called the Gift, which she uses to read the future by pouring lead into water and interpreting the shapes it makes. After her sister, scandalized by Jessica's lifestyle, forbids her from ever seeing her precious niece Lottie (Omri's maternal grandmother who was killed in the Blitz during World War II), Jessica takes revenge by stealing her sister's valuable earrings. To do so she makes a duplicate of the jewel-case key out of lead, but accidentally imbues it with magical power through her own Gift. This allows the Key to open any lock. Lottie is accused of stealing the earrings and runs out into the street where her father follows her, resulting in him being killed by a passing carriage. At this point in the Account, Jessica grows too weak to continue. Omri's great-uncle Fredrick takes over. Fredrick was a toymaker who created miniatures from metal and who detested the cheap, ugly plastic toys that had come to replace old-fashioned metal toys. He also possessed some of Jessica's magical abilities. Jessica had him create the cupboard, which he imbues with his hatred of plastic toys. This caused the cupboard to only bring plastic toys to life, which is why no other materials ever worked when Omri tried them in the cupboard. Omri meets one of the thatchers who worked on the roof when Jessica was dying, a man named Tom, and learns from him that Jessica let him in on the secret. She also gave him a little person to care for, a servant girl named Jenny from the 1800s who sought to escape her home life after she lost her position. After having lived as a little person for thirty years, she had died a few months before. Omri suspects that the stolen earrings are in the deedbox he found with the Account and realises that the magic key could open it. He returns to his old town, telling his parents that he wants to visit Patrick, but really to retrieve the key from the safe-deposit box. Omri opens the deedbox and finds five wrapped bundles, four of whom are people brought to life by the magic key. The people turn out to be Elsie, a widowed shop owner; Bert, a thief from Elsie's time; and Ted, a retired policeman. The final person, Sergeant Charlie Ellis, was a naval officer killed at the Battle of Trafalgar; his bundle contains only