And so I went to bed and dreamt that night that the clock was watching me, ticking softly. And I heard the hum of insect wings. Dead angels fell from the roof of our house. I ran to the window and I could see my mother dead and floating down the river, tiny snowbells in her hair, drifting on the water. My father was locked inside one of his time machines, frozen forever. I was alone with the clock. The wings of the ladybirds were fluttering inside my head.
In the morning, Aunt Rosebud arrived, a new poisonous cake in her hands. I gazed at her from the top of the stairs and slowly descended, our eyes fixed upon each other. “Aunt Rosebud,” I said. “Good morning. Why don’t we all have tea and cake together? I will fetch Father from his study. It looks delicious.”
She examined me carefully, her lizard eyes ancient and full of spirals. “I’m sorry John, but your mother likes our visits to be private. She needs the comfort of her sister. Why don’t you run off and play?”
I had reached the bottom of the staircase. She was trying to read me, to guess what I knew or thought I knew. “What kind of cake is it today?”
She smiled, a smile like the clock. It frightened me. “Lemon drizzle.”
I could hear those insect wings humming. The clock was trying to communicate with me. I stepped away from her. I am not a hero. I should kill this woman, destroy the clock and save my mother. I am a child. I speak, my lips moving, my voice from somewhere else. “What poison is in it?”
She didn’t answer me. “I will speak to your father, John.”
Everything changed after that. I was confined to my room for a month as punishment. Before that month ended I was informed by my father that my mother had died. It was deep in the month of August and on the day of her funeral it began snowing outside, our house a fairy tale palace of white. It was so beautiful that my heart turned into glass. Broke into pieces. Cut up my insides.
The servants gasped at the weather and shook their heads.
“This is witchcraft,” said the maid.
The funeral was small. A solitary raven watched over the service. Its eyes were devil yellow. Snow rested on the ground, delicate and untouchable as polar bear fur. After the service my father took me aside and said he had found a tutor for me called Mr Fingers, who came with superb references. He would be arriving in the morning.
That evening the grandfather clock was stolen.
It was still snowing the morning Mr Fingers arrived, the air dancing with snowflakes, cold little kisses, a thousand tiny bites. He was short, with a pointy black beard and half moon black spectacles and his coat and waistcoat were decorated with ladybirds.
He saw me staring at his waistcoat and grinned. “Ladybirds are little witches.” His mouth stretched impossibly wide into a demon dazzle of teeth.
The demon had come for the grandfather clock. He questioned my father and then he tortured him. When he still had no answer as to its whereabouts he stuffed my father into his obsidian sarcophagus. Shut the lid on him.
When the lid was finally opened my father was gone.
Floating in space somewhere.
He let the servants go; took over the house and stole my father’s money. Sent out advertisements with a reward promised for information on the missing clock.
And he waited.
“I am your father now,” Mr Fingers said.
V: August 1888
Tea and cake with Mr Loveheart & Mrs Foxglove
I wake up in a plump, pillowed bed to see Goliath sitting quietly by the window, reading The Times. His great bear bulk blocks the sunlight, blanketing me in shadow. The darkness spreads out before me like a roll of carpet to stuff Cleopatra in. Roll her up like a sausage and dump her in front of a Roman Emperor, who’ll unravel her whilst licking his lips and plucking a grape from its skin.
Goliath smiles at me gently. “Good morning.”
“Is Mr Loveheart dead?” I say.
“No. I chased him away. Have some breakfast, little one. There’s toast and honey.”
I stare out of the window at the sea. We are in a fisherman’s cottage. We are still in Whitby. An envelope rests on the table by the honey jar.
“What is that?”
“Mr Loveheart has invited us for afternoon tea.”
“Why? What does he want?”
“He wants to talk to us both. He wants to negotiate.”
I spread my toast with a big dollop of butter and honey. “I want to hear what he has to say for himself.”
“Very well, then.”
“And if he tries to hurt me, I know you will turn into a lion and eat him,” and I stuff a large piece of toast and honey into my mouth.
Late morning, Goliath carries me up the steps to the abbey and tells me stories of sea imps and underwater worlds.
The skies are full of soft cocoon-like clouds and the air smells of salt and seaweeds. I stare out at the sea on top of Goliath’s shoulders and it is as blue and as deep nightmares. “Do you think Captain Mackerel has found a mermaid to marry?”
“I think he has found two. And they catch fish and pearls for him. And he is very happy, and the cat has a pearl necklace and is very happy.”