Ned’s Circus of Marvels. Justin Fisher
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of a patchy beard. Though Ned had never seen a real one before, he looked exactly the way he thought a gnome should look; small and rather hairy.
“Tinker, this is … the boy.”
‘The boy’ rolled off Benissimo’s tongue in much the same way as ‘the problem’ might have come from a plumber while inspecting a blocked drain.
“Ahhhh, so you’re Mr Widdlewats?” the diminutive inventor said, peering up at him through a particularly large lens.
But Ned hadn’t heard a word. Lying on the workbench in one of his more stationary positions was an unexpected sight – his pet mouse Whiskers.
“You found him! Whiskers, I’ve been worried sick!”
Finally, something that made sense, something he recognised. The Waddlesworths’ beloved pet mouse was safe and had found him!
But the Tinker did not let him enjoy the moment for long.
“Whiskers? Oh no, Mr Widdlewats, this is no ‘Whiskers’, this is a Ticker, a Debussy Mark 12, to be exact. Top of the line in its time, or at least was until yesterday.”
“Debussy Mark what? That’s my mouse, I’d know him anywhere!”
“How old is your mouse, Mr Widdlewats?”
“Not sure, but he’s definitely older than me.”
“And how many mice do you know that live to be that age, sir?”
“Um, well, Dad always said he was special.”
“Indeed he is. This little fella arrived at the green just a short while after you. Would have got there quicker too, if an ice-cream truck hadn’t run him over.”
The Tinker took a needle-thin screwdriver and twisted it into the mouse’s back. He then carefully peeled away some fur, revealing an ornate maze of coiled springs, turning cogs and tiny metal pistons. The rodent’s eyes flickered white for a split second, which was followed by a whirring of gears as it moved its head from left to right, before slumping back down again. Ned watched in stunned silence.
“Oh Whiskers, not you too …”
The Tinker fetched him a small stool and he slumped down on to it.
“How long till it’s operational?” asked Benissimo.
“Well, boss, it’s not quite as bad as it looks. I’ve pinched some parts off the Punch and Judy show and I should have him up and running by the morning.”
“Operational?” said Ned. “What is he … I mean, what’s ‘it’ for?”
“Tickers come in as many forms as you can imagine. They make great pets for the rich, and tireless workers. They make terrifying soldiers too, till that was outlawed. Their greatest use these days is undercover work. This model in particular was very popular for surveillance,” explained the Tinker.
Ned couldn’t believe his ears. His pet mouse, a full third of his dysfunctional family, was made of metal.
“Magical creatures, clockwork soldiers and … undercover mice? Why hasn’t anyone heard of this, of these … things?” asked Ned.
At that the Tinker looked rather surprised.
“Well, because of us, sir. We monitor it all, you see, every creature and every sighting. Anyone outside of our lot who sees anything is immediately visited by our pinstripes.”
“Like the two men outside, the ones with the flutes?”
“Precisely, sir, only they’re not really flutes.”
He pressed a button on an old-fashioned typewriter of sorts and a panel on one of the walls slid away, revealing a large brass monitor. It had little boxes of text, scalable windows and streaming rows of data, just like a regular computer screen, except that everything was made of moving metal parts.
“Our computator gives us up-to-date information on every sighting and everyone who’s done the seeing.”
The monitor clattered noisily and a map of Europe covered in tiny bulbs slid into view.
“The ‘fair-folk’, as we call them – creatures human or otherwise with any kind of magical ability or curse – live behind the Veil and they do so for their own protection, to keep them safe from your witch-hunts, scientists and zoos.” The Tinker paused until Ned nodded his understanding. “Most of them, like Rocky and our resident pixies, use glamours to stay hidden when outside its borders, while a few can change their appearance at will. There are also those who look completely human and are, well … not. We have to keep tabs on all of them to stop the Veil and the creatures it hides from being discovered. You’d be surprised by how many live on your side, with ordinary lives and jobs. Our little audience last night were all fair-folk. Circuses are a good place for them to catch up on the latest gossip.”
Ned peered at Benissimo. He looked eccentric like all the troupe members, but he also looked human. If the Tinker was right, then there was far more to the man than a steely eye and a tough swagger. But what?
“This map is for the other kind,” continued the Tinker, “the kind that are strictly forbidden to cross the Veil’s boundaries. The ones YOUR kind need protecting FROM. The Darklings outside are just a taste. Yellows are level five and under, oranges six to fifteen, and reds, sixteen to thirty-five. Whites, well … whites are their own thing altogether – the puppeteers, if you will, that pull on the Darklings’ strings.”
There were literally hundreds of bulbs on the map, only six of them were white.
“Demons, Ned,” cut in Benissimo. “Thankfully extremely rare with a profound aversion to light. They mostly dwell underground, safely within Veil-run reservations. The last one to go unchecked was Dra-cul, a particularly vile creature with a soft spot for human blood. He and his Darklings nearly swept the whole of Eastern Europe, bringing their darkness with them. But we fought them back eventually.”
Ned gulped – this was a history lesson unlike any other!
“They haven’t tried anything on that scale since and the borders have remained manageable. You see, it isn’t easy for a Demon to cross. It takes an act of true evil, coupled with pitch-black magic. Or at least … it did. Something is stirring them up.”
How any of this fitted in with a safety-obsessed screw salesman was completely beyond Ned.
“I’m sorry, my brain feels like it’s melting. The world was normal when I woke up yesterday, sort of. Whatever this Veil thing is, this secret world of yours, what’s it got to do with my dad and this box?”
The Ringmaster leant in closely.
“Maybe nothing, but most probably everything. No one knows why but the Veil is falling, tumbling down around our very ears, and there are those that want to see it that way. If it does, the horror that is Demon-kind will walk freely. And when they do, we will have ourselves a war that can’t be won. It will mean the end for all of us, on both sides of the Veil.”
Ned swallowed.
“We have one small chance of saving it. Since the beginning, there have always been two people, each generation or so, who have discovered in themselves the rarest and most particular of gifts, gifts that they have used for the most part for good. Because of the nature of their magical abilities they’re known as the Medic and the Engineer. There is a prophecy amongst the likes of Kitty and her kind, that in the Veil’s greatest hour of need they will combine their powers to save it. If this is indeed that hour then they are the only thing that stands between us and unbridled evil.”
Ned shook his head in frustration. “But I still don’t know how my dad fits into all this!”
“We’ve been searching for a girl, Ned. Her name is Lucy Beaumont and she is the last Medic. Her parents were taken from her in a cloud of unspeakable violence