Julius and the Soulcatcher (15 page)

‘We should go now,' said Julius. ‘I think we've done what we were supposed—'

Skinner roared like a wounded animal and ran at Julius. Julius stepped back and tripped.

‘Oi,' shouted Emily. Skinner turned to her as she swung her piece of firewood like a cricket bat. It hit Skinner square on the side of the head. He fell like a rag doll and lay motionless on the riverbank.

Emily dropped the wood.

Darwin ran to Skinner and rolled him over.

‘I didn't mean to do 'im in,' said Emily. ‘Honest.'

‘It's all right,' said Julius. ‘He's breathing.'

Darwin sat back and slumped his shoulders. His
face was crumpled in anguish.

‘Don't cry, Mr Darwin,' said Emily. ‘'e ain't dead or naffing.'

‘He can't understand you, Emily,' said Julius.

Across the river Julius saw the clergyman watching them. A line of small children stood behind him, all staring blankly.

‘We've got an audience,' said Julius. ‘We should go now, Emily.'

Darwin saw them too. He stared, bereft, muttering to himself.

‘We can't go till 'e draws us in 'is diary,' said Emily. She ran to Darwin's bag and rummaged through it. Darwin did not appear to notice or if he did he didn't care.

She came back with the diary and a pencil.

‘Emily, stop,' said Julius. ‘You can't make it happen. You can't tell him to draw our picture.'

‘Why not?' said Emily. ‘Darwin owes us 'is bleeding life. That's worth a poxy drawing.'

‘This isn't the way time travel is supposed to work,' said Julius. ‘If we give him the idea draw the pictures we'll be altering the past. He has to come up with idea for himself.'

‘But we've already altered the past, 'iggins,' said Emily. ‘Because of us, it was Skinner wot got seeded instead of Darwin. Now Darwin can come to London and get 'is diary stolen by me, and that's 'ow we'll
know all about Tock, and all about—'

‘Yes, I know, I know,' said Julius. ‘Let me think.'

‘While you're doing that Darwin can draw our picture,' said Emily. ‘I ain't never 'ad no one draw me before,' She turned to Darwin. ‘It'll 'elp you take you mind off fings,' she said.

She pointed to his diary and mimed drawing her face. Darwin looked at her as if in a daze.

‘Go on,' she said coaxingly. ‘It'll do you good.'

Slowly, Darwin reached out and took the diary and motioned her to sit opposite him.

His face took on an expression of earnest concentration as he drew her portrait. Julius watched over Darwin's shoulder, listening to the scratch of the pencil on the page.

Darwin was a skilled artist. He captured Emily's smile perfectly with a few deft strokes.

‘That's ace,' said Emily, when she saw it. ‘Your turn, 'iggins.'

Julius sat for his portrait next. When Darwin showed him the finished result Julius saw a worried looking native boy looking back at him.

‘Emily,' said Julius. ‘We have to go now. We can't risk altering anything else.'

They said goodbye to Darwin and waved to the children on the far bank. The children just stared back blankly.

CHAPTER 13

Saturday 20th January 1838

1:35 PM

Julius and Emily held hands around the pocketwatch as it spun through space and time. Julius tried to gather his thoughts. They had created a loop in the timeline. But had they done it correctly? The only way to find out was to go back to their own present to see if it was the same as they had left it. What if they landed in an altered present? What could they do to put it right?

It felt like only a few minutes before everything went black.

Julius was falling. He landed on a soft chair and bounced off it. He opened his eyes and looked round.

Emily landed on Mr Higgins' chair. She righted herself and slumped into it.

The pocketwatch flew into Julius's hand.

‘That was…' she said. She looked around the dusty parlour, lost for words. ‘You look like 'iggins again,' she said.

Julius checked the clock on the mantel.

‘We've only been gone a few minutes,' he said.

‘Everyfing looks the same?' she said. ‘That means we did it right, don't it?'

Julius felt a shiver run through him. He had forgotten what it was like to be cold. Emily was right, everything looked the same. The same crumbs on the tablecloth. The same books stacked by his grandfather's chair.

How would you know if you've altered the timeline, Higgins?

The fire was almost out. Julius dropped a couple of coals onto it and stared at the flames licking around the fresh fuel.

What now, Higgins?

He tried to recall the Village of the Soulcatchers. It seemed so far away.

‘What you finking about?' said Emily.

‘The child sitting on her mother's lap.'

‘Oh…'

‘Do you really think Clara could be my mother?' said Julius.

‘Don't see why not?'

‘Do you miss your mother, Emily?'

‘You don't miss wot you never 'ad,' she said.

‘No. I suppose not.'

‘Wot's this?' said Emily. She picked up a scrap of card near the fire poker. ‘It looks like a calling card,' she said. She blew the coal dust off it and read it.

Tiberius Tock

Alchemist–Explorer–Orchidologist

Between the Walls

‘That's it, Emily,' said Julius. ‘That's where Tock's taken Grandfather.' He sprang up and went to the wall where the damp circle had been. ‘“Between the walls.” He must have taken Grandfather through here.'

‘Can we go after 'im?' said Emily.

‘I think so,' said Julius. ‘Professor Fox used the pocketwatch to move between realms during the Springheel case.'

‘Come on then, wot we waiting for?' said Emily.

‘For me to work out how to do it.'

‘Well. Get on wiv it, then, 'iggins.'

Concentrate, Higgins. Concentrate. Let the pocketwatch guide you.

The professor had spun the watch and tapped it and blue light had shone out, forming a dome. Julius spun the pocketwatch and tapped it.

A sphere of blue light grew until it formed a
dome around them. Looking through it, the parlour appeared as many shades of luminous blue.

Julius tapped it again. In his mind he saw a tunnel made of light, stretching through the wall into another world. The pocketwatch opened out, the cogs and wheels whirled silently, and the blue dome stretched out, just as he had imagined. The wall dissolved and the tunnel of light stretched out beyond it.

Julius felt Emily's hand grab his forearm. He stared ahead, trying to make out the hazy shapes at the end of the tunnel of light.

Emily's fingers dug into his arm.

Here goes, Higgins.

They walked through the wall.

‘'iggins?' said Emily.

‘Shush. I'm concentrating.'

A ghost-like image of a beach and an expanse of sea began to appear at the other end of the tunnel. Above them a wide sky opened up.

‘You ain't 'arf full of surprises, 'iggins,' said Emily.

She gripped his arm tighter. Julius could smell and feel a faint salty breeze. It was a bright sunny day. In the distance he could hear a harmonium or a hurdygurdy. He didn't recognise the tune.

Julius looked up, shielding his eyes and blinking at the blue sky above. White shapes flew past. When his eyes grew accustomed to the brightness he realised that the shapes were seagulls.

Over the promenade's ornate railing was a beach of white sand, and beyond that a flat, turquoise sea.

‘Look over there,' said Emily. ‘It's like a bleeding toyshop.'

Julius looked around. All kinds of automatons were strolling along a promenade as if they were pets. They were all made of brass and copper with the most intricate workings. They were painted in colourful patterns or dressed in beautifully tailored suits and dresses. There were two-legged clockwork creatures like little elves, four-legged ones like dogs or cats, six- and eight-legged ones resembling beetles and spiders. They were all being led by people wearing brightly striped clothes. Some of the women held parasols, and the men wore hats with wide brims. Sometimes, when one automaton met another, they strained on their leads to sniff each other or shake hands or embrace.

‘It's like a dream,' said Emily. ‘Everyone's so beautiful. I want one of those clockwork fings.'

They came to a crowd around a shopfront. Its sign read:

Papa Putching—Toymaker

Winding—1 penker

Repairs, and alterations, trade-ins, spare parts

People sat on benches, chatting and admiring one another's automatons while they waited to have them wound. A boy sat on a stool outside the shop winding the automatons one by one with a large key

‘Mr 'iggins wouldn't like this,' said Emily. ‘They're all too cheerful.'

No, he wouldn't, Higgins.

Julius looked for a grumpy old man in a black frock coat. Is this where Tock had taken him?

The town rose up from the beachfront and spread out over a hill. The houses were all brightly painted. Flags waved on spires and the trees rustled in the breeze.

‘I don't think were in the right place,' said Julius. ‘It's too nice to be Tock's realm.'

Julius heard a sound from inside the toymaker's shop—the chink of a tea cup on a saucer perhaps? Snatches of a conversation wafted through the open door. He recognised one of the voices.

‘Grandfather?'

‘'e' can't 'ear you,' said Emily.

Julius stared through the door at Mr Higgins. He was sitting by a woodstove with a cup and saucer in his hand and an anxious expression on his face. An old man sat on a stool at a workbench by the window—Papa Putching, he presumed.

‘Yes. Well, I prefer a good book, myself,' Mr Higgins was saying.

‘Ah, yes, the delights of the written word. I concur, sir,' said the man at the workbench. ‘But, aah, the delights of clockworking.'

‘Quite,' said Mr Higgins.

‘Why, look around you, sir,' said the man, waving his hand towards the shelves of clockwork toys. ‘The precision, sir. The hours of toil. The mysteries of gearing ratios. The illusion of life created from the correct combination of rods and pinions, cogs and flywheels, and then there are the gyroscopes, perhaps the greatest discovery yet? They produce independence of movement you see—unpredictability. When that is achieved, well…'

‘Yes, quite,' said Mr Higgins. He folded and unfolded his handkerchief anxiously. He did not appear to be listening.

Emily tugged at Julius's sleeve. ‘Told you 'e wouldn't be 'appy 'ere.'

‘He looks ill,' said Julius. ‘We have to get him home.'

‘Wot can we do, 'iggins? 'ow can we get your grandpa back?' said Emily.

‘I'm thinking. He can't see us or hear us because we're not really here.'

‘At least it's nice 'ere,' said Emily. ‘Maybe 'e could set up a bookshop and—'

‘Grandfather's going to have an apoplexy if we don't get him home,' said Julius.

He looked at the pocketwatch. The cogs and wheels were spinning faster than his eye could see.

‘Wot are you thinking, 'iggins?' said Emily.

‘I was thinking that the pocketwatch could make us materialise, if I knew how to ask it.'

Julius peered closer into the spinning mechanism.

How did you put the professor in the Grackack realm?

‘We have to find somewhere quiet,' said Julius. He looked around. ‘Over there.' Julius and Emily ran into the shade of an alleyway and made sure no one was looking.

Intuitively, he placed the tip of his finger on the side. It immediately stopped spinning but remained bobbing in the air. Emily gripped his arm again. Vibrations from the pocketwatch ran through the tip of his finger and through his body. His skin tingled and erupted into goosebumps.

‘Cor,' said Emily.

‘You can feel it?'

‘Yeah,' said Emily. ‘It's like a mob of ants is trying to tickle me to deaf.'

‘Hold still, I think we're doing the right thing. It feels right.'

Julius felt an almost imperceptible change in the vibrations coming from the pocketwatch. A slight slowing of the speed, but a shifting too, a shifting in the layers beneath. The vibration spread throughout his body, through his bones, his mind, to the tips of
his eyelashes.

Suddenly, the pocketwatch closed up with a snap and fell into his palm.

Julius looked around. The blue dome was gone. He ran out of the alleyway and stood among the strollers and their pets.

The sea breeze blew stronger against his face. The sun felt warmer. The air was fresh and salty, making him almost hungry to breathe it in.

CHAPTER 14