Isabelle reached the landing. Just as she was about to knock on Percy’s closed study door, she heard a muffled sound from Emily’s room. Gently stepping over to the door, she wondered why it had been closed. Slowly pulling it to, she was startled by a hulking shadow passing across the wall. A hand gripped her wrist and pulled her through, her heart threatening to jump from her chest as she caught in the mirror a glimpse of the dark-coated Mr Crouch.
She gasped a large gulp of air and was ready to scream when Crouch put a finger to his lips. He released his cruel grip on her wrist and for some reason she could never work out, Isabelle stayed silent. She saw, in his deep-set eyes, long body, sharp nose and the sleek, jet-black hair peeking from beneath his hat the familiar face she had recalled just moments ago.
“Aloysius”, she whispered.
But Crouch shook his head.
“Stay very still a moment, and please hear me out. I didn’t mean to grab you like that just now, I must have given you a terrible fright, but you scared me so.”
“Why would I listen to you? What are you doing here? And where’s my Emily?”
In the shock of finding Aloysius here, after all this time, and in the personage of a human, not a wolf, Isabelle had been so confused she had momentarily forgotten all about Emily.
But not now. “What have you done with her?” she growled, anger boiling her blood. Tell me now!”
“Please, I shall explain. Emily is safe, she is well; she is near.”
Isabelle glanced around the room to see if her daughter could be seen anywhere. Her eyes passed the sweets she had bought earlier that day, the tray with Percy’s tea on it and reached a small carved box she didn’t recognise. As she reached out to pick it up, Aloysius jumped towards her and wrested it from her grasp.
“Don’t open that,” he exclaimed, snatching it out of her reach. “I’ll explain everything, but please leave that be.”
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t scream now and get Percy in here,” Isabelle demanded.
“If you want to see Emily again, I strongly recommend you don’t. Please, just listen.”
Aloysius gestured to the end of Emily’s bed and Isabelle tentatively sat, though her body remained coiled, ready to spring. She glanced nervously at the door, wondering if she could make it if she needed to. Aloysius caught her line of thinking and moved further away, towards the window on the far side of the room.
“Let me just say you have nothing to fear. You did – you certainly did – but I assure you that you need worry no longer.”
“And what exactly is your assurance worth? You come here after all this time, and why? There’s something wrong with Emily, something has happened and I just know you’re involved. What are you doing in my home? How did you get here? What is going on? And why are you back, after all this time?”
Emily wondered what it must be like for her mother to be seeing Aloysius after all this time, and here, in her home, like this. But she pushed these thoughts to the side for the time-being and measured her words very carefully.
“As I was saying, Emily is well. You are right, there has been something wrong with her, and this box is a big part of that. I found it just now under this bed. Did you know it was here?”
“I’ve never seen it before in my life. What is it? How did she get it?”
“It’s a music box. It was built by Mr Crouch – Aloysius Crouch – to help him take on the forms of other beings, to lock them inside while he became them.”
“But you’re Aloysius! You’re the one doing these things.”
“I’m not. I know I appear to be, but you have to believe me – you must believe me – I’m not Aloysius Crouch.”
“Then who are you?”
“It’s me, mother. It’s Emily.”
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