Cinderella Is Dead(51)

“Are you serious?” I ask.

Amina laughs. “No, but it is something I have to do, unless you’d like to see me as I really am.”

Constance stiffens up. “You mean you’re not just a mean old granny?”

Amina pauses, her ingredients bubbling in her cauldron. Suddenly her face contorts, taking on a pale-yellow hue, her mouth turned downward. Her skin droops as her appearance shifts. She transforms into an ancient-looking corpse, haggard and rotting. I cover my mouth to stifle a gag, and Constance rears back, knocking over a pile of pots and clay plates. Amina suddenly reverts to her former appearance and smiles.

“Don’t let this fa?ade fool you. I’m not your granny. I’m not to be trifled with. Do you understand?”

“All right!” Constance yelps.

My heart feels like it’s trying to escape my chest as Amina fills a cup from the cauldron and drinks the mixture, a slight look of disgust on her face. She stuffs her pipe and smokes like a chimney until her eyes close into slits.

I retreat to the kitchen. Amina grumbles to herself as Constance follows me and slides down to sit on the floor. My heart is still racing as my attention is drawn to the book that lies open on the counter.

I lean close to it. It smells like burned paper and rotted meat. I cup my hand over my mouth as I read the words. It looks like a recipe, but the ingredients are things I’ve never heard of: the crowning of a rooster, High John the Conqueror, freshly shed snakeskin. I glance at Amina and then reach out to turn the page. Each one is filled with recipes and spells, all hand-lettered with notes scratched in the margins. There are papers and notes stuffed between the pages.

Near the back of the book is an entire chapter that is bound with red ribbons tied in a series of intricate knots and topped with a wax seal. The title reads Necromancy.

“What is necromancy?” I ask.

Amina turns her head and looks at me out the corner of her eye but says nothing. Constance looks over my shoulder at the book.

“It’s when you communicate with the dead,” she says.

Amina chuckles. “You know everything now, don’t you?”

“That’s not what it is?” Constance asks.

“No,” Amina says. “It’s not. You can’t communicate with the dead. They’re dead.”

Constance pushes her hand down on her hip. “No. I’ve heard of this. It’s for communicating with the dead. I’m sure of it. She’s lying.”

Amina stands up and marches over to us, and for a split second I think she’s going to pull out a wand and curse us herself. Even Constance looks like she regrets saying anything.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Amina snaps. “You have to call the spirit back to communicate with them.”

At the edge of my thoughts, an idea emerges. I push it aside, but it has already taken root. It blooms and stands in my mind’s eye, fully formed.

And terrifying.

“Can we—can we do that with Cinderella? Can we communicate with her to find out what she was trying to tell Gabrielle?”

Constance stares blankly at me.

Amina scowls. “Cinderella has been dead nearly two hundred years. A necromancy spell for her would require—” She stops and stares directly at me, and I worry she has somehow sensed the idea that floods my mind. So horrid and unimaginable I don’t want to speak it aloud.

“Require what?” I ask. I wait to see if what’s required is as gruesome as I think it might be.

“A corpse.” Amina takes a long draw on her pipe; the smoke encircles her head. “Her corpse.” I stare back at Amina. I mean to ask her to elaborate, but her expression stops me. Her features harden to a mask of stone as she shakes her head and mumbles something to herself. Constance is lost in thought. She raises her head to look at me but doesn’t speak. I hope she won’t think me a monster for what I am about to say.

“Cinderella is the only one who might know how to stop him,” I say, measuring my words. “The only one who might have known what his weakness was.”

“I won’t help you,” Amina interrupts. She glares at me as she speaks through clenched teeth. “How dare you ask me to do such a thing.”

“Wait,” says Constance, glancing between Amina and me. “Are you suggesting we raise Cinderella from the dead?”

“You don’t understand,” Amina says. “They don’t come back as the people they were. They are living corpses, changed. I won’t do it.”

“We need to talk to her,” I say. “Everyone else who may have been useful is dead. Cinderella was there with Prince Charming in the castle. This is how we find out what she meant to tell Gabrielle. You owe it to us.”

“I don’t owe you anything.” Amina’s fingers tremble as she grips her cup and shuffles back to her chair.

Constance walks over to her and bends low to look right in her eyes. “You helped put Manford on the throne. You’ve seen what he’s done, what he’s become, and now you have some kind of conscience? Where was it when you were helping Cinderella fall in love with him against her will?”

“I made a mistake!” Amina yells, her voice cracking. “A mistake that cannot be made right because I can’t—” She stops and gathers herself. “I can’t make it right.”