Chapter 4
His first trip to the Clarks’ apartment, nearly four months ago now, had been a shock.
Not because it was a tiny, dank and utterly insufficient home for a family, but because years ago it had been his tiny, dank and utterly insufficient home, the only one Nan could afford to rent with a widow’s pension that—she once joked—was clearly intended for the many widows who enjoyed foraging for their food.
He and Nan had been a household of two. The Clarks were five going on six. The children slept on mats in the living room he’d had all to himself at nights. He walked through it now, trying not to think about the walls closing in on him as they had the night before, and entered the only bedroom.
Seven-year-old Anna and her younger brothers stared at him, eyes wide and mouths solemn, as he took a seat by their mother. Sue Clark lay in a bed with a sagging mattress, looking pale and small. Even her rounded belly wasn’t as large as by rights it should have been.
“Was this the first time you’ve fainted?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. Simply getting the word out seemed to be an effort. She closed her eyes.
“I ran to get Daddy,” Anna said. “He was coming home for lunch, and I found him and I told him.”
Peter wondered why Anna had been out of school, but now was not the time to ask.
“That was very good,” he said, nodding at her. “If your mother is ever in trouble again, come straight to my house. You know where it is?”
“Yes, sir. The gigantic one.”
Certainly compared to this apartment. He pulled out a leaf, murmured “hycgan gesyntu” and watched as his second diagnostic spell of the day turned a sickly yellow.
“That means something is wrong, doesn’t it?” Mr. Clark sat on the other side of the bed, both hands wrapped around one of his wife’s, his voice shaking. “Yellow is bad, isn’t it?”
“It does mean she’s not perfectly healthy, but it could be minor,” Peter said, trying to hit a soothing tone. “Unfortunately, the diagnostic test doesn’t tell us what’s amiss. A doctor will have to make that call.”
Mrs. Clark turned her head away, but he caught a glimpse of tears.
“We’ll make it work, tulip,” her husband murmured.
“No,” she whispered. And the rest of it was too quiet to make out, but Peter caught “the rent” and knew she would not go to the hospital.
Had his mother made the same decision? Would she have survived childbirth otherwise?
He stood. “I’m taking you to the emergency room. Now.”
Mr. Clark looked as if he was trying to find a response, but it was Mrs. Clark who got there first. “Thank you very much, Omnimancer, but we’ll manage.”
He leaned in and lowered his voice. “I’m not an idiot, and I’m not leaving you like this. I will cover the bill.”
Her face flushed—still a too-pale shade. “That is very good of you, sir, but we cannot accept charity.”
“I’m the town omnimancer, and I have a budget,” he said. “Charity has nothing to do with it.”
“Oh,” she murmured, all her animating anger and color gone. “But I—I thought you weren’t getting any assistance from Washington.”
He wasn’t. Which made everything he did in Ellicott Mills a sort of charity. But few people here saw it that way, and ultimately—given his ulterior motives—they were right.
“I have a budget,” he repeated, and willed her not to ask where the money came from. “It’s not a large one, but keeping expectant mothers healthy is at the top of my priority list. I’m bringing my car around. Anna, can you watch at the window and tell your father when to carry your mother down?”
She nodded.
Mr. Clark swallowed a sob. “Thank you. Thank you.”
And so Mr. Clark returned to work and Mrs. Clark and her three children rode in the Pierce-Arrow to the hospital, where, after a very long wait, a doctor declared her “unquestionably anemic.”
Afterward, Peter dropped the Clarks off at their apartment, popped over to the general store to put in a rush order of ferrous gluconate for Mrs. Clark’s iron supplement brew and returned home ten minutes after Beatrix’s quitting time to find the house empty.
She’d successfully avoided seeing him all day. She’d masterfully kept him from asking his usual question last night. He stood at the threshold of the brewing room, stomach churning, all but certain now that the whisper campaign was starting tonight.
He jumped in his car and sped most of the way to her house, parking out of sight on a side road. A trio of leaves in his hands, a spellword on his lips, and he ran the rest of the way in blessed invisibility.
Her car was in the garage—that was a relief. He stopped beside it, weighing what to do, when his decision was made for him by the sight of Beatrix and Miss Knight striding out of the house, their destination clear.
He slipped into the rear seat and softly shut the door before they came into view.
Peter caught the grim set of Beatrix’s mouth as she went by.
Both women jumped into the front and as soon as the car flared to life, Beatrix backed out, turned around and accelerated down the long driveway as if she had no time to lose.
He waited for conversation—what they were going to do, what his bizarre day had been about—but they didn’t say a word for the short ride. That, in fact, was most suggestive of all. Hadn’t he told them to avoid talking about anything dangerous in a place that could so easily be bugged?
He couldn’t make out where they were when the car stopped, lying as he was on the floor, nothing but trees visible out his window.
He waited until they both got out to sit up.
The Beaux-Arts buildings of the women’s college rose above him, the sight squeezing at his lungs.
What better place to start a women-only whisper campaign?
He had to stop this now. He barreled out, slamming the door, not caring whether they heard.
They didn’t—they’d just stepped into the nearest building.
By running full-out he caught up before they disappeared, and he was at the point of grabbing Beatrix’s hand when he heard “the League” and pulled back to listen to what they were saying.
“What did Rosemarie want us to talk to her about?” Beatrix asked.
“She gave me a list. A long one.”
“All march-related?”
“Every word.”
This was about the march Lydia Harper was organizing in Washington?
Peter continued following them, up a stairwell, down a hallway full of closed doors, but the certainty that he should be here, doing this, receded along with his anger and anxiety. He was crossing a line—spying on Beatrix again. What if this was nothing but a misunderstanding?
Beatrix stopped at the door marked 216 and knocked. He stood two yards from her and Miss Knight, dithering. Perhaps he should walk away. Wait until he could ask her for the truth.
Go home.
The door opened. The young Asian woman on the other side broke into a grin at the sight of her visitors—the ones she could see.
“What a nice surprise! Come in,” she said.
And in that second of opportunity—that moment of truth—he discovered just how far his trust in Beatrix had fallen.
Or, looked at in a different way, just how willing he was to betray her trust in him.
He slipped in after her and Miss Knight, stepping into a corner of the room, already regretting his decision.
But the door was now closed. There would be no getting out until they left.
He listened to them discuss the necessary minutiae of planning a big event with simultaneous relief and misery. The two holes in Beatrix’s fraying scarf stared at him from the coat rack like accusing eyes.
It wasn’t simply what he was doing at this very moment. No, he’d also badgered her every night, and for what? The answer to his question was always no. No, she hadn’t told women the secret. No, she wasn’t doing what he feared.
She’d had an idea flame up in the midst of one stressful evening, and he hadn’t counted on her ability to think strategically about costs and benefits in the cold light of day. He’d left her no face-saving way to say she’d changed her mind.
After what must have been thirty minutes of writhing, his deliverance arrived.
“Where are your facilities, Dot?” Beatrix said.
“Yes, please,” Miss Knight said. “Too much discussion about water stations, not enough about latrines.”
Their host laughed. “Outside—down the hall. I’ll show you.”
He counted out twenty seconds after they left, opened the door a crack—enough to see the hallway was clear—and escaped. The mile-long walk back to his car offered plenty of time to think in excruciating detail about what he’d done.
When he finally got home, he looked into the brewing room again to see what she’d made that day. Next to the bottles lay a note, but not the be-back-soon message of earlier.
I’m sorry to keep you so busy—I needed you out of the house. Go to your bedroom and see why.
The swirl of conflicting emotions clarified themselves into guilt that pressed on him like a weight. She’d been up to something for him? He clumped up the steps, legs aching from the walk, and opened the door.
His breath caught.
A Christmas tree, fully decorated, filled a previously bare corner. Strands of white lights twinkled at him where wall met floor. One of Mayor Croft’s handmade wreaths hung on the inner side of the door.
Presents—at least three dozen—lay on the skirt under the tree. The names on the tags were a who’s who of townspeople. There was even a plate of gingerbread cookies from the Clarks, surely baked sometime in the last few days with what little strength Mrs. Clark had left.
He didn’t know what to do with himself. Something fluttered in his chest, and he knelt amid the gaily wrapped boxes that seemed like symbols of more than just appreciation. For the first time since he’d come home, he felt as if he might actually belong here.
Silver glinted from behind the tree, a present he hadn’t noticed. He reached for it, brought it into the light and caught sight of the tag. Peter, it said, in that handwriting that looked so much like his.