Cinderella Necromancer

by F. M. Boughan

  “All is well. Thought I’d say hello to the horses while I’m here.” She’d understand—I hoped.

  “Hurry back,” was all she said, and so I assumed she had found something to sate my hunger.

  “Please excuse me, but I have to go,” I said, turning back to William with a witty reply on my tongue.

  But when I looked back to where he’d stood, he was gone.

  14

  The Claim

  Dismissing thoughts of William—for I had many questions that could not be answered—I filled my belly with Gretel’s generosity and headed back to my true room to, at the very least, move The Book of Conjuring from passage to attic in case I lost this small battle. If I did lose, I felt it wouldn’t be for long, and truth be told, I simply wanted to return to the book and look a little more deeply at the contents.

  In my eagerness last night, I’d neglected to consider what else the volume might contain, or even check if there were instructions on how to handle one’s first-time spirit-conjuring experience.

  I couldn’t believe I was considering such a thing, either. The day prior I’d questioned the existence of God, and today I sought to conjure a spirit from the Otherworld by His name.

  That should provide some indication as to the level of desperation I felt at Celia’s inclusion of my brother in her morning threats, and the anxiety only increased the moment I returned to my room.

  Victoria stood at the wardrobe pulling dresses from inside, holding each one up to her silk-wrapped body and admiring herself in one of my many mirrors.

  “What are you doing?” I blurted, losing all sense of composure.

  Victoria started, stared at me, and then continued to ignore my existence. Was I so beneath her? I stepped further into the room, a sense of boldness creeping up my spine and wiggling into the spaces between my teeth.

  I blamed Charlotte’s bosom.

  “I said, what are you doing?” I reached for my green velvet walking suit and yanked it from Victoria’s hands before she could realize my intent. Her mouth dropped open in a silent gasp before snapping shut as a crocodile does its jaws.

  She reached to pull it away, but I saw her bony fingers coming and drew it behind my back. She lunged again and again, and still I held it from her reach. After too many tries, she glared and pulled a pale, rose-colored satin dressing gown from the wardrobe.

  I reached for it as well. She was ready this time.

  “These are my things,” I said. Not that material goods meant to me what I presumed they did to Victoria or Charlotte, but it was the very principal of the issue at stake.

  They’d taken my home, my father, and my freedom. They could not have the very clothing off my back, too.

  Finally, Victoria spoke. “You don’t deserve them.”

  If one could spit daggers from their tongue, she would have buried twenty in my neck. But I caught her words with reckless daring and hurled them back.

  “You don’t belong here.”

  Victoria’s grip on my gown tightened. “Your skin is far too sallow to wear this shade and your hair looks like an overturned mop. If anyone deserves beautiful things, it’s me.”

  Shallow and vain. What delightful young ladies my sisters were. As though linked by thought, she and I lunged at the wardrobe, flinging our arms around as many garments as we could, elbows pushing and jarring into ribs and sides. I didn’t spare her my shoulder either and slammed it against her breastbone as she reached for a hatbox on the top shelf.

  She screamed and fell backward. Her bottom landed with a thud on the floor, and the layers upon layers of her garish silk gown cushioned her backward tumble. She didn’t smack her head on the bedpost, though she came very close.

  Part of me regretted wishing that she’d been only a few inches to the left.

  But only part.

  “You witch,” Victoria hissed, stumbling to her feet. “This is our home now.”

  “You live here,” I corrected. “There’s a difference. It’s our house—mine, Edward’s, and Father’s. You happen to be a long-term guest. And this is my room.”

  I should not have mentioned my brother. I knew this the moment his name left my lips.

  “Edward?” Victoria whispered, her eyes drawing to narrow slits. “Still abed, is he?”

  Her tone was menacing in a way that even Celia had not achieved.

  My throat grew dry.

  Yes, it is true. I felt afraid of her, though I didn’t know exactly why. Only that whatever she said next would be unbearable.

  She took a feather pillow from my bed and turned it over in her hands.

  “I do hope he recovers.” She flicked her gaze to mine. Loathing oozed from every corner. What had I done to deserve this? “It would be a shame if he took a turn for the worse.”

  She stopped spinning the pillow.

  And then I understood.

  Lord, have mercy. “You wouldn’t.” The words barely passed from my lips before being swallowed by the air. She smiled, set the pillow down, and picked up the rose-colored dress.

  We stood there in silence as the day’s moments passed.

  What could I say? What could I do?

  I couldn’t watch Edward all day and all night. And while I didn’t want to believe that Victoria was capable of carrying out her threat, in truth, I did not know these women at all.

  How could I know what they were or were not capable of doing?

  15

  The Encounter

  That is how I found myself in the attic with but a scant few tattered dresses Victoria deigned to toss my way—pieces I’d kept for sentimental reasons or which I had planned to fix someday or turn into curtains and pillows. They weren’t lovely garments, and neither did I have my jewelry, brushes, or even a blanket to warm myself on the moldy mattress.

  Perhaps worse, I had lost easy access to the passageways. What if Victoria discovered them by accident as I had? Sir Mouse couldn’t be depended on to make the distinction between she and I. Or worse yet, what if Celia attempted to move the wardrobe in a fit of redecorating?

  I spent several days scouring the attic for some way—any way—back into the passages, but found nothing. I did as Celia asked, performed the most demeaning tasks—yes, I emptied the chamber pots—and slept in the attic with the whole court of mice, scampering cockroaches, and acrobatic spiders. I didn’t mind the brown ones so much, for they appeared to be ridding the attic of other less desirable crawling things.

  I said nothing and did everything with obedience and a modicum of patience. I prayed Father would return, and quickly.

  I also prayed Edward would recover. He improved, certainly, but spent most of his time in his room or on Celia’s lap. And while I would never admit it to anyone else, I did all this out of fear for his life. Victoria often flounced about the house in my gowns, sending false-shy smiles in my direction, or purposely calling me into my room—her room—to lace her up.

  I refused to be provoked. My brother’s life depended on it. How long I could exist in this state, I didn’t know, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to find out.

  Indeed, I spent more than one morning sitting at the fireplace, sweeping cinders and aching to press the hidden latch and flee into the passages. Did The Book of Conjuring have an invocation that might still my sisters’ tongues? Even Celia no longer bothered to give me tasks, busy as she was coming and going at all hours of the day and night, dressed in her finest. I had tried to ask where she was going two nights after sleeping in the attic.

  She denied leaving.

  The following morning, my attic window had been papered over. From the outside.

  Finally, one evening in utter frustration at my lack of freedom, I loosed a quiet and highly unladylike screech in my lonesome attic chamber. Foolish to the last, I lashed out against an innocent wooden trunk that sat in the middle of the floor, striking it with the toe of my soft slipper—and even softer toes. It shifted by only a pace, but th
e urge had been satisfied.

  In regret, I bent and clutched at my foot to soothe the ache and a breath caught in my throat. On the floor, so faint as to only be noticed by someone who looked for it, was a straight-edged crack. No, not a crack—a cut. Intentional. Foot forgotten, I pressed my fingers against this cut and followed it, a spark of hope worming its way into my being … for it wasn’t long before the cut ended and took a sharp right. With my shoulder, I moved the trunk further across the floor and bent low over the cut once more, tracing it with two fingers as it took another right, and right again, until …

  I wasted no time. There had to be a way to open or move this square of floor, sized just right for someone who regularly traversed the spaces between house walls. I pressed on each strip of wood inside the square, pins of dying hope striking me at each unmovable inch, until finally—finally!—one thin board released with a click.

  I dug my fingernails underneath the lip and pulled the board away. An iron ring underneath begged for my touch.

  With a sharp tug, the section of floor gave way, opening to reveal a dark chasm in the midst of the attic. A reach inside presented hand-width wooden blocks nailed to the wall—a ladder, of sorts—which I’d no doubt missed on my travels through the passageways for one simple reason: I hadn’t been looking for it.

  I guessed that this section of passage would bring me to the space between Celia’s room and the smaller guest chamber where Victoria had slept before usurping mine. The discovery granted a thrill of victory. Without a moment’s hesitation, I swung my legs over the edge, turned about, and climbed down.

  Within minutes, I’d managed to traverse through the walls, down to the ground floor, and into the kitchen. Gretel would be long gone for the night, and everyone else abed for at least long enough to drift in and out of several dreams—provided I had not woken them with the process of my discovery.

  Tiredness could not have gripped me, however, if it used iron shackles. My freedom had returned—in one way or another.

  But where to go? Though I wore my dusty day clothes still, and light slippers on my feet, there were few options. My mother’s stone? I’d find little comfort anywhere else these days, but if I kept my wits about me, I’d be there and back again before accidentally stumbling across Celia during one of her nighttime excursions. I could not fault her for that—she waited until she thought us asleep before venturing forth. In her position, I would do the same—in fact, did I not do that very same thing right now?

  Carefully and quietly, I crawled under the locked gate, this time taking care to knock away the sharper rocks as they pressed into my palms and knees. Little worse for wear, I made for the church via the town square as before. I am not certain why I chose this path at this hour, for unlike an early morning journey wherein none save a few merchants traverse city streets, walking the cobbled roads in new moonlight would surely result in an encounter with other folk.

  I blame my natural inclination toward imprudence.

  Though, perhaps I simply needed a reminder that the world continued to exist apart from the confinement of life at our estate. Perhaps I needed reassurance that the world still moved on without me.

  Whatever the reason, it kept my feet moving forward in the dark, down the empty streets, toward the center of town. I gave brief thought once again to the terrors William had mentioned, but little care. Why should anything bother with me? Of more concern was the Prince’s daylight venture into the family stable. That posed a far greater question than the truth of a vaporous rumor.

  I kept to the shadows, moving along the sides of the buildings and staying out of the gleam of moonlight. Traveling alone at this hour might have been reckless, but I am not a fool in all things. Each soft step brought me closer to my mother, yet as I passed a row of two-storied buildings that during daylight hours housed merchants and crafters of all kinds, the sound of laughter, music, and voices filled my ears.

  The King’s Arm. Of course it would be occupied at this time of night, terrors or not. In a better time, I might have been there too, sitting on Father’s knee or in a tall seat beside him while he whispered that we were not to breathe a word of it to Mother in the morning. I’d first heard many a now-legendary singer or storyteller that way.

  Drawn to the light like a moth whose wings beat closer and closer to flame, only at the last moment before stumbling directly upon him did I notice a large, swaying man who lay in my path. He’d gone to ground out of the light, and a moan escaped his lips as I hopped back to keep from treading on his outstretched arm. In one hand, he grasped a flask, which he raised to his lips with concerted effort—once, then twice, attempting to absorb the drink through his nose before finding his mouth.

  From within the tavern, a song began anew—lyre, I thought, at the tone of the strings—and a round of fresh laughter burst forth at a comment I could not hear.

  If only I could look through the window for a moment …

  But the closest window sat directly above my drunken, shadowed companion.

  I am not sure why such a curiosity overwhelmed me in that moment, but the longing for something familiar and the immediacy of opportunity turned my mind into thoughtless sludge. I stepped up to the man, placed one hand on the window ledge, and said, “Excuse me, sir.”

  His attention snapped to me, and he flinched in alarm before settling back into his drink-driven stupor.

  “Where’d you come from?” His words slurred and he waved his flask about with a distinct lack of control. “D’they send you out t’keep my mouth shut?”

  The scent of his breath wafted toward me as he spoke, and I suppressed a gag. He stunk of liquor and rancid meat.

  “I assure you, sir, that I want nothing to do with your mouth.”

  “Eh? What’s that?” He poked my leg with the flask. “Konrad send you?” Filmy eyes gazed upward, and the stupidity of my actions became immediately apparent.

  “Never mind, sir. My apologies for disturbing you—” I turned to move away—to head down the street and continue on my journey to the Church of the Holy Paraclete—when a hand closed around my ankle.

  I gasped and froze, but not because of the boldness of a stranger. Rather, I thought I saw something move in the darkness beyond.

  I blinked into the shadows, but saw nothing. Had I imagined it? The man who held my ankle mumbled words that might have conveyed some meaning had his flask not been as empty, but I preferred not to remain at his mercy longer than necessary. With the heel of my other foot, I stamped down on his wrist.

  He released me with a shout and a curse, and a burly gentleman with wheat-colored hair poked his head out of the door and glanced around, even as a commotion from behind sent another man sprawling forward down the short set of tavern steps.

  “Help’s off limits tonight, Konrad,” wheat-hair said. “You’re done, too. Go join your brother and you can lurch home together.”

  Brother? Ahh. The man clutching his wrist at my feet, no doubt.

  “Devil take you, bastard,” slurred Konrad. “She was askin’ for it.”

  “Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.” Wheat-hair disappeared back inside, leaving the three of us wishing the same thing—that we might be inside, too.

  Konrad climbed to his feet and staggered several paces away from the tavern door, grumbling. “Georg? Where’d you go?”

  What on earth had possessed me to stop here?

  I should have continued onward—but once more, my curiosity overtook my sense and I did not move. If either man advanced toward me, I would run. Home, if need be. I could return on another night, perhaps one where self-preservation had a foothold in my skull.

  “Konrad!” The drunk next to me—Georg—moaned and shook his flask, the few drops inside plinking quietly. “You too? They don’ understand … ”

  Konrad turned and peered into the dark around the tavern entrance, the light from inside certainly blurring the space where brightness gave way to shadows.
“Brother?”

  Cold wind rushed past my ears, blowing my loose hair forward about my shoulders, and a sense of dread washed over me like a too-heavy blanket. The air grew thick with foreboding.

  I needed to go home now.

  “Georg, where are you?” Konrad held a hand above his eyes to block out the tavern light and stepped to his left, though this took him deeper into the surrounding darkness of the square. “Ah, there you—”

  His words cut off with a choke as a deep shadow, darker than the rest, moved across his body.

  His head fell from his shoulders.

  It rolled toward the place where Georg and I hid.

  My scream escaped before I could think better of it, and I turned to run with no thought but escaping whatever it was that had silently taken Konrad from this world. I managed to flee but a few steps before I collided with someone else moving through the shadows, and my scream began anew. I stumbled backward even as a hand wrapped around my shoulder and another covered my mouth, stifling the noise into silence.

  I could not move, for whoever held me did so with a force that defied escape. I drew back a heel to slam it into my assailant’s knee—

  “Quiet.” A voice hissed in my ear, a voice so familiar that I might have lashed out in surprise regardless of the command, had he not tightened his grip and spoken again. “Be quiet as if your life depends on it, for it very well may.”

  I tried to nod, difficult though it was with a hand clamped over my jaw. Sensing my relaxation, he released me and turned my shoulder to face him. Though dark, I could not mistake that form and voice together. “William?”

  He wore the same dark, hooded robe as in the stables, with his medallion glinting overtop. Three other men, larger and taller, stood behind him. Two wore robes similar to William’s, and the other, a riding coat like the one I’d stashed away after our first encounter.

  But it was not the time to think of coats and robes.