The Wizard of Dark Street

by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

  Oona shook her head, wishing she could stuff cotton balls in her ears to drown out the sound of her own thoughts.

  “Stop it!” she whispered to herself. “This is Uncle Alexander. It only makes sense.” She was afraid to open the lid of the box too far, in case the toad should jump out. She might never find him if they lost him out here in the garden. She spoke through the crack: “We’ll figure out who did this to you, Uncle,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  But the day was getting on, and if the Wizard did not show up in his human form before midnight … Red Martin would win.

  She could only hope that this new information about Sanora was the break in the case she needed. For some reason Sanora Crone was using turlock root to make herself young. But how old was she really, and what was the purpose?

  “Samuligan is correct,” Deacon said. “The entrance to Witch Hill was enchanted long ago. No one can see the witches enter or exit the hill. No one knows how many witches are down there, or what they do, and the entrance would be nearly impossible to find.”

  Oona started back across the courtyard with the box clasped beneath her arm. “Certainly we won’t let that stop us.”

  The ride to the shopping district took a little over twenty-five minutes. Traffic was heavier than it had been earlier that morning, and Oona was feeling quite impatient. Her first course of action when she reached Witch Hill would be to climb to the top of the hill and knock on that old, crooked tree. Maybe the tree was a door of sorts. If that didn’t work, she would simply resort to pounding on the ground and shouting Sanora’s name until either the girl appeared, or Inspector White showed up to arrest Oona for disturbing the peace.

  “Umph!”

  Deacon was jostled from Oona’s shoulder when the carriage came to a sudden halt. Oona just managed to save the hatbox from tumbling off the seat. She could see the museum just ahead.

  “Why the abrupt stop, Samuligan?” Oona called out the window.

  “See for yourself,” Samuligan said.

  Oona poked her head out the window. A carriage was stuck in the middle of the street, and traffic was coming the other way, making it difficult for Samuligan to veer around. The driver of the stuck carriage was attempting to lever the front wheel out of a pothole using a plank of wood.

  “Sorry about this, miss,” Oona could hear the driver saying to his passenger. “Got to complain to the street council about these potholes, I do.”

  “Stay here, and keep an eye on the box for me, Deacon,” Oona said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She stepped to the street and made her way toward the stuck carriage. The driver was doing his utmost to pry the wheel out, his face going red with the effort. Oona knelt down, peering into the hole.

  “Hey you!” the driver said, clearly startled by her appearance. He stepped back, shaking the plank of wood, and Oona realized that it was the same cabdriver who had gotten stuck in the pothole the day before. The only difference was that today he was on the other side of the street, heading in the opposite direction. “You again?” said the driver. “Who are you, and why do I keep seeing you every time I get stuck in these potholes?”

  “Miss Crate!” said a voice, startling both Oona and the driver. Inspector White stepped from behind the giant top hat on the sidewalk. For some reason he was dressed in a ridiculous red-and-black-checkered hunting jacket. He sauntered to the side of the stalled carriage, where he stopped and stared down at Oona with an expression on his face that mimicked his next words: “I might have known.”

  “Might have known what?” Oona asked.

  The inspector folded his lanky arms. “That the culprit would return to the scene of the crime.”

  “I beg pardon?” Oona said.

  “Cobblestone theft,” said the inspector.

  Oona blinked at him in surprise. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  The inspector shook his head as if she were very stupid. “The Cobblestone Thief, my dear. Surely you didn’t think I wouldn’t find you out. You’ve been stealing cobblestones from the street for weeks. I may not have any proof yet, but I am a very patient man. One of these days I’ll catch those evil little hands of yours at their evil little deeds.”

  Oona’s jaw jutted out in frustration. “First of all, I don’t have evil little hands. I have very nice hands. And secondly, I don’t know why someone would want to steal cobblestones, but you should probably know that my uncle was not murdered. He has been turned into a toad. I rescued him from the Goblin Tower this morning.”

  The inspector frowned. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “What is ridiculous is that hideous jacket,” said a familiar voice. Both Oona and the inspector looked up to discover Isadora Iree staring out the window of the stalled carriage.

  The inspector looked suddenly embarrassed, glancing down at the red-and-black checkerboard jacket. “I did not have my own jacket today, so I borrowed this one from Constable Trout. On his off days, he likes to go hunting in the World of Man.”

  Isadora rolled her pretty blue eyes all the way up to the whites. “Well, perhaps if you weren’t such an incompetent police inspector, then you would remember that you left your own jacket at Pendulum House last night, on top of my shawl! I had to iron the wrinkles out when I got home.”

  The inspector puffed up his chest indignantly. “I’m quite sure I did nothing of the sort. I took my own jacket to the tailor only yesterday, after tearing a hole in the sleeve.” He turned to Oona, jabbing a chalk-white finger in her direction. “A hole that I received when I tripped because of the missing cobblestones that, no doubt, you stole.”

  Oona shook her head at him. “And, no doubt, you must have forgotten that you picked your jacket back up from the tailor and wore it to Pendulum House last night, because Isadora is right; we all saw your jacket hanging on the coatrack. But that’s all right. I suppose it will be just another bit of rubbish for Red Martin to cart away when he has Pendulum House demolished this evening. Now, if you will excuse me, Inspector, I would like to try to stop that from happening.”

  She turned, as if to head off in the direction of Witch Hill across the street.

  “What’s this about Red Martin?” the inspector called after her.

  Oona lowered her gaze, wondering if it was even worth her time to explain all that she had learned, when something caught her eye. Her breath suddenly hitched in her throat, and she knelt down to get a better look at one of the places where the cobblestones had gone missing. The space where the stones should have been appeared as black as midnight, which was strange because normally beneath broken-out cobblestones one found hard-packed earth. From what Oona could tell, the space beneath these missing cobblestones was … nothing at all … a void … like whatever had happened to the missing cobbles had happened to the earth underneath as well.

  If someone truly is stealing cobblestones from the street, she thought, and Oona couldn’t understand why someone would want to do such a thing, but if they are, then they are taking the ground beneath it, too.

  Intrigued, Oona returned her attention to the stuck carriage. The driver had gone back to levering the wheel out of the hole. “Yesterday you boasted to me that you knew every pothole on the street,” Oona said to him. “Why is it you keep getting stuck here, in front of the museum?”

  The cabdriver put his weight into the plank of wood. “I’d swear there’s new holes right here almost every day. And these ones are twice as bad as anywhere else.”

  “What is the point of this pointless questioning?” the inspector asked.

  “Because look,” Oona said. “See where the cobblestones are missing?”

  “The cobblestones that you stole?” the inspector said.

  She sighed, realizing that what she was about to explain to this incompetent man was going to fly directly over his head. “No one is stealing cobblestones,” she explained. “And they aren’t simply disappearing. They are falling.”

  “Falling?” said the inspector. “Cobblesto
nes don’t fall from the ground. What do you take me for? An imbecile?”

  Oona nodded. “For once, you are right, Inspector.” The inspector guffawed, but Oona continued before he could protest. “Do you have a coin?”

  “A coin?” he said. “If you are hinting that you would like to run off and buy yourself a treat, then you are sadly mistaken. I do, however, have a hard candy in my pocket, if that would satisfy.”

  Oona nodded enthusiastically that it would indeed satisfy, and from his pocket, along with a jumble of keys, a handful of pocket lint, and a used handkerchief, he produced a round candy in a wax wrapper. Oona took the candy, careful not to touch the pocket lint or the used handkerchief.

  “Thank you very much,” she said, and dropped the piece of candy into the hole where the cobblestone should have been. There was a moment of silence before a soft, echoing pat sound drifted up through the hole, as if the candy had hit something not too far below the street.

  “You ungrateful little juvenile!” the inspector said. “That was a perfectly good piece of candy.”

  “But do you see?” Oona asked.

  “What I see is that you are a menace,” he said, “and that I have a good mind to arrest you for littering.” His nostrils flared, and Oona thought for a moment that he might actually do more than threaten.

  It was Isadora who saved her when she shouted at them from the carriage: “Why are you two lack-wits arguing about potholes when you should be finding my mother’s dresses? Or have you forgotten that the Midnight Masquerade is tonight?”

  Oona straightened, intent on telling Isadora—in as rude of terms as possible—exactly just what she could do with her mother’s dresses, when several thoughts suddenly clicked in her mind, like pieces of a puzzle locking together.

  She looked from the pothole at her feet to the museum, and then from the museum to Madame Iree’s Boutique for Fine Ladies next door. Most of the buildings on Dark Street were pressed together, wall to wall. As Oona had observed only the day before, the dress shop was no exception. On one side was a handbag shop, and on the other side was the museum, with the dress boutique looking rather squashed in between.

  “Isadora,” Oona said, her heart rate beginning to rise, “is your mother’s shop open?”

  Isadora shook her head. “Mother was too distraught to open the shop today. And besides, she’s been too busy at home trying to stitch together new gowns to make up for the stolen ones.”

  Oona remembered something that Madame Iree had said the day before: how the dressmaker would love to get her hands on some turlock root, so she might age backward and wear the dress made of glinting cloth.

  “Do you happen to have a key?” Oona asked hopefully.

  “Just so happens that I do,” Isadora replied. “But the dresses are all gone, except for the small, pretty one in the window. You’d never fit into it … and anyway, I told you yesterday, Mother makes dresses only for students of the academy, or—”

  “Or alumna,” Oona finished for her. “Yes, I know. But I think I might know who the thief is.” And more important, how they got in, Oona thought. “I need to see inside the showroom to be certain.”

  “Very well,” Isadora said. “If it will help get my dress back. But this better not be a waste of time.”

  Wearing a ruffled pink dress with lacy white trim, she stepped down from the carriage and handed the driver several coins. Meanwhile, Oona returned to her own carriage, leaving the inspector standing in the street, scratching at his wiry black hair and staring down at the pothole. Oona removed the hatbox from the carriage, peeked inside to make sure that the toad was all right, and then handed the box up to Samuligan in the driver’s seat.

  “Keep good care of that, Samuligan,” Oona said. “And wait over there, at the curb. Deacon, with me.”

  Deacon leaped to her shoulder and the two of them met Isadora in front of the giant top hat.

  “Should we bring the inspector?” Isadora asked.

  Oona looked back to find the inspector with his arm stuck shoulder deep into the pothole, no doubt attempting to retrieve his candy.

  “I believe we will do just fine on our own,” Oona replied.

  It’s gone!” Isadora shouted.

  “What is g—” Oona stopped herself short, realizing all too quickly what Isadora had meant by “it.”

  The three of them, Isadora, Oona, and Deacon, stood in front of the dress shop. Isadora had just inserted her key into the lock when she looked into the storefront window, only to discover that it was empty. The glinting-cloth dress was gone. Isadora looked pale.

  “Perhaps your mother took it home,” Oona suggested.

  Isadora shook her head. “No. That can’t be. I was just on my way to fetch Adler from the Magicians Legal Alliance. Mother wanted us both home to help her sew the replacement dresses that she has been working on all night. On our way back home, I was supposed to stop by the shop and take the glinting-cloth dress home, for safekeeping.”

  “Your mother didn’t take it with her when she left yesterday?” Oona asked.

  Isadora gave her a look like she was very stupid. “No. Aren’t you listening? Mother was so distraught when she left yesterday that she forgot all about it. That’s why she gave me the key to pick it up today.”

  Oona had a vague memory of seeing the dress in the window on her way to the Goblin Tower that morning.

  “Come, Isadora,” Oona said. “If we’re going to find any of these dresses, we need to go inside.”

  They closed the door behind them, and Oona found the first room of the shop much as she remembered it: the tables and the empty teacups, the red-and-gold-striped wallpaper, and the scent of lavender potpourri. The missing dress from the front window seemed to be the only difference.

  Oona quickly moved to the showroom in the back, Deacon clinging tightly to her shoulder. The door stood wide open. This room, too, was as she remembered it: the naked mannequins and the crystal chandelier, the ever-burning lamps and the raised platform for dress alterations. Except, no … everything wasn’t the same. The mirror that hung on the wall in front of the platform—it was now cracked down the middle and hung slightly crooked. It reminded Oona of seeing Inspector White straighten the mirror on the wall only the day before. And there were several other differences. One of the mannequins beside the platform was lying on its side, and in the center of the room, where only one white candle had been lying on the floor, there now lay two.

  “How do you suppose the thief got in and out?” Deacon asked.

  Oona walked to the middle of the room and looked up at the chandelier. Two of the candleholders were empty. Isadora gazed down at the two candles on the floor.

  “That happens all the time,” she said. “The candles keep falling out of the chandelier’s holders. It’s a complete nuisance because we keep having to put them back up, and Mother won’t allow us to actually light the candles since she’s afraid they will just fall and light the dresses on fire. It’s too bad, too, because candlelight is far more flattering than those magic lamps.”

  Oona smiled. “I suspect that the reason the candles keep falling is because Mr. Bop lives up there.” She pointed to the ceiling.

  Isadora’s face scrunched up, as if she did not understand … but then her expression brightened. “Oh, you mean that great big fat man? I’ve seen him.”

  Oona nodded, remembering how the floor at the Magicians Legal Alliance had shaken quite noticeably whenever Mr. Bop had moved. “Indeed. Mr. Bop is so enormous that when he walks around up there, he causes the ceiling to shake, which in turn rattles the candles out of their holders.”

  “So what does that have to do with the stolen dresses?” Deacon asked.

  “So far as I can tell, absolutely nothing,” Oona said. “But that mirror, on the other hand, I think has quite a bit to do with our mystery. It was not cracked yesterday, that much is for sure. I remember watching the inspector admire himself in its reflection as he straightened it on the wall. Also, look
at that mannequin next to the platform. It was not lying over on its side like it is now. I’m quite certain.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Deacon said, gazing down at the toppled-over mannequin. “All the mannequins were upright yesterday.”

  Oona looked around the room, letting her eyes roll where they would. The floor was wood, polished to a brilliant sheen and flawless.

  “The door appears to be the only way in,” Deacon observed.

  “Appears,” Oona said.

  “What is that awful smell?” asked Isadora. “Is that your bird?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Deacon said, puffing up his feathers.

  “No, wait,” Oona said, and sniffed the air. “Isadora is right. This room has a distinctively different smell than the room out front, with its lavender potpourri.”

  Deacon began to sniff as well. “It has an earthy, herbal smell.”

  “With a hint of cinnamon,” Oona added as she followed her nose across the room to one side of the raised platform, where she found what at first appeared to be a random piece of dirty black cloth on the floor. She held up the cloth to reveal a flimsy black dress. Upon closer examination, Oona found that, like her own dresses, this one was fitted with little hidden pockets. She reached inside one of them now and brought out a small metal canister.

  “Perhaps the odor we smell,” Oona said, “is that of the so-called Witchwhistle Beauty Cream?”

  She twisted the top off the canister and the smell that came out was quite powerful. She needed only a glimpse of the green jellylike substance inside to know that it was the same stuff she’d seen caked on the young witch’s face the night before. Oona quickly closed the canister and put it back in the black dress’s pocket.

  Deacon sniffed. “By Oswald, it is the same smell! And isn’t that the dress belonging to the young witch, Sanora Crone?”

  “Indeed,” said Oona.

  “But what is it doing here?” Deacon asked.

  Oona nodded. “Good question, Deacon. She must have left it behind for some reason. But why?”