron fireplace. Even in winter, Robert remembered, Da never lit himself a fire. He preferred to save their coal for the kitchen range, or let his son have it for his room – he’d been generous that way, always attending to others’ needs over his own.

  Robert’s eyes watered – maybe it was the dust? He brushed a hand across his face. “Let’s go,” he said. “There’s nought anyone wants here.”

  “Wait,” Lily replied.

  “What?”

  “That mound of rags just moved.”

  Malkin tensed, pricking up his ears. “Probably a mouse.”

  “I think it’s bigger than that,” Lily said.

  The fox gave a loud sniff. “A rat then.”

  Robert held out his candle and crept along the crooked surviving centre beam of the floor, peering at the pile of wretched blankets.

  “I don’t see anything… Oh…”

  He was looking up now at the fireplace; there was something odd about it. The small grate and the stone hearth looked incongruously clean compared to everything else, as if it had been dusted. Robert stepped gingerly onto the island of intact floor and waved his candle beneath the fireplace’s arch.

  “That’s odd,” he said. “The back’s been pushed aside to access the chimney. And here’s the missing screwdriver from the workshop, resting in the grate…”

  “What’s it doing there?” Lily hugged her arms and tiptoed along the singed beam towards him.

  Robert crouched, placing a palm on the iron surround, and leaned in closer. The screwdriver was covered in dust. “Why,” he said, “it’s almost as if someone’s been poking around in the chimney.”

  He pushed at the fireback. A storm of dust fell from it, guttering the candle flame, almost putting it out. Robert bent forward as far as he could, until he could see directly up the flue. “Something’s stuck here, but I’ll need more light to get it out.”

  Lily moved closer, across the wobbly floor. Her lamp was fading but she set it by his shoulder so he could see.

  Malkin joined them on the ridge of boards. Then he gave a start, and trotted over to the mound of rags, snarling and poking at it with his nose. Lily swore she saw it twitch again.

  “Rob…ert!” she whispered in a strangled voice.

  “Hmm? What?” Robert was busily poking at the chimney. His body, stretched sideways, threw the room into awkward shadow.

  “I-I…” Lily stuttered, stepping back.

  Malkin raised his hackles and bared his teeth, snapping at the rags.

  Finally, Robert turned.

  The mound of rags was undulating upwards. Growing taller, and more human-shaped by the second. Shirts, trousers and sheets slipped from its shoulders, until, suddenly, all that was left was a man, wrapped in a dirty wool blanket. Beneath his cowl, his unshaven face was caked in mud and a long white scar ran down his right cheek.

  Malkin lunged at him. But the ragged man stepped quickly out of his way, and made for Robert.

  Robert scrambled backwards, dropping his candle. The flame went out, and then the ragged man grabbed his throat.

  Soot-blackened nails scratched his skin and bony fingers tugged him towards the ceiling. “GARGGGHHH!” Robert cried. “Let go!”

  “Never!” the ragged man growled.

  Malkin was on him again, but the ragged man kicked him aside and pulled Robert into the corner, throwing him against the wall.

  “Call off your fox,” he whispered, his breath hot and angry in Robert’s ear.

  “First let me go.” Robert coughed. He tried to shake himself free, but the man’s fingers tightened against his windpipe, until his breath felt sharp and jagged.

  “Call off your fox and we’ll see.” The ragged man’s eyes were wild with anger.

  “Malkin, get back!” Robert wheezed.

  Malkin froze, then retreated to Lily’s side.

  “Good.” The man’s gravelly voice grew calmer, but he didn’t stop staring at the fox.

  Robert motioned to the door. Go get help, he mouthed at Lily.

  Lily tried to keep her face neutral. Giving him the slightest nod, she stepped sideways, edging herself back along the central beam.

  “No, you don’t!” The ragged man grasped Robert tighter and jumped across the gap, blocking Lily’s path. He lunged at her.

  Malkin snapped at the man’s boot, darting between his feet.

  Lily hopped sideways, grappling for a steady piece of floor. The man tried to follow, stumbling forward, dragging Robert with him, but he was too heavy. KKKCRrrAaaaccCKKK! went the boards beneath him.

  He stopped and looked down. “What the…?” he spluttered, clutching Robert against his chest.

  With a sudden WHOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHHH, the entire floor gave way, the boards splintering and splitting and spitting, until they finally collapsed. Lily and Malkin leaped for the safety of the doorway, but Robert and the man tumbled through the gap, along with the bedstead and a cloud of soot and plaster that
exploded in their wake.

  The rushing pitter-patter of falling rubble soon gave way to a loud ringing in Robert’s ears. He felt as if someone had smacked his head with a hammer. As the dust cleared, he looked about.

  He was in the small storeroom. Once there’d been shelves along its wall, filled with devices and clocks, but they’d since turned to wreckage and relics. The bed and the upstairs boards lay broken on the floor around him. He looked up.

  The hole through which he’d tumbled was almost as wide as the entire ceiling. Sharp ragged knives of wood stuck out around its circumference, and two little faces peered over its edge, an oil lamp perched between them. One face had red hair hanging down around it; the other, with coal-black eyes and scruffy ears, had a hairy orange snout.

  Lily held the lamp high. It rattled in her hand.

  “Are you all right?” she called out.

  Robert tried to reply but every ounce of air had been pushed from him. He patted at his limbs and found them to be present and correct. It didn’t feel as if anything had been broken; in fact, he seemed to have fallen on something soft.

  Then he realized what it was: the man.

  Robert was lying across his chest. They must’ve twisted around in the air so the man hit the floor first, beneath him. Robert rolled away from him and crawled to his hands and knees. The man didn’t react.

  He stood and tried the door. It was locked. Maybe he could climb the shelves, or the bedstead, like a ladder and get back to his friends. It would be difficult, plus the edge of the hole looked jagged and uninviting.

  He cleared his throat and shouted hoarsely up to Lily. “I don’t think I can get out!”

  “What about him?” Lily hollered down.

  Robert nudged the man with a foot, kicking up a sweaty stench that made him recoil. The man didn’t move. “He’s out cold,” Robert called. “Bring the police, or someone before he comes round.”

  Lily nodded. “Let me try something first.” She disappeared over the edge of the hole, taking Malkin and the light with her. Robert heard their feet on the stairs, and moments later the door rattled as Lily grappled with it from the other side.

  “The cover’s melted shut across the keyhole. I won’t be able to pick the lock from out here.”

  “Funny, it seems fine on this side,” Robert said. “But go and get help!” he begged. “And quickly!”

  “All right,” she yelled, and she and Malkin crunched away through the house.

  Then Robert found himself left alone in the storeroom, in darkness, with this dangerous, unconscious stranger.

  Time passed – it could’ve been minutes or hours. The only illumination was moonlight glancing through the hole in the roof far above. Robert huddled in the corner of the room, as far from the man as possible, sucking in deep breaths. A cloud of fear bubbled. He shut his eyes and tried to exhale it away.

  “Where are we, boy?” the man whispered, suddenly close by his side. He had woken and Robert hadn’t even heard, or noticed him move!

  “We fell through the floor.” Robert tried to keep his voice from shaking and muster some bravery from the slush inside. “We’re in a locked room. Lily’s gone for help.”

  “Lily, is it?” the man purred.

  “It. Is.” Robert spat the words like bullets, but inwardly he cursed himself for giving her name away. “And when she gets back with the police you’ll be done for trespass. Then we’ll see what’s what.”

  The man gave a hearty laugh that set Robert’s teeth on edge. “But I won’t be here, boy.” He leaned in close until Robert could feel the man’s breath against his face.

  “You still don’t know who I am, do you?”

  “N-no.” Robert shook his head, then watched in horror as the man ran a finger down his scarred cheek.

  “Need a clue? Ah, you’ll know soon enough.” The man stepped away to the ill-lit far corner of the small room and Robert heard him rattle the door handle.

  “You won’t open that before they return,” he said, with more confidence than he felt. “Thaddeus Townsend built that lock and it’s fail—”

  “—safe,” the man finished for him. “You’re talking to someone who’s cracked them all, lad! Let’s have some light, shall we?” He struck a match and the flame illuminated his grin as he held it up to the lock for a second. Then it went out.

  “What’re you doing here?” Robert asked.

  “Looking for something that belongs to me.” The man grunted. “Something stolen,” he hissed under his breath. “But I’ll catch up with that traitor Selena. She’ll regret the day she ever crossed me.”

  Robert felt a wave of shock. The man was talking about his ma! Suddenly he was glad the room was lit solely by moonlight. It would hide his surprise.

  The man struck a second match and stared intently at the lock. The flame burned slowly, down to his fingertips, but he didn’t flinch, merely poked the match into the keyhole until it fizzled away. Then Robert heard the distinctive click of tumblers.

  The man smiled and shook the matchbox in his fist. When he opened his fingers his palm was empty. The box had disappeared into thin air.

  Those matches – they were his, Robert realized. The man must’ve taken them from him without him even noticing. Surely he couldn’t do that, could he?

  Robert thrust his hands into his pockets. The matchbox was gone. Instead, he felt something else – a card with curved corners.

  He pulled it out and turned it over, peering at it in the gloom. A Jack of Diamonds.

  His stomach gave a flip. “You’re Jack Door,” he gasped. “The greatest escape artist in all the land!”

  Jack laughed. “Ah, the penny drops! Mere locks can’t hold me!” He stepped through the now-open doorway with his arms outstretched and gave a little bow, as a magician might to end a show. He hovered for a moment, as if he was waiting for some sign of recognition, some applause from an invisible audience. And then Robert realized who the audience was. It was him.

  “Well, lad,” said Jack Door. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, but I’ll have to be off. I shall return, so be sure to tell no one of my visit – if you value your life.”

  Before Robert could respond, he stepped through the doorway and was gone, leaving only moon shadows behind.

  Robert stumbled towards the dark square of the open doorway. The ground-floor corridor of the shop was empty – Jack had completely disappeared. He looked down at the card, which was shaking in his hand. The Jack of Diamonds. What on earth had he been looking for? And could he really have known Selena? Professor Hartman had suggested that Robert’s ma might have run away to escape trouble – and surely there was no greater trouble than getting on the wrong side of a notorious criminal like Jack Door? But if Jack was after Selena, could that mean she was actually alive, and somewhere in England…?

  Robert felt a wave of something like relief. He had no idea if his guesses were right but they made a strange sort of sense. Although even if they were right, there were still so many questions… Jack Door obviously didn’t know where Selena was, but what had she stolen from him, and what would Jack do if he ever found her? Robert’s knees quivered beneath him – from the fellow’s fearsome reputation, he felt sure that, whatever it was, it would be bad.

  Then he remembered that the newspaper article had mentioned Jack was fifteen years into a life sentence for masterminding the theft of the Blood Moon Diamond – could that be the thing Jack was looking for, that had been stolen from him? And by Selena? Surely not…? How would his ma have got hold of such a valuable jewel? And why would Jack think she’d left it at Townsend’s all those years ago?

  Anyway, everything had been consumed by the fire… And yet, Jack had been searching the house when they’d interrupted him. He must’ve hidden in Thaddeus’s room and hoped they’d go away, but instead Malkin had stumbled on him. Which meant what he was looking for could still be up there…

  Then Robert remembered the thing stuck in the chimney.

 
Carefully, he made his way back upstairs. The jagged hole in his da’s room cut right across the floor. The cross-beam was still intact, but barely visible in the moonlight; he managed to inch his way across it and soon he was standing at the fireplace once more.

  He crouched down and pushed his hand past the cast-iron fireback and into the chimney. The flue was far too narrow for a grown man to reach up – even a contortionist like Jack wouldn’t be able to manage. But for Robert, with his smaller hands, it was easy.

  He stretched his fingers as far as he could…and felt something.

  It was fluffy and disintegrating, covered in dust. A dead bird? Robert brushed his fingertips across the thing again. He could feel it rocking back and forth in the place where it was wedged. He pulled his hand back and then pushed at it hard, and it loosened somewhat…

  Then it fell, toppling out of the chimney in a cloud of coal dust that flew straight up Robert’s nose and made him sneeze. The object came to a rest at his feet. He picked it up.

  It was a small bundle of grey rags, and though it looked as if it had been wedged for some years up the chimney, it was still a lot cleaner than anything else in the crumbling room.

  Quickly he unrolled the bundle to reveal a tattered envelope. Two raggedy words were scrawled in black ink on its yellowing surface:

  Queen’s Crescent

  A heavy and misshapen object was scrunched inside. He tipped it out and rubbed his sleeve across its surface. It glinted in his hand. It wasn’t the Blood Moon Diamond, as he’d hoped, but a silver C-shaped locket.

  The front, inlaid with ivory, showed the sickle-shaped profile of a man in the moon. He’d a round bulbous nose, like Mr Punch, and a crater-y smile like Jack’s. On the tip of his head a long chain looped through an eyelet, so you could wear the crescent around your neck. Robert turned it over. A single red jewel flashed from its back, embedded in a spindly tree-like drawing. Underneath that was a pair of engraved words. He peered at them closely in the moonlight. They looked to be in a foreign language, and were followed by a small triangle: