The Shadow Thief Read online

  The man who rose was also portly with ruddy cheeks and a walrus moustache. When both figures were standing, everyone bowed, Gristle so low that Milli thought he would topple right over. Watching the pompous pair, the children blinked in disbelief. It had taken them several moments to recognise the familiar faces of Mr and Mrs Mayor—they looked so different from the way they remembered them from public appearances that they were almost unrecognisable. Instead of his usual colourless suit Mr Mayor was wearing a medley of colours including a purple and gold tunic, green stockings and yellow gumboots while his gingery hair stuck out at all angles from beneath a pirate’s hat. Beside him, Mrs Mayor wore a frothy ballgown which billowed out around her and a pair of fluffy pink mules. (By mules I am not referring to beasts of burden, but rather to a kind of dainty slipper which leaves the heel exposed.) Mrs Mayor was also wearing a pair of silver fishnet gloves and an enormous satin bow tied up her golden ringlets. Milli would have giggled had she not been so overwhelmed by the spectacle before her.

  ‘Millipop Klompet and Ernest Perriclof!’ Mrs Mayor simpered. ‘Welcome to your new home.’

  Too stunned to respond, the children once again found themselves propelled forward by Gristle, who seemed to be growing increasingly irate with their tardiness.

  The Mayors stepped down from their platform and leisurely circled the children. Mrs Mayor peered at Milli through a pair of opera glasses, frowning and smiling in turn as if she was trying to make up her mind about something. Meanwhile, Mr Mayor surveyed Ernest from head to foot as if he were a prize pooch at a dog show.

  ‘Bit scrawny,’ was his verdict.

  As the Mayors moved, Milli and Ernest noticed a peculiar thing. Something else was moving with them, like a ghost. The children’s first reaction was a sharp intake of breath. Both ducked for cover, Ernest believing it to be a bat diving from a stone lintel and Milli convinced it was a kidnapping ghoul from the underworld. But it was neither bat nor ghoul.

  They caught sight of it again when Mrs Mayor raised a hand to examine Ernest’s lustrous curls. A featureless wisp of something dark mimicked her gesture. When she moved into the darkness, the thing vanished, but back in the firelight it flickered and danced around her like a living thing. When Mr Mayor stepped into the light the same thing happened: beside him an elongated wisp rippled on the stone. Although it was black and featureless, there was no doubting it was part of Mr Mayor, like a trunk is part of an elephant.

  ‘They are called shadows,’ Mrs Mayor purred patronisingly, noticing the children’s fretful faces.

  ‘Shadows?’ Milli repeated in a small voice.

  ‘You haven’t noticed before? No, I suppose not. It’s difficult to see something you don’t even know exists. And those,’ she waved a gloved hand lazily towards the red-robed figures, ‘are the Shadow Keepers.’

  Milli was about to ask exactly what a shadow was and why it needed a keeper, when Mrs Mayor went on, ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea why you are here?’

  Milli and Ernest did not answer, waiting for what they hoped would be an explanation. But none was offered.

  ‘Do you know what the punishment is for the serious offences you have committed?’ The children felt their palms grow clammy with dread. Mrs Mayor smiled sweetly. ‘I now declare you prisoners of Hog House.’

  If you have ever been in a situation similar to this one, then you will know that a threat sounds all the more threatening when the person delivering it is smiling. Mrs Mayor was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tickled Pink

  Up until now Mrs Mayor had been doing all the talking. It was obvious who wore the pants in this relationship. Mr Mayor must have noticed this himself because he seemed to suddenly spring to life and coughed loudly to gain the attention of his audience.

  ‘As prisoners of Hog House,’ he said, directing his gaze towards Milli and Ernest, ‘you will work for your keep. You will be assigned tasks and presented with work garments, which you must wear at all times. Do not be deceived by my debonair charm. I assure you that any breach of conduct will be dealt with most severely.’

  Mrs Mayor beamed proudly at her husband. Then, taking him by the arm, she cast a contemptuous glance at the captives and marched off. But before taking more than a few steps she stumbled, losing a slipper as its pencil heel became caught between some cobblestones. Mr Mayor nearly gave himself concussion as he dived chivalrously to the ground to retrieve it.

  ‘Here you go, Ornament of my Life.’

  Mrs Mayor wedged her plump foot back into the dainty slipper before resuming her imperial departure. Watching her go, Milli couldn’t help but think that Mrs Mayor rather reminded her of a walking wedding cake.

  Gristle interrupted her thoughts by thrusting a pair of tattered black overalls into her arms. Ernest looked at his with distaste and wrinkled his nose.

  ‘I can’t wear these,’ he explained to Gristle, who looked as if he was on the verge of punching him. ‘Coarse fabrics aggravate my eczema. I have been advised to avoid them.’

  Milli yanked him away just as Gristle swung.

  The red-robed figures, who Mrs Mayor had called the Shadow Keepers, were faceless wraiths. They looked like hoary old birds, so tall they stooped. Their usually languorous movements became lightning quick the moment they sensed anything amiss. They carried their skeletal hands folded in their sleeves like monks and unsightly chicken feet protruded from beneath swirling robes. The only time you caught glimpses of their faces was whenever their hoods slipped a little. When this happened you might see cracked beaks where noses should have been and, in place of ears, tubular and furry appendages designed to pick up even the faintest of vibrations. Their red-rimmed eyes were wolfish. Arms outstretched, these alarming beings ushered Milli and Ernest out of the arena and through a maze of passageways until they came out into the magnificent sunlit grounds where the other prisoners were already waiting. As Milli surveyed the prisoners, she saw that the black wisps also hovered beside each of them. There were hefty ones, titchy ones, hunched ones and lanky ones, each doing exactly as its owner did. Their troubles momentarily forgotten, the children laughed in delight to find that their own shadows were equally playful.

  The frivolity ended abruptly with the allocation of the day’s labour. Their task was picking fruit in the orchards overlooking the murky waters of the River Slop which wound around the rear of the grounds.

  One of the first discoveries made by the children was that most of the foods prohibited in Drabville grew in abundance in the orchards of Hog House. There were vines laden with passionfruit, strawberry runners, buckleberry bushes, knobfruits, melon-bobbins, elbow-grapes, mopquats, fleecy-apples and every other fruit imaginable. Because of their agility, Milli and Ernest were set to work picking a fruit called peaches, which grew on trees. The heavy golden orbs with their furry surfaces were surely not edible? The syrupy scent was so tantalising that at the first opportunity Milli lifted one to her mouth.

  ‘No, Milli, you might be allergic,’ Ernest cautioned.

  A woman working in an adjacent tree just laughed. Milli saw it was the same woman who had watched her so intently back in the arena. ‘Go on, take a bite. They’re delicious,’ she encouraged. ‘Quick, while no one’s looking.’

  So Milli did. The flavour exploded in her mouth and the sticky, sweet juice ran down her chin and fingers. How much more exciting than apples or pears was this fleshy, fuzzy fruit. Milli passed the peach to Ernest who took a hesitant bite before devouring it in an instant.

  When you are compelled to do it all morning the novelty of fruit picking quickly wears off. After several hours of toiling under the hot sun the children began to grow weary. The process was a tiresome one.

  The peaches were gathered in slings before being delicately deposited into brightly painted carts that stood waiting below. They were then trundled away to the airy kitchens by white gloved dwarfs in cropped jackets where they would be transformed into all manner of delicacies
. The whole scene looked like something out of a pantomime. But it wasn’t a pantomime, Milli thought miserably, this was real.

  At midday they were permitted a short break and rested under the shade of some jujube trees. Flasks of water and hunks of unappetising and rock-dry bread were passed around. Up close Milli could see that the woman who had encouraged them to try the fruit was quite young and might have been attractive had she not looked so tired. Although ringed with dark circles, her eyes still managed to retain a flicker of the liveliness she must once have possessed. A thick, dark braid hung down her back interspersed with sparse threads of silver. Milli noticed her hands: slender, although coarsened from hard work.

  Their hunger appeased, the children could not contain themselves any longer and all the questions that had been brewing inside them erupted at once. The woman smiled patiently and introduced herself as Rosie.

  ‘I know it must be confusing,’ she told them. ‘It does take a while to put all the pieces together.’

  ‘What pieces? What is going on here?’

  ‘That’s too long a story for now, especially with the Shadow Keepers so close, but what I can tell you is that we must all work together.’

  ‘What can we possibly do?’ Ernest wailed. Again Rosie smiled kindly but did not answer immediately.

  ‘Millipop Klompet and Ernest Perriclof,’ she mused, seeming to savour their names on her tongue. ‘I was beginning to wonder when they’d notice you two.’

  ‘When who’d notice us?’ they cried in unison. This conversation was not proving at all enlightening and Rosie seemed to be speaking in riddles.

  ‘Hello!’ A blond head popped through the leaves of a nearby shrub, giving Ernest such a fright that he toppled backwards.

  The boy with the startling eyes who had looked familiar to Milli back in the arena was grinning broadly through the branches. Milli stared hard at him. Where did she know him from? He was too old to be a classmate and yet the sea-green eyes and thatch of straw-coloured hair growing as vertical as a scrubbing brush were so very familiar. She did not, however, remember the tanned skin or muscular arms, but the boy had such a sunny attractiveness it was hard not to gawk at him.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Milli eventually mustered the temerity to ask.

  ‘Don’t you remember me?’ The boy grinned impishly. ‘I’m Leo.’

  With the prisoners escorted to individual cells after supper, another opportunity for discussion did not present itself until early the next morning when, after a breakfast of soggy porridge and burnt toast, the prisoners gathered together in what they referred to as the common room. Here they were free to play cards or flip through dated magazines before they were assigned their day’s work.

  The common room was really more of an empty space with four walls than an actual room. Someone had tried to make it more homely by arranging two grubby velvet couches in an L-shape around a threadbare rug. An upturned packing crate served as a coffee table. There was a sink and a blackened kettle for brewing tea. Milli and Ernest found a quiet corner and amidst the low chatter sipped watery tea out of the chipped mugs Rosie handed them. They had to go without sugar or milk. As they drank, they listened intently to what Rosie and Leo had to tell them.

  ‘Very few people know this, but a shadow is much more than just a smudge trailing you wherever you go,’ Rosie began. ‘It is your life force. It holds everything that makes you unique. Without it you are like wet clay that anyone can shape.’

  ‘What has that got to do with us being here?’ Milli interrupted.

  ‘You are here because the shadow of every Drabvillian has been stolen! The trouble began long ago when an evil magician gradually stole the shadow of every man, woman and child until there was no one left to protest. Why do you think the people heel, sit, stay and roll over at the Mayors’ command? Hasn’t it ever struck you as odd that nobody questions the Code of Conduct?’

  ‘Except us,’ Milli corrected.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosie agreed. ‘Every now and then a plucky shadow will fight back, resist the separation and make its way home. They always come for you when that happens.’

  ‘Why take prisoners?’ Ernest asked. ‘Why not just take back the shadow?’

  ‘It’s near impossible to detach a shadow that has rejoined its owner,’ Rosie replied. ‘They say the separation can only occur at a moment of vulnerability. The shadows are duped the first time but they’re too clever to fall for the same trick again. If your shadow manages to find its way back, you are whisked away to these dungeons before you have time to stir up trouble.’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ Milli remonstrated (which is really just a fancy word for saying she disagreed but is more suited to her fiery personality). ‘I’ve been this way for ages. Why haven’t they come for me before?’

  ‘They don’t take much notice of children,’ Rosie shrugged. ‘Adults are the ones with the power to undo everything that has been created. You two made the mistake of venturing into the Taboo Territories just as Leo drew attention to himself by not returning his library book.’

  ‘Why haven’t you tried to escape? Doesn’t having a shadow count for anything?’

  ‘Not with the Shadow Keepers around,’ Rosie explained. Then her face lit up with mischief. ‘They might stop us leaving but they can’t stop us thinking.’

  ‘How could all this have happened?’ asked a dumbfounded Ernest.

  ‘Slowly,’ was Rosie’s answer. ‘The way in which most terrible things come about. So slowly it was barely noticeable.’

  ‘So, what does this magician want with shadows?’ Milli asked. Rosie leaned forward and lowered her voice to a murmur.

  ‘Nobody knows.’

  Milli frowned, trying to make sense of the inconceivable story.

  ‘What about the shadows that don’t escape?’

  ‘They are being kept prisoner where no one can find them. It is only the shadows that escaped to be reunited with their owners that are imprisoned here at Hog House.’

  ‘How do they know when a shadow’s escaped?’

  ‘A person with a shadow stands out like a sore thumb in Drabville,’ Leo said. ‘And Lord Aldor has plenty of spies working for him.’

  ‘Who is Lord Aldor?’ Ernest asked.

  ‘Aldor the Illustrious—the mastermind behind Hog House, the Mayors and all their plans. Otherwise known as the Shadow Thief.’

  Milli and Ernest leaned forward eagerly, sensing a key piece of the puzzle was about to be revealed. Unfortunately, the door of the common room was flung open at that very moment and Gristle’s bulk filled the doorway. He pointed a finger at Milli and Ernest.

  ‘You there, come with me!’

  The children rose obediently and followed Gristle into the elevator and up to the first floor of Hog House. Gristle stopped outside two very different doors, one either side of the corridor.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he mocked, ‘looks like you’ve bin promoted to more important duties.’ He knocked on the heavy wood panelling of the first door and nudged Ernest inside.

  The second door was painted baby pink and decorated with fat flying cupids blowing horns and firing arrows. Once inside, Milli realised that she was standing in Mrs Mayor’s private boudoir. I personally couldn’t put into words the extent of the luxury suggested by this interior. In fact, it was as if all the unemployed interior decorators in the world had been set to work at once. Mirrors in ornate frames the shape of flowers and curling vines crowded every wall. The carpet was fluffy, ankle deep and a soft powder pink in colour. Huge piles of obscenely plush and embroidered pillows towered almost to the ceiling. Porcelain dolls with delicately painted faces and satin breeches sat in a neat circle around a child’s tea set. This room was bigger than Milli’s entire house back in Peppercorn Place. She was surprised to see a miniature ferris wheel in a corner, decorated with marzipan acorns and fairy lights. She was later to discover that Mrs Mayor referred to this as her ‘meditation wheel’.

  Strange as all this was, the
most fantastical thing about Mrs Mayor’s boudoir was definitely the air. Yes, the air. You are probably wondering what could have been so amazing about the air. Air, as you and I know it, can be described as clear, odourless and necessary for life. It is not all that exciting in molecular terms but here, in Marjorie Mayor’s bedroom, it was thick with pink and silver glitter, the consistency of a fine powder, which floated dreamily around the room. As if this wasn’t enough, swirly puffs of luminous pink smoke crept from under the bathroom door. The effect of this pink fog was that your nose felt permanently tickled. Milli was glad Ernest and his allergies had been spared this exposure for it would have undoubtedly brought on an attack of wheezing.

  Mrs Mayor herself was seated at the largest dressing table Milli had ever seen, while a maid fussed busily about, painting her toenails in black and white zebra stripes.

  ‘Don’t just stand there gawping, child,’ Mrs Mayor snapped. ‘Come and let me have a look at you.’

  Milli walked over hesitantly while Mrs Mayor watched her with a critical eye.

  ‘We’re going to have to do something about that pigeon-toed stance. But first, into the tub with her!’ She snapped her fingers and a stocky little maid appeared from the bathroom. ‘Burn those filthy overalls she’s wearing and bring some of Agapanthus Regina’s old dresses.’

  Milli scowled as the maid led her towards the steamy bathroom. Mrs Mayor had conveniently forgotten that it was she who had made Milli wear the hideous overalls in the first place.

  Half an hour later Milli emerged from the bathroom. Her cheeks were shiny, her hair smelled of macadamia nut shampoo and every inch of her tingled with cleanliness. Mrs Mayor was busy sorting through a collection of repulsive dresses. Milli thought she must be very bored to have to resort to playing dress-ups for entertainment.

  By midday, one thing Milli had learned was that Mrs Mayor was not so much bored as dreadfully and unashamedly conceited. She could stare into a mirror for hours wearing a dreamy expression on her face, which was only broken by the occasional oooh or ahhh of satisfaction. Sometimes she stroked her cheeks and made pouting faces at herself, all the while alluding to how important it was to always look one’s best. Having finished her own personal grooming, Mrs Mayor turned her attention to Milli, whose own curls were soon piled on top of her head in a cone. She was also forced to squeeze into the tiniest of dancing shoes while her overalls were swapped for a party frock made entirely of lime green taffeta in the shape of maple leaves. Her nails were then painted in colours bright enough to make your eyes water and her face powdered whiter than the china dolls’. There was no doubting what had happened: Milli had been adopted.