Rose 4: Rose and the Silver Ghost (5 page)

Rose took the mirror with a strange little skip of frightened excitement inside, and smiled sadly at her own anxious face in the tarnished glass. She nodded obediently at Miss Fell, and tried hard to flatten out her forehead, but it seemed to want to crease.

It was as she was handing the mirror back that it happened. The face seemed to come sliding out of the frame, as though the glass had been pulled sideways. Rose thought it was her own reflection for a moment, and some strange fault in the old glass had twisted it about. She had seen what was called a haunted mirror in the magicians’ supplies shop that she ran errands to for Mr Fountain. The younger Mr Sowerby had shown her one to make her jump at her reflection all stretched out. But this was more than just old glass. The face was hers, but not. It was her, but
older
, and how could that be, unless the glass had some strange glamour spell on it? There was something else dragging at the corners of her memory too, a certainty that she had seen this face somewhere else. Rose tore her eyes away from the girl staring back at her, and looked up at Miss Fell, her mouth open to ask. But the old lady hadn’t noticed what had happened and was still lecturing Rose on the perils of scowling. She simply held out her hand for the mirror, and laid it back in her lap. She gave no sign that she expected Rose to have seen anything odd.

Which left Rose wondering, was she the only one who saw strange faces in that glass?

‘What was it?’ Bella demanded, a little while later. As soon as they had been dismissed by Miss Fell, she had hauled Rose along to her own bedroom, and practically shoved her into the windowseat. ‘Come on, Rose! The mirror, what did it do?’

‘Did you see it?’ Rose asked her sharply.

‘No!’ Bella smacked a cushion crossly. ‘I knew it, there was something. You went the strangest colour. What happened? Was it one of your strange pictures? Oh, was it something about the war? I saw a paper on Papa’s desk which said that the Talish are most definitely making plans to invade. It said one of their plans is to fly across in huge balloons, but I can’t believe that’s true.’

Rose shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. Nothing – grand. It’s only that I looked in the mirror and it wasn’t my face looking back at me. I’ve seen odd things in mirrors before, but only when I was
supposed
to,’ Rose muttered. ‘When we were scrying to find out what had happened to Maisie, and I saw Miss Sparrow. I asked the mirror to tell me that time, though. This was something different. I think that face is always in the mirror.’

‘Who was it? Was she pretty? Was it someone you knew? Oh, Rose, stop sitting there like a lemon and tell me!’

‘Bella, I think it might have been…my mother,’ Rose whispered.

Bella’s mouth fell open, and for once, she was speechless. She stared at Rose, mouth and eyes circles of amazement.

Bella looks like the queen’s Pekingese dog with her eyes like that
, Rose thought vaguely. Her brain was behaving like a butterfly, flitting from thought to thought and back again, and refusing to stay on the important things. Until she’d told Bella, she’d hardly dared say it to herself, but she was almost sure that she was right.

Bella got over her amazement quickly, and moved on to curiosity. ‘How do you know? Did she look like you? And was it just her face, or do you think she could see you back? Is she
inside
that mirror?’ Bella wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Rose frowned. ‘No. It was only her face. She didn’t move, and her eyes didn’t seem to see anyone. I only saw her for a moment, but she wasn’t alive. Or anything like that. It was more as though she used to look into that mirror, and it kept the memory of her.’

‘I don’t see why Miss Fell would have a mirror with your mother in,’ Bella objected. Then her eyes brightened with the excitement of scandal. ‘Maybe it was your mother’s mirror and Miss Fell stole it! We really have to find out about this properly, Rose, it’s just so exciting.’

Rose sighed. She knew she probably couldn’t discover the truth on her own, but she wished Bella wasn’t quite so keen. This wasn’t one of those silly novels full of castles and dungeons and beautiful heroines that Bella’s governess, Miss Anstruther, used to hide in the schoolroom ink cupboard. Bella couldn’t seem to see that it was real. And just because Rose hadn’t fainted dead away – gracefully, of course – like one of the idiot girls in the books, it didn’t mean she wasn’t upset. She had just seen her mother. It couldn’t be the first time she had ever seen her, but it
felt
like it. Everything had changed.

‘I don’t know what we’re going to do,’ Rose muttered. ‘But Miss Fell isn’t going to tell me, that’s clear, or she would have done it by now. So I need to find out myself. I’m not giving up!’ she told Bella sharply. But then her shoulders slumped. ‘Though I might as well, since I can’t think of anything. The mirror is the only we clue we have.’

‘We don’t have it,’ Bella pointed out, and Rose clicked her tongue irritably.

‘You know I meant…’ She trailed off. ‘What if we did?’ Her voice was scared, and she looked at Bella wide-eyed.

‘You want us to steal it?’ Bella asked hopefully. ‘But what about what Gus said?’

Rose folded her arms, her face grim. ‘If Miss Fell is actually my long-lost relative, then she probably won’t kill me. Probably. She might kill
you
.’

‘No, because then she would have to deal with Papa, and he’s one of the most powerful magicians of the age too,’ Bella said sunnily.

Rose nodded. ‘I suppose it’s good that she’s making me move rooms. It’ll be easier to get into her room from this floor than it would be from the attics.’

‘What shall we do with the mirror when we’ve got it?’ Bella’s eyes were sparkling. She’d skipped over the difficult bit as usual, Rose noticed. ‘Because whatever we do, Rose, we’ll have to do it quickly. Miss Fell’s bound to see it’s gone when she gets up. She always uses it to put her hairpins in, haven’t you noticed? She always picks it up when she’s putting the ones that have fallen out back in.’

Rose shivered. ‘So we’ll have to creep into her room twice, so we can put it back as well. And she wakes easily, I know she does. I woke her this morning, and I hardly clanged the fire irons at all.’

Bella smiled delightedly. ‘I know a spell we can use to be quiet. I was reading one of those strange old books in the workroom, the one with the cover that looks like squashed lizard.’

‘Ugh. I haven’t touched that one,’ Rose admitted. ‘It looks so horrid, I always think it’s going to be full of poisonings and disgusting things to do in graveyards at full moon. Is it?’

‘Of course it isn’t. Think, Rose. Anything like that would be on the high shelves in Papa’s study.’

Rose blinked. She hadn’t thought of it that way, but now she rather wished that Bella hadn’t been so sure that her father did have that sort of book. She wondered how often he used them.

‘It’s actually a collection of useful spells you can make from everyday ingredients. Things that you can find round the house. We need the Silent Slippers spell.’ Bella looked proud of herself, but she was also eyeing Rose sideways.

‘What?’

‘It
does
have some ingredients you won’t like.’ Bella edged back over the coverlet a little way, as though she didn’t want to be too close to Rose. ‘The slippers are mostly made of spell, but the magic’s woven into something real – something very soft and quiet…’

Rose stared at her panickily. ‘What, Bella? Please, you’re giving me palpitations!’

‘We have to harvest rather a lot of cobwebs,’ Bella admitted.

‘Oh.’ Rose smiled in relief. ‘No.’

‘You can’t just say no!’

‘Yes, I can, because I just did. I won’t do it, Bella, you know I can’t bear spiders.’

‘I don’t know why on earth not. Honestly, I’m the one who was brought up to be a young lady, I’m supposed to be screeching on a chair while
you
catch the spiders in a jam jar, Rose!’

‘Please don’t.’ Rose put her hand over her mouth. ‘I shall be sick on your silk bedcover.’

‘Really? Just because of jam jars?’

Rose watched Bella file this information away for future use. The huge blue eyes were clear and innocent again in seconds, and Bella smiled. ‘Well, I shall do it then. But this is an extremely big favour, Rose, you’d better remember that.’

Rose nodded wearily. There was very little danger of Bella letting her forget.

Rose enlisted Bill to help Bella on her cobweb hunt. The maids spent a great deal of time making sure that the family’s part of the house had not so much as a strand of a cobweb – Rose had always had to do this with a very long brush, and sometimes with her eyes closed. Somehow, if she couldn’t see the possible spider, it wasn’t there. Susan would brush them down with her fingers, but even the thought of it made Rose gag. That awful claggy, smooth stickiness – how could Susan stand it?

The spell called for ‘several hanks of fresh cobweb’ which Rose thought was remarkably inaccurate. How many was several? To find even one cobweb, though, they would have to go out to the stables in the mews at the back of the house. Bill escorted the girls politely through the kitchens, where all the staff stood frozen; watching them. Rose stared pleadingly at Mrs Jones. The news of her permanent promotion to young lady had travelled very swiftly, she realised. There was a small pile in the middle of the kitchen table – her workbasket, the pinafore Miss Bridges had made her to put over her uniform if she had to be presentable. All the things she had left below-stairs.

‘I will have them sent up to your new room, Rose,’ Miss Bridges said gently, and Rose nodded. Thank goodness no one had called her Miss. She might have cried.

Rose waited outside the tackroom, ignoring the stable boys sniggering at her, while Bella and Bill went hunting spiders. She stood there, shivering in the January cold, and trying not to nibble her nails while she worried about burgling Miss Fell’s bedroom.

‘I do like this spell.’ Bella had suddenly appeared beside her, looking even smugger than usual.

Rose jumped, and the stable boys hooted with laughter. Had Bella done the spell already, to be able to move so quietly? Rose glanced down at her feet, but they looked perfectly normal.

Bella’s hands, though, were draped with silver-grey web, and she wasn’t even wearing gloves. She waved them at Rose. ‘I think I might try breeding spiders in the schoolroom, Rose, so we can always have a supply.’

Rose slapped her hands across her mouth and moaned.

‘She’s gone green!’ one of the stable boys pointed out with interest.

‘Find her a bowl, mate,’ the other one advised Bill.

Bill’s response was to grab Rose round the shoulders and run her back through the mews to the kitchens, and shove her in front of the scullery sink – where for once Sarah wasn’t doing any washing up.

Rose leaned on the white china sink, her head swimming, and tried to stay on her feet. Even though she was a young lady now, she refused to faint.

‘She did that on purpose,’ she moaned to Bill, who was hovering anxiously next to her.

Bill shook his head. ‘Nope. She’s just excited about the spiders’ webs and this clever spell thing. Sorry!’ he added quickly, as Rose lurched towards the sink again.

‘I don’t think I’m actually going to be sick – but her hands – she was covered… Ugh…’

‘I didn’t mean to upset you, Rose.’ Bella’s voice was husky, and she sounded guilty.

‘Don’t show me them again,’ Rose gasped, wheeling round so as not to see Bella by the scullery door.

‘I won’t, it’s all right, I’ve hidden them in my handkerchief. And I washed my hands in the horse trough. I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t think. I was pleased, because we’d got such a lot, and I was excited about the spell.’

Rose dared a look at Bella, and saw that she was staring at the stone floor, looking guilty.

‘I wanted to help you. I was so pleased that it was going to work,’ she whispered. ‘Rose, are you going to be able to wear the spell slippers?’

Rose was silent for a moment, gulping. ‘Will it still look like cobweb?’ she asked.

‘There isn’t a picture in the book – we could ask them not to, I should think. Would it be all right if they were just a different colour? Would pink cobweb slippers make you sick?’

‘I honestly don’t know!’ Rose half-laughed. Then she shook her head. ‘They’ll have to do. I won’t give up over something so silly.’

‘You could find a different spell, couldn’t you?’ Bill asked.

Bella sighed. ‘I could only think of this one. We could try, but it might take weeks, and we can hardly ask Miss Fell if she happens to know a good spell for sneaking around, can we?’

Later that afternoon, the two girls sat on the floor of Rose’s new bedroom. It would have been easier to do the spell in the workroom, but Freddie was in there, and he was still sulking. But sitting on the floor wasn’t a hardship. The rug they were curled up on was worth more than Rose’s year’s wage, she was fairly sure. In her old room, there was hardly enough floor space to open the door, let alone to put down a rug.

Rose had her eyes closed, as even with one of Bella’s handkerchiefs over them, the cobwebs seemed to move and shimmer and crawl. ‘Do you need me to do anything?’ she muttered.