nettlesome little thing called a conscience,” Emily hissed. “Ever hear of it?”
“They’re out of fashion in New York,” Stanton said, and though she guessed he was joking, he didn’t sound humorous. “Listen, you’ll be back in a fortnight, and you can smooth everything over. That love spell was strong enough for ten men. A few tears, some nice little endearments, a lighter hand with the lavender … he’ll marry you in a heartbeat.”
The thought made Emily shudder.
“No, it was a stupid idea to begin with,” she said. “I just want to take the spell off and—” She fell suddenly silent. And then what? Return to her life in Lost Pine? She’d be right back where she started. An aging spinster—now complete with an unsavory history—trying to compete against shiny mail-order spells in gilt-paper boxes. She and Pap would be two hundred dollars richer, but when that money ran out, then what?
“What happened to that pioneer spirit?” Stanton chided. “You can’t just give up, can you?”
Emily said nothing.
“Well, I must say I don’t get you, Miss Edwards.” Stanton brushed crumbs from his trousers and began replacing things in the saddlebags. “You must love the man, otherwise what’s all this nonsense about love spells? And the minute you get him to love you back, all you want is for him to stop loving you? I don’t—”
“You wouldn’t understand, Mr. Stanton.” Emily interrupted him. “Don’t bother trying. There are limits even to your superior intelligence.”
“I hardly think it’s a question of limited intelligence. At least not on my part,” Stanton said, tossing the dregs of his coffee onto the ground.
By nightfall they had reached Auburn, where they stopped at a small hotel. But if there was any talk of Aberrancies, Emily didn’t hear it, for the exertions of the past two days caught up with her all at once. She went directly to bed and slept for twelve hours straight.
Stanton knocked at her door before dawn the next morning, saying he wanted to make up the time they’d lost the day before. And so they found themselves atop the last foothill of the Sierra just after sunrise, overlooking the broad fertile dish of the Sacramento Valley. The sun looming over the towering black mountains behind them cast long shadows of lustrous peach and velvet blue over a seemingly endless checkerboard of green and buff. In the clean fresh light of dawn, everything seemed to glow with supernatural clarity.
“That’s one pretty valley.” Emily stared in awe at the beauty before her. “I’ve never been this far down the hills before.”
“It is quite pretty this morning,” Stanton agreed. Then he pointed to the western horizon, where heavy black clouds massed over the hazy coast range in the far distance. “I believe we’ll have rain later, though.”
“April showers bring May flowers,” Emily said cheerfully, clucking to Romulus.
April showers indeed!
Emily huddled under her buffalo coat, but it did little good. Rivers of rain were dripping from the edge of her sodden straw hat and pouring down the back of her neck. No matter how she tried to pull the coat tight around her, there was some place that the cold rain lashed at her.
Beneath her, Romulus was just as grumpy, plodding heavily in the sticky mud, head down and ears back. Every now and again he gave a fussy shake, throwing off additional sheets of spray to further soak Emily.
It was midday—though one could hardly tell because the sun had not managed to emerge from behind the clotted black clouds since morning—and they were riding well south of Sacramento, making for Suisun City. From there, Stanton said, it was one day’s hard ride to Oakland and the ferry that would take them into San Francisco.
Emily squinted through the driving rain to look at Stanton. From somewhere in his pack he’d produced a bright red oilskin poncho that was wide enough at the hem to cover his horse’s shoulders and withers. It made him look like a geometric proof wearing a black felt bowler. Despite the fact that Emily had always hated math, she decided that the minute they got to Suisun City, the Institute was going to buy her one of those red ponchos. And a new hat, too. He’d told her the Institute would pay expenses, and by God, she was going to hold him to it!
They were riding through a glade of ghostly white birches, along a muddy freshet that twisted down toward the Sacramento River. The trail was overgrown and hard to follow, and