this morning. I knew James was going to ask me to marry him.”
“I see.” Harriet tapped her arms with her long fingers. “The knowing can be a powerful thing, Annis. Usually it comes to me when I’m working, as it did this morning.”
“You were working?”
“Oh yes. I made another electuary for you. Actually, I made two.”
“You did it without me?”
Annis’s disappointment must have shown on her face, because Aunt Harriet smiled and pointed to a small box on the table beside her bed. “I didn’t feel we could wait until tonight. Frances will keep trying, and we must resist her. It won’t hurt you to take one more remedy, and I want you to have an extra, just in case.”
“What about James?”
“It’s too dangerous. He’s under the influence of the maleficia, and the remedy made him ill once already.”
“Oh, poor James! None of this would have happened to him if I hadn’t come to England. I feel—I felt—” She made a helpless gesture.
“Yes? Do tell me what you felt, Annis.”
“I felt all of his emotions after his proposal. His sadness. His pain. It was awful.”
Harriet regarded her for a long moment, her eyes shining silver in the lamplight. “Have you felt such a thing before?”
“No. Well, maybe once or twice.” She thought of Velma, outside the chandler’s shop, and how she had sensed her maid’s yearning for the cut-glass swan. “Is it—is that because of the magic?”
“I’m not sure. We all experience our abilities a bit differently. In my case it’s just the knowing. In yours it may also be empathy.”
“I had a terrible argument with Frances. She spied on us, in the folly. I told her I know all about her, and I threatened to tell Papa. She said he would never believe me, and she was angry because I refused James, and that’s when she said—” Fear made Annis’s voice break on a sob. “I’m so far away from Bits, and I can’t do anything about any of it! I’m afraid I’m going to lose him, if I don’t marry James, and if I do—I’ll lose him anyway! I’m trapped, Aunt Harriet!”
“You’re not,” Harriet said. “Or at least you won’t be.”
She went to the bedside table to take up the little box. She set it on the bed and lifted the lid. Annis bent to see inside it.
There was a white handkerchief, neatly folded, which Annis assumed held the electuaries. Next to the handkerchief, resting on a cushion of cotton batting, was a figure fashioned of cloudy white wax.
The simulacrum was a simple construction, as if it had been made by a child. It had a rudimentary torso, and its legs and arms were mere stubs of wax. A tuft of what looked like dark moss was glued to the waxen head. Two dark pebbles had been pressed into the place where eyes should be, and a chip of something like bark represented a mouth. A makeshift dress fashioned out of a bit of flannel was pinned around the thing, somehow making it even more ugly.
Annis gaped at it. “Is that—Aunt Harriet, is that a—a manikin?”
Harriet spoke in a low tone. “It is, Annis. It is a manikin intended to be Frances, but it’s not finished.”
“But you said—about manikins, you said that was the maleficia and we should never—”
“I meant it, too,” Harriet answered. She stood, her hands folded before her, and gazed at the hideous little thing in the box. “I wish it weren’t necessary, but there is no other way to undo what Frances has done. Once the maleficia has succeeded, it must be answered in the same way it was accomplished.” She took out the handkerchief and gave it to Annis. “I think you should take one of these right away, to be certain you’re safe. I hope it doesn’t make you feel ill. If she’s working her cantrip even now, you may feel the effects.”
Annis took the handkerchief and unfolded it. The electuaries lay within, perfectly round, smelling of pine and honey. She popped one into her mouth and swallowed it as Harriet watched her. “Do you feel anything?”
Annis pressed a hand over her stomach. “Not yet,” she said.
“Perhaps she’s waiting until tonight. Take the other one with you, and keep it somewhere safe.” Harriet replaced the lid on the box with care.
“I’d better hurry back. Things will be worse if I miss dinner, and we’re only to stay at Rosefield Hall one more day before we go back to London.”