Kat, Incorrigible

by Stephanie Burgis

  “That’s not bad enough to stop the marriage,” Angeline said.

  I studied her face. Her expression was as bland as the watered wine Stepmama gave me at dinner … but I knew her too well to be fooled. I picked up Mama’s magic books.

  “It won’t wash,” I said. “If you don’t think I’m old enough to understand, that’s your decision, but if you don’t tell me the truth, you’ll have to listen to Elissa being horrified by your behavior for the next three weeks at least.” I raised my voice to imitate Elissa’s soft, lilting tones. “‘I just don’t understand, Angeline. How could such a thing ever occur to you? How could you possibly dream of such a wickedly improper, immoral—’”

  “Enough!” Angeline threw her apple onto the bed. “Fine. I’ll tell you exactly what I don’t like about Sir Neville. But if I tell you, you can’t let anyone else find out that you know, and you absolutely may not think up some mad scheme to interfere. Elissa has made her decision, she is determined to follow Stepmama’s orders, and there is nothing you can possibly do to stop her.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But you needn’t tell me that Elissa’s as stubborn as a mule. She’s my sister too.”

  “I know. That’s exactly what worries me.” Angeline took a deep breath. “Very well,” she said. “Sir Neville Collingwood was married once before, as you know. And …” She closed her eyes, frowning in concentration as if she was trying to think of exactly the right words.

  “And?” I said. “What happened to his wife?”

  Angeline opened her eyes and looked straight at me. “He murdered her.”

  Four

  “He what?” I stared at her across the bed. the apple suddenly felt very cold and clammy in my hand.

  “You heard me.” Angeline set her jaw. “Elissa won’t admit it, and Stepmama says it’s all pure, unfounded gossip and speculation that young ladies should be ashamed to repeat, but it’s the truth. Mrs. Watkins’s niece works in the village where it happened, and she told me all about it two months ago.”

  She leaned closer to me, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Sir Neville Collingwood was so jealous of his first wife that he locked her up as a prisoner in a tower room, and she died of grief. Now that he’s looking for another victim, we’re all supposed to hope and pray that his eye falls on Elissa, so Charles can be rescued from his own folly and the rest of us can escape social ruin.” She pointed her finger at me like a weapon, her voice rising. “But I will be damned if I sit by and let her marry him!”

  “What can we do?” I tossed my apple aside, half-eaten. I had lost my appetite. “Why didn’t you say any of this last night? Why did you chime along with Elissa when she said what a wonderful thing her marriage would be for all of us? How could you—”

  “What good would it have done?” Angeline said. “You know Elissa. I tried everything I could three days ago, when I first found out. I told her we don’t need the money that badly. Good God, let Charles go to debtors’ prison for a month or two and actually feel the results of his idiocy! Let the whole family be ruined in Society and none of us ever make eligible marriages. Let us be whispered about and pointed at in the streets, if it comes to that! I’d rather we all become outcasts from good Society than sell her into slavery.”

  I winced. “You didn’t say all that to Elissa.”

  “I did.”

  “Whispering in the streets? Social outcasts?”

  “I was angry!” Angeline scowled. “But of course it didn’t work.”

  “Well, of course not,” I said. “Elissa would die of humiliation if even one person pointed at her in a public street. I think she’d rather die than have that happen.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t. But of course she got completely up-in-the-air about it all and said if I had any hint of propriety I would never say such wicked things or put my faith in wild rumors that sound like dreadful gothic novels.”

  “That is unfair,” I said. “Elissa’s the one who reads gothic novels.”

  “She adores them,” Angeline said. “And I’m starting to think she has a fancy to become a gothic heroine. You should have seen how noble she looked as she was saying it. I’m sure she was already picturing herself in her shroud, looking beautiful and being wept over by all the peasantry.”

  “We can’t let it happen,” I said.

  “I won’t,” said Angeline. “You need to stay well out of it. I mean it, Kat. I only found my way back into Elissa’s good graces by finally pretending to agree with her and repent my bad behavior.”

  “But if Mrs. Watkins told her—”

  “I told Elissa exactly what Mrs. Watkins had said, and Elissa just told me that that was what came of Gossiping with the Lower Orders.”

  “What a prig! As if she didn’t gossip with Mrs. Watkins all the time!”

  “Just try telling her that,” Angeline said. “Or, rather—don’t. Truly. Don’t tell her anything, don’t argue about her decision, and especially do not run away or come up with any other nightmarishly bad schemes for her rescue. I have everything in hand, and the last thing I need is for you to interfere.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Angeline scooped up the magic books. “I’m going to find myself a wealthy fiancé,” she said, “and well before Sir Neville works up the breath to propose.”

  I frowned at her. “Mr. Carlyle—”

  “A wealthy fiancé with a brain and a sense of humor, who happens to be old enough to be married,” Angeline said firmly as she stood. “We won’t leave for Grantham Abbey for at least another week and a half. That’s plenty of time to get started. And once we’re there, it should be at least another month before Sir Neville proposes, no matter how much Stepmama flaunts Elissa before him. With Mama’s magic to help, I shouldn’t have any difficulties. Once I’m betrothed to a man just as wealthy as Sir Neville, there won’t be any reason for Elissa to accept his offer, no matter how much of a martyr she longs to be.”

  I eyed her warily. “Maybe we can take Mr. Carlyle along with us, just in case.”

  Over the next week, I grew less and less convinced that Angeline did have everything in hand. It was bad enough that Frederick Carlyle slid out of Papa’s study at every opportunity to follow her around the house and gardens. No matter how rude she was to him, he still made moon-eyes at her to an extent that Stepmama said was positively shocking. Even having to share a bedroom with Charles hadn’t dimmed Mr. Carlyle’s ardor for Angeline, which was ample proof in itself that a magic spell must be at work.

  But none of Angeline’s other spells were working. Oh, she didn’t say so, but I knew that look on her face. The way she snarled at me the fifth time I asked was every bit as good as an outright confession. It was all very well for Angeline to say she could manage everything herself. Angeline always knew best, according to Angeline. But Frederick Carlyle wasn’t the first evidence of one of Angeline’s mistakes … and the storm-cloud look on her face as she bent over the new gown she was sewing for our trip was all I needed to know exactly how her great plans were proceeding.

  Three days before we were due to leave for Grantham Abbey, I decided I had waited long enough. Elissa might be the prissiest female in all of England, but she was still my oldest sister. She was the one who’d carried me out to the back garden to play near Mama’s roses when I was only a baby. She was the one who’d made up a thousand excuses to Stepmama over the years to keep me out of trouble, no matter how sternly she’d lectured me afterward. If she was to be saved from Sir Neville, there was only one thing to do. It was time for me to take the situation in hand.

  I waited until midnight and then crept out of bed. I hadn’t heard any noises for the past hour and a half, but that didn’t mean I was safe. Angeline slept like the dead, but Elissa could wake up at the sound of a pin falling outside her door. If Elissa found out what I intended to do, I would never hear the end of it. And if Stepmama heard me, or guessed what I was up to … well, I just wouldn’t let that happen.

  I balanced carefu
lly on the balls of my feet for silence as I crossed the room.

  I eased open the trapdoor that led down from the attic, using both hands. It was too dangerous to carry a lit candle; if I wasted one hand juggling it, I might do something foolish like letting the trapdoor slam shut and wake everybody up.

  There was one thing I had to carry with me, though. I’d slipped Stepmama’s hidden key out of her bedroom that evening after dinner while she was still downstairs drinking her final cup of tea. Now I gripped it between my teeth as I stepped down into total darkness.

  My feet felt for the steps beneath me. I breathed as quietly as I could while I gently lowered the trapdoor, wincing at every creak.

  When I reached the landing outside Angeline and Elissa’s room, I had to take a moment to orient myself. I closed my lips to breathe through my nose, listening through the darkness for any telltale squeak or whisper. The key in my mouth tasted metallic and dangerous, like forbidden secrets taking root inside me.

  I felt for the banister of the stairs.

  Angeline had found a new hiding place for Mama’s magic books. I’d searched her room through and through every day for the past two days and hadn’t found a hint of them. For all I knew, they might be hidden by another of her spells.

  But Mama’s magic books weren’t the only magical items in our house. And if Angeline could dare to break the most powerful rules in our family, then so could I.

  I made my way down the stairs, through the drawing room, and into the sewing room, where we’d all sat for hours that afternoon working on tedious dressmaking for the upcoming house party. I’d hidden a candle, a tinderbox, a candlestick, and two paper spills in the window seat.

  It took me three minutes of trying and a set of scraped knuckles before I finally managed to light the tinderbox and transfer the flame over to my candle. Its pale glow flickered across the chairs and our folded gowns-in-progress, casting shadows from the cabinets that lined the walls. I only cared about one of the cabinets: the one that none of us were ever allowed to open. The one that we were all meant to pretend didn’t exist.

  The key in my mouth seemed to swell, pressing outward, as I crossed the room.

  I spat it into my hand and knelt down on the floor. The key slipped into the lock as easily as if it had never left.

  I took a deep breath and turned the key. The cabinet doors swung open.

  At first I couldn’t make anything out from the jumbled piles that filled up every shelf. They’d been tossed inside without order or reason, and in the flickering candlelight, they all seemed to merge into unified shapes: Mama’s past, just waiting for me to make sense of it.

  Then I made out the shape of a small, rounded frame.

  Mama’s miniature portrait sat on the top shelf.

  She looked like Angeline. I knew I didn’t have time to linger—at any moment Stepmama might decide to come downstairs for a late-night cup of tea, or Elissa might wake and hear me—but I couldn’t stop myself from picking up the miniature, just for a moment. Mama had Angeline’s dark, curling brown hair and deep, dark eyes, but she had Elissa’s sweet smile. She smiled up at me from the painting with pure delight. My vision blurred in the candlelight.

  I despised weeping females. So I swallowed hard as I put the miniature back on the shelf.

  Stepmama had thrown all of Mama’s possessions in here five years ago, three months after marrying Papa and moving into our house. The teapot had refused to pour for her, the cups had spilled themselves before they met her lips, and when she’d touched Mama’s harp, it had sung the name “Olivia” until she’d sliced out all its strings. I still remembered her voice raging at Papa through their bedroom door afterward while Elissa held me tight.

  At seven years old, I’d watched Stepmama sweep through every room in our house, gathering up all the familiar pictures and cups and plates, while Angeline and Elissa held my hands and glared at her. She must have used up all her dowry in replacing everything she’d packed away. I still didn’t know what had stopped her from destroying it all. Perhaps Papa had put his foot down and refused to let her.

  Or, just as likely, perhaps the neighboring pigs had all begun to fly.

  I sorted through the jumble as quickly as I could. The teacups rustled hopefully as my hands brushed past them. Did they recognize me as Mama’s daughter? My fingers trembled at the thought.

  I stopped and closed my eyes, gritting my teeth with frustration. I wasn’t some missish, nitwit heroine from one of Elissa’s gothic novels, ready to swoon at the slightest shock. There was no reason to ruin my midnight adventure by going all teary-eyed and sentimental. I’d never even met Mama. All my memories were of my sisters. I was here to save Elissa, not myself.

  There had to be some magic in this cabinet that could help me. I just had to stop daydreaming and search harder.

  I opened my eyes and dug deeper in the shelves of the cabinet. When the teacups bumped themselves along the shelf to rub against my hand, I set my jaw and pushed them aside.

  What I needed was another magic spell. Surely Mama hadn’t written them all down in just those two books? Or a magical object would work just as well, if I could find the right one. Maybe I would find a wand to compel the truth, so I could force Sir Neville to publicly admit what he had done to his first wife. Or an enchanted ring to force obedience. Or …

  My hand passed over something smooth and round and tinglingly warm to the touch. An electric thrill shot through me. Every inch of my skin prickled with alertness. My fingers closed around the palm-sized metal circle. I could barely breathe. I had to know what it was.

  How could anything metal in this cabinet be warm?

  Maybe it was an amulet of power or protection. Maybe …

  I sat back on my heels, holding the candle high, and opened my hand to see what lay inside.

  It was a gold-encased, folded-up travel mirror.

  I could have screamed with frustration—at myself. Of course it was only a mirror. What else could it have been? All of Mama’s spells in her magic books had been about love and clothing and foolishness—the same girlish witlessness every female in the world was supposed to care about. Well, not me. I should have known better than to have even hoped that anything in this cabinet could save us.

  In my head, I repeated every curse word I’d ever learned from Charles as I reached up to put the mirror back in the cabinet where it belonged.

  My hand wouldn’t let it go.

  I tried to open my fingers and drop it back into the jumble. They wouldn’t open. It was as if someone had attached the mirror to them with thick paint.

  Warmth tingled against my palm and spread. The golden mirror heated up, hotter and hotter, until it burned against my skin. I had to bite down hard on my lower lip to keep from crying out at the pain. Surely this hadn’t happened to Stepmama when she’d first put it in here. If it had, she would have destroyed it no matter what Papa had said. So what had I done wrong?

  I set the candle down on top of the cabinet, breathing hard with the pain. I used my left hand to pry open the fingers of my right hand. It felt like peeling off layers of my own skin. I was surprised not to see any blood when I finally managed it. But what I did see instead was even more frightening.

  The mirror was glowing in the dark, casting golden light across my palm and fingers. The light came from inside the folded mirror. With the light, I heard voices, faint but unmistakable, just at the edge of my perception. Either the mirror itself was alive, or there were people somehow trapped inside it.

  I stared at it, breathing hard.

  The sensible thing would be to peel it off my hand, fling it back into the cabinet, and lock the door as fast as I could. Even Angeline would tell me that. Only a ninny would do anything else.

  But if I put it back, I would never know what might have happened.

  It was Mama’s own mirror, after all. It couldn’t be that dangerous.

  I snapped open the clasp and flipped the case open to reveal the mirror inside
.

  Golden light exploded in my chest, and I lost consciousness.

  Five

  Unfamiliar voices battered against my aching head. As my mind cleared, I started to pick out words in the jumble of sound, and two distinct voices.

  “She doesn’t look like Olivia, I must say,” said a woman.

  There was a hesitant male cough that sounded like disagreement. “She came through Olivia’s mirror. I should call that indisputable evidence.”

  The woman let out an irritated huff of air that blew directly against my prickling, uncomfortable skin. “What a very odd outfit she is wearing. Do you think she often wanders around in public in her nightgown? There always were some signs of instability in Olivia’s family, you know. That might account for her ridiculous hairstyle as well.”

  There are some things that cannot be tolerated, even inside a magic mirror. I forced my eyes open with a scowl.

  As my vision cleared, I saw two faces peering down at me—a lady and a gentleman, kneeling on either side of me—both illuminated by a deep, golden glow that didn’t feel like candlelight. As they examined me, both of their faces pursed into exactly the same expression Stepmama always wore when she was inspecting a particularly inadequate sample of my embroidery.

  I directed my scowl at the lady and spoke clearly, even though every word hurt my head.

  “I was not intending to go out in public,” I said, with all the hauteur Angeline herself could have summoned. “I am wearing my nightgown because I am in my own house, and so are you. This is my mother’s magic mirror we’re all inside, so you might care to show a little more respect.”

  “Well!” The lady drew back from me, scowling. She was very elegantly dressed, with a dark green gown every bit as low-cut as the pictures in the Mirror of Fashion, and bright jewels sparkling in her black hair. And she was every bit as good as Stepmama at looking down her nose at me.

  I pushed myself up to my feet, setting my teeth so I couldn’t let out any humiliating whimpers of pain. Everything inside me felt as if it had been scalded with fire. When my head finally stopped reeling, I turned pointedly away from the others to look around me. I was determined not to show any signs of surprise or awe, but it was more difficult than I’d expected.