The Wizard of Dark Street

by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

  Isadora looked furious. “You mean to tell me that that dirty little witch is behind this?” She reached out for the black dress, as if she was going to take it from Oona’s hands and tear it up. But Isadora’s hand stopped short. She pulled her hand back, clearly not wanting to touch the smelly rag.

  “I think Sanora is not just behind this thievery, Isadora,” Oona said. She flung the malodorous dress over her shoulder before stepping onto the platform and running her fingers along the edge of the cracked mirror.

  “What are you doing?” Deacon asked.

  “If you look at this building from the outside,” Oona began to explain, “you’ll see that it is squashed between the handbag shop on one side and the museum on the other. This wall here presses right up against the museum.”

  Oona gave the mirror a push, hoping that her instincts were not wrong. The bottom portion slid sideways and up like a pendulum, revealing a large opening in the wall behind it.

  Deacon took in a sharp breath. “A hole!”

  “A hole, indeed, Deacon,” Oona said. “It was curious to me why the inspector had needed to straighten the mirror in the first place. Now we know why. Someone was coming and going through this hole.”

  Deacon glanced quickly around. “But why is the mirror now cracked?”

  “I’m not sure,” Oona said. “Could be that the thief knocked that mannequin over today when returning for the dress in the window. The mannequin then fell and struck the mirror.”

  Deacon nodded that it was certainly possible.

  Lowering herself to her knees, Oona peered into the inky blackness of the hole in the wall and began to crawl through.

  “I’m not going in there,” Isadora said.

  “You don’t have to,” Oona called back. “But if I’m not mistaken, then this hole leads …”

  Next door, into the Museum of Magical History,” Oona finished.

  She pushed aside what felt like some kind of heavy fabric and stood, smoothing out her dress. Deacon hopped into the room before fluttering to the corner of a large wooden desk.

  “I do believe we are in the curator’s office,” Deacon observed.

  “Yes, we are,” said Oona. “We are in the basement. The steps in front of the museum rise up so high that the basement is actually on the same level as the street … and, more important, the same level as the showroom next door.”

  An ever-burning lamp glowed dimly on the desk, its enchanted flame giving the room a greenish tint. A long tapestry depicting an entire galaxy of stars and constellations took up the greater part of the wall behind the desk. It was from behind this tapestry that she and Deacon had emerged. The floor was polished stone. To the right of the desk stood a broken glass case, above which hung a small brass-plated plaque. The inscription read:

  FAY MORS EXPUGNO AND FAY MORS MORTIS

  MAGICAL MIND DAGGERS

  FIRST EVER ACQUISITIONS OF THE MUSEUM

  OF MAGICAL HISTORY

  AUGUST 12, 1418

  Oona moved closer to the room’s single door and examined the lock. “Look here. You see, the heavy-duty bolt has a latch on this side of the door, and can only be opened with a key on the other side. Once they took the daggers, the thief unlocked the door and then pushed it open to make sure that no one would go looking for how they actually got in. Everyone assumed that the thief came in through the open door.”

  “So the thief entered and exited through the hole in Madame Iree’s wall,” Deacon said. “But how did they get into the showroom?”

  “I think the answer to that has to do with the missing cobblestones out front,” Oona replied.

  “How is that?” asked Deacon.

  Oona didn’t answer, but instead she pulled aside the tapestry and crawled back through the hole into the showroom, Deacon following closely behind. They found Isadora standing where they had left her, arms crossed over her frilly pink dress, fingers drumming.

  “Did you find the dresses?” she asked.

  “Shh, Isadora,” Oona said, before removing her father’s magnifying glass from her dress pocket and beginning an examination of the floor.

  “Don’t shush me!” Isadora scolded. Nevertheless, she remained sullenly silent as Oona conducted her investigation.

  It has to be here somewhere, Oona thought. There must be a second hole. It’s the only way.

  But after several minutes of searching the floor, she found nothing. Not even a single crack. She sat down beside Deacon on the edge of the platform, feeling quite unsure of her theory. She had been so certain that Sanora Crone had come in through the floor of the showroom and then broken through the wall in order to enter the museum.

  She stared at the magnifying glass, thinking of her father, and wondering if he would have been disappointed in her. She wished he was there, beside her. Surely her father would have known what to look for. But he wasn’t, and he never would be. She bowed her head, running her fingers through her hair … and that was when she saw the faint scratch marks in the wood at her feet.

  “There,” Oona said.

  She brought the magnifying glass to the scratches along the bottom edge of the platform, and Deacon peered through.

  “Scratches in the polished wood,” he said. “What does it mean?”

  Oona hurriedly moved to the other side of the platform, planted her feet firmly against the floor, and pushed.

  “Here is where Sanora got in!” she exclaimed.

  The platform slid easily across the smooth wood, revealing the secret beneath. Deacon hopped excitedly from one foot to the other, staring down at the hole in the floor. The very top of a ladder could be seen descending into the darkness below.

  Isadora looked from the hole in the floor to the hole in the wall. “I don’t understand. Why are there two holes?”

  Oona began rubbing her hands together. Here at last was something she could explain. “Remember last night, Isadora, when you asked the inspector if it were possible for the daggers and the dresses to have been stolen by the same person?”

  “Everyone looked at me like I was crazy,” Isadora replied, giving Oona a fiercely reproachful look.

  Oona winced, realizing that, yes, the idea had seemed somewhat ludicrous at the time. “Well, it turns out, you were right.” Oona pointed to the hole in the floor. “Sanora must have tunneled her way beneath the shop and come up here, beneath the platform. Though I doubt she was alone. This is a big job. One small girl could not have done it alone. It’s my guess that she had some help from her fellow witches.”

  Oona scratched at her head. How the witches had known to come up in that exact spot, so that the platform would cover the hole, she didn’t know. But she intended to find out.

  Peering into the hole, she gulped. “Will you go down first, Deacon? Or shall I?”

  “And why would I go in there?” Deacon squawked. “Now that we know how the thief got in, we simply need to tell the authorities.”

  Oona gave Deacon an incredulous look.

  “Well, all right,” he admitted, “perhaps Inspector White will muck everything up, but it’s better than you or I going in there … alone.”

  Oona turned to Isadora, but the fine young lady put up her hands. “I’m not going down in there.”

  “And besides,” Deacon said, “if Sanora did steal the daggers, then that means she still has possession of the second one: Fay Mors Mortis. The Faerie Death. You promised your uncle that you would not go snooping around deadly criminals.”

  “I know what I promised, Deacon,” Oona said. “But if Sanora was the one who threw the dagger at Uncle Alexander, then she is the only one who knows the words to transform him back. Red Martin intends to stop the Dark Street pendulum at midnight if the Wizard does not show up to reclaim Pendulum House.” She pointed at the hole in the floor. “Sanora Crone could stay down there in Witch Hill for months, or even longer.”

  “Witch Hill?” said Deacon.

  “Yes. Don’t you see? There is a tunnel leading directly from this
spot to the hill across the street.”

  “But how did you know it would be here?” Deacon asked.

  “It all came from seeing those missing cobblestones. When I dropped the inspector’s candy through the pothole, I did it to illustrate a point, which is that the witches have dug a tunnel beneath the street. That’s why the cobblestones have gone missing, as well as the earth beneath them. The witches must have dug the tunnel terribly close to the surface, and the ground has begun to fall away in certain spots, like where the carriage wheels travel the most. That is why the carriages keep getting stuck.”

  “Hmm,” Deacon intoned, glancing toward the filthy black dress that hung from Oona’s shoulder. “I can see why she would want to steal the dresses, since her own is so very drab, but why would she wish to imprison your uncle?”

  “Maybe she meant to kill him,” Oona said. “Maybe she didn’t know which dagger she was using. I don’t know. As to why she would wish to harm him at all … that is precisely what I intend to find out.”

  Moving with a swift sort of confidence that she did not entirely feel, Oona snatched one of the fallen candles from the floor. She then dug a match from her pocket and struck it along the edge of the platform. Her face glowed as she lit the candle and took in a deep breath, as if preparing to plunge into deep waters. The lit match dropped from her fingers into the hole, winking out as it disappeared into the darkness.

  “Miss Crate,” said Isadora, almost tentatively.

  Oona glanced over her shoulder. Strangely enough, she thought she saw an expression of concern on Isadora’s face. It seemed quite out of place there.

  “Do be careful,” Isadora said. “No one knows what those witches do down there.”

  It was the concern in Isadora’s voice that set Oona’s nerves on edge more than anything else. She had a strange, albeit short-lived thought that perhaps Isadora wasn’t quite as bad as she had judged her to be. Maybe there was a scrap of kindness in the girl after all. But the thought died quickly away when Isadora added: “And if you find the dresses, try not to get them dirty when you bring them back. That hole looks filthy.”

  Oona did not bother to respond, but instead she lowered herself into the hole in the floor, the burning candle held in one faintly trembling hand, and began her descent into the darkness below.

  Deacon hopped to her shoulder, shaking his head from side to side. “Oh dear. Here we go.”

  Oona touched bottom, the moist earth squishing beneath her shoes. She stepped around the ladder, holding the candle high above her head, where the flame licked at the earthen ceiling. The tunnel stretched out before her like a long, dark throat, and she began to have second thoughts about continuing forward. Down here in the dark, things seemed much different than they had up above. They were … well, they were darker, for one thing. And the air itself seemed denser and more threatening. She gulped audibly, considering whether or not to simply climb right back up, when something grabbed her attention.

  “Look, Deacon. Do you see?” She moved closer to the sidewall of the tunnel, exposing a pile of pickaxes, chisels, and handsaws.

  “Tools of the trade,” she said. “And look how many. It appears I was right, and there is actually more than one thief involved.” She bent down, examining the ground. A set of wheel ruts cut into the floor and disappeared down the tunnel. “Some sort of cart has passed this way, many times.”

  “Careful,” Deacon whispered. “Even I am having trouble seeing very far.”

  The two of them began to inch their way forward, the walls seeming to close in around them. It wasn’t long before they came to a spot where the hooves of a horse could be heard clopping overhead.

  “We must be under the street,” Oona said, and looking up, they saw several square-shaped patches of sunlight leaking down through the holes in the street. At her feet lay the missing cobblestones, and beside one of them lay the candy Oona had dropped through the hole. She picked it up and put it in her pocket.

  “I tried to tell Inspector White my suspicions,” she said. “But he wouldn’t listen.”

  Beyond the reach of the pulsing candlelight, she could see nothing. The hand holding the candle began to tremble as the wax dribbled down over her fingers. It was not the sting of the warm wax that caused the tremor inside of her, however, but the thought of the witches. Not only did she know nothing about them, but neither did Deacon, and he had the entire Encyclopedia Arcanna stored inside his head. They could have magic that no one knew about. Horrible spells.

  Eventually, the two of them came to a spot where the tunnel split in two different directions. The wheel ruts turned left.

  “What do we do now?” Deacon asked.

  Oona thought for a moment. “Let’s go left,” she said, “and we will continue left on any other forked tunnels so that if we need to make a run for it, we can easily retrace our steps.”

  The tunnel curved and the ground sloped, so that it felt as if they were walking in a giant corkscrew, going down, down, down. They walked for what seemed a very long time, following two more forked tunnels, each time bearing left, until finally they came to a small, round room, where no fewer than six tunnels branched off in different directions. The floor here was smooth marble, and the walls were plastered smooth. An unlit chandelier hung down like a shadowy claw from the vaulted ceiling. It felt more like a palace entry hall than some underground cave, albeit a palace that had long gone to ruin.

  A large sheet of paper hung on the wall between two of the tunnel entrances: a diagram of some sort.

  “Do you know what this is, Deacon?” Oona tapped her finger on the paper. “This is a complete plan of all of the stores in the shopping district of Dark Street … including the dress shop and the museum basement. Look how detailed it is. You can even see right where the showroom platform is, and the mirror. This is how they knew exactly where to dig their hole.”

  “But how would they be able to acquire all of this information?” Deacon asked.

  “My guess,” Oona said, “Red Martin. This is very big, Deacon.”

  “You think he and the witches are working together?” he asked.

  Oona shushed him. “Do you hear that?”

  Deacon listened. “It’s coming from there.” He indicated a tunnel to their right with his wing.

  “I guess we’ll have to break our always-go-left rule,” Oona said, and the two of them started down the first tunnel to their right. Oona’s pulse rose. The deeper they went, the more distinct the sound became. It was the sound of voices arguing.

  A dim light could be made out up ahead. Oona blew out the candle. Her nerves tingled, her muscles tensing with each step. The tunnel opened just ahead, the flickering light appearing to come from a room at the end.

  She slowed, stepping as lightly as possible. Once she came within a few feet of the tunnel’s mouth, she could hear them clearly: two young voices, female. The first voice Oona recognized right away. It was Sanora. The second voice was one that Oona had never heard before. It sounded more mature than Sanora’s girly soprano, though still young and feminine—perhaps someone Oona’s own age or older. It was the second voice that spoke now, sounding exasperated.

  “You are so clumsy, Sanora. You almost ruined everything.”

  “I’m sorry, Katona,” Sanora replied.

  “First, you pester me into returning to the dress shop so you can take the dress from the window, and regrettably, I agreed, so long as we were very careful. But then you insisted on trying it on in the showroom, and I warned you against it. But would you listen? No. You should have waited until we came back down here. Really! Whirling about in front of that mirror like that, and knocking over the mannequin … you cracked the mirror. It will need to be replaced now, and when they remove it from the wall to do so, they will find the hole leading into the museum. Must you act so childish, Sanora? I’ll admit, the dress is magnificent. And you do look stunning in it. And yet …” The girl named Katona paused a moment before saying: “Sanora, where is
your dress?”

  “I’m wearing it,” Sanora said.

  “Not the one you stole. Your dress. Your work dress. The one you were wearing before you put that one on?”

  “Oh,” said Sanora. “I must have left it up in the …” She trailed off.

  “In the showroom!” Katona said, sounding outraged. “Don’t you realize that if they find it, they’ll know it was us? Sanora, really, why must you act like such a child?”

  “But I am a child,” Sanora said.

  “You are nothing of the sort!” Katona said. “You have simply been applying far too much of the cream. The turlock root has affected your judgment. Look at you.”

  “Look at you,” Sanora said defensively. “I’d say you’re looking quite a bit younger than—”

  “I look and act like a young lady,” Katona said. “You, on the other hand, have become a young girl, and at the rate you’ve been caking your face with that cream, you’ll be an infant again in no time.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sanora said, sounding quite meek.

  “Hmm. I must discuss this with the rest of the coven, Sanora. We’ll need to figure out what to do with your mess. Perhaps you’ll have to go back for your old dress. That is, if it hasn’t already been discovered.”

  “But—” Sanora began.

  Katona cut her short. “I’ve heard enough! Stay here while I meet with the others. In the meantime, perhaps I should take that dress, so that you don’t ruin—”

  “No!” Sanora shouted, and now it did not sound like the voice of a ten-year-old girl, but instead like that of a much older woman. The sound of it sent goose bumps skittering up Oona’s arms.

  “All right,” Katona said, and Oona thought she could hear unease in the older girl’s voice. “I will bring it up with the others.”

  Deacon took in a sharp breath. “She is coming this way.”

  The two of them ducked back into the darker part of the tunnel. Oona pressed herself flat against the wall. For a second she could make out the silhouette of a figure wearing a dress and pointy hat outlined against the flickering light, and then the blackness swallowed her up. Oona held her breath. The sound of swishing skirts filled the tunnel, growing louder at first, and then fading away down the passage behind them.