Sophie had created something monstrous with her story. All day she fought the sensation that a character had crept out of it and was following her around. Everywhere she went there was rustling behind her, creaking floors, and shadows that flickered just a second after she passed. Either the Tailor’s ghost had oozed out of the walls, or she was being followed by a sea creature that had learned to quietly walk on the tips of its tentacles. It wasn’t a crazy idea. It happened on her street last year, when the local constable went to check on a family that had been missing for days. He’d found them cowering behind the kitchen door, on which an enterprising toe-tentacled squid had stuck itself and was playing with the light switch on the other side of the room.
Another thing was haunting her, too. During the midday Bone Snatching, in which she’d nearly lost a foot, Sophie had been struck by what Ralf had said to his mother: We’re both trying to protect the same thing. She wondered if he meant the Monster Box. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t going to look for it. Not until Cartwright told her what was in it, which he wouldn’t because he was a self-satisfied, irritating idiot.
Which made her wonder why she was searching the house from top to bottom, looking for a sword she could give him.
It’s only fair, she told herself sternly. You lost his in the sea.
She entered the corridor of portraits that she saw with Scree on the first night. Almost too late she heard the stairs creak, and when she looked around she saw a shadow forming at the top of a spiral staircase. Her first thought was ghost, and without thinking she secreted herself behind a roll of boggy carpet leaning against the wall. Moments later the twins appeared.
“I thought you said she went this way,” said Gail.
“We’ll go back. Maybe she’s on the beach.”
Sophie pressed herself against the wall, praying to sink through the moldy plaster until they left. She watched them saunter down the corridor, until Ralf suddenly noticed the portrait of them and their father and stopped.
“So that’s where he put it,” he said. “That horrible picture. Do you remember when we had to stand there for the painter?”
“He’s made that one taller,” said Gail, pointing to the picture, which struck Sophie as very odd. Ralf laughed and jabbed it with his finger, leaving a small dent in his father’s forehead.
“Stupid old man,” he said. “He deserved everything he got. Self-obsessed, unloving . . .”
“Cold,” suggested Gail.
“Yes, that’s a good one,” mused Ralf. “Cold. But never as cold as he was on the beach.”
Sophie shuddered at the image of Laurel lying on the stones, an icicle on his nose.
“I sort of miss him,” said Gail. “It was fun to terrorize him.”
“He hated us. He called us little monsters.”
“We did our best.”
They stared at the portrait a little longer.
“Father’s problem,” Ralf said thoughtfully, “is that he had no ambition. He could make things, but he never knew what to do with them. If he’d paid attention to us we could have guided him. Turned his coffee machines into guns. We’d all be kings.”
“Instead he made that stupid box.”
“Cartwright should be thankful we’re hiding it from him.”
“Why don’t we just throw it in the sea, Ralf?”
“You can’t just destroy something like that. It’s too good an invention. It could make us powerful.”
“If only we had the key.”
“We’ll find it when we want to. Then we can use the box to make people do whatever we want. One day. When we’re ready to leave the island.”
“When our play’s finished. But . . . maybe it won’t ever be ready,” Gail said hopefully.
Sophie snorted with laughter, then remembered that she was hiding and held her breath. Ralf looked around, but she was too well hidden.
“Shut up,” said Ralf finally. “You’re too soft, Gail.”
He dug around in his pocket and came up with a pickled egg. He put the whole thing in his mouth at once, chewing while he regarded the painting.
“You’re right,” he said. “I am taller.”
“Ah! Young sirs!”
Scree scuttled from the other end of the corridor. Sophie, who had almost forgotten she was hiding and had leaned out from the carpet, quickly withdrew. He ran right past, dragging a sodden mop.
“What is it?” snapped Ralf.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” said Scree. “I was mopping the ceiling, and there was an . . . incident.”
“You mopped the ceiling?” said Gail.
“The hanging mushrooms were getting out of control,” he said. “One of ’em tried to eat me.”
“So what’s the problem?” said Ralf.
“Some of the ceiling came down. And the plays you wrote, they’ve been . . .” Scree licked his lips as he searched for the right word . . . “compromised.”
“Compromised?” said Ralf.
“They’re wet,” said Scree. “Ruined, in fact. A big inky mess mixed with plaster.” If Sophie didn’t know any better, she’d say he was enjoying himself.
Ralf pushed Scree against the wall with surprising strength. Scree’s eyes goggled as Ralf leaned in, and Sophie fought the urge to run out and stop them.
“I thought we told you,” said Ralf, “not to disturb our things.”
“Her Battleshipness . . . that is, her ladyship . . . wanted me to clean everything.”
“Our mother isn’t in charge, General,” said Ralf.
“We are,” said Gail.
“Not only have you been mopping our ceiling,” said Ralf, tightening his grip, “you’ve let Silverfish out of your sight. Last night she was poking around in our secret room.”
“But there’s nothing secret in it, ’cause we don’t have anything to hide,” added Gail.
“I can’t know where she is all the time,” Scree croaked.
“If you let Silverfish or Cartwright poke around you’re dead,” said Ralf. “Do you understand? We don’t want either of them finding our box.”
“I don’t know anything about boxes,” Scree said, straining his face away from Ralf’s.
“Shut up!” Ralf barked. “If you want to keep being a good servant to our poor dead daddy, you’ll look after our best interests.”
“After all, you wouldn’t want us to throw you into the sea,” said Gail pleasantly.
“The monsters would love a piece of stringy meat,” said Ralf.
Ralf pushed Scree one more time, so his eggshell-smooth head hit the wall hard. Scree’s face crumpled in a mixture of pain and humiliation. Sophie couldn’t watch it anymore. She gritted her teeth and stepped out of the shadows, bunching her hands into fists. Scree saw her first. He shook his head.
She hesitated, her blood thick with anger, then under his gaze slid back into her hiding place.
“We’ll see you later, Scree,” Ralf said, and beckoned to his brother. “Let’s go downstairs. She’s probably in the catacombs. I’ve got a new game we can play with her.”
“Slithery little Silverfish,” Gail sang, and they danced off, clapping their hands.
Sophie ran out from her hiding place and grabbed hold of Scree, who was swaying like a man in a storm.
“You should have let me hit them!” she said as he regained his balance.
“Ha!” he barked, like she’d told a great joke. “They’d hit back harder.”
“I could take them,” she muttered.
“You listen to me,” he said, nodding toward the portrait. “If you upset them it’s both our necks on the line. They’ve been getting worse, and they weren’t joking about throwin’ me to the sea. You just let sleeping clams lie.”
“Why are they so protective of this Monster Box? What’s in it?”
“No idea,” he said. “But it’s the last thing Laurel made, Neptune rest his soul, and he was in a bad state by then. It can’t be anything sane or good, that’s what I reckon.”
He picked up his mop and started to creak off, but then he turned back.
“The boy’s waiting in the courtyard. Make sure you tell him what I just said, or we’ll be nothing more than a smear on the carpet. And for the love of Neptune,” he added darkly, “I don’t want to be clearin’ you off the walls.”
“I didn’t know you cared,” she said, trying to hide a smile.
He scowled at her and loped away. Sophie watched until he was gone. She knew she couldn’t just let the twins stamp all over Scree. Sometime soon she’d give them exactly what they deserved.