The Nowhere Emporium (17 page)

The doors did appear together, as Daniel had predicted.

Thankfully, the corridor in which the new doors stood was largely intact, though the first signs of familiar cracks were creeping into the polished slabs.

The doors were identical, arched and shining black, with a gold doorknob. The only difference between the two was the nameplates, each displaying the name of the challenger.

As Daniel placed the
Book of Wonders
on the floor between the two doors, he sensed suddenly that the corridor was filled with people. He straightened up, looked around, and his eyes widened.

The Emporium staff – at least those who were able – had come. They stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder, a ragtag band of misfits, some dabbing black ink from their leaking noses, or leaning on their neighbours. Leading the pack, standing tall, was Caleb. He nodded to Daniel.

“Come on, Daniel!” he yelled, to a smattering of cheers.

“Show him who’s boss!” said someone else at the back of the crowd.

“We believe in you!”

Daniel looked at Sharpe, and suddenly his opponent did not seem quite so huge, or his task so impossible. He nodded to the
crowd, his friends, more thankful to have them with him than he could say. Then he said to Vindictus Sharpe, “Ready?”

Sharpe unfolded his arms and did not try to stifle the smug smile that crossed his lips. “Always.”

They each turned to face the door that contained their challenge. They moved forward, and reached for the doorknobs. Then they opened the doors and stepped into the unknown.

Daniel was falling. The world around him was black and damp. He landed with a splash in a pool of water so cold that he thought his heart might freeze. Saltwater filled his mouth, spurted from his nose as he coughed and choked. Everything was swaying and lurching, up and down, up and down, turning his stomach. A flash of lightning lit up the world, cast light on a long narrow space with metal walls and bunks and a galley kitchen. He was in a boat. Realisation dawned on Daniel with a sickening lurch of his stomach. His feet barely touching the bottom of the pool, he struggled to a porthole, stared out at the black night.

Another fork of lightning. For half a heartbeat Daniel saw the sea, angry and swollen, waves like mountains crashing all around. He tried to be calm in the pitch black; the water was slowly rising, creeping like cold hands.

Feeling his way around, Daniel willed his eyes to see through the blackness. He tried to visualise a lamp, a torch, a floodlight – anything to help him see … He imagined himself striking a match, filling the boat with dancing yellow light, and as the picture filled his head, something dropped into his pocket. He reached down and pulled out a box of sodden matches. Desperately, he struck one of the matches and was amazed when it sparked to life, just as he’d imagined, casting a flickering glow
around the tight belly of the boat.

He moved out of the galley, banging and stuttering as huge waves tossed the ship, to a narrow metal corridor, and found a black door with a golden handle. In his excitement he dropped his light, but when the match hit the cold surface, the flame did not go out. It remained lit. The match sank, as if it was made of lead, illuminating the black water as it drifted towards the floor.

He struck another match, the light dazzling his eyes in the dark of the corridor, and he reached for the door.

Sharpe has underestimated me!
he thought as his hands closed around the handle.

But something groaned, loud and metallic and old. There was a ping, and the ship juddered and shook and swung. The sound of rushing water filled Daniel’s ears, and he held on tight to whatever his grasping hands could find as the boat began to tip up, to fill with water.

The floor became steeper and steeper, climbed and climbed until it was vertical, and all the time the doorway back to the Emporium, to Ellie and Silver and his home, was being submerged, deeper and deeper. Water was spraying everywhere, catching Daniel in the face, filling his mouth and nose.

He fell, tumbling, catching his elbow on the metal walls, and landed with a splash in the rising water, water that would soon fill the entire corridor, the entire ship.

Sharpe’s cruelty shone through, bright as one of Daniel’s matches. The idea was simple, and brilliant. If Daniel were to escape, he’d have to face his biggest fear and avoid the same death that his father had suffered, alone in the dark with nobody’s hand to hold.

Sharpe’s door also led to darkness, though the absence of light
did not last. Bright lights flickered on all around him, dazzling and familiar. Stage lights.

The lock on the exit clicked shut.

He stood on a grand stage, with curtains of black velvet and a floor of polished mahogany. The place seemed vast, though it was difficult to tell – dazzling lights shone at him from out in the theatre, making it impossible to see the audience. But there was an audience there; he could sense it, even if they were oddly silent and still.

“This is my challenge?” he asked, flashing perfect teeth. “To perform? To amaze?” He laughed, wondering exactly what it would take to unlock the door. Perhaps some sort of approval from the crowd? Since the boy would soon be dead, it hardly mattered, but something about being on stage again, performing, appealed to him.

He took off his coat, and threw it in the air, where it became black smoke and evaporated. He looked to the audience. Silence. Perhaps pleasing this crowd would be more challenging than he thought.

He tried again, firing a bullet from a gun and catching it across stage. The crowd was still.

Sharpe shook his head and cursed.

“What do you people want?” he yelled.

Something broke the silence, the voice of a young girl.

“Let him see me,” the voice said. “For this to work, he has to see me. I’m asking for help, Papa. Please, let him know that I exist. No more ghosts. No more hiding. It’s time to end this.”

“Hello?” There was a hint of unease in Sharpe’s voice.

Across the stage, towards the door, a girl appeared from nowhere. She had eyes the colour of thunderclouds – eyes he recognised – and a tangle of wild black curls.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She stood perfectly still, staring through him.

“My name is Ellie Silver,” she said. “And I’m your granddaughter.”

The boat was almost full of water. Daniel was freezing and weak from his efforts to swim down and budge the door. Each time he tried, the water was deeper, and so the swim to the bottom of the submerged passageway became more of a struggle.

This time, as he came back up, there was barely enough space to keep his head above the surface.

He did not cry, as he thought he might when he imagined the moment in his nightmares. He only thought of the Emporium, and Ellie and Mr Silver; how he’d let them all down if he failed. Another deep breath, another lung-bursting swim through the darkness, and again he could not move the door. He swam back to the surface, banging his head on the metal ceiling. His time was almost up.

If I do die here,
he thought,
at least it will be fighting for something. At least I didn’t sit back and do nothing.

He thought of his mother and his father, and he wondered what happened when someone died, if he’d see his parents again, or if dying was like flicking a switch, and he’d be gone and forgotten and that was that.

His nose was pressed against the ceiling now. He was gasping for breath…

And then, as the water closed in around him, he had a thought, a memory … and he heard Mr Silver’s voice as clearly as if he were floating beside him.

“If, by some curious twist of fate, you find yourself in trouble, the Emporium will help you. All you have to do is ask.”

The water was in his mouth, in his ears and eyes.

“Help me,” he said to the Emporium through a mouthful of freezing water. “Please, help me find my way back.”

One last breath. Daniel felt the water envelop him. He dived, because he did not know what else to do. He swam to the door, began one last attempt to open it. His lungs burned. He fought and fought the overwhelming urge to breathe, ignored his body’s desperate call for air. He began to fade…

And then someone took his hand in the darkness, and another hand was fumbling in his pockets, removing the matches. A flash of blinding light lit up the black, shaking Daniel back to life. Someone grabbed him around the neck, and he found that he was staring into a face that was both familiar and strange, framed by a mane of hair the same burning orange as his own.

The man took Daniel by the wrist and pulled him back towards the door. Then Daniel stared into his eyes, nodded, and began to pull on the door. Daniel’s lungs screamed. The pain made his ears ring, and he saw flashes of light in the corners of his vision.

But the door was budging. Slowly, surely it was opening!

The man gave Daniel a smile, and nodded towards the door. Half in a dream, Daniel nodded back. He reached for the door with hands like lead, and he pulled…

The door opened. Daniel was sucked through the doorway, like a spider down the plughole. He landed hard, gasping cool fresh air into his lungs. Water was flowing down the corridor and away. The book of matches lay beside him, and he kissed them and stowed them in his pocket as the Emporium staff mobbed him. They picked him up and patted him on the back and called his name. Every breath was a welcome gift. He was back in the corridor. He was alive.

And he was quite sure that the ghost of his dead father had
just saved his life.

“What are you talking about?” Sharpe sneered, though there was hesitation in his voice.

Ellie took one step towards him.

“My papa told me that my mum left me on the doorstep of the Emporium in Edinburgh. He said she was a servant who wanted me to have a better life. I think the servant part was true. That’s how you treated her, isn’t it?”

Sharpe stayed very still.

“You are not real,” he said. “This is a trick.”

“Is it?” said Ellie. “I’m real; I promise you that. And I know all about you. You’re a monster. You’re dangerous. Papa has been protecting me from you all this time. He knew you’d take me away, treat me just like you treated her.”

“Treated who, for pity’s sake?”

Ellie pointed to the crowd. The lights that had been blinding Sharpe flickered out. He took a sharp breath, and a half-step back. There were a thousand seats in the theatre, and every one of them was taken by the same person: a young woman with red curls and porcelain skin, wearing a white nightgown dyed red with blood from the knife that was sticking in her heart.

“Michelle?” whispered Sharpe. His face was unreadable, but his voice shook.

“You treated her like dirt,” said Ellie. “She was my mum, and you used her to break my papa’s heart and steal his book. She hid away from you while you travelled and made your fortune, and she didn’t tell you about me, because in the end she wasn’t like you. There was good in her.”

“What do you want me to say?” said Sharpe.

Ellie returned the cold stare. “Say you’re sorry, and mean it. That’s all you have to do to open the door. To win.”

Silence. Sharpe stood centre stage, just the way he liked it. He smiled.

“I don’t have to do a damn thing,” he said. He motioned to the door. “Out there, through a door just like this one, Daniel Holmes is dying. When his body goes limp, and his last breath is gone, this door will unlock and the
Book of Wonders
will be mine.”

No sooner had he finished speaking when the lock on the door clicked, and the door swung open. Sharpe’s coat appeared in his hands, and he put it on and gave Ellie a cruel smile.

“You see?” he said. “It was only a matter of how long Mr Holmes could hold his breath.”

“Actually, I’m quite good at holding my breath.” Daniel was sodden. He stood at the door, the
Book of Wonders
in his hands. The smug look on Sharpe’s face vanished.

“Impossible,” he said.

Daniel raised a finger in correction. “You’re in the Nowhere Emporium, Mr Sharpe. Nothing’s impossible.” He held up the book. “You lose. The book stays here, where it belongs.”

Sharpe stared at Daniel, wild fury in his eyes.

“But … there was no way out. How did you escape?”

Daniel patted the doorway.

“I know things you don’t,” he said, ignoring Sharpe when he scoffed. “I know that you and Mr Silver had a challenge of your own. I know that challenge never ended. Don’t you see? We’re a part of it, Ellie and me. Players in the same game. This was a challenge within a challenge. We were fighting for Mr Silver.

“So here’s how it is: everything we agreed stands. You have to go, and never come back. But everything you agreed with Mr Silver all those years ago also stands. You have to stop stealing
life from innocent people, stealing their time, their tomorrows. You have to grow old. And one day you have to die.”

Sharpe spat on the stage floor. His face flushed brilliant red. “Where is he hiding?”

Daniel smiled. He held up the
Book of Wonders.
“In the book. He told you once that the book was part of him, part of his soul. You had the book in your hands, Sharpe. You had Silver in your hands, and you never knew. If you hadn’t been so arrogant—”

Sharpe moved so quickly, a blur in the shadows.

Ellie screamed. Sharpe was behind her, holding her tight, a knife to her throat.

Behind Daniel, the crowd gasped.

“You have taken something from me today, Daniel Holmes. And
nobody
takes
anything
from
me
. So I intend to take something from you. The girl is my blood. She will come with me. Step aside or I slit her throat.”

Daniel shook his head. “You don’t understand, do you? The Emporium wants you to leave. I’d listen to it, if I were you.”

Out in the theatre audience, the many versions of Michelle Sharpe left their seats and began to lumber towards the stage. They climbed the steps, the slow walk of the dead, and formed a ring around Sharpe.