The Devil's Apprentice Read online

  ‘What are you doing?’ says Thom. ‘I’m supposed to be the cobbler. I’m the best in town.’

  ‘I’m the best in the world,’ says the goblin, unanswerably.

  ‘But... the Devil promised–’

  ‘He promised you’d be the most successful,’ says the goblin. ‘From now on, I make the shoes.’

  It is a well-known and much-overlooked fact that the Devil cannot create anything – he cannot endow you with talent or beauty beyond your capacity – he can only cheat. Bear this in mind, if ever you seek a compact with him. The devil, quite literally, is in the small print.

  With the help of the goblin, Thom became famous not only in the town but throughout the whole country. His rival grew older and wearier before his eyes. The wedding went ahead, but a year later, declining into debt, Nicholas died, reputedly choking on his own handshake, and his widow and baby daughter were left destitute. Thom married her, saying he would try to be a true father to the child, but although she was grateful to him she never loved him, and they had no children of their own. His success, being founded on the skill and genius of another, gave him no satisfaction, his marriage no affection, and it seemed to him his whole life was turned to ashes. Only his step-daughter – the child of his now-forgotten rival – made him happy, for she was the apple of his eye. His wife got sick, and died, and his beloved Isobel was all he had left.

  At first he could barely endure the sight of the goblin on whom his fortune depended, but later he began to watch him at work, hoping to learn from him, and as the years passed he realised this strange magical being was the only person in whom he could confide. He tried to make shoes again, for he had been a good cobbler once, but his fingers were thick and clumsy compared with the quicksilver digits of his helper. Nonetheless, they would drink tea together, and talk, and if such a friendship was possible, they became friends.

  The goblin, like all werekind, had no understanding of human morality or loyalty, and knew nothing beyond the Devil’s own laws. In all his immortal existence, he had never had a friend.

  Thom didn’t know his name. Werefolk and spellfolk may have many names, but some will have a truename, which they keep secret, telling it only to a chosen few, since that name has great power over them, and can be used to conjure or curse. Few goblins are important enough to bear such a name, but this goblin was clever and unique amongst his kind, and he had a name to conjure with, though he told it to no one.

  On her sixteenth birthday Thom was giving a party for his step-daughter, to which all the eligible young men in the area – and some from far away – would be invited. What he wanted more than anything was to make her shoes for the occasion himself. He worked on them for weeks, advised by the goblin, stitching and unstitching late into the night, determined to make them perfect, or as near perfect as possible. The goblin’s shoes, as we know, were perfect, but even Isobel did not know of his existence, nor the deception that was her stepfather’s life and livelihood. Thom sewed the shoes with minute crystals, so they sparkled like winter frost, and lined them with silk to feel soft on her feet, which, to his eyes, were the daintiest feet in the world. His soul was much eroded with the bitterness of the years, but as he made the shoes, it seemed to grow again, filling him with a new flame, and when he set the last stitch his soul went out of him, and into the shoes for his daughter to wear. So they glowed with a special glow, for even the magic of the goblin could not match the magic of a mortal soul. When they say of someone he puts his soul into his work, remember there are times when it is true.

  Thom gave Isobel the shoes on the morning of her birthday, and her face lit with pleasure at the beauty of them. But privately she told her old nurse she could not wear them that night, for her new party dress was pink, with rose-coloured dancing slippers to match. The goblin, overhearing – goblins overhear everything – stole into her room with a ladleful of the soup the cook had bubbling in the kitchen, and spilt it down the pink dress, and when Isobel saw she exclaimed in horror and surprise, for nobody knew how the accident could have happened. But it meant she would now wear her white dress, with her father’s shoes. Only the goblin knew that he had put his soul into them, and if Isobel did not wear them his heart would break indeed.

  That evening before the party Thom went into his workshop to thank the goblin for all his efforts, and there was the Devil sitting in Thom’s own chair, very much at his ease – the Devil has plenty of ease to be at – smoking. What he was smoking wasn’t clear, but smoke was definitely involved.

  ‘I did not call you,’ said Thom. He had given the wishing stone to the goblin to hide for him, so none other would ever find it or make use of it.

  ‘I hear you are trying for a second chance,’ said the Devil. ‘Not possible, I’m afraid. No loopholes in your contract.’ He snapped his fingers and the scroll appeared in his hand, unrolling by itself, and there was Thom’s signature, with the blood still dripping down the page.

  ‘You cheated,’ said Thom. ‘So can I.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said the Devil, ‘I’ll offer you an extension. Only give me those shoes you’ve made, and a young man will come to the party tonight who will be as handsome as a god and as rich as a prince, and he will fall instantly in love with your step-daughter, marry her, and give her everything she could possibly wish for. I know how much you love her; wouldn’t this be a better present than a pair of shoes?’

  ‘Not all gods are handsome nor all princes rich,’ said Thom, who had learned from his mistakes. ‘And even were this youth the handsomest and richest of men, it doesn’t follow that my daughter would love him. She may prefer someone plain, and poor, and kind. I will trust to her judgement, and to fate. There is nothing more you can offer me.’

  The Devil smiled. It was not a pleasant sight.

  ‘What if that young man comes to the party, and your daughter falls for him, and he marries her, and takes her far away, so you never see her again?’

  ‘So be it,’ said Thom. ‘She will have my shoes.’

  At that the Devil’s eyes flashed red lightning, and he vanished in a puff of smoke and fury, for he knew Thom no longer belonged to him, since he had given his soul to Isobel. But behind the mask of his satanic persona is a rancorous and revengeful spirit, who never gives up, never lets go, and knows there is more than one way to cheat at cards. The goblin was still his creature, the slave he had loaned to a gentler master. Now, the Devil recalled him to his service.

  ‘You sewed those shoes with our Thom, did you not?’

  ‘No, lord,’ said the goblin. ‘He made them all himself. That was how he wanted it.’

  ‘I see. Then take these gemstones, and sew them secretly onto each of the girl’s shoes.’ His hand uncurled, and in his palm lay two diamonds, as pure and bright as chips of ice. ‘Once my mark is on the shoes, then you can becharm them.’

  The goblin did not want to obey, but he had no choice. ‘We must give the man a chance,’ he demurred. ‘Those are the rules. The charm must have one chance to work, one chance to fail.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the Devil, who was skilled at fixing every kind of luck. ‘One chance. The charm will not work, until he dances with Isobel himself. But I defy any loving father to refrain on his daughter’s birthday!’ And he laughed an evil laugh, which rolled round and round the room by itself, bouncing off the walls.

  The goblin knew he could not warn his friend – that was not allowed – but he put a nail in his boot, and when Thom thrust his foot into it the point drove into him, hurting him so badly he knew he would not dance that night. The nurse said there seemed to be a hex on the place, what with the spilt soup and now the hidden nail, and Thom frowned thoughtfully, because he knew that hexes are goblins’ work. He thought his friend was turning against him, perhaps encouraged or coerced by the Devil, and he sighed, because he had always been told there could be no real friendship between mortal and immortal folk, and now he feared it was true.

  ‘Yet I believed you had an honest
heart,’ Thom said aloud, ‘whatever your nature. Now I know you are as others of your kith, mischievous and cruel.’

  Hearing that the goblin might have wept, but his sort had no tears, and the heart he had grown in all the years with Thomas Cutforth swelled within him. He wrote a rhyme on a piece of paper, and unknown to Thom he slipped it in his pocket. And then Thom went limping to the party.

  Isobel glittered in her white dress, and danced like a fairy in her wonderful shoes, and everyone there said they were the finest shoes Thom had ever made. There were young men there both rich and handsome, but the most charming of them all danced three dances with Isobel, and looked at her with devil’s eyes, saying: ‘Why do you not dance with your father on such a special day?’

  ‘He’s hurt his foot,’ said Isobel. ‘But indeed, I would rather dance with him than anyone else here.’

  ‘Then tell him so,’ said the charmer.

  So Isobel went to her father, pleading for just one dance, if he could manage it. ‘You can lean on me,’ she said, ‘and then it won’t hurt your foot. Please try to dance with me. It’s my birthday, and you are the man I love best in the world.’

  Then of course Thom agreed, for he knew she would not say that much longer, and he got up, bracing himself against the pain, and followed her onto the floor. There was a whisper in his ear though nobody was nearby – Your pocket... look in your pocket – but he paid no attention.

  They began to dance.

  Immediately Isobel’s shoes sparkled more brightly, and the sparkles drifted like stardust around her feet, and she seemed to be floating, spinning, dancing faster, faster... ‘You go too fast,’ her father cried, ‘too fast for me –’ But she could not slow down, her feet were no longer her own, and her shoes whirled her round and round, and the Devil’s laughter rolled from floor to ceiling and back again, and there was a smell of brimstone. The charmer disappeared into his own shadow, tall and dark against the candles that lit the room, and the voice of the Devil said: ‘She cannot stop! She will not stop! Your shoes will dance her till she dies! Thus the fate of all who try to cheat me of my dues!’

  The guests fell back in horror, and Thom was stricken to the heart, watching his daughter’s suffering, but once again the whisper came in his ear, softer than a sigh: Look in your pocket! The rhyme – the rhyme!

  He pulled out the piece of paper – unfolded it – saw what was written there and knew it for the goblin’s secret name. He read the verse aloud, softly at first, then in a stronger voice.

  ‘Jimminy-chu Jimminy-chu

  Unloose the charm on my daughter’s shoe!’

  The two diamonds flew off the shoes, and the spell was broken, and Isobel collapsed half fainting into her father’s arms. And in the empty workshop Thom’s ancient contract flared into flame and burned to a cinder, for the demon’s hold over him was gone for good.

  But the Devil’s rage knew no bounds, and he shrieked like a howling wind, so all in the room covered their ears. In the shriek Thom heard the goblin’s name, and knew the Devil would punish him for such a betrayal with torment beyond imagining, and at last he understood the courage and self-sacrifice of his unhuman friend. But the goblin fled fast and far, and crept through a chink in Time, and the story says that even the Devil, who sees all the kingdoms of the Earth, and all the realms of magic, could not find him. Yet he is still looking, for his memory is as long as history, and the name of every traitor is engraved in letters of fire on the darkness of his spirit...

  London, twenty-first century

  ON THE MONDAY, before her grandmother got back from work, Pen and Quorum went into Number 7 so he could replace the broken window pane.

  ‘There’s nothing scary in here,’ Pen said. ‘It’s no different from any other house, really. It’s just...’ Quiet. Quorum glanced round often, not because he thought someone was behind him but because he knew they weren’t. If Pen didn’t speak for a minute or two it was easy to imagine that she had vanished, melting into the silence like a tiny ripple in a still pool.

  And there were the doors, so many doors, closed but not locked – Quorum was alarmed they weren’t locked – waiting, patiently, for a hand on the knob, a nudge that would open them into somewhere or nowhere. While they were on the landing Pen tried to count them, but although she counted in order, going from left to right, she kept getting a different answer. First ten, then twelve, then eleven... ‘I haven’t made a mistake,’ she said. ‘I know I haven’t.’

  ‘Maybe they move,’ said Quorum. ‘Maybe they change places, so quietly you don’t see them. Like one of those old group photographs where the camera wheels to take in a whole line of people, and someone can run from one end of the line to the other, if they are fast enough, and get in the picture twice, even though it’s a still shot. Maybe the doors don’t like being counted. Remember, the act of observation –’

  ‘– changes the behaviour of the thing observed,’ said Pen. ‘Yes, I know. But that’s subatomic physics. These are doors.’

  ‘Possibly the difference is just a matter of scale,’ Quorum said.

  He had almost finished the window and was filling in with putty.

  ‘It’ll need a daub of paint,’ he added.

  ‘That’s an idea,’ said Pen. ‘I could paint numbers on the doors.’

  The quiet grew a little quieter, as if the house was holding its breath.

  ‘I don’t think that would work,’ said Quorum. ‘The numbers would probably change, or swap around – you’d find they were all tens, or fives, or something. Like in that story about the Dancing Princesses, where the soldier put a cross on the door, only to find there were crosses on every door in the street. At least, I think it was the Dancing Princesses. You would remember better than me.’

  ‘I’m not great on fairytales,’ Pen said.

  ‘A pity,’ said Quorum. ‘After all, you’re in one.’

  ‘This isn’t a fairytale,’ Pen retorted. ‘It’s real. This house... is the most real place I’ve ever been.’

  She could sense the realness, the thickness of a door away, worlds of realness calling to her, tempting her, drawing her in...

  ‘I’m done,’ said Quorum. ‘We should go now.’

  He shepherded Pen down the stairs. Now she was the one looking back, though not in fear. In the hall, she said: ‘I want to open one door. Just one. You’re here; you can see nothing happens to me. Pull me back if I try to go through, or something.’

  ‘Miss Pen, you mustn’t–’

  ‘I want to find out about this house. I want to... to bring back the thief who got lost... Anyway, I’m going to open a door, and that’s that.’

  Quorum looked frightened, but Pen was determined. She went to the door that, from its location, would have been the one to the front room, probably a sitting room. As always, it opened away from her. She peered round –

  – into gloom. Instead of the fading daylight of Bygone House she was looking into a high, vaulted, stone-clad room with shadows dripping down the walls and tall arched windows admitting only the twilight of a winter evening. It was far too big a room to fit in Number 7 Temporal Crescent – in fact, less a room than a cavern – Pen glimpsed the shadowed vaults stretching away, with here and there a little puddle of light, the nearest, a few yards off, showing what looked like a lectern, with an enormous book open on it. The light came from candles on either side of the book, short candles burned down to a mere lump of wax and tall candles with only a thread of drool trickling from the flame. In the small circle of their light she could make out a figure seated at the lectern on a high stool, a figure all hunched up in voluminous dark robes, his tonsure bent over the book, his hands, in ragged gloves with the fingers cut out, clutching what seemed to be a paint brush. There was little colour in the chamber, it was a monochrome world of dimness and shade, but on the pages of the book colour bloomed, a thin tracery of colour vivid as embroidery.

  When Pen had gazed into the Jurassic she had had little time for reflection. But n
ow she thought: This is the past. The Past... and the wonder of it filled her, tightening her throat, accelerating her pulse. She must have made some slight noise, for the man at the lectern glanced round, distracted from his work, and saw her. Pen stood frozen with surprise while he clambered down off the stool and came towards her, waving his hands as if to shoo away a stray cat. He said something in a language which sounded like Latin – though she had never imagined Latin could actually be spoken.

  ‘Cur vos molesti me semper versatis? Nonne videre potestis me laborare conari? Ite! Ite!’

  Pen said: ‘Sorry,’ with an air of embarrassment and drew back, closing the door again...

  Back into the present. Behind her, Quorum was clutching her sweater.

  ‘That... didn’t seem too dangerous,’ she said.

  ‘It was the Past, Miss Pen,’ Quorum said, and there was a hint of a shudder in his voice. ‘The Past is always dangerous.’

  And then: ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I think it might have been a monastery. There was a monk, working on a book, painting pictures or doing fancy lettering, and he came over to make me go away. That was all.’

  ‘Interaction,’ said Quorum. ‘Beware of interaction. That’s how you get sucked in.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pen, ‘but at least we’ve found out what’s in that room.’

  ‘For today,’ said Quorum. ‘Tomorrow, who knows?’

  Eade, twenty-first century

  THE WITCH WAS in her bedroom, eating a doughnut. She had bought three, two for the spell and one for her, even though it meant she was getting a little sticky and was leaving sugar-prints on her great-grandmother’s notebooks. Her bedroom was both a sanctum and a fane; neither parent nor vacuum cleaner ever entered there. It wasn’t an ideal place for spell-casting, but it was private. And this time, she wanted the security of being in her own place.