| |
Mattie walked slowly down the small segment of sidewalk between the two houses, lost in thought, automatically stepping over the uneven buckling of concrete every few feet.
Ida had clammed up and insisted that Trevor be present for her story about the Auditors. “I don’t have a lot of time left on this earth,” she’d declared. “And I’m not going to waste any of it by telling the same tale twice.”
Which was fair enough. And then the elderly speller had declared herself in need of some time to “ponder,” so she’d taught Mattie how to spell a door unlocked and sent her back to Trevor’s house.
Trevor. She should call him, see how his mission was going, tell him all about her encounter with Ida.
That headache that had been forming between her eyes was fully developed now. She rubbed her forehead and sighed. Might as well get on with it.
Just as she pulled out her phone to call Trevor, it rang. She glanced at the screen and saw that Trevor was already calling her. So he probably hadn’t been kidnapped by the mythological Auditors yet – finally a piece of good news.
Mattie hit answer and held the phone to her ear. “What’s up?”
But before he could respond, something smashed into Mattie’s side and she found herself tumbling onto the soft grass of Trevor’s small sloping front lawn, pinned down by a heavy weight. She rolled over onto her back and stared into the light brown eyes of the sharp-faced man who had tackled her.
He was grinning.
“Ugh!” she yelled. “Get the fuck off of me!”
The man’s brow furrowed, his smile slowly fading. “What?” His tenor voice was filled with puzzlement.
“You heard me. Get off! Who are you? What do you think you’re doing?”
He scrambled to his feet, towering over her.
Mattie sat up, rubbing her left arm. She must have fallen right on it – there would be a bruise for sure. She looked up and raised her eyebrows.
“Well? Are you going to explain yourself? Or is this some kind of absurd rom-com-esque ploy to get me to fall madly in love with you? Gonna tell you right now, buddy – everything in those movies is actually creepy as hell. This,” she gestured widely between the two of them, “is not a meet-cute. This is you asking to be maced.”
“Tillie, I–”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Mattie muttered. She lifted her voice, speaking slowly and enunciating each syllable. “Ob-serve your surr-ound-ings.”
Mattie grabbed the ends of her hair in both hands, lifting it off her shoulders. “Long hair.” She dropped her locks and gestured toward her clothing. “Basic grey tank top. Ragged old hoodie. And these jeans were ten dollars.”
The man continued to stare at her.
She sighed and pushed herself to her feet, brushing bits of grass off of her behind. “I’m not Tillie, you asshole. I’m Mattie.”
He gaped some more.
“Tillie’s twin sister?” She raised an eyebrow. “We’re identical.”
“Identical?” he said.
Clearly not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. She eyed him, wondering if he was a client or someone Tillie was dating. He wasn’t really her sister’s usual type. Kind of beige, really; Tillie liked her men like she liked her cocktails – colorful, complicated, and slightly dangerous.
Probably a client, then. And he had convinced himself that someone he was paying to pretend to like him might actually fall in love. What an idiot.
“Yeah, so if you’ll excuse me, I have shit to do.” Mattie turned toward the house and took a few steps up the walkway. Then she heard a car speeding down the quiet street and glanced up just in time to see Trevor’s vehicle skid to a halt and Trevor jump out. He raced toward her.
“Mattie! Are you okay?” he yelled.
Oh, right. He’d been on the phone when she’d been tackled. Actually, what had happened to her phone?
“Yeah, I’m good,” she called out. She turned around again, looking for the phone on the grass where she’d fallen. She frowned. Where was it?
Mattie looked up to ask the beige idiot if he’d seen it, but he was also nowhere to be seen.
“Where did that guy go?” she asked Trevor.
“What guy?” he said. “What happened? One minute you were answering the phone and the next there were all these weird noises and I could hear you cursing at someone. I drove back so fast, I’m amazed my car isn’t on fire.”
“This guy tackled me. He thought I was Tillie.” She rolled her eyes.
“What? Where did he go? Was he one of those Auditor people from Tillie’s place?” Trevor turned his head, looking both ways up the street.
Mattie followed Trevor’s gaze, but the man was nowhere to be found. “No, but we need to talk about them. Honestly, I think he must have just been an obsessed client. He seemed under the impression that it was all fun and games – some kind of romantic tussle.”
Trevor shook his head. “That can’t be right. Anyone who has ever met Tillie would know that she wouldn’t respond well to that. And she can afford to be choosy about her clients these days.”
Mattie thought about that for a moment. “Huh. You’re right. This whole thing is really weird. And now my phone is missing. I had it in my hand. And then we fell right here.” She gestured toward the patch of grass beside her. “And now it’s gone.”
Trevor whistled. “He must have been an Auditor after all.”
“What do they want with my phone?” said Mattie. She could feel panic rising in her throat. “Do you think there are any clues about Tillie in there?”
“What clues could there be?” Trevor raised an eyebrow. “We don’t have any clues.”
Mattie sighed. “You’re right. Of course. Actually, though, I have a lot to tell you.”
“Really?” said Trevor. “That’s good – I didn’t find anything out from Stephanie. What are you doing out here anyway? Did you go somewhere?”
“Yeah,” said Mattie, following Trevor up the steps. “Don’t unlock that yet.”
“Why not?”
She gently nudged him aside. “I want to show you something.”
Mattie extended a hand and closed her eyes. She thought hard about how much she wanted the door to be unlocked, and then she spoke the magic words. “Open sesame.”
She heard a click and opened her eyes just in time to see a mystical glow reaching from her outstretched hand and extending out toward the doorknob before it faded away.
“What on earth...?” Trevor’s eyes were wide. “Did you just unlock the door? Isn’t ‘open sesame’ from the Arabian Nights? Are you telling me that those stories are real? Spells based on fairy tales?”
Mattie could see Trevor’s wheels spinning – the man lived for new theories. “Turns out it doesn’t matter what you say, as long as it has meaning for you. That speller book Tillie had was all about memorizing a bunch of Latin phrases, but Ida says that’s just pretentious nonsense, although a lot of spellers use it. She uses Italian words for her own spells. I decided I’m just going to use English, but make it whimsical.”
“What are you talking about?” Trevor reached out a tentative hand and quickly twisted the knob, pushing the door open and stepping back. After a moment, he stepped forward again, peering cautiously into the house. “Who is Ida?”
“Your neighbor. The old woman.” She gestured toward Ida’s house.
Trevor turned to stare at Mattie. “Miss Garaveldi?”
“She prefers Ida.” Mattie sauntered into the house. “She’s a speller! And she taught me how to unlock a door! It’s way easier the way she does it than that stupid book made it seem.”
“Miss Garaveldi is a mage,” repeated Trevor numbly as he followed Mattie inside. “But she lives right next door to me. She’s lived there for sixty years.”
“Yeah,” said Mattie. She felt on top of the world – spelling was such a high! “Her whole family is mages.” She sobered. “But we talked about Auditors. I think we’re in over our heads, but she wouldn’t tell me much without you around. She said she didn’t want to repeat herself.”
“Stephanie seemed to think they’re not real,” said Trevor. “It was really strange, actually. I asked about them and she just dismissed it. ‘I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but that’s just a conspiracy theory,’ she said. ‘Magery isn’t all secret societies and mystics – we’re very modern.’ And when I said I’d seen them, she just rolled her eyes, so I changed the subject. I didn’t want to alienate her.”
Mattie spun around, nodding vigorously. “Ida said they’re widely believed to be a myth, but that she believed me. She kind of freaked out, actually! I think she knows something. We need to get the rest of the story out of her as soon as we can.” Mattie turned back toward the front door. “Come on, let’s go over there!”
As she skipped through the living room, Trevor protested behind her, “Are you sure we should just barge in? That seems so rude.”
“Why not?” She glanced over her shoulder with a frown. “I was just there. She told me to come by anytime.”
“That’s just something people say to be polite,” said Trevor. “What if she’s busy?”
“She’s eighty! What is she going to be doing on a Tuesday afternoon?”
“Bingo? I don’t know! Just let me call her first,” he pleaded. “We’ve been doing things your way. Let’s slow down a little and do things my way for a minute.”
Mattie waved her hands. “Fine. Call her up. Do you have her number?”
“Yeah, she feeds my snake for me when I’m on vacation.”
“She what?” Mattie stared at him. “You have a pet snake?”
“Frog,” said Trevor.
Mattie shook her head. “You said snake.”
“The snake’s name is Frog,” he explained. “He’s in my bedroom. Want to see?” He turned toward his bedroom, eager to show her.
“I most certainly do not want to see!” Mattie said, firmly. She shuddered.
Trevor shrugged, obviously disappointed, but covering it up with deliberate nonchalance. “Suit yourself. I didn’t know you were so squeamish. He’s very sweet. Sometimes I take him for walks and he wraps himself around my shoulders.”
“You let that thing near your neck?” Mattie stared at him. She felt a little bit guilty for not indulging him with his pet, but at the same time, she just couldn’t imagine wanting a pet snake. She liked cuddly, fuzzy pets.
“That thing?” Trevor frowned. “He has a name.”
“Yes, and what kind of a name is Frog for a snake?”
“A whimsical one! Anyway, we’re getting sidetracked here,” Trevor pointed out. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s just call Miss Garaveldi.”
“Ida,” Mattie corrected him. “She prefers Ida.”
“Right.” He put the phone to his ear. “It’s ringing.”
Mattie gave him a thumb’s up.
“Hello?” said Trevor. “Miss Gara – I mean Ida? . . . Yes, she did. . . . Thank you, that would be– Oh, she’s gone.” He stowed his phone away in his pocket again and grinned at Mattie. “She’s on her way over.”
“See? I told you!” Mattie opened up the door and waved to Ida, who was already approaching the house, her huge orange purse slung over one shoulder and a plate of yellow-frosted sugar cookies in her hands.
Ida lifted the cookies in greeting. “I had some extra provisions, so I figured I’d bring them on over. Cookies are the sustenance of the soul, I always say.”
“No arguments here,” said Trevor, over Mattie’s shoulder. “Come on in. I’ll make some tea.”
Mattie stepped aside for Ida to enter and the older woman brushed past her, heading straight for the kitchen table. As she reached for the door to shut it again, Mattie paused. If she could unlock a door, surely she could close it with magic?
Inhaling deeply, Mattie closed her eyes, held out her hands, and focused on her need for the door to close. She thought for a moment about what phrase she could use. Her lips curved. “Shut the front door,” she murmured and opened her eyes just in time to see the glowing door careening madly toward its frame.
Mattie jumped forward to catch it, but she was too late – it slammed shut with a crash. She winced and turned around slowly to face Trevor.
He stood in the doorway holding a shiny stainless steel kettle. “What the hell, Matts?” he said mildly. “Are you trying to break my house?”
“No,” she said, meekly. “I just wanted to see if I could do another spell.”
“The only way to learn is to try, I always say,” Ida’s strident voice floated in from the other room. “We’ve got to get you a tutor too, Trevor. My son’s a stitcher. I’ll just give him a call for you later, I suppose. If he can’t help, he’ll know someone who can.”
Trevor returned to the sink to finish filling the kettle, and Mattie followed him into the kitchen. She snagged a seat at the table in the dining nook with Ida.
“Sure,” said Trevor, unleashing a waterfall from the tap. “I would love to learn. Finding Tillie needs to come first, though. Mattie says you have some information about these Auditor people?”
Ida nodded soberly. “I don’t know if you’d call it information, exactly. Speculation is more like it, I suppose. But I’m one of the few mages around who is going to one hundred percent believe you when you say you’ve seen Auditors. You’re sure that’s what the people who attacked you called themselves? You’re a stitcher, so you’ll remember the details better than Mattie, I suppose.”
“Yeah,” said Trevor, slowly. He turned on the stove, setting the kettle atop the gas flame. As he spoke he filled a tea strainer with black tea leaves and set it in a large teapot. “Let’s see. They blinked in out of nowhere and attacked us with magic. Mattie asked them who they were and what they wanted and that caught them completely off-guard. They thought she was Tillie, so they must have assumed that Tillie would know who they were. It actually felt like they were as confused by the whole situation as we were. They were caught so off-guard that we were able to subdue them. And once they realized their mistake, they stopped even trying to attack. We questioned them and they admitted that they’d been looking for Tillie, that they didn’t know where she was, and then they said that they were Auditors and that Tillie had been ‘dabbling outside her scope,’ and needed to be ‘brought in before she does any more harm.’ We thought they were some kind of mage police force. Mattie asked for more information and they seemed astonished that we didn’t know what Auditors were or what Tillie had been dabbling in. As soon as they realized that we weren’t mages at all, they warned us off and then blinked out again.”
Trevor lounged against the counter.
“Yep, you’re a stitcher all right,” Ida cackled. “Perfect recall and you’re even analyzing the situation as you go. It sounds like you guys got lucky. If they hadn’t been so baffled, they probably wouldn’t have given away so much info. It’s interesting that they stopped attacking you. They must have a code of honor that prevents them from harming anyone who isn’t their target. That’s an advantage for you, and you should always use every advantage you can get, I always say.”
“Yes!” said Trevor. “They mentioned rules. ‘Next time, you might get caught by someone not bound by our rules.’”
“Wait a second,” said Mattie. “What does that mean? Does it mean that these two are bound by rules that not all Auditors are? Or does it mean that there are other people after Tillie besides just Auditors?” She turned to Ida. “Are there other organizations like the Auditors?”
The kettle began to sing and Trevor picked it up and poured the boiling water into the pot. He brought the teapot over to the table and took a seat.
Ida pursed her lips, taking a long moment to think it over. “That’s an excellent question,” she said, finally.
“Stephanie said mages weren’t into secret societies,” Trevor objected.
“Stephanie?” Ida raised an eyebrow.
“Stephanie Bing,” said Trevor.
“Ah, yes. She runs Magpie Magic.” Ida chuckled. “She’s one of those ultra-modern mages. Actually, I think she and Tillie are friends.”
“Tillie would be an ultra-modern mage,” said Mattie.
“Mages are people,” said Ida. “And you can’t stick people into a box, I always say. Some people like to make things as complicated as possible, and so some mages do too, and they get all into mysticism and secrecy and they form clubs. There are tons of so-called secret societies of mages. Of course there are! And some are more secret than others, just like your non-magical societies – your rotary clubs are hardly secret at all and then you’ve got Masons, who thrive on secrecy, and everything in between. Same with magical societies. And the older they are, the more secretive they are, and the more dangerous they are.”
Mattie heaved a sigh and picked up a cookie. She stared at it, tracing its perfectly round shape with her eyes. “I feel like we’re just going around in circles. What about the Auditors? Are they real? Are they secret? Are they dangerous?”
Ida nodded, her smile fading. “Yes, yes, and yes. Let me tell you about Giovani.”
“Giovani?” Mattie cocked her head. “Is he the person who disappeared before?”
“One of them,” said Ida. She picked up the teapot and poured herself a mug of tea, taking a sip before continuing. “Actually, maybe I’ll back up. First I’ll tell you about Ines. She was my favorite aunt when I was a child, and she was a powerful seer. She disappeared when I was a teenager.”
“What do you mean when you say she ‘disappeared?’” asked Trevor with a frown. He opened up the teapot and pulled out the strainer, pouring mugs of fragrant tea for himself and Mattie.
“She vanished without a trace,” Ida clarified. “No note, no body found. Nothing. My parents told me she’d gone back to Tuscany. A few years later, I asked my mama for her address to write her a letter, and she admitted the truth. Ines had been around one day and gone the next. But she also told me that Ines had been behaving strangely leading up to her disappearance and had made some odd comments.”
Trevor leaned forward. “So did Tillie. What did Ines say?”
“Well, it’s all just hearsay, I suppose,” said Ida. “But my mama told me that Ines had told her about a year beforehand that she wanted to learn how to spell. Mama told her to forget it, that it was impossible, that no one could master more than one discipline.”
Mattie jumped to her feet. “Dabbling outside her scope!”
Ida tapped her nose. “Maybe so. Maybe the Auditors don’t like that. There’s more. Mama told me that Ines had grown sort of secretive after that and that the pair of them had argued a few times about whether learning another discipline was possible. Mama and her sister spent less and less time together and Ines started spending more time alone. She broke things off with her fiancé and started sleeping most of the day and staying up all night. Then, right before she vanished, she visited Mama. She told her not to worry about her – that she’d figured it all out. Mama kept asking questions, but Ines just kept telling her not to worry. And then she gave her a necklace and told her she loved her and left. None of us ever saw her again.”
Ida reached into the pocket of her quilted housecoat and pulled out a small paper bag. The bag rustled as she opened it and retrieved a three-inch square wooden box. “This was the necklace.” She popped open the hinged casket and pulled out a gold chain with a large pendant dangling from it.
The necklace was an old-fashioned balance scale – the kind you see statues of blind justice holding. On one side was an hourglass, just like the one on the pendant that had opened up Tillie’s secret room.
Mattie squinted at the other side. It looked like a jumble of objects. Ida handed her the necklace and she examined it more closely. As she studied it, she realized it was a pyramid of simplified versions of the three symbols for the mage disciplines – the eye, the lips, and the hand.
“Let me see that,” said Trevor, reaching out for it.
Mattie handed over the necklace.
As Trevor inspected it, Mattie chewed on her thumb, her mind furiously running over the similarities between Ida’s story and Tillie’s situation. Both were seers. Both were interested in other disciplines. Both had told their families not to worry before disappearing suddenly.
Ines had never been seen again.
That wasn’t going to happen with Tillie.
“Yeah, I’ve definitely seen this before,” said Trevor.
Mattie snapped out of her reverie. “At Tillie’s place?”
“No, I don’t think so.” He jumped to his feet, handing the pendant back to Ida. “Give me a second. I’ll be right back.” Trevor disappeared into his bedroom.
As they waited, Mattie picked up her cookie again and bit into it. She closed her eyes as the lemony frosting and buttery cookie melted in her mouth. “Ida, these are fantastic,” she said. “I wish I could bake.”
“Well, we’ll just add that to the list of things I’ll be teaching you, then,” said Ida, briskly. “Magic and baking are things every woman should know how to do, I always say.”
Mattie smiled. “Magic and baking. I love it.” She took another blissful bite.
Trevor practically skipped back into the room, waving a slender green paperback over his head. “This has got to be it! It’s the thesis of a friend of mine from grad school.”
He tossed the volume onto the table, and Mattie angled her head to read the cover, setting down the rest of her cookie on her plate.
“Secret Societies of Medieval Europe: How Clandestine Pagan Groups Rebelled Against the Power of the Church.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Is this for real?”
“It’s very theoretical,” he admitted. “But don’t you dare ever tell Megan I said that. She feels very strongly about this stuff. Anyway, there’s an appendix with symbols in it.”
Mattie picked up the book and opened it up toward the back. She flipped through until she came to a series of glossy pages with photos of symbols, most of which were in the form of jewelry or carved into the cornerstones of old buildings.
Trevor and Ida leaned over to see as Mattie slowly turned the pages, scanning through the pictures, row after row, page after page.
“How many of these societies are there?” Mattie demanded.
“Actually, if you look at the captions, you can see that most of the societies seem to have multiple symbols, and there are some here and there where the associated society is unknown,” Trevor pointed out.
“Then how do they even know that they are associated with a secret society and not just somebody’s weird art?” asked Ida. “These academics are always jumping to conclusions and filling things in, I always say.”
“I don’t know,” said Trevor. “You’d have to ask Megan that. This isn’t really my area of study.”
Then Mattie spotted it. This one was silver, but was otherwise just like the one Ida had brought along. “Here it is!”
She set the book down and Ida set the necklace next to the photo. “They’re identical,” said Ida. “Where does it say the name of the secret society?”
“Looks like it’s a French group,” said Trevor, brushing against Mattie’s shoulder as he leaned down to puzzle through the foreign name. “La Société des Arbitres Mystiques.”
“The Society of Mystical Arbitors?” Mattie nodded. “Yeah, that seems like something that could turn into The Auditors over time.”
“Is there more information about these mystical whosiwhatsits?” asked Ida. “Better to have solid facts than connect the dots, I always say. We don’t want to fall into the same pitfalls as these speculating grad students. Sometimes dots can make more than one picture.”
“Oh, it says ‘See page 26.’” Mattie flipped through the pages again. “Here we are. ‘La Société des Arbitres Mystiques, or The Society of Mystical Judges, was a mystical society active throughout France and Belgium from the early sixth century through the twelfth, although it was most active in the eighth and ninth centuries. Its mission was supposedly to maintain balance among a wider group of mystics, male and female, who called themselves sorcerors. It is unclear whether the entire body of sorcerors recognized the authority of the Society – some literature paints them as vigilantes and some as a governing body. It is generally agreed that its members were trained in various martial arts and used force to arrest sorcerors who broke the rules imposed by the Society.’”
“What did they do with the people they arrested?” asked Trevor.
“Ummm,” Mattie skimmed ahead. “It doesn’t say. It goes into the origins of the group – unknown – and then it talks about the gradual decline of the group and a little bit about the sorcerors – the author believes they were a subset of alchemists.”
“Mages used to be called sorcerors,” said Ida. “And they did encourage the belief that they were just practicing alchemy. Made it easier to hide in plain sight, I suppose.”
“This is interesting,” said Mattie. “She talks about the progressive values of the Society – one of the few secret societies that allowed women to be members and afforded them exactly the same rights and ranks as men.”
“As admirable as that is, I feel like this is getting a little bit off-topic,” said Trevor. “What happened to them? Did they evolve to become the Auditors?”
“It just says that their membership declined and all mention of them eventually faded out of the history books.” Mattie shrugged. “Sounds like maybe the sorcerors just didn’t want them around anymore.”
“I don’t buy it,” declared Ida. “They were around for six hundred years – that’s some longevity. I think they must have gone underground.”
“They were already underground,” Mattie pointed out. “That’s why there were called a secret society.”
“More underground,” said Ida. “They must have changed their name. How else do you explain this?” She picked up the necklace and shook it in Mattie’s face. “It’s their symbol, and the Auditors are rumored to have the same mission – keeping the balance among mages.”
“Wait a second, though,” put in Trevor. “You haven’t actually given me any reason to believe that Ines was connected to the Auditors. This necklace only indicates that she had a connection to this Medieval French group, who may or may not have evolved into Auditors, but you only learned about them a moment ago. Why bring her into this conversation at all?”
“I hadn’t finished her story,” said Ida. “After I learned that she hadn’t just moved away, I contacted Christopher, Ines’ former fiancé. He was still in love with Ines and was devastated when I told him what had happened. He and I decided to conduct an investigation. We didn’t get far.”
She paused, sipping her tea.
“What happened?” Mattie breathed, leaning forward in her seat.
“He sent me a letter. A note, really, I suppose. Just a few lines.” Ida closed her eyes and recited, “‘You have to stop looking for Ines. It’s the Auditors. Don’t look for me either.’ It was his handwriting and he signed it.”
“And then he disappeared too?” guessed Trevor.
“He sure did,” said Ida. “Never another peep from him.”
“And let me guess,” said Mattie. “They never found his body either?”
“You’re a smart one,” said Ida.
Trevor cocked his head. “Okay, so that’s Ines and Christopher. You started out by talking about Giovani. Who is he?”
Ida was silent for a long moment, and Mattie studied the old woman’s face, noting the exhaustion and sadness in her eyes.
Mattie reached out and touched Ida’s hand. “Maybe we should take a little break from storytime. This is heavy stuff.”
Ida lifted her head and smiled into Mattie’s eyes. “Bless you, dear. Kindness is what makes the world go around, I always say. But this is important, so I better just power through, I suppose. Giovani was the last one. My nephew. He and I were never close – he wasn’t the kind of boy who was interested in talking to old fogeys like me, and I have no patience for his particular brand of ruffian.”
“Ruffian?” Mattie raised an eyebrow.
“He just had no respect for anyone, I suppose. Respect is the glue that holds civilization together, I always say, and while it’s great to have all kinds of people in the world, and it’s great to question authority and I’m all for rebelling against tyranny, he just rebelled against everyone who had anything to say to him that he didn’t like.”
“That does sound irritating,” said Trevor.
“Oh, it was beyond irritating! It was infuriating,” said Ida. “But it was my brother’s problem, not mine. Like I said, Giovani – or Joey, as he insisted he be called – and I were never close.”
“How old was he when he disappeared?” Mattie asked.
“Was he a seer, like Ines?” asked Trevor at the same time.
“One question at a time!” chided Ida. “He was a seer, yes. And he was twenty-four – younger than Ines was. But I’m sure you’re also wondering if he was trying to be more than a seer.”
“Was he?” said Mattie.
“He sure was,” said Ida. “That boy never found a restriction that didn’t chafe, and the whole one-discipline thing was no exception, never mind that mages have been doing that since – well, since we were called sorcerors! And he wasn’t subtle about it either. Most of the family just rolled their eyes at him. Everyone knew it couldn’t be done anyway, and it sure seemed like they were right at first – he had the devil of a time trying to spell, and stitching just didn’t work at all. But he kept at it. He was stubborn. And I – well, I remembered Ines and Christopher, and I tried to warn him. I told him to stop. I didn’t tell him why. I always wonder if it would have made a difference.”
“Probably not,” said Mattie. “If anything, it sounds like it would have helped if you’d told him to keep going instead of warning him away.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, I always say,” agreed Ida. “Anyway, he started getting good at spelling. And then he even started making headway on stitching. It was hard for him – took a lot more energy than seeing, but he could do it.”
“And how long was he doing it before he disappeared?” asked Trevor.
“Oh, I guess it must have been a few months,” said Ida. “No one but me believed him. Even when he’d do demonstrations, people said he had a friend helping him. But I just couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before the Auditors came for him. And then they did.”
Trevor frowned. “You mean he disappeared.”
“Giovani was taken,” said Ida. “I saw it happen.”