Nurse Weller’s smile flickered. “Oh, at different times,” she said, a little too brightly even for her.
“How many after three weeks?”
She expected Nurse Weller would say something vague, cheerful and untrue, but she’d underestimated her. “Well—two.”
“Did they really recover? Or—or did they wake up but were never the same?”
Nurse Weller shook her head and sighed, and that was an answer. “But you mustn’t give up hope, my dear,” she added.
Beatrix nodded automatically. She followed the twisting hallways out of the hospital and walked in the biting sleet to Union Station, numb.
CHAPTER 2
The train rumbled northward as she looked through the help-wanted pages, distracting herself from thoughts of Peter by brooding about how desperately she needed a job. Before, she and her sister had managed on the patchwork but livable income of her paycheck plus the rent from Rosemarie, Miss Massey and Ella (not Marbella, sherefusedto call her Marbella). Now, Rosemarie’s rent was all they had. Miss Massey, who’d roomed with them so long and so quietly, had reluctantly moved out a week earlier to care for the children of a newly widowed cousin in Hagerstown. And Ella—Ella was the reason for Peter’s coma and Beatrix’s once-ordered life lying in tatters around her.
With Lydia’s final tuition bill paid, they could make do with less, but not this precipitous a drop. She’d done the math. In eight days, they would spend their last dollar.
She needed to find a job in Baltimore, Washington or Annapolis. Despite the expense of the train rides, those were her only options, with her car broken and no one in Ellicott Mills hiring.
She circled an ad for a receptionist, realized she’d applied for it already and crossed it out. She worked her way through the “Employment for Ladies” page—really three-quarters of a page—without finding a single job she hadn’t already tried to get.
She scowled at it. Then, for fairness’ sake, she flipped through the “Employment for Gentlemen” pages (there were three of those) and scowled at them, too. They were full of far more interesting positions—doctor, research scientist, translator, legislative aide …
Her breath caught.Wanted: Legislative aide for Maryland Senator Mitchell Gray of Ellicott Mills. Start immediately.
Whoever took that job would help Gray shepherd the bill to repeal the Twenty-fifth Amendment—to revoke the requirement that only magic-users could hold national office. He’d better find someone good.
With a sigh, she read the rest of the newspaper front to back, looking for something she didn’t find, had not expected shewouldfind, but obsessively looked for every day—some sign of Ella. The county school board had said it was in the dark about where their former teacher had gone mid-semester. The state Department of Education had said it had no record of any other school hiring her. The county police took note of the fact that Ella had packed up herthings before disappearing and were not inclined to treat it as a missing-persons case. Beyond poring over the paper, Beatrix had run out of ideas.
Where was she? Was she still in the grip of madness, plotting murder and destruction?
“Ellicott Mills!” the conductor bellowed. Beatrix stuffed the paper into her bag and hustled off the train.
Normally she took the shortcut home, through the forest, but that required passing by Peter’s dark, empty house. She couldn’t stomach it. She walked the long way around instead, arriving at her own house with aching legs.
Lydia met her at the front door with a question in her eyes. Beatrix shook her head. They each knew what they meant. There was only one question to ask when she arrived home from visiting Peter, and—day after day—only one answer to give.
“I’m sorry,” her sister murmured.
Dinner was somber. Afterward, Lydia hooked her arm through Beatrix’s and said, “Let’s go for a walk. I could use some fresh air.”
It was dark and cold outside, but the house was full of the magiocracy’s listening devices. Out they went.
Lydia said nothing until they were halfway down the path through their fallow backyard garden. Then she said, “I’m going to withdraw.”
“From what?”
“College.”
Beatrix stopped dead, but before she could say a word, her sister added, “We’ll get three-quarters of the moneyback, and we need it—it’s the only solution. I’ll withdraw, and we’ll both look for work.”
“Lydia, it’s your last semester! We’ve worked so hard for this, and to stop now?—”
“It’s just a delay. I will finish.” Lydia sounded as determined as ever. “But this time I’ll earn the money to pay for it.”
“How will you work and run the League? And push for Gray’s legislation?Andfinish planning the march? You can’t do all this at once!”
The national Women’s League for the Prohibition of Magic, deftly transformed by Lydia and Rosemarie into the force pushing for an end to wizards’ death grip on American politics, was holding a march in Washington in June. Together, the march and the typic-rights legislation consumed Lydia. Beatrix couldn’t imagine how that organizing could continue just on nights and weekends.
