A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,4
decided she would swoon. She would swoon, and it would serve Miss Henrietta right for being so horrible. She sat very still on the stool and willed herself to faint, but couldn’t. Miss Henrietta sighed. “Here is Kitty,” she said. “I hope she has brought what I need.”
The bell above the door tinkled, and the wildest girl Annabel had ever seen entered from the rain. Her head was held low, a furious frown upon her face, and there was not an inch of tidiness to her. Her wet black curls were tied roughly with a piece of twine, and a brown leaf dangled on a strand beside her ear. Her filthy dress was too short, and her stockings were full of holes, and her wet boots were split apart at the toes and tied around with string.
“Good evening, Kitty,” said Miss Henrietta. “You are late, and I am busy.”
The girl grunted in response. She flung her sack down on the floor. She stared at Annabel from beneath her dark brow with green eyes. The stare made Annabel blush and look away. She looked at the sack. At the counter. At the clock. The girl coughed a terrible, hacking cough. When Annabel looked again, the girl was still staring, and it made Annabel’s face burn all the more.
“Annabel, this is Kitty. Kitty, this is Annabel,” said Miss Henrietta, as though it were perfectly reasonable for a young lady to be introduced to a beggar.
The old woman took the sack and emptied its contents onto the counter: shells that clattered out, stinking of the Thames; a bundle of grass; several plump leaves; and the perfect body of a dead little rabbit.
Annabel gasped. “Oh,” she said when Miss Henrietta and the girl glared at her. “Please pardon.”
“The leaves are good,” said Miss Henrietta. “From the dean’s garden again? He has a fine garden, does he not?”
The girl nodded but did not speak.
“What of the world today, then, Kitty?” asked Miss Henrietta. “Bring us news.”
Still the wild girl did not speak. Her cheeks colored. Her eyes grew glassy, and she scowled at the floor. Miss Henrietta waited.
“All the trees are in a fuss,” said Kitty quietly at last. She seemed to struggle with each word, yet her voice surprised Annabel. It was not a proper girl’s voice, but it was soft all the same. Soft and clear. “Calling, calling, calling all night through the streets. Something bad is coming, and the moon getting as big as it’s ever been seen.”
“So the wizards keep saying. Message after message. Calamity approaching,” said Miss Henrietta. “It’s a wonder their pigeons don’t fall clean out of the sky with all their coming and going.”
Annabel thought a little smile flickered across the wild girl’s lips, but she couldn’t be sure because already the girl was turning from them. She was grabbing her sack and running as though speaking had shamed her. Miss Henrietta went behind her and slipped a small parcel into her hand as she went. The girl did not say thank you. She ran from the shop, banging the door behind her.
Miss Henrietta took a deep breath when the girl was gone. She looked at Annabel with her disappointed face.
“The day is nearly done, Annabel,” she said. “Hang your cloak and your gloves and bonnet. There is laundry to be done.”
Laundry, thought Annabel as she stood up and walked slowly to the hat stand. It seemed the most puzzling suggestion so far. She wanted to stay thinking about the strange girl. Who was she, and where had she come from, and what did she mean about trees calling? Annabel was hungry, too; Henrietta Vine had not even offered her tea.
“A witch’s dresses can be washed only at dusk on Wednesday,” said Miss Henrietta. “And today is Wednesday, and it is dusk.”
Miss Henrietta held up both her arms. She pointed to two large dark doors on either side of the specimen cabinets.
“On no account must you ever open the door on the left,” she said. “Unless it is asked of you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Miss Henrietta,” said Annabel.
Miss Henrietta opened the door on the right. Annabel followed her great-aunt down a short dim corridor and into a dismal little kitchen where a fire burned low. A blue teapot sat upon the table. She unlocked the back door and led Annabel out into a laneway.
It was a muddy, stinking laneway, and Annabel thought it was perhaps the worst place she had ever been. They stood there in the dusk,