The Toymakers(40)
The dog seemed happy to have a command. Springing to attention, it took off through the trees.
She did not know how long she lay there. The tightening returned, coiling her body, and though she tried to be ready for it, somehow it was always a step ahead of her, always leading her on. The way to get through it was to roll over, not to resist. She breathed when she could breathe – and when she could not, she simply held on.
She was lying there still when she heard the voice on the other side of the forest. ‘Miss Wray!’ it cried, and she came to her senses – because Kaspar was coming to her now, and at least she would not have to do it alone. Then a second voice cried out. ‘Cathy!’ it hollered. And she froze; because the second voice was coming from the opposite side of the shopfloor, and the second voice was Emil.
The patchwork dog gave one of its muted yaps and shambled out of the forest gloom. In moments it was on her, pushing its snout into her belly. When it drew back, Cathy saw that its paws were dark and wet; she was sitting in a pool of her own water. She was trailing her fingers through it, daring to feel what was happening underneath, when the voices cried out again. ‘Miss Wray!’ Kaspar exclaimed, and then, ‘Emil … what are you doing here?’
And, in a frightened voice: ‘Kaspar, how in God … how in God do you know?’
‘The dog came for me.’
‘It came for me too …’
Cathy looked into its black button eyes. It panted happily, proud to have done a good job. ‘You brought them both? Why did you bring them …’
‘Stand aside, Emil!’
‘Kaspar, you’re only making things worse …’
And then they were here. Abreast of each other they pushed through the hanging boughs, each one dropping at either side of her.
‘Kaspar,’ Emil began, ‘you’ll need to fetch some towels. Hot water too. Some of Papa’s whisky, to dull the pain …’
Cathy was riding the contraction, so she did not see the way Kaspar looked across her, as if disbelieving the evidence of his own ears. Was this really Emil, little brother Emil, brushing the hair out of Miss Wray’s eyes, telling her she would be all right?
Emil’s eyes widened. For a moment, he had the air of their papa, furious at being disobeyed. ‘Please, Kaspar. We’ll need to make her comfortable. There are drugs she could take, if only she were somewhere else. Morphine and scopolamine. Twilight Sleep. But she’ll have to …’ He stopped. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Kaspar. I read every book I could. I sent Mrs Hornung out to track down the journals. I—’
Perhaps Emil meant to go on, but he had seen the incredulous look on his brother’s face and, as he looked to Cathy to reassure her, he could not catch her eye – for she was looking up at Kaspar, her eyes locked with his. Her body was angled that way as well, moving there by imperceptible degrees. She was reaching out for him, thought Emil, reaching out for his brother.
He seized her other hand. ‘I know what to do,’ he whispered. Then, again, until it stopped being a statement and turned into a question. ‘I know what to do. I do know, Kaspar. I know what to …’
‘Emil, you’d better raid Papa’s cupboard. Brandy, rather than whisky. One of his liqueurs. And the pillows, the pillows from the Wendy House. I stashed a full set under the bed. We have to make her comfortable.’
How daring it had felt to be issuing orders, and yet how familiar to have them being issued at him. Emil was rising to the tips of his toes to do as he was told when a thought occurred to him. It opened up a great pit and swallowed him whole. ‘You’re the one who hid her here, aren’t you, Kaspar?’
Kaspar’s eyes darted at him. ‘Well, what did you think had happened, little brother?’ Then he was stroking Cathy’s face again, drawing a finger gently along the line of her jaw. On the ground, Cathy’s lips moved in imitation of his name. She knew she was close, but Kaspar seemed so far away. ‘I want you to listen to me, Miss Wray. Listen to me and know: it isn’t going to be easy, but it will be all right. Do you understand? Do you believe me, Miss Wray?’
Cathy opened her mouth to say yes, yes she did believe him (and damn you, Kaspar Godman, but I told you to stop calling me that!), but it was too late. Other hands had hold of her now. Kaspar held on to her left, Emil held on to her right, but those other fingers held the rest of her body in their vice-like grasp. She took a breath before they started to close in. Moments later they were squeezing the life out of her and there was nothing Cathy Wray could do but lie back and hope.
THE TRUE HISTORY OF TOYS
PAPA JACK’S EMPORIUM, MAY–SEPTEMBER 1907
Consider Jekabs Godman: older than you think him, though you already think him as old as mountains. Tonight, if you were the kind of person to have taken a post at Papa Jack’s Emporium just to get close to the old wayfarer, to soak up his secrets as a tree soaks up the secrets of earth and rain, you would have found him asleep in his chair, for even toymakers of the highest renown grow tired, and, with the passing years, Papa Jack grows more weary than ever.
Watch him now, as he wakes …
Perhaps it is a dream that stirs him. Perhaps you think Papa Jack dreams of yet more fantastical creations to populate his shelves, but he does not. Papa Jack’s dreams are the dreams of wild places. They are the dreams of a young man who was once a carpenter, who might have been a carpenter still, if only his life had gone according to plan. These are not dreams any child wandering into the Emporium at winter should be permitted to see. If you were a caring parent you would shield your sons and daughters from memories like these. Better they remain where they belong, locked away behind those glacial eyes, while Papa Jack’s hands do their everyday work, threading life into patchwork creatures, spiriting up space out of nowhere, unlocking the world as it appears to a child.