by Caleb Krisp
The ghost seemed to read my mind.
‘Perhaps I can help,’ she purred.
The Duchess glided to the middle of the room and hovered there. She puckered her pale lips. Then she started to turn on the spot, like an enormous ballerina in a music box. And as she did so, clusters of dust began to lift off the surfaces of chairs and tabletops and window sills, flying at speed into her ghoulish mouth. In a few moments every surface sparkled and shone. Then the dead woman flew at Mother Snagsby’s mural and vanished into one of her heavenly clouds.
Only her voice lingered. ‘Think on it, child,’ it said. ‘I will return soon for an answer.’
‘Who were you talking to?’ said Mother Snagsby from the doorway.
‘Mr Talbot,’ I replied, pointing to the coffin. ‘He’s frightfully good company.’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Mother Snagsby, striding into the parlour.
She made her way around the room, running her finger across each and every surface. She frowned, a web of lines crowded around her eyes.
‘Well?’ I said brightly.
‘It is … clean,’ came the faint reply, ‘thoroughly clean.’
I pushed the dusting rag into Mother Snagsby’s hand and headed for the door. ‘You’re welcome, dear.’
Things began rather wonderfully. As I climbed the library steps, my mind fixed on the challenge ahead, I saw Miss Carnage off to one side, standing by a large pillar. She had her back to me, her head lowered. Which was perfect. I could slip inside undetected. But as I reached the doors, I glanced one final time at the librarian – I saw a small figure dart away from her, disappearing around the side of the building.
Miss Carnage looked rather unsettled when she turned and found me gawking at her.
‘That was just a boy from the post office,’ she said quickly. ‘I am sending a rather important telegram to India.’
Oh. Now I understood. The dreary librarian had a sweetheart in India. An officer in the British army. Miss Carnage had not told me a great deal about him, but from what I gathered he was frightfully neglectful.
‘I find that the future weighs heavily, Ivy,’ she said, threading her arm in mine and walking with me into the busy library. ‘I have asked my friend to declare his intentions one way or the other, for I feel we have been courting long enough.’
‘I applaud you, Miss Carnage,’ I said, patting her arm. ‘If this brute thinks he can do better than you – which is highly likely – then it’s best that you know now so that you might find someone slightly less dashing.’
But my words of inspiration did little to lift her spirits.
‘Now I shall have to wait for his reply,’ she said, stepping behind the front desk – which was exactly where I did not want her to be. ‘Waiting is not easy, as I am rather impatient.’
‘I know just how you feel, dear. I once waited for my luck to change – took eleven minutes. As you might imagine, I was furious.’
After my triumph in the viewing parlour, I had managed to convince Mother Snagsby to let me visit the library. I may have told her that I had several overdue books that were certain to attract heavy fines. Mother Snagsby never met a penny she didn’t love. I was to return the books and be back before lunch.
Which meant I had to get straight to the point.
‘Miss Carnage, I confess that I have heard a troubling rumour.’
‘Oh?’ said the librarian.
I looked through the glass partition into the office behind. As it was Monday and Mr Ledger was out having tea with his mother, it was delightfully empty. I leaned in for good effect. ‘I have heard whispers that the catalogue has been tampered with.’
The librarian gasped. Looked with alarm and horror at the large cabinet full of tiny drawers on the far side of the room – each containing hundreds of alphabetically arranged index cards identifying the location of each and every book in the grand library.
‘Apparently, all of the cards have been shuffled,’ I went on. ‘A search for Gulliver’s Travels will send you to German History. It’s utterly shocking.’
‘Heavens,’ said Miss Carnage, clutching her throat. ‘Excuse me, Ivy, I must see to this immediately.’
The good woman hurried away. And so did I.
Finding the vault beneath the library was stupendously easy. Miss Carnage’s detailed instructions could not have been more help if she had actually been trying to lead me there. I passed swiftly into the back office. Opened the bottom drawer. Found the key lying there beneath a pile of papers.
With lightning speed, I crossed the room, went down a short hall. The narrow stairs were rather rickety, but I was beneath the library in no time at all.
It was rather gloomy down there. A long, dark chamber where even the shadows seemed to have shadows. Luckily, there was just enough daylight washing down from the stairway to locate a candle and a box of matches. With the aid of a flickering flame, I made my way towards the back. The crypt was a wonderland of crates and boxes and filing cabinets. Stone walls. Low arched ceiling. The musty smell of mouldy paper and dampness.
To say I found the old printing press with ease would be an understatement. The large metal contraption wasn’t even covered. And beneath it was a small green safe – visible to anyone who happened to pass by. It was all very disappointing.
I placed the key in the lock and turned it. Grabbed the rusted silver handle and pulled the thick metal door. It opened with a squeak. The contents of the safe were cast in darkness, so I pushed the candle forward.
What emerged in the flicking orange glow were a pile of five or six books and beneath them a parcel tied with string. I set the candle down. Pulled the books out. A Field Guide To Revolution; The Secret History of Cheese; Training Rabbits For Warfare; How To Hypnotise Your Elders … not exactly the collection of dark and menacing tomes I had expected. And no sign of Ambrose Crabapple’s manuscript.
I looked back at the vault. Pulled out the parcel tied with string. Unwrapped it. Bound inside a plain brown folder was a stack of parchment, covered in handwritten scrawl. And on the front, in spidery black ink –
Lifting the Veil:
The Truth About Hidden Worlds
and How to Get There
By
Ambrose Crabtree
A great well of joy rose up inside of me. Here was hope, pure and simple. Rebecca was within reach. She would be saved! I tucked the manuscript beneath my apron and blew out the candle.
Chapter 9
Nightfall could not come swiftly enough. After all, I had work to do. I ate my supper in record time (the roasted duck was a great disappointment, the onions a triumph) and announced that I was exhausted after all that beastly dusting and wished to retire to bed. Mother Snagsby seemed to find this deeply suspicious, but Ezra excused me from the table and told me to get a good night’s sleep.
‘Do not forget,’ he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, ‘tomorrow Mrs Roach and her daughters are coming to tea and I know how much you are looking forward to that.’
Actually, I had forgotten. Still, it was a thrilling thought! I hurried from the room. Tomorrow I would make new friends. And tonight I would find a way to reach an old one.
It had certainly been a day of high adventure. When I got home from the library, I had placed the manuscript under my mattress. Which is where I retrieved it from, sitting on the bed with the parchment in front of me. The pages were numbered, though not bound. The date on the front was 1834. Strangely they did not look yellowed or faded with age. I put this down to the fact that the manuscript had been locked away in the dark safe for decades.
With tremendous eagerness, I thumbed through the pages. Ambrose Crabapple had a fondness for words and it appeared that he wrote a great deal of nonsense. The first five chapters touched on subjects like time travel, immortality and the nature of dreams.
Despair was beginning to set in, just as I arrived at the final chapter – ‘Lifting the Veil’. Again, there was a lot of waffle, which I skimmed over at s
peed, only stopping when I hit upon the following –
That there are other worlds, nestled beside our own, is a fact few are aware of; yet they exist. If you are reading these pages, then there is every chance you know this already. I will also assume that you would be perfectly willing to defy the laws of time and space and journey to one or more of these hidden realms. Alas, dear reader, I must inform you that it is quite impossible. You are wasting your time and I bid you farewell.
Which was terribly unexpected! Also, frightfully rude. I turned the next page and it was blank. As was the one after that. Except for the fact that it was covered in scratch marks. I squinted. Held the page close to my face. Turned it over and whatnot. Only when I grabbed the candle from the bedside and held it up to the parchment did the magic of that page become clear. Ambrose Crabapple’s handwriting blossomed under candlelight.
This is what I read –
Good, as you have arrived, I will assume you are a true seeker. Now let us get down to business. When one wishes to find a hidden world, one does not attempt to travel there. For there is no need to journey at all. Once the veil is lifted, you will find that this hidden world is much closer than you think. In fact, it is all around – all you must do is find the door and walk through it.
That was all very interesting, but I was still none the wiser about how I might lift this monstrously inconvenient veil and find Rebecca. I hoped against hope that the final paragraphs would hold the key –
Lifting the Veil is impossible for most, as the necessary tools are rarely found in any single human being. First, one needs an ability to see what others cannot. Ghosts, for example. Secondly, one cannot find a hidden world, if one does not know which world one is seeking. Thirdly, and most importantly, one must have a connection to the world they seek in order for it to be revealed.
Extraordinary! It was as if Ambrose Crabapple were speaking directly to me. What a delightful coincidence! I satisfied every one of his three conditions – I could see ghosts, I knew exactly what hidden world I was seeking, and I had a direct connection to Prospa, for my beloved Rebecca was being kept prisoner there.
Now all I needed was a way in. My heart thumped furiously as I read the final passage. It was a list –
The rules are very simple.
1)The veil must be lifted at night, preferably on a half-moon, although entry is possible under any moon for gifted travellers.
2)Concentration is the key.
3)Fix your gaze upon a single point.
4)Focus on what connects you to the world beyond the world.
5)Focus until everything around that single point begins to fall away.
6)Strong emotion is the hand that lifts the veil.
7)When you travel it will feel as if your body has crossed into this other world, but it has not. Only your soul journeys across unseen borders and you cannot be harmed.
8)Once lifted do not stay longer than thirty minutes.
9)Go bravely.
I dropped the parchment and rushed to the window, drawing back the curtain. The sky was black and empty. If there was a moon, I couldn’t see it from my vantage point. Which is why I fished out the Clock Diamond from under my nightdress – it showed a full moon. Terribly inconvenient! To lift the veil, I needed a half-moon. Although Ambrose Crabapple did say that for gifted lifters, travel was possible under any moon.
Time to get to work. I hid the manuscript away in a drawer beneath my undergarments. Took a wooden chair from against the wall and set it in the middle of the room. Sat upon it and focused on the picture above the dresser – it was another of Mother Snagsby’s portraits of her daughter, Gretel. She looked to be about eighteen, laughing madly as she stood in a gloriously flowering garden. Gretel had a full face, blushing cheeks, dark hair, pleasant smile.
It was slightly odd to me that someone as ancient as Mother Snagsby had a daughter so young – but perhaps she only looked like a weather-beaten coconut due to questionable skincare. Or a witch’s curse.
Remembering all that I had read, I fixed my eyes on the painting and kept them trained there. Then in the wonderlands of my mind, I found Rebecca, pictured her in that yellow room, looking so fragile and wounded. And the pain in her eyes.
‘I am coming, dear,’ I whispered.
For an age, nothing happened. I had been gazing into the portrait of Gretel for so long it was now something of a blur. But I kept Rebecca in mind. And Prospa. Kept staring. Until the walls around me seemed to ripple and bend. I felt a burning in my chest as the Clock Diamond came to life. A faint buzzing filled the room. Then the painting began to melt, sliding from the canvas as if it were porridge.
From the corners of my vision I could see dressers and curtains and doors dissolving around me, like the world was falling away. The painting was now nothing more than a gold frame and through it, I saw a single tree bloom. It was stark white, with bare, twisted limbs, and it seemed to have a lantern within it, for it glowed hauntingly.
Behind the tree, the ground began to shake and crack. Then a great forest of pale trees rose up. The buzzing grew louder, tickling my ears. And the heat of the stone burned my chest, throwing pulsing amber light into my face. I watched in wonder as –
A key turned sharply in the lock. The handle twisted.
As the door to my bedroom flew open, the walls of my room flew up around me. The painting of Gretel bled quickly across the canvas, filling itself in. The buzzing ceased. The Clock Diamond dimmed. The veil had fallen.
‘What in heavens is going on, young lady?’ Mother Snagsby stalked into the bedroom and stood above me. ‘Explain yourself!’
‘Explain what, dear?’
‘That wretched noise,’ she spat, looking about with great suspicion, ‘and the light coming from underneath your door.’ She dropped down and looked under the bed. Got up again and searched the wardrobe. ‘It looked as if you had a dozen streetlamps in here.’
I stood up. ‘As you can see, Mother Snagsby, there are no streetlamps. As for the noise you heard, that was just me. I spent a few months in an ashram last summer – met a wonderful yogi who taught me how to chant. Delightful fellow. Spoke in tongues. Only ate birdseed.’
‘The Snagsbys do not chant, so stop it this instant.’
‘If you say so, dear.’
When Mother Snagsby had departed, with strict instructions that I go to bed and stay there, I returned to the centre of the room. Sat down. Stared at the portrait of Gretel. Thought of Rebecca. I could hear Mother Snagsby pacing up and down the hall outside. But I gazed and gazed into the painting until my eyes watered. Tried to block out the old goat’s footsteps. Waited for the portrait to melt. For the walls to drop. For the woodlands to rise before me. But the world did not fall away. Though I cannot say the same for my spirits.
‘What are you up to?’
‘Not a thing,’ was my reply.
Mother Snagsby’s battered face was a mask of mistrust. She was still smarting about last night. Certain that I was up to something dastardly.
‘It seems to me,’ she declared, getting up from the breakfast table, ‘that you are forever on the brink of some calamity. You cannot be trusted.’
The nerve! How could she accuse me of being deceitful, simply because I was keeping things from her? Last night had been far more upsetting for me than it was for Mother Snagsby. While I was still bitterly disappointed that I had been unable to reach Rebecca, I was comforted by the fact that something had happened. But I feared that my bedroom was not the best location, given the noise and the glowing of the stone.
I would have to find somewhere else on my next attempt. In the meantime, I was feeling rather giddy about the day ahead.
‘I have a good mind to cancel Mrs Roach’s visit,’ said Mother Snagsby sternly.
‘That would be a great shame, dear,’ I said, putting down my napkin. ‘I’m practically positive that I would take the news rather badly – probably refuse to visit the deathbeds of your many valuable customers.’
Mother Snagsby bristled in a glorious fashion. But she was beaten and she knew it. ‘They may come for a brief visit, but it will be a very modest affair. Tuesday is market day and Mrs Dickens has more important things to do than wait upon us all afternoon.’
‘That will not be necessary,’ I said, getting up. ‘As you said, Mrs Dickens will be at the market so I will be seeing to all the preparations.’
Mother Snagsby looked startled. ‘You?’
‘I have everything planned – first I will run you a bath, then I will clean the upstairs drawing room, then I will prepare some tasty treats for our visitors.’
For a few delicious moments, Mother Snagsby seemed lost for words. Then the cold glint sparkled in her eyes. ‘I bathe in the evenings.’
Of course, I knew that. For I was the one who fetched bucketloads of hot water to fill her bath. ‘Yes, dear, but as we are having guests today and you are looking particularly haggard, I decided that a long, hot bath was the very least you deserve.’
The old woman huffed. ‘Is that so?’
But I sensed a moment of weakness and lunged. ‘You do so much, Mother Snagsby,’ I said, looking wonderfully earnest, ‘working your horrid fingers to the bone. Isn’t it a daughter’s duty to take care of her mother?’
As I suspected, this had a winning effect.
Mother Snagsby looked at me with the sort of admiration she usually reserved for quality bacon. ‘I am pleased to hear it, young lady.’
‘Do hurry along!’ barked Mother Snagsby as I entered the bathroom carrying the final bucket of hot water. ‘This bath is like ice!’
Which was complete nonsense. The water was perfectly warm. But that was the problem with Mother Snagsby – she had a fondness for complaint. And I understood why. It was all on account of that recipe book she kept hidden in the pocket of her dress. The one that she never, ever cooked from.
‘This should make things better,’ I said, pouring the hot water into the bath.
