The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle

by Janet Fox

  “Nicely done, Rob, Peter,” Kat said. “Very nicely done.”

  Both boys stood up straighter.

  “Well. So much for our German spy,” said Peter. “Now we just have to alert the authorities and let them take care of Mr. Storm.”

  “Sturm!” he shouted up. “Otto Sturm!” And he tacked on a string of words that Kat imagined were not very kind, and she was grateful none of the children knew German.

  “Look, Kat,” Amelie said. She was holding the flour sack.

  “Oh, Ame, brilliant!” said Kat. “How did you manage it?”

  “It was magic,” she said with a shrug.

  Kat knew better than to contradict her sister now.

  As they made their way back to the new castle, they saw a line of black automobiles trailing into the bailey and policemen in uniform swarming out in all directions.

  “How did they know to come?” mused Kat. “Maybe MacLarren and Gumble?”

  It emerged that a letter had arrived for Great-Aunt Margaret, written in what looked like Kat’s hand. Kat gaped openmouthed, for she’d written no such letter, but there it was, waved about, regaling her great-aunt with tales of German spies set to invade British shores. In fact, a U-boat presumably waiting to connect with Sturm had been located, and new fortifications were planned for construction all along the North Sea right away, all thanks to Kat’s warning.

  She fiddled with the chatelaine, now back together in her pocket. The pen “will write of its own accord,” her great-aunt had said. Perhaps it had.

  But the best surprise came shortly after they reached the castle. MacLarren and Gumble emerged from an auto with the encryption machine. MacLarren marched up to Kat and said, “Well, lass, our ruse worked. Thanks to your cracking the code, we were able to make the connection. We tricked them into freeing Jack. Convinced them he was one of their own, a double agent, and needed to assist Mr. Storm in Rookskill Castle. Seems they were sure Storm was onto an important artifact.” MacLarren thumbed over his shoulder at the auto and said, “And Jack, here, was key to assisting Storm, since he knows Lord Craig.”

  From behind him another man stepped from the auto. Jack. A man who smiled in a so-familiar way. And who, as he approached them looking haggard and spent, said, over and over, “I’m so sorry, my loves. I’m so sorry.”

  “Father!” Kat couldn’t help herself; she wept into his collar as he held her and her brother and sister in a tight hug. And she forgave him completely.

  Wishes, thought Kat as she hugged and wept and hugged again, do come true.

  66

  The Well

  THE AUTHORITIES TOOK the bat-stinking spy Otto Sturm away in a paddy wagon, while everyone else gathered in the kitchen. The twelve children, plus Cook, Marie, Hugo, MacLarren, Gumble, and “Jack,” had a magnificent breakfast thanks to Cook, and all were especially pleased when Hugo went upstairs and brought Lord Craig down in a chair to join them.

  “I should have known Jack was you,” Kat said to Father. “I should have remembered about the bell strike.” Her father winked.

  Kat plied him with questions. Some he could answer.

  “But what was the mission?” she asked.

  “Now, Kitty, you know I can’t tell you that.” His eyes gleamed despite the fact that he looked thin and tired. “But you should know that you’ve done a great thing.” He touched the flour sack with the chatelaine.

  “This is a dangerous weapon of great power,” said Gumble. “If it had fallen into the wrong hands . . . Well, I hate to think.”

  “But the Lady wasn’t about to give it up except by force,” Peter said.

  “True,” said Gumble. “And she had spelled our Mr. Storm—Sturm—by trying to turn him into her dear husband. That way she could replace the real Lord Craig with the fake, since she deemed Storm to be a less honorable and more malleable sort than her clever husband, and with Lord Craig’s replacement she could retain her title and lands. On her way to bigger and better things.”

  Lord Craig grumbled. He was looking ever so much better now.

  “In fact,” continued Gumble, “she’d cast a confounding spell about the entire castle and enchantments upon all of the adults here, though each adult was given a different enchantment.”

  “That’s why the castle seemed so confusing. The hallways and such,” said Rob, nodding. “But why give us the drugged hot chocolate? Why didn’t she just spell us all and take us in our sleep?”

  “The kinds of spells that work on adults don’t work on children,” Gumble said. “You are too young and innocent to be confused by complications, except in the case of the castle itself. I speculate that her charms on you had to be worked in a certain way, and slowly. This is powerful magic.”

  “What about the wolves?” Rob asked.

  “Ah,” said Gumble, and placed her finger alongside her nose. “The Lady set them out after Mr. MacLarren and me as we reached the shore where we were to meet Jack. You stumbled upon that same magic, and thank goodness you had your chatelaine. Fortunately for Mr. MacLarren and myself, I know a few magical tricks of my own. But that prevented us from returning to you until we’d secured Jack.”

  “You are not real teachers, then?” asked Isabelle. She pointed at MacLarren. “You do not know maths?”

  “Humph,” said MacLarren. “We were recruited and trained especially. I most certainly do know my maths, lassie. And Miss Gumble knows her English.”

  “We’re part of a special division of the war department,” said Gumble. “Our mandate is to ferret out unusual things the Nazis might set against us. But I cannot say more than that.”

  Kat knew more than that, but she kept silent.

  Kat’s father spoke up. “We’ve got a bit of cleanup and some decision-making here.”

  “Right,” said Kat, slipping her hand into her father’s with a happy sigh.

  They swept up the parts of the Lady that were scattered throughout the castle and stuffed them into a second flour sack. Kat fingered the copper heart—still finding it beautiful—before closing the sack’s drawstrings.

  Then the decision: what to do with the sack of parts, the thimble, and the charms she’d collected from the children, as well as the Lady’s chatelaine itself? For, Kat wondered, if the thimble held the Lady’s soul, then she might not really be gone.

  Magic, as Kat now knew, was powerful stuff. And required payment. She flexed her right hand.

  Cook had made a batch of good hot chocolate, and they all gathered around the table in the dining hall to debate the issue.

  “I say we burn everything,” said Rob. “There’s nothing like burning to get rid of black magic.”

  Kat heard general murmurs of assent.

  “But what if burning the charms is bad for us?” asked Isabelle. “What if they still have some little piece of us? They were ours for a time, oui? Maybe we should each have our own charms to keep.”

  “I don’t know,” said Peter. “I don’t think I want to touch mine again. It felt like it was . . . alive, or something.”

  “Plus, burning them might not destroy the magic. And scattering them around with each of us seems a bad idea,” said Colin. “Who knows what they might do to us in our sleep?”

  “There’s a well out back,” said John. “We could dump them all down the well.”

  “Aye, that’s a deep well,” said Lord Craig. “And as long as a Duncaster inhabits this castle, we will make it our oath to watch over that well.” He coughed a little. “I’m hoping Miss Deirdre Brodbeem will assist me in this task during my remaining years as lord of these lands.”

  Cook looked fondly at Lord Craig. Yes, she was actually quite pretty, Kat saw, and she seemed genuinely younger, now, and less like a sack of potatoes. It wouldn’t have surprised Kat if the jealous Lady had given Cook that lumpy, aged appearance.

  “But the thimble,” s
aid Colin. “I don’t think the thimble should be in the well with the parts and all. What if, what if . . . she . . .” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “What if she escaped?”

  They all stared at the thimble as it lay at the center of the table. Kat could have sworn it still glowed.

  “I agree,” said Rob.

  “Me too,” said Peter.

  “What do you think, Miss Gumble?” Kat asked.

  “I think . . . I think we should ask Jack.”

  “Father?” Kat said.

  He stirred. “Things that have great power generally have a way of showing up again, no matter what. I think the thimble needs a bit of safe-keeping, and shouldn’t be away out of sight. If Lord Craig can keep watch over the Lady’s chatelaine in the well, and no one else knows its whereabouts, then for the time being the Nazis won’t be able to get their hands on it. As to the thimble, someone must protect that.”

  “We’re lucky. We’ve got a free society. So let’s vote on it,” Kat said. “Who’s for dropping the whole lot of the Lady’s chatelaine and parts and all, everything except for the thimble, into the well?”

  All hands went up.

  “And what about the thimble?” Kat asked.

  “I think you should keep it, Kat,” said Amelie.

  Tim nodded. “You.”

  Everyone chimed in, little by little.

  “Because, really,” said Amelie, “it belongs on your chatelaine. Which is also magic.”

  Kat’s face grew warm. “Oh.” She bit her lip. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “But if it wasn’t for you, none of us would be here,” said John. “You figured it out and did the trick. You saved us all.”

  “You used good magic, Kat,” said Amelie.

  Now Kat’s face grew positively hot. John was right. And she almost hadn’t. She hadn’t believed in what Great-Aunt Margaret had told her. She’d nearly lost the chatelaine. She almost hadn’t tried the pen or the scissors or the thimble. And she hadn’t believed in herself.

  She swallowed and said, “Are you sure?”

  “We’re sure,” said Jorry. “We’re positive.”

  All the children’s eyes were on her. Hugo and Marie and Cook and Lord Craig and the teachers and her father watched her, too. She wasn’t a grown-up yet, but this was a big responsibility. She picked up the thimble, which had become less heavy over time, and reattached it to the chain on her chatelaine, and stuck it in her pocket. “Right, then. Let’s go deal with the rest.”

  Everyone gathered around the well. Even Lord Craig came out—he was looking better by the hour. They dropped the sack with all the parts and pieces of the Lady into the well first and heard it splash after some seconds. And then in went the chatelaine with its thirteen charms.

  Two days later, Mum came with the parents of Peter, Isabelle, Colin, and Jorry to fetch them home. Somehow a letter had reached each of them as well. None of them, of course, knew what had really happened; the letters talked of mistakes made in the hiring of teachers.

  Kat was mystified by the letters, which Mum was certain had been written in Kat’s hand.

  There was a wonderful reunion between Father and Mum that Kat would never forget.

  The only thing that still bothered her was her right hand. She hadn’t told anyone about it, and didn’t think she could, so only Peter and Hugo knew. What would she say about it? It looked normal, and functioned—well, it was astonishing, really. It had saved her, in the end, by being strong, so she could grip the pen and the scissors and hold the thimble. And there was nothing she could do about it. For the moment, she decided to keep it a secret.

  She pulled Peter aside.

  “I have a favor to ask. Please don’t say anything to anyone about my hand.”

  Peter’s dark eyes searched Kat’s. “Okay. I won’t.”

  She smiled.

  “But it is a little frightening,” he said, glancing away. His hair had fallen across his forehead and over his eyes and he hadn’t pushed it back.

  Her smile faded. So she frightened Peter. Perhaps, she thought, this was the price she paid for using magic. She hoped it was the only price.

  Lord Craig invited all the parents to join him in the grand parlor. He was really quite well by this time. Peter and Kat snuck up to the door to hear what he had to say, and Kat could see Father and Mum. Lord Craig made a proposal to all the parents, right there.

  “I think this academy might be a brilliant idea, even if it didn’t live up to its original purpose. Why don’t you let the children stay until the bombing is truly over? We’ll get proper teachers for them. We’ve got plenty of food, what with the farm. And some of these little ones”—Lord Craig dropped his voice, and Kat knew he meant Rose, Tim, Brigit, Alice, and John—“have no other place to go, so they’ll be staying on anyway.”

  Mum caught Kat’s eye from across the room. Kat nodded. Her mum said, “I do think that it would be better for them than dodging the bombs.”

  One by one the other parents agreed, and Kat was secretly pleased, for she’d come to like the other children enormously—even Jorry, to a point, since he’d been humbled by his experience—and Lord Craig and Cook and Hugo and even Marie now that she was herself, and she had a feeling they would all be better off here than in London while the raids continued. For Kat, it was like being part of a very large extended family.

  Kat and her father and mother walked out through the chilly grounds. The evening was coming on, and the first star appeared in the night sky.

  Kat paused and made a silent wish.

  Mum said, “I’ve a message for you, Kat. Your great-aunt said to tell you not to fall to pieces over things.”

  Kat smiled. Her great-aunt was another mystery Kat would like to solve. “Please tell her that Scotland is a magical place.”

  Mum raised her eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Father.

  “And tell her . . .” Kat paused. She flexed the fingers of her right hand. She wasn’t quite whole, but she wasn’t in pieces, either. “I won’t fall to pieces now.”

  Two days later, Kat was working on homework in her room when Marie knocked.

  “Your father wants to see you in the small library.”

  The other parents had gone back to London, but Father had remained at Rookskill Castle to follow up with Gumble and MacLarren. All three were in the library when Kat arrived.

  “Please close the door, Kitty,” Father said. “And sit.” She did.

  “You’ve got a skill, lassie,” said MacLarren, “and no mistake.”

  “Good with puzzles,” said Gumble.

  “We know that the Lady Eleanor’s chatelaine was a powerful artifact, and that the Nazis have been seeking it,” said Father. “We’ve also uncovered information suggesting that other similar artifacts may have made their way to Scotland.”

  “Aye,” said MacLarren, “but we have no idea of the whereabouts of the rest of this treasure, or whether the items have been scattered or lost altogether.”

  “And,” said Gumble, “we’ve learned that the Nazis are willing to risk a great deal to find any or all of them. As you already know.”

  “So, dear girl,” said Father, “we are hoping that in the coming months, we can call on your skills from time to time.”

  A thrill ran through Kat. She could only nod.

  “Good. Now keep all this under your hat, will you?”

  “Yes, Father,” Kat said.

  “Oh,” he added, “and there’s a clock on the second floor that needs attention, if you would care to help me later today. And that watch, too. We need to repair that, don’t you think?”

  Kat smiled and hugged the watch to her wrist, happier than she’d been in a long time.

  67

  Time

  THE ROOK PERCHES on the edge of the well and casts one beady eye downward. Bir
ds have sharp eyes, especially rooks, and this rook can see it, that charm, that thirteen, the one fallen out of its sack, glowing in the depths with a faint blue light.

  The rook wants it, and would even venture down the deep shaft after it, had it not been for the shadow that creeps up from the woods behind and says, in a low mutter, “Be off!”

  Off, off, off! cries the rook as it flies away, startling the stoat that has just poked its nose into the air.

  War, war, war!

  The magister has lost his greatest creation, the Lady. He would weep, but he is not familiar with the concept of weeping and, besides, he has her in another form, and the more important parts of her at that. And he has the mangled hand of the girl as well, a small but powerful thing that may prove useful.

  He looks into the well and sees the charm, the thirteen, that glows soft blue, and vows to make the magic, the calling, the bringing of what lies inside the chest within his hut, and he will bend all his skills to this end. He has already paid the price for its use. It will take time, yes, but all things that are important take time. And the war, that turmoil that stirs the air, in which he takes no side but his own, the war will give him time, as it will rage for years to come.

  Yes, time, that’s all he requires. Magic bides its own time. He glances up at Rookskill Castle, now in shadow, warm yellow light and the laughter of children spilling from the tall windows. Time is what the magister needs; that, and a certain thimble kept on a certain chatelaine worn at the waist of a certain clever girl named Kat.

  Acknowledgments

  Sometimes scouring the Internet with no real purpose can yield unexpected results. This happened to me one wintery November day when my friend Dotti Enderle posted a picture on Facebook of an eighteenth-century German chatelaine. The decorative charms suspended from the chatelaine were so odd—indeed, unnerving—that I placed the picture on my desktop.