The Midnight Hour Read online

  “That’s easy. Yer ma popped in on me a wee while ago, dearly beloved to her as I am, and regaled me with a list of the offal troubles she was having, pursued by villainous types and such, and I, without hesitation, volunteered my services to take a message in person to the Daylight realm, and keep an eye on my poor sweet niece, in the face of the dreadful forces of darkness.” He nodded, green eyes shimmering and trustworthy. “It was, in fact, fierce brave of me, and she was very grateful.”

  There was a way to tell when Pat was lying; his lips would move.

  “That’s … that’s not true at all, is it?”

  “Ye doubt the word of yer recently discovered, long-abandoned uncle of yer blood? I’m shocked.” He clutched his heart. Again.

  “Yes, I flippin’ do! You, you can’t walk straight! You’re a proper Pooka, and that means you’re a bad lot. Not like Mom!”

  “Ah, ye’ve heard of her disgrace, then?” He grimaced.

  “What flippin’ disgrace? Do you mean running off with Dad?” Her brain was whirling so fast there was every chance the top of her head would come off.

  “What, eloping? Oh no, that’s a family tradition. No, it was the other business.” He sighed. “It was brutal for the clan to have to cope with, it was.”

  “If you don’t tell me what you mean, I swear I’ll …”

  He held a hand up to placate her.

  “I mean, the greatest thief and trickster the Connolly’s ever had, joining the Library and fighting for the common good. The shame of it.” He closed his eyes at the memory. “It was the upset over it all that finished Great-Auntie Aoife off, everybody says so.”

  “Wait, Mom being a hero is a disgrace?” said Emily.

  “We’re Pooka, girl! It’s a proud tradition. We’re tricksters and rogues, beasts of ill-omen. We don’t help people! The very thought of it.”

  He mopped his forehead with a grubby spotted handkerchief.

  “So why are you helping me, then? And don’t lie.”

  “Well, there’s plenty of the clan’d deny ever having met our Maeve, of course, but we was always close, and so I had to step up when she asked.”

  She folded her arms across her chest, and just glared at him.

  “It’s true!” His eyes were wide with innocence. “She asked me to send a message to yer da and keep an eye on ye. Even gave me her shadow key to get in and out.” He rummaged in his pockets to show her.

  “And …” She tapped her foot.

  He leaned in close and spoke in a hushed whisper.

  “And she maybe has a lot of evidence of things she claims I’ve done, that I’d rather not come out. Not that any of it’s true, but y’know. She’s an evil mare when the mood takes her.”

  He patted her shoulder.

  “But I mainly did it out the decency of me heart.”

  She smacked his hand away.

  “You were blackmailed! You don’t care!”

  He gave her full puppy eyes.

  “I do! A bit. If it’s not going to interfere. I’ve got the racing later, y’know.”

  Emily stamped off to fume, but then came straight back.

  “Why didn’t you just say who you were when you came to the house? Why? I’d have …” She trailed off, not quite sure what she would have done.

  “Did I not? Really?”

  “No!”

  “Hmm. I thought I was very clear. I had a filthy head on me, though.” Pat winced in recollection. “Daylight and brandy’s a fierce combination.”

  Emily wondered if it was possible to spontaneously combust just from sheer annoyance.

  “Argh, you’re infuriating! What was this message you said about? You never gave us a message.”

  “Ahhh …” He paused. “Did I say a message? I don’t remember that.”

  “Yes!”

  “Ah, I can see where ye’re getting confused.” He smiled and waved his finger. “There may, in fact, have been a message, and yer ma asked a man, another man, to take it to yer da, but he may well have been delayed.”

  “Was that other man also you by any chance?” said Emily.

  “I really couldn’t say, it’d break a family confidence.”

  “Was the delay a pub?”

  “I don’t think we should get bogged down in the details here. Let’s just say mistakes were made and we’ve all learnt from them.” Pat nodded sagely.

  Emily grabbed his jacket lapels.

  “What. Was. The. Message?” she ground out from between clenched teeth.

  “Well, it might have been something about there being a plot to break the Hour with some unlucky pennies, the need to hide them and ye away so you definitely wouldn’t end up in here, and a place for yer da to meet her while she spied on the Nocturne.” He mumbled and didn’t meet her eye.

  “You, you’re unbelievable! If you’d have delivered the message straight away like she asked you to, my dad would have known where to go, and I wouldn’t be here, and I’d still have the coins and … this is all your fault, you eejit!”

  “That could actually be the family motto,” he mused.

  A white-hot fury burned through her.

  “Right, that’s it. You’re going to make this right. We’re going to get my mom and dad and stop the Nocturne!”

  “Whoa there!” He held both hands out. “She’s a rum sort. We’d be better going for a quiet pint until it all blows over.”

  “She’s got your sister and she’s trying to blow the whole Midnight Hour up! You’re going to help me.”

  “Am I, now?” He folded his arms and grinned a fox’s grin. “Maeve’s a big girl. She’ll be fine, and I’ve got a very pressing schedule vis-à-vis my availability for heroics.”

  “You’re going to help me or I’m going to get Mom’s evidence folder out and report you! I’ve got friends in the Watch now.” Or she used to, anyway.

  Pat had to scratch an itch he’d developed under his cap, but most of the grin was still there.

  “Yer bluffing.”

  “Am I? Oh, and Pat.” She lowered her voice so he had to lean in. “Even if I am, and you don’t help me, what’s my mom going to say when she finds out what you did?”

  He went pale.

  “She is brutal when roused.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  She let him picture it, then said, “Me now, or her later. What’s it to be?”

  He grinned, and it was sunlight on a winter’s day.

  “Ah, you’re a chip off the old block and no mistake. Textbook ominous threats. We’ll make a proper Pooka of you yet. Okay, I’m in. What’s it to be?”

  “We’re going straight to the Night Watch!”

  “WHAT?”

  It took her a while to calm Pat down. He had definite views about, what he termed, “the guard.” She had to explain that she just needed to get to the main station. Once she told them about the Library and the Nocturne, and what was going on, they’d have to help her. Right?

  “Right, well, I don’t like it, but I promised I’d keep ye safe, and there’s not much safer than the guard, I suppose.” He scowled at the thought. “We’re going in the back way, though. I’ve got me pride. Can ye change?”

  “What, shape?” She rubbed at the little space between her collarbones. “I don’t know how I did it the first time, and I still feel sick.”

  “Well, on this one occasion, ye being family and all, I’ll give ye a lift. Ye best not be telling anybody.”

  He stared at her, tapping his foot with impatience.

  “What?”

  “Well, y’know.” He flapped his hands at her, waving her away. “Turn around. It’s not polite to watch a man change.”

  She turned around and from behind came the springy whooshing noise of air being pushed out of the way, followed by a distinctive whinny. She turned back and the black stallion stood there, proud and tall, with a white blaze in the forelock of its black mane. It still had the extinguished remains of the dirty, hand-rolled cigarette hanging from its lips. A b
ig pink tongue came out and slurped it inside its mouth, and the horse began to chew. It moved closer to the wall and tossed its head at Emily.

  After a series of false starts, she managed to step up and throw herself onto the broad, warm back and rocked there, uncertain. She clenched her knees tight and leaned forward to grab a handful of mane. The stallion took two gentle paces and then rocketed off at enormous speed, leaving only her scream behind.

  After a long, sweaty, terrifying ride, Pat pulled up on a quiet street in St. James, by a large gate made of iron railings set into a stone wall. The wall was covered with a vivid purple climbing vine that hissed as they got near. Emily slid off and dug her knuckles into her cramped thighs.

  “Never again.”

  There was a whoosh behind her, and Pat walked back into view, rubbing at his lower back.

  “Too right,” he said. “Ye need to lay off the cakes.”

  “Oi!”

  He’d walked over to the gate and was cagily peering through the bars. There was a lot of grass and some trees in the fog. The Hog was squirming in her pocket. He probably wanted the bathroom, but she’d have to let him out later.

  “Okey-cokey, here we go,” said Pat. “Ye go through the gate, across the lawn, and into the station the back way.”

  Emily peered into the murk.

  “Where’s the station?”

  “Ah, way in there. That’s why they call it Scotland Yard, ’cause of all this grass out the back. Hop out the moonlight fer a second.” Something glinted shiny-black in his hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s yer ma’s shadow key. Ye have to use the shadow, not the key, and it’ll open pretty much any door. Very useful.”

  He twisted himself out of the light, angled the black key over the lock, and the shadow danced across the gate and into the keyhole. A click of tumblers and it was open. Pat pulled the gate wide and waved her through.

  “Right, ye pop in, and I’ll wait here.” He pulled his collar up high to cover his face. “There’s a number of pressing reasons why I shouldn’t go into a guard station.”

  She walked through, and he leaned in the gateway.

  “Okay. Thank you, Pat.”

  “Uncle Pat.” He smiled at her, gentler than his normal grin.

  “Thank you, Uncle Pat.” She grinned now. “Yup, still sounds weird. Look, will you promise to wait? I’ve got a lot of questions about, what do you even call it? Pooka-ing?”

  “Ah, it’s a glorious life, the best of all. Wild and free. I’ll teach ye everything.”

  A thrill of excitement tingled through her. If they got through this, then perhaps there was something here for her. A wild life full of magic and adventure. Something more than miserable school or boring, gray London. Wait. Boring, gray London … Since she’d stepped through the gate, something had been nagging at her. The light had changed from silver to a drab orange, and the air was different. There was less sewer in it and more car exhaust. Behind her, where she was sure she’d have seen it from the gate was a …

  “Hang on, that’s a streetlamp. This is my world!”

  In the background now, she could hear the bongs echo across London, the wrong London.

  A clunk and click from across the pavement. Pat had shut the gate behind her. He spoke to her through the bars.

  “First lesson then. Never trust a Pooka.”

  “What are you doing?” she blurted. “I’ve got to get help.”

  “Well, here’s the thing. I promised me sister, on silver and rowan, that I’d keep ye safe, and look, now yer safe and far away from harm.”

  Emily grabbed the bars of the gate, but he held it shut. Their faces were so close together the tobacco on his breath soured the air. The bongs were still ringing out, the bells that could never sound in the Midnight Hour.

  “No, no, you can’t! That woman’s got Mom and Dad. She’s going to do something dreadful to your whole world!”

  Silver moonlight shone behind him as he shrugged.

  “I’m sure it’ll all be fine. It usually is.”

  “What if it’s not?”

  He gave her a sad half smile, winked once, then, as the twelfth and last bong rang out, he vanished. The moonlight disappeared and there was just an empty pavement tinted orange by streetlights. It was twelve o’clock exactly back home, and Emily was locked out of the Midnight Hour.

  Getting home was a nightmare. First Emily had to get someone to let her out of the private gardens she was locked into. There was a nasty moment when the police were going to be called by the angry custodian, but she managed to convince him she was part of the Hedgehog Rescue Team and was dealing with a serious case of Bolivian fleas. After that, he gave her a wide berth and let her walk out, carrying the offending Hog as if he were radioactive. Then she got a horrid series of night buses, which were at least less scary than in the Midnight Hour. No one on them had fangs or anything.

  She sat, exhausted, head resting against a window full of lights and her own reflection. Neither of them looked right anymore. Normal was all she’d wanted to get back to but now, with its bright lights, noise, and smells, normal was as alien as the Hour ever had been. Her hand reached to the coins for comfort, but they were gone, and guilt hung around her neck in their place.

  It was the early hours of the morning when she got back to the house. At least she didn’t need to find her keys as someone had helpfully pulled the back door off its hinges. Inside was all ripped up, with every drawer and cupboard emptied out, and rents clawed in the sofas and beds. Someone very big and very angry had searched it for a magic necklace while she was away. She propped the door shut with a chair and picked her way upstairs through the fluff and wreckage without tidying a single thing. In her devastated room, the black glass hares lay shattered on the floor, their endless chase come to a violent end. She found Feesh the crocodile, who was thankfully safe and well, made a nest from her quilt and blankets, and passed out.

  She woke up mid-afternoon the next day to something bright on her face. Daylight; she’d forgotten that. The sprawling damage surrounding her made her want to pull the covers back over her head. However, she was sure the Hog was hungry, and after all her sweaty, terrifying adventures, she totally needed a shower. She tiptoed her way through the broken glass of the poor Abbits to grab a towel and headed to the bathroom.

  Half an hour later, she sat on the one remaining chair in the kitchen with the towel wrapped around her head and fresh underwear on. Fresh underwear was well known for making everything better, but she wasn’t sure if it was going to work today.

  She turned stale bread into toast and, to make space to eat it, scraped some of the smashed plates off the table and into the bin. What was the matter with her? She was all slow and confused. There was a great big clawing pool of panic underneath the slow progress she was making through the day, but she was disconnected from it. The endless night of the other world was already becoming a dream. She was back in her world, which was what she’d wanted, but now she just wished she could curl up into a ball and dream her way back to the other one. If only she knew how the dreamlings did it.

  The Hog had eaten his cat food and was already asleep in his box in the corner. His little snores became the snores of all the other sickly hogs she’d seen her mom looking after right here at this table, and water began to flow from her eyes. She cried thick tears, cried after holding it in the whole time she’d been in the Midnight Hour, cried until it dripped from her chin and onto her toast. The great big whirling mass of panic started to claw its way out. Everything was ruined and it was completely her fault. She’d lost the bad pennies, and the key to get back in, her mom and dad were prisoners, and that dreadful woman was going to take the magic and protection of the Midnight Hour for herself and break the whole other world in the process. She’d promised Tarkus his family would be okay, but instead their safe haven would rupture, and they’d be cast back out into the Daylight realm. She’d just been scared and wanted to make things normal
, and now they’d never be normal again.

  Nothing about her life made sense. Her parents were strangers, and she … she wasn’t human. She collapsed on the table, hands fisted on either side of her head. Everything was awful, and she was locked out of the Midnight Hour, unable to do anything to help.

  She stayed that way for a long time, wracked with sobs. Eventually, her towel fell off and she sat up. Her toast was miserably soggy, and some of it had stuck to her face. She wiped herself clean with the towel, then blew her nose with it, too. After all, there’s only so long you can sit and wallow for, and then you just have to get on with it. This was another one of her mom’s sayings. In fact, she had to admit a lot of the bits of advice she told herself came from her mom. “Never be knowingly under-snacked. Big boots are best. Biscuits make everything better.” All of the good ones. So, instead of continuing to have a massive meltdown, she grabbed some biscuits and a pad and pen, and sat down on the one remaining sofa cushion to try her mom’s other little gem—“When in doubt, make a list.”

  First, she made a list of problems:

  Then she made another column and listed her assets. She had to chew the end of her pen over this one, and it was still a much shorter list. It included:

  That one still gave her the willies, but it needed to go on the list.

  This was all taking so long, and the panic started to pinch again. She ran her pen down all the items on the list. Yup, that was it. How was any of this going to help? There had to be something in there somewhere. There just had to be. She considered making one of those big work-it-all-out things, with pins and different colored string and photos, that you see on the wall in TV shows, but as she didn’t have any string or photos, it was a bit of a waste of time.

  It was useless, she’d lost all the things from the Midnight Hour with her bag. The all-important key, the Library card, the Night Post badge—hang on, that wasn’t everything, was it? There was something else, but she just hadn’t known what they were before. Eejit!

  She winced at the destruction in her dad’s tiny office. The desk had been ransacked but, under a pile of Composters’ Weekly, there they were. The big envelope full of stamps, most of them black and beautiful, but two of them huge, bloodred, and shiny. Bloody Marys—extra-special delivery stamps. All you needed was a true name and they’d be delivered immediately anywhere, in either world, Tarkus had said. She bit her knuckle to help her think. Maybe, just maybe, she had a plan. Having added the stamps to her list of assets, she wrote ideas down, drawing lines between the two columns. Many of those lines sprang from the word “stamps.” It started to look like a work-it-all-out wall on the TV after all.