“Smash the glass,” she says again.
I pick up the butterflies and smash the frame against the wall. The glass smashes into pieces. I can hear lightning crack in the sky and a hand touches my shoulder. I turn round and Mr Loveheart is smiling at me. “Detective Waxford. I am making a confession in advance. I am going put the Professor’s head on a stick outside Scotland Yard and then blow his house up… again.”
“Loveheart?” I am confounded. Detective White and Constable Walnut are standing beside him.
“You look older, Waxford,” Detective White says, rather wobbly on his feet. “It must be this case getting to you.”
“Thank God, you’re alive.” I am nearly crying with disbelief.
I turn to the girl. “You could have freed them. Why didn’t you?”
“I can’t. I am a butterfly.” And she wanders off down the hallway.
“Now, she is interesting,” remarks Loveheart.
“We have to stop the wedding,” I blurt out.
“What wedding?” says Detective White.
“You’ve all been trapped for ten years. It’s 1899. That girl is Boo Boo, and the Professor is marrying her next Saturday.”
“My grandma is going to be rather worried,” say Constable Walnut.
“I wouldn’t concern yourself, Walnut,” replies Loveheart. “She already thinks you’re dead.”
“What on earth do I tell her?”
“Say you were on a sabbatical.”
“For ten years?”
“Coma?”
“She’s not buying that. I need something more convincing.”
“Bullet in the brain… amnesia.”
“Shut up the pair of you,” says Detective White. “There is proof, Waxford, against Hummingbird.” And Detective White shows me the room where the photographs of his wives are hanging.
The glass cracks.
BONG
BONG
BONG
BIG BEN GOES BACKWARDS
10 YEARS fall off the clock
The Perils of Using Black Magic!
The spell is broken
The glass is broken
TIME IS BROKEN
THE YEAR IS BACK TO 1889
And yet, we are still the same
Death wakes up from a snooze, checks his pocket watch and sighs.
1889, again!
Mr Loveheart and the wooing of Boo Boo
I’ve decided I shall marry her! She’s perfect for me. We go together like cheese and pickle (am I the pickle, perhaps?). Of course I shall have to murder her fiancé but I can’t suppose anyone will mind too much; he’s an insane insect collector. He’s only after your wings, Boo Boo!
Loveheart Manor has become rather overgrown after ten years. I have to hack my way through thorny shrubs and teethy rose bushes with my sword. Ouch! This reminds me of a fairytale. Now which one is it?
Hack, hack, hack
My gardens are wild. A fleshy patchwork quilt of fruit, weed and flowers. They burst at the touch; shape into hearts and break within my hands. My kingdom, my beautiful kingdom.
A big orange cat is sitting on my front steps; his bottom a splatty shape. “And I shall name you ‘Pumpkin’,” I say, “because you resemble one.”
The cat looks at me with disgust, his jade eyes narrowing, and then raises his tail and breaks wind.
“That’s not very nice, is it, Pumpkin?” Naughty cat. And he won’t budge from my front step. He’s blocking the door with his huge shape. I wonder what he’s been eating? Possibly my neighbours.
I shall have to climb through a window. “Pumpkin, you must guard the entrance to my kingdom.”
The cat yawns.
“I am the Lord of the Underworld,” I explain.
He isn’t impressed. Well, that’s cats for you.
I leap through a downstairs window into my library. Bit dusty in here. Cough. Splutter. I am looking for some rose shears. I have decided to collect some flowers for Boo Boo. My insect queen. I sprint into the kitchens and Ah Yes! GARDENING shears, underneath the sink perhaps? No. Oh well, I shall use my sword instead.
Mr Fingers floats in the mirror in the hallway. A specimen in a jar. He doesn’t appear to be able to die. Dizzy in the eyes; full of stars. I tap on the glass. He stirs like a baby in a womb. Bares his teeth. Mad dog.
I should end this. This has gone on too long.
“Goodbye, Mr Fingers,” I say.
I drive my sword through the mirror and it smashes. An explosion of glass, a scream. He disintegrates. The house shakes. My kingdom wakes. The Underworld is awake. Tentacles of black break through the earth in my kingdom and coil into my trees, they wind themselves about the flowers and into the architecture of my house.
I open the front door. Pumpkin the cat is unaffected by the huge disturbance of undergrowth. The landscape is shifting, distorted. My rose bushes are blooming; the roses so red they stab my eyes. Big bloody petals intoxicate and overpower all other flowers.
My crown sits on the hall table, glinting. I pop it on my head. Glitter magic thing. Dark star. Best keep it on from now.