Utterly Charming

by Kristine Grayson

  “Because she didn’t know the whole story when she took the initial help. In fact, I was the one reading the spells off a piece of paper. Blackstone—um, Aethelstan—hadn’t even shown up yet because he didn’t know where I had hidden her. Then we met with him, and Emma learned what had happened and, well, she got mad.”

  “Of course she got mad.” Atropos waggled a finger at Blackstone. “We warned you about that.”

  “Too late,” he said. “You wouldn’t tell me how to undo the spell I’d cast.”

  “We did tell you,” Clotho said. “We told you to leave the girl untouched for ten years. Seems like you finally had a chance to do that.”

  “By hiding her from Ealhswith,” he said. “But Ealhswith has her now.”

  “So find her,” Lachesis said. “Leave us out of it.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “This is very serious.”

  “Yes, it is,” Atropos said. “You’ve let an unequipped girl with no knowledge of her world run around loose in a modern mortal city. That threatens all of us.”

  “No,” Nora said. “I did.”

  Blackstone frowned at her, as if to keep her quiet, but she ignored him.

  “I was the one who was supposed to be helping her. My mother”—Nora nodded toward her mother, who surprisingly took a small bow—“baby-sat her and did a good job, I think, even this morning, despite what happened. And Mr. Chawsir—”

  “Oh, no,” Clotho moaned. “Another one of those English writers.”

  “We’ll have to call the meeting short,” Lachesis said.

  “I hate to be portrayed as a crone,” Atropos said.

  “I’m not that Chaucer!” Jeffrey said, then shook his head as if he couldn’t believe the insanity he had walked into.

  “I can vouch for that,” Blackstone said. “The writer has been dead for centuries. This man is a mere professor.”

  “No one is a mere professor,” Amanda said, rising to her full height. “Mr. Blackstone, or whoever you are, you owe a great debt to Jeffrey. He’s the one who taught Emma things that no one else could, and she was happy to learn them. It gave her a sense of confidence to learn on her own.”

  “That’s not what we’re discussing,” Blackstone said. His back was rigid with stress.

  “Yes,” Clotho said. “What are we discussing?”

  “Emma!” Blackstone snapped. “We need to get her away from Ealhswith.”

  “So say you,” Lachesis said, “and frankly, Aethelstan, you haven’t been very trustworthy on this subject.”

  He let go of Nora and took a step forward. She moved with him. He glared at her, but she didn’t care. She was going to stay beside him. He needed a lot of help. These women were impossible.

  “You’ve taken years from Ealhswith,” he said. One of the women opened her mouth, but Blackstone held up his hand. “And rightly so. But she isn’t willing to go gently into that good night.”

  “What?” Atropos whispered.

  “He’s quoting another English writer,” Clotho whispered back.

  “Actually,” Jeffrey said, “he’s quoting a Welsh writer.”

  “As if there’s a difference,” Atropos said.

  “Don’t say that to the Welsh,” Jeffrey said.

  The three women glared at him. Blackstone ignored the exchange. “Ealhswith doesn’t like getting older,” Blackstone said, “and she’s not willing to die when her time comes. Her plan is to make a switch. She’ll put Emma in her own body and take Emma’s body as her own. Emma will die in her place.”

  “Ealhswith cannot do that,” Lachesis said to Blackstone. “We outlawed that spell five hundred years ago.”

  “Her plan predates that,” Blackstone said.

  “It doesn’t matter. She still can’t conduct the spell,” Atropos said.

  “Of course she can,” Blackstone said. “The question is whether or not you’ll catch her.”

  “You made this claim once before,” Clotho said. “It isn’t credible. Not with the squabble the two of you have been conducting over Emma.”

  “I was going to let Emma go after the first hundred years,” Blackstone said. “Then I discovered what Ealhswith was going to do—”

  “It seems to me you just assumed it,” Lachesis said. “You could offer no proof.”

  “—and since you wouldn’t do anything, I had to. I had to keep Emma away from her.”

  “You weren’t very successful at that,” Atropos said.

  “It would have been easier if I had had your help,” Blackstone said.

  “You really should let this go, Aethelstan,” Clotho said.

  “I can’t!” he said. “Ealhswith has Emma, and now there’s nothing to prevent her from carrying through with her plan.”

  “Except that Ealhswith isn’t dying,” Lachesis said. “She still has thousands of years ahead of her.”

  “She’s going to put Emma back in suspended animation. She thinks Emma is the perfect switch candidate, so she’ll make sure that she will have Emma.”

  “Do you have proof of this?” Atropos asked, pocketing her shears and crossing her arms. Her long flowing sleeves caught on her fingers, and she had to shake them loose.

  “Emma came out of her coma,” Blackstone said. “I’ve left her alone for the last month. Ealhswith and I were not squabbling over her.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Nora said. “Emma’s been with me, my mother, or Jeffrey the entire time.”

  “But Ealhswith still kidnapped Emma,” Blackstone said. “Why?”

  “Perhaps,” Clotho said, “Emma went willingly.”

  “I doubt that,” Nora said. “Emma is afraid of Ealhswith.”

  “This is all supposition,” Lachesis said. “We do not operate on supposition. We don’t even know if Ealhswith is the one who took her.”

  “Yes, we do,” Amanda said. “I saw it all. If Ealhswith’s the one with a streak of white through her hair and a fearsome demeanor, and the worst taste in clothing—”

  “Blathering!” Atropos said.

  “That is not blathering,” Blackstone said. “That’s testimony.”

  “Oh,” Clotho said. “If you had told us that the mortals were going to testify to pertinent events, we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”

  She waved a slender hand, and suddenly a scene appeared before them, thin and indistinct, like a movie projection made on a piece of glass. Nora recognized the scene. It was the same one that had played when Blackstone had swung his hand like that.

  It was from Amanda’s point of view, in the park. Up the concrete stairs was the hot dog vendor. Steam rose around his cart, and he looked too hot by half. Emma was standing before him, wearing another of Nora’s favorite sundresses. She clutched a twenty in her right hand. The hot dog vendor was talking to her, but this projection came without sound. Emma nodded, and then Ealhswith appeared beside her. Emma took a step back, but the vendor didn’t notice. He was making a dog. Emma exchanged words with Ealhswith, and then, as the vendor looked up and started to hand Emma her dog, she and Ealhswith vanished.

  Then Clotho ran her hand over Jeffrey, and suddenly the projection changed. They were inside a Chinese restaurant, decorated in pink, with ironwork done in Chinese characters on the wall. A woman was taking his order—

  Clotho waved her hand, and the scene disappeared.

  “That wasn’t relevant,” Lachesis said.

  “I don’t see why we have to go with these scruffy mortals’ versions of events anyway,” Atropos said. “Why can’t we speak to the one with the hot dogs? He would have a better perspective. He would have been able to hear—”

  “Do you want me to get him?” Blackstone said.

  “Of course not,” said Clotho. “There are too many mortals here as it is.”

  “We cannot tell from that memory if Emma went with Ealhswith by force,” Lachesis said.

  “Of course she did,” Nora said. Why couldn’t they understand? Were these women being deliberately obtuse? Was this w
hat Blackstone had faced from the beginning? “She hated Ealhswith.”

  “So you say, child,” said Atropos. “But according to your earlier testimony, she wanted nothing to do with Aethelstan either. For all we know, she could have decided that she was better off with Ealhswith.”

  “Ealhswith was her mentor, after all,” said Clotho. “Perhaps she is simply going to complete Emma’s magical training. The girl will need it.”

  “I doubt that,” Nora said.

  “Really?” Lachesis asked, the question a sincere one. How come they were giving Nora so much respect and were so rude to Amanda and Jeffrey?

  “I have proof that Ealhswith doesn’t want Emma to be her own person. Written proof,” Nora said.

  “Really?” all three woman asked at once.

  “The papers,” Blackstone breathed. He made it sound as if she had just saved his life.

  Nora nodded. “They’re on my desk.”

  “I’ll get them.” He vanished.

  Jeffrey turned to Nora. He looked owlish and not a bit frightened. “You could have told me.”

  “What? That I’d been hired by a wizard?” Nora said. “That you were teaching history to a witch?”

  “That everything Emma was telling me was true,” he said.

  “Emma spoke of our business to a mortal?” Atropos asked.

  “He seems to be a savvy mortal,” Clotho said.

  Then Blackstone reappeared. He looked a bit windblown, and his left cheek was bright red as if it had been bruised. He held the papers in his right hand.

  “I’m not sure I like the way people pop in and out,” Jeffrey muttered.

  Blackstone handed the papers to Nora. She perused them once, made sure they were the correct documents, and then reached them out to the Fates. The papers disappeared from her hands, and three copies appeared in the hands of the Fates.

  “Instant photocopying,” Amanda said. “How convenient.”

  “Those are,” Nora said, taking a step toward the Fates and ignoring Amanda, “committal papers. They claim that Emma is incompetent to handle her own affairs and must be placed into the custody of Ealhswith, who can then make all of Emma’s decisions for her.”

  “What is this ‘schizophrenic affective disorder’?” Atropos asked.

  “The disease Ealhswith claims Emma has.”

  “‘This disease often causes its victim to believe others are acting against her best interests, which is a belief in conflict with reality.’” Clotho was reading aloud. “‘Often this belief is caused by delusional thoughts generated by “voices” heard by the victim advising her of facts not based in reality.’ Is this another one of those English writer tricks?”

  “No,” Blackstone said. “It’s a legal trick. Mortals have a legal system that binds them just like ours binds us. Ealhswith has decided to play in that world to get custody of Emma.”

  “‘Delusional thoughts,’” Lachesis read. “Is this true? Has Emma lost her mind during her long sleep?”

  “Of course not,” Nora said. “But Ealhswith is claiming this so that she’ll be able to do anything she wants to Emma.”

  “Such a thing is possible within your legal system?” Atropos asked.

  “Within limits,” Nora said. “She can’t murder her for example.”

  “But isn’t that what you’re claiming she wants to do?” Clotho asked.

  Nora sighed. Nitpicky legalistic minds. She hated that. “Not in the same way. I mean, Ealhswith can’t take a knife to Emma’s throat. No mortal would be able to tell that the two of them switched bodies.”

  “Good point,” said Lachesis.

  “Nor would they be able to recognize a magically induced coma, which is where I think Ealhswith is going to take Emma, if she hasn’t already,” Blackstone said. “Last time I was an unwitting accomplice. This time, I will not be.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Atropos asked.

  “The best case is that I want you to find Emma and bring her back to Nora’s house, unharmed,” Blackstone said.

  “That’s action before the fact,” Clotho said. “We can only punish a crime or provide a window into another world. You know that, Aethelstan.”

  He smiled faintly. Nora wanted to put her arm around him again, to give him support. “I had to try,” he said.

  “So I repeat,” Lachesis said. “What do you want us to do?”

  “At least tell me where she is so that I can go get her,” Blackstone said.

  Clotho was frowning, and Lachesis looked thoughtful. But Atropos was shaking her head.

  “I’ve done everything required of us,” Blackstone said. “I’ve never broken our laws. I’ve worked for the betterment of those around me. I’ve even followed the prophecies as I’ve understood them. I haven’t done a thing wrong.”

  “Except that first spell,” Atropos said.

  “Not even that was wrong,” Blackstone said. “I was trying to save Emma’s life.”

  “You could have brought her to us,” Clotho said. “We would have saved her.”

  “I didn’t find out about you until after the spells,” Blackstone said.

  “Ignorance is no excuse,” Lachesis said.

  “It is when it makes a certain action impossible,” Blackstone said. “I did everything I could then.”

  “And stole a thousand years from a girl’s life,” said Atropos.

  “Not intentionally,” Blackstone said. “And it wouldn’t have been that long if you had but listened to me nine hundred years ago.”

  “You cannot blame us for your error,” Clotho said.

  “I’m not,” Blackstone said. “I’m taking full responsibility for my actions. But in doing so, in confronting you now, I’m taking more precious time from Emma. If Ealhswith spells her again, she’s trapped.”

  “For all you know, she may already be trapped,” Lachesis said.

  “Yes,” Blackstone said. “But I’ll try to prevent it until I know for certain.”

  “Why do you do this for Emma?” Atropos asked.

  “Because of the prophecy,” Blackstone said.

  “The prophecy—?” Clotho turned to her companions.

  “You know,” Nora said, unable to stand the way they were grilling Blackstone, and him without proper representation. She wasn’t sure she liked their customs at all. “The one that says she’s his true love?”

  The three women laughed. Lachesis lifted her arms above her head. “We must confer,” she said, and all three of them vanished.

  Jeffrey staggered a few feet forward until he reached the marble steps. Then he sat down. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Amanda sat beside him. “What an exhausting afternoon. I’ve seen it all and I still don’t believe it.”

  Blackstone ran a hand through his hair and turned away from them. He walked down the grass toward a fountain. The water spouted from an overturned urn in the hands of a boy wearing a small skirt around his waist. Around the fountain were more marble benches, in a circular pattern that looked deliberate. Everything was very formal here, molded. Nora hadn’t noticed its artificiality before now.

  She glanced at her mother and Jeffrey, then at Blackstone.

  “Do you think we will find Emma?” Amanda asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jeffrey said.

  “Oh, Jeffrey. This is very confusing to me.” She rested her head on Jeffrey’s shoulder. He put his arm around her.

  It looked like a perfect moment, and one Nora didn’t want to interrupt. She turned her back on them and walked to Blackstone.

  He was throwing coins into the fountain. She watched as a single penny spun in the air, then splashed into the water. It came to rest against other coins, most of which she didn’t recognize.

  “I’m sorry about losing Emma,” she said.

  “It’s my fault,” he said. “I should have been protecting her. I know how tricky Ealhswith can be.”

  “I asked you not to.”

  He shook his head. “
That doesn’t cut it, Nora. I know what Ealhswith’s capable of, and you don’t. Or maybe you didn’t. I suspect you do now.”

  “How long do we wait for the Fates?”

  “Until they make their decision,” he said. “They’re our best hope.”

  The red mark hadn’t left his cheek. As Nora looked at it, she realized it was in the shape of a hand. She reached up and touched his skin lightly. “What happened to you?”

  “Ruthie,” he said and smiled crookedly. “She was putting papers on your desk when I appeared. I guess I ended up too close.”

  Nora grinned. Ruthie hated it when she thought men were taking liberties. “I thought you could charm her.”

  “I promised you I wouldn’t.”

  She laid her own hand over the red mark. It was hot to the touch. “She really walloped you.”

  He shrugged. “I caught her by surprise.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to keep apologizing,” he said. “None of this is your fault.”

  “Yes, it is,” Nora said. “If I hadn’t played legal games—”

  “Who knows where we’d be right now. Emma could have run off on that first night and been vulnerable to half a dozen things I don’t want to contemplate.” He put his hand over Nora’s, then lowered them both. He ran his forefinger over her knuckles, his touch soft. “You should never apologize for doing what you think is right.”

  “That’s what you were doing to the Fates. Apologizing for saving Emma’s life.”

  “I harmed Emma in doing so,” he said. “I violated one of our first tenets. Do not act until you know the consequences.”

  “If you had waited, wouldn’t Emma have died?”

  He shook his head. “Not if I’m right. Not if Ealhswith wanted her body.”

  “But you couldn’t have known that then.”

  “No,” he said. “And that was the Fates’ argument early on. They felt that if Ealhswith wanted Emma’s body, she wouldn’t have done such a risky spell. But over the years, I’ve learned that Ealhswith does most things in a risky manner. And she does them after making an educated guess about the way others will react. She predicted I’d do that spell, and she predicted the results. In both areas, she was correct.”