by Webb, Holly
Rose shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. Nothing – grand. It’s only that I looked in the mirror and it wasn’t my face looking back at me. I’ve seen odd things in mirrors before, but only when I was supposed to,’ Rose muttered. ‘When we were scrying to find out what had happened to Maisie, and I saw Miss Sparrow. I asked the mirror to tell me that time, though. This was something different. I think that face is always in the mirror.’
‘Who was it? Was she pretty? Was it someone you knew? Oh, Rose, stop sitting there like a lemon and tell me!’
‘Bella, I think it might have been…my mother,’ Rose whispered.
Bella’s mouth fell open, and for once, she was speechless. She stared at Rose, mouth and eyes circles of amazement.
Bella looks like the queen’s Pekingese dog with her eyes like that, Rose thought vaguely. Her brain was behaving like a butterfly, flitting from thought to thought and back again, and refusing to stay on the important things. Until she’d told Bella, she’d hardly dared say it to herself, but she was almost sure that she was right.
Bella got over her amazement quickly, and moved on to curiosity. ‘How do you know? Did she look like you? And was it just her face, or do you think she could see you back? Is she inside that mirror?’ Bella wrinkled her nose in disgust.
Rose frowned. ‘No. It was only her face. She didn’t move, and her eyes didn’t seem to see anyone. I only saw her for a moment, but she wasn’t alive. Or anything like that. It was more as though she used to look into that mirror, and it kept the memory of her.’
‘I don’t see why Miss Fell would have a mirror with your mother in,’ Bella objected. Then her eyes brightened with the excitement of scandal. ‘Maybe it was your mother’s mirror and Miss Fell stole it! We really have to find out about this properly, Rose, it’s just so exciting.’
Rose sighed. She knew she probably couldn’t discover the truth on her own, but she wished Bella wasn’t quite so keen. This wasn’t one of those silly novels full of castles and dungeons and beautiful heroines that Bella’s governess, Miss Anstruther, used to hide in the schoolroom ink cupboard. Bella couldn’t seem to see that it was real. And just because Rose hadn’t fainted dead away – gracefully, of course – like one of the idiot girls in the books, it didn’t mean she wasn’t upset. She had just seen her mother. It couldn’t be the first time she had ever seen her, but it felt like it. Everything had changed.
‘I don’t know what we’re going to do,’ Rose muttered. ‘But Miss Fell isn’t going to tell me, that’s clear, or she would have done it by now. So I need to find out myself. I’m not giving up!’ she told Bella sharply. But then her shoulders slumped. ‘Though I might as well, since I can’t think of anything. The mirror is the only we clue we have.’
‘We don’t have it,’ Bella pointed out, and Rose clicked her tongue irritably.
‘You know I meant…’ She trailed off. ‘What if we did?’ Her voice was scared, and she looked at Bella wide-eyed.
‘You want us to steal it?’ Bella asked hopefully. ‘But what about what Gus said?’
Rose folded her arms, her face grim. ‘If Miss Fell is actually my long-lost relative, then she probably won’t kill me. Probably. She might kill you.’
‘No, because then she would have to deal with Papa, and he’s one of the most powerful magicians of the age too,’ Bella said sunnily.
Rose nodded. ‘I suppose it’s good that she’s making me move rooms. It’ll be easier to get into her room from this floor than it would be from the attics.’
‘What shall we do with the mirror when we’ve got it?’ Bella’s eyes were sparkling. She’d skipped over the difficult bit as usual, Rose noticed. ‘Because whatever we do, Rose, we’ll have to do it quickly. Miss Fell’s bound to see it’s gone when she gets up. She always uses it to put her hairpins in, haven’t you noticed? She always picks it up when she’s putting the ones that have fallen out back in.’
Rose shivered. ‘So we’ll have to creep into her room twice, so we can put it back as well. And she wakes easily, I know she does. I woke her this morning, and I hardly clanged the fire irons at all.’
Bella smiled delightedly. ‘I know a spell we can use to be quiet. I was reading one of those strange old books in the workroom, the one with the cover that looks like squashed lizard.’
‘Ugh. I haven’t touched that one,’ Rose admitted. ‘It looks so horrid, I always think it’s going to be full of poisonings and disgusting things to do in graveyards at full moon. Is it?’
‘Of course it isn’t. Think, Rose. Anything like that would be on the high shelves in Papa’s study.’
Rose blinked. She hadn’t thought of it that way, but now she rather wished that Bella hadn’t been so sure that her father did have that sort of book. She wondered how often he used them.
‘It’s actually a collection of useful spells you can make from everyday ingredients. Things that you can find round the house. We need the Silent Slippers spell.’ Bella looked proud of herself, but she was also eyeing Rose sideways.
‘What?’
‘It does have some ingredients you won’t like.’ Bella edged back over the coverlet a little way, as though she didn’t want to be too close to Rose. ‘The slippers are mostly made of spell, but the magic’s woven into something real – something very soft and quiet…’
Rose stared at her panickily. ‘What, Bella? Please, you’re giving me palpitations!’
‘We have to harvest rather a lot of cobwebs,’ Bella admitted.
‘Oh.’ Rose smiled in relief. ‘No.’
‘You can’t just say no!’
‘Yes, I can, because I just did. I won’t do it, Bella, you know I can’t bear spiders.’
‘I don’t know why on earth not. Honestly, I’m the one who was brought up to be a young lady, I’m supposed to be screeching on a chair while you catch the spiders in a jam jar, Rose!’
‘Please don’t.’ Rose put her hand over her mouth. ‘I shall be sick on your silk bedcover.’
‘Really? Just because of jam jars?’
Rose watched Bella file this information away for future use. The huge blue eyes were clear and innocent again in seconds, and Bella smiled. ‘Well, I shall do it then. But this is an extremely big favour, Rose, you’d better remember that.’
Rose nodded wearily. There was very little danger of Bella letting her forget.
Rose enlisted Bill to help Bella on her cobweb hunt. The maids spent a great deal of time making sure that the family’s part of the house had not so much as a strand of a cobweb – Rose had always had to do this with a very long brush, and sometimes with her eyes closed. Somehow, if she couldn’t see the possible spider, it wasn’t there. Susan would brush them down with her fingers, but even the thought of it made Rose gag. That awful claggy, smooth stickiness – how could Susan stand it?
The spell called for ‘several hanks of fresh cobweb’ which Rose thought was remarkably inaccurate. How many was several? To find even one cobweb, though, they would have to go out to the stables in the mews at the back of the house. Bill escorted the girls politely through the kitchens, where all the staff stood frozen; watching them. Rose stared pleadingly at Mrs Jones. The news of her permanent promotion to young lady had travelled very swiftly, she realised. There was a small pile in the middle of the kitchen table – her workbasket, the pinafore Miss Bridges had made her to put over her uniform if she had to be presentable. All the things she had left below-stairs.
‘I will have them sent up to your new room, Rose,’ Miss Bridges said gently, and Rose nodded. Thank goodness no one had called her Miss. She might have cried.
Rose waited outside the tackroom, ignoring the stable boys sniggering at her, while Bella and Bill went hunting spiders. She stood there, shivering in the January cold, and trying not to nibble her nails while she worried about burgling Miss Fell’s bedroom.
‘I do like this spell.’ Bella had suddenly appeared beside her, looking even smugger than usual.
Rose jumped, and
the stable boys hooted with laughter. Had Bella done the spell already, to be able to move so quietly? Rose glanced down at her feet, but they looked perfectly normal.
Bella’s hands, though, were draped with silver-grey web, and she wasn’t even wearing gloves. She waved them at Rose. ‘I think I might try breeding spiders in the schoolroom, Rose, so we can always have a supply.’
Rose slapped her hands across her mouth and moaned.
‘She’s gone green!’ one of the stable boys pointed out with interest.
‘Find her a bowl, mate,’ the other one advised Bill.
Bill’s response was to grab Rose round the shoulders and run her back through the mews to the kitchens, and shove her in front of the scullery sink – where for once Sarah wasn’t doing any washing up.
Rose leaned on the white china sink, her head swimming, and tried to stay on her feet. Even though she was a young lady now, she refused to faint.
‘She did that on purpose,’ she moaned to Bill, who was hovering anxiously next to her.
Bill shook his head. ‘Nope. She’s just excited about the spiders’ webs and this clever spell thing. Sorry!’ he added quickly, as Rose lurched towards the sink again.
‘I don’t think I’m actually going to be sick – but her hands – she was covered… Ugh…’
‘I didn’t mean to upset you, Rose.’ Bella’s voice was husky, and she sounded guilty.
‘Don’t show me them again,’ Rose gasped, wheeling round so as not to see Bella by the scullery door.
‘I won’t, it’s all right, I’ve hidden them in my handkerchief. And I washed my hands in the horse trough. I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t think. I was pleased, because we’d got such a lot, and I was excited about the spell.’
Rose dared a look at Bella, and saw that she was staring at the stone floor, looking guilty.
‘I wanted to help you. I was so pleased that it was going to work,’ she whispered. ‘Rose, are you going to be able to wear the spell slippers?’
Rose was silent for a moment, gulping. ‘Will it still look like cobweb?’ she asked.
‘There isn’t a picture in the book – we could ask them not to, I should think. Would it be all right if they were just a different colour? Would pink cobweb slippers make you sick?’
‘I honestly don’t know!’ Rose half-laughed. Then she shook her head. ‘They’ll have to do. I won’t give up over something so silly.’
‘You could find a different spell, couldn’t you?’ Bill asked.
Bella sighed. ‘I could only think of this one. We could try, but it might take weeks, and we can hardly ask Miss Fell if she happens to know a good spell for sneaking around, can we?’
Later that afternoon, the two girls sat on the floor of Rose’s new bedroom. It would have been easier to do the spell in the workroom, but Freddie was in there, and he was still sulking. But sitting on the floor wasn’t a hardship. The rug they were curled up on was worth more than Rose’s year’s wage, she was fairly sure. In her old room, there was hardly enough floor space to open the door, let alone to put down a rug.
Rose had her eyes closed, as even with one of Bella’s handkerchiefs over them, the cobwebs seemed to move and shimmer and crawl. ‘Do you need me to do anything?’ she muttered.
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Bella sounded so excited. She had done very few spells so far, or at least, very few spells on purpose.
Rose sat tensely, and heard her riffling through the pages of the spell book, and then tapping the paper thoughtfully with a fingernail. All the sounds seemed clearer and louder now she couldn’t see. There was a rustling of fine linen, and shivers crawled up Rose’s spine, like the spiders she couldn’t chase out of her mind.
Bella whispered and muttered to herself, and Rose heard only odd words. Even Bella’s voice sounded spidery and soft. She was desperate to leap up and race out of the room, but she didn’t dare disturb the spell. If it went wrong, who knew what would happen? Spiders in slippers might invade her brand-new bedroom. The thought of cobwebs on the heavy plum velvet curtains made her feel sick.
‘Put your foot out!’ Bella told her sharply. ‘Quickly, Rose, I can’t hold it like this for long!’
Rose’s eyes snapped open, without her meaning them to. She stared at her foot, pale in a knitted white cotton stocking, and forced herself to stretch it out towards Bella’s hands.
What Bella was holding looked like a hair net, a pale pink silk one. It glistened, and Rose tried not to flinch as Bella draped it over her foot.
‘Now the other one.’
Rose’s feet felt light as thistledown – as light as cobweb. It looked like she was wearing delicate, jewelled, pink slippers – but they were only spider-silk, beaded with gobbets of Bella’s magic. Bella must have put a hint of glamour spell in them too, to change the colour, and make them look like pretty shoes, if anyone should see. It was very clever, deceitful magic. Rose was beginning to think Bella took after her father.
‘We won’t make a sound while we’re wearing them,’ Bella told her proudly, twisting to admire her own feet. ‘Aren’t they pretty? I wonder how long they last.’
A soft paw reached out and gently batted the pale pink mesh. ‘Pretty but fragile,’ Gus commented. ‘Only the one night, I should think.’
Rose stared at him sternly. ‘I shut that door myself.’
‘Did you?’ Gus yawned, showing a mouthful of sparkling white needles. ‘Really. How interesting. And this is relevant how, Rose, dear?’
‘How did you get in? It’s still shut. You can’t walk through doors, can you?’
‘No. Well, I could, but why bother, when there’s a perfectly good chimney, and a flue system that links up the whole house?’
Rose and Bella turned round to stare at the fireplace. The fire was lit, only a small blaze, glowing gently, and sending out a pleasant warmth into the room.
Gus was now licking one of his front paws, smoothing it around his ears luxuriously, his eyes blissfully closed.
‘Next time I’ll just leave the door open,’ Rose whispered. ‘I mean it, Gus, please. Don’t do that again.’
Gus opened one eye, the amber one, and leaned across to swipe his tongue over Rose’s fingers. ‘Dear little Rose.’ He rubbed his paw around his ears one last time, and got up, stalking over to the fire. He stared into it, dangling his whiskers dangerously close to the glowing coals.
Bella jumped up, and made as if to grab him away from the fire, but he glared at her, and she hung back. ‘You’ll burn your whiskers,’ she protested. ‘Think how awful you’d look if you were all singed.’
Gus sighed. ‘Neither of you have any faith in me.’ Before they could stop him, he put one paw up on the grate, murmured, ‘A lot of dust here, Rose. Most unsatisfactory work,’ and leaped into the middle of the fire.
Bella shrieked, and Rose would have done the same, except she felt as though the air had been knocked out of her, and she had no breath to scream.
Gus sat there for a moment with the flames swirling around him, looking mildly bored. Then he strolled back out onto the hearth rug, where he examined his paws carefully. Rose peered at them too, but they looked exactly the same as before, the pads a delicate apricot pink.
‘Can you teach us that?’ Bella asked eagerly.
Gus smirked. ‘When you’ve grown a tail, Bella, come back and ask again. Rose, you cannot keep me out with a door.’
Rose shook her head. ‘I wasn’t trying to. But – we’re planning to do something you told us was stupid. We thought we should plan it out privately. Freddie’s been fuming in the workroom since he stormed out at breakfast, and we can hardly use the schoolroom in case Miss Fell walks in on us.’
‘So what are you after?’ Gus sat down in between the two girls, his whiskers glittering with excitement.
‘Her silver hand mirror. She has it with her most of the time, so we think we’ll have to do it tonight,’ Rose explained.
Gus leaned forward, his shoulders heaving so convuls
ively that Rose wondered if something was wrong.
‘Are you coughing up a hairball?’ Bella asked in disgust.
Gus glared at her. ‘I was laughing,’ he pointed out coldly, ‘at you being so blindly stupid. Do you actually think you’ll get away with it?’
‘We haven’t a choice, and Bella’s made us these silence spell slippers. We’re going, whatever you say about it,’ Rose snapped.
‘Oh good. Well, I shall come too, just for the amusement value.’ He sprang onto the end of Rose’s bed. ‘Be quiet now, children. I shall need to sleep, if we’re going gallivanting all night.’ Then he curled himself into a perfect white ball, with his nose tucked under his tail, so that they couldn’t see his eyes to argue with him.
‘Oh!’ Rose huffed crossly. ‘He really is impossible. I didn’t ask him to come!’
‘But he’ll probably be useful, if he can stop himself from laughing at us,’ Bella pointed out.
Gus’s tail twitched, and they couldn’t tell if he was laughing or cross, so they decided to finish plotting in Bella’s room instead.
‘I don’t want to wear my nightgown,’ Bella hissed. ‘I was going to wear my black velvet dress, the one I had for Uncle Dolph’s funeral. It’s perfect for going burgling in.’
Rose flinched. ‘Don’t use that word.’
‘Stealing? Trespassing? Looting?’
‘Ssshhh!’ Rose crammed her knuckles in her mouth and nibbled them. ‘Don’t go on about it, or I might back out, and it’d be an awful waste of a spell, wouldn’t it.’
‘If you back out I shall go without you,’ Bella retorted. ‘This is the most fun we’ve had since we came back from Venice.’
‘I’m not. But Bella, please just wear your nightgown, then if she wakes up we can pretend to be sleepwalking.’
‘Both of you at the same time?’ Gus asked.
‘Oh, don’t you start!’ Rose begged wearily. She was feeling terribly guilty at the thought of stealing a valuable mirror, and she had frightened herself quite enough already creeping along the dark corridor to Bella’s room. The difficult bit had been tiptoeing past the particularly forbidding door behind which Miss Fell was sleeping – or so they hoped. If she’d woken up in the middle of the night and decided to read for a while, they were lost. As she crept along, Rose had been convinced that the ornaments on the little tables in the alcoves were all staring at her, and one of the paintings had definitely sniggered.
