The Magician's Dream (Oona Crate Mystery: book 3) (14 page)

Oona ran a nervous hand through her hair, looking around at the floating heads and hands. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Samuligan raised a finger to his lips. “Don’t let them hear you say that. They believe that invisibility is the paramount of fashion.”

Speaking of fashion, Oona noticed that many of the male faeries wore cowboy hats similar to the one Samuligan wore. Even more curious was the fact that no one seemed to have noticed Oona and Samuligan’s arrival. Despite the fact that the two of them were the most visible people there, it was as if Samuligan and Oona were the ones no one could see.

“Wait a minute,” Oona said as the two of them walked down the center of the long throne room. “This is the past, isn’t it, Samuligan? This is how you remember Faerie.”

Samuligan did not answer but instead picked up his pace. Oona hurried to keep up with the faerie’s long strides. The room seemed to go on for miles, and yet their pace was much faster than Oona could normally have managed. It was as if some force were speeding them along. The floating heads and hands of the courtiers began to blur past.

They walked for what might have been ten minutes before Oona saw any indication of an end. Her breath suddenly caught in her throat as the throne came into view, though calling it simply a throne did not do it justice. It was in actuality a tree . . . a massive tree whose limbs and branches glowed with the same intensity as the ceiling above.

And then it occurred to Oona that the ceiling actually
was
the branches and limbs of the tree, which weaved a giant canopy of beams high overhead. The result was breathtaking, giving the effect that the throne, or more aptly the person sitting on the throne, was the source of all of that immense light.

Quite suddenly, Oona found herself standing before the Queen of the Fay in all of her terrible beauty. Unlike her courtiers, the queen’s attire was clearly visible and startlingly simple. Her long black dress appeared blacker than was possible, and Oona took a step back at the sight of it for fear that she might tumble into it and be lost forever within its darkness.

From her high throne, the queen stared down upon them with eyes as bright as stars, her expression one of imperious indifference. And though Oona would have easily admitted that the queen was the most beautiful being she had ever laid eyes upon—her facial features appeared perfect, her posture relaxed and regal, her dark skin unblemished in any way—Oona also couldn’t help but feel that there was something quite disturbing about her. It was as if she were too perfect.

“As if she were not real . . . ,” Oona said beneath her breath.

Samuligan knelt before the throne. “Your Majesty,” he said, and even in just those two words Oona could hear the reverence he held for this awe-inspiring figure.

“Samuligan,” the queen replied, her voice smooth and full of power. “My most loyal general. I see you have brought the girl.”

“I have,” he said.

“She looks so . . . small.”

Oona opened her mouth to protest, but the queen held up one hand, and Oona found she could not speak.

“Is she ready?” the queen asked

“We shall see,” Samuligan said.

The queen nodded her agreement and turned her gaze upon Oona. Her eyes were like two monstrous beasts, dark and terrible to behold. Oona could not have said why, but holding the queen’s gaze was the hardest thing she had ever done. Strange that it should be so . . . and yet there was no denying the truth of it. It seemed to Oona that the queen could see all the way into the bottom of her, to where her greatest fears slept in the shadowy corners of her mind. She felt them all stir at once, and panic seized hold of her chest.

She wanted more than anything to look away from those dark, cruel eyes, to close her own eyes from the terror that lived there, but she could not look away. She was trapped like a fly in the faerie queen’s web. She tried to scream, but no sound came from her lips.

Just when Oona felt she could not take one single second more, the queen turned her gaze away, almost as if she were bored. Oona felt her breath fill her chest in a great gasp, and her knees shook unsteadily beneath her own weight.

“She is full of fear, this one. I think she needs to grow.” The queen clapped her hands twice, the sound like dueling thunderclaps. Without warning, the tree throne upon which the queen sat came alive. Its enormous limbs began to descend from the ceiling like hundreds of fingers reaching out for Oona.

Oona screamed and turned to run. She had to get out of here. But the instant she spun around, she found that the invisible courtiers blocked her way. She tried to push past them—pushing against what looked like nothing at all, but felt like large, heavily clad bodies—and found it impossible. They muttered incoherently, shaking their heads as if she should know better.

Her heart began to pound heavily in her chest as she whirled around, looking for some other place of escape. Her eyes caught on a door to her left. The door was closed, but she rushed to it nonetheless, certain that at any moment she would feel the grip of those wriggling tentacle-like tree branches clap hold of her arms.

She threw herself at the door and hammered down the latch. To her surprise, it opened, and she shoved blindly through, slamming the door shut behind her. Her breath heaved in her chest as she took in her new surroundings. To her horror, she found that she had pushed her way through the doorway only to find herself standing in the very same room she had just left.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “This is not good at all.”

Samuligan stood to her right, near the queen, while the partially invisible courtiers closed in from her left. The tree limbs continued their horrifying descent from the high ceiling, now mere feet from her.

“It’s like a bad dream,” she said to no one in particular . . . and then a thought occurred to her.

It is
exactly
like a dream.
And dreams, of course, were nothing but . . .

“Illusion,” she said.

“Don’t be so sure,” Samuligan said with a casual tip of his hat.

But this time Oona was sure. It had to be an illusion . . . all of it. The Glass Gates had been closed for more than five hundred years, barring the way to Faerie. Not even Samuligan could travel between the worlds . . . despite the fact that it all seemed so real.

“Whatever you do, don’t panic,” her uncle had said, which was exactly what she had done. She had panicked and pushed through the door, and it had gotten her exactly nowhere. Oona couldn’t help but wonder if there was a lesson to be learned in that.

She felt a moment of defiance, and it occurred to her that she might just stand there and let the descending tree branches take her. If they were an illusion, surely they could not hurt her. But that thought passed just as quickly as it had come. Her mind believed that what was happening was real, and doing nothing was not an option.

I need to link with the house
, she thought.
But I’m in Faerie . . . how can I link with Pendulum House?
She shook her head, trying to clear it.
I’m not in Faerie. I’m in the Pendulum House front garden. This is all an illusion.

The first of the descending branches caught hold of her and jerked her arm up. The pain in her shoulder was sharp, and she wondered briefly how it was possible that an illusion could cause her pain.

I can feel it
, she thought. Not only could she feel the bite of pain in her shoulder, she could feel the slithering fingers of the oncoming branches as they wrapped around her legs and arms, lifting her into the air. She let out a yelp of surprise and fear. The strength within the glowing branches was tremendous; they were going to tear her apart, she just knew it.

“Find your way back to me in the garden,” her uncle had said. “Back to where you are, now.”

“I am in the garden,” she told herself, though she did not believe it. “In the Pendulum House front garden.
Profundus magicus!
”

The effect was instantaneous. Distracted as she was with the illusionary world that surrounded her, Oona’s mind filled with the knowledge she needed to overcome it. It was an ancient knowledge far more powerful than the thin deception Samuligan was playing on her. And to her surprise, it was not so much a spell but a song. A wordless song, but one of tremendous beauty.

She opened her mouth and sang a single syllable, first rising and then falling in a gorgeous melody that seemed to come from out of her very bones. The sound penetrated every part of her being, resonating and harmonizing with everything it touched. Never before had Oona sung so unabashedly, so openly, and so passionately.

For a brief moment, Adler Iree’s face swam before her eyes, and her mother’s face, and that of her baby sister Flora . . . and her father. Suddenly, the light that emanated from the tree limbs began to crack. Her song rose in energy and her pitch shifted even higher, now a haunting banshee cry, and the limbs shattered like glass. The queen and her throne room full of courtiers vaporized into nothingness, and now it was the Wizard’s face that she saw before her.

This was no illusion. The white puffy clouds dotted the purplish-blue sky behind where he stood in the front garden, surrounded by the thorny rosebushes. Samuligan stood nearby, just as he had before they had entered the Faerie Royal Court.

She had done it. She had managed to find her way back.

The house led me back
, she thought, and then all at once she realized that she was still singing. Her mouth closed abruptly, and her face flushed. Hands feeling quite shaky, she let out a heavy sigh, her heart rate only just beginning to slow.

“Extraordinary,” Samuligan said. He peered at her, eyebrows raised in an expression of surprise—a rarity for the faerie.

“Back so soon?” the Wizard said, looking equally impressed.

“Soon?” Oona said. Her voice trembled slightly from the effects of the magic. “I thought we were gone for quite some time. I mean . . . it was all so real. We were there, weren’t we, Samuligan? We traveled to Faerie.”

“We did, indeed,” Samuligan said, and tapped the side of his head. “We traveled through our thoughts.”

“Illusion,” the Wizard said. “Nothing more.”

Oona shook her head, not so sure. She could still remember the grip of the tree limbs around her wrists and arms. She recalled the cold stare of the faerie queen and shivered. It had been real . . . she had been there . . . and yet the house’s magic had shattered that reality like a broken window, exposing the true reality behind it.

“Is this one real?” Oona asked, looking around the garden, eyes wide with confusion. She could see Deacon perched just as he had been, upon the ironwork fence that surrounded the grounds. He extended his wings and flew to her shoulder. She felt the familiar grip of his talons on her shoulder . . . and yet the grip of the tree had seemed just as true.

“It is an excellent question,” the Wizard said. “Once one illusion has been broken, it is only natural to question the validity of everything else we see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. All of our senses are susceptible to illusion, which is why learning to discern what is real and what is not is an essential skill needed by any Wizard. You have done remarkably well. I, myself, was lost in an alternate reality for nearly twenty-four hours before I was able to connect with the house’s magic and break free. It seemed more like a month to me. You, Oona, were lost for less than a minute.”

“A minute?” Oona asked, surprised to hear it. “Surely, I was there at least . . . twenty minutes.”

Samuligan stretched his long faerie arms and looked as if he were about to yawn. “Time is an illusion . . . no matter how you look at it.”

Oona frowned at this. She did not like the idea of existing in any kind of illusion, faerie fabricated or not. It was logic, and reason, and facts that she relied upon to hold her world together like glue . . . but in a world filled with magic, she knew that that glue did not always hold.

The Mortenstine Building

.
Knots: The Art of Abraham McGillicuddy
was fascinating. Filled with beautifully illustrated versions of every knot, it was no wonder the book was kept in the art section of the library.

Oona propped herself up in bed and flipped through its pages in the low light from the magical glow globe. She wondered who, besides the creator of the book, would have known how to tie the Rose Knot.

“Now there’s a thought,” she said, and turned to the back page, expecting to find a biography of the author. To her disappointment, however, there was nothing of the sort to be found.

“What does the
Who’s Who
have to say about Abraham McGillicuddy, Deacon?” Oona asked.

Deacon, who was presently settling down for the night atop Oona’s dressing table mirror, jumped at the mention of his name. “Hmm? What? Aren’t we asleep yet?” He blinked several times as if coming awake.

Oona stared at him expectantly. “Abraham McGillicuddy, Deacon. In the
Who’s Who
.”

“Oh, yes . . . of course.” He paused a moment, checking through his mental files, before replying: “Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Oona questioned.

“Hmm,” Deacon sounded again, before adding: “There is no record of an Abraham McGillicuddy ever having lived on Dark Street. He must have lived in the World of Mmm—” He stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. “That is to say, the World of Humans.”

Oona nodded approvingly at his use of the word
humans
, but then frowned when she realized what he was saying. “You mean to tell me that the man who wrote this book didn’t even live on Dark Street?”

Deacon nodded, though not very enthusiastically. His eyelids appeared to droop and his beak dropped toward his wing as he stifled a yawn. “It’s possible he could have visited, but there is no magical record of his having lived here.”

Oona flipped to the front of the book and found the fine print at the bottom of the title page:
Published by Gordson & Gool—1838
.

“What about Gordson and Gool, the publishers?” she asked. “Are they from Dark Street?”

Again Deacon paused. “There was a Maxwell Gordson who lived on Dark Street, but he died over a hundred years ago, and he was a leather tanner, not a publisher. My guess is that they were New York publishers. Perhaps we should come back to this in the morning. Aren’t you tired from your test?”

Oona slapped the book shut and sighed. The truth was she felt exhausted, yet her mind would not let her rest. It kept looping again and again over the same incomprehensible thought ever since she had returned from Faerie. And that was exactly the problem . . . she had not actually gone to Faerie, and yet her mind insisted that she had. It had been an illusion that seemed more real than her everyday life.

This created a kind of paradox in her brain that insisted everything around her was both real and not real at the same time. Upon entering her room that evening, she had picked up and put down her hairbrush several times, contemplating if she were really holding it or not. She had done the same thing earlier in the evening with her soupspoon at the dinner table. Her uncle had assured her that such feelings were to be expected, and that they would soon pass, but presently she found the only cure was to concentrate on her goal of finding her father’s killers.

“The night watchman,” she said.

“I beg pardon?” Deacon asked.

“The night watchman at the museum. The man who was tied up.”

“Elbert Hackelsmith?” Deacon asked.

Oona ran a hand through her hair, thinking aloud. “We should pay him a visit—ask him if it is at all possible that he
misheard
the thief.”

Deacon adjusted his position upon the mirror, his talons clicking against the wood frame. “You are referring to your theory that the male voice that the night watchman heard saying, ‘
Shush
, he’ll hear you,’ was, in fact, saying, ‘
Mrs. Shusher
, he’ll hear you.”

Oona nodded thoughtfully. “Hackelsmith did say that his ears were still ringing from the blow to his head. Does the
Who’s Who
give his address?”

Deacon yawned. “I hope you aren’t planning on visiting him tonight.”

“Don’t be silly, Deacon. First thing in the morning should suffice.”

Deacon shrugged and spoke in a far-off voice, as if he were already drifting into dreamland. “Well, I don’t know his address. With the exception of very famous people, the
Who’s Who
does not keep track of residences.”

Oona slumped in her bed, wondering how she might go about finding Mr. Hackelsmith’s home.

***

The following morning Oona found herself once again trudging up the museum steps. Deacon stretched his wings upon her shoulder and squinted against the morning light. The sun was just cresting the tops of the buildings and lighting up their brick facades like fire.

That feeling of unreality that she had suffered the previous night had mostly disappeared—
mostly
, but not completely. A few times during the carriage ride to the museum she had questioned whether or not the smell of baking bread or the sound of horse hooves clopping on the cobblestones were real sensations or just illusions. But the feelings had passed more quickly than they had the previous night, and for that Oona was thankful.

The museum steps felt quite solid and real beneath her feet.

“Will you tell me now why we must be here so early?” Deacon asked. “It’s just now seven o’clock. The museum doesn’t open until nine o’clock.”

Oona pointed to the uniformed man ascending the steps just in front of them. It was Victor the day guard arriving for work.

“Because, Deacon,” Oona said, “this is the time the night shift changes over to the day shift. We can catch Mr. Hackelsmith, the night watchman, on his way home, and ask about what he heard the night of the theft.”

But to Oona’s dismay, it was not Hackelsmith who opened the front door and stepped over the threshold to greet Victor, but it was someone completely new. The two men—Victor the day guard and the uniformed stranger—greeted each other as the stranger placed a set of keys into Victor’s open hand.

“Where is Elbert Hackelsmith?” Oona demanded.

Both men turned in surprise. They stared at her for a long moment, and then Victor, the day guard, shook his head. “Oh, it’s you again. Sorry, but Elbert’s staying at home this week. Doctor’s orders. This here is Dezmond, our alternate night watchman.”

“What’s this all about?” Dezmond asked. A thin, gray-haired man with tufts of white hair coming out of his nose, the night watchman peered down the sides of his nose at her with irritation.

“Oh, this is Miss Crate,” Victor said appealingly. “Fancies herself to be a bit of a detective, don’t ya?”

Oona ignored the question. “Do you know where he lives?”

“Dezmond?” Victor asked, surprised.

Oona shook her head. “No, not Dezmond. Elbert Hackelsmith.”

“Matter of fact, I do,” Victor said. “Mr. Glump asked me to take Elbert’s paycheck to him when I left yesterday.  He lives in the Mortenstine Building, third floor. Number eighteen, I think.”

“Hey, why are you giving out private information?” Dezmond asked disapprovingly.

“Who said it was private?” Victor replied.

“I just hope you don’t go giving out
my
personal information,” Dezmond snapped.

“I don’t even know where you live. And besides, who are you to tell me what . . .”

The sound of the two men arguing faded as Oona made her way quickly back to the curb, where Samuligan waited patiently atop the carriage. She climbed inside and called out: “Take us to the Mortenstine Building, Samuligan.”

Twenty minutes later they came to a halt in front of a dingy-looking four-story building. As Oona stepped to the curb she peered across the street at the golden facade of the Nightshade Hotel and Casino. It was there, within the hotel’s expensive walls, that Red Martin had run his criminal organization for years, without anyone other than his most devout followers ever getting so much as a glimpse of the man.

“Do you think he is inside?” Oona asked.

“You mean Red Martin?” Deacon asked. “I should think not. He is wanted by the police now.”

“True,” Oona said, yet she could not shake the feeling that someone was watching her. She shifted her attention and stared up at the ominously face of the Mortenstine Building. A sudden chill rolled over her. Festooned with crumbly gargoyles and grimy ledges, the building reminded Oona that she had read of more than one crime happening within its darkened walls.

“Shall I accompany you?” Samuligan asked, and when Oona turned, she discovered that he was already standing beside her.

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Deacon said, and Oona could feel his talons clamp down harder than was necessary upon her shoulder. As if unable to contain the encyclopedic knowledge in his head, he added: “The Mortenstine Building is named after Mortimer Mortenstine, a well-known magician from the 1600s. The very Mortenstine who wrote
Mortenstine’s Monstrous Conspectus
. He was obsessed with monsters and creatures of the dark. Though he was never given the title Wizard of Dark Street—at the time that honor belonged to Antwerp Orbiter—it is said that Mortenstine had even greater influence on Dark Street than the Wizard himself did. He was also quite a controversial figure for openly dabbling in dark magic.”

Samuligan made a
tsk
sound. “Mortimer Mortenstine did more than dabble.”

Oona looked up at the faerie, curious. “How do you mean?”

Samuligan shrugged. “I have lived on Dark Street for nearly five hundred years and have seen my share of magicians who experimented with the darker side of magic. But none who I can think of ever went so far down into that darkness than Mortimer Mortenstine. In the end, it destroyed him.”

“What happened?” Oona asked, though she was not sure she really wanted to know. Her uncle had shared several terrible stories of those who worked with dark magic, none of them ending well.

Deacon cleared his throat. “Mortenstine had many enemies, one of whom was Antwerp Orbiter, the Wizard. As you know, it is the presiding Wizard’s job to handle magical wrongdoing, and it is believed that Mortenstine was trying to summon some kind of horrendous monster to kill the Wizard. At that point, Mortenstine was apparently so steeped in the dark arts that he had gone completely mad. But the summoning spell he attempted was too much for him to handle.”

Deacon fell silent.

Oona peered sidelong at him. “Go on.”

Samuligan clapped his hands together and a puff of smoke plumed above his touching thumbs. The smoke formed what looked like a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. “He was eaten by the very creature he summoned.”

Oona took in a startled breath. “He was . . . eaten?” She paused briefly to consider the horror of it, and then shook her head. “Why would anyone name a building after such a lunatic?”

“No one did,” Samuligan said. “This building just happens to be built on the very spot where Mortenstine’s house once stood; the very place where he conducted so many of his dark spells, and where he attempted to summon his monster. When this residential building was first constructed one hundred years ago, it was originally named the Palace Flats. The name was carved in stone above the entrance, but the day after the stone was put into place, the name had mysteriously changed to the Mortenstine Building. The stone was removed and redone, once again with the name the Palace Flats, but the following day the name had once more become the Mortenstine Building.”

Oona peered up at the grimy stone above the door and read the name engraved there. A shiver snaked along her arms as she thought of the dark magic that had carved it. And then an even more disturbing thought occurred to her.

“What about the monster?” she asked. “The one that ate Mortenstine. What became of it?”

Samuligan shrugged, and then peered up at the building. Oona followed his gaze. The gargoyles along the ledges seemed to be staring down upon them with malicious eyes.

“No one knows,” Deacon replied. “Perhaps it returned to whence it came . . . after it feasted.”

Oona grimaced. “Perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” Samuligan replied matter-of-factly. He moved toward the front entrance to the building. “Shall we?”

Oona took in a steadying breath and followed.

Deacon said: “I believe you should be more concerned about running into unsavory characters than Mortenstine’s monster. This building is notorious for housing shady criminals.”

“We’ll be safe with Samuligan,” Oona said, though her throat had gone quite dry.

They pushed through the front door and entered a dark entryway. Though two large windows exposed the entryway to daylight, the room seemed unnaturally dark. The dirty green walls were peeling away in places, and so far as Oona could tell, none of the wall sconces were in working order. The smells of mold and dust filled the air, along with the stench of rotting trash, and as she peered down the long hallway before them, she saw several rodents scurry across the filthy carpet and disappear into a hole.