The Music Box: Chapter Twenty

For the rest of that spring and part way into summer, the pair travelled the countryside, living rough, eating what they could find growing wild; putting into practice everything Isabelle had learned from her time in the woods. Once more she was keen to skirt the towns and villages they came across, knowing from afar that they were all wrong, that they had no future there.

For the first week they travelled in near-silence, each coming slowly to terms with the maddening jumble of thoughts and emotions wreaking havoc with their young hearts and minds. There was an unspoken understanding between them that until their own troubled waters were stilled, nothing should occur between them that could unsettle the slowly returning calm.

All around them nature was awakening, pre-empting their own imminent discoveries. The skeletal twigs and branches of elms and oaks soon budded and broke into full bloom, the leaves lending shadow and texture to what had become a single endless plane of muted grey light across which they traipsed, beneath their feet like a think sheen of ice on a winter’s lake. Their own silence had been mirrored by that of the sleeping countryside; the nascent awakening of their loosened tongues in conversation and shared secrets now echoed the rising crescendo of hungry starling chicks, roosting robins and twittering blue-jays in dizzying pursuit.

With the thaw around them and within came a new sense of purpose, a belief in them both that their ceaseless wandering had reached a turning point, that the feeling of ‘leaving’ and escape had imperceptibly shifted and tipped the scales to one of imminent arrival.

One bright and sun-soaked day, the golden glow of buttercups tickling their chins and the lightest of breezes playfully tussling their hair, they stopped in their tracks at the peak of a gentle hill. Percival had been talking to Isabelle of his life-long dream to learn his letters and to be able to write his name, when he saw her eyes transform into a deep cerulean blue such that he had never in his life seen.

Finally breaking free from their watery depths he slowly turned and followed her gaze down the hill, where it sloped all the way down to a sparkling sea, an unbroken sweep down to a crooked finger of land jutting out into its fathomless depths. Tucked in the nook of this finger was a village whose jumble of wind-battered buildings stumbled back up the hill towards them, leaning back away from the harbour whose mouth opened to taste the sea as she passed in and out. They shared the sensation that the harbour was breathing the heaving swell in as though its very life depended upon it; the village’s gills feeding so hungrily on the sea that the fresh air of the hillside seemed a superfluous afterthought.

Percival felt Isabelle squeeze his arm with uncommon strength, pinching just above the elbow.

“Home,” his love whispered.

***

Home it had been ever since, the pair settling into their new life in Seaforth as though nothing more natural could ever have been imagined. They married as soon as they could and Percival was not long looking before he found some work in the local inn by day – by night, with Isabelle’s encouragement, staying up by candlelight and learning his letters from old Mr Livingston who lived next door. A rapid learner, it wasn’t long before Percival could mark not only his name but Isabelle’s too. He took great pride in how grand the P looked standing there at the front, how much authority was in his rounded B when he wrote out Button. From there he took to learning more about numbers and addition and before two winters had passed he had become the book-keeper for Mr Livingstone’s tanning business. The very night he learned of his new job, Isabelle broke the news to Percival that she was with child.

The Music Box: Chapter Nineteen

Percival returned to the inn, creeping up to his room. He knew his father would be furious enough in the morning that he had not returned as he said he would - how would they take the news that he had gone altogether? But such thoughts could not live long in his mind, crowded as it was with the disbelief at what was happening, a certain disconnection with reality such that he felt he was merely caught in its wake. As though in a dream - somebody else’s at that - he put on some fresh clothes and gathered something warm for Isabelle, for she had fled the woods with nothing but the light clothing that she wore.

Quietly closing his door, Percival crept down to the kitchen. He collected an end of bread and a little wedge of cheese and placed these in a small pouch he slung over a shoulder, wincing as it rubbed against his clawed back. The pain was starting to creep up on him as the shock wore off, so he went to the bar and threw down a mouthful of rum to numb it as best he could.

Waiting for him by the well as promised, Isabelle had a sudden urge to run. She thought it the kindest thing to do, but a selfish part of her wanted to wait, for Percival to be back by her side. She realised too that the urge to flee was driven by a fear of rejection, that she had thought with a dull pain in her belly that he was not coming after all, that he had come to his senses and was this very minute sound asleep in his warm bed, wrapped in a heavy blanket and dreaming of the simple life that could be his.

But here he was, quietly walking along the cobbled lane towards her. Her finely attuned eyes, which could now see as well at night as by day, saw that he was trying to make her out, looking for the tell-tale silhouette where he had left her. She wondered what he must be thinking, what emotions he would be going through at the thought that he was turning his back on all he knew, and for what? For Isabelle Bottomsley, a simple girl he hardly knew.

But pushing this thought aside, Isabelle gave a low whistle, dimples appearing in her cheeks as she saw him hasten along the way.

“I brought some food,” Percival said, “and something warm.”

“Hold onto the food for now, we will no doubt need it later,” Isabelle advised. “Now, are you sure about this?”

“Just try and stop me!”

Isabelle slipped off the edge of the well and stepped up to Percival. They were both overcome with shyness now, the urgency of the situation before had allowed them both to be quite honest and open, but now they were back to being more like their usual quiet selves.

“Okay Pervical Button,” she began, and again he gave her a funny look.

“How do you know my name Isabelle?”

“Um, you must have told me,” she blushed.

“I told you it was Percival, but I never mentioned the Button.”

“Look, I’ll tell you everything in time. But we really must be going, What I was to say was that you must trust me, I will be leading the way and if you are to come, well you don’t try and turn all bossy or anything, I shan’t have it!”

“That’s fine with me,” he grinned. “I wasn’t going to argue with you there in the forest and I sure don’t see why I would now. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know I trust you and I do know I plan on sticking by you - I do I do!”

Sneaking one last glance at each other - thinking the other wouldn’t notice - they both turned crimson. With ears burning, heat just about steaming off her in the cool night, Isabelle spun around and began to lead the way across a field that wrapped around behind the village. They didn’t have all that long before dawn was to come creeping from the east and she knew they had to get as far away as they could before the village – particularly the Buttons – began to stir.

The Music Box: Chapter Eighteen

Isabelle wrung the reddish-pink water from the wad of shirt and soaked it again. As she washed Percival’s chest, she felt the tickle of his watching eyes on her scalp. Her cheeks burning, she kept her head down, studiously avoiding his face. But after wiping the same place three or four times she knew she must look up. As she did, she regretted it instantly for she saw in Percival’s eyes an irresistible mix of kindness, warmth and gratitude. She had wanted to leave before he had his wits about him, thinking it would be easier, but she saw he was quite aware of what was happening.

“What is your name?”

No, this would not do at all. Percival must go back to his uncomplicated life; she must leave and find one of her own making. The less he knew the better.

“Can you speak? Do you understand what I am saying?”

She avoided his eye and his questions, dabbing with the soggy rag at his shoulder. But Percival caught her wrist and made her stop fidgeting.

“I know who you are,” he said, slowly and clearly, something in what they had gone through allowing him to somehow bypass his natural shyness. “You’re the girl who has been living in the forest. I’d been beginning to think you were a myth simply to scare the children,” he added.

“I was looking for you. I had to see you for myself, find out who you were and why you were there.” He paused, looking closely to see if she was following what he was saying. Isabelle still said nothing.

“I went looking for you tonight. I went so far in that I was terribly lost. That’s when....”

His eyes darkened as the memory of his discovery and apprehension by Aloysius returned. It pained Isabelle greatly to see the fear back in his face, to see him look around suddenly over his shoulder, back in the direction of the woods. She raised a finger to his lips and pressed it against them, shushing him.

Just then the sound of a door closing heavily brought them back to where they were. Percival gave an involuntary shiver and Isabelle realised he had better get inside quickly before the chill set in.

She gestured towards the inn and waved her fingers to indicate he must go.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on,” he said.

“How did you know where to find me? How did we get away?”

“You must go,” Isabelle blurted, catching herself too late.

“So you do speak! I thought so; I knew you could tell what I was saying. No, I won’t go until you tell me what happened tonight.”

Isabelle didn’t want to think about what had happened; she just wanted to get out of there. She was having a hard enough time tearing herself away as it was, and here he was making it so much harder.

“I, I don’t know,” she stammered, with an element of truth, for it had not really sunk in yet.

“Well, that’s okay, we can talk about it later,” Percival relented, realising he was suddenly feeling very tired.

“No, I must go tonight, now,” Isabelle said. “Trust me, you don’t need to know, just go back to your home, back to your family, forget about the woods and forget about tonight.”

And forget about me, Isabelle thought, but it caught in her throat and dislodged another tear from her already brimming eyes, sending it coursing over her smooth cheek and down to the corner of her lips. Its naked salty truth stirred something in her that took her back to the sea, back to the moment where this had all begun.

Percival watched it trickle and realised he was still holding this mysterious girl’s wrist, the girl who had saved his life. A swelling in his chest told him that this was one of those rare moments that may only happen once in somebody’s life – if at all – and that he must not let it slip.

“Please tell me your name,” he began, “I must at least know who saved me. It’s only fair don’t you think?”

“It is Isabelle,” she relented, “my name is Isabelle.”

“Well it is a pleasure to meet you Isabelle. My name is Percival, although most call me Percy.”

“I know,” she blurted, not realising until she saw the quizzical look in his eye that she wasn’t supposed to know his name. But before he could say anything, she went on.

“I’ve been living in the forest after losing my home and my family. But, after what happened tonight, I cannot stay any longer. I must move on and find myself a new home.”

“Stay here,” Percival said. “You could stay at the inn, I will talk to my parents and arrange for you to have a room.”

No! I cannot, I must go; it’s not safe to say.”

“But where will you go?”

“I will go on until I find the right place, I will know it when I am there.”

“Then I shall go with you.”

“You can’t,” Isabelle cried, hating how hard he was making this.

“You have your family, you work, a good life ahead of you here.”

“This? This is no life. I have nothing here that is holding me here, and now that I have met you, once you go I will have even less, for I will know what I have lost.”

His hand had moved from her wrist to take her hand. This last remark he had made while squeezing it tightly, leaving no mistake that he meant what he said.

Isabelle was torn. She was worn out from fighting against him, struggling against her real feelings. She could not bear the guilt of having disrupted his life this way, but knew there was a truth in what he was saying. If he felt anything like she did - and she thought back to all those nights he had gone into the forest in search of her – then he would never be able to forgive himself if he let her go. But go she must.

“But what about your mother, your father?”

“They will get by. They have their life, when is the turn for mine? I cannot stay simply for them; how long can I continue doing what other people expect of me? I finally want something so badly I will die rather than have it taken from me. It is only right that I be allowed to follow my own wishes for once.”

Isabelle’s icy resolve was thawing, melting under his persuasive urgency. She had never been talked about this way and it gave her a sickening but not unpleasant sensation that she was secretly enjoying, despite her bewilderment at the situation in which she found herself.

Looking into his eyes, their green depths shimmering in the reflected starlight, she saw the miniature reflection of herself. Percival was by her side.

“I am leaving tonight,” she said.

“I am leaving with you,” Percival answered gravely, the final word on the matter.

The Music Box: Chapter Seventeen

Without stopping, without pausing for breath or thought or reflection, they fled. Through the trees, past friends and foes alike – for not all creatures had taken to Isabelle’s presence this long year – they travelled as one, Isabelle knowing that it was the last she would see of any of them.

She had known she wouldn’t be there forever, but this was never how she had imagined leaving. Her heart was sinking and soaring at once, she physically felt it tugging in opposing directions. She was sad this part of her life was over, but cutting through this was the knowledge that her Percival was with her, was by her side, his hand in hers, his destiny entwined with hers. She shook a little at the sudden sense of power this gave her, trying to shake the thought from her mind. That wasn’t what it was about, it was about fate showing its face, appearing so as to snatch her from complacency.

And love. She knew the word, but had never known the feeling. But this must be it, must be what they meant by love. When she threw herself upon the mercy of the wolves, Isabelle truly did not fear death. The only fear she had was of loss, of losing Percival when she had only just found him. That was the unfaceable fate. This is what drove her and, she assumed, is what was meant when it was said that love would overcome all.

Squeezing his hand more tightly, Isabelle pulled Percival along. She allowed herself the occasional glance from the corner of her eye to make sure he was still okay, still able to keep going. His eyes had a strange glaze over them – most likely shock – but he seemed able to at least comprehend that he must keep moving.

More than once Isabelle could have sworn she heard a crashing sound from further back in the woods heading their way, the sound of bracken being trampled. What she didn’t know was that the trees had been helping them along the whole way, had been closing in behind them, dropping their branches to cover the tracks of the fleeing pair. For once he had realised they had fled Jericho had sent the wolves after them, had ordered that they both be returned. The indignity with which the whole scene had played out was too much for has fragile self-possession to bear.

But the hearts of the pursuing wolves could not have been in it, for Isabelle and Percival reached the end of the forest, racing into the clearing beyond. Not until they reached the very edge of the village did they slow, did they dare turn around. Isabelle saw, from the woods’ edge, the unmistakable shine that belonged to wolf eyes. They would come no closer – for now.

Isabelle knew there would be no future for her in Lower Hetheringwood. Not only was she banished from the forest, but she was unsafe anywhere within striking distance. Whatever happened between the wolves, wherever the Jericho and Aloysius stand-off went, the situation was far too dangerous for her to remain. Isabelle knew the wolves were not the wild, blood lusty beasts of superstitious folk tales, that they really need not be feared provided they were left to their own ends, but she also knew the one thing they could not abide was loss of face. She was sick with the thought of having to leave Percival, but knew there was no other way.

Walking him to a well she often stopped at when sneaking into the village, Isabelle had Percival sit on a nearby stump. She knew that soon the shock would begin to wear off and he would begin to feel the full brunt of his mistreatment. She wanted to clean him up as well as she could before that happened, to have him nursed into as good a shape as she could manage before she left him.

She removed the fluttering rags from his torso, feeling him flinch when they pulled at where the blood had dried. She dipped the part of his shirt that hadn’t been torn into the water and began to wipe his back, relieved to see that the scratches were not as deep as she had first feared. Once the blood was cleaned away, it really didn’t look so bad after all. They really had only been playing, as they could have torn him to shred like a paper doll in a matter of seconds if they had so wished.

As the water ran over his shoulders and down his chest, so it sprang from Isabelle’s eyes. No sooner had she learnt of love than she was having it torn away. She had no family, the wolves had been the closest she had come, and she had no home. She wanted a normal life back and if only things had turned out differently, she could have had one with Percival.

The Music Box: Chapter Sixteen

Isabelle's dawdle quickened to a canter, then a sprint. Branches and twigs that would have scratched and torn at anyone else were lifted out of her way as she flew past, blindly striking out along the path she now knew so well. She might have been moving on angel’s wings such was her weightless speed, her feet skimming soundlessly across the cool, damp earth, leaving no imprint despite the softness of the moss, the rich layering of decomposing leaves.

Isabelle later wondered how she had known where to go, but so finely honed, by now, were her instincts that there was no question about it – the only unknown was whether she was going to get there in time. Deeper and deeper into the forest Isabelle ran, branching off to more minor and minor paths until she followed no path at all but that of her heart and the trace of memory that had threaded the map of forest deep into her, tattooed it onto her soul.

She was almost there now. She skirted the Hollow Swamp, dashed by Willow Way and rounded Toad Corner, with the Golden Grove now well within reach. Isabelle normally approached with a deferential dignity and a quiet respect, but knew there was no time for that tonight. She burst into the clearing and knew in doing so she had crossed a line that would change everything.

There before her was the picture she had pushed to the back of her mind since it first slapped her like an ice-cold pail of water tipped over her head – Percival was crumpled on the ground in the centre of the clearing, tattered rags fluttering from his bloodied body like streamers at a birthday party gone terribly wrong.

“Stop!” she cried with all her might, noting at least a dozen wolves were circling the hapless boy.

They turned almost as one to see who had entered their realm so impertinently, who was addressing them in such an unforgivably insolent tone. The fire in their eyes matched with that blazing in hers, burning so brightly that shadows flickered beneath all the trees, dancing in amused mockery of the tense stand-off below.

“Leave him be,” Isabelle yelled at them, seeing that their attention slowly drifted from her back to the prone figure. “He means you no harm, now let him up.”

With a sudden mix of sickness and relief she saw that he was still alive, still breathing. Though blood had soaked into what was left of his shirt and scratches criss-crossed his back and chest, they had only being toying with the hapless boy so far.

The wolves stood their ground, but at least she now had their attention. Isabelle looked around the circle and sought out Jericho.

“What has he done to deserve this? Why have you attacked him so?”

Jericho rose to his full height, perhaps unconsciously swelling out to take up as much room as he could, clearly reinforcing his authority. He appraised Isabelle coldly, explaining that the boy had been found prowling through the woods, well beyond where the humans should be at night. As far as the wolves were concerned, this made him fair game. It was Aloysius who had discovered him.

Aloysius; always prowling, furtive, inscrutable, Isabelle thought. She wondered just how far into the forest Percival had really wandered, and how close to the village Aloysius had been.

“You must let him go,” Isabelle pleaded, knowing she was interfering in something bigger than her, that the goodwill they had shown, while strong and well-intentioned, could extended only so far.

Now Isaiah stepped in, explaining to Isabelle that simply wasn’t the way things worked. Yes, they had put up with her being on their turf, had let her have a place amongst them, but this was different. This simple boy who blustered into their realm was going to have to pay the consequences.

Isabelle realised she was running out of time. Already, the other wolves were pacing again, slowly circling. She heard Percival groaning and her heart was so heavy it had surely turned to lead.

“Please, I beg you, leave him be.”

Isabelle’s eyes darted around the grove, they flitted over Aloysius, registering that his interest was in her rather than the meal on the ground. She talked urgently.

“I know him, he is a good man, he means well.”

Jericho looked her up and down. Something had changed in his eyes, they were still as clear as ever, but they had lost their warmth. They were the cold eyes, free of feeling, which made her skin crawl. He turned from her as though she no longer existed.

Before she knew what she was doing, Isabelle dashed through a gap in the circle and flew to Percival. She wrapped him in her arms and turned defiantly to the closing wolves.

“Take me instead,” she pleaded.

“Leave him be and take me.”

The wolves slowed uneasily; none had been prepared for this turn of events. Their eyes turned to Jericho, for he would have to take charge.

He thundered at Isabelle with furious wrath, accusing her of being a fool, a cretin, ungrateful, a curse upon them from upon high.

“Stop!”

Isabelle looked up. Where had this come from? Jericho had obviously wondered the same thing.

“Let them go.”

It was Aloysius. Isabelle, still clutching Percival, whose arms were now feebly embracing her in return, stared at him. She could have sworn he had spoken in her own tongue, but that simply could not be.

She watched as Jericho and Aloysius stood barely a pace apart, staring into each other’s eyes, fangs bared, bodies coiled, coats bristling. There was icy fury and bottomless hatred pouring from both, and as she watched, Isabelle saw they were locked in an incredible power battle that had, she realised, been looming for some time. It was bigger than Percival, bigger than her, bigger than any of them.

Isabelle felt a tug on her sleeve. A young wolf she had grown quite close to, Seraphine, was silently pulling her towards the gap in the clearing. Percival, thankfully able to walk, had hold of her hand and was pulled with her.

Seraphine whispered urgently that they must run like the wind, never turning back, never returning to the forest again.

The Music Box: Chapter Fifteen

Percy’s mother’s fall had left her miserable and bedridden. She would recover in time, Doctor Whittaker had said, it was only a bad sprain to the ankle, but there was no question of her being on it.

Percy was therefore being kept very busy both day and night in the running of the inn. While has father tended to serving the drinks and chopping the wood and keeping the fires alive, Percy took over the more ‘womanly’ roles – ensuring the meals were being cooked, the rooms for the lodgers tidy enough to let out. He had helped out before, but never had he burned so badly to be elsewhere. Although he had all but given up hope of finding the girl – and really had no idea what he would do if he did - something told him he must try one more time. After three nights of this, of working until his body ached and fatigue carried him to bed with a heavy thud, he could take it no longer. Once the Sunday evening meals had been prepared, eaten and cleaned away, with the last few drinkers quietly propping up the bar, he pleaded with his father for just an hour’s break away.

“I promise I shall return,” he pleaded. “But I need to do this.”

His father was not pleased, but gruffly relented.

“You just make sure you is. I’ve a hard enough time here as it is with your head always up in the clouds. I don’t know what it is yer up to in there and I know fer sure I don’t like it.”

Percy raced upstairs to his little room. He knew the smell of pig grease and baked mutton pervaded his very pores, but he had no time to bathe now. He threw his filthy working clothes to the floor and drew out his best white shirt, usually worn only to church but luckily he hadn’t been that morning, tending to the inn while his father went. This, he remarked to himself, was the first stroke of luck he could count in an otherwise terrible few days. In his urgency to depart Percy almost sprawled headlong down the stairs, one of his boots still only half on. He regained his balance and took the remaining stairs three at a time, tearing out the front door with unseemly haste. When he neared the edge of the woods he realised he was puffing quite heavily, and in danger of soaking his shirt with a sweaty stench.

Slowing to a more manageable pace, gathering his breath, Percy decided that this had to be his last visit to the woods like this; that he could not go on this way.

***

Perched precariously on the top of the woodpile, Isabelle peered through the window. She could make out, in the glow of a dying fire, that this was the kitchen of the inn. She saw the heavy black pots, the wide workbench scattered with knives and ladles, jugs and plates, but – barring a large grey rat at the end of the bench gnawing on a rodent-friendly morsel of some sort - there was no sign of life.

She carefully climbed down from the high stack of wood, managing to catch a splinter up beneath the nail on her right index finger. She worked her way around to the next window, which looked onto the main part of the inn.

By now the evening was getting quite late – only the most dedicated drinkers remained at the bar. Isabelle hated being here in the village, away from the protective embrace of the forest’s bosom. If her heart had not become so twisted, so single-tracked in its ache, she would have fled far sooner. But now she was here, she was determined to see her plan through. Her time in the woods had not been spent idly; she had learned every trick there was to moving around so quietly, so naturally, that you remained almost invisible to the eye. She knew there was a way of standing, of holding yourself that even if someone was looking right at you, they still might not see you if their mind was turned to other things.

She had learned this from the owl, from the wolves and, finally, from the trees themselves. It’s how she had managed to watch Percy all those nights, to be so close that she could almost have ruffled his sandy hair, but that he had not realised. It was, she thought, how Aloysius must have been watching her all that time. She felt a twin-shudder – the thought of Aloysius’ warm breath on her neck, and the thought of touching Percy’s hair both mingling in a way she had never before felt. It was both pleasant and unpleasant at the same time.

While all this was passing through her mind her keen eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the inn and taken in its inhabitants. There was Percy’s father behind the bar, a large, roundish man with a thatch of greasy black hair upon the top of his head, perched like a castle surrounded by the moat of his high widow’s peak. He was leaning an elbow on the bar, his free hand describing an arc through the air and cutting back across, then spreading his hands to denote the size of something; no doubt an exaggeration whatever it was.

The audience was a pair of withered old men in clothes filthy from work, a cap pulled down firmly on the tired head of one and lank, gray hair sprouting from the other. The first shook his head at whatever Percy’s father had said, but the second nodded and chuckled. At a table in the back corner sat another man, a pitcher on front of him and his club of a hand wrapped around its handle. His half-shut eyes were bloodshot and looking right back at her, but Isabelle doubted he was seeing anything at all. There was, she realised with a sigh, no sign of Percy.

Isabelle was startled by the ringing of a bell from behind her, but looking around she realised it must only have been the wind, bored with its aimless wandering, diverting from its path through the main street and weaving its way through the church tower. This touch of reality broke her from the tableau before her and reminded Isabelle that no matter how well she was blending in, sooner or later she would be noticed. Dejectedly, she set off for home, back to the woods.

When she reached the edge of the forest, the path that led deep into its heart, she stopped cold. It was all too quiet, too still. Although Isabelle loved the peace of her woods, it was certainly not the peace of silence – there was forever the chatter of the squirrels, the playful teasing of birdsong, the subaudible thrum of the insects, the meandering murmuring of the wise old elms. Tonight it was all missing; the forest was holding its very breath.

The Music Box: Chapter Fourteen

Months went by and the worst of winter seemed to be through. Isabelle was surprised that she was so rarely sick, given how poorly she so often had felt at home. In fact, she had never felt better, never stronger. It had been relatively mild as winters go and she had grown quite adept at finding the driest, warmest parts of the woods. She had also managed to procure some warmer clothing and a blanket by means she was not proud of, but necessity had sent her one night to the back line of one of the more imposing houses in the nearest village, Lower Hetheringwood. They seemed to hang an ostentatious number of items out on any given day and would surely not miss a couple of the less fancy things. Isabelle had tapped into a well of resourcefulness that came from profound neglect, a steely resolve to “show them”, whoever they were.

Her presence in the forest had been slowly accepted by all the creatures who lived there – even the wolves had slowly come around when she showed absolutely no fear when they approached her. It was one of the wolves in fact who led her to the Golden Grove, a place that only their closest allies had ever been allowed to visit. It was generally acknowledged that the wolves were the unofficial leaders of the forest’s inhabitants, sitting alone at the top of the pecking order. Their power had never been truly tested, but nor was it likely ever to be. And while the majority appeared initially ill at ease at Isabelle’s presence on their turf – the presence of humans generally regarded as most undesirable - she was slowly able to earn their respect.

The leader of their tight-knit group was Jericho, a beautiful beast with a shimmering silver stripe the length of his back, like moonlight itself had been threaded into his fur. His coal-black eyes were crystal clear and ever alert, wise and cunning in one. Isaiah was next, the largest of the wolves and loyal to a fault – he would jump off a mountain’s peak without a second thought if Jericho so demanded.

But it was Aloysius she had first met, Aloysius who befriended her and after much initial resistance convinced the other wolves to meet her and to realise that she meant them no harm. Aloysius, she saw, had quite a deal of influence within the group, yet in a way always seemed outside it. His lustrously sleek, dark coat and his long, sinewy body made him stand out from the others, and though he was a little smaller in stature he seemed somehow more dangerous. While not showing any outward fear, Isabelle had been quite terrified the first time he had revealed himself. She thought she was done for, but was not going to give him the satisfaction of holding any greater power over her than that which stemmed from the fact he could eat her in a wink.

Isabelle had been feeling for some time that she was being watched, that her presence in the forest had aroused a certain curiosity or apprehension, so when Aloysius finally appeared it was almost a relief. She didn’t ask if it was he who had been watching her, feeling that it was something that was not to be discussed. His menacing countenance belied his gentle demeanour, such that he soon came to be a soothing presence.

Lower Hetheringwood and other villages near the forest soon began to fill with whispers regarding a girl who lived in the woods; a striking young woman with long, jet black hair, flawless alabaster skin and wide eyes that changed colour as you watched, who could talk with the animals and even the trees. Children were afraid to go into the forest alone and while the men were not so afraid (though petite she was rumoured to be of such profound beauty that witchcraft was suspected), they knew their wives were keeping a closer eye on them than ever.

One young man who had heard the whispering would lay awake at night with the stories of this creature torturing his mind, long after the rest of the village had passed into fitful slumber. A painfully shy lad of 19, Percy Button, whose parents were the village innkeepers in Lower Hetheringwood, was bewitched by the tales. He spent night after night with his mind drifting through the woods, floating through the boughs on a carpet of mist, trying in vain to forget about her. But he simply could not.

Quite out of character, Percy took to venturing into the woods of an evening, delving deeper and deeper with each visit. A month passed with not even a hint that this rumoured creature even existed – there was no trace of her in the flesh, no sound of her, no sign that she had been staying there. One night, he heard his father calling from the edge of the woods.

“Percy. Percy? Percival Button you come out of there right now. Your mother’s had a fall and we need you at the inn.”

Perched high in a nearby tree, Isabelle didn’t know whether to believe her own ears. So long had it been since she had heard a real human voice, perhaps she had misheard. But what if it were true? What if this boy she had watched come into the forest, wandering in vain night after night, really was Percival – her beloved?

She fretted and worried until the eastern horizon began to lighten, the outlines of the trees solidifying from the stark shadow of its own thought to a touchable, loveable being, wondering what she should do. Her life here was so much more complete than any she had ever known, ever even dared dream of, but the shock of hearing Percival’s name brought with it a flood of emotions that she knew better than to resist. In her heart of hearts, she knew and had always known she could not stay there forever. She had never had a reason to think of leaving, but now she did and now her heart knew where it must be.

The next night, she waited where she had last seen her Percy. She wasn’t at all sure what she should do, but thought the sight of him would help form the answer. The moon had waned to all but a sliver, but the stars were brilliantly bright, lighting the night sky like an old cloak with a million moth-eaten holes held up to a fire. She waited without moving a muscle, with barely a breath or a pulse, practicing all she had learned from the wisest of trees. He never came.

The next night was the same, and the next. Each passing night, Isabelle felt fainter. She would hold her hand up and night by night could see more of the canopy behind it, more of the stars shone through. Any day now, she would fade away to... to what? A memory? But who would remember her? A dream? But who would dream about her? No, if Isabelle was to remain, to exist, she was the only person who could make sure of it. She had to find Percival.

The Music Box: Chapter Thirteen

Walking for days, eating berries, drinking from brooks still babbling with the rain from the storm returning to the sea, Isabelle slept where she could, curled in the bosom of gnarled trees or the dry straw of an untended barn. She passed a number of towns in which she could have begun again, but knew deep inside that none were for her. She found herself spending more and more time in the forested areas, talking with the small creatures who took time out of their busy nesting schedule to twitter back, to offer their comforting fur to the back of her hand.

As day gave way to each new day, Isabelle’s search turned from her outward trajectory and where she might go to a more inner journey, a search for her true self. She had always hidden her natural personality from her family, knowing such serious, God-fearing people would be shocked at some of the things that passed through her mind. She thought she was built the wrong way, was missing parts and had been built with others that didn’t work, for she had so many thoughts and dreams and desires that had never been shared with anyone she had ever met, knowing they would consider her quite mad.

There had been no books in her home, no visitors with whom she could discuss such things. Her brothers were too tired after their work to give her much time and she was shushed by her mother or father whenever she began to talk to any of them, told that they needed their rest and could do without the silly waffling of a cretin annoying them day and night.

But the longer Isabelle stayed in the forest, the more time she had to reflect upon her life and the life she saw around her, the gladder she was she had rejected the mistaken role that had been thrust upon her. And she knew, now, that such a role no longer existed; she had overheard a conversation that let her know there was never any going back.

She had overheard, about two weeks after taking off, a conversation between some villagers about a ‘family up the coast near Dorringdale’ who had been wiped out one and all in the storm, apart from the ‘poor ma’.

The story went that the father and his six sons had left as ever on their usual fishing expedition, but ‘something were wrong and they weren’t getting a thing’. Hour after hour and not a fish could be seen, not a trace could be found. The harder they tried the barer the cruel ocean appeared, the emptier their boat felt. When the time arrived that they usually upped nets and headed in to set up for the markets, they were still fishless.

At this point Owen Finnegan’s boat passed nearby on its way back to harbour.

“You coming then Jack?” Finnegan called across to them. Jack glared back without a word.

“I say are you coming in to market?”

“My, you’d mind yer business if yer knew what was best,” Jack growled.

“We ain’t caught a thing,” one of the boys had yelled; Finnegan had not been able to recall which, possibly the youngest.

“Eh you, shut it.” Jack warned the boy.

“Oh well, just askin’ - good luck with it then,” Finnegan had called.

He was the last to see ever them. Barely an hour later the storm rolled in and they never returned to shore.

It had been assumed, of course, that Isabelle had herself perished. Returning from the markets to find the home gone, wiped out by the storm and swept into the sea, Sonia had presumed the girl washed clean away with it. She would not have grieved for Isabelle alone, but knowing that there was little hope Jack and her boys had survived such a squall, that their wooden boat would have been little match for its destructive hunger, she sunk to the earth in racking sobs.

When Isabelle overheard the villagers talk about it, she did not sadden – she had not been surprised. A part of her had known all along. She had in fact dreamed the very thing the night before. Her dream took her flying over the barren stretch of sea, from upon high she could see the fish swimming in a wide arc away from the Bottomley boat, the frustration eating away at her pa. She had seen the clouds roll over the horizon, the rush to draw the nets up aboard on the boat, the way they tangled and slowed them down as they turned for the harbour.

She dreamed of the rain that soaked them to the skin and the oily look of the sea that now swamped them, the darkening sky lit in blinding flashes of lightning as they tried to make themselves heard over the almighty gale, the boat toppling from mountainous wave to bottomless valley. She saw, clearest of all, the fish that now swam around the boat, the fish that had been nowhere to be seen suddenly appearing in their scores, their hundreds, their thousands, a shimmering silver explosion like the night sky on a moonless night. Before long the fish were all there was to see, parting only to make way for the boat’s silent slide to the seafloor.

When she woke that morning she had almost believed that it had happened already, but the morning was still calm and cloudless and she said not a word to anyone.

The Music Box: Chapter Twelve

Isabelle stood as still as she could. The wind dropped once more and the stinging flick of the scampering rain abated. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She held it in and opened her eyes, raising her palms before her, held upward and at chest height. She let her breath slide slowly out, dropping her palms to her side.

“Now,” she whispered.

A dazzling streak of lightning jumped from the thunderhead to the edge of the shore in front of her, prompting an unearthly crack like the sky itself had torn in two. A howling wind almost blew her off her feet and the wall of rain was upon her, but she dug her toes into the now muddy earth. The sea, which had until now been raised high and thrashing on its haunches, frothing and urgent as a dog straining at its rope as all manner of juicy looking hares raced by, tumbled forward at last, an unyielding wave that reached to the cloud itself as they both bore down upon her. Still Isabelle stood her ground.

The air was now so thick with rain it was more sea than sky, the ocean climbing out of its sea-bed and turning its hand to flight. Isabelle could no longer see; such were the torrents of bucketing rain lashing her, streaming down her face and merging with her eyes. Her ears were her link with reality now and, finely-tuned to the sea’s many voices, she knew her oldest and dearest friend was upon her. Picking her up off her feet it drew her to the very peak of the leading wave, where she was held aloft as the wall of water beneath her smashed through her childhood home. Still it travelled; with sky conquered it was seeking out land, marching until it reached the foothills through which Isabelle had wandered with Percival, Dorothy and Veronique, conspiring, hatching plans for a new life.

The roar around her, the burbling fever of hunger and power, began to quieten. The storm, its limitless rage, was growing sated. The sea, having reminded all who bore witness to its inland journey of its majestic might, was content to leave Isabelle in the field to which it had carried her, laying her more gently than her mother ever had in a grassy grove. For a fleeting moment she found herself wishing it had taken her with it, continued its embrace, but as she lay there on her back, her now open eyes taking in the sky, she felt a sense of hope for the future that she had never before experienced.

Isabelle watched the last of the storm clouds skim overhead, the last rumbling of the storm dying away. The sun, a helpless onlooker powerless to get involved in the drama that had played out under its watch, sent a few tentative exploratory rays beneath the tail end of the passing clouds. When it deduced it safe to come out it made up for its timidity with a dazzling show of its own, recklessly casting about light in decadent hues of gold, silver, peach and a deeply bruised purple that Isabelle felt was the colour of love.

She knew what she had to do. Without even a glance over her shoulder, as though the last 15 years had been swept out to sea like so much unheeded flotsam - the only years she had known in the only place she had known - she began to walk. She walked south, away from the village, away from her home, her family, her life.

The Music Box: (PART II) Chapter Eleven

Isabelle Button had always been a fragile creature. Then Isabelle Bottomsley, she was the last of seven children, the only girl born into a fishing family. Jack Bottomsley had recruited each of his six sons into service on his fishing boat and his disappointment at the birth of a girl, some twelve years after that of his youngest son Geordie, was quite palpable. Her mother Sonia bore the brunt of his unpleasantness over the matter, to the point where she herself was turned against Isabelle for the trouble she had brought between her and Jack. Sonia’s resentment dried up her milk and baby Isabelle was raised on little more than water and mushed pumpkin, growing quite sickly and never far from feeble.

Raised in a torturously cold, draughty, rain-lashed shack away from the other families, a few damp miles outside of a tiny village to the north, Isabelle was left mostly to fend for herself. She only rarely saw her father and brothers, who were out on the sea through the night and in the markets of a morning, coming home late in the day and only for long enough to collapse wearily into their cots, dragging home the stench of fish past their prime. While they slept her mother would add the fish off-cuts they returned with to a broth, clean up whatever scant vegetables could be gathered from the miserly, salt-scoured garden bed and prepare a meal.

This her mother would divide into eight main portions, removing a small amount from one (her own) into a ninth bowl that would then be Isabelle’s. While the men still slept, their thunderous snores filling the shack, threatening to topple its leaning walls, Isabelle and her mother ate in silence at opposite ends of the table. The rumbling in Isabelle’s stomach threatened at times to drown out the snoring, but she steadfastly refused to ask for more, knowing that not only would her pride be dented but her begging would be frowned upon and her request refused. She had to contend with the skerricks of scraps she could occasionally make away with when not under her mother’s watchful eye, or the occasional morsel she might be able to snatch from a barrow while passing through the markets.

Isabelle was destined for a life of hard work and miserable thanklessness, of abusive indifference and mirthless servitude. Her distance from the village made friends nigh on impossible and she learned to get by with those she created. There was the dashing Percival who, though a cad and a bounder to be sure, knew Isabelle was his one true love. There was kindly Dorothy, a motherly figure who would offer words of encouragement when Isabelle was at her darkest. Her best friend and closest ally, however, was Veronique, whose accent Isabelle simply adored.

Though of her creation none of them would come into Isabelle’s home, so she could only be with them when out and at play. She would get her many chores over with as soon as possible so she could spend a few precious moments with them before the evening work began.

Some years later, upon the day Isabelle turned 15, a vicious tempest the likes of which none in that part of the world could recall having ever seen smashed into the coast with a fury impossible to fathom. Her mother had ventured into the village and told her she must stay and do all of the washing, leaving her alone and deliciously free. Watching the storm roll in from the boot-scuffed patch of earth in front of their shack, Isabelle was secretly thrilled by Mother Nature’s kaleidoscopic display, the once-in-a-lifetime performance that, in the best of Shakespearean traditions, followed three disparate but seamless acts.

The curtain-raising first act began in absolute silence. The breeze that had been bobbing the heads of the dandelions and toying with the ragweed dropped away, a foreboding stillness taking its place. This saturated calm drew attention to itself as an anomaly on a coastline that was an ever creaking, restless soul, but was broken by the nervous gobble of a nearby hen, scratching up a puff of dust and twitching its bony shoulders. A metallic smell tickled Isabelle’s nose, like that sent up when cold water hit a hot pan that had been sitting over fire. The air pressure leached away, leaving her head feeling strangely light. The breeze returned, but it had swung around – the gentle off-shore meander now a more insistent on-shore gust, picking up white caps and twisting little triangular scoops of the sea into a vast plain of bejewelled pyramids.

The sea was where the show was to be found, the sky still a thickly rich blue. As Isabelle watched it, anyone looking into her eyes would have seen the changes it underwent, for her eyes, had anybody cared to notice, had always changed colour with the sea’s every tonal shift. The day she was born they were almost black, the storm raging outside passing through the cracks in the house and slipping beneath her delicate lids. By the next day they were a piercing blue, the following a deep emerald.

Now, an observer would see that their periwinkle lustre was following the ocean’s swirling slide into a mischievous turquoise, an Aegean green and, before long, a gunmetal grey that was a steely challenge against which few could hold. Isabelle stared into the wind until her eyes watered, seeping with hues that stained her cheeks as her salty tears spilled. But the tears were not of sadness, nor of joy, simply an outpouring of solidarity, an offering to mark her secret bond with the sea.

The second act was marked by the first cloud to loom at the horizon’s edge. Instead of rolling in as a uniform blanketing, the foggy thatched sheet or the misty stretched cotton that was typically the case at this time of year, it grew taller and taller before Isabelle’s eyes, mushrooming heavenward as it sucked up every trace of trouble it could find. Once it reached a height and thickness that had her wondering if there was enough cloud in the world to sustain its inexorable rise, it began its surge towards her.

With an incredible speed it raced to the coastline, seemingly powered by the electricity that pulsed through its blackening head. Every few seconds it would throw a bolt of this lightning down to the sea, as though running across its surface on jagged legs of light. Isabelle felt the first stinging drops of rain that fled before it, mixed in with the spray whipped off the sea’s tumbling peaks. Her eyes darkened and narrowed, at odds with the twist at the edge of her lips, the upward turn into a wry smile. Thick droplets of inky rain now slapped down on the tin roof behind her, kicking up dust as the hen had done before it scurried through a gap beneath the shack’s floor. The ground was soon riddled with these perfect wounds, the strafed landscape under siege.

The storm front was barely a mile away now. Isabelle could see a veil hanging beneath the low-skimming clouds and stretching to the water, a wall of rain that from this distance seemed suspended in mid-thought. The cloud formation was almost that of an arrow, its centre shooting at her could not have been more targeted than if sent from an archer’s bow. But still she stood, mesmerised by the bright rim of gold that sat at the very summit of the billowing, tar-black cloud, a dying gasp of defiance from the all-but-swallowed sun.

Isabelle watched as the shoreline retreated. The sea sucked its tendrils away from the stony stretch of beach against which it had been delivering armfuls of foam, slurping and groaning as it was dragged away. The low tide mark appeared and still the sea shrank away, revealing rocks she had never seen and leaving fish of all sizes floundering in their sudden nakedness. It drew further and further away until it reached the veil she had seen, where it stopped. The storm and the sea seemed frozen in perfect equilibrium, lovers embracing on a train station platform, perched on the edge of a dream that they had long shared but never been brave enough to perform.

The third act had arrived.

The Music Box: Chapter Ten

“People come here for many different reasons,” she heard Mr Crouch say, turning around to see him addressing the room generally, as though recounting a rehearsed speech of his own, setting in flow a prepared response to what he must have known she would say.

“Not everyone leaves with what they came here hoping to find. Others leave with their wildest desires, their keenest wishes and most heartfelt hopes thoroughly fulfilled. I will be blunt with you Emily Button,” he said quite sharply, pivoting on his spot and looking her straight in the eye, “it’s not a place where wishes should be made lightly.”

What could he mean? Emily’s pale skin crawled with an unpleasant sensation, as though spiders were weaving webs around her slender arms and tickling her fine hair in the process, although she couldn’t put her finger on what it was that most worried her. It wasn’t so much what Mr Crouch had said as how he said it – a sense that the ‘wishes’ to which he alluded were somehow a double-edged sword, like the jokes she had heard about genies in lamps or bottles and how the three wishes they granted their liberator always managed to go wrong.

But these weren’t real ‘wishes’, and Mr Crouch was no genie. He was just a person like her, Emily told herself, albeit one with certain peculiar ways. Nevertheless, she knew she had to be on the ball and follow everything he was saying very carefully.

“I assure you Mr Crouch,” she began slowly, measuring her words out with utmost concentration, “I would never lightly trouble you with anything. I can see that you are a very busy man, with much important work to do. I am here with the purest of intentions and I wish only to find out more about how such a music box as I see here in your book could become mine.”

With this she turned to the book to illustrate what she was saying, but found that although still open, not a skerrick of ink could be seen on the page. It must have somehow turned forward a page while she talked; perhaps there was a draft of some sort that passed by the bench. But, uninvited, she dared not touch it to show Mr Crouch the sketch.

Emily turned back to Mr Crouch and decided it was time to admit to the thing that she felt could be the biggest hindrance to her plan.

“The only thing is, Mr Crouch, I am not sure that I am able to pay you. I don’t know what sort of sum you would have in mind, and I can imagine it being rather princely, but I thought I had to at least find out.”

He looked right at her, as though trying to gauge whether to utter what he was about to say next. She sensed there was something he had been meaning to say and was ruminating on whether this was the point at which he should do so.

“There is no need to worry about such things, for there are always ways around them,” he began.

“For this to work Emily,” he said in a quiet, gentle tone, now not much more than a whisper, “I need to have your full trust. I need you to tell me something about you that nobody else knows.”

Emily bit her lip as she considered what she should do. She trawled back through her relatively short life, trying to think of anything that might suffice. She didn’t understand why Mr Crouch would need to know such a thing, and what it could possibly have to do with her music box (for she now thought of it as hers), but couldn’t see any real harm that could be done by just a story.

The main problem was coming up with anything at all. Emily felt she had led a fairly sheltered life, with no real secrets playing a part. Most of what she did was the kind of thing that any young girl would do – drawing, playing in her room or the garden, going to school with the other village children, Sunday picnics, having friends over for supper. She started to get agitated, wondering whether she should simply make something up. But she felt Mr Crouch watching her like a hawk and knew he would easily catch her out. She opted to be honest.

“But I don’t have any secrets Mr Crouch,” she forced out of her strangled, upset throat, “I’m just an ordinary girl.”

Mr Crouch gazed steadily at Emily. Looming so near he seemed twice the height he had before, all jagged edges and tapering angles, the daunting terrain of his long bony face, the grey, sallow skin that was drawn so tightly she was sure she could make out the stark whiteness of his bones straining beneath the fleshless face.

This close, her nostrils were flooded with his smell, a damp, musty stew of turned sods and peat; its ashy dankness reminded her of the chest of very old books she had found in the attic last winter, silverfish riddled and puffing up invisible but ever-so-tickly mould spores until she had a violent sneezing fit that meant she had to close the lid. She was so mesmerised by this sudden olfactory memory that it took her some moments to register that Mr Crouch’s lips had been moving. Some part of her must have caught it though for it was now fed from the back of her mind up to the front again, and although she hoped otherwise she knew she had not been mistaken in what it had heard:

“Tell me about what really happened with your mother.”

The Music Box: Chapter Nine

With equal parts dread and exhilaration, tugging the hem of her skirt to keep her sweaty palms busy, Emily launched into her prepared speech.

“Mr Crouch, My name is Emily Button and I have lived here in Parson’s Corner my entire life. In all that time, I have never seen anything so beautiful as something I saw this week. I was astonished to find that this particular item that so caught my eye, this magical, mysterious but wonderful piece, had come from a shop that has existed but a few blocks away from my home. Ever since I saw this item, I have been unable to think of anything else. Now I can assure you I am not a greedy child, I am neither spoilt nor humoured in my every whim. In fact, my parents are very particular about ensuring that while I receive what I need in terms of food, somewhere safe to sleep and an education, anything beyond that must be justified and will only be purchased or procured if deemed necessary for my betterment as a person.

“Now this item I came across, this special miracle of workmanship and good taste, was brought to my attention and I am not ashamed to admit took my breath away. I knew, from that very moment, that my longing for such a piece to call my own was something I believed more keenly than anything I have ever believed before. I have come here today to find out what I must do to have such a music box to call my own.”

Emily took a deep breath, realising she had clenched her eyes together tightly and her hands were bunched up in little fists. Breathing out, she opened her eyes just in time to see that now familiar smile dance across Mr Crouch’s too-red lips, although his eyebrows arched in what may have been a less friendly manner. She waited to hear what he might say, the silence almost too much to bear. Had she made a big mistake? She had a sudden pang of fear – what if Tabitha had made the whole thing up? It wouldn’t be her first flight of fancy, she had made certain things up before, led Emily to believe all sorts of half-truths.

That was it! Oh, how could she have been so stupid? Mr Crouch had no idea what she was talking about, she was now sure of it – Emily Button had made a complete fool of herself and was looking like a daft little twit.

Mr Crouch cleared his throat and clapped his hands together, shattering the silence that had descended, blanketing the chilly room (or ‘lab’ as was the word that came to Emily’s mind) in a thick, dark embrace. But just as she was expecting him to say something (“you foolish girl!” or “what claptrap you sully my store with you silly little thing”), he turned away. She looked at his hair, the way the curls bounced over his collar, realising that at some stage he had taken his hat off, perhaps when he went off to make the tea. She watched his shoulders, thinking they were very expressive, almost as though they were carrying on the conversation on his behalf. She heard a shuffling sound behind her and felt a small breeze ruffle her hair. Peeking over her shoulder, she saw that the book on the bench, the one she would swear had been shut when last she saw it, was now open again. Not only was it open, but upon it, etched neatly in beautifully sketched ink, was a music box just like the one she had seen at Tabitha’s.

So she was in the right place. Emily’s heart fluttered and began to race, she felt she was the closest she had been yet to the moment for which she had been waiting for what seemed like an eternity.

The Music Box: Chapter Eight

Emily took stock. By now she had lost track of how long it had been since she had left home, but figured it must be close to two hours. She had been hoping this could have all been over with by now, but still figured she had a little while before anyone would notice she was missing. She might have to change her plan and simply head straight home, as though she had been at Tabitha’s all this time, but that gave her another hour or so before it got too risky.

While she was working all this out her eye had been drifting across the room, not really taking anything in. But now she had her attention caught by the open book on the workbench. It was only a few steps away and her curiosity had always got the better of her. With a glance towards the stairs to make sure Mr Crouch was still off making the tea, Emily sidled up to the book. Peering into it, trying to make out the inky symbols in the low light, Emily was struck by the sudden sensation that she was being watched. She wheeled quickly around but there was nobody there.

A short sharp clap behind her made Emily jump. She turned around to find the book had closed.

“I see you are interested by my work.”

Emily spun again, her heart leaping as she saw Mr Crouch standing a few steps away from her, a cup of tea balancing on saucers in each hand.

“I, I , I didn’t touch,” she stammered.

She couldn’t comprehend how he had passed down the creaky stairs without her hearing, or been able to cover the distance so suddenly.

“I wasn’t looking, I just, I just...”

“It’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with a little curiosity,” Mr Crouch said in what he must have thought a soothing tone. “We all have things we want to know, long to learn, desire to discover. The difference is, most people are afraid of what they want and how badly they want it, so teach themselves not to go after it. I’ve never been one of those people, and I don’t think you are either Emily Button.”

She blushed, not because she was flattered but because she felt so transparent, that he could know so much about her so easily.

“Here, take your tea, before it gets cold.”

Emily took the cup of tea and its saucer from Mr Crouch, glad for the distraction it offered. But as she took it she realised she was shaking quite badly and the cup chattered against the saucer, tea spilling out onto it, running around and around the bottom of the cup. Mr Crouch simply smiled.

Emily thought if she could just sit down and rest a moment, she could recompose. But the only chair she could see was the one beneath the frame, over near the glass chamber, and unsurprisingly was little tempted to get too near to that one.

“How is it?”

“Oh it’s ever so lovely Mr Crouch, ever so nice.”

Emily’s voice was up and down, cracking near the end, but she was surprised she could talk at all.

“You know I don’t have a lot of visitors by these days,” Mr Crouch said, as much to the room as to Emily.

“I’m not surprised!” Emily thought, though she immediately regretted it, disconcerted by the smile that played across Mr Crouch’s lips as she thought it. Perhaps it was a trick of the shadows and her imagination, but she was left unsettled nevertheless.

She had been waiting all this time for Mr Crouch to ask her what had brought her here, aching for him to broach the subject. Why wasn’t he asking? Surely that’s what you do when somebody comes to you this way? She was dreading having to explain the purpose of her visit, but the delay was making it worse – making it harder to bring it up. She wanted this all over with, wanted to be out of this strange place, away from this uncomfortable situation.

Tipping the last of her tea up to her lips, she looked over the rim of the cup at Mr Crouch. His teacup and saucer were gone, though she hadn’t seen him put them down. In fact she hadn’t seen him even take a sip. He smiled at her widening eyes.

“So Emily Button, now that you’re finished your tea, how about we discuss why you are here?”