This entry was written in his father’s hand, and his father’s usually straightforward hand slanted as if he was betraying emotion. Isaac found the snow globe, and yes, it was charming. He smiled.

He could see his parents, and maybe even his grandfather, from time to time, even if only for a little while.

CHAPTER 59

The Wraith in London

Circa 1890

Tales tell of a creature—or numerous creatures—that roam the foggy streets of London during the waning decades of the nineteenth century.

Jack the Ripper. Spring-heeled Jack. The mad roving tiger. Ghosts and demons and glowing-eyed beasts. Wild tales from a city that is growing fast, that suffers thick pea-soup fogs, that is captivated by the wondrous findings of a certain Mr. Charles Darwin. The nineteenth century is a time that has spawned a collection of writers—Poe, Shelley, Stoker, Dickens, Stevenson—who pen some of the most frightening and fascinating stories written in the English language.

Perhaps that’s why a wraith can make its way through the city and then out, moving only at nighttime, wandering the countryside, ever traveling north. Perhaps that’s why this wraith survives, through the energy of grim nightmares and dark magic. Perhaps that’s why this wraith lives a very long time as it slinks ever closer to its great desire, drawn as it is, over and over, to a castle far north in Scotland.

This wraith has a skill for making, and it does so as it moves through the countryside. It makes small mechanical monsters that follow it like children follow the Pied Piper. They follow it north, from glade to glen to rocky burn, to a place that becomes known as “the place of the elves.”

Every so often a child wandering off by herself will hear a small noise and see something in the bracken. Something hunkering low, fearful, watchful, having a tiny hedgehog body with gigantic eyes and peculiar ears, or a bird body with baby-size cat legs. But no one can catch these little beasties, so the myths around them grow and become fanciful stories of elvish hybrids that were made by a wicked magician—whom some called magister—who has turned into a wraith.

A wraith who desires a tiny object, shiny and magical: the thimble that holds the soul of its beloved.

CHAPTER 60

The Artifact Hunters

1943 and Beyond

On a full-moon winter night in 1943, five children and one giant dog materialize in New York City’s Central Park on Gapstow Bridge, one by one, from thin air, with a soft whoosh. They stand silent for a moment, gathering their thoughts and making certain that their arrival has not been noticed. A black cat, who moments earlier was washing his paws on the bridge rail, slinks into the shadows and watches the strange children with unblinking eyes.