Old World Charm

by Cate Martin

  "No, I don't think we'll bring that anger into focus," I said.

  "It didn't feel magic, at least," Sophie said. "Maybe that's why we're having so much trouble with it. For once, our murderer isn't a magical person or an ordinary person using a magic artifact. We might not be equipped for this."

  "Maybe," I said, but I wasn't convinced. There had to be something we could do. We were witches.

  "Maybe we couldn't focus it because it was coming from multiple people," Brianna said.

  "So now we're going with conspiracy?" Sophie asked.

  "No, the flow was going the other way," I said. At their confused looks, I added, "I think it had one hidden source, but it was flowing so strongly towards so many other targets, we couldn't pinpoint it."

  "We searched for signs of magic before we came into the house, and we all agreed there weren't any," Brianna said. "But what if we did that sort of search again, not for a magical person, but just for any person with ill intent?"

  I barked out a laugh, and they both shot me an alarmed look. "Sorry. It's just that, Otto already told us that a ton of the partygoers are gangsters or guys working both sides of the law. I think we're going to be drowning in ill intent."

  "Malevolence, then," Sophie said. "That was the overwhelming feeling I was getting."

  "I got anger," Brianna said.

  "Me too," I said. "But whoever or whatever was angry, that was a malevolent being."

  "I agree," Sophie said. "This wasn't a normal person driven to murder. This was a person who was mad at the whole world and took it out on Ivy."

  "Okay," Brianna said. "Let's try looking for that. A dark heart, I guess."

  "A dark heart," Sophie and I agreed.

  We sat down on the rug in front of the fireplace that was just barely glowing with the light from a banked fire. Then we took hands and closed our eyes.

  Nothing happened.

  "Amanda," Sophie said. "You have to do this."

  "I'm doing it," I said.

  "No, she's right. You're holding back," Brianna said.

  "I don't want to hurt you again," I said.

  "You won't," Sophie said, but then hedged. "Maybe don't try so hard to bring anything vague into focus. Let's just see what a casual look around shows us."

  "Okay," I said and squeezed their hands. "I can do that."

  I glimpsed the world of threads for only a fraction of a second this time before the waves of warmth started rolling between us. Then I watched with half-opened eyes as I began to picture the home around us.

  It was like watercolor dots of emotions again. Or maybe more like blots, the edges undefined, flowing like the painter had made a second pass of the brush with too much water. Or like a wind was blowing through them, disrupting their outlines.

  But I could tell they were people even without seeing the pattern of the threads. I could sense a blot that was swirling with so many different colors fighting for dominance, a blot that was moving with determination from room to room at the back of the house on the first floor.

  Coco. Coco on a quest to find Charlotte, letting her drive to complete that quest push all of her other feelings to the back of her mind. But they were still there, roiling away.

  I turned my attention away from Coco and spread my awareness over the entire house, then floated it up from floor to floor.

  So many blots of color. So many minds processing so many emotions.

  I lingered the longest on the blot I saved for last: the one that was Edward. I watched the colors swirl around inside him, the way the invisible wind or brush of water moved through it, pulling bits away in tendrils that tapered off to nothing. I didn't know what it meant, this thing that I was seeing. I expected it was part of Sophie's way of seeing patterns.

  But the colors spoke to me. I could feel his confusion and sadness and fear.

  And loneliness. More than anything else, he was feeling alone.

  I wished there was some way I could disrupt those feelings, to replace them with a feeling of another, warmer color. He was surrounded by people who cared about him. Otto and we three, but also Coco and even Coco and Ivy's father. Their regard and worry for him was real. I could see those watercolor tendrils that tapered off their own blots pointing his way. If I saw just threads and not colors I was sure they were all connected.

  But Edward couldn't see it. And he wasn't feeling it.

  Brianna and Sophie squeezed my hands, and at that signal, I opened my eyes. I blinked the visions away. When we finally took a real look at each other, we all shook our heads at once.

  "Nothing," Sophie said. "I didn't feel a single person with anything like that anger inside of them."

  "Nor I," I said.

  "I didn't even sense where Charlotte was," Brianna sighed. "And we know she's still in the house. Are we doing this correctly?"

  But none of us had an answer to that question.

  "Have we run out of things to try?" Sophie asked.

  "No," I said. "I want to talk to Edward."

  Chapter 13

  I started to get up and head towards the door, but Sophie caught my wrist.

  "Wait, let's talk this through," she said.

  "We've left him alone long enough," I said. "He's so isolated and despairing. We can't leave him like that a moment longer."

  "I think you're projecting," Sophie said.

  "What are you talking about? We just felt everything he was feeling," I said.

  "I didn't," Sophie said. "I knew he was on the third floor. I sensed that. But as to the rest?" She looked over at Brianna, who shrugged and then shook her head.

  I sank back down to the floor. "We were all seeing the same thing, right?"

  "A projection of the house like a dollhouse with blots of color inside," Brianna said.

  "I didn't see the dollhouse," I said. "I guess I was just in it. But the blots of color were people."

  "Yes," Brianna agreed.

  "I saw the dollhouse," Sophie said, "but my colors were more like streaks in a stream. Moving, like dancing, but never quite fading away."

  "So we created a thing together, but we all have different perceptions of it," I said. "Didn't you two see Edward?"

  "I sensed him upstairs, where we already knew he was," Brianna said. "I was worried about who Charlotte might be talking to, so I tried to focus on Coco and her. But Coco hasn't found her yet, and I couldn't sense Charlotte anywhere."

  "I didn't either, but I wasn't trying too," Sophie said.

  "Nor I," I said, but turned to Sophie. "What were you trying to sense?"

  "I was focused on the library," Sophie said. "I thought perhaps a malevolent heart would either be one of them, or in their custody, or just as interested in what the police were up to as we are."

  "But you didn't find anything?" I asked.

  "No," she said. "Otto is still being questioned. He was in some discomfort. I'm not sure they are being kind with their questions."

  "Great," I said. "Another thing we have to stop. The police are botching this. We really have to step in."

  "And do what?" Brianna asked. "Declare ourselves witches and command everyone to obey us?"

  "Obviously not," I said.

  "Then what?" she asked.

  "I don't think Otto would want us to intervene," Sophie said. "He knew what he was up against when he let them take him into the library. I don't think it's gone outside the realm of things he was prepared to face."

  "All right," I said. "But I'm still going upstairs to see Edward. And no one is going to stop me."

  "How are you going to get past our guard?" Sophie asked.

  "Through there," I said, pointing at Coco's little secret door.

  "It's going to be tight," she said, swinging the door open to look inside. "And dusty."

  "Well, it's not like I was ever going to wear this dress again anyway," I said. But even so, I gathered the long skirt up around my waist and tied it up so I wouldn't trip on it while I was crawling.

  The crawl sp
ace smelled like old dust and mouse droppings, and it was bone-chillingly cold. By the time I reached the far door which opened out onto a shadowed corner of the back stairs landing my hands were numb, and I had an angry red scrape down the side of one knee from when I'd brushed up against a protruding nail.

  When Sophie and Brianna were out of the door we all three headed up the stairs to the third floor.

  The guards that had been distantly visible from the top of the main staircase were only a few feet away from us here. I quickly ducked back behind the corner, and we crept back down to the second-floor landing.

  "There's still two of them," I said.

  "Awake?" Sophie asked.

  "Very alert," I said. "They nearly saw me."

  "I can try being flirty," Sophie said. "It worked for Charlotte with Ricci."

  "These are older guys," I said. "Maybe not immune to your charms, but better trained at being professional when on the job. I don't think we're going to be able to talk our way past them or even distract them long enough for me to slip by."

  "I have a sleeping spell," Brianna said, and Sophie and I both started to perk up. But her face was glum. "It's not great, though. It comes out of my wand like sand and takes a moment to work. I'm not sure I can get close enough, or get it in their eyes, or not get nabbed before it has a chance to work."

  "Maybe we should find Coco," I said. "If Edward is in one of her brothers' rooms, there must be a passage that leads there as well."

  "Wait," Sophie said. "Let's go back to Brianna's plan."

  "No, getting Coco is a better plan," Brianna said. "Mine's bad. Not doable."

  "Maybe not for you alone," Sophie said. "But I think together we can make it work."

  "One of your breezes?" I guessed. She nodded. "Can you do one strong enough to carry sand?"

  "I guess we'll see," she said. "I'm going to the top of the stairs. Once I get moving, Brianna, you toss up that magic sand from your wand. Then we'll see."

  "And if it doesn't work, they'll see you," I said.

  "Then you two run for it and figure something out without me," Sophie said. "Ready?"

  Brianna took out her wand and gave it a little flick then nodded.

  Sophie slipped off her shoes and handed them to me before creeping back up the stairs. Then she began to dance. This was nothing like her dancing at the party earlier. I could feel the power flowing around her as she enticed the very air around her to dance with her in ever more powerful waves that I could almost see.

  There was a murmur of male voices, one of the guards speaking to the other one. Sophie kept on dancing, building momentum.

  "Miss? You're meant to be downstairs," one of them said, and I could hear his footsteps as he got up from this chair and came down the corridor towards Sophie.

  "Now," Sophie called to us.

  Brianna spoke a word and made a gesture with her wand like a fly fisher casting off. Golden grains showered out of the end of her wand, falling at once towards the floorboards.

  But Sophie's wind snatched most of them up, whirling around her body once then moving in a wavering line like a gymnast's dancing ribbon down the corridor.

  Sophie stopped dancing, her arms wrapping around her body as she came to a halt. She rose up on tiptoe, peering down the dark corridor. Then her face lit up.

  "It worked!" she said.

  "But for how long?" I asked as Brianna, and I joined her on the landing.

  "I've only ever seen it used on children," Brianna said. "I don't know how long it will last on a grown man, but I would think it would be something short of all night."

  "That's a little bit open-ended, don't you think?" I asked, handing Sophie her shoes.

  "I'll stay here as lookout," Sophie said. "In case anyone comes up the stairs."

  "I'll be lookout outside the bedroom door," Brianna said, and the two of us went down the corridor to where the two police officers were slumped on their chairs, snoring loudly.

  "I guess we'll know if they start to wake up," I said.

  "I can dose them again if they start to stir," Brianna said. "Take all the time you need."

  "Thanks," I said. I grasped the doorknob, but it wouldn't turn. "Locked."

  "Oh," Brianna said, looking down at the guards. "Maybe one of them has the key in his pocket."

  "No worries," I said, catching her arm before she could start pawing through their clothing. "Let them sleep. I have a workaround."

  She raised one eyebrow in question, then both when she saw the golden key I pulled from my beaded bag.

  "You brought that with?" Brianna asked. "To a party?"

  "So far it's been more useful than my wand," I said and slipped it inside the keyhole. It turned with a soft click, and the door was open.

  "Don't forget why we're here," she said as I put the key away.

  "To solve a murder," I said. "But also to comfort a friend."

  "One is more time-sensitive than the other," Brianna said.

  "Is it?" I asked. Then I slipped through the door, shutting it behind me before she could respond.

  Chapter 14

  I regretted closing the door when I found the room in total darkness, the only light from two windows set low to the floor under gables. They overlooked the back garden, but the lights around the patio were too far away to provide more than a dim glow, and the night sky was overcast.

  "Edward?" I whispered, brushing my hand over the wall beside the door in a futile search for a light switch.

  "Amanda?" He didn't sound like he believed it was really me. I tried to follow the sound of his voice but tripped over a chair that lurked in the darkness. "Is it you?" he asked.

  "Hold on," I said and pulled my traitorous wand out of my beaded bag. Making light was one of the few bits of magic we had mastered together, but we had failed at it just hours before. My only real hope was that it would work better when the need was real.

  I had never been a particularly good test taker, after all.

  I summoned power and directed it to flow into the wand, gritting my teeth against the nausea that rose up in my stomach. It still felt so wrong, so not a part of me.

  But we managed a glowing ball of light that drifted slowly out of the end of the wand to rest softly on the floor.

  "What is that?" Edward asked. I could see him now. I told myself that his features looked pale and thin because of the unfriendly light, but I didn't really manage to convince myself. He looked like someone who had been distraught for more than the course of an afternoon and evening.

  Then a rise of anger burned away the last lingering effects of nausea from working with my wand. They had cuffed him to the foot of the heavy iron bedstead. The door was locked, with two guards, and yet they had cuffed him in a way where he couldn't even scratch his own face if he needed to. He couldn't even sit upright. He was sort of lurched to one side. I could imagine how stiff he was, how much it was going to both hurt and yet be a relief when he could stand again.

  "This is lunacy," I said, dropping to my knees beside him and examining the lock on his cuffs. "Who had these manacles just in the house?"

  "How did you get in here? There are guards outside," Edward said.

  "I have ways," I said, taking the golden key back out of my bag. It looked too big to fit into the lock on the cuffs, but when I tried it, I found the very tip could slide in. Because of course it could. There was a click, and the manacles fell from his wrists to the floor.

  "How did you get the key?" he asked, sitting up straight and stretching his arms with a groan.

  "I have a key of my own,” I said, stuffing it and my wand back in my bag.

  He raised an eyebrow at the sight of my wand but said nothing.

  "Edward, I need to know what happened," I said. "Otto is in the library with the chief and the detectives. He's stalling the questioning, I'm certain of it. But they will be talking to you and Thomas when they are done with him. We don't have much time."

  "What happened?" he said as if he didn't un
derstand the question.

  "Edward, the police are trying to pin this on you," I said, leaning in to force him to focus on my eyes, to see I was deadly serious. "It had to be either you or Thomas, and Thomas' family are important. If nothing can be proved otherwise, you will be found guilty."

  "But Thomas didn't do it either," Edward said, then paused. "I don't think."

  "Coco thought there was…" but then I stopped myself. "Never mind. Tell me first what you saw. You were upstairs the entire time, weren't you? You're the one Thomas kept looking to?"

  "Yes," he admitted, dropping his eyes to examine the chaff marks from the manacles, barely visible in the yellowish light from my magic globe. "Where do you want me to start?"

  "Mr. McTavet gathered everyone to hear the announcement," I said.

  "Yes," he said and took a breath. "Mr. McTavet and I had been in his study just before. Talking. Mrs. McTavet came in and said it was time, and Mr. McTavet asked me to go up with him. I would rather just have left, frankly. But he's still one of my bosses at the bank, and none of what happened was his fault. Quite the opposite. So I went up. But I didn't want to go out on that balcony. I suppose it would have been gracious to do so, but I wasn't feeling particularly gracious."

  "Thomas was signaling you to join them?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said.

  "Why?"

  "To show there were no hard feelings, I suppose," he said.

  I desperately wanted to ask if there were hard feelings, but I had to stay focused on proving his innocence. Talking about feelings was sure to explode into a huge conversation we didn't have time for. Even if I really wanted to know.

  "But I just couldn't," Edward said with a shrug.

  "Coco and Charlotte were also there," I said.

  "Were they?" he asked, his gaze shifting up and to the right as he thought back. "Yes, they were there. But not near the balcony. Closer to the wall. They were well clear of the scuffle."

  "There was a scuffle," I said, my heart sinking.

  "To my everlasting regret," Edward said, not looking at me.

  "What happened?"

  "After Mr. McTavet sent everyone back into the ballroom, he turned to speak to his wife. I don't know what about. He wasn't pleased with the turn of events, but his wife was. I think he was annoyed with her about that. He wasn't inclined to celebrate as much as she wanted him too.