The Wizard Of Dark Street Part 6

"I see," Oona said politely, and did not mention the fact that the so-called beauty cream looked more like congealing swamp slime. Not wis.h.i.+ng to put the girl on her guard, however, Oona left the subject alone. "May I come in?" she asked.

The girl hesitated, her gaze falling on Deacon as if not sure what to make of the ominous bird. Then with a short nod she opened the door and backed away. Oona stepped inside and closed the door behind them. The floor swayed beneath their feet, and the young witch pressed her hand to her stomach, as if she might be ill.

"Oh," Oona said. "I see you got the Captain's Cabin. I haven't been in this room for a very long time."

In truth, it had been years since she had entered the room. The Captain's Cabin had been one of her mother's favorite rooms to visit whenever she would pay a call to Pendulum House. Her mother had had a great love of boats, Oona remembered. But of course Dark Street had no sailing port to speak of, nor any lake to sail upon. The duck pond in Oswald Park, which supported only small canoes and rowboats, had been a favorite destination of her mother's. But if someone wanted the sensation of sailing on a grand s.h.i.+p across the high seas, then the only place on Dark Street to go would have been the Captain's Cabin on the second floor of Pendulum House, which stuck out of the side of the great manor house like a giant s.h.i.+pwreck.

The windows were all shaped into round s.h.i.+p's portholes, and on the walls hung various charting tools and spygla.s.ses and a spoked steering wheel nearly twice Oona's size. But it was not the room's decor that made it so peculiar. The smell of salt water clung to the dampened air, while the floor rocked beneath their feet like a s.h.i.+p adrift on calm waters. After Oona's baby sister, Flora, had been born, her mother would often visit the Captain's Cabin, and the rocking motion would lull the baby to sleep.

The herbal, cinnamony fragrance of Sanora's facial cream mingled with the salty sea air, and Oona felt both delighted and saddened by the memory of her mother. But then the room gave a sudden lurch to one side, as if a rogue wave had slapped full force against the side of the s.h.i.+p. Sanora placed both hands over her midsection, and Oona felt a moment of pity for the girl.

"I'm sorry for the accommodations," she said. "Pendulum House is a most unique place. I suppose any house with so much magic in it is bound to be an oddity. But believe me, you haven't gotten the worst room. Two doors down is a room that is a complete jungle-quite literally-and you can hear all sorts of creepy things crawling all around you. Impossible to sleep in, if you ask me. Though, during a stormy night, it's somewhat difficult to hold on to your dinner in the Captain's Cabin."

The witch swayed on her feet, putting out a hand to steady herself.

"Perhaps we should sit down on the bed," Oona suggested.

They crossed the room on wobbly land legs and sat. Oona felt a cold wetness seep through her skirts as she realized too late that the bedding was damp from the moist sea air. Sanora's fingers fidgeted anxiously with her own dress.

"You can relax, if you like," Oona suggested. "Perhaps take your hat off."

"Oh, no, never!" Sanora said, grabbing the brim of her hat. "We witches never remove our hats. It's ... unthinkable."

Oona threw a glance at Deacon, as if to say: Why hadn't he ever told her about such a fact? Deacon only shrugged; apparently this was news to him as well.

"Please forgive me, Sanora," Oona said. "It's just that, well, there is very little known about witches. Perhaps if you could tell me a bit about your customs, I could be sure not to upset you in the future. What is it that you witches all do, by the way?"

Sanora tugged nervously at her ear. "It's kind of boring."

"Boring?" Oona asked. "You should try listening to Deacon lecture on the improper usage of adverbs and dangling participles."

"What's a dangling participle?" asked Sanora.

"My point exactly," said Oona.

"Well!" said Deacon. "Someone has to protect the English language from sinking into utter chaos. Sometimes I believe it degrades by the minute."

"See what I mean?" Oona said to Sanora. "If I can put up with that, then I can surely stand to hear about life under Witch Hill."

Sanora cracked a smile. "Ain't much to tell, really. We spend most our time underground, right? But sometimes we're allowed up topside, you know, to gather supplies and the like ... but then we're to be coming straight back to the hill. No dillydallying."

Oona squinched up her nose. "That doesn't sound like a very good deal to me. Do you like it?"

Sanora only shrugged. "Like I said, it's kind of boring. That's why I wanted to apply for the apprentice position. But things ain't turning out the way I'd hoped."

"Hmm," Oona intoned before asking: "You said you are sometimes allowed out of the hill. Who allows you? The older witches?"

Sanora said nothing, eyes downcast.

Oona let the question go, and asked: "What is the inside of the hill like? Is it nice and neat, or just a big hole in the ground?"

Sanora drew her legs up beneath her, but Oona got the impression that she was considering something. Reading the girl's expression through the thick slather of goop on her face was all but impossible ... but Sanora's eyes, those great big, sad-looking eyes, appeared surprisingly wise.

"Well, ain't really a hole," Sanora said finally. "It's more like a patchwork of twisting tunnels and the like. They run all over. You could get yourself good and lost in there, if you didn't know where you was goin'. Get lost forever."

"And the other witches?" Oona asked, feeling a bit daring now that she'd gleaned some actual information. "The older ones. Why is it that they never come aboveground?"

But Oona knew the moment she asked it that she had made a mistake. Sanora's mouth clamped shut, her lips completely disappearing beneath the slimy facial cream. Oona decided to change tactics.

She stood, ruffling the back of her dress, attempting to air out the uncomfortable ocean dampness. "You know, there is one thing you could tell me, Sanora, that would be of enormous help. Nothing to do with the hill, I promise."

Sanora nodded. Oona knelt, and the light from the outside streetlamps spilled through the portholes and lit up her face. It was a serious look she wore, and the younger girl pulled her feet out from beneath her and placed them flat on the floor.

"Is there anything that you might have seen," Oona asked, "when my uncle was attacked?"

Sanora's hands began to fidget.

"You did, didn't you," Oona said, more a statement than a question. "It's all right, Sanora. You can tell me. Nothing bad will happen."

"It weren't what I saw when he was attacked," Sanora said, her voice almost a whisper. "It was what I saw yesterday. That creepy ol' blind man, Mr. Grimsbee."

"Go on," Oona encouraged. She could feel the excitement bubbling inside her.

Sanora's gaze s.h.i.+fted to the door, then back to Oona. "The entrance to the hill is a secret, right? It was enchanted long ago so that only a witch can find it. Well, anyway, as you probably well know, Witch Hill sits on the opposite side of the street from that big museum. And it was as I made me way out of the hill that I see ol' Grimsbee in front of the museum ... on the top steps, right? I'd most like never have even noticed him, if it weren't for him yelling at someone who weren't there."

Oona shook her head. "Are you sure you didn't see him today? And not yesterday?"

Sanora did not hesitate. "No, it was yesterday, as I went out for supplies."

Peculiar, Oona thought. And I saw him doing the same thing today, before he disappeared.

Sanora looked highly uncomfortable. "Reason I bring it up is ... well, is ..."

She trailed off, as if unsure of her next words, but Oona spoke clearly, her words locking together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle: "Is because my uncle was attacked with a dagger that could have come only from one place: the Museum of Magical History."

Oona closed the door to the Captain's Cabin, her mind racing. She strode several steps to the center of the hallway and stopped to peer at the long line of doors. Behind one of them was her uncle's attacker.

"How could Grimsbee be the attacker?" Deacon asked from her shoulder. "The laws governing the dagger state very clearly that the a.s.sa.s.sin must see the victim in order to throw the dagger with their mind."

"Do you believe that Mr. Grimsbee is truly blind, Deacon? Have you ever seen a blind man act in such a way?"

Deacon considered this for a moment. "But why would Grimsbee want to attack your uncle?"

Oona racked her brain for any kind of motive, but she could not think of a single one. But then again, she still did not see a motive for any of the applicants to have attacked him. The frustration began to build in her like pressure in a steam engine. She kicked her foot against the wall, startling Deacon from her shoulder, and the shock from the kick sent phantom fingers tingling up her leg.

"Ouch!" she said.

"Do be careful," Deacon replied, returning to her shoulder.

"h.e.l.lo?" said a voice.

Oona turned in surprise, only to discover the New York boy, Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III, poking his bulldoglike face outside his door. His cheeks flushed as pink as a summer rose beneath his thick, round eyegla.s.ses. "Is everything all right?" he asked rather skittishly. "I heard someone bang on the wall. But oh, I must have been mistaken. So sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you. Good day."

He moved to close the door again, but Oona stopped him, seizing the opportunity to talk to the boy.

"No, wait," she said. "It's my fault. I was the one banging. Or rather, kicking. This whole matter is so upsetting. I would love to have some company ... Mr. Fitch, is it? May I come in?"

The boy's face remained pink. "Ah ... I don't believe that's ... um ... proper. A young lady in a gentleman's room? What would people say?"

Oona smiled at him. "Well, if the gentleman truly is a gentleman, then there is nothing to worry about, is there?"

Lamont's mouth fell open, as if he could find no logical response, and Oona pressed her hand to the doork.n.o.b. The movement startled the boy, and he abruptly stepped away. Oona entered the room and pushed the door closed behind her.

Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III had been given the Pink Room, in which all the colors of the room varied only in slight shades of pink, as if a pink paint bomb had exploded in the center, covering the walls, the curtains, the bed, the plants ... even Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III's well-fitted clothes.... And now Oona's dress, too, was pink.

Though it was, by all means, the least dangerous room in the house, the Pink Room was by far Oona's least favorite.

Lamont backed away from both Oona and the absurd-looking pink raven on her shoulder.

"I don't believe we have been properly introduced," Oona said, and she put her hand out. "I am Miss Oona Crate. The Wizard's niece."

Lamont's pink eyes met with hers. He took her hand tentatively and shook it. Oona's gaze flicked toward the pink table near the wall, where two equally pink chairs sat empty.

"Oh ... um ... forgive me, Miss Crate," Lamont stammered. "Would you care to sit?"

Oona smiled. "Thank you. That would be most ... appropriate."

She crossed to the table and waited patiently as Lamont pulled the chair out for her. Here was a case where the boy was working so fiercely at being a gentleman that Oona felt her best course of action would be to aid him in his goal.

"You are very kind," she said. "Won't you sit as well?"

Lamont glanced nervously toward the door, as if someone might burst in at any moment and find the two of them together in his room ... alone. Oona would have to put him at ease.

"The Pink Room," she said conversationally, "was created by one of the original Magicians of Old, isn't that right, Deacon?"

Of all the occupants in the room, it was Deacon who appeared the most uncomfortable. His normally foreboding coat of midnight black now radiated a most unbecoming shade of fuchsia.

"Alice Annabel Thicket was the magician's name," Deacon answered, though he sounded nothing but displeased with the situation. "Apparently she loved all things pink."

"I see." Lamont said thoughtfully. "And these Magicians of Old. They are different from the Wizard?"

Oona nodded. "Technically, a magician is what we call anyone who can work magic, while the Wizard is the t.i.tle we use for the head of all magic, and the protector of the World of Man: the world that you come from, Mr. Fitch. The Magicians of Old is the name given to powerful men and women who lived in the times before and during the Great Faerie War."

Lamont sat down heavily in the chair opposite Oona, the legs creaking beneath his bulk. Finally, he said: "Everything is so peculiar here. I admit, I was surprised to have been invited at all. You see, I read the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the New York Times about the Wizard seeking an apprentice, and immediately created a resume. I hadn't much experience in any kind of work, but the advertis.e.m.e.nt stated that none was necessary."

Oona and Deacon shared a look. It was typical of her uncle to add such a stipulation to the advertis.e.m.e.nt. If he couldn't have Oona, then Uncle Alexander apparently preferred someone with no preconceived notions of magic whatsoever.

Lamont continued: "I showed the resume to my father, who was oh so proud that I had shown interest in something, but my mother refused to let me send the resume at all. She threw it into the fire before I had a chance to send it off. So how the Wizard knew that I wished to apply, I don't know. But six months later I received a letter stating that a carriage would be arriving at precisely eleven p.m. to pick me up with my luggage."

Oona smiled at him. "Had you already addressed your resume to Pendulum House when your mother tossed it into the flames?"

"I had indeed," Lamont said.

"That explains it then," she said. "Dark Street has no post office to speak of. We send our letters by fire."

Lamont scratched his chubby cheek for a moment, and then replied: "I had a feeling it was something of that sort. Wizards and all. Well, against my mother's wishes, my father agreed to let me make the trip on my own. Said it would be good for my character. And yet, you can only imagine my surprise when later that same evening I found myself waiting in a carriage in front of two buildings in a part of New York that I was unfamiliar with. At the stroke of midnight, the buildings no longer sat side by side, but instead an enormous iron gateway stood in between them, as if it had been there the entire time. Beyond the gateway, a broad avenue stretched out for miles and miles. The driver drove us through, and a minute later the gates swung shut behind us."

Oona raised her eyebrows in polite amus.e.m.e.nt. She could only imagine his surprise at discovering an invisible street in New York City. For her, however, the extraordinary mystery of the Iron Gates proved to be something short of special.

Lamont continued: "The driver took me to a place called the Nightshade Hotel and Casino. Wonderful accommodations, I can a.s.sure you. It puts some of the finest hotels in New York to shame."

Oona shot Deacon a furtive glance. The Nightshade Hotel was owned and operated by none other than Red Martin himself ... and, Oona believed, was the headquarters for the Dark Street criminal underground. But of course, since it was the only hotel on Dark Street, it was no real surprise that Lamont had stayed there. Just then, it occurred to Oona that the Nightshade Hotel was situated at the north end of the street. When she had seen Lamont in his carriage earlier that day, however, he had been miles away, on the south end, directly in front of the Museum of Magical History.

She cleared her throat, preparing to ask him why he had been in that area of town, when the door to the room fell open. It was Samuligan, his cowboy hat and knee-length jacket silhouetted in the light from the hall.

"The inspector has arrived," he said. "He has asked us all to convene in the parlor. It seems there has already been some further development in the case."

The inspector stood in the parlor of Pendulum House, his hands clasped behind his back. His ghastly white face gave the impression that not only did he never go outside in the daytime, but that he had also been locked inside a coffin for six months. Against the thick blackness of his hair, he appeared more like an artist's sketch than a real man. Tonight the inspector wore no jacket, and when he dropped his hands to his sides, it was nearly impossible to tell where his stark white s.h.i.+rtsleeves stopped and his wrists and hands began. Without his customary black jacket, which Oona a.s.sumed he must have left in the entryway, the man looked eerily like a ghost.

The dagger no longer lay on the floor, but Oona could see its s.h.i.+ny metal surface glinting on top of the fireplace mantel. Everything else remained the same. The table, the contracts, and Adler Iree's book were all just where Oona remembered they had been. The Wizard's robes remained where he had fallen, and Oona's stomach tightened at the sight of them.

The parlor's customary sense of warmth and comfort had been replaced with something far less pleasant. The shadows seemed somehow deeper, the portraits more cold and judgmental. The painting of Oswald the Great appeared particularly ominous to Oona as he stared down upon the crime scene, looking like he was about to pa.s.s a death sentence upon them all. The creatures in the tapestries stared out at the room wearing expressions of bitter suspicion.

A police constable leaned casually against a wall near the parlor's entrance, his attention buried so deeply in a cheap, yellow-backed novel that, despite his uniform, he might have been mistaken for a man on vacation. Unlike the novel-reading constable, Inspector White's attention appeared fully present in the room. He regarded the occupants suspiciously as Oona took her seat on one of the ornate sofas against the wall. Deacon s.h.i.+fted restlessly on her shoulder.

The smell of ash from the fireplace permeated the air, along with the lingering stench of Samuligan's singed hand.

"Is this everyone, Samuligan?" the inspector asked.

Samuligan scanned the room. Hector Grimsbee sat slumped in a chair near the door, the b.l.o.o.d.y bandage around his head looking like the ragged attire of an Egyptian mummy. Sanora Crone, her own face once again squeaky clean, occupied a seat on the other side of the fireplace. Isadora Iree played nervously with her hair beside Adler, the two of them squished together on one half of the split sofa. The pendulum swung so close to Adler that he appeared to be in danger of getting struck by the bob each time it moved past. Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III took a seat near the door, his hands folded neatly in his lap.

"Yes," Samuligan informed the inspector. "This is everyone."

The enchanted lights from the ceiling threw uneven shadows across the inspector's face. He clapped his hands together loudly before beginning. "I am Inspector White. I believe you all know why I am here."

He picked up the enchanted dagger from the mantel and threw it to the floor, where it stuck in the rug, quivering like a tuning fork.

Sanora gasped.

Lamont let out a startled: "Whoa!"

And Deacon exclaimed: "That was a perfectly good carpet!"

The inspector ignored him. "This dagger," he said, swaggering around the room with his stark white s.h.i.+rt gleaming in the magic lights, "was reported stolen earlier this evening from the curator's locked office at the Museum of Magical History."

At the mention of the museum, Oona glanced toward Hector Grimsbee, looking for a reaction. He appeared stone-faced, indifferent, and for all she could tell, blind or not, he was staring right back at her through those pupilless eyes.

The inspector slid a notebook from his back pocket and continued. "The curator's office is located downstairs, in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the museum. The bas.e.m.e.nt is off limits to visitors, and a guard is posted at the head of the stairs. The curator locked his office and left the museum for several hours to examine a possible acquisition. When he returned at four o'clock, he discovered that the door to his office was wide open, the gla.s.s case containing the two enchanted daggers had been smashed, and the daggers were gone." The inspector snapped his notepad shut and thrust it out before him, as if the notepad itself were a piece of undisputable evidence. "The curator was the only one with a key, and the security guard at the head of the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs swears that he allowed no one to pa.s.s."