So they tried yet again to find the invisible crabapples, and yet again they couldn’t. Ella, dropping the spells oncethey’d given up, suggested they try protecting the fruit instead, knitting-style, something they’d managed to do before. But five minutes later, Beatrix stared at the mangled remains of her apples, all of them crushed by the force of her insufficiently focused—or perhaps too focused—mind. She would never be able to knit this spell on her sister. Ella’s apples, by contrast, glinted with the sheen of protection that had actually protected.
“I’m hopeless,” Beatrix muttered.
“You’re under a great deal of stress.” Ella gathered the apples, whole and in pieces, into her bag. “Anyway, look on the bright side: You’ve got plenty of power to draw on.”
The telephone rang.
“Be right back,” Beatrix said, dashing for the kitchen.
“You’re off the clock, you know,” Ella called out.
“He can’t hear the phone in the attic.” Beatrix picked up the receiver. “Omnimancer’s house!”
“Beatrix?” The voice on the other end was tinny, but the strain in it came through nonetheless. “Is that you?”
“Yes, it is. Can I help you?”
“It’s—it’s Joan.”
Beatrix grabbed hold of the counter, heart revving up, lungs tightening. She knew what had to come next, but it still felt as shocking as a dunking in ice-cold water when Joan said: “My sister—my sister isn’t well. Could you put her on the list?” Her voice cracked as she added, “Please?”
Beatrix gulped air, trying to push the distress into a tiny ball, to contain it before it set off a panic attack. Or before Peter sensed something was wrong.
“Yes,” she said. Steady. Artificial. “Right away.”
As she hung up, Ella clattered into the kitchen and grabbed her arm. “C’mon, c’mon, we’ve got to head home in fifteen minutes.”
“Ella …” The dread in her voice must have been clear because Ella stopped tugging and looked at her in concern. “That was Joan. Her—her sister …”
“Oh my God.”
“We have togo?—”
The attic door creaked. Peter’s footsteps echoed on the stairs like gunshots—he was coming down fast. Beatrix had just a moment to glance at Ella before he rounded the bend.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
She could tell him. She could beg for his forgiveness and help.
“Panic attack,” she said, the lie stealing her breath, nearly making the statement true. “I’m—I’m?—”
“Wait, don’t try to talk.” He fetched her a glass of water. “Can you drink that?”
She sipped at it, trying to think, to be calm. They had to get to Baltimore as soon as possible. Therefore, they had to get home now. Her car was there, in the garage.
“I need to go home,” she said.
He nodded.
“I don’t think I can walk it,” she said, eyes on the glass, on her hands, on anything but him. “Could you drive us?”
Of course he said yes. She spent the short ride home with her eyes pressed shut, trying to hold back burning tears.
Ella ran into the house to give Rosemarie an excuse for why they were rushing off unexpectedly, leaving Beatrix on the porch with disjointed thoughts and inadequate lungs. When Ella burst back out the door, they ran to the car without a word.
The old sedan didn’t start on the first three tries—Beatrix had a horrible moment of thinking that now,nowwas when it would finally give up the ghost—but the fourth attempt worked, and she drove them in the gathering darkness to Baltimore.
Joan met them at the door with red eyes and a grim look. They rushed to the bathroom, heels clicking in time like a particularly ominous clock.
