Proven Guilty

Chapter Forty-two

I talked Molly into staying at the church with her family until everyone had gotten some rest and we could talk things out with her mother. Any sane man would have hopped a bus for Las Vegas or somewhere rather than wait around and tell Charity Carpenter he wanted to haul her first baby in front of a gang of powerful wizards for trial and possible execution.

I found an unused cot and flopped onto it. My shins hung off the end of the undersized thing, and I didn’t care a bit. Nails clicked in unsteady rhythm on tile, and I felt Mouse’s warm, silent presence limp carefully to the floor beside my cot. I reached out, ruffled his ears, and laid my hand on the thick ruff of far across his shoulders. I was asleep before he settled himself down to sleep beside me.

I woke up later, in the same position I’d fallen asleep. I had a crick in my neck, and one hand dangled over the side of the bed. It had lost enough circulation to feel numb and floppy, and I had to squint over the side of the cot to see that it was still resting on Mouse’s furry back. The room was unlit, but the door to the hallway was open, and afternoon-flavored sunlight lit the hall.

I wanted to go back to sleep, but I hauled myself to my feet and stumbled down the hall to the bathroom, Mouse limping along beside me without complaint. I availed myself of indoor plumbing, and found myself wishing that they had a shower. I made do with a birdbath in the sink, and shambled back down to Forthill’s guest room.

The cots were all but empty. Nelson slept in one of them, faint twitches randomly stirring his limbs. His closed eyes rolled back and forth, and he had broken into a light sweat. Nightmares, I supposed. Poor kid. I wished I could have helped, but realistically there wasn’t anything I could do for him.

Molly slept in another cot; the motionless, black sleep of the truly exhausted. Charity sat in a chair beside the cot, her head tilted back against the wall. She snored a little. One of her hands rested on Molly’s hair.

I regarded them both in silence for a while. I thought about writing the whole thing off, conjuring up a wistful image of digging a hole, getting in, and then pulling the hole in after me. Hey, it worked for Bugs Bunny.

“I should have taken a left turn at Albuquerque,” I sighed to Mouse.

Mouse settled down on the floor again, and lay on his side, holding his injured leg clear of the floor.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “I’m too stupid to be uninvolved. No sense in putting off the inevitable.”

So I got up, went over to Molly, and gently shook her shoulder. Charity woke up when I did, blinking disorientation from her eyes. Molly took a little bit longer, but then she took a sharp breath and sat up in bed, mirroring her mother.

“Yes? Is everyone all right?” Charity asked.

“As far as I know,” I told her. “Where are the other kids?”

“My mother took them home.”

“Any word from Michael?”

She shook her head.

“We need to talk about something fairly important, please.”

“And what is that?” she asked.

“Worth waking up for. Maybe you could get up, get some water on your face while I hunt down some coffee.”

“We do need to talk, Momma,” Molly said in a gentle tone.

She frowned at me for a moment, and I thought she was going to argue with me about it. Then she shook her head and said, “Very well.”

I made it so. I raided the small staff kitchen and came away with not only coffee, but several bagels and some fresh fruit. I left a few bucks on the counter under a saltshaker, then went back to Molly and Charity.

We sat down to eat our breakfast in the shadowy room.

I laid it out for Charity just as I had for Molly.

“Black magic,” Charity whispered, when I had finished. She glanced at Molly, a faint frown troubling her features. “I never thought it had gone that far.”

“I know, Momma,” Molly said quietly.

“Is what he says true?”

Molly nodded.

“Oh, baby,” Charity sighed. She touched Molly’s hair with one hand. “How could I not have seen this happening?”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” I told her. “At least not right now. It won’t help anyone.”

Anger touched her features and she said, “Neither will this nonsense with the White Council. Of course she will not go.”

“I don’t think you get it,” I told Charity in a quiet voice. “She’s going. She can go voluntarily, or she can go when the Wardens find her. But she’s going.”

“You plan to inform them of what has happened, then?” Charity asked, her tone gaining frost as it went.

“No,” I said. “But that kind of magic leaves a mark. There are plenty of things in the Nevernever who can sense it-and, in fact, they had already tipped off the Council that there was black magic afoot here. Even if I never say anything else about it, it’s only a matter of time until another Warden investigates.”

“You don’t know that for a fact.”

“I kind of do,” I said. “And this isn’t just about accountability, either. The things she’s done have already left their mark on her. If she doesn’t get support and training, those changes are going to snowball.”

“You don’t know that,” Charity insisted.

“I kind of do,” I said, louder. “Hell’s bells, Charity, I’m trying to protect her.”

“By dragging her in front of a kangaroo court of egotistic, power-mongering tyrants? So that they can execute her? How is that protecting my child?”

“If she goes in voluntarily, with me, I think I can get her clemency until she has a chance to show them that she is sincere about working with them.”

“You think?” Charity said. “No. That’s not good enough.”

I clenched my fists in frustration. “Charity, the only thing I am sure about is that if Molly doesn’t come out, and if one of the other egotistical, power-mongering tyrants finds her, they’re going to automatically declare her a warlock and execute her. To say nothing of what will happen to her if she’s on her own. It’s more than likely that she’ll deserve it by then.”

“That’s not true,” Charity snapped. “She is not going to become some sort of monster. She is not going to change.”

“My God, Charity. I want to help her!”

“That isn’t why you’re doing it,” she snarled, rising. “You’re trying to get her to go with you to save your own skin. You’re afraid that if they find her, they will brand you traitor for not bringing her in, and execute you along with her.”

I found myself on my feet as well. Silence fell heavy and oppressive on the room.

“Momma,” Molly said quietly, breaking it. “Please tell me what Harry has done in the past two days to make you think that he is selfish. Or cowardly. Was it when he turned to face the ogres so that we could escape? Was it when he traded away the obligations the Summer Lady owed him in order to attempt the rescue?”

Charity was shocked silent for a second. Then her face heated and she said, “Young lady, that isn’t-”

Molly went on smoothly, her voice quiet, calm, displaying neither anger nor disrespect-nor weakness. “Or perhaps it was when you were unconscious and no one could have stopped him from simply taking me to turn over to the Council, and he instead stopped to give me a choice.” She chewed on her lip for a second. “You told me everything he’s done since I was taken. Now he’s offering to die for me, Momma. What more could you ask of him?”

Charity’s face reddened further, and I thought I saw something like shame on her features. She sat down again, bowed her head, and said nothing. The silence stretched. Her shoulders shook.

Molly slid down to kneel at her mother’s feet and hugged her. Charity hugged back. The pair of them rocked slowly back and forth for a moment, and though the dim room made it hard to see, I was sure they were both crying.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Charity said after a moment. “I should not have accused you so, Mister Dresden.” She squared her shoulders and lifted her head. “But I will not allow her to go.”

Molly looked up very slowly. She faced Charity, lifted her chin a little, and said, “I love you very much, Momma. But this isn’t your choice. I’m the one responsible for what I did. I’ll face the consequences of it.”

Charity turned her face away from Molly, a kind of terrible grief and fear making her look, for the first time in my memory, old. “Molly,” she whispered.

Father Forthill had arrived at some point during the conversation, though none of us had noticed him in the doorway. His gentle voice was steady. “Your daughter is in the right, Charity,” he said. “She’s an adult now, in many ways. She’s taken actions that demand that she accept the responsibilities that accompany them.”

“She is my child,” Charity objected.

“She was,” Forthill corrected her, “if only for a time. Children are a precious gift, but they belong to no one but themselves. They are only lent us a little while.” The priest folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorway. “I think you should consider what has happened, Charity. Dresden is perhaps the only one who could have helped you and Molly. I think it no accident that he became involved in this situation.” He gave me a whimsical little smile. “After all. He does work in mysterious ways.”

I walked across the floor and lowered myself to one knee before Charity. “I don’t know anything about that. But for whatever it is worth, I promise you,” I said very quietly. “I will bring your daughter back from the Council safe and well. They’ll have to kill me to stop me.”

Charity looked up at me, and I saw a dozen emotions flicker over her features. Hope, fear, anger, sadness. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, but bit down on the words before she uttered them.

Finally, she whispered, “I have your word on it?”

“You do,” I said.

She stared at me for a moment. Then she looked up and said, to Forthill, “I wish Michael was here.”

Forthill asked her, “If he was, what do you think he would say?”

Her eyes moved back to me, and she said, frowning faintly, “To have faith. To trust the wizard. That he is a good man.”

The priest nodded. “I think he would say that, too.”

Charity glanced at me without meeting my eyes. “How long will it take?”

“I’ll contact the Council today. Depends on who is available, but this kind of thing gets high priority. Tomorrow, the next day at the latest.“

She bowed her head again, and nodded. She said to Forthill, “Is there nothing we can do?”

“Molly’s made her decision,” Forthill said quietly. “And everything I’ve learned about the effects of black magic upon those who use it agrees with what Dresden has told you. Your daughter is in very real danger, Charity.”

“Can’t the Church…?”

Forthill gave her a faint smile and shook his head. “There aren’t many of us still standing sentinel against the Shadows. Of those who do, none of us have any real skill with magic. We could assist her in turning aside from her gifts, but given her age it would in effect be nothing more than imprisonment.” He nodded to Molly. “And, no offense, child, but with your temperament, without your full cooperation, it would only push you more quickly toward the darkness.”

“No,” Charity said. “She’s got to set this aside.”

Molly folded her arms tightly against her stomach, and nodded, lips pressed together. “No.”

Charity looked up and all but pleaded, “Molly. You don’t understand what it could do to you.”

The girl was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Do you remember the parable of the talents?”

Charity’s eyes blazed. “Don’t you dare attempt to use the scripture to justify this.”

I held up a hand for silence and said, “I haven’t read this one.”

Forthill said, “Three men were given money by their lord in the amount of fifteen, ten, and five silver talents. The man with fifteen invested the money, worked hard, and returned thirty talents to his lord. The man with ten did the same, and returned twenty talents. The lord was most pleased. But the third man was lazy. He buried his five talents in the ground, and when he returned them to the lord, expecting to be rewarded for keeping them safe, his lord was angry. He had not given the lazy man the money to be hidden away. He’d given it to the man so that he could use it and make his lands better, stronger, and more productive. The moral being that, to whom much is given, much is required.”

“Oh,” I said. “Stan Lee said it better. Or at least faster.”

“I’m sorry?” Forthill said.

“Spider-Man. With great power comes great responsibility,” I said.

Forthill pursed his lips and nodded. “That is faster, I suppose. Though I’m skeptical on how it could be worked into a sermon.”

I frowned and glanced at Charity. She had her head bowed, and her hands clenched into fists over and over again. Another insight about her hit me, then.

Charity had been the one given five talents. She’d had the power, and she buried it in the ground.

“My teacher told me something once,” I heard myself say in a quiet voice. “That the hardest lesson in life is learning when to do nothing. To learn to let go.”

Molly laid her head in Charity’s lap and said, “You know bad things are out there. I have a chance to make a difference. I want to help.”

Something inside the steely will of Michael’s wife suddenly broke. She gathered Molly up into another hug and just held her there while she shivered. Then Charity whispered, “Of course you do. You’re your father’s child. How could you want anything else?”

Molly let out a choking little laugh and leaned closer. “Thank you.”

“I will pray for you,” Charity said quietly. She looked up at me and tried to smile. “And for you, Harry.”