The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle (21 page)

“It sounded like . . .” Kat hesitated. Then she took a deep breath. “Well, to be honest, it sounded like Mr. MacLarren was locked in that closet, and you had to use a spell to get him out. It sounded like you were using magic.”

They were part of a team recruited by MI6 to explore some of the less ordinary ways to defeat the Nazis.

MacLarren was an expert in puzzles, patterns, encoding, and encryption. Gumble was practiced in the occult. MacLarren,
searching the castle for evidence, had been locked inside with a locking spell, and Gumble had to find the right disenchantment. Gumble was also an expert in what she described as “paranormal activities. Things like psychic abilities. Telling the future. And magic.”

Kat rubbed her forehead hard.

“Between the two of us,” Gumble said, “we've studied the kinds of things the Nazis might use that are out of the norm. Things like artifacts that may or may not have powerful properties.”

Kat said, “Did you say artifacts?”

“I know it's a lot to take in,” Gumble said. “I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner, but I'm sure you can understand why.”

“Our superiors thought that Rookskill Castle would be the perfect place for a base of operations,” said MacLarren. “Your father proposed it, since he had the connection. And rumors have begun to swirl that Rookskill Castle is home to magic. That's where we come in, Miss Gumble and I.”

“We were to discover whether the rumors were true,” said Gumble. “And if they were, we were to prevent any of this magic from falling into the wrong hands.”

“We all think Storm is a spy,” Kat said.

“We know,” said Gumble.

“And he was going on and on about artifacts that had magical properties.” Kat's hand closed around the chatelaine in her pocket.

“Was he, now?” said MacLarren, exchanging a look with Gumble.

“But why did Father send us here?” Kat asked. “He sent us right into the thick of things. Terrible things.”

“Ach, but he didn't know that, lass. None of us knew just how powerful a magic it was about this castle. We're in a wee bit over our heads, I'm afraid. We're not at all sure how it works yet.”

Gumble murmured, “I sense a spell of confusion about the place. Like a fog.”

“Aye,” said MacLarren. “And don't be too hard on your father, lass. He was supposed to be here, too. Thought he could protect you, right here.”

“Father? Here?” Kat swallowed hard. “But he didn't protect us. Jorry, Colin, and Isabelle have all disappeared, although we saw Jorry and he was, he was . . .”

“Ill?” Gumble asked.

“Like he was enchanted. But he ran off and we haven't seen him since,” Kat said. “And there's something wrong with Lady Eleanor.” She didn't say
evil
out loud.

Gumble peered at Kat. “The Lady does seem odd, does she not? There is something about her . . . but it's confusing.”

MacLarren stared off into space before he murmured, “A bit like seeing someone through smoky glass.”

“As I said,” Gumble finished, “a spell of confusion. At the very least.”

Kat pursed her lips. The only confusion she and the other children experienced had to do with the shifty castle itself. Maybe the adults were more susceptible to certain spells.

“So we've got two problems, eh?” said MacLarren, interrupting Kat's thoughts. “There's confusing and perhaps dangerous magic, and there's Storm the spy. Though he's not much of a spy, if you ask me.”

“I almost forgot why I was looking for you,” Kat said. “I've solved the algorithm.”

MacLarren rubbed his hands together. “Why didn't you say so? Good lass. Well done. Let's get that encryption machine, shall we?”

Kat and MacLarren fetched the encryption machine while Gumble went to find the other children. They met in the hidden room on the stairs.

Kat spread the paper with her solution out on the desk while MacLarren set up the device. Everyone gathered around and watched. A copy was generated as MacLarren typed. It looked like gibberish, but Kat knew it was not. The cogs and wheels turned as the letters and numbers rotated into position.

“Complicated,” whispered Peter.

“It looks like magic,” said Amelie. Miss Gumble patted her head.

“What message are you sending?” Kat asked.

“I've told them that Jack is a double agent and must be released so that he can complete the mission.”

“What mission?” asked Rob.

“Ah,” said MacLarren, leaning back with a gleam in his eye. “That's a mystery we have yet to solve. But this is the first step.”

Lunch was cold leftovers laid out on the sideboard. Neither Storm nor the Lady was there. The children and MacLarren and Gumble ate quickly, and after, MacLarren and Gumble told the children that they should go to their rooms and stay put.

“We must go to work,” said Gumble, and she placed her finger alongside her nose, a gesture so much like Great-Aunt Margaret's that Kat was startled. “Mr. MacLarren and I will not be here the rest of today, so you should stay safe on your corridor. For heaven's sake, don't go accusing Storm of being a spy.”

“And try to avoid Lady Eleanor,” said MacLarren. “Something's up there, but we've yet to sort it out.”

Kat nodded. She wanted nothing to do with the Lady.

When they reached their corridor, the four children agreed not to close the doors to their rooms. Ame wanted to be in Isabelle's room, “in case Issy shows up.” It was a faint hope.

Dreaming

K
AT'S ROOM
IS
so cold. She can see her breath. It floats above her head as she lies on the bed.

Lies
on the bed?

She sits up so fast, her head spins. A dull gray late-afternoon light washes the room. The clock on the mantle is stopped, the big hand at half past, the small hand past the one.

Is she dreaming?

A rook lands on the sill outside her window. One beady eye regards her through the glass. Then it caws, three times,
Lost, lost, lost,
bouncing on its spindle legs before it flies away.

Kat goes to the window and sees them crossing the snow-covered grass. Amelie and Isabelle hand in hand, wearing no coats, walking away from the castle and toward the
sea. And with them, holding Ame's other hand, is the little fishing girl.

A stabbing fear slices through Kat's heart. She is not dreaming.

The Ninth Charm: The Pearl

T
HE LADY STANDS
before Amelie's prone figure, dangling the chain. It has become such an easy thing, this. Taking the children one at a time.

Ah, but now: the pearl for Amelie. The child is too sweet for anything else. Sweet and sensitive. Eleanor recalls trying to spell this child a few weeks ago, when that dreadful Katherine interrupted her. She stares down at sleeping Amelie, whose golden curls tumble across the pillow. For an instant the Lady Eleanor remembers . . . something about love.

I'll charm a child to
call my own.

“Child?” Eleanor says.

Amelie wakes, eyes open, and sits up, fearless and comprehending, and Eleanor drops the chain over her head.

“Witch,” Amelie says, before she is rendered speechless by the charming.

The Lady shudders, an icy fear traveling through her mechanical body. This child is different. A portent? The magister's words return:
Take them
oh so slowly, or the magic will weaken.

When Eleanor finds and takes that other magic, there will be no weakness in her ever again. She pushes aside her fears as Amelie's soul enters her thirteenth charm, the ninth soul of the twelve that will make her collection.

And then the Lady sets in place the spells to frighten the remaining children. She will wear them out now, one by one.

Wolves

K
AT SHOOK ALL
over as if she stood in a freezing wind. She couldn't keep the tremor out of her voice. “I know Gumble and MacLarren said we shouldn't leave our rooms. But still.”

“I've got my sword,” Rob said. He and Peter had also fallen asleep, and their clock had stopped, too. Rob looked ready to burst, his cheeks were so flushed.

“We'll get her back,” Kat said, making fists of both hands. “Don't you worry. We'll get all of them back.” She wished she believed her own words.

Kat clutched her great-aunt's chatelaine. Peter carried a sword of his own. Wrapped in their warmest clothes, they set out after the girls.

Once outside, they ran. It had snowed only an inch, but it
was a wet snow and Kat's feet were numb within minutes. They saw no sign now of the girls, and they could find no tracks.

The chill wind cut right through their clothes. Gray clouds spat freezing mist, and even as she ran toward the sea Kat could see the whitecaps kicked up by the early winter wind. If she was this cold, those girls were in danger of freezing. She sped up, and the boys followed.

They reached the cliff edge, but still there was no sign, so they turned north along the cliffs, running toward the cave.

They stopped, panting, at the high promontory above the cave. Waves crashed below and the gulls keened above. Then Robbie pointed down to the stream that cut from the moors above to the sea.

“Look! There they are!”

Below them, all the way at the bottom of the cliffs, Kat could see the three girls entering dark Dunraven Wood.

“Well done, Rob. Let's go!” she called, and scrambled down the path toward the woods.

How the three small girls managed to be so far ahead and to get down without incident, Kat couldn't imagine. By the time she, Rob, and Peter reached the bottom, where Fairnie Burn flowed over rocks and gravel on its way into the sea, Kat was covered in scrapes and bruises. Her hair was disheveled and her shirt untucked, and her right stocking sported a large hole where she'd caught it on a thorn. If the skirt and blazer hadn't
been woven of strong Scottish wool, they, too, would have been in shreds. All the way down she could hear Peter's and Rob's swords as they battered the cliff face.

They crossed the burn, splashing carelessly through the icy water, and made for the woods. At the edge, Rob stopped.

“I don't know, Kat,” he said.

The wood was already shadowed, and small things skittered among the brush and dead leaves, crackling and snapping dried branches.

Kat steeled herself, then turned and plunged into the wood.

It was dreary, dank, and dark within. The trees, bare, stretched above her like so many bony fingers. The wind whispered at the tops, and cold dripped through the bare spots so that she was even more chilled than before. She stopped, wondering which way to go.

Rob brushed past her. “Well, if Stodgy Kat is going for it, so am I. Even if it seems we're chasing shadows.” Then Rob shouted, “Look!” and began to run.

They pressed through the woods, the branches tugging at Kat's hair and jacket, snapping and popping as they broke through, and all of a sudden they came out of the wood and onto the highland waste.

The sun sat watery and low in the west, gray folds of clouds wreathing the late yellow glow. The moors, where they were not snow-covered, were shadowed with purple, rocks rounding
skyward, and here and there an orange or yellow patch of late autumn color glowed in the lee. The rolling hills stretched to the ends of the earth.

Nothing moved on the landscape save the gorse and bracken that were stirred by the chill wind and three rooks that circled silently overhead.

Rob flanked Kat on one side, Peter on the other. After a moment Kat spoke, her voice broken. “They're gone. They've flat-out disappeared.”

Rob let out a deep sigh.

Peter said, low, “If they were ever here.”

“That's the problem,” Rob said. “Even though we saw them, there were no footprints in the snow. I kept having the feeling we were being led on.”

The three of them exchanged a glance.

“But where are they? Ame!” Kat called, desperate. “Isabelle!”

The first howl drifted on the bone-chilling wind.

The sun set so fast, Kat thought it was being pulled down to the horizon. A second howl, and a third, came with the lengthening shadows.

“Wolves are extinct here,” Rob said, his voice a coarse whisper. “They haven't been here for decades. Killed off. I mean, there might be one or two, but . . .” Another, distinctly different, howl.

“I would bet,” said Peter, “that these are no ordinary wolves. Just like those were not Amelie and Isabelle.”

The hair on the back of Kat's neck prickled. More howls.

“We've got nothing but your swords,” Kat said. “No matches, nothing.”

One howl from the left, and then one from the right, quite close, and then a third from behind. Kat squinted. She saw movement in the long shadows made by the rocky outcrops. The boys pressed close.

“We need to be back to back,” said Peter. “We might need to stand all night.”

“Why don't we run?” said Kat.

“Because, Kat, if they are real, or even if they are magical wolves with real teeth,” said Rob, patient but also quivering, “then they'll figure we're food and chase us down and kill us and eat us.”

“And if they aren't real,” said Peter, “nothing we do will matter.”

Another pair of howls, terribly close.

“All right then,” Kat said, “let's at least try to get back to the castle before it's really dark. Without running.”

They had already formed a rough triangle facing outward. “That's not a bad idea,” said Peter, who began to edge back the way they had come.

“Unless you like being in the woods when they attack,” said Rob. “I'd rather take my chances out in the open, where I can swing my sword, thank you.”

Several howls, too close. The boys stopped moving and
braced and raised their swords. Shadows, shifting back and forth, closed on them.

Her fingers were stiff with cold, so Kat jammed her hands into her pockets. And there she found her great-aunt's chatelaine.

A rook wheeled.
Out, out, out.

She lifted her right hand, the chatelaine glowing a faint blue in her fist. She let it dangle from her fingers, and at once blue light shot from it as if from a brilliant lantern.

“Whoa!” shouted Rob. “What is that?”

“Is that the chatelaine thing?” yelled Peter.

Gumble had used spells and Great-Aunt Margaret had given out quotes, so without thinking why, Kat cried out,
“How could they
see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed
to move their heads?”

Silence. The chatelaine pulsed with blue light. A thin band of yellow sat on the western horizon. The rooks wheeled away inland. The sea pounded and the gulls keened, but there were no more wolf calls.

“Plato,” whispered Peter. “Good old Plato.”

“That was Plato? From that cave story? The one Gumble had us writing about? I'm going to study harder from now on,” said Rob. “Nicely done, Kat. You've got to tell me how you knew.”

“Come on,” said Kat, breathing hard. “We've got to get back before it's really dark and we can't find our way.”

By the time they reached the castle it was dark. Their only guiding light was the chatelaine, which glowed stronger with the deepening shadows. Kat held it before them as a lantern. They heard no more wolves.

They went to the dining hall, but no dinner had been laid; the fires had never been lit and the luncheon had not been cleared. The three of them snatched up bits of food—dried-out bread, fruit, chunks of cheese—eating as they moved. They tried the kitchen: also dark. There was no sign of any adult—not Cook, nor Hugo, nor the teachers. And, thankfully, no sign of the Lady or Storm.

They made their way up to their rooms, and, after changing into dry clothes, gathered in Peter and Rob's room.

“I wish I knew where she was,” Kat said, and winked away tears.

They sat in a half circle after building a fire in the fireplace, warming their hands and feet. The chatelaine sat on the floor in the middle.

“It wasn't Ame,” Rob said. “It was a figment. A shadow.” He paused. “Like in Plato's Cave. It wasn't her, but I just know she's all right. She's all right, and real, and warm. And with all the others.”

“That's good, Rob,” Kat said. Somehow hearing him say it made her feel better.

“If you don't mind staying here tonight,” Peter said, “I think we should stick together.”

Kat said, “I wouldn't be in my room alone tonight for anything.”

The chatelaine now glowed faintly.

“So, Aunt Margaret gave it to you,” said Rob. “And she told you it was magic. But you didn't believe her.”

“Not at first. But I do now,” Kat said. “It's all different now.” She thought, but didn't say,
I've found my way out
of Plato's Cave.