Maudlin's Mayhem (Bewitching Bedlam #2)(52)

It amazed me that the Meré could survive in the riptide and the currents that lashed at the edge of the islands, but they did.

Here and there a stray patch of beachgrass sprouted up, shifting the structure of the dunes. The Bedlam Horticultural Society had taken to weeding it out because beachgrass displaced the nests of shorebirds and native foliage. Unfortunately, it was a tenacious plant. The fight against the patches of tall windblown grass seemed to be entrenched for the long run.

I watched the stretch of mudflats, exposed as the tide rolled out. “Makes me think of Fata, you know.”

“I know,” Sandy said. “You miss her, don’t you?”

I pressed my lips together, turning over her question in my mind. Fata had been a force of nature. “I think at times, I do. But she was so chaotic, and so hard to control…”

“You can’t control a water spirit. You just can’t. Just like you can’t control the ocean. She’ll do as she wants, and her moods shift on a dime. But…I miss her too.”

I shivered as she spoke. “I wonder if she thinks about us.”

“I don’t know whether I hope she does or I hope she’s forgotten us.” Sandy shook her head, as if to drive the thought away. “Let’s talk about something else, all right?”

I knew why she wanted to change the subject. Fata had been our third—completing our triad of power. And she had also nearly been our downfall. When we last saw her, she was racing out to sea on a wave, her fury bringing up such a gale that more than one ship in the area had capsized. Sandy and I had had to let her go. We had to let her run free without trying to make her fit into our world. And yet…Fata could so easily be like cool rain on a thirsty morning, the comforting embrace of rising mist on a cold autumn day.

Pushing my thoughts of her away, I cleared my throat. “You said Max solved the problem with the clients who were backing away from their deal?”

The frown on Sandy’s face vanished. “Yes, and what a relief. It would have been a nasty battle in court because they had signed contracts and he had gone ahead and put in orders based on those contracts. The orders were already under way, so he would have lost a tidy sum of money and been stuck with too much stock. But he worked it out with them to everybody’s advantage. I never realized running a clothing business could be so complicated.”

I paused, then blurted out, “What the hell am I going to do about Essie and that damned book? I can’t give it back to her, Sandy—not with those spells in it. And if I tear them out and give it back to her, she’s going to know I’ve seen it. The minute she gets those suitcases and finds out that Thornton’s journal’s not there, she’ll either figure out I know what’s going on, or she’ll think he hid it in my house and send somebody to try to find it. Either way, I’m facing one hell of a mess. Times like these, I wish Linda was still here and I could take my problems to her. But now, I’m the High Priestess and I have to make the call.”

“You talk to Auntie Tautau yet? She’d be the one I’d turn to.”

“I tried, but she was out. On the way home can we stop at her place and I’ll give it another try?”

“Sure. Look—we’re almost to Neverfall. It’s out on that arm of the island.”

Bedlam Island had several stretches of high land that reached out into the strait, long fingers well above the waters so that—unless a tsunami rolled in—they were safe from most of the storms and the high tides. Neverfall Academy for Gifted Students was a set of stone buildings that sat on a thousand-acre campus on the northeastern side of Bedlam Island.

The campus stretched out along the cliffs looking over the water, and a large retaining wall kept students from falling off. There were two branches, one for younger students and one for the students in their teens. The gray stone buildings were paired with the dormitories, also of stone make, that rose like towers behind the main buildings. While there were day classes for some of the pupils living on Bedlam, most of the students lived in the dorms and went home only for vacations.

As we pulled in through the main gates, we could see some of the students were outside practicing soccer. A younger class looked to be having a nature walk around campus. We drove slowly through the winding road leading up to the main administrative building. As we pulled into the lot, parking in the visitors’ section, Sandy leaned back and took off her sunglasses.

“You know, we should become more active with the academy. The coven, I mean. We have a lot we could teach them,” she said.

I thought about it for a moment. “You’re right. We’re living history. We have a lot of first-hand knowledge that today’s generation can never experience. Textbooks are one thing, but you cannot begin to impart what life was really like until you’ve lived through it.”

“I’ll have a talk with the principal and see if we can work something out. Meanwhile, let’s go. It won’t take long.”





NEVERFALL WAS AS imposing on the inside as it looked on the outside. A labyrinth of staircases and hallways, the interior of the main building, with its hustle and bustle, actually perked me up. The atmosphere felt industrious, and the sight of so many kids hurrying from one class to another made me smile.

I had learned one-to-one. My grandmother had taught my mother as much as she could and then quit bothering until I came along. My mother had been more interested in how she could use a love charm to get somebody to support her. But Granny had seen a spark in me—literally. She told me that when I was still in diapers, I had gotten angry. I held out my hand, crying, and a flame had flickered for a few seconds over my fingers.