“It’s worth a helluva lot more,” Maggie argued.
The man wouldn’t budge, so Maggie turned to the girl. “If you’re smart, you’ll sell it instead of pawning it. My ex paid over four grand for it.”
The young woman, Tammy, thought and apparently agreed. “I’ll trade you the car for the ring and a hundred in cash.”
Maggie looked at Ellie, who nodded.
“Deal.” Maggie held out a hand to shake. “We need a written contract, and it ought to be notarized.”
After borrowing paper, Maggie wrote a very legal-sounding contract that they both signed—and the pawnshop owner notarized.
Deal complete, Ellie bought an inexpensive burner phone and minutes, and soon they were in the car headed south to the Carolinas, where Maggie would miraculously return from being missing and rejoin her son. Hopefully. They didn’t have much of a plan beyond that, but it was a start.
“What if he’s not alive?” Ellie asked as they pulled onto the freeway in their new car. She kept her eyes on the road.
“He is,” Maggie insisted. “He’s probably a wreck being stuck at Leon’s house. We’ll show up, and then I’ll have my son with me, and we’ll go back to my place.”
“They know where we live, Mags. We need to run.” Ellie paused before adding, “I want to pick up my aunt Hestia first, though.”
“So we’ll get Craig and Hestia, and then… I know a guy who can get us fake IDs. And I have money at the house for an emergency. We’ll grab it. Get the IDs. Then we start over. New lives.”
The reality—that doing this meant no more library for Ellie and no more law for Maggie—hit Ellie then. Their lives as they knew them were over, all because of their magic waking.
“People over there are dying, Ellie. This is better,” Maggie insisted, staring at her.
Ellie nodded without taking her eyes off the road. “It’s just all… settling in on me, I guess.”
“They lied. They’re dying and didn’t tell us. And Prospero? She used you.” Maggie sounded so sure that Ellie had to remind herself that her new friend was a lawyer. She was trained to be convincing.
Unfortunately, Ellie had no reasonable doubt. All she could say was, “I know.”
41Prospero
Prospero worried she was ignoring Ellie, but she wanted to get a sense of the scope of Crenshaw’s risk. Her first stop was to find Cassandra, who was unusually difficult to find. She wasn’t at her place of work or the tavern or the agriculture fields. By the time Prospero got back to her house, she was starting to worry her friend was sick.
Instead Cassandra was perched on Prospero’s steps like a particularly odd bird. She quirked her brows. “Do I know you?”
“Cass…”
“Hello, stranger who has ignored me…”
Prospero gave her a withering look and stepped around her. “I cannot do this right now. Either come in or don’t. I could use the help, but I have no patience for drama.”
“Well, you’re no fun.” Cassandra huffed and stood with a swirl of skirts and hair. She jingled as she moved, and in a few moments, she was right behind Prospero and resting her chin against Prospero’s arm. “So… you need a bit of prognosticating?”
Prospero glanced back at her. “It would be helpful.”
“The water is not going to improve. I’ve looked at dozens of maybes…all bad.” Cassandra sighed. “We need to relocate, P, unless Ellie can patch the rift.”
“Relocate atown?”
“I know it seems—”
“Impossible?” Prospero shoved open her door and stepped away from Cassandra.
“The miasma is from the water, and it’ll keep getting worse.” Cassandra sounded cheery despite her dire predictions. “Death. Paralysis like death. No good outcomes… and soon.”
“Even though Ellie is staying?” Prospero didn’t look back at Cassandra as she asked. If she avoided eye contact, it was easier to pretend the answer wasn’t important to her personally. Thinking about it in terms of Crenshaw’s good was how she kept herself from looking too closely at how honest she’d been when she’d told Ellie she wanted to love her.
