Chapter 5
Ella stared at her from her perch on the edge of the tub, aghast. “What?”
“He didn’t hear anything but the march discussion,” Beatrix repeated, “but he followed us and we had no idea. What if a wizard who isn’t on our side does that?”
“I don’t think our omnimancer is on any side but his own,” Ella muttered, “but I take your point.”
“We need to know whether we’ve got an invisible watcher on our heels without casting a spell.”
“Would give that invisible watcher a bit of a clue that something was afoot if we did.” Ella’s lips turned up, but Beatrix was too upset for her friend’s good humor to work on her.
“The new magic’s the only way,” Beatrix said. “But our knitting’s not working.”
“Well, it is, just not …” Ella waved a hand, looking for the right word.
“At all well,” Beatrix said, gazing at the broken tile near the toilet.
“We managed to replicate the protection spell. That’s a big one.”
Beatrix raised both eyebrows. In their dozens of attempts to put a protective sheen on crabapples by focusing and asking for what they wanted, they’d managed it perhaps a fifth of the time.
Just as often, the crabapples turned into a squished and pulpy mess.
Every other time, nothing happened at all.
Ella made a face. “Fine, you’re right. I don’t understand why this method is so inconsistent. My grand plans of taking over the world by August may be a touch too optimistic.”
This time, Beatrix did smile in spite of herself. “I don’t know. The way you can levitate yourself two-and-a-half inches off the floor is quite impressive.”
“That might come in handy someday, and then won’t you be sorry for poking fun at my awesome talent.
” Ella had assumed an officious voice—uncannily like Mrs. Price, the wealthiest woman in town—but ruined the effect by laughing.
“And don’t forget the way I can make my blue dress appear to be purple.
Mark my words, that is a skill the wizards will rue. ”
Beatrix gave in and laughed, too. “Why were you even trying to make your dress change color?”
“I wanted to see if I could make myself look completely different. That was as far as I got.”
Beatrix let her head sink into her hands, half-snorting, half-groaning.
“I know you’re frustrated,” Ella said, patting her on the arm, “but it’s not important that knitting can’t do everything—it can do some things, and that’s amazing.”
“I can’t see it that way, you know. Because just that once, everything I tried worked.
Even something that’s supposedly impossible—something there’s no spell for.
” Beatrix searched for the words to properly communicate the feeling.
“Ella, it was like—like opening a door and discovering there’s an entire world outside.
That was amazing.” She sighed. “I don’t know what we’re doing wrong.
But the door’s closed, and I can’t figure out how to get it open again. ”
“We’ll get there. We just need practice.”
Beatrix spent a moment trying to believe it. Then she said, “What if the door only opens when someone you love is in immediate danger of dying?”
“But the second time you had a breakthrough, you were at the omnimancer’s.” Ella caught her expression and said, “Oh, no. What? What haven’t you told me?”
So finally, belatedly, she explained. How she’d found Peter trapped against the wall of his basement, suffocating inside a spell gone wrong that he’d cast to protect himself against Garrett. How it was too late to save him by conventional means.
“Good God!” Ella collected herself and lowered her voice. “You do realize that if he’d died, you’d be free?”
Beatrix stared at her. “Please tell me you’re not suggesting I should have done nothing.”
“Well—”
“The only reason he was in that position is because Garrett was trying to scare him off from helping us!”
Ella put up her hands. “I concede, I concede. I was just pointing out that you were, by most definitions, acting against your own interests.”
“I wasn’t,” she said. “Even setting aside the moral considerations, we need him.”
“No,” Ella murmured, “you think we do because the Vows want you to think that. But we can handle our own problems. Especially when we get better at knitting, which we will. I’m telling you, practice is the answer—when do we ever get an hour without interruption?”
Hardly ever. But she was thinking more about the first part of what Ella said.
“Not everything I say or do is influenced by the Vows,” she said. It sounded thin to her own ears, so she added, “Don’t forget Plan B. I’m not his automaton.”
Ella took her hand. “No! No, you’re not. What you’re going through, never knowing which of your thoughts and feelings are wholly yours—ninety-nine percent of people in that situation would just submit. But you’re fighting, and I’m so proud of you for that. You never stop fighting.”
Never, except every single night. What would Ella think of her if that ever came out?
The tears slipped down her cheeks before she could stop them.
“Oh,” Ella said, a bit deer-in-the-headlights at what must have been an entirely unanticipated response. “Beatrix, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make it worse. I can—I can just imagine how hard this must be.”
Beatrix nodded, taking the easy way out.
“Whatever I can do to help,” Ella said, squeezing her hand, “I will.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, not looking her in the eye.
She lay in her bed later, too distressed by all that had happened that day to fall easily to sleep. But eventually she ended up dreamside. And it was all she could do to keep the truth in. It lodged like a rock in her throat, churned in her stomach, prickled her tongue.
He didn’t ask her the question. He didn’t bring the subject up at all.
Instead he recounted, with wry humor, what a morning he’d had dealing with her distractions—no longer suspecting they were anything but what she’d told him in her note.
The Christmas tree and angel, gifts twisted to a different purpose, twinkled at them from the corner where his subconscious, or more likely hers, had conjured them.
Her skin burned with guilt everywhere he touched her.
Peter had work outside the house to do that morning, so he let Beatrix in—she looked pale, despite the chill—and headed out.
After checking on Mrs. Clark (even paler than Beatrix, but no further fainting since yesterday) and fixing the uneven sidewalk (though “somewhat improving” was more accurate), he purchased a present in Stevenson’s Handmade Goods that he hoped Beatrix would like and stopped into the general store to see the mayor.
“Perfect timing!” Croft gave him a warm smile. “Your rush order came in five minutes ago.”
“Oh, good,” he said, thinking of how Mrs. Clark looked in that old and surely uncomfortable bed.
“How is she?” Croft asked, bustling over to the counter.
Peter blinked. He hadn’t told the mayor what or who the ingredient was for.
“I know this is going in a brew for Sue Clark, Omnimancer,” Croft said with a shake of the head.
“Five people told me how you ran out of Reed’s with Daniel Clark yesterday, and two more mentioned that you were up to check on her this morning.
Wizard-patient confidentiality doesn’t really work in a town this small. ”
He wondered if the town, and not just Mr. Reed, had sussed out that he was in love with Beatrix. He gave a rueful shrug. “This ingredient is the key part of a brew that should make her feel better.”
“Well, that’s news to cheer the soul. No, no, put your money back in that coat of yours, this is on the house.”
“No, really—” he began to say, knowing the price was north of $50.
“I insist,” Croft said, clapping him on the shoulder.
He was about to absolutely refuse—Croft’s habit of giving merchandise away to poor residents oughtn’t apply to him—when he realized that what had raised his hackles was the thought that he might need the charity.
He’d left Ellicott Mills unwavering in his determination to never require any again.
But the man simply wanted to help the Clarks.
“Thank you, Mayor,” he said. “That’s kind of you.”
Croft grinned at him. “So, how was your day yesterday?”
Peter laughed. “Oh, delightful. I understand you’re partially to blame. Did you arrange that performance with Miss Sederey, by the way, or did Miss Harper?”
“Must have been something Miss Harper cooked up too late to mention. Either that, or just a lucky coincidence. I called her once you ran off for your car, of course—was worried you might pop in and catch her with her arms full of presents.” Croft’s smile widened. “Did you like your surprise?”
Peter swallowed over the lump in his throat. “Very much.”
When he got back to the house, he stowed the package for Beatrix in his nightstand and took the other item to the brewing room.
She looked up at him, eyes watchful and guarded.
For a second, he bitterly regretted telling her what he’d done last night.
But he had to, really. She would have told him, had their situations been reversed—though he doubted she would have followed him in the first place.
He pulled the glass bottle full of light green powder from its paper wrappings. “This is the ferrous gluconate we needed for Mrs. Clark’s supplement. Can we get started on it right away?”
“I can take care of it.”
That stung. “I’d like to help.”
“Peter—”
“My mother died in childbirth, too,” he reminded her quietly.
She looked at him then with such fellow feeling—the guardedness falling away—that he took a step toward her without meaning to. He turned awkwardly, set the bottle on the table and fetched the brewer’s guide.
He couldn’t tell if the jumbled-up emotions roiling him were his or hers. But when he trusted himself to glance at her again, she was scrubbing the work area with cool efficiency.
As they chopped ingredients in silence, the feelings mounted, sharp and insistent as a thousand pins to the flesh. Regret. Fear. Anger. Longing.
Suffocation.