A Most Magical Girl Read online

  She hadn’t. Or at least Annabel didn’t think she had. She had mentioned wizards, though. Maybe he’d been mixed in with them all and Annabel hadn’t noticed.

  She didn’t like to look at his crookedness, so she looked at his face, which was handsome in a way she couldn’t fathom. He had very dark eyes, which were sad, probably the saddest eyes she had ever seen, with very long lashes. He had a largish nose and a mouth that was rather lopsided, one side sneering, one side melancholy. He had dark shadows in his cheekbones, as though he needed to be fed for weeks and weeks on cream buns and egg custard. Those shadows made her shiver suddenly, and a little dark memory that she couldn’t quite catch flitted across her eye and was gone.

  He was sad and lonely-looking.

  He was wicked-looking.

  As though he would pinch babies when their mothers weren’t paying attention.

  Or steal precious things from locked drawers very quietly.

  She didn’t like him. There was something about him that made her feel scared.

  “I’m afraid Miss Henrietta Vine is out on business,” Annabel said, and it made her think of black feathers. She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. Black feathers and invisible men. It just wouldn’t do.

  “Her sister?”

  Estella? Miss Estella was a mystery. She tried not to let it show.

  “Unfortunately, Miss Estella Vine is indisposed,” said Annabel.

  “What is your name, then?” he said, and his voice was kind, but beneath the kindness there was darkness coiling.

  “Annabel Grey,” she replied, lifting up her chin and smiling the most polite smile she could.

  “Ah,” he said, surprised. “The Annabel Grey. Daughter of the Great Geraldo Grey?”

  Annabel did not know what he meant. She did not like the way his face had split wide with a terrible tight smile. The Great Geraldo Grey? The name made her heart hurt and flutter at the same time.

  “And may I ask after your mother’s health?” Mr. Angel said, tilting his head, smile widening.

  “My mother is traveling on the Continent,” said Annabel, and she tried very hard to keep the quiver from her voice.

  Mr. Angel thought for some time and then suddenly rapped his cane loudly on the counter.

  “A letter for the Misses Vine, then, Annabel,” he said, and took from his pocket a paper folded and embossed with a dark seal. “I have returned. I have the Black Wand and a machine already producing dark magic. When the full moon rises Friday eve, the machine will reach its potential. Thirteen years of full moons. The dark magic it will produce will be unbounded. I will raise a shadowling army and take the city. There will be no more good magic. The Great & Benevolent Magical Society, each and every member, must lay down their wands and bow down before me and pledge allegiance. If not, I will turn them all to dust.”

  Annabel tried very hard to keep her polite smile. It seemed to annoy Mr. Angel. He took his black stick and aimed it at the ledger on the countertop. A blast of purple light erupted from its tip, and the ledger vanished, leaving a pile of dust in its place. Annabel’s smile slipped and was gone. She looked at the pile of dust and knew that Miss Henrietta would be very cross indeed. She began to cry.

  But Mr. Angel was only beginning. He took his Black Wand and pointed it through the window at the sunny day. He closed his eyes and began to sing a mournful song. Annabel thought it had a very unpleasant tune. A shadow fell over the shop front as though a cloud had passed over the sun, and suddenly a torrent of soot rained from the sky. A fog rose up outside—in wispy tendrils at first, then thicker and thicker, deep brown and purplish in parts, until the street was quite clouded. The shop grew darker and cooler.

  Annabel hiccuped and shivered.

  Mr. Angel smiled, pleased with the result. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. Annabel dried her eyes, said thank you, and handed the handkerchief back to him.

  “I’ll tell Miss Vine that you called,” she whispered.

  She took the letter, and his dark-gloved hand closed over hers.

  “Are you as magical as your mother?” he asked.

  His gloved hand was warm and dry, and Annabel could not breathe. He spoke softly. He leaned toward her, close, with his crookedness.

  “There is nothing any of you can do to stop me,” he said, then turned and flicked his cloak and was gone, leaving the fog behind him.

  Annabel was still sitting there an hour later when Miss Henrietta returned. She did not come back as a crow but as her normal self, scowling at the weather and looking vexed.

  “I’ve had to walk from St. Paul’s,” she said. “Because of all this brown fog. Where on earth has it come from? There must be a fire somewhere.”

  She stopped when she saw Annabel’s ashen face. She glanced at the letter in Annabel’s hands and the pile of dust where the ledger had been.

  “I’ve left you alone for only two hours!” she cried. “What on earth have you managed to do?”

  “When calling upon a new acquaintance, a young lady will not stare or comment upon surroundings. She will not touch ornaments, examine paintings, or open the pianoforte.”

  —Miss Finch’s Little Blue Book (1855)

  Miss Henrietta snatched the letter from Annabel’s hands. It made Annabel feel cross and ashamed, as though she herself had raised the fog and caused the ledger to disappear. She stood up, and Miss Henrietta took her place on the stool, the letter undone, and her mouth open.

  “All the Black Witches of Birmingham! It cannot be so!” Miss Henrietta cried. “Mr. Angel has returned.”

  She turned gray, and her blue eyes filled with tears. The letter trembled in her hands.

  “Was he here?” she cried.

  “Yes,” said Annabel.

  “And he has a terrible machine and the Black Wand and…” She was quite overcome, and Annabel wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Should I make you a cup of tea, Miss Henrietta?” she asked.

  “No, no time for tea, Annabel. Quickly, make haste. I must take the letter to Estella. She will know what to do. We must pass through the storeroom. You are not ready for it, but there is no time. I implore you, keep your arms by your sides and your eyes on the floor. Do you understand?”

  It seemed a strange request, but Annabel nodded because everything that had happened since her arrival had been strange. She felt she was becoming quite used to it. Miss Henrietta took the Ondona, the letter, and a candle and opened the door to the left of the specimen cabinets.

  “Hurry, then,” she whispered to Annabel. “Magical things must not be exposed to too much sunlight.”

  Annabel followed Miss Henrietta, who held the candle low before her. They passed through a narrow room filled from floor to ceiling with shelves. Annabel immediately forgot what she had been instructed. She looked at the shelves and the things illuminated by Miss Henrietta’s candle.

  There were rolled carpets and wicker baskets, boxes stacked one on top of another, large pots, peacock feathers, the staring eyes of dolls. There were glass jars and broomsticks tied up in bundles, and other things, too, although she couldn’t quite make out the shapes. They were dark things, lurking things, skulking-shaped things. Things that worried her, so she quickly looked away. Finally, Miss Henrietta opened another door into the same miserable little kitchen.

  It was the same little kitchen, Annabel was sure of it, only…now it was different. The hearth was on the opposite side, and the door to the alleyway had changed position, and the teapot on the little table was green instead of blue.

  “Quickly, quickly, or too much light will get in,” repeated Miss Henrietta. “Magical objects need darkness and little air.”

  Annabel stood still, trying to understand what had happened, until Miss Henrietta grabbed her by the arm and dragged her forward to a large brown door that most definitely had not been there before.

  “Now we must go down,” said Miss Henrietta.

  “Down?” asked Annabel.


  “Down,” said Miss Henrietta, and she opened the door and pointed down into the darkness.

  Miss Henrietta held the candle high and the light of it flared on the stone walls. Annabel gathered up her skirts with one hand and worried afresh for her new blue leather boots. The dark stairs smelled of old onions and mildew. Down they went, and with each step the smell grew. The dark stone staircase ended, and they entered a hall. Now the house smelled of rain. Annabel didn’t like to admit it, but she could not deny it: it was a relief after the stench of the stone stairs. The little dim parlor they passed through, unused and lonely, the papered walls strung with cobwebs, smelled exactly like rain. Real rain, fresh rain, Annabel thought with a growing sense of alarm…rain falling in torrents off rooftops and filling up puddles. She stopped, her nostrils flared, her eyes widened. How could a room smell so wild and tumultuous?

  A figure appeared from the gloom up ahead. She was an old lady, nearly completely bent over, holding a large crook. Annabel thought it was Miss Estella, but the woman nodded to Miss Henrietta and lowered her eyes, and Annabel realized it must be the maid, Tatty.

  Tatty looked at Annabel most sternly, banged her crook down hard, and opened a door behind her. There was a noise in Annabel’s ears now, a loud noise: a rippling, trickling, rushing noise. She wanted to slap her ears, shake her head, to get the sound out.

  “In,” said Tatty, and Annabel entered Miss Estella’s bedchamber.

  In Miss Estella’s bedchamber there was a very large bed. It was festooned with nets and ribbons, all in tatters, all ragged and stained. Beside the bed were pink and green and brown bottles all covered in dust.

  Annabel wished she had a handkerchief to cover her nose.

  The room smelled of perfume gone sour. Old bathwater. Urine. And something else….

  Miss Henrietta pushed Annabel forward into the room with her sharp, bony finger. The something else was a river. A dark river, a black river. Annabel smelled it, and the smell of it made her gasp. It was the smell of rushing water, pungent with dead leaves and moss and the blank, airy scent of river stones. She could hear it, too, swirling and trickling and babbling, even though there was no water to be seen. The sound of the water was so loud that Annabel expected to see it cascading down the walls, but there was nothing there, just the faded pink-peony wallpaper.

  “Do not be alarmed. It is only the secret river,” came a withered voice from the bed. “One of the old rivers.”

  Miss Estella was so small that Annabel hadn’t seen her. She was lost amid the cushions, her little wrinkled face half-hidden by a large lace nightcap. She peered at Annabel with mischievous dark eyes.

  “It runs beneath this very place,” she said, “and today it runs fast and high, and I rejoice. The sound of it gives me great comfort, for I know in my bones that I am soon to die.”

  Annabel thought she might faint. She would—she would faint—and they would have to call for a physician, and she would be taken away. It would serve them right. Her mother could never have truly meant for her to come to such a place.

  “So you’re the girl, then, yes?” said Miss Estella. “Vivienne’s child? Vivienne has sent you back, as she should have. Finally she saw the error of her ways. Oh, the girl can feel the river, yes. See how she feels the river, Hen? It’s in her blood, then. Sit her down—get the girl a chair.”

  Miss Henrietta sighed. She pushed Annabel toward a chair in the corner of the room.

  “Great trouble is upon us,” Miss Henrietta said. “A letter has come from Mr. Angel.”

  “Hush,” said Miss Estella, ignoring her sister. “Never mind, child; the water never comes into the room. I have a boat down there, you know, and when my time comes, I am going to sail away.”

  She let out a long cackle at that.

  “Sail away,” she said again. “What do you think of that? Speak up, then.”

  “I don’t understand,” whispered Annabel.

  “Don’t understand?” said Miss Estella, and she laughed even louder. “The letter, then, Henrietta. Get the child to read it. I would like to hear her voice. It will be very pleasing to my dainty little ears.”

  Miss Estella’s ears were hidden somewhere beneath her lace nightcap. Annabel imagined they would be as purplish and withered as fallen rose petals. She needed to think of something pleasant: the green ice skates she was to have for her birthday. It was very difficult.

  Miss Henrietta thrust the letter into Annabel’s hands. “Read it,” she demanded.

  “Yes, read it, pretty,” said Miss Estella, most amused. “Mr. Angel, you say? No one’s heard from him for many a year.

  “She is like Vivienne, is she not, Hen?” continued Miss Estella. “You know your mother was very powerful, child. Why, she could mend most anything, even what was nearly dead and gone. So magical—why, she even had her own wand, the Lydia, but she gave that away when she went and made things ruinous, all for love, and went to Mr. Angel and caused great trouble and turned her back on us.”

  Annabel bit her lip. Her mother was a lady, of good society. She knew her Titians from her Tiepolos. It seemed unlikely that she’d have gone anywhere near Mr. Angel.

  “The Annabel Grey,” said Miss Estella. “Remember the dreams the wizards had of her?”

  “Hush, Estella,” said Miss Henrietta.

  “Read the letter. Go on—open the letter,” said Miss Estella with a laugh.

  Annabel’s hands shook as she unfolded the paper. The room filled with the sound of rushing water and the smell of flood, and her head spun as though she were lost in a storm.

  “To the Misses E. and H. Vine:

  “It is in your capacity as secretaries of the Great & Benevolent Magical Society that I address this letter to you. I am returned to London, and the Black Wand is mine. My Dark-Magic Extracting Machine is nearly complete, and at full moon I will raise a shadowling army and take the city. Everything shall be mine. All the palaces and all the mansions. All the parks and all the estates. Each and every street. Each and every tenement. Everyone in the city will bow to me. I have raised several shadowlings already, and they are as cunning and wicked as the books describe. I implore you, send notice to all members of your society and ask them to lay down their wands and pledge allegiance to my rule before Friday midnight, when the moon will rise. I offer you all a place in my dark empire if you obey.

  “Dated this day, 13th June 1867, Mr. A. Angel.”

  “You see, Estella!” cried Miss Henrietta.

  “He has the Black Wand,” said Miss Estella. “It cannot be so.”

  “And a machine!” cried Miss Henrietta.

  “He will use his dark magic to raise the shadowlings,” said Miss Estella. “He might turn everyone to stone.”

  “Dust,” said Annabel. “He told me dust.”

  Both the great-aunts stared at her until she reddened under their gaze.

  “We are the secretaries of the Great & Benevolent Magical Society,” said Miss Henrietta.

  “From our birth day to our day of death,” said Miss Estella.

  “Under no circumstances must this be allowed to happen. We must send word. We must make plans!” cried Miss Henrietta.

  There was a long pause then, while the two old women thought, and the room seemed to Annabel to be filled up with their quiet cognitions. Miss Estella murmured, and Miss Henrietta wrung her hands, slowly, methodically, one inside the other. The sound of the river trickled and gushed and crooned and rushed.

  “It was written somewhere, was it not, Hen?” said Miss Estella at last. “The very rules for what the society should do if good magic was threatened. If the Black Wand was found.”

  “I believe you are correct, Estella,” said Miss Henrietta.

  “There was the book,” said Miss Estella.

  “The book?” said Miss Henrietta. And she wound her hands tighter, then said apologetically, “It has been long, Estella, since our mother taught us.”

  “The…big book. The very big book with the purple cover.
The Handbook of the Great & Benevolent Magical Society!” Miss Estella spat the last words out with triumph. “Fetch it, Henrietta. And I will tell Annabel of Mr. Angel.”

  Annabel was used to perfectly normal conversation. Who was walking out in the afternoon at Kensington and what they wore and who was to be presented in the spring. Not talk of wizards and wands and shadowlings. She had no idea what a shadowling was, but just the word made her feel worried, deep down in the pit of her stomach.

  “Come closer,” said Miss Estella once Miss Henrietta had gone from the room.

  Annabel could think of nothing worse. She wanted to stay on her chair, where it was safe.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Miss Estella. “I can’t hear your thoughts all the way over there.”

  Annabel stood and moved toward the bed. She tried a smile but abandoned it when Miss Estella grinned back at her wildly, providing a wide view of her brown teeth. Miss Estella patted the sheets beside her. Dirty, stained sheets. Annabel thought she would faint if she had to sit on those dirty sheets. But she lowered her bottom gingerly and found herself still conscious.

  “Oh, but you are shaking like a little autumn leaf,” said Miss Estella, as though it pleased her greatly. “Tell me, then. You see things, do you not? And your mother knew it was time for you to be educated.”

  “Yes,” whispered Annabel.

  “And what has your mother taught you of the magical world?”

  “She hasn’t,” whispered Annabel.

  Miss Estella opened her mouth and let out a long high-pitched shriek.

  “Wicked thing! She should have taught you, not turned her back on us. She should never have gone to Mr. Angel. He was a Finsbury Wizard, but they sent him out of the brotherhood, for he was always making bad machines and searching for a way to make dark magic. The Black Wand is the most powerful wand in the world. It was carved of ebony by hand long ago, and it is the only wand that can channel pure dark magic. The magic of destruction. The magic of chaos. It was hidden away, but now he has it—how, I do not know. But he will do great harm with it if we do not stop him.”