Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror

by Geoffrey McSkimming

  Where did I leave it? she wondered. She’d last had it a few days ago when she’d been pottering about in the basement, trying to find something that might have come from Shakespeare’s Time, before she’d paid her visit to Barry Inglis in his office. Phyllis interlocked her hands, and the reassuring feeling of her thumb and little finger curling around each other helped her to focus on where she had been looking.

  Ah! Over by the shelves, near the costume racks by the far wall. She hurried to the place and began searching through all the costumes, half of which she hadn’t hung back up again and which were strewn across the floor. She got down on her knees and began going through the piles of clothes and hats and other bits and pieces.

  There lay the old leather-bound journal, underneath a couple of silver waistcoats and an oversized royal stage crown. She pulled it out, re-tied the leather cord around the book, and dropped the journal into her shoulder bag.

  Just as she was standing, she heard a loud, jolting, juddering sound.

  She jumped and stood, and then she heard the doors of the elevator squeaking open. She couldn’t see the elevator from where she was, behind the shelves and the costume racks, but she knew that sound only too well.

  She must have left her key in the control panel. She felt like saying d’uh to herself, but instead she shook her head and made her way back to the stairs. She hurried up them—deliberately skirting around where she felt the Pocket was—and reached into the elevator. Sure enough, her key was still there.

  ‘Get your brain on, Phyllis,’ she muttered to herself. She turned the key, took it out, and sent the elevator back up to the lobby. It rose slowly, shudderingly, and disappeared above her. Now, without the basement key in the control panel, no one would be able to come down here.

  Dropping the key into her bag, she hurried down the stairs again and stood at the bottom. She looked up, concentrating, squinting at a point about two-thirds of the way up the staircase.

  Slowly, as though they were materialising from a shadowy cosmos far out in Space, the faint green edges of the Pocket began to appear.

  Phyllis smiled, and every pore of her skin tingled.

  Molecules of pale light started moving around, dancing their Time-changing swirls. The lights grew brighter, and pulsated and throbbed, and Phyllis felt they were beckoning her to come to them.

  She reached into her coat pocket and carefully withdrew the corner scrap of First Folio paper. She had put it in a plastic packet, the sort she used for card tricks where she only needed to have two or three cards with her. She knew she needed to protect the piece of paper from the turbulence in the Pocket and from her perspiration and from anything else that might damage it on the journey.

  Clutching this, and arranging her bag more securely over her shoulder, she took her first step up the staircase . . .

  . . . and stopped suddenly.

  There had been a noise, a faint sound like something moving, near one of the stacks of old theatre trunks and chests piled close to the bottom of the stairs, on the other side of the handrail.

  Phyllis edged closer to the handrail and peered over into the shadows beyond the trunks and chests. She held her breath and listened as she watched carefully for any sign of movement.

  After a few moments of silence, she said, quietly, ‘Hello?’

  More silence.

  She peered more intensely, but she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary—gloom was shrouding the floor on the other side of the trunks, but the dimness didn’t seem to be concealing anything.

  She thought it might have been a mouse or rat or something—she’d seen some down here in the past but she was never bothered by them, and she decided to get back to what she should be doing. Turning to the upper reaches of the staircase, she focussed once again on the shimmering molecules of beckoning light.

  Her Pocket was waiting.

  Her spine began to tingle, her palms grew sweaty, her feet felt as light as feathers as she started climbing the stairs.

  Closer and closer she came to the green-bordered Pocket. Brighter and brighter the lights grew, twinkling beads of brightness she had seen before. The dense darkness lay beyond, a blanket of blackness . . .

  She felt the thickness of everything ahead as she stepped closer . . .

  Blurriness now . . .

  She could hear the wind—the buffeting wind, the roaring wind . . .

  Something behind her, too, faint, approaching . . .

  Two more steps . . .

  She was on the threshold now. She shut her eyes against the pitch black and the huge wind ahead, and she began to hear the soft, vibrating hum of all that was to come and all that had been and all the uncertainties and mysteries and marvels that lay in wait . . .

  . . . and with a single step, she was gone!

  The enormous turbulence threw her all about, and somehow, from somewhere deep in her mind, a poem came to her:

  And then it was, I left the stair

  and rode the wind, through Time-

  wrapped air,

  propelled along the black highways,

  sent back to glowing yesterdays . . .

  With a great stumble, the wind-blown Phyllis lurched forward onto a narrow set of stone stairs above a street.

  She opened her eyes slowly. Her body was vibrating all over, as though she were very cold and she couldn’t stop herself from shivering. But she wasn’t shivering; she was coming down from the relentless, jumbling forces that she had passed through, and her body must be trying to settle back into a state of being normal again. The vibrating must be a part of this process, as was the feeling in her tummy that she wanted to be sick. She remembered this from the time she had Transited with W.W., and she told herself that it would pass soon enough.

  She was still clutching the corner of the First Folio in the plastic packet. Carefully she slid it into her coat pocket and started to breathe more calmly.

  She looked around. Slowly, the sounds and the smells of the street began to creep up to her, and the place seemed to grow lighter.

  This looked like the Time, she thought. People were hurrying through the street, dressed in fashions of the early seventeenth century, according to what her teacher had shown them. Men were striding along in doublets and hose, some of them wearing knee-length capes and ornate ruffled collars. Others were clad in simpler vests and breeches and black shoes. The women Phyllis saw had long skirts and bodices and some wore bonnets. Everyone around her was moving quickly. This must be a busy part of town, Phyllis thought.

  The street itself was narrow, and the houses on it, with their dark wooden beams against whitewashed walls, were crammed together side by side, their upper floors jutting out into the street. Phyllis looked up. It was like she was standing in a sort of semi-open cave, she thought, with just a little glimpse of the greyish sky above.

  Suddenly she wrinkled her nose, and clamped her hand quickly over it. An awful stench had flowed out of one of the nearby houses, and Phyllis turned and looked back up the street to see a woman leaning out of one of the small leadlight windows of a house not far away, pouring some brown sloppy stuff out of a big pot. The slush splattered down onto the cobblestoned street, some of it gurgling down a small drain near the gutter but most of it splashing all over the stones and onto some of the passers-by. Some of these unfortunate people shouted incredibly rude words up at the woman and kept hurrying on their way. The woman shouted some incredibly rude words back and disappeared inside, slamming the window shut.

  Phyllis shuddered and, clutching her bag firmly across her shoulder, she started down the stairs and up the street, away from the putrid place.

  Most of the people jostling around her were too busy going here and there to pay her any attention. She had to keep moving, so that she wasn’t banged into or (with some of the ruder people) pushed firmly out of the way. This was very unlike where she lived.

  The whole place was filled with noise: clattering footsteps against the cobblestones, shouted convers
ations, barrels of beer being rolled clunkingly along, the occasional rat-a-tat barking of a dog or the foghorn-like honking of caged geese being trundled along on wooden carts.

  I’d better make sure this is London, Phyllis thought. She spied a woman with a not-too-cranky sort of face coming towards her, and stepped into her path.

  ‘Excuse me, madam,’ she said over the noise from the street. ‘Am I in London?’

  The woman stopped, but only for a couple of seconds. She looked at Phyllis warily, eyeing her hair and clothes and face. Then she replied as though Phyllis were a lump of something extremely stupid. ‘London? Of course you are, you daft thing. Where d’ye think it is? The moon?’

  And with that she gave Phyllis a small shove out of the way and continued on.

  ‘Well, nice to meet you, too,’ Phyllis muttered when the woman was out of earshot. But she wasn’t rattled by the abrupt encounter; she just felt glad that she was in the right place.

  She walked on and came to a cross-street, with four separate ways going off in four different directions. Here she stopped, unsure of which way to turn. She went and stood against the wall of a shop that had fish, eggs and dark-coloured meat spread out on a table behind the small front window, away from the main bustle of the street. She took out her journal and opened it.

  She quickly flipped to the page where she’d noted down the printer’s address, which she’d found on the internet:

  Isaac Jaggard, Printer and Binder at the sign of the Half-Eagle and Key in Barbican, London.

  ‘The sign of the Half-Eagle and Key, in Barbican,’ she read quietly. She guessed that Barbican was a part of London, like a precinct or something. She had to find out where it was.

  That meant asking more questions.

  She shut the journal and held onto it tightly. Then she stepped out away from the shop and looked for a friendly sort of person.

  An old man came along, his head bent low and a couple of large leather-bound books under his arm. When Phyllis saw the books, she immediately stepped out in front of him.

  ‘Excuse me, sir?’ she asked.

  He slowed his pace for a moment, looked at her strangely and asked, ‘What do you require?’ before continuing along the street.

  Phyllis walked alongside him. ‘Do you know where I can find Isaac Jaggard’s Printers, at the sign of the Half-Eagle and Key? In Barbican?’

  At that, he stopped and looked at her again.

  ‘You want to buy a book?’ he enquired.

  ‘Erm . . . I’m interested in their books,’ she answered.

  ‘Well, young friend, if it’s books you be after, the best place to find them is yonder, in St Paul’s churchyard. That be where the book purveyors sell their tomes. They all set their tables up there—the printers and the stationers and the booksellers and the scriveners and the bookbinders. You’ll find more books there than you could ever read in one lifetime, even with all the years ahead of such a young person as ye’self.’

  ‘St Paul’s?’

  ‘Aye. I’ve just come from there meself. Had these new printed sheets bound.’ He proudly held out the books, and Phyllis saw how shiny and new the leather covers looked. ‘You’ll find St Paul’s on this side of the Thames River, up the street, that way.’ He pointed behind Phyllis.

  Phyllis nodded. ‘Thank you. But do you know where Jaggard’s shop is?’

  ‘Oh, aye. I certainly know it. He’s a most worthy printer, is Isaac Jaggard. You’ll not be a far distance from it from where you are standing.’ He half-turned and pointed back up the street, in the other direction. ‘Go up there until you get to the Gay Goose Inn, then you should be turning left into Gropeturnip Lane. Go down Gropeturnip until you come to Aldersgate Street—that be a big street, wider than this’un. Walk on up Aldersgate and you’ll find Barbican to yer right. Turn into Barbican and go up a little way and you’ll soon see the Half-Eagle and Key Inn. Isaac Jaggard’s establishment is immediately next door to it.’

  Phyllis had whipped out her journal and a pencil and she was scribbling down the instructions. ‘So Barbican is a street?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, that it is,’ answered the old man. Just then he felt the first spots of rain on his balding head. ‘Blast the heavens,’ he muttered. ‘I’d best be getting my tomes home before they get spatterstained from this water. Good morning to you, young—’ he looked at her strangely again—‘young’un. I hope ye find what you are after.’

  And, with a curt but not unfriendly nod, he hurried on.

  ‘Thank you,’ she called after him, and he gave her a farewell wave over his shoulder.

  Phyllis closed her journal against the raindrops and held it sheltered under her arm. She smiled, took a big breath, and hurried along towards the Gay Goose Inn and Gropeturnip Lane.

  Discovery at Jaggard’s

  The young conjuror managed to brave the crowds and the smells and the bustling higgledy-piggledy lanes and streets, and, thanks to the old man’s instructions, she soon found the printing shop of Isaac Jaggard without too much fuss.

  She opened the glass-paned door, and a small bell above it tinkled lightly. She stepped down into the premises and found herself in a dimly lit room, long and narrow. Immediately in front of her was a tall wooden counter with stacks of paper—wide sheets of thick paper that looked like they would be soft to the touch—arranged neatly to one side.

  Beyond this Phyllis saw a big, black printing press. A man was standing at either end of the press. One of them—the younger-looking man—was feeding sheets of the wide, thick paper one by one into a roller and turning a wheel, which drew each sheet of paper through the press. The other man, who had a neatly trimmed grey beard and a gold earring, was gently pulling one of the printed sheets of paper out the other end of the press, handling it delicately as though it were the wings of a butterfly. Phyllis guessed that he was being careful so that the still-wet ink on the paper wouldn’t smudge or be spoiled.

  When the printed sheet of paper was clear of the press, he carefully placed it in a large wooden drying cupboard which had dozens of narrow shelves in it. Phyllis watched as he slid the page into one of these shelves. Then he looked across the counter and saw Phyllis.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, a quizzical look on his face. He had never had anyone like her come into the shop before, dressed the way she was, and he was trying to place from where she’d come.

  ‘Good morning.’ Phyllis smiled and came closer to the counter.

  The younger man stopped feeding paper into the press and he, too, looked strangely at Phyllis.

  ‘How may I be of your assistance?’ asked the older man.

  ‘I wonder if Mr Jaggard is here?’ Phyllis asked.

  The man wiped his hands on the big white apron he was wearing. ‘I am Isaac Jaggard,’ he said. ‘And who might you be, then?’

  ‘I’m Phyllis. Phyllis Wong. May I ask you a few questions?’

  Isaac Jaggard regarded her for a few seconds. It was unusual to have young people in the shop asking questions. ‘We’re very busy,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t take up too much of your time,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘What would you be enquiring about, Phyllis Wong?’ he asked her.

  ‘About your printing of Mr Shakespeare’s plays.’

  Then he smiled at her. He signalled to the younger man to leave the press, and the younger man went off into the rear of the shop and started arranging some big hides of leather. ‘Mr Shakespeare?’ Jaggard said, coming forward to the other side of the counter. ‘You like Mr Shakespeare’s works, do you?’

  Phyllis nodded. ‘Oh, yes. He’s swell.’

  ‘Swell?’ asked Isaac Jaggard. ‘What mean you, swell?’

  ‘Um . . . wonderful,’ said Phyllis quickly.

  ‘Ah.’ Isaac Jaggard winked at her, and his eyes crinkled at the edges. ‘Aye, we think likewise. Full of wonder, indeed. That is why we are publishing all his collected works. Such a shame he could not be alive to see the book.’

  Phyllis
looked confused.

  ‘Aye, it be seven years or thereabouts since he departed this good world. A great loss to the theatres, and to those of us who love to see players strutting the stage. There was no one like Mr Shakespeare, and I dare wager it, there will be no one to come in the future like him. He were a brilliant man, Phyllis Wong. Brilliant like the brightest star in the heavens.’

  ‘Many people still think so,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Aye, and that’s a good thing. And it’s largely thanks to his player colleagues Mr Heminges and Mr Condell that we are able to publish his—how did you say it—his swell words. We wish to keep his memory alive, and the swell words he penned.’

  ‘You’re doing a marvellous job,’ Phyllis told him.

  Isaac Jaggard gave her a bigger smile. ‘Thank you, Phyllis Wong. It always is good to be appreciated. Especially by the younger ones.’ He took out a piece of white cloth from his pocket and wiped some ink from his hands. ‘Now, you said you wanted to ask about our printing of the plays?’ he asked her.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Phyllis slung her bag off her shoulder and put it on the floor. ‘The First Folios you’ve been publishing—’

  ‘First Folios?’ repeated Isaac Jaggard. ‘Hmm. That is a good description of them. I suppose it is the first time that this size of book has been published with all Shakespeare’s plays inside . . . and these are the most accurate versions of the works. His friends Heminges and Condell acted in his company at the Globe Theatre, and they kept their scripts, and that’s what we’ve used to publish the plays.’

  ‘Wow.’ Phyllis felt a small surge of excitement—she was breathing the very air of History right now. ‘You use Shakespeare’s actual scripts?’

  Isaac Jaggard laughed. ‘Oh, no. Just the copies of the scripts that were given to the actors. No, Phyllis Wong, we’ll never get our hands on the foul papers. If only we could . . .’