CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GRATEFUL IS AS GRATEFUL DOES
“WHY DOES EVERYONE keep saying I should be a little grateful?” Brian paused long enough to mop up his fifth fried egg with his third piece of raisin bread toast and stuff it in his mouth. Scout watched him with absolute fascination, brown puppy dog eyes going from plate to lips and back again. Or perhaps the intensity came from waiting for a miss, but I hadn’t seen even a close one yet.
“Perhaps,” my mother stated, “because a thank you is due.”
He flicked a glance at her, shrugged, and reached for another piece of toast.
“Carter called in a few favors to get you out without charges.”
“I didn’t ask him to, but perhaps if he’d done his job properly in the first place, there wouldn’t have been an incident to worry about.”
I put a hand out and shoved the toast plate away from him. “Those were fire department and city personnel. The police don’t employ them. The place has been cordoned off for months, and we’ve been lucky to sneak in so far.”
“My house should never have been scheduled to be razed.”
“Professor, it’s totaled. Maybe you need a reality check.”
“Reality check? The reality is that I have a lifetime woven in there, knitted into the very fabric of my home, in every stick and stone and bit of metal used to fabricate it. I can’t afford to lose it. I don’t want to lose it.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have set yourself on fire.”
The fork clattered out of Brian’s hand as he shook it at me. It hit the table, and a half a piece of raisin toast went flying as if catapulted. Scout leaped after it like a Frisbee disk and chomped it down happily.
“It’s not your place to lecture me, young lady.”
“All we’re saying is that Carter went to a great deal of trouble to get you out of jail, and a little gratitude would be nice. Instead, you’re making us think he should have let you cool off a few more days.”
“Bah. I need to get my things out of there.”
“There’s a restraining order against you.”
“What?”
“You can’t enter your property.”
“Why—why—who ever heard of such a thing!”
Mom slid another egg out of the frying pan and onto his plate. “The paperwork came early this morning before you were released. It’s for your own safety. For everyone’s safety, really.” She eyed me briefly. She hadn’t missed the fact that I’d made an early morning jog to bring my car home. No questions were asked, but I deserved the sidelong look she gave me.
I took a breath. “I should let you twist in the wind.”
He squinted at me.
“We boxed up what we could find of your library and brought it home last night. It’s all sitting in the basement.”
“All? How could you know what was all?”
“Well, we found the hidden bookcases, so I think we have an idea.”
His jaw tightened. “And who is we?”
“Me, Carter, Steptoe, and Hiram.”
His gaze swept me in examination. “And you’re still in one piece?”
“Carter put a protection on us, a displacement. It didn’t last long, but long enough.”
This time he set his fork down carefully, but somehow a slightly burnt edge of crust managed to slip off his plate and float off the table. It never made it to the kitchen floor. “My desk?”
“We went through that, too. The map of whatever it is, we put in a folder in the box marked ‘books and map.’”
“Hmmm.” Brian chewed and swallowed. “You all seem to have thought of everything.”
“Look, we know we probably didn’t get everything, but we got most of it, and Hiram says the basement is a kind of safe room, so it’s protected for the moment. I seriously don’t think we can go back to your house.”
“Perhaps I cannot, but why wouldn’t I be able to send you?”
“Because something is there that Steptoe is familiar with, and it’s got tentacles and it’s stinky slimy. It attacked us.”
Brian nearly choked. “Perdition.”
I added the kicker as my mother turned an alarmed expression toward me. “And it’s got Steptoe.”
“Really? How on earth?”
“He threw himself at it to protect me.”
Brian dabbed a napkin to his lips, finally pushing his plate away. “Thank you, Mary. That was most appreciated. As for Simon, that is most astonishing.”
“It is not.” I defended my friend. “He’s done it a number of times before.”
“Oh, not that he guarded you, but that she sent someone after him. His change in allegiance has evidently not gone unnoticed.”
“Why wouldn’t it be noticed? It seems obvious.”
“Steptoe comes from a world where the long game is always played, and it can last for centuries. Simon’s reformation can be measured in decades, as I count it, and probably hasn’t registered with other powers. No, the thing came to my place and no doubt came after me. The two of you just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time, and he resorted to desperate measures on your behalf.”
“You know, not everything is about you.”
“No, but many things are, and it seems to me that this one might well be. Zinthrasta can be counted as an enemy of mine even as she once used to be a mistress of Steptoe.”
“Zinthrasta?”
The professor made a slight face. “The glop is one of her trademark minions. You described it accurately?”
“I left out the fog.”
“Definitely a glop.” He stood to carry his plate over to the sink, rinsed it, and put it on the counter to wait for the dinner dish loading. “I should check the boxes over before making any decisions of any kind.”
I fetched a tape gun from the mudroom, along with a cutting knife. “Right behind you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps I wanted privacy.”
“I can always call the police department and tell them you’re still belligerent.”
“Brat.”
“Professor.”
He opened the pantry door leading to the basement, and I clattered down the stairs behind him. Scout followed.
I expected the fire stink to fill the room, but surprisingly it didn’t. One of the boxes had leaked a small, inky puddle onto the new tile floor, but on examination, it turned out to be fine ash that had filtered out of a crack in the box. Brian examined it closely with an odd expression and ran a finger through it, sniffed it, but said nothing to me of why that might have happened. I wondered if he knew, himself. Scout didn’t alert to it, so I decided it might be nothing, although I’d learned in this new reality that hardly anything was nothing. There was always something and often a nasty surprise.
The box that had fallen off and gotten restacked had jumped the pile again. I stood and looked it over to see if we had written anything on it to ID its contents, but nothing stood out. Brian located his “Map” box quickly and put his hand out to me.
“Scalpel.”
I slapped the box cutter across his fingers. “Scalpel.”
He sliced the tape open quickly and returned the box cutter before kneeling down to examine his rescued treasures.
Brian in his new reincarnation stood tall, carried himself with broad shoulders and, when occasionally shirtless, had six pack abs to admire. The frizzled, thinning hair of the professor was gone, as was the bristly, almost alive mustache and the thicket of hair from the canals of his ears. So his current resemblance did not remind one of a dragon unlike the other persona. I saw it now, though, as if the great mythological beast found his hoard restored. He ran his hand over the box’s contents.
“If you say ‘my preciousss,’ I’m outta here.”
“What? Oh. Hmmm.” And Brian smiled slightly. “It would give you a start, wouldn’t it? But all of you did an admirable job. I doubt there is much left for me to salvage.”
“You’re going back?”
“Just for a quick sweep. Just in case.” He put a finger alongside his nose. “I have my hidey holes, you know.”
His finger left a charcoal stripe along his face and I ducked my head, trying not to laugh.
“I’ll go with you.”
“Best not. If the glop is fixated on associates of Steptoe as well, it will come after you.”
“What about you?”
“It dare not.”
“Taking your blasting stick?”
“I might, although that will tax its recovery. No, there is something in this box that will aid me a bit.” He tapped the cardboard before reaching in and pulling out a copper bracelet. Without telling me what it was or did, he fastened it on.
I thought of Steptoe’s suit coat and how he’d stripped it off and tossed it to me, shoving his shirt cuffs up his arms, before throwing himself at that thing charging at us. It was and wasn’t part of him. I very rarely saw him without it and I knew it had, at least twice, provided invisibility. But other than that, and truthfully that was enough, I had no idea what else it could do. I also didn’t want to try it out here, in front of the professor. What if he took it from me, for my own good? Magic users seemed notorious for looting each other’s items. Or using it made it unusable for another time when I might need it? Yet I had questions. What if I could find Steptoe through it?
“Tell me about using a part of something to find the rest of that something,” I said to the professor.
Elbow-deep in a second box, carefully shuffling through items like a card shark stacking a deck, Brian lifted his head and stared blearily at me once or twice to get me in focus. “Hmmm? That would be a form of what we call sympathetic magic. More or less.”
“Why more or less?”
“It is a convention which believes that compulsion or influence can be had over an object through a similar or connected part of it. The hair of a dog might rule the dog, for instance.”
“Might?”
“I’ve found it’s not a reliable magic.”
“Oh.”
“Why do you ask?”
“It was mentioned to me, and I hadn’t heard of it, and they then said you were behind on my studies.”
He scrunched up his nose. “I believe in learning actual magic and then, when one is a master, one can dabble in learning about fakery.”
“So . . . voodoo is fake?”
“No, no. But that involves another matter altogether. What I’ve been attempting to teach you, Tessa, uses will, disciplined and educated and imaginative. It’s a finer art than herbology or learning spells by rote or making sacrifices to harness another’s power, often demonic.”
I stared at him. Then made a sign of passing my hand over my head. He, now purely Brian, grinned.
“I know, right? Welcome to my life.” He dipped back into the container and many rustles followed.
My mother bellowed down the staircase, “Tessa! Classes!”
I hit the stairs. “And welcome to mine.”
Evelyn dressed in camos for the day, shocking me and nearly everyone else, although I could place a bet and win money that girls would be dressing in camos in every classroom before the week was out. She did look fetching, thin with curves in the right places while I simply wore jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt with the cuffs rolled up and my sneakers. She nudged me.
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“The outfit, duh. I’ll blend in if we need to do some spying.”
“Ah. Stunning.” I shifted my backpack and tried to look admiring.
Despite the professor and Brian’s viewpoint on sympathetic magic, I hoped to try it out. I had Germanigold’s feather in my backpack and with any luck, could figure out a way to utilize it while on the computers in the library. Google had magic of its own: information. Tons and tons of it, some of it real and some of it so far from the mark it made fake news look credible. I just needed enough time to sift through it all. “I’m just going to get a look at the campus. No spying involved.” Not for her, anyway.
Evelyn pouted for about twelve seconds. “I can go home and change at lunch break.”
“Why? You look adorable.” I thumbed open my phone. “See? You’re already trending on Instagram.”
“Am I?” She peered at my cell and laughed. “Guess I’ll go as I am.”
I shelved my phone. “Good. Did you look up the academy last night?”
“I did but, well . . .”
“What?”
“I think you deserve better.”
“Evie. Thank you. But the place looked like a brain trust to me.”
“Oh, no doubt of that. But it’s small. It seems to be quite conservative. I don’t know—I should think you’d want to spread your wings and fly.”
I pondered telepathy and wondered if she’d honed in on my plan to find Germanigold at Silverbranch. Despite the suspicious use of words, I decided there wasn’t a chance. She can be good people, but often Evelyn considered herself first and a lot more frequently than she considered other people. It wasn’t her fault; she’d been taught to do so by her image-conscious parents. I patted her shoulder. “Thanks for the thought.”
“Welcome. See you later.”
We split in the hallway.
By the end of the day, the Internet had vomited wordage all over me, and I decided that I might have been better off not knowing most of it, because my early impulse of simply holding the feather and willing myself to be able to find Goldie and free her seemed the best, most positive, not to mention sane, way of rescuing her. Philosophers are sometimes right: the simplest solution is often the best. My only worry now seemed to be getting Evelyn out of the way at the critical moment in time when I hoped to accomplish the feat. Turning her around in a circle three times, taking a blindfold off, and pointing in the direction of the nearest good-looking guy didn’t seem feasible. Not that it wouldn’t work, but she might be a bit annoyed at the blatant manipulation.
One doesn’t want Evelyn Statler or either of her parents annoyed at them. Especially her father, who will probably be elected mayor in November.
I could, however, probably convince her to decoy for me in a dire situation. I’d just have to think of what it could be if/when I located Goldie.
We linked arms and walked to the parking lot where my shiny, only somewhat faded red car waited for me, along with Dean the bad boy leaning on its fender. He had a new haircut, faded on the sides with a luxurious curling wave on top. He’d found a vintage athletic jacket from somewhere and had that on, along with hip-hugging jeans, a black shirt, and shoes too cool to bother lacing up, even if they tripped him somewhere down the block.
He reached for Evelyn. “Hey, babe.”
As fast as she could be, Evie dodged him. “Not now, sugar, I’ve got a road trip with Tessa.”
“But we had plans.”
She poked her finger into his chest. “You had plans. You forgot to ask me, and I’m going to be busy. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Maybe tomorrow I’ll be busy.”
“And pigs will fly. You’ll wait for me if you know what’s good for you.” Evelyn tossed her head again, light blond hair rippling over her shoulders, and a dare-me look filled her eyes.
“Now go on. We’ve things to do.” She turned him about and gave him the tiniest of pushes away from the car. I watched him stride away with that super confident “I’m the shit” strut alpha males must practice from the time they hit 12 until they need a walker. “Mmm-mmm,” Evelyn murmured. “Isn’t he something?”
He definitely thought he was. “You’re lucky. Now, get in the car and buckle up, buttercup!”
The temperature had dropped considerably in the afternoon and made her camo outfit look like genius while I rummaged around in my car’s trunk praying for a stray jacket or hoodie to be stuffed in among the textbooks. Nothing turned up. I would have to brave the autumn weather in shirtsleeves and made a note to put contingency supplies in the car.
Evelyn tapped my shoulder. “Ready?”
“Pretty much.” I turned. She had a windbreaker hanging from her fingers.
“Thought you might need this.”
She could read my mind! Acceptable, for the moment. “Where’d you have this?”
“Stuffed deep in my backpack. Sorry it’s wrinkled.”
I took it and shrugged into it. “Good job. I see I picked a super sidekick.”
She tossed her head. “Partner.”
“You’ve just been promoted.”
She dropped her pack into the trunk and away we went.
The edge of the Silverbranch Academy bordered a small, unnamed creek that ran into Richmond’s main river, the James, which is a massively important waterway, some 340 miles long. The campus’ little fellow looked very unimportant in comparison, although it did set the Academy apart from the farmlands nearby. As the car crept into the visitors’ parking lot, the sky darkened with growing clouds, and trees thrashed to and fro in the wind. “My,” said Evelyn. “It’s getting busy out there.”
Looking through the windshield, I caught the distinct impression that the coming storm might not come from Mother Nature. Would that make me paranoid?
Evelyn grabbed her handbag. “Let’s go.” There are accessories she wouldn’t be caught dead without. Her pack, not so much but her purse and phone, always.
I sat. My purse these days is a small, heavy-duty, and lightweight backpack. I couldn’t find a comfortable shoulder bag that held Steptoe’s flash-bangs and a quart-sized carton of salt easily enough, not to mention the other necessities. Picking the pack up, I hefted it over my shoulder.
“Administration is that way. They said they’d have a pass for us.”
Much as I’d wanted to sneak in, the open country around made it impossible as well as unwise. Although forest blended in and out of farm acreage, the campus stood out easily. Down the road, a near-primeval forest awaited, but not here.
Stepping outside, the wind whipped Evelyn’s hair about her face, blinding her for a moment. She stopped and tried unsuccessfully to tuck it in place. I dug in my pocket and handed her a scrunchie, and she quickly bound it back.
We headed to Administration, skittering like other students and various fall leaves along the sidewalks in a hurry. In the gray afternoon, the blaze of climbing ivy turning red, gold, and orange lit up many of the buildings while the more modern ones held mirror images in their glassy sides, giving the whole place a small but classy and dynamic look. I wondered if any of it was illusion.
We blew into the main hall with a clatter of double doors and staccato of Evelyn’s bootheels on the tile flooring. I glanced down. Marble. Marble flooring. For the briefest of moments, I wondered if Mortimer and his Broadstone clan had done any of the work here. Quite possibly. No, make that probably. His people were said to be masters even among masters, and this stuff looked like quality, understated elegance. I smiled down at the floor. For another brief moment, I thought I could feel warm wishes reflected back at me.
Fortified, I tapped the back of Evelyn’s hand, and we forged down the hall toward Admittance.
A receptionist smiled up at us, perky and not much older than either of us at first glance, although a look at her clothes suggested she had never left the Fifties or maybe she just liked being retro. While Evelyn stared at her, thinking, I introduced myself.
“Oh, we have your visitor’s pass right here. Customarily, we let you take a walk around and then meet back here for a little orientation film, and a question and answer session.”
“Sounds perfect.” I took the pass. Under my glove, my maelstrom stone flashed red-hot, and then went icy. I guessed it just neutralized something in the paperwork, although I had no idea what and decided to get moving before the ageless receptionist figured out something had gone wrong.
Evelyn waved cheerily before joining me. She whispered, “OMG. I think she’s 80% Botox.”
“Really?”
“Has to be. Did you see her clothes?”
“Yup. I thought maybe it was rock ’n roll day here or something.”
Evelyn snickered. “She wishes. Okay, where to now?”
“A quick look at the classroom halls even though we’re going to have to hurry between buildings and hope it doesn’t start raining.”
“I’m game. My jacket is probably warmer than yours.”
“And not borrowed.”
“Right.”
A small but detailed map had been printed on the backside of the pass. I could see a silver star neatly marked “You Are Here” at the Administration building. I showed the map to Evelyn. “Hey! They’ve got a Starbucks. We can stop for coffee.”
“We’re going to need one.”
As we stepped back outside, the wind swirled up, much colder and uninviting, and it tried to slice through our clothing. Evelyn glanced up at the sky. “It almost feels like snow.”
“Seriously?”
“I know, I know. It can’t be.” She pulled up the hood on her jacket and tied it tight under her chin. “Yours has a hood, too, in the collar.”
My numb ears felt much better as soon as I got protection in place. We hurried from one building to another, sometimes with students and professors, but mostly alone, as class times didn’t coincide with our visit. We peeked into a number of classrooms, saw nothing remarkable, and Evelyn complained in a disappointed voice, “Doesn’t seem that different from Sky Hawk.”
And it didn’t.
“There are dorms,” I said helpfully. “We don’t have dorms.”
“Oh! Right! Maybe the good-looking guys are in the common rooms, studying.” She dug an elbow in my ribs.
“Sorry about that. They were in the brochure. Maybe we can sue for false advertising?”
She giggled, which seemed to lift the brooding atmosphere a bit, as we ventured to the nearest dorm.
If this was a den of magical learning, I hadn’t seen it, other than my stone’s reaction to my pass. Nor did I have an inkling as to why Carter Phillips had enrolled here, however briefly, or what he might have studied. If there was a glamour here, disguising the place, it was impenetrable. Notwithstanding the pass, I detected no magical activity, but I told myself I wasn’t the best detector ever. I should have brought Scout. The concrete pathway evolved into rather clever stepping stones as we approached Birch Hall Dorm. The vibrant autumn-painted ivy covered this building in huge waves. Behind it, however, I could see red brick, old-fashioned glass-paned windows, and numerous chimneys adorning the rooflike turrets on a castle. It looked tremendously old and a bit pretentious and very New England-ish charming, tucked away in the heart of Virginia. Two immense silver birch trees ruled the front lawn to the main part of the dorm.
A handful of students charged out of the doorway as we neared to step in, and a girl to the rear of the group stopped, her gaze catching sight of me with pass in hand. She was a ginger, and freckles dotted her face, making it merry looking. She laughed and waved the others on.
“Visiting?”
“Yes.”
“Bloody weather for it.” Her accent couldn’t quite decide if it were English or maybe Irish without the brogue. “You should go to the library. Definitely the library. That’s where everyone gathers.” And she was off, rather like a headstrong pony, catching up with her herd of fellows.
“Library?”
I shrugged. “She did recommend it.” We located it by the map and also by the students headed toward it, in handfuls and singles, seemingly unmindful of the weather.
We started toward the building, off to the northwest, when I happened to look back, over my shoulder, a recent habit. Anything could be following us. There, in the shadows of Birch Hall, I could see the gardens of the courtyard behind with three lovely statues celebrating water, earth, and air. Only the air statue looked disturbingly familiar.
My backpack tugged a bit. I shoved my hand inside to find Goldie’s feather doing a frantic jig.
“Ummm. How about you head to the library? I’m going to double back and see if I can find the girls’ bathroom in the dorm.”
“You can’t wait?”
“It’s been all day.” I danced a little on the stepping stones. Shoving the pass into her hand, I promised to catch up with her immediately. “And save a guy for me!”
Evie waved me on, shaking her head and chortling.
I legged it back toward the dorm, ducked around the south wall of the building and headed to the courtyard. There, face-to-face with the statue, I could see the unmistakable resemblance even though I’d met her in the darkest of night. The feather practically flew out of my backpack into my hand where I held it, with absolutely no idea what to do with it.
I could see that part of her wing statuary seemed chipped, missing a piece. Could it be that simple? Stepping forward, I angled the feather down into the gap and completed the wing.
Goldie turned her head toward me with a gasp.