Castle of Shadows Read Free Page A

of you!’
    Charlie stared at her, amazed. It had never occurred to her that the gardener’s boy might have a family or, indeed, exist at all outside the Castle grounds. ‘Are you Tobias’s mother?’
    ‘Yes, ma’am, I’m Rose Petch,’ she said, and blushed.She bustled about, tidying her things back into her basket, but Charlie had seen love and pride flare in the brown eyes, burning away every trace of sadness and timidity. Rose Petch, she knew, would never abandon her child the way Charlie’s mother had abandoned her. She whirled away from the pain of that thought and attacked her clothes, wrestling into her worn petticoats and tight dress. She shoved her arm into a sleeve and heard the sound of ripping fabric.
    ‘Gracious!’ Rose cried. ‘That dress is half rotten, child. Take it off again, and I’ll mend that quick as blinking. Come, let me help you.’
    Charlie stood, trembling, torn nearly in two by jealousy and longing, as Rose helped her undress. She turned her face away so that Tobias’s mother would not see the tears in her eyes.
     
    Now she stared up at the darkness, remembering. Her eyes were dry. The pangs in her stomach had settled into a steady ache, and she pushed all thoughts of her mother out of her head. She’d had practice of that, too. She threw off her covers, shivering as the chill struck her. She pulled on her boots, took the pencil tin and one of her precious candles, and crept out of her room. Even without Tobias’s blackmail, her fear of the dark would not have kept her in her room tonight. At least there was a moon. Watery light seeped in at the windows – just enough to keep her heart from pounding and her breath from gulping.
    Charlie pattered down three staircases without pausing. Each was larger and better carpeted than the last. She knew where she was from the thickness of the carpets: thin drugget for the attics, smooth flat weave for the fifth floor, thin pile for the fourth. When her boots sank into the plush of the third floor, Charlie knew it was time for caution.
    No one slept on the third floor now. Moonlight cast dim shadows between the windows, chequering the corridor in silver and black. She fled from shadow to shadow, running silently on the thick carpet, feeling the emptiness behind the closed doors, listening for Watch. She reached the stair to the west wing without incident and began to climb. Her luck was holding.
    The servants’ bedrooms were in an attic like her own, with bare wooden doors and a narrow strip of drugget carpet tacked down the centre of the floorboards. Faint snores and sighings muttered through the doors. Beside each stood a pair of boots. The Castle no longer kept a boot-boy. As the youngest and newest footman, Alfie’s first job of the day was to clean all the boots.
    She fished the pencil tin from her pocket. There were only three footmen: three pairs of men’s boots. Two pairs had worn heels and scuffed toes. That left the last pair, its leather stiff and shiny. She emptied the contents of the pencil tin into the shiny boots. A snore gurgled beneath the door. Charlie grinned.
    All her nerves had disappeared by the time she got tothe library. It had been an easy journey: no sign of Watch. And the library was one of her favourite places, a room of long windows, leather sofas and high-backed chairs made for snuggling into. Books marched around the walls and into the room itself, dividing it into nooks and corners smelling of inked paper and ageing leather.
    She struck a match and lit her candle. Her luck continued: it only took an inch of the precious wax to find Tobias’s book. She tugged its heavy weight off the shelf and carried it to a table to have a closer look. She put down the candlestick and leant over the book, touching the faded gold letters of its title with her finger. The ghost of a memory teased her. She knew this book. She had once before traced her fingers along these very letters. But when? She was trying to remember when