by Mindy Klasky
Victory! The planting treatise was exactly where I had remembered!
Still balanced on the stool, I opened the book and paged through the chapter headings, wondering if I had recalled the contents as thoroughly as I’d mastered their location. By force of habit, I started to gnaw on my lower lip. That was a substantial improvement on my past expression of studious nerves—there was a time when I would have chewed on my fingernails as I worked, wearing them down to ragged nibs. Becoming aware of my lip-chewing, though, I reached for my coffee cup, determined to distract myself from all bad habits.
“Ah! There you are!”
I started at the voice, smothering a little cry at the back of my throat. Apparently, I had been more engrossed by colonial gardening techniques than I’d believed; I had totally wrapped myself into the text I was reading. Even as I recognized the speaker, even as I felt an odd, lazy swoop at the pit of my stomach, I tried to step down off the awkward stool, juggling my book and coffee cup. Just to make matters a bit more challenging, my mobcap chose that moment to slip free from its bobby pins (a break for freedom that it practiced at least a dozen times a day).
Well, I rescued the book.
My librarian instincts were strong, even in the most dire of circumstances. I was able to thrust the treatise forward, settling it onto a top shelf without ruffling a single page. Unfortunately, my sartorial instincts were substantially weaker. The coffee cup splashed against my chest, plastic lid bursting open with an embarrassing pop that seemed to echo in the stacks, only to be drowned out by the sound of a splash as lukewarm liquid cascaded across the black-and-white tiled floor. Even the splash, though, was drowned out by the noise of my curse as I stared at the ecru stain that soaked my bodice. My lacy bodice. My white, flimsy, now-see-through, lacy bodice.
I turned to face the owner of the hale and hearty voice. “Will,” I said weakly, fumbling to retrieve my traitorous mobcap from my wide skirts, so that I could cover my overexposed décolletage.
“I am so sorry!” Will Becker said, and the look of chagrin on his face chased away any angry words I might have been inclined to deliver. “Oh, God, let me help you with that.” His hand on my elbow was steady as he helped me down from the stool, and he kept his eyes averted from the muslin headpiece that was incompetently masquerading as a camisole. As soon as I was steady on terra firma, he reached down to scoop up my now-empty coffee cup.
He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and spread the snowy cotton across the milky puddle on the tiled floor. At least there was one advantage to my soaked lace—most of the library had been spared a caffeinated bath. He wiped up the rest of the offending coffee with an efficiency that would have made Gran proud—she had always despaired of teaching me the finer points of mopping. I took advantage of his face being averted to pluck the wet cloth from my chest, wishing I had stored enough magical power to mutter a quick spell to dry the fabric.
“I’m sorry,” Will repeated as he straightened, and I reluctantly folded my mobcap-enhanced arms back across my chest. “I should have cleared my throat or something, so that you knew I was there.”
I pictured him standing earnestly at the end of the row of books, clearing his throat like a character in a sitcom. Something about the image made me smile, despite my sodden discomfort. “What brings you here?” I asked, trying to make my question casual.
After a year of lusting after the Infantile Baby, I was leery of any man who came into my library and made casual conversation with me. Particularly any man who had watched me make a fool of myself in public, as I had in Melissa’s yoga class. Especially any man who had bought me coffee and entertained me for two hours with self-deprecating stories about his own social failures, after he had witnessed my yogic disaster.
“I had research to do,” he said, as if that was the most normal response in the world. Which it might even have been, given the fact that we were standing in a research library.
“About what?” I was still suspicious.
“Colonial outbuildings,” he said promptly. “I need them for that Harrison project I told you about.”
The Harrison project. He had mentioned it while we talked. He’d been hired by some dot-com billionaire who had gotten tired of living the high life in a San Francisco loft. The rich guy had decided to return home to Virginia, and he wanted a replica of James Monroe’s home, Ash Lawn-Highland. Will had earned the commission to convert a colonial country home into a twenty-first-century living space suitable for a man as wealthy as the Sultan of Brunei.
Well, colonial outbuildings might be enough to warrant Will’s presence at the Peabridge, but I couldn’t help but bristle. The Ingrate Bastard had routinely come to the Peabridge for his professorial advancement; he had secretly reveled in making me his private research assistant, without offering even a footnote of thanks.
What was it about men and me—men who exploited my good nature and my research skills for their own good? I set my teeth and tested my tone until I could be certain it would be civil—even if it was cold as stone. “Well, let’s go back to my desk. I can check the catalog for appropriate resources.”
“Oh, I already looked up what I need.” He gestured with the hand that wasn’t holding his sopping handkerchief, and I saw that he was indeed clutching a slip of paper. Numbers and letters angled across it in a peculiar style that I’d only seen etched into blueprints before.
“If I read the call number right, books about outbuildings should be here?”
He nodded with his chin to the books behind me, to the shelf immediately across from my own specialized gardening treatise. To the shelf that, indeed, held a couple dozen books on outbuildings on colonial estates.
Will had not been looking for me to complete his research. He’d been doing his own work.
I couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah,” I said, edging past him. I needed to get out of my soaked clothes, the sooner, the better. “They’re all there.”
“I just need some basics,” he said. Apparently, the overwhelming aroma of cinnamon-tinged coffee did not offend him because he went on in a conversational tone. “I’m just trying to get some feel for the design elements. I know that a lot of the original buildings had carved wooden clapboards, so that they looked like stone from a distance. Vanity of vanities, and all that.”
“Just like my cottage,” I said without thinking.
“Your cottage? Where is that?” His smile was easy, interested, and I found my own lips curving again, in response to his good nature.
“Here, at the Peabridge. I live in an old caretaker’s cottage, at the back of the garden.”
“How did that happen?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, wondering what he would think if I told him all of it—including the bit about the books hidden in my basement. Another time, maybe. A time when I wasn’t drenched in Eau de Café. “The short version is they let me move into the cottage so that they could cut my salary.”
I could see the question that he wanted to ask. I could even hear his voice forming the words. I could feel my own face flushing, reddening at the thought of this man inviting himself into my home, under the guise of studying the design. And yet I heard myself say, “Would you like to see it? Would it help your research?”
“I don’t want to impose,” he said, not quite smothering his eagerness with reluctance.
I started to sigh but stopped when I realized that motion stretched my clinging bodice tighter. “Well, I’m going to have to go home and change anyway.”
He winced. “I really am sorry. I insist on paying to have that cleaned.”
“No worries,” I said. Maybe by tonight I’d have a little spell ready. One that would make laundry a breeze. No reason for him to know all my secrets, though, within twenty-four hours of meeting me. (Had it really only been twenty-four hours? A lot had happened to me since then.)
After all, it was one thing to have a clumsy woman body-check you in a yoga class. It was another to learn that the clumsy woman w
as a rogue member of the local Coven, capable of weaving spells with a single word. At least in theory. I thought about reaching out for Ariel, to see if I could bolster my powers yet, but I wasn’t sure I could do that without some strange expression crossing my face. I didn’t want to look any more bizarre in front of Will than I already did.
Apparently, I was entirely successful in hiding my unusual train of thought, because Will was shrugging and saying, “At least let me buy you lunch, then.”
I should have heard the jangle of warning bells.
No man ever just asked me out to lunch. At least, no man who wasn’t enthralled to me in a spell. Or attempting to commit adultery with my all-too-eager assistance. Or intending to discipline me for setting aside my witchy studies.
And yet, I didn’t feel a single thrum of warning. No tingle of imminent danger. No threat of disaster, looming, if I said yes.
There was always the possibility that my relationship radar had gone on the blink along with my magical powers. Okay, okay, there was the possibility that my so-called relationship radar had never actually functioned—that would explain my horrific mistakes with my Imaginary Boyfriend. And the Coven Eunuch. And David.
I wasn’t going to think about David.
Instead, I’d cross my fingers and hope—pray to whatever dating gods might be listening—that going to lunch with Will wouldn’t be a complete disaster.
It couldn’t be, right? I mean, I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it. I wasn’t pinning every girlish hope that had ever crossed my heart on what we’d discuss over platefuls of food. I could even picture myself ordering spaghetti at the little Italian place down the block—a first date culinary and sartorial violation that would have sent Melissa into conniption fits.
But this wasn’t a first date.
And my lace bodice was already soaked with milky coffee. A drop or two of red sauce added to whatever fresh clothes I collected from the cottage couldn’t make me look any worse than I did now. Besides, I honestly, truly had no goal or intention to impress this guy.
“Lunch then,” I said. “Yes. I’d like that.” I led the way out of the stacks, back toward the front of the library. “Let me just leave this book on my desk, and then we can go.”
Kit was behind the coffee bar, serving up the last of Melissa’s baked treats for the day. She raised an eyebrow as Will hurried off to collect his own books, and I managed to quirk an unobtrusive smile. There wasn’t any need for that “conspiratorial girlfriend” look on her face. There was nothing going on between Will and me. Nothing at all. He was a patron in my library, and he just happened to be interested in the false stone siding of my cottage.
And if I had believed that there was anything else at stake, my illusions would have been destroyed as we approached my home, walking side by side on the Peabridge path. “Hollyhocks!” he exclaimed. “Pennyroyal and sweetbriar! You’ve planted a complete colonial garden!”
“Well, not me personally,” I said, feeling strangely proud of my employer’s efforts at verisimilitude.
“The Peabridge, though. I’ve always known that the library was here, but I never thought about checking it out in person until I met you.”
“I guess you should thank the yoga nazis, then, who got us both into that class.” We laughed together as we reached my front door.
For just a minute, I hesitated. It was one thing to invite a man out to inspect the walls of my home. A plumber or electrician could do as much, and there wouldn’t be any hidden meaning in his presence. It was another thing entirely, though, to invite a man inside while I slipped into something a little more comfortable (or at least a little more dry).
As if he possessed his own magic skills, Will seemed to sense my discomfort. He stepped off the marble doorstep, demonstrating tremendous interest in the wooden facing that was routed to resemble stone. “This is it? This is the way they created the false facade?”
“Just like Mount Vernon,” I confirmed.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll just take a moment to study it. While you change.”
“That would be great,” I said, trying not to let my gratitude color my words too much.
I darted inside and made short work of stripping off my colonial finery. Truth be told, I wasn’t the least bit sorry to be out of the heavy dress. I could not imagine how my eighteenth-century foremothers had managed August heat and heavy skirts, without the comfort of central air-conditioning.
I was just going to have to wear street clothes for the afternoon. Evelyn would not be pleased, but she could hardly expect me to spend the day parading around like the Milk Queen of Georgetown. I opened my closet and grabbed the first outfit that came to hand—black slacks and a silk blouse, cut to show off my minimal, coffee-free décolletage. The outfit used to be one of my favorites, but it had been a long time since I’d worn street clothes to the office. I slipped on a pair of kitten heels and started to cross the living room, ready to head out to lunch with my visiting architect.
As I walked by the stairs to the basement, though, I felt a twinge of guilt. Ariel. I should at least check on her, make sure that she was having no trouble working through my collection of crystals. It was so strange to have an anima to do my bidding. This must be what it was like to have a maid, or a cook—someone to take care of all those details of daily life that I just couldn’t be bothered to do.
I flipped on the overhead light before I descended the stairs. It was quiet in the basement, absolutely silent. “Ariel?” I called.
Nothing.
“Ariel? Are you okay?”
Nothing.
Nothing at all. I spun around my stark basement, eyes automatically darting to the nooks and crannies where a full-sized woman-spirit-magic-creature-thing could hide. Couch—bare leather, not a hint of occupation. Wardrobe—door ajar, ditto. Trunk—lid leaning against the wall, ditto yet again.
I tugged at my slacks, as if straightening the fabric could restore order to my life. With a sickening swoop in my belly, I realized that I was going to have to reach out to David and Neko again—easygoing colonial architect and lunch date be damned.
My anima had utterly and completely disappeared.
8
As it turned out, I didn’t reach David until the next day, when I called to leave my ninth voice mail message. My relief at finally talking to him was almost drowned out by my rage at his inaccessibility. When I demanded to know what he’d been doing, he merely said, “Working.” He refused to elaborate.
I explained what had happened, told him that Ariel had gone missing. I didn’t bother to say that I’d needed to make excuses to Will, babbling that I couldn’t go to lunch, that I’d only just remembered an important library meeting, complete with an imaginary board of trustees, so that he wouldn’t think I was blowing him off for nothing.
“Something must have gone wrong with the spell,” David said, stating the obvious.
“You knew something was wrong that night, didn’t you?”
He started to reply but then caught himself, hesitating just long enough that I was certain he was crafting an evasive response. For a split second, I thought about offering to drive up to his place, to talk to him in person. But then I realized that the absolute last thing I wanted to do was stand in that kitchen, to sit stiffly in that perfect living room. And there wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d be walking up those farmhouse stairs for anything else, anytime, ever. Better to soldier on over the phone.
“I saw it in your eyes,” I insisted. “After I worked the spell.”
He sighed. “I should have been able to feel her. To feel the anima.”
“What?” I was so surprised that he was admitting something, I couldn’t structure a coherent response. David was saying the same thing that I was. He should have felt Ariel after the working, the same way that I should have felt Neko.
“You know that I can feel you,” he continued to explain. “I can feel your magic. I know when you’re working a spell.” I made a wordle
ss sound of agreement. I’d chafed often enough under his warder ability. “I should be able to feel the results of your spell, as well. Especially an anima that you created, an embodiment of your essential magic.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.” I could picture him running his hand through his hair. He’d completed the action in front of me often enough. “It’s almost as if a bond was cut. A tie was severed.”
I thought about the spell I had worked, the way that I had thought of David. I remembered the embarrassment of reliving those moments in his kitchen, the shame as I realized he was pushing me back, setting us—whatever “us” we were—aside. I had pushed David away from my thoughts as I awakened Ariel. I had skewed my magic to keep him from being part of my working.
Even as I closed my eyes, trying to will away my confusion, the chaos my magical mis-working had created, David said, “You know the parameters of magic, Jane. You offered up your thoughts, your voice, your spirit. Were those all true offerings? Were you absolutely focused on your working?”
“Of course!”
But I hadn’t been. I’d been distracted by my warder. My attention had wandered, to our indiscretion, and then to the stupid play that Melissa had told me about, to the damned poster. Empower The Arts. Well that was just stupid. “Of course,” I repeated, but I was a little less certain.
“I don’t know what to say, then. Have you tried to summon her?”
I had. I’d tried thinking her name, in the loudest silent voice I could manage. I’d tried ordering her to come home. I’d tried commanding her to serve as my spirit, as she was intended to do, from the moment I’d poured rune dust into my palm. And I’d been met with complete and utter silence. “Of course I’ve tried to summon her. There’s nothing there. Nothing at all.”
