Death Casts a Spell, Chapter 14

I stopped in my tracks. Everything in me wanted to run right into center of the playground and stand up for Koko. But if I did that, I’d embarrass her—and cut short any chance she had of resolving this situation to her advantage. There was a large elm planted in the corner of the schoolyard. Its leaves were withered and brown, but they still provided enough shade to conceal me. I crept close and listened to the girls.

“Just admit you copied my picture,” the Shebas’ ringleader said.

Koko shook her head fiercely. “I didn’t. And I’m not going to lie.”

Read from the beginning:

Death Casts a Spell

I looked for Eleanor and found her, on the very edge of the semi-circle. She looked uncertainly from the ringleader, to Koko, and back again. She looked like she was very unhappy with how things were playing out—but I didn’t see her doing anything to stop it.

The ringleader narrowed her eyes at Koko. “You did,” she said. “Everyone knows it!”

Rage lit my face on fire. The accusation was not only unkind, it was ridiculous. Koko was well known for being the best artist in her class; she had no need to copy the work of anyone else. I knew I needed to let her handle this—but it wasn’t at all clear to me that she could. Her hands were clenched into fists, and her back was pressed all the way up against the schoolyard’s iron fence.

Eleanor cast an uncertain glance over her group of friends. “Look, Koko,” she said gently. “Just say sorry to Maggie, and we can let it drop.”

Koko’s whole body went rigid. Slowly, she turned her head toward Eleanor. I couldn’t see her face, but I could imagine the expression of betrayal that must have been stamped on it. Koko had tried to help Eleanor—she had brought her into her life—and this was the thanks she’d got.

I watched as Koko turned away from Eleanor, and focused her eyes on Maggie, the girl who seemed to have started this fight. She drew herself up to her full height, which was still shorter than any of the girls surrounding her. “I wouldn’t copy your picture,” she said, “if I was paid a million dollars. I know how to draw.” She raised her voice so that she could be heard throughout the schoolyard. “You just scribble.”

Koko pushed through the crowd of girls and sprinted for the schoolyard gate. I came out from behind the tree, so she could see me. Her face had been set in a hard line, but it softened as she met my eyes. She kept her dignity, though. She wasn’t about to ruin her exit by running. Instead, she kept a sedate pace as she came to meet me.

“You did great,” I told her.

She permitted herself a small, contented smile. “I know.”

I still needed to talk to Eleanor, but the argument had made it harder for me to do that without attracting attention. I considered my options. I could ask Koko to run back into the schoolyard and get Eleanor—but I didn’t want to expose her to any more ridicule. I could wave Eleanor over—but then her friends would notice me, too. I didn’t want word getting back to Mrs. Jacoby about our meeting.

Finally I decided to intercept Eleanor on her walk home. Koko and I walked down the street in the direction I knew she would go, and rounded the corner. Then we dawdled on the sidewalk, Koko dancing in the thin shadows cast by the trees’ withering leaves.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” I asked. Koko stopped dancing.

“For art we all drew pictures of a bowl of fruit. Sister Victorine held my picture up in front of the whole class, and said it was the best. It made Maggie mad. She’s good at art, but she’s not as good as me.” She sighed. “And then after school, she said the only reason my picture got attention was that I copied hers.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how she could expect anyone to believe that,”

“Well, they were all pictures of the same bowl of fruit, so they looked pretty much the same. It’s just little things that make the difference.” Koko shrugged. “She wanted me to admit I copied. But if I did that, everyone would be calling me a copycat forever.”

I felt a surge of pride that she had stood her ground, in spite of enormous social pressure. I knelt down to give her a hug, and that was when Eleanor rounded the corner. She saw us, and stopped. She must have known that Koko wasn’t happy with her—and to be honest, neither was I. She hesitated, then finally straightened her shoulders and walked up to us.

“Have you found my sister?” she asked shyly.

I sighed. I would have preferred if she had begun by making peace with Koko. But she hadn’t, and it didn’t change what I was here to do.

“We have, and she’s safe.” I felt a little uncomfortable with this last part, which was not really in line with a full accounting of the facts. “She isn’t coming home, though. At least not yet.”

Eleanor’s eyes widened with delight, then narrowed in suspicion. “Well, where is she? Are you sure she’s all right? Can she at least come talk to me?”

I fumbled in my purse and found the reassuring note Jeannette had written for Eleanor. “Not at this time,” I said. “But she wrote you a note.”

Eleanor read the note. “Meet me at the back of the Majestic?” she said. “What’s this about?”

I stifled a groan. After our adventure the night before, I’d wound up with both notes in my purse. And now I’d gone and handed Eleanor the wrong one. “Wrong paper,” I said. I fished out the first note and handed it over. “See? This one was meant for you.”

I held out my hand for the other note, but Eleanor didn’t relinquish it. “But this is Jeannette’s handwriting,” she said. “It’s from her. Who was it meant for? You?”

I nodded. “We met your sister at that address last evening so we could—” I searched for words that would describe our encounter without being either alarming, or intriguing. “So we could be sure she was okay.” I smiled reassuringly. “There’s nothing to be worried about.”

Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “So why won’t you tell me why she’s gone?”

A very fine question. I stood there reaching for words that would explain the strange situation in which we’d found Jeannette, without alarming her sister. While I was still searching, Koko said, “I thought you’d take my side.”

Eleanor looked pained. “I tried to help,” she said.

Koko glared at her. “Some help.”

Eleanor frowned. She had begun this conversation feeling a little ashamed of herself, but she wasn’t used to getting this much opposition from a classmate. She returned Koko’s glare. “I can’t make Maggie do anything, Koko. Anyway, maybe you did copy, I don’t know.”

This was too much for Koko, who swung her leg back and kicked Eleanor right in the shin.

I gasped. Eleanor wailed. Koko ducked behind me.

“Koko—what?—why?” I knelt down and took her by the arm. Looked into her angry little face. For the first time in many months, I felt utterly mystified by her—and completely out of my depth. I cleared my throat and tried on a tone of voice that was entirely new to me. “Apologize to Eleanor right now, Koko,” I told her.

“Why?” Koko glared over my shoulder at Eleanor. “I’m not sorry.”

“Well, neither am I!”

I tried again. “You’re not going to kick people, and you’re not going to behave like a ruffian. Apologize.”

“But, Kitty, it isn’t fair!” Koko looked up at me in wounded appeal. “You see how she always winds up with everyone on her side. Just because she’s so rich and so—so—” She gestured in Eleanor’s general direction.

“You’re the one who’s not fair!” said Eleanor. “You’ve turned your cousin against me. She knows where my sister is and she won’t tell me!”

The spark of tears in Eleanor’s eyes alarmed me. “That’s not exactly—”

“You little bully,” Eleanor said, wiping her tears away furiously. “You think you can push me around just because you’ve got everything and I’ve got no one. If I could just get Jeannette back, we’d show you.”

I looked from one of them to the other. For the first time I thought I understood what had seemed like a petty and pointless feud between them.

They were jealous of each other.

Koko’s jealousy was easy to understand. Eleanor had everything Koko lacked—friends, acceptance, an assured place in the intensely political arena of the schoolyard. And it wasn’t because of the difference in their fortunes—until recently, Koko had been wealthy too, if perhaps not quite so lavishly. No, it was because of the difference in their looks. Eleanor’s pretty golden locks were no lovelier than Koko’s black ones, but they smoothed the way to an uncomplicated passage through society. Something Koko had never, and would never, have.

But it wasn’t just about status. Eleanor also had the thing Koko most sorely lacked—two healthy parents. I thought of the family portrait I’d seen hanging at the Jacoby mansion. Father, mother, girls, all smiling benignly. How perfect, how idyllic it had seemed.

And how deceitful it had been. Behind that sparkling façade was no family at all. Eleanor’s mother had brushed off her concern about her sister’s disappearance, despite having every reason to take it seriously. To find someone who would listen to her worries, Eleanor had been forced to come to a gumshoe who worked out of a second-rate office in a third-rate neighborhood. When I thought about Eleanor’s situation that way, it was shocking—and sad.

And why had Mr. Gallo and I accepted her case? Not because we found it compelling, and not because there was any money in it. No. We had accepted it on the strength of Koko’s recommendation. We had believed in her. We had loved her enough to take her word.

Of course Eleanor was jealous. Who could blame her? Koko might not have much family, in the traditional sense. But she had what Eleanor most desperately needed—people who would always stand behind her.

What could I say to make them understand how much they had in common? “I’ve got news for you girls,” I tried. “No one has everything.” I locked eyes with each of them in turn, hoping to make the significance of my words penetrate their anger. “You can go on being angry at one another for having something you lack—or you can try to have some compassion. Try to realize that the other girl has problems, too.”

Eleanor gave an exaggerated huff and crossed her arms, and Koko’s eyes rolled back to an alarming degree.

I tried again. “Eleanor, you’re right. Koko has a family. But she’s also lost a lot.”

Eleanor’s eyes faltered, then fell away from mine. She knew—surely everyone at school knew—that Koko’s parents were dead, her mother having died shortly after Koko’s birth, and her father just last fall. Confronted with the reality of Koko’s tragedy, she didn’t know what to say.

I looked at my cousin. “And Koko, you’re right, too,” I said. “Eleanor has friends, money, and all the rest. But she doesn’t have her sister. She needs our help.” Koko, too, found it hard to meet my gaze. She scuffed her toe against the pavement and looked away.

Silence fell between us for several moments, and I forced myself not to fill it. Finally, Koko spoke up. “I’m sorry I kicked you,” she said. Her voice was soft enough that the words were barely distinguishable.

But they were enough. “I’m sorry, too,” Eleanor said. “I knew Maggie was wrong.”

The girls’ eyes met for a brief moment, then fled from each other again. I couldn’t help but shake my head. They were so alike, the two of them, more alike than they realized. Their uniforms and their matching shamefaced expressions made their similarity more plain—but what really linked them was under the skin.

Only one of them, however, was my responsibility. “Eleanor, I’m taking Koko home now,” I said. “If I learn anything more I can share with you, I will.” I took Koko’s hand and we walked toward the next trolley stand. As we walked, I gave her hand a small squeeze for reassurance and I felt her squeeze back.

I loved that squeeze. I loved so much about Koko’s physical presence—her small, smooth hand in mine. The deft little fingers scribbling away in her sketchbook. The fall of her dark hair over her forehead when I caught her reading with a flashlight after bedtime.

But her physical presence was not really the thing that I loved. That was her inner self—her quick, serious mind; her earnest heart; the essential spirit that I could feel when her fingers squeezed mine.

In her short life, Koko had lost so much. Her father’s death last year had been devastating for her, and though I sometimes saw her cry over this loss, I suspected that she’d only ever let me see the very edges of her sorrow.

We boarded the trolley and settled into a pair of seats. Koko leaned her heavy little head against my shoulder. There was only one person who could make up for what she’d lost, and that was me. I would have to stand in between her and anything the world could throw at her. A burden? No, a joy. A noble mission. I leaned my cheek against her sleek black hair and closed my eyes.

But I couldn’t relax. There was something worrying at me, pricking at the edge of my consciousness. Was it something I had seen in Vetrovsky’s parlor? Something I’d learned from the twins? I scratched for it, and it slipped away.