55

The Witch’s Mark

THEY HADN’T EVEN reached the front hall at the foot of the stairs when they heard it: scraping, whining, gears grinding metal on metal. Kat knew those sounds, and they sent sharp, cold chills running up her spine.

She and Peter stood, feet planted, in the middle of the hall, facing the shadows as the sounds ceased.

“Why, Peter,” came the Lady’s voice. “Whatever are you doing with that sword?”

The fire was cold and no lights had been lit in the hall. The clock was silent, stopped at half past seven. Kat gripped the chatelaine in her pocket. Her mouth was as dry as sandpaper, and her hands were clammy. The moon slid behind a wisp of cloud and the darkness was deep, the only light a yellow glow spilling down from upstairs.

Then, whirr, slip, whirr, the Lady Eleanor moved out of the shadows. She wore a black gown, now, that lifted and rose around her like a fluttering of wings, and the belt at her waist glimmered with jewels even in the dim light. The chatelaine dangling from the belt glowed a faint blue; she seemed to bend toward it as if she carried a crippling weight. Her mouth stretched in a grimace, and her white hair cascaded loose about her shoulders. Then, as she reached the center of the hall, a broad band of moonlight struck her, and both Peter and Kat gasped.

The Lady Eleanor was a monster made of metal, of wheels, of snaking ribbons of rubber, of tubes pumping some dreadful blue liquid. Her torso, arms, and legs were all mechanical, with jointed gears and claw hands and birdlike feet and a heart that shone through metal ribs with a coppery glow, ticking with a mechanical tick. Wheels turned on spokes; wound springs pumped; gears clicked together like skeleton teeth. And on top of this metal framework her head perched—and it was her head, human though partly deformed—like the head of a broken doll, hairless, with one gleaming eye and only one ear, and the rest of what remained of her skull was a metal plate.

The Lady Eleanor was hideous.

And then, from some other part of her brain, Kat thought, No, she’s beautiful. Not beautiful as in the portrait that stared down at Kat now, a mockery of the Lady. No, this monster was really a perfect mechanical device. Gears that meshed with precision, cogs that whirred so fast they were hard to see, belts and pulleys, all working. All shining, all glittering in the moonlight. The Lady was ingenious, a marvel. Like a clock, all the movements perfectly synchronized to create this whole. Kat unconsciously moved toward the Lady, trying to get a better look, especially at that heart, its copper works beating with unvarying rhythm, a clockwork like no other . . .

“Kat!” Peter’s voice broke through her reverie as the Lady ground across the stone floor, scraping and clattering toward them. Peter grabbed Kat’s arm and pulled so they fell back away from the Lady.

The moonlight drifted behind a cloud and she was again the Lady Eleanor.

But they knew better now, Peter and Kat. They knew she was a witch, and now they knew that she was also a monster. The Lady stopped and a smile spread across her face.

“You can’t win.”

“Can’t win?” Kat asked.

“All of you,” the Lady said, “once I have your souls, I will use your innocence and youth to live forever.”

“And just how do you manage to hang on to us?” asked Peter. “You can’t keep us here forever in some trance.”

“Oh, you have no idea.” She laughed again, and another passing beam of moonlight exposed her mechanical arm. “You’ll live on, but in an altered state. Your souls will feed me.” Her claw hand flicked at the air.

“Our parents will come searching for us,” Peter said. “They’ll know.”

The Lady’s voice was the grating of metal on metal. “They will forget you. That’s an easy enchantment.”

Kat’s heart pounded in her chest. “Lord Craig—” she began.

“My husband,” the Lady interrupted, “will soon be replaced by Mr. Storm.” She waved her hand. “I need a husband, but Lord Craig is . . . difficult. Mr. Storm has a far less ethical nature and will be a more malleable consort than my dear Gregor.”

“Then, Cook,” said Peter, and Kat could hear his voice falter. “Hugo. Marie. MacLarren and Gumble.”

“I will deal with all of them. You can’t escape. You can’t win. I’ve already won.”

“But,” Kat said as the blood rushed into her ears and her voice became faint, “but why?”

“Why? Why? Because I was once a helpless child, not nearly so privileged as you. Because I was once a powerless woman in a man’s world. Because all I asked for was love and shelter. And instead I got bruises and misery and heartbreak.” Her words grated like metal files, broke like shattering glass. “Now I am powerful. I control my fate. I have the life I want to live and I will have it forever.”

“You can’t do this!” Peter said. His words echoed through the halls.

“Has she told you, boy?” the Lady asked, her voice steady again. “This friend of yours, this Katherine. Has she told you?”

“About what?” Peter said uneasily.

“About her father.” The Lady laughed. “Thank you for bringing the boy to me, girl.”

Peter moved at Kat’s side. “What?”

“No! Don’t listen,” Kat said, as much to herself as to him. “She’s doing it again—trying to set us against each other!”

“No, boy, don’t listen,” said the Lady. “Because she has betrayed you for her father. Yes. She has.”

Peter turned toward Kat now. “What is she talking about?”

“I told her I could save her father, but she had to give you up,” came the Lady’s wheedling voice. “And she has.”

“She’s trying to split us apart, because that’s all she can do,” Kat said. “Don’t listen.”

Peter lowered his sword, his attention full on Kat. “I’d do anything to save my father.” His voice broke. “I bet you would, too.”

Kat’s heart pounded. “No! My father knows what’s right, and he fights for it, and so must I. Don’t—”

Kat reached her right hand for Peter and was struck full in the moonlight, and he gasped. Her hand was not a real hand but a clockwork, like the witch, made of gears and springs and cogs. It was, like the witch, perfection. Hideous and perfect.

Peter stepped backward, horror etched on his face. “You! You’re like her!”

“I’m not like her! I’m not . . .” Kat’s words faltered even as she realized how beautiful it was, how powerful, this mechanical hand.

The Lady was laughing. “Yes! She has already betrayed you, boy, and her brother and sister.”

The sword hung from Peter’s hand, and he stared at Kat with a combination of sorrow and horror.

And the Lady, with astonishing swiftness, lunged.

Peter yelled and raised the sword. Kat backed away until her heel caught on the step and sent her down on her bottom. From the floor, she watched, helpless, as the Lady caught Peter’s sword, just as she had Robbie’s, wrenched it from his hands, and sent it flying across the hall. Kat fast crab-walked across the floor after it, to have some kind of weapon, scuttling to the far side of the hall while Peter and the Lady struggled.

Peter was strong and tall, but the Lady was stronger, with her metal arms and spiky claw-hands. He cried out in pain as she twisted his arms back, and Kat grabbed the sword by the hilt and stood to face them.

The Lady had both of Peter’s wrists in one clenched claw, and she was forcing him down on his knees before her. With her other hand Kat saw her pull a thin chain from her chatelaine, a chain with a charm that dangled, a charm Kat could see in the full moonlight.

An anchor.

She would anchor Peter’s soul.

“No!” Kat shouted, and raced back as the Lady lifted the chain with a grim smile and began to utter terrible words, words that seemed to rise from the very bowels of the earth and envelop them all, dark magic that suffocated and smothered the very light of the moon.

A prison cold, a witch’s mark . . .

As the chain slipped over Peter’s head, he looked from the witch to Kat and said, his voice coarse and breaking, “Pain. Cut . . .”

And then it was done. Kat watched his eyes grow wide and then dull, blank and staring, and she swallowed a sob.

The Lady dropped him and he crumpled to the floor. She turned to Kat.

It seemed that with Peter’s charming she’d grown another foot taller at least. She had taken on a deep blue glow, and now she no longer needed moonlight to reveal her true form, but was exposed as a monster.

“And now for my last charm,” she said, her words like oil oozing from between her spiked teeth. “You see, I need your soul.”

Kat’s left hand gripped Peter’s sword, and her terrible right hand gripped the only thing she now believed in: Great-Aunt Margaret’s chatelaine.