Grim Lovelies

by Megan Shepherd

  A creeping feeling spidered up Anouk’s spine as she peered closer at the gardens. A flash of leaves caught in the faint light.

  The topiaries.

  Their enchanted shapes loomed as they weeded and watered and pruned with their slow, lumbering branches. A gleam in the driveway caught her eye and she jerked to attention, thinking at first it was a gunmetal-gray motorcycle, but it was only a watering can.

  “You’re certain no one can get through the hedges?” she asked, turning from the window.

  But Petra was gone.

  A key turned in the lock.

  “Hey!” Anouk and Cricket both ran to the door. “Petra, you can’t lock us in here!” Anouk twisted the knob, uselessly. Cricket kicked at the door.

  “It’s for your own safety.” Petra’s muffled voice came from the keyhole. “I promise, it’s better this way. Nights around here can get . . . unpredictable. I’ll unlock it at first light.”

  Anouk and Cricket pounded on the door, calling for Petra, but there was no response. Frustrated, Anouk sank onto the bed. “Our own safety? That’s rubbish.”

  “I’d guess that Zola doesn’t want us snooping through her things,” Cricket said, sitting cross-legged on the other side of Beau. “Witches, you know. Secretive to the bone. I’m surprised that we’re not wrapped in chains in some dungeon.”

  “Do you think Zola is telling the truth about the spell library at Castle Ides?”

  Cricket took out a knife, tapped the hilt anxiously in her palm. “I don’t know what to believe.”

  Anouk lowered her voice. “There’s a room here with herbs hanging in the rafters, tied up in the same clove-hitch knot Luc uses.”

  Cricket considered this. “You think he was here?”

  “Yes, or—​I know this sounds crazy—​is here now.”

  “And, what, Mada Zola has him bound and gagged in a closet? That’s what she doesn’t want us to snoop around and find?”

  “Maybe.” Anouk eyed Beau, who was muttering in his sleep. “I think Beau knows more than he’s letting on. He promises that he didn’t kill Mada Vittora, but I think that he knows who did.”

  Cricket’s expression turned grim. “I still think Viggo did it. He isn’t capable of love, not even for his mother. You know what I’d most like to do with what little time I have left? Find him and smother him with that stupid slouchy hat of his.”

  At the mention of Viggo, Anouk looked back at the window where she’d thought she’d seen the motorcycle. She cocked her head. “Cricket, does Viggo have an invitation to Castle Ides?”

  “Why? What are you plotting and why didn’t I think of it first?”

  Anouk lay back on the pillows, drumming her fingers on her ribs, thinking. “Maybe something. Maybe nothing.”

  “Well, he does.”

  It wasn’t a large bed and she was pressed against all six feet of Beau. At home, sometimes she and Beau had fallen asleep in bed together, Luc usually snoring in her armchair. But that was before Beau’s confession in the foyer. Only a fool . . . and I’m a fool. She wasn’t sure what to do with those words, which were mixing around in her stomach like champagne bubbles, but she knew that sometime in the past few days, he’d ceased to be like a brother to her. He was something else. Something more. But how much more?

  Cricket lay down on Beau’s other side, toying with her charm earring distractedly, her foot anxiously jiggling enough to make the whole bed shake. Anouk reached across Beau and took Cricket’s hand. Cricket stopped tapping her foot. They interlaced their fingers and held tight. A mouse, a dog, a wolf, a cat, an owl, Anouk thought. All predators and prey. If the worst happened, would they turn on one another? She found herself scratching her arm as though fur were already pushing its way out.

  “I want to cast magic,” Cricket said quietly, a private admission. “I want to show the Royals that they aren’t the only ones who matter.”

  Anouk thought of those dark spells Cricket had found on the Internet and scrawled down. Cricket wanted revenge and that made Anouk uneasy. And yet, didn’t Cricket deserve it? Didn’t they all?

  “You’ll learn. I know it. It’s easier for me because I already speak a bit of the Silent Tongue.”

  “Yeah, that and your whispers actually sound like proper whispers, not like someone coughing up a hairball.”

  She squeezed Anouk’s hand. Anouk squeezed back.

  The clock was ticking on the table, that black cat’s tail always moving in a constant circle. Tick-tick-tick. Beau snored softly. She envied him his enchantment. Tonight, she knew, he was the only one who would get any sleep.

  Chapter 17

  One Day and Seventeen Hours of Enchantment Remain

  Anouk was wrong. At some point, exhaustion overcame her and she tossed and turned and dreamed of awful things: Luc, bloodless and drained, haunting the halls of the château, leaving thyme leaves skittering in his wake.

  She sat up with a jerk. Sunlight warmed the window. Beau still slumbered beside her. The other side of the bed was empty.

  The door was open, to her relief. Someone had left fresh clothes for her, oversize scraggly sweaters that looked as though they belonged to Petra. She pulled one over her black dress and rolled up the long sleeves and went into the hall. She called for Cricket but got no answer, so she followed the smell of burned toast to the kitchen.

  Cricket and Petra were trying to toast bread over an open flame and, judging by the pile of charred ash, failing miserably. Anouk took the tongs out of Petra’s hand and dumped their efforts in the trash. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll cook. Petra, do you have any eggs?”

  Obviously relieved, Petra went to the icebox for bacon and eggs and then disappeared into the pantry for more ingredients.

  Anouk whispered to Cricket, “Where’s the Mada?”

  “Supposedly she hasn’t left the potting shed all night. She’s in there experimenting with different spells.”

  Petra returned with jars of whole golden honeycomb and canisters of rich black coffee, and they quieted. Once the toast was ready, Petra served herself a generous portion and slathered the top piece with creamy butter.

  “Something odd happened this morning.” She chewed with her mouth open, licking butter off her finger. “I went back to the hedge to fetch the wheelbarrow and heard a motorcycle pull up to the gate and then what sounded like two boys arguing about how to get in. Then they drove off. I figured it might be friends of yours.”

  Anouk exchanged a look with Cricket. “Hunter Black and Viggo. Not friends.”

  Petra took a hefty bite of toast. “It doesn’t matter. They can attack the hedge with a chainsaw, try to scale it with ladders, but they can’t get in.” She didn’t seem to notice or else didn’t care about the crumbs collecting on her sweater.

  Anouk returned to making breakfast, this new information stirring in her mind, mixing together like eggs and flour for cake batter. All this time she and Beau had wanted to keep them out, but maybe out was wrong. Maybe she wanted them in.

  She spooned the dough onto a cookie sheet and popped it into the oven, then poured fresh coffee for herself. “I’m going to see what Mada Zola’s found.” She grabbed a timer and set it. “For the cookies. Take them out in twenty minutes.”

  She cupped her hands around the mug to warm them as she passed through the halls; it was a drafty old house. In the foyer, she was surprised to find a trail of smudgy paw prints all around Toblerone’s pot—​had he moved during the night? She started for the front door but then stopped, glancing back at the bear.

  She’d cast magic last night. Could she do it again?

  Slowly, almost on a whim, she plucked a leaf off Toblerone’s shaggy coat, popped it in her mouth, swallowed it whole, and then cocked her fingers as she’d seen Mada Vittora do.

  “Evillate,” she whispered. Wake.

  A row of leaves shuddered along the bear’s spine and, just as when she’d put Beau to sleep, the spell worked instantly. She jumped back, dripping coffee everywhere.
r />   “Oh, merde.”

  She rubbed at the coffee stain on Petra’s sweater, then looked back at the bear, wetting her lips.

  “Aper tes oculus.” Open your eyes.

  Incredibly, the bear’s head started to sway slightly side to side, his branching bones creaking to life. The jaws opened, showing teeth of sharp briars. Anouk stepped back, ready to run, but the bear only stretched his jaws in a great yawn. The head swung to her, and leaves parted like eyes opening.

  He blinked.

  She couldn’t help but give an amazed sort of laugh. Something fell out of the bear’s mouth and clattered to the floor. Voices sounded from down the hall and Anouk quickly whispered a spell to put the bear back to sleep.

  She snatched up the fallen object.

  A franc coin. A small hole was drilled in the top as though for a necklace—​it was just like the one she’d found in Luc’s attic. She sniffed it. Thyme.

  She shoved it into her pocket and went to the window. A light was on in the potting shed. If Anouk was ever going to find out what they were hiding, now was the time.

  She opened the front door and closed it loudly so Petra would think she’d gone outside. Then she kicked off her shoes and crept down the hall, past empty rooms, until an oddly bright light in the chapel caught her eye. One of the stained-glass windows was now cracked open. The light from the other side was too low to be the sun.

  A secret room.

  She peered through the stained-glass window. It was dark beyond except for that one blindingly bright light. Two lights, actually. Headlights. She almost laughed. The secret passage led to a garage filled with shiny cars that would make Beau drool.

  She kept searching the house, going past the bedroom where Beau slept, past more deserted rooms, and reached one with posters on the wall for bands called Daft Punk and Louise Attaque that must have been Petra’s. Anouk stepped into Petra’s room, uncertain what she was looking for. She opened a door that led to a bathroom that, like everything else, was in desperate need of a mop. She tried a side door that she’d assumed led to a closet until she heard an oddly familiar sound: quiet, steady breathing.

  She took a step into the dark room, tripped on something metal that went clanging across the room, and cursed. She held her breath for a few seconds, cringing, but thankfully didn’t hear footsteps or Petra’s voice. As quietly as she could, she felt around for a candle, lit it, and found that she was in a windowless room. Petra’s bloodletting chair was on one side, along with the usual glass vials and copper collecting bowls like the one she’d tripped on. On the other side of the room was a scryboard.

  Its machinery gave that steady breathing sound just like Luc’s, and the feathered headphones chattered with unintelligible whispers. She opened the desk drawer, rifled through papers until she found Petra’s log, and flipped the pages until she saw his name.

  10 August  Received another message from Vittora’s gardener. Luka? Luc.

  11 August  Wants to make a deal. Gave no response.

  13 August  On his way to château—​couldn’t stop him. Tell the Mada.

  Anouk gripped the franc coin—​Luc had been here! Mada Zola had lied to them and here was proof. She ran downstairs and into the garden, over stone paths that were damp on her feet, realizing too late that she’d left her shoes inside. She banged on the potting-shed door.

  “Let me in, witch! Luc is here, I know it!”

  Mada Zola opened the door. She had dark circles beneath her eyes. The shed smelled of wood smoke and something bitter, and Anouk spotted a bubbling pot and jars of tonics amid the shovels and clay pots.

  Anouk held up the franc coin like an accusation.

  “Come in.” Mada Zola’s voice was calm. She motioned casually to the vials and bottles. “I’m concocting a tonic that I found in a Persian spell book from the fourteenth century. It’s used to slow one’s aging process. If it works, it might buy you and your friends another few days until your proper age catches up with you. I need thorns and a couple more ingredients from the garden before it will be ready for testing.”

  Anouk clenched her jaw, focusing on why she’d come. “I found the scryboard logs. Luc—”

  “He was here, yes,” the witch admitted, cutting her off. “He isn’t anymore.”

  “Then where is he? He disappeared a week and a half ago.”

  Mada Zola shook her head, returned to her pot, and stirred it slowly. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that. He was here two months ago. Long before you say he disappeared.” She set down the spoon, and her eyes dropped to Anouk’s bare feet, to the missing toes, but she didn’t seem surprised. She picked up an empty bottle. “Take a walk with me.”

  Anouk wasn’t inclined to obey, but neither did she want to stay in that reeking shed. She followed the witch into the gardens. “Luc said that you loved your mistress so much that you didn’t see the rotten part of her.”

  Anouk didn’t answer. How could she? Yes, yes, she understood now how vile their mistress had been, and yet the memory of her soft hands stroking Anouk’s hair was still too fresh.

  “Your friend Luc contacted me two months ago, and when I didn’t answer, he showed up at the gates with an awful story to tell. He’d overheard Mada Vittora negotiating with a Goblin broker who dealt in small mammals. She wanted four very tame, very mild-tempered rabbits. Young and in good health.”

  Anouk slowed. “I remember that.” She wiped her hands on her sweater, though they were already clean. “Luc thought he was supposed to slaughter them for stew, but he was wrong. Mada Vittora was furious.”

  “Did you ever wonder why she wanted four live rabbits?”

  Anouk curled her toes. “No.”

  Mada Zola stopped at a nettle plant and pulled off long, spiky leaves to go in the bottle. “According to Luc, she felt that her beasties were growing restless. He and Cricket and Beau were more disobedient every day. And the assassin Hunter Black had become too attached to her boy. So she decided she’d kill her beasties and start over with more docile creatures.”

  Anouk felt as though she’d been slapped. She pressed her hand to her cheek, feeling a sting she couldn’t make stop.

  “She was going to keep you,” the witch continued evenly. “She bought only four rabbits, not five. You were her pet. Her obedient little beastie.”

  Had the day suddenly gotten darker? Anouk looked up, but no clouds blocked the sun. Was it true? Of course it was. She felt like a traitor, like she’d somehow sided with Vittora, that she was complicit just by sweeping floors and serving cake.

  “What happened then?” she asked.

  “I explained to Luc that whoever possessed your pelts possessed you. If he could steal the pelts, then he wouldn’t be forced to answer to any mistress. He left and I haven’t heard from him since. Of course, that advice was true only as long as your witch was alive. Now you have much bigger problems. Even if you had control of your pelts, the beastie spell would still expire at midnight tomorrow.”

  They had entered the thorn garden, though Anouk had barely noticed.

  “Do you have your pelts?” the witch asked.

  But Anouk was too deep in her thoughts to answer. Luc had been trying to steal the pelts . . . had Mada Vittora caught him? Had she killed him out of anger?

  Mada Zola suddenly took her arm, cupped her chin, and turned her face toward the warm sun.

  “Breathe, my dearie. You look on the verge of shattering. You are each so strong in your own way. Beau has a steady strength, like a tree. Cricket’s is a bright strength, like lightning. But your strength, ah, yours is quiet. There’s a reason magic is called whispers, not shouts. Whispers require a quiet soul, a still mind. I could train you. Teach you to truly handle magic, to be what you were meant to be. You’re like these thorns, you know. Dangerous by your very nature.”

  The wind was picking up, clouds moving in.

  “Think about it, little mouse,” the witch said. “But think fast. You’re running out of time.” She bro
ke off a small handful of briars, flinching as one pricked her palm. A few drops of blood spilled out before she pressed a cloth against the cut. She touched Anouk’s cheek gently with her other hand, and then went back to the potting shed and shut herself up again.

  Anouk stood alone in the garden. Her mind felt whipped like cream, beaten to turn raw ingredients into something new—​but what, she wasn’t sure. She tugged out a rag she’d stashed in her sleeve, knelt by the blood drops on the stone path, and began to clean, but then stopped.

  What was she doing?

  She cleaned because that was all she knew. Mada Vittora had told her she was a maid, and Anouk would have done anything for a scrap of affection. She thought back to the day Luc had killed the rabbits. He’d been out flower hunting at the market in the Marais and must have stumbled on Mada Vittora and overheard her plans. But Anouk hadn’t known that at the time. She hadn’t thought twice to see Luc return from the market and slaughter the rabbits in the courtyard. It wasn’t rare for him to bring home live crows for pie, live quail for roasting.

  He’d strung up the bodies in the kitchen. For supper, he’d told her. Rabbit stew. She’d cooked the rabbits without question. But when she’d ladled out the stew, Mada Vittora had taken one bite and slammed the bowl on the floor, shattering it. She’d dragged Luc down from his attic and shoved his face in the scalding stew and broken shards of china. No matter how he’d pleaded that it had been a mistake, she’d beaten him.

  Later, Anouk had cleaned up the mess without question.

  You knew, didn’t you? she whispered silently to Luc. You knew those rabbits were meant to take our places. You slaughtered them to protect the others, but you couldn’t protect yourself.

  She stood sharply. On impulse, she tugged the black ribbon from her ponytail, letting her hair fall loose around her shoulders.

  At last she could breathe.

  At last she felt free of Mada Vittora—​and now she knew what she needed to do.

  Little mouse, Mada Zola had called her, as though the truth of what she was were written on her face. Anouk touched her heavy jaw, thinking of those five pelts hidden away in the car trunk. The littlest one, gray and stiff with a ropy pink tail. She didn’t feel like a mouse. Not at all. The dark thing inside her wasn’t timid and plain, wasn’t the type to skitter around the edges of a room, fearful of every footstep.