“I, uh, there’s this, um, dome of high pressure,” I faltered.
“Pshaw!” Charles waved a hand at me dismissively. “Did a dome of high pressure grant Sally’s wish? Or Opal’s? Or Mr. Barlow’s, despite his repeated assertions that he made no wish? It’s the well, Lori. It has to be. I feel as if I should drop a gold coin in it, but the engraving says nothing about tangible tributes. Words of praise may be enough.”
“If you praise it at night,” I said, “try not to wake Jack up again.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Charles, “but it’s not easy to reach the well. Jack’s garden is a botanical obstacle course.”
“We’re working on it,” I told him.
“In that case, I’ll wait until after you’re done to praise the well,” said Charles. “And now, if you’ll forgive me, I really should be getting back. It’s been a pleasure to share my Asazuki with you, Lori. I wish you could be there to see Grant’s face at the unveiling, but I’ll have a camera handy, to catch his expression. It should be priceless.”
Charles lifted the framed painting from the table and paused to admire it before rewrapping it in the brown paper and getting to his feet. I walked him to his car, waved him off, and lurked in the driveway for a little while, watching and waiting for Henry Cook or Peggy Taxman or God alone knew who else to bring wonderful news to me. When the coast remained clear, I went back inside and strode purposefully into the study.
“Reginald,” I said, “something strange is going on in Finch.”
My pink bunny chose to remain silent, so I took the blue journal from its shelf and sat with it in one of the tall leather armchairs before the hearth. I felt an urgent need to immerse myself in cool reasoning and flawless logic and, fortunately, I knew where to find both.
Fifteen
“Dimity?” I said, opening the journal. “Have I got news for you!”
The familiar lines of royal-blue ink began to loop and curl across the page as soon as I finished speaking.
I presume you haven’t turned the wishing well’s water into wine.
“If I’d walked on the wishing well’s water, it still wouldn’t be the day’s banner headline,” I told her. “Something strange is going on in Finch.”
Something stranger than usual?
“You be the judge,” I replied.
I leaned back in my chair and recounted the series of extraordinary conversations that had prevented me from doing the laundry. I described Emma Harris’s longing for the perfect office manager, Elspeth Binney’s curiosity about the creative life, and Charles Bellingham’s thirst for revenge. I tried to sound matter-of-fact as I discussed Peter and Cassie’s unexpected return to Anscombe Manor, Jemma Renshawe’s out-of-the-blue commission to photograph a Cotswold village, and Chiaki Asazuki’s rediscovered masterpiece, but I didn’t succeed.
“For pity’s sake, Dimity,” I said, “Peter and Cassie are coming home to run the office for Emma! Elspeth’s photographer niece arrives in Finch tomorrow! The odds of Charles finding an original Asazuki in a pile of junk must be astronomical!” I thumped the arm of the chair emphatically. “It can’t be a flurry of coincidences, Dimity. The things that are happening in Emma’s and Elspeth’s and Charles’s lives are way too specific to be written off as mere serendipity. Each of them made a wish in or near the wishing well and—voila!—their wishes came true! It makes me think twice about explaining away everyone else’s wishes. I hope you can offer me a rational explanation because superstitious nonsense is beginning to look pretty plausible to me.”
Could someone—a human being, that is, not a leprechaun or a pixie or the fairy at the bottom of Jack’s garden—have overheard any of the wishes?
I mulled over the question, calling to mind everything I’d seen and heard at Ivy Cottage since Jack, Bree, and I had uncovered the well.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Sally Pyne had the back garden to herself. So did Millicent Scroggins. Elspeth, Opal, and Selena were out there together, but they each made a wish when the others’ backs were turned.”
I doubt if those three ladies would grant one another’s wishes even if they had overheard them.
“Sad, but true,” I agreed and went on. “I was the only one to hear Mr. Barlow and Emma express their wishes and Jack was too far away to see who was sneaking up to the well in the middle of the night or to hear what they said to it. It doesn’t matter, though, does it?”
What doesn’t matter?