In the Shadows

ways to fix them. He’d been invaluable to his father last year,

before he got sick, knowing he’d take over the business and spare

Thom the agony of a trade his mind was incompatible with. Ah,

sad fates! If only Charles could find a way around this truncation

of his own future.

No matter. All machines wore out with time, and the human

body was no different. In the meantime, he’d figure out how to

spin dreamy Minnie closer to him. He was determined to have a

kiss from her before too long.

Charles lay back on the picnic blanket, crossing his hands

behind his head to stare up at the blue sky fighting through the

lacework of branches. He was quite satisfied with the elements of

this summer and how they were working together. And when he

got melancholy, the ocean was constant and endless enough to

swallow up any notions of human significance.

The only disappointment was his mystery, Arthur. Charles

had been primed for more adventure, but Arthur denied them.

Right now he slept, propped up in the concave curve of a large tree

trunk, cradled by the roots so that he looked like something out of

one of Minnie’s fairy stories.

“Does he ever do anything but nap?” Charles wondered aloud.

He had hoped Arthur would be dark and brooding like the anti-

hero of Wuthering Heights, which he was reading at Minnie’s

insistence. But other than the odd bantering joke with Minnie or

Cora, he was silent and forgettable.

Cora’s eyes clouded with worry. “I think he must be ill.”

“Or cursed!” Minnie watched Arthur, an unreadable play of

emotions flitting across her features. “We did spy on a witch, after

all. Maybe she’s stealing his life away, bit by bit, to cheat death and

sneak