Chapter 10
Roger Rydell Dishes the Dirt
‘ROMEO & JULIET’ IN NEARLY FATAL LOVE TRIANGLE: The star-crossed lovers of the nation’s capital came this close to meeting the same end as their doomed namesakes — only not by their own hands, in this case.
Your correspondent has exclusively discovered that Peter Blackwell and fiancée Beatrix Harper were attacked in January by another wizard, a man who had earlier proposed to Miss Harper.
My well-placed sources tell me that police are searching for this man and blame him for Omnimancer Blackwell’s month-long coma. No name for now, rabid readers. But have patience — it’s coming.
That the never-married Miss Harper, 33, is the object of not one but two wizards’ affections boggles the mind. There’s the little matter of her advanced age, for a start. And she’s not even the best-looking woman in her immediate family.
March 6, 2021
Typic-Rights Bill Advances in Md. Senate
By Helen Hickok
Star staff reporter
The effort to claw back the constitutional amendment that bars typics from running for national office unexpectedly cleared its first hurdle in the state Senate yesterday.
The Judicial Procedures Committee voted 6-5 to send legislation sponsored by Sen.
Mitchell Gray, an Ellicott Mills Republican, to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation.
A House version of the bill faces its own committee vote on Monday, but in that case nine of the 11 members have already indicated they plan to give the measure the go-ahead.
Gray’s bill, by contrast, had been expected to fail.
He said yesterday evening that he knows the true challenge will be the full Senate vote in just over two weeks. But it was a buoying moment for the burgeoning typic-rights movement — the first vote on such legislation anywhere in the country.
March 7, 2021
Roger Rydell Dishes the Dirt
‘ROMEO’ A NEO-SUFFRAGIST: Politicians who see the so-called typic-rights movement as their key to a Washington power job, take heed: The wizard helping push the reforms thinks females are qualified to fill those positions.
“Let anyone run for Congress or president, and may the best person win,” Omnimancer Peter Blackwell said at a press conference last week.
“Even a woman?” your correspondent asked, eyebrows raised.
“Of course,” Blackwell said.
Don’t say you weren’t warned …
March 8, 2021
‘Romeo & Juliet’ Hometown Wishes They’d Been Less Discreet
By Marc Leviton
Portland Evening Journal reporter
ELLICOTT MILLS, Md. — This tiny outpost twenty-five miles north of the nation’s capital has a different take on the tale of the wizard and his anti-magic paramour than the rest of the country devouring it.
That’s because the couple lives here, and Ellicott Mills had plans for Omnimancer Peter Blackwell that did not include fiancée Beatrix Harper.
“No one had any idea that he wanted to marry her,” said Harry Delarose, 51. “Nearly every woman in town was trying to catch him for herself or a relative, and they’re all mortified.”
March 10, 2021
Roger Rydell Dishes the Dirt
‘ROMEO’ NOT SUCH A CATCH AS AN EMPLOYEE?: Peter Blackwell’s engagement to an anti-magic activist and allegations about Washington corruption have made him a media darling. But my well-placed sources tell me that he wasn’t so popular at the Pentagram.
“He would scream at people at the slightest provocation,” one former colleague tells me.
“I think he’s unhinged,” says another.
Omnimancer Blackwell, who left the Pentagram last year, claims he never screamed at anyone and is not unhinged. But then he would say that …
March 11, 2021
Enough of the Spotlight, Town Begs
By Steven Litterton
El Paso Herald-Post staff
ELLICOTT MILLS, Md. — America is riveted by the tale of Washington’s star-crossed lovers, the wizard and the typic-rights activist. The couple’s community, on the other hand, is sick of it all.
“I’ve been asked for my opinion about it by thirty-one reporters,” said Sam Croft, Ellicott Mills’ mayor. “Isn’t there anything else going on in the world?”
March 12, 2021
Roger Rydell Dishes the Dirt
TROUBLE IN PARADISE?: Washington’s Romeo and Juliet have not been seen together a single time this week. But Omnimancer Peter Blackwell was spotted in six locations with a different woman — his fiancée’s sister, the striking Lydia Harper.
At two rallies in Maryland, an event in Virginia, coming out of the headquarters of the powerful Metalworkers Union in Washington, lunching al fresco at a park, walking down the Mall in the nation’s capital arm-in-arm … they’ve been quite busy.
Give the two pictures below a once-over. He leans in to say something to her, his hand on her shoulder, his lips practically brushing her ear. She looks up at him, smiling radiantly. Word to the wise: Perhaps Beatrix Harper should spend less time at work …
Beatrix gave the photographs in Rydell’s column more than a once-over. She shouldn’t have, but she did, and found his description far more accurate than was typical for him.
She looked up as Lydia perched on the couch next to her, so she caught her sister’s reaction, the deep blush that could signify nothing or everything. Lydia scribbled a note: What an odious idiot that man is.
Beatrix nodded, gave her a hug and kept to herself the painful thought that it would be entirely understandable if Peter had developed feelings for Lydia now that the Vows were broken.
Even setting aside her sister’s beauty, education and political accomplishments, wouldn’t he prefer a woman who had never lied to him?
She slipped out of the house without eating breakfast and lingered in the forest, where no one had yet thought to look for her. Then she dashed for the train and locked herself in the bathroom, the plaintive calls for “Miss Harper!” muffled by the thick door.
She couldn’t face the reporters, no matter how bad this looked.
“Well, you’re certainly much better than you were before.” Wizard Hillier took off his stethoscope and gave Peter a penetrating look. “But how do you feel?”
Peter opened his mouth to say “fine,” couldn’t, and sighed. “A bit … overwhelmed.”
“I’d be shocked if you felt otherwise.”
The doctor’s calm manner made him a hard man to read. Peter couldn’t help himself: “What’s your opinion about my support for repealing the Twenty-fifth Amendment, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I wholeheartedly agree with you.” Hillier sat on the edge of his borrowed desk, crossing his arms. “And I think your efforts put you in a very uncomfortable position.”
No kidding. Half the roughly one hundred letters he’d received in the last few days were from appreciative typics, but the rest were from wizards. To a man, they were irate.
Fortunate that there was nothing one could cast on paper that would harm the recipient.
“You understand what you’re up against?” Hillier asked.
“Well,” he said, a bit flippantly, “the hate mail has been educational.”
Hillier’s expression turned grim. “Take it seriously. We live in a society built on discrimination. Some who see themselves as the beneficiaries will go to great lengths to keep things as they are.”
Peter swallowed. That was the voice of experience speaking, clear as day.
He suddenly remembered something that hadn’t struck him at the time: Quite a few of the Black students in his class at the Academy transferred out, opting for typic life.
He’d been too miserable about his grandmother’s death to give it much thought. Now it seemed ominous.
“Those sorts of people you’re talking about …” He looked Hillier in the eye. “They’ve targeted you, too?”
A loud knock on the office door gave them both a start.
“Sorry to interrupt,” a nurse said. “Dr. Cary would like to consult with you on a trauma case.”
Hillier stood up. “Already in surgery?”
“Prepping.”
“I’ll be there momentarily.”
Hillier turned back to Peter as the nurse left. “Please be careful, Omnimancer.”
“I will, thank you. Am I cleared to get back to spellcasting?”
“If it’s an emergency, yes. Otherwise—wait until Sunday to give yourself the full two weeks. You’re much improved, but the extra few days could make the difference between taking it in stride or making yourself ill. And I don’t think you want to end up back in the hospital just now.”
He couldn’t afford it, that was for certain. Not in time or money.
“Here’s my recommendation, for what it’s worth,” Hillier said, opening the door and gesturing for Peter to go out first. “Invite a wizard friend to visit for the weekend.”
Peter’s stomach clenched as his mind went unerringly to Martinelli.
“Please give my best wishes to Miss Harper,” Hillier added.
As he left the hospital, Peter’s thoughts pinged mercilessly between the best friend he’d effectively killed and the fiancée who didn’t want to get married.
He leaned against a mailbox to steady himself.
Then—without articulating to himself why he was doing it—he went to the nearest Metro station and took two trains and one bus to Virginia.
“Omnimancer Blackwell!” Martinelli’s widow stood in her doorway, staring at him with her mouth open for a full second. Then she recovered and stepped aside. “Um, won’t you come in?”
This time she brought him into the kitchen. “He liked it here,” she said, pausing for a moment before sitting at the table. “He was quite a cook, you know.”
“He made me scrambled eggs once,” Peter said. Then he remembered: That had been the last morning of Martinelli’s life.
“Oh, you should have had his quiche.” Mrs. Martinelli gave a small smile.
“He always made such a mess in here—it was worth it, of course, but one morning after I’d gotten everything squared away the night before, I came down to find every pot dirty and lined up by the sink.
All of them, he’d used for that breakfast. Six pots! For a single breakfast!”