The Wizard of Dark Street: an Oona Crate mystery.

Shawn Thomas Odyssey.

For Anne, Barbara, and Shari.

The magic is real.

Be sure to check out Shawn Thomas Odyssey's mysterious performances and curiously concocted music videos, all created specifically for this book, at www.thewizardofdarkstreet.com.

On the fourth of November, 1876, the Wizard of Dark Street placed the following advertis.e.m.e.nt in the cla.s.sified section of the New York Times:.

Within three days of the advertis.e.m.e.nt's publication, the New York City post office received a grand total of 3,492 letters addressed to Pendulum House, Number 19. To the postmaster's great displeasure and utter vexation, no Dark Street could be found on any of the regular route maps, city plans, or postal grids. Nor could anyone recall ever having heard of a Little London Town located anywhere within New York City. The letters were stamped ADDRESS UNKNOWN and returned to their original senders.

(Monday, May 14, 1877).

Magic is a fickle thing," said twelve-year-old Oona Crate. "I prefer things that work."

Deacon stood upon her shoulder, silent and foreboding. Black as midnight and glossy as ink, the magnificent enchanted raven ruffled his feathers as the two of them peered curiously through the window of The Dark Street Enchantment Shop, the storefront where Oona's uncle sold his latest bits of magical wonder. Behind the shop's cobwebby windows could be found all manner of mysterious things: charmed feather dusters that giggled when dusting, and sponges that gargled a tune. Ever-burning lamps and never-melting ice-two of the Wizard's best sellers-lined the shelves, ready for purchase and gift wrapping. But Oona had little interest in entering the shop today. Nor did anyone else, it would seem.

The storekeeper, Mr. Alpert, a grizzled old man with an enormous overbite and gla.s.ses as large and round as tea saucers, sat idly at the front counter, his magnified eyelids drooping as if he might doze off at any moment. From the look of the empty store, one might begin to think that magic was about as exciting as watching fruit dry on a windowsill. Not very exciting at all. And quite honestly, the store itself looked in dire need of a good paint job.

Next door, however, a handsome, newly painted storefront stood squarely between the enchantment shop and the shoemaker's shop on the other side. With its doors open wide, the shop in the middle was a bustle of activity. A large sign over the shiny front window advertised: MR. WILBER'S WORLD OF MODERN WONDERS. Shoppers and lookie-loos alike jostled to get out of one another's way as they pressed through the doors of Mr. Wilber's fantastic shop, which sold everything from the latest in modern toothbrushes and bicycles to photographic equipment and spectacular newfangled waffle irons. Nearly any technologically advanced gadget to have come out in the present year of 1877 could be found at Mr. Wilber's World of Modern Wonders.

Mr. Wilber, a gawky toothpick of a man with a flat face and highly p.r.o.nounced Adam's apple, never looked bored, such as Mr. Alpert so often did, and Oona supposed that this was because Mr. Wilber was far too busy trying to keep up on the demands of his technology-craving customers.

Oona sighed. The day was bright and the air clean. The smell of spring leaves and dusty cobblestones permeated every shadowy corner of the street. Gazing at her reflection in the enchantment shop window, Oona straightened the lace-trimmed bonnet on her head before running her fingers through the front of her hair. The hair had grown little, if at all, since the incident with the guillotine the previous night, and she couldn't keep from readjusting her headpiece to flatten her hair down-a near impossible proposition.

"You've got to be more careful!" That had been her uncle's advice on the subject of her nearly getting her head chopped off. His words had been direct, and his tone uncharacteristically stern. "I will only agree to this detective business of yours if you promise not to go getting yourself into such terrible trouble. I mean it, Oona! Igregious Goodfellow is a scoundrel, a thief, and a homicidal maniac all rolled into one. You're incredibly lucky that it was only your hair that got caught in that horrible man's guillotine. You should never have followed him to his secret hideout. The moment you discovered he was the Horton Family Jewelry Store thief, you should have left matters to the police."

Oona had rolled her eyes at that. Surely her uncle knew better than to place his faith in the police. For nearly three years, ever since Head Inspector White had taken over the top position, the Dark Street Police Department had become an utter joke in the eyes of both law-abiding citizens and criminals alike. It was no secret that crime on the street was at an all-time high.

"You are lucky that you managed to slip out of those ropes before that madman released the blade," her uncle had continued in a stern voice, "and that Deacon got to the police as quickly as he did, or ... or ..." The Wizard sighed, shaking his head. "You are still a child, Oona. And you are not your father."

Those words had hurt. Oona had needed to bite her tongue to keep from telling the Wizard that he was not her father either, and that her father was dead, buried six feet under the ground in the Dark Street Cemetery. But why bring that up? It would only have upset him.

Her uncle may not have been the greatest magician who had ever held the highly honored position of Wizard of Dark Street-some even criticized his magical abilities as downright mediocre-but he was surely the greatest uncle and guardian a girl like Oona could have hoped for. And besides, he had, after all, agreed to let her out of her magical obligations so that she might better pursue her true interest in detective work. What more could she have asked from him? So Oona had agreed, no more snooping around deadly criminals ... if she could help it.

Presently, she turned her gaze north, and before her lay all of Dark Street, the last of the thirteen Faerie roads, connecting the World of Man to the fabled Land of Faerie. A broad cobblestone avenue more than thirteen miles long, the street stretched out in a continuous line, a world unto itself, unbroken by cross streets or intersections. The buildings rose up from the edges of the sidewalks like crooked teeth crammed into a mouth too small to fit. They listed and leaned against one another for support, giving the impression that if one of the buildings should ever fall down, then all of the others would quickly follow, toppling one by one like dominoes.

She considered the street for a moment, this ancient world between worlds, with its enormous Gla.s.s Gates at one end and the equally vast Iron Gates at the other. And yet of these two gateways, only the Iron Gates ever opened, and then only once a night, upon the stroke of midnight, when the ma.s.sive doors would swing inward on hinges as big as houses, opening for a single minute upon the sprawling, ambitious city of New York. For the amount of time it took a second hand to travel around the face of a clock, the Iron Gates remained open to any who should choose to venture across their enchanted threshold. Few ever did. Few ever even noticed.

In a city such as New York, even at midnight, the people were too busy getting from one place to another to observe anything out of the ordinary. And those who did see the street suddenly appear out of nowhere might simply pretend that it was not there at all. They might turn their faces, and when they looked again, the street would be gone, and they would tell themselves that it had been a trick of the light. Nothing more. The children of New York would surely have been more apt to see the street than adults, but of course, at midnight most good little children were tucked safely away into their beds, dreaming of stranger places still.

But if an outsider had ventured through the gates, what he or she would have found was a place not so different than the city from which they had just come. A place filled with everyday people going about their everyday lives-lives of simple pleasures and skullduggery alike. They might first notice how the majority of residents on the street carried on their conversations in various British accents, instead of American ones, and how some of the inhabitants referred to the street as Little London Town. A visitor might then observe how, no matter the season in New York, freezing cold or blisteringly hot, the temperature on Dark Street would be breezy and mild, just cool enough for a jacket or shawl. Or it might be pouring rain on the street, yet New York would be dry as a bone. And the peculiarities would not stop there, for upon closer examination the outsider would find that, here, the shadows appeared slightly darker, so that they might think twice before stepping on them, for fear of falling in. They would discover a world where the blue of the sky in daytime appeared almost purple, and by night the stars shone bright enough to read by. It was a place as ancient as the wind, where candlestick trees replaced light posts, and street clocks told jokes as well as time.

Yet to the sensitive tourist, even more striking than the discovery of new and enchanted things, there was the subtle sense of magic lost-a street that had forgotten more magic than drops of rain had fallen to the earth. It was an ancient road, from time before time. Since before the construction of the Iron and Gla.s.s Gates, before the building of Pendulum House, and the naming of the first Wizard, and even before the great Magicians of Old fought their terrible war against the armies of the mighty Queen of Faerie, Dark Street existed. In one form or another it had always been there, a bridge between the fantastic and the ordinary, between magic and reason, between the Land of the Fay and the city that never sleeps.

Oona returned her attention to the enchantment shop window and stared for a moment at her reflection in the wobbly gla.s.s. Large green eyes with thick, curling lashes blinked as they took in the heart shape of her face, and the full-skirted, gray dress that cinched in around her waist. Really, her uncle had been right. What had she been thinking to believe that she, a slight four-foot-three-inch-tall girl, could ever have hoped to apprehend a dastardly lunatic like Igregious Goodfellow, the Horton Family Jewelry Store thief? At twelve years old she was still a child in the eyes of Dark Street society, and yet her birthday was only three months away. Thirteen was a special age for a girl on Dark Street. It was the age when she became a lady proper, the age at which many girls entered the Academy of Fine Young Ladies. It was a prospect that Oona had no interest in. She preferred to continue her independent studies with Deacon. The raven was, in her eyes, the best teacher on Dark Street.

As it nearly always did, the thought of her birthday sent a shock of guilt through her, bringing with it a wave of sadness that seemed to make the daylight dim slightly, and turn the soft breeze to a chill. The image of her mother's wondrous face drifted through her mind like a distant ghost-those great green eyes so similar to Oona's own, with a bright, radiant smile like a gleam of sunlight-and another image, this one of Oona's baby sister, too small and too young even to walk, clapping her tiny hands in her mother's arms. The image was burned into Oona's memory like a cruel scar: the mother and the baby beneath an enormous fig tree, its leaves rustling in the breeze as the magic lights danced around them, swirling faster, and faster, and then ...

Oona quickly shoved the thought away. She swallowed a lump in her throat and thrust her finger in the air. "I prefer science, Deacon! Not spells, and wands, and magic rings. Give me facts. Give me logic. Give me the most incomprehensible riddle ... the most complicated problem. That is what I love."

Her tone was markedly serious, and her London Town accent both highly educated and refined.

Deacon dug his talons into her shoulder, ruffling his thick black feathers as the two of them began to stroll up Dark Street in the direction of Pendulum House. Horse-drawn carriages clattered and clacked up and down the broad avenue, and the sidewalks bustled with pedestrians, all of them hurrying this way or that, hardly taking notice of the girl with the chopped hair and the raven on her shoulder. Surely they had all seen her before. She was the Wizard's niece after all. His apprentice. More than that, however, she was the so-called Natural Magician: a freak of nature so rare that in every hundred years only one might be born.

"You are very special, Oona," the Wizard had explained to her nearly five years ago on her first day as his new apprentice. Several months past her eighth birthday, she'd listened eagerly to the gray-bearded man she so revered, her father's older brother. "I myself am what is called a Learned Magician. Like nearly all the magicians who have ever lived, I have had to learn magic through decades of hard scholarship and training. Someone like myself must force magic to do my will. But a Natural Magician such as you, Oona, is a human being born with the extraordinary magical powers of a faerie. No one quite knows why. Indeed, some believe that Natural Magicians have active faerie blood in their veins, but so far as I know, that is but a rumor. And yet, unlike faeries, who are born with the instincts and know-how to control their spectacular magic, Natural Magicians must learn to handle their powers. They must be taught. You must be trained."

And Oona had trained. For nearly two years the Wizard had schooled her. She lived with him in the great Pendulum House, a.s.sisting him, absorbing all she could, honing her skills so that one day she might become the next great Wizard, which was the t.i.tle given to the head of all magical activity on Dark Street, and the protector of the World of Man.

"What good is being the head of magical activity," Oona had once asked the Wizard, "when no one on Dark Street does any magic? There aren't any magicians anymore, Uncle, except for you and me. I read in the Encyclopedia Arcanna that Learned Magicians used to number in the thousands, both on Dark Street and in the World of Man."

The Wizard nodded. "Yes, but that was nearly five hundred years ago. After the end of the Great Faerie War-after Oswald the Great closed the Gla.s.s Gates, cutting Dark Street off from Faerie-the magic began to weaken. People eventually lost interest in the old ways, and, as it is said, the world moved on. You are correct, Oona, that there is less interest in magic than there ever has been before. Some would even call magic impractical. But there are still those out there who might find some bit of spell work in a book and attempt to use it. There are still innumerable magical objects out there, many of them faerie-made bits of mischief left over from five hundred years ago. It is the Wizard's job to handle such occurrences when they arise, and of course to protect the World of Man, should the Gla.s.s Gates ever be broken and the Land of Faerie once again be opened. It is an important job we do, keeping magic alive. Do you believe that?"

On that day, which now seemed like a lifetime ago, Oona had nodded that she did believe. But that would all change. It would change a year and a half later, the very day she'd turned ten years old, when the sudden and hard truth that magic could not be trusted proved itself to Oona once and for all.

Presently, Oona paused to examine one of the famed Dark Street candlestick trees. An oddity like no other, the trees lined the shopping district of the boulevard like living lampposts, their flames flickering faintly against the bright light of day. Between two of the branches, a plump little spider worked tirelessly in the late-morning breeze. Oona reached into one of her dress pockets. Though she may not have possessed the most fashionable sort of dresses, Oona found the mult.i.tude of pockets sewn into the folds of her skirts to be quite handy. They allowed her to carry around all sorts of useful objects: a needle stuck in a bit of cork, a small ball of string, red phosphorus matches, a bit of metal wire she'd used to pick the lock on Igregious Goodfellow's hideout, paper and pencil, and many other functional things that never failed to come in handy.

She removed a small magnifying gla.s.s and used it to study the web. The spider worked away, seemingly unaware of Oona's huge eye leaning in close to observe. The strangeness of a tree that sprouted candles instead of fruit did little to capture Oona's interest, yet the complex pattern and dazzling intricacy of the spider's web drew her curiosity in like iron shavings to a magnet; each strand of the web was a trap, yet also a clue; each clue connected to another, all of them spiraling into the center, where the core of the mystery resided.

It's beautiful, Oona thought. Meticulous and reliable.

At last she pulled away from the web and looked at the magnifying gla.s.s itself. She held it up, watching the sun glint off the gold rim. The well-worn handle was lacquered oak, and the two-and-a-half-inch-wide gla.s.s was flawless. This had been her father's very own magnifying gla.s.s, and sometimes when she looked through it she could imagine that she was seeing through his eyes. It was possibly the dearest possession she owned.

She pocketed the gla.s.s and started up the street once more, tossing her hand in a dismissive gesture. "So, Deacon, it would seem that the day I have been waiting for has finally arrived. Tonight is the Choosing." At just the mention of it, Oona could feel her heartbeat quicken and her palms go wet, though whether from nerves or excitement she could not have said. Rubbing her sticky hands together, she said: "Tonight my uncle chooses my replacement."

Deacon bristled on her shoulder. "Hmm" was his only reply.

Oona gave him a sideways glance. "I take it you are not pleased. Tell me, Deacon. Why should I be the least bit upset about giving up my position as Uncle Alexander's apprentice?"

Deacon made a cawing sound as if this was all he intended to add to the conversation, but finally he spoke.

"Perhaps you should be upset because you've trained for the position since you were eight years old, the youngest apprentice ever." His tone of voice was that of someone who undoubtedly has had the same conversation countless times before. "Perhaps because-despite your outright refusal to perform any magic whatsoever-you are the most competent and informed talent to have held the position in over a hundred years. Or perhaps because your uncle is so desperate to find someone to replace you that six months ago he placed an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the New York Times. It's simply unheard of."

"But don't you see, Deacon?" Oona said. "This is the perfect opportunity for me to start my dream."

"I take it you are speaking of The Dark Street Detective Agency?"

"It does have a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Deacon c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "It is rather plain, if you ask me, but it is your dream, not mine. And I must confess, I don't understand how finding lost puppies could possibly be any more exciting than performing complicated magic."

"But that's just the thing!" Oona said so loudly that several pedestrians glanced in her direction before continuing on their way. "At least in finding lost puppies there is a point to be accomplished," she said. "A sequence of events happens, and I am able to follow those events through a series of clues. That, Deacon, is true purpose! What use is there in floating teacups and silly love potions?"

"There is more to magic than that, and you know it," Deacon said. "What about the great Magicians of Old?"

Oona shook her head. "Ancient history."

"But I myself am a product of magic," Deacon insisted. "Your uncle created me as a present for your eleventh birthday, and there is nothing silly about me."

Oona raised a playful eyebrow at him. "I sometimes wonder why my uncle created a raven encyclopedia for me, rather than an owl. Owls are such n.o.ble creatures ... if only in appearance. Or perhaps a magpie, which could better understand the emotions of a girl. Or even ... a rook."

"A rook?" Deacon bristled, ruffling his feathers indignantly. "A rook couldn't hold half a haiku in its pea-size brain," he continued, "let alone the entire Encyclopedia Arcanna, The Complete Oxford English Dictionary, and The Dark Street Who's Who: 36 B.C. to Present. There is no other bird in all the world more intelligent than a raven. You are simply taking your present frustrations out on me."

Oona nodded. It was true. Deacon was a wealth of information. The Encyclopedia Arcanna was perhaps the most comprehensive set of texts to be found on nearly all things magical, and the dictionary came in quite handy, especially when she was writing angry letters to the Dark Street Council about the stupidity of the police department. But it was the Who's Who that Oona found to be the most fascinating book in Deacon's memory, because the Who's Who was a set of reference books that briefly described the lives of nearly every inhabitant of Dark Street, alive or dead. It was truly handy to have around. And in spite of her baited words, Oona was quite certain that Deacon had become far more to her than just some novelty pet-a bird that could talk. He was unique, there was no denying that, as there were no other talking birds like him to be found anywhere in all of the world, so far as Oona knew, but he was more than just that. By all accounts, he was a true friend, and after nearly two years of his company, she could not imagine life without him.

The two of them walked on in silence for several minutes before coming to a stop in front of an empty lot. The buildings on this part of the street were so crooked and crowded together-with shops below and apartment houses above-that this sudden empty s.p.a.ce between the buildings seemed almost startling to behold. In the center of the vacant lot stood a barren mound of dirt. Flanked by a theater on one side and an apothecary on the other, the unsightly hill rose up several feet from the sidewalk, where a leafless, gnarled-looking tree grew at its top like a twisted claw. A twelve-foot wall of crumbly stones cut across the back of the lot, and Oona felt a shiver run down her arms.

"Take this, for instance," she said. "Witch Hill. It is a complete mystery waiting to be solved. How many witches live inside? What do they do in there? Do they work magic, or are they simply called witches because people fear them? No one knows. Why is it that when one of the witches comes out, it is always one of the girls, and never a full-grown witch? And of course, the most pressing question: Why do they not plant a more appealing tree atop of their home, such as an apple tree or a nice willow?"

"According to the Encyclopedia Arcanna," Deacon said, "the original witches of Witch Hill were once highly active magicians on Dark Street. They were called the Sisterhood of the Witch, but that was hundreds of years ago, and when the Gla.s.s Gates were shut, they all moved underground. The following generations all stayed there. The entrance to the hill appears to be enchanted, so that when one of them does come out, no one can see where she came from."

"Yes, yes, I know all of this," Oona said, and then began to sing the lyrics to a traditional Dark Street children's rhyme.

The witches moved beneath the hill.

And to this day they live there still What they do, you'll never know You'll never see them once they've grown For only girls are seen up top.

Upon the street and in the shops A mystery that is worth unearthing How the witches keep a-birthing.

All alone, a woman's clan.

Without the benefit of man.

Oona paused a moment before adding: "I tell you, Deacon, sometimes I believe that this street is so full of mysteries that I should like to-"

But a sudden fit of shouting cut her short. Oona whirled around, searching for whoever was making such an awful racket. Peering across the street, her eyes widened as they took in the scene. She shook her head at first, not understanding, and then, like the unveiling of some strange new work of art, the mystery spread out before her, opening its darkened doors and inviting her in.

The first thing she noticed was an enormous top hat taking up most of the sidewalk across the street. It stood nearly seven feet tall and sat at the base of the vast granite steps in front of the Museum of Magical History. The hat appeared to be carved out of stone, and Oona guessed it to be part of some effort to draw people inside the museum. Immense as it was, the museum was a seldom-visited place, and it could be safely said that if modern-day magic could not capture the public's interest, then certainly the history of magic was even less likely to do so.

The steps to the museum were usually as empty as a poor man's belly, and yet today, a tall, gaunt-looking man with a waxed mustache stood on the topmost step. Stranger still, the man appeared to be having some sort of argument with someone, except that there was no one nearby for him to be arguing with. The fingers of his left hand clenched tightly around a folded red umbrella, while his free hand waved wildly in the air. Oona could hear the peculiar man shouting something, but she couldn't make out the words.

The man slowly began to descend the steps, pointing at some invisible person with the tip of the red umbrella. He was halfway down the stone staircase when Oona asked: "Who is that madman, Deacon?"

Deacon peered across the street. "According to the Dark Street Who's Who, his name is Hector Grimsbee. He was an actor, a member of the Dark Street Theater until just last year when a scandal got him kicked out. It had something to do with a sandbag and a director's head. The Who's Who also mentions that he has been blind since birth."

"Blind since birth?" Oona asked. Her heart lurched as she watched the man make his way back up several of the stone stairs, his arms continuing to flail in all directions. "That's quite dangerous. And who is he arguing with?"

"I haven't a clue, though perhaps-" But a sharp cry cut Deacon short. A woman's shriek.

Oona's head jerked around. She saw no one in obvious distress: only a scattering of pedestrians, many of whom, like her, were looking around to discover who had screamed. Perhaps it had not been a woman's scream after all, she considered, and then wondered if the sound had perchance come from Hector Grimsbee, and she simply hadn't realized it. But when she turned back to the museum, the blind man was suddenly gone. She scanned the sidewalk in both directions, but Grimsbee was nowhere to be seen.

"Did you see that?" Oona asked.

"What?" asked Deacon.

"The blind man on the steps. He just disappeared."

"Nonsense," Deacon said. "There are no records of a person being able to simply disappear. At least not in recent times. Such arcane magic as invisibility and human teleportation vanished with the last of the Magicians of Old nearly five hundred years ago."

"Then where is he?" Oona asked. "I only looked away for a few seconds."

"He must have gone in the museum," Deacon reasoned.

Oona hesitated to agree. It seemed unlikely that the blind man could have moved so fast, but after a moment's consideration, she nodded. "That seems to be the only logical explanation."

A second shout, this one a clear cry for help, pulled her attention to the dress shop next door. The shop was squashed between a handbag store to the left and the museum on the right. A sign above the window read: MADAME IREE'S BOUTIQUE FOR FINE LADIES.

A girl of Oona's own age, or perhaps a little older, stood in the center of the arched doorway. Her golden hair fell down the sides of her cheeks in curling locks. She wore a tightly corseted dress with red and gold stripes, and she was dazzling to behold. Though Oona had never met the girl before, she recognized her to be Isadora Iree, the daughter of Madame Iree, the most famous dressmaker on all of Dark Street.

"Help!" Isadora shouted. "Police! Madame Iree's has been robbed! The dresses are all gone! Help!"

Oona's heart skipped a beat, and her eyes widened with excitement. "A case, Deacon!"

And then just as quickly, her mouth turned to a frown. Head Inspector White was striding purposefully up the sidewalk, his black coattails billowing out behind him, his pale white face like a reflector in the sunlight.

"Young lady!" the inspector shouted. "I am the police. Now stop shouting *help,' or I'll have to cite you for unnecessary repet.i.tion."

Oona's hands flew to her hips. "There is no such law," she said, though not loud enough to be heard from across the street.

Deacon, who knew Oona all to well, said: "Perhaps we should let the police handle this ... alone. Remember what you promised your uncle."

Oona's forehead wrinkled above her nose. "What I told Uncle Alexander, Deacon, is that I would keep away from deadly criminals. How many deadly criminals do you think steal dresses?"

"Any criminal can be deadly," Deacon said.

Oona paused. There was certainly truth to Deacon's words. Hadn't her own father been killed while attempting to apprehend a pair of thieves? And he had been the Head Inspector of the Dark Street Police Department-Inspector White's very own predecessor. Torn between keeping her promise to her uncle and making sure Inspector White didn't bungle the case, an idea popped into her head like a mischievous sprite.

She grinned as she stepped from the curb to cross the street. "I believe I will keep my promise, Deacon. It's just that ... Well, there is the little matter of the masquerade."

Deacon shook his head, clearly confused at the sudden change of subject. "The Dark Street Annual Midnight Masquerade?" he replied. "You are referring to the dance held at Oswald Park?"

She swerved to step around several potholes in the street. "You have deduced correctly, Deacon."

"I don't understand," Deacon said. "The ball is tomorrow night, and you've never expressed any interest in attending ... not this year or any other."