Chantress Read online

  “And where did you live before then?”

  Telling the truth was out of the question. “In London, sir.”

  “In which part?”

  I racked my brains for an acceptable answer. “By the river.”

  “On what street?”

  “River Street.” Surely there must be some such address.

  The old man rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I do not know this place. In what neighborhood is it?”

  I had no answer.

  The old man and Nat looked at each other.

  “Under your hand,” the old man said suddenly to me, his face stern. “What is it you hide?”

  Flummoxed, I found I was covering the spot where the ruby lay hidden under my bodice. I flushed and let my hand drop. “Nothing.”

  Nat darted forward. “There’s a chain around her neck.”

  I fumbled at my kerchief, but too late. Nat’s deft fingers were already closing in.

  “Nat, you will leave this to me,” the old man said.

  As he spoke, I heard a strange snatch of song.

  “Ouch!” Nat pulled back in shock. “What was that?”

  Did he mean the music?

  “It wasn’t me.” Or had I worked some magic unconsciously? Unsettled by the thought, I whirled away from Nat, only to trip against the cart. As I tried to right myself, the stone slipped out of my bodice, flashing with red fire.

  The room went silent. Then Nat whistled and reached for the stone.

  “No!” I ducked. “It’s not yours.”

  “And you expect me to believe it’s yours?” Nat scoffed. “Who did you steal it from?”

  “It was a gift from my mother,” I said, stung.

  “She must have been a bloody princess, then. Or was she the one who stole it?”

  “No.” The accusation outraged me. “She was—”

  I stopped myself just in time. To say anything more about my mother or myself would be dangerous. And much as I was tempted to name Nat himself for a thief, that too seemed unwise.

  As Nat and I eyed each other warily, the old man spoke.

  “Neither a princess nor a thief, your mother—but something else entirely, yes? Something which you do not wish to name?”

  My heart wobbled in my chest.

  The old man’s spectacles had caught the light again, glimmering like little moons. “You will please show us your left hand.”

  I flinched and backed away.

  Quick as a wildcat, Nat clasped my left wrist and pulled me into the light. Above his long fingers, the mark showed clearly: a spiral the size of a penny piece, white as bones washed clean by the sea.

  Nat gazed at me, eyes wide with shock. “You’re a Chantress.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  A SMALL BUT CONVINCING DISPLAY

  “It’s an old scar, nothing more.” I wrenched my arm free and backed toward the door. “Let me go!”

  Nat stepped toward me, blocking the way out. “You’re a Chantress,” he said again. The eager note in his voice made me sick. Was he already counting the reward money in his head?

  Time to play my last card. I gave him as fierce a look as he had ever given me. “If you turn me in, I’ll tell them about the book you stole.”

  Nat halted. “What book?”

  “I saw you steal it from the library. I saw you go through the secret door, too.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did. I was there, and I followed you. And if you give me up to that awful Lord Scargrave, I’ll tell him everything. So for your own sake, you’d better let me go.”

  I wanted to scare him. To my dismay, his shoulders relaxed, and a glimmer of amusement appeared in his eyes. “Hand you over to Scargrave? Believe me, that’s the very last thing we’d do.”

  I let out a deep breath. “So you’ll let me go?”

  “Oh no,” Nat said. “You’re not going anywhere. Not if we can help it.”

  I looked at him in renewed alarm. What did they want from me?

  “There, there,” the old man said. “We do not mean to frighten you, Nat and I. We are glad you have come to us, Chantress—you cannot imagine how glad.”

  I could see clearly past his lenses now, and there was no menace in his eyes, only kindness and concern and eagerness.

  Or was that a trick of the light?

  “Ah, I see you are still afraid,” the old man said. “And that is to be understood, for there are many dangers before you, and you are very young. Much younger than I expected. And in trouble, too, it seems, or why would you be hiding in our cart? But we will not betray you. On my life, I, Cornelius Penebrygg, swear it to you. We wish only to help. You will take shelter in our house, yes?”

  Though his face was earnest under his floppy cap, I hesitated. What he had said was true, however: I was in trouble—very great trouble. And there was no other help in sight.

  “Yes,” I said. “I will come with you.”

  Penebrygg looked relieved, but Nat shot him a worried look. “Sir, are you sure that—”

  “Quite sure,” Penebrygg said. “But we will do without the lantern on the way, yes, Nat? It is better that we go in darkness.”

  “Let me settle Aristotle first.”

  “Of course.”

  Nat said no more, but as he guided the donkey into the stall, he kept a wary eye on me. And to judge by the prickling in my spine, he continued to watch me even after he blew out the light.

  † † †

  With Penebrygg guiding my footsteps and Nat following close behind, we made our way across the uneven yard. It was a moonless night, and the gritty air was thick with fog.

  Was Norrie somewhere in this city, somewhere nearby? I could only hope so, but every step I took seemed to be taking me farther away from her. I peered around blindly, wondering if I’d made the right decision in going along with Penebrygg, or whether I ought to take my chances and bolt.

  Nat’s hand came down on my shoulder. Had he guessed what I was thinking?

  Penebrygg halted. “Mind the step,” he whispered.

  Nat propelled me forward, and I passed into a house even blacker than the yard outside, seasoned with damp and smoke and age.

  “We’ll go upstairs,” Penebrygg said.

  A flint scraped behind me as Nat lit the lantern again, but its glow was so faint that I had to climb the crooked staircase almost by feel. With a falling heart, I heard Nat locking doors behind us, floor by floor. Not much chance of escape, then, should I need to run.

  But perhaps I wouldn’t. As we climbed, Penebrygg offered me nothing but kindness, murmuring words of encouragement and steadying me when my footing went awry. Perhaps I’d been right to trust him, after all. From what he’d said earlier, he seemed to know something about Chantresses and their ways. Perhaps—I thought with a leap of my heart—he would even know how I could find Norrie.

  When Penebrygg pushed open the door at the top of the stairs, I saw at first only a haze of sullen smoke, almost as thick as the fog outside. Squinting, I finally made out the outlines of a long, slant-roofed room, rife with mysterious shapes and shadows. Against the stone of the hearth, three silver globes gleamed in the haze, attached to a square contraption whose name and purpose I could not even begin to guess at. On the other side of the hearth stood a clock, and I could hear still more in the shadows, whirring and clicking like a flock of invisible birds.

  “Here,” Penebrygg said, handing me a cloak. “Wrap yourself up, and take the chair closest to the fire. It’s a cold night.”

  As I bundled myself into the chair, Nat settled on a bench across from me, and busied himself with a scrap of wood and a knife—a smaller one than he’d had in the shed. His face was unreadable, and I found myself reaching for my stone as if seeking reassurance. Cool and heavy, it fitted pleasingly against my hand, and I sat up straighter.

  Penebrygg motioned toward the small table at my side. “We’ve bread and cheese and apples here, if you’re hungry.”

  He himself took a slice
of bread and cheese, and Nat took an apple, so it seemed safe enough to eat. My stomach rumbled. It had been noon since I’d last eaten, noon on the island with Norrie . . . .

  Remembering, my throat closed over, and I found I could barely choke the food down.

  Penebrygg eased himself into the only chair left. “Now, then, Bess—”

  “No.” Having gone so far as to break bread with him, I was reluctant to keep up the pretense. “My name is Lucy. I did not tell you the truth before.”

  There was a moment’s pause, and then Penebrygg said, “A wise precaution, I’m sure.”

  But Nat frowned. “If she lied to us about that,” he said to Penebrygg, “who’s to say she hasn’t lied about everything? Maybe she’s not a Chantress—”

  “You yourself saw the mark, Nat,” Penebrygg said. “And she has the stone.”

  “And very convincing they were too. But marks can be faked, and the ruby could be paste. I wouldn’t put anything past Scargrave, would you?”

  He seemed determined to disbelieve me, but I tried to keep my temper. “I haven’t faked anything—”

  Nat’s knife flashed as he sank it into the wood. “We need more proof.”

  “Proof?”

  “Work some Chantress magic for us,” Nat said. “Right here, right now.”

  To my surprise, Penebrygg chuckled.

  “Spoken like a true man of science, Nat. I have trained you well.” He adjusted his spectacles and looked at me. “I myself am inclined to take you at your word. But Nat is right to be cautious. The stakes are very high, and we ought to do this one last test: Choose what song you will, and demonstrate your powers to us. Though you must sing softly,” he cautioned. “We do not want others to hear you.”

  They wanted me to work magic on demand? Well, perhaps I could, at that. All I needed was a song to sing.

  But what song? At the moment, I could hear nothing but the fire’s crackle and the incessant ticktocking of the clocks.

  Take the stone off.

  That’s how it had worked before, hadn’t it? As I took hold of the stone, it caught the ebbing firelight, flaring red as flame. Help me, I urged it silently. Bring me magic that will amaze them. And I tugged it over my head.

  A chill went over me as the room filled with music. Unfortunately, the notes were as soft and indistinguishable as the murmuring I had heard in the Ravendon House library. I could not make out any particular song, only random notes that faded as soon as I trained my ear on them.

  In the dark recesses of the room, the hidden clocks ticked off the seconds.

  I looked up and saw two faces looking back at me, one full of skepticism, the other alight with faith.

  “We ask for nothing very dramatic, you understand,” Penebrygg said with an encouraging smile. “A small but convincing display is all that is required.”

  I looked helplessly back at him. “I can’t give you one.”

  His genial face turned stern, and I saw something of Nat’s mistrust in his eyes. “You cannot? Or you will not?”

  Miserably aware that I looked not only like a failure but a fraud, I spelled out the problem. “I know nothing about being a Chantress. I am one, truly I am. But I never knew it before today.”

  Nat raised his eyebrows.

  Penebrygg kneaded his bearded chin as if he did not know quite what to think. “Pray tell us more.”

  I briefly recounted my story. It sounded even more fantastical in the telling than it had in the living of it, and I faltered now and again as I caught sight of Nat’s disbelieving face.

  Penebrygg, however, listened to me with utter absorption. “So it was seven years ago that you arrived on the island?” he said at one point. “That would make sense.”

  And when I spoke of how the song had claimed me, and the wind had come for us, he exclaimed, “Extraordinary!”

  When I finished my tale, there was silence. Penebrygg rubbed his spectacles on the edge of his sleeve, then pushed them back on his nose with a sigh. “I would give my eyeteeth to observe such magic. But you have not seen your guardian since you arrived? And you have no idea how to find her?”

  I shook my head. “Do you?”

  “Alas, no. I am only a workaday inventor, with nothing magic about me whatsoever. That said, perhaps we might be able to track her down by ordinary means, if we made discreet inquiries—”

  “Stop,” Nat interrupted. “Don’t you see what she’s doing? You asked her to show us her powers, and instead she’s spun us a wild story. That doesn’t sound like a Chantress to me. That sounds like a spy.”

  Penebrygg folded his arms across his chest. “What is the first duty of science, Nat?”

  With evident reluctance, Nat answered, “To keep an open mind.”

  Penebrygg nodded. “We must not leap to conclusions—any of us. And I include myself. There is much in Lucy’s tale that rings true to me, but it would be wise to gather more evidence.” He turned to me. “You know nothing whatsoever about the ruby you carry?”

  “Nothing to speak of, except that when I wear it, it’s hard to hear the music.”

  “May I examine it more closely?”

  I hesitated. I felt uneasy enough not having the stone around my neck; I couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be if I actually handed it to someone else.

  “You needn’t let go of it,” he assured me. “Merely hold it up to the light, so that I may see it better. I shall keep my distance, and I shall not touch it, I promise you.”

  As I lifted the ruby, Penebrygg pushed himself up from his chair and lit a taper from the fire. Bringing it close, he peered at the stone. “Ah, yes, that’s it. And now turn it—no, stop a moment.” He squinted. “Remarkable. What a shame that you lost your mother’s letter! Let us hope that it lies undiscovered, or at least that Scargrave can make no more sense of it than you could.”

  “Is there nothing I can do?” I asked.

  “About the letter? Not at the moment. But I can suggest another test that will prove whether you are truly a Chantress. Do you wish to continue?”

  “Yes.” Whatever it took to get their help in finding Norrie, I would do it.

  “You are not too tired?”

  “No.” Despite the late hour and the smoky, shadowy room, I felt wide-awake.

  “Very good. Now take the jewel and hold it in your hand. No, not like that. Not in your fist. Let it lie on your palm, like so.”

  It was difficult to obey Penebrygg, to release my fingers and let the ruby lie there in the open. The necklace had always been my private touchstone, and I wanted to keep it safe and sound, away from prying eyes. I shifted in my chair, forcing myself to keep my palm flat.

  “Do not move,” Penebrygg commanded. “Be still, and let me try to take it from you.”

  My fingers closed over the ruby of their own accord. “But it’s mine!”

  “If it is truly magic and truly yours, no one can take it away from you. Nat tried in the shed, do you not remember? And he did not succeed.”

  No one could take my stone away from me? Curious now, I opened my hand and let the ruby lie exposed on my palm.

  Penebrygg reached for the ruby, but as his hand closed around it, a savage music rang in my ears. Penebrygg’s fingers flew back, and his owlish face turned pale.

  Nat leaped from his chair. “What have you done to him?”

  “Calm yourself, Nat,” Penebrygg said, nursing his fingers. “She did nothing. It was the stone.”

  Nat knelt beside him, his face concerned. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not unbearably.”

  “Let me try.”

  “No, Nat. I wouldn’t recommend it. Not when—”

  But even as Penebrygg spoke, Nat’s fingers were curving around the stone. The savage notes sounded in my ears again, this time more violently. Nat cried out, and his hand flew upward.

  “Ah,” Penebrygg said. “What did you feel?”

  “Nothing at all, until I was about to touch it.” Nat sounded shaken. “And t
hen it was as if my fingers were caught in red-hot pincers.”

  “Exactly what I experienced,” Penebrygg said. “Tell me, did you feel something like that in the shed?”

  “When I reached for the necklace?” Nat considered the question. “I felt a pinch, yes. Nothing like as painful, though.”

  “But you were only reaching for the chain then, and not the stone itself. You did not come so close then.” Penebrygg nodded at me. “And what happened on your side? What ran through your mind?”

  “Nothing, except . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Except that I heard music. Very quick and harsh.” I did not add that I had also been possessed by a strange and disturbing feeling, almost as if I were splitting into two Lucys, the one shocked and distressed to see the others in pain, the other darkly satisfied by their failure. It had only lasted an instant, but it was no less unsettling for that.

  “It is as I expected, then,” Penebrygg said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Penebrygg pushed his spectacles along the wide bridge of his nose. “Bear in mind that I know very little about Chantresses. None of us do, not in this day and age. But some of the old stories say that Chantresses were commonly given magical stones by their mothers. And if anyone else attempted to seize that stone, he would feel the pain of fire.” He bestowed a sober glance on me. “That is the phrase that is used: ‘the pain of fire.’ ”

  “But those stories talk of plain stones,” Nat said.

  “My stone was plain until today,” I said.

  “But it’s a ruby now. And I never heard a story about a gem like that.”

  “Nor have I,” said Penebrygg. “But I once saw a manuscript about a Chantress whose stone was a pearl of immense beauty. So it would seem it is possible. And what other explanation is there for what we have seen tonight?”

  “I can think of none,” Nat admitted.

  Relieved to have proven myself, I asked the question that mattered most to me. “Will you help me find Norrie, then?”

  “Of course,” Penebrygg said. “We’ll do everything we can.”

  The fear I felt for Norrie did not diminish, but I found I was better able to shoulder it now that I knew I was not alone. I looped the necklace over my head and tucked the ruby out of sight.