The Music Box: Chapter Thirty-Eight

For the rest of that day, Emily, Minerva and a far more subdued than normal pair of Topkinses discussed Emily’s predicament. Minerva made them break for dinner, insisting that despite Emily’s protestation that she wasn’t hungry, a little food would help them all think.

By now Emily was quite used to the darkness. It felt quite nice in fact, allowing her to focus on the difficult questions she had to answer and to wrack her brain for things that might help Minerva help her.

They relocated to a solid wooden table that felt very cool and smooth under Emily’s exploring hands, she felt a guilty pleasure as she rubbed her palms over them to drink in its slippery surface, the solidity quite reassuring after all the dizzying fleetingness of the recent past.

Silent servants swept in one by one – Emily gauged the arrival of each new dish by the delicious wafts that preceded them, her delicate nose sniffing out the aromatic spices and mouth-watering juices so expertly blended.

There was near-silence as they ate, Emily discovering she was far hungrier than she had realised and eating with such famished urgency she would have been ashamed if anyone could see her. She was again grateful for the darkness, although it did make eating a strange experience, not knowing what something was until it was in her mouth and guessing as she chewed based on its textures and the tastes it released.

Many she recognised – cheeses, a delicious celery heart stew, strawberries – but many left her guessing and she was to afraid to ask lest the answer prove not to her liking; she had seen too many strange plants and creatures thus far to think that they all avoided the dinner table.

The plates were cleared away as silently as they had arrived and they returned to their discussion on what the next step should be. Top of Emily’s agenda was getting home, but Minerva was concerned with what this would actually achieve without thinking through what she could possibly hope to achieve against Aloysius Crouch without more of a plan.

“Emily, you are clearly a bright girl, that much is quite apparent,” Minerva assured her.

“But we cannot let your impatience get the better of you, in such a dangerous situation. From what we know from your brief dreaming journey back to Crouch’s lab or store or whatever it is you want to call it, we know that he has taken your form and intends on using his appearance as you to his benefit.

“Now from what you tell us, he came to you here to show you why it is he has used you in this way in the first place. It is clearly part of a plan to get nearer your mother Isabelle, for whom he obviously has very strong feelings. He will be able to be nearer her as you, but from what I know of Aloysius that won’t be enough. His will is not to be known to her as ‘daughter’, but as an equal, as a partnership of his idea of love. This will have to happen in his own form, for he knows that’s the only thing that makes it real – your mother’s love for you is undoubtedly strong, but not the sort he will long endure.”

Following what Minerva was saying, Emily agreed that it all made a certain sense. Impatient as she was to do something and quit just talking about it, it was dawning on her that Minerva was right, they needed to know what it was that they could do.

“But if that’s the case, why has he bothered to pretend to be me in the first place?”

“Well, my guess would be that it at least gets him near her, which he would see as the first step to achieve his ends. You’re obviously very close to your mother, so he would be hoping to use that to pick up insight into how she ticks, what she likes and doesn’t like, how much she has changed since he knew her. He wants to know what makes her tick, then will no doubt try and recreate himself as the key to keep her ticking.”

“But my mother adores my father, there is no way in the world she would think even notice anybody else, let alone leave him.”

Minerva’s silence spoke volumes – Emily put the pieces together for herself, growing angry and distraught.

“He will try and do away with my father, won’t he? I imagine he would stop at nothing, the dreadful brute. How I hate him!”

Emily burst into tears, everything growing too much for her poor little shoulders to keep carrying. This was enough to be the undoing of the bravest soul – she was a mere child learning far too quickly about the world and wishing she could just wake up and have the whole thing done with.

Feeling a warm hand placed gently upon her back, Emily realised Minerva was right in front of her now. Too upset to worry about embarrassment, she threw her arms around what must have been Minerva’s waist. She bawled until there was nothing left, sobbing out the pain and frustration until she was utterly exhausted. Minerva began, almost imperceptibly at first, to hum just a handful of soothing notes that Emily felt vibrate through her body. To these she added a couple more, a soft arpeggiation with the most wonderful cadence. Note by note she built a haunting wash, bitterly sad yet with an underlying hope that slowly rose to the fore. Minerva slowly rocked Emily as the young girl listened with her ears, her heart and her soul, drawn in to the rhythm that spoke of the sea itself, of shattered shards of sunlight shimmering across the veil of its surface and verdigris depths that harboured an endless well of luminiferous life and wordless wishes.