by Robin Jarvis
With a sickening jolt, she found herself inside the cabinet. She was as small as the wooden figures and, to her horror, she found she had taken the place of the condemned prisoner. She was now strapped in the electric chair.
Lil cried out in shock and disbelief. This couldn’t be happening, but it was absolutely real. No matter how desperately she struggled, it was impossible to get free. Above her, the copper bowl was waiting to descend, while in front the cabinet’s glass window was a dark, shiny wall and she couldn’t see any sign of Verne or his family beyond it.
‘Help!’ she yelled. ‘Get me out of this! Stop it! Help!’
The mechanical drama around her continued.
The priest raised his face and Lil suddenly realised that the wooden characters resembled the people in her dreams. The priest looked like a stern Puritan, the sobbing wife was Scaur Annie and the warden was Sir Melchior Pyke. Then her eyes fell on the guard with his hand clutching the lever. His painted face was ugly and vicious, with a scar down one side, and his head was on crooked. His eyes stared straight at her and she felt the malevolence radiate from them. Then his jointed arm pulled on the switch and fiery blue sparks spat from it.
‘No!’ Lil pleaded.
The metal bowl came down, pressing on to her head. There was a blinding flash and she screamed.
The cabinet was filled with jagged forks of energy and the chair rocked violently. Then it went dark.
Lil fell backwards and heard Clarke laughing.
‘You all right, luv?’ Mrs Thistlewood asked.
Lil took several moments to catch her breath. She was back in the Thistlewoods’ living room. The light inside the cabinet had gone off and the figures inside were noiselessly resetting to their start positions.
‘I . . . I don’t believe what just happened,’ Lil uttered shakily. ‘I just don’t. I was there – inside it!’
‘It’s insane!’ Clarke said. ‘We can’t get our heads round it either. I’ve had four goes and I lose it every time. You’re really convinced you’re sitting in Old Sparky.’
‘You experienced the same thing?’ Lil asked incredulously.
‘Consider our minds totally fried,’ Clarke said.
‘But . . . how?’
Mr Thistlewood removed the wooden cover below the glass front. Lil peered inside. The space beneath the diorama was crammed with an unbelievably complex and intricate forest of levers, spindles, cams, cogs and wires.
‘That still doesn’t explain it,’ Lil muttered.
‘Don’t ask me,’ Verne said when he saw the stupefied, questioning look on her face. ‘I haven’t a clue either.’
‘You honestly did this in your sleep, with your eyes shut? I’ve never heard of anything like it. It’s not possible.’
‘I know! But there it is!’
‘It’s creepy is what it is,’ his mother said. ‘It’s like the thing’s possessed. I won’t have it in this house. It can go in the lock-up, or better still, smash it up and burn the pieces.’
‘No chance!’ her husband said. ‘This is going in the main arcade, pride of place. We’ll make a mint – more than enough to cover the mess here.’
‘My mum would’ve rung up the telly and had every newspaper round by now,’ Lil said. ‘They’d go crazy for this.’
‘There’s no way that’s going in the arcade!’ Noreen said firmly. ‘We’d have people keeling over with heart attacks. This is what comes of our Verne watching too many horror films. No more of that, young man.’
‘Truth is, Lil, we don’t know what to do,’ Mr Thistlewood said. ‘This isn’t normal science; it’s probably something more in your mum and dad’s line.’
‘Magic?’ Lil asked, almost giggling. ‘There’s no such thing.’
‘Our Verne isn’t a wizard,’ Noreen agreed. ‘It’s just his hormones.’
‘I am here!’ Verne interrupted angrily. ‘I’ve had enough. I’m going to get dressed.’
He stomped into the hall and Lil followed him.
‘You want to come over to the shop to get away for a while?’ she asked. ‘I can show you this knitting . . .’
‘Knitting?’ the boy cried. ‘Why would I want to see gormless knitting?’
‘It’s not gormless! It’s wonderful. Come look.’
Verne rounded on her. ‘Didn’t you just see what I did in there, in my sleep? I created something mental. Didn’t you hear my dad? It’s not normal. There’s got to be something seriously wrong with me! What if . . . oh, just get lost and leave me alone!’
He stormed up to his bedroom and slammed the door.
Lil felt as though Verne had slapped her. He’d never shouted at her like that before.
A comforting arm slipped round her shoulders.
‘He doesn’t mean it,’ Mrs Thistlewood said. ‘He’s had a rough night, as you can imagine. He’s strung out and shocked, in every sense, by that thing in there. We all are.’
‘Yes, I understand that. It’s not every day you get electrocuted.’
‘I wonder if what happened to you triggered something? He was so wowed by that skeleton coming through your window. He’s got such an imagination that one. Perhaps I should call the doctor.’
‘Tell Verne to text me when he’s feeling better. I’ll go back to the shop.’
‘Hang on till I make myself presentable and I’ll come with you, luv. Could do with a natter to your mum.’
Soon after, Verne heard the front door close and he felt ashamed for the way he had treated his best friend. It had been a bewildering morning. Reaching into the pocket of his dressing gown, he brought out the mysterious golden Nimius and stared at it intently.
‘This was your fault,’ he whispered. ‘You made me do that to the automaton. I don’t know how, but you did.’
He shuddered as he felt the object turn and click in his palm.
Alarmed, the boy threw it into a drawer and stepped away. He wanted to tell someone about it and wished he had confided in Lil. But he felt guilty for having taken it in the first place and didn’t want anyone to know he’d ripped it out of a dead hand.
Inside the drawer, one of the many symbols on the surface of the Nimius began to rise.
Lil left Mrs Thistlewood in deep discussion with her mother at the shop and took Sally for a walk. She carried her up the 199 steps and the Westie broke wind all the way.
When they reached the top, Lil set her down in the churchyard and they wove a meandering path between the blackened and weathered leaning headstones. The graveyard of St Mary’s Church stretched far along the cliff. Lil liked to come here to clear her head when she was troubled and she was still shaken by her experience within the automaton. The sea air was sharp and clean and nature’s own special magic was soon healing her frazzled nerves.
Emergency fencing blocked off the dangerous edge and Lil sat herself on a bench with the square and reassuringly ancient walls of the church behind her. She had brought her journal and began sketching the view across the harbour.
Staring over at the arch made of whalebones that commemorated Whitby’s past as a whaling port, a smile lit her face. How cool would it be to cover that in knitting? It would be a terrific challenge. Could she get away with it and not be spotted? It was so open up there, with street lamps and a main road, but if she succeeded, it would cause a real sensation.
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m going to do it.’
At her feet, Sally was facing the strong breeze, head held high, enjoying the feel of it coursing through her clean fur.
‘You got a real cute pooch there,’ said a voice. ‘Looks like a polar bear cub.’
Lil turned to see the colourful Cherry Cerise advancing towards them.
‘Hey there,’ the odd woman said as she knelt by the dog and reached out a hand to stroke her. ‘What a beauty you are. Your fur is dazzlin’; you’re like a far-out detergent commercial.’
‘She’s deaf,’ Lil told her, not sure what else to say to this local eccentric.
Cher
ry laughed. ‘Don’t matter none,’ she said. ‘This adorable darlin’ knows I’m friendly, don’t you, baby lamb?’ She stroked Sally’s head and the Westie pushed contentedly against her hand.
‘She’s not a puppy you know; she’ll be sixteen this year.’
‘Then she’s an old broad like me, still lookin’ fabulous in her twilight years.’
Sally rolled over to have her tummy tickled.
‘You’re honoured,’ Lil remarked. ‘She never lets strangers do that. She normally bites them.’
‘Her and me both, honey.’
Lil chuckled out of politeness.
Cherry removed her oversized sunglasses. Her false eyelashes were caked in mascara, but the eyes they framed were startlingly pale and she blinked in the sunlight.
‘Mind if I park my bony ass next to you?’ she asked. ‘I’m pretty limber for my age, but them 199 steps are still murder – ’specially in a pair of kinky boots . . . I’m pooped and my toes feel like bananas.’
Lil slid along the seat to make room, still struggling for something to say. She wished Verne was here to help.
‘As long as you didn’t count them on the way up,’ she managed, after a pause. ‘If you get it wrong, then . . .’
‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m not a tourist. I know all the myths there are about this place, probably more than you. If you miscount the steps, you croak before the end of the year, yeah, yeah. You can’t step out your door without trippin’ over some legend or superstition. Bet you didn’t know that under this very cliff are caves and tunnels where a secret and ancient tribe of fisherfolk used to live? And beneath that, running right below this town and under the river, is a giant sleeping serpent?’
‘I’ve never heard that. Did you just make those up?’
‘Aufwaders aren’t even a mangled memory no more,’ the woman said enigmatically. ‘Old truths have been forgot. Land sakes, people, you threw away what was real and ran to embrace cotton-candy whimsy instead. This island’s bones are cemented over and y’all were happy to let it happen. That’ll cost you mighty dear.’
Lil wondered how soon she could leave without appearing rude. Verne was right: this woman was nuts.
‘Whatcha writin’?’
Lil tucked the journal under her legs. ‘Nothing, just doodling.’
‘Spicy poetry to a secret lover, huh? I won’t tell.’
‘No! Nothing like that!’
‘Jeepers, I used to do it all the time at your age. I had such a crush on my chemistry teacher, I learned the whole of the periodic table to impress him, then I ruined everything by blowing up the lab.’
Lil didn’t know how to respond to that.
‘Hey,’ Cherry said, swinging her bright orange vinyl shoulder bag on to her knees and delving inside. ‘You want a Whitby Lemon Bun? I got some from Botham’s the bakers. Here.’
Lil declined.
‘Oh, go on, I’m not a stranger. I’ve lived in this place twenty years. Might be a bit kooky, but I’m the most harmless gal you’ll ever meet.’
‘Thanks, but no.’
‘Sure? It’ll stave off any borborygmus.’
Lil started. ‘What? ’
‘Don’t sweat, it’s not an infectious disease. It means . . .’
‘Tummy growls – I know.’
‘That’s right. You’re pretty bright, kid.’
‘My name’s Lil, and that’s Sally.’
‘Call me Cherry.’
‘OK, and go on then, I will.’
Cherry handed her a Whitby Lemon Bun and bit into another. They were a local speciality, made from sweet dough like an iced finger but with candied fruit added to the mix.
‘You’re eating it wrong,’ Lil told her. ‘You’re supposed to tear off the top, turn it over and make a sandwich with the lemon icing in the middle. Only tourists eat them the normal, boring way.’
Cherry laughed and almost choked.
‘Two decades and I’m still a clueless outsider!’ she cried, finishing off the first, then tackling a second the Whitby way and agreeing it was better.
‘Your name’s Cherry Cerise, isn’t it?’ Lil asked chewily. ‘That’s unusual.’
‘Stage name, honey, but I like it better than my real one.’
‘You an actress?’
‘Heck, no!’
‘Singer?’
‘Only in the tub; sound like a constipated corncrake.’
‘OK. I give up. I can’t guess.’
‘Nobody asked you to try.’
‘American though, yes?’
‘Canadian.’
‘You’ve got a very individual, quirky fashion style.’
‘Brash and loud, you mean. The seventies were my era, baby. I like to think I’m a walkin’ tribute to all that – a two-legged work of art or a trashy memorial. Can’t work out which.’
‘You’re definitely a bit of a mystery. People around here don’t know much about you.’
‘Like it that way. Can’t stand nosy parkers. Your clothes aren’t exactly run of the mill neither – unless the mill is in Transylvania. I like your badge though.’
‘Thanks, I made it. I’ve got loads. I wear a different one every day.’
‘That’s neat. I like your blue fringe too, Lil. I’ve got a wig in peacock blue.’
‘My full name is Lilith Morgana Hawthorn Blossom Minerva Tempestra Wilhelmina Wilson.’
‘Oh dear Lords! You should sue!’
It was Lil’s turn to laugh.
‘Saw you on the TV news last night,’ Cherry said, changing the subject suddenly. ‘Chillin’ stuff. You were one brave young lady.’
‘Wasn’t much else I could do. Nothing brave about it.’
‘That corpse wasn’t just randomly blown in by the wind, ya know. That was intentional. That skeleton sought you out. I wonder why?’
‘You sound like my mum and Verne. Which reminds me, what were you doing out on the bridge that night?’
Cherry’s pale eyes narrowed.
‘Remindin’ myself I was alive, kid,’ she said.
‘Verne said you were waving lights about.’
‘Verne? Oh, the weedy little matchstick who went past? He almost got himself drowned. He your boyfriend? The one you’re writin’ kissy-kissy poetry for?’
‘I’m not doing that! He’s my friend, not boyfriend!’
‘Whatever you say.’
Lil frowned. Cherry had evaded her question.
‘Going back to that skeleton,’ the woman said. ‘Word is, the skull’s gone AWOL.’
‘Nothing to do with me. We’ve got more than enough ghoulish stuff in the shop.’
‘That’s right; you folks run the hoodoo store in Church Street, don’t you? Worst thing ever happened to this town was Bram Stoker writin’ that dumb Dracula book. Look what it brings to the place: hordes of bozos playing dress-up, pretendin’ to be witches and vampires and Victorian dudes with ray guns.’
‘My mum and dad are witches.’
‘Oh, bless your heart, honey, no they’re not. They’re just overgrown teenagers livin’ out their fantasies with cloaks and candles, and you know it.’
Lil coughed in surprise. That was a bit near the knuckle. She might think that about her parents, but it wasn’t polite for this weird woman to come out and say it to her face.
‘It’s dangerous too,’ Cherry went on. ‘All those things in your store do have a certain power, but should only be handled and used by people who know what they’re doin’, not put on display like so many cans of soup, attractin’ who knows what.’
‘It’s just merchandise.’
‘There’s too much celebration of the negative around here, all the black robes, the morbid imagery, the trappings of darkness. It gets noticed. It has an effect.’
‘Noticed by who? I know the vicar doesn’t like it and thinks we worship the devil, but that’s a load of rubbish. “Religious intolerance” my mum calls it.’
‘Meh,’ Cherry said with a dismissive shrug, gazing out to sea.
‘The devil was invented by Christians. They’ve been fizzin’ with intolerance of this ’n’ that for two thousand years, what do you expect? But there are forces way, way older; three most ancient, most supreme and terrifyin’ powers. You really don’t want to draw their attention.’
‘I don’t believe in any of it – it’s all made-up nonsense.’
‘Whoa! Hold on, kid, don’t disappoint. Here was me thinkin’ you had brains. Magic exists. It’s as real as electricity, but if my cottage needed rewirin’, I’d be the biggest kind of dope to let a bunch of clumsy amateurs loose in there instead of hirin’ a qualified electrician. Messin’ with forces you don’t understand is the deadliest thing you can do and buys you a one-way express ride to places you really don’t wanna go.’
‘Electricus . . .’ Lil murmured absently.
‘What’s that?’
‘Oh, er . . . nothing. And for what it’s worth, my parents are white witches. They don’t have anything to do with black magic.’
‘Honey, only trashy newspapers and the feeble-minded see the world in black and white. There’s so much more in between, and folks who don’t realise that shouldn’t go dabblin’. You know what really made my day earlier? All that groovy knitting down in the town. I’d like to give whoever did that a great big hug and a bunch of flowers. That’s what this place needs more of: vibrancy and joy – chase all the funereal shadows away.’
Lil couldn’t help tingling with pride and was determined to get the next phase done as soon as possible.
‘Probably too late for that though,’ Cherry continued, more to herself than Lil. ‘Too much damage done already. There was anger behind that storm Friday night – a dark purpose.’
‘My mum said that too.’
Cherry turned to look at her. ‘Don’t be offended,’ she began, ‘but I really do think your mom is one of the dumbest clucks I ever saw. It’s like she’s filled her store with kerosene and is playing with matches. She’s not just invitin’ trouble, she’s sendin’ it the cab fare and puttin’ down welcome mats. Whatever’s gonna happen will be part down to her. A lot of folks are gonna get burned.’
Lil rose from the bench. ‘You can’t talk about my mum like that!’