by Jeff Wheeler
“Oh. I’m sorry.” He was silent for a moment. “Can you do magic too?”
She pulled a small handful of suspension powder from the pouch. “Yes, I can.” She tossed the dust in his face and whispered some words of power in Old Welsh.
The lad barely had time to react; his eyes went wide and then he stopped moving, frozen in place.
Dwyn took the satchel from his hands and opened the bag, wincing when she saw the potions inside. Only one was anywhere near the right color, a dull green that could almost be mistaken for the vibrant wellrest potion that its label said it was. The virulent orange potion that was labeled “Elixir of Healing and Restoration” should have been a rosy pink, and the brownish goop her grandfather claimed was a clearthought potion should have been pale blue.
She glanced at the boy, making sure that the suspension spell had taken effect properly, and then left the kitchen. A knock at the door interrupted her before she could reach her workshop. She groaned and turned back, hoping it wasn’t another petitioner. A glance through the peephole showed her neighbor, Mrs. Reilly. Dwyn opened the door.
“Good morning, Dwyn,” Mrs. Reilly said, smiling. The middle-aged woman had prematurely silver hair and was wearing a pale green long-skirted summer dress. She held up a worn disk of wood carved with spell knots. “I’m not imposing, am I? I was hoping you could get me youth charm working again. Me husband’ll be getting back from sea this week, as long as things on the continent haven’t gotten any worse, and I want to be sure I’m looking me best for him.”
Dwyn gave a thin smile and took the charm. “I’d be happy to. Come in.” She stepped back to let Mrs. Reilly in, and shut the door behind her. “I just need to take care of one other thing first, if that’s all right.”
“Oh, of course, dear, take your time.”
Dwyn turned and headed to her workroom, trying not to feel irritated. She really was happy to help Mrs. Reilly—the woman was always so kind and solicitous, and Dwyn would have to be completely thoughtless not to appreciate her. It was just that she wasn’t getting done any of the things she’d planned to do that morning . . .
Mrs. Reilly followed her down the hall and stood in the doorway to the workshop, looking around with a curious eye. Dwyn set the youth charm on her carving table and then turned to her row of simmering cauldrons. She carefully removed all the flasks and vials from the satchel—old and poorly washed, every one of them—and placed them on a stand beside her sink. She would pour them out later, after she’d made sure that none of them would damage the plumbing or cause trouble if it washed out into the river. Most of them were probably harmless, but . . . you never knew.
“What’re all those, then?” Mrs. Reilly asked as Dwyn began filling new flasks with the potions she’d been brewing before the explosion interrupted.
“Potions for a petitioner,” Dwyn replied without looking up. “Clearthought, wellrest . . . a few others.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you’d begun taking petitioners!” Mrs. Reilly hesitated a moment. “I . . . thought students weren’t allowed to do that. Aren’t you still on leave from the academy?”
Dwyn paused her pouring without looking up, a familiar sinking feeling settling into her stomach. “No, not anymore.”
“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Reilly placed a hand on Dwyn’s shoulder. “They wouldn’t extend it?”
“It’s all right.” Dwyn took a deep breath and resumed pouring. “It really is. They’d already given me a year’s leave, after all. It wasn’t really reasonable of me to hope . . .” She trailed off with a shrug.
Mrs. Reilly leaned down and gave Dwyn a gentle hug. “I’m so sorry, dearie.”
Dwyn shrugged. “It should be all right, really. I found some of my grandfather’s old spellbooks buried in one of the lower tower rooms—the books he was just positive the Jameses had somehow broken in and stolen. I’ve been studying some of the spells he designed, trying to learn them myself. It will give me an advantage if I . . . whenever I reapply to the academy.”
“Well, that’s good, I suppose . . .” Mrs. Reilly sat down quietly in a chair by the wall.
Dwyn forced a smile. “Anyway, no—I’m still not taking formal petitioners. I’m just . . . helping my grandfather with one of his.”
“Helping him?” Mrs. Reilly glanced at the dirty potion flasks that Dwyn had removed from the satchel. “I take it he doesn’t know you’re helping?”
“Well . . . no.” Dwyn corked the final flask and began loading them into the satchel. “I hid eavesdropping spells in the protective wards I put on his tower last year. I just listen in when a petitioner comes and then switch his concoctions out for the proper ones when no one’s looking.”
Mrs. Reilly bit her lip. “You know, Dwyn . . . there are homes for older people, when they become this troublesome.”
“Oh, I’ve thought of that, believe me,” Dwyn replied. More and more every day, she’d thought of that. “But . . . I couldn’t do that to him.”
“They’re not so bad, these days,” Mrs. Reilly said. “Especially after all the work your grandfather did for the kingdom back in the day; I’m sure his pension could get him in a prime, government-run home where they’d take wonderful care of him. He’s the High Wizard Bobydd, after all!”
“That’s the problem, Mrs. Reilly.” Dwyn frowned at the older woman. “He’s the man who single-handedly ended the Great War, the greatest Welsh wizard since Gwydion. Everyone knows it. I can’t put the legendary Arliss Bobydd in an elderly home. Even before word of it got around, he would be so ashamed; he wouldn’t really be alive after that.”
Mrs. Reilly sighed. “Is it really much worse than living a lie, thinking he’s still living up to his old reputation when he’s not?”
Dwyn hesitated, staring down at the potions in the satchel. She wondered that every day. “Yes, it would be worse than this,” she finally replied. A year ago, when she’d come home from school, she wouldn’t have hesitated. “He spent his life building that reputation, and he deserves to keep it. The only times I really see him happy now are when he thinks he’s helping someone, or when he gets talking about the old days, and I won’t take that away. If . . . if I have a hard time because of it”—she shrugged her shoulders—“that’s just too bad.”
For a moment, she thought that Mrs. Reilly was going to cry. “Well, that’s right compassionate of you, Dwyn. Your mother would be so very proud.” Mrs. Reilly hesitated, biting her lip. “But . . . and I hope I’m not being too forward saying this . . . but I don’t think your mother would want you to give up everything you cared about. She was so proud of you, going off to the academy so young. All of those offers of employment you had and whatnot.”
Dwyn leaned her head into her hands. Her temples were throbbing again. “I know, I just . . . I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”
“Oh, I wish I knew, dearie.” Mrs. Reilly hugged her again, patting her hair. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to give up what you want. You can, if you think that’s best—but you don’t have to.”
Dwyn nodded. She would think over it some more later, when her head didn’t hurt so much.
Mrs. Reilly squeezed Dwyn’s shoulder and then stood. “I’ll come back for me charm later, dearie—don’t worry about getting it done right away.” She turned and headed for the door.
Dwyn tucked the last potion into the satchel, the clearthought. Years before, her mother had convinced her grandfather to take a little of it every morning. It had helped him keep things together for a while. But the potion no longer helped enough to waste the resources.
“Mrs. Reilly?”
The older woman stopped in the doorway. “Yes?”
“How did my mother deal with all this, while I was at school?”
“Oh, dearie,” Mrs. Reilly smiled. “She talked with me. When I stop by for the charm, you can let out all your frustrations. It’ll do you good.” She waved and left.
Dwyn smiled. She took a deep breath and then returned t
o her work, penning a list of instructions for using the potions. Then she returned to the young man in the kitchen, placing the satchel back in his arms. After checking to ensure she was standing where she had been before, she let the power fade from the suspension spell with a whisper. The young man blinked once or twice, and then his brow furrowed.
“All right,” she said, turning to her cupboards before he could ask what had happened. “How about some pasties? I’ve got some with meat and potatoes, and some with raspberry. That should get you through the day.”
She looked over her shoulder at the young man. He blinked a few more times, visibly confused, and then he nodded. “Um . . . yes. That sounds wonderful, thank you.”
“Of course,” she replied, pulling the pasties from the icebox and placing them in a small basket. She handed the young man the note of instructions. “Now, I know my grandfather went over the instructions for those potions very quickly, so I just wanted to make sure you remembered what to do. Give your father a spoonful of the restorative and the wellrest potions before he sleeps each night, and let him sip at the fortitude potions whenever he’s feeling weak. Give him a teaspoon of the clearthought potion each morning—that will help him focus through the day until the fits pass—but don’t give him any more than that. If he has too much, his mind will become overworked and he’ll go into a coma. Understand?”
The young man nodded, wide-eyed as he looked over the note. Dwyn smiled and handed him the basket. “You’ll do fine. Let us know once your father’s doing better.”
He smiled and stood. “Thank you so much, ma’am.” He bowed, clutching the satchel and basket. “I can’t believe we got help from Arliss Bobydd himself! I’m going to have to tell my whole town about this. Thank you!”
She smiled again and led him to the door. The young man’s gratitude made her feel a bit better about things. As he hurried down the walk to his bicycle, however, she noticed her grandfather on his hands and knees in front of the tower, picking weeds out of his lawn and placing them carefully in a basket.
Dwyn sighed and leaned against the door frame, rubbing her forehead to try to clear her head. Her plans had been to spend the day researching some new spells, but it didn’t look like that would happen. The morning had been taken up with potion making, and she needed to replace the tower’s protective wards since the old ones had used up all their energy containing the explosion.
She turned to head back to her workroom and immediately tripped over the stacks of newspapers by the door.
* * *
Dwyn made the physical focus for the new wards out of tungsten wire and oak branches, weaving in small bits of other materials here and there while constantly double-checking her work against one of her grandfather’s old spellbooks. The design for the wards was his, discovered when he’d been younger and somewhat more . . . stable. Like all of his spells, it was intricate and amazing and difficult.
The strenuous work was already beginning to give her a headache when she heard her grandfather enter the cottage. A moment later, he turned on the radio and turned it up loud enough that the newsreaders seemed to be shouting. She groaned and rested her head on the worktable. Then she continued working, trying to concentrate through an ear-pounding discussion of the king and queen’s visit to the United States. When the topic shifted toward German aggressions on the continent, she stormed out to turn off the radio and discovered that her grandfather had already returned to his tower, leaving the radio on behind him.
As she worked, Dwyn realized where she’d gone wrong when she’d made the wards the year before—her eavesdropping spell had interfered with some of the more delicate functions of her grandfather’s design. It took her most of the day, but she eventually adjusted the design to incorporate both spells without interfering with the functionality of either.
Immensely proud of herself, she waited until her grandfather left for the market and then took the focus up into the tower. Using Welsh words of power, she projected her magic through the focus, casting glowing replicas of the ward into the walls, windows, floor, and ceiling—she left no surface unprotected. The images would be visible only to other wizards who knew how to look for them, but her hidden spell wouldn’t be visible at all.
By the time she was finished, she was exhausted and beginning to feel jittery and stifled from the looming piles of junk. Her stomach rumbled as she climbed down the stairs; she needed some food and a nap before she finally picked up on her personal studies. When she entered her cottage, she was greeted with the scent of fresh bread and roasted lamb. A steaming pot of stew sat on her stove, a loaf of bread was keeping warm in her oven, and a note of encouragement from Mrs. Reilly sat on the table.
Her grandfather returned home about a half hour after dark. Unsurprisingly, his bag was stuffed with odds and ends—from a roll of natty twine to a horseshoe that looked as though it had been sitting in the mud when he found it. And six newspapers. She didn’t complain until he tried to stash his newfound treasures in one of her kitchen drawers. She led him to the storage room at the back of the cottage and helped him stash the things there.
“An old woman in the market asked me whether I thought there was going to be war with Germany,” he muttered as he sorted through a box of broken charms.
Dwyn froze for a moment and then forced herself to continue tidying the messy storage room. “Oh, really?”
Her grandfather nodded absently. “I felt bad for her—memory gone like that. She must have thought it was still before the Great War.”
Dwyn breathed out in relief. “Poor thing.”
Her grandfather put the box away and began sorting through the newspapers he’d bought. As he lifted the first one, Dwyn noticed the headline on the second: “Kaiser Seeking War?” She snatched the newspaper before he could read it and tossed it on top of a larger pile.
“That’s not where that goes—” her grandfather began, but she hustled him out of the room to the kitchen table.
“Mrs. Reilly made us some stew for supper,” she said. “I’ll dish some up for you.”
“Oh . . . Mrs. Reilly.” He shook his head, scooting his chair closer to the table. “That woman is after my apples.”
Dwyn paused in spooning out the stew, confused. “What?”
“Every time she comes by, she always asks about the apple tree on the edge of the garden. I know she’s planning on sneaking in and stealing them once they’re ripe—that’s what she did last year.”
“No,” Dwyn said, more firmly than she’d intended. She pointed the ladle at him. “Mrs. Reilly has been nothing but sweet to you, and she was a great support for mother during her last years. I don’t want to hear you badmouthing her.”
“Well, I’m sure she does lots of nice things,” her grandfather said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that she stole my apples. I caught her sneaking in!”
“You caught her? You saw her in your garden?”
“Well . . .” Her grandfather stuck his chin out stubbornly. “No, I didn’t, but Mr. James did. He told me she was in there.”
“Mr. James? The one you’ve been accusing of breaking into your house?” Her grandfather opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. “No. I’m not going to listen to this, Grandda.” She set his bowl of stew on the table with a thunk. “Just eat your dinner.”
After that, he didn’t speak to her for the rest of the evening; all her life, that had been his most common response when someone offended him. It had stopped bothering her years before.
Dwyn retreated to her workshop, looking forward to finally being able to study. Then she remembered the flasks and vials of potion that she’d confiscated from the young man that morning. They were still sitting by her sink, awaiting disposal; and it looked like one of the vials was beginning to melt. It took her several hours to safely negate the magic of the potions and dispose of them. By the time she finished, it was nearly midnight. She regretfully patted the spellbooks she’d been hoping to study; they’d have to wait unt
il morning.
When she came out of her workshop, she found her grandfather asleep at the kitchen table with his head on his arms—he did that more and more often of late, falling asleep wherever he sat. It worried her. She was trying to decide whether or not she should wake him, when a knock came at the cottage door.
She frowned and made her way quietly to the door, where she peeked through the peephole. A thin man in an old-fashioned black suit stood on the porch, holding a bowler under his arm. She couldn’t make out his face, but she could see several cars on the street behind him. More men in suits stood beside them.
She placed a hand in her pouch of suspension powder, just in case—she doubted that someone with nefarious motives would have politely knocked, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. Slowly, she opened the door.
The light from the cottage fell on the man; he was older, with dark hair and a bushy mustache that were streaked with wide lines of silver, and he looked very familiar.
“I’m sorry to bother you so late, miss,” the man said with a nod. “But I’m seeking High Wizard Arliss Bobydd on extremely pressing business. No one is answering at his tower—this is his daughter’s house, is it not?”
The moment she heard his voice, with its English accent and somewhat nasal tone, she recognized him. Neville Chamberlain, the royal minister himself. She realized that she was staring with her mouth open.
“Um, yes . . . yes, sir. I’m his granddaughter. I’ll, um . . . I’ll go get him.” She turned and began walking toward the kitchen, and then stopped in her tracks. Had she just left the royal minister standing on her doorstep? Red-faced, she hurried back to the door and pulled it open wide. “I’m sorry, sir. Please come inside and make yourself at home.”
The royal minister nodded with a polite smile, though it seemed to her that beneath the smile his face was tired and worried. He stepped inside and stood beside the door, making no move to sit. With a glance out at the cars and men along the street, Dwyn shut the door and hurried to the kitchen.
