Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(43)

“That sounds like exactly the reason people keep animals in a pen.”

Niamh’s looking down at my wand. “That was some tidy spellwork. I’ve never seen anyone cast a nursery rhyme before.”

I’ve never even considered casting one before. “You just have to commit to it,” I say, tucking my wand into my pocket.

“Well, I never would have tried it,” she says. “The rhyme’s about lambs, not goats. Your dad’s always telling me I’m too literal…”

I look up over the Lawn, at the drawbridge and the ramparts. And the peak of the White Chapel. “I’ll wait here for you,” I say. “I’m still feeling a bit off.”

“Oh,” Niamh says. “Well, if you feel better in a while, I really could use your help finding the rest of the herd. Sometimes it takes hours.”

“Hours?”

“They’re crafty.”

The goat we caught is already heading out to the fields behind the school, where Ebb used to take them to graze. “I suppose I could help,” I say. “Do we have to cross the moat?”

“No. The goats stay in the hills, usually. They hate the merwolves.”

“So do I.”

“Yeah,” Niamh says, “they’re horrible. They killed all the fish in the moat, and the school has to feed them horse meat. I talked the headmistress into euthanizing them, but some students led a protest.”

“Ebb used to bring them in every night,” I say.

“The merwolves?”

“No. The goats. They slept in the barn with her.”

Niamh frowns at me. “Ebb Petty is dead.”





25

PENELOPE

Well, one way of looking at this is—there’s a lot more written on my blackboard.

WHAT WE KNOW:

Omaha, Nebraska

Two years ago (Normal, age 20)

Midnight ritual

Curse victim was alone

Victim does not wish to be cal ed “victim”

Where did curse victim (hereafter cal ed “C.V.”) acquire ritual?

“Some guy I met” (!)

Where is ritual now? In C.V.’s pocket (!!)

C.V. was told ritual would help him “meet a demon” (!!!) C.V. thought that sounded like a corking idea C.V. possibly already cursed? “Conked on the head with the stupid stick,” as my grandmother used to say? Worth investigating …

MY NAME IS SHEPARD

Demon was successful y summoned

WHAT WE DON’T KNOW:

Name of demon

Type of demon

What the ritual says

What the ritual does

How to reverse it

What Shepard was thinking

What Shepard is EVER thinking

“Right now I’m thinking that you’d make an excellent prosecuting attorney.” Shepard’s sprawled out on the sofa, all long legs and orange corduroy.

“That sounds like a compliment,” I say, surveying my lists. “Thank you.” I turn back to him—and to the demonic ritual which he’s taken from his pocket and spread out on my coffee table.

At least it isn’t the actual ritual. This is just a phonetic transcription, written in purple ink on a piece of notebook paper. I start to read it out loud, and Shepard jumps off the sofa to cover my mouth. “Don’t do that,” he says softly, hand still pressed over my lips.

I nod. I suppose he’s right.

He slowly takes his hand away, and we both exhale.

“Is that it how it happened?” I ask. “You just read it out loud?”

He sits back down. “No, there was more. I drew a doorway on the floor.”

“Not a pentagram?”

“No, it was a door—there was a diagram for how to draw it. I think the door worked like a metaphor. Like it was the idea of a door, and then it became a door.”

I flop down on the sofa, wiping chalk on my skirt. “So it was only a metaphorical summoning.”

“Why not?” He’s still smiling. (One nice thing about talking to Shepard is that I don’t even have to pretend not to be patronizing. It rolls right off of him.) “After all,” he says, “your magic is based on clichés…”

I wince. “I think you mean that we use the power of language to harness the world’s magic in a way that you can only contemplate. But go on, you drew a door … Where?”

“In my bedroom.” Shepard cracks open another boxed sandwich.

Coronation chicken this time.

After an hour of list-making, I let him take a break to get dinner. With all the sandwiches on the coffee table right now, it’s like Simon never left. (It’s very much like Simon left. I can hear him—and Baz—not saying anything, not here, not wanting to be here. It’s like giant gongs of silence. Shepard’s constant chatter does nothing to crowd it out.) I’m crushing the end of my chalk with my nail. “So, you created a door to hell, in the room where you sleep…”

He finishes his bite. “Oh,” he says. “It’s curry. I wasn’t expecting that. The queen was coronated with curry chicken salad?”

“Shepard. Focus. ”

He tilts his head. “I’m focusing, focusing … I like the raisins.”