I felt old all of a sudden. I’d just been showing off, and I’d reduced a confident, happy young witch to an anxious woman in the space of an hour. But as I got out a pad and pencil—right where they should be, in the drawer closest to the telephone—to figure out my plan of action, I consoled myself with the thought that Amelia had needed the mental slap in the face pretty badly. If it hadn’t come from me, it might have come from someone who actually meant her harm.
