A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,3
die. These are old wands, passed down through generations. We also hold a small amount of seeing glass, most of it for the Finsbury Wizards, which must be delivered to their door, for they do not travel nowadays. They send their requests via pigeon.”
Annabel closed her mouth. She tried very hard to be polite.
“In this cabinet there are some important ingredients that you will soon accustom yourself with. The drawers are alphabetically listed, as you will see—dandelion, devil’s claw, dogwort—and you may in time learn to retrieve things that we ask for.”
Annabel felt dizzy. Miss Henrietta Vine used the term we, but there was no one else present in the messy shop. Miss E. Vine’s absence made her nervous. And surely she wasn’t expected to work here, was she? Her mother had told her she was coming to continue her education.
She was a young lady.
“Your mother has sent you here to learn what you should have commenced learning long ago,” said Miss Henrietta, as if she could hear Annabel’s thoughts. “Your life has been but an illusion. Your mother has lied terribly. The sea-captain husband lost at sea? All deceit. She turned her back on us years ago, on magic—good magic, proper magic.”
“But my father was a sea captain,” said Annabel.
“Nonsense,” replied Miss Henrietta. “Your mother married a magician without our consent. A magician—yes, cheap tricks in halls—and with her so divinely magical. It was a great shock, and Estella never quite got out of bed again. Then one day while your mother was very heavy with you, why, he up and died.”
Annabel felt even dizzier. Her mother had always said that her father was a sea captain. That he had been lost at sea. She swayed where she stood.
“He was hit by a carriage, dear Annabel, on the Euston Road,” said Miss Henrietta. “And that was not even the worst of it. But sit down if you must. There, now, don’t look so shocked.”
Annabel stumbled toward the counter and the stool behind it. Miss Henrietta looked most displeased.
“We will teach you the working of the shop, Annabel Grey, for we are old. We are all old in the Great & Benevolent Magical Society. The Bloomsbury Witches are ancient. They once rode their broomsticks each night, delivering love magic. The Kentish Town Wizards have such rheumatism that they can hardly stand up. I send salves each week to Miss Broughton, the Witch of St. John’s Wood. Once, she could heal almost anything that was sick, much like your mother—children, especially, and birds you would think could never fly again—but she does not improve. Yes, we will teach you what we can of the shop, and then, if you show promise, of magic.”
Miss Henrietta paused for a long moment. The clock on the wall ticked indignantly.
“This is what is expected of you now, although I have my doubts. I fear your mother has left all too late. You are a girl without education. A girl from a long line of witches, of good pedigree, but with no talent. It is most disappointing.”
Annabel’s cheeks itched and burned.
“But I’ve been to Miss Finch’s Academy for Young Ladies,” said Annabel. “I’ve been for two years. I speak French and Latin—well, I’m not very good at Latin, but I received honors for geography.”
She had. She knew each and every European river and was very good at mapping them. The Rhine, the Seine, the Danube, the Arno. All the mountains: The Swiss Alps and the Pyrenees. The Vogelsbergs and the Carpathians. Isabelle Rutherford, Annabel’s closest friend, said Annabel was the best in the whole world at knowing mountain ranges. Nevertheless, if it was possible, Miss Henrietta looked even more disappointed.
“Your mother told us that you see things, you have visions,” said Miss Henrietta. Annabel’s breath caught, but Miss Henrietta held up her hand to stop her from talking. “Do you feel an affinity with an animal: the fox, the owl, the cat, the bird? Please close your mouth, girl.”
Annabel could make no sense of it. Affinity with an owl? She quite liked Charlie, her bullfinch, who sang in their little sunny parlor. Just the thought of it and she felt homesick again.
“I am to believe your mother taught you no magic,” said Miss Henrietta.
Annabel’s mother and magic did not seem right in the same sentence. Her mother had belonged to the Society of Philanthropic Sea Widows. She had met with the Ladies’ Lepidoptera Club each and every Saturday. She was beautiful and graceful and most unmagical.
Annabel