Beyond the Starline Read online

  The curtain fell. The lanterns brightened. Harriet turned to Sibelius, eyes wide. “If he can’t help us,” she breathed, “ain’t nobody what can.”

  Chapter Seven

  She followed Sibelius along the catwalk and down a ladder to a passageway ending in another door. The excited buzz of people milling about in the foyer sounded muffled through the walls.

  “Now we go backstage,” said Sibelius. “There will be many people. Be confident. No one will ask questions. It is not unusual to see a girl with a monkey in a theater.” Sibelius raised his eyebrows at Harriet, “Tu es prêt, mon amie?”

  Harriet nodded, “Ready.”

  Sibelius pushed the door open.

  Women and boys shifted scenery, cranked handles, swept floors, adjusted lights and bars and ropes. They called to each other, laughing as they worked. Women in plumes adjusted their sequined finery. A performing dog troupe trotted past with their noses in the air. A contortionist tied herself in knots. A strongman chatted with a midget seated on his knee. No-one’s looking twice, Harriet thought. Among this lot we most likely look normal!

  Up a few wooden steps they came to a door with a tarnished silver star nailed to it. Beneath the star was a name plaque. It read, ‘Professor Poliakoff, Illusionist.’ Sibelius smiled encouragement at Harriet. Then he knocked.

  “Come in!” said a voice from within. Sibelius turned the handle, opened the door and ushered Harriet inside. The door clicked closed behind them and they found themselves in the illusionist’s dressing room.

  There were props and suitcases piled higgledy-piggledy all over. Newspaper cuttings littered a tatty chaise longue. Racks and rails hung with an assortment of clothes and capes. On the wall opposite, lanterns surrounded a mirror. Greasepaint, face creams, a wig, rags and cotton wool cluttered the table below. The room smelled of mothballs and paraffin.

  The professor had his back to them, vigorously wiping the last of the stage paint from his face with a rag. Harriet caught his eye in the mirror. He dropped the rag, spinning round on his stool.

  “Harriet?”

  “Good evening, sir,” she said, unsure how to address him. Then suddenly, “Your show was amazing! How did you do all them things?”

  The illusionist laughed. It was a curious sound. She would have expected a booming, confident guffaw but his laughter was high-pitched and nasal, girlish even. “I’m glad you enjoyed the performance, young lady,” he said, stroking his goatee. “A magician never reveals his secrets. Besides, I understand we have more urgent matters to deal with, do we not? Please, take a seat both of you.” He leaped to the chaise longue, sweeping the cuttings onto the floor. “Sit, sit!”

  Harriet sat and Sibelius squatted beside her. The magician withdrew to his stool and fixed his eyes on Harriet.

  “Well, we meet at last,” he said. For an instant, his eyes glazed over. Lines of sorrow which the face-paint had hidden were revealed in a frown. He said, “You look so much like your mother.”

  Harriet gulped. “Is she..?”

  “She is no longer alive. I am sorry. She died many years ago. I knew her well. She was a wonderful woman.”

  Harriet gripped her dress tightly. She took a deep breath. The magician straightened, his voice louder. “Your friend here has told me all about your predicament. I must confess,” he said, glancing at Sibelius, “before I met you, sir, I had always believed what the Groundlings say: that monkeys are dumb beasts incapable of articulate speech.” He turned back to Harriet. “But I have discovered that your friend here is fluent in several languages, as bright as a brass button, and a loyal friend.”

  “He’s that all right,” said Harriet. “But he’s not a regular monkey. He’s from The Monkey Nation. He lives in the sky.” The professor raised his eyebrows. Harriet continued. “I don’t understand what’s going on, Professor. I thought me dad was dead and I was living with me mum. Now turns out me dad’s alive and me mum’s dead. Both me mums are dead. The woman I thought was me mum said to find you and you’d help. She gave me this.” Harriet withdrew the device and handed it to the magician. He held it up to the light.

  “It’s a chart reader,” he said. “Very rare. It belongs to your father.” He blew a low whistle. “I knew you were hidden in the Laundry. I didn’t know this was hidden with you. It’s worth a fortune to anyone who gets her hands on it – and the chart that goes with it, of course. One is useless without the other.” He handed it back. “Having it puts you in great danger.”

  “Don’t I know it!” said Harriet. “What do you know about me? Do you know me old man? And forgive me being blunt, sir, but where do you come into it?”

  “I knew your father and mother many years ago. We worked together. What plans and dreams we had! I’ll tell you everything I know. But are you sure...?”

  Harriet leaned forward. “Go on,” she said. “I just want to hear the truth, that’s all.”

  “Your father was an adventurer. He invested his inheritance in a starship. He mustered a crew. He was convinced the legends of lost treasure and ancient civilizations among the distant islands of the Dark Sea were true. He was especially obsessed with the Island of Birds.”

  “Sibelius told me stories about it. It’s a mysterious island floating in the Outer Archipelago. No one knows how to get there. They say it’s a paradise of happiness and peace where wealth belongs to everyone. They have green cities and forests and towers made of ivory and gold. Many have gone a-searching for it but few return. And them what do are mad as bricks and good for nothing but the nut house.”

  The illusionist laughed. “That’s the one. But your father isn’t in the nut house, as you call it. At least I don’t think so. He married your mother many years ago. She was soon with child.”

  “With me?”

  “Yes. At the same time, your father became involved in dangerous dealings with a clan of pirates. He acquired a chart from them. He was convinced it would lead him to the fabled isle.

  “The map was of a very rare sort – encrypted in curious ways so that to the naked eye it appeared nothing more than meaningless scribbles and blotches. To read it, a special device – a chart reader – is required. Each chart reader can only be used with the chart it was designed to decode and vice versa. That was the setback; he didn’t have the device.

  “He came to me for help. I know many inventors who create illusionistic devices for me, and I was myself an engineer. I knew a talented tinkerer who was also an enthusiastic cartographer. I engaged him on your father’s behalf. Combining his knowledge of ancient charts with my skills as an engineer – that was my original profession, you know, and I am afraid another failed business enterprise with a chap called Watson – we were able to create the device you now hold in your hands.”

  “So, me dad, did he go after the island?”

  “It seems not. The pirates thought they’d swindled your father, but they came to hear about the invention of the chart reader. They were a dangerous lot. Your father refused to deal with them. They sought a cruel revenge and your mother...”

  Harriet paled. “They killed me mum twice, then,” she said quietly.

  “Realizing the danger he had put you in, he entrusted you to the laundry woman. He left a sum of money for your keep and asked me to act as guardian, making sure you were cared for and that a monthly allowance was made to your surrogate.”

  “So where did he go?”

  “He went to the Moon. I think he had some business assets there which he intended to realize to provide funds for a voyage. He was going to the Island of Birds. He would return a wealthy man. I believe he never intended to abandon you so long, Harriet. But...”

  “But what?”

  The magician smiled weakly and shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing of importance. Do you wish to ask me something?”

  “He can’t have gone, can he? Not if I’ve got the device he
re. He wouldn’t have been able to read the chart. So is he still on the Moon? What’s he been doing there all these years? Why didn’t he come back? And how do we know he is still alive?”

  The illusionist frowned, shook his head, and spread his hands wide. “Harriet. I wish I could answer your questions. But I have told you everything I know. He hid the device with you and kept that secret even from me. I don’t know what his real intentions were.”

  “Now the pirates have found me out. They know I’ve got the chart reader, and they want it back.”

  “So it would seem. What is to be done? Could you not give the pirates the device? After all...”

  Harriet stood up. “No blinking way,” she said, flushing. “Betray me dad? I ain’t doing that. And remember them pirates killed me mum, too. Twice. Just hand it over? That ain’t an option, Professor!”

  “No,” answered the illusionist slowly, “I suppose not. Then what are we to do?”

  “Can’t you contact me dad somehow? Could you find him? Take him the device, maybe?”

  “I’m sorry, Harriet,” he said, looking away. “I can’t do that. I am too well known and have too many obligations. I turned to conjuring when I gave up my ambitions as an engineer. I had no idea I would make such a success of it. It would be too easy for the pirates to follow me. Besides, it is a long voyage to the Moon. I would be missed. What excuses could I make to the proprietor of the theater? No, I cannot unite the chart reader with the chart.”

  “You think Dad’s got the chart?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Well, Professor, I s’pose you done your bit. And I reckon I know what I got to do now. I got to find me dad. That’s what I got to do.”

  “But how, mademoiselle?” said Sibelius.

  Harriet looked at her companions.

  “I got to go to the Moon,” she said.

  Chapter Eight

  The morning was still and damp, a light mist lingering in the air. The street outside the theater, so busy the night before, was silent now but for the boom-boom-boom of the foundries and the ever-present thrum of engines in the sky above. Dew-soaked cobbles glistened in the morning light.

  Harriet watched from the theater doorway. Poliakoff, wearing a top hat and cape, tapped impatiently on the stone steps with the tip of his walking cane. He looked up and down the street. He checked his pocket-watch, tutting, snapping the lid shut again and stuffing it back into his waistcoat pocket. Then he skipped down the steps onto the street and raised his cane.

  A Clockwork Conveyancer trundled into view, rattling over the cobblestones. It came to a standstill outside the theater. The driver – a rough, unshaven sort, dressed in a greasy coat and with his woolen hat pulled down nearly over his eyes - coughed loudly. “Poliakoff?” he said. “Blasted early call this, ain’t it?”

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” answered the magician. “Wait here, please.” He beckoned to Harriet while the driver stepped down and rewound the vehicle’s mechanism.

  The illusionist held the door open. Harriet, in coat and bonnet, carrying a suitcase, with Sibelius at her side, made her way hurriedly down to the street and into the Clockwork Conveyancer’s carriage. The magician stepped in with them and pulled the door shut.

  They sat side by side in the interior of the carriage. A small hatch opposite snapped open. The driver’s grizzled face appeared. Harriet caught a whiff of stale tobacco and whiskey on his breath. “Where to, then, guv’nor?” he said.

  “The Launches,” said Poliakoff. The driver grunted and the hatch snapped shut. Clicking and whirring, the vehicle lurched forward, bouncing over the cobbles into the morning mist.

  “I wish you could come with us,” said Harriet. “It’d be handy to have a magician along.”

  Poliakoff smiled. “Alas, dear lady, I think not as much as you imagine. You must remember I am an illusionist. I have never in my life produced a dove from a hat or made a lady vanish in a puff of smoke.”

  “I saw you do it last night!”

  “No, no. I made it seem as if I had done those things. It is all trickery.” Harriet could not disguise the disappointment she felt. The magician continued, “There are two things I will share with you. They are the keys to all illusions. Would you like that?”

  “Wouldn’t I!”

  “The first is this: on the stage things are not as they seem. There is engineering and mechanics involved; objects that seem flat are three dimensional, three dimensional objects are flat; reflections in mirrors masquerade as real things to trick the eye; hidden pockets, trapdoors and levers are all employed. All lies, really.

  “But it is the second thing that really makes the magic happen: the art of misdirection. Allow me to demonstrate.” Poliakoff withdrew a silver coin from his pocket. “Take, for example, this coin,” he said. “It is a real, common or garden coin, bearing, as you can see, the Queen’s head. Please, take a closer look!”

  Harriet took the coin. Satisfied it was normal, she handed it to Sibelius. He looked at it, nodded and passed it back to the magician.

  “Good,” said Poliakoff, laying the coin on his outstretched palm. He closed his fingers around it. “Now, where is the coin?”

  “It’s in your fist,” said Harriet. Then her eyes widened in astonishment as the illusionist slowly uncurled his fingers to reveal an empty palm. He showed both his hands empty front and back. “Where’d it go?” said Harriet.

  Poliakoff smiled. “Look again!”

  Harriet looked again – and there was the coin resting on the palm of his hand. “How the spit d’you do that?”

  “Misdirection,” said Poliakoff. “I can, by subtle but perfectly natural techniques, direct and misdirect your attention so that you see what I want you to see and do not see that which I wish to conceal.”

  “So it ain’t real magic, then?”

  “What is real magic?” asked the conjurer. “Surely the trickery of the illusionist is the real magic, the magic that can actually be done. The magic that claims to be a supernatural miracle is the false magic of the charlatan and the fool’s prophet!”

  “I still don’t get it,” said Harriet.

  “Then I will share one simple secret with you. Look again at the coin.” Harriet looked. “You are quite sure you can see this coin?” said Poliakoff.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You are certain?”

  “It’s gone!”

  The magician laughed. “I will explain. The coin was in my hand. You looked at it. I asked you a simple question. When I asked you the second time, to emphasize your point you did what anyone would do. You looked back at me. In that brief moment, I flipped the coin into my lap. You looked down and the coin was gone. You looked at me but an instant. You didn’t even know you were doing it. But I knew you would.” He shrugged.

  “But that ain’t magic!” said Harriet.

  “Precisely why we do not normally reveal our secrets, Miss Howland.” Poliakoff sighed. “But remember the art of misdirection, Harriet. It may be more useful than you know.”

  “Nous sommes arrivés,” said Sibelius. “We are here.”

  Poliakoff rapped on the roof of the Conveyancer. It jolted to a stop. He swung the door open and stepped down, offering his hand to Harriet. He turned to the driver. “A moment, please,” he said. Then to Harriet and Sibelius, “Here we part company. I wish I could do more to help.”

  “You done loads, Professor,” said Harriet. “And thanks for the show. I never seen nothing like it, magic or not.”

  “Good luck to you both!”

  With a flourish of his cape, the magician vanished back into the Conveyancer and away. Harriet put her suitcase down and watched the carriage disappear. Then she looked around. The Launches were stirring into life.

  The Moon was still visible in the inky blue of the Dark Sea above them. The Starline winked a
cross the vast, impossible expanse between Harriet and her destination.

  “What now, Sibelius?”

  “We must find passage on a ship.”

  “Them’s the ships, right?” said Harriet, nodding at the rows of zeppelins, dirigibles, sky ships and starships that floated high above, anchored to elevated jetties by ropes and wires. Some were huge, the size of a small town, it seemed to Harriet; others barely bigger than her bedroom back in the tower. She longed to be high again, away from the dirty and confusing world on the ground. “How do we get up there?”

  “We cannot simply walk on board. We must find out which ships will be launching today, then speak with the captains.”

  “Have you ever been to the Moon, Sibelius?”

  “I have not, mademoiselle.”

  “Then how do you know all this stuff?”

  “It is my business to know things. I think we had better start in the inns along the Worker’s Quay. Of course, I may not speak with anyone, but we have the card Poliakoff wrote for us. It will seem I am merely a dumb beast on an errand for my master. Let us hope Madame Bonne Chance is smiling on us today.”

  But Madame Bonne Chance was not smiling on them. After an hour of fruitless questioning Harriet thought if such a person did indeed exist she was positively scowling.

  When they came to the last inn on the quay, Harriet said she’d wait outside, even before the innkeeper yelled at them, “Ya cain’t bring a female this side o’ the door!” With an apologetic shrug, Sibelius slipped inside. As soon as the innkeeper’s back was turned, Harriet pulled a face and stuck out her tongue. They’re all so suspicious of females, but how do they blooming think they come into this world?