Chapter 17
Mayor Croft drove Beatrix home the next afternoon once the roads were partially cleared.
The long driveway was still snowbound, so she got out and was halfway up it on foot when her sister dashed from the house toward her.
Only then did she remember that she never had called with an explanation of where she’d been.
“Oh, Bee! Don’t ever do that again! We had no idea if you’d tried to walk home and were freezing to death somewhere, or where we should be looking for you—of course we called the omnimancer’s house, but no one picked up, and the police said they couldn’t send anyone—”
“You called the police?” Beatrix said, edging into the discussion.
“Of course! And Ella and I went looking for you along your normal path to work, but we could only get about a third of the way before it was too dark and cold and dangerous to go farther—”
“I’m so terribly sorry,” Beatrix said, feeling wretched.
“I realize now that you had your hands full with Mrs. Clark, but if anything like this happens again, you must call!”
“I know, and I—wait, how did you know about Mrs. Clark?”
“Omnimancer Blackwell told me.”
“He called?”
“First thing this morning. Oh, Bee! I thought you were dead.”
Lydia threw her arms around her. Beatrix leaned in, touched and a bit surprised how upset her usually unemotional sister was.
She told her that Sue was all right, the baby seemed well, and she’d spent the day alternating between helping the Clarks, checking on other people living on Main Street and assisting with the massive shoveling effort.
She hoped that would seem like a good reason for not remembering to call.
And yet Peter, who’d been every bit as busy, hadn’t forgotten.
Rosemarie stepped through the doorway, shaking her head. “Very thoughtless of you.”
“I know,” Beatrix murmured. “I’m sorry.”
Then Ella pushed by and danced a little jig around her. “See, I told you she was all right.” She grabbed Beatrix’s hand and twirled under her arm. “Nothing to worry about.”
Beatrix smiled, feeling a bit better.
“Let’s go for a walk before we lose the sun—it’s beautiful out here,” Ella said.
Rosemarie’s frown deepened. “No, Beatrix will be helping her sister shovel the driveway while you make dinner.”
Ella rolled her eyes, expressing Beatrix’s feelings perfectly. She was the landlady here, but that often seemed to slip Rosemarie’s mind.
Once the chores were finally done, Beatrix led Ella into the sitting room, where no tele-vision cameras observed them. She slipped her notepad from one of her many coat pockets and wrote a warning as Ella watched: OB’s fuel no longer available. OB now tracking number used per day.
Ella read it, sighed, and took the pen. Can’t afford to wait for spring.
Beatrix nodded. But what else can we do?
Ella leaned back in her chair, deep in thought. Then she smiled and wrote: Can we go to Joan’s tomorrow?
Tomorrow—Saturday—she’d promised herself she would spend time with her sister, preferably out of this toxic house. But she hadn’t said anything to Lydia about it yet. OK. Plan?
Ella’s smile widened. Smith and Brown.
Oh dear God.
Joan saw them out with a quiet “good luck,” her face betraying a trace of the anxiety Beatrix felt. What if they were found out? What if, to avoid being found out, she actually killed somebody this time?
I will not murder anyone. I will not.
Joan’s apartment was six blocks from the shopping district.
As they walked, people stared at them, some jumping off the sidewalk into snowdrifts to make way.
A powerful, unnerving experience, being a wizard.
Beatrix was reminded of when she’d followed Peter to the same destination, her first full day on the job. That had been a Saturday, too.
And there it was—Edinger’s. She glanced at Ella, who had on the same false face she’d worn to Miss Sadler’s house. Ella gave her a thumbs up.
“You’re excited,” Beatrix murmured.
“Maybe just a bit.” Ella had dipped her voice back into the lower registers she’d used so effectively with Miss Sadler. She reached for the door. “After you, Brown.”
The shop appeared to be empty. Beatrix took in the overwhelming mixed-spice smell of the place, which this time she was prepared for, and walked down the right-hand side of the shop to look for the clerk, dizzy with anticipation and nerves.
The medicinals section rose up around her, and the memory of her trip here with Peter overlaid itself in ways that added to her sense of vertigo.
“Let’s see … Palmetto berry, papaya, passion flower …” The muffled voice sounded like the clerk muttering to himself on the other side of the shop. “Oh dear. I’m afraid we’re all out of it.”
“Fuck.”
Beatrix froze. The man was helping another customer. A customer who had to be a wizard.
“But I can special-order it for you, sir. That won’t take long.”
They had to get out.
“How long?” said the customer, irritation infused into both syllables.
Beatrix poked Ella and pointed to the door. Ella held up a hand, listening intently.
“By Tuesday at the latest, sir.”
“Tuesday! That’s three days from now! I need to take care of this problem today, do you understand me? Today!”
Ella’s eyes widened. She grabbed Beatrix’s arm and pulled her deeper into the medicinals as footsteps announced the men were headed to the front of the shop.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, sir,” the clerk said.
“It’s pure incompetence not to keep it in stock.”
“We don’t get much call for that here, sir.” For the first time, the clerk’s voice held a faint whiff of disapproval. “Perhaps you would have more luck in Washington.”
“No,” the wizard said sullenly. “I can’t do that. Get me the stuff as fast as you can.”
“Yes, sir. I will, sir. Now, I’ll just ring up your other purchases …”
Beatrix listened to the sounds of crinkling paper and rearranged packages, feeling calmer. He wasn’t going to stick around. He would take his purchases and go.
“Here you are, Wizard Draden,” the clerk said.
Draden. Good God, was this the vice president? It didn’t sound like him. Could it be?
She walked softly toward the front of the shop and peeked around the aisle. A man in perhaps his late twenties—not the fiftysomething VP—snapped into view. Dark eyebrows. Sharp nose. He looked familiar, an echo of somebody she’d seen daily in newspaper photographs. It had to be Draden’s son.
“Call me the moment it comes in,” this Draden demanded. He pivoted, caught sight of her and narrowed his eyes. Then he swept out.
That was when Beatrix remembered that Ella grew up on his street and probably knew him. She turned around. Ella was staring at the door, arms wrapped around herself, the very picture of shock.
“Are you OK?” Beatrix whispered.
Ella blinked and nodded.
“Hello—Rivera? It’s Bryant,” the clerk said, apparently into a telephone. “Do you have any pennyroyal in stock?”
Ella’s eyes went even wider. Then she squeezed them shut. Beatrix cast her mind back to her brewing book and its detailed descriptions of ingredients—what was pennyroyal for? She didn’t recall any references to it.
“Excellent, please send me a vial,” the clerk said. “Right. Yes.” He snorted. “No, it’s not for me, you joker. Send it express, though, because the wizard who wants it is in a real hurry.” He paused and gave a rather grim laugh. “You said it. Talk to you later.”
Beatrix heard the telephone click back into place. Now or never, before some other wizard dropped in. She walked around the corner to the front desk.
“Oh!” The sandy-haired clerk put a hand to his heart. “You startled me, sir. I didn’t realize you’d come in.”
“Thought I’d browse while you were busy,” Beatrix said, trying to keep her voice pitched appropriately lower.
“Of course,” he said. “Very sorry to keep you waiting, sir. What can I do for you?”
“I’m in need of leaves,” Beatrix said.
The man looked delighted by this easy request. “Yes, sir, right away! How many?”
“What do you charge?”
“Standard retail price. Fifty cents a leaf.”
Beatrix gave silent thanks that Joan had insisted on adding five hundred dollars to the two-hundred-fifty she and Ella (mostly Ella) had scraped together.
“All right, I’ll take fifteen hundred,” she said, bracing for his reaction. Would he think it a lot? Would he be suspicious that they needed so many?
He nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll package them up now.”
He went to a back room and Beatrix turned to find Ella standing silently behind her.
“Draden’s son?” Beatrix asked, keeping her voice down.
“Yes.”
“How well did you know him?”
Ella grimaced. “Too well.”
Beatrix was dying to hear more about that—to learn what was behind that grimace. But this was not the time for that conversation.
“I want to kill him,” Ella said suddenly, still in a whisper. “Do you know what pennyroyal does?”
“No.”
“It’s an abortifacient.”
Beatrix stared at her. “That’s illegal.”
“Abortions, yes. The sale of pennyroyal, no.” Ella shook her head.
“Oh, technically, it can be used in some other, minor brews, but no one does because the stuff is dangerous. If you give it to your mistress to get rid of the baby, which I guarantee you Frederick Draden plans to do, you may end up getting rid of your mistress, too.”
At this point the clerk returned, large bag in hand, and that ended the discussion.
Beatrix handed over the money—half her emergency fund, plus what Ella could spare, plus the assist from Joan—and they left, feeling no elation about their success.
Somewhere out there was a woman who’d trusted Frederick Draden and, by Tuesday, might pay a high price for it.
“If only we knew where he went,” Ella murmured as the shoppers made way for them. “If only we could …”
She trailed off, apparently as lost for ideas as Beatrix. They couldn’t exactly jump the man and demand he marry his unfortunate lover.
“Wait,” Beatrix said as they neared Joan’s building, “what about an anonymous note to his father?”