A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,39

one word, the only word.

Annabel…

And they slipped into the tunnel like black water into a drain.

In London Above, the Finsbury Wizards made preparations as quickly as they could. As quickly as they could was not very fast. Mr. Crumb needed to rest halfway up the very long staircase to the pigeon room, but they could not leave him, for he was the pigeon master.

“Not far now,” said Mr. Bourne encouragingly, and they all nodded and agreed that it wasn’t far, only three more flights.

But they were used to sitting for long hours.

They were used to days passing with nothing to occupy them but their thoughts.

They were used to creaking slowly up the steps to their beds and arising twelve hours later to think again.

Now that the magical brown fog had swallowed the city, there was a more dreadful worry in the house. The feeling of endings was very strong. Word must be sent to all in the society. It exhausted such elderly wizards. At that very moment they would normally be taking their evening tea and biscuits.

“I always knew he would do something like this,” muttered Mr. Keating when they started moving again.

“We all knew it,” said Mr. Bell. “But there was nothing that could be done until now.”

“Why, though?” said Mr. Crumb, who was quite breathless. “Why must he always do wrong? His resurrection apparatus, and now this machine that can make dark magic. Why this badness—where did it come from?”

They themselves had seen it appear and grow in Mr. Angel, this desire for power, for others to bow down to him. They had seen it grow and had been confused by him. By his blackness. By his coldness. Until they could do no more but turn him away.

Could they have done more to stop him, to help him, to save him? These were the questions that filled their heads on the very top stair. They shook their heads, deep in thought.

“But there shall come a most magical girl,” said Mr. Bell at last. “Or so the prophecy says….”

And they all nodded and smiled quite sadly.

Mr. Crumb prepared his birds as swiftly as he could, which was not swiftly at all. He talked to them softly, attached the tiny scrolls to their necks. There were messages for the Kentish Town Wizards, with their terrible rheumatism; the Bloomsbury Witches, faded and ancient in their yellowing lace dresses; Miss Broughton in St. John’s Wood; Mr. Hamble in Stepney; Mr. Huxley in Hampstead.

Beware, Mr. Angel in possession of the Black Wand and dark magic.

Raising an army of shadowlings.

Demanding all lay down their wands to him.

Youngest and most able member of society sent into Under London to return with Morever Wand. A most magical girl.

Our only hope.

He sent forth five pigeons into the London night, where the near-full moon had risen and was shining feebly through the fog. One pigeon remained on the sill. Mr. Crumb’s arthritic hands hesitated over it.

“Shall we send a message to the Miss Vines?” he asked. “To see whether the girls made it back to them safely?”

His voice was old, so very old.

Mr. Bell lowered his head and shook it slowly.

“There will be none there to receive it,” he said.

“When traveling, a young lady should answer questions politely but spend little time talking to strangers.”

—Miss Finch’s Little Blue Book (1855)

Annabel woke suddenly and sat upright. Someone had called her name. She had slept in the tiny boat, woken, and slept again. How much time had passed? In the beginning it had been a brick ceiling curving over them, passing minute after endless minute. But then the brickwork was gone and the tunnel was roughly cut, and they passed beneath jagged rock dripping with water.

“You hear it now?” Kitty had asked sleepily from where she lay, a little messy mound in the bow.

Annabel had heard it. The river sang. It sang a song of water drops and the hushing of the river touching rocks. It sang a sighing song of falling water and secret places. The bow of the boat dipped, and the river sang them down.

“Yes,” Annabel had whispered. “I hear it now.”

When she slept, she dreamt of Miss Henrietta, and in the dreams her great-aunt’s face was very bright, like Kitty’s light, hovering above her, and it made her feel safe. But when she woke, there was darkness.

“Kitty,” she said.

The dark-haired girl did not rouse.

“Kitty,” whispered Annabel. “I thought I heard something.”

She picked up the broomstick and prodded Kitty with it.

“Leave off,” snarled Kitty, and she sat