52

The Tenth Charm: The Eel

Slippery as an eel, the Lady thinks. These three remaining children are tricky. He’ll be a challenge, that Robbie.

But, oh, such fun. Catching an eel with your bare hands is great fun.

Right out of the blue, she remembers doing such a thing as a girl. It was a treat, eel at the table, after days of stale bread and thin broth and that never-ending porridge. She’d been quick that day, her brothers acknowledged it, and as she waded knee-deep in the river her hands had been able to catch an eel and bring it home, and her father hadn’t even beaten her that night after they feasted. Such a memory, that.

Which she promptly and firmly puts out of her mind, as her mind and memories are the last human part of her. She hates this part of her, and she hates her memories filled with beatings and worse.

The Lady Eleanor fingers her four remaining charms. The eel, the anchor, the heart, and, of course, the thirteen, the container of souls. Only four charms and this last so heavy, as it is now filled with souls, a great clamoring of souls, and a great weight dragging her down. She walks with a pronounced limp as the chatelaine bangs against her hip. She would have borne a bruise if she had flesh left there.

She makes her way into the dining hall and sits, unable to stand for long, even with her mechanical legs, such is the weight of her chatelaine. She hears the tap-tap of a beak against the window glass. It would have been nice if the wolves had made it easy, for this weight is almost crippling. When the charm is full, she will no longer feel the weight. She sits in the dark and ponders her next move.

Which comes to her directly.