“I appreciate your offer, General, but my answer is still no,” he said, trying to sound firm about it. “Good morning to you.”
He hung up, a hard knot in his stomach.
Townspeople flockedto their door and pressed money on them the whole morning.
Mr. and Mrs. Fischer said their entire fall crop would have been destroyed if Peter had not fought off the beetles, and they only wished they could give more than $50.
Mr. Edderly said he never could have afforded to patch his roof non-magically, so he considered it a flaming bargain to hand over $29.58.
Mrs.Price, of all people, showed up with an envelope that she said contained an amount past-due to him, leaving without answering questions, and it was only when he saw the $800 within that he realized she was talking about the high school scholarship she’d agreed with Beatrix’s mother not to give him.
Mr. Freelow appeared with a jar of coins he’d been “saving for a rainy day, and I can’t imagine anything rainier than those terrible bills facing you!”
So many in Ellicott Mills had so little (not counting Mrs. Price, of course) that Peter accepted the help only because he knew that refusing it would be a grave insult. He particularly hated to take Mr. Freelow’s coins because the man’s painful bursitis was overdue for a treatment Peter could no longer give. Brews didn’t help: It required a spell, said several times with a laying on of hands to the affected areas. No way to fudge that to make it appear to be his spell while actually coming from Beatrix.
“I can’t tell you how grateful I am, Mr. Freelow,” he choked out.
Mr. Freelow beamed and hobbled off. It was literally the first time Peter had ever talked to him that he hadn’t said a word about the bursitis, and that made the whole thing worse.
“I know,” Beatrix murmured, upstairs in the new brewing room later, resting in a chair after they’d finished moving ingredients and tools from the old one. “I can’t stand the thought of not helping him, but I don’t have a clue about how we could pull it off.”
He sighed. “That’s not all.” And he told her about the Pentagram’s offer of a bodyguard.
She stood and slipped her arms around his waist. “I don’t think anyone’s coming after me. I’m worried about you.”
“I didn’t seriously think anyone would come after me, either, and I was sadly mistaken.”
She said nothing for a moment, and he regretted the words. What good did it do to frighten her?
Then she extracted a leaf from her pocket, pressed it against the back of his hand and raised them both—her hand and his—into a spellcasting position.
Not frightened. Strategizing.
“Cast the protection spell on three,” she said. “OK?”
He nodded.
“One, two …”
“Scield!”he bellowed, loud enough to cover up her use of the spellword, and watched as a translucent stream of magic appeared to flow from his fingers. He had just a second to consider how he felt about that when he remembered thatscieldwas invisible.
“You usedbeorgan,” he said, voice reedy.
“Yes,” she said, “it’s the stronger spell, so …”
She was still talking, but he couldn’t hear her. He gulped air to prove to himself that the spell hadn’t gone awry, but it didn’t help, his lungs burned, it was happening again—he couldn’t—couldn’t?—
She pushed him into a chair. “Peter,” she said, “deep breaths! Slower, or you’ll hyperventilate!”
Bit by bit, he caught his breath. Panic attack. He’d just had a panic attack over a spell she’d surely cast correctly.
“Are you OK?” Her eyes were wide, her hands tightly gripping him. “That was absolutelyidioticof me?—”
“Do it again,” he said grimly, getting up.
This time—once he’d talked her into it—his panic was more manageable simply because he knew what to expect.He made her cast the spell over and over until the memory of being slowly asphyxiated bybeorganwhile trapped in the basement lost some of its terrible immediacy and he could concentrate on the matter at hand. Holding a leaf, hiding it after the fact, moving in concert with her.
Pretending to cast a spell she’d worked was terrible in a different sort of way, but he didn’t have the luxury of wallowing until his loss felt less raw. Assuming it ever would.
