Chapter Eighteen

Spell work, Mable learned over the next few weeks, was slow.

Every spell they tried didn't seem to go anywhere, with only the tiniest of jumps from the paper they were trying to transport from one place to another, so tiny Mable often wondered if it was just air pushing the slips of paper around. For several days, Mable tried spell after spell, using as much willpower as she could to try and make the bits of paper they were using as practice do something.

Nothing happened.

Thankfully she got some respite from the constant dejection. Every afternoon she forced herself to leave the stuffy library and find something else to focus her mind on. Most days she found herself in the conservatory with Madame Cecile who, after learning about her newfound interest in gardening, gave her a little flowerpot with a snow-white flower inside it to take care of. Every day, after the hours of getting nowhere which was strangely exhausting, Mable would trot down to the conservatory to check on her flower. It was still alive after a week, though Mable wondered if that was because Madame Cecile would check on it after she left.

Other days she would spend in the kitchens, at home among the clatter of pans and the roar of the fireplace, being taught in shouts about the nuances of gourmet cooking. Occasionally the tables would turn and she would teach the chefs a new recipe, such as the night they made brownies from scratch. They turned out so good that Monsieur Carnier dubbed them good enough for dessert, and Mable got to watch as Theo and Maddie inhaled the whole pan.

Almost every night Maddie would request a story, and every night Mable obliged, weaving tales from the leftover fabric of her childhood. Sometimes, if he was in, Monsieur Lune would join them and then she and the Seneschal would share a cup of tea before he escorted her to her own rooms. Those nights were Mable's favorites, because talking with Monsieur Lune was a lot like talking with a favorite uncle, or her father before he fell ill. He would offer advice, warmly congratulate her on any little victories she made during the day, or just talk about working in the castle.

Labelle often found her way to the library for lunch, and those lunches were also fun for Mable. Some days Theo joined them, and the three of them sat at the buffet table that seemed to permanently live in the library now, as they ate and joked with her as if she had been living there for years instead of a few weeks. Mable was reminded of the days before her father's illness, talking and laughing with friends over food and games at the kitchen table.

In spite of the odd circumstances, Mable discovered that she was glad that she had found her way here, however unintentional.

One morning, after she had been there for almost three weeks, there was an excited tap at her bedroom door.

"Let's go play in the attic today." Maddie said. She was dressed casually, in brown sweater and thick slacks, worn from use. Her chestnut hair was tied back in a braid, a few rogue strands poking out around her head playfully.

Mable stopped bushing her hair and looked at Maddie curiously. "Is there really an attic?" She was not aware that castles had such things that were so ordinary.

"Well, it's not really an attic, more of a storage room." said Maddie, jumping onto Mable's bed. "But it's at the top of one of the turrets and is very old. Papa says there are things from a hundred years ago still up there. It's really dusty and dark, too. It should be a lot of fun." she giggled.

"Are we even allowed up there? I don't want to get into trouble." Mable asked. But she was already charmed by the idea. She and her sisters liked to roam through their attic on rainy days, sighing wistfully at old pictures of their mother and playing with toys they had long forgotten. After a while their attic had lost its magic, so Mable found herself excited for the chance to clamber around a dusty attic, looking at old pictures and toys. There were probably all sorts of fascinating things up there, remnants of the castle's former days of glory and splendor.

"Papa gave me permission. He said I could go if you were with me. Please, please, please can we go?" Maddie pleaded, giving Mable her best smile.

"Well, alright. Just let me get changed into something less...fancy." Mable looked at her silk blouse meaningfully. Maddy glowed with happiness, and Mable heard her bounce around the room as she changed, singing a little song.

Fully adorned in her old sweatshirt and jeans, Mable grabbed a candle from her nightstand. It would have to do, since she was sure there were no lamps up there.

Maddie jumped around, tugging at Mable's sweatshirt.

"Come on! I want to see if there any of Master Theo's old things in the attic."

Maddie skipped ahead of her, nodding politely as they passed the occasional maid or manservant.

Mable still wasn't very used to all the staff, even after a few weeks, but she had gotten comfortable enough to offer hesitant smiles that were, more often than not, returned. This morning was a little different with maids glancing at the skipping girl ahead of Mable and sending her approving smiles.

Mable liked spending time with Maddie. The girl was bright and energetic, a good pick-me-up for when she had spent hours in the library. Mable also knew, from talking with Monsieur Lune, that Maddie had few friends in the castle. There were no children her own age, and most of the men and women who lived here also worked, so they rarely had time to spend with a young girl.

"What exactly did you do with yourself before I arrived, Maddie?" she laughed as the girl jumped the stairs two at a time.

Maddie halted at the landing to think about it. "I'd split my time with Madame Cecile in the conservatory or Monsieur Carnier in the kitchens." She said after a moment. "Sometimes I'd follow Papa around while he worked, but if I stayed for too long he always suggested I do schoolwork. During the summer I'd go out riding, if one of the soldiers had time to escort me. I have my own pony." She told Mable proudly. "And Maestro says I am a great rider. But I'm not allowed out on my own yet."

She trotted ahead of Mable a few steps, and turned to walk backwards, still talking.

"Of course, I play chess with Master Theo once in a while, when he isn't brooding in his study. He does that a lot. But when he's in a good mood, we play for hours. He says I am coming along greatly, and soon will be a master chess-player. Though sometimes I think he lets me win on purpose." Maddie wrinkled her nose in annoyance to this show of chivalry.

Mable followed along, smiling and nodding, half-listening to Maddie's talk. It would be nice to figure out how to break this spell on the house. She had never considered what the spell on the castle might do to its residents. How terrible it must be, to be a young girl without a friend your own age?

Maddie led them down several hallways that Mable had never been in, each of them getting progressively dirtier and gloomier than the last. Clearly no one visited the turrets on a daily basis. Mable was starting to get nervous. The halls were getting darker from lack of proper treatment, and she had the urge to run back to her cozy rooms. Maddie didn't seem to notice Mable's unease, and she obliviously led Mable to a miserable, dark door that had the words Attic in world-weary letters on the tarnished plate.

"Here it is." said Maddie in excitement. She opened the door, and they both looked at the dark, cavernous stairs, which spiraled upwards.

Mable felt a distinct unease. "Maddie, are you sure we're allowed up here?"

Maddie smiled encouragingly. "Don't worry; the staff comes here every year. It just never gets cleaned because there are never a lot of people who want to come this way. Maestro has gone up these stairs a hundred times, and if there's anything bad up there then he hasn't mentioned it. Just hold your candle up a little higher."

"All right. I'll go first then." Mable said, feeling her sense of adventure returning. If Maestro had been up here, then there probably wasn't much to worry about. While Mable seriously doubted there had been any spooky monsters hiding in the turrets, she was confident that if there had been, Maestro would have destroyed them all out of sheer boredom.

Plus, what kind of adult would she be if she let a nine-year-old go first up a creaky, drafty stairwell?

She held the candle aloft, and the two of them ascended the staircase. It was even creepier with just the candlelight, which flickered indecisively as if it too were having second thoughts about this whole experience.

It seemed to take the two of them forever to get to the top. Mable started to sweat after a while, partly because of the strenuous activity and partly out of nervousness. The candle didn't give them a whole lot of light, and Mable would have felt a lot better if her only form of defense was not just a spindly young girl. She half-heartedly counted the stairs to keep her mind off of it but stopped after fifty. There was really no reason to go on counting, the stairs just went up and up, and she kept losing count anyway.

Mable was just starting to grumpily wonder if the spell on the castle was making it impossible for them to reach the top, when the candle lit upon the door. Apprehensively, she grabbed the knob and tugged, praying that B-movie bats wouldn't fly into her face when she opened the door all the way.

"Oh good, let's go in!" said Maddie happily, and snuck under Mable's elbow to run in first. "I'll get the curtains!" Mable heard her shout from the darkness and after some grunts and the sounds of things being kicked aside, the room flooded with light.

Mable walked all the way into the room, making sure the door would stay open on its own, just in case. The place wasn't so much an attic as it was a three-room flat. There was the small room they were in, with a big picture window all the way on the other side of the room. On the left was an open archway that led to another room, and Mable could just see a third, miniscule area within that. Each of the rooms was filled with trunks, boxes, wardrobes and bric-a-bracs, all dusty but otherwise in good shape. Mable saw two full length mirrors, dressmaker's dummies, rugs rolled up neatly along the wall, and paintings of various shapes and sizes piled all about the front room. There was no hint of mice, though if Mable looked up she could see some bits of straw that proved birds had called this place home. She walked in further, enchanted. The place looked less ominous now that light had filled the room, more grandma's attic than Dracula's basement, and Mable was just itching to go through some of the trunks and boxes. Maddie had already pushed some of the boxes aside and was tearing through a trunk as if hunting for lost treasure.

Mable carefully stepped over some discarded boxes and made her way over to Maddie. "Are any of your old things up here?" Mable asked. It looked as if everyone from the whole castle donated to this attic.

Maddie looked up from her digging. "No, the staff has their own rooms to keep old things in. All of my baby stuff is in our apartment downstairs. No, this is really good stuff, ancient stuff. Stuff from back way before I was born, or even before Papa was born. Some of these dresses are really pretty though, come and see." she beckoned.

Mable sat down next to her and fingered the material. Maddie was right, they were lovely. Indigo satins, dark green velvets, and gold-and -white brocade filled the truck, all smelling pleasantly of lavender. Maddie held up the packet of dried lavender flowers, and they both whiffed it gently. Maddie pulled a couple of the dresses out, and both of them took turns trying the dresses on over their regular clothes, giggling madly. Mable thought that it was a lot like being back with her sisters again, up in their attic, though that was admittedly less spacious.

The two of them had a grand old time in the other rooms, finding more trunks filled with old clothes. They found old toys, some still retaining some of their shining youth, others battered from too much love. Maddie even found an aging rocking horse in a corner. There were no books, Mable saw, but that was probably because they were all down in the library. Instead they found old papers, schoolwork with the name Theodore scribbled painstakingly across the top. Mable and Maddie giggled for a while over that one. They looked at some of the old paintings, none of which were nearly as realistic as the ones downstairs. Mable was shifting through paintings absently, when she stopped and stared at one in particular.

In a familiar gold frame sat a young, blonde-haired man. He looked young, about late twenties, and he was certainly handsome, in a regal way. His eyes were a gold that was just a shade darker than his hair, warm and intelligent even in oil paint. His hair came barely to his shoulders, showing off high cheekbones and a full mouth. There was a slight smile on his lips, as if he was holding a secret, but wanted to share it anyway. He held a quill and paper in hand, as if he had just stopped to have his picture painted and was going to return to work in a minute.

Mable stared at the picture for a long time, trying to connect this portrait of Theo with the napping one downstairs. There was no doubt it was Theo, back when he was human. The eyes were the same, and the slight smile on the corners of his mouth. Mable could see the resemblance but couldn't believe it.

"Mable? What are you looking at?" Maddie came over, and her mouth dropped open when she saw the portrait. "That's Master Theo! I wondered where he put that picture."

Mable put the paintings back in order, unsure of what she was feeling. She felt like she had broken some sort of promise, by looking at the Theo in the portrait and comparing him to the Theo she knew.

"Mable, are you all right?" Maddie forced herself into Mable's line of sight. "Do you want to go back downstairs?"

Mable shook her head, deciding that she would sort through her feelings later. There was still one room left. "No, just another few minutes, then we'll go downstairs. What's in that room over there?" She pointed to the smallest room.

Maddy shrugged. "Let's go see."

There wasn't much that was different, sadly. There were papers, files, and clothes in the variety of boxes. Mable was shoving a trunk to the side when a sparkle caught her eye. She glanced down and saw, right next to the trunk as if it had been waiting there all along, a tiny, silver jewelry box. Mable picked it up in awe; it could fit in the palm of her hand.

"Maddie, check this out." She breathed. She ran her thumb over the flowery etchings on the little circular box.

"Oh, pretty!" said Maddie, and crawled over to sit next to Mable. "Open it, see what's inside!"

Mable stared at the girl. "You don't know what it is?"

Maddie shook her head. "No, I've never heard of anything that looks like this. It must be really, really old." she said, her voice filled with admiration at the thought of something so ancient. "Look, there's a little lock in the shape of a rose. How sweet."

Mable, completely enthralled, used her nail to slip the lock open. It opened effortlessly, and the two of them looked eagerly inside. The inside was lined with dark red velvet, reminding Mable of a box to a ring. Mable reached into the box and pulled out a long, silver chain necklace, with a pendant made of diamonds that sparkled merrily in the soft light of the attic. The pendant was made in the shape of a half-opened rose, stunning in its simplicity. Mable gave a soft sigh of wonder. It was gorgeous, a piece of artwork.

"Oh, how wonderful." Maddie said quietly. "Look at how beautiful it is. I wonder whose it was."

Mable placed the necklace back in the box. "It doesn't matter. Considering all the jewelry I have down in my drawers, they probably put it up here because it wasn't beautiful enough for them"

Mable was about to put the box on the floor when Maddie snatched it out of her hands. "Mable, come on, let's take it downstairs." She pleaded. "It must be really old, and it's too pretty to stay up here. Why don't you take it? You can wear it to dinner tonight!"

Mable frowned, considering. "I don't know, Maddie…this isn't my house, I can't just take things from other people's attics."

Maddie shook her head. "But it's been up here so long, I can tell! Someone should wear it, it needs to be loved."

"Maddie, it's a piece of jewelry, not a lost puppy."

"Mable, come on. Look, it fits you, see." And before Mable could stop her, she had clasped the necklace around her throat. Sure enough, it fit her fine, and looked lovely sitting there on her neck.

"No," she shook her head, but her heart wasn't in it. "Maddie, I can't. It's not mine."

Maddie gingerly put the necklace back in the box and held it out to her. "At least bring it downstairs and show someone."

Mable took the box wistfully and sighed in resignation. It was hard to argue with Maddie most of the time, and it was even more difficult now, when she too, wanted the necklace. "Okay, here's what we'll do." She said sternly, "We'll take the necklace down and show it to Theo. If he says it's important to him, then either he can take it, or we'll bring it back up here. Sound good?"

Maddie clapped her hands delightedly. "Sounds great!"

"Good," Mable rose to her feet, wincing as her stiff legs objected. "Now, let's get out of here. It's getting chilly, and it would stink if I got sick again!"

A few minutes later, after shutting the curtains and re-lighting the candle, both of them headed downstairs, the necklace and its box safely in Mable's pocket. Maddie had also grabbed a little something to take back from the attic, a "souvenir for the occasion" as she called it. Mable hardly doubted the periwinkle blouse could be considered souvenir, but she had to admit the color was very pretty, and it made Mable feel like less of a thief for taking something from the attic.

Thankfully the hallways warmed a little as they wandered back to the main part of the castle, and Mable was able to blow out her candle when they re-emerged into a corridor which had the usual lamps.

"This was fun." Maddie chirped as they walked back towards Mable's room. "I like spending time with you, Mable."

The words seared Mable's heart. "I like spending time with you too, Maddie."

"Yes, I know." The matter of fact reply made Mable laugh. "But I shouldn't keep you all to myself. Labelle and I were planning on going ice skating tomorrow, if the weather is good. Would you like to come?"

"That does sound like fun." Mable agreed, thinking that, if she thought hard enough, her closet would probably find her some skates. "I'd love to join you." She was quiet for a moment, her thoughts suddenly drifting towards Theo. "Can we invite Theo along?"

It was silly to ask, seeing as he lived here and could probably go skating whenever he wanted. But Mable felt the odd desire to invite him along, to include him in their fun. It would be good for him, she thought.

Maddie smiled at her. "Of course. I can't believe I didn't think of it myself."

They planned out the next day as they continued towards Mable's rooms. Maddie was just telling her the story of when her father taught her how to skate when she interrupted herself with a squeal. "Master Theo!"

Theo was indeed standing in front of the door to Mable's room, leaning against the wall with an unhappy expression on his face. Mable glanced down the hall a bit and saw a few servants, two footman, working with jerky movements as they dusted a nearby table and replaced the still-blooming flowers with fresh ones. Their faces were tight, and they kept glancing uneasily at Theo, as if afraid he was going to attack them at any moment.

Instantly feeling sorry for her friend, she grabbed Theo's paw and said, "Come on, let's talk inside." Anything to get that look of his face.

Maddie saw both Mable and Theo's face and said, with a little more haste than necessary, "I'm going to go find Papa and see if he knows where my skates are. I'll see you later, Mable!" She trotted off, hissing something under her breath at the menservants as she passed them.

"I was just coming to escort you to lunch, since you missed breakfast." He said as Mable pulled him through the door.

"Thanks." Her stomach grumbled quietly. She hadn't even realized she was hungry. "Me and Maddie were going to go ice skating tomorrow. You want to come with us?"

The fur between Theo's eyes ruffled. "I can't skate anymore, I'm afraid. My feet don't fit, and I'm too heavy for the ice. Last time I tried I almost fell in."

"Oh." Now her brilliant idea to get him out and have some fun seemed like a bad idea. "Ok. Well, me, Maddie and Labelle were going to go sometime in the afternoon, so maybe—"

"Why don't I join you and just sit on the side? It's been ages since I've been out, and the fresh air will do me good." He gave her a smile that said he knew why she wanted him to come and appreciated it.

Feeling unexpectedly happy, she smiled back. "All right. Now, let me show you what I found as I foraged in the attic."

She showed him the necklace, beaming when he made the appropriate complimentary remarks.

"Well, I'm not sure where it came from." He said, staring down at the necklace thoughtfully. "It doesn't look familiar to me, and I don't even know where half the things in that attic came from originally."

"I can put it back." Mable offered, though she had retrieved it from him and was pooling it in her hands. "It belongs to your family, after all."

Theo watched her as she held up the necklace to the window, so she could relish the way the light made the diamonds sparkle and dance.

"Do you like it?"

Mable tore her eyes from the necklace. "What?"

"If you like it, then you can keep it."

Mable stared at him. "It's not mine, I couldn't possibly-"

"Consider it a gift, then." For some reason when he smiled at her it made butterflies erupt in her stomach. "You clearly love it, and if it brings you that much happiness, then I want you to have it. It will just go to waste up in that attic. Someone should love it, enjoy it."

Mable hardly knew what to say. "Are you serious? Really?"

Theo gave her a comical bow, making Mable giggle. "For you, Lady Mable, anything." He let out a yell when Mable smothered him in a hug.

"Thank you so much, Theo. I'll treasure it." She said as she put it on. She admired herself for a moment in the mirror, so delighted she almost didn't notice his bemused stare. "What is it?"

"You hugged me."

His amazed tone made her blush. "Well, yeah, I guess. Don't get too used to it." She warned hastily. He continued to stare at her in disbelief.

Getting more embarrassed by the second, she rushed to open her bedroom door. "Shall we get lunch, then?" she squeaked. She left without waiting for an answer, leaving a bewildered Theo to follow behind her.