Despite what the sign said, there was truly nothing magnificent about The Magnificent Theatre of Curiosities. From the outside it had the feel of a delapidated salon rather than a reputable venue. They stepped from the muggy heat of the dockside into the shabby cool of a small lobby.

A box office booth filled the space. Behind it, through an archway, Robert could make out a large entrance hall, teeming with people, all chattering nervously as they waited to enter the auditorium. A horrible sense of trepidation bubbled through him as he and Lily approached the ticket counter.

A young girl sat behind its open window, humming softly to herself, deeply engrossed in a penny dreadful. Her dark hair hung over her face like a tangle of twigs, and her head dipped close to the page as she read what Lily felt sure was Murderous Mysteries Magazine. If she could engage the girl in conversation, she might be able to glean some information.

Tolly, who’d entered last, shut the street door with a clang and the girl finally looked up, twitching them a smile. She’d a pale face and heavy brows, and something about her seemed awfully familiar.

“We’re looking for Miss Celine D’Ore – we need to speak with her,” Lily told the girl.

The girl shrugged. “She’s getting ready for the matinee. She won’t see anyone before that – says it disturbs the balance of her aura.”

“I’ll disturb the balance of her aura,” Malkin snarled, “if she doesn’t agree to see us.”

“Shush,” Robert told him. He turned to the girl. “Do you reckon we could meet her after the show? We can wait.”

The girl shook her head. “’Fraid she’s not doing personal readings any more, on account of a family matter.”

Lily leaned an arm on the counter. “Is that Murderous Mysteries Magazine you’re reading?”

The girl closed the penny dreadful. “Why, yes, it is!”

“Our friend writes for that,” Lily said.

“Really?” The girl seemed impressed.

“Yes,” said Lily, “she’ll be along shortly.” She peered closely at the cover. “Issue fifty-two. That’s the one with Sweeney Todd in, isn’t it?”

The girl’s eyes brightened. “It’s my personal favourite… I’ve read it at least a dozen times. What are your names?”

“I’m Lily Hartman,” Lily said. “And this is my brother Robert. These are our friends, Tolly and Malkin.”

The girl opened a side door to the box office and stepped out. Standing between them, she looked much smaller than she had behind the window. She was perhaps only nine or ten. Through the gap in the door, Lily noticed a stack of cushions on her chair and a biscuit tin on the floor to stand on – little tricks to make her seem taller in the box office window.

“I’m Caddy.” The girl crouched down beside Malkin and petted him under the chin.

The fox purred, and nipped delightedly at the straggly ends of Caddy’s hair. He was far more friendly than Lily had seen him with other strangers; she wondered what it was about the girl that put him at ease.

Caddy took up Malkin’s winder, which hung on the chain around his neck. On the head of the key was the old logo for Hartman and Silverfish mechanicals, and she smiled as she examined it. “Your fox is a Hartman’s mechanical! How marvellous!” Caddy let the key go and stood up abruptly. “What did you want with Miss D’Ore anyway?”

“It’s a personal matter,” Robert cut in. “But it is very important that we speak with her.”

Caddy became rather brusque. “Well, I’ll be sure to tell her that you called. If you’re lucky, she might agree to see you after the show. Though private readings are usually three pounds.”

“We don’t have enough for that,” Lily said.

“Well, the show’s only sixpence,” Caddy told her. “It’s pretty spectacular. There’s ghostly manifestations and all sorts – that is, when the stars are aligned…”

“Sounds fun,” said Tolly.

“Sound tacky,” said Malkin huffily; he was rather cross that the girl had stopped tickling him.

“If we buy tickets, can you persuade Miss D’Ore to meet us afterwards?” Robert asked.

“I’ll try my best,” Caddy replied. “But I can’t promise anything. As I said, she’s refused all visitors this past week.”

Lily took her purse out from her pinafore. “Four for the show then, please.”

“That’ll be two shillings.” Caddy ripped four tickets from a roll, while Lily counted out the last of her coins onto the desk.

“There,” she said, when she’d finished. “That’s the end of our money, Robert. I hope this Celine D’Ore’s the one we’re looking for.”

“Just so you know,” Caddy said, as she scooped up their change. “I would’ve let the fox in for nothing.”

“Oh, the fourth ticket’s not for him,” Robert said. “It’s for our friend Anna; she’ll be along soon, I expect.”

“There’s no late admittance after the performance starts,” Caddy said.

“And when’s that exactly?” Lily asked. This was beginning to seem like a bad idea. Anna had told them not to go in without her.

“Why, right now, of course.” Caddy snapped down the shutter on the box office. “Come on,” she said blithely. “I’ll show you into the theatre myself.”

“Oughtn’t we wait for her?” Lily asked. But the others were already following Caddy through a crowd of what Lily guessed to be nearly a hundred people that filled the immense entrance hall. They were all slightly down at heel compared to the West End theatregoers she’d seen milling about the Strand the day before, and they were all clamouring impatiently to be let in for the show.

Malkin sniffed at everyone’s shoes. Lumps of gilt and plaster had flaked from the ceiling and lay scattered about their feet. “Smells of mould and theatre frippery in here,” he declared. “Let’s find this Celine D’Ore and get out of this place before I suffocate.”

Lily ignored him. Her attention had been distracted by someone in the throng, a face she thought she recognized – it wasn’t Jack, or Finlo, but someone else who she couldn’t quite place. He was clean-shaven except for a neat moustache. She peered closer at him, but he turned away to talk to a friend – a tall, stately, official-looking man with a white beard – and then Caddy had ushered her past.

They had reached the far end of the room. Beneath a gold-leafed sign for the stalls stood two magnificent smoked-glass doors. Caddy threw them open.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “could you kindly take your seats, the show is about to begin!”

The crowds began shuffling into the stalls. Lily lagged behind, clutching her ticket in her sweaty palm. The inky words on the cheap grey paper had already rubbed off against her skin. She searched through the passing faces for the strange men amongst the congregation, but they seemed to have entirely disappeared. “Shouldn’t we wait for Anna?” she called out again to the others. But they weren’t listening, they were already filtering into the auditorium, among the sea of heads. Lily soon found herself being jostled along with them.

The twenty or thirty rows of the smallish auditorium were filling up fast. There were only a few threadbare seats left at the front, beneath the gas footlights of the stage, whose proscenium arch Lily thought must’ve been rather grand at one time, but today looked faded, the figures in its designs all rather pale and flaky.

Robert squeezed into the front row with the others, grasping the locket chain around his neck to check it was still there. If this Celine was Selena and could look to the other side, then she would surely know his da had passed on, and would’ve realized Robert was trying to find her. How could he possibly face someone who knew all that and yet hadn’t got in contact? As the last few people shuffled in, and began filling up the corners at the back, Robert began to feel faintly sick.

Lily gazed over the heads of the crowd searching for Anna, but it was too late. Caddy was already leaving, closing the exit doors behind her. She tried not to worry and settled herself beside Robert. Malkin crawled beneath her feet and gave a disinterested yawn. Tolly took a few monkey nuts from his pocket and began to crack them open, dropping the shells on the floor around the fox.

“Watch it!” Malkin yapped, giving him a look.

“Well?” Tolly said. “It’s a theatre, ain’t it?”

Lily was about to tell them both to be quiet when, with a noise like the creak of an old set of bellows, the fire curtain rose to reveal a worn red velvet theatre drape, brocaded in gold.

With a fizzing hiss, the house lights dimmed. The crowd murmured as a spotlight picked out a moon-white circle on the curtains. Lily clasped her hands together, shivering at the sight of such an omen. Then the spot went out and the footlights dimmed to nothing, plunging the stage into darkness.

A long time passed; Robert gripped the locket. A cold dread fell upon him that seemed to seep into his very bones. Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t how he’d imagined reconnecting with his ma. Fear filled him up like water in a glass… He shifted in his seat. He dearly wanted to leave, but suddenly…

POP!

The spotlight flashed back on. Standing in the centre of the stage was a woman in a white silk cloak and a bejewelled blue velvet dress with a tall collar that framed her hair, which was piled high on her head like an inky thundercloud.

She raised her hands in the air and pressed her palms together in front of her, before giving a small bow. When she rose, the flickering spotlight illuminated her face. She had a strong nose, sculpted cheekbones and inquisitive hazel eyes – just like Robert’s – that were highlighted in thick lines of kohl. She frowned, taking in the full auditorium, and her eyebrows slashed across her forehead like two charcoal dashes. For a moment it seemed as if she was struck with stage fright. Lily meant to say as much to Robert, but his mouth was open and his white knuckles clutched the seat of the chair.

“D’you think—” she asked.

“It’s her,” Robert interrupted. “My ma.”

Celine smiled briefly and motioned with her hands. The red curtains behind her opened to reveal an indigo backcloth, covered with stars made from glass beads that matched the ones on her dress. They flickered in the footlights until it seemed as if astrological patterns were floating between them, picking out signs of the zodiac and other celestial formations.

“Behold, the spirit cabinet,” Celine said.

The spotlight shifted from her face to reveal a black lacquered wooden cabinet about the size of a person that stood upstage. A white circle shone in its centre like a mother-of-pearl moon. A thin line split the moon down the middle. It must’ve been the edge of two panel doors that made up the front of the box. And indeed, as Lily looked closer, she saw a small glass handle on either side of the line.

Celine stepped over and, grasping the handles, opened the two doors to reveal the inside of the cabinet. Dark as death itself, it seemed to suck away the light.

“This is a portal into another world…” Celine’s voice was loud and authoritative, but it contained an edge of melodious mystery. She waved a hand around the inside of the box. “At the moment the space is empty, but with a few words I shall summon my astral spirit guide to appear.”

Celine clapped her hands together. “Usually she takes the form of a harmless girl, but the truth is she’s a dangerous foe. Don’t cross her, or make her angry, or she may lash out with her powers.

“Luckily we have ways to protect ourselves.” Celine walked to the front of the stage, where a wooden chair and a table with a glass of water had appeared. She took a small object from the table, and held it up so it glinted white in the light. It was a piece of chalk.

“Before I make the summoning, I must draw a pentagram to stop others entering into our world from the land of the dead.”

Celine crouched then and drew a circle around the entire four sides of the box. She made a second circuit of the cabinet and chalked a strange-looking star symbol inside the circumference of the circle.

Then she returned to the front of the stage, took a short drink of water, and sat down on the wooden chair.

A soon as she was comfortably seated, she closed her eyes, put her fingers to her temples, and began to hum a tune softly to herself. Slowly, gradually, she added in words, getting louder and louder, until the echoes of the song filled the whole space.

The song seemed nonsense at first, but soon it echoed and morphed into real phrases that Robert could understand.

“I invoke thee, spirits of the furthest places,” Selena sang, her voice shifting and quaking with the odd rhythm of the words.

“Leave your graves, and wing your way, from lost eternal starless spaces.

I call you forth, from breathless, sleepless, deathless slumber.

Down winding paths; bright guided by the moon.

Follow her gibbous face.

We await your presence…

Bring knowledge everlasting, and awake…

NOW!”

A loud KERRrraAACcCraaaCK! echoed around the theatre.

Robert’s gaze leaped to the spirit cabinet, and his heart skipped a beat, for it was no longer empty. There, in its dark confines stood a ghostly figure with a pale, cadaverous face.