Dear Mrs. Cantanker Harkleath-St. Cloud,
Our faction was delighted to hear of the heir’s return to Blackbird Castle. I told them of it at our quarterly meeting, and it caused much celebration. I trust you are putting everything in place for the final summoning? You will have no trouble tricking the girl. You say she was raised an orphan? Then she is utterly unaware of the things with which we occupy ourselves and no doubt quite stupid. . . .
I gritted my teeth, opening the envelopes one by one and sliding out the messages.
The Butcher was here this evening; he stepped from the fireplace, and we spoke many hours with him in the upstairs parlor. Magdeboor sends her greetings. She was never a patient creature, but never so impatient as now. . . .
I stuffed the letters into my cloak, bundle after bundle, not bothering to read them all. No one would be able to see these and not understand what evil schemes Mrs. Cantanker had been hatching. When my pockets were as full as I could stuff them, I clambered to my feet and was about to flee the cottage, when something else caught my eye: on the floor, half hidden among scrolls and garlands of rotting greenery, sat a red satin box.
I knelt, opening it quickly. Inside was a collection of household records. I saw lists of accounts with butchers and dressmakers, long rows of wages for people I had never heard of. It was not what I needed, or so I thought, and I would have closed it again when I spotted a photograph tucked among the papers. I lifted it, brushing the dust away. It showed the servants of Blackbird Castle, assembled on the front steps. It must have been taken long ago, when there were still parties on the lawn and my mother entertained dignitaries in the drawing room and royalty in the banquet hall. But no, there was a date scribbled in one corner. It had been taken just last year.
I searched the photograph for Minnifer and Bram. I couldn’t find them. And then my heart stopped.
They were all in a row: Mother, Greta, and John Brydgeborn. Only they were not wearing the grand clothes they’d had on in the dining room. Greta wore a maid’s cap. John was dressed as a gardener, his spectacles still on his nose, a leather apron down his front. Above each figure was a name and an occupation.
Mrs. Hanguard, housekeeper
Flora Wheeler, chambermaid
Andrew Craik, dogsbody
My mind took several stuttering seconds to realize what I was seeing. Then everything clicked into place and I pushed the box away from me as if it had bitten me.
The missing pictures on the walls, so that I wouldn’t know the difference between a family member and a stranger.
The clothes in Greta’s closet, for someone small, though the golden-haired ghost was tall and lovely.
Mother looking quite different in the dining room than she did in my locket, and the reason why the waking spell had not worked . . . could never, ever have worked.
The bodies propped up in the dining room, dressed in lace and velvet, were not my family’s. And everyone—Mrs. Cantanker, Greta, even Minnifer and Bram—was lying.
Chapter Nineteen
I bolted out of the cottage, the red satin box under my arm, letters flying from my cloak pockets and drifting into puddles and ponds. I felt sick and faint, my sweat turning to an icy sheen on my forehead.
Greta wasn’t Greta at all, but the ghost of someone named Flora Wheeler, a servant girl who had been murdered in Greta’s place. The bodies in the dining room were pawns in this wicked game, perhaps even members of the League of the Blue Spider, eager to sacrifice themselves for their Dark Queen’s return. But then where were the Brydgeborns? And who were Bram and Minnifer? They certainly had not been servants here since they were little, not if they weren’t even in a picture from last year. I wondered suddenly if they had been reporting to Mrs. Cantanker this entire time, passing on every bit of news and every development.
The gallery was empty when I arrived at the bottom of the blue stairs. Vikers was no longer in the chandelier. Bram and Minnifer were gone too, only the faintest haze of lamp smoke signaling they had been there at all.
It’s like they know, I thought. It’s like they know I’ve discovered they’re all liars, and now they’ve run away.
I pounded down the servants’ staircase, making straight for my room. My old carpetbag was still under the bed, untouched since the day I arrived: my Sunday bonnet, the lump of soap, the comb with my friends’ names scratched into the handle. I dragged it out, dumping the red box and all the letters into it. Then I crept down the dragon staircase and out the front doors.
The cold that greeted me on the front steps was so bitter it shocked me a moment. Wind and snow howled out of the sky. My hat almost blew from my head, and I had to gather my carpetbag under one arm and hold the rest of me together with the other. I thought of whistling for Vikers, but suddenly I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore, or anyone, and it felt horribly, horribly unfair. Why, if you trusted people, did they have to lie to you?
Faintly, I heard the tinkle of silverware and the thrum of voices. I turned, hesitantly, peering along the front of the castle. Then I plowed through the deep snow to one of the ballroom windows, betrayal bitter in my chest. Would Bram and Minnifer be in there, and Vikers? Had they all just been waiting for me to go away so they could celebrate too? If they were, at least I would know. I would know I had never had any friends here.
Warm, bright light spilled out into the darkness. For a moment I thought the steam from the fire had blurred the panes, but then I blinked and the glass was clear, and it was only my eyes, pricking and being disloyal. I wiped them and stood on tiptoes, pressing my nose against the icy glass. The ballroom was full of guests—human ones in fine suits and gowns, and dead ones too, ghosts of all shapes and sizes, sinuous barrow wights, muscle-bound moorwhistlers, and giant spidery gentlemen in red waistcoats.
Mrs. Cantanker sat at the head of the table, glittering and lovely. I didn’t see Bram and Minnifer, or crows of any kind, but I did spot Gartlut, draped over a chair by the fireplace. His head was tipped back. His fingertips trailed on the floor. He looked as if he had been peeled off like a suit of clothes, or the rind of an orange. And who should be standing next to him, silhouetted against the raging fire in the hearth, but the Butcher of Beydun.
The dead king was exactly as I remembered him, exactly as he had been when he’d called to me from the woods—tall as a birch tree, thin as a fish bone, swaying like a wisp of candle smoke. As I watched, Mrs. Cantanker went to him and took his hand.
Together they glided to the center of the ballroom. They began to dance, the ghosts and villains whirling around them. A wild music kicked up, sounding of violins sawn in half, tin whistles broken across knees, clarinets screeching in dismay.
I was just about to turn from the snowy panes and make my way down into the valley when seven triggles, standing one atop the other, wobbled up behind me and struck me on the back of my head with a brick.
Chapter Twenty
I woke in a broom cupboard, my skirts wet and caked with blood and my shoes full of water. I had been dumped unceremoniously over a heap of boxes. My legs were sticking into the air, and my cheek was pressed to the dusty floorboards. The broom cupboard had a small, round window on the wall, and the gray dawn was streaming through it, glittering in the dust and puddles. It was morning; I must have been out for hours.
I was not normally the crying sort, but it was the first thing I did. I found a footstool to sit on, put my throbbing head in my hands, and in the tarnished silver light from the window, I wept.
I’d been an idiot, stopping to look into the ballroom. I’d been an idiot from the beginning, really, thinking that I was capable of becoming a Blackbird and a witch. What had made me think I could live in this place and become its mistress—me, an orphan from Cricktown? Blackbird Castle was not my home. Maybe it had been once, but it was not anymore. Gartlut had been right: one could not inherit the things I needed, nor find them in bank accounts. Perhaps I’d never been meant for any of this. Perhaps I’d never been
meant for anything but brooms and dustpans and the low stone wall of Mrs. Boliver’s garden.
I think I would have wept forever if I’d not felt the soft, warm glow of my locket flickering against my skin. My skeleton key had been taken from me. My pockets were empty and my witch’s belt gone. No doubt the triggles had made quick business of that. But my locket was still clenched in my fist, and slowly, I opened my fingers, looking at the smiling family inside.
For Zita Brydgeborn, last of her name, I read, tracing the tiny writing around the frame. May this light always guide you home.
Papa seemed to wink at me. Mother smiled, sweet as summer lilies. Once again, I felt as though they could see me, that they were looking right out of the little silver frame, as through a window.
I smiled back, wishing with all my heart that they were here. And then, all at once, Mother rose and approached the glass.
I gasped. The image swirled like smoke, and suddenly she was no longer in a drawing room. She was standing in a twilit marsh, her ankles wreathed in mist. “Mother?” I whispered. “Oh, Mother . . .”
“Darling Zita,” she said. “You must not give in.”
“But I don’t know what to do!” Tears were stinging my eyes, and I was shivering violently. “I thought I did. I thought I could fix all this, but it’s too big and too difficult and no one is who they say they are. I suppose if I were like you, I could stop Mrs. Cantanker and the Butcher from summoning Magdeboor. But I’m not anything like you.”
Mother’s eyes grew sad. “And why,” she asked, “should you be anything like me?”
“Because then I would be sure!” I almost shouted. “Then I would be sure I belonged here and wasn’t just pretending. A witch is never unsure, but I am.”
“A witch is never unsure?” Mother repeated thoughtfully. “Is that what Ysabeau has been teaching you? But a witch is always unsure. Life is unsure. It is like a candle flame, always flickering and changing. Only death and darkness are certain, and despite what people may think, those are not a witch’s business. Daughter, even if you cannot see the truth of things, even if you are frightened and discouraged, know this: Some things just are. You don’t have to be sure of them. They don’t ask your opinion.”
I sat up, chewing at the end of my braid. “Like what?”
“Like you! You’re here, aren’t you? You grew up to be a brave, extraordinary girl, despite being kidnapped by the Butcher King, despite living almost your entire life on your own. And even when you thought you were alone, you had parents who loved you and never stopped searching for you, and a whole world and a castle and a crow waiting for you.” She smiled. “Those things are sure, Zita. Those things are true.” And then her gaze hardened and she looked back over her shoulder. “But now you must hurry. Ysabeau will be calling Magdeboor soon. There is nothing I can do from here . . . but you can stop her, Zita. She’s afraid of you. And well she should be.”
“But how?” I asked. “Mother, tell me how—”
“The staircase,” she said, and behind her in the gloom I saw something approaching, darting briskly from hillock to hillock. “They are cursed to sleep, but you can wake them. I sent Teenzy with the spell, left it for you in Greta’s library. Wake the dragon stairs—”
“The waking spell!” I gasped. It had never been for the people in the dining room. It had been for the dragon stairs! “And then what? Mother, then what?”
But there was only the room again behind the glass, the fireplace, and Teenzy on a cushion, and my parents’ smiling faces.
I sat on the footstool, peering into the locket, my heart filled to the brim. And then, from far away, I heard a long, low horn, the thunder of hooves, and the tinkle of harnesses, echoing out of the valley. It drifted toward me through the branches of Pragast Wood, gentle and hopeful.
I sat up sharply, wiping my nose on my sleeve. And then I leaped to my feet and ran to the window. It was the post coach! Someone was coming to Blackbird Castle!
I began scrabbling about the broom cupboard, examining my options. Of course the cupboard was mostly full of brooms and dustpans, but also dusty cushions and iron candlesticks, feather comforters, and chairs with the wicker seats popped out—the sorts of things that collected in old houses and had to be put somewhere out of sight. I decided the best course of action would be to make a great deal of noise and then beat whoever came to investigate over the head with a candlestick. Choosing a suitably wicked-looking one from a dusty heap, I squeezed myself next to the door. Then I began to scream and kick with all my might, loud enough to make anyone who heard me think I was dying. I expected to hear running feet and anxious voices immediately, but there was no response.
I stopped, red-faced and perspiring. Again, I heard the sound of the post coach, but now the sound of its wheels was retreating, rumbling back down into the valley. That meant whoever was in it had been unloaded. They would be climbing up the path toward Blackbird Castle. . . .
I set down the candlestick and looked about. The window was narrow, but I was rather narrow myself. I suspected I could tip myself out of it.
I went to it and rattled the frame. It opened with a rasp, freezing air billowing into the room. Then I popped the window right out of its frame, wrenching it off its hinges, and looked down.
I was on the fourth floor, in a little gable right at the edge of the roof. I certainly wouldn’t survive a jump. Nor could I climb. The ivy had given up about ten feet below me, only a few tendrils snaking around the broom cupboard’s window. I could perhaps signal the visitor, or shout at them, or send a paper plane down with the message. . . .
I whirled back to the little room. A pile of frilly sheets and comforters lay stacked in one corner. It would be a cliché, using those, something straight out of one of Greta’s fairy tales. If anyone ever bothered writing a book about me, the critics would say, “Tut-tut, it would have been more satisfying had she built a ladder out of chair legs and tied it together with her own hair.” But I had no time to bother about that now.
I began knotting the sheets together, end to end, as tightly as I could. I tied the last comforter around the handle of the cupboard door. Then I shoved the whole mass out the window and stuffed myself out after it.
I got stuck halfway through. I imagined my legs flailing in the broom cupboard behind me, my front half hanging from the window as if the window were sticking out its tongue. But then I shot out, like a cork, and found myself tumbling through open air. I fell for so long I wondered if I had tied the sheets up for nothing and was going to plummet all the way down to the ground. But then my hand caught a comforter, and I gripped it with both arms, and began to slide and dangle wildly downward.
I had imagined a graceful descent, a tense, silent journey, but the whole thing was more of a terrifying, controlled collapse. I felt the knots unraveling even as I descended—third floor, second floor, past the great windows in the drawing room, mercifully dark and curtained—and then the ground was rushing up to meet me. I fell the last five feet and landed with a flump! on a bank of fresh snow. The comforters landed on top of me, rather gently, as if they expected me to go to sleep.
I popped up at once and crawled from the snowbank, wild-eyed and desperate. Then I burst across the gardens, down the steps, and past the snow-covered shrubs, running as fast as I could for the narrow path that led into the woods. I must have looked a proper lunatic with my bloody brow and my hair all wild. Up ahead, I saw my savior, emerging from the trees: a little suitcase; a bright, cheery face with a perfectly round red spot on each cheek.
It was Mr. Grenouille!
“Zita!” he cried out in alarm, setting down his suitcase. “My dear girl, what has happened?”
I ran to him, practically tripping over him in my haste. “Mrs. Cantanker is in league with Magdeboor and the Butcher of Beydun,” I said, looking back at the castle in terror. “And the bodies in the dining room aren’t my family. They’re servants. I don’t know if anyone here is who they say they are, even Bram and Minn
ifer. . . . We need to get to Hackenden, and we need to get help—”
Mr. Grenouille turned a circle in the path, as if to see if anyone was nearby. Then his hand tightened around my wrist, his eyes turning small and black and buzzing, like a pair of flies.
Oh no. No no no. Not you too.
“My dear girl,” said Mr. Grenouille, smiling at me. “You are confused! And you’ve got blood all over your face. Come, let me show you the way.”
Chapter Twenty-One
MR. Grenouille half dragged, half shoved me back toward Blackbird Castle, though I fought and twisted every step of the way. He was far too strong for such a little man. I wondered how I had ever thought him good and honest.
He pulled me up the front steps and hammered on the door. A horrid creature opened it, goat-headed, talons like a bird, its hairy upper half stuffed into a grimy green waistcoat. The creature smelled as if it had been buried for years and had just been dug up, and even Mr. Grenouille looked unnerved as it ushered us into the hall.
All was shadowy, the wicks in the sconces unlit. The doors to the ballroom stood open, and the smell of stale food hung in the air. Things were drifting about, not household ghosts, but evil things from deep in the underworld. They lounged in the chandelier, skulked in and out of doorways. A ghoul, its skull green and rotting, ran chittering across the hall. Chairs were piled in corners, food and silver had been thrown across the tiles, and all of Minnifer’s lovely flowers had been trampled on, their leaves and pink petals ground into the floor. Mrs. Cantanker was hurrying down the dragon staircase toward us, her eyes wide.
“Charles!” she exclaimed. “And Zita! Whatever has happened!”
“There is no need for artifice now,” Mr. Grenouille said, twisting my arm and shoving me toward her. Even his voice was different, harsh and grating where before it had been weak. “She knows. Where’s Gartlut?”
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