The last time Joanna had been at the sprawling university in western Connecticut, only a few hours away from North Hampton, was at Ingrid’s college graduation. The school had looked particularly fine that day, with its blue banners flying and the apple-cheeked graduates milling among the alumni in shiny black top hats and greatcoats, swinging mahogany canes bedecked with ribbons in the school colors. Oh, she had been so proud that day! Joanna had been nervous, of course, that she would run into her husband, but thankfully he had kept his distance even then. If Ingrid ever discovered that her father had taught at the same university she had attended she was certain to hate her mother for keeping it a secret. Joanna had forced the good professor to take a leave of absence for four years while his daughter was enrolled.
Joanna walked about the tree-lined paths, past the Gothic buildings. It looked the same as it always had, the limestone and the ivy. “Excuse me,” she asked the nearest young person. “Could you help me find Professor Beauchamp?”
Just because she had not spoken to her husband for the better part of the century did not mean she had no idea what had happened to him. Far from it. She had kept tabs on him since their separation. It wasn’t too difficult. She knew he had spent most of his time along the coast; but when the work dried up along the shore, he had left the fishing business and settled into the quiet life of a university professor. He had been teaching for many years now; it was a miracle no one noticed how old he was, but then he was probably just using the same spell she used to be able to live in North Hampton for as long as she had.
She visited his office, but his teaching assistant said he hadn’t been keeping office hours all week. Joanna was able to procure his home address, which turned out to be not too far from campus. In a few minutes she found the small, well-kept building. The superintendent let her inside the front door when she told him she was the professor’s wife. His apartment was on the ground floor.
“Hello? Anyone home? It’s Jo.” She rapped on the door before entering and found it was ajar. She slipped inside. It was a small studio apartment, and Joanna was not prepared for what she found. A tiny room, spare and monastic. There was one small futon, with folded blankets, a refrigerator the size of a small cabinet, one writing desk with nothing on its surface except for a few photographs. There was a picture of Ingrid taken during graduation at the university—he had probably snuck that one while no one was looking—and one of Freya from when she had been on the cover of a magazine, when she used to live in New York. She felt a pang of sorrow and regret.
They had been happy once, as happy in a marriage as anyone could be, imperfect and struggling against each other as all couples did. There had been fights and rages and tempers. He was not a patient man and she was as stubborn as he had been. If not for the trials, perhaps they would still be together. If only he had done as she had asked maybe things would have turned out differently for them. . . . What was she thinking? There was nothing he could have done, nothing any of them could do to stop the trials from happening. That was made clear the moment the bridge was destroyed and they were trapped in mid-world. To remain here, they would have to follow the laws of its original inhabitants; they had no jurisdiction and could not interfere in the human realm.
Joanna removed her coat and sat on the futon, with Gilly perched on her shoulder. She was going to wait for as long as it took for her husband to come home.
After a few hours, she had dozed off, when the door opened slowly.
“Norman?” she called. “Is that you?”
chapter thirty
The First Stone
The next day, Ingrid was still thinking of the hidden door she had discovered in Fair Haven. The minute she arrived at work she sent an instant message to the address she knew by heart. There had been no communication the night before, which she found a bit strange, and she was eager to find out what her source had discovered. He usually responded within minutes, if not seconds, but after an hour there was still nothing.
<<hey how r u? what did u figure out?>>
She hit Send and waited. The screen remained unchanged. She went back to work, deciding to tackle the rest of the Gardiner prints and ready them for the framer. The other day she had picked out a nice balsa frame, cheaper than the ones they were accustomed to in years past, but now that every little penny counted she had to cut corners somewhere. Strange, the drawer where she usually kept them was empty. She distinctly remembered putting the main floor plan back in its storage container with the rest of the drawing set when she returned to the library yesterday afternoon. Maybe someone had moved them to the conference table? No. There was nothing there.
Ingrid’s heart began to pound. She walked quickly back to her computer and sent another message to the same address.
<<hey, are you back yet?>>
<<hello??>>
<<if you’re there pls answer>>
She saw her messages piling up on the screen with no response. Finally, she wrote:
<<something’s wrong. i can’t find the blueprints.>>
“Did you move my prints?” she asked Hudson after hitting Send. “You know, the Gardiner blueprints of Fair Haven for the show?”
Hudson looked up from his work and removed his noise-canceling headphones. He cleared his throat. “No. I haven’t touched them. Maybe Tabitha knows?”
Tabitha did not know anything about the blueprints and neither did Caitlin, who was back to work after a bout with the flu. Hudson had locked up the night before, activating the alarm as usual. There was nothing amiss: the alarm hadn’t gone off, and aside from the blueprints, there was nothing else missing. Not that there was anything particularly valuable in the library in the first place.
Ingrid tracked down the janitorial services they used, but they reported seeing nothing out of the ordinary the night before. She went back to the storage room and opened the drawer again. Empty. She checked her computer. No reply yet. The blueprints were gone and her source was unreachable. She picked up her phone and dialed Killian Gardiner.
“Hello,” he answered sleepily.
“Killian—hi. It’s Ingrid Beauchamp.”
“Hi, Ingrid,” he said sleepily. “What can I do for you?”
“Killian, did I wake you? I’m sorry but it is half past noon,” she couldn’t help but add.
“And your point is?” he asked amiably.
“I apologize, that was rude of me. It’s been a long day. I was just calling about those blueprints of Fair Haven. Did you by any chance come by to take them back?”
“Why would I take them back?” he asked, sounding more alert this time. “I gave them to you. Why do you ask? Did something happen to them?”
“No, no . . . no.” Ingrid shook her head vigorously even if Killian could not see her. It would not do to panic anyone else. “I think the staff moved them to the other closet. Sorry to bother you.”
“No worries,” Killian said.
She hung up the phone, her heart beating wildly. The scans. She had scanned all the prints, she thought, executing a search on her computer. She had scanned all the sheets that contained the strange tags and elaborate symbols. But just as she suspected, every single file connected to the blueprints was gone.
Ingrid tried not to panic. Who would steal the blueprints? And erase all the records on her computer? And why? Then Hudson burst into the room. His tie had come unknotted and he looked uncharacteristically frazzled. “I think you better come out to the front—it looks as if Corky Hutchinson has lost her mind.”
Ingrid followed hudson to the main area to find the news anchor standing by the returns desk, looking hysterical and crazed in a pajama top and baggy sweatpants. When she saw Ingrid she pointed a red-manicured finger in her direction. “It’s all her fault!” she screamed.
“Excuse me?” Ingrid asked. The library was full of mothers with toddlers, teenagers at the computers, and the regular patrons at the magazine racks. Matt Noble was returning a few paperbacks and rushed to her side.
“What’s going on?” he asked, looking from Corky to Ingrid.
“She was the one! She did it!” Corky screeched. “She made me give Todd this . . . this knot under his pillow! He couldn’t sleep . . . he’s been acting so strangely—she did something to him!”
“Corky, calm down, what are you talking about?” Matt came around to restrain Corky by the shoulders since it looked as if she might take a swipe at Ingrid.