Chapter 10
It was brief and mind-boggling.
Nearly every woman the authorities tested, in fact.
Ninety-eight percent of the subjects in the secret examinations were able to levitate a five-pound weight at least a foot off the ground.
Nearly as many could preserve leaves, “results weak overall but sufficient to protect from rot for an average of six months.” Eighty-nine percent could perform minor brewing spells.
“It is our opinion that the female sex could—if necessary—be educated to handle many of the duties of an omnimancer,” the unnamed authors concluded.
“But we do not recommend it, unless a war or other calamity demands desperate measures. Ladies are not suited for such tasks. Only twenty percent of the test subjects could lift their weights four feet, the minimum requirement of the entrance exam. Many were exhausted by the effort. And most significantly, allowing females to work as omnimancers would take jobs from men when we can least afford it.”
Beatrix stared blankly at the wall after finishing, hardly able to believe it. Then she carefully put the report back into the drawer with the end sticking out as before and dashed to the brewing room to find the Starter Spells textbook.
She would try levitation. Again. And this time, she’d make it work.
The book, for first-year wizardry students, came complete with general casting instructions, ones that brought back memories of examiners addressing a line of boys and one disguised girl twenty years earlier.
Stand ramrod straight. Hold a leaf in your writing hand, aiming at the object you wish to manipulate.
Focus on your goal, allowing no emotions or extraneous thoughts to interfere.
The specific instruction for levitation was just as advertised: simple. Say “āhebban”—chanting if necessary.
She ran to the cellar for a handful of leaves and was halfway up the stairs before extraneous thoughts seeped in. Would Blackwell be able to sense if she’d cast magic in his absence? Could it instantly change her or leave telltale remnants in the house?
She pulled out the massive encyclopedia, one of the books he’d had her shelve in the brewing room the day before, and looked up everything she could think of that might cause a problem.
Hair color: “Students may find a few silver hairs soon after beginning their studies, but it frequently takes five years or more for a full transformation. Eyebrows retain their original color.”
Spells, monitoring the use of: “Unlike radio waves, magical activity cannot be picked up on long-range scanners.”
Spells, tracing the casting of: “The idea of connecting a spell to its caster has captured the imagination of magicists through the decades. But traces of spellwork disappear within minutes, and no one has yet found a fingerprint-like identifier in those traces while they last.”
That all sounded promising. Then “Spells, unauthorized use of” caught her eye.
“It is a federal offense for persons not selected for wizardry training to attempt to spellcast, or for any wizard to instruct or offer to instruct such persons in spellcasting. The minimum penalty is ten years in prison.”
Ten years.
She pushed the book back into place, rubbing her arms to stave off a chill.
She tried to rekindle her courage with bracing thoughts. Blackwell wouldn’t be back for nearly an hour, for instance. And how amazing it would feel to bend the rules of physics to her bidding. But ten years kept echoing in her mind.
Then it hit her—she needed a copy of that 1933 report, and she needed it now, before Blackwell decided to move it somewhere more secure.
Casting a spell was the only way she could get a duplicate before he came back.
Having a duplicate was the only way she could convince a reporter to take the information and run with it.
If a newspaper splashed “Women Capable of Magic” across the front page, the effect could ripple all the way to equality.
The revelation would be a bit awkward for a certain anti-magic group, granted, but wasn’t her sister interested in equal rights above all else?
In this very house she’d found the lever they needed to move the world.
Maybe it would change society so dramatically that the life she wanted would no longer be impossible.
That was worth the risk of ten years in prison.
Beatrix, glancing at her watch, paged frantically though several books until she found the carbon-copy spell (“sorry, boys, it doesn’t work on money”).
She brought that and Starter Spells to the receiving room, searching for something to levitate—surely a safer first attempt at magic than messing around with a top-secret document that could presumably be ruined if something went wrong.
An aging telephone directory that felt as if it weighed at least five pounds fit the bill. She set it on the floor, stood ramrod-straight, took several deep breaths to slow her racing heart and tried to clear her mind.
Grasping two leaves, hand trembling, she murmured, “āhebban.”
Nothing happened.
“āhebban, āhebban, āhebban, āhebban,” she chanted, trying to press down creeping emotions with each syllable.
Still nothing.
“āhebban.” The leaves were damp where they touched her palm. “āhebban!” She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to keep her mind so clear it didn’t longingly picture the directory obliging her. “āhebban! āhebban! āHEBBAN!”
Her stomach swooped, something almost electrical sizzled down her right arm and she opened her eyes just in time to see the phone book jerk upward, the leaves turning to dust in her hand. The directory stopped about three feet above the ground and hung there, vibrating with an invisible energy.
“Oh,” she gasped. She tottered backward and fell into a chair. “It’s true—it really is true.”
Peter rounded the curve on Main Street just before his driveway, thinking of harvesting leaves for forty-five minutes to round out the two-hour absence he’d promised, when his locket burned hot for the third time since he’d arrived in Ellicott Mills.
He pulled to the side of the road, snatched a leaf from his pocket and cast the identification spell. Blood roared in his ears as he waited for it to form an image.
Miss Harper.
Well—about time.
He let himself into the house by way of the cellar entrance, spelling himself invisible as he went, and crept to the first level. He found her seated in the receiving room—staring at a telephone directory floating near the desk, her lips parted, her eyes wide.
He understood that awestruck feeling. When he blew the state’s examination record out of the water twenty years earlier, the force of his joy and shock had pressed him to his knees.
Miss Harper came back to herself, jumping to her feet. She consulted a book whose title he couldn’t make out but which clearly had the red classified stamp. Then she chanted “gefeallan” until the directory, once again subject to the laws of gravity, thumped to the floor.
He hadn’t absolutely counted on her casting spells—reading classified documents would have been enough—but he wasn’t surprised. Of course she would want to prove to herself that she could do it. The temptation would have been irresistible.
The next step of the plan had been to enter stage left, distressed. How could she break federal law and disobey his clear instructions, etc. etc.
But he’d designed this trap before he got to know the new Miss Harper. He liked her. He suspected he could trust her, despite her mother and League activism. God help him, he was thinking of just asking for her assistance, rather than once again forcing her hand.
Still, he couldn’t take no for an answer. If the choice he offered was revealed as no choice at all, wouldn’t that be worse?
As he stood at the threshold, trying to decide, Miss Harper began chanting another spell. Awritan. He refocused on her to see what she was copying.
His heart nearly stopped dead.
The top-secret report. A report that surely only a small number of wizards had ever seen. One the administration certainly did not want made public.
Without pausing to think, he dropped the invisibility spell and charged in.