He dashed up Main Street and his driveway to confront Beatrix, banging open the door and leaving a wet trail behind him in the hallway, only to stop with a jerk as he reached the brewing room.
It was empty. A vial of something she’d made, perhaps cold relief, sat on the long worktable alongside a note in handwriting that looked eerily like his, the consequence of them both learning cursive under Miss Dane’s sharp eye.Had to run out. Back in a bit.
Croft had called to warn her. He must have. But what did she think she was accomplishing? What did it gain her to delay the reckoning an hour or two?
He strode to his car, aggravation warring with anxiety, and maneuvered it down to an empty parking spot in front of Croft’s. He expected Miss Sederey would make him cool his heels for at least a half-hour, the better to help Beatrix, but she popped through the front door as he put the car in park. He had to jump out and run to do the expected courtesy of taking her bag and helping her into the passenger seat.
“How’s the ankle?” he said, managing to conceal the sarcastic intent.
She dimpled at him again. “Ever so much better. Thank you, Omnimancer.”
The girl chattered away during the short drive to her farm, saying nothing of substance. And though it wasn’t fair to judge her for that—she was twenty, she was probably nervous and what did mere acquaintances say to each other if not pleasant nothings?—he couldn’t help but compare the ride to his first with Beatrix. In which she critiqued the government, argued with him over the need for an omnimancer in town and implied that he’d been grossly overpaid while employed by the Army. (He probably had, but he was making up for it now with a salary of zero.)
Pleasant was not the word for Beatrix. Stimulating. Provoking. Disconcerting.
The worst thing about the last two weeks was the anxiety of what she might do. But hardly speaking to her was a close second.
He missed her.
“Omnimancer?”
He pulled up to the Sederey house and forced himself back into the conversation. “Yes, Miss Sederey?”
She looked down at her hands. “I amverysorry for the bother.”
She sounded sincere. Perhaps she regretted agreeing to detain him. So he said, “If you ever really need something”—with only the slightest emphasis onreally—“you only need to ask.”
Once she was safely inside the house, he turned the car around and drove off the farm, preparing what to say to Beatrix. With every delay, he dreaded the conversation more.
He was so focused on that, he almost didn’t notice the arm-waving figure at the side of the road, trying to flag him down. He slowed, pulling over. Then he recognized the man under the heavy parka, and the urge to laugh was so powerful he gave in to it.
Mr. Freelow. Well played, Beatrix.
“Oh, Omnimancer,” the old man said, “I’m so relieved you happened by because, you see, almost as soon as I woke this morning I knew I would need your help, the way my bursitis is acting up again, and you did say you’d need to cast the spell for me sometime this month, and apparently that time is today because it hurt something terrible almost as soon asI woke this morning, and wouldn’t you know it but Miss Harper called not ten minutes ago to check on me, such athoughtfulyoung lady, and she said I should look out for you because you would be driving by, and youwere, weren’t you, and if you could cast the spell for me now I would be in your debt, or at least notrightnow but once we’re in my house—it’s just over there, you know—and oh, Omnimancer, bursitis issucha cross to bear …”
And because Mr. Freelow really did suffer from bursitis, and because there would be no getting a word in edgewise let alone bargaining with the man to wait for half an hour, he gave in to the inevitable and got out of the car.
Together, Mr. Freelow never stopping for breath, they walked at the slowest possible pace to his tiny home.
The spell was not quick. It called for the wizard to lay both hands on the affected area and let the magic seep out over the course of fifteen minutes. Because Mr. Freelow had bursitis in both elbows and knees, Peter got an exacting, hour-long account of the man’s history with the condition. It was one Mr. Freelow had related to him several times already.
Only when the hour was up did Mr. Freelow pause, and that was to sigh appreciatively.
“Happy to help, Mr. Freelow, and now I must run,” Peter said, backing out. “If I don’t take care of the sidewalks, someone might slip.”
As he shut the door, he heard Mr. Freelow’s voice—muffled now: “Oh yes, go right ahead, and thank yousomuch, Omnimancer, I’m so very grateful, it’s funny how youdon’t think of your knees and elbows at all until suddenly you can’t think of anything else …”
He was, as Beatrix once said, a very sweet man. He was also an ideal distraction.
Peter braced for another diversion on the road, but this time he was allowed to drive to his house. He tried parking on the road and creeping in, to no avail. Beatrix was once again not at her post. The same note lay on the table, now with two finished brews beside it and the ingredients for a third lying abandoned.
How was she getting out in time? Did she have the mayor playing lookout?
He thought of searching for her. Shehadto be someplace where she could either see or hear him leaving. But he’d promised the mayor to take care of the sidewalks, and it was now quarter to eleven. The mill workers, railroad employees and farmers who made enough to afford lunch at Reed’s Diner would soon be walking there.
He went back down to Main Street to find the slush fully hardened to ice. He cleared the sidewalks on both sides, acutely aware of how very long they were and grateful for the warming spell in his coat.
When he finished, the exertion of casting the melting spell multiple times overcame him and he crouched against the general store, trying to catch his breath in the searing cold. Snow fell lightly on the sidewalk he had just cleared. Would he have to take care of that in a few hours, too?
