The Music Box: Chapter Fifty-Nine

Emily strained to hear over the din of the sea now brushing her toes. Trying to turn her mind from the rising tide, knowing there was not long before the waves would be crashing over where she stood, she leant as far forward as she dared, pleased for once of Crouch’s strong fingers as she used them to hold onto a beam overhead.

Snippets of talk rode the wind her way, handfuls of words mingling with one another in combinations she was sure had not been assembled by the speaker. The wind died a little and she was able to catch a few more snatches, coming together in more comprehensible forms.

“Mother seems a little worried about you at the moment Emily – is everything all right?”

“Oh, everything is...” Another gust of wind carried the rest of her small voice away, just out of Emily’s reach, then back again: “...tired and a funny tummy, but nothing too...”

“Well, as long as it’s nothing too serious. Now I know I’ve seemed a little preoccupied lately, but you know you can always talk to your mother and I don’t you?”

“Of course daddy, of course. It’s nothing, really. I’m all better now, back to my old self.”

“That’s the girl. Well, your mother must be wondering where we’ve gotten too, it’s probably time we got back.”

“Yes daddy, I imagine you are right. Thank you so very much for bringing me down here today.”

“That’s quite okay my dear, it’s been my pleasure. It’s good to have a chance to spend some time with you.”

Emily watched as her father’s right leg disappeared and then his left. Her own shiny, black, buckled shoes both disappeared at once as though flying, and Emily knew her father had lifted Crouch up by the arms and would have swung him around in a full circle, like the chair-o-planes at the fair, knowing it was one of her favourite things to do.

This shared intimacy was the last straw for Emily – Crouch had gone too far this time. She reached into her coat pocket to retrieve the spyroscope, in a hurry to get back onto the pier but terrified she would be spotted if she made her move too soon.

Digging around in the pocket, her fingers brushed against something she hadn’t felt there before. Closing her fingers around it, she pulled it out for a closer look. It was the little blue bag with the liquorice she had conjured inside the music box!

But she thought one of the Topkinses still had that. Unless, when Oscar hugged her farewell... But why? Puzzling over what it might mean, Emily was stumped. Putting the question to the back of her mind for now, she reached into the other pocket, the one in which the spyroscope actually was, and peered through it. She saw her father and herself heading back up the main street, the collars of their coats turned up against the cold. She turned her mind to her mother, but was confused to see what appeared to be a running river, but no sign of anybody.

With no time to lose, and a particularly swollen looking wave bearing down on her, Emily reached for the edge of the pier and pulled herself up. There was little chance she could have pulled that off usually, but with Crouch’s long limbs it was a cinch. She ached to be racing up the street and to her home, to get there ahead of her father and Crouch, but knew that only danger could follow such a path. Crouch was too unpredictable, who knew what he might do?

No, the only thing in her favour was the element of surprise. As far as Crouch was concerned, Emily was trapped away evermore in the music box, unable to have any bearing on his plans. He could bide his time – although Emily knew enough about him to know that he could only do so for so long. Such was his hunger, his insatiable need to have his way, he would make something happen sooner than later. And her father was likely to be the first victim. She knew, too, that whatever happened with her mother could not end well. If Crouch could not have her, for a second time, he would ensure that nobody could.

Emily pulled out Crouch’s book and opened to the last section. It was the only chance.

***

Today I journeyed somewhere that has long intrigued me. I sent myself into a box.

It was a dangerous step to take, for there was no guarantee I would be able to ever make my way back out. But I had thought long and hard about this and there was no choice. If I were to make the most of my discoveries, extend them to their full potential, I needed to enter the realm I had created in the boxes and unearth what could be found within.

I have made the boxes in a way that nobody could really complain about being in there. If anything, they are frightfully lucky to have the opportunity, to be in a world in which their wishes and desires are rendered flesh – a vast improvement on the sad lot of their pathetic, provincial lives.

Although I have created these boxes, it is from my own mind that their idea has been shaped, that the music has been drawn, there was one thing about which I was not entirely certain. The key! How to get in and out safely? I knew it must involve a link with the other side, a way to tap into the life that was existing in the other to which one found oneself. And then it dawned on me – what gives life, sustains one’s life?

It was food. To return to the life from which we have stepped, we need but partake of the life-giving sustenance that supports that life; that makes it what it is. Loading my pocket with a small bag of candy from the jar I keep on my bench, I set forth and took the step I knew I must take.

I spent a great deal of time in the box on my first visit, intrigued by the resemblance of its world to my own, yet by its differences. In this world I could achieve in a moment what it would have taken a lifetime to execute in the world from which I had come. All the rules had changed, and in my favour. Invention required only imagination – the usual laws of physics, of time and space and more, were no match for the power of the mind. The possible became actual, thought become action.

At first I was captivated by its near perfection, by the granting of any whim I could conjure but one – I could not make Isabelle appear. Night after night I would return to the forest in search of her, the music box forest reproducing in its entirety that which I had come to know so well, flawless similitude, but for that one element that made it what it was for me. Hope as I may, focused as I was on this single most desire, she never appeared.

Frustrated by this fatal flaw in the box, I vowed to dedicate my life to making it happen, that I would have her once more. I needed to return home, to discover why the music box would fulfil the wishes of those I sent there, yet failed to provide me with the one thing for which I asked. Carefully selecting some blueberries that I could take back with me, knowing I would be able to return any time I wished if I was to eat them, I retrieved a piece of candy from my pocket, placed it in my mouth and returned home.