The look on Judge Dellon's face was a mixture of annoyance that his court was being made mock of and concern that one of Petroleum County's most prominent citizens had apparently gone quite far off the deep end.
"A werewolf?" he said.
Mr. Osborn nodded.
"As in, she turns into a wild animal when the moon is full and runs around terrorizing innocent citizens?"
"Well, she's not doing much running around just yet," said Mr. Osborn, with a nod toward the baby in his wife's arms, "but yes, that's the general idea."
Judge Dellon took a deep breath. "All right, Mr. Osborn," he said. "I don't consider myself a particularly narrow-minded man, but may I just ask: how on Earth can you expect me to believe that?"
"Did I say I expected you to believe it, Your Honor?" said Mr. Osborn. "You asked me a question, and I gave you the most accurate answer I could give. You can believe it or not believe it as you see fit, but you must realize that I couldn't in good conscience tell you anything else."
That was, in fact, precisely what was causing Judge Dellon concern. He knew that Nathaniel Osborn was one of the soberest and most trustworthy men he'd ever met, and that he had, moreover, an unshakable respect for the majesty of the law. If he said something in a courtroom, you could bet that he believed it to be the simple truth – and if it was something that Judge Dellon couldn't possibly believe, then the only conclusion he could draw was that Nathaniel Osborn (and presumably his wife, too) had gone utterly mad.
And if that were the case, then he obviously couldn't give the two of them custody of the girl. If he did, it would only be a matter of time before she was found lying at a crossroads with a silver bullet in her brain. Granted, neither of them looked homicidal yet, but these things were known to be progressive.
He hesitated, nonetheless. It wasn't so much because the Osborns didn't look insane; he knew quite well that the mad could be more self-controlled than the sane when they need to be. Rather, it was because, if they were sane (which wasn't possible, of course, but if they were), then it was a monstrous thing he was about to do, and he knew it when he looked into Mrs. Osborn's eyes. He thought of his own month-old daughter, and imagined what he and his wife would think if Governor Schwinden had taken custody of her from them and made her a ward of the state – and he reflected that he, unlike Mrs. Osborn, had already had three children.
Still, he knew his duty, and he was just opening his mouth to pronounce a verdict when a voice from the back of the courtroom said, "Excuse me, Your Honor, could I have a word?"
Judge Dellon glanced up, and, along with his two plaintiffs, turned his gaze toward the speaker. It was a man of about thirty-five, short and thin but sturdily built, with a close-trimmed beard and eyes that seemed a trifle too big for his face. He wore a black-leather jacket over a plaid flannel shirt and a faded, tattered pair of denims, and he stood by the door to the courtroom with an air of being ready to deal with anyone who should happen to burst through it with a machine gun.
Judge Dellon frowned. "Your name, sir?" he said.
"Call me Bishop," said the man. His voice had a flat, Midwestern sound to it; Pennsylvania, Judge Dellon thought, or possibly Ohio.
"I see," he said. "And what is your interest in this case, Mr. Bishop?"
"I have certain information that might possibly affect Your Honor's verdict," said the man. "However, I am not at liberty to divulge this information to the Osborns themselves, so I would ask Your Honor if we could meet in his chambers."
Judge Dellon pursed his lips. "That's a highly irregular procedure, Mr. Bishop," he said.
"I can't help that, Your Honor," said the man. "I'm in a rather awkward position by force of circumstance. As an elected official who's not allowed to belong to a party, I'm sure you know something about that."
Judge Dellon, who was in fact up for reelection that year and having difficulty living down a Libertarian Party endorsement, permitted himself a small smile. "Touché, Mr. Bishop," he said. "I'll see you in my chambers in a moment, but I can give you no more than five minutes' hearing."
"Thank you, Your Honor," said the man. "That should be plenty."
He strode up the aisle and vanished into the small room behind the bench, and Judge Dellon turned to the Osborns. "If you will excuse me for a moment?" he said.
Mr. Osborn, who was frowning at the door through which the man had disappeared, appeared not to have heard him, so Mrs. Osborn took it upon herself to nod approval. Judge Dellon thanked her, descended from the bench, and entered his chambers, shutting the door behind him.
"Now, then, Mr. Bishop," he said, settling himself behind his desk, "what's this all about, hey?"
The man folded his hands together, and seemed to be considering. "Tell me, Your Honor," he said, "do you by any chance go in for conjuring tricks?"
This seemed to Judge Dellon a bit of a non sequitur, but he responded easily, "Yes, actually, I was quite fond of them as a young man."
"Good," said Bishop, drawing a long, carved stick of pale wood out from beneath his coat. "That should make it easier for you to recognize that this isn't one."
He made an elaborate series of motions with the stick over a sheaf of notes Judge Dellon had written the day before on a larceny case, and the next moment the Judge started back in alarm. Where the notes had previously been, there now sat a large, rather well-fed porcupine sniffing at his used coffee mug.
Bishop slipped the stick under his arm with a smile. "My credentials," he said, gesturing to the animal.
Slowly, Judge Dellon's brain processed what he had just seen. "So what are you, then?" he said. "A wizard?"
"Well, we prefer the term 'enchanter' at my place of employment," said Bishop.
"Ah," said the Judge faintly. "And where would that be?"
"We call it La Cuela," Bishop said. "But that's neither here nor there. I trust, after what you've just seen –" (here, as if to refresh the Judge's memory, he waved his wand again and the porcupine turned back into a sheaf of larceny notes) "– you'll be willing to accept me as an authority on what we might call News of the Strange and Unusual?"
"I suppose I'll have to," Judge Dellon murmured. "At least, until someone even stranger or more unusual walks into this courthouse."
"In that case, let me be blunt," said Bishop. "The organization that I represent – or, rather, the alliance of organizations – has reason to believe that Mr. and Mrs. Osborn are better suited to the raising of the infant Rowena than anyone else who could have found her. It seems likely to us that you will be doing significant harm to the well-being of a great many people – Rowena not least – if you deprive them of custody of her."
"I see," said the Judge. "May I ask why?"
"You may," said Bishop, "but it won't do you any good, because I don't know. I'm just relaying to you what my employer told me – and she got her information from one of the greatest and most secretive enchanters of our times: a gentleman named Albus Dumbledore." Here he pulled from his pocket, and presented to Judge Dellon, a small card resembling those found in bubble-gum packages, which said that Albus Dumbledore had defeated a dark wizard in 1945, knew twelve different uses for dragons' blood, and enjoyed tenpin bowling.
Judge Dellon examined the card carefully, attempting to ignore the fact that the white-bearded man in the picture on the front was winking at him, and returned it to its owner. "So, then," he said, "I am forced to accept the word of a man of whom I had never heard until ten seconds ago – a word which is coming to me at third hand – in order to safely grant custody of a baby werewolf. I suppose she is a werewolf, by the way?"
"Technically, she's a wifewolf," said Bishop, "but that's a minor detail. Yes, Your Honor, that is precisely what you have to do."
Judge Dellon put his hands to his temples and sighed. The world, he thought, had been so much simpler when he had woken up that morning.
"And," said Bishop, consulting a watch on his right wrist, "since this discussion has now exceeded our agreed-upon five minutes, I will show myself out and leave you to do it. Godspeed, Your Honor." And he turned on his heel and exited the judge's chambers.
Judge Dellon could hear his footsteps echoing on the marble floor of the courtroom, but he paid little attention to them. For some minutes, he sat motionless behind his desk, lost in almost agonizing concentration; then, slowly, like a Martian attempting to stand up on Venus, he rose and went back out to the courtroom.
The Osborns watched him with anxious eyes as he reascended the bench. Rowena, who had woken up during the conference in the judge's chambers, watched him too, and the sight of those wide, emerald-green eyes following his movements (as well as a week-old baby's eyes can follow anything) was uniquely unsettling to the judge.
"Mr. and Mrs. Osborn," he said slowly, "having carefully considered all the relevant factors, including the... ah... unique testimony of Mr. Bishop, I have at length come to a decision regarding the custody of the infant Rowena."
He paused, and took a deep breath. Neither of the Osborns followed his lead; in fact, they seemed not to be breathing at all.
"Miss Bojesen," said the judge, "if you would present the Osborns with the necessary paperwork..."
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Mrs. Osborn burst into tears, and her husband came within an inch of kissing the young court clerk as she handed him the pile of forms. He whipped out a pen and filled them out with a rapidity never before equalled in the history of Montana law, then thrust them back into Miss Bojesen's hands and led his wife and his now-official daughter out of the courtroom with the stateliness of an Old Testament patriarch.
Judge Dellon sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "Miss Bojesen?" he said.
"Yes, Your Honor?" said his clerk, as she moved over to her desk to file the Osborn adoption papers.
"If we were to postpone the next case for about half an hour," said the judge, "would I still be able to get home in time for dinner?"
Miss Bojesen glanced at the court schedule. "Yes, I should think so," she said. "There's only three more cases scheduled for today, and I don't imagine any of them should run particularly long."
"Good," said Judge Dellon. "Tell the next plaintiff – Goodman's his name, isn't it? – to come back around 2:30. I'm just going to step out for a breath of fresh air."
"And a drink?" said Miss Bojesen with a smile.
"Quite possibly," said Judge Dellon. "If Goodman's case is anything like this one was, I'm going to need very steady nerves for it."