“Are you intrigued?”
I spun. Gartlut was leaning against the wall, grinning his yellow grin.
“Best not be too intrigued,” he said, twirling his ebony cane. “And best not go snooping. Not up there. Not a little witch like you.”
I gave him my coldest, hardest glare and stalked away, but I was frightened more than anything. Where did those stairs really go? And had I imagined it, or had there been what looked like the tip of a long pale finger sticking out of the corner of Gartlut’s mouth?
On December 19, the holiday of Saint Vulpine the Fallen, Mrs. Cantanker ordered a great feast. I was not invited. I wasn’t sure anyone had been invited, except Gartlut and Mrs. Cantanker herself, though you might have been fooled by the number of dishes she demanded from the kitchens.
Minnifer and Bram were forced to cook from dawn till dusk, delicacies fit for a hundred nobles. I wanted desperately to retreat to Greta’s library, but I was not about to leave my friends to do all the work on their own. I ran stacks of china to the great ballroom, dusted away the cobwebs, polished silverware, and helped Minnifer uproot flowers from the greenhouse for bouquets. I stirred soups and gravies, and tried to convince Bram to put floor sweepings and beetles into them, though he was far too proud of his work to do so. Then I stoked the great fire in the ballroom until it roared, and we all paraded up the stairs from the kitchens, bent double under the weight of silver trays and steaming tureens. By evening we were exhausted, our bones aching, our faces red from the blaze of the stoves.
I was just returning from delivering the last little pot of lobster consommé, steam slicking my face and gravy all down my apron, when I spotted Mrs. Cantanker descending the dragon staircase. Gartlut was with her, looking as grubby and supercilious as ever. But it was Mrs. Cantanker I stopped to stare at. She was dressed in bloodred satin, a thousand ruffles dripping down the stairs behind her. Her face was powdered bone white. And she had dyed her hair black as a raven’s wing, black like mine, like Mother’s . . . like a Brydgeborn.
What was she playing at?
Both Mrs. Cantanker and Gartlut paused to look down their noses at me.
“And what are you doing in the front hall looking like a smudge of grime?” Mrs. Cantanker demanded. “Go back downstairs, before the guests arrive.”
“What guests?” I asked, not moving an inch. I hadn’t meant to confront her, but her calling me a smudge of grime made my temper rise and my fists clench. “Does Mr. Grenouille know you’re throwing parties? Does he know you’ve stopped teaching me, and aren’t being any sort of guardian at all?”
Mrs. Cantanker’s eyes widened. Then she laughed musically, and linking arms with Gartlut, continued her descent. As they passed me, Mrs. Cantanker stopped, looking at me out of the corner of one eye.
“Mr. Grenouille knows whatever I want him to know,” she said, her voice soft and sweet as spun sugar. “And Zita dear? Do not provoke me. Do not twitter and bite. You may think yourself a witch. You may think yourself ever so noble and brave. But you’re still such a little bird. Just a sparrow. And the ravens and blackbirds feed on sparrows like you.” She leaned down, her perfume so rich and noxious it made my eyes water. “I’ll eat you up,” she whispered, flashing a sharp red smile. Then she whirled away, and she and Gartlut marched toward the ballroom arm in arm, their shoes click-clicking on the marble like clocks.
“Who are they?” Minnifer asked, standing on a chair, which stood atop an overturned cauldron, and straining to look out one of the kitchen windows.
We had taken turns, but all we could see were legs, trooping up the front steps and into the castle. Some of them were regular human legs in trousers and winter velvets. But I could have sworn some of them bent in odd directions, and some seemed to be clustered together as if a little family was hurrying along in a tight huddle. Those huddles were always accompanied by a faint skittering sound, the clicking of joints and pincers on stone, and sharp, warbling voices.
“I don’t know,” I said, holding the chair so it wouldn’t slip off the cauldron. “But I don’t think we have any time left.”
Moments before we were to ring the dinner gong, Mrs. Cantanker swept into the servants’ hall, brandishing a great key in her hand. “Bon appétit,” she said, just before locking us in. “And don’t be dozing off. There’ll be loads of dishes to wash come midnight.”
We ate our supper in silence, picking at the crusts and clippings left over from the grand dishes. Occasionally we heard noises from upstairs, the rumple of feet and ringing peals of laughter.
I fed Vikers crumbs and bits of steak from a saucer. And then, when I felt the dinner must be well under way, I went to the door. The leaf-shaped tines of Greta’s skeleton key shimmered as I slipped them into the lock.
“Zita?” said Bram, glancing at me. “Where are you going?”
“Upstairs,” I said. “All the way upstairs. Mrs. Cantanker and Gartlut are going to be in the ballroom for ages, what with all the food they’ve got to gobble through. So I’m going to find out what’s at the top of the blue staircase.”
Bram set down his fork slowly. Minnifer half rose from her chair. “The blue stairs?” she demanded. “Are you mad?”
“Zita, you can’t,” said Bram. “We’ve no idea where those stairs go.”
“Because we haven’t gone up them,” I said stoutly. “But I’m going to. And I was hoping you both would come with me, at least to the bottom, just in case I need help or the feast ends early—”
“You know people died up there?” Minnifer said, coming round the table to confront me. “One of the Brydgeborn children wandered up those stairs a hundred years ago to look for a lost toy and was never seen again. Except for his hair. Every year on the day of his disappearance, a letter was sent from the spirit realm containing one black curl.”
I shuddered, but I said, “I don’t believe a word of it. A few days ago, I saw Mrs. Cantanker go up those stairs, and she’s still very much alive. And then Gartlut told me not to snoop there, which if you ask me is practically like posting a great sign that says ‘We’re hiding something right here.’ If there’s proof of their plans anywhere, it’s at the top of those stairs. So are you coming or not?”
Minnifer stayed rooted to the floor. Bram shifted, chair legs creaking. I beckoned Vikers, but even he looked hesitant and became suddenly busy with a bit of gristle.
“Fine,” I said. “Stay. But if I die, or Mrs. Cantanker catches me, I’ve resolved to haunt you all for a good long while, and put snails in your pillowcases.”
I turned and hurried out of the servants’ hall with as much bravado as I could muster. It was with great relief that I heard footsteps and flapping behind me, for I would have died of fright having to face what lay ahead alone.
Chapter Eighteen
WE went to my chambers first. I equipped myself with my witch’s belt. Bram and Minnifer rifled through Greta’s things and stuffed their pockets with lavender sachets and protective salt-and-silver charms. Then we lit a pair of lamps and crept off in search of the blue stairs. It did not take long to find them. They were in the picture gallery again, their little panel standing ajar. I had the impression they were lurking, like something living, some small animal, coiled malevolently next to the Antechamber of Eternal Dreams.
The air grew icy as we approached. Vikers perched on my shoulder, grim and alert. Bram and Minnifer were silent, but I could feel their fear, prickling like spiders across my neck.
“If anyone comes, whistle,” I said as we gathered at the foot of the stairs. “And then run.”
“We’re going up with you,” said Minnifer, but I shook my head.
“You keep watch. I’ll take my chances with the spirits of the underworld, but I don’t want to get caught by Mrs. Cantanker and Gartlut when I’m elbow-deep in a pile of evidence. I’ve got my locket and my belt. I’ll find my way back.”
They both nodded unhappily. Then Minnifer hugged me, and I was so surprised I stood very stiffly, like a
hat stand. Then I hugged her back. “Thanks,” I said quietly. “I don’t know what I’d do without you two.”
With that, I lifted my lamp and stepped onto the blue stairs. Immediately, I felt Vikers fly from my shoulder. I glanced back and saw he had landed in a chandelier and was watching me keenly. I tried to look encouraging and brave for the benefit of Bram and Minnifer, but I don’t think I succeeded. Their eyes only widened further, and Minnifer looked as if she was about to run after me and haul me back. I took another step, then another. Before I could change my mind, I clattered up several steps very quickly, out of sight of my friends.
The darkness was almost complete. It pressed around me, chewing at the lamplight as if trying to swallow it whole. At first I imagined I heard noises, the flap of wings, taunting voices, and once again the lick and gurgle of water. In my head, red-eyed beasts and gargoyles were congregating with buckets of hot tar. But it was probably only doves, bats, triggles, and leaking pipes.
They’re just stairs, I told myself sternly. Regular stairs, that happen to be painted blue, and might lead to the lair of an ancient dark witch, but you don’t know that.
And yet the farther I climbed, the more my courage began to waver. The stairs turned this way and that, traveling much higher than I would have thought possible. The blue paint began to scab and peel, becoming blackened with soot. A curious smell tickled my nose—ash and cinders and green stagnant water. And then I came to the top and paused, my heart beating very fast.
I was looking down a long, low passageway. By my calculations it should have been somewhere under the roof, and yet it felt somewhere else entirely. The walls were built of heavy stone, mossy and slick with moisture. Tendrils of fog slipped over the floor. At the corridor’s end, small and dark and studded with nails, was a little crooked door.
I took several steps toward it, my feet squelching through mushrooms and rot. There were no cobwebs here. No bats or mouse droppings. The sound of water was louder now. I had the horrible feeling that I was no longer quite where I thought I was, that if I turned, I would see not the stairs but that mossy passage stretching on forever.
I reached for my locket, gripping it fiercely, and started down the corridor at a brisk clip. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw spiny shadows racing along the walls, whispering and hissing. I began to run, stumbling on the uneven flagstones, and I was sure I glimpsed Teenzy up ahead, blurry and sad eyed, watching me from the threshold of the crooked door. My lamp slipped from my fingers, extinguishing in the muck. I did not stop. From somewhere far away, I heard a rumbling, like many running feet. . . . Then I was at the door. Teenzy was gone. I pushed through, slamming the door behind me and shutting my eyes tight.
It was the water that made me look up. I was up to my ankles in it. It wasn’t warm or particularly cold. A dank, moldy sort of wind blew against my cheeks. I found myself looking across a vast, practically endless marsh. The sky was very dim, not quite night and not quite day, but a dreary, unchanging twilight. There were no stars, no moon. In fact, it was less a sky than a ceiling, as if the marsh was underground, in an enormous chamber. Golden lamps floated here and there, glittering in the water.
I looked back. The door stood alone, just a frame on a tiny lumpen island, and nothing behind it but more marshland as far as the eye could see.
What on earth? I thought. But I knew that earth had nothing to with it. I had crossed over. I was in the Kingdom Between.
All was silent except for the shush of the wind and the soft lapping of the water. Up ahead, standing atop a grassy protuberance, was a small cottage. No smoke rose from its crooked chimney. It looked long abandoned. I began picking my way across the marsh toward it, leaping from tuft of grass, to hillock, to rock, my locket held high in one hand. It gave off a soft glow, surrounding me in a silver haze.
Ghosts drifted in the mist, figures in little boats with little lanterns. One passed quite near, and I saw that the lantern did not have a flame inside it, but a letter, glowing warmly in a glass globe. To Mr. Hilliam, my dearest friend, I read. Other ghosts were on foot, moving steadily into the gloom. Some held candles, or radiant little mementos. Some had almost no light at all. And from far away, where the marsh met the sky in a bloody band, I heard a terrible howling, screeching, and unearthly roars.
One of the ghosts spotted me and drifted closer, her gaze imploring. She might have been thirty if she’d been alive. Her dress was old-fashioned, threadbare and checkered, and though she had no candle or lamp, she held a dried-up flower in one hand that gave off the tiniest flickering spark. “Are you a Blackbird?” she whispered. “They are going to eat me if you do not help me. I have such a little light. I will never get past them!”
I nodded, but I didn’t slow my pace. “I’ll give you a coin,” I said, fiddling with one of the purses on my belt. “But that’s all I can do—”
The air began to crackle, growing chilly. The ghost was drawing closer and closer still. And then, without warning, she scrabbled at me, grasping for my locket and its brilliant silver light.
A wave of arctic cold crashed against me. “No!” I shouted, wrenching away. “That’s mine! That’s my family!”
“But I want it,” she snarled, and her face twisted, a wart sprouting from her forehead and a long, sharp fang poking over her lip. I felt along the sachets of herbs on my belt, my fingers feeling the little emblems on their drawstrings. Rosemary attracts, lavender repels, wormwood cloaks from unwanted attention . . .
I dug the wormwood from its sachet and threw a handful into the air, darting through the falling flakes and begging them with all my strength to make me invisible. The wormwood seemed to oblige, because the woman lost her grip on me and stood very still, gazing about with a hungry, bereft expression. I ran, splashing through the green waters and clambering up the bank to the cottage. I looked back over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of her, knee-deep in the water, her little flower sparking feebly, and something drawing nearer in the darkness, something with many legs and many eyes. Then I pushed through the rotting door and stumbled into the cottage.
Inside, all was blackness. I held my locket high, illuminating what looked to be a warren of small chambers, fitted together at odd, uneven angles. Signs of witchery lay everywhere: a tall mirror in a gilt frame, a scrying globe, baskets of dried plants and roots, heaps of parchments and books. Nothing like the fine bronze and silver instruments in my mother’s study, however. These were dark things, skulls and iron pincers and bottles filled with pickled eyeballs. Did they belong to Mrs. Cantanker? Or Magdeboor?
I took a few tiny, terrified steps, my locket cutting into my fingers. I tried to imagine what Greta would do in this situation. Most likely she would have swept in much more bravely than me, not a strand of hair out of place, her black shoes polished bright enough to blind. She would not have been afraid.
I am a witch of Blackbird Castle, I thought. Last of my line. And I can do this as well as anyone.
I passed towers of books, a bed with a red curtain, birdcages, their inhabitants long gone. The floor was crowded with buckets to catch drips from the leaky roof, and I picked my way carefully between them, my shoes sliding like boats through narrow channels.
By the third room, I began to suspect that many of the things in the cottage had been taken from Blackbird Castle. I saw stacks of oil paintings, photographs, even the silver-framed pictures I’d seen lying facedown on my mother’s desk. What were those doing here? And then I came to the farthest room in the cottage, and there, sitting sideways to me, on a chair beneath a low window, was Greta.
She was humming softly, hunched over something in her lap. A spool of red thread lay on the floor by her feet, and she clutched a needle in one hand, dipping it up and down, up and down. I almost called out to her. But something stopped me.
What was Greta doing here? I closed my fist around my locket and drew back into the shadows.
A ghost passed outside the window, its lantern shining briefly through and ill
uminating what Greta was holding. It was a doll. Its limbs were long and gangling, and its wax face wore a rather melancholy expression. Another doll lay by Greta’s foot, smaller, with a bun of brown hair. Bram and Minnifer. Bram and Minnifer in doll form, button-eyed and boneless. And as I watched, Greta began stitching Bram’s mouth shut with bright red thread.
I remained perfectly still, watching the needle flash. When Greta had finished both dolls, she tossed them carelessly onto the sill and turned, drifting toward me. I shrank farther into the dark, willing the wormwood enchantment to hide me. She passed by without a sound, out of the cottage and across the marsh toward the distant door into Blackbird Castle. She held no light like the other ghosts, but nothing came near her or disturbed her journey. It was almost as if they were afraid of her.
As soon as she was gone, I ran to the dolls, snipping the stitches with my silver scissors and pulling them out as gently as I could. Then I whirled through the room, opening drawers, upending baskets, my mind churning.
Greta was one of them? Greta was a member of the League of the Blue Spider?
But it couldn’t be. She had been helping me! She had given me the skeleton key and the waking spell and had shown me the way to the secret library!
I forced myself to stop and breathe. Find proof of Magdeboor’s return and get out of here, Zita. You’ll have time to think later.
Kneeling, I rifled through heaps of ancient papers, crawled under a table, one broken leg propped up with a skull. Sheaves of letters had been stacked there, some of them from hundreds of years ago, scrawled so viciously I could not begin to decipher them, and each signed with a large black M. But I found newer letters too, in creamy envelopes, tied into bundles with black silk ribbons.
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