I was only half listening to them, my gaze following the twisting stems and fanlike leaves, noxious purple blossoms and jewel-bright fruits. I found myself looking up at a ring of stained-glass ravens unfolding along the perimeter of the cupola, their wing tips touching, as if cut from paper.
“Why is it called Blackbird Castle?” I asked, as we passed under a plant whose blossoms were shaped like bright pink babies with little hands and sly faces.
“Ah, that’s a tale,” said Minnifer. “It was Magdeboor who named it.”
My skin prickled at the mention of that name. “Ask them . . . about Magdeboor. See what they say.”
“But not the bad Magdeboor, not the Magdeboor everyone whispers about,” said Minnifer. “This was the first Magdeboor, Mary Coalblood, the very first Brydgeborn.” And puffing herself up like an actress on a stage, Minnifer began her story.
“Long ago, before there were witches, before the first Magdeboor ever planted the seedlings that became Pragast Wood, this hill was a sacred burial place. Blackbirds nested here, crows and ravens and jackdaws swirling around it like smoke from dusk till dawn. It was thought their wings bore souls safely across the river and into the underworld. People came from far and wide with their dead. They brought them up the mountainside and left them in the grass. And then the birds swarmed. . . .”
Minnifer shuddered and clutched the candelabra, and we all huddled slightly closer together as we passed beneath the drooping vines. “The trouble began when Magdeboor had the first castle built. It wasn’t much of a castle, more of a tower with two windows. But after she built it, all the birds went away. Perhaps they didn’t like the sound of the stonemasons, or perhaps Magdeboor asked them to leave because they were annoying her. Whatever the case, they all vanished into the sky, and that was that. You’d think no one would have minded, but everyone did. The peasants were furious. Because the peasants were furious, the king became furious too. So one day, the king climbed up the mountain and confronted Magdeboor.
“‘What will happen to us now?’ he demanded. ‘The birds are gone! The villagers fear their souls will no longer cross over!’
“And Magdeboor, her students and daughters standing silently behind her, clad all in black, like tar and storm clouds, said, ‘We will be your blackbirds. We will be your ravens and crows and jackdaws, your dark wings and messengers. We will shepherd your souls to safety.’ That was the first Magdeboor,” said Minnifer darkly. “She was the good one.”
We had arrived in a high, dim gallery. Part of the roof was caving in and long strands of yellow light trailed down, pooling on the parquet floor. Every inch of the walls was covered with ornately framed pictures, except where two or three were missing, like gaps in a toothy smile.
The pictures showed landscapes, or ladies and gentlemen in stylish hats and capes eating dinner, or writing books, or looking thoughtfully into the distance while stabbing strange beasts with silver scissors. Cats, tawny rabbits, or crows, lurked in the backgrounds, glinty-eyed and mysterious. One of the largest pictures showed a witch in an angular black dress shaped like an umbrella. She looked no older than twenty. Like me, her hair was a wild tangle, her face a bit surly. She was striding confidently deeper into the picture, but looking back over her shoulder at the viewer. In one hand she held a gold coin, in the other a sprig of lavender.
“But there were other Magdeboors,” said Minnifer quietly. She did not look at the girl in the painting.
“Who is that?” I asked, approaching the portrait. It was much larger than the others. A curled-up cat lurked in its darkened background, along with a scroll with foreign writing on it, a half-eaten apple, and a skull on a table. And even farther back, deep within the layers of paint and oil, a figure, thin as a wisp of smoke. It was very tall. Its arms were unnaturally long, hanging almost to its feet.
I knew who it was. I had met it once, years ago, at the edge of the woods.
“Magdeboor III,” said Bram, squinting up at the girl in the umbrella dress. “Also known as the Dark Queen. Also known as Mad Magdeboor Brydgeborn. Also known as . . . are you all right?”
I must have shuddered, because both Minnifer and Bram were looking at me curiously.
“I’m fine,” I said, still staring at the wispy figure in the background. It was the merest suggestion of a thing, hardly there at all. But looking at it gave me a horrible sinking feeling. Once again I saw the soaring trees, a pale hand extending toward me. What was that creature doing in a painting of my ancestor?
“What happened to her?” I asked. “Why did they call her mad?”
“Because she was,” said Minnifer. “A proper witch will watch over the boundaries of life and death, ferry lost souls into the lands of the dead, and keep the moorwhistlers and fangores and red dukes from devouring them along the way. But Magdeboor wasn’t good at any of those things the way other witches were, and she became terribly envious. She also became rather friendlier with the moorwhistlers than with her own sisters, and she was even known to nibble a soul or two in her day.”
The three of us stood in a pool of light, looking up at the painting. Bram made a disgusted face. I remembered the coachman and his talk of eating hearts on beds of boiled greens.
“She would go wandering in the lands of the dead for weeks at a time, exploring the woods and marshes,” Minnifer continued. “And eventually she went too deep, all the way down to the underworld. She brought something back with her. Normal folk bring back a spoon or a tea towel from their travels, but Magdeboor brought back one of the high-ranking dead. It whispered in her ear and made her quite evil.
“She began to think life was not half as interesting as people made it out to be, and people were just bags of meat, not really worth the trouble. She wreaked havoc on the villages and graveyards, kidnapped children and ate their souls, and once she inherited this castle, she threw out all the other Blackbirds and began filling it up like one of those old-fashioned witches of yore, with skulls, and blood in bottles, and doorways to other places. And it wasn’t where things were headed. Witches were becoming modern and government approved. They were being given positions at court and invited to banquets. And Magdeboor disagreed with all that. She thought, Why should we bow to powerful men and cruel governments and all the people who used to burn us at the stake? Why not fight them tooth and claw, and eat their souls for breakfast?”
“Well, that’s not unreasonable,” I said. “Except for the breakfast bit.”
“Of course it’s not unreasonable,” said Minnifer. “But it is very stupid. Supposing all the elephants in the zoo decided to trample the people who came to feed them. It wouldn’t be unreasonable, because who wants to be locked up in a zoo? But it’s stupid, because you’re still in a cage, surrounded by people, only no one likes you anymore or brings you peanuts.”
Minnifer crossed the gallery. Bram and I followed, and we all paused beneath a diamond-paned window. Shrouds of ivy grew against the glass, turning the light green and slithering, as if we were underwater.
“You’ve got to be clever about changing the rules,” said Minnifer. “And Magdeboor wasn’t. She wanted to change everything at once, and by change everything, I mean conquer the world with an army of the dead and feast on the souls of the living. She probably would have done it, too, if the other witches hadn’t caught wind of it. They banded together to bind her essence in the underworld. They burned her alive, right there.”