The Storm Tower Thief

by Anne Cameron

  “But they’ve got to mean something important.” Indigo sighed, browsing through a book on weather symbols. Since showing them her mother’s diary, she’d been far more cheerful and bright and had stopped clinging so desperately to her bag. She had also been more willing than ever to discuss her uncle, which Angus took as a good sign.

  He snapped his own book shut, yawning wearily. “Maybe we’d have more luck with the thumbprints in the mystery, riddle, and brain twister section. I’m going straight over there tomorrow evening and—”

  He stopped talking suddenly. Familiar voices were drifting toward them.

  “—and the good news is that Edwin Larkspur is now back at work in the museum and making a steady recovery.”

  Angus and Indigo peered through a gap in the shelves. Miss DeWinkle and Catcher Sparks had stopped close by. It was impossible not to listen to their hushed conversation. Especially as they’d heard hardly anything about the archaeologist and the museum theft for months now.

  “Principal Dark-Angel has already sent Trevelyan Tempest from the London office to have a quiet chat with him at the museum, of course.”

  “And Mr. Larkspur still has no idea what happened?” Miss DeWinkle asked.

  “Absolutely none, I’m afraid. He’s suffering from severe memory loss. It’s taken him weeks just to remember his own name. He had no idea he was an archaeologist until his colleagues showed him a collection of Viking hair-pins that he’d dug up. He seemed to think he was some sort of champion vegetable grower. Trevelyan says he’s still asking all sorts of questions about slug repellent and worm farms.”

  “Oh, how terrible! Poor Mr. Larkspur,” Miss DeWinkle said. “But is there any sign of the lightning tower artifacts?”

  “They’ve completely vanished without a trace. And until Mr. Larkspur can give the police a description of the thieves . . .” Catcher Sparks said, shaking her head. “He’s been moved to a quiet section in the museum archives until he’s recovered his memory. Although there’s no guarantee that he’ll ever remember the exact details.” There was a short pause in the conversation. Then—“What on earth is that dreadful smell?”

  Angus almost fell off his chair in a panic. Indigo quickly sank behind a pile of books, trying not to stir the air around them.

  “Heaven preserve us!” Catcher Sparks grabbed a handkerchief from a pocket in her leather jerkin and held it over her nose. “Has the new librarian been handing out fish-scented bookmarks? Or has Valentine Vellum been studying deep-sea charts again?”

  “Perhaps we should find somewhere to sit in the snowflake section instead,” Miss DeWinkle suggested. “There’s always such a crisp Alpine aroma.”

  And they made a hasty retreat.

  Indigo gave Angus some special orange-scented shampoo to wash the last of the fishy smell out of his hair. And by the time they went up to the research department the next morning, he was feeling properly clean at last.

  “It’s a shame about Edwin Larkspur, though,” Dougal said as they made their way under a low-flying sofa that was already occupied by several snoozing lightning catchers. “It would have been brilliant to see bits of an actual lightning tower. I mean, that’s where it all started, wasn’t it? It’s part of our history.”

  Catcher Castleman was still supervising their daily duties. She led them straight up a long spiral staircase to a section of the department they had never visited before. Signs of frost damage still surrounded them on all sides, and the hall, which was finally beginning to dry out, was now full of the sweet, damp smell of decay.

  “Luckily, the ice diamond spores did not creep into this particular room.” The lightning catcher opened a door and led them into a modest library, lined on all four sides with a small number of large books. “Due to the dampness in the air, however, there has been a serious outbreak of bearded mold, which needs to be eradicated before it damages our most precious collection of holographic histories.”

  “These are all holographic histories?” Angus asked, surprised, gazing at the assortment of dusty books.

  “Here at Perilous we have the oldest collection of holographic histories in the world,” Catcher Castleman informed them proudly. “Sadly, many of them are rather frail and delicate and must be treated with great care.”

  Angus exchanged looks with Dougal and Indigo. In the previous term, they had encountered several holographic histories, none of which had been remotely delicate or frail.

  “Each of the books will need to have its covers wiped down, inside and out,” the lightning catcher explained, handing them cleaning cloths and bottles of misty mildew spray. “I will return for your midmorning break. In the meantime, this door should remain closed at all times. We cannot risk the mold’s spreading.”

  And with that, Catcher Castleman left, closing the door behind her.

  “This is brilliant!” Dougal grinned as soon as she’d gone. “Well, it’s better than going back to the booby traps, anyway.” He dragged a knobbly old book off a shelf and inspected it eagerly. “The early lightning catchers were really fond of holographic histories. I had no idea there were still so many of them left. They went out of fashion ages ago, so no new ones have been written for more than a hundred years now.”

  An hour later, Angus was beginning to understand why. The holographic histories were highly demanding and temperamental in nature and did not appreciate being riffled through for mold.

  “Unhand my pages, young scoundrel! I must protest . . . Think of my ink!”

  The second a book was opened, it began to recite its contents at full theatrical volume, getting louder and louder, until Angus’s ears ached with the incredible noise. Some of the oldest tomes had lost their voices and rapped the inside of their covers with walking sticks instead, to attract his attention. A small number of the histories were clearly beginning to disintegrate, pages crumbling with age, and they were now telling nothing but fibs and lies . . . along with some fairly disgusting stories about storm fleas, which Angus was certain he’d be having nightmares about for the next month.

  “Don’t these things ever shut up?” he yelled, wrestling a book on weather wisdom closed before it could tell him for the fourth time what a red sky at night meant. He had just managed to squeeze it back onto the shelf when—

  “Oh no!”

  Angus spun around. Indigo had tripped over a stack of books.

  “I’m sorry!” she wailed as tomes scattered in all directions. And before they could stop it, the air was thick with the sound of frantic storytelling.

  “Oh, save us from the noxious fumes that spilleth from the division of experimentation . . .”

  “Doomed is the lightning catcher who does not heed the dangers of crumble fungus . . .”

  “Quick! Grab them before they really get going!” Angus scooped up the first book he could lay his hands on and thrust it back onto the shelf, where it wriggled furiously.

  “Behold!” another tome boomed impressively.

  He flipped it shut with his boot before it could say anything else, but there were still a dozen books scattered across the floor. He clamped his hands over his ears and dived on a large volume about historical Imbur ailments, which was now wailing, “The only cure for warts is to slice the root of a ginger plant, at the full moon . . .”

  Squashed somewhere beneath it, yet another book was attempting to make itself heard: “. . . days of dark and old, when a fierce and terrible storm struck the city of London, that the lightning heart came into being . . .”

  Angus froze. “What did that last book just say?”

  “If you’ve got a problem with warts, I wouldn’t take advice from someone who calls herself Carbuncula Blemish.” Dougal grabbed the book on ailments and closed it with a loud snap.

  “This has nothing to do with warts,” Angus explained excitedly, fishing through the rest of the scattered holographic histories. “I could have sworn one of these books just said something about the lightning heart. Here!”

  Buried at the
bottom of the pile, and bound in battered leather, was a small tome entitled Mysteries of the Great Fire, London, 1666, by Crispin Pinny-Pencher. The storyteller was old and wizened, with sunken cheeks and a sinister glare. He was dressed in robes of plain brown, with none of the fancy pantaloons, feathered hats, or bejeweled shoes that most of the other storytellers were wearing.

  “Mysteries of the Great Fire?” Dougal said, reading the front cover as Angus rescued the book. “But how could that have anything to do with the lightning heart?”

  “No idea. But with any luck, we’re about to find out.”

  Angus propped open the book on a small reading table where all three of them could see it. Crispin began his narrative without hesitation.

  “Be warned! Those who are prone to great feebleness, fits of fainting, and sudden hysterics should flee before the terrible tale of the lightning heart can be told! Only those strong in mind and sturdy of shin should proceed beyond this point.”

  He pointed at each one of them with a long, crooked finger, his rasping voice cut short by a strangled hiccup.

  “Hey, I know what this is!” Dougal said as Crispin paused to consider his next line and to pick a scrap of puckered skin off his left nostril. “This must be one of the books in the famous holographic horror series. They were all narrated by the same creepy guy, but I don’t think they were very popular in the end. They used to flip themselves open in the middle of the night and start telling horrible, spooky stories—gave people terrible nightmares.”

  Angus could totally understand why. What bothered him more, however, was the fact that the only mention of the lightning heart they’d ever discovered was in a series of books that had been designed to frighten people. It did not bode well. Crispin continued.

  “ ’Twas in the year of 1666, in the days of dark and old, as a fierce and terrible storm struck the city of London, that the lightning heart came into being. Mighty thunderbolts shook Londoners to their very bones. Lightning lashed out and lit up the skies. The tallest lightning tower was struck with a force that it could not withstand, and so the great fire started. The blaze spread quickly, destroying all in its path, with a heat so terrible, an inferno so fierce, a storm of such vicious sparks and such high danger that it curdled milk a hundred miles away.”

  A spectacular bolt of lightning suddenly illuminated the page behind Crispin Pinny-Pencher’s head, making Angus and his friends jump in surprise.

  “The people of London fled as flames scorched the sky. Thick black smoke filled every lung, extinguished every star—”

  “I say, what rot!” A small scandalized voice squeaked from the pages of the book that Indigo was clutching.

  “Shhh!” She snapped it shut quickly, before it could say any more, and shoved it onto the nearest shelf.

  “ ’Twas only after the fires had burned themselves out, as the lightning catchers were searching through the blackened wreckage of London, that they discovered the terrible lightning heart. Formed when lightning struck, fusing the blood of a storm prophet with the lightning tower, it was a bloodred heart-shaped stone of great power.”

  “A heart-shaped stone, formed from the blood of a storm prophet!” Angus repeated, thunderstruck. “This is it! This is what we’ve been looking for!”

  “You—you don’t think Crispin Pinny-Pencher could have made the whole thing up, do you?” Indigo said hesitantly.

  “Yeah, this lot has been telling the most outrageous lies all morning,” Dougal added, looking doubtful.

  But Angus shook his head. It was the first mention they’d found of the lightning heart anywhere. Crispin Pinny-Pencher had to be on to something.

  “Well, there’s nothing remotely useful in the rest of this holographic horror.” Dougal flicked through the remaining chapter headings, ignoring the highly affronted look on Crispin Pinny-Pencher’s face. “It’s just a load of old waffle about buildings burning down and people fleeing. This storyteller’s totally bogus, if you ask me.”

  Angus, however, was feeling far from downhearted. The lightning heart might have come from explosive beginnings; they might have heard about it from a creepy storyteller who enjoyed scaring the pants off people. But if it could help him stop Dankhart and the ice diamond storms . . .

  Thoughts of the powerful lightning heart filled Angus’s head from the moment he woke in the morning until he finally drifted off to sleep at night. He spent every free minute with Dougal and Indigo, trying to work out how their brilliant discovery could help them prevent yet another storm from filling the Exploratorium with deadly, diamond-shaped spores.

  “So we’ve got one secret message, two photos, and three lightning thumbprints,” he said one evening as they sat in the Pigsty. A fire roared in the grate as an icicle storm pounded against the window outside. “We finally know what the lightning heart is. Now all we’ve got to do is find it.”

  “It might help if we knew what had happened to it after the Great Fire, when it was first brought to the island,” Dougal said.

  He turned to look at the holographic horror, which was open on the floor behind them. After revealing how the lightning heart had come into being, the storyteller had maintained a shrewd and stony silence.

  “I bet he could tell us all sorts of useful stuff if he wanted to,” Dougal added, giving Crispin Pinny-Pencher a prod with his finger to liven him up a bit. “I don’t know why he’s gone tight lipped all of a sudden. We couldn’t shut him up a few days ago, and now he won’t say a word.”

  “It might have something to do with the fact that you accused him of being bogus,” Indigo suggested.

  “Well, if he’s going to be all moody about it, we might just as well shove him straight back into the research department and bury him under a pile of books on verrucae.”

  Crispin Pinny-Pencher scowled at Dougal. A lightning bolt flashed across the page behind his head, and he turned his back on the three of them.

  Angus sighed and shuffled closer to the fire, warming his toes. The last few days had been frantic. Encouraged by their discovery, they had dodged Catcher Castleman and scoured random sections of the research department. They’d spent long hours in the library and even sneaked into the forecasting department, one of the easiest places to creep into unnoticed, in the hope that they might find something bloodred and heart shaped hiding in a secret cupboard. But so far, all they’d discovered was a stinking bag of rotting seaweed.

  What if it was hidden inside the Inner Sanctum or the Lightnarium, where they had no hope of going? Angus felt his stomach twist into familiar knots. His mum and dad were relying on him; he couldn’t let them down now, not when they were finally making progress. . . .

  “Maybe we should have a look at the map again?” Indigo suggested.

  Dougal unrolled an elaborate map of Perilous, which he’d drawn several days before, and spread it out across the floor.

  “Well, it’s definitely not in the forecasting department,” he said, drawing a thick black cross through it. “All they’ve got in there is stinking seaweed and hedgehogs.”

  “And the only things they store up on the roof are bottling jars, buckets, and rain funnels,” Indigo pointed out.

  As Dougal reached over to cross it off the map, something shiny fell out of his pocket. “Oops!”

  “What’s that?” Angus asked.

  “Oh, um, it’s a lightning moth. Theodore Twill and his mates managed to catch some of the stragglers.” Dougal picked up the moth carefully and cradled it in his hands. It had three bent wings and a slightly squashed look about it, as if it had been caught none too gently.

  “Twill says they make really good pets,” Dougal said. “They’re only dangerous when they’re flapping about in flocks. The rest of the time they follow you like a faithful dog. Clifford Fugg’s already trained his to chase after Catcher Howler, and I thought it might be cool.”

  Angus stared at his friend in disbelief. After everything they’d been through with the dangerous silvery creatures, surely Dougal wo
uldn’t dream of actually owning one?

  “I’ve called him Deciduous, you know, after Deciduous Dewsnap. Or maybe even Cid, for short?”

  And despite his misgivings, Angus couldn’t help smiling.

  Meanwhile, the dreadful weather continued. The icicle storms were showing no signs of fizzling out yet, with new reports coming in from the Caribbean island of Antigua. The gravity railway had frozen solid, meaning that all visitors, supplies, and messages had to be transported up and down the rock by a system of ancient baskets and ropes. Angus felt queasy just thinking about it.

  Hot-water bottles were now being delivered to every lightning cub just before bedtime, along with extra mugs of piping hot chocolate and marshmallows. And Germ was giving them regular updates on the lightning catchers still in the sanatorium.

  “They’re all starting to show real signs of progress now. Doctor Fleagal’s planning to release them in a few days,” Germ said, happily tucking into his dessert one evening in the kitchens.

  Despite the fact that Angus and Dougal were still sharing a bedroom with Germ, they’d hardly seen him for weeks now. He often came to bed long after they’d already gone to sleep, and he went straight back up to the sanatorium before they’d woken up in the morning.

  “I only hope our dear old uncle Scabby isn’t planning any more ice diamond storms.” Germ pushed his empty bowl away, yawning loudly. “I’ve got some serious sleeping to catch up on.”

  “Germ, don’t!” Indigo whispered, turning pale. “Somebody will hear!”

  “Germ’s got a point, though,” Dougal said, looking thoughtful. “I mean, there haven’t been any new outbreaks for a while now, have there? Maybe your uncle Scabious has finally given up?” He whispered the last few words. Indigo looked grateful.

  Tensions continued to simmer with the Vellum twins. Angus did his best to stay well clear of the hairy pair. But Pixie and Percival had gone strangely quiet all of a sudden, virtually ignoring Angus whenever they passed one another in the stone tunnels and passageways.