Oh, Mother would have loved to have seen this, she thought.
But the thought was erased in an instant when she realized that the boat was presently occupied by four thick-armed goblins, each one identical to Marrgak. In fact, the only way Oona could tell them apart was by their different-colored tunics. The boat’s four oars had been pushed out of the way, and as Oona and the doorkeeper approached, she was surprised to see that the creatures were presently engaged in a game of cards. Indeed, though she had known of the existence of goblins from her history lessons with Deacon, she had never actually seen one outside of the enchanted tapestries in the parlor. Seeing so many of them now made her feel quite nervous, to say the least.
As Oona and Marrgak stopped at the edge of the boat, the four other goblins scarcely bothered to look up from their card game.
“This girl’s going up to see the prisoner,” Marrgak announced.
One of the goblins in the boat—this one was wearing a red tunic—looked up from his cards and then lowered his head again. “We’re in the middle of a game,” was his only reply.
Marrgak gave Oona a little shrug. “Good luck getting them to row you up when they have a game going.” He pointed to the seat at the front of the boat. “There’s where you sit. See you on your way out.” He turned to go. “Be careful, though,” he called over his shoulder. “If someone is a prisoner up in that cell, they must be pretty bad.”
And then he was gone, swallowed up by the darkness. The four goblins in the boat continued their game, mumbling in low voices to one another, as Oona climbed into her seat at the bow. Once in place, she looked down at her feet to discover several objects: a hand drum, a whip, and an iron lockbox.
“Um, can you please take me up now?” she asked politely.
The goblins ignored her.
“Um … hello?” she said.
No response.
“Row!” she snapped at them. It did no good. They were too engrossed in their game.
She glanced at her feet and picked up the whip. Looking from the whip to the goblins, she hoped that she wasn’t expected to whip them. They all looked very strong, and very bad-tempered, and would certainly have had no trouble taking the whip right away from her. And besides, the idea just seemed quite mean, no matter how lazy they were acting. The only thing she could think to do was to crack the whip along the side of the boat, and so that’s exactly what she did. She snapped the end with an awkward flick of her wrist, readying herself to jump from the boat should the goblins make any sudden move toward her.
Krack!
The four goblins groaned in unison, clearly irritated, but they placed their cards on the seat beside them and pulled once on their oars. A flame mechanism in the center of the boat fired once, and the boat rose about a foot from the floor. The goblins then picked their cards back up and returned to playing their game.
“This is going to take forever,” Oona said, looking up. The bottom of the lime-green balloon blocked her view of much of the ceiling, but still, she knew that seven hundred feet was a long way up. Once again, she glanced over the objects at her feet. Trusting in her instinct that these random items were the keys to getting the goblins to work, she briefly considered the hand drum and what it might be for, but when she bent to retrieve it, she changed her mind and picked up the iron lockbox instead. There was only one thing she could think to do. Quite determinedly, she set the box in her lap and slid the black iron key that she had taken from the circle of stones into the lock. The box clicked open to reveal four plump, wriggling worms. The worms had a faint mystical glow about them, and Oona knew immediately what they were—glowworms, the kind that could be found deep in the gardens at Pendulum House, beneath the patches of turlock root and sighing-lady grass.
Remembering what Marrgak had said about how much he liked worms, Oona plucked one of the slimy glowworms from the box and closed the lid again so that it locked shut. She held up the worm.
“If you row me all the way to the top, I’ll give you these,” she said.
The goblins ceased their murmuring and turned to her, cards raised. Their eyes flashed, betraying their excitement. They turned to confer, mumbling low to one another before turning back.
“You must give us the worms first,” said the goblin in the red tunic.
“First?” Oona said dubiously. She did not trust the sly tone in the goblin’s gravelly voice. If she gave them the worms now, they might still refuse to row her to the top.
“It is how it is done,” said the goblin. “It is how it is always done. You give us the worms, then we row.”
“Oh, yes,” another of the goblins agreed. “It is how it is done.”
Maybe the goblins were telling the truth, and that was how it was done. The way that their horrible little eyes peered at the worm in her hand made her feel very uneasy, and she had just begun to fear that they would go right ahead and take the worm and the key by force when a thought occurred to her.
They can’t just take it. It’s part of the tower’s enchantment. And this is all some test, like the riddle. If I don’t pass, then I can’t go up to see the prisoner.
She considered the words that the goblin had said: It is how it is always done. If anyone would know how it had been done hundreds of years ago, when the tower was still being used, it would be these goblins. She made her decision.
“All right,” she said, unlocking the box and reaching in. The glowing worms squirmed in her hand. “I’ll give you the worms and you’ll take me to the top?”
The goblins’ black eyes sparkled against the glow of the worms. Their mouths gaped, revealing fleshy gums and jagged teeth.
“Oh yes, indeed, miss,” the goblin in red assured her. “It is how it is done.”
The goblin extended his covetous, large-knuckled hands, and Oona handed over the four worms. The goblin passed the worms around, one for each of his companions. They popped the worms into their large, flat mouths like popcorn, and then grimaced as they swallowed. Oona realized that they wore the same sour expression the Wizard got on his face when gulping down a shot of whiskey.
The goblins began to sway slightly from side to side, grinning at one another.
“All right,” Oona said, “a deal is a deal. I gave you the worms, now take me up.”
The goblins burst into laughter, slapping one another on the back, as if in congratulation for a job well done. The one in the red tunic began to hum a little tune, while the one in purple stifled a hiccup and nearly slid out of his seat. A great, burly belch issued from the mouth of the goblin in blue, and Oona was blasted with the smell of it. She wrinkled up her nose as the stench engulfed her, and she understood what was happening. The smell was very similar to the stink that drifted out through the doors of some of the pubs on the north end of the street. It was the smell of beer, and wine, and hard alcohol.
“You’re all drunk!” Oona said aloud.
The goblins’ grins grew wider still, revealing even more of their hideous pink gums. They threw their arms around each other’s shoulders and began to sway back and forth.
“Hay-ho, the dairy-oh,” they began to sing together. “A worm in my belly, and no more woes. Hay-ho, the dairy-he. The workin’ life is not for me.”
She listened to them sing their song, the words beginning to slur together as they bellowed out the ridiculous lyrics. Looking down, she saw that the lockbox was once again occupied by four worms.
“Just great,” she said. “A never-ending box of worms.” She slammed the lid closed. “What help is that? All they do is get them drunk, and now they’re worse than before.”
“Hey, miss!” said the goblin in blue, his words coming out slurry and overly loud. “Who you talking to? You crazy or somethin’?”
Again they all howled with laughter, slapping him on the back in praise of his superior wit.
The frustration was too much. Oona picked up the whip and cracked it over her head.
“Row!” she shouted. At the sound of the whip,
all four goblins sat bolt upright in their seats, hands on their oars. They went stone still. Oona looked at them in amazement. It was as if they were hypnotized. Somehow, she was quite certain, it was connected to the sound of the whip. Oona glanced at the lockbox, and it came to her. She suddenly understood. Once the goblins ate the glowworms, they became intoxicated. Once intoxicated, the crack of the whip caused them to snap into some kind of hypnotic trance. But now the question was, how to get them rowing.
Oona picked up the third object from the bottom of the rowboat: the hand drum. She gave it a slap. The goblins heaved forward on their oars. The firing mechanism shot a flame toward the balloon, and the boat rose in the air. She slapped the drum again, and again they heaved, this time backward, and again the boat rose several feet.
Oona looked from her hands, to the drum, to the goblins. “This is most excellent,” she said.
The excitement filled her, and she began beating rapidly on the drum, but her erratic slapping only caused the goblins to move out of synchronization, in which case the firing mechanism would do no more than sputter. She paused before taking a deep breath and beginning again, this time beating slowly and in rhythm to the movements of the goblins, increasing her speed bit by bit as they began to build momentum.
It was working. The boat rose higher and higher, and soon the floor disappeared completely into the darkness below. It took nearly five minutes to reach the top of the tower, where the balloon bounced softly against the ceiling, and Oona’s hands were sore from slapping the drum. Fiery torches hung from the ceiling and walls, illuminating a wooden walkway that stuck out of the side of the building like a floating boat dock. At the end of the walkway stood a heavy iron door.
“That must be the prison cell,” she said, but the goblins were all still locked in their trance state, neither denying nor confirming her suspicions. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
She hopped from the boat to the dock and made her way to the iron door. The black iron key was in her hand, but she hesitated before sliding it into the lock. This was it: the moment of discovery. Was the Wizard inside this cell, alive after all, or would she find the cell empty and be forced to admit the worst … that he was dead, just like everyone else she had ever loved? Her fingers trembled as she inserted the key into the lock. Just as she had been certain that the key would open the tower door and the iron lockbox, she was certain that the key would work here as well. The fit was perfect. Again she hesitated, unsure if she really wanted to know the truth. What would she do if he was dead? Her uncle was all she had left.
He must be in there, she thought. He simply has to be.
A memory surfaced, projecting itself on the door in front of her. A beautiful remembrance of the days before she had become the Wizard’s apprentice. She had been small … so small that he could pick her up in his hands. Both her mother and her father had been there. They had all been outside somewhere. Perhaps even at the park. They had all taken turns tossing her into the air. Up she would go, and she would scream with delight as she hovered briefly in the air before falling safely back into their hands. Her mother’s hands had been soft and comforting, her father’s hands strong and sure. It was becoming harder and harder to remember their faces, a fact that made Oona feel quite sad, but she remembered the feel of their hands, and their smells, and their eyes. Her uncle’s beard had not been so gray on that day. He’d been younger, of course, but not that much younger. The dark color in his beard had mostly begun to fade in the past few years; since after the accident. The two of them had been through so much together, and the thought of losing him, too, was nearly too much to endure.
She imagined opening the door and seeing his wizened, gray-bearded face look up in surprise, and feeling the surge of relief as she rushed into his arms. The anticipation was too much. She turned the key and shouldered open the heavy metal door, its iron hinges screeching from centuries of neglect. The door fell inward to reveal …
A small empty room. Oona’s heart plummeted, and her knees came unhinged. She fell to her knees, her legs hitting the floor so hard that the sound echoed around the tiny cell, but Oona did not feel the shock of pain. It was the disappointment of not finding her uncle that consumed her. The darkness of the room pressed in on her, and she found it difficult to breathe. She could feel the emotion bubbling up inside of her, an overwhelming twisting of grief, but she found that she could not release it. She could not cry, nor make any sound. She wanted to scream, desperately, but it would not come, and she was unable to free what she was feeling: that horrible, horrible mixture of loss, and anger, and confusion. But for some reason her eyes remained as dry as desert stones as she fell forward onto her hands, lost, unsure of what to do next. Fighting for breath.
And perhaps it was because of her trapped grief—because she did not cry out, and remained so silent—that she heard the croak. It came from the corner of the cell. Oona looked in the direction of the sound, her dry eyes peering into the shadows, but could see nothing. And then she thought she saw something move. She blinked, still feeling that horrible sensation of locked-up grief, but also a hint of curiosity. Something moved again, and Oona sat up onto her knees, the skirt of her dress fanning around her in the doorway. A moment later, a small, slick-skinned toad hopped into the light that flickered in through the open door. Its enormous eyes blinked up at her in a way that Oona had never seen a toad look before. It was a look of … recognition.
And suddenly, Oona remembered what Samuligan had said about how, if she found him, the Wizard might not be in a recognizable form. She leaned forward and peered into the toad’s wizened face. It stared back, and though it was strange to think, Oona was almost certain that the toad was relieved to see her. It opened its mouth and let out a low croak.
“Uncle Alexander?” she asked.
Again the toad croaked, the sound bouncing softly off the walls of the cell.
Oona extended her hand, and the toad hopped onto her open palm. She raised it to her face and—with equal parts concern and relief, not to mention a goodly portion of bemusement—she said: “Well … isn’t this interesting?”
Oona watched the storefronts and apartment buildings roll by as the carriage traveled up the broad cobbled avenue, vibrating the lacy frills of her dress and the toad in her lap. From his place on the seat beside her, Deacon leaned in to get a closer look at the toad, which presently gave a croak of displeasure.
“Don’t get so close, Deacon,” Oona said, turning from the window. “You’re making him nervous.”
Deacon pulled away, swaying to the motion of the carriage. “Are you certain that is your uncle?”
Oona’s brow furrowed. “Of course it’s Uncle Alexander. Just look at that face.” The toad gazed up at her, wide-eyed and looking highly uncomfortable. “Try imagining the Wizard without his beard,” Oona said.
A moment later Deacon replied: “By Oswald, you’re right! I can see it. The toad does look like your uncle.”
“Or my uncle looked very much like a toad,” Oona said. The toad croaked its disapproval.
The journey from the top of the tower back to the bottom had taken only half the time of the assent. Getting back through the invisible barrier, though, had proven just as difficult as getting in, and at present, Oona felt exhausted and hungry.
“Sometimes a case does not allow time for such mundaneries as eating,” she said.
“Mundaneries is not a proper word,” Deacon chided.
“Ah, here we are,” she said, glancing out the window. “The lawyer’s office.”
The carriage creaked to a halt, and a moment later Samuligan opened the door. Setting her uncle on the seat beside her, Oona quickly searched the riding compartment for something to keep him in. She discovered a round hatbox beneath the seat. She opened it only to discover that it was one of her mother’s old hats. Broad-brimmed, with a large auburn-colored silk flower on the side, Oona knew it was quite out of style, but she also thought it would go perfectly with her
auburn-colored dress, and so she placed it on her head, adjusting it to the desired angle, and then placed the toad inside the box.
“You’ll be safer in here. Until we figure out how to change you back,” she told her uncle. He croaked softly as she placed the lid on top. Setting the certificate of debt on top of the box, she stepped to the curbside. Several moments later she stood in front of a narrow, redbrick building that slanted so far over the sidewalk, it looked as though it might topple at any moment. A sign above the door read: RAVENSMITH LAW.
With the box beneath one arm, she knocked. No one answered.
Oona glanced around and saw that the street clock down the sidewalk read 9:30.
“I thought you said Ravensmith opened at nine o’clock,” Oona said.
Deacon flew to the sill of the small window beside the door and pointed his beak at the sign posted there.
WORKING HOURS: 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.
“Hmm.” Oona knocked again several times, then tried the knob. It was locked. Just as she was ready to give up, the door was answered by a man in a wheelchair. The lower half of the poor fellow’s body was sealed up in a hard plaster cast, and his legs stuck straight out in front of him. In one hand he held a feather duster. Oona recognized it as one of the enchanted “giggling” dusters from her uncle’s shop. A dirty rag hung from the man’s jacket pocket, and a crooked pine-branch broom lay across his lap.
“Can’t you read the sign?” the man asked irritably. “We don’t open until nine o’clock!” He was a plain-looking man, except for his eyebrows, which were the bushiest Oona had ever seen, and great gobs of white hair spilled from his ears.
The Wizard of Dark Street Page 14
