The Glass Puzzle

by Christine Brodien-Jones

  Uncle Wyndham sounds real old-fashioned, thought Zoé, sort of like Granddad.

  Dr. Marriott’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Have you ever heard of the Society of Astercôte?”

  “Not until I read it on your business card,” said Ian.

  Zoé looked down at the professor’s card. Honorary Member of the Society of Astercôte sounded a bit exotic.

  “But honorary means you’re not a full-fledged member, right?” said Ian.

  “Indeed. The society was a highly secret organization founded by Sir Harold Astercôte, an alchemist from Inverness, who possessed arcane knowledge. In particular, how to construct gateways to parallel worlds,” Dr. Marriott explained. “Members of the society, including Uncle Wyndham, were all scientists of one sort or other—and all practiced alchemy. I was honorary by virtue of being Wyndham’s nephew. The Astercôtes believed our world was one of many; they traveled not only to Wythernsea but to several alternate worlds. With me so far?”

  “I—I guess so,” said Zoé, her head spinning. But why was he telling them about the Society of Astercôte if it was supposed to be secret?

  “So this is about, hmm, portals to other dimensions?” said Ian, sounding skeptical. “Like in science fiction?”

  “Precisely,” replied Dr. Marriott. “There are hidden gateways all over this planet, all leading to other worlds. The puzzle was made in Wythernsea and presented as a gift to the Astercôtes, who used their powers to transform it into a gateway.”

  Zoé’s eyes went even wider. Granddad’s puzzle was a door to another world?

  “And what exactly is alchemy, Dr. Marriott?” asked Ian. “Changing metal to gold, right?”

  “Simply put, yes: that was the goal of medieval alchemists and mystics,” replied the professor. “They also sought a universal cure for disease, as well as the elixir of life, a medicine to extend life indefinitely. You see, alchemy is the power to transform something ordinary into something special, and that is exactly what the Astercôtes did: they turned the glass puzzle into a portal to Wythernsea. As far as I know, it is the only puzzle in existence that serves as a gateway.”

  “But how could the Astercôtes travel to Wythernsea?” asked Ian, incredulous. “The island sank in the fourteenth century!”

  “I am well aware of that fact, young man,” said Dr. Marriott in an arch tone. “In this world Wythernsea no longer exists, but ours is not the only world out there. Wythernsea is one of countless places that have been transported elsewhere—islands trapped beneath primeval bogs, cities buried under silt and muck, villages swallowed by desert sands—all lost in this world, all resurfacing in other worlds.”

  With her chin in her hands, Zoé sat imagining walls crushed between layers of mud and rock, spellbound relics, petrified bones, tunnels leading everywhere and nowhere, and Wythernsea, an island under a dark enchantment.

  “So Wythernsea sank, then it teleported to this alternate reality,” said Ian, obviously not believing a word of it. “And did this puzzle take them to lots of different worlds?”

  “No, it was a gateway only to Wythernsea.”

  Zoé opened her notebook and wrote: Ours is not the only world out there and Transported elsewhere.

  “But how did the Astercôtes get to Wythernsea in the first place?” persisted Ian.

  “A hidden portal, some sort of Coptic urn, as I recall—but it was flawed,” said Dr. Marriott. “A flawed portal invariably spells danger, so the Astercôtes destroyed the urn and replaced it with the glass puzzle.” Dr. Marriott slowly rose to his feet. “Have a look at this watercolor.” He gestured to the wall behind them. “Birds weren’t the only things Uncle Wyndham illustrated.”

  Zoé turned to see a painting inside a wooden frame, obscured by a potted fern and a glass-fronted cabinet overflowing with books. The faded colors gave it a weathered look, like a drawing from an old story. Richly detailed, the painting depicted odd-shaped buildings, whorled towers, spiraling roofs, crenellated walls, boats moored in a harbor, and a green sea next to a dark, brooding forest.

  A zing of recognition flashed through her: this was the same image she’d seen inside the puzzle!

  “The fortifications around the town are awfully high, like almost twice the height of Tenby’s old walls,” observed Ian. “Is there some kind of enemy they’re keeping out? Giants, maybe?”

  Zoé stepped closer to the painting, examining the wall that encircled the town. Made of golden stone, it completely surrounded Wythernsea, cutting it off from a forest that hinted at something primal and possibly dreadful. Obviously the wall was intended to discourage someone, or something, from getting in.

  “A complex story,” said Dr. Marriott.

  Noticing his anguished expression, Zoé hoped they hadn’t upset him too much.

  There was a rap at the door and Mrs. Prosser called from the other side: “Dr. Julian Thistle from the museum to see you, Professor. He has an appointment.”

  “I must leave you now,” said Dr. Marriott, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. “My housekeeper will show you out.”

  “But you didn’t tell us why you buried the puzzle!” protested Zoé.

  Dr. Marriott’s expression turned even grimmer. “The Astercôtes made an error when they transformed the puzzle into a gateway. You see, it was flawed. One night all the members of the Society went through the puzzle to Wythernsea—all except Uncle Wyndham, that is. Whenever the Astercôtes traveled, one member stayed behind to keep an eye on the gateway, and on that particular night it was Wyndham’s turn.” With his thumb and forefinger, he massaged the bridge of his nose. “But the Astercôtes never returned.”

  Zoé gave a little gasp.

  “Uncle Wyndham waited weeks, months, years, but they didn’t appear,” he continued, his voice heavy with sadness. “Then one evening he noticed several dark shapes flying inside the puzzle—great winged beasts they were, unspeakable in nature—and he realized they were trying to enter our world! Terrified, he deconstructed the puzzle, as he’d been told to do in an emergency. Shaken to the core, having lost all hope of his friends returning, he asked me to throw the puzzle into the sea.”

  Feeling a cold uneasiness creep over her, Zoé glanced at Ian. Her cousin’s thin frame was taut as a wire. Wyndham Marriott had seen the same creatures they had—only the ones they’d seen had gotten out!

  “I stood on the cliffs behind the Fourcroft Hotel looking out over North Beach, planning to toss the box into the waves. But I was young, extremely shy—and extremely naïve,” said Dr. Marriott with a wry smile. “I couldn’t bring myself to destroy something so rare and mysterious.”

  “So you put the puzzle together?” asked Ian.

  “I did not. Chalk it up to my timid nature as a twelve-year-old: the thought of setting monsters loose on Tenby made me quake in my boots.” He gave a loud sigh. “Turning my back on the sea, I went down into the tunnels, wrote a warning note and buried the puzzle, thinking that was the end of it.”

  Before Zoé could utter a word, the door opened and Mrs. Prosser stuck her head in. “Dr. Thistle is asking for you, Professor,” she trilled, tapping a finger on her watch. “These children will have to come back another time.”

  Zoé’s heart sank. Why did they have to leave now, with all these unanswered questions hanging over them?

  “Promise you’ll leave the puzzle alone until we can talk again,” said Dr. Marriott in a conspiratorial whisper. “Don’t mention it to anyone and, whatever you do, don’t put the puzzle together!”

  “This way, junior reporters,” said the housekeeper, steering them out of the room.

  Holding the door open, Dr. Marriott winked at them. As they trooped through, Zoé noticed a small tattoo on his other wrist: a skull and crossbones.

  “Shall we meet for tea, the day after tomorrow?” he asked. “The King’s Ransom Café. Always quiet there. Say four o’clock? I’ll bring Doctor Doom. Cheerio.”

  “We can’t go to the King’s—” Zoé started.
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  But by then the door was closing and Mrs. Prosser was nudging them down the stairs with her bony elbows.

  In the evening, following a take-out meal of fish and chips, Zoé and Ian waited in line with Granddad outside the Garibaldi Pavilion Theater on High Street to buy tickets for the original version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, what Granddad called “a quintessential black-and-white sci-fi B-movie.”

  Ian aimed his camera at the distant headland, taking pictures of the ruined castle and the ferry landing that jutted out into the harbor. Zoé admired the way he was so intense and professional, yet always willing to show her the finer points of photography. That was one reason she liked Ian so much: like Granddad, he had a generous nature.

  “So if Dr. Marriott is, say, fifty years old,” said Ian, pocketing his camera, “and he buried the puzzle when he was twelve.…” He furrowed his brow, doing a quick mental calculation. “Whooee, that means the glass puzzle was down in that tunnel for thirty-eight years!”

  “My mom and your dad were going to school here thirty-eight years ago,” said Zoé. “Hey, do you think all the Astercôtes had dragon tattoos like Dr. Marriott’s?”

  “Maybe,” said Ian. “But I like the skull-and-crossbones one better.”

  Granddad turned to them, waving three tickets. “Here we go, kids, my treat,” he said merrily. “You’re going to love this motion picture. It’s classic science fiction!”

  “Thanks, Granddad,” said Zoé.

  Over the years, she and Ian had come here often with Granddad, a horror and sci-fi movie enthusiast who was keen on films dating back to the 1950s and ’60s. Ian was always eager to analyze the special effects, curious to know how films like Godzilla were made in the days before computer technology. Zoé simply loved being frightened.

  The Garibaldi Pavilion Theater was a relic from a dying age, one of many threatened theaters in Britain, covered in vines and vegetation, crumbling from the outside in, yet Zoé adored it. The interior was so retro: a vast arching space with scrolled columns, worn velvet seats, an ornate balcony, and wall sconces shaped like castles and knights on horseback. The owner, Garibaldi Pooke, specialized in sciencefiction films during the summer and vintage noir crime films in winter.

  As always, Granddad chose front-row seats in the balcony. Zoé sat swinging her feet, waiting impatiently for the lights to dim, while images tumbled inside her head: Iris Tintern chasing them out of the café, the way the glass puzzle shimmered, and the eerie painting of Wythernsea by Dr. Marriott’s uncle. Then she heard the whir of the projector through a window in the back wall and her attention was riveted on the screen.

  Less than fifteen minutes into the film, the picture shuddered to a halt and the lights went on. Far below, a group of teenagers started throwing candy and boxes of popcorn into the air.

  “Ladies and gents, the film will recommence shortly,” announced Garibaldi Pooke, stepping out from behind the curtains. “And I’m asking you youngsters down in front to refrain from throwing popcorn: we’ll not tolerate hooliganism in this theater.”

  “What’s that he’s saying?” asked Granddad, fiddling with his hearing aid. “Hooligans in Tenby? Well, I never.”

  “I’m popping off to the loo,” Zoé told her granddad. Pop off to the loo was one of her favorite British expressions. “Be right back.”

  “Fine, Magpie, just steer clear of those troublemakers.”

  “Righty-o,” she said, then whispered to Ian, “I’m taking my puzzle glass and checking things out in the lobby.”

  Curious to find out what else they could see through the blue glass, Zoé and Ian had returned to the attic and taken a puzzle piece each from the silver box.

  “Copy that,” Ian whispered back. “I’ll look for clues here in the balcony.”

  The downstairs lobby, carpeted in red and painted with Italian frescoes, was teeming with people buying snacks and beverages. Zoé waved to her friend Fritha Pooke, one of a few girls in Tenby she occasionally hung out with when she came here for the summer, who was working behind the counter, filling boxes of popcorn with a martyr’s bleak expression, her barrettes sparkling in the glare of the lights. Fritha’s dad owned the cinema and sometimes gave her free tickets to hand out to friends.

  Squeezing between a gigantic fern and a soft drinks machine, Zoé held the glass to her eye and stealthily looked through it, but the recessed lighting made the wall fresco people overlap with the real people until they all blurred together. Disappointed, she headed upstairs to the ladies’ water closet (WC for short), more commonly known as the ladies’ loo. Although a modern WC had been built off the lobby, the upstairs ladies’ loo had an old-fashioned water fountain that Zoé loved, and she found the room oddly charming.

  Over the years the ladies’ loo, pungent with soap and air freshener, had always been pink: pink walls, pink floor tiles, pink frothy curtains. Even the electric radiator was pink, though most of the paint had flaked off over time. Opposite the porcelain sink was a dressing table painted a soft rose, with a pink ruffle and an oval mirror. Zoé was captivated by the tiny shells glued around the mirror’s edges, though each year she noticed a few more had fallen off.

  Standing at the window, curtains rippling in the breeze, she gazed down at the cobbled street lined with benches, and the gray waves in the distance, thinking how her mom used to come here when she was Zoé’s age. This time of year it didn’t grow dark until late, but just before the darkness the air grew hazy—the gloaming, Granddad called it—and fairy lights strung from lampposts flickered on.

  While she gulped water from the fountain, the door banged open. Wiping a hand across her dripping chin, she saw another girl she knew from past summers in Tenby: Catherine Beedle.

  Catherine had a round face and white-blond hair pulled tight against her head and twisted into a ponytail down her back. Her dress, patterned in red-and-black checks, was sort of a cool vintage look, along with her glasses, which had tinted blue lenses and rhinestone cat’s-eye frames.

  “Hi, Catherine,” said Zoé. “I like your new glasses.”

  “Hiya, Zoé. Thanks,” said Catherine. “My mum bought them for me at Zival’s.” Behind the bluish lenses of her glasses, her eyes looked small and dark.

  “I really like the rhinestones,” added Zoé, thinking how there was something different about Catherine. The hollowness of her voice perhaps, or the way she kept looking to one side.

  “Me too.” Catherine set her glasses on the rim of the sink and turned on the taps, splashing water over her face. Tiny beads of water sprayed across the mirror.

  Something’s off, thought Zoé, feeling the hairs stand up at the back of her neck. Why is she wearing blue-tinted glasses the same as Iris Tintern?

  “If I get glasses someday, I’m getting pink frames with tiny shells around the edges,” said Zoé. Acting casual, she reached into her pocket for the puzzle-glass, closing her hand around it, anxious to look through the glass at Catherine. “What’s Dr. Zival like, anyway?”

  “I didn’t see Dr. Zival,” murmured Catherine, turning off the taps and inspecting her face in the mirror. “Some bloke named Dr. Brown tested my eyes.”

  Now! thought Zoé, and whisked out the glass piece. When she stared through it, her knees buckled: reflected in the mirror, on Catherine’s forehead, was an enormous whirling eye. She stood frozen to the floor as the room seemed to tilt at an angle. In the pale pink light of the ladies’ loo, gills appeared on Catherine’s neck, and scales began erupting up and down her arms.

  Zoé took a step back, her breath coming in short, strangled gasps. Time to go, she thought, almost knocking over the dressing table as she bolted past Catherine and out the door. Clattering down to the lobby, she thought she heard Catherine shouting after her.

  Diving into the velvety darkness of the theater, Zoé collapsed into the seat next to Ian.

  “You’re just in time,” he whispered.

  On the screen, people in fifties-style clothes stood around a table insid
e a cellar, staring with frightened eyes at a giant alien pod slowly ripping open, revealing a waxen face, smooth and half formed, not quite fully human.

  “You’re not getting me back inside that ghastly café tomorrow,” declared Ian the next morning as he and Zoé walked through the Old Town, coins jingling in their pockets. It was Saturday, and Granddad had sent them off to buy a loaf of bread and a treat for themselves. “She’s a complete lunatic, Iris Tintern. I’m never setting foot in there again.”

  Exasperated, Zoé rolled her eyes. “But you just said you’d never set foot in the Garibaldi Pavilion Theater either!” After watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers and hearing about Catherine Beedle, Ian was becoming super jumpy. “Well, it’s no good going to Dr. Marriott’s house with Mrs. Prosser bothering us all the time. If we go to the café, we can dress incognito,” she added, using one of Ian’s secret agent words.

  Ian looked thoughtful. “Okay, you’ve got a point. Dr. Marriott needs to know about the creatures we saw—and about Iris and Catherine, too. Maybe he can explain why all these weird things are happening.”

  “Nobody else would believe us,” said Zoé, “not even Granddad.”

  “Especially not Granddad,” said Ian. “And, oh yeah, there’s something else we have to do: find the girl who sold him the puzzle. Hey, look at all those people lined up outside Zival’s.”

  Beneath the orange-and-green neon sign, a new sign flashed: SPECIALIZING IN CUSTOM-DESIGNED, LIGHT-SENSITIVE LENSES. Zoé stared at the dozens of people waiting in a line that snaked past a jeweler’s store and a shop selling rare prints, all the way around the corner.

  “Catherine Beedle got her blue-tinted glasses from Zival’s,” she said, shuddering at the memory. “I wonder why so many people are getting them.”

  There’s definitely a creepiness factor here, she thought. Was the sudden popularity of blue-tinted glasses linked to the creatures from the puzzle? Both the glasses and the creatures had appeared in Tenby around the same time. But … what exactly was the connection?