by Peter Bunzl
When he turned to face Lily, she was in her nightshirt and climbing into bed. Malkin was curled up on the pillow beside her. Lily pressed a button on the wall above the big four-poster bed, and they heard a clicking of clockwork in the walls as the curtains drew themselves around her.
“Goodnight!” she called out to Robert.
“Night!” he whispered back.
Lily’s breathing sounded soft in sleep, and Malkin’s clockwork was ticking to a standstill as he ran down for the night. Robert tried to settle on the camp bed in the corner of the room, but he couldn’t nod off; he kept thinking about his ma. It felt like today they had got a lot nearer to finding her, and yet she felt still so far away…
The two words, flows underground, kept floating through his mind. What did they mean? And why did it even matter to him? It wasn’t only the thought that they might recover the Blood Moon Diamond, or even the possibility of getting the reward, he admitted to himself. It was also the thrill of the adventure…and the horror of being part of the notorious criminal Door family. The chance of maybe seeing his ma again… But why did he still care about her, when he could have become part of Lily and John’s family? After all, the Hartmans had never rejected him.
He tried to put such concerns from his mind. But sleep wouldn’t come. His blanket was itchy. He’d been lying in the dark on the camp bed with his eyes open for a good hour.
There was just too much to think about. Finally he got up and opened the window to look at the moon. He couldn’t see it. It was lost behind a bank of smog and fluffy clouds.
He watched the sky for a long while, his thoughts drifting in and out of the blackness, waiting for the moon to reappear, but the clouds did not shift, and it seemed as if a deep well of nervous anger was gathering with them, inside him.
The truth was, he was worried sick about how he might react if he finally managed to reunite with Selena. What would he say to her after so many years? He probably wouldn’t even recognize her. To know someone when you’re a baby or a small child was not – he realized – the same as knowing them when you’re nearly grown. They would have to forge their relationship anew – that is, if she wanted to see him. Maybe she didn’t, and that was why she left.
Why had she abandoned him? Her only child? He would start by asking her that. As soon as he’d told her the news about Jack, he’d demand an answer. And she’d better tell the truth, because, if not, he’d no idea what he might do.
With every question filling his head he became more unsure about what tomorrow might bring. Then a hand touched his shoulder, and he turned to find Lily; she’d woken and had sneaked into the window alcove beside him.
She cupped her ammonite in her hand. “The riddle’s keeping you awake?” she asked.
“Yes,” Robert said. “But not that one…the other. Why she left, I mean.”
“Well,” said Lily, “when you find her, you can ask.”
“How could she have done such a thing, Lily? Leave her only child?”
“Maybe to protect you from Jack?” Lily suggested.
“That can’t be the only reason.” He gave a deep sigh. “Because shouldn’t it have hurt her as much as it did us…” He shook his head. “Never mind. You don’t have answers, I know that.” He pursed his lips and stared up at the sky. “The moon’s gone. The cloud’s blocking her.”
Lily nodded. “But she’s still out there, Robert. The clouds are only passing and when the wind pushes them away, you’ll be able to see her right as rain.”
“Will I though?” Robert asked. “How can you tell?”
“Now you’re being silly,” Lily said. “What do you mean?”
“It’s something Da used to say: ‘How can you be sure the moon shines if there’s no one to see it?’”
Lily looked puzzled.
“It’s a philosophical question,” Robert explained. “I don’t think there’s supposed to be an answer. It means, can a thing exist if there’s no one to experience it?”
“I see,” Lily said. Although she didn’t quite. She pressed her palm around her ammonite stone. “Maybe she’s there if you believe in her enough?”
Robert leaned against the window frame. “Sometimes the fact she’s gone, like my da, makes me feel so alone.”
“You’re never alone,” Lily said. “You’ve got us.”
Robert smiled at her, and glanced at the fox asleep on the end of the bed. “You and Malkin are good friends. I’m glad you’re both here.”
“Listen, when I was in trouble, you helped me. That’s what friends are for. And now things are the other way around… I promise I’ll look after you.”
“You don’t have to make that promise. And I wouldn’t blame your father if he didn’t either. After all he’s given me, I feel bad to hanker after my own family – but it’s as if something’s still missing for me at your house.”
“I feel the same sometimes,” Lily admitted. “It’s too closed off. Too quiet. Papa doesn’t let us into the world enough.” She bit her lip and stared at her stone, thinking for a moment of Mama. “You always miss those who are gone. No one can truly take their place. Not friends, or family.”
“Or,” Robert replied, “you long for what you never had. I wish I’d had more time with my ma. I’ve only a few memories of her and what Da’s told me… I remember once he told me she talked to spirits, but she didn’t like to tell people in case they thought she was mad.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “You went to the other side, didn’t you, Lily? And you saw…people?”
“I was never sure that it wasn’t all a dream,” Lily said, “but I like to think it was real. That Mama’s spirit is watching over me. And your da’s too,” she added. “I’ve dreamed of them on occasion. Maybe that means they’re present.”
Robert shook his head. “Da didn’t believe in such things. He called it mumbo jumbo, said there was no magic in the world but what you make for yourself. And maybe he was right. Or maybe she was.”
Lily nodded. Her father didn’t believe in spirits either – everything had to be scientific and fact-based, even though, to Lily, there had always been a large dose of mystery and magic in the work he did.
The clouds had drifted further into the distance. Robert could barely see them now as they melded with the smog of the London night. He shifted on his feet. “Let’s talk about this in the morning. I should probably try to get some sleep. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.” He turned from the window, but Lily took his arm.
“Look!” she cried.
And he looked.
The sky had cleared suddenly and there was the moon – one day from full, with the thinnest, tiniest sliver missing – peering down at them from among the stars.
“It’s a good omen,” Lily said. “It means that what you’re searching for is still out there. Waiting for you, when the clouds pass.”
While Lily returned to bed, Robert stayed staring at the moon for a bit. Soon he could hear her breathing, slow and steady; she’d fallen asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.
He felt better for his talk with her, he reflected, as he climbed into his own bed. It helped to share the weight sometimes. Friends could give good advice, set you back on the right path when you got lost in the fog of worry, but only if you told them the truth of what you were thinking.
Gradually Robert’s limbs grew heavy and his thoughts settled like dust in a glass of water, until he felt himself dropping off to sleep.
They woke early the next morning and dressed silently. Their clothes were creased and covered in splatters of yesterday’s dried pond slime, but they had forgotten to ask Mr Porter if he had any spares and all of Papa’s things were too big, so for now they would have to do.
On their way out, they looked in on Miss Dash. She had received a reply from Papa, which read:
“You can wait in my office, if you like?” Miss Dash suggested. “And help me with my work.”
But Robert shook his head – he wanted to get going and see Anna to
show her the locket and code. They couldn’t give up on finding Selena, not yet, not with the progress they’d made, and not with Jack back in town.
They left Miss Dash and sneaked out of the building, to find Tolly stood waiting in the shadows of the columned entrance, sheltering from an already blazing sun. “Ready to visit The Daily Cog?” he asked. “Someone else is doing my paper route for me, so I can spend the whole day traipsing around with you lot. We’ll be like The Baker Street Irregulars.”
“Who are they?” Robert asked.
“Only the gang of street urchins who helped Sherlock Holmes with his investigations,” Tolly said.
“Couldn’t he have employed some grown-ups? Or mechanicals?” Malkin asked.
“I think he found the irregulars made better investigators,” Tolly said. “They went everywhere, saw everything, overheard everyone; just like the majority of us guttersnipes.”
He scampered down the steps and led their party across the road, dodging the horse-drawn hackneys and steam-wagons that trundled in both directions.
It was a short walk to Fleet Street. Despite the closeness of the river, London was humid and hot. Robert rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and adjusted his collar, which was itchy with sweat and dust.
Everywhere they looked, triangular flags and red, white and blue bunting was draped between the houses, and wooden barriers were being set up along the edges of the pavement in readiness for tomorrow’s parade.
They crossed under a high metal railway bridge that swept over the road between two tall blocks of terraces. Behind it, in the glaring sunlight, Lily could make out the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, where the parade would end. She hoped that when Papa got back to the guild later, he would let them stay another day to see it.
Finally they arrived at a tall red-brick building with a porticoed entrance. On the roof of the building were six-foot-high letters that spelled out the words:
THE DAILY COG
Tolly grinned and pointed at the sign. “Here we are then – the place that inks all the news that’s fit to print! Investigation’s their middle name. They’ve covered all the big stuff – The Mechanical Mysteries, The Lost Arctic Airship, The Secrets of the Stolen Steam-Engines, The Behemoth and Big Ben Zep-Crash Disaster – they broke all those stories wide open!”
Lily nodded. She and Robert knew quite a bit about that last one themselves, since they’d given Anna the scoop. She felt the excitement rising in her chest. Tolly was right, this was the centre of the newspaper world. And now she was standing outside its head office, going to see a friend who not only worked there, but was a lead investigative reporter on the news desk. It was exciting to think she knew such people! She had come so far in the last eight months from the sheltered childhood existence Papa had imposed on her since Mama’s death, and she felt much happier for it, despite the dangers the outside world had flung at her.
They pushed their way round the side of the building and arrived at the wooden gates to a yard. Tolly knocked on a small door set into the main gate and, after a minute’s wait, a man in printer’s overalls answered.
The man wiped his nose with a hairy-backed hand. “Late again, Tolly? Or come to collect more papers? And who are these? New recruits? You know we can’t take on any more street-sellers.”
Tolly shook his head. “These are friends of Anna Quinn’s, Charlie.”
Charlie tutted and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder towards the rear of the main building. “She’s up on the roof as usual.”
“What’s she doing on the roof?” Lily asked.
“Don’t you know?” Tolly looked surprised. “That’s where she moors her airship, Ladybird, when she’s on this side of town.”
Lily carried Malkin draped around her neck as she, Robert and Tolly ascended a rope ladder that ran up the side of the Daily Cog building. Sweat poured down her back and her neck itched against Malkin’s fur. It was far too hot to be wearing a fox stole, especially a live one whose fidgeting paws kept scratching at her bare arms.
The ladder was beginning to slope irregularly to one side. Robert didn’t dare look down. A few of the wooden rungs were missing, and the whole thing felt alarmingly unstable.
“Mind your step,” Tolly said, as he ducked under the massive letter G at the end of the Daily Cog sign.
Lily and Robert scrambled off the ladder and followed, finding themselves standing on a flat tiled roof that stretched out before them like a patched runway, curving up at an angle into the smoggy sky.
At the far end, Ladybird’s gondola was wedged between a set of chimney stacks, tied to the largest one like it was a mooring post. The airship’s gas balloon trailed off to one side, its patched silks deflated and encrusted with dirt and bird guano. Behind it, ramshackle spires and grey rooftops spread along the river.
Lily put two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly across the rooftop towards the open door of the airship’s gondola.
A moment later, a stout figure in a bulky aviator’s jacket appeared in the doorway. She swept back a fringe of brown hair from a pair of blue twinkling eyes and gave them all a ruddy-cheeked grin. Anna!
“Ahoy!” she shouted. “It’s my old cabin boys! And I see you’ve brought a friend with you. Tolly, how splendid to see you again.” She waved at them across the rooftop. “Well, what are you waiting for? A royal invitation? Come aboard, all of you, and mind the loose tiles on the way over!”
With its low sloped ceiling and oddly angled cupboards, Ladybird was just as Lily remembered. Anna showed them into the starboard compartment, where the porthole window was open, letting in a nice, cooling breeze. In the centre of the tiny space stood a wooden chair and a small fold-out table with a typewriter perched on it. Beside the typewriter was a pile of magazines and papers, topped with a loaf of bread and a knife.
Squeezed in behind all that a miniature clockwork propulsion engine and a tiny stove were wedged snugly into the stern.
A frying pan hissed on the stovetop, wafting out a strong scent of sausage, eggs and bacon that made Lily’s mouth water. She felt a pang of hunger and her stomach rumbled as loud as a steam engine when she realized that once again this morning they hadn’t eaten.
Anna raised an amused eyebrow. “You caught me at an opportune moment. I was just taking a break from cooking up a few dreadful stories to enjoy some elevenses.”
She picked up the frying pan and gave the contents a good shake. “Extra-breakfast, I like to call it. It wasn’t meant to feed the five thousand, but there’s enough for a butty each if I divide it up between us.”
Tolly, who seemed right at home, cut four slices of bread from a loaf on the sideboard at the other end of the cabin, and began buttering them.
Anna glanced worriedly at Robert, Lily and Malkin. Lily expected her to ask what was going on. But instead she said, “Do you like my new mooring?”
Lily squeezed round the table to peer out the porthole. “I love it,” she exclaimed. “You can see the whole of London from up here!”
“You certainly can,” Tolly said, pausing in his task as if he’d had a thought. “Here, Anna, this’d be an excellent place to watch the Jubilee parade from. Mind if I stick around till tomorrow afternoon to check it out?”
“Course not,” Anna replied. “Long as you’re prepared to kip down for the night on the floor in the passage.”
“Excellent.” Tolly handed Lily and Robert each a slice of bread and butter and gave them a confidential nod. “Anna’s hiding from the bailiffs. She’s in a spot of financial bother and The Cog hasn’t paid her for her last piece, so she can’t get a mooring at a proper airdock.”
“Been nosing again, have you?” Anna scooped up the contents of her frying pan. “You’re a proper little Sherlock Holmes!” She doled out a sausage each to Lily and Robert, rashers of bacon to Tolly, and kept the egg for herself. “I’m sure you’ll make a lead reporter in no time.”
Tolly bit into his bread and bacon. “I will when you hear the big scoop we’
ve got for you about Jack Door.”
“Oh, and what might that be?” Anna asked.
“We’re searching for my ma, Selena,” Robert explained. “She’s Jack’s daughter, you see, which means he’s my grandfather, and Finlo’s my uncle.” He took a bite of his sausage butty, but a shiver ran down his spine – his story sounded odder and more frightening each time he told it out loud.
“Finlo’s Jack’s son, who broke him out of jail,” Lily explained.
“And we think they’re both after Selena,” Robert continued, “because she has the key to the whereabouts of the Blood Moon Diamond.”
Anna’s eyes widened. “Your mother…” she said, and she seemed a bit lost for words. Malkin even thought for a moment that she might drop the rest of her butty, and he wished that he was a real animal so he might snatch it from her and eat it.
But she soon found her voice again. “Have you seen Jack Door then?” she asked. “We’d a few sightings reported at the paper, but none turned out to be real!”
“Jack’s as real as the nose on my face,” Robert said.
“And twice as scary,” Malkin added.
“So he’s after the diamond?” Anna asked. “And revenge?”
Robert shook his head. “Not only that. There’s something else. They need…” He took a deep breath; should he mention the locket to Anna in front of Tolly, who they barely knew? “We have part of a map,” he explained. “And we think my ma has the other half and the key to what it means. That’s why Jack’s looking for her…and for me.”
“Where is this map then?” Anna asked. “Let’s see it.”
Hesitantly, Robert reached for the Moonlocket around his neck. He still wasn’t sure about revealing it. It was the only thing he had of his ma’s and he’d rather not give it away, not even for a second. But Anna would help them.
“Blimey! Will you look at that!” Tolly’s eyes went wide as coins as the Moonlocket was revealed. Robert felt a flash of awkwardness handing it over to Anna, but she seemed to sense his reluctance.