It did not take long to realize that Magda would not be the best of house guests.
The sprites disappeared into the pantry, shutting the door with a definite slam, leaving again that eerie, deep, silence. Magda was still in the main shop, so she did not notice. Just as well, as they tried never to advertise the sprites to any but the most trusted.
“Where are we going to put her?” Ailiani asked. The truth was, Tasmin felt as if she were stuck between being a decent human being and doing what she wanted. She didn’t trust Magda, didn’t want her to have the run of the second floor where all the magic stuff lived, where they lived. It felt too personal.
“We’ll make her a nice place in the secret room. If she really is a possible victim, and she gets afraid, she can shut herself in. It shares a wall with the chimney, so it is one of the warmest places in the house. It still has a bed.”
She looked at Ailiani carefully for judgment since she already felt like the worst hostess, or even perhaps the worst human that ever lived, but saw none. Tasmin opened the room. There was an old bed that had no other home, but the mattress was still decent. It was dark and small, but it smelled fine.
Magda came in with her bundle of things. William had run upstairs for blankets. Tasmin pulled out a chair and put it close to the fire. “Here…let’s get you warm.” They had only stopped to change her clothes and gather her things before taking her to Master Carys. They had sat outside while Master Carys had taken Magda’s report, and she emerged quiet and a little shaken.
Fortunately, they’d already discussed that they could not let her go back to her hovel on the beach.
Ailiani made some hot chocolate, giving the first cup to Magda, who was bundled up. “You will like it here. The kitchen is always quite warm, and this quarter gets so quiet and peaceful after dark, you can pretend you live out in the forest, if you wish.”
“Really?” Magda said, but the tone, the compressed anger and derision, made Ailiani’s spine straighten, the corners of her mouth compress. She swallowed, hard, and Tasmin imagined that she was swallowing some very cutting responses.
“Thank you, Ailiani,” William said kindly, “Your drinking chocolate is so much better than any I have ever had.”
Ailiani gave him a grateful smile and Tasmin rubbed his back approvingly.
Ailiani picked up her own cup. “The shop is still open, I’d better get back out there.”
“Do you want to call it for the night?” Tasmin asked. “We are all here, we can watch.”
She shook her head. “And what else would I do with myself? You go on, solve your mysteries, I will be fine.”
William tended the fire, trying to coax out more warmth. “It is just as well that you will be staying with us, Magda, I think tonight will be especially cold.”
Magda adjusted her blanket so that she could reach her chocolate. Tasmin nudged a plate of cookies closer to her, and she took one, crunching quietly. William and Tasmin exchanged a look. They were both going mad to know her story, but neither wanted to push.
Tired after a busy day, Tasmin decided to sit down. Magda finally began to speak as if all she were waiting for was for Tasmin to settle into her chair. “I was in bed like everyone else was, when the bells started ringing.” She stared into the fire and did not meet their eyes. “I’d already let the fire go out, and I don’t have anywhere else to go, so I just closed my eyes and ignored it. I thought it was pirates, and I honestly have a hard time caring what happens to me. Being kidnapped by pirates might be an improvement.” Magda paused to take a drink. “I heard my daughter calling me. I thought I was still asleep, dreaming, but I went to the window, and there she was.” She stopped for a long moment, her eyes going distant, “And I could not help but seek her out. She kept just ahead of me, and I concentrated on her, shimmering in the night. We were near the sea caves when I was hit from behind. I recovered as they were binding me, but it did not stop me from fighting back.” She gave a bitter smile. “We are trained, in Pandroth, to defend ourselves, so I fought her. She tried to cast a spell on me but…” She shook her head and fished something out of her bodice. “I am not my mother’s daughter for nothing.”
“An amulet to protect against spells?” Tasmin leaned closer. “It is wrought differently than I am used to…”
Magda dropped it back into her clothes without comment. Tasmin blushed and took the hint. She was itching to take it apart and learn more, to work backwards and see if she could re-create it, learn the secrets, but she mastered herself and showed great restraint.
“I could not get into the sea caves proper, so I ran down along the shore. They lost track of me, they must have, because I fell and whacked myself a good one, and that was enough to put me out for a bit.”
“They?” William asked. “Do you think there was more than one?”
She shrugged. “I was not really paying attention, I was just trying to flee without drowning.”
Tasmin rose. “You should let me look at your head. If you were knocked out for so long, I am shocked that you survived at all.”
Magda raised a hand, her face and gesture as strong as a worded ‘no’ as any that had ever been spoken. Tasmin and William’s eyes met, and Tasmin knew they were thinking the same thing, that plainly she did not want to talk about what happened, but why?
If she had fallen near the shore, and if the tide had not taken her out, she would have died from the cold. Being cold and wet had taken larger, heartier people than her.
Magic? Just how good was the amulet the other woman was wearing? It could protect her some, but not all. She certainly was scratched up enough, though; that bore her story out, it was the timing that bothered him the most. Tasmin came and leaned against his chair.
Magda looked over his shoulder, where the little secret room door was propped open. “I am not sure,” she said, “how I feel about where you would have me stay.”
William smiled as comfortingly as he could. “The room does look a bit dark and frightening, but it is warm, being built right next to the stove, and if you close it, no one shall be able to find you.”
“What’s a chocolate maker doing with a secret room?” Magda asked a bit starkly.
“We found it by accident one day while we were cleaning,” Tasmin said brightly.
“Quite a surprise it was,” William added. “But we kept it, never know when you might need an extra space for something that no one can find. And you can leave it open, of course. No one will bother you, either way.”
Magda sighed softly. “Well, I don’t suppose any of you have a reason to kill me, after all, there is little point for you to do so.” Tasmin rolled her eyes, but Magda was concentrating on her cup.
“Do you know anything about your attacker at all?”
A simple shrug. “A woman. She fought like a lioness, and that is all I can say.”
“I am afraid that there must be a connection between the death of your daughter and this,” Tasmin said gently. “Do you know of anyone who would wish you or Tara harm? Her father? Someone who is not pleased to have a Pandroth lady on these shores? Has anyone accused you of anything?”
“I was a slave. Did you know that? A slave. I was in the belly of a ship that broke up off the coast of Daernan, a port just a little larger than Azin Shore. When I recovered I married a sailor who wanted to move here, he said the jobs were better. And he got himself killed, because that’s what sailors do.” She looked at Tasmin fiercely. “I have nothing. No one would even think to imply that I might be a spy because I make my living sewing nets, harvesting shell-fish, and telling fortunes. If I were a spy, I might set myself up as a business woman. That’s where the real information can be found.”
Tasmin digested this, and as if she hadn’t had a cup of bitterness poured over her head she continued, “What of your fortune telling? Do you have fairly reliable sight? Did someone take your words and twist them, then blame you for the result?”
Magda tilted her head and inspected Tasmin. “Do you have the gift of sight, Herb Mistress?”
“Not really. Which is why when things are settled, the town will need a new Wise Woman.” She looked at Magda for a moment, wondering if the other woman would be a good fit. It would give her a better life.
“I have great sight,” she said, placing a hand against her chest. “So much so that it was everyone’s first suggestion, to use my sight to look for my daughter but I…” she blinked a few times, and then managed, “I cannot see the dead.”
“You knew,” Tasmin said, closing her eyes.
“They would not look for a dead girl, especially not mine.” She looked at Tasmin. “If you are angry that you wasted your time, I had no choice.”
“Is that why the spell would not work?” William asked.
“No, if the spell was reading things correctly, the needle would have pointed down-wards,” Tasmin said. “I would have known. Did you fox it somehow? To keep it spinning?”
“No!” She glared at Tasmin. “I would not have disrespected you that much.”
Tasmin leaned on her hand. “Then something else was at work, for I did that spell correctly.”
Magda snorted. Ailiani had joined them again, and she was leaning against the doorway. “She is very good at her craft, very careful. A mistake would be quite unlikely.”
Tasmin gave them all a wry look. “It was a simple spell. There are spells that, as long as the ingredients are there, you pretty much can’t mess them up.”
“But the question still stands, do you have anyone who wished you ill?” William asked.
“No,” Magda said. “Nor my daughter.”
“Perhaps someone wanted her to use her talents for their purpose. What was she able to do?” Tasmin poured her some more chocolate.
A shrug. “She was not old enough for anything to have manifested. You know that.”
Tasmin settled back down. “Then why did I hear that you were asking questions about how people learn magic?”
She sat for a long moment, then as if the words were being dragged from her, “For myself. The magic I know is different from what the Wise Women practice. I thought I could provide a better life for myself and my child.”
“Of course. Did you ever approach Mistress Anne? I know she took in Cherise and her sister to train.”
Magda tossed her head. “She said I was scum and not worth her trouble.”
William and Tasmin exchanged a glace. “That is awfully unusual,” Tasmin said. “The South is quite desperate for Wise Women, if you have any Talent for it at all, you will be trained.”
“Well, she would not. And I did not ask Mistress Cherise, either, for why would she be any different from her mentor?”
“You make a good point,” Tasmin said, uncomfortably, resting a hand on William’s shoulder.
There was a long silence, broken, finally, by Ailiani. “I never understood why everyone assumed Mistress Anne was dead?”
“She was an older lady, and where she went could not be found…” William said delicately.
Ailiani tilted her head. “Older as in, about the age of my mother so I’m being polite, or doddering around with a cane?”
William frowned. “Did you never see her, you were here a year and a half or so before she disappeared?”
“Miss Dovlington’s is not located at the most coveted of Azin Shore addresses.”
“What she’s trying to say nicely,” Magda added, “is that Mistress Anne never went into the areas where she could not get paid for her services.”
Tasmin paled, and then flushed angrily. William placed a hand over hers to forestall a rant. Everything she was hearing about Anne tweaked her pride and sense of justice.
“But that does go against everything she swore,” he said.
“Indeed it does!” Tasmin said angrily.
“Was Cherise any better?”
Ailiani made a gesture with her hand that he took to mean “eh” and Magda laughed. “Cherise was a sheep. A little lamb terrified of everything. Do you really think she would dare go against her Mistress’s teachings, alive or dead?”
William nodded. “Well, as interesting as this all is, I doubt she is the murderer. Even if by some miracle Mistress Anne was alive—which I doubt—I cannot fathom that she would have the strength to attack Magda, let alone drag off a healthy young girl.”
“He has a point,” Tasmin said, deflating somewhat.
“I have a new point. I am quite hungry and I know that Tasmin made a lovely stew that has been bubbling along all day, and I think we should all eat, then we will make up a nice warm bed for you, Mistress Magda.” Ailiani said. “We will all think much clearer on a good night’s sleep.”
William was usually the one with the bad dreams, but that night, it was Tasmin’s turn.
She was in a world devoid of color, everything was shades of gray. She walked a stone path towards the ocean, and though the waves got louder and louder, she could not see it, could only see the water as it lapped up around the paving stones. There was a thick mist all around her, and she could see shapes, grabbing shapes that cried out something that was covered by the roar of the water.
She finally forced herself awake. She tried to clear her mind with the usual tricks—building the kind of home she and William would have if they had an unlimited budget, counting William’s breaths—all the things that normally put her into that drowsy state refused to work because her mind kept wandering away.
So, she did what any woman would do, she gave up, wrapped herself up in an afghan, and grabbed some books before creeping down to the shop proper. She spread her materials out on the cool marble counter, lit some candles, and settled in on Ailiani’s high seat. For a long time the only sound came from the scritch of nib on paper and the turning of pages.
Eventually, a couple of sprites settled near her, one of them crawling into a fold of the blanket she was wrapped in, a cool presence that seemed content to snuggle in for sleep. She smiled a little, and kept reading. The books brought little comfort, because the conclusions she was coming to were not at all pleasing.
Tara no longer fit the victim profile they had decided upon, but her mother certainly did. Tasmin could tell that she was a woman of untamed power, it rolled beneath the surface of her skin. Probably if Magda had been sent to the University that Tasmin herself had attended, or even the prestigious Bourboune, she would have excelled. But it was out of her reach, now, even if Tasmin could think of some way to introduce her to those who would be willing to sponsor her education. She was too old, her magic too set. Any training would have to break what bad habits that could be broken, and work around those habits that could not.
And Magda was angry. Angry, derisive, bitter. Tasmin tried to play it off on the loss of her daughter, but some of it was old, resentments that had been kept as carefully as pets.
She paused in her note taking, the silence in the room once she had left off scratching away with her quill seemed almost oppressive.
“That’s why they killed Tara,” she whispered. They’d wanted to make Magda angry. She put the quill down and rubbed her eyes. That ranks quite highly in the category of most horrid thought to ever have crossed my mind.
But the idea of the ghost storm being called by creating angry ghosts held up only if you ignored the fact that a) it was hard to create an angry soul. Not impossible, but hard and b) it would be impossible to create enough angry souls to call the ghost storm.
But called it someone has. You can’t get around that one, either. It is here. She looked toward the ocean and shivered.
Pity we cannot make use of the Heart of Ithalia. She remembered it with a shade of sorrow, for she had used it as a weapon to kill Franny Harker. No wonder the woman is haunting me. Another angry spirit. She paused.
Franny Harker was haunting her. Therefore, Franny Harker was no longer a prisoner in the amulet. That followed that Ithalia might be free, too.
“But wouldn’t we know already if the witch was free?” She tapped the counter thoughtfully with her forefinger, then sighed. Had Franny managed to free herself, or had she never really been imprisoned in the amulet? She didn’t do soul magic…it was too black for her, even those who considered what they did for the greater good, Tasmin felt, were going down a very crooked path. Thus, she had no idea what really happened to Franny’s soul; she assumed because the woman had died that the stone had done to her what it had done to Ithalia, and basically drawn her soul out, breaking the tether between life and death in the process.
So, had Franny’s spirit just been hanging around like an angry miasma? Tasmin shuddered at the thought, wondering if she and the sprites were really alone.
They would have sensed something, would they have not? They are half way between this world and the unseen one. After all, Auruch saw the ghost at Mistress Anne’s house.
She hoped so. Franny was bad enough, without a Sea Witch with a vile reputation floating about. An angry Sea Witch, known for her love of destruction? Surely she would have made her presence known by now. Tasmin repeated that over and over, trying to reassure herself.
So, if Franny had been out and about, why hadn’t Tasmin seen her before? Where had she been?
Ailiani is right. I need sleep.
So she blew out the candles and hied herself off to bed. She settled on the edge.
William was making sad sounds in his sleep again, and she moved to kneel next to him. She leaned over him, her dark hair falling over his chest and shoulder. She pushed it back and stroked his cheek lightly. “Oh, my William,” she whispered as soft as a summer breeze into his ear. “Oh, my love, ’tis alright, shh.” He sighed and shifted a little, then went back to more peaceful sleep.
I am not sure if I want to know what goes on in his head at night, but oh, do I wish I could make it go away.
She rolled off the bed carefully and unwrapped herself from the afghan and draped it across the back of the rocking chair, then joined her husband. All night she dreamed of silvery shadows and mocking laughter.