The Music Box: Chapter Sixty-One

Food! Emily finally had it, the secret to how one could get into and out of the music box without Crouch’s infernal machine.

She now knew how he was able to come and go on a whim, how he could put terror into the hearts of those who lived in the box, of Oscar and Bernard and Minerva and – she had to stop thinking about them, it was all too much.

Emily had known all along that there was no way she was ever going to get Crouch back in that chair, there was no way of tricking him that was going to have any chance of success. But this – this opened up a door of opportunity. Even if only the merest hint, it was still something to latch onto, it was the return of hope.

Her heart raced with excitement, but before she could double-check the last thing she had read – to make absolute certain that what she believed was true – the book burst into flame. Emily was still sitting and the book has been resting in her lap. In seconds it was a blazing ball and she had no choice but to push it from her, watching as it fell towards the sea. It hit the water with a hiss and plunged instantly from sight beneath the seething froth, just as Emily saw with horror that the flame had licked at Crouch’s suit, catching the end of the jacket and racing up towards her chest.

Without a second thought she followed the path of the book, tumbling through the air and crashing into the water below. For some time, Emily wondered why the water wasn’t colder. It dawned on her that shock had set in – she had only moments before she would feel the icy clutches of the sea’s frozen fingers drag her even further down. Emily forced open her tightly clenched eyes, desperately seeking a sign of where in the depths of the water she had finished. Shattered shards of light danced teasingly all around her, but she thought she could perceive the direction from which they seemed to be coming. But as she began kicking out, hoping she was heading up, Emily was sure she could see bubbles passing her, racing down to the floor below.

“Bubbles don’t drop!” a voice shouted in her head. “You’re going the wrong way!”

Struggling against the weight of Crouch’s heavy clothes – now unfeasibly heavy as they soaked up what seemed like every spare ounce of the sea – Emily felt the searing heat of lungs desperate for air. She kicked and kicked but could bear it no longer, feeling her chest ready to burst. She opened her mouth and sucked in, waiting for the choking torrent of water to fill her. But the crisp cool sensation in her throat was not water at all – she had somehow broken the surface and was drinking in the beautiful clean air.

Emily felt her body dragged away from the pier, drawn out towards the horizon, but the next sensation was of being drawn up and up and up, climbing a wall of water building high over the surface below. She watched in amazement as the shore came hurtling towards her, finally realising that it was she being thrust towards its edge. Emily careened down the front of the wave, twisting and tumbling all the way, losing all sense of direction and even where she started and finished, what was her and what belonged to the sea. She finally found herself tangled in a pile of slimy green seaweed as the wave receded.

Lying flat on her back, staring up at the darkening, heavy grey sky, swollen like bee-stung lips with an angry stormhead, her chest heaved with the precious life-giving act of breathing she has always simply taken for granted. It occurred to Emily that she had never been taught to swim.