Keeper of Enchanted Rooms(91)

Hulda didn’t get to Blaugdone Island until after dark, but she was becoming so used to its shadows she didn’t mind. She tipped her boat driver handsomely and took a lantern with her, hurrying down the path from Merritt’s enchanted vessel to the house. Light glowed from the dining room window, and she focused on it, not realizing until she reached the porch that the glass had been completely shattered, the door left ajar.

Panic seized her and sent a thorny rush into her crown. Grabbing her skirts, she hastened into the house, seeing first Mr. Babineaux slumped in a chair, holding a rag to the back of his head. Miss Taylor, on the floor, held her middle with one hand and carefully sipped water. Her eyes widened at the sight of Hulda. “Mrs. Larkin!” She tried to stand, then winced and dropped to her knees.

“Good heavens, what happened?” She rushed to Miss Taylor, inspecting her.

The woman winced and pushed her hands away. “B-Broken ribs, one or two,” she ground out.

Hulda turned to Mr. Babineaux, who murmured, “Is just a little blood.”

She took the man’s face in her hands and brought a candle closer, watching his pupils. “You hit your head, didn’t you? You have a concussion.”

“He took Mr. Fernsby,” Miss Taylor wheezed.

Hulda’s skeleton turned to jelly, which sent her heart down to her navel. “Wh-What? Who?”

“Silas Hogwood.”

The jelly morphed to ice. Strife and truth. Was this what she’d foreseen?

“I sensed him like I did before.” Miss Taylor carefully leaned herself against the wall, still holding her middle. “He left just . . . fifteen minutes ago.”

“Maybe half hour,” Mr. Babineaux grumbled. “Tried to follow but . . . too dizzy.” He slumped even further.

Hulda’s eyes burned. Her limbs shook like she’d run all the way from Boston. “H-He’s gone?” A pick chiseled through the center of her chest.

Miss Taylor nodded, face screwed like she was holding back tears. “He saved my life. Hogwood . . . he meant to kill me. But I felt Mr. Fernsby’s spell touch me first. A shield like before.”

Shivers coursed down Hulda’s arms. “Then you know it’s him. He’s the second source of magic.”

“That’s what Mr. Hogwood said.” She took a careful breath.

Panic bubbled up Hulda’s throat. So Silas Hogwood knew, too. Was that what he meant, by Hulda being the first? Had he already planned on taking Merritt, too? “All right. All right.” She breathed deeply. In, out. In, out. “Which way did they go?”

Miss Taylor winced. “Don’t know.”

“God help us.” On her feet, Hulda rushed to the window and peered out into the night. “Owein! Owein, did you see? Do you know anything?”

The house didn’t respond.

Hulda knocked on the wall. “Owein!”

Nothing.

Think, Hulda! Mr. Hogwood wouldn’t still be on the island. The transference took a long time—that’s what the police report had said back in Gorse End, and her own experiences lent to that theory. Using so much magic would surely leave a man sick as well. Vulnerable. Mr. Hogwood wouldn’t risk getting caught again, like he had with Hulda, which meant he must have left the island. He’d want to avoid witnesses, too, so he wouldn’t have a hotel room, or anything in a big city. Where, then? There were more remote places in the United States than anyone could ever count!

She shook her hands, trying to attenuate the nerves burning her like bug bites. She searched the room, eyes landing on the shattered glass. She stared at it hard, trying to connect the patterns . . . but it told her nothing. Either Mr. Hogwood’s earlier spells on her had affected her augury or his future was too convoluted for her magic to see.

“I have to go to BIKER.” She didn’t know where else to turn. They had no neighbors on this island or the neighboring ones, and she didn’t know where the Portsmouth constable lived, or if he’d be available. “I have to go to BIKER and ask Myra for help. If she knows someone with communion spells, the plants and birds can tell us where to find him.” But would that take too long?

It doesn’t matter. I have to do something! And to think of the way she and Merritt left things . . .

She spun back to Miss Taylor and Mr. Babineaux. Grabbed her lantern. “I’ll send a doctor for you straightaway. Can you hold on a little longer?”

Miss Taylor nodded. Mr. Babineaux grunted.

Good enough. Grabbing her skirt, Hulda flew from the house and ran down the trail, holding the light ahead of her so she could avoid rabbit holes and wayward tree roots. She barely felt the effort of the run; panic was wonderful like that. It was a good fuel.

“Hold on, Merritt.” She set the lantern in his boat and shoved it into the water, uncaring that her stockings got soaked in the process.

She activated the kinetic spell on the boat and pleaded with it, “As fast as you can.”

The boat sped off into the night.



Hulda used her key to unlock the front door of the Bright Bay Hotel in Boston, not bothering to keep her footsteps quiet as she rushed through BIKER’s headquarters to the room where its director slept. She threw open the door, and Myra sat upright in bed with a gasp.

“Who—Hulda!” She rubbed her eyes. Immediately stood, the skirt of her nightgown swishing around her ankles. “What are you doing here at this hour?”