by Katie Penryn
“Oh, goodness,” she said sitting up with a jerk. “Thank heavens, you’re home. I stayed up in case you wanted to talk things through with me. I’ve explained the situation to Jimbo who as you can imagine is upset. I’m afraid I ended up giving him a mild toddy. I hope that was all right?” she asked me in her usual placatory manner.
“It won’t do him any harm,” I answered. “Sleep is important for all of us at the moment. I’m not going to quote Shakespeare at you at this time of the morning, but we all know we can’t function without sleep. I may even take a pill tonight. Something I never do. The thought of poor little Nina in the power of a kidnapper is the stuff of never-ending nightmares. I can’t begin to imagine what Jean-Claude is going through. This villain has already shown his colors. He’s not a man to be trifled with.”
Gwinny got up to fill the kettle to make us all a hot toddy. She asked me how things had gone down at the château. We filled her in on the back story to Jean-Claude’s predicament and told her what the prosecutor had set in motion.
She nodded and said, “I saw the item on the late news. I’ve been wracking my brains trying to think of something I could do to help.”
Gwinny had a soft heart. Yes, she’d left us when we were children to follow her own particular dream, but I had no idea what it was like to live with my father as an absentee husband, nor how he treated her when she was home.
“Gwinny,” I said, “they’ve got the police force from three departments lined up to work on the case tomorrow morning. The French Alerte-Enlèvement system has an excellent record. Perhaps this is one time when we have to leave it to the police to do their job.”
Felix snorted. “I’ll believe that when I see it. I bet you wake up tomorrow morning with a Book of Spells full of ideas.”
“That’s it,” said Gwinny, slamming the kettle down on its cradle and switching it on. “I knew there was something hovering in the back of my mind.”
Felix and I looked at her. It had to be something to do with witchcraft because that was the only subject on which Gwinny was confident enough to challenge me.
“Think. Think, Penzi,” she went on. “What did we do last time we wanted to trace someone who was missing?”
Felix blinked a couple of times and took a step backwards. He hadn’t a clue what Gwinny was talking about, but I had–Emmanuelle. She was the mayor’s daughter and my brother Sam’s copine as they say in France, his chum.
“Felix, you weren’t here when Gwinny and I performed the magic of scrying. You were off with Sam looking for Emmanuelle.”
“So, what did you do? And what is scrying?” Felix asked.
“I’m not going to explain it at this time of night. You can come with us,” I said. “By the way, Gwinny, is Sam home tonight?”
She nodded.
“Good, then we can leave Jimbo in Sam’s care and the three of us can perform the scrying. I guess we should do it on the beach again with salt water?” I asked Gwinny.
“Yes,” she said taking down the large glass bowl we’d used the time before. “But there’s not much of a moon tonight. We’ll have to hope it’s enough.”
“How about if I bring a mirror to double the moonlight?” I asked.
“I haven’t heard of anyone doing that before, but there’s no reason why that shouldn’t help,” she said. “Take the one from the hall cloakroom.”
Felix wrote a quick note to leave on the table telling Sam and Jimbo where we’d gone and took the mirror down off the wall in the hallway, meeting Gwinny and me as we were taking our coats down off the rack.
Zag came out into the hall. “Where are you going at this time of night?” he asked. He noticed the bowl. “Oh, you’re doing your magic business on the beach. Do you need me to come with you for protection, Penzi, like last time?”
I patted his head and gave him a push back into the kitchen. “Not this time. I’d rather you were here in the house guarding Sam and Jimbo. Gwinny and I have Felix with us this time.”
“Grrrr!” said Felix shooting out his leopard’s claws to underline my reassurance.
“All right. All right,” said Zag turning tail and going back into the kitchen. “There’s no need to show off.”
*
We hurried over the cobbles down to the Esplanade, Felix taking care not to drop the mirror, and Gwinny and I holding on to each other for support. Gwinny carried the bowl because I was on my last drop of adrenaline by that time. I did wonder if I’d have enough mental force to aid Gwinny with the scrying. Magic is so exhausting, but everything in life that’s worth doing comes at a cost.
This time it was high tide when we stepped onto the beach from the long flight of steps that runs down from the Esplanade. None of us had thought to check on the tides, but it was clear that the tide was still coming in. We found a space above the high water mark and knelt down. Gwinny dug a hole in the dry sand in which to wedge the bowl while I filled it with seawater and brought it back up the beach to the cradle Gwinny had made. We patted the sand up around the sides to darken the background.
“Now what do we do?” asked Felix.
“Shush,” said Gwinny. “Penzi and I have to concentrate to get the magic to work.”
I took several deep breaths to flood my brain with oxygen, hoping the slow deep breaths wouldn’t send me off to sleep. What a good thing Gwinny hadn’t got round to making the hot toddies. A feeling of euphoric relaxation spread through my limbs as I remembered how well this had worked last time we’d done it. In a few minutes, all would be revealed, and we’d know where Nina was being held. I wasn’t worried about how we’d explain our sudden knowledge to Dubois and Madame Fer-de-Lance. I wanted and expected a positive result.
When Gwinny and I were ready to consult the scrying bowl, Felix held the mirror to bounce a second beam of the weak moonlight into the bowl. I stirred the surface of the water with my fingers and closed my eyes to picture Nina as I’d last seen her playing with her brother and Jimbo. A shiver ran through me. I took it as a good sign and opened my eyes to find out what the bowl would tell me.
I was met with a concavity of dense black. Even the moonbeams didn’t light up the depths. Not a glimmer of an image disturbed its surface. I looked across at Gwinny. She inhaled sharply.
“This isn’t good, Penzi. Not a thing.”
“We didn’t get the right picture straight off last time, remember?”
“True, but we did get the motor bike. That was something. This time there’s absolutely nothing.”
Felix coughed, and the mirror jerked. “Ladies, sorry to seem obvious, but couldn’t you try it again. Maybe you need to give it more wellie. A bit more mental oomph.”
Sometimes Felix can be so exasperating. He has no idea how much energy it takes to work magic.
He smiled. “You’re thinking I underestimate how much it takes out of you to do your magic stuff, but you’re wrong. Every time I shift, it saps me of my life force and it takes me ages to build up my strength again. So, come on ladies, give it your best.”
I pushed myself up from the sand and walked down to the waves which were on the turn. I wrenched off my shoes and threw them back up the beach towards Felix and Gwinny.
“I’m going to paddle for a few moments to relax my body and my mind,” I said and stepped into the sea.
The gentle massage of the wavelets as they ran up and down my ankles sent a surge of energy through my spirit. I smiled back at Gwinny and Felix.
“Come along, join in. It’s boosting my morale. It never hurts to get in touch with the power of the sea if you need it to help you.”
The three of us paddled up and down the beach until the mighty Atlantic Ocean had refreshed us. We made our way back to the scrying bowl scuffing up the dry sand on the way, touching base with nature.
Once again, we knelt down and Felix positioned the mirror.
“Perhaps, we should hold hands to increase our impact,” Gwinny said to me.
I took hold of hers and together we ripple
d the surface of the water in the bowl. Gwinny squeezed my hands as we both closed our eyes and concentrated.
Two minutes later she whispered, “Open.”
The bowl was still an opaque black. Nothing to be seen. Not the faintest outline of anything. A sharp pang shot through my belly as realization hit home.
“Gwinny, tell me. This is powerful magic, isn’t it? We should be able to see something? Link up with Nina’s essence in some way?”
She nodded and gripped my hands even more tightly.
Another pang lanced across my belly. “Gwinny, if there’s no image of Nina, she must be d—”
“Don’t even say the word,” she hurled back at me. She pulled her hands out of mine and sat back on her heels. “Let me think.”
Felix laid the mirror on the sand. “This isn’t what happened last time, then?” he asked.
“Absolutely not. Last time we got a clear picture of the hotel where Emmanuelle had been taken by Jonny Sauvage.”
“There’s another possibility,” Felix said. “What if there are limits to how far the magic can travel?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if some materials don’t allow the magic to pass through them, such as lead or a Faraday cage?”
I was never any good at physics, but even I could understand what Felix was getting at.
Gwinny knelt back up. “This is something I don’t know the answer to. How about something underground? Especially if it’s deep?”
“If that’s so, we haven’t learned anything here, have we?” I said in despair.
“Wrong,” said Felix. “If we ignore the worst scenario–that Nina is already d—”
Gwinny clapped her hand across Felix’s mouth. “Sorry,” he muttered through her fingers.
She took her hand away.
Felix continued, “That scenario aside, we can guess that Nina is being held in some sort of cage or dungeon, probably underground. That gives us something to go on.”
I didn’t want to give up and insisted we make a third try but as with the first two, the bowl gave us nothing. The three of us returned home dispirited. Magic wasn’t going to give us a quick solution to the disappearance of Nina de Portemorency. It looked as if we would have to leave it to good old police work.
Chapter 27
Jimbo woke me up early Sunday morning by jumping on my bed accompanied by Zig and Zag.
“Penzi, Penzi,” he called out at me as he pulled my duvet down letting in a blast of cold air. “Nina’s on television. Quick, come and see.”
I slid out of bed, put on my dressing gown and made my shaky way downstairs after him. Lack of sleep always hits me that way. I’m an eight-hour a night girl. A bare three hours after the disturbing events of the night and early morning had not replenished my vital functions.
Gwinny looked up from the television as I entered the kitchen. She’d been watching a twenty-four-hour news service. I pulled out a chair and sat waiting for it to churn round to the report on Nina again.
Gwinny got up to make me a cup of tea. “I keep thinking how I’d feel if it was Jimbo. It’s horrific.”
“Careful,” I said nodding my head towards Jimbo.
Jimbo pulled a chair up close to mine and laid his head on my shoulder. “Penzi, I’m so scared for Nina. What if that man is one of those people who does unkind things to children?”
I ruffled his hair, making him sit up in disgust. “Leave off,” he said. “Penzi?”
“It’s true. Nina’s in danger, but we know that the man who took her didn’t take her for that reason, Jimbo. Her kidnapping’s got to do with money. The man’s motive is greed. That’s not to downplay how serious the situation is.”
Felix came in at that moment. “Oh good. You’re explaining things to Gwinny and Jimbo.”
Gwinny poured him a cup of coffee and handed it to him as he sat down. “Penzi,” she said, “that’s something of a relief, isn’t it? Money is the easiest thing to sort out.”
“The man is demanding a million Euros, Gwinny. Jean-Claude simply doesn’t have it. The château is already mortgaged to the hilt. Unless some unknown philanthropist steps in and offers him the money, he’s stumped. And, anyway, we couldn’t be certain the man would give Nina back even then. This is all part of an elaborate scare campaign that has already cost Hélène her life.”
That’s when the idea hit me. I clinked my cup down in its saucer. “Felix, come into the hall with me for a moment. There’s something I want to say to you in private.”
Gwinny looked quickly from Felix to me and back. It was unusual for me to be as untactful as that. Felix picked up on my urgency, pushed back his chair and followed me out into the hallway.
As soon as the kitchen door closed, I said, “I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. We could pay the million Euros ransom, couldn’t we? At five hundred thousand each, we’d still have plenty left over from the reward we were given after our last case.”
Felix lent back against the wall and searched my face while he considered my idea. It was a good idea, but would Felix find it so. The tension built in me as I waited for his verdict. It was all so simple: pay the money, get Nina back.
He pushed himself off from the wall and took my hands in his. “Penzi, your generosity does you credit. Yes, we could afford it, but there are some serious but’s.”
Oh no, Felix’s business head was going to squash my idea flat.
He went on, “We could certainly offer the money, boss, but should we? We can’t go around throwing money at every problem we encounter.”
“Why can’t we? It was a windfall after all. We’ll have enough left to see our family safe for ever.”
“Penzi, kind heart, there’s no guarantee the kidnapper would give us Nina back, you know that. He may escalate his demands. When would we stop paying? And we could never be sure he’d return Nina alive. We’re dealing with a right heavy villain here.”
I snatched my hands away. “Well, if you’re not prepared to go along with my idea, I’ll give Jean-Claude the whole million Euros on my own,” I said marching into the kitchen and slamming the door in Felix’s face.
I collapsed into my chair and burst into tears. Me, tough Mpenzi Munro, who never cries. But my imagination was conjuring up the most terrible images of little Nina held against her will, her clothes torn, her eyes red with weeping and her blond curls all a-tangle. Wait! Hold that image. I stopped crying and closed my eyes, concentrating on the background. This was a different kind of magic. Was the power of good in the world granting me a telepathic glimpse of her surroundings? Anything was possible. No one knows the limits of magic and of benevolence.
Nina crouched huddled up against a rough hewn wall. No, not a wall. Rock? Beneath her the ground was uneven. I’d instinctively thought ground and not floor. She was in a cave?
I resurfaced from my vision of Nina to find Felix had re-entered the kitchen and was standing beside me, an arm around my shoulders. I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my dressing gown. “She’s in a cave. Nina’s in a cave. I saw her in a vision. Is that possible, Gwinny?” I asked turning to my mother for her greater experience with all things to do with witches and magic.
“Of course. Anything’s possible, but it was probably more to do with the power of good than with magic because you didn’t summon the vision. We have a limited understanding of all that goes on in our world and others.”
Felix gave me a squeeze. “Come on, eat some breakfast. We must get out to the château as soon as possible and tell the police what you’ve seen.”
Jimbo jumped into the conversation asking if he could go with us to spend time with his friend, Nina’s brother. “He must be missing her. Twins are very close, you know.”
I nodded. Yes, I did know, and Jimbo had saved me from pouring cold water on Felix’s belief that the police would listen to my story of visions. However, I’d been wrong about Dubois before. Maybe he would give credence to the idea of telepathy. I’d have to wait and find o
ut.
Jimbo dashed out to fetch our morning croissants from Monsieur Brioche’s bakery. I drank a second cup of tea, with sugar this time and had a bowl of muesli. I loved croissants but decided to avoid one. My stomach was tied up in knots and all that butter wouldn’t sit lightly. The sugar had made up for my lack of sleep, giving me the energy to take the stairs two at a time up to my bedroom and get dressed. We wanted to be off as fast as possible. The sooner we told the police about where Nina could be the better.
*
Along the way we met with police roadblocks at every major junction and every roundabout. They waved us on past the queues of white vans held at the side of the road for further investigation. Blue uniforms abounded, each gendarme with his side arm at the ready. A strange sight for an English woman because our police are not armed in the normal course of business. It was something I’d have to get used to over time if we stayed in France.
“I’m impressed,” said Felix. “Dubois wasted no time setting up the search for the kidnapper’s white van.”
“Necessary but unfortunate,” I replied. “The kidnapper can’t fail to know Jean-Claude has informed the police, can he?”
“If the police move fast enough, they may find Nina before the kidnapper harms her.”
“I’m not going to let him have the chance. I’m making the offer of the million Euros as soon as we arrive at the château. I’m doing it alone.”
“Boss… no. Don’t do it.”
Jimbo stuck his head between our two front seats. “Felix, you have to let her. If we can save Nina, we must. I don’t mind not being rich.”
Felix chuckled and turned round to ruffle Jimbo’s copper hair. Jimbo batted his hand away. “You know I hate that, Felix. But, seriously, you won’t stop Penzi giving Nina’s dad the money to get her back, will you?”
I took my eyes off the road for a moment and asked Felix, “You wouldn’t?”
Felix laughed outright at that. “How could I stop you even if I wanted? And, anyway, I’ve been thinking it over. If you’re so determined to play the white knight or should I say white lady, I’ll go halves with you. How’s that?”