The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath: From the Peculiar Adventures of John Lovehart, Esq., Volume 1 (Notebooks of John Loveheart, E) (15 page)

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into the Underworld.

Prince Number 9 saw them drop into the black river surrounding the palace. He watched from his turret. He said they were both made of fire, like angels falling. Made a big splosh! They both dragged themselves from the waters, soggy and slipping. And he said Daddy looked really pissed off. We all wanted to know who she was, the lady with the red hair. We were told later she was a witch trying to ruin Daddy’s marriage. She must have succeeded because we never saw his wife again.

So what happened to the witch, you ask? Well at first Daddy didn’t know what to do with her. She was a difficult guest and prisoner. He kept threatening to put her in a cage, but he never did. She in turn had done some real damage to him. She had cut off the entrance to the Upperworld and we were all now trapped.

Prince Number 2 got a clout round the ear for asking Daddy if he would marry the witch. I kept my mouth shut, but I wanted to speak to her. And one day I got my chance.

She was sitting in the garden under an apple tree and she looked rather annoyed. I took the opportunity to introduce myself. “Hello, my name is Prince Number 14, or Loveheart if you prefer,” and I smiled as nicely as I could. She had very unusual eyes – they reminded me of something predatory, something reptilian perhaps. She looked at me carefully, brushing tendrils of red hair out of her face.

“Hello, Loveheart,” she said.

“So, how are you enjoying the Underworld?”

She looked into me momentarily and pointed a finger upwards. “You are also from up there.”

“Yes,” I said. “Daddy kidnapped me and murdered my real father.”

“Sadly, I am not surprised by that remark. He’s not a gentleman, has no idea about good manners.”

“Can you open the doorway to the Upperworld?”

She looked suspiciously at me, “Maybe.”

“So why don’t you do it and go home?”

“I am protecting someone I love. I will not open anything until I know she will be safe.”

“Is the Lord of the Underworld in love with you?”

“Not at all. He is obsessed with me because he cannot control me. That is all.”

“Oh,” I said, not really knowing how to reply.

“He has no understanding of love and he doesn’t like women very much,” and she laughed to herself.

“Why is that funny?” I asked.

“Well, he kidnaps women to be his wives, without much liking them to start with. And then kidnaps children, calling them numbers, again without really liking them at all. What
does
he actually like, I wonder?”

“He likes clocks,” I said.

“No, he likes the fact that clocks are predictable. Controllable. He has no understanding of time, either. He is rather stupid.” And her eyes wandered off into the distance.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

“I was just imagining him in a dress.” And I left her to her imagination under the apple tree and thought her wondrous.

Prince Number 3 spied on her, watched her from the turrets, sent blackbirds out to send back reports. There was a standoff between Daddy and the witch. Neither would back down. The portal remained shut. And then one day something changed.

Daddy made a mistake.

He slapped her across the face

and I remember

that she was

smiling.

She massacred Princes 1 to 12. Picked them off one by one. Chopped their heads off and put them on Daddy’s dining table. It was then he started to beg. My life and Tumbletee’s were spared. The marriage contract was broken and the portal finally opened.

I want to be just like her when I grow up.

M
y life
before I met Mirror was very different. I was a detective with Scotland Yard for some years in London. A few weeks before I met her, I was assigned to a very peculiar case.

It was autumn in London, great heavy bundles of chocolate and burnt toffee leaves lay across the streets, blown in the wind. The skies, grey and swirling, were streaked with ribbons of violent pink. My detective sergeant, Percival White, had assigned me to a case regarding an elderly couple who lived on Dewdrop Lane, which was a rundown little terraced road in South London, near a boatyard. For weeks the neighbours had been complaining about this elderly couple. Noises in the night, banging and screaming. And strange smells. I had been sent round there to talk to the couple and find out exactly what was going on and to sort it out. It was supposed to be straightforward.

When I arrived at the home of the Crumb siblings, it was raining so heavily that my umbrella broke under the weight of the painfully big wet splodges of rainfall, and lay in my hands like a drowned blackbird. Disposing of the umbrella in a convenient bin, I approached the small terraced house and knocked on the door. My knuckles were bruised, for in the evenings I had been boxing, something my father had trained me to do in Egypt.

I could hear a soft shuffling from within, a pair of slippers moving over a carpet, approaching slowly. That morning I had been reading a letter from my father. The pages were folded like a handkerchief in my pocket, near my heart. He had begun an excavation in Cairo on the tomb of an Egyptian princess. It would take many months to complete, but he was overjoyed. He was hoping I would come back to Cairo and stay with him, something I had promised. My father’s handwriting was swirling and beautiful, with hieroglyphics dotted about the corners: magic symbols.

I missed him. I missed Egypt. He had sent me some of his sketches of the finds near the entrance to the tomb and of the wall engravings. Red and black ladybird-like creatures dancing over the entrance, sketched hurriedly. Comical drawings of priests wearing insect-like masks lined the walls in some sort of procession, each carrying a jar containing something belonging to the princess. Each of these priests displayed with a ceremonial dagger and a mirror. My father had told me they carried mirrors to catch souls within, and they also acted as doorways into other worlds and as divination tools. I wondered about the princess and the power she held over these men. How far would they go for her? Was there a limit at all?

The door opened with a slight creak and Dotty Crumb, a tiny woman dressed in a pink dressing gown and oversized fluffy slippers, peered curiously at me.

“Good afternoon, Miss Crumb. My name is Detective Goliath Honey-Flower. I’m here about the complaints.”

Her lips curved into a crescent moon, her eyes were very pale, egg-like. “Oh yes, do come in,” she chirped. Her voice reminded me of a child; it didn’t belong in her body. I followed her into the hallway, where a shabby birdcage hung, now empty. “I’ve made jam tarts, they are Mortimer’s favourite,” she said, patting me gently on the shoulder. In the small kitchen sat Mortimer Crumb, long and lean, almost skeletal, wearing a long, brown oversized coat. He had a small bird-like face and very large, long teeth.

I was guided to a seat by Dotty, while a cup of tea was poured for me out of a cracked teapot and a jam tart plopped on a plate in front of my eyes. Mortimer extended his hand towards mine, “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

The kitchen was small and dark with tobacco-stained wallpaper and a framed picture of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, wearing a grimace, hanging lopsidedly over the sink. Glancing outside the window, there was a tiny garden overrun with weeds. Behind Mortimer was another hallway leading to a staircase, and beneath that a green door, which I assumed must lead to the basement. What caught my eye was the ornate gold lock on this door.

Mortimer wiped jam from his lips and spoke. “May I ask where you originate from, Mr Honey-Flower?”

I took a sip of the tea, which was very well stewed. “I was born in Egypt, but my father was English.” The chair underneath me creaked with my weight. I caught my reflection in the mirror; my beard was damp and dishevelled. I looked like a great bear that had fallen into the river. The siblings stared at me mischievously.

“For the last few weeks we have been receiving complaints from your neighbours about noises at night coming from your house. Screaming and banging, mostly. Can you explain any of this?”

Mortimer scratched his nose. “We have a problem with this house. We believe that there is a malignant presence here.”

“Malignant presence?” I replied.

“Yes, we’ve been hearing strange noises, and we have heard our names called out on several occasions.”

“And don’t forget the smell, dearie,” said Dotty. “A terrible whiff, like burning pig flesh.”

“Are you suggesting your home is haunted?”

“That’s correct, Mr Honey-Flower,” said Mortimer, helping himself to another jam tart. “We have had a very quiet life, my sister and I. We have lived in this house since we were children and there have never been any problems. The first occurrence happened at Christmas, when Dotty was preparing dinner in the kitchen and she heard something call her name. I also heard a voice. I was reading the paper. We had a cat and a song thrush in a little cage, and both disappeared soon after.”

“Anything else?”

“My sister and I don’t dream any more.”

There was a queer silence. Mortimer was munching on his jam tart. Dotty tapped her bony finger against her cheek. Mortimer suddenly laughed and Dotty giggled like a schoolgirl. I found them both somewhat unnerving.

Mortimer adjusted his coat, which was spotted with jam, and leaned forward towards me.

“So, are we being haunted, Detective Honey-Flower? Have we offended a dead relative?”

“Yes, perhaps Great Aunt Margery,” Dotty said slyly. “She never liked us as children, do you remember the incident with the tea cosy?”

The chair beneath me creaked painfully. I could feel one of the legs wobble nervously. “I am not an expert on the paranormal.”

“What are we dealing with, detective?” Mortimer said, gazing into me. His eyes were small glimmering things, like faerie gold.

“What is behind the green door?” I said, without realising the words had left my mouth. I could feel the letter in my jacket; it was like a hot water bottle over my heart. I could smell a rich sweetness in the air, a thick heavy scent that was overpowering and covering up the stink of something else.

“That will be the tapioca pudding ready then.” Dotty gleefully spooned a huge mass of frog spawn creamy steaming pudding into three bowls and handed one to me.

“Oh really, I couldn’t manage any more.”

“Don’t be silly. A big bear man like you. You like sweet things, don’t you dear?”

Mortimer interjected, “Dotty loves to feed people.” Squeezing a large splodge of tapioca into his mouth. “And as for the green door, it leads to the cellar. I would be happy to show you. You should really see the whole house, get a sense of the place.”

I sat and ate my pudding silently. I kept thinking of the fairy story of Hansel and Gretel, the letter still hot on my chest. And yet I did not leave. They watched me while I ate. When I had finished, I thought suddenly of my father when I was a boy, and he was warning me not to step too near sleeping crocodiles, because they are not sleeping, they are waiting to catch you.

On the shelf, a beautiful clock caught my eye. It was silver and engraved with fairies dancing round the face. It hummed delicately like an insect.

A dampish hand patted my head, and I looked up at Dotty.

“Come on then, dearie.” My head was fuzzy.

I followed her down the hallway and we began to ascend the staircase. Again the brown tobacco-stained wallpaper, a running décor theme throughout the house. A small framed picture of a grey cat called Mr Pickles, no doubt the missing pet, hung near the landing window. And the smell that was lingering in the kitchen but covered up by all that sweetness was much more pungent here. A deep, burnt fatty smell.

Dotty led me into her bedroom. “Here you are, ducky.” The room smelt sour. It was again a small room with a large bed with a floral cover. Floral wallpaper and a bedside mirror that had broken.

“Sometimes I hear voices in the walls at night. Chanting and grunting.”

The carpet was filthy, cat turds and dust. A framed sepia photo hung above the bed. It was of Dotty as a young girl, tap dancing on Brighton Pier. She looked like a little pixie, a bob of blond curls and twinkling eyes. I got on my knees and looked under the bed. Again, more cat turds, and something else. I reached for it and pulled out a piece of dried human skin with a few hairs sticking out from it.

“Ooh,” said Dotty, edging closer, “I wonder what that is. You are staying for dinner, Detective Honey-Flower? I’m making apple pie. Isn’t that your favourite?”

“Yes, yes it is my favourite, how did you know that?” I turned to look at her. The piece of dried skin rested like a leaf in the palm of my hand.

“You look like an apple pie sort of man. All big and strong and sweet.”

Mortimer popped his head round the corner of the bedroom door. “Found anything interesting?”

“Human skin,” I said, holding it out towards him. He glanced down at it momentarily, his eyes then fixing upon me. “And what does this mean for us?”

“This is not a haunting. This is something quite different.” I glanced over at the old wardrobe in the corner of Dotty’s room and approached it, “May I?” I looked at her and she nodded. The door creaked open theatrically and inside were hung half a dozen moth-eaten dresses with lurid floral patterns. They seemed too big for her. Nothing else there.

I wandered into Mortimer’s room, still gripping the skin in my hand like a strange talisman. His room was larger, very dark, without a window. A large bed in the centre of the room which I looked under . No human skin. The room was as hot as an oven. No pictures on the walls, just the same dirty brown wallpaper. Instead of a wardrobe, there was a set of drawers, which I went through. Old pairs of socks, shirts and holey trousers. Again, nothing of interest.

A newspaper was folded in the corner of the room, used as a doorstop. The date caught my eye:
27 December 1881
. I left the room, as I had started sweating. Dotty stepped lightly in front of me on the landing. “I’ll make some more tea while you show him the cellar, Mortimer dear.”

“A splendid idea.” Mortimer led me back down the staircase, past Mr Pickles, the long lost cat. I didn’t know what to do with the skin, so I wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it in my pocket. He removed a gold key from his pocket and placed it in the elaborate lock.

“It’s a beautiful thing isn’t it? The lock.” He examined my response.

“It’s unusual,” I replied.

“Yes, you could say that,” and then he winked at me. This took me greatly by surprise. “Tell me,” he said, “have you always been a policeman?”

I felt the letter again, warming against my heart, throbbing. “No. I was a boxer in London in my twenties.”

“A fighter. I can see that in you.”

The door gently opened to reveal a brightly lit, white painted room with a white set of stone washed steps. I had been expecting a dungeon of sorts. But it was almost clinical, a complete contradiction to the rest of the house. We descended the staircase. Hanging on the wall, the only object in the room, was a strange silver clock ticking softly. It has engravings carved round it, intricate human feet and hands. “What do you store in here?” I asked.

“Well, as you can see, nothing at the moment.”

“Why is there a lock on the door?”

“To stop you from leaving.”