Much Ado About Magic

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  I should never for a moment thought that Benedick could have changed. He was just what I had always thought he was. Not to be trusted. Selfish. And it made so much more sense now. Really, why would he fall in love with me, of all people? I was prickly and I always talked too much. I knew how much guys hated that. I made Benedick look like an idiot, which he was, most of the time. What guy could forgive that in a woman, let alone fall in love with it?

  “But Claudio—” said Sarah in a pleading tone.

  “Maybe Claudio didn’t know everything that was going on,” I said, because I really had a hard time believing that that sweet baby face could hide such infamy. That was Benedick’s speciality. “Maybe Benedick betrayed him, too.”

  “Well, that didn’t last long,” said Margaret. She raised a hand toward Ursula and wiggled it, as if she were expecting to be paid for something.

  “Not now,” Ursula whispered urgently, nodding at me.

  I stared at the two of them. “What?” I asked. “What’s going on between you two?”

  “Ursula owes me fifty dollars,” said Margaret. “That’s all.”

  “What for?”

  “Hush,” said Ursula. “Can’t you see this is the wrong time? She’s mad and this is only going to make her madder.”

  “You two made a bet, didn’t you?” I said. I’d thought it was the boys who liked to bet, but apparently I was wrong.

  Margaret doesn’t have a poker face. “Just a little bet,” she said.

  “Why don’t you write it all down for her, step by step?” said Ursula, disgusted.

  “Yes, why don’t you? Or better yet, tell me about it right now. Step by step,” I said.

  “It was just a bet,” said Margaret. “Ursula bet me that you would change your mind about Benedick if you heard he loved you. I thought I knew you too well. So I bet against it. I said that even if you were fooled for one night, it would never last past that.”

  I looked at Margaret. Fooled? And then I remembered.. The conversation that I had “overheard” between Margaret, Ursula, and Leanata. That must have been staged. “Leanata knew about this, too?” I asked.

  Margaret swallowed hard and turned away.

  That was enough proof for me.

  “You set me up,” I said.

  “I thought that once you two stopped fighting, you might see that you could actually be a match,” said Margaret.

  What a romantic she was. I sighed and shook my head. So it had all been a game. And I was just one of the pieces being moved around a board.

  Well, I wasn’t going to be manipulated so easily again.

  Chapter 12: Ben

  Dogberry called me in after hours of interrogation with Claudio. I tried to get a glimpse of what Claudio had been through, but all I could tell was that he looked exhausted. It was morning by then, so we all were.

  “Can I sit down?” I asked, when Dogberry closed the door behind me.

  “Of course, sir,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  So being me, I didn’t sit. I couldn’t get around what was coming, even if I was Paduan myself. There was no way to escape a truth spell. That was why the truth spell had remained the same for so many centuries. “Pedro is innocent,” I said. “There has never been a better demi-head for the Arragons than him.” I wanted to get that out before I was forced to say that Pedro had more than once said the spell clearly in my hearing.

  Dogberry nodded to me. “Isn’t it interesting what people say before the truth spell and what they say after it?” he asked.

  I was not interested in discussing that with him. I waited as I heard the familiar sounds of the spell being spoken. When it was finished, I felt like I was floating somewhere above my body, looking down on it. Nothing felt real anymore, and I knew that was a dangerous feeling.

  I’d had to experience the truth spell myself before I became demi-head of the clan here in town. It was supposed to make you better at using it to feel how it works, but I still hated it. My father had used it on me when I was younger, on the tiniest things. Whether I had taken a cookie when I hadn’t asked. Whether I had done my homework. Whether I had watched two minutes too much television.

  When I was invited into the clan officially for the first time and taught the spell, I remember using it on him for the first time soon afterward, without asking for permission. I had thought it would be a special kind of revenge, but it was horrible. I hated hearing the truth from him. He offered it so eagerly and with no sense of disgust. He had changed completely from the man I had always known who was so superior. But I hadn’t liked the other, weaker him any better.

  I was reminded again of how little Beatrice had changed when she had been under the truth spell and wondered if I had any hope of maintaining so much of myself when Dogberry questioned me.

  “Tell me about Pedro,” said Dogberry after the spell had had a chance to set in. “What do you see as his strengths and weaknesses? As a friend and as a person?”

  “He’s intelligent and he cares about people. His weaknesses are so much smaller they hardly matter,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about his weaknesses, but I couldn’t stop myself from doing it.

  “What weaknesses?” asked Dogberry.

  “He snores,” I said. “And he takes forever to do his hair in the morning.”

  “Anything else? Anything more substantive?”

  To me, those were the parts of Pedro that were the most annoying. “He thinks he knows everything that’s best for everyone else,” I said. “He is always matchmaking, and I don’t mean just romantically, although he certainly does that, too.” He had been so happy before all of this with the World Council about me and Beatrice. And Claudio and Sarah.

  “Hmmm,” said Dogberry. “Have you ever wondered about the fact that he doesn’t have a steady girlfriend and never has? Perhaps the girls who date him see something that you don’t see? Or that you don’t care about?”

  “Uh, maybe they see he works so hard at being a good demi-head for the Arragons that he doesn’t have time for more frivolous things.”

  “Ahh,” said Dogberry.

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Pedro dates, though. I’m sure he’ll find the right person eventually,” I said.

  “And if he has already found the right person and let her go?” asked Dogberry.

  “He hasn’t,” I said, confused. “Pedro wouldn’t do that.”

  “He wouldn’t sacrifice his own happiness for a friend’s?” asked Dogberry.

  “Of course he would,” I said instantly. That was exactly what Pedro was like, loyal to a T.

  “What if the woman who might have been right for him was also right for you? And what if he realized it before she did?” said Dogberry.

  “What?” I said. And then I realized what he meant. “Beatrice,” I muttered.

  Dogberry showed no emotion. “Yes. Beatrice Hero. She showed an interest in Pedro months ago, didn’t she?”

  “She did, but he turned her down for his own reasons, not because of me. I didn’t even think about her like that then.” I said the words because I had believed in them a moment before, but I was beginning to doubt them even as Dogberry questioned me. The truth was changing as he talked to me, which was an interesting twist on the spell. I had no idea it could be used like this. I wasn’t sure I was all that happy to discover it this way, either.

  “You used your own magic on her at the time, didn’t you? The truth spell?”

  Was I in trouble for that? Maybe whatever I learned from Dogberry would be useless because I would be disappeared by tomorrow, before I could share it with any other Paduans in town. “Yes. I was tired of seeing her moon after him. I thought that if she got it out, then she could deal with the rejection and move on with her life.” I had to keep answering his questions, even if I kept thinking of other things.

  “So you did it for her sake?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I would go that far. I’m not trying to make myself into the good guy here. I r
egret what I did to her. I shouldn’t have used a truth spell like that.” Now that I was under a truth spell myself, I felt even worse about it.

  “Nonetheless, the results have been to your advantage, have they not? She turned her affections to you after a rather public and obvious rejection by Pedro?” asked Dogberry.

  “It wasn’t like that. She hated me for a long time. For months. It was only last night that I thought she changed her mind.”

  “Did Pedro dance with this Beatrice last night?” asked Dogberry.

  “Yes,” I said. There had been a moment when I had been jealous, thinking that he had decided to change his mind about her, just when she was over him.

  “Are you certain that he did not offer himself to her? That he was not rejected?”

  “Of course I’m sure of that,” I said. “Pedro wouldn’t do that. At least, I don’t think he would. Would he?” I spoke my sudden doubts out loud.

  “Benedick, is it possible that Beatrice is pretending to be in love with you?” said Dogberry.

  “What? Of course she isn’t. Why would she do that? Beatrice wouldn’t pretend.”

  “She professed that she hated you not very long ago, in the hearing of several witnesses,” said Dogberry.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Was she lying about that?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” Beatrice had been pretty vehement about her feelings about me and so far as I could tell, she was the only person in the world who didn’t need a truth spell on her to tell the truth. It made her tell it more loudly, but she was always honest. Pointedly so, in fact. “She was mad at me about using the truth spell on her. She had every right to be. I forced her to say what she felt in front of everyone.”

  It hadn’t been nice. It hadn’t even been that funny.

  “But in the course of one night—or perhaps one hour—she changed her mind about you? She moved from hating you to loving you?” said Dogberry.

  “They say that hate and love are actually really close to each other.” I wanted to believe that Pedro hadn’t tricked me. I really did.

  “They do?” said Dogberry.

  It didn’t seem as likely when he looked at me that skeptically. “Well, maybe her feelings were changing gradually over the last few months and she didn’t realize it,” I said.

  “And when did you realize that you were in love with her? Not when you used the truth spell on her?” said Dogberry.

  “No,” I said. It wasn’t exactly illegal to use the truth spell on friends and family, but people tended not to like that much and therefore didn’t stay friends for long. I wondered if Dogberry had any friends. Family has to stay family, I suppose, but that doesn’t mean they live anywhere near you—or speak to you.

  “I suppose it was partly when I saw how she reacted to the truth spell. But I didn’t realize it at the time. It took most of the summer for me to see it. When I met her again, I’d say I knew then,” I said.

  “So you weren’t in love with her when she was in love with Pedro?” asked Dogberry. “There was no jealous motive in your use of the truth spell on her.”

  “No.”

  “And if I told you that your friends conspired to convince you that she was in love with you, what would you say then? Pedro and Claudio?”

  “What?” My head felt like it been filled with fuzz, and it wasn’t just because of the truth spell. “That’s not possible.”

  “You didn’t overhear a conversation between them? One that was staged purely for your benefit? About Beatrice being in love with you?”

  “I overheard something,” I admitted. “But she was in love—is in love with me. And besides, Pedro would never—” I stopped because I didn’t know what was truth anymore, even inside my own head.

  “What if he thought it was in your best interest? What if he was tired of hearing you complain about love and declaring yourself immune to it?”

  “Pedro and Claudio—” I said, but I couldn’t finish.

  “Are you so sure now that she is in love with you? That she wasn’t convinced to do this to get back at you?”

  I shook my head. I sat down on the chair that I had disdained before.

  “You have shown yourself utterly captivated by her at a school dance. How long before she dumps you just as publicly, so she can take the revenge she thinks you deserve?” asked Dogberry.

  “No,” I whispered. But I knew that I deserved whatever she did to me. It didn’t even make me stop loving her.

  “Pedro arranged this for you. That is the kind of friend he is.”

  I shook my head. “He couldn’t have known.”

  “He is laughing at you even now, he and Claudio together. Claudio told me of all of this. Every step in their plan. They have had private moments together during the whole of your summer. Did you not notice them with their heads together, whispering when you were not close enough to hear?”

  There had been a few times like that, but that didn’t mean—

  “Why would a woman change her mind like that?” asked Dogberry. “And why would any woman who fell in love with Pedro fall in love then with you? You are nothing like him.”

  This dug at my deepest fears. I knew that Pedro liked me, but I had always felt like I wasn’t good enough for him. He was a better demi-head than I was, more serious, more dutiful. He was better at school. He was more handsome than I was. He could have had Beatrice first, if he wanted her. I think I said some of this out loud, but I didn’t remember how much or which parts.

  “Now that you see who Pedro is, perhaps you are willing to share a few secrets with me. Details that you think might show Pedro in a bad light. Any hints of underhanded dealing. Times when he has used the money spell incautiously. Or perhaps offer it to someone in exchange for something else.”

  “He does sometimes say the spell where we can hear it. Claudio and I. But he trusts us not to listen in and try to remember it. And we never would,” I said. I was thinking at the same time about how Dogberry was using the truth spell so cleverly. He wanted me mad at Pedro so that I not only spoke the truth the spell demanded, but thought a different truth than I had before the spell began. This was another trick of my own clan that I did not like much.

  “He deserves to be brought down. Think of what he has done to you. Made you a laughing stock. Taken away your only chance to find love. You may recover from this in time, but it will be no thanks to Pedro.”

  “He is my friend,” I said, my jaw firm enough that the words came out hard and slurred.

  “Still? After this? What friendship can remain after he has stolen love from you?”

  “He didn’t steal her,” I insisted. If Beatrice hated me, it was my own fault for that, not Pedro’s. And she had been in love with him first. If she wanted him, I would not stand in her way. Nor in his. I mumbled some of this, too.

  “He made sure that Claudio had the girl of his dreams. But you? You aren’t his friend, not like Claudio is. They use you because you’re a Paduan and you have a truth spell they want to make sure is never used on them. But they don’t care about you, Benedick. You should see the truth about that. You of all people.”

  “That’s not true,” I said, more distinctly.

  “He and Claudio, Florentine and Arragon. Those are the two power clans. The Paduans have always been behind them, mostly far behind, kicked down. Why would you want to protect them? Save yourself, Benedick!” His voice rose, the first hint of animation I had seen in him. His eyes were bright and he was leaning over me, now that I was seated.

  I wasn’t stupid.

  OK, I was stupid, but I wasn’t that stupid.

  He had probably given the same version of this speech to Claudio. That was the exhaustion I had seen on Claudio’s face when he came out. Because Claudio doubted me and Pedro, and he doubted Sarah, as well. Dogberry must have told him the same story about Sarah that he’d told me about Beatrice, that it was all a joke that Pedro and I had set up to laugh at him.

  “Are you finished now
?” I asked, thinking that the truth spell was beginning to fade at last. How many hours had we been in here? Was he going to say it again and start all over?

  Dogberry looked down at me. “For now, sir.”

  I sagged with relief. “So I can go?”

  He reached over and turned off the recorder, then nodded and opened the door. I could see the bright light of noon from outside.

  “Send in Pedro now, if you don’t mind, sir,” said Dogberry.

  I went out and nearly threw up. Pedro and Claudio came rushing over to me, helping me walk down the hall.

  “That bad?” Pedro looked white around the lips.

  “It’s just because I’m a Paduan myself,” I said, lying now that I could do it. “That makes the truth spell worse for me somehow, I think.”

  Pedro nodded, like he was trying to believe me.

  “He wants you next,” I said.

  He nodded and put a hand down the front of his shirt, as if to brush off any stray dirt or lint.

  “You’ll do fine,” I said. “Just remember we’ve already been through it and we’re still here, behind you.”

  Pedro nodded distractedly and then walked in.

  I looked at Claudio. “What did he tell you about Sarah?”

  “Sarah?” he said. “He didn’t say anything about her. It was all about you and Pedro.”

  “He didn’t try to convince you that I was in love with her? Or that we had set you up to be made a fool of?” I asked.

  Claudio shook his head. His eyes flickered for just one moment.

  And that’s how I knew that it was true. He and Pedro had set me up, and Dogberry had been telling the truth. Another Paduan who told the truth himself while making me tell the truth. Who would have guessed that?

  “It’s not what you think,” said Claudio, licking at his lips.

  “No? You didn’t set up that conversation for me to overhear, about Beatrice being in love with me?”

  “We did, but—”

  “She wasn’t in love with me, was she? She’s been in love with Pedro all this time. She just wanted to get back at me.” I still couldn’t stop loving her, even knowing this. What was wrong with me?