Grim Lovelies

by Megan Shepherd

  She took another step forward, barefoot on the stone steps. Her expression seemed both surprised and utterly not surprised at the same time. She made a soft gasp. “You’ve come back.”

  Her voice was perfumed yet hardy, like the lavender itself. A delicate gold bracelet circled one wrist, but that was the only ornament she wore, as earthy as her own gardens.

  Anouk’s shoes crunched in the gravel. This was the woman who could protect them from the bleakness of what they were before—​or curse them to an eternity of it.

  Cricket whispered, “Um, what does she mean by back?”

  Anouk’s chest felt electric and tense, like she’d swallowed a swarm of bees. As the sun sank behind the purple hills, a fear crept over her that coming here was the exact mistake that Cricket and Beau had said it was.

  She hadn’t made the mistake of leaving the knife behind again. She dug it out of her pocket and thrust it forward, warning the witch not to come closer.

  “Stay back.”

  Mada Zola stopped in front of Anouk, ignoring the knife. She looked at each of them with shining dark eyes that seemed to hold the kind of knowledge that people had killed for.

  Petra, leaning in the doorway, folded her arms and looked away.

  “I knew you’d make it back to me,” the witch said. “My dearies. My lovelies.”

  Despite the witch’s smile, despite the welcoming arms, Anouk was chilled to the marrow.

  “Now, which one of you,” the witch said, “is my little lost Cricket?”

  Chapter 13

  Two Days and Four Hours of Enchantment Remain

  No one answered, least of all Cricket. Anouk tried hard not to look at her friend, which might have given her identity away.

  Mada Zola gave a soft laugh. “So serious, aren’t you? My poor dears. My grim little lovelies. What you must have been through. Come inside and rest. You’re safe now.”

  Safe. A tempting word that Anouk didn’t dare believe. From all directions, the blank faces of topiaries observed her in perfect stillness. She shifted her weight and felt something give way beneath her left shoe. A crushed rose. Its bruised petals were the only imperfect thing in this terribly perfect place.

  Petra held open the heavy wooden door for them.

  Anouk felt a jab in the center of her back. “It was your idea to come here,” Cricket said in a hard whisper. “You go first.”

  Anouk fidgeted with her jacket, zipping it higher against the evening chill. She closed her eyes and imagined that the wings on the back of the jacket were her wings, gossamer and strong; that the sharp horns sprouted from her head; that she was as rigid and unflinching as a gargoyle. From somewhere inside the house she could hear the crackling of a fire.

  She stepped across the threshold and ran straight into another topiary. This one was restricted to an enormous clay pot in the center of the château’s entrance hall. Branches smacked at her face, and she sputtered and fought them off. The bush was clipped into the shape of a bear, though it was overgrown and shaggy with untrimmed leaves. She eyed its branches warily—​bones of wood, claws of thorns, fur of leaves—​half expecting it to move.

  “Did the bear get you?” Petra asked, turning around. “We’ve named him Toblerone. Like the chocolate.”

  “Cute,” Anouk muttered. She fought back a cough; apparently no one had dusted Toblerone in ages.

  They followed Petra down a hallway flanked with the kind of deep-set windows Anouk had seen in books about abbeys and cloisters. Open doors led to rooms that appeared all but abandoned. Her shoes echoed too loud on the stone floors, and she yearned to kick off the stiff oxfords and walk silently and barefoot, like Mada Zola. But her missing toes had a way of inviting questions she’d rather not answer.

  They passed an enormous room that might once have been a chapel, and the smell of thyme wrapped around her. She paused and gave it a closer look.

  Empty, the fireplace cold.

  But the smell of thyme was fresh, and when she pitched her head to the high rafters, she saw hundreds of bunches of the herbs tied up in clove-hitch knots for drying. The same knots that Luc used. Were you here, hanging these herbs? she wondered silently, and then a new question crept into her mind:

  Are you here still?

  She shot Beau and Cricket a look over her shoulder, but they were both too concerned with checking every corner for something that might attack them to notice herbs.

  As they continued down the hall, Anouk realized that no one had dusted anything in ages. Cobwebs spanned the exposed wooden rafters, and clumps of curled dried leaves clustered in the corners, skittering in the drafts. Precarious piles of books lined the hallway, as though someone had started to move them from shelf to shelf years ago but abandoned the project. Trying to read the spines, Anouk bumped into a stack and the top book fell open, spilling out dried blossoms that had been pressed between the pages.

  She picked up a paper-thin rose.

  “You don’t have a maid,” she said in surprise.

  Mada Zola stopped. Her eyes went to the cobwebs in the corner. “Is it that obvious? I used to keep house better. For months it’s been just the two of us. I’m afraid we’ve let things go.”

  Anouk could think of two things wrong with this statement. First, they couldn’t possibly have been maintaining the entire estate alone. The house was neglected, but the garden wasn’t. Despite what Petra had claimed, someone had to be out there watering the flowers—​tricks and whispers couldn’t keep a garden that size going forever. And second, they hadn’t been alone. Anouk had heard, just two days ago, a person who must have been Mada Zola talking with someone on Luc’s scryboard. A man.

  “I don’t mind the mess,” Anouk clarified, even though she itched to attack it all with a feather duster. “It’s admirable that you do your own cooking and cleaning. That you don’t use servants.”

  And it was true, the Château des Mille Fleurs wasn’t anything like what they’d feared—​at least not on the surface.

  “That’s a kind word for how Vittora treated you,” Mada Zola said. “I might have said slaves.”

  She opened a door to a cozy sitting room that was less dusty than the hall, likely because it seemed to be used more often. There was a large banquet table, though it was covered in books and probably hadn’t seen a plate in years. And the portraits. Every inch of the high walls was covered in ornately framed paintings. Anouk turned in a slow circle, taking in the hundreds of painted eyes, feeling like fingertips were walking up her neck.

  She recognized various Royals—​there was a painting of Lord and Lady Metham dancing, and one of a rather severe-looking Countess Quine on a horse, and, of course, multiple paintings of Rennar. He was everywhere. It was hard to count exactly how many portraits were of the crown prince, but his handsome face seemed to be looking at her from all angles, from above the mantel, from over the threshold, from at least three corners. She touched her messy hair, realizing she must look awful. Was he watching? Had he taken notice of her? In all the portraits, he was dressed in his frost-gray suit and had a crown of gold briars; in none of them was he the boy with the mussed hair and scarf who’d shown up on her doorstep.

  “Mon Dieu,” Anouk breathed, staring at the portraits.

  “Don’t mind them,” Mada Zola said. “They don’t watch anymore, not since I’ve been banished. They’ve nothing to watch. Just Petra and me playing cards and pressing flowers.”

  Anouk didn’t feel reassured, and as though sensing her thoughts, the witch followed her line of sight to a life-size portrait of Prince Rennar staring back at them with those cool blue eyes.

  “You recognize the prince,” she said, somewhat surprised.

  “He came to dinner the night Vittora died.” She paused, clutching the clock in her pocket. Had it truly been only one day since she’d opened the townhouse door and seen him there? Since her life had changed so dramatically?

  Mada Zola folded her arms, studying the portrait. “Don’t get swept up in his
influence. It’s difficult not to, I know. The power he wields, the way he looks at you as though he sees straight to the person inside you, the person you didn’t even know you were. Some say he was born of a Spanish duke and a witch during the Louis the Fifteenth wars, but I think he’s too patient to bear any witch blood—assuming a witch could even conceive. I’d guess that he came from old Viking royalty. The fair hair. His fondness for the sea.” She gazed at the portrait cryptically. “He’s been prince for only a few decades. He worked his way up in the ranks over two hundred years. In all that time of knowing him, I’ve yet to figure him out. Although I’ve learned that he’s not one to be trifled with.”

  Anouk felt a creeping heat spread up her neck, a shiver that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. She took in the other portraits. “You’re certain they aren’t watching us?”

  “I promise.” Her voice was a purr. She whispered toward the fireplace, “Incendie flaim.”

  A fire sparked and caught on the dry wood.

  “Petra, our guests look shaken to their cores. Why don’t you fetch the cocoa and put everyone at ease? Bring a bag of those tiny marshmallows too.” She rubbed her hands together briskly before the fire. “Sit, dearies.” She motioned to a dusty divan.

  Beau looked ready to bolt back to the safety of the car. “I’ll stand, thanks.” He went to the window, wiped away the grime with his sleeve, and peered out at the gardens. “What kind of security do you have here?”

  “Why, who’s chasing you?” There was a guarded note in Mada Zola’s otherwise gentle voice.

  “Who isn’t?” Beau answered.

  Anouk figured that honesty had gotten them this far—​the greatest threat they’d encountered here was being crushed under a falling pile of books—​so she might as well continue being truthful. “It’s Mada Vittora’s boy, Viggo, and the assassin called Hunter Black. They’ve been following us since we left Paris. Viggo thinks we killed his mother.”

  “They can’t reach you here,” Mada Zola assured him. “They can stalk outside the gate and scowl all they want, but they won’t set foot on my territory, meager though it is.”

  Anouk’s tight shoulders relaxed, though one hand was still curled around the knife in her pocket. But there was that eternal thumping in her other pocket, the clock. Not so easy to hide from time.

  “What did you mean,” Cricket said in a slightly high tone, “when you said that we’d come back? And that name you mentioned—​Cricket, was it?”

  Mada Zola smiled knowingly. “Ah. So you’re her.”

  Chapter 14

  Two Days and Three and a Half Hours of Enchantment Remain

  Cricket’s lips fell open. She lifted her hands, feigning ignorance, as Mada Zola searched among the portraits until she found what she was looking for, took it down, and handed it to Cricket.

  Cricket made a gargling sound in her throat and dropped the painting. “What is that?”

  “That, my lovely, is you. Or rather, what you were.”

  Anouk picked up the frame. It was a simple painting, done by an amateur but one who had a clear fondness for the subject. Maybe Mada Zola or Petra had even painted it. She held it out to Beau.

  He left the window and took the portrait. His face wrinkled in confusion as he looked between it and Cricket. It was a cat. White fur and long whiskers, green eyes with a clever kind of look. Anouk couldn’t help but think of the pelts in the car trunk. One of them had been white and soft and small, the size of a cat. Judging by the distressed look on Cricket’s face, she figured Cricket remembered the same pelt.

  “Merde,” Cricket cursed.

  With her honey-brown skin and light copper eyes, Cricket looked nothing like a cat—​especially not this cat. But there were her careful ways. Her ability to move silently. Anouk looked closer at the painting and spied something gold at the cat’s neck.

  “Did you see this?” she asked hoarsely. She passed the portrait back to Cricket, pointing at the collar.

  Cricket’s face paled a shade. She clutched the charm earring in her ear self-consciously, but it was useless. They both knew what was stamped on it.

  CRICKET

  It was identical to the charm in the painting. Cricket’s earring, which Viggo had given her years ago but hadn’t bothered to tell her what it was, had once been part of a collar. A tag.

  Anouk had rarely let herself wonder about her past, about that frightening cold place. Certainly not about what animals they had started life as. Whenever she’d looked through the turret window and seen an animal in the street, she’d turned away sharply and dusted, ignoring the fear rising in her throat. It hadn’t been until she’d seen the pelts—​a wolf, a dog, an owl, a mouse, and a cat—​that she’d let herself play that dangerous matching game.

  Which was which? Which was she?

  And now Cricket was the first to learn the truth about herself, and clearly, it wasn’t welcome knowledge.

  “It’s true, then?” Anouk said. “You knew Cricket . . . before?”

  Mada Zola replaced the painting on the wall. “Oh yes. Mada Vittora came here years ago. We got in an awful row. She knew I loved that cat. After she left, I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

  Petra carried in a tray of steaming mugs, and Anouk’s stomach tugged—​she hadn’t eaten much at the café. But she was hungry for more than just chocolate. She wanted this—​everything the room promised. A cozy fire and warm drinks and a mistress who didn’t keep servants, who wasn’t bothered that her witch’s boy had wanted to become a witch’s girl, who didn’t care if dust bunnies multiplied throughout the house, who hadn’t blinked at Anouk’s messy ponytail.

  And yet, did she dare trust it?

  She wanted to. They all sat, and Anouk took the cocoa with shaking hands. Lavender and honey. Divine. How badly she wanted to drink it. She dared to take the slightest sip. Beau had warned her not to, but Beau was always warning her.

  “And Anouk and me?” Beau asked hollowly. “Are we from here too?”

  The witch’s face softened. “No. I don’t know where the two of you come from, or what—​creatures—​you were before. I’m sorry.”

  Cricket had looked dazed for the past few minutes, but now she suddenly stood, fists clenched. “If what you say is true, then we need your help.”

  “Yes, I gathered that, my dear.”

  “You know what she did to us. She made us work for her, and she beat us, and worse.” Cricket swallowed. “Now, without her, the spell that keeps us human will expire at midnight on Saturday. We’re almost out of time. We need you to recast the enchantment. I can’t go back to . . . to that.” Her eyes flickered toward the cat painting.

  For a moment, all were silent. Anouk wasn’t sure why Cricket had decided to trust this witch after arguing not to come here in the first place. Maybe because of the painting and the collar that matched her earring. If Mada Zola was telling the truth about that, maybe she was telling the truth about everything.

  “Why?” Petra asked, surprising her. She was standing in the doorway with her arms folded tightly. “Why does it matter to you what form you take? Sleep all day, drink saucers of milk. Doesn’t sound so bad.”

  Anouk cocked her head, curious about this girl. She remembered now why witches took sons, never daughters. Only females could become witches, so it was fathomable that a daughter might grow up to become a rival witch herself, whereas a son could never threaten their power. Did those same rules apply to a girl who hadn’t been born a girl?

  Petra’s question seemed genuinely curious, but Cricket’s face turned cold. She snapped, “Because my life is worth more than catching mice.”

  Cricket’s stare was vicious, challenging. One more word from Petra, and Anouk had a feeling the blades were going to make an appearance.

  “It isn’t about whether skin or fur covers us,” Anouk blurted out, hoping to avoid a fight. “It’s about what’s beneath that, even beneath bone.”

  All eyes turned to her, and she wished she had kept her mo
uth shut. These were dark thoughts. Thoughts she had ignored her whole life, truths she had looked away from at night, alone in her turret bedroom, when it was hardest to escape them.

  Her eyes met Beau’s. He gave a small nod of encouragement.

  “Before, for all of us, it was a dark place.” Her voice wavered as she continued. “A cold place. I don’t mean to say that life before was miserable. I mean that it was empty. Until Mada Vittora made me into myself, I wasn’t me. What I am—​my memories, my dreams, the people I care about, and the thoughts I think about when I’m alone—​it means everything to me. Imagine if one day everything that made you who you are simply disappeared. If all you thought of was filling a hungry belly. If the world was cast in shades of gray, not color. If you lost the ability to express yourself in words. If you never loved. If you never dreamed. That’s what we stand to lose. Everything.”

  Petra was quiet. She looked shaken.

  “Restart the enchantment,” Anouk said, turning to Mada Zola. “Grant us the chance to remain ourselves. A lifetime of being perfectly normal, that’s all we want. The same as anyone.”

  The witch was quiet for a long time. Her cocoa sat before her, cooled now, the marshmallows melted away. The fire kept crackling. Beau had gone back to stand by the window, but he’d stopped staring out of it, watching for Viggo. Night had fallen at some point; Anouk had barely noticed.

  “I’d like to help you.” Mada Zola stood. “And I will, as best I can. But the spell you were made with isn’t just any whisper. It isn’t as simple as making flowers bloom year-round or sparking fire in kindling. Prince Rennar wrote it himself centuries ago. It requires a lengthy whisper with challenging intonations and a tincture of the exact right life-essence. Not to mention a lot of blood.”