The Bad Luck Lighthouse

by Nicki Thornton

  ‘Seth’s used them and he’s pretty good at it,’ said Angelique. ‘But where’s the book this has come from? There must have been a book if there’s a wordstone.’

  Dex nodded. ‘Copious discovered the wordstone here when he cleaned. But no book. Mysterious, huh? That’s the bad news. And there is more bad news—’

  ‘Now would also be a time for any good news,’ said Pewter. ‘I’m hoping there is some?’

  ‘Almost none. Snakesmouth was incredibly secretive about all the work that went on here and we know almost nothing. But the good news is that he couldn’t quite resist showing off how clever he was. He wrote a book called The Deadly Secrets of Dark-witching. That has to be the book connected to the wordstone. It was offered to the Elysee library, but they would only consider it for the Problem section and Snakesmouth was enraged.’

  ‘What’s the Problem section?’ asked Seth.

  ‘Prohibited, Radical, Objectionable, Banned, Ludicrously-unlikely, Extremely-iffy and May-cause-people-to-react-with-violence. The Problem books,’ said Angelique, wrapping her long stripe of red hair around her finger.

  ‘From what I’ve seen of the sorcerers in the magical world,’ muttered Seth, ‘I’d say most of the books they are likely to write would come under one of those headings.’

  ‘Guess we’re ready, then,’ said Stormforce, with a grin that lifted one side of his mouth more than the other.

  Seth knew he meant to take them into the word-stone and felt far from ready as Dex led them out of the back door, where the wind welcomed them excitedly. Dex extended his hand and Seth watched, fascinated, as he saw the dull stone start to glow like it had a heart of fire. Then it moved, turned smooth, became a vivid green like lush grass and then reformed so it was sharp as a dagger.

  Angelique reached her hand forward and so did Pewter. Seth was the last to tentatively extend his hand and all he could think as his fingers touched the wordstone was the first time he’d done this, he’d thought he was going to be torched and eaten by a dragon.

  Now he was going to be plunged into a magical book written by a sorcerer who practised banned and dangerous darkwitching.

  He had a feeling this was going to be even worse.

  24. WhaT Is This Place?

  The next thing Seth knew, they were all standing together in a small, dark room that started slowly to take shape around them. He blinked to adjust his eyes to the gloom, and was more than a little afraid. When he’d used a wordstone to travel into a book before, he’d been disturbed by seeing unexpected things so vividly. He’d even met someone he knew was dead.

  The lighthouse faded to nothing, his skin prickling as he waited for what would appear out of the darkness. Before he knew it, they were in a circular, shelf-lined room. Along the centre a long, clinical metal table was set up with flasks and test tubes, as if waiting for a complicated experiment to begin.

  Seth didn’t dare move in case he sent something flying, but Angelique had no such hesitation and bent to peer at the books and bottles that lined the shelves. Some were filled with coloured liquids. There were larger jars packed and with strange substances or pallid creatures suspended in slimy-looking fluid. The largest looked like it might contain a whole cauliflower . . . unless that was a brain? Seth shivered.

  ‘Some extraordinary titles here – I wonder if Ethylene Despair even knows of the existence of some of these,’ said Angelique, tilting her head to one side as she read the titles of a cluster of books propped next to a silver-topped flask filled with a dark-red viscous substance.

  ‘Who is Ethylene Despair?’ muttered Seth.

  ‘Head librarian at the Elysee library,’ explained Pewter. He appeared to be more interested in looking at the ceiling than the cluttered shelves or the long table of experiments. ‘Fun character. A reformed sinister sorcerer,’ he continued, taking out a magnifying glass to examine the floor. ‘Very intuitive librarian.’

  ‘Hate to think of what was dreamt up in here,’ said Angelique, scribbling furiously in the red notebook she carried with her.

  Seth found himself eye to eye with a staring creature suspended in purple slime. It had two huge eyes on stalks and Seth was convinced it was alive and looking right at him. ‘What is this place?’ he said, turning to Dex.

  Dex was pacing the room slowly, peering at every shelf, bending to the low ones, walking along every inch of the walls. He spread his arms wide. ‘This is the secret laboratory of one of the cleverest and most powerful sorcerers in history. The laboratory of Soul Snakesmouth.’

  Seth couldn’t help but think that, like Pewter, Dex was in awe of the sort who practised evil magic.

  ‘He could make shadows do unbelievable things,’ went on Dex.

  ‘This laboratory was in the lighthouse?’ said Angelique, moving further along a shelf and making more notes. ‘Why are you showing us the version that still exists in the wordstone? What can we learn here?’

  Seth reached out to touch the creature in the purple slime, but his hand went straight through it. That’s when he remembered that he need not have worried about knocking anything over. Of course, all of it was only an image. None of them could actually touch any of it. None of this was real.

  Angelique turned to look accusingly at Dex. ‘Please tell me all of this was cleaned?’

  ‘If this room was in the lighthouse,’ said Pewter slowly, ‘it would have been cleaned by Copious.’

  Dex was grinning. ‘Absolutely spot on. Discovering the laboratory of a notorious sinister sorcerer would have meant utter joy for Copious Bladderwrack, and his future fortune and career.’

  ‘“Would have”?’ said Angelique. ‘I am not liking the sound of that.’

  Dex carried on explaining as he wandered the room. ‘I may be a fabulous S3 agent, but I only got your call last night, so I haven’t managed to read all of Copious’s notes. But I can tell you what I know. After the Unpleasant, Soul Snakesmouth was pretty much the shiny big apple at the top of the tree when it came to tracking down those Missing Feared Exploded.’

  ‘So Snakesmouth was involved in the Unpleasant?’ said Pewter.

  ‘Around that time two things happened; he disappeared and there was a local disaster where they lost a chunk of coast to the sea, almost as if he was somehow offering magical protection to the village, which left with him. Who knows what he was really up to. He was a real paranoid kind of a guy, lived alone on this isolated rock. He was married for a short time, but she disappeared to the other end of the earth. Probably discovered how he really spent his days out here. Doing his research alone in a building not even connected to the mainland wasn’t secret enough; he went further than that. He actually hid his laboratory.’

  ‘He doesn’t sound like the sort of person who wanted to open up the magical world to more people from outside and take on apprentices to pass on all this knowledge,’ muttered Seth, wishing they could find a way to add smells to what you see with a wordstone. He relied on his nose so much and it was telling him nothing.

  ‘Nope – didn’t really want to share his magic with anyone,’ agreed Dex.

  Seth was reminded of the words Brockler had used when he’d talking about going into the history of the lighthouse: A really fascinating man, Soul Snakesmouth. A man full of secrets. When Seth had asked what he’d meant, he’d only answered: ‘If I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets.’ Brockler had given a little chuckle and had looked more furtive than ever. Seth was convinced the lawyer had uncovered at least some of the truth about Soul Snakesmouth.

  ‘I still don’t understand, where is this, exactly?’ Angelique wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m confused. This secret laboratory – Copious would have looked for it. Are you saying it wasn’t cleaned because it isn’t in the lighthouse?’

  Dex gave a small bow. ‘The answer to your question is – I have no idea.’ He paced once more around the room. ‘It would have been a main target for cleaning. Unfortunately, the truth is more bad news. This room was never cleaned because it was never ev
en found.’

  ‘Not found!’ Angelique turned, startled. ‘You mean all this stuff is just lying around somewhere?’ She gestured at the creature that was still leering at Seth.

  Dex nodded. ‘It is somewhere so secret, even Bladderwrack couldn’t find it. He was forced to give up.’

  ‘So are you two concluding that the fact that Snakesmouth’s darkwitching shadow magic seems to have come back,’ mused Pewter, ‘is down to faulty cleaning?’

  ‘It certainly means I suggest we rather urgently look again.’ Dex flashed his white teeth. ‘I don’t know how, exactly. But this laboratory is where I guess the shadow magic is coming from. If we could find it, that would be a great start.’

  Dex was busy again, inching his way about the room, peering at every shelf. Seth felt that if he could have moved all the books and jars aside, he would have done, but of course, they were only images, he couldn’t physically touch any of it.

  ‘And Copious concluded it wasn’t in the lighthouse?’ said Pewter.

  ‘He did.’ Dex shrugged. ‘But I reckon he was wrong. Those rampaging shadows prove pretty conclusively that all of the darkwitching power has just been lying here, dormant, waiting for someone to kick it all off again. Someone or something powerful has got all this working. Not only have the shadows come back, but . . . check out the walls, people.’ Dex took out his dagger and flashed a jet of blue light from the end.

  The image around them became clearer.

  ‘Notice what’s different about them?’ said Dex, sounding cocky.

  Angelique paused in her note-taking. ‘All right. I was being slow. The walls are curved, I get it. And you don’t get curved walls in many buildings.’

  ‘And there is something important missing.’ Dex again covered every inch of the shelves, looking at the mad jumble of equipment and books stuffed into this room. ‘There isn’t a door. There has to be a secret way in and out.’

  ‘So it is here,’ said Pewter. ‘This secret laboratory, the heart of darkwitching, is somewhere in this lighthouse.’

  ‘Yep,’ finished Dex. ‘Now all we have to do is find it. Before someone else dies.’

  25. Seriously Impressive Magic

  ‘ I guess we have a couple of possibilities.’ Pewter considered for a moment. ‘Maybe three,’ he said, taking a seat at the long kitchen table once the four of them had emerged from the wordstone and were back in the lighthouse kitchen.

  Seth made tea, slowly readjusting to reality.

  ‘The shadows attacked you,’ said Pewter to Angelique. ‘That’s very helpful.’

  ‘That was very painful.’

  ‘You stirred them up again just with a few short flashes from your divinoscope?’

  Angelique nodded. ‘That’s all I did, and what happened, well . . . no one could have missed those shadows,’ she said, rubbing her neck.

  ‘Then I think we can safely presume that did not happen when Copious was here,’ mused Pewter. ‘When Bladderwrack was here the magic must have been completely dormant, otherwise he would never have given up trying to discover that secret laboratory. He would never have passed the Snakesmouth Lighthouse cleaned and safe for the unfortunate Mintencress party to buy. So the real puzzle is – what’s changed?’

  ‘We should go over all Bladderwrack’s notes,’ said Angelique as Seth handed them each a mug of tea.

  ‘That may take some time. We’ve already had one death,’ said Pewter, deep in thought.

  ‘The magic has managed to return?’ said Seth. ‘So – how can that happen?’

  He was thinking of his own home. Angelique had been on a secret S3 mission to investigate his mother and whether the Last Chance Hotel needed cleaning. But since learning of the existence of magic, Seth had begun to suspect that there had always been magic lurking there, even in the fabric of the building, even in the walls. It hadn’t come back, it had just never completely gone away.

  But when Copious had checked this place out, the magic hadn’t been here. And Angelique had already told him that magic didn’t return all by itself.

  ‘Yes, what has stirred up this very powerful hidden magic?’ Dex’s eyes glinted.

  ‘Seriously impressive magic,’ said Pewter, steepling his fingers, then reaching absent-mindedly for a biscuit. ‘Getting those shadows to form and strangle like that . . .’

  ‘I know Brockler has got interested in the history of this place,’ said Seth tentatively, recalling again that furtive look when the lawyer talked about secrets. ‘I wonder if he could have . . .’

  ‘I think what we saw was too powerful for someone who discovered magic for the first time when they arrived here, Seth,’ said Angelique, wrapping her strand of red hair around a finger again.

  Seth thought back to his own disastrous attempts at magic and could see she had a point. If someone had been trying to tap into Soul Snakesmouth’s magic and kickstart it, how could they have done that without leaving a trail of destruction? Unless, of course, whoever was controlling those shadows possessed more than just a spark of magic – perhaps a magic that was much, much stronger?

  ‘It’s difficult to believe that Brockler could have taught himself to grow a wart on the end of his nose since he’s been at the lighthouse, let alone master the sinister art of darkwitching,’ said Dex.

  ‘But it has to be one of the Mintencress party,’ said Seth carefully, thinking of everyone who had been here when Mina died.

  ‘And I thought you were going to say the ghost of Soul Snakesmouth has come back and is responsible,’ grinned Dex.

  Seth was about to ask if anyone thought that was even possible, but Pewter was moving on.

  ‘Your thoughts and suggestions are always very insightful, Seth,’ said Pewter. ‘What made you think straight away of Brockler?’

  It was so easy to get things wrong where magic was concerned. So easy to say things that made him look a complete fool, but Seth could imagine Brockler being the sort who would stop at nothing if he’d found out that Snakesmouth was a sorcerer and that the possibility of magic might be within his grasp.

  He hesitated. ‘Disturbing things have been happening. Ladders moving, problems with the electrics. I think Brockler might have been trying to spook everyone to get Mina to give up the project and leave.’ Seth tried to think things through logically. ‘Is it possible he accidentally triggered something? He was definitely interested in the history,’ he added cautiously. ‘And I think he must have been poking around Snakesmouth village, as he told me he picked up a few things there and he mentioned knowing about Snakesmouth’s secrets.’ It all sounded a bit lame, even to him. ‘Was the village cleaned? Do the records show if Copious Bladder-wrack checked it out at all?’

  Angelique was looking at him with her dark eyes. ‘That’s a really good idea.’

  ‘Well, there’s no harm in checking,’ said Dex. ‘Bladderwrack ran out of ideas and leads and gave up. Angelique, you get on that boat, go and check out the locals and the scenery. I’m going to see if I can’t get a fix on these shadows that terrified you and Seth, although I know you did your best to mess up any chance of me finding out anything useful.’ Dex’s green eyes gleamed. ‘I plan to finish what Bladder-wrack started and find that laboratory. There’s a whole island here Snakesmouth might have played with. Did Copious search the whole island? What if the entrance is concealed somewhere?’

  ‘There’s an old boathouse down in Gull Cove,’ offered Seth.

  ‘OK. A place to start.’ Dex waved his dagger with a flourish. ‘Soul Snakesmouth’s darkwitching laboratory has to be here. I will find it – and find out who else knows about the power of darkwitching. Unless you two are planning to beat me to it?’

  He threw out a challenging look, which Seth could tell didn’t include him.

  ‘I wouldn’t rate your chances of doing anything if Rendleton’s determined to get a proper assessment of the storm damage,’ said Pewter dryly, as the sound of footsteps approaching from outside could be heard. ‘He’ll keep you busy, once
he’s finished giving Dr Malinger the grand tour. Which I don’t think will take very long.’

  ‘That sounds like a challenge.’ Dex’s eyes shone and he gave a big smile. ‘First one to the laboratory wins. Well, let’s get at it. Someone has picked up what Snakesmouth started. We are on the trail of a darkwitch and I am very excited.’

  26. Is That Even Possible?

  The back door flapped open, but it was Jo, not Rendleton, who stepped through. The handle was wrenched out of her hand by the wind, and it was with difficulty that she closed it firmly behind her, shutting out the roar. ‘Boat’s ready whenever you are. The wind’s still up, but there’s no rush. Is that coffee I can smell? And perhaps a biscuit? Could manage a slice of cake?’

  She slid into a chair and Seth poured her coffee and cut her a slice of the apple cake. Celeste had said how Jo was the one who was always telling the local stories. Well, Seth would love to hear what she had to say about the Snakesmouth Lighthouse.

  ‘Oh, Mr Stormforce,’ cooed a soft voice from the top of the steps down into the kitchen. It was Lark, her hair loose and flowing. She was wearing a tight-fitting lilac dress along with black leggings. ‘Oh, there you are, I just wondered, would you mind looking at my wardrobe door. It seems to have come a little loose. I know it’s rather a small job for a builder, but if you could just take a look?’

  There was a short beat where Dex cleared his throat. ‘A wardrobe door you say? No job too small, Miss Sunrise. Be there soon.’

  Lark looked at Dex from under her dark lashes. ‘Now would be wonderful.’

  Seth couldn’t help but think that Pewter was spot on in not rating Dex’s chances of getting much free time. He’d be lucky to make any progress in discovering what Copious Bladderwrack had failed to. Seth turned to share a smile with Angelique, but she’d somehow managed to sidle out without anyone noticing. And that meant Seth was determined to follow.

  As Lark led Dex to the dodgy door, Seth hovered in the entrance hall at the bottom of the central spiral staircase, wondering which way Angelique had gone. Surely it was only seconds since she had slipped out of the kitchen, but the space was already deserted. He poked his head into the lounge, but saw no sign of her.