A Most Magical Girl

by Karen Foxlee

  Mr. Angel brought the machine a pair of shoes from a dead girl in Seven Dials, a length of black crepe stolen from a window on Gresham Street, three tear catchers, stoppers intact, stolen from a widow’s bedroom. The machine huffed at the scent of them and, when he held them up, sucked them with great force across the length of the room, one by one. The shadowlings tittered and writhed in the corner, their brand-new wings opening and shutting, waiting.

  He gave the machine a small clock stopped at the death of a child. A letter of apology from one sister to another, never sent. And the machine delighted in these sorrowful objects. The things that had touched darkness. Its cogs whirred, and its bellows chuffed. The floor vibrated. Mr. Angel leaned forward, pressed his monocle to his eye, and examined the dark-magic gauge. The needle had moved—slightly but surely, it had moved. When it completed its journey around the dial, the machine would make unlimited dark magic. He would stand on his rooftop and raise his army of shadowlings.

  From his pocket Mr. Angel took the handkerchief that Annabel Grey had dried her eyes with and smiled. The machine sensed it, and its gears sang in a higher note. He held the handkerchief up and felt the pull of the machine.

  Annabel’s mother’s tears had been the first. He had fed them to his new machine all those years ago. He closed his eyes to remember how Vivienne had wept over the body of her husband. There had never been such mourning. Thirteen years of full moons, and now the daughter….

  “Yes!” he cried. “Of course!”

  The girl was who he needed. He would feed her to the machine, not her handkerchief. She was the saddest object! As though sensing his realization, the machine’s cogs whined louder and louder.

  “Of course,” he muttered again, and held up his hand to his dreadful invention. “Not yet. Soon I will give you all of Annabel Grey instead.”

  He began to laugh then, softly first, and then louder and louder, so that the room echoed with the sound. And when he was gone with his Black Wand, the shadowlings mimicked his laughter, which was harsh and lonely and full of pain.

  “In education, geography is harmless, but too much history and politics can lead to a quarrelsome nature.”

  —Miss Finch’s Little Blue Book (1855)

  “Now you are a little emptied out,” said Miss Henrietta. “And you will remember the cup for the future, won’t you?”

  It was true, Annabel felt empty and airy inside for a short while, and she marveled at the sensation as Miss Henrietta stood up.

  “We will send you to the wizards. They will teach you what they can. We have little time. If Mr. Angel says he will raise an army, then an army he will raise.”

  Annabel wondered again what shadowlings were. She tried to picture them in her mind, but they wouldn’t form. All she could see was Mr. Angel, with his dark, sad eyes and his meanness. Just looking at him had made her feel terrible and lonely.

  “Pardon me, Miss Henrietta,” she said. “But what are shadowlings?”

  Miss Henrietta took a deep breath.

  “Shadowlings are nothing creatures, Annabel. They are sleeping shadows that live in dark places and are usually no more than that. Have you ever been frightened of the shadowy space behind a door?”

  Annabel nodded.

  “Well, that is a sleeping shadow. A nothing creature. But if there comes someone with dark magic and that dark magic is put into that shadow, then that shadow becomes a shadowling, and it is given a life, a wicked little being, a terrible little soul. Shadows given wicked little souls, Annabel—why, they might do almost anything.”

  “I see,” said Annabel.

  “Do you?” said Miss Henrietta.

  Annabel thought of Miss Finch and all her lessons. The French conjugations and the curtsying. The Latin, which Annabel could not for the life of her understand, the lacework, and the long afternoons pretending there was nothing more important than talking about what the royal princesses wore. Nothing she had learned could possibly prepare her for shadows with wicked little souls, and Miss Henrietta looked as if she knew it. How could they expect her to go on a journey into Under London? She didn’t even know how to begin.

  “A broomstick,” said Miss Henrietta at last. “That is where we begin. We must find you a broomstick.”

  A broomstick, thought Annabel. She hoped she didn’t have to do more sweeping. She followed Miss Henrietta into the magical storeroom. This time Annabel was ready for the inside, for the odd, jumbled-up assortment of smells: peppermint and oranges and wax and old clothes. There was a place in the storeroom that smelled exactly like the sea. She did not keep her eyes to the ground—instead, she looked about herself in wonder. Near them, there was a jar filled with a silvery liquid. It made a soft bubbling sound.

  “Broomsticks,” said Miss Henrietta, holding up the candle to illuminate several tall hats. “Where did I put the broomsticks? Oh yes. Right beside the peat jars. Now, take the stepladder—that’s right—and climb up and take one of the brooms, please.”

  Annabel did as she was told. She climbed the stepladder, and up close like that, with Miss Henrietta holding the candle aloft, she saw other things. She saw a pile of sticks. She saw a row of jars filled with a dark liquid. She saw a tray filled with something that looked like bones, glinting moon white.

  “Are they b-b-bones?” Annabel stammered.

  “Broomsticks are what we’re looking for,” said Miss Henrietta sternly.

  Annabel reached up to where the broomsticks lay on the very top shelf. She pulled at one, but it seemed attached to the others.

  “I can’t,” she said. “It doesn’t want to come.”

  “Exactly right, Annabel,” said Miss Henrietta. “Broomsticks are by nature stubborn and troublesome and never want to be apart from their companions. You must coax it gently and tell it that all will be well.”

  It seemed very silly.

  “Go on,” said Miss Henrietta.

  “Here, then,” said Annabel to the broomstick. “Don’t be scared.”

  The broomstick wouldn’t budge. The broom head, which seemed to be made of twigs, was tangled up with all the others.

  She heard her great-aunt’s exasperated sigh beneath her. “Say it as though you mean it, child!”

  Annabel took a deep breath. She tried not to look down at the bones, rattling ever so slightly; the glass jars, chiming softly, menacingly.

  “Dear broomstick, I just need you for a little while, and then I will put you back,” she said, stroking it very gently. “You are very lovely. Here, now, just a little moment, that’s all we ask.”

  She pulled gently at the handle and felt it move slightly apart from the others.

  “You are made of such lovely wood, and I’m sure you can sweep the floor ever so well.”

  “Yes,” whispered Miss Henrietta. “Try to separate it again.”

  Annabel tried, and this time the broomstick separated from the rest. She felt it quivering in her hands. It trembled against her heart as she began to climb back down. She suddenly felt very protective of it. So she was shocked when Miss Henrietta pounced forward at the bottom of the ladder, wrenched the broomstick from her hands, and threw a bag over the twig head.

  Miss Henrietta knelt down on the ground, the thing bucking and struggling in her hands, and lashed the burlap bag with twine. “Rascal,” she muttered. “Stop fighting, you rascal.”

  Annabel’s face burned. “Why are you doing that?” she shouted.

  “Keep your voice down in the cupboard,” said Miss Henrietta.

  “It’s wrong,” said Annabel, a little quieter.

  Miss Henrietta stood, holding the trussed-up broomstick. “Quickly,” she said.

  Annabel became aware that the storeroom was starting to shake. Things were knocking. The broomsticks were banging and the bones rattling loudly in their tray. The glass jars were wobbling and the liquid was sloshing.

  “Quickly,” Miss Henrietta said again, and she took Annabel by the hand, flung open the storeroom door, and slammed it beh
ind them.

  Annabel looked back at the door, which was trembling. “What’s happening?” she whispered.

  “Ignore it,” said Miss Henrietta. “Everything will calm down in a minute. For now, we must tie up this broomstick until it loses some of its feistiness.”

  She took the broomstick and tied it to three hooks behind the counter. The broomstick continued to struggle. It rattled and banged against the counter and caused a commotion.

  “They soon calm down,” Miss Henrietta continued. “You will take it to the Finsbury Wizards along with a letter I will write for them posthaste.”

  Annabel had no idea why the Finsbury Wizards should need a broomstick. Perhaps she was meant to sweep there as well. It was the kind of dreadful thing that would be expected of her. She was probably also meant to empty their stinky wizard chamber pots and polish their silverware.

  Miss Henrietta sat down behind the counter and took paper from a drawer.

  Annabel looked out through the window at the street, which was so dark you would think it was almost night. The fog had grown even thicker. People appeared as ghostly silhouettes passing by the clouded windows. A street crier took up his position right by the front door.

  “London plunged into darkness!” he shouted. “Read all about it.”

  “Oh, do be quiet,” muttered Miss Henrietta as she wrote.

  “Fog stretching all the way to Watford!” he cried.

  Annabel watched the fog swirl against the window. It was filled with soot, which came down and covered the ground. Surely she couldn’t go out in it. Not alone. The broomstick trembled beside Miss Henrietta, as though with sorrow and rage, and it made Annabel feel terrible.

  “I can see you are worried,” said Miss Henrietta. “The broomstick will be aggrieved for only a little while. Come closer if you like. Talk to it again. You seem to have a way with it.”

  So Annabel knelt beside it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, dear thing.”

  “Good girl,” said Miss Henrietta. She folded up her page, dripped wax on it, and affixed her seal. The last light seemed suddenly to drain from the street.

  “Now it is time. Put on your cloak—you will need it against the fog. Your bonnet and gloves, too.”

  “But it is dark,” said Annabel.

  “Of course it is dark,” said Miss Henrietta. “And what luck that is. It is never right to take a new broomstick out in sunshine—the thing would take fright. Here we are with a strange early night.

  “I have drawn a small map on the back of the letter. The wizards no doubt will have seen you coming in their glass. Give them my letter and tell them to send out their pigeons to warn all in the Great & Benevolent Magical Society. Do not mind their quiet ways. They will tell us what is necessary for your journey into Under London.”

  Miss Henrietta untied the broomstick and thrust it into Annabel’s hands just as the bell above the door tinkled and the sullen-faced Kitty came in from the dark. She dropped her sack to the floor. She smelled of wild sorrel from the graveyard. She coughed twice without covering her mouth.

  “Perfect!” cried Miss Henrietta. “Kitty, you must walk with Annabel as far as Finsbury and back. I will pay you twice your ration.”

  Kitty looked affronted at the idea. Annabel thought her expression very rude.

  “Three times your ration,” said Miss Henrietta.

  Kitty nodded, and Miss Henrietta moved Annabel firmly toward the door.

  “I shall keep a candle burning for you both,” she said, and with that turned them both out into the street.

  “After-dark amusements should be restricted to the drawing room and never the garden or the streets.”

  —Miss Finch’s Little Blue Book (1855)

  Why, I am a young lady, thought Annabel as the door shut behind her. I am the daughter of a gentleman, even if he was really a magician called the Great Geraldo Grey (oh, just that name, and she felt a pain beneath her breastbone), who was hit by a carriage.

  She let out a little strangled sob. She couldn’t go walking at night!

  But she straightened her back and held her head high and refused to turn back to the door. She knew Miss Henrietta would be watching them.

  Be brave.

  She stepped down onto the road…and, but for Kitty, who grabbed her arm and pulled her back, would have been run over by a carriage that clattered out of the fog with four horses and disappeared again.

  “Are you a fool?” Kitty asked, shaking her head. “Follow.”

  Annabel folded the letter twice and placed it in her pink waist sash. She hoped it would be safe there. The broomstick shivered against her.

  “Here, here,” Annabel whispered. “It will be fine.”

  They joined the jostling street filled with people trying to get home in the fog, men closing up their businesses and women clutching their children’s hands so as not to get separated. A long-song man was taking down his song sheets and singing in a weary tone, while flower girls with hungry eyes sat in huddles with not a flower sold.

  The fog was black in the places where it filled corners, purple elsewhere, with great coiling mauve clouds that drifted slowly through the streets. The soot rained down like dark snowflakes. But here and there, startling pockets of clean air appeared suddenly, holes where the golden afternoon sun shone down in little pools upon the lanes.

  The fog stank. Annabel didn’t think she had ever smelled anything so rotten. It caught in her throat and made her retch. It stung her eyes. It swallowed up all the street signs as soon as they were needed. Kitty walked ahead purposefully.

  “Hurry up,” she said to Annabel, “or I’ll leave you behind.”

  “Miss Henrietta drew a map,” said Annabel. “If you need it.”

  “Don’t need no map,” said Kitty, not even bothering to look at Annabel. “Been to the wizards many times. Bring them their brownie tea.”

  “Brownie tea?” said Annabel. “I don’t think brownies are real.”

  “Real enough if they give you a good scratching,” said Kitty.

  The broomstick quivered against Annabel.

  She held it tight. “Hush,” she whispered to it. “Don’t be scared. We’ll find our way to your new home.”

  Kitty stopped and turned to face her. Annabel in her pretty town dress, Kitty in her filthy, ragged one. There were never two more different girls.

  “Can you fly that thing?” she asked.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Annabel.

  “A Vine Witch wouldn’t give you a broomstick if you weren’t meant to ride it,” said Kitty, and she stared at Annabel for a good minute as though she were quite stupid.

  The shops turned to taverns and inns with laughter and voices spilling out onto the street. People came out to marvel at the great fog and wonder where it had come from to turn the day to night. Kitty quickened her step, and Annabel had to run to keep up.

  “It’s very dark,” said Annabel, “isn’t it?”

  Kitty didn’t answer.

  “How do you know the way?”

  “All London’s in my head,” said Kitty, and she tapped her wild black hair.

  “Where are your mother and father?” Annabel asked.

  “Don’t have none,” said Kitty.

  “What happened to them?” asked Annabel.

  Kitty remembered hard, cold places. Tangled memories of rough hands and loud voices and children’s faces and then the freedom of being gone from there.

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” said Kitty.

  Annabel had never met anyone like Kitty in her life. “Well, I don’t believe that,” she said.

  Kitty stopped and faced Annabel again. “Do you never shut up?” she said. “You are like a bell clanging.”

  It was one of the meanest things Annabel had ever had said to her. She tried very hard to think of something horrible to say back. Kitty stared at her, waiting.

  “Fiddlesticks,” said Annabel at last, and Kitty laughed, a wicked little cackle. She stopped just as
suddenly as she’d started, and peered about her as though she sensed something.

  “Quickly now,” she said. There was a group of young men on a street corner, watching them. “Keep up or we’ll be in trouble for sure.” She pulled Annabel by the hand roughly.

  Everything about Kitty was rough. Annabel wasn’t sure she liked her at all.

  “My mother’s gone abroad,” said Annabel. “And left my great-aunts to look after me.”

  Kitty ignored her.

  “I went to Miss Finch’s Academy for Young Ladies,” said Annabel.

  Kitty ignored her still.

  “Why do they call you a betwixter?” asked Annabel.

  “Just a name,” said Kitty.

  “But what does it mean?”

  “It means I go between. This world and that world. Do dealing what others can’t do.”

  Annabel didn’t know what that meant. She stopped still to think on it.

  “Good afternoon, young ladies. You’ve picked a fine time to take a stroll,” came a voice from behind, and when Annabel turned, she saw it was one of the young men from the street corner, quite close.

  “Quickly,” said Kitty again.

  “Don’t pull me so,” said Annabel.

  “Well, don’t stand there,” hissed Kitty.

  Annabel looked behind as they ran. The fog had gobbled up the young man from view. People loomed in and out of the shadows and thick smoke. Two washerwomen snarled at them to get out of the way, a butcher with a side of meat on his shoulder appeared suddenly and disappeared into the cloud just as quickly. Through the fog the shop lights shone hazy and golden, and Annabel wished, more than anything, that she could be inside.

  The broomstick thrummed in her hand, gently, then strongly, in a rhythm, almost as though it had a heartbeat. She looked behind her again and saw, through the fog, the gang of young men. They were drifting slowly, hands in pockets, laughing and elbowing each other. Kitty had turned into a tiny lane so narrow the buildings almost touched. The weather played tricks with the men’s voices, bringing them sometimes close, sometimes far. The fog vanished them and then reappeared them, as though by magic.