The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle Read Online Free

back and lifted Amelie up by her waist to sit at the front; the rest of them scrambled up to find seating on the bench behind him.
    Kat’s heart thumped something dreadful.
    There wasn’t a proper dawn; it was too foggy. The cold fog beaded on Kat’s beret and wrapped the wagon and the road ahead in gloom, and she couldn’t get the lay of the land. Kat tucked her gloved hands into her armpits. The wagon jostled and shuddered. Kat was sitting between Peter and Rob so that her shoulder bumped against Peter’s. It couldn’t be helped, and though she wouldn’t admit it, it gave her some comfort.
    As did her sensible packing. She wore warm woolen trousers; yet, even so, her knees were knocking.
    She saw something of the village, wreathed in mist, as they passed through—small and silent, no souls strolling among the thatched-roof cottages or in and out of the shuttered pub with the sign of a spread-winged blackbird: THE R OOK . The road wound upward from there, back and forth, like a hawk hunting, turn and turn again, the wheels making a hawklike squeal as they rotated in the muddy ruts. The drays puffed steamy breaths as they hauled their load up the hill. The smell of damp decay filled the air.
    All of a sudden they were at a gate. The giant, who hadn’t said a word since the station, got down and opened the gate on its grating hinges, then pointed at Peter. “You,” he said, “close it behind.”
    When Peter climbed down Kat missed his shoulder at once, and then dismissed that thought right away and clutched at the watch on her wrist.
    The gate was an iron monster with crossbars, and at the very top of the arch she could make out an odd symbol. It was the number thirteen inside an ornate circle, with the letters
RC
flanking it.
    Kat guessed that the
RC
stood for Rookskill Castle, but the thirteen? Maybe it was the house number. Did castles have numbers? And if so, who would choose the unhappy number thirteen?
    Silly, she scolded herself. Numbers weren’t happy orunhappy. Numbers were solid things, things you could depend on.
    But as the wagon passed under the gate, she couldn’t suppress a shudder and wouldn’t look up at the thirteen that stared down at them like a winking eye.
    From somewhere in the misty wood came the echoing
off-off
of a rook.

5
    Rooks
    T HE CIRCLING BIRDS of Rookskill Castle could tell a tale. Back and back—time weaves a tapestry. It is 1746, and a terrible conflict lays waste to the land and people.
    A girl, Leonore, contemplates her misfortune. She has not been able to fulfill her marriage vow. She holds her chatelaine, a wedding gift of mysterious origin, dangling it from her fingers. It dances in the firelight of her room, the most beautiful thing she has ever owned. Even in the utter dark it casts a faint blue light. Touching it sends a shiver, a cold spike right through her heart.
    She cannot deliver a child to her lord. He plucked her from nothing for this alone, having disposed of the three unfortunate wives who came before her—he picked her for herpeach-cream skin and thick black hair and her youth. Picked her from the village, after the other lairds refused him any more of their daughters. At least she has escaped her father’s fist, the bruises and the fearful hiding.
    The chatelaine. Finely wrought of silver, jewelry to hang from her waist. Wrapped in velvet inside an inlaid coffer and placed upon the marriage bed, resting on the white linen beside an inky feather that drifted in with the breeze. No one, not her lord nor the servants, could tell Leonore who placed the coffer there. The only precious thing her new husband gave her was an engraved thimble, a thimble that now lies within her embroidery box.
    She plays with it, the chatelaine, its thirteen charms twisting and clinking, and she wishes she could trade it for the one thing that would save her. Even a healthy girl-child would buy her time. She fears the fate