The society of unknowabl.., p.3
The Society of Unknowable Objects, page 3
Magda found herself nodding, oddly stirred by Frank’s words.
For eighty years the Society of Unknowable Objects had existed with a sole purpose: to collect and protect and keep secret the magical items of the world. For forty years no new item had come to light and the world of magical things had been quiet, the Society’s collection undisturbed in the hidden recess behind the bookcase.
‘It would appear that this magical artefact is in Hong Kong,’ Frank said, nodding to himself. ‘And we have to do something about it, before it falls into the wrong hands.’
The Clockwork Cabinet
‘The item is an ivory chess piece,’ Frank said. ‘A rook.’
‘What does it do?’ Magda asked, sitting forward in her seat, desperate to know. She watched Frank’s eyebrows scrunch down as they always did when he disapproved of a question.
All unknowable objects did something: ordinary, everyday items that could enable those who possessed them to do unusual and extraordinary things. Several such items had been discovered throughout the history of the Society, some identified through concerted effort, others stumbled upon in the most unusual of places or unexpected of circumstances. And now that collection, the Society archive, was hidden away in the basement beneath Bell Street Books, kept safe from the world.
‘No idea,’ Frank answered. ‘Anyway, what it does is not really the point.’
For a man responsible for looking after magical items, Frank was stubbornly incurious about what they could do, and that frequently drove Magda to distraction. How could you not want to know about magic? Magda had often thought that if she were the owner of a collection of magical items, she would spend all her time studying them and experimenting, not keeping them locked away out of sight.
‘How do we even know about it?’ Will asked.
Frank relaxed back into his seat and Magda heard him sigh heavily, as if his old body was sore. ‘That’s partly why we’re here,’ Frank admitted. ‘Because someone has breached the secrecy of the Society.’
‘What?’ Magda gasped.
The Society of Unknowable Objects was a secret created by Arthur Simpson, Frank’s grandfather, and three of his friends in the 1940s, a secret that had been passed down through the same four families ever since. At any one time, no more than four living people were supposed to know about the Society. Arthur Simpson had given the name ‘unknowable objects’ to the magical items because they were impossible to understand, and he and his friends had created four rules to guide the work of the Society, four rules that Frank still reminded them of regularly:
Firstly, unknowable objects within the Society collection should be kept safe from those who might seek to use them.
Secondly, unknowable objects within the Society collection should be kept secret from the world.
Thirdly, unknowable objects within the Society collection should not be used, except by members of the Society for the purpose of securing other unknowable objects.
Fourthly, decisions about unknowable objects held by the Society must be made by the Society as a whole.
As Magda absorbed the revelation, Frank removed his glasses to wipe them with a handkerchief from his pocket. ‘Don’t worry, it was neither of you.’
‘Then who?’ Magda asked.
Frank pointed his glasses towards Will as he cleaned them. ‘Will’s father,’ he said. ‘Ellery Pinn.’
Magda had met Will’s father – Doctor Ellery Pinn – on just a couple of occasions, each time only briefly and before she had really known anything about the Society. She remembered a man who was a lot like Will: slight, short, with floppy blond hair, and reserved to the point of being socially awkward.
‘My father?’ Will asked. What little colour there was in his cheeks appeared to drain away. In that moment, he made Magda think of the perfect schoolboy who had been caught by the head teacher doing something he shouldn’t.
‘Your father visited Hong Kong a lot, didn’t he?’ Frank asked. ‘Wasn’t he attached to a teaching hospital out there for a few years?’
Will considered the question for a moment, and Magda thought he seemed reluctant to answer. ‘Yes, I believe so.’
‘Did he make any friends when he was out there?’ Frank wondered. ‘Anyone he spoke about?’
Will pursed his lips, his eyes resting on the tabletop. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. ‘My father didn’t speak about much; not to me, at least.’
A silence followed that answer and Magda fidgeted, suddenly uncomfortable in the face of Will’s rare openness. She looked to Frank, but the old man continued wiping his glasses, saying nothing.
‘What’s going on, Frank?’ she pressed, trying to get to the point.
‘A young man contacted me,’ Frank explained, slipping his glasses back on. ‘A man from Hong Kong. A Mr James Wei. He claims to be the son of a friend of Ellery Pinn. He seemed to know that Ellery had died several years ago, and that’s why he contacted me. Somehow, he knows about the Society and what we do. And he thinks he’s found a magical item.’
Frank shrugged loosely and then said nothing more, glancing back and forth between Magda and Will as if waiting for one of them to speak. Magda slumped back in her chair, still holding her mug. She could tell that Frank was unhappy about their secrets being known, and she could feel his unhappiness hanging in the air and souring the atmosphere.
‘It’s not Will’s fault, though, is it?’ she said eventually. ‘He didn’t reveal the secrets.’
‘Doctor Dennis Wei,’ Frank continued, looking at Will. ‘That’s the father’s name. Does it mean anything to you?’
Will shook his head slowly. ‘I wouldn’t know anything about my father’s friends.’
Frank harrumphed unhappily, keeping his eyes on Will. Magda waited, frowning, flicking her eyes back and forth between the two men. It was like they were talking around something that Magda knew nothing about, as if they were excluding her from the conversation even though she was right there. It was infuriating.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say, Frank,’ Will complained finally. ‘I didn’t tell this man about us. It was my father. Go dig up his bones and scowl at him if you want to make yourself feel better.’
Frank rubbed his face, nudging his glasses up his nose. Then he got up and walked over to the small fridge, and Magda watched Will sag in his seat. Frank picked up a biscuit and munched on it as he returned to the table, crumbs landing on his jumper, and Magda saw a bottle of lemonade in his other hand. Frank had always loved sugary drinks; Magda was sure it was a big part of the reason why she had enjoyed visiting him with her mother when she was younger, because there were always bottles of fizzy lemonade or cherryade or Coca-Cola in his fridge. ‘These are not cheap biscuits, by the way,’ he said to Will. ‘I get them from Waitrose. Especially for the Society.’ He opened the lemonade with a crack-hiss and then glugged from the bottle.
‘Is he credible?’ Magda asked Frank, as he swallowed the lemonade. ‘This James Wei?’
Frank nodded. ‘As far as I can tell. I’ve done some checking. He said Ellery and his father were friends years ago. He even sent me a photo of the two of them together.’ He pulled his phone from his pocket and played with it for a moment, passing it to Will. ‘See?’
Will squinted at the phone. ‘Yes, that’s my father.’
Frank turned the phone to Magda, and she saw two men in suits standing together and smiling for the camera, Will’s father and a taller, distinguished-looking Chinese man. To Magda’s eye the two men looked happy, like old friends reunited after a long separation.
Frank burped noisily and Magda smelled lemon in the air. Across the table she saw Will’s face twist briefly with displeasure. ‘It would seem Ellery told his friend all about us,’ Frank continued. ‘Breaching the second rule of the Society. Ellery told this man to let him know if he ever came across an unusual item. And then Doctor Dennis Wei told his son before he died. It’s not a crazy story. Could have happened.’
‘Why would my dad tell this man?’ Will asked the room. He turned his attention to Frank. ‘You probably knew my father better than me. Don’t you know?’
‘I have no idea,’ Frank said, his voice quiet, his eyes staring at the wall straight ahead of him.
Will frowned, his fingers tapping his lips nervously.
‘But that’s all history now, I suppose,’ Frank reflected. ‘Whatever Ellery did or didn’t do, we need to deal with this item.’
‘What are you proposing?’ Magda asked.
‘One of us has to go to Hong Kong,’ Frank said. ‘It might be nothing, but it might be something.’
Magda glanced at Will, but Will wouldn’t meet her eye.
‘If it is an artefact,’ Frank continued, ‘it would be the first time we’ve added something to the archive for almost half a century.’
Magda felt her excitement returning like a tide coming in as the conversation moved away from uncomfortable matters and turned to action, but as she watched Frank it wasn’t excitement she saw – it was unease, as if this whole matter had unsettled him.
‘We’d have to open it up,’ Frank said, turning his head to look towards the bookshelf on the far wall. ‘For the first time in years.’
Magda knew exactly what he was referring to. The Society archive was hidden behind the shelves, kept safe inside the Clockwork Cabinet.
*
Magda often found herself reminiscing about the day ten years earlier when she had first laid eyes on the Clockwork Cabinet. It had been such an important moment in her life. Only a short while after the death of her mother she had discovered that magic existed in the world, and that a collection of magical items was hidden away in the basement beneath Frank’s bookshop.
‘You know there are magical items,’ Frank had said to her, as Will and Henrietta had looked on. ‘But as a new member it is important that you believe this to be true, that you experience the reality of magic. Otherwise, how can you possibly understand the importance of our work?’
Frank had walked across the room to press the hidden button on the bookshelf, releasing the catch to let the shelves swing open. The Clockwork Cabinet sat in the dark recess behind. Magda had joined Frank in front of the Cabinet, her heart in her mouth and very aware that everyone was watching her, judging her.
It was a large cabinet made of varnished wood the colour of golden caramel, the grain visible in light and dark swirls. The face of it was a series of twenty drawers of different sizes, each with a number stencilled on the front in gold. On the right side of the cabinet there were wheels of different sizes, and on the left side were wooden buttons and switches. The Cabinet, Frank told her, had been made by a master craftsman in the 1960s, and each of the drawers could only be opened by turning the wheels and pressing buttons or flicking switches in a certain order. Each drawer had its own unique sequence, like a mechanical combination lock. The Clockwork Cabinet was where the Society kept its archive of artefacts, and, as far as Magda understood, most of the twenty drawers contained an item.
‘Pick a number,’ Frank had said to her, gesturing at the Cabinet. ‘Pick a drawer and I will show you what’s inside; I will show you a magical item.’
Magda had hesitated before selecting drawer number twelve. Frank had then gone to the Cabinet, pressed the buttons in a sequence that Magda couldn’t follow, and turned the wheels on the right-hand side. A few moments later he had pulled out a drawer, yanking it slightly as if it was stiff, and had reached in and removed an item.
‘Here you go,’ he had said, handing Magda a small wooden cube, a dice with the letters Y and N etched on the faces instead of the usual dots or numbers.
‘What is it?’ Magda had asked, tossing the item experimentally in her hand. It had felt unnaturally heavy.
‘It’s the Yes/No Dice,’ Frank had explained, and there had been something new in his eyes, something Magda had never seen before, something hard-edged to this man she knew as soft and comforting. He had beckoned her over to the table and the two of them had sat down again. ‘Ask it any question that can be answered with a yes or a no and it will always tell you the truth. That is its magical power.’
‘Any question?’ Magda had asked, struggling to believe that this could possibly be true. How could a simple wooden dice know the answer to any question? It was preposterous.
Frank had shrugged. ‘Try it. Ask it something only you would know the answer to.’
Magda had looked around the table.
‘Go on,’ Henry had encouraged, smiling.
So Magda had experimented. She had asked questions about her own personal history, things nobody else could know the answer to, and each time she had rolled the dice it had answered correctly. Then she had asked, ‘Does magic exist?’ and the dice had answered, ‘Yes.’ Then, in a moment that she had remembered often in the following years, she had asked one more question: ‘Is magic dangerous?’
Frank had nodded before she rolled the dice, as if he had approved of the question. When she had finally tossed the dice on to the table it had tumbled over itself until finally coming to rest with a Y uppermost.
‘Yes,’ Frank had said, speaking aloud the answer the dice had given.
‘Isn’t it exciting?’ Henrietta had asked, smiling beautifully at Magda, her eyes flashing. ‘You can ask it about the future, about secrets, about people’s desires and wishes. With something like this you could do so much good in the world.’
‘Or evil,’ Will had countered, the first thing he had said since the start of the meeting.
‘All right,’ Frank had said, quietening them, and Magda had seen Henrietta roll her eyes, but her smile hadn’t dropped.
‘Just a simple, little thing,’ Magda had reflected, holding the dice up to the light.
‘Yes,’ Frank had agreed, as he had taken it from her. ‘And this is just one of the artefacts in the Cabinet.’ He had walked back across the room to return the dice to drawer twelve. Magda had watched as he closed the drawer and then pushed the bookcase back into place, hiding the beautiful face of the Clockwork Cabinet.
‘All of the items in the Cabinet are hugely powerful,’ Frank had said, fixing Magda with a look that was a warning. She had never seen him so serious, not even when her mother had died. ‘All of them could be devastating if used by the wrong people. That’s why we keep them here. That’s why we keep them hidden. And safe. That’s the job of the Society.’
*
‘I’ll go,’ Magda said, ten years later, and both Will and Frank looked at her. ‘To Hong Kong. I’ll go.’
Frank’s response was an immediate frown.
‘What’s that look for?’ Magda challenged him.
‘I was thinking Will should go,’ Frank said, and Will immediately leaned back from the table, his head shaking.
‘I’m not going to Hong Kong,’ he said, his voice rising in shock. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘He’s the son of a friend of your father,’ Frank said. ‘There’s a connection there.’
‘He’s not my friend,’ Will argued, his cheeks flushing pink. ‘I don’t know the man. I’ve never been to Hong Kong. Besides which, I’ve got a business to run, Frank. Let Magda go if she wants. She’s a writer, her time is her own. I don’t have time to gallivant around the world.’
‘I already said I’ll go,’ Magda snapped, her annoyance a sharp-edged thing that she now pointed at Frank. ‘Unless you think I’m not up to it. Is that what it is, Frank?’
Frank avoided her gaze, shuffling in his seat. ‘It’s not that …’
‘So it’s settled,’ Magda said, patting the table like an auctioneer banging the gavel to make a sale. ‘I’ll go to Hong Kong. I’ll catch the first available flight tomorrow. You can set up a meeting with this James Wei for when I arrive and send me the details.’
Will was nodding, agreeing enthusiastically with this proposal, but Frank was still frowning.
‘Unless you want to go, Frank?’ Magda pressed, trying to needle him. ‘You want to fly out to Hong Kong? You love warm weather, don’t you? You haven’t left the country in all the years I’ve known you. You can’t make Will go, so either you go, or I go.’
Frank pursed his lips, staring straight ahead, like a man who had driven unexpectedly into a dead end and didn’t know how to reverse.
‘If you are worried about it,’ Magda said, ‘maybe you should open up the Clockwork Cabinet and use the Yes/No Dice. That would tell you if you need to worry about James, or Hong Kong or this new item, wouldn’t it?’
Frank started shaking his head before Magda had even finished speaking. ‘We’re not using the Yes/No Dice. No. They’re not toys. Not to be used for sundry enquiries.’
‘Well,’ Magda concluded, sitting back, ‘we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way, then. I’ll have to go and meet James myself, take a look at this new object, won’t I?’
Frank said nothing, seemingly trapped between two equally unappealing paths.
‘Honestly, Frank,’ Magda exclaimed, ‘what is the point of me being in this Society if you can’t rely on me to do anything?’
‘Fine,’ Frank muttered finally. ‘You can go.’
Magda nodded, satisfied, and excitement swelled within her at the prospect of a trip to Hong Kong, at the possibility of a new magical item, and at the thought of the Clockwork Cabinet opening once again.
‘I can’t wait!’ she said, beaming at Frank.
The Watchmaker of Blandford Street
The following afternoon, at about the same time that Magda Sparks was taking off from Heathrow on her flight to Hong Kong, Will Pinn was sitting at the desk in the workroom behind his small shop, working on the repair to an old silver fob watch that had come to him by post. These were the jobs he liked the best. He never refused a walk-in client, but he preferred to minimize human contact as far as possible. People were unpredictable and sometimes difficult to read. A letter or an order was clear and straightforward. Will liked that. He liked things to be black and white, definitive.
