“Sunni.” Blaise caught hold of her arm and said sternly, “Tell me what’s going on!”
She let out a long breath. “Something weird happened last night. We fooled around with a Ouija board at Mandy’s. She invited spirits in and all that. At first she was guiding the pointer thingy that spells out the spirit’s answers, but it took off by itself and spelled out the name Nell. It really was a spirit! Mandy had talked to it before.”
“Come on. You believe that?”
Sunni moved close to the mausoleum with BLACKHOPE engraved above the rusted door. She tried to peer into its dark interior through a tiny barred window but sank down and perched on the step.
“Blaise, the pointer was moving by itself, answering our questions,” she said. “It even spelled out the number fifteen when Mandy asked it how old she was. I’m telling you, Mandy is psychic but she’s been keeping it secret. I had no idea till last night.”
“Yeah, well,” he scoffed, picking at a piece of ivy growing over the mausoleum door. “Then what?”
Sunni’s head dropped. “Another spirit came in and took over when it was my turn to ask a question. The pointer went so jumpy it nearly scratched the board when it spelled the name out: Ishbel. Lady Ishbel from Arcadia.”
“What!”
She nodded mournfully. “Yeah. I even asked if it was her and it answered yes.”
“This has to be a trick. Mandy must have been controlling that Ouija board secretly,” said Blaise. “Or someone was helping her.”
“No. Whatever was controlling that thing wasn’t human,” Sunni said, her eyes wide. “So then I asked if I was being followed and the pointer said yes.”
“Why did you ask that?” Blaise’s stomach clenched. “Didn’t the girls want to know why?”
“Yes, but I gave them some story that I’d seen a shadow in the road. I just wanted to know if you’re imagining things about the guy in the hoodie,” she said. “Guess maybe you aren’t.”
“Okay, so now the whole world knows.” He swatted the ivy, annoyed. “Then what happened?”
“Just as I asked it who was following me, you phoned and everything went mad. The Ouija board spun round, Mandy’s presents went flying and the pointer came after me. Somehow Mandy calmed Ishbel down and made her go back to wherever she came from. Her dad’s banned her using the Ouija board and now she’s got the hump with me.”
“Oh boy,” Blaise groaned. “My phone call kicked that off?”
“I guess. Ishbel wasn’t one of your greatest fans either, since you took the map she wanted when we were in Arcadia.”
“Her spirit knew it was me on the phone?” He snorted. “And it wasn’t her map. She thought she automatically owned everything in Arcadia, but I found it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Sunni. She looked back over one shoulder and shuddered. “Lady Ishbel’s got her hooks into me now.”
“You think that because of what happened in the tent? Munro just saw something on your back. He didn’t say it was a girl.”
“What else could it be but Lady Ishbel?”
“You didn’t wait around to see the photo,” Blaise said. “We only have his word for it.”
“I don’t know.” Sunni chewed on her thumbnail. “I can’t get Ishbel out of my head now. The last time I saw her, she had turned from a living girl to a skeleton in seconds.”
“I know,” Blaise soothed. “But you’ll drive yourself crazy if you keep thinking of that.”
Her voice shook. “She’s buried somewhere in this graveyard, right?”
“The news said her skeleton had been buried here in the family cemetery.”
“Probably in this mausoleum, right?”
“I guess,” said Blaise. “I don’t see any new gravestones.”
“So aren’t spirits supposed to be at peace if they’ve had a proper burial?” she asked glumly.
“You should have asked that question at your séance.” Blaise shrugged. “Maybe there’s some kind of spirit rule book.”
“Thanks a lot. This is serious, Blaise,” Sunni muttered. “I asked her spirit what it wanted but it wouldn’t answer.”
He threw up his hands. “Sunni, you’ve got to get Ishbel out of your head.”
“Her spirit might be right here listening,” she said.
“Fine. She can listen all she wants. We’ve got other stuff to do.” He checked his watch.
Sunni rubbed her face and slowly straightened up. “Like what?”
“Have you had enough air?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here,” said Blaise, striding towards the gate. “This place gives me the creeps even in daylight.”
“I’m not going back to that tent…” Sunni jumped to her feet and hurried after him.
“We aren’t. Come on, we’ve got somewhere else to go!”
Chapter 5
Sunni could happily have gone home, leaving Lady Ishbel and Blackhope Tower behind. Instead she was marching up its spiral staircase and down a familiar corridor.
“What did you tell your dad and stepmum you were doing today?” Blaise asked.
“The truth.” She jutted her chin out. “That I was going to the Enigma Festival.”
“And they let you?”
“They didn’t like it at first but I told them this festival was educational.”
He laughed. “Educational!”
“Yeah, why not?” Sunni said. “Mr Bell’s here and other teachers are too.”
“Fair enough.” Blaise grinned.
She made a face. “But you never said we had to go to the Mariner’s Chamber.”
“You hung up so fast last night I couldn’t tell you anything.”
“And you still haven’t!” she said. “What did you want to tell me?”
Blaise didn’t need to answer. When Sunni saw the sign announcing Munro’s Oculus show times she almost turned on her heel to leave.
“Not him again,” she said, coming to a halt.
“Yes, him, but not for the reason you think,” Blaise said.
The door to the Mariner’s Chamber was cracked open but there was no light within. Sunni saw the end of a row of folding chairs and heard a few voices murmuring.
“It’s about to start.” Blaise nearly pushed her inside and she scrambled onto a vacant chair. She could just make out people’s forms in two rows of seats around her. Otherwise the chamber was black except for the hurricane lamp in Munro’s hand, a mysterious glow at the centre of the room and a large flickering image of a familiar raven silhouette projected on the wall.
Blaise slid into the seat next to her.
“Why is Fausto Corvo’s raven symbol up there?” Sunni hissed into his ear. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. That’s why we’re here,” he said.
Munro’s newly jacketed and top-hatted figure darted into the corridor and flipped the sign round to say ‘Performance in Progress’ before hurrying back inside and closing the door. The lamplight cut a path through the dark until it reached the glow in the middle of the room. Atmospheric music rose from somewhere in the background.
“Welcome to the Enigma Festival,” Munro intoned, holding the hurricane lamp up near his face. “I am Munro, photographer of spirits and collector of antique curiosities from around the world. And this” – he set the lamp onto a tabletop next to a glowing metallic object – “is the Oculus, a magic lantern invented by the extraordinary artist Fausto Corvo. For centuries there were vague rumours that he had made what he called his ‘shadow lantern’ but it was as mysterious as Corvo himself. We only knew of the Oculus because he drew a sketch of it. Few people, if any, ever saw the completed lantern.”
Sunni leaned in close to Blaise. “Did you ever hear about this before?”
“Don’t think so,” he whispered. “I might have seen the sketch but I can’t remember.”
Munro loomed in the low light. “The Oculus disappeared into the mists of time, forgotten, until I chanced to dis
cover it in a curiosity shop in Istanbul. The shopkeeper hadn’t a clue what it was, and nor had I until I had bought it and examined every inch. It was then that I realised I possessed one of the oldest magic lanterns in existence. I had a duty to share the Oculus with the world, and what better place to start than in the infamous Mariner’s Chamber, home of Corvo’s masterpiece, The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia?”
The audience breathed out an ‘ah’ as Munro carried the hurricane lamp up to the painting, catching colourful fragments of people, houses and sailing ships in its moving light.
Sunni caught her breath. The painting’s vivid cityscape looked so innocent but she knew first-hand the wonders and dangers that existed below the surface in the under-layers of Arcadia.
“This was the painting Corvo made before he vanished in autumn 1582,” Munro explained. “It is said he was on the run from a rich, greedy merchant called Soranzo, who wanted three magical paintings that Corvo refused to sell. It was said they contained the wisdom of the universe – and even the secret of immortality! But where the paintings are now, or if they even exist, is a mystery.”
We know where, Sunni thought. They’re safe inside The Mariner’s Return where no one can ever get to them.
“And here on the floor” – Munro stamped his foot in the dark – “there was once a black-tiled labyrinth designed by Fausto Corvo. Skeletons appeared on it from out of nowhere. Last winter, the skeleton of Lady Ishbel Blackhope appeared and the labyrinth vanished. She was the great-niece of Sir Innes Blackhope, who built this castle, and she’d been missing since 1600. Another deep mystery.”
“You didn’t mention that three local kids were found with her skeleton,” said a man in the audience. “The ones who went missing here and claimed they were inside the painting.”
“Kids with good imaginations,” grumbled another. “I’ll give them that.”
A couple of people chuckled and Sunni shrank into her seat.
Munro ignored the interruption. “And now, the new mystery of Corvo’s Oculus. What exactly is this ‘lantern of shadows’? On the face of it, it’s just a simple projector. It’s called Oculus, which means ‘eye’ in Latin.” He held his hurricane lamp above the Oculus so the audience could see it. “One lights a wick in an oil container inside, sticks a painted glass slide in this slot and the image appears on a wall in a dark room. The smoke goes up out of the little chimney so it doesn’t smother the flame. Simple.”
He set his hurricane lamp back on the table, just out of sight, and Sunni heard clicking and sliding sounds over the rising background music.
“And what of the glass slides?” Munro asked ominously.
As Corvo’s symbol vanished, drums rumbled and a hideous painted demon popped up on the wall, shimmering and leering.
A few audience members gasped.
“Medieval devils,” Munro called out as the demon vanished. The slides clicked and clacked in and out of the Oculus as he presented a macabre show. “Girls in glass coffins. Skeletal horses. Bats. Skulls with wings. Reapers. People of the past loved to be frightened just as much as we do today.”
A crude image of a grinning skeleton appeared, a scythe held high above its skull. A gust of air whistled from a gap somewhere and sent the oil flame jumping. The skeleton seemed to dance in the flickering light, its black eye sockets staring straight at Sunni.
“Is this Fausto Corvo’s work?” asked Munro, his voice rising again above the drums. “No! These crude painted slides were made later by craftsmen whose names are long forgotten. They were projected by travelling showmen in their magic lanterns.”
The reaper vanished and the drums died down.
“But this, ladies and gentlemen,” said Munro, “is one of three glass slides painted by Fausto Corvo. The detail and colour are so fine it could not have been painted by anyone else.” Unlike the others, this one made no sound when he inserted it. It slid into place and a square of colours and shapes appeared on the wall showing part of a richly furnished but empty room.
Sunni nudged Blaise’s arm excitedly.
“I know, I know,” he whispered. “Corvo definitely painted that. You can tell.”
Munro showed two more exquisitely painted images. “There doesn’t seem to be anything mysterious about the three glass slides Corvo painted to go with his Oculus,” he said. “As you can see, nothing’s frightening about them – no monsters, no ghouls. They’ve no figures in them and tell no obvious stories. I cannot help but wonder if there is something more to them than meets the eye.”
“So do I,” murmured Sunni.
“Maybe the spirit of Corvo is looking down on us at this moment, laughing at our ignorance,” said Munro in a wheedling tone. “Let’s see if we can unravel the mystery of the Oculus. I invite you to share your theories with me if you’d like to stay and have a closer look at the lantern of shadows. Thank you.”
Munro got a smattering of applause as he turned the overhead lights on and extinguished the Oculus and the hurricane lamp. As her eyes adjusted, Sunni looked round and a flicker of repulsion ran through her. The windowless plaster walls were a cold white under the ceiling lights and The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia seemed to rule the chamber like a king on its throne. Since last winter a rope barrier kept people from getting too close to the painting that had swallowed up Sunni, Blaise, Dean and Angus and hidden them below its surface. And somewhere in the stone floor there might still be an echo of the labyrinth that had transported them there, but its black tiles had vanished.
“What do you think?” asked Blaise, stretching his legs below the seat in front of him. “Stay or go?”
“Stay,” Sunni said, seeing the light of interest in his eyes. “He’s got my attention.”
“Yup, me too.”
One or two people chatted to Munro and examined the Oculus but everyone else wandered away, leaving the door slightly open.
“Hello again,” said Munro, recognising them with a rueful smile. “I’m glad you’re here because I want to apologise properly.” He appealed to Sunni. “I didn’t mean to upset you earlier. I get muddled sometimes and don’t explain things very well. When I catch sight of a spirit, I become completely caught up with it.”
“I wish I could say I understand that, but I don’t.” Sunni noticed him looking over her shoulder, as if he were searching for another presence. She sat forwards, uncomfortable. “I take it the spirit’s not hanging about right now or your cat would be staring at me.”
Munro was sheepish. “No. And Lexie would notice if she were. So would I.” The cat was curled up underneath a chair, sound asleep.
“Without your goggles?” asked Blaise.
“The amethyst-coloured lenses make the spirits stand out better but I don’t have to wear them.”
“Can I look at the photos you took?” Sunni asked.
“Ah, well. My camera’s locked away at the moment but I can tell you she was a young lady with long red hair, wearing old-fashioned clothes from another time and a pendant around her neck.”
Sunni’s face tensed at his accurate description. “So I can’t see the photos?”
“Of course you can. Tomorrow. I’ll print them out and put them in my display in the Mysteries and Curiosities tent,” Munro said. “But I have a feeling you don’t need a photo to know who I just described. Am I right?”
She nodded.
“How long have you known she’s with you?” he asked.
“Only since last night,” Sunni answered slowly. “After my friend did the Ouija board.”
“And invited in the spirits so close to Halloween.” He shook his head. “Your red-haired companion heard the call.”
“I wish she hadn’t. How do I get rid of her?”
Munro inhaled deeply. “Not easy to answer that. She’s chosen you for a reason.”
“Whatever it is, she’s picking on the wrong person,” said Sunni, but at the back of her mind she suspected Lady Ishbel’s spirit knew exactly what it was doing. Ishbel had openly dislike
d her in Arcadia, especially when she learned that Sunni had been in the company of Fausto Corvo’s handsome apprentice, Marin.
“Did you communicate with her?” asked Munro.
“Well, I asked a few questions but we didn’t get too far because we were interrupted.” She glanced pointedly at Blaise. “She doesn’t like the sound of phones vibrating.”
“What do you think Sunni should do?” Blaise asked Munro.
“Go about your business as best you can,” suggested the spirit photographer, “and try to put it out of your mind. The spirits will be lively until midnight, but then they’ll start to fade away.”
“And she’ll go back where she belongs?” asked Sunni.
“I’m sure she will,” said Munro.
Blaise nodded at the magic lantern. “Can we have a look at the Oculus while we’re here?”
“Of course.” Munro swung himself out of his seat and ushered them to the table.
The shadow lantern’s box-like body was engraved with stars, angels and flying birds and had an arm with a glass lens set into its outer end like a telescope. Munro pointed out a hinged door on the back of the lantern and opened it, squinting as if he were looking into a doll’s house. A half-burned wick floated in the oil lamp fixed to the floor of the lantern and the ceiling was inky with soot, even though there was a little chimney sticking out of the top.
“Any theories about Corvo’s glass slides?” Munro asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Blaise. “Maybe they were just scenes of places he’d been.”
“Like holiday photos? They seem a bit dull for that. A bit of a room with no one in it?”
“They must have been interesting to Corvo or he wouldn’t have made them,” said Sunni.
“What else did you find out about the Oculus?” asked Blaise.
“I think it was made for Corvo in Amsterdam by a metal smith called Henryk de Vos. His initials, HV, are engraved in the bottom. It came in this trunk.” Munro pulled a battered wooden chest out from under the table. A few words were painted in gold above a keyhole in the side. Some letters had worn off but Sunni could make out the word Oculus.
The Shadow Lantern Page 4
