by Becket
Its golden doorframe was ornamented with swirling carvings and patterns of winged creatures. It looked ancient and mysterious. In place of a door there was a stained glass window, illustrating two old men playing Pundicle – which, to Key, seemed like a mixture between chess, croquet, cricket, and hopscotch. But unlike most stained glass windows, the images in this one looked alive. “Hex-mate,” one old man said to the other, having made a bold move with his stained glass piece, when at the same time the other old man also made a swift move and rejoined, “Hob-mate;” but as neither could agree on who was the winner, they started contemptuously throwing game pieces at one another, which was a perfectly legal countermove, according to game rules.
Before the Doorackle Alleyway stood Sergeant Snut, surrounded by several other Wicked Watchmen. The sergeant was the tallest of them all, and his rank allowed him to tie down on his helmet not a Barely Bludgeoned Beaver, but instead a much larger, much angrier badger. It, too, appeared to have been bludgeoned first and then stuffed, for about once a minute it angrily rattled his helmet in an effort to get free. But Sergeant Snut acted as though this was very normal as he went on shouting orders at the other Watchmen.
“Look lively! Your superior officers like myself have spent many long nights preparing for a crisis like this. Now that the time has come, we are fully prepared for the forthcoming battle. So, it is therefore my job to make you as prepared as possible. Right, here’s the situation: Attacking our castle is a very perturbed gremlin —”
“Cyclops,” squeakled the voice of a much tinier Watchman beside him, holding a clipboard and marking it every time Sergeant Snut made a mistake. This Watchman was so tiny in fact that he had neither a badger nor a beaver strapped to his helmet, but instead a very frightened-looking dormouse. “A gremlin isn’t attacking the castle, sir,” he squeakled. “It’s a Cyclops.”
“Yes, of course, that’s what I meant to say,” Sergeant Snut snapped impatiently: “Werewolf.”
“Cyclops.”
“As I was saying, the scarecrow is attacking from the east —”
“The Cyclops is attacking from the west,” the tiny Watchman corrected and made another mark on his clipboard.
“— and so,” Sergeant Snut continued, disregarding that last remark, “it is our duty to make sure that this dragon does not get by our offenses.”
“— that this Cyclops does not get by our defenses,” the tiny Watchman corrected again, making another mark on his clipboard.
After listening to this very briefly, Miss Broomble stepped through the crowd of Watchmen and Barely Bludgeoned Beavers, stood before the sergeant, and commanded, “Give me your password for the Doorackle Alleyway.”
Not used to receiving orders from anyone lacking a badger of higher rank, Sergeant Snut straightened in shock and gaped at the witch in disbelief past the snarl of his badger. Now huffing with an air of indignance while his badger glared at her with utter loathing, the sergeant demanded, “What would you possibly want with my pincushion?”
“Password, sir,” corrected the tiny Watchman. “She wants your password to open the Doorackle Alleyway.”
“Balderdash!” gawped Sergeant Snut.
“Password,” corrected the tiny Watchman.
Miss Broomble pointed towards the distance. “In case you hadn’t noticed, the Cyclops is on the far side of the castle, attacking it nowhere near here. The Doorackle Alleyway is the quickest way there, but I cannot enter without your password.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Sergeant Snut. “Of course you can enter.”
“Yes,” argued the witch, “but it will yank me inside out if I do.”
“So,” said Sergeant Snut with a slight chuckle, “you can still enter.” Then he turned to the tiny Watchman with the clipboard and said, “Did you hear that? I made a witticism. Write that down!”
But the tiny Watchman looked more confused than ever, since he didn’t know what a witticism was or how to spell it.
All of a sudden Miss Broomble snatched his clipboard from him and started flipping through its pages.
“Oi!” he squeakled in protestation. “You’re not authorized to use clipboards.”
Ignoring him, she didn’t have to flip far, for the clipboard only had two pages. On the first was a doodle that the tiny Watchman had drawn of Sergeant Snut being attacked by his badger. The second page had only two words: The first word was Cyclops; the second was the password.
Miss Broomble handed the clipboard back to the tiny Watchman and then faced the Doorackle Alleyway.
The two old stained-glass men were still playing the same Pundicle match. Now that they had stopped throwing game pieces at one another, they were not only looking at their game board with deep concentration, thinking hard about their next move, but they were also heavily bandaged and suffering from concussions.
Miss Broomble spoke the password, which also happened to be the very same word required by law for all Mystical Creatures to speak at least once a night: “Higgledy-piggledy.”
“Wait,” one of the old stained-glass men demanded. “I’m in the middle of my end game.”
“No, you’re not,” the other old stained-glass man snapped crankily. “I’ll have you hob-mated in forty-two-and-a-half moves.”
“Guess again, you codger,” the other rejoined. “I’ll have you hex-mated in forty-one and two-thirds moves.”
“Come on,” Miss Broomble snapped impatiently. “We don’t have time for this. I’ve given you the password. Now, open, you two! Higgledy-piggledy. Higgledy-piggledy!”
“All right, all right,” the two old stained-glass men huffed together. They began picking up the stained glass pieces of their Pundicle match. And as they did so, the window’s jagged shapes began folding over one another, away from the center, and slid somewhere within the golden doorframe.
Through it, stretching far into the distance was an alleyway that appeared to be the same size as the doorway, though a tad askew. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were made of great big spinning cogwheels – some silver, some copper, some iron, some a green-looking metal that Key had never seen before. And between all these spinning wheels, swooping out from the walls and ceiling were large pendulums, swinging back and forth. It looked somewhat like the inside of a very complex, very dangerous clock. At the far end was a red metal door with a brass knocker.
Key walked around the doorframe. The other side showed the exact same sight: A red metal door with a brass knocker at the far end of a long cogwheel alleyway with swinging pendulums, all of which was through the same golden doorframe.
“Which way do we go?” Key asked.
Miss Broomble pressed the button behind her ear and her half-mask folded away. “We’re looking at the same tunnel leading to the same door,” she said. “If you enter from that side, and I enter from this side, we’ll still enter the same tunnel.”
Key came back around to Miss Broomble’s side when she suddenly heard Tudwal barking. She was very shocked to see not merely Tudwal, but also the Living Gargoyle, soaring through the air, straight towards her, carrying Tudwal in his large claws, along with the Wicked Watchman and his Barely Bludgeoned Beaver. The puppy had the beaver in the grip of his jaws while the Watchman was shaking his fists in angry protestation.
The Living Gargoyle landed before Key and dropped Tudwal. “I think you lost this,” he said in his great gravelly voice. Then he turned and flew off while the Wicked Watchman continued shaking his fist, vowing vengeance upon the whole gargoyle race.
Tudwal released the Barely Bludgeoned Beaver and sat before Key happily panting and wagging his tail.
“He was,” panted the voice of Pega breathlessly, “absolutely naughty. In fact I’ve never seen a naughtier puppy in all my afterlife.”
Tudwal yipped in satisfaction.
Key picked him up and nuzzled the folds of his short puppy fur. Then they followed Miss Broomble into the Doorackle Alleyway, which closed behind them, with the stained glass window reass
embling itself back into the moving image of two old men playing Pundicle.
Watching them go, Sergeant Snut and his Barely Bludgeoned Badger had been left behind in a very foul mood. But their attitude greatly altered when they happened to glance down at the tiny Watchman’s clipboard and notice the doodle of the sergeant being attacked by his badger. The tiny Watchman, realizing that his doodle had been discovered, began trembling so nervously that his armor rattled like tin cans. But past the scowl of his badger, Sergeant Snut remarked with a rather surprising air of approval: “That is a most excellent likeness of me, Lieutenant Snarkyfoot!”
— CHAPTER SIX —
Through the Doorackle Alleyway
In the meantime, with Tudwal in her arms, and following Miss Broomble through the long cogwheel alleyway, Key could hear Pega floating nearby. The invisible ghost maid was constantly muttering to herself, “Oh dear, oh dear, this will be the death of me again.”
The group hopped from one large spinning cogwheel to another, dodging the large swinging pendulums. More than once Key had to kneel low on one of the larger cogwheels spinning her around as an even larger pendulum swung a little too low for comfort, nearly taking off her head.
“Are all Doorackle Alleyways also powered by the Hand of DIOS?” she asked Miss Broomble as they went.
The witch almost got her boot caught between the great teeth of two spinning cogwheels while replying, “They’re actually powered by the Eye of DIOS.”
“The Eye of DIOS,” Key repeated to herself, curious to know more. She recalled that the Hand of DIOS was as tiny as a grain of sand, yet more radiant than the sun. She wondered now if the Eye of DIOS was anything like the Hand. And she wondered, too, how many more parts DIOS had, and if each one also played an important role in the Society of Mystical Creatures.
At length they came to the red door at the dead end. Key set Tudwal down and he sniffed it inquisitively. Its brass knocker was in the shape of a frightful-looking gremlin, crouching low, as if prepared to pounce. One of its long, lanky arms was reaching down and its hand was balled in a fist.
“I don’t think I could ever touch that,” Pega confessed in disgust.
Miss Broomble swung the arm and the gremlin’s fist knocked on the door. She knocked two times, then a third time. Key was glad she didn’t have to touch it, too, for the gremlin looked a little too alive.
The door swung open inwardly.
Before them now was an old cobblestone street. Outside was night. The weather was snowing flakes as large and as gentle as white feathers. The twinkling stars were red and green, and they shone brightly through the snowfall and the thick fog that spread out before them.
“Stay close to me,” Miss Broomble said as they went out into a cobblestone street. “It’s easy to get lost in here.”
Along the sides were gas lamps and various kinds of little shops – a hat maker, a candle maker, a brewery, a clock maker, a mechanical horse breeder, and much, much more. The street was filled with merchants and customers of all shapes and sizes. Women were wearing beautiful gowns. Men were wearing tall top hats, three-piece suits, thick coats, and scarves. Over everyone’s fancy attire were strapped the most magnificently metallic mechanisms and gizmos and gadgets. Each contraption looked as unique as a person, for each seemed tailored to especially suit each personality. One man was wearing a large clock face on his chest. Several children had mechanical wind-up toys that spun around them like orbiting moons. One woman was wearing a robotic octopus around her neck like a thick scarf. An older couple was sharing a carriage, before which was trotting a string of steam-powered horses.
Though still in her nightgown, Key was not bothered by the cold weather. In fact, she was quite used to snow on her bare feet, for the dungeon had been so cold on many nights that more than once Despair froze over. Nevertheless, she still felt embarrassingly underdressed and she wished again that she hadn’t lost her Crinomatic. Maybe Future Key will appear again and give me another one, Key imagined with wishful thinking.
Miss Broomble boldly led Key, Tudwal, and Pega between a few street performers juggling electricity. They scooted around a nanny leading a gaggle of hologram children. They sidestepped a crowd of businessmen being carried down the street by personal helicopters in the shape of umbrellas. And it dawned on Key then that, as she observed Miss Broomble deftly maneuvering through the crowd, the witch might have been in this place before.
When they had lunged out of the way of a copper carriage barreling down the street and sputtering out clouds of black smoke, Miss Broomble pulled Key onto the sidewalk and led her another block until they stood before the door of a little darkened shop.
Soot and snow begrimed the windows, almost completely obscuring them. Key could see some candle flames flickering from somewhere within the shop, but they were only bright enough to show several shadows slinking inside.
The knocker on this door was similar to the one on the door inside the Doorackle Alleyway – similarly red, similarly ornamented with a gremlin knocker. But the shop door had apparently seen so many hard seasons that its once red color was now dark purple, and its paint was chipped and peeling so badly that the door’s wood had become blackened by the sooty air.
As Key and Pega did not have any desire to knock on this door either, although Tudwal would have gladly done so if he had been tall enough and had opposable thumbs, Miss Broomble mustered the proper bravery once more and knocked with the brass gremlin.
Opening the door slowly was a very tall, very thin, and a very gray-skinned butler in a dusty uniform. His cadaverous face showed no emotion other than death. Looming over them all, he spoke no word, but gestured with his sallow hand and sleepy eyes for Miss Broomble and Key to enter. Pega followed them, prodding Tudwal to go before her, for he seemed timid about going past this deathly butler, who was eying Tudwal suspiciously, as if the immortal puppy might make an immortal mess on the rug.
The shop was a darkly lit office that smelled like a cold, musty cellar, filled with forgotten cobwebs in unswept corners. Mostly Dead Men in business suits and bowler hats were sitting at tall desks and writing with quills on parchment. Some glanced at the vampire and the witch, but most could have cared less with their heavy-lidded eyes fixed upon their parchments, driving their quills at a tortoise’s pace.
Tudwal eyed these workers doubtfully and he sniffed their tall chairs with greater caution than usual.
Making slow, lumbering steps, the tall butler led Miss Broomble, Key, Pega, and Tudwal past this main office, through a series of doors into smaller backrooms, and finally into a broom cupboard covered in old flowery wallpaper.
Before entering, Miss Broomble grabbed a lit candlestick from off a wall sconce. Key followed her and turned around just when the deathly butler closed the door with a final, grim grin, as though he were saying, “Farewell, poor souls.”
“Miss,” Pega whispered to Miss Broomble in the broom cupboard’s gloom, “I fear we’ve hit a dead end.”
“Not necessarily,” Miss Broomble said as she began shifting mops and brooms and rags out of the way. “There is a way out somewhere, as in most cases. We just have to seek to find it.”
Key helped Miss Broomble move things around, even though she had no idea if she was moving them to the right place, or if she was supposed to be looking for another stained glass window.
“Have you come this way before?” she asked.
“No,” Miss Broomble admitted, “and I doubt I’ll ever come this way again.”
“Then how did you know to come here?”
“I trust my instinct,” Miss Broomble confessed. “It seems like the right way to go.”
“Do all Doorackle Alleyways work this way?”
“Not all lead to a snowy, grimy street, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Key rephrased her question: “Whenever you use a Doorackle Alleyway, do you always have to guess where you’re going?”
“It’s not guessing; it is trusting,” Miss Broomble a
nswered. “Mr. Fuddlebee could explain it better. But from what I understand, it’s not the Doorackle Alleyway that leads us from one place to another; the Alleyways are simply places. It’s the Eye of DIOS that helps us find the right way to go through all time and all space.”
“So you didn’t know that you would come here?”
Miss Broomble shook her head. “Each time I use a Doorackle Alleyway, it’s always different. The last time, I ended up traveling through a doll house.”
“You shrunk?”
“I think it was time and space that shrunk.”
“Did you become a doll?”
“Not like the ones already in the house.”
“What kind of dolls were they?”
“Hungry.”
“So,” said Key, giving this idea some consideration, as this was all very new to her, “when we entered the Doorackle Alleyway a few moments ago, you had to guess – sorry, I mean trust – you had to trust which way to go, when to quit the crowded street, and which door to knock on?”
“I trust that the Eye of DIOS helped me come to this place,” Miss Broomble said. “I trust that DIOS knows I would have naturally knocked on the red door. DIOS – with her Eye and her Hand and all her other parts – works with us intuitively.”
Key did not know what intuitively meant, but she felt that it might be: Understanding more by feeling than by knowing.
“Even if I hadn’t been traveling by Doorackle Alleyway,” Miss Broomble continued to explain, “I would have still knocked on that door. To me, the door felt inviting.”
“It didn’t seem inviting to me at all,” Pega confessed.
“Me neither,” Key added, but then instantly regretted having blurted that out, fearing that she might have hurt her friend’s feelings.
But the witch was not the kind of friend who would be hurt or threatened by the differences in other people. In fact, adoring Key and Pega’s point of view, Miss Broomble smiled, which made Key feel instantly better.
“The way I trusted about knocking on the door to this shop,” the witch went on to say, “is the way I trust about being in this broom cupboard now. Trusting my self, I did not doubt that it was the right thing to do, and so I do not doubt now that this broom cupboard is the way out – aha!” she suddenly announced. “Found it!”
