Hyacinth and the Secrets Beneath

by Jacob Sager Weinstein

  “Jump!” I yelled, and, still holding tight to the chain, I hopped over the edge of the mezzanine. Mom followed me.

  As we swung down, desperately clutching the chain, I could see the big cauldron on its other end being lifted up into the air. Fortunately, the cauldron was just a little lighter than Mom and me combined, so our speed was slow enough to give me a little control. I kicked my legs, swinging us towards a stairwell that led down into a faintly glowing darkness. I didn’t know what was down there, but as long as it didn’t want to cut Mom’s throat, I was willing to deal with it.

  Hanging on for dear life, we rode the chain down through the stairwell and landed on a shaky iron crosswalk in a small, cramped basement. In each of the four corners of the basement was a big steel tube. Those must have been the furnaces that, under normal circumstances, would have powered the giant machines on the ground floor. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and the power was coming from somewhere else. In the middle of the room was a rough dirt pit, and sitting in the pit was the baker’s oven that had started the Great Fire. Beams of light shot out from it into the furnaces, pulsing in time with the HSSSS. Kchick chick chick from above.

  I took a deep breath, expecting to inhale the oven’s delicious aroma of fresh bread, but I smelled something thick and metallic instead: blood. In fact, based on the red stains in the iron above it, the oven was in exactly the right spot to catch Mom’s dripping blood in its chimney. Even though she was now safely next to me, I shuddered.

  I didn’t have too much time to think about it, though. There were pipes sticking out of the wall. As we stood there, they convulsed and clanked, and water began to pour out of them.

  “I suppose this is appropriate, Hyacinth,” Lady Roslyn said, speaking loudly over the sound of the water. I looked up to see her standing at the top of the stairs. “Our little adventure together began when you turned on a small tap, and it just ended with me turning on several rather large ones. You and your mother will both drown within minutes. Alternatively, Mrs. Hayward, you can give yourself up of your own free will, and I’ll shut off the water, and your daughter and her friends can leave, free and unharmed.”

  “Oh, I’m Ms. Herkanopoulos now,” Mom said, trying to sound brave. “I’ve gone back to my maiden name. And if you’ll let them go, then, yes, I’ll—”

  “Mom, don’t. Lady Roslyn is bluffing. She won’t drown us. She needs your blood—and the baker’s oven—and—”

  “I do indeed,” Lady Roslyn said. “But I can get blood from a drowned body nearly as easily as a living one. And as for the baker’s oven—well, if there’s one thing you ought to have learned from our time together, it’s that magic works just fine when wet.”

  I looked around wildly for a way out. I couldn’t find one. Lady Roslyn was blocking the only exit, and the dirt pit in the middle of the room was already entirely underwater. We didn’t have much time.

  Mom turned to me. “If I go with her, will she really let you go? Do you think she’ll keep her word?”

  I knew Lady Roslyn would keep her word. She couldn’t risk lying with so much magic around. Neither could I, but I couldn’t tell Mom the truth, either, because then she’d just sacrifice herself like a big dummy and everything I had done to rescue her would be for nothing.

  So I just stood there, not saying anything. I guess Mom knew me pretty well, because my silence was all the answer she needed. “I’ll do it,” she said to Lady Roslyn.

  “No!” I yelled as Mom started up the staircase. I grabbed her arm and held it tight, but she shook her head.

  “Sweetie, look down,” she said. I looked down. The water was already rising above my ankles. I hadn’t even felt it—all I could feel was how terrified I was for my mother. “I’m going to die either way,” Mom said. “At least let me go knowing I saved you. Please, let me go.”

  I looked in her eyes, and I knew what I had just heard: it was my mom’s dying wish.

  Even so, I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want to ever let go. But I must have, because the next thing I knew, Mom was climbing up the stairs, and I was just standing there, my hand outstretched, tears running down my face.

  The water at my feet began to bubble.

  For an instant, I thought it was my imagination, or just the tears making everything blurry. But, no, there was something different about the water. It was seething as though something was pushing up from below.

  Something gray and muddy and shaped like a head.

  Like a gray, muddy head with a dark red streak and glittering mica eyes.

  A Saltpetre Man rose out of the water, and was joined by another, and another, and another, the clay of their bodies wet and glistening. For the first time ever, they looked absolutely beautiful to me. And soon there were more and more and more, filling the whole room.

  “Mom!” I yelled. “Stop! It’s the Saltpetre Men!”

  Mom turned around and looked. Her mouth dropped open.

  I guess if I had thought about it, I would have realized that she wouldn’t be thrilled by the sudden appearance of the giant dirt monsters that had kidnapped her before. But it didn’t even occur to me until Mom turned pale and let out a horrified shriek.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “They’re—”

  Screaming, Mom turned around and ran the rest of the way up the steps. As she passed JB, he grabbed her and bundled her out of sight. Lady Roslyn gazed down at me with a disturbingly confident look on her face, then turned around and followed JB.

  By now, dozens of Saltpetre Men were clomping their way up the steps. “Let me by!” I called, trying to push my way through, but they were too big to pass and too heavy to shove out of the way. All I could do was climb slowly behind them, step by agonizing step.

  A hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to see Inspector Sands. “We have the building ssurrounded, Hyassinth. You and your mother are ssafe.”

  I wanted to believe him. But if he was right, why hadn’t Lady Roslyn looked more worried?

  Finally, we reached the top. The platoon of Saltpetre Men parted respectfully for Inspector Sands, revealing Lady Roslyn, JB, and Sirion, backed up against a wall. They had tied Mom to one of the columns.

  Lady Roslyn had a chain in her hands and that same confident look on her face. “Inspector Sands,” she said. “I thought you might come, and this time, I am prepared. No more mucking about in a kitchen cabinet.”

  While she was talking, I traced the chain upwards with my eyes. It went all the way up to the ceiling, where it ran through a pulley, then split into a half dozen other chains. And each of those chains was connected to a metal cauldron hanging from the ceiling.

  Suddenly, I realized what must be in those cauldrons. “Inspector Sands! Get your men out of—” I began, but it was too late.

  Lady Roslyn pulled the chain.

  The cauldrons tipped over, and clear liquid came gushing out of them. It smashed down into the mezzanine, poured through the holes in the iron floor, and drenched the army of Saltpetre Men shuffling towards Lady Roslyn.

  The flood dissolved them, like chalk marks being rinsed off a blackboard.

  Because Inspector Sands wore an officer’s cap, he had a tiny bit more protection than the others. That, plus his faster shuffle, gave him just enough time to duck under a wooden table. But as the flood of liquid skittered across the floor, it sploshed up over his shoes, dissolving his ankles. Detached from his feet, his legs collapsed into the flood, dissolving further. By the time the liquid had drained away, there was nothing left of him below the waist.

  I had thrown my hands up as the wave crashed towards me. It hadn’t helped: I was soaked. But I was totally unharmed, if a little sticky.

  “Saltpetre is a chemical substance, and all chemical substances can be dissolved by something,” Lady Roslyn explained cheerfully. “Ammonia will do it, but it’s awfully nasty. Fortunately, glycerine works just as well. They use it in food all the time—it’s totally harmless. To humans, at least.”

&n
bsp; Inspector Sands looked around. His men were nothing more than a field of empty uniforms and scattered mica chips that had once been eyes. He looked up at the ceiling, then down at the basement, and then he stared intensely at Lady Roslyn, as if he was wondering how it had all gone so wrong.

  Then, with his hands, he dragged himself up to one of the building’s iron columns and started banging his head against it, over and over.

  HSSSSSSS. Kchick chick chick went the steam pumps. CLANG went Inspector Sands’s head.

  It was the saddest, most hopeless song I’d ever heard, and it only got worse when Lady Roslyn started to cackle.

  HSSSSSSS. Kchick chick chick. CLANG. “Hee hee hee!”

  When she had stopped laughing, she turned to me, beaming. “It’s over, Hyacinth,” she said. “I’ve won.”

  “Well, you know, there’s winning, and then there’s winning,” said a familiar voice, and Newfangled Troy strode in through the entryway. I felt a surge of hope, until I remembered that the last time I had seen him, he had sold me off to the highest bidder.

  He had something in his hand, which he was casually throwing in the air. As he stepped forwards into the light, I saw that it looked a little bit like a hammer, and a little bit like a wrench, and a little bit like a saw.

  Lady Roslyn gasped. “Bazalgette’s Trowel,” she hissed. Then she got control of herself and said, more casually, “What makes you think I’d be interested in it?”

  Troy shrugged. “Oh, not much. Just everything. I was sitting around at home, looking back on my many adventures, and I started wondering how the Trowel ended up in Hyacinth’s hands. Then I remembered something. You were involved in an incident at the mouth of the Tyburn, which ended up in a lot of dead toshers. And that happens to be the same place the Trowel was first discovered, a century ago. Magical things have a way of returning to their sources, so maybe the Trowel ended up back there recently. And maybe you found out about it, and maybe you let a bunch of toshers die so that you could find it.”

  “And why would I go through so much trouble?” Lady Roslyn asked.

  “I work a lot of jobs,” Troy said, “which means I hear all sorts of office gossip. I hear things from barbers and carpenters and grocery clerks. Oh, and plumbers. Like the plumber who got an awfully nice fee from an old lady, on the condition that he leave a strange-looking tool in a young girl’s bathroom.”

  “You hired that plumber?” I asked Lady Roslyn. And then I figured it out. “It’s my bloodline again, isn’t it? My family has powers that yours doesn’t. Your plan to take over the magical rivers began with a single magically charged drop of water—but you needed somebody from my family to charge it up in the first place. So you left Bazalgette’s Trowel for me. But how could you know I’d use it on the sink?”

  “You’re making a lot of assumptions that—” She stopped and gave her head a little shake. “At this point, there’s no need for going round the glasshouse, is there? I can give you a few direct answers before you die. So: I couldn’t be sure you’d use Bazalgette’s Trowel on the sink,” Lady Roslyn said. “But it was worth a try. Do you know how many years I lived in that ugly little building, just so I could be close to a member of your family when they finally moved back? No matter how I tried, I never managed to trick your aunt into helping me out. But you, my dear, proved a much easier mark.”

  “A nice little con,” Troy said cheerfully. “I tip my hat to you. But once you had the drop, you took your eye off the Trowel. And without it, any power you take on is going to get used up, eventually. Of course, if you had the very piece of kit that Mr. Bazalgette used to seal the power of the rivers under the ground, you could seal the power within yourself. Nothing could ever take it away from you, could it?”

  “Troy, no!” I yelled.

  They both ignored me. Lady Roslyn licked her lips. “And what is it you want in exchange?”

  “Oh, nothing much. One million pounds would do it.”

  “Ah, I see,” Lady Roslyn said. “You’ve noticed that elderly ladies keep all sorts of loose change in their purses, and so you quite reasonably assume I’ve got fifty million tuppence clattering around mine. Unfortunately, I seem to have left my purse at home.”

  “Give me your word that you’ll pay me within seven days, and I’ll place Bazalgette’s Trowel in your hands right now.”

  Lady Roslyn was not impressed. “Carefully phrased, young man. You’ll place it in my hands. That’s not the same thing as making me the owner of it. And using a tosheroon of such power could be most hazardous to my health, if it doesn’t recognize me as its owner.”

  And just like that, I saw how I was going to get us out of this mess. I was going to have to phrase my next sentence very, very carefully, though. I wished Inspector Sands would stop banging his head. Somehow, even with all the other noise, it was that sad, desperate clanging that made it hard to think. Focus, Hyacinth.

  I cleared my throat. “Troy can’t give you ownership if he doesn’t own it, can he? I’m the one who found it in the first place. Remember? That’s what started this whole thing. And I’m willing to transfer all my ownership to you, for a price of my own.”

  Troy must have known what I was up to, since he gave me a discreet wink.

  “A price?” said Lady Roslyn. “I suppose you want two million pounds?”

  “No. Let me and my mom go.”

  “The Trowel’s no use without your mother, I’m afraid.”

  I knew she’d say that, but I also knew she’d be suspicious if I didn’t ask for enough. Fortunately, Mom helped out by saying, “Save yourself, sweetie. Promise me you will.”

  I pretended to think about it for a moment. “I promise, Mom. I’ll save myself,” I said. This was true. If my plan worked, I’d be saving myself…as well as her. I tried to look dejected as I told Lady Roslyn, “Do what you need to do. But let me and Oaroboarus and Little Ben go.”

  Lady Roslyn nodded. “You have yourself a deal.” She nodded to Troy. “And you? All I need from you is the Trowel, not ownership of it. I’ll give you a hundred pounds. Or I can have JB kill you, and then I’ll take the Trowel for free.”

  “Can’t say fairer than that,” Troy said, and threw her the Trowel.

  She snatched it from the air and looked expectantly at me. “Let’s hear it, Hyacinth. And don’t try to get cute with the phrasing, or the deal’s off.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I hereby give you every single bit of ownership I have in Bazalgette’s Trowel.”

  While Lady Roslyn thought that over, I prayed she wouldn’t notice the loophole. I had given her all the ownership I had—it’s just, that happened to be zilch. After all, I had given Troy all rights to the Trowel, back in the collapsing underground church. Troy and I knew that, but Lady Roslyn didn’t…I hoped.

  Finally, she nodded. “That is acceptable. You may go.”

  “No. I want to stay and keep Mom company while…Anyway, I want to stay.”

  She shrugged. “As you wish. JB, keep an eye on her. Make sure she stays precisely where she is.”

  “Good luck to all of you,” Troy said. He winked at me again, then strode off through the archway, whistling as he left.

  A bit of movement up on the mezzanine caught my attention. Little Ben had apparently woken up and made his way to where Oaroboarus was lying. Quickly, I cast my eyes back down. If JB or Lady Roslyn noticed where I was looking, they’d spot Little Ben. And if I was right that Oaroboarus was still alive, and Little Ben could get him free without being discovered, I would have a big stubborn ace up my sleeve.

  Lady Roslyn lifted Bazalgette’s Trowel and pointed it at each of the steam engines in turn. “Queen Victoria, I summon your power! Prince Consort, I summon your power! Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, I summon your power! Alexandra, Princess of Wales, I summon your power!”

  She held the sharp edge of the Trowel against my mother’s neck, as if choosing where she was going to cut. I started forwards, but JB moved menacingly between me and Mom.

/>   “Mighty engines, as full and rightful owner of Bazalgette’s Trowel, I seal your power within me!” Lady Roslyn cried, and swung her arm back, ready to slash Mom’s neck—

  —and then she paused and cocked her head, as if she had just heard something strange.

  I heard it, too. There was a wrong note in the industrial symphony that filled the building. Inspector Sands’s head still beat a clanging percussion against the iron column, but the steam section of the orchestra was playing a slightly different tune. Clang. HSSSS. Kchicka chick CHUNK.

  Once again, beams of glowing steam shot out of the mighty engines.

  Clang. HSSSS. Kchicka chick CHUNK.

  The beams hunted across the room like spotlights from a guard tower, finally converging on the Trowel.

  Clang. HSSSS. Kchicka chick CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK.

  Realization dawned on Lady Roslyn’s face. She tried to drop the Trowel. Her fingers wouldn’t budge.

  Clang. HSSSS. Kchicka chick CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK.

  She reached up with her other hand, trying to pry her fingers off, but they wouldn’t let go. The Trowel grew bright, and then grew brighter. I could barely stand to look at it.

  Clang. HSSSS. Kchicka chick CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK.

  The Trowel trembled upwards, forcing Lady Roslyn to stand on her tiptoes. It rose higher still, dragging her with it, until she was floating as high as the mezzanine, and that loud, wrong, pounding noise drowned out all the other sounds. CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK. She floated higher still, until the Trowel met the ceiling. CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK. It was shaking violently now, wrenching Lady Roslyn back and forth, and the CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK grew louder as the Trowel shook more and more CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK violently and it CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK grew so bright I had to close my eyes, and CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK then CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK for CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK one CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK sweet CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK moment—