Aunt Dimity and the Wishing Well by Atherton Nancy

Author:Atherton, Nancy [Atherton, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

“Dimity?” I said, opening the journal. “Have I got news for you!”

The familiar lines of royal-blue ink began to loop and curl across the page as soon as I finished speaking.

I presume you haven’t turned the wishing well’s water into wine.

“If I’d walked on the wishing well’s water, it still wouldn’t be the day’s banner headline,” I told her. “Something strange is going on in Finch.”

Something stranger than usual?

“You be the judge,” I replied.

I leaned back in my chair and recounted the series of extraordinary conversations that had prevented me from doing the laundry. I described Emma Harris’s longing for the perfect office manager, Elspeth Binney’s curiosity about the creative life, and Charles Bellingham’s thirst for revenge. I tried to sound matter-of-fact as I discussed Peter and Cassie’s unexpected return to Anscombe Manor, Jemma Renshawe’s out-of-the-blue commission to photograph a Cotswold village, and Chiaki Asazuki’s rediscovered masterpiece, but I didn’t succeed.

“For pity’s sake, Dimity,” I said, “Peter and Cassie are coming home to run the office for Emma! Elspeth’s photographer niece arrives in Finch tomorrow! The odds of Charles finding an original Asazuki in a pile of junk must be astronomical!” I thumped the arm of the chair emphatically. “It can’t be a flurry of coincidences, Dimity. The things that are happening in Emma’s and Elspeth’s and Charles’s lives are way too specific to be written off as mere serendipity. Each of them made a wish in or near the wishing well and—voila!—their wishes came true! It makes me think twice about explaining away everyone else’s wishes. I hope you can offer me a rational explanation because superstitious nonsense is beginning to look pretty plausible to me.”

Could someone—a human being, that is, not a leprechaun or a pixie or the fairy at the bottom of Jack’s garden—have overheard any of the wishes?

I mulled over the question, calling to mind everything I’d seen and heard at Ivy Cottage since Jack, Bree, and I had uncovered the well.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Sally Pyne had the back garden to herself. So did Millicent Scroggins. Elspeth, Opal, and Selena were out there together, but they each made a wish when the others’ backs were turned.”

I doubt if those three ladies would grant one another’s wishes even if they had overheard them.

“Sad, but true,” I agreed and went on. “I was the only one to hear Mr. Barlow and Emma express their wishes and Jack was too far away to see who was sneaking up to the well in the middle of the night or to hear what they said to it. It doesn’t matter, though, does it?”

What doesn’t matter?

“Let’s assume for the sake of argument that someone did overhear the wishes,” I said. “How in heaven’s name could he or she make them come true? How could I, for instance, arrange for a publisher to give Jemma Renshawe an assignment that would lead her straight to her aunt’s guest room? How could I arrange for Dabney Holdstrom to drive into Finch with

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