by Anna Hoghton
‘Yes, so?’ said Seffie impatiently.
‘So Zio’s key must still be on the hooks behind Rosa’s desk!’
Seffie’s eyes widened. ‘There is one key next to the swimming pool one, on the basement row. That must be it!’
‘But how do we get past Nymeria?’ Fin said. ‘She’ll wake up and roar in seconds if anyone tries to take a key that doesn’t belong to them.’
Aribella sighed, exasperated by another hurdle. How could they get the key down from the hook and into the basement before Nymeria woke up and alerted Rosa? What they needed was to be able to move around undetected . . .
Aribella’s eyes drifted to a gently ticking grandfather clock. She thought of the four clocks in Helena’s training room, how the vase of flowers had reappeared across the room . . . the way the writing on the board had materialized from nowhere . . . Helena herself, suddenly moving from one end of the room to the other, all in an instant . . .
And suddenly Aribella knew exactly what Helena’s power must be, and that she was the only person at Halfway who could help them.
‘You want me to stop time so you can steal a book from one of the hotel rooms?’ Helena said blankly, after Aribella, Seffie and Fin had knocked on her door, rushed into her room and told her their plan. The plan had seemed rather good in Aribella’s head but now her optimism was rapidly fading. She’d forgotten how much Helena liked to follow rules. And then there had been the extremely awkward moment of explaining how Aribella had figured out that Helena’s power was the ability to stop time. She decided that explaining that the room was possibly Zio’s wasn’t going to help their cause.
‘Yes, but only so we can get information that could potentially save everyone from someone very evil, don’t you see, Helena?’ Seffie pressed.
Helena did not see at all. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘You don’t know that The Book of Mysteries is going to show you anything. Sounds like an excuse to break more rules.’
Aribella gazed around Helena’s bedroom in exasperation, expecting to see clocks everywhere. But to her surprise there wasn’t a clock in sight. On the night-stand, Helena’s cog-covered copper mask watched them. Below it, in a half-open drawer, a pincushion full of needles was visible.
‘I didn’t know you sewed,’ Aribella said.
Helena looked surprised. ‘It’s just a hobby,’ she replied sheepishly, but she opened the drawer and pulled out a pile of beautiful embroideries.
‘These are wonderful, Helena!’ Aribella said earnestly.
For the first time Aribella had seen, Helena smiled. ‘Thanks, I just like it. It makes it all . . . stop. Just for a while. I hate time, hate seeing it pass, but when I sew it all melts away.’ She blushed as if she’d said more than she wanted.
Aribella nodded. She knew what it was like to want to lose yourself. After all, that had been why she’d always loved going along with Theo to market. ‘My papa loves to sew. He’s a lacemaker from Burano.’
Helena’s eyes widened. ‘Really?’
Aribella nodded. ‘He was. He’s in prison now.’
‘What?’
‘There was a mix-up with the Lion’s Mouth,’ Aribella explained.
‘That’s awful.’
‘It’s all right. At least he’s safe in prison, under the protection of the Doge. The other islanders aren’t. There’s something happening, Helena. Something the Elders aren’t taking seriously, but Rodolfo says darkness is coming and if there’s anything in the book which can get the Elders to listen, we need to find it.’
Helena’s eyes flicked to her mask. ‘Messing with time is dangerous, Aribella . . .’
‘Please, Helena,’ Aribella urged. ‘Sometimes, you’ve got to break the rules to do something good.’
Helena looked away.
‘Forget it, Ari,’ Seffie said coldly. ‘I knew she wouldn’t help. She doesn’t care.’
‘I do care!’ Helena protested.
‘Then help us!’
Helena looked from Fin to Seffie to Aribella. Finally, she breathed out heavily. ‘Fine, I’ll stop time for you. But just this once and you have to just look for the book. Nothing else.’
‘Thank you!’ Aribella burst out.
‘You’re a lifesaver, Helena!’ said Seffie.
‘I can only give you twenty minutes,’ Helena warned. ‘That’s the most I’ve ever done in training.’
‘That should be plenty,’ Aribella said, ignoring Seffie’s frown. She knew what she was thinking – twenty minutes was not long.
Helena went to the drawer and pulled out a pocketsized golden hourglass. ‘Keep this with you. When all other clocks stop, the sand in the hourglass will start to fall,’ she explained. ‘As soon as the sand is gone, time is up. So long as you are holding it and Seffie’s holding on to you when time stops, you’ll both be able to move.’
Aribella nodded.
‘When shall we do it?’ Seffie asked excitedly.
They all turned to Aribella. The first flutter of nerves filled Aribella’s stomach and she hesitated. What if they got caught? She was meant to be behaving . . . What if Jacapo found out and got the Doge to change his mind about freeing Papa? Would they really be checked-out of Halfway? Where would she go then? She shook these fears from her mind. It wasn’t just about her and Papa. There were others in danger – the animals, the islanders and all the other vulnerable people in Venice. It was the Cannovacci’s job to protect them, wasn’t it? So that was what she’d do.
‘No time like the present,’ Aribella said, gritting her teeth. ‘Let’s go!’
‘I’ll wait on the stairs,’ Helena said. ‘Keep checking the hourglass.’
Aribella nodded and gripped the delicate hourglass with its strange frozen sand. They crept down the staircase. The clouds had opened again and the sound of the rain hammering on the jetty echoed around the lobby. There’d be more flooding, she thought, and her resolve hardened.
But as they peered down at the lobby, Seffie groaned. ‘Rosa’s behind the desk!’
‘I’ll distract her for you,’ Fin said.
They all turned and stared at him.
‘Are you sure, Fin?’ Aribella asked. Fin wasn’t as funny as Helena about rule-breaking, but still . . . if he got caught, his reading room privileges might be revoked.
‘Yes. If Helena’s breaking rules, then it’s the least I can do.’
‘Go, Fin!’ Seffie said, thumping him on the back so hard that he fell forwards.
Fin’s ears turned pink.
‘What are you going to do?’ Aribella asked.
‘You’ll see. Just be ready.’ Fin continued on down the stairs.
Nymeria lay in her usual place at the bottom of the staircase, doing her usual thing: sleeping.
‘Morning, Rosa,’ Fin said, stepping neatly over the lioness. ‘This rain is something rotten, isn’t it?’
Aribella and Seffie tiptoed closer.
Fin disappeared from view as he crossed the lobby.
‘Yes, it really is,’ Rosa said. ‘I feel so bad for the poor people whose houses are flooded. It’s—’
‘Argh!’ they heard Fin shout. ‘Rosa, help me!’
‘Fin! You know you’re not allowed in that lounge.’
‘I was just leaning on the door. I didn’t mean to dissolve through . . . Now I’m stuck.’
‘Stuck? How can you be stuck? Just use your power to dissolve back again.’
‘It’s not working – I don’t know why. Can you give me a pull? Please, Jacapo will kill me if he sees me.’
‘Oh, all right. If only for the sake of Jacapo’s blood pressure.’ Rosa sighed and moved out from behind the desk. She too disappeared from sight as she crossed the lobby.
Aribella and Seffie crept down the stairs and saw half of Fin’s body sticking out of the lounge door. He winked at them as Rosa stooped to take a closer look, and began to groan. ‘Ow, it hurts.’
‘Really? It’s never hurt you before. Come on, take my hand.’
‘Now!
’ Aribella hissed, looking at Helena. She held on to the hourglass tightly, and took Seffie’s hand.
Helena nodded and put on her mask.
A strange ringing filled Aribella’s ears. Then the ringing became a rushing, and then, quite suddenly, the world went strangely quiet. The hammering of the rain stopped, as did Nymeria’s snores and the usual gentle backdrop of noise from the Halfway’s other guests.
It was a silence so strange that it almost felt loud.
Aribella looked up at the clock above the fireplace and then down at the hourglass. The hands of the clock weren’t moving but the sand in the hourglass was. Helena had really done it. She’d stopped time.
‘Amazing,’ Aribella breathed.
‘Thanks, now hurry!’ Helena hissed.
Aribella glanced nervously at Nymeria: the lioness’s eyes were half-open but she didn’t stir. Seffie jumped up on to Rosa’s desk and reached for the key on the basement row, next to the swimming pool key. She hesitated for a second then pulled the key off the hook.
Aribella tensed, expecting Nymeria’s roars, but there was nothing but the silence.
Seffie let out a whoop and jumped off the desk. As if unable to resist, she bent down and gave Nymeria a stroke. ‘Oh, she’s so soft! I’ve always wanted to do that.’
‘Stop messing around!’ Helena hissed. ‘You’ve got twenty minutes, remember?’
The sand was already falling fast through the hourglass.
Together, Aribella and Seffie hurried to the basement door and wrenched it open. Aribella winced instinctively at the screeching sound the door made, but again only the eerie silence followed. Aribella understood now why Helena found her power hard and didn’t like talking about it. She hated breaking rules and must always be so afraid that others would ask her to use her power to get up to mischief. It must be so lonely for her.
They plunged into the gloom, taking the stone steps two at a time.
‘This way,’ Seffie called.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive.’
They plunged deeper and deeper below ground, turning this way and that. Suddenly there it was.
The locked door.
Aribella saw the key glow, just as her own key did when she was near her room. Seffie slipped it into the lock. Would it work? The mechanism seemed sticky at first, but after a bit of wiggling, the lock clicked and the door swung inwards on creaking hinges that clearly hadn’t been used in years.
Seffie’s hoot of triumph died in her throat as she peered into the bedroom beyond. ‘What in the lagoon . . .’
The bedroom was in a state of chaos and decay. The dark purple wallpaper was stained and peeling, the rugs were moth-eaten, and every item of furniture was covered in a thick layer of dust and spiders’ webs. The furniture looked as though it had been caught up in a tornado. Aribella remembered how the lobby had transformed the first time she had stepped over the threshold of the Halfway Hotel, and wondered if the same process had been interrupted here.
‘It looks as though it’s in the middle of a turnover,’ Seffie whispered, echoing her thoughts.
‘Let’s get searching,’ Aribella said. ‘The quicker we can get out of here the better.’
She looked down at the hourglass in her hand. A third of the sand was gone.
It was dark, and neither of them wanted to touch anything so it wasn’t easy. Seffie found an infestation of maggots in a drawer, which even she recoiled from. There were all sorts of strange, broken objects scattered across the floor – a smashed orb, a snapped telescope, a black box with no apparent opening – but no sign of The Book of Mysteries. They looked in all the obvious places – in the drawers, under the clothes strewn across the desk, in the wardrobe – and then in all the less obvious places – under and behind the furniture, inside the blackened fireplace . . . But they found no books at all.
Seffie was anxious to leave. ‘Ari, we’re running out of time!’ she exclaimed.
Aribella looked at the sand in the hourglass, which she’d set down on the desk. There was now only a third left.
‘It took us a third to get down here,’ Seffie added. ‘We need to go now.’
Aribella knew Seffie was right. But it seemed such a waste to have made it this far and go back empty-handed. The book must be here somewhere . . . Frantically, she scanned the room again and suddenly noticed the lumpy shape of one of the mouldy pillows on the bed. In a last desperate attempt, she raced over and slid her hand underneath, shuddering as she did. She touched the edges of something book-shaped, and felt a surge of triumph.
Could it be? Breathlessly, she pulled the book out. The cover was completely black with no markings on it all.
‘Do you think this is it?’ she asked, almost dancing with relief.
‘It must be!’ Seffie said excitedly.
‘But there’s no title.’
‘Duh! It’s called The Book of Mysteries, Aribella. It’s not exactly going to tell you what it is. And Fin said it was a black book – that has to be it. Now, let’s get out of here! This room is horrible.’
Aribella shoved the book under one arm and grabbed the hourglass. Together, they raced out of the bedroom, relieved to shut the door behind them. Seffie’s hands were so sweaty as she fumbled with the key that it seemed to take for ever to turn the lock, but she managed at last.
Then they were racing back along the passageway, their footsteps pounding the stone. The book dug into Aribella’s side as they twisted and turned through the tunnels until they came to the final flight of stairs.
They bounded up and tumbled through into the warm lobby. Fin was still there, frozen in time, half his body through the lounge door. Beside him, Rosa was also like a statue, her back to them.
‘I thought you weren’t going to make it,’ Helena called. ‘Quick, the key!’
Seffie scrambled up on to the desk and put the key back on its hook. Just as she jumped back down, Aribella’s ears filled with noise as everything snapped back to normal time. The world became a mess of sounds that felt louder than before – doors opening and closing on the floors above were like gunshots, the rain hammering outside like thunder. Was this how Helena always felt after setting time in motion again? No wonder she seemed so angry sometimes.
Had they got away with it? With a racing heart, Aribella looked at Nymeria, but the lioness was still fast asleep. Before Aribella could think anything else the entrance doors suddenly slammed open, and wind and rain poured in sending the candles flickering.
Aribella spun round, her mouth dropping open at the sight of the Mask Maker bursting into the lobby of the hotel. His long, matted hair hung over his distinctive beaked mask. He was drenched from head to toe and something was terribly wrong. He was stumbling, groaning and gripping his neck.
Rosa rushed to close the doors. ‘Mask Maker?’ she gasped. ‘Are you all right?’
The Mask Maker careered forwards, and went crashing to the floor.
‘Get Marquesa!’ Rosa shouted, dropping to his side.
Aribella, Seffie and Fin all rushed to the staircase but Helena had already gone. Within seconds, she reappeared with Marquesa – it was so quick that Aribella wondered if Helena had used her power once more.
Marquesa ran down the stairs. She already wore her mask – emerald-green, with rubies round the eyeholes and two painted snakes on the forehead coiled about a golden staff, the symbol of healers.
Marquesa joined Rosa at the Mask Maker’s side. She pulled his cloak away from his shoulders, and Aribella instantly recognized the dark mark spreading along the man’s neck. Her heart filled with dread.
Marquesa made a small sound of shock. ‘I don’t believe it . . .’
‘What is that?’ Rosa asked.
‘It’s a spectre bite . . . I’ve read about them before but I’ve never actually seen one.’
‘So Rodolfo was right? They’re really out there?’ Rosa’s voice trembled.
‘Looks like it. And I don’t have any Four Thieves Vinegar.
’ Marquesa cursed. ‘I should have brewed some more when he told me to, I should have listened . . .’
‘Can you save him?’
‘I’ll do what I can, but I don’t know. Being bitten by a creature from the world of the dead is a terrible thing. If the bite isn’t treated it will spread over his entire body and once it does . . .’ She stopped.
‘Wh-what?’ said Seffie.
Marquesa’s eyes flicked to the girls. ‘Once it does,’ she said slowly, ‘he will become the thing that bit him. He’ll become a spectre.’
Marquesa pressed her hands to the mark on the Mask Maker’s shoulder. Her fingers glowed with a golden light that seemed to seep into his skin. Aribella held her breath, but unlike the vinegar, Marquesa’s power did nothing to help.
Aribella wished Rodolfo was here. He’d know what to do . . . She felt like everything had flipped and now she was the one frozen in time, watching everything pass by, unable to act.
Then she noticed that Nymeria was moving from her usual sleeping position. She bent her beautiful golden head to the ground, coughed and from her mouth tumbled a balled piece of paper that rolled right up to Rosa’s feet.
Rosa picked it up and unfolded it. Her face paled and her hands started to shake.
‘What does it say?’ asked Marquesa, her eyes still fixed on the Mask Maker.
Rosa’s hands shook so badly that the paper almost ripped in two.
‘Rodolfo,’ she whispered. ‘It says Rodolfo is responsible for this.’
Bruno was called to carry the Mask Maker up to Marquesa’s suite. It was odd to see the man who had frightened Aribella so much in the shop thrown over a boy’s shoulder as if he were nothing more than a rag doll.
Marquesa hurried up the stairs after them, muttering about herbs she’d need. ‘Maybe I can brew a batch in time. I don’t see how it’s possible . . . but I must try.’
Rosa followed. ‘Whatever I can do to help, let me know.’
Without a word, Aribella, Seffie, Fin and Helena hurried to Aribella’s room, only daring to speak once they’d filed in and closed the door. Then their voices tumbled over each other’s, with Aribella quickly filling in the background so Helena was up to speed. Helena listened calmly and Aribella was glad she was with them.