A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,18

her, and she couldn’t say why, but she felt as though the whole world were ending and beginning at once, and more than anything, she wanted to see Annabel Grey.

“A young lady does not yawn or sigh but listens attentively to any lesson or wise anecdote an elder may offer.”

—Miss Finch’s Little Blue Book (1855)

Annabel did not like the sound of Under London. She decided she would agree to everything her two great-aunts suggested and, when alone, rush from the shop. She’d take the coin in her purse and catch an omnibus to the Rutherfords’ house on Park Lane and throw herself upon their mercy until her mother returned. She could be Isabelle’s sister for a while. They would wear the finest clothes and ride in the Rutherfords’ landau and ice-skate on the Serpentine in the winter with all the other pretty young girls. She would wear her emerald-green ice skates.

Her two great-aunts argued over her head. It was a furious argument. It crackled and sizzled and snapped in the air. It filled that murky bedchamber. Miss Estella wore a vicious expression on her tiny face. Miss Henrietta paced to and fro.

“We must equip her as best we can. She has the sight—we know as much. We can give her the map. She will find the way. The Morever Wand is the only wand that will stop the Black once it is filled with dark magic,” said Miss Estella. “Hours—we have little more than a day, Henrietta. Full moon is tomorrow evening!”

“But look at her mind!” Miss Henrietta cried. “Look at the clutter. She wouldn’t last half a day in Under London. She has not a single wit about her.”

“You are stubborn as a Tottenham Troll!” cried Miss Estella. “Henrietta…Sister…We must teach her to empty her mind. Send her to the wizards. They must be warned anyway. All the society members must be warned. They can show her how to look into the glass. That is her talent.”

“Foolish Sister!” cried Miss Henrietta, moving backward and forward so that Annabel felt quite dizzy for watching it. “She has no talent.”

“Mr. Angel has already raised up shadowlings,” said Miss Estella. “He will raise more. He will turn London dark.”

To which Miss Henrietta closed her eyes and nodded once.

“She is our only hope,” continued Miss Estella. “She must go down into Under London.”

“Under London,” said Miss Henrietta.

“A most magical girl,” said Miss Estella.

“A most magical girl,” repeated Miss Henrietta, and she looked at Annabel with her most disappointed expression yet.

Out of Miss Estella’s riverbed chamber they went. Out past bent-over Tatty, who banged her crook very loudly. Out into the lonely hallway and the desolate parlor.

Miss Estella called to them as they left. “Teach her to empty,” she cried. “Find her a broomstick. Send her to the wizards.”

Annabel heard those words clearly, but then she and Miss Henrietta were on the stinking stairwell and the words grew indistinct. Miss Henrietta opened the brown door into the small, changed kitchen, with the hearth facing the wrong way and the green teapot instead of the blue. The dreadful brown fog swirled against the window and made the place very dark.

Annabel suddenly felt so weary she could fall down and sleep. At Miss Finch’s Academy for Young Ladies, they would take their time warming up to the day. They would recite their French conjugations, and then they would list the capitals of the world. They would practice curtsying for a good half hour before anything difficult was expected of them.

This morning she’d already emptied chamber pots and folded laundry and swept floors, and now she’d been told she had to become a witch and go down a hole and find a wand to save London.

Miss Henrietta pulled two chairs by the fire and motioned for Annabel to sit. She raised the Ondona in her hand.

“Benignus,” she said very quietly, and the flames sprang up in the fire.

She took a seat before Annabel and their knees almost touched.

“To give you the map, there must be room inside you,” she said. She pointed to Annabel’s head.

That doesn’t really make any sense, thought Annabel.

“For you to read the map, there must be room inside you,” said Miss Henrietta. She pointed to Annabel’s heart.

Anyone can read a map, thought Annabel. She was quite good at it, actually. She wished Miss Henrietta wouldn’t point at her. It was rude.

“For you to understand the map, there must be room inside you,” said Miss Henrietta.

Fiddlesticks, thought Annabel, which was what the maid Mercy