She’d never seen a sea creature this close before. She now suspected that her parents were right to be scared. The two eyes in front of her, set deep in a flat, scaled head, were empty and unthinking. It didn’t care who she was or why she was there. She was about to be killed by a swimming vegetable.
It reached out a long arm and curled it around her shoulder like it was embracing her. Then it tangled its arm into her hair and peeled her away from the rock like a sea snail.
Sophie took a huge breath and tried to think. She was being dragged backward and under. The sword was too big to lift. And it was cold, dark, weirdly heavy under the water.
She started to grow light-headed. Was this what drowning felt like? It was slow and nasty and claustrophobic. Her brain sent her a message and she started kicking again, but her limbs were heavy and the creature was wrapping itself around her. It hummed a slow, mournful death tune as it started to squeeze.
She knew it wouldn’t last long. If she opened her mouth and sucked the water in, she’d be dead in half a minute. She remembered hearing that you pass out before you drown, which meant it couldn’t really hurt. Her hand loosened on the hilt of the sword.
And then something grabbed her foot. She vaguely thought that it was too small to be attacking her—maybe it was a killer starfish—but then she realized that it was a hand. It pulled her hard. The tentacles tightened their grip and pulled back. She was being dragged two ways at once. She was about to be torn in two.
This is not how I’m going to finish my life!
With a last burst of fury, she dragged her sword-wielding arm above her face and swung the blade down on the tentacle that had her hair. She missed her own scalp by inches. The blank-eyed monster screamed, recoiled from her body, and shot off, holding a fistful of her hair, which trailed behind it like silver streamers. Sophie dropped the sword and kicked to the surface. The hand holding her foot had let go. She burst through the water and took huge, burning gulps of air, then thrashed toward the garden as the sea creatures howled behind her.
Cartwright was standing in the water. He held out a hand as she came toward him, but she plunged past it. As she dragged herself onto the steep bank that rose into the garden, she heard gunfire and turned to see him with a pistol in his hand, putting bullets through a giant crab.
Manic was in a rose patch, chewing steadily, regarding her with something like hatred. She wanted to be angry at Manic, but it wasn’t the horse’s fault. She’d ridden him into the sea. She stole him, and took a sword, and rode him right into a death trap, and nearly got them both drowned. And Cartwright . . .
Cartwright was back on the island, dripping onto the ground. His expression was cold.
“You nearly killed my horse,” he said. “Never mind that you so kindly left me one of my tickets. I could have waved it like a flag while the monsters swallowed me up and you pranced off to the New Continent like the bloody fairy queen.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she said, and hated it because she sounded like a little kid. “No, that’s a lie,” she said. “I meant to. I stole your horse and tried to run away. I wish it had worked.”
He looked at her like she was mad. She felt mad, having been so close to death and having been saved like she was some idiotic damsel in distress.
“I listened to your story, you know,” he said. “You might as well have told me outright that you just take what you want.”
“Stop using that self-important voice,” she snapped.
“What,” he said, “is wrong with you?”
Mortification burned across her face. She didn’t know. She was hot and cold and wet and shivery, and it felt like a strip of skin had been torn from her back where the squid-thing had grabbed her. He reached forward and neatly took the wet ticket from her pocket, and she didn’t resist.
“Consider this for a while,” said Cartwright. “The reason I get across that monster-infested sea is because I know what I want. Horses like Manic respond to a firm hand and a bit of confidence. The reason you made him panic is because you didn’t actually want to leave.”
“Trust me, I don’t want to be here,” Sophie said.
“Don’t you?” he said. “I made you an offer of freedom. You must wonder what I want you to find in return. Think of the stories. Think what secrets this abysmal, worm-ridden house has. I could tell you things that would make your hair turn three shades whiter. Why is it white, by the way?”
“I sold my soul to the devil,” she said promptly. Cartwright looked momentarily impressed. Forcing her chattering teeth together, and hating herself for asking, she said, “What secrets?”
“Murder,” he replied, all cool again. “Guilt. Obsession. Inventions beyond your wildest dreams. You said you like stories; you’ll want a part in this one.”
“I don’t.”
“It’s too late now, anyway,” he said. “The deal’s off.”
He patted Manic on the side and walked off. The horse cast one long, disgusted look at Sophie, and followed.
“You’re wrong!” she shouted after him. “I know what I want!”
He didn’t reply. They trudged back to the stables, leaving her standing on the garden bank. There was a squelching sound, and she stamped on a tentacle that had crept up behind her. It withdrew with a hiss.
“He’s making things up,” she told the offending creature. “Isn’t he?”
But the truth was, she wasn’t entirely sure.
Chapter 9
The Glowfish Pits
Sophie was woken by the breakfast feeding bell, which shook the catacombs so ferociously a stalactite fell down and missed her head by an inch. She yelped and ran to the beach, still wearing nightclothes, crunching through the piles of flotsam. In a panic she grabbed whatever she could find: bones and clumps of seaweed and even things that looked like old clothes heaved up by the sea. She tossed them to the creatures. They took everything, screaming and seething and flinging themselves around so angrily stones fell from the side of the cliff.
Trudging back, Sophie became aware of the way her limbs ached, the way her skin was dry and peeling. The jellyfish welt on her arm was starting to scab and peel, and her hair had been jaggedly chopped off by the sword. It felt like there were burn marks on her shoulders, but she couldn’t work out where they came from. She touched them carefully and felt huge, raised welts.
Everything hurt, but it wasn’t just her limbs that felt bruised and battered. Something else was wrong, and whatever it was, it made her nervous. It wasn’t until she’d emerged from the tunnels that she realized what it was: guilt. She felt bad—just a little bit—about last night. Not that I should, she told herself sternly. Cartwright was pompous and annoying, and anyway, she had to look out for herself. She forced the guilty feeling away, packing it tightly into a box in the back of her head.
“You were late,” Scree said as she climbed the stairs from the catacombs into the house. “You can’t get sloppy. Monsters have a bad temper.”
“I know,” she said bitterly.
“There’s porridge for you in the kitchen,” he added. “Not that you’ll appreciate it. No one ever does.”
He was looking at her disapprovingly, too, like he was waiting for her to say something. Then she remembered that her hair had been cut off.
“Well, thank you,” she said, and gave him a look that said don’t even ask.
“Meet me in the catacombs when you’re done,” he said. “You’ve got fishing to learn.”
Realizing how hungry she was, Sophie crammed the porridge in her mouth like she’d never eaten before. She made a note to tell Scree how much she liked his cooking. Then she went into the darkness of the tunnels, drawn toward the old man’s lantern like a peculiar moth. He was waiting at the bottom of a large slope, muttering and tapping his foot. When she drew near he began to walk, and the tunnels opened up before them, endless and whistling wi
th the breath of the sea.
Sophie’s foot hit something cold and spindly, and she yelped when she saw it was a huge, mechanical spider lying abandoned on the floor. They were everywhere, piled against the walls.
“Cleaning spiders,” Scree said. “Laurel made ’em. You can wind one up if you want.”
“No thanks.”
Scree continued to weave his way through the tunnels as though guided by an invisible string, occasionally swinging his lantern toward the walls to chase away shadows.
“How far underground are we?” Sophie asked, trying not to sound worried.
“A long way,” said Scree. “But we ain’t drowning. We’re going to the Glowfish Pits.”
As soon as he said it the tunnel ended and they arrived in a dim chamber the length of a swimming pool. The Glowfish Pits were holes bored deep into the ground like toothless gaps in an old mouth. There were hundreds of them, stretching from the front to the back of the chamber, making it look like the surface of a sponge. The water at the bottom of the pits was like crushed green glass, and in each one swam a group of sluggish, faintly luminous fish with lanterns above their heads.
“Glowfish,” Scree said, balancing on one of the planks that stretched over the honeycomb floor. “Big one of these’ll feed us for a week. Porridge, stew, roast, bake, pie, you name it, I can make it from glowfish. This is the only place they can live without the creatures getting ’em.”
“Why are they glowing?” Sophie asked dubiously.
“They’re haunted, aren’t they,” he said. “It’s ’cause they live in the catacombs. There are ghosts down here, and ghosts like to haunt things that move, but they’re simpleminded, don’t realize they’re just inhabiting fish.” He snorted. “Don’t move too slow or you’ll get one, too.”
“Where does the ghost go when you eat the fish?” she asked, testing her weight on a plank.
“They dissipate, don’t they,” he said. “Don’t they teach you anything in school? That’s why the windows are steamed up. Ghosts dissipatin’.”
“Right,” said Sophie. “We didn’t really study ghosts at school. More oceanography and mathematics, that kind of thing.”
“Go on, laugh,” said Scree. “All the others did. You won’t be smiling when you fall in ’cause you ain’t been paying enough attention. The pits are deep.”
“I won’t fall in. I never get in tr—”
The plank she was standing on snapped in the middle. The last thing she saw was the back of Scree’s head, and then she was falling, too surprised to scream or even take a breath. She hit the cold water far below. It slammed against her back like a solid wall. And then she was under the water, eyes wide open and staring into the face of a bloated, ghostly glowfish.
Her skirt puffed up like a life jacket, and she floated to the surface. The glowfish, which had fled when she landed, gathered back around her. Seemingly unperturbed by the new species in their water, they looked at her with the faces of morose, overweight humans.
“Has she run away?” she heard Scree mutter far above, somewhere beyond the circle of light. “Has she left poor old Scree to drag the catch back by himself?”
“I’m down here!” she shouted, but he’d gone conveniently deaf. “Mister Scree! I’m stuck!”
He sneezed and shuffled back. His face hovered over the hole.
“What are you doing?” he asked. Sophie tried to fling some water at him, but she only got it in her face.
“I fancied a swim,” she said sarcastically.
“Bit cold down there,” he observed.
“Do you think?” She tread water, waiting for him to say something else. “How do I get back up?”
“Beats me,” he said, and disappeared.
“Hey!” she shouted, the words bouncing around the pit and scattering the glowfish again. “You can’t just leave me here!”
She paddled awkwardly. The water was so deep she couldn’t see the bottom, but there were definitely things down there that weren’t glowfish; she could see them faintly pulsing and squirming, rising slowly upward like balloons.
She looked up at the sheer rock walls and tried to think of a way to climb back up, pretending that she wasn’t extremely worried.
Scree returned, but instead of lowering a rope he slung a small waxed parcel down. She only just managed to grab it before it sank. Inside was a candle stub and a box of matches. Excellent, she thought. Now I can see what’s going to eat me.
“Hold the candle up and look at the walls,” said Scree. “I’ll meet you at the other end.”
“I—what?” His footsteps receded into the cavern and the light went with him, leaving her with nothing but the horrible luminescence. “The other end of what? I’m in a hole.”
She managed to light the candle, and held it high above her head. For a minute she couldn’t see a thing, then she realized that she was staring into a deep hole in the side of the pit. She swam to the other side, took a deep breath, and climbed through.
She landed in another network of tunnels and pits, smaller and more cramped than the catacombs above, and waist-deep in water. Glowfish swam around her as she held up the candle. She searched and saw, on the wall, a silvery arrow pointing toward another tunnel. The arrow had the same sickly look of the glowfish, like it had been painted with their blood, and it was only visible if she held the candle at a certain angle. She passed her hand in front of the light so the arrow flashed into and out of existence. Secret messages. She had to admire Scree’s wiliness. She’d thought he had some kind of sixth sense in the dark, but he’d been following directions all along.
She waded through the tunnels, until she came to an archway and a slope that went upward. Containing a whoop of delight, Sophie almost ran up it.
She emerged in a new chamber, and there was no water and no glowfish. The faintly glowing signs around the walls pointed to the house and the pits, and emergency squid exit, and . . . she squinted and moved closer to the wall.
“The Room of Remains,” she muttered. There was a large X drawn next to it. Entry forbidden.
She heard footsteps echoing in the tunnel and quickly moved away from the sign. She wanted to see what the Room of Remains was, but she had the feeling Scree wouldn’t be too happy with her if she poked her nose in. She continued up the slope and emerged somewhere close to the house, in a cavern filled with the murky light of the sea. She could hear the twins screaming upstairs, and the steady drip, drip of stalactites.
“I’m in here,” she called to Scree, then noticed a hulking shape in the corner. Something huge was hidden under a moldering dust sheet. She went to it, wrinkling her nose at the pungent smell of mold.
The sheet fell to pieces under her touch. Beneath it was a machine, something made of metal which was now entirely green, a car-shaped thing with an engine of cogs and pistons. It had three arms on either side, each with a hinged elbow and a grab-claw hand. On the front was a bronze mask with a thin pipe emerging from its mouth. It wore a coat of thin, white mushrooms, and one of its arms was extended as though about to pour a cup of tea.
Sophie felt a jab in her shoulder. She dropped the candle, then felt embarrassed and scowled at Scree, who was lurking behind her.
“Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to look at other people’s things?” he barked.
“Lots,” she said. She tried to stay annoyed, but the thing in front of her was too interesting. “What is it? Why has it got a face?”
“He thought it’d make it more approachable,” said Scree.
The bronze mask had two streaks of rust running down from its eyes and from the corners of its mouth. It looked like it had been crying.
“Who did? And whoever it is, he was wrong.”
“His lordship,” said Scree. “Laurel, who built this house. Cartwright’s uncle, the twins’ father. You know. Neptune rest his soul an’ give him
lobsters in heaven. This is one of his inventions.”
“It’s sort of horrible.”
“It makes coffee.”
She tried to make sense of the pipes running through the thing’s stomach, and gave up.
“It’s big,” she said. “Too big for a kitchen, even.”
“That’s why I put it down here,” he said. “And to stop the twins from wrecking it. They ruined a lot of their father’s stuff, and I don’t want to see it all go to pieces. It ain’t one of his best inventions, though. The inventions got worse, toward the end.”
“Before he died?”
Scree winced. She touched the long front arm of the machine and ran her fingers down the joints, wondering why Laurel would give the machine such a sad expression.
“He made his best stuff right after he built the house, when the twins were young,” said Scree. “The clock room with the bell, he made that for me. He made rooms that move around the house and machines that walk on two legs. Engines that collect oysters on their own, spiders that go up and dust the walls, lamps that light ’emselves. You’d swoon if you saw half the stuff he made.” He sniffed. “Not that it’s any of your business. I doubt you care.”
“Why do the twins wreck his machines?” she asked. Despite herself, she did care a bit. Scree pressed his lips together, and for a moment she thought she’d asked too many questions. This was the most he’d ever spoken to her in one go.
“They’re spirited,” he said.
“No,” she said carefully, looking sidelong at him. “They’re maniacs. You don’t have to be nice about them just because you’re their servant. Why are you their servant, anyway? Do they actually pay you?”
“They’re spirited,” he repeated.
“They’re psychotic.”
“Don’t you dare annoy ’em. You might think I’m a silly old man, but the only way to keep the peace in this house is to keep the twins happy. Not stir ’em up like Cartwright does.”
Looking frustrated, he flicked the arm of the coffee machine, which sent a long, sonorous bell through the cavern.
The Bone Snatcher Page 7
