A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,52

Adela and lay it down before you. We have sent messages to the other members of the Great & Benevolent Magical Society, and I know that they will do the same.”

“You are sensible, old wizard,” said Mr. Angel, nodding. He held a hand up, and the shadowlings shrank behind him into the folds of his cloak. He followed Mr. Bell up the stairs.

The wizards waited in the parlor, the Adela on the tea table before them.

Mr. Crumb took it and slowly stood. He handed it solemnly to Mr. Angel and looked very frightened.

“Very wise, gentlemen,” said Mr. Angel. “When the clocks are all stopped and the darkness comes, I will have all the palaces and mansions, all the churches, all the Parliament rooms. I will keep whom I choose, destroy whom I choose, and if you serve me well, you shall have your own spoils. But first…the girl. The Vine Witches have sent her into Under London to find the Morever Wand?”

Mr. Bell nodded.

Mr. Angel gave a small laugh. He raised his hand again to the shadowlings, as they slipped from the folds of his cloak and spun and eddied about the room. They whispered and wept so that the old wizards held their hands to their ears. When they were done, one of the terrible dark things held Mr. Keating’s handkerchief on its glinting claw.

The handkerchief that Annabel had dried her tears on.

“I sent the shadowlings to bring her back. They have not returned. She is alone? Do not lie to me.”

“She travels with another girl. A betwixter by the name of Kitty. You will have heard of her.”

Mr. Angel gave it thought.

“And you think she can save you all?” said Mr. Angel. He looked at the Adela in his hand. “You think that she can save good magic? You think she will return by moonrise and defeat me? Do not lie.”

There was nothing to be said but the truth.

The wizards bowed their heads.

“We believe she will,” they said.

“At the dinner table, a young lady should never contradict her host. In all circumstances she must put forward an agreeable and graceful countenance.”

—Miss Finch’s Little Blue Book (1855)

In Annabel’s dream there were maps: paper maps unfurled and fluttering down from the sky; the maps from Miss Finch’s Academy, drawn with her own hand; and the map written in magic upon her body. The world could be mapped—she knew it in her dream—yet there were always places uncharted. In her dream she knew she would travel to such places.

“All of good magic depends upon you,” the wizards said, just as Mr. Bell had in real life, and they peered over her with their kindly blue eyes in their wrinkled, worn faces.

“Yes, I am the Valiant Defender of Good Magic,” she said to them, and her voice sounded very sure. But then she felt herself drifting the way one sometimes does in dreams, drifting upward, slowly, as though coming to the surface of all things. Then she was there, and she opened her eyes and was surprised to find the wizards’ faces still above her.

She was even more surprised to see they had grown little beards, and she wondered at that for a moment. Then she pondered the rags tied in their long straggly hair and thought that was quite strange. Finally she considered the rotten teeth in their mouths and realized she was not looking at the Finsbury Wizards at all but that, above her, were three trolls looking down.

“Ooh. She be ugly,” said the middle troll, in a yellow dress. She had a flat gray face and a squished nose. She fingered the little beard on her chin and grinned.

“Very ugly be she,” said the trolls on either side.

Each held a torch with a flickering flame. They were equally gray-faced and squishy-nosed. One had tufts of hair protruding a good inch from her nostrils.

Annabel opened her mouth and tried to scream but found she could not. All the air had been knocked out by fear. But Kitty rose up, kicking and screaming. It gave the trolls a surprise, although not for long. Two of them leapt on her.

The trolls were short and fat, but their shortness and fatness were no impediment to them. They were tremendously strong and swift. Annabel was spun by the hair before she even knew she’d been touched, and a coarse rope was lashed around her arms and waist. Kitty went to release a heart light, perhaps to scare them, but the hum was punched out