“And even then, he was only mildly perturbed. I don’t think he had the anger chip,” Maggie agreed.
“That’s rather nice, really, to have a parent who never gets angry,” Vanessa mused.
They were all quiet for a moment, and Star wondered if maybe Augustus’s plan wasn’t quite so silly after all. Already they’d found a common ground that had been notably absent for the last few years.
“Well, whenever you’re ready, you’ve each got a key still?”
The sisters nodded.
“Good. I’ve got spares if anybody needs them, but otherwise you can start whenever you like. But you must work together. That stipulation was very clear. Good luck!”
7
It was unanimously decided—a miracle in itself—that Maggie, Simone, and Star should go straight to their father’s shop and make a start on finding the Monopoly houses.
“Didn’t you go into the shop when he died?” asked Simone as they hovered around the door. Maggie held the key but was struck by a sudden reluctance to push it into the lock, as though once she turned the key there would be no turning back.
“Why would I? I only needed to get into the flat,” she replied, as though rebutting an accusation.
“You weren’t tempted at all? Even just to look around?” Simone pressed.
Maggie tried to articulate her feelings. “You know the old question ‘If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound?’ Well, that’s how I’ve always felt about the shop when Dad wasn’t here. As though it doesn’t exist without his presence, or it does exist but it’s an empty shell, dead and blackened.”
Maggie waited for Simone’s derisive laugh, but it didn’t come.
“I actually know what you mean.” Simone nodded. “I kind of feel the same way about the flat too; that’s why I was surprised you stayed there by yourself, Star. I’m not sure I would have.”
“The flat’s different,” Star said. “It feels like home—to me anyway. It was the only place in my life that remained constant.” The wistfulness in her tone didn’t go unnoticed by her sisters.
The flat above the shop could be accessed by a separate entrance, via a wooden gate built into the Tudor limestone wall that faced the high street. The North land in its entirety—including the building, gardens, and extensive woodlands—was enclosed within ten-foot-high walls. Those high-security walls had granted the sisters much freedom growing up, lending them ten and a half acres to play in. How could it not feel like an enchanted place, insulated from the world outside, surrounded by ancient trees and lawns that stretched out like daisy-covered carpets? Even the shop had felt charmed, with hidden panels in the walls and shiny things glinting out from every surface.
Maggie was still holding the key to North Novelties & Curios, as though hoping someone would take it from her, but neither of her sisters seemed inclined to do so. The blinds were fully down at the windows and thick cobwebs had layered in the corners of the frames; black bodies of cocooned insects were suspended in the voluptuous froth of white. On the outside, most of the paint on the frames and sills had flaked off, and what remained was brittle and bubbled. The overall impression now was more haunted than magic.
“When was the last time you went in?” Simone asked.
Maggie thought back. “Before the last time he left, so five years ago, I guess. Verity had been five when he’d taken off, she’ll turn eleven in the spring. She hardly remembers him; it’s a shame, really. I would have liked the kids to have known their grandfather better.”
“It isn’t your fault that they didn’t. That’s on him.”
“How about you?”
“When was I last at the shop?” Simone asked, and Maggie nodded. “Christ knows. Verity’s baptism maybe?”
“I’m looking forward to having a good snoop around,” said Star, a look of glee on her face.
Simone chuckled. “Now that it’s daylight and you’ve got both of us with you, you’re feeling brave.”
“Exactly.”
“I feel stressed just thinking about the disorder inside. It was fun when we were kids, but that’s because it wasn’t our shit to deal with.”
“Well, you’d better see if you can score some Valium to calm you down, then, because we’ve got no choice now. The old codger’s going to make us sort through all his crap whether we like it or not,” said Simone dryly.
“It’s going to be even worse if he’s been sending his finds back from his travels. We’ll have to go through all that junk as well.”
“Let’s concentrate on finding the Monopoly houses first.”
Artemis hopped up onto the window ledge and rubbed her head against Maggie’s hand, purring and nudging her to turn the key.
“Right!” she said, gathering herself. “We’re going in.”
* * *
The shop was long and narrow, reaching so far back that the daylight was lost to cave-like shadow by the time it reached the end. The space was unnervingly cluttered, the kind of place that could only fit one person in each aisle at a time. Not that they much resembled aisles in the traditional sense; there wasn’t a straight line in the place. Instead they meandered lazily, curving in on themselves like a maze made of head-height bric-a-brac instead of hedges, so that every now and then you’d find yourself at a dead end and have to shuffle back out the way you’d come. The floor was original flagstone, worn smooth over time but still uneven enough to cause the freestanding shelving units to list alarmingly. In places, faded rugs laid threadbare and footworn.
Then there was the snarled-up mass of merchandise itself. A porcelain figurine inside a yellow diving helmet behind a cow-shaped butter dish, draped in a silk scarf, beside a 1939 hardcover edition of Macbeth, which lay beneath a wooden mouse . . . and so it went in an eclectic jumble of items so tightly packed it was hard for the eye to single out one object from the next. Much of the tangle seemed to defy gravity as it teetered precariously on the shelves without falling.
At the back of the shop, behind a mahogany-and-glass display unit, which looked as antique as the brooches and pocket watches it housed, was the wall of clocks. Each one’s hands had stopped at exactly seventeen minutes past three.
“What time did Dad die?” asked Star, as the three sisters stood looking up at the wall of silent timekeepers.
“Don’t even start with your nonsense,” warned Simone.
“What?” she asked innocently.
“You’re going to suggest that all the clocks stopped at the time he died, aren’t you?” said Simone.
“Well, even you have to admit, it’s a bit spooky,” she retorted.
“Romantic as that idea is, Star, I’m afraid those clocks probably wound down a week after Dad left for his last expedition,” said Maggie kindly.
“I’d hardly call our father’s wanderings ‘expeditions,’？” said Simone.
“Why not?” asked Maggie. “He was exploring in his own way. He’s a lot better traveled than I’ll ever be.”
“Yes, but at what cost? He barely even knew his own children.” Simone’s expression was petulant.