The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle Read online

  “I guess we should—”

  “Here!” Marie’s voice, sharp, came from behind her. Kat almost leapt out of her skin. “Just what do you think you’re playing at?”

  Peter said, “We were trying to find the, um, you know, where—”

  “If the Lady discovered you wandering about the hallways, you’d regret it,” scolded Marie. “Back to your rooms at once. And stay there until I fetch you.”

  Peter and Kat hurried down the hall.

  “Where did she come from?” Peter whispered.

  “I don’t know.” They’d reached Kat’s room. “I thought the hall was empty.”

  “This place is definitely spooky,” Peter said.

  Kat couldn’t agree more. Her heart was thumping. She opened her door. “Rob? Ame?”

  But Kat’s room was stone cold, silent and empty.

  10

  Flesh and Bone

  IT IS 1746. The magister makes Leonore a gift.

  He says, “Here is a finger to replace your own, the one you have given up for the charmed child Rose.”

  Flesh and bone.

  Leonore asks, “How could you make a finger that can replace the one heaven gave me?”

  “Ah,” says the magister as he turns to stoke his fire. “This is so finely wrought that none shall see it for what it is in the broad daylight. Only in the dark shall sight and sound betray; only the light of the full moon shall reveal.” He does not add that heaven could never be party to this making. He does not add that his skill of invention is bought with old magic. He does not tell her what he does with her payment of flesh and bone.

  “To keep this gift,” he says, “you cannot leave the castle or the town or the fells that surround them.”

  Payment made.

  When the charmed fish-girl Rose does not bring Leonore’s lord back from the brink of death, Leonore wants to try again.

  She should have taken a boy first, and now she will. Her lord would want a boy to be his heir. She will go back to the magister and ask for a boy, before the heather purples the fells. A boy that Leonore can save from a life of misery, a boy she will raise from poverty and shame, much as she has saved Rose.

  And there is that other thing, that feeling that came from her chatelaine with the charming of Rose, a feeling almost as good as love. With her cold new-minted finger she pushes the charmed Rose aside.

  Her sacrifice is blood and bone. But the children sacrifice something far more valuable.

  By rock and bone, by blood and stone, not life, nor death, but lost, alone . . .

  11

  Ghosts

  THE EMPTY ROOM made Kat’s heart pound like a drum. A pack of playing cards lay scattered across the floor.

  Then Rob’s hand thrust out from under the bed and waved close by her feet.

  “What in the world?” Kat fell to her hands and knees, and Peter dropped down next to her. Rob’s and Ame’s white faces shone in the gloom.

  “A ghost! Right here!” Robbie whispered.

  “I tried to tell Rob it was all right,” said Ame. “It’s a nice ghost, like Mr. Pudge. But Rob made me get under the bed.”

  “That’s because I wanted you to be safe,” Rob said crossly.

  “There are no ghosts,” Kat said, her voice trembling. “Come on out.”

  But Robbie shook his head. “It’s still here.”

  Kat looked around the empty room, warding off a shiver. “Where, then?”

  Robbie pointed. “There.”

  “Ah,” Kat said, as his finger waved toward the window. She took a breath, letting her insides settle. “Another someone out in the garden.”

  “No!” came Rob’s coarse whisper. “Not outside! Look in the lavatory.”

  “The lavatory?” Kat was sure Robbie must be wrong. She opened the bathroom door and looked inside, and . . . she couldn’t help herself.

  Kat cried out and stumbled backward.

  “Here!” shouted Peter from behind her, yelling at the figure by the sink. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Kat didn’t want to chase the boy. She’d already given him the fright of his life, she could see that much in his face. And she was sorry for his twisted, painful-looking shoulder, and he ran dragging one leg, pinwheeling his arms. Peter followed him out the door halfheartedly and stood and watched until the boy disappeared.

  Kat pulled herself together. Keep calm, for pity’s sake. Even if she was shaking all over.

  When she bent to look under the bed again she found the two pairs of round eyes. “It’s all right,” Kat managed. “He’s gone. Only a boy. A poor crippled boy.” Then she leaned back on her heels and said, “But how’d he get in here, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” Robbie said as he and Ame crawled out from under the bed. “We were playing Go Fish, and all of a sudden he was here in the room, watching us.”

  Amelie nodded. “He was here out of nowhere. Like a ghost would do.”

  “Are you sure he was real?” Rob asked.

  “He looked as real as you,” Kat said, but she didn’t feel at all certain. “What do you think, Peter?”

  Peter pushed his hair off his forehead. “He ran like he was real,” he said. “I think.”

  “Did you touch him?” Rob asked. “Was he solid?”

  “Sure he was. I couldn’t see through him,” Kat said. “Ghosts—if they exist, and I’m not saying they do, because I’m quite certain they don’t—but if they do they’d be transparent.” Wouldn’t they? Kat turned the watch on her wrist. She didn’t want to admit that she’d been scared to touch him, as if he might feel . . . cold. Or that her hand might slip right through him. She shuddered.

  “He made noises, too,” Peter said. “I heard his footsteps.”

  “Ghosts can make noises,” said Amelie. “Moaning and groaning noises.”

  “Speaking of noises,” Rob said, “what about the noises behind the hidden door in the stairwell?”

  Kat and Peter exchanged a glance. She hoped Peter wouldn’t tell them about the possible spy. One spooky thing was enough for their first day. “A tree branch rubbing against the window in the hall above,” Peter said.

  Rob narrowed his eyes, suspicious.

  “How do you think that boy got in here?” Kat asked. “If he was real, he had to get in.”

  Ame said, “He walked right through the wall.”

  Kat tapped her watch. “That’s it,” she said, brightening. “That’s it, Ame. Brilliant! There must be a hidden door, like the one in the stairwell. We just have to find it.”

  A sharp rap on the door made them all jump, and then Marie poked her head in. “Lunch,” she said. “Follow me.”

  Kat hoped they’d see the other students of the academy as they went down, but Marie said no, they were already in the middle of a lesson. “You’ll start tomorrow. That’s what her Ladyship said.”

  They followed Marie down the stairs to the grand front hallway and then through the castle, back and back. Kat found it hard to make a mental map with so many twists and turns, though she did her best. She passed at least one parlor and several small libraries and something that looked like a museum full of dead animals and antlers, and everywhere were shields or hauberks on the stone walls hung with the Craig tartan.

  Marie stopped before a set of massive oak doors and tugged at one to let them inside.

  The dining hall—for it was a great hall—was paneled in dark wood and watched over by rows on either side of metal-armored men, each holding a different weapon. Robbie ran down the line, from one suit of armor to the next.

  “Just look at these!” he gushed, his voice echoing. “Look at that claymore! Look at that broadsword. A two-headed ax! Golly.”

  Amelie tugged at Kat’s sleeve and Kat bent down.

  “They’re worried,” Ame said.


  “Who are?”

  “The men,” she said. She paused before one of the suits of armor and lifted her small finger to touch the glove with its rows of knuckle spikes.

  “Ame, there are no men,” Kat said. “These are empty suits of armor. How can they be worried?” A little shiver wove across her shoulders.

  “But they are,” Amelie said. Her voice was tinged with impatience, and she placed her fisted hands on her hips. “Something awful is happening here. Can’t you feel it?”

  Of course she couldn’t. But Kat couldn’t deny that something was very wrong. The suits of armor stood still and cold, rank on rank of gleaming metal men. Amelie walked down the row, touching each and whispering something.

  The table at the far end of the hall was set with four places, and Marie pointed out the buffet and then left them to eat alone. It was eerie in this great hall with the cold fireplaces and the cold men and the high arching clerestory windows shedding a gloomy light.

  But hunger got the best of Kat when she surveyed the buffet. It was quite a feast—lamb and potatoes, gravy and green beans, all steaming and fragrant in warming trays, and even a vanilla custard for dessert. Such a lot of food, what with rationing, even if the Lady said they had plenty. Despite feeling watched by those blank metal eyes, they dug in, and Robbie entertained them with battle notes and historical facts.

  Kat ate well. But as soon as she was starting to feel stuffed and relaxed, the thought popped into her head that they were being fattened up, like in those dark fairy tales where children stumble into enchanted castles and bad things happen when they are least prepared and most satiated.

  She pushed her plate away without getting dessert.

  As they left the hall they took a wrong turn right off.

  They passed small utilitarian rooms, some with washbasins, some with great pantries lined with dry goods. They saw a baking room and a canning room, but everything looked unused and dusty, and Kat got to wondering who was feeding them when Robbie piped up, sniffing, and said, “We can at least find the kitchen. Why don’t we follow our noses?”

  Kat sniffed and smelled it then, the rich buttery odor. They followed it back until they pushed open a swinging door, and there was the kitchen, and standing in the middle and talking to herself, the cook.

  She was a large woman and introduced herself right off as Miss Brodbeem, but, aye, they could call her Cook.

  “But what are you children doing wandering about, then, hey?” She turned away, pacing between the great center table and a sink, carrying things back and forth. “I never for the life of me saw such a place, and it’s only because of you lot and for him that I stay. Why, I never believed all the talk, but here I am and . . . Here!” She stopped her pacing and whirled as they were creeping out of her domain. “Just where do you think you lot are off to, hey?”

  They froze, Kat’s hand clutching Ame’s tight.

  Peter cleared his throat and said, “We didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “Intrude? Intrude! Have you lot eaten all you need? Did you get the luncheon? Yes? Well, then. What did you think? I try my best to prepare a feast for every meal, but does anyone appreciate it? Does anyone even eat it? I wouldn’t know, now, would I, because no one ever tells me. I’m just told, do this, do that, but I’m left as ignorant as a newborn babe. Her Ladyship . . .” And here Cook dropped her voice and muttered things under her breath that Kat couldn’t hear.

  “We quite enjoyed it,” Kat said.

  “It was delicious,” said Peter.

  “We loved it!” piped up Amelie.

  “It was smashing. Really, really excellent. Especially the vanilla custard. That was,” said Robbie, searching for some extreme epithet, “that was brilliant.”

  “Oh,” said Cook, and she drew her apron right up to her eyes, dabbing them aggressively, “oh, you lot are lovely. Would you like some apple tart? The apples are straight from the orchard. I only now finished the making of it, and wouldn’t you know, here you are.”

  Kat smiled, and Cook pulled stools around so they could sit, and they all ate the tart happily and listened as Cook described her menus, and Kat decided that they had established their first solid friendship in this bleak, peculiar place.

  Her lack of sleep the night before—sitting upright in a rocking train was no way to get a good sleep—caught up with Kat now that she had a full belly. Marie stormed into the kitchen and led them back to their rooms, scolding them the entire way for leaving the dining hall and “wandering.” She reminded them not to be late for supper, which began at the hour of five, and to change into their uniforms, since she couldn’t be always chasing after them what with her many duties, and she left, still scolding, her voice echoing down the hallway.

  When Amelie stretched across the large four-poster, Kat only lay down to keep her company, but once her head settled into the pillow, she fell into a deep slumber.

  12

  Spikes

  KAT IS BACK in the well. She’s found a soft cushion of dried leaves, but it’s not a comfort. Wind moans over the top of the well, and a rook screeches, Off, off, and something scrapes toward her. That hand, that curving claw hand, scrapes across the floor.

  And then, more horrible, a disembodied face lifts out of the shadows above the hand, a face she knows, a sharp pale face framed by silvery hair, a ghostly face. Lips curve in a smile, and the teeth look like the spikes on a saw blade.

  The teeth grind metal on metal as the face and the claw hand make straight for her.

  13

  The Second Charm: The Hunchback

  IT IS 1747.

  The villagers shun him, the hunchback boy. Abandoned in the dark of night at the chapel door for his deformity, he does not know his parents. He will not be missed. Leonore will save him from a life of lonely submission, from a barren childhood of painful memories. She will do this—charm the child—as much for him as she will for herself.

  For the hunchback boy the magister asks only for an ear, a small sacrifice. Something she can hide beneath her hair.

  “And this ear I’ve made for you, no one seeing you in daylight will know it’s not your own.”

  No, not in daylight. And only her vacant-eyed husband sees and hears Leonore by the light of the full moon.

  The boy serves the chapel at which he’d been deposited, since the priest is too old to carry the heavy cross and too arthritic to polish the silver. For his labors the boy is given refuge: he sleeps in the transept, eats in the rectory, and rarely strays far from the chapel.

  The chapel is sanctuary, the magister tells her. You cannot charm him in the chapel. You will have to catch him outside.

  Gathering wood, she reasons. He has to be out gathering wood for the fireplace that warms the rectory. She sends her man to offer her forest to the boy. She finds him alone in her woods, the rooks hovering overhead, their guardian wings folded tight, and she offers him the charm. She holds it before his eyes, and he marvels at the silver thing she’s taken from her chatelaine. It looks so much like him.

  It floats in the air, reflecting the light. “Here’s a pretty silver chain for you to wear it on. Won’t you put it round your neck?”

  The boy looks up. The beautiful lady standing before him is so sweet. Perhaps she’s a saint, come down from heaven to save the poor boy who sweeps out the nave and passes out the offering box.

  But then he trembles. If she’s a saint, she’ll know: he is imperfect. He backs away from her. “Can’t,” he says in a broken voice.

  “Can’t?” For an instant, she does not look sweet. But then she is again. “Of course you can. It’s a gift.”

  Should he tell her? It had only been once, one time, when the fair had come through town. And oh, he’d wanted to see it, see the jugglers. And it was only a few coins from the offering box. The terrible punishment he’d suffered at the fair—being taken for one of the
freaks—had been enough of a lesson. Hadn’t it?

  The beautiful lady takes his hand and folds his fingers around the chain. A braided circle of white hair crowns her black locks like a halo.

  The silver charm dangles from the chain in his hand. The more he looks at it, the more he thinks it looks like him. As if it has been made for him. In the shape of this charm, his deformity is beautiful.

  Yes, take it. He’d paid for his sin at the fair, as he’d been tossed about for a freak, laughed at and muddied and bruised. This charm is but a small gift, a balm for all the hurts laid on his crooked back. A saint would want that. And if she is a saint, maybe this bright charm will even cure his ills . . .

  Tim smiles up at her, and when she smiles back, he fancies that she is made of shining silver.

  14

  Chatelaine

  THEY WOKE TO a furious pounding on the door.

  “Up! Up!” Marie ran into the room. “The Lady will not tolerate a late supper! Up at once! I can’t be responsible for you at every turn. Oh, you should be in your uniforms. Now there’s no time. Just come down at once.” She tsked as she ran out again.

  The back of Kat’s neck was slick with sweat as she tried to shake off the nightmare. Amelie rubbed her eyes fiercely, a rumpled mess in her twisted wool jumper.

  “Come on, then,” Kat said. Her hands trembled.

  “I don’t need to eat,” Ame said, grumpy. “Want to stay here.”

  “We’ve got no choice.”

  Kat tried combing out their hair—Amelie had terrible knots and cried out more than once, and Kat finally gave up, saying, “That will have to do.”

  They rushed down the great stairs into the central hallway and turned left, and—“No! It’s right. Sorry, Ame”—Marie calling them along, so Kat followed the sound of her voice until they finally reached the dining hall.

  Now fires roared in both fireplaces. Light streamed in from the high windows; the sun had come out from behind the clouds while they napped. The table was spread again for a feast. Everyone stood at their places at the table, including Peter and Rob and three other children, two boys and a girl. It was clear that they’d all been waiting for Kat and Amelie, and they glared at them as they stumbled in. Rob and Peter wore their uniforms, and Kat tried brushing her messy hair back from her face, feeling the blush of embarrassment.