As surprised as I was to find that Charlotte could hit like a linebacker, she was equally surprised to see how quickly I got back to my feet. I'd played hockey all through high school, and while we played clean matches without resorting to all-out brawls, I had still learned how to take a hit.
But I was distracted. As much as my wand didn't feel like my own anymore, I still didn't like not to know where it was. I tried to keep my eyes on Charlotte, hands up to grapple with her if she tried to charge me again, I couldn't resist the urge to glance down in the direction I thought it had fallen.
It only took a fraction of a second to see that it wasn't under the tea table, but that was all it took for Charlotte to knock me down again. I curled into a ball, protecting my stomach as I fought to catch my breath.
Charlotte stood over me with menacing fists, waiting for me to get up again. She was clearly psychopathic, but not the sort of psychopath who would kick you in the kidneys when you're down. Which was good for me since I couldn't get my diaphragm to calm down and stop spasming.
Then I saw my wand under the desk that sat between the two windows. I scrambled for it, but Charlotte caught me by the hair and drew me up short. Then she pulled me to my feet. She was quite a bit shorter than me, so rather than standing, I was mostly bent over, trying to get her fingers out of my hair.
She let me go with a push that sent me stumbling forward to the window. Before I had quite recovered, she was tackling me again, this time low at the back of my thighs. She got underneath me and heaved me out the still-open window.
I was lucky my neck hadn't snapped like Thomas'. But my head had plowed through the snow mounded up against the house and struck something hard and rock-like underneath. I rolled away from the window and tried to get up on my hands and knees to crawl, but my vision was nothing but darkness and exploding stars. I only had the vaguest sense of where I was going.
Then my hand landed on Thomas' icy cold ankle. No one had moved his body, although I felt a blanket that might have been draped over him at some point. The wind had blown it half off him.
The band was playing again, and I could hear voices chanting in unison. The countdown. Nearly midnight.
I heard Charlotte's feet hit the snow as she jumped out the window after me. What had taken her so long? I shook my head to clear my vision then looked back at her.
She had my wand in her hand. I felt a wave of revulsion. As if it hadn't been sullied enough already.
She tromped through the snow until she was standing over me, still on my hands and knees in the snow next to Thomas' body. She raised the wand with a look of triumph on her face. I almost wanted to laugh. Clearly, she thought that it would be just like the key, that having it meant she could use it. She looked genuinely confused when nothing happened.
"It needs words too, I suppose?" she said to me.
"It needs more than that," I said.
"Pity," she said and tossed it aside. It plunged into the snow somewhere far from the patio lights.
I got to my feet but still needed my hands to keep moving, stumbling past a row of ornamental trees wrapped in canvas for the winter to the deeper parts of the garden.
"I don't need spells to kill you," Charlotte said, plunging her hand into the snow and coming up with a rock from the landscaping. I ducked, putting my arms over my head and trying to turn away. It struck my shoulder and bounced high into the air. I could feel blood welling out of a gash just out of my line of sight, running down the back of my gown.
I kept moving. I don't know that I had a destination in mind. Perhaps there was a way to get over the wall and escape to the charm school.
But to my delight, I saw that past a second row of ornamental trees was a long, narrow skating rink. Someone kept it neatly brushed of snow, and the ice sparkled even in the inadequate light from the house through the trees.
I could hear Charlotte running up behind me, looking to tackle me again. But I wasn't just going to stand there and take another hit. I pushed off from the snowbank and slid out onto the ice, turning as I slid to see Charlotte draw up short.
My shoes only had little kitten heels, but it was more heel than I was used to skating in. And it had been more than a year since I had been out on the ice at all. But my muscle memory was strong. I kept myself sliding, moving backward so I could keep my eyes on Charlotte.
She tried to step out onto the ice after me, but her first step sent her feet up into the air and the rest of her down hard on her butt on the ice. She yelped, more angry than hurt.
I don't think I laughed out loud. I might have smirked. But whatever I did, Charlotte was purple with rage as she got back to her feet. I couldn't quite make out what she was grumbling, but I'm sure if she were a comic strip character it would be written all in grawlix.
"Magic isn't my only talent," I said.
"I have talents as well," she said, still seething. She was feeling all over her skirt, although I couldn't tell if she was searching her pockets or checking for bruises.
"Yes, you're quite the little pickpocket," I said.
"Yes, I am," she said and drew up straight before aiming a gun at me.
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
"Somebody's pocket," she smirked.
"Don't," I said, holding up my hands. As if they could stop a bullet.
The gun went off with a surprisingly soft bang. Then my ear was on fire. The bullet had only grazed me, across my cheek and over the top of my ear, but it was bleeding like crazy, and the pain was searing.
I had to straighten up. I had to get running before she fired again. But I couldn't make myself do it. I couldn't even take my hand off my bleeding ear. She was going to fire again, and there I was without even my traitorous wand to protect me.
The world was going dark again, but this time there were no exploding stars. It was like something was generating clouds of darkness, inky blackness that swallowed the world around me.
Wait, I was the one generating the darkness.
"You're in a sticky spot here," a voice said. I looked up, still clutching my ear. The voice wasn't coming from where Charlotte was standing, still aiming at me, although she appeared to be frozen in time. And it wasn't coming from the house behind her.
I looked to my left, towards the charm school. I could see the ethereal glow of the time bridge that dominated its back yard. The soft pulsation of its threads was stronger than ever now. Then something was emerging from it, a being of light walking towards me without leaving a mark on the mounds of snow.
"Juno," I said.
"I can help you," she said. "I can always help you and always will. You have only to ask."
"No," I said. "I'm good."
"Are you?” Juno said, tipping her head as if to get a better look at my ear.
"I don't need your help," I said.
"No, that's true," she said. "I saw what you did just a few months ago. The power you drew on then, it was impressive. Won't you reach for it now?"
"No," I said. "I don't need that either."
"Really?" Juno said. "You're going to do what exactly?"
I had no idea, and I was sure that the smile I gave Juno was more than a little manic. "Just watch me," I said.
"Always, my protégé," she said. She raised her arms and tendrils of threads from the fabric of the bridge caught her up and pulled her back into the bridge itself.
But I knew she was still watching me. She was always watching me.
The moment I blinked and time started moving forward again the gun went off. I flinched, but this time the whistle of the bullet passed by me.
Charlotte looked at the gun as if it were the gun's fault. She gave it a shake then straightened her arm to take aim again.
But by that time I was already halfway back across the ice. She tried to adjust her aim, but I was jinking back and forth too aggressively for her to get a bead on me. And she waited until too late to think about backing up.
I launched off of the ice with a scream and caught Charlotte around her waist, tackling her back into the snow. The gun went off again, but this shot was truly wild. The air left her in a whoosh when she hit the ground, and the gun went flying out of her hand.
I sat down on her chest, pinning her arms down with my knees. She was struggling like a wild thing, and it took all of my attention just to stay on top of her.
There was nothing to do but wait for her to tire herself out. She wasn't going to be able to dislodge me.
"I say, is someone out there?" a man called.
It took three gunshots in the backyard to draw everyone's attention? What was the point of bait if you weren't keeping an eye on it?
I could hear multiple footsteps coming out of the house, running over the swept patio then into the deeper snow and finally rustling through the trees.
But the first to burst out into the open space around the skating rink was Stuart. He took one look at me pinning Charlotte down and not letting her move. Then he looked at the gun laying in the snow within reach of either of us.
And from the way he narrowed his eyes at me, I knew he had come to the exact wrong conclusion.