The Watcher in the Shadows

  9

  THE NIGHT TRANSFIGURED

  An insistent drumming wrenched Simone out of a strange dream in which she was waltzing the night away with her deceased husband Armand in one of Paris’s old hotel ballrooms, now decayed and covered in cobwebs. In life Armand had never been a dancer, in fact she doubted there had been a clumsier man in all of Paris, yet somehow he had found his dancing feet in the afterlife.

  ‘Come and join me here, Simone,’ he whispered in a voice that was not his. He looked at her with eyes that were not his either. ‘You’ll be happy here, with the others . . .’

  ‘You’re not my husband, are you?’ she asked.

  The stranger in her arms gave her a wolf-like smile.

  The sound persisted, and by now Simone was wide awake, the chill of the dream fading away. Someone was tapping gently on the window that overlooked the porch. Simone stood up and recognised Lazarus’s smiling face on the other side of the glass. Instantly, she felt herself blush. On her way to the door she glanced at herself in the mirror. You foolish old woman, she thought.

  ‘Good evening, Madame Sauvelle. Perhaps this isn’t a good moment . . .’ said Lazarus.

  ‘Not at all. I was just . . . Actually, I was reading and fell asleep.’

  ‘That means you should change books.’

  ‘I suppose so. Anyway, do come in, please.’

  ‘I don’t want to bother you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Come in.’

  Lazarus nodded politely as he entered. His eyes reconnoitred the place quickly.

  ‘Seaview has never looked so good,’ he remarked. ‘I must congratulate you.’

  ‘Irene deserves all the credit. She’s the one with a talent for decorating. A cup of tea? Coffee?’

  ‘Tea would be perfect, but . . .’

  ‘Say no more. I’d like one too.’

  Their eyes met for a second. Lazarus smiled warmly. Simone, suddenly embarrassed, looked down and concentrated on preparing the tea.

  ‘You’ll wonder why I’m here,’ the toymaker began.

  Indeed, thought Simone.

  ‘Every night I go for a walk through the forest to the cliffs. It helps me relax,’ said Lazarus.

  There was a moment of silence, filled only by the sound of the water heating in the kettle.

  ‘Have you heard about the annual masked ball in Blue Bay, Madame Sauvelle?’

  ‘On the last full moon of August,’ Simone recalled.

  ‘That’s right. I wondered . . . Well, you must understand you’re under no obligation to accept, otherwise I wouldn’t ask you. I’m not sure I’m making myself clear . . .’

  Lazarus seemed like a nervous schoolboy. Simone was watching him serenely.

  ‘I was just wondering whether you’d like to go with me,’ Lazarus concluded at last.

  Simone remained silent. Lazarus’s smile melted away.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked . . . Please accept my apologies . . .’

  ‘Do you take sugar?’ Simone asked politely.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Your tea. With or without sugar?’

  ‘Two spoonfuls.’

  Simone stirred the sugar in, then passed the cup to Lazarus.

  ‘I think I’ve offended you,’ he said.

  ‘No, it’s just that I’m not used to being invited out. I’d love to come to the dance with you,’ she replied, surprised at her own decision. She had forgotten how comforting it could be to have someone take an interest in her. It felt good, although it also felt as if she was betraying poor Armand.

  The conversation continued on the porch of Seaview, beneath the oil lamps which were swaying in the breeze. Seated on the wooden rail, Lazarus gazed at the sea of treetops murmuring in the forest.

  Simone studied the toymaker’s face.

  ‘I’m glad you feel at home here,’ Lazarus remarked. ‘How are your children adapting to life in Blue Bay?’

  ‘I can’t complain. Quite the opposite. In fact, it appears that Irene is already hanging around with a boy from the village. Someone called Ismael. Do you know him?’

  ‘Ismael . . . of course. He’s a good boy, or so I’ve been told,’ said Lazarus rather distantly.

  ‘I hope so. I’m still waiting to be introduced.’

  ‘Young people are like that. Put yourself in their position,’ Lazarus ventured.

  ‘I suppose I’m doing what every mother does: making a fool of myself, being overprotective of a daughter who is almost fifteen.’

  ‘It’s only natural.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’d agree.’

  Lazarus smiled, but didn’t comment.

  ‘What else do you know about him?’ asked Simone.

  ‘About Ismael? Well . . . not much,’ he began. ‘I hear he’s a good sailor. He’s supposed to be quite shy, doesn’t have many friends. The truth is, I don’t know much about what goes on locally either. But I don’t think you need to worry.’

  The sound of voices meandered up to his window like the trail of smoke from a smouldering cigarette; it was impossible to ignore. Above the rumble of the sea he could still hear the words spoken by Lazarus and his mother down below; although, for a moment, Dorian wished their conversation had never reached his ears. There was something that worried him in every word, every sentence. Perhaps it was just the thought of listening to his mother chatting to a man who was not his father . . . even if that man was Lazarus, a person Dorian considered to be his friend. Perhaps it was the intimacy that seemed to colour everything they said. Or perhaps, Dorian concluded, it was his own jealousy and his obstinate belief that his mother would never again enjoy an adult conversation with another man. And that was selfish. Selfish and unfair. After all, apart from being his mother, Simone Sauvelle was also a woman in need of friendship and the company of someone other than her children. Any book could have told him that. Dorian considered the theoretical aspect of this way of thinking. On that level, everything seemed fine. The reality, however, was another matter.

  Without switching on his bedroom light, Dorian crept closer to the window and peered down at the porch. ‘Selfish and, on top of that, a spy,’ whispered a voice inside him. Cloaked in the comfortable anonymity of darkness, Dorian could see his mother’s shadow projected across the floor of the porch. Lazarus was standing, staring out at the deep black ocean. The curtains that concealed Dorian fluttered in the breeze and, instinctively, he took a step back. His mother said something he couldn’t make out. It was none of his business, he decided, ashamed that he’d been prying.

  Dorian was about to move away from the window, when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a movement in the dark. Quickly he swung round, all the hairs on the back of his neck on end. The room was buried in shadows, lit only by patches of bluish light that filtered through the curtains. He fumbled around the bedside table, searching for the switch on the lamp. It took his fingers a couple of seconds to locate it. As he pressed the switch, the metal coil inside the light bulb flared briefly, then went out, the sudden glare blinding him for a second. The darkness returned, thicker, like a deep well of black water.

  ‘The bulb’s blown,’ Dorian said to himself. ‘Happens all the time. The metal used to make the filament, tungsten, never lasts long.’ He’d learned that at school.

  These reassuring thoughts vanished, however, when Dorian noticed the movement in the shadows once more. Or rather, of the shadows. A shape seemed to be moving in the dark in front of him. A black, opaque silhouette stopped in the middle of the room. ‘It’s watching me,’ he thought to himself. The shadow now seemed to be advancing towards him. Dorian realised that his knees were shaking from sheer terror.

  He took a few steps back until the faint glow from the window enveloped him in a pale halo of light. The shadow paused on the edge of the darkness. Dorian clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering and fought against the desire to close his eyes. Suddenly, he thought he heard someone uttering a few words. It took him a moment to re
alise that he was the one who was speaking. In a firm tone, and without a trace of fear.

  ‘Get out of here,’ he ordered, addressing the shadow. ‘I said out!’

  A spine-chilling sound reached his ears, like the echo of distant laughter, cruel and malevolent. The shadow’s features surfaced like a mirage through the jet-black waters of the gloom. Black and demonic.

  ‘Get out of here,’ Dorian heard himself repeating.

  The hazy face melted before his eyes and the shadow rushed across the room at great speed, like a cloud of hot gas. As it reached the door, it twisted into a phantom-like spiral that spun through the keyhole, a tornado of darkness sucked out by an invisible force.

  Only then did the light bulb go on again, bathing the room in a warm glow. The sudden brightness almost made Dorian scream in panic. He searched every corner of the room, but there was no sign of the apparition he thought he’d seen a few seconds earlier.

  Taking a deep breath, Dorian walked over to the door. He placed his hand on the doorknob. The metal was as cold as ice. Arming himself with courage, he opened it and scanned the corridor outside. Nothing.

  Gently, he closed the door and returned to the window. Below, Lazarus was saying goodbye to his mother. Just before leaving, the toymaker leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. A brief kiss, just a light brush. Dorian felt his stomach shrink to the size of a pea. A second later, the man looked up from the shadows and smiled at him. Dorian’s blood froze.

  Lazarus ambled away beneath the moonlight, heading towards the wood, but however hard he tried, Dorian couldn’t make out Lazarus’s shadow. Moments later, darkness had engulfed him.

  After walking down a long passageway that linked the toy factory with the mansion, Ismael and Irene headed deep into the heart of Cravenmoore. In the dead of night Lazarus’s residence seemed like a haunted palace, with galleries stretching in all directions and hallways inhabited by dozens of eerie mechanical creatures. From the turret in the centre of the mansion, high above the spiral staircase, came a shower of purple, gold and blue reflections that shimmered like the shifting colours of a kaleidoscope.

  To Irene, the motionless figures of the automata and the lifeless faces on the walls made it seem as if a strange spell had once been cast, trapping the souls of Cravenmoore’s previous inhabitants. Ismael, whose imagination was more prosaic, saw in them only the reflection of the twisted mind of their creator. Which didn’t comfort him in the least; on the contrary, the more they ventured into Lazarus Jann’s private domain, the more intense the toymaker’s presence seemed to become. His personality was stamped on every obscure detail of the building: from the ceiling, a dome with frescoes depicting scenes from famous stories, down to the floor they were treading on, an endless chessboard that deceived the eye with strange optical illusions. To walk though Cravenmoore was like entering a dream that was both fascinating and terrifying.

  Ismael stopped at the foot of a staircase and inspected the circular steps that seemed to vanish into the ether. While he was looking up, Irene noticed that the face of one of Lazarus’s clocks, in the shape of a sun, had opened its eyes and was smiling at them. As the hour hand reached midnight, the sphere swivelled round and the sun gave way to a moon that shone with a ghostly light. Its dark, glistening eyes moved slowly from side to side.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ whispered Ismael. ‘Hannah’s room was on the second floor.’

  ‘There are dozens of rooms there, Ismael. How will we know which was hers?’

  ‘Hannah told me her room was at the end of a corridor, facing the bay.’

  Irene didn’t think this was very helpful, but she nodded all the same. Ismael seemed as overwhelmed by the place as she was, although he would never have admitted it in a hundred years. They both took one last look at the clock.

  ‘It’s midnight. Lazarus will be back soon,’ said Irene.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  The stairs rose in a byzantine spiral that seemed to defy gravity, progressively twisting round on itself like the access route to the dome of a large cathedral. After a dizzying climb, they passed the entrance to the first floor. Ismael grabbed Irene’s hand as they continued up the second flight of stairs. The curvature of the staircase became more pronounced now, and the route slowly narrowed into a claustrophobic passage cut in stone.

  ‘Just a bit further,’ said Ismael, reading Irene’s anguished silence.

  What seemed like an eternity later, they escaped the oppressive tunnel and reached the door leading to the second floor of Cravenmoore. They were now in the main corridor of the east wing. A throng of petrified figures lurked in the dark.

  ‘We’d better separate,’ said Ismael.

  ‘What? Are you mad?’

  ‘The good news is you get to decide which end you want to explore,’ he offered.

  Irene looked to either side. To the east she could see three hooded figures standing round a huge cooking pot: witches. She pointed to the other end.

  ‘They’re only machines, Irene,’ said Ismael. ‘They’re not alive.’

  ‘Tell me that in the morning.’

  ‘All right, I’ll explore this side. We’ll meet back here in a quarter of an hour. If we haven’t found anything, we’ll leave,’ he promised.

  She nodded. Ismael handed her his matchbox.

  ‘Just in case.’

  Irene put the box in her cardigan pocket then looked up at Ismael. He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips.

  ‘Good luck,’ he murmured.

  Before she’d had a chance to reply, Ismael had set off towards his end of the corridor. ‘Good luck,’ thought Irene.

  As the sound of his footsteps faded behind her, Irene took a deep breath and headed off in the opposite direction. Her part of the corridor split into two at the mansion’s central point, the main staircase. Irene peeped over the edge into the abyss. A beam of fractured light plunged vertically from the turret above the dome, piercing the darkness.

  From the main staircase, the corridor branched out towards the south and west. The west wing was the only one with a view over the bay, so Irene set off down the long passage, leaving behind her the comforting brightness that fell from the dome. Suddenly, she noticed a semi-transparent veil stretched across the passage, a gauze curtain beyond which the corridor took on a very different aspect. She couldn’t see the shapes of any more mechanical figures lying in wait in the shadows, but there was a single letter embroidered on the crown-shaped panel from which the curtain hung. An initial: A.

  Irene parted the curtain with her fingertips. A cold breath of air caressed her face and, for the first time, she noticed that the walls were covered by a complex series of images carved into the wood. From where she stood she could see only three doors: one on either side of the corridor and a third, the largest of the three, at the end, marked with the same initial she’d seen above the gauze curtain.

  Irene advanced slowly towards that door. Around her, the wooden reliefs depicted bizarre creatures, an ocean of hieroglyphics she could not decipher. By the time she reached the door at the end, it seemed obvious that Hannah would not have occupied a room there. Yet the enchantment of the place outweighed its sinister atmosphere. She felt as if some invisible presence were floating in the air . . . something almost palpable.

  Irene’s pulse quickened as she placed a trembling hand on the doorknob. Then something stopped her. A premonition. She could still turn back, find Ismael and run away from the house before Lazarus noticed they’d broken in. The knob turned gently beneath her fingers, sliding against her skin. Irene closed her eyes. She didn’t need to go in there. She could retrace her steps. She didn’t have to give in to the dream-like spell that seemed to be telling her to open the door and cross the threshold. Irene opened her eyes.

  The corridor offered her a way back through the darkness. Irene sighed and, for a moment, her gaze was lost in the shimmering gauze. Just then, the outline of a figure appeared behind the curtain.

  ‘Ismael
?’ murmured Irene.

  The figure stood there for a few moments and then, without a sound, moved back into the shadows.

  ‘Ismael, is that you?’

  The slow poison of panic started to pump through her veins. Without taking her eyes off the curtain, Irene opened the door and stepped inside the room. For a split second she was startled by the sapphire-coloured light filtering through the tall, narrow windows. Then, as her pupils grew used to the strange twilight, her hands shaking, she managed to strike one of the matches Ismael had given her. She found herself standing in a palatial room that seemed to be like something straight out of a fairy tale.

  An intricate coffered ceiling was inscribed with a whirlwind of fantastical shapes. At one end stood a luxurious four-poster bed with fine golden curtains, and in the middle of the room a marble table held a large chessboard, its pieces made of glass. At the far end Irene spied the cavernous jaws of a fireplace in which red-hot logs were burning. Above the fireplace hung a portrait: a pale face, with the most delicate features imaginable, and the deep, sad eyes of a woman whose beauty was astounding. The woman in the portrait was dressed in a long white robe, and behind her stood the lighthouse on its island in the bay.

  Holding the lighted match up high, Irene walked over to the portrait and stood beneath it until the flame burned her fingers. As she licked her wound, the girl noticed a candlestick on a desk. Although she didn’t really need it, she lit the candle with another match and was surrounded by a hazy glow. On the desk there was also a leather-bound book, which was open.

  Irene recognised the handwriting on the parchment-like paper, although a layer of dust made it difficult to read the words. The girl blew lightly and a cloud of silvery particles spread across the table. She picked up the book and turned to the title page. Holding the book closer to the candle, she read the words inscribed there. Slowly, as her mind began to understand what it all meant, she felt an intense shiver run like an icy needle down her neck.