Shadowghast

by Thomas Taylor

  Violet jumps forward and jams the orb into the dragon’s mouth. I run around the back and slam the lantern door shut, smothering the flame within.

  The Shadowghast lantern shakes violently, as if something inside is trying to break out.

  But then it falls still.

  The Shadowghast is gone.

  And we’re all left blinking in the blazing light of the stage.

  Until someone in the audience starts to clap.

  Then someone else joins in.

  Soon there is a smattering of hesitant applause from the audience—the people of Eerie-on-Sea—who seem stunned, but apparently also convinced that the show is now over. I’m delighted to see that behind them—cast by the brilliant light from the stage—their shadows are all back where they should be, clapping too.

  So, I take a bow.

  Well, it’s only polite, isn’t it? After all, surely this really is the most extraordinary Ghastly Night show anyone in Eerie-on-Sea has ever seen. I take Violet’s hand and we bow again, together this time.

  The clapping becomes a roar.

  “Bravo! Bravo, Herbie! Bravo, Violet!”

  Caliastra, looking dazed and confused, takes a bow—one that is probably more automatic than anything else. At this, the audience goes absolutely crazy. Even the fishermen jump to their feet and wallop their huge hands together at the bizarre spectacle of it all.

  “Jenny!” Violet cries, throwing her arms around her guardian. “Jenny, I’ve found you!”

  “Violet!” Jenny Hanniver gasps in reply, her shadow reassuringly at her feet again. “It’s like I’ve been lost in the eeriest dream.”

  “Golly!” says Mrs. Fossil, nervously blinking at the audience. She does a lopsided curtsy and almost falls over. Dr. Thalassi reaches out and catches her just in time.

  “Steady there, Wendy,” he says, pulling her upright again. “Steady!”

  And this strange but triumphant moment would probably have ended in a big group hug, and slap on the back for everyone, if what happens next doesn’t happen.

  But it does.

  There is an almighty explosion.

  All the stage lights go out at once. The old theater lighting rig, overloaded, has finally given up in the most spectacular way imaginable. Sparks rain down all around, and a flame flashes into life on the shredded theater curtains. A blaze quickly takes hold, casting an alarming new light over everything.

  “Fire!” Dr. Thalassi shouts. “Form a line! Everybody out! Women and children first!”

  The audience begins to move toward the exit as Tristo grabs a fire extinguisher and begins tackling the blaze.

  “Where’s Eels?” Violet says.

  I look around. How could we have forgotten to keep tabs on the villain behind all this mayhem?

  “I don’t know,” I reply. “I saw him crawling away behind the lantern, and then . . . I don’t know!”

  “We need to get out of here.” Violet pulls at my sleeve as the flames on the curtain turn into a roar.

  “But the lantern?” I say, pointing to it, gleaming in the firelight.

  There’s another crash, and a burning beam falls thunderously across the stage, landing between us and the lamp, knocking Vi and me to the boards.

  As I struggle up onto my elbows and stare in horror at the blaze, it’s clear that this fire is already beyond Tristo and his extinguisher.

  Then I see something behind the flames. It’s a shape—no, a shadow—darting desperately here and there across the back of the stage.

  Is it Sebastian Eels?

  Or the Shadowghast?

  Or is it the shadow of Mayor Bigley, freed at last from the clutches of the ghast, frantically seeking a body that can never now be found?

  “Herbie!” Violet cries, pulling me up. “Run!”

  And so we run, as more rigging falls, and the air is filled with inferno, and the Theater at the End of the Pier is engulfed in fire.

  The night the theater burned will go down in legend, I reckon. Already, as I think back over it from the safety of the morning after, my memories of the disaster have taken on a strange and dreamlike quality:

  The people of Eerie-on-Sea fleeing the burning building.

  Mr. Seegol’s startled, firelit face as he rushes to help.

  Dr. Thalassi organizing a human chain to bring water—in bucket after desperate bucket—from the sea.

  Violet—her dark hair wild against the blaze, her sequins sooty and one shiny shoe gone—taking a terrified child by the hand and promising to find his parents.

  Erwin, orange in the reflected firelight, leaping from the blaze. And the welcome pain of his claws as he clambered up to sit on my shoulders, barely a singed whisker out of place.

  The cheers of gratitude when the heavy skies over Eerie Bay—as if in answer to the pain of the town—broke in torrential downpour, beating down onto the fire in a million drops of sparkling rain, streaking clean the sooty faces of the townsfolk who fought to save the pier.

  “And it is saved, too,” says Violet, “or so the doc says. He sent a message. The fire is finally out.”

  “Surely not the theater, though,” I reply. “It looked like a goner to me.”

  “Well, from what I’ve heard,” replies a dark-honey voice, “some of the building still stands, Herbie, amazing though that sounds.”

  And Caliastra smiles her magical smile. It’s not quite as dazzling a smile as before—its owner is still getting over the shock of what has happened to her, and to all of us—but it is lit with a genuine warmth.

  “True, the stage itself is all gone,” she continues, “but the theater of Eerie-on-Sea will open again one day, I’m sure. And maybe I’ll perform there. In my right mind, I mean.”

  And she rubs her left hand, which is slightly burned from her own efforts to help tackle the blaze.

  “And Eels?” I ask—hating that I have to bring up the name of that man, but knowing we can’t avoid the subject forever.

  “No sign,” says Caliastra abruptly. “Vanished. In a puff of smoke.”

  “He might have actually gone up in flames,” says Violet darkly, “with the Shadowghast lantern and the rest of it. But . . .”

  “. . . but twice before we thought that he was gone for good,” I finish the thought for her, “and look how that ended up! Somehow I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Sebastian Eels.”

  “How did you realize, Herbie, that I wasn’t the villain?” Caliastra asks. “How did you know that Rictus was an imposter?”

  I pat the yellow-jacketed book beside me on the table.

  “Because of this,” I explain. “The Subtle Mask, by Questin D’Arkness. Or rather, because of what was inside it.”

  And I take out the flyer that was used as a bookmark by some long-forgotten reader and hold it up.

  “There’s only one mime artist shown,” I explain. “Tristo. I guessed that meant that Rictus was new to your act. And as soon as I thought that, the rest came to me in a flash. I remembered that whenever we saw the lantern—every time—it was Rictus who was the one taking that silver orb in and out, and controlling the light, not you.”

  “Whoever controls the light commands the dark,” Violet recites. “I can’t believe we didn’t see it earlier.”

  “Well, in a way, we did see it,” I add. “Or I did, back when you and your troupe first arrived at the hotel, Cali—may I call you Cali?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, back then, I noticed something funny when the sun shone on you all. It was so surprising that I didn’t understand it at the time. But I know now what it was: only one of you cast a shadow.”

  “Rictus,” Caliastra says grimly. “Sebastian Eels in disguise. It was very observant of you to have noticed something like that, Herbie. But then, I expect that comes from all your Lost-and-Foundering. Your curiosity and intelligence have saved us all.”

  I do a grin. I decide not to admit that I never wanted Caliastra to be the villain, which surely helped, too. I glan
ce at Vi and see that she won’t say anything either. It turned out that we were both wrong, in a way, about who the real Puppet Master was; though, for once, Violet was a bit wronger than me, and that’s a rare feeling I’m determined to enjoy.

  “Well, I was certain it was you,” Violet admits, turning to Caliastra, chin raised. “With your scary raven hair and wicked-witch eyebrows, I’m still a bit disappointed it’s not!”

  Caliastra and Violet lock eyes for a moment. Then they both break out in laughter.

  We are sitting, the three of us, at the best table in the dining room of the Grand Nautilus Hotel. It’s late for breakfast—no one got much sleep last night—but Caliastra has invited us, and already I can smell bacon from the kitchen, and sizzling hash browns, and see a trolley of freshly baked pastries being prepared. There is a fourth place set at the table, but it is empty.

  “So, how did it happen?” asks Violet then, posing a question to Caliastra I know she’s been itching to ask. “How did you meet Eels and get your shadow snatched in the first place?”

  “It was just as I said,” Caliastra replies. “That part, at least, was the truth. I have always been interested in the legend of Ghastly Night, and I really did correspond with Eels to find out more. He was considered the greatest authority on the legends of Eerie-on-Sea, after all, so who else would I write to? Sadly, he was very rude and unhelpful, and I gave up trying years ago. But then, one day this last summer, he wrote to me out of the blue and invited me to visit, to discuss a possible reenactment of the show. It was when he said that he had located the original Shadowghast lantern that I canceled my engagements and came straight here. The last clear memory I have is of going to his boarded-up house one night—with Mummery and Tristo—and watching him light the lantern and remove the silver orb from the dragon’s mouth. After that . . . everything is clouded.”

  “What’s it like,” I ask, “having your shadow snatched and being controlled by the Puppet Master?”

  Caliastra starts to reply. Then she starts again. Eventually, she shakes her head.

  “It’s so hard to describe. It’s like you’re yourself, and yet, there are these other ideas—thoughts that simply cannot be ignored—that crowd into your mind, and change how you see everything, and . . .”

  “It’s like a dream,” Violet says, “that only makes sense when you are dreaming it, but that you find, when you wake up, was really a horrible nightmare all along.”

  “And the things you said to me,” I ask Caliastra, fiddling with my fork, “about being my . . . my family . . . about . . . making me your assistant . . . and giving me a home?”

  It’s the subject no one has dared bring up yet. And now that I have, I’m fiddling so hard with my fork that it’s about to bend.

  Caliastra puts her hand on my arm.

  “Herbie,” she says with a sad smile, “I’d never heard of you, in all my life, until Eels put those thoughts into my head. I was never on the Fabulous, and that ticket was a forgery. As far as I’m concerned, there never was any such ship as the SS Fabulous. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “But why?” Violet asks. “Why would Eels do that?”

  “There was something.” Caliastra puts her hands to her head and rubs her temples. “It all seems so faint and muddled now, but it wasn’t just because Eels knew that Herbie’s shadow was safe from the Shadowghast. Eels deliberately wanted to turn you against each other, to stop you from working together. He was determined to poison your friendship.”

  “He didn’t succeed,” Violet declares, punching me on the arm. “Not even for a second!”

  I rub my arm, but I choose not to point out that this isn’t quite true.

  Besides, I still have a deeper mystery to consider.

  Why didn’t the Shadowghast like my shadow?

  Why am I different?

  Sebastian Eels told me once that the mystery of my past is bound up with the deepest secret of Eerie-on-Sea. Could the Shadowghast’s reaction be a sort of proof of that? That there’s something eerie about me?

  “All I know,” Caliastra says, interrupting my thoughts, “is that if you hadn’t stopped him, Herbie, Eels would have made puppets of everyone in Eerie and sent them down into the Netherways. I dread to think how many would have died down there. You have saved the town.”

  Violet nods in agreement.

  “What about Jenny?” I ask, blushing. “And Mrs. Fossil? They really were sent down there! How are they doing now?”

  “The doc says they’ll be fine,” Violet replies. “They need to rest, that’s all. But Jenny is itching to tidy her bookshelves, and when I checked on Mrs. Fossil on the way here, she was fussing over her broken hurdy-gurdy and worrying about scones. Everyone who was touched by the dark enchantment of the Shadowghast lantern seems already to be seeing the whole episode as nothing more than a fading dream.”

  “It’s amazing,” the magician declares then, shaking her head. “I have spent all my life pursuing magic, from royal palaces to capital cities, and I had to come to this tiny town on the edge of nowhere to find the real thing.”

  I say nothing. I can tell that Caliastra is about to leave forever. And I know that part of me, despite everything, still doesn’t want her to. Not, perhaps, because of who she really is. More because of who she might have been—and the aching hole in my life this represents.

  I feel my eyes prickle as I restraighten my fork.

  When’s this breakfast going to start, then?” I demand to know. My stomach backs me up with a deep gurgle you could probably hear up on the sixth floor.

  “As soon as our last guest arrives,” Caliastra says with a grin. “I promise.”

  Then she adds, as we hear a distant PING! from out in the hotel lobby, “Ah! Unless I am mistaken, this is her arriving now.”

  And through the dining room door trundles Lady Kraken, whirring along in her bronze-and-wicker wheelchair, accompanied by Mr. Mollusc.

  “Good morning!” the lady cackles, her turtle head bobbing from side to side. She is dressed in a fabulously swirling silk housecoat, and her hair—what’s left of it—is wrapped in a soggy towel held together by a vicious-looking hat pin. “I hope you don’t mind my state of undress. I had a night of weird dreams and strange notions and find I can’t quite be bothered this morning. Can’t quite be bothered at all.”

  “Good morning, Lady Kraken.” Caliastra gets briefly to her feet. “We understand. Please join us. There is one thing left to discuss before I leave town.”

  “Ah, yes.” Lady Kraken narrows her eyes at me and cracks her knuckles. “The business of the boy.”

  I gulp. Lady K parks herself at the head of the table, while Mr. Mollusc beams at me with wicked delight.

  “It may be,” Lady K launches straight into it, turning on Caliastra, “that after you came up to my rooms the other night to demonstrate your curious magical lantern, I gave you the impression that I was happy to let Herbert Lemon go. But, it turns out, this morning I am not so certain. That is to say, I am not inclined to give up my Lost-and-Founder. Not without much firmer proof of your connection than you have shown me so far, Mrs. Magician. And that, I suspect, is my final word on the matter. Dunderbrains don’t grow on trees, you know!”

  “What?” cries the Mollusc as he shakes out a napkin for Her Ladyship. “I thought the little so-and-so . . . I mean, I understood the boy was leaving us. I was told that Lemon was going . . .”

  “Stop flapping and give me that!” Lady Kraken seizes the napkin. “That is what we are here to discuss . . .”

  “Lady Kraken,” says Caliastra decisively, “I withdraw my claim on Herbie. I withdraw it entirely. I . . . I was the victim of a . . . a trick. One might almost say a magic trick. I am not Herbie’s family, and I’m sorry I ever said I was. I have no rights over him whatsoever.”

  “Indeed!” Lady Kraken fixes the magician with a yellow eye of annoyance. “Then we really do have nothing further to discuss.”

  “Except,” Caliastra adds, nervously straig
htening her own napkin. “Lady Kraken, in place of the claim, I would like instead to make an offer. To Herbie.” Then she turns to me to add, “And I would like him to consider it very carefully.”

  “Oh?” Lady Kraken’s mouth curls up as if she has just chewed a wasp dipped in lemon juice. “What sort of . . . offer?”

  “Herbie,” Caliastra says, placing her hand on mine, “even though I have no claim over you, and have no right to ask anything, I would like to offer you something that, maybe, you have always wanted.”

  “Um . . .” I manage to say, my eyes goggling out of my head. “Really?”

  Caliastra nods, as if reassuring herself.

  “I would like to offer you that new life after all . . . I mean, that place at my side . . . I mean, the position of magician’s assistant. What I’m trying to say is . . . Herbert Lemon, I would like to offer you a home.”

  And I can say nothing. It’s all I can do to push my cap up out of my eyes so that I can stare in disbelief at the woman with the raven hair as she hits me with her most dazzling smile, full beam.

  “Somehow,” she explains, “despite the fog and uncertainty of the last few days, I have noticed your resourcefulness, your loyalty, and your amazing spirit. I’m not surprised to hear you are the greatest Lost-and-Founder the Grand Nautilus Hotel has ever had. If I ever did have a nephew, or . . . or a son, I would wish him to be just like you.”

  I blink in reply. It’s the best I can do right now.

  “Of course, I know it wouldn’t be a home like most people have,” Caliastra continues. “We would travel much of the year. But I can promise you constant adventure, applause, and acclaim wherever we go, and a glamorous life of luxury, bright lights, and illusion. And one day, once I have taught you everything I know, you would—as my son and heir—take over from me and—I have not the slightest doubt—become one of the greatest magicians of the age.”

  “Well!” declares Lady Kraken into the stunned silence that follows. “This is quite a turnabout, isn’t it? Looks like you’ve got it made, boy. If, that is, you want it made. Hmm?”