Midnight Hour Read online

  ‘Of course, it’s nothing like the dark you used to get when I was a girl,’ said Japonica. ‘Now those were nights! You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.’

  Under the moonlight, Japonica was less human than ever. Her eyes glowed redder, and her skin deepened in colour, not taking on the slight silver glow everything else had. She burnt black and scarlet, and her beauty was as rich as the sky above.

  Emily shivered and looked back to the stars. She didn’t want to look away from them because, even with what she’d glimpsed from the corner of her eye, she was pretty sure there was something very wrong with the city. She had to know though. Biting her lip, she looked down and took in all of London below.

  Ah. Oh dear. Oh, dearie dear. That wasn’t right at all.

  ‘H ave I gone back in time? I won’t freak out if you tell me. I watch Doctor Who.’

  ‘No, dear, you haven’t. It is rather that time here hasn’t gone anywhere.’

  ‘Oh, well that’s much clearer, thank you.’

  It was London, but not her London. The city lay sprawled before her, still as huge as ever, but changed. The moon’s silver illuminated it, but there were no street lights, just a few tiny flickering gas lamps here and there. Hardly any of the buildings were lit up; in fact, most of the buildings just weren’t there. There was no Shard, no Gherkin, no skyscrapers at all. Nothing taller than five or six storeys, apart from the great old dome of St Paul’s. All the glass and steel had gone away, and the city had shrunk down to stone. She was standing on the roof of the post office building on St Martin’s Le Grand. The one that had been demolished in 1912. Also . . .

  ‘Phwoar, it stinks.’

  ‘Ah! The reek of the Great Wen! It’s bracing isn’t it? I’m told the sewers have improved a lot on your side.’

  ‘On my side of what? Please Japonica, what’s going on? I think I’m going bonkers.’

  She crammed a hand into her pocket to fish out a calming biscuit, and had to engage in a brief tug of war to do so. The Hog popped halfway out, still attached to the edge of the biscuit. Japonica bowed her head and bobbed a curtsy.

  ‘Good evening, sir.’

  The Hog nodded back, fixed Emily with a grumpy stare, and went back in.

  ‘That’s it, I have gone bonkers.’ Emily sat down on the ledge and put her back to the wrong London. She stared at the nibbled edge of the biscuit for a moment, then shrugged and bit into it anyway. Japonica sat beside her.

  ‘I’m unfamiliar with the condition, but I’ll try and explain.’

  She pursed her lips in thought then began.

  ‘For the longest time, since we all emerged from the shadows and the forests, my people have lived alongside your people. The Night Folk and the Day Folk.’

  She patted Emily’s shoulder.

  ‘You’re the Day Folk, dear.’

  ‘Yup, figured that.’

  ‘In the last century, magic started to run out. Your science and progress drove it from the world. We are creatures of magic as much as we are people of the night, and we need it to survive. Things grew desperate.’

  Her red eyes grew dark and bloody, and her face sombre.

  ‘We were on the brink of extinction until our protectors, the Older Powers, forged an alliance with your queen, Victoria. Our greatest sorcerers worked with your greatest scientists to make a unique device that combined magic and mechanics.’

  She got to her feet and held out a hand to pull Emily up too.

  ‘It was intended to make a place where it could be night for ever, where magic could survive, and we could all be safe,’ said Japonica as she turned Emily around and pointed over her shoulder.

  ‘There it is. The Great Working.’

  Her sharp, black-nailed finger pointed at Big Ben where it sat in the distance by the river. Big Ben, which Emily had seen every day, and heard every night, her whole life. Big Ben which now, instead of being the comforting old clock tower, was a blazing pillar of light, wreathed in an emerald glow that started from the clock faces, and spiralled down in a glowing helter-skelter of fog. It showed midnight and burnt in the darkness, and remained as blots in her eyes after she turned away.

  ‘It first struck midnight in 1859, and, for us, that night never ended. The Great Working created the Midnight Hour, a frozen moment in time to be our sanctuary. All of the Night Folk and all of the remaining magic left the Daylight realm for ever, and came here. Here where it is always pitch dark, always full moon, and always, always, midnight.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Emily, and meant it. ‘So, we’re in 1859?’

  ‘Effectively. We are in a frozen moment between the chimes of the clock that, on this side, will never tick or ring again. We are an unmoving island, whilst outside, in your world, the river of time flows on willy-nilly.’

  Emily tried to wrap her head around it all.

  ‘So, all the night . . . people are in here? Is everyone . . . y’know, like you?’ She gestured at Japonica’s eyes and teeth.

  ‘Ha! Is every one of your people like you?’ Japonica mimicked her gesture and smiled her fangy, humourless smile. ‘No, we are all different, as you are. There are many different denizens of the Midnight Hour, but we are all, as one, the Night Folk.’

  ‘So, what are you?’

  Japonica’s eyes widened, and her pointed teeth crept out. Had they just got longer?

  ‘Emily, I have to tell you it is considered dreadfully ill-mannered to ask that question. People’s heritage is entirely their own business.’

  Emily gulped.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You were not to know, but it might be good to remember.’

  She smiled, teeth smaller again now.

  ‘What I AM is Japonica Rhowse, friend of your father, and thus your friend too.’

  She held her hand out and Emily shook it. It was still as cold as snowmelt, but Emily was warmer for shaking it.

  ‘Now, we don’t have long, so tell me what in Hecate’s name are you doing here alone, and why did Alan recklessly desert his post?’

  Emily told her everything. Japonica was a good listener. Her eyes glowed brighter at the exciting bits, but it seemed unwise to point that out. She nodded when Emily told her about the key turning in the door when she heard the bongs.

  ‘Ah yes, that’s all part of the Great Working you see.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You can only gain access to our Midnight Hour at exactly twelve, during the sound of the great bell’s chimes. Even then, you need a door that exists both here and out there, and, oft-times, a key.’ Japonica’s black-taloned (Emily had admitted to herself that’s what they were) hand patted her leg.

  ‘Lucky you had your father’s spare! Clever of him to leave it.’

  ‘He didn’t. I swiped it. It might have been cleverer of him to have mentioned any of this in the first place or left some actual instructions.’ She stamped her foot. ‘Why does he have a key? What’s he got to do with all this?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought we’d covered that. Your father works for the Night Post. He is, in fact, our Dangerous Deliveries Specialist.’

  Emily blew a raspberry as the laughter gushed out of her.

  ‘Don’t be daft. That’s impossible.’

  Japonica nodded in agreement.

  ‘Yes, his job rather is, but he’s the very best we’ve got. A remarkable man. You must be proud.’

  ‘No, it’s impossible that he’s part of all this. He’s my dad. He does . . . gardening, and . . .’ There was some other stuff, but she couldn’t put her finger on it, which just showed how boring it was.

  Japonica gave her what Emily’s mum would call ‘an old-fashioned look’.

  ‘You must have been born with great insight, to be so young and yet already know every corner of someone’s heart.’

  Emily didn’t reply, because she knew a burn when she heard one. After chewing on her knuckle, she stuttered out the thing she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  ‘So, is my d
ad . . . a monst— I mean, is he Night Folk then? He does spend a lot of time in the shed, I guess.’

  ‘No, no, he’s definitely Day Folk.’ Japonica laughed. Emily’s tightly fisted hands unclenched.

  ‘But how, why . . .?’

  ‘Your father works what we call the ‘Night Shift’. He’s one of the people from outside who come in to work in the Midnight Hour. It’s rare but not unheard of. The Night Post is one of the remaining links between our worlds.’

  Emily’s head was spinning. It was all too much to process. She was, if she was being honest, having as much trouble with her dad being ‘the best we’ve got’ as the whole ‘secret world of monsters’ thing.

  ‘I . . .’ Nope, still no working thoughts yet. Wait, there was the glimmering of one. ‘So, where is he? Where’s my mum? Why did the horrid bear-thing mention her?’

  Japonica’s eyes flared a deeper crimson.

  ‘I don’t know, but the manifestation of the Bear in your world is a sign all is far from well.’ Japonica shook her head. ‘You say he only changed after he removed the umbrella?’

  ‘Yes, that freaky little brolly.’

  ‘It’s a Night Shade, a tiny bit of midnight magic, charmed into cloth. Underneath its shade, you are still within our Midnight. It’s the only way magic can work in your world now.’

  ‘But he turned into a bear when he put it down!’

  ‘He is a bear, dear. The magic lets him use his power to look human.’ She pursed her lips in worry. ‘The only people who should have Night Shades are the Post and the Watch for occasional missions in the Daylight realm. They’re frightfully handy for deliveries, you know.’

  The steady flow of brain-exploding new things was hammering at her. When she was little, a wave had knocked her over at the seaside, and every time she’d tried to get up the next wave had knocked her down again. This was worse. Her mum had come and picked her up back then. Who was going to help this time?

  ‘I-I don’t know what to do.’

  Japonica leant in close.

  ‘Your father did say one thing when he was here. I didn’t mention it to the Postmaster because of the whole desertion thing.’

  ‘What?’ Emily just about avoided screaming.

  ‘He said only that he had to go to the Library and ask about the origins of a letter.’ Japonica held Emily’s gaze with glowing red eyes as if she’d just shared an important secret.

  ‘The library? For a letter?’

  ‘Yes, I know. Something very unusual is going on. I think that’s the best place for you to start.‘

  ‘But Japonica, look—’ A terrible trumpeting noise cut over her. It was the megaphone again, its roar rattling and clattering out of the roof door. The noise of running feet on the stairs far below came with it.

  Japonica leapt up.

  ‘I’m afraid you must go now. I’d better get downstairs before he falls to pieces again.’ She grimaced. ‘It took ages to sew him back up last time.’

  ‘No, no, no!’ said Emily, ‘I’ve got so many questions.’

  Japonica took her by the arm and did a brisk march across the roof to the far corner. ‘There’s simply no time. The Night Watch are already here, and they’ll kick you straight back into the Daylight realm, or worse.’

  In the corner was a set of steps up and over the roof ledge and on to a precarious metal stairway that ran down the outside of the building. Japonica urged her on to it. The noise from the stairwell was getting closer.

  ‘Now, I’ll go and tell them you ran off in a different direction, and that should buy you some time.’

  ‘But what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Go to the Library, and seek counsel there.’

  ‘What flippin’ library?’

  ‘Why, the Library, of course. Ask anyone.’

  Japonica was already walking towards the door, talking over her shoulder as she did.

  ‘Actually, maybe not anyone.’ The pointy-toothed frown again. ‘A number of people here really didn’t want to come into the Hour. They harbour grave ill-feeling towards the Day Folk.’

  Japonica ducked into the low, square doorway.

  ‘Avoid dark alleys, the Night Watch, and the Hungry Dead. Don’t make a bargain with Older Powers, and don’t ever, ever trust a Pooka. Write to me here as soon as you know anything.’

  She disappeared into the dark, with only a red-eyed glint.

  ‘Please, Japonica, you can’t just leave me,’ Emily begged. From the darkness came shouted words.

  ‘You’re your father’s daughter, you’ll be fine!’

  And then Emily was alone at midnight under the full moon.

  Emily clanged and jangled her way down the fire escape, then ran off down the grubby street at the bottom. She passed an old church, then St Paul’s loomed ahead of her on the right. That meant . . . got it! She was back on Foster Lane again. There was no longer a coffee shop or an office block in sight, and it wasn’t quiet and empty anymore. In this London it was lined with low-slung buildings of wood and stone, cobbled streets filthy with mud, and a seething chaos of people and noise that made the Night Post’s loading bay seem an oasis of calm.

  If she’d had to guess, she would have said a London without cars or normal humans would be quiet but it was anything but. Midnight London roared. The main road on Cheapside and the pavements around it were flooded with a raging torrent of people and traffic. Between the clatter of hooves, the crunchy grind of metal-banded wheels on cobbles, and the constant buzz, screech, chitter and roar of the crowd, the noise was deafening.

  The crowd was made up of the strangest people. They must have come from under beds and out of mirrors, up from caves and down from attics; all out of the darkness and into the moonlight. They were the Night Folk, and this was their world. They dressed as Victorians, but ranged from tiny to huge, from passing-for-human to not human at all. Grumpy-faced bearded men no higher than her knee, carrying huge baskets of washing, weaving in between the legs of striding ogres with jutting tusks, prancing centaurs, and glowing spectres dragging their chains. Amongst them people in smart suits with silver-headed walking canes, who she’d have taken for human if it hadn’t been for the glimpse of a fang, or a reddened eye. They strolled alongside the walking rockfalls that were huge, trudging trolls, merfolk all covered in seaweed and ponging of fish, elbow-to-elbow with brisk fur-faced wolf ladies and their packs of howling offspring. All around, everywhere she turned, were different sorts of Night Folk.

  Her eyes and heart and head were overfull; the waterfall of images was a wonder, not terrifying, or at least not just terrifying. It was a feast, and for all the awfulness of what was happening to her, she knew this was something special she’d take with her for the rest of her life. Which might not be very long if any of the crowd got peckish . . .

  Of all the things walking, sliding and flapping past, the thing that most stuck out (after the epic monsterness, obvs) were the hats. Everybody had one. There was a dizzying variety of top hats, from toweringly tall ones in gleaming silk, to battered and squashed things of thick brown card. There were bonnets, fancy floral numbers, and giant creations of silk and straw. The less well-off folk had boaters, bowlers, flat caps, scarves and tied-on rags. The poorer you got, the flatter your hat. The variety was never-ending, and many of them had holes in to let out horns, or snakes, or eye-stalks but, apart from the urchins, every single person, as long as they had a head, had a hat on.

  The middle of the road was a snarl of gryphon-drawn carriages, minotaur-pulled chariots, and a head-turning array of other types, including dog carts and weasel wagons for the smaller folk. They all rode and bounced across a cobbled road covered with such a deep layer of filth it made her gag from twenty metres away. Above it all was a constant flutter of bats, pigeons, glowing moths, small winged people (who had nowhere near enough clothes on for the weather), and the occasional long-winged, iridescent serpent, dancing in roiling knots that made Emily dizzy. Higher up was another layer of movement. At about the
same height as the rooftops, larger things flew. There were actual witches on broomsticks, as well as an older witch in a flying armchair with, Emily could have sworn, a pot of tea on a table gliding beside her. In and out of the broomstick highway zoomed riders on big black bicycles, and the ring of a familiar bell drifted down. The Night Post were up there too. She resisted the urge to wave but stood and gawped until someone walked straight into her.

  ‘Blinkin’ tourists! Some of us have to work here, you know!’

  Before Emily could gasp an apology, the fur-faced thing had bristled past, and she’d been knocked into the path of another pedestrian, a top-hat-wearing confusion of fangs and eyeballs.

  ‘I say!’

  Emily had to spin and dodge to avoid him, finding herself hurled into the main flow of people on the street and right into the path of a pillar of stone that floated along with no apparent means of propulsion.

  ‘Argh!’

  ‘*%$@’

  She squeaked out of the way of getting crushed, got ping-ponged along the street and ended up panting in a doorway, heart racing, as the crowd roared on past her. She squatted down, hugged her mum’s jacket tightly around her, grabbed on to the necklace of pennies with one hand and ground them between her fingers as she wished to wake up, or just be anywhere but here. She muttered and rocked for a minute or two, then, as she pulled the coat tighter, an indignant squeak came from her pocket.

  ‘Hoggins! I’m so sorry.’

  She eased her grip on the jacket, and teased him out of her pocket into her hand. She held him up before her and he wrinkled his nose, showing a tiny sharp tooth, but then softened and nuzzled the ball of her thumb with his nose.