A week after Freya was encouraged to take an unwanted leave of absence, Ingrid was contemplating quitting her job altogether. And without it, what would she have? For Ingrid, if work was unbearable there was no reason to live. She never had much of a home life in the first place and she missed her sister’s sparkling company. Before Freya met Bran, Ingrid could count on her sister for movie nights, the occasional dinner or two. But ever since the engagement Freya was hardly home, even with Bran away in the city or on trips so much. Ingrid wondered about that; she thought Freya would miss him more, but she had the same red cheeks, dreamy expression, and late nights whether he was in town or not. Maybe they were having a lot of . . . what did they call it? Phone sex? Ingrid shuddered. Lately Freya had seemed out of sorts and agitated, however, so maybe the separation was beginning to take a toll.
As for where Joanna had gone, Ingrid could not even hazard a guess. Her mother was somewhere her cell phone service did not reach apparently, since calls to Joanna went straight to voice mail. Ingrid could always use the underlayer to probe for her location, or maybe send Oscar to look for her, but Ingrid had a feeling her mother wanted her privacy.
Ingrid never felt lonely, not when she had so many books to read and such good friends at the library, a job that she had looked forward to every morning for the past seven years. She knew that her mother believed that she was wasting her time, her skills, her intellect, her everything, working in some pokey small-town library, and that Freya thought it was all so incredibly boring. But to Ingrid, her library was her home; yet for the last several weeks she had been going to work with a heavy heart, and she wondered if maybe her mother and sister were right. If maybe it was time to quit. Practicing magic again had returned excitement and purpose to her life, but she did not have to do it in the library. She could set up her own clinic, a proper one, with an office, a schedule, and a receptionist. There were so many things she could do with her magic other than cure nightmares and help women conceive.
On a lighter note, since the Fourth of July, however, Ingrid had noticed there was less of that gray darkness in people’s spirits. Maybe it was dissipating from the town; even that weird toxic sludge in the middle of the ocean had stopped moving, and the latest reports said it looked as if it were finally shrinking. Although the latest news reports said that a similar mass recently reappeared near the Alaskan coastline.
She parked her bike and chained it to her usual post. Hudson’s bike was already in its place. The door was open, the lights were on, and everything was bright and orderly. “Good morning,” she said, trying for cheerfulness as she walked to her desk.
“Morning.” Hudson yawned.
“Hi, Ingrid.” Tabitha smiled. She was only in her second month and enjoying every minute of it, even the wretched morning sickness and the inability to eat anything but tea and crackers and still look puffy.
There was nothing from Caitlin but stony silence. Ingrid ignored it, as she didn’t much care what the latest drama was in that particular romance novel. For the past week Ingrid had had to endure Caitlin’s prattle about how she and Matt were going away for a romantic weekend later that month, to a bed-and-breakfast in Martha’s Vineyard. Caitlin had regaled Hudson and Tabitha with the details of her trousseau—lingerie, champagne, the works. Hudson had fun modeling the nipple covers, while Tabitha gave too-earnest pointers on the advantages of lubricant and other erotic accoutrements including a much-too-detailed description of various handcuffs, metal rings, and electronic devices. It was right about then that Ingrid had begun to question her commitment to the job. Either she would have to fire Caitlin or quit herself. But she could not take one more day of the entire office sending the girl off to romance nirvana with condom banners flying.
When Caitlin left the room, Ingrid texted Hudson.
<<what’s wrong with her?>>
He swiveled around, a wicked grin on his face. He motioned to Tabitha to shut the door. “You haven’t heard?” he whispered.
“Haven’t heard what?” Ingrid asked.
“Romance weekend on Martha’s Vineyard is off!”
“Pardon?”
“You left too early yesterday.”
“Obviously.”
Tabitha looked over her shoulder and filled her in. “Matt came by yesterday afternoon as usual. I saw them fighting outside. Then he drove off without her. I asked her what happened and she said it was over. He’d canceled the whole weekend because he had to work on that missing girl case, you know, Molly Lancaster. He said it wasn’t working, anyway. He wasn’t feeling it. He was sorry.”
“Oh, dear!” Ingrid said.
“I know!”
“Poor Caitlin,” Ingrid said, feeling a little sorry for the girl. Just a little. She knew it was difficult when someone you liked stopped liking you.
“Anyway, Caitlin thinks he’s a liar. That there’s someone else. You remember how the night of the concert was supposed to be his lucky night? Well, that’s when he told her he wanted to wait until it was special. That’s when he asked her to go to the Vineyard with him, but now that’s off, too,” Tabitha said.
“So . . . they haven’t . . . ?” Ingrid craned forward.
“No!” Hudson interjected, looking disappointed. “Looks like the only one getting lucky in this office is me, since Tab is afraid of ‘hurting the baby.’ But now my Scott is withholding since I told him I didn’t think he could quite pull off the male Capri pant.”
“If you ask me, they were an odd match, anyway,” Tabitha said, rubbing her belly, which was showing the tiniest little bump.
“Shhh—she’s back!” Hudson warned. Ingrid pretended to be busy with a drawing and the other two went back to their computers.
Suddenly the day seemed so much brighter. The women who came to visit Ingrid at lunch were treated to a host of charms and spells that not only took care of their aches and pains but were sprinkled with a lightness, a joy, a little something extra that had been missing from her magic before. Her money-bag charms smelled like honeysuckle, her spells seemed to emit a golden sparkle, and even her knots were beautiful and perfect, each a work of art.
“Well, if you aren’t little Mary Sunshine,” Hudson teased. “This morning you looked like you were ready to drink hemlock.”
“Shush,” Ingrid said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She tried to maintain a straight face as she returned to her desk. Her computer screen signaled the arrival of an instant message.
<<i think i know what these blueprints are showing & what the keys mean>>
<<?>>
<<but first i need u to do something for me>>
<<?>>
<<can you get to fair haven? inside the house?>>
Ingrid hesitated before typing in an answer. After thinking about it for a few minutes, she wrote, yes.