The Bad Luck Lighthouse

by Nicki Thornton

  ‘You really don’t have to tell me. I have been practising my magic and I do totally intend to get on her trail.’ He hadn’t completely given up hope, not yet. Talking about Tiffany reminded Seth how crucial it was that he worked at it and found a way to get admitted into the Elysee.

  Angelique was right. How exactly had he ended up walking in a tunnel under the sea on the possible trail of a dark sorcerer when he should be concentrating on gaining an ability to do some sort of useful magic.

  ‘I need answers to so many questions,’ he admitted, knowing those answers lay within the magical world. ‘Like – how did she do magic with the firefly cage? It traps a sorcerer, doesn’t it, so someone else can use their magic – isn’t that how it works?’

  He could just about make out Angelique nodding in the eerie darkness.

  ‘Pewter tells me they have the best people on it. You said all the leads came to dead ends. But no one understands as well as I do that we can’t just leave Tiffany out there. Tiffany’s smart,’ he said, all the frustration returning, knowing that he could do nothing about it. ‘She knew exactly how to make my life difficult because she thinks ahead. She has loads of patience. I bet before she even decided to leave the Last Chance Hotel she’d have had a plan. She’ll cause problems wherever she goes.’

  ‘We will get her, Seth.’

  Then it came again. Unmistakeable this time. That scratching sound. He snapped off his torch and listened in the dripping darkness, then he nudged Angelique and put his finger to his lips.

  This time a noise up ahead told him they were definitely not alone in the tunnel.

  32. I Didn’t Come Here for a Picnic

  ‘ Should we go back?’ hissed Angelique, gripping Seth’s arm so tightly he felt her nails bite in.

  Seth groped his way forwards in the darkness, reaching out slowly and carefully, feeling the sharp rocky walls, inching forwards as silently as he could, so he could see whoever was ahead without being seen himself.

  Then his fingers were touching nothing. The tunnel was suddenly opening out. He groped for the reassurance of a wall, sliding sideways in the black-ness, grateful to again feel the slime beneath his fingers. A dim bit of daylight penetrated from high up.

  ‘Maybe it’s just a rat,’ muttered Angelique nervously.

  But Seth was staring right at the source of the scratching.

  ‘Nightshade!’

  ‘Did you just say rat?’ the cat grumbled. ‘Did you mean me? Charming,’ she growled, slipping over to him and rubbing around his legs. ‘Well, wasn’t expecting you to be down here. Nice of you to drop in. So, where’s the way out? Been here bloomin’ ages. What brings you into this dark, slimy and smelly tunnel?’

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t come here for a picnic. It was your bloomin’ inspector’s doing. Would I like to do some detecting? he says. I’d much rather catch up on a little snooze time, I says. Next thing I knew, he had me chasing around on an endless hunt for dead seagulls. I fell down this hole.’

  She looked up and Seth could see sky far above them. ‘Lucky cats always land on their feet. Anyone less nimble than me is sure to have broken a toe at the very least.’

  Angelique grabbed the torch from Seth, switched it back on and started shining it around the walls. ‘Is this the end of the tunnel, Nightshade?’ Something about her voice made it clear what she was really asking was, Are we trapped down here?

  ‘No idea. Didn’t fancy heading off down a nasty, dark, damp-looking place on my own; never know what you might find. Maybe some dirty big rat,’ Nightshade answered with a shiver.

  ‘Nightshade, you are a cat,’ said Seth.

  ‘Oh, so that means I have to actually like rats, do I? I mean, would you want to meet one unexpectedly in the dark? And have you ever tasted one?’

  Angelique’s shining of the torchlight revealed there was absolutely no chance of scrabbling up the walls to reach that patch of daylight. It would be like trying to climb a chimney. Nightshade’s green eyes glowed with reflected light.

  Seth carried on feeling his way around.

  If Nightshade had fallen in, it had to mean they were really close to the lighthouse. The tunnel had to end somewhere they could get out. Seth was suddenly convinced he’d hit on where it was leading – were they about to discover the secret laboratory?

  He reached an almost invisible, narrow cleft in the rock. It had to be a way forward, and soon the three of them were squeezing through, disappointingly into yet another passage. Seth decided not to share his thoughts that he was starting to feel they were somehow being lured even further away from daylight. That somehow, from beyond the grave, Soul Snakesmouth was playing tricks on them.

  He felt completely trapped between the vague unease that there might be a rising tide behind and quite possibly a dark sorcerer ahead. But still he kept pressing on.

  ‘Checking out apple cake, he said. Peering at maps,’ Nightshade grumbled on.

  ‘Inspector Pewter?’ Despite Dex’s obvious admiration, Seth wondered, uneasily and not for the first time, just how good Pewter was as an inspector. ‘He’s not been looking for the laboratory or any signs of darkwitching?’

  ‘Had me and Celeste out on the hunt. Wanted a gull to give to Dr Malinger.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘Wanted to find out exactly how one of them died.’

  ‘He’s one of the best MagiCon inspectors,’ reassured Angelique, reading Seth’s look.

  ‘You mean a bit like Copious Bladderwrack was one of the best cleaners?’

  ‘You have no idea how complicated investigating magic is,’ said Angelique, as they carried trudging on. Then she stopped. ‘Is it me, or does the sea suddenly sound much louder?’

  They all stopped and listened.

  ‘Great!’ said Nightshade, shaking out her paws. ‘I wonder where we’ll come out.’

  ‘What makes you think we’re going to come out?’ asked Angelique.

  ‘Er – because we can hear the sea, that must mean we’re nearing the end of the tunnel. We must be near a beach.’

  Angelique glanced at Seth and sent a jet of blue light along the tunnel. ‘Unfortunately, that’s not the only reason we may be able to hear water.’

  Seth feared she was right. This was not the gentle slap of waves from somewhere just ahead, it was coming from behind them.

  ‘Is it me, or does that sound more like a torrent travelling very, very fast along an enclosed space?’ said Nightshade.

  ‘Run!’ yelled Seth.

  He grabbed Nightshade and followed Angelique down the tunnel, feeling his feet slide on the slime as he picked up the pace, still not sure they weren’t simply running into a dead end.

  ‘Can you get out your library card and zap us back to the library?’ he suggested breathlessly.

  ‘No time,’ replied Angelique crisply. ‘But I think there’s something giving off a magical signal right up ahead. Let’s hope it’s a way out. And not a dark sorcerer.’

  At least the ceiling was higher here. Seth kept on running, not daring to turn, but it only needed his ears to tell him that a huge cascade of water was following them and was moving fast. Then, abruptly, the tunnel stopped. They couldn’t run any further. They faced a blank wall of rock.

  ‘This can’t be it, we must have gone wrong,’ cried Nightshade.

  Angelique was desperately swinging the torch from side to side and floor to ceiling, but all it was showing was blank rock.

  ‘Any minute now this whole tunnel is going to be filled with seawater, and I am not a fish,’ said Nightshade, wriggling.

  ‘Shut up, Nightshade,’ snapped Angelique.

  Seth could only fearfully stare at the rock in front of them and think of that wall of water approaching fast. ‘Surely someone wouldn’t have built a tunnel without a way out,’ he said, trying to be practical and not panic, even as his ears latched on to the roar of water, making it difficult to think of anything other
than just how close it was.

  Angelique lifted her divinoscope, flipped the silver lid, cried ‘Duck!’ and flashed a zap of blue light right into the rock. The light fizzed and ricocheted off the walls. Angelique let out a sharp cry. Seth really hoped she’d seen what he thought he’d seen. Just a glimpse of a small wooden door revealed by the sparkling blue light, blending into the rock itself. But it vanished again the second the blue light faded.

  Angelique planted herself right in front of where it had appeared, running her fingers along the rock. Seth put down Nightshade and helped, scrabbling with his fingernails, feeling for anything that might be a handle. A way out. An edge, anything to show there really was a door.

  Angelique held the torch in her teeth and used both hands to frantically go over every inch of the dark rock in front of them.

  ‘Sea’s getting closer,’ said Nightshade.

  ‘Shut up, Nightshade,’ said Angelique and Seth together.

  If it really was a door, there was no light coming through. Seth put his shoulder to the rock and shoved and his shoulder crashed painfully. Nothing. The door didn’t give an inch.

  ‘I can feel my life flashing in front of me. It happens when you are about to die,’ said Nightshade, her green eyes closing.

  Angelique sent out another jet of light. This time, instead of sparking and rebounding off rock, the light hovered for a moment, sending blue shivers across the surface, and out of nowhere appeared an iron handle. Seth grabbed it before it could disappear, then he risked a look back and saw a wall of water racing towards them.

  He put all his weight into making the rusty old handle turn, but it started to give and the latch lifted, just seconds before the shock wave of cold water caught him.

  ‘I think I can smell kippers,’ said Nightshade.

  They all threw themselves against the door and fell through on to a solid flagstone floor.

  Seth turned and slammed the door shut behind them. He heard water hitting the other side like someone was practising knife-throwing. But the door held, and appeared to be watertight.

  Only then did Seth look up and see where they had come out.

  Not in the laboratory. In the kitchen of Snakesmouth Lighthouse.

  33. Do Not Alert Your Suspect

  As Seth and Angelique flopped on to the floor, grateful to no longer feel only impenetrable rock beneath their fingers and gasping the air gratefully, Inspector Pewter turned from where he was peering into a large saucepan. Seth caught a whiff of something spicy.

  ‘Ah, was that you knocking? And I was beginning to think you wouldn’t be back in time for dinner,’ said the inspector, as if they weren’t breathless and smelling like creatures of the deep.

  He took a small spoon, tasted a tiny mouthful of whatever was cooking in the saucepan, and winced.

  Celeste was staring at them in astonishment. ‘Were you . . . ? Where did you . . . ? I didn’t realize you were on the boat too. The others have been back a while.’ She looked confused, but as Pewter didn’t ask questions, she returned to prodding the bottom of the large saucepan with a wooden spoon.

  Seth turned back to the tunnel door. Now it was a blank wall. But it was exactly the place where, a couple of times, he had thought he’d seen something move out of the corner of his eye. As if the door only existed in shadows. He felt the wall all over, but it was completely smooth, with nothing to give away the fact that there was a door there, a secret passage that led to the coast path at the top of the deserted village on the mainland.

  Angelique’s hair and clothes were a soggy mess. She extracted a small glob of tunnel slime from her hair. Nightshade ate it in a single bite, sat down and started washing herself. They had brought bits of sand and seaweed on to the kitchen floor, which Seth swept up, avoiding looking too closely at what might be lurking in the saucepan.

  ‘Thought you were doing a pie.’ He gingerly lifted the lid and peered at a brown sludge.

  ‘Miss Celeste here decided to put together something a little more adventurous and surprising. Our own recipe. Did we come up with a name?’

  ‘Turnip curry!’ cried Celeste. ‘At least, we think that’s what they were. We found a pile of small round vegetables in a corner. And some other bits and pieces. We just threw it together. It’s a totally new recipe!’

  ‘Sounds delicious.’

  Celeste was frowning into the saucepan. She had forgotten again to put on her work shoes and was wearing her delicate little blue pumps, but she still had on that white cap that covered her hair.

  Pewter rubbed his hands together. ‘This is great, Seth; I do the cooking while you’ve been off investigating.’

  Angelique dashed out, muttering about how long hair and seaweed do not mix as she unthreaded tendrils of it from her locks.

  ‘Is it meant to be quite such a revolting brown colour?’ Celeste poked doubtfully at the dinner again. ‘I can’t believe how long it took. We seem to have been standing here for ever. Would anyone miss me, do you think, if I went for a lie-down?’

  With Angelique out of the way, Seth seized the chance to say: ‘First, Celeste, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Now we know Mina Mintencress was murdered, there will be questions. Like – have you really been working for her for years?’

  She eyed him sharply. ‘Oh?’ She tugged down her cap. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Seth. Are you accusing me of something?’

  Seth could almost hear Angelique’s sharp words in his ear, telling him this was not the way to go about investigating. You do not alert your suspect.‘What I mean is,’ he carried on awkwardly, ‘you didn’t really just start working for her, did you? Like, a couple of weeks ago?’

  Celeste moved closer to him. Her eyes, open very wide, were fixed directly on his. ‘Believe me, Seth, I have known her for absolutely ages.’

  Then she marched down the corridor to her room, looking really offended.

  Seth suggested that Pewter should lay the table in the dining room, and once the inspector was gone he started to try and salvage something edible from the mess in the saucepan.

  ‘Has anyone seen Brockler?’ said Lark, stepping into the kitchen, accompanied by Alfie. ‘Alfie wants to go beachcombing after the storm. I wondered if he wanted to come. We can’t find him.’

  Alfie looked unusually tense and tight-lipped, not at all as if he was desperate to go beachcombing.

  ‘Might he have gone beachcombing by himself ?’ said Seth, but he was thinking of Brockler’s tailored trousers, perfect hair and starched white shirts, and couldn’t see him taking off by himself to the beach.

  Lark was biting her nails and Seth realized she was seriously worried. She hadn’t even asked how they’d managed to get back.

  ‘I think we should look for him,’ she whispered. ‘After what happened to Mina.’

  ‘Right. Let’s get Inspector Pewter and organize a search.’

  Inspector Pewter was nearly done laying the table in the dining room and agreed immediately. ‘Missing, hmm? On an island as small as this one?’

  Lark hovered anxiously over by the door, out of earshot, with a strangely quiet Alfie.

  ‘How did you get on today, sir?’ Seth asked in a low tone as he watched the inspector rearrange all the knives and forks the wrong way around. ‘Did you solve the puzzle of the dead seagulls?’

  ‘Could not find a single blasted one. I fed your cat, though.’

  ‘Thank you. She’s used to living in a forest, where there’s plenty of food about.’

  ‘And you, young Seth, how did you get on? Find anything except a fascinating new route from the mainland?’

  ‘I was hoping,’ Seth replied in an even lower tone, ‘to find out if Brockler is the one who has been investigating darkwitching, sir. But . . .’

  ‘Tricky to prove, huh? You will learn that one of the most important things in any investigation is correctly seeing what you actually find. Far too easy to see what you want to and to disregard the re
st. Takes years of experience to tell the difference between the two. I’m only a beginner myself.’

  ‘So, were the dead seagulls important, sir?’

  ‘That is what I failed to find out.’

  Pewter pressed the tips of his fingers together and approached Lark. ‘Now, Miss Sunrise, have you thought of anywhere Mr Brockler might like to go if he fancies a little quiet time alone.’

  She shook her head. ‘His room was the first place I looked.’

  Pewter asked Seth for ideas. He had his suspicions of Brockler, but didn’t like to say much in front of Lark. He suspected Brockler of being behind Mina Mintencress dying and somehow using magic to make it look like an accident and gain control of the family fortune. But it was all guesswork. What evidence did he really have that the lawyer was up to something? And why would he now vanish?

  ‘I did find out that Brockler lied about where he got the dragon’s tooth pendant from,’ Seth said quietly enough that only the inspector would hear.

  Pewter leant forward. ‘Dragon’s tooth pendant?’

  ‘The one Brockler took from the bottom of the bath.’

  There was something in Pewter’s face that told Seth this was news to Pewter and he explained quickly that he’d discovered it was something that had belonged to Soul Snakesmouth, and why it hadn’t been here when Copious Bladderwrack cleaned the lighthouse. How Jo had pinched some objects and sold them to Brockler.

  ‘Mina took a fancy to the carving and he made it into a pendant so she could wear it. And there was a painting he was looking for. I’m pretty sure,’ Seth finished in a low voice, ‘that Brockler believed Snakesmouth was a sorcerer.’

  ‘When I said a moment ago about working out what is important . . . you didn’t think to mention this to me earlier?’ said Pewter. ‘It’s the kind of small detail, Seth, that might have been good to know straight away.’

  ‘Er – well, I only just found it all out. Sorry.’ There was no point in adding he felt he only ever seemed to say things that made him look an idiot whose understanding of magic was wrong. But there was no chance to explain anything. Pewter had already flown towards the back door.