Cinders and Sparrows

by Stefan Bachmann

  I was only a housemaid, after all, and in those miserable hours, I was sure it was all I would ever be.

  Chapter Fifteen

  IT was well past midnight by the time I crept back to my room, shame and hurt filling my chest to bursting. I lay on my bed, curling into a ball atop the comforters and waiting for sleep to come. Vikers nudged my head with his beak and made soft burbling sounds, gentle as a dove. I kept my eyes firmly shut and tried to pretend it wasn’t helping, but it was, and I was glad for the crow, glad for his kindness, though I’d not dared ask for it and was not sure I deserved it.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said to Minnifer the next morning. We were on the dragon stairs, she dusting the banister and I on the bottom step, slumped against the bejeweled newel post. My hair was coming out of its braid, my uniform was crinkled, and there were dark rings under my eyes from lack of sleep. Vikers sat on the dragon’s head, his own head twisted down so he could stare into one of its ruby eyes. “I don’t know what I did wrong. I got everything I needed to bring them back, and clipped every last thorn off the blackberry branches, and did everything just the way the spell told me. But they didn’t come back.”

  Minnifer was looking over the spell, one hand swinging the feather duster, the other clutching the slip of paper. Every few seconds she cast me a worried glance. At last she said, “Oh dear,” very quietly, and came down the stairs to sit next to me. She handed me back the paper, carefully refolded into a tight square. “Don’t despair, Zita. I’m sure it wasn’t useless. You wouldn’t have gotten a powerful old spell for no reason, would you? It’s bound to work for something.”

  But I didn’t want it to work for anything else. I wanted my family back.

  “I met a ghost during one of my lessons,” I said after a while, staring across the checkerboard tiles of the grand hall. “She told me she was part of a great big web. And the other day I talked to the treskgilliam tree—you know, the one in the room next to mine?—and it showed me people going to the orphanage where I used to live, people with the sign of the blue spider on their fingers, or stitched into their jackets. Mrs. Cantanker has got one of those rings. I think the League of the Blue Spider is the web. I think all of them—Mrs. Cantanker included—are trying to bring Magdeboor back. And I think we’re all stuck right in the middle, with no one to help us.”

  Minnifer slipped her arm around my shoulder. “We’ll help each other, though,” she said. “We’ll find a way.”

  I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity for several more minutes. Then I gathered my cloak around me and stood.

  “I don’t know why Greta left me that spell,” I said. “But whatever’s coming, whatever killed my family, it’s up to us to stop it. And I think the first thing we’re going to have to do is get rid of Mrs. Cantanker.”

  This was easier said than done, however, for not fifteen minutes later I began to wonder whether Mrs. Cantanker might be planning to get rid of us first.

  “You will have a test today,” Mrs. Cantanker announced, as I clumped into the High Blackbird’s study. She was not dressed in one of her usual gowns. Instead she wore handsomely cut trousers and an emerald green waistcoat, a lace bow at her throat and long black gloves that reached to her elbows. “I hope you’re well rested.”

  I looked at her sharply. Was I imagining the malice in her tone, the amused quirk of her smile? With a pang of fright, I wondered suddenly if she knew everything, all the schemes I’d been hatching and the quests I’d been on these past weeks. I mumbled something agreeable and followed her through the corridors, my heart beating very fast.

  We arrived in a large, desolate training hall. Once, it might have been a lively place, full of students practicing their lunges, entire rows of Blackbird siblings in dark cloaks and tool belts. But now it was miserable, pigeon droppings speckling the beautiful paintings and bits of straw drifting down in the warm morning sunlight.

  “We’ve practiced long enough,” said Mrs. Cantanker, leading me to a small writing desk against one wall. It had been laid out with various weapons and sachets of herbs. “Now we will see what you have learned. This is an important test—vital, in fact—so I expect you to do your very best.”

  She helped me equip my belt with star root, wormwood, rosemary, and honeysuckle. Then she positioned me in the center of the hall, and the test began.

  “Most witches have very little offensive power,” she said, circling me slowly while I stood in a shaft of light from a high window, my ears pricked, a silver coin in one hand, a rosemary lure in the other. “Our powers are slow, patient things: coins, trees, wind and rain, little nubs of roses in a pillow to ease a passing, and salt to guard against unlawful entry. But sometimes, more drastic measures are required.”

  The light lanced down around her. Her high-heeled shoes clicked on the gleaming parquet. I noticed she was holding an oblong box under one arm, lacquered red and inlaid with all the stages of the moon in mother-of-pearl.

  “Wicked things grow in the lands of the dead,” she said. “And sometimes they go where they’re not supposed to. Sometimes they slip their borders, creep up on you unawares.”

  She was smiling at me oddly, and in that moment I could have sworn she could look right into my skull and see all the scheming, swirling thoughts inside. “No sweet bribes will be enough, then, no soft words or consolations. No . . . All that is left for you is to strike! To wound!”

  “What sorts of wicked things are you talking about, in particular?” I asked, my skin tingling.

  “You’ll see,” she said, and opened the lacquered box, placing it in the center of the floor. Then she sniffed whatever lay inside, wrinkled her nose, and stalked away.

  Nothing emerged, no ghost or djinn or cackling chicken-footed demon. I approached the box cautiously, peering inside. It was empty but for a small reddish-brown lump, like a large chestnut, lying in one corner. A sharp smell rose from it, rich and exotic, like the ancient bottle of jasmine perfume Mrs. Bolivar had kept under her bed. And in that smell, barely disguised, I caught the tang of cured meat. I could not decide if the smell was lovely or hideous, but it certainly caught one’s attention.

  “Pick it up,” ordered Mrs. Cantanker, and I gulped. Knowing her, this would not end well, but I did as I was told. The lump was smooth, rather warm. From somewhere—close or far away, I could not tell—I heard a sudden barrage of whispers, high shrieks, and laughter. They coalesced into a long, low growl. Then, at the far end of the gallery, something heavy struck the double doors and they bowed inward.

  I spun. “What was that?” I asked. “What’s out there?”

  The whispers and growls grew louder, as if an entire horde was pressed to the other side of the doors. Mrs. Cantanker’s smile stretched. . . .

  The creature exploded into the room—six-legged, oak leaves for a pelt, red sinew and snapping teeth and muscles that seemed to be made of thick vines. Its head was shaped like a spade, an enormous horn at its front. Its beady little eyes were fixed on me.

  “An Elysian fangore!” Mrs Cantanker announced with a flourish, as if she were a circus master displaying her newest attraction. “And in your hand, the desiccated heart of a mandrake. It acts the way the color red acts on a bull, driving the beast to wrath. The smell is all over your fingers now, so don’t even bother trying to run away. It’ll only chase you, and you’ll have the whole house in shambles.”

  I dropped the lump, wiping my hand desperately on my dress. But it was too late. The monster hurtled toward me, its claws scrabbling for purchase on the floor. With a start, I saw there were human faces embedded in its belly, pale and gasping, milky eyes peering out from among the leaves and vines.

  I screamed. On my shoulder, Vikers screamed too. The fangore let out a roar that set the windowpanes to rattling. And Mrs. Cantanker sprinted to a pretty gilt chair and sat down, watching me and the monster expectantly.

  “This is my test?” I shrieked, diving out of the monster’s path. “You know, usually students aren’
t supposed to be eaten alive by their exams.”

  “Oh, don’t be a baby!” Mrs. Cantanker shouted back. “Your mother conquered a fangore on her very first day as an underwitch, when it broke into the girls’ dormitory. It’s quite within your grasp!”

  But I was not my mother, and I did not feel it was in my grasp at all.

  The beast skidded to the end of the gallery, paused a moment as if startled to find a wall there, and then charged back toward me. Lashes of what looked like filthy water flew from its hide with each swing of its great body. And yet all of the filth and refuse melted away the instant it struck the parquet.

  Was the beast even real?

  Perhaps it was some sort of illusion, a trick, the way Mrs. Cantanker’s first test had been. Or perhaps it was a ghost and would simply pass through me on a breath of freezing air. I planted my feet, raised my hand.

  The monster picked up speed, galloping toward me.

  It’s not real, I told myself. It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real—

  And then it caught me sideways with its great horn and swung me up into the air, and I landed with a crash on the parquet.

  “Oh,” I mumbled, rolling onto my back. “It is real.”

  “Use your scissors!” Mrs. Cantanker shouted. “For heaven’s sake, fight!”

  I pulled myself dizzily to my feet. My silver scissors had fallen some ways off. The rosemary was still in my hand, but it looked as if it had shriveled up in terror. The fangore turned, eyeing me down the length of the room. It began to approach again, its many faces screaming and yowling. Vikers flew at it, attacking with beak and talon. The fangore merely extended one leg and punted Vikers away, sending him whirling into a large brass pot.

  “Vikers!” I shouted. A reassuring squawk echoed from inside the pot, a squawk I was sure meant “I’m all right, but I think I’m going to stay here for the time being, thank you very much.”

  I didn’t blame the crow one bit. The beast picked up speed, its claws glancing off the polished floor. I wished I could climb into a large brass pot as well. And at the last possible moment, I dove out of the fangore’s way, skidding along the floor. The scent of brimstone and burning, damp graves and moss, washed over me, almost making me gag. The beast whirled, its gaze furious.

  “Aye, little witch, with your lungs full of air,

  “Shall we pop them like balloons, make your breathing quite rare?”

  I began dragging myself toward my fallen scissors. I was almost convinced Mrs. Cantanker did not want me to survive this encounter. Perhaps some spying ghost or marble head had told her of my expeditions with Bram and Minnifer, or how I’d watched as she’d handed over Brydgeborn treasures to the little man in the cloven coat. Perhaps whatever purpose she had been keeping me for had entirely run out.

  I felt the beast’s galloping approach in the floorboards. I glanced over my shoulder, saw it pelting toward me, its head swinging back and forth like a scythe. I leaped to my feet and dashed the remaining distance to the scissors. Then I swept them up and went very still, my back to the beast, watching it out of the corner of my eye. In the final moment before it gored me through the back, I whirled, lashing out with the scissors—

  It knew my intent before I had even started moving. One arm caught me by the shoulder and slammed me to the floor. I thrashed, but its weight was enormous, pinning me, and suddenly I was underneath it and one of the faces in its belly, a pale little boy, began to whisper frantically, his dead eyes fixed on mine.

  “Hello, girl,” he said as I squirmed and screamed. “Make us a warm fire in the lands of the living, won’t you? We’re so very cold!”

  An old woman’s face nudged up close to his. “Have you seen Mary?” she asked. “I haven’t seen her in months. I hope she’s all right—”

  And then all the faces began talking at once, gibbering, hissing, whispering of missing relatives, lost loves, of woes and aches and loneliness. A clawed foot slammed down inches from my head, embedding itself in the floor. Then the beast lowered its maw toward me, its breath washing over me, icy as winter’s chill.

  I could count all the beast’s teeth, see right down its red, pulsing throat. But just when I was sure my last hour had come and it was going to eat me, the beast’s eyes fixed on mine, and it said in the echoing voice of a woman, “Why have you brought us here? What sort of witch summons a soul eater into the lands of the living for sport?”

  I stared up at those little glimmering eyes, too horrified to speak. Its voice had sounded furious, betrayed. “I . . . didn’t . . . do it!” I wheezed, but the beast was not listening.

  “You will pay for this, wicked thing. Are you not a Brydgeborn? Are you not supposed to be good and noble? Well, now you will join our merry company and whisper in the lands of the dead forever.”

  “Mrs. Cantanker?” I screamed. “Mrs. Cantanker, what did you do?”

  But Mrs. Cantanker did not answer. I turned my face to the side, my hand worming into my pockets. My fingers closed around the locket. I gripped it with all my might, squeezing my eyes shut. I felt a terrible pinching sensation in my chest, as if all the breath and warmth were being dragged out of me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t do this. And I won’t die for it.”

  I thought of the fireplace, of Mother and Papa, Teenzy and Vikers, Bram and Minnifer, of my friends at the orphanage, scratching their names into the comb. I thought of the trees in Pragast Wood, and the ghosts who were kind and did not bother anyone, and all the things in the world that were good.

  There was a blinding flash of silver light. The windows in the gallery were flung open and a thousand flaming leaves burst in through the casements, a gust of wind whirling them around me and the beast and Mrs. Cantanker in a firestorm of russet, bronze, and red.

  Mrs. Cantanker let out a cry. I was shouting too, my locket burning in my hand, but I did not let go. And as I lay on the floor, an enormous wave of power enveloped me, a glittering, screaming thing that burned in my veins, seeping outward until my skin felt strong and cold as armor.

  The fangore went hurtling backward. I stood, my hair whirling around my face, the leaves slashing through the air. The fangore and all its many faces looked at me with horror, pain, and longing.

  “Kaithus!” I shouted, raising the fist with the Anchor in it. “Go back. Go back so deep and far you will never find your way to the lands of the living again.”

  Its eyes widened, and suddenly I felt sorry for the creature, sorry that it had become tangled up in whatever game Mrs. Cantanker was playing. But there was no time for pity. I raised my scissors and drove them into the beast’s shoulder. And then it was gone: a flicker, like a curtain, and the gallery was empty, only the autumn leaves remaining, strewn across the parquet.

  I turned to Mrs. Cantanker, my heart beating very fast. Was she going to scold me, or fly at me in a rage? Now that the beast had failed to eat me alive, was she simply going to toss me out a window? But she did not seem angry. Her entire body was trembling, her eyes glittering. She seemed excited, jubilant.

  “Well done,” she said, brushing a lock of hair from her face and straightening her cravat. “Well done, indeed. Your first fangore!”

  “Mrs. Cantanker,” I said, taking a few staggering steps toward her. “Why did you do that? Why did you bring a fangore here only to have me hurt it?”

  “How else would you train?” she replied absently, and went to the writing desk, opening drawers and shuffling through papers. “It’s all very normal, I assure you.”

  “But it’s not allowed,” I said. “We’re not supposed to hurt things, not for sport.”

  She looked up at me sharply. “Oh, you are an expert, aren’t you? Have you been reading books?” She smiled a sweet, cold smile. “Go on, little sparrow. Flutter off. Lessons are over, and I have much to do.”

  She lifted a finger and I was flung back, out the doors and down the corridor. I caught one last glimpse of Mrs. Cantanker’s grinning face. Then th
e doors slammed shut.

  I took a long bath in the great porcelain tub in the White Room. Boiling-hot water hissed from a snarl of brass pipes. I scooped copious amounts of lavender soaps and rose bath salts and pine bubble oils from buckets and jars, until the steam in the room was practically rainbow colored and thick as fog. Then I sank down so that the water came up to my nose and pondered, disturbing possibilities swirling in my head.

  If Mrs. Cantanker had wanted me dead, she could have killed me months ago. The ghost of my old nanny had said they needed me in order to bring back Magdeboor. Was my guardian simply pretending to teach me to keep Mr. Grenouille from snooping, or to pass the time? But to pass the time until what? What was going to happen? What part was I playing in it? Or—and this thought made my stomach turn—what part had I already played?

  I scrubbed all traces of the mandrake’s heart and the fangore from my skin, changed into a comfortable blue dress, and went down to find Minnifer and Bram.

  They were working, as usual, quietly and busily, Bram arranging cucumber shavings and little edible purple flowers on triangles of black bread, Minnifer presiding over her mountain of pillowcases with a butterfly net and looking very vicious, indeed. The triggles who’d been tasked to undo her work were now being forced to stitch up the pillowcases themselves, and they did so wth a great deal of mewling and complaining. They all looked up when I entered, little black eyes darting over me for anything shiny.

  “Oh, hallo!” said Minnifer. “You’re out early!” But then she saw my troubled face and slid down the pillowcase mountain, butterfly net in hand. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think I did something very bad.”

  “We did hear a lot of crashing from upstairs,” said Bram.

  “We thought you must be having a very dreadful argument with a ghost,” said Minnifer.

  “We both bet you’d win, though,” said Bram. “If it’s any consolation.”