Bait and Witch

by Angela M. Sanders

  “Why?” I’d asked as a little girl. My hand had slid into my robe pocket, where I’d hidden a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I wasn’t supposed to be reading in bed, but under the covers with a flashlight I could finish a story or two, and Jean had never ratted me out.

  “Just drink it,” Mom had told me.

  The breeze rushed at the shawl’s fringe. Grimm’s Fairy Tales shivered, and I yanked my fingers away.

  I took the cup. The liquid smelled awful, rotten, worse than the cough syrup I sometimes had to choke down.

  “I’m not sick,” I said. “Why are you giving me medicine?”

  In the end, I drank the cup’s contents. Above me, the stars dimmed, and my book grew heavier in my pocket.

  “Honey,” Grandma said, “show me your book. I want you to read from ‘Sleeping Beauty.’” The book fell open to the story. “Here.” She placed a finger on a passage. “Read this. Aloud.”

  Mom pointed the flashlight over the page. I could almost hear my little girl voice now as I’d read:

  In that very moment she fell back upon the bed that stood there, and lay in a deep sleep, and this sleep fell upon the whole castle. The King and Queen, who had returned and were in the great hall, fell fast asleep, and with them the whole court. The horses in their stalls, the dogs in the yard, the pigeons on the roof, the flies on the wall, the very fire that flickered on the hearth, became still, and slept . . .

  I didn’t remember the rest. Mom must have carried me back to bed.

  Rodney purred under my fingers. “What’s a containment spell?”

  “It was the only way to tamp down your magic. In essence, Grandma put a shell over you. It was big, but stretched only as far as the Continental Divide. When you flew over the Rockies, you broke it.”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. Now I understood. “In the plane, I felt like someone had yanked out my spleen. Since then, things have been different.”

  My mother’s sigh, quiet as it was, traveled the telephone wires to land squarely in my ear. “Tell me.”

  “I’m dreaming. Books seem to talk to me. Tonight . . .”

  “What, honey?”

  “Tonight the library almost burnt down, and it was like my head was firing cyclones. Books flew everywhere, breaking windows.” I rubbed my arm. “Even hitting me. I could have been killed. And the fire . . .” I swallowed. “Somehow the fire sucked itself up and disappeared.”

  I pressed the fingers of my free hand against my face. Cold as marble. I tried to breathe more deeply, but it was like my chest was wrapped in iron.

  “You have a lot of power, Josie. I don’t know what to tell you to do with it. If your grandmother were here, she’d know.”

  “But she’s not. Didn’t you think the spell could be broken, and something like this might happen?” My anger began to simmer again. “What did you think I’d do?”

  “Don’t be mad at me. What choice did I have? I’d had a vision. Your magic would kill you, I saw it. I couldn’t let you die.”

  I stood abruptly, and Rodney jumped to the floor. “It still might kill me. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Listen to me. You have to lock down your power.”

  “I don’t even know what my power is.” A humming grew from inside me.

  “Lock it down. Close your eyes and take your thoughts somewhere else. It’s your energy that feeds your power. When you’re calm, it can’t use you. Right now. Close your eyes and steady your breath.”

  I clamped my eyes shut and forced my arms and chest to relax. Inhale slowly, I told myself. Now breathe out. The humming slowed and dropped to a breathy whisper.

  “It’s working,” I said.

  “Thank goodness,” my mother said quickly. “Remember that. Can you do it?”

  Eyes still closed, I leaned my head against the kitchen wall. “I think so.”

  “If you’re serious about this, you’ll need to repeat the containment spell. You’ll have to do it yourself, though.”

  “How?”

  “You won’t have Mom’s tincture to help, but you have enough power on your own now. Your power is in books. Grimm’s Fairy Tales imprinted itself on you early. I’d try ‘Sleeping Beauty’ again. Go to a quiet place, summon your magic, and read that passage aloud with the intention of capturing your energy and the energy of the generations of readers.” Her voice quieted as she composed herself. “You’ll have to trust yourself to figure it out. I’m so sorry you don’t have anyone to help. I’m nearly as useless as you.”

  I was having a hard time filling my lungs. “How will I know it’s working?”

  “You’ll know.” Her voice dropped. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  I closed my eyes and clung to the phone, my only connection to Mom’s comfort.

  “There’s one more thing that might help you,” she said. “Mom’s grimoire.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Her book of shadows. Maybe there’s something in it that will give you direction.”

  A book. Her book. I remembered the leather book fat with notes and pressed flowers. “Send it to me.”

  “It’s in a chest in the attic. I’ll get your father to pull it down, and I’ll have a look. I don’t want to get your hopes up, though.”

  “Mom, it’s all we have.”

  “I just don’t want you playing around with your power. It’s much safer to learn to keep the magic muted. You understand, don’t you?”

  I understood that tonight had terrified me to my very core. “I get it.”

  “Your magic is not a toy. It’s viciously powerful.” From the urgency in her voice, I knew Mom clutched the phone close to her cheek. “Don’t let it kill you.”

  * * *

  I made my way downstairs among the fallen books and settled in Thurston Wilfred’s old office—the children’s section. Here, no windows had been broken, and moonlight puddled on the desk and spilled to the rug. I didn’t turn on a light—I didn’t need to.

  Despite the evening’s drama, I felt good. Calm. I took the chair behind Thurston’s desk and leaned back. Here’s where he would have spent odd evenings meeting with mill workers while his family took dinner across the atrium. A fire would have crackled under the marble mantel. Maybe Marilyn, just a girl, played in the atrium, running between the kitchen, where the cook fired up the woodstove, and the gimcrack-laden parlor, where her mother stitched an embroidery panel.

  I knew what I had to do. In another world, where I had a mentor, I could nurture my magic. Without direction, it was too dangerous. Tonight had proven it. I’d been fine in my old life. Sure, in Wilfred I’d lived richly, with every sense at full attention, but the cost was too great. I’d been fine before, I reminded myself. Just fine.

  I looked down at the desk and found a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales within arm’s reach. No surprise. The books murmured as I touched it. Some books seemed to cry “Aha!” while others moaned softly. My heart rent as I leafed to “Sleeping Beauty.” I was a witch—really, officially a witch—for so little time. What I could do, for good, even, I’d never know.

  “No,” a voice wavered in the background.

  It didn’t frighten me. It blended with the books’ songs and made a part of the symphony playing in the background. Through the open archway, Marilyn Wilfred stared down at me. Rodney sat below her. He didn’t move.

  “Sorry,” I whispered. I had to do it.

  I reached for the book of fairy tales and found I didn’t even need to read the words. They returned unbidden.

  When the spell was done, the world shrank around me, stealing color, scent, and texture as it settled in my core. I sat at the desk, dull. This is what it has always been like, I thought. And, oh, how I missed my magic already.

  I’d done the right thing. I had no other choice.

  Then I set to getting the library in order.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I woke up groggy, with the sun coming through the windows brighter than it should have been. I’d slept in. C
onsidering I’d spent half the night casting a spell on myself, then starting to clean up the library, it wasn’t surprising.

  Roz was already downstairs helping patrons when I made my beeline to the coffeepot. I hadn’t dreamt. The room’s colors grayed out. It was the old me, back again, and I didn’t like it. I’d loved the sparkle of sun on the river and the sweet-balmy scent of cottonwoods. I clutched my coffee mug. Even its smell had been that much richer. Yet, the alternative—bursts of power with deadly force—was too high a price to pay.

  “Good grief,” Roz said. “What happened here? When I left last night, I figured the worst we’d have to deal with was onion dip on the parquet. Then I came in to this.”

  She waved around the kitchen, which looked pretty good, even given the sink full of dirty mugs. But I knew what she meant.

  “You should have seen it before I went to bed,” I said.

  “I know. Lyndon told me. Figures Ilona’s show would turn into the first phase of the library’s demolition.”

  From her repeated glances over my shoulder, Roz was on the lookout for Lyndon. Irritation twisted in me. Was everyone in this town hiding something?

  “Why don’t you just ask him out?” I said.

  Her head swiveled to me. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I mean. Lyndon. You’re obviously mooning over him, but you won’t do anything about it.”

  Roz produced a fan from thin air and batted at her reddening neck. “Where did you get that idea?” She laughed a weak “ha-ha-ha.”

  I set down my coffee mug. “Roz, I know you’re Eliza Chatterley Windsor, okay?” Last night’s anger began to rise.

  The fan batted more quickly. Roz dropped it to the table. She was ready to deny it. Then she surprised me by bursting into tears.

  “How did you know?” she said.

  I pulled her to a chair and put my arm around her. “It just—it just came to me. I’m sorry. I never should have said anything. Last night’s events are getting to me, I guess. I’m tired of all the subterfuge. Plus, I want you to be happy.”

  “It’s not in my stars.”

  “What?” I pulled up the chair next to her.

  “I’m not fated to be happy. I’m not fated for love. Look at me.”

  I saw a curvy brunette with streaks of gray that gave her the air of an Italian starlet playing the role of a country girl. Her eyes were red, true, but they were wide and round and naturally dark-rimmed.

  “I’m looking. You’re adorable.”

  “Adorable! I’m in my fifties.” She sniffed and patted her eyes with the hem of her shirt. “No longer fertile. No longer emitting pheromones. Who am I kidding? Why would an attractive man like”—she lowered her voice—“Lyndon even look at me?”

  I sat back. “Well, you—”

  “You have no idea what it’s like to age as a woman. One day you’re in the sun, and you see a little crepiness on the back of your hand. So you double up on lotion. Then a gray hair pops up. You pluck it. Your eyesight goes, but you get used to wearing reading glasses—except that with the glasses on, you notice that your neck doesn’t look so good. And I don’t even want to talk about the waistline.” She pinched her belly. “You can’t keep up. It’s impossible.”

  “Why worry about it? Why not be you? After all, Lyndon’s the same age.”

  Roz snorted. “As if. Spinsters age faster than dogs. I’m at least a hundred years older than Lyndon. Maybe more.” Her tone had taken on a frenzied edge.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s like this. A woman ages normally—you know, one year per calendar year—until she’s twenty-five. After that, she ages two for every one regular year until she’s thirty-five. Then it’s five to one. After forty-five, especially if she’s not married, I figure a woman clocks in eight years for every one year. That makes me”—she screwed her eyes to the side while she did the calculations—“one hundred and seventy-three years old.”

  “What about men? How do they age?”

  Roz had warmed to her topic. “They don’t. They remain about thirty for life. Their bellies might grow and their hair might vanish—except for the ears, of course—but as far as they’re concerned, they don’t age a day. Bachelors are the worst. Bachelors and divorced men. If their bones feel a bit creaky, the next day they buy a sports car, and—bingo—they’re thirty again.”

  “Impressive,” I had to admit. “But bogus. You and Lyndon are the same age, and you’ve had similar experiences in life. You’re perfect as companions.”

  Roz flushed, but she didn’t reach for her fan. “Men aren’t looking for companions. They want babes.”

  “Lyndon doesn’t strike me as that type.”

  “You think so?” I’d never heard Roz sound so poignant. Her sharp tone came right back. “Anyway, I’ve given up.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why not? What do you know about it?”

  “You wouldn’t have written that meet-cute scene with the dog walker—you know the one, where Forster Lyndon the billionaire helps Belinda find her toy poodle—if you didn’t believe in romance.”

  She folded her arms. “Maybe I like to fantasize a bit. Why shouldn’t I? I’m not hurting anyone, and the royalties help pay the bills.”

  “All I’m saying is that you have a live one walking around, and you refuse to see if it will go anywhere. If you want to sit and moon about it, that’s your business. But I think you’re braver than that. In fact . . .” I waited for the title of a helpful book to come to me. “I bet . . .” Nothing. My mind was blank. I took a shuddering breath. “Anyway, you should talk to him straight-out.”

  I’d lost it. I’d lost my magic with books. I still felt them, but they no longer spoke to me. This was the cost of suppressing my power.

  Roz stared at her fan lying open on the table. “I’ll think about it.”

  At the burst of rose perfume and clacking of heels, I knew Mrs. Garlington had turned up behind me. “Ms. Way, we’re here to help.”

  I stood and smoothed my dress. “Help with what?”

  “The Knitting Club has convened an emergency meeting to help clean up the library.” Five women and a boy—no Duke—gathered behind Mrs. Garlington. One held a mop, and two had buckets. “As long as it’s still standing, we’re here.”

  * * *

  By midafternoon, the knitters had left, and the library smelled of lemon polish. I had misjudged the bunch. Maybe they favored a retreat center, but until the wrecking ball swung, they stood behind the library one hundred percent. They left just as the day’s patrons began to stream in in force.

  “The book you suggested on putting babies to sleep was perfect,” one young mother told me. “I don’t know how you knew I needed it. I didn’t even know.” She adjusted the toddler on her hip. “I’m so rested. I feel like a new woman. Anything else you can recommend?”

  The day before, I could have relaxed a split second, and a title would have been on my lips. Today, nothing. “Maybe there’s something under ‘children’ in the card catalogue.”

  The mother didn’t have to tell me how lame my help was. Her expression said it all.

  I missed the books’ company, too. Sure, I knew that a rich tapestry of stories and ideas populated the shelves around me, but I couldn’t hear them. A hand on a book’s spine drew comfort, but it didn’t fill my mind with color and voice anymore.

  What choice did I have? My power was enough to lay waste to several hundred pounds of books and a few windows and to land me with a bruise the size of Australia. Factor in my mother’s vision, and, well, it wasn’t worth the risk.

  No matter what happened to the Wilfred library, in a month, if not sooner, I’d be back in D.C. and back to my old life. Back to sitting in the darkened stacks at lunch with an egg salad sandwich. My heart dropped. Either that, or watching my back every second, praying I didn’t end up like January Stephens.

  “Just loafing around? We pay you to work, you kno
w.” Ilona stood in the doorway, a hand on a black-clad hip. Her entire outfit was black: black pants, black crewneck sweater, and, her nod to country life, black cowboy boots.

  “Catching my breath,” I said. “There was quite a mess to clean up this morning, what with the hors d’oeuvre platters and all.”

  “I left that food for the people in town. No one can say I’m not generous.”

  “How can I help you?” Maybe not hearing books was good. A few snarky title suggestions just might have floated in.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”

  I was uneasy, but curious. “There’s my office.” As we passed the checkout desk, I asked Roz to keep an eye on things.

  “I’ll shut the door, if you don’t mind,” Ilona said.

  Rodney squeezed in just before the door closed and leapt into my lap. Ilona perched on the desk. Up close, lines showed around her eyes, and her powder couldn’t cover them. I guess I hadn’t been the only one without much sleep last night.

  “What did you tell the judge?” she said.

  “What?”

  “The judge. He was set to dismiss the lawsuit over the library. I had it on good authority.” She leaned in, and the smell of rancid lilies of the valley wafted toward me. Even Rodney turned his nose away. “What did you tell him?”

  “I wrote up the report on the library’s benefits to Wilfred. You mean that?”

  Her eyes narrowed from surprise to suspicion. “Plus something else, I bet. Money?”

  I set Rodney on the desk, and he watched from behind the stapler. “You think we bribed the judge? Why? Is that something you’d do?”

  My ire was rising, and a bare hum played low. Be gone, I willed. The hum ceased.

  Ilona opened her mouth, then shut it. Her chest rose as she sucked in a long breath through her nose. When she spoke, it was with force. “If I find out you’ve tainted this case at all, you’ll be very, very sorry.”