Work Like a Charm

by Cate Martin

  I closed my eyes against it, retreated within myself, and let Brianna and Edward guide me back to the car.

  Chapter 18

  I was aware of people around me, especially Edward once more pressed close to my side as we crowded together in the front seat. I heard murmurs of voices: Sophie's voice crackling with angry energy, Brianna sounding more dejected, the faintest of German accent in Otto's words. Sometimes the murmur was my own voice answering some inquiry my brain didn't really bother processing.

  I smelled the leaves on the air and the exhaust from the cars around us. The leathery new car smell.

  Eventually, we stopped somewhere, another lurch as the boy pulled the parking brake before the car had quite stopped rolling. I walked up the front path mostly under my own power, Edward's arm more just to guide me as I paid no attention at all to where I was going. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other until at last I was seated on the sofa in the parlor.

  I let the sounds of everyone's voices around me just wash over me, not really listening. I felt the cushion next to me sink as someone sat down on it, draping an arm over the back of the sofa behind me as they pressed something into my hands. I felt metal in the distinctive hand-friendly design of a flask and took a sip.

  Suddenly, my mind was clear.

  "Ooh, that's good," I said, taking another sip.

  "Tea would probably be better," Sophie said sternly, taking the flask out of my hands and giving it back to Otto, who was the person who had sat down next to me.

  "Better?" he asked me as he took a sip of his own then screwed the cap back onto the flask.

  "Yes, thanks," I said. "I was… I don't know."

  "In shock, I think," Otto said, but there was something else in his eyes as he looked at me. Like he wanted to say more. I glanced up to see if it was Edward that was making him reticent when I spotted Coco lingering in the doorway.

  "Hello, Coco," I said.

  "Hello," she said. "What's going on? You guys look like you were in an armed robbery." Her face lit up at the thought. "Were you guys in an armed robbery?"

  "No," I said.

  "Coco, why don't you help me make some tea for everyone," Edward said, catching the girl's shoulder and steering her out of the room.

  I looked up at the others. Otto looked as cool as ever. The hat pushed back on his head had tousled his hair a bit, but that just made him look more rakish than usual.

  The silk of Sophie's red dress was definitely rumpled, stained with sweat and still sticking to her in places. The flower on the side of her hat had gotten crushed at some point.

  Brianna had torn the hem of her dress, a raggedy strip of it hanging down to her ankle on one side, and her long hair was tangled and wind-blown.

  Then I looked down at myself and realized to my horror that my sweater was dotted all over with something thick and dark. I put my hands to my face and felt a crust of dried blood under my nose.

  "When did that happen?" I asked, looking up at the others in horror.

  "Both times the…" Brianna glanced Otto, and her words faltered. "Both times you fell."

  I knew what she meant. When the crystal ball had attacked me when the hot pokers had jabbed all over my insides. Apparently, I had bled from my nose as well and never realized.

  The Sophie touched her earlobe, and I touched my own. Both were crusty with dried blood. I was pretty sure it was also in my hair.

  "We got in over our heads," I said.

  "Yes, I do believe we did," Sophie said. Brianna said nothing, just looked dejected.

  "I think you girls are being too hard on yourselves," Otto said.

  "What would you know about it?" Sophie asked.

  "More than you seem to think," Otto said. Beside me on the couch, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and Brianna and Sophie took a couple of steps closer, and when he spoke again, his voice was a low rumble. "I already told you the students of this school command respect from the folks in my part of the world. You didn't really think I meant it was because you were students at a charm school, did you? I know what the Exceptional Young Ladies part means, and I know that for the three of you it very much applies."

  "What does it mean?" Sophie asked, challenge in her voice.

  "Just what Cora called you," he said, then sat back and took the flask back out of his vest pocket to take another sip.

  "Oh," Brianna said, blinking. "She did call us witches, didn't she?"

  "She did," Sophie said, then turned her attention to Otto. "I thought you'd take that as just a slur."

  "But that's not how she meant it," Otto said, offering her the flask.

  "No, that's not," Sophie agreed and took a long pull from the flask.

  "There were sandwiches in the icebox," Coco announced as she marched into the room with an overloaded tray of plates and the aforementioned sandwiches. She set it on the table and ran back to the kitchen for something else.

  "Lovely," I said. "I should wash up before I eat, though." I started to get up, but there was one last thing niggling in my mind. I leaned in close to Otto. "Does Edward know?"

  "Rumors, maybe," he said close to my ear. "He left the street life too young I think to have gotten to the truth and story sorting out phase. But after what he saw today, who knows what he thinks? You want me to ask him?"

  "No," I said, and got up from the sofa. "If he isn't suspicious now, it's probably better if we don't make him so."

  "Suit yourself," Otto said with a shrug.

  "Was she swearing you to secrecy?" Sophie asked him as I headed up the stairs to the washroom. "Because you have to swear to keep our secrets."

  I smiled to myself, fully confident that Otto would never leave that parlor until he had promised Sophie everything she asked for.

  I made a few dabs at my face with a wet washcloth but quickly decided that was an exercise in futility and turned on the taps in the tub, sticking my entire head under the water and just letting it run over me. My ears were particularly bad; more was congealed in my ear canals than had leaked out. It was little wonder that for a while there all the sounds in the world had gotten so muted.

  I wrapped my hair in a towel then went up to the attic, hoping against hope that there would be something I could wear in place of the sweater in the closets.

  In the present, there were closets for each of us full of clothes that were just our size. But while the closets already existed in 1927, our clothes didn't. Instead, the closets were storing a variety of theatrical costumes entirely inappropriate for my needs. At last, stuffed in the back corner of one I found a wadded bit of cotton that turned out to be a Yankees baseball jersey.

  Strange as it might seem after the day I had just had, I felt a legitimate thrill as I realized what I was holding in my hands. A real, vintage baseball jersey. It was awesome. Would anyone miss it if I took it back to 2018 and just kept it?

  "Amanda?" Edward called. It sounded like he was on the first floor, but then I heard the creak of the stairs under his feet. I pulled the towel off my head and yanked on the jersey before he could catch me in my undergarments.

  "Coming," I called back down as I raced down the steps.

  "Otto and I have to go," he was saying as I rounded the last landing and he could see me. He seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment. "You look better."

  "I feel better," I said, stopping when I was a step above where he stood. I kind of liked how he still had to look up at me.

  "That's good. Brianna kept insisting you didn't need a doctor, but…"

  "You can always trust Brianna," I said. "Always."

  "I'll remember that," he said, then cleared his throat before looking up at me again out of the sides of his eyes. "I don't know quite what happened today."

  "Me neither," I said. "We're going to try to figure it out, though."

  "And then what?" he asked.

  "Then we'll do whatever is needful," I said.

  He gave me a long assessing look, and I braced myself
for a barrage of pointed questions, but in the end, he just shrugged. "I bet you will."

  "The three of us," I said.

  "Yes," he agreed. I couldn't see the front door from where I was standing, but I heard Otto in the vicinity of it clear his throat expectantly. Edward took a step backwards and started to turn to leave but then stopped and looked back up at me.

  "You're not here to learn social graces, are you?" he asked.

  "Aren't I?" I countered

  "Because that's the usual business of charm schools."

  "Is it?" I asked.

  He gave a little laugh and made another abbreviated motion towards leaving. This time when he turned back, it was to say, "I like your jersey."

  Then he was gone.

  The little bubble of happiness that had been growing since I found the jersey popped the minute I was back in the parlor. Brianna was pacing a space much too small for such things. Sophie was sitting in a chair, but her bouncing foot betrayed her own agitation.

  "What are we thinking?" I asked.

  "We have to take that crystal ball," Brianna said. "That has far too much power to be in the hands of a charlatan."

  "A charlatan who keeps it locked in a cabinet and refuses to touch it," Sophie said.

  "We can't leave it so close to Margery," Brianna said. "It's dangerous."

  "Margery understands that," Sophie said. "She's already protecting herself. Better than we did, actually."

  "You don't think we should take it?" I surmised.

  "No," Sophie said.

  "Why?" I asked, surprised.

  "It's not what we do," Sophie said.

  "You don't think it's related to the murder?"

  "No," Sophie said. "We have the murder weapon in my bag. We can find a way to get that to the police forensics team. Say we found it in the yard or something. They can take it from there."

  "But what if the killer is also from 1927?" I asked.

  "Let's see what the police come up with first," Sophie said.

  "Whatever is inside that crystal ball, it's trying to exert an influence over others," Brianna said.

  "Maybe so, but dealing with that is not our calling. Maintaining the time portal is," Sophie said.

  "You're just afraid if we go back you might get hurt," Brianna said.

  "Yes," Sophie readily agreed. "I might, or you might, or Amanda. Or one of us might get killed, or trapped somehow, or any of a thousand things. We just can't risk it. We need all three of us working together to maintain the time portal. That's our job. That's our responsibility."

  "Whose responsibility is that artifact being on the loose?" Brianna demanded.

  "I don't know," Sophie admitted. "It seems like something someone ought to know. Isn't there a witches' council or something we can consult?"

  "No," Brianna said, but then stopped to think. "I mean, not officially. We don't organize like that. But I can ask around."

  "Maybe there's a book in the library that says something about that crystal ball," I said. "If it really is some sort of important artifact."

  "Yes," Sophie agreed. "If we really have to fight it again, I want to know everything we can discover about it first."

  "All right," Brianna agreed. "For now, we just go back home."

  We went back to our own, much colder time, hustling back into the house before heading our separate ways. Brianna needed the library, of course. Sophie wanted a shower. I just desperately needed to rest my aching body.

  Only when my bedroom door had closed with a resounding click did I reach my hand into the pocket of my skirt and pull out the little twist of metal I had picked up from the parlor floor of Cora's house.

  The key to the cabinet. Somehow Margery had dropped it, or it had slipped from her pocket in all of the chaos. And I had found it under my hand, and despite the pain I had been writhing in, I had held onto it. I had clutched it like a talisman and not let it go.

  And the creepy part was, I didn't even really know why. I just had.

  I set it on my nightstand then stripped out of my 1927 clothing, stuffing them into the appropriate hamper so that they could be washed with period-correct detergents then put back away in my closet until next time.

  But the jersey I kept, wearing it as a nightshirt. So far being a witch and guarding a time portal was a lot of intense work. A jersey wasn't much of a reward in exchange for all that, but just then it was enough.

  Chapter 19

  I woke up at five on the dot and sat up in my bed.

  I had to go to Mina Fox's house. Had to.

  I got up and glanced out the window as I got dressed. Overcast again and threatening rain or maybe even sleet. Such a contrast from the day before in 1927. I pulled on jeans and a turtleneck then a hoodie and a polar fleece vest with a waterproof hood. I started to reach for my Converse sneakers, but halfway there my hand just veered the other way and grabbed my boots.

  I had experienced this feeling before, this compulsion to do or not do a thing. I had had it for years when I had stayed in my hometown after high school. Mostly it had been of shorter durations, a need to leave early for work one day or not go to school on another, and once the decision was made the feeling went away.

  I didn't expect this feeling would last any longer than it took for me to get to Mina's house, but it was coming with a lot of very specific ancillary instructions that I was just following. It was intense, almost frightening.

  As this feeling directed me across the room to pick up the key I had set on my nightstand the night before and stuff it in my pocket, I reminded myself that nothing bad had ever happened because of this feeling. Quite the opposite. I didn't like being led around by the nose - who would? - but I was sure I wasn't in any danger.

  I started towards the library to find Brianna and tell her where I was going, but my feet kept going past the second-floor landing. Okay, so mine was a secret mission. Again that little feeling of unease, but again I reminded myself this compulsive feeling had always looked out for me before. There must be a good reason for it.

  I thought I knew that reason when I reached the bottom of the stairs and found Brianna about to head back upstairs with a cup of tea and a plate heaping with buttered toast. Of course, I shouldn't go to the library first, not if I was meant to run into Brianna on the stairs.

  "Oh," Brianna said when she saw me there. "It's awfully early."

  "I'm guessing for you it's very late," I said, using the moment of stillness to zip up my jacket then my vest.

  "Yeah," Brianna said, then at the sound of the zipper really looked at me for the first time. "You're going out?"

  "Just for a bit," I said. "Said" in the sense that the words came out of my mouth; my brain wasn't the one choosing them.

  "Where are you going at this hour?" she asked.

  "I'm hoping to catch Nick before he heads off to class," I lied easily.

  "Sophie still has the hat pin," Brianna said. "We aren't ready to call the police yet."

  "No, it's not about that," I said, kind of marveling at the words just spilling out of my own mouth. What a strange feeling, to hear myself speak without knowing what I was going to say next. "It's about a different thing."

  Brianna opened her mouth to speak but was swept up in a massive yawn, the kind that could pop your eardrums.

  "You should really get some sleep," I said.

  "I will," she promised. "I just have to finish something up."

  "Naps are good," I said.

  "I will," she said. "I just need an hour or so."

  "Okay," I said, then found myself adding, "but I'll be checking up on you. You better be napping when I get back."

  Brianna yawned again, too prolonged to get words out. But she did give me a nod before heading up the stairs with her tea and toast.

  I pulled up both my hoods as I stepped outside, then found gloves buried deep in the vest pockets. I was going to need them, nippy as the air was.

  I was mildly surprised to find I didn't stop at the condo where
Nick was living. Not even for a moment to see if his car was there or not. I just kept right on walking, nearly all the way down Summit Avenue. It took more than an hour before I was standing on Mina Fox's front porch.

  Which still made it not even seven in the morning yet, but when I knocked briskly on the door, it opened almost at once.

  "Good morning!" Mina said. She was wearing a fluffy robe over pajamas and was rubbing tiredly at the side of her face, but her eyes were alert, and her hair was far too neatly combed for her to have just hopped out of bed.

  "Hi. Do you remember me? Amanda Clarke?" I asked.

  "You're one of the nice young ladies living next door to Linda Olson," she said. "Please come in. Would you like some coffee?"

  "Coffee would be great," I said and stepped into her living room.

  The cabinet was right there, just as I remembered it. But Mina was smiling back at me as she headed towards the light from the kitchen, so I followed her.

  I would find an opportunity, I promised myself, squeezing the key in my pocket.

  "Cream? Sugar?" she asked as she took a mug out of the cupboard.

  "Black is fine," I said, sitting down at the old school dining room table, the kind with drop leaves and a marble-patterned linoleum top. One of the leaves was up; the one tucked against the wall under the window was down. Two chairs were arranged on either side, and I sat down in the one facing the appliances. It did indeed look like I'd caught Mina already up and about her day, a newspaper sitting next to a half-filled cup of coffee.

  She set my coffee in front of me and then topped off her own before shuffling back into the kitchen.

  "Sorry to come so early," I said. I still had that weird thing of hearing myself speak the words the compulsion wanted me to say.

  "Don't worry about it," Mina said with a wave of her hand. "At my age, I don't sleep much anymore. I've been up for hours."

  I took a sip of my coffee. It was bitter with a taste like almonds, but it was strong. The caffeine surged straight to my brain and to my surprise that compulsive feeling started to loosen up.