The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle (25 page)

The Twelfth Charm: The Heart

K
AT WAS LOST.
She had a sword, and she had her chatelaine, but she feared she had already lost her soul. She was already part monster.

Then Father's voice as he left that day, as he picked up his suitcase, came to her, so clear: “Keep calm, Kitty. Carry on. And remember, no matter what happens, keep faith.” And Great-Aunt Margaret's voice, like an echo: “In times like these we require other, equally important qualities. Like imagination. And faith. And hope.”

Kat raised Peter's sword and braced. She was done for, but she still had to fight back.

She saw nothing in the Lady but her determination to take Kat's soul.

Yet the Lady had raised Kat's charm—and Kat saw that it was the heart—as she came, and only feet away from Kat, she paused. It was an instant, a flicker of a movement, but the monstrous hand that was stretched toward Kat holding the heart charm dropped just a hair, and the Lady hesitated.

In that momentary hesitation, Kat saw the Lady and the Lady's heart now as a perfect clockwork: how the gears meshed, how the wheels joined, how the cogs were placed. All her time spent with her father as he worked on clocks cleared her mind to see the Lady as a mechanical thing.

And something else. The heart. If Kat had nothing else left at all, she still had her own real heart, full of love for her family. The Lady was offering her a heart, as if it was meant out of love. The offering made Kat sad; and then it made her brave.

The Lady came on again with nothing but hatred in her one real eye.

The Lady's own momentum drove her onto the sword blade, and for a fraction of a second Kat hoped that it had stopped her, but no. The sword went right through some moving assemblage of gears and the Lady laughed. Kat let go of the hilt and stepped back, and the Lady took hold of the sword, slid it from her body, and dropped it to the floor.

Kat had nothing left. Nothing except her own chatelaine, which she held in her own monstrous right hand.

The glittering reflection of the chatelaine as Kat lifted it
made the Lady pause. Hesitate again. She pointed. “What is that?”

“It's my chatelaine,” Kat said. “A gift to me.”

Kat withdrew the pen from its holder; she thought of her father making a gift of the pen to Great-Aunt Margaret, and maybe, she thought, just maybe that meant it was from Father to Kat. Her left hand, gripping the pen, shook so badly, she feared she might drop it as she pointed it at the Lady.

“Is that . . . a pen? A
pen
?” The Lady laughed, a long and horrible laugh, throwing her head back as her laughter echoed around and around the castle, reverberating off of bare stone. “I thought you had real magic. And all you have is a pen!”

“Yes, my Lady. This is a pen.” Kat shifted the pen into her steady and unnaturally strong right hand and held her arm out straight and pointed the pen directly at the Lady's heart. Yes, the Lady's heart had a weakness, for though it was beautifully made, it was only clockwork after all, and Kat focused on that spot where the gears nicked together, forcing herself to be still and firm and keep her eyes fixed, and her own mechanical right hand tightened around the pen in a grip like steel.

Then Kat said the only thing she could think of, as loudly as she could, her voice ringing around the echoing space of the hall: “And
the pen is mightier
than the sword
.”

The air seemed to shimmer just a bit, and the pen took on a strong blue glow, and Kat thought,
Oh!
But she held her arm
out straight and true, her terrible hand firm, and she pointed the pen directly at the weak place in the Lady's steel and silver and copper heart.

The Lady snarled, and Kat almost shut her eyes against the sight of the wheels and gears, but she held the pen tight, and when the Lady came at her again Kat drove the pen into the Lady's chest.

Where it wedged between two of the gears in that steady beating heart, which ground instantly to a halt.

The Lady froze, the pen shuddering ever so slightly in Kat's hand as the gears meshed, locking the pen between two copper teeth.

The Pen

T
HE LADY IS
frozen. Stuck. That dreadful Katherine has driven something straight into her perfect heart. She can feel the gears trying to expel it, small, ridiculously tiny, but powerful, something with a profound magic even greater than her own.

A pen. A pen! And a spell, an incantation. How could the girl have known a spell?

The Lady hates being helpless. When she does manage to get out of this precarious situation, and she knows she will, the Lady will spare nothing, show her no mercy.

Clever Katherine. Far too clever for her own good, and using magic to boot.

The Lady concentrates all her mental effort on ridding her perfect body of this tiny pen throbbing against her perfect heart, this miserable nuisance, this ridiculously tiny pen.

The Scissors, and the First Unmaking: Anchor

K
AT STEPPED AWAY,
her eyes on the quivering pen.

The Lady was a statue, although her one real eye followed Kat, carrying a raging fury. She was alive, but trapped, unable to speak. The pen, wedged between the teeth of two gears in the Lady's heart, still glowed, though now it was an almost white-hot gold. As long as the pen held the gears, kept them from working, Kat believed the Lady would remain trapped.

I've cast a spell.
The pen, mightier than the sword, her knowledge of clocks, and her spell, all had saved her.

All gifts from her father, who might be lost to her forever.

Kat shook herself. Time was not on her side. If the pen was to fall out . . . or the spell to wear off . . .

She ran to Peter. His eyes were blank and staring, although
he could move, and he pushed away from her, as if she was the menace. He'd lost a part of his mind as well as his soul, which would explain the fearful behavior of the other charmed children.

“Peter,” Kat said, keeping her voice low and calm. He'd been trying to tell her something, before he'd been charmed.
Cut
 . . .
That's what she'd heard. “Cut what? Cut the chatelaine?” Kat looked back at the Lady, whose chatelaine still hung from her belt, just as the heart charm still dangled from her outstretched hand. Kat didn't want to get any closer to the Lady; she could see the gears straining at the pen as it quivered.

“I don't know what to do,” Kat said, turning back to Peter.

He began to tremble violently. One of his hands clutched at the chain that held the anchor charm.

“Wait. Cut the chain?”

Cut the chain.

She took the scissors from her great-aunt's chatelaine. The chain Peter wore around his neck seemed made of silver, or maybe steel; these scissors were thin and fine. Kat didn't see how they could cut a chain, but she remembered her great-aunt's words: “These scissors will cut . . .
anything
.” Kat reached for the chain.

Peter pulled away, his eyes wide with terror, but she put one hand on his chest and said, “I'm not going to hurt you. I just have to try . . .”

As she took the chain in her right hand, shock zipped all through her, and she jerked away from Peter as fast as he jerked away from her. Her mechanical right hand buzzed and whirred with the shock.

“Well, that was a bad idea,” Kat said, shaking her hand. Somehow she now knew that if she took the charm from Peter by force, he would come undone. “So.” Although she wasn't sure he understood a thing, Kat said out loud, “This has to be done carefully. I can't touch the chain. But . . .” An idea blossomed. “Hang on. I've got a way to experiment.”

She went back to the Lady. Her outstretched frozen arm still held the heart charm—Kat's heart charm. Kat could tell that the Lady, her one eye dilated and unblinking, knew what she was about to do. Kat held the scissors against the dangling chain, took a breath, and cut.

Nothing. The scissors couldn't close around the hard metal.

Kat stepped back, her eyes brimming with tears. She met the Lady's horrible eye. The Lady stared back with venom, an oily spittle trickling from her gaping mouth.

A spell.
Of course!
Kat had to find the right spell, like she had with the pen.

The scissors . . . Her great-aunt had quoted something from Dickens that didn't seem at all right. Great-Aunt Margaret had said Kat had to find the right words on her own.

So she tried, calling out loud and strong,
“Measure twice
, cut once.”

But, no. The scissors wouldn't cut.

Then her mind leapt to what her father had said when they'd been working together and she'd swept his watch to the floor. Her father's sad eyes watching her, her misery at having been a silly scatterbrain, and her father's words—she remembered.

She took a deep breath, held out the scissors, and filled the empty, ringing hall with,
“Cut to the chase, or all is
waste.”

The chain, as she cut it this time, didn't fall away; it dissolved. It vanished into smoke, leaving the heart charm to drop into Kat's outstretched palm.

The instant after, the Lady's metal right hand broke off and fell clattering to the ground. A smell of burnt flesh filled Kat's nostrils, and a sound like a pained howl rose up from the Lady's chest.

“That's it then,” Kat said as she closed her fingers around the charm. “That's how it can be done.” The charm was warm in her palm, and the scissors, like the pen, glowed gold. “I think you won't like it when I cut these chains,” she said to the Lady's fierce eye. “I think it's not going to do you any good at all. In fact, I rather think you'll be falling to pieces.”

Kat returned to Peter now, whose eyes grew wide and fearful again.

“Look,” Kat said, showing him her heart charm. “Just look at this for a moment.” As his eyes fixed on the heart, Kat slid the scissors under the chain around his neck and, repeating the spell, snipped the chain in half.

The anchor fell away, and he caught it. Kat heard another clattering and howl from behind as the Lady lost yet another broken part.

“Where is she?” Peter said, his voice a hoarse croak.

“It worked!” Kat threw her arms around him, and just as fast, pulled away again. Peter's face turned crimson. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I felt so alone . . .”

He backed away from her. “You . . .”

“I'm sorry,” she said again. “I didn't tell you about how she wanted me to betray you, or about my hand. I'm sorry.” There was nothing more to say. He thought she'd betrayed him, and maybe in one sense, she had. She waited.

“You freed me,” he said.

She nodded and swallowed hard against the lump in her throat.

“And the witch?”

“It turns out the pen
is
mightier than the sword,” she said, and pointed.

The Lady stood frozen, the pen quivering like an arrow point as the gears worked against it, trying to spit it out.

“I don't know how much time we have before it breaks or she forces it out,” Kat said. “And we have to find the others, the other children, before she gets free.”

“Then let's go,” he said. He tried to rise, but fell back. “I'm a little wobbly around the knees,” he said sheepishly.

Kat helped Peter to his feet. She said, “You were right. You were right about cutting the chain.”

“There's still the thimble,” he said. “I have no ideas about that.”

A rough squeal came from the Lady, like an engine trying to start. A gear clicked and whined.

Kat said, “We'd better hurry before she's loose again.”

Peter held out his anchor, still in his palm. “What about this? I don't like touching it, truth be told. It feels . . . hot.”

Kat had already put her own charm in her pocket. “I can take it if you like.”

He smiled and nodded, and Kat put his anchor charm in with her heart.

They ran down the hall toward the kitchen. It was still black as pitch, and there was no sign of Cook.

“What do you think is happening to the witch,” asked Peter, catching his breath, “as you cut off the charms?”

“She seemed to lose a part for each of our two charms. Maybe the charms and her mechanical parts are all tied up together.”

As if on cue, a grating noise rose from the front hall.

“Where to?” he asked. “We'd better hurry.”

“Maybe try to find Hugo?” Kat suggested. “He'll be either in the garage or the barn.”

Peter pushed through the back door into the moonlit courtyard, Kat right on his heels. The clouds had dissolved, and it was almost as bright as day; the moonlight reflected off the puddles and wet cobbles, adding to the glow. Kat pulled the sleeve of her jersey over her right hand, not wanting to see it exposed. The castle loomed at their backs, windows dark, like gargantuan eyes. Their feet smacked against the paving as they ran, footfalls echoing off of stone and glass.

In the deeper shadows near the door to the barn, something moved, and both Peter and Kat skidded to a stop.

“Here, now,” came the voice of the giant. “Just where do you think you're going, and what are you bairns up to?”

“We have to free them,” Kat pleaded.

Hugo wasn't having any of it. He'd marched them straight back to the kitchen and stood barring the door, arms folded over his chest, glowering at them, lighting an old oil lamp that hung inside the door. He had taken Peter's sword and Kat's scissors; they lay on the table at his back.

“Look,” said Peter. “We're not the enemy. We want to cut the spell.”

“You have weapons,” Hugo said. “I'm no' the sharpest tool in the shed, but I don't like weapons.”

“But it's so we can save them, not hurt them,” Kat said, begging.

“And how do you know about this, hey? How do I know the Lady hasn't spelled you and made you do her bidding?” Hugo's eyes were bright points. Then he softened a little, and said to Kat, “Is your hand all right, then?”

“My hand?” said Kat, startled. “How do you know about my hand?”

“I was the one what took you to the magister so's he could fix it.”

“You! Magister?”

“I didna have a choice,” Hugo said miserably. “Your real hand was crushed. I did what I had to.”

The memory rushed back to Kat, flooding her with images of her crushed hand, of the magister, and of Hugo, as if his words had opened a door.

“Hugo,” Kat said softly, “we're on the same side. And I thank you for my hand, even if . . .” She couldn't finish. The thought crossed her mind that she might yet have to pay for this magic.

“We're running out of time,” Peter murmured.

A sudden sound like a squeaky hinge, that made the hair on the back of Kat's neck stand right up, rose from beside the great fireplace.

They turned as one. A small door creaked open, and a very small head emerged from the opening, a head with straw-rough hair and a longish nose, followed by a rounded shoulder with a lopsided hump.

Kat sucked in air. The crippled boy.

She was sure he would run back to wherever he'd come from the instant he saw them, but the kitchen was still dimly lit, and he seemed so intent on what he was doing that he didn't know they were there.

Then, from somewhere below and behind him, came a most welcome voice, calling out.

“See if you can find Hugo. Try to concentrate, now, dearie. Oh, I know it's a hard thing, but it's the only thing. You must try to shake off that dreadful stupor and concentrate. Or I shall be doomed to end my days like this, helpless as a snail without a shell. Oh, please, dearie . . .”

“Cook!” Kat called in a coarse whisper.

The boy lurched, hearing Kat's voice; the giant lurched, hearing Cook's voice; Peter lurched out of sheer shock; and Kat lurched, hoping to wedge something to keep that door open before the boy tumbled back inside.