“And what if we don’t give a damn what the Council forbids?” Juniper hears Miss Stone give a soft sigh, but she doesn’t care.
Hill looks at her again. She’s expecting him to splutter with outrage, to gasp at her daring, but he doesn’t. Instead he offers her another smile, even more sickly than the others. “What did you say your name was again, miss?”
And just like that, all the fight goes out of her. Most of the wanted posters are sun-faded and tattered by now, but not all of them, and she knows Hill and his kind would love nothing better than a real live witch to string up.
She swallows. “June W-West.”
“And where are you from, Miss West?”
Miss Stone rescues her, sailing between Juniper and Hill like a white-wigged ship. “Thank you for informing us of the Council’s decision, Mr. Hill. The Association will take it under advisement.”
“Good day, girls.” Mr. Hill bows his head and turns away, but his dog doesn’t follow. She remains crouched, inky eyes fixed on Juniper, iron collar biting into her throat. Hill gives the leash a vicious tug and she follows her master out the door. The bell tinkles cheerily as they leave.
Juniper limps to the window to watch them go. Mr. Gideon Hill scurries down the street with his hands clasped behind his back and his dog trotting obediently at his heels. In the late afternoon light their shadows are black and long, larger than their owners. As Juniper watches she sees Mr. Hill’s shadow ripple strangely, as if it isn’t quite under its master’s command.
Fear slicks down her spine. She recalls that, by the evidence of the black tower, there is at least one unknown witch in the city working toward ends of her own. But why would she bewitch a sniveling city councilor? Rather than, say, quietly poisoning him in his sleep?
She hears raised voices behind her, catches stray words.Unfair! Unjust!And then:Nothing we can do.
Someone objects, almost certainly Electa. “Nothinglegalwe can do, you mean!”
Someone else gives a little gasp. Juniper thinks it must be that Susan Bee woman, a mummified Victorian type who wears an honest-to-Eve monocle and treats Juniper like a cleaning girl. “We aren’tcriminals, Miss Gage!”
Electa starts to reply but Miss Stone cuts across her. “Nor can we afford to become so, Electa.” There’s no heat to it; she merely sounds old, and very tired. “Ladies, do we have a quorum present? Let us discuss our response.” She shepherds her flock into the back offices again.
Only Jennie lingers. “June?”
“Mm?” Juniper is watching Hill’s shadow disappear around a corner, trying to decide if it seems darker than other shadows, denser.
“They’re calling a meeting. Don’t you think we ought to join?”
“No.” Juniper turns away from the window. “I don’t. I think we ought to march at the Centennial Fair.”
To her considerable credit, Jennie doesn’t gasp or squeal. She looks straight back at Juniper, level and hard, and Juniper sees a fierce spark in her eyes. She wonders for the first time how Jennie’s nose got broken, and if she was ever anything other than a part-time secretary with cornsilk hair.
“Miss Stone won’t like it,” she observes.
“No.” Juniper likes Miss Stone, but she’s gotten too used to hearing the wordno. “It’ll do her good to see a woman take thatnoand shove it back down somebody’s throat.”
“The police’ll never let us in.”
“So we disguise ourselves until the very last second, and disappear before they show up. I know the words and ways.” Juniper can tell by Jennie’s flinch that she knows what kinds of words and ways Juniper means. And she can tell by the sly shine of her eyes that she doesn’t mind it, that she’s tired ofnotoo.
Juniper smiles, all teeth. “I think you’ve already got the will.”
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Yours to mine and mine to yours.
A spell to bind, requiring a tight stitch & a steady hand
On the last night of April, Beatrice Belladonna is curled in the round window of her attic room, reading Charlotte Perrault’sTales and Stories of the Past with Moralsby witch-light. She ought to use a candle or an oil lamp like a respectable woman should, but she’s grown used to the honeyed glow of Juniper’s pitch pine wand in the evenings. Last week she came home to find a thin strip of holly and a note in Juniper’s uncertain hand: YOU OTTA KNOW THE WORDS BY NOW.
Beatrice does. When she works the spell the wand-light is silvery and cool, nothing like Juniper’s midsummer blaze. She finds it restful.
It’s late. The moon is a pearl over the neat rows of north-side rooftops, and Bethlehem Heights looks like a cuckoo clock running along hidden rails, each piece in its place. Beatrice is thinking of abandoning Perrault, who seems to have no secret rhymes or riddles to offer, when she hears thethump-thump-clackof her sister’s steps on the stairs.
Beatrice remains curled in the window. “Evening.”
