Moonlocket

by Peter Bunzl

  They hit the surface and Robert spewed water and spluttered out a choking scream. His face was pale, his hair plastered in a question mark across his forehead, and his eyes were wild and red with fear. He was alive! Lily’s heart sang with relief.

  “Hold on to me,” she said. “I’ll save you, I promise.”

  Robert put an arm around her shoulder, and together they swam for the shore. Lily could see a quay; if they could get to that, it would just be a short step to dry land. “Kick harder!” Lily cried. “Together!”

  Robert did his best, but somehow the weight of him was working against her strokes. The waves raged higher and higher. And the shore got no closer. In fact, it seemed to be receding…the river was lugging them further and further from it, towards the concrete piers of Tower Bridge.

  Just as her hope was fading, Lily heard the sound of a long low howl. She looked around frantically and behind them saw a little boat. A tiny figure with scruffy black hair sat in its seat, pulling on the oars to navigate it over the hills and troughs of each wave. Malkin was standing at the stern, his head darting this way and that, searching for them.

  “Over here!” Lily cried, and gasped with relief when Malkin pricked up his ears and barked to Tolly. “This way!” Tolly turned the prow of the boat towards her, and she called out again until her throat was raw, so they could keep track of where she was.

  Finally the boat came alongside and Tolly and Malkin dragged them over the gunwale. They flopped down in the stern and lay on their backs, staring up at the sky.

  Robert curled against Lily’s side and coughed, sobs racking his body.

  The boat tossed and turned in the storm, but somehow Tolly managed to row her onwards, under Tower Bridge. By the time they came out the far side, the storm was drifting further upriver. Lily sat up in the stern and stared wearily around. She could see white flashes over far steeples, illuminating the sky. Robert stretched an arm around her and gave her a hug.

  “What happened?” Tolly asked.

  “Jack sank down to Davy Jones’s locker,” Lily told him. “He was struck by lightning.”

  “I saw that bolt when I was struggling in the water,” Robert said. “It was the biggest lightning storm I’ve ever seen. It lit up the whole sky. Then struck Jack and bounced in a thousand streams out through the diamond…” His face fell. “The diamond…” he said.

  “I’ve still got it.” Lily opened her fist to reveal the Blood Moon Diamond in the centre of her palm.

  “I can’t believe it!” Tolly said.

  Lily gazed out across the river. In the west the moon was fading like a ghostly penny, but in the east, behind the dissipating storm, a dawn light signalled that the day was about to break. “Somewhere,” she said, “Papa and the police are looking for us; Anna too.”

  “I hope Caddy and my ma are all right,” Robert said.

  “They’ve every chance now,” Lily said. “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

  “Let’s get this boat ashore and go and find them,” Malkin snapped. “We seem to have spent half this week soaking wet, and I’ve decided that’s not my kind of adventure!”

  “Right you are!” Tolly said. He took one oar, and Robert the other, and they rowed towards a rickety pier.

  London had always been a stinky city, what with the horse droppings, the rubbish and the steam-wagon exhaust fumes; the flavour of it tended to embed itself in people. But no one there that day smelled as bad as Robert, Tolly, Malkin and Lily – even their bath in the Thames and the heavy storm had failed to rid them of the foul aroma of sewage. It hung about them as they walked through the streets, and the morning crowds, gathering early for the Queen’s Jubilee parade that afternoon, parted for them like the Red Sea.

  As they approached the Mechanists’ Guild, the nearby clock tower at St Paul’s was striking nine o’clock. Their stench arrived a few minutes before they did – in fact it was already inside and halfway up the stairs as they rang the bell, for the various professors with rooms off the main lobby were throwing open their windows and exclaiming in disgust at the loathsome odour.

  When Mr Porter opened the door for them he didn’t know whether to let them in or run away. They barged past him and ran down the corridor, bursting into Papa’s workshop, where the Elephanta stood. Papa was pacing around it, trying to think; one hand ran agitatedly through his hair, the other held his nose. Anna and Captain Springer milled around anxiously, but neither of them was as jittery as Papa.

  As he came round the Elephanta’s flank, he suddenly spotted them, and was confused, shocked, delighted and amazed all at the same time to realize that they were the source of that incredibly strong pong.

  “Lily and Robert, thank goodness you’re fine!” Papa exclaimed. His arms shook as he embraced Lily, then gave Robert a bear hug. “And Malkin.” He picked the fox up and kissed his furry forehead, and then was so pleased that he did the same to Tolly, who was standing to one side.

  “I was worried sick. Especially about you, Lily. When I returned last night and found you’d run off, I searched everywhere. I knew you must have gone to find Robert.”

  “Then I arrived,” Anna added, “and told him about the clue you’d decoded, and how I had sent you back to the guild. But you never returned here.”

  “We were in the sewers,” Lily began to explain. She stopped – there was too much to tell, and she didn’t know where to begin.

  “My ma?” Robert blurted out. “And Caddy? Did the police find them? Are they safe?”

  John put a hand on his shoulder. “They’re fine, son. Constable Jenkins called by first thing to say they’d rescued them. Caddy dropped a sheet out of the window and waved to alert people. The inspector should be bringing them here at any moment. He thought we might be able to pool our information to find you.”

  Robert was relieved, but he wondered how Selena would feel about losing Finlo, and Jack too. They were her family, no matter how horrible, and his as well – even though he barely knew any of them. But perhaps, now that Selena was free of her awful past, that might change over time? Perhaps the broken pieces of the family might start to come back together? Or maybe they wouldn’t… He glanced at John and Lily, talking joyfully together – could he truly join their family?

  As he was wondering this, Selena and Caddy burst into the room, along with Inspector Fisk.

  “Robert, my darling, my dear one. My brave-hearted son!” Selena pulled him into a deep embrace.

  “We’re so happy to see you,” Caddy said. “We’ve been fretting about you all night!”

  “I was worried sick,” Selena added. “When we woke up you’d disappeared. I told the inspector, they must have taken you to Queen’s Crescent and the Fleet…”

  “Miss Quinn here explained where you were too,” the inspector nodded towards Anna, who smiled at them. “But when we got there, the place was empty. The property had been broken into, yet, according to the landlady – who seemed to have just woken up – nothing was taken. We found the entrance to the sewer beneath the house, but when we opened the drain cover the water was so high, we thought you couldn’t possibly have… There wasn’t even a Jack of Diamonds playing card as a clue!”

  “We’re all fine now,” Robert said, and he kissed his ma’s cheek. Then he took the Moonlocket off and hung it around her neck. “This is yours, I think?”

  “Thank you,” she mumbled, taking it up and turning it in her hand. “It really has caused us nothing but trouble. It’s a legacy that’s cursed the Door family almost as much as the legend of that diamond.”

  “The diamond, of course!” Lily took it from her pocket. It glinted and flickered in the sunlight, throwing bright red sparks about the room. “Now that we found it we should return it to its rightful owner at once.”

  “I’m sure the Queen will be delighted,” Inspector Fisk said.

  “I didn’t mean the Queen. I meant the Elephanta.”

  Lily stepped towards the mechanimal. Her cogs and parts were n
o longer scattered around on the workbenches, but still she wasn’t moving. That was because Lily had the final piece of the puzzle to make her tick.

  Papa raised a hand to stop her climbing the ladder leaning against the Elephanta’s side, but she brushed it aside. When she reached the top rung, she carefully placed the diamond in the Elephanta’s forehead. Then she took the gigantic winding key hanging on a chain round the Elephanta’s neck, put it in the hole beside the stone, and wound her.

  As Lily descended the ladder and moved away, a noise like a thousand grandfather clocks ticking came from deep inside the Elephanta’s chest.

  The Elephanta blinked and opened her big wooden eyes. Her large leather ears, wrinkled as cabbage leaves, flapped about. The various segments in her trunk moved together as she waved it around and she trumpeted loud enough to shake every jar of cogs in the room.

  The inspector put up his arms. “I say,” he cried. “Step back, everyone, heaven knows what the beast will do.”

  Then the Elephanta turned and spoke to him in a resonant, melodious tone. “I’m not a beast, I’m perfectly well behaved. If anyone is beastly, Sir, it is you. I was having such a nice sleep, but I thought I might carry on for ever… Until this girl woke me, that is. I shall never forget that. Never.” She smiled at Lily beneath her trunk. “What is your name, child?”

  “Lily.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Lily.”

  Papa spoke up then. “We needed to ask you if you might march in a parade for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee?”

  “Still the same Queen?” asked the Elephanta.

  “Yes, Victoria,” Anna said.

  “In that case,” the Elephanta proclaimed, “I think I might, if Lily and her friends are allowed to attend.”

  Lily clapped her hands together in excitement and looked round at everyone. Malkin was sitting beside Papa, while Robert stood between his sister and ma, and Tolly with Anna.

  “I think they need to answer a few questions before that,” the inspector said. “About Mr Door.”

  “Surely those can wait?” the Elephanta said. “When does this procession take place?”

  “In about three hours’ time,” Papa told her.

  From her place on the howdah on the back of the Elephanta, Lily could make out the dumpy figure of Queen Victoria, a hundred feet in front. She was sitting in her landau carriage, with its eight white horses, waiting patiently for the Diamond Jubilee celebration to start. She had on the traditional black mourning dress, which she always wore in memory of Albert, and was holding a white parasol to shield her from the noonday sun, which was shining like a jewel in the sky after the morning’s ragged storm.

  The Queen’s carriage set off and, as soon as she’d left the courtyard, the rest of the parade began following behind her in a long snaking line, traipsing through the low-rise houses of Greenwich. The Elephanta, carrying Lily and Robert’s families, plus Anna and Tolly, on her back, marched somewhere near the rear of the column.

  Everyone ran to the edge rail of the howdah, leaning over it to watch the city go by. Malkin jumped up and poked his head between the lower bars to get the best view.

  Down on the streets, people were decked out in red, white and blue – the colours of the Union Flag. Arches had been built at various intervals along the route and were garlanded with bouquets of brightly-coloured flowers – red roses, bluebells and white lilies. The crowd waved flags, shouting and cheering and generally enjoying themselves in the June heat.

  Lily, Robert, Tolly and Caddy waved back at them from their position on top of the Elephanta. But Malkin didn’t hold with waving and claimed he couldn’t manage it with his paws anyway.

  Though they were near the end of the long procession, they discovered that the crowd of onlookers still gave loud hoorahs and waved their flags madly when the Elephanta walked by. Barring the Queen herself, the Elephanta was the next most popular attraction. Lily felt elated that she and Robert had found the diamond and brought her back to life, and she was so glad that the Elephanta had insisted they take part in the spectacle.

  It’d been a comfort helping to prepare for it that morning, and had taken their minds off the terrors of their adventure. There’d been time to wash and tidy themselves up, and they’d found a marvellous spare set of tweeds for Tolly to wear. Then they’d scrubbed Malkin clean too, and – in deference to the gaiety of the occasion – Lily had tied a huge blue bow around his neck. He’d complained to her most vociferously about that, but she’d just ignored him and changed into the fresh clothes Papa had brought her from home. She had to admit it had been a great relief to finally get rid of that awful sewer smell, and she felt extremely proud to be on show in her smart new green dress and bonnet, next to Robert, who looked rather dashing in a fashionable black suit. In between the raucous shouts, flag-waving and loud music, Lily made sure she hugged him and told him so.

  “Thank you,” he replied, grinning at her from ear to ear. He was about to say something else when the Elephanta interrupted him with a loud bellow and Papa, Malkin, Anna, Tolly and his ma and sister all cheered.

  Shadows drifted overhead as the procession approached the river. Robert and Lily glanced up to see the entire fleet of red zep balloons with the gold insignia of The Royal Dirigible Company on each, performing a synchronized fly-by over Tower Bridge. Their bulbous shapes were reflected in the Thames, where a long flotilla of barges, boats and paddle steamers streamed along the river in a separate display.

  As the Queen in her carriage crossed the bridge, she waved down to the boats and then at the onlookers crowding the walkways and towers. Lily thought her arm would probably be aching by now, but the Queen never lowered it, not for one moment.

  Soon the whole cavalcade was passing the Tower of London. The Elephanta barely flinched when the cannons atop its walls fired off the twenty-one gun salute.

  When they reached Blackfriars they turned and headed up Farringdon Street. They were marching above the route of the Fleet River. Lily looked down at the road – it was hard to imagine they’d been deep under this very street last night!

  The parade turned onto Ludgate Hill, marched past the Old Bailey and then on to St Paul’s Cathedral itself, which had been spruced up and shone as white as a wedding cake in the afternoon sun.

  By the time the Elephanta arrived in front of the cathedral, a big cheer was rising for the Queen, who was being helped down from her carriage. In a moment she would make her way up the steps, through the grand double-doored entrance, and into St Paul’s.

  Everyone was waiting. But instead of heading that way, the Queen turned and walked along the length of the procession. Finally she stopped beside the Elephanta. The Elephanta looked at the Queen, and the Queen looked at the Elephanta.

  “Good afternoon,” said the Elephanta.

  “Good afternoon,” said the Queen.

  Lily thought they sounded quite alike.

  Victoria’s eyes alighted on the Elephanta’s forehead and she smiled. “Albert’s diamond,” she said softly to herself, under her breath. Only Lily, leaning over the railings of the howdah, caught the words quite clearly.

  It was then that the Queen glanced up and noticed her.

  “You there,” said the Queen. “Throw down a rope ladder!”

  Lily did as she was bid and the Queen climbed up towards her and clambered onto the back of the gigantic mechanical elephant.

  Papa quickly took the Queen’s hand and helped her into the howdah. “Oughtn’t you to be heading into the cathedral, Your Majesty? For the ceremony?” he asked.

  “This will only take a moment,” the Queen answered. She turned to Lily. “Are you the one who recovered my diamond and fixed the Elephanta?” she asked. “The one who deserves the reward?”

  Lily dropped her best curtsy, at least as well as she could remember it from her lessons at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy last year.

  “Yes, Your Majesty, but I had some help from my friends.” She waved at them. “Master Robert Town
send, Mrs Selena Townsend, Miss Caddy Townsend, Master Bartholomew Mudlark…and Malkin.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty,” Robert said, bowing his head.

  The others did the same, following his lead.

  “And you,” the Queen replied. “And what a marvellous cinnamon-coloured cat!” she exclaimed, staring at Malkin. “I’m more of a dog person myself. I have ten of those, you know – spaniels and pomeranians mostly – one’s even a mechanimal – but I’m not averse to cats. A cat may look at a Queen, so they say, ha-ha!”

  “I’m a fox,” Malkin replied.

  The Queen took a pince-nez on a chain from deep within a pocket of her voluminous dress and perched it on her imperious nose, peering at Malkin. “Good heavens! So you are! And a jolly fine fellow.”

  She smiled at each of them. “Thank you so much for repairing this marvellous creature. It is wonderful that the return of the diamond has allowed it to run again. But it’s not only that…the Blood Moon Diamond is very valuable, and I don’t mean monetarily, I mean emotionally. You see, my husband Albert gave it to me as a present, and it has strange and great powers, because it was found on a full moon, on the date of a lunar eclipse…”

  “The twenty-first of June 1815,” Lily interrupted.

  The Queen’s gaze softened. “Exactly right! How did you know that?”

  “I discovered it today,” Lily said.

  “You certainly are a most remarkable child!” She turned to John then. “This is your daughter, Professor Hartman?”

  John nodded. He was somewhat dumbstruck. “You don’t know the half of it,” he said.

  “Anyway,” the Queen continued, “it was discovered that Moon Diamonds have life energy trapped in them. As your father will tell you, every mechanical has a smaller sliver of a similar Blood Moon Diamond inside them, for it contains such power that it’s able to bring them to life.”

  Lily put a hand to her chest and felt the Cogheart beating and thought of the sliver of diamond inside it.

  “When Albert commissioned the Elephanta from the Mechanists’ Guild,” the Queen continued, “he wanted her to be powered by the biggest diamond of all. But the creature took so long to build it was only completed after his death. Then, on its debut outing, as we all know, the diamond was stolen by Jack Door.”