Cinders and Sparrows

by Stefan Bachmann

  I rattled the gate, trying to think of a spell that could open locks. I knew of several, but they all required star root to startle the metal, and basil cut at perfect forty-five-degree angles to soothe it and make it agreeable. I was not equipped with either.

  “So there you have it,” said Minnifer. “The Butcher was invited into the lands of the living, where he cast the ephinadym mulsion spell, thus beginning the summoning of Magdeboor. The three servants were dressed up as Brydgeborns and sacrificed in the dining room for her return, and all the other servants ran away, thinking the family was dead. And then Mr. Grenouille wrote that letter and sent the scarecrow off to find you. And oh, did they make a show of it when you arrived! Mrs. Cantanker acted like she loathed you being found.”

  “I don’t think she was acting,” I said. “She had to be sure I was the missing Brydgeborn. And once she was sure, she had a whole load of other reasons to hate me, what with me being a witch by blood and being allowed all sorts of things no one had ever given her.” A thought darted into my mind. “Were they ever really friends? My mother and Mrs. Cantanker?”

  “Best friends,” said Minnifer softly. “Long ago. But they chose such different paths.”

  “Where is my mother?” I asked. “If she’s not up in the dining room, did Mrs. Cantanker . . . is she dead?”

  “Dead?” Minnifer exclaimed, exchanging a shocked look with Bram. “Well, I told you she was, didn’t I . . . all those months ago when you first arrived. But we didn’t know then. We didn’t know they’re keeping her in the mausoleum out beyond the graveyard. We found her on the way back from Amsel’s tower the day you went hunting for your Anchor. She’s there, Zita, in the little house, and she’s quite alive! They brought her this and that to make her comfortable, but it’s got to be awful out there—”

  “She’s alive?” I whispered. I remembered Gartlut and the wheelbarrow, the ghost of Flora Wheeler standing furiously next to that shadowy house in the woods, as if to keep me away. And then I was practically shrieking, hurtling about the room and shouting, “My mother’s alive!” until quite a few rats and triggles poked their heads out of nooks and cracks to see what all the fuss was about.

  “For the moment,” said Minnifer, giving me another probing look, as if she still wasn’t quite convinced I wasn’t possessed. “But she won’t be for long. And neither will we, for that matter. We’re still stuck.”

  I pressed my face to the bars, peering down the murky passage. “Well, I don’t intend to be stuck much longer,” I said. “Remember the skeleton key you gave me?”

  Minnifer’s face brightened. “You brought it with you?”

  “No,” I admitted. “The triggles took it after they knocked me over the head. But maybe, just maybe. . . .”

  I raced to the window. The sill was well above me, but I stood on tiptoes and stretched my hand out into the cold, damp morning. “Vikers?” I murmured, in as nice a tone as I could muster. “Vikers, my sweet feathery friend? Are you out there?”

  At first I felt nothing. Vikers might have flown off, thinking us all a lost cause, and who could blame him? But then my locket pulsed slightly, and I had the sudden impression of wind brushing through feathers, bitter cold, and of gazing down upon the tops of trees.

  Vikers! I thought, as the clever little knot of the crow’s mind drifted and bumped against my own. I felt him bank sharply, soaring above Westval and the wooded flanks of the mountains. Vikers, it’s possible you don’t think much of me anymore now that I’ve managed to become captured with no chance of escape, and I know I’m probably the most disappointing witch one could be attached to. But better than no witch at all, right? So, here’s my trouble: I’m locked in the dungeon of Blackbird Castle with Minnifer and Bram, who are actually Greta and John Brydgeborn. Mrs. Cantanker and Mr. Grenouille and the Butcher of Beydun are setting up some sort of ritual to call back Magdeboor from the dead, and we’re going to stop them, but only if we can get out of here. Which is where you come in. The triggles stole my skeleton key. They’ve probably taken it to Amsel’s Tower. Will you go get it and come to the cellars posthaste? Without snapping off any of their heads, please?

  I opened my eyes. Bram and Minnifer were staring at me skeptically.

  “Is something supposed to happen?” Minnifer asked.

  “Well,” I said, “maybe not at once,” and I thought, Please, Vikers. Please come back.

  I paced circles around the well, my hands clasped behind my back. Minnifer and Bram began to argue quietly, throwing concerned looks my way. I wondered if I had imagined Vikers out of sheer desperation.

  And then, from far away, I heard a long, piercing craw! The craws became louder, the flap of wings too, like a tablecloth being snapped out over and over. The goat-headed creature emerged to investigate, squinting through the bars. But when he heard the distant wingbeats he drew back, clattering away again into the dark. And a moment later, Vikers came careening down the passage, his feathers gleaming green and purple in the dim light. Gripped tightly in his talons was my skeleton key.

  “Vikers!” I said, stretching my arm through the bars. “Vikers, it is good to see you!”

  Vikers did not look opposed to seeing me either. He dropped the key into my waiting palm and wriggled between the bars, perching on my shoulder and rubbing his head against my cheek.

  “Well done,” I whispered, scratching Vikers under his beak. And to Bram and Minnifer I said, “I’m going to get my belt and my scissors. And then there’s just one more thing I’ve got to do.”

  I pushed the key into the lock, its leaf-shaped tines shivering as I twisted it. The gate opened with a creak. And with silver in my pocket, crow feathers tickling my ear, and my friends on either side, I darted down the passageway and up the cellar stairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  IT could not have been much past ten o’clock in the morning, but as we ran through the freshly fallen snow into the cold embrace of Pragast Wood, it might as well have been midnight. Clouds were spilling across the mountains, closing like a dark lid over the valley. Lightning flashed ominously in the distance, and thunder rumbled, as if even the weather could tell something unholy was on its way and was rushing in to watch.

  We were not alone under the trees. Ghosts drifted in the eddies of snow and fog, strange, misshapen creatures, their toes floating inches above the ground. They paid no attention to us. We darted from tree to tree, Bram and Minnifer in green cloaks, me in the dark uniform of a Blackbird. We did not blend in at all, but the ghosts never even turned their heads to look at us. They were all moving in the same direction, like boats in a current, straight for the graveyard and Magdeboor’s mausoleum.

  “D’you see that?” Minnifer whispered, as we gathered behind a gnarled oak to catch our breath. “D’you see that light?”

  A bloody glow was blooming against the black branches beyond the graveyard. It was as if a flaming maw had opened in the darkest depths of Pragast Wood, and now all the spirits and evil things that had piled up against the protective wards and sigils of the castle were being drawn to it. I swallowed. Somewhere at the heart of that crimson smudge was Magdeboor’s little stone mansion, and inside it was my mother. . . .

  We began to run again. In the sky above, Vikers gave a warning cry, but we were not about to turn back now. My locket was in my hand. My silver scissors dangled from my belt, and I clutched a sharply pointed candlestick to my chest. I’d taken it from the castle for good measure, in case my spells and herbs failed me. Bram and Minnifer were similarly armed, Bram with a fire poker and Minnifer with an enormous cudgel that she’d dragged out of the pantry.

  We skirted the graveyard and arrived at the mausoleum, creeping up through the underbrush that grew against its side. The red glow was coming from inside the tomb, bleeding from the doorway and from what must have been a window at its back. It was a strange, unsteady light, flickering ruddily and sending twisting shadows toward the sky.

  The mausoleum’s iron doors—carved with
ravens and pockmarked with moss—hung open. Voices echoed out, an entire convention of them. I recognized Mrs. Cantanker’s hiss, Gartlut’s and Mr. Grenouille’s mutters. And then a fourth voice, softer, but stern and commanding.

  Mother?

  “Shut up,” I heard Mrs. Cantanker snap. “You too, Charles. Pigtooth? Pigtooth, go to the cellars. Bring Zita here. I see no reason to keep Magdeboor waiting until nightfall simply for aesthetics.”

  We pressed ourselves to the side of the mausoleum. Hooves clattered over stone as something made its way down the steps and into the woods.

  “To the back,” I murmured to Bram and Minnifer. “To the window. I’m going to take a look.”

  I was grateful for the powdery snow as we shuffled around the back of the mausoleum. Old snow would have crunched and cracked and given us away, but in this our feet sank with hardly a sound. The mausoleum’s only window was shaped like a wedge of fruit. Red light oozed from it, staining the whiteness. I saw the spirits and the beasts, still approaching through the trees, drawn to the glow like moths. They formed a ring around the mausoleum, swaying, their eyes empty and blank.

  “Bram,” I whispered, planting my candlestick point down in the snow. “Will you let me stand on your shoulders?”

  Bram nodded. Minnifer laced her fingers together, launching me up onto Bram’s shoulder. I pressed my face to the window.

  A strange scene greeted me. The mausoleum’s interior had been furnished quite comfortably for my mother’s use. It was still a grim place, moss and black stone, the corners piled with dead leaves that had blown in through the doors. But beeswax candles dripped everywhere, and there were several tasseled rugs, and even piles of silk cushions and a little painted dresser with a set of porcelain tea things on a tray. Mrs. Cantanker was there, pacing to and fro in her red gown. Gartlut was back to looking like a regular oaf, the Butcher having no doubt crawled back inside his body, and Mr. Grenouille, and several ladies and gentlemen I recognized from the ballroom stood in one corner, heads together. The place would have looked like a cozy garden cottage were it not for the great stone coffin at its center. The coffin was open, and the red light that stained the woods and colored my cheeks was coming from inside it, pouring out like flames.

  I gasped, wobbling on Bram’s shoulders. Something was in that coffin—a dark shape, lying still. I turned my face away, searching for my mother. She was sitting in a gilt chair, looking tired and weak. But she was alive, and the sight of her made my heart sing. She was not just a tiny moving picture in a locket anymore, or a fleeting scent of violets and rosemary, and she didn’t look like Mrs. Hanguard the housekeeper at all. Memories flooded over me.

  I saw her at breakfast, looking out the window at the woods. I saw her leading me to the Tiny Queen’s Throne Room and allowing me to peek inside its little door. I saw us at Christmas, climbing the great spruce, and her lifting me up so I could place a silver moon at its top. I saw her the morning I vanished, me sitting in her lap and her reading to me from a little book of tales. Then she’d been called away—she was very busy, after all, and very important—and I’d watched her go, her white dress flickering down the dark corridor. The nanny had come then, leading me outside and pointing me toward the woods. And there stood the Butcher, calling to me, his voice like winter—

  I snapped back to the present. The ladies and gentlemen from the League of the Blue Spider were milling around my mother, and she sat in her chair, straight-backed and regal, confusing them all with her fearlessness.

  “Do not assume you’ve won, Ysabeau,” I heard her say. “My daughter is a clever girl, and if she is still in the lands of the living, fate might yet take a very different turn.”

  “Oh, be quiet, Georgina,” Mrs. Cantanker snapped. “Don’t make me regret sparing your life. The fate of everyone is quite decided, thank you very much. And yours is too. I gave you your chance. I tried to make you see. But you remain stubborn. I can’t imagine Magdeboor will be at all pleased to see you when she gets here.”

  I cast a frightened glance down at Bram and Minnifer. “We’ve got to get inside,” I whispered. “I think they’re going to do so something to Mother.”

  I turned back to the window . . . and there, its face pressed to the glass, its puffy hands on either side, was a triggle. My eyes widened. The triggle’s eyes did too. We gaped at each other for a long moment, unblinking. Then the triggle threw back its head and let out a piercing, deafening wail.

  Bram wobbled.

  Minnifer began to hiss frantically, things like, “What’s that? Shut it up, Zita, shut it up!”

  And in the mausoleum, seven faces turned to peer up at the window. Mrs. Cantanker’s expression twisted into one of utter hatred. I tipped backward, losing my balance. And then Bram fell, too, and we both landed with a whump in the snow.

  The beasts were upon us in seconds. I had not even shaken the stars from my head when Mr. Grenouille and a host of moorwhistlers and misshapen ghosts had me by the arms and were dragging me to my feet.

  “Minnifer!” I shouted. “Bram!” But I couldn’t see them, and Vikers felt a thousand miles away. I heard a crashing and a faint Oof! Then I was being herded up the steps and through the doors. The creatures clustered around me, faces pressing in. My scissors and belt were taken from me and thrown into a corner.

  “Zita?” Mother looked up from her chair. She tried to rise, but the chair’s arms sprouted wooden hands that gripped her and pulled her back. “Zita, oh, heavens, is it you?”

  I spun, squinting through the shadows and the flickering light. I tried to run to her, but Gartlut, Mr. Grenouille, and Mrs. Cantanker surrounded me. For a brief moment, I heard Bram and Minnifer yelling outside. Then the iron doors slammed shut, cutting off the sounds from the woods.

  “Well, well,” said Mrs. Cantanker, grinning down at me. “As always, my dear, you are rather too punctual.” She turned to Gartlut. “Do it now.”

  Mother struggled again to rise, her eyes wide and frightened. I saw her mouth something—a spell perhaps—but nothing happened. She had given up her powers, bargained them away to save my life.

  “The blood of the Brydgeborns bound Magdeboor and cast her out of the lands of the living,” intoned Mrs. Cantanker, her voice echoing. “And only the blood of the Brydgeborns can bring her back.” She drew a knife from inside her sleeve, a pale, curved slash of bone, sharpened to a point, its blade so thin it could pare a stalk of grass down to threads, cut skin like silk. . . .

  I screamed, lashing out against Gartlut and Mr. Grenouille. I tried to think of something to help me, anything. My mind was blank with terror. They were dragging me toward that open coffin, and a horrid stench of rot and decay was oozing into my nose, followed by a wave of brimstone, fire, and smoke.

  I did not want to see inside the coffin. I didn’t think I could bear it. But they dragged me to its edge. I felt the heat boiling out of it, beating against my face. And there she was: the ancient witch, the Dark Queen, Magdeboor Brydgeborn.

  She was floating, hovering above a seemingly bottomless pit of fire. Her skin was white, unblemished by rot. Her raven tresses spread about her like a writhing halo. She wore her battle gear, a suit of armor, gauntlets with nails like thorns, and in one skeletal hand, clutched tightly, was a gold coin.

  “Zita!” I heard my mother’s scream from far away. “Don’t let them wake her! Don’t let them!”

  I didn’t want to let them. But they pinned my wrist against the stone, my hand just over Magdeboor’s face. The tip of the knife bit into my finger. . . .

  The droplet of blood fell slowly, like a beautiful glinting ruby. It touched Magdeboor’s forehead, beading there for a moment. Then it sank into her papery skin, like water into thirsty soil, and she blinked.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  MAGDEBOOR stood, floating upright above the fiery pit, her arms hanging limp at her sides. Then she stepped solidly onto the stone edge of the coffin, her armored feet clanking. She was not very tall. In fact, she was
barely as tall as I was. But there was something huge about her, a power that flowed from her and made everyone around her seem delicate and brittle. The ghosts shuddered and drew back. Outside, a howl went up, whether in celebration or terror, I didn’t know. She still looked like the girl in the painting. But that girl had been young and innocent. This was a dead thing, hollowed out of all that had once been good. This was one who had seen hell.

  “Our queen,” Mrs. Cantanker breathed, sweeping into a low bow. “Welcome back.”

  Magdeboor surveyed Mrs. Cantanker briefly, her gaze black and glinting. Mrs. Cantanker, still bowing, rolled her eyes upward, perhaps to see what effect her display was having. Then she shivered slightly, and I had never seen her look so afraid.

  “My lady,” said Mrs. Cantanker, rising. “Your house awaits, cleansed of the Brydgeborns who threw you out. And an army too, ten thousand souls eager to follow you into battle.” She gestured toward the gathered villains. “We are your humble servants. All but her.”

  She pointed, and Magdeboor’s eyes slid slowly to me. She looked me up and down. Then she swept forward, her wild hair floating around her, her face placid. An icy wind accompanied her, sending leaves fleeing like a million tiny burning soldiers before a dragon.

  “You are not my humble servant?” she asked, in a deep, commanding voice. “You are not on my side?”

  I didn’t reply. Instead I kicked viciously at Mr. Grenouille, striking him in the leg. He let out a yelp and lost hold of me, and I stumbled away, staring about at the hideous tableau of witches and monsters.

  “And yet you seem so like me.” Magdeboor was in front of me suddenly, trailing a hand along my cheek. She stank terribly, and she had moved like a breath, like a phantom. Once again I felt her power, hateful and huge, coursing through her veins and pulsing beneath her skin.