Read Online The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle by Janet Fox - Free Book Online Page B

could not see him after.”
    Like the girl
by the pond.
“His eyes—was he blind?”
    But Isabelle shook her head. “
Non, non,
nothing like that. Something else.” She leaned closer to Kat and dropped her voice. “He is standing, frozen, before he vanishes. His eyes are all wide and . . . nothing.” Isabelle pointed to her own blue eyes, now round and staring. “Like this.” She waved her fingers. “Marie says he is ill, but that is not how it looked to me. Unless he is ill in the head.”
    â€œMarie knew about him?”
    â€œOf course,” Isabelle said, pouting a little. “When I see him wandering about, looking
enchanté
 . . . how do you say? Enchanted. I watch for him. And I see him again, once more. He feeds his cats, but he is again looking
enchanté
.”
    Kat shifted. “Did Marie say anything more? Does he live in the castle?”
    Isabelle shrugged and ate a delicate bite of food.“Somewhere with his cats. I haven’t seen him since the second time.” Then she leaned toward Kat, one long curl of her hair sweeping forward over her shoulder. “He wears a long necklace. I see it as he bends to his cats. I have very good eyes.”
    â€œA necklace.”
    â€œYes, an odd thing. A necklace with a charm at the end. The charm is shaped like a cat.” Isabelle hesitated. “It reminds me, a little, of the charms on the Lady’s belt.”
    Kat sat straighter. “The ones she wears on her chatelaine?”
    â€œAh, you know some French? You know of
la châtelaine
?” Isabelle seemed excited. “
Oui, les charmes sur
sa châtelaine.
The Lady hides this chatelaine she wears. Once when she does not realize I can see it, I catch a glimpse of one charm.” Isabelle leaned even closer so that only Kat could hear. The boys were devouring their dinner, all four now chattering loudly about football. “That charm was”—Isabelle dropped her voice to the lowest of whispers—“the sign of evil.”
    The room darkened with sunset just as Isabelle said the word
evil
. The only light in the hall came from the fireplaces, a dull red glow. A chill like tiny feet crawled up Kat’s spine now, bringing up goose bumps all over.
    â€œSign of evil?” she whispered back.
    â€œLike this.” Under the table Isabelle made the familiar hand sign for the warding off of evil things, the horns—
les cornes
—of the devil.
    Kat shuddered. “Are you sure?”
    Isabelle nodded, solemn.
“Mais oui.”
She picked at her food. “I am thinking the Lady wears this charm to ward off bad things. But the handsome boy, he found bad things even so, of that I’m sure.”
    Isabelle’s eyes dropped away. Her dark hair formed perfect ringlets. She didn’t seem the practical sort; no one would call her stodgy. Maybe she even liked to tell scary stories. Maybe she shared Amelie’s imaginative streak.
    So the boy with the cats wore a necklace charm in the shape of a cat and seemed enchanted. Two other ghostly children wandered about the castle as if lost. And the Lady wore on her chatelaine the sign to ward off evil. Why would the Lady wear such a thing?
    Unless there
was
something evil in this castle, and she wore it for her own protection. Perhaps the ghost of the Lady Leonore did wander the castle, with an evil purpose.
    Kat shook herself. What was wrong with her? There must be a logical explanation for everything. Of course. It was just a matter of picking things apart, like opening the back of a clock and taking out the mechanism bit by bit to discover how all the pieces fit together.
    â€œMy Lady?” Kat said, standing up and lifting her voice to be heard above the chatter.
    Everyone froze. The Lady, sitting straight up in her chair atthe head table, appeared to have eaten nothing, her hands flat on the table before her. She stared down at Kat, one