A Most Magical Girl

by Karen Foxlee

  Annabel tried to picture Miss Henrietta raising the Ondona to the shop window. She was uttering the word. Annabel saw her in the kitchen, raising the wand before the hearth, and the word was…

  The noise was deafening now, one long sigh that brushed against their ears.

  Then silence.

  Nothing but the sound of their own breathing.

  Then a word. One whispered word.

  Annabel…

  Kitty made a small noise, and from her mouth came her heart light, pale pink and weak. She grew it in the air before her and illuminated the tunnel, where several huge black shadows skittered backward along the rock ceiling, their claws scraping.

  “Benignus!” shouted Annabel, pointing the wand, for she had remembered the word.

  “Benignus.” Her voice was a squeak, the wand a stick—nothing more.

  The shadowlings crept forward, slowly, tentatively, out of the blackness, over the walls toward them.

  “Benignus!” cried Annabel again, holding the wand up. It was Latin, she was certain of it. If only she could remember what it meant.

  “Benignus!”

  Nothing. The shadowlings reached their long gossamer arms down from the ceiling and whispered her name.

  Kitty’s heart light flickered, faltered…then grew suddenly huge.

  It grew so huge that Annabel turned her eyes from the terrible creatures to see what had happened. It grew so great that she had to shield her eyes. But it was not Kitty’s heart light at all. The little boat had entered a great cavern. It had slipped suddenly out of the tunnel and into a cavern filled with the brilliance of a million chandeliers.

  The shadowlings did not follow. Not at first. They hung back inside the tunnel, hissing and writhing in horror at the light. Annabel and Kitty stared at the place they had entered. A vast wall shimmered before them. It sang a strange song, a throng of tremulous, chiming, whispering, weeping sounds. The song made the boat shake; they felt it in their feet and hands, and their lips shivered. It was bright, so bright that they had to cover their eyes. Kitty scrambled backward in the boat, pushing the dark tangle of hair from her eyes. She swallowed her heart light.

  “It’s the Singing Gate,” she whispered. She had never imagined how it might shine.

  The shadowlings called out from the tunnel but did not brave the dazzling light. They moaned and writhed and called Annabel’s name. The little boat floated across the space, its bottom scraping against the shallows until the two girls stood and stepped out into the clear water.

  “What is it made of?” asked Annabel, still shielding her eyes from the light. It was not a wall made of brick or stone or earth but of some other, shining substance. It sang louder as they went toward it.

  Annabel looked behind her toward the shadowlings. One stretched out a giant arm toward the cavern but pulled it back just as quickly, as though it had been burned.

  “They won’t come now,” said Kitty.

  “I don’t trust them,” said Annabel. “They’ll think of something.”

  They called her name across the cavern and the gleaming wall sang louder, as though it did not like their voices. Annabel held the broomstick and the Ondona and looked up at the wall, high as the cavern’s ceiling. It was tall as a church spire, and it glittered with light, singing to them as they approached.

  Their feet crunched over the white stone of the shore. Annabel picked up some from the ground. It was bone, and she felt faint with the realization. She was standing on finger bones and toe bones and femurs, rib bones and skull bones and arm bones, all pulverized. She went to say so to Kitty, but Kitty put a finger up to her lips to silence her.

  When they were close enough to the wall, they saw it was made of the same material. Millions upon millions, trillions upon trillions of tiny bones. The bones were laced together, twisted and twined and fallen and crushed like overgrown vine, so dense that Annabel and Kitty could not see through it. But at the same time, the wall moved. It seemed to Annabel that it bulged toward them rhythmically. It trembled and fluttered.

  The shadowlings called out; they blew a desolate wind across the cavern. They stretched out their arms, and their shadow wings opened and shut toward the cavern. They grew bolder. Annabel did not like to keep her back turned to them.

  Kitty looked at the wall. In amongst the bones there were scraps of other matter, iridescent tatters and ribbons. She knew the stuff, had seen it and touched it with her own hands up in London Above. She reached her hand out now, and the wall sang a loud song and swallowed the strange material up. The bones clicked and cracked and closed over the shining stuff.

  “Whom do the bones belong to?” whispered Annabel. “Children?”

  “The faeries,” whispered Kitty. “This must be where they are buried, then, down through a hole who knows where, and their bones do the job of guarding Under London and the wand.”

  The wall sang a low, lilting melody of bone scratchings and shiverings.

  “But how do we pass?” said Annabel, looking nervously behind.

  The wall was complete. There were no gaps, no doors. It stretched from their feet to the cavern roof. There was no way under or over. Mixed in with the tiny bones, Annabel now saw, were larger bones, human bones, caught in places in the wall. A leg bone held tight by the small bones. A skeleton hand hanging just before her.

  “Oh,” she said, and looked away. She closed her eyes.

  Green ice skates, she said to herself. Green ice skates.

  Behind them the shadowlings were huddled together, whispering and arguing just inside the tunnel opening.

  “Can you use your magic, Kitty?” Annabel whispered. She didn’t know what other magic was inside Kitty, but she was sure there’d be more.

  Kitty didn’t turn to her. She stared up at the wall. She reached out again to touch some of the shimmering material, and the wall snapped loudly at her hand.

  “We don’t need magic,” said Kitty, nodding at the finger bones dangling from the wall. “Those that came before us thought they needed spells and such, but I’ve seen enough of the faeries to know them. They are tricky and cunning, but their weakness is loyalty. They cannot bear to be apart. They sleep together, sing together, bathe together. They are always combing each other’s hair with their fingers. And if one is troubled, why, the others, they cannot bear it, and they move together to put it right. I think perhaps they are the same when they are no more than bones.”

  The Singing Gate did not like Kitty’s words, it seemed, for it shook and sang up several octaves to a crescendo of chimes and sighs. Annabel watched Kitty. She seemed sure of herself. She had never spoken so much.

  Kitty turned and frowned at Annabel.

  “I am right—don’t you think, Annabel Grey?” she asked. “If I take a piece of bone here, the whole lot will come at me and the rest will be weakened for us to pass through. It will take some jumping, and you must be ready when I say to go.”

  Annabel didn’t know. She wished the Finsbury Wizards or the Miss Vines had mentioned what to do in such a case. She looked behind and saw the shadowlings sliding out of the tunnel into the cavern. They spilled into the shape of a dark net, a huge net, forming across the cavern roof. Annabel watched as the shadow net slowly began to lower.

  “Kitty!” she cried.

  But Kitty wasn’t listening.

  “I know faeries,” said Kitty. “And sure enough, I know their bones.”

  She reached toward the wall, and the whole thing snapped in unison toward her. She did not flinch, only gave a little laugh.

  “Kitty!” shouted Annabel. The shadow net was lowering, casting a pattern across the water. The wall sang a frantic song.

  “Yes, I know faeries,” Kitty said, and she reached forward again, without warning, and snatched a bone from the wall.

  The wall screamed. It sang one long note of panic. It relaced and renetted at terrifying speed toward Kitty’s hand. Annabel saw a large hole open up before her and then more, everywhere—great tears appe
aring in the bone lace as it closed toward Kitty’s hand.

  “Go on, then!” shouted Kitty, pointing to the largest gap.

  She was racing toward Annabel, the little white bone in her hand, the wall snapping and clicking after her in a shimmering white wave. Annabel threw herself through the hole, and Kitty came after her just as the wall closed behind them with a monumental crack.

  The wall sang an enraged song. It screamed and pulsated white-hot. Annabel sat up, scurried backward on her bottom away from it. Kitty didn’t follow. Kitty lay very still with her eyes closed.

  “Are you hurt?” Annabel asked.

  There was something terrible in Kitty’s pale face.

  “It’s gone and got my foot,” she said.

  “It’s what!” cried Annabel.

  She lifted Kitty’s skirts to find that the bone wall was knitted tight around the wild girl’s ankle. There was blood dripping onto the cavern floor.

  “Let go of the bone,” said Annabel, but it made no difference. Kitty dropped the bone, and the wall held her tight. It would not let go of her ankle.

  Annabel took the bone and threw it back at the wall, and it clicked into place, but still the wall did not release Kitty. It sang in earsplitting waves of sound. The look of agony on Kitty’s face grew. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  “It will be fine—I’ll get you free,” Annabel said, but she didn’t know how.

  What could she possibly use against the force of that wall?

  “Release her, please!” she cried at it, but it held Kitty’s ankle tight.

  Annabel snatched a bone from the wall, thinking it might open up another hole or weaken its grip on Kitty. But the wall held even tighter, as though it had learned its lesson. They had escaped the shadowlings only to be captured by the wall. She felt tears again but instead made fists with her hands and stamped her foot.

  “Fiddlesticks!” she cried.

  She thought of the ruby-red seeing glass. No good. The broomstick? No use whatsoever. She looked at the Ondona in her hand. When she had held it up in the boat at the shadowlings, nothing had happened. When she had said the word Benignus, nothing had happened. Yet she knew this was the Ondona. It had to be the Ondona. Miss Estella had known they would need it. Miss Henrietta had pushed it into her hand for a reason. Annabel had seen Miss Henrietta raise the fire and make light with the wand. She had seen Mr. Bell do the same with the Adela. They had used the word Benignus. She was sure of it. Benignus. It was Latin, she was positive. Benignus. Benigno. Benigni. Benignum. Benignae. It meant…

  She needed to know the meaning of that word.

  Annabel stood up, but, oh, she felt awfully shaky.

  She pointed the wand at the wall where Kitty lay sobbing.

  “Benignus,” she said, but she sounded very unsure of herself.

  Nothing.

  Her voice was like a tiny insect’s drone against the wall’s concerted effort to keep hold of Kitty. Annabel closed her eyes, concentrating on the word, the shape of it. Oh, it was a strange word, like a mouthful of stones. She did not like the feel of it. She doubted herself, and the word meant nothing. Perhaps there was a certain way to say it?

  “Benignus,” she said very sternly.

  “Benignus,” pleadingly.

  Kitty whimpered on the ground.

  Maybe there was something else she had to do? Miss Estella had pointed her split-wood fingernails at Annabel’s head and heart. It wasn’t very helpful. Magic should have instructions. Wands should come with rules, like the ones for embroidering the edge of a handkerchief.

  Annabel took a deep breath. What she needed were the bones to loosen around Kitty’s ankle. That thought was clear in her mind, and clearness, she decided, was what she needed. Instead of trying to simply get magic out of the wand with a word, perhaps she had to give the wand instructions.

  Yes. That felt right. She straightened her shoulders the way she had been taught at Miss Finch’s Academy for Young Ladies. The wand did not know what to do if she did not tell it, she decided. The word alone meant nothing. You had to be particular with wands. You couldn’t just point them at things and say a word and hope for the best.

  She wanted the Singing Gate to release Kitty’s foot. Kitty with her hands over her face, crying but trying not to. Kitty, the wildest, fiercest slip of a girl that Annabel had ever met. Kitty, who made Annabel’s skin prickle and sting with her ways. Kitty, who had chosen to help her. Annabel did not want the wall to keep Kitty. Kitty would not become one of those human bones resting in the wall. Just the thought of it enraged Annabel. She wanted the wall to release Kitty.

  The strange sensation she felt before one of her visions flooded through her body. The excited, terrified feeling. The joined-to-the-sky feeling. I want the wall to loosen around Kitty’s ankle, she thought, louder. I want to raise the bone wall around her ankle. Let go of her, wall.

  “Benignus!” she cried, with that thought very clear in her mind.

  Nothing.

  But she didn’t give up. Benignus meant…

  Benignus was…

  She tried to picture Mr. Ladgrove, her Latin teacher at Miss Finch’s Academy, saying the word. Oh, that was horrible, for he did indeed have a voice like a sleeping potion, but it jolted something in her memory. Benignus meant “kind”!

  She straightened her spine even more and raised the wand. Singing Gate, you will release Kitty’s ankle. Kitty is my friend. She wanted this with all her heart. She wanted it ten thousand times more than emerald-green ice skates.

  “Benignus!” Annabel cried, and the voice was nothing like her own. It was strong and clear. Benignus meant many things, Annabel knew, but in that moment, it meant, By good, kind magic, by the magic of my kind heart, release my friend.

  She felt a jolt in her hand.

  A gushing sensation.

  It seemed her hand melted into the wand, and suddenly from its tip there surged an arc of white light that hit the wall around Kitty’s ankle.

  The wall made a stunned sound.

  It gasped a deep breath, then paused.

  The bones rattled around Kitty’s ankle, and she was released.

  It was over. The wall relaced, and its great voice subsided. Kitty turned on her side, stifling her tears with her fists. And Annabel fell to her knees, staring at both her hand and the Ondona with wonderment.

  “Let me see your leg,” said Annabel when she had recovered.

  The large cavern on this side of the Singing Gate took her question and repeated it several times. The cavern was round and empty, and the floor swept clean. The shimmering light of the Singing Gate danced on the ceiling, but there were also torches burning in brackets on the walls. Someone tended to the place.

  “Get away from me,” snarled Kitty.

  She had sat up and was holding her ankle and was glaring at the Singing Gate. It’s just like them, those stupid faeries, she thought. Always doing things painful, always argumentative and spiteful and saying everything is theirs: every stinking tree and river. She needed her leg to walk. She needed her leg to visit all her places, to touch all her trees and stones.

  “Did you see what I did?” asked Annabel, and she couldn’t help the smile. “I got the light to come out of the wand, just like Miss Henrietta. I felt it in my hand. It came from—”

  “I don’t care,” interrupted Kitty. She moaned and held her ankle and hated the wall.

  Annabel’s smile disappeared. “But we did it. We’re through, and the shadowlings are on the other side,” she said, softer now. “I must look at your foot.”

  “Leave off,” said Kitty, staring at her stocking, which was soaked with blood. “Unless you know the spell for stopping blood, too.”

  Annabel’s hand still felt heavy with magic. Comfortably heavy. She wondered what her great-aunts would think of her…or what her mother would think. Perhaps she could learn a spell for stopping blood, but for now what she needed was a bandage. The red cloak would do. It was her brand-new t
own cloak and she hated to ruin it, but with some trouble she tore a largish strip from the hem. She asked Kitty to remove her boot, and Kitty cursed her, of course, but pulled off her very old shoe. It was full of dirt and leaves.

  “Your stocking, too,” said Annabel, which made Kitty swear even more.

  There was a line of deep puncture wounds around Kitty’s ankle, and Annabel wound the red bandage there. Kitty’s ankle was thin and pale. Kitty had never known a bed or sweet puddings, and there, in the cavern behind the Singing Gate, that made Annabel feel very sad. She wished there were healing magic in the cloak, and she thought of the wand again and the word she had used.

  “Should I try?” she asked. “With the wand?”

  “Don’t point that thing at me! You’ll do it wrong and give me a chicken’s leg to walk on.”

  That made Annabel laugh, but Kitty did not smile. She snatched the boot from Annabel when she tried to tip the leaves out.

  “They keep my feet warm,” she said, and Annabel felt ashamed for not knowing such a thing. Sitting there in that strange cavern behind the Singing Gate, bathed in its softer, less angry light now, Annabel thought there was so much about the world that she had never known.

  “Well, if you won’t let me try some magic on it, we must see if you can walk,” said Annabel.

  “Of course I can walk,” said Kitty, refusing Annabel’s hand. She stood alone, limped a few steps, and stopped.

  “Lean against me,” said Annabel.

  “Why would I do that?” snapped Kitty, but she leaned heavily on Annabel’s arm all the same.

  “You saved me from the river,” said Annabel as they began to walk slowly across the cavern. She couldn’t help herself. “And now I have saved you in return.”

  “Oh, shut your gob,” said Kitty.

  That made Annabel smile, truly smile, for the first time since her mother had left her behind.

  On the other side of the Singing Gate, the shadowlings turned back into the darkened tunnel. They could not pass through its light and had to return to their master. They wept as they flew, moaned, screeched in frustration at their failure. They came back to Mr. Angel, who stood in the London fog with his growing shadowling army.