Page 15 of Witch and Tell

“Why? Why is the sheriff asking about Ian?” Lalena said.

I hedged. I couldn’t tell her about seeing Ian’s body. I had no proof it had been anything but a bad dream, and I didn’t want to freak her out. I glanced toward the door to the atrium. Had Ian really been lying there, lifeless? Was he elsewhere, and I’d had some sort of vision? Or had I imagined the whole thing?

Fortunately, Lalena didn’t pause for my response. “Something must be wrong with him.” She chewed on a knuckle.

“What has Sam been asking?” I said.

She dropped her hand and turned her attention toward me. “He’s back, Sam is. Oh, Josie, here I am going on about Ian. Has Sam talked with you?”

“Not about . . . not about us.” The words felt barbed as they left my throat.

Lalena let a moment pass before speaking softly. “He’s asking if anyone’s seen Ian. That’s all. I haven’t been sleeping well, and I heard Sam knocking on Ian’s door this morning. At the café, Darla told me he’d questioned a few of the regulars.”

“You said Ian’s attitude changed at about the same time construction started at the Empress. I know I asked you before, but is it possible he recognized someone from the construction crew?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

Sailor yapped from the atrium. Chances were that Rodney was teasing him by leaping through the banister on the main staircase to the atrium floor, or instigating a chase through Popular Fiction.

“Sailor!” Lalena called from the entrance to Old Man Thurston’s office. “I’d better go get him.” She turned to me. “You’ll tell me if Sam says something, won’t you?”

I nodded. I could only hope Sam would tell me anything.

Where was Ian, anyway? The books had no answers for me, not even a hint. I didn’t know what was happening to Wilfred, to me, but my grandmother’s warning burned in my mind.

I went on a search for Lise Bloom, but she was nowhere to be found. She must have left. I poked my head into the rooms upstairs but didn’t find anyone except a high-school couple holding hands in Natural Science and Mrs. Garlington sorting sheet music in the organ room.

I slowly made my way back to the circulation desk. Something would happen; I felt it. Soon. Whatever it was, it would not be good.

Chapter Nine

Without further information to spur me to action, the most productive thing I could do was to relax and center myself. When the storm began to rise—for I was sure it would—I wanted to be ready. That evening, the patio at Darla’s Café was as good a place as any to wind down.

The café was busier than usual, and the tavern door was propped open, letting out the chatter and laughter of a full house. Complementing the usual gathering of Wilfredians were many members of the crew working on the Empress. They were easy to pick out from their bright orange construction T-shirts and plaster-dusted work pants.

Darla filled my water glass. “What’ll you have? We’re out of the burgers.”

“What’s the special?” I asked.

“Salmon étouffée. We’re out of that, too. Folks from the work down at the Empress are hungry tonight. How about a patty melt with tuna?”

“Sign me up,” I said. “And an iced tea.”

Darla left without jotting down my order. She never did write down orders but juggled them in her brain with the facility of a mainframe computer, never forgetting who couldn’t stand pickles, was gluten-free, or routinely split their slice of peach pie with their wife.

Now that Sam had withdrawn from me, I felt especially alone. Tables were full of families. Across the patio, Buffy and Thor tucked into ice cream at a table with their grandmother, Patty. Duke and his housemate Desmond chatted amiably over pints of beer. Tohlers occupied two adjacent tables, playing cards and apparently finishing the last of the étouffée.

At least I could distract myself with a novel. The books would have foreseen this circumstance and hidden one away in my bag. I dug in my purse but came up dry. Not even a pamphlet. This disconnection with my magic was getting worse. What was going on? My grandmother’s warning about Aunt Beata again rose to mind.

Darla returned with a glass of iced tea. “What were you doing out last night? It’s not like you to wander around after dark. Montgomery spotted you headed toward the meadow.”

“Out? I stayed in.” All night. Thinking of seeing Ian’s body in the atrium, I squeezed my eyes shut a moment.

A strident voice traveled the patio. Both Darla and I looked up to see Wanda a few tables away, leaning toward Ruth Littlewood.

Ruth Littlewood, Wilfred’s champion bird watcher and a library trustee, fondled the ever-present binoculars dangling from her neck. Before she retired, she ran a vegetable canning operation. These days she used her executive skills in natural history, researching local wildlife habits and updating her bird list.

“Puss in Boots,” Wanda said. “Can you believe it?”