Invisible in a Bright Light Read online

  INVISIBLE

  in a

  BRIGHT LIGHT

  INVISIBLE

  in a

  BRIGHT LIGHT

  SALLY GARDNER

  AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK by Zephyr, an imprint of Head of Zeus, in 2019

  Text copyright © Sally Gardner, 2019

  The moral right of Sally Gardner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781786695222

  ISBN (E): 9781786695215

  Jacket design © Helen Crawford-White

  Theatre illustration © Getty Images

  Endpapers: Map of Copenhagen Harbour, circa 1611

  Author photograph © Lydia Corry

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Four Years Later

  Endpapers

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  About Zephyr

  (Click or tap image to zoom)

  FOREWORD

  This story, in various shapes and guises, has lived with me a long time. It took me ages to work out how a theatre, a ghost ship and a crystal chandelier might be connected. As often is the way with my writing, I found the answer in fairy tales.

  I was a child when I first stumbled into the dark forest of the Grimm Brothers. I scared myself with their stories of heartless stepmothers, cruel sisters, wicked witches and silent women. I stayed on the edge of the woods, hungry for more stories. The older I became, the braver I became and by then the magic of the fairy tale had me spellbound. When finally I started writing, I set up home in the sorceress’s hut, deep in the ancient world of enchantment. I still live there today, hoping the wolves won’t get me.

  But before I knew that was where I wanted to be, before I knew I could write, when I was twenty-four years old and still tangled in my dyslexia, I designed the costumes for Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado at the Royal Opera House in Copenhagen. It was one of the most magical experiences of my professional life. What fascinated me was the chandelier that hung in the auditorium and, between performances, rose into the dome of the opera house. I had never seen a light that shone as bright. Most become dulled by dust.

  I asked if I might see it more closely. And so it was, on a wintry day, the designer and I climbed a wooden staircases to the very top of the opera house and found a door that looked as if it might open onto a broom cupboard. Instead, we found ourselves in the dome. All round this huge circular space were windows that looked out onto the copper roofs of Copenhagen. In the centre was the chandelier – a vast, brooding presence. We also discovered an old lady with a sewing machine, her chamois leather cloths hung up to dry, looking like birds on a wire. Her job, so she told us, was to keep the chandelier shining. No one knew she was there. I felt I had walked into a fairy tale.

  It was this time in Copenhagen that inspired my story, Invisible in a Bright Light. I sincerely hope it weaves magic into your hearts.

  Sally Gardner

  Hastings

  July 2019

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘Do you want to finish the game?’ says the man in the emerald green suit.

  ‘What game?’ asks the girl.

  ‘One thing is certain,’ he says, ignoring her question, ‘when you have finished the game, everything will have changed.’

  Deep under the sea in the cave of dreamers hang the sleepers, suspended from boat hooks. Passengers and sailors alike, eyes closed, heads held high, their skin fish-flesh white. On and on, in neat rows they go until all that is left hanging from the hooks is empty clothes. Through these, fish swim and eels wriggle, causing trousers and petticoats to dance with the memory of their ghostly wearers.

  At the entrance of the cave sits a man in a barnacle-encrusted chair. Before him is a desk. It is his three-piece suit of emerald green that has caught the girl’s attention, not his face as one might suppose, for it is a strange face. Behind him, neatly stacked, are hundreds of gleaming white candles.

  ‘You are stronger than I thought,’ says the man. ‘I wasn’t expecting to light another set of my candles. My candles are precious to me and I hate to waste them. Are you sure you want to carry on playing?’

  Celeste is spellbound by the emerald green fabric. In it she sees her past all whirled together until it is a thing of threads and stitches.

  ‘Before we go any further, tell me your age again,’ says the man.

  Only now does Celeste notice his face. She thinks he must be wearing a mask for she can’t see his eyes. Perhaps they’ve been washed away. Fish occasionally nibble at his shiny, bald head.

  On the desk rests a ledger. It is like the one she remembers the clerk in the hat shop had when she and Anna went to pick up a parcel for Mother.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ he says.

  Celeste doesn’t answer. She is studying the ring on his little finger. The stone is a bright emerald, the same colour as his suit. He dips a quill in the inkstand and tendrils of ink float away.

  ‘In other words, how old are you?’

  ‘You are asking the questions in the wrong order,’ says Celeste. ‘The first question should be, “what is your name?”’

  The man is taken aback.

  ‘I ask the questions, not you.’

  He is unsettled by this girl. Seldom has he met a child with strength enough to move on to the final part of the game. Perhaps for once it will be played out to the bitter end. The thought delights him although he has no doubt who the winner will be. He persists with his questions.

  ‘Tell me your age.’

  Again the girl answers with more energy than he would have thought poss
ible. By this point in the game the player should be no more than a shadow.

  ‘My age?’ says Celeste. ‘I am eleven.’

  ‘I can smell a lie in the water,’ says the man. ‘I play you, girl, you don’t play me.’

  The truth is Celeste can’t remember if she is about to be eleven or has just turned eleven or perhaps she is twelve. She is pondering this when the man in the emerald green suit turns over the page in the ledger. With his quill he points upwards. Celeste follows the tip of the feather. Above the heads of the sleepers hangs a glass chandelier in the shape of a galleon.

  ‘Seven hundred and fifty candles,’ says the man, ‘and not one of them is defeated by the seawater.’

  For the first time Celeste can see clearly. The beams of light illuminate the faces of the sleepers whose names are on the tip of her tongue.

  ‘Look at me,’ says the man. ‘Look at me.’

  The moment she does the names are gone and somewhere in the cave a ship’s bell sounds mournfully. Perhaps it’s a warning, she thinks. He begins to laugh, his laughter a wave that causes the sleepers to sway as one.

  ‘What if I don’t want to play your game?’ she says.

  ‘A brave question, if I may say so. It would be a pity after you have come so far. But I would understand, for the game only gets harder from now on.’ He leans back in his chair. ‘Do you want to know what happens if you retire from the game?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Celeste.

  ‘It’s simple. You join the first row of sleepers. It’s your decision. This part of the game is called the Reckoning and only I know the rules.’

  ‘Then it isn’t fair.’

  ‘I never said it was. I always win. I will help you this much – and I am being too generous. I have already been too generous in letting you have one of the sleepers. Not that she is of any use. I did tell you that at the beginning, before I lit the first set of candles. But that is by the by. Where was I? Yes. The player – that is you, Maria – was abandoned as a baby on the steps of the great opera house in the city of C—. There you were raised by the woman whose job it is to clean the crystal chandelier. When you were eight years old you were found to have a natural gift for dance and you were enrolled in the ballet school. To pay for your lessons you work – when you are not required to rehearse – for the famous singer, Madame Sabina Petrova.’

  Maria? She is about to say, ‘I’m Celeste,’ when she senses rather than hears a voice, a voice in her head, ‘No – don’t tell him your name.’

  She looks again at the sleepers with a sickening realisation that she knows the name of every one of them. They shouldn’t be there.

  ‘If you win the game,’ he says, ‘they will go home. If you lose, they lose. Forever.’

  The man in the emerald green suit moves towards her with unnatural speed. He puts his hand to her face and closes her eyes.

  ‘Just to make sure, double sure,’ he says. ‘As I have done this once, let me do it again.’

  And before she can say another word, all is forgotten.

  ‘Good,’ says the man, as he blows out the candles. ‘Very good. Let the Reckoning begin.’

  Down she falls and down she falls, deep down to the bottom of the sea into the inky black. The darkness becomes a line between the words and the paper, where sea meets sky and still she falls until below her the city with its many domed roofs spreads out before her. She sees the horse-drawn trams, the carriages, the park and the harbour with its tall ships. Down she falls through the dome of the opera house, down she falls, past the crystal galleon and as she passes it she hears the sound of something coming adrift. Down, down she falls…

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘Wake up.’ Celeste felt the flick across her face. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere you lazy, useless girl.’

  She wiped the dream from her eyes and climbed sleepily out of the costume basket with its comforting smell of old tinsel and greasepaint. Before her stood a ferocious-looking lady who Celeste knew must be a wardrobe mistress for she wore a grey dust-coat over her clothes, had a tape measure hanging round her neck and pins in her lapels. But it didn’t explain why she had seen fit to attack Celeste with a glove.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ said Celeste. ‘You have no right to hit me.’

  ‘No right?’ said the wardrobe mistress. She was twisted with rage and sourer than a lemon that had never seen the sun. ‘And who are you, a little rat, to talk to me in such a manner? Don’t you dare start giving yourself airs and graces.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Celeste. ‘Mother would be furious if she knew you had struck me with a glove and talked to me so rudely.’

  ‘Mother? Mother – oh my word, what dream have you been in? You’re an orphan as well you know. Your mother – whoever she was – left you in a basket and forgot all about you.’

  ‘Miss Olsen,’ called a stagehand, ‘Madame Sabina wants you.’

  Celeste was about to tell Miss Olsen that she was wrong, very wrong, when she looked down at the dress she was wearing. It was a thin, worn thing.

  ‘I wasn’t wearing this,’ she said. ‘I didn’t put this on this morning. No – these clothes are so old-fashioned. I was wearing a brand-new sailor dress and playing with my toy theatre.’

  ‘When you have quite finished making up fairy tales,’ said Miss Olsen, ‘Madame Sabina wants her glove and wants it now – in her dressing-room.’

  ‘Madame Sabina,’ repeated Celeste. In her dream the man in the emerald green suit had spoken of her. But that was a dream, it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. ‘Why do I have to take it to her? Madame Sabina is Mother’s understudy.’

  Even as she said this she was aware that her memories were beginning to fall into forgetfulness and there was only this strange, disjointed now. The more she thought of the past, the more it disappeared. Down she falls and down she falls…

  ‘Did you hear me?’ said Miss Olsen. ‘How dare you talk of the great Madame Sabina Petrova like that.’

  Celeste closed her eyes in hope that she might wake up, that everything would be as it should be. When she opened them she knew that something very strange had happened, was happening. The words of the man in the emerald green suit echoed in her head. ‘To pay for your lessons you work – when you are not required to rehearse – for the great singer.’

  The only thing Celeste could remember for certain was her toy theatre.

  ‘Which city is this?’ she asked.

  ‘The city of C—, as you perfectly well know.’

  ‘There is no city of C—,’ said Celeste. ‘Where is Anna?’

  ‘Ridiculous girl, I know your game,’ said the wardrobe mistress.

  ‘Do you?’ said Celeste.

  ‘Yes, oh yes – you think I don’t know that you both live up there, in the dome.’

  ‘Do we?’ said Celeste.

  ‘I know everything,’ said Miss Olsen, ignoring her question. ‘I know what goes on behind the scenes and if you act the fool it won’t work with me. You are nothing more than a little rat.’

  Celeste wanted to be gone from there. She needed time to think. It was easier to run the errand than argue with Miss Olsen. She took the glove and set off in what Miss Olsen considered the wrong direction and the wardrobe mistress stamped her foot.

  ‘Where are you going? You’re not to use that door. If I find that you’ve used that door I will tell Madame, so I will, and you…’ Her words were lost in the busyness of the theatre.

  Celeste knew this theatre. Or perhaps she knew one similar for it felt familiar, yet it wasn’t. Somehow it was different and she thought it had to do with the light; it shone too brightly, illuminating her growing sense of panic. Where was she? She knew one thing to be a truth: that she had spent most of her life backstage in theatres, she had as good as grown up in the rabbit warrens of draughty passages with myriad doors to workshops, to the wardrobe department, the prop shop, the green room. Winding wooden staircases led up to the domes and the fly towers. She knew backstage
and front of house better than the lines on the palm of her hand. The theatre was home to her. And, as if to prove to herself that she was right, she had relied on her instinct and taken what she hoped was the fastest route, even if it was strictly forbidden. The other way went down veiny corridors, took too long and was always full of people. Near the wig department, she stopped by a narrow door that you wouldn’t notice unless you knew it was there. It was only to be used by the directors and important people and it divided the back of the theatre from the front. As far as Celeste was concerned, they were two different worlds. She looked around to make sure she wouldn’t be seen. A blind man was coming towards her, his stick tapping each side of the corridor.

  ‘Out of the way,’ he shouted. ‘Out of the way.’

  With a turn of the handle, she slipped through the forbidden door into the realm of thick, red carpets where the walls were decorated with murals of fairy tales. This was the part of the theatre that belonged to the audience. To Celeste’s relief it looked familiar. It was a place she was sure she knew. It would be inhabited by grand ladies in luxurious dresses with bustles, and trains that swished when they moved, and dainty shoes that a princess might wear, their hair sparkling with gems. They would be accompanied by gentlemen in evening dress with starched white waistcoats and collapsible top hats. In the intervals they would hover in this corridor in hope of glimpsing the king.

  All Celeste had to do was let herself into the anteroom behind the Royal Box and run down the spiral staircase that led to the prompt side of the stage, then it was only a matter of a twist and a turn to the diva’s dressing-room. She smiled to herself, knowing she would arrive well before Miss Olsen who she imagined would have wheezed and plodded down two floors to the stage level, passing the wardrobe department where she would have been unable to resist checking on her seamstresses.

  Knowing where she was quietened Celeste’s worried mind. More important still, all was as it should be. Perhaps it was Miss Olsen who was losing her memory. She had heard it said that happened to grown-ups. A bit like losing your gloves, she supposed, or your hat. You keep on losing parts of your life until you forget who you are. Celeste told herself that would never happen to her. She remembered, yes, she did remember. It was just the dream that had confused her. She stood in front of the grand, gold-embossed doors that opened onto the Royal Box. Silently, she entered the anteroom and congratulated herself. She knew this theatre. She could see into the Royal Box and beyond to the auditorium with its white and gold walls and red plush seats. High above in the ornate ceiling, surrounded by painted fairies, was a large, circular space through which the glass chandelier would descend, as it always had done, twenty minutes before the audience was admitted.