Alistair Grim's Odd Aquaticum (2 page)

My heart swelled, and I tried to carry on with my lesson as best I could, but as Father shifted into a series of expertly fingered flourishes, my eyes began to wander about the library’s fantastic contents.

Not much had changed since my arrival at the Odditorium, and yet I could hardly believe that someday it would all be mine. The countless books and clocks and mechanicals. The priceless antiquities. The suits of samurai armor and the lion’s head above the hearth—not to mention the Eye of Mars and all the other magical objects about the place.

And yet, for all the wonders I’d encountered, none was nearly so wondrous as the tall, dark man playing the organ out on the balcony.

I suppose every lad thinks his father special—save, of course, for the poor wretch with a father prone to drink and beating him now and then. My father was prone to neither, thank you very much, but to me he was much more than special. In fact, I’d wager there wasn’t another father like mine in the whole wide world.

Since when did
you
become an expert on fathers?
you might be asking. And for those of you who know me, I must say I can’t blame you. After all, when last we left each other, I’d only known my father a short while—not to mention that I caused him quite a bit of trouble back then. However, for those of you joining me on this adventure for the first time, I suppose a bit of catching up is in order.

You might say that it began with a pocket watch and ended with a prince. And somewhere in the middle, a runaway chimney sweep learned that he was the secret son of an inventor, fortune hunter, and sorcerer all rolled into one. That son, of course, was me, and my name is Grubb. That’s right, Grubb. Spelled like the worm but with a double
b
, in case you plan on writing it down. And my father was none other than Alistair Grim.

I say “none other” because, had you lived in London at the time, you no doubt would have heard of Alistair Grim. Had you lived in some other place, you might have heard of him there too. Or at least caught a glimpse of him flying about in his Odditorium—a house of mechanical wonders that looked like a big black spider with a tail of sparkling green smoke.

If you didn’t see the Odditorium flying about, you most certainly would have heard it.
Where’s that organ music coming from?
you might have remarked, upon which (had I been on the ground with you) I’d have replied,
The Odditorium, of course.
You see, that’s how Alistair Grim used to fly his house of mechanical wonders: by playing its pipe organ.

The organ sat upon the Odditorium’s balcony and faced outward so that its massive pipes twisted up and down the front of the building like dozens of hollow-steel tree roots. I must confess, I found it very difficult to play the organ properly at first, but eventually I learned how to make the Odditorium go where I wanted it to—except when traveling underwater.

Good heavens! There I go getting ahead of myself. I suppose if I’m going to tell you about all that underwater business, I best back up and tell you how we got there in the first place. Come to think of it, for those of you unfamiliar with my tale, I best back up to the beginning. Otherwise you might get confused and abandon this adventure altogether.

All right, then: the beginning.

Twelve years before I arrived at the Odditorium, Alistair Grim’s bride-to-be, Elizabeth O’Grady, fled London under mysterious circumstances and drowned in the North Country. Before she died, however, Elizabeth gave birth to a son and entrusted him in the care of Gwendolyn, the Yellow Fairy. That son was yours truly, and the Yellow Fairy dropped me off on the doorstep of a kind childless woman by the name of Smears. Unfortunately, she passed away when I was six or thereabouts, and for the next half of my life I had the miserable lot of being apprenticed to her nasty chimney sweep husband, Mr. Smears.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, while I was busy collecting soot for Mr. Smears, my father, Alistair Grim, was busy gadding about the world collecting Odditoria. Not to be confused with his mechanical marvel the Odditorium (which, as you can see, ends with an
um
), the word
Odditoria
, at once both singular and plural, is used to classify any object—living, inanimate, or otherwise—that’s believed to possess magical powers.

In other words, the Odditori
um
is the place, and Odditori
a
are the magical things
inside
the place.

Out of all the Odditoria Alistair Grim collected over the years, there are only three from which he harnesses magical energy to power his Odditorium. The first is none other than the Yellow Fairy herself, whose magic yellow dust enables the Odditorium to fly. The second is the red Eye of Mars, which powers the Odditorium’s lightning cannons. The third is a mischievous banshee by the name of Cleona, who provides the Odditorium with a blue spirit energy called animus.

Cleona’s animus is by far the most important of Alistair Grim’s colored energies; for it’s the blue animus that gives life to the Odditorium’s various mechanical functions.

However, there was
someone else
gadding about the world collecting Odditoria too: a wicked necromancer by the name of Prince Nightshade. And not only did this Nightshade bloke harness power from his magical objects just as Alistair Grim did, but he’d also gathered about himself an army of nearly every evil creature imaginable: dragons, trolls, goblins, and, most terrifying of all, the Black Fairy.

But for all the prince’s success at collecting Odditoria, there remained one magical object that continued to elude him: a source of the animus from which he could create an army of the walking dead.

I suppose that’s where I come in. I got into some trouble while sweeping chimneys at an inn with Mr. Smears and, fearing for my life, hid myself in a trunk belonging to one of the guests. That guest turned out to be Alistair Grim, who whisked me away on a flying coach and took me on as his apprentice. My entire life had changed in an instant—not to mention that I made loads of new friends, including Father’s right-hand man, Nigel, and an animus-powered pocket watch named Mack (short for McClintock). An odd one, that Mack is, for not only does he never run out of animus, he also stops ticking now and then for no apparent reason.

In fact, it was Mack who kicked off this entire adventure. My first day on the job, I accidentally brought him outside the Odditorium, whereupon Prince Nightshade picked up on his animus and came after us with his army of skeleton Shadesmen. However, Nightshade didn’t have many of those bone bags left, so he wanted the animus to turn flesh-and-blood people into Shadesmen too. I’d seen him do it myself—to Judge Hurst, Father’s old enemy from London—and let me tell you it was not a pretty sight.

So that’s the nub of it, and right about where you found me during my lesson. Cleona and I had narrowly escaped captivity in Nightshade’s castle a few weeks earlier, and Father had since come up with a plan to defeat him. The only catch? He wouldn’t tell anyone except Nigel what he was up to. The fewer people who knew about his plan the better, in case the prince caught up to us before we arrived at our final destination.

Our final destination. I hadn’t a clue where it was, but I got the sense that if we didn’t get there quickly, Father’s secret plan to defeat Prince Nightshade would fail. After all, the evil prince was still out there, plotting his next move to steal Mack’s animus and create his army of purple-eyed Shadesmen.

Coincidentally, as I was gazing around the library thinking about Mack’s animus, the old pocket watch began shaking in my waistcoat. I’d since traded my raggedy old clothes for an entire wardrobe that Mr. Grim—er, my
father
—had lying about since he was a child. If only my mates back in the North Country could see me now, I thought, they’d think me on my way to being a right proper gentleman.

I slipped Mack from my pocket and opened his red-and-gold-checkered case.

“What time is it?” he cried. His mechanical eyes flashed blue, and his thick, curved hands twirled to VIII and IV so they formed a mustache atop his smiling mouth.

“Quiet, Mack,” I whispered. “I’m in the midst of my lesson.”

“Sorry to disturb ya, laddie,” he said. “But if ya wouldn’t mind setting me next to me chronometrical cousin there, I’ll shut me gob so’s ya can carry on.”

I glanced over at Father. He was still playing up a storm out on the balcony, so I placed Mack beside the clock on his desk.

“Ten past eight!” Mack exclaimed, and he twirled his hands to the proper time. “I tell ya, Grubb, now that I always know what time it is, I feel like a lad of yer age. Why, I remember when I was—”

“You best quit your jabbering, or Father might ban you from the library again.”

“But passing the time with me clock cousins is me reward for helping ya escape Nightshade’s castle. Mr. Grim said so himself!”

“I don’t mean he’d ban for you good, Mack. Just until my lesson’s over. I’ve got to do this a hundred times, he says.”

Waving my hand over the Eye, I spoke the magic spell and the glass ball ignited.

“Well done, laddie,” Mack said. “Tell ya what. You do that ninety-nine more times and I’ll keep count for ya. After all, what good’s the chief of the Chronometrical Clan McClintock if he can’t help his best friend become a sorcerer?”

“Why, that’s a splendid idea, Mack. I should think it much easier to concentrate on what I’m doing if I don’t have to keep track of how many times I’m doing it.”

“All right, then, laddie. Off ya go!”

“Sumer te sulumor,” I said, waving my hand, and the Eye of Mars went out.

“That’s two,” Mack said. “Now try again.”

“Sumer te sulumor,” I repeated—but as the Eye caught fire, it floated out of my hand and hovered in the air just above my head!

“Aye, yer getting good at this sorcery business, laddie,” Mack said. “I didn’t know you could make things fly.”

“But I’m not doing that!” I cried. I rose to my feet and tried to snatch back the Eye, but it darted away from me and began floating toward the hearth—slowly now, as if daring me to follow.

“Father!” I called out in panic. Father ceased his playing at once and came in from the balcony.

“Done already?” he asked, when the sight of the Eye of Mars hovering near the mantel stopped him dead in his tracks. Father’s face grew dark and his fists clenched. A long, tense moment of only clock ticking hung about the library, and then Alistair Grim crossed fearlessly to the center of the room.

“Show yourself,” he commanded.

And to my horror, someone actually
did
.

L
orcan Dalach,” Father said, gritting his teeth, and the spirit smiled.

The young man floating before the hearth was a spirit, all right—and a banshee, to boot. I’d certainly spent enough time around Cleona to know a banshee when I saw one. The spirit had long snow-white hair and ivory skin like Cleona, but instead of a tunic robe he wore a blue cloak trimmed with a glowing white maze pattern. The cloak hung open about his bare chest, below which was a pair of white trousers tucked into a pair of high white boots. In one hand he held the Eye of Mars, and in the other, a length of glowing blue chain.

“Word travels fast in our realm,” said Lorcan Dalach. “But I must say I never expected to see you flying about Ireland so soon, Alistair Grim.”

“Let me guess,” Father said. “You managed to steal on board as we passed near Dublin. What’s it been, nearly an hour you’ve been sneaking about?”

“Nothing much gets by you, does it, Grim? Except for me. However, someone else knows I’ve been here the entire time.”

“Cleona,” I muttered.

“Very good, lad,” said Lorcan Dalach. “We banshees can sense each other. But don’t be cross with Cleona for not telling you. After all, had she warned you of my presence, she would’ve exposed herself to these.”

The banshee rattled his glowing blue chain.

“I am quite familiar with the Gallownog’s spirit shackles,” Father said. “All you need to do is touch Cleona with them and she’s your prisoner, is that it?”

“Aye. But Cleona has always been good at hiding”—Dalach tossed the Eye playfully—“which is why I’ve had to resort to more drastic measures to flush her out.”