Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard

by Geoffrey McSkimming

  ‘Prego,’ replied the waiter. He eyed Phyllis one last time and then hurried off to the cashier.

  ‘Now, my dear,’ said Wallace, ‘it’s time for you to return. And I need to be moving, myself.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Not this time. But do not worry; you will be safe and swift. Over on those stairs by the carnival mask shop’—he gestured back over his shoulder—‘there is an Andruseon. I glimpsed it as we came into the piazza. It will give you a fairly smooth, if gusty, Transit home.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  He put his journal back into his coat. ‘Keep searching,’ he replied. ‘Myrddin is somewhere, and it can only be a matter of Time before our encounter occurs. And if, perchance, you come across him before I do, please let him know I am seeking him. Tell him I mean him no harm.’

  Phyllis nodded. She tingled at the prospect that she was going to be part of this great search.

  Wallace Wong stood, and Phyllis did likewise. She deposited Daisy at her feet and slipped the Sphere of Greater Temposity and the Date Determinator into her bag. She picked up the bag, slipped the strap over her shoulder and hurried after Wallace, who had already started off across St Mark’s Square. Daisy scampered along beside her.

  ‘Great-grandfather?’

  ‘Yes, my dear?’ He ushered her towards the stairs.

  ‘Will you promise me you’ll be careful?’

  He smiled, and the corners of his thin moustache splayed upwards. ‘I promise you I’ll be careful. Whatever will happen, will happen. Now, come. Your Pocket awaits you.’

  Back near their table, their waiter was standing with his co-waiters, gesticulating as he described how he had seen the young girl rising from her chair and hovering in the very air above it.

  The other waiters were listening, wide-eyed. Some of them wondered whether perhaps their friend had been drinking on the job. So engrossed were they in his story that none of them noticed Phyllis, with Daisy in her bag and her great-grandfather watching on, ascend the stairs at the eastern corner of the piazza and then, in a sudden rush, disappear into the shimmering, dark nothingness at the top.

  On the card

  Phyllis stepped out into the cool quiet of her basement of magic, having whispered the backwards directions into the Sphere of Greater Temposity. Because she had objects from her rightful Time in her bag, her Transit had taken her back to the Time in which she belonged.

  She went down the stairs, a little shaken from the Transit, but not too dishevelled. The Andruseon Pockets, as she knew, were not all that turbulent. She was glad about this right now, as her mind was already in a state of some upheaval.

  She went and sat on the sofa, letting Daisy out of her shoulder bag to run off and sniff out the basement again in one of her now I’m back and I must do my sniffing surveillance because I’m in charge of security around here patrols.

  There was so much for Phyllis to put in order. So much research she had ahead of her. She was enthused about finding the wizard, and if she could find him before W.W., all the better. She would love to impress Wallace Wong by doing that.

  But her mind was also clouded with the worry of Alexander Sturdy. For whatever reason, he wanted Wallace Wong out of the picture, and it seemed that there was nothing Sturdy would not do to get his way.

  Phyllis clasped her hands as she considered this. She felt something churning around inside her, as if a swarm of angry butterflies wearing miniature suits of armour were crashing about behind her ribcage. She was angry, and she felt helpless that she couldn’t be there to assist W.W., to be on the lookout for him.

  She closed her eyes. Then she remembered his words: ‘Whatever will happen, will happen . . .’ In her mind, she heard his voice, and the calm, gentle tone gave her some small comfort.

  Sometimes things are out of your hands, she thought. Sometimes you can’t help what’s going to happen. You just have to trust . . .

  . . . in what? she wondered.

  She opened her eyes and called Daisy back to the sofa. The small dog appeared like a furry bullet, shooting out from between some of the magic cabinets. In a graceful arc she sprang up next to Phyllis and settled warmly, comfortingly, by her leg.

  ‘Well, Daisy, at least Sturdy isn’t anywhere around here,’ Phyllis said quietly. ‘At least we can get on with our researching and hunting for old Myrddin in peace.’

  Daisy gave her hand a quick lick.

  But very soon, the world of Phyllis Wong was to become even more unsettled . . .

  ‘C’mon, Phyll!’ Clement called impatiently.

  It was Saturday morning and he and Phyllis were off to Coronet Comics, the biggest comic shop in the city. Clement was especially keen to get there this particular morning, as there was going to be a guest appearance in the store by Todd Smertz, one of the actors who starred in the newest teenage zombie movie, Decay My Voice Broke.

  (Clement was also keen for another reason: Miss Hipwinkle from Thundermallow’s was going to be there too, and Clement wanted to find out if she still looked dark and gothic in a more well-lit place like Coronet Comics. He had affixed a special latex open-wound scar to his cheek especially to impress her.)

  He stopped at the corner. ‘What’re you dragging your feet for?’ he asked. ‘C’mon, I want to get there early for an autograph before the queues are too long!’

  Normally Phyllis was a fast walker, and it was Clem who had to rush to keep up with her. But this morning she was lost in thought, busy planning how she would start her research campaign in her search for Myrddin. She’d decided that she’d visit the City Library after Clem had finished at the comic store, and see what old volumes might be tucked away there. She’d left Daisy at home with Mrs Zepple, as the library was no place for small dogs.

  ‘I’m coming,’ she said, catching up with him.

  ‘Yeah, so’s the Apocalypse,’ he grunted. ‘C’mon, let’s take a short cut. Down here!’

  He hurried down the stairs leading into the subway, figuring that he’d cut across through the tunnel under the busy street. That should save him at least four minutes, he calculated, not waiting to cross the road.

  A couple of people coming up the stairs saw the gory scar on Clement’s cheek and quickly stepped out of his way.

  Phyllis followed him, half-skipping down the steps to keep up.

  Then something caught her eye and she stopped suddenly.

  Transfixed.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Clement turned and called. ‘Phyll! Come ON!’

  But she didn’t hear him. She remained there, near the top of the dingy, dirty steps, as if frozen.

  Clement saw her staring at something at her feet. ‘Phyll? What is it?’ He pushed his glasses up his nose and started back up the stairs.

  When he’d reached her, Clement saw what it was that had halted her in her tracks. He bent down and picked it up.

  A playing card, half-covered in thick mud.

  He looked at it, then he looked at Phyllis. She reached out and took it from him. ‘What is it?’ he asked, confused.

  ‘Look,’ she said. She showed him the design on the card, visible where the mud hadn’t splattered it.

  Clement peered at it. ‘W.W.,’ he read out loud. He saw the little red creatures playing around the monogram. ‘Ha. Devils!’

  ‘Not devils. Imps.’ Phyllis’s voice was trembling. ‘And those letters are initials.’

  Clement looked at her, puzzled.

  ‘This belonged to my great-grandfather,’ she told him. ‘They’re his specially made cards. Only Wallace Wong uses them.’

  ‘Huh?’ He frowned, peering over the rims of his glasses. ‘How’d it get here?’

  Phyllis looked at the mud, smeared across one edge of the card. It was still wet. A shocking awareness speared into her brain. All at once she knew, instinctively, that things were not safe.

  Sturdy’s here somewhere, she realised. This got stuck to his boot when he ran away from
Stonehenge.

  Suddenly she felt giddy, and she slumped back against the handrail on the wall.

  ‘Phyll! Hey, are you all right?’

  He’s here, in my Time, she thought, her insides turning to jelly. He’s coming after me!

  PART TWO

  The syzygy

  A different light on things

  Clement grabbed Phyllis by the shoulders and shook her. ‘Hey! Where’ve you disappeared to?’

  She blinked and stared at him. ‘Huh?’

  He let go of her. ‘You’ve been staring at that card like time’s stopped completely.’

  Phyllis held the muddied card of Wallace Wong tightly. Her heart was beating fast.

  ‘You all right?’ Clem asked.

  From her bag she took out a small plastic foldover wallet, the type she kept packet card tricks in. She slid the muddied card carefully into the clear plastic sleeve of the wallet, then slipped the wallet into the pocket of her coat.

  ‘Phyll!’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll be fine, Clem. Listen, I can’t come to the comic store with you. Not now. I have to go somewhere else.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘How about we catch up this afternoon? After you’ve got your autographs and everything?’

  Clement looked confused. ‘Where’re you going?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘Hey, how did one of your great-grandfather’s cards get here?’ he asked. ‘Oh, I get it. Have you been Transiting? Have you been with Wallace—?’

  ‘Shhhh!’ Her finger shot to her lips faster than an arrow. ‘You know you’re not to talk about that!’

  ‘I’m only talking to you,’ he said defensively.

  ‘Clem, the walls have ears.’

  He looked at the tiled walls of the subway. ‘Not these ones,’ he said. ‘Even if they did have, there’d be too much dirt and grease and stuff in them to hear anything!’

  She turned and started going. ‘I’ll text you. We’ll meet somewhere, say three o’clock?’

  He shrugged. ‘Okay. I’ll get you an autograph if you want.’

  ‘Swell! See you later!’ She ran back up the stairs and out into the busy street.

  Clement scratched his chin. Something’s going on, he thought, with a feeling of mounting eagerness. Whenever Phyllis gets that look in her eye, it means things are going to get interesting . . .

  Phyllis hurried along the street. She kept throwing glances over her shoulder, trying to see if she were being followed. As long as she stayed in daylight, she figured, in busy places, she should be able to get to where she needed to be.

  She knew what she had to do. She needed to enlist the help of someone with authority.

  Luckily, she knew the very person.

  Getting into headquarters at the city’s biggest branch of the Metropolitan Police Force, and getting access to Chief Inspector Barry Inglis, head of the Fine Arts and Antiques Squad there, was almost as easy for Phyllis as putting on a pair of shoes.

  Thanks to her having recently assisted the Chief Inspector in getting to the bottom of a few cases which, he was the first to admit, had totally baffled him, Phyllis now had an arrangement at his headquarters that she was able to see Barry Inglis whenever she needed to, if he were available.*

  They had known each other since Phyllis was young—Barry had been her downstairs neighbour in the Wallace Wong Building for as long as she could remember. Barry had never met anyone who thought the way Phyllis thought about things. He put that down to the fact that magicians had to see things in different ways to other people in order for their tricks to work. In Barry’s mind, the young prestidigitator was brilliant and astonishing, and he had the greatest respect for her and her abilities.

  Today, Phyllis hurried past the constable at the front counter, after finding out from her that the Chief Inspector was upstairs in his office and not busy interrogating felons or up to his neck in urgent paperwork. (Paperwork always gave Barry Inglis the heebiejeebies—he preferred being out in the great wide world, trying to solve a case, to being stuck behind his desk.)

  Phyllis arrived at the door of his office and knocked loudly. Presently she heard his loud, deep voice. ‘Come!’

  She went in. Barry was standing by his desk with another man—a tall, square-ish sort of man who looked (Phyllis thought) like a big toenail wearing a suit. Both of them had their heads cocked to the sides as they studied the ugliest, biggest porcelain vase that Phyllis had ever seen.

  ‘Ah, Miss Wong,’ Barry greeted. He always addressed her as Miss Wong—it was typical of his courteous manner.

  ‘Hi, Chief Inspector.’ She went over to join him and the other man.

  ‘Meet my colleague, Detective Chatterton.’

  The toenail-ish man turned to Phyllis and extended a beefy hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Wong,’ he said in a surprisingly high-pitched, squeaky voice which was totally at odds with his appearance.

  ‘Likewise, Detective Chatterton.’

  Detective Pinkie Chatterton returned his attention to the supremely ugly vase, as did Chief Inspector Inglis. Phyllis stood beside him and she, too, studied it.

  It was almost as tall as Phyllis herself and was decorated in a riot of activity. In the centre of it was a painted scene of pinkish clouds and dozens of small, pink-faced cherubs all waving crimson and purple ribbons. Phyllis noticed the faces of the cherubs: they didn’t look like babies, as cherubs were supposed to look, but like old, tired, cranky people.

  Around this, in three-dimensional relief, was a tableau that covered the rest of the vase like barnacles on the bottom of an old boat. The tableau consisted of no fewer than twenty nude women, all with large noses and large hips. All of these large-nosed, large-hipped women looked very serious indeed.

  Dotted about amongst the women, pink and shiny, was a procession of plump, prancing piglets with laurel wreaths on their heads. The piglets didn’t look as though they wanted to be there at all.

  Soon, Barry spoke. ‘Four hundred and eighty-three years old, this is. What do you think, Miss Wong?’

  Phyllis shook her head. ‘It’s . . . it’s . . . amazing it’s survived that long,’ was all she could say.

  ‘It’s amazing no one’s taken a hammer to it before now,’ Barry Inglis said. He would have had a smile on his face, had he been a man who smiled often, which he wasn’t.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Pinkie Chatterton. ‘It has a certain charm, really. A certain boldness.’

  Barry and Phyllis gave him a look, and he fidgeted.

  Barry said to Phyllis, ‘Detective Chatterton has just recovered it, in a brilliant undercover operation. It was stolen in Paris, and the Antiques and Fine Arts Squads of police forces all over the world have been searching for it. Turned up here, about to be sold on the black market. It’s the famous Von Schlossenburg-Nostrel Vase of Dresden.’

  ‘Worth millions,’ added Detective Chatterton.

  ‘Worth millions,’ repeated Barry, incredulously. Still looking at the vase, he gave a visible shudder. ‘Well, Pinkie, congratulations again. I think you deserve the rest of the weekend off. You’ve earned it.’

  ‘Right, Chief.’ Detective Chatterton went to the door. ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Wong,’ he squeaked, nodding his square head once at Phyllis. ‘See you next week, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Thank you, Detective.’

  As soon as Detective Chatterton had left, Barry motioned for Phyllis to sit in one of the chairs opposite his desk. Then, sitting in his big leather chair on the other side of the desk, he asked, ‘And what can I do for you today?’

  ‘I need some help,’ she replied.

  Barry’s blue eyes clouded with worry. When Phyllis Wong needed help, something was up.

  ‘What sort of help?’

  ‘Someone wants to kill me.’

  He jumped to his feet. ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a man. He’s been trying to kill my great-grandfather for ages. Now he’s coming after me. I just k
now it.’

  Barry Inglis ran a hand through his sandy-blond hair. He got up and came around to sit on the desk in front of Phyllis. ‘Tell me,’ he said, his brow creasing. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘You’ve been Transiting, haven’t you?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Apart from Clement, Barry was the only person who Phyllis had told about Transiting. Like Clement, he was sworn to total secrecy.

  ‘You were with Wallace?’ Barry asked.

  She nodded. Then she took out her small plastic foldover wallet and opened it. Deftly she slipped out Wallace Wong’s muddy card and handed it to him.

  The Chief Inspector looked at the card, turning it over and noting the mud. He raised his eyebrows at Phyllis in an okay, start at the beginning sort of way.

  Phyllis recounted what had happened. She didn’t mention that she and Wallace were searching for Myrddin, because she thought that the important facts related more to the Alexander Sturdy part of the story. And she wanted to convey the story as quickly as possible, without cluttering it up too much. She told Barry about Stonehenge and the lintel stone that Sturdy had sent crashing down, and about the whole history between Wallace Wong and Sturdy.

  When she stopped, Barry turned the playing card over in his fingers again. ‘And you think this stuck to his boot, you say?’

  ‘I’m sure. Chief Inspector, I picked up all of Great-grandfather’s cards that shot all over the place when the stone came down at him. I know I didn’t leave any lying around back there.’

  ‘Hmm. Could it be possible that this stuck not to Sturdy’s boot, but to your great-grandfather’s? Maybe he’s back in town?’

  Phyllis shook her head. ‘I thought about that. W.W. would have contacted me if he were back. And that’s mud, Chief Inspector. If W.W. had got it stuck to his shoe, it’d have something far more icky than mud all over it . . . he stepped in a really big . . . deposit . . . on our way to Stonehenge, and there’d be traces of what he stepped in on that card, I’m sure.’