Bait and Witch

by Angela M. Sanders

  Of course I could run a laptop projector. I shook my head. “Sorry I can’t help.”

  I joined the crowd gaping at the model of the proposed retreat center. A miniature Wilfred was laid out on a card table with the Kirby River flowing through it in blue ink. Darla’s tavern parking lot even had tiny cars parked at its door, although they were sedans rather than the real-life pickup trucks. Across the river, the Magnolia Rolling Estates’ trailers settled in orderly rows dotted with oaks.

  I raised my hand to touch the vaguely Native American lines of the retreat center. No library. Just a long, peak-roofed building with a picnic area overlooking the town. Lyndon’s cottage was a parking lot. Big House hugged the property’s edge looking more than ready to become guest lodging. The retreat center was nicely done, I had to admit. If it didn’t mean the demolition of Wilfred’s heart, I might have even liked it.

  “Don’t touch that.” Ilona had come up behind me. “Please. We don’t need your fingerprints on it. The investors haven’t even seen it yet.”

  I backed up a few steps, and fingers grasped the backs of my elbows. I spun to find Sam. He dropped his hands instantly.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was just coming over to see the model.”

  I looked away. “If the retreat center goes in, you sure benefit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The sincerity in his voice surprised me. He seemed to have relaxed over the past few days and looked more like the rest of Wilfred in worn jeans and a chambray shirt rolled up to his elbows. His expression still held the watchfulness I’d noticed before, and his mouth wore a faint smile, the smile he gave when unhappy. Trouble.

  “Look how close your house is.” I smoothed an errant curl as I spoke. “Turn it into a bed-and-breakfast, and you stand to make a bundle of money.”

  “I guess I could. If I stayed in Wilfred.”

  “You still have the house.”

  “He owns a lot of land in town, don’t you, Sam?” Ilona slipped a hand under Sam’s arm. Her lips shone frosted beige, a color whose name almost certainly contained the word “champagne.” “The program starts in a minute. Don’t miss it.”

  A crashing thump behind us drew our attention. A fat compendium of James M. Cain’s crime novels had landed on the retreat model, flattening the miniature trees in the parking lot. Rodney’s tail disappeared from the second-floor hall.

  “Damn it!” Ilona yelled. “It’s that cat.”

  Hiding my smile, I threaded my way toward the entrance of the house’s old drawing room, where Roz stood, arms crossed over her chest.

  “Darla’s mad Ilona took over the meeting. She says the trustees will have to hold a proper meeting next week, and this time no showboating.”

  The library was now shoulder-to-shoulder with people. Some I recognized as library patrons—I waved at the man with the vegetable plot and wondered if the blonde with the toddler had started dog training lessons yet—but most everyone here tonight was a stranger.

  Lalena, her hair wrapped in a blue silk scarf, made her way through the crowd. “I’ve been getting ridiculous amounts of business from people asking about the retreat center. Some want to hear that the center is a sure thing, while others are desperate to save the library.”

  “What do you tell them?” We stood close to hear each other.

  “It will all work out. Eventually.” She shrugged. “What else am I going to say?”

  The squeal of a speaker interrupted our conversation. Ilona stood near the Kirby Center model holding a microphone. Her earrings swung as she turned her head to take in the room. With her was a couple, a bearded man and a tall, elegant woman with almond-shaped eyes and a diamond nose stud. The buyers. Stock photos of laughing picnickers and women in yoga poses flicked on the screen behind her.

  “May I have your attention?” Ilona tapped the microphone. “Welcome to the unveiling reception for Wilfred’s retreat center.”

  The air itself seemed to tighten, although I wasn’t sure anyone else felt it. I couldn’t help glancing at Marilyn Wilfred’s portrait. Was it my imagination, or did her lips just turn down?

  Ilona fidgeted with the volume on the amplifier. “This is a joyous evening.”

  Darla muscled her way next to Ilona, and Ilona let the mike drop to her side. “What is all this?” Darla asked. “I thought we were having a trustees’ meeting. Not a circus show.”

  “The town deserves to know what the retreat center is about. I didn’t force anyone to come. They came because they wanted to.”

  “And because of the flyers you’ve been handing out. What’s that about?” Darla said.

  “Make it look good for the buyers,” Roz whispered into my ear.

  Ilona stepped away from Darla and lifted the microphone. “Dear fellow Wilfredians, I’d like you to meet Sita and Ruff Waters. The library’s buyers and the founders of Wilfred’s new Kirby River Retreat Center.”

  Clapping came from the crowd, some raucous and some unsure. Other people simply clutched their canapés and watched.

  “What about the suit against the trustees?” Mrs. Garlington said. I couldn’t see her, but her wavering voice was impossible to miss. I hoped she wouldn’t choose the next hour for organ practice.

  Ilona shot me a stiletto glance. “I have it on good authority that the judge will be ruling on our petition tomorrow morning.” She smiled. “I’m confident he will find in favor of the town’s future.”

  I had no idea where Ilona’s confidence came from, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have bribed a few clerks in the judge’s chambers.

  Sita Waters stepped forward to take the microphone. Her dress—a half-Mexican, half-Indian affair with drippy embroidered sleeves—fluttered around her, releasing a hint of patchouli.

  “It’s so nice to meet you all.” She spoke in firm, deep tones. “I’m Sita Waters. This is my husband, Ruff. His birth name is Raphael. Rafe. When we married, he took my last name, and, well”—she laughed and Ruff stroked his beard—“Ruff Waters it was.”

  “We’ve been wanting to establish a retreat center for decades,” Ruff said. His wife grabbed one of his hands and clutched it in hers.

  “We can’t wait to share it with you. We’ll have yoga retreats, vegan cooking weeks, meditation camps—all sorts of wonderful things. I hope you’ll all visit.”

  I wondered how the Waters couple had ended up with Ilona as a real estate agent. I imagined Ilona wearing little Buddhas as earrings and feigning an interest in wild-crafted incense. Their business arrangement must have had more to do with Ilona’s relentlessness than a soul-mate connection.

  “We’ll break ground as soon as the land is ours,” Sita Waters said.

  “In four weeks,” Ilona finished. Her face was flushed. She produced a sheaf of papers and gold pen from seemingly nowhere and set them next to the retreat center replica.

  “What’s that?” Roz said in a low voice.

  I stepped closer for a peek. “Some kind of legal document.”

  “No,” I heard a children’s book murmur in boyish tones. “No, no.” Now a chorus of “no’s” whispered through the library, deep voices, shrill voices, filling the air with shushing only I could hear. My breath quickened.

  “Tonight, we have the honor of witnessing the signing of the intent to purchase.” Ilona set the pen next to her documents. This was it, her moment of glory.

  Sita and Ruff, their hands joined, signed where Ilona’s finger indicated. She scrawled her own name further down the page and snatched the papers up.

  “My signature makes this agreement binding. Would any of the library’s other trustees care to add theirs?”

  Duke handed his paper plate to the man next to him and pushed his way to the center table, parting the crowd like a fox-trotting bison. A crumb of cheese stuck to his mustache. He snatched the pen and traced a circle in the air before bending over the contract.

  Darla backed toward Roz and me. “This is not a meeting,” she told us. “It’s a show. I
n very bad taste. None of it was approved ahead of time. Ilona orchestrated this whole thing so the buyers wouldn’t back out.”

  A chilled rush of evening air hit my cheek as someone pushed open the front door. Murmuring washed through the crowd. Darla shouldered her way to the side of the man who’d just entered.

  “Who is it?” I whispered to Roz.

  “The judge.” Her voice filled with wonder. “He’s here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The crowd fell silent as Ilona and the judge stared at each other. A wide smile quickly replaced Ilona’s frown. My heart fell.

  “Why, Judge Valade, what an unexpected pleasure.”

  The judge was skinny and bald and wore a plaid wool shirt cut in a western style, giving him the look of an ascetic monk waylaid at the feed and farm store. The crowd silenced.

  “Just thought I’d drop in and say hello.” Although he was talking to Ilona, his gaze swept the rooms of books and landed on Marilyn Wilfred’s portrait before returning to Ilona. “Haven’t been up here in years. I got the amicus brief the new librarian sent and thought I’d drop in for your trustees’ meeting. Quite a get-together you all hold.”

  By now, I recognized the look on Ilona’s face. In this case, her insistent but timeworn smile reflected her intent to make the retreat center look like Wilfred’s salvation and the library a crime-ridden dump.

  “We were just concluding business,” she said. “If you have anything you’d like to announce, we’re all ears.”

  “Yeah,” Duke added from the sidelines.

  Roz and Darla edged nearer to me. Misery loves company, they say.

  “Nope. Nothing yet. Need to do a little more investigation first.”

  Darla squeezed my hand. My breath came more easily.

  Irritation flashed across Ilona’s face. “Maybe I can answer some questions. Come have a look at the model of the retreat center.”

  “I may do that. I’d love to talk with folks, too,” the judge said.

  Ilona measured the judge’s expression and that of the partiers. She made her decision. “Everyone was just leaving. It’s not safe to be here after dark, anyway,” she added and gathered up her documents.

  “A shame,” the judge said. “These must be the folks who want to buy the site. Maybe they’d let me walk them to their car.”

  Just like that, the party was over. Ilona and Duke cleared the library, and half an hour later I was left alone, washed in a slurry of despair and hope. The judge had arrived. He was being thorough about measuring the library’s worth to Wilfred, and he might find in our favor. Maybe, at the very least, the suit would go to court and buy me time.

  Then again, Ilona’s train was gathering speed. The retreat center would bolster Wilfred’s economy. The intent to purchase was signed.

  I stacked half-ravished platters of hors d’oeuvres and ferried them to the kitchen. Rodney popped through the pet door and sat at my feet. Unease fluttered in my gut. I placed a palm on my stomach to calm it. I returned to the atrium and took in the darkened floors above me.

  The library just might be safe, I told myself, at least for a while. I might be safe. Why was I so tense?

  An explosion ricocheted through the library, and the lights flashed. Then went dark.

  A growl came from Rodney’s throat, and a low buzz, like the angry noise from a faraway hornets’ nest, rose from the bookshelves. Skin prickled on the back of my neck.

  “Is anyone there?” I called.

  Nothing.

  I felt my way to the window in the old dining room and looked across the yard. Lyndon’s cottage was dark, too, as were the windows at Big House. The birthmark on my shoulder burned, and I pressed a finger into it. The books’ buzzing filled my head.

  Through the veil of moonlight, I made out a man moving across the yard, quietly but surely, staying to the garden’s edge. My throat seized. It was Sam. I knew it without a second glance. Were the doors locked? The windows?

  Rodney’s yowl pierced the buzz of the books. My whole body vibrated with energy, spreading from my birthmark and coursing white-hot through my bones. I held out a hand. It shook. I couldn’t hear anything above the screaming of the books. Somehow fear had unleashed my magic. It was more than my body could hold.

  Then I smelled it. Smoke! The library was on fire.

  The shelves now rocked back and forth as books moaned and shook. I stumbled into the atrium to find the fire’s source and saw flames ripping through the second floor. The library was built from old timber. In minutes, it would be a pile of glowing cinders.

  Run, my brain told me. Leave now while you can. Louder than this voice of reason was the energy seizing my every cell. The air around me reddened to crimson with electricity. Above, flames devoured the railings.

  Rodney leapt to my shoulders, his claws digging in against the chaos. Strangely, his howling had turned to a steady purr.

  My power tightened to a burning cyclone, and I couldn’t keep it in any longer. My arms shot up, knocking Rodney to the ground.

  “No!” I screamed.

  What happened next was beyond my ability to understand. As I watched, the smoke curled inward, like a movie running in reverse. It raced backward, sucking into itself, leaving undamaged wood behind.

  I gasped. I did this. I control fire.

  All at once, a paperback flew past me and thumped against the wall. Then, books, scores of them now, pierced the air at a machine gun’s pace, slamming against the walls, shattering the windows. Thunks and crashes filled the air. The corner of a thick hardback ripped against my arm, drawing blood, but I was frozen. A storm of energy howled through the library, whipping the curtains, knocking paintings from the walls.

  My power was out of control, and I couldn’t stop it.

  I flattened my palms over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut and screamed. Rodney nudged my leg, and at last, I opened my eyes. I collapsed into a chair among the torn and scattered books and sat, stunned, trying to understand what had just happened. The books were quiet at last. My whole body trembled with exhaustion and disbelief.

  Someone pounded on the library’s front door. “Josie! Are you in there?”

  It was the sheriff. I made my way through the splayed books and unbolted the door.

  “What the hell happened?” The beam from the sheriff’s flashlight roved the chaos. “I was just headed into town and could have sworn I saw fire. Are you okay?”

  I nodded and rubbed my shoulder where a book had hit me. It would leave a nasty bruise. Rodney crouched under the table and watched.

  “I was cleaning up after the trustees’ meeting, and the lights went out. After that—I don’t know. The fire. Upstairs—” I looked up, and breath caught in my throat. The second floor landing was whole, unburned. Had I dreamed the whole thing? It was as if the fire had never happened.

  “Upstairs,” the sheriff said.

  Dodging fallen books, we ran up the main staircase and circled the landing. Books lay helter-skelter across the rooms, and two bookshelves had toppled. A hint of smoke, almost like incense, hung in the air, but there was no sign of fire. I rested a hand on the polished wood banister I’d seen in flames only minutes ago. It was warm but undamaged.

  The sheriff shook his head. “I could have sworn I saw fire. Let’s check outside.”

  I followed him out the front door. The night was cold, and somewhere an owl hooted. The sheriff pointed to the power pole. “That’s it. Look there. The transformer blew. But what happened inside?”

  The sheriff talked to me, but I barely made out his words. The library had been on fire, and somehow I’d commanded that fire and made it stop. I hugged my arms. Not only did it stop, it was as if it had never happened. But . . . the flying books, the destruction—I’d made that happen, too. My power was greater than I knew—and massively more destructive.

  “I don’t see how a simple electrical accident could have caused this,” the sheriff said as we returned to the library. “Was the crowd tonig
ht that rowdy?”

  “There were a lot of people,” I said.

  My eyes had adjusted to the dark now. Books lay scattered across the floor. I picked up a thriller with a cover of a policeman running away from a flaming skyscraper. A faraway siren grew closer, coming up the highway toward the bluff.

  “The volunteer fire department,” Sheriff Dolby said. “I called, but I guess there’s no work for them here.” He shook his head in wonder. “What a freaky accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident,” I said. “It was Sam Wilfred.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Sam?” The sheriff leaned back, and his boots creaked.

  “No. Not Sam.”

  “You’ve said that before, but why not?” I said. “He’s everywhere I go. Including tonight. I can’t turn around without finding him watching me.” Despite my exhaustion, my voice cranked to a higher pitch.

  The sheriff sighed. “Let me go talk to the fire folks. Then I have something to tell you about Sam.”

  My body still shook as I picked up a few books and reshelved them. It would take hours to get the library back in shape. Books littered the central atrium and lay splayed beneath their shelves. And the windows—more than a few would have to be replaced. If they’d be replaced at all, given the uncertainty of the library’s future. They’d need to be boarded up at the very least.

  I stepped onto the porch. A man I didn’t recognize stood next to Wilfred’s vintage fire engine, the sheriff with him, and pointed his flashlight toward the electric pole. The transformer was blackened. Melted Mylar stuck to it.

  “It was the balloons. Blew out the power and started a fire.”

  At the unexpected voice, I clutched the railing behind me. “Sam.”

  “They must not have been tied very securely.” He squinted toward the electric pole.

  I was a few feet from the steps into the library. I inched toward them.

  “Josie?”

  I halted. “What?”

  “What’s wrong?” He stepped closer. From here I saw his smile. Remembering Roz’s words, I knew something upset him. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”