With a snap of her fingers Mattie relit the smoking candles.
Eugenia clung to Aurelia’s arm as Aurelia murmured, “All will be well, sister.”
Constance didn’t agree. “Not a good omen, this storm,” she muttered.
The doctor looked up. “Mattie?”
“Yes, Dread. I’m brewing the tea now. My special-particular tea, just as you wanted.” Mattie scurried into the other room.
Dr. Wraith sat at the table, crossed his leg and twitched one red tennis shoe. “We’re running out of time. This could be the end of us all if we don’t close the Timelock before tomorrow’s moonrise.”
“But you’re a ghost,” Pete said. “You can’t end.”
“Nonsense.” Another can of soda appeared. Dr. Wraith popped it open and sipped. “I’m a hard-working, underpaid liaison for the Cross-Temporal Consortium of Witches and Wizards. Totally underpaid at the moment because of,” he raised his soda can to Pete, “you know who.”
There it was again. Always his fault. Pete swallowed, trying to figure out what his next question could be. He didn’t want to rile the doctor, but still, he needed some answers.
Fanon sent him another message, “Just straight out ask him why he’s named Wraith. He’ll be okay with that.”
So Pete asked, “Why are you called Wraith?”
And Weasel asked, “And Dread?”
“Oh, that.” The doctor drained his can of soda, crumpled it and overhanded it into a straw basket by the fireplace where it vanished with a small crinkle-poof. “I needed some ratcheting up. My real name is Clyde Peabody. Dealing with the likes of Genghis Khan and Eric the Red, Clyde Peabody just didn’t give me any clout. I started by borrowing Dread from a Punk Rocker in the twenty-first century, then when that didn’t do the trick, I added Wraith. It gave me the boost I needed. Nobody messes with a wraith.”
He sat at the table and crooked his finger at Pete to join him. “Now, about the other half of that spell.”
Pete squirmed. How could he think surrounded by nervous witches, with Wraith pinning him down with his black glare? Even Snipe and Rush were creeping him out. Snipe leaned against the fireplace and fingered his passport to 3013. It was worthless unless Pete remembered the second half of the spell. Rush stood next to him, his gaze on the floor. He’d have to find a new job. Pete figured Travelers wouldn’t need Guides if they could come and go anytime, anyplace.
Fanon stayed under the table, then his voice buzzed in Pete’s head. His super calm brain-to-brain message said, “You gotta stay calm, Pete. Uncle Cenozo says that’s the key to handling any crisis. This is a Class A Crisis, but you can do it.”
“Well?” Wraith leaned across the table, so his face was inches from Pete’s.
Weasel went to the window. “The storm’s moving out. Sky’s clearing. The moon”—he took in a sharp breath and choked—“it’s close to full. Think, Pete!”
Pete clenched his jaw and silently promised that if he could do it, from now on he’d never even open a book of spells. Never.
“Don’t say never.” Fanon poked his head out from under the table and looked up at Pete. Then out loud he said, “Just say, ‘Until I’m ready’.”
That would be how a responsible wizard did things. That would be how a good ordinary kid would do things, too. Would he ever be either one of these? He looked down at Fanon and nodded.
Weasel stayed at the window and his voice had pleading in it. “Try going back to the very beginning of the lesson, before you worked any spells—the one Harriet taught you, the one you did right, and then go to the one that blew up. Maybe if you see everything in your head again, you’ll come up with your part of the spell to fix things.”
Pete closed his eyes and tried to call up that afternoon. “Harriet sat next to me in her usual chair, the big puffy one. I always get the hard—”
“Not that kind of everything,” Weasel shouted.
“Holy beans, you said everything.” Pete locked eyes with Weasel. “Okay. Okay.” Pete sat straighter in his chair. “She opened the book to a page already bookmarked. She said something like, ‘This is a beginner lesson. Practice this one, so you can do the harder ones’.”
“And?” Weasel said.
“I practiced it. It worked. Piece of cake.”
Weasel buried his face in his hands, saying something that Pete couldn’t make out. But Pete didn’t have to make it out because he knew Weasel was saying how much of a screw-up he was. How he should never have opened the door and let him in that night. How he should have pushed him out of the kitchen and back onto the street with the message un-decoded. If he’d done that he could have gone to bed. If he’d done that, he’d be home right now reading, safe, warm in the right century, but no, he’d been a friend.
Weasel took his hands away and looked across the room at Pete.
“Weasel’s trying to help. Listen.” Fanon was back to talking inside Pete’s head.
“Hey, cut me some slack. I’m trying, Weaze.” Pete squirmed in his chair, then concentrated on what happened next that day at the mansion. He’d missed saying the word on the next spell, and that’s when Harriet got steamed. He’d melted her clock and she’d had it with him.
“Harriet said she needed a break.” Pete left out the part about not practicing until she came back. “Before she left she closed the book, but on her way out of the library door she said something like, ‘The rest of these time spells are tricky. You’re not ready to do them yet, but soon.’” That was pretty close to what she’d said. “After she left I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look at those spells. That’s all I planned to do. Honest.”
“So you opened the book.” Dr. Wraith said. “What did the next spell tell you to do?”
“I don’t know exactly, but it wasn’t tricky. Well, it didn’t have any words I didn’t know.”
“What else do you remember about it?” Dr. Wraith sounded impatient.
“I sort of whispered the words. Nothing went wrong. No big deal.” A trickle of sweat traveled from Pete’s hairline down his neck. It had been a big deal. Who was he kidding? Not Weasel. Not Wraith. From the looks on everybody’s faces, he wasn’t kidding anyone in the room. He wasn’t even kidding himself.
Weasel prodded him on. “So like you said, you did another spell because that one was easy, right?”
Pete nodded and swiped at the back of his neck.
Mattie came in with a big steamy teapot and a cup. “Memory tea,” she said. “This might help.”
Pete sipped the tea that tasted of mint and magic. Its warmth curled inside him and whispered encouragement.
Remember,” it said. “Remember and mend the Timelock. Mend all the broken portals around the world.
“That other spell wasn’t even there until I touched the book, then the words sprang across the blank page.” Pete sat up straight in his chair. He pulled his legs to his chest and hooked his arms around his knees, making himself into a small bundle.
“Then you worked the spell, right?” Weasel came across the room and squatted in front of Pete, looking up at him. “This is important. If you haven’t noticed, we’re one day away from living in 1837. Think permanent-forever. Think about how you’re going survive with no YouTube, no smoothies, no Manga. Not ever again.”
“Okay. Okay. On that page there was one weird thing. I think.” Pete sat up straight and pounded on his head. “What was it?” He pressed his palms against his eyes, and then stared at Weasel. “Some instructions about being careful to pronounce the next three words clear and right. Very important, it said.”
“So?”
“So I thought why not? I pronounce really good.”
Now it was Weasel who pounded on Pete’s head. “What was it?”
“Ow!” Pete pushed Weasel away. “Don’t rush me. I’m thinking.”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t think of rushing you at a time like this.”
“More tea.” Mattie filled Pete’s cup and slid it in front of him.
As he sipped, Stranglewood Cottage creaked and shrank around him. Eugenia, Aurelia and Constance leaned forward in their chairs, clutching each other’s hands. Snipe stopped folding his passport and pinched it between his fingers as if holding on to it tightly might squeeze out what all of them needed from Pete. Rush folded his arms across his chest. He had his fingers crossed. Dr. Wraith waited across the table, grim faced.
That buzzing sensation started. It was the feeling he always got when Harriet or Fanon was about to whisper into his brain.
“You’re getting close, Pete. Don’t stop. You can do it,” Fanon said.
“Thanks for not giving up on me.”
“I’ll never give up on you. That’s my job, remember?”
He had Weasel. He had Fanon. They both believed in him. He couldn’t let them down. Again, he closed his eyes and tried to return to where he’d stopped remembering.
“The spell kind of talked to me. I had to finish what I’d started. I had to say all three words exactly right. I said the first two. I can’t remember what they were, but I must have said them okay because nothing bad happened. That’s when I sneezed, so I saw that last word, but only for a second.”
Mattie slid the cup of memory tea under his nose.
Pete sipped, then rubbed his eyes as if that might make him see what had been in that book. “I think the first one started with an F. No. S. Yes. I’m sure. It was an S.”
Eugenia jumped to her feet. “Seamless?”
“I think so,” Pete said. “Then there was—”
“Timeless.” Constance rose to stand next to her sister.
“Evermore.” Now Aurelia was on her feet.
Pete blinked, then blinked again. “That’s when I sneezed! I didn’t say Evermore. It was an accident. I meant to say Evermore, but I didn’t. And the book started going bonkers. It kind of fizzled, then it flew up and there was a loud clunk. I held the book down, then Harriet threw open the door and yelled at me. And I saw something, but I can’t think what.”
“More tea,” Fanon shouted so everyone could hear.
Pete held out his cup to Mattie and she filled it a third time. When she handed it back to him, Pete wrapped his hands around the bowl.
His palms grew warm, then hot. He quickly set the cup on the table and waved his hands in the air to cool them, but they only grew hotter. When he turned them over, words were there, fiery and perfectly clear. “Levart Emit! That’s what I saw, but it wasn’t in the book. It was here. On me!”
Dr. Wraith grasped the kettle of hot tea and counted to three. When he took his hands away, his palms were filled with the same red hot letters. “Give me your hands,” he said. “Press them against mine. Quick.”
Pete did what he asked. Lightning sizzled across the sky, but it was far away and the thunder that followed was a wee sound. Almost a cat purr.