The Bone Snatcher

by Charlotte Salter

  Terror seized her. Sophie tried to get out from under the bed, then realized that the Battleship was about to come in and she would be trapped. She fumbled her way back under, cracking her head on the bed frame. Just as she pulled her feet under, the door opened and the Battleship oozed in. From the shadow on the floor Sophie could see her head swivel like an owl’s, surveying the land. She sniffed again like a hunting dog.

  “My sight and hearing are bad, but I can smell a thief from a mile away. Where are you hiding? What are you looking for?”

  Sophie could smell it herself, the scent of fear and unwashed feet, the mustiness of the catacombs that now seemed to be a part of her bones, the fish she’d been eating at mealtimes. But maybe it was a trick—something to frighten her and flush her out. Let it be a trick, she begged to herself.

  “Found you,” said the Battleship, and as Sophie tried to squirm farther away a hand grabbed her ankle. She scrabbled at the floor, catching splinters of wood under her fingernails as she was dragged out. “Slithery little fish. I warned you once.”

  Sophie was hoisted a few feet above the floor, upside down, her silvery hair falling over her face like a curtain.

  “I came to get the Monster Box!” she gasped as the room swung around her.

  “What makes you think I’ll give it to you?” the Battleship said incredulously, shaking her like a bag of coins. “Who are you to take it?”

  “I know you want me to find it.”

  “UNTRUE!” the Battleship screamed, and threw her down. Sophie hit the floor with a crack and scrambled into the corner, head ringing.

  “It’s driving you crazy,” she said. “I can get rid of it.”

  “You won’t take my house away from me!” the Battleship yelled. “I married Laurel! I put up with him even when the oysters disappeared, and then I put up with his boys! I deserve to keep the house! I’ve worked for it!”

  “I don’t want the house!”

  The Battleship lunged toward Sophie, but Sophie was quicker, and she threw herself toward the bed as her attacker plunged headfirst into the wall. The Battleship got up and swiped her huge paw at Sophie, who dodged the blow, wriggling off the bed with her teeth bared. She ducked again and again as the Battleship tried to snatch her, until they were almost at the door. But just as she was about to grab the handle a blow caught the side of her head, and she was knocked across the room into the half-open window. The room swayed and her legs turned to jelly as the Battleship advanced, blocking Sophie’s escape route. She could feel the air at her back and the empty drop beneath her, a hundred feet or more, right into the sea and the crooked rocks and the salivating creatures below. Her stomach plunged, but she looked the Battleship straight in the eye.

  The Battleship shook her by the shoulders.

  “Any last words?” she said. “Anything you want to say?”

  “Yeah,” said Sophie as the windowsill hit the small of her back again and again. “I’m sorry for you. You should have left this place years ago, but you were too scared. Now you’re stuck, and it doesn’t matter who you throw out of your window because you’ll never leave!”

  “Too late for words,” said the Battleship. “Gobble gobble! The monsters are having girl for breakfast.”

  Sophie was snatched up by the neck and suspended over the windowsill. Her heart was bursting out of her chest, and she could no longer pretend that she wasn’t scared, because this was it. She was going to die.

  And then she saw it. A corner sticking out of the pile of rugs at the top of the bed. Enameled blue, with a twisted, many-mouthed lock peeking out. And even as she started to black out from the pressure of the grip around her neck, Sophie felt a wave of sadness for the woman who used the Monster Box as her pillow every night.

  “So close,” she mumbled. After all this, Cartwright would never know where the box was, and the world would never be rid of Sea Fever. It was so horrible it was almost funny.

  “What?” the Battleship asked, lowering her slightly. Sophie’s feet found the windowsill, and she managed a strangled breath. Her sense began to return. She dimly remembered that she always had one weapon on her, but she couldn’t remember what it was.

  “What?” the woman barked again, shaking her so hard she bit her tongue.

  Ow, she thought. And then: Ah.

  “I win,” Sophie said, and sank her pearly teeth into the Battleship’s wrist.

  The woman yelped and dropped her, and Sophie only just had the presence of mind to grab her huge pearl necklace to keep herself from falling. The Battleship shrieked and stumbled back, shocked by the thing hanging off her, and Sophie dropped to the floor and grabbed the box.

  “GET BACK HERE!” the Battleship shrieked as Sophie raced through the door with her prize.

  She plunged down the corridor, sending up spray as her feet hit the floor. The Battleship was close behind, blocking the light and coming at her like a landslide. Sophie leaped down the stairs to the entrance hall three at a time, falling over at the next landing, and scrambling away just as the Battleship’s hand grazed her ankle. Every inch of her was focused on reaching Manic, and as she neared the entrance hall a ferocious triumph overwhelmed her. She was almost there.

  She swung round the corner at the bottom of the next set of stairs, just missing a suit of armor that she hadn’t known was there. She stumbled, just for a second, then instead of passing the door she raced into an unfamiliar corridor crammed with junk.

  Sophie almost dropped the Monster Box when she realized what she’d done. She’d never seen this hallway before, and the carpet looked like it hadn’t been walked on in years. There was no room to turn back with the Battleship on her tail, so she kept going. She skidded into a dead end, and stopped, furious at her own stupidity. She bent over to catch her breath, aching with despair. The Battleship slowed to a walk.

  “I am sorry, little magpie,” the Battleship said. “When you catch a fish, you ought to bash its head against the floor to stop it from suffering, but dead girls mess up the carpet. I’ll have to decide what to do with you later. Don’t make any noise or I’ll do something nasty. I don’t want the boys to know you got your hands on their box.”

  Sophie, with a burst of anger, leaped up and tried to push past her, but the Battleship jerked her foot and sent Sophie sprawling. With her foot planted firmly on Sophie’s back, she threw a painting off the wall, revealing a huge door with a handle in the shape of a gargoyle. Sophie tried to squirm away, but it was no use. From inside her dress the Battleship drew a bunch of keys, selected one, and twisted it inside the lock.

  The room inside was completely dark, and as unknown and terrifying as the inside of a sea creature’s stomach. Sophie felt her mouth turn dry.

  “I’ll take that,” the Battleship said, removing her foot. She stooped to wrestle the Monster Box from Sophie’s arms, lifting her up as she clung on.

  “Give it back,” Sophie spat. But the Battleship shook her off, then gave her a small nudge that sent her sprawling into the dark room.

  “You won’t have to wait long,” the Battleship said. “Careful of the sharp things.”

  The Battleship wedged the Monster Box under her arm and locked the door, leaving Sophie in darkness.

  Chapter 24

  The Obvious Untruth

  In Which the Power of a Story Is Revealed

  From the way her breathing filled the space Sophie knew that she was in a cramped, junk-filled room. After the Battleship had trundled off down the corridor, everything was silent. Every time Sophie moved there was a stirring along the wall, a fluttering motion like it was covered with sleeping bats. Was there someone there with her? She held her breath and the feeling ebbed away.

  Cartwright would be wondering what had happened to her. Maybe he’d come and find her, and she’d tell him where the box was, and they could grab it before anyone knew she’d escaped. Unless the twins
had already found him waiting by the door with Manic, in which case he was done for. And even if he did come looking for her, why would he come to the end of the lonely corridor, and pull this painting off the wall, and even then how would he open the locked door?

  Sophie held her hands out in front of her and stepped forward, trying to find a lantern or candle. She walked straight into a metal contraption with levers and rollers that felt like a giant typewriter, and got her hand stuck in it. There was a brief struggle with the machine before she pulled herself free. As she stumbled her hand brushed over a brass plaque, which she pressed under her fingers to read.

  Laurel’s Patent Printing Press

  Where the Stuff of Dreams Is Made!

  She pulled her fingers back like they’d been burned. Nothing good had ever happened after finding one of Laurel’s inventions. She moved away, meeting the wall, which was dry and flaking, with bits of wallpaper peeling off like scales. She cautiously ran her fingers over the paper, and found a small metal switch.

  She had no idea what to expect, but her curiosity won and she flicked it anyway. She covered her eyes as a dim glow filled the room, coming from a glass bulb in the ceiling. When she was able to see she wished she hadn’t flicked the switch at all.

  The whole room was gold, its walls and ceiling plastered with individual pieces of paper that gleamed under the lightbulb, each one pinned in place with a thumbtack. There must have been thousands of them, each with the same spidery handwriting which made it look like there were immense black cobwebs stretched over everything.

  She squeezed her eyes tight shut, and the part of her brain that saved her in the clock room, the part that made her bite down on the Battleship’s wrist, said insistently, Look again!

  She did. The walls were plastered in precious, priceless tickets to the New Continent. Sophie reached out, blinded by a mix of horror and disbelief, and tore one down. She tried to look at it properly, but there was something wrong with her brain again, and the words were wriggling under her eyes like bits of rope.

  She put her head in her hands, trying to think.

  These tickets looked just as real as the one Cartwright had given her; identical, in fact. She stared at them both side by side, then got confused as to which was which and stuffed them both in her pocket. She turned, and walked right back into the mangled typewriter which seemed to have crept up on her.

  It had a sheet of gold leaf hanging out of it, abandoned midway through printing, and next to it was a guillotine for slicing the paper into rectangles. But there was more stuff still. There were maps and pictures and advertisements that had drifted across the floor, and a huge, squashed chair. She grabbed a piece of paper and read an advertisement for the New Continent, but half its type had been crossed out and corrected. Why was Laurel copying posters as well?

  She let go of them. They skidded across the floor. She knew that something was terribly wrong, and the truth was bearing down on her like a steamship.

  Under Laurel’s squashed armchair was a book. Sophie picked it up and found herself looking at Laurel’s diary. She sank into the armchair and opened it to the first page. At first it was filled only with diagrams and comments about his machines, and some references to Cartwright and the activities of the twins. Then there were some longer passages, which Sophie skimmed through, until the words the New Continent caught her eye. She flicked back with shaking fingers and began to read.

  I got carried away. I thought it might give the boy something nice to think about, and indeed, after telling him about the New Continent there was a vim in his step that I hadn’t seen before. It made me feel a lot better about his being trapped here with me. Even the twins, who are growing more malicious every day, can’t make me feel downhearted now that Cartwright is happy. And now—on with my inventions!

  There were a few more pages with writing and diagrams of the many-limbed coffee machine, which in the pictures was smiling, then:

  We talked about the New Continent again, and I got rather excited. Later, I had a bright idea—why not make everyone else smile, too? I looked at the wind-blasted town on the shore, and thought about the eyesore I had built in their sight line and the monsters I have drawn here with my oysters, and thought I could make up for it. Neptune knows they could do with a smile.

  In other news, the twins tried to make me watch a play. When I finally sat down they spent ten minutes shouting at each other. I’m finding it difficult to hide my distaste for them.

  She skipped the next few paragraphs, which detailed the twins’ movements, and came back to:

  . . . I distributed a pile of posters for the New Continent around the town. As soon as I got back I regretted it, because they will know who did it and think me at best mad, at worst a fraudster. On the other hand, it should make the townspeople very happy. And there’s nothing I can do about it now. Onward!

  Sophie’s mouth was dry. She had the feeling that her mind was skimming over something obvious. She prodded it like a rotten tooth, but she couldn’t pin it down.

  I had to go to shore to see to some financial business, and I was cornered almost immediately by a gang of bad-smelling bandits.

  They asked if I had left the posters for the New Continent, and proceeded to demand that I tell them how to get there. I was going to explain everything, but they hit me in the face before I could finish, and threatened to come for my family.

  I am not worried about Agatha or the twins, who would tear the heads off of anyone who came close, but young Cartwright, who I think takes after me in my brilliance and intellect, must not be harmed. Next week I will come back with a “map” to the New Continent, which in reality will lead to nowhere. Luck willing they drown in the ocean, the scoundrels.

  I finished my coffee machine the other day, but for some reason I can’t get its face right.

  There were some more diagrams and a picture of a squid. Sophie didn’t want to keep reading, but her hand had a mind of its own, and she turned the page.

  Blast! The scoundrels who cornered me started selling copies of my “map,” and now half the town has gone. There has even been a spate of boat thefts! I went to find the mayor to warn him that his citizens were taking part in a scam, but he was apparently one of the first to leave, citing the need to take charge of the New Continent before a less scrupulous mayor could seize power. Now the office is being held by a twelve-year-old boy. I asked him if anyone had come back from the New Continent, and he said, “No, sir, but I suppose that’s because they’re having such a good time.”(!!!)

  One of the maps has got into the national newspapers, and now shipping companies are selling tickets to get people there. People are feverishly fighting for them in the streets, and there had been more than one murder. But I have an idea—I can produce my own tickets, flood the market with them, and stop everyone fighting. Problem solved!

  I have decided that Sea Fever must have played a part in all this, and that, as a side effect, it turns its victims into half-wits.

  Sophie dropped the book onto her knees. Her hands were cold. She riffled through the pages, past more diagrams.

  It’s this place. It makes me do things. Catacomb Hill is my prison, and my terrible family are the jailers.

  The shame I feel at my fib is growing. My ticket plan isn’t working, even though my press is churning them out day and night.

  To distract myself I am working on my latest invention with renewed vigor, before I am totally lost to insanity, or the monsters, or, Neptune forbid, the twins.

  The next few entries had huge smears across the page, as though water had dripped onto them. The next legible entry:

  My new invention is almost complete. A machine of immense power but brilliant simplicity. It’s the only thing that can bring an end to the madness. It will doubtlessly fix the mess I’ve made.

  The last entry was a scrawl.

  It is late. The twins are lurking outside the doo
r. I have the dreadful sense that something terrible is about to happen.

  I may not have time to confess to Cartwright that the New Continent is not real. It was a story just for him, one spread by my posters in a moment of madness.

  This is my full confession, and may it damn me forever: I have sent thousands of people on a one-way trip to the middle of the ocean, and Neptune himself couldn’t bring them back.

  There is no New Continent.

  Everyone who has made the journey is dead.

  Chapter 25

  A Ghost in the Catacombs

  Sophie threw the book down, trying to block everything out by stuffing her fingers in her ears. It fell open on a diagram of a huge, mechanical eye. It stared at her as the revelation oozed through her mind; she tried to keep it out, but the horror seeped over like a sea creature forcing its way into an oyster.

  “They’re dead!” she cried, throwing herself against the wall. She tore into the tickets hanging there, then grabbed whole fistfuls of them and ripped them down, losing herself in a papery snowstorm. “My parents are dead. They’re floating under the sea like eggfish. Oh God oh God, they’re all dead, my neighbors and everyone are dead, and I wanted to go there, idiot.”

  She spun around and toppled the printing machine, ripping levers and cogs out with her bare hands, her voice rising to a scream. She didn’t care who heard her now. Everything—all of this—all for nothing! Laurel had sent thousands of people to their deaths, and she’d been living on the dream of a sham paradise. It all seemed so obvious now, the stupid pictures of pink clouds and green fields, the promise of fresh fish and somehow, no rain—how could she have been fooled like everyone else? Laurel was mad, and the Sea Fever epidemic had helped his ridiculous stories spread. And it all started here, in this room, with this terrible, insane old man trying to convince his nephew that the world was a good place, when all he’d done was make it worse. Sophie kicked a last frame into the corner, where it broke in two. She wondered if Cartwright might have known all along about the New Continent and the fake tickets. He wasn’t stupid. He knew his uncle was loopy. Maybe he’d been stringing her along on false hope to get what he wanted. The Monster Box. The cure.