Apparently no one had told Rusty to expect a larger than usual turnout because there were fewer than two dozen folding chairs set up facing the mobile podium. By the time we arrived, they were all taken. I spied a few empty spots in the bleachers, but I knew my aunt would have trouble reaching them. I had visions of her stepping on the hem of her silk muumuu and either pitching forward onto her face or tumbling backward to the floor, taking others with her like a human avalanche. The safer option was to remain standing in the empty area behind the chairs with everyone else who found themselves seatless. There were plenty of disgruntled comments about the situation, but I didn’t see one person leave.
This was my first town board meeting. According to Tilly, neither she nor my late mother nor my grandmother had ever attended one. But she knew that the town’s charter, which had originally called for monthly meetings, had been changed to quarterly meetings decades before I was born, once it became clear that there was nothing the board needed to address that couldn’t wait a few months—until now. Our mayor, Lester Tompkins, had called this meeting as a special session.
At precisely seven o’clock, three of the five board members, including the mayor, trooped into the gym from the adjoining supply room and stepped onto the podium. They took their seats behind a cafeteria table, grandly draped with the town’s insignia, a camel on a verdant field.
“A camel,” Merlin muttered when he noticed it. “And yet I am not permitted to tell these people the true name of their town. I should think they would welcome the knowledge.”
“Some people don’t deal well with change,” I explained for the twentieth time. “We have to wait for the right moment.” I didn’t harbor much hope it would happen anytime soon.
“I disagree. This is the perfect time, given that the whole town is here.”
“Everyone is too divided over the hotel. I can’t imagine a worse time to throw another change at them.”
He glowered at me but stopped arguing.
“I’m surprised the board members aren’t down here, glad-handing the crowd, banking votes for the next election,” Tilly whispered loudly enough for people within twenty feet of us to hear. As if on cue, Beverly Ruppert, the newest member of the board, swept into the gym with the aplomb of a Broadway star making her grand entrance. She was dressed for the part in a sleeveless beige sheath that was strained across her hips and stiletto heels that caused her to walk like a novice on stilts. Tilly rolled her eyes at me as Beverly threaded her way through the crowd, stopping to greet everyone with a handshake or an air kiss. It looked like she would miss us on her current trajectory to the podium, but at the last moment she spied us and changed direction. Tilly groaned.
“Well, look who’s here.” Beverly flashed her broadest political smile for us. “We finally got you two to attend a meeting.”
Since she’d been on the town board for all of four months, I was tempted to ask how many meetings she’d attended before discovering her political calling. But I held my tongue. We needed Beverly on our side, at least until the Waverly proposal was decided. She was against it as much as Tilly and I were.
“Hi, Bev,” I said.
Tilly gave her a nod of acknowledgment.
Beverly homed in on her. “I guess there’s no point in asking you which way the vote will go tonight, is there, Tilly, dear?” she said with syrupy condescension. “Everyone knows your track record has been abysmal lately.”
I felt Tilly’s anger flare and wished that telepathy was one of my stronger suits. Then I could have talked her down and urged her not to take the bait.
“My aunt is too ethical to try to influence the outcome with a prediction,” I said before my ethical aunt could come up with a more caustic response. As I spoke those words, I realized it wasn’t Tilly’s reaction I should have been worried about. Merlin was glaring at Beverly, mumbling something unintelligible, his lips grim and all but hidden in the bird’s nest of his beard. He was too far away for me to stop him with a discreet jab to the ribs, and Tilly, who stood between us, seemed content to allow him free rein for the moment.
“Don’t they need you up there so they can start the meeting?” I asked Beverly in a last-ditch effort to get her away from Merlin. She’d still be within reach of his powers on the other side of the gym, but if I could break his concentration on her, it might buy me the few seconds I needed to talk some sense into him.
Beverly gave me a dismissive wave of her hand. “Amanda’s not here yet any—”
Her voice cracked and was gone. When she opened her mouth, no sound emerged—not a croak, not a rasp, not a whine. Her hand flew to her throat, and her eyes widened with dismay and bewilderment. The harder she tried to speak, the more frustrated she became. She was opening and closing her mouth like the goldfish I’d had as a child. I turned to Merlin. He was wearing a beatific smile, as if all was right with the world. Tilly didn’t seem troubled by Beverly’s predicament either or by the fact that the wizard had gone rogue right under our noses. Of course, as apt punishments go, I had to admit that Merlin nailed it.
Panic was rising in Beverly’s eyes, the corded muscles in her neck standing out with the prolonged strain of trying to make her vocal cords work.
I had to do something before she had a stroke or a heart attack. I slipped behind Tilly, grabbed Merlin’s arm and squeezed. “Stop it!” I yelled into his ear to be sure he heard me. I threw in the worst threat I could imagine. “Or no pizza for a month.”
In a matter of seconds, a blood-curdling scream rocked the gym. It ricocheted off the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the wooden bleachers. Conversations stopped dead. All eyes turned to Beverly. Merlin had released her from the spell once he understood his pizza would be forfeit, but he’d timed it to coincide with her effort to force sound through her vocal cords. Even she seemed stunned by the horrific noise she produced. Her cheeks turned crimson.
“Sorry, sorry—everything’s okay,” she called out, scowling at the three of us as if she suspected we were to blame for the fiasco. Muttering that she needed fresh air, she turned on her wobbly heels and stalked out of the gym with far less composure than when she had arrived. I locked eyes with Merlin. If steam had been shooting out of my ears it wouldn’t have surprised me.
“Yes, I know,” he said, preempting me in the sullen, world-weary tone of a teenager. “We need to talk—again.”
“Well, we do,” I said, my thunder stolen. We’d been letting him watch way too much TV. More important, although we made it clear that he must not go about randomly casting spells, he’d done just that. He was an old man with the abilities of a master sorcerer and the attitude of a teenage rebel. Disaster was always on the agenda.
Tilly pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her forehead and upper lip. “It’s sweltering in here. I’m going outside to cool off.” When she caught the hitch of my eyebrow, she added, “Don’t worry, I’m not chasing after Beverly to give her my two cents, even if she deserves it and more. I’ll go out the back way. I won’t be long.”
I watched her shuffle through the crowd and disappear through the emergency doors. She couldn’t have been gone more than a minute or two when another scream pierced the air. I knew that scream. It was Tilly’s. But it sounded like part of a duet, or how I imagined a duet of screams would sound. Grabbing Merlin’s hand, I ran for the rear doors. Having been closer to the gym’s entrance, we were among the last to make it outside. By then, sirens were blaring in the distance
Once we made it outside, all I could see were people’s backs. I elbowed my way through the crowd, pulling Merlin along