Magic Can Be Murder by Vivian Vande Velde Page B

Brinna.
    But then, of course, Brinna would explain that she was the real Brinna, no matter how she looked.
    Except, again of course, chat the story would sound mad—at least at first.
    How could Nola ensure that everyone would immediately and steadfastly take Brinna's claims as a sign of lunacy, so that they wouldn't listen to her long enough to realize she made sense and knew things only the real Brinna would know?
    Unless...
    With a pang of guilt for being a treacherous friend and a faithless daughter, Nola whispered the words to make Brinna cease to look like herself. And she concentrated, very hard, on picturing her mother's form.
    The kitchen door flew open and Brinna strode in, her face bearing the features of Nola's mother, her hair gray and wild and off in all directions, her hands blue-veined and spotted, her shoulders slightly stooped. As soon as Brinna saw Nola—as soon as she saw someone in her own home, wearing her own face—she stopped as though she'd found her feet suddenly rooted to the ground.
    For Galvin's benefit, Nola tried to sound a balance between friendly and cautious. "Hello, Mary. What are you doing back here?"
    "Who are you?" Brinna demanded. Her voice, bounded by the restraints of Nola's mother's appearance, came out thin and creaky. Of course she heard the difference. Her hands flew up to her mouth, but that made matters worse, for she could see her old woman's hands. She gasped. "Who are you?" she repeated, sounding truly frightened now. "What's happening?"
    Nola was aware that Galvin had stopped trying to make his breeches presentable and that he was watching Brinna as she alternately touched her face and stared at her hands. He was ready, she guessed, to move quickly if this visitor gave any indication of being dangerous.
    Miserably, hating what she was doing to someone who had shown her only kindness, Nola forced herself to say in a quizzical tone, "Mary?"
    "I'm not Mary," Brinna said, her voice cracking so that it sounded querulous. "I'm Brinna. Who arc you, and what have you done to me?"
    Galvin asked Nola, "You know this woman?"
    She was going to be the death of herself, Nola was sure of it. But somehow she managed to get her voice working. "She and her daughter came here the other day, seeking employment. It didn't work out." The last thing Nola wanted co do was bring up the business about foretelling Innis's death. "She's a very sweet woman but..." Nola touched her head. It was a gesture she often had seen people do in her mother's presence. But when she saw Brinna's horrified expression, she had to soften it, to pretend that she had just been adjusting her hair. But Brinna and Galvin both knew what she was doing.
    "No!" Brinna cried. "Lord Galvin, we met and spoke this morning before I left for market."
    Nola couldn't afford to give Brinna time to make an appeal to reason. So she asked Brinna, "Where's your daughter? Where's Nola? She should know better than to let you wander about on your own." And she spared a thought for wondering what reckless situation her true mother might have wandered into.
    "I'm not Mary," Brinna cried, frustration putting a hint of hysteria into her voice that didn't hurt Nola's cause. "I'm Brinna. And you, even though you look like me, are not."
    Galvin moved to put himself between Nola and Brinna. "Madam," he said gently, "why don't you sit down and we can try to sort this matter out—"
    Brinna smacked the hand with which he tried to take her by the elbow. "Don't call me
madam,
" she said, "and don't cake that let's-talk-calmly-to-the-crazy-woman-and-maybe-she'll-leave-us-alone tone with me."
    Actually, Nola thought he'd done a good job of not sounding condescending, such a good job that she felt a prickle of panic.
Not now,
she warned herself. Panic would eat away at her concentration, and if her concentration slipped, so would the spells that held herself and Brinna to these false appearances. So knowing what a cruel thing she was doing, she said firmly,