The Nowhere Emporium

by Ross Mackenzie

  CHAPTER 35

  THE CHALLENGE

  Daniel sat in stunned silence as the theatre lights came back up. He tried to wrap his head around what he’d seen, and once again, in the back room of his mind there was something jumping out at him, screaming to be noticed. An idea … a possibility…

  Beside him, Ellie’s shoulders were bobbing up and down, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “Ellie?”

  “I can’t believe it, Daniel. She died, all because of a book! You saw it. And Papa didn’t mean to kill her…”

  “Of course he didn’t!” said Daniel. He shivered at the thought of Michelle lying dead on the floor. “Mr Silver didn’t even want to fight! She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sharpe’s the monster.”

  A sneer of disgust crept over Ellie’s face. “He stepped right over her, like she was a piece of dirt. She was my mum! She was his little girl, and if he can do that to her, then what will he do to us?” Her wide eyes were miniature versions of Mr Silver’s. “Daniel, that man’s a monster. We’ve got to get rid of him and save Papa. Daniel … Daniel?”

  Daniel’s mind had been turning, cogs and gears clicking into place. The idea in his head had caught fire.

  “Ellie,” he said, “I realise I haven’t been here very long, but I reckon I know how Mr Silver works better than anyone. Something he said in the film we just watched … it got me thinking. I can’t be sure, but I might know where your papa is.”

  She stared at him. “You do? Where?”

  “I can’t tell you yet. It’s safer if I’m the only one who’s in on it. You’re going to have to trust me. I have an idea. I’m going to ask you to do something. It’ll be dangerous, but I think it’s the only chance we have.”

  Ellie returned Daniel’s stare, her jaw set.

  “Anything,” she said.

  “Good,” said Daniel. “First of all, I have to pay another wee visit to the room of Secrets.”

  ***

  Grey Manhattan rain pelted the sepia-stained window of the Nowhere Emporium. Vindictus Sharpe sat at Mr Silver’s desk, throwing three silver knives one after the other at the stuffed polar bear.

  Back at the Fountain, when the boy had first snatched the book, Sharpe had given chase, determined to find him and squeeze the air from his lungs. But the infernal Emporium had sent him running in circles. He had returned to the shop front, deciding instead to wait the boy out.

  A whisper from the red velvet curtain caught his attention, and he spun to see the boy standing straight-backed, defiant.

  Daniel had never been as frightened of anything as he was of Sharpe. Nothing, not even Spud Harper and his gang, came close to the cold blue stare that was fixing him now. He made himself as tall as he could.

  “I know where Mr Silver is hiding,” he said.

  Sharpe was upon him in a heartbeat, pinning him like a rag doll against the wall, a silver blade pressed to his throat. He took the Book of Wonders from Daniel’s pocket and tossed it on the desk.

  “Please elaborate,” he said.

  Daniel swallowed, tried to keep breathing.

  “No. I won’t.”

  The knife dug into his skin, but not quite enough to draw blood.

  “I could torture you, you know,” Sharpe said. “I could make you tell me.”

  Slowly, Daniel reached into his pocket. When he pulled his hand out, a tiny snow globe sat in his palm.

  Sharpe looked at it.

  “Am I supposed to know what that is?”

  “It’s a secret,” said Daniel. “It’s the secret you want to know. It’s where you can find Mr Silver. I figured it out.”

  Sharpe snatched the secret from his hand. Daniel relaxed a little as the knife was withdrawn from his throat. Sharpe shook the secret, held it to his ear.

  “It won’t work,” Daniel went on. “That’s the whole idea of a secret, isn’t it? I don’t want you to know where Silver is. And as long as the secret is in that globe, you can’t force it out of me.”

  Electric-blue eyes flicked from the secret to Daniel. “Why did you come?”

  Daniel shrugged. “To challenge you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I know how it works. I know that if I challenge you, you either accept, or you give up. So I challenge you. I’ll write a Wonder into the book just for you. Inside it will be your challenge. And you write one for me. We’ll go in at the same time, and whoever comes out first is the winner.”

  Sharpe smiled. “If I win?” he asked.

  Daniel pointed to the secret. “I’ll help you find Mr Silver. I know you need him to die for the book to be yours. But he’s not going to come out to play. You’ll have to wait till the Emporium collapses on top of him, till it’s totally dead – and that could take a long time. This way, if you win, you can kill him, and the book will be yours.”

  Sharpe nodded agreeably.

  “And if I win,” continued Daniel, “you leave us alone, and you don’t ever come back.” He held out a hand. “Agreed?”

  Sharpe scratched the silver stubble on his chin. Then his hand swallowed the boy’s, and an electric ripple passed through the room. “Agreed.”

  Daniel walked to the desk, trying to look more confident than he felt. As he picked up one of Silver’s fountain pens, his mind began to fill with doubts. Would the Emporium support the creation of two new Wonders? Was his idea really as good as he first thought? What sort of challenge would Sharpe think up for him? What if he lost? He was gambling an awful lot on the belief that he was good enough to beat this man, that the Emporium would help him.

  He opened the book to an empty page. “I’ll link the doors, so they should appear together.”

  “Write away, Daniel Holmes,” said Sharpe. “Write away.”

  Daniel gripped the pen tight so that his hand wouldn’t shake. Then he pressed the nib to the page, and the ink began to flow.

  CHAPTER 36

  DANIEL VERSUS VINDICTUS

  The doors did appear together, as Daniel had predicted.

  Thankfully, the corridor in which the new doors stood was largely intact, though the first signs of familiar cracks were creeping into the polished slabs.

  The doors were identical, arched and shining black, with a gold doorknob. The only difference between the two was the nameplates, each displaying the name of the challenger.

  As Daniel placed the Book of Wonders on the floor between the two doors, he sensed suddenly that the corridor was filled with people. He straightened up, looked around, and his eyes widened.

  The Emporium staff – at least those who were able – had come. They stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder, a ragtag band of misfits, some dabbing black ink from their leaking noses, or leaning on their neighbours. Leading the pack, standing tall, was Caleb. He nodded to Daniel.

  “Come on, Daniel!” he yelled, to a smattering of cheers.

  “Show him who’s boss!” said someone else at the back of the crowd.

  “We believe in you!”

  Daniel looked at Sharpe, and suddenly his opponent did not seem quite so huge, or his task so impossible. He nodded to the crowd, his friends, more thankful to have them with him than he could say. Then he said to Vindictus Sharpe, “Ready?”

  Sharpe unfolded his arms and did not try to stifle the smug smile that crossed his lips. “Always.”

  They each turned to face the door that contained their challenge. They moved forward, and reached for the doorknobs. Then they opened the doors and stepped into the unknown.

  ***

  Daniel was falling. The world around him was black and damp. He landed with a splash in a pool of water so cold that he thought his heart might freeze. Saltwater filled his mouth, spurted from his nose as he coughed and choked. Everything was swaying and lurching, up and down, up and down, turning his stomach. A flash of lightning lit up the world, cast light on a long narrow space with metal walls and bunks and a galley kitchen. He was in a boat. Realisation dawned on Daniel with a sickenin
g lurch of his stomach. His feet barely touching the bottom of the pool, he struggled to a porthole, stared out at the black night.

  Another fork of lightning. For half a heartbeat Daniel saw the sea, angry and swollen, waves like mountains crashing all around. He tried to be calm in the pitch black; the water was slowly rising, creeping like cold hands.

  Feeling his way around, Daniel willed his eyes to see through the blackness. He tried to visualise a lamp, a torch, a floodlight – anything to help him see … He imagined himself striking a match, filling the boat with dancing yellow light, and as the picture filled his head, something dropped into his pocket. He reached down and pulled out a box of sodden matches. Desperately, he struck one of the matches and was amazed when it sparked to life, just as he’d imagined, casting a flickering glow around the tight belly of the boat.

  He moved out of the galley, banging and stuttering as huge waves tossed the ship, to a narrow metal corridor, and found a black door with a golden handle. In his excitement he dropped his light, but when the match hit the cold surface, the flame did not go out. It remained lit. The match sank, as if it was made of lead, illuminating the black water as it drifted towards the floor.

  He struck another match, the light dazzling his eyes in the dark of the corridor, and he reached for the door.

  Sharpe has underestimated me! he thought as his hands closed around the handle.

  But something groaned, loud and metallic and old. There was a ping, and the ship juddered and shook and swung. The sound of rushing water filled Daniel’s ears, and he held on tight to whatever his grasping hands could find as the boat began to tip up, to fill with water.

  The floor became steeper and steeper, climbed and climbed until it was vertical, and all the time the doorway back to the Emporium, to Ellie and Silver and his home, was being submerged, deeper and deeper. Water was spraying everywhere, catching Daniel in the face, filling his mouth and nose.

  He fell, tumbling, catching his elbow on the metal walls, and landed with a splash in the rising water, water that would soon fill the entire corridor, the entire ship.

  Sharpe’s cruelty shone through, bright as one of Daniel’s matches. The idea was simple, and brilliant. If Daniel were to escape, he’d have to face his biggest fear and avoid the same death that his father had suffered, alone in the dark with nobody’s hand to hold.

  ***

  Sharpe’s door also led to darkness, though the absence of light did not last. Bright lights flickered on all around him, dazzling and familiar. Stage lights.

  The lock on the exit clicked shut.

  He stood on a grand stage, with curtains of black velvet and a floor of polished mahogany. The place seemed vast, though it was difficult to tell – dazzling lights shone at him from out in the theatre, making it impossible to see the audience. But there was an audience there; he could sense it, even if they were oddly silent and still.

  “This is my challenge?” he asked, flashing perfect teeth. “To perform? To amaze?” He laughed, wondering exactly what it would take to unlock the door. Perhaps some sort of approval from the crowd? Since the boy would soon be dead, it hardly mattered, but something about being on stage again, performing, appealed to him.

  He took off his coat, and threw it in the air, where it became black smoke and evaporated. He looked to the audience. Silence. Perhaps pleasing this crowd would be more challenging than he thought.

  He tried again, firing a bullet from a gun and catching it across stage. The crowd was still.

  Sharpe shook his head and cursed.

  “What do you people want?” he yelled.

  Something broke the silence, the voice of a young girl.

  “Let him see me,” the voice said. “For this to work, he has to see me. I’m asking for help, Papa. Please, let him know that I exist. No more ghosts. No more hiding. It’s time to end this.”

  “Hello?” There was a hint of unease in Sharpe’s voice.

  Across the stage, towards the door, a girl appeared from nowhere. She had eyes the colour of thunderclouds – eyes he recognised – and a tangle of wild black curls.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  She stood perfectly still, staring through him.

  “My name is Ellie Silver,” she said. “And I’m your granddaughter.”

  ***

  The boat was almost full of water. Daniel was freezing and weak from his efforts to swim down and budge the door. Each time he tried, the water was deeper, and so the swim to the bottom of the submerged passageway became more of a struggle.

  This time, as he came back up, there was barely enough space to keep his head above the surface.

  He did not cry, as he thought he might when he imagined the moment in his nightmares. He only thought of the Emporium, and Ellie and Mr Silver; how he’d let them all down if he failed. Another deep breath, another lung-bursting swim through the darkness, and again he could not move the door. He swam back to the surface, banging his head on the metal ceiling. His time was almost up.

  If I do die here, he thought, at least it will be fighting for something. At least I didn’t sit back and do nothing.

  He thought of his mother and his father, and he wondered what happened when someone died, if he’d see his parents again, or if dying was like flicking a switch, and he’d be gone and forgotten and that was that.

  His nose was pressed against the ceiling now. He was gasping for breath…

  And then, as the water closed in around him, he had a thought, a memory … and he heard Mr Silver’s voice as clearly as if he were floating beside him.

  “If, by some curious twist of fate, you find yourself in trouble, the Emporium will help you. All you have to do is ask.”

  The water was in his mouth, in his ears and eyes.

  “Help me,” he said to the Emporium through a mouthful of freezing water. “Please, help me find my way back.”

  One last breath. Daniel felt the water envelop him. He dived, because he did not know what else to do. He swam to the door, began one last attempt to open it. His lungs burned. He fought and fought the overwhelming urge to breathe, ignored his body’s desperate call for air. He began to fade…

  And then someone took his hand in the darkness, and another hand was fumbling in his pockets, removing the matches. A flash of blinding light lit up the black, shaking Daniel back to life. Someone grabbed him around the neck, and he found that he was staring into a face that was both familiar and strange, framed by a mane of hair the same burning orange as his own.

  The man took Daniel by the wrist and pulled him back towards the door. Then Daniel stared into his eyes, nodded, and began to pull on the door. Daniel’s lungs screamed. The pain made his ears ring, and he saw flashes of light in the corners of his vision.

  But the door was budging. Slowly, surely it was opening!

  The man gave Daniel a smile, and nodded towards the door. Half in a dream, Daniel nodded back. He reached for the door with hands like lead, and he pulled…

  The door opened. Daniel was sucked through the doorway, like a spider down the plughole. He landed hard, gasping cool fresh air into his lungs. Water was flowing down the corridor and away. The book of matches lay beside him, and he kissed them and stowed them in his pocket as the Emporium staff mobbed him. They picked him up and patted him on the back and called his name. Every breath was a welcome gift. He was back in the corridor. He was alive.

  And he was quite sure that the ghost of his dead father had just saved his life.

  ***

  “What are you talking about?” Sharpe sneered, though there was hesitation in his voice.

  Ellie took one step towards him.

  “My papa told me that my mum left me on the doorstep of the Emporium in Edinburgh. He said she was a servant who wanted me to have a better life. I think the servant part was true. That’s how you treated her, isn’t it?”

  Sharpe stayed very still.

  “You are not real,” he said. “This is a trick.”

&nb
sp; “Is it?” said Ellie. “I’m real; I promise you that. And I know all about you. You’re a monster. You’re dangerous. Papa has been protecting me from you all this time. He knew you’d take me away, treat me just like you treated her.”

  “Treated who, for pity’s sake?”

  Ellie pointed to the crowd. The lights that had been blinding Sharpe flickered out. He took a sharp breath, and a half-step back. There were a thousand seats in the theatre, and every one of them was taken by the same person: a young woman with red curls and porcelain skin, wearing a white nightgown dyed red with blood from the knife that was sticking in her heart.

  “Michelle?” whispered Sharpe. His face was unreadable, but his voice shook.

  “You treated her like dirt,” said Ellie. “She was my mum, and you used her to break my papa’s heart and steal his book. She hid away from you while you travelled and made your fortune, and she didn’t tell you about me, because in the end she wasn’t like you. There was good in her.”

  “What do you want me to say?” said Sharpe.

  Ellie returned the cold stare. “Say you’re sorry, and mean it. That’s all you have to do to open the door. To win.”

  Silence. Sharpe stood centre stage, just the way he liked it. He smiled.

  “I don’t have to do a damn thing,” he said. He motioned to the door. “Out there, through a door just like this one, Daniel Holmes is dying. When his body goes limp, and his last breath is gone, this door will unlock and the Book of Wonders will be mine.”

  No sooner had he finished speaking when the lock on the door clicked, and the door swung open. Sharpe’s coat appeared in his hands, and he put it on and gave Ellie a cruel smile.

  “You see?” he said. “It was only a matter of how long Mr Holmes could hold his breath.”

  “Actually, I’m quite good at holding my breath.” Daniel was sodden. He stood at the door, the Book of Wonders in his hands. The smug look on Sharpe’s face vanished.

  “Impossible,” he said.