(Enchanted by T.S.)
James and Cecy,
Send Wrexton at once. I will write to him under separate cover, but add your urging to mine, I beg you.
Kate seems unhurt, so far as I can ascertain under the circumstances, but as she has been transformed into a healthy female foxhound, I cannot say she is unscathed.
When the children received Cecy’s efficient and unusual message, Kate was with me, recasting the protection spell on the bounds. Arthur rode out to warn us, leaving the others to trail after his pony on foot. As their omniscience did not extend so far as our precise location on the route, they very sensibly went for the point at which the boundary passes closest to the Tingle Stone and its circle.
While they were waiting for us to arrive, Edward, as is his wont, climbed the nearest eminence. The first we saw of the children, as we rode toward them along the outside of the stone wall, was Edward waving cheerfully to us from atop the Tingle Stone.
The children shouted to warn us. Kate and I stopped at a safe distance. As Arthur and Eleanor and Drina delivered your message verbatim to me, Kate rode into the ring. I assume she meant to help Edward descend from the Tingle Stone by taking him up behind her in the saddle.
The trap did its work with terrible swiftness. Before I could shout a warning, Kate’s horse shied. Edward fell off the Tingle Stone and landed (unhurt, the jackanapes) beside a frightened foxhound bitch—Kate. I promise you, it was the worst moment of my life.
I could only watch from a distance while Edward coaxed Kate out of the ring. She growls at everyone else, including me, but has not bitten anyone. (Although back at the house, I confess I had a moment of wild surmise when she encountered Georgy, who screamed and burst into tears once she understood the true state of affairs.)
I have Kate safe in my workroom for now, and great damage she has already inflicted upon the place. She will be most unhappy when she sees what she did to the carpet there, not that she ever liked it above half.
Yours,
Thomas