Chapter 8 #
There it is. The gateway to the park.
Let me pull you in for a moment, because you have to see this. A wide wooden drawbridge crosses a moat. Normally, a shallow layer of water lies at the bottom, with a stray water lily here and there, just enough to keep the illusion going. But today the water is higher. It laps at the edge of the moat, murky and darker than it ought to be. The lilies have wilted, and there's a smell in the air that doesn't belong here: the salty tang of the sea, here in this small-time amusement park, miles from the coast.
Luna wrinkles her nose.
The wooden bridge leads to a gate that looks as though it has come straight out of a picture book: two towers, one on either side, joined by an arch bearing the name ‘Wonderworld’ in colourful letters.
The walls are covered in fake ivy threaded with pink and yellow plastic flowers. Above the gate hangs a large animatronic figure of the park's mascot: an elf in a green robe with pointed ears. He dangles there in silence, not switched on yet. Later, when the park opens, he'll wave and welcome visitors in a recorded voice. But for now he just hangs there, a lifeless ornament.
The park is still closed. The ticket booths behind the gate are dark and deserted, but there's movement all the same. Staff stream in through various entrances, some with coffee cups in hand, others yawning.
Will stops in the middle of the bridge.
His enthusiasm from a moment ago has vanished. He lifts his smartwatch a little, glances at it, then lets his arm drop again. His gaze rakes across the entrance, left to right, top to bottom. Searching.
Luna looks at him. "You said you were looking for something?"
"Yeah."
She waits a beat, but nothing more comes. "If you tell me what it is, I can help you look. I know where the lost and found is."
"No, no need." Will's eyes stay fixed on the entrance. "I'll just have a wander around."
"Okay." Luna has learned not to push.
They walk on across the bridge. Luna points left, at an unremarkable door behind the ticket booths. A grey door with the words NO ENTRY in red letters.
"We're going in there," Luna whispers. She casts a quick glance around to check whether anyone's noticed them. "With any luck, Vince won't be in until later today."
"Who?"
"The boss." Luna digs through the front pocket of her backpack and fishes out her keys. Her badge sits in a plastic holder dangling among her house keys. "Once the park opens, it gets busy fast." She hesitates. "Then you can't have a quiet look round without tripping over toddlers."
"Won't take me long," Will answers.
Luna holds the badge against a scanner beside the door. A beep, a green light. She pushes the door open and slips inside. Will follows, his movements smooth and soundless as a cat on the hunt. The door clicks shut behind them.
There. They're in.
They move down a narrow corridor with grey walls and fluorescent lights that buzz like a swarm of insects. Luna knows the way. She walks this route nearly every morning, her mind still half asleep. But today is different. Today there's a possible time traveller trailing after her. At the end of the corridor is a door with a sign that reads STAFF.
Luna lets them in. The staff room is the opposite of the fairy-tale world outside: soulless, functional, without a scrap of magic. Lockers dented and scratched down to the metal. A sink with a soap dispenser that's always empty. A coffee machine that wheezes out muddy water. A few small tables and chairs scattered about. Three colleagues sit hunched over their breakfasts, their faces lit by the blue glow of their phones. Nobody looks up.
Luna stows her backpack in her locker. She spins the combination lock — click, click, click — and pulls the door open. She puts her bag inside and takes out a green tabard, which she tugs on over her t-shirt. The grinning-elf logo stares back at her, a little faded after countless washes.
Will stands a few metres away. He looks relaxed, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders loose, but his eyes are watchful.
The door swings open. Luna turns and goes rigid.
Surprise…
Vince strides in as though he's playing the lead in his own corporate video. His neatly pressed polo shirt bears the park logo, his highly polished shoes click across the tiled floor, and a tablet is tucked under his arm like an extension of his body. His eyes sweep the room, hunting for anything out of place. And then he spots it: Will.
"Morning, Lina." His voice is flat. Professional courtesy, nothing more.
"Morning, Vince."
Vince's gaze shifts from Luna to Will and lingers there. He frowns slightly. "And who's this?"
Luna's shoulders tense. "This is Will. Could he maybe shadow me for the morning? As a volunteer?"
Vince's face stays blank. "No, he can't." He turns to Will. "If you're interested in volunteering, you can fill in the form on our website. Then we'll set up an appointment." His voice sharpens. "And if you just want to get into the park, you buy a ticket like everyone else. At the booth. We're not a charity."
Will seems to mull this over. Then he digs a hand into his pocket and produces his international coin collection once more: euros, pounds, dollars, things that look as though they came out of a pirate film. He holds out an open palm to Vince. "Can I buy a ticket with this?"
The fluorescent lights buzz. Someone yawns. The coffee machine burbles on. Vince stares at the coins as if Will has just offered him a dead fish.
"Is this a joke?" His voice takes on an edge. "Because I don't have time for it."
Luna turns quickly to Will. "Is that all you've got on you?" she whispers.
Will drops the coins back into his pocket and opens his mouth, probably to say something, but Vince gets there first.
‘Are you looking for a job?’ Vince lifts his tablet and starts tapping at it, his fingers irritatingly fast and efficient. ‘We need someone to serve ice cream at short notice. Any experience in hospitality?’
"Yeah. Loads of experience."
Vince looks up from his screen. "If you're interested, you can do a trial shift today with Alex."
Luna steps forward. "Sorry, I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding, Will isn't here to—"
But Will cuts her off. "Ice cream vendor. Sounds like a dream."
No, no, no.
"Good." Vince holds out his hand. "Vince Davies. Manager."
"Will." He shakes Vince's hand with confidence. "Pleasure."
The other staff look up now too, curious about their potential new colleague. "And while I've got you all," Vince says to his subordinates, "after all the rain last night we've got some flooding on the grounds." He taps at his tablet without looking up. "We're not going to make a drama out of it. We keep the park looking the way it should, whatever the weather. Visitors pay for a fairy-tale experience, not for excuses."
No one responds. There's no need to; Vince isn't expecting an answer, he's expecting obedience.
He walks over to a coat rack by the door where spare aprons hang from hooks. The same dark green as Luna's, the grinning elf mascot across the front. He pulls one off the hook and holds it out to Will, who takes it.
"Put it on," Vince says.
Will holds the apron out in front of him for a moment, as if sizing it up, then pulls it over his head. He straightens it and looks at Luna with an expression she can't quite place.
Vince nods in approval. "Good. At the end of the day you can let me know whether you want to apply properly. Then we'll follow the formal procedure."
Will grins broadly and claps Vince on the shoulder. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Vince. You won't regret it."
Luna turns towards him, her eyes wide and questioning. But Will doesn't seem to notice. Or he's ignoring it on purpose.
"Good. That's the kind of attitude I like." Vince gestures at the door. "Come on. I'll give you a tour of the park and then show you the ice cream parlour. Alex will get you settled in once he's here."
"I can do that," Luna says quickly, and her voice comes out more eager than she'd meant. "Shall I show him round?" It's a desperate attempt to save her plan. Her plan was: she keeps an eye on Will, asks him questions, works out what he's after, and then, hopefully, proves he's a time traveller. Not… this.
"The toilets by the entrance," Vince cuts in, not looking up from his tablet. His fingers are already tapping again, scrolling through what's probably his to-do list for the day. "There's a terrible sewage smell around them. Start there. Then work through the rest of your schedule."
Crap.
Literally.
Luna's hands clench into fists at her sides. "What am I supposed to do about a sewage smell? I'm not a plumber."
Vince's jaw tightens. His fingers stop tapping at the screen for one second, two seconds, before resuming a little harder than necessary. "If it's something you can't sort out yourself, then you report it to me. But check it out first. That's your job."
"Okay," she says.
"Welcome to Wonderworld, Will." Vince steers him towards a door on the far side of the room. "Family business. My father's handing it over to me after this season." Vince taps something away on his tablet and swings the outer door open. "I've got grand plans to modernise and cut costs. But there'll always be ice cream to sell."
They step outside, towards the heart of the park, the food court with the ice cream parlour, where Luna won't be able to keep an eye on him.
Will glances back over his shoulder at Luna. Their eyes meet. He gives a small, apologetic shrug, and then he's gone. The door swings shut behind them.
Luna stays behind in the staff room and stares at the closed door. She sighs and turns towards the cleaning cupboard in the corner. She grabs a bucket, a litter picker, a bin bag, and loads them onto the cart. Her movements are mechanical, drilled in by weeks of repetition, but her thoughts race. I catch fragments of them: Why did he do that? He must be up to something. But what? And how am I supposed to keep an eye on him now?
SMACK!
THUNK!
Jingle-jangle-CRASH!
My eyes fly open. I drop the selenite from my palm as if it were a burning coal, and it clatters onto the table.
"Lucky?" I call, getting up from my chair. "Lucky, what are you doing?"
Silence.
Suspicious.
I draw in a breath. The scent of incense and books mingles with something else. Something metallic…
Blood.
I don't know where it's coming from.
"Lucky? Where are you, girl?"
More silence.
I walk through the shop, in between the rugs and the poufs. Then I hear a soft "meow" from behind the shelf with my herb collection. I quicken my step.
Oh, fire and ash! Lucky sits right in the middle of the chaos. Glass jars lie all around her, some still whole, others in shards. The contents are strewn across the wooden floor: dried herbs, fine powder, and a green liquid seeping slowly towards the skirting boards.
"Lucky!" I crouch down, careful not to plant my bare feet in the mess. "What have you done, you little monster?"
She's unharmed, I can see that straight away. Against that shamelessly white coat, even the tiniest drop of blood would show. And believe me, if Lucky were in pain, you'd know about it. Once she got a minuscule thorn in her paw and the wailing carried right across the street. She acted as though she were dying. For three whole days.
Lucky looks up at me with those big blue eyes of hers. Utterly innocent. Me? No, not me. This was already here.
"Liar," I mutter, but I can't stay angry at her. I mean, look at her.
I start gathering up the jars. Let's see what the damage is. Slumberweed, for a good night's sleep. That one I can sweep up. And this… I pick up a larger jar that mercifully is still intact. The label is in my own handwriting, a little smudged with age. Dragon mint, for courage and confidence. A bit fiery on the tongue, but effective, for a little while at least.
I set it carefully back on the middle shelf in the cabinet, between the calming herbs and the—
My hand stalls.
I stare at the shelf. At the empty space between the dragon mint and the slumberweed. Something's missing. But what?
I try to call it to mind. This is the shelf for the powerful herbs and brews, the things you have to be careful with, the ones you don't just hand to any old customer. I sell them only to loyal regulars who know what they're doing. With instructions. With warnings.
Was it a jar of springbalm? No, I moved that recently. Maybe a sachet of dried forgetwort?
Ah, forgetwort. It helps you forget what you no longer want to remember. Stir a tablespoon into a glass of wine, then drink it while thinking, one last time and as hard as you can, about the thing you want gone. And then… poof. Vanished. As if it never happened. You feel lighter than ever.
I once stood there with that sachet in my hands. Ready to wipe out something dark from my past. The wine was poured, the spoon lay on the table. But then it struck me: if you erase the pain, you erase the wisdom along with it. The lesson you learned. So I put the sachet back on the shelf. Sometimes you have to embrace the shadow to appreciate the light.
The wine I did drink.
But it isn't forgetwort that's missing. Wait.
Devil's breath.
A cold shiver runs down my spine.
The vial. A small vial of dark glass with a cork stopper, containing a milky mist that churned restlessly as if searching for a way out. Devil's breath isn't a liquid; it's a vapour. So rare that most people don't even know it exists. A single whiff drops you into a deep hypnosis. It’s meant only for trusted healers trying to get through to a patient who can't be reached any other way.
A whole vial would be enough to daze a crowd. And that vial, that small vial with its swirling mist, is gone.
This is not good. This is not good at all. It can't just have vanished. Someone must have taken it.
I feel unbelievably stupid. I should never have left something that powerful sitting unattended on the shelf, not here in the shop where anyone can get at it. I should have found a safer place for it, somewhere under lock and key, in the safe in the back room, say. But it had stood there for years without anyone ever looking at it or asking after it. It had become invisible, part of the furniture. Until now.
I look down. Lucky is still staring up at me with those big eyes, her tail wrapped neatly around her paws.
"Sorry. It wasn't you, was it?" I stroke Lucky's head. "Someone was here."
"Meow."
"Come on, let's clear up this mess."
I go to the cabinet behind the counter and fetch the dustpan and brush I always keep there, because things have a habit of smashing to bits in a shop full of glass jars and a cat with the grace of a bowling ball. The shards jingle as I scrape them together. The powder clings to the bristles of the brush. The green liquid leaves a smear on the wood that I'll have to get out later with a damp cloth.
And then I see it. Amid the powder and the remains of a cracked jar lies something that doesn't belong there.
Something angular, ivory in colour. I set the brush down and reach for it.
A tooth. Sharp, curved and slightly longer than my little finger. Not a real tooth; the material is too light and too smooth. Latex, or rubber, or something of the sort. My stomach turns. I've seen this tooth before, set among monstrous jaws, in a mask that stared at me with hollow eyes full of darkness.
Lucky meows softly. Her blue eyes are wide and alert. My hand trembles faintly as I stroke her fur. She knows it, and now I know it too. "That creep was here."
Thanks for reading! #
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