Work Like a Charm

by Cate Martin

  I bit my lip. That sounded like a truly dismal way for poor Margery to spend an afternoon.

  "So someone might have taken your pin out of its box while you were at this party?" Brianna asked.

  "But no one knew it was there," Margery insisted, and she was losing the calm she had gained from the breathing.

  Brianna noticed this even before I did, taking long slow breaths herself until Margery was lulled back into matching her.

  "There was something else you noticed," Sophie said. I glanced back at her. She was sitting on the edge of the bed with her eyes half-closed. She didn't seem to be so much looking at Margery as looking all around Margery. Sensing something, I guessed. "Did you know the hat pin was gone?"

  "No," Margery said in her sleepy voice. "I didn't check. I don't open it much. What if I got caught?"

  "But something happened," Brianna prompted.

  "That night," Margery said. "I woke up thirsty. I went down to get a glass of water. While I was downstairs, I heard my mother moving around upstairs. It was two or three hours after midnight, about the time she finishes work for the night, so it wasn't strange that she was awake. And when I went back upstairs, she was in her own room again. I don't know what that means."

  Then her eyes flew open, and she looked at each of us in turn. "You don't think my mother killed your friend? She's a cheat and a fraud and sometimes a thief, but never a killer."

  "We don't think that," I insisted, earning me a warning look from the other two, but I didn't care. I didn't think Cora had done it.

  "How do you know this is the thing they used to kill her?" Margery asked. "That might not be blood."

  "I'm sorry, Margery, but we really are sure about that," Brianna said.

  "We don't think Cora did this," I said. "Do we?"

  "All signs are pointing this way," Sophie said. "I mean, come on. It's her or Margery, and we really don't think it's Margery."

  "Maybe she just handed the hat pin to someone else who used it to murder Mrs. Olson then Cora put the pin back again," I said.

  "Brianna, explain Occam's razor to her," Sophie said, and Brianna actually opened her mouth before I threw up my hands to thwart her.

  "Never mind!" I said.

  "That little light," Margery said, looking inside the battered old box at her other little treasures. "That silver light. You made that happen." She looked up at Brianna.

  "It led me to your hat pin," Brianna said, taking the vial of Mrs. Olson's blood and tears out of her pocket to show Margery. "Because it's the same blood as from our friend."

  "That's real magic," Margery said.

  "Yes," Brianna agreed.

  Margery's hands twisted in her lap until she clasped them together and forced them to be still.

  "Can you commune with spirits? I mean, for real?"

  "No one can do that," Brianna said, then reached out to put her own hand over both of Margery's. "I'm sorry. Some secrets aren't ours to know."

  "But Miss Zenobia…" I said, the words out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  "Was a very powerful witch, who gave up years of her life to project an aspect of herself across time," Brianna said, giving Margery's hands a squeeze. "We didn't summon her. We only spoke to a piece of herself that she had willfully, and at great cost, left behind."

  "Like a ghost?" Margery asked.

  "Different," Brianna said.

  "It's a mind bend, kid," Sophie said. "I still don't understand it all."

  "But I've heard spirits," Margery said.

  "I thought you knew everything your mother did was all tricks?" Brianna said with a frown.

  "I don't mean that," Margery said. "I know how she projects her voice and does accents and everything. That's not what I'm talking about. The spirit I've heard doesn't talk to her, I don't think. It only talks to me." She slumped down over the hands folded in her lap again, not wanting to look any of us in the eye. "I don't like it. It's a voice in my head. I don't think it's human. I don't think it ever was human."

  "Not from a deceased person, you mean?" I asked.

  "I don't know what it is. It's inside my mother's crystal ball."

  Brianna sighed and sat back on her heels. "Sophie and I looked over all of those things carefully, before, during and after your mother's show. I promise you there's nothing magical about any of them. It's all tricks."

  "Not that one," Margery said. "The other one. The one she's had the longest but never uses."

  "Where is it?" I asked.

  Margery bit her lip and clenched her hands, but quickly decided she had to show us. Brianna followed her back out of the room. Sophie nudged me with her elbow and held her beaded bag open until I slipped the hat pin inside. It didn't quite fit, but it was more convenient than stretching out my sweater sleeve to hold it in my hand.

  Margery had taken Brianna into the parlor, and they were crouched in front of the cabinet under the window, the cabinet I had recognized from Mina's house. Margery opened a chipped little black lacquer box with an ornate lotus on the cover and took out a little key which she fitted into the lock, turning it with a click.

  I couldn't see what was inside that square space, but I felt like all of the hair on the back of my neck was standing up in a bristling wave. Like the air was full of static electricity. Potential energy waiting for a spark.

  Margery sat back on her heels, a bundle wrapped in faded velvet in her hands. She carefully peeled back the edges, not touching the object hidden within.

  There was no burst of light, no sun-dappled patterns or flares of silver power. But the moment the dull, imperfectly round sphere lay exposed on Margery's velvet-covered palms, Sophie and Brianna both gasped and recoiled.

  I don't know what they saw. I didn't see anything myself. But the moment my eyes rested on the dark, mottled thing I felt a stab of agonizing hot pain like a lance through my gut.

  I also vaguely felt the floor when it rushed up to meet me, but mostly it was my belly on fire that consumed me. I wrapped my arms around my middle and begged all of the powers in the universe for the pain to pass.

  It only stabbed me harder.

  Chapter 17

  And then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

  I lifted my head and saw Margery clutching the now-covered crystal ball in both hands as if it might be about to jump away from her.

  "That was…" Sophie started, but words failed her.

  "What was that?" Brianna asked. "I've never felt anything like it. It was immense, smothering, but… alive?"

  "Alive," Sophie agreed. "Definitely alive."

  "And magic?" I asked from where I was pushing myself up off the floor.

  "Definitely magic," Sophie said. "Are you all right?"

  I nodded. I was still breathing in little halting gasps, viscerally afraid that the pain was going to come back, but it didn't seem to be.

  "I think it hates you," Margery said, blinking back tears. "I felt it. It really hates you."

  I couldn't argue with that assessment.

  "It was speaking to you just now?" Brianna asked. Margery nodded, head bowed low. "What did it say?"

  "I can't repeat it," Margery said, shaking her head emphatically.

  "Foul language?" Brianna asked.

  "No," Margery said. "I mean, yes, but that's not why. I can't say it out loud. When you say things out loud, sometimes they happen."

  "What kind of things?" Brianna asked.

  "No, I won't say," Margery said firmly, then thrust the ball in its velvet coverings into Brianna's hands. She hadn't wrapped it particularly neatly, and Brianna fumbled to keep from touching the glass as she took it. Margery got to her feet and ran out of the room, but stopped to linger in the foyer, uncertain.

  "Is the power inside of that thing somehow involved in Mrs. Olson's murder?" I asked.

  "I guess there's only one way to find out," Brianna said, swallowing hard. Then she got up and carried the ball over to the little table in the center of the room, pushing Cora's oth
er crystal ball aside to set the real one down.

  "What one way?" I asked, climbing into the nearest of the chairs. "What are you going to do?"

  "Look at it, I guess," Brianna said, glancing up at Sophie. "Ask it some questions. Right?" Sophie gave a hesitant nod.

  Brianna clutched the edge of the velvet between two fingertips but stopped to look up at me.

  "Are you sure you want to be here?" she asked. "You seem sensitive to this thing's power."

  "It's not a sensitivity, I don't think," Sophie said, her eyes unfocused as she looked around me rather than at me. "No, I agree with Margery. The ball attacked her specifically. I wonder why?"

  "Maybe you should go stand by Margery?" Brianna suggested.

  "No," I said, sitting up straighter. "I'm prepared this time. I can handle it."

  "You're sure?" Brianna asked.

  No. No, I wasn't.

  "I'm sure," I said.

  Brianna pulled the cover away with the flourish of a magician pulling a tablecloth out from under a place setting. She half raised a hand as if to shield her eyes from a glare, and Sophie had both of her hands up as if about to begin one of her dances.

  But nothing happened. The crystal ball just sat in its nest of faded velvet.

  Waiting, I thought. But for what?

  "What's it doing?" Brianna whispered, looking up at Sophie.

  "I'm not sure," Sophie whispered back.

  "Do you hear that?" I asked although I don't think what I was sensing was so much a sound as a vibration. Low but constant, making my heart flutter as it echoed through my chest.

  Margery, hovering near the doorway clutching one of the French doors, whimpered.

  "I see it," Sophie said. "It's sort of filling the room around us. Like wisps of power dancing around the chairs."

  Brianna looked around, eyes wide, but I didn't see anything at all. I watched as she and Sophie followed the motion of various things with their eyes, but all I felt was the same constant humming, never louder or stronger, but never fading.

  "Maybe I should try speaking to it," Brianna said, leaning closer to the crystal ball. She slid into Cora's own chair and moved her hands around the sphere of glass, never quite touching it.

  "No change," Sophie said, still watching invisible things dance around us.

  "Spirit of the crystal, will you not speak with us?" Brianna asked. Her hands stretched, fingers splayed wide.

  "Don't touch it," I said as her middle fingers strayed closer to the dark glass.

  "Maybe I should try something with the dancing wisps," Sophie suggested, raising her arms and swinging them to one side as if to start a spin.

  That little motion was all it took. The low hum became a deep rhythmic boom like a giant in heavy boots drawing ever nearer, making the walls, the very ground beneath us, shake.

  I heard Margery scream, then the crash as she flung open the front door and fled the house. Then the booms were too loud to hear anything else. I pressed my hands over my ears and looked up at Sophie desperately.

  Sophie had staggered back, her dance move never even truly begun. She threw her arms around her head as if to protect her face from attack, but just as one of her heels crossed the line from parlor to foyer, she pulled herself together, drawing up straight and spreading her arms wide then gathering them close. Then she was spinning and dancing, but it did no good. The earth beneath us quaked so hard I expected the house to collapse and crush us at any moment.

  I heard another sound, all but lost amidst the booming but definitely there. A woman was screaming and laughing, both at once.

  I got to my feet. I'm not sure if I intended to make a run for the door or to try to smash the brightly glowing ball on the center of the table, but I was incapable of trying either. The ground bucked beneath me and spilled me backwards, tossing me over the back of my chair to land against the cabinet. The edge drove into the side of my lower back just below my ribs and knocked the wind out of me.

  I fell to the ground, clutching the soft carpeting as if it could anchor me. I felt something under my palm, a tiny rounded shape of cold metal.

  "What have you done?!?" Cora screeched at us, and I lifted my head to see her standing framed by the French doors, her hair whipping around her face as if moved by an invisible wind. I had the sudden urge to laugh. Even in the midst of all of this chaos, she still found her dramatic entrance.

  "This power is beyond you!" Brianna said. "What can you be thinking, meddling with such things?"

  "You dare ask that of me! Interlopers! You have no right!" Cora seethed, taking a few stumbling steps across the quaking floor until she caught up against the edge of the table. She reached for the brightly glowing ball, but Brianna drew her wand.

  "Do not touch that!" Brianna shouted.

  "It's mine, not yours!" Cora said, but the sight of the wand now pointed at her seemed to unnerve her a bit.

  "I can't control this!" Sophie cried, having been tumbled into the far corner by the bucking ground.

  "Make it stop," Brianna said to Cora, still pointing her wand at her.

  "Can't you?" Cora shot back, the corner of her mouth turning up in a mocking smile. Brianna looked down at the ball then changed the aim of her wand from Cora to the ball.

  And just like that, I was back on the floor, writhing in pain as hot pokers stirred my insides into a slurry. My voice blended with the laughing/screaming woman's.

  Then something else slammed. The front door again. I heard male voices now. Edward and Otto. Someone was trying to touch me, but I couldn't bear it. Anything on my skin was like a cattle brand of searing hot metal. I shrieked and squirmed away.

  "No!" I heard Sophie yell in her most commanding voice, but her tone of command ended in an undignified squeal that dopplered away from me.

  Then, suddenly, everything was still. No screams of laughter, no pounding of approaching doom, no quaking floor.

  No pain.

  I sat up, pushing the sweaty mass of my hair out of my eyes. I pulled myself up using the cabinet for support. The blackout curtains had fallen to the ground, and I saw Sophie out on the front walk trying to break free of Otto's grip.

  She had set it all off when she had tried to interact with it. Now that she was out of the house, it was all done.

  At least for now.

  "Are you all right?" Edward asked, his hands reaching out but not touching me, as if afraid a touch might hurt me.

  A minute ago, it had.

  "Yes, I'm fine," I said. I felt like I'd run a double marathon then got hit by a truck, but compared to a minute ago, anything was fine. I wanted to summon a reassuring smile for him to back up my words, but I just couldn't. There was a feeling of something bad about to happen, like one of us was about to say or do something that would start the whole nightmare up again.

  "You get out of my house," Cora seethed at us. "All of you. Out."

  Somewhere I couldn't see, Margery was snuffling.

  Leaning on Edward's arm more than I would want to admit, I started to make my way to the door. Sophie had finally wrenched herself free from Otto's grasp, giving him a hard shove for good measure, but she made no move to come back inside.

  I don't think any of us knew what would happen if she did.

  Brianna put her wand away then reached for the edges of the velvet cover, flipping the corners up until the glass was out of sight. But when she started to gather it up Cora's hand closed on her wrist.

  "You're not taking that," she said.

  "I can't let you keep it," Brianna said. "You don't even understand what you have here, do you?"

  "You don't understand it either," Cora spat back.

  Brianna flinched as if the words wounded her. "Not yet, but I will!" she said, rallying.

  "You take one thing out of this house, and I'll call the cops," Cora warned.

  It took all of my willpower not to look towards Sophie, standing outside with her beaded bag over her arm, the end of the hat pin poking out of the top.

/>   "You're not going to call the cops," Otto said, adjusting his hat to a more menacing angle as he stepped towards the door.

  "What are you doing here?" Cora asked, then started to put it all together. "Did you bring these witches to my house? Why would you do that?"

  "You best be careful, Miss Fox," Otto said, his voice a low growl. "Mind what you say to me."

  "Or what? You'll alter the terms of our business arrangement?" Cora asked in a mocking tone.

  Otto came all of the way into the house, stepping around the chaos of furniture thrown about the parlor, stopping only when he was mere inches away from Cora. She was taller than him. I mean, conceptually, I knew she had a good four inches on him. But when he leaned in to whisper at her, it felt like he loomed over her.

  "Yes."

  It was all he said. But Cora said nothing in response. She took half a step back, clutching the edges of her shawl over her heart and looking, frankly, just the tiniest bit frightened.

  Which she never had when everything had gone insane for a minute inside her own parlor.

  "Leave it," Otto said. He wasn't even looking at Brianna, but somehow he had known she was reaching for the ball again.

  "Best to leave it," I said, only mouthing the words "for now." Brianna gave me a nod and came over to take my other arm and help me outside.

  With the curtains down I had gotten my wish of letting sunlight and air into the parlor, but it didn't penetrate the fog in my brain, the overwhelming sense of doom that had been pounded into me by each of those thumping footsteps. Something had been approaching, but I had never seen what. The idea that someday I might, that it was just a matter of time, hung over me like an oppressive gray blanket muffling my very mind.

  But the minute I stepped outside I smelled the aroma of dry autumn leaves carried on the breeze, felt its warmth on my skin then the more intense heat from the sun, and that muffling blanket was gone. That feeling of crushing doom was gone.

  I hadn't realized how smothered I had been feeling. To suddenly feel free again was overwhelming. I took one more step out into the sunlight. Then the world flared up at me, so bright and fresh and clean and lovely. I just couldn't take it all in. It was too much.