“To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“Really?” Ingrid asked, taken off guard. “That’s my favorite book, too.” But was he just saying that? Or was it something Caitlin had told him? But when did she ever discuss Mockingbird with Caitlin? Caitlin didn’t like to read. She spent her free time updating her online profile’s status.
“Really.” Matt smiled, and for a moment he looked a little like Atticus Finch, or maybe Gregory Peck playing Atticus Finch, if Gregory Peck had light brown hair and freckles and blue eyes. He held her gaze for a moment, and it looked as if he were going to say something more when Caitlin finally appeared, looking radiant in her white dress. “Matthew!”
He turned away from Ingrid and kissed Caitlin on the cheek while the two of them embraced. It was only then that Ingrid saw he was holding a picnic basket, a bottle of wine and a baguette poking out of the side.
Tabitha and Hudson followed behind. “All clear, boss lady,” Tabitha said, meaning the library was empty. Ingrid turned off the main lights and set the alarm, and the group walked out of the building together. It was warm but breezy, and the night glowed; it would be light until late. A perfect summer evening for listening to music. Ingrid felt a pang.
“Hey, you want a ride to the concert?” Caitlin asked as Ingrid made her way to her bicycle. “Ingrid goes every year with her family,” she explained to her date.
“No, it’s okay—they can’t make it this year. I think I should just go home,” Ingrid said, as Tabitha waved good-bye.
“Oh, well, come with us then!” Caitlin offered.
“I couldn’t . . . I don’t want to crash . . .” Ingrid said, her cheeks beginning to burn again; if this kept up she would get a tan. If there was one thing she did not want to do, it was become a third wheel on a romantic date.
But for some reason Caitlin would not take no for an answer. “Not at all. Matt won’t mind. Right, Matt?” He shook his head and smiled at Ingrid. “Not at all. Join us, please. I packed enough cheese to feed a cow.”
Hudson unlocked his bike and began to wheel it away when Caitlin pounced on him as well. “We could make it a foursome! Hudson, come to the opera with me and Matt and Ingrid—she needs a date!” There seemed to be no dissuading Caitlin, and Ingrid felt helpless to resist.
Hudson looked at Ingrid questioningly. He had offered to take her that morning when she mentioned that her family had bailed, but she had declined, and Ingrid hoped her friend would not mention it. Thankfully, Hudson rose to the occasion. “Wagner’s so dreary. I prefer Puccini. But sure.”
The orchestra had set up on a small stage in a grassy field a few miles from the beach. There was already a huge crowd waiting. They found an empty spot between two groups of opera devotees who were toasting the evening with wine in plastic glasses, balloons bobbing in the air as signposts to pinpoint their location for stragglers or lest anyone get lost on the way back from the restrooms. The sun began to set over the horizon, bathing the scene in a warm, orange light, and then the music began to play. It made for a very pretty scene, but Ingrid could not find any beauty in it.
Caitlin snuggled next to Matt the entire evening, and when the two of them weren’t nuzzling they were kissing. Ingrid thought she might burn all her Wagner records by the end of the night; she felt sick to her stomach. Her wonderful library was going to be razed to make room for condominiums, and the guy she liked had ended up with someone else. She promised herself she would get over Matt Noble somehow. Even if she had to take one of Freya’s bitter-tasting antidotes to do so.
chapter twenty
Darkness Visible
The Alvarezes had invited Joanna to celebrate the Fourth of July with them. On Friday night, after attending their festive barbecue, she walked along the shore back to the main house. Regardless of what happened the last time she had taken a long walk, Joanna still kept to the habit. She took a brisk turn around the neighborhood, to refresh the spirit and ruminate on the vagaries of the day, not to mention to try to walk off those extra calories brought on by that second slice of Gracella’s red velvet cake. It had been a nice party, and Joanna had been glad for the company and the chance to catch up with her friends and neighbors. Several of them had heard about the miracle she had performed for Lionel Horning, and had asked if she would look into their ailing relatives. Joanna had promised to do so as soon as she could, though she cautioned that Lionel was a very special case.
The three Beauchamp women were getting quite a reputation in town lately for their abilities to do what others could not. Joanna wondered what the Council would make of that. So far, there had been no word from the powers-that-be; either they were choosing to ignore the Beauchamps’ actions or they were still contemplating a response. In either event, the bravado she had displayed the other week was starting to thin. She was not frightened of the Council exactly, but she was anxious to see what they would do. There was no way to predict how they would react. She wished the oracle would come down and deal with them already and get it over with—punishment, reprimand, whatever. It was too hard to live with the uncertainty.
She was glad to find that after a few blocks Gilly had caught up with her, the raven flapping her wings silently. The two of them, witch and familiar, meandered through a well-worn path, down to the shoreline, past the great houses that overlooked the sea. Joanna was about to turn back toward home when the raven began to fly toward the footbridge that led to Gardiners Island.
“You want to go there? Why?”
Gilly regarded her keenly. You need to see this.
“Tonight?”
Come. You’ve put it off too long already.
“You’re right, you’re right as usual. I guess now is as good a time as any.”
Strange things were happening in town; she couldn’t deny it anymore. Joanna’s thoughts drifted to the dead birds, the silvery toxin that had polluted their ocean, as well as the grassy menace that had tried to strangle her the other evening. Ever since she had raised Lionel Horning from the dead Joanna had been especially worried. What was that silver spiderweb that had surrounded his soul? She had never seen anything like it before. Had she made a mistake in bringing him back from the Dead’s Kingdom? But she had resurrected souls before and it was not such an unusual occurrence. Sometimes resurrection happened naturally. Humans called them “near-death experiences” when they came back to report that they had seen themselves floating over their bodies, or caught a glimpse of the white light at the end of the tunnel. Death was just the beginning of a journey that everyone took at some point.