The Warlock's Curse (5 page)

He called it an Otherwhere Flume. He’d come up with the concept during his last year at the California Polytechnic. While it was, in the main, a standard Otherwhere Conductor (its design taken straight from his teacher Mr. Waters’ third year
Otherwhere Engineering
textbook) Will had introduced several significant improvements. Mr. Waters had been astonished by Will’s ingenuity, but Will had never quite understood his teacher’s astonishment. The inefficiencies of the standard design were all so obvious. They stood out as prominently as wrinkles in a tablecloth. All Will had done was smooth out the cloth.

With the Flume installed, Will could conceivably drive the beat-up old Baker all the way to Detroit. It wouldn’t be comfortable or fast ... but he could do it. And Will was in such a desperate state of mind that he was actually considering it. It had been almost a month since he’d gotten the fat letter from Tesla Industries, informing him that he’d been accepted into their apprenticeship program. A whole month, and the acceptance letter had said that they wanted him to get there as quickly as possible.

Tesla Industries was the foremost center for scientific research in the United States, and their apprenticeship program was world-renowned. They only accepted one or two candidates a year—usually college men—but Mr. Waters had been so impressed with Will’s work that he had recommended Will for consideration.

And Will had been accepted.

The fat letter had arrived on Hallowe’en. The acceptance letter itself wasn’t fat, but the boilerplate apprenticeship contract enclosed with it was a hundred and thirty-two pages. Will had been giddy with excitement. His father, however, had hemmed and hawed. He told Will that he would have to review the contract before he could give Will his permission.

And of course, I let him
, Will thought bitterly.
Trusted him, like an idiot.
And wasn’t that just like Father! To pretend he was doing you a favor, looking out for your best interests, when really he was just stalling for time, stockpiling ammunition to fortify his position, so he could ultimately deliver the devastating answer from a position of unimpeachable strength:

No, Will. I’m afraid I don’t think it is a good idea for you to enter this program. There are many more suitable opportunities closer to home. I’m afraid I cannot give you my permission.

“Bastard,” Will muttered. Just remembering the old man sitting behind his heavy desk, delivering that shattering pronouncement so smoothly and casually, made him want to punch something.

A cooling evening breeze blew up the hillside, and along with the smell of dry grass and aging lupines, Will caught the buttery, sugary odor of baked squash. His stomach rumbled traitorously, and his mind joined in the rebellion, suggesting that there would also be roast turkey and mashed potatoes and pies. Ma’am made such good pies. Gosh, he was hungry. He sure wished Ben would hurry up.

Will caught sight of a flashing glimmer, like a trout leaping from a still pond. He quickly lifted his field glasses back to his eyes.

An automobile emerged from the dark cluster of oaks that hid the road leading to the Edwards’ homestead. But not just any automobile. Will recognized it instantly as a Pierce Arrow—a 66-QQ. It was the biggest one they made, the six-passenger touring style. The gleaming chrome trim against the elegant French gray enamel, the bright-polished dark wood of the spoke wheels, the smooth blackness of the Panasote top ... what a honey of a machine! And if all that weren’t enough, it was next year’s model, a 1911. It would have to have been special ordered—and it must have cost a mint.

The car came to a luxuriant surcease before the house’s front porch. The driver was first out of the car on the right-hand side. An imposing, heavily built man, he wore green-tinted brass goggles and a long motoring overcoat that brushed the tops of his mirror-polished black boots.

Well, well. If it isn’t the Congressman,
Will watched as his brother Argus peeled off his dogskin driving gloves.
Celebrating his victory with a big new car, and so proud of it that he won’t even stand for a driver.

The really hilarious thing was that Argus had run his recent campaign as “California’s Man of the People.” The newspapers had been amply supplied with photos of him earnestly shaking hands with laboring types in grimy overalls. The voters of California had swallowed
that
bunch of guff hook, line, and sinker, electing him to the U.S. House of Representatives just the past September. Will found himself wishing he had a camera right now. Wouldn’t he send those newspapers some pictures!
California’s Big Goddamn Show-Off
would be the headline.

And I just bet he’s going to insist on being called “the honorable” now,
Will thought.
Pft! As if!

He watched as Argus came around to open the door for the well-dressed woman in the front passenger seat; Lillie, his wife. Lillie’s hat emerged from the car first, her face swathed in taupe gauze to protect her from the environmental hazards of motoring. She was also positively smothered in furs. Though the day had grown hot, they would have had to have left San Francisco in the chill of dawn to motor the entire eighty miles to the middle of the Sacramento Valley.

Argus left the passengers in the back seats to shift for themselves while he saw his wife to the porch. Argus had married into an obscene amount of money, and while he suffered no lack of success in his own professional and political ventures, he was always mindful to keep that particular slice of toast butter-side up.

How lovely it must be to be the honorable Argus Edwards! Everything in life handed to him on a silver plate. Well, there was one thing he wasn’t going to get ... his baby brother, the gearhead squirt, sure as hell wasn’t going to show up fawning over his new car, no matter how amazing it clearly was. No sir!

Fuming, Will watched the passengers emerging from the back seats. First out was another of Will’s brothers, Laddie. Unlike Argus and Lillie, he was not kitted out in motoring togs, but wore his customary well-tailored suit. Upon getting out of the car, he was quick to open his gold cigarette case and light a smoke. He did this with the air of elegant desperation that he did most things.

Next, a very large older man unfolded himself from what must have been a very cramped middle seat. He quickly vanished beneath the shady overhang of the broad porch, where Will’s mother had come out to greet the new arrivals, wiping her hands on her apron before extending them in welcome.

Will’s heart sank as he watched the final passenger emerge from the automobile, for it was clearly not Ben. But disappointment gave way to curiosity as Will noted the many extremely fascinating ways in which the passenger differed. This “not-Ben” was a girl, about his age, with long wavy brown hair held back in a red satin schoolgirl’s bow. When she removed her light canvas motoring duster, he saw that she wore a neat embroidered shirtwaist and a navy skirt trimmed in white cord.

Everyone else had gone into the house, leaving her alone in the quiet, lowering twilight. Breathing deeply, she stretched. It was a languorous, cat-like movement that made Will’s heart thump. Gosh. She was even prettier than the car. Was she one of Lillie’s society friends, maybe? Or what if she was here with Laddie, one of his empty-headed conquests? Oh, that would be just terrible, if Laddie had taken to preying on innocent schoolgirls now. Will was simply dying to find out.

But ... no! Will dropped his field binoculars and sat back in the grass. Ben hadn’t come, and that was that. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t give any of them the time of day, and he wouldn’t. Wasn’t like he was missing anything except a tedious evening with brothers he already knew ... his witchly Ma’am chanting her fussy little kitchen spells to make sure all the food stayed hot ... his Uncle Royce, who had the most disquieting way of appearing suddenly at one’s elbow when one least expected it ... and
Father
...

He stood up and righted his bicycle. He slung his heavy leather toolbag (he never went anywhere without it) across his back. Pask’s doors were always open to him, and the de la Guerras would surely be fixing up a good dinner too. In honor of the holiday they’d probably even crack open a bottle of old Spanish wine. They’d get up a game of pinochle and listen to their brand new Teslaphone—they were the first in the whole county to have bought one of the updated models.

But then again ...

Will stood astride his bicycle, looking back down the hill. The girl had gone inside. He wondered what her name was.

It wouldn’t hurt to find out.

Yes, that was it. He wanted to meet the girl. That was a fair reason for a red-blooded American boy. He wasn’t going home to fawn over Argus’ car, that much he promised himself. It wasn’t because he could smell the pies all the way up here. And it
certainly
wasn’t because there was still a small piece of his mind that he hadn’t yet given his father.

No. It was to meet the girl.

Kicking off, he coasted down the grassy hill toward home.

Will left his toolbag on the screened back porch and crept in through the mud room just off the kitchen. He was hoping to avoid notice, and with the kitchen in such a state, that wasn’t hard. Pots bubbled and steamed, china and silverware clanked. Potatoes were being mashed, vegetables creamed, gravy stirred. It was like the engine room of a battleship about to engage a hostile fleet. A dozen itinerant girls—charity cases from all up and down the West Coast that his soft-hearted Ma’am took in and employed—worked under her watchful eye. There were so many of them, and in such constant rotation, that it was flat impossible to keep their names straight. Will had adopted the tactic of calling them all “Maisy” and accepting whatever good-natured or sharp-tongued correction might ensue.

The final turkey had just come out of the oven (there were three birds in all, each twenty pounds if it was an ounce, each shot by Nate in the thick oak groves along the Sacramento River) and preparations were being made for the food’s distribution to various destinations. One turkey would go to the German family who ran the farm, one would go to the charity girls, and the last—the largest—would be served to the family. The birds that had been roasted earlier were covered with large chargers laid over with folded wool blankets that shimmered slightly; his Ma’am’s sorcerous handiwork would keep the birds at the perfect temperature indefinitely.

Surreptitiously lifting one of the covers, Will picked off a piece of turkey meat. Then, licking his fingers, he snuck up behind his mother—who had not yet noticed his arrival—and laid an indifferent peck on her cheek.

“Hi,” he grunted.

“Will!” Ma’am whirled and seized him. She showered him with kisses as if she hadn’t seen him in months. “I’m so glad you came back. Were you over at Pask’s? I was worried about you!”

“Aw, what are you worrying about me for?” He didn’t like to worry his Ma’am. And even though he was still a little mad at her for her implicit support of Father’s birthday presents, her rosy round cheeks and the good-humored glint in her violet eyes made it hard to stay so. Even though her skin was wrinkled and her hair was losing the battle to remain chestnut-colored, she always seemed younger than the girls who surrounded her.

“You and your father had an awful bust-up,” Ma’am said. She laid a soft, warm hand on his cheek—the one she called her “reading” hand. It possessed some kind of special magical sensitivity that Will had never really understood the extent of. She held it there for a moment until he felt compelled to shy away like an impatient colt. “But I figured you’d both do with some cooling off. If I’d really wanted you I would have Sent for you.”

Will shuddered inwardly but said nothing. All the Edwards boys hated being Sent for by their witchly mother. It wasn’t that it was painful (unless she was really mad)—it was just ... well, what fellow wanted his mother poking her nose into his head? Especially when you were eighteen?

And on the subject of thoughts he probably would have preferred his mother not intrude on, Will tried not to look at one girl in particular—the brunette girl who had arrived in Argus’ car and was now helping out in the kitchen. She had been given a large white apron to put over her stylish costume and had been set to rolling biscuits.

“Some motorcar the Congressman has got,” Will offered with casual malice. Ma’am smirked at the jibe, and then, just as abruptly, her face darkened.

“And did you hear that they’ve left Kendall at home with his nurse, just so Argus could drive that silly contraption?” Ma’am tossed her silver-threaded curls with outrage. “Lillie didn’t want to bother carrying him on her lap the whole way. Can you imagine! That woman hasn’t a scrap of mother-feeling in her. I’ve only got one grandchild, and I never even get to see him!”

Will suffered this tirade in silence. Ma’am dislike of her daughter-in-law was inversely proportional to her love of babies over an
extremely wide range. But the absence of his infant nephew Kendall (who he remembered as red-faced and screaming at the indignity of being swaddled in an extravagant confection of linen and lace) was a matter of supreme indifference to Will. He was more interested in another absence.

“So Ben isn’t going to make it?”

Ma’am shook her head. “I guess something came up.” She quickly seized a nearby bowl as if its contents were in urgent need of stirring. Ma’am was never any good at hiding anything—especially hurt. When she was happy, her face looked young; but when she was sad, she looked very old. Desperate to cheer her, Will wrapped his arms around her and hugged her off balance, roaring like a bear. Ma’am whooped and tried not to spill the contents of the bowl.