She stared at the mass of humanity standing, sitting and in a few cases dancing in front of them. No one had liked Blackwell’s predecessor—no one. Either they’d forgotten how Graham took advantage of them, or they were hoping against hope that a wizard bred in Ellicott Mills would be different.
CHAPTER 5
The urge to execute a U-turn and flee back to Washington was just shy of overwhelming. No one there knew what he’d done. It wasn’t too late to go back to his Greek Revival townhouse, to a job where everything he needed was provided and a life where he was as important as a scientist could be. Ellicott Mills, by contrast, would be a daily misery.
He pulled his car into the last parking spot before Main Street gave way to the teeming throng and forced himself to get out.
“There he is!” yelled a little boy at the end of the line. “There’s our wizard!”
The noise of the crowd escalated to a din. Peter, seizing a leaf in a death grip, muttered a spell and cleared his throat. It echoed over the crowd, the sound amplified. Everyone fell silent as if he’d enspelled them, too.
“I understand why you’re here,” he said, skipping to the heart of the matter. “You haven’t had an omnimancer for years. The closest ones are a good forty-five minutes away, and they won’t help anyone outside Baltimore unless they get a lull in requests from residents.”
“Which never happens!” someone bellowed.
Peter hesitated, loath to go on. He clutched another leaf in case he had to make a quick escape from a stampeding mob. “The trouble is, Washington has not changed its mind about Ellicott Mills’ need for its own omnimancer. The assignments office didn’t send me here. I decided to come home, and I won’t have the usual assistance to do the job.”
He raised his voice over the sounds of surprise—Miss Harper’s shocked intake of breath among them. “I’ll take care of your requests in order of importance. Please be patient with me. A five-year backlog won’t quickly be undone.”
Some of the murmurs turned to mutters.
“I’ve been standing in this line for three hours!” yelled a man near the head of it. “Please, couldn’t this be first come, first served?”
Another called out, “How will you define ‘important’?”
“Try ‘impending structural collapse’ on for size,” said an elderly man a few spots from the line’s end.
“My daughter is ill! That’s more important than your roof!” a woman shouted at him.
“Take ’er to the hospital, then, you ninny,” the old man sniped back.
What on earth could he say to placate everyone?
“Quick,” Miss Harper said, grabbing his arm. “Put that voice spell on me, too.”
He didn’t make a sarcastic remark about how, less than twenty-four hours earlier, she’d told him he was never to cast a spell on her. He just did it and prayed she could be soothing.
“Quiet!” Her voice boomed over the town. “Didn’t you hear what Omnimancer Blackwell said? He doesn’t have to be here. He could leave right now. Isn’t waiting with the promise of eventual help an improvement over nothing, no matter where you are on the list?”
Townspeople looked sheepishly at each other.
“Exactly,” Miss Harper said. “Now, we’ll take down your requests starting at the front of the line, and equally compelling needs will be handled first come, first served. You can help move things along by harvesting leaves before they all wither, or else our omnimancer will run out long before spring. And no, Mr. Edderly,” she added to the elderly homeowner with the roof problem, who had just raised his hand, “one’s place on the waiting list will not be determined by whether one volunteers for leaf duty.”
Great heavens, she’d cleared up two major problems in thirty seconds flat.
“Is that acceptable?” he asked the crowd.
Nobody looked especially overjoyed. But no one said nay.
He was about to remove the amplification spells when a critically important addendum occurred to him, courtesy of Miss Harper and her reminder about his predecessor. “Justto be clear: I don’t want or expect anything in exchange for my services.”
This seemed to cheer everyone up. He should have said that first.
After he canceled the spells on them both, Miss Harper whispered: “Is anyone paying you to be here?”
He shook his head, bracing for the inevitable. She did not disappoint: “Why did you come back?”
He told her the truth, if not the whole of it. “I needed a break.”
