A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,33

brickwork took her voice and magnified it.

Oh, she did not want those terrible things to hear.

Those dark things. Those things she did not understand.

Those things that whispered her name.

“If you keep stopping, they will,” said Kitty, climbing down fast and stepping on Annabel’s fingers occasionally, adding to her vexation. “We need the river.”

The fast river would take them away. Kitty could hear it beneath them. Its urgent rushing voice said, Quickly, quickly, quickly. She was a girl who knew water: the sound of the tide turning and the streams covered over and chattering all night through culverts and ditches. She knew the voices of forgotten wells and fountains. Ponds that held the sky on the marshes. This river said, Hurry, hurry, hurry.

When they stood together on the bottom rung of the ladder, the river touched their boots. It was loud, this river. It slurped and slapped and shouted, Quickly, quickly, quickly. It stank. If this is Under London, thought Annabel, it smells rotten. It made her eyes water. It smelled of human waste and dead things. Even worse, the boat was not close to the ladder at all but two body lengths away, its rope tether pulled taut by the racing river.

“What now?” whispered Annabel, and high above them the trapdoor rattled.

“Try pulling,” said Kitty, and they grabbed at the rope together, but the force of the river was too strong. Up above, the trapdoor jolted several more times.

Annabel felt scared, terribly scared, and her legs felt wobbly.

“We’ll have to jump,” said Kitty. “It’s not too far.”

Annabel looked at the boat and the dark wash of water that rushed between them and it. The river that smelled like a thousand chamber pots. She nodded her head, even though she had never once even jumped across rocks in a pleasant stream. She took a deep breath and tried very hard not to let out a sob.

“It’s the only way, Annabel Grey,” said Kitty, and in the dim light Annabel saw her green eyes gleaming. Kitty looked like a girl who could jump across wide spaces and climb very tall trees. “Here—give me the broomstick and the wand.”

Kitty took them from under Annabel’s arm before she had time to protest. Up above, the trapdoor banged loudly.

“You know you can,” said Kitty. She could hear the river in a way that Annabel couldn’t. It said, Away, away, away, with its restless voice. “Watch me.”

Kitty sprang out from the ladder like a cat from a wall. She yelled a little yell as she went. It was a rough sound, and it seemed to propel her across the space. Annabel saw her land in the boat, smack! and the thing pitch wildly side to side.

“Jump,” called Kitty.

“Yes,” said Annabel, but she didn’t move.

“Now!” shouted Kitty.

High above, there was a pounding against the trapdoor.

“Yes,” said Annabel again.

Be brave. Be good.

She closed her eyes. She tried to yell the way Kitty had yelled. She yelled a smallish yell and leapt. She leapt out into the space between the ladder and the boat. She leapt out and felt herself falling. She yelled and waited for the feeling of a wooden boat.

She longed for the feeling of a wooden boat.

She thought in those tiny seconds that stretched out like minutes that perhaps she had never longed for anything more.

She waited for the comfortable slap of herself hitting the wooden boat, but instead she felt water, the sudden shock of cold, stinking water.

The river took Annabel under. It took her head and held it down. It filled up her mouth. It roared in her ears. It snatched her and snagged her and somersaulted her. It wanted her for its own. Annabel had never swum. She flailed against the force of it. She tried to raise her arms, but the river grabbed her from below. It pulled at her skirts and the cloak, yanked her and tugged at her and twisted her down.

“Help!” she cried once, and Kitty heard her before she went under again.

Kitty was tearing at the rope tether, cursing the pretty girl all mapped over, the magical girl, who would drown before she even got a chance to look in her stupid red glass. She had the rope undone then and the boat was rushing away on the back of the river.

“Annabel!” she called as she went, and she peered into the blackness.

The river released Annabel momentarily, and she gulped mouthfuls of air. It slammed her into the brick wall and raised her quite suddenly onto a brick