The Specter Key (15 page)

The Lights beneath the Water

Bran could neither move nor speak as the taxicab plunged through the water, the speed of its descent slowing the deeper they got, until the walls of the cab were buffeted gently by tall grasses. They rocked side to side a bit until the car hit the bottom with a soft bump.

Oswald turned the radio down, and all was silent within the car. It was very dark deep under the surface—Bran was frozen in his seat, waiting for the walls of the car to break and let the water consume them.

“Aye there, mate,” Oswald said from up front. “Doing all right, eh?”

He snorted loudly and flipped a switch on the dash, and the headlights flashed on, illuminating the world outside. A school of silver, glimmering fish rushed away from the light, swimming around the car. Oswald turned the ignition, and the car came to life again.

“How in the world is this working?” Bran asked.

“Eh?” Oswald replied, looking at him from the mirror. “My cab? I told you: ’tis the only cab in all of West and East Dinsmore that can take you to where you need to be. No doubting that, no sir.”

And that was all Oswald would say on the matter. He shifted gears, and the car started forward, its tires throwing back a tiny spray of dirt behind them as they went. The car pushed through the water as if it was dry land and the floor was the road, carrying them over bumps and around reefs and grasses, parting schools of fish as they went.

Bran didn’t think the six-tentacled Oswald would find a fairy odd, so Bran let Nim out of his bag. She flew up to the window and pressed against it, watching with wide eyes. He wished he had a camera—no words would ever be able to describe what he was seeing. He also wished that Astara might be there with him. The thought made his heart fall.

They drove on, Oswald steering them around wavering grasses and things sticking out of the ground, until they came over a hill and saw the tall form of Elsie Island poking out toward the surface. The island itself was shaped oddly—much like a rough stone pillar that had been placed into the ground, sloping out closer to the bottom. The house had been built into it, so that only part of the gray stone and the dirty glass windows stuck out from the rocky sides, age and water having caused the structure to go dull and washed out.

As they approached, Bran began to really see just how tall the inside of the house must be, the windows crawling all up the side of the mountain in odd, crooked places, curtains drawn over them so that he couldn’t see in. At the bottom, lights glowed atop an encircling brick wall. Behind the wall, the water was somehow kept away, so that Bran could see the dimly lit forms of dead trees and moldy statues.

The cab pulled up to a large gated entrance, and on the outside stood two towering, monstrous stone statues: the hideous forms of creatures, black with wings overshadowing the gate like a canopy, long tusks, and large eyes wide with rage. They seemed to watch Oswald and Bran as the cab approached. It felt like few had ever come this far toward that house in recent days, the wall so high that as they approached, it blocked the view of the garden entirely.

The gate was black and made of stone, solid and smooth save for the silver emblem of a giant crow in the center. Oswald didn’t hesitate at the menacing statues, driving under their wings until water around them disappeared, and they were once again on dry land.

“Here we are now, to the gate,” Oswald said, throwing his door open. The outside of the car was dripping with water. Oswald had Bran’s bags out and was opening his door before Bran had fully come to his senses.

“That was amazing,” Bran said, still in wonder.

“Aye,” Oswald said, gesturing for him to slide out. Bran did, and Oswald moved to get back into his car.

“Wait!” Bran said. “What do I do?”

Oswald didn’t turn back. “Well, I don’t have a ticket in now, mate,” he said gruffly, and the roughness of his voice seemed to be a disguise for his uneasiness. “Gots to be going before something terrible happens with no way to vouch for it. Good day.”

He slammed the door of the cab, glancing nervously up toward the wings of the statues. He shifted gears and rocketed backward, and the moment he left the shadow of the wings, the car was again enveloped in water and started to float toward the surface. Bran was left alone, aghast.

It was eerily silent—the only sound Bran heard was the beating of his heart. Nim blinked at him and the gates before them.

“Well, we’ve got to get in somehow,” Bran said, leaving his bags and stepping closer to the gate. The second he moved, however, a great rumbling sound made him turn. The heads of the black statues moved, and Bran backed away until he stood trembling against the gate.

“Have you an invitation?” The lips of the statue on the right parted, revealing solid, black teeth and an endless stone mouth. The second statue pulled its head closer, its nose nearly touching Bran as its eyes studied him.

“I-I’m here to see Gary,” Bran stammered, not sure what to say.

“No one has approached this gate in many a day,” the second statue said, its voice hissing. “We are to be left alone. The house is to remain untouched. You are not welcome.”

“But I was sent here,” Bran protested. “By Adi Copplestone, his sister.”

“Gary’s sister has no authority here,” the first statue replied. “Even she must have an invitation or suffer the consequences.”

“But she sent me to see her brother,” Bran stammered. The statues were not impressed, their heads edging closer to him as if they might snap his head off.

“Have you any sign or proof of your invitation?” the second statue asked, narrowing its eyes upon him hungrily. Bran’s fingers shook as he dug about in his pockets, but the letter from Adi was in his luggage, sitting far away, with the creatures’ heads in between. His hand touched the business card Adi had given him, and he drew it out quickly.

“This!” he said, and both heads snapped to look at what he held. He shoved it outward so that they could see the crow embossed on the card’s surface. Both creatures pushed their heads closer, studying it, sniffing at the card.

“This invitation shall suffice,” the first creature said, and then both heads drew back, hardening into stone once more. Before Bran could say anything, there came a great heaving and creaking, and the gate parted, scratching loudly against the stone as it swung inward, revealing the mansion.

Nim leapt from Bran’s shoulder and started forward, so Bran had to follow her, grabbing his bags as he did—though not before taking Adi’s letter and placing it in his pocket, in case there were more guards. He shuffled through, and the gate closed behind them the moment they had cleared it. They were left in the darkness of the garden.

It was not a very large place, for he could see the walls clearly encircling them even through the sparse trees and bushes scattered about in an unkempt manner. There were statues: gray, hulking things, just as monstrous as the two outside, with hideous faces of fear, locked in battle with one another. Order seemed to have no place. Straight ahead, between them and the mansion, was a long pool of water with a black fence encircling it and tendrils of vines and plants growing up through the bars of its short gate.

“Such a cheery place, isn’t it?” Bran said, looking about. Far above his head, the water seemed to appear again, though he could see no line of magic or glass where it began and ended. There was a shimmering where the surface of the water was, far above their heads, and he could see the shadowy shapes of fish swimming by.

He wondered how the plants and things grew there, so far from the sun, but he guessed it was some type of strange magic. There was little grass besides small pockets where it dared to grow, and the ground seemed to shimmer slightly from the broken light through the water above their heads. Bran looked to the house.

“Let’s go that way,” he said. “We’ll knock and see who answers.”

He had an uneasy feeling, one born not just from the surroundings. There was a pathway of rough stones through the garden, and he followed it. When they came to the pool, he slipped a glance through the bars. The water came up to the edge of the pool, its surface unbroken by wind or motion, the water so dark and dreary that anything might have hidden beneath the surface.

When he came closer to the house, he saw a porch built into the bottom, so that it was inset in the side of the rock and cast a deep, dark shadow over the doorway. It was supported by six tall, black columns, high and foreboding, and he passed them briskly, coming to the door. There were no windows on either side, and those that were nearest to him were too high for Bran to see any shadows or movement. He hesitated but then reached forward to knock.

It echoed deeply, the door bearing no evidence of age. There was no answer, so Bran shrugged and knocked again. He searched for a doorbell, but there was none, and after minutes of trying, still no one came.

He wasn’t about to just leave after coming all that way, and he also realized that he couldn’t leave anyway, because there was no way for him to get back to the surface. So he sat there on top of his luggage for nearly five minutes, hoping that someone would come.

“He’s probably in there now, but the house is so big he can’t even hear me,” Bran said to Nim. He was feeling very impatient, for every moment that he sat there waiting was another moment lost when he could be finding Astara. Using that as an excuse, he reached his hand out and quietly said,“Onpe likoca,” and the door gave a click, swinging open. He stuck his head around the edge to see in.

Bran expected a great room or a wide foyer; instead he was greeted with a narrow, darkened hallway. The walls were richly decorated, however, with fiery red and orange and yellow paintings. A long row of stone columns supported the ceiling, and at their tops flickered yellow light, as if there were candles there that he could not see. Bran took an unsteady step through the door.

“Hello?” Bran asked, his voice echoing lightly in the hallway. Nim skittered to his shoulder again, looking around.

“Gary?” Bran called out, taking his bags and closing the door behind him without taking his eyes off the hall. No one replied. The walls were dusty, and as he looked closer, he thought that he could see forms and faces in the outlines of the paint, though they appeared to have been brushed over and smudged away. He walked down the hall, and the corridor curved off a bit to the right up ahead so that he couldn’t see around it. There were dark, wooden doors with black metal hinges and keyholes and curved tops that fit into the stone walls tightly. Bran’s steps continued around the bend.

“He’s not one for cheery lighting, that’s for sure,” Bran told Nim, just to hear his voice in that dreary place. It smelled of stone and water in a strange way, and the columns on either side continued down, every step lit by the flickering candles above his head. He checked almost every door that he passed, but each was locked tight and wouldn’t budge. He considered using magic on them as well but thought better of it—he’d broken into the house, and it’d be hard to come up with an excuse for sneaking in any further.

He passed nearly eight doors when the hallway split. At the center there was a great painting that was nearly half as tall as Bran, hanging above a simple wooden table. The painting was of a giant golden key with red and orange flames bursting out from its sides, making the key seem to be afire itself. Bran thought the picture was stunning but a bit absurd.

“A key?” Bran said, and Nim jumped from his shoulder to look at it closer. “Now there’s an obsession to have. Where do you even buy paintings of keys?”

The diverging hallways were covered with a rich red carpet, and the walls were papered with a red and dark yellow design. The columns ended and were replaced with candles attached to the walls. Bran started toward the hall at the right without really even thinking, and Nim followed.

He almost called Gary’s name again but couldn’t bring himself to speak as he went down the hallway. It started to curve up and around, like a circular ramp going higher into the house. The walls began to be neatly decorated with inset glass displays. Behind the glass were keys in various shapes and sizes: polished, some gold and others brass, and some with gems and others with rich designs and markings. Bran put his hand in his pocket, feeling the key there once more, burning to his touch.

The hallway continued around until he found himself at a kind of crossroads; the hallway straight ahead went back down in a full circle. But there was another hall proceeding straight away to the left, which he followed. There were more key displays there, lit by soft lights he could not see. The hall began to lead upward again, and as he came to the end, he saw something looming in the darkness before him.

The thin hallway opened into a grand, circular room like an amphitheater, with the hallway carpet continuing around it to the left. Stepping forward, Bran saw that the hallway spiraled around the great room, like a balcony ramp that went up and around, higher and higher until it met the ceiling, too far above for Bran to see if not for the candles that continued up its walls.

However, Bran paid little heed to these things, for his gaze was riveted on the middle of the room where a towering wooden ship was floating in midair as if magically free of gravity, held to the floor by heavy black cables that were anchored with giant bolts. It was the type of ship that a pirate might have sailed in, the wood broken in many places, rusty cannons sticking out of portholes, the sails tattered and ripped to shreds. It was very old, and one of the masts was missing entirely, but its fierce power was still as intimidating as if Bran had seen it on the sea.

Bran looked around the giant room but saw no sign of anyone. He drew closer to the giant ship, running his eyes across its side and studying its materials. It seemed to get larger the closer he got, until it hovered above his head. Every sail was triangular, which struck Bran as odd; he was no expert on sailing, but he knew a triangular sail was probably a waste of wind power. The sails were layered, however, so that they seemed to cover one another.