“Up you get,” Granny trilled, peering out of the darkened doorway across the empty village green. “Good—no one saw us.”
Stiff with shock, Betty clambered to her feet and hauled Charlie up beside her. They stared at their grandmother. Though Betty was too stunned to speak, her mind was jammed with questions. What in crow’s name had just happened . . . How was it even possible? And how could Granny be acting so matter-of-fact about it? Next to her, Charlie had stopped crying, but her face was grubby and tear-streaked, her little body trembling.
“Come on.” Granny guided them toward the door. “Inside, out of the cold.”
The door opened to warm air; jumbled, merry talk; and music. Betty stepped in, clasping her arm tightly around Charlie’s shoulders. It was dimly lit, with the glow of the jack-o’-lanterns turning everything and everyone golden. There were so many people it was difficult to move through them all, but Granny nudged and jostled, clearing a path to the bar, where Fliss and another girl, Gladys, were serving drink after drink.
Granny pushed the carpetbag at Betty. “Take this up to the kitchen. Put the kettle on.”
Betty held the bag at arm’s length, afraid it would swallow her up and spit her out again in some unknown place.
“Oh, for crow’s sake.” Granny snatched it back, tucking it under her arm. She touched the horseshoe above the door. “Fliss!” she called. “Upstairs.”
“Now?” Fliss blurted out in surprise.
“Now.”
A look passed between them, and Fliss’s face became grave. She nodded, wiping her hands on her apron, glancing at Betty. Betty stared back, her gaze dropping to something sticking out of her sister’s apron pocket. Fliss hastily tried to poke it back in, but Betty recognized it immediately: it was the corner of the Marshfoot flyer. So Fliss had ratted on them. Yet all that had just happened had cooled Betty’s temper, leaving more questions. Did Fliss know what Granny’s old carpetbag could really do, as well as the big secret Granny was about to tell them? Little threads of envy knitted together in an unfamiliar pattern. It used to be Betty and Fliss who had shared secrets; now Betty was the one being locked out.
“Where are you going?” Gladys shrieked. “I’m ankle-deep in beer, here! I can’t manage on my own!”
“We won’t be long, and I’ll double your wages tonight.” Granny touched the horseshoe again.
“That’s not going to help,” said Fliss primly.
“What would you know?” Granny snapped, turning to Betty. “I thought I told you two to go upstairs?”
Numbly, Betty placed her hands on Charlie’s shoulders and steered her to the stairs. As they climbed them, Betty eyed the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet, trying to focus on normal, everyday things. This was their world, not one where smelly old carpetbags transported people. Perhaps there had been snuff powder in the bag, she decided. Something that had momentarily befuddled them. It was the only practical explanation.
Once in the kitchen, Betty and Charlie sat down at the table. Charlie drew her knees up and peered over them, wide-eyed, like a frightened little mouse. Granny pulled out a chair and tutted, shaking a scruffy black cat off the table.
“Scram!” she snapped at the hissing creature. The cat hated everyone; only Charlie persisted in trying to befriend it. It had mysteriously wandered in some months before (though Betty suspected Charlie had enticed it with scraps) and now they couldn’t get rid of it. Despite Granny’s strict instructions not to name it, brandishing her broom and yelling “Oi!” every time it took a swipe at Charlie, the cat always returned and did as it pleased. And thanks to Charlie, it did have a name.
“Poor Oi,” she murmured as the cat skulked away downstairs.
Fliss filled the kettle and put it on to boil. Granny sat at the head of the table, took out her pipe, and began stuffing it with tobacco.
A minute later, Fliss put cups of tea in front of them, stirring in mounds of sugar. “It’s good for shock.”
“And rotten teeth,” muttered Granny.
Fliss gave an injured sniff. Then Charlie burst into sobs.
“There, there, I know.” Granny reached out to pat her arm. “You’ve had a bit of an upset. Have a good cry and get it all out.”
A bit of an upset? And yet Granny was about to reveal something else, some explanation of why they were trapped in Crowstone. Well, it had better be good, Betty decided. A real, solid reason to crush her dreams and not just flimsy fears.
Charlie continued to cry, her shoulders shaking with huge gasps. “Granny? I don’t understand what just happened. Are you a . . . a witch?”
“A witch? Dear me, no!” said Granny.
“B-but your b-bag . . .”
“Yes, yes, I know. We started in one place and ended up in another. It’s a traveling bag, not a broomstick. And guess what? One day it’ll be yours!”
This only made Charlie cry harder.
“But how . . . ?” Betty began, for despite Granny’s denial, she couldn’t help wondering. Witches were make-believe, weren’t they? Or did Granny use more than beer to bamboozle?
“I don’t know.” Granny lit her pipe, sucking on it deeply. Thick smoke billowed around her, strongly scented with cloves and spices. “I don’t know how it works, only that it does.”
“Must you smoke?” Fliss chided, moving her chair away. “You know it stinks, and we don’t like breathing it in.”
“I don’t want you breathing it in, either,” said Granny. “It’s my smoke. I paid good money for it.”
The familiar squabble seemed to set Charlie more at ease. Her sobbing reduced to sniffles. Eventually she reached out and snatched her tea like a mouse taking a piece of cheese back to its hole.
Betty gulped her tea, grimacing. It was weak and too sweet, as lousy as everything Fliss attempted in the kitchen. “How long have you known, Fliss? You don’t exactly seem surprised by all this.”
“A few months.” Fliss fiddled with a tiny braid she’d woven into her hair. “Granny told me on my birthday.”
So Betty hadn’t imagined the change in her sister. All this time, Fliss had been hiding things. Guarding Granny’s secrets. The threads of envy tightened, tangling with feelings of betrayal. Why hadn’t either of them trusted her?
Granny huffed out another cloud of cloying smoke. “There’s more.”
Betty remained silent. She’d thought as much.
“That . . . that mirror Granny gave me on my birthday,” Fliss continued. “It does something, too.”
Charlie peered over her teacup. “The mermaid mirror?”
Betty found she was gripping her cup so tightly it made her knuckles ache. She set it on the table. “What does it do?”
Fliss glanced at Granny, her cheeks flooding red. “It . . . it lets me talk to people . . . who aren’t there.”
“Who aren’t there?” Betty echoed. Before tonight she would have scoffed at this—before Granny’s jiggery-pokery with the carpetbag, that was. Part of her longed to believe this was all an elaborate trick to pay her back for sneaking off, but she knew Granny would never neglect a pub full of thirsty customers, and Fliss was as useless at lying as she was at cooking. “Like . . . like ghosts?”
Charlie gave an alarmed squawk.
“No!” Fliss said hurriedly. “Not like that. People who are somewhere else. On the other side of the island, perhaps, or even the next room. On one of the Sorrow Isles—or farther away.”
The Sorrow Isles. Immediately, Betty thought of their father. Had Fliss used the mirror to speak to him? She opened her mouth to ask, then changed her mind. Barney Widdershins could wait. Too many other questions about these strange objects were forcing their way to the front of her mind, demanding answers.
Betty sipped her tea again. Some of the shock was leaving her, and she was beginning to tremble. There was no such thing as a magical object, not outside of dreams and stories . . . but however practical she was, Betty couldn’t deny what she had experienced moments earlier—and she knew she wasn’t dreaming. How was it possible to travel from one place to another in a few seconds simply by turning an old bag inside out, or to talk to people through mirrors? There was only one way to describe it: magic. She remembered other times when she, Fliss, and Charlie had tried to sneak away and been outfoxed by Granny at the last moment . . . and how Granny never seemed to be late—for anything. Now it made sense.
“Where did they come from?” she said at last. “The bag and the mirror?”
Granny puffed on her pipe some more, coughed, then hesitated. “I’m not sure, exactly. No one is. But they’ve been in the family for decades. Passed down through generations of Widdershins girls. It’s always been that way . . . for as far back as I know, anyway.”
“How long is that?” Betty asked.
Granny’s mouth puckered as she was thinking. “About a hundred and fifty years.”
“And when were you going to tell Charlie and me?” Betty added. “If you were planning on telling us at all?”
“I was,” Granny answered. “When you were sixteen. Just like I did with Fliss.”
“And you?” Charlie asked. “Were you sixteen, too, when you got the bag?”
“No,” said Granny. “I was given the bag on my wedding day.”
Of course, Betty thought. Granny wasn’t a Widdershins by blood. She had married into the family, like the girls’ mother.
“Some wedding gift,” she remarked.
Granny smiled thinly. “I suppose it made up a little for the rest—” She hiccupped and broke off, like she’d said something she shouldn’t have, but Betty pounced.
“The rest of what?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute.”
Betty glanced at Fliss, her chest tightening. Whatever it was, she could tell by Fliss’s expression that she knew, and it wasn’t good.
Granny took a break from her pipe. “There are three items . . . three gifts, if you like. Each of them is an everyday object. Each of them holds a different kind of power. I call it a pinch of magic.”
Fear or excitement—or a mixture of both—began to tingle in Betty’s tummy. Something about Granny saying the word “magic” was rather wonderful. And yet . . . Granny’s snuffed-out sentence smoldered uneasily in Betty’s thoughts. What had this to do with the Widdershinses being trapped in Crowstone? Was the magical gift simply a sweetener before something more sinister? She leaned forward. “You mean . . . when Charlie and me turn sixteen, we’ll both get one of these . . . these gifts, too?”
“That was the plan, yes.”
Betty frowned. “ ‘Was’?”
“After what happened tonight . . . with the two of you going off like that, I’ve seen that some plans have to change.”
“Oh, Granny, please . . .” Betty said. “I know I was wrong to break your rules, and I know I don’t deserve whatever magic thing you were saving for me . . . but please don’t punish Charlie.” She slumped back in her chair miserably. “It’s not her fault. It was all my idea.”
“I know.” Granny’s voice was soft. “I don’t intend to punish either of you, though. It’s never been about that, only about wanting to keep you safe. But tonight, I realized that keeping secrets from you only puts you in more danger. And that’s the reason I’ve decided to bring everything out into the open.” She placed her pipe in her ashtray, then rose from the table. “Wait here.”
Granny vanished into the hallway. Betty reached for Charlie’s hand. It was ice-cold. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” she told her, although already she wondered if Charlie was ready for this. Guilt gnawed at her, but it was too late for regret now. Whatever was about to happen had been brought on by Betty alone. Still, she couldn’t imagine a way Granny could convince her not to leave—or make her accept giving up her dreams.
Granny returned, carrying a wooden box. It was dark, with a curved lid and curling iron embellishments. There was a large padlock on it, and carved into each side of it was a large ornamental “W.” It looked like exactly the sort of thing that held secrets, and excitement, or treasure. Yet as Granny unhooked the ring of keys from her belt, Betty felt a tremor of dread. Did one lock opening mean another was about to snap shut around her? Was the price of these objects their freedom?
Despite this, she found she was leaning forward as Granny removed the lock and lifted the lid. A musty smell drifted out. Betty peered inside. There was a small package in the box, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with string.
“Like I said,” Granny said. “As the youngest, Charlie will be the last to inherit, so it stands that she’ll get the traveling bag from me. This, Betty, is yours. But before you open it, let me tell you that each item will be bound to you, and you alone. There’s no swapping with each other.”
Hesitantly, Betty reached for the package. I don’t have to accept it, she told herself. Not if it means staying in Crowstone forever. Not even magic was worth that. Even so, she felt a thrill of wonder and anticipation. The item was lighter than expected. She pulled the string, releasing it from its knot.
“Wait,” said Granny. “Before you open it you must all promise to keep these things secret. Do you understand? You’re not to tell anyone outside this family about these objects and their powers.”
“You mean . . . Father knows?” asked Betty.
Granny’s expression darkened. “Yes. As far as I’m aware, it’s the one secret he’s managed to keep.”
“I’m surprised,” said Fliss, in a tight voice. “I’d have thought something as big as this would be the first thing he’d blab about.” She struggled to talk about their father much. When he had gone to prison, it had taken Fliss the longest to accept it.
Betty would never forget his arrest: Fliss tearfully insisting it was all a mistake; Granny holding her head in her hands, calling their father terrible names, no doubt wondering aloud how she was going to bring up three young girls alone. Even Charlie, too young to understand, had picked up on the mood and eaten twice as much as usual. Betty herself had felt betrayed. She couldn’t have felt it more if he had rowed them out to sea and abandoned them. How dare he leave them like this, after Mother?
Granny sighed. “Yes, I thought so, too. Still, he proved me wrong, and I’m glad about that. Your father is a fool and a braggart, and that’ll never change. But for all his faults, this was a secret he kept, and he did it out of love. You girls remember that.”
“Wasn’t it difficult to hide?” Betty asked. “The magic?”
Granny shrugged. “I hid the bag’s magic from you three all this time, didn’t I?” She fell silent, nodding to the unopened package.
Finally, Betty tore off the paper.
Inside was a set of wooden nesting dolls, the kind that hid away, one inside another, getting smaller and smaller until the last tiny one, which did not open. Using her thumbnail, Betty eased the first doll open and took out the next, then the next, setting them in a line. They were beautifully painted, each one similar and yet different from the next. There were four in total, each with wavy auburn hair and chestnut-brown eyes, so detailed that tiny freckles even dotted their cheeks.
Each doll had a circular area at its center, painted with the same little cottage, meadow, and river. With each doll the season changed: The largest showed blossoms on the trees and a clutch of eggs in a nest. The next showed ducklings on the water, and the third, fully grown birds flying south as russet leaves fell from the trees. The final doll depicted a wintry snow scene painted in pale blues. Each doll held an ornate key, painted and engraved into the wood’s surface in such a way that when the dolls were taken apart, each half had part of its key.
“They’re beautiful.” Betty touched the key on the outermost doll with her thumb.
“I want the dolls,” Charlie complained. “The bag is ugly!”
“Too bad,” said Granny, with a shrug. “Anyway, it’s not what they look like, it’s what they do that counts.”
“So what do they do?” Betty asked.
Granny’s expression lightened. “Something rather splendid,” she whispered, rubbing her hands together and chuckling mischievously. “Take something of yours, something small enough to fit inside the second doll.”
A thrill of anticipation shivered up Betty’s back. She glanced at Fliss, but her older sister seemed as puzzled as she felt. Clearly Granny hadn’t told her of the dolls’ powers. “Something small, like . . . like a coin?”
“No, no.” Granny’s hand waved around like an excited wasp buzzing over a jam jar. “Something personal . . . some small item of jewelry, perhaps?”
“I don’t have any jewel— Ouch!”
Granny had leaned over and plucked a frizzy brown hair from Betty’s head. “This’ll do.”
Betty rubbed her scalp and stuffed the hair into the bottom half of the second doll.
“Now put the top on,” said Granny. “And—this is important, or else it won’t work—you line up the two halves of the key exactly, then put that into the largest doll and repeat.”
Betty did so, wondering what on earth was about to happen. As she twisted the two halves of the outer doll together, Fliss gasped and Charlie squealed.
Betty frowned. “What?”
Charlie leaped off her chair. “Betty? Where are you?”
“Nowhere,” said Betty, confused. “I’m still here!” But neither her sisters nor Granny were looking at her anymore. “Granny? What’s happening?”
“You’ve disappeared,” said Granny with a cackle. “None of us can see you.”
“Disappeared? Don’t talk marsh rot . . .”
“Look in the mirror if you don’t believe me.”
Betty turned to the small looking glass on the wall. As usual, it was covered in Fliss’s fingerprints. What wasn’t usual was that only the kitchen behind Betty was reflected there. Betty herself was nowhere to be seen.
She had vanished.