I cocked my head. “Is that . . . Fleetwood Mac?”
“No. Not again!” Sarah looked as if she’d seen a ghost. I glanced around, but the only invisible presence in the room was Stevie Nicks and a Welsh witch named Rhiannon. In the seventies the song had been a coming-out anthem for scores of witches and wizards.
“I guess the house is waking up.” Maybe that was what was upsetting Sarah.
Sarah darted to the door and lifted the latch, but it wouldn’t budge. She banged on the wooden panels. The music got louder.
“This isn’t my favorite Stevie Nicks tune either,” I said, trying to calm her, “but it won’t last forever. Maybe you’ll like the next song better.”
“The next song is ‘Over My Head.’ I know the whole damn album by heart. Your mother listened to it all through her pregnancy. It went on for months. Just when Rebecca seemed to get over her obsession, Fleetwood Mac’s next album came out. It was hell.” Sarah tore at her hair.
“Really?” I was always hungry for details about my parents. “Fleetwood Mac seems more like Dad’s kind of band.”
“We have to stop the music.” Sarah went to the window, but the sash wouldn’t move. She thumped on the frame in frustration.
“Let me try.” The harder I pushed, the louder the music got. There was a momentary pause after Stevie Nicks stopped warbling about Rhiannon. A few seconds later, Christine McVie informed us how nice it was to be in over your head. The window remained closed.
“This is a nightmare!” Sarah exploded. She jammed her hands over her ears to block the sound, then raced to the grimoire and flipped through the pages. “Prudence Willard’s dog-bite cure. Patience Severance’s method for sweetening sour milk.” She flipped some more. “Clara Bishop’s spell for stopping up a drafty chimney! That might work.”
“But it’s music, not smoke,” I said, peering over Sarah’s shoulder at the lines of text.
“Both are carried on the air.” Sarah rolled up her sleeves. “If it doesn’t do the trick, we’ll try something else. Maybe thunder. I’m good with thunder. That might interrupt the energy and drive the sound away.”
I started to hum along to the song. It was catchy, in a 1970s kind of way.
“Don’t you start.” Sarah’s eyes were wild. She turned back to the grimoire. “Get me some eyebright, please. And plug in the coffeemaker.”
I dutifully went to the ancient outlet strip and shoved the coffeemaker’s cord into it. Electricity leaped from the socket in orange and blue arcs. I jumped back.
“You need a surge protector—preferably one bought in the last decade—or you’re going to burn the whole house down,” I told Sarah.
She kept muttering as she put a paper filter into the swing-out basket in the coffeemaker, followed by an extensive selection of herbs.
Since we were trapped inside the stillroom and Sarah didn’t seem to want my help, I might as well work on the words to accompany my anti-nightmare spell for the children. I went to my mother’s cabinet and found some black ink, a quill pen, and a slip of paper.
Matthew knocked on the windowpane. “Are you two all right? I smelled something burning.”
“A minor electrical problem!” I shouted, waving my quill pen in the air. Then I remembered that Matthew was a vampire and could hear me perfectly well through stone, brick, wood, and yes, single panes of glass. I lowered my voice. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Over My Head” screeched to a halt, and “You Make Loving Fun” began. Nice choice, I thought, smiling at Matthew. Who needed a deejay when you had magical radio?
“Oh, God. The house has moved on to their second album,” Sarah groaned. “I hate Rumours.”
“Where is that music coming from?” Matthew frowned.
“Mom’s old clock radio.” I pointed with the feather. “She liked Fleetwood Mac.” I glanced at my aunt, who was reciting the words to Clara Bishop’s spell with her hands clapped over her ears. “Sarah doesn’t.”
“Ah.” Matthew’s brow cleared. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He pressed his hand against the glass in a silent gesture of farewell.
My heart filled. Loving Matthew wasn’t all I wanted to do, but he was definitely the only one for me. I wished there wasn’t a pane of glass between us so that I could tell him so.
Glass is only sand and fire. One puff of smoke later, a pile of sand lay on the windowsill. I reached through the empty square in the window frame and clasped his hand.
“Thanks for checking on us. It’s been an interesting afternoon. I have a lot to tell you.”
Matthew blinked at our twined hands.
“You make me very happy, you know.”
“I try,” he said with a shy grin.
“You succeed. Do you think Fernando could rescue Sarah?” I lowered my voice. “The house has jammed the stillroom doors and windows shut, and she’s about to blow. She’s going to need a cigarette when she gets out, and a stiff drink.”
“Fernando hasn’t rescued a woman in distress for some time, but I’m sure he remembers how,” Matthew assured me. “Will the house let him?”
“Give it five minutes or until the music stops, whichever comes first.” I pulled free and blew him a kiss. It had rather more fire and water than usual, and enough air behind it to land with a decided smack on his cheek.
I returned to the worktable and dipped my mother’s quill pen into the ink. It smelled of blackberries and walnuts. Thanks to my experience with Elizabethan writing implements, I was able to write out the charm for Sarah’s dream pillows without a single splotch.
Mirror
Shimmers
Monsters Shake
Banish Nightmares
Until We
Wake
I blew on it gently to set the ink. Very respectable, I decided. It was much better than my spell for conjuring fire, and easy enough for children to remember. When the pods were dry and the papery covering rubbed off, I’d write the charm in tiny letters right on their silvery surface.
Eager to show my work to Sarah, I slid down from the stool. One look at her face convinced me to put it off until my aunt had had her whiskey and a smoke. She’d been hoping for decades that I’d show an interest in magic. I could wait another twenty minutes for my grade in Sleeping Charms 101.
A slight tingle behind me alerted me to a ghostly presence a moment before a hug as soft as down settled around my shoulders.
“Nice job, peanut,” whispered a familiar voice. “Excellent taste in music, too.”