Victoria looked up at the large oil painting that dominated the wall. It showed her sitting with her parents, fake smiles artfully painted on their faces—one big, happy family.
She turned back to the book, her hand trembling as she signed her name. And then she held out the quill to the magician.
But he wouldn’t take it. “The pen, the pouch, and the book are yours now. Thank you for freeing my daughter, and may your journey be easier than hers has been. Now, I need to give you your gift and show you, should you choose to pass the debt on, how you may give it to another.” He opened the pouch, and as he did, a light filled the room.
Victoria leaned forward. Inside were a number of brightly colored eggs, far smaller than a bird’s. Each egg carried a light, its color glowing through a glass-like shell.
A warmth rose from the bag, and Victoria was about to reach in when something scuttled through the eggs. She caught a glimpse of a hard, black creature with many legs and two huge pincers.
She stepped back. “What was that?”
“I didn’t see anything,” the magician replied.
“Yes, you did.”
“Do you want your gift or not? Either way, you’ve signed the book, so whether or not you claim your wish, I must collect your soul.”
“I’ll take my gift,” Victoria replied.
A thought crossed her mind, a way of escaping the burden, as he had put it. She buried the thought as deep as she could, just in case he could read her mind.
The magician reached nimbly into the bag and removed three shining eggs. They rested in his palm, one vivid blue, the other gentle lavender, while the third was a rich gold.
“Take two and carefully place them in your pocket. Once you’ve fully focused on your wish, place the third on your tongue. See yourself flying in your mind’s eye, and you shall. After a while, there will come a time when the magic wears off. When it does, place the next egg upon your tongue, and it will keep you airborne. When the second egg fades, use the third to return to solid ground. Do not fly too high. We don’t want you to come to harm.” He placed a hand on her arm, lightly pinching her skin. “To be clear, Victoria, when the power from the last egg diminishes, you will return to me and keep your side of the bargain.”
Victoria snatched her arm away. “I know.”
She flinched as the magician tipped the three eggs into her palm. They were as hot as sand on a summer day and strangely light, like knots of wool. She transferred the eggs to her other palm and, gradually, they began to cool until their shells were hard and smooth, like marbles. She gently lifted two of the eggs and placed them in her pocket before holding the third between her fingers.
Victoria closed her eyes and concentrated on the idea of flight.
“Picture your wish,” the magician said, his voice seeming to come from some far-away place. “Make it real in your mind’s eye, and when you can see it as clear as crystal, place the egg upon your tongue.”
Victoria did as she was told. She imagined her polished shoes taking off from the carpet and saw herself gliding effortlessly across the room. There were no wings attached to her back, for she had no need for them. All she had to do to fly was focus on where she wanted to go, and her mind would take her there.
“Can you see yourself flying?” the magician asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
“Then place the first egg in your mouth.”
Victoria did as she was told. The egg rested upon her tongue for a moment before cracking, and all at once her mouth was filled with a multitude of flavors: peppermint, salt, sage, chocolate, and citrus.
Victoria gasped as a wave of power broke across her mind. It felt as if a star had burst inside her head. And then the energy began to build. It started in the crown of her head, rippled along her spine and exploded through her body.
I must be shining like a beacon, she thought, the light glowing through my pores.
“There,” she heard the magician say.
Victoria opened her eyes to find herself looking down at him. She was floating in the middle of the room!
For the first time in her life, Victoria felt a surge of excitement and she couldn’t help but grin. Her head was inches from the chandelier, and she reached up and spun it just for the sheer fun of it. It turned, sending the dust from its crystals raining down upon the magician.
Below, in a corner of the room, stood a pile of colorfully wrapped boxes. Birthday gifts. She hadn’t bothered opening them and wouldn’t now. Because not one could compare with what she had in this moment; the only thing she’d ever dreamt of.
“You’ve done it, girl,” the magician said as his daughter slumped in a chair beside him, her breathing shallow. “You have your wish. Use it wisely while you can.”
Victoria barely heard him. All she could focus on was levitating in the air.
Flying!
“Don’t forget to return as soon as you use the third egg. You must keep your side of the deal.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?” Victoria coughed, praying he wouldn’t see the blush she could feel blossoming across her cheeks. He was staring right into her eyes now, as if trying to read her intentions, so she looked instead to the thick drapes covering the windows and flew to them, wrenching them apart. Outside, the ornamental garden was dusted with snow, the hills in the distance soft and white. They looked as if they were covered in a layer of icing sugar. A giant birthday cake just for her.
She opened the window and recoiled as a blast of cold air rushed into the room. Victoria dipped back down and swept her shawl from the back of the chair and pulled it on, grinning as the magician continued to study her.
“You must come straight back here, girl,” he reminded. “Don’t forget.”
“Of course I won’t,” Victoria said, sailing from the room and soaring through the window.
As Victoria left the shadow of the house, snowflakes fell around her, swirling to the ground, which was now several feet below. She rose into the air and spun like a ballet dancer, catching snowflakes in her outstretched hands and crying out for the sheer magic of it all.
Victoria glanced back to the house, wondering if anyone could see her. She pictured the look on her father’s face, his eyebrow raised ever so slightly, her mother’s expression a mask of outrage. Victoria laughed and waved to the house as she swept round and sailed up into the air, higher now that her initial caution had faded.
The garden below looked like a miniature scene. The rosebushes were like tiny models, the row of hawthorn trees leading to the pond stunted and white, their branches bare, twisted limbs.
Victoria soared down, shooting inches above the tree tops as her breath billowed from her lips like smoke. She imagined she was a dragon and roared, picturing everything burning in her path, the staid symmetry of the ornamental garden ablaze. Her father’s favorite haunt, the place he cherished more than his own flesh and blood, now cinders against the snow.
Victoria’s mocking laughter filled the air as she flew over the great pond at the end of the garden, its waters a solid disc of ice. It looked as if a giant silver-blue coin had been dropped from the heavens, and at its center that tired old statue, a distant ancestor frozen in time.
Victoria waved and flew on.
But as she climbed back into the air, an almighty flash ripped through the center of her head, blinding her with a bright white light. Victoria froze as the sky above and the land below vanished.
She found herself running through a poppy field. Only it wasn’t her, it was a young man, and he was chasing a girl, and both of them were laughing. All the boy could think about was how he’d give anything for this girl, and as he looked at her, his heart felt as if it would explode.
And then the boy was somewhere else, stooped in a room of shadows. Before him rested a book with a row of signatures and heavy black writing in a strange, foreign language. The boy was terrified, but his longing for the girl forced hi
s hand as he signed his name upon the page. And as he placed a dot next to his name, Victoria was transported away, shooting across the countryside and into a tunnel and through a rotten door into an entirely different place.
An entirely darker place.
The vision continued to soar at a terrible pace, shooting across the center of a street of blackened stone. Up it went, flying towards a tall dark house at the end of a row of disheveled buildings. From one of the cracked windows, someone whistled a strange, haunting melody.
Victoria tried to fight the vision, crying and screaming, pleading not to be taken into that room, not to see its terrible occupant…
Another flash scorched her eyes, and Victoria found herself hanging above the countryside once more, treading the air as if it were water. She took a deep breath, rubbing her eyes and wishing she could scrub the images of that cracked window from her memory.
“It was nothing,” she told herself as she focused on smothering the dark and insidious vision, which still tried to take root in her mind.
The energy that had initially coursed through her was ebbing. Victoria reached into her pocket and withdrew one of the remaining two eggs and placed it upon her tongue. Moments later, it burst, filling her mouth with an abundance of flavors and fragrances. She could taste toffee, thyme, and lemon, and her head was filled with the scent of old books, freshly mown lawns, and the earthy damp of an autumnal forest floor. As the light coursed through Victoria, she gasped, kicking her feet and forcing herself to remain aloft.
And then she stretched out, wheeling in the air.
Victoria glanced down at her house; from up here it looked like a dollhouse with tiny lamps burning within. Nothing like the home she’d grown up in, that dark, looming place that had smothered her in terrible, maudlin despair. But she was free of that now, free of her mother and father and the grim faces of the long-suffering servants.
Free from all of it.
She filled the sky with laughter. “I’m never going back!”
Above, dirty white clouds lay heavily across the sky, their underbellies gray and swollen with snow. Victoria climbed towards them, determined, just for a moment, to stand upon one. It was her childhood dream, and today was her birthday, and what better day could there be to see her dream made real?
Victoria clamped her arms tightly to her sides, flying faster and faster. As she rose, her clothes billowed about while freezing air battered against her. The temperature was dropping further, but the remaining egg in her pocket, coupled with the energy surging through her, enveloped her in a powerful heat. Victoria looked down. The ground was so far away that the garden was little more than a small white patch with distant black specks for trees. And then she found herself passing through a cloud.
It felt as if she were wrapped in a soft, damp fog.
“Hello!” she called, snatching at the cloud, trying to grab a part of it. But all she was left with was wet, chilled hands.
The novelty of being inside the cloud soon wore off. It was no different from being in mist. Victoria focused on climbing up and, moments later, she shot through the cloud, emerging into sunlight.
It was so bright that she threw her hands over her eyes, slowly releasing them as she drank in the sight of the deep blue sky. “It’s beautiful.” How strange it was, she thought, to be surrounded by sunlight while the land below was covered in snow.
As she soared towards the sun, a second flash ripped through her head, forcing her to stop.
Victoria found herself back in the dark street, her vision hovering once more before the cracked window, the sight of it filling her with a nauseating terror. No matter how she screamed and yelled, nothing seemed able to break the vision.
And then she saw herself. Or at least, she saw the owner of her vision, its black wings beating furiously as it hovered near the window, a dark reflection in cracked glass. It was the thing she’d glimpsed in the pouch of colored eggs, a thing of many limbs and a shiny black shell. Hundreds of tiny legs raced below its body, each covered in spurs and spikes, viscous green liquid dripping from their tips. Its head was long and narrow, two feelers reaching out above a row of tiny black eyes. It clutched a vivid, cherry-red egg within its pincers.
This egg was so much brighter than the ones Victoria had glimpsed in the pouch. It brimmed and hummed with intensity and vitality.
At least for now. Knowledge began to seep into her mind, no doubt from the creature whose vision she shared. In moments it would take the egg, which was a soul, into the room where it would be harvested. Soon after, its color and sparkle would dim.
The creature landed on the wall beside the window and slithered across the dark brickwork. It hesitated for a moment before slipping through the shattered pane, taking Victoria with it. They scuttled together down a damp, mold-ridden wall and onto a filthy, bare floorboard before stopping.
The room was covered from floor to ceiling with all manner of bric-a-brac. Heaps of empty sacks sat next to piles of house bricks. A series of chipped cups rested upon a mound of ragged clothes; above them hung an ancient wheelbarrow. The creature flew over a chamber pot full of broken china dolls, joining a throng of bulbous, buzzing flies.
Somewhere within the grime and squalor, someone, or something, whistled a melancholy tune. All at once Victoria knew, beyond a doubt, that she mustn’t look at the whistler—for it was the Collector, and one look at it could shatter her sanity.
The creature flew now, taking Victoria through the mountains of rotten, discarded things as it sought its master, his haunting whistle growing as he called his servant. As they drew closer, a great itch grew inside Victoria’s skull and she summoned every part of her will to come away from this hellish place.
To be taken back to where she belonged.
It worked, and the scene faded before her eyes. The last thing she saw of the room was an immense, warty hand with long strips of yellowed nails reaching for the creature and the fresh soul it carried.
Victoria clamped a hand over her mouth. Her stomach convulsed as she retched, but nothing passed her lips. She tried to block out the nausea, instead focusing on her surroundings. She was still hovering in the air above the clouds. “I have to get back to the ground.”
She’d flown as far away from the magician as she could. And she would do anything now but surrender her soul to the thing that burrowed within the pouch. The creature that hid beneath the souls of the other poor unfortunates who had forsaken themselves.
Victoria had lived today. Really lived. And she wasn’t ready to die or face oblivion.
The energy pulsing within her began to ebb, her grip in the air faltering. At any moment she could plunge back to earth. Even if she let that happen, it would make no difference. Death would elude her, of that she was sure. The Collector would never let her off so easily.
No, she had to get away, to run. Not for her life, but for her very soul.
Victoria reached into her pocket, withdrew the last egg, and placed it upon her tongue. This time, when the flavors came, she ignored them, their taste bittersweet with the knowledge of what they were.
Someone else’s life. Someone else’s soul.
The power surged through her with such force that it felt as if her blood were on fire.
Victoria didn’t waste a moment as she turned in the air until she was upside down and let herself fall, piercing the cloud below like an arrow. She urged herself on, shooting through the other side of the cloud and emerging back into the bleak winter afternoon.
Down and down she swept, the land growing and rising before her. She waited until she was thirty or so feet from the ground before slowing her descent and hanging still over the thick layer of snow.
In the distance, her house loomed like a black box upon the landscape, its lights so inviting in the wintry gloom. Victoria looked away towards the nearby hill. A ring of beech trees crowned its peak. If she could reach them, she could use the trees as cover before making her way to the village nestled below.
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The magician and his dying daughter would come after her, of course, eager to claim Sophia’s prize of oblivion. But she would find somewhere to hide. Perhaps she could reach sanctuary in the home of some god-fearing soul and wait until the magician and his Devilish wrath passed them by.
All she had to do was survive the night, and tomorrow at dawn she would make her way to the city. Then she could start a new life, become someone else altogether, someone they would never find.
But what of her signature in the book of souls?
Could the Collector somehow use it to find her? Victoria crossed her fingers until they ached, praying to never have to see that beast again, to never go back to that squalid room.
She flew towards the circle of trees and was close to the hill when something urged her to turn.
A thrill of horror coursed through her as distant light spilled from the doorway of the house.
The magician.
“He knows,” Victoria whispered. “Knows I’m running away!”
Her terror seemed to affect her power of flight. She turned back from the house, dipping low and soaring over hedgerows, praying the fading energy would take her to the circle of trees. Victoria landed as the last of the power ebbed away. Her feet struck the icy ground, sending her stumbling on as she fought to stay upright.
She threw a glance back across the white fields to the house. A black speck was moving away from the building, crossing the snowy waste and heading towards her.
The magician’s carriage.
He’d seen her, of course. He’d probably been watching her all the way up into the clouds. And like a fool, she’d come back down to the same place. And now he knew exactly where she was. His carriage sped on. Victoria dug her nails into her palms, picturing the horses churning through the snow, their master poised furiously above as he cracked his whip.
Victoria made for the trees. She only needed to hide until nightfall, which was surely minutes away, and then she could make her way to the village. She looked down, her eyes smarting with tears as she saw her trail of footprints dark against the snow. She wasn’t going to escape. There was nowhere to hide from him, for all he had to do was follow her tracks.
The Book of Kindly Deaths Page 7