The Nowhere Emporium

by Ross Mackenzie

  Daniel began to climb the steps, winding up and around the column, searching the secrets with his eyes.

  “Yup,” he said.

  “So what are we looking for?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it.” He had forgotten just how many snow globes there were; thousands of them twinkled in the dim light. His eyes scanned every one of the glass spheres as he wound up the steps, careful not to miss anything.

  And then, there it was, nestled among hundreds of empty globes. When Daniel’s eyes found it he knew that it was right. He reached up and gently lifted the secret from its place, then carried it back down the steps. He held it out in an open palm.

  “We’re looking for this,” he said. “It belongs to Mr Silver.” He held the globe up. “You saw the film in the Memorium. Silver doesn’t want anyone to know what happened the night he went after Sharpe. I’ll bet that’s the secret he left in this globe.”

  Daniel raised the globe above his head, and brought his hand down as hard as he could, throwing the glass orb to the floor, where it bounced and rolled away. He went after it, and picked it up, examining every millimetre of the glass.

  “Not even a scratch,” he said. He tried throwing Mr Silver’s secret against the walls. He stamped on the thin glass. He even tried smashing two secrets together. Nothing worked. The globe remained whole. Daniel yelled in frustration and tossed the secret away.

  “Daniel, stop!” said Ellie, stepping in front of him before he could try to break anything else. “Just stop.”

  Daniel’s shoulders slumped. He looked around the room.

  “I’m sorry. I just thought there was a chance, with the Emporium losing its power, that the secrets might not be safe any more. That the snow globes would be weak.” He sat down, still out of breath. “We need to find out what happened that night, Ellie. It’s the key to everything. I feel it.”

  Ellie’s grey eyes suddenly opened wide. “Of course!”

  “Of course what?” said Daniel.

  “We’ve totally missed something,” said Ellie. “We’ve been thinking about Papa’s secret all wrong, approaching it as if he’s the only one who knows what happened. But he’s not, is he? There were two people involved.”

  Daniel stared up at her, feeling a wide smile spreading across his face. She was right: whatever Mr Silver was hiding, Vindictus Sharpe knew about it too – and that meant they could use Sharpe’s memories to unlock the mystery.

  “You know what?” he said. “I was wrong earlier. You are a genius.”

  “I know,” said Ellie. “One problem though: we need a hair from Sharpe’s head to make this work.”

  Daniel had to admit, this was a sticking point. It wasn’t as if Sharpe would pluck a hair from his own head and hand it over with a smile.

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said, and they headed for the door. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask: in the Memorium, when we watched Mr Silver’s past, it showed a baby being dropped off on the doorstep of the Emporium. Was that … that wasn’t…”

  “Me?” said Ellie. “Of course it was.”

  Daniel paused, confused. “But … all that seemed to happen a long time ago.”

  Ellie nodded. She smiled, although it was not a happy smile.

  “You know the birthday ball Papa threw for me – the one celebrating my twelfth birthday?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, that was the 121st time I’ve turned twelve.”

  Daniel blinked.

  “You’ve been here that long?”

  “I have.”

  “And you’ve never … there’s never been … you haven’t got any older? Not even a single day?”

  “Papa let me grow up just enough that I wouldn’t be under his feet all the time. But he didn’t want me to go out into the world on my own. Now we know why. As long as I was in the Emporium he could protect me from Sharpe. So he put the shop in its own little bubble, with its own rules, its own time, totally separate from the world outside. And that’s why I’ve been the same age for so long. People don’t age here.”

  “That means … me too?” said Daniel. “If I stay here I’ll never get any older?”

  “Time only passes normally when you go outside,” said Ellie. “It’ll take you ages to grow up.”

  “I can’t believe Mr Silver didn’t tell me!” said Daniel. “I mean, he mentioned that he hadn’t aged for a long time but … He should have told me!”

  Ellie frowned. “Would it have changed your mind? Would you have come to work here if you’d known?”

  “If I’d known I’d turn into Peter Pan?” said Daniel. “The boy who never grew up? I don’t know. Maybe.”

  A deep growl reverberated around the place, like the rumbling belly of a hungry giant. The floor trembled, and the snow globes rattled in their places. Several secrets fell from the column. Daniel wondered how many Wonders had just disappeared forever.

  Together they scurried away, leaving the door to the room of Secrets to click quietly shut.

  CHAPTER 33

  SPLITTING HAIRS

  The magpie landed on Daniel’s shoulder, slapping him on the side of the face with the piece of black card in its beak. On the back of the card, there were three words, written in a hurried scrawl in gold ink:

  He’s asleep. Hurry!

  Daniel stowed the card in his pocket and began the short walk from his wagon, through the hall of stairs, to the red curtain. The plan was simple, as plans go; in fact, it had barely been a plan at all. Ellie was a ghost to Sharpe. She could watch him, and he would be oblivious. But she could not touch him. She could not be the one to take the hair from his head. That job would have to belong to Daniel. And so Ellie would watch Sharpe, wait until he was asleep, and alert Daniel, who would then sneak in and cut a hair from his head.

  When he arrived at the curtain, Ellie was waiting. She did not look happy; there was a strange look in her grey eyes and she was staring off into space.

  “Are you OK?” Daniel said in a low whisper.

  Ellie started. “Yes. I think so. He’s sleeping, but he’s been sitting at Papa’s desk all night, drinking whisky and throwing knives at the stuffed polar bear. Be careful, Daniel. He’s not right. If he wakes up, he’ll slit your throat.”

  The shop front was warm and calm. The only sounds in Daniel’s ears as he crept towards Silver’s desk were the pounding of his heart, and the snap and pop of the fire.

  Sharpe was slumped over the desk, head resting on one arm. The other arm was strewn across the table, hand clutching a large silver dagger. Beside him on the table sat a whisky bottle containing only a few amber drops. In the far corner of the room, the stuffed polar bear was stuck with three knives, two in the chest and one between the eyes.

  Daniel was at the desk now, crouched so that his chin was level with the desktop, affording him a view of the top of Sharpe’s head. He reached into his pocket with great care, and slowly, gently, brought out a pair of scissors. Then, holding his breath, he leaned over the desk, touching the scissors to Sharpe’s short hair. Several silver hairs fell to the desk, glinting in the firelight.

  Daniel placed the scissors back in his pocket and, with trembling fingers, reached out to collect the hair.

  His arm brushed against the whisky bottle. He froze, watching in horror as the bottle spun on its base, and then toppled, landing on its side with a loud clink. Sharpe gave a huff and a snort, and opened one electric-blue eye.

  Daniel was glued to the spot in terror. He stared into the blue eye, waiting for the other to open, and for Sharpe to spring from his chair and gut him like a fish…

  But he did not. The blue eye rolled back in its socket, the eye closed, and Sharpe began to snore. Daniel stowed the hairs in his pocket, and crept away with as much stealth as he could.

  Back on the other side of the curtain, Ellie gave him an expectant look, the magpie hopping on her shoulder.

  “Well?”

  Daniel smiled, he
ld out his hand.

  “Got it.”

  The magpie seemed to know what was going on; it twirled and looped through the Emporium, calling out in exited chatters as it led the way back to the Memorium.

  Inside, the theatre lay silent and still. A patch of darkness fluttered, and the usher stood beside them once more.

  “Ah, back again, are we? I told you, there’s nothing I can do with the past I showed you. The event, whatever it was, shall remain a mystery.”

  “Someone else was there,” said Daniel. “The past belongs to that person too.” He held out his hand. “We’ve got another hair.”

  The usher snatched the hair, and held it to his good eye.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” he said, and he opened his arms, indicating the theatre. “Please take a seat.”

  They sat at the screen as the usher sewed Sharpe’s hair into his head. Then he sat, and flipped up his eye patch. The beam of light erupted from his empty eye socket and found the screen.

  An image crackled to life. Daniel and Ellie sat back, and they watched the truth at last.

  CHAPTER 34

  BAD BLOOD

  Vindictus Sharpe opened his arms and soaked in the applause of the audience, who cheered and whistled and stamped their feet, blown away by the show.

  When the curtain closed, Sharpe walked in silence to his dressing room. He poured himself a large whisky and gulped it down. Then another. He put on his coat and gloves and scarf, and left the theatre through the stage door. The autumn air was cool and crisp; his breath danced around him as he walked the short distance to the grand house that he called home whenever he happened to be in Edinburgh, which was not very often these days.

  No one met him at the door upon his arrival. He preferred to keep no staff. He removed his coat, and walked up two flights of stairs to his office. A half-empty bottle of whisky sat at his desk, beside a crystal glass. He poured a drink and sat at his desk. Then he reached into his pocket and brought out a book with a battered leather cover, placing it with care on the desk. He lit a desk lamp, stretched his fingers, and began to read through the pages, his eyes taking in every detail.

  “It will never work for you as it does for me.”

  Sharpe knew the voice. He did not look up from the Book of Wonders.

  “Lucien. Would you like a drink?”

  Lucien Silver stood at the entrance to the room, grey eyes fixed upon his book.

  “You used Michelle – your own daughter – to get to me. To get the book.”

  This time, Sharpe’s eyes left the pages.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Silver stepped further into the room.

  “Why? Why steal the book? You know it will never work properly for you unless I give it up, or you challenge me and defeat me for it. And I will never give it up. There’s too much of my soul in those pages. The book is as much a part of me as my heart. I live inside it.”

  Sharpe let the question hang in the air. He bit his lip, and his big hands trembled with anger.

  Silver smiled as realisation dawned.

  “You stole the book because you wanted to copy it! That’s it, isn’t it? You want one for yourself, but you can’t understand how it works. The book is beyond your talents, and it’s eating you up. Ha! The great Vindictus Sharpe, reduced to imitation!”

  He stepped forward again, so that he was now directly opposite the desk. “So where is it? Where is your version of the Book of Wonders? Weren’t you able to create one?”

  Sharpe stared at him with dangerous blue eyes. His lip curled into a sneer. “I have no time for such games.”

  Silver held out a hand. “Give me the book and you will never hear from me again.”

  Sharpe snapped the book shut, and rested a hand on its cover.

  “Get out.”

  Silver leaned over the desk, his face close to Sharpe’s.

  “I am not leaving without my book. I have no wish to harm you, despite the fact that nobody could blame me if I did.”

  Sharpe did not answer. The book trembled beneath his fingers. He lifted his hand, and it flew off the desk, into the waiting grasp of Silver.

  “Thank you,” said Silver. “You will not see me again. Goodbye. And good luck.”

  He had reached the door when Sharpe spoke.

  “I challenge you.”

  Silver stopped. He hung his head.

  “Do not do this, Vindictus.”

  “I challenge you,” repeated Sharpe. “No funny business. No messing about. A duel to the finish – the way things should be settled – until either one of us submits, or is killed in the process. If I win, the book belongs to me.”

  A pause.

  “And if you lose?” said Silver.

  Sharpe shrugged his great shoulders.

  “I will leave that up to you,” he said. “It will not happen in any case.”

  Silver thought for a moment.

  “Years ago, at Birdie’s funeral, you never answered when I questioned you about why you never age. I was right, wasn’t I? You steal years from other people. Take away chunks of time from their lives. You eat their tomorrows.”

  Sharpe nodded.

  “There are branches of magic that require … sacrifice.”

  “And it is wrong,” said Silver. “It is delayed murder. If I win, you will stop it.”

  Sharpe stood his full height, a great bear of a man.

  “And what are their lives compared to mine? What have they accomplished? They are oblivious to the possibilities this world can offer. Surely it’s not too much to ask that a few of them should meet their maker a year or two early in order that I might continue my work?”

  “There are other ways,” said Silver. “Different paths to take. Other energies you could mine. Imagination, for one, has limitless potential. But you can’t see that because you are a maniac.” He paused. “I accept your challenge.”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than Sharpe was upon him, flashing across the room, throwing him against the wall. Sharpe lifted Silver with a single hand, pushed him back against the wall and punched him hard in the gut, folding Silver in two. Then, with a wave of his hand, Sharpe lifted his desk from the floor and sent it hurtling across the room. Lucien dodged out of the way, just as it crashed against the stone.

  The sound of cracking glass made Lucien look to the window, where a pane of glass splintered into shards and flew towards him. He tried to bend them around his body, but there were too many, and several slivers stabbed him deep in the leg.

  He limped out into the hallway, down a set of stairs. Sharpe stalked after him, a savage grin on his face. Lucien tried to buy a little time by bringing to life several figures from paintings hung around the hall. But as they attempted to block Sharpe’s path, he swatted at them; they dissolved into globules of paint and fell to the carpet.

  Then the duelling magicians were rolling down the stairs, a ball of flailing arms and snarling teeth. Sharpe tossed Silver clear across the hallway into a grand sitting room. Silver scrambled backwards, pointing to the fire. Tongues of flame jumped from the fireplace and wrapped around Sharpe, encasing him in a blazing shell. He roared, and the fire turned to smoke.

  “You should not have come here tonight,” he said. There were three daggers in his hands. He tossed the first at Silver, and Silver managed to bend it away towards a sideboard, where it became buried deep in the wood.

  The second dagger hit Silver in the shoulder. He wrenched back his head and screamed in agony, falling to his knees.

  “The difference between you and me,” said Sharpe, “is that I am not afraid to end this fight.” He raised the final dagger above his head. The knife left Sharpe’s hand, and his aim was true. It spun through the air, handle over blade, as it had done so many times on stage.

  Lucien stared at the spinning blade. Everything else faded away. From the edges of the world, he thought he heard a woman’s voice, familiar, soft…

  “Father? Lucien? No!”

&
nbsp; With the last ounce of his strength, Lucien Silver deflected the blade. It veered away to the right, gleaming and shimmering.

  Lucien had not seen Michelle Sharpe arrive at the door.

  The knife struck her in the heart.

  When she hit the ground, she was already dead.

  The world seemed to stop.

  Sharpe stood perfectly still, staring at his daughter’s lifeless body. Lucien Silver’s eyes widened. He howled in agony and despair. Ignoring the pain from his own knife wound, he dragged himself towards her, holding her head in his hands. She was wearing a white nightgown, now stained crimson.

  “Give me the book, and I will not involve the police,” said Sharpe.

  Lucien stared up at him, grey eyes heavy with sorrow.

  “We killed her!” he yelled. “She is dead, and all you can think about is a book?”

  He ripped the dagger from Michelle’s chest, leapt to his feet, and pinned Sharpe against the wall, fuelled by wild rage. He was dwarfed by Sharpe, but in that moment, with the shackles taken off, no control or fear to bind him, he was a giant.

  Sharpe’s blue eyes widened as the tip of the blade touched his throat. “You killed her, Lucien,” he whispered. “I did not throw the knife in her direction. It’s your doing.”

  Lucien shook his head. His breathing was harsh, desperate.

  “No … no, I loved her! I would never hurt her!”

  Sharpe stared at him, their faces only inches apart.

  “Murderer,” he whispered.

  Lucien Silver dropped the knife. He stepped back, clutching at his hair and his chest.

  “No. No!”

  “Murderer,” Sharpe said once more, and there was a terrible smile on his lips.

  Lucien tore a clump of hair from his head. He felt the Book of Wonders in the pocket of his coat. He turned and glanced once more at Michelle’s body.

  And then he was gone.

  “This is not finished!” screamed Sharpe into the night. “The duel is not finished! I will find you, wherever you go, and I will kill you and take the book!”

  Calmly, coolly, he stepped over his daughter’s body, opened a wooden cabinet, and poured himself a whisky from a crystal decanter. Then he left the room, leaving Michelle to stare sightlessly into the roaring fire.