by R K Dreaming
“I’m not mean!” protested Percy.”
“Not on purpose,” said Nan. “But you can be a bit… blunt sometimes.”
“Straight talking,” said Shara with a grin.
“It’s not funny!” said Nan. “She’s grieving. None of this is her fault.”
“Not you too!” said Percy. She stuck her tongue limply out of her mouth, allowing saliva to drool out.
“Gross!” said Nan, looking outraged. “I was not!”
“You’ll be joining her fan club next.”
“I just think she’s talented is all. She’s been through a lot and she still gave a great English Lit session. The way she acted out—”
“Whatever,” said Percy. “I’ll promise to be on my best behavior when I talk to her, but only if you’ll shut up.”
Nan threw her book at Percy.
“Hey!” said Percy.
“And don’t you get overly involved in this one,” warned Nan. “Leave it to the conclave to sort out. It is well above our level.”
“I dunno,” said Shara. “The last case was pretty mental too, and you guys solved that. You saved my skin too. Everyone’s still talking about it, and you’d think they’d have better stuff to be talking about after the Halloween holidays!”
“I don’t want to get involved,” Percy protested. “I just have a terrible feeling about this whole thing with Opal. It’s going to end badly. I just know it.”
Nan frowned. “You haven’t been seeing…” She lowered her voice. “The cloud of doom again, have you?”
Percy shook her head. “Not this time. I just think that this whole case is of such huge public interest that the conclave must already be doing everything they possibly can to catch the convicts. So mum having a word with the High Minister isn’t going to change anything, is it? And the longer that Cousin Opal stays here, the more vulnerable she is. The dastardly duo are going to end up catching up with her. I know it. I’m going to persuade her that it’s in her best interests to hand herself in to the conclave. What do you think?”
Nan shrugged. “I don’t think she’ll do it.”
“It’s worth a try,” said Shara.
By the time lessons were finished for the day, Percy had gone over and over in her mind what she was going to say. The three girls went to find Cousin Opal, and Percy was hopeful that Opal would be sensible and make the right choice.
Cousin Opal was in her classroom packing up her briefcase and getting ready to go home. She looked surprised when Percy, Nan and Shara all came in.
When Percy locked the door shut behind them, a look of alarm came onto Opal’s face.
“Is everything okay?” she asked in a slightly squeaky voice.
“Fine,” said Nan, quick to reassure her.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Cousin Opal sank into her chair in relief. “You gave me such a fright for a moment. The looks on your faces!”
“We didn’t mean to startle you,” said Nan.
Cousin Opal laughed. “Isn’t it silly how jumpy I am?” she said more brightly. “And it’s been such a lovely day too! Now, how can I help you girls? Look at me, sounding like a real teacher already! Did you come to be my honor guard on my way home? I don’t think it’s a good idea you know. People will start wondering why you are all going home with me. And I’d hoped to walk through that little park nearby on the way home and get some fresh air. It’s been so very long since I’ve been able to do that. I’ve forgotten the sheer joy of being anonymous in public. How wonderful that was!”
She seemed like a whole new person, as if just one day of being a teacher had brightened up her entire life.
This was not a good omen for the conversation Percy wanted to have.
Opal looked so cheery. It was like Gwendolyn had said — being in a different skin meant that she didn’t have to grieve all of the time.
Shara and Nan were both shooting Percy looks as if to say they should leave, and that it would be horrible to spoil Juliet’s mood after she had enjoyed just this one day of peace. Both had backed up against the door in their eagerness to leave.
Percy shook her head at them.
Determined to press ahead, she pulled up a chair and took a seat next to Cousin Opal. Nan and Shara reluctantly came closer to hover uncomfortably behind Percy.
“Cousin Opal,” Percy said. “I’ve been thinking about this whole thing. Did you get a chance to meet the High Minister during mum’s Halloween party?”
Cousin Opal nodded. “He was very pompous, wasn’t he?”
Nan laughed, and Cousin Opal beamed at her.
“And very capable, don’t you think?” said Percy, though she wasn’t sure if this was necessarily true.
“I don’t know about that,” said Cousin Opal. “He certainly liked to think he was capable, but the proof is in the pudding as my old mum used to say. And so far I’ve had no whiff of a pudding in this whole horrible business!”
“You didn’t tell him who you really were, did you?” said Nan in alarm.
“Of course not, dear,” Cousin Opal reassured her. “And dear Gwen promised she didn’t tell him either during her meeting with him today.”
“Don’t you think that you would feel safer if you handed yourself over to the conclave?” Percy persisted. “I’m sure the High Minister would find a safe house for you and appoint professionally trained watch wizards to guard you twenty-four hours a day.”
Cousin Opal’s smile slipped a little. “But… don’t you want me in your house?” she asked in a small voice.
“It’s not that!” said Percy quickly, aware that Nan was glaring at her. “I just want you to be safe is all.”
Cousin Opal blinked very fast. She looked like she was rapidly approaching the need for a tissue.
“But I feel perfectly safe right now,” she said huskily. “Nobody knows that it’s me. I feel a whole new person.”
“But you aren’t a whole new person,” Percy cried. “You aren’t really Cousin Opal. You’re Juliet Jolie, and pretending you aren’t won’t make you someone different.”
Cousin Opal turned pale as a ghost at the mention of her real name. She looked sharply towards the door.
“Please don’t say that name,” she whispered. “I don’t want to talk about this here!”
She sounded like a fretful child.
“But it’s true,” Percy whispered, trying to sound nice about it but knowing she was failing. “I don’t know why you would say that you feel safe when you’re out in the open and vulnerable like this.”
“Because of your mother,” said Cousin Opal emotionally. “She’s the only person in the world I can trust. Do you know how terrible it is to admit to that? My poor Brad! My poor husband and I, we only ever really had each other. Everyone thinks Hollywood is so wonderful. But it’s full of snakes, people who are so ready to stab you in the back. It was only when I lost my Brad that I realized that everyone I thought were my friends couldn’t be trusted at all. Because how did those horrible men get into our house? How did they get in to murder my poor Brad?”
Her voice broke, and tears poured down her cheeks.
Nan shot Percy a chiding look and hurried to offer Cousin Opal a tissue from a packet she had extracted from her satchel.
“We are so sorry,” she said. “We didn’t mean to upset you.”
Cousin Opal took the tissue gratefully and mopped up her cheeks, but the tears continued to pour down her face.
“My poor Brad! So much blood! He fought so hard to survive, but it was no use!”
Nan was patting Juliet tentatively on the back and glowering at Percy. Shara looked like she wished the floor would open up and swallow her.
“If only I hadn’t gone to that stupid dinner!” wailed Juliet. “I should have been home with my Brad, not trying to get that stupid Marvel role. But I always wanted to be Catwoman!”
Percy stared at her. “A Bond girl,” she said.
“What?” Juliet sniffled.
“You wanted to be a
Bond girl. You told mum you were at dinner with the new Bond director. Not a Marvel movie director.”
Juliet’s face went even paler. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish’s. “Oh!” she said in a small voice.
“You lied,” said Percy in disbelief.
“No, I… I…”
“You lied. Why would you lie?” Percy gasped. “You were home with your husband!”
Juliet wailed, “I’m sorry! Please don’t tell your mum. I couldn’t bear it! I’m so sorry.”
“Why did you lie?” Percy demanded in outrage.
“Because… because I was scared Gwen wouldn’t help me if she knew I had witnessed the whole thing. She’d think it was too dangerous. That they’d stop at nothing to get me. She’d never have brought me home where her daughter lived!”
Juliet started bawling, and Cousin Opal’s face turned red all over; her mouth, her cheeks, even her eyes rimmed in puffy red. She still looked very pretty.
“You poor thing!” said Nan. “Seeing that with your own eyes. How awful.”
Her words made Juliet worse. She began rocking back and forth with grief.
It took ten minutes of Juliet sobbing and Nan patting her and trying to calm her in a soothing voice until Juliet was finally able to compose herself. Her sobs hiccupped to a stop.
“What did you see?” Percy demanded.
Nan shot Percy a warning look.
“We need to know,” Percy insisted.
“It was horrible,” Juliet whispered. “So terrible. I can’t even bear to think about it…” Her voice broke off and she swallowed hard. She closed her eyes and shuddered.
“I can’t even imagine,” said Shara with great sympathy. She looked like she was about to cry too.
“Please don’t tell Gwen,” Juliet whispered, fixing her big eyes on Percy. They were the exact shade of green as Gwendolyn’s. “I can’t bear for her to know I lied.”
“You shouldn’t have done it,” said Percy.
“She was scared,” said Nan, frowning at Percy.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” said Gwendolyn. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
She sounded so pitiful. And Nan and Shara were both looking at Percy like Percy was being heartless.
“What did you see?” Percy insisted.
“Nothing!” wailed Gwen.
“You have to have seen something or why would you deny being there? What are you hiding?”
“I saw them kill him,” Juliet whispered. “I don’t know how they got in. Suddenly they were there. They blasted us with their wands and a curse hit Brad. And I ran! Like a coward. I was so scared I just ran away.”
She started crying again.
Percy groaned. “Maybe we can help you,” she said, resigning herself to the fact that Juliet was here and there was no getting rid of her now. Cousin Opal, she reminded herself. She had better get used to thinking of her that way for everyone’s safety.
Cousin Opal blew her nose into the tissue. “Help me? You?” she said incredulously.
“Maybe,” said Percy. “You might have heard the rumors going around the school?”
Cousin Opal’s mouth dropped open a little. “Are they true then?” She looked astonished. “They say that you’re a very good detective or that it must’ve been the most amazing luck. I didn’t know what to believe when I heard my students at my last lesson talking about it.”
“It’s true,” said Nan proudly. “If it wasn’t for Percy, two murderers might have got away with their crimes. But that was school stuff,” she added regretfully. “Nothing like your stuff.”
“You’re not going to tell my mum, are you?” said Percy sharply.
“Why ever not?” said Cousin Opal, looking surprised. “She’s going to be so proud of you!”
“She is not,” said Percy bluntly.
“I don’t like to keep things from Gwen,” said Cousin Opal, fidgeting with her tissue. Then she blushed. “Well, I mean…”
“You mean other than your own secrets,” Percy said accusingly.
“I didn’t like keeping that from her either,” said Cousin Opal defensively. She seemed to crumble under the weight of Percy’s stare. “Oh, well… I suppose I don’t need to mention it if it doesn’t come up…”
“Good,” said Percy. “Thanks. But if the Sheedys really are going to come for you, we need to know what to expect so we can keep an eye out. What do you know about them?”
“They aren’t coming here!” Cousin Opal said in alarm. “They’re in America, aren’t they? Last spotted in Hollywood?”
She looked at all three girls anxiously, as if pleading for them to confirm it.
“We aren’t saying they definitely will come,” said Percy. “But we should be prepared, just in case.”
“They can’t come,” Opal insisted. “They can’t. I only came here because they’d never find me. Nobody knows I’m friends with Gwen. We met once years ago and hit it off. But nobody knows how close we’ve gotten.”
“Tell us about them,” said Percy. “Just in case. Prepare for the worst and all that.”
“But I don’t know anything,” said Cousin Opal.
“Weren’t they friends of your husband’s? Your first husband, I mean,” said Percy. “I know that you never knew they were thieves, but you must have met them once or twice?”
Cousin Opal nodded, looking deeply ashamed. “But I can’t tell you anything that you wouldn’t have already read in the papers. And you’ll have seen pictures of them. They’re both tall and skinny with carroty hair. You can’t miss that hair. And they’ve both got a face full of freckles. I always wondered why my lovely Hank would befriend such men, useless they were, only ever interested in going down to the pub for drinks. But it turned out my Hank was not such a lovely man after all. How could I have been so stupid?”
She looked like she was about to dissolve into tears again, so Percy said quickly, “Did you meet them? Did you ever speak to them?”
“Only to say hello to,” she said doubtfully. “I don’t know what I can tell you. I don’t know what you want me to say. Gwen’s already asked me, over and over, and I simply can’t think…” Her voice trailed off.
“That heist happened here in London,” said Nan quietly. “That means they are English, like us?”
Cousin Opal nodded. “I was so happy when my Hank got that job at Elpotts Bank,” she said. “He had struggled so much, going from job to job, never finding anything that suited him. I thought he had finally found something he could settle in to, but it turned out it was a lie all along. Those awful cousins dragged him into it. I’m sure he would have never thought up such terrible things by himself. He wasn’t that sort of man.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to him,” said Nan in a heartfelt voice.
“He got ether-frayed,” said Opal in a small voice.
Nan and Percy flinched. Etherhopping was a way witches could travel instantly between places they knew by hopping through the ether. The ether was the magical in-between that existed outside of reality and which separated the Earth from the world of the Magicwild. But etherhopping took great skill, and if you weren’t careful you ended up getting ether-flayed. Ripped apart into a million bits. A very unpleasant death indeed.
“Harsh,” said Percy.
“They found bits of him left behind but the rest of him was sucked into the ether.”
Opal shuddered as if she couldn’t bear to think about it.
“Do you know the Blazes?” asked Percy suddenly.
When Cousin Opal looked at her enquiringly, she added, “It’s just that I saw you talking to Lucilla Blaze at the Halloween party. The Blaze family were the ones that the stolen wildmagic hoard belonged to, weren’t they?”
Cousin Opal nodded. “Isn’t life strange?” she said in a wistful voice. “I met Lucilla Blaze in a police station after the horrid night that Hank died. I think she felt sorry for me. She could tell that I hadn’t a clue what Hank had been up to, and she didn’t bla
me me one bit. Isn’t that remarkable of her? And if it wasn’t for her, I would never have met my Brad. Lucilla and Maximillian Marlowe were the only ones I had afterwards. Max used to be Hank’s best friend. He had no idea what Hank was up to either. So stunned, he was. Max and Lucilla helped me go to America and make a new life for myself.”
She laughed ruefully, and shook her head. “Sweet Max Marlowe. Being back here makes me wonder what happened to him. It would be good to see him again after all of this is over. He wouldn’t even recognize me now. We lost touch. Look at me, going from a London girl to a Hollywood star! I would never have dreamed it!”
“That’s amazing,” said Shara with a soppy smile and stars in her eyes. “You turned tragedy into the stuff of dreams.”
Cousin Opal beamed and nodded. But then the smile faded.
“And then from a Hollywood star back into a London girl,” she murmured dully. She heaved a weary sigh. “My poor Brad. If he had never met me, he would still be alive. I thought it was all over. I thought by going to America that I could leave my old life behind. But it turns out the past always comes back to haunt you.”
“That is so sad.” Shara looked stricken.
Percy didn’t know what to say. She was being infected by the melancholy mood in the room, and she did not like it. The idea that fate would come chasing after you to ruin everything happy that you had tried so hard to build was too self-indulgent, too pitiful.
Cousin Opal happened to look up into Percy’s face at that very moment, and she gave a funny little teary laugh. “Look at you, Persephone Prince, feeling sorry for me. You really are your mother’s daughter.” She reached out and squeezed Percy’s hand.
Percy got a lump in her throat. She cleared her throat to get rid of it, and quickly pulled her hand away.
“You rebuilt your life before,” said Nan, “and you’ll rebuild it again. We won’t let those horrid men ruin it this time.”
“They’ve already ruined it,” said Cousin Opal tiredly. “You’re too young to know what it feels like to lose the love of your life. Especially when it was you who was supposed to be murdered, and not him.”
