“You asked for my help last night, Miss Rothmer,” he said. “That’s about the best help I can give you, time being.”
“Thank you kindly,” I said. “But I could do with an explanation along with it.”
“Near as I can see, you’ve been storing up magic like a squirrel storing nuts for winter,” Wash told me. “But you’ve also been most carefully not using any of it, so it’s been building up awhile. The more you store up, the harder it is to keep from overflowing, and when it starts overflowing without any control, well, it can get in the way of most other types of magic nearby. That—” he nodded at the polished wood piece “—will help drain off some of that extra power you’ve been hoarding, the way a lightning rod earths lightning to make no harm.”
I closed my fingers tight around the wood. “Thank you,” I said with a lot more warmth than I had put into the first one.
Wash’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a temporary measure,” he warned. “You’ll be needing to do some work on your own if you want to straighten things out permanent-like.”
I nodded, only half hearing him. As long as it kept me from causing problems with the spells Papa and Lan cast, temporary help was good enough for me. I made a loop with the cord and slipped it over my head, so that the wooden charm hung lightly against my chest.
And for the first time in a long time, I had a faint, shaky feeling of hope.
CHAPTER 25
OUR SECOND DAY OF TRAVEL WASN’T MUCH DIFFERENT FROM THE first, for me. I sat with Papa and Mr. Harrison mostly in silence while we drove the wagon across the bare dirt that ought to have been meadows and hay fields and woods. Every so often, Papa or Mr. Harrison would remark on something, but they never got much of a talk going even when I did my best to keep up my part. Everyone else was on horseback, and from what little I overheard, they were having plenty of interesting conversation. I decided right then that no matter what Mama said about being a lady, I wasn’t ever getting stuck sitting in a wagon again if all the interesting people were going to be riding.
What with the lack of talking, I spent most of the ride fingering the wooden charm Wash had given me. I was glad that someone else had seen my problem, and gladder still to have something to fix it, but on the whole, if I’d had my druthers, I’d rather that William had been right about it being all in my head.
The little wooden pendant was warm and comforting under my fingers. Wash had said something about it draining off the excess magic. I decided that if I could figure out how the spell worked, maybe I could drain off more than just extra magic. Maybe I could get rid of all of it. I thought about asking Wash to show me the spell he’d used, but I had a pretty good idea that he’d ask questions, and he wouldn’t like my answers.
That gave me pause. If I was that sure that Wash would think my idea was a bad one, I figured I should think about it a lot more before I actually did anything. Maybe I should just join the Rationalists, since they didn’t use magic at all. I put the pendant away, but all the rest of the ride I kept touching it, just to make sure it was still there.
We stopped that night at another wagonrest, a few hours short of the Oak River settlement. Lan and William were full of all the interesting stories Wash had been telling, which only made me crosser than ever. After dinner, Mr. Harrison started talking about what steps we should take when we got to the settlement the next day. He wanted to dive right in poking around for the old settlement spells, and he didn’t take it kindly when Professor Jeffries told him that the Rationalists would likely throw us straight out again if we did any such thing.
Finally even Papa got exasperated, and said that if Mr. Harrison went on like that, we might just as well have brought Professor Graham along after all, begging William’s pardon, for Mr. Harrison was like as not going to upset the Rationalists every bit as much as Professor Graham would have done, just for different reasons. William sort of choked, trying not to laugh. Lan did laugh, though he apologized very nicely. Mr. Harrison scowled, but before he could start up again, Wash spoke up.
“There’s times when too much hurrying makes for more delay,” he said. “I’m thinking this is one of them. It’s true we need to know how the Oak River settlement is keeping clear of those beetles, and we need to know soon —they’ll be coming out any day now, if they follow the same timing as last year. But I’ve stopped by Oak River a time or two on my way back to Mill City, just for curiosity’s sake, and Professor Jeffries isn’t far off in his guesses.”
“Surely the importance of this expedition has been made clear to them,” Mr. Harrison said, looking at Papa as if he was sure it was Papa’s fault if it hadn’t.
Wash shook his head. “Those folks aren’t just standoffish when it comes to magicians. They purely dislike them. I’m frankly surprised they agreed to this study at all, let alone as fast as they did. I doubt it’d take much for them to change their minds.”
“And we can’t afford to take that chance,” Papa said firmly. “If you won’t recognize that, Mr. Harrison, we’ll leave you here tomorrow morning and pick you up on our way back in a few days.”
“You can’t do that!” Mr. Harrison spluttered.
“I can and I will,” Papa said. “You don’t seem to realize that this trip was not organized with the backing of the Settlement Office, nor is it sponsored by the Northern Plains Riverbank College. Officially, this is simply a family visit. You can complain to whomever you like when we get back to Mill City, and much good may it do you, but there’s nothing anywhere that says I’m obligated to let you ride along on my wagon when I’m going to visit my daughter.”
“There’s always walking,” Wash added in a thoughtful tone. “The Rationalists do it all the time, though usually not alone. It’s easier to hold off an angry bear or a pack of Columbian sphinxes if you’ve got more than one rifle in use.”
Mr. Harrison paled. He sputtered some more, but in the end he had no choice but to agree with what Papa said. Lan frowned, and later on I heard him tell William that if Mr. Harrison tried to change his mind after we got to Oak River, Lan was going to put a laryngitis spell on him. I wasn’t so sure that was a good idea, but I was glad that somebody else had thought to wonder whether Mr. Harrison would keep his promises.
Next morning, we started off again. We passed several more tinytowns surrounded by bare land. One of them sent a man out to find out who we were; when he heard that Papa and Professor Jeffries were magicians, he pretty near got down on his knees and begged them for help. Professor Jeffries told him they weren’t miracle workers, and Papa said that as soon as they had an answer, they’d let everyone know, but until then, there wasn’t anything they could do. Mr. Harrison didn’t say anything, but he kept looking at Lan. Nobody said much for a good while after that.
Around mid-morning, I started seeing little clumps of dead grass and weeds every so often, instead of just bare dirt. Shortly after, the clumps came closer together, and then some of them started being green. The wagon ride got bumpy, and then transformed again as the plants got bigger and smoothed out into a meadow. “We must be getting close,” Mr. Harrison said.
Papa nodded. A minute later, Lan shouted from up ahead that he could see the Rationalist settlement, and Papa pulled the wagon to a halt.
“What is it?” Mr. Harrison asked.
“Mr. Morris!” Papa called to Wash. “Would you say this is a reasonable distance?”
“It’ll make them happier than it makes me,” Wash said. “But you’re right to say we shouldn’t go much farther.”
“What are you talking about?” Mr. Harrison demanded.
Papa ignored him. “Jeffries! The settlement’s in sight. Time to shut down.”
Professor Jeffries nodded and took out the gold disc that he’d used to do the protective spells for us that morning. He breathed on it, muttering, and I felt the spells around us collapse and fade away. I shivered, knowing that if there was any wildlife nearby, it could come straight for us now, and we wouldn’t even know until it was close enough to see.
“What are you
“Canceling the protective spells,” Papa said. “It’s part of their settlement contract—anyone visiting has to forgo magic while they’re on settlement land.” Which Mr. Harrison ought to have known, him being head of the
