Free The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle by Janet Fox Page A

Rose’s, she dismisses it. She has rescued the hunchback boy from a miserable childhood and terrible memories. She will give her lord the gift of a son and has saved herself in the bargain.
    Her chatelaine weighs heavier on her belt, but it is a weight she can bear. This weight feels almost . . . glorious.
    Leonore brings the boy before her lord.
    But that very night her lord wakes from his accident at last, and by the light of the full moon, he sees her. He sees her shining silver ear, her mechanical finger. He sees her deformity,hears the whining of wheels within her mechanical finger, and calls her a witch—and he is revolted. He does not love her; he will not keep her; the children make no difference; and he casts her away, staggering from his bed, brandishing a blazing stick from his fire.
    Weeping, Leonore gathers the children and goes no farther than the ancient keep, for it is a cold dark night and the woods are full of wolves. She huddles in the keep with Rose and Tim, who watch her with blank eyes.
    The Lord of Rookskill Castle, hearing rumors, burns to the ground a ramshackle hut at the edge of Craig village that is said to be cursed by evil.
    Leonore sees from her tower when her lord takes a new young wife who promptly gives him a son, and Leonore’s heart breaks with the pain of rejection. But then she wonders, for her lord and his new wife grow old and die, and their heirs, and great-heirs, all grow old and die—and she does not. She and the children remain in the keep for many, many years, she and Rose and Tim, always young.
    What kind of magic does she possess?
    The rooks keep her company. They have unnatural skills and whisper their news. She hides with the children in the keep’s dark shadows. Her hair will change from black to black and white to white and black, and finally to silver-white.
    The cold color of the moon.

17
    Storm
    T HE WORDS ECHOED in Kat’s head as she heard the snap of the lock in the door.
You did not pay the price!
She lay in bed, shaking, clenching her fist as if it still felt cold.
    Sunlight streamed through the open curtains, a rare sunny day in Scotland. She’d have taken a dreary London rain for anything, and Father and Mum and even Great-Aunt Margaret. Outside the glass Kat heard the harsh call of a rook:
Off, off, off,
it cried. And then, more distant,
War, war.
    War. Why had Father sent them to this awful place?
    Father. She had to prove to him that she could survive.
Keep your chin
up, my girl. Keep calm.
    Kat splashed cold water on her face and got herself dressed in her uniform before dragging Ame out of bed. As soon asAme was moving about, Kat opened the door and peered into the hall. Light spilled along the hallway from the far windows, and from somewhere below she could hear the clatter of dishes.
    It all seemed perfectly normal. But she was sure now that it was not.
    There was only one other person she could talk to about it, even if he was a boy. A bold American boy who made her feel shy, so that she had to remind herself again to keep calm.
    She knocked at Robbie and Peter’s door, and Peter opened it almost at once; they were both dressed, although Robbie looked like he’d wrestled with his bedclothes and lost the battle.
    Kat tugged Peter’s arm to pull him into the hallway, out of Robbie’s hearing.
    â€œI think we were drugged,” she said in a low voice.
    He ran his hands over his face. “I did sleep well, but I thought it was because I was exhausted.”
    â€œI didn’t sleep well. And it felt wrong, that kind of sleep.”
    He pursed his lips. “Why would we be drugged?”
    She placed her hands on her hips. Bad dreams and poor sleep made her shyness give way to irritability. “I don’t know. Because we’re in the house of a spy, maybe? Maybe someone is using us as a cover for spying, and when that someone wants us out of the way, we’re drugged.”
That, or we’re