by Cate Martin
"You want to get upstairs, right?" Charlotte said. "Coco and I can distract the guard at the bottom of the steps. Then you can do… whatever."
I really wanted to get a look at the threads that ran through her form, to see if I could tell if she was trustworthy. I've blinked in and out of that other place before, but only in times where my fight or flight hormones were surging through me, when my power was jacked up to its highest setting. Trying to do it now, even if it worked, would probably involve me fainting or my eyes rolling back or any of a thousand other little things that would undermine our efforts to be unnoticed.
"How long can you keep the guard distracted?" Sophie asked.
"As long as you need," Charlotte said, but Coco looked less confident in that answer.
"How are you going to do it?" I asked. I had seldom met anyone easier to overlook completely than Charlotte. How could she possibly find a way to be more than a momentary distraction?
She gave me a disdainful look, then ran her hands through her hair and down over her clothes.
It was eerie. After she had shaken out the tight updo and made little adjustments to the neckline and waist of her dress, she went from the ultimate wallflower to something quite different. Not so much ravishing as recently ravished was my first thought, but then she threw the loose waves of hair out of her eyes and fixed her gaze on me.
The haughty anger was now something darkly flirtatious. Still haughty, but that somehow enhanced the flirty thing. I had no idea how she did that, or what it meant. I could well imagine the effect if she pinned that on one of the younger officers. The confusion as to her intent alone would be terribly, terribly distracting.
"That will work," Sophie said almost admiringly.
"Let's get upstairs then," I said, clutching my bag to make sure my wand was still concealed within it. Sophie and Brianna matched my gesture. Then we followed Charlotte and a clearly bemused Coco towards the doorway between the ballroom and the front hall.
"I'm afraid you all still have to stay inside," the young man at the door said. I recognized him from before, the one with the thick blond hair. But the fellow on the opposite side of the door was not McConnell. He was a shorter, darker fellow who looked, if anything, even younger. I supposed he was a rookie, but in truth, I would have taken him for not yet out of high school.
"That's Coco," the rookie said. "She's allowed to go where she wants."
The blond officer's eyes shifted to the spot in the middle of the hall, where the shape of a human body was still discernible under the cover of a pristine white tablecloth. "Of course, she can, but you really don't want to go this way, kid. Take the back stairs, yeah?"
Standing behind her I couldn't see her face, but Coco's shoulders slumped and then began to shake, and the sudden look of alarm on the faces of the two officers told me everything.
"Hey, kid," he said, reaching out a hand to comfort her then leaving it to hover uncertainly as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed. He looked desperately over at Charlotte.
"What's your name?" Charlotte asked him. He gave her a bare glance. Apparently, she wasn't doing the look yet.
"Larson," he said. I started at the name. I knew some Larsons in 2018: Nick Larson as well as his grandfather. Was there a resemblance between this man and them? Perhaps he was an ancestor?
Probably not. It was a terribly common name in this part of the world.
The Larson in question was getting more flustered by the minute with Coco's crying, and he looked imploringly to Charlotte. "Can't you take her somewhere and get her something?"
"She wants to say good-bye to her sister," Charlotte said.
"I don't know," he said. "I don't think that's a good idea. Or really my decision."
"Please," Charlotte said, putting an arm around the now loudly snuffling Coco.
I doubted Coco was acting. All she had needed to do was just let go of the iron control she had been exerting on her tears all evening.
"I should ask my boss," he said, but he didn't sound certain.
"Let the kid have a moment," the rookie said. "She won't disturb anything."
"I suppose not," Larson said.
"If you take her you can be sure she doesn't touch anything she's not supposed to," Charlotte said. "I'll stay here until she's done." Then, not waiting for an answer, she moved the sobbing Coco from her side to the officer's.
"All right," he relented. The near-panic on his face relaxed somewhat when Coco stopped sobbing. He gave her a handkerchief, and she wiped her eyes with it then murmured something I couldn't catch. He nodded and, putting an arm around her, led her across the parquet floor. I could see she was all but dragging her feet, going as slowly as she could.
The rookie watched them go for a moment then turned. His eyes were almost on the three of us lingering too close to the doors, but before he could tell us to rejoin the others, Charlotte took a step closer to him and, judging from the sudden flush to his cheeks, hit him with that befuddling gaze.
"Come on," Sophie said, and slipped between the rookie's back and the doorframe, skirting the sides of the hall and jogging up the stairs. Charlotte had her hand on the rookie's arm, keeping him focused on her as Brianna and I followed Sophie.
The heels of our shoes rapped loudly off the wood floor, but Coco's renewed sobs were louder still and Larson had his hands full keeping her from collapsing on the floor at her sister's side. It was a heartrending sound, such pure hurt, and despair that I wanted to abandon everything and head back down the stairs to put my arms around Coco and give her every word of comfort I knew.
I had to remind myself that what Coco wanted more than anything was justice for her sister. I kept going up the stairs.
The second-floor balcony was silent, no sign of anyone up or down either of the corridors. We kept going up.
The light from the chandelier was indeed uncomfortably bright, and by the last few steps, I couldn't even really see where I was going. I kept a tight grip on the railing to be sure I didn't stumble.
"Now what?" Sophie asked as the three of us crouched at the top of the steps, as close as we could reckon to where Ivy had been standing. I was crouching with the light behind me, looking around for clues. But there was, of course, no blood here, no scuff marks on the floorboards, nothing at all. I could see the outline of the little door that led to the playroom, and if I leaned forward I could see far enough down the hall to where two police officers sat on chairs outside the door to the room where they were keeping Edward, but nothing else.
Brianna and Sophie huddled closer to me, having also seen the officers. They hadn't looked our way, but if we made any sound at all they'd come to investigate, I was sure.
"I think I've worked out a spell," Brianna whispered.
"Then do it," Sophie whispered back.
"We three have to do it together," Brianna said. "Sophie, you use your senses like you usually do, and Amanda, do your sort of magic. My spell will create a flow between the three of us, so we all see one picture made of both of those perceptions."
"You just figured this out now?" I asked.
"I've been thinking about it all night," Brianna said. "I'm not certain it will work, but I'd like to try. Even if it doesn't, you two will still see what you see."
"Let's try it," I said. Brianna held out her hands and Sophie and I each took one, then grabbed each other's hands to complete the circle. Then at Brianna's little nod, I closed my eyes, settling back on my heels and moving my awareness to the thread layer of the world.
For a moment I saw the threads all around me, but before I had the chance to start looking more closely at the knots and interlacings, I felt a surge of warmth flow from Brianna's hand into mine, through my body to my other hand and into Sophie. Then another wave passed through me in the other direction.
It was incredibly soothing, like taking a nap while floating on a lake, all warm and gently rocking on the waves.
I had the overwhelming urge to open my eyes.
Wh
en I did, I saw Brianna and Sophie also had their eyes open. I definitely felt more closely bonded with the two of them than I ever had before, but the spell didn't seem to be working for its intended effect.
Then I felt another wave of warmth wash over me from Sophie's direction, and I felt a rush of emotions all jumbled together: elation and joy and pride and nervousness and boredom and sadness, all crushed down under an indescribable fury.
I couldn't make sense of it and tried to summon back the threads. I didn't see them this time, but the emotions sort of ordered themselves into different places around the balcony, becoming distinct entities. Ivy's joy nearly overlapping with where I crouched, her father's elation and her mother's pride beside her. The nervousness seemed to be where I remembered Thomas standing. The sadness was down the corridor. Edward or Mary? I wasn't sure.
The anger I couldn't pinpoint. It was everywhere, and when I tried to focus on it, it grew stronger still. It was like a glass of dirty water knocked over a watercolor painting in progress, smearing and diluting and destroying all of the other colors.
Sophie's hand in mine tightened, and she made a small grunting noise of pain or effort or maybe both. I don't know what she did, but it was as if that glass righted itself and the other colors were restored.
But I still couldn't see where that anger was coming from. I squeezed both Brianna's and Sophie's hands and focused still harder on the threads I knew were there, just out of sight. Slowly, their forms started to develop like the outlines of a photograph in the pool of chemicals.
It was so hard. Why was this so hard? I concentrated harder, but I was making black dots burst across my vision appear more than I was bringing those threads into focus.
But there was a pattern in what threads I could see, a web that touched every glow of emotion on that balcony but focused most strongly on Ivy. But Ivy was where it was all flowing to. Where was it flowing from?
Suddenly there was a clatter of noise: someone running up the steps, falling, then getting up and running again. The picture that had almost been in focus was gone in a flash, and we all let go of each other's hands with a gasp.
"What happened?" Brianna asked. "What broke the spell?"
I looked to the top of the stairs to see Charlotte there. Her hands were on the top step as if she had crawled up the last bit of stairs after falling. Her hair and clothes were still in disarray, but now her eyes were wide with alarm. She had been about to crawl back down the steps but froze when my eyes met hers.
"Charlotte," I said, reaching out for her.
"What was that?" Charlotte demanded, her eyes growing wider still. "Who are you? What are you?"
"We can explain," Sophie said, but it was too late. Charlotte was running back down the stairs.
Chapter 12
We scrambled to our feet and raced down the stairs. Coco and Larson were still standing together over Ivy's covered body, but they both looked up in alarm as we ran down the last few steps to the parquet floor of the hall.
"How did you get up there?" Larson asked, looking up the way we'd come then back over his shoulder at Ricci still standing in the doorway. Ricci shrugged, but after the officer turned back again his face darkened and I could see he was figuring it out.
"Where's Charlotte?" I asked Coco.
"I don't know," Coco said. "I thought she was…" she looked back at Ricci standing alone at the door.
"She just came downstairs. We were following her," I said.
"She didn't come down here," Coco said.
"Second floor," Sophie whispered, and we all three turned to go back up the stairs.
"Hold on," Larson said. "That area is off limits."
"Obviously we had permission to be up there since that's where we came from," I said. It always worked in the movies if you pretended like you belonged wherever you were trying to be. But I think it worked better if you had some sort of uniform to back up your story.
"They were supposed to be watching me," Coco said and sounded genuinely chagrined. "I gave them the slip so I could come see Ivy. But I suppose I better get back to my room before you tell my mother."
"Yes," I said.
"We'd be in more trouble than you, you know," Sophie said.
"I know. I'm sorry," Coco said and left Larson’s side to come over to us.
But he didn't look like he was buying it.
"Ricci, watch the door. I'm going to escort them to Coco's room and make sure they stay there," he said.
That was less than ideal, but it was better than being in the ballroom. He waved for Coco to lead the way as he brought up the rear. Coco climbed the steps to the second floor then turned down the darkened corridor to the right.
As much as it had looked empty when we'd passed it before, there really were guards outside the master bedroom. But there was a little niche off the corridor, just deep enough for a pair of chairs and a large potted plant dying a slow, sunless death between them. One of the officers was sitting on a chair, but the other was pacing in front of the door. He raised an eyebrow as he saw the three of us following Coco, but relaxed when Larson came into view.
"This is mine," Coco said, opening a door at the very end of the hall.
"I'll be right out here," he said as we all passed into the room.
"Thank you," Coco said as if he were doing us a great service. Then she shut the door and waved for us to follow her past a little lounging area and then her canopied bed to the windows that overlooked the back garden.
"Did you find out anything?" she asked. Her eyes were red-rimmed from the crying, but she looked more at peace now, less crazed and tense from everything she was holding back.
"Not really," I said. "Someone up there was very angry, but we don't know who, and it still doesn't mean that this wasn't all an accident."
"But someone knocked me down," Coco said.
"I know," I said. "We haven't stopped looking. We're just running out of ways to look."
Coco's shoulders slumped. "If we don't give them someone else to blame, they're going to blame Edward. I already lost my sister. I don't think I can stand to see Edward…" She put a hand to her face, squeezing the bridge of her nose hard as if to stop the tears. "I wish there was a way I could help him."
"You are helping him," I said.
"You're helping us help him," Brianna said.
"If you're up for it, there is something else you can do for us," Sophie said.
"Anything," Coco said, her eyes brightening.
"We need to talk to Charlotte. She seemed pretty upset, and I think she's afraid of us," Sophie said.
"Why would she be afraid of you?" Coco asked.
"She saw something that looked strange. We just want to explain it to her," Sophie said.
"She knows all the hiding places that you know," I said.
"Not all of them," Coco said.
"You're the perfect person to find her," I said.
"Probably the only person who could," Sophie said. "If you can get past the guard at the door."
"That won't be a problem," Coco said and turned to pull her nightstand away from the wall, revealing the outline of another little door. "But what are you going to be doing while I look for Charlotte?"
"We have to discuss some things with each other," Sophie said. "Compare impressions."
"List what clues we have and our theories and what we'll do next," I said.
Coco nodded. "If it helps, there's a chalkboard just over there in my old play area. I haven't used it in years, but there's still chalk in the tray."
"Thanks," I said.
"When you find Charlotte, bring her back here at once," Sophie said. "It's important."
Coco nodded then stooped to crawl inside the little door.
"It might be too late," Brianna said, biting her lip. "She was terrified. And if it isn't witches she thinks we are, it's surely something worse."
"But who would she tell?" I asked.
"Mary? Or Ricci now that she's friendly with him?" Sophie
said.
"And would they believe her?" I asked.
"We just have to hope that Coco gets to her first," Sophie said.
"But I wonder how much she saw of what we were doing?” Brianna said. "Without a gift for magic, she should only have been able to see the three of us holding hands."
"Well," Sophie said. "Maybe more than that."
"Like what?" I asked.
"Well, you were sitting sort of three-quarters turned away from her, so I don't know how much she saw of your face, but it was…"
"Scary," Brianna said.
"Scary?" I said.
"You were doing that thing you do when the power hits you," Sophie said. "Hair floating, eyes glowing with this electric fire."
"And you were floating," Brianna said. "Just a bit."
"Wow," I said. "I hadn't felt any of that. I hadn't even felt particularly powerful. It felt like I couldn't even summon my own magic. I was trying so hard, but it wasn't coming."
"Oh yes, it was," Sophie said, and Brianna nodded.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
Sophie looked at Brianna then held out her hands, palms up. One looked perfectly ordinary, the one that had been holding Brianna's hand.
The other was bright red as if she had tried to take a hot pan off the stove without using any sort of mitt.
Brianna held out her hands and the hand of hers I had been holding looked if anything, worse.
"I'm so sorry," I said.
"Your power is strange," Brianna said. "I wished I understood it better. It's like you have infinite amounts, and yet so little control."
"I'm sorry," I said again.
"No, I didn't mean it like that, like it's your fault," Brianna said. "I meant control like…" She looked to Sophie for help.
"Like too much raging water trying to pass through a very tight space," Sophie said. "The more you try to control it, the more you increase the pressure on that water. I don't think you can make it… less."
I looked down at my own unmarred palms.
"Should we try the spell again?" Brianna asked. "It will be trickier at a distance, but we could still try."