One Touch of Magic

by Amanda McCabe

  Mary Ann prayed that her sister would find her—and soon.

  “There is a light in the stable,” Sarah said, crowding close to Miles. The storm had gathered momentum during their short journey to the village site, and she had to almost shout at him to be heard over the thunder. Her cloak was soaked with rain, hanging about her in sodden folds, and she could hardly see through the thick mist of the shower. She brushed at her eyes with the back of her hand, and could not tell if she brushed away rain or tears. “Is it them?”

  Miles stared at the wooden structure with a grim expression on his face. “It must be. Who else would be out here in such weather?”

  Sarah took a rushing step. He grabbed her arm, pulling her back. “My sister is in danger!” she cried, trying to draw away.

  “And you will do her no good if you put yourself in danger, as well!” He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close as she trembled from the anger and the fear.

  “She is my baby sister,” Sarah sobbed, falling back against him. “She trusts me to protect her.”

  “I know,” he said. “Yet she would not want you to be hurt. We can only do her good if we wait for O’Riley and Hamilton. We are obviously facing a madwoman, and we must be cautious. Everything seems quiet there for now.”

  Sarah stared out at the stable. Aside from the faint ray of light that flickered between the chinks in the wood, it was quiet. Too quiet?

  “You do not think that is because—”

  “No!” Miles’s clasp tightened. “No, my dear.”

  “But she killed that farmer, did she not?”

  He was silent for a long moment, so long that Sarah thought he was not going to reply. Then she felt his nod against her head. “Very probably.”

  She could do the same to Mary Ann, then, Sarah thought. Her very soul grew numb at the unthinkable thought. Her hands reached for Miles’s arm, and clung with fierce tenacity.

  They stood in silent watchfulness for what seemed like a day, but what was truly only moments, when Mr. O’Riley and Mr. Hamilton rode up together. Obviously, they must have met on the road, and Mr. O’Riley had apprised Mr. Hamilton of all that had happened. He looked pale and frantic, completely unmindful of the rain that poured down on his bare head.

  Sarah could not help but pity him as she looked into his shocked and opaque eyes, but concern for her sister still flowed hot in her veins. She pulled away from Miles and ran up to Mr. Hamilton, catching him as he dismounted from his horse.

  “Your wife is a madwoman!” she cried. “She has seized Mary Ann, and may do her a grave harm.”

  “Lady Iverson.” He stared down at her, yet did not seem to truly see her at all. “How could this be? Emmeline snatching Miss Bellweather away from her home? Mr. O’Riley said as much, but it cannot be.”

  Miles came up beside Sarah, taking her arm. “I fear it is true. It is obvious that your wife is not well.”

  “I knew that she was—unhappy,” Mr. Hamilton went on, in that same distracted voice. It was as if he, like Sarah, felt himself caught in some terrible dreamworld he could not escape. “But I do not understand why she would do something like this.”

  “You must go and speak with her,” Miles said, in a firm, brook-no-nonsense tone that Sarah thought must have worked wonders on soldiers in Spain. “You are the one who is most likely to be able to get through to her.”

  Mr. Hamilton’s jaw tightened, and he turned toward the stable. His coat flared open, and Sarah saw the pistol tucked there. She almost cried out, envisioning a stray ball catching her sister.

  “For God’s sake, be gentle, man,” Mr. O’Riley said, his brogue thick. “If you go rushing in there, your wife is liable to do anything to Miss Bellweather. It is you she is angry with—don’t make her even more angry.”

  Mr. Hamilton turned to look at him in astonishment. “She is angry with me? How would you know that?”

  “Who else could it be?” Mr. O’Riley answered reasonably. “It obviously can’t be Miss Bellweather herself. What could an innocent girl do to inspire such insanity? You must have treated your wife very poorly indeed.”

  Mr. Hamilton’s face turned plum red, and he took a step toward Mr. O’Riley. “I don’t need some Irishman telling me how to treat my wife—”

  “Enough!” Miles shouted. “This is no time for petty quarrels. Miss Bellweather is in danger. Mr. Hamilton, go and speak to your wife, and, as Mr. O’Riley said, go gently. We will wait outside for a sign from you before we come in.”

  Mr. Hamilton seemed to deflate at this reminder of what was truly happening around them. His shoulders slumped, and he nodded. “Of course. Yes.” He took one hesitant step, then another, more resolute.

  They watched him until he reached the barn door, barely visible in the driving rain. He glanced back at them before slipping inside.

  Sarah pressed her hand to her pounding heart, certain it must be beating louder than the thunder.

  “It is my fault,” Mr. O’Riley said. “I never should have let Miss Bellweather go into the house alone, just because I was too cowardly to speak to the Hamiltons again. I should have stayed with her every moment.”

  “If you are at fault, then so am I,” Sarah answered, not looking away from the door where Mr. Hamilton had vanished. “I would not have hesitated to leave her alone with Mrs. Hamilton.”

  “Nor would I,” Miles said. “She seemed quite an ordinary society matron.”

  Yes, Sarah thought bitterly. So ordinary. They were all at fault, for being blind and foolish. For seeing what they only expected to see, and not what was before them.

  And now Mary Ann was paying the price.

  Mary Ann, half dozing against the splintered wooden wall, jerked away at the sudden sound of Mrs. Hamilton’s rustling skirts as she stood up. Mary Ann rubbed at her itching eyes, and looked around the dim space. Rain and claps of thunder still sounded outside, and the room was full of a heavy, close humidity, and the smell of something sharp and metallic.

  She sat up straight, and watched Mrs. Hamilton turn to the door. Her pale face was tense and watchful, her hands twisting in her shawl. Mary Ann warily flicked her own glance to where Mrs. Hamilton was watching, and saw that the portal was slowly, very slowly, opening.

  Mary Ann stood up, trying to stay in the shadows where no one would notice her. She pressed against the wall, and wished she could just melt through it and vanish into the storm. Into the clean rain that would wash the residue of madness off her skin.

  Mr. Hamilton stood in the doorway, gripping at its warped frame with gloved hands. He did not look the coolly intelligent scholar she had once admired so much. Like his wife, he was transformed into something other than a civilized human, other than ordinary. His hair was tousled and wet, its disordered ends dripping water onto his shoulders, over his face.

  “Emmeline,” he said, his voice breaking up in the thickness of the air. “What have you done? What madness is this?”

  Hope had flashed over his wife’s face for one instant, but it vanished at his words, and she curled her fingers tighter about her knife. “Madness, Neville? You forced me to this! You would not listen to me, no matter what I did. No matter how hard I tried to be a good wife to you.”

  “A good wife?” Mr. Hamilton stepped into the barn, bringing the storm with him. “When did you ever try to be that? You have always been selfish and demanding; you never wanted to try to help me in my work.”

  “You took me away from my home!” she wailed. “You took me away from my life! I do not want to be dragged about from one dirty pit to another all my years. I am young, and I want parties and friends!”

  He took a step towards her. “Is that why you have done these things, Emmeline? Because you want to go to parties? You smashed irreplaceable artifacts, and kidnapped an innocent girl because I took you from Bath Society?”

  Mrs. Hamilton tossed back her head in a defiant gesture, her eyes blazing. “Yes! You did nothing you promised you would do. You love these dead thing
s, these objects, more than you ever loved me. So I hired that dreadful man to destroy your precious artifacts. I thought if your work was gone, you would take me home.”

  Mr. Hamilton stared at his wife as if he had never seen her before in his life. “And you also—”

  “I did! When he tried to blackmail me, the pathetic worm, I killed him. Who did he think he was to threaten me?” She slashed at the air with her knife.

  Mary Ann’s stomach gave a sick heave. Mrs. Hamilton, who had held a knife to her throat, had dragged her from her home, had killed a man. She could very well have killed Mary Ann, too.

  She was only sixteen! And her life could have ended today, when she hadn’t even lived yet.

  A sharp cry escaped from her before she could catch it, pushed out by her fear and her revulsion.

  Mrs. Hamilton turned to her, frowning in confusion, as if she had forgotten Mary Ann was there. Mary Ann ran for the door.

  Mrs. Hamilton screamed, and lunged past her husband in a shockingly swift movement, knocking him aside. She grabbed on to Mary Ann’s cloak, causing her to stumble against the door. They tripped and tumbled out into the storm.

  Mary Ann kicked out at the other woman, struggling to loosen her iron grip on her cloak. But Mrs. Hamilton, who had always seemed so slim and light in her ruffles, was grotesquely strong. She pinned Mary Ann’s shoulder into the mud, and lifted up her purloined knife.

  Mary Ann heard a cry from her sister, men shouting out, the rumble of thunder. But all she saw was the flash of lightning on the knife blade.

  Sarah stared across the muddy village at the nightmarish sight of Mrs. Hamilton and Mary Ann tumbling to the ground. A knife shone brightly against the gray and brown of the rain and the muck. The two women rolled down the slope from the stable, coming to a stop near the edge of the leather-worker’s shop, Mrs. Hamilton rearing up above Mary Ann.

  Mr. Hamilton appeared in the doorway of the stable, and called out his wife’s name, but he was too far away to do anything to stop the forward momentum of the terrible events. Sarah was also too far away—she knew this truly, but she was possessed with the need to go to her baby sister. She broke away from Miles’s arms and raced across the village, her boots slipping in the mud, her tears mingling with the rain on her face.

  Miles and Mr. O’Riley were right behind her, all of them running to save Mary Ann, to end this madness. Miles lifted her up when she fell, carrying her forward. But she had the horrible sense that time had slowed down, that she was too leaden and earthbound to change anything. So many things flashed through her mind—Mary Ann as a tiny baby, wrapped in frills and lace, placed in Sarah’s small, trembling arms; Mary Ann toddling across a spring meadow, dark curls shining in the light. It was to Sarah she had always run, on her chubby baby legs, not to their mother or the nanny, to Sarah.

  “No,” she sobbed. “No.”

  She would not let this happen.

  Help me. Help me.

  A fork of lightning split the air, turning the sky and all their surroundings a purple-blue. Thunder shook the very ruins a second later, deafeningly.

  Mrs. Hamilton looked up from Mary Ann’s prone figure, past Sarah and Miles and Mr. O’Riley. Sarah was near enough to see her wildly shining eyes widen, her mouth open in a shocked “O.”

  “What is it?” Mrs. Hamilton cried. “What is it!”

  Sarah glanced behind her to see what had so taken Mrs. Hamilton aback. She squinted, but could discern nothing in the storm.

  Then another bolt of lightning split the sky. There, beneath a spreading tree, was a figure. A woman, tall and slim, clad in a white, chemiselike garment. Her gown and her long, wild dark hair blew in the wind. She held up a scamasax, whole and perfect and shining, like the wrath of some god—Thor or Odin.

  Another lightning flashed, and Sarah saw the silver bandeau that held the woman’s hair back, the unearthly glow in her eyes.

  And then she was gone.

  “Thora,” Sarah whispered.

  “No!” Mrs. Hamilton shrieked.

  Sarah whipped back around to see that Mrs. Hamilton had stood up, her knife falling from her limp fingers. Mary Ann crawled away from her, and was caught up in Mr. O’Riley’s arms, safe.

  Mr. Hamilton rushed towards his wife, his hand outstretched. But she screamed again, backing away from him, away from them all.

  “Emmeline, please,” he shouted.

  “She is here to take me away,” Mrs. Hamilton said. She pointed her shaking finger toward the tree. “I knew it would happen!”

  Her husband took yet another step closer, reaching out for her with both hands. “Emmeline, come to me now! No one will hurt you.”

  She stepped back from him—and fell into the open pit of the leather-worker’s shop with a terrible scream.

  Sarah covered her mouth with her hand, feeling ill. She felt Miles’s strong hands on her, pulling her closer. She sagged into him, suddenly so weak and cold she could hardly stand.

  Mr. Hamilton scrambled into the pit, and called up, “Help me lift her up, please! I beg you! She is still alive, but hurt.”

  Sarah clung to Miles for one second longer, her fingers numb on his coat collar. “Go, help him,” she whispered.

  “You look ill,” he answered, his face anguished, clearly torn between doing his duty and staying with her.

  Sarah would love nothing more than to have him stay beside her, holding her up, sending warmth into her chilled soul. But Sarah knew that, no matter what Mrs. Hamilton had done, she could not let her suffer in the ancient surroundings she so hated.

  “I will be fine,” she said. “Go now, and assist Mr. Hamilton. I shall just steady myself, and then fetch the carriage. She will need a physician, and so will Mary Ann.”

  He nodded, and pressed a long kiss to her temple. “My brave one.”

  As soon as he released her, and scrambled down into the pit with the Hamiltons, Sarah fell to her knees, trembling. She did not know if she could ever stand up again.

  Brave, indeed.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “Did you see her?” Sarah asked. “Or was I dreaming? Was I truly caught in a nightmare?”

  She sat before the fire in her own drawing room, clad in a warm, dry gown, blankets covering her legs and wrapped about her shoulders, a cup of brandy-laced tea clutched in her hand. They chased the rain-chill from her skin, but there was a cold knot at the center of her that she feared might never be warm again.

  Upstairs, Mary Ann slept in her bed, lulled into slumber by one of Rose’s tisanes. Sarah thought of how very close she had come to losing her sister, and shivered.

  Miles sat across from her, wrapped in his own blankets, his own thoughts.

  He stared into the crackling flames. “I saw—something. I thought it was the tree, or the rain.”

  She saw that he, her dear, sensible Miles, wanted to believe that was all it had been. Sarah herself had tried to think it was some trick of the storm. But, as she remembered it over and over, she knew that the woman had been real. That she had been real all along.

  Sarah shook her head. “No. It was Thora. Her home was here; her love was here. She hasn’t left. She guards it still.”

  Miles sat back in his chair, regarding her seriously. “So, since Thora guards it, I cannot destroy it. Is that what you are saying, my dear?”

  Sarah left her seat, and went to kneel beside him, trailing her blankets behind her. She laid her hand over his, and curled her fingers, entwining them with his. They were warm and strong. How she loved these hands, and the man who possessed them. She loved him in a way she had never thought possible before, a way that made her feel safe, yet tingling with an excitement that was wild and free. Her love for him somehow grounded her, and at the same time made her feel as if she could fly.

  It must have been the way Thora felt for her voyaging Viking lover. It had been a love that held her here for centuries. Sarah knew because she had seen Thora and felt all her emotions as her own—in her dreams.
<
br />   And now those dreams had all come to reality, through her love for Miles.

  It was a feeling she never, ever wanted to lose.

  But she also knew that she owed Thora very much indeed.

  “Miles,” she said, still looking at his hand and not up into his eyes. “I know how you feel about that land. And you are right, very right, to be concerned about men like Mr. O’Riley, and to want to help them. Your kind heart is one of the things I care about most in you. I was prepared to leave the village. But now . . .”

  “Now?”

  Sarah raised her gaze to his. His was as blue and blank as the sky. She could read nothing there. “Now I must try to save it for Thora, as she saved my sister. There is something there, something important, and I must find it.”

  “Oh, Sarah, my dear.” He drew his hands from hers and raised them to frame her face. He held her as if she was a pearl of enormous worth and beauty. “I never truly believed that it was the tree. I saw a woman, just as you did—a woman not of this world. If you feel you must preserve the village, then I cannot deny it to you.”

  Sarah couldn’t breathe. The very air seemed lodged in her throat. “Do you truly mean that, Miles?”

  “I would not say it to you if I did not.”

  “But what of your new farms?”

  They stared at each other in silence, still caught in their own needs, their tangled emotions.

  “I cannot believe that two intelligent people like you haven’t seen what is right before you,” a voice interrupted.

  Sarah looked over her shoulder to see Patrick O’Riley standing in the drawing room doorway. He had fallen asleep on the floor outside Mary Ann’s chamber, and he looked tousled and tired. And rather impatient with the pair of them.

  She sat back on her heels. “Whatever do you mean, Mr. O’Riley?”

  “Indeed, Patrick,” Miles said. “If you have a solution, I wish you would share it with us.”

  Mr. O’Riley sat down in Sarah’s vacated chair and yawned, rubbing a hand over his unshaven jaw. “Lady Iverson has learned a great deal from her village, valuable knowledge that the world should know. Yet she still has much work left to do. And you feel a certain responsibility to chaps like me, Miles. Both are quite proper feelings.”