A Most Magical Girl Read online

  Annabel felt even dizzier. Her mother had always said that her father was a sea captain. That he had been lost at sea. She swayed where she stood.

  “He was hit by a carriage, dear Annabel, on the Euston Road,” said Miss Henrietta. “And that was not even the worst of it. But sit down if you must. There, now, don’t look so shocked.”

  Annabel stumbled toward the counter and the stool behind it. Miss Henrietta looked most displeased.

  “We will teach you the working of the shop, Annabel Grey, for we are old. We are all old in the Great & Benevolent Magical Society. The Bloomsbury Witches are ancient. They once rode their broomsticks each night, delivering love magic. The Kentish Town Wizards have such rheumatism that they can hardly stand up. I send salves each week to Miss Broughton, the Witch of St. John’s Wood. Once, she could heal almost anything that was sick, much like your mother—children, especially, and birds you would think could never fly again—but she does not improve. Yes, we will teach you what we can of the shop, and then, if you show promise, of magic.”

  Miss Henrietta paused for a long moment. The clock on the wall ticked indignantly.

  “This is what is expected of you now, although I have my doubts. I fear your mother has left all too late. You are a girl without education. A girl from a long line of witches, of good pedigree, but with no talent. It is most disappointing.”

  Annabel’s cheeks itched and burned.

  “But I’ve been to Miss Finch’s Academy for Young Ladies,” said Annabel. “I’ve been for two years. I speak French and Latin—well, I’m not very good at Latin, but I received honors for geography.”

  She had. She knew each and every European river and was very good at mapping them. The Rhine, the Seine, the Danube, the Arno. All the mountains: The Swiss Alps and the Pyrenees. The Vogelsbergs and the Carpathians. Isabelle Rutherford, Annabel’s closest friend, said Annabel was the best in the whole world at knowing mountain ranges. Nevertheless, if it was possible, Miss Henrietta looked even more disappointed.

  “Your mother told us that you see things, you have visions,” said Miss Henrietta. Annabel’s breath caught, but Miss Henrietta held up her hand to stop her from talking. “Do you feel an affinity with an animal: the fox, the owl, the cat, the bird? Please close your mouth, girl.”

  Annabel could make no sense of it. Affinity with an owl? She quite liked Charlie, her bullfinch, who sang in their little sunny parlor. Just the thought of it and she felt homesick again.

  “I am to believe your mother taught you no magic,” said Miss Henrietta.

  Annabel’s mother and magic did not seem right in the same sentence. Her mother had belonged to the Society of Philanthropic Sea Widows. She had met with the Ladies’ Lepidoptera Club each and every Saturday. She was beautiful and graceful and most unmagical.

  Annabel decided she would swoon. She would swoon, and it would serve Miss Henrietta right for being so horrible. She sat very still on the stool and willed herself to faint, but couldn’t. Miss Henrietta sighed. “Here is Kitty,” she said. “I hope she has brought what I need.”

  The bell above the door tinkled, and the wildest girl Annabel had ever seen entered from the rain. Her head was held low, a furious frown upon her face, and there was not an inch of tidiness to her. Her wet black curls were tied roughly with a piece of twine, and a brown leaf dangled on a strand beside her ear. Her filthy dress was too short, and her stockings were full of holes, and her wet boots were split apart at the toes and tied around with string.

  “Good evening, Kitty,” said Miss Henrietta. “You are late, and I am busy.”

  The girl grunted in response. She flung her sack down on the floor. She stared at Annabel from beneath her dark brow with green eyes. The stare made Annabel blush and look away. She looked at the sack. At the counter. At the clock. The girl coughed a terrible, hacking cough. When Annabel looked again, the girl was still staring, and it made Annabel’s face burn all the more.

  “Annabel, this is Kitty. Kitty, this is Annabel,” said Miss Henrietta, as though it were perfectly reasonable for a young lady to be introduced to a beggar.

  The old woman took the sack and emptied its contents onto the counter: shells that clattered out, stinking of the Thames; a bundle of grass; several plump leaves; and the perfect body of a dead little rabbit.

  Annabel gasped. “Oh,” she said when Miss Henrietta and the girl glared at her. “Please pardon.”

  “The leaves are good,” said Miss Henrietta. “From the dean’s garden again? He has a fine garden, does he not?”

  The girl nodded but did not speak.

  “What of the world today, then, Kitty?” asked Miss Henrietta. “Bring us news.”

  Still the wild girl did not speak. Her cheeks colored. Her eyes grew glassy, and she scowled at the floor. Miss Henrietta waited.

  “All the trees are in a fuss,” said Kitty quietly at last. She seemed to struggle with each word, yet her voice surprised Annabel. It was not a proper girl’s voice, but it was soft all the same. Soft and clear. “Calling, calling, calling all night through the streets. Something bad is coming, and the moon getting as big as it’s ever been seen.”

  “So the wizards keep saying. Message after message. Calamity approaching,” said Miss Henrietta. “It’s a wonder their pigeons don’t fall clean out of the sky with all their coming and going.”

  Annabel thought a little smile flickered across the wild girl’s lips, but she couldn’t be sure because already the girl was turning from them. She was grabbing her sack and running as though speaking had shamed her. Miss Henrietta went behind her and slipped a small parcel into her hand as she went. The girl did not say thank you. She ran from the shop, banging the door behind her.

  Miss Henrietta took a deep breath when the girl was gone. She looked at Annabel with her disappointed face.

  “The day is nearly done, Annabel,” she said. “Hang your cloak and your gloves and bonnet. There is laundry to be done.”

  Laundry, thought Annabel as she stood up and walked slowly to the hat stand. It seemed the most puzzling suggestion so far. She wanted to stay thinking about the strange girl. Who was she, and where had she come from, and what did she mean about trees calling? Annabel was hungry, too; Henrietta Vine had not even offered her tea.

  “A witch’s dresses can be washed only at dusk on Wednesday,” said Miss Henrietta. “And today is Wednesday, and it is dusk.”

  Miss Henrietta held up both her arms. She pointed to two large dark doors on either side of the specimen cabinets.

  “On no account must you ever open the door on the left,” she said. “Unless it is asked of you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Miss Henrietta,” said Annabel.

  Miss Henrietta opened the door on the right. Annabel followed her great-aunt down a short dim corridor and into a dismal little kitchen where a fire burned low. A blue teapot sat upon the table. She unlocked the back door and led Annabel out into a laneway.

  It was a muddy, stinking laneway, and Annabel thought it was perhaps the worst place she had ever been. They stood there in the dusk, in the icy rain and the wind, which ripped straight though her pretty blue-striped town dress. Surely they shouldn’t be outside in such weather. She’d catch a cold and take ill. A physician would be called for, and he’d say that nothing could be done. She would die. Her story would be serialized in the Illustrated London News, and her mother, who had sent her here, would read it. POOR YOUNG GIRL MALTREATED BY HORRIBLE GREAT-AUNT. There would be illustrations.

  “Perfect weather for washing,” declared Miss Henrietta.

  She led Annabel to a washroom where there was a wooden tub and a tap for drawing water. She lit a small stove so the water could be boiled. Annabel lifted her skirts and worried for her new boots, which were made of blue leather and had blue ribbon bows. She noticed a spider high up on the wall and shuddered. A pile of dark dresses lay in a basket on the floor.

  “I’m sure you have washed clothes before,” said Miss Henrietta. Annabe
l could tell that her great-aunt knew perfectly well she hadn’t. Miss Henrietta poured the water into the tub.

  “I will leave you with the rest,” she said. “The special soap from the Scottish Witches must be grated with a knife—just a teaspoon’s worth, for it has very strong properties. When you have finished, bring the dresses to the kitchen and drape them by the fire.”

  Then she was gone without so much as a thank-you, and Annabel was left staring at her shocked reflection in the washtub.

  “Washing clothes,” she said to her reflection. She nodded, and her pretty, solemn face nodded in return. She touched a blond ringlet. “With special soap from the Scottish Witches.”

  Annabel picked up the purple soap and held it to her nose. It stank. She dropped it in disgust into the tub. The water turned purple and began to froth, and she yelped in fright and fished the soap out.

  Would that happen with just a teaspoon of grated soap? Should she tip the whole tub out and start again? It seemed a shame. She looked at the pile of dresses and pushed them one by one into the purple foaming water. She had to kneel down on the dirty ground, which was awful. She swished the heavy dresses until her arms began to ache. When she could stir no more, she sat looking at the water.

  Her mother had sent her away, and it was a dreadful thing.

  Annabel supposed there had never been a more dreadful thing.

  Her mother had sat her down to tell her. “I must go abroad on business. It is long overdue. I cannot explain it to you now, but you will know in time,” she said. “You will live with my two aunts in Spitalfields for some time.”

  “Aunts?” Annabel had said. “In Spitalfields?”

  She’d never been told she had great-aunts.

  “If you listen well, they will teach you many things,” said her mother. “Lessons you now must learn.”

  “What kind of lessons?” asked Annabel. “What about Miss Finch’s?”

  “Your education at Miss Finch’s is complete,” said her mother. “You will be educated by your great-aunts now.”

  “Complete?” said Annabel.

  “I will send you a letter when I can,” said her mother, beginning to cry. “Now I must go.”

  “I-i-is it because of the puddles?” Annabel stammered. She had rarely seen her mother cry. “I promise I won’t look again. I promise.”

  She didn’t want to be sent away. She didn’t want her mother to go abroad on business that could not be explained. Her mother never did anything that could not be explained.

  “I can no longer protect you from your destiny,” she replied. “Be brave.”

  And in the morning her mother was gone and Mercy was in a terrible state, hurrying and rushing Annabel for her trip to Spitalfields.

  Be brave.

  She would not think of it. She rested her chin on the tub. It was warm there, and she watched the purple water grow still. No, she would not think of it. She would not think of her mother leaving. She would not think of her father, who was not a sea captain drowned at sea, because that story was nonsense. She would not think of Miss Henrietta waiting, standing in that dark, cluttered shop, frowning.

  She would think of the emerald-green ice skates she was to have for her birthday. Her mother had promised them if only she would improve her Latin. Her mother had always said Latin was very important and Annabel should never underestimate when she might need it. But the problem was Latin words made her drowsy. Mr. Ladgrove, who taught Latin grammar at Miss Finch’s Academy for Young Ladies, had a voice like a sleeping potion.

  She supposed she didn’t need to worry about Latin now anyway. Or the green ice skates. There would be no present to open on Friday morning for her birthday. Not now that everything had changed. She began to drag the dresses, one by one, into the basket. They were the heaviest things she had ever dealt with, and none of it was fair.

  She was pulling out the last dress when she saw something moving beneath the surface. It was something darker than the dresses, and it made her stop. She leaned forward. There was her own face mirrored, rippling, in the purple water, but something moved deeper. Something coiling and unraveling. She leaned closer still. There it was, a dark wave, moving just below the surface. And just beneath the surface there was a house—the house she had seen before, the terrible dark house. Her mind screamed at her to look away.

  All about the house she saw the city now, the jumble of streets and intersections and bridges and buildings. She saw it clearly, and she could not help the moan that escaped her lips as she peered closer.

  The dark wave was spreading; it was rising and rising, but it did not crest. It was rushing out from the dark house, gushing from the windows, spreading out into the black streets. It was rushing out to destroy the city. It was all she knew. A great black wave of destruction ready to wipe away houses and fences and churches, schools and hospitals and poorhouses.

  “Save them!” she cried.

  She felt hands beneath her arms, someone dragging her backward from the tub. The wild girl’s face appeared suddenly, then vanished.

  “Sit up,” Annabel heard her say. “Stop leaning so.”

  Annabel struggled to free herself, right herself. The whole washroom seemed on its side. The wild girl’s face appeared again, and her green eyes were filled with curiosity.

  “What’s happened?” came Miss Henrietta’s voice.

  “Nothing,” Annabel whispered.

  “I was taking my victuals under the eaves and heard her hollering,” said Kitty. “ ‘Save them!’ she was shouting, looking in the water here.”

  “What did you see?” asked Miss Henrietta.

  Annabel pulled herself up and leaned against the stone wall.

  “Nothing,” she whispered. She examined the mud on her skirt, refusing to look at Miss Henrietta or the girl. “I must have taken faint—that’s all.”

  Here was the secret she kept from the world. She would like to bury her face in her hands, but she stared at the tub instead. It was just plain purple water, nothing else. The wind whipped in through the open doorway.

  “You have used too much soap,” said Miss Henrietta at last. “Our dresses are quite ruined.”

  It was true that in the evening light the dresses glowed purple in the wash basket.

  “Ruined!” shouted Miss Henrietta, and Annabel flinched at the word.

  “Forgive me, Aunt,” whispered Annabel.

  “You’ll be good for nothing,” said Miss Henrietta.

  In the kitchen Annabel helped Miss Henrietta drape the dresses before the fire, where their purplish glow grew. Annabel’s cheeks stung at the sight, but no more was said. She shivered and watched Miss Henrietta unwrap bread and cut the mold from it. She sliced hard cheese and handed a plate to Annabel.

  “You will be tired, no doubt,” said Miss Henrietta, pouring tea.

  Annabel ate, ravenous, and gulped down the tea that Miss Henrietta passed to her. She was overcome with weariness. She shivered again and wondered after the girl Kitty, who had not been asked inside. Miss Henrietta had not even bid her good night. Annabel had never been in such a place, where no one had manners.

  “I hope you do not take ill,” said Miss Henrietta. “Our last girl did. She faded away in a matter of hours.”

  There was nothing Annabel could think to say to that.

  “Follow me. I will show you to your room. Take the bowl and the rest of the hot water in the pitcher.”

  Beside the fireplace at the end of the kitchen, there was a door, and behind the door, narrow, twisting steps. Annabel followed Miss Henrietta up three flights, past a single closed door on each turn, to the very top. The pitcher and bowl were heavy. In her old life, the maid, Mercy, would have carried them. In her old life, the maid would have said in a soothing voice, “Come along now, Miss Annabel, or you’ll fall asleep on your little feet.” In her old life, the maid would have untied Annabel’s fair hair and brushed it out until it gleamed in the lantern light.

  Here, the candlelight flicker
ed on the walls and a cold draft rushed down the stairs. At the top landing Miss Henrietta opened a little door and crouched down to pass through. It was a mean little attic room, and the candle Miss Henrietta lit was short and Annabel knew it wouldn’t last the night. The bed was plain, with one coarse blanket and not even a pillow. The tiny window showed the black sky, and the wind and rain banged against it.

  “This is an old place, Annabel,” said Miss Henrietta. “It speaks to itself at night. Bumps and moans. You shouldn’t be alarmed. No harm will come to you here.”

  But Annabel felt harmed. She felt bruised by the few short hours she had been there. By everything she had been asked to do. By all of Miss Henrietta’s words. She felt ruined by the day.

  “The wizards have long sent messages of you,” said Miss Henrietta, a little more kindly. “They think you show promise. Your mother wrote to us and told us of your visions. That is why you are here, child. They have increased, have they not?”

  “I don’t have visions,” said Annabel.

  Miss Henrietta stared at her sadly. She began to close the door.

  “And who is that girl?” Annabel cried. “Where does she sleep?”

  “Kitty?” Miss Henrietta said. “Do not worry for Kitty. She has a hundred sleeping places all through the town. She is a betwixter, Annabel. She knows all the woods that remain in London Town, the last woods, the pockets of trees where the wild things are. Much has been chopped down, Annabel. To make ships and sideboards and fancy chairs. But she knows where to find the little folk and she does our dealings with them. I have heard it said she can sing up her spirit light. There are not many girls like Kitty anymore.”

  It made no sense to Annabel. “It’s cold and rainy out,” she said.

  “You could not keep Kitty indoors if you tried, Annabel,” said Miss Henrietta. She shut the door at that, and Annabel listened for a long time to her footsteps growing fainter down the stairs.