A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,14

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