Episode 15: What's in Its Pocketses | Scryer's Gulch

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Between the pricking of her detector bracelet and John Runnels' cutting words, Annabelle had a time of it keeping her concentration on teaching. No one else in town seemed to have any inkling she was anything other than she seemed. Why did the Sheriff suspect her of something--and had he guessed her real mission, or did he suspect something else? And what? She couldn't help but wonder if he were in on the scheme himself. She was almost certain he had no encoding knowledge, but perhaps he was protecting the real culprit.

When she brought Jamie up to her desk from his seat in the second row to go over his spelling words, the pricking of her bracelet turned unbearable as she leaned over his slate. She had to find whatever set off the detector, if only to save her wrist. So far today he'd behaved himself; normally she'd be glad of it, but today she needed a pretext to search him.

His attitude had improved, she thought as he shuffled back to his bench. He didn't scowl at her as much, and he did his work without too much complaint. The empty space beside him where Georgie Prake usually sat seemed to bother him, but he said nothing. He was a bright boy, and she liked him; she only hoped that however this all shook out, the Runnels family wasn't involved.

All was quiet until after lunch, when she got the chance she'd been waiting for. Fanny Lockson was dutifully reciting her piece before the class--"The friendly cow all red and white, I love with all my heart"--when Annabelle looked up to see Jamie carving something into the bench. Perfect, she thought.

"James Runnels," she said in her sternest voice. "You will see me after class." Jamie jumped, eyes wide and scared, and snuck his penknife back into his pocket.

The rest of the children filed out not long after, and Jamie faced Annabelle across her desk, sullen and scuffling his feet. "Do you know why I kept you after?" she said.

"I dunno," he scowled.

"So you didn't know you were carving something into your seat."

"Oh," squirmed Jamie. "That. Yes'm."

Annabelle rose and walked to the bench. She squinted at the faint scratch: "'Georgie plus Lily'--is that what you were attempting, Mr Runnels?"

He met her gaze. "Please don't tell my Pa, Miss Duniway!"

"We'll see," she said, returning to her desk. "Empty out your pockets." After a moment's reluctance, Jamie fished out a top, a penny, a length of string, two marbles, a rusty nail and a piece of penny candy covered in pocket lint. Annabelle shook her head. "All of it, Jamie."

"There ain't no more!" he said.

"'Isn't,' Jamie. We'll see," she said again. She came round the desk faster than Jamie could escape, and turned his pockets out as he twisted in her grasp. She let him go, and scooped up the penknife. A faint gleam caught her eye, and she put her foot atop it as if she hadn't noticed it; the bracelet burned, and she stifled a cry. Jamie bent down, searching the floor in a panic, until Annabelle's voice caught him up. "I'll keep this knife for now, Mr Runnels. If you behave yourself for a week, I'll give it back, with no word to your father. I think that's more than fair."

"Yes'm," said the miserable Jamie.

"Very well, then, go on home."

Jamie fled.

Annabelle waited until she was certain she was alone, and lifted her foot. The pain at her wrist abated, and she slid the bracelet into her pocket; the skin underneath looked sunburned, an angry red. She picked up the object on the floor. As she'd expected, it was a nugget of hermetauxite. She set her mouth in a satisfied line, and put it in her other pocket, unsure what the bracelet would do if the two came in contact.

She returned to her rooms, excited to tell Misi about her discovery, but the black cat was nowhere to be found. No time to waste calling him. She pulled her code book out of the bottom of her carpet bag, and set to work on an ethergraph to Chief Howman. As she wrote out the unencoded version of the letter, she cast back her thoughts to Daniel, her tall, angelically blond boss. She wondered if he knew how she felt about him; she had intimations of his high regard for her, but he was quite married. His mousy little wife didn't deserve such a heroic, brave, handsome, intelligent man, but even so, Annabelle knew to be almost in love with him was wrong. She yawned. Why was she so sleepy? She rested her head on her hands, elbows on the desk, and closed her eyes.

Annabelle opened them to a scratching at the bedroom window. How had she ended up sitting on the bed? She held the codebook in one hand, and a letter in the other. Someone had lit the lanterns against the night, and the coal fire burned in the little sitting room stove. She must have fallen asleep, but apart from where she sat, the bed was undisturbed. A chill struck her.

The scratching became more insistent. Annabelle opened the window and Misi came bounding in. "For crying out loud, Annie, I've been out there for nearly an hour!" complained the cat. "I almost wore grooves in the glass! What's the matter with you? You just sat there staring at whatever-it-is in your hand with your back to me! What'd I do now?" Annabelle said nothing, but crossed to the sitting room with the codebook and the letter. "Annie? What is it?" said Misi, trailing behind.

"I don't know, kitty," she answered in a low, distracted voice. "Something's wrong." She sat down again at the desk with the codebook, translating the mundane message in her hand.

"You wrote a letter?" said Misi.

"To Daniel Howman," she muttered, flipping pages.

"Why not send an ethergram?"

"Too much to say."

Annabelle didn't remember writing the letter, its inanities and inquiries after non-existent relatives making up a cipher she couldn't read without the corresponding book. She finished decoding the first few paragraphs, and gasped, her face the color of the paper. She stood up, knocking the chair over. Misi jumped onto the desk in alarm. "Are you all right? What is it?" he cried.

"It's...a love letter," she said, tears slipping down her face. "Agitation of the Lady, it's a love letter to Daniel Howman!"

"Daniel Howman?" blinked Misi. "Your boss? You're in love with your boss?"

"No! ...maybe," she amended, wiping her eyes. "Misi, he's married. There's nothing between us. Except..."

"Except there's something between you. Demons have eyes, y'know."

"Oh, kitty!" she sobbed.

Misi tried to comfort her with an ineffective paw. "Annie, please let me change, please?" She nodded; he jumped from the desk, landing in his more human form, and gathered her into his still-furry arms. "Oh, sweetie, there now, there now! It's all right, it didn't get sent." He shushed and crooned and rocked her in his arms, until she quieted, exhausted.

"I don't understand what happened, kitty," she sighed, cuddled next to him on the hearth rug. "One moment, I was writing out my report on Jamie Runnels, and the next, I was sitting on the bed--"

"What about Jamie?"

"I found this on him," she said, digging into her pocket. She pulled out the nugget of hermetauxite, and handed it to him.

"Augh! Pollution!" He let it drop to the floor, shaking his hand as if burnt; the nugget rolled to a stop before the fire, malevolent and shiny. "So--it's the Runnelses, then," he said, wiping his hand on his fur.

"I don't know about that, but it's our first solid clue."

"Annie," the demon murmured, "did you have that thing in your pocket when you blacked out?"

Annabelle raised her head from his shoulder. "It was in my pocket when I left the schoolhouse. I didn't take it out until...until just now." They watched the fire flicker over the nugget's uneven surface. "By the Quiet, Misi! Do you suppose that thing made me...?" She frowned. "I was thinking about Daniel. I don't know that I love him, Misi, but there's something there and I just thought how much I wished I could tell him, how much I wished I knew how he felt about me, and then I woke up with this." She waved the paper. "That nugget's been in Jamie's pocket this whole time. He didn't want to go to school."

"That'd explain the schoolhouse vandalism, wouldn't it?"

"It surely would." She patted her eyes dry. "That nugget isn't refined. Imagine what it could do in the hands of a first-rate spellcaster--he could make anyone do anything he wanted. We have to stop whoever's doing this. But first, let's burn these papers." She gathered up the cipher and its translation and stuffed them into the little stove, then put her head back on Misi's shoulder and watched the papers turn into cinders.

Had she seen the original letter wadded beneath the bed, she would have burned that, too.

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