The Vanishing Trick

by Jenni Spangler

  ‘I don’t know. Pinchbeck said something about a fever.’

  ‘Did you see him?’ Leander asked. ‘Did you see the body laid out before the funeral?’

  Felix slowly shook his head. ‘Do you think he was never in the coffin at all?’

  Leander crouched down and rummaged through the debris, hoping they were missing something in the dark. There were a few scraps of fabric – perhaps the remains of the poppets Felix described – and bundles of skeletal leaves that were probably once herbs. He passed them up to the others as he found them. A rusted spoon. A few feathers. A knotted piece of string. No mysterious objects or books or anything that looked remotely magical.

  ‘Why bury an empty coffin?’ said Leander. If Pellar was dead, what had Pinchbeck done with the body? If Pellar wasn’t dead, why go to the expense of a funeral? Pinchbeck loved money – why waste so much if it wasn’t needed?

  The disappointment in the air was palpable. Their plan had come to nothing. As if in sympathy, the first cloud of the night passed over the moon and the churchyard grew as dark as pitch.

  ‘What now?’ said Charlotte, defeated.

  The moon reappeared from its shroud and in the new light Leander noticed something he had missed at the bottom of the coffin. It was a tiny hinged box of dark, cracked leather.

  ‘What’s this?’ He passed it up to Charlotte before scrabbling out of the grave, toes slipping and fingers struggling to find purchase on the loose soil.

  ‘A jewellery box?’ she said. ‘Maybe for a wedding ring?’

  ‘Come on. We need to fill in the earth and go,’ said Felix. ‘We’ve taken too long already.’

  ‘Here, you can have it,’ Charlotte said and tossed the small box to Leander. He opened it, then turned it upside down and shook it. Nothing.

  Then a smell of earth after a great storm made the hairs on every part of his body stand on end. There was a sensation in his chest as if he had breathed out too deeply and his lungs were empty. It was just like the odd sensation he felt when Pinchbeck first captured him.

  Suddenly a figure coughed into life before them. A full- grown man had emerged and was bent over, leaning heavily on the headstone as though he hadn’t the strength to stand. He was coughing the deep, coarse rattle of the nearly dead. The children all stepped back. Charlotte’s cold hand found its way into Leander’s and he took it gratefully.

  ‘Where is she?’ said the man, though his voice was as dry as pine cones and old paper, and the children could barely hear him. None of them answered, too struck with fear to speak.

  Then . . .

  ‘Pellar,’ whispered Felix.

  Leander and Charlotte turned to look at Felix. This was Edmund Pellar? Not dead but captive all these years. Leander’s heart thudded with anticipation and understanding. The jewellery box was a Cabinet!

  Pellar was a very tall man, despite his stoop. His hair was white and wild, standing up several inches around his head in all directions in a fiendish imitation of a halo. His clothes were equally strange. Beneath his wrinkled greatcoat was a smart waistcoat in emerald green, decorated with all manner of peculiar charms – feathers and sticks and buttons and animal teeth.

  Leander felt himself shaking with fear. The man in front of them would have been frightening even without the eerie setting.

  ‘Where is Augustina?’ he said in a gruff voice.

  Felix took a tentative half-step towards the man. Pellar was another prisoner, like them – no need to be scared. ‘Mister Pellar, I’m—’

  ‘You’re the little brat she stole last.’ Pellar glared like a hawk, ready to swoop on an injured rabbit. ‘And you –’ he jabbed a finger towards Charlotte and Leander – ‘more cursed wretches, no doubt.’ Raising his voice started his cough again.

  ‘Pinchbeck captured you, too?’ But Felix knew the answer. Had Pellar already been a prisoner when Felix met them? Or did Pinchbeck trap him the night Felix heard the argument? Pellar’s Cabinet was a jewellery box – perhaps Charlotte had been right and it was a ring box . . . maybe that once contained a wedding ring.

  Pellar came towards the children, moving with care as though taking the first cautious steps on to a frozen lake.

  ‘Sent you back to get me, has she? Well, I won’t go down without a fight.’ He whipped a jackknife from his pocket and waved it at them, wheezing with the effort. The sight was in equal parts terrifying and pathetic.

  ‘Sir, we need help.’ Felix put himself between the others and the blade. He had known Pellar once. Maybe he could reason with him.

  The man made a snarling noise and began to shuffle away towards the churchyard gates. Felix followed, Leander and Charlotte a few steps behind. It was easy to outpace the broken old man.

  Leander hopped in front of him. ‘Can you tell us how to break Pinchbeck’s spell?’ But the man walked on as though the children were nothing more than flies buzzing round him.

  Then Pellar halted. ‘She promised me she’d never take another child. I said we’d be damned for such a sin. And then she dared to trap me, too!’

  ‘We—’ Charlotte tried to interject. Pellar noticed the ring box and snatched it from her grasp.

  ‘Mine!’ He stuffed it into his pocket. ‘Tell your witch- mistress I shan’t help her again!’

  ‘No! Pinchbeck didn’t send us.’ Charlotte’s desperation hurt Felix’s heart. ‘We need help! We dosed her. She doesn’t even know we’re here.’

  Pellar stopped, as still as a statue except for his eyes, which darted from side to side. ‘That so? Drugged her, eh?’

  ‘We want to stop her. That’s why we need your help,’ said Leander.

  ‘I’ll stop her all right,’ Pellar snarled. He folded in half from the strength of his next cough, gesturing through splutters towards the bench by the churchyard wall.

  Hesitantly, Felix offered the man his arm to lean on, and helped him over to the seat. There was a good man underneath this madness if only Felix could reach him.

  ‘Where is she, then?’ Pellar lowered himself on to the bench.

  ‘But a quarter-mile away, sir, slumbering in her carriage,’ said Felix.

  Pellar sniffed the air. ‘I’ve a fearsome hunger. Did you bring vittles?’

  ‘No, we—’

  ‘Here.’ Leander dug into his coat pocket and produced a fistful of sweets and broken biscuits, which he dropped into Pellar’s outstretched hands.

  Pellar plucked a piece of fluff from the corner of a biscuit. ‘Beggars en’t choosers, eh?’ He tipped the sugarplums into his mouth all at once and crunched through them with a force which surely must have hurt his teeth.

  ‘Can you help us?’ said Charlotte as the broken biscuits disappeared into his mouth.

  ‘Why should I trust you? I was tricked before by Augustina.’

  ‘We’re the same as you,’ pleaded Charlotte.

  ‘There’s three of us. We don’t think she has enough magic to keep us all,’ added Leander. ‘We need to find a way to break her spell and we thought you could help.’

  ‘We’ll die if you don’t,’ said Felix.

  ‘Die? You’d be lucky,’ the man said. The words were a trickle of cold water down Felix’s spine. ‘Augustina collects spirits. Yer not the first, you won’t be the last. But she’s not a killer—’

  ‘She is!’ Leander cried. ‘She’s got jars of broken Cabinets and—’

  ‘Let a man speak!’ bellowed Pellar, which started another round of great hacking coughs. They echoed off stone walls, loud enough to wake the dead.

  The children crowded close together in the near darkness. The man obviously wouldn’t be rushed, and Felix tried to remain patient, but was starting to worry about how much longer the laudanum would keep Pinchbeck asleep.

  At last Pellar spoke again. ‘Augustina en’t a killer so much as she’s a miser. A hoarder. First lot of children she took – first I knew of, at least – she said they were dyin’. Said stealin’ them was the only way to save them. Like a fool I believed her. Did
n’t like it, mind, but she promised we’d find a way to set it right.’

  ‘You helped her steal children?’ said Leander. ‘So you’re as wicked as she is!’

  Pellar turned to Leander with a stare that could melt lead. ‘Nay! I told you, she made me believe it was for good reasons. And so I helped her hide them away once she had them, so she wouldn’t be weakened. Just until we found out how to set them free without them dyin’, or so she told me. Then you came –’ he poked Felix square in the chest – ‘and when she took you I realized she’d never really stopped. She was still collectin’ spirits, just in secret. She couldn’t help herself.’

  Felix’s head was swimming. There was truth in the old man’s tale, he could tell. That’s why they’d argued on the night Pinchbeck had taken him, and why she’d decided to take Pellar captive, too. She didn’t want him getting in the way of her plans.

  ‘No. She can’t collect spirits!’ said Charlotte. ‘Pinchbeck can only hold two captives at once. That’s why it’s been just me and Felix for so long. She’s already weak from the three of us. If there were more—’

  ‘There are ways of containin’ magic, child, of keepin’ it under wraps so it don’t spill out and contaminate you,’ Pellar interrupted. ‘Kept me contained at the same time as you three, didn’t she?’

  The leaves in the coffin: now Felix understood what they meant. Pinchbeck had used Pellar’s own charms and talismans and the weight of the earth to hold him inside so he couldn’t drain her power.

  ‘And she’ll never stop stealin’ folks, and hidin’ them away. Mark my words.’

  ‘But why?’ said Leander.

  ‘Why does the cat chase rats?’ Pellar asked.

  ‘Hunger?’ said Felix.

  ‘Sport?’ said Leander.

  ‘Instinct?’ said Charlotte.

  Pellar nodded. ‘The cat can’t tell you why. He only knows that he must. Can’t help the way he’s made. Same with Augustina. She must.’

  ‘She uses us, too,’ said Charlotte. ‘To make money, she needs us. It’s her greed that keeps her going, too.’

  ‘Perchance.’ The man dusted biscuit crumbs from his lap, then leaned forward. ‘But it’s more than that. She wanted money. I gave her money. She wanted company. We travelled side by side. I bought her all the finery she asked for. When she had this odd fancy to conjure spirits for a livin’, didn’t I make it happen? I provided everything she wanted. Still, even when I asked her to stop takin’ children, she stole the boy. Couldn’t help herself.’

  How many souls had she taken altogether? How many are trapped elsewhere, like Pellar? Felix wondered, a sharp pain radiating through his chest at the thought.

  Felix had seen Pinchbeck steal four other children, apart from Charlotte and Leander. Did this mean some of them might be trapped somewhere, and not dead as he’d always believed?

  ‘Evil is her nature,’ Pellar continued. ‘She’s festerin’ on the inside. There’s no reasonin’ with her. She won’t stop unless we stop her.’

  ‘You’ll help us, then?’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Aye.’ He got shakily to his feet. ‘Quickly. Show me where she is.’

  The man began walking towards the churchyard gates, faster this time, despite his uneven gait and hunched posture. The children scrambled to follow him. Felix’s heart was in his throat – after years in limbo, it seemed everything was happening at once. He wanted to clamp his hands over his ears to shut out the world and think for a moment. Pinchbeck had stolen and discarded even more children than Felix had ever suspected. It was so cruel and ruthless. But she had kept Felix all these years. He was special to her. Wasn’t he?

  ‘Which way? Hurry, before she wakes.’

  They led him along the winding lane towards Pinchbeck’s carriage. Leander raced a little way ahead, then jogged back impatiently, but Pellar moved at his own unchanging pace.

  ‘What do you need?’ asked Charlotte. ‘Herbs? Candles?’

  ‘Bare hands shall do it,’ said Pellar, expression grim.

  ‘How will you undo the magic?’ said Leander. ‘Is it a spell, or—?’

  ‘Nay,’ said Pellar. ‘I’m goin’ to kill her.’

  ‘You can’t!’ said Felix. Bad enough to betray Pinchbeck this far. Now they were sending an executioner for her! And Pinchbeck had always threatened that if harm should befall her . . . ‘We’re all under her spell. If you kill her, all of us will die.’

  ‘There’s no choice. The spell can’t be broken. Dyin’ is better than the purgatory I’ve been in!’

  Charlotte and Leander shared the same open-mouthed expression of horror.

  ‘What year is it?’ the old man said.

  ‘Seventy-six, sir,’ said Leander.

  ‘Eight years I’ve been trapped in there. Eight years of torture. And look at you.’ He pointed at Felix. ‘Not an inch taller nor a day older than when I met you. Eight years she’s stolen from you.’

  A new feeling was stirring in Felix’s chest. A feeling he didn’t have a name for. Pellar was right. Pinchbeck had done a terrible thing to all of them. It was as though Felix had been blind to her wickedness all this time, so wrapped up in his search for his brother, so grateful for food and companionship that he didn’t see her for what she was.

  ‘Listen, bairns. I’m dreadful sorry for the wrong you’ve been done. You didn’t deserve this fate.’ He wiped a sleeve across his forehead. ‘If I could go back and stop her, I would. But it’s too late. And I can’t stand by and let her do this to another child. Not while there’s breath left in my body.’

  Felix persisted. ‘But sir, you’ll die, too.’

  ‘A sacrifice I’m willing to make. I’m ready to meet my maker. At least I shall have the pleasure of standin’ side by side with Augusta to see her judgement handed down by the Almighty.’

  Leander stood in front of Pellar, hands on hips. ‘You can’t do this to us! You talk of saving children, well, what about us?’ he said. ‘We’re children, too.’

  ‘If I don’t kill Augusta, more children will meet your tragic fate. Is that what you want, boy?’ Pellar waved the ring box in Leander’s face. ‘She told me being inside a Cabinet was like sleepin’. More lies. Years I’ve been stuck in that place – no light, no feelin’, nothin’ but the sound of my own nightmares. This was my punishment for not helpin’ her. She deserves to die.’

  ‘But we don’t!’ Charlotte joined Leander.

  ‘I’m sorry, but you were dead the moment you met her.’ He shoved his way through the children. ‘I’ll spare you my sufferin’. Believe me, little ones: a swift death is better than being for ever in a box. I have to stop her, whatever the cost.’

  ‘Is there no other way?’ said Felix. ‘You were a wise man, I remember. You must have some inkling of how to undo her magic.’

  ‘An inklin’. Aye. There might be another way, but there’s no time to waste sparin’ thoughts on that. Every hour she walks the earth is a danger.’ Pellar paused and looked Felix up and down, and Felix saw a flash of the old, kind Pellar in his expression. ‘Still a wee boy, after all these years. A pity, lad. A real shame. Let us put an end to this. Take me to her.’

  ‘Run!’ Felix dashed past the old man and up the lane, trusting the others would follow. He could tell the man would not be persuaded, so now they had to get Pinchbeck far away before Pellar reached her.

  ‘Do as you will, children!’ Pellar shouted after them. ‘We’ll meet again once I’ve found my gun.’

  15

  The Tower:

  Downfall, Upheaval,

  Disaster

  The three children raced through narrow streets, over the bridge and out to the edge of town. Charlotte kept glancing over her shoulder, expecting to see that ghoulish man at her back, but there was nobody there. Her worn shoes slipped on patches of ice and she struggled to keep up with the boys in their sturdy boots.

  They were at the carriage in minutes, the horses unsettled by their hurried arrival. Charlotte peeped inside to check Pi
nchbeck was still asleep.

  ‘She hasn’t stirred.’

  Felix coaxed the horses back on to the road.

  ‘Hurry,’ said Charlotte as they clambered on to the driving seat. ‘If Pellar gets to Pinchbeck, we’re all dead.’

  Maybe they were dead anyway. Charlotte couldn’t imagine what excuse they could give for moving the carriage away from Coven.

  ‘The horses are tired.’ Felix’s expression was bleak.

  ‘They won’t let us down,’ said Charlotte, and tried to believe it. ‘Any distance will help. Pellar’s a captive, like us. He must be bound by the same rules. The further he is from Pinchbeck, the weaker he’ll be.’

  Charlotte urged the horses on and the coach rattled forward. Charlotte was sure she’d never heard it creak so loudly, nor the horses’ hooves echo with such force over the stones, but Pinchbeck slumbered on.

  At least the noise meant their voices wouldn’t carry.

  ‘Do you think it’s true, then?’ said Leander. ‘There is no way to break her spell?’

  ‘He didn’t say that. He said that there was no time to waste thinking on it. Which might mean there is a way, no matter how unlikely. We must believe that,’ said Charlotte. ‘Or there’s no hope.’

  She glanced at Felix who was strangely quiet. He was staring ahead, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

  Just hours ago, Charlotte’s greatest fear was that Pinchbeck would smash her Cabinet and she’d die, but Pellar’s words had sparked fresh terror. Maybe the half-crazed old man was right – death was nothing compared to the horror of wakeful eternity in a box. Her mind drifted back to her uncle. What she’d give for the comfort of Litchfield House, for kind voices and soft sheets and stories by the fire.

  ‘You all right?’ asked Leander.

  ‘I was thinking of home.’

  ‘You’ll go back one day.’

  She couldn’t allow herself to entertain such dreams. She offered him the best smile she could manage, but shook her head.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ he said. ‘Promise.’

  ‘Thank you, Leander,’ said Charlotte. ‘I wish I’d been kinder to you when you first arrived. I was . . . I was scared – I’m still scared – but it’s not your fault. You were tricked just like us. And you were really brave back there in the graveyard. I’m glad that you’re here. We’re going to need all your courage now.’