Always a Witch

by Carolyn Maccullough

  Liam steps from the butler's body as neatly as if he's walking through a doorway. Instantly, Mr. Tynsdell's body collapses like a marionette whose strings have just been snipped.

  "Are you all right, old chap?" Liam says in his regular voice. "Shall I get some help?"

  Mr. Tynsdell looks up at him as if peering through a fog. He blinks, blinks again, and tries to scramble to his feet. I bite my lower lip. He hasn't been exactly nice to me, but there's something horrible about witnessing his lost expression and slackened features.

  And there's something even more horrible about the smirk curling across Liam's face. Knotting my fingers into fists, I wish for the seventeenth time that I hadn't lost my ability to throw fire. Because the whole place would be an inferno right about now.

  "I'm sorry, sir. I must have ... fainted?" Mr. Tynsdell says, and there's weariness in his voice.

  "Working too hard, most likely," Liam says. "I'll have a word with your employers," he adds, and then bursts into laughter. Mr. Tynsdell smiles weakly as if he's heard this one before. They both start toward the door.

  I zip down the hallway and dart into the next room, praying that it's empty. Fortunately, it is. I seem to have landed in a library. Three of the walls are lined with bookshelves. The fourth contains yet another massive fireplace, which is flanked on either side by more floor-to-ceiling tapestries. Any other time, I would stop to examine the books on the shelves, all of them first editions no doubt, but now I press my ear to the closed door and wait until a thick silence is on the other side. Then I peek out. The hallway is empty. Inching the door open, I slip back into the salon that Liam and Mr. Tynsdell have just left. All of my focus is on the tapestry where Rosie disappeared.

  I regard the pale gold unicorn with sympathy, noting the cruel twisted expression embroidered on each hunter's face before lifting the edge of the tapestry and slipping behind it the way Rosie did. The smell of old wool is suddenly overpowering. As a sneeze starts to build somewhere in the back of my nose, I stretch my fingers out in the pitch black and encounter what feels like a wooden panel. A door of some kind. I push inward and it gives beneath my hand. A cool draft of air rushes across my face and I step forward. I wind my way through what feels like a narrow tunnel of dank stone, a soft drip-drip batting at my ears until suddenly the space widens into a little square cell. Dim light filters across the flagstone floor, coming from a grate that's set in the wall at about eye level.

  After a second I tiptoe forward and press my face against the black bars. I peer out into La Spider's study. I seem to be in a hidden tunnel in the wall opposite to the fireplace. If I angle my body, I can see the spot where I was just standing a few moments ago. And La Spider's profile. She is still sitting in her chair, now writing something swiftly on a square of white paper with a glass pen. I bite my lip. Even though I can't fully see her face, I can tell from the way she holds her head, from the slashing strokes of her arm, from the rigid line of her neck, that she is angry. Deeply angry.

  A soft knock comes at the door, and La Spider lifts her head. "Come in," she intones, and from my vantage point I can just see the door handle turn and then a girl enter the room. She advances three paces and then stops. "Mother," the girl says tonelessly.

  I examine Jessica Knight with fascination. Apparently, Liam got all the looks in the family, because his sister is small and stocky and her brown hair barely shines at all under the soft glow of the chandelier. Her round face is the color of dirty snow, but I'd bet money that has more to do with the fact that she's standing in front of her mother and less to do with her complexion in general.

  "Sit," her mother commands. Before Jessica can respond, an empty chair skids across the room and comes within an inch of slamming into her shins.

  Jessica's face blanches to an even less-flattering hue. But then she surprises me by saying, "Will I be allowed to sit of my own volition, or will you cram me into the chair like a doll?"

  "Don't try me," La Spider says in that same controlled voice.

  Spreading her dark blue skirts gracefully, as if she's just been invited to a tea party, Jessica sits down. Then she lifts her blunt chin and stares pointedly at her mother. I feel an unwilling surge of admiration for her.

  "I have just heard that you tried to break off your engagement with Edward Newcastle over the weekend." La Spider's fingers run down the length of her pen.

  "How did you hear—? Oh, never mind. I knew you'd find out somehow. Anyway, I succeeded. We won't be married." Jessica's voice is once again devoid of expression, but one hand twitches in her lap.

  La Spider pushes back her chair and crosses to a small side table at one edge of the room. She is out of my direct line of sight, but I can hear the faint chink of crystal and then the spill of liquid being poured into a glass. Then, with a soft swish of her skirts, she moves back into view holding two glasses full of a dark liquid. The color of rust. Or old blood.

  "And why did you attempt to break off the engagement, if I may ask?" Lady Knight says, and holds out one glass to her daughter. Apparently she's decided to ignore her daughter's assertion that she succeeded.

  Jessica pauses, then reaches up and takes the glass, but doesn't drink from it. Instead, she focuses on the contents as she smiles slightly. "If you must know, Mother, I find him repulsive. Or maybe I find it repulsive that you so badly want me to marry him." The second time she says repulsive, she looks directly up at La Spider, who is still standing over her.

  La Spider turns her head and stares at the wall for a second. And then, like a tiny cross bolt, the pen on her desk flies through the air, its sharp tip hovering an inch above Jessica's right eye.

  I draw in a shallow breath.

  "If you maim me, Mother, how willing do you think anyone will be to marry me? They all want your money, yes, but I doubt that even your wealth will be enough to make a man take on a half-blind wife." Here Jessica lowers her voice to a mock whisper. "Whatever would society say?" Then she gestures at the pen, still hovering above her face, flicking the sharp tip with one finger.

  La Spider's lips widen into a red slash of a smile. "Perhaps you're right. But there are other ways to maim you that aren't so visible." The pen zooms downward to the level of Jessica's heart as La Spider strolls back to her desk. "Your music tutor, Mr. Finnegan, appears to be a little lovesick these days."

  Jessica freezes in her chair. "I ... I don't know what you're talking about," she says at last.

  "Oh no?" La Spider sets the glass down on her desk, then picks up a small square of cream-colored paper. She dangles it from her fingers as if it's a fish caught on a line. "My dearest Jessica," she begins, her cold voice chipping away at the words. "It is late at night as I write this and all I can think of is you. Your eyes, your—"

  "Stop," Jessica shrieks. Her cheeks are two red flags, and she has half risen from her chair.

  The pen hovers motionless in the air.

  La Spider looks up from the letter, one eyebrow arched. "I must say, Mr. Finnegan is quite ... ardent."

  "How did you get that letter? No one ... I should have burned it," Jessica finishes at last, sinking back in her seat.

  "Do you think you can hide anything from me?" La Spider says, her voice soft and pitying. The pen dances mockingly. "To your health. And to Mr. Finnegan's continued health," she adds, then raises her glass and swallows half the contents. She raises one eyebrow again. "You won't drink?"

  Jessica examines her own glass. "No, thank you, Mother. I don't care for this ... vintage that you and Liam seem to love so much."

  La Spider shrugs, then drinks again. "I do find that it gives me such a zest for life, such a vitality."

  I study Jessica's face. From this distance, I can't tell, but it seems that tears are oozing down her cheeks. "It seems you're running low again, Mother. What next? You can't keep losing lady's maids, you know, even if they don't have any family. People will start to talk. Wasn't Livie the fourth one to have disappeared?"

  "She wouldn't have died,
" La Spider says lightly. "Not if you hadn't been so stubborn."

  "Stubborn?" Jessica says with a brief laugh.

  "Enough," La Spider says. With a swift movement, she flicks the letter into the fireplace. Flames eat the paper within seconds. I watch Jessica's eyes briefly close then open again. Her expression is once again blank, impassive.

  "Edward Newcastle will be given to understand that you are a stupid young girl." Here La Spider pauses and looks at her daughter again. "Which is nothing but the truth. He will understand that you were overcome with a fit of nerves and therefore your engagement is back on. You will not attempt to break it off again. Is that clear?"

  Jessica glances down at the pen, daggerlike, still hovering over her heart. Suddenly, she reaches out, snatches the pen, and with one move rakes the sharp quill tip across her bare arm. Blood boils to the surface of her skin, spills over from the edges of the cut. In a low, emotionless tone, Jessica says, "I wish on all the elements that I could drain this away. Then I would be no different from those ordinary, filthy humans you so love to use."

  La Spider gazes at her daughter, her profile serene. "Heal yourself," she says quietly. "Before you ruin my carpet."

  Jessica shrugs, and presses her right hand against the seep of blood. Then she takes her hand away, wipes it on her skirt.

  La Spider sighs, then says, "Need I remind you that Edward Newcastle is a rising political star? That one day, with our help, he will be the president of this country? Need I remind you of what power that will bring to us all? Any girl would trade places with you in a second."

  "They would regret that soon enough," Jessica murmurs, and she closes her eyes as if exhausted. "May I go now?"

  "You may," La Spider says, and she turns back to her papers as Jessica shuffles up from her chair. "Oh," La Spider says, and her tone is lighter.

  Jessica pauses at the door but doesn't turn back.

  "I've hired a new maid for you."

  "How long will this one last, I wonder. Until Liam kills her in one of his experiments," Jessica says, and I can't decide if I'm more horrified at her words or at the casual tone in which she utters them.

  "Well, if he does, we'll just have to find another one," La Spider replies almost absently as she selects another pen and pulls a fresh sheet of writing paper from an ornate golden stand on her desk. Then she lifts her head and stares into the fire. "She has no family, apparently, so that's something. I'll never hire another girl with family. It's such a nuisance."

  "You mean it's such a nuisance to kill them if the family comes asking questions? Yes, I can see how that could really put you off your dinner, Mother," Jessica comments dryly.

  La Spider waves her hand through the air as if swatting a fly and returns her gaze to the desk. Jessica opens her mouth as if she's about to add something else, but then seems to change her mind in favor of pulling open the door and leaving the room.

  I press my lips together to keep from screaming. It's very clear why Horace seemed so eager to bring me to Rosie once I told him that I didn't have any family and why Liam seemed so willing to hire me. And why Rosie didn't even care that he was flirting with me in the kitchen.

  Until Liam kills her in one of his experiments.

  I find myself praying that my borrowed Talent of freezing people doesn't desert me just when I need it the most.

  Eleven

  I HURRY BACK ALONG THE passageway, my hands outstretched like a blind person's until I literally run into the small grated door. Fighting my way free of the smothering wool tapestry, I emerge once again into the salon, which is still thankfully empty. Then I lean against a bookshelf and stare at the empty fireplace. Either Dawn or Lily, the two housemaids, must have scoured it this morning, because not one single speck of ash mars the pristine marble. Restless, I pace to the large multipaned windows that line one side of the room. Dusk is creeping along the sills, edging the frames and gathering under the trees of Madison Square Park. All along the street, gas lamps have flared to life. Most of the din of the street is blocked out, but I can still hear the faint creaking of carriage wheels and a persistent ringing noise, which I pinpoint from a vendor who is lugging a small wagon behind him. Even in the gloom I can make out a brightly painted pair of scissors and a knife on one side of his cart. Every so often he stops, puts his hands to his mouth, and cries out, "Razors, scissors, knives to grind!" I follow his progress up the street, and then my eyes flicker back.

  There is a man standing on the street corner opposite the house. Draped in a dark coat, he waits just outside of the circle of light cast by a gas lamp. In the bustling street, he alone is perfectly still. Something about the way he is standing makes me think he's been stationed there for a while. I lean forward, craning my neck, but it's no use. I can't make out his features. My first thought is that it's Alistair. But he's carrying a cane, and also he seems shorter than Alistair, and thicker. Just then he looks up, directly at me. And then suddenly the light from the street lamp winks out.

  I back away from the window and sink down into a leather-covered chair. My head is whirling, and when I press my fingers to my eyes, it only makes it worse. Images of La Spider and her flying pen, Jessica's bleeding arm that suddenly wasn't bleeding a minute later, and Mr. Tynsdell spinning Rosie around and around the room and then Liam stepping out of the butler's body all scurry past my eyelids until I feel like my brain is swelling up inside my skull.

  "Focus, Tam," I mutter to myself, and the images flicker, then recede. Okay. So far I've discovered that Alistair hasn't arrived yet. Good. That Liam and La Spider are presumably experimenting and killing housemaids and drinking their blood. There's no telling if they're also already controlling humans the way Alistair could control my sister. And presumably they haven't started experimenting on people with Talents.

  Yet.

  Without realizing it, I've gotten to my feet and have been pacing the length of the library, back and forth. Now more than ever it's crucial to find the Greenes and warn them. Before Alistair visits again.

  Gabriel.

  On the one hand, I could really use some help right now of the Gabriel kind. On the other hand, if La Spider and Liam get their claws into him...

  There are other ways to maim you that aren't so visible. La Spider's voice oozes through my head. If she would do that to her own daughter, what wouldn't she do?

  Digging my fingers into my temples, I come to a comlete stop by one bookcase-lined wall. "I can't let you," I say as if Gabriel is actually standing in front of me. Rowena probably backed down by now. No, she must have at least tried to use her Talent to compel him to stay in the twenty-first century; otherwise he'd be here already. But she could change her mind at any minute and decide to stop compelling him. Think, think, think.

  I summon my grandmother's words, trying to take comfort in them. It's up to you to allow when a person's Talent can work on you and when it can't. It's entirely your choice. Closing my eyes, I sink inward, pouring all of my Talent into a silent mantra. Don't find me, don't find me, don't find me. I resist, I resist, I resist.

  I cross to the door with those words echoing through me.

  "Wake up, Tam," Agatha's annoyingly cheerful morning voice greets me.

  "Ugh," I mumble, and roll away from her hovering presence, pulling my comforter over my head. But then my feet are bare and suddenly freezing and my comforter feels thinner than usual.

  "Wake up or you'll be late for your first day," Agatha insists, her voice blurring into the raindrops pattering against the windows. Then the covers are yanked back and a pain twists through my upper arm.

  "Ow," I shriek, bolting upright in bed. "What the—"

  Rosie is standing over my bed, fully dressed in her black uniform, her face freshly scrubbed and her hair smoothly pinned into a neat chignon.

  I rub my arm, staring at the red marks on my skin. "Thanks," I mutter.

  She shrugs. "You don't want to be late on your first day. Lady Jessica will want her morning chocolate in fifte
en minutes and you'd better be ready."

  Sighing, I put my feet on the floor, then immediately retract them to the scant warmth of the bed. Apparently, rich nineteenth-century employers don't believe in a trivial thing like heat in the servants' quarters. I blink up at Rosie's unsympathetic face and then across at her neatly made bed. Her neatly made, clearly unslept-in-all-night bed.

  After stumbling to the dresser, I pick up the white enameled pitcher and slop a few inches of water into the wide-lipped basin. I set the pitcher back down on the dresser, and then there's no more delaying. I plunge my hands into the ice water and splash my face once, twice. Gasping for breath, I reach for the thin cotton towel that seems incapable of drying anything. I scrub at my face with it, more to get the blood circulating than anything else, and then yawn my way into my clothes.

  Through all this Rosie watches me impassively, and finally, when I present myself to her, she nods once. "Twenty minutes after you bring Lady Jessica her morning chocolate, you will come back and help her get dressed. She has a music lesson at a quarter to ten in the drawing room, so a shirtwaist and her blue poplar skirt will do. Then she is to take lunch with the Ladies Auxiliary Charity, so she'll need to dress in a gray wool, most likely. Then she'll go coaching in the afternoon and perhaps a bit of shopping, so her gray wool with her scarlet cape and fur muff for that, and then tonight is their night at the theater ... Are you listening to all of this?" Rosie plunks one hand on her hip.

  But I can't help it. My eyes have wandered to our little dormer window, checking the street corner where that man was standing the night before. Pieces of last night's dreams trickle through my head.

  "Agatha!"

  I straighten to attention. "Yeah—yes. Gray wool, fur muff, blue poplar, got it. Music lesson, charity lunch, coaching, shopping, theater." Sounds like a rough life.

  Rosie gives me a look. "I'll manage," I say to her now. She rolls her eyes and I decide to refrain from asking her just when is my day off.