Katie MacAlister: The Art of Stealing Time

“I don’t think daguerreotypes came out around until the 1840s— What was that, Gwenny?”

“The Watch. They may be confused about our identities now, but they’re not stupid. At least the blond guy isn’t. I told him I wasn’t you, and he believed me. They’re going to find you, and then they’ll put you in jail.”

“But, dear, we haven’t done anything wrong!”

“You were selling magic to a mortal! That’s so incredibly illegal!”

“But we didn’t actually sell anything to that man. Or to the lawyer. We just said we would.”

“And took the money to do so.” I made sure to mention that. It was one of the points that rankled so greatly with me.

“Well, of course we took the money. We needed it.”

“The fact remains that you were poised to engage in illegal activities, but I stopped you from actually doing so. And got killed in the process.”

“She’s going on again about being killed. I do wish she could have had more time with the counselor,” she said to Mom Two before addressing me again. “Gwen, dearest, I am your mother. I think I’d know if my only child was killed.”

I thought seriously about rolling my eyes at both the statement and the chiding note in her voice. “The point is that you were about to do something very illegal, and the Watch knew that. They sent someone to catch you in the act. The only reason they didn’t is because I went down to tell the lawyer who arranged for the sale to stop threatening you with all sorts of horrible things if you didn’t honor your contract with him. A wholly illegal contract, I’d like to point out.”

“He’s a lawyer, Gwen. I’m sure it was illegal.”

“Where are you?” I changed the subject, knowing the argument was going to go nowhere. We’d had it several times during the last few days, and it always ended up the same way: my mothers refused to admit that they’d done anything wrong. “The siren sounds louder. Can you pull over and cast a spell to escape the mortal police?”

“Of course we can cast an escape spell. Any third-year pupil of Lambfreckle can cast a basic escape spell, and your other mother and I are more than two hundred years old, so we certainly know—”

“Mom,” I interrupted. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, and much as I love you, Gwenny, I’m insulted that you think we can’t take care of ourselves and get away from mortals. Oh, dear, Alice, Mrs. Vanilla is on the floor again. Perhaps if you pulled over I could right her—”

I stood up, and without even one poignant glance at the plane that was being fueled so that it could fly me back home, collected my luggage and started the long journey back to the train station that connected to the airport. “Where are you?” I asked as I wove my way through the people who milled around the shops and the airline kiosks.

“Outside of Emylwn,” she answered, naming the small coastal town where they had lived since before I was born.

I thought for a few minutes while I continued to forge my way against the stream of people arriving for evening flights to the Continent, then said, “They are going to know you’re in that area.”

“Pah. I told you that we can escape the police.”

“No, not them. I’m not worried about the mortals. The Watch found me in Malwod-Upon-Ooze, and that’s only, what, ten miles away from Emylwn?” I shook my head. “That’s too close for comfort.”

I glanced up at the sign at the entrance to the airport, and made a swift decision while my mother was protesting that the Watch didn’t even have an inkling of what was going on.

“The mortal police don’t know that the Otherworld Watch even exists, Gwenny. There’s no reason to worry that they’ll call them. Besides, they—the mortal police, that is—have no idea who we are. Or rather, what we are.”

Evidently, Mom had put me on speakerphone, because I could hear Mom Two say, “That’s right. Mrs. Vanilla was in a mortal retirement home when we snatched her.”

“Snatched?” I said, freezing in the act of going through a door to the escalator that led down to the trains.

“Rescued,” my mother amended. “We rescued her. We didn’t kidnap her at all.”

“Then why are the police chasing you?” I hefted my massive bag and bumped my way down the escalator, apologizing to the people it smacked. One or two people looked askance at me as I descended, but I sent up a silent blessing for stoic Brits who wouldn’t be caught dead blatantly listening to someone’s phone conversation.

“There was a little issue with the rescue,” Mom Two admitted in her usual brusque voice. “We had to change one or two attendants into frogs.”

“MOMS!”

“Just temporarily,” my mother hurriedly added. “Just for the time it took to rescue Mrs. Vanilla from her captors.”

I shoved some coins into a machine and accepted the ticket it spat out at me, hauling my luggage down another level to the train I wanted. “Do you have any idea of how bad this is? Not only have you kidnapped a mortal woman—yes, I said ‘kidnapped’!” I ignored the sputtered protests from both mothers. “Not only did you do something as completely heinous as to take an old lady from her caregivers, but you also magicked up mortals. You know how dangerous that is! What were you thinking? That no one would notice that people had suddenly been turned into frogs?”

“No one did notice that,” Mom Two said in a disapproving tone. “Your mother told you it was a temporary spell. Only lasted two or three minutes.”

“Then why”—I parked my luggage at a grimy bench and took a deep, acidic-scented breath—“why are the police chasing you? Why didn’t you just go home?”

“We might have forgotten that mortals have those spy cameras everywhere,” my mother admitted.

“Big Brother!” Mom Two added righteously. “He’s everywhere, watching us all!”

I rubbed my hand over my face, wondering how on earth I was going to pull my mothers out of the hole into which they’d managed to dig themselves. It was possible, just barely possible, that they could magic their way out of trouble with the mortal police, if the thing was planned properly. But once the Watch got wind of it . . . I groaned aloud. “We are so doomed. They’re already in the area. The blond guy is looking for you. They’ll hear that you stole a mortal and used magic in front of other mortals, and that’ll be all she wrote.”

“Who wrote what?” Mom asked with benign interest.

“We have to meet up,” I said quickly, glancing down the platform and noting at least three security cameras. Even now I was being filmed. I had to get somewhere out of sight of those cameras, had to get my mothers tucked away someplace where we could talk. I needed all the details of their latest shenanigans before I could put things right. But where could we meet? Where could we find the anonymity we needed?

A dirt-encrusted woman shuffled past me to the nearest trash can, digging through it and muttering to herself under her breath. Her coat was matted and filthy, having long ago given up any pretense at color. She extracted several pieces of trash and shoved them deep into a plastic carrier bag clutched in one of her grubby hands. A piece of paper fluttered out of her bag as she moved off.

I stared at the leaflet advertising a tourist event, then sat up straighter. “Mom, go to Bute.”

“Go where, dear?”

“Bute Park.”

“But it’s nighttime. One should never go to the park at night. I’ve warned you about the bad people who can be found there after dark.”

“They’re doing illuminations of the castle this week. All week, while they celebrate the history of Cardiff. There will be fireworks, and music, and hordes of people. It’s the perfect place to hide in plain sight. I’ll meet you at the Animal Wall in”—I glanced at my watch and did some quick mental calculations—“forty minutes. OK?”