Magic Dark and Strange Read online

  CHAPTER ONE

  WAKING THE DEAD WASN’T nearly so unpleasant as having to dig them up in the first place.

  Catherine Daly paused her work to wipe the sweat from her brow. In the cool night air, her breath misted and the wind gusted at her back, tossing dead leaves up against the low cemetery wall. A fine enough night for digging, all in all. It had rained earlier in the day, softening the soil, and even without the lantern burning at the grave’s edge, Catherine could see well by the quarter of moonlight.

  She was used to the dark.

  Up on the cemetery’s hillside, she had a decent view of the cityscape below. Invercarn glowed with soft light, buildings lit by streetlamps, their facades elegant and imposing. The knolls and tree-lined paths of Rose Hill Cemetery promised only the best for those moneyed enough to be interred here. Not that they could much enjoy it once the coffin was nailed.

  Unless, like tonight, certain services were called upon.

  Catherine looked around at the sudden silence to find her colleague had elected to break when she had. Bridget leaned against her spade, the point sunk into the dirt.

  “Keep digging,” Catherine told her.

  They had an audience after all. Catherine wanted him going back to Mr. Ainsworth with nothing but the coin he still owed and praise for their diligence. Thus far, he had watched them wordlessly, keeping back a few paces from the grave.

  Geoffrey Watt.

  He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, chin lifted. It was an attempt to maintain poise, perhaps, but by now Catherine had come to know when a client was nervous. He wasn’t much older than she and Bridget—in his early twenties, at a guess—and had approached Ainsworth just last week.

  His little sister had died of fever while he was away on business. He only wanted to say goodbye. Whatever time he was allowed, whatever the cost, he would pay it.

  Catherine pitched another pile of dirt out of the grave. The well-to-do liked to bury their dead deep. There were resurrectionists in the city intent on digging up bodies to sell to medical students. Mortsafes were common implements in Rose Hill—the iron devices were cast over a number of graves on the hillside, set to guard the dead until the flesh became too rotted to be of use.

  The robbers found their prizes more often in the public cemetery on the other side of the river. Rose Hill was private, guarded; Catherine was aware Watt must have paid off the watchmen to keep their distance.

  The night wore on as she and Bridget continued to dig. They passed six feet, then eight before Catherine’s spade hit wood.

  At the sound—a solid and unmistakable thunk—Bridget put aside her own spade and took up the crowbar. Catherine fetched her coat. Inside it was a piece of type. She rolled the metal between her fingers, looking down at the ground beneath her. Then—

  “Only an hour?” he asked. It was a tone of voice Catherine had heard before. In it was a plea for more, but magic could offer only so much.

  Watt was here to say farewell.

  “Yes,” said Catherine in answer. “Your sister cannot remain long in such a state of being. She has no place here, not anymore.”

  Watt inclined his head in a nod. He held his hat in his hands now, and his fair hair matched his wan complexion. Bridget loosened the last nail and moved aside the casket’s lid. The girl inside was as fair as Watt, wearing a fine evening dress, surrounded by the pale lining of the casket. Catherine knelt at the foot of it, clutching her solitary piece of metal type.

  It was a type piece that held an hour of her life. If she brought it to the lantern, she knew she’d find the stain across it. She’d pricked her palm earlier, marking the metal with blood. Now she set it on the casket’s edge. Placing her hand atop it, she whispered, “Mary Watt.”

  Beyond the walls of dirt, the stars shone bright and dizzying. Catherine stood up, and the girl’s eyes blinked open. For a moment, the two simply stared at each other. Mary was pale as a ghost, and much like one, she was still dead. An hour of Catherine’s own ticking clock could give her only a semblance of life. It was quite clear—from her glazed eyes to her ashen cheeks—that she no longer belonged among the living. And when she spoke, her voice was thin and distant.

  She asked, “Who are you?”

  Catherine swallowed. Climbing out of the pit, she turned to Watt. “You have the hour, sir.”

  Watt made his way over to the grave where his sister lay. He was trembling. Once he was inside, the girl said, “Geoffrey.”

  Catherine met Bridget’s gaze, and together they headed to the nearby cemetery wall, where they waited under the branches of an oak tree.

  Catherine pulled on her coat and looked out at the city. By the time Watt had his hour and they filled in the grave, it would be near dawn. For now, shadows darkened the cobblestones, obscuring the places between the gas lamps and rolling carriages.

  Bridget leaned against the stone ledge, arms crossed. In a quiet voice, she said, “Mr. Watt didn’t need to hear you speak of his sister so unkindly.”

  Catherine gave her an assessing look. “I don’t think telling him the truth is an unkindness. Mr. Ainsworth should be informing clients of such things.”

  “Perhaps,” said Bridget, a touch uneasy. She didn’t like speaking out against their employer, no matter how far they were from earshot. Her blond hair was coming loose from its pins, ruffled by the breeze. She had fair wrists, slender hands calloused from working jobs like this one, dirt under her fingernails. Catherine was equally pale-skinned and angular, her dark hair done up in a chignon.

  Once Watt’s hour came to an end, the two returned to the gravesite. Watt was embracing his sister, the girl limp in his arms. Catherine looked elsewhere as he lowered Mary back into the casket. When he climbed out of the grave, he clasped their hands in turn, seemingly unaware of the dirt staining his trouser knees. He pressed a silver coin into Catherine’s palm, smiling despite the tears in his eyes. They were the same shade of blue as his sister’s.

  “For your troubles,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Catherine cleared her throat. “Mr. Ainsworth will pay you a call tomorrow morning,” she told him, “in regard to outstanding payment.”

  “Of course.”

  Watt lifted his hat to them, then left the cemetery without a backward glance.

  When they were alone, they secured Mary’s casket and took to heaping the dirt back in. Catherine touched the coin in her pocket. After this, they’d walk out of Rose Hill Cemetery, head over the bridge, and return to their room at the print shop. Gripping her spade, she sank the blade into the earth. She thought of Mary’s pale eyes, her raspy voice. She thought of Geoffrey Watt clasping her hand, accentuating his thanks with silver. Soon he would blur alongside all the other clients in her mind.

  Just another night’s work.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WHEN CATHERINE HAD FIRST LOOKED upon the print shop, it was from her seat on her family’s old cart. Her father sat beside her, holding on to the reins, his expression grim as he pulled the horses to a stop. It was early spring and late in the evening, cold enough to make Catherine’s nose run. She wiped at it hastily with her sleeve. She didn’t want Father to think she was crying. If she cried, he’d turn the cart straight around and head for home.

  She would not cry.

  “Well,” said Father, sounding both entirely too lighthearted and quite near tears himself. “It seems a fine place.”

  “Yes.” Catherine fought back the lump in her throat. “Very fine.”

  Indeed, it was. Four stories of neat, dark brick, lined with sash windows. There was a polished front door with a heavy bronze knocker—like something out of a story.

  A fortnight ago, Father had written ahead and secured her a job here.
Now, in the dim, watery streetlight, he told her, “You don’t have to go.”

  She curled her hands together in her lap. Those were the words she’d said to her older brother the previous year, when he’d left to go work in the mines.

  They’d had another year of poor harvest, and just two months back, a storm left their roof badly damaged.

  Working at the city’s newspaper, Catherine could make good money. Her family knew that as well as she did.

  “I’ll manage.” Her voice came out high, trembling, and that wouldn’t do. She said again, “I’ll manage,” and this time she spoke clear so as to make it true.

  Father got down off the cart to tie up the horses. Catherine followed and reached up to stroke their necks.

  “You must write,” said Father. “And if you… if you wish to come home, for whatever reason, for any reason, Catherine—”

  “I know.” She suspected she wouldn’t be seeing home again for some time. “I’ll write.”

  He went around to retrieve her trunk from the back of the cart, and Catherine looked about the cobblestone street. Everything was rain-dark and slick; the smell of the river hung heavy in the air. It was so far from the green fields she knew, the clean, wet earth and the open sky. But it was home to her now.

  She put her shoulders back, lifted her chin. Father appeared carrying her trunk, and she walked alongside him to knock on the door.

  Two years had passed since then.

  On the third floor of the print shop, Catherine sat at her desk in the room she shared with Bridget. Early-morning light shone over papers and inkpots through the leaded rectangles dividing the window glass. There wasn’t time to go to bed after returning from the cemetery, and the piece of type she’d used to wake Mary Watt was still tucked in her coat. It was one of several Mr. Ainsworth had purchased from Stewart and Sons type foundry. A space, blank of any letter, crafted finely and made to be susceptible to magic.

  She took up the letter she’d written to her family the night before and sealed it in an envelope, intent on bringing it to the post office later.

  There were things she hadn’t realized back when she’d started working here. The Invercarn Chronicle printed all sorts—local news and events, shipping news, a wide range of advertisements—but Catherine was often tasked with printing the obituaries. And for the first year, she hadn’t worked any graveyard shifts. Since the recent establishment of the newspaper across town—the Journal—Mr. Ainsworth had introduced the farewell service as another means of profit. It wasn’t something put into the advertisements, but word of mouth brought clients to the door.

  Catherine stood up and attempted once more to scrub the grave dirt from her nails. Along with the desk and the washstand, there were two wrought-iron beds on either side of the room, two chests of drawers, two bedside tables spotted with dried candle wax. The wallpaper was peeling in parts where it met the ceiling, but altogether it was clean and dry, with a view of the street below. She pinned up her hair and smoothed her hands over her dress before making her way down to the print floor.

  Light came in through the front windows, illuminating tall sheaves of paper and type cabinets, tins of ink and composing sticks. It lent a gilded quality to the room, as lovely as gold leaf, and gleamed across the iron hand presses. Printed sheets were hung to dry on racks along the ceiling. Work desks were piled with tidy stacks of paper, information to be typeset and printed. A few employees were already behind them, composing sticks in hand or scratching down notes with their dip pens.

  Catherine took an ink-stained apron off a peg and slipped it on. She pulled free a type case from one of the cabinets, carrying it over to her desk. With the first of several death notices before her, she began composing type, adding letter after letter to the composing stick she held.

  She said, “Good morning, Spencer,” as her foreman walked by her desk.

  He stopped. “Morning, Catherine. Last night went well, I take it?”

  She nodded, holding back a yawn. Her shifts at the cemetery were infrequent enough she didn’t much mind the sleeplessness that came part and parcel with the extra pay. Spencer folded his arms, his head tilted to the side. With his brown hair slicked back and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, he looked neat and managerial despite his youth. He was twenty-two now, once a compositor himself, before Ainsworth promoted him. It was Spencer Carlyle who had answered the door when she had first arrived. She could still recall that younger version of him: the bright snap of ambition in his eyes.

  He asked, “And are you well?”

  Once, when Catherine was a child, she’d seen a man in town selling enchanted keys that could open any lock. She remembered how her grandmother had guided her away, telling her magic couldn’t darn stockings or mend holes in the roof and it was best to attend to more practical things. Catherine’s parents quite agreed. So did Catherine herself. Yet here she was, in the city, making use of it. At least it gave people a chance to say goodbye. Even so, her magic was faint and fleeting—she couldn’t bring anyone back to life, after all. There were times she felt she ought to notice the absence of the hours she’d lost bringing back the dead, to be able to root around and find the hollows, like gaps from missing teeth.

  She told Spencer, “Perfectly so,” and cast her eyes back down to her work. He tapped his knuckles against the desk and left her to it.

  The print floor was soon filled with mechanical clatter, the swish of paper, the squeak of ink rollers. Catherine conveyed the lines on her composing stick to a metal chase. There were blocks of wood, furniture pieces, made to hold the type in place. Once the news was typeset, she’d lock it up tight with a quoin key, before carrying the completed forme over to the press to be inked and printed.

  From across the shop, the front door opened, the bell above it chiming as Jonathan Ainsworth stepped inside, a cold gust of city air following in his wake. Catherine set down her composing stick. His gray eyes alighted upon her as he removed his gloves. In his well-tailored day suit, he looked sharp as cut glass. “Follow me, please, Miss Daly.”

  Catherine folded her hands in front of her as she shadowed him up the stairs. The Chronicle was once a maze to her, the openness of the print floor at odds with the corridors and locked rooms of the upper floors. The staircase was steep and narrow, lit by gas lamps in brackets along the wall. The second floor was where they took meals, the third made up of rooms for lodging, while the fourth contained the newspaper’s archives, as well as Ainsworth’s office. It was a grand room positioned at the front of the building, with a fireplace and several armchairs, a large window overlooking the street. Through it, omnibuses and private carriages vied for space as they sped along, rattling to and fro on the narrow roads. They crossed the dark, winding stretch of the river by way of North Bridge, to where the copper-clad spires and peaked roofs of finer establishments prevailed.

  Ainsworth slipped off his coat, placed it over the chair back, and took a seat behind his lacquered desk. He lived in that moneyed district across the river, and he’d likely one day have a fine monument built for himself in Rose Hill Cemetery. Only during working hours did he venture here, to the soot-black buildings and uneven cobbles of Old Town.

  “Mr. Watt was pleased with your work last night,” Ainsworth told her.

  Catherine inclined her head. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  There were about a dozen employees at the print shop who could work the magic Ainsworth required for the farewell service. Without them, he wouldn’t have business in the cemetery at all—unless, of course, he could manage the same sort of enchantment himself. Catherine had never asked him.

  He ran a finger along the edge of his desk. It was covered with organized stacks of paper, journals, a bookkeeping ledger. He said, “I’ve another job for you, if you’re interested in taking it.”

  Catherine raised her eyebrows. “What is it, sir?”

  The clock on the fireplace mantel ticked steadily in the pause. Ainsworth opened his desk drawer, pulling out
a sheet of paper. “Mr. Watt paid off his balance, but it wasn’t coin he owed. He had information I’ve been after for quite some while.” As Catherine watched, Ainsworth took up his pen and began to write. “There’s an unmarked plot in the public cemetery—the grave of a coffin maker. A timepiece was buried with him. I’d like you to collect it.”

  Catherine swallowed. She knew what timepiece he was referring to. Most at the shop believed Ainsworth had been looking for it since starting up the farewell service. The device was rumored to bring the dead to life—not as ghostly likenesses of themselves, as her magic brought about, but truly living.

  “You’ll be paid for the retrieval, of course. And I want it done tonight.” Setting his pen aside, he looked up.

  Catherine already knew her answer.

  “Certainly, sir,” she said. “I’ll see to it.”

  When he offered her the paper, she saw he’d written directions marking the grave’s location. She folded it and tucked it into her apron pocket. “Will that be all?”

  “Yes, Miss Daly, thank you.”

  She went back downstairs to resume her work, but at midday, she returned to her room on the third floor. She put Ainsworth’s instructions away in her coat, located her bonnet and gloves, and fetched the letter she needed to post. The sky was clear blue beyond the window, like it was in her memories when she thought of her family home. It lightened her heart as she left the room and headed outside.

  CHAPTER THREE

  INSIDE THE POST OFFICE, Catherine waited in line with her letter clutched between her hands. When she got to the counter, she recognized the boy behind it. Smiling, she said, “Hello, Mr. Douglas. How are you this afternoon?”

  “Very well, Miss Daly.” He smiled back, taking her letter. “And yourself?”

  “I’m well. Have you anything for me today?”

  “Indeed, I do. It came in with yesterday’s post.”

  As he disappeared into the back room, Catherine put her hands against the counter. She was here once or twice a week; she knew just about every crack and corner of the place. The front counter was worn at its edge like her desk at the print shop, the glass pigeonhole boxes along the wall numbered in gold paint.