4

The four stood breathing deeply, soaking up the relative damp of the dim corridor, a welcome relief compared to the rank warmth and stench of the Junior Room.

‘What is it with that Henry boy?’ asked Sophie, wrinkling her nose.

‘No idea,’ said Zack. ‘But he tried to slime up to me the first time I was here too – best keep away, I figured. Anyway, let the unofficial tour begin!’

Zack suddenly whipped round and dashed deeper into the murky corridor. ‘Follow me!’ he shouted, his voice stirring up the dust and annoying a nearby rat who was taking a well-earned doze.

Jonny smiled at Sophie. ‘Ladies first!’ he said, extending his arm along the corridor, bowing like an old-fashioned gent.

‘Oh, please!’ said Sophie, laughing deeply. She took off into the dark after Zack, fearless.

Alex stared down the passage as if it was some endless abyss. ‘I’ll be right behind you,’ Jonny reassured him.

Alex gulped as he set off, the muffled sounds of Zack and Sophie’s footsteps bouncing off the walls, disorientating him. Keep going, he told himself, shuddering as he passed a poster of a Victorian magician dressed as a clown, casually decapitating a woman. None of this is creepy in the slightest!

As he sped up, the sleep-deprived rat skittered alongside him, doing nothing to soothe Alex’s growing unease. On and on, deeper into the darkness … Alex could feel a cold globule of sweat beginning to form at the base of his neck, a trickle away from dousing his back.

Past the poster of David Copperfield grinning and – more importantly – flying. Past the life-size cut-out of Paul Daniels grinning and … holding a metal cup and some crocheted balls. Past a glittery costume stapled haphazardly to a mannequin labelled SIEGFRIED, with a muddy, bloodied paw-print on the front (don’t ask!). Past the painting of a man in overalls simply entitled: ALF RATTLEBAG, PATRON SAINT OF STAGEHANDS, 1892–1923. Past the –

Suddenly, a hand.

It was Zack, a firm but fair grip now on Alex’s shoulder, bringing him to a halt. Alex quickly moved off to one side as the rat swanned on past him – pleased to have won the race. Sophie shuddered at its size as she watched it scurry off into the distance.

Jonny caught up with the rest of them, panting a little. ‘Now, Zack,’ he said. ‘Not wishing to sound like a party-pooper, but shouldn’t we be a little quieter?’

‘Not really.’ Zack flashed a grin. ‘No one comes down here during the day. Well, no one’s meant to at least!’

‘Why?’ asked Sophie, peeling at a bit of crusty wallpaper coming away from the wall and accidentally removing a rather large chunk of plaster.

Zack pointed to a sign above their heads which had been recently touched up:

NO CHILDREN ALLOWED UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY A MEMBER OF COUNCIL 😊

Alex mouthed the words as his eyes drifted down towards what appeared to be another giant poster partially covered by a deep red curtain – the kind of curtain that looked quite refined from a distance but up close was bobbled and grubby (and up even closer was riddled with mites and STANK). ‘Wh-what’s behind there?’ he asked gingerly, hoping that this was an elaborate fire exit and he’d soon be outside in the open again, away from the rats, creepy clowns and Paul Daniels’s balls.

‘Yes,’ said Jonny. ‘What’s so special about this poster that it needs a snazzy red curtain?’

Pausing dramatically, Zack looked at each of them in turn. ‘This, my friends, is the Grand Theatre of the Magic Circle!’ He slowly parted the rouge curtain to reveal a framed portrait of a theatre entrance.

‘Oh, wow! I’ve read about this!’ said Sophie.

Jonny looked at the painting inquisitively, amazed by how real it looked.

‘But did you read about this bit?’ said Zack, casually placing his hand on what should have been canvas but which now seemed to just … melt away.

‘No! You’re kidding!’ said Jonny. Alex let out a faint gasp, while Sophie’s mouth fell open in surprise.

It was the perfect optical illusion: disguised to just look like a poster of the entrance to the theatre, this actually was the entrance to the theatre!

Jonny grinned, loving the way the light bounced off the golden frame, confusing his brain, hiding the depth and making the three-dimensional space behind it appear well and truly 2D. Even from his high altitude (often a real issue for magicians when Jonny was watching their performance!), the illusion was flawless.

Zack revelled in the reveal, enjoying the look of surprise on the others’ faces – like the moment when a previously burned bank note appears inside a lemon, or a signed playing card turns up stuck to the ceiling.

Slowly the four stepped through the frame …

It was the sound of the place that struck Sophie first. A dizzying, deep-seated silence – like the silence of somewhere that hasn’t always been silent. Or the kind of silence that comes after something extremely loud which causes you to readjust your ears. Or like the beautifully deafening silence of a heavy snowfall, thought Sophie, picturing some wintry scene back up in the hills at home. Soft, cushioning, expansive silence.

Jonny sniffed loudly, before sneezing even more loudly and sending up a load of dust. ‘Sorry!’

Zack smiled. It had been a few months since he’d last set foot in the place and – despite his anger about his unfair dismissal – it was good to be back.

Jonny pictured himself on the wide stage, looking out over the crowds, the rusting chandelier hanging on what looked like nothing more than a thin wire, cocking its head in anticipation of what new magical delights might be coming up next …

Alex looked at the seating, stacked steeply and disappearing way up towards the ceiling, marvelling at the dizzying height. He strained his neck back further and further until Zack had to steady him to prevent him from falling over.

They stared at the dimly lit arch above the stage, wondering what this place must have been like when magic flourished in Victorian times, everyone holding their breath as suave illusionist Maskelyne bamboozled them with his devilish trickery, or waiting for Houdini to emerge from his cabinet, finally free of a series of metal bindings – dishevelled but heroic. The audience getting to their feet, elated, desperate for more.

But not so much any more, Sophie thought sadly. Oh, to have witnessed such feats! To create that much stir using little more than an angled mirror, a hidden thread or a secret move … To produce something out of nothing in a way not even physics could explain. And to hear the crowd go wild!

‘I can’t believe this place actually exists,’ she said, awestruck.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Zack walked down towards the stage, running his hand over the seats.

Jonny picked up a moth-eaten programme lying in the stalls and studied the front cover, wiping away the grime, squinting in the weak light. All of a sudden he cried out, filling the auditorium with its first large sound since Robert Harbin dislocated a lady’s middle so that she stood zig-zagged (but still – outwardly – obscenely happy!).

Instinctively, Alex moved closer to Zack.

‘Everything all right?’ said Sophie, concerned that they might be heard.

‘Absolutely fine!’ replied Jonny, waving the programme in the air. ‘It’s Granddad!’

The other three went over to look. Jonny might as well have been gazing into a mirror, so clear was the likeness between him and his grandfather, a smiling young magician standing with his hand outstretched – fire blazing from his palm.

‘You know what I love about your granddad?’ said Sophie.

‘That he’s as good-looking as me?’ quipped Jonny, making his eyebrows dance.

‘Oh no, definitely not that!’

‘That he’s not dead yet?’ said Zack, causing Jonny to laugh out loud, filling the auditorium once more, the chandelier welcoming the long overdue reverberation.

‘No!’ said Sophie, shooting Zack a disapproving look. ‘That he was doing fire from palms in the 1960s. I mean, the man was so ahead of his time. He was … is incredible.’

Jonny nodded, his cheeks flushing with pride. Despite the things Zack had told him, he’d never fully appreciated just how much of an impact the man had made on the world of magic. To him, he was just – well – Granddad.

‘Do you see lots of him?’ asked Sophie, taking the programme and examining it.

‘Yes and no,’ Jonny answered. ‘I think him and my dad fell out over something a few years ago, and we didn’t really see him, but since Zack got me into magic we’ve actually seen each other quite a bit.’

‘Well, you’re very lucky to be related to someone like him, Jonathan Haigh.’ Sophie was clearly a little star-struck. ‘The closest I come to having a famous relative is my mum’s great-aunt, who was friends with the last person to be hanged in the UK … apparently.’

‘Oh, how delightful!’ joked Jonny. ‘We should get them together! Granddad’s certainly old enough!’

It was Alex who heard it first, his ears trained from years of listening out for strange sounds in the night: a faint sound of breathing coming from somewhere high up in the flies, like a giant slowly psyching himself up.

The others caught the look on his face and then gradually fell silent as it grew louder …

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

‘Sorry, but … what actually is that?’ said Jonny, looking towards Zack, hoping there was a perfectly rational explanation behind the sinister sound.

‘I think we might have woken someone up,’ said Zack, almost to himself, his heart beginning to pound.

‘What?’ asked Sophie, concerned. ‘What do you mean by that?’

The breathing began to bounce off the walls, moving stage right, then stage left, as if it were alive, in stereo, surrounding them like a ghostly gas. The four turned their heads wildly, trying to keep track.

‘Alf,’ whispered Zack.

At that moment the house lights began to flicker and a deep wailing noise filled the theatre, the sound passing through each of them, jiggling their bones – causing them to feel sick. All four turned instinctively and ran back towards the entrance.

The wailing continued as they sprinted for the curtained doorway, the elongated vowels now broken up by consonants …

‘Noooooooooooo! Children! Aaaaallllllllllowed!’ the voice howled. ‘Stayyyy awaaay from heeeeerrre!’

Sophie’s mind began to race even quicker than her feet. This was the stuff of nightmares, sure, but she wondered whether it was perhaps a little over the top, like someone was trying just a bit too hard to ward them off. Still, it was effective. After all, here they were, running for their lives!

She approached the curtain, briefly daring to look back for a clue as to where the voice was coming from. Her eyes scanned the theatre from top to bottom.

Nothing.

But …

Was that movement at the back of the theatre? She stopped running, letting the others go ahead, and squinted upwards. The flash of a face, the glint of an eye in the quivering light, a spark of recognition, then … nothing.

No, it must be her mind playing tricks. Sophie knew how easily the brain could be fooled, especially when pumped full of adrenalin – she’d read about it in psychology textbooks. Still, in the dead of night that didn’t stop her from confusing the noise of the household boiler with the ravings of an intruder. Or the shadows cast by cold moonlight with the clutching, clawed tentacles of some murderous banshee. Or the – NOT HELPING, SOPHIE!

Sophie turned round again, startled to see the others now running back towards her. ‘Oh, what now?’ she cried out, fifty-six per cent alarmed, forty-four per cent bemused. The boys reached her, their breathing loud, Alex visibly shaking.

‘Cynthia and President Pickle are coming down the corridor!’ gasped Zack.

‘What’s going on?’ hissed Sophie.

‘And who the hell is Alf?’ asked Jonny.

‘Not now!’ Zack dragged them all down row F of the stalls towards a small green door at the other side of the auditorium – the four having to do that slightly awkward sideways-walk thing you do when you’re squeezing past someone already sitting down in the theatre. ‘We’re not supposed to be in here, remember!’

He hastily led them through the door like an overenthusiastic usher, closing it just as Cynthia and President Pickle came into the theatre. Immediately, as if on cue, the wailing stopped – the married couple’s petty bickering now the only sound.

The four of them looked at each other as they huddled together on a small landing above a winding wooden staircase.

Safe, thought Alex, finally allowing himself to breathe.

Well, for now …!