A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,13

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