Beatrix collected the brews and saw Mrs. Clark out with a month’s supply, wishing—like Mrs. Clark—that there was more she could do. She leaned against the door after recasting the shielding spell, feeling numb, and was still there a minute later when Peter emerged from the kitchen.
“I now know the story of Mr. Freelow’s bursitis well enough to recite it myself,” he said. “Full of drama and intrigue.”
She tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage.
“What’s wrong?” he said. “Who was at the door?”
“Mrs. Clark. She’s expecting again, to her dismay.”
He sat on a stair and sighed. “Better add an extra batch of the vitamin brew to the list—she’ll need it.”
“It makes me want to start crusading for the legalization of rubbers.”
“Please, one gigantic problem at a time. Remember what happened to Margaret Sanger.”
“True.” She bit her lip. “Any progress?”
“Where’s Miss Knight?” he asked in an undertone.
“Gone.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve made as much progress as I generally make at first, which is to say none atall. Runes are”—he grimaced—“extremely frustrating. We don’t really knowwhythey work, you understand, just that they do. Impedes efforts to use them in new ways.”
“The effect you got seemed awfully new. What were you using, theearrune?”
His laugh was utterly without humor. “Yes—but destruction is pretty much par for the course with that one. There’s a reason it’s nicknamed ‘the grave.’”
He put a hand in an interior pocket and came out with an example—inscribed on an alabaster-white stone.
“Peter!” Horror propelled her forward until only a foot separated her from the dangerous item in his palm. “You brought a payload stonehere?”
“How else am I supposed to come up with a defense against it?”
“It could level the entire town!”
“It’s not connected to the transmitter I left the Pentagram with.” He paused. “It’s connected to the one I took.”
She backed up against the door, wrapping her arms around herself. “That’s here, too. Isn’t it.”
“Yes.”
She glared at him.“Where?”
“In the forest,” he said, slipping the stone back into its pocket. “Garrett almost found it here a few months ago—I had to get it out of the house.”
Her forest. Her beautiful forest.
“You surely aren’t planning to use it to detonate explosions here,” she said, meaning it as a statement, but it came out as a wavery question.
“Extremely small ones inside a soundproofed area. But there’s really no point until I develop a defense worth testing.” He glanced at her, a pleading look in his eyes. “I swear I won’t blow up Ellicott Mills. I keep the stone on me at all times.”
She lowered herself onto the step below him, resolutely not looking at him. “This is a complete and utter disaster, you know.”
“That thought runs through my head many times a day, I assure you.”
They sat silently for a stretch, Beatrix trying not to imagine a blast with a mile-and-a-half radius consuming nearly everyone she knew.
“What would you use to fuel these small explosions?” she asked finally. “Not—not living creatures.”
