Page 3 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

Once upon a time, Ms. Rosley had been a regular at our counter, dressed to impress no matter the day or time.

In her forties, she was attractive, self-assured, and very hard to read.

She knew exactly what she wanted but would never tell you.

Her favorite pastime was making the shop girls guess, offering no clues besides a slight rise of the brow or curl of the lip.

She was notorious at Galton’s for being the most difficult-to-please woman alive, but we gave her sympathy and the benefit of the doubt.

The woman had lost three of her four children to illness, the youngest escaping with his life but not his health.

Despite her lavish monthly shopping trips, she was most often nursing her delicate son at home, rarely making appearances elsewhere but in the department store.

I’d begun making extra time for her, and a tenuous, strange respect had formed.

We weren’t friends, just two people, scarred by loss, recognizing that feature in each other.

Three weeks ago, her young son had joined his siblings, and no one expected to ever lay eyes on Ms. Rosley again.

But here she was, disheveled—her distinct curled pompadour style lank with grease, pinned only halfway.

Her coat had been buttoned askew, the pale collar stained by something green and gelatinous.

Sorrow had done its work on this woman. She approached the counter like a broken windup toy, eyes glassy and distant, carrying bags from various departments, a fair number more than usual.

There was something decayed about her, skin sagging on bones as though she’d begun to rot beneath, like a wooden doll plagued with mildew.

A pit of dread opened in my stomach. I was bitterly familiar with this look. As she neared, she stumbled under the weight of her things, and I noticed the same green substance clinging to the corner of her mouth—it was candy.

I could sense Magdaline retreating, turning to find something else to do, an excuse to leave so I could deal with Ms. Rosley alone.

The woman placed her sacks on the floor, filled with children’s things: clothes, toys, and several bags of sweets.

With some dignity, she raised her chin but didn’t speak. I returned her intense gaze.

“Ms. Rosley, you’ve done quite a bit of shopping,” I ventured.

She shook her head as though to say no before answering. “Yes.”

The glob of candy slipped from her mouth and onto the glass-top display. I prepared to ask what perfume she wanted to try, but she anticipated the question.

“I want a bottle of Joyeux.”

“Oh yes,” I said, trying a light-hearted approach. “The one that smells like sugar.”

“David loved that smell,” she said, voice wistful.

Her little boy. My heart ached.

“This was his favorite time of year, you know,” she went on dreamily as I retrieved the test bottle and readied it.

I went slower than typical, and with a steadying inhalation, I reached, not with my fingers but with coils of forbidden magic rising from the slow-turning universe tucked away in me, the part belonging to where we’d all come from and were no longer allowed to return to.

“It’s a beautiful time,” I conceded while, with senses long decried as corrupt, I searched for the telltale sensation of wrongness that would prove that what I suspected was true. More than grief was responsible for Ms. Rosley’s alarming state.

“The enchantments were his favorite. He was always telling me someday, maybe he’d be able to craft them too. Swore he’d find a way to use magic to heal instead of hurt.” Her lip quivered. “Children never understand the danger of things, do they?”

I attempted to take her hand in mine, so I might turn her wrist and dab the scent on it as I’d done many times, but she jerked away, the movement unbalancing her.

I withdrew my invisible prodding, worried she’d sensed it, though most people had long lost the ability to.

“Ms. Rosley?”

“I’m going to visit my children today. I bought them gifts,” she said, motioning to the cluster of items at her feet. It was far too much to leave on the graves of loved ones. No groundskeeper would allow it.

“Is anyone going with you?” I asked delicately, hoping she’d say her husband, a relative, a friend, someone to hold her as she stood in the face of her greatest pain.

“No. It can only be me.” Her dreamy countenance hardened, turning testy. “I just need the perfume, and I’m in a rush.”

“All right,” I agreed. “Do you want to try it?”

I needed to touch her.

She offered her wrist with an impatient huff, and I took her fingers, bone-thin and filthy, the smell of her unwashed skin sour. As I pushed back the sleeve of her coat, I brushed her gold bracelet and flinched, a metallic sting of malice biting into me.

“It’s candy residue, for goodness’ sake.” Ms. Rosley scowled, prepared to pull her wrist away, but I held on tighter than necessary, and she didn’t resist.

“I’m sorry. Your charming bracelet—it’s cold.” I kept my voice even, almost cooing, taking my time dabbing the scent on, trying to decide what to do. “I’ve never seen you wear this one.”

She considered the jewelry, wary, in awe, as though seeing it for the first time.

“It’s always cold,” she replied, breathy, “but I won’t take it off. Some good friends gave it to me. The jewels, you see…one for each of my children.”

A disturbed look crossed Ms. Rosley’s face, eyes wide, filled with tears, and her breath came in shallow pulls.

My attention was equally locked on the accessory, its gold plating clouded by more than the fingerprints of an admiring hand.

A faint, stringy, miasma trailed to her lamé handbag on the counter.

Abruptly, Ms. Rosley clapped her other hand over mine, holding with an impressive grip for such an emaciated frame.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked, a tear falling onto my knuckles, slipping into the warm space between our joined hands.

“Do you?” I asked quietly in return.

“I hear them. My babies. They’re calling to me, and they sound so afraid. They need me.”

If voices were tormenting her, they weren’t those of her children.

“They’re in Dark Hall,” she whispered, raising her eyes to meet mine, determined, afraid. “It’s all my fault, so I’m going to get them back. They promised I could.”

Time slowed, the white noise of blood and horror pumping in my ears.

“Who did? ”

Ms. Rosley released me, returning to business as usual. I reeled, trying to keep pace with her rapidly fluctuating moods.

“You’ve kept me long enough,” she said, opening her handbag and rifling inside. “I only came for this perfume, not to chat all day.”

She retrieved her pocketbook and set the purse on the counter, open, and there it was, wrapped around the barrel of a revolver.

A Drudge. It was small and newly formed, gawping up at me, distressingly infant-like.

Its chosen physical state was still unstable, shifting in and out of view like a shadow caught in firelight.

“Where are you off to next, Ms. Rosley?” I inquired carefully.

“Aren’t you full of questions?” she snorted, handing me enough bills to pay for five bottles. “I’m going to the cemetery. Don’t bother with my change. I don’t need it.”

She was going to walk away with the end of her life tucked neatly in her purse. She’d take her gifts, spray her youngest child’s favorite scent, then leave this plane of misery in hopes of being reunited with all she’d lost.

The infant Drudge would feed on her dying magic.

Then perhaps it would fold itself back into the bracelet and be sold at auction, passed to a relative, making its way from one person to the next, filling each of them with its pain, forcing its suffering onto others until it was strong enough to fully walk on its own.

I could let it be and continue my borrowed life without worrying about the curse or the people it would ruin.

I could let her go and say a silent prayer that she found peace.

I could.

“I don’t have all the time in the world,” Ms. Rosley snapped.

I seized her wrist and flipped open the clasp with my free hand, a trick I’d learned my first year away from home.

It fell into my palm with the hiss of a hot brand in water.

Immediately, the claws of the diseased magic unhooked from the poor woman, more interested in the unexpected salvation it sensed in the cradle of my magic.

Ms. Rosley loosed a piercing howl, as though her soul were being forcibly removed.

Depending on how long she’d been wearing the bracelet, part of it had been.

Now that I had the vessel, the Drudge would have no choice but to follow, but for good measure, I snatched the purse, handgun inside, and I ran.