Page 29 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

ELEVEN

While Bill pumped out water from the basement, I made coffee. The kitchen was a mess of mud and pots and pans half-full of rainwater, but the minute Bill told me that there was hot water, and that he was leaving in a few minutes to go to the hardware store, I abandoned the mess and hightailed it upstairs. I took a long hot bath with plenty of scented bath salts to get the cat pee smell out of my hair. The hot water was less effective in rinsing away the memory of the dream of making love to Liam in Faerie. I’d freed him from the Borderlands—shouldn’t those dreams be over? Would they ever be over?

I would have stayed in the bath longer, but I was disturbed by someone knocking on the door. Was it Handyman Bill back from the hardware store? Should I give him a key? But I didn’t even know him. Maybe I should have asked for references, I thought as I toweled off and dressed. Would that seem weird after he’d been nice enough to get my hot water working so quickly? I walked downstairs pondering the etiquette of handyman employment, something I’d never had to worry about when Brock was around, and opened the door toan empty porch. Maybe my visitor had given up. Then I heard voices coming from the edge of the porch. I looked over the railing and saw Liz and Diana crouched in the honeysuckle bushes at the foot of the porch steps. Liz looked up guiltily, a ceramic gnome in her hand.

“Ah, there you are! We got worried when you didn’t answer the door and went looking for your key. Only it doesn’t seem to be under your gnome.”

The ceramic gnome had come with the house. Practically all the houses in Fairwick had one of the twee figurines in their front garden. I’d considered removing the little apple-cheeked man in blue pants, green suspenders, and red cap, but each time I had, he’d seem to glare at me and I’d thought better of it. I had moved my key a few months ago, though, because it seemed like too obvious a hiding place.

“It’s here,” I said, nudging a flowerpot full of geraniums with my toe.

Liz and Diana exchanged a puzzled look. “Why would you put itthere?It belongs with your gnome,” Diana said, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. “Everyone hides their key under their gnome.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose ofhidingthe key if everyone knows where it is?” I asked, feeling as if I were trapped in anAlice in Wonderlandtea party.

“On the contrary,” Liz replied. “These gnomes are threshold guardians. Your gnome protects your key from those wishing you harm, but lets in friends who wish you well. We wanted to make sure that you were all right after what happened at the circle. A power surge like the one you experienced can have unexpected repercussions. Did you sleep all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, blushing as I remembered the erotic dream I’d had last night. “I’m just a little groggy.”

“That’s to be expected,” Diana said briskly as she came up onto the porch, extracted my spare key from beneath the flowerpot, and handed it to Liz to put under the gnome. I thought I detected a faint glow emanating from the ceramic figure when she righted him over the key.

“There,” Liz said. “You ought to name him, though, to seal the threshold spell.”

“I’d feel…”like an idiot, I almost said, but looking into Diana’s wide doelike eyes, I amended it to “unsure of what sort of name to give him.”

“Oh, any old name is fine. Does he remind you of anyone?”

I looked down at the little bearded, red-capped man. “Well, he does look a little like my high school orchestra leader, Mr. Rukowski.” As I said the name, the glow around the gnome grew.

“He likes it. Mr. Rukowski it is. May we go inside, Mr. Rukowski?”

For a moment I worried that the ceramic figure might talk—in which case I would have to get rid of him. Ancient threshold guardian or not, a talking ceramic garden gnome was just plain creepy. But no speech issued forth from Mr. Rukowski’s mouth, only a warm glow that spread up the porch steps and into my front door, like a welcome mat that had been spread out for my guests.

“Come on in,” I said. “Apparently you’re welcome.”

I tried to seat Liz and Diana in the parlor while I went to put on water for tea, but they followed me into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Liz folded her hands on top of the table and pressed her lips together. Diana rearranged the sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers, and a mason jar full of wilting wildflowers.

“What is it?” I asked, finally picking up on the women’s tension. “Is something wrong? Has the circle banished me? Is Ann okay? Has her hand gotten worse?”

“Ann’s fine,” Liz assured me. “And the circle…Well, there was some disagreement at first.” She pressed her lips together and I guessed that Moondance had probably given her a hard time about bringing me into the circle. “But we found a private tutor who we think will be perfect for you. One of our circle can personally vouch for him and I spent the nightcallinghis references.” Liz placed unusual stress on the wordcalling. It took me another minute in my groggy state to realize why. Last year when Liz had hired Liam Doyle to take over a creative writing class she had relied on his internet profile and emailed references—all of which had been fabricated by my crafty incubus. Liz was trying to assure me that she wasn’t making the same mistake.

“Thank you for being so thorough,” I said, turning to pour boiling water in the teapot—and also to hide the blood that had risen to my face. I knew I should be grateful to Liz, but instead I felt a sudden wash of grief at the thought that even if Liz wasn’t this careful—and no matter what dreams I had of him—I’d never see Liam in the flesh again.

“His name is Duncan Laird,” Diana blurted. “He has a DMA from Oxford!”

“A DMA?”

“A Doctorate of Magical Arts,” Liz explained. “He’s a wizard of the Ninth Order. We’re lucky to get him. He happened to be visiting friends in Rhinebeck. He’ll be here early this evening, around five.”

“Today?” I asked, appalled. “I’ve got a flooded basement and a leaking roof. Everything’s a mess…” I looked around the kitchen and noticed for the first time that it wasnotamess. The pots and pans I’d used to catch drips had been rinsed, dried, and stacked, and put away in the pantry. The mud on the floor had been mopped up. Even the coffee cup I’d given to Bill earlier was rinsed and drying in the draining rack beside the sink. There was a note from Bill under it that read:I’ve gotten a tarp over the roof to stop the leaks for now and went for roofing supplies.

Wow, a man who cleaned up after himselfandleft notes. What better reference did I need for him?

“The house looks spick-and-span,” Diane said. “Better than mine, in fact, which reminds me, I should be getting Dr. Laird’s room ready and baking some scones for tea. A British wizard will expect a real high tea.”

“He’ll also expect that you know the basics of magical history,” Liz said to me, unloading a stack of books onto my kitchen table. “I’ve brought you Wheelock’sSpellcraftand LaFleur’sHistory of Magic, volumes one through five. Try to skim through them today, would you? We don’t want him to think we American witches have no standards.”

“But he knows I’m a beginner, right?” I asked as I followed Liz and Diana to the front door.

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