A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,48

handle through so it stayed close to her skin. It felt wrong to rip her dress, but she also felt clever. The broomstick shivered there quietly, and she was glad for it. She was a girl with a broomstick tied to her back and a wand tucked in her sash. A most magical girl. She whispered those words and remembered the sudden gush of magic that had moved the Singing Gate.

At the places where the passages branched, there was always a torch burning on the wall. The trolls must have a network of them, Annabel supposed, like the gaslights in London Above. At each intersection they consulted Annabel’s arm by the flame’s light. Annabel traced her finger over the map but never again saw themselves huddled on the floor in a troll house, which made her feel better. She would hate to make the wrong decision.

Sometimes the tunnels went down almost imperceptibly. Other times they plunged, and Annabel and Kitty scrambled on their bottoms to stop from falling. Sometimes they heard voices, troll voices, far away, coming closer. Laughter sometimes. Once, the thundering of footsteps up ahead, with the shouts and cries of a celebration. But the map took them away from these places. Deeper and deeper. It grew quieter and quieter.

“I don’t like it,” Kitty whispered.

She was used to the roar of London. The churning and thundering and rattling of factories. The tenements, the turning wheels, the street criers, and the drunkards singing and the bells ringing. The voices of the trees and grass. The sudden upward rushes of birds on the marshes. Down here the quiet hurt her ears. It was a deep-beneath-the-earth quiet.

Finally they reached an open space where they could uncrouch themselves. There was no torch, so Kitty hummed in the dark until she had a heart light, and she threw it into the air and grew it so their shadows leapt out before them.

The cavern was filled with pebbles, and a shallow stream ran through its center. They moved as quietly as they could across it, there being nowhere to seek cover, but the noise of their feet was loud. The little stream chattered, and Kitty was glad for the sound. She limped, and Annabel watched her lift her skirts and examine the bandage.

“I could try magic again,” said Annabel. “It might work.”

“They say your mother was a healer,” said Kitty, sitting down and touching the bandage.

“Have you heard them speak of my mother?” whispered Annabel. Just the sound of the word mother and she felt tears.

I can no longer protect you from your destiny.

“Don’t start your bawling again,” said Kitty.

“I wasn’t,” said Annabel. “It’s just…What do they say?”

“That she was the mender of bird’s wings and other such wild things, and small children about to die—she could tend to them and mend them in time.”

“Let me try,” said Annabel

Even though they whispered, their voices echoed in that place.

Kitty stretched out her leg for Annabel.

Annabel closed her eyes and thought of what she wanted. She wanted the pain to lessen in Kitty’s ankle and for it to heal. It was very clear.

“Benignus,” she said, very slowly, and she thought she sounded very magical.

“Benignus,” she said again, but nothing happened. No light blazed from the Ondona. Her hand felt very empty. Magic was a puzzling thing.

“I’m thirsty anyway,” said Kitty, moving her leg away. She knelt down beside the stream and scooped water with her hand to taste.

“Go on,” she said to Annabel. In London Above many streams were poisoned, but this tasted clean. It was sweet and clear. “It’s good. I wouldn’t drink it if it weren’t.”

But Annabel’s expression had changed. She was looking into the water.

There was something dark flickering and twitching just beneath the surface, and Annabel thought it was a fish. She leaned closer. The stream was not deep, but she felt she was looking into the ocean. The depth confounded her. She worried over it, and her mind said, Look away, but her heart said, Look closer. The black thing twitched again. She watched its tail, and she saw that it was not a tail at all but part of a wing and that the wing was part of a horse flying through the night sky. The dark horse was drawing a dark carriage.

Deep in the shallow stream it was murky.

It was the shadowlings and Mr. Angel.

The shadowlings had formed themselves into a black chariot, and he rode upon their seat of claws. He rode through the London dawn shining feebly