A Familiar Sense of Dead Read online

  “A library card!” Siv said. “Did they let you back into the academy, Cordelia?!”

  Cordelia shot her a withering glare. “Those sticks-in-the-mud? I think I’ve proven I’m hardly fit for Silverwell Academy.”

  “Silverwell Academy?” asked Hazel. Hadn’t Clancy mentioned that as being the other destination of the yellow-brick road they’d taken into Quark?

  “I’m an alum. Go, Silvercats!” Siv said, pumping her fist in the air. “Putting my degree to use, of course.” She waved at the establishment dramatically and rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t fall for the sob story,” said Cordelia. “She’s a gifted witch.”

  “Unfortunately, I focused on culinary magic,” explained Siv. “If I had gone into law, maybe I’d be able to pay all of my bills on time.”

  “Culinary magic?” asked Hazel. She hadn’t even considered that there were different disciplines of magic. She was so busy learning the ABCs of spellcasting, and here Siv had devoted herself toward achieving mastery in a single branch of it. “That sounds amazing.”

  She wished Charlie was here to witness this, and she almost felt guilty as she picked a croissant from the tray. Somehow Charlie managed on the daily to crank out magical creations without the assistance of the mystical arts. What would her friend, the bakeress extraordinaire, think of magical scones and cappuccinos with butterfly milk?

  “Try the cappuccino!” said Siv. “There’s no sip of butterfly-milk like your fist!”

  Hazel picked up her cup and took a cautious sip as Siv looked on, riveted. “What do you think?! Do you feel the tickle yet?”

  “I don’t feel anything . . .” she offered apologetically.

  “Nothing?”

  “Wait . . .” There was a slight tingle in the pit of her stomach. “There’s a little something.” And then all at once, there was a lot of something. It felt suddenly like her belly was on fire, a burning that rapidly intensified and diffused into the rest of her body until it felt like every part of her was tingling with pins-and-needles and an intense pain striping up and down her back.

  “It hurts!” Hazel gasped. “A lot!”

  “Oh no . . .” said Siv.

  “I asked if you were intolerant,” said Cordelia.

  “How was I to know?!” snapped Hazel, gripping the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white. “How do I get it to stop?”

  “I don’t know!” wailed Siv. “I’m so sorry!”

  “Well, it’s a good thing we’re going to visit the medicine man,” said Cordelia, gathering up the evidence and quickly stuffing it back into Hazel’s satchel.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Hazel was thankful that the earlier crowd she had encountered at Dr. Winkworth’s Medicine Show had since dispersed. At least now there would be no witnesses to see Hazel hobble up to the wagon, clinging to Cordelia’s arm like an invalid.

  The wagon was one of those old-timey medicine wagons, a mix between a carriage and a gypsy’s vardo. It was painted just like the medicine box she’d found at Silas’s shop—green with red flourishes and gold lettering.

  “I can’t believe we have to talk to this dirtbag,” said Cordelia.

  “You know him?” asked Hazel through gritted teeth. Rather than subsiding, the sensation from the butterfly-milk cappuccino seemed to have intensified.

  “He came here years ago and he probably won’t leave until he’s bled the town dry,” she fumed. “Though if people pay for his cures, maybe they deserve to get swindled.”

  “That hardly seems right,” countered Hazel. “Are we sure we should—” She winced as the pain flared again. “—be coming to him for a cure?”

  Cordelia snorted. “For a butterfly milk reaction? No. I suspect the cure would be worse than the ailment. You’re just going to have to ride this one out. We’re here to follow up on your lead, no?”

  “Right.”

  The wagon jostled as somebody inside moved around, and a moment later the door popped out. A rotund man emerged, his potbelly barely contained by the heroic efforts of a threadbare vest. Fringes of oily hair hung from beneath a ratty top hat, and his eyes were obscured behind a pair of rose-tinted spectacles.

  As soon as he saw Hazel and Cordelia examining the cart, and more particularly Hazel’s bent posture, his face brightened. “Young lady, young lady, you look like to be on death’s door!” he exclaimed, jostling down the steps and rushing to Hazel’s side. “You have come to the right place. Dr. Winkworth has miracle cures and treatments for any ailment! Just tell me your troubles.”

  “It’s just a bit of a reaction to some butterfly milk,” said Hazel.

  “Oh dear!” Suddenly he was nearly shouting in Hazel’s face. He spun away from her, pulling off his top hat and flourishing it. “A young woman who should be in the flower of her youth but is merely a pathetic picture of maidenly sorrow.” He pulled a lever on the wagon, banged the vehicle on its side, and suddenly a trapdoor dropped open, revealing a veritable apothecary. Racks and rows of bottles and jars filled with strange liquids and powders.

  “Spare us the rhyming spiel,” said Cordelia.

  “But this woman is suffering,” said Winkworth. “And Doctor Winkworth’s Cure-All will cure all her ailments, pinken her cheeks, and put some meat back on her bones! And perhaps do something about those ginger locks.”

  “Do something?” Oh that was it. He had gone too far. “There’s nothing wrong with me, buster, not with my figure and especially not my ginger locks!”

  “Look at that,” remarked Cordelia. “A miraculous turnaround.”

  “Let’s not get out of sorts, young lady,” Winkworth said, looking at little nervous. “Perhaps I could suggest a little something for . . . hysteria?”

  Hazel glared at the good doctor, but Cordelia intervened.

  “We should level with you, doctor,” said Cordelia. “We didn’t come just to replenish our medicine cabinets.”

  “Oh?” said Winkworth, seeming genuinely surprised that they’d come for something other than the medicine show.

  Cordelia thumbed the badge on her leather jacket, and Hazel half-heartedly did likewise.

  “Oh,” said Winkworth, suddenly dropping the salesman pitch. “I can’t imagine why you’re here then. Looking for charitable donations to fill the city coffers? Or is this some sort of tax shakedown?”

  “Not quite,” said Cordelia. “One of your clients is dead.”

  She slapped the wooden case down on the edge of the wagon. Winkworth stopped abruptly, his back stiffening as he eyed the case. “So what,” he said. “You could have gotten that anywhere. I have hundreds of satisfied customers. And people die all the time. I can hardly be responsible for every death I’m unable to prevent.” He scooped up the case and made to tuck it under his arm when Cordelia snatched it back. He looked like he was about to protest but then thought better of it.

  “If this is all you have for me,” he said, “then I must bid you good day, agents. I have work to do to prepare for tomorrow’s show.” He returned to his wagon and pulled the lever again. A series of gears clicked and whirred inside as the display folded back into the wagon.

  “Well this is official Quark business,” said Cordelia. “And I happen to know your presence in town has come up on more than one occasion at recent meetings. It would seem that the reputable physicians of the town are less than excited that you’re peddling your services here.”

  “A stuffy lot,” he said haughtily. “I’m not in this business to impress a bunch of hoity-toity doctors. I am here for the common folk—to ease their suffering.”

  More like lighten their purses, Hazel thought. “We’re just concerned with one customer at the moment,” she said.

  “Ladies, ladies,” he protested. “I can’t give out customer information. I respect my clients too greatly, and my profession demands that I maintain their privacy at all costs!”

  “And if the customer in question was Silas MacGregor?”

  Winkworth paled a little
. “Who?”

  “It was our understanding that he was interested in curing more than some standard illnesses. Or do you normally use powdered dendrant root and emulsified mermaid oil in your medicines? Because last I knew, those are illegal ingredients,” said Cordelia. “It would be a shame if the Council were to catch wind of this and do a full investigation in your business when all we want is a little information.”

  “Well,” he said, laughing nervously. “Since you put it that way, I do seem to recall a Silas MacGregor. I thought you’d said Philus the Beggar.”

  “Of course,” said Hazel dryly.

  “I had a long history with Silas,” he said. “I provided him with unconventional cures to unconventional illnesses.”

  “Riven,” said Hazel.

  Dr. Winkworth laughed nervously. “That is what Silas called it, yes. He’d done a lot of research on the topic and knew things most nobody else did. He said he was interested in helping a riven friend. But that was years ago.”

  “And what happened with that friend?” asked Hazel

  “I wouldn’t know, my dear!” he said.

  “And that’s it?” asked Hazel. “Just the one friend?”

  “As far as I know,” said Winkworth matter-of-factly. “I didn’t keep tabs on Silas MacGregor.”

  Cordelia snapped suddenly. She grabbed Winkworth, shoved him against the side of the wagon, and pressed her forearm against his chest. He started sweating profusely, drawing wheezing breathes as his eyes darted nervously back and forth between her and Hazel.

  “Cordelia . . .” Hazel said. She was comfortable with a little good cop, bad cop, but this was crossing a line she was distinctly uncomfortable with.

  “There may have been a second,” he said. “More recently. It’s coming back to me now.”

  “Who?” asked Hazel.

  “The patient never came here,” he said. “I tried to make a delivery to them once, but it . . . didn’t really work out. A few days later, Silas came and made the pickup for whoever it was.”

  “And was this the delivery?” Hazel asked. She focused long enough to open the satchel, now slung over Cordelia’s shoulder, fished out the medicine case she had found at the pawnshop, and held it up so Winkworth could see.

  “It could be,” he said. “I sell hundreds of full and custom medicinal kits.”

  “Hundreds?”

  “Maybe thousands.”

  Cordelia pushed a little harder on his throat and he gurgled.

  “Okay,” he sputtered. “Three. I’ve sold three.”

  “And do you keep records of these three sales?” asked Cordelia venomously.

  “How about addresses?” asked Hazel.

  “I don’t keep addresses. Sorry, my dear!” he wheezed

  Cordelia looked at Hazel, and Hazel nodded reluctantly. May the universe forgive her.

  “The addresses,” said Cordelia, pushing harder against his throat. Winkworth merely sputtered unintelligibly as his eyes bulged and his face plumped and reddened.

  “Cordelia, you have to loosen up a bit if you want him to answer . . .”

  Her partner complied, easing up on Winkworth, who gasped for air. “Thank you,” he finally managed. “Did you say addresses? I thought you said head-dresses and I don’t do fashion items. I keep my addresses inside the wagon.”

  “Don’t try anything funny,” growled Cordelia.

  “Funny?” he said. “I am never anything but deadly serious.”

  Cordelia let him loose and he climbed into the back of the wagon. Hazel stayed close on his heels. She hardly wanted to shake the guy down, but neither did she want him to slam the door shut and try to make off before they’d gotten what they needed.

  The interior was part living space, part laboratory. There was a tiny bunk bed that looked far too small to accommodate somebody of Winkworth’s girth. Beneath it was tucked a miniature workshop filled with mortars and pestles, beakers and jars, all of it meticulously labeled and organized. He opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out what appeared to be his own ledger.

  He flipped through the pages, scanning each carefully until at last he tapped the paper triumphantly. “Ah ha! Here they are,” he said. “Sales of Dr. Winkworth Patented Cure-Alls in a Case.” Hazel fished her notebook out of her satchel and copied down the three addresses.

  “Wait, these are all at the Silverwell Academy,” said Cordelia, her voice thick with suspicion. She grabbed Winkworth by the shoulder and made to push him up against the wall.

  “Cordelia, no,” Hazel chastised, putting a staying hand on her partner. She didn’t have the stomach for any more strong-arming.

  Cordelia begrudgingly backed down. “If these don’t pan out, medicine man,” she threatened, “we’ll be back.”

  “I look forward to not seeing you again,” he announced. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Cordelia muttered as she and Hazel exited the wagon.

  The door slammed shut behind them, and they heard a series of locks and bolts slide into place.

  “How you feeling?” asked Cordelia.

  “Better,” said Hazel, grinning. It was true—the pain was fading even now as they walked away. “Dr. Winkworth’s really did the trick.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  By the time Cordelia and Hazel had reached the edge of town, the effects of the butterfly milk had completely dissipated, leaving only a faint tingling lingered, oddly, in the muscles on Hazel’s back. There was a zero percent chance she wouldn’t wake up tomorrow sore from head to toe. Cordelia led her to the edge of town, where a broad and pristine road of white paving stones carved a path through the woods.

  “Doesn’t the yellowed-brick road lead to Silverwell Academy?” Hazel asked.

  “The Old Dim Way?” said Cordelia, “Sure. If you want to take a stroll through the darkest and most dangerous part of the Dimwood. Or you could take the Silver Path and get there in half the time without risking a warg attack.”

  “Warg?”

  “Giant wolves with insatiable appetites.”

  “Like a direwolf?”

  “No, that’s something separate. This place is just full of wolves. Winkworth might be the biggest of them all.”

  “There is something not quite right about him,” agreed Hazel. “He’s dishonest and unscrupulous, to say the least. But a werespider?” She had a hard time envisioning the corpulent Winkworth turning into the ravenous and deadly spider she battled at Once Upawn a Time. But what did she know about direspiders and werespiders and riven? Oh my.

  “You can never really know what’s inside somebody’s heart,” Cordelia said coldly.

  Hazel nodded slowly. “Fair enough. We’ll keep him on the list of suspects.”

  They walked for a ways in silence. The Silver Path crested a hill and Hazel’s breath caught in her throat. She had a sweeping view of the land before her, and what she saw hardly made sense. “Is that Bennett Manor?” she asked.

  “Bennett what?” Cordelia said. She followed Hazel’s gaze. “Oh, that’s Silver Hall.” Whatever it was called, there was no mistaking the sprawl of turrets and towers, even from this distance, as the house—or at least a clone—of the house she had grown up in.

  Hazel felt light-headed. When Clancy had said the magical world was a reflection of the real world, she thought he was being poetic at best. But had he been speaking literally? Did that explain why parts of Quark had seemed familiar? Was it a magical reflection of Larkhaven? Quark, Lark—they did rhyme. Until now she had just assumed that was coincidence. Maybe Silas MacGregor wasn’t the only thing that had gotten riven. Was it possible for an entire universe to be split in two?

  Cordelia didn’t seem to share her sense of awe as she set off down the hill, calling, “Time is a-wastin’,” over her shoulder.

  * * *

  Hazel picked out a few familiar features on the way down the road—the top of the Carriage House, the swell of Split Tree Hill, and the distant towers of the East Barn. But there were unfamiliar f
eatures as well. A few new buildings that shouldn’t have been there, particularly the tower that rose from the middle of the farm like a dark and twisted unicorn horn.

  “So what is Silverwell Academy?” Hazel asked. “Did Merlin found it?”

  Cordelia shrugged. “No idea. I don’t think anyone knows,” she said. “There’s a lot about magical history that’s been lost. Everything before the Bloom is pretty much dark.”

  “The Bloom?”

  “History tells it that the world used to be a dark, magicless place,” she said. “The Bloom changed all that. But I’m no historian or mythologist. I’m sure Clancy would love to bore you with that crap.”

  Siv had mentioned something about Cordelia getting expelled from the academy, and Hazel couldn’t deny her curiosity. “So this is your alma mater, eh?” asked Hazel.

  “Not quite. I think you have to graduate to count as an alum.”

  “What happened?”

  Cordelia shrugged. “It turns out there are some things even my family fortune can’t buy.” They reached the bottom of the hill and the road diverged right where Hazel was fairly certain the South Way would have run.

  Cordelia nodded in one direction and said, “Let’s get to this before a rent-a-cop sees me and tries to get me booted from campus.”

  “So it’s an academy for witches?” Hazel asked as they moved on. She felt silly even saying it aloud, so she added, “Like Hogwarts?” Hazel thought of Harper and her school woes. She wondered what the application process was like for Silverwell Academy.

  “Hogwarts?” Cordelia asked and then shook her head. “Never mind. If this is a mundane thing, I don’t want to know.”

  They had almost reached the dark spire when they passed a quaint three-story stone building that definitely was not on Bennett Farms, and where now an intense game of frisbee was in progress. A few people lay in the grass, reading or chatting or, from the looks of it, napping.

  “Are those students?” Hazel asked.