“I told Kyla that you could read the spell book,” Leah added softly.
The words pulled Abigail around. She sat up and glared at Leah. “You had no right. I don’t—”
“It’s no shame or crime to be gifted with power,” Kyla said. “With training you—”
“It’s not a gift, it’s a curse,” Abigail shouted. “It’s evil. I want no part of it. Or of you. Get out! Get out now!” She hurled her pillow at Kyla.
Leah caught it and dropped it to the floor. “Abbie, you’re ill. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know perfectly well what I’m saying. I want her and that cursed book out of this house. Now!”
“Miss Dormer—Abbie—please. Listen.”
“I won’t listen. Your magic killed Ed. It destroyed my school. Get out!” She was on her feet, screaming, flailing at Kyla.
Leah grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back onto the bed. She fought Leah’s restraining hands. Tears spilled from her eyes. “Leave me alone,” she cried. “Take your magic and your visions and your evil and go away.”
“I’m sorry,” Leah was saying. “It’s the fever talking.”
“It’s not the fever,” Abigail retorted. “It’s good sense. I want no part of their evil. If you can’t see that, if you’re so enthralled with her magic, go with her.”
“Is that what you really want, Abbie?” Leah asked quietly.
Not answering, Abigail pretended to shut her eyes, but kept them slitted open enough to see Leah place her hand on Kyla’s arm and accompany her out of the room. She listened to their footfalls descending the stairs. She was actually leaving!
Good! Let her go. She’ll find out how wrong she is about them.
Kyla followed Leah into the kitchen. Leah turned toward her, eyes bright with unshed tears. “You do see that I can’t leave her right now, not when she’s like this.” Her voice was taut, pleading.
Kyla sank onto a chair; the heaviness in her heart wouldn’t let her stay on her feet. She had wanted to leave immediately to find Genevieve Wirth, hoping that it would be easier by night. But she needed Leah—to guide her, to introduce her to Genevieve, and to provide moral support.
Leah sat on another chair, facing her. “I’ve never seen her act this way,” she continued. “I’m afraid of what she might do if I go. But if you could wait until morning …”
Tiredly Kyla shook her head. “There’s too much at stake, Leah. I can’t let it go.”
“Frankly, you don’t look in any shape to go anywhere tonight. You’re exhausted, and I’ll bet you’ve had nothing to eat all day. Look, here’s the broth I was fixing for Abbie. Let me give you some of that, at least. If you’ll take the time, I’ll make you something more substantial.”
“I’m not sure I could eat anything.” Even as Kyla said it, she knew it wasn’t true. She felt weak from hunger and desperately tired.
Leah set a bowl of steaming broth on the table and Kyla picked up the spoon. “You’re so kind,” she said. “I understand about Abigail. But I do need your help, and she did send you away.”
With a sigh Leah said, “Yes, she did. Maybe she even meant it, but I doubt it. I don’t think she really knew what she was saying. Kyla, stay the night, eat, wash, and get some rest. Early in the morning we’ll head for Genevieve’s. I promise.”
The offer was tempting. Kyla actually considered it as she drank the broth. But, putting aside her spoon, she said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t wait. If you’ll draw me a map to Genevieve’s house, I—what’s that?”
Footsteps crossed the porch—several of them. Someone pounded on the door.
Searchers! Without a word, Leah grabbed Kyla’s bowl and spoon off the table and beckoned to her. She slipped through a door and onto steps that descended into darkness, drawing Kyla after her. “Cellar,” she whispered, easing the door shut behind them.
The pounding grew more insistent, stopped, and a loud crack was followed by footsteps clomping through the house. A man’s voice shouted, “Miss Dormer! Miss Wesson! Where are you?”
Abbie must have answered, though they could not hear her. Another voice called out, “The wonder worker—the one called Kyla—she been here?”
Kyla didn’t need to hear Abbie to know how she must have answered when the man’s next question was, “Where is she? Where did she go?” And after a pause, “Are you certain they’ve gone?”
So Abbie was betraying them. But she didn’t know they hadn’t left. And Leah’s foresight in bringing away the bowl and spoon hid the evidence of their later presence in the kitchen.
Quietly, slowly, in total darkness, they descended the stone stairs and huddled together in the cold and dampness breathing in stale air and willing the men to leave without a search.
It seemed to Kyla that most of the night must have passed before they finally dared to leave their hiding place and sneak back to the kitchen. The house was silent and dark. The men were gone.
Gone, too, was Kyla’s hope of reaching Genevieve Wirth that night. With searchers on the prowl, she had too little chance of avoiding capture.
“Tomorrow,” Leah said. “I know shortcuts. Tomorrow we’ll go.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TRIALS AND DECISIONS
After lying awake in the filthy cell most of the night and finally dozing off shortly before dawn, Marta was not pleased to be awakened by the clanking of her cell door. She supposed they were bringing her whatever passed for breakfast in this foul place, so she didn’t bother to sit up or even to open her eyes.
Rough hands grabbed her and jerked her to her feet. The snap of shackles on her ankles jolted her fully awake. “Time for your trial,” one guard said with a smirk as he bound her hands tightly behind her back.
She opened her mouth to make a sharp retort and a thick cloth was thrust between her teeth. Its oily taste gagged her. She tried to spit it out, but a guard bound another cloth tightly over her mouth. Thus silenced, she was led from the cell. The heavy chains that linked her ankles made her stumble and fall against one or another of the peacekeepers. Each time, they shoved her roughly forward, laughing at her clumsiness.
It seemed an interminable distance, but it was only to the next building that she was forced along in this way. There they dragged her into a large room and made her stand in front of black-robed men seated in heavy wooden chairs. No women were present, and no men younger than middle age. She recognized Council Master Hardwick, seated in the central position; the others were all strangers. Jerome, she noted, was not present. His absence offered the single reason for cheer in this whole dismal situation. It strengthened her belief that whatever had caused Ed to disappear had not only not been fatal but it had also carried Jerome away. That could mean that he was still a danger to Ed, but she hoped it meant that Ed had prevailed over him. She chose to take that view. It represented her sole consolation.
Chained and gagged, with guards positioned on either side and behind her, she was helpless to do anything but glare at Hardwick.
He rose to his feet, cleared his throat, and announced, “The Carey City Council is in session. Gentlemen, we are gathered here today to hear charges against this woman and to guard our fair city against the machinations of charlatans who claim magical powers and blaspheme our gods.”
Several of the men nodded solemnly and cast harsh glances at her. Others regarded her with more curiosity than hostility. No doubt they were hoping to see some display of magic. Trussed up as she was, with the gag biting into her mouth, and having been given no opportunity to relieve herself before being dragged from her cell, she was too miserably uncomfortable to produce even the most minor display of power. The concentration required was beyond her. Anyway, anything that she might do to impress the one group would only convince the other of the truth of Hardwick’s accusations.
“Do you have evidence to support your charges, Council Master?” The question came from a member of the curious group.
“I have witnesses, Councilor Slamm,�
� Hardwick responded. “Witnesses who will testify that this woman and her accomplice freed Simple Eddie from the guardhouse after he had been arrested on charges of assaulting the Farley girls and others at the Dormer School and then trying to break into a woman’s apartment.” He paused and cleared his throat. “They have him hidden away somewhere, and we have not been able to discover his whereabouts. I myself can testify to the fact that they corrupted my secretary, Jerome Esterville, a young man I had always considered above reproach. Somehow, they induced him to aid their escape after I first took them into custody. Not only that, but while we were searching for them and for Simple Eddie, Jerome had them concealed in his home, where they performed the astounding feat of corrupting his mother, whose devotion to our gods is well known. Not only did she shelter them, but she was heard to swear fealty to the false god they call their ‘Power-Giver.’”
“Well, if we’ve got to listen to a whole parade of witnesses, cut the preliminaries and bring ’em on,” interrupted a man so old and bent that he seemed to have difficulty sitting upright.
Hardwick fixed him with a withering stare. “If you will allow me to finish reading the charges, Councilor Mattox, I assure you the remainder of the hearing will be conducted with all due dispatch.”
The old man mumbled something that could have been either assent or further complaint. Hardwick continued. “Witnesses will further testify that these two evil women drove Abigail Dormer to irrational behavior that left her seriously ill. Finally, and most seriously, they made wild threats against my daughter Genevieve’s life, so that I have been forced to place a guard on her home and her newly established school to assure the safety of her and her students.”
The last charge was apparently a surprise to the councilors. They murmured among themselves as Hardwick triumphantly took his seat. A man in street clothes rather than the robes of the councilors stood, consulted a paper, and said, “I call as first witness Peace Officer Ben Muller.”
Marta listened with growing rage as the peacekeeper spun a fantastic tale of mysterious signs traced in the dust on the floor of the cell from which they’d escaped, along with burn marks and a sulfurous smoke, all of which could be nothing other than signs that the women had invoked the presence of a Dire Lord and used that evil Power to escape.
A Dire Lord! These bumbling fools knew nothing of Dire Lords. Marta wished Claid had come to rescue her, or would come now. What a pleasure it would be to see the terror on these men’s faces if an actual Dire Lord appeared in front of them.
But Claid had bid this world goodbye forever; he would never return to the world where he’d been held captive for so many years. She had no hope of rescue from that quarter.
Nor, it seemed, from any other. The witnesses embellished, distorted, and lied about what she and Kyla had said and done, each one trying to top the account of the one preceding. Not a word was she allowed to speak in her own defense, and no one spoke for her.
The outcome of the hearing was never in doubt. When the witnesses finished spinning their tales, the council’s vote of “Guilty” was unanimous.
After only a brief deliberation, the council pronounced sentence: death by hanging. Leering at Marta, Hardwick set the time of execution as half an hour before sunset, when Dor dipped below the horizon, that being, he explained, the earliest that the gallows could be made ready. There would still be plenty of daylight at that time this early in the fall.
It was early afternoon when the hearing concluded and Marta was escorted back to her cell. She had almost four hours before her date with the gallows.
Six armed guards, peacekeepers all, were stationed outside her cell to prevent any attempt at escape. Her feet remained shackled, but they untied her arms and removed the gag.
At last! If I can do nothing else, I can at least curse them loudly and thoroughly before I die.
Following the trial, Hardwick took up his post in front of Genevieve’s house at a spot that allowed him to see through the window of the downstairs room she’d converted into a classroom. Housing the new school in her home was only temporary, of course. It was already crowded, with the large formal dining room converted into Genevieve’s classroom and Urcelle Brexner using the second floor room that had been meant for a nursery to teach the older students. He wanted to find a suitable building for his daughter’s school. She hadn’t asked for his help, but she needed it and would not refuse it. He owned a bit of rental property downtown that could possibly be converted for use as a school, but the location was not the best.
Abigail Dormer’s building would be the ideal location. Abigail couldn’t possibly keep her school going; she’d be forced to sell. She might not want to sell to him, but since it was for Genevieve, who had been a student at the Dormer School, she might consider it.
If she proved stubborn, there were ways of convincing her. She’d involved herself in this whole rotten mess with Simple Eddie and the wonder workers. The threat of legal action should persuade her, but if it didn’t, then, by the gods, he’d do more than threaten. He could induce the council to levy a fine greater than she could possibly pay, and then seize the school in payment. One way or another, he’d have that building for Genevieve. Nothing was too good for his little girl.
He watched her through the open window as she stood in front of the class. The sound of her voice floated out to him. He wasn’t near enough to catch all the words, but he could hear enough to know that she was conducting a grammar lesson. Her voice rose, posing a question, and, dimly, he heard a childish voice piping a response.
The voices ceased. Girls bent over their desks, writing diligently on pads of wide-lined paper. He watched Genevieve wander from student to student, gazing at the written effort, pausing now and then and bending close to murmur something—a word of advice or caution or encouragement—to one child or another. It was a pleasant scene to gaze on, quiet, peaceful, and orderly. He could see the little redheaded Crowell girl working calmly along with the others. How preposterous to think that she could present a threat to Genevieve.
Hardwick suspected that the wonder workers had concocted the wild tale to divert attention from their own misdeeds and cast themselves in the role of protectors. He considered it strange that Abigail Dormer had been taken in, though Abigail had hardly been behaving rationally these past few days. In fact, she had long been irrational in the matter of Simple Eddie. He considered whether the wonder workers might have taken advantage of her foolish attachment to Eddie to cast some kind of spell on her.
That they could work spells he did not doubt. Their escapes showed that they had some sort of power. And their ensorcellment of Jerome. He did not question that they had used magical power to suborn his secretary, convincing him to betray his employer and become an accessory to their criminal acts.
They were dangerous, that was clear, though had they been willing to impart the secret of their power, he might have been inclined toward leniency. There would be no leniency now. In only a couple of hours he would have the pleasure of seeing the dark-haired one, Marta, step off the gallows to her death.
It galled him that the other one had not been apprehended. She might well show up here to cause trouble for Genevieve. If she does, he thought as he caressed his pistol, I will have the pleasure of ending her freedom and her life with one well-aimed shot.
All morning Marta’s stomach had rebelled against the foul taste of the gag. The taste remained after the gag was removed, and that plus the stench of the cell were more than she could stand. Marta embarrassed herself by becoming thoroughly and disgustingly ill, vomiting and wetting herself at the same time. Her plight brought howls of laughter from the guards, who watched through the barred door but made no move to aid her.
She dragged herself to the bunk and collapsed onto it, too miserable even to pull the threadbare blanket up around her.
“Where’s your magic, wonder worker?” one peacekeeper jeered.
“You better use your power to make that mess disappear,” a
nother taunted.
Marta turned her face to the wall so they wouldn’t see the tears that coursed down her cheeks—tears of weakness and frustration and hopelessness. She needed to rest and regain her strength if she was to recover any power at all with which to defend herself. But the guards kept up their gibes, and she could not shut out the sound.
“Phew! Anybody got any nose plugs?”
“If that’s the smell of magic, it’s no wonder she didn’t attract any converts except Simple Eddie.”
“Make her clean up after herself.”
“How? We’d have to beat her, and with the orders we got not to go into the cell we can’t do that.”
“Hey, we could put the old lady in there. She likes to clean.”
“Yeah, and we could get in big trouble with Hardwick,” one objected nervously.
“How’s he gonna know? We’ll let her scrub the cell down, then we’ll move her out before anybody’s the wiser.”
“I don’t wanna take the chance,” the nervous one said.
“You wanna have to smell that puke all afternoon?”
“So when does it ever smell like roses around here?”
Loud laughter followed the question. Then an insistent voice: “I don’t care. I’m not as used to it as the rest of you. I vote for putting the old lady to work.”
“Weeellll, guess it would be okay for just the time it takes to clean up the mess. No longer.”
Marta didn’t move. She couldn’t bear the thought of someone else seeing her like this, but what could she do? Only pretend to be asleep and hope that the intrusion would be brief.
She heard the clang of a cell door, heard her own cell door open and almost immediately slam shut again. She kept her eyes closed and her face to the wall.
A hand touched her shoulder. “Oh, my poor dear Marta, what have those beasts done to you?”
It was Mother Esterville. Of course. Who else could they have been talking about? But she hadn’t known Mother Esterville had been recaptured. If Kyla was also here, maybe there was a chance that they could pool their power and do something—
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