Sophie stalked the house like the Queen of Bones. Her pockets were filled with femurs; her boots sprouted ribs; her hands dripped knucklebones, which she left behind her like a bread crumb trail.
It was two days after her escape from the Clock Room, and the floodwater had finally started to drain away from the catacombs, leaving scummy tides of bones and trinkets and lost glowfish. She pushed the stranded, smashed bones against the wall ready for the next feeding, although with the house so quiet, she wasn’t sure when that would be.
She’d been unable to sleep properly for the past two nights. The silence was so loud and uncomfortable that it woke her up repeatedly. She kept telling herself that it was just a house, just a clock with a big bell, and that she only felt strange because she was used to the constant, low-level ticking noise that pulsed through the walls like blood. All the same, she felt like she was balanced on a knifepoint. Unsure when their next meal was coming, the sea creatures were dangerously quiet, as though they might snap at any minute. If they got fed up and came for the house, it would be all her fault. She’d broken that clock with her stupid adventure.
She spent all morning sweeping bone fragments from the floor, then went to find Scree.
He was deep in the catacombs, hunched over a brass bowl. There was something small and squid-like inside, writhing and making little slurping noises. At first Sophie didn’t think he’d noticed her.
“Sea-scrivening,” he said as he stared deep into the bowl. “My old ma, Neptune rest her soul, told me anything with tentacles can tell the future. It ain’t working.”
“Did you get a look at the clock?” she asked quietly.
“As good as I could with a rope an’ a drippy candle,” he said. “Ruined. Chewed to bits.” He looked at her ruefully, making her squirm with guilt. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, which she knew was a rubbish apology.
“Aye. It’ll take me days to sort all the cogs out.” He prodded the bowl with a long finger, then looked at her mournfully. “Maybe I won’t bother. Dunno how long I’ll be around.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Why not? I’m old. If age don’t get me, something else will. I only want easy work from now on.”
Sophie tried to think of something to say. Scree prodded the bowl, listening to the whistling of the squid. Then he coughed loudly. He pushed the bowl aside, pulled out his barnacle-crusted pocket watch, and held it out to her.
“Use this for the Bone Snatching,” he said.
“I can’t take your watch,” she said, horrified.
“I don’t want it anymore. The ticking annoys me.”
He grabbed her hand and pushed the watch into it, his papery, calloused fingers squeezing hers tight. She wanted to thank him, but as soon as she opened her mouth he made a sound like Manic snorting.
“You’re doing me a favor,” he said. “I’m not long for this place. Bad things are going to happen.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Sophie said. “You’re indestructible. You’re part of the house.”
“Bad things,” he repeated. “The twins’re getting too mean even for my limits.” He sucked his cheeks in disapprovingly. “I know you’re looking for the box.”
She thought about denying it. She couldn’t.
“I don’t know what’s in that box, and I don’t care to,” Scree added. He rummaged in his pocket again and gave her the silver scissors she’d stabbed Cartwright with. “Found these on the floor. I’d hide ’em somewhere safe if I were you. Just in case of emergencies.”
“What kind of emergency?” she asked, although her imagination was already running riot.
“Hop to it. It’s nearly time to feed ’em.” Scree pointed toward the beach, which meant she wasn’t getting anything else from him.
He followed her outside and stood by the entrance to the catacombs, watching as she flung the broken bones in. As soon as they saw the food the monsters broke their silence, and they play-fought like a bunch of excitable dogs, drooling and bickering and flicking their tails at one another. Scree folded his arms and pressed his lips tightly together as Sophie threw a jawbone into the mouth of a waiting demikraken.
“Ten points,” she said, looking sidelong at Scree.
“Eh?” he said. “Never heard so much youthful rubbish in my life. ’Sides,” he added, “them’s easy targets. You try getting a lochnessfish to catch a bone.”
Minutes later they were throwing things into the sea together, aiming for the jaws of the biggest, fastest creatures, shouting at each other, getting covered in spray and foam. Scree was good; he knew each of the sea creatures inside out, what sorts of bones they liked, how they moved, how high to throw; but the creatures vied for Sophie’s attention, crowding around her feet to get the next mouthful and, she swore, doing watery acrobatics in front of her.
“There it is,” said Scree, wiping the sea from his eyes. “You’ve got something about you. Me, I think they’re a slobberin’ bunch of children, but they know you’re soft for ’em deep down.”
“I’m not soft for them,” Sophie said, scowling. “I’m not soft for anyone.”
“’Course you are. I should be a bit proud of that, if I were you. Mind you,” he added, “it won’t stop ’em from eating you. They like something, they want to chew it up all the more.”
Secretly she did feel proud, in an odd way. She felt like the sea creatures were hers now. As she walked back to the catacombs she almost thought that everything was going to be all right, and that the island wasn’t such a bad place after all.
And then she saw what had been left for her.
* * *
There were two scraps of gold placed casually, almost as if by accident, on the slab of rock she called her bed. Her fingers went cold as she walked toward them. They looked like small coins—as if someone had given her a present. But then she was close enough to pick them up, to press the gilded paper between her fingers, and she knew that it was no gift.
They fluttered down, the bits of paper with spidery black writing, and she was gone before they reached the ground. On her way through the tunnels she almost knocked Scree over, but before he could complain she was racing into the house with a scream of fury building in her throat.
“Ralf! GAIL!”
She was answered by a silence so deep it must have been deliberate. But there was something else: a smell, and it wasn’t damp, mold, or seawater. She could smell smoke. It curled through one of the windows, creeping in tongues past a crack in the frame.
She pressed her face against the dirty glass and squinted. The twins were in the garden, their red heads bobbing up and down as they dragged bits of dead tree around, building a den or something.
A bonfire.
She ran to a rotting door, fury surging through her whole body. She rammed it open with her shoulder and went through headfirst, landing in a knot of brambles, her foot still caught on the threshold. She turned over like a fish on dry land and tried to free herself, then rolled sideways into a patch of stinging nettles, and cursing, spitting leaves, stumbled off into the garden. She sprinted toward the plume of smoke, which was coming from the pointed end of the island.
Twenty yards into the garden, which was more like a forest, she could hear distantly triumphant crowing. The twins were singing now. She could hear them perfectly. And then she burst into the clearing where the bonfire was. The twins were each holding a ticket to the New Continent, waving them close to the flames like they were toasting marshmallows.
She went straight for Ralf, who sidestepped her so neatly she plunged into the ashes and the bottom of her trousers caught fire.
“You must have been running fast,” said Ralf.
“Where did you get those?” she gasped, trying to beat the flame out. She swiped for Ralf’s ticket, but he gracefully lifted it out of her reach.
“These?” said Ralf. “We just found them. Funny, the things Cartwright keeps in his sock drawer.”
“Do you even know what they are?” she said. “You wouldn’t be waving them around like that if you had any sense in your thick heads!”
“No idea,” said Ralf. “But they’re obviously valuable to you. To Cartwright, too, seeing as he’d installed a booby trap.”
“A loaded crossbow behind the door,” said Gail. “How very unoriginal.”
She lunged for the ticket in Ralf’s hand. He tsked and raised it again. He was taller than her, very tall indeed, she realized, like he’d grown overnight. The ticket gleamed above his head.
“Jump for it,” he said. “Go on.”
“All right,” she said, and stamped on his foot. She grabbed his elbow as his face creased up and tried to snatch it from him. Gail coughed politely, then started to shred his ticket.
The sound of ripping went on forever, as painful as if Sophie were having her nails pulled out. Gail put the torn corner in his palm and blew it into the bonfire. The paper crackled and sparked.
“Here’s the thing, Silverfish,” said Ralf as he raised the ticket above his head again. “All this sneaking around is amateur. Playing tricks, creating decoys, follow-me, follow-you, et cetera. That was Act One. We should move on now.”
“You’re going to rot under the sea,” she hissed. Her fury was so strong she felt like she should be able to lift the island from its foundations, to strike both the twins to the ground with one blow. She snarled and swung her bunched fists, but Ralf caught her arm and twisted it behind her so she was trapped. When she was fighting someone she normally won by ignoring the rules and kicking right where it hurt. But the twins knew how she fought, and they were just as good at it. She couldn’t hurt them by playing dirty.
“Tut,” said Ralf. “We expected more of you. Isn’t that right, Gail?”
Sophie twisted her arm out of Ralf’s grip, but he caught it again. She saw Gail wince. It only took a second, but his face told her everything she needed to know. She realized Ralf had done exactly the same thing to Gail, time and time again since they were little.
Ralf pushed her closer to the fire, so close that she couldn’t see anything but impossibly bright light. It scorched the side of her face, her lips drying like bits of paper, her eyelashes singeing. She’d never imagined being burned to death before, but now the possibility was so frighteningly close that she saw in a flash how it would happen: She would go blind, and her skin would burn, and her bones would crack in the heat. She wanted to believe that Ralf wouldn’t kill her, that he didn’t have the guts, that she was just being frightened by a stupid game; but the flames were hot, and she couldn’t reason her way out of it.
“Take a good look at what you’re doing, Gail,” she croaked. “Standing there, watching Ralf hold someone over a fire. Don’t you think you’ll get what you deserve one day? Do you think it’ll be nice?”
Gail looked miserable. “Ralf, I don’t like this game. You said she’d be easy.”
“Stop being such a soggy mattress,” snapped Ralf.
“It’s ‘wet blanket,’ you idiot,” Sophie snarled at Ralf, and regretted it immediately.
Ralf twisted her arm and she screamed, then she bit him on the hand and he let go. She rushed to Gail, about to grab the ticket from his limp hand, but he caught her with the same surprising strength as his brother.
“As I was saying,” Ralf continued as though nothing had happened, “I think it’s time we moved to the next act. You want something that we have, and we don’t want you to have it. But the odds, dear Silverfish, are heavily stacked in our favor. We’re clever, and strong, and cunning and . . . clever. You’re not going to win. Sooner or later, we’ll end up having to get rid of you. But first, we’re going to play a game.”
“I’m sick of your games,” she said. “Your father would be turning in his grave.”
“He doesn’t have one,” said Gail. “Silverfish, you broke our toys. And the robot man. We spent ages on the clockwork room.”
“Gail did all the tricky wiring,” said Ralf. “He’s very upset. What are you going to do about it?”
Sophie was struck by the same weird feeling she’d had when she was hiding behind the roll of carpet, the twins looking at their portrait. It was like they’d let their masks slip.
“I’m going to break everything that you send after me,” she said. “Machines, knives, fire, whatever. And now I know exactly how you work. The whole thing was a decoy, wasn’t it? You knew I was going to break into the clock room, so you set it up especially. But why go to all that effort?”
“Fun,” said Ralf, flashing his nails so she could see how sharp they were. “What else are we meant to do around here? You’ve been entertaining. You even tricked Gail to get into the clockwork room, and he’s usually a wonderfully loyal guard dog.”
“What, I wasn’t really guarding anything?” said Gail, looking briefly poisonous.
“Of course you weren’t. You’re useless.”
“You’re sick,” Sophie growled.
“You’re sick,” mimicked Ralf, twisting his face so for a moment she was looking into the eyes of her own doppelgänger. For someone who was bad at acting, he was sometimes shockingly very good.
Sophie stepped forward, and Gail, muttering angrily about Ralf under his breath, let her go.
“I’d like to know,” said Sophie quietly, leaning in close to Ralf. His eyelids flickered, and she knew he was just a tiny bit perturbed. “There must be a reason you put so much effort into tormenting me. Why are you so scared of me? Is it because I’m cleverer than you, or is it because you know I’m going to beat you?”
From the corner of her eye she saw Gail’s face change. He was terrified of what was going to happen. He looked at his brother as though Ralf was going to eat a puppy.
“Scared,” repeated Ralf. He rolled the word around his mouth as though tasting it for the first time. So close, his breath smelled disconcertingly like peppermint. “Scared . . . no, I don’t believe I am. This island is our world, and we pull all the strings. It’s our universe you’re stepping in.” He leaned in as well, so his nose was grazing Sophie’s. She felt a wave of nausea, but forced herself not to withdraw. “You’ve opened the floodgates now, Silverfish.”
She looked right into his sharp blue eyes, forcing herself not to blink.
“Game on,” she said.
Ralf gestured to Gail and he snatched both of her wrists up, holding them in a tight, twisted grip. The moment shattered, and Ralf looked pleased again.
“As I was saying,” he continued, “we’re going to play another game with you. Scree managed to ruin our script, so we need a little help reconstructing it. You’re going to be Ophelia, Silverfish. Say your lines.”
“I don’t know any lines.”
Ralf raised the ticket to his mouth, tore a lump off, and chewed slowly.
“I don’t know any lines!” she screamed.
“Get them right or I’ll swallow all of it.”
As her fury spilled over Sophie realized she’d had a plan all along. Without thinking she drove her elbow into Gail’s stomach, and he made a soft noise that sounded like oomph. With her other arm she reached behind her and snatched the torn ticket from his clammy palm. Gail dropped to his knees, wailing. Ralf ran at her, but in the two steps it took him to reach Sophie she’d ducked under his outstretched arm and risen behind him. He stopped for just a moment, and his hesitation was long enough for her to throw her weight into the center of his back. He made a noise like his brother and also dropped to his knees.
“You little ball of slime!” he shrieked. Sophie grabbed the ticket from his hand. Both the twins were back on their feet now, and they moved so that Sophie was sandwiched between them and the fire. The smile on Ralf’s face grew bigger as the flames scorched Sophie’s back.
“You’ve got gall, I have to admit that,” he said. “If you weren’t a girl, I’d almost want to be your friend.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said. “Trust me.” And then she jumped into the fire.
Gail let out a strangled scream, but the sound passed her by as almost incidental, something outside of her world. There was a searing flash of heat, a wall of hot air. The sound of flames breaking and cracking the broken furniture under her feet. For one moment she thought she’d made her final move. But then she was out of the fire, and running, trailing sparks and charcoal behind her.
She used to play with candles when she was little. She’d swipe her fingers through the flame, thinking how like a magic trick it was that she wasn’t burned. It didn’t scale up so well. She could smell her own burnt hair and the bottoms of her trousers were on fire again. Her feet felt like they’d had knives stuck through them. But the bonfire wasn’t as big as it was in her imagination, and if she had anything it was speed. She’d outsmarted the twins again.
Then she remembered the tickets between her fingers, and looked down at her hand, which was empty. She opened her fingers. They were stained gold. A thin strand of paper withered and curled in on itself, turning to ash. The rest of the ticket, black and burned beyond recognition, fluttered out behind her like moths.
It was very quick, the total destruction of hope.
She staggered to a halt and reached out for support. She hung on to a thick, black branch, half-wreathed in smoke. Behind her, the twins cackled.
“Silverfish loses this one,” said Ralf, his voice twisting through the gloom. “But there’s a bonus round: Silverfish now realizes she’s been a pawn all along.”
The forest grew bigger and darker. A spider dropped onto her forehead, and she let it slide down her nose. Her skin was numb.
“The bonus round ends,” continued Ralf as his brother giggled beside him, “when Silverfish asks Cartwright what happened to all the other servants. I suspect she’s been avoiding the question, dear audience. She knows that there have been many boys and girls on the island before her, but does she know that they’ve all helped Cartwright look for his box? Everybody loves Cartwright.”
Gail clapped his hands delightedly.
“You’ve done well, Silverfish,” continued Ralf. “You’ve done much better than any of the others. But your end will be just as sticky as theirs.”
“They ran away,” Sophie managed to say, through teeth that seemed to be cemented together. She couldn’t feel or hear or see. “They went home.”
“They definitely tried to,” said Ralf. “But did they make it? How hungry do those monsters look to you, Silverfish? Did those other servants actually get across the water? Do you think we would let them get away that easily?”
“Poor Silverfish,” said Gail, not without some sadness. “Look at her. I think she’s crying.”
“Let’s leave her be, then. All alone, out on the island where nobody loves her.”
“How sad.”
“How sweet.”
“Maybe she really will go mad and drown herself.”
“We can only hope,” said Ralf, “that we’ll be there to watch.”