too young even for natural magic.”
“It is your duty to enforce the law,” Uncle Earn said. “Doubts or no. And the law—”
“—applies in this regard to persons aged ten and older, that being the age the courts have set as the youngest possible to a deliberate working,” the policeman said. He looked at me and winked. My mouth fell right open, and I could only stare at him as he went on. “If you wish to lodge a complaint against her guardians for lack of restraint, you’ll need a writ from the courthouse first.”
“That is an outrage!” Uncle Earn roared.
The policeman appeared unimpressed. “It is the law, sir, and if you’d been plainer about your business when you called me out here, you’d have saved us both some time and trouble. My duty is clear, and if you’ve no more to say, I’ll be about it. Evening, ma’am, sir.” He tipped his hat to Mama and Papa. “Young sir, young mistress.” He nodded at Lan and me. “My apologies for the interruption.” He turned and left without saying anything more to Uncle Earn, who stood sputtering.
“That appears to dispose of the law,” Papa observed. “Shall we settle this as a family now, Earn? What’s this about a curse?”
“She’s put a curse on my house,” Uncle Earn repeated. “My Marna saw her out back this morning, doing a working with string and feathers. She ran off, but Marna found this.” He held up a pink ribbon triumphantly.
I felt a wave of despair. Lan had given me that ribbon on our birthday, and I’d worn it constantly since then. Everyone knew it was mine, and knew how much I loved it. With that ribbon for evidence, no one would believe I hadn’t done a thing, no matter what I said.
“That’s a lie!” Lan burst out. His hand was clenched around mine so hard that it hurt. “Eff was playing skip- jacks on the back step, all by herself, and Marna came up behind her and yanked that ribbon right out of her hair and ran off. I saw it out of the window.”
Papa looked at me. “Is that what happened, Eff?”
I nodded, feeling the beginning of hope. Then Uncle Earn stepped toward me and bellowed, “Liar! She’s a born witch and a liar, and she’s corrupting your precious seven-and-seven. She—”
All of a sudden, I couldn’t see anything but navy blue pleats. It took me a second to realize that Mama had moved right in front of me and Lan. It must have surprised Uncle Earn, too, because he broke off in mid-bellow. “That is quite enough, Mr. Rothmer,” Mama said in an icy calm voice I’d never heard her use before, not even the time she’d seen a man whipping an overloaded horse in the street and given him what for. “No one calls my children liars in my home.”
“I—I—”
“You’ve had your say, Mr. Rothmer,” Mama told him in the same cold, calm voice. “Now I’ll have mine. I’ve watched you and your wife come near to ruining your own children between spoiling them one minute and whipping them the next. You know my views on that, and I’ll say no more of it now. But when it comes to you and Janna ruining my children as well as your own, I have more to say than you’ll like hearing. And first, last, and foremost is this: It ends now.”
“Sara, you’re overset,” Uncle Earn said. “I allow for a mother’s partiality, but surely even you can see—”
“I can see plain enough that an angel straight from heaven itself would grow up crooked if she was watched and chivvied and told every morning and every night that she was sure to turn evil,” Mama said. “And I can see equally plain that fussing and fawning over a child that hasn’t even learned his numbers yet, as if he were a prince of power and wisdom, will only grow him into a swell-headed, stuck-up scarecrow of a man, who like as not will never know good advice when he hears it, nor think to ask for it when he needs it.”
“You’re mad,” Uncle Earn said dismissively. “Daniel, I did not come here to be lectured by your wife.”
“The door is right behind you,” Papa said pleasantly
I peeked around Mama’s skirt in time to see Uncle Earn’s jaw drop. “What? You don’t mean ...”
“I mean that Sara hasn’t said a thing that the two of us haven’t discussed and come to an agreement on already. If I hear one more word about Eff or Lan from you, or Janna, or any one of your precious children, I’ll put a curse on your house myself, brother or no.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me,” Papa said grimly. “And if you ever attempt to set the law on my family again for nothing but a poisonous whim, you had better be prepared to defend your actions in court, for I’ll have you hauled in front of a judge faster than a cat can hiss. I think that’s put clearly enough even for you, Earn.”
Uncle Earn just stood there, staring, for a long, long moment. Then he stiffened, glared all around, and stalked out, letting the sitting room door slam behind him.
Lan and I looked at each other, and then up at Mama. Mama looked over at Papa, and Papa said, “You stay here, Sara, while I see that things have been shut up properly after him.”
Mama took me and Lan by the hand and walked us over to the straight-backed chair with the carved arms, and then took both of us in her lap at once. My head was still swimming with the surprise of it all. Not that Cousin Marna would make up tales about stealing my ribbon, nor that Uncle Earn would call a policeman to arrest me— those weren’t exactly surprising. But the way the policeman winked at me! And the way Mama and Papa tore into Uncle Earn! I’d never thought such things possible. I still wasn’t sure they’d happened.
Papa came back after a bit and said Uncle Earn was gone, and then he and Mama talked all serious to Lan and me about what had just happened. Mama said she and Papa couldn’t do much to keep people from talking, and they could do even less about what people chose to think, but there were some things they
The very next day, Lan came running out into the yard, wide-eyed. “You’re supposed to be with your tutor,” I told him. “You better go back in before they miss you.”
“I’m not having magic lessons today,” he said. “Mama told me to come outside and stick with you.”
Lan’s tutor never came back. Years later, I learned that Papa had spoken to him about teaching both of us and had dismissed him outright when he refused. There must have been some discussion with Grandfather, too, but neither he nor Papa ever spoke of it after. At the time, Papa only told Lan and me that there would be no more private tutoring. We would have a lesson with Mama in the morning, and another with Papa in the evening, and in between Lan and I were to stick together. I think Papa must have said something to our older brothers as well, because for the next week, one or two of them always seemed to be around when the cousins came by ready to tease and make trouble. It was the best week I ever remember spending in Helvan Shores.
Then, on Monday evening, Papa held a Family Council, and everything changed.
CHAPTER 2
GETTING OUR WHOLE FAMILY TOGETHER ALL AT ONE TIME ALWAYS made me feel a little strange, because I hardly knew my oldest brothers and sisters. Frank had been away at university since the year I was born. Sharl and Julie had both gotten married before I was two, and Peter had gone off East to school in the same year. Diane had moved out the year before, to keep the books for a candy-making business one of Papa’s friends owned. Even Charlie, who was going off to university in the fall, was older enough that I didn’t see him much. They felt more like strange grown-ups I had to be polite to than like family. Except for Charlie, I’d really only ever seen them on special occasions.
A formal Family Council was special enough for anybody. Papa hardly ever called for one; the last time, Rennie told me, was when she and Hugh were seven and Papa and Mama found out that their thirteenth child was going to be another set of twins. So, trouble though it was, everyone made the effort to come. Sharl brought cherry pie, Julie brought fritters, and Diane brought butter fudge from the candy store. Mama and Rennie and Nan made a dinner nearly as big as Harvest Feasting, and everyone ate until they nearly burst.
Even so, you could just tell that it wasn’t an ordinary family sit-down. Everyone was twitchy, wondering what the news would be this time. But Papa didn’t believe in doing business at the dinner table, so we all had to wait.
When the last of the plates had been removed and all the crumbs wiped up, everyone looked at Papa. “I told
