Page 2 - Mouse Heart Synopsis

SYNOPSIS
The heart of this story is the intense relationship between Mouse and Valentina – too close, but also too full of lies. It’s about Mouse realising that she has the power and skill to take the lead, rather than being forced to do a more powerful person’s bidding. A historical fantasy, this tale is set in the early 1700s in a run-down theatre, next to a bustling harbour.
Mouse was found abandoned in a costume hamper at the Moth Theatre when she was just a baby by Walter, who brought her into the theatre family and became like a father to her. A few years later, Valentina joined the company. She’s fiercely clever and talented and a stunning leading lady. She’s always a little secretive about the life she leads outside of the theatre, but that’s part of her charm. Mouse admires and even comes to love her, almost like family.
One morning when Mouse is twelve, Walter bursts through the theatre doors, blood dripping from his hands, shouting that he’s innocent but that the constables are after him for the murder of Lady Grey, a favourite of the queen. Hot on his heels, the constables drag him off to the terrifying prison to await trial. Mouse is certain that Walter is innocent. She declares that she will clear his name and get him out of prison. Valentina says she will help her, and that she has a plan that will require Mouse’s help, but it is all slightly suspicious...
Valentina, being a popular actress, has many admirers. One of these is Lord Randall – ‘spy master’ to the queen. Valentina tells Mouse that she’s planning to blackmail the queen into giving Walter a pardon. She’s going to use Lord Randall, who will do anything she wants, to get the queen to visit their theatre and then use Randall’s knowledge of the queen’s secrets to force her to write a pardon. She enlists Mouse’s help in her dealings with Lord Randall, but Mouse has a feeling that things aren’t quite as they seem and conducts her own investigation. She manages to find a witness, but before she can get him to sign a witness statement, he is found murdered.
Meanwhile, Valentina is pulling Mouse closer and closer into her scheme to blackmail the queen and Mouse begins to suspect that Valentina may have a far darker side than she ever realised. When Mouse finds a blood-stained cloak stashed in an old hamper in the theatre, she realises that Valentina must have been involved in the murder of Lady Grey and it is up to Mouse to uncover the truth of what has happened.