Once a Witch (21 page)

“What do I get in return? If I help you?”

“Your sister's life,” he says, leaning back in his chair and touching his finger to the rim of the goblet again.

“And Agatha's,” I say, trying to keep the cold, trembling sickness that's welling up inside me out of my voice. His eyes flick to the decanter again, and now there is such a possessive hunger on his face that I almost look away.

“Perhaps.”

“'Perhaps'?” I echo.

“What does that mean?”

“Perhaps it depends on you. If you can find what I want and bring it to me soon enough, perhaps it won't be too late for the lovely, lively Agatha.” My mouth feels as if it's full of cotton, but I force the words out.

“What do you want with Agatha? She doesn't have a Talent–she's… normal . .

.”

“Agatha is useful in helping me… sustain myself.”

“Like Rowena is?” I ask. He inclines his head thoughtfully in an awful parody of a professor considering a question from a student.

“In a different way.”

“And what will happen to them? If I bring you what you want? Will you free them?”

“Whatever there is left to free,” he adds softly, and this time I can't keep the shudder from traveling across my face.

“Time is running out for them, Tamsin. And when time runs out for them, be sure that there are others on the list” He steeples his hands, eyes the clock pointedly, andsmiles at me.

“I think your young man out there is perhaps becoming a tad anxious.”

“How long do I have to bring you what you want? And why can't you just get it yourself if you're so powerful?” The edge of a frown crosses his face and I feel that even though I haven't accomplished much during this interview, there's that at least.

“It appears that someone of your special Talents is required” And in the little silence that follows, I almost laugh at the sad fact that I once wanted so badly to be Talented and now I would trade anything not to be. But all laughter, hysterical or otherwise, vanishes at the sound of a clock chiming the hour.

Turning, I locate the source of the sound: the clock that was once the Domani, in the corner of the office.

“A keepsake,” Alistair murmurs.

“And it does prove useful,” he adds, and I jerk my head back toward him just in time to see him unstop the decanter and pour out some of the murky liquid into a glass. He holds the glass aloft, letting it catch the light so that it sparkles brightly.

“To your… success,” he says with a horrible politeness and drains the contents in one long swallow. I watch the muscles of his throat twitch and then he smiles at me, his lips shining wet. Agatha! I turn and flee the room, knocking past my sister, who is curled up outside the door, her eyes closed. Alistair's laugh follows me all the way down the hall.

“ARE YOU SURE you want to do this?” Gabriel asks me again through the partially open door that connects Aunt Rennie's and Uncle Chester's dressing rooms.

“What choice do I have?” I mutter miserably, sliding into the dress that I snatched from my closet back in my dorm room. Gabriel and I drove there after I'd managed to explain in between mostly incoherent gasps what Alistair had said. Agatha was asleep, and maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed unlike her usual deep coma. As I moved around the room, gathering up everything I thought I needed, she tossed and turned and murmured. Once she had cried out,

“No, please!” I debated waking her and then decided not to. Instead, I stood over her for a minute while Gabriel waited outside, and I pressed my hand against her forehead. But she twisted away from me and turned toward the wall, and that's when I saw the cuts on her arm that were barely crusted over. I had to run away then before I started hyperventilating again. Now I try to take comfort in the silky fabric of the dress, but even that reminds me too much of Agatha and her squealing excitement when I had come out of the dressing room of that East Village thrift shop. She convinced me to buy the dress even though I couldn't afford it and even though I didn't have one single place to wear a full-length rose-colored evening gown from the 1930s. Last month I thought stupidly that I would wear it to Rowena's wedding.

“Maybe I still will,” I whisper to myself now as I twist the dress into place.

“How's it going in there?”

“Okay,” I gasp.

“I can't really breathe, but other than that, okay.”

“Breathing's overrated,” Gabriel advises me.

“I'm discovering that right about now with this damn tie.” I trip across the room to stand in front of Aunt Rennie's huge mirror. The dress says 1930s, but my hair gives it away. I search through my stack of hairpins, settle on a few crystal bobby pins. So what that they're from the chain store Claire's? How many people are going to be peering that closely at my hairpins? How long are we going to be stuck in 1939, anyway? Just long enough to apparently wreck Aunt Beatrice's life and get out. And before I can confront that uncomfortable thought, Gabriel walks through the adjoining door. I catch sight of his reflection in the mirror as I attempt to twist my dark curls into something resembling a 1930s hairstyle.

“You look great,” I exclaim just as half my hair falls out of the knot I'm attempting to pin it in. I sigh.

“I give up.” Gabriel, wearing one of Uncle Chester's charcoal suits, advances toward me.

“You give up? You give up your foolish resistance to my undeniable charms? I knew you'd cave eventually. They always do.” I stick out my tongue at his mirrored reflection. Holding up my collection of hairpins, I say,

“I give up on my hair, idiot.” He holds out his hand.

“Give them to me,” he says and sets to work.

“Ow,” I say as he jabs my head with a pin. But it didn't really hurt. I just said that because he's standing so close.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, his breath whispering across the bare nape of my neck.

“It's okay,” I say through gritted teeth, hoping my goose bumps aren't visible.

“There. What do you think?” He takes half a step back and I look at myself in the mirror again. Somehow, he has managed where I failed to roll my hair and pin it low on my neck. The curl that keeps escaping has now been positioned behind my ear.

“Not bad,” I say.

“You know, if the musician thing doesn't work out, you could always be a–”Behind me Gabriel makes a stabbing motion over his heart and I grin at him in the mirror.

“Lipstick,” I say in a rush. ”Nah, you don't need it. Why do girls wear that shit anyway?”

“It's 1939. I can't not wear lipstick,” I say and search through what I've brought before settling on Agatha's tube of Rev Me Up Red by L'Oreal. But my hands are shaking, and as a result I end up scrubbing lipstick off my front teeth.

“Okay,” I say at last.

“Ready, I think.” Gabriel pulls a picture from inside his voluminous jacket pocket and studies it. In the attic I found an old photo album covered with a layer of musty grime. Thank the elements that Aunt Rennie never seems to throw anything away.

“Do you always need something like that?” I ask now.

“Like the painting or this photo here? You know, to help you… Travel?” Gabriel studies the photo for a minute longer.

“I think it helps. I've never been able to do it without some sort of… guide like this or the painting. Concentrating?” I nod, staring at the photo of the girl in a swooping hat. Her face is tilted up and she is smiling widely. In one hand she's holding a cigarette encased in a long holder, and in her other hand she's cradling what looks like an old-fashioned champagne glass. She's looking at something outside the borders of the picture. Beatrice, 1939 is written in spidery letters across the bottom of the photo. Gabriel's fingers tighten around mine and suddenly we're whirling through space and I feel the dress slipping and swaying against my legs. I have time to wonder distractedly if my hair will stay put and then music is blaring in my ear and what feels like hard stone is wedged up against my shoulder.

“Ow!” I say, peeling myself away from a brick wall. I blink and let go of Gabriel's hand.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly.

“I did tell you that this isn't an exact science.”

“Where are we?” My eyes adjust to the dimness until I can make out rows and rows of bottles and jars all containing what looks like dried herbs or oils. Sniffing the air experimentally, I encounter a familiar earthy scent.

“The stillroom,” I say, taking a step forward, and as if to reward me for my guess, something cool and feathery splays across my face. I reach up to bat away a hanging bouquet of lavender, the flowers silky against my fingers. A crack of light shines along the far end of the room and I think back to the configurations of Aunt Rennie's house. The stillroom opens onto the garden, and judging from the music on the other side of the door, that's where the party is.

“I think–”

“Quiet,” Gabriel hisses.

“Someone's coming.” I whirl toward where I know the second door should be, the one that leads into the kitchen, and sure enough, right outside it are heavy, dragging footsteps. We sidle into the farthest corner of the room as this door is flung open. I can just make out the outline of a large woman, her hair skinned tightly in a bun that is cemented to the back of her head. She rattles along the shelves, muttering,

“Morehoney syrup, Bertha. More hyssops for the punch, Bertha. The guests are thirsty. Don't dawdle, Bertha, Bertha, Bertha! And all the while my bones are aching for a sit-down” She stomps into the center of the room and reaches up toward the ceiling. The second before she snaps the light on, I realize what she intends to do. Careening into Gabriel, I pull his face down onto mine, my hands artfully splayed across his cheeks to hide as much as I can. Just as his lips crash into mine, bright spangles of light burst against my closed eyelids.

“Oh!” I hear Bertha gasp.

“Beg your pardon,” she stammers. A wheel of heavy boots, a slam of the door, and she's gone.

“Sorry,” I mutter, pulling back out of Gabriel's arms.

“That was kind of sloppy. Not my best.”

“I don't mind,” he says, and his voice is this side of unsteady. Then he straightens his tie and smoothes the front of his suit jacket.

“You're blushing.”

“Yeah… well, you're wearing lipstick now” I reach up to smudge it off him as best I can, trying not to let my fingers linger on the curve of his lower lip.

“Thanks. Ready?”

“No,” I say, but he squeezes my hand and opens the door to the garden anyway. We spill out into a crowd of people. All of them seem to be drinking and smoking; the women are holding slim gold and ivory cigarette holders while the men puff on thick toffee-colored cigars or pipes. A swirl ofcolor catches my eye. A woman wearing a feathery bronze headdress is holding court, her long eyes painted with purple eye shadow, her mouth a slash of scarlet. Torches staked into the ground provide a soft flickering light, and the cheerful sweep of a jazz quartet occasionally breaks through the swells and billows of conversation. An enormous white tent in the middle of the garden has been set up for dancing, and various couples move in and out of the twilight.

“See her?” Gabriel says to me in a low voice just as a waiter glides to a stop before us, holding out a tray. The man's eyes are steady on a spot between my shoulder and Gabriel's, and after we take two bell-shaped champagne glasses he moves off without even looking at us once. I begin to breathe a little.

“Not yet,” I say, swigging my champagne.

“Easy on that,” Gabriel warns, his eyes shifting past me. I turn to find a trio of girls, each dressed in pink, looking at us–or rather, at Gabriel–with what seems like admiration. Just in time I catch a smile flit across his face as he gazes back at them.

“Easy on that,” I say, and after linking arms, we move into the crowd as casually as possible. I take my cue from the waiter and don't make eye contact with anyone in particular. But we're discovered anyway.

“Darling,” a woman's voice purrs into my ear, and I nearly spill my glass of champagne.

“I have been looking for you everywhere. When did you get here?”

”Um… a few minutes ago” I nod at her and try to move on, but her hand is wrapped around my arm. She is small and sharp featured, and her red hair breaks in glossy waves all around her head.

“Of course you did. How like you!” she exclaims, as if praising me for doing something very clever. Her black feather boa draped across her shoulder seems to be a living, breathing creature. I am staring at it, fascinated, when she leans into me and says in a loud stage whisper,

“And just who is this beautiful man with you?” Without waiting for my answer, she winks at Gabriel and nudges between us. Her boa arcs through the air and wraps itself tightly around their hips. I open my mouth, but just then a hearty voice booms out to my right.

“Melora. Every time I turn around, you've disappeared. What is the meaning of this, really?” A massively florid man wobbles into view and slaps one meaty paw down onto the woman's shoulder in what is supposed to be a caress but looks more like a death grip. Melora's boa seems to wilt under his onslaught.

“Oh! Charles!” Melora says, and even though she's smiling, I can tell she's really trying not to shriek.

“I just had to greet Cousin–” And here she shoots me a look.

“Agatha,” I say blithely. The man peers at me for a second, then blinks, shakes his head.

“So many cousins,” he roars jovially.

“Cousin Agatha,” he says and kisses me on each cheek. IgnoringGabriel completely, he turns back to Melora and says,

“Now, you really must come with me. There's something I want to discuss with you.” Distaste flutters across Melora's features, but she allows the man to begin leading her away, his hand still clamped on her shoulder. But in the next second the boa floats up again as if stirred by an errant breeze and winds itself briefly around the man's arm. With a surprisingly high-pitched yelp, he snatches his hand back and wrings it out once, twice.

“Damn thing bit me!” he exclaims.

“No, lambkins,” Melora coos, cradling his hand.

“It absolutely did not” Then she looks sidelong at me and winks before they both disappear into the darkness.