The Lost Property Office

by James R. Hannibal

  This story is dedicated to

  ALL THE TRACKERS OUT THERE.

  You know who you are.

  Well . . . perhaps you don’t.

  BUT YOU’LL LEARN

  soon enough.

  Chapter 1

  A PAIR OF rather large, blue-green beetles buzzed north over the River Thames, weaving back and forth over the water’s surface in that haphazard pattern that beetles fly. Had they bothered to look, the early-morning joggers in London’s Victoria Tower Gardens—wrapped up against the December cold in their leggings and winter caps—might have caught the glint of the rising sun reflecting off iridescent wings. Had they looked even closer, they might even have wondered if those wings were made of some strange metal alloy.

  But they did not look. No one ever does.

  The bugs did not go entirely unnoticed. A pike leaped out of the river and snatched one from the air for breakfast.

  As the fish splashed down with its meal, the remaining beetle halted its progress and hovered, buzzing impatiently. The murky brown depths lit up with a muted blue flash and the pike floated lifeless to the surface, a look of dreadful shock in its round eye. The captured beetle crawled out of its gill, shook off a bit of fish goo with an indignant flutter of its clockwork wings, and rejoined its companion in flight.

  The beetles left the Thames at Parliament and flew skyward, hugging the eastern wall of the House of Lords. Upon reaching the rooftop, they continued north, dodging dozens of Gothic spires and hundreds of pigeon spikes, before climbing again, this time flying up the southern wall of the Great Clock Tower—known to the world as Big Ben. They alighted on the giant minute hand, rested a moment to watch the long morning shadow of the tower recede along Bridge Street, and then, with the rapid clicking of six metal legs apiece, they crawled down to the hub and wound their way inside.

  • • •

  In the quiet chamber below the clock, Constable Henry Biddle sipped his morning tea. Certainly, sitting in an uncomfortable folding chair and guarding the door to an old staircase was not the post he envisioned when he had joined the Metropolitan Police the year before, but one had to start a career in law enforcement somewhere. Besides, left unguarded, the rickety iron stairs and the open-air bell platform at the top were a real danger to overcurious tourists.

  A dull, metallic clunk interrupted Biddle midway through a long sip. He lowered his paper cup and turned in his seat to stare at the lock on the upper stairwell door. He stared, in fact, for quite some time, but the old iron lock made no other sound.

  Odd. Biddle gave the door a frown to let it know who was in charge, then returned his gaze to the lower stairwell door across the chamber and raised his tea again. Once more, he was interrupted by a noise—static from his radio. He let out a dissatisfied grunt as he set the tea down next to his chair. Couldn’t a man have some peace at the start of a long shift?

  “Nigel, I couldn’t read your last,” he said, raising the radio. “If you’re looking for a report, all’s quiet in the upper stairwell.” Even as he made the transmission, Biddle noticed movement on the radio. He held it farther from his face and saw an enormous beetle perched on the dial, beautiful, with shimmering faceted wings and silvery legs. If it hadn’t moved, he would have taken it for a jeweled trinket. “Oi. Bug. What’re you doing there?”

  The beetle’s wings quivered. “All’s quiet in the upper stairwell.”

  Biddle’s eyes widened at the sound of his own voice. “What the devil—”

  The bug launched itself straight at Biddle’s face. A resounding zap and a blue-white flash filled the chamber, followed by a light sizzle and the lingering scent of burning hair. The constable slumped in his chair. His checkered hat fell from his head, knocking over the paper cup and sending a river of tea winding through the joints and crevices of the old stone floor.

  The chamber remained silent for several seconds, with the beetles hovering patiently over their victim, until a man in a long black overcoat and a black fedora emerged from the lower stairwell. He swept past the stricken constable, through the door, and up the spiral staircase, with the two beetles heeling at his shoulder like a pair of well-trained hounds.

  The man in black climbed right past the great gears and the giant, two-story clockface, all the way up to the belfry, where he stepped through one of the tall, arched windows, out onto the western balcony. There, he leaned against the iron rail, surveying St. James’s Park, and his clockwork beetles hovered before his grizzled face, bobbling against the breeze in the effort to hold their position. “Wind’s from the north, no?” he asked, a French accent coloring his English. He let the bugs come to rest on a gloved finger. “Not for long, mes amis. Papa will see to that.”

  The Frenchman peeled back the lapel of his overcoat, revealing a deep inner pocket that undulated with the creeping movement of whatever nested inside, and the two clockwork bugs happily fluttered over to join in. Their master then bent to scrutinize the rail posts, his eye mere inches from the black-painted iron. He fixated on the center post, holding his ear close to the knob and knocking on it with his knuckle. He tried giving it a twist, but it wouldn’t budge. After a frown and another careful knock to confirm his suspicions, he tried again, this time twisting with both hands. With a great crack, the knob finally gave.

  Once loosened, the ornament turned easily, and the man in black removed it and placed it in his outer pocket. From the opposite pocket, he withdrew a copper weather vane, green with age and formed in the silhouette of a tall ship. The instrument fit the post as if it belonged there, and he turned it to point the prow of the ship at Buckingham Palace. The northern breeze dropped to a standstill. A fraction of a second later, he felt the barest breath of wind from the west, and grinned. “Voilà. All is set in motion. Now, let us see about poor, lucky Jack.”

  Chapter 2

  “WHERE IS IT? I know I had it last night.”

  Jack Buckles was vaguely aware of his mother bustling about their small London hotel room, checking drawers and lifting up magazines. He tried to ignore her, nose buried in his smartphone, playing a 3-D game that required him to search goblin tunnels and orc dens for wizards’ gems, but when she dropped to her knees right in front of him to check under the bed, he couldn’t take it anymore. He sighed, still battling a goblin with his thumbs. “What’re you looking for?”

  “Glove. Red leather.” She reached up and flopped its twin back and forth in front of his face. “Matches this one.”

  Thirteen-year-old Jack and his eight-year-old sister, Sadie, sat cross-legged, side by side on one of the room’s two queen-size beds. Without looking up from his game, Jack grabbed the loose fabric of Sadie’s jeans and tipped her backward. Sadie did not protest. She kept both hands on her e-reader and let Jack rock her back into the pillows, uncrossing her legs and flopping them down on the comforter to form a V. Jack held his arm straight out to the side and pointed down. There, between his sister’s knees, sat the missing glove.

  His mom let out a little laugh—a sort of sad chuckle. “Amazing. Just like your dad.”

  Jack cringed. He hadn’t meant to do anything that would remind her of him.

  She kissed his head as she retrieved the glove, pausing for a few uncomfortable seconds to hover over him and smooth out his mop of deep brown hair. As soon as she turned away, Jack raised a hand to mess it up again.

  His mom put an arm into her dark blue peacoat. “I have several hospitals to visit, Jack. With all the forms I’ll have to fill out, it may take all day. Jack, are you listening?”

  He nodded, still playing his game. “Yeah, Mom. Red tape. Gone all day.” He didn’t mean to sound as sarcastic as he did, but he made no effort to take it back either.

  She fr
owned. “I know the circumstances are tough, especially after yesterday, but—”

  “Tough?” Jack shifted his eyes up from the phone, just enough for a glare. It was the first time he had looked her in the eye since they got off the plane from Denver the morning before, and what he saw in her eyes caught him off guard. His mom didn’t look like she wanted to argue—far from it. At that moment, she looked as if some merciless force was about to crush her where she stood. Tears pooled in her eyes, threatening to come pouring down. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so sorry about all of this.”

  Jack shot a sideways glance at Sadie. Her head was still back on the pillows, auburn hair—the same color as her mother’s—spilling out in all directions, eyes fixed on her digital book. He dropped his eyes to his phone again. “Don’t, Mom. Just . . . don’t.”

  In the long silence that followed, Jack knew she was looking at him. He hunched his shoulders under the weight of his mother’s sad gaze, willing her to hold it together. He didn’t want to be this cold. He really didn’t. He wanted to take her hands, tell her that none of this was her fault. He wanted to cry into her shoulder. But he couldn’t. Jack knew what would happen if he looked his mother in the eye. He would lose it. And if he lost it, she would lose it too, and Sadie would start asking questions that neither of them wanted to answer. Not until they had answers to give.

  So Jack kept his head down. Another goblin appeared on the screen. He slashed through it with a vengeance and it vanished in a pillar of green flame.

  Jack’s mom dabbed her eyes with the wayward glove, then tucked her hair into a red knitted beret and kissed both her children on their cheeks, as if she were merely heading off to the store. “Do your best to entertain each other while I’m gone. There are games that don’t require screens, you know—games you can play together, like I Spy.” She let the suggestion hang in the air, and Jack knew she wanted a response, at least a laugh or a grunt. He gave her neither.

  His mom placed a hand on his knee. “If you get hungry, buy something from the café downstairs.” She took him by the chin and gently lifted his face. “Something small, Jack.”

  He pulled away. “Yeah, Mom. I know. Future uncertain. Eat cheap.”

  “Whatever you do, do not leave this hotel. Got it?”

  “Yeah. Got it.”

  She stared down at the top of his head for another second, then sighed and walked to the door. “Okay, then. I’m off to find your father.”

  Chapter 3

  SADIE SAT UP on the bed, dropping her hands to her lap so that her e-reader hit her legs with a melodramatic slap. “I’m bored.”

  “No you’re not.” Jack winced as another goblin took a swipe at him with its dagger. He had searched the orc dens and found nothing but a rock telling him to go back to the goblin tunnels—a wild-goose chase. He could practically hear the guy who’d designed the game laughing at him, but Jack was in too deep to quit. If he could only find the red gem and return it to the wizard, he would level up and become a wizard’s apprentice. He thumbed his character left for a dodge and chopped his enemy in half. Ice-blue flame lit up the screen. “Mom’s only been gone five minutes.”

  “She’s been gone ten minutes. And how do you know if I’m bored or not?” Sadie pushed the e-reader out of her lap and onto the comforter, then bounced herself around to face the pillows, causing Jack to sway back and forth on the mattress. After arranging and rearranging the pillows on her side, she crawled behind her brother to get at the rest, bumping into him repeatedly as she worked. He knew she was doing it on purpose, but he ignored her.

  Sadie huffed, bounced, huffed again, rearranged pillows, bumped into her brother, huffed a little louder and bounced again, and then finally bumped Jack so hard that he missed an attack and got slashed by a goblin’s blade. His screen flashed red. He flopped the phone down on his knee and looked hard at his sister, who was now standing directly in front of him. “Seriously?”

  “Let’s watch TV.”

  “Mom doesn’t want you to watch British TV, Sadie.”

  “She never said that.”

  “She didn’t have to. Besides, Americans can’t understand British TV shows.”

  Sadie folded her arms. “I’m not stupid. London people speak the same language we do.”

  “Don’t say stupid. And that’s not what I meant.”

  In truth, Jack did not want to watch television. There was always too much going on, too much to notice, and his brain had a tendency to notice everything whether he wanted it to or not. That was why he always retreated to his smartphone. He used it as a refuge from a world that perpetually closed in around him, crowding him to the point of exhaustion. Lately he had also been using it as a refuge from his own thoughts, and Sadie’s interruption was bringing them back again. He handed her the e-reader. “You have lots of games on this thing. Play one.”

  That seemed to placate her. Sadie plopped down on the mattress and raised the device above her head. Thirty seconds later, she dropped it onto her lap again. “I’m sooo hungry.”

  Jack dropped his forehead into his palm. “You are not hungry. You had a granola bar for breakfast like ten minutes before Mom left. That was only fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Twenty minutes. And stop telling me what I am. Mom said we could go downstairs if we got hungry.”

  Jack started to counter but stopped himself. Years of forced togetherness while their dad was off doing whatever international sales associates did had taught him a few things about little sisters. Arguing would get him nowhere. Bargaining, however, always worked. And being older and wiser meant he could skew the deal in his favor. “Fine. If I get you something to eat, you have to be quiet for at least four hours.”

  Sadie popped up off the bed. “Deal!”

  Too easy. He should have asked for six.

  The Eurotrek Lodge had little in the way of amenities. There was a buffet restaurant for dinner and a tiny café in the lobby for everything else. Jack selected a ham and cheese and let Sadie pick out a strawberry Danish. She also wanted a soda, but Jack was old enough to know that little girls and sugar highs didn’t mix. “We’ll take two bottled waters,” he told the cashier.

  “Hey, that looks like Daddy,” said Sadie, glancing over her shoulder.

  Jack winced, choking back the knot in his throat. “It’s not Dad, Sadie.” Jack didn’t look, and not only because he knew she hadn’t really seen their dad. There was too much going on behind him in the lobby. Hearing it was enough. Seeing it would be too much. A Frenchman at the counter was complaining about his bill. He was wrong, and he knew it. Jack could hear it in his voice. A woman near the exit was ordering a taxi by phone. She didn’t want to get lost in the Tube. Jack didn’t blame her. An American couple was standing by a rack of tourist brochures, planning a trip to some castle. His voice was beefy, like a bodybuilder’s. Hers was small and reedlike.

  The cashier dug their food out of a display case hung with green-and-red garlands that had seen too many Christmases. She was pretty, in a frumpy sort of way, with long dark hair pulled back into a bun that didn’t quite contain it all, and wearing a black hotel uniform that didn’t quite fit. She had seven earrings in the left ear and six in the right. What was that all about? Was it a statement or an oversight?

  Jack shuddered. He didn’t want to notice these things. He just . . . couldn’t turn his brain off, not without a little help. He pulled out his phone and played his wizard game while he waited for Pretty-frumpy girl to wrap up the Danish.

  “It is Daddy. Same brown coat and everything. Look, Jack!”

  “Quiet, Sadie. That was the deal. I’m buying you sustenance. That means you have to zip it.”

  “Cash or credit?” asked Pretty-frumpy girl. Her accent sounded Polish.

  Jack kept his eyes on his screen, picking a fight with a trio of goblins. “Can we charge . . . it . . . to . . . our . . . room?” He asked the question slowly so the cashier would understand.

  “He doesn’t see us. He’s going to l
eave, Jack. Look!”

  “Not now, Sadie.”

  “Yes, of course you can charge . . . it . . . to . . . your . . . room.” Pretty-frumpy-Polish girl spoke as slowly as Jack had. Apparently she understood him fine and took offense at the implication she wouldn’t. “But I will need to . . . see . . . your . . . key.”

  Still battling evil creatures with one thumb, Jack fished in his pocket for the key, grateful to find it there. He might just as easily have left it in the room. That kind of thing happened to him all the time—forgetting keys, wallets, homework. It was the same with simple tasks like returning library books. His mind was always grinding on something else, one of a thousand distractions. His school counselor frequently recommended he take those drugs that ADHD kids took, but his dad always forbade it. Maybe now his mom would finally let the school dose him.

  Pretty-frumpy-Polish girl set the food on the counter and Jack handed over his key. “See, Sadie? Food. You have to leave me alone for six hours.” He said it to distract her, expecting her to correct the number to four. Sadie was pretty sharp like that.

  “I said six hours,” said Jack, finally glancing down.

  Sadie wasn’t standing next to him anymore.

  Jack scanned the lobby, squinting against the sunlight pouring in through the entrance. There wasn’t much to it—the reception counter, the roped-off buffet, a few benches, and a sad phony Christmas tree. The Frenchman still argued with the clerk, and the bodybuilder and his tiny wife still stood by the tourist brochures. Jack couldn’t see his little sister anywhere.

  Sadie had disappeared.

  Chapter 4

  PANIC SET IN.

  “Sadie!” Jack left the food on the counter and raced to the elevators—the only nook he couldn’t see from the café. No Sadie. One car was open. The other was on the fourth floor, already coming down. She hadn’t been gone long enough to make the trip all the way up there.

  “Sadie!” Jack called again, eliciting worried glances from the Americans. The rest of the adults in the lobby—the Frenchman, the clerk behind the counter, and the woman who had called for a taxi—all scowled. Jack instantly took in every expression, felt them pressing against him. He wanted to jump into the open elevator car and disappear, but he couldn’t, not without his sister. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears.