Moonlocket

by Peter Bunzl

  It’d been quite the journey getting here, Jack and Finlo hustling the three of them down a long dark tunnel beneath the theatre, that led out into a number of other underground passages. They’d twisted this way and that, passing brick columns and clanging pipes, until Robert was sure they were no longer under the theatre, but in a completely different part of town.

  When they’d finally come up through a trapdoor into this derelict house, Jack and Finlo had marched them up the stairs and straight into this room. Finlo had searched them, before Jack locked them in. That had been hours ago.

  At first, after Jack and Finlo had gone, they’d hammered on the solid metal door and screamed, hoping someone in the house might hear them. But their voices grew hoarse and no one came.

  Eventually Selena gave up and told them it wasn’t worth it; the place must be empty. Now, to Robert’s annoyance, she was dozing on the bare mattress, her shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders.

  Caddy was sitting beside her, shifting her bare feet on the wooden floorboards and anxiously rubbing her arms. She was still in her No-name costume – the ragged white spirit-dress from the stage show.

  Robert stared angrily at Selena. It was frustrating not to be able to talk with her, after all his searching. He was desperate to find out why she left, to get everything off his chest, and yet here she was…dozing.

  “I don’t know how she can sleep in such a terrible situation,” he complained.

  Caddy smiled and placed a hand gently on Selena’s back. “That’s Ma’s way sometimes,” she said. “When the nerves get the better of her she falls asleep, even in the middle of the day; then she’ll be up at odd hours at night.”

  “Never mind. I should try and work out where we are.”

  Robert dragged the chair from the corner of the room. He climbed onto it and stood on tiptoes to peer out through the barred skylight.

  Outside, in the pink gloaming, airships floated along the air lanes, and the dark silhouetted buildings were pinpricked with squares of soft yellow light. He tried to spot Jack and Finlo in the cuts and alleyways down below, but it was a fruitless task. The shadows had grown long, and the street lamps were not yet lit.

  He gave up, and jumped off the chair to sit down beside Caddy.

  His sister.

  Those words echoed in his brain, making him feel giddy, almost faint.

  He had a sister. A real one. Strange to discover something so big about himself that he never knew. She’d appeared out of thin air today, like a…magic trick! That’s right, that’s what she was! He let out a laugh, and covered his mouth in embarrassment. He was feeling a little hysterical about everything.

  Caddy gave him an odd look and furrowed her eyebrows in that serious way his da used to. It was almost like seeing a younger version of himself. Truly, they were more alike than he could have ever imagined. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?

  “Your hair and eyes…” he said. “They look like Selena’s, but your face…the shape…it’s Da’s, Thaddeus’s.”

  Caddy sat up, interested. “Thaddeus? That was my da’s name too.” She looked confused. “But do you live with him?” she asked. “Because Ma told me he was far, far away.”

  “We weren’t that far away,” Robert said, and then he looked sad. “Well, Da is… Da’s…dead.”

  “Oh,” she said. And then it seemed as if she didn’t know what to say. “What was he like?” she asked eventually.

  “He was a kind man,” Robert began. “Clever, like you. He knew practically everything about watches and locks, lockets and miniatures, but stars and clocks were his speciality.”

  “I wish I’d known him,” Caddy said.

  Robert bit his lip to hold back the tears. Nowadays, he didn’t like talking about his da…about their da. An awkward silence spread like glue, gumming up the other things he wanted to say. He wasn’t ready to ask Caddy about their ma. Not yet. It was too nerve-racking. He was dying to understand more about her disappearance, but a part of him worried the reasons might make him hate her. He tried to think of something else to ask that wasn’t a question about his past, or Caddy’s… Finally, he hit upon her role in the show. That was a safe subject.

  “How do they work?” he asked, quietly. “The spirit readings?”

  Caddy smiled. “You mean you don’t think they’re real?”

  He shook his head. “No. So what are they?”

  “It’s a code.” Caddy looked down at Selena. “Ma knows lots of secret codes.”

  Robert scratched his head. “But how does it actually work?”

  “Like this…” Caddy sat up straight and closed her eyes, waving her arms about. Robert laughed because she was doing an almost uncanny imitation of Selena’s trance. She opened her eyes and gave him a conspiratorial sideways glance.

  “Right… Imagine you’re the medium and I’m the spirit in the box, and you say to me: ‘Tell me what it is’ – that means the object you’re holding is a coat. If you say: ‘What is this, please?’ – that means a needle case. ‘Do you know this?’ means an umbrella.”

  “So you use different phrases, different code words, with different emphasis, to mean different things?” Robert asked.

  “Exactly!” Caddy looked pleased at how quickly he’d got it. “And if you know what thing belongs to what person – because you’ve had a conversation with them before the show, when they bought their ticket – then you know a bit of their story to go with your guess. After that you just embellish the rest according to their reaction.”

  “I see,” Robert said. “So how did you know about Lily’s past?”

  “Do you know, that’s the strange thing, I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps I’d read about her somewhere. But I recognized her face in the lobby and, when I was in the spirit cabinet, it truly did feel as if I had a message for her from her ma on the other side. A real message.”

  “Maybe sometimes the spirits are real,” Robert said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Maybe sometimes they are.”

  She was shivering. He took off his coat and draped it round her. “‘Tell me what it is’,” he said softly, looking at the coat. “That’s the right phrase, isn’t it?”

  She nodded and smiled. “It is,” she said. “And if I had to guess, I’d say the coat belonged to Da?”

  She was a good reader of people, Robert could see. She could sense the details of their past that they carried with them. He was about to tell her so, when Selena woke up.

  Selena yawned and looked around the dishevelled space. “This must be Finlo’s lodgings,” she said. “He always did keep a scruffy room.” Then she noticed a scratch on Caddy’s arm.

  “You’ve cut yourself.” Selena held Caddy close and dabbed at the mark with a handkerchief from her pocket. “Don’t scratch it, you’ll infect the wound.”

  Robert wished jealously that she’d been around when he was younger to do that for him. “Ma?” he asked softly. “Ma?” he tried again.

  That name felt strange in his mouth. Wrong.

  Selena looked up and smiled widely, and he could see in her eyes that she was listening. He wanted to say he’d missed her, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to. The words were too knotted and tangled together inside him. He drew back and tried to shake them free, but they wouldn’t come.

  “Do you know what the map on the back of the Moonlocket is?” he asked her instead.

  Selena seemed to be expecting a different question; she pursed her lips and stared thoughtfully at him. “Not entirely,” she said, “but I know that it leads to a secret room that contains something Jack stole years ago.”

  “The Blood Moon Diamond?” he asked, relieved that the awkwardness had passed.

  She nodded. “It’s the only thing Jack cares about. He wouldn’t have come to the theatre today otherwise. He didn’t come for me, or for you, or Caddy. He came for the Moonlocket and its treasure map. He cares for nothing but that diamond, not even his family. Not any more.”

  “I didn’t kn
ow you were his family until recently,” Robert said.

  “Why did you fall out?” Caddy asked.

  “Because I gave him up to the police,” Selena said. “Afterwards he disowned me for ever. Scratched me out of his life as if I’d never existed… Can you imagine doing that to your own kin?”

  Robert could well imagine. It was exactly what she’d done to him – left him behind with Da, never to return. He bit his tongue and choked back an irritation in his throat, but before he could say anything, his thoughts were interrupted by footsteps in the hall.

  Jack and Finlo had returned.

  They unlocked the door and stepped into the room.

  “Enjoying your new home, Selena?” Finlo took his bowler hat off and hung it on the hook behind the door, then smoothed back the dark curls atop his head.

  Jack swung the conjoined locket back and forth on its two chains. “I think it’s time you told me what Artemisia had to say about the Moonlocket on the day she died.”

  Selena pursed her lips, then gave a defiant laugh. “You mean to tell me, after fifteen years, you don’t have a clue what it means? You, the expert – the one who knows everything!”

  Jack’s features were icy calm, betraying nothing, but his fingers snapped around the locket. Stopping it mid swing, he grasped it tight. “You were the one who spoke with her about it. What were her last words? There must be some clue as to what this means?” He pointed at the locket’s back.

  Robert saw, for the first time, that the two halves together made a larger map and a whole coded sentence. Suddenly, he remembered the part he and Lily had translated – flows underground.

  Selena lowered her head to avoid Jack’s gaze. “Ma didn’t tell me anything about her secret codes,” she said. “I haven’t a clue what it means.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Jack said. “I don’t believe you.” Jack grasped Robert and shook him roughly. Then he clamped his hands down on Robert’s shoulders, stopping him from standing. “Make her tell us, Fin,” he said nodding to his son.

  Finlo took Caddy by the arm and dragged her from her seat towards the fire.

  “Please, Fin!” Selena was up like a shot, pulling at her brother, trying to free Caddy. But Finlo didn’t let go. He threw Selena aside and held Caddy’s hand closer to the flames.

  “Stop it, you’ll burn her,” Selena shouted.

  “Then tell us,” Jack said.

  “Fin!” Selena begged.

  Finlo wavered for a moment. He looked to Jack.

  “You worm,” Jack said. “Are you going to let a woman tell you what to do?”

  Finlo held Caddy’s hand closer to the fire.

  Caddy’s body shook; she bit her lip to stop the tears, and clenched her fist, trying to keep her fingers away from the flames.

  Robert smelled the acrid scent of the hairs on her hand singeing in the heat.

  “Please, stop!” Selena screamed. “I’ve told you, I don’t know what it means!”

  “You’re lying,” Jack said. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  Robert felt sick. Caddy’s fingers were almost in the fire. He wanted to end this but Jack was still holding him down by the shoulders; he could do nothing.

  “Wait,” he cried. “I-I know part of it… Flows underground – that’s the last two words. That’s what they say! The Moonlocket code’s from a book of games and tricks. I remember it. I can translate the rest, if you show me.”

  “Finlo! Enough!” Jack barked, and Finlo jerked Caddy’s hand back before it touched the flames.

  Caddy was sobbing. Finlo threw her into Selena’s shaking arms.

  Robert felt a fresh pang of jealousy and then a wave of guilt. Jack let go of him and pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket, slamming it on the table along with the locket.

  “Do it then. Translate the words. You’ve got five minutes.”

  Robert pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. He picked up the locket and regarded it. Now it was complete he could see the whole map, on Caddy’s half was a small symbol like a house, with the number forty-five inside it. Beneath it was the rest of the map, and the rest of the sentence…

  Fmghx it tig rjxhv ticw fmqzw uofhvlxvcwn

  He stared at this gibberish. Suddenly he could barely remember how the code worked. His mind was racing and his scalp itched, his back was wet with sweat, and his heart beat raggedly in his chest. He had to think.

  “Go on, Robert, you can do it,” Selena whispered to him.

  He took a deep breath, and leaned in closer to the locket, peering at each word in turn. The strange letters shone and for a second a vague face appeared beneath them, reflected roundly in the locket’s silvery surface.

  For a moment, he thought it was his da. He’d such a strong image of Thaddeus bent over his workbench, intense in his concentration, studying the broken springs of a watch or engraving a locket like this one. No one conquers fear easily, Robert. It takes a brave heart to win great battles.

  A shadow interrupted his thoughts. It was Jack, looming over him with arms folded. Robert’s eyes flicked back to the locket, and the reflection on its surface.

  It was not his da’s face but his own.

  Robert closed his eyes briefly.

  Then he opened them again and drew five right-angled triangles on the table, one for each unknown part of the cypher. After those he added the last two known words – flows underground. Finally, he set to work.

  Soon, the translation was appearing. As Robert uncovered the last few letters, Jack pushed him out of the way and read the entire sentence out loud.

  “Fleet is the river that flows underground.”

  “What does that mean?” Finlo asked. “Is it some kind of riddle? Fleet means fast…fast is the river that flows underground…?”

  But Robert understood what it meant. It was the Fleet River; the map was of the Fleet River. The river Tolly had told them about that ran through the sewers under North London.

  “You clattering idiot!” Jack hit Finlo across the back of his head. “Fleet is the river that flows underground,” he shouted. “It means the sewers.” He tapped the back of the locket. “This here’s a map of the Fleet River that runs through the London sewers, from Hampstead down to the Thames at Blackfriars. And this” – he pointed at the marking on Caddy’s half of the locket with the number 45 inside it – “is where it runs right under Queen’s Crescent. That’s where Artemisia hid the diamond after my arrest, when the police were watching our lodgings. And that’s where we have to go to get it back.”

  “Hadn’t we better stake out the house first, check that the police aren’t snooping around?” Finlo said.

  “Yes,” said Jack, putting on the locket. “We’ll go right away.”

  “Both of us? But I only just got back. I haven’t even had my dinner yet.”

  “I said NOW!” Jack shouted.

  Finlo got up and, mumbling under his breath as he pulled his hat from the hook, followed Jack out.

  Robert heard the key turn. As soon as their voices had faded away, he got up and shook the door handle.

  “Can you open this?” he asked, pointing at the lock.

  Selena shook her head. “Jack never taught me those skills, I’m afraid. He was too scared that if he did I would use them to escape him.”

  She finished tending to Caddy’s hand, and dried her tears. “There,” she said, kissing the girl’s fingers. “It’s not so bad. Just a few singed hairs.” She reached out and squeezed Robert’s arm. “Tell you what, let’s see if we can’t find something to make a brew. That’ll make us feel better.”

  They opened the cupboard in the corner, and had a rifle through it. Caddy found an old tin kettle and a bottle of water, and Robert a jar of tea leaves, two cups and a small bowl.

  Selena poured the water into the kettle and set it to heat on the hearth. When it was finally boiling she stirred in some leaves with a spoon.

  “Pity we’ve no milk.” She poured the tea, keeping the bowl for herself, and
handing Robert and Caddy a cup each. Robert’s had a delicate Chinese pattern.

  “Must be stolen,” Caddy said.

  They sat in silence, drinking their tea. Robert clasped his hands around the warm cup and sipped his slowly to calm the knot in his stomach. “Who made the Moonlocket?” he asked.

  Selena smiled. “Your grandma, Artemisia Door. It was a map to let Jack know where she’d hidden the Blood Moon Diamond. But when I first got it from her I couldn’t break the code. How did you do it?”

  “It’s from a book you used to own,” Robert said. “We found it at Queen’s Crescent.”

  “I thought so,” Selena said. “After I left home I could barely remember any of that stuff. I must’ve blocked it from my mind along with everything else.” She patted his hand. “I wish I could have worked it out. I would’ve returned the diamond to its rightful owner years ago. In the end, the best I could do was leave half the locket for each of you, hoping that one day – when the rest of us Doors were gone – you’d be able to solve the mystery together. The last thing I wanted was for Jack or Finlo to get their hands on it.”

  “But how did you get the locket if it was meant for Jack?” Caddy asked.

  “It’s rather complicated,” Selena said. “And you must know this: I never liked Jack’s thievery, always found it difficult to accept. Finlo, on the other hand, had no problem with it. And neither did your grandma. They went along with whatever Jack did. But I felt differently.

  “The things Jack stole, his bullying and deceitfulness – they came about because fame wasn’t enough for him. He wasn’t always that way, not when we were young. But when the acclaim for his act got stale, he became hectoring and imperious. To Fin and I especially he was a bullying despot. Eventually, he turned to grander, more outrageous tricks, and robbery and destruction became his downfall. That’s why I chose not to give him the locket when I received it by mistake…”

  “Let me tell you the whole story…” Selena said it like a proper mother would, and shifted on the mattress to put an arm around both her children.