I reach the door to the Jules Verne suite. Along the corridor behind me, I can feel the painted eyes of the Kraken family glaring down from their picture frames.

How could I have been so stupid? How could I have forgotten the cameraluna? I reach out and pull the cord, and hear the distant ding of the bell. The COME IN light flashes on immediately, and the door swings open.

Lady Kraken’s enormous curtain-shrouded sitting room is lit with cold light from an open French window. In the window, her back to me, Lady Kraken herself sits in her bronze wheelchair, wrapped in a shawl. Beyond is a balcony, white with the snow that falls and swirls around the old lady.

I step forward into the icy cold room and try a cough – a small here-I-am one.

After a moment, Lady Kraken lifts one claw hand and beckons me over. The door behind me swings shut with a coffin-lid thud.

“See how clean the town looks,” says Lady Kraken, as I reach her side. “The snow covers all the grime, all the strangeness of the place. It makes everything seem new again.”

I make a small, polite noise. It’s a step up from the cough, but not a big one.

“But it wasn’t snowing last night, was it, Mr Lemon? Last night there was a beautiful full moon. I could see –” and she turns her wheelchair sharply – “I could see everything!”

“I can explain!” I blurt out.

The claw hand is raised again, as the lady points to my face.

“You saw it, didn’t you?”

“Yes!”

“Face to face! Saw the full horror of it.” Her eyes are flashing. “Saw the monstrosity that haunts our town with your own eyes.”

I step back, clutching my cap to my chest. “Lady Kraken, Your Grandness, I was going to tell you, I promise…”

“You did promise, didn’t you, Mr Lemon?” Lady Kraken’s chair whirrs into electric life as she advances towards me. “Promised to be my eyes and ears. So, tell me now! Why was the creature at the museum? Why were you there?”

“I-I don’t know,” I manage to say, backing into a table. It’s the very table Lady K uses to display the images from her cameraluna. “That is to say, I do know. I just don’t really know what it all means…”

Lady Kraken creaks to a halt right in front of me.

“Are you always such a dunderbrain, boy?” she croaks. “Surely this means that Dr Thalassi is up to something.”

I manage a shrug.

“And how about that other one?” says Lady Kraken. “The girl. Oh yes, Herbert Lemon, I know all about the girl. Something else you were going to tell me, I suppose?”

I grin, though the grin must look a bit desperate. The cap in my hand is crushed now, my knuckles white.