A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,44

wand again and the word she had used.

“Should I try?” she asked. “With the wand?”

“Don’t point that thing at me! You’ll do it wrong and give me a chicken’s leg to walk on.”

That made Annabel laugh, but Kitty did not smile. She snatched the boot from Annabel when she tried to tip the leaves out.

“They keep my feet warm,” she said, and Annabel felt ashamed for not knowing such a thing. Sitting there in that strange cavern behind the Singing Gate, bathed in its softer, less angry light now, Annabel thought there was so much about the world that she had never known.

“Well, if you won’t let me try some magic on it, we must see if you can walk,” said Annabel.

“Of course I can walk,” said Kitty, refusing Annabel’s hand. She stood alone, limped a few steps, and stopped.

“Lean against me,” said Annabel.

“Why would I do that?” snapped Kitty, but she leaned heavily on Annabel’s arm all the same.

“You saved me from the river,” said Annabel as they began to walk slowly across the cavern. She couldn’t help herself. “And now I have saved you in return.”

“Oh, shut your gob,” said Kitty.

That made Annabel smile, truly smile, for the first time since her mother had left her behind.

On the other side of the Singing Gate, the shadowlings turned back into the darkened tunnel. They could not pass through its light and had to return to their master. They wept as they flew, moaned, screeched in frustration at their failure. They came back to Mr. Angel, who stood in the London fog with his growing shadowling army.

They whispered the words they had heard. They whispered the words into his ears, folding and unfolding their claws. Well, if you won’t let me try some magic on it they keep my feet warm I know faeries and sure enough I know their bones can you use your magic kitty, please a light, Benignus, Benignus, Benignus, Benignus.

Mr. Angel put his hand up to hush them and motioned them back among the others.

“Follow,” he said to his army, and they rose up after him now, a dark flock, a black fluttering cloud.

“Down!” he cried, and they slipped behind him, one hundred of them small into the folds of his cloak.

“Up!” he cried, and they erupted from the fabric, grew large, grew monstrous.

“Destroy!” he shouted, and pointed to a carriage that had turned onto the road.

Afterward, he stood among the remains, the tiny fabric scraps still raining. He tasted wood splinters and dust and horsehair, and he smiled his terrible smile. The girl had gone down into Under London, but she would come up again. He would have her then to feed to his machine.

His wand was nearly empty.

The moon was high.

He would need to feed his machine again. It needed a lonely china doll that a girl no longer loved or a little pauper’s coat that never gave warmth. It needed black hatpins from a widow’s veil. It needed flowers from a new grave.

But first he would visit the Finsbury Wizards. He would have the Adela. The old men would bow down before him or he would turn them to dust. He would have all the lesser wands: the Delilah, the Kyle, the Old Silver, and the Little Bear. He would have all the good wands, and he would destroy them one by one. He would destroy them so that good magic was gone for good.

“When visiting town, a young lady should walk with her carriage erect and her bonnet straight.”

—Miss Finch’s Little Blue Book (1855)

In the cavern behind the Singing Gate, there was an opening. It was an arched entrance, quite tall and grand. It looked like a tunnel that led somewhere important.

“The map,” said Kitty, and the room filled with her demand.

“Say please,” said Annabel, even though Kitty was leaning against her and had a very sore ankle. The girl had no manners.

“Please, Miss Grey,” Kitty snarled.

Annabel smiled.

“Get your gigglemug off me,” said Kitty. She supposed that smiling must be something that all rich young girls were taught. Smiling as though they owned everything, even the weather.

The stone walls took their argument and repeated it several times.

Annabel held out her left arm. Straightaway she saw that the lines from her left palm to the Singing Gate had vanished. They had been erased from her hand.

“Perhaps what we pass disappears,” Kitty said, taking Annabel’s hand.

“I would be very glad for that,” said Annabel. Oh, to be herself again, with pure white unmapped skin.

“But