I shook my head to rid myself of these thoughts and followed Bram and Minnifer toward the end of the gallery and a door with the words ANTECHAMBER OF ETERNAL DREAMS in gilded script above it. We were just about to pass through it when something caught my eye: an open panel in the wall and, inside, a staircase, quite narrow, winding upward into shadows. There would have been nothing remarkable about it, nothing to set it apart from the dozens of other staircases we had already seen during our explorations—except that every tread, every panel, and every inch of its railing was painted a deep sapphire blue.
“Where do those go?” I asked, pointing.
“Oh!” said Minnifer, startled. “They do creep up on you. . . .” Then she planted herself firmly between me and the blue stairs and said, “You’re never to go up there, Zita. Never. It’s not safe. I know it’s a witch’s house, so nowhere is safe, but up there . . . really, you mustn’t. Those stairs used to lead to the attic in the north wing—”
“Where Magdeboor was killed?”
“And where she was imprisoned in her last days. The stairs were hacked to pieces so that she couldn’t escape down them, but when the servants came back after the fire, what did they find? The blue stairs, good as new. It’s said they lead straight into the spirit realm now.” Minnifer cast them one more mistrustful look. “Anyway, it’s the rule that no one climbs them, so you mustn’t either. The blue stairs? Utterly, utterly forbidden. Do you understand?”
“Utterly,” I said, laughing as Minnifer herded me along the gallery. But as soon as I’d turned my back on the stairs, I felt a chill pass over me, and the strange weight of a gaze. I glanced over my shoulder. Frost glistened on the blue banister, a little patch of winter, as if something had been standing there moments before, the cold flowing off it. I told myself it was just the way the candlelight caught the blue paint, but I wasn’t sure.
We left the gallery, moving down corridors and up staircases, their banisters casting long shadows over the damask wallpaper. We passed padlocked doors labeled such things as ROOM OF MARBLE HEADS and VESTIBULE OF BLOOD, and one door that was hardly large enough for a cat called the TINY QUEEN’S THRONE ROOM. We passed the chamber mostly occupied by the large, leafy tree, its branches rustling and whispering inside. And then I saw that stupid crow again, perched on a chandelier high above my head. For a moment I was sure it was a sculpture. But then it screeched and took flight, and vanished out of a partly open window, in a flurry of black feathers.
I shook my head. “I thought all of them had left.”
“They had!” said Minnifer. “It’s a good omen, that. You arriving, and a crow coming soon after. It means things are about to change.”
We ended the tour in the servants’ hall, deep in the roots of the castle. It was the warmest place, by far, and the nicest smelling. The bundles of drying lavender filled the air with their pungent fumes. A fire blazed in the huge stone fireplace. When we had finished dinner, we melted an entire block of chocolate into a pan of milk and sat on the floor in front of the hearth to drink it. The wide, polished boards glimmered, warm from the glow of the coals, and we sipped from black china mugs and ate crumbly shortbread in the shape of sickle moons.
It turned out Bram was the cook of all the delicacies I’d had at breakfast, and all of the ones we had just feasted on. He had fashioned tiny amuse-bouches for our supper—buttered sandwiches with salmon florets and cucumber sails and dustings of dill, cherry tomatoes stuffed with savory bread, golden quiches, their fillings lighter than air—and served them on a silver dish. He seemed very proud of himself when I said they were the most delicious things I’d ever eaten.
“He’ll be a great chef one day, you wait and see,” said Minnifer, and Bram reddened and crunched busily at his shortbread.
“Is that your plan, Bram?” I asked. “Are you going to be a cook? I would go to your shop every day if you sold a-moose-booshes there.”
Minnifer laughed at my pronunciation, but I didn’t mind.
“Maybe one day,” said Bram, picking at a splinter in the floor. And then Bram and Minnifer peered at each other, the same sad, odd look they had exchanged the night before. I glanced between them, feeling suddenly left out.
“Why did you stay after what happened?” I asked them. “Not that I’m not very happy you’re here, but you’re both old enough to work anywhere. Bram could be cooking in any great house or big city—”
“I’m in a great house,” said Bram seriously. “The greatest house.”
“Yes, but everyone’s dead or run away,” I said. “And there’s dark sorcery afoot, not to mention Mrs. Cantanker—”
“This is our home,” said Minnifer. “And anyway, Bram’s not allowed to go anywhere without me. We look out for each other, don’t we, Bram?”
Bram nodded. Minnifer nodded too, satisfied. “Sometimes,” she said, “I think this whole place could go to ruin, and all the witches of the world could be working in offices and sweeping train platforms, and Bram and I would still be here as little old people, tending the rosemary and patching the roof. They took us in, you see, from an orphanage down in the valley. I was seven and Bram was eight, and maybe it doesn’t make sense to other people, but . . . it’s hard to leave a place you’ve known so long.”
“It wasn’t hard for me to leave Cricktown,” I said. In fact, it was knowing the place well that had made it easy to say goodbye to its low, peaked roofs and petty people. But then I thought for a moment and added quietly, “I know all about being an orphan, though. I’m glad we all found our way here.”
Bram and Minnifer smiled at me. And we sat in our little bubble of warmth and firelight, talking about the life of a servant, counting the calluses on our hands and telling stories about finicky masters and mistresses, until all thoughts of growing old and being orphans were forgotten. We were quite dizzy with the sugar, and being very loud, when a long, low bell sounded through the servants’ hall, followed by footsteps, sharp and swift. Bram startled, looking toward the door.
“Quick,” he said, leaping to his feet. “This way,” and we ran giggling out of the servants’ hall just as Mrs. Cantanker stalked in. She was in a rage, calling our names. We hid behind a curtain in the butler’s pantry, holding our breath, and Mrs. Cantanker passed within a few feet of us, poking her nose into the scullery, then the dairy. When she was a good twenty yards off, we dashed down the servants’ corridor in a gale of laughter, out of the kitchens and up the stairs. I swear Mrs. Cantanker heard us, but perhaps she thought we were ghosts.
Chapter Seven
LESSONS started at nine o’clock sharp. I woke to find a crisply ironed uniform draped over a chair—a black crepe dress and half cape, black stockings, and a pair of black pointy shoes as shiny as mirrors. A silver bowl, scissors, a bundle of rosemary sprigs, a small bottle of rose water with a brocade puffer, a notebook, a quill, and a birdcage were all arranged carefully around the chair on the floor.
I did not know how these things had arrived or who had brought them, but the room was once again icy, and when I approached the gifts, I saw there were many tiny footprints the size and shape of pumpkin seeds in the frost. They looped here and there over the floor, congregating next to my bed, as if a passel of little creatures had gathered to discuss something. Then the footprints led up the walls and scurried across the ceiling into a hole in the corner.
The triggles, I thought, wondering again what these mysterious beings were. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of anything coming into my room while I was sleeping. But the gifts they had brought were lovely and costly, and whatever reservations I had were soon replaced with excitement.
I washed my face, dressed carefully, and went downstairs to eat breakfast with Minnifer and Bram. Then I set off for the High Blackbird’s study, my half cape snug around my shoulders and my many supplies filling my arms and jangling in my pockets. I got lost three times. One staircase ended in a pit of carnivorous flowers. A door I thought I recognized opened only into a tiny square room whose wal
ls and floor and even ceiling were covered with little portraits in gilt frames.
“You know,” I muttered at one glaring face, before closing the door again, “if you’re going to build a house the size of a small town, there should be road signs and arrows so that regular people can find their way.” But I’d given myself plenty of time—I was used to the early mornings of a servant, after all—and I chose the right staircase eventually and climbed up to the tower room with half an hour to spare.
Mrs. Cantanker was seated behind the desk, a pair of elegant glasses on her nose, reading a small brown book whose cover looked suspiciously bloodstained. Her skirts were ruby silk today, and her bejeweled fingers caught the light from the windows and blinked at me like so many judging eyes. I noticed that the family pictures on the High Blackbird’s desk had all been removed, the pewter and silver frames replaced with stylish illustrations of yarrow root and sage, sailor’s tobacco and fern, beautifully done and utterly academic. Mrs. Cantanker was making her dominion of the place complete.
She glanced up as I entered, her expression surprised, which made me think I looked every inch a witch.
“Good morning,” I said brightly, laying down my things carefully on a table. The bottle of rose water landed sideways, rolling toward the edge. I snatched it back just in time and stole a glance at Mrs. Cantanker, bracing myself for insults.
But Mrs. Cantanker only sniffed and tucked her book into a drawer. “I see the triggles delivered the things I ordered?”
“I suppose so,” I said. “What are triggles, exactly?”
“Household pets.” Mrs. Cantanker rose and approached the table, running a thumb along the sharp edge of the scissors. “Fine stuff, this. A bit too fine.”
She turned away and I scowled at her back. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted that crow again. It was perched atop a towering shelf, watching me. I turned all the way around to get a proper look at it. The moment our eyes met, it came swooping down in a whirl of black feathers, heading straight for me. I shrieked and dove under the table. When I peeked out it, my hair disheveled and my mouth agape, the crow had landed on top of the globe, and both it and Mrs. Cantanker were peering at me quizzically.
“It’s your bird,” said Mrs. Cantanker. “Stop leaping about like an idiot.”
“My bird?”
“Your animal servant. I was wondering if perhaps it wouldn’t come, if the old traditions would forget about you like everyone else had. But here he is! A great big scruffy crow to match your scruffy hair.”
Mrs. Cantanker reached out to scratch the bird’s head, but it snapped its sharp beak at her and settled belligerently into its feathered ruff. She curled her fingers away, clicking her tongue. “Well! And a temper to match!” She noticed my uncertain expression and rolled her eyes. “Superstitious girl. Look, you might as well know right away that all the tales you’ve ever heard about witches are lies. It’s one great smear campaign, started by some king who didn’t want to pay his dues for the fumigation of his woods and palaces. And the common folk lapped it up. They’ll call anyone a witch who doesn’t do as she’s told and has a fondness for graveyards and talking to cats. As for the bird, he’s got nothing to do with spirits or demons or all that claptrap they believe in the villages. He’s just a helper, bound by the ancient charter of Dindelgorm to serve your family’s line. The Brydgeborns tend to have birds. Some witches have rats, or snakes, like in the storybooks. But just as many have beautiful kittens, or dogs, or emerald-shelled turtles.”
“What about pointy hats?” I asked. “And broomsticks? Are those just stories too?”
“Broomsticks!” Mrs. Cantanker exclaimed. “A self-respecting witch has no need of brooms, or chalices, or wands, or poppets. Now stop asking questions, and put your bird inside its cage.”
I did as I was told, crawling out from under the table and lifting the silver cage. I liked animals quite a lot normally, birds included, but there was something terrifying about a crow up close. I think anyone with an ounce of sense would have reacted the same as I did.
“Here, pretty bird,” I whispered, and looked at Mrs. Cantanker questioningly.
“Not like that. Name him! Command him!”
I squinted at the crow, which was in the process of stalking across the globe, crushing entire countries under his talons. He almost seemed to be pacing, waiting impatiently for me, and I thought he looked like nothing so much as a bedraggled, somewhat bad-tempered vicar in a winter coat. That’s what I’d call him. Vik. Or Vicar. Vikers?
“Here, Vikers!” I called, swinging the cage door invitingly. And then again, louder, “Vikers! Come here at once!”
That did the trick. The bird flew at me, and it was all I could do not to hurl the cage into the air and run screaming from the room. Instead I froze and allowed him to land on my shoulder. He was very heavy. I felt his talons biting through my cape, and for a moment I was sure I was going to shudder violently and send him flapping away again. But then he rubbed his head against my cheek and made a sound almost like a coo. His head was surprisingly soft and warm, his feathers glossy and tinged deepest blue.
“Oh, hello,” I whispered. “You’re not so bad.”
A moment later he slipped into the cage, where he hunched his shoulders and looked straight ahead, very grim and forbidding, as if his work for the day was done and he wanted to be left alone.
I stared at him in wonder. Mrs. Cantanker looked at us both with an expression I was sure was envy.
“What am I supposed to do with him?” I asked, poking a finger through the bars and stroking his head. For a moment he looked annoyed, but then he cooed again and ruffled his feathers, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“You’ll learn to call him from great distances, speak to him without words, send him on journeys to deliver important messages . . . but not today. Today, he’s entirely irrelevant. Close the cage and put him out of your mind.”
I did so reluctantly, turning the cage’s little key. Something told me Vikers was a very clever bird and that if he wanted to he could escape quite easily—turn the key himself, or even pick the lock. Vikers seemed to agree, giving me a patient look, as if to say, “We both know this is only a formality and I will leave any time I please.”
I nodded at him and winked. Then, once Mrs. Cantanker had instructed me on the proper etiquette of witch uniforms (black buttons only, shoes must be polished always, and your hair must be in a bun or braid, never loose, because loose hairs are liable to snag, or catch fire, or be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes by spirits and rival witches), the time had come. All through the castle, bells, gongs, and grandfather clocks struck nine o’ clock. Mrs. Cantanker positioned me in the center of the room, buffed and brushed, black caped and pointy shoed. And my first lesson as a Brydgeborn Blackbird began.
“A philosopher,” said Mrs. Cantanker, stalking across the study, black heels clicking, ruby silks whispering around her ankles, “is one who attempts to capture the truths of the universe so precisely that they become too confusing to understand. A novelist is one who attempts to capture the truths of the universe in such a roundabout way that they become obvious to anyone who reads them.”
“And a witch?” I asked, perched on a stool, quill in hand.
“A witch kills the dead.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding wisely.
“But it’s just as necessary,” Mrs. Cantanker snapped, as if she suspected I didn’t believe her. “In fact, without witches there would be no philosophers, or novelists either. We capture truths as well, though our truths tend to be half rotted and full of teeth and eyeballs. Without us, the foulest creatures of the underworld would have spilled over their borders long ago, devouring souls and spreading fog and darkness across the globe.”
This was quite a lot to absorb all at once, but Mrs. Cantanker continued on relentlessly, as if she were discussing geography or the weather. “Most people die and move right along to their final resting place, up or down depending o
n what sort of life they lived. They’re labeled by the appointed authorities, sent off in the right direction, and make the journey without a hitch. But some do not have the necessary accoutrements. Some have unfinished business in the lands of the living. And the longer they’re caught in between, the more they begin to . . . change. They forget the shape they had when they were alive. They begin to take on the true shape of their soul, which can be very hideous indeed. A witch’s job is to handle anything that comes back. Have you ever seen a denizen of the spirit realm, Zita? Besides the one yesterday?”
“I’m not sure—”
“Straight answers, girl, yes or no. A witch is never unsure.”
“All right, no.”
“Incorrect,” she said, smiling at me rather venomously. “You may not have been aware of seeing them. You may only have been aware of a slow chill crawling up your arms, or a scuttling shadow in the corner of your eye. But I assure you, you have seen them. Most likely you were simply too uneducated to know it.”
I wondered about this, hurtling back through my memories in search of dead faces among the bustle and bright-spotted cheeks of the living. There had been that one man in the cellar at the orphanage who never spoke but sometimes rearranged all the jars of pickles and preserves. And then there was whatever had lived atop the boiler in Mrs. Boliver’s garden. I had thought it to be a large, unfriendly cat, but it had always been up there, rain or shine, warming its mangy fur as if it were freezing. And then of course the figure in the woods, the figure in the painting of Mad Queen Magdeboor III . . .
“Ah,” said Mrs. Cantanker. “You are realizing. Are you disturbed by the breadth of your ignorance? You should be. Spirits are everywhere, in houses and shops, wandering the moors, sitting on lampposts, and leaping from chimney pots like toads. Especially in this day and age, when the influence of the great witch families is diminishing. The borders are left unguarded, gateways untended. More and more spirits linger or come creeping back. There is no fear of the dead in the towns and cities, with their electric light bulbs and gas heating and policemen on every corner. They think they are safe!” She tittered. “But they are simply blind.”
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