Chapter 13 #2
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” he said. “That’s all.”
The pastor’s wife leaned toward Beatrix. “I do wish you two would marry soon. He needs someone to look after him, and—well, it would be better all ’round. Once you marry, surely all this hubbub will settle down.”
He tried to catch Beatrix’s eye, hoping she would not say, “In fact, we plan to marry on Monday.” He hadn’t had a moment to bring it up yet.
But Beatrix wasn’t looking back at him. She grimaced and shook her head. “You know, ‘surely now everything will settle down’ is what I’ve been telling myself every day since it began. I’m beginning to lose faith that it will happen.”
“You poor dears.” Mrs. Hattington squeezed Beatrix’s hand and gave him a pat on the cheek, as if he were thirteen rather than thirty-three. “I know it’s been very hard for you.”
“People who’ve known me my whole life treat me differently,” Beatrix murmured.
“George plans to speak about the biblical exhortations against gossip when we have the supper next Saturday. The one we’re hosting at church with the Methodist pastor and Rabbi Katz, you know.
I hope that will do some good.” Mrs. Hattington gave a deep sigh, as if she doubted it would. “Thank you very much for the remedy.”
The moment he closed and locked the door behind her, he swiveled and towed Beatrix up the stairs, her hand in his. They had to talk. He couldn’t put it off.
“Could we have the room for a few minutes?” he said to Rosemarie and Lydia.
“No, wait,” Beatrix said, “there’s something we need to discuss first.”
She re-secured the room. He flicked the light back on and looked at her, wondering if she too had their marriage on her mind.
“We need to alter the plan,” she said. “Peter must keep omnimancing.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“We all wish he could,” Miss Dane said tartly, “but I rather think that ship has sailed.”
“No,” Beatrix said, “hear me out. He will tell Mayor Croft that he feels well enough to begin omnimancing again soon, but only brewing from here on out. Most of brewing requires no magic at all.”
For a dizzying second, he was swept up in the memory of a months-old conversation at the beginning of her employment with him. Many steps in brewing don’t need a wizard’s touch, Miss Harper. You can handle those.
Now their situations were reversed.
“You’ll cast the spells,” he said. He swallowed and leaned against the wall, overwhelmed again by what he had lost. “That’s what you mean?”
She nodded.
“Bee,” her sister said, the syllable heavy with warning.
“That’s far too great a risk,” Miss Dane said, sounding, if anything, more upset than Lydia.
“The town needs us,” Beatrix said. “And—no, Rosemarie, listen,” she added, as Miss Dane made to interrupt, “we need them. We do. Peter, did reporters call you about that obviously planted story of how ‘unhinged’ you are? I mean, anyone besides Rydell?”
He snorted, seeing where she was going with this. “Yes. Six or seven at least.”
“And did they write about it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I told them to ask anyone in town, even Mrs. Price, whether I showed signs of unhinged behavior.”
Beatrix raised her eyebrows at Miss Dane.
“Washington is trying to damage our reputations because that’s what they think will win this war.
We need a town full of people who will speak up for us, and I don’t think it’s very strategic to stop helping them in the middle of the fight.
Not to mention that someone might eventually catch on if Peter never casts again, and you can just imagine the headlines. ”
“Every time you cast, Bee, you’re risking arrest,” her sister said. “There’s no use trying to help our reputations by doing something that could ruin them. Peter, you do agree with me, don’t you?”
He hesitated, seeing both sides of the argument, and Beatrix got in first.
“It’s not just our reputations I’m worried about,” she said. “The reason Peter came here was so he couldn’t easily be disappeared. We have no idea why the WA was so keen to get him in their clutches last month, but let’s not assume they’ve given up.”
Miss Dane threw up her arms. “They’re not going to kidnap a man every newspaper in the country is writing about! That would be lunacy.”
“If he’s not in constant contact with everyday people who can vouch for him,” Beatrix said, “then he’s far more vulnerable to efforts to make him look like he really is unhinged. And if reporters think he is, it won’t seem so odd if he disappears. ‘That’s what unhinged people do,’ etc. etc.”
She didn’t add “and now Peter is completely helpless so he can’t defend himself from kidnapping,” but she didn’t need to. It was obvious. He slumped into a chair, gaze fixed on the floor.
The silence stretched out.
“Peter?” Lydia, her voice hesitant. “Do you think that could be true?”
“Yes.” He swallowed. “But this is a solution that could be as dangerous as the problem.”
He didn’t want Beatrix—or any of them—to end up in prison. He didn’t want to pretend to do what he no longer was capable of, either.
He made himself look up. Lydia seemed irresolute, Miss Dane was clearly still skeptical and Beatrix looked as determined as he’d seen her since—
He turned away. Since she proposed a wild idea that he vehemently disagreed with, then went behind his back to execute an even wilder version. Since Plan B.
What he’d told her at dinner the night before was true. He’d forgiven her. But that wasn’t the same as implicitly trusting her judgment.
“Suppose I say no. What then, Beatrix?” he asked. “Will you make the brews yourself and hand them out while I’m otherwise engaged?”
As she dropped to her knees beside him, face stricken, he regretted what he’d said. Not the question, but how baldly he’d put it.
“No, no.” She laid her hand on his. “This would be with your agreement or not at all, on my honor. I … I realize I have very little honor left on this score.”
He helped her up and murmured, “I’m sorry. I believe you—I do.”
Miss Dane gave a heavy sigh. “If you’re confident you can take precautions to minimize the risks of this idea, I won’t stand in the way.”
“I agree,” Lydia said. “It’s up to you, Peter.”
He said nothing for a moment, trying to decide which would be the lesser of two evils. What decided him, finally, was the thought of the Clarks, Pastor Hattington and all his other neighbors going without.
“Yes,” he said, gazing at Beatrix. “Let’s do it.”
Her eyes shone. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“We’ll brew in this room, and you’ll put a tripwire spell on it,” he added. “If anyone crosses it, you’ll feel it—no matter where you are.”
“Is there a way to set it to trip for everyone but us?”
He shook his head. “I’ll keep the room empty unless we’re going in together. The tripwire’s just an extra precaution—you’ll still cast the usual protection spells with the lights off.”
She nodded.
He turned to her sister and Miss Dane. “That’s satisfactory?”
“God alone knows,” Miss Dane said, but she didn’t demur.
“Yes,” Lydia said. “I—”
She stopped at the sound of another knock on the door, this one not the sort you could miss. The sheer assertiveness of it made him nervous, and apparently it had a similar effect on the others: In wordless agreement, they all went down the stairs together.
It was Detective Tanner.
“Good morning,” Peter said, stepping aside to let the man in, adrenaline hitting like a wallop to the chest.
“Omnimancer, Miss Harper,” the policeman said. “There’s been a development.”
“Won’t you please sit down?” Beatrix said, her voice too high, a sign that they were thinking the same thing. Had Tanner found Garrett’s body?
And now, just now, when there was absolutely nothing he could do about it, Peter realized how likely this was.
Simplicity itself for Miss Draden. She’d moved the body; she knew where it was.
Call the police anonymously, tip them off—she wouldn’t even have had to suggest who did it, because he would obviously be the prime suspect.
Why hadn’t he thought of this? He should have been preparing, figuring out a plan—
“I thought you should hear it from me first.” Tanner sat in the receiving room. “We’re charging Wizard Garrett in absentia. Two counts of attempted murder and various related offenses.”
Peter stared at him, too dazed and relieved to say a word.
“I’m very glad to hear it,” Miss Dane said. “About time.”
Beatrix said, “Have you … that is, are you any closer to …”
“To finding him?” Tanner sighed. “It’s fiendishly difficult tracking a wizard. But we’ve frozen his bank accounts and taken other measures to contain what he can do. We’ll get him eventually.”
Beatrix nodded, hands twisting in her lap. He wondered how she must feel, forced by Miss Draden into a criminal act—withholding evidence about a murder.
But it wasn’t the first criminal act she’d been forced into, was it. In that case—casting spells for her job, day after day—the blame lay with him.
He cleared his throat. “What should we be doing?”
Tanner leaned in. “Same as before. Inform us if you have any clues to his whereabouts. Call immediately if you believe he’s in town.”
“What happens now?” Lydia asked.
“A press conference to announce the news.” The detective gave them an apologetic glance. “Every day, we get a dozen or more calls from reporters, all asking, ‘Any developments yet?’”
Peter bit back a groan. “When are you holding it? I think we’d better join you.”
“What?” Beatrix looked horrified.
“Everyone will want to talk to us about it,” he said quietly, taking her hand. “I’d like to give one statement that’s acceptable to the police and say nothing more. We don’t want to unknowingly jeopardize the investigation.”
Tanner nodded. “Good point. We’ve scheduled it for three this afternoon. Why don’t you come down at two, and we’ll get all our ducks in a row.”
“All right. Thank you.”
Beatrix jumped to her feet as Tanner made to rise from his chair. “Wait—there’s one more thing,” she said.