by Temre Beltz
“Like being sent to the dungeon or like . . . Drowning Bucket trouble?”
“It’s Mistress Octavia, and who can ever tell what she’s going to do?” Birdie said.
“Well, all right. Wh-what did you have in mind?”
“I need you to get Mistress Octavia’s attention. I need you to scream as loudly as you can, and as many times as you need to, in order to get her out of her Room of Sinister Plotting and into the dormitory.”
“Oh Birdie, you can’t still be thinking about—” Cricket began.
“Thinking about what?” Francesca interjected. “If I get Mistress Octavia in here, where are you going to be?”
Birdie took a deep breath. “I’m going to be in her Room of Sinister Plotting. I’m going to snatch her Council cloak and use it to leave the manor. I’m going to the Annual Witches’ Ball so that I can save Ralph, because he’s been kidnapped. By witches. By . . . my witch.”
The Tragicals in the room gasped. Mildred wrapped her arms tightly around the younger girls. Benjamin’s jaw dropped. Wasn’t this the precise sort of event they had been raised to fear? Wasn’t it even worse considering most Tragic Ends happened after the Tragical Oaths were signed? Not to mention with first Birdie’s—and now Ralph’s—life threatened, had the Tragicals finally begun to notice one another merely to have something much more painful to lose?
Francesca trembled. “But wh-why do you think Mistress Octavia will come when I call her?”
“Because you’re the best at tattling. And that makes you . . . the person we need more than ever. Will you help us? Will you help us save Ralph?”
“I—I never did like him much,” Francesca mumbled. “And this plan sounds like it’s doomed to fail. I mean, did you even hear yourself talking about witches? Multiple witches? A whole ball full of witches? And even if I call for Mistress Octavia, it’s not like you can just slip inside her room. It’s guarded by cobras trained to allow just two people to enter: Mistress Octavia and Sir Ichabod.”49
Birdie’s face lit up. “Sir Ichabod!” she cried.
But Cricket shook her head. “I don’t know, Birdie. I don’t think it’s even fair to ask him for help. Did you see his face when Mistress Octavia ordered him to bring in Sprinkles? If the same thing happens again—if this time, he’s dragging you to Mistress Octavia—I think it might crush him forever.”
Birdie squeezed Cricket’s hand. “I know, but I wasn’t going to ask him for help. I was thinking instead of what he smells like.”
“Smells like?” Cricket echoed. And then, with a quizzical expression: “Blueberries?”
“Yes! Blueberries! Quick, did anybody save some mush from dinnertime?” Birdie asked.
The Tragicals all began to dip into the pockets of their gowns; several of them emerged with whole handfuls of the sticky goo that they liked to snack on in the wee hours of the night. They hopped off their beds and shuffled toward Birdie, who began grabbing the mush and rubbing it all over her hands; smashing and smearing and smooshing it along her wrists, up to her elbows, and even beneath her fingernails.
“Ugh,” Francesca said, wrinkling her nose. “That is disgusting!”
“Nope, it’s genius,” Birdie said, wriggling her blue fingers. “Those snakes are trained to recognize Mistress Octavia and Sir Ichabod by the way they smell. Sir Ichabod spends all day long picking blueberries, boiling blueberries, and mashing blueberries. Those snakes will think I’m him for sure!”
The Tragicals began to buzz and stir. They nodded and grabbed hold of Birdie’s excitement, like it was a life preserver. Only Cricket remained quiet. She stepped toward Birdie and looked up into her eyes.
“Promise you won’t come back,” she said. Birdie opened her mouth to protest, but Cricket repeated more forcefully, “If you get Mistress Octavia’s cloak, if you fly out of the manor, you have to promise not to come back!”
“But friends are meant to be together,” Birdie said.
“No! If you come back, Mistress Octavia will still put you in the Drowning Bucket. Please, Birdie. If this works, you won’t have to die.”
Birdie hesitated. She hadn’t wanted Ralph to help her on the Plank. She had wanted to protect him, but now she was risking everything to do the very thing she asked him not to do. Although Birdie couldn’t remember reading anything about sacrifice in her storybook, she was watching it unfold right in front of her. Friends put one another first. And it wouldn’t be fair to expect anything less.
Birdie threw her arms around Cricket. “Let’s just wait and see,” she whispered. “Let’s just wait and see.”
The two friends held on to each other.
Tight.
Finally, with a nod from Birdie in Francesca’s direction, Francesca arched her head back in that oh-so-familiar position. She dug deep, and she bellowed loud and strong, “MISTRESS OC-TAV-I-A! MISTRESS OC-TAV-I-A!” the way she always did. The way she loved to do. Except this time Wanderly’s #1 Tragical and world-class tattletale was on their side.
Birdie lifted up the long hem of her black gown and ran as quickly as her feet would carry her. The floor of the manor seemed to run along with her, shortening the distance as she turned down one corridor and the next until the door of the Room of Sinister Plotting loomed out of the darkness. Unlike the rest of the manor’s gloomy interior, the door was painted a garish shade of red. And even from where Birdie stood, she could hear the three snakes—hisssssss—as they writhed over and around the doorknob, held captive in a glass box.
Birdie jumped when another of Francesca’s great and mighty screams barreled down the hallway. “MISTRESS OC-TAV-I-A! MISTRESS OC-TAV-I-A!!” Birdie barely had time to duck beneath the thick drape of a black-out curtain when the door to the Room of Sinister Plotting creaked open.
“MISTRESS OC-TAV-I-A! MISTRESS OC-TAV-I-A!!” came Francesca’s cry again.
“Oh, confound it!” Mistress Octavia said with a huff. “This better be worth my trouble.”
She slammed the door shut and swept within inches of Birdie. Birdie tucked her feet as close to the wall as she possibly could and tried to still her breathing so as not to make the curtain rise and fall. She waited until the sound of Mistress Octavia’s footsteps disappeared down the hallway, and then she scurried toward the door.
Birdie eyeballed the snakes. She pressed her hands into her pockets one last time for a fresh coating of blueberry mush. With her heart pounding, Birdie slid the small door to the left and stuck her hand inside the glass box.
The snakes froze. But only for a moment. Then they began to slither. They slithered close. One began to entwine itself around and around and around Birdie’s small, bony wrist. Birdie gasped at the feel of its cold scales and the ripple of its muscles as it began to tighten around her.
Birdie tried not to look at the snakes’ forked tongues as they flickered in and out. Slow at first, and then faster!
HISSSSSSSS. The snakes sang as they tasted her skin.
Birdie’s knees clattered in time to the wild drum of her heart.
HISSSSSS. The snakes sang merrily along. HISSSSSS. They wriggled about.
And then, just like that, they released her.
The rhythm of their tongues slowed. Birdie was free to move her fingers and twist open the door to the Room of Sinister Plotting. With the glass box shut tight, Birdie bent down and met the snakes’ cool gaze. Whether due entirely to the blueberries, or if the snakes were feeling particularly amicable that night, she whispered softly, “Thank you.”
Birdie stepped into the Room of Sinister Plotting. It was much larger than she imagined. Or perhaps the better word was “taller.” For it was an extraordinarily skinny room, and it’s ceiling did not stop at floor three or even floor three and one-half, but extended all the way up to the roof of Foulweather’s Home for the Tragical, where it was crowned with a spectacular glass window. Birdie arched her head backward. The stars winked at her. What a peculiar place for Mistress Octavia to spend her time.
But as Birdie’s
gaze fell back down, her eyes landed on an oversize painting of the Chancellor. Birdie cringed at the familiar sight of his ever-toothy grin. She reached her fingers out to brush lightly against the tarnished bronze plaque sitting just beneath the painting, covered in dust.50 She supposed it would say something like all the rest of the plaques, such as “The Wise Chancellor,” or “The One and Only Chancellor,” or “Chancellor the Great,” but it didn’t.
Instead, quite astonishingly, the plaque said “Uncle Rupert.”
Now, the name Rupert alone may have given you reason to pause. Indeed, when one has spent a lifetime referring to someone in such lofty terms as “the Chancellor,” it is a bit disconcerting to find out they also possess a name as hopelessly ordinary as the rest of us. And certainly, “Rupert” was no exception. But far, far, far more astonishing was that other word. The one in front of it. The one that said “uncle.”
Was it really possible? Could it really be true that the Chancellor was not just Mistress Octavia’s supervisor, but her family member?
Birdie stumbled backward. She toppled against a shelf full of books with broken spines. Breathing heavy, she turned her head sideways to glance at the titles. A Life Without Magic. The Art of Being Common. Witchy No More. Birdie’s eyes widened at the title of the last book on the shelf: A Nonmagical Guide to Waking the Dead.
Birdie swallowed hard. Who would Mistress Octavia want to wake up? Who had Mistress Octavia lost? Who had she ever had? And then for the first time, Birdie realized it wasn’t just the Tragicals who received no visitors, no letters, and not a single inquiry other than the Council—it was Mistress Octavia too. Mistress Octavia was all alone, just like the Tragicals.
Except, of course, for her uncle. For the Chancellor. But perhaps the fact that he utterly and completely ignored her—that he didn’t even bother to keep his appointments with her—was even worse than having nobody at all.
Birdie did not want to feel sorry for Mistress Octavia. Mistress Octavia was plotting to kill her via the Drowning Bucket no sooner than tomorrow and had spent a lifetime telling her she was nothing! Birdie had a job to do—a job the other children were risking everything for. She was Ralph’s only hope, and she had to stay focused.
Birdie eyes roved across the room, looking intently for any hint of the Council cloak’s brilliant purple fabric. Other than the overhead light coming from the stars, the room was lit only by the waning puddle of three or four nubby candles. Birdie crept forward and nearly crashed into a pile of broomsticks that came as high as her waist. They looked identical to the one Mistress Octavia toted from room to room, swatting mercilessly at the children and smacking hard against the blackboard. Every single one of them, snapped in two.
Birdie bent down and picked up one of the broomstick halves. It crackled in her hand, and she was so startled she nearly dropped it. The broomstick, it seemed, still contained magic. But what would Mistress Octavia be doing with something that held even a hint of magic? She hated magic. Magic was forbidden! Instead of breaking the broomsticks in half, why didn’t she just toss them out and be rid of them once and for all?
Click-clack, click-clack.
It was Mistress Octavia! Mistress Octavia was returning!
Birdie felt her way toward Mistress Octavia’s desk. She felt along the back of the chair and threw open the top drawer. She gasped when a stack of papers gusted forth, grazing so close to her cheek she was forced to jump out of the way as the papers soared upward. Birdie watched as the papers scaled the walls and clustered against the window beneath the stars. They beat their edges against the window to no avail and then began to tumble back down in helpless chaotic waves. Birdie looked at the paper that fell into the palm of her hand. It was a letter. They were all letters. Letters that Mistress Octavia had presumably never sent. Birdie read one as quickly as she dared:
Dear Uncle,
I think I need more of the potion. I think my magic is brewing again.
Last night I fashioned another broomstick. I didn’t mean to. But when I woke up in the morning, it was there. In my hands. And it crackled. I snapped it in half and added it to the pile, but the pile is getting so big.
Uncle, you must help me. I am too much like Mother!
I hate her.
Because of her, I grew up all alone in this wretched place! It was you who rescued me from a life of certain doom. You who offered me a seat at your table. The Council table. Your requirement that I drink my magic away was an easy one to swallow. But magic, it seems, is resilient.
Why did Mother have to be a witch?? Why was Father so easily tricked? Why did they both have to die? If only you would have always been the Chancellor—if only citizens had been taught from the beginning to stick to their roles—then everything would be different.
Please send me more of the potion, Uncle. I am weak; the temptation is strong; and magic is a hard habit to break.
In your debt,
Octavia
Birdie was shaking all over. Mistress Octavia was already awful, but Mistress Octavia as a witch—reformed or not—was horrific. And what of the potion she mentioned? Were there days that magic very well could have flung forth from a swish of Mistress Octavia’s hand? Magic to bring about a Tragic End? Most puzzling of all, however, was the desperate tone of her letter. Mistress Octavia didn’t seem to want her magic. Mistress Octavia seemed to think that if she kept her magic, she would revert to being doomed. She would revert to being what all orphans in Wanderly were: Tragical.
Birdie’s heart sank. If Mistress Octavia couldn’t escape a life of doom, if a real live witch couldn’t undo the status of Tragical without the help of the Chancellor, what hope did an ordinary girl like Birdie have? In short, what in all of Wanderly did she think she was doing?
Click-clack. Click-clack.
Birdie stared at the toes of her shoes. Tears began to prick at the corners of her eyes. But Mistress Octavia wasn’t there yet. Birdie’s Tragic End, however close it loomed, hadn’t officially occurred yet. Why should she act as if it already had? Why should she waste the one thing that, for a Tragical, was especially precious?
Time. Regardless of what the Chancellor guaranteed about Birdie’s end, for now, she still had time. And maybe even a small bit used wisely could make a world of difference. Not just for her, but for Ralph.
Birdie leaped into motion. She kicked over a wastebasket full of paper scraps. She sent a coatrack wheeling wildly about, and she even managed to overturn a bookcase. As the heap of books crashed against the floor, they kicked up a swirling cloud of dust. A cloud of dust that swept through the room. A cloud of dust that reached into every nook and cranny and fluttered a piece of bright purple fabric.
The Council cloak. It was caught in the door of Mistress Octavia’s file cabinet! Birdie sprinted near and tore the cloak free at the precise moment Mistress Octavia crashed into the Room of Sinister Plotting.
In the dim flicker of candlelight, Mistress Octavia’s shadow loomed large. She gasped at the sight of Birdie smack-dab in the center of her letters still wafting about the room and whispering her secrets. And then her face turned a horrible, ominous shade of red.
But she was a hair too late. For Birdie had already swung the Council cloak around her shoulders, and she had already whispered for it to take her to the Annual Witches’ Ball, and in less than a blink of an eye, Birdie became the second Tragical in one night to vanish from the manor completely.
Eighteen
Come One, Come All to the Annual Witches’ Ball!
On the eve of her ill-fated trip to the Drowning Bucket, Birdie never imagined she’d be attending an event like the Annual Witches’ Ball, but there she was. And her arrival via Council cloak was anything but pretty.
One moment she was caught up in a wild, swirling vortex of sights and sounds, and the very next she was rolling her way through a crowd of witches like a human bowling ball.
Fortunately, witches pride themselves on disregarding any and all manners, and not one of th
em seemed to pay a bit of attention to Birdie. This also, however, meant Birdie could hardly complain about the number of times she was inadvertently poked, prodded, and pushed as she stumbled toward the castle looming before them all.51
Birdie was certain it had to be Castle Matilda. Castle Matilda was Wanderly’s oldest and most haunted abode and an infamous witchy hangout. Mistress Octavia loved to whisper about it in the dead of night. It was a place most people in Wanderly liked to pretend wasn’t as bad as it sounded but that a Tragical knew was probably worse. Even the likes of Castle Matilda, however, couldn’t compare to what Birdie saw all around her.
There wasn’t just a little pocket of witches slinking alongside Birdie. There wasn’t even a terrifying four or five dozen witches. There were witches as far as Birdie could see.
One hundred, two hundred, maybe even three hundred witches flooding the skies and streaming in from north, south, east, and west. Some traveled by boot; most careened wildly through the air mounted on fiery broomsticks; a handful skipped from witchy shoulder to witchy shoulder as if they were in a hopscotch tournament; and a few lone witches floated eerily back and forth above Castle Matilda’s swampy moat.
Birdie tried to breathe. Birdie tried to remember why this had seemed like such a good idea. And then Birdie remembered Ralph caught in Ms. Crunch’s grip, with his feet swinging in the night sky. The way he had screamed and—
Birdie felt her heart breaking all over again. Was there anything worse in the world than losing two friends at the same time? Still, if Birdie could pull herself together, perhaps one of those friendships could be saved.
Birdie hurried to rejoin the crowd. She discreetly flipped the Council cloak inside out so that only the black lining could be seen, leaving the brilliant purple fabric hidden. She leaned heavily on her years of trudging and was certain she was close to mastering the witchy slink when a nearby witch skidded to a sudden halt.
The witch lifted her nose high and let loose a mighty sniff. Birdie froze. Despite the cover of night, and despite the tangled clump of witches of various heights and sizes all dressed similarly in black, there was nothing so astute as the concentrated sniff of a witch.