The next few hours were a tangle of scrambling to get frozen, drenched strangers into dry clothes and settle them near the heating stoves and braziers. Merrigan hated the tight, coiled sensation in her chest that kept curling tighter with every task to help make the refugees more comfortable. She wanted to snap every time one of the other adults asked her to oversee something. Find another blanket or to send a child to haul wet clothes to the laundry to dry. Or send a boy to bring in more charcoal for a brazier, more wood for a stove. Knowing she was being ridiculous just made the sensation worse. Knowing something was wrong with her, blaming these poor people for the predicament they were in, just made her more irritable. She tried not to look at the strangers, and somehow that was the worst part of it. She wanted to dive into her bed, tug the curtain closed across the shelf, and hide under her blankets.
The pressure eased once everyone was dried and warmed up and dinner had been served. Once Bryan and Crystal returned, safe even if covered with slushy ice. They hadn't found anything, not even an echo of the magic that had snatched away Bayl. Still, Bryan was safe indoors, and she felt much better. She could breathe again.
Her uneasiness, however, seemed to transfer to the children. They wouldn't sit still for more than a few mouthfuls of food at a time. She couldn't understand it. Usually the presence of strangers in the warehouse put them on their best behavior, wanting to impress possible adoptive parents. The usual dinner chatter, the clatter of spoons in bowls, munching and slurping, and requests by adults to "chew with your mouth closed, please," became raised voices. Chairs scraping on the stone flooring. Arguments and thuds of milk mugs on the tabletop. Barked orders to sit down and finish their meals before they were sent to bed without anything to eat.
"I just don't understand," Belinda said, near tears, as the seamstresses took refuge in the sewing room, trying to find some peace and quiet once the washing crew got to work.
"It's the storm. Or whatever brought the storm." Merrigan shivered from a cold that had nothing to do with the weather. The clatter of wooden bowls hitting the floor resounded through the warehouse, followed by the howls of someone who got his ears boxed and someone else shrieking it wasn't his fault. She tried to find some humor in the situation, and could only be grateful their bowls and mugs tonight were wood, not the good crockery.
She wondered for the first time why Belinda hadn't noticed that Bayl hadn't come to dinner. Was some nasty magic working, blinding her? Or had she just been distracted by the extra noise and fussing from the children?
"If it weren't storming like that," Verbena offered, her long-fingered, agile hands pressed over her ears, "I'd be running for my life. It has never been so noisy awful before."
"It's all our fault." The speaker's creaky, powdery sort of voice startled all of them.
Several girls let out squeaks or yelps. Merrigan clutched her pincushion and nearly flung it at the source of the voice before she really looked.
Four little, wrinkled, crooked old women stood in the doorway of the sewing area. Their hair was still damp and their borrowed clothes were far too big for them. They looked like kittens someone had tried to drown. Their noses were too big and their mouths sank in from missing teeth, so Merrigan wondered how any of them could speak clearly. She stayed where she was, grateful that she looked like a little old woman too, while her girls showed their good manners and got up to make the women welcome.
Merrigan kept busy pinning a pair of trousers for basting and let Belinda and the girls answer the questions from the women. She didn't like their too-bright eyes, so big in their shriveled faces. They kept looking around the table, studying the girls as if they were boiled sweets to be devoured, asking their names, where they were from, how they became such clever seamstresses so young.
"You've all been so good to us," one of the women said. Merrigan couldn't tell them apart. They all sounded the same. She only knew she disliked the voice.
Belinda looked uncomfortable, too. That was a relief. Merrigan feared something was wrong with her. Why was it so hard to think clearly?
"We don't know what we would have done if we hadn't found your home," another woman said. She smiled, displaying an incongruously bright, full set of teeth.
Merrigan shuddered. She was positive that all the women had been toothless when they appeared as if out of nowhere just a few minutes ago.
"We wanted to thank you for being so kind to us, just poor old beggar women."
What were beggars doing in this part of town? There was no one to beg from, in the warehouses. Merrigan flinched, feeling as if her ears had popped.
Can you hear me? Bib's voice sounded oddly raspy, like his pages had been rubbing against each other long enough to start shredding.
Yes. She barely stopped herself from speaking aloud.
Then she understood and she shuddered as she looked at the old women. Why hadn't she noticed before that they were two sets of identical twins? Surely someone would have remarked on them coming in from the storm—unless they hadn't come in with the other people lost in the sudden snow?
Stop them! Crystal cried.
"Shut up!" one of the women shouted, rising from her chair and standing suddenly two feet taller.
None of the girls reacted. Merrigan held still and held her breath, as the woman looked around, turning and glaring as if she could see through the walls. The woman's gaze passed over her. She nearly laughed aloud. Being just an old woman made her invisible. No threat at all.
Merrigan waited, watching them. A shimmering sound seeped through the air, growing stronger
