by Holly Webb
Bill hesitated. It was true that if Susan said he’d hurt her, he would be in trouble, whatever excuse he came up with, even if it were true. Then he gulped, his eyes moving to Susan’s hand, where it was clutching Rose’s arm. Her nails were black. The dead color was spreading slowly up her fingers, seeping under the cuff of her dress.
Susan screamed and dropped Rose’s arm, backing away, cradling her hand and moaning with horror.
“What did you do?” she whimpered. “You’ve poisoned me, haven’t you, you little witch? I’m going to die.”
“It’ll stop now you’ve let go of me,” Rose told her. I hope, she added to herself, crossing her fingers behind her back. She hadn’t done the magic on purpose; it had been like the treacle-y horse, and all the other spells she’d done before she’d even known what she was. It had just…happened. But the dark stain faded gradually from Susan’s fingers, leaving her hand a bloodless white.
It was the first time Susan had seen Rose do any magic. She stared at her, horror and disgust etched across her face. “Get away from me,” she whispered. “You were going to kill me. You went in my room. What did you take? What did you leave there?”
“Nothing!” Rose insisted. “I was just going to do something to your stupid hat, that was all. To get you to leave me alone. And I wasn’t trying to kill you. I only did that to your arm to make you let me go! You treat me like dirt, and you’ve no need.” She stood up straighter and tried to sound brave, though she was as shaken as the other girl. “That was to show you. I can do it, and I will if you don’t let me be. So.”
But as she watched Susan backing out of the room, her eyes round and dark and fixed on Rose’s face, she felt that it hadn’t worked the way she wanted. Susan was terrified. She really believed Rose had been trying to attack her, maybe even kill her.
Rose realized miserably that she had been hoping for some amazing turnaround—that Susan would see her magic, and suddenly decide not to be mean anymore. Mrs. Jones and Sarah would come around as well, all laughing at Susan wearing a flowerpot on her head. Susan would be cross, but she’d realize that Rose wasn’t to be trifled with. Everything would go back to the way it had been before, when Susan had been only bearably awful. The frightening newspaper articles Mrs. Jones loved to read would be about gory murders again, not magicians poisoning the world for everyone else.
It had been a dream, that was all. In real life, dreams hardly ever came true.
Five
Rose sat curled up in her bed, her blankets heaped around her. She had lain awake for ages, too cold to sleep, until eventually she’d crept downstairs to one of the spare rooms and borrowed a silken quilt. It was probably something she could be dismissed for doing, but she almost didn’t care anymore. Although of course, if she lost her job, she would be outside in the cold…
If she’d been back at St. Bridget’s, they would all have squashed up two or three to a bed, just to keep warm, she thought, shivering still. She wished Gus would come and curl up with her, but he was probably sleeping with Freddie—the family’s bedrooms would be much warmer. Perhaps she could go next door to Susan and ask if she’d like to share. Rose giggled bitterly. She stared into her candle flame, gazing at the blue heart of the fire. It blackened, slowly, like Susan’s fingers, and Rose shuddered.
What was she going to do? Susan was never going to forget about it now. She would take her revenge in small things, things Rose couldn’t pin down. Even if Susan did nothing, Rose didn’t think she could stand being looked at that way all the time—like a murderess. Miserably, she blew out the candle, watching the wick glow as the heat faded, until finally all was black. Then she wriggled further into her feathery nest. Pulling the quilt over her head shut everything else out. Rose wished she could stay there forever.
But the morning came all too quickly, and Rose woke, feeling confused. Something was different. It was still dark and piercingly cold, and for a moment she wondered if she’d woken too early. She had no clock in her room, of course, so she couldn’t check, but it felt like her normal waking time of six. She lit her candle and held it up to the window, blinking in surprise to see the crystalline snow piled halfway up. She could just make out the whirling flakes—pretty, delicate, and unstoppable against the indigo sky.
Rose wrapped the stolen quilt around her shoulders and scrambled over her bed to her washing bowl. She had brought up a fresh jug of water the previous night, but it had frozen solid. No wonder she felt cold. The snow that Freddie had been so excited about two days ago had hardly lasted, but this looked as though it could set in for a while.
Rose scowled at the heavy, sugary snow piled against her window. It shouldn’t be there, not in October. This was depths-of-winter weather. It was wrong. The snow sparkled in a sudden flash of sunlight, and Rose shivered. The icy crystals shimmered, with that strange eye-straining effect that magic gave so much of the furniture in the Fountain house. They looked sharp and dangerous, and Rose wondered how frozen water could seem so wicked.
Rose tunneled her way out of the quilt and started to dress quickly, putting on both of the woolen vests that had been provided as part of her uniform and a red flannel petticoat. It meant she could hardly breathe once she’d done up her dress buttons, but she didn’t care. She would wash in the kitchen. Hopefully the pump wouldn’t be frozen too.
She scurried down the stairs, hoping to get in and out with her fire-lighting tray, preferably without seeing anyone, except maybe Bill. He would probably be rude to her, but there were acres of difference between Bill being rude and Susan being deliberately cruel. Bill was rude to everybody, except Miss Bridges.
She lingered over Miss Anstruther’s fire after she’d lit it, warming her numb hands—the governess was still fast asleep and didn’t even stir. Eventually Rose had to drag herself away, her fingers still feeling swollen and puffy as she tried silently to pick up her lucifer matches and sweeping brush.
Freddie was kneeling up on his windowsill, having hauled a quilt, much like the one Rose had borrowed, off his bed. It had a rich Eastern pattern, and he looked like a little blond sultan perched on the sill. “Look at it, Rose! This is going to stay for weeks!” he said hopefully. “A few hard frosts and we’ll be sledding easily.”
“You will, you mean,” Rose told him, but she wasn’t cross. Sometimes she felt years older than Freddie, even though she was almost certainly younger than he was.
“I wonder if one could skate on the fountain bowl in the park,” Freddie replied dreamily. “Too small, maybe. Did you say something, Rose?”
Rose clanged the fire irons. “No,” she told him shortly. It would be so nice to be rich, she thought darkly, and never have to worry about anything, except whether the snow would stick enough for sledding. She grinned ruefully to herself. She had a job, and this amazing magical gift that had come out of nowhere. What would she be wanting next, a palace?
“Are you all right?” Freddie asked, peering at her out of his cocoon of coverlets. “You look quite demented, sitting there grinning like that. Good servants don’t show their emotions, Rose, you know. Not that you could be expected to know that sort of thing, considering your background,” he added kindly, making Rose want to hit him.
“Thank you, sir,” Rose murmured, trying to sound like a perfect servant.
Freddie gave her a suspicious look, but he was still half engrossed in watching the snow.
“Speaking as someone who’ll have to help wash it, please don’t get that coverlet dirty,” Rose added as she closed the door behind her. She couldn’t be a perfect servant all the time.
Down in the kitchens, Susan wouldn’t meet her eyes. But Rose could feel her staring as soon as Rose wasn’t watching her directly. It was a malevolent stare, hateful, and it prickled her skin. Rose told herself to ignore it. I’m warm—almost. I have a job. I have food—albeit a rather small portion of porridge, as she was clearly not Mrs. Jones’s pet an
ymore—Bill and Freddie and Bella talk to me. It doesn’t matter.
But as Susan passed on her way out, Rose felt a sharp tug at her head and turned to find Susan looking at her, wide-eyed with a mixture of triumph and fear, a dark hair pinched between her fingertips. “I’ve got a piece of you now,” she whispered frantically. “You can’t get me. We’ll be rid of you, you’ll see!”
Rose automatically turned to Mrs. Jones to protest, but the cook was looking abstractedly out of the window at the street above. She was humming too, which she never did.
“Ignore her, she’s cracked,” Bill muttered, but he looked rather spooked.
Rose shook her head, trying to think clearly. Did a hair mean anything? She didn’t think so, but then she still knew almost nothing about magic. Maybe this was some powerful folklore, which she’d missed out on at St. Bridget’s. She tried to think it out as she climbed the stairs with a pile of fresh sheets, rubbing her eyes wearily. Her scalp stung.
Even if the hair pulling was nonsense, like Mrs. Jones’s amulet, Rose wasn’t sure how much more she wanted to put up with.
Maybe she didn’t need to be an apprentice, she thought. She could teach herself, couldn’t she? Her beloved, coveted job was turning to dust and ashes in front of her, but they couldn’t take the magic away. She could use it, somehow, to survive.
She could find things! Like she’d found Maisie in Miss Sparrow’s cellar. People always wanted lost things found. She’d start small but maybe one day have a little shop, where people came to see her, and she found their mislaid rings or stolen children or long-lost loves. Rose made Freddie’s bed, dreamily furnishing her own tiny house above the shop. A little yard, with a rosebush in a pot. A yellow one.
She would miss Freddie, she thought, as she smoothed the Eastern coverlet, and Bill. But once she had earned enough money, they’d understand she didn’t need to be dragged back, and she could go and see them. She would have to take her clothes, but she would earn the money to pay for them. Rose caught herself daydreaming again and told herself sternly not to be so stupid. There would be no houses with roses, not for a long while. It might take her years just to save the money to pay back her outfit. But it seemed better than this—this constant waiting for someone to pounce.
They wanted her gone. So she would go.
***
Rose thought about leaving all day, while she finished making the beds and moved on to sweeping and dusting all the upstairs rooms. Mrs. Jones sent her out to the grocer’s just before lunch, as Mr. Fountain was lunching at home and had expressed a vague desire for Lancashire cheese. The extreme coldness of the snow brought Rose down to earth a little. She did not want to be out in it for any longer than she had to be, still less to be caught out in it without a home to return to. The snow was beautiful—though it was already turning brown with footsteps and carriage ruts. Where it was still clean, it glittered and sparkled like dry powder, so much so that Rose was tempted to remove her glove and sweep her fingers through it as it lay along the flat top of a stone wall. The glittery powder was only an illusion, and Rose cursed herself for being taken in as she blew on her scarlet fingers. Snow, she knew quite well, was wet, cold, and insidious. It got everywhere, and it was already getting into her boots. She hurried on to the grocer’s, huddling in her hooded cloak and wishing for dry stockings. How could Freddie be so excited about this horrible, damp stuff?
But even the snow could not put her off the idea of leaving the house entirely, now that the thought had taken hold. She couldn’t concentrate on the lesson that afternoon, and her glamour hardly worked at all, merely growing her fingernails to the size of claws. She was hardly listening when Mr. Fountain dismissed Freddie but asked her to wait behind. Rose expected that he had special instructions about the cleaning of the workroom or a message for Miss Bridges, but after Freddie closed the door, Mr. Fountain merely gazed at her, his gray eyes dark with worry.
“What is it, sir?” Rose asked, somehow sure that he knew what she was planning. Once before he had seemed to read her mind, and why else would he stare at her so?
“No, Rose. I can’t read minds—or only to the most elementary level. But I watch faces, and your face has your story written on it like a book.” Mr. Fountain sighed. “What are you planning to do when you leave?”
Rose gaped at him. How could he say he couldn’t read minds? How did he know? “I’m sorry, sir,” she whispered. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful.”
“Are we making it so very hard for you?” Mr. Fountain asked her, pacing up and down the room in his agitation. “I had thought you quite enjoyed these lessons. Freddie has not been showing his jealousy, has he?”
Rose shook her head frantically, her short hair flailing in a way Miss Bridges would have called most unladylike. “Oh, no! I mean, he hasn’t, and I do, very much. It isn’t that…” She hung her head miserably.
“Someone else, then.” Mr. Fountain stared at her thoughtfully. “The other servants. I should have thought about that. Of course they wouldn’t be happy about you being elevated to an apprentice. The other maids are jealous?”
“They’re not jealous! They hate me!” Rose shook her head in disbelief. “You don’t understand, do you? They’re terrified of me because they think I’m going to kill them. Susan pulled a hair out of my head because she says it means I can’t kill her now!”
“Well, it depends what she’s planning to do with it…” Mr. Fountain murmured. “I would have thought it most unlikely that she had the necessary skill…”
Rose scowled at him. Then she remembered he was her employer and quickly folded her hands on the front of her apron and stared at them, her face politely blank.
“Oh, don’t do that. It’s incredibly irritating,” Mr. Fountain muttered. “I’m sorry, Rose. Are they really so scared? They’re my servants, after all. What do they think pays their wages?”
“Gold.” Gus spoke from the windowsill, where he was gazing out at the snow. “It’s all that keeps them here.”
Mr. Fountain looked unhappy. “I thought we had gone some way past this ridiculous suspicion of magic. At least in this house, surely. Whatever the rest of the world thinks…”
“But you could kill them all if you wanted to.” Gus shrugged, a full-body cat shrug that was very expressive. “They’re right to be scared.”
“I wouldn’t though,” Mr. Fountain complained.
“Miss Sparrow would,” Rose said quietly. “And there might be others. Unless all magicians are law-abiding and trustworthy and perfect, shouldn’t everyone else be scared?”
Mr. Fountain looked uncomfortable. “Well, perhaps… But the brotherhood of magicians is most honorable. We use our skills for the benefit of all. We don’t attempt to seize power or rule others in any way.”
Gus made a noise that sounded like Hmf.
“Well, not often…or only when necessary…” Mr. Fountain caught Rose’s expression and sighed.
“What exactly were you intending to do, Rose? You haven’t answered my question.”
“I thought I could find things for people,” Rose said very quietly. She was expecting them to belittle her, tell her that her talent wasn’t strong enough. She sat down at the table again, staring at the scratches and stains that patterned its surface. “I suppose it wouldn’t work…”
Instead, Mr. Fountain leaned against the table and rubbed his hands over his eyes wearily, and Gus leaped down from the windowsill to weave lovingly around his legs.
“Of course it would,” Mr. Fountain sighed. “You would be wonderful at it.” He looked up at her. “Don’t you see? You’re too good, Rose. Setting aside that it would be a complete waste of your powers, you are too good. You would be able to find anything anyone wanted.”
Rose stared at him, puzzled. “But…what’s wrong with that? Isn’t it good to help people who’ve lost something? I mean, I know it’s sad that I would have
to get them to pay me, but I wouldn’t charge very much.”
Mr. Fountain laughed harshly, almost bitterly, and Gus jumped into Rose’s lap. “Silly child,” he told her in an affectionate purr.
Rose looked at them, hurt, and Mr. Fountain sighed.
“I shouldn’t laugh at you, Rose. Such innocence should be refreshing.”
Rose began to feel as though she must have said something very stupid. Her eyes burned. The servants hated her, and she didn’t understand magicians properly either. She belonged nowhere.
“You’ve upset her,” Gus told Mr. Fountain. He looked at her interestedly, with his head on one side and his ears perked up. “Look, you see, now, if she were a cat, she would be washing. Humans are most handicapped by not being able to wash without added water. It’s such a useful distraction in this kind of situation.” He stood up and put his paws on Rose’s shoulders, nosing her affectionately.
“Oh, do be quiet,” Mr. Fountain muttered. “Rose, I’m not trying to be unkind. I just need you to understand. You cannot go out into the streets of London and set yourself up as a finder. Oh, yes, there are such people. Those who have the merest ghost of a talent and a little luck, and they scrape themselves a living—”
“So why can’t I?” Rose burst out angrily, turning her face away from Gus’s tickling whiskers.
“You’d last a fortnight…” Gus purred in her ear.
Rose stroked him without meaning to, running her hand down his smooth side and admiring the soft fringe of longer fur round his rather large stomach. Then she dropped her hand and scowled.
“Stop it! You’re glamouring me, aren’t you? It isn’t fair!”
Gus reeled back from her, his ears laid flat and his luxuriant whiskers drooping dejectedly. Rose blinked. She’d been angry, but she hadn’t meant to upset him so.
“I’m sorry—don’t look so upset…” she murmured apologetically.
Gus’s whiskers sprang back to their usual jaunty angle and he purred with satisfaction. “Got you that time!”
