Chapter Eleven
B abe Hamilton wasn’t my Aunt Beata. Seeing her so drab and bereft of her usual charm had convinced me she didn’t have it in her to lasso my magic. I hadn’t felt the slightest magical tingle in her presence. If not her, then who?
It was hard to focus that day at the library. The crow that followed me home from Babe’s had added another layer of worry. He’d perched on my bedroom window’s sill and winged off only when Rodney had hissed at him.
When Maury Johanssen asked me for a recommendation for a western with a strong romantic subplot, normally four or five titles would have leapt to mind.
Instead, I was reduced to searching my memory, then turning to the internet.
When Ashley Pitt stopped by the circulation desk to see if I knew any good books about winter farming, I drew a similar blank.
My thoughts turned to Ian. Could he be stealing my magic?
He was mysterious, that was for sure, and he held a deep interest in the occult.
I cringed at the memory of his body in the atrium and my call to Sam.
Glamour might have easily transformed him from Beata, and his appearance here, in the middle of the night, could have been a play to weaken me. If so, it had worked.
Then there was Lise, the stranger. She was somehow familiar. Perhaps it was a blood link. Maybe she was Aunt Beata. She had no good explanation for staying in Wilfred.
A rap on my desk disturbed my pondering. Mona— no foster animal with her this time—leaned close.
“Did you see them?” she said in a low voice.
“Who?”
She gestured toward Old Man Thurston’s office across the atrium. “Wanda and Ruth. They’re in the children’s room, making notes.”
Wanda wasn’t due to start her shift as a library volunteer for another hour. “Notes about what?”
“That’s just it—I don’t know. They’re being really mysterious. I tried to look, but Ruth tipped the notebook against her chest so I couldn’t see.”
Remembering Wanda and Ruth’s confab at the café, I pushed myself away from the desk.
If it were Wanda alone, I’d assume she was getting familiar with the library and ignore it, but Ruth Littlewood was a library trustee.
I needed to know what she was up to. I crossed the atrium to Children’s Literature, Mona behind me.
“Hello Ruth, Wanda,” I said. “Can I help you with anything?”
“No, Josie,” Ruth said. “We’re doing just fine, thank you.” She set a sheet of paper on a chair. It was half-full of some sort of entries, but I couldn’t make out details.
“It’s not time to meet yet, is it?” Wanda asked. She stood facing me in front of a shelf, but kept a finger wedged between two books, as if she were marking her place.
“No,” I said. “Are you looking for a particular book? I could search online for you.” Back when my magic was at its peak, all I’d have to do was let my mind relax, and titles would fill it. Not now.
“As I said,” Ruth said, her tone of voice making clear that the subject was concluded, “we’re doing fine.”
Just then, a blur of black fur rocketed through Old Man Thurston’s office, snatched the sheet of paper Ruth had set on the chair, and tore through to the atrium.
“Rodney!” I yelled after him. Too late. He moved too fast for me to stop him. The paper was gone for good. “I’m so sorry. I hope it wasn’t important.”
“Point in case,” Ruth said.
“Point in case what?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Wanda clenched a smile so hard, I feared for her molars. “Nothing at all.”
That night I continued to feel as if a noose were tightening around me. I wandered my apartment—out the tiny kitchen, down the hall overlooking the atrium, into my living room, and through to my bedroom— only to repeat the pacing in the opposite direction.
Ian was still missing. Lalena had sent me several mournful texts, but she didn’t want my company, and I didn’t have the right words to soothe her.
And then there was the obliteration of my magic.
I dropped to my bed, spurring Rodney to emerge from his dark napping place under it.
He leapt to my side. At least he was still with me, but for how long?
Whatever the dark magic was, and from wherever it came, it was getting worse.
My power was locked up, and the walls around it grew thicker.
I’d been so sure I’d seen Ian’s body in the atrium.
I winced at the memory. Was that part of the dark magic, too?
Another thing I had to contend with was Wanda’s seeming phobia about Rodney.
It wasn’t just me who loved having him at the library.
Patrons had told me scores of times how they enjoyed finding him napping in the cookbook section or batting a pencil down the hall or simply stretched on a windowsill enjoying the view.
I resisted looking out the windows. Either Sam was home and refusing to spend time with me, or he was away and I’d wonder where he was, and with whom. Either way was another twist to my heart.
I lay back, and Rodney climbed onto my chest. “Naughty cat,” I told him. “Where did you hide Ruth Littlewood’s list, anyway?”
As I talked, I stretched, and my fingers touched the embroidered monogram on the sheet Babe Hamilton had given me.
I sat abruptly, dumping Rodney to the side.
I pulled the monogram closer and examined it.
The thread was a shade lighter than that used for the rest of the embroidery.
It was newer. As I fingered the fabric, my senses grew even more dull.
Dread rippled through my torso. No . Couldn’t be .
I leaned back and took in the pattern as a whole, and I saw it: a glyph.
My grandmother’s letters had taught me about glyphs.
They were spells made by a word or phrase written out with repeating letters eliminated.
The remaining letters were then fashioned into a symbol embodying the intent and energy of the person who’d made the glyph.
In short, my sheet carried a spell. Because the spell was made of words—my magical source—it would pack even greater power.
It had been Babe Hamilton all along. Babe was a witch. Babe was draining me of my magic, trapping me in a deadening bubble. Babe was my Aunt Beata.
I leapt away from the sheet, then tore it from the bed, dumping my blankets on the floor. I could barely catch my breath. What else had I bought from her?
The quilt, for one. Touching only corners, I dragged it and the sheet to the landing outside my living room door.
I’d purchased at least two more sheets from Babe.
I pulled them, freshly washed and folded, heavy from vintage métis, from the linen closet and tossed them on the others.
I had no idea if they were enchanted, too, but I wasn’t taking chances.
What else? I ransacked the kitchen drawer where I kept dishtowels and cloth napkins and added four dishtowels and a napkin embroidered with four-leaf clovers to the pile growing on the landing.
A 1920s chemise threaded with pink ribbon.
A rustic linen table runner with poppies on it. A length of handmade lace.
My heart throbbed double time in my chest, and my hands trembled. Did I have enough magic left to fight hers? I had to try.