Murder by Magic (20 page)

“But Mistress Willcoming doesn’t seem to have been anywhere near Mistress Lightfeather when she died.”

“Who knows when she set the spell?” William snarled. “We know Centertown keeps witchs’ evil secret so they have use of it. I want my niece’s body now!”

“You cannot have it, sir,” Farber said quietly. “It must wait until my Reader arrives. She will be here tomorrow, I believe, and tell me all sorts of things from an examination of the body. Now, perhaps, you can explain to me—”

However, the inspector did not bother to finish his sentence because William rushed out; Marcus fled on his heels, slamming the door behind him. The civil guard half rose to his feet, looking very worried, but Farber shook his head. Brenda swallowed, frightened again. If the inspector wasn’t willing to act on such suspicious behavior, had his comments about her innocence only been some kind of trap?

“What if they flee?” Constable Willis asked.

“Where would they go?” the inspector replied. “Into the forest? They would not last a week. To the next town? They would be swiftly apprehended.” He smiled. “Now, if it were Mistress Willcoming who tried to flee, I would be on her heels at once. Since she can see the spirits of the forest and the air, she might do well in the forest.”

“I am not going to flee,” Brenda said. “I demand to be taken to Centertown and questioned under truth spell.”

Farber smiled more broadly. “So you say. However, I am not going to take any chances. I will keep you under observation . . . but not in the constable’s gaol. You may return to your own room, and I will set a guard on it.”

Dame Hillyard, who had been slumping sullenly in her chair, sat up looking brighter, but Farber disappointed her again. He took Brenda to the eating room and requested a meal for them both, and to Dame Hillyard’s clear disapproval sat with Brenda asking her what the spirits of the air and the pixies and other forest dwellers looked like. Eventually, he requested that one of the teachers watch Brenda while she had a bath, and then he saw her to her room and locked her in.

She was not to have a peaceful night, however. Sometime well after dark the night erupted into a clangor of bells and shouts and the pounding of running feet. Brenda leaped from her bed, but the door was still locked. She ran to the window to scream for release and saw the red glare of fire—but it was no threat to the school. The school was quiet except for the students who were old enough running out to fight the blaze.

Still, Brenda was too anxious to go back to bed. She drew on a robe and sat watching out of the window as the red glare died. Eventually, the students began to troop back into the school, but before Brenda gave up her post to try to sleep again, there was a knock on her door and the key turned in the lock.

“Get dressed,” Inspector Farber called through the door, “and come down to the study room. I have more questions.”

He did not wait for her, however; Brenda was allowed to make her way alone. She found the room a good deal more crowded this time, and everyone but she was filthy with ashes and stained with smoke. As soon as she entered, Farber gestured to her to come closer and told Constable Willis to close the door.

“William and Marcus Lightfeather,” he said, “you have been apprehended in the act of trying to burn down the place reserved for the keeping of the victims of unnatural death.”

Those in the room shifted this way and that and made a low, unhappy noise, but they mostly looked at Brenda.

“Why do you say that?” Dame Hillyard cried. “
She
”—she gestured venomously at Brenda—“the witch could have set the fire from a distance. She certainly didn’t try to fight it.”

“Could you set a fire?” Farber asked Brenda.

“I can light a candle if I’m close,” she said, somehow much less frightened of Farber now, “but not streets away.”

He nodded. “Anyhow, Dame Hillyard, the whole back of the gaol stank of lamp oil, and so did the Lightfeathers, who had empty buckets nearby and torches in hand.” He looked back at William and Marcus. “Did you kill Amy Lightfeather?”

“No!” Marcus cried. “Sometimes Amy made me crazy, the way she flirted with Abel, but I’d never hurt her.”

William shook his head. “I had no reason to harm her.”

Farber’s lips tightened, and he turned to Brenda. “You were Amy Lightfeather’s friend. I suspect you know why the Lightfeathers wanted to destroy her body.”

Brenda swallowed hard, and color rose in her face. “I suppose it was because Amy was not . . . was no longer a maiden. She told me she had known men, but I never understood how she would find a time and place. She hardly left the school except to visit—” Her glance flew to William; her eyes widened. Then she covered her face with her hands. “Oh God, that was how she got all those things. Master Lightfeather got them for her to keep her quiet.”

“Witch! Bitch!” William screamed, and leaped toward Brenda, but he was intercepted by his own son, who fell upon him and began to strangle him, weeping hysterically, moaning that he knew someone had meddled with Amy.

The inspector now drew two silvery ribbons from his purse and stepped toward the battling men. He separated them with surprising ease and thrust Marcus at Constable Willis, who grappled with him while Farber rolled one of the ribbons around William’s wrists. A moment later he had Marcus similarly secured.

“We are all dirty and tired,” Farber said, glancing around at the now shocked and silent people, “but it happens that all the town notables are gathered together, and I would like to settle this matter now so that I can leave with my prisoners tomorrow morning. Abel Springwater, come forward.”

“Wait,” Constable Willis said. “Don’t you need the Reader’s evidence? You said she would be here tomorrow.”

“No Reader is coming,” Farber said. “That was a test, which the Lightfeathers failed.”

The civil guard’s mouth opened, but before he could speak, Abel Springwater had made his way to the center of the room. The gardener was a handsome man, big-boned like Willis, but fair-haired and blue-eyed. He nodded easily to the inspector, still rubbing his ash-stained hands along the sides of his leather trews, and said, “Don’t know nothing but what I said afore. Heard her”—he cocked his head at Brenda—“screaming and told Dame Hillyard.”

Farber asked, “How long did the screaming continue?”

Abel’s easy stance stiffened. He glanced at Dame Hillyard and then swiftly at Brenda. He cleared his throat. “Don’t know,” he said. “Shocked me, it did, that yelling.”

“But Brenda says she only screamed once.”

Sullenness replaced Abel’s earlier expression of easy attention. “Could be. Said it shocked me. Went to tell Dame Hillyard ’thout waiting to see how long it would go on.”

“You mean you have never heard a student in this school cry out for stubbing a toe or dropping a book or merely in play, that you rush to tell Dame Hillyard at every shout you hear? If this is your pat-
tern—”

“No. ’Tain’t the way I do usual. I—I don’t know why I ran in to Dame Hillyard. Somethin’ in the voice . . . Yeah. Somethin’ in the voice scared me.”

“Perhaps,” Farber said, eyes and voice cold. “But I think you had been in the little guardhouse and seen Mistress Lightfeather’s body already.”

“No,” Abel cried, his voice rising in panic. “No, I never went in. I only saw from the doorway . . .”

His voice trembled and faded as he realized that he had admitted Amy was dead before Brenda had seen her. He glanced at Dame Hillyard and then, quickly, at the closed door behind him. Constable Willis stirred as if to move to block the doorway, but he did not.

“Abel Springwater,” Farber began.

“No!” Constable Willis and Dame Hillyard cried out together.

“The witch did it!” Dame Hillyard continued alone. “She did! I saw her! I’ll give evidence. She—”

Her voice came to a gasping stop as Constable Willis drew his sword and backed toward the door. “No. Brenda didn’t do nothin’,” he said as he opened the door with one hand behind him. Farber didn’t speak or move. “Nor did Abel, poor fool. I killed Amy Lightfeather.”

“Why?” Brenda cried, tears rising to her eyes.

Willis turned to her. “You innocent!” he said scornfully. “You cared for ’er, but if ever there were a black soul, it were ’ers. What ’er uncle did were wrong, but she tempted ’im into it, and she tortured ’er poor cousin . . . and my Abel. She tormented ’im, too.”

“Killed her how?” Farber breathed, the words hardly audible.

“I knew she were waitin’ fer someone in that place—didn’ know it were Abel or I wouldn’t of . . .” He shuddered. “I went to tell ’er to say no to Abel and leave ’im be. She laughed at me. Me, the civil guard. And she knitted to the end of a row and poked the needle at me to push me back, laughing, sayin’ it were Abel’s turn to bring ’er somethin’ pretty. So I took that damn needle out of ’er hand and shoved it right up the back of ’er head, just like I dreamed of doin’ every time I heard Abel sobbin’ in ’is room. Didn’ make a sound. Didn’ shed hardly a drop of blood. All I had to do was pull the needle out, drop ’er, and walk away.”

There were exclamations of horror from the listening and watching group, but no one moved to intercept Willis, who stood in the open doorway, sword in hand. Abel Springwater was staring openmouthed at Constable Willis, and Dame Hillyard cried out, “Fool!”

“Fool? Me?” Willis said, moving the sword in a tight, threatening circle. “You’re the fool, tryin’ to say it were Brenda! I been a law keeper all my life. I weren’t havin’ no murder put on an innocent in my village.”

And while the words still hung in the air, he was out of the door, which he slammed shut behind him. Everyone was frozen with shock, except . . . Brenda looked up at Detective Inspector Farber’s face and saw that he was smiling slightly and was not shocked at all.

A few moments later a hubbub broke out of shocked exclamations and plans for pursuit. Farber made no move to follow Willis and took no part in the discussion until the others had talked themselves out; then he said calmly that it did not matter, that he would arrange with Centertown to have the constable found.

The people muttered and mumbled, but no one dared contest the inspector’s authority, and with uneasy glances at Farber the room began to clear. Ignoring the others, Farber directed Brenda to one of the chairs around the study table and Dame Hillyard to the other.

“You are now clear of any accusation against you, Mistress Willcoming,” he said, “but this is a very backward place. Are you sure you wish to remain in this village?”

“Wish to remain?” Brenda echoed. “Do I have any choice?”

Farber explained that, being a witch, Brenda had always had the right to attend one of the schools for the Talented in Centertown. “The schooling is free,” he said, “and you need not worry about a living allowance because Dame Hillyard will be paying that—exactly the amount that has been paid to her to hire a tutor in witchcraft for you. She will pay it every single month, until the full sum she stole is cleared.”

“The money is gone. I cannot pay,” Dame Hillyard cried.

Detective Inspector Farber showed his teeth in what was not a smile. “Well, then, I can arrange for you to be taken as a prisoner to Centertown. You will then work for the authorities, likely scrubbing toilets, and your stipend will be paid to Mistress Willcoming. You as well as Brenda have a choice.” He turned to Brenda with an entirely different smile. “Go back to bed now, or, if you cannot sleep, pack for the journey tomorrow.”

Brenda nodded but did not move. Instead, she said, “You’re a witch yourself, aren’t you, Inspector Farber? When you asked me about the spirits of the air and forest, you were only making sure I
could
see them.”

“Yes,” he said, still smiling.

“And you
can
hear and understand the spirits of the air and forest?”

He smiled more broadly. “Yes.”

“You knew! You knew everything right from the beginning. Why did you let the Lightfeathers almost burn down a building? Why did you make Constable Willis confess?”

“Mistress Willcoming, if I had simply said that some invisible people had told me the long-trusted constable of the village had murdered Amy, would anyone have believed me? They would have been even more sure you were guilty and that witches were evil. And the Lightfeathers would have escaped punishment—one for debauching his niece, although I hardly know who was the more guilty in that. You
are
an innocent, Mistress Willcoming.”

“No,” Brenda said, pulling the beautiful shawl Amy had made for her tighter around her shoulders. “I was not innocent. I was desperate. I knew Amy could be vicious, but she was very kind to me . . . and I had no one else.”

Inspector Farber gently steered Brenda toward the door. “Get some sleep,” he urged. “You will have many friends soon,” he assured her. “You are coming home, to your own people now.”

Overrush

Laura Anne Gilman

Laura Anne Gilman was born in New Jersey, left briefly to go to college in the wilds of New York State, then returned to her old stomping grounds. Ignoring all advice from her family and friends, she began her writing career in 1997 with a sale to
Amazing Stories.
Since then, she has published more than a dozen short stories, three media tie-in novels (two
Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
one
Poltergeist: The Legacy
), been reprinted in high school and middle school textbooks, written two nonfiction books for teenagers, and edited two anthologies (
OtherWere
and
Treachery and Treason
). Her first original novel,
Staying Dead,
featuring Wren and Sergei, is in stores now. She is married (Peter), with one cat (Pandora).

Y
ou didn’t say anything about a body!”   Well, that got his attention, anyway, Wren thought, seeing the startled look in her partner’s eyes.

“Excuse me?”

“Body. As in dead. I thought we agreed, no more dead people?” She collapsed bonelessly in the large leather sofa opposite Sergei’s desk. But she couldn’t meld with the butter-soft material the way she normally did. Not with that much adrenaline coursing through her system.