Clem, visibly chagrined, said nothing.
“This is no place for you. Not,” Cassandra said, raising a hand, “because you’re a woman.” She drifted a few feet closer to Clem, who held her ground. “I have no time,” she said quietly. “Listen to me, Clementine. Stay away from this place.”
“I can’t,” Clem said, “even if you do mean well.”
A flicker of something like anguish moved across Cassandra’s face. “The stones will come for you.”
“The stones?” Clem asked blankly. The phrase had no meaning for her, but I understood Cassandra all too well. I felt a stab of anxiety as I thought about Beth Baines, the young woman whose grandmother Maxwell had consoled in a lonely farmhouse. Cassandra could only mean one thing by warning Clem of the stones.
“Take this.” Cassandra swept close to Clem and placed a small, gray lump in her palm. “For your armor,” she said. Abruptly, she gripped her chest and gasped, seized by a sudden pain. “I must go,” she whispered. “He calls me back.” She slipped away swiftly,a white shape vanishing between the iron bars of the fence that bordered the campus.
Clementine watched her go.
Then she looked down at the gray lump in her hand, turning it carefully. It was the size of a small acorn, asymmetrical and smooth. Was it a stone? A piece of wood? I couldn’t tell. For a time she stood there, considering the gray lump, and then she turned southwest again to continue her walk.
I hoped fervently that the strange gift from Cassandra would indeed provide some protection, but as yet I couldn’t see how. Clem would not be safer, then, away from Commonwealth, as I had thought. She did not understand about the stones, and she would require my vigilance.
A mile passed, and then another. Clem descended along quiet roads lined by old trees, the oceanside mansions set far back from the road. Coaches and riders passed her; no one in this well-heeled neighborhood traveled on foot. She kept the same pace as she circled Beverly Harbor, but as she crossed the bridge to Salem, where all the seedier relic and token vendors opened their doors to the public, I noticed that the satchel had begun to wear on her injured back.
She passed by the glint and glitter of the shops without sparing them a glance, even though for a novice enchanter the shops are hard to ignore. They are stuffed to bursting with the belongings of the dead: jewelry and fountain pens, combs and ribbons, spectacles and buttons and hats. The more exclusive stores with glass window fronts displayed larger, precious items: artwork and furniture and book collections. Clementine walked past them, ignoring the toy seller who waved a china doll and the umbrella vendor who held up a lace parasol, calling cheerily, “New relics! New relics today!”
By the time she turned onto Oliver Street, a narrow road on the north side of the Common, she had walked almost four miles. Her footsteps slowed before a yellow clapboard house with gray shutters and lavender bursting from the window boxes. The ground floor windows were open, and someone inside was playing “Pretty Polly” on the fiddle—rather well, in fact. She removed the spectacles and the fox pin, tucking them into the satchel, and unlocked the side door of the house. She took the steps wearily.
In the pretty second-floor apartment, conveying at a glance bright light and tidy surfaces, a young woman sat at a desk by the window. She froze, pen in hand, at the sound of footsteps. “Hello?” she called. “Oh,” she exclaimed happily, seeing Quinn’s face appear in the doorway. “Clem! You’re here early!”
“It’s good to see you, Rosie,” Clem said, dropping the satchel.
Rosie fluttered over, her smile dimming. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Clem assured her. “But I hadn’t counted on being exposed before an entire class by a spirit thew.”
“A spirit thew,” Rosie echoed, dismayed. “What a devil!”
“She claims to have done me a favor.” Clem shook her head. “I’ll tell you the whole story, but I should go out first if the pantry is empty. You weren’t expecting me home.”
They were sisters. I could see this now, the clear resemblance in their wide brown eyes, arched brows, and slightly long faces. Rosie’s hair was carefully styled, her yellow dress trimmed with ruffles and lace, and she had a quick, wide-eyed vivaciousness quite unlike Clem’s guarded stillness. She was loaded with tokens, all of them offering some means of protection. Many were of the kind that blunts ill will; in their presence, hostility becomes a slippery thing, hard to hold on to and even to remember. Others worked upon the wearer herself, supplying calm and steadiness. They were an unusual collection of tokens for a young woman,since not a single one enhanced Rosie’s appearance or charm. Apparently, Rosie, or her sister, worried for her safety.
“Oh, but I was expecting you!” Rosie declared happily. “You promised to come home for a visit tomorrow.”
“It’ll be a longer visit than we thought,” Clem said heavily.
Rosie looked suddenly bereft. “Clem.” She put her hand to her heart. “Is there no hope?”
“There’s always hope, Rosie.” She smiled grimly. “But it won’t come from my studies at Commonwealth.”
“I want to hear everything. Let me light the stove while you change.”
Clem nodded. “All right. Thank you.”
Rosie disappeared into the kitchen at the back of the apartment while Clementine took her satchel to a small bedroom with a window facing Oliver Street. Here, in contrast to her dormitory at Commonwealth, the space was cheerful. The fiddle music from the downstairs apartment, now a rapid jig, streamed in through the open windows. White curtains and a quilt with indigo pinwheels brightened the room. Rosie had placed a jar of sunflowers on the small table by the iron bed. A desk of walnut wood in the corner, beside the wardrobe, was tidy and almost bare; beside it a bookshelf contained a collection of volumes on enchantment. I recognized the look of them: these were worn copies, some with broken spines and missing covers. It was a collection acquired in secondhand shops, painstakingly assembled with limited means.
Clem closed the door behind her. In the privacy of her room, her entire aspect changed. She left her satchel by the desk, sat down on the edge of the bed, and dropped her head into her hands.
I watched her, dismayed. She had seemed so indomitable among her vicious classmates, before Cassandra, and on the long walk home. But now, as she let down her guard, I realized howmuch it had cost her to appear unperturbed. Her expression was anguished; this was no ordinary distress. Clementine took deep breaths, holding her head as if to keep it in place.
I sent her a strong surge of encouragement.
Clem swallowed hard. “I failed,” she whispered.
