“Nonsense. He is a pirate; it’s in his job description to be wicked. Clearly he is the worst!”
“No one is more wicked than a witch!”
There came another sharp clash of metal. The tourists leaped with startlement. Charlotte and Alex took the opportunity to hasten along the street—
And stopped abruptly.
Miss Plim strode around a corner, sunlight flashing on her spectacles.
Till this moment, Charlotte never knew herself. But now, watching Miss Plim aim toward her like an inevitability, she felt bird wings flap madly against her bones and wind roar through her mind, and she realized that a lifetime of considering herself self-contained had been a lie.Imprisonedwas the better word. In fact, she had a vast longing in her—a whole sky’s worth of longing for life and love, rooftops and running wild—and here was Miss Plim now to bring her back to earth.
The woman moved with a cool, measured stride. The hem of her black dress swept methodically back and forth against the street; her topknot of hair knuckled the clear, bright sky. And her hand, emerging slowly from a pocket, unfurled with blade, shuriken, eyebrow tweezers.
No weapon was more deadly, however, than the look on her face.You are wrong,it said.The way you have been behaving proves just how wrong you are deep inside. Charlotte Pettifer, you are A Disappointment.
Don’t listen!screamed Charlotte’s brain.Run away!
No, quick, curtsy! Apologize! Promise to be better!argued her body.
Caught between the two impulses, Charlotte was unable to make a choice that would not in some way be incorrect. She could not move, could not breathe.
Besides, it was too late. Aunt Judith’s presence meant everything was over. The escapade; the kissing in alleyways; the midnight snacks in a lamplit kitchen, hoping Bixby did not catch them. Just as soon as she reached Charlotte, Miss Plim would transform her from an independent woman making admittedly wild choices into once again a proper witch. It would only take a shake of the head, a click of the tongue. In fact, Charlotte could feel it happening already. Jane Austen began chanting:Be wise and reasonable.
But alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she did not want to be wise yet.
Luckily, she was in the company of an entirely unwise pirate. “Quick,” Alex said, tugging on her. “This way!”
He half-dragged her off the street and through the nearest shop door. As the doorbell tinkled merrily, Charlotte came back to herself—and into near-collision with a peacock.
Stumbling back, she ascertained this was not an ironic statement from the universe but in fact a hat the shopkeeper was transporting across the shop. “I say!” the merchant declared, but Charlotte and Alex skidded past and made for what they could only hope was a rear exit behind a curtained door.
They found themselves instead in a silk floral jungle inhabited by flocks of stuffed birds.
The doorbell tinkled again. “Good afternoon, sir,” came a woman’s voice, the aural equivalent of a bayonet being jabbed into a wagon that is hiding escapees amongst its load.
Charlotte’s breath caught raggedly in her throat. Alex grasped a decorative shepherd’s crook that was propped up nearby and beganwhacking at wings and flowers, papier-mâché beaks and long lace vines, clearing a path through the mad hat jungle. Discovering a rear door, he immediately applied his bootheel to it and the door slammed open at once, not having actually been locked. They rushed out even as Miss Plim stalked into the workroom.
“She’ll never stop,” Charlotte cried.
“Trust me,” Alex said with a piratic smile. “I’ll keep you unsafe.”
They ran down the street, took a corner, and Alex led them to a random door that he opened in the conventional manner of turning its handle. It revealed a large hall crowded with yet another flock of birds—which is to say, people dressed in vivid colors and plumes, fluttering around, their voices warbling through the air. Two long lines of dancers swooped together, then apart, while a group of fiddlers played.
They had stumbled upon an afternoon ball, Charlotte realized, and she felt a certain narrative satisfaction. As Alex shut the door and shoved chairs against it, she watched the dancers, evaluating the quality of their muslins. Then Alex tugged on her hand so she spun toward him; grasping her other hand, pulling her close, he grinned.
“Madam,” he said. “May I have this dance?”
Elizabeth Bennet would have said yes from sheer surprise. Fanny Price would have said no and hidden her face. But Charlotte did not consult either. Instead, she frowned at the pirate, called him a fiend, and let him dance her in long strides across the floor. His smile was a hook, holding her up out of fear. Her hips moved in a manner she had not known them capable of. The two lines of dancers moved apart, with hands connected and arms raised to make a steepled lane. Witch and pirate danced through like shadows in the lamplight, portending night, leaving everyone blinking and enchanted.
As they reached the end of the lane, the lines of dancers moved together again, and Charlotte and Alex copied them—hands still clutching, gazes locked. The world seemed to suspend in a haze of noise andcolor. Miss Plim was gone; Lizzie Bennet was gone; all that remained were Alex’s smiling eyes and the disordered beat of her heart.
She did not want to breathe lest she break the spell. Here was some magic greater than witchery. She, Charlotte Pettifer, was participating in a romantic ballroom moment such as Jane Austen herself might have composed—albeit without a dreadful aunt in pursuit. Nor a hero who was utterly devilish, with an earring and a hefty sword, not to mention a pair of boots that on their own would be censored from any decent novel. And alas, she doubted the heroine would be quite as worldly as she herself had become this past week.
In fact, she rather suspected she would be the villain in a Jane Austen novel.
But Charlotte was surprised to find she did not care. Rising on her toes, she kissed that devilish pirate, and thrilled at the smile she startled onto his mouth.
It was an imperfect moment, but she would remember it for the rest of her life.
