A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,41

bones and femurs, rib bones and skull bones and arm bones, all pulverized. She went to say so to Kitty, but Kitty put a finger up to her lips to silence her.

When they were close enough to the wall, they saw it was made of the same material. Millions upon millions, trillions upon trillions of tiny bones. The bones were laced together, twisted and twined and fallen and crushed like overgrown vine, so dense that Annabel and Kitty could not see through it. But at the same time, the wall moved. It seemed to Annabel that it bulged toward them rhythmically. It trembled and fluttered.

The shadowlings called out; they blew a desolate wind across the cavern. They stretched out their arms, and their shadow wings opened and shut toward the cavern. They grew bolder. Annabel did not like to keep her back turned to them.

Kitty looked at the wall. In amongst the bones there were scraps of other matter, iridescent tatters and ribbons. She knew the stuff, had seen it and touched it with her own hands up in London Above. She reached her hand out now, and the wall sang a loud song and swallowed the strange material up. The bones clicked and cracked and closed over the shining stuff.

“Whom do the bones belong to?” whispered Annabel. “Children?”

“The faeries,” whispered Kitty. “This must be where they are buried, then, down through a hole who knows where, and their bones do the job of guarding Under London and the wand.”

The wall sang a low, lilting melody of bone scratchings and shiverings.

“But how do we pass?” said Annabel, looking nervously behind.

The wall was complete. There were no gaps, no doors. It stretched from their feet to the cavern roof. There was no way under or over. Mixed in with the tiny bones, Annabel now saw, were larger bones, human bones, caught in places in the wall. A leg bone held tight by the small bones. A skeleton hand hanging just before her.

“Oh,” she said, and looked away. She closed her eyes.

Green ice skates, she said to herself. Green ice skates.

Behind them the shadowlings were huddled together, whispering and arguing just inside the tunnel opening.

“Can you use your magic, Kitty?” Annabel whispered. She didn’t know what other magic was inside Kitty, but she was sure there’d be more.

Kitty didn’t turn to her. She stared up at the wall. She reached out again to touch some of the shimmering material, and the wall snapped loudly at her hand.

“We don’t need magic,” said Kitty, nodding at the finger bones dangling from the wall. “Those that came before us thought they needed spells and such, but I’ve seen enough of the faeries to know them. They are tricky and cunning, but their weakness is loyalty. They cannot bear to be apart. They sleep together, sing together, bathe together. They are always combing each other’s hair with their fingers. And if one is troubled, why, the others, they cannot bear it, and they move together to put it right. I think perhaps they are the same when they are no more than bones.”

The Singing Gate did not like Kitty’s words, it seemed, for it shook and sang up several octaves to a crescendo of chimes and sighs. Annabel watched Kitty. She seemed sure of herself. She had never spoken so much.

Kitty turned and frowned at Annabel.

“I am right—don’t you think, Annabel Grey?” she asked. “If I take a piece of bone here, the whole lot will come at me and the rest will be weakened for us to pass through. It will take some jumping, and you must be ready when I say to go.”

Annabel didn’t know. She wished the Finsbury Wizards or the Miss Vines had mentioned what to do in such a case. She looked behind and saw the shadowlings sliding out of the tunnel into the cavern. They spilled into the shape of a dark net, a huge net, forming across the cavern roof. Annabel watched as the shadow net slowly began to lower.

“Kitty!” she cried.

But Kitty wasn’t listening.

“I know faeries,” said Kitty. “And sure enough, I know their bones.”

She reached toward the wall, and the whole thing snapped in unison toward her. She did not flinch, only gave a little laugh.

“Kitty!” shouted Annabel. The shadow net was lowering, casting a pattern across the water. The wall sang a frantic song.

“Yes, I know faeries,” Kitty said, and she reached forward again, without warning, and snatched a bone from the wall.

The wall screamed. It