A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,20

“Good girl.”

Her aging great-aunt placed a large bony hand on Annabel’s head. Annabel expected it to be cold and hard, but it was smooth and as light as a feather, and its touch was like the kiss of a butterfly.

Mr. Angel brought the machine a pair of shoes from a dead girl in Seven Dials, a length of black crepe stolen from a window on Gresham Street, three tear catchers, stoppers intact, stolen from a widow’s bedroom. The machine huffed at the scent of them and, when he held them up, sucked them with great force across the length of the room, one by one. The shadowlings tittered and writhed in the corner, their brand-new wings opening and shutting, waiting.

He gave the machine a small clock stopped at the death of a child. A letter of apology from one sister to another, never sent. And the machine delighted in these sorrowful objects. The things that had touched darkness. Its cogs whirred, and its bellows chuffed. The floor vibrated. Mr. Angel leaned forward, pressed his monocle to his eye, and examined the dark-magic gauge. The needle had moved—slightly but surely, it had moved. When it completed its journey around the dial, the machine would make unlimited dark magic. He would stand on his rooftop and raise his army of shadowlings.

From his pocket Mr. Angel took the handkerchief that Annabel Grey had dried her eyes with and smiled. The machine sensed it, and its gears sang in a higher note. He held the handkerchief up and felt the pull of the machine.

Annabel’s mother’s tears had been the first. He had fed them to his new machine all those years ago. He closed his eyes to remember how Vivienne had wept over the body of her husband. There had never been such mourning. Thirteen years of full moons, and now the daughter….

“Yes!” he cried. “Of course!”

The girl was who he needed. He would feed her to the machine, not her handkerchief. She was the saddest object! As though sensing his realization, the machine’s cogs whined louder and louder.

“Of course,” he muttered again, and held up his hand to his dreadful invention. “Not yet. Soon I will give you all of Annabel Grey instead.”

He began to laugh then, softly first, and then louder and louder, so that the room echoed with the sound. And when he was gone with his Black Wand, the shadowlings mimicked his laughter, which was harsh and lonely and full of pain.

“In education, geography is harmless, but too much history and politics can lead to a quarrelsome nature.”

—Miss Finch’s Little Blue Book (1855)

“Now you are a little emptied out,” said Miss Henrietta. “And you will remember the cup for the future, won’t you?”

It was true, Annabel felt empty and airy inside for a short while, and she marveled at the sensation as Miss Henrietta stood up.

“We will send you to the wizards. They will teach you what they can. We have little time. If Mr. Angel says he will raise an army, then an army he will raise.”

Annabel wondered again what shadowlings were. She tried to picture them in her mind, but they wouldn’t form. All she could see was Mr. Angel, with his dark, sad eyes and his meanness. Just looking at him had made her feel terrible and lonely.

“Pardon me, Miss Henrietta,” she said. “But what are shadowlings?”

Miss Henrietta took a deep breath.

“Shadowlings are nothing creatures, Annabel. They are sleeping shadows that live in dark places and are usually no more than that. Have you ever been frightened of the shadowy space behind a door?”

Annabel nodded.

“Well, that is a sleeping shadow. A nothing creature. But if there comes someone with dark magic and that dark magic is put into that shadow, then that shadow becomes a shadowling, and it is given a life, a wicked little being, a terrible little soul. Shadows given wicked little souls, Annabel—why, they might do almost anything.”

“I see,” said Annabel.

“Do you?” said Miss Henrietta.

Annabel thought of Miss Finch and all her lessons. The French conjugations and the curtsying. The Latin, which Annabel could not for the life of her understand, the lacework, and the long afternoons pretending there was nothing more important than talking about what the royal princesses wore. Nothing she had learned could possibly prepare her for shadows with wicked little souls, and Miss Henrietta looked as if she knew it. How could they expect her to go on a journey into Under London? She didn’t even know how to begin.

“A