A simple deed handing over the Lower House and the First Key. If you sign it, Grim Tuesday will not pursue the debt against your folk. You will be able to live here, in this Secondary Realm, as happily as you did before.”
“As happily as you did before,” echoed Methera, with a knowing smirk.
“I still need to read it,” said Arthur. He stood his ground, though the Grotesques sidled up still closer. They had a very distinct smell, a lot like fresh rain on a hot, tarred road. Not exactly unpleasant, but sharp and a little metallic.
“Best to sign,” said Tethera, his voice suddenly full of menace, though he continued to smile.
“Sign,” hissed Methera.
“No!” shouted Arthur. He pushed Tethera with his right hand, the one that had most often held the First Key. As his palm touched the Grotesque’s chest it was outlined with electric blue light. Tethera stumbled back, grabbing at Methera to keep his balance. Both Grotesques staggered away, almost to the road. There they straightened up and tried to assume poses of dignity. Tethera reached into the front pocket of his apron and drew out a large, egg-shaped watch that chimed as he opened the lid and inspected the face.
“You may have till noon before we commence our full repossession,” Tethera shouted. “But we shall not cease our preparations, and delay will not be to your advantage!”
They got into their car, slammed the doors and drove off, without any engine noise whatsoever. Arthur watched as the car proceeded about twenty yards up the street, then suddenly vanished in a prismatic effect like the sudden, brief rainbow after a sun-shower.
Arthur glanced down at the gleaming white envelope. Despite its crisp look, it felt slightly slimy to his touch. How could he sign away the First Key and the Mastery of the Lower House? They had been so hard to win in the first place. But he also couldn’t let his family suffer…
His family. Arthur raced back in to check on Bob. There was no reason for Tethera to lie, but the Grotesques’ breath had looked extremely poisonous.
Bob was back in his studio. Arthur could hear him talking to someone, which was a good sign. The padded soundproof door was partly open, so Arthur poked his head around it. Bob was sitting at one of his pianos, holding the phone with one hand and agitatedly tapping a single bass note with the other. He looked fine, but as Arthur listened, he quickly realised that while the Grey Breath had worn off, the Grotesques had, as they’d threatened, continued their “preparations”.
“How can the band suddenly owe the record company twelve million dollars after twenty years?” Bob was asking the person on the phone. “They’ve always robbed us to start with. We’ve sold more than thirty million records, for heaven’s sake! It’s just not possible—”
Arthur ducked back out. The Grotesques had given him an hour and a half before full repossession – whatever that was. But even these beginning attacks were very bad news for the family. They’d be living on the street, forced to get handouts…
He had to stop them. If only he had more time to think…
More time to think.
That was the answer, Arthur thought. He could get more time by going into the House. He could spend a week there perhaps, and still come back to his own world only minutes after he left. He could ask the Will and Noon (who used to be Dusk) what to do. And Suzy…
His thoughts were interrupted as Michaeli came charging down the stairs, holding the printout of an e-mail, her face stuck in a frown that had to come from more than lack of sleep.
“Problem?” Arthur asked hesitantly.
“They’ve cancelled my course,” said Michaeli in a bewildered voice. “I just got an e-mail saying the whole faculty is being closed down and our building is being sold to pay the university’s debts! An e-mail! I thought it must be a hoax, but I called my professor and the front office and they both said it’s true! They could have written me a letter! Dad!”
She ran into the studio. Arthur looked down at the envelope in his hand, hesitated for a moment, then slit it open along the seam. There was no separate letter inside – the writing was on the inside of the envelope. Arthur folded it out and quickly scanned the flowing copperplate, which was done in a hideous bile-green ink.
As he’d half expected, the contract was all one way and not in his favour. In a long-winded way, like all documents from the House, it said that he, Arthur, would relinquish the First Key and the Mastery of the Lower House to Grim Tuesday in recognition of the debts owed to Grim Tuesday for the provision of the goods listed in Annex A. There was nothing about leaving Arthur’s family alone after that, or anything else.
There didn’t seem to be an Annex A either, but when Arthur finished reading what was on the opened-out envelope, it shimmered and a new page formed. Headed Annex A, it listed everything that the former Mister Monday or his minions had bought and not paid for, including:
Nine Gross (1,296) Standard Pattern Metal Commissionaires
1 Doz. Bespoke Metal Sentinels, part-payment rec’d, 1/8 still owing plus interest
Six Great Gross (10,368) One-Quart Silver Teapots
2 Plentitudes (497,664) Second-Best Steel Nibs
6 Gross (864) Elevator Door Rollers Two Great Gross (3,456) Elevator Leaning Bars, Bronze
1 Lac (100,000) Elevator Propellant, Confined Safety Bottle
129 Miles Notional Wire, Telephone Metaconnection
1 Statue, Mister Monday, Gilt Bronze, Exquisite
77 Statues, Mister Monday, Bronze, Ordinary
10 Quintal (1000-weight), Bronze Metal Fish, Fireproof, semi-animate
1 Long Doz. (13) Umbrella Stands, Petrified Apatosaurus Foot
The list kept going on and on, the page reforming every time Arthur reached the end. Finally he looked away, refolded the envelope and shoved it in the back pocket of his jeans.
Reading the letter hadn’t changed anything, except that his determination not to sign it was even stronger. He had to get to the House as fast as possible.
He was about to leave immediately when he remembered the telephone in the red velvet box. It was possible the Will might be able to scrounge up enough money to call him again, so he’d better get that.
Arthur walked up the stairs this time. He didn’t think he’d have a full-on asthma attack – he would have already had it if he was going to – but he’d started a persistent wheeze instead and couldn’t quite get enough breath.
The red velvet box was where he’d left it, but when Arthur went to put the lid back on, he saw that it was empty. The phone had disappeared. Lying on the bottom of the box was a very small piece of thick cardboard. Arthur picked it up. As he touched it, words appeared, scribed in the same sort of invisible hand that wrote in the Atlas.
This telephone has been disconnected. Please call Upper House 23489-8729-13783 for reconnection.
“How?”
