Diary of Anna the Girl Witch 1: Foundling Witch (11 page)

He was right. That was how I would be remembered unless I did something right now. But before I could muster my magic again, another car drove up and skidded to a halt, throwing dust and rocks at us.

André stepped out of the passenger’s side. Even that early in the morning, he was wearing an impeccable black suit with a royal blue handkerchief poking out of the jacket pocket.

“Hello, Number Nine,” he said, and beamed a toothy smile at me.

D
ear Diary
,

Energy is all around me. I feel it in the wind and in the breath of people nearby. I feel it surging inside me like waves against a rocky beach. So far, I have managed only a few small tricks, mostly when I was frightened. Strong emotions seem to have magic of their own, or perhaps desperation focuses my magic. I don’t know.

This power scares me. When the dogs attacked us at Irvigne Manor, I lashed out in self-defense. But I’ve also been tempted to use magic to harm others in anger. Magic flows on the heels of rage, and I fear I won’t be strong enough to resist it…

I
spent
the ride to Irvigne Manor sandwiched between Ouellette and Barnabé. André rode in front with a driver I didn’t recognize.

“You two will have to disappear for a while,” said André, tossing a fat envelope at each of them. “That should be enough to cover your fee, plus a little extra for travel expenses.”

Barnabé opened his envelope and counted the money. Then he nodded with a satisfied grunt.

Ouellette tucked his envelope into a shirt pocket without looking inside. “I think I should stay until Victor arrives,” he said. “I want to keep an eye on this one.” He jabbed me in the shoulder with his fat finger.

“Are you saying I’m not capable of guarding a little girl?” André asked over his shoulder. There was a dangerous edge to his voice.

“I’m saying that I don’t want to face Victor if she gets away, do you?” asked Ouellette. He didn’t seem intimidated by André, and I wondered whom he really worked for. So far, I knew he was a constable, paid by André to kidnap children. It wasn’t a stretch to believe that he could also be working for the mysterious Victor.

André glared at him for a minute; then he grunted. “Perhaps you’re right. Caution is always called for when dealing with witches.” He grinned at me. “You thought we didn’t know? In fact, we know a great deal about you, Anna Sophia. Thanks to our friend Victor, we probably know more about your exalted family history than you do.”

I looked out the car window, saying nothing.

André leered at me. “But don’t worry. We know exactly how to take care of witches at Irvigne Manor.”

Magic surged in me again. This time, it wasn’t cool blue or warm purple, but a red-hot fire. I spat it at André’s reflection in the rear-view mirror. It bounced off the mirror’s surface, and his handkerchief lit up like a torch.

André bellowed. I laughed while he swatted at his chest to put out the fire. His suit was a smoldering ruin. A dark, mischievous glee settled over me like a shadow.

I folded my arms and sat back.
Let them mull that one over for a while
, I thought.

I
expected
André to take me to the dungeon with the other prisoners. Instead, he marched me into the house and up a spiral staircase in one of the towers. Ouellette – I refused to call him Constable anymore – unlocked my handcuffs and shoved me inside a dimly lit room. The door shut with a clang behind me, and I heard a key lock the door.

The room wasn’t much better than the dungeon cells: A bare stone floor, bare stone walls, a dirty mattress in one corner. The rest of the room was littered with broken furniture, crumpled papers, and piles of books as if someone had once used it as a library.

At least I had light. It leaked through cracks in the shutters that covered one big window. When I opened the shutters, they hung at broken angles and were missing several wooden slats.

The window overlooked the front lawn. I pressed my head against the glass and peered out. It was a long drop to the ground. My faithful moon shone in the blue sky. At least I had one friend there.

I wondered why they had put me in there. Maybe they were worried that I would use magic to free the other prisoners? Then I understood: Escaping from the tower would be much harder than breaking out of the dungeon. The only ways out were the stairs, now guarded by Ouellette, and the window. Unless I could fly, I was stuck.

But didn’t witches fly? I had never flown except in a balloon, but wasn’t flying a witchy thing to do? My eyes caught on a bucket and mop, half hidden behind a pile of books. A mop should be as good as a broom.

Could I actually fly?

The strings of the mop were a tangled mess, and they smelled moldy. I grimaced and sat astride the handle as if it were a hobbyhorse.

“Um… giddyup?” I said cautiously. Nothing. “Abracadabra?” Still nothing. I ran around the cluttered room, feeling foolish and getting nowhere off the ground.

After five minutes of this, I dumped the old mop back in the bucket.

I guess it only works with brooms,
I thought.

The mattress didn’t look too clean – in fact, it was crawling with little bugs – so I turned over one of the broken chairs and sat down.

There had to be some magic I could use to escape. I was from an exalted family of witches, after all. Isn’t that what André had said? I wished I could make him tell me more. Just the thought of his smug face made my fists clench in rage. I should have burned more than just his handkerchief. I wished the flames had set his hair and eyebrows on fire too! That would have shown him what an exalted witch I really was…

The only great power is kindness.

Uncle Misha’s voice sounded in my head as if he were standing right next to me. That had always been his favorite saying. Before he left me in Luyons, he had held me tight and spoken in his gruff voice.

“Anna Sophia, you are smart and brave and beautiful,” he had said. “All these traits are wonderful. But what I’m most proud of is your kind spirit. Don’t ever lose that, or else shadows will live in your heart.”

At the time, I hadn’t understood. I never forgot his words, though, and now they were beginning to make sense to me.

When I’d set André on fire, I’d felt darkness inside me. Like a shadow that was laughing with glee at the destruction that I’d caused.

I was suddenly scared. Did that mean my magic was dangerous and, well, bad? Was I a black witch? I rubbed my chest, wishing that I could rub away the empty feeling of that evil shadow, wishing that I had someone to guide me in such things.

Squire! He was still in my pocket. I fished him out, lifeless and cold. Now I just needed fire to bring him to life. I searched the drawers of the broken desk for a candle or matches, but found none. The room had no fireplace, and a quick glance at the piles of books told me that I would find no help there.

But I could make fire. I’d done it once already that day.

No. I couldn’t let any more of that shadow inside me. Except I couldn’t think of another way. With a heavy heart, I rolled a stack of papers into a torch and concentrated my red-hot magic into a fiery ball. Not wanting to set the whole room on fire, I let the magic out in a gentle breath. The paper torch lit up like a candle. Quickly, I held Squire just above it before the papers burned out.

Had the shadow come again? I searched my heart but couldn’t find any trace of it. Maybe I hadn’t used enough magic to bring on the darkness this time… It was all confusing and more than a little terrifying. I had no idea what I was doing.

Squire exploded into his animated self and immediately started to tickle me. I laughed and swatted at him playfully, relieved at having him beside me.

“I missed you too,” I said. “But this is no time for playing. We’re in real trouble here.”

Squire floated in front of me. Now I had his undivided attention. I told him about the children in the basement, the fake police officer, and my being held prisoner by André. Together, we looked out the window at the long drop.

“I tried to fly like a real witch, but it didn’t work, and now I’m afraid to use my magic because of the darkness it brings.”

Squire made a motion like writing, and I understood that he wanted paper and pen. Paper was easy; the room was littered with it. And after a bit of searching, I found an old pencil stub. Squire grabbed it and wrote along the margin of some old form.

“You are a real witch.”

“I guess so. But why can’t I fly?”

“When you really want to fly, you will.”

Humph.
That was weird. I’d really wanted to fly before, but I couldn’t. I decided to ask him about something more important.

“I can make fire now.”

Squire bobbed up and down, as if nodding.

“This morning, I set André’s handkerchief on fire and nearly burned him up in his suit. But afterward I felt… wrong, somehow. Like a heavy shadow was choking me. Now I’m afraid to use my magic.”

Squire wrote for a long time. I tried to read his writing but couldn’t see past his knobby knuckles. Finally, he turned the paper towards me.

“Using magic in anger or for vengeance will bring the darkness. This is black magic, and it will consume you until there is nothing left but the shadow. As a witch, you’re open to all sorts of influences from the worlds we can’t see. We float between darkness below and light above. Our thoughts and actions pull us up… or down.”

“How do I stop it?” A hard knot tightened in my stomach. I didn’t want to be consumed by a shadow; I liked myself just the way I was.

Squire scribbled again.

“Use magic only to help others. Cause no harm, and the shadow cannot take you. It only sees you when you tune to its wavelength, understand?”

I thought about that for a minute. It wasn’t easy to cause no harm. What if I hurt someone by accident or in self-defense? I remembered the dangerous roughness in my voice after I’d blasted the guard dogs at Irvigne Manor. I was only trying to escape, but I had hurt the poor dogs who were doing their job. On the other hand, had I not done it, they’d have hurt Jean-Sébastien and me.

The line between good and bad wasn’t always clear.

“What if I hurt someone while helping someone else?” I asked. “Can the darkness still find me then?”

Squire spread his fingers in a shrug and wrote, “
I don’t know.”

Hmm.
Well, that made things tricky. If I wanted to get out of this mess and save the other kids, I’d have to do it in a way that didn’t hurt anyone else.

I decided to put that aside for now and learn more about my so-called exalted family. I needed more time to sort out my thoughts.

“You said that you knew my mother. Did you know any more of my family? Do I have aunts or uncles?”

Squire shook himself, telling me no.

“Grandparents?”

He nodded
and
shook himself.

“What does that mean – do I have a grandmother?”

Nod.

“A grandfather?”

Shake.

Okay, now we were getting somewhere. Then I remembered something from our earlier conversation.

“You said that my grandmother is a witch too. Is she still alive?”

Nod.

“What’s her name?”

Squire hesitated before writing down his answer. Did he not know her name, or did he not want to tell me?

“The Iron Queen.”