I absolutely adore this author’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, so I was intrigued to see he had also written some young adult books, of which this is one, and I can’t wait to dive into his wonderful imagination and story-telling again!
I absolutely adore this author’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, so I was intrigued to see he had also written some young adult books, of which this is one, and I can’t wait to dive into his wonderful imagination and story-telling again!
It is 1943 and, due to the war, Max Carver’s father has decided to move the family out of the city to the safer coast. They arrive at their new home, but Max spots some unsettling things on the way, such as the station clock which moves backwards and the cat at the station who seems to have been waiting there for them. They learn that the family who lived in the house before them had a boy called Jacob Fleischmann who drowned in 1932 aged seven years of age. There is an overgrown garden near the house with the symbol of a six-pointed star at its entrance, and inside the garden are statues of circus figures which are also laid out in that six-pointed star design. When Max looks at the clown statue in the centre of the group, it moves its hand from a clenched fist to an outstretched palm. Eeeek, omg, that is soooo creepy! And of course it has to be a clown, they are just so potentially sinister! But this is far creepier and sinister than I’d imagined for a children’s book, the clock at the station that moves backwards and the cat waiting for them were enticingly mysterious but this clown seems to have racked things up quite a few notches! And I find myself constantly looking out for any themes that I’d noticed in the author’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books series and wondering if these were from ideas he had when writing this book and which he then developed further in that series, and the six-pointed star (which I presume is the Star of David) reminds me of the one in The Angel’s Game.
Max meets Roland, who shows him around the town. Roland is aged 18 and is an orphan (as his parents died in a car crash) and he lives with his adopted grandfather, Victor, in a lighthouse, though Roland mostly lives in a hut on the beach. Roland explains that his grandfather is the only survivor of a shipwreck which occurred on that coastline, and offers to take Max snorkelling to see the sunken wreck of this ship. Later, Max’s sister Alicia tells him that she had had a strange dream about a clown. Then Irina, Max’s other sister, hears voices in her bedroom and the key in her wardrobe door turns revealing her cat inside but also with a person’s eyes in there. She runs away and falls down the stairs and is injured so severely that she is in a coma. Omg, the eyes in poor Irina’s wardrobe, how terrifying! And I presume that as Irina is now in a coma then no-one else in the house knows of this intruder! And I’m wondering with Roland being 18, then he was born in 1925 which was the same year that Jacob Fleischman was born so Roland probably knew Jacob and may know more about the circumstances of his death.
The boys and Alicia demand an explanation about all these strange occurrences from Victor, who they are convinced knows more about what might be happening. He tells them about a mysterious man called Cain, known as The Prince of Mist, who came to children in Victor’s neighbourhood, when Victor was a child himself, and promised them anything they wished if they gave him loyalty in return and did something he wanted, and they were killed if they didn’t agree and Victor says that his childhood friend was turned into a block of ice. Victor says after his family moved to another town, he then saw The Prince of Mist again who was now known as Dr Cain and was a fortune teller/magician on a pier and Victor also saw him performing there as a clown. Victor says his friend Richard Fleischmann decided to ask for a wish from The Prince of Mist, which was that he marry a girl he was deeply in love with called Eva, but what The Prince of Mist demanded in return was that he was to have their first-born son. Victor says his friend did marry Eva but was so scared of their first-born son being taken by The Prince of Mist that he drugged his wife so she couldn’t have children. Victor followed The Prince of Mist onto the boat Orpheus, which The Prince of Mist and his circus troupe had got onto in order to escape from the police, and the boat then sank with Victor being the only survivor, but none of the circus troupe’s bodies were ever found, and Victor adds that the flag of the ship was a six-pointed star. He says that when Richard heard that The Prince of Mist had been drowned he felt that the demand had been removed, so Jacob was born. But then Jacob drowned, which convinced Victor that The Prince of Mist was still alive in some way. Eeek, this circus troupe must be the statues from the garden surely, with the six-pointed star at the entrance to the garden matching the symbol on the ship’s flag! And omg, omg, omg, Jacob was drowned due to the bargain that his father had struck with The Prince of Mist. And I recognise the name Cain from the bible story of Cain and Abel and I’ve just looked on Wikipedia to remind myself of the details and it says that Cain was jealous of his brother Abel and murdered him (!), that he was the first human born in the world (as Adam and Eve were his parents and he was their first child) and the first murderer in the world, that he was cursed by God after the murder (and the Cain in this book seems to give out curses/threats if the person doesn’t agree to his demand after he has granted their wish), and Wikipedia adds that Cain is viewed to be ‘the originator of evil, violence, or greed’. Well, I feel the name seems very suitable for the Cain in this book and possibly gives us a clue as to his character and what else he may be capable of! And with me still looking for links with the ideas the author may have developed further in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, I noted that Cain/The Prince of Mist seems very similar to Corelli in The Angel’s Game with his eyes seeming to change colour and him not blinking and him granting wishes (like Corelli granted all of David’s wishes).
Max goes to Jacob’s mausoleum where there’s a six-pointed star on the grave and two angel statues outside, then one of the statues appears inside the mausoleum with Max and its angel face changes into a clown. Max drops his watch in Jacob’s mausoleum in his terror. Later Max and Roland and Alice swim out to see the sunken wreck of the Orpheus but a creature appears under the water and grabs Roland and drags him down into the shipwreck. Max dives in after Roland and punches the creature, which is made of water formed into the shape of a clown with an angel’s head and has claws and fangs, and he grabs Roland and brings him to the surface and Alicia helps them into the boat. Phew, I don’t think I breathed throughout that scene, wow, it was so tense! And the angel statue appearing inside Jacob’s mausoleum is terrifying, it reminds me of that really creepy Doctor Who episode with the statues who move, and also this theme of angels again reminds me of the author’s later book The Angel’s Game.
A few times, Max has watched an old cine film which his father had found in a shed on the property and which shows the garden of statues, but each time he watches the film there are changes, such as statues are in different positions, and the clown’s face changes into a smile, and the cat from the station is sat beside the clown statue’s feet. This time when he watches the cine film, he sees his watch which he had dropped in Jacob’s mausoleum, and he also sees Jacob in the film and he realises that this is actually Roland. Max speaks to Victor again demanding a fuller story and tells him he knows that Roland is Jacob. Victor explains that Jacob was enticed to the water’s edge by The Prince of Mist who grabbed the boy and dragged him into the water, but Victor leapt in and saved him. Jacob almost died but eventually recovered and his parents then begged Victor to raise Jacob with another name so as to avoid The Prince of Mist’s curse, which Victor did and named him Roland. Oooh, so Roland is really Jacob! I hadn’t seen that coming, I had just thought that with them being the same age then Roland may have known Jacob, ooooh, this is clever! And the book is getting creepier and creepier with this cine film and then with Max’s watch appearing in the film, eeek, this author has such an incredible imagination! And I can imagine this book would make a great film, I can just see the images from the cine film flickering on the screen, shiver, I love it!
Roland is sleeping in his beach hut, recovering from his ordeal, and Alicia is there with him, when a mist appears in the hut and takes the form of The Prince of Mist who drags Alicia into the water and to the Orpheus boat which has appeared above the water. The Prince of Mist stands on the boat and shouts to Roland that it is him he wants and if Roland doesn’t want Alicia to die then he must come to him. Roland swims out to the boat after Alicia, and The Prince of Mist tells Roland that he is really Jacob and the debt on his life made by his father needs to be paid, and also tells Roland that his wish that Alicia’s life be spared can be granted but it is on condition that Roland/Jacob gives his own life, to which Roland agrees. Roland frees Alicia, but he is never seen again.
Wow, what a book, and far more tense and scary and dark than I imagined a young adult’s book would be, and without the happy ending of all the children surviving and the enemy being defeated which I also had presumed there would be! And The Prince of Mist/Cain said that he has had many names, so I wonder if he is supposed to be the Devil (as indeed I wondered if Corelli in The Angel’s Game was supposed to be the Devil). I also liked the themes of clocks and watches in this book, with the station clock moving backwards and the cine film showing a clock-face and Max’s dad being a watchmaker and giving Max a watch showing the moon and sun, and of course the themes of angels and clowns.
There is an extract at the end of my copy of the book of the author’s next young adults’ story called The Midnight Palace, so I will definitely be reading that, as well as his other young adult books, The Watcher in the Shadows, and Marina. And I must re-read The Angel’s Game with the similarities I spotted in this book which I presume the author chose to develop more in that book. My copy of this book also has some interesting reading notes at the back of the book, and also suggestions of other similar books that the reader may like to read and of which there are a couple that immediately jump out at me, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman which sounds very intriguing with a city under the streets of London, and also the wonderfully scary-sounding The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. The reading notes also mention The Turn of the Screw by Henry James which I have read a few times and absolutely love, though it puzzles me and I can never fully decide if the events actually happened or if it was just the main character’s imagination (oooh, I’m tempted to re-read that book again now too!).
